US Brig Syren by Argaen Lok (aka Scott Larkins) - Model Shipways - Scale 1:64

[Argaen Lok]

Been waiting for some nails to create the press for the copper plating.  Nope, brass nails were too big.  Had a thought.  Looked behind my ship holder and saw the pins I use for my cosplay sewing.  Yep, simple straight pins were the fix. I drilled appropriate holes in a thin piece of wood and inserted the pins.  Then cut them down, used a 2-part epoxy to glue it to the jig as described in the instructions.  Let that sit overnight and then used a drummel with a sanding piece to remove the sharp cut edges from when I used snips to cut the pins down.  Once I was satisfied, I gave it a try.  Not too bad if you look at the pics below.

 

 

 

 

While I was waiting for the sanding sealer and brass nails to come in via the mail, I started work on the next chapter.  Got the back stern work done and the sweep port hinges done as per my previous post of frustration.

 

 

 

Not sure on the paint of that decorative stern piece.  Incredibly bad molding I must say.  I may end up repainting it.  Also not happy with the metal mold of those two side stern pieces.  

 

[Overworked724]

Looks great!  I like the paint job on the stern piece decoration.  Nice job!

[Argaen Lok]

Okay, tried that new copper jig last night.  I did come across a new issue for anyone following along.  The copper strip is having some unwanted kinks as I'm unrolling it to put through the jig.  I didn't think the copper tape was so thin, that this would happen. See below.  Not sure what I can do other than maybe unroll more of the strip before I cut off the suggested 12-inch sections.  We'll see.

 

 

Below is my first pressed and cut plates from my first strip.  Not too bad actually.  I think I can get away with just pressing the pins down by hand instead of using a hammer as per the instruction's suggestion.  I found, obviously, if I got too heavy handed, I was punching through the thin copper foil.  I also used a scrap piece of wood strip to smooth out the copper side of the strip.  I didn't exactly "burnish" to copper as per instructed, but I think this worked.  I'm trying to keep my fingers off of the copper.  I need to get some thin gloves.  Otherwise, all of this work will be done using two tweezers.  Oops.  Hope people following along can learn from my booboos.

 

Edited January 12 by Argaen Lok

[Overworked724]

Yeah.  The tape is thin and does occasionally kink.  Not much you can do about that, other then work around the kinks when you are cutting out your plates.  But your jig seems to be doing a decent job of giving reproducible plates but I can't see too much detail. 

 

One thing to consider that I found out early on...if you use a wood base for when you are 'whacking' out your panels, you may find the wood will bruise and you'll start seeing your plate stamp a bit deeper, potentially tearing the copper foil.  I found that using a cutting mat as a base was resilient enough to keep it's shape and keep the stamp pattern consistent.  

 

Great job so far!  

 

(Putting on the plates was monotonous, but really satisfying once you get the technique and a good rythm!  Don NOT touch any of the plates with your fingers or you will get finger print patterns later on as the copper oxidizes)

[Argaen Lok]

Making some progress.  Took me a few weeks but the coppering of the starboard side of the ship is now complete.  A few lessons from this process I can pass along.  I used two pairs of tweezers to apply each copper plate, one for each hand.  I was trying to keep as little finger, and thus finger oils, off of the copper.  The recommended 1/64 overlap was not always perfect and sometimes a row or two might get a little wavey.  But as long as the wave is not too extreme, I was able to make up for it and smooth it out on the next layer up.  But the one layer, the last top layer up against the painted water line must be perfect as anything against the black background will be very apparent.  The other area, which the instructions did not cover, is the wrap over at the bow and stern.  At the moment, I just wrapped any piece over to the other side.  Since the bow is so thin, I'm betting anyone looking at it won't notice any layering issues.  As for the stern, it's going to be covered over by the rudder, and no one is going to see that for sure. So maybe it's no big deal. We'll see.  It took me 411 individual plates, which equated to 25 linear feet of copper ribbon.  Way more than I would have expected.  Since this is my first coppering build, I guess I shouldn't have too many expectations.  I would also say that putting on the sanding sealer was a great help.  The little adhesive plates held so much better than if I hadn't done it.  Make sure you do.  The little extra work to apply and sand two coats is so worth it.  Anyways, see the pics below.

 

 

 

Yes, the copper is very shiny and bright but I'll look into doing a slight weathering technique to make it a tad bit duller, and thus a little bit more realistic.

[Argaen Lok]

Did a little extra work on trying to smooth out some of the wrinkles last night.  I succeeded with that but also smoothed down the nail marks.  I think it looks a bit better now.  My coppering doesn't make my ship looks like it's suffering from a skin condition now.  Not good as overworked copper work, but if I get the chance to building another coppered ship, I can make improvement.  I hope.