Friday 12 February 2021

The Magnificent Seven


I would say that is my weekend planned but for the fact that tomorrow is my wife’s birthday and our wedding anniversary - no to mention Valentine’s Day on Sunday! At least they are all ready to go and aside from adding the gun ports and deck hatches are very easy to put together.

 Pictured above are pretty much all of the component parts for my next batch of models for the ACW - seven in all. There will be three casemate ironclads and four side wheel paddle steamers. Most of the parts are fairly obvious - paddle boxes, hull, superstructure funnels, pilot houses and a bag of hatch and gun port covers. The latter are very small - 5mm square and 1mm thick - but are really useful in finishing off what would otherwise be a bare expanse of deck.

On the right hand of the pictures you can see a variant of the original method I used to build paddle boxes on my first batch of models built some eight years ago! It works just as well but the new layered method is far quicker. As I typed this I realised that I have not yet drilled the holes for the flagstaffs - so guess what I will be doing next!


10 comments:

Robert (Bob) Cordery said...

David,

You’ve certainly refined your shipbuilding production line method! It’s very impressive to see all the parts assembled like this, and no doubt the actual construction will take a relatively short time when compared to the preparation time.

Have a great weekend,

Bob

David Crook said...

Hello there Bob,

It certainly helps being organised and you are quite right - doing this will make the build really straightforward. It is the gunport and hatches that take the time!

All the best,

DC

Archduke Piccolo said...

David -
You're a much better planner and organiser than I am, that's for sure!
Cheers,
Ion

David Manley said...

Gosh, it looks like the ironclad equivalent of the Kaiser Shipyard when it was cranking out all those liberty ships :)

David Crook said...

Hello there Mr Manley,

The only thing that is liberty related with these ships are those that I have taken with any attempt at historical accuracy....

It is far better being organised with this stuff - a valuable lesson I have learned!

All the best,

DC

David Crook said...

Hello there Archduke,

I suspect my wife might take issue at that statement - although I have found that it makes more effective use of the time element!

All the best,

DC

nundanket said...

All the best people have their anniversaries this week 😉

Steve J. said...

Nice to se everything lined up and ready to go in your shipyard:). Have a nice anniversary cum birthday celebration!

David Crook said...

Hello there nundanket,

Congratulations on the anniversary you are celebrating!

All the best,

DC

David Crook said...

Hello there Steve J,

Thank you old chap - I suspect that not much ship building will be done this weekend though!

All the best,

DC