Ryland Craze

complete model

Equipment and installation

Construction of the base
I wanted to get an antique effect as models of museums

The columns copied from those of Chuck,,,,,

Equipment Brass

I replaced all the wood beams with boxwood
I created a brass template to run profiles of benches

Although for years not to build a kit ready, I saw this beautiful model in the site I wanted to build it and I bought the kit.
Given the small size of the building presented some difficulties.

Still working on Chapter 2 of the Syren build, but I managed to collect a few pics along the way.  Figure I ought to share before I get too far behind.
Chapter 2 is about placing the bulkheads, filler blocks and fairing the hull.  I had to complicate things a bit because I wanted to add some subtle lighting to the ship - not a disco, just some very gentle lighting.  After going through it all, I don't know why I want to do this...
 
Before I got too far on the bulkheads, I decided to drill some pilot holes for the masts into the bulkhead former.  I guess it is easier and more accurate to do this now that latter on when the hull is built up.  Looking forward in the instructions, I couldn't find any detail on how the masts get secured.  Is it typical to just glue them to the top of the deck?
Here's the former laid out on the plans to set the angle:

 
Then the former was set up in the Proxxon drill press (the Timber's B Shiverin Shipyard finally made an investment in some tools...) and pilot holes drilled for the masts (1/8" holes I believe).  A side benefit of drilling these holes is that it gave me a good reference to layout the deck plan upon.

Pilot holes double-checked versus the plans with some brass rod:

 
Because I plan to light the ship, I wanted to open up the space under the 2 main deck hatches and the small opening at the stern near the rudder.  I hacked away at the formers and fillers, making a pocket that is roughly the same depth as the deck at the companionway.  The pocket at the stern was not as deep, maybe only 1/2".  I mocked up the hatches and lighting.  The view through the hatches is very limited, only a mostly vertical view will reveal anything "below deck", so the walls are painted black.
 
Laying out the deck plan, using the mast pilot holes for reference:

Hatch locations marked:

 
All the formers and fillers before assembly:

 
Everything assembled, with the hatch walls painted black:

 
I got pretty bored of making the filler blocks, and somewhere along the way got distracted by trying to practice my carving skills.  I have no experience with this and I think I want to eventually try carving the figurehead and quarter badges, so I need to practice.  I decided I needed someone to oversee this shipwreck, so this guy was whittled out of a piece of hornbeam (aka blue beech).  He ended up pretty rough and I still need a lot more practice before I get to the figure head but you gotta start somewhere.


 
It gives an interesting sense of scale.  I think of the Syren as a fairly small ship but when you compare it to the height of an average man, you realize how big it actually was:

 
Back on track...
 
At the companionway, I knew that more of the below deck area would be visible with lighting, so I mocked-up the companionway with balsa, just to see how much would be visible.  Based on that, I hacked away the formers and fillers in that area too.  The result was that the port side needed to be planked one additional former forward, and one additional former aft of the kits basic shape.  This also meant that the planking would extend into the main hatch area.
Companionway mocked-up:

I also decided to plank the bottom of the hatches because they are barely visible (and for some planking practice).  
 
With the basic shapes defined, I needed to work on planking.  Again to complicate things, I decided I wanted to use Hornbeam for the decking.  I have no experience with other woods besides the Basswood in the kit but the Hornbeam seems much better to work with.  It is much harder, and cuts/sands/works well without leaving any fuzz or fibers.  It is also a more white/grey-blue shade than the tan of the Basswood.  Another reason to use Hornbeam is that I have a source for it - my family's woods, so that means the price is right too.  My father had several pieces already cut and dried, so I proceeded to turn those into some planking.  Once again, the Timber's B Shiverin Shipyard's limited budget prevents me from getting really nice stuff (I keep looking for someone to place a Byrens table saw on the curb for recycle day but it never seems to happen...) so I had to make due.
Here's a picture of some Hornbeam.  The right side is the rough board, the middle shows the more grey heart wood, and the left shows the lighter sap wood.  I will be using the sap wood, however, the grey would make for a nice, weathered look.

 
The plank making process goes like this:
Rough board ripped on the band saw:

I had to make a router table for my Dremel.  It was pretty simple to make, and the accuracy is decent as long as I don't try an remove too much material in a single pass, and I replace the sanding drum regularly.  I have some ideas for my belt sander but that will have to wait.
Homemade Dremel router table:

 
The planks are then chopped to a shorter length on my homemade chopper:

Then sanded to final, uniform width (1/8") on this jig:

 
The planks are then mocked into position, tape applied to the backside, and given another sanding for uniform thickness.  Here are the planks for the companionway area, with a couple of sticks of Basswood on top for comparison:

 
I also decided to treenail the companionway area, mostly for practice. I think the treenails are a little too pronounced, so I will try and tone them down in the future.  I did the treenailing before final installation.  The treenails and "chalking" used the method described in the instructions.

 
Here are the plank sections for the hatch areas:

 
Wow - that's quite a post.  Maybe I should try and update more often?
 
 
 
 

Fred:
To heck with the 20 years - think positive!
 
My wife saw my stash when my new 26 x 42 shop was completed and all my kits and stuff was consolidated into one area - previously stashed in various closets, basement & garage.  She saw it all in one place and said "You have to live to be 350 to build all of those kits/projects". 
 
So I decided that she had given me a goal.  Everyday now when I wake up I look around, get up and say "Well, the plan is working - only 283 years to go - so far so good!"
 
That's my plan.
 
Kurt

Hi Everyone,
I am sorry to keep everyone waiting on an update. I really appreciate all of the comments and advise over past couple of months.
 
Lawrence and Patrick, Thank you for checking up on me and not giving up. All is well I just have run into some issues as I will describe below.
 
Allen, Thank you for your offer. I would love to take that piece of wood and turn it into a model of a skipjack, unfortunately I do not have the proper tools to mill my own lumber at this time. Maybe on a future project. Do you know which skipjack the piece is from?
 
As you may remember, I ran into a problem with the hull shape. When I was building the hull, I made sure that the chin log was correctly shaped, but I just assumed that when I added the side strakes they would follow the chin log with the correct shape. That is not the case. The port side strakes are not flared out as much as the starboard strakes. The difference in dimensions is that the bow area is 6 (scale) inches wider on the starboard side. 6 inches would be hard to hide in the deck planking, but I thought I could joggle a couple planks and hide it with the forward cabin. When I started framing the hold hatch, I realized that the discrepancy  ran all the way back to the midship area. At this point I decided that I would never be happy with how my skipjack would look. I am not ready to through in the towel just yet though. I have learned a lot in the past 10 months, and plan to use what I have learned and start a new scratch build.
 
This time I will be working from a set of plans. I will also be using forms (just like the Willie Bennett kit) to ensure the correct shape of the hull.  I thought about building the Kathyrn or the E.C. Collier, since I already have their plans. The Kathyrn is fore and aft planked and is a framed hull. I would have had to loft the frames and I decided that I was not ready for that just yet. The E.C. Collier I got as for as cutting the keelson and decided that there was just to much uncertainty in the plans.  When the Collier was surveyed, she was suffering from some severe hogging and had spent a lifetime of hard work and make-do repairs. As the notes on the plans stated there was nothing square on the whole boat. I felt that to do it justice I would need to get more information on the E.C. Collier and with the boat still existing there would be no end of the research to get it correct.
 
So what other plans were available? I have Howard Chapelle's "Notes on Chesapeake Bay Skipjacks" which has some additional plans and information.  (Great book and can be ordered from the publisher here http://www.tillerbooks.com/Notes_on_Chesapeake_Bay_Skipjacks.php.)
 
I first selected the Hand Dredger Louise. The Louise was only 32' and I wanted something a little larger.

 
There were a couple of Three Sail Bateaus that caught my eye, but I had started on building a Two Sail Bateau and figured I needed to stay with that.
 
So I finally settled on the Skipjack Albatross. Albatross also has a Counter-Stern which adds a twist to the build. There is limited information on the Albatross. In some ways this is great. What is not in the plans and notes I will just have to make do and do my best. There is less wondering about whether I did it correctly since there is no surviving boat to compare it to.
 

Length bet. perps....44'-2"
Beam .....................15'-10"
Draft........................2'-9"
 
What made me choose the Albatross was that there are two versions. The As she was built (1899) and the after being modified for gas powered winders and push boat (1911~). I was looking forward to building the gas powered winders and the push boat, but she looks so much cleaner as she was built. I also like the more historical aspect of the as built plan.  I have chosen to build the As Built version of the albatross.
 
I ordered the plans for Albatross and Louise from the Smithsonian Institute and currently waiting for the delivery. Once they arrive I will be closing this build log and starting a new one.
 
 

More pics

Hello everyone,
  Well she is finished!  All the rigging was completed per the kit practicum, with the exception of adding a second flag halyard on the port side. Rope  coils were added in the appropriate places and 4 or the supplied oars placed aboard. I'd originally intended to show two full sails and one either furled or stowed on-board some where, I abandoned that idea as the third sail really blocked a lot of the interior details I'd spent so much time on...So she's running with a main and stay sail and no jib, I think at some time in the history of these little vessels they would have sailed this way.
  This was really an enjoyable little kit to build, alot of detail in a small package.  Thanks to all that followed along and offered support along the way.  Pics follow.
THX
J

After having my article on 3D printing published in the NRG Journal last summer, I was pleased to see some actual parts show up in the Spring 2015 issue.
 
Hubert Mallet's article on an RNLI lifeboat includes a pair of engines which are 3D printed. And I think this is an excellent example of using the best tool (or process) for the job. The engines are "modern" mechanical items that lend themselves to modern modeling techniques. On the other hand, I would usually avoid 3D printing a part which simply needs, nay, demands, to be shaped from wood. And Mssr. Mallet has done the right thing here by shaping his model's wood hull from ... wood.
 
Nicely done, Hubert...

You need to bend it much more than that.   Keep the heat on it for at least 4 or 5 minutes.   Get it really hot.  Get close to the wood.  You will get accustomed to the amount of spring-back.  Just try it on a piece....really bend it.  Also I would have flipped it over and bent it the other way.  Its easier to create the bend in my opinion.  Note how much bend this strip has while clamped......then note how much the strip sprung back in the photo below it.   After a little while you get accustomed to how much you need to bend it initially.  You didnt do it nearly enough.  Try it again on a scrap length.  Dont be afraid to bend it almost to its breaking point.  It could also be that your hair dryer doesnt get hot enough.
 
Chuck
 

 

Completion of the first strake above the wale on the port side.  This involved edge-bending the long center plank so I tried Chuck's clamping and heating method.  It did not hold much of the bend after 5 minutes with the blow dryer on high.  I repeated and let it set for an hour...not much difference, but enough that I did not have to force it too much.  I clamped it both against each bulkhead, and also against the wale.  The aft-end part of the strake is too short to do much bending so I mark the width and used a ships curve to to get a mild curve to match the run of the wale.  It fit perfectly.  By the way, after marking the width at each bulkhead and drawing a fair line, I clamp it in the vise and use a very sharp 1" chisel to cut close to the line and finish it off with 100 grit and 150 grit sanding sticks.
Maury

Hiya
 
hope this helps
 

 
cheers
 
Pieter

It's been a long time since I posted any progress on the longboat ... but that doesn't mean there hasn't been progress!  It's almost done.  I've found taking pictures at this stage to be difficult.  Sometimes it's tough to get the camera on my phone to focus where I want it. I wind up with great resolution on stuff I don't care about.
 
Since I last posted, I've rigged the boat.
 

 
There's a deceptive amount of rigging on this model.  I expected it to go faster than it did.  It's not all that difficult; there's just a lot of fiddly little things to do.
 
In no real order, here are some photos of my progress.
 

 

 

 

 

 
I spent some time making the chainplates.  In the end, I had to do it a couple of times to get good-looking ones.  I thought they turned out pretty well.
 

 
I had some trouble withe the rope coils.  I went into that little job thinking I'd knock it out in an evening.  Not really much to those things.  I have a little jig I use for wrapping them.  Then I hit them with hairspray to keep them together while I'm working with them.  Plunk them on the model and you're done, right?
 
Here's a typical one:
 

 
But when I added them to the model, they just looked ... wrong!
 

 
So I re-did them in a lot less complex way.  I'd left a lot of extra on the actual rigging line, so I just wrapped them into a coal, coated them with some white glue and weighted them down a little with a dental pick.  That gave the illusion of weight and the coils looked a lot more natural.
 
I had trouble taking pictures of those things, but you can see the same effect in the coils on the flag halyard.
 

 
Speaking of the flag halyard, I got it all rigged, as shown in the picture, and realized that, as I tied them down, I'd wrapped them around the shrouds, on both sides.  It was actually hard to see.  (You can kind of see it in the photo.)  But once I noticed it, I couldn't leave it that way.  I un-rigged it and did them again.  They look a lot better now.
 
So what's next?  The oars are done:
 

 
As is the grapple.
 

 
I got the case back from the guy who made the base for me.
 

 
That was a little story.  I don't have a table saw.  I found a guy with a millwork shop right across the street from where my kids take karate lessons.  I thought, "Look at that!  I can help a local business, get my base made and do it without making a separate trip because I'm at the karate dojo at least twice a week anyway."
 
He was a nice-enough guy, but he told me it'd be done in two weeks and took more like five.  And it wasn't cheap.  If he'd gotten it done on time, I wouldn't have had too much trouble with the price, but making me wait?  I felt a little ripped off.  Add to that the fact that, at about week four I started calling him about it and he wouldn't return my calls...  Anyway, it's done and it looks really nice.
 
So I have to install the oars and the grapple.  Haven't decided if I'm going to put the arm on the windlass.  Then I'll mount the model on the base and do a little touch-up of some spots where the paint's been marred by handling it, put a little brass plaque on the base and finish it off.
 
 
 
 
Dan
 

Molding was put on with 1/64" reveal and when the clamps came off, there were a lot of "bumps".  A fair run is more important to me than a perfect 1/64" reveal, so back to the isopropyl for some adjustments.  The port side looks good, but there is still a bump on the starboard.  To make the molding fair at the forward gun ports, I set one end, then laid another strip of 1/16" across the top to make sure they aligned well.  That came off since it was not glued.
Maury

Nirvana and Steve,  Thanks much for the kudos, I appropriate your kind words, the technique worked well, but I can't take credit for it, that goes to Hubert Sicard.
 
An update,
the build is progressing, though slowly...I snapped the main mast yet again, this time serving the shrouds to it, that repair set me back a bit.  The rigging is fairly simple for this little boat but since I've added sails it's slightly different from what Chuck laid out in the practicum.  I'm rethinking every step two and three time prior to execution to eliminate any redos...with that said, the mast is up and all the lines associated with the main sail run.
 
Once the boom blocks were installed I set it at the angle seen in the photos and coated the block rigging with ca to stiffen it, allowing it to hold the boom in that position. The shrouds are up but not mounted to the deadeyes as yet, I'm gonna do them last...moving to the bow and jib sail next.  As always, thanks for your time and attention, Pics follow
J
 
 
 

Thanks Elia, I think I'll continue by making larger yards with octagonal center cross section. First one is fore yard.
 
What's happened before this picture was sawing off a oversize piece from Sitka spruce billet and planing it square and to proper size.

I have relatively simple jig for holding the part in place: there's a stopper piece at end, two triangular lengths side by side. What I'll do is take 2-3 shavings from one corner, rotate 90 degrees and repeat until each of the eight sides is roughly of equal width. There are some shavings on background: the thinner the better.
 

Yard with octagonal cross section.
 
 
Only center of the yard is will be octagonal, there's pencil marking near my left index finger telling where the cross section of opposite side becomes round. I'll do majority of shaping with plane, mainly because I like planes ( ), and they also give good control as long as direction of grain is suitable. I'm repeating myself, but what works is take a shaving, rotate and repeat. Final shaping with sanding paper and steel wool.
 
 

Final step was making the cleats. The center ones turned out better than I expected, but I'm not entirely happy with the other four. Have to improve with forthcoming yards, maybe switching from basswood to something denser could help.

And next update: making cheeks.
 

Started with a blank sawn off a cherry billet planed to 3.5 mm thickness. There's few mm extra length to allow cleaning away any rips from sawing.
 

Started by tapering the edges. This follows shape of mast's flat sides (see previous posting).
 

Tapered wide edges: thick (top) end remains at 3.5 mm, while bottom edge is half of that.
 

Then used rasp to make area below hounds a bit thinner.
 

And rounded edges with files.
 

Completed cheecks by cutting scores for bibs. I was somewhat worried of splitting the wood, so made repeatedly shallow cuts from each of the four directions. I believe also wiggling the blade instead of just pressing it down helps (and it's easier to keep it in place compared to moving the blade).
 

Finally some glue and clamps.

For those that are building the model or even just following along....I just added another chapter of the monograph to my site.
 
Its covers the planking and lining off process and I describe it in more detail than in my log.  I have had a lot of questions about how to line off the hull and to plank by bending edgewise etc.   Unlike the tutorial i posted on this site that talks about cutting the curved planks from wider stock,  or using tape to find the curve.... this chapter shows how I pre-bent the planks edgewise to achieve the same thing.  Neither technique is better than the other.  They are just different.  I hope it helps along with those videos posted as nobody could actually see how I was marking each plank etc in the videos.
 
Let me know if you have any questions.  I have posted all of the chapters through chapter four.....I am almost caughtup with writing. Yippee 
 
http://www.syrenshipmodelcompany.com/revenue-cutter-cheerful-1806.php
 
Chuck

Wales going on.  After the first one on the other side went on, I noticed it had slipped up during clamping and had to go to work with isoproply and undo about 10 spots to re-position it.  All is well now.  After the first strake was set and glue dried, the second went on.  No further need for the batten so it came off.  I did not bother to bevel the edges since they will be covered up with the second set of wales.  I will smooth out the surfaces and run a sanding stick over the top and bottom edges for a smooth transition to the planking above and below.
Maury

Like this
 

 

3d cheerful
 

 

Nearly all of the foregoing are great/
 
For me. back in the 1960's, when I was a teenager and had already built the Revel Cutty Sark, Thermopoly and USF Constitution, I stumbled across a book in our local library - 'Ship Model Building' by E. Armitage McCann.  I keep a copy in my library (of 120 maritime books) because he grabbed my attention and moved me into scratch building.
 
Although his work is crude by today's standards, he captured my inspiration and kept me involved in model ship building.
 
So my point is to read widely, and fine what moves you.
 
Duff