Chef de Gare

A bit more progress last week on the foremast: spider rings at the base and the first completed yard. Only 15 more yards to go! I'm using soldering to join the ends of the various brass mast and yard rings. The Sergal plans show drilling and pinning the ends to make a joint but although quite tricky, soldering is actually easier than trying to drill holes in very short stubs of brass strips.

The retirement project has just been given a lift...today the postman brought the three sheets of Campbell plans I ordered from the Greenwich maritime museum. When I looked at their website weeks ago it was being redesigned and closed for business, but it's now active again. Well worth the wait, the plans are incredibly detailed.

Thanks for these kind words Nenad. The Sergal website says the CS is not a kit for a beginner but I've always liked intricate work. It all started with Airfix plastic kits when I was about 10! The rigging stage could be a lot more difficult for me though..... !

Return to posting updates......I'm presently working on the masts and leaving the very tricky lifeboats work until later (yes, bad practice I know!). I've done the necessary tapering by following the tips on MSW about holding the dowel in an electric drill and applying graded pressure with coarse sanding paper. I was a bit sceptical as to whether it would work well but with the right speed and the right paper it works a treat! Although my Sergal kit (bought boxed but with the hull frames already done by the seller) appeared to be complete there was no dolphin striker so I've made one from scratch, taking details from what CS photos I could find online. Quite pleased with the result. The Sergal kit mast collars are cast metal and in my kit poorly finished. I also didn't see how they could be drilled with holes without fracturing. So again a scratch build job! In the photo the slotted piece is made from a cut and drilled piece of the brass in a pin of a UK mains electric plug soldered to a copper collar made from a bit of scrap thin sheeting. The wooden frames that attach to the masts (cross trees?) are made from 2 x 2 and 3 x 2mm strip. The wood provided in the kit is described as walnut but I don't think it is. Whatever, it is very difficult to drill 1mm holes in without splitting! So I resorted to cutting strips from scrap hardwood that would take such drilling and not split.

Thanks Marc! Good point about the ribs, I hadn't thought of that and the Sergal plans don't point out that it's needed to make the planks run smoothly.

Thanks to Nenad and hof00 ! I think it's time to strip off the few planks I've put on so far and add some extra ribs...and I like the balsa solution. Chris B

Just started on building the three boats that sit above the deckhouses...struggling with attaching the 0.5mm walnut strips to the frames, as these photos show! Although I've carefully assembled all the frame parts correctly the profiled sections are too far apart to allow a proper curve to be formed and also it is VERY hard to find a way of holding the strips in place while the 'quick-grab' wood glue dries enough to fix them. To make matters worse, each boat is meant to have two layers of strips... As yet I don't have a solution to the problem and I've not spotted anything about building these boats in other CS build logs. Maybe everyone's leaving this job until the very end !

Very nice work! I'm nowhere near starting the masts, having recently finished the deck fittings I've just begun trying to build the three boats that sit above the deckhouses....and struggling to find a good way to attach the 0.5mm walnut strips to the assembled framework. I'll post a few pics on my build log.... Chris B, aka Chef de Gare

The winch and pump assemblies I'd completed were waiting to be put in place...now done as shown here.

Good to have started again. Very wet day here, could be useful time!

Hmm, I seem to have been becalmed for a long time! A bit of lost direction, but now back on course for some more progress.

Latest progress at the front! For the anchor winch arrangements I looked at the Sergal plans and the photos of the real ship and decided to try to model the real version instead. The handles are cut down from the kit items and removable as in real life. The ship's bell is a bit over-scale and really a bit too low as I have placed it, but not too bad in general. From spare bits of brass sheet I've also tried to cut the cat-faces for the end of the catheads, reasonably successful but I may try again. The Sergal plans didn't show the companion steps for the front deck at all. The CS specification says that in real life they apparently had brass treads to give firmer footing. Trimming a narrow strip from spares of the metal plates for the hull provided a good approximation to those.

I've just discovered a lot of interesting Cutty Sark information and photos here: worth a look if you haven't seen it. http://www.rmg.co.uk/sites/default/files/media/pdf/Conservation_Plan_1_History_of_Fabric.pdf

Happy New Year! Progress here since my last posting....cutting all the aft hatch apertures was definitely a trial of patience and sanity. And now I've taken the photos I see a bit more straightening of the rear deck rails is needed !

After looking at Nenad's photos (for which many thanks!) and some web searching I found that although the model kit has all the pinrail deadeyes the same size, in real life there were 6", 7", 9" and 10" ones. That is shown in the extract I found on the web from Campbell plans (second picture). That Campbell drawing also shows some chainplates were fixed in front of freeing ports. The kit version has the thin brass chainplates bent to be clear of the ports but in practice it's almost impossible to make those bends without distortion and certainly not to have the foot at deck level as shown in the elevation view in my first picture. If one follows the kit drawing and cuts slots for the chainplates as shown, where the deadeyes are closest together and because they are all the same - largest- size, it's very difficult to avoid breaking off the tiny wooden pieces that are left after cutting a long way back into the 2mm thick strip. So...I decided to take off all that I'd done and to make new strips with holes bored in them to set the deadeyes at the sort of angle they have on the real ship, then cut off the chain plate tops and soldered them to the brass wire projecting through the holes as shown. With care and a small iron it's possible to make the joint without scorching the wood. I've fixed one finished set in place so far and when installed the soldering is scarcely visible, but I'll add a touch of suitable paint to hide it. A lot of extra work but the result is much better than cutting slots, and looks more realistic!