Some very neat and tidy work - looks wonderful.

Impressed with your rope handles on those tiny buckets - knotting those rope handles into place must have tested your patience but they look really good.

Tony

Hello All,

Thanks for the kind comments!

It the last few days I was working on the lower gun deck:

- Grating assembled and stained
- Companionway frame made and stained.... wow... this was very fiddly... it either snapped when I tried to remove it from the square blocks I used as a jig to glue, or didn't even stick together... anyway, after much trouble I was able to do it
- Both part glued to the deck beam, again, having trouble with the frame as it has no support at the middle.
- Then the deck is planked, and finally when I reached the frame, I was able to glue it to the planks so now it's stable. I had a little problem with the planks around the pumps. To get it around them, on 1-2 places I needed to notch the plank in a way that only a hearline piece of wood held the two bits together. As it was fairly weak, I had to glue a small piece of scrap wood to the side of the beam to support the "hanging" end of the plank.

This is a stunning build and all credit to you for your work.



Its a shame its out of stock, as its one I would love to add to my ever growing stash. We will wait in anticipation.

Good luck with the rest of your build.


Regards
delboy271155
(Derek)

Hello All,

Lots of trouble today...

Wanted to assemble the elm tree pump head but sadly noted that both die cast parts are broken.
The handle broke half at the middle, both of the holes for the pin holding the handle are snapped off.

Knowing that the kit is currently out of stock at Model Space online shop I couldn't see much point to request replacement parts from customer service.
Having no other choice, attempted to fix them...
First of all, I calmed myself to ensure I have steady hands.
Second, using superglue I repaired the handle... Because it's weakened already I didn't even try to file it a bit round in order to fit the eyebolt onto it. It would require relatively lot of filing. Instead, I used a larger eyebolt leftover from the gun rigging. It was able to slide onto the handle easily.
Third, the pump head.... well... it was a nightmare... two tiny rings to be glued using a tiny drop of superglue positioned as much as it can be in their original position to ensure good surface contact... what a ...
Fourth.... I also had to file the handle to make it able to slide in between the two rings... and I couldn't use even the tiniest force to put it in otherwise the rings will come off again.... holy sh@@....
Then to put myself into an ever more trouble I decided that I'll try to put the pin in a way that it has not one but two heads, one on each end.... what the hell I'm doing??? Am I crazy????... Anyway, let's go for it... I took two pins and cut them tiny short... One will go through one ring and the handle, the other one only on the other ring... which means it is approx 1mm "long" beneath its head... after shooting out 2-3 of them from the tweezer into unknown location around the kitchen I managed to fit both of them.
Finally slid the eyebolt onto the handle and glue it into position.

After all these trouble I spray painted it with primer and satin black.

While it was drying I stained the chain pump heads to rosewood because I found one of the walnut I have too dark, the other one to close in shade to the dark oak of the deck.

Just catching up on this excellent build. You must have had the patience of a saint when it came to repairing the pump. Looking excellent and I’ll be using your build as a reference when I come to do mine. Keep up the great work.

Mark

Hello Guys,

Thanks for the kind comments, much appreciated.

Lot of small things done this week:

- Gratings made, stained and fitted to the middle gun deck support beams.
- Barrels and buckets for the guns stained black, bands painted black, handles added to buckets.
- Gunner's tools made, primed with spray, painted to final colour and fitted to the beams.
- Barrels and buckets glued around guns, mess tables fitted and hung to beams.
- Mast painted, bands added. I altered the instructions regarding the bands, I didn't use the technique described (black masking tape, etc), I rather used the same method which was done on the big ship masts and anchor bindings where black thread wrapped around the mast. I made four turns on each band which resulted the desired 2mm wide bindings.
- Then the mast was glued to the model.
- Elm tree pump extension added to the previously made assembly, then it was primed and painted. Temporarily I had to remove the chain pump handle because it was clashing with the pump tree a tiny bit and I didn't wanted to scrape off the paint from the pump tree when 'forcing' it down to its hole. When the pump tree glued in place I re-fitted the pump handle with a slight band on it.
- I also had to cut off a tiny bit from one of the chain pump legs otherwise the mast collar wouldn't fit in the gap.
- Fitted the first layer of mast collar and came another trouble... the second layer wouldn't fit under the band on the mast... luckily when I made the bands I didn't use glue all around the band, only at the spot where the knot is located... so with a small force applied I managed to release it from the mast and I was able to slide the band upwards on the mast to fit the second layer of collar underneath.

Hi All,

Thanks Trevor for your kind comment.

My progress over the last two weeks:

- Middle gun deck planked and stained.
- Mess benches made and glued to one side of the model
- Mast collar stained and fitted.
- Upper gun deck support beams painted and glued in place.
- Set of gratings made and fitted
- Deck support pillars, shot racks made and fitted
- Beam support irons painted and fitted... unfortunately I couldn't get all of them fully straight otherwise the bottom end doesn't sit on the knees but hanging in air
- Mess tables made and hung
- Hammocks made and hung onto the other side of the model
- Elm tree pump extension painted and fitted
- Upper gun deck planked

Wonderful build. Really enjoying watching this come together.

Mark

Hello Guys,

Thanks for the nice words, good to hear your opinion.

Progress of the last week:

- Upper gun deck stained
- Bulwark and gun ports painted
- Knees painted and fitted
- Pieces for the guns sorted
- Carriages assembled and painted, wheels painted, mast collar stained
- To accommodate the gun barrel I had to file a round slot onto each carriages otherwise the barrel would rock side-to-side and sit too high to fit the cap squares.
- Same as on the lower guns, I bent my own eyebolts and rings using 0.5mm black copper wire rather then use the provided brass ones and paint them black.
- All the guns rigged and fitted on the deck. At the first deck I made a mistake what resulted the remove the already glued eyebolts from the bulwark... I haven't realised at first that the location of the breech rope and the side tackles are not the same as on the lower gun deck but swapped.... hence my mistake, luckily I was able to remove the glued eyebolt without any damage to the bulwark, however I need to bend new eyebolts.
- Assembled the elm tree pump head, luckily this wasn't broken like the on before. sprayed it black and fitted to the deck together with the mast collar.

Now the new trouble.... and a question....
As I tried the quarter deck long cross beams in place I noticed that they are approx 2 mm short, 1mm on each side...
I though that my model distorted during the build on the previous decks, but II double checked it the with the template that was used on the early stage of the build, and it still snuggly fit between the top of the ribs....
Now I have two choices:
- Force the bulwarks inwards a bit in order to get rid of the gap while the glue for the three cross beams dry or
- Glue them in place with the gap and then fill it up with wood filler.

I think I know what would be your advise but I still would like to ask your opinion about it...
Looking forward for your replies.

Thanks Chris, much appreciated.
Laszlo