usedtosail

Yves, funny you should mention those round shapes. I was unsure how to trim those planks to make them, but I knew if I tried cutting or sawing them it would be a disaster. So i tried a sanding drum in a Dremel that was just about the right diameter. Also, because the planks protrude into the cockpit area, the ends are exposed so the bottoms of the planks must look good too. Well I tried it on the front cockpit and was really happy with the result. I still need to trim the planks at the aft cockpit but will use the same method.

A lot more sanding is needed but it is nice to have all the planks in place. One thing I learned from this exercise is that I could have run the mahogany sheets through the thickness sander before I cut the pieces to get them thinner and with a better finish. They are very rough and need a lot of sanding now. On well, live and learn. I have half the front deck sanded and the caulking really stands out there now. I'll have pictures after I get more sanding done.

I planked the front deck with the 3mm mahogany planks I made and .015" wide styrene strips. I used medium CA to glue the styrene and mahogany together. I am going to use a sanding drum in the Dremel to shape the ends of the planks to the cockpit profile.

I made the engine covers by gluing up the planks and styrene. I added supports in the openings to hold them up. I need to sand the covers to fit into the openings, then add the rest of the planks on the transom deck.

I finished adding the deck pieces that are not planks. I gave them a rough sanding to even them out and thin them down a bit, since I will be using thinner mahogany for the planks.
I set up the Byrnes saw with a planking jig I made from plans that were in the NRJ a few issues back. I did add the cap screw so that I could make micro adjustments to the width once the jig is screwed down. I saw this on a jig Michael Mott made for the same purpose. It works really well to get the width just right.
And here is the first batch of planks, all from that blank in the picture above.
Planking can now begin.

I spent today making the various cockpit opening and engine cover pieces. I started at the bow and worked my way back. I still have to finish the piece that goes behind the aft cockpit. I was able to get better cuts on the jig saw without tearing out the undersides too much by placing the mahogany on some basswood sheet while cutting it. I also used some excess mahogany from the laser cut sheets for the cross pieces, which is better wood that what I had bought and cuts better. I also started adding the styrene strips between the side pieces I glued down yesterday and the pieces I cut today.


I again left a lot of overlap on the outside edges which will be sanded down after the hull planking. I am hoping I can make that last piece in one piece but the aft parts of it are very thin so we shall see.

Well that was a spectacular failure. Let's just say the deck did not stay in one piece as I cut it out with the jig saw. Also the cuts on the underside were very rough. So on to plan B. I made templates of the two sides of the deck and cut those out with the good side up. I cut them just after the middle cockpit and will make templates for the aft sections later. I made sure the inside edges were sanded smooth because they would be hard to sand after they are glued down. I left the outside edges wider and rough because they will be sanded along with the hull planking later.

Thanks Mike.
 
To continue with the plastic parts, I gave them a few light coats of the glossy black undercoating. I am using the Spaz Stix brand of Mirror Chrome Finish. I found this in gjdale's build log of a larger Chris Craft model.

I let these dry for 3 days then gave them many very thin coats of the mirror finish. I let them dry for a few more days and here is how they came out.
The coating seems to be durable but I shouldn't have to handle these too much.
I mentioned earlier that I wanted to try planking the deck areas with white caulking between the planks. I am not sure I can do this so I want to keep the supplied deck in one piece in case I need to fall back and use it. So I ordered some 1/16" mahogany sheet to try making a deck piece with the planked areas cut out. I put the supplied deck in a copy machine and made a copy of it, then cut out the planked areas and the cockpit openings with an X-Acto knife. I left a piece on the aft end to hold the two ends at the right distance apart. Here is the template with the supplied deck for reference.
I glued the template to the mahogany sheet with a glue stick, but I glued it on upside down so the glue will be on the underside of the new deck.

Next step will be to cut out the inside areas with a jig saw with a very fine blade.
 

Here is how the steering wheel and instrument cluster came out.

I was happy with the plastic steering wheel so I cleaned up the rest of the plastic trim pieces and mounted them to a piece of scrap with double sided tape. I will spray them with some chrome spray paint that I bought for this model and see how them come out. For the horns I drilled a small hole in the base so I could glue some wire into them as a handle.

I finished adding the sub planking to the frames and sanded them to shape. The chine sort of disappears at the bow. 

For the bow area I used the supplied balsa block to make filler pieces then carved and sanded them to shape. A problem I found with this model, which you can see in the previous picture, is that the first frame does not meet the bottom of the keel, but the planks should, which is very obvious when you add the bow filler pieces. I could have made filler pieces to fit this area but I just filled it with wood filler and sanded it to shape. Since this will all be covered by the mahogany planking it will not be seen later. Here is the finished sub planking. I used wood filler on the gaps and low spots too.

The instructions suggested staining the mahogany with mahogany stain to even out the color, so I tried it on some scrap from the laser cut sheet. The stain is on the bottom section below the number 1.

I liked the look so I figured this was the time to stain the cockpit interiors before I started adding details which are the next steps.

Above the stain they suggest to coat the mahogany with Sanding Sealer, so again I tried it on the scrap stained piece and liked the look, so I applied it to the interior cockpit pieces. In between these tasks I made a new rudder from brass sheet and tubing. Here is the new rudder compared to the supplied plastic one.

I did clean up the plastic steering wheel and painted the spokes and hub with silver enamel paint and it looks good to me, so I then painted the rim with brown enamel. The jury is still out on this but I think it may be better than one I could make. I'll have pictures when it is done. I also found this picture of the dashboard of an existing boat that this model represents.

You can see how the gauges are on a metal backing, so I cut a piece of aluminum sheet to glue them, which I will then glue to the mahogany dashboard. More to come on this too.

I am a bit behind on the build log so here is what I have been up to this week. First I cleaned up the propeller with files, sandpaper and a wire brush in the Dremel. Here is how it came out next to the supplied plastic propeller. I have a piece of tubing cut for the strut, but I will make the strut when I can fit it to the model later.

I finished the gauges for the dash board too. I shrunk images of real gauges and used a circle cutter to cut them to fit into the large gauges. I didn't have a circle cutter small enough for the small gauges so I made one out of some brass tubing and a piece of dowel, which you can see here. I used an X-Acto blade around the inside of the tube to sharpen it then just pushed it into the paper while turning it to cut the images. I glued all the images into the gauges using the Micro Kristal Klear and also used it to cover the images to create a sort of glass cover. It goes on white and dries very clear.

Here are the gauges compared to the dashboard decal that came with the kit.

I have also been adding the sub-planking the hull using the fairly thick balsa strips that came in the kit. I have not used balsa very much so there was a bit of a learning curve. First of all, it breaks very easily, so I couldn't bend it like I do basswood. I found if I just soak it for a few minutes it will then bend very easily. Also, wood glue didn't work too well without clamps and you can't clamp the balsa at all without crushing it, so I have been using medium CA to hold the planks down, which works very well. I first planked from the chine strips to the keel, after doing a little fairing on the frames where the chine strips meet the frames. I sanded the excess and here is how it came out. You can see I had a bit of a problem at the first two frames.

I then started adding the sub-planking of the sides by first building up the sheer strip and frames in places where the sub-planking strips fell short of the outside edge of the sheer. These were tapered so the planks fit flush to the adjacent planks. I then glued the first plank along the outside edge of the chine strip. Instead of planking up from there, I decided to add the plank along the sheer next and then I will plank between them. I also decided to taper the planks like I would do on any other planking job instead of using full width planks that would come to points along the sheer, as the instructions wanted me to do. So I measured off the distances at each frame and tapered two planks, soaked them for a few minutes and started gluing it down at the first frame, then each frame until I got to the aft end. This worked really well and now I can start filling in the area with three more tapered planks on each side.

I made a lot of progress over the last couple of days. On the hull I glued in the mahogany sections that make up the cockpit sides and floors. There were some slight gaps along the floor joints so I used some excess mahogany from the laser sheet to cover them on the underside of the cockpits. These will be planked in so they won't show later. In fact the next step is to add the first layer of planking which are balsa strips like the one shown in this picture. They are certainly easy to bend but this is a first for me. They will bne covered later with mahogany strips.
I spent some time today working on making a propeller since the plastic supplied prop was pretty bad. I started with two brass tubes that slide together. I will use the smaller tube for the prop shaft and used the larger one for the prop hub. I set up the Sherline mill as shown, which is the most complex set up I have done to date and it is all for three small slots. On the mill side, I used a Dremel saw disk in the drill chuck to get enough distance of the blade from the mill column. On the lathe bed I first mounted the angle plate at a 90 degree angle, then added a long work plate that has holes for mounting the rotary table. This was needed to get the 3 jaw chuck that was mounted in the rotary table high enough to get under the working distance of the mill column. I put the brass tubing for the hub in the chuck and brought the saw down to make a small slot, rotated the chuck 120 degrees two times to make the other two slot.


I was pleasantly surprised that the hub stayed together with those cuts. I made the blades from some brass sheet I had, which I cut out and filed to shape. I made one and used it as a template for the other two. I then used the third hand and some forceps to hold the hub and blade will I soldered them together. I did this one blade at a time using Stay Bright low temp solder, but I cut a very small piece of solder and placed it on the blade, then used a butane mini torch to heat them instead of a soldering iron. This worked really well and I had no problem with the previous blades desoldering while I soldered the next blade. I think if I tried to do this with a soldering iron I would have had problems.


You can see the propeller after the last blade was soldered on in the previous picture. I need to clean it up now but I am very happy with how it came out so far. I have also been working on the gauges and will have pictures of them tomorrow.

Thanks for the likes. I glued the sub deck to the frames and sheer strips.

I pre-bent and glued the sheer strips to the frames using the same technique as the chine strips. They have a big twist on the last two frames but I was able to clamp them while the glue dried.

I also took another shot at the bevels. I was able to make them look thinner than the first try and I also was able to make the smaller ones too. I have two more small ones to make.

Back at it again after time away to do video.   All three course yards crossed and slings, jeers, trusses, and lifts rigged.  The standing lifts option for the cro'jack yard shown in the Marquardt AOS is employed here.
 

View from aft.

 
A closeup of the cro'jack yard which is rigged a bit differently than the fore and main yards.  Standing lifts used and no jeers called for in the instructions.  Flemish horses also omitted as in the AOS and 
photos of the ship. 
 

 
As before the loose lines in the back are cast off backstays.  I am debating whether to rig the braces before or after I finalize the backstays.  Perhaps I should even wait until I have added the rope coils to the belaying pin racks(?)  At any rate, the next step will be crossing and rigging the topsail yards.

I took a break from the yards to route the anchor rope from the hatch around the windlass and thru the hawse hole.  I also test fit the masts and bowsprit.  You can see the bowsprit above.  Two of the masts fit perfectly, and I had to do a tiny bit of filing for the mainmast to fit.  I had to do quite a bit of filing to get the bowsprit to fit.  I think I'm ready to get them aligned and glued in.

Thanks Glenn!  I'm trying to learn from Derek.  His rigging methods are amazing, and doubt I ever get anywhere near what he does.  At least I feel like this effort is better than my last model.
 
I got all 10 of the yards tapered, and here's a couple of foremast yards  The pear wood dowels used for masts and yards have different shades, some darker, some lighter as you can see.  It doesn't matter for the yards because these will all be painted black.
 
All of the yards are tapered from the center except one on the mizzen mast that is offset a little.  I tapered as shown on the plans, and didn't add an octagonal center, partly because I wasn't sure how to accurately make that shape with the tools I have.  Also with the yards painted black and all the rigging in place, I don't think you would be able to see an octagonal center section.  

I'm now adding cleats to the yards.  These are tiny laser-cut parts and, like all laser cut parts, when you cut them from the sheet are not smooth along the edge where you cut them.  I glued them to the yard as is, and then lightly sand the edge smooth.  I thought about filing an inner round to the edge that is glued to fit the round yard, but the pieces are so small I couldn't hold them.  I think the medium CA will fill the gap.
 

 
 
 

Hello everyone:
It has been a long time since my las update - almost 6 months.  Been pretty busy with life and a few other things.  
I have managed to get in some shop time lately and thought I would let you all know I'm still plugging away.
I have finished up Chapter 9 (still a couple things to add) and have a small start on Chapter 10.  The planking on the sides of the fore deck proved to be quite a challenge.
Below are some pictures to show my current state of the Winnie...



And my beginning of Chapter 10.....

Hopefully it won't be 6 months before I have another update.
Be safe everyone....
Steve

I have finished installing the rest of the cannon.  The pumps are next.

The wobbly truck has now been repaired.  I have completed making the gun tackle and breeching  ropes.  The gun tackle is frapped and attaches with hooks to the bulwark and the gun carriage.  The breeching is wrapped around the cascabel and attaches to rings on the bulwark.  The end loop on the breeching is formed by splicing; the splice and the loop are served.  I used a somewhat unusual tool to serve the loop...a crochet hook.  And not the kind that is used to make a quilt.  This is a #12 size, left over from when I used to make lace.
 
To prevent the carriages from moving, a #76 hole was drilled into the edge of the deck planking and the front axle.  A 24 G wire was inserted and glued with CA.  You can see one of the wires in the first two pictures.  Three down, eleven to go!



 
 

Hello again –
 
Thank you all for your well wishes on my health.  I do seem to be recovering, slowly, on the long covid front.  I can mostly sleep at night without coughing or sitting up, but it does come back with a vengeance from time to time.  The silver lining to this cloud is that I can get more done during the insomniac periods.  Hence, this post somewhat quickly after the last one.
 
As in most builds, especially with modern ships, I work on several sub-projects at the same time.  While the superstructure was still being finished I turned to the containers on deck.  In an earlier build of a container ship model for the museum, the El Faro (build log soon to be written), I had researched these ‘intermodal containers’.  I found that ninety percent of the global container fleet are closed rectangular boxes, almost all 8 feet (2.44 m) wide, and of either 20 or 40 feet (6.10 or 12.19 m) standard length, and with a standard height of 8 feet 6 inches (2.59m) as defined by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) regulation 668:2020.
 
The height and width of the containers on the Mayaguez seem to fit these dimensions in this photograph taken just after the recapture of the ship.  You can also see that they are stacked in sets of three, and in two layers. 
 

 
However, to my surprise, when I used Photoshop rulers and scaled out the length of the containers from the overhead shots, they measured out to only 35 feet long, a size that I had not encountered before.
 

 
Back to the books!  After a good deal of reading I located a single sentence in “An Act of Piracy, The Seizure of the American-flag Merchant Ship Mayaguez in 1975” by Gerald Reminick.  There he says that when Grace Line sold its Santa Eliana, ex-White Falcon, to Sea-Land Service in 1965 the ship was sent for a second conversion where the container cells on board were enlarged to accommodate the new 35 ft. containers.  It was Sea-Land that changed her name to Mayaguez later that year.
 
Now that I had confirmation of the correct sizes, I had to determine the details of their structures.  Modern containers have sides of pressed metal with the corrugations quite close together, like those in a cardboard box.  Instead, the 1965 containers had smooth sides reinforced with square section battens spaced much further apart.  In the detailed photographs of the Mayaguez containers only 16 of these battens can be counted.  With the two ends there are 17 panels, so in 35 feet the battens must be close to 2 feet apart.
 

 
I tried a number of ways to create this look.  I started with looking around for what was commercially available, but none of the Evergreen Plastics sheets were close.  Neither their railroad car, passenger car or siding extrusions were close to what I needed.  Then I tried making them myself, gluing 0.01” square strips to smooth plastic sheets at a spacing of 1/8”, but I could never keep the long strips straight.  If I did it by eye, they wandered all over before the glue dried.  If I held them against a metal or wood straightedge, then they got glued to the straightedge.  This happened even when I used thin glue meant just for plastic, which melted the plastic, but the melted plastic then would attach again to the straightedge.  I tried cutting narrow parallel channels with a thin blade in the Preac table saw, to be filled with thin strips, but the depths could not be cut consistently. 
 
Ultimately I decided to compromise on the look a little in order to get it done.  Evergreen has a product which represents a metal roof with batten supports (#4521).  It comes as a sheet 0.04” thick with channels 0.015” deep set 3/16” apart.  These channels are to be filled with thin strips 0.01” x 0.03” which are supplied with the sheet.   Doing this is a tedious process, to say the least.  Each strip had to be turned on edge and set into the start of the channel.  It was tacked there with a small drop of Tamiya extra thin plastic glue (which is mostly acetone), which welds the strip to the sheet.  Then the rest of the strip, still set upright, had to be fed into the length of the channel and glued there. 
 

 
There was a distinct learning curve and a good bit of wastage of these expensive sheets before I got the hang of it.  The final product looked very much like the photos of the container sides, although the spacing of the battens was 3’ rather than 2’ apart.  As mentioned before – GEFGW.
 
With the strips in place the six pieces for each rectangular box had to be designed and cut.  Each had to be sized to compensate for the thickness of the material so that the final assembled size was 0.50” x 0.53” x 2.19” (8’ x 8.5’ x 35’).  I also had to compensate for the various edging strips that were added to make up the look of the corners of the boxes.  Once all the calculations were done, the pieces for the sides were parted off the sheet on the Preac.
 

 
These ribbed side pieces then had to have edging around all four sides, made from strips 0.02” x 0.06”.  The final piece is shown in the insert below.
 

 
The final components are shown below.  These are the ones needed for a set of three containers.  To minimize the number of ribbed pieces only the outside sides, ends and tops of the containers are ribbed.  Where the side will not be seen it is not ribbed.
 

 
The first step to assemble each container was to set a side piece against a top piece using wood blocks to hold them perpendicular.  Thin plastic glue was fed along the seam and held until it was hard.
 

 
Turning it over the matching ribs can be seen.
 

 
The second side is attached in a similar manner, but using a specially cut wood spacer to keep the sides parallel.  I marked it in blue so I would not throw it out by mistake.
 

 
Each end was installed using the spacer block again to make sure it was vertical.
 

 
Finally the open box was turned over and laid on the base, which had been cut a bit oversize.  When the glue was dry the excess was trimmed and the container complete.
 

 
To give some differentiation and interest to the containers they were randomly painted in three different metallic colors: dark steel, flat antique nickel, and titanium silver. 
 

 
Placards with the Sea-Land logo and name were created in my computer and printed out onto thin acid-free paper.  Two different styles for the larger side labels and small ones for the ends as seen in the photographs.
 

 
With the labels attached the containers were attached in sets of three to an underlying base plate and stacked on deck to judge how well they fit.
 

 
Here they all are, 8 stacks of 12 containers each.
 

 
Sitting here you can see the curve of the sheer of the deck.  Without some levelling structures the cranes would not have been able to move them consistently.  Those structures will be covered in the next installment.
 

 
Thank you all for following along and for your interest and comments.
 
Be well
 
Dan 

Hello again to all –
 
Thanks for all the likes and comments.  Keep them coming.
 
Sorry for the long delay since my last post.  I have been fighting a long covid problem that gives me bronchitis which makes me cough, especially at night, so I am having a lot of trouble sleeping.  Also I have had cataract surgery on both eyes, which has interfered with writing this blog.
 
But enough about me – back to the model.
 
At the end of the last segment I had completed the basic structure of the hull and was proceeding to work out the superstructure.  This began, as with the rest of the model, with a careful examination of the photographs of the ship.  Fortunately there were a few images of high resolution like this one of the entire ship.
 

 
Once enlarged I got a good, if a little fuzzy, picture of the 5 decks and deck houses of the superstructure.  I was able to tease out some sense of the complex shapes of the various decks and overhangs.  Porthole, door, and stairway locations can be seen, as well as the fact that the top deck house is taller than all the others.
 

 
In this slightly clearer image I could start the actual analysis of the dimensions and relationships of the shapes that can be seen.  I started with the assumption that the original superstructure footprint had been retained, which is the lowest deck house with the curved fillets on either side.  Then, when the hull was widened by 8 feet on each side, some changes were made.  The supports for the lifeboat davits had to be built out and supported by pillars reaching to the outer edge of the deck.  There is an overhang to the right of the lifeboat that extends to the new deck edge and is supported by three diagonal braces.  The bridge wings had to be extended, and a number of other small details all had to be changed.
 

 
These images and analysis was integrated with the information from the overhead photos of the ship taken during the incident and rescue, such as this one from just after the recapture.
 

 
The image was enlarged and straightened out to give a top view that could be worked with.  Always being aware that the image is not precisely taken from directly overhead, I could make out many more details, such as the stairways marked with the red arrows.  Hours of staring at these images, individually and collectively, were needed to determine what the various elements and details were.  I am still not 100% sure of all of them, and even where I am sure of the shape of things, I am not sure of their purpose.  But since this is for the US Merchant Marine Academy, it is good enough for government work.
 

 
Other images which were not full pictures of the decks and deck houses also informed a number of details of railings, stairways, overhangs, supports, etc.  Here, for example, is one of the Marines taking control of the ship.  I would not have seen the tall ventilator/filter under the stairs at the side of the bridge except for this picture.
 

 
So, taking all the information in hand, I laid out the shape of the lowest deck house over the top image.
 

 
Using this as my basic starting point I laid on the shapes of the stairway platforms and lifeboat davit supports to the first level.  Then using the relationships seen in the photos, I drew on the shapes of the second and third decks, deck houses, and overhangs in contrasting colors, giving this image.
 

 
Based on these drawings I cut ½” planks of basswood to the shapes of the deck houses (less 0.04” all around) and sheathed them with 0.02” styrene (restoring the full sizes).  The decks were cut to the full size of the deck houses and painted grey before being edged with styrene.  This gave a pleasing delineation to the decks, which can be seen in the photos.  The edges extended just a bit above the deck level, making a lip that anchored the photoetched railings when they were added later.  Portholes are the brass dollhouse electric circuit pieces, while the handrails are 0.015” round rod.  Here the superstructure stack is about half done, with all the upper details still to be done.
 

 
Here is an enlarged shot of some of the details.  Notice the diagonal supports for the overhangs of the second deck and bridge wing.  The railings and stairways are photoetched brass from Gold Medal Models’ ocean liner set.  It is expensive, but makes for a very convincing impression when painted, folded and installed.
 

 
The railings come in long frets four scale feet tall (1/4”) with horizontal rails numbering from one to five to be used as needed.  The photos of the ship show that the railings mostly have three rails, so these were the frets that were used.  They were spray painted gloss white before being cut apart.  Unfortunately the paint was a bit brittle, so it chipped off when bent, as can be seen in the last photo, but that was easily touched up later.
 

 
The stairways come as part of a larger fret with hooks, steering wheels, etc.  They have a central length of steps flanked by angled wings for the side railings.  They come in three different lengths.  Mostly the middle length was used, but occasionally the short or long ones were needed for a particular location.  Small adjustments to length were made by trimming the bottom of the stairways.
 

 
The basic stairway is made by bending up the wings of the piece to form the railings at either side of the steps (left image).  But this is meant for use on the ocean liners, so it is wider and less steep than the stairways on merchant ships.  To make them steeper the railings are pressed down towards the steps till the supporting posts are vertical when the stairs are at the steeper angle (middle image).  Where the stairs had to be narrow, one side railing and some of the width of the steps was cut off and the stairs supported by an added strip of styrene (right image).    
 

 
Work continued on the superstructure with detail added as they were identified in the photos.  Note the cross supports between the lower and upper bridge wings and the fact that the front facing of the upper bride wing is taller at the bridge house than it is at the outer end.  The funnel has now been sheathed and is set in place so I could determine the location and size of the many details on the upper decks.
 

 
While this analysis and work on the superstructure continued I was also starting to puzzle out the size and shape of the 96 containers that had to be installed on deck, and how to build them in a reasonably efficient manner.  This will be the topic of the next segment.
 
Till then, may your health be better than mine.
 
Dan

Not too much progress to note on Speedwell but the standing rigging has commenced. A photo of her in her current state is shown below. She needs twenty belaying pins. For the most part I find commercial belaying pins clunky and like to make them myself. I have seen several different techniques but they did not work particularly well in my hands so, if you have a lathe, maybe try this technique.
 
I discovered early in my machining, self-taught trials that in order to turn a very small diameter like the 0.020" leg of the belaying pin you have to turn against a much thicker stock or deflection occurs. In the first photo the 0.020" diameter is turned from 0.25" boxwood. The speed is high and the feed is very slow and consistent to avoid warping and deflection.


The cutting tool backed off 0.020" to form the diameter of the head of the pin.

The next step was impossible to photograph but a very fine Swiss file was used to reduce the area just above the transition.
 

The rest of the head was shaped with a fine Swiss file. The finished belaying pin was parted with the knife edge of the file while shaping it's curved profile. Many extras were made to insure consistency. You can see the delicate elongated shape of the pins against the illustration by David Antscherl in our Speedwell book.
 

The key takeaway for new home machinists is that you can turn very small diameters even in wood if you turn against a thicker stock. I can't say for sure exactly how thick but I should think at least four times the desired finished diameter.
 

Thanks Reg. Also, thanks for the likes!
 
I've completed attaching the yards to the main mast and mizzen mast like I did on the fore mast.
With all the yard jeers and tyes now attached I'll start on the yards lifts and braces. 
The spider web of lines is really starting to grow.
 
 

The first gun has been temporarily installed.  Looks like that rear truck needs a little straightening!

It has been a few weeks since the last posting, but I have been busy in the shop.  The next item on the list is installing the cannon.  For this, I had to make 56 blocks.  There are just over 1/8" long and are made from English boxwood.  That was the easy part.  Next came the strops.  Strops are made from served line with either one or two eyes.  Serving, splicing it into a loop and making the eyes took several days.    The result is nowhere as good as some of our European brethren, but it is the best I can do at this size.  Now to make the gun tackle.