Looks a bit hard for me, not the worlds best when it comes to solder. I will probably stick to the plastic mixed with a bit of wood carving, but still a nice job Rob, doing well. I am getting stuck into my Surprise rigging at the mo, nearly got everything for her.

Nice one Alan!

That would certainly give you more time to think up weird and wonderful solutions, but does tend to reduce the available amount of cash to realise them!!
Still, necessity, mothers and inventions and all that!

The Head timbers are now completed (bar the odd touch up with the paint brush here and there, especially where the new port curvy blue band meets the Cat head). The pics below show both the new port timber and a bow on view of both sides. Despite the slight difference in the two sides of the hull curvature, the timbers don't look too bad after all. In the next few weeks I'll be returning to this area as I get the bowsprit ready to pop in the slot. I'll have to get that one in place and the retaining ropes fitted before the Marine's Walk can go in on top, more of this later!
Also, (and a great relief!) all of the starboard gun ports have now been repainted and fitted with their drips, I can now add cannons and lids as I proceed along the hull on other jobs. On the port side, there are only another seven on the lower tier to go, I repainted the black interiors today so only the red ochre surrounds, add on the dripboards and cut out the rebates for the lids to go on them now.
Then it's back for another go at the 12lb-ers tackle before gluing them down in the waist and on the quarter deck. (Also begun the fiddly bits on the quarter deck inner hull, but I'll save any photos of that until the guns are in place! )

Happy building to All!

Robin

Hi Karl.
That's very good advice, I was thinking of going down that route as I've already had a couple of 'near misses'! I've got into the unfortunate habit of working on one side of the hull whilst (gently) holding on to the opposite side over the deck to steady the ship (and myself) whilst doing the painting or gluing. As more sticky out bits go on that's becoming more difficult!
All I'm going to finish is the upper gun deck as most of them (will be) nestling underneath the chain plates which makes it more difficult to stick the ropes and iron rings in place. Also I am going to scratch build the chains in brass wire so I need to know exactly where the lid tackle is on those gun ports to avoid hitting them with the chains!

Thanks again

Robin

Amazing work, you definitely made this ship look much better than it was meant to be! though i cant hate on this ship model too much seeing as it was my first and a very simple build, great work!

And now back to the Quarter deck for a bit, (OK, I'm just getting bored doing the same cannons over and over again!)

I must admit that I was dreading this section, I've got a little phobia about building steps, probably stems from the Grimsby, not just normal steps but spiral staircases too!
After all the trepidation however I must admit that I actually enjoyed this little building exercise!
Before beginning on the steps however I had to make the rigging attachments (Kevels?) which are fixed to the inner side of the bulwarks. I forgot to photo the small slanting bits but they were simply filed to shape out of a strip of 1.5mm sq, cut to size, painted and then a tiny little scrap of plain light wood glued on for the decoration. The larger double kevels are shown below, Pic 1 shows the component parts, the decorated ends were produced with a cutting disc 'grinding' down the end into three steps, Pic 2 shows the completed carving with the same thin wood decorations added and Pic 3 shows the same piece in position between the quarter deck cannons, (before the steps were added later)
Pic 4 shows the construction stages on the quarter deck steps. On the right are the separate pieces. Because the cannon were so close together I couldn't use the plywood kit part for the platform, if I had the steps would have had to be almost vertical instead of the 45 degree angle they should be. Instead I made a new platform out of three planks glued together and cut to size, laminated on the two sides with the darker second planking veneer and fitted with a 2mm sq top step. The steps themselves were made with some of the mahogany strip from the Grimsby (still have loads of spare wood left over from her, Constructo are very generous with their wood supplies!). The steps or treads were made from the DelPrado planks but sanded down to half their original thickness. The kit instructions only give these stairs four steps but by thinning them down I managed to get the full seven in, top and bottom first then each one in between, supergluing each in turn.
Some of you might remember I put up a post before Christmas about checking party packs of food for nice looking cocktail sticks, well, guess where the bannister posts came from! The posts were cut down from and carved out of four of these sticks. I think they are bamboo and found out the hard way that bamboo doesn't like to be cut by compression (gullotine method) - it simply splits down the middle. The completed posts were therefore cut and carved with the good old cut off disc. The curved bannister was cut and bent from a 1mm sq brass rod. Not visible in the photo is the thinner iron bannister on the outboard side, (OK, I forgot all about it until after the photo was taken!) This rail and it's posts are visible in the final close up photo, it was made from two of my thinner brass pins with a piece of 0.5mm brass rod soldered into place. The hand rails going up the stairs will be added later, probably from thin wire like the gun tackle.
As I said, I quite enjoyed this little break away from the guns, the starboard staircase is in position, the port is still in bits however but should follow on soon. After that I have to make up the soldered wire tackle for the rear of the cannons, add the smaller belaying racks and the shaped kevels which sit in the cut out section (I really wish I'd done them BEFORE I glued on the top hull rail!) But now, back to the waist guns so I can build the steps down to there as well!

Happy Building everybody!

Robin

Robin, how can I say anything when I'm speechless!!!!!

Amazing work....

Regards

Alan

Hi All!

Work is progressing well on the last few 12lb-ers, those down in the waist area. Only seven more to go!!!!!I have had to make a couple of changes to the basic jig I made much earlier to get around a problem down in the waist. If you look at the photos below, the bottom one shows this area where the remaining cannon will fit, now according to the reference books the gun ports should be located in the centre between the ribs which support the skid beams above. As you can see by the arrows, central they aren't!
Although I scratch built this part of the hull instead of using the pre cut plywood panels I did use those panels to mark out the positions of the gun ports! I can't see where the discrepancy has come from, the gun ports are spaced evenly along the gun deck, with the correct spacing from the three metal gunport cubicles under the forecastle to the six metal ones under the quarter deck. Placing these six cut outs in the middle of the ribs would create too big a gap at the bow end and too small a gap at the stern end! It's almost as though its actually the ribs which are out of place! (I wouldn't be at all surprised and there's sod all I can do about them!! )
Anyhow! what I'm having to do is to make the wire tackle fit closer to the carriages on the relevant side with the forward three guns also having their brass rings soldered on vertically instead of horizontal (see top right photo) this should still allow the guns to fit in the centre of the port!
The top left photo shows the first of the rope coils to come off the production line. Made up exactly as shown in many of your diaries, sticky side up masking tape and thinned pva to seal. The only difference is that I have to give the coils a thin coat of the Admiralty white and walnut paint mix just to dull them down a little to the same colour I've been painting the wires, the first one, (already stuck down on the deck unfortunately) is a glaring white against the painted section! There's going to be some careful painting on top of that one!

See you soon and Best of luck to all.

Robin

hi rob
the beautiful what you then do.

Oh do I love the ideas you are coming out with.... Making me itch to start work on my Vic but, holding out and being patient... for how much longer I don't know.... Very well done and keep the ideas, diagrams and pics coming....

Regards

Alan

Nothing worse than that particular itch Alan! and thanks for your comments Hans, I wanted to get it completed before I put up any photos but now you mention it, I might put up a load more diagrams!! Oh I love the Dark Side!

OK then, here's the story of the Binnacle!
The first set of photos below shows the basic procedure for getting from a horrible little lump of metal to something that resembles the real thing (sort of!)
Pic 1 shows the aforementioned metal lump standing beside the core piece of the replacement, a rectangle of 4mm thick perspex. Normally I only ever work with 2mm perspex (picture frames etc.) but a couple of years ago I made up a snake vivarium for a student and used 4mm, this came from one of the offcuts. I usually love my digital camera but sometimes it really shows up how rough something is under extreme magnification, that perspex looked really neat and tidy until now!
Pic 2 is the same block with three holes drilled by pin vice into the base of the perspex. These holes will represent the two compasses and the central oil lamp after the interior of the holes has been painted, white for the compasses and copper for the lamp as can be seen in Pic 3.
Bottom left Pic 4 shows the only two 'solid wood' components of the Binnacle, the side panels which were made from yet another length of hardwood spare plank from the Grimsby. Once cut to size and sanded smooth, they were gripped in a miniature vice and the semicircle filed out to create the stumpy little legs.
Pic 5 shows the almost complete Binnacle up against it's predecessor. All of the wood apart from the sides was made of the very thin veneer second planking left over from the DelPrado Bounty. The biggest problem with this construction is the choice of glue, I couldn't let the superglue get anywhere near this project, even using it on the later chimney would probably result in the clear perspex clouding up in the fumes (anybody else seen the CSI episodes where they heat the stuff for fingerprinting?)
All the pieces had to be stuck with PVA, normal PVA for the most part but I used MicroKristalKleer for the tiny window frames and the veneer panels to avoid any marks on the 'glass'
The final construction is shown in the second set of photos. There is a small copper chimney for the oil lamp in the centre of the roof of the binnacle. This was formed from the same aluminium tube I have been using for the gun port tackle 'lead pipes'. Pic 1 shows the first stage with a thin brass pin superglued into the end of the tube, also shown is one of the brass rings I made for the cannon tackle superglued onto the end of the tube to simulate the (iron?) ring at the bottom of the chimney. The pin will be used to fix the chimney into the top of the wood/perspex.
Pics 2 and 3 show the chimney after the tube has been cut to size by cut off disc and the brass pin snipped down with wire cutters, before and after painting.
Pic 4 shows the completed Binnacle in all its glory with the 'interior' details visible through the clear plastic. At its feet are two lengths of .02mm electric wire painted up and ready to form the two stays each side of the 'cabinet'
Pics 5 and 6 show the completed Binnacle complete with its stays finally PVA'd onto the Quarterdeck (Ooops!, no they don't! Pic 5 is how the Quarterdeck would have looked with the original part and Pic 6 is the new one!, sorry about that! and the final large photo is the Quarterdeck as completed so far. Still a lot more rope coils to add on the port side.
The next bits to get on with here will either be the Poop deck barricade (not looking forward to all those damned buckets!) or a major re-design/upgrade to the main stairway! a lot of work either way!
The only real problem I encountered with the Binnacle was in the use of the Kristal Kleer for gluing the veneer. It worked great and gave a perfect finish but didn't apparently have the same strength as normal PVA! When I went to drill the small hole for the chimney pin half the panels fell off! I must admit though, I'm really pleased with this tiny project which is actually a practise run for later on, I will be making a new clear skylight for the Poop deck using the same methods.

Thanks for looking in and Happy Building! (itch, itch, itch!!)

STOP PRESS! Just had a brilliant idea! Far too late for my build plus I didn't put lighting in her anyway (sob!) But, what if instead of painting the drilled out hole for the oil lamp copper, I brought a single fibre optic strand up through the deck from below and fed it into that hole. Instant working binnacle lamp!! Not for me unfortunately but something to think about for anyone adding lighting to their builds!