guillemot

Damn! You noticed! Yes, the ones I've just been doing are smaller...I may have to re-do the bob stay....curses! Maybe the mouse is a heavy metal fan....

Was about to paint up a sample bit of carved sea and discovered that some total idiot of a mouse had decided that cobalt blue would be tasty....It will have cost him his life and me a good few Euros to replace! Anyway, I've rigged the steering - And started rigging with the bobstay - My figurehead is a bit big for her bra and is interfering, or being intered with by, the bobstay. She's about as small as I could possibly sculpt, so I'll probably have to live with the conflict... Since rigging involves a lot of tiny fittings and I spent some time on the lathe knocking out bullseyes for the jib-boom stays etc. Exactly what I do when it comes to any minute deadeyes I might need, I don't know what I'll do, because, while I can turn bits of Degame down to 1.5mm, I can't drill three holes in them to make deadeyes...Have to think about this.

Cheers, Trying to remember to do the bits you won't be able to do later is a real consideration....I make lists. Then I forget to look at them. Of course.

Rainy day, I thought some indoor tasks would be just the thing, so I've started carving the sea base. I have some new Flexcut chisels on order but they'll be another few days so I had a shot at resharpening the two old gouges I have. Gouges are a total sod to sharpen but I got them to a reasonably servicable state. This is the result so far, lots more wood to be removed. I'm considering training a beaver... The hole for the model is oversize to allow setting it in at an angle and the spare space around the edge will be filled in with milliput - white. Christian, Good luck with Diligent, she really had an extreme hull form! Scottish Maid, of course comes from a rather different tradition, and really isn't related at all to the Baltimore ships. Of the Baltimore Clippers, I have a 'Fair Rosamund' under construction and the one I'd really like to do would be 'Grecian'.

It goes with the territory that sometimes you look at a part you just made and know it could be better...happens a lot actually, but hey you learn, eh? Here's the binnacle. Not sure if it'll do...bit like a starved Dalek... I've also made a pair of 'elm tree pumps' haven't shot them yet. One thing you need a lot of on a ship is ringbolts. At this scale they're pretty small. So this is one way of making them. I've started working on the masts and the bowsprit/jib boom, lots of bits, lots of ringbolts. Here's the mast top for the foremast. Came out pretty much as I'd hoped. The 'slats' are CA reinforced watercolour paper . easier to cut tiny strips from than wood! When you build a ship model, kit or whatever, I was advised to take it stage by stage,because if you think about all the bits involved in the whole ship you'll probably start drooling from the ears... I was building a model of a Main mast... Start with a 5mm sq. (approx.) length of wood (Degame here)and get it to the basic shape with a very small plane... Then I added the mast cheeks - they support the mast top, and started cutting rebates in the trestle trees. Where I can I like to reinforce glue joins with .5mm bamboo treenails. With plastic the cement welds your joins. Seccotine is a traditional hide glue, incredibly strong but it's a glue join. OK move on a bit and the Main Top Mast has been made and a mast cap, tricksy little so and so, that, have been made, cross trees and even a supporting fid for the topmast - that's the little sliver of wood you can see sticking out the side of the top mast at the bottom. There are two ways that I know of to make mast hoops one is to wrap brown paper tape around a bit of dowelling making sure not to glue the tape to the dowel! Then you roll a knife over it to cut slices. Didn't work for me. I fell back on a ring making technique I learned in a jewellery class in High school a very long time ago. Flatten brass or copper wire with a hammer - gently - wind around a suitable drill, cut into rings, making sure you file the ends square (easier than it sounds) then solder with either silver solder or a paste solder. The silver solder I have came from Cup Alloys in a syringe which allows you to place minute amounts accurately Think I mentioned a sea-base. I recently got sent from the UK a 30cm wide plank of Lime. Can't get it here, despite lime trees being popular on town streets. Being a through cut, the plank was a bit cupped to I sawed it into 4 and then swapped the bits around and now have a reasonably flat plank to carve into a sea. On small models I'd use milliput or watercolour paper or whatever, but this has to be a bit bigger and would cost a packet it milliput. Come to think of it, the plank plus postage wasn't cheap either! I have carved a sea once before, for a friend who was doing a model for a boat building company. Like an idiot I used Cherry...talk about hard work. Looked good in the end though as it was decided to leave it natural (show-off!) and just varnish it. This one will be painted, it's something I enjoy. and here she is having a trial fit into the base. I carved the hull to a waterline below the 'actual' load water line so that she will sit down into the sea. Gonna be a lot of wood chips around...

Helluva way to carve a hull . as has already been said, a fascinating project!

Good point John...I'm probably being lazy Better get on it! Mark: From what I've seen figure heads were in fact quite common on merchant ships in the 19th c. Scottish Maid certainly had one - I found a contemporary painting of her. So no escape, it seems but hey. It'll be a challenge....

There really ought to be a pinrail somewhere near the bow. This is usually right up in the bow combined with a bit of grating to ease access to the bowsprit. on Scottish Maid the bowsprit goes over the rail, so that one 's out. While looking for a solution I came across drawings of a more or less contemporary Brig. A pin rail that curves out from the side pieces of the windlass to the pawl post so that the coils of rope on the rail don't get tangled up on the windlass - slick. OF course this meant making a new windlass, but what the hell, that's modelling and I think the new windlass is an improvement anyway. Then there was the winch. No chance of finding a couple of nice gear wheels for it so it's two black painted disks, best I can do - for now. The pulleys on the ends of the shafts were turned, a bit inexpertly, on the Proxxon Mini Wood Lathe I forked out for as being Utterly Vital, honest darling! When I bought it I also got a drill chuck designed to replace the tail stock. Really useful when doing this kind of stuff. I've also been adding things like cleats and Keevils, or Cavills. I'm now getting close to the point wheni 'll have to bite the bullet and work out how to do a 1 /96th figure head of a Scottish Maid....Victorian, probably fairly modest as figure heads go...or maybe not. Have to see what I can do...

Was visiting a friend who does wood turning and had a look at his stock of exotics - purpleheart. He has a couple of rounds of it and it's a ringer. Thanks for all the input everyone.

Cheers. Right, first coat of paint, still needs a lot of tidying.... Got the bowsprit and jibboom together, if for no other reason that I need to be thinking about the base and case and how it'll fit. it also somehow marks a new chapter in the story. Some small woodwork on the catheads and the bowsprit cap that joins the bowsprit and jubboom...drilling closely spaced holes in small bits of wood is, uh, challenging - hurrah for drill presses! A couple of close-ups The cap will need an 'iron' band around it and a few twisted wire eyebolts, not to mention the dolphin striker and at this point the name and home port go on. At this stage it's really starting to feel like it's happening. Mind you I'm not even thinking about the rigging - she'll have sails, so that will be a monumental amount of work in making just the blocks. I'm buying in belaying pins and deadeyes (3mm). There are limits to my insanity. I'd probably buy blocks in as well but i'm not sure of the sizes at this stage. Time to consult 'Masting and Rigging...' Thanks for looking!

I think I'll probably give panelling a miss as, although I'm sure there are plenty of guitar mkers etc. using veneer in Portugal, I have no idea where to start looking as we live a long way from any major city and veneers I've seen from the UK seem to be 1.5mm thick? The timbers are only 2. The rails are 1mm pear. Actually, at this point I'm still undecided whether to do the hull in black or green. Most probably she was black.

Slow Progress! Decided that I really hadn't done a good job with the gunwhale rail or the channels and pin-rails weren't really good enough. So I spent rather a lot of time drawing and cutting a template to cut new rails from 1mm pear....Cutting long curves is a complete bastard. The rails are one piece. Needless to say it took a few shots to get it right and then a lot of sanding to make them smooth. I've also been busy making the cabin trunks and hatches. The panelling was done with 1mm strips of watercolour paper. Now they need painting to simulate varnished Mahogany or whatever dark wood was currently used... and here's the state of theings at the close of play today: Catheads The stern deco has begun...just a wee touch of filler, the noo. and the cap rails are now completeand the deckhouses in place. Just the woefully out-of-focus hatch coamings to go on and get finessed... Nice that she's beginningtol ook like a ship...

I have the bottles.... One problem these days seems to be that bottle necks are, I think, narrower? The addition of those plastic pourer jobbies hasn't helped I imagine.

Great stuff!

Cheers...it took some work alright. All part of the learning process, eh?

Despite the lack of updates, work has been more or less constant. When you're daft enough to do a scratchbuild from a three-view drawing, there's a lot of work in finding out what the missing bits should look like, then you have to draw them up before youcan cut wood to make them. Also theres' a dearth of information about the smaller ships of the Nineteenth century and I'm really having to dig to find information. Then there's accidents, like the model falling off it's building jig and landing on it's vulnerable **** timbers... That's now repaired and, I think, better for the rebuild... Work continues under the watchful eye of Scraps, the Works Gremlin... A lot of time went into figuring out the shapes of the rails and then cutting and fettling them and the combined channels/pinrails and I'm now in the process of fitting them. I had been looking forward to visiting the Science Museum in London at Christmas, but just learned that the Shipping gallery has been put into storage! In the interests of making the museum a better interactive roadside attraction, I suppose. It was a blow when the NMM turned their 19th-20cg allery into the Henry the VIII show and now this. Damn! F

A friend of mine used to drill a mast diameter hole in the deck and then, due to elasticity in his rigging material, he could start to raise the masts and cajole the masts into their shallow holes, the rigging would then keep them there.....can't imagine it was easy but it looked great.

Thanks for all the responses! With such a range of tropical hardwoods kicking about, it really is difficult. I haven't had a chance to get out to our local hardwood importer to get his opinion yet. It certainly cuts down to 1mm on my Proxxon and with the smooth blade the cut side is nearly black from the heat of cutting, F

Coming along very well! Wish I could be a fly on the wall when you're bottling the beast, tough enough just getting a ship in!

Something to inspire you...

Duuuh, never looked at the watch face! Too right. There is no clock in my 'studio/workshop' If I'm working in the afternoon the only time that matters is when it's time to take the dogs down to the field for a bit of play....and they tell me when it's that time! I have the hole drilled for the rudderpost though I have yet to finish off both the stern post and the cutwater. I've been very hung up on how to do the stern decoration, which Artesania Latina, in their kit accomplish with a relief shape. I was looking at my Model Shipways 'Emma' which has a similar shape on her stern, but it's just a simple moulding and it occurs to me (ummm, at about 0400 this morning) that I could do something similar with the Maid...maybe in brass wire. Day off today; going to take the dogs over to the coast for a run on the beach and a change of scenery from our valley!

Yup, been there done that...faith in the eye! On this one, being so small it was a straight up through job...concentrating hard on keeping straight! Bob: hardly late! Really just getting rolling...lots of nightmares ahead!

Thanks gents. I'm really having to feel my way with this. Lots of opportunities to discover things you should have done earlier or weren't really as clever as you thought...

Some several days work and the hull is planked...except for the stern which is proving to be a tad more complicated....Oh, and I should add, there's a need for a bit more finessing on the planking Thanks for looking, F

When I've got a few minutes spare, I'll visit the local importer and see what he thinks. I was cutting some on my little proxxon saw and, damn, it cuts cleanly. I had the saw set for 2mm....