JSGerson

Saving the main hatchways and gratings for last, I worked next on the double grating next to the ship’s wheel. The larger of the two gratings is a hatchway, and the smaller one covers a skylight. I never found an image where that grating was removed to revealed the skylight below. As a matter of fact, I never found a decent image of the double grating as a whole. However, this is where I realized I made a mistake in choosing the kit grating I used for the foremast hatchway. I used the one assigned for the skylight, a 7x5 grid instead of the proper 7x6 grid.

I next chose to make the bowsprit hatchway. This was almost identical to the first one except its sides extended along the bowsprit. Because the sides butted up against the bow waterway, it had to be tapered to fit. In addition, where the hatchway frame extended around the bowsprit, the top covering was cutout to allow the bowsprit to pass through into the deck. I made a blank out of 1/32” plywood to be fitted and painted later.

I also noticed that the painting scheme of the actual ship has again changed. You will notice the frames of all the hatchways presently have black trim, whereas prior to the 2015-2017 restoration, the frames had natural wood finishes. Since my model is based on the present ship configuration (with some exceptions), I painted these last two frames with black trim now because the interior elements had to be painted during fabrication and to see how they would look. The others will be painted later.

The last hatchways prior to the main one are on either side of  the capstan. One hatchway is planned to be open, and the other closed. I found a small discrepancy with the kit gratings. If you look at the actual ship, there are separate gratings for each ladder, four in total. The kit provided two double wide gratings. Maybe they were this way in 1927 which is the main basis for the kit’s design, I don’t know. Whatever the case I’m leaving the closed hatchway as a double wide. The open one looks closely like, but not exactly like individual gratings. The main difference is the center beam between the ladders is flush with the top of the hatchway, whereas mine is sunk down to facilitate the formation of the lip which holds the grating should it me placed back on the frame. The image of the open hatchway is dry fitted pending painting.

Now for the tricky part, the inside transition curve between the two grating frames. This curve was initially fabricated by trimming off the corners to start the transition. Then, using a router bit on my Dremel tool, the router bit allowed me to carve the inside curve of the 7/32” x 3/32” boxwood using the side of the bit as the cutting tool. This was done by hand, no drill stand or jig was used. To create the curved beveled edging was even tricker due to its size. I was trying to emulate a curved piece of beveled 3/32” x 1/32” boxwood because bending a strip of boxwood 90° in that short of distance was neigh impossible (for me at least). The curve was created by cutting a separate piece of boxwood to the basic shape and finished by carving by hand, again with the router bit fitted Dremel and assorted files. I suppose if I had a milling machine, it would have been more precise, but I think the results I got work just as well.

As it turns out, due to the construction of the ship’s wheel double grating, I was able to salvage most of what I had already made. First, I refabricated the foremast hatchway with the proper 7x6 grid grating. (Yeah, I know, no one will know the difference, but I and the man upstairs will). Using the old hatchway, now to become the smaller grating of the double hatchway, I removed all the 3/32” beveled edging from it as well as one wide side of grating 7/32” x 3/32” frame. This piece of the framework was replaced with another 7/32” x 3/32” (the length of the larger hatchway) that was glued to the larger grating frame. This is the piece that will act as the transition between the two gratings.

The last hatchways prior to the main one are on either side of  the capstan. One hatchway is planned to be open, and the other closed. I found a small discrepancy with the kit gratings. If you look at the actual ship, there are separate gratings for each ladder, four in total. The kit provided two double wide gratings. Maybe they were this way in 1927 which is the main basis for the kit’s design, I don’t know. Whatever the case I’m leaving the closed hatchway as a double wide. The open one looks closely like, but not exactly like individual gratings. The main difference is the center beam between the ladders is flush with the top of the hatchway, whereas mine is sunk down to facilitate the formation of the lip which holds the grating should it me placed back on the frame. The image of the open hatchway is dry fitted pending painting.

I also noticed that the painting scheme of the actual ship has again changed. You will notice the frames of all the hatchways presently have black trim, whereas prior to the 2015-2017 restoration, the frames had natural wood finishes. Since my model is based on the present ship configuration (with some exceptions), I painted these last two frames with black trim now because the interior elements had to be painted during fabrication and to see how they would look. The others will be painted later.

I've done so much scratch building on my model, that I almost feel guilty when I use a part provided by the kit. Case in point, the kit's cast metal stove stack I used. I really wanted to make my own, but didn't have any idea how to fabricate it with my skills and tools.
 
Jon

I met Ken Foran and to watch him use a metal lathe is a thing of beauty. He's written books, made museum models on commission, etc. To duplicate his process, is out of my league, but it's fun to watch.
 
Jon

I've done so much scratch building on my model, that I almost feel guilty when I use a part provided by the kit. Case in point, the kit's cast metal stove stack I used. I really wanted to make my own, but didn't have any idea how to fabricate it with my skills and tools.
 
Jon

I've done so much scratch building on my model, that I almost feel guilty when I use a part provided by the kit. Case in point, the kit's cast metal stove stack I used. I really wanted to make my own, but didn't have any idea how to fabricate it with my skills and tools.
 
Jon

That's what this site is all about...helping others.
 
Jon

That's what this site is all about...helping others.
 
Jon

I thought you did. I asked the question for others who are following your build who may not have thought about the consequences of adding a support deck. I wouldn't have known if I hadn't worked on my kitbashed Rattler.
 
Jon

In Xken's Niagara log he said:
So yes. he mixed his own.
 
Jon

This was a tricky bit. Ideally, I would have drilled a hole on either side of the arrestor plate, inserted some fine diameter rods into the holes and soldered them in place. The immediate problem is that I don’t have a fine drill bit that can drill into metal, even a soft metal like brass. I opted to cut a slit in lieu of holes and hoped the solder would fill in the gaps.
 
I cut 0.005” thick brass place to the oval shape and cut two pieces of 0.018” dia. music wire to length. Using silver solder paste with a butane torch, these were soldered as shown below. It worked like a charm until I tried to remove it from the wood block, and it fell apart. It took numerous attempts and a slightly different, more robust setup, till it held together. The excess solder was then filed off.

The third hatchway is part of the stove stack. The grating was framed as the others, but the chimney platform section is 1/32” lower with seven 3/32” x 1/32” boxwood planks. The planks are supported just like the grating with an inside ledge. In actuality, the stack passes through the platform to the stove below. My first thought was to recreate the stack using brass tubing, but the stack is oval in cross section, and it tapers towards the top. Even if I had a metal lathe, which I don’t, I have no idea how I would/could fabricate a hollow stack of that shape. The kit’s casting is pretty accurate, so I went with it. Until I removed the kit’s cast stack from the kit box, I thought it would sit flat upon the platform. But the cast piece has a substantial plug/protrusion that requires an oval hole in the slats.
 
If I were to cut/drill a hole through the slats, the platform would collapse. Therefore, I glued a piece of 1/32” plywood under the slats for support. Because this a solid cast part, I drilled out the stack’s mouth just enough to give the illusion the stack pipe was hollow. Of course, just to make things more interesting, the plug is not circular but oval in cross section, and the stack’s base flange is supposed to be recessed into the platform. I decided that the recessed flange was a bit much. A lot of work for not much visual gain and a high probability I could really mess up and have a “re-do” on my hands. The drilling of the plug hole went smoothly. Using successive larger bits, a pilot hole was expanded to the proper width and then filed to get the proper oval shape. A couple of planks tried to come loose but the slight damage was covered up by the stack’s base flange.
 
The next item fabricated for the stack was the spark arrester in front of the stack mouth. It sits very close to the mouth and blocks a direct view inside the mouth enabling my hollow stack illusion.

I next chose to make the bowsprit hatchway. This was almost identical to the first one except its sides extended along the bowsprit. Because the sides butted up against the bow waterway, it had to be tapered to fit. In addition, where the hatchway frame extended around the bowsprit, the top covering was cutout to allow the bowsprit to pass through into the deck. I made a blank out of 1/32” plywood to be fitted and painted later.

Starting with the small grating frame just forward of the foremast, whose grating supplied by the MS kit measures 15/32” x 13/32”, I cut the 7/32” x 3/32” boxwood stock as follows:
       2 pieces: 21/32” lengthwise        2 pieces: 13/32” beam wise These pieces were placed around the grating, framing it with butt joints and glued (not the grating). Then the 5/32” x 1/32” boxwood stock was cut as follows:
       2 pieces: 15/32” lengthwise        2 pieces: 11/32” beam wise These were placed inside the and at the bottom of the glued frame. This left the 1/16” ledge at the top for the grating to rest on. Finally, the 3/32” x 1/32” boxwood stock was cut as follows to create a mitered joint, just for looks.
       2 pieces: 24/32” lengthwise        2 pieces: 20/32” beam wise The top edge was beveled to a 45° angle and the ends mitered before final assembly.

This brings to light that some or all my support knees may not be positioned properly. I may have to fudge a bunch more. Because the main grating on the spar deck (under the pinnace) will be partially opened to allow viewing of the gun deck, the supporting beams below it must be aligned with the grating’s cross beams precisely. For that reason, I will pause installing the additional gun deck bitts and previously fabricated furniture (i.e., capstan, pumps, casks, etc.) until I have fabricated the spar deck hatchways and gratings. They will be dry fitted to ensure the key beams below are properly positioned.
 
Where to begin? I had several false starts trying to figure out how to fabricate the various grating using Robert Hunt’s practicum. Per section 4.2.2 Hatch Coaming Framework of the practicum, I installed the framing supports for the bowsprit hatch and foremast hatch just aft of it. These supports will allow the hatchways to be dry fitted.

Gun Deck Gun Carriage Fabrication
First, I did some research with the 1907 US Navy plan No 14939 (sheet No.:3103) 24 Pdr Gun and Gun Carriage to determine the proper carriage dimensions. This revealed that I needed as a minimum a piece of wood 15/16” wide x 5/16” tall to create the carriage sides. The plan was to cut the carriage profile into the wood block such that I could cut 1/16” slices from it like a loaf of bread creating the sides of the carriage. 44 sides at 1/16” thick required a length of wood almost 3” long.
 
I chose boxwood for this task because it will hold a clean-cut edge and is not as fragile as basswood. However, because I did not have a piece of boxwood of those dimensions, I had to laminate two pieces of 1¼” wide x ¼” thick wood together to get the required height. I could have cut the wood stock 3” in length to make one laminate block, but that would have meant that the resulting carriage sides were cut cross grain. I wanted the side made with the wood grain requiring rip cuts.
 
From the 1¼” x ¼” wood stock, I cut six 1½” length pieces to make three laminated stacks a ½” thick. Then this was cut down to 3/8” thick. The scale size image of the gun carriage was rubber cemented to the 1½” face (with the grain) resulting in excess wood on either side of the image. That was left for support when cutting the profile with the Byrnes saw. The process worked as indicated in the schematic and photo below. Shown are two sides that were sliced off with the excess support material removed in comparison to the original gun carriage kit.

The ¼” rim circle was cut from 1/64” plywood while the 5/32” plug circle was cut from 1/32” plywood. The plug circle edges were filed to slope inward to form a short, truncated cone. The hinge was cut from 0.005” brass sheet into 1/16” wide strips. First, the rim and plugs components were wood glued together on center. Then the brass strip was CA glued to the backside almost across the full diameter of the rim piece to provide the maximum gluing surface. After the CA glue dried solid, the plugs were painted black. Slits were formed in the rail just above the hawsers with an X-acto knife for the flat brass hinge to slip into. To install the plugs, the brass strip was bent 90° so that the plug would be in the open position when inserted into the hull. The open position is needed to allow anchor ropes and chains to pass through the hawser later in the build.

The gun port lids were assembled and installed with the dummy guns.

Gun Port Gutters
I am not sure what the structure above the gun ports are officially called. The kit refers to them as “carved boards,” the practicum refers to them as “curtains”, and I’ve read on other build logs as being called “eyebrows.” Then there is the question, what are they made of. The kit drawing states they were a “decorative carved surface” while the practicum states were a “wrinkled canvas.” My first impression was that they were painted copper sheeting. In any case, the purpose of them was to shed water away from the guns port openings. In other words, a gutter. Luckly the kit provided these structures as nicely cast metal parts. All I had to do was paint and apply them to the hull.