Herreshoff Buzzards Bay 14 by michael mott - 1:8 scale small

[michael mott]

Thanks for all the fine comments and encouragements.

 

Build part 34

 

The cockpit area planks have been trimmed to withing a 1/64 of the cockpit stringer and the longest planks cleaned up a bit.

 

Now the planks are getting shorter and will go a bit faster.

 

All of the billets have been curved ready for splitting.

 

 

gluing progresses

 

 

Something I have been thinking about is to finish gluing all the forward planks including the king plank then do a preparatory sanding. Next using a razor blade like a putty knife and forcing a thickened glue into the remaining space for the caulking. I was wondering if anyone has thickened up the glue with the Costello dust and how it responded.

 

Michael

 

 

[mtaylor]

Looking good, Micheal.

 

Many of us use that method for filling cracks and dings.  It takes a bit of testing with trial and error to get the consistency right.

[michael mott]

Thank you all for the likes.

 

Build part 35

 

I modified some small clamps that I made a while back, I took out the spring and added a short length of styrene tube, this enabled the clamp to close with a degree of pressure not easily available with the springs.

 

 

the small diameter of the bent brass part allowed me to get into a pretty tight spot.

 

 

After the planks were glued I gave a leveling sand ready for the filling.

 

 

next I thickened up the coloured glue and spread it over the surface as if I was grouting tiles...... I won't do that again

 

 

It was really hard scraping this all off my thumb is sore from the pressure.

 

 

It looks OK not quite as good as I wanted... I am thinking about the next move....

 

 

Michael

[Jim Lad]

Heck, what do you want it to look like, Michael?  That looks pretty darn good to me!

 

John

[Wintergreen]

as I said earlier...

Michael, your standard is very good and we are our own worst critics. However, a picture can both enhance an hide what we consider defects on our builds.

I agree with John above though.

[pete48]

Hi Michae, I concur with above, the Deck looks fantastic to me 

 

Best Regards,

Pete

[Mirabell61]

fantastic looking deck Michael,

 

also neat fitting to the "spine-plank"  

 

Nils

[druxey]

Love the nibbing into the king plank, Michael. And I, too, think you are your own severest critic.

[captainbob]

Sometimes fantastic is "good enough".

 

Bob

[mtaylor]

Michael,

I concur with with everyone else.  Add my vote to the "what does he mean 'not good'?" crowd.

[michael mott]

Thank you all for your votes of confidence.

 

 

"what does he mean 'not good'?"

 Mark this is what I mean

 

 

 

I had hoped that by spreading the thickened glue I would avoid having to go back and fill the low spots and pinholes. In order for the deck to take a good final finish it needs to be "flat" and not looking like an open grain.

 

Photographs can be brutal or deceptive in this case they were deceptive.

 

More rounds of scraping seem to be in the cards.

 

Michael

 

[mtaylor]

Ah.. I see, Micheal.    

[Jond]

wow

 

Michael...this is really great to see.  My current large scale build is plywood deck by design.  I did a king plank deck once but it was smaller scale bass wood planking.  You however are doing a big scale and a great job of it.  Thanks for sharing your 'grout' method.  a good lesson.

 

cheers 

[Omega1234]

Hi Michael

 

Brilliant job on the deck!

 

Cheers

 

Patrick

[EdT]

Beautiful work as usual, Micheal.  As an alternative to the glue mix, have you considered using shellac.  I have thought of trying this, but have no done so.  I was prompted to this by the thought of shellac sticks that are/were used for finish repair.  Shellac adheres well, dries quickly, does not penetrate and is easily removed with alcohol.  Just a thought.  By the way, I love those clamps.  I have tried without great success - or enough effort perhaps - to make clamps of similar type that would work well.  Mine would need to be smaller and I may give them a try.

 

Thanks,

 

Ed

[michael mott]

Thanks everybody for the comments and likes they are appreciated.

 

Ed thanks for the tip regarding the shellac I shall see if I can locate some the next time I am in the city.

 

I am pleased that you like the clamps. here is a drawing of the ones I have made they can obviously be fabricated to a lot of sizes.

 

 

small hook clamps.pdf

 

 

The smaller ones in the top left will be followed up with some more using 2x56 threaded steel rod or even 1x72.

 

The spring version which I made first is not as useful, and more difficult to place I found. I am converting them all to the spacer type. I had thought about using some square rod in order to keep the rod aligned with the wood block, however in some cases it would be difficult to get them into tight spots. the ability to rotate the block adds a lot of flexibility.

 

 

and with some different spacers, The hex brass stock is rounded on the ends to be easier on the fingers.

 

 

Michael

[michael mott]

build part 36

 

I have begun working on the aft deck substucture, I will build this deck as a sheet that can be finished off the boat then glued in. I have also lowered the aft end of the floorboards.

 

 

I am thinking of having some gentlemanly fun with the small lazarette

 

For now I am going to leave the deck with a couple of coats of Tung oil.

 

 

Michael

 

 

 

 

[druxey]

Nice! She is looking beautiful, Michael.

[NenadM]

Very very very ... Just can not find proper words. Just perfect!

[EdT]

Looks fantastic, Micheal, in keeping with all of your work.  Thanks for the additional data on the clamps.  I will surely be trying these out - probablt smaller versions.  Thanks.

 

Ed

[cog]

Michael,

 

Again a very lovely build, looks even better than your previous ... if at all possible ... especially when one considers the scale you are building at ...

 

Cheers

 

P.s. Don't forget to buy the alcohol to disolve the shellac ...

[mtaylor]

Beautiful work, Michael. 

[Omega1234]

Hi Michael

 

She's looking amazing!!! A real credit to your skills.

 

Cheers

 

Patrick

[Piet]

Beautiful work Michael.

 

Cheers,

[captainbob]

Ah, to be small enough to sail such a fine boat.

 

Bob

[ggrieco]

Michael,

 

When I saw the small clamps you made I wanted to ask for the plans. I'm happy to see you posted them -- they will come in handy! I'm loving this build by the way!

Edited February 22, 2016 by ggrieco

[michael mott]

Wow five pages in. There is so much amazing shipbuilding going on in these five pages, so I had to do a lot of reading catching up as I scrolled down looking for my own. Oh I know there is a quicker way, but this was so much more fun and educational

 

Belated thanks to all the comments and likes that I missed here in the last month indeed a whole month has passed where does the time go?

 

In order to get my head back into the Herreshoff mindset if that is at all possible, I went to the catalogues of the replica hardware and looked at a lot of pictures for the rigging. 

 

I have made a start on the classic goose-neck that Herreshoff used for the small boats. The line drawing in the product catalogue shows that they were sized for 3 1/2 to 5 inch diameter. The printed off the page 7 sheet drawing of the goose-neck is exactly 5/8 inch in diameter which is the scale diameter as the low end of my mast. A great bit of serendipity.

 

After doing a small scribble in my sketchbook detailing the steps to create the piece in bronze and what cutters to use to rough out the form. Then rummaging around in the scrap box produced a small bar of said bronze about 1 5/8 inch long by 3/8 wide by 11/32 thick checking the cross section with the plan of the goose-neck it was just a little bit larger covering the plan view.

 

This first pic shows the drill chuck I took the picture after all the first steps of milling and drilling the hole for the pin, I do not want to give the impression that I used this chuck for milling, I have commented on this practice in previous posts, and never mill with the drill chuck. 

 

 

In order then:

 

I set the bar vertical in the mill vice, and milled straight down with a 5/8 end mill so that it cut the resulting chord to match the edges of the 3/8 width.

The mill was retracted and the vernier dials on the mill were all set to zero, the end mill was changed to a 1/4 diameter mill then the edge was lined up with the opposite side and the in out axis reset to zero then offset first to the left by .172 inches next I took .020" cuts into the block for .250" this was repeated until I reached a depth of .3 inches, in retrospect I should have gone .350 deep.

 

The mill was returned to the starting point at zero and then offset to .172 and the same depth cut was repeated on the opposite side. again the mill was returned to zero and then changed up to the drill chuck all I had to do was reset the in out with a pointer to the edge so that I could index the piece in by .062" I then drilled it out to the .3 depth with a .047 drill after using a centre drill to ensure that the bit didn't wander. this concluded the first set up in the vice.

 

 

the bar was reset horizontally so that the gap could be milled out, if I had had a T slot cutter this would not have been necessary as I could have slotted it while still vertical.

 

 

I changed the chuck in the mill back to the milling one and set up a 1/8th end mill and milled the gap and a small relief at the top and bottom.

 

 

Next I switched the bar back to the vertical position and carefully reset the position so that the .047" drill slid easily back into the previously drilled hole it is a bit nerve wracking but I needed to tap the hole in the bottom bar of the body 0x80 and I wanted to make sure that it was all in line, it is so easy to break these small taps the pivot pin for the boom will thread into this later.

 

 

Now comes the work with the files and sanding stick of wet and dry paper. I cut off the milled end of the bar and clamped it in the precision vice. Remember I mentioned it would have been better to go to a depth of .350" on the first machining well the small tab is the reason. I had to file this extra bit off, it can be seen in the next picture. I used a small piece of 9/16 brass rod to act as a clamp jig.

 

 

That's all for now, this evening I will continue with the filing.

 

Michael

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[druxey]

Excellent machining as usual, Michael! It's always a pleasure seeing your updates.

[michael mott]

Thanks for the compliment Druxey,  and thanks for all the likes.

 

Just a small update after filing the first side to a closer shape I needed to clamp the opposite side but the conditions were now different and it did not want to clamp the same as the first.

 

Here you can see that the base has been thinned down a lot.

 

 

The solution was to soft solder the base to the 9/16 rod this will be helpful also when it comes to drilling the mounting holes for attaching to the mast.

 

 

Michael

[Bedford]

I always love following your metal work