crazypoet

Love it! This mounting tells an immediate "story" which is one of the greatest joys in modeling

It's getting a bit crowded in there! Lots of small parts to fit inside an ever-shrinking space... I expect that the plumbing is going to be quite the adventure. great work, and thanks for sharing all the steps

Very very nice work! Particularly liking the research involved...

Reminder to self: thick plastic does not bend and shape the same as thin wood... I'm working on parts of the display base, in this case one of the boat stands. Re-learning how to do curved joints in what will eventually be a pair of "iron" stands is kinda fun - I'd forgotten how tricky it can be to get precise curves along edge joints under tension. The good news is that it's all coming back to me and I might actually be able to use this one after a moderate amount of sanding and filling. The bad news is that it shouldn't have *required* a moderate amount of sanding and filling! The core of each stand is 1mm evergreen sheet (as these will bear a good bit of weight when finished), to which I'll add seams, plates and MasterClub resin rivets, all finished with Uschi's metal powders in a mix of iron and steel. I'm also badly mistreating a lovely new map, to make it look like a lovely *old* map. The first wash of strong coffee and food-coloring is done. After it dries I'll borrow one of Mrs. Poet's irons to make it nice and smooth again before I mount it to the board and hit it with some tinted varnish.

Is that Pro-Tec scale hose on those fittings? I was just trying to find something that looked like what you were doing and came across them. Seem to be oriented towards auto/cycle modeling, but would seem to work for some of our topics as well.

Thanks! I think I figured out the "how else could it be" approach for the through-hull fitting on the seawater pump. A screened pipe with a sealed/riveted flange just makes sense, and I've not been able to find anything that would indicate otherwise. So that's the approach I'll take. Meanwhile, I finished the ball-peen hammer. I carved the head from a 3/32" dowel and the handle from a sliver of cherrywood left over from a different model. The only headache was drilling a 1/16" hole through the 3/32" head... a bit of CA for body made it doable... Finished the head with graphite, and a coat of future for the varnished handle. Not the the greatest picture - I need to track down the macro lens I picked up for the iPhone - but the gist is there. I made up a few silk bags and I'm putting them through the coffee/food-color/ammo wash treatment to get the appropriate level of grunge. I collected a few acorns of various sizes and some dryer lint with which to fill them - works a champ for that "odds and ends in a bag" look...

Nice!

I appreciate the comments! They truly help to keep me focused on days like this when about four hours of work resulted in some (hopefully final) drawings/plans of the supports where the boat will rest on the base, filing a hex socket out of brass tube for the valve key and a rough start to carving a ball-peen hammer head out of 3/32" dowel... Translating the designs from my head to paper then to wood/plastic/brass/whathaveyou is always a challenge! My imagination has *infinitely* finer resolution than my fingertips and tools can reach... meanwhile, I have a dilemma... The engine drives two different pumps in addition to the prop shaft. One of those is a recirculating pump for feeding water from the condenser back into the boiler. No problems there as all the connecting pipes, fittings and related bits are neatly hidden and invisible under the deck. The *second* pump however is used to pump seawater straight into the boiler when it needs filling. Again, most of the connecting plumbing is neatly invisible under the deck... HOWEVER the associated fittings on the outside of the hull, under the waterline, are an utter mystery to me. I have no clue how these things were done and I've so far found no useful references online. i hate it when things like this which were once "common knowledge" become cryptic puzzles...

That's some impressive CAD, and a great print!

I like that jig - it's an approach that just makes sense, but that I'd never have thought of.

I do have both the B-17 and a wooden sailing ship (solid hull, designed for beginners). I have some more advanced/higher skill level kits in 1:48 as well - are those appropriate?

So a few small updates... first, the boat. It's done (though these pics don't have the stack rigging - need to get pics of that still). The torpedo and gun are rigged, mast is up... Done. I'm happy with the work and all the extras I added in along the way. So here's the state of things as they sit for the moment... The boat... Spar Torpedo rigging A bit of ash and cinders from the firebox... Toolbox (they spent the day prepping for their mission, so I imagine the engineer doing a bit of tuning and preventive maintenance... Gun furniture hung in easy reach So what in blue blazes am I up to now???? Seriously - this thing should be done and in a display case, for chrissakes! Well, I just can't seem to leave well-enough alone. There are more details left to finish the story. The right tools - what would a small boat such as this have carried as a matter of course, along with those "extras" needed for some specific documented activities... you saw the Saw in-progress above. Next of course is a coal shovel... I had a pair of doll-house scale white metal shovels that were truly bad. I spent a day trying to work up a better version in plasticard, but I still need to work on my 3-d folding skills... so instead, I decided to do a bit of surgery and correct the shovel I had on-hand... First, getting rid of the rather ridiculously thick handle... Much filing and head-scratching later... the shovel blade is *much* closer to scale dimensions, and I've worked out the bits needed for assembly. As I don't have any 1/16" wood dowel on hand, the handle is aluminum tube, with brass rod to tie it all together. I drilled the blade's handle socket to accept the brass rod, then threaded the handle pieces onto the rod and added a few strategic drops of CA gel. A bit of sanding and primer and it's starting to take shape... Still need to finish finish painting the handle - got a bit done tonight, but it still needs a few touches to look like well-used wood... Meanwhile, I've been working out a few other tools - saw (wood and plasticard), pry-bar (brass wire), caulking hammer (all aluminum tube), sledgehammer (from 1:35 tank maintenance set), valve key (brass) All of these still need a bit of touch-up, and I *still* need to make the appropriate spanners and a ball-peen hammer. So what else needs doing? Hmmm... wood and canvas for the box they put around the engine as a muffler. I'll actually use a bit of coarse silk, as the weave is very close to 1:24 scale canvas/sailcloth. Maybe a nail keg as well. I need to finish painting and detailing a wood bucket for up-front (wood staves and copper banding to eliminate sparks around the gun) and a metal bucket for the back. Rigging the anchor - still need to work that out) and hanging the flag. Oh, right, lest I forget... Oil bottles and cans. They used whale oil for both lubrication and lamps. I'll have one or two oil cans floating around, and at least one bottle. I'll probably pass on the lamps though as this is daytime and any lamps they may have had would have been stowed. I'm adding in some odd sacks and barrels of provisions - barrels of salt pork, hard tack and drinking water. Maybe a flour sack, sea bags and foraging bags. Somewhere along the line I need to shell out for a dry-transfer decal kit, so I can do some of the needed graphics - labels on bottles and stencils on boxes. They'll have to go naked for the time-being... Then, lastly, building and adding an open ammo box full of Canister rounds, adding some coal and firewood in the bins and building the base to display the whole glorious mess! I am using a 15x24" bit of board for the base. It will have a map of Albemarle Sound as the main feature, with some iron plate and wood decking boards as details. I had the title plate done up at Shapeways, based on an HO scale building sign. It worked perfectly for this application. So, yeah, still a bit of work to go!

I'll dig through the stash... i think i NG I have a 1:48 B17 as well as some boats that might fit the bill

That engine is lovely!

Nothing like a bit of the original to add life and a touch of gravitas... nice!

Agreed - great job on the paint!

So I'm hoarding pics of the boat for the moment, but I wanted to give an idea about some of what I'm up to... One of the things that that was happening on the morning of October 27th, as the crew of Picket Boat One were preparing for their mission, was the construction of a "wood and canvas box" to muffle the sound of the engine valves as they passed near Confederate lookouts on the approach to Plymouth... This implies a couple of things, not least of which is the presence of a saw. I found pictures of Civil-War period Henry Disston hand saws on eBay and couldn't resist trying to capture at least the fundamental of the shapes. Original Saws: so here I've sketched the handle design on a bit of 1/32" wood and started cutting it out... After cutting out the handle, and stiffening it a bit with CA, I had to split it through the thickness of the board to accommodate the blade... Finishing the cut and adding a blade cut from .010 poly sheet: Blade finished with Tamiya Weathering Powders in gunmetal and silver I still need to rivet the handle and blade together - I'll do that tomorrow. This is why these last few steps are taking so long...

I know the feeling when "Mr Stupid" makes an appearance! I've entertained him at my bench far more often than I care to admit... Thanks for sharing your processes, warts and all - it continues to inspire us mere mortals.

Short update - no pics yet, but they're coming... I found (finally!) a source for the flags I need, along with some nice accessories from Shapeways - buckets, bottles and suchlike. They are arriving in bits and drabs, and all need some attention in the spray booth before making their debut. The boat itself? It's complete save four mast stays which I'll finish when the Albion micro-tube for the turnbuckles arrives. I'll post pics as soon as I get those done... I'm starting work on the display base. I'd originally considered putting it "in the water" in a diorama, but came up with a different approach. I'm hoping that it works out as nicely as what I have in my head. You'll have to wait a day or three for pics though, as I'm waiting for some critical bits to show up in the mail. Face-palm moment: I thought I'd go cheap and use a bit of melamine shelf as the foundation for the base. Wrong! Nothing on the planet sticks to that stuff, excepting some fairly hard-to-find exotic glues. So back to the lumber store to get a proper bit of board... penny-wise, pound foolish strikes again!

I love this project - particularly how you managed to fit all those wires into limited space... nicely done!

Beer can in da house! This is great work, and I'm loving the ability to stare over your virtual shoulder...

That looks like a fun build!

Beautifully done! Looking at this from the viewpoint of a bomber crewman, you got it real enough to be scary - which is as it should be.

Nicely done!

Nice work on this. I feel like I could crawl around the interior and not find a thing missing or out of place