Jack12477

Young America 1853 – POB 1:96
Part 6 – Upper Stern
 
After erecting all the “square frame” bulkheads, a foundation for the circular stern was fashioned from blocks of ¾” pine – one for the area above the wale and one for the lower section.  First the upper piece.  The first picture shows a piece of ¾” pine stock with a pattern for the top pasted on.
 

 
The pattern for the underside of this piece as well as the pattern for bulkhead 48 showing the positioning of the blocks is shown.  The circular (really elliptical) pattern line on the top of the block is the line of the fancy rail at the top of the framing.  It is also the line of the main rail.  The hull is vertical between these two lines at the stern.  The curve of the lower side of this block – shown on the cut out bottom pattern – is roughly at the line of the wale.
 
In the next picture both patterns have been aligned and attached and the line at the top is being cut on the scroll saw.
 

 
Note that a hole for the helm port was bored through this piece.  The key hole shape of this was cut out once the curve was cut.  In the next picture the piece is held at its proper position on the aft side of bulkhead 48 and the curve of the deck at that point is being marked.
 

 
Do to the shear of the decks, the top of the piece will be higher at the very stern.  The top of the piece is next pared off to yield the correct shear and round up to provide the surface for deck planking.  In the next picture this has been done and the line of the main rail is being marked out.
 

 
The underside of the main rail is about 18” below the fancy rail line to allow two strakes of 6” plank and the 6” main rail to fill the space above the line.  The area below this line is then cut back at an angle to the line on the underside pattern as shown in the next picture.
 

 
Most of the wood removal was done on the disk sander, then refined using the rasp shown.  In the next picture the piece has been glued to bulkhead 48 – after removal of part of the bulkhead pattern.
 

 
Note that the stern piece is slightly smaller than the bulkhead.  This is due to the curvature of the hull.  The forward face of the bulkhead is on station 48.  The aft edge will be faired back to its smaller line.  The other block in this picture – marked with a center line - will be the lower stern piece.  Next time.
 
Ed

Hi Mark - 
 
Yes, 100% better, but not quite there yet, to my eye.  Go back to the photos of the model that Druxey sent you and compare the turn of the planks there to yours.  I believe that the curve is less acute.  
 
You can see the sense in having a shallow curve for two reasons.  First, a sharp curve here will create an eddy behind itself which increases drag. Those old shipwrights may not have had the mathematics to describe the exact drag force, but they sure could observe the effect and take it into account. Those old shipyard workers would also have been much happier with less of a struggle to bend 3 or 4 inch thick planks around a tight curve.
 
Don't worry about removing too much wood since you will be planking over your frames.  You can even put in a filler piece if you need to.  Getting the curve right on this model will guide you on the next one where you could leave the frames exposed.
 
But you are clearly headed in the right direction on the learning curve and on the model.  Well done.
 
Dan

Looks great Ken! I especially like those seizings.  In the process of going over your book. I've made it up to the small parts fab section.  I noticed there's no discussion about using a heat-sink yet, and was wondering if you've used them for any of your work? 

Here is the first carronade rigged build using the same fixture as the long gun. I added a U.S. penny for scale.

Here it is rigged in place on the deck.

A side by side with the long gun.

 
Now to continue on with the rest of the carronades.
 

It looks more pleasing to my eye also but I'll defer to Cog and Augie.

It looks more pleasing to my eye also but I'll defer to Cog and Augie.

Yes, our neighborhood sounded like a re-creation of the bombardment of Fort Sumter all last night - our dog hid in her bunker  till 6AM today.  Boat's looking good, Dennis.

Just.... wow!!!!   I go along with Danny.. only one of you? !!!!!   Your model room is a museum.. better than some museums I've seen.

Doris, that collection of models is simply amazing . Are you sure there is only ONE of you? That looks like the lifetime work of a few dozen builders .
 
Your work makes mine seem amateurish in comparison. Well done!!
 
 Danny

Your model room is amazing! You could have a one person exhibition right there!

Please enjoy the pics.
Best regards
Doris

Jay,
I remembered where I'd seen hammocks... Toni's log:  http://modelshipworld.com/index.php/topic/198-hms-atalanta-by-tlevine-1775-148-scale-from-tffm-plans/page-24#entry177468   It might help.  There's discussion after that post.
 
I think yours look good but you seem to be not a happy camper.. I hope the link helps.

Should be getting the shipyard up and running in a week or so Eric.  Thanks for dropping in.

Hey Augie, after returning from my sabbatical, I spent a pleasurable hour this morning catching up on your new (at least new to me) project.  You've been a busy boy!!
As always, nicely done.  I look forward to following along for the rest of the project and gaining inspiration and knowledge from your comprehensive building log.

Ken, you're doing a job on this like you've done a dozen or so before. Are you sure this is your first ship? There's some really great detail in those tiny cannon. 

The rope order arrived and I rigged up the two long guns to get a feel for doing and learning from them before doing all the carronades. For the benefit of others the breech line is Light Brown .035"(.88mm) and the tackle line is Light Brown .012" (.30mm). The whipping is sewing thread.
 
Here are a sequence of the rigging in the fixture I made which works very well. The big challenge was whipping the breech ropes and the tackle blocks. I used the sewing thread I found to do the rolling hitches rather than the traditional wrapping and it looked more to scale than the .008" from Syren. 
 


In checking over the plans I realized that more eye bolts are needed in the waterway for the gun rigging
Here are the two long guns permanently installed. The excess tackle line will be addressed later once the carronades are completed. I am trapping the tackle line at the bottom of the block as I wrap the black 28 gauge wire with the hook incorporated at the top of the block.
Here are pictures of the long guns in place.



 
Now onto the carronades and set up a mini production line. These will take a while to complete. Thanks again for the suggestion on using the Syren rope; much better than the kit supplied line for the guns.
  

Keep something on head (as you do not have many hair as me), take bottle of water with you, move from shadow to shadow, and if you have some business/work to do, if moving, you do not think how hot it is. But, when you wait for buss .... or drive car without air-conditioner (as mine), particular if your car is black (as mine), seventh circle of hell opened just for you.

39 C? A little too hot to do very much Nenad. I agree! Stay in a cool place, like a cool garage, or an air-conditioned bar.    Catheads look great Nenad. 
 
Cheers

39℃ in shade, jumping in downtown, come back home, napp, and - yeah - tomorrow is easy day, without going to downtown. So, it was to hot to work outside, considering my garage is the coldest place in house, I found a few good reasons to continue with catheads
 
First, color correction of catheads. Line betwern white and black sectipns now follows plank line, as it has to be
 

 
Still not cemented. I decide to make all metal parts of cathead before mounting it, and started with top of cathead.
 
Not enough skill to make it from Cu or brass foil, so ... allmighty less than 0,5mm thick venner strips to simulate ironwork
 

 
After little putty and sanding
 

 
Not bad.
 
And then carving payed my attention and turn me off the planned road
 
Couple of attempts, pretty dissapointed, base is,3,5x3,5 mm, with conclussion I'm just not abble to make it so small, and decided only to visualy mark it, making little relieff bulb, and playing with gold and black acrylic paint
 
Here is result
 

 
Temporary in place
 
 

 
I think I can live with this solution

Not too much progress, hard to get motivated this time of year.  I worked on installing the upper head rails.  The first thing I did was to carve the groove into the side of the rail.  I thought it would be easier to do prior to tapering the rail.  After the groove was carved I tapered the rail from 1/8” to ~1/16” as described in the instructions.  In order to help determine the correct length of the rail I temporarily pinned the rail in place.  A small hole was drilled through the rail and into the cap rail so I could insert an eye bolt to hold it in place.  With the pin in place I could rotate the rail into position and determine how much I needed to shorten it by.  I would take the piece off the ship to sand it and then pin it back on to recheck the length.  I did this for both sides and when I was happy with how they looked I glued them in place.  When I glued the rail to the cap rail I substituted a smaller pin in place of the eye bolt so it wouldn’t show.   After the final length was established and prior to gluing the rails in place I had to re-taper them so the ends fit on the cheeks.
 
 
Upper head rail pinned in place                                           Checking length

 
 
Final position

They look good Robb.  I would stick with whatever design the plans call for here. The chain plates will take care of the support when the shrouds go up. As far as interspersing text with pics. Just put a space down from the main paragraph, insert your pic, then type your text. Or if the text is short, type the text first, then insert the pic, if you want the text next to the pic. 

Work has reared its ugly head again and left me very little free time for modeling.  I finally was able to devote a few hours to Atalanta over the weekend.  Moving aft, the next items to fabricate are the main topsail sheet bitts (mtsb), the gallows cross-piece and the main jeer bitts (mjb).  None of these items will be permanently installed until later to prevent inadvertent damage and to facilitate installation of the pumps and axletree.  
 
The mtsb consists of two bitt pins, the bitt cross-piece and the gallows cross piece.  The pins are secured to the upper and lower deck beams with bolts and there is a score for the upper deck beam on the fore face of the pin.  There are also scores in the fore face for the insertion of the cross-piece. This is also bolted to the bitt pins.  Finally, there is a sheave in the pin just below the cross piece, along with a cheek block.  The top of the pin has a decorative panel as seen on the plans.  These were made by adding vertical and horizontal strips of wood to each side of the bitt and then tapering them to give the appearance of a beveled panel.  A pin was placed in the top of the bitt to secure the gallows cross-piece.  You will notice that the lower ends of the bitt pins for both the mtsb and the mjb are different port and starboard.  This is because the port side is fully planked and the starboard side is left open.  I did not want to damage the lower deck planking during their installation.
 

 

 
In TFFM, David gives three examples of typical gallows cross-pieces.  I selected the one with the ogee edge as anything fancier is beyond my carving capabilities.  At this point the piece looked too plain and I recalled how nice Remco's looked so I decided to try and give it a decorative edge effect. Using French curves, I first drew in the shape of the carving with pencil.  I knew some of the lead would end up in the depth of the cut and make it stand out better.  Next, I used the tip of a dull #11 scalpel blade (also with the French curves) to start outlining the carving.  Once there was sufficient depth, I switched to the tip of a triangular file to widen and deepen the cut.  All of the edges are chamfered.  Finish was applied to the gallows cross-piece but not to the bitt pins and it was pinned in place.  The bitts will be given a finish after they are permanently installed.
 

 

 

 

 
The mjb is similar in construction to the mtsb with a few exceptions.  First, the cross-piece attaches on the aft face of the bitt pin, not the fore as in the mtsb.  Secondly, the top mortises into the lower side of a quarter deck beam.  I made a card template of a quarter deck beam to set the exact height of the pin.  Finally, on Atalanta, the pin narrows above the cross-piece.  
 

 

 

 

 

Jay you're good at making jigs, and I'm thinking maybe a small, curved jig with a half-moon shape, or a something like a bent dowel, that you could wet the hammock, stretch it over your jig, and spray it with starch when it dries, to hold the shape? Things like this must be what they're calling "fiddly bits".   

Making hammocks is not easy!
I took some thin fabric (the stuff I used for making sails) and stitched the edges of a one inch wide strip. It is called 'overcasting' by a seamstress.
Then I sewed a thread back and forth through one end and the eye of the hook (not shown, sorry). It took several tries until I got the hang of it. The tricky part is to get the spacing right as well.
The picture below, to the right, is looking up where one was hooked to the eye bolts.
The folded hammock to the left was a 'mistake', but they also serve a purpose, right???
 
However!!!!! Is all of this worth the effort?
When I hung one of the hammocks on the hooks below the gun deck and added the berth deck to see what it would do.  . . .

Those hammocks are lost. Notice I even added a hammock folded double and re-hooked.
 
I am going to make some more and attached them aft (fore-ward in the picture) hoping they would show up better. AS you can see above, material is no problem.