USS Syren 1803 by Dubz

[Dubz]

I started to do the rigging of the carronades, thought that would somehow relaxing after killing my head with search algorithmns.

Sometimes I hate my perfectionism or macro fetischism ....

This is how the knot for the breeching rope should be.



Trying this in 1:64 is a pain ... it's so ***** small ....





I tried how to make the rigging. I'm pretty sure I will miss and/or misspell a lot of english words so any help or correction is appreciated

First I had to serve some rope with my hightech super duper fischertechnik machine I use a woodglue/water kombination. When the served rope is finished I use a black Edding to get a little shine on it.



The I did the first tryout using Chuck's blocks and Dafi's Hook (Dafi pls make them a bit shorter! ) I like to do the securing thread for the hooks too but I'll try that later.



One of my problem is that the thinnest thread I have is 0.1mm Gütermann but I like to have 0.05mm, does anybody know about this thin thread?

I guess to do all 72 riggings for the guns will take a good while ... hmpf ... it's soooo damn smaaaalllll ....

It's much easier to do in 1:25 ...



cheers,

Dirk

[Dubz]

No update just some pictures as I bought myself an olloclip for the iPhone. Now I can punish myself even more with these macros Hahahaha .. hmpf ...

















cheers,

Dirk

[Dubz]

A lot of hooks and rings and eyebolts needs to prepared for the carrondes and other stuff. As I already mentioned I use Dafi's Hooks and eyebolts.





Today I got some very thin gutterman thread and so tried the serving again. Its much thinner. I like, also I need to get the feeling again for the serving. It's hard to see ... so damn small, round about 0.2mm





Today making rings was the Job to do as the port lids needs smaller ones than the breeching rings. Here I used the eylets from Caldercraft, as these are smaller then Dafi's ones.





All the lid rings are done.





For the breeching ring eyebolts I used some microwasher to make them look more solid.



The briddle port lids needed a bit more love - they got their 2nd layer. I know that the middle low eyebolt is "wrong", I decided to do it with the outer eyebolts, but I had to decide between a hole, redoing the whole lids or show it this way ... decision made







cheers,

Dirk

[Dubz]

Black is beautiful

I wrote about earlier, to paint the whole stern black. Yesterday I checked a lot of paintings, older and newer ones (e.g. by Geoff Hunt) about Brigs and smaller Frigs from this age. I then made my decision. All of the paintings gave me a kinda black "mood" of the stern with some ochre decorations and I like that



I also started to make the rudder coat. Some metalwork is missing yet



Finished the rudder coat.







Some closeups.



Right now I'm trying to find out how to best make the blocks. My next career could be a surgeon I guess ...






I overhauled the companionway. I made it much lower so that the crew can now work easily with the capstan (I guess I know at least one who will like that ). I also did some work on the doors to let them look thinner and niceer







I also prepared the deck with wooden battens for the ship's wheel and the binnacle



Last thing to change were the mast partners. I decided to have them much simpler then I did before.



cheers,

Dirk

[Dubz]

As I still have no idea how to to the head timbers (I wait for Thomas I guess ) I did two little details.

The rope for opening the lids does not lead just to a hole in the wood, there is a tube.

Brutalmacro







Another detail is a "holder" (don't know a better word ...) fo a flag stock.




It's a while ago since this word occurred, but it was time ... DECONSTRUCTION .... hmpf



As there were some bigger gaps at the splash guard I took the change of free workspace to fill them ... I love filler ... and then painted again ...





Then I had to scratchbuild the upper and lower cheeks. Chuck was so kind to sent me a big bunch of boxwood, thanks again for that Chuck, Cant' say how thankful I am!! Much easier to use then the provided basswood.

BTW, when I look at the outer planking I have always a little devil in my head telling me to redo the planking with boxwood ... eijeijei ...

Anyway, redoing the cheeks I use the old ones as guide and glue some boxwood together to do all the parts in one go.



Next step is a rough cut with the scrollsaw.



Then finetuning with a rotarytool.



Then the parts were be put in some water to release the adhesive.

Then another finefinetuning stepp with a needlefile.



cheers,

Dirk

[Dubz]

Did the carvings for the cheeks. A bit different this time





After glueing the cheeks I was not satisfied 100% the carved moldings looked to "round" for me and even I made a mistake with the lower cheek part under the hawse holes, it's a bit to high ...hmpf ... forgot to sand it down ... gnarf.



So I started to do the deconstruction game again, already made all the pieces again, but then decided to try to sand the cheeks down and flattend the carvings.



I guess it's hard to see but it looks better imo



Inbetween I were thinking about painting the inner part of the molding black. But too much fear to **** it up



Then I redid the Top Headrails. This time they sit much higer on the cheeks. To do the rails with boxwood is kinda fun. I'm still not sure how to make the timbers, I guess I will make them in one piece each timber as this seems to be the only way for me to get a good looking symmetrical look.





Then the first toprail was build.





This is how the old version looked. See the difference?



Did the other toprail ... they look simple but took their time .... I changed the carving a bit of the toprails too.





And here are some macros again ... guess you missed them already?





cheers,

Dirk

[Dubz]

Finished the middlerails. First adjusted the upper part under the cathead to lay kinda flat on the hull. Then the lower parts length and angle.



Then pined them together, glueed with ca and sanded them.



After that I made the carvings. The rails are pinned to the hull as well.



The knees under the cathead will get some more love with filler and sanding. I had to improvise there a bit.

Anyway some more pictures.











It's not that perfect I like to have but sometimes things need to find an end I guess


First the molding strips were replaced with boxwood ones.



Then I reworked the caprail. As you can see in the picture above the caprail is more or less flat with the stern. I always didn't liked that.
I also like to see the "line" of the rail in boxwood, like I saw on some older paintings.

So first I bend a strip of boxwood with a template of the stern.





For the next, important, step I forgot to make a picture .. hmpf ... the strip is molded/carved so that there is a square socket with a rounded top. The top is masked with masking tape. The idea was to have room to use filler and paint but don't touch the part which should be in boxwood.







After painting and removing the masking tape it looks this way





cheers,

Dirk

[Dubz]

I saw this detail on some ships and I like it, the so called "wash cant".







And here in the back my XMas Present from my girlfriend. Less chaos at the workshop ... hopefully




I did some modifications to my workshop, I built another shelf and bought a new, bigger worktop to have more space for tools and stuff.







I also bought me a nice little tool I now need to learn to use, an old Unimat 3 Lathe





One of the next things I need to solve is the light situation, that's still not optimal for working.

cheers,

Dirk

[Dubz]

I started to build the hinges for the gunport lids .. hinges .. hinges .. 48 to do ... hmpf ... I did not earlier cause I had no clue how to make the 1mm brass strips, now I learned that I don't need to saw them, I can just cut the brass sheet with a cutter and then "brake" it .. yepp ..

So I silver soldered a brasstube with a diameter of 0.7mm to the strips.





Then made a little jig to size them.





Next will be drilling 96 0.3mm holes ... yeah ...

Puhhh ... macro is so cruel sometimes





Next step is to glue the hinges to the lids. To get the position I use maskingtape as a guide.



Starboard side is done.





Next will be the port side and the lids for the long guns, then the rivets are following. Last and final step will be building the counterpart of the hinges. Will be no fun with the damn soft basswood ...

Finished the rest ..







cheers,

Dirk

[Dubz]

Today I started the counterparts (whats the correct english word for that btw?) for the hinges. Soldering and blackening ...





I then did a first test and ... nope ... as we all knows sometimes backtracking is needed, the distance between the port and the lid is imo way to big. I choosed this distance because of the damn basswood and did not wanted to drill to close to the edge and break it, wrong decision





So a bit of controlled deconstruction was needed. I drilled the 2 holes close under the edge of the port with an angle to the bottom - it worked - removed the hinges from the lids put the counterpart in and then the hinges and then glued them to the lid .. omg my english haha .. hope you get what I did



Much better imo.





Some macros





And one not macros ...



Some Impressions








Lids and hinges at the port side are finished, yeah



And a daylight shot of Syren



And now some .. you guess .. macros







cheers,

Dirk