Nina by knightyo (Alan) - Mini-Mamoli - 1:106

[Louie da fly]

You're doing beautiful work, mate.

 

Steven

[knightyo]

Thanks Steven

[knightyo]

Metalwork around the rudder has been slowly taking place, and the straps are loosely placed on the rudder.  They will be further shaped to the rudder and blackened before being permanently affixed (no idea how I'm going to permanently affix these. The wire bolts won't really have any strength long-term, so am really pondering this one).  I had quite a learning curve in learning how to uniformly fashion the straps; many, many scrap pieces throughout.   The photo also shows the bits of 30 ga wire that will be made into bolts. I'm just laying them down on the strip in the middle to see how the thickness of the wire will look from a scale perspective.  I'm thinking of having 2 bolts per plank.  The rudder is basically made up of 3 planks.

I've also been experimenting with the finish on the hull.  Goal is to try and make the finish appear to be as "real/aged" as possible, so there are a lot of green/brown washes on there now in addition to other white washes.  The plan is to have shellac on the model, and I'm thinking of extending that down all around the acrylic on the hull as well to give it a bit of a wet/shiny appearance.  Still debating that one, however.  The gouges in the hull are for the brass tubing in which the lighting will run through from the ship down into the stand where the power source will be. When the tubing has been installed, the keel will be replaced and everything tidied up.

 

[knightyo]

 

I find the below to be the most enjoyable part of building a ship.  Yes, I'm pretty sure I'm on the spectrum.   These are pear, and from old pear blocks I had on hand.  Rough-cut dowels were pulled through a standard progressive drawplate, and the ends sanded down to points allowing me to gently glue them into the predrilled holes.

 

And then clipped/sanded down

Just a photo of the topside of one of the pintles before the holes were drilled into the sides. 

And finally, the rudder assemblies are about complete. I'm not going to hang the rudder until the topside is complete and the model has been installed onto its base. The ends of the bolts were cut via a rolling motion under my X-acto blade which provided a tiny lip on the ends. They were then inserted into the pintles/gudgeons with a bit of superglue; overall, they hold the pintles/gudgeons more securely than I thought they would.  I'm trying to decide whether or not they should be blackened or left bare. Each one of them reflects light at a different angle, so while it's fun to show that I created such small bolts, it's also frustrating, in that they don't look uniformly placed.  I think I'll eventually prime/paint over them as they should be black in color anyway.

 

[Knocklouder]

Nice work my friend, looks great.

 Bob M.

[knightyo]

Thanks Bob!  This was my first time using chemical as a blackening agent.  Never again.  I was expecting the metal to darken, but the reaction just created a black film on the surface of the metal which easily flaked off revealing the bright copper underneath.  I've now "sealed" the areas in which the film has flaked off and have applied primer and black paint over the top; also went ahead and blackened the bolts, so the resulting product is a surface that is a little bumpy and does not look machined. My initial hope was to have flawless straps with differently colored bolts in order to show off the small work.  That desire went right out of the window, but I guess in the result at least looks more realistic in the end, at any rate.

 

Alan