HM Brig-Sloop Flirt 1782 by glbarlow - Vanguard Models

[glbarlow]

46 minutes ago, Blue Ensign said:

down to your excellent fettlin'

Thanks BE, still my favorite word even if I don’t know how to spell it.  In fairness there is a US expression used by southern moms telling their kids to do something productive and quit ‘fiddling about.’  I’m quite familiar with it having heard it from my mom more than a few times. 

[bruce d]

Ahhh...

According to my father, who grew up working in a blacksmith shop, there is a big difference between 'fiddling ' and 'fettelling ': fettelling is adjusting (maybe drastically) and fiddling is working without a plan or purpose. 

Ask me how I came to need this explained to me 🤐

[glbarlow]

Embracing airbrushing. Kinda fun once I got the hang of it.

 

 

I still prefer the brush for most things but the airbrush is a great add to my workshop. 

[glbarlow]

Assembled, rigged, and mounted the first cannon to figure out how I wanted to do them. These things are tiny. First challenge, the rope size was limited by what would fit in the kit ring/eyebolt.  The weathering powder worked well on the resin cannons.

My next post will be more detailed about how I got here, not another one photo wonder.

 

Thanks for dropping by. 

[Blue Ensign]

Nicely done Glenn,

Looks good even under macro, a testament to your care and attention.

 

B.E.

[glbarlow]

7 hours ago, Blue Ensign said:

even under macro

Thanks BE, these photos often reveal something I never saw even at workshop close I then feel a need to go back and correct, if I can find them without the photo 😊

[glbarlow]

On 10/12/2021 at 9:57 AM, bruce d said:

fiddling is working without a plan or purpose.

I think I do a lot of fiddling about😂

[Blue Ensign]

these photos often reveal something I never saw even at workshop close I then feel a need to go back and correct, if I can find them without the photo 😊

Ain't it the truth, I do it all the time, something of the masochist in me. 😀

 

B.E.

Edited October 19, 2021 by Blue Ensign

[allanyed]

I hate macro, or rather it hates me as it is so good at pointing out imperfections.   🤔

I doubt anyone but you will notice tiny mistakes when viewing your model, so be happy as your work really is good!

One thing I noticed in your close up are square axles for the trucks on the carriages.  Hope you don't mind an idea for the future.  If you want to round the ends so the trucks could turn rather than leaving them square you can make a little brass rod cutter with a hole drilled  the size of the axle and a couple cross cuts on the face with a razor saw or hacksaw to create  cutting edges.  Chuck this cutter in a drill press or some other and it will round the end portion axle in a second.      Allan

Edited October 20, 2021 by allanyed

[glbarlow]

The Guns

 

Time to assemble the cannon. Flirt has teeny tiny 4 pounders, the smallest I’ve ever seen. Admiral Cochrane noted he could carry the full broadside of cannon balls for his sister ship Speedy in his pockets, of that I have no doubt.

 

 

As we know assembling 14 of anything is a repetitive process calling for a production line of shorts. I started with one to determine what process I wanted to use to get these done. First up is building a jig. Flirt’s carriages are typical for this scale consisting of six components. Always looking for an opportunity for using my mill, I carved out a block that would allow the four main pieces to be glued together consistently. Just grooves for the axels and perpendicular deeper grooves for the carriage sides, nothing fancy.

 

 

Sooo much sanding of small small parts as I moved past the first prototype (shown in the previous post) into production. I use the plastic cups to keep all the parts separated (piled up here for the photo) and pull them out as I go.

 

 

I kept it simple for this model rounding the char off the wheels by inserting them onto my round file and just spinning them in my hand against a 320 and 400 grit sanding blocks. The challenge is to sand only the char and not reduce the wheel in size while I’m doing it. I’d automate this more for larger wheels and more cannon but this worked fine for the 56 wheels needed. I also used the round file to adjust as necessary for axel fit. For this model I’m leaving the wheels natural.

 

 

Off to the paint shed. I shared in an earlier post how I’ve gone to the dark side and purchased an air brush. I do like how it worked for the gun carriages, keeping the paint thin enough to show the laser etched sides (even at this tiny size, @Chris provides nice details with his laser talents). Plus it took only minutes to paint all 14, I’m an airbrush convert, for some things, I still prefer the brush for most work. It takes as long to clean the thing as it does to do the paint work.

 

As shown in the photo I also painted the resin cannon with black primer. These cannon did require some removal of sprue, I felt like I was a kid again building plastic airplane models, but it really wasn't a lot. They do look so much better than the old metal ones, a lot easier to provide detail when casting them this way, even the crest is there. The black primer, with its matte finish was all I needed before applying Doc O’Brien’s Weathering Powder (Rusty Brown) to the barrels and buffing it down with a series of soft brushes I have for only this purpose. They have to be handled carefully after that but are easily buffed back up if necessary, no sealant (like Dullcoat) is needed in this case, though of course it wouldn’t hurt if so inclined.

 

 

A new production line is set up for rigging the carriages, barrels, eyebolts, and trucks. I feel bad now for encouraging @Derek to fully rig his cannon on his Speedy, no way I’m doing that on these little guys for Flirt. I am including breeching lines though. That required drilling holes and adding the required eyebolts and rings to the carriages. So out came the Quad Hands and the rigging box.

 

I used .018 light brown Syren line and made a little jig for pre-rigging them, identical to the one I used for Cheerful…just smaller. I determined two inches to be the length of completed breeching rope I wanted.

 

 

I’ve seen some posts recently about difficulty in tying knots, there is nothing simpler than this standard seizing method, basically the same way a hook is tied to a fishing line. I’ve tied hundreds of these, the Quad Hands makes it easy.

 

 

Normally I toss trunnions provided with a kit, if they are at all, and make my own. However the ones Chris provides in the PE are perfect, not only nice details but more importantly thin enough to fit properly on the carriage without looking out of scale. With a little assist from a drill bit to pre-bend after being primed and then painted Ironworks Black, they laid nicely onto the carriage after the barrel was glued in. They get the weathering powder brush too after being installed.

 

 

Here’s a completed gun ready to mount, a couple of points:

 

While I appreciate Chris for including eyebolts as part of the kit PE, They just looked to heavy for my tastes so I opted for the standard Amati commercial eyebolts, blacked from their copper start, on the gun. I did use the kit provided ones on the bulwarks. There weren’t enough for the breeching ropes anyway, plus the larger commercial rings are a better look here in my opinion.

 

I softened the edge of the axels with a file, I tried rounding one with sandpaper and it broke off, there just isn’t a lot of wood there. I suppose I could have rounded them even more with the file, but frankly they are so small they aren’t noticeable at a normal viewing distance. It just wasn’t worth the breakage risk or the time. More power to all of you who did or will. In my imagination the part within the truck is rounded from use.

 

I always recommend rigging the breeching rope in advance of mounting the gun(or any guns on any model) as shown here. So much easier than trying to fit all of it on board the deck. If I were installing gun tackle, and I have no intention to do that on this model, I’d make them up off the ship but fit them once the gun is placed - that involves two hooks into two rings once they are made up, a simpler task.

 

 

These guns are really small - the carriage will sit on my thumbnail. The sailors on these ships must of felt they’d be just as well off throwing the cannon balls at attacking ships.

 

 

With that the starboard battery is mounted, I need a break before moving on to the port side. I’m going to work on the deck furniture next for a change of pace.

 

 

A closer look at the mounted battery. I have also installed the pin rails and all bulkhead cleats. I’m going to use these 8mm belaying pins acquired from Crafty Sailor instead of the PE ones provided with the kit, just sitting in this one rail at the moment for a test look. While I left the trucks natural and sanded off the bulk of the char I elected to leave a bit so they looked like they’d rolled about the deck (or maybe it was due to laziness, who knows). I’m sure these near macro shots will expose lots of flaws, still I think it all came out ok.  Did I mention they are tiny.

 

Thanks for stopping by with your likes and comments. Until next time…

[Chuck]

Nicely done.

[glbarlow]

2 minutes ago, Chuck said:

Nicely done.

Much of this I learned from you by building Cheerful🙂

 

 

[DelF]

I think you should fully rig all 14 guns, just like you persuaded me to do on the same tiny ones on Speedy🤣😁

 

Seriously though, yours look great the way they are, especially the ironwork. I really must get hold of some weathering powder.

[glbarlow]

59 minutes ago, DelF said:

really must get hold of some weathering powder.

Now having seen the guns in person I regret any role I had in persuading you to rig your Speedy.

 

The weathering powder is a big difference maker. Model Expo has the Doc O'Brien's Weathering Powder, you need that and a dedicated weathering powder brush set. It's more than worth it, even it it takes shipping from the US.

[BobG]

1 hour ago, glbarlow said:

The weathering powder is a big difference maker. Model Expo has the Doc O'Brien's Weathering Powder

 

I like Doc O'Brien's Weathering Powders a lot also. I used them on my Medway Longboat and it made a big difference to my eye.

[desalgu]

Thank you for going into a lot of detail on how you built and rigged the tiny pop-gun cannons.  I struggled on Syren, and I can see part of the problem was doing it with the cannons already glued to the deck.  Much easier to do as much as you can before mounting.  

 

I'm one of those that needs some lessons in tying knots.  No fishing experience, and I've seen the standard knot diagrams which I find a bit confusing.  I can see quad-hands is very useful for this, and I'm sure many other things, so will get one of those.  In general, I've gotten frustrated doing knots, so invariably resort to simple overhand ones.  Unless you take closeups, it's often hard to tell the difference, but I'd still like to learn how to do it the correct way.  There's always a reason why certain knots are used. 

 

I've used weathering powder a little on model airplanes, there are many brands.  On Syren I used some on the white hull of the long boat to dull it slightly making it look not quite so clean white.  Also used it to darken or take the shine off the tan rigging line a little by rubbing line between by fingers with weathering powder (this was with model expo rigging line included in the kit).  Some of the airplane guys do incredible weathering on their models.  Might be something to think about on future model ship.

 

I'm always amazed at how good your work looks in closeup photos!

[glbarlow]

I don’t think this is where they go:

 

After a week of watching our grandkids while their parents were out of town and then finally getting back in the field for my photography with a week in the Smoky Mountains, both weeks great fun, I got back to Flirt. Each small item takes time to do right. Removing char, especially for items I’m leaving natural boxwood, takes time. There are some very tiny parts involved. 
 

Before I mount all the completed deck furniture I have to install the port guns. I’ve put it off as long as I can. 
 

After that I’ll complete the hull with the channels. Yay. 
 

Thanks for stopping by. 

[BobG]

She looks beautiful even in disarray, Glenn! Nice to see that you got a week of photography in during your time in the Smokies. My photography gear has been gathering dust since the beginning of the pandemic.

 

I think I'll finally get started on my Flirt week. We've been in San Francisco visiting our son and then babysitting his dog for a week while he was off to Albuquerque. Tons of yard and garden work also after we had the biggest bomb cyclone since the early 1900's that poured records amount of rain on northern California in just a couple of days. 

 

 

[glbarlow]

On 10/27/2021 at 2:32 PM, desalgu said:

In general, I've gotten frustrated doing knots

Thank you for your comments. I use the seizing method I’ve shown for at least 90%, of the rigging I do on any ship. It’s essentially a fishing lure knot, lots of YouTube videos on that I’m sure. I’ve done hundreds but I’d struggle to do one without the Quadhands (or the cheap third hand I had before). It’s easy once you get the hang of it. That a clove hitch for ratlines, a half hitch for a few other things and you have all you need. 

[glbarlow]

On 11/3/2021 at 6:44 PM, BobG said:

She looks beautiful even in disarray,

Thanks Bob!

[glbarlow]

The Deck

As seen in my last post I have made and painted most of the deck furniture. I elected not to paint anything black and instead spent a lot of time removing char so that some could be left natural with just a single coat of WOP. Some of the pretty boxwood deserved not to be painted over.

 

 

I tried to draw a balance between what was red and what is natural, try as I might I couldn’t remove a satisfactory amount of char from the winch, so red it became. It had its own challenges besides that, one of the small resin ‘axels’ broke off so I had to replace it with a bit of brass rod, after it was assembled the other side broke, that I just had to glue. I’m sure it was my fault but in my opinion the resin winch would be less of a wench wth a brass rod all the way through for stability, the thin plastic is a tad fragile. (PS: don’t tell my wife I borrowed one of her sushi serving dishes).

 

 

As I assembled the pumps it dawned on me there was no way for the water to drain as it is presented in the instructions. So I drilled a hole in the side the dowel about a third of the way in. After drilling a hole in the center of a smaller dowel and painting the inside Admiralty Paints Ironworks Black (left rough on purpose) plus a brush of weathering powder I cut it to a few millimeters and inserted that into the drilled hole - and now water can flow across the deck. Of course I added weathering power to the metal parts after painting them Ironworks Black. Once I had them fitted to the deck I stopped short of gluing them in. Looking ahead to the rigging diagrams I noted there are a number of ropes passing through and belayed around the winch and main bits. Those would be difficult to access working around the pumps, so I’ll pull them out and glue them in once the rigging in that area is complete.

 

 

With everything made it was time to complete the deck work, first up was the port battery. It’s a little bit amazing I used everything in this photo to build 14 of the tiny little cannon shown sitting in the middle. A production line of sorts and a great deal of patience is required to make these little dudes. As small as they are they take the same steps as a larger version, just less to hold on to, along with various tools and jigs.

 

 

As I noted in the earlier post, for the starboard battery I used commercial eyebolts and rings on the cannon and the kit provided PE versions on the bulwarks. Again I rigged the breaching ropes off the ship, first making them with a jig, then attaching one to each cannon. I glued the cannon to the deck and then the breaching rope to the bulwarks in that order. Again apologies to Derek for any part I played in his rigging the gun tackle on his Speedy, no way would I attempt that on this model. The barrels first were primed with black and the weathering powder added before assembly. I also weathered the trunnions after bending them on my little jig, then adding them to the carriages. One installed I used my soft weathering brushes to buff up the barrels. The resin barrels in the kit are so much nicer than the old brass or cast metal versions, they have nice detail and finish up easily. Definitely a major upgrade.

 

 

 

 

 

With that the deck is complete. I didn’t get out the cameral or lighting gear for this, just an off-white cloth, my work lights, and my iPhone 12 Pro. While it takes pretty decent photos it did create a lot of white balance problems with my off-white cloth. So anyway, here are some quick and basic photos.

 

 

The stern, with a visit from Admiral Cochrane.

 

The bow and midships. I had a bit of trouble with the chimney. This is a folding piece of brass PE, which is nice as long as you fold it the right way, I didn’t and ended up with a piece broken off which I glued back on with CA. I painted it Ironworks Black on top of the black primer and added weathering powder. I use Rusty Brown almost always as I did here (the name is misleading given the effect), however for fun I coated the inside and top edge of the chimney Smokey Black rather thickly and didn’t buff it. It came out kinda nice and provides an excellent touch of detail to the deck.

 

 

 

And midship. Here you can see I used 8mm belaying pins from Crafty Sailor. Unlike most commercial wood belaying pins these are much more in scale, they come in multiple lengths, I may could have gone down a millimeter, but this length will come in handy once rigging begins.

 

The last step for the deck is the channels, strops, and deadeyes, and that’s up next.  Thank you for stopping by, for the likes, and especially the comments.  Until next time…

[BobG]

Lovely work, Glenn, and an outstanding build log as always! You're setting the bar very high for me if I ever get around to actually building the Flirt rather than being a vicarious, armchair builder!

[glbarlow]

Finishing the hull

 

The last step for completing the hull are the channels, strops, and deadeyes.

 

 

In anticipation of that I sanded and finished (with WOP of course) my walnut mounting stand and epoxied the brass pedestals using a scrap of the same board size as the keel for alignment. All of my models are mounted this way, I like the polished look of the finished walnut and brass not to mention the firm, epoxied attachment of the model to the board. As I mentioned way back at the beginning of this log I drill the holes for this mount at the start of the build well past the keel into the bulkhead former for strength. I also add a brass plate with the name and year (so I remember), Flirt’s plate is on the way.  Halex Awards is a fast, economical source for these plates.

 

 

Can’t pass up the chance to use my fancy tools, The mill is handy here as a drill press to drill straight and centered holes in the back side of the channels for placing the mounting pins.

 

 

With those pins (the brass nails from the kit cut to size) glued in the next step is bringing out the air brush for painting the channels Admiralty Dull Black. I like the look of the airbrush painted parts on Flirt, though I’m not sure its necessarily faster than brush painting. As I’ve mentioned it takes as long to clean properly the airbrush as it does to paint with it, still it’s worth it. Glad I’ve come over to the dark side with airbrushing…just for some things, I still prefer brush painting.

 

 

Here’s my collection of tools used to for adding the deadeyes to the strops and that assembly to the hull via the channels. The colored band on the tools are also an idea I got from my dentist, making them easy to identify when I’m reaching for them I got them from a dentist supply website.

 

Kit PE strops can be a real pain to assemble, however Vanguard has done as good a job as I’ve seen with Flirt, all one piece with enough etched detail to provide as realistic appearance as you can get and making assembly an easier task. Of course nothing about forcing apart the loop wide enough to insert the deadeye is ever that easy.

 

I first primed the PE strops and then painted them Admiralty Iron Works Black, which held up pretty well to the stretching, I added the tape around my pliers (which on this particular pair have no grip on the business end, just flat metal) to further minimize scratching - still I had touch up work to do which I did with 20/0 and 10/0 brushes, I like coordination and dexterity tests…

 

 

This drill, which is actually a battery powered screwdriver with a separate drill chuck attachment, I found on Amazon via the courtesy of another MSW member, it is perfect for this gentle work. Although a bit bulky, it is slow, exactly what I want for drilling a hole that can’t be too deep. It’s almost like spinning the pin vise myself in terms of rotation speed, this delicate work doesn’t need Dremel speed.

 

 

 

I got the required angles by measuring the distance between the bottom of the strops using the plans and the next strop. It’s a slow process but there’s only 26 total, so it didn’t take long to complete.

 

And with that the hull is complete. Here are a few photos, just using my off white cloth and iPhone. (you may notice the pumps are not aligned, recall I have not glued them in so I can remove them later to work on the rigging around the wench and bits).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’ve enjoyed the build of this Vanguard Models Master Shipwright Version hull. Chris has a great design and puts so much into little extras I didn’t notice or think about until I compared them mentally to other models I’ve made in the past. The design, the very detailed instructions (thanks @James H), and the quality of all the components and wood results in a model that modelers of all skill levels can be successful building, if they take their time of course. So thanks @chris watton!

 

I am not leaving Flirt as an “admiralty model,” I intend to fully rig her starting with making my own boxwood masts. However at this point I am going to place this build on ‘Pause.’ Absolutely nothing to do with this wonderful kit, it’s just that the pull of starting Winchelsea has become too strong. With the hull complete I’m at a good point to temporarily shelve Flirt, pause this log, and begin Winchelsea.

 

Thank you for following this build, I appreciate the likes and especially the comments. I hope you’ll join me as I begin my Winchelsea log linked below in my signature.

 

 

Edited November 11, 2021 by glbarlow

[chris watton]

Damn, Glenn, that is gorgeous, a real 'Museum Quality' example if ever I saw one!

 

Gobsmackingly good.

[glbarlow]

9 minutes ago, chris watton said:

Gobsmackingly good.

Thank you for saying so Chris, in no small reason due to your equally gorgeous design

[BobG]

Absolutely gorgeous, Glenn! I'd love to see you continue with the rigging but I'm will be excited to watch you build the Winnie too. Please don't leave the Flirt on the shelf too long, I'm sure I'll need all the help I can get when I build mine!

[Thukydides]

Looks awesome Glenn. Your work really inspires me to push mine to the next level. I hope some day I will be able to produce somthing of this quality.

[jpalmer1970]

That's a great build, and a great log describing it too.

[DelF]

Stunning Glenn. Your trademark immaculate finish, captured with expert photography.

 

I hope you won't let her gather dust too long - she may be a little Flirt, but she deserves to be treated right!

[glbarlow]

3 hours ago, BobG said:

Absolutely gorgeous,

Thanks Bob, I think there’s plenty there for you get started😊

 

3 hours ago, Thukydides said:

inspires me to push mine to the next level.

I hope that it does, as I have been by so many others.