I completed rigging (for the most part). I used stretched sprue for all of the rigging. I scrounged black sprue from a variety of kits (I buy a cheap all black kit just for the sprue). It just needs a shot of dull-coat to knock down the shine, and then I need to add a flag and a few pennants. I'm taking suggestions if anyone thinks more rigging needs to be applied... I have no real good references on this matter.
I finished the construction of the Maine tonight. This entailed adding the deck railings, anchors, some extra details (side lights, hatch ways, booms, etc.)
An overall view
Without the pen.
Midships.
An overhead.
One of the neat parts of this kit is the bow scroll work. It was pretty difficult to get it painted right because of its size. I also polished it prior to painting. I considered keeping this off until after I dull coat the ship, however, some wise advice I recall is that all models should be dull coated, otherwise they look like toys. So Even though it's been polished, at some point after the rigging is applied, the scroll work will get dull coated.
I used the anchor chains supplied on the etch sheet instead of my regular small chain. I decided to use it because of the bar in the middle link. I thought it added some nice detail to the chain. I twisted every link 90 degrees from the previous to make it look like real chain.
The port side light.
Bow view of the scroll work
Next up: Rigging
After adding the machine guns that reside in the crows nests, it was time to turn my attention to the remaining ships boats. First I mounted the davits in the locations shown on the plan view in the instruction.
It's usually pretty difficult to mount boats that aren't residing on a deck. I hit on a solution on a previous build that I did a few years ago for the now defunct Navis magazine. I used a block of balsa to set the height of the boats.
I rocked the boat up against the davit. I used liquid CA on the end of a piece of wire to bond the boat to the davit. Remove the balsa "stage" and the boat appears to hang from the davit... minus the rigging. Once I start to rig the ship, it will look like the boats are being supported by the rigging.
Here you can see all of the boats rigged. You can also see the oars resting in the boats.
An overall shot of the boat to this point.
And my obligatory beauty shot this time.
I worked to add the six additional deck guns to the Maine. Here's a pic of what the real ones looked like:
The most complicated part of the weapon is the seven legged mount. Combrig supplies this part as photoetch. I cut the part loose on a piece of black ceramic tile that I sue as a cutting board. To bend the part I took a toothpick and rounded off the end with a sanding stick. I then placed the piece onto a soft cloth and pressed the toothpick tip into the center of the part. The legs were bent up by the cloth and the "give" in my finger tip.
I then attached the mount with thick CA to the deck. The guns were painted on their resin pour stub, cut loose and then mounted with thick CA.
So. It's been 6 months since my last post. In that time, you'd think that I would have finished the Maine and moved onto other ships. You'd be wrong of course. You see, dear Reader, that in the interim, that my wife and I obtained a little dog. She's half Golden Retriever and half Tasmanian Devil. Her name is Finn, and she's a great load of fun.
The other event that sucked up my time was a move from the Milwaukee area to the Chicago area. Yep, we managed to move at the right time...getting a premium for our home and managing to pick up a brand new home for what I consider a great price. My work commute has gone from a 110 mile round trip to 16 miles. It's doubtful, I'll make that up in modeling time however!
So when I was last working on the Maine I was attempting to solder the masts together. I can tell you that doing one fairly quickly turned out to be a bit of luck. Getting a second one made to the same standard turned out to be the devils own task. I spent numerous hours and cut a lot of brass trying to get it right. In the end I was successful.
I ended up making my own 3rd hand device as you can see below. It worked out OK but the wire that I used made it tough to get the parts aligned because of the inherent "springiness" of the whole design.
As you can see from the following pictures I finally got the masts made, painted and stepped into their holes on the deck. I have also managed to get the ratlines trimmed and attached. I used WEM ratlines that are very nice. I had to trim them with a pair of scissors that have the blades cut from titanium (so it says).
Once the ratlines were in place I was able to start placing the railing on the foredeck and the aft deck. Comparing the work that I did there to the bridge, I can see a definite improvement in my abilities. I would say that the key to getting good railings is to use small sections of railing. Much of what you see on the for and aft decks are numerous sections of railing pieced together. At the point the pictures were taken above, I still have the bend by the deck guns to do. What is in that picture is made up of 8 separate railing section with another 4 to be added. (joy)
I used spare ladder railing to add in the deck stairs since none are supplied on the PE sheet.
All in all, she's not looking too bad. With vacation time coming up, I hope I can complete her. Then I'll cover how I plan to build a case for her.
This post concerns the soldering of the mainmast. This is the first time that I’ve ever soldered any parts for a model. I made a run to Home Depot and purchased a soldering gun, flux, and solder. Something that I would add to the purchase is a device known as a third hand. (You’ll find out why later)
(The third hand)
I started off this part of the build by using an index card to transfer the dimensions of the mainmast from the plans. I used the card as a cutting base to get the mast cut and joined at the proper lengths without hosing up the plans. The mainmast was .032" brass rod, the top mast was .020" diameter brass rod. The remaining parts were made from .016" diameter brass.
This is the first time I've ever soldered a mast but it turns out that it's not that difficult. The first thing to do is to make sure that the components are clean. I sanded the brass stock that was going to become the mast with a sanding stick. I also tapered the top mast for a more realistic appearance.
Once they were clean I applied a little dab of flux to the parts. The flux facilitates the soldering of the parts by providing a chemically clean surface. Then I took the gun and heated it up. Using a small amount of solder I touched the tip of the gun until a small amount of solder melted off onto the gun tip.
In turn I sued the gun to “paint” the area where I was going to join the parts. This left the parts with a surface area of solder on them. Set aside the gun and align the parts as you want them joined. The main to top mast is the easiest join. In this case I secured them to the index card with some masking tape.
Heat the gun up again and touch the tip to the parts. The solder that you painted on earlier should “flash” (liquefy). Remove the gun and you should then have two soldered parts. Don’t over-do the application of the solder. Less is more in this context since only the top surface of the solder has any grip on the parts.
The other joints are going to be harder to do. Firstly because they are just more complex and secondly because you don’t want to heat the parts up so much that the earlier joints you made re-liquefy. I advise using metal clamps to hold the parts since that will act as a heat-sink to drain off excess heat.
The third hand would be useful to apply items such as the boat boom. I rigged something up using a chunk of florist foam but do yourself a favor and buy the third hand tool. These parts took me 2 hours to make…most of that time spent in a rather frustrating attempt to align the booms before I figured out the florist foam & alligator clamp arrangement.
The pictures ought to speak for themselves. The only details added at this point that haven't been previously discussed are some brass grab rails on the two steam launches. The rails came from 1/400 scale PE ladders. I also added a couple of boat crane hooks from a 1/700 IJN carrier PE sheet I had as a spare.
The next thing to tackle is probably going to be the aft superstructure. I'll be learning some new skills... soldering brass masts.
I took all of the boats that were going to populate the decks and mounted them to long toothpicks in order to paint them. Trim the end of the toothpick and dab the cut end into a drop of CA. I then very carefully stick the toothpick to the underside of the boat that will be towards the centerline of the ship. For the boats that were still on their resin casting gates, I simply used alligator clips obtained from the local radio shack to hold them. I mounted all the boats into a chunk of florists foam and headed to the spray booth. The boats were painted the same color as the hull.
Jim Baumann suggested that I replace the railings on the catwalks between the decks. I agreed... they looked pretty clunky compared to the WEM railings that I was using. So I pulled the bow catwalk up and cut away the railings and replaced them with the extra fine stuff. I opted not to replace the aft catwalk since it is going to be hidden by the two boats straddling it.
I also managed to finish one of the boats. I used short lengths of fine wire crushed in a pair of flat pliers to make oars for the boat. I also added a short length of "rope" made from fuse wire that was wrapped around the tip of a toothpick, slid off, and then pressed flat with pliers. It might look a little clunky in the photo but remember the entire boat is about 1 cm in length.
