Sea Port Model Works 65' Workboat / Lighter

[postalkarl]

Hey Bob:

Can't wait to see this finished. Great job so far.

Karl

[ReadingBob]

Bob you must have the patience of a saint!!
That is some very fine work and your so dam good at it!!


Jerry

Thanks Jerry!  I was afraid I wouldn't be able to handle those little LED's anymore after I had cataract surgery.  I had one tuned for distance and one for close up.  But with the 10x Optivisor on I can still do it.   

[ReadingBob]

Hey Bob:

Can't wait to see this finished. Great job so far.

Karl

Hi Karl!  Thanks!  I'm getting there.  This is a challenging little kit.  It sure has a lot more parts than I thought it would. 

[ReadingBob]

Well that was quite an adventure.  I went to resize photo's so I could upload them and the app I was using, Photo Reducer v4.10, decided it wanted to install and update but the windows that came up were in French and the update failed.  So I had to find something else to use to resize the photos.  I had XnView installed but never used it.  I figured out how to resize them in that app and uploaded them so let's see how they look.   

I continued working on the Deck House/Pilot House assembly.  This was a fairly complex little structure made up of a bunch of components.


I knew I'd need to feed power up to the upper Pilot house assembly so I added two wires and fed them through holes I drilled in the floor.


After the floor for the upper pilot house was installed the support columns for the lower Pilot House front walls had to be trimmed to fit.  I carefully sawed them off level with the floor.


For the upper Pilot House the front wall is made up of supports and three laser cut braces that hold them in place.  The middle laser cut brace has to be glued in place using the window frame as a guide for placement.


The lower portion of the upper Pilot House front wall has to be broken, or cracked, at two places where it bends around the supports.  I used a steel ruler as a guide and gently 'cracked' the micro plywood.


This is where things got really dicey.  The lower Pilot House front wall, the one I just cracked, has tabs on the bottom of each section of the wall that seat in the floor.  Or at least they should.  Tab in slot is not my favorite kind of construction.  Less so when the tabs don't fit in the slots.  I sanded and sanded but still had a heck'uva time getting the wall to seat properly.  It was too thick.  In hindsight I should have scored through a layer of the micro plywood at the bottom of the wall/top of the tab and used a chisel blade to remove one of two layers of thickness rather than trying to sand them thinner.  Oh well.  Live and learn.


More in a moment....

[ReadingBob]

After assembling the upper Pilot House I wanted to test the lighting.  I wasn't sure how well the red and green LED's would show through the white resin cast globes.  Turns out they showed a little too well.  The light came through areas I didn't think it would.  Areas that had been primed with Floquil Earth and then painted with Floquil Reefer White.  I had to brush paint a couple of coats black over those areas and then paint them white again to eliminate the light bleeding through.


Time to start adding things to the deck.  The cowls, some eye hooks, etc.  Stuff that would be hard to add after the Deck House/Pilot House assembly is glued in place.  I drilled holes where indicated in the deck.


Then I glued the parts in place.  For the brass eye hooks I touched them up with Polly Scale Grimy Black after I glued them in place.  I figured handling them with the tweezers would have knocked some of the paint off had I painted them first and I'd have to touch them up after the fact anyway.


The Deck House/Pilot House assembly was glued in place and then I started adding the roof details like the smoke stack.


The kit comes with white thread to be used for the stays and rigging.  For the black lines I simply colored the thread with a Black Sharpie.


Then, per a recommendation in the instructions, I ran the thread through some beeswax to protect it from moisture.


More in a moment....

[ReadingBob]

The black thread is fed through a hole in the smokestack and tied to some brass hand rails added to the roof.  For the handrails the instructions say to cut a pieced of brass wire to the indicated length and then use block of scrap wood to raise it off of the roof.  Instead of doing that I cut the wire a little longer than indicated and then bent the ends so I could drill holes in the roof and mount the wire directly into the holes.  First I tied the thread to the end of the rails.


Then I gave the knot a little drop of glue to hold it in place.


After the glue set I trimmed the excess thread of as close to the knot as possible with a pair of scissors.


The mast an boom fit into metal castings.  A test fit proved they need a bit of sanding a each end to fit into the castings so I sanded away until they fit.


I painted the mast and boom.  While they were drying I started drilling holes in some of the metal castings where the instructions indicated.


That's all for today.  I have to go figure out how I'm going to work around the deck cleat casting I lost before I proceed too much farther.

Thanks for following along! 

[Janbouli]

Great job as usual Bob , and sharing the close ups is so nice.

[deemery]

Bob, if you need more/different thread for rigging, try the -beading- section at a craft store.


dave

[Zephyrus52246]

Nice progress, Bob.  I use XnView for my photos, works well enough for me.


Jeff

[madharry]

Really nice going Bob.
Mike

[nycjeff]

Hello Bob, I think that after you finish this model you may need some more eye surgery. Everything in this kit is so small and intricate. You are doing your usual great job.    Jeff

[Jerry]

Beautiful work.  Your precision is perfect especially on those small parts.


Jerry

[ReadingBob]

Great job as usual Bob , and sharing the close ups is so nice.

Thanks Jan!  I really appreciate having you follow along and commenting.   

[ReadingBob]

Bob, if you need more/different thread for rigging, try the -beading- section at a craft store.


dave

Good tip Dave.  The kit came with plenty of thread (I think).  It's just all white and needs to be colored.  The black was easy with the Sharpie.  For the Tan the instructions say to use Americana Khaki but I have a marker that should do the trick.    

[ReadingBob]

Really nice going Bob.
Mike

Thanks Mike!  Nice to have you following along.