Thank you Si and Russ!!

Repair and Refit, very right Russ!

However, you are omitting some even more interesting babys of Lord Fisher - Outrageous, Curious and Spurious

They were the real white elephants of the fleet, until rebuild into carriers. Large light cruisers to support an invasion of Jutland...well...time of great technological changes and advances often produce a little odd results.

Cheers,
Jan

Very true Jan!

I guess it could be said, that this is what happens when there's a blank cheque and someone (Fischer) of influence in the driver's seat who can order such large vessels designed for one single purpose with no use for them after they have been used for that purpose

Luckily for those three, ahem, "white elephants" they made the perfect platform to prototype aircraft carriers: lots of subdivision thanks to their battleship heritage; light armour; and lots of SHP giving them good speed.

Anyway I've hijacked your thread enough mate, looking forward to seeing that EZ line go on!

Thanks Russ and all for watching and discussing,

however, I've to give you all a little runaround concerning the next update...earning a little money for new kits if it were... Well, real life issues anyway, only that working overtime doesn't really pay for me.

No worries, next update will follow, the next weekend should be a good one for the workbench - I hope

Thanks all for your interest!

Cheers

Jan

Okay, it's been a while since my last productive days at the shipyard. But this weekend was quite effective

Just a small thing, but now Repulse has a name to it



But much more important, a thorough investigation of the plastic parts revealed that - after I cut out all I need for the mainmast - that was it!!! Only the stuff is left that was replaced by PE...so finally the last building step - but then, there's enough railing, there are all the boats that need there respective davids and finally - rigging... Seeing Si's rigging of the DoY over at the battleships campaign made me feel bad...outstanding work, Si, by the way!!



Talking mainmast, here are the parts, and quite q lot of PE for the starfish...



At first I wasn't quite sure whether I should go for it or just take the kit's parts, but hey
By the way, Tim (HalseysBeard), great idea with the black acrylic sheet, copied it immediately. And your build is just breathtaking!!!

I started with the upper part, WEM instructions say to remove the little platform entirely, which I did not dare to do, I rather kept it to support the fragile PE...







Next comes the base, quite some sanding and filling required.



While this cures, work on the starfish starts:











And test-fitted on board



Now things stall a little, need to do the final sanding before I can install the railings, but it's not sufficiently cured for that. With that, 'Operation Mainmast' comes to an end for now, one last testfitting upper and lower parts:



And while I leave the mainmast to itself, a little bit rigging - actually five lines...but better than nothing...





More to follow, and thanks for looking!

Cheers,
Jan

Hi Jan,
Keep the pictures coming. The Repulse is looking better with every addition.

cheers
Michael

Jan

Your Repulse is looking like she is ready to take on the German Fleet. Exceptional work

Dave

Dave and Michael,

thank you very much for your kind comments!

Now that I can see the finish line and Repulse more and more looks like the ship I wanted to build I find some extra energy and time to accomplish a little work in the evenings but that won't last long, normally office keeps me away from the workbench during the week...

Anyway, no complaining a few pics:

First some work on the mainmast - two railings, the lower one suffered a bit while installing the upper one but since this area is quite hidden from view it should be all right...



But then - my least favorite work - rigging. Did some work on the forward structure and I have to say, this EZ Line is great stuff!! Well, no intention to compare this to masterpieces like the rigging e.g. Si shows on his DoY, but since the rigging always was the weakest part of my models, I am very happy with these first results But careful, some more needs to be done...













Thanks for looking and cheers

Jan

Looking great Jan,

Your rigging is excellent, and a far more complex job that the Duke.

She is looking more impressive every time.

Si

Excellent clean work Jan!! And the rigging looks fantastic!! Well done so far!!

Jan,

The rigging looks great. I think I need to acquire some o that EZ Line myself. Any details you can provide about your rigging would be greatly appreciated.

Overall, the Repluse is looking ready for combat. outstanding work.

Dave

I agree completely! I usually use copper wire to rig my ships but it gives me fits... maybe you could include a little tutorial on using EZ line? I'm always looking to learn something new

Hi Jan,
Rigging looks very good indeed. I the ez line is the way to go but it does put pressure on the masts if you use kit supplied plastic ones. Something I am trying on Achilles is pre-rigging the mast before installing it because there a lot of lines to attached. You can see how it goes, or otherwise, shortly

cheers

Michael

Michael

Gentlemen,

thank you so much for your comments, that's highly appreciated but it's far to kind and generous - I am seriously surprised for myself how easy this rigging becomes with EZ line. And NO - I am not selling nor advertising this stuff

I would love to present you with a tutorial or share some secret wisdom - alas, there is not much to say. It is really easy and straight forward. What I did is this:
I use an old CD/DVD whenever I work with CA glue, simply to put a small quantity on it and then use a needle or something alike to apply small quantities where I need them. For the rigging, I dipped one end of the EZ line carefully into the glue and just put it where I wanted it on the ship. Holding it with a very small tweezers, applying minimal pressure and in less then a second the bond was strong enough that the line would stick to the ship. This required a little trial and error and some cursing, you need to get a feeling for things, like how much glue and how to handle etc., but it is essentially much easier than expected.
Let this rest for a few minutes, and the bond is strong enough that you can apply tension to the line.
I put a micro-drop of glue to the point of the yard where I wanted the line to end, stretched the line and pulled it over the drop of glue. Again, you need to develop a feeling for how much to stretch the line, in order to get the desired tension without bending the yard/mast etc... But again, the stuff is very forgiving, much more than I expected.
The part of the line that was standing/hanging on the far side I simply cut with a very small and sharpe scissors (actually the one from my small swiss pocket knife - need to get something more 'professional' soon, but it did the job for starters). Basically, that's it

So, one 'trick' if you wish. The EZ comes in heavy and fine. Not knowing what to expect I ordered both. To avoid bending of the yardarms, I used the heavy EZ line first to produce a stay. The 'heavy' is much stronger and can counter the tension of a multiple of the fine lines.

Some pictures. You probably noticed that on my Repulse the port yardarm is a little down. Here's a picture from yesterdays update:



I did not realize that myself before I posted the pictures anyway, today I decided that I did not like it this way. So I removed two of the lines on starboard and put a little more tension on to get the starboard yardarm a little more down. That had only a very small effect.
Than I decided to break the outer bond of the port stay and put some more tension on there, to get the port yardarm up. That did the job

Look the amount of line that sticks out - that's how far I stretched the line, I did not install a new one. This part was simply cut off later.



Here's the result:



So that's all I did, I hope it was at least a little helpful

Finally, a little progress on the mainmast:





Again, thanks for looking and commenting!!

Next update will take a couple of days, I'll be away from the workbench for the weekend.

Cheers,

Jan

Jan,

Thanks for the tuorial. Will hel once I gt so EZ Line. I used Fly Fishing Line for the Musashi and it gave me consistant fits. Glue one end just to have to pop off when trying to connect the other end.

I think the final result look good but I know there should have been more rigging applied than what I was willing to try on my first attempt.

Your mast is looking great.

Dave

Some more beautiful work Jan! Lovely work on the mainmast! Rigging can be a give an take sort of thing. I have not used the EZ Line as of yet, but the results certainly warrant giving it a shot. I have used Uschi's Just Rig-it which was originally for aircraft but works excellent for ships as well. 3 grades there and works pretty much the same as the EZ Line. I suppose just another viable option if needed! As always, looking forward to your next update!!

Jan thats a great idea to use the EZ line as an active part of the model and not just for show. Its getting more realistic with every post. Great work.

Bryan

Looking great Jan,

Keep up the good work.

Si

Hi all,

thank you so much for your kind comments and still following this build that's really appreciated.

I should be able to get some work done over the next weekend, hopefully nearing commissioning - but still lots of small stuff to do!!

Cheers,
Jan

Very nearly there, Jan!

Looking great, mate

Russ,

thank you very much mate!!

Well, I had a pretty productive weekend, and I would say the finish line is definitely in sight - can almost touch - but didn't reach it yet. I'd say I was smart enough this time to stop and not go on until I cause some havoc...I know I'm good at this, as you could see some weeks ago.

So, just another update

The mainmast, base coat and some color.



adding the missing yardarm - no idea why it was omitted, but it's clearly in the references. However, neither Trumpy nor WEM nor Eduard have it. No big deal.



Some small stuff aka doodads before painting



Preparing the foc'sle for rigging the anchors - sewing thread to drag the chains through the hawsepipes...



Some more rigging, aft funnel





And now it's time to install the ship's boats.







Well Gentlemen, that's it for now but not with the update - stay tuned, photo bucket is playing slow motion on me, or maybe it's the net no idea, Sunday evening, maybe everybody is surfing...

I have some more to show, should be able to bring that up tomorrow



For today,

cheers

Jan

Jan

She looks great. What did you do to make the top of the stack look like soot? Whatever you did it's a great touch. Adds to the realism

Looking forward to watching you cross the finish line

Dave

Fantastic Jan!! Rigging is looking tops!!!!

Thank you Dave and Todd!!

Dave, your question regarding the funnels - sorry...the answer is very simple and stupid the same: wait long enough I finished the funnel caps way over a year ago and am very reluctant cleaning or even de-dusting them (shouldn't be a problem though...), so this is black 'weathered' for real with all the good stuff that the air can provide in my little shipyard...

But here we go with the second part of my update, internet works promising today

Here's another story of rigging with these flexible lines - I fully agree with Todd that other products like Uschi's Just Rig-it (which in turn I don't know) will probably allow similar results. It's just the concept of thin, flexible lines in different grades that does the job.

Anyway - main mast installed - badly leaning backwards:



Now six lines rigged between main and foremast, with some tension on them. Mainmast now leaning forward:



Again, the rigging as such worked out great.



Something I hate to do: colors before commissioning....doesn't help, further rigging will complicate hoisting the White Ensign....



Next, more rigging, the heavy grade line to finally get the mainmast into the desired position:





After all, I am quite happy with the outcome:



Next and last for now, started with the main deck railing, but did not finish and this still needs some corrective work with the hairy stick





That'S how far I got, both sides:



And that's how she looks - hopefully next weekend...but no promises. Way too much real life stuff going on again. I end up earning more money than I will ever be able to spend on new kits







More soon,

thanks for looking!!

Cheers

Jan

Jan,

Let me start off with a WOW on the rigging. It looks phenominal. Great job.

Thanks for giving the secret to making the stacks look sooty..good to know.

Your Repulse looks great. Looking forward to seeing your finish this beautiful master peice.

Dave

Great work Jan,

Nearly there, she is really coming to life.

Si