ACW Naval update - week 21

No update last week for multiple reasons. This week has some good progress.

USS Kearsarge has the rigging installed.

Last task here is to paint the rigging and call it a day...


USS Minnesota - work continues on the rigging. As indicated earlier, this thing is a beast. About 2/3 done with a little bit of the main mast and the the mizzen mast rigging remaining.

Trying to finish this in the next two weeks.

Tales of the Anaconda - page updated!

Salutations!

Overhauled the "Tales of the Anaconda" page to include some background history on the life cycle of the game and add questions that commonly come up. If you have questions regarding the game, please let me know!

In other Anaconda news, I'll be sitting down to proof-read Anaconda: Capital Navies this week. Once it's up to date and converted to PDF I'll schedule a release date on Wargames Vault.

ACW Naval status update - week 19

Work continues on the USS Minnesota and USS Kearsarge models. The Kearsarge had the duffel bags along the railings painted and the stays and back stays for the foremast are installed.

Work continues on rigging the foremast of USS Minnesota.

Port quarter view of USS Kearsarge

Kearsarge, again

USS Minnesota from the starboard beam. The stays are installed for the foremast working on the back stays.

The lower back stays are installed. Still need the middle and upper back stays.

It's eating up a lot of wire!

This is hard, fiddly work. The glue won't always keep the wire in place. During a game it may start shedding wire on the table.

Squadron of misfit steamships

Not every project starts or ends as well as we'd like. Some you just get through and say 'good enough'. What follows are a few of those from a time that I just needed to get the models 'table ready'. Not my best work and they likely need to go back into the painting queue to be redone.  (But still...table ready!)

Okay, the port stack snapped off during a game. So it was good enough to play with. The paint around the gun ports is ill defined, the deck planks need black washing to bring out the details and the hatch covers should be painted.

Where to start? Deck painting uneven. dripping/bleeding from casement onto fore deck. Excess glue where stack joins deck. WHAT is going on the with the pilot house? Need to paint the texas and the fittings on the upper deck.

The prior ship in profile.

Another tinclad. Nice mold line down the wide of the top deck! Pilot house painting is a hack job. Casemate is too dark. Sloppy painting around the funnels on the casemate roof. Didn't even attempt to paint/wash the windows and doors off the promenade deck.

Blech!

I think the  only thing I like is the paddle wheel.

ACW Naval - status update week 18

Making good - but slow - progress on the remaining ships in the queue.

Basically down to rigging the last few models. This is going to take a couple of weeks and may require additional wire. The Minnesota is going to require several feet of wire for the stays and back stays. But the end is in sight!

Before starting the rigging, I googled "USS Minnesota rigging". Which gave no results for the Minnesota, but did return a nice schematic of USS Constitution. That schematic - when printed - accidentally scales out well with the Minnesota model and became a good guide for the stays and backstays. Pat David posted the original which you can find here.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/patdavid/4409524942

The Bay Area Yards model of the USS Minnesota before starting on the rigging, but basically done with painting.

Added the stays for the foremast. Lots of work to do here!

This is a LOT of wire!

Added the first back stay on the starboard side of the foremast.

The assembly on Kearsarge is complete. I was going to complain about how the instructions should tell you to install the guns before adding the railing. It turns out the instructions do say that, I'd just forgotten or not read that section. My bad.

Before adding the guns.

The Thoroughbred Figures model of USS Kearsarge.

After the guns are installed and the stays for the foremast are installed.

These pictures do help. Just realized I have to paint the bedding rolls on the railings.

Here's a secret - the broadside guns are from Bay Area Yards. It's because I screwed up and didn't mount the TB guns before putting the top of the railings in. The BAY guns are small enough to fit in the hole.