Ahoy

Posted By on January 11, 2010 at 11:02 am

One of the things I’ve tried to do over the past couple of years — since the seriousness of the Recent Neurological Unpleasantness became known — has been to simplify my life, to dispose of extra stuff (hundreds of books, for instance, have gone to the used bookstore; I’ll probably need to sell off most of my rifle collection, and my power tools, as well, since I can’t use them anymore) and to generally cut unneeded complexity from my life.
One non-obvious step I’ve taken in an effort to simplify has been to roll my separate (and long ignored) ship model blog into this one as a new category.
Yes, I am actively working on the ship again. And as soon as it’s done, I’ll begin another.



Over the course of the past two weeks, I’ve accomplished a lot, though the things which have been done are tiny, tiny things.
Before I set the model aside so long ago, I made up some of the deck fittings. Looking at them now, I am almost ashamed at how poor a job I did of them. No, strike the “almost” from that last sentence. In my defense, I didn’t have the right tools at hand at the time, and I couldn’t see well enough. Those problems have been solved by a) digging the Dremel set out of the attic, b) getting better bits for it, and c) acquiring a magnifying lamp (thanks, Mom!)
My shame was not enough, however, to make me want to remake the parts in question; I’m also a bit short on walnut sheet (as in, I have none) so after I installed the rudder, the shameful bits were pinned and glued to the deck; the pin rails were made up, drilled, and installed on the insides of the bulwarks, and eyebolts for rigging have been installed on the deck. I also glued in the gun carriages, though I left the barrels off for now; I don’t want them getting in the way.

I think somewhere along the line I misplaced some walnut strips, or they were mistakenly not included in the kit, so I built up the pin rails from thinner stock I already had on hand. The hard part, though, was drilling the holes for the belying pins in a straight, evenly-spaced row; it took several tries to get close, with numerous discarded parts. The results are what I’ll call “good enough,” if not perfect. We’re talking about millimeters here — even a small error stands out. Maybe I should think about getting some sort of micro drill press.
So at this point all that remains on the hull is to add the channels, stern davits (though, oddly, there’s no ship’s boat) and the hawse pieces, then drill out the hawse holes. There will be some touch-up painting required, as well
From there, masting and rigging will commence.

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