Shipyard №34 - Pinnace "Papegojan" 1:96

[Lexus JC]

Hello,

Thank you Michael Mash and Birder!

And my new photos of my progress

[Michael Mash]

Hello Lexus,
Those hinged covers are a wonderful piece of engineering. You join a very talented group of saling ship modelers here. Excellent work.
Mike

[Hambone]

Hello Lexus JC,

The detail in your work is just great. And the smoothness of the hull is very impressive. I have tried to make my hulls that smooth but it still eludes me. What is your secret? I have used water base sanding sealer but it does not soak deep enough into the paper and sands through very easy. I wish I could get my hands on some of the stuff my dad used back in the 40's and 50's on his balsa models. That stuff dried hard and you could really sand it good.

Keep up the good work and am looking forward to more of your progress.

Respectfully,
Dennis

[Lexus JC]

Originally Posted by Hambone

And the smoothness of the hull is very impressive. I have tried to make my hulls that smooth but it still eludes me. What is your secret?

Denis,
Thank you for your positive feedback.

There is no secret. I reckon that only 3 major things need to be done to get smooth hull.

• Band and transform hull's details before application( Use your fingers on some elastic surface, for example - palm). And trim details if any to get butted connection.
• When everything sticked - caulk every gaps and cover entire hull with acrylic coating. These makes hull rigid.
• Never seize hull between ribs (This is the last but not least thing! )

[birder]

Nice work again! Have you colored the decks completely or is this the color of the kit? Looks very fine either way

[Lexus JC]

Originally Posted by birder

Nice work again! Have you colored the decks completely or is this the color of the kit? Looks very fine either way

Thank you birder.
Originally the deck has the solid color, but I'm apply wooden texture at a graphics editor. At the attached image one detail before and after texture application.

[Lexus JC]

Hi, everyone!

Thats my guns.
Gun tubes were made by the use of mold casting into plaster form of Rose's metal. Master copy was made from toothpick and covered with black paint.

[Don Boose]

Good work on the guns!

Don

[John Wagenseil]

Hi Lexus:

Have you considered using Field's Metal (melting point 144F) rather than Rose Metal? It is more expensive but unlike other low melting point metals it is non toxic, it contains no lead or cadmium.

I have always been afraid of casting since my work shop is also my kitchen, and I do not want to use any materials I am not willing to eat.

Could you explain how you merged wood grain and the deck planking
? Does it require advanced photo processing software or is it something that the technologically impaired can learn how to do with cheap ware or free software?
Your deck looks great, you have improved on a weak point of Shipyard models, and to achieve a authentic wood look.

Your cannon carriages are more impressive than the barrels. Are they castings, or are you able to mass produce a lot of near identical tiny parts? You have cut outs for the trunnions and strapping and even some detail on the wheels!!
Thanks

[Lexus JC]

John Wagenseil

Have you considered using Field's Metal (melting point 144F) rather than Rose Metal? It is more expensive but unlike other low melting point metals it is non toxic, it contains no lead or cadmium.

Rose's metal is easy to get in any electronic-DIY shop as opposed to Field's Metal. And Rose's metal not so toxic as Wood's one. Because after 200F it is only became melt but intensive vapors appears only at 2000F at the boiling point of each component. Since that it is not so dangerous at the 200F I have used to melt it. And in anyway I'ms using cooking hood that draws vapors outside of my house.

You have cut outs for the trunnions and strapping and even some detail on the wheels!!

The wheels are laser cutted. I'm not so patient to make such tiny details

Could you explain how you merged wood grain and the deck planking
? Does it require advanced photo processing software or is it something that the technologically impaired can learn how to do with cheap ware or free software?
Your deck looks great, you have improved on a weak point of Shipyard models, and to achieve a authentic wood look.

I'm prefer open source software if it is possible. I know couple of ways to texturize images. And this is the most simple way how you can make it in the GIMP (GIMP - The GNU Image Manipulation Program).

Define wooden pattern

• Open pattern image (For pattern I'm strongly recommend use tiled textures): File->Open (window menu)
  
• Copy Image into clipboard: Press sequancialy Ctrl+A, Ctrl+C
• Define wooden pattern: Edit->Paste As->New pattern ... (window menu)
• In opened window enter name and file name, where pattern will be stored:
  
• Now the wooden image file may be clossed

Apply texture

• Open image: File->Open (window menu)
  
• On the tool panel select Fuzy Select Tool (Or just press U key) and adjust Tool Options options as shown below
  
• Now click on the some solid color at the detail and animated dashed lines will be apperead around selected area
  
• On the tool panel select Clone Tool (Or just press C key) and at the Tool Options select Pattern radio button and select previously defined wooden pattern
  
• At the Tool Options select most large round brush and enter 10 as Scale value
• Now at the editing area click at random point and while holding mouse button fill selected area with defined pattern. Don't release mouse button before entire area will be filled up.
  
• Now repeat this for all elements of the deck. But doesn't forget to change first click point (use any point of editing area not only withing selected area)for the Clone tool, because it will make you deck more fuzzy and realistic
• As the result you will get something like this
  

Some hints

• You can join several random areas of deck (rather distant one from other by pressing Shift key while selecting via Fuzy Select Tool to reduce your job
• Use the keyboard shortcuts U and C to switch between Fuzy Select Tool and Clone Tool to improve your perfomance
• To make image more realistic - randomly adjust color of each selected area via command located at the window menu Colors-> Hue saturation (I'm recommend use random range: hue=+-7, lightness=+-20,saturation=+-20)
• In case you have not only a vertical aligned grains, i.e. horizontal - you just need to define horizontal aligned wooden pattern and fill up such elements with this pattern