thibaultron

Mahuna; Thank you!

Part 14 I worked on the rails, to extend them front and back. I did the port side upper railing first. Mistake! After I got it on I realized that the gap on the lower rail was too small to work on with the upper rail in place. Also I just trimmed the end of the rail flat and tried to glue the small piece I needed to fill the gap. The long overhang of the model rail from the last stanchion allowed the joint to flex all over the place, making gluing difficult. I finally managed it, but was smarter with both rails on the other side. Notice the short lighter white section of new rail at the top. On the bottom you can hardly see the new piece. On the second side I trimmed both the lower and upper rails back close to the stanchion. I smartly did the lower rail first this time. Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures of these steps. It cut a piece off of .040” plastic sheet to about 7 or 8/32” wide and 5” long. This should have been enough, but I ended up making enough scrap that I had to cut another piece. These parts are very small, and it took a few tries on some. I fit the pieces so that they were even with the inner edge, and the excess width was on the outside. I then sanded the outside to match the existing railing. Lower installed and trimmed, then the upper. With the upper rail trimmed close to the support, this was easier. You can see here that the new section meets the old close to the stanchion. After looking at the plans, I will have to fill in the sides of the transom, it should go all the way to the outer edge of the railings. Next I turned to the railings in the bow. First I temporarily glued the bowsprit in place with white glue. I decided that trying to trim them to fit the spar after I’d installed them would be harder than fitting them with it in. Once again I did the lower rails first. The lower rails installed, before trimming are shown above. The lower one is not off center it just looks that way in the photo. I removed the bowsprit for the shaping. Notice that I also had to add a piece of plastic to the top of the stem. The model piece did not quite go all the way to deck level. Here they are after trimming. After trimming they look better. At this point I’ve reinstalled the bowsprit for the fabrication of the upper rails. When I do the upper rails I’ll again trim them back to the stanchion. I let the glue dry overnight. For those of you who wonder how I see all these small parts, here is my “eyes”. Using this is somewhat of a pain, as I’m constantly hitting it with the tool handles, but my Optivisors have too close a focus distance for me to comfortably use them for work directly on the model with it on the bench. My hands are not steady enough to hold the model in the air, most times. I spent all morning going through the dowels I bought, and a number of my kits looking for the 1/8” and 3/32” stock I needed for the boom and mast. None of the recently purchased dowels (5 in each of the two sizes) were straight for their full length, not even for the 12” I needed. I picked out two of the 1/8” that were warped the least for the boom. Then I went through my kits looking for a 3/32” dowel. After about five or six kits with 3/32” dowels I finally found one that was straight. I need to find a new source. The kits I can understand, they are almost all three or four decades old. Still disappointing.

I prefer building ships and other models that are based on real ones, except for Sci Fi ones. So I try to do some research on them. Some like the schooner Flying Fish which is a future project, I can find no information on, so I mostly follow the plans.

Shades (sorry) of the movie "Operation Petticoat". A comedy movie about a WWII US sub that ended up being painted pink.

Thank you for pointing out this movie. I much enjoyed it, and learned about a great military man I had never heard of. I looked him up on Wiki, and he was truly a great leader.

Your welcome. I've loved them for years.

Part 13 I finished the drawings for the mast and boom. The drawing of the Carrie price’s mast was, I felt, too crude for me to just draft off of it. With the original scans being from a page in a book, the lines were quite thick. Luckily the Maryland builders generally followed the same proportional rules when building a boat. Knowing this I took the scans from my Willie Bennett kit, which have about 4 times the resolution, and used them. When I rescaled the Bennett mast to match the length of the Price mast, the diameters fell very close to what was given in the book for the Carrie Price. So using the Bennett as a guide I drew the Price’s mast. To simplify the mast somewhat, I chose to keep it untaperd for part of its length, tapering it at the ends. In real boats the mast was tapered its full length, using a formula that kept it close to the same diameter in the center section, but still tapered. It was not a straight taper, but a curve that increased in taper as you went down the mast. This taper was only fractions of an inch in the center section. I could not find that general rule, and in 1/64th scale, I think it would not show. I’ll just sand in some additional blending when I've mostly finished the part. The upper taper starts at around 218” in full scale. The bottom starts were the octagonal section is. This is a straight taper. The upper one is slightly curved. The main section is 12 scale inches in diameter. I will taper the lower section the full length, even though most of it will not show. This is easier than trying to keep the section below decks a cylinder. I will fit a block in the hull for the lower end to sit in. I will also have to redrill the deck opening. The original plastic mast had a knee at the deck joint and the lower section fit vertically into the hull socket. The mast is 55’ 6” long above deck. Here is a close up of the upper section showing the taper. Here is the lower end. This is a diagram of the faceted sides of an octagon, and how they would look in a side view. From the side the flat section would appear .383” wide if the mast was 1” in diameter. The angled side would appear to be .271” wide. For the 12” diameter at a point on the mast each number would be multiplied by 12. Notice that because of the taper I scaled each end and then connected the points. When I glue patterns to all four sides I can cut down to the lines, and the angled faces will come out the right width, like I did on the bowsprit. Because the bowsprit curved I had to used several points along the length, and connect the points with curved lines. The book gave dimensions for the boom, and when I used these the curve fell onto the plan lines, so I drew it using the plans. The deck and profile page did not have the boom shown, so I copied it from the sail plan when I finished. As you can see, with the long boom and mast, these boats had quite a spread of sail when working. The plans did not show an overhead drawing of the boom, but the Willie Bennett did. It showed cleats on both sides, so I that is how I drew them for this model. The sheave on the outboard end of the boom is for the topping lift used to support the boom when the sail is down. It also supports the boom while lowering and raising the main sail. The end is belayed to the starboard rear most cleat. The line runs from the top of the mast, around the sheave, under the boom, and then it is secured to the cleat. When sailing this line is loosened. In an article I read on the Grand Banks fishing schooner Elsie, the author said that these long booms sagged on the real boats, and that is how he modeled his. I considered it, but decided that the average person would look at a sagging boom as a modeling mistake. Also the curve in the bowsprit was a pain. So a straight boom will be modeled.

A member asked me about where I got my information on dredging operations. I sent him a reply, and thought that the others following this thread would like the links too. This is the message I sent. Here are some links. I looked them up this morning. Fishing and Fisheries: http://celebrating200years.noaa.gov/rarebooks/fisheries/welcome.html Kathryn: http://www.loc.gov/item/md1454/ E C Collier: http://www.loc.gov/item/md1454/

https://www.warhistoryonline.com/war-articles/murmansk-cruiser-never-gave.html?utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=postplanner&utm_source=facebook.com&src=fba&type=int&page=who

I know, but I did not have one handy. Mine is lost somewhere on the workbench. I'm not the neatest worker.

That's what I did for the pattern on the plastic stem, the glue dissolved after a few minutes. Then I washed it with soapy water. For the wood bowsprit I sanded, it did not take much sanding, I used a very thin coat of white glue. I was worried that soaking it might cause it to warp. Thank you for the suggestion, though.

Part 12 Now on to the new bowsprit. I glued the pattern of the top of the sprit, and disk and hand sanded one side. Then repeated this for the other side. I then glued patterns to the other three sides. The side view pattern is shown below. I then shaped the top and bottom of the areas. Next the part was clamped in a small vise, and I beveled the first corner, using a new Xacto blade as a scraper. I watched both sides of the bowsprit to get it even. A little touchup with sandpaper and I was ready for the other corners. Here is the bowsprit beveled on all corners. The transitions from the square to octagonal sections are now even, and where they a suppose to be. The patterns were then sanded off, and using a piece of sandpaper held in my fingers I rounded the end of the part. Below are two pictures of the bowsprit placed on the boat. Here is a comparison photo of what the old bowsprit looked like when placed on the boat. That is just the tip of my finger shown in the photo. The model is small, and this is fiddly work. Next I printed out draft copies of the trailboard, and glued them to the hull. I glued them on in position, so that I could see if they fit, after all this, and so I can locate the position of the molding that goes above and below the trailboards. As you can see I still have a little shaping of the stem below the trailboards to do. I did not notice this until I saw this photo. The area where the stem turns to go down the front of the hull is not completely even. The divot on the bottom at the forward end is the paper of the starboard trailboard. I left the molding border on that one. It will probably be a couple weeks before the next installment. I have other, non ship building, commitments.

Frank Despite living in Baltimore for 14 years, I never saw a skipjack in person. Wish I had before I had to move. I hope you get to she her.

In the future I plan to scratch built the Carrie Price in 1/32, to match my Willie Bennett kit. 1/64th is small.

Part 11 I decided to shape the stem before puttying it. It would probably have cracked while I was shaping the piece. I glued a paper pattern to the stem, and let the white glue dry over night. I removed the bulk of the excess plastic with wire cutters, and sprue nippers. Then I cleaned it close to the bottom line with my disk sander. I used a metal block to raise the stem high enough for the hull to clear the table. Unfortunately I glued the pattern to the wrong side, and had to sand it on the side of the disk that cuts upward, and does not have the clearance notch in the shield. Live and learn. I staged this shot to show how I held the piece off the table. I actually had to sand on the other side of the disk. This made extra work, as I could not get in as tightly to the wheel as I could on the correct side. I also trimmed the front of the lower stem to match the pattern. The plans show it as being thinner front to back. After shaping this is what I had. The photo below shows where the old and new meet. The new portion is below the red line. As you can see most of the forward end is new plastic. Here is the first bowsprit placed in position to test the fit. It still sits a little high at the front, but I left a little stock on the stem for final fitting, once the final bowsprit is finished. Next tasks are to putty and sand this, and making the, hopefully, final bowsprit. I also have to figure out how I am going to built the, very tiny, trailboard moldings that go above and below the trailboard.

Part 10 As it turns out I also messed up my first bowsprit. After looking at it closer in sunlight, I noticed that I had not cut the bevels on the octagonal section evenly. One of the top bevels extended too far into the square base area. I used a black marker to highlight the flat top of the bowsprit. You can see that I cut the upper bevel in the picture too long. The bevels were also not completely even, but I could have lived with that, but these upper bevels end right where the rails tie into it, so that mistake would be quite visible. So I decided to start over. I shaped a new blank for the top and side profiles, Then I glued patterns to all four sides. When I cut I can see what is happening on both sides of the bevel. Once again I’ll scrape the bevels. I mentioned that the bowsprit was sitting at too high of an angle, so I decided to fix this problem before continuing. It is hard to see if the bowsprit is correct, if you can not get it into the proper position. I made a drawing of the stem, to use as a pattern. I also had to make some mods to the trailboard graphic, to get it to fit better. The main part of the graphic was good, but the eagle's head was too small. I rescaled the head, and rotated the graphic a little to line up with the molding, after correcting the eagle head. Here is the old trailboard. The trailboard is too high at the forward end, it should be supporting the bottom of the bowsprit. Also you can see that the eagle head in the drawing is larger than the one on the trailboard. This is the corrected drawing, with the stem outline. Notice that the trailboard now contacts the bottom of the bowsprit, and that the eagle head is a little larger. This is the stem outline drawing. I traced the outside of the upper trailboard molding to get the top of the stem. After placing a cutout of the stem pattern on the model, I found that the proper lines fell outside the bottom of the plastic at the forward end. Sorry no picture of this, I had both hands occupied with holding the model and pattern. I need to add to the bottom of the stem, to get the right lines. I cut out two pieces of plastic sheet, one .060” and one .040”. The stem is .090” thick on the model. Then laminated them together, and shaped it to fit the model stem. After cutting off part of one side, so that it did not extend so far down the straight part of the stem, I glued the extension in place. I’ll leave it overnight to make sure the glue has dried. The top of the new stem will be just below the old forward bottom edge. I have to putty and sand, putty and sand, etc. before I start to shape the part.

Part 08 After messing up the 2X size practice bowsprit, I decided not to make another practice piece. So I went on to sanding the blank for the model bowsprit. Here is the starboard side of the bowsprit tapered. Next I sanded the Port side. I rough sanded on the disk sander, then hand sanded down to the lines. I then glued a drawing of the bowsprit looking from the side (so I had the top and bottom profiles) to the tapered blank. Then I again rough and finished sanded to the lines. To carve the octagonal portion, I used a knife to scrape the 45 degree angled side. This gave me more control than trying to slice or sand this area. I held the bowsprit at a 45 degree angle and scraped with the blade parallel to the table. In this photo I have the blank just positioned using the knife, I’m not holding the other end, as I had to use my other hand for the camera. Lastly I sanded the round section at the forward end by spinning the bowsprit inside a piece of folded sandpaper held in my fingers. Here is the finished bowsprit temporarily placed in position. I’m sorry that the picture is not sharper, the part is small, and my camera is just your average type. If you look closely where the bow, deck, and bowsprit meet, the bowsprit is sitting well clear of the deck. This is not correct. The stem piece is too high at the forward end. I’ll have to reshape it. Next time I’ll reshape the stem, fix the divot in the port knighthead, and work on finishing the railings. The railings at the bow extend to attach to the bowsprit. That is why I had to make it before I could continue with the hull.

Thanks for the info on the snipping tool.

Print Screen, then paste into a graphics program.

Yes that is the way the sander is designed, in use the pins always stayed at the top of the slot. The slot was just so you could remove the table.

It never worked the way before. The distance between the table and disk is adjusted by sliding the shield back and forth in slotted mounting feet. The center of the circle formed by the angle adjusting bolts and the hinges, is the center of the hinge pins.

Work will resume at the beinging of the month. I've done the modification to the disk sander shield (see link below), and progressed far enough on my workshop remodeling, that I can remove the boxes and such from my work bench. I'm going to FL next week, and will start work back on the model the first of Aug. http://modelshipworld.com/index.php/topic/11014-modifications-to-a-dremel-beltdisk-sander/

While trying to sand the bowsprit blank for my skipjack model, I ran into a problem. The shield on the disk sander part of my Dremel Belt/Disk Sander projected past the edge of the disk, making it impossible to sand an inside corner, as shown at the left in the photo below. You can see that I was unable to sand up to the end of the piece. Also the mount for the table was not stable, it moved out of the angle setting under even moderate pressure. I decided to cut out part of the shield, so that I could get to those corners, and see why the table was moving. During disassembly I found that not only were the hinge pins split pins, that can compress under pressure, but also that the hinge hole in the shield was really a slot! The slot allows the table to be slid down and out once the clamp bolts are removed, not a feature I need. I’d rather have a nice tight fit on the hinges. So I modified the hinges by filling the slot, and drilling the hinge points for the next size 3/16” solid pins. I wish I could have filled the slots with metal, but I did not have any scrap that would not require massive amounts of filling to get small enough. The drilled holes for the pins would cut into the sides of the slots, so I feel that with the hardwood plugs I put in the mount will be strong enough. When assembling the parts, I used medium strength thread locker when iserting the pins. Any way here are pictures of the modified shield.

Here's an interesting site I found, on the history of the USS Arizona. https://www.warhistoryonline.com/war-articles/the-uss-arizona-life-and-death-of-an-ill-fated-battleship.html

Thanks!