Kentoshi-sen by Glen McGuire - 1/400 - Bottle

[Glen McGuire]

23 hours ago, Javelin said:

Having a bit of a Z-cut along the hull in the vertical direction also makes it easier to line up the hull halves. It also prevents the loss of width created by the sawing and loss of saw dust. 

Thanks for the comment, Roel.  That's an interesting idea to do a vertical Z-cut.  I may play around with that before my next split-hull SIB.  I've always used tapered locating pins (toothpicks) to help guide things in place when joining the hull inside the bottle.   That Yi Soon Shin series looks like it would be worth watching.

 

 

 

On 4/20/2025 at 9:14 AM, Knocklouder said:

There is a white out in Manitoba that we are hoping it last to med June

Thanks for reminding me why I live in Texas, Bob!

 

 

 

20 hours ago, Keith Black said:

Cutting that hull in half is like jumping out of a perfectly good airplane.

Good analogy, Keith! 

 

And on that note, I'm going to jump out of this Kentoshi-sen airplane for a few weeks.  I'm heading up to New London, CT for the Northeast Ship Modelers Show and when I get back, I'm going to dive back into the Constitution and see if I can finish her up.

Edited April 21 by Glen McGuire

[BANYAN]

A belated Happy Easter Glen; looks like you have been busy.  That is looking really good mate.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[FriedClams]

Another interesting subject for a SIB build, Glen.  And you're off to a great start.  I'm amazed you were able to split that hull through the keel so cleanly!  Well done and nerve wracking, no doubt.  I once built a model that I was so unhappy with that I wanted to cut it half, but in the end decided using it for kindling was easier.

 

Gary

 

  

[Keith Black]

35 minutes ago, FriedClams said:

using it for kindling was easier.

 LOL 🤣

[Glen McGuire]

Slight change of plans.  I got back from Connecticut earlier in the week and decided to get a little more work done here before running back over to the Constitution.  With the hull finished and split, it was time to go to work on the deck fittings which mostly consist of 3 houses and a tiller.  Nothing too complicated.  Once again, the biggest challenge for me was soldering the tiny rails on top of 2 of the houses.

 

 

Here's the tiller in process.

 

 

And all 4 items complete with the exception of a little touch-up painting that I need to do.

 

 

I also put together the large ornamental carving on the bow along the the windlass and anchor.  I deviated a bit from the pictures.  The pictures have the windlass situated beyond the bow and the anchor resting on the deck just inside the bow's bulwark.  I decided to reverse things and have the windlass inside the bow and the anchor hanging just over it.  I did this because this whole sub-assembly will be installed after the ship is in the bottle and I'm using the windlass as another guide to help me get the whole thing in the exact location.  The ends of it will rest against the top of the bulwark.

 

 

 

And here she is with all those things dry-fitted including the oars and 2 masts.

 

Edited Saturday at 12:11 PM by Glen McGuire

[Paul Le Wol]

Glen, the deck houses are exceptional, especially the rails!

[Keith Black]

 Man that's nice looking, Glen. Will a Yokai be lurking in the path of the Kentoshi?  

[Glen McGuire]

6 hours ago, Keith Black said:

Will a Yokai be lurking in the path of the Kentoshi?  

Dang, I had to look that one up, Keith!  Never heard of a Yokai before.  Interesting, but unlikely that one of those will cross paths with this Kentoshi.  At least I hope not! 

Edited Saturday at 08:34 PM by Glen McGuire

[Keith Black]

4 hours ago, Glen McGuire said:

Dang, I had to look that one up, Keith!  Never heard of a Yokai before. 

 Glen, I hadn't either till I Googled Japanese evil spirts. I thought you might have a surprise hiding in the weeds. 

[Glen McGuire]

Sails are the last thing to make before she's ready to hit the bottle.  The Kenoshi sails are similar to Chinese junk ship sails with the usage of numerous horizontal battens.  When I first made those type of sails for my Zheng-he Treasure Fleet project 3 years ago, I just glued the battens to the back of a single square of fabric for each sail.  In studying my reference picture for the Kenoshi, I realized that the sail is not a single piece of material.  The sail actually consists of small, horizontal panels connected to and separated by the battens.

 

That certainly added a new level of complexity to the build just when I thought I had things under control.  But what the heck, we're all here for a challenge aren't we!   So I started by penciling the outline of the sail on some light tan shirt cloth, drawing lines for the individual panels, and gluing a bolt rope on each of the vertical sides.  I also made a small jig to help line up the panels and battens for assembly.

 

 

 

Here are the cut panels and battens ready for assembly.

 

 

To assemble the sail, I put the first batten down and just touched it in a few spots with a tiny amount of CA glue.  Then I slid the cloth panel into place ensuring it made contact with each spot of glue.  Rinse and repeat.  Even though I was using the tiniest amount of glue that you could imagine, the bond seemed to be holding up ok.  I had to be very sparing with the glue usage because of how much it darkened to cloth.  In the pic below, it is quite obvious where I used a tad too much glue and it bled.   But that was ok because I had a plan to cover up most of the bleeding.

 

 

And here was the plan.  I went on the inside of each batten and used fabric glue to lay down another line of thread that would sort of look like a bolt rope for the horizontal sides of each panel.  This had the dual benefits of hiding most of the glue bleeding as well as offering more adhesion of the panel to the batten.    

 

 

 

Here's the completed fore and main sails secured to their respective masts.  There are a few spots where the CA glue bleed was a little too much to cover up, but for the most part it worked out well.  The main objective was for the sail to look pretty much the same (i.e. battens showing equally) whether you are looking at it from the front or back. 

 

 

 

Here's a couple of shots with all the deck stuff dry-fit in place along with the reference picture for comparison.

  

 

 

The ship is pretty much ready for insertion into the bottle.  However, I have not quite figured out the rigging yet.  So I'm going to go back to work on the Constitution now while I try to figure out the rigging portion here.

 

 

Edited 10 hours ago by Glen McGuire

[Keith Black]

 The sails turned out exceptionally well, Glen. Great visual interest. 

[BANYAN]

That looks so good Glen; I think you should celebrate this one with a nip or two of SAKI (well Bundy will do too)

 

cheers

 

Pat

[Glen McGuire]

35 minutes ago, BANYAN said:

I think you should celebrate this one with a nip or two of SAKI (well Bundy will do too)

Bundy for the win!!  Great idea, Pat!!