Sunday, June 23, 2013
 
Friday I missed the usual appointment with my Soleil Royal because I had another appointment, not with a beautiful woman but with the dentist and I also missed Saturday morning because I cut the grass in the garden of my mother-in-law and in the afternoon I was too tired.
 
But on Sunday I resumed the activities and the day turned into a fruitful event: after spending last Thursday preparing all the necessary pieces, yesterday I started to reap the benefits.
 
Let's discuss a detail that I worked on between the downtime on the main work: the preparation and installation of the "stairs to climb on board" (whatever they call?) On the two sides, amidships, of the model.
 
Here I repeated the same method of construction adopted at the time I prepared the ladders at the bow: 1) apply a sheet of veneer on a plywood tablet, taking care to paste only the two ends; 2) then paste the steps (the composite strip element built Thursday) in a parallel manner to the right distance and, 3) cut the pieces with the table saw. An example is in Figure 01, where you can see from left to right, the initial piece, a piece cut out ready for use and two pieces already in use, where there are no elements of the ladder.
 
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Below you can see these ladders applied on both sides of the ship.
 
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Then I continued to work with the metal columns on the forecastle. I will cover this topic with a separate message.
 
Sincerely, Jack.Aubrey

Hi Tony, infact this is a kind of diary of this build carefully maintained within some years. To better understand what happens keep in mind that every post has on top a date that is the real date when the facts described inside the post really happened. I'm posting them quite quickly until I'll reach today. Actually I'm very close to complete the model, I foresee more or less another month of work before finishing.

Sunday, June 23, 2013
 
And now let's discuss the famous red columns on the forecastle. The first image shows the composite handrail, prepared in advance and already shaped on the lines of the hull. Bending is permanent and non-deformable.
 
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The various elements, including columns, applied in place and ready for the next step, namely the fixing of the "handrail". The wooden parts are fixed with vinyl, the columns with the two-components epoxy. By the way, I decided not to color of gold the circular gunports: I prefer the natural wood color . . 
 
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In the next session I'll install the handrails and then I should close the works in the bow and forecatle area. Regards, Jack.

Sunday, June 30, 2013 - Forecastle
 
Today I finished some details on the forecastle . . I lost quite a bit of time to prepare the missing pieces, painting and installing them, but at the end, this part of the ship should be complete. Of course the guns and something else are surely missing,but for now it's okay.
 
Now I'll work on the rear decks of the ship, although first of all I need to study in deep how they should be arranged.
 
On the forecastle all the pieces where a metal piece is involved are bonded with bi-component glue: are attached in a truly "strong" way . .
 
Greetings, Jack.Aubrey. 
 
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Sunday, July 7, 2013
 
Nothing new compared to yesterday, only three pictures where the whole model is portrayed. Regards, Jack.
 
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Hi davetwin, be patient, I'm gradually updating the log to reach the progresses of today . . now, as you can see from the date in my last post we are still in the past, more/less one year ago. I'll continue to post updates. Cheers, Jack.

Saturday, July 13, 2013
 
Some pictures of the aft gunwales practically finished. Now all the pieces are perfectly glued. There are now only a couple of things to be done to finally complete this phase:
- Cut the railing (visible in the photo n° 05) to open the gap in the middle. This element was glued in one piece to ensure a perfectly straight line;
- Decide how to color the gunwales top extremities: I scratch made these elements instead of the quarter-circle golden elements proposed by De Agostini;
- Remove all the dust, now practically covering the whole hull, with the air compressor;
- One coat of oil on the rails and maybe even on the decks.
 
Until next time with new images. . Jack.
 
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I'm publishing other five pictures of my Soleil, always dated back to Saturday, July 13, showing further details and / or views of the complete model.
 
On Sunday I still worked on the model for a couple of hours working on further trim the ends of the rails to embellish a bit. I also glued five stairs/steps on the decks . . then I left the Soleil and I started to apply seven / eight strakes on the deck of the 12 Apostles.
 
Now I have to think a little bit about the upcoming activities. Of big stuff there would still be a two/three things:
- End to apply decorations (boring part but that sooner or later I have to finish);
- Install the channels and related chain plates and deadeyes;
- Install all the gunports.
 
Then there would be other jobs that could be interesting (the stumps of the trees, the guns on the forecastle and quarterdeck, etc.). We'll see though probably (and rationally) follow my plan just stated above.
 
A cordial greeting, Jack.     
 
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Thursday, January 2, 2014
 
I spent the Christmas period to reorganize my lab. . it was really needed, partly because of the long period of activity and inactivity that characterized the last months. 
 
I have now a full and renewed knowledge of what I have in charge and where it is . . before I felt the lab of another person. 
 
I had to think for a long time during these days on which model to work: the Soleil Royal or the Twelve Apostles, and at the end I decided to resume my work on the Soleil Royal. 
The reason of this decision is quite simple: the next activity on the Twelve Apostles is to do works that generate a lot of sawdust and in this particular moment I prefer, at least for a couple of months, to avoid jobs that produce dust. This to minimize the impact on my eyes, just recoverted from two surgical operations. 
 
So, as a logical consequence, the choice fell on the Soleil.
 
There are quite a lot of works to do. Today I spent the afternoon preparing a working plan that I will refine further tomorrow. 
Anyway I decided that I will start with the preparation and installation of the channels. 
Obviously I think to improve the material provided by De Agostini . . 
Then I'll work on the broken pieces of the masts (you should already know they will not be full masts but only a mokup interrupted below the tops . 
 
Now I just have to start real work and I'm going to do this tomorrow.
 
We'll hear soon. Jack.

Thursday January 8, 2014 - Channels
 
Today I did'nt work because I had other commitments but yesterdaty I carried out some useful work with the channels: today I only limited myself in taking photos.
 
Preparing the channels may feel a simple task but it is not. To bring MY channels to the point that you can see in the following photos, I spent three afternoons . . . and there are still to prepare other elements.
 
To build MY channels I used the material from De Agostini (a pre- cut plywood rather poor) only as internal support that I covered with strips of chestnut veneer on both sides of the element.
 
The outer frame is made with boxwood to match the original shape.
 
Then I inserted some metal pins with the objective of strengthening the bonding on the sides of the hull.
 
But let the pictures speak for me: work in progress, you can see more clamps than anything else. They keep in place a  reinforcement below the channel.
 
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The channels installed but without the outer frame complete. .
 
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The channels with the outer frame (here only positioned, not fixed)
 
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continuation of the previous message. . 
 
The channels photographed from a lower perspective. 
 
It's possible to note that I have added a further reinforcement with the same wood of the wale below. 
 
I felt this measure necessary because, having decided to set up the model with no full masts, there will be no standing rigging to firmly hold together these elemens. 
In my case, in fact there will be in place only the lower deadeyes . .
 

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These days I'd the possibility to use the grinding machine illustrated here below. It 'a great tool for many processes. 
To use at its best it has to be fixed to the worktop, in my case on an old desk.
I preferred an alternative solution (although not to spoil the desk) that works in practice in the same way and can be removed easily . .

 
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