Rainbow 1934 by cdrusn89 - Amati - 1/80

[cdrusn89]

I am building the latest version of Amati's Rainbow (winner of he 1934 America's Cup Challenge) kit - the one with the plastic hull. I also have the same version of the Endeavour (and I am hard pressed to see any difference in the hull but...).

 

The first step is to lightly sand off the mold marks on the hull centerline and taper and add the rudder (which is made of wood - dah).

Step 2 is to glue in the "false deck" (which will be planked shortly. It took a bit of fiddling to get the laser cut false deck to fit inside the plastic hull.  I would get it seated about 3/4 of the way around, mark where it was too large sand that area, rinse and repeat. You can see some of the pencil marks showing the areas being sanded.

Here is the deck dry fit. It apparently has a bit of "warp" as the bow will not sit down without some gentle pressure (rubber bands). The instructions say to glue the deck in with CA and then plank it with the provided planking material.

I am not sure why I would plank the deck before painting the hull as that seems to be asking for trouble.

 

Perhaps it is to minimize handling the hull after it painted but I think I will paint it first then plank.

 

I also need to find a way to hold the hull as none of my availble jigs will fit a hull this shape.

 

[cdrusn89]

I started gluing the deck down at the bow using medium CA since I knew it wanted to raise up there.

 

After a few minutes I snapped the rest of the decking into the hull and ran thin CA around the rest of the hull. It should soak into the wood and bond (more or less) with the plastic hull. I have not had great success with CA and plastic in the past but there is not a great deal of stress at the joint and hopefully the deck will stay in place.

 

I also found a way to hold the hull - I stole a floral arrangement block from the flower arranger in the house and cut a slot in the top to accommodate the keel. It works for now and I think is gentle enough on the hull paint as it may be useful throughout the build - if I can put up with the green "fuzz" that seems to pour of fthe block whenever I touch it. Maybe I should paint the sides that are not touching the hull.

Edited Sunday at 12:04 PM by cdrusn89

[cdrusn89]

First mistake.

I was so focused on getting the deck to fit inside the hull that when I finally got it to fit I immediately glued it in place.

 

I forgot the mast support that is glued to the underside of the decking.

After what seemed like gallons (but was actually a few dozen drops) of de-bonder I got the deck up without major damage, installed the mast support and got the deck glued back down. Whew! Another bullet mostly dodged.

 

I am waiting for delivery of the recommended Tamiya primer spray paint so I moved on to the deck furniture.

These are really small pieces and getting them assembled and evenly spaced is quite a challenge (for me).

 

I used my magnetic furniture building board to help but still after the rectangular base is together getting the top pieces on and evenly spaced in both dimensions took more than a couple of tries.

 

I had to build on top on the spacer so the clamp would reach the top of the side piece.

 

I am generally not a fan of acrylic windows, especially when they are provided as a single piece and you have to cut the pieces out yourself which is the case here. I have used two different "window maker" products and while they never make a completely clear window they do make a reasonable approximation especially if there is really nothing to see on the other side which is the case here.

 

To see what they might do with the windows here I cut out a "window" of approximately the same size as are on the deck furniture and used Micro Krystal Klear to "fill it in". It will be a few more hours before I can see what it will look like but based on past experience I think this is the way I will go.

 

[cdrusn89]

My test run of the window maker was a success (IMHO)

So I went ahead and assembled and painted the deck furniture. I added some flat red to the Vallejo flat brown to try and approximate mahogany but it still looks mostly brown to me. Oh well, the deck furniture is not the focus on this model (hopefully). 

I will wait until the clear coat(s) are on the deck furniture before I "fill in" the windows. No sense making applying the clear coat difficult by having to keep it off the windows.

 

On to the mast and boom while I let the paint dry thoroughly. 

 

[cdrusn89]

While I let the deck furniture dry overnight before applying the clear coat I started working some of the other items not the hull.

 

I got out the navigation items which are all cast in brass. I had to clean up the areas where the material ran into the mold and the bottoms needed a good deal of filing to get flat. I plan to paint the portions that do not remain brass with a surface primer before trying to add the brown and red/green as I have little faith the the acrylic paint will stick to the brass. As further insurance I have cleaned all three pieces with 99% isopropyl alcohol - another item left to dry overnight

I cut the tapers in the boom as shown in the drawing then decided that given all the "things" that get attached to the boom, all of which are painted white I should get the wooden part ready for painting before adding the other "stuff" so I sanded it with 220 paper and then applied a sanding sealer. Will sand again in the morning then start adding the holes and such.

 

The cleats (for the boom and deck) present a quandary.  were the cleats on the real rainbow made of metal and thus do not have to be painted? Or were they something else (wood) that would be better represented by some wooden cleats that would be procured (like from Syren where both3.5mm and 5mm cleats in boxwood are available). I will look at my build log for the 1/35 scale Endeavour I built a few years back and see what I did there. I would go look at the model but need a step ladder to see it atop one of the ship model dsplay cases. It is so big it would overpower any room where it sat. Plus since I do not have a case for it (it is almost 5' tall) I do not see the dust building up.

 

Anyway here is the boom with the sanding sealer drying. I have not cut the boom to it final length yet to have easy placxes to hold it.

I tapered the mast and added the fittings at the top. I could not get the supplied eye bolt to engage because there is very little room behind the filler piece so i used a home made eye bolt. It is all going to be painted white anyway so all I need is a place to hold the bitter end of the main halyard tackle (the other end gets glued into the opening above the eye bolt).

The mast also has a coat of sanding sealer and will be treated the same as the boom getting all the "extras" added on before painting.

 

 

[cdrusn89]

I took out the sails and decided maybe it would be a good idea to hang them up to at least reduce the creases from being folded in the box for who knows how long.

 

Seeing the fuzz at the bottom of the sheet makes me want to use fabric glue along the line when they are cut out. Don't ask me how I know but once the fraying starts it is hard to stop.

 

I finished the boom and its hardware. Instead of the supplied eye bolts I made my own from 24 gauge wire with an .047 "hole" which is close to what would been obtained using the ones supplied.  A word of caution for anyone else who builds this - there is one 24" brass rod (1mm) supplied for all the brass needed for the boom. That is not enough to make more than a mistake or two cutting the pieces for the four arms and "arch" (the rod across the top of the boom where the mainsail attaches). Also the nails supplied with the "gooseneck" (where boom attaches to mast) are way too long. I had to cut the nails to less than half the delivered length. I am thinking about putting some primer on the brass as I neglected to clean it before but I had to handle it enough that I doubt a prior cleaning would be good enough.

I also got the nav equipment painted and a first coat of clear flat on the deck furniture.

I am going to suspend work on Rainbow and shift focus to taking pictures of a previous build for the NRG Photo Contest. I should be back to Rainbow in a day or two.