phasephantomphixer

So, 3 years on and this "quick build" has just been dragged off my SoD and onto the workbench, as the next in my series of airliner builds that I started but never progressed with (that said, I have at least finished the Electra, MD-80 and DC-4 builds, with a bonus YS-11 for good measure). It's sad to see that this one has been sidelined so long that we lost mpk in that time. So, I'll endeavour to complete this build in his memory.
 
It'll be bumpy ride, however, as this is one of Minicraft's worst kits, so stay tuned!
 
Kev

cool, I told my hellcat it can't get out of the stash until Aerocraft cooking's done

fully understand but Im sure it will be great. 

Great news glad you like the brass struts, the HELLCAT is on the burner, not sure which one and the cooking time? Hopefully on the boil soon, I know I have said that more times than I care to remember.

Tamiya Masterpiece kit with scratchbuild cannon and gun bays, Eduard seatbelts, ResKit tires, cables and some details added too. Sadly not many companies are willing to make this level of quality kits.




 
 



 

 
 








 
 

Also, the canopy is way too pointy; the pilot would have to be a conehead to fly this model.

My last active duty assignment was with ACC HQ at Langley AFB and I volunteered at the Virginia Air & Space Museum.  I can proudly say I've actually dusted this very Aircraft.  And considering it's displayed hanging from the roof (or at least it was then) it was quite an interesting job lol.

As many of you already know, F-16 is celebrating its 50th birthday. Here is the well known video that made the history. enjoy
 
 

I worked on the main yard the past couple of bench sessions.  I was not entirely satisfied with how I was tying off the blocks on the yards.  Though they are perfectly functional I just did not like the look of them, not enough to remove and redo those I have already done, but I wanted to get a better look, and maybe a little better functionality.  Working on the rigging of this ship, beginning with the cannon block and tackle, has been a learning process in many ways; and my methods evolve as I progress.  I looked at techniques used by expert tall ship modellers and decided on the one I show and describe below; there are several methods one can use and some only work well in larger scales, but this one seems to be the sweet spot for this build.
 
The shot below shows a simple single sheave block that I have both stropped and (this is new) seized or whipped using a line to wrap around the two stropping lines.  I considered taking photos of the process, but I would have needed three or four hands to do so!

 
Another aspect of the same block. I the seizing line was pulled partially tight and slid up to abut the block; it was then tightened and a drop of super glue applied.

  
The 16 completed blocks for the main yard ready to be tied to the yard.  You can easily make out the different types of blocks and you can also see that I have seized some of them differently.  This is important because some of the blocks need to hang at a different height to the block next to it to prevent the rigging lines interfering with each other.

 
The blocks tied off.  I like the look better then my earlier efforts, though I did photograph the yard upside down, doh!!  

 
The fore yard for comparision.  It is clear that the blocks rigged with the improved technique both look better on the yard and will probably be easier to work with when it comes time to run the rigging.

 
A close up of a few of the blocks showing the slightly different lengths, as well as the different positioning.  Shown upside down is the double sheave block for the jeer rigging.  Above that is a large single sheave block for the sheet line and to the far right in one of the bunt line blocks. 

 
Ernest

Thank you guys!  
 
Tim, I have been remiss in congratulating you on your new business.  I wish you all the success and happiness for the future, and I am sure I will be ordering some things when I get back to LSPs.
 
Ernest

The foreyard is finished.  The following series of photos was shot over a period of two days and several bench sessions.  
 
All 18 blocks have been stropped and rigged to the yard.  Different blocks will have different purposes as they apply to the running rigging, that is whay some point in different directions.  You can see that I also lashed the heels of the stun'sail booms.  
 
I closer shot that shows some of the blocks.  The larger ones will have heavier line run through them as the purpose of the running rigging passing through them was to work the yard, either raising or lowering it, or turning it. Some of the blocks will be in front of the fore course (the sail attached to the yard) or behind it.
 
Close up of the two blocks on the end of the yard.  One will be used by a running rigging line called a lift (the name is self-explainatory) and the other by a line called a brace, used to turn the yard.  I am happy with how the stun'sail booms turned out; the wood color harmonizes well with the other browns.  The copper part you see on one of the blocks will allow me to run a double line.  On a real block used for this type of rig, what was known as a becket was worked into the stropping line that goes around the block.  This scale is a bit too small to do that so I twisted some copper wire to make ersatz beckets, drilled a hole in the block and glued the "becket" in place. 
 
 
The stirrups and horses (also called footropes) have been installed.  The lines on real ships were tarred and considered part of the standing rigging.  I could have used black thread for the job, but physics makes thread less then ideal for this task.  The weight of the strrrups meant they hung more or less straight down, and gravity also caused the horses to sag towards the middle of the areas between the stirrups.  Getting that effect with thread is possible but pretty tough, so I cheated and used the correct diameter wire.  It will allow me to adjust the sag and other positioning so that it looks realistic. 
 
 
 
Close up of one of the stirrup/horse combinations.  On actual ships the stirrups were wrapped around the yard and nailed in place.
 
The completed yard.  For the remaining yards I have primed all the wire and airbrushed it.  Handpainting it after installation turned out to be a very concentration 
intense task.  I am hoping that using metal primer before I sprayed the wire black will prevent flaking; the proof will be in the pudding.
 
Another close up of the yard, now complete.  
 
A final close up showing the wrapping for the horse line.
 
Ernest

Yea, Yellowhammer.  If I did it again, that top scallop already comes in two parts,  the bigger one needs to be cut into 4 more pieces to make it easier to lay down.  It’s so big it did break on me in a couple of places. Icamethisclose to yanking it off and painting it. 

That's # 1 bada** Blue Build Scott, real close match to your
bench and paint bin! Are those the Yellowhammer decals?
And i've found the FOD covers easily fit the intakes just like
the real deal, so can really have both. This is definitely how
I will go doing a Reno High Rollers Recce build since they did
their covers up something sweet.

Thank you, Ernest.  All of that information is a lot to handle.  But it goes well with the illustrations.  Otherwise...  it's all just a mass of lines.

I spent some time today planning the rigging sequence as I am at the point where every step will now have something related to rigging the ship.  I have found that this is no small undertaking (the planning that is), as unsurprisingly the rigging is going to be a complex task.  The fact that I am using wooden blocks instead of the kit blocks means I have to give due diligence to ensuring a get the right type blocks in the correct locations and orientations.  I will also be using wooden deadeyes in place of the kit ones for the uppermast shrouds, portions of the bowsprit rigging and the fore/main stays and preventer stays, and these come with the own challenges.  So I spent 2-3 hours carefully reviewing the kit instructions and comparing them to two books I have for reference "Anatomy of the Ship", by Karl-Heinz Marquardt and "Rigging Period Model Ships", by Lennarth Petersson.  Somewhat surprisingly the kit instructions covering both the standing and running rigging are pretty accurate and very well laid out; but one does have to carefully cross check the information.
 
Below are the different wooden blocks that will, and indeed have been, using.  The letters on the packs refer to the kit blocks.  I see a lot of stropping in my future!
 
Below is a small example of some of the planning I did today.  The photo is part of a page from the kit instructions showing the foreyard.  The letters coorespond to the blocks to be used, of course the number needed is double as the instructions only have block location on one side of a yard.  You can see that I wrote the type of rigging line that will pass through that block, all of these relate to the running rigging.  To illustrate how complex just the running rigging can be, following is a short explanation of what the function of each annotated type of rigging is.
 
Jeer and Halyard Lines:  This is a heavy tackle with double or triple sheaved blocks with the upper blocks at the head of the lower masts of square-rigged ships.  The jeers are used for lifting or lowering the fore and mainyards.  Halyards were used for the other yards and halyard rigging was not as massive, relatively speaking, as the jeers.  Some of the heaviest working line is used for the jeers and the fore and main top yards.  
 
Sheet Lines:  These lines are attached to and used to work the corners of the sails.  They are usually tied off at the foot of the mast so so they were easily hauled or released.  In an emergency, such as a mast that had been heavily damaged in battle and was in danger of falling a common order would have been, "Let fly the sheets!" The sheet lines were untied and allowed to run free thereby letting the lower corners of the sail they were attached to fly free reducing the pressure on the mast.  The sheet line for the foretop and maintop sails were usually thicker than the sheet line for other sails due to their size.
 
Lift Lines:  These were used to lift or lower a yards.  In the raised position the sail was bent onto the yard and deployed.  In the lowered position the sails were either furled or in some cases and situations removed and struck below.  lowering the yards improved the ship's stability and helped reduce the strain on the masts and standing rigging.  The fore and main yards, as well as the foretop and maintop yards were large and heavy so lowering them when not in use did make the ship somewhat less top heavy and it reduced the stain on the rigging.  Lines used for the foreyard and mainyard were heavier than those for the other yards given the massive size of those two yards.
 
Braces:  These lines were used to rotate the yards so that they could be positioned to best catch the wind.  Again, the lines used to work the braces for the fore and main yards, as well as the foretop and maintop yards, were heavier than the other lines. 
 
Leech Lines:  Used to prevent the sail from fluttering or flapping in adverse wind conditions.  Leech lines could be hauled to adjust the curve of the trailing edge of the sail to keep it tight and prevent flutter.
 
Clew Lines:  These are attached near the lower corners of both square sails and the lower corner of a fore and aft sail such as a jibsail.  They work in conjuction with the sheet lines to change the amount of square footage of a sail.  They were important when a sail was to be hauled up without being furled; a process know as "clewing" or "brailing" up a sail.  As an aside the forecourse and maincourse on my build will be "clewed up", as that was a very common configuration when a ship was "At Quarters" prepared for battle; so the clew lines on the model will actually be "worked" once.
 
Bunt Lines:  Used to haul up or let down a sail, bunt lines are located at the bottom of a sail and the lines run along the front of the sail, passing through blocks located below either the fighting tops or the crosstrees, and then down to the deck near the mast where they are tied off.  These lines were/are used to shorten or release the sail and are also used when a sail is "brailed up".
 
The above covers most of the running rigging lines.  On the photo below the positions of the different blocks are shown.  It will be important to both position a block correctly and to stropp it using the correct stropping technique based on the purpose of the line that will run through the block.  As you can see there is a lot of attention to detail required when placing and tying off the blocks to make sure the lines, which will not be run until later in the build, actually run correctly.  This is why I am spending so much time cross checking to make sure I get things right.
 
Ok, I am sure that was TMI for most you; and not a single shot of any build progress to boot!  I do hope some of you have found the information interesting and perhaps it will help you better understand and appreciate the rigging process while it is ongoing.
 
Ernest     
 
 
 
  
 
  

add me to the list of those hoping you'll continue to sort this out. 

i'm in no hurry to do a giant Lib, and can live with some things not being 100 percent accurate, but that wing not being airfoil-shaped would keep me awake at night if i let it stand. you can see clearly inany photos  the wrongness of the trailing edge where it connects to the fuselage when compared with the real thing. 

brilliant solution, i'd even pay for .stls even though i don't have a 3d printer, as it would save me from having to reinvent the wheel, fire, printing press, steam engine, etc. please continue this brilliiant work to rescue those of us who haven't yet advanced beyond stone age tools... 

Here you go! 

 

 

Just finished up a Tamiya Phantom last week.  Although I had several sets of AM intakes, I chose FOD covers because of the contrasting color made it look better.  
 
So glad to see new AM support for these older kits. 
 

I got in several hours of work on the build today and it was dedicated to making the studdingsail booms and the fixtures to attach them to their respective yards.  The first step was turning birch dowels down to the correct diameters.  Surprisingly I only had one redo - I was expecting to have to do the work several times to come up with the six booms required; the moon and stars must have aligned today.  I then made the fixtures to attach the booms to the yards.  On the actual ship these are iron hoops that are fixed to the yard, some of which can be opened.  In the photos below I will describe what I came up with to somewhat replicate that.
 
One of the birch wood booms that I made.  It and the others are much better then the kit parts and I am glad I took the time to make them.

 
Another "compare and contrast" photo.

 
I twisted copper wire into the right sized loops and then cut a section of brass tube that was the right size to the correct length to gain the right stand off from the yard.
It is a very simplified version that replicates how the real booms were attached in a very basic form. 
 

 
 
I drilled the correct sized holes in the yard to insert the end of the twisted copper.  This will give strength to the bond and I can make slight adjustments if and as
needed.  This test fit shows I need to drill the inboard hole a bit deeper.

 
Construction is finished.  I am going to stain the booms rather then paint them.  Somewhat risky as I am sure I will not match the shade of the other spars, but different
shades were common on the tall ships of that time as spars, yards and sections of mast were replaced as needed, so the wood would have looked different in some areas.

 
I terrible photo of the stained booms.  After the stain had dried I brushed a thinned coat of Tamiya Transparent Yellow on the wood areas to give it a very slight 
sheen and add some warmth.  The copper and brass were painted black to simulate painted iron.

 
Another underwhelming photo showing the Foreyard with its studdingsail booms in place.  

 
Close up of the end of the yard showing how the boom is placed and attached.  I am happy with how this, and the other yard/boom combos, turned out.  I only had to make a couple of slight adjustments to get the correct angle and offset.  The next phase will be adding the footrope and blocks to the yards.  There are very few parts left to attach to the kit so rigging will now begin taking up most of the bench time.

 

Cheers
Norbert

Another short update, par for the course lately it seems.  The only things I have shot photos of is the progress with the anchors; the rest of my recent work has either been cleaning up parts, though that is about finished as there are not that many more parts left - rigging will soon be the only focus for the build.  Researching how the studding sail booms and yards were attached and worked brought to light some interesting information.  I will describe those items in a bit of detail here as some of you may find the information interesting and useful.
 
Like most warships of the time the Consititution was capable of utilizing additional sails in light wind conditions.  Known as Studdingsails or "Stunsails" for short, they were attached at the end of the yards to increase the amount of sail area to catch light wind in order to gain at least a small increase in speed.  On the Consitiution only the Fore Yard, Fore Topsail Yard, Fore Topgallant Yard,  Main Yard, Main Topsail Yard and Main Topgallant yard were equipped with the booms and yards required to attach and work the studding sails.  Further, only the booms for the Fore Yard, Fore Topsail Yard, Main Yard and Main Topsail Yard had the booms attached.  In addition, there was a Fore Swinging Studdingsail Boom that attached to, and was worked from the channels for the foremast located on the hull sides.  The kit provides a Main Swinging Studdingsail Boom, but historians agree that the ship never had those.
 
The kit gets the setup wrong; not surprising as it was designed in the late 1950's and went into production in the early 60's when it was thought that the way the  Constitution's Studdingsails were organized on the actual ship at the time the kit was designed and the molds made was correct.  Research in the 1980's corrected that mistaken impression, but the molds were never updated; understandable given the cost to to so.  So what does all this mean for my build?  To start, the only yards that will have studdingsail booms are the four listed above.  None of the studdingsail yards will be displayed, as those were struck below when the studdingsails were.  I will have to work on the yards that will not have booms to fill the small notches that are on them to place the "incorrect" booms.  That would have been easier before I painted them, but I will deal with it.  I have also decided to replace most of the kit booms as many of them are warped, badly molded making getting them round nearly impossible or both.  I have both the material, tools and a plan to make the booms - I just need to get my skill up to speed to make them, so that I can turn out acceptable parts (I see I large "FAIL!" pile in my future.).   
 
Now on to the part of the post that most of you are actually interested in! 
 
One of the combination A/M and scratchbuilt anchors waiting for detail painting.

 
The completed anchors.  I stained the wooden stocks with a light oak stain to both bring out the wood pattern and give the color some warmth.

 
Close up of the installed starboard anchor.  You can easily make out the lashing I did to attach the main anchor cable to the anchor ring; just as it was done in real life.

 
Slightly wider view of the same anchor to show how it was secured.

 
Close up of the port anchor.

 
Here is the lower part of the gammoning for the bowsprit.  This was a challenge to thread and run keeping the wraps tight and aligned.

 
Hope you all enjoyed that!
 
Ernest

Another, in what has been a series of small updates it seems.  I have finished cleaning up the yards, a task I am very glad is now behind me, and assembling the fore and main course yards.  The yards are also painted now and I will start adding the footropes and blocks once the paint has cured overnight.  I am also going to add blocks where needed on the masts before I place the yards on them.  I think doing this work while the masts and yards are seperate and not installed on the ship will make working on all those ties easier!
 
The yards together for a family photo.  The 4 at the top belong to the foremast, below those are the yards for the mainmast and at the bottom are the 4 for the mizzenmast.  I thought cleaning up seams and ejector pin marks was never going to end, but the end results look decent.  
 
I also worked on the anchors, which I decided to replace as the kit parts were in very poor shape.  I purchased two scale anchors from an online store in Germany and I made the wooden stocks from some scrape walnut I have.  The kit stocks are underscaled so I used the plans that can be found on the USS Constitution Museum website to get the right demensions.  I am making the retaining straps out of soldering wire that I use a pair of smooth pliers to slightly flatten.  I then bend the wire around the stock, do some final shaping and glue them in place once I have squared them up.
 
Comparision of the combination aftermarket anchor and scratchbuilt parts to the kit parts.  Once I finish assembly, stain the wood and paint the straps black I think they will look much better then the kit parts.  To be honest though, if the kit parts did not had the issues they do I would have cleaned them up and used them.
 

Don’t overlook the old Revell kit. Not too bad of a finished product with a little work. 
 

 

Worked that time!