JSGerson

It's easy when you're a life long bachelor, forced into retirement (I got laid off just as I turned 66. I had planned to work till I was 67), no commitments, no dependents ( if you don't count the cat), and all the time in the world to do what ever. Actually I only put in a few hours a day, sometimes none, and others I just contemplating the sequence of actions needed to perform a particular task with no actual physical work done. Some might call that day dreaming! I've accomplished more in the last 12 months due to the "retirement" than I did in the four years prior. Yeah, I've been at it about 5 years. Looking at what needs to be accomplished for the masts, yards, and rigging I'm guessing another 2 years and that no including finishing the hull. At the rate I'm going, I figure I've got one more boat in me to complete and that's the Conny. After that I'll probably be half blind, feeble, no patience, and yelling at kids "get off the lawn."

The upper stem cheek was fabricated the same way as the wale cheek using a card stock template rubber cemented to the 1/8” x ½” boxwood I purchased from HobbyMill. Using my “router” setup, two grooves were cut about 1/3 the length of the lower portion of the cheek so as to continue the grooves on the stem cheek. Most of the remaining area was carved with a chevron design as shown by the Practicum. The Hahn plans don’t show a good image of what it really is supposed to look like. The tip of the stem cheek is formed into a scroll to match the stem shape.

I am getting to the point soon were I will be building my Mamoli Rattlesnake longboat for my model. Although I am following Bob Hunt's Practicum as my "bible" as this is my first plank on bulkhead boat in 30 years. I never did finish that one. I plan to deviate from the Practicum and not use the boat shell provided in the kit. I purchased the Model Shipways 108mm boat kit MS0107. It just seemed like fun thing to do. I am not all that familiar with the "methods advocated by the late Ewart Freeston in his book Model Open Boats " or "W E May's book The Boats of Men-of-War ." What kit manufacture did you use? Did you use the boat supplied by the kit, or did you scratch build? The Mamoli's boat is a rough carved shell. I don't know what Model Shipways supplied, but suspect layers to be glued together like the kit I purchased. What has me a bit confused is that you stated "The plans of the Rattlesnake show a correctly proportioned longboat, but the lifts do not give the same result and there’s absolutely nothing that can be done to rectify the errors. The hull is too narrow, particularly towards the stern, and she lacks sufficient body for a longboat." If the kit plans were correct, where you stating that the boat parts were not? Anything that you can guide me along would be greatly appreciated

Glad to have shared the idea. The only other tiny shapes I have are the cone and tapered cylinder. Now if I can only find actual itty bitty router bits to do corners and fancy edges, we could really do some fancy stuff!

The idea was to make a router-like set-up without using a router bit. As shown in the diagrams below, if I set up the piece to be cut directly on the drill table, the bit doesn’t bite into the wood. The shaft blocks the bit from touching the wood. However, if the work surface is tilted then the bit can cut the wood. Additionally, by moving the work surface left or right using the x-y table, the bit can be adjusted up and down relative to the work surface due to the wedge. The wood is then ”routed” by hand. With a little experimenting and practice it seemed to work. NOTE: I have a new pocket camera (Cannon SX160 IS) with a terrific built-in macro capability. Now I can show you my screw ups in excruciating detail!

I made a new rig to create the moldings. Using one of my globe “dental drill bits” that I bought from Livesay’s when I was carving the transom ornaments a while back, in my rotary tool, the tool was inserted it into the rotary tool “drill press.“

New week. - The upper wale cheeks were first made out of card stock then transferred to the 3/32” x ¼” boxwood.

Thanks for the carving tip. I'm going to attempt another technique I made up first and will let you know its results. Glad I could provide those photos of Pasi's build. I have all of them that he posted should you need them. As a side note, I bought a new computer Saturday because of the problems I reported earlier. I didn't want to sink money into an older computer. But as it turned out on Sunday, I finally got the computer working properly and returned the new one Monday. As much as I would have like to have a new computer, that's $1,000 I didn't have to spend. Maybe next year.

Head Rails According to the Practicum, I've come to “one of the most difficult areas of the ship model.” Don’t you just love that kind of encouragement? The first things to make are the cheek rails, a set of upper and lower rails starting from the wale area and working their way onto the stem. They are made in two parts: the wale component and the stem component. The first template was made for the top wale components from the Hahn plans, rubber cemented to 3/32” x ¼” boxwood, and cut out with the scroll saw. These pieces have a molding on their edge. Mr. Hunt stated that he used a #10 Exacto blade to form them. I don’t know how he did carve them that way. I used the razor blade method as I did on the other moldings. Let me tell you, cutting the razor blade was easy; cutting the razor blade with precision was not. I used an X-Y table on my Dremel “drill press” with the cutting discs attached to the Dremel held horizontal and the razor blade mounted vertical. I then could move the razor blade precisely. My first molding attempt worked but I was not satisfied. I made three grooves in the wood instead of two as shown and felt they didn't stand out very well. My second attempt was a disaster. Because the wale cheek has a wavy surface, drawing it across the razor blade was difficult especially because the piece was so small. Normally when making a molding, you work with a long straight strip and you a pulling with the grain of the wood. With the cheeks the pieces are very short and the grain changes due to the curvy shape of the wood. The stem component was supposed to be made from 1/8” x ½” boxwood but since the wood package did not come with this size, Mr. Hunt stated in the Practicum to glue two piece of 1/8” x ¼” to make it. I found this to be unsatisfactory. The stem cheek rails are slender and they will have to be carved not only with a molding but a design as well. I was afraid that in the process of hand carving the pieces, I could break the fragile glue joints. Therefore I ordered a 1/8” x ½” boxwood package from HobbyMill which consisted of two 24” pieces. I should have plenty of wood in about a week’s time should I screw up. Basically I accomplished nothing this week. To make matters worse I wanted to try using cutter bits (like what the dentist uses) but I've misplaced mine and wasted a bunch of time looking for them. No luck so far. Then the video card on my computer died. I was able to cannibalize an old card from a dead computer but now the image stretches to fill the 9x16 aspect ratio screen. Sometimes it just doesn't pay to get out of bed.

Found a few more. Sorry there not in order. I hope these help. And thank you Pasi Ahopelto

A few more images

Thanks for the, ahem, encouragement. I have some images from Model Ship World 1.0 when Pasi Ahopelto had a running build log. He was following the Hahn's plans directly so his model was 1/4" = 1'. It was a wonderful log and a beautiful build but unfortunately when MSW 1.0 died, so did his build log. I however, in my infinite wisdom, had copied all of his images before this happened. Here for your use are his images on how he built the head rails.

How "neat a solution" it was will depend how long those lids will remain attached before I, like you, knock them off. They were a minor pain to attach. I am starting the head boards and that will require a lot of manipulation of the model as I manufacture, fit and install all of those little parts. Wish me luck!

Then there is the matter of gun port lid tackle used to open and close the lid. The Practicum and Hahn’s drawings are silent in this regard. The Mamoli plan’s show a continuous rope from the inner hull through a hole just above the gunport and below the channels through a hole low in the lid which then hangs down inside the hull. I must assume there were knots or some other method by which the rope was secured to the lid on the actual ship. These would be too small to see at this scale. The Model Shipway plans (which I just got my hands on) show a ring on the outside of the gunport lid from which the rope is attached and then goes over the channels into the hull. Going over the channel doesn’t make sense as the rope would then be passing through the hull and appearing on the deck above. Nothing is shown as to how the lid was closed. Any ring that I could buy or fabricate would appear to my eyes too large for the scale of the model. Based on the above, I have elected to follow the Mamoli plans. The method of securing the rope to the lid is moot as far as I am concerned due to the scale. In actuality, beige thread was glued to a hole on the outside hull above the gunport and below the channel, passed through a hole in the lid at the lower end and glued to the inside hull as if it were secured by a cleat which the observer can’t see. To accomplish this, the thread was first glued to the outside hull above the gunport. Once set, it was threaded through the hole in the lid. The model was laid on its side and the lid was CA glued in place so it stood vertical. It was almost like balancing a pencil on its end. It was left this way for at least 30 minutes. I was taking no chances. This was done nine more times. This took a lot longer than I had expected. The result is shown below.

The practicum only stated that the lids were attached in an open position with no detail. It appears from the pictures provided that Mr. Hunt simply cut off the tongue from the bracket and just glued the lid edge directly to the hull. If one wants the look of hinges, then the use of the tongues is a must. The tongues on the brackets are rectangular in shape and cross section. Because the pseudo hinge had to appear at the gun port opening edge, a simple drilled hole would not work. The drill would not stay in place; grooves would have to be formed for the bracket tongues. I used a variable speed cordless rotary tool with a cone cutting bit. The picture below shows the three stage: Before, drilled holes, completed installation. The center gunport shows the grooves in the top of opening that is for the bracket tongues.

The brackets were then glued to the lids with the pseudo hinge off the lid otherwise the lid would not be able to swing if the hinge were actually real.

Each door required two brackets. At the top end of the bracket was a pseudo hinge and gluing tongue. The practicum was correct in stating that the kit’s brackets were a bit thick. Rubbing the back of the bracket on a fine sanding block, material was removed leaving a smooth shiny surface from what was a slightly rough and concave finish. Additionally excess metal was also trimmed away.

To create the actual lid, an outer component and inner component were glued together at right angles to each other with one edge flush with each other in such a way that outer component slats were horizontal.

20 pieces were cut to a length of 3/8” and another 20 were cut 1/32” shorter. Although you can’t tell in the picture above, the inner pile of pieces is the large size. This was a modification of the method described in the Practicum which used 40 pieces cut to the same length but required subsequent hand trimming. I thought my method was simpler and it gave the same final results. Two pieces of the same size were glued along their long edges using a simple jig to ensure everything was square making a component. The larger ones made the outer component and the smaller the inner.

The Gunport Lids Although the Rattlesnake is a 20 gun ship only 10 of the gunports, which are under the Quarter Deck and the Forecastle, have lids. In lieu of using the kit supplied one piece lid these are fabricated from 4 strips of 1/32” x 3/16” boxwood. Two of the strips glued at their edges are perpendicular to the other two strips glued the same way. The one difference is that the inner side of the lid is has a 1/32” lip on the sides and bottom.

There are so many great build logs on MSW it's hard to keep track of them all. Thanks for pointing me to Blue Ensign's blog. It's getting so I haven't had any time to build, I spend so much time reading everybody's else's stuff. I'm about halfway through making the gunport doors and will post them as so as I'm done.

Flattery will get you everywhere! Careful, I may sound like I know what I am doing but I'm learning on the fly. There are a lot of things I wish I could do over and hopefully better. For example, I'm still not comfortable with planking. Looking at other builds and can see that I have a lot to learn. The part that really scares me are the masts and yards not to mention the rigging. But like they say, take it one step at a time...that and a deep breath!

Now it was just a matter of positioning the channels and chain plates according to Hahn’s plans and gluing and fastening everything down. The results you see below.

I received a tip from Martin W for a simple way to shorten the chainplates, but in the end I decided it really didn’t make much difference; the amount was so small. If one were follow exactly the Practicum and glue the molding to the channels before slipping the chainplate into the resulting square hole, you would quickly realize that the chainplate won’t fit. The loop at the bottom where the nail is to go is twice as large as the opening. Of course if I followed Mr. Martin W’s tip of snipping off the loop and drilling a new hole there would be no problem. So instead I cut the moldings to length and glued them on with the chainplates in place.

I have the Byrnes Thickness Sander and as usual it is up to his high standards. The only items I don't have are his new rope walk and and the disk sander. They're on the expensive side but you get what you pay for.