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Frederick Scott

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About Frederick Scott

  • Birthday 04/19/1940

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    Son, Ostfold, Norway.

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  1. "The Boat", as my nearest and dearest calls my project, is coming along and after months of wondering how on earth I am going to make fourteen winches I have actually managed to make one. It took a whole frustrating day to get this one miniature machine to look anything like a winch, but I think I have learnt from the experience how to refine the process and maybe make two or three a day. The one pictured above will probably not be used on the finished model. It needs refining. But it has shown me what to do and how to do it. The main thing was to get the scale right and of course the shape. And a coat of grey paint and white drum ends will make a big difference. I used modeling clay to make the body of the thing and the canon barells from the unfinished model of "Wasa" for the drum ends. Luckily about the right size. I also have a set of derricks ready to go up. I'm planning to have her with derricks topped ready for work. The boot topping indicates that she's part loaded and moving between ports - pilot flag flying - so derricks topped would be normal practice on a coastal passage. These were cut from a couple of wire coat hangers (wife's coat and blouse) It was quite a surprise to me to see how the lengths differed. I always knew that there was a difference of length, of course, but I didn't appreciate just how much. No 4 forward derricks are roughly half the length of the the ones at the after end of the same hatch. Amazing. Or haven't I got it right. Must double check. Still haven't finished the wheelhouse and bridge, and the aft end of the ship's maindeck, abaft of no 5 hatch, is still unexplored territory. There's much still to do. Regards to all Fred
  2. Thanks again to Patrick and to those who liked the posts. I have no more pictures yet of the latest work, but I spoke in my last post of the challenge of printing in miniature on the ship's stern, and it may be useful to someone to know how I got around it. I certainly surprised myself. I should mention that I have a slight tremor in my writing hand and it doesn't make it any easier to paint fine detail with a small brush. I found that if I tried to print from left to right the succeeding print grew, shrank, listed to port and starboard and generally looked a mess by the end of the effort. I tried several (ie many) times Then I tried removing just the worst letters and reprinting them or tried to repair them, but it just got worse. I don't know what inspired this idea but I figured that if I put the first and last letters in place to start with, after carefully measuring where they should be, and then the middle one or the one to one side of the middle point of the word, I got better results. I could then progress with the remaining letters, each finding its place correctly in the whole print. This way I could better control the proportions, height and width, and the correct shape (no list or difference of size) of each letter. I could also see where each letter should be in relation to its neighbours. I further found that by printing just a part of the letter - the vertical for example in the letter "L" - and returning later to give it the remainder - the bottom horizontal bar - I got better results. It seems that by moving up and down the line of print adding the next stroke to each letter until it was complete, I could better "see" how the shape and appearance of it was going and so keep things under control. A bit like a sheep dog darting around the flock keeping would be miscreants in place. It may be that this is a well known trick that everyone uses. If so, I'm sorry if I seem to be preaching to the converted. On the other hand, If any reader has any tips on how to stick spider web thin lengths of rigging to cargo blocks on derricks, without getting glue all over the surrounds, the fingers and your tea/coffee cup, I'd be grateful. Regards and happy model making, Fred
  3. Sorry about the long absence and a belated "Thank You" to Patrick. Sorry too that the pictures are not studio studies but they serve to show that things have moved forward. Also that I'm still alive and at work. They're actually even further forward since these photos were taken. I have painted the hull again and got the final finish I wanted. The draft marks and the Liverpool on the stern were challenging but I think I got acceptable results there as well. Ignore the badly tailored appearance of number 5's aft coaming. The hatch wasn't "affixed" when the photo was taken and has been replaced with new work. Currently working on mark 5 of the bridge structure and the last of the lifeboats. I seem to do more scrapping than building! I hope to be back soon with better pics showing further progress. Maybe I should get someone more competent and with better equipment to take the photos.
  4. It's been a while since my last log entry but work has gone on and this how Fulani looks today. None of the deck structures is fixed in place yet as I have still to make hawse pipes and giver the ship her anchors; also, although I have managed to print Fulani under her counter stern, I still have to find a way to paint Liverpool under her name in half millimetre high print. The windlass is a gift from a friend who was given a kit when he was a boy about forty years ago. Unfortunately the kit contained only the fixtures for a model trawler, but not the hull, so he couldn't even start the project. However he kept the bits and pieces and offered them to me. Luckily the windlass was just about right for Fulani. The Samson post on the port side forward of the bridge house (also not fixed yet) has a cowl made from modelling clay and glued onto a wooden post. I tried several ways to form the cowl and finally did it by shaping a ball of the stuff and impressing the rounded end of a stick of the same dimensions as the post, into it and then shaping the "bonnet" around it. After it had dried hard it just took a little sanding to get it to fit onto the post. Superglue and a coat of paint makes it look like one single piece. The deck sheathing is not ready for showing yet but I found a good way to make it is to prepare sheets of it and cut out the shape and size required for each area. The planks are taken from the unfinished model of the Swedish warship Wasa and laid in a thin smear of tar sealant. Sanded the result is convincing, I think. I'm looking forward to getting finally finished with the hull so that I can start attaching everything to it. I'm specially keen to start fitting the derricks and all the tackle that that will involve, though not the fourteen cargo winches that have to go with them. The deck rails will be a challenge as well.
  5. I agree with Yves. The deck would have been wood sheathed because of the accommodation below, so removing the existing deck and replacing with wood, narrow planked of course, would seem to be the way to go. You've also got some detailed work to do on the cargo gear and that should be interesting. I hope you'll keep a log going here. I'd like to see how you get on (and maybe pinch a few ideas from you for my own build!) Good luck, Fred.
  6. Thanks to all of the above for your comments. It's good to know that "I'm not the only one" though, looking at your logs and galleries,it's hard to believe that I'm in such impressive company. But, "Moving on" (as my youngest says when the conversation bores or embarrasses him) I have started again with the bridge structure. It's demanding work to cut all those rectangular windows and difficult to achieve uniformity. I've wasted a lot of time scrapping my efforts and starting again. My third attempt is the best so far and is accepted. But that's just the Master's and Mate's windows on deck 2. I'm now working on the wheelhouse windows and doors and the radio shack. I have also started preparing the wood sheathing on these decks. I used very thin and flat slices from the damaged planking on "Vasa" the unfinished model my friend's widow gave me. I'm using some remnants of tar adhesive paint that I had left over after re-roofing the wood shed some years ago, to represent the pitch seal between planks. Painting it along one edge of the deck plank and sliding the adjacent one up against it forces the excess out, to be scraped away. Some spreading occurs but when the deck is ready it will be sanded down as far as I dare go. I have experimented and found this works well. Even a little grey shadow where tar paint has been is not a bad thing as, on a ship as old as Fulani was when I sailed in her, the 28 year old wood sheathed decks were far from pristine, having been re-sealed over the years by various ship's carpenters, skilled and unskilled. It looks authentic, I think. I am also busy around the focstle, fitting the aft facing bulkhead with entrances port and starboard These entrances had no high coaming to keep water out as the interior access doors to the Carpenter's shop and the focstle store and lampy's den had. On the outer surface of the focstle I am trying (and trying and trying again) to print F U L A N I to scale. I am doing it with a toothpick dipped in paint, the toothpick being a used one in accordance with my stipulation that the ship should be made of scrap materials. Am still trying, as my wife tells me. Repeatedly. Photos of the above work to follow shortly. (Same old problems with photos, I'm afraid)
  7. This is embarrassing. I've made a careless mistake, not the first but certainly the worst. Fortunately I discovered it before too many detailed pieces had to e scrapped as a result of it. It was an error of scale. As mentioned earlier I have no plans and am working from an enlarged photograph printed on two sheets of A4 taped end to end. All my measurements are taken from this pic and scaled up. The length of the model is 850 mm overall while the photo image is 508 mm. My mistake was in jotting 528 mm on the picture and using that as a factor when scaling up. No idea why I wrote 528 instead of 508. Just one of those careless moments, but the small differences it made added up and when I marked out along the maindeck the positions of the largest parts - the hatches and deckhouses and the masts - I found that there was a large area abaft number 5 hatch that would accommodate the small deckhouse with docking bridge over that should be there, with space enough for an extra block of flats with parking space around. So something was seriously wrong. I doubted everything except the two lengths I was using to scale up from the photo to the model and wasted a lot of time re-measuring everything from forward to aft and then back the other way. I found that when I measured from the stem to the foreside of the funnel and from the taffrail to its after side, I finished up with a funnel so wide that you could fit number 2 hold into it. And it would be a loose fit. Once I had found my mistake and used the right numbers to scale up I found that everything fits where it should and the crew need not worry about late night parking or rowdy neighbours. The small errors in length measured along the maindeck are mostly inconsequential, and in fact only relate to the hatches and the mast sites. The hatch discrepancy, if any, I will accept because it is so slight and could be applied either way. This is because I am measuring from an un-sharp image and could be in plus or minus error with each measurement. After scaling up, I could even, accidentally, be right-on. So they will be used. But the bridge house is a different matter. Using the same incorrect height for each deck makes the accumulated error with height, significant, and I found that the wheelhouse windows were going to be almost on a level with the foremast crosstree. That isn't right and so the block that I started to make and had shown in my last log entry has had to be scrapped. I'm happy to say that I am now back on course and keeping a sharp lookout for careless mistakes, checking and double checking everything that I do. A new bridge structure is under construction and hopefully will show up in my log very soon and, incidentally, in a better photo than the one that is there now. Many thanks for the appreciative comments above and for the interest shown in my build. I still intend to have this model ready for my August deadline and so it's................... "Full ahead both (she was a twin screw vessel) and steady as she goes."
  8. I have puzzled about how to make a realistic lug and shackle coupling for the topping lift blocks at the cross trees and decided to use chain, just a couple of links from a very thin necklace chain. The plan was to make a small nick in the card that formed the triangular fore and aft plates of the crosss tree and glue a link into the cut so that half a link showed as a lug, the other link representing a shackle. To this link would be glued the block. The idea was OK but trying to secure the links to the four corners, two forward at no 1 hatch and two aft at number 2 hatch, caused a lot of wear and especially tear in the card. So I removed it and started again with wood veneer, the scraps salvaged from the redundant skate board park. Knowing that these split very easily, I drew the triangles away from the edge of the piece and drilled the holes for the links before cutting out the shapes. The photo shows the chain threaded. This has worked well and I now have a foremast with the lugs and shackles ready to be fitted and cut. Must paint first. I have also started work on the bridge house. I have had to guesstimate the athwartship dimensions as I don't have any pictures taken from aloft or from a forward facing position. So the width of the wheelhouse, for example is a fair guess, I believe, and the width of the outside deck space below, on the level where the master and mate had their accommodation, are again guessed at. I have cut wood shapes to represent the first two levels and a card cut to plan to represent the visible surface all round. I wanted to make the windows look real and so coloured the wood block with grey pastel crayon where the windows would be, laid transparent plastic sheet from a supermarket vegetable bag over to simulate glass, and then glued the pre-shaped card into place. The pic is not as pleasing to see as the actual thing. It's grainy and should be white, but I have confessed to poor photo work earlier and can only plead incompetence again. I hope that later photos will be better. The card curves around the forward corners of the accommodation block and will be joined by a separate length of card covering the currently exposed area. The seams will be hidden behind the derrick posts that will be situated close up against the curved corners. The deck, outside the mate's and master's cabins will be sheathed with wood, again taken form the skate board park veneers. That's next, and then comes the wheelhouse and monkey island.
  9. I decided to use the modelling clay for the anchors. I made them in three parts, the flukes separately and the lower section as a single item, then glued the flukes to the base section. It was fiddly work, the pieces being so small. I found that the working time was not as long as the package had suggested but this was probably because the stuff was old before it ever arrived at the jumble sale where I found it. It was hardening after a quite short time. I also found that the best way to trim the parts was to use slim pieces of wood to move the bits around, like a couple of chopsticks, because the tiny pieces stick to skin like magnets. After they had dried there were cracks in the surface but I sealed these with glue and got a good finish, I think. With the parts glued together they look quite good and are ready to paint and then to attach to the hawse pipes. I have made, painted and tarpaulin covered numbers 1 and 2 hatches. Also the forward masthouse is shaped and painted although it still has to have a couple of doors attached on the aft side and a pair of vents on the top. My next task is to make the heavy derrick tabernacle and the derrick itself, and set it all up against the mast. Fulani had a crow's nest on the foremast as well and I've made that but it needs finishing before appearing in public. Some other details are still required, the locking bars across the hatches, for one, and the mast stays, the yardarm and the foremast light. But here is how the old girl is looking just now: I have re-sanded the already painted maindeck. The painting showed up a few faults in the surface and I was not happy with the amount of camber. And as can be seen the boat deck has been the subject of a re-think as well. The original card I used was too easily damaged with handling and so I stripped it off and am relaying it with thin metal sheet cut from a tea tray (she hasn't missed it yet.) Here is a close up of the foredeck hatches. After the chore of shaping and sanding (endlessly) the hull it's a huge change to be making these miniature parts, but it's a challenge and at least I can do much of this work indoors where it's warmer. The snow in the picture above is real and the outside temperature is minus 6 C. Makes sawing and sanding another kind of challenge.
  10. Apologies for another long absence from work. As a roving model maker I have to concentrate on small details that can be planned and even made in hotel rooms, and that's not a bad thing. At least progress is being made. I have made the two masthouses and the foremast. Also numbers 1,2 and 3 hatches using the green side of the old hammock sunshade as tarpaulin covers. I have painted all of these and have switched to using matt paints as the result using gloss was a too shiny finish, making everything look like pristine new plastic. The matt finish makes for a more realistic effect, I think. I am this very morning, working on the anchors, in a hotel room. The scale is such that these have to be contained in a rectangle measuring 8mm by 7mm. Even drawing them on paper was difficult and I imagine that shaping them from my scraps, in one piece, would be difficult as well. So I am gong to make each anchor in three small parts, two flukes and a stock, and fit them into place bit by bit. I can use wood or play dough for this and I rather think that play dough will get the job. I got a packet of the stuff in a Jumble Sale, possibly an unwanted gift, so I believe I am sticking to my role as rescuer of the unwanted, something that was going to be thrown out. No photos available today but I expect to be able to post some in the coming week.
  11. As a first attempt ship model maker there is little that I can teach the great majority of members about technique and procedure, but there will be others who, like me, are starting along the fascinating and even exciting road of miniature ship building and who would be helped by knowing of some of the mistakes that I have made and the corrective measures I have taken to put them right. Several of the items I have declared myself satisfied with have subsequently seemed to me to be open to improvement. The lifeboat for instance. The more I looked at it the less convincing it seemed. It was the .grey paper boat cover. It didn't look as "right" as it had when I first made it and the reason is, I decided, that it looks like what it is: a paper boat cover. It should look like canvas, but canvas is too thick and coarse for a lifeboat cover that is to be only 4 cms long. A cotton handkerchief would have filled the bill but it would have to a grey one. Most of mine are, of course, but luckilly I had some remnants of a worn and torn shade from a garden swing seat. It was green outside and grey under and very weathered and so was ideal for hatch tarps, the green side, and boat covers the grey side. But I also found that it was better not to make the whole thing in one piece as I had with the paper cover. Instead I cut the miniature triangles that project down from the cover (these are leverage aids which allow the cover to be hardened down tight over the boat) and glued them in place. Then I glued the main cover over, fitting the lower edge over the triangles. This makes an authentic shadow at the top of each triangle, which is how it would look "in real life". Another useful dodge I have found is this: when gluing tiny bits to other bits, large or small, a smear of glue on the tiny bit is like a deluge. It spreads all around and has to cleaned away and usually results in the tiny bit falling off, moving out of position or sticking to the cleaning tool. Instead, I now drop a blob of glue onto a scrap of waste wood and carefully dip the tiny bit into it. This way I get the right covering of glue and in the right position. I've saved a lot of time that way. It's probably what everyone else has always done but ............. Well, it might be helpful to somebody. Here is a picture of me gluing stiffeners onto the number 2 hatch coaming. Lots of them. The hatch is made from a wooden presentation wine box and the stiffeners from a narrow length of balsa that was part of a kit which, if it had been completed would have been the Swedish 16th century warship "Wasa". The original owner was a friend who died about ten years ago. His widow gave me the remains of his model when she heard of my project. It was damaged and the plans and many of the parts were missing so I decided to use what materials I could. When I dismantled it I found inside the hull a piece of bulwark on which he had written his name and the year that he started the build: 1961, three years after I sailed in "Fulani" so I think I'll incorporate that piece into my build somewhere.
  12. Thanks to all of the above. I think you probably missed my log, Patrick, because I went AWOL for a while and sank to page 6. I'm back in business now and glad to know you're a fan. I've re-painted the ship's overside with matt black. It was unrealistic being so glossy. It is after all a well used ship made from well used materials. More photos in the next few days. I do have difficulty taking the photos, not just posting them. Think I may trade in that pin hole camera for something better. Regards to all. Fred.
  13. After a lengthy period of caring for the sick, lame and walking wounded - happily she's on the mend now - I am back at my work bench. I've used some of the time sanding, designing and scheming how to make the miniature bits and pieces for this model. I want it to be as detailed and as accurate as I can manage to make it. Now I have finished sanding the hull and applied a couple of coats of thinned down water based glue to smooth out the wood grain. It was still showing through trial paint strokes, even after the finest sanding. Two coats of glue have smoothed the surfaces nicely and now, painted, I'm satisfied with the surface finish. The funnel was made from a Vitamin tablet container, cut down and keyed by sanding, then painted The next picture is of number one hatch, not quite finished. The coaming is 5mm high, the stiffeners are 3,5 mm high and the there's to be a coaming shelf about a millimetre wide all round. The tarpaulin is to be cut from a redundant hammock shade as the colour and fabric are just right. Each hatch will have locking bars across. I should have no 1 finished in the next day or two and then there will be a picture of it and the foremast.
  14. Thanks Oystein. Been away for a while and wife had accident so............ I hope to get on with the build now. Next entry is about the boat deck and the use of scraps from a skate board rink. Watch this space ! I found that if you tried to drill holes anywhere near to the edge of the veneer, it very readily split. By drawing the shape I wanted nearer to the centre of the piece I could drill the required number and sequence of portholes and not start a split. I have now done this with three of the facings that are the visible sides and ends of the accommodation supporting the boatdeck. Painted white they are glued onto a wood block which, when faced all round, will be the correct size and shape. Before gluing the strips onto the edges of the block, I coloured the edges of the block where it would show through the portholes, with grey pastel chalk using differing shades of grey and then covered this with a narrow strip cut from a transparent plastic bag ( ex supermarket potatoes) Next, making sure the plastic didn't move out of position I glued the facings over. The result is that the portholes, tiny though they are, seem to be made of glass as they catch the light when viewed from different angles. Nothing is attached yet as there is still a lot of sanding to do on the hull, but I thought it was about time to show that there really is a model ship being made. I had to shorten the focstle, reduce the foredeck sheer and undercut the stern quite a bit. The focstle deck had to be raised as well and I'm pleased to say that the profile I now have matches the profile in the photo. I have made the boats and the davits. I am now wrestling with the technique for making the wooden blocks that make the davit falls. They are very miniature and have to be rove off with something that looks like fibre rope. For the blocks I am going to experiment by making a thin layer of icing sugar, making holes the right size and shape in it while it is still stiff and then dripping epoxy resin or glue into the holes. Dissolving the icing sugar when everything has set hard I will be left (born optimist) with an acceptable set of davit blocks. For the ropes I'm planning to use single strands of wire from a remnant of cable, once used to light a table lamp. Since the main stipulation in building this model is that everything used should be scrap, I'm wondering where to get some used icing sugar. A jilted bride, perhaps? Any suggestions welcome.
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