Looking very good.

Mark

Hello All,

Thanks for the good comments, much appreciated.

Issue 97 completed:
- gun port lids fitted to lower gun deck on both sides.
- The two front closed lids fitted to middle and lower gun deck.
The middle deck lid was fairly easy, just need to file to size and fit.
The lower deck one is a bit more challenging to ensure that the two ropes are not loose. This is the way how I did it.
First, I fitted the two threads and tied knots on the inner side. I made this to avoid the "half-way shaped" lid being stuck in the gun port. With the ropes it was easy to pull it out if further shaping was required.
After I was happy with the fit, the lid was fitted temporarily. I pulled the thread up and made a mark at the top of the hole. Then cut off the excess thread leaving 3-4 mm extra above the marking. I stiffened the ends and with a drop of superglue I fed the ends into the hole until the marking just disappeared behind the hull surface.
Then the lid was just turned down and glued in place.
All the threads was straight, not loose.
Job done.

Issue 98 continued:
On Friday my replacement sails arrived... finally.
I made some tea, poured into a fairly deep baking pot and let it cool.
After it cooled with some kitchen paper towel I removed the film on top of the tea. I'm not sure how does it come, but we always have it when we make tea... maybe we make tea on a wrong way...
Anyhow... with my two spare (faulty) sails made some trial... one soaked in 2 minutes, the other for 4 minutes.
Now they're drying, tomorrow morning I'll check how much they darkened.

One question still... the creases, caused by being folded, didn't quite disappear.
Any suggestions? Shall I try ironing them and then crumble a bit?
Looking forward for advise.

Looking great, top work....

Regards

Alan

Ahoy Shipmates,

Yesterday I had a look on the trial of the 2 & 4 minutes soaked sails.
There was not enough darkening.
So I soaked them into the tea for further 10 minutes.
After they dried I happily inspected the result, a nice quite light brown colour.

However the creases were still visible, so I took a deep breath and ironed all of the sails BEFORE I soaked them.

After the ironing another deep breath and I soaked all of the good sails in the tea for 12 minutes. Then I rinsed them under running cold water, then laid them on the kitchen top.

As I hoped, the soaking made the signs of ironing (being too flat) disappear, and they now have a nice aged look, regarding both colour and and a bit uneven texture.

Today I'll start fitting them.

I know you all have great experience, but for the other first-time builders here is my exact recipe of the soaking process, I hope it will help (I took exact timing in case I had to do more cycles):

1. Label all the sails with the issue number and the names.
2. Approx. 1 liter of water boiled then 1 bag of black tea dropped into it.
3. Gently stirred for 60 seconds then the bag taken out.
4. Tea poured into a baking tray. I actually had to make two pots of tea to fill up the tray deep enough.
5. Let the tea cool down to room temperature.
6. With a folded paper kitchen towel remove the film on the top of the tea to avoid darker particles stuck onto the sails.
7. Sails were ironed to make crease marks disappear.
8. Sails (all at the same time) soaked for 12 minutes. Make sure that the tea can go between the sails by separating them. I actually continuously moved them gently all the way for the 12 minutes.
9. At the 12 minutes mark all the sails taken out from the tea, and they rinsed 1-by-1 under running cold water.
10. They laid flat and let them dry fully. Make sure that the surface is cleaned beforehand.

Hello Everyone,

Hooray, I started to fit the sails... I'm definitely getting close to the finish line.

Issue 98 completed:
- main staysail fitted

Issue 99 completed:
- main topmast staysail fitted
- fore topmast stay and preventer, fore topgallant and flagstaff stays fitted

Issue 100 started:
- mizzen and mizzen topmast staysails fitted

I must admit that this is a very fiddly work accompanied with lot of swearing.
Especially with the first sail, but as soon I got used to it, the process was getting quicker with less swearing.

Very nice indeed, the finish line is certainly getting close now..... Very well done....

Regards

Alan

Great job on the sails Laszlo another step nearer the completion of a fine build.

Al

Hello Guys,

Thank you very much for the kind comments.

Issue 100 completed:
- top-ropes fitted to all masts.
Note: I think one of the picture in the magazine is mirrored, where shows the main topgallant mast rope. It says fit on the same way as per the fore topgallant (starting from the eye on the right side, fed through the hole on the mast and through the block on the left down to the left pin where the other tope fitted), but the picture shows that start from the left eye... anyhow, I think I done it right and followed the text instructions (as per the fore rope, not the picture.

Issue 101 started:
- topgalland shrouds added to all three masts
- started to fit the ratlines, fore topmast pair done.
Couple of hints, if anyone hasn't done it yet. Again, these are my first-time build experiences, probably nothing new to the pros here.
1) I was really struggling to push the needle through the deadeye bindings. So where it was necessary, I drilled a 0.4 mm hole through them to aid the needle go through.
2) I pushed the needle through all six shrouds in one go, as it was much easier to keep the ratlines level, rather than feed through only one, pull the thread, then do the second shroud, etc.
3) It much easier to push the eye of the needle through (together with the 0.25 thread), if the eye is horizontal (see through the eye from top to bottom), as the shroud tend to open better this way for the extra thickness, rather than across.

Also a question:
Should I paint black the trimmed ends of the ratlines or better to leave them natural, which could imitate the tie at the end?

Ahoy Shipmates,

today I haven't done anything on the ship because I was trying to make a mock-up version for the display cabinet control circuit.

If you're following my diary you would know already that I'm planning to have my display cabinet hanging down from the ceiling above the staircase, which space is usually is a waste.
I'll also have a lift mechanism to raise/lower the cabinet for cleaning and initial installation.

Here comes the extra bit. I'm planning to control the mechanism with an Arduino micro-controller board, using an additional bluetooth board and my smartphone as a remote. How fancy is that???

So the system will have:
- the Arduino board running the software
- the bluetooth board to get connection with the smartphone
- three limiter switch:
* an upper limiter to ensure that the cabinet won't go through the ceiling
* a middle limiter to stop the cabinet at the viewing point
* a lower limiter to stop the cabinet before it runs out of rope when it lowered fully down
- LED strips for lighting the cabinet (on/off)
- couple of relays to drive the motors/LEDs as the Arduino board can't drive them directly due to its limitation on current

Today I managed to make the prototype circuit including all components (excluding the relays, their coils represented with temporary LEDs).
I wrote the software for the Arduino, and I managed to set up the bluetooth connection with my phone.
Now it all works great, able to control the motor up/down/stop, detects the limiter switches and of course the cabinet lighting LED.

Now I just need to finish the ship.