I think I follow. I like to run my masts down to the keel when possible. I glue a pair of blocks down in the bottom, parallel to the keel, spaced apart a tight width of the mast, or your brass rod or tube. Then with the deck in, get some hour set glue down in there. I can step the mast and get the bottom end of the rod engaged between the blocks, and wiggle it fore-aft until it gages right.
Mr. Gene, I dont know if you have elves doing work for you over night or what. But the quality and speed of your build is impressive sir. I have been working on a 1/96 Constitution almost daily for several weeks now and am no where near as far along as you are in your build. I do find your build inspiring. DJ
Gene,
I’ll check to see if I have an extra funnel half. I should, and I’ll let you know tonight.
Bill
GM,
That is precisely how I approach the problem. I can see no other way with the Alabama kit because the rake of the masts in the real ship is so very pronounced.
By the way, Gene has inspired me to build another Alabama. I am attempting to correct the many flaws in the kit except one. I am not planning to lengthen the hull by 11 scale feet, nor will I attempt to correct the hull lines. The kit part is close enough for government work, so I will keep hull modifications reasonable. I will relocate the gun ports and trim off the lower wale before correcting the deck, the armament, the masts, etc. I suppose it is time to try to figure out posting photos.
Bill
GM, that sounds good. Also I do notch a brass tube for the keel & make that part longer than my big pedestals so it is really holding the ship. The ship just sits on those big ones.I see what you mean about tipping over if it is just sitting on the pedestal. I always put blocks inside my big wood ships to screw into.
Bill, thanks on the funnel. I know it was there & I have never lost a part that I didn’t find, but sometimes it takes a long, long time. I would love to see you do an Alabama. I might get the guns from Cottage, but the deck is a maybe. I don’t know what I will do on the guntracks. That might force a Scaledeck.To think that I built all these over 50 years ago.
Bill, on posting pictures check on Google Photos. They have the best editing anywhere. I still put my pictures on Picasa, Google owns them, & forward the pics to Google . Then I edit them there.I doubt if you can get on Picasa anymore, but I still do as I don’t know how to load to Google. Maybe someone will teach me.
GM, Your mast to keel idea looks better than ever. I just realised that the masts are not solid & my brass rod would not work. I could use my brass tubing that gets progressivly smaller & build a brass tube from inside the mast to as far down as I wanted to go. Then it would be all one piece with th mast, from inside. I have done that on other things.
GM, how do you lengthen a plastic mast, or are you using wood? I have put brass tubes inside of plastic masts & ground out the glue points. Works great.
Solid plastic masts are the hardest. A pin joined connection is unreliable, when you consider all the back-and-forth bending it gets while being rigged. There is very little worse in this life than getting a spar (or a pin rail) all rigged up and then having it snap loose. In that case I usually replace the mast, or that section of it.
If it’s a two piece hollow job- like you say. Sometimes the thing needs a couplke of nested diameters of tubing.
Livit, Thank you, but I guess I have been doing this so long that maybe that helps.I do sand & scrape & file every piece that I use. All the little raised lines & bad spots are cleaned up. It took me over 6 hours to pencil line all the deck lines. They do show up well.The only problem with decks like this is they have a joint. I put rope circles or bound rope over them, even tho it probably wouldn’t have been there. It is better than then a joint.
The Kearsarge has been great fun for me. I would do a Constitution but I have a big wood Mamoli that I built over 35 years ago that sits in my iving Room. How far are you with yours? Post some pictures.
Gene,
I have an extra funnel piece if you still need it.Bill
Bill, Yes I do . Thanks again . That would be the Starboard, right side. How do you like that starbd stuff. My brother never did learn to say right & left after his Battleship days. He flew in the Kingfisher as a signalman on the Indiana.
I have all the deck work done & I fit the 3 lower masts in their hole, no glue yet. They all 3 had to be sanded down quite a bit. I ground out the inside & put brass rods in the masts to stiffen them. I did put a coat of Dullcote on the deck to hide any glue. Really looks good. If I find the funnel I will mail it back to you. Gene
Gene,
No problem. I will send it tomorrow afternoon.
Bill
As noted in this thread, the Revell KEARSARGE is a composite of the original and post 1888 refit configurations. Here is the correct forecastle for the 1864 configuration.
No picture
Click on the small black box with an X. It should come up (does for me). For more photos, go to my KEARSARGE ALBUM https://www.facebook.com/al.ross.315/media_set?set=a.10214271698326038.1073741831.1223199372&type=3
And, here is CSS ALABAMA, same scale. https://www.facebook.com/al.ross.315/media_set?set=a.10214271791528368.1073741832.1223199372&type=3
Apparently your links only work for people on facebook.
Same here. Clicking the little X does nothing. The link sends me to log in to facebook, of which I do not have an account. I’m finding that not eveyone does facebook or twitter or -----??
Yuh, I was afraid of that. Ever since a certain photo hosting site got greedy, I have not had much luck sharing photos. For those members who are sharing photos, what are you using?
Al Ross
I tried Imgur. Seems to work for me, but now being gunshy, I’ve not delved to deep into posting stuff on any hosting service. They can all do the same thing as PB did. Wish there was a way to post pics directly from my hard drive.
EJ