Providence 1775 by lmagna - Artesania Latina - Continental sloop kit-bashed from colonial schooner Independence 1776 kit - First wooden POB ship build

[DocBlake]

I'm a little late to the party, but I'll be following along.  Very interesting modifications, Lou.  This will certainly be YOUR vessel!

 

This kit is very similar to both Sultana and Halifax, but at this scale would have actually been smaller than Sultana which Harold Hahn called "the smallest of them all".

I didn't think a boat that tiny could carry the planned armament, so I am building "Clio" in 5/16" scale, so she's larger than Sultana, but smaller than Halifax.  The hull is interesting to plank.  If you have any questions, just ask.  I learned the hard way!

 

Great work so far, and impressive research!

[lmagna]

1 hour ago, DocBlake said:

If you have any questions, just ask

Thanks Dave

I have looked at your build more than once for assistance in this build especially, in using the balsa to fill in the bow. In my case it was also to correct my mistake for how I removed the 1/2" needed to make the overall hull the correct length for a 1/48 Providence. She is now 65' at the deck with a 20' beam. Different sources have different lengths of deck listed in some cases but everything I have seen says the beam was 20" so I used that as my reference point for everything else.

 

I have the 1993 plans by Ben Lankford of the replica Sultana and he gives the LOD of 50' 4 1/2" and a beam of 16' 3/4". If you run with those numbers it comes out to an almost exact 1/35 scale. His plans were drawn to 3/16 and were based on revisions of the Howard Chappel plans by Harold Puls. He also relied heavily on the Sultana Master's logs research conducted by Dana Mccalip and other research by Merritt Edson.

 

I only wish that I had that kind of research available on the Providence! But I have to go with what I have and what apparently others have had for the last 100 years or so. There just isn't all that much available so I will have to rely on people like you here on the forum who may have knowledge, (Highly likely) that I don't possess to help me along. This will especially be true in the next stage where I do the hull planking. I can not claim to have any experience with that at all and I suspect it will be pretty much a turkey shoot when I get there.

 

Right now I am having some problems getting back onto the build but I am hoping that I will be able to overcome that soon. It is something that only a little time and having to get on with life will cure, but I really do want to do this build so I will just have to tough it out pretty soon if I want to get on with it.

 

Again thanks for stopping in and the input. I hope to see more of you in the future. 

Edited May 30, 2018 by lmagna

[alde]

Lou, I’m getting ready to fire up the scanner and should have what I have to you fairly soon. I hope it helps fill any gaps in what you have. Of course it could end up causing you more headache.

[lmagna]

22 minutes ago, alde said:

could end up causing you more headache.

Not much chance of that Al. I am not far enough along that I can't change direction here or there. Heck If needed I could trash the whole thing and start all over again and probably be back where I am now in a month or less of work.

 

Looking forward to seeing what you have.

[Old Collingwood]

1 hour ago, lmagna said:

Not much chance of that Al. I am not far enough along that I can't change direction here or there. Heck If needed I could trash the whole thing and start all over again and probably be back where I am now in a month or less of work.

 

Looking forward to seeing what you have.

I have felt the same as you my friend, with my Greyhound build I reached a stage before planking the hull where I nearly binned the whole thing,  but I gave my build some time then with a fresh set of eyes and a refreshed mojo - I pushed on and months later I am where I am now.

 

OC.

[lmagna]

Oh I haven't felt the need to circular file the model. for the most part it has gone surprisingly well considering who is building it! The only really stupid move so far has been when I whacked a half inch off of the bow rather than doing it amidships! That messed up the bow shape no end and planking would have been impossible using the shape of the original bulkheads that had been moved back. There may be other problems up the road as well from all the altering I have done but at this point I don't know about them, and as they say "Ignorance is bliss." Or is that "Stupid is as stupid does?" Time will tell.

[Old Collingwood]

I had to do a similar thing on my build but the opposit way  - my transom was too short so I had to add to it including putting a larger rudder block over the false rudder, just a case of working round what needed doing.

 

OC.

[lmagna]

Yeah I was kind of dumb at that end as well.

 

I removed the ends of the transom pieces and 'assumed' the back edge where the transom board would lay would all be the same so I removed about 1/4" from all four, When I test fit the transom piece around the stern I found that the piece no longer touched both the top and bottom of the two middle pieces! I then needed to cut wedges from the pieces I had cut off, and glue them back in place! Luckily all this will eventually be covered up and I will be able to lie about how good a job I did!  

[alde]

Back when I was a draftsman in the old lead and vellum days I worked for an engineer would would tell me not to draw more in one day than you cold erase the next. 

[Old Collingwood]

I think a little bit of "individuality" make each of our builds unique to us, kind of stamps our identity on them.

 

OC.

[lmagna]

So that's what I need to call my mistakes? They are just an expression of my "individuality." Kind of has a political ring to it.

[Old Collingwood]

2 minutes ago, lmagna said:

So that's what I need to call my mistakes? They are just an expression of my "individuality." Kind of has a political ring to it.

Yep  go with that one mate,   I once (as a kid)  glued the wings on back to front on a plastic jet, but I just pretended that was the way they should be, after developing a love affair with all thigs that fly, I tended not to do the same thing again.

 

OC.

[lmagna]

Oh I don't know. You may have just been ahead of your time. If you had not only put them on backwards  but reversed their position with the tail planes you could have had this:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grumman_X-29 They call it "novel aircraft technologies."

 

Edited May 31, 2018 by lmagna

[Old Collingwood]

2 minutes ago, lmagna said:

Oh I don't know. You may have just been ahead of your time. If you had not only put them on backwards  but reversed their position with the tail planes you could have had this:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grumman_X-29

 

Perhaps I was seeing into the future "Black Manta"  "Aurora"     type thing

 

OC. 

[Senior ole salt]

Lou, there are sure a lot of bumps in building the "Providence". Just continue overcoming them as they as they rear up.

 

SO

[lmagna]

I don't know about that Jack

 

You didn't seem to run into that many bumps in your version! I still have a bunch of bumps ahead I'm sure. All this talk today about it though has convinced me that I need to get back in there and tough it out. I need to make the Velociraptors   dinner and homework tonight but tomorrow after they are off to school I have the place to myself, well me and the terrorist kitten. It's been a month tomorrow, probably time to get my head back on straight and get on with it.

 

Thanks everyone, hopefully I will have something worth looking at soon. 

Edited May 31, 2018 by lmagna

[alde]

I'm glad to hear it Lou. I can tell part of you is anxious to get back at it.

[mtaylor]

That's great to hear, Lou.  I'll be pulling for you.  

[John Allen]

10 hours ago, lmagna said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grumman_X-29

Lou,

 

That was a good one.

[popeye the sailor]

well......I'm glad to hear that you and Ninja Kitty are getting along better     she'll never take her place,  but you may find some common ground.   it'll be good to see you back at the table.   have you figured out a way to add to the bow,  what you removed?  if you still have the parts panel with the keel punch out,  you could trace and cut a new one.  then you could remove all of the bulkheads from the old one and add them to the new one.  it's a bit of work to be sure,  but it would be a great opportunity to adjust the keel to the specs that you needed to do in the first place.

[lmagna]

2 hours ago, popeye the sailor said:

I'm glad to hear that you and Ninja Kitty are getting along better

Oh I don't know how well that is going. The Admiral is out of town for a few days getting a vacation from me so i tried an experiment and allowed the little terrorist upstairs last night to see if it would be OK to allow her in that part of the house at night or if she would spend the night playing and keeping me awake. She did OK I thought until I got up this morning when I found what was left of one of the dolls my wife makes ripped to pieces on the floor of one of the extra rooms! My wife makes them from a fine wool felt material with a process called needle felting. I have no idea which one it was, it's just a bunch of wool pieces scattered around the room! I thought I had put them all away where she couldn't get to them. The Admiral will not be happy with me or kitty!

 

I have already filled in the new bow shape and created a hull form that will be plankable. It looks like there will be no need to return the bow to it's original shape. If that was the case then I would just have to start all over! The whole alteration was to make the hull conform to the dimensions that I felt were most likely for the Providence and while there is some fudge room, as no one knows exactly what the proper length was, the model was several feet too long in my opinion. If I had cut the hull in half at a point between the widest bulkheads and shortened it instead of taking it off of the bow it would have been less work later but it has worked out OK as far as I can tell. We will find out when it is time to do the actual planking!

 

I will be fine tuning the bow shape some more today so possibly there will be something to actually see when I am done.  

[Old Collingwood]

Good work my friend, great knowing you have the front hull sorted, I was going to say - if you struggle to cut in a bearding line, you could just fit a strip of extended keel all the way along its length.

 

With the kitty situation myself and the admiral know your pain, we used to have a pet indoor rabbit - he was adorable but loved to eat wires (all wires)  we had to cover every wiring run with plastic trunking, it was worth it though because of his playing with me on the floor and his cuteness.

 

OC.

[lmagna]

Hi OC

 

The Terrorist kitty situation will straighten its self with time, even though she is still pretty young and at times zips through the house at ninety miles an hour for no particular reason other than it seems like she is trying to get up enough speed to launch into space, (Almost makes it too) she is settling down a little.

 

As for the Providence that is a work in progress as well, I did get a little time in today and I have some filler I put into holes and places that needed filling drying now so that it can be sanded later. One step follows the last.   

[alde]

Glad to hear your easing yourself back into it. I bet it gets easier when you start to make some real progress.

 

As far as planking goes I don't have a lot of experience either but I've found that the most important thing to do is not glue anything until your absolutely happy with the fit. I have taken a good part of a day fitting a plank until I was happy with the way it fit without any stress on it. Then clamping is really easy because your just holding it in place and not trying to bend it into place. It can be frustrating at first but gets easier once you learn how the wood reacts. 

[Piet]

Good to see you easing back into your build Lou, I have been missing your progress reports.

 

Cheers,

[lmagna]

Got some time in on the build today. Not much to say about it in truth, just sanding a little and shaping, checking the results and sanding and shaping again. Slow and tedious without much change at all really. Of course I suppose I could have done a video on watching the filler dry when I finished!  Anyway I think the hull survived the whole ordeal and will still have the lines I was looking for when I chose this hull as my base design. A merchant ship with  some speed ability.

 

I will try and take some  time tomorrow to do a couple of pictures. Thanks for looking in.

[mtaylor]

Lou,

Progress isn't important at this point.  It's effort that is and actual sitting down at the work table.   it is good to hear you're pushing yourself back into her.

[lmagna]

Thanks Mark

The work is easy, other stuff not so much but getting better. I did some more today and after I feed the Velociraptors I will post a few pictures up to see if others think it looks OK or could do with some more refinement. I think it may be there.

 

A little more later  

[alde]

Looking forward to your pictures Lou. Any progress is good progress. In a way your working on it when your just sitting back thinking about how to move forward and what your going to do next or doing your research. It all gets you to the goal.

[lmagna]

OK so here goes. Like I said it doesn't look like much.

First off I had to wait until terrorist Kitty got bored and passed out:

Once that was done I went over the filler I had pot on yesterday at the end of a sanding and shaping session

 

After more sanding smoothing and shaping and making tripple sure it was even on both sides this is pretty much what I cam up with.

I am fairly happy with the over all shape. Kind of beefy above the waterline without being as fully rounded as the original shape. More refined below the waterline without having a full warship appearance. I think I have followed a 1765-8 shape rather than a 1776 shape. I am basing the shape primarily on the Sultana as she was purchased by the British at least partly for speed and the ability to catch up with smugglers and such. 

 

The Providence was said to be fast, but on at least three occasions she was chased and almost caught by British frigates and only escaped by trickery and luck. So in my opinion she was not abnormally fast compared to similar ships of her time as some accounts would have you believe. 

 

Being mostly satisfied with the shape and finish of the bow I went back to the bulkheads and started fairing them in after locking the remainder in place so pretty much all the starboard side is done except for the last bulkhead that has not been glued in yet.

 

I have a question for the more experienced builders here. When the fairing is done and the quarter sub-deck is installed some builders do the deck planking, others do the hull and bulwarks first. Are there any opinions as to what order is best?

 

Thanks for looking in.