DocRob

Yes Phil, I would definitely solder the bigger parts. It needs to be well processed, as there should be no plastic near the to solder parts. Cheers Rob

Thank you Gary, I guess in the case of DoK, the rudder arrangement was adapted to the deck, to have more room to party in the cabin. There was even a mirror clad organ on board along other clutter. Not a good idea of dancing some elaborated minuets, while stumbling over the ropes of the steering mechanism. I'm completely new to rigging with yarn. I only used what is supplied with the kit until now and I think it's high quality yarn, made by Güttermann. I do like the rope like appearance of the material and it was easy to get good tight knots into it, with a drop of CA for securing. I just had a quick look for silk thread and it seems to be really expensive, two meters for 6 Euros, was the first I found with a diameter of 0,45 mm . I considered using a flame to get rid of some fuzzy residues, but wouldn't like my work destroyed by fire and chickened out. Cheers Rob

I'm all eyes Phil, I like the half tracks a lot, but never build one myself. Can't wait to see yours progressing. Part count is not overly important, it's how the kit is designed what counts. There is the clean up of course. I have this incarnation in my stash, but frightened myself with adding all the PE madness, which substitutes practically most of the body parts, as I planned mine bruised and dented. Without the PE, I may had build it already. Cheers Rob

After a lot of trying, testing and preparing, I finally got the rudder drive assembled. First I sprayed all the PE eyebolts and other PE parts for rigging in semi matte black, after priming of course. I had the parts primed together with the gold painted PE for decorations, otherwise, I would have burnished the black parts. I decided, to fiddle all eight blocks onto the natural colored thread, which was not easy to do, even after I drilled the holes in the blocks out. Then I added small length of black thread around the blocks and the last two were attached to the rudder tiller arm and secured with a tiny drop of CA. Next, I attached eyebolts to the remaining six blocks, the same way. In some build logs, I saw that the short ends of black thread were seized (thickened with knotted thread). After seeing how delicate the whole affair is, I skipped that. It's 1/64 and the pics are heavily macroed. The rudder assembly got mounted, starting with the steering wheel and then working towards the tiller arm, gluing the PE eyebolts into the 0,8 mm pre drilled holes. As the natural colored thread is still movable, like the real thing, it was easy to tauten the assembly and sling a knot around the last eyebolt. I'm really happy that this is beyond me and the result is not perfect, but sufficient. I even swore sometimes, a thing I can't remember to have done before while building the DoK. Finally I added some railings for the staircase, made from PE on a wooden frame. It's interesting, that the PE is supplied in three different thicknesses, 0,2 mm, 0,4 mm and like the railings 0,6 mm, which allows for a little relief detail. I first considered to cut the posts of the railings and substitute them with self made ones, produced from pear wood rests on my mini lathe, but I was only not able to make two posts looking the same, let alone four. Cheers Rob

Wow, my eyes are hurting from looking at your Mig Ernie, but that's a good sign, as the camo came out great. Cheers Rob

I hope with the shrouds and other rigging it will be a bit easier. These are by far the tiniest blocks and I'm lucky, I opted for the better pearwood blocks, when buying the kit. I bought two books about rigging and hope that will help. There's a whole array of new obstacles to master, well, I will take my time and hope to get into a flow. Cheers Rob

I had the same feeling Gus. I managed rigging of WNW kits, but that's metal tube and fishing line. Wood and thread, is a different pair of shoes though. I hope, Im able to tackle this somehow. Cheers Rob

The slightly sunken in soles look good, better to do this with the clay not dried up. The footsteps left of the Tellerminenmann look a bit unnatural though. Cheers Rob

It may looks if I lost some pace and there is a bit of truth in it. First rigging is taking place and I have to consider how I tackle this theoretical and practical, which knots are appropriate and lots of other stuff. The first bit is the rudder mechanism, which includes the tiniest used blocks of 2 mm, where a thread of 0,25 mm has to be looped through and another knotted around, fixing the block to an eyebolt . I used a 0,5mm drill bit to widen the holes in the block and prepared the yarn which of course has a bigger diameter after cutting with diluted wood glue. I then managed to fiddle the thread through. Cheers Rob

You should buy a gallon of Tamiya LP-2 gloss white then Peter . Cheers Rob

Nice looking figures with very believable poses. The modifications you made, are well integrated. Cheers Rob

Muchas gracias Peter, and welcome back on the deck of the Dok. I thought a lot about starting the build, given it's such a complicated and strange thing, with wood and rigging and all the felt obstacles. In fact, I'm glad I started, it's so much fun, which drives me to the bench, because the build is so rewarding. I chose to start now, because spring is always the worst time of the year weather wise. It's cold, windy, rainy with lots of grey days and not even surfable waves, a perfect time for a bigger project. The most important thing is to have some time to spend with such a build to have a kind of flow and stay focused. Cheers Rob

Thank you Gary, I tell you about fast progress, when I mastered the first rigging steps . Until now, everything was somehow manageable, what I haven't expected. One of the next steps will be to rig the rudder assembly with some of these tiny (1/64 scale ) eyebolts and blocks. Cheers Rob

This is an impressive dart, Mike. Your extra work pays off, I really like the enhancement, the PE brings to the kit. Cheers Rob

You can't stay away from the fumes of Tamiya's Extra Thin for too long Peter . Good to have you back here, knowing your home has improved a lot through that lengthy period of renovation. My own experience is, if you started renovations, you have to pull through, whatever it costs. The tendency to be lazy afterwards with the remaining work, which was excluded is too overwhelming. After all the stress and spent time, it feels overly good to have a 'new' home as you like it to have. After lots of different building projects around the house last year, this year will be a bit more quite, but there will be a complete renovation of the rooms inside. It has to be done and afterwards, I will realize, how much improved everything is. I never build a 1/144 airliner and I really like to take one of the many seats and buckle in, to learn something new. It never occurred to me, that you should substitute clear parts with decals, but why not, as 144 scale clears may look a bit blobby. The Ukrainian outfit looks great and is a nice addition to the GB. Bummer with the Pilatus, I would have really liked to see it in this crazy livery, but I understand, that some kits are just not worth the effort, except you absolutely want to have one of these in your collection. Cheers Rob

Looking good Kevin. Eduard has their manuals on their homepage as PDF file. You can zoom in as much as you want with theese. For example this is the link to their 'nose interior' set. There is an embedded link for the instruction sheet. He 111H-6 nose interior 1/48 - Eduard Store Cheers Rob

It's not only the fast curing time, it's also, that I wanted to have a good wood to brass bond. Looking at the DoK build a bit more abstract, it allows the plastic model builder to use his learned skills more than usual with other wooden kits. Chris from Vanguard uses lots of PE and resin parts and techniques not too typical for wooden ship models. That's a great start to get accustomed with the subject for us. Not everything is new and different. I've seen traditional wooden ship builders complain. Why using an airbrush, why masking techniques, resin, CA, PE, burnishing the stuff,... What he actually does, is making wooden ship building easier accessible for us plastic glue sniffers. I used CA a lot through this build. I never especially liked the stuff before, but used it a lot when necessary while building plastic models with added resin or PE. With this build, I use CA more often than I really needed to, because I learned to enjoy the convenience of fast setting and good bond. You need to employ a good discipline while working with CA, to have no spills and residues in unwanted places, which is the downside of the stuff. Cheers Rob

I used some KitsWorld parts on my recent Kai Phantom build for seat belts and other bits around the bang seats. I liked the belts, as they were good to work with, but other parts like handles were a nightmare, to soft, to stay proud. Bummer, because these parts are printed on both sides and would have made live easier. Cheers Rob

Now it's time to fit the deck with all the necessary clutter. first was the main staircase, which is wonderfully represented and I took a pic, before I inserted it. First I thought about thinning the single steps a bit, but you can't see too much and I skipped the thought. The stairs where only varnished, as I wanted a rich deep ton of wood. Here the staircase is inserted, but still lacks a railing. I also added the quarter dome on the backside of the entrance doors, which gor it's copper color with the again formidable and shining Vallejo Liquid Gold colors. The steering wheel assembly got painted and varnished, but is not glued on yet. Next there were the channels to install on the outside of the hull. These are made of 1,5 mm thick wood and need to be drilled with a 0,5 mm drill bit on the thin side, to accept bras rod for enforcement. I only have my big standing drill machine to do this, frightening. I hold the marked pieces with a self holding tweezer upright and drilled at the marked spots. This is, how the channels are assembled. After two nerve wrecking hours, I glued the channels on with CA and am very happy, that this step is done. Cheers Rob

Thank you Kevin, she has her looks. Thank you Phil, I hope you could relax a bit this weekend. There is still some work to do, before I set the masts. It's the rigging which gives me the creeps. Cheers Rob

I have only two Quinta sets and none from Red Fox, so I can't judge the quality, but found Red Fox overly expensive, given the fact, that no seat belts are included in their sets. Cheers Rob

Indeed Martin, she starts to show the beauty of the name giving Duchess, who was often described as irresistible. Thank you Gus, after I thinned the stern rail to half thickness, I thought it would look good now. Somehow it ties the stern together, to put it in a transformed phrase from a movie sporting 'The Dude' . Cheers Rob

Page 47 of 80 in the manual and the text under the pics says 'Your hull should now look like this'. That means to me, a milestone is reached. The hull is complete after not even two month, much faster than expected. I added the mid deck bulwark, after assembling this with windows, decoration, hinges and lastly a tiny crown above the door. I managed to mount the rudder, which I finished with hinges made from PE before. The last addition was the now gold painted stern railing and then I again touched the gold paint up by brush, where I caused damage through handling, and here she is. Cheers Rob

Muchas gracias Martin. Masts Gus, I haven't lost a thought about these until now, thanks for the brain bug . If you mean rigging by etc., I have a second brain bug now. Thank you Gary, in case of DoK, the length of the deck is almost the same as the height of the main mast. It doesn't look like, but the ship was really used for traveling from Calais to St. Petersburg more than once and seemingly also from Calais to Rome. The DoK was once nearly wrecked through a the heaviest storm of the century, moored near St. Petersburg, but thanks to Katharina the Great, the masts were rebuild and the ship repaired. Cheers Rob

Thanks Gary, I added some more to the starboard side today, but I think that's all now. Cheers Rob