If you look closely at the last pictures in the previous post, you can see that the deck plate around the last hastily fitted companion way took a beating in the process of pulling up and re siting the aft deck house. In thinking about this I realized that the situation could be improved if I were to scratch raised coamings around it to hide the roughened steel at the edge. And that made me realize that coamings for all the deck openings was probably a good idea.
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Coamings completed for all aft deck openings.
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Coamings completed for all forward deck openings. Now, finally she was ready for casting... this was the day of delivery to Rusty's studio. I was out of time, but thank God, finally done.
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In the rush I neglected to take my camera to the studio, so there are no images of the actual casting process. If you want to see what it looks like though, I have pics of Rusty's studio in my Portuguese Carrack thread here:
[url]
viewtopic.php?f=13&t=68243&hilit=portuguese+carrack[/url]
somewhere around page 4 or 5.
These next shots show what sometimes happens to a casting master once it has been used to create a mold. Damage!!!
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Gunwales on the port side are ripped up. Most of my nice coamings were destroyed as well. Fine wire wales round the top edge of the bulwarks partially or completely destroyed.
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Funnel base and aft deckhouse torn off of the deck plate.
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Also we had bits of the rubber mold material adhering to the hull in many of the tiny nooks and crannies... it really looked a mess, not at all like my little carrack masters which went through the molding process almost without damage.
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Interestingly enough, the funnel, which was quite delicate and had the ring of styrene and wire round the top edge survived unscathed... Rusty had often warned me that this kind of thing would happen with casting. He even went so far as to say 'Sometimes you lose your master in getting a mold.' My Solferino Master is not completely destroyed. Actually it's a pretty solid little thing, but it would definitely take some time to repair.
The big question now was, what would the first cast look like?
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FAQ
These would be covered later by a forecastle deck, but each had a doorway facing inward. I felt if I could create and cast them them open topped, the doorway could be hollowed out later and an actual space revealed behind it. The question is, would it cast?
It's possible they are still shrinking, and will eventually be smaller than the master, I haven't yet remeasured them, so I'm not sure. It could be (on the other hand) that the 2% shrinkage only affects larger models, and has to do with the heat created during the resin casting process, but to be honest I don't really know.
