MEDDO

I wanted to try this for some time.  I found this section of the site and decided to try my hand.  I only have a crude non-variable speed dremel so will be only using scalpel blades and maybe chisels as I carve.  Recently Bob (username rafine) started up a build of the same ship I am building but using the Lumberyards framing package.  I saw the pieces that were included in the package and was comparing them to my resin castings.  The LSS did a good job but I "may" be able to do better if I practice a bunch.  
 
Here we go...
 
As I wait for the glue to dry I started messing around with the blank
 

 
Oops, not following the grain...
 

 
Decided to try a stop cut and thinning
 

How about a railing post???
 

 
Here is the LSS Halifax resin castings... Maybe just maybe...
 

 
More to come once crown is dry...

I wanted to try this for some time.  I found this section of the site and decided to try my hand.  I only have a crude non-variable speed dremel so will be only using scalpel blades and maybe chisels as I carve.  Recently Bob (username rafine) started up a build of the same ship I am building but using the Lumberyards framing package.  I saw the pieces that were included in the package and was comparing them to my resin castings.  The LSS did a good job but I "may" be able to do better if I practice a bunch.  
 
Here we go...
 
As I wait for the glue to dry I started messing around with the blank
 

 
Oops, not following the grain...
 

 
Decided to try a stop cut and thinning
 

How about a railing post???
 

 
Here is the LSS Halifax resin castings... Maybe just maybe...
 

 
More to come once crown is dry...

So I have been away for a while.  My practice went through a massive expansion/contraction/expansion etc etc.  Ended up working way too much.  I also got somewhat distracted for the last few months building a kayak.  I am finishing that up and am cleaning up the shipyard so I can start working again.  Here is a picture of where I am now.  
 
I like the new site design and wanted to see if I remembered how to get pictures uploaded etc.

I wanted to try this for some time.  I found this section of the site and decided to try my hand.  I only have a crude non-variable speed dremel so will be only using scalpel blades and maybe chisels as I carve.  Recently Bob (username rafine) started up a build of the same ship I am building but using the Lumberyards framing package.  I saw the pieces that were included in the package and was comparing them to my resin castings.  The LSS did a good job but I "may" be able to do better if I practice a bunch.  
 
Here we go...
 
As I wait for the glue to dry I started messing around with the blank
 

 
Oops, not following the grain...
 

 
Decided to try a stop cut and thinning
 

How about a railing post???
 

 
Here is the LSS Halifax resin castings... Maybe just maybe...
 

 
More to come once crown is dry...

That's it.
 
She is finished !
After a journey that took more then 3 years she finally reached port.
I wanna thank you all for being my passengers all that time.
Also thanks to Anja for helping me with a lot of things.
 
Sjors
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 
 
 
 
 

Once again, welcome aboard to all. your interest is always appreciated.
 
A few words about what I received from the Lumberyard, and about the direction that I intend to take. To begin with, this is a build using Hahn plans (included in the package), and the Hahn upside down construction method (a laser cut framing jig is included). The package contains laser cut framing pieces, including the keel, stem, stern post, rudder, keelson and frame futtocks. I ordered all of that in boxwood. There are various other laser cut pieces such as deck beams. I also got a sheet with laser cut pieces for the stern transom windows and carvings and the quarter badges and windows. The package also contains a good deal of sheet and strip wood in boxwood, pear and some other woods for planking and other purposes. In general, the laser cutting appears to be very good and the strip and sheet looks good, but not as smoothly finished as that from Crown. One potential problem looms. The jig and the keel assembly ( which I have put together) don't match the drawings in length. They do, however, exactly match up to one another. Hopefully, this means that the construction will proceed without difficulty, although yielding a model slightly longer than that shown in the drawings.
 
I have obtained a copy of Hahn's book "The Colonial Schooner 1763- 1775" to assist in construction. It is my present intention to plank both sides from the wales up and to leave the lower hull unplanned, although I may decide to fully plank one side of the lower hull. I intend to detail the interior of the hull, with lower decking, partitions, etc. Upper decking will be left partially open to allow a view of the lower interior.
 
I am attaching a photo of the jig, a rather poor photo of the package contents and a photo of the assembled keel. It's now time to get to work on the frames.
 
Bob
 
 
 


 
 





 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

To see what is possible with the Granado definitely check out Bob's build.  Model Shipways have some popular kits including some really great praise for the Syren.

To see what is possible with the Granado definitely check out Bob's build.  Model Shipways have some popular kits including some really great praise for the Syren.

It's been a while since I've redone something. So here it is- revised backstay pendents. Smaller seizings and a cleaner rope coil. 
Steve

If you want to stay with Caldercraft I'd recommend the bomb vessel Granado. A little less complex and smaller than Agamemnon. My build log is in my signature. I made a number of changes to the kit, including substituting boxwood for the hull planking. Bob "rafine" has just completed a very nice build of her as well, if you'd like to see another example of what can be done with the kit. It's a neat looking vessel, with just enough complexity and decoration. Highly recommended.

So I have been away for a while.  My practice went through a massive expansion/contraction/expansion etc etc.  Ended up working way too much.  I also got somewhat distracted for the last few months building a kayak.  I am finishing that up and am cleaning up the shipyard so I can start working again.  Here is a picture of where I am now.  
 
I like the new site design and wanted to see if I remembered how to get pictures uploaded etc.

I created a jig to get the thwarts evenly spaced. I'm pleased with the results.

Well, except for the nameplate, it's finished.  This little model took me a lot longer to build than I thought it would.  (I think my friends feel the same way!)  Nevertheless, I learned quite a few new techniques, which, I hope, made me a better modeler.
 
BobF
 

Am definitely going to be following along. At the rate you go soon you will be passing me and i'll be looking for you to provide the tips for me to complete my Halifax 

Wonderful resource. Thanks.

Wonderful resource. Thanks.

Wonderful resource. Thanks.

Am definitely going to be following along. At the rate you go soon you will be passing me and i'll be looking for you to provide the tips for me to complete my Halifax 

Am definitely going to be following along. At the rate you go soon you will be passing me and i'll be looking for you to provide the tips for me to complete my Halifax 

I continue to work on a set of threads for seventy-gun gunships.
Decorative endings of regels

As I mentioned near the end of my Granado build, I have chosen to do the the colonial schooner Halifax as my next project. There are several reasons for this choice. To begin with, my age (77) and the diminishing capabilities of my hands and eyes are a major factor. I don't wish to start any project that I have doubts that I could complete. While the journey may be very important, I still like to see a finished product. This ruled out anything that is likely to take multiple years to build. I also have concluded that It will be better to do small vessels in a larger scale, rather than a larger ship in a smaller scale. I was very intrigued by the new Marisstella kit for the barque Stefano, but decided against it because it is a large ,complex ship in a smaller scale and would likely take at least two years to do.
 
In considering what to do, there were any number of possible choices, but the Lumberyard Halifax seemed to fit the criteria best. It is a true plank on frame model of a small vessel in 1:48 scale, which I really liked. Unlike the usual Lumberyard timbering set, the Halifax is offered in a version where the framing is laser cut. This was appealing to me because I have no power tools, other than a Dremel, and have no desire to hand cut all of the framing for a fully framed model. It also offers the opportunity for considerable scratch building and choice of presentation style, both of which are important to me.
 
I have chosen to post this build as a kit, rather than a scratch build because of the laser cut framing, and have labeled it as "semi-scratch", whatever that may mean. I have received the package from the Lumberyard in the past few days and am clearing away my work area and getting ready to start. Progress and photos will begin soon. I'm looking forward to the interaction and exchange that always accompanies a build on MSW.
 
Bob
 
 

Thanks for the support with comments and likes.
 
I've become a believer that ripping things out and re-working them works best for me.  I can think of too many places on this ship that it was make, finesse, offer up and scrap box.  Some areas were pretty radical or seemed at the time, but worth it.... like those pesky stern transom timbers, etc. 
 
I ended up taking up more of the planking than I originally thought.   Things just didn't look right on the drawing so....  ripped and redrew much of the planking.  I received a much needed re-supply of boxwood from Jason at Crown and was pleasantly surprised at how fast and how nice the wood is.
 
So... I did more research and staring at other people's models on the web for inspiration along with Frolich's book.  Seems to a bit of a pattern in that plank butts on one beam must have 2 strakes between them.  If possible 2 adjoining planks must have 2 beams between them.  But... there's the random factor.  So, had to think like shipwright in the yard and look at the pile of what was available. I took 5 planks varying from 25 feet to 50 feet in length and then randomly picked one up.  Drew it on the drawing and the repeated the process until the whole strake was cut and installed. Duplicated that strake for the other side.  Lather, rinse, and repeat as they, until done.  
 
There's some gaps that need attending to, but I'm sanding and scraping away.  Getting there....   The char on plank sides seems to be working out.  Just lightly sanded off the loose stuff.  In the pictures, the lighter "caulking" is where everything came together perfectly.   The black caulking still needs more sanding to get the fit flush.  There's a few areas that need some filling.  Overall, I'm pretty pleased with the deck.
 
Here's the pics....  as always, I'm open to discussion and learning.
 


 
 

Well Kenny, Harold did not use power tools (except a lathe perhaps). He even cut out all his frames with a fret saw. So while power tools are nice you can certainly do excellent work without them or with brands that aren't quite Byrnes quality.
 

Just an update on progress on the Eagle. I have been putting quite a bit of time into researching the rigging configuration for the model. Dr. Crisman has a fuzzy hand drawing of how he thinks the ship's Rigging Profile would have looked. For my purposes, I need to drill down to much further details. My model will not have sails but there will be a combination of standing and running rigging on the model.
 
I am using several references. The American ships were rigged following most, if not all the basic rules used for British Ship's of War. This makes things much cleaner. Given the expediency with which the Eagle was built (19 days) there were in all likelihood shortcuts in some of this. There certainly was with the hull construction. However, following these guidelines along with Crisman's expert opinions should give a good approximation of the ship as she sailed to battle. Here is a list of the reference material I am using in this effort.=
 
Crisman's The Eagle Steel's Elements of Mastmaking, Sailmaking and Rigging Lee's Masting and Rigging of English Ship's of War Lennarth Petersson's Rigging Period Ship Models David Antscherl's Swan Vol 4, Rigging a Sixth Rate Sloop (while much earlier than the Eagle, it is a valuable treatise on actually rigging a model The first order of business was to attempt to identify those lines shown in Crisman's drawing and record these on a new CAD drawing (I am attempting to do) of the rigged ship. I also had an email discussion with Ed Tosti asking his advice on approaching designing a detailed rigging profile. His sage advice was to develop a detailed spreadsheet that would capture all the lines as well as the details around them, i.e., size of rope, serving, color, blocks etc.
 
I found that the Petersson book was great in identifying lines typical to that period. I used this in conjunction with the Crisman drawing to develop a list of those lines I would be installing. This could then be cross referenced with the Steel and Lee volumes to flesh out the details.
 
One key aspect of this is deciding the size of the ship itself. Steel has a table for sizing ship's based on the number of guns on board. I will be using the 20 to 22 gun tables. There is a difference in line and block sizing between Steel and Lee. Steel's number tend to be slightly larger in both line circumference and blocks. However, there is also inconsistency in these tables that Lee's smooths out using common block sizing ratios. However, this does not answer which method to use. There was nothing left of the rigging in the wreck other than the lower chainplates and mast steps. However there was an inventory list for the supplies sold from Whitehall during the sell off of the Lake Champlain fleet and supplies in 1825. While circumstantial at best, it does point to those supplies that were common in the fleet. The sizes of running rigging and blocks falls more neatly into the Steel tables than Lee's So I feel comfortable using these.
 
I have compiled my list of lines, but have only started working on fleshing out the spreadsheet. This will be an on-going project I will be doing in conjunction with completing the masting and spars for the ship. 
 
I had built a manual serving machine when rigging the Connie (1:92). However at 1:48 the Eagle will show much more detail in the rigging and require much more serving to be done than I wanted to do on my old manual machine. In preparation for this, I purchased Alexey Dumanoff's powered serving machine. It seems like a great machine and I can't wait to put it into service. It will be a great match for the Byrnes ropewalk.
 
I also have been putting in time actually making sawdust (and brass shavings). The photos below show the ship where she stands. I have been playing with my Grizzly Milling machine trying to develop the skills to actually use it well. More on that later. For this update, I used it to build the upper mast cheeks as well as sheave slots for the masts. The sheaves were turned on the lathe out of brass stock. I decided I did not like the previous iteration of the topgallant masts that I had done. On the Eagle, Crisman call for these to be exactly the same. So I redid these building them in parallel. These like all my masting were done first by cutting square strips of Maple to the size of the widest part of the mast, then using files, chisels and sand paper shaping the various sections per the drawings. By doing the fore and main topgallants at the same time I was able to better insure they were matched section by section. I still need to build the foremast cross trees and caps. The main mast caps also still require fitting and I may decide to redo some of those before all is said and done. 
 
Anyway, that is where she is today. Once the foremast is complete, I will work my way through the bowsprit and jibboom, then the spars. At that point, I hope to have all the rigging spreadsheet filled out. This will give me a good estimate for the numbers and sizes of the blocks to be made as well as the inventory of rope I need to make prior to starting the rigging. 
 
Here is a close up of the topgallant cheek blocks.
 
Topmast and topgallant masts. The fids will be cut to length after the cross tree is installed.Main mast topmast and topgallant masts. 

 
 
Main mast topmast and topgallant mast

Main mast topmast and topgallant at cross tree.

 
 
 

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