Looking really good! I can imagine its not always easy to keep all those ribs perfectly straight!!

Good job there Garth. The pieces are coming together nicely.

Hi all,

I don’t like the printed deck that is supplied with the kit.
As done by some members on the forums, I decided to go the coffee stirrer rout. Well, that was my initial idea – finding suitable coffee stirrers was not that easy!!! I contacted companies throughout the country, as far afield as Cape Town.

I was just about to throw in the towel when somebody suggested a company in Industria. I finally have the exact stirrers that I needed, at about 70% less than the guys in the Cape, and to top it all, the company is only 10 minutes from our offices. It defiantly pays to shop around.

My next decision is lighting my Pearl. I thing that the cutaway design showing the interior will lend itself really well to lighting. I’m not sure if I should light the lanterns using surface mounted LES’s or fiber optics.
My other mission is to source some kind of flicker unit that will give the appearance of a candle flickering.

Any suggestions will be appreciated.

Kind regards
Garth

Greetings,

Good luck with the stirring sticks.

Light up the ship. The interior becomes SO dark that you cannot see stuff on the lower deck at all. I used 3mm Amber flicker LEDs. They fit great and the diode looks like the flame on the candle. I first folded the part and then made the brass black. The round part of the LED was filed flat. I then coated it with a little Canopy Glue (PVA may work too) and placed it in the lantern cage. The bottom of the lantern was set in place and the whole thing left to dry. The glue filled in the lantern glass areas. The top of the lanter was painted black.

Get extra lanterns. I did and I should have had two or three more on my lower deck.

For candles I placed a flicker LED under the deck and ran a fiber optic through the floor. The tip was left clear but the rest of the fiber was painted black to hide it and white for the candle.

Hope you give it a try.

Christopher

Hi all,

I think that it is important to tests on some scrap material first, especially with wood stains – it’s very hard to go back if you don’t like the final result.

Concluded the paint/stain tests this weekend. I have always used alcohol based wood dies to stain my timber, but I decided to experiment a little on my Pearl. My modelling time is very limited, so waiting for varnish to dry drives me insane.

I have found an acrylic wood stain, sealer combination that dries in 15 min – now that’s more like it!!! It has a semi- gloss finish, but that is easily knocked off with some 600 sandpaper. Being acrylic – it’s a water clean-up too!!!

Kind regards,
Garth

Hello Garth, good contrast should go well together.

The deck will look great with that colour, Garth

Hi All,

Spent some time on the Pearl this weekend. I have been at odds as to the make of stain/paint to use, I have done some tests with Acrylic stain, paint and an alchol based timber dye.
I eventually settled on the timber dye. It has a matt finish and the beauty is that it is dry enough to handle in minutes. The down side is that if you take it too far - there's no undoing it and it capillaries like crazy.
Well I stained the ribs and the underside of the starboard deck. I have seen that some have extended the section to reveal the rock ballast. Keen to start laying the deck

Kind regards,

Garth

Hi Andy,
Thanks for looking in. Yes I would like to show the ballast, something like Tony (Swordfish Fairey) has done.
Kind regards,
Garth

Looks like a nice start This does build into a rather nice model, look forward to seeing your progress