DocRob

Thank you Gary, to put together the deck equipment is fun, but very time consuming. Until this phase of the build, there was nearly no clean up needed. On deck things are a bit different, lots of char to remove and all amounts to build it in a good sequence to not corner yourself. It also involves some preparations for the fit of the masts and other pats, later. The cannons are nicely made, if you lay out the parts in front of you, they look a bit simple, which changes assembled luckily, with a little help of varnish airbrush and pigments. Cheers Rob

Nice bike Ernie, not my style, but as you said for eating up miles comfortably it's perfect and the looks are just wow, but I doubt, that you can go above 3500 rpm without nose bleeding. There's a more socially accepted variant of helmet. These were worn by German firefighters until the 80's or 90's at least, but not DOT approved. Cheers Rob

No metal barrel Gary, there is a one piece plastic one with slide molded rifling. Not too shabby, but it has a slight mold line. The kit sports Magic Tracks, luckily. Cheers Rob

Thank you Kevin, I read somewhere, that the breech ropes should be three times the length of the barrel. That is the case here, when the rope is finally attached to the barrel. On the other hand, I doubt that these cannons were ever shot. Cheers Rob

Yep, there is metal mesh with my kit. It's pre cut and there are PE parts as frames. The mesh feels rigid, I guess it's made from steel. The kit number is 6784. Some pics of the manual with the mesh put onto it. Cheers Rob

There were not so frequent updates, because I prepared the numerous sub-assemblies for the decks. Here you can see some of them ready to install: The cannon barrels where sprayed matte black and received a rub of Uschis iron pigments. The tiny PE-parts which fix the barrel I bent over a halved brass rod of 1 mm diameter and attached with CA, after the carriage was assembled and varnished. I enhanced the pumps by adding angle cut brass tubes as an outlet. They were painted bronze with the mechanics held in matte black with iron pigments. I will tone down the shininess a bit further. Then I pondered about the rigging of the cannons and made a prototype, which was time consuming and nerve wrecking. I only went for breech ropes, where I made some rings from 0,5 mm brass rod to be later attached to the eyebolts in the bulwark. I made a loop through the ring and CA'ed the ends together. Than I added a thin thread around the ends, like it's done on ships. The whole assembly was very fiddly and I think about a simpler way with a similar result, as I doubt, I can do that six times looking equally. The gun is not finally glued on and the breech rope still has to be slung around the knob on the end of the barrel. I have to glue the rope there and therefore will be sure, this is six times doable. On the following pics, I added most of the subassemblies to the deck, but nothing is glued yet. The winch drum was airbrushed matte black, then the rings were masked off and the part got a layer of desert yellow, followed by two different red brown oil colors, to make it look a bit more like wood. That's how it will look in the end, still with more details to come. There are cannonballs and some cleats and I also bought a little boat, made from spars and planks. I'm not sure, if the boat is too much, but I will try, how it looks. It's not a part of the kit. Cheers Rob

I measured the steel mesh from my kit and it has a ca. 0,5 mm spacing, perfectly sufficient. Cheers Rob

Looking good, I like the multi colored wheels Gary. Is the mesh you're waiting for the Thoma-Schürzen mesh? Cheers Rob

I would never have thought so Gary Cheers Rob

Splendid detailing and nice paintjob on this very tiny airplane. sometimes it's pure pleasure to scale down to 48 or 72 scale for a change. Cheers Rob

Thanks Super-Gary, I now have a picture of you in my mind, combat ready with blood stained eyes . The Proxxon mini lathe is only for wood working, there is no way to adapt the necessary cutting tools for working with metals, except maybe sanding them. You can work with wooden parts up to a diameter of 8 mm with the standard issued horrible plastic collets. You can add a three jaw chuck for more flexibility, but the machine has a lot of limitations due to the tiny size and power. As I have to prepare the mast parts, which often are conical and have indentions, it will come handy. If you plan to work with metals, you have to spend more, not only for the machine, but the necessary tools as well. I thought about buying a better lathe, but skipped it, as I don't use it often enough to rectify the money. Cheers Rob

Thank you Peter, parts count isn't overwhelming. There is a lot in the box, a mix of materials, but opening some of Dragons boxes is even more frightening. The different materials need a lot of different techniques to be attended, but there is nothing which can't be done until now with a bit of experience in working with wood, PE and resin. The way the kit is designed, brings it nearer to us plastic addicts through the extensive use of PE and resin. Time consuming processes like opening gunports for example are made easy here with pre-fabricated parts, which only need a bit of clean up and adjusting. I haven't tracked the time consumed by the build, but I'm astonished, how fast it went on. I worked on the DoK for a bit more than two month now, but have no idea, how long masts and rigging will take. I've worked longer on some plastic kits, for example, my Fokker D.VIII build took more than three month. Cheers Rob

Our dog owns the spacy luggage compartment of our Jeep. He is not that big, but has more space than anybody else. On the other hand, he never destroys things other than unattended shoelaces. Cheers Rob

You created a beauty Peter. With the decals all clicks together. Great and flawless work. Cheers Rob

Speaking about solutions. I didn't like the look of the cannons wheels, so I measured the axle hole and found some Albion brass tube of 1,8 mm diameter, which tight fitted as an axle and put the wheels on the mini lathe. I then carefully sanded the char away from the wheels. Friction was sufficient to hold the wheels in place. The Proxon mini lathe is a great help as a tool for wooden ship models, but the quality of the plastic collets is horrible. Right from the start, you scratch the working material with these, because they have burrs. The four mm diameter collet needed drilling and sanding to accept 4 mm diameter workpieces . The first test assembly of one of the tiny cannons or should I say, muskets on wheels. There is more cleanup to be done, I have to paint the barrels and varnish the wood, but that's how the artillery of the Duchess will look. Cheers Rob