Armed Virginia Sloop by CiscoH - Model Shipways - 1:48

[CiscoH]

Thanks Thukydides.  I am trying to get over this brasswork hump which I feel has slowed my enthusiasm and progress more than I'd like. 

 

Probably because the pintles and gudgeons have taken way more work than I planned.  This weekend I spent a couple hours fine-tuning.  All the pieces fit mostly, but lots of slightly lengthening or widening mortises, slightly shortening and rounding off the ends of the strapwork, and chiseling holes to allow the rudder to be seated with the smallest gap possible.  Heres where I started; to me the gap was too wide and the top pintle a little too high.  Not much I can do about the high pintle at this point but I can work on the gap.

I also noticed all my handling and fitting of straps was getting the holly dirty.

 

After this final futzing I washed the brass in isopropyl alcohol for 20 minutes, then moved them with stainless steel tweezers to a aprox 1:8 brass black to water for 15 minutes.

Here they are drying, about 99% coverage.  1 spot on a gudgeon that will need paint.  I haven't handled them yet to make sure the blackening sticks but I am optimistic.

And finally I started with the hull's finish coat.  After sanding off any marks on the sternpost from fitting the brasswork  I applied the first coat of Polycrylic (water based polyurethane that doesn't yellow) with a qtip, the immediately wiped it down with a old cotton t-shirt.  Most of the finish comes off so its a thin coat, but the tshirt smooths quite nicely.  I'm guessing I'll do 3 or 4 coats.  I have to test some of my discarded blackened brasswork to see if it looks ok covered with this finish; if not I'll put hinges in after finishing.

 

Here's the hull after its first coat.  It looks almost identical to before I finished it, which is the point.

thats it for me.  Monday is fast approaching and its off to mentally prepare with some hot chocolate and a book before bed.

 

thanks for reading

 

cisco

Edited April 1 by CiscoH

[aliluke]

Almost wants to make me redo my AVS...but...no. Stunning work and incredible commitment to detail!

[Capt. Kelso]

Impressive build!

[KurtH]

Immaculate craftsmanship!!

[CiscoH]

Good Wednesday evening everyone.  Today's progress report is trying to finish the rudder.  Still.

 

Last report I had shaped and drilled holes in the pintles and gudgeons, then balckened them.  Next step was attachment.  I used 5 minute epoxy which it turns out is very messy.  I should have lined my parts with tape; that stuff gets everywhere including your fingers.  Below I am gluing on the rudder pintles.  I did the top and bottom first to make fitting easier.

Same for the hull; it is not easy getting the brass pre-shaped so it fits well but not too snug or it snowplows all the epoxy out of the rabbits.  I had to do some gentle scraping of the surrounding hull after everything dried to get the shiny epoxy off areas it managed to migrate to.

It was a Christmas Miracle!  The rudder could be slid into place with only a little adjusting on the first try.  I was honestly shocked.  The top pintle has a small gap that we are going to live with.  No way I am redoing the rudder at this point.

My blackening was starting to wear off from all my handling.  It too liked to get everywhere.  see previous statement - I should have taped around my hinges. 

 

Next up was adding the nails/bolts/whatever you call them.  I had given up trying to modify the brass nails I had from the kit and some smaller ones from my 18th Century Longboat kit.  They were simply too big.  So, once again using the hapless kit supplied walnut rudder, I tried the simpler method of inserting short lengths of 24g brass wire, dipped in epxoy, into each hole.  Once dried they were very solid and amenable to filing them down.  In the pic below the wire is drying in the holly rudder and I haven't filed it yet.

 

And this time I used plenty of blue tape to mask the parts.

The epoxy dried shiny but I plan to paint the boltheads and touch up any bare areas with black paint.

 

And finally here is the sternpost with its epoxied porcupine-like bolts drying.  And I have started making paper templates for my stands.

thats it for tonight.  Once the epoxy has dried, at least 24 hrs, I will flatten all the bolts down and paint.

 

thanks for reading

 

cisco