Cutty Sark by Kevin-the-lubber - Revell - 1:96 - PLASTIC

[Kevin-the-lubber]

Minor catastrophe earlier this evening - fiddling around with the quarterdeck assembly to see if I could gently remove a couple of bits for improvement when the entire thing jumped out of my hands and landed upside down on the floor. A few bits broke off and I'm not sure whether it's worth the effort of salvaging or make it again. This all arises because I really don't like how similar in colour the decks are to the coppered hull and furniture was exploring whether I could remove the furniture in order to repaint them a lighter colour. That'll teach me. I think I'll mull on this for a few days and just carry on making those gorgeous boats while I think on it.

[Bruma]

Nooo! So sad for you! 

But I'm sure you will come back stronger! 

Never give up! 

[Kevin-the-lubber]

Don't worry, I'm not too disheartened. Everything so far has been a learning exercise and I've made a good few mistakes along the way. Making things again isn't nearly as time-consuming as making them in the first place and I might just treat it as a natural point to put some of that learning to good use.

[bcochran]

On 6/7/2022 at 1:03 PM, Kevin-the-lubber said:

Minor catastrophe earlier this evening - fiddling around with the quarterdeck assembly to see if I could gently remove a couple of bits for improvement when the entire thing jumped out of my hands and landed upside down on the floor. A few bits broke off and I'm not sure whether it's worth the effort of salvaging or make it again. This all arises because I really don't like how similar in colour the decks are to the coppered hull and furniture was exploring whether I could remove the furniture in order to repaint them a lighter colour. That'll teach me. I think I'll mull on this for a few days and just carry on making those gorgeous boats while I think on it.

Kevin, I can relate.  I almost completely ruined my model back in May.  I recovered luckily.  I have many goofs and do-overs that no one knows about.  When I get distraught over it, I walk away until the urge to continue returns. 

 

I hope you can recover to your satisfaction.

[Hubac's Historian]

Ditto to that, Kevin.  Setbacks like these really sting, in the moment.  You seem to be handling it all with admirable equanimity.  If it were me - and it almost has been several times - my swearing would resurrect the ghost of George Carlin. 

[Bill97]

Kevin I finally took the opportunity to drop by your build to see how this jobs are going since last time I visited. My mishap with my foremast was not nearly as disheartening as I am sure your’s was. Great attitude and recovery. A while back I started a topic here on MSW about how often during a build do you have that “Oh No!” moment, and what was the worst. Mine have always been mast and bowsprit breaks. That is why I reinforce them where I can. Thought I might make it safely through my Victory with out breaking one but I was wrong. 

Edited June 16, 2022 by Bill97

[Bill97]

Kevin I took some time to read back the last few pages of your blog so as to get caught up. Beautiful job in the photos you have posted. I like the color of your deck pieces. I think they are very similar to the way mine come out with the Vellajo kit. 

[Kevin-the-lubber]

I’m kind of in the process of re-grouping, figuring out how far back I ought to go. One of the fundamental mistakes I made was making and painting the decks and cabin roofs at different times, so there is a little bit of variation in colouring, especially as I did a bit of diy colour-mixing along the way. I’d have lived with it but as I do have to remake the quarterdeck assembly, I’m looking at achieving a more uniform colouring. Also the greying of the decks - experimenting with additional washes at the moment. 

[bcochran]

On 6/14/2022 at 6:41 PM, Bill97 said:

Kevin I finally took the opportunity to drop by your build to see how this jobs are going since last time I visited. My mishap with my foremast was not nearly as disheartening as I am sure your’s was. Great attitude and recovery. A while back I started a topic here on MSW about how often during a build do you have that “Oh No!” moment, and what was the worst. Mine have always been mast and bowsprit breaks. That is why I reinforce them where I can. Thought I might make it safely through my Victory with out breaking one but I was wrong. 

Hi Bill,

 

It looks like all of us have those "oh no" moments.   For me, I go between wanting to push on with my Cutty Sark build or go onto something else and come back to it. At this point, I am intimidated by the rigging.  When I look at a completed model, I wonder what were all the thought processes that went on in the builder's mind.

[Kevin-the-lubber]

Pausing on one model was one thing (Victory), if I paused on this one I doubt I'd ever finish either. As I'm doing a fairly major remake I'll save posting until I'm back where I'd got to.

[Kevin-the-lubber]

I am now more or less back to where I was before the mini-catastrophe, which led to me remaking virtually everything apart from the winches and pump. Along the way I managed to get hospitalised with pneumonia and pleurisy, which I'd mistaken for COVID, and then get COVID itself just when I thought I had pretty much recovered! Fortunately work has been very good, giving me plenty of time off to recover.

 

Anyway - I learned that, if I printed the deck much thicker i.e. about 5mm, I could make the joints all but invisible, plus the deck itself became pretty rigid, with just enough fore to aft flex for the job at hand. So, that's what I've done and this is still a 6 or 7 piece deck (I forget which now) with negative plank lines, printed on a filament printer, then glued and sanded to the desired finish before painting. Not dead smooth, the very slight roughness from sanding gives an impression of grain.

 

Glue-ing the main deck into the hull, and pulling the hull tight. I used slow-setting epoxy for the deck to hull as I couldn't afford any errors here. As the new deck is 5mm thick it is quite robust and better allows cinching the hull up tight. For newbies like me, note the anchor chain in situ, needs to be done before glue-ing the deck.

Here, you can see the 3D printed pin rails with lozenges, and the bulwark stanchions, which are just some 0.8mm evergreen. I've also gone for a much more grey deck colour scheme this time and used that throughout the quarterdeck and cabin roofs. I have to be honest, there's a good side to the model and a not so good side, where some of the lozenges are slightly warped. That will get completely hidden by draped ropes etc down the line!

Another major milestone (for me) - glue-ing on Radek's (HisModel) very beautiful PE nameplate. I had no dramas with this, used thick CA as the tube of CA gel I'd bought especially two or three weeks back had set solid in the tube! As the weather here has been boiling hot for weeks, all glue seems to set in a nano-second, consequently the nameplate is ever so slightly off centre but not enough to matter. Although affixing the nameplate went fine, it took me forever to finish painting the hull, especially the white rail. Along the way I re-made the stern railing, added a pair of fairleads into the stern bulwark and the same into the railing.

 

Difficult to see in these pictures is that I reduced the height of all three cabins by about 2 or 3mm. This goes some way to countering that the deck is about 4 or 5mm too high. I also did away with the open doors in the main cabins. I felt they didn't really add much and made things more complicated.

 

Part of the reason for the major remake was that I wasn't happy with my colour scheme. This is a reminder of what it basically looked like; more oak than teak.

I found a very good tutorial for painting a teak effect on a model railway site https://www.lner.info/forums/viewtopic.php?t=13594. This method uses a scarily orangey-brown base, as shown in the first two pictures below, then a burnt umber oil-paint wash to get the tint, with gloss varnish in between and on top. 

 

Base coat: a mixture of Vallejo Bright Orange 70.851 and Orange Brown 70.981, with a very light wash/highlighting using Golden Brown 71.032. I learned to go very easy on applying all of these, less is more. And also to go super easy on the varnishing, I just gave the objects a single light coat of no-brand gloss enamel spray.

Topped off with burnt umber oil paint, mixed with Liquin Original. It took me two attempts to get the effect I wanted. I was too heavy handed first time round, especially with the in-between varnishing and objects had a dark, clumpy look that lost too much detail. I liked this method, you have all the time in the world to play with the oil coat but I'll want to practice more with the base coat tint in future. The trouble with glossy teak is that it can look pretty orange and garish in certain lights. And the trouble with going to all this trouble in the first place is that it can all still just look like a streaky brown paint job and not hugely different to the effect I used to get with enamel paints when I was 13 or 14 yrs old 😞 Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and all that .....

Along the way I finished off a few other significant 'design' changes. I re-modelled the foredeck on Campbell, means it comes down the main deck a bit more and, to my eye, accentuates the sharpness of the fore section. I beefed up the winch, as the kit part was underwhelming and, once I've put the hatch covers back, this is probably how I'll have the chains i.e. suspended above the hatch. What I've ended up with is not particularly true to the ship, it's more of an impression of things. I still have a bit of work to do in this area, need to make the rails, stanchions, pin rail etc.

 

Another area of change was the quarterdeck. There didn't seem to be enough room between the wheel and cabin so I made the cabin a bit smaller. I also tilted and re-profiled the wheelhouse, and made the skylight much lower, with the louvres rather than glazing.

Another view of the quarterdeck cabin roof area. I should probably colour the louvres brass or gold, will leave that for a day when I'm feeling brave. This time round I've made the binnacle even smaller as it previously still looked disproportionately large. I'm not going to include the storage barrels, I didn't like these and, as they were not part of the 'built-in' hardware I feel it's fine to leave them off. I have other ideas for this space if the mizzen doesn't  fill it up. I still need to make brass portholes for the cabins and railings etc.

 

One of the plank ends 'lines' here is a joint between two deck sections, the other line is false, just printed into the section. The central hold will be partially open like this, showing wool bales. The loose plan is to have another bale being lowered into the hold via the rigging, or something like that. This is a complete fiction and a nonsensical one, as I doubt they would have ever only partially opened the hold nor stacked the covers like so, but for me it adds interest and, as I've said before, I'm not at all pursuing verisimilitude.

Last but not least, a random photo which might be of benefit to others; my bowsprit was slightly warped and I found a bit of 3.2mm square evergreen fit perfectly in the hollow, allowing me to clamp the two halves true when glue-ing.

 

 

 

 

Edited August 14, 2022 by Kevin-the-lubber

[Ian_Grant]

Kevin she looks great. Love the new teak finish! And especially the negative deck planking, a vast improvement.

[Kevin-the-lubber]

There, I knew the louvres would look better in brass.

 

I also touched up the binnacle, having remembered that I got a much more smooth, shiny gold/brass effect if I used the paint pen rather than metallic paint. If you share that view, this is what I used.

[Hubac's Historian]

Wow - Kevin!  I didn’t think you could improve upon the teak effect, but that is precisely what you have done.  I love the new color!

 

Your progress is pretty amazing, especially considering your recent health set-backs.  I’m glad to hear you are up and running again.

[Kevin-the-lubber]

Hello again Ian & Marc and thanks for your kind comments. Obviously it's quicker doing things second time round as there's less head scratching. In addition, I make slightly fewer beginners mistakes, especially on the paintwork side of things. The teak is a funny one - it works best on larger objects but even so, you need to get up close to really see it. From any distance it tends to look anything from orangey-brown to raw umber, depending on the light.

[LeoM]

You did a perfect job on the teak paint, Kevin! I hope to obtain a similar result when painting wood, but that will not be for tomorrow.😉

[Kevin-the-lubber]

It's worth trying things out several times on scrap, Leo, to get a feel for how each coat and colour combo affects the whole. Though on a wood model I'd be more than a little tempted to just use teak varnish. I noticed today that I do actually have some on a shelf, I must try that out on plastic. It would be slightly gut-wrenching if it gave the perfect result straight out of the tin 🙂

 

[Kevin-the-lubber]

A dry fit of all the masts and yards while I wait for paint to dry on various bits needed to finish the hull, and to start thinking about the masts and rigging. I have to dry fit everything like this first to be able to understand where I'm headed, what might need fiddling with and so on. Can any of you gents tell me what the small 'pins' are for, that are on the tops of all the yards? (in the second photo). I assume these are a revell device to help hang the sails? And am I right in thinking that the 'rings' on the mast sections for with/without sails (raised/lowered on the snip from the instructions) are also just a modelling device, not true to real ships.

 

To be honest, I don't want to spend too much more time on modifying this kit, as I think the rigging alone is likely to take quite a long time to complete, with the risk of terminal boredom. The OOTB masts and yards aren't too bad, only a couple are warped and might come true with a bit of heat. As mentioned previously, at this stage I'm intending to try to have hanging, furled sails. I haven't even begun experimenting with this yet, the plan is to use blue ensigns' tissue+dilute PVA method, and if that doesn't go well, I'll just have standing rigging and no sails.

 

[rwiederrich]

Those pins represent the eye bolt shanks for the jackstays....that run along the top of the yard.  this is what the sails are bent to.

 

Here they are running along the top of the yards on my Cutty Sark.  I glued hair wire(very thin stainless steel wire to them to create the jackstays.

 

Rob

[Ian_Grant]

Rob, I would not have thought it possible to add the jackstays, certainly not in the 70's during my build, at my then age! Amazing! But did you also add the safety stays? 😆 Or were they a windjammer innovation?

 

Kevin the multiple glue lugs on the masts are not authentic. Keep the ones where you want to attach the upper yards; they can represent the parrals. File off the unused ones.

Edited August 17, 2022 by Ian_Grant

[Kevin-the-lubber]

Thanks both; that decides it, I'll spend some time reading Underhill's 'Masting & Rigging' properly now, before I do the ship a mischief. I was just being lazy and looking for shortcuts. I have some 0.3mm jewellery wire which I suspect would be close enough to scale but affixing it could be a bit of a challenge.  

[rwiederrich]

3 hours ago, Kevin-the-lubber said:

I have some 0.3mm jewellery wire which I suspect would be close enough to scale but affixing it could be a bit of a challenge.  

I use extremely thin orthodontic stainless wire...I then bend the ends at length and then drill holes in the yard and insert the wire into it....making sure the wire rests on all the eye bolt shanks, then use a drop of CA glue to secure.   Paint black.  Here is another example on my Ferreira (aka Cutty Sark).  and a close up on the Cutty Sark.

Edited August 17, 2022 by rwiederrich

[Kevin-the-lubber]

Looking at the yards more closely, there are a good few 'eye bolts' missing so I may need to give some thought to this. I've also been looking at Bruma's log again this afternoon, which is probably fatal, especially as I'm finding the yards to be a bit brittle (am I just looking for excuses to remake them all?). Now that I've started reading Underhill I better understand what you've done on the Glory, with the sails furled on top of the yards. That's another pause-for-thought issue for me - I now understand that the image I have in my mind is from a much earlier age of sail, when the sails would indeed have hung from the bottom of the yards whereas that wouldn't have been the case on clippers. 

[rwiederrich]

8 hours ago, Kevin-the-lubber said:

Looking at the yards more closely, there are a good few 'eye bolts' missing so I may need to give some thought to this. I've also been looking at Bruma's log again this afternoon, which is probably fatal, especially as I'm finding the yards to be a bit brittle (am I just looking for excuses to remake them all?). Now that I've started reading Underhill I better understand what you've done on the Glory, with the sails furled on top of the yards. That's another pause-for-thought issue for me - I now understand that the image I have in my mind is from a much earlier age of sail, when the sails would indeed have hung from the bottom of the yards whereas that wouldn't have been the case on clippers. 

Those missing shanks can be accounted for, just place the stay across them(the ones left). 
Cutty Sark is a clipper, so her sails are bent to the jackstay.   My Glory build allowed me to store and furl the sails on top of the yard, like the prototype did.   You can do the same on Cutty.  Forego or hide the jackstays with furled sails on top of them.

 

Rob

[Kevin-the-lubber]

Eleven days on and still reading rather than doing. I know this will be anathema to some of you, but is there an easy read 'rigging for clippers' book out there, a kind of 'rigging for dummies'? Whilst Harold Underhill clearly had enormous passion and knowledge, it feels like I'd need to read 'Masting & Rigging' cover to cover at least twice in order to have some idea of where to find answers to questions!

 

While writing can I ask one quick, simple question - do the futtock shrouds pass through the fore mast top and connect to the fore topmast shrouds via the lower set of fore topmast deadeyes?

 

 

[Snug Harbor Johnny]

  Kevin,  Rob is right-on with innovative ways of doing (or not doing) things.  From pictures of actual clippers (then and now), furled sails don't look like there's much there, so very little material is needed to represent them.  Laid on top of the yards, (as Rob has done) the bunched fabric completely covers the jackstays ... so you don't need to do them at all in that case.  Gammoning rope keeps the furled sail on top of the yard, where any rain will just roll off.  Rob shows bunt blocks, but a furled sail could just as easily cover them as well as the jack stays, so only the bunt lines will come out from under the furled sails and go the the blocks at the mast to be routed down through the appropriate fairleads.  Another thing you could get away with not doing (via furled sails) is to 'forget' about luff lines ... they won't be missed.

 

  As a ship so portrayed would be dockside, the yards can be tilted to one side - meaning that the model can have a narrower display case ... that can fit on a narrower shelf.  The book 'Cutty Sark' in the Classic ships series (Their History and How to Model Them 1974) ... out of print but they can be had now and them as used books (author Noel C. L. Hackney) deals with an Airfix 1:150 scale plastic model.  Although an extreme challenge at that small scale, most of the modifications (additional eyes, etc.) apply to the 1:96 Revell kits ... although to take advantage of some of them, they must be attended to while building the hull.  YET, the rigging diagrams and supplemental sketches (wish there were more) provide a 'blueprint' of how to proceed with rigging.

 

  I note elsewhere that this book resembles a 'compressed' file, as one has to flip back and forth to make any sense of the contents.  The author tries to cover simplified v/s detailed hull assembly with either 'standing rigging' (he calls harbor rig) OR fitted with complete sails.  Before proceeding with a future build of the Thermie (to be rigged the same as the Cutty), I plan on ferreting out the relevant information and re-arrange it in the order of assembly for a clipper in port with the sails furled due to an anticipated short stay.

[Snug Harbor Johnny]

   BTW, on page 8 of the Cutty Sark by Bruma log, there are three posts showing a method I used to represent a clipper sail furled, with 'dog ears' (some call the mouse ears) hanging.  The proof of concept used paper (versus fine cloth or silk span) folded as crewmen would haul up sections over the yard (after the bottom corners were raised by the clew lines) as they stood on the foot ropes and leaned over they'd to grab each section.  A narrow rectangle was used, with a trapezoidal portion cut out of the bottom center so it would not 'bunch up' too much on the yard.  Split topsails or topgallants were comparatively narrow rectangles anyway, but even a main sail compresses enough in real-life to look like almost nothing is on top of the yard - thus a narrow rectangle so folded can still look OK furled on the main yard.

[Kevin-the-lubber]

Johnny, I'm still far from decided on what to do now, but realise I need to make that decision before starting work proper on the masts and yards. I quite like the type of look in the pic below, but that may be beyond my abilities. The approach you demonstrated in Bruma's log looks more likely, or something in between. I want the ship to clearly have sails, just for these to not obscure the view too much and, and far as possible, I want to avoid running rigging as I'll be hard pressed to even make a decent job of standing rigging. I expect I'll have to do quite a bit of trying things out first and the absolute fall-back is no sails, if necessary.

 

Meanwhile, I've been trying out making the masts and spars in resin, with carbon fibre inserts to give them strength. The results have been good so I'll be persevering with this and making up the complete foremast assembly first. To be honest it shouldn't really be any hassle to include the jackstays, or any other feature; it's easy enough to include the cleats and slide some 0.3mm or 0.2mm wire through them afterwards. My problem right now is that I'm seeing so many different versions of yards that I'm not sure which design to follow, and to a lesser extent, the same with the masts and fittings. Underhill says one thing, Hackney another, Campbells drawing give an entirely different size, scale and design to revell, and so on! I managed to find the answer to the question I raised above, about the futtock shrouds, on p.90 of Underhill; the lower deadeye is stropped to the head of the futtock shroud where it protrudes through the top. I guess I'm going to be looking for answers to the same kind of question many times on each mast assembly, as I try to figure out what cleats, for instance, need to be included and where, as I don't think I can simply copy revell. 

 

 

 

[Bill97]

Kevin I took some time today to get get caught up on your Cutty Sark build. I am amazed at your skill and ability to print the pieces and modify their size from the OOTB pieces to make them more visually appealing. Your painting is fantastic as well. I am following your inner debate about furled sails. I am having the same inner debate for my Victory. Can not decide. 

[Kevin-the-lubber]

7 hours ago, Bill97 said:

Kevin I took some time today to get get caught up on your Cutty Sark build. I am amazed at your skill and ability to print the pieces and modify their size from the OOTB pieces to make them more visually appealing. Your painting is fantastic as well. I am following your inner debate about furled sails. I am having the same inner debate for my Victory. Can not decide. 

Hi Bill, I also now just catch up on others logs periodically via the weekly digest, as I was spending more time on logs than the model!

 

The sails are a dilemma, aren’t they. For me this is largely because I don’t yet know if I have the ability to make something that I’ll be happy with. This is one area where 3D printing probably isn’t going to be the way to go, though I’ll certainly be giving it a go.