HMS Tiger... In Progress

[JIM BAUMANN]

Bill--the overall effect is really really good mate!


Here is my ( unsolicited!) advice....

Get an Optivisor --as fast as possible! with a DA-3 lens- = 14 inches eye to work
( they don't fall on your model!)

as discussed here:
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=50706

Meantime...
The lower yard that has bowed up...

Remove the diagonal braces of mono-filament.
straighten the yard leaving a tiny upward bow--the monofilamet being tensioned will pull it down slightly--to straight!

Rig any vertical halyards off the yard --replace the braces with stretched sprue last!
--this will not distort the yard

If the masts are showing any sign of bowing toward the centre of the ship, set up the fore and aft top mast rigging first--create a very very gentle bow towards the bow and stern 1 degree at most--fine tune the masts straight using the centre ariels.

Do NOT get bogged down with the minutia--the model is nearly complete!

It has been a great stepping stone -- the work is sharp, and you have learnt loads.
In 1:1 viewing--rather than the brutality of macro photos and 19" monitors ....

The model stands up just fine to the normal eyesight admiring!

Onwards to the next model ====> !!!

From my observations.... the main educative points you have garnered for your next model:

Your painting and building are truly excellent- not much to improve there!

BUT... procedurally...

1) Mount early-- this facilitates easy handling without breaking bits of ship off continually

2) Decide on your seacolours before painting around the model...

3) Make your blast-bags early on--off the model

4) Do not give up or get bogged down by tiny stuff that only you know is wrong....
-- you have set yourself a high bar--and in virtually every aspect you have achieved your targets ( IMHO)
5) Cage ariels-- Much kudos for doing them....
( I personally undecided if they are one of those things ....like smoke and flying spray;best left to imagination...
)

You are at the final hurdles...-- and the model will be a fine addition to the permanent Modelwarships.com gallery!

JIM B

[Guido]

Hi, Bill!
I didn't manage to finish up rigging today as planned. Alas, some progress made...



better some than none!
Even OOB can take a loooong time!

Guido

[Bill Livingston]

Thanks everyone for their posts and encouragement... Jim... particular thanks for taking the trouble to go through a few points. I had written a long reply then lost a connection and its gone into the ether somewhere... so rather than trying to re-write it, suffice to say, yes, I have learnt a considerable amount over the past few weeks... Most of it to do with the order I do things in... not really planning very well... but I will get better! This WIP section has helped tremendously with keeping me at it and, without it, I doubt I would have kept going... Guido is right... The therapeutic powers of blogging indeed!

I ordered a Optivisor this morning... I resisted the temptation to go for a more powerful magnification... I know you will be right about the lens to choose... so thats done. Thanks.

Guido... that looks wonderful! Clean and well built and painted... immaculate. Well done

Right... I am still working at my rigging. Still got a few things to do round the starfish and mainmast... Looking very busy now... I really think .003 is too big... Singly they look good.... but once you have a load of rigging there it looks a bit too much. I am running out of new scalpel blades... you can only use them once or twice to cut mono because they need to be ultra sharp as I cant put any pressure on it... Thats why there are one or two ends that still need trimming. Still... I am building up a large collection of nearly sharp blades for normal modelling! Anyway... I am going on with it and still hard at it... Just taking a ciggie break!

Here is where I am now...



EDIT: Some time later... I have actually finished the main mast rigging. Believe it or not it looks right according to the drawings I have. Not sure if it was necessary to put all of it in... but you know how it is. In future I will use .002" instead of .003, definitely looks too thick... although you cant see it from more than a couple of feet away so I am not going to change it..! I think I will give the rest of it a miss for a while... glass of red wine and some TV I think... Get back to it tomorrow... Thanks for giving me a deadline Guido... did it... more or less







Thankfully it is in 700 scale so doesnt look quite as messy as this in real life...



Still some trimming to do...and then face the small rigging like round the davits etc... then the big decision... how to do the aerials... cage or just simple lines..? Still dont know...


Bill

[Bill Livingston]

Hi all... Managed a little more of the rigging above the starfish and it is now complete, including spots of paint to represent insulators and pulleys. Just need the under starfish rigging and footropes and then on to the cage aerials! (then the boat booms, crew and the other rigging for all the Davits and so on... and I thought this would be a quick project!!).

JIM: I have now got the Optivisor with the DA3 lens and you are right... its perfect... cant wait to finish this and start my new project... probably my WEM 700 HMS Renown...! BTW That photo you sent is really useful... I can see the boat booms and how they work and even seeing where the ropes were dressed around the ship and tiny details like the supports for the sounding platforms are really clear... now its just a matter of whether to add them or not... Think I will leave it for this project... it has been more of a 'getting back into it' exercise than anything else.. and as you said earlier... it is easy to get bogged down with minutia... Enjoying it though... especially with my new Optivisor... here is yet another modeller who would wholly recommend everyone gets one...



Bill

[Bill Livingston]

Hi All,

Got a lot of fiddly bits out of the way today... Managed to fit all the rigging I am going to do... . Believe it or not, I caught the mainmast and broke a few lines and had to do an 'in field' repair... even lost the crows nest... hence the delay for a couple of days! Still, its done now. Just cage aerials left to do...








Hope to do the cage aerials tomorrow...

Bill

BTW. I have repaired the line that became unattached on the left hand side of the bottom picture

[Thomas E. Johnson]

Looking awesome Bill.

[Guido]

Getting there, Bill!
Very nice!
Guido

[MartinJQuinn]

She looks great, Bill. The rigging is especially sharp - excellent work.

[Bill Livingston]

Thanks for your encouragement everyone... Much appreciated... Just want this finished now so I can get on with the next one armed with all the things I have learned over the past few weeks...

Anyway... Decided to be brave and have another go at the cage aerials... This time I am using some tiny PE rings and some .002" (two thou) mono. The mono is on a jig and lines set to be less than 1 mm apart with the tiny PE rings, so pretty much as small as I can manipulate. I lost one and found it on the very end of my fingernail, perpendicular to the nail, so its insde diameter is less than the thickness of my fingernail... about the same size as a 700 scale porthole!



If I cant get this to work I am going to just string up two parallel lines and leave it at that...

Bill

[Bill Livingston]

Well, got the first of the four aerials done... A LOT of effort but I think it was worthwhile. I have tacked it on the model temporarily... for two reasons really... one to see what it looks like and the second so it is kept safe and not lost somewhere!

It seems to be pretty much in scale... so the effort in manipulating something this tiny has paid off... Its a little short though... Should really be at least one spacer longer. I will see how the others turn out with the same spacing and if they are reasonably consistent I think I will get away with it. Anyway... I will see if I can get another one done tonight while I am on a bit of a roll...





EDIT: Since these pictures I have made a longer jig so I can do them a touch more accurately... why make three more too short when I could make four the correct length and throw this first effort away... I can then mount them to the top yardarm the correct way too... they should be attached right near the end of the cage on a line coming down from the yard... not directly on it as I have done here... the one I have done is too short to do that properly, and I had earlier decided to not worry too much about absolute accuracy thiking just the right effect would do... but I have got a little more ambitious as the project has progressed... learning on the job I think its called...

Bill

[MartinJQuinn]

That looks spectacular! Glad you stuck with it.

[Bill Livingston]

Thanks Martin...

I made another set later that evening, slightly longer... They were the right size but I made a bit of a mess of the last line, it wasn't the same tension as the others so one side looked a bit wobbly... I threw it away (two hours work!!!).

I am going to have another go now. The good thing is when I looked at Tiger in its cabinet this morning I could hardly see the cage aerials from a couple of feet away they were so fine... and the rest of the rigging is invisible from that distance...So the size is right... Looks absolutely spot on and I am very fussy about things like that. Just a matter of making them the right length (and neatly). Problem cracked though... even if it is hard and painstaking work.

[Bill Livingston]

Made another four or five cage aerials but could only use two of them. The frustrating thing is, all were quicker to do than the first one, but, as they were longer, it was much more difficult to get the same tension in each mono line. They also needed to be stretched quite hard in order to take up the correct shape. Because I had opted to mount them as they are in the real ship.. i.e. not directly to the upper yard arm but on a downline attached to the yard, the tension required to get everything in the right place has resulted in the upper yard bending quite dramatically. I have only managed to mount two of the required four... so when I do the other side I can even up the mainmast again... but I will still have to tackle the amount of force on the upper yard arm. There are two lines supporting the yard and If I put a bit of tension on that it will straighten a little... but there is a LOT of force on all the aerials in this model.. so it going to be a bit of a gamble that they will not pull the mast apart eventually.... The lines are considerably stronger than you would think looking at them. Anyway... despite the negative points they look really good and I have got as close to 'in scale' as I can get. Damn difficult to do though!!!

EDIT: Here is a picture of the last of the four cage aerials on the jig... As long as this doesnt collapse when I cut it free thats it... all over. I think the results so far have made me feel it was a worthwhile excercise but it was much harder than I thought to find a method that works and allows you to build something this small, consistently. I think I will avoid cage aerials in the future!!!


The last of the four...


Three quarter view.


And another... side on...

I still have the downleads from the arrays to do and all of the other side... Hopefully I will get that finished tomorrow... Phew! And this was supposed to be an easy build to get me back into this!!! Great model from Combrig and its lovely to build.... but I think I have made it more of a chore than I should have done... Ah well... I have learnt a lot!

Bill

[Guido]

Well done, Bill!
Your persistence is exemplary!

Guido

[Bill Livingston]

Thanks Guido...

I think its more accurate to consider my persistence as a sign of insanity!

Still, while doing these aerials I was playing Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, Yes, Pink Floyd, early Genesis and stuff like that on my iMac, ..to keep an edge and at the same time distract me...random iTunes Genius is a really useful tool to set a mood and then not have to worry about choosing the music yourself (As I write this its Deep Purple, live, When a Blindman Cries)... It helped keep my sanity. I think later when I am doing some finishing it tends to be Dylan, Neil Young and so on... Airbrushing tends to be The Clash, The Jam... anything that makes me do things fast and not overthink things... I always cock things up when I overthink...

Just changed to Porcupine Tree... .3 Fabulous track...

[Bill Livingston]

Would you believe it... Just finished all the rigging and was taking some photos and then dropped the bloody thing! Mast bent and one of the cage aerials broke... Even lost the rear funnel and the main winch has broken as well!! Looking at the damage I havce managed to straighten the mainmast a bit so it doesnt look too bad, far less of the rigging has broken that i would have thought so it is repairable... The funnel can be glued back on easily enough. The main winch looks more of a problem... but I can probably fix that and then re-rig it with monofilament rather than use the PE rigging that is on there now... so it will look better. I'll see what else needs doing... no doubt there will some damage to the rails as well... Cant really face looking until the rest is fixed tbh...

Anyway... here are a couple of photo's before the calamity... Hopefully I will be able to get it back to this condition if I stay up late and get it done... Damn.. thats twice I have done this now... Ah well... the last disaster got me into doing the rigging and mainmast properly, so no doubt I will get something extra out of dealing with this too...

Dont make it easy for myself do it...? lol!!







Bill.... still persevering!

[JIM BAUMANN]

Your tenacity in the face of misfortune is inspiring!

The net benefit will be...-- staright main yard...?!!

Good nite!

( It will be easier to rig with a fresh head tomorrow !)

Jim Baumann

[Bill Livingston]

Your tenacity in the face of misfortune is inspiring!

Jim Baumann

"My stubborness in the face of stupidity" is probably more accurate!

Cant believe I do this... Ah well... think of it as an opportunity to do a decent job on the winch and try and get everything level and square. I have managed to repair quite a bit of it, so not feeling too bad now... Could have done without this though... Looking forward to getting this finished and start something else... one disaster after another... I suppose there are models like this every now and again for everyone.

Bill

[Guido]

It seems you use up all the screw-ups for the next 10 projects in advance.
That's probably a good idea!
Hang in there!
Cheers,
Guido

[Thomas E. Johnson]

Talk about "Murphy's Law."