Ryland Craze

Thanks Chris, Mark, Slog, for the advice. I'm moving ahead with the turned brass cannon barrels. Regarding blocks and such, I needed to work on something fairly mindless, so I started working on the paper blocks. I figured I'd see how they turn out. If they're not so good in the end, I'll switch to purchased wooden blocks. 
 
The paper blocks have one advantage over the Syren blocks in that this is a small model and with the paper blocks are available in 3.5mm size, which I can't get in pear wood.
 
So, in paper blocks, I now have 2.5mm, 3mm, and 3.5mm sizes. 2mm blocks are available from Shipyard too, and rigging calculations would normally call for them, but that's awfully small to assemble. Anyway, I don't have any of the 2mm paper blocks on hand, and the kit itself calls for these sizes I do have.
 
Here is a sample of the unassembled blocks. These are the same kits that come in the boxed kits. 

 
 
A nice, cool but sunny Sunday morning, cup of coffee and ship modeling project – A perfect day!

 
 
Here's a close-up of painted, CA reinforced and touched up blocks

 
 
Sorted by size and cleaned up a little more.

 
 
This certainly took a bit of effort to pre the blocks. I painted them while still in their sheets, I also glued them up in batches, which is easiest to do on the sheets. The process of assembling is exactly the same as the Syren built-up blocks, except that because they have to be painted, they need touch up. Also, cardboard isn't a very strong material, so I made sure to wick in some thin CA glue. 
 
I have yet to see how well these hold up when rigged, but at least their ready when I need them.
 
Clare

Working the bow section "bulwarks" for lack of a better term.  This has proven to be the most challenging part of the build to date.  Port side complete, just starting on the starboard.
 
                  Bob R.

Back from another summer trip and eager to to get back to Cheerful.
 
I chose to deviate from the sequence that Chuck and the other Cheerful builders have followed at this point. Rather than doing the wales and the lower planking, I decided to treenail the upper planking. My reasoning was simple -- I hate to do all of the treenailing at once, and this allowed me to break it up. The treenailing was done by the drill and fill method, but I chose to use a more visible filler, rather than the subtle ( and likely more accurate) route taken by Chuck. I must admit that I simply like the look of the more visible treenails better. After completing the treenails, I applied a coat of Wipe-on Poly as a sealer.
 
Now I will move on to the wales and lower planking.
 
Bob 
 

JS -
I guess you can call it a "specialty tool," although it's really nothing more than a hand-made broach.
I start out by cutting a piece of scrap wood, so the four sides are as square as possible to each other.  The stock can be either square or rectangular in cross-section, it doesn't matter.  I then cut a slot in one side wide enough so it will take a small finishing nail with the head cut off.  The nail is epoxied in the slot.  Make sure the nail is completely below the surface of the wood.

I then set up my Dremel drill press with the head rotated 90 degrees.  For this procedure, one of those small abrasive disks works well.  Make sure you wear some eye protection when you do this!  These disks have a nasty habit of shattering.  I then start carefully grinding down the sides of the nail, rotating it periodically, so a square shape is formed.  As I get close to the desired size, I start measuring the head with a pair of digital calipers.  I believe the one in these photos was about .045" square.


In order to make the mortise, I start out by drilling a hole that is equal to, or slightly smaller in diameter than the dimension of the broach.
The hardest part of this procedure for me was getting the broach lined up properly over the hole.  For that reason, I would highly recommend  that you make yourself a miniature T-square.  I have a small collection of various triangles and squares that are some of my most usefull tools.

Take the square, and mark off the limits of the hole on two sides.  The other two lines can be drawn by dragging a compass along the edge of the plug, with the lead lined up with the edge of the hole.

Carefully line up your broach with the lines, and gentley tap the broach a few times.  This should give you a slight impression in the wood.  If the impression looks good, put the broach in the depressed area, and tap a little more forcefully.  Check it periodically as you do this.

I messed up a couple of windlasses trying to do this, so I would recommend you practice with some scrap before you commit to the actual piece.  I apologize for being so "long winded."   I hope you find this useful.
 
BobF

I've painted the cock pit and I got the knees in in place.

Thinning down the inside bulwarks turned out to be way more involved than I expected. Took a long time & keeping them the same thickness was really fun . I ended up with notches in the bulkheads. Filled  them in with wood filler. Planked the inside bulwarks.
 
 

Standing rigging was completed by adding the bowsprit shrouds, and I'm working through the running rigging now.
 
I have already learned an important lesson in rigging.  No matter how good I think my research and sources are on the rigging, walk through the entire process myself, at least a few times, and make my own 'order' and checklist.  I'm running into so many things that really should have been added at a much earlier time because it would have been so much easier, whether it be the blocks that are seized to the stays, to the various blocks on the masts, or the Jeers block.  All of them could have been done easier (and better) at much earlier stages in the rigging.
 
Anyway, I've completed the following (I think):
 
Bowsprit shrouds. Jib Halyard, downhaul, and tackle. Fore Staysail Halyard, downhaul, and tackle. Gaff rigged and mounted. Gaff Peak Halyard and tackle. I've also added a bunch of blocks to the mast and top mast, as well as some ropes that attach to those blocks which can be seen taped up into coils.   Some photo's.   I have also realized that the jib traveler ring is too far back on the jib boom, and because I'm an idiot I already trimmed the in-hauls that hold the traveler ring, so I removed both of those, and tomorrow I'll redo that entire thing so that the dark rope that is the farthest one out on the jib boom will be much closer to the tip of it, giving me more room for some of the other lines and tackle that have to be added. 

Trial part for the cockpit seats...
These parts came fair, I will try to do the same with the material from Jeff.

Attaching metal parts, rudders and draught marks on the hull.

I stained the longboat. It's a little darker than I expected.  Of course, I'm used to looking at the boat with the wood an almost white color, so maybe I'm just not used to seeing it a more realistic color. Also, I applied the stain in an even and uniform manner, but the wood just didn't absorb it uniformly. Does it look alright?
 
That and the real color isn't showing up well in the photos with the light blue background I've been using.  I took 3 more photos with a darker blue background.  The warmer brown is closer to the true color.  It's hard to show accurate color rendition sometimes!
 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Erik

Hi all,
Pics of the stern deck and seat and the main deck all straightened and in place, work on the coal bunkers continues...

Tonight's update is for two different things.
 
1) Finished the starboard lanyards, and took some pictures.  I included one of the now completed swivel guns, just because I like it!
 

 
Shrouds are now complete (I think), with the obvious exception of the ratlines.
 
2) Part two of this update I blame completely on Dirk.  
 
The bowsprit is now attached to the ship (not the jib boom).
 
The base (foot?) strap is made of 5 pieces of brass soldered together, and 4 tiny little brass rivets that actually do pin into the bowsprit and the deck.
 

 
The cast gannon strap that came with the kit was somehow lost by me some time back, but instead of asking for a replacement from MS, I just made a new one out of brass, and attached it with 4 more tiny little rivets.

 
Pretty happy with both of these items, and the rivets should make them quite secure, even if they aren't correct for the model (I have no idea if they used big bolts to secure this sort of things in the time-frame of this ship - 1768).

Cut out the gun ports. Applied a glue soaked tread to close in the top & serve as the cap rails.
 

 

 

Thanks much Tim and Josh...  I did have a frame out of place, that and the aft section was off by a couple mm, it had snapped off during test fitting and had been glued back, so between the two there was enough tolerance stack-up to equal what you see in the pics.  Got everything where it should be and glued in.  no pics yet I'll post some later today, thx for the assist guys, much appriceated
J

Alan,
 
If you are near Washington DC, you should take the short trip over to Annapolis, Maryland.  On the grounds of the US Naval Academy, they have the United States Naval Academy Museum.  It has two floors loaded with ship models.  On the second floor is the Henry Huddleston Rogers Ship Model Collection.  Here are two links regarding the Museum.
 
http://modelshipworld.com/index.php?/topic/612-the-rodgers-collection-at-annapolis/
 

Got the stern cap rail constructed & painted. Stained the unpainted outer hull planks with a golden oak/golden pecan mix. painted the inboard stern red.
 
 
 

Thank you all!
 
 
The lanyards are not done correctly, so be careful using them as a direct example!  The proper way to do it is for the lanyard to go between the shroud and the deadeye as it comes up, then circle around from the front to the back where it goes under itself where it enters the gap between the shroud and deadeye, and then twist around the shroud and get seized at the end.
 
I didn't leave enough gap between the shroud and deadeye on all of my shrouds, so rather than make some of them right, and some of them wrong, I did them all wrong for consistency.
 
Here is what I mean - 
 
The red line is the lanyard coming up behind the deadeye from the bottom deadeye.  As you can see it passes from back to front between the eye-seizing and the deadeye, and then loops back around under itself.  That's what my goal was, but since I got the gap too small on some of the deadeyes, I couldn't do it that way, so mine loop under themselves next to the shroud instead.
 

Repairs went far better than I could have expected.
 

 
Lanyards on the port side are completed.

 
Starboard side will be another day.

I realize that not too many modelers have a milling machine, but for those lucky enough to have one, I would venture to say that it is a very versatile and useful tool for scratch builders as well as those who want a bit more accuracy in cutting material.
I am constantly learning to use mine with new ideas for fixtures and techniques. Perhaps we can share some ideas on this thread.
 
 
A couple years ago there was a thread dealing with this subject and I like to revamp that:
http://modelshipworld.com/index.php/topic/4320-milling-work-and-miniature-jig-making/page-2?hl=+milling%20+machine.
 
Let me show you a few things I have done to and with my machine.
When I first got it, I wanted to learn the basics and made this aluminum slitting fixture. It can be used to make slots or even cut planks. Now I don’t use it too much anymore, because it takes a while to set up and takes away space on the table.
 
 
I have a four inch vise that is very accurate. Using the parallels underneath this piece of pear, I was able to machine this log of gun carriages. After the milling I cut slabs that were only 0.050 inch thick.
 
  
When I decided to make my own gratings, I had to make a decision about square or round holes. After some experimenting I gave up making square holes. Now I find it hard to tell if the grating has square or round holes (when viewed a few inches or more away). My point here is that I placed the grating material on a piece of plywood that was clamped to the table and used the mill’s x-y table movements to accurately drill the holes.

Since then I don’t use the metal clamps that you see in the picture above. I made a number of wooden clamps and blocks that do a better and safer job. 

Here is a set up using those clamps. It was part of my cross section work.

 
More on the next post.

 

Working my way up from the garboard plank.  Four more strakes to go.  Everything going smoothly so far.  I'll sand out the rough spots once the planking is done.
Maury

I added the 1/32" molding strips on both sides.  I wanted to glue these before I stained the boat, but add the friezes afterwards.  What I did then was cut the friezes out with a #11 xacto blade with a piece of blank paper underneath so the piece of paper was exactly the same shape as the frieze.  I used removable double sided tape to temporarily attach the piece of paper to the side of the hull.  I then used that as a guide on where to glue the molding strips.  Once the strips were glued on, I easily removed the piece of paper.  The friezes fit in the space perfectly.
 

 
Adding the 1/32" x 1/32" molding strip turned out to be a pain in the butt.  The kit supplied wood ranged in size between .025" and .040" within the same strip, and was so porous and fuzzy that I broke 4 pieces at the bow.  Luckily I had some Northeast basswood strip of the right size in my stash.  I used that instead.
 

 
Lastly,  after much help off line (thanks Mike and Toni), I've tested and chosen the finish I'm going to use.  This photo isn't the best, but you get the general idea.  I'm going for a look that is a relatively light shade.  The hull came out well enough I plan on leaving the portion below the waterline unpainted.
 

 
Erik

I am re posting this from another topic so its easy for folks to find should they need it.
 
Its very difficult to measure rope using any method.  That technique of wrapping it around a dowel is not very good either.  There is too much variation depending on how tightly you wrap it.  It would flatten out the rope and distort it.   It is also hard to get a consistent space next to each revolution around the dowel.   One may be closer than another.  It may be squishing the wrap next to it etc.  If you did it ten times or asked two different people to measure the same rope that way you would never get the same measurement.  It may be close but you would be surprised.
 
Thankfully You would also be surprised how sophisticated our software has become.   I use Corel Draw and Illustrator all of the time.   When you draw a line in either program its thickness is measured in points.  Lucky for us there are many conversion tables and apps that will convert points to inches.....or metric.  Whichever you prefer.
 
If you know that a line you need is .018" and you want to see what that exact thickness or diameter in our case is....then do the conversion.  
 
.018" is equal to 1.296 points.   If you create a line in any of those programs and make it 1.296 points thick.....its pretty darn accurate.  You will know what a .018 size rope should be....
 
Here is a chart I have on my site for folks that need a more visual way to see what these sizes actually look like. 
 
http://www.syrenship...pesizechart.pdf
 
Its pretty darn on the money and I have one close by at all times when I make my rope.  Its leaps and bounds the more accurate way with technology to measure rope accurately.   Also set your printer for the highest quality print job........
 
Maybe when I get some time I will create a new chart which contains even more size variations.  Maybe every .005" or something.  Here is a good inches to points conversion calculator.   Its the one I use.
 
http://www.thecalcul...s-to-inches.php
 
Chuck

With the shrouds attached to the dead-eyes, it was time to add the shroud cleats.  I hated the look of the kit brittania cast cleats, so I ordered some boxwood shroud cleats from Syren.  They look.. somewhat nicer than the cast ones.

 
Things have been going far to good for quite a while now, so troubles were bound to happen, and tonight.. was the night.
 
The starboard side is coming out great, all rigged up and set for final adjustments before I wrap the lanyard around the shroud and seize the end.

 
The trouble was on the port side.  Even though I measured both sides the same, and everything still measures the same relative to the chain plate locations, the ship is clearly not perfectly symmetrical, as this happened.
 

 
Stupid swivel gun post is interfering with one of the shrouds, and in a big way.

 
There is really nothing to do except deconstruct it, but man I'm afraid of this, those suckers are attached pretty firmly, and goodness knows how much damage I'm going to do getting it removed.  Oh well, it's got to be done, but I'm going to let it rest for the night and start fresh on it after work tomorrow I think.  Maybe I should import Dirk to help me  
 
Wish me luck!
 
 

Don't forget to bring the model to our next club meeting.  I want to have a good look at it.   I will will be bringing mine.  We can compare notes.
 
Since you seem to be moving right along at a rapid pace,  I also completed the next chapter and its available for download.  I should have another available shortly as well.
 
http://www.syrenshipmodelcompany.com/revenue-cutter-cheerful-1806.php
 
Its really looking great.  The guys are going to flip over that planking job you are doing.

Today's project (and last nights) was the shrouds.  Lots of serving of rope, but I think I'm good on thread for a while.

 
The dead-eye/shroud jigs I made worked fantastically, and allowed me to make much better looking rigging than I would have thought at this point, being only my 2nd build.  I also used zip-seizings on top of the dead-eyes to allow the proper rigging of the shrouds crossing over on top of the dead-eyes.  Really like the way they turned out.

 
Current status, shrouds completed, but attached to the jigs.  I am trying to decide the easiest way to seize the shroud cleats - I am leaning towards removing the jig, and seizing them by sticking the shrouds in a third hand to the side of the ship, one at a time, rather than trying to work on the inside of the shrouds on the ship.
 

 
About a year ago, when I first started building the Carmen and found MSW, I spent a lot of time going through build logs, and like any new thing, I think people tend to see a specific 'thing' that make them go "Wow, that is amazing, I could never do that".  On this site, for this hobby, there is a lot of that 'wow' factor in many of the logs here, but one of the main ones that stuck out to me (for whatever strange reason) was the mast-heads on some of the ships, where so many ropes come together and chaos should reign, but instead, there is an orderly and neat stack of ropes showing a definite purpose and design.
 
Today I had a real 'wow' moment in my ship modeling.

 
I have no idea why that seems so amazing to me, but it really does, and even now I'm having a difficult time believing that yes, it really was me that did this thing (although there is more to go there of course).  There have been plenty of things on this ship that were more difficult than this, and took far more effort to be happy with, but for strange reasons in my head, this is probably one of the coolest moments for me so far in the hobby.  It's a good day.