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

[UpstateNY]

Hi All,

 

Continue to enjoy putting the decking furniture together. Large and small windlasses are assembled, with the next step being to drill the holes for the various bars.  Mizzen and main mast bitts were also assembled.

 

My first try at a ladder however leaves a lot to be desired! I’ve no idea how I got the fourth tread so badly misaligned after getting the first three to look reasonable, especially as the side supports had laser cut grooves. Some corrective surgery is called for!  At least the second ladder looks better…I now need to figure out how to add some handrails.

 

I also started to look at the ships boat which is just a piece of rough machine carved basswood w some plywood bow and stern end pieces  Um….so I've taken a couple of tries at making a small keel to learn how to build something from scratch. Not good enough yet, but still fun.

 

The other entertaining item is the bow and stern decorations are.....stickers! Looks like Iearning how to carve is in my future….

 

Enjoy your weekend everyone! 

 

Cheers

 

Nigel.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[augie]

When I read words like 'having fun' and 'enjoying' it makes me smile right along.  Your work is neat and clean....and she's lookin' good!

 

Ladders can be frustrating.  I've made several with my patented 85-95 degree 'right' angles and they wind up in the scrap box.  Be patient.....you'll get it.  And good thinking on the ship's boat.

 

Now as for the stickers..........    

[UpstateNY]

Thanks for all your kind words and encouragement Augie....best part is if you get a smile out of it all as well.

 

As for your patented 85-95 degree ladders...I need to graduate from the "measure twice, cut once,  oh Rats" school of woodworking before I need to worry about paying you a royalty fee!  Perhaps I should just raid your scrap box  .

 

Stay tuned as regards the stickers...more fun on the way here as I figure out what the heck to do about those....

 

Cheers,

 

Nigel.

 

PS...Thanks  again to those who have hit the like button along the way and to all for just dropping by.  Enjoy your builds! 

[texxn5]

Hello Nigel I just found your log. Very nice Junk. I have seen the Black w/Red Sails Junk in Hong Kong Harbor and have a great admiration for Junks...they are unique. I look forward to following the rest of the build. Your lathe shipped out this morning so you should get it in time for the weekend. Keep up the good work

John

[UpstateNY]

Hi John,

 

Welcome and thanks for the tip on the red sails....I just did a fast search and found some images of the junk you mention. Red sails could be cool given it is a "Red Dragon" and the sailcloth that comes with the kit  also seems pretty heavy so replacing it could be an option. Perhaps some practice mast tapering this weekend as well.

 

Cheers,

 

Nigel.

Edited May 4, 2015 by UpstateNY

[Dimitris71]

Hello Nigel, just saw your build log. You are doing a great and clean work on your Red dragon!! :)

 

Best Regards

Dimitris

[UpstateNY]

Hi Dimitris,

 

Welcome and thanks for the kind words.

 

Pretty happy so far with my Dragon, but I certainly have some work to do on those ladders. Your ladders on your Amerigo Vespucci are just beautiful with those curves.

 

Cheers,

 

Nigel.

[UpstateNY]

HI All,

 

Last few evenings I spent entertaining myself trying to learn to carve.  The idea of those stickers has been rather bugging me!

 

Process I used was to just photocopy the stickers and glue them onto a basswood sheet. I then just slowly chipped out the wood around the pattern until it released. Then using the sticker as a guide, I slowly added in some basic detail using my smallest knife and different shaped needle files.  Seems that the basic process will work, but I will need a lot of practice before I can make something that will be clean enough to use.  Practice makes perfect as always I guess!

 

Cheers,

 

Nigel.

 

 

 

 

Edited May 6, 2015 by UpstateNY

[Jparsley]

Nice

[CaptainSteve]

If that is your first attempt, then I suspect it won't be too long before your dragons are looking scarier than Smaug himself !!

[Dimitris71]

Hello Nigel, I agree with CaptainSteve 100% !! :)

 

Cheers

Dimitris

[edmay]

Hello Nigel,I also agree,great carving effort,Your model has been nicely done,very neat and clean.Edwin

[UpstateNY]

Thanks for all the encouragement and the more than kind words guys.  Really appreciated. 

 

Will take a few more practice turns in basswood and then perhaps try carving "Smaug" using boxwood. I've heard this wood holds detail well.

 

Now I need to figure out how to redo my wonky ladders....

 

Cheers,

 

Nigel.

[janet bode]

Hi UpstateNY

Your treenaling looks very good,as a point i did all my drilling by hand i felt it was a bit more controlable.

 

                           Regards Janet B

[janet bode]

Hi UpstateNY

            At this rate you will soon catch me up,i think the amount of effort you have put into your ship is amazing.The ladders i tried a number of ways before i came

across a way which for me turned out quite resonable,i have a Sherline Mill i also bought the vice and the indexed plate,so i fix the plate to the m/c table makeing sure

it is square to the mill ,then the vice fits onto the indexable plate then i set the vice to the angle i require .Haveing set up i place a strip of wood about 3/4"wide and say 6" long

then i just mill the side slots for the ladder sides all the way along the wood,to do the other ladder sides is just the same except you turn the vice in the index plate round the

other way,  i then just cut the wood to the size i require, for the slots i use milling cuters 0.5mm from www.mscdirect.co.uk

 

             Regards Janet B

Edited May 10, 2015 by Janet B

[UpstateNY]

Hi Janet,

 

Putting the extra little details in along the way has been really enjoyable.  I certainly doubt I am going to catch you up! 

 

Thanks for the details on the ladder method. Very nice indeed. I don't have a mill so I am just figuring out how to make these cleanly by hand.

 

Cheers,

 

Nigel.

[Stavrogin]

Looks amazing Nigel.

[UpstateNY]

Hi All,

 

Past week or so has been spent learning how to make acceptable ladders. Without a mill or table saw to keep things 100% true, this proved a very challenging given my current woodworking skills. 

 

I tried several jigs and methods and in the end I used the basswood jig shown below to cut small tread support structures and then the treads to keep everything consistent. 3mm supports seemed to be correct for the Dragon's 1:60 scale to hold a decent tread separation.  I tried 5mm, but these only allowed 5 treads for the completed ladder so the scale looked wrong. The support structures were then glued on to the side rails using a dummy tread to separate the supports consistently on the side rail and hold the needed right angle between the support and the tread. Final adjustments were done by eye as the two sides of the ladder were assembled.

 

Thumbnails are below showing the jig with the individual pieces cut, my various learning attempts and the final version to the far right. Kit ladders are to the far left showing the problems I had with their misaligned pre-cut slots. Final picture is from my test fit of the pair of ladders against the poop deck. Overall I am pretty happy with the way these look now...they are at least better than I could manage using the kit ladders.  . Macro shots show I still have to tweak the port ladder to fully correct for the deck curvature.

 

As always, thanks for reading and for all the kind comments and likes.

 

Cheers,

 

Nigel.

 

 

 

[UpstateNY]

Hi All,

 

Next up on the deck furniture is to make the various railing and posts. AL provides some simple square stock to make these, but I figured it would be fun to try turning the posts using my new lathe. It would at least give me some practice before I have to try tapering my masts.  

 

I made a template for the posts from some copper sheet, following the method Janos posted in post #159 in KeithW’s great Royal William log. Probably should have found some brass or steel as the copper didn’t seem to hold much of an edge. I then used the template to shape each post after turning down the 3mm walnut strip.

 

Janos's post: http://modelshipworld.com/index.php/topic/7195-hms-royal-william-by-keithw-euromodel-172/page-8

 

After a bunch of practice runs, I made up one of the starboard railings using the more presentable posts. Seems the technique will work with more practice. I am also thinking I need to add more posts as the gaps look a bit wide.

 

Thumbnails below.

 

Cheers,

 

Nigel.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[augie]

They look great.  Yes, brass will last longer than copper if you can manage to cut it.  

[UpstateNY]

Thanks for the advice Augie.  Appreciate it.

 

I managed to find some 0.014in thick brass tube at the hardware store. Hopefully it will be thin enough to easily cut and file to make the template, but still stiff enough that it will work to shape the posts.

 

Cheers,

 

Nigel.

[janet bode]

Hi UpstateNY

              I think your posts look great,one thing about this kit is that it is easy to change and add your own ideas.things are a little slow for me as i have developed

glucoma and i am struggeling with my eye sight,not all that bad i am now recieving treatment so hope to resume soon.

 

                              Regards Janet B

[UpstateNY]

Hi Janet,

 

Sorry to hear about the glaucoma, but glad to know things are improving with treatment. Looking forward to hearing that all is OK soon.

 

I agree that this kit does allow extra details to be added as your build and also Vivian's show so well.

 

Thanks for the kind words on my turned posts. Trying to file down some brass rod right now to make a more durable, and hopefully much sharper, template.

 

Cheers,

 

Nigel.

[UpstateNY]

Hi All,

 

To provide a little break from turning the multitude of posts I need for all the railings (rather slow going right now ), I decided to assemble the cannons. The macro shots are very unforgiving, but at normal viewing distances, they don't look so bad. I am thinking about trying to drill out the mouths and perhaps try to smooth out the cast lines to clean them up a bit.  Chuck has replacements if I mess up as I certainly doubt I can turn my own right now!  Casey’s brass blackening solution is also now on its way so I can add the brass hardware to the carriages and the other details like the windlass bars to the other deck furniture. 

 

Thumbnails below as usual and thanks for reading. Slowly, but surely she is taking shape  .

 

Cheers,

 

Nigel.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[augie]

Hey .... they fit in the gun ports.  Congrats!!!!

[NMBROOK]

Great work Nigel

 

Kind Regards

 

Nigel

[CaptainSteve]

Beautiful work there, Nigel.

 

I was jus' wondering tho' ... can you 'Orientalize' your cannons somehow ??

Whilst I really do not know HOW you could go about doing this, I would imagine that cannons on a Chinese vessel would look vastly different to those from a 17th Century European ship.

[UpstateNY]

Hi Nigel, 

 

Thank you for stopping by and for the kind words. Appreciate them very much.

 

Hi Augie,

 

Yes, they fit, but only just! I may need to open up the ports a bit more or....

 

Hi Captain Steve,

 

Thanks for the great thought. Most interesting images I've found to date are below. One looks pretty similar to what the kit provides and I used this as the reference to add the small footing blocks (which of course raised the cannons...) The other has some nice curves to it. Neither have wheels. Rather than open up the ports to center the cannons, I'll try to scratch out a prototype and see how it works.  . 

 

Cheers,

 

Nigel.

 

 

Edited June 1, 2015 by UpstateNY

[UpstateNY]

Hi All,

 

Another small step forward as I’ve completed the four cabin doors other than adding the brass hardware as I am still waiting for the blackening solution to show up.  The doors were assembled from some 5mm walnut strips glued together and then cut to shape. The kit did not provide any door frames so I made these from some slightly thicker walnut sheet to try and provide some extra detail.  Each door was used as a template for its arch which was then roughly cut out from the walnut sheet before slowly filing it to fit. The doors by the mizzen mast are slightly shorter than the outer doors so they clear the poop deck edge trim. Their bottom edges were also sanded to follow the deck curve. 

 

Thumbnails below and thanks for reading.

 

Cheers,

 

Nigel.

 

 

 

[edmay]

Hello Nigel,Very neat clean workmanship,Edwin.