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Greif8

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Greif8 last won the day on June 27 2023

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About Greif8

  • Birthday 02/26/1978

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    Bavaria, Germany
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    Road cycling and scale modelling

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  1. About an hour after I posted I would be pausing the build while awaiting the sails, one of the experienced sailing ship builders I have been corresponding with emailed me and asked why I was pausing. He pointed out that I could rig the shrouds and lower stays on the masts, and in fact most sailing ship modellers did that kind of work before stepping the masts. He also wrote that very often guys would fix one end of the stays and rig the upper ratlines as well while the masts were off the ship and before the sails were installed. When I wrote back telling him I was seriously considering using the kit shrouds/ratlines as I was not sure my skills were up to rigging the actual shrouds and getting them positioned and tensioned correctly he basically told me to stop worrying as based on the build log he was sure I was more than skillful enough to do those tasks so I should get cracking! I took his words to heart and just finished installing the shrouds and the main stay/preventer stay to the main mast. Following are some photos of either the end results or the process. First up are the upper parts of the shrouds in position. On actual ships shrouds were rigged in pairs wherever possible beginning with a pair or, if required, a single line on the starboard side followed by the same pair or line on the port side, and that is the process I followed. The model has 9 lines for the shrouds for the fore and main masts and 5 for the mizzen mast. Normally the single line would be towards the stern side of a channels, but due to how the shrouds have to be run on the model I put the single line forward. On sailing ships the foremost shroud was thicker than the others because it had been what was called, wormed, parceled and served along its entire length, so I used a 1mm line for the foremost shroud to replicate that look and .75mm lines for the remaining 8 shrouds. I also worked on and positioned the main stay and main preventer stay. These were very large heavy lines and I used 1.3mm line to replicate them. The end that looped around the mast had what was called a Mouse installed on the line, the purpose being to prevent the line from sliding upwards towards the fighting top thereby loosing the line. The end was worked into an eye and seized, and the other end passed through the eye and run to its terminus point on the deck. Believe it or not, the 1/96 scale Constitution is considered fairly small and things like a Mouse normally would not be installed, but I wanted to try make them anyway. First I selected a small wooden dowel. I drilled a hole in the dowel that would allow the line to be run through it and slightly beveled the end. The dowel was cut to length and the other end beveled. I then used the sticky part of one of those heavy band-aid type bandages to wrap around the wooden part. The texture looks close to the actual thing at this scale. The Mouse has been shaped. In the early 1800's a Mouse on the Constitution looked more like a cylinder than a tear drop and I tried to get that look here. Once the stays are in there final positions I will do some minor shaping work, but they look fairly close now. The two ends of the main stay ready to be installed on the mast. Both the main stay and preventer stay have been wrapped around the mast, checked for correct length and position on the mast and now await final rigging once the mast is fixed in place later. I have about 2-3mm of play to make any final adjustments and once the stays have been rigged in place and tensioned I will glue the "mice" to fix them in place and paint them. View of the lines positioned on the mast. I will have to make some minor adjustments once I start the rigging process for these lines, but I got the look I was after. And of course I posted the wrong photo above, below is the right one. Here is how the shrouds and lower stays look in the Marquardt book. I did not get a perfect look, but I think I got close enough. Again a goof with the pictures, very vexing!
  2. The build is paused while I wait for the special order sail set to arrive. After consulting with several experienced model ship builders I have decided to install the sails to the yards before stepping the masts in the hull. There is really nothing else I can work on while waiting as I have finished all the sub/side assemblies that can be done prior to stepping the masts and starting the standing rigging. Hopefully the sails will arrive soon and I can get the shipyard up and running again. Ernest
  3. Thank you Mike! I am now at the point where I have to wait for the sails to arrive. I asked several very experienced model ship builders and they all told me it will be MUCH easier to install the sails while the masts are not fixed in place on the ship. Easiest of all would have been to bend the sails to the yards before attaching them to the masts, alas I was not smart enough to ask about that before doing so. I will make it work though. Thank you as well Gary! I really don'r know much more about sailing ship terms then you do. I have learned a lot while building this model and through all the research and reading I have done to try and keep mistakes to a minimum, but I am a neophyte compared to the guys who build sailing ship models almost exclusively. Ernest
  4. Just finished looking through you build thread Kev. You are doing superb work, and coming up with some clever solutions to the issues with the kit. You are a braver man than I tackling this project! Ernest
  5. With the two booms finished I had to make the mounting hardware for them. Due to the nature of the two mounting pieces I chose to use both brass and plastic to make the parts. Below is a photo out of Marquardt's book showing the mounting hardware numbered 35 (Turning Iron) and 36 (Resting Iron) on the page. I used brass make the resting iron by cutting a strip to size and punching several .6mm disks out of brass to replicate the mounting bolts. The shots below show the shortened process from start to finish. Next was to make the Turning Iron. Here I chose to use plastic and took a leftover piece from one of my previous aircraft builds to first rough cut a piece and then cut and sand it into final shape. The first photo shows the leftover part with a section already cut off it with the final product next to it. I could not replicate the actual part exactly, but I got a reasonable representation of it. Here that part is dry fit on the channel ready to be glued And painted, you can hardly make it out. The Resting Iron in place. I dry fit the boom to check the fit and the look which were both pretty good. I will not place the boom until the end of the build to avoid potential breakage. THough the boom appears to be bowed in the photo that is an optical trick due to how it sits in place and the angle I photgraphed it. To finish a couple of close ups. The kit does not have the modeller make what were known as "crowsfeet". These were small lines the ran from the forward part of the fighting tops of the fore and main masts to a small piece of wood pierced with holes that rested on top of the stay known as a "Euphroe". I am not sure what the purpose of this was but all sailing ships of at least frigate size and larger had them. I have to assess whether I can drill the 10 holes through the fighting tops without damaging anything now that I have fixed them in place and installed the yards. This is a spot where my inexperience in building sailing really shows. Had I known about the above I could have fairly easily done the work to replicate it early in the process of making the fighting tops. Now it is going to be much more difficult - should I choose to do it. Ernest
  6. I made two booms to replace the kit parts that represent the fore mast lower studding sail booms. They were fit onto the channels for the fore mast on the actual ship. The kit instructions would have you place booms on the channels for the main mast as well; however, nearly all sources agree that the ship never set studding sails for the main course, so there were never booms for that arrangment. Below is one of the booms that I made next to the kit part. I still have to shape the ends but even at this early stage you can see that the scratch built boom looks better. The ends have been shaped. I made "iron" rings and the hook at the rear of the boom out of brass rod and added them to the wooden boom. The boom is ready for staining. On the actual ship spars like this were made out of pine wood from Maine so I am going to try to stain the two booms to look like pine that has weathered a bit. Staining complete. I tried to get a look of weathered wood, but I am not sure a hit the mark. It does look nice though. The completed booms flanking the kit part. I like how they turned out and I think they will look good once in place on the channels. The next step will be to try and replicate the mounting hardware for the booms on the channels. Ernest
  7. Simon that silver paint job is awesome man! Ernest
  8. I modified a few of the eyes so that when I reach the point of rigging the section they are part of I can rig the line more realistically. I also primed and painted the scratch built spar that the Driver Sail attaches to. Finally, I measured, cut to length, and where neccessary added an eye or block, all the stay rigging for the masts. Those really are not worth photos but the other two projects might be of interest for some of you. First up is a shot of one of the large eyes next to an unmodified one. The heaviest and largest lines on a sailing ship were those belonging to the Fore and Main Stays and Preventer Stays for those two masts. The lines are really massive in real life and they were secured to the deck (main mast stays) and bowsprit (fore mast stays) with heavy fastenings using what were called Heart Blocks. I don't have any Heart Block shaped blocks, so I modified two of the large and two of the medium sized eyes so that the interior of them looks close to the actual thing, which was a triangular shaped opening. I used 1.3mm diameter line for the Main Stay and Main Preventer Stay and 1.0mm diameter line for the Fore Stay and Fore Perventer Stay. Below is the Main Stay with the eye seized three times. This end will be part of the huge bullseye on the deck near the bow. This busy overhead shot shows four of the five sizes of lines used for standing rigging. From largest to smallest they are: 1.3mm, 1.0mm, .75mm and .50mm (the bowsprit rigging), I did not show the .25mm line. You can get a feel for just how large the Main Stay/Preventer Stay line is in comparision to the others. The 1.0mm and .50mm lines will also be used for the shrouds and back stays. The kit gives you three sizes of standing rigging line large (about .75mm), medium (about .50mm) and small (about .25mm). I should be able to rig the standing rigging much more realistically with the five sizes as they are at or very close in scale to the actual diameter of their respective lines. After the paint had cured for several hours I dry fit the spar for the Driver Sail in place. It looks much better, and is much more stiff than the kit part. I don't think I will have to glue it when the time comes to fix the mast in place as the part fits very snugly and looks like it belongs. I plan to make the booms that fit onto the fore mast channels to replace the kit ones during the next bench session or two. Ernest
  9. Excellent job on that PCM Hurricane Max! And some very interesting history as well. I like you outdoor and black and white photography, and I think it adds to the suspension of reality. Well done! Ernest
  10. Superb mottling on a very well built model! Ernest
  11. Beautiful build Wayne! Your weathering is very well done as is the overall painting and detailing. Ernest
  12. Thank you Kev! I made the rings by wrapping a piece of brass wire around the correct diameter section of a ring making tool I have and then cutting the area where the wire overlapped. I got the rings to fit tightly by using a small pair of pliers to do the final shaping on the brass tube. Ernest
  13. I have been working on some sub-assemblies or touching up previous work the past couple of bench sessions. Following are some shots that I thought were worth posting and explaining. I finished the remaining three ship's boats. This was very straight forward and consisted of adding the blocks for the rigging when that time comes later, and putting the oars in the boats. I decided to display the oars in a bit of an untidy fashion, my logic being that the boats would have been prepped to launch prior to action commencing to give them a better chance of surviving an engagement. Ship's boats were normally towed behind the ship during battle. The Constitution's captain's after action report does not mention launching the boats prior to engaging the HMS Java. His report does mention that only one of the ship's boats survived the engagement and that leaves a strong impression that they were not launched prior to the fight. Boats with untidy oars. Close up of one of the blocks. As I mentioned previously I had planned to replace the spar that the Driver attaches to as it was both flimsy and very badly molded. As the spar is a constant diameter along its entire length I chose to use brass tube and rod to replace it. The (poor) photo below shows the kit part, now cut apart so that I can use one of its pieces and some brass tube also cut to length. The kit part is 1.95mm in diameter and the brass tube is 2mm, close enough. The next step was to cut two sections of small diameter tube and a section of rod somewhat over twice the length of the sum of the two small sections. The smaller tubes were cleaned up, fitted into the larger tubes and glued in place. The rod was inserted into the end of one of the tube sections and glued. I hole was drilled through the piece of the kit part and it was positioned, and the final section was joined to complete the spar. The final step was to make three "iron" rings out of brass and glue them to the correct locations on the spar. The small white piece on top of the spar is a locating tab that I cut from the kit part and glued in place with 5 minute epoxy. Oops, wrong picture, below is the right one! I am happy with how the spar turned out and will post a final shot after it has been primed and painted. I have a few more small things I can do on this build before I have to make the tough choice of stepping the masts or waiting for the sails to be made and sent to me. The first choice means I will not lose any time and momentum on the build, but installing the sails will be much more challenging. On the fence with this decision right now. Ernest
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