Moonbug

Hey everyone, remember me? It’s been a heck of a year, but I’m finally able to get back in the ship yard. Updates will be forthcoming.

Hello all. As I progress on the Pegasus, I created a fire boom as it's listed among the needs in the Fully Framed Model plans - however, I can't seem to find where that would be located or stowed on the ship. Any information or thoughts would be much appreciated. @dvm27 - Any ideas? Thanks, as always, for the community support.

Working on the hardware for the yards. The stunsail irons support the stunsail booms on the yards and sit at a 45 degree angle forward. There is an iron on the end of the yard then another support a few feet inboard on the yard. I started by squaring off a brass piece. The circular part of the support comes from small relatively thick brass washers that I filed down. To change the diameter of the circle, I snip the washer, tighten the diameter, then silver solder it to the square support. The pieces are trimmed after soldering, but left a bit long until I get the necessary specs. The straps are made from extra flat strips of brass lengthened and shaped. I filed the ends of the support squares to round them slightly so they'd fit flush against the straps. It was actually quite difficult to line them up properly to solder. Similar process for the other braces along the yard. Flat brass pieces are shaped and soldered to the circles. Everything is sanded and smoothed then all the pieces are blackened. Finally, the stunsail irons are mounted on the yards with PVA glue. The strips are black card stock also glued with PVA. Also - an interesting milestone. The yard picture above marks my 1,000th photo for this log / build.

I realize it's been quite some time since I've been active on here. I've had a handful of business trips and a couple of not-business trips, so limited opportunities to work in the shipyard for the last month or so. That said, I've still been plugging away at the yards. All the yards have been created and I'm not working on the metal bits (hooks & hoops, etc) before I move on to the blocks and fittings.

Hey Bob - my lathe is their most basic, the Proxxon DB250 - pretty common in these parts I think. It’s relatively inexpensive and works well for the basic stuff. I do have the three jaw chuck adapter which is super handy. I also have the Proxxon Jig saw which is pretty good.

Thanks a lot Cisco, Isaiah, and Ross - really appreciate the kind comments and looking in. @Isaiah - My camera is definitely overkill. Truth be told, I was a combat journalist for quite a few years, so I have an older model Canon EOS-1 Mark IV. Most of the shots are taken with a 28-135 utilitarian zoom lens, but most of the closer shots are with an L series 100mm macro lens. Sometimes I'll focus stack the shots in Photoshop as well. (It's probably worth noting that the last shot of the yards is just a quick update snap with my iPhone though) @RossR - Thanks - this jib net turned out much better than my first couple of attempts! I try not to be too afraid of spending some time getting it wrong. 😛

Still plugging away and making yards and their cleats…

Lovely work Werner! One of my favorite models - so much so I’ll be building it again soon. I appreciate your unique take on it.

Thanks DA, I appreciate it! And thanks for looking in on the build.

Yards and yards of yards. There are likely to be some sporadic posts while I work on building out the yards. My intention is to build / shape the yards, paint them, then fit them out before I start the running rigging. I'll go over creating the main yard, but probably not likely to illustrate much with the others unless there are some specific deviations. First, I laid out my Swan yard illustration from The Fully Framed Model. Those who are familiar know that TFFM is scaled to 1:48, so i took the layout to my local print shop and had it scaled down to 1:64 so I could directly correlate the yards to the layout. Then, I went through and adjusted all the numbers from their real-time inch measurements to the scaled millimeters at 1:64. Ideally, the yards are much easier (and better) to make from square stock - but I'll be using the dowels I have on hand because most of my extra square stock is of much softer wood (I don't have a supply of boxwood). To accomplish this, I start with a dowel at least 2mm larger in diameter than what I need for the yard, measure out the necessary diameters at the different lengths of the yard, then start by filing off the yard to get close. Then I'll follow up with a couple varying degrees of sandpaper to get it smooth and down to the proper exact diameter. To get the octagonal section correct, I started by marking out lines in fourths, then eighths in equal measure. The yard is locked into the vice, then the first pass is made with my snazzy veritas miniature chisel - thanks to @giampieroricci for the recommendation. I then lightly cover them with my miniature plane to try and get them as even as possible at this scale. The center and end cleats are all shaped from scrap boxwood. Here are the main and fore yards, but I'll wait until all of them are made before I paint them all black.

Before moving on to the running rigging and several days of Yard Construction - one of the details I've really wanted to add to my version of the Peg is the anchor cable along the main deck. Surprisingly, it has been somewhat difficult to find really detailed reference material for this bit. So, a special thanks to @Blue Ensign for reaching back into his archives of photos and research for providing some guidance. I'm also following information located in Darcy Lever's The Young Sea Officer's Sheet Anchor - section 109. It's important to note (as BE rightly remind me), having the anchor cable run along the deck and wrapped around the riding bitts is incongruent with having the anchors mounted on the catheads, as the cable would only be along the deck when the anchors are in use. The anchor cable itself is the largest line on the ship at a whopping 13" circumference - translating to 1.65mm in diameter at 1:64 scale. As a side note - this size rope is quite challenging to spin on a rope walk. First - it takes 12 total strands of Gutermann size #30 thread; four sets of three strands each. Winding this amount of thread creates a huge amount of tension and one has to be very careful not to over twist and break the thread - which of course I did my first attempt. Essentially the hawser runs from the hawse holes through the deck and along the hatches before descending into the aft hatch near the water pumps. The good news is that my launch and extra topmasts were not permanently secured and could be removed for this process. The cable is secured to ring bolts using a smaller line wrapped / seized to the larger anchor cable. First, I'm using .75mm rope for the smaller line to secure the cable to the ring bolts via eyes all wrapped with .10mm line. I fed the cable through the hawse holes with a small wire, ran it along the deck and wrapped it on the riding bitts as illustrated in the Sheet Anchor. Another note here - I've seen a couple of options for how the cable is run down into the aft hatch. The one that makes the most sense is having the hatch split so that part of it is removed when the anchor cable is in play. However - I am trying to avoid being able to see down into the lower deck where there is essentially nothing happening. So I went with option two - which is having small square areas cut out of the hatch to facilitate the cable. It took a little bit of shaping and pva to get the rope to "lay" on the deck and run through the hatch in a way that pleased the eye, but overall I'm quite happy with the turnout and glad to have added this touch.

Hehe, thanks Gary - yeah I definitely dig the "Vyper". I mean, let's be honest - it's expensive has H#ll - but really well constructed and the wheels are super smooth. Would be a great contestant for any sort of "office chair races." It also adjusts up and down quite cleanly for switching work surfaces - a must for me as I'm not the tallest fella in the room. The padding on both the seat and the backrest are very good, and as you can tell by looking the entire thing is VERY sturdy. However - not having armrests is a bit of a sacrifice for me. It makes it so you can reverse the chair and lean forward against the backrest 'cowboy style' - but a tradeoff to be sure. Sort of unrelated to the topic - but it also doubles as a shop chair when I'm working in the garage on my baby...

Thanks so much Dave, really appreciate it. Looking forward to seeing the progress on your Rattlesnake.

The Jib Stay is a very straightforward bit and represents the last of the standing rigging. The stay starts on the traveller and is seized to the ring between the starboard side of the shackle and the hook. It then passes through the upper sheave on the starboard side cheek block on the the topmast head. There are a few options as to where the jib stay finishes depending one what works best and is an unimpeded fall of the line. Most rigs have it tied above one of the deadeyes, while others have it hooked to the shelf. I chose an eye ring that’s not being used as it ensured the aforementioned free fall of the line from the upper mast head. And with that - the standing rigging is complete!

Short update - but the other thing I accomplished today were the jib boom horses. Nothing particularly complicated about them - they go over the end of the jib boom with and eye and loop, then have knots every 2' which translates to about 9.5mm at 1:64. I went with 10mm because it's easier. The aft end of the horses loops over the jib boom behind the cap and seizes to itself. I then use a liberal amount of diluted PVA to get the to hang and hold their form.