Building a Revell 1/96 CSS Alabama

Gene, you have actually outdone yourself. That's some fine craftsmanship.

     I know you have another Alabama kit somewhere so if you decide to do a diorama of sorts, be advised that sometimes the Alabama would drop the funnel or add a second funnel (made of cloth I understand) as a means of disguise.

   It is great fun watching your builds.  You must get Bill onboard with posting his Alabama.

    Jim.

  I had too much sun on the pictures, but I will post the last 2 anyway. I also showed my guage for the mast rake.

Here are some new pictures showing my 8 degree rake on the masts. My shrouds didn't fit as good as they should because a made them for the spacing on the ship. The front ones were the worst. The kit shrouds were no good at all. they were not spaced right & were to small on the thread.

Hi Dale, I answered this a day or 2 ago & I probably forgot to hit send or as it does , I hit it & it doesn't go. I have the masts all glued in at -8% & have the rr-standing rigging main lines in but not fastened. One big problem with the Alabama over the kearsarge is the blocks to tie your shrouds to are way to small. I have added extra tie down s on the channels but the blocks are too small to drill a hole in. I do have it worked out tho

I am working the miz mast first to be able to tie back to. I will glue the line to the entire block & rope castings. I figured it out this morning. I have also made all the shrouds & ratlines . I made them to fit the castings on the ship. The kit shrouds do not line up & are too small.

  Definetly buy the Cottage cannons as they are nice. I got mine shipped for $33.75. That is the cheapest I saw. The deck is nice & I have used them before, but $100 or $120 s an awful lot. I have another Alabama coming & I could get the deck for that. My panted deck does look good. Gotta go build now.

   By the way I have a lot of new rigging ideas if you are interested. I leave one end loose but taped to get the masts straight & raked if needed . I do the same thing with the mast brace lines too.When you have them right I put on the shrouds to fix them tight.  I will tell you more when i see you. 

Got my Alabama kit yesterday, fellow member here helped me out and was nice enough to drop it off on his way through this area. Now to get my AM goodies and I can do some work on it, when rigging my Consltitution gets me &%$#!!! .....

Gene, Bill has been nice enough to email me some pics of his build and it is very nice. Yours is just as nice, definitely 2 very impressive somewhat different ways to build this ship. Both are Museum quality to me and I am sure many others.... Dale

I'm looking forward to it Dale & I really want to see your Constitution. I don't know what I can tell you , but I am real good at figureing out different ways to do something. The Alabama really looks good , but Bills wil look a lot better.

Boy, that is sure looking nice!

Gene,

It sounds great!  I will do the same on mine.  I just sent you an email updating another modification that I made to mine last night.  After all the work that I did to modify the hull to more accurately depict the ship, I noticed that the molded-on gunport lids detracted from the effect I wanted, so I sanded them off. I will make new lids tonight and close that forward port for the pivot gun that was never mounted. Then, I will retouch the hull. I will send photos this weekend.

Bill

Gene, I can't wait to come over and see this build up close and personal. I will have my camera with me to take reference pics for my Alabama and Kearsage builds.  I will bring my Constitution with me, so you can give me some more pointers.  Dale

Bill, I fit my Alabama masts to the deck today & got them at an 8 degree slant. The pin or nub that goes into the deck I filed the rear top on an angle & the front bottom to match. Those darn things even without doing that are hard to fit. I did that first then did my angle filing. I got my big 8" protractor & taped a light 12" aluminum ruler to it at 8 degrees off 90 & used that as a guage.

     Then I took the piece that fits on the deck & cut the little pin off & marked the front & angle filed that too. Then I CA glued the mast into that piece & checked it with my guage. Now I will paint them & do other work on them & glue them tightly into the deck using the guage. The guage is important to get it close. A final adjustmant can be done with the rigging. I think it will work fine, because as I said before, the kit masts are already at about a 4 o5 degree slant.

Bill, the name of the picture is  Sunday Showdown   by Tom Freeman. It is the most detailed I have seen. 

Gene,

I will do so. Thanks for that reference!

Bill

Please do that Bill, I want to see yours. I want to see what you have done with yours. Did you notice what I did with mine, I went crazy & cut the rear gunports in. That was really worth doing for me as the guns & chains wouldn't fit together  in the front. I know the chains were wrong on the kit.

   Did you see Tom Freemans picture of the battle. It is the best & has the colors we chose. The picture is $250 tho so I won't get that. Look at the  article  High Seas Duel.   It is great.

Gene,

Again, you do beautiful work! I will send updated photos to you and anyone else who wants them of my CSS Alabama.

Bill

And a couple more. I'm looking forward to the masts & rigging.

Here are more pictures,

Here are the new pictures of my Alabama hull. I did discover that I did a lot of hull touchup with flat black paint & not my black/ gray mix. Now i will have to touch up & trfinish. Don't think there is too much. I never said I was smart.

Robert, Bill gave me my Kearsarge too. He is really a super guy even if he didn't give us anything. I just finished my Alabama hull & am ready for masts. It took about 3 1/2 weeks. It has really been fun too. Here are some pictures I just took of the finished hull. I used a semi gloss on the outside & a dullcote on the inner. I might go back & hit the outside with a light dullcote. I forgot I have to edit them. Will be right back with pictures.

Gene I've got a Kearsarge (fourth attempt) to build as well as the Alabama (third attempt). Bill (warshipguy) very kindly sent it to me and refused to accept any repayment. What a gentleman he is! I still have my second Kearsarge, built in 1971, in its glass case and it has lasted several house moves and still looks ok though I now see how much better it could be done, especially after seeing your work. Ditto with my second Alabama, done in 1990. The third Kearsarge was done in 2008 for a friend and I think I did a better job on it compared to 1971. So both are again on the slipway. I don't have nearly as much time as I would like to give to this hobby of ours so expect both kits will take a year each to build.

Man, you 2 Aussie guys are something else. I love to read your compliments.Steve, you need to get both of them, the Kearsarge & Alabama. Robert, you said you have the Alabama but do you have the Kearsarge? Steve, how is your Victory coming ? That is a really beautiful model & you rig your guns right. I just can't tie some of that stuff, so i cheat.

  I hold both of them up in front of my 35 year old wood  Constitution & I like the plastic about as much as the wood. I spent about a thousand hours on it with real copper plates & I could really rig back then. I mus have been able to tie a knot too

   I meant to add Mates, instead of guys. My wife loves that mates word.

Gene if, as you say, those two models "look better in person than in the pictures", then all I can say is that if I were to see them my eyes would be out on stalks. So would Mr Tilley's and, I suspect, the eyes of everyone on this forum. You are quite simply a genius. I can't wait to see your Harriet Lane/Blockade Runner when you build it.  

gene

google images didn't work for me either , I could see them but no-one else . it must have something to do with the site , before google changed .

love what you are doing to this model , you seem to get a clarity , no-one else can get mate . must keep an eye out for this kit .

 Bill, I meant to tell you that I have glued every thing on the deck with Formula 560. That is a paint to paint glueing & they are tighter than anything. I do love that stuff. I glued all the cannons down after I slightly flatened the wheels. I think trying to use CA to glue on the paint does something to the paint & weakens it. It always comes loose. 

Hi Dale, I don't understand why you can't post from Google Photos. All you have to do is right click the large picture on  copy image address & then right click it on FSM mountain picture after you have brought it up. Then paste & ok or whatever comes up last on the bottom. 

    Give me a call & come out whenever you want. It's only a half hour from Asheville. You will really enjoy the 2 ships, Kearsarge & Alabama. Mine does look better in person than in the pictures. I don't do photos well & use too much light. It changes the colors. I just about have every thing done on the deck. I will probably start the masts next week. 

Gene, looks great. Love the pic of the two together. Bill emailed me some pics of his and I hope that when I do mine, that I can get even close to what you 2 do. I tried to post using Google images, that was a failure, now using fotki as suggested by another friend and its working great.    Dale

Gene,

It's not a question of being smarter. It's a question of postimages.org not doing that which people are telling me it should do.  I follow their guidance to the letter, only to find that the site is telling me something different than they. I really wish that all I had to do was to click into an "Attachments" icon and my photos would post, just as they do on www.papermodelers.com. It is so much easier to post there!  Oh, well . . .

Bill

Bill, just for fun, look up Picasa to store your pictures. It is supposed to be closed down, but I am still loading my pictures from my camera to it. From Picasa I can send 30 or more pictures at a time to you, but I don.t know how to send them to FSM from Picasa. Google took over Picasa. There is a place on Picasa to send to Google Photos & then I post single pictures on FSM thru the little mountain marker. You don't mean to tell me that a nuclear sub man isn't a lot smarter than a worn out old air force dummy & house builder?

Robert, does everyone in Austrailia talk so nice. I love your description of my work, but I'm just a crazy old man having a lot of fun. Been doing it for over 75 years. Neither my wife or I can remember a lot of words, so I use great & super. my color on the bulwarks was Tamiya Buff. I like it because where you don't know the real color, it is neutral. My deck isTamiya Wooden Tan with a raw Umber wash & then a real light black oil wash, real light. Floquil or Tamiya gold on the stripe. I didn't have Tamiya German gray so I mixed a dark gray & black for the hull  & used Floquil Copper, but would have used Tamiya acrylic Copper if I had it. Acyrilic is better for oil washing. The inside was all Tamiya black. Most all colors are flat. 

 I used a brass diamond screen for the skylite with clear plastic under it. I used MM Gunmetal for the guns & mixed a gray/ green for the carriages. They are much darker than they look.

Gene,

I will send updates on my Alabama soon.  I wish that I could post here, but, the vagaries of technology kill me!

Bill