Wear Ship Dave

Rewind and Take Two on the Nelson Chequer and Stepping the Main Mast

Another busy day, not much time for model work. But I managed to do a little here and there throughout the day (between spurts of real work).

I decided that I didn't like the hand painted gun ports. So, I painted back over them with the yellow paint.

I also added some white to the stern area of the ship where the windows will be applied. The reason for the white is that I am using clear decal paper and the white will show through as window panes.



Once dry, I applied the window decals on the stern and sides of the ship. I also took a moment and sanded the upper corners of the stern of the ship to the shape of the windows decal. I'll retouch the black paint shortly.



Next, I touched up around the windows with black and yellow paint. You can also see in this photo, that I have applied the new gun port decals that are more satisfying than the hand painted gun ports that I had done earlier. If I were to start this project over, I would have never cut the ports for the three guns on each side that are visible and simply used the decal. I will still have to hand paint the center upper ports like before.



Here's the port side, with hand painted center gun ports in place again.




I have to admit, I'm not terribly happy with how the windows look... I may (or may not) try a different approach for the windows. I'll give it a day or two, see if I am still non-plussed by them.


But let's move on. You may have noticed that the bowsprit was temporarily in place in the photos above. I used the same method to create it that I will show you for stepping the Main Mast.

I cut the appropriate lengths of two different diameters of brass rod, and a portion from one of the hat pins that I have been using for various things throughout the project. I carefully arranged them on a sheet of paper on my work bench and very very carefully added a single drop of CA glue to both of the joints. You don't want to use very much glue. It is best if it does not go through to the paper. I'm just tacking the parts together for now.



Walk away from the table. Leave it for a good while. You want that glue to dry completely before you so much as look at the Mast again. I would give it at least an hour. Super glue sticks fast, but takes much longer to set up fully. If you're a R/C plane builder, you might have CA Accelerator on hand. If you choose to use it, do so carefully. Accelerator tends to make the glue bubble up in a way that may be pretty ugly for this scale.

Once it was dry, I stuck the Mast in a lump of modeling clay and added another drop of glue to each joint. ((Side note, modeling clay is extremely useful when modeling, I always have some on hand.))



While the glue was still wet, I cut a short length of black thread and tied it around each joint.



Then I went to dinner and let the glue dry. If I had been feeling adventuresome, I might have gone right into the next step, but I chose to let the glue set first.

Once back from dinner, I wrapped the thread ends around the mast joints. I used a pair of clamping tweezers to hold a little weight on the thread and gave the joints another drop of CA glue each. Once again, I left it alone for a bit. Then I used my small sharp scissors to trim off the excess thread.



Here's the Main Mast, set in place temporarily.



That's all the time I had today.

NEXT UP: More Masts and some Spars too!