Before painting I carefully taped off the lower hull area with some modelers tape. I made sure I followed the same line as my previous painting attempt so as to have a really clean line. I burnished the tape against the hull with a piece of scrap wood to ensure it lay as flat as possible to prevent bleed through.

At this point I did not worry about taping off the white areas. After looking at the thing I found that the black paint was pretty solid where it met white so I won't need to worry about cutting in very tight in those spots.

After pulling the tape away I still had a very clean line. This is one of those things for me - a clean paint line is critical. I tend to focus in on spots that violate the cleanliness of a paint line for some reason. To alleviate my anguish I take a lot of time to tape things off properly before painting. Here is a really close up shot to show how clean you can get the paint line with modelers tape properly applied.

The final step of painting - retouching the chainplates. I decided it would be easier to do these while I still had the scrap piece of wood holding them away from the hull - this turned out to be a splendid idea. I don't have many splendid ideas, so I wanted to be sure to highlight one when I did.

It was quick work to apply some black paint to touch up where it had chipped away. This was mostly where the nail heads met the chainplates, but there were some other areas as well. Additionally, I did accidentally get some white onto a couple of them when painting the whales behind the chainplates. All in all, a really simple step.

Finished up reworking the chainplates on the port side this morning and I am much happier with the results. I do keep finding things that I want to fix, such as the varying lengths to the plates. However, that would be an incredible amount of reworking. Of course there are things I will discover that I know I can do much better on, but I need to keep in mind that this was a build a took on a while ago and my skillset back then was not what it is now. I think it is better to just fix up some of the major blunders and accept this ship for what it is - a jolly good job for a second build.

Besides, when I look at it sitting on the bench it looks really nice. It is mostly when I look at it in photos that the things jump out at me. It is amazing how the camera catches every little itty bitty thing and seems to focus on those. One of the benefits of starting a build diary like this is I start to look at my work through the camera and it has definitely made me a much better modeler.

So here are the fore, main, and mizzen mast chainplates back in place and at the correct angles. Now I need to go through the entire process on the starboard side.

As I was cleaning and revamping the chainplates there is one more thing I decided to change up as well. The kit came with the common metal belaying pins that I have seen with so many other kits. I don't know about others thoughts on these, but I do not like them at all. I find them to be a bit to wide and short and to not look anything like an actual belaying pin...not to mention, they are metallic.

So as I go along cleaning and getting back to the rigging I will also be slowly replacing the belaying pins. After getting them replaced in the main mast pin rail I am completely satisfied with the improvement. I think these look so much better than the metal ones.

Found this, i thought it might interest you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvF6nvd8xoc

[quote=Gibbo]Found this, i thought it might interest you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvF6nvd8xoc[/quote]
I have recently watched that while doing some research on how to best clean my HMS Victory. I did not have much luck trying to come up with an extension for our home vacuum - miniaturizing the tip. At least not the way they did it - was just too large even though I went as small as I was able with the tools and supplies I had available. So I actually did a mix of vacuum and blowing where I purchased a micro blower that Derek recommended on the first page of this diary. It is a simplified air brush that lacks any paint intake, so it in essence only blows air. I also bought an inline pressure adjuster so I could really fine tune how much air was coming out of the tip along with how much I pull back on the trigger on the airbrush as well. This way, even if I do accidentally pull all the way back on the trigger on the air brush I still don't get a torrent of air coming out. I simply hold the end of the mini vacuum hose in the area I am going to blow air and then I have at it with the air blower. Not the perfect solution, but so far it has worked just fine for me.

Ratlines take me a really long time and that is still the case. After a couple hours of effort I had the first 6 or so rows of ratlines on the port side of the mainmast. A quick photo of them shows a vast improvement. Below you can see how I zoomed waaaaaaaay in and still the knots look very nice. So although I have not improved on speed, I have definitely improved on execution.

A lot of work and effort but well worth it.