Red Dragon by UpstateNY - FINISHED - Artesania Latina - Scale 1:60

[mrangus]

Hello Nigel,

Very clean and crisp build here.

I was drawn to your id name as I spend a week every summer up at Lake George with my family and have fallen in love with the area.

Anyways, wanted to comment on your fantastic work and will keep to the subject.

 

Thanks.

Robb

[xken]

Nigel, great build and I enjoy the extra effort to add details not included. 

 

Keep up the great work!

Ken

[UpstateNY]

Hi Ed, Robb and Ken,

 

Thanks for stopping by and I appreciate the very kind compliments.  Really glad I found MSW with all the great support out there to help new builders like myself. The Red Dragon is proving to be a really fun build and adding the extra details here and there is an extra challenge I am really enjoying.

 

Robb,

 

Glad to know you like this area.  I am pretty new up here still, but love it as well. I hope you have another great visit again this year. 

 

Cheers,

 

Nigel.

[UpstateNY]

HI All,

 

Been making some progress on turning railings as I realized for the poop deck railings, I didn’t need as much height as for the entrance railings. This allowed me to cut off some of the bases so I could repurpose some of my earlier attempts. I then just cherry picked those pieces that matched reasonably well for height and shape. Railing was as usual slightly edge bent using heat to follow the poop bulwark’s curve. After gluing up, using the end of my ruler as a square to keep things as vertical as possible, I then finished the rails with a couple of coats of WOP.  Hopefully my test fit shows the completed railings pass at least the famous “looks OK from a galloping horse" test! Macro shot shows I need to even up a base or two.  Macro images are just plain tough...show up everything! Oh well...if at first you don't succeed...! 

 

Final shot shows my new ‘rigging table”…which is my captain’s old play table which she has now completely outgrown. Height is about 20 in and is ~50in long by 33in wide so my little Dragon looks rather lost on it!     It also works great as a plan table. 

 

The black chair is my old astronomy observing chair and is infinitely adjustable for height as the seat grips the back rails using a plastic friction bar. Needs a foot rest at the highest settings  (~36in so at least I do!) but again will work well for rigging w/o bending over or standing up for ever. I’ve not seen anyone mention these chairs before so figured I’d post in case it interests someone. They aren’t cheap, but I find mine sturdy and comfortable. Link below for those not into astronomy. Not done any checks for price so look around before you take the plunge if you like it.

 

https://www.astronomics.com/astronomy-viewing-chairs_c457.aspx

 

Thanks for reading and of course to those that hit the like button and made the kind comments. Support here on MSW is just great for us newbies! 

 

 

Cheers,

 

Nigel.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[augie]

Forget the horse.  Those look good from my chair!

 

Speaking of which, your astronomer's chair looks very interesting.  Thanks for the info.

[mrangus]

The details look great Nigel. Very clean lines.

[UpstateNY]

Hi All,

 

So, work on the Dragon has resumed after a great, but all too short, vacation with the family.

 

A few posts ago, Captain Steve wondered if there was a way to make the cannon carriages on the Dragon more authentic than those provided in the kit.  I decided to try and scratch out the carriages using a picture I found on the web as a reference. I also wanted to lower the height of the cannons to better center the cannons in the ports. 

 

Carriages were made by gluing eight 5mm walnut strips together and then slowly filing out the carriage shape using my needle files. After cutting the excess wood away, the glue was then loosened by soaking in water overnight to separate the pieces. The carriages were then assembled using another piece of 5mm walnut as the base and 1mm wide walnut strips to form the feet. I hope the finished prototype looks OK and certainly a little different from the kit carriages.

 

In other news, the Admiral and Captain looked after me this Father's Day and the Lady Confederacy has now docked in Saratoga Springs!  . Be a while before I start her as I must finish my Dragon first!

 

Thumbnails below and thanks for reading.

 

Cheers,

 

Nigel.

 

 

 

 

 

[CaptainSteve]

That's a really distinctive cannon base, Nigel. There's certainly no way anyone is going to confuse it with a European-built one now.

[augie]

I'm with Cap'n Steve on this!

[UpstateNY]

Hi All,

 

Well, I’ve hit the 6th month mark and while I’ve not been keeping a detailed time log, I think I am at about the 250hr mark.

 

Work continued on the cannons to file off the casting marks using Ken's (xken) tips in his Niagara log (Thanks Ken!). I also opened up the cannon mouths...well tried at least!

 

Drilling out the mouths was a real challenge in terms of just holding them firmly and my Dremel drill bits, while saying were for metal, couldn't drill out the metal cleanly. After making rather a mess of the mouths, I then slowly filed out the mouths using the end of my round needle file.  I repaired the mouths as best I could using drops of CA, allowing them to harden, filing to shape and then repeating until they looked  passable before painting them.  Not yet sure I am happy enough with the cannons to keep them...back up plan is to buy some from Chuck and he also has some nice swivel guns that would be fun to add. Every cloud has a silver lining I guess  .

 

Capstan was assembled using the kit parts and then the brass work was blackened using Casey’s Birchwood solution. I also completed the doors, adding the hinges and door handles. Hinge bolts were made using the head from some brass planking nails. Smallest details I've ever tried to make by far!  

 

Final item this week was I added the cannon port rings to the bulwarks. Kit only provided 4 rings for the outsides of the ports (really AL??), so now I need to figure out how to make some decent rings from some brass wire. 

 

Images below and as always thanks for reading. Hope everyone on the States enjoyed their 4th July.

 

Cheers,

 

Nigel.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[augie]

Details are looking good.  Your work on the cannons will pay off....one way or another.  Chuck's cannons are superb if you go that way.  Hopefully you can get a very close match regarding the size.  

[UpstateNY]

Thanks Augie...and yes all the work was worthwhile as I learned a lot.

 

Chuck's smallest cannons are a bit larger, but I think will still fit.  More worried about the size of the cannon's mouth as there is little room to widen the ports further really even I redid the brass port rings.   I will probably have to redo the carriages again of course.  

 

During my yard work this morning, I decided to go ahead and do it...no point in not making the Dragon as good as she possibly can be.

 

Cheers,

 

Nigel.

Edited July 5, 2015 by UpstateNY

[mtaylor]

I just discovered your log... looking very shipshape and Bristol fashion.   Back the lathe, just get some old hacksaw blades and use them on the lathe like a scraper for trim.  Put the design on the blade and cut it with a dremel. It works a treat for duplicating and won't wear out.

[Mirabell61]

nice work Nigel,

 

a fine "exotic looking"  ship model, and you`re doing an excellant Job...

 

Nils

[janet bode]

Janet B                                      Hi Nigel. I like your progress you seem to have done very well, i think your deck looks really great. For myself i have made some progress i have

                                                

                                                  rigged the small boat to the deck and i am just started to rig the tiller, the canopy (for want of a better word) i have used cane, i made three formers

 

                                                  soaked the cane then bent them round the formers with elastic bands when dry they came out spot on. I hope to send some picks that is when i

 

                                                 can find my camera connection.

 

                                                             Regards Janet

Edited July 5, 2015 by Janet B

[UpstateNY]

Hi Mark,

 

Great tip and just what i needed as I've not managed to make a precise turning template yet that really lasts. I even have an old blade to hand I was about to toss so prefect timing! Thank you!

 

Hi Nils,

 

Thank you for stopping by. Very much appreciate your kind words.

 

Hi Janet,

 

Great to hear you are building again and I look forward to seeing your progress. I am sure your Dragon is looking fantastic.

 

Cheers,

 

Nigel.

Edited July 6, 2015 by UpstateNY

[mrangus]

Nigel I'll be up at Lake George next week!

[UpstateNY]

Hi All,

 

Janet's mention in her post above that she is rigging her tiller reminded me I also needed to assemble the rudder and tiller as I am getting pretty close to no longer being able to easily invert my Dragon.

 

I had previously made up the rudder assembly by planking and tree nailing the laser cut former and making up the post using 5mm walnut strips. The tiller was a laser cut part so after cleaning off the char, I drilled out a recess using my Dremel so I could attach the rudder assembly. I added a small walnut piece to the top of the tiller to simulate a through tenon for the rudder post. Brass was used to form the tiller posts for the rigging as well as the larger rod that supports the rudder on the deck.  Just for fun, I also added a brass rod to "pin" the tenon.  Test assembly showed everything seems to fit OK so I just need to blacken the brass and give the wood a coat of poly before gluing everything in place.

 

Thumbnails below...thanks for reading.

Cheers,

 

Nigel.

 

 

 

 

Edited July 8, 2015 by UpstateNY

[UpstateNY]

Hi All,

 

Been enjoying having the in-laws in town and so things have been a bit slow in the shipyard for the past couple of week. However a little progress has still been made here and there.

 

Chainplates were fabricated out of 2mm brass strip and blackened before gluing to the bulwarks.  Chainplate bolts were simulated using the heads from some blackened brass planking pins provided in the kit. Tiller brasswork was also blackened, the rigging eyebolts were added and the tiller was then fixed in place.  I reduced the height of the tiller above the deck vs the plan height as it looked rather out of scale after I looked harder at the image my previous post.  Finally blackened eyebolts were added to the deck, hatches and also to each side of the cannon ports for the breeching ropes.

 

Thumbnails below and thanks for reading.

 

Cheers,

 

Nigel.

 

 

 

 

[UpstateNY]

Hi All,

 

Another small milestone as I just completed my first ever rigging work by adding the tiller rigging.   The rope ,blocks and hooks are all from Chuck and are a huge improvement on the kit supplied items. After attaching the hooks to the blocks, the ropes were secured using diluted wood glue.  I found serving the ropes evenly to be the most difficult part...next time I may try using some thinner thread than the same 0.008in rope I used for the rest of this work. These simple pieces took me about 4 hours to do so I hope with practice I can speed up at least a little. Overall,  I am pretty happy with my first rigging attempt and I think I can use the same basic rigging layout for the cannons.

 

I also made a bit more progress on finishing off the cannon ports. The kit provided some brass finish rings for the outside of the ports, but no extras for the inside of the bulkwarks  So, I made my own from thin brass sheet by initially drilling out the holes in several stages or I found the thin sheet would tear.  The rings were then roughly cut from the sheet using my small tin snips, before being filed to shape using my needle files. I just have to blacken them and glue them into place and I can then start to rig the cannons.

 

I also checked the fit of my replacement cannons.  I caught a break as Chuck's cannons fitted nicely onto the carriages I had already made. His cannons are beautifully machined as are his small swivels. Image below shows the improvement over the kit cannons pretty clearly I think. I hope the swivels will be a nice detail once I've figured out how to make some interesting supports to perhaps compliment the carriages.

 

Thanks to those who hit the like button and of course everyone for following along.

 

Cheers,

 

Nigel.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[GuntherMT]

Excellent rigging, especially for your first go at it.  I agree with you though on the seizing thread, I use some very fine thread I found, not the .008 thread, and I find that it looks much more 'to scale' for the seizing.

 

For the future, you might consider down-sizing the blocks, as most blocks specified by kits are considerably over-size, especially the ones provided by most kits for the gun tackle.

[xken]

Nigel, I concur with Brian on the size of the tackle blocks for the cannons; especially after seeing the ones on my Brig build completed. But that is part of the learning process.

[UpstateNY]

HI Brian and Ken,

 

Thanks for the comments and yep...you are absolutely right on the block size.  I ordered 4mm replacement blocks from Chuck as that matched the kit size.  4mm actually looks a bit big even for the heavy tiller assembly and will certainly be way too big for the cannons. I will order some smaller sizes down to 2mm and see how those look along with some of Chuck's smaller hooks so I scale those as well. Will also find some finer thread for seizing as well.

 

Thanks again for the comments!  

 

Cheers,

 

Nigel.

[UpstateNY]

Hi All,

 

A little more progress to report before I take off to spend a few days in the Vermont mountains with the family.

 

The six deck bitts have been made from 3x3mm walnut strip and some blackened brass rod before pinning and gluing to the deck. The poop deck windlass was remade as a test using thicker walnut dowel for the center bar with some thinner walnut only used to simulate the axles. Once more blackened brass is used for the bars.  I preferred this over the earlier versions I built to the plans so it is now also pinned and glued to the deck.  Now I need to remake the other 5! 

 

The brass cannon port  rings I made in the last post were also blackened and glued to the inside bulkwarks. I can now move ahead to rig the canons using either the 2 or 3mm single blocks that just arrived from Chuck.  Carriages I made are very small so I expect the 2mm will look better, but I am wondering how I will hold onto them long enough to rig them!

 

The bowsprit was made per the plans from some 4x4mm walnut. I inlaid some thick blackened brass rods into the walnut to simulate some fastenings down to the deck. Again it is glued and pinned to the deck.

 

Finally, I went ahead and test fit the masts and flagstaff before I start to taper them....it was good to see the Dragon finally gain some height! 

 

Thanks for reading and of course for the likes.

 

Cheers,

 

Nigel.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 8, 2015 by UpstateNY

[mrangus]

Hey Nigel, looks great! Regarding small blocks, I went to a craft store and bought tiny clothes pins which work very nicely as extra fingers. They can then be clamped pretty easily and I found it was pretty straightforward to work on them with rope.

 

Have a great time in VT! lovely time of year to head up there.

Robb

[UpstateNY]

HI Robb,

 

Thanks for the tip on using those small pegs. Will check them out...perhaps they will help me make some reusable rigging jigs. When I rigged my tiller, I spent more time dropping the blocks than rigging them, so definitely need some type of jig!

 

VT is great and plan to stop by the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum in Vergennes on the way home. Should be fun!

 

Cheers,

 

Nigel..

[UpstateNY]

Hi  All,

 

The past few days I’ve been working to complete all the deck furniture.

 

All the windlasses have been completed and pinned to the deck as has the capstan. I spent a lot of time learning to make my own rings and eyebolts from 26 gauge brass wire as I ran out of the kit supplied items after I used some them on the cannon rigging points. Kit as it comes does not rig the cannons. As part of the cannon rigging setup,  I've used Chucks 5mm boxwood cleats which I think look really good. The laser char was cleaned off using just light scrapping.

 

Last but not least, I finally assembled a cannon to check how it would look. I had to make even smaller eyebolts given the small size of the carriages as the kit ones looked way out of scale. Quoin handle was made using a blackened brass planking nail and the cap squares from painted black card.

 

Next up is to complete the rest of the cannons and fit the mizzen and main mast bitts. Then the cannons need to be rigged before I'll can glue down all the deck furniture.

 

Thanks for reading and the images are below.

 

Cheers,

 

Nigel.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[UpstateNY]

Hi All,

 

Only a small update as I’ve now completed assembly of the other three cannons. Also tried to improve the rather plain kit bitts by adding some 5mm cleats to provide some extra detail. The Images also show I now have some dust removal and other clean up work to do!

 

 I also made my first attempt at a breeching line which strained both my eyes and my patience as I tried to seize the line ends of the 0.025in rope neatly using some thin sewing thread. Found this much harder than the tiller rigging as there was no block to hold. I wilI have to make some jigs to hold the lines firmly as I seize them and also invest in a good magnifying light. I am probably going to finish the masts and the final decking items like the ships boat and railings while I practice rigging.

 

Pictures below…thanks for reading.

 

Cheers,

 

Nigel.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[augie]

Breech seizing looks good.  It get's easier with time!

[UpstateNY]

Thanks for the encouragement Augie!  

 

Will just keep plugging away!

 

Cheers,

 

Nigel.