In this post I included the work on bow chaser, preparing the eyebolts and cleats, gluing the guns and their rigging, and final assembly of the bow chaser
The Bow Chaser
Assembling the guns on the spar deck is a delicate operation. Although most of the guns were already prepared, as described
here, I needed to take care of the bow chaser.
There are several small parts to be used: the left and right sides, front and rear wheels, and the barrel (which was prepared before):
Putting them together
... then realising that I forgot to paint the pieces, which made me to take some painful detailed painting of the sides, and, once the paint dried, added two eyebolts
The Eyebolts and Cleats
Having all the guns prepared, I payed attention to the deck. First, I glued eyebolts on each side of the places where the guns will be positioned. They are very small (therefore easy to loose)
... and will be used later for rigging the guns.
One of the mistakes I previously made, while painting the hull, hit me at this point. A lot of small holes were filled with paint, and I had to clean them up while the hull was assembled and deck was in place, which made the task much harder
Having the holes cleaned, I started to glue the eyeholes, and make sure they have the same orientation
Since I had enough space before the guns were in place, I glued the cleats
... and the fore pinrails
The Guns on Deck
Next step focused on the guns. There are 16 guns for the stern half of the deck, and 12 guns of a different model for the bow part of the deck:
I applied a drop of glue on the wheels, and, in the case of stern guns, on the pin on the hull where they should be secured.
Rigging the Guns
And here the fun begun. For each of the 38 guns, I need to do the rigging. Basically, knot a thread through side holes and the end of each gun barrel. For this, I made a two step approach: knot one side and the gun end, glue the knots, and wait to dry:
Sometimes, I needed to put some weight, to keep the knot from the gun rear to unfold.
This way, I made sure that the knot on the back of the barrel will not untie. The second step was to make the knot to the other eyehole, and glue it
Final touch, cut the thread remains from the knots. I recommend to use a really sharp blade (I used a surgery blade for this).
The Bow Chaser in Its Final Place
Having the deck eyebolts fixed...
... I glued the assembled bow chaser on its location, and rigged it on the deck using a similar approach:
So finally, the deck with all the guns rigged in place: