Jack12477

... and please do not worry about repetitive postings about wales, few recent pages of this log yielded an unexpectedly interesting discussion and lots of photos of a pretty top-notch models. Please do not stop!

I got the Porter Cable hot air gun off Amazon. It was somewhere around $35. I shape the plank off the model by applying  heat wherever required to get the twist and bend I need. Just keep gentle shaping, offer up to model to assess then add more heat where bend or twist is still needed. It's quite therapeutic because your're shaping it to the hull and not relying on clamps and soaking to massage it into place. When finished, I don't need clamps to secure the plank; just glue and 90 seconds of finger pressure (I still use clamps after it appears set, though, just to be sure there is maximum adhesion throughout the entire plank). Extreme bends at one end can be done by using a pair of pliers  to facilitate the curve under heat 
 
On caveat - the hot air gun is...hot!!! As Fire Safety Engineer Kurt has pointed out it can burn wood or flesh quite easily. I can attest to smokey gloves when first learning to use it.
 

Darn it , Mark. I just encountered the exact same problem and your solution seems to do the trick. I assume you removed the yellow rubber insets to extend the width of the clamp?  Have you tried a hot air gun? I'm achieving twists and bends I thought were impossible before. No more overnight clamping of wet wood for me! Look at this beautiful piece of 1/8" boxwood I ruined while experimenting with the hot air gun the first day I received it. That was a month ago and the shape is exactly the same.

I apologize in advance if my incremental postings on installing the wales are getting too tedious. When I looked around for information on installing wales, there were many unanswered questions on some of these details. So in the spirit of helping others see some of the issues involved as I work through them, here is another unexpected one.
 
The top plank at the stern takes a fair twist in the vertical direction, in addition to the curve in the horizontal direction. I intended to steam and clamp the top two planks, and then follow David Antscherl's advice in the Fully Framed Model to carve the lowest 2 strakes to fit the very wicked curve further down.
 
Then I discovered the problem of how to clamp the upper planks, first for steaming, and then for gluing. Clamps from the top or bottom cannot reach the plank, and a clamp across the stern slips off due to the extreme curvature of the sides. So in the best traditions of Rube Goldberg, I clamped a right angle device to the table, which gave a surface parallel to the keel to clamp to on the left. I then had to place a small clamp on the device holding the sternpost, to keep the horizontal clamp from slipping away on the right.
 
It is holding the piece in place after steaming; tomorrow I will find out if this will also work for gluing the piece on.
 
I realized that this pulled the hull out of true on the table top, and it will have to be re-leveled before I start marking up for subsequent work on the hull.
 
Mark 

Hi folks!
 
Thanks for all of your Likes and comments.
 
A quick update:  Tonight, I’ve added more scatter cushions, particularly around the spa.  In addition, I’ve also added four umbrellas to protect the bathing beauties from the Sun😉.
 
Lastly, I had a bit of fun by trying to take some photos of Shadow in the shadows, (ie turning off all the lights in the room and only using the flash to highlights all the bits and bobs), so to speak.  I hope you like the following photos.
 
Cheers. 
 
Patrick
 
 

Deck planking is complete and the deck has been scraped fairly well. I will, look again over the weekend to see if it needs any more scraping. 
 
The last deck plank, outboard and aft on the starboard side, has no glue on it. It went in nicely on the last fitting and I could not raise it again to apply glue to the bottom. Oh well, it is in there to stay regardless. 
 
Russ

Kopeikin - those little Veritas planes are great. I've found their miniature spokeshave as good, or even better, for initial shaping of square and eight-sided stock.

Small update. Here is the fore gaff, with outhaul, and peak halliard block attached.

On going sail-making. Fore staysail, topsail and topgallant sail complete.
Temporarily fixed.
 

 
 

I have started on sail making.
Using vellum as a material.
Died with tea.
Small steel wires in seams.
Here are preliminary results.
Will post more info about the process shortly.

Slow progress. 
Ratlines finished.
Two yards in place but not quite finished.
One set of braces in place. Note that these start at the main shrouds, and return and run through a block attached to the shrouds. This is how she is rigged in the contemporary print I have published above.
Forecourse lifts.
Topsail sheets.
Lettering on the stern. 
Wooden grating around the binnacle.
Main top rope.
 
Small little pieces falling into place. Each one more satisfying than the last.
 
Tim.

Thanks to all for your kind words. Thoroughly enjoying rigging. It's my favourite bit. Every separate line and block is like a little model of its own!

I have completed topmast shrouds and backstays. Begun the long slow process of adding the ratlines. Spend many happy hours listening to Winston Churchill's history of the second world war on Audible whilst doing it. Utterly relaxing. Most wonderful escapism. Here are the current results.

Beautifully detailed work, Dave ... and, unlike me, they didn't take you a whole year to do.

Launches progress......
Just one quick shot of the completed launches before I set them aside and move back to the mother ship.
Still need to create oars and a few minor details.

I use a fly-tying clamp for almost all of my rigging. Coupled with a small vice there isn't much that I can't rig. It is one thing that I couldn't do without. I purchased it off fleabay a couple of years ago for about £25.
 
Rigging the forestay on a sacrificial dowel;

 
Rigging a block to the mast, the pliers taped to the mast are called hackle clamps/pliers. These can be used instead of the heamostats but obviously don't have as much weight to keep the line taut;
 

 
For rigging on the boat I use heamostats, hackle clamps and the following homemade "things" made out of sewing needles;
 

 
Hope this helps!

Beautiful work Ikkypaul. I reread your posts and am in awe at your work.
 
Cheers,

Build Log. Restoration of Full Rigged Sailing Ship Model
Posting #7  7 February 2018
My Posting #6 (21 August 2017) touched on restoration of suchitems as ships’s boats, rudder, deckhouse.  Now came the pattern-making for the 29 sails, 11 fore and aft, and 18 square sails.
With no original sails to work from this was a considerable task involving much reading and analysis of sail plans of actual square riggers, as well as study of photos of real ships, and even spending a day at sea on the restored 1874 barque “James Craig” based in Sydney NSW, to appreciate and understand the principles of sail-making. For you windjammer enthusiasts a day trip on her outside the Sydney Harbour is a “must do” if you are visiting this lovely city.  Of concern was getting the sails to be in realistic proportions to each other on each mast, and then each mast’s sail set from mast to mast.
After much sketching and measurements – length, height and roaches – I was able to cut the prototypes out of paper.   Laying them out on the floor in their proper order suddenly brought home to me what a “wind machine” the ship in real life would be!

Setting the curves (roaches) for the lower edge of the sails was achieved by using a piece of plastic electrical cable conduit to make a bow (as in archery) and setting the bend by adjusting the length of the string between the ends.  This gave a perfect template for each sail – they all had unique curves! (See Photo)

To check them for fitting to each yard, I ‘blue-tacked’ them in place – this resulted in slight adjustment of some of the roaches to ensure the eventual workability of the running rigging, particularly the braces. 
For the sails I used the linen backing of a sheet of draughtsman’s blueprint ‘paper’ which is the fabric encased in wax.  A friend about 40 years ago recommended using this linen as being suitable, and so it has proved.  Boiling this in water with a little dishwashing liquid, I was left with the fine linen, something like ‘lawn’ fabric – very fine and soft textured.
Once satisfied with the patterns, cutting out the sails ensued and my method is as indicated in the photo of the mizzen course (Crojack).
 My very understanding wife now came to my aid, and the dining table became the sail loft! She hemmed each of the 29 sails on her sewing machine – with very pleasing results.  Purists might say the hems are a little over scale but a practical result was priority. 

Bolt-roping was my next challenge – using a thread of 0.5mm diameter and sewing it onto the sails with 0.1mm diameter thread, the result is as you see in the photo.  Keeping a tension on the sailcloth during the stitching was made easy by the use of a jig with numerous holes for pins to locate the corners of the sail, and using tiny paper clips (mini bulldog clips)and rubber bands to a pin.

Rings (hanks) for bending the fore and aft sails was the next step.  These I made from brass rod of 0.81mm diameter, wound round a 3.0 mm shank of a crochet hook like a spring, then cut off with fine side cutters.  190 such rings were required.  Spacing them along the luff of each sail was determined by scaling down from the 27inch - 36inch range given in Underhill’s “Masting & Rigging”.
 
Then the bending on of the fore and aft sails as shown.  A bradawl hole in the sails enabled the rings to be fitted and closed.  A crude but effective method. 

Build Log. Restoration of Full Rigged Sailing Ship Model
Posting #6
Then some light relief was the restoration of the ship’s boats, deckhouse and rudder.  See photos below.
There are four ship’s boats all of which, if full scale, would be about 17 feet long.  Two are what I’d call lifeboats like a small whaler, that is, with a sharp sterns.  These are stowed upside down on the deckhouse roof.  The other two could be termed as jolly boats, and they are on the tiers beneath the davits.
Julius carved them from blocks of wood and hollowed them as can be seen in the photo.  They are covered with sail cloth which is stretched over a fore and aft ridge pole then painted.
Deckhouse. Again made from a solid block of lightweight wood.
Rudder.  The original didn’t survive the ravages of time!  I made the new one from a piece of our lovely straight-grained NZ Kauri.  This timber (lumber) was highly sought after by the explorer/navigator Captain James Cook on his late 18th Century voyages, for spars in particular.  The tiller is original.

 

Thank you all so very much.  I do this because I love it, and all the likes and comments from some outstanding modelers themselves are the icing on my cake.
 
Dan
 
 

Your lee-boards look outstanding Marcus as well as the anchors and rigging. Wow, learning al the knots for the rigging, very ambitious my friend but kudos to you for doing it.
 
Cheers,

Placed the two anchors. I initially made 2 just in case one didn't look good but that wasn't the case.  So I opted to install both. The anchor ropping is attached to the ring using a Fisherman's bend. 
I have been reading my rigging books and want to use the appropriate knots for all the rigging. In the past I didn't care so much about what it looked like.  As I want to create a more authentic model from the era, the correct knots is the way to go. Plus it is good practice. 
The anchor hawser was then passed through the port bow hawser hole, then made four turns about the windlass. The a anchor tackle was made from a single 5 mm block with a hook and suspended on a 0.30mm tan line fixed to the cathead, through the cathead sheave and will be belayed on the pin rack. 
Marcus 

Installed the leeboards. Used Chuck's 0.63mm tan rigging line. 
I made little round caps and drilled little holes into them.
 
Used a metal pin which goes through the leeboard then a cap then through the metal plate that has a filed oval opening, the second cap and under the metal slider (stainless steel) and than the pin is curved around this slider. Made it as authentic as possible. In the book of the Utrecht it is on page 94, and Jan put a picture of it on this thread. 
I like the way it turned out. The leeboards can move up and down and lateral. 
Marcus 

Hello everyone,
 
Well, let's see, we are at Day Seven, November 20, 2017.
The primer is cured overnight and seems to adhere quite well to the resin hull. Time to put the red paint on the bottom part. I masked the top half just above the glue line. No real need to to assure the masking tape is leak proof but old habits don't die. I did rub the paint edge good to give a neat line. This will also be a good test for the primer adhesion when pulling the masking take off. Ken's admonition is great information for those who are not familiar with painting. Metal parts too have their particular prepping needs.
Okay, the hull is masked and I wiped it down again with a damp cloth with an enamel reducer to make sure no greasy fingerprints are on it. Took it outside and put it on Gwen's little steel table to paint. I used Testor's spray enamel "Fire Engine" red. Why even paint that lower part red if it's going to be mostly invisible? Well, in case I change my mind and finish the model on pedestals instead of a diorama. But no, I needed it for the high speed diorama when parts of the bottom hull are visible.
 
After the paint had dried I removed the masking tape and to my relief no red or primer came off with it. Lucked out again
While the paint was drying I painted the inside of both funnels with flat black. Done in a jiffy so I decided to part the three anchors from their mold strip to paint them as well. But - - as I held one of the anchors in my tweezers I heard the dreaded "tweng" sound and it went flying some here in my studio. Spend quite some time searching for it but had to give up, too much junk in my room.
So, okay, "Java" will be missing an anchor, most likely the stern one.  But wait - - - Pieter had an idea, why not make one from metal. At this point it was getting late and had to punch out, no overtime allowed
 
At this date I was still without my iMac desktop computer but used Gwen's notebook to log on to MSW every so often to keep abreast with what's going on.  Okay, here are the few pics of my painting job.

Hull is masked.

Red paint applied, two coats.

Masking tape and paper removed. Looking good.

Ship on an even keel. Looks nice already and fast. Sleek little bugger.

Temporarely put the two forward parts of the superstructure together.

This is the aft part, that'll have the real funnel attached to it and the vent louvers. These two parts are sitting on a folded paper towel, now you can see how small they are.
 
Well, that's all for this day in the build. Next post will be the fabrication of the anchor.
 
Cheers,
 

I agree !  I have their entire set of miniature planes and use them frequently.  Great value.