Ranger 1864 by palmerit - Vanguard Models - 1:64 - Barking Fish Carrier

[palmerit]

The interior has you add faux timberheads. I tried to sand off the char but to get all the char off I’d have to sand these tiny parts pretty far down. So after installing, I decided I would airbrush the interior black. That meant lot of tedious application of Tamiya tape to protect the etched deck before I could paint. 

[Kenchington]

23 minutes ago, palmerit said:

faux timberheads

Not necessarily "faux".

 

English vessels of the size of Ranger but built a few decades later had stanchions separate from the top timbers of the frames -- in contrast to contemporary big-ship practice. I have never heard why. (There were cases of rails torn off by boarding seas, leaving a line of holes where the stanchions had been. Not a good thing to have happen.) Those kit pieces represent the stanchions and I'll guess that they are as accurate (in spacing and scantlings) as Chris W. could reconstruct from the available surviving information.

 

Trevor

[palmerit]

Leveling the ship to draw the waterline. 

[palmerit]

Tried out some reds for the bottom of the hull. I think I’m going to go with 1/2 Vallejo Model Air Red 71.102 and 1/2 Vallejo Model Air German Red Briwn 71.271. The instructions use a PlastiKote Red Primer. Trying to approximate a red oxide color. 

[palmerit]

I’ve got a bunch of touching up to do but the hull painting is getting closer to being complete. 
 

After touching up I’ll add a few coats of matte varnish, let it dry for a couple days and the wrap the hull up to prevent it from getting dinged and scratched. 

[Knocklouder]

Nicely done, good looking paint job. 

Bob M.

[palmerit]

Just have a few touchups to do on the paint. Otherwise moving to next step adding deck pieces and furniture. 

[palmerit]

Added some of the deck pieces. Still some more to add. 
 

I added some trim to the companionway (and painted and stained) because I did not like the jig saw puzzle piece look without doing so. 

Edited May 14 by palmerit

[palmerit]

Added some more deck fixtures. 

[Dfell]

Hello palmerit - all looking quite colourful. Think you may have the rack behind the mast the wrong way round and this may be a problem at a later stage.

 

Regards

 

Doug

 

 

[palmerit]

7 hours ago, Dfell said:

Think you may have the rack behind the mast the wrong way round and this may be a problem at a later stage.

Oh, man, you're right. Thanks for pointing that out. That'll be an interesting fix. I guess I have a project tonight.

[palmerit]

I got the rack turned around with some surgery. I had to paint it black because I needed to add some wood filler around the wounds. I also added the belay pins and a few other pieces. 

[palmerit]

I haven’t had much time to work on models recently because in my spare time I’ve been remodeling my younger son’s bedroom before he finishes his sophomore year at college next week. Painting, adding shelving, redoing his closet.  
 

I had been using his room for modeling. I just put up a folding table in the middle of his room for modeling and another for my airbrush booth, covering up some stuff with a drop cloth. I just had stuff piled around, usually piled on his bed or on the floor. Now I’ve permanently taken a corner of his room and everything is organized. 
 

We used Elfa (Decor+) closet systems from the Container Store (it’s a Swedish brand I think and is certainly sold in other stores outside the US). I have shelves for models in progress and in the queue. Elfa has a garage+ system that works great for organizing tools and such. There are hooks for various tools and clamps and small shelves for glues and filler and things. I also bought a nice couple of work tables to replace the folding tables (a large one for work, a small one for my airbrushing) from a company called Desky; they sell adjustable standing desks but also fixed height work desks. Recommend both. Not cheap, not crazy expensive. 
 

It’ll probably be a month before I make steady progress again. We’re picking up our son next week and visiting family. Then we’re off to Europe for three weeks: Italy, France, and Scotland. I have a conference in the French Alps near Chamonix for a week and my wife has one in Glasgow after. We’re adding some vacationing in Italy (Milan and Aosta) (1st time for both, been in other parts of Italy a few times) before my conference and in Edinburgh (3rd time) and up on the Isle of Skye (2nd time) after my wife’s. 

Edited June 6 by palmerit

[palmerit]

I decided to get the Syren Servo-Matic Serving Machine. It needs to be built. 
 

First step is sanding all the cherry wood pieces (except for the gears). 

[palmerit]

Everything’s a small learning experience. When assembling the Syren Servo-Matic I needed to keep the main pieces square to the base when gluing them. I only have one medium and one small square (and a bunch in my cellar far too large). I was going to use LEGO pieces, which work well and are easily configurable. But then I thought I’d use my 1-2-3 blocks. They’re heavy and perfectly square. Well, I forgot that they had arrived with machine oil on them. While I had wiped them off, some remained in the holes and ended up staining the wood pretty deeply. 1-2-3 blocks have their uses (they make for nice weights and arms from a Quad Hands can magnetically attach to them) I’ll not let them sit on exposed wood again. 

 

Glad I discovered this on the Servo-Matic rather than on a model.

Edited June 9 by palmerit

[palmerit]

Can someone point me to the kind of knot used to lash a small boat to a deck? This is the photo from the Ranger instructions (and on @James H build log). 
 

Is a line looped through the eyebolts on both sides and then seized in a couple places?

[Kenchington]

March ("Sailing Trawlers") detailed what was lashed to what else in the smacks of the early 20th Century (i.e. several decades after Ranger) but said nothing of what knots were used. His photographs are not clear enough to deduce how things were tied.

 

Ashley (with a focus on practices aboard larger vessels) gives three alternatives: his #2119, #2120 & #2121. All of them require an eye of some kind in the end of the boat gripe (the strap, sennet or other broad material that contacts the boat without digging in to its gunwales). The lanyard is attached either to that eye or else to the ringbolt in the deck, then a bight of it is led through the other of those, the free end passed through the bight, forming a crude tackle, and heaved tight. The end is secured with a half-hitch or two, often slipped so that the boat can be freed swiftly when needed.

 

I'd not want to suggest how to replicate that at 1:64. The simple thing would be to tie off at the ringbolt with a round turn and two half hitches, but that wouldn't look much like the full-size version. You could try a trucker's hitch: Tie an overhand loop in the rope at about the right spot, pass the free end through the ringbolt, then through the loop just tied and tighten up. (It's a brutal way to abuse rope but that's not much of a concern in a model.)

 

Trevor

[palmerit]

Back from a work trip and vacation for three weeks in Europe (Italy, France, and Scotland) and found a little time to start getting back to the ships.
 

I had painted the small boat and its parts before leaving. Assembled them over the past couple of days. There aren’t instructions to build the small boat, just to “assemble … in any way you see fit”. Thankfully, I could use the photo in the instructions as a guide  

 

I also added the PE decorations that I had airbrushed weeks ago. 
 

Next step I’ll be added the deadeyes that I had put together before my trip. Finally was able to use the PE bender tool I had bought a while ago. 

[palmerit]

@Dfell pointed out a while back that I had inadvertently installed the piece with a cross bar (and sometimes with belaying pins) that lines are tied to, with the belaying pins facing the mast rather than the other way around. (I don’t know its name.) Not yet having an intuition for where parts go, I got myself turned around in the photos in the instructions and installed it backwards. 
 

This piece installs deep into the ship, reaching the second deck layer, where it is glued in place. It needs to be able to hold several lines taught so it needs quite a good seating deep into the ship. What that meant is that it would be impossible to remove the piece. The only option I could think about was cutting piece off flush, turning it around, and reattaching it. 
 

Now the fun began. 
 

My first attempt was simply to glue the piece into position. After gluing it, I decided to paint it black because it didn’t look nice after cutting the piece, turning it around, and gluing it into position. 
 

Well then I realized that this wasn’t going to work. After checking out the rigging diagram, I realized that several rigging lines would be tied to this piece and that bit of glue was not going to keep that piece connected to the deck. In fact, I could jiggle the part. I was just it would come loose. 
 

Instead of just ripping the piece off - which I probably could have - I used alcohol to loosen the glue. That worked. But it also caused some of the black paint to stain the deck a bit. 
 

I tried sanding the paint off, but since this it an etched deck, any more sanding than I tried would have sanding off the etching. 
 

So then I tried a few ever darker stains to try to cover up some of the paint stains. That worked a descent amount but it made the deck a lot darker than it might have been otherwise. 
 

To reattach the part a bit more securely, I cut the flat end off a couple of pins, drilled holes in the two bottom supports of the part, and superglued the pieces of pin in place. Then I drilled holes in the pieces of the part that remained in the deck and superglued the pins in place. 
 

Not perfect but I think it will work. 

Edited July 21 by palmerit

[palmerit]

One point of potential confusion for futures builders of this model: this model (and my Sherbourne) label rigging thread options with letter (A, B, C, etc.) on the plans but then the thread themselves are labeled F-7, F-8, F-9, etc. on the spools. My Sherbourne had a translation from one labeling to the other but I missed where that was done for the Ranger. It could have been somewhere, but I missed it. The instructions sometimes just refer to dimensions and color. 
 

In looking at the parts list at the end of the Ranger instruction book I saw the list of threads (labeled F-7, F-8, F-9, etc.) with the dimensions (.1mm, .25mm, .5mm etc.) and the color (natural vs. black) to be able to figure out the mapping. 

[palmerit]

Lashing the small boat to the deck. I just attached using a couple of half hitches. 

Edited July 21 by palmerit

[palmerit]

Starting the rigging. I missed in the instructions what thread to use to rig block to eyebolts. I checked the instructions for my Sherbourne and it says to use 0.25mm black thread. 

[Kenchington]

22 minutes ago, palmerit said:

it says to use 0.25mm black thread

Black because strops for blocks will often (not always) be served with tarred marline to protect from both weather and chafe.

 

But use whatever thickness fills the score around the block without overfilling it. Bigger blocks will need thicker line and vice versa. 

 

One example of how it ought to look (though without serving on the strops):

 

Trevor

[palmerit]

To tie the block to the ring, I kind of followed the approached described by Modelkit Stuff (building the Sherbourne): 

 

 

Rather than use a 0.25mm line between the eyebolt and block, which seemed far too thick, I used some ultrathin 16/0 veevus (fly tying) thread. . 

 

 

Edited Tuesday at 02:22 AM by palmerit

[palmerit]

Added the bowsprit. 

[palmerit]

The main mast is created from a 6mm dowel and a 3mm dowel. Note that while the plans say 6mm dowel, and the part is a 6mm dowel, the part list at the end of the instructions erroneously lists a 5mm dowel. 

[palmerit]

Had to reduce the end of the main mast from 6mm to 4mm and add the part to mount the top half of the main mast. 

[palmerit]

I realized I didn’t tie the (single) block on the bowsprit properly. I forgot the loop under the block.
 

I’ve attached the drawings of the block placement from the plans. I’m puzzled as to how to create this. I also don’t know if this has a name to be able to search online. 
 

It looks like one continuous line that forms the loop under the block, then wraps around the block, then loops around the eyebolt. I’m guessing that since the is a piece of standing rigging the loop at the bottom (under the block) would not have a thimble since the line that  loops through that bottom loop is static (thimbles are supplied with the kit). I looked in Ashley and in Petersson but could not find a sample of this. Does this have a name?
 

Would I start by forming a loop (that goes under the block) and then adding a seizing to tie it up off, the loops around round the block? Would there the be a seizing above the block? And how would I attach to the eyebolt? I know I could just tie a knot. But is there a more realistic way to do it at scale?
 

I suppose that the line that connects through the loop under the block (labeled as “B - 500mm Long” on the plans) would be tied off with a seizing right?

Edited Thursday at 01:30 AM by palmerit

[palmerit]

Working on the mast. 

[palmerit]

To attach the main gaff it says to secure using just .25mm thread. Wouldn’t a gaff use parrel beads? I have some that I bought before for another model that I could use. I’d think on a real ship ropes would pretty quickly fray, wouldn’t they?