US Brig Syren by _SalD_ – FINISHED - 3/16" scale

[_SalD_]

Thanks George, thanks Augie.  As for the 'fiddly bits', being that my carving abilities are slim to none I need to make due with what I have.  Lets see what a coat paint does for them.

[_SalD_]

Continuing on with chapter 9, I decided to take another page out of Dirk’s playbook by lining my scuppers with some copper tubing.  Using some 1/16” diameter tubing, one end was reamed out and then cut into 3/32” long pieces.  These pieces were blackened and inserted into the holes drilled in the outboard planking and inboard waterway.

 

 

 

Next I started working on the aft gun and forward bridle port lids.  I decided to make the lids using two plies of wood instead of the one as shown in the instructions.  The outboard side of the lid was made from 1/16” x 1/8” wide strips and the inboard side was made using 1/32” x 5/32” wide strips.  The two plies were run 90 degrees to each other and the inboard strips were sanded down to create the rabbet around the door. For the lid's inboard and outboard handles I tried my hand at making some small split rings that were attached to the provided eyebolts. The split rings were made by first winding some 28 gauge brass wire around the shank of a 1mm diameter drill bit.  Little sections of the coil were then cut off to form the rings.  After placing the rings on the eyebolts the ends were flatten to close the ring.  These pieces along with the photo-etched hinges were blackened.  After staining and painting the lids the handles were added and then glued into their appropriate gun port.  The hinges were added last to finish the lids.   It wasn’t until I was attaching the bridle port hinges that I noticed that they were not as long as shown in the manual.  At that point I decided to use what was provided although I noticed afterwards that I could have easily made longer ones by using some of the excess material that’s on the photo-etched sheet.

 

 

 

 

The sixteen remaining lower gun port lids were built similar to the aft lid except for the half circle cutout.  The circular cutout was done by using an 1/8” diameter, 240 grit, sanding drum on my dremel and then cleaned up with a circular needle file.  They were stained and painted and the inboard handles added.  I still need to add the hinges before installing these lids.

 

 

 

 

[Jimz66]

Looks great Sal. Thats the one I didn't have a chance to photograph on Saturday. Wish I had... Hope all is well. See you in June. 

[GLakie]

Nice work Sal! I like what you did with the scuppers, and a nice clean, tight fit on the bridle-port and gun-ports.

 

Cheers 

[_SalD_]

Looks great Sal. Thats the one I didn't have a chance to photograph on Saturday. Wish I had... Hope all is well. See you in June. 

 

Thanks Jim see you next meeting

 

Nice work Sal! I like what you did with the scuppers, and a nice clean, tight fit on the bridle-port and gun-ports.

 

Cheers 

 

Thanks George, the scuppers I need to give credit to Dirk for giving me the idea to do them that way.

[_SalD_]

It seems like this is a never ending chapter.  Actually there is just a lot of prep work that needs to be done for all the pieces, i.e., eye bolts, split rings, hinges, staining, painting, etc., and there are a lot of pieces.  But the ship is starting to come together.

 

After assembling all the parts of the gun port lids they were installed on each side of the ship.

 

 

The boarding ladder steps were made from two pieces of 1/32” thick strips cut to a rough shape and then sanded to the correct size.  To help with installing these steps on the hull a piece of tape was placed on the hull corresponding to one edge of the steps.  To get an even spacing of the steps I placed four marks on the tape, prior to placing it on the hull, dividing it into five equal spaces.  The steps were then glued to the hull at their corresponding mark on the tape.

 

 

 

 

The fenders were also cut to fit between the cap rail and top wale, stained, painted and glued into position.

 

[augie]

Steps and fenders look great ---- nicely aligned.  These little details do seem to take forever but really make her shine in the end.  At some point in future you'll step  back and thing 'Holy cow, I did that ????? '.  Yup, you're doing it !

[_SalD_]

Thanks Augie, can't wait to do the cannons with all their parts!!

 

Thanks for the likes too.

[GLakie]

She looks great Sal!  You're doing a fine job! 

 

Cheers

[Jimz66]

Looks great Sal. As always. Enjoying your progress. 

[_SalD_]

George, Jim, I appreciate the kind words and thanks for looking in. 

[Gahm]

Very nicely done, Sal! And I fully agree with Augie, the details are a lot of work, but they make all the difference later on! Btw, depending on how you build the cannons, they are a lot of (repetitive) details, too 

 

Thomas

[_SalD_]

Thanks Thomas, this chapter is a lot of work but it's also very rewarding, especially when all the pieces go on and like Augie said, you sit back and say 'holy sh*t I did that', or something like that. 

[JesseLee]

Just found this build. Wish I had seen it earlier. I recently started the Syren myself. More complicated than anything I've ever done before. I'll be studying your build a lot to help me along! Looking great!

[_SalD_]

Thanks Jesse, I've been following your build also. This is a nice ship to build, it's well designed and Chuck's instructions are easy to follow and there are a lot of excellent Syren build logs on MSW to "borrow" ideas from.  

[CaptMorgan]

Looks like things are progressing along in excellent fashion.

Mine is pretty much on hold during the summer months, too many other things going on.

Keep up the great work 

[_SalD_]

Thanks RR, have a great summer.

[_SalD_]

The laser cut main and fore channels were removed from the basswood sheet and sanded to remove the char.  Eye bolt shanks that were cut off the eye bolts used to make the gun port lid handles were used for pins set into the channels to help secure them to the ship.

 

 

To help locate the holes in the channels for the eye bolts used for the rigging I made copies of the channels from the drawings to use as patterns.  The port channels are shown on sheet 1and the starboard channels are on sheet 8.  The patterns were cut out and placed over the channels and the holes were drilled at the appropriate locations.  The eye bolts were not installed until the channels were glued to the hull.

 

 

The channels were painted and glued into position.  I found it easier to mark the location of the channel pins and to drill the holes in the sheer strake with the ship upside down but then installed the channels with the ship right side up.  The eye bolts were glued into the channels after the glue set over night.

 

[GLakie]

 She's looking pretty sweet Sal!  Very nice! 

[augie]

Nice!  Glad you're pinning your channels.  You should consider that also for pin and fife rails as you don't want any surprises while your rigging.

[_SalD_]

As always thank you George and Augie for the kind words.  And I will definitely take your advice Augie to pin everything down.

 

I'd like to thank everyone for hitting the like button also.

[_SalD_]

Things are moving right along now and I think I see the light at the end of chapter nine’s tunnel (or maybe it’s the headlights of oncoming traffic    ).  For the letters making up the ship’s name I decided, since there was more than one photo-etched set, to double them up to make the letters a little thicker.  This was done by removing one whole set of letters and gluing it on top of another set.  I also liked the spacing of the letters so I removed them as a whole.   The letters were given three coats of paint and allowed to dry thoroughly.

 

 

 

To apply the letters to the hull, first I wrapped a 1/16” square wood strip, about 1” long, with painter’s tape sticky side out.  I then pressed this strip to the painted side of the letters.  Next, using a nice little flush cut nipper that I recently purchased, I carefully cut the letters loose from the part of the photo-etched sheet that was holding them together.

 

 

To affix the letters to the ship I sprayed the back side of the letters with a spray-on-adhesive and then pressed them into position.  After a minute or two I carefully removed the wooden strip. In the long run I don’t know if all that effort was really required to set the letters but the name appears to have come out okay.

 

 

After the name was applied I installed the stern gun port lids.  Please note that I installed these ports with the ship upside down and the picture has been rotated 180 degrees hence the gravity defying lid ropes.

 

[augie]

Effort paid off.  Darned, I LIKE that double thickness !!!

[Jimz66]

Nicely done Sal... Keep going. 

[GLakie]

Those double-thick letters really make her name stand out nicely Sal! 

[_SalD_]

Thanks Jim, Augie & George.  I like the thicker letters too, I just hope I don't need the extra set someplace else.

[Gahm]

The placement of the name turned out very nicely!

 

Thomas

[Jimz66]

Sure did. 

[_SalD_]

Thanks Thomas

[JesseLee]

That turned out great Sal. I've been studying your log today back at the steps where I'm at on my Syren. It's helping me out a lot. I'm sure I'll have a few questions for you along the way.