Newport by theoracle09 - Mamoli - Scale 1:57 - Second build

[theoracle09]

Hello MSW!

 

Whew, it's been some time since I've ventured back to this site! Life finds a way of, well, getting in the way sometimes. Nevertheless, here we are! I got bit by the ship building bug again, and went for a smaller ship than the San Francisco that's still on my shelf. The goal is to finish this ship, and then bring the San Fran out of storage to complete that one. Maybe :-).

 

So, the Newport?! What is it? I've attempted to research this particular ship, and there really isn't a lot of information. From the box, we have this description:

 

"At the beginning of the 19th century in America numerous vessels with racy lines were built. They were very fast and easy to head: the famous schooners of Baltimore. They were either busy as coast-guards coping with illegal smugglers or real pirates, or used as escort vessels and troopships."

 

I love the idea of these smaller schooners, so what I ended up doing was adding a bunch to my online shopping cart and had my wife decide which she liked the best. We arrived at the Newport. After a few days of patiently waiting for it to arrive, she came in and I started the un-boxing. My heart sank a little when I realized that the instructions leave a lot to be desired, but I'm confident with this log and the wonderful community here, I shouldn't have much of an issue. This will be my second wooden ship build ever, with my first one started around 10 years ago. You can see that one in my signature. My cat destroyed some rigging and took the wind out of my sails all those years ago, so it's been shelved since then. That's neither here nor there though.

 

Last night began construction with dry fitting the false keel, bulkheads, and false deck. I spent around 4 hours fairing everything up, making things straight, tapping in nails to hold it together. Just before bed I glued it all up and allowed it to dry overnight. I'll have pictures of her current state once I get home later today. I'm really excited to get back to this hobby, and I'm equally excited to see there are only 2 other Newports on this website (unless I'm looking in the wrong spots.) So I'm hoping this log can be used as a learning resource not only for me, of course, but for those that come behind me looking for direction on this kit. As I said, the instructions are almost non-existent, and certainly compared to AL's building books, I need to get used to taking some creative liberties and coloring outside the lines a little. I'm happy to be back, and I appreciate anyone that can come in and say hello, and send some sound advice my way! Please, feel free to correct anything that you see as wrong! I want to make this as close to realistic as I can, and am already planning a few minor changes based on the other two logs I've read through as well. Thanks for stopping by!!

 

 

 

 

[theoracle09]

Hi everyone. I wasn't able to get the images posted last night, so I've attached them to this post. Spent a lot of time filing down the bulkheads to match the profile of the hull, then installed some bow filler blocks to prepare for planking. Not a huge update, but forward progress is forward progress!

 

 

Before I plank the hull, I'm playing around with an idea to add a companionway where the rear grating is going to be installed. I have plenty of spare material from previous kits to accomplish this, but I think I need to spend some time researching where to position the second deck, how big the stairs need to be to maintain scale, was it planked, etc. If anyone has any ideas on how to accomplish that, I'm all ears!

Edited August 9, 2019 by theoracle09

[theoracle09]

Spent some time with the Newport today. Finished the Stern filler blocks, and laid out some temporary battens to start mapping out the planking. I've consulted the captain, and she said I shouldn't really worry about a companionway, so I'm going to be bypassing that option and just doing the grates as normal. No worries, it'll still be a beautiful ship when she's done. Once the temp battens were in place I did some math and figured out what the taper needs to be at each bulkhead near the bow. The stern is bigger than the midship, so I can always add drop planks towards the stern if need be once I plank towards the keel. On with the pictures:

 

Stern filler blocks. I know how ragged this looks, however, it has a smooth transition so that's all I was concerned with.

 

 

Planking has begun.

 

I've ended the sessions with 3 planks on each side. It's not pretty, as I'm not too concerned with the look at the moment because not only is it getting a second planking of Walnut, but it'll be painted as well. So I'm not too worried about the chines and the bumps right now. I'll be sanding her down in increments, and will fill in any low spots with filler. 

 

[theoracle09]

First layer of planking: Done! I always dislike planking, but after checking out Chuck's awesome videos and the planking tutorial PDF here, I didn't have too much trouble. I used a hair dryer to bend the planks as opposed to soaking them for an hour, and was able to speedily make it through this arduous process. The math wasn't too bad either, and the garbard planks went in just under 10 hours after laying the first plank. There's still plenty of clean up to do, and I need to sand down the hull and fill any low spots. But, after planking all day, I'm glad to say it's done and I'm happy with how it looks.

 

Edited August 12, 2019 by theoracle09

[newmanrj]

Looking Good... I'm finally back to model building after a loong break due to family issues.  It's good to be back.  Currently working on generic 200:1 build of Victory and about to start a generic kit of the Newport. I realise these kits are somewhat limited but I need the practice before I return the Endevour, which has been on hold for quite some time.  After that it's a vintage Vasa kit!!

 

I'm having trouble getting the color scheme for the Newport. Do you, or other members have any info on the paints I need?

 

great to be back at last!!

[theoracle09]

2 hours ago, newmanrj said:

Looking Good... I'm finally back to model building after a loong break due to family issues.  It's good to be back.  Currently working on generic 200:1 build of Victory and about to start a generic kit of the Newport. I realise these kits are somewhat limited but I need the practice before I return the Endevour, which has been on hold for quite some time.  After that it's a vintage Vasa kit!!

 

I'm having trouble getting the color scheme for the Newport. Do you, or other members have any info on the paints I need?

 

great to be back at last!!

Hey RJ, thank's for stopping by! I can understand about taking breaks...it's been almost 10 years on my San Fran, and I'm still no where close to be done. 

 

I had an issue with the color scheme as well for the Newport, so I finally pulled the trigger on some paints and gave it a shot. I think it turned out really well, but that's just me. I'm not 100% interested in totally realistic colors, this is just something I want to look at for a long time to come. I'm a bit behind in updating this log, so, let me make an update post real quick and I'll be sure to list the exact colors and stuff I used to achieve the result I currently have. I hope it helps! Feel free to ask any questions you need to as well, and I'll be more than happy to help out!

[theoracle09]

Hello All! I've been a bit behind in keeping the log updated. I've made a fair amount of progress with the hull, and also laying down some paint to make her pretty. Let's start with some pictures, and I'll explain along the way what's been going on. This is going to be a fairly heavy update!

 

** I'm putting the paint specifications up here, so no one has to search through the post to find every color used. 🙂 All paint is going to be Vallejo Model Air series, applied to the hull with an airbrush.

• Vallejo Airbrush Flow Improver 71.462 - I followed the instructions on the bottle (1-2 drops of this per 10 drops of color in the pot)
• Vallejo Surface Primer 74.601 Grey
• Vallejo Model Air Red 71.269  ** CAUTION: Use at your own risk! On the Vallejo website, the color swatch for this is exactly what I thought I needed. I sprayed on a coat and was furious to find out it was no where close to that swatch! I sanded it down a bit, added 2 drops of black to darken it a bit, and am in love with the color now! Please be careful with this red, and please test it on some spare wood if you need to. I didn't, and I had to sand it down to the prime coat to apply a darker version red. You can see this in the pictures further down in this post.
• Vallejo Model Air White 71.001
• Vallejo Model Air Black 71.057
• Vallejo Matt Varnish 70.520

**

 

First up is doing something different with the stand. It's made from laser cut plywood of some sort, so I decided to stain it with Red Mahogany from Minwax that I still had from the San Fran. I applied 1 layer of stain with a rag and let it dry over night, then sanded it down with 320g sand paper and applied another coat. After 24 hours, I applied some Tung Oil to lock in the colors and protect the finish. I like the way it turned out, along with the striations in the wood pattern showing through.

 

Next up is sanding the hull down in preparation of the second layer of planking. 

 

 

Bow shot. More sanding was done after this to minimize the chine effect going on.

 

 

A bit out of order, but that's okay. Bulwarks have been planked along with the rubbing strake installed. Bending that strake caused some issues, but with a little bit of sanding and clean up, it doesn't look bad at all.

 

 

Now, here is where a major decision was made: I'm not moving forward with the second layer of planks. Gasp! I know. I installed 1 strip of walnut just below the strakes on either side, and had a terrible time getting them to 'twist' along with the shape of the hull. I had nasty bubbles forming, that I attempted to force down with CA glue. Wrong answer. It looks so terrible! And the CA wasn't doing any good either. So, I wanted to paint this thing from the very beginning, and I'm extremely happy with my first layer of planks. So I did some looking around, and realized I don't have to plank it again if I don't want to. Easy decision to make, and it saves me another few days so I can progress forward with something else. 

 

I sanded the hull down, and sanded some more, and more and more. I then airbrushed on some grey primer. I made sure to take my time on this step! I think I sprayed 4-5 coats of the grey primer, and sanded it down with incrementally higher grit sandpaper. 200, 320, 400, and 600 to finish with. Something like that, anyway. 

 

 

Started to cut out the 4 gun ports, and totally messed up the positioning of one of them. Easy enough fix...but it brings about the age-old mantra of: Measure twice, cut once. Whoopsie.

 

 

Alright, here's the fire-engine red I'm talking about from the paint summary above. Dang, this stuff is super bright. I was pissed when I brought this out of the spray box and thought to myself "maybe it'll get darker once it dries." That was not the case. I ended up sanding this down, and mixing up 2 drops of black to around 50 drops of red or so. You can see the difference between the next two pictures. 

 

 

The waterline isn't necessarily award winning by any stretch of the imagination...however I'm happy with it, so it stayed that way. When I do this again on the next vessel, I'll be getting some smaller masking tape so I can create curves. The stuff I have is made by Tamiya (not the roll of manilla stuff in the back ground, I used that as a general mask) and is 3/4 of an inch I believe. To make that nice waterline curve, I should've used much smaller tape, then masked around that. Either way, I'm happy, so that's all I really care about! Lol. Also in the below image you can see the messed up gun port. I could've spent more time blending the wood in and making that mark disappear, but I lost patience at this point and went forward with it anyway. I still like it, so it's fine. 

 

 

Finally we have the last two images of the hull in her current state. I masked off the bulwarks first and sprayed a few coats of white. I didn't mind any bleeding joints from the mask because I was going to spray black last. Once the white was dry (by the time I clean a color out of the airbrush, the paint is dry and I can start masking the next section) I started on the black. So, I sprayed red first below the water line, then went up to the bulwarks, then sprayed black on top. 

 

 

All in all, I'm very happy with how this turned out. I've never used an airbrush before (I bought a cheap-o one from Harbor Freight that came with a compressor) and I'm really glad at how it looks. I'm also happy I didn't do the second planks. I now have extra strips of walnut I can use on other projects, and it doesn't quite matter because I do really like the planking I did on the first layer. Last night I sprayed on some matt varnish over the entire paint job, and realized that stuff definitely doesn't dry nearly as fast as the paint does. I put it down until tonight, where I'll sand it with 600g paper and spray on another coat of matt varnish. I'll probably leave it at two coats of the varnish, that way I can handle the hull without fear of the paint chipping off from cuts and stuff. 

 

Edited August 28, 2019 by theoracle09

[theoracle09]

Progress is moving forward on the Newport. Nothing much to say here, so I'll let the pictures do the talking.

 

First up was to remove the portions of the frames that were used to support the bulwarks. Easy enough process. Instead of cutting them with a knife, I found I could grab them with some needle-nose pliers and just twist them off, followed up with a bit of sanding to get them down to the false deck. This resulted in almost no risk to me accidentally cutting through the bulwarks and ruining the paint job on the outside.

 

Next, I built a small jig for measuring and cutting the deck planks. I believe the kit supplied 0.5mm x 2mm planks are teak? I could be wrong. The short size is 40mm, and the big size is 80mm. I got the measurements from a ship modelling book I'm kind of following along with, where it's main focus is a schooner similar to the Newport. I wasn't terribly concerned with realism here, just something that looks nice.

 

 

Sharpie run around the edges of each plank gives an excellent contrast to the planks. 

 

 

I alternated the 40mm and the 80mm planks starting at the center-line, touching the stern. This got me the required pattern. 

 

 

Getting closer.

 

 

This is where I stopped for the evening. 

 

 

Not too much more to do before I start drilling treenail holes. The plan is to drills 2 holes at the end of every plank, then use 400g sandpaper to lightly fill those holes. I'm going to then run tung oil over the deck to get the holes to darken up slightly, and leave a nice finish across the top. Depending on how much spare decking material I have, I'll be creating a mock deck to test the plan out first. I'm not sure how the sharpie ink is going to react to the tung oil, and I'd hate to ruin the entire thing. We'll see how that goes!

 

[theoracle09]

Hi everyone. I finished the planking tonight on the deck and added the treenails details as well. I'm super happy with how this turned out! I think she's really coming along now.

 

After finishing the deck planks, I wanted to test how the sharpie would react to the tung oil. I set up a little mock deck and tried a few different ways of getting the sawdust to "stick" in the holes. Regular CA produced some unwanted artifacts, so I decided to use elmers white glue rubbed into the holes and then sanding. It turned out well.

 

 

Every hole was manually drilled with a pin vise. It took a while, and my hand was tired after the fact, but it was well worth it. After drilling each hole, I rubbed it clean with a spare clean rag. Then I used white glue to fill each hole, and before it dried I used 400g sand paper to fill the hole with dust. Then I rubbed tung oil over the entire deck.

 

 

Not the most perfect result, but, I'm incredibly happy with the result. On the San Fran, I just used a mechanical pencil to "fake" the result. With the sharpie, and drilling each hold by hand, I think I have a more authentic result. I'm going to let the tung oil dry over night before I move forward. 

 

[theoracle09]

Been working steadily through the day today, and will have an update post tonight when I call it quits. 

 

However. 

 

I have to say I'll never build another Mamoli kit again. I'm missing quite a few pieces of wood that the plans call for, which is forcing me to scratch build a big portion of the deck fittings. It's been a frustrating experience to say the least. 

[theoracle09]

I realized I didn't have the bulwarks cap, but the kit provides a different sized wood. I'm not sure what else it'd be used for. Instead, I opted to soak some 2x4 mahogany planks and get them bent around the bow. It was a disaster, so I removed them and am just going to re-evaluate what I'm doing.

 

I then tried to use a 2x3mm walnut strake, which broke. I may be able to salvage it, but I'm not really sure at this point. I've put it down for the day and will look at it tomorrow, maybe.

 

Anyway, the bulwarks has been planks with the walnut strips. The kit didn't come with the 2x2 walnut strips I was supposed to use for the bulwark / deck junction, so I cut them down from 2x3 planking material and stained them red mahogany. I also built up some deck fittings, but didn't grab pics of them.

 

Lastly, I ordered all new blocks from Syren to replace the cheap kit blocks, along with some 2.5mm blocks to rig the cannons with. 

 

[theoracle09]

After a few days of pondering the bulwarks cap, I decided to give it another shot with the brittle kit-supplied walnut. It came out alright, but there's some clean-up that needs to happen from it cracking and bubbling in multiple spots. I used Chuck's method of bending with a hair dryer, and took it really slow. Bend a bit, apply heat, bend some more, apply some more heat, etc. until it laid in the shape I needed it to. It was still incredibly springy, and pulled my bow apart a bit. I was able to get it glued and clamped, and left it over night. It's holding, for now. I'm a bit worried about drilling the bowsprit hole, because it might come apart when I remove that material. We'll see how that goes, though. 

 

You can see the gap here, and also the cracks in the bulwarks cap. I haven't cleaned that up yet...if anyone has any suggestions, I'm all ears.

Bulwarks is complete.

 

Glued the bow together and clamped over night. It's holding. You can see the splintering on the starboard side really well here.

 

 

Completed the bowsprit block and another rack. The rack (the bigger of the two) requires two shaped "legs" we'll call them made from 2x10 material. This material is so brittle, every time I try and shape it it breaks apart. I'm either not including it, or I'll use something else. I haven't decided yet. I also finished the skylight. Again, material was NOT supplied to build it per kit plans, so I took some spare 2x2mm basswood from another kit a while back and just created something I thought would look nice. I used the walnut strips from the second planking to plank the sides, just to spice it up a bit. The little windows were kit supplied laser cut from ply, so I painted them to add some finer detail.

 

Not glued in yet, but just wanted to see what it looked like on the deck. 

[theoracle09]

Small update this evening. Finished the cap rail on the transom, and sanded the entire cap rail down on both sides using 150g sandpaper. I got rid of most of the bubbling and cracking, but there are two spots in particular that I may need to glue down, or try to cut off with a sharp blade. I'm still not sure what to do with it.

 

I've also decided that I'm going to build all 4 of the cannon carriages from spare mahogany strips from the San Fran. This is 10+ year old wood, and it seems to be holding up well if not a little brittle. Painting the metal carriages just isn't sitting right with me, so I don't mind. In the bottom pic, I show one of the metal carriages, a strip of mahogany, and the finished product. I just cut it down to size, then use hand files to shape it. Took about 20 minutes to make 1 side, but meh, it'll look way better. I also plan on rigging the cannons just like I did the San Fran, and will need the carriages to be made of wood so I can install some eyebolts to make that happen.

 

[theoracle09]

Big picture update today. Finished most of the deck fittings, but haven't glued anything down yet.

 

Made carriage wheels with 3mm dowel and brass rod.

 

 

Finished 1 carriage.

 

 

All 4 carriages made.

 

 

Finished the drawer.

 

 

Decided that the cannon carriage wheels needed to be black.

 

 

Received some amazing rigging blocks from Chuck. You can see the poor quality kit supplied blocks.

 

 

Finished the deck grates as well, and applied tung oil to everything.

 

 

 

[theoracle09]

Another small update today. Finished the two mast belaying pin racks, which were a pain in the butt. Each pin's shaft had to be sanded down to fit into the holes I drilled. It's not my proudest work, but, it'll do. Also glued most of the fittings to the deck.

 

 

Completed the chimney as well. It's currently sitting in grey primer, and I'll finish painting it black tonight.

 

 

I painted grey primer on all of the metal parts, as they're all getting painted black. I'll have the black applied tonight I imagine.

 

I also submitted an order for some new 2x3mm walnut strips, as my kit definitely doesn't have enough to finish all of the pin racks. I received my silver solder yesterday, and the Casey blackening solution arrives today. With all of that, I can start working on blackening some eye bolts, and installing the cannon carriages. I have some spare brass sheet from the chain plates (which are a completely wrong size as it is for the dead eyes supplied with this kit. Not sure what I'm going to do there, but, I'm not there yet.) so I'll cut and blacken some straps to hold the cannons down to the carriages as opposed to just gluing them in.

 

Lastly, I don't have the main grate glued in yet as I have some 2mm ball bearings on the way. I'm going to attempt to blacken them, but I'm not sure how it'll work with the bearings being stainless steel. If anything, I'll just paint them black via brush and some enamel paint. Once that's done and glued into the main grate, I'll get the grate glued in. 

[theoracle09]

I have to admit I was a bit worried about the silver soldering aspect, and creating eye bolts from scratch. Turns out, it's incredibly easy to do with the proper tools. I couldn't find a solid "How to make eyebolts" tutorial, so I'm going to create a small one here to hopefully help anyone else that is intimidated by doing this.

 

***Disclaimer: Please be careful when using a butane torch next to wood! Especially wood that's had lacquer applied to it, or other flammable substances. You should perform this work in a well ventilated area, making sure there are no chemical fumes present that can be ignited by the torch. This post is meant as a guide only, not a step-by-step process. Please be safe!

 

Tools Needed for Silver Soldering Brass Eye Bolts

• Silver Solder Paste (I got the pre-fluxed kind, along with lead and cadmium free. Picture of this is below.)
• 0.5mm diameter brass rod
• Third Hand with Magnifying Glass (something to hold the work while you apply the heat)
• Butane torch (the one I use is a hand-held torch for lighting cigars, etc)
• Small hand files. Specifically 2mm round file and 3mm flat file. These came in a kit of 10 or so different shapes.
• Small round-nose pliers. Found in arts/craft stores in the jewelry making section. 
• Needle nose pliers. *Important: Make sure they do NOT have serrations in the jaws. This will create artifacts on your work, which you don't want.
• Sanding stick (150g paper glued to a wooden block is what I have)
• Diagonal side cutters

 

First I'll start by showing the end result vs. the kit supplied eye bolts.

 

The first thing I did to achieve the above result is to cut a 10cm piece of brass rod with the diagonal side cutters and drag it between my finger and the sanding stick. This removes any coating on the brass, and preps the surface. Make sure to drag it through several times, while turning the rod. This gets it from every angle. 

 

Using the 3mm flat file, I file the one end of the rod flat. Pictures do the better talking here. The below pic is before sanding this end square.

 

The next pic is after sanding the end square. See the difference?

 

 

Using the round nose pliers, I create the eye. It's very difficult to explain what I did here, but keep in mind that brass is somewhat springy, and wants to go back into the shape that it was initially. You have to over-bend a little bit, to make sure you butt up the cut end to the shaft of the eye, creating the round shape. You want the end touching, as close as you can, the shaft. If there's a hair gap, that might be okay, but you really do want them to touch together. Using the needle-nose pliers that don't have the serrations in the jaw, I shape the eye bolt to be completely flat, as perfect as I can get it. 

 

Notice in the above picture, the end that was filed square is sitting flush on the shaft itself. If you don't file the end square, there's less surface area for the solder to adhere to.

 

Next, I stick the rod in my Third Hand. It's time to apply the solder. 

 

The above is what I purchased. I place a BB size drop on a piece of spare wood, and use a tooth pick to apply the smallest drop to BOTH sides of the eye bolt. You want the solder to be encompassing the entire connection there where the shaft touches the end that you filed down. This is something you're going to have to experiment with. Too much solder, and when you go to sand it down you may break the connection and have to start all over. Too little solder and you won't hide that junction very well, so it won't look like a solid piece of metal.

 

Double check your work space can accommodate an open flame, and turn on the torch once you believe it's safe to do so. I start the flame around 8" away from the work piece, and move it closer. I'm watching the solder through the magnifying glass, and as soon as it turns into a liquid I back the flame off and turn off the torch. This takes around 2 total seconds to complete, once you know what you're looking for. The solder will flow around the work, and that's when I stop the heat and turn it off. I'm left with the result below.

 

 

It's a bit bubbly, so I use the 3mm hand file to file down both sides. Then I use the 2mm round file and get the hole filed down towards the junction, along with the anything else that can be cleaned up. After filing, I'm left with the below picture.

 

 

 

The close-up reveals some tool marks, which you want to avoid if you can. However, once they're blackened, I don't believe the marks will be visible. Certainly not from outside of a display case anyway!

 

I created a small jig so I can quickly cut 8mm from the top of the eye bolt, which produces a perfect result. In the beginning, it took around 15 minutes to make 1 eye bolt. Towards the end of my session, I could complete 1 in around 6-7 minutes. It was enjoyable for me, and I have a ton more to make. But, this is how I did it, and I hope it can help anyone else!

 

[theoracle09]

Hello all. Not a very big update at all today. I blackened the eyebolts I made in the last post, and installed them on the cannon carriages. 

 

I'm having a big issue with the black not "sticking" on the brass. If I touch them with my fingers, it rubs off quite a bit and looks splotchy and bad. Using tweezers isn't nearly as bad, so I had to do some finer handling of these to make sure they stay black. I'm definitely worried about tying rigging blocks to the eyes, because the thread very well could pull all the black off if I move it too much. Does anyone know why this is the case? 

 

 

I also airbrushed grey primer on the cannons themselves, and then airbrushed on black. The result isn't that great, because they're so small. I may try to coat them with black again to cover up some of the spots, or I may try to brush on some paint just to touch them up. We'll see. Tonight I plan on strictly shaping the masts and yards, now that I have some lower grit sand paper. I should also be receiving my 2x3 walnut strips, so I can finish working on the pin racks and other deck fittings.

[theoracle09]

Hi everyone. Rather large picture update today, so let's get right to it.

 

First up is the fact that I somehow destroyed the main mast. Yeah, the main one. I was tapering it last night when it just seemingly shattered in my hands. I'm chalking it up to old kit wood, so I'm going to order a new 8mm dowel this week along with some 2mm x 2mm ramin to finish off the crosstrees. Because, you know, this kit didn't come with everything I need.

I finished the forward mast tapering, and I'm super proud of it. On the San Fran, that square portion is uneven and weird looking. On this one, it's as perfect as it can be.

Finished the cross tree and the cheeks. I just need to paint it, now. I'm going to hold off painting it until I have more stuff to paint.

I got a hold of some "Mary Kate On and Off" bottom cleaner from work. It's made of Hydrochloric Acid, along with other acids, so it should do a better job with the Brass Black adhering. The cannon shot is 2mm stainless steel ball bearings. The black rubs off a bit, because I'm not polishing the balls, but it still looks fine as it is. The main grate is complete.

Glued in the cannons to the scratch-made carriages. I've decided rigging them is more trouble than it's worth, so I'll just be adding some breeching ropes and that's it. I'm also not going to lay the brass strip over the top like I talked about before. 

Main grate is glued down on to the deck. It's not exactly where it needs to be, but it'll work.

I also dry-fit the cannons to see what kind of space I'm working with. They aren't glued down yet, so I'll be marking 2 places on the bulwarks for each cannon's breeching ropes. Then drilling a hole for the eye bolts, installing them, then rigging up the breeching ropes. 

[theoracle09]

Short and sweet update this morning. Finished the breeching ropes for the cannons.