Flying Fish by gak1965 - FINISHED - Model Shipways - 1:96

[gak1965]

On 11/5/2023 at 8:57 AM, Tigersteve said:

Congratulations!

Steve

Thanks Steve. I appreciate the sentiment!

[gak1965]

On 11/6/2023 at 9:23 AM, ccoyle said:

Your work has paid off handsomely! Congratulations!

Thanks Chris! Appreciate the vote of confidence!

[gak1965]

On 11/6/2023 at 9:24 AM, Jared said:

Congratulations George.  You have done a magnificent job on this model and the workmanship bears this out!   Your work certainly inspires me to keep working on mine. 

 

What's your next ship?

Thanks Jared, I continue to watch your build with interest.

 

Took me a week to decide, but I'm going to do two that are likely going to move at very different velocities:

BlueJacket USS Kearsarge

RRS Discovery

 

Since the former is a kit and the latter is scratch, I imagine I won't really be making sawdust on it for a while. I have the builders plans from the NMM in Greenwich and some items from Discovery point in Dundee and need to convert it into bulkheads that can be modeled.

 

Regards,

George

 

 

[gak1965]

On 11/6/2023 at 3:43 AM, robdurant said:

What a stunning model, George. A wonderful achievement!

Thanks Rob,

       I am following your build of Stefano. You are way braver than I doing those sails!

 

Regards,

George

[gak1965]

On 11/7/2023 at 9:40 AM, Cathead said:

Congratulations on a wonderful model. I really enjoyed that time-lapse, what a neat way to summarize the work! I may steal that idea for a future build.

Thanks Eric!

 

I like the time lapse too - when (if) I finish another I think I'm going to use it again as well.

 

Regards,

George

[gak1965]

On 11/7/2023 at 10:01 AM, Snug Harbor Johnny said:

Truly awesome, and an inspiration !

Thanks! I'm watching your Gorch Fock restoration. I wish you the best on that project.

 

Regards,

George

[gak1965]

On 11/7/2023 at 2:11 PM, rwiederrich said:

Great job George.  Great new addition to your collection........😅.

 

I felt a great releasee when I finished Glory of the Seas.  I slept like a baby.....  What a feeling after years of labor.

 

Thanks Rob! I followed your log on Glory and used many of your techniques, which was a great help. 

 

Regards,

George

[gak1965]

6 hours ago, ScottRC said:

Thanks George for putting out such a great build log.  I am just starting rigging a clipper and your photos and details help a lot.  Especially with motivation.

 

Great job!

 

Thanks Scott! FWIW, as I mentioned earlier in this log, I have a weak spot for old Revell sailing ships because my grandfather built the Cutty Sark and was working on the Constitution when he died. A restoration of one of his ships (which were, alas destroyed and/or lost over the intervening 55 years) would be great; I wish you the best in completing the restoration of the Thermopylae your mom built.

 

Regards,

George 

[gak1965]

I haven't had a chance to take good photos yet. It's been a busy work week, and I was hoping to take some nice ones today (it's a holiday for my company), but it's dim and rainy. I did get the case ready. This was a case my dad bought for the Revell Constitution, so another 1:96 ship, but for some reason he ordered one 36 inches tall. I have it now, because when they moved to an apartment, he kept the ship but not the case. Anyways, I cut 7 inches off the bars and took the glass to the local hardware store and got it cut down to 29 inches. He didn't use anything to hold the glass in, the bars have screws to hold them in place, but when I reassembled it, I used some silicone to attach the rear and side glass panes to the bars. I don't intend to do so to the front panel, I will slide it in place after the model is placed.

 

 

The front panel (which is in the back in this picture) isn't in place yet, among other reasons, because it broke as I was taking it out of the car at the hardware store (sigh). That said, 4 of the 5 panels survived 18 months in my garage, and the recutting, which is probably close to miraculous. I may get a piece of plexiglass for the front panel (although, paradoxically it appears to cost more than glass). 

 

Then we need to figure out where it is going. Our ping pong table is not a good long term location.

 

Regards,

George

[Vladimir_Wairoa]

Congratulations George for fine execution of this mammoth task of making clipper. 

I enjoyed it much

 

Vlad 

[Wawona59]

Hi George,

 

My very enthusiastic congratulations on completing your "Fish" project.  Your thorough build log could probably serve as a treatise for building a model of the Flying Fish.  I recently posted a link to a short YouTube video featuring the Flying Fish.  The narrator is a little repetitive but there are some good model photographs.  The credits on the video said that the source of the photos is from MSW.  I think I may have seen a photo of your Flying Fish on that YouTube video as well.  I think I posted the YouTube video link in the Shore Leave section of the MSW forum.

 

GREAT model George.  One, I'm sure you will be proud of for many years to come. 

[gak1965]

Thanks Vlad and John!

 

John,

     I think most of the pictures in that video are of @MikeR's scratch Flying Fish, but there does appear to be one at the end of the fish before I had crossed the yards.

 

Regards,

George 

[Snug Harbor Johnny]

On 11/10/2023 at 4:43 PM, gak1965 said:

 

Thanks Scott! FWIW, as I mentioned earlier in this log, I have a weak spot for old Revell sailing ships because my grandfather built the Cutty Sark and was working on the Constitution when he died. A restoration of one of his ships (which were, alas destroyed and/or lost over the intervening 55 years) would be great; I wish you the best in completing the restoration of the Thermopylae your mom built.

 

Regards,

George 

  I know what you mean about the old 1:96 Revell kits, as I built the CS.  Yet one MSW restoration of a Thermie indicated that much of the masts and yards were brittle and disintegrating.  I wonder if that was due to the lack of paint ... or will the mere passage of time render the plastic brittle.  The wood model I'm now restoring is all-wood, and time has not had any effect on the rigidity and soundness of the components (other than some of the rigging lines).

 

  The question is, if one has one of the 1:96 plastic models ... will painting all plastic parts be sufficient safeguard for a life of at least 100 years (assuming anyone wants such a thing after the builder is long gone)?  The alternative is to replace the masts and yards with wood (also belaying pins of preferably brass) as Bruma did on his CS.  Any thoughts?

[Snug Harbor Johnny]

On 11/10/2023 at 4:53 PM, gak1965 said:

I haven't had a chance to take good photos yet. It's been a busy work week, and I was hoping to take some nice ones today (it's a holiday for my company), but it's dim and rainy. I did get the case ready. This was a case my dad bought for the Revell Constitution, so another 1:96 ship, but for some reason he ordered one 36 inches tall. I have it now, because when they moved to an apartment, he kept the ship but not the case. Anyways, I cut 7 inches off the bars and took the glass to the local hardware store and got it cut down to 29 inches. He didn't use anything to hold the glass in, the bars have screws to hold them in place, but when I reassembled it, I used some silicone to attach the rear and side glass panes to the bars. I don't intend to do so to the front panel, I will slide it in place after the model is placed.

 

 

The front panel (which is in the back in this picture) isn't in place yet, among other reasons, because it broke as I was taking it out of the car at the hardware store (sigh). That said, 4 of the 5 panels survived 18 months in my garage, and the recutting, which is probably close to miraculous. I may get a piece of plexiglass for the front panel (although, paradoxically it appears to cost more than glass). 

 

Then we need to figure out where it is going. Our ping pong table is not a good long term location.

 

Regards,

George

  Glass can be a liability in the long run, due to the break-ability and weight.  One of my Dad's clippers suffered great damage in a glass stattering accident.  (Kids can trow stuff.)  Acrylic (as opposed to plexiglass) is a good alternative ... shatter resistant and easily replaceable.

 

[Knocklouder]

Congratulations, Amazing details very nicely put together. 

[gak1965]

1 hour ago, Snug Harbor Johnny said:

The question is, if one has one of the 1:96 plastic models ... will painting all plastic parts be sufficient safeguard for a life of at least 100 years (assuming anyone wants such a thing after the builder is long gone)?

Well, answering the second question first, I can only speak for myself when I say I wish I had some of his old models to remember him by. The only one that survived the years and the moves was a 3" tower with a checkered flag that was part of an old HO scale Aurora slot car set from the mid '60s. It's part of a very small set of physical things I have to remember him by (the rest are some photos and the light from the top of his taxicab).

 

As to the first question, I'm not a materials scientist, but my read is that most plastics are going to take the bulk of their damage from UV via creation of free radicals, and how deep it goes will be driven by a number of factors associated with the mobility of the radicals in the specific material. I would presume any paint would provide an ablative surface that would protect the underlying plastic against UV derived free radicals, and might (depending on properties) be more or less resistant to UV and/or more or less likely to spread the radicals than the underlying plastic itself. Wishy-washy I know, but hard to see how paint wouldn't at least help a little and probably help a lot.

 

My $0.02. 

 

Regards,

George 

[gak1965]

On 11/14/2023 at 5:53 AM, Wawona59 said:

recently posted a link to a short YouTube video featuring the Flying Fish.  The narrator is a little repetitive but there are some good model photographs.  The credits on the video said that the source of the photos is from MSW.

 

Starting to go off topic here, but that person also appears to have a video of @mbp521 (aka Brian's) USS Cairo model, and I'm guessing others (I haven't dug into it - life's too short, but the Cairo popped up in the 'you might like' after the video).  

[Cathead]

Frankly, that video channel seems pretty sketchy. Its Cairo video uses a ton of Brian's images without proper attribution. Nothing said or labelled in the video itself, just a tiny link embedded deep in the descriptive text, and that link is just to MSW, not to the actual build log. 

[gak1965]

On 11/17/2023 at 7:02 PM, Cathead said:

Frankly, that video channel seems pretty sketchy. Its Cairo video uses a ton of Brian's images without proper attribution. Nothing said or labelled in the video itself, just a tiny link embedded deep in the descriptive text, and that link is just to MSW, not to the actual build log. 

Plus one on that. 

[Jared]

On 11/15/2023 at 6:58 PM, gak1965 said:

Well, answering the second question first, I can only speak for myself when I say I wish I had some of his old models to remember him by. The only one that survived the years and the moves was a 3" tower with a checkered flag that was part of an old HO scale Aurora slot car set from the mid '60s. It's part of a very small set of physical things I have to remember him by (the rest are some photos and the light from the top of his taxicab).

 

As to the first question, I'm not a materials scientist, but my read is that most plastics are going to take the bulk of their damage from UV via creation of free radicals, and how deep it goes will be driven by a number of factors associated with the mobility of the radicals in the specific material. I would presume any paint would provide an ablative surface that would protect the underlying plastic against UV derived free radicals, and might (depending on properties) be more or less resistant to UV and/or more or less likely to spread the radicals than the underlying plastic itself. Wishy-washy I know, but hard to see how paint wouldn't at least help a little and probably help a lot.

 

My $0.02. 

 

Regards,

George 

This is an interestIng link of the lifespan of plastics:  https://thediecastmodel.com/how-long-do-plastic-models-last/

[gak1965]

Well, a final entry from me in this log. Here she is in her new home:

 

 

 

Regards,

George

[Jared]

Home Sweet Home.   Looks great George. 

[Rick310]

Really looks great George!!  You did a magnificent job!!

Rick

[Vladimir_Wairoa]

beautiful presentation George. 

[Snug Harbor Johnny]

  'Harbor Rig' (w/o sails) has a lot to recommend it.  Good golly, the virtual spaghetti of lines needed for a clipper under sail is daunting - as I'm finding out.  Kudos for your fine artistry and excellent detail at every stage of construction.  Your build was interesting to follow, and can be a valuable tool for future reference. 

[petervisser]

A superb model George. Congratulations! She looks right at home in her display case! Time to splice the main brace!

Cheers,

Peter

[BobG]

Beautiful model and display, George! Congratulations on completing this fine model!

[Rick310]

George,

How did you do your mast bands?  Are they brass or copper?  Soldered?

Thanks, 

Rick

[Bruma]

George, 

I have somehow missed the finish of your wonderful model. 

Congratulations on this great achievement! She is really a beauty! 

How do you feel now after working for so long on her?

I've been working on my cutty sark for so many years that she is now part of my weekly routine... 

[gak1965]

19 hours ago, Rick310 said:

How did you do your mast bands?  Are they brass or copper?  Soldered?

Thanks, 

Rick

 

Hi Rick. The mast bands are brass strip (1/32 x 1/64) that came with the kit, glued onto the built masts. I don't have bands on the mizzen. I didn't worry much about them not staying on because there is a continuous layer of paint that they are under. The yard bands by contrast are mostly copper tape, using the existing adhesive and then painted over. BTW, I'm pretty sure I had Model Expo send me some extra brass strip of that size, as I didn't have enough for everything (and that was with nothing on the mizzen). They sent me more with no trouble. FWIW, last time I looked K&S metals had stopped selling the really thin brass strip, which is unfortunate.

 

 

14 hours ago, Bruma said:

Congratulations on this great achievement! She is really a beauty! 

How do you feel now after working for so long on her?

 

Thank you. When I actually finished it was a bit anticlimactic, but it's been growing on me.

 

Your Cutty Sark is really awesome - I can't even imagine having to tackle sails on this or any other ship bigger than a lobster smack or maybe a skipjack. You've done an amazing job on her.

 

Regards,

George