@bigtodd
Sagamore was different to most of the US whalebacks in that her machinery was much further forward and she was designed to be a seagoing vessel,( England to the Black Sea ) was designed as self-unloading-- hence the large number of masts and profusion of cargo booms.
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Anyhow.... this is the last update before 'final-model-images' will be posted here and a ' full' gallery shoot
The chain fwd for the 2 x anchors passed through the bow eyes acting as fairleads ( hence the outer two were larger )
ALL PE chain I had -even the very smallest looked --- large and over-scale
So I tried the David Griffith method of plaiting wire to make an imitation of chain. It looked very good for a large chain/ large ship but even using the thinnest wire would not pass though my bow-eyes
Hence I twisted just two strands of slightly thicker wire-- in situ on the ship, painted and highlighted it looked pretty good ( on the model I used a tighter / shorter twist than in the photo below )
I could not avoid the problem any longer--and started the process of raising the water-level in 4 layers.
I used for the first coat a lower density faster drying structural gel
in the image it looks like the ship has stranded on a white beach... ! .?
Once the water-levels had dried ( 2 weeks !) the first coats of paint went on.....
aiming at a shade and hue suitable for the grey -green of the coastal waters of England,
adding coats wet-on-wet of differing and lightening shades
Thereafter I added a few sparse figures, the main hull deck being an untenable location at sea, and I made a start on the the rigging --this was done--as ever using stretched sprue.
( using my tried an tested methods
as here
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=37536 )
In itself the rigging was not that complex or difficult, but because was not much of it, there is no hiding place and it needed to look even more like the real thing!
This meant a lot of gazing at often fuzzy old images to try and ascertain
what all the ' string ' actually did ; and where is started and where it finished !
>>> ....When Sagamore was built in 1893 for the original ship-owners William Johnston and Co of Liverpool,
Sagamore's unorthodox design prevented her from being given a classification and load line for registration in the United Kingdom. (
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Therefore Johnston's and Doxford's ( the ship-builders) created a jointly-owned subsidiary to own her, Belgian American Maritime Company SA, and registered her in Antwerp.
In 1897 Johnston's transferred Sagamore to the Belgian Marine Trading Company. She remained registered in Antwerp.....<<<
I had naturally ( but wrongly! ) assumed that the ship would nonetheless carry a Red Ensign ( British merchant fleets)
The only image where the flags were discernible as a guide for flags I had was this image below
( taken with orthochromatic film- hence the distorted colour values)
In images I found on the 'net , the deep golden yellow of the Belgian flags...when on a ship with back-light and 700 x smaller faded somewhat!...
So I used a faded yellow post it note to make numerous Belgian flags...
from which I could narrow down my choice
The house flag was harder to find online-- but persistence and e-bay (! ) produced a result
This was made of thin paper, drawn and painted with coloured aquarell pencils
The lettering eluded me -- but small dabs of white gave an impression thereof
Once the flags were attached to their halyards, I finished off the seacsape, added a propeller blade
( visible as the ship is running light ,in a gentle swell en-route to another port to load the next cargo...
I checked carefully over the model for dust particles and errant hairs etc,
and then sprayed it with matt Winsor and Newton Galeria varnish
the images below were
pre-varnish --