Hi Richard

Great to hear from you. I'm getting her cleaned up tonight and I will be doing some copper planking on the rudder. I will be trying different adhesive this time. I've got Stick Like Sh*t by Evo-Stick and I think it will work great.

I've got to fill in some copper sheets that had fallen off in the meantime but I think this stuff will work great. I will keep you posted ;)

Regards
Tom

Hi Tom. Nice to see your return, and I look forward to your latest additions.

Mark

She looks fab Tom, will be good to see her progress further. Look forward to seeing more...

Regards

Alan

Hi again

Today I managed to do little check up of my stash and double check what has been done, what started, etc. I have created little spreadsheet just to keep an eye on the overall progress and where should I continue from as it's been quite few years since I paused my build.

So far I'm 59% completed with nearly 11% issues with work in progress and 30% untouched.

This will keep me busy for a while ;)

Have a great day ;)
Tom

I've printed off and used John's check sheets all through my build and it's great to also double check when various stages of the work are/or were planned.

Looks like you are really getting back into this now Tom.
Will be watching with interest.
Chris

Congratulations on completion of the hull tiling.
I didn't tile mine, although sometimes I wish I had (but too late for me to do it now).
Keep the updates coming and well done.
Chris

Hello again

Week had past and I have some updates to my build. I'm finally up to speed with everything I've done and what I have missing. Right now I'm concentrating to get all the bits finished off and I got some nice progress recently.

Copper hull/rudder

As mentioned in last post I managed to get the hull and rudder finished off. There is a little difference in copper tarnishing as you can imagine as rudder is around 8 years younger :) I hope it will get less obvious after some time. Managed to attach the rudder, I have used the brass hinges provided but I got them blackened so they look better. Overall I'm happy with the result so far - see below








The gun port lids

Another thing that was long overdue was first 20 gun port lids to fit. I have decided to do some mods as I wasn't happy with what the magazine offered.
There is few thing I managed to do.
1. Magazine explained to use just 20x2mm plank and cut the squares. Well don't forget that hull has a different thickness and I needed to follow the shape of the hull so I glued strip of the 1mm thick veneer plank to follow the line of the hull.

2. Next thing that was bothering me was the rigging of the lids. The magazine wanted to drill hole through the lid and feed the thread - well not for me. I used the hinges supplied but instead of sticking it flat to the lid i bent the eyelet 90 degrees so I can feed the thread through it. Then i used very fine one to tie it there so it looks similar to real thing.

3. Last thing needed adding were eyelets on the inside of the ports to pull them shut. This is very nice detail that cannot be missed in my opinion. Well it was easier said than done as I had to make something small enough. With my chunky fingers I'm super proud of myself for achieving this. It was nice exercise before customising my cannons. I used 0.4mm brass wire and 0.5mm cable ferrule. I wrapped the brass wire around the ferrule and then using fine snips I cut them one by one. This gave me nice small rings (around 1.5mm dia). The eyelet was little more tricky as i was using fine tweezers to wrap wire around it and make the eyelet. I guess everyone has its own method and this worked for me. Last part was assembling them together. I've done it - two fine tweezers and tons of patience and eye strain and it's done. No magnifying glass or specs either so I think my eyesight is still strong
At the end I got it all blackened and it was time for the assembly.

Important note for everyone when dealing with small wooden parts. I always used shellac to ceal the wood before sanding and painting. It makes all the difference as wood stays smooth. In terms of painting don't use too much paint as you will cover up all the details. Thin paint and couple of layers and it's done.

Ok enough talking - have a look at some pics...























OK See you next time, I think I will have some of the rear gallery done as I'm getting started on this. Also I need to build 6 deck cannons so plenty of work there - I have carriages already done from years ago so it should be fairly quick. I'm thinking about rigging them as I will be adding some crew to the ship but I will see ;)

Have a great builds...

Tom