Jack12477

Bamboo BBQ strips

Very strong, rounded, and, the most important, same diameter as rotary tools for Dremell, so ...

Yes, I went that evening to an Urgent care facility, they cleaned the wound and decided it didn't need stiches, so they used those butterfly type band aids to close it up and suggested I have my primary physician look at it in a few days. But he's out of town until Monday. I iced it down yesterday and last night so the swelling has come down drastically.
 
 
mike

Hmmm, not bad for a start   Patrick took the words right out of my mouth
 
Perfect job mate!!! Couldn't do it meself for certain ...
 
Cheers

Rigging continues with the addition of the pendants and their tackle, and the shrouds.
 
The pendants were done as a single rope put over the masthead with a simulated eye splice. The line was served for it's full length. The tackles were rigged as shown on Chuck's plan. The tackles were tied off temporarily until after the shrouds were in place.
 
The shrouds were made up in pairs and placed over the pendants. They were all served on their upper portions. I did not serve the full length of the foremost shroud because that was a done to prevent chafing by a lower square sail, and it does not appear that these cutters carried such a sail. After the shrouds were in place and the laniards tied off, I added the sheer poles.
 
The last task was to finally adjust and tie off the pendant tackles and add rope coils.
 
Next up will be the lower backstays and the forestay.
 
Bob

Thank you, everyone for the comments and likes.  I am running out of ways to express thanks.
 
Tom, I use a tripod and the 10 second timer on the camera.  This allows me to pose the picture, focus the camera and click the shutter, then return to work, stopping movement when the beeps accelerate before the shutter releases.  The tripod can be an annoyance since it is constantly present - and I have knocked it over once - at the cost of a new lens.  To support the books and the blog, I take between 150 and 300 photos per month.  I have taken 120 so far this month.   I also use them to critique the work and look for problems that the eye doesn't always see.  It is my constant companion - that and its battery charger.
 
Ed

Hi Ed,
 
     I have a question for you.  When you post photos of your work you often show some process where you are working with a tool in hand(s).  How do you take the pictures.  Does someone help you?  A timer with a tripod mount?
 
Tom

Young America - extreme clipper 1853
Part 148 – Ship’s Boats 4
 
The last picture in Part 147 showed the top plank being glued on to longboat 1 with the channel wale inserted to provide a space for its later installation.  In the first picture the wale has been removed.
 

 
The frames may now be cut down to the top of the side and the boat removed from the plug.  The next picture shows the keelson being glued to the tops of the frame floors.
 

 
The longboats were pretty heavily constructed.  They were working boats that carried supplies or cargo and sometimes even an anchor. Ceiling stringers at the turn of the bilge can be seen in this picture as well as clamps to support the seats.  In the next picture a clamp at the wale height is being glued in after installation of the seats. 
 

 
I tried not to fuss too much with this interior work because the boats will be fixed to the skid beams inverted roughly in the position shown in the next picture.
 

 
The 25’ cutters were secured just outside of the longboats. I expect to tie down spare spars and lower studding sail booms between the longboats.  In this picture the outer planking of longboat 1 has been given a coat of white shellac as a sealer and that has been sanded smooth.  There will be a second shellac seal coat and sanding before the final white gloss acrylic finish.  The channel wales will be the same blue as the cabin roof.
 
All the pin rails visible in this picture have been fitted with their pins.  The blue masking tape was applied to stop the dropping of belaying pins into the hold.  In the next picture both the boat and the two wales have been painted and are ready for final assembly.
 

 
The last picture shows the boat placed on the skid beams.
 

 
Rudder hinges are still required.  Boats were also required to have the ship’s name lettered on the transom and bow.  This may be more than I can manage, but we’ll see.
 
Before mounting the boats I need to check for rigging clearance between the outer boats and the pin rail.  I believe all the lines that belay in the way of the boats go through shroud fairleads so there should be no problem, but it is worth a check.  It may be best to avoid securing these boats until rigging has been belayed below the boats.
 
Ed

Gotta agree with the other guys Mike! The swelling's a dead give-away for an infection. I've got my own stories I won't get into now, but suffice to say, if you see a red line crawling up your arm from your hand, don't wait until it reaches your shoulder before going in. Blood poisoning's nothing to mess with. 

Mike, I agree with Ken (Canute) get to an Urgent Care facility and have that looked at. If you nicked a blood vessel, you could have introduced an infection especially since it has swollen to twice normal size.  Happened to me when I was a teenager, fell in woods and cut my ankle deep, swelled up overnight and put me in hospital for a week on antibiotics.  Not something to fool with.

Mike, I agree with Ken (Canute) get to an Urgent Care facility and have that looked at. If you nicked a blood vessel, you could have introduced an infection especially since it has swollen to twice normal size.  Happened to me when I was a teenager, fell in woods and cut my ankle deep, swelled up overnight and put me in hospital for a week on antibiotics.  Not something to fool with.

The stern looks splendid Mark. Getting the rest of that taffrail closed up sets her off and gives it that "almost" done feel! 

So I've now tested the BlueJacket blackeners, using a variety of metal parts from the Model Shipways naval cannon kit, and am quite pleased with the results. I scrubbed all the pieces in warm soapy water, then soaked them in white vinegar before rinsing and drying. Then I tested the blackening solutions.
 
The bottle instructions suggest diluting the solution 1:10; I wasn't sure which direction this meant (one parts solution to ten parts water, or vice versa), so I wrote BlueJacket. As you might expect, I got a swift and helpful response:
It is ten parts water to 1 part solution. That ratio is really flexible.Some people use it full strength, and others really dilute it a lot. The10:1 blackens the metal in about 5 minutes or so. Make sure to clean theparts first. Here's what the blackened parts looked like after my first attempt (all were soaked for several minutes up to 15):
 

 
The pewter parts didn't fully blacken, but turned a deeper shade of grey-black. The true metal parts blackened beautifully, especially the chains. I really like how the cannon barrel turned out; the blackening kept the rough texture of the metal intact, whereas paint seals it into a glossy smooth finish. It wasn't dark enough for me, so I gave it a thin wash of black paint, which preserved the texture but achieved the right color:
 

 
Compare to the very similar carronade kit, on which I used paint alone, needing several coats to fully color the metal:
 

 
This latter gun has a much shinier appearance that I don't like as much as the blackened and washed long gun. Not sure how well it shows in these photos, but it's very obvious in person. I preferred the effect so much, that I removed my painted chain from the carronade kit and replaced it with extra blackened chain.
 
I did find that the blackening had a tendency to rub off on parts that were handled a lot, so I tried to use tweezers as much as possible. Also, I didn't notice any odor or other such problems, nice since I work in my living room.
 
So for whatever it's worth, I was very happy with these two products as a novice getting started with blackening metal.

Dan,
 
Great work. I struggle to keep up with your updates. Your hands must be a blur when you are modelling!
​

Wow!  Beautiful work as always Danny! 

A lovely bit of cabinet work, Danny!
 
John

You may have noticed in the previous post that I've also done the Upper Well. This is a fairly tricky assembly to get right.
 
First I temporarily fitted the two upper deck beams above the well, then I cut and rebated the five well stanchions. When these were all adjusted for a good fit I cut the rebates for the louvres at a 30 degree angle on the table saw :
 

 
After cutting the louvres (which are 0.8mm thick by 3.18mm wide) I glued one at the top and one at the bottom between two stanchions in situ :
 

 
Then I glued in the rest of the louvres off the ship - they all fitted very well. Some pics of all the louvres fitted and the well in position (not glued in yet) :
 

 

 
There is an access door in the forward Starboard corner. I glued several thin strips to a flat piece of stock for the framing, and added a handle and hinges from the PE set :
 

 
The door fitted :
 

 

 
  Danny

I've finished the lower deck planking, and also the two strakes of Spirketting below the Upper Deck Clamp. Some cleaning up and a coat of finish still need to be done, but I'm leaving that until after the knees are fitted :
 

 

 
  Danny

Greg, you've pretty well nailed it - the wedges around the mast on the lower deck as well as those at the heel of the mast are used for the adjustment of the rake of the mast fore-aft, the partners in the Upper Deck are fixed and the lower part of the mast can pivot around them. Apart from some very slight adjustment athwartships to get the mast vertical in that plane no further adjustment would be necessary. The mast could be raked fore-aft to make the most of the sailing qualities of each individual ship in certain circumstances.
 
Note that I've done a bit of "fudging" on the wedges. These shouldn't have a step in the middle - I've done that for ease of fitting, as the step covers the hole in the mast partner for aesthetic reasons.
 
  Danny

Thanks all for the kind words, and thanks again Greg for the extra PE pieces - they made work a fair bit easier .
 
Sorry about the length of time between updates, but I had computer issues (AGAIN - gotta get a new one ) .
 
It's time to make the Main Mast, or a stump thereof anyway. I tapered and rounded it in similar fashion to the masts and yards on the full model - first marking the tapers, then sanding them to shape on the disc sander, remarking the edges of the octagons using the 7-10-7 method, cutting the octagons with a sharp chisel while supporting the mast in my jig, then finally rounding them with various grits of sandpaper on a cork block :
 

 

 

 
Next I cut the step in for the heel :
 

 
I turned the mast Wedges in a single piece. There is one for each deck :
 

 
Some views of the mast and wedges temporarily fitted to ensure correct alignment :
 

 

 

 
  Danny

Thanks Jon and Martin.  I definitely agree that the SMSNJ is a great club.  And not only because of Chuck.  There are a lot of top class modelers there.
I think laminating is a great idea.  Look at the MS model Confederacy's stern.  You will see that the large decorations are individually made.  The documentation for that model is available free from the Model Expo site.
Cheers.
 
Oh yeah, the snake was made using a drill, needle files and an x-acto knife.

Nicely done, Mark. Like that silver maple.

Very nicely done Mark.
 
Bob

Looking good, Mark!
 
John

A minor update, model wise.  A biggie for me.      The stern is more or less complete.  It still needs the carvings and the taffrail needs the finials but those are in-work and may be that way for some time as I move on to other things.   I carve while waiting for glue to dry, etc.
 
I was playing with the camera and some settings... here's the inboard side of the stern unplanked and then planked in silver maple.  I'm using the maple where things would have been white-washed.  The planked version also shows part of the taffrail installed.
 

 
From the outboard side with part taffrail installed.
 

 
This is the two other pieces of the taffrail on the scroll saw using the ScrollSander to clean off the laser char and finesse the fit.  The final finessing was using a file and sanding sticks.
 

 
And with the full taffrail installed.  It needs a bit of cleanup and some wipe-on poly, but I'll that when get the carvings ready.  The quarter galleries need to be built also before finishing.  It's a  bit off (about 1mm on the port side) but I'll live with it.  
 

 
All in all, I'm pretty chuffed about this as it was a big learning curve.  I wanted the joinery perfect.. not quite there yet but to my eye, it looks good.  Next up is the rudder while I sort out the quarter galleries.  These have a bit of unusual shape in that they curve out past the stern and then back to the hull, like a half circle only not...  Hard to explain but I'm researching and sorting it out.
 
 

In the process of creating a 1:40 scale model of the oyster 885 for my university project. I've been working from some rather basic plans but I feel I've achieved to get the shape close enough. I was busy the past few weeks modelling it up on CAD and have it running on the CNC machine at the moment. Blue foam tester below.