USF Confederacy by Augie & Moonbug - FINISHED - Model Shipways - 1:64

[Moonbug]

  Thanks guys!

 

    @Grant - Tedious indeed - with a few "redos", but always worth it in the end.

 

    @Popeye - believe me, I'm keeping my finger's crossed too!  Otherwise - it'll be pretty easy to decide which side faces the viewer when it's displayed.  

 

    @rdestefano - Thanks for the kind words - but much of the credit goes to Augie of course, he gave me a great platform to pick up from.  And good luck on your first build, I'm sure you'll have lots of support here at MSW.  Don't forget the build log!

 

- Bug

[riverboat]

Really nice work there Bug...... everything you did looks perfect...... excellent job on the fitting of those pieces.

 

Frank                        

[Moonbug]

Hey all.  I didn't fall of the face of the planet.  

 

Not to turn this into a Facebook page (Chuck's pet peeve ), but we've had some significant teenage daughter "challenges" which have forced me to take a break from the Confederacy.

 

In the meantime, I'm messing around with a vintage Pocher model kit of a 1932 Rolls to keep my mind occupied.   

 

http://modelshipworld.com/index.php/topic/14227-pocher-car-kits/

 

 I'll be back to the Confederacy soon, I promise. 

 

- Bug

[Gahm]

Well done, Bug! That turned out very nice!

 

Thomas

[albert]

Hi Bug beautiful work.

[Moonbug]

    After a rough second half of 2016, I was finally able to get back into the shipyard.  Not anything major, but it felt REALLY good to get any kind of work done on the Confed.

 

    I finished off the details and etching on the Starboard side of the bow, filled out the bow itself, added the seats of ease and secured the Bowsprit. 

 

 

After a couple of failed attempts at constructing the seats of ease using small pieces of the 1/32", I decided to cut off a solid square block from on of the thicker sheets and just drill it out.  This turned out to be WAY easier to sand and fit.

 

 

The bowsprit went in pretty easily.  I've still got a little work to do tightening up the knightheads against the deck of the bow.

 

 

 

Edited January 12, 2017 by Moonbug

[Anja]

Hello Bug,

 

It's good to see you back in the shipyard. You have been missed.

 

Looking good. Wonderful work as usual.

 

Regards,

Anja

Edited January 12, 2017 by Anja

[mtaylor]

Good to see your return, Bug.  Excellent work.  

[donrobinson]

Looks good, looking forward to more!

[Blue Ensign]

Fine work on the Head works Bug,  a great job you're doing.  

 

B.E.

[gjdale]

Nice to see you back at it Bug.

[Moonbug]

    Finished off the bow this weekend by adding the boomkins, associated rigging and blocks, and then the railing. 

 

Edited January 14, 2017 by Moonbug

[mtaylor]

Beautiful, Bug.  Not sure what else to say but you're doing Augie proud.

[popeye the sailor]

glad to see your back Bug..........she's look'in awesome!

[Moonbug]

Got some progress done today. Tedious, and nothing elegant - ladders, fenders and chesstrees.

 

Then took the opportunity to neutral stain and layer most of the recent work with matte lacquer.

 

Edited January 16, 2017 by Moonbug

[Sjors]

Great job !

 

I'm drooling what you are doing.

So clean !

 

Sjors

[Moonbug]

Thanks so much for the comments and likes everyone. It's my daughter's eighteenth birthday this weekend, so no t much progress... but I'll be back in the shipyard soon. Hopefully not the kind of stall I had for three months!

[Moonbug]

   Slow, but diligent progress being made as I move to more outer decorations.  I created the gun port lids in a straightforward way, gluing four planks together and using pencil lead to simulate the caulking.

 

 

  I did however, run into a problem painting - which in turn led to my acquisition of an airbrush kit.  (Here)

After beveling all of the gunport lids, I taped them down them painted them bulwark red. The problem is - all of Augie's bulwark red had basically dried up.  I loosened it pretty well with water and a Dremel drill as a "stir stick" of sorts, but the thickness - or shall I say - thinness of it was problematic, eventually seeping around the tape and infiltrating the seams.  So I had to go back and scrap then sand all of the leakage off the gunport lids.

 

 

    After staining and sealing, I'll have to see if any need to be re-accomplished.  *Sigh*

 

 

   At the same time - while paint dried and was reapplied, and while I scraped off excess red paint - I started assembling the deadeyes and strops.

 

 

Edited January 25, 2017 by Moonbug

[popeye the sailor]

hey Bug......glad to see your back in the shipyard      sorry to hear you got off to a bad start.........looks like everything sanded up Ok.   hope to see you back right regular........any progress is good progress       looks good !

 

where did you get the P.E. sheet?

[Moonbug]

   Hey Popeye, thanks!   The PE sheets came with the kit.  They're are pretty clean too, and lots of extras all the way around with this kit.  Thanks Chuck!    

  

    I did have some difficulty blackening the parts.  Augie left me with a pretty good mixture that worked for him, but ultimately ended up going with a washed paint.

[Chuck]

Thats a lot port lids....way more than are needed.  Remember that not every port gets a lid.  Only 7 per side.

 

Chuck

[Moonbug]

Hey Chuck, thanks a lot for chiming in and clarifying!

I was actually going to send you a PM and ask about that. I was seeing some weird, conflicting info there.

Also, part of the extra port lid mess was trying to get the ones I needed correctly beveled and sanded nicely. I just glued a full length of four planking strips and cut as many lids as I could to work with.

[mtaylor]

Better to have too many lids than not enough, Bug.  Good progress....

[Greg the peg leg sailor]

Beautiful, Bug. Not sure what else to say but you're doing Augie proud.

G'day Bug

Mark said it all!

As I have said before, Augie would be very honoured for you taking over his last build. Goodonyamate.

Havagooday

Greg

Edited January 30, 2017 by Greg the peg leg sailor

[Moonbug]

Thanks for the kind words and likes everyone. Much appreciated.

 

I was able to make some more progress on the gun port lids this week. I picked out the top contenders and added the hinges and eyebolts.

 

 

Then mounted them to the gun ports.

 

 

Edited February 1, 2017 by Moonbug

[Moonbug]

I also decided to revisit the idea of gun tackles. I've always felt that the guns looked a little barren. But my problem was, I wanted to be able to tackled any of the guns that I could see - that meant some delicate rigging to say the least.

 

Initially, I started to put together enough blocks and rig to do the side gun tackles of each of the 26 guns that I could see.

 

 

But then, I soon realized, that trying to attach the side gun tackles to the cannon themselves and then the bulwarks was virtually impossible this far into the build. If the side rigging was going to be done, it needed to be done when the cannons were much more accessible. Drat.

 

So instead, I settled on just rigging the train tackle for each visible gun. While still challenging to get the visible main deck cannons rigged, it wasn't impossible. I still feel it's a little odd to have the train tackle and not the side gun tackles, but at least it gives the cannons a little bit of trimming.

 

Edited February 1, 2017 by Moonbug

[Greg the peg leg sailor]

G'day Bug

All I can say is bloody marvelous. It would be good if you could do the ropes and pulling on the hidden guns, but don't worry about it....it's good enough the way you did it.

Havagooday

Greg

[Blue Ensign]

Hi Bug I fitted the side tackles on my Pegasus with the guns in place, but I did fake it with tackles made of wire with a hook each end and frapped. I did this because I wanted an element of sag in the tackles which the wire allowed for.

 

 

I am thinking you could make these off the model and secure the hooks into the carriage and bulwark rings secured with a spot of ca.

 

The full details are on page 4 of my log.

 

Cheers,

 

 

B.E.

[Moonbug]

Thanks for the idea B.E., I'll take a look.  It's less about whether they're already in place, and more about being able to rig the cannons that are already snuggled under the top deck. Even with it partially open, it's nearly impossible to reach the eyebolts even with my longest, smallest tweezers.  And I'm pretty opposed to only having some of the cannons (the more accessible ones) rigged, and not having others that are clearly visible rigged.  :-/   Quite a quandary.

 

  At any rate, the time is definitely now to make the decision - the gangways and beams are close on the horizon, and once they're in there is no going back to the cannons.

Edited February 1, 2017 by Moonbug

[Chuck Seiler]

I am curious as to why they didn't have lids on the gunports in the waist.  I understand that area is open to the weather, but it still provides some protection against the seas slopping in.