Rattlesnake by Jon219 - Model Shipways - 1:64 - First Build

[scott larkins]

Good job of thinking ahead there.  Those cannons are a real bugger to rope in aren't they.  Looks good.

[Jon219]

Decks Finished

 

Finished the last deck and went with a light pine stain to finish the decking.  I measured the width of the planks on the plans and tried to match that as I built the deck out from the center and was able to get much closer to the look of the planks matching the curve of the outside hull even though I started in the center.

 

Next I'll be working on getting the details finished on the gun deck, mostly the cannons.

 

[scott larkins]

Looking good there.  Stain really came out well against the othe colors.

[NenadM]

Really nice work!

[JPett]

Ahoy Jon  

 

I agree. The color is excellent. The whole deck came out really nice. Could you share with us the product you used and anything important you did to achieve this color. Stain and Basswood generally don't play well. 

 

Thx  

[Jon219]

I used Minwax Wood Finish found at my local Lowes.  They had several different finishes and I picked the lightest color I could find.  I just brushed it on (small brush, tiny amount each time), waited about 30 seconds and if any area looked light I brushed a little more on, then dabbed any excess off with a paper towel.  Did each of the three decks one at a time.

 

Edited November 26, 2014 by Jon219

[Jon219]

Cannons

 

Been working on these little buggers for a while but finally have them done.  I felt like I wanted to add as much detail to them as I could so I added brass plates on the top of where the cannons pivot.  I put a bit of a dent in each one of the brass plates by pushing it down on top of a pin with a pair of plairs.  I had to order extra eyebolts, single and double blocks to do all the rigging on them but felt it was worth it.

 

I finished each rope with a knot where it ends and right now the ropes are loose on the deck and I'm trying to decide if I'll glue them in position, right now I'm leaning to gluing them down just to get a neater look.  They aren't really long enough to roll up but some of them seem to want to go where it doesn't seem natural.  I want to finish the other pieces of this deck before deciding on that and if I do glue them where they should be.

 

Have a couple of pieces to finish on this deck, the gangways, and I'll have to start the lifeboat at some point, I've kinda been putting that off.

 

 

[NenadM]

Very nice and precise work.

 

Some positions just have to be left for latter time, to give them chance to "sit" in your eyes and mind properly. This is something I call "artistic approach", which I use a lot as a compensation for luck of skill. You do not have skill problem as I have, but it is said " morning is clever than evening"

 

Marvelous work

 

Nenad

Edited December 21, 2014 by Nenad M

[JPett]

Ahoy Jon  

 

Really nice work. I like the fact that you have included so much of the cannon rigging and managed to keep it looking neat and uncluttered.

 

As for the ropes I have worked in theater and find the coils I see on many builds something that may have been done for inspection but I can assure you that was it. If this is something of interest you could neatly coil another piece of line and position it on top of your existing one hiding the two ends. I have had my eyes out to try and find out how the line was handled during battle. I am quite sure there was a procedure that did not involve spending the time to make pretty little coils. My guess is they 'over, undered' the line or laid it in a figure eight or pattern which could be done quite quickly and would ensure the rope did not foul in the block. Which BTW would have been catastrophic. 

 

Looking forward to seeing what you do 

[JSGerson]

I agree with JPett with regards to the "pretty" rope coils. I didn't do it because I felt a working boat wouldn't have them. I also read that on real boats they retain moisture under them and therefore are susceptible to rot. As for gluing down the gun carriages, I did do that. The tiny ropes pull on the light weight guns and can lift them so that not all of the trucks may be on the deck. It's just more secure.

[Jon219]

Bow, Cheeks, Headrails and Platform

 

Got to confess that the more I looked at the plans and instructions the more uncertain I was how to approach these.  It seems like every piece depends on another piece to fit in the right place and I had no idea where to start. I have checked out the excellent work by others of you that have done this and it was a great help.  I decided to first put the cheeks in since they seemed to be the foundation for everything about them. I cut them out of 1/16" Basswood  and then sanded them thinner leaving them thicker at the very end for the curl flourish, I think they're probably a little wider than they should be now that I have them on the ship.  Then I soaked them and taped/tie wrapped them in position to get the approximate curves.  Sanded again to get a nice fit and then painted the dark red I've been using and made the edges yellow to help bring out the detail.  This seemed to go OK, except somewhere I got confused about there the anchor chain comes out and I put the piece that reinforces that below the top cheek instead of above.  By the time I figured that out it just seemed like it was best to let that be and continue on.

 

Trying to work out the relationship of the headrails and the platform so I went ahead and built the platform. I sliced and sanded some strips to get the grating on the platform but I left a space in the middle since the gammoning has to go somewhere, if I've figured this out correctly the gammoning should go in the space of the center of the platform.  I also made a space on the cheeks where the gammoning can pass through.

 

 

 I'm hoping that by having the platform to put in place I can make the headrails the right shape and position to work now.  At this point the platform will sit in place without any glue so I'm hoping to make all these pieces fit somehow.

 

Next I'll work on the headrails and see if this will all come together.

 

 

 

 

[scott larkins]

Nice way to put that piece together.

[RevKB]

Johnathan, great build ! I absolutely love what you did in the stern, i had contemplated the same thing , but chose not to as this was only going to be my second ship and I wanted to get another one under my belt by the book before I wreaked one.again great work.

[Jon219]

Headrails and Platform

 

I've added the top headrail and the headtimbers.  This didn't really end up matching the instructions or plans very closely as I just tried to add it layer by layer, adjusting the ideal (plans) against what I could make work.  Hopefully its not too far off.  the biggest change right now is that there's no second headrail.  I had plans to add it after the top headrail and headtimbers but I can find a way to do it no that looks like it would fit between the top headrail and cheek.  I think my headrail and cheeks are still a bit on the large clunky side and if I'd made them trimmer and sleeker then the last headrail would fit.  I'll keep looking at it for now to see what I can do.

 

Added back the gammoning and it fit nicely in the space I left in the platform for it, and I also added the boomkins and their guy ropes.  As usual the pictures show where I need to go back and touch up things.

 

 

 

I think I'm going to work on more deck details next.  The capstan provided is a mess so I'm planning on building one and I have the deck buckets and holder as well to work out.  The buckets provided don't look so great but maybe with some filing they can be salvaged.

 

 

[sport29652]

I love your build. I'm just a bit behind you I'll be using you as a guide. Keep up the great work

[Jon219]

Capstan  Railing Posts Idea

 

Decided I couldn't use the metal Capstan that came with the model so I've made one.  It seemed pretty straightforward, just cutting out the pieces and putting them together.  One thing I've decided is that staining the wood to make it darker looks much better to me than painting the wood brown.  I wish I had discovered that before making the cannons, I think they'd look a lot better with stain than they do with the brown paint but can't see pulling them out at this point, lesson learned.  I also found that the best way to stain small pieces is to just pick them up with the tweezers and dunk them in the stain.  I'm using the Minwax Wood Finish Stains I pictured before and I have three shades now, the light natural look, a red mahogony and a dark walnut.  It seems to me that giving different functional pieces different shades helps my eyes see the detail better when everything is so small.  I would think that different pieces on a ship would be made of different woods so hopefully the different shades aren't too crazy.

 

This Capstan that I made from the plans is a little bigger than the one included but I'm trusting the plans, it's pretty big on the deck.

 

 

One other problem I may have solved is the posts for the railings on the sides of the ship.  I've wanted to have something that wasn't just smooth wood and didn't see a way to shape that many different pieces and get any consistency.  I discovered these toothpicks at my local Albertsons and I think they may work for the railing posts.  They have a nice shape at the top and I can just cut to the desired length for the posts, we'll see.  It was $3 for a package of 250 so no loss if they don't work out.  I already used the toothpick for the two capstan posts.

 

 

 

[dgbot]

Nice way of thinking outside the box. I admire your ingenuity.

David B

[scott larkins]

Capstan came out really well.

[Jon219]

Deck Details

 

I've been working on the binnacle, bitts, and outside ladders plus I finished up the pieces on he platform.  I decided to make the binnacle instead of using the metal piece included with the kit and I'm glad I did, it seems that wood looks better than metal for things that are made out of wood.  I also finished up the first railing with the posts made from the toothpicks I found and it worked just like I hoped it would.

 

Still have the gangways, kevels, chesstrees, and lots of cleats and eyes to finish out the deck details.  I also have started on the lifeboat and boy is there a lot of sanding with this.  The outside isn't too bad but the inside is really hard to find room to work.  I did try what I'd seen suggested here and left the bottom piece off to try and help to get to the inside but it didn't really work for me so I've gone ahead and glued the bottom on.

 

I found some spray paint for the metal pieces that should be black (cleats and smokestack) and I really wish I had thought of that when I did the cannons.  Spray paint looks much better than brushed paint to me, at least on these pieces.  I just made a jig with holes in if for the cleats to hold them while I spray pint them and that seems to work well for tiny pieces.

 

 

 

 

[JSGerson]

You've made a very nice clean looking model.

 

Got any close-up images on those deck details? I also noticed that you added the hull ladder. Don't forget to add the billboard. It's easier now than later.

[Jon219]

Is the billboard the fake window near the stern?  I've been struggling with what to do with those since the kit pieces aren't very even and the hull still has some curve where they need to go so I can't figure out how to get them to lay flat against the hull.  I've considered dipping them in hot (boiling) water to see if the metal will get a little more pliable where I can shape it but I haven't tried that yet.  I've also considered trying to make them from wood but the carving still seems way above my skill level.

[dgbot]

Your Rattlesnake is really showing why she is such a beauty and popular.

David B

[JSGerson]

The billboard is at the bow of the ship. It protects the hull were the anchor rubs against it. It's called the billboard because the triangular points on the anchor are called "bills." 

 

As for the side hull stern window decoration, I followed Harold Hahn's plans which were based on the Royal Admiralty original rendering of the ship when they captured her. Those plans don't show any decorations at all, so I didn't put any on. You will find that a lot of Rattler modelers didn't ether. The choice is yours.

[Jon219]

Thank you so much, I haven't seen anything in the plans or instructions that says anything about the billboard but that make perfect sense.  I will add that now!

[JSGerson]

Actually it is shown on the Model Shipways plans, you just may not have recognized what it was. The instruction booklet does mention the billboard once (that I have found) on Page 23 figure 34. They just didn't give you much to go on. That's one of the reasons that I'm going so slow in my build. I do a lot of reading and comparing what others have done and then I do some wrong and do it over again, once if I'm lucky. 8-).

 

Even though my model is made by Mamoli, I have the Model Shipway plans and instruction booklet, Harold Hahn's plans, and even the plans for the model that resides at the Smithsonian. No two are alike.

 

Jonathan G

[gerty]

Beautiful work - nice job !

[Jon219]

Thanks for pointing out where it is in the booklet, I've probably studied that diagram 20 times and never noticed it. 

[Jon219]

Deck Finishings  Looking at Starting Masts

 

I'm trying to finish up as many of the deck details as I can find.  It seems like every time I look at the plans I notice something new, the latest one is I realized that there's a chesstree on the outside of the hull that I hadn't seen before.  I've added the rest of the railings, pins, eyes, ringbolts, kevels, buckets and the iron horse on the deck, and the billboard on the hull.  I also finally addressed the problem of the ropes for the cannons,  some of them were OK but others just came out at obviously wrong angles so I decided to just try to have them lay naturally beside the cannon.  I just used a bit of superglue on the very end and stuck them to the deck.  Many of the deck pieces aren't glued down yet,  I feel that I'll just break them off so I'm waiting to see when that sweet spot of getting them glued down will be.

 

I have to say here that every time I look at the other Rattlesnake builds I'm so inspired.  I see how the others of you have done things so amazing and I tell myself that I will try to make mine that good as well.  I haven't gotten there yet but I'm getting a little better as I go though this process. Thank you so much for sharing your work and ideas.

 

 

I started looking at the masts and stared to plan them so I cut a dowel for the main and fore mast and gave an initial go at shaping.  I'm not sure if it's me or the dowel wood or what but I can't seem to make much headway on shaping.  I got my electric drill and chucked the end of the main mast down and sanded like crazy for what seemed like forever and did almost nothing.  i picked up a cheap caliper at Frys and after all the work I did, including using a knife to cut, I was able to get one small section of the mast from 6.33MM to 6.05MM while I think I need to get down to near 5MM with a smooth taper.  The dowel wood just seems like concrete.  I felt like I've gotten pretty good at sanding and filing to create shapes (at least with the basswood) but the dowel wood just seems to hard.  I've read some of the information on creating the masts from square stock so I think I'll go to the local Hobby Lobby and see if I can find some basswood that might be the right size and give it a shot.  The one thing that concerns me a bit is the strength of the basswood, it seems like there will be a lot of stress and pulling on the masts and I'm not sure it'll be strong enough.

[dgbot]

I found beech a nice wood for masts and spars. As for the drill method. I have started out with shaving shaving squart stock to the dimension I want then starting with 120 grit sandpaper run it until round then progress to finer grit to get a smooth finish mark the dimension and shave again then start over until the final shaping. About a half hour to do one then on to the next.

David B

[scott larkins]

Jon,

Your build is coming along great, really.  Keep it up.