dcicero

I'm watching your build with great interest, Fraser.
 
Earlier this year, I finished my Scottish Maid and it's nice to see another one coming along.
 
 
 
Dan
 

Just wondering...
 
Is the Clay Feldman scratch building practicum on the brig Lexington advertised in Ships in Scale any different from the eight articles in the magazine published back in 2005?
 
I have those old magazines -- both the digital and hard copies -- and was wondering if there's any difference.
 
 
 
 
 
Dan

To finish the model off, I decided I needed I needed a boat license.  The current Wisconsin boat license stickers are dark blue, so they would have blended in too much with the color of the boat.  (I live in Illinois but grew up in Wisconsin.  I just can’t get it out of my system.)  For no particular reason, I looked on eBay for a Wisconsin boat license and, sure enough, someone was selling a 1996 sticker.  I snagged the image, scaled it to the proper size (3”) and, along with some random numbers and my initials, I applied them to the hull.  This license complies with the Wisconsin DNR’s rules!
 

 
The final details are the drain plugs.  Everyone knows, after a long day on the lake, you’ve got the drain the water out of the boat.  I used my small punch and die set to punch out some small diameter (1” in scale) disks that I glued together with CA and then tapped a little depression in to simulate the socket for the wrench to pull out the drain plug.
 
I’ve very happy with how this model turned out.  The kit itself went together wonderfully and it offers lots of opportunities to improve, scratchbuild and make unique.  Just yesterday, we learned that we can take our masks off (with some caveats) which is a much better way to cure COVID fatigue, but, in a pinch, I’d recommend this kit.
 
I’ve entered the model in the 2021 Wisconsin Maritime Museum Model Boat Show and Contest.  The contest is virtual this year.  Judging is, as I understand it, completed, but I won’t know until tomorrow night how I did.  Here are some pictures of the finished model.

I struggled a little bit deciding how I was going to mount and display the model.  I toyed with the idea of putting the boat on a beach like Steve Wheeler had done, but that would make for a bigger footprint than I wanted.  I didn’t like the simple stand that came with the kit.  I didn’t want a very formal mounting like brass pedestals.  I finally decided on sawhorses.  I needed something that would allow the rudder to hang down below the bottom of the boat and something that would allow me to display the oars.  (I’d thought about just putting the oars in the boat, but I thought they obscured too much detail and looked like they didn’t belong there.
 
I used my own sawhorses as models, taking measurements from them.  I used basswood stock for construction and brass wire to simulate fasteners.  I used some anodized brass wire to fashion some hooks upon which to display the oars.
 
I painted the model using Artist Loft acrylic paints from Michael’s.  As this model was a cure for COVID fatigue, I was looking for inexpensive, forgiving, simple materials everywhere possible.  My son, who is still taking art lessons, had some of these paints, but he grew frustrated with me “borrowing” them to use on my model, so I needed to go buy my own!

You can see the assembled rig in the picture.  Mounting it in the boat was simple.  The only other things needed were a single block — thanks, again, Bluejacket! — and a rope coil for the sheet line on the deck.  I also made sure that all the knots used were accurate.  The sheet line is attached to the ring with a bowline run through a ring.  The downhaul, sprit and boom halyards are all secured to the cleats properly.
 
For the boom, sprit and mast, I scaled the measurements shown in the melonseed rig drawing.  I obtained most of the various fittings from Bluejacket Shipcrafters.  They didn’t have the loop shown on the lower mast, so I made that from brass stock and wire.  All the fittings were painted with Model Master aluminum.  The leather wraps were made from scrapbooking paper.
 
For the rings on the end of the boom — for attaching the clew of the sail and the sheet line — I used brass wire soldered into rings.  It took a little trial and error to get to the smallest diameter I could manage.  In the end, I got down to about 2 mm.
 

I used embroidery stabilizer to stiffen the sail material.  Then I used a water-soluble fabric marking pen to mark out the outline of the sail itself.  To add realism to it, I decided to sew panel lines into the sail.  Since the model is in 1:12 scale and panels were typically 1 foot wide, the seams would be 1 inch apart on the model sail.  I used a ruler/straightedge, triangle and dividers to lay out those lines.
 
I used a sewing machine set for the finest stitch it could produce.  I also used the finest needle I had available and a fine thread a little darker than the sail material, just to give it some contrast.  Sewing the sail was much easier than I thought it would be and went quite quickly.
 
As I worked along, I decided the sail needed some additional details.  The attachment points, I thought, needed some reinforcement, so I made some grommets from leftover sail material and used my punch and die set to see if I could punch some clean holes through the sail to simulate those attachment points.  I also made some grommets for telltales and attached them to the sail.  A lot of the reading I’ve done indicated that people don’t use telltales on a melonseed, but I’ve never sailed a boat that didn’t have them, so I decided to include them.  They certainly make the sail more interesting to look at.
 
Punching those holes in the sail required a very stiff sail.  That was achieved by spraying the sail with clear gloss automotive lacquer.  It gives the sail a lot of body and a great appearance.
 

 

I really deviated from the kit with the rig.  The kit-supplied rig is pure simplicity.  It’s just a mast, a sprit and a plastic sail.  I wanted to do a little more with that.  One of the prettiest rigs I’ve seen is the one on a melonseed skiff.  It’s got several names, but it’s got a sprit — like the kit-supplied rig — and a boom.  The sheet line runs through a block attached to the tiller head.  As far as sailboat rigs go, it’s very simple, but I thought it would look great on this model.
 
I haven’t put sails on a model since I was a kid.  I’ve found they obscure detail and often look out of scale.  But a modeler I respect a great deal, Steve Wheeler, built boat models in this scale and routinely put great-looking sails on them.  I decided to give it a try with the skiff and used Steve’s April 2004 article “Making Sails” in Ships in Scale magazine as a guide.
 
I obtained almost everything I needed from Hobby Lobby.  I started with some 270 thread count white bedsheet material.  Steve recommended washing, drying and starching it before working with it.  Then I made a paper pattern to ensure the final product would fit on the model.
 

 

After turning the oars, I finished the blades, putting the proper bevel on them.  They were finished with polyurethane.
 
Any good oar has oar wraps, so I used some black rigging thread of an appropriate-looking diameter and wrapped them.  I used some back scrapbooking paper to simulate the rubber “button” that keeps the oars from sliding out of the oarlocks.  The wrapping was secured with a little thinned white glue.
 

 

To make the oars, I used a technique I learned from my friend Bob Filipowski.  He turns oars and other cylindrical parts like masts and yards in a drill press.  I started out turning these parts in a lathe, but I found that, because of the small diameter of these parts and their tendency to flex in the lathe when worked, they became oval in cross section.  That doesn’t happen in a drill press.  I used Bob’s technique exclusively now.
 
I chucked the blanks in the drill press and held the other end in a block of scrap wood with a hole of the proper diameter drilled in it.  This keeps the “loose” end of the oar from flying away and breaking.
 

 

 

Stepping the mast came next.  To align the mast, I used a tool I made for that purpose many years ago.  It’s simple enough:  two small dowels of equal length with a pin driven through both.  Place the two “legs” against the bulwarks and the pin should be in the center of the mast.  (This is another reason to make sure the chines are equidistant from the centerline.)  When the pin is in the center of the mast, it’s aligned laterally.  To ensure it’s vertical, I used a small machinists square.

 

The rudder, as the instructions explain, is a model in itself.  It’s made from nine parts.  As with the daggerboard, I wanted a natural finish, so I sanded the parts, stained them and varnished them with the polyurethane.  I found I needed to knock some of the gloss off this assembly to make it look more realistic.
 

Also at this time, I made some seat cushions.  There are no seat cushions in the kit, so using the frames from which the parts were removed, I created some from basswood.  I decided there would be two cushions on each seat.  I beveled the edges all around and used some appropriately-sized and colored thread to simulate the binding common on all these kinds of cushions.  I painted them and sealed them with polyurethane.  I then used scrapbooking paper — heavy bond paper that comes in many different textures and colors — to simulate the straps that would hold these kinds of cushions in place on a real boat.
 

 

The oarlock blocks are simple enough to install.  They’re just blocks of wood with holes in them, but I wanted to dress up the oarlocks themselves.  After dressing them up with a file, I painted them with Model Master acrylic aluminum paint (1781) and wrapped them with a manila-colored thread.  These wraps reduce the wear on the oars in a real boat.  I didn’t take pictures of these features at the time, so I’m going to jump around a little.
 
You might notice the floorboards I installed.  On a real boat, when these aren’t installed, your feet always get wet, along with anything else thrown in the bottom of the boat!  I used some mahogany strips I had in my model wood pile.  I cut them out, beveled the edges and rounded the end.  I stained them with MINWAX stain.  I laid them out in what looked to me to be a logical pattern on the bottom of the boat.  I drilled small holes in the floorboards and used light gauge brass wire to simulate the screws used to hold them in place.
 

The daggerboard trunk is a four-piece box that needs to be aligned in the hole in the bottom of the boat.  I used some small squares and a clamp to ensure proper alignment.
 
The daggerboard is a simple assembly.  I sanded it into the proper shape with a sharper edge on the trailing edge and rounded the leading edge.  I intended to paint the boat, but to leave some of the fittings in a natural wood finish. I stained the daggerboard with MINWAX cherry stain and a light coat of MINWAX satin polyurethane.  You can see in the photo at the right the daggerboard trunk with the trim pieces installed.

USS Cairo is a fascinating vessel and I'm thrilled to see a build log for her.  I visited the Vicksburg NMP for the first time about 20 years ago.  I've been back twice since and it's an amazing place.  Grant's Vicksburg Campaign was the most complex and successful of the war and the more one learns about it the more amazing it becomes.  Outside of professional military circles, I don't think it gets the attention it deserves.  Inside military circles, it does.  The U.S. Army used the campaign as a model of operational warfare until the first Gulf War when it was replaced in the field manuals with General Schwarzkopf's campaign in Iraq.
 
I'm really looking forward to your build!
 
 
Dan



 
 

The next steps are to glue in the transom seat, sand the outer edges of the transom and the transom seat to match each other and then line up the aft edge of the hull sides with the aft edge of the assembled transom and glue everything together.
 
This is probably a good place to note that I sanded every piece before I install it, just to make sure I don’t get into a position where I can’t reach something later in the construction.  I used 120, 180 and 600 grits.
 
Next, the stem piece is installed (a triangular piece that provides a gluing surface for the sides).  The midships and forward seats are glued to one side and then the two sides of the hull are brought together and glued.  Then the chines are fitted inside the hull.
 
This is the first slightly challenging operation.  The chines are made from relatively thick stock and do not bend easily.  I recommend wetting the chines, fitting them inside the hull and clamping them as shown in the photo.  Wetting the chines makes them more flexible and will put less stress on the hull structure when installed.
 
Installing the hull bottom is simple enough, but a little time needs to be spent ensuring proper alignment.  The bottom is large enough to have overhang all the way around the hull, but the chines can distort the hull shape, so spend some time ensuring the hull is straight and true.  Use the centerboard trunk as a reference and make sure the distance from the centerboard trunk to the chines are equal on both sides.  One other thing:  once the bottom is installed, painting the bottom of the seats or the area aft under the aft seat will be impossible.  I painted those areas before installing the bottom.
 
The model, of course, doesn’t fit together like a jigsaw puzzle.  There will be gaps between the parts, in the slots where the tabs are fitted and around the edges of the after seat and transom.  I used Elmer’s Wood Filler, thinned with a little water, to fill all those gaps.

The pieces are removed from the basswood sheet with a hobby knife.  I used white glue for everything in this project.  It’s inexpensive, easy to obtain, cleans up with water and dries quickly.  I usually use a little piece of plate glass to mix paints, adhesives and as a stable, flat surface on which to align things.  I always apply glue with a small paint brush to control how much I apply.
 
I use small plastic clamps from Harbor Freight Tools for a lot of tasks like this.  They’re very inexpensive, come in packs of six and don’t create a lot of pressure that can distort delicate parts.
 
The transom seat knee is the first part that requires a little modification.  The slot is wider than the knee, so it needs to be shimmed.  I used a business card for this, but any piece of paper will work, just enough so the part fits in the slot and can be oriented perpendicular to the transom.
 
Without an inspection mirror, it’s impossible to see that transom seat knee on the finished model, so some people might wonder why anyone would even bother shimming it and making it exactly perpendicular.  It’s just me.  I build for myself.  If I didn’t do the job properly, every time I looked at the model, I’d see those defects.

The skiff is the simplest of Bluejacket’s kits.  It’s a typical flat-bottomed boat in 1:12 scale (1” = 1’).  I visited Bluejacket Shipcrafters on vacation several years ago and Nic said about the kit, “you can build that in about three hours.”  I suppose you could slap it together in that amount of time; it took me a little longer.  His point was correct, though.  This kit was designed for the first-time builder, regardless of age.  It requires simple tools and basic construction techniques.  The instructions and plans are clear and complete.  If that was your goal, you really could assemble the model in three hours.
Still thinking the kids might want to build this model someday — I still have two more in my stash! — I took a lot of pictures of the early construction details and made notes of things that might not be obvious to them.  Some of those photos and notes helped me with this build log.
 
First, glue together the outer and inner transom and then glue the transom seat knee into the vertical slot in the inner transom.

 

Hello again everyone,
 
I'm back with another update. This is truly a brief one. Lot's of pictures, but not a lot of work over the past month. We have been caught in the midst of a major drought here, no rain locally for over 50 days, and coupled with triple degree temps for over 30+ days has made our area a veritable tinder box outside, I am on our towns volunteer fire department and we have been up to our ears with grass fires. So, needless to say, between the grass fires and work life, not a lot of time has been spent in the shipyard.
 
So, picking up where I left off last time. I managed to finish up work on the mess kits. I found a simple solution to making the padlocks for them. I had a bunch of #8 lead bird shot that I used for cannon balls on a previous build. I took these and flattened them out and used a nail punch to form the shackle. I drilled out a hole in the shackle and looped it through a small eyebolt and I think the results look pretty convincing.

Once these were all completed, I staged them up for placement on the deck.

 
All glued together.

 
Glued into place on the deck.

 
 
Next up, I finally gave up on trying to find information on how the ships bell was mounted and went with my intuition. I know that salvage divers place the bell in front of the wheelhouse structure, but there is no documentation on what it was mounted on. It was too big to just hang on the wall, so I went with the flag locker theory. 
 
Simple construction of the locker. I used some leftover grating for the dividers and made up a small box to form the locker. 

 

 
I then painted the locker up, printed out a set of signal flags to stuff in the cubbies and mounted the bell to the top of the locker.

 
All flags in place 

Flag locker in place.

 
After the flag locker was completed, I wanted to add some more details to the deck, so I made up a stack of crates that are covered by a tarp. I built up a bunch of scrap blocks and added some trim to them to give the tarp some shape and detail.

Next, I used the same method of soaking a tissue with some 50/50 water and clear Elmer's glue that I used on the hammocks.

Once it was all dry, it was time to add some weathering.

Here we have a nice dingy tarp. 

 

This looks like a good location to store these crates.

 
More deck details. I installed a couple of the forward mooring ropes. First, I soaked the ropes in a 50/50 water/glue solution to help hold the ropes shape.

Soaked ropes were then installed on the deck and laid out and left to dry. I used some Press-n-Seal to keep the glue from getting all over the deck.

Starboard side was then installed.

The Press-n-Seal was then removed and the ropes were then glued into place. Finally, a little weathering was added to the ropes to give them that '"muddy, used" look. The contemporary photo of the Cairo has what looks to be a longer mooring rope attached to one of the bitts and thrown up over the forward casemate where it would have been stored along the hammock nets. My guess is that there wasn't much room on the foredeck to store a lot of rope, so they made use of the space on the hurricane deck and stored the longer, bulkier rope there. I am going to add this feature as well, just because.

I also, finally trimmed up the anchor chains and attached the anchors to them. Still haven't decided exactly how I am going to display these. I may have one in place on the deck and the other just hanging overboard. I'll figure it out eventually.

 
Next was the installation of the center, forward and aft masts. 
Aft mast being secured to the stanchion.

 
Center mast. I didn't have any black scale rope on hand, so I used tan and dyed it black.

Center mast complete. Now the challenge is to see if I can finish up working around these masts without breaking them off.

 
Next up was the smokestack for the cookstove. Just some brass tubing for the pipe, the hood was made from copper sheeting and brass strips for the hood supports.

 
Smokestack installed.

Finally. I finished up the port side hammock and tarps and added some more deck details. I built up the hammock net walls that would have been installed between the last set of stanchions, but were removed to provide easier access to the ships boats. On one of the contemporary photos of the St Louis (Baron DeKalb) you can see these walls stored on top of the aft roof of the wheelhouse structure, so that is where I placed mine. I also threw on some additional crates and tarps scattered about and weathered them up. I think I need a few more details on the deck, so I'll give it some more thought and see what else I can come up with.

 
Lastly, as she sits right now. Please pardon the messy workbench, I forgot to tidy things up before taking the as-is picture.

 
Well that is all for this update, I hope to have more next time around. Thank you so much for stopping by. As always, I do appreciate all of the nice comments and likes.
 
-Brian

Interesting subject, I must say.  I saw the James Caird in Sydney many years ago where it was on loan from England.  It would make an interesting model.  Too bad it's this company making the kit.
 
 
Dan

Hello,
 
Continuing on with my sail making project.
 
Taped the tracing paper behind the cloth (at the window so light would shine thru) and transferred the stitching lines onto the cloth using a cloth disappearing ink pen. (The pen's red ink disappears after 48 hours or earlier if dabbed with water)
 

 
Under Han Solo's watchful eye, my wife helped me adjust the settings on the sewing machine and gave me a refresher course on its use.
 

 
Stitched the vertical lines following the ink pattern
 

 
Finished stitching lines on both Fore and main sails
 

 

 
 
This next step was tricky.
Around all the edges of the sail, folded the cloth 1/4 inch over onto itself and ironed flat.
The next step was to take half of the folded cloth (1/8 inch) and tuck it under itself and iron flat again.
 

 
Finally run a stitching pattern around the edges of the sail. 
On my Vasa build, for the sails that remained unfurled, I was able to place a small wire inside the edge so the sail could be bent into different shapes.
 

 
Finished Main Sail and Fore Sail
 

 

 
 
Next step will be to sew the bolt rope manually around the whole sail, set the sail to the yards, and furl.
 
Thanks again to those stopping by for a look!
 
Frank
 

The catwalk saga continues. Actually I finished the port side lower catwalks today

The last section continues round to the fantail and is not at all nice to fit. The weight of the fantail section makes the piece try to sag out of position. I've started adding a little CA glue to the tops of the struts to help hold it all in place and that is working better.

I also fitted the first section of the upper catwalks on the port side. This is the real insanity stuff; trying to place a long unwieldy section and line it up with the lower catwalk struts.
I don't normally like it but I am using a few dabs of CA on the upper catwalks to get an improved bond with the lower catwalks The Gators Grip takes too long to really get hold and the pieces are apt to drift.

Three more sections will complete the port side. Then there are some ladders and platforms and braces to add. The PE frets are still pretty well populated
Thanks for looking in
Alan
 

Completed chair frame. Not perfect by any means, but the smallest pinned mortice and tenon joints I've ever tried! At 1:24 the chair is about 1 inch wide.
I do like the grain on holly...really fine... almost like 1:24 oak!
 

A view of the seat frame located on the quarterdeck compared with a picture of the full size Olympias. I have built my model as closely as possible to Coates design drawings (the drawings sheets contradict one another in some cases - as you would expect from what was essentially a prototype for a reconstruction of a warship which hasn't been built in living memory...). These include:
1.Differences in framing of the stern.
2. Removal of the footrest from the Trierarch's chair.
3. Differences in the leather upholstering of the Trierarch's chair.
4. Removal of the handhold post at the head of the ladders from the quarterdeck to the gangway.
5. Additional bracketry alongside the steering oar slots.
I am sure some of these changes were incorporated at build and others were introduced as sea trials progressed. Not unlike my own experience of  designing  and building modern ships!