Hello everybody,
Meanwhile, I detailed the decks:
One of the more challenging things were the ladders. In this scale, it is pretty hard to scratchbuild them with nicely parallel and evenly spaced steps. Typical jigs with spacers for the steps don�t really work anymore, because it really comes to tenths of a mm to get it to look right. So gluing and adjusting by eye is the only way.
I first tried gluing the steps to one longintudinal (kept overly long and attached to a piece of plastic I could easily hold), and then gluing the other longitudinal to that. It worked, but adjusting the steps to their final position was very fiddly as this assembly was very fragile and mostly unsupported.
So then I came up with this:
Explanation:
I glued both longitudinals to strips of wood (cut from the same long strip, so they would be identical in height). But I only glued their outer ends, so the part that will be part of the final ladder remains unglued. I use gel type superglue.
I made sure to glue the longitudinals to the top edge of the sides of the wooden strips. I did that by gluing them upside down on a piece of glass.
Next, I glued them to a thick piece of plastic sheet as seen in the above photo. I added a plastic sheet spacer in between to assure they are glued perfectly parallel. The spacer has the exact width I want the ladder to be.
On top of the spacer, I glued a strip of black paper. This increases visibility immensely for the next step.
The next step is to cut the steps to fit the required width, and glue them in place. This setup gives a very stable base to work on, and to mess around to adjust the position of the steps.
I marked the position of the steps with pencil on the wood, but the final adjustment is done by eye. To get them parallel in each direction, a lot of adjustment in the form of little nudges with the tweezer was necessary. I used Tamiya extra thin cement, which gives some working time without melting the plastic too much. More glue can be added to �re-activate� a joint if necessary.
When finished, the longitudinals can be cut and the ladders simply pop out. Their ends can finally be trimmed to fit their position on the ship.
Here you see them at the break of the quarterdeck.
I used 0,25mm plastic sheet for the longitudinals, and 0,13mm for the steps.
Details of the forecastle:
And from the other side.
The capstan and bell were turned on a lathe. The rest is old-school handiwork with plastic sheet and rod, stretched sprue and copper wire.
To give an idea of the actual size: the foremast is 3mm thick.
The rail on the beakhead bulkhead was added too:
The ladders to access the poop deck were a quite specific assembly. This is not glued to the decks to allow access for painting to the ladder underneath leading to the upper gun deck (hence the pieces of Blue-Tac).
I had hoped to be able to use the PE wheel of the Rod Langton Victory kit (Victory�s wheel was demolished early on in the battle), but it proved oversized. So I made one myself:
However, it is barely visible under the poop deck.
The binnacle in front of it only had details at its (invisible) rear face, so I didn�t add those. At least I saved me some time there�
On the upper gun deck, I only added detail that can be seen from the waist. Only the rear face of the galley was detailed, the rest is just basic shapes because no detail would be visible. The ladders to the gun deck below are left loose for painting.
And if you�re wondering what those stretched sprue triangles on the decks are for: they were wooden battens nailed to the deck to hold gun shot. These balls are a bit oversized, certainly for a 12-pounder, but I have smaller ones on order. They are small spheres used in nail decoration.
Some may have noticed that I also added capping rails to the top of the bulwarks, and the channels. Only the foremast channels had knees.
I don�t plan on putting a lot of tension on the shrouds, but I was still worried about the strength of plastic sheet for the channels. So I reinforced them with sheet brass which made them much stiffer.
I don�t have a good setup for drilling brass, so I ground small openings were the holes for the shrouds would come. After gluing brass and plastic together, I filled these openings with super glue and baking powder, and sanded the surface smooth. Then I drilled the holes for the shrouds from the top down
And finally, some views of the entire ship so far:
. This sure was worth the wait. What a great update and attention to detail.
