Thanks again, me mates, Rob, Barry and Raimund!
I noticed the time I was posting...during the loooong upload period
...that my post was 9 or 10 a.m. your time (or there abouts...never really good figuring out those time zones :lol: ) so I was hoping they would give you something to look at during your morning tea...or coffee (I prefer coffee, maybe a little too much :shock: ).
I'm going to try and post a few photos of how I made the ship's wheels, but I'm still experiencing a bit of a server problem
. Hopefully they will come out okay... :roll:
The Constitution was originally fitted with a single wheel, but acquired her double wheel configuration after her battle with the HMS JAVA on 29 December 1812. Constitution had her single wheel shot away during the battle but was able to jury rig an auxiliary steering set up and to successfully continue the battle. After demasting JAVA and accepting her surrender, Commodore Bainbridge (who was injured twice during the action) took Java's double wheel as a replacement...which she carried for most of her career. I think the wheel may have been replaced during a refit later in her career (I could be wrong on this), but she had a double wheel from that date forward.
On to the wheel construction.... As is often my habit, while things are drying, I tend to play around with assemblies to be used later on in the build. I have been brainstorming a bit on the wheel. The kit wheel is a pretty crude part, having nine spokes rather than the twelve she actually carries, and just didn't look right. I had seen someone else make a wheel using a disc to set up the spokes and decided to give it a try. I used a plastic bottle cap from a bottle of water and noticed it had a series of recessed tabs used as part of the cap sealing set up...you know, the part that breaks away when you twist it open for the first time...and those tabs were conveniently placed at twenty four points along the cap rim. Excellent! I had the twelve points of reference I would need for the spokes! :lol: I scored the tabs along the rim, being sure it went all the way across the lip of the bottle cap. It was then a simple matter of winding the thread through the slits, around the bottom, and than again across the top of the cap, going to the next spoke location. I continued this until all twelve spokes (actually six crossing lines) were in place. I secured the thread with a bit of tape and then used CA to glue the intersection and to soak the line for the spokes.
While that was drying, I fashioned the outter rim for the wheel using a dowel of the right diameter, and wrapped some thin paper around the shaft, carefully gluing it into a short tube. I coated the outside of the tube with PVA to stiffen it up a bit. When it was thoroughly dry, I then sliced a very fine sliver off of the tube for the rim...it was as thin as I could cut it.
Before I removed the wheel spokes from the cap, I glued a small disc for the hub. When it all was dry, I cut the spokes from the cap/jig and glued the rim ring centered on the hub. When dry I then smashed the whole assembly with my steel ruler and the rim flattened out to assume the shape I wanted...that was a gamble and guess but it came out okay, thankfully.
I then painted the wheel assembly with flat brown acrylics, included a bit outside the rim on each spoke for the spindle handles and let it all dry very well (overnight, in fact). Then it was a simple matter of trimming the excess thread to make the finished spokes...and there you have it!
Hope to get more done today. Until then...
Cheers!
Jim
