davyboy

The channels:

I diverted from the steps in TFFM to build the knee of the head.  I will work on fairing this piece to the stem and then put it away for safekeeping until the fore cants and hawse timbers have been installed.  It still needs to be tapered in both directions and the slot for the gammoning cleaned up a bit.
 
I used druxey's recommendation of painting the edges of the joints brown before gluing.  I like the way it turned out.  I am expecting some powdered brown pigments from the Amazon guy today that I will try mixing with glue going forward.
 
Adam
 

Thank you for your comments and the likes received, always much appreciated.
 
The waterway has been made and the first planks have found their place on the deck. As Mark already mentioned in his build log, this is a bit tricky because they are twisted and have changing angles. Make decorative strips, measure the height and mark them with the help of tape.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thank you for your visit and see you soon.

Wonderful - simply stunning.
If, now I have retired, I take up international burglary for a pastime, your house (and those fellows Siggi and Archjofo in Germany and Giampieroricci in Italy to name a few) is one I plan to visit. Would you be very kind and send me your address and a list of any days you will be away on holiday?
Many thanks
Fred

I remember reading somewhere, maybe in response to questions on a Facebook post by the MR museum, that there are currently no plans to uncover and raise more of the remaining parts of the ship. I think the last thing they raised was what remained of the stem post, but that was decades ago. It is a shame, since it might settle the debates about what the ship looked like in the end once and for all.

9
 
The boat.
 
Like most ships at the time, a pinas also had a boat. It is often claimed that these were towed, but on the open sea in stormy weather they could easily be lost. So usually they were on board, and were only put out when necessary. 
 
First I made the trusts out of thin plywood and glued it together.



The planks were attached to it of thin ash veneer, after which a few trusses of plywood were very carefully removed from it
A fore and a rear deck were then put in, and the last plywood trusses disappeared
 Finally, the real trusses were glued in and the bottom and rowing benches were installed, as well as the rudder.  Finally came the oars, made of very thin toothpicks. By flattening the end with a hammer and providing it with glue, the blades could be formed.


The boat has a length of 42 mm. After this, it had to be carefully sanded.

I have made several boats for other models before, all on the same scale and on the same construction method.

 
The showcase and stand
 
The model is placed in a glass showcase that was made by a company. At the bottom of it I made  a stand consisting of perspex discs.
For its construction, see my topic: “Making a “wet” stand for your model”  march 19  2024.
 

It was mentioned earlier that it's best to sand pieces prior to removing the from the billets. The way I do it is with a sanding block. I use 180 the 320 grit sandpaper. It's self-adhesive. It is also handy for finish sanding completed pieces like the stem. I usually use Minwax wipe on poly. My local store was out but they did have Watco satin wipe on poly. I've used other Watco products and liked them so I gave it a try. It's a little thicker than the Minwax but covers nice and looks the same.
 


 
Next I'll start working on the keel. Oh this is fun!

A little more progress. Finished the stem. Not perfect but I do like the way its going so far. Also tapered the stem and joined the front part of the keel.
 

 

 

Post One Hundred and Sixty – nine
 
Progressing the 24’ cutter
The floor of the cutter is covered by gratings at the stern, open boarded footwaling for the body, and a small close board platform at the bow.

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I changed the footwaling to a close boarded version as shown in the AotS book Diana which contains 1:48 scale drawings of a 24’ cutter.
 
Before I add the ‘false’ ribs I use a copy of the kit plan to mark the positions of the thwarts.
Positioning the ribs really needs to take into consideration the position of the thwarts and the related rowlocks for the oars, which are cut into the wash strake.

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The AotS drawings show the 24’ cutter arranged for single banked rowing. This is the arrangement I will follow, apart from any other consideration, there are less rowlocks to cut.

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I firstly fix only those ribs that fit aft of the thwarts before fixing the Rising, (thwart support strips) The remaining ribs can be slotted behind the Risings in the correct positions.
The risings are fitted using a 4mm depth gauge but in fact follow the line of the second strake down from the top.
 
Once fitted it is useful to check both the levels and the correct height of the thwarts above the footwaling.

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My 1:64 scale figures are useful for this purpose.

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I would like to see a sitting figure produced by Vanguard. A sitting Captain would serve well to give scale to the splendid Vanguard cabin furniture, and also the stern sheets of the boat range.

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I like to add small features to the boats such as here; the cap square for the Mainmast and step to take the mast heel on the Keelson.

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Needs cleaning up now before finishing.
 
B.E.
15/04/2024
 
 

Blue mold acid trip!

I suppose if one is TOTALLY exasperated with how  a build is turning out, or perhaps a pet or toddler has inflicted enough damage that repairs would be impractical or badly show - you could  use one of the 'other power tools' ... like tossing the model into the chipper/shredder. 😉 

Wooden bulwarks on the bridges of a steamship.

Thank you all for your kind reviews and likes!  
 
I continue making wooden parts for the model.
The photo shows the cargo hatch cover.

Yes it's an exciting image, probably more so for me as I can (and did this morning) visualise my Great grandfather on board.
I don't remember why I thought she was the 1778 Kite, perhaps I mixed up dates in my head, but that extra row of planking above the gun ports makes her more likely to be post the very early 1800s. Given the painting is dates ca1850 it is possible the artist as a boy knew Lapwings sister and remembered her fondly. There are discrepancies, the companionway faces aft and the wc and pantry are missing but she carries the right number of guns (well gun ports, she probably didn't carry a full compliment of guns) in the right places. He may have used Lapwing as a model as she was still around at the time of the painting but made changes based on boyhood memories, who knows.
 
Looking at the painting itself, she's running downwind with both the main and square sail set, that would be wrong, she would be unbalanced with the main trying to turn her to port. Look at the helmsman, he's heaving on the tiller trying to keep her on course. The artist understands, this is a chase, every fraction of a knot counts. As you said, an exciting picture.
 
So, yes this could be Lapwings sister, Speedys aunt.
 

Good morning.

Just a quick update.  It might not look like a lot of work was done since my last post but you would be surprised how involved the deck beams can be.
 
With the cabins on the fore lower platform completed,  you can start adding deck beams above them.  No reason to wait until everything is built below deck to do so.  In fact, waiting to do it all at one time wont be very enjoyable.  Doing it this way breaks up the task a bit.
 
This kit will be very simplified compared to the books.  Because we will be planking the gun deck in the "classic" contemporary model style,  there is absolutely no need to make and add the hanging and lodging knees.   In fact, this would up the difficulty factor by about ten.   So we will just be adding the deck beams with all of the carlings and ledges.  You can however follow the Seawatch books and scratch build the knees should you really want the total experience.
 
 
The photo below has a lot going on that was completed.
 

First, The first four deck beams were glued into position...
 
Then the carlings were added between them as shown on the plans.  The carling are cut to length using 3/16 x 5/32 strips.   
 
Lastly you may notice that the after most beams have a column under them at the center.   These are just 1/8" x 1/8" strips cut to length.  The corners are chamfered as shown on the plans.
 
With the first four beams added you can now add the ledges.   These are the thinner "partial beams" that extend from the carlings to the deck clamp.  They are laser cut for you with a special "leg" on the outboard ends.   This raises each ledge to the perfect height so it will be flush with the top of the gun deck beams.  So when you are cleaning the char off these...DONT sand the bottom or even the end with this "leg" on it.  Otherwise you wont have level ledges with your beams.    Hope that makes sense.
 
Now in that same photo above you can see the first few ledges (cleaned of laser char...no need to clean the bottom at all actually) resting in position.  All you have to do is cut the end that sits against the carling and glue it on position.
 
NOTE:  Now yes indeed...all of the carlings should be notched in the deck beams.   All of the ledges should be notched into the carlings.  But you know what...I am not going to do that.  And you dont have to either.  It simplifies things so much this way and those many mortices and notches are not so easy to make.  They will also mostly be completely covered up.   So you can decide.
 
 
Now this may all seem simple enough.  But finding the exact locations for these beams, carlings and ledges is super important.  Time and care must be taken to get their location correct....otherwise you will end up with hatches in the wrong  position and mast holes too!!  It could get ugly.
 
So use the plans.   If you have a second set printed.  Go ahead and cut them up.  You can see strategically placed cut outs on the template that allowed me to mark the locations of the carlings on the beams....and the ledges on the carlings.   This template also helped me position the deck beams properly which is the very first thing you need to do.  Finding you center line on those deck beams after they installed is also a huge help.  Gluing the parts in is easy enough...but the marking, measuring and planning takes time and patience.

 
Then its just a matter of cutting all of those ledges to length and gluing them in position.   There are a lot of them.  I believe 86 in total.   Note that these would also be down the center between the carlings and hatches also.  But once again they will be entirely covered up and its just a repetitive exercise that nobody will ever see.
 

To show you how the knees and other details like the ledges wont be seen...here is a look at this area with the deck planking cut and placed on the model as a test.  This shows what will be very close to the final appearance using the "classic contemporary model appearance".   But everyone can always deviate from that should they want to.
 

 
 

Finished the officers quarters and now making grates to cover the hatches,and start working on the enclosure around the mainmast and pump tubes.

Tafrail complete

Pegasus emerges

In contemplating the netting for the birthing rail, the gauge is just too narrow for my skills to undertake. Does anyone have a resource for its purchase? I have some which I bought for my Gros Ventre but it’s black. Maybe I ‘ll spray it tan, which is the preferred color, unless there are better recommendations.

8
 
The rigging.
 
During rigging, it was a seemingly confusing tangle of wires.
 
This work often caused problems. This is the first square rigged ship I built. The previous ships I made were latin rigged. Their rigging is considerably simpler than the rigging of this ship and is also completely different.
The lower yards were lowered onto the railing, the rahout. This was no longer done in the 17th century, where the sails were tied to the yards just below the tops. The upper yards were lowered onto the tops.
 On the model the mainsail on the mainmast is tied up, which was done at deck height and then the yard was hoisted up to below the top.
 
Since the 17th century, in order to moor the masts at a great height to prevent them from bending forward, the masts have had back stays, which were attached on the deck. On this ship, the back stays and the halyards for hoisting the topyards are still combined into one rope. Exactly how this worked is not entirely clear. Ab Hoving left it entirely up to me to find a solution.

The topyards were hoisted from the top. This is only possible with a haliard and a sheave in the mast. The halyard was fitted with a block and tacle was attached to port and starboard. Once the yard was hoisted, it automatically became a backstay, a rope that held the top of the mast in place at the back to prevent it from bending. So this is a possibility as it could have been made.
 
On large ships after 1600 it can be seen that there were ratlines on the shrouds everywhere.
On ships before 1600, there are only four shrouds with ratlines. Only from the deck to the tops of the foremast and mainmast. This can also be seen in the drawings of Gerrit de Veer.
 
These were attached about 40 cm apart. I glued the ratlines to the shrouds with superglue.
In fact, all the ropes on the model were far too thin compared to the rope available in model shops. This meant that the available rope had to be split again and again. This also meant that different thicknesses of rope had to be made.
 
 I only used rope that had absolutely no plastic in it. This rope is not stretchable and can also be glued very well with wood glue. In addition, each piece of rope was pre-glued to prevent the fibers of the rope from sticking out and thus not attracting dust.
The running rigging was made of brown rope, the standing rigging was made black (tarred).
 
 The smallest commercially available blocks had to be purchased. It became a search on the internet for the various suppliers. A number of blocks had to be made even smaller, which could be done by cutting and filing. The smallest blocks are located in the tops of the masts, in fact the blocks that were needed to hoist the flags. Some blocks were composed like the blocks at the ends of the yards. These were created after gluing two blocks together. Some of the blocks had a somewhat different shape, like the lift at the top of the mizzen yard. The first blocks from the tops that are needed for the lifts of the yards are also different. They had to be made manually from a piece of wood. I avoided to place round deadeyes. At that time, the deadeyes were triangular in shape. I filed round deadeyes in the right shape.

 Making deadeyes and lanyards
 Usually on shipmodels the deadeyes and lanyards are made when the lower deadeyes are already mounted. Because the scale of this ship is very small, I made the deadeyes and lanyards separately with the accompanying shrouds.
I designed the following method:

 I sawed two  equal sheets of plywood 2 mm thick with the same rectangular hole in the middle (A and B). The length of this hole is the length that corresponds to the total size of deadeyes with lanyards.
In the sheed B, two grooves come next to each other.
The chain plate will be attached to one deadeye and the shroud will be attached to a second deadeye. Both blocks are now placed in the grooves, picture C. On top of that comes the sheet without grooves, picture D. Both plates can now temporarily attached to each other with tape. Inside the opening, the threading can now begin and be secured.
 
After removing the tape, the ready-made deadeyes with lanyards appear (E).
They can now be attached to the model.
There are 38 deadeyes with lanyards of two different lengths attached to the model. So that requires sawing the plates twice again.
This ship was not yet equipped with channels, that only came a few years later. The chain plates, possibly ordinary rope, were attached to the a wale. Here I chose the method of replacing the chain plates with rope.

It took quite a bit of effort to get the thin strings through the tiny holes of the blocks. Often these passages still had to be drilled out with very small drills. The end of such a rope was reinforced with some superglue so that a thin sharp needle was created that could easily go through the hole.
 
 The sails.
 
The sails were made of cotton that was as thin as possible. It was difficult to get to a fabric store there, so I went to a second hand store and dived between the women's blouses hung there. After some searching, under the hilarity of ladies present, and comparing, I found the thinnest possible white cotton that I was going to use for the sails.
 
 The dimensions of the sails were copied from the drawings and coloured
 
The pattern of the strips was applied by means of a Rotring pin.
To imitate the bolt-rope on the sails, I glue rope against the side. I always use this method when making the sails of my  models.


The photo shows how this works (on the sails of a chebec). I use regular wood glue. The edges of the sails are first provided with highly diluted glue, which should not shine after drying. So first make test pieces until the glue is so diluted that the shine is gone.
 
Apply the glue with a toothpick
 
After drying the glue, the outline must be carefully cut out, the glue will prevent the fabric from fraying
 
The pre-glued rope is then glued to it in pieces of about 30 mm by pressing it with a metal plate, for example a steel ruler. See also my website; www.constantwillems.nl
 

After most of the rigging and the sails were attached, I wanted to make a natural bulge of the sails. With a fan I blew the sails into a nice position and then added hairspray with a spray can. After some time I stopped with the fan and the sails remained in a natural position.

Back to Mary.
 
The fore castle.
How do you start building something that doesn't have a clear example of it?
First I enlarge the drawing from the books from 1/100th to 1/50th. This drawing is placed on the model at approximately the "correct" position.

About the right height compared with the deck of the rear castle
And the base starts at about the right distance from cannon port M3

And then we continue building in cardboard

There's a cardboard front castle, with a happy assistant on the top deck.
Of course I don't know if this form is correct. But the idea is to roughly recreate the ship on the cover of the book.

 

I'm starting full-time student teaching in a few days, so this'll probably be the last update for some months -- possibly the last of the year.
 
The cheeks are a single layer of basswood.  I briefly considered cardstock, but they need to be thick enough to support the trestle trees.

 
Cheeks after cutting with the Dremel wheel and fine-tuning with sandpaper and files.

 
Using the ratio barkeater provided for me here, I traced the top onto plywood.

 
The trestle trees are basswood and the cross trees are very thin bamboo that I originally prepared for oars.

 
Having filed slots for the shrouds to go through, it was now necessary to hold the masts in place while the glue dried -- luckily they're so close together that a single piece of cardstock was enough to do the trick.

 
Marking the trestle trees for the cross tree notches.

 
At this point I had the miserable realization that since I hadn't cut tenons on the masts for the cheeks to sit in, they would stand out far enough to block the slots for the shrouds.  So I had to use a tiny needle file and riffler to widen the slots.

 
Took a long time but I think this'll be sufficient.

 
Not wanting to be bothered with a vise, I set the Dremel between some heavy books to hold it in place.

 
Sloped sides on the top produced by rotating it in gentle contact with the sanding barrel.

 
To get the right curvature for the rail, I rolled a small piece of cardstock around the top and traced it.

 
This initial piece became the guide for tracing the final piece.

 
I "broke" the rail by wrapping it around a pencil.

 
Finding the right length to trim it to.

 
I glued the rail down a little at a time so that it wouldn't spring away, similar to adding the deck rails.  When I was done I found I'd somehow cut it too short, so an additional piece of card needed to be trimmed precisely to shape with my sharpest scissors to cover the gap.

 
The ribs are a thin strip cut from a card with a desktop paper trimmer.

 
Mast, fully assembled.

 
With a solid hull you can mark the deck level on the mast by putting it in its hole and rotating it against a pencil point.  Then it's time to paint.

 
Current state of completion.

The deck fittings still aren't glued down, that's why the grating, windlass and pawl are kind of jumbled.

7
 
Hatches with gratings.
 
The ship has two hatches with gratings, both of which are located amidships, separated by an intermediate beam.
B is the blue blade of a large hacksaw, with a slat to protect my fingers.
That saw has a thickness of just under 1 mm, which can be used to make a trench of width converted to the scale 1 : 87 is .7,5 cm
The holes in a grating should never be larger than 7.5 cm, otherwise the crew will break their ankles when they walk over them.
I made a guide through which I slided a bundle of slats (A) of 2.5 x 0.8 mm. Slots were then carefully sawn in them that neatly stop at the thickness of the two metal rings that are under the saw. If a little too much is sawn away on those rings, I could turn those rings in a different position 

In this way, thin planks with slots are created, which glued together, form a grid.
 
 The masts, bowsprit and the yards.
 
Nowadays we know almost everything about the rigging and masts of the ships after 1600. This is only partly the case with ships from before that time, to which this ship also belongs. For that reason, a few things had to be thought of myself, as if I were in the shoes of the skipper at the time. These will be discussed in the course of the story. The foremast and the mainmast are keel-stepped, the mizzenmast stops in the deck above the tiller. The mizzen mast is in fact pulled backwards when the  shrouds are attached, because this type from before 1600 did not use a mizzenstay. This mast had to be supported backwards. I solved this by putting a wooden bobbin between the mast and the front of the cabin.
 
The three masts, the yards and the bowsprit are made of pear wood, cut and filed to the right thicknesses and tapered. 
On 17th century ships, it was customary to make the topmasts extendable, a novelty that was applied at the end of the 16th century. This ship may have had sewn topmasts on the foremast and the mainmast. However, the replica that was built in Harlingen, and was completed in 2023, has extendable topmasts.
 
The connection between the mast and the top mast is not extendable.
 


The angle of the bowsprit in relation to the waterline was accurately transferred to a piece of cardboard, after which the bowsprit was glued into the hole and support provided for this purpose.
 
In the photo above, the lack of the mizzenstay is clearly visible.
Apparently, a basket was attached to the top of the mizzenmast, which can be seen in the drawings of Gerrit de Veer.
 
 


I made the basket by attaching glued rope to a plastic pen, a ballpoint pen. Above and below the basket, the pen was covered with double-sided tape, to keep the ropes in place. After drying, the basket could be cut loose and a bottom, also made of rope, was added.
 
On the drawings of Gerrit de Veer it is not clearly visible whether a gammoning has been applied between the bowsprit and the head knee. In order to relieve the pull on the bowsprit upwards, this seems to be necessary, as later ships in particular show. In any case, I applied it, just like with the replica in Harlingen.

Thanks Craig @iMustBeCrazy.
I have now added another cutter, based on advice you gave earlier I have made a new cutting jig and got tiny saw to go with it.

 
Then from the drawings we discussed before I made a kit of parts.
 

 
when glued together they make V3 of the companionway.



 
With a bit of gentle sanding it will look okay.
 
Not sure if I will add a hole and a ladder so I can show it open.
 
Tim