Mark Pearse

Fair dinkum.
 

Thanks, people! I'm pretty happy with these, and I feel I'm getting better with carving hands, which have always been my biggest problem.
 
Knocklouder, Gobsmacked is the way you say it. It's a verb - so you'd say "I'm gobsmacked". I think it comes from the slang term "gob" (which means mouth, at least in the UK and Oz) - so it means you feel like you've been smacked in the mouth. More of a British term than an Aussie one, but I use it myself because it's so descriptive. (By the way, in Oz a gobbie is a slimy expectoration - though perhaps that's a bit too much information).
 
Steven

And they're done (except for thinning the legs a bit, and a bit of sanding and painting). I think the stance is wide enough. If not, too bad. I've spent so much time and effort getting them the way I want them, particularly the grip on the tiller, that this will have to do.
 
Roughed out:
   
And finished.
   

Separated, and hair carved:



And trimmed. I pride myself that my figures should be able to stand upright all by themselves, and usually I manage it. And two other crewmen I'd also carved (not sure if I posted them at the time) working on the rigging.
 



I need to cut a little bit away at the base of the helmsmen's feet. At the moment they look like they're from the 70's with platform shoes.
 
And then that's all the carving done.
 
Steven
 
 
 

I'm nearly at the end hull sanding.


I just needed to build up the keel slightly.

I also needed to get the transom to the correct shape and "fix" the shape by attaching a pre-shaped piece of ply. Shaping the ply took a bit of fiddling with card templates but eventually I sorted it.


I have had enough woodworking for a while so I am now figuring out how to make rudder post.


I plan to make this out of brass. The key complication is that the lower portion (red arrows) is somewhat thicker than the remainder of the frame surrounding the screw. I plan to fabricate it out of 3 pieces of 0.1" brass plate.

In drawing the yellow is the 0.1" portion while the orange is the thickened 0.3" portion.
 
 
 

That's not me, that's Liteflight. I accept no responsibility for him . . . 
 
The wide stance is well on the way . . .
 


Here's close-ups on their faces.


Steven

Hi Vaddoc, good progress. And your daughter's boat is lovely, she will remember the experience of making something with her dad.
 
I know it's painful subject, but is Beech timber more inclined to change size with changing humidity? I think Phil's advice to seal the timber is good, it should significantly slow down humidity changes of the timber.

Thank you John and Nils
@Mark Pearse Mark, the wood is already sealed inside and out! It has reduced the movement but not completely. Maple that I ve used in the past, does not move at all. Isn't boat building fun!
 
Vaddoc

Hi Vaddoc, good progress. And your daughter's boat is lovely, she will remember the experience of making something with her dad.
 
I know it's painful subject, but is Beech timber more inclined to change size with changing humidity? I think Phil's advice to seal the timber is good, it should significantly slow down humidity changes of the timber.

Hi Steven,
 
I went to a talk on the sailing of the Duyfken late 15C ship, they noted that the person on the steerage can get thrown across the boat. My thoughts are that your stance looks good, but perhaps a stance more braced...wider stance perhaps? Just a thought

Hi Steven,
 
I went to a talk on the sailing of the Duyfken late 15C ship, they noted that the person on the steerage can get thrown across the boat. My thoughts are that your stance looks good, but perhaps a stance more braced...wider stance perhaps? Just a thought

That would make sense, Mark. And the helmsmen will have a wider stance, if only to make sure they can stand upright on the deck without having to have one of those ghastly flat stands attached to their feet .
 
Steven

This is just another way to manage a tiller but this time from a distance. It is a rascona from the Po river in italy as depicted by Admiral Paris. Note how the tillerman is seated and effectively has a tiller parallel to the plane of the rudder. Maybe the people who used such tillers did not stand to use them?
Cheers
Dick

Still a fair few things to do - she needs a railing and a red and white striped awning for the roof.



As I mentioned before, this is a prototype for a "good" model double the size, to see what works and what doesn't. Unfortunately one of the things that doesn't work is the uprights that support the awning/roof - they're made of bamboo toothpicks - in this version they were cut to exact length and went into "stopped" holes in the deck and roof, but due to inherent lack of precision this meant several posts didn't reach all the way from floor to roof, but hung supported at only one end.
 
So I've removed the roof again and drilled holes that go all the way through both deck and roof, and I'll use the toothpicks full-length so they stick out the holes, and cut the ends off when the glue is dry.
 
Steven

What an interesting vessel! The previous post with the roof on looks so nice.

Hi Steven,
 
I went to a talk on the sailing of the Duyfken late 15C ship, they noted that the person on the steerage can get thrown across the boat. My thoughts are that your stance looks good, but perhaps a stance more braced...wider stance perhaps? Just a thought

Dear all
 
Many thanks for your comments and likes.
@Dr PR You are right re: epoxy Phil, but I ve used beech wood - couldn't have made a worse choice!
 
I ve lost count how many times I have had to go back to the hull. It keeps on changing shape, new cracks appearing, planks shifting, it follows the change of seasons and when it reaches equilibrium with the ambient moisture the planks go walkabout. I am waiting for the weather to get warmer so I can paint and varnish it and then leave it to cycle through its moods. For now, I ve just used some more filler - Ill sand it smooth tomorrow. 


I am using Osmo filler which is wonderfull stuff, run out of beech colour so using colourless but I ll prime the hull so it does not matter.
 
I finished the inner planking and sand it smooth - ish. I ve been scratching my head for some time now, not sure how the floorboards should be arranged. There is a substantial curve at the sides where the floor meets the side planking. Not sure how this would have been made
 




In the meantime, I made another model with my 7 year old daughter - a school project. The photos are terrible but you may just make out the cotton at the top of the chimneys. We really enjoyed the juice previously contained in the hull.



Till next time
 
Vaddoc
 

Glad you think so, mate. I'd thought it was rather boring, compared with most paddlewheelers (it doesn't even have a funnel!). Glad to know someone else disagrees.
 
Steven

What an interesting vessel! The previous post with the roof on looks so nice.

What an interesting vessel! The previous post with the roof on looks so nice.

Hi Dick,
 
The amount of timber in the ships of this type & era is an extraordinary thing to contemplate. With the deck timbers on this vessel, what actual size were they? (also, were they usually Oak?)

Thanks, Mark.I believe the planking in a gun deck of a warship would be oak. As this was a merchantman, I would think elm or fir. The thickness of the central plankage was of the order of 90 - 100 mm and the outer planking 70 - 75 mm. Other members may be able to give much more detail on plankage. It is  said that the old forests of europe never recovered from the stripping that occurred to make the war armadas of the 16th to 18th centuries.
Cheers
Dick

Andy, Pat, Keith, John, Greg, Hakan, Gary, Thank you all for your encouragement and "Little Ben" comments. Hakan - great news re June - does it have a personal pronoun yet?
 
I am well on with the precision sanding. As previously stated I coloured the frame edges as a sanding guide.
The preliminary rough sanding was done with 60 grit aluminium oxide paper held on a 2" x 8" cork block with rounded edges.
 
The surface was reduced until small areas of the frame edges started to lose their colour.

I then switched to 80m grit (on the same sanding block) and continued to remove the frame edge colouring. I sanded both sides alternatively while trying to maintain similar frame edge sanding patterns on each side.

I proceeded in this way until the majority of the coloured edges were removed.

I worked slowly from stern to bow.

Gradually producing balsa snow drifts.


I am about to switch to 120 grit before progressing with the final sanding / fairing.

 

Thank you for the engineering advice Veszett. Thank you Rick - have they managed to sell her yet?
 
The last 6 months have flashed by but sadly he isn't showing many shipwright skills yet. 
I have continued with the development of my barrel making skills.

The hull with the exception of the engine room is fully barrelled.

I have attached formers to get the stern shape accurately established.
 I have block filled and sanded the stern to shape.

I have also commenced sanding the hull but as you can see the frames still have most of their blue sanding guide marks still visible. I foresee a big sanding event coming up but will wait a few days for more eye recovery before I commence.
I am looking forward to spring and the end of the incessant rain which seems to have been going on for ever. 
 

I went over to where the Golden City is berthed today and showed off the model in its current configuration to the manager of the museum and the skipper who takes her out on the lake. They were pretty chuffed with it even though it's not complete.
 
And I took lots of photos. A lot of things my initial photos didn't tell me, which I can incorporate into the larger model.  I'm not going to change the smaller one  - it's my test piece after all.




 






And I measured everything I could think of (units are millimetres).

And some progress pics on the seats -I need 17 of them - which I thought were going to be really difficult to make in quantity, but turned out to be fairly easy (touch wood!) though time consuming. Here are the bits that make them up - most of them, anyway.


Here's the first one (prior to painting). There's still an intermediate crossbar to be added.



And here are the bits that make up the seats now they've been painted. Plus the remaining posts that will help support the awning.

I'd had a sneaking suspicion that the seats weren't all the same size, and it's turned out to be correct. Not only that, but most of them aren't symmetrical - the sit-upon part has a curved end inboard and is cut straight at the outboard end, to fit in with the straight railing marking off where the lifebuoys are stored.

And I've started painting the hull and temporarily added the first seat - the position is subject to change now that I've measured everything up.


It looks a little boring at the moment, but I think when the railings and mesh and the striped awning roof with wavy edges is added it will look a lot better.
 
Steven 
 
 
 
 

Another small update. Here's the 'Meteor' with the first deck beam temporarily in place - no, I'm not planning to deck the upper decks before the lower decks, but a beam placed there helps to stop the hull from being forced inwards at the shoulders by the severely curved bow planking!
 
John