Well been very quiet for me on the model front but have finally got all my jobs done and can now get back to some more important stuff like carrying on with my build as of today, just started getting everything ready and while i have been absent these past few weeks my little brain has been working overtime on a couple of things the first being how to best start tapering my masts and spars.My first idea was to just buy a small lathe and then thought about useing a drill and sanding it down that way as doing it by hand is a slow process and quite messy with the dust getting everywhere and so i bit the bullet and have purchased a lathe that i can use in the garden and easy to manage as i dont have any kind of workshop and this is due in the next hour or so.
The other thing i have been contemplating with is making a ropewalk for myself and what i have come up with is easy and very cheap and works fine for what i want, have gone to the shop i bought a pack of picture hooks/wall hangers and some different threads and screwed 3 of the hooks into the back garden gate and placed another in my multi tool and then cut up some thread and began to make a small lenght of miniture rope and with in a couple of seconds i had it but the only problem i had was when i released the tension it unravelled, but at least i knew it worked so for my next attempt was to dip what was going to be the middle strand in a 50/50 mix of pva and water then had another go and it worked perfect just leaving the multi tool hanging until the solution had gone off and so far have made 2 ropes one of which is a black and white one that i shall be useing for puddening the eye in the end of the anchors when the time comes.
Well been busy with my new lathe and been turning down my masts works great and a will be a big time saver when i get used to it as never used one before so plenty of practice required and did intend putting up some pics of what i have been doing but cant find it so they will have to wait for now,and my little rope making experiment has enabled me to make ropes upto about 5mtrs in length knowing this will now help me in my next/future projects the only thing i need to understand now is working out different scales
Found the camera at last and some bateries that worked lol and taken a few pics, done some rigging put the masts in place and started to put a sail on just to see how she looks
Decided to make a couple of changes and scratch build some more parts that are in metal instead of wood as shown in the instruction manual just concentrating on the foremast for now and that also gave me the chance to try out my dremel scroll saw
well at least thats a start after such a long break and cant believe its been nearly 1yr since i started this build wow gone so quick and also the change to the look and feel of the forum is good.
cheers steve
Thanks gents pleased with the way things are going (even the wife likes it lol) now im working on the masts she is starting to take shape and beginning to look more like it,still have a good way to go tho yet what with all the rigging to do should test my patience lol and will post some more pics later
well would you believe it spent yesterday scratch building the new fighting tops and mast bits taking pics as i went along and intended putting those up and they've all dissapeared off the camera so just been out and bought a new one and taken a couple of pics with it
done a little bit of painting on the foremast as you can see and thats that one nearly done i think but will have to double check iv'e not missed anything before fixing it in place,may even find it easier to put on all the blocks and things first thinking about it
cheers steve
Not got alot done over the weekend as the boss found more jobs for me around the house but decided it would be better to fix the pulley blocks to the mast before fixing it into the deck to make it easier and so i have started on the foremast first,it seems as tho some of the cord is the wrong size as to what should have been supplied with the kit instead duplicating them.The first thing i looked at was which would make the best choice for hanging the blocks from and using the thickest twine still did not look right to me it just wasn't heavy looking enough but fortunately i had liberated the last few meters of whipping twine out of our deck store awhile back and brought that home instead of being thrown in the waste skip.
it does have the downside of being a bit fluffy but once i had run it across one of my bees wax blocks it soon smoothed out and also the wax helps protect the twine and make it a little stiff and sticky which was ideal for wrapping around the block and holding it in place so that i could use the black thread for binding it to the block. View attachment 69050
Thank you very much gents your making me blush now lol,such words from 2 skilled modellers is praise indeed i just hope i can do this model/forum justice with my limited level of skills, but i am very pleased with the way things are going even tho i can see this is going to slow down now im getting to the rigging stage as this is new ground for me never having built any kind of sailing ship before just rigging up the pulley blocks is a bit of a challenge so god knows what im going to be like when it comes to the rest of it, but each new thing is a new skilled learned i supose so that cant be a bad thing.
Well had my sailing orders and off upto aberdeen on sunday to join my ship for another 4 weeks and so just have these last few pics to put up before i go, these first 2 show my attempt at making my own rope the multicoloured one maybe used for the eye on the anchor if it looks right
i have also redone the blocks on the foremast with a thinner rope as after looking over the mast again the first attempt looked too heavy, and looking over the plans of the rigging it showed that some ropes will pass through some eyes in the deck around the mast which the instruction book shows no mention of ? so im glad i did not fix the mast in yet as this would have proved a problem later on. View attachment 69289