Lightship Ambrose - Free Model Competition

Status
Not open for further replies.
M

mpakier

New Member
Feb 12, 2007
71
0
6
Hello! This is my build report for free model competition #2.

This is my first build report on this forum so I will present myself. I live
in Warsaw in Poland. I stared building paper models last December
after many many years (I was impressed with the new possibilities,
new tools, models, etc). I started building Lightship Ambrose (www.digitalnavy.com)
because its small and looks easy to build (but is not).

You can see my first try of the build on picture below. It is a lot of fun to build the
ship but the result was not so good.






So then I started from the scratch to attend in #2 free model competition.
Here is the picture of the first stage of the hull build.



Michal
 
I made some modification to the original Ambrose model which I want to explain
here. The problem with all paper models are the black lines than mark the places
to cut or fold the paper. I decided that I will print the lines on the back of the
paper. I had to modify the original PDF's. I don't know if I'm aloud to show my
modifications here so I will only explain what I did.

1. I opened the PDF in Photoshop and duplicated the layer.
2. On one copy I had removed all the color parts and on another the lines (with some overlay on the edges.
3. Now it was done. I had to flip the back side (with lines only) horizontally and it was ready to print.

Here is the example of the original sheet:




Here the same without the lines and with overlays:





I don't know if this was worth the time I spend. We will see later. The one thing
I know is that it is not something you can do every time. Double sided sheets
are extremely hard to print. I had to print about 10 copies to get one that
will match both sides.
 
black lines

It's a lot easier to draw a black line right through the part then colour over that part of the line which is inside the area then scribe the line before you cut out the part.
 
Next part of the story. I was building the deck. This is not so easy
because I wanted to make it more realistic. First I had to cut out the
outer border (this part that is not made from wood). This was easy
but to glue the very narrow border to the hull was quite complicated
so I will show what was the solution I choose.

After cutting out the border I glued it back to the deck with the
transparent tape (only in few places).



Then I mounted it to the hull with two clips.




Now I glued the border to the hull with the very small drops of the super glue
(only in few points).



At the end I removed the inner part of the deck and finished gluing the border.

Now was the time to work on the "wood" part of the deck. First I engraved (with
the back side of the knife) every desk of the deck. The result was not OK because
the deck was to glossy I think.



Now I painted the deck with different colors. First black the two kinds of grey and
then yellow. The final result is as follows.



I'm quite happy with it. I know it could be much better. Probably I should make it
from wood but it's paper model. Maybe I should print the desk white and the paint
everything on it. But now I have to finish the model in few weeks so there is no
time for more tries.

PS: English is not my native language. I do my best but please if I write something
wrong or use wrong word send me a message so I will correct myself.
 
Quite an extraordinary bit of work!:)

I love the way the deck came out, and would like to hear a bit more about what you did. You say you used the back of your modeling knife to etch the deck, I take it you etched the seams between each plank, is that right?

What type of paint did you use on the deck? It seems you used a very thin wash of black, two types of gray and then yellow. Is that right? The result is fantastic!

I am think I understand what you did with the outter edge of the deck, but I'm not sure; it's not your English, to be sure, just that I'm a bit slow at times.:grin:

It sounds like you removed the outter edge, re-attached it to the deck with clear tape (I suppose you did this by taping the undersides along the edge at a few points) and then you put the two on the hull and glued just the edge piece to the hull.

Not sure how you accomplished this, but the wooden part of the deck was then removable for the painting (I take it the tape you used allowed the wooden deck part to be easily removed?). Pretty ingenious, if you ask me. And it came out great!

I am looking forward to seeing more of your build!

Cheers!
Jim
 
Thank you for the interest of my build report. As you see at the beginning
I'm building the ship second time so I wanted to make it in a more challenging way.

Jim Krauzlis said:
I love the way the deck came out, and would like to hear a bit more about what you did. You say you used the back of your modeling knife to etch the deck, I take it you etched the seams between each plank, is that right?
Click to expand...

Yes. I had nothing else only my modeling knife (Olfa AK-3). I checked if the
back side will not cut the paper and it was OK.

Jim Krauzlis said:
What type of paint did you use on the deck? It seems you used a very thin wash of black, two types of gray and then yellow. Is that right? The result is fantastic!
Click to expand...

I was using acrylic paint with a lot of water. I was painting it with a cotton wool.
After each color I was drying the deck with hairdryer. First I used the black. Then
I sanded the deck a little so the black left mostly "between planks". Then
I used gray (after sanding there was a lot of white paper on the
planks). Then I used other grey because the first one was to light. Then I used
yellow to make it look more like wood.

Jim Krauzlis said:
It sounds like you removed the outter edge, re-attached it to the deck with clear tape (I suppose you did this by taping the undersides along the edge at a few points) and then you put the two on the hull and glued just the edge piece to the hull.

Not sure how you accomplished this, but the wooden part of the deck was then removable for the painting (I take it the tape you used allowed the wooden deck part to be easily removed?). Pretty ingenious, if you ask me. And it came out great!
Click to expand...

Yes. The wooden part was easy to remove because I glued the border only
in few points applying the glue with the needle. The drops of glue was very small
so only the border was glued. The tape was not holding very strong so it
was easy to take it off.
 
Hello. Every day I try to build something but there is no time left for writing the report.

Here are boards. At the beginning and at the end (almost) of preparing them.





I made the doors that are on each board. I cut them out and glue back so there
is a 3D look. Unfortunately I was not able to cut it very well so the result is
not very impressive but the only way to learn is to try.

I made the bulleyes. They are smaller then 1mm so I made the glass with
the drop of glue (at the back side). Then I painted them dark blue (at the back).

Here you can see the hull with the deck and both boards.



On one of the pictures (last row first on the left) of the steelnavy Ambrose site.
You can see that there is some kind of brackets at the bow (I don't know if
brackets and bow are right words, correct me if not). I made them from
the wire.



Then I glued them with superglue to the hull.



Thats all for now.
 
mpakier said:
You can see my first try of the build on picture below. It is a lot of fun to build the ship but the result was not so good.
Click to expand...
Your first build looks good. I've downloaded this model a couple of months ago and I tried to build it but the parts are too small for me:cry:
 
miguelj: I didn't like the first version because all the parts were twisted some way.
When I find some time and there will be good light I will make some macro shots
of it.

Ambrose is a small model but quite difficult because of very small parts. I will try to
do more pictures to show how I'm doing it but remember that I'm not an expert and
I'm learning too.
 
Superb looking hull, mate!


mpakier said:
Here are boards. At the beginning and at the end (almost) of preparing them.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure I would call them boards, perhaps hull plates? If they were above the main deck I'd call them bulwarks.

mpakier said:
I made the bulleyes. They are smaller then 1mm so I made the glass with
the drop of glue (at the back side). Then I painted them dark blue (at the back).
Click to expand...

When you write "bulleyes" are you referring to the portholes, perhaps? I wonder if you could provide a close up picture of them, sounds like an interesting trick to use glue and then paint the back side when dry dark blue...that's a VERY nice trick!:)

mpakier said:
You can see that there is some kind of brackets at the bow (I don't know if
brackets and bow are right words, correct me if not). I made them from
the wire.
Click to expand...

I believe the "brackets" you are referring to are the "stanchions"; they form the vertical parts of the railing.

This hull is coming along wonderfully! I really like the way the deck planking came out, it looks so very real.

Looking forward to more updates when you are able!

Cheers!
Jim
 
I knew that I use wrong words for everything. I'm not a seaman so I don't know
the right name for all things on the ship (even in polish). From other hand there
is only 13 days left in the competition and writing descriptions for everything
takes time. So I will make more pictures and put them here. If you will want
few words about something please ask.
 
By all means, my friend, please work on your build for the competition; we can always catch up with you later and ask questions about what your photos updates show us. I'm just enjoying seeing you build her!:)

Don't worry about the correct use of words, I only mentioned those last few because you indicated you wanted to know if they sounded right. I don't know them all, but if I see you are looking for one I will try to mention it.

Now, go on and finish this beautiful ship!:grin:

Cheers!
Jim
 
To miguelj and others that think that my first version of Ambrose was not so bad here are some macro pictures of it. You have to click and see the bigger
version to see.







I don't know if I'm able to do any better in my second version but I will try.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom