davyboy

'Finally settling for a uniform method that will look OK in 1:100 scale.   In the picture below, there are extra quilting pins not needed ... a third toothpick is just teased under the coil to make it easy to wrap a line three times around the middle (high of center), it stays put but is still fixed with a dab of CA (as is the knot at the top).  The short end at that knot is trimmed away (the long end having been used for wrapping the middle & its end is trimmed away after fixing with CA).  I can do it now with just a pair of toothpicks on the balsa block protected by waxed paper.  The bamboo toothpicks are given a slight twist before removing in case of adhesion, and the coil pops-off the waxed paper.
 
  I'm not seeing any discoloration from the small amount of glue being used (applied with the dental tool), and I like the instant drying that happens when the other end of the dental tool applies a touch of 'accelerator'.  I figure on needing about 150 of these coils - each going to a belaying pin somewhere.  So far I have ten made  - leaving 140 to go !
 
 

Starboard side deck complete and ready for scraping and sanding. Cutting the margin plank was not very difficult towards the bow but when cutting the aftermost was very difficult. Forward  the margin plank has a rather severe curve that allowed the cuts rather short. The short cuts made matching the plank into the nibbing fairly quick without too many oops along the way. The after plank nibbing made for long cuts into the margin plank. Several of these were slightly off grain so many new blades were required. The last is 1/4" wide and made of three pieces. I was able to make the ends from 3/16" planks nibbed into the margin. The center plank is the 1/4" wide with a radius cut into the margin plank side which allowed the ends to align with end pieces. The center was extremely difficult to make. First I tried making a pattern from paper and then cutting a poster card with no success. Finally taking the plank sanding one end to align with the 3/16" end piece and with trial and error getting the width and radius correct I cut the plank to length. Lastly sanding the shape to match the curve and butt against the forward end piece.
It all came together

The photo exaggerates the butt joints which are tighter than the iPhone photo
 

Finished the planking up to needing to start ribbing. I've never nibbed a deck into the waterway so I'm going to Rocky Mountain Shipwrights meeting tomorrow. The club is part of Nautical Research and has a meeting on the first Saturday of each month to help and just meet on the third Saturday is the club general meeting. This is a very active club and I'm glad to be a member.

More after the meeting tomorrow

Putting in his lunch order. 
 
But seriously….they are same figure and just used for scale.  I actually move him around as I develop the drawings.  Insane how tight the spaces were and low the ceilings were.  
 
I placed him near the tiller on the poop deck also…no railings port and starboard.  Crazy stuff…lucky if the bulwarks are knee high…
 
Just high enough to trip overboard.
 

 

 

Lovely work, Chuck, but what the heck is that officer doing forward in the galley? Warming his hands?

More details inboard...sneak peak...

To test the finishes I made some test pieces:
1) Boxwood planking fragment. With a bit of treenails, cross-piece with a glue left over from one side, and a few glue drops specifically planted.
I remember that some finishes highlight the glue drops and any imperfections, so I've made them on purpose
The cross-piece makes it harder to wipe off the finish, and I want to see how the build-up in that corner would look like.
2) Deck structure imitation, with a bit exaggerated curve to see how finish absorbs into diagonal grain. Half-circular piece creates a tiny corner that is hard to clean up, again to test the build-up.
Most of the piece is made using swiss pear (pink-ish), but two parts are in a yellow pear (aka regular pear, but non-steamed), leftover from the original timbering package. I am planning to use different shades (a bit like Albert on his Naiad) and curious to see how different finishes highlight that difference.

This was a fun project of its own, I really enjoyed making them.
It was a good opportunity to test my fancy fret saw. This brand is usually used as a decoration on a background of your woodworking youtube channel, but since I do not have one - I just cut wood with it  

It's quite ok, need to practice more to cut straighter, but the main benefit is quietness - I can slowly cut my pieces while the family is around, while they need to hide somewhere if I fire up a bandsaw.
The common way of cutting the underside of a beam by using a mill is a bit too cumbersome with such tiny pieces, so I just scribe a line and then sand to this line with a small sanding drum:

It was also a good practice in cutting notches. Two marking gauges and very handy, chisel registers in the scribed line and does not slip anywhere. 


The resulting quality was not always good, you can see a few gaps and dings, so this practice run was quite necessary.

Each piece got one coat of finish, non-diluted, just as it says on the box. Excess wiped off more or less immediately with a paper towel.
After a few days, I imitated a spot-fix (e.g. if I need to glue something to a finished part) - scraped away a small spot and re-applied a drop of finish to that area, blending it to the adjacent area. The point is to see how well it blends, if there is a visible difference between that area with two coats as compared to one coat on the rest of the piece.
There was no post-finishing with steel wool - since this would be hard to do on a model, and I'm afraid of tiny metal particles getting stuck in random places and rusting after a while. 
 

Oh dear. No one has complained about this, but the trestle- and cross-trees really were just too big. I looked at the plans in Longridge’s book about HMS Victory, and they are shown as tiny. That’s not right either - I worked out the dimensions using Steel’s figures, and I needed to make them about 2/3 of the present size. That was possible, though the cross-trees are now too small to be drilled for the rigging. Anyway, the revised ones don’t look too bad to me, though of course a photo brings out all the imperfections. Please remember that the maximum dimension is three quarters of an inch. Despite them being small, they seem strong enough, thanks to the Bahia rosewood. I think it’s very important to avoid making things oversize if possible; I’ve seen too many photos of models where this is a fault. The topmasts are not yet fixed in place, but I put them in just for the photo. The view through the window does not, incidentally, reveal just how unbelievably wet the garden is.
On a different topic, I had asked earlier if anyone knew what had happened to the modelships.de site. I found the answer on the web, and it’s a sad one. The owner of the site died, and that meant the end of it.

Well, as usual I’ve not advanced as fast as I’d hoped. Late medieval English armies have got in the way, among other things. The garden has needed some work, even though most of it is now a swamp (is this the wettest spring since 1316, I wonder?). One question about tops. Steel states that ‘RAILS are made of wood or iron, and fitted across the aftside of tops, to prevent the men from falling’, and he also says that ‘The rail is supported by stantions let into the top, with a netting from side to side; the outside is covered with baize or canvas, and furnished with stoppers, to clap on in case a topmast shroud should be carried away by accident.’ This would fit with earlier eighteenth century models, such as that of HMS Centurion (in the National Maritime Museum), but I’ve not seen evidence for anything so elaborate at the end of the century. I have just fitted wire rails, without netting or covering. I might add netting later. Advice will be gratefully received. Another issue with the tops is how to do the deadeyes. Fitting them properly, with metal strops and slots in the tops, just looked clumsy at this scale. So, I have cheated again, and just tied them to the ends of the futtock shrouds.
 
Now, topmasts. The masts themselves are straightforward, of course. But the trestle-trees and cross-trees are not, and I’ve had problems with them in the past. I wondered about card for this model - it can bend awkwardly, but it won’t snap. Anyway, I  stuck with wood. The Bahia Rosewood I used earlier is very close-grained and tough, so I’ve used that. It even takes drilling holes to take the topgallant shrouds. I have cheated by simply glueing the cross-trees in place without grooving the trestle trees. I don’t think it really shows at this scale, and they were not fitted flush in any case. The picture makes them look rougher and clumsier than I think is the case. Anything slimmer would be very difficult to do at my age, with anything so small. But if anyone has ideas, they will be most welcome.

Not really - it really comes from England - there's not an Australian equivalent that I can think of (not any that are suitable for a family forum, anyway). But I liked the sound of it, so I've adopted it as an "honorary" Australian term.
 
It means astounded, amazed and often also impressed, or even shocked. Flabbergasted.
 
Steven
 
PS: Your gob is your mouth, so it's as though you've been smacked in the mouth, that's how amazed you are.

The cabin was fitted with two doors on the deck side. Doors and planks (veneer thick approx. 0.8 mm.) are glued to a piece of plywood of one mm. thick. The wall of the cabin is also a truss mould for the further construction at the rear of the ship.
At the location of the future gun ports, I made the necessary openings in plywood. The front gun gate has not yet been made here. It is positioned in the curve of the bow and appears in a closed state when the hull is finished. Also, the top wale has already been installed here.

 

To protect the underlying construction of the superstructure during the planking of the hull, I made roughly both sides above the upper timber from cardboard. The hull is already partly equipped with planks. The part between the upper two wales, in which the gun ports are placed, are made of paranapine. The wood is fine-grained, not too hard and easy to bend and work with. The planks are a maximum of 3.5/4 mm. wide. Which equates to about 33 cm in reality.
The curve above the transom is now also provided with planks. The opening for the rudder pin, the tiller, has been cut out.
 
The joints of the planks are provided with lip weldings. It is important that the entire connection is fitted together for two planks outside the ship. If that is exactly right, they are all different, then one of the planks is attached and the other is provided with a lip seal, at the other end, with a third plank on the other side. This second plank is then attached and the entire length of the ship is finished. Planks on wooden ships were never lomger than 7 m.


The stern was made before the  planks were attached. The planks go over it.
 
The very dark planking between the two wales were too dark. I removed them and replaced them with pear planks.
The part between the upper wales was finally closed. You can clearly see how the lip welds are placed between the planks.
 

One of the mysteries of such ships concerns the large number of gun ports, sixteen of them. If you count that there were 17 men on the ship, it is hard to imagine that there was a cannon behind every port. In those days, no seabattle was fought by firing all the guns at the same time from the broadside of the ship. Rather, we should see that as skirmishes with a few very light artillery pieces, at most 3 pounders, and  muskets. The large number that appears in many prints from that time (not only in the account of Barents' voyage) with the mouth of a cannon from each gate should rather be seen as an interesting depiction of a ship.
 
It is not possible to find out how many cannons this early Pinas had, perhaps at most about four. They were small cannons on mostly three-wheeled carriages. Small fire mouths, rear loaders, which stood with a gaff in a hole on the side wall were also used.
My assumption is that those many gun ports could also have served well to row the ship in case of an emergency. The ship is very small and can certainly be moved with oars. Somewhere in De Veer's report it is also said that the ship is being rowed. Whether it means that it is pulled by a rowing boat or that it was rowed independently will never be clear.

In this topic consisting of several episodes, I am going to tell you something about the construction of this ship. Although it is very small in real life, and many times smaller on a scale of 1:87, it was a fairly difficult job to get it done and it is based on a lot of research.
At the beginning of June 2018, I started building a model of the ship on which Willem Barents sailed to Nova Zembla in 1596. The Northern trade route had to be found, but that failed and Barents had to spend the winter on this island in the Arctic Ocean with 16 other crewmenbers. But the year after they returned to Holland.
Shortly after this event, drawings were made of this ship that served as illustrations for the travelogue of Gerrit de Veer, one of the members of the crew.

 The two ships of Heemskerk and De Rijp. The commander was Barents, who was on Heemskerk's ship. The names of the ships are not mentioned anywhere.
 
As a result, reconstruction attempts were made to find out what the ship looked like. Ab Hoving has written a book with fine detailed reconstruction drawings, which form the basis of the construction of the model with which I started.
By the way, I am not supposed to call this model “the ship of Barents”. I never build models of ships that had a name, but only build ship types. In consultation with Ab Hoving, we decided to call this type an "Early Pinas". A Pinas is a very well-known type that was built frequently, especially after 1600 in Holland. This ship dates from just before that time, around 1590, and at that time a number of later inventions had not yet been applied.
Since I have built more ship models on HO scale, so 1:87, it was logical that I would do that again. The models can then be compared in terms of size.
Installing the rigging took a lot of time, also because it was all still unknown territory for me.
 
In the previous 40 years, I did long-term research on Latin-rigged ships that sailed around the Mediterranean, and built models on a scale of 1:87 as a result of those studies. The rigging and hull construction are vastly different from square-rigged ships.
This was my first square-rigged ship. At first I looked despondently at the drawings of the rigging, but after a while I understood all the functions. Repeatedly, I had to remove it again and try again.
 
Ab Hoving was always ready to provide me with the necessary advice. His help was indispensable because he had also carried out the entire research on this ship and had described it in his book;
HET SCHIP VAN WILLEM BARENTS. Een hypothetische reconstructie van een laat-zestiende eeuws jacht  (A hypothetical reconstruction of a late sixteenth century yacht).ISBN 90-6550-772-8
 
Many of the techniques that can be found here are also described on my website; www.constantwillems.nl
And the same applies to this model; it is a reconstruction, so there is a chance that the ship looked different in details.
 
 
The construction of the hull
 
A start was made with transferring the trusses, obtained from data from Hoving's drawings, to paper. Those drawings are on a scale of 1 : 75 and it was a simple action to take those drawings to a copy shop where they were transferred to scale HO., 1 : 87.
 
Like all my models, I built this boat mainly from pear wood.  Part of it is made of paranapine. It is built on rafters of plywood thick 3 mm. Actually a bit too thick but I tried to imitate the lip welds of the original construction and then a wide enough surface is needed to make those welds on those rafters.
 
The trusses as I first drew them
 
I always work with half-trusses, as can be seen in the drawing.
When all the half-trusses on the port side are glued to the central  truss, all imperfections on that side can be repaired very accurately by filing away excess material. When everything is satisfactorily secured, I start with the other side. To this end, moulds are made from the already glued trusses, which are carefully sawn out and glued to starboard. Thus, everything is completely equal on both sides.
 
The longitudinal truss is made of plywood 1.5 mm thick. The bow, keel and stern are made of pear wood. These parts were glued all around against the longitudinal truss so that on the port and starboard side there is still above those parts 0,75 mm to support the ends of the planks. The locations of the numbered half-trusses are indicated on the longitudinal trusses, as shown on the drawings in the book.
 
Because the longitudinal truss is quite thin, it can bend easily, so it was screwed onto a board and I added small distance partitions between the rafters. At the bow arrived a filler piece of balsa wood that had been filed into the right shape to give the planks at the bow the correct shape. After unscrewing the longitudinal truss, it turned out to be an indeformable unit and the other rafter halves could be glued.
 
When everything was in place, on both sides of the longitudinal bilge, I made the stern. The construction has quite a few bends and to make that easier, a mold was placed on the work board to make the right shapes.
 
The top piece was made of balsa wood. The black hole is the interior of the cabin where a window was later added. The lower timbers have already been installed here, which already gave the framework a lot of strength. The transom is of one mm. plywood with the planks glued on top in the right pattern. Later, the openings were added.
The support boards between a number of trusses are painted black. They are behind the open, or closed,  gun ports.
The struts for the bulwarks were made of plywood. This is only necessary  to attache the  planks above the deck which form the bullwark. Once they are glued on, the  plywood pieces were carefully removed and then be replaced by the struts in the correct dimensions and material.
 
The top of the bulwark was called the rahout (Dutch word; ra is yard, hout is wood). On an early pinas it was customary to lower the yards on the bulwarks in order to stow or strike the sails. This is how the name rahout came about. On later ships, the sails were stowed or struck on the hoisted yards.

I started building the ship from the bow. I want to build a small part, then sand the inside. If the fragment is large, sanding will be inconvenient.

 

I sawed the frames. Now I need to sort them by number.

Stays and Preventors
I have finally completed adding all the stays and preventors for the mizzen, main, and fore lower, topsail and topgallant masts. The sprit topmast and flying jibboom have also been added to the bowsprit.
 
I am reasonably happy with how the Indy is looking at the moment. There is still a few more months work ahead required to complete the build.
 
The first photo shows the Mizzen mast.

The next photo shows the belaying arrangement for the mizzen topsail and topgallant stays, located on the main mast lower platform. I did have to redo the mizzen topsail stay as I was not very happy with the end result after I had added the mizzen topgallant mast stay.

The next photo shows the main mast stays

The next photo shows the main topsail and topgallant stays belaying arrangement on the foremast lower platform
The next photo shows the belaying on the main topsail stay and preventor at deck level.

The next photo shows the foremast stays

The top gallant stay and flying jibboom stays are fed through the dolphin striker, as shown in the next photo.

The fore topsail stay and preventor are taken through the bees, as shown in the next photo.

Some close up detail of the sprit topmast and flying jibboom arrangements in the next couple of photos.

The next photo shows the fore topsail preventor and flying jibboom belaying arrangement at the bow. There is a similar belaying arrangement on the port side bow for the fore topsail stay and fore topgallant stay,

Post One Hundred and Sixty-seven
 
The 26 ft Launch - The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.
Altho’ the main work on Indy has been completed, the overall display requires further work.
Building the Launch continues my work on the boats. I like the Launch because it offers opportunity to add detail such as the windlass.
I have been here before as I made up the 24’ Launch for Sphinx. This didn’t however guard me against breaking the stern post (twice) during the fitting of the transom.

4227
Again, I thought it prudent to add little support pieces to the build board to reduce any flexing during the fairing business. These small boats are delicate and require gentle handling particularly in the early stages.

4232
The fairing went ok.

4235
Regrettably, the stem broke in two places along the planking slot during the testing of the first planking strip, hardly touched it Gov’ner, and the repairs didn’t hold.

4236
I suspect it was a combination of the inherent weakness related to the planking slot, plus possible grain run of the stem.

4239
I did think about replacing the stem element, but removing the frames from the base resulted in what our American friends may describe as FUBAR.
 
Sadly, Indy will be without her Launch, but stuff happens – right.
 
B.E.
07/04/2024
 

Weekend progress. Have most of the stem assembled. I used the ultimation sander to clean up the ends. I removed the 120 grit sand disc that came with it and replaced it with 220. The 120 is a little too much for this. I glued the two halves of the lower keel together and the first section of the keel which forms the boxing joint. The inner parts are just dry fit for now.
 

 

The Gunports

Found my rhythm and finally produced first parts!
Admittedly got carried away with the shape of these mast posts, they are supposed to be much more boxy-looking and utilitarian. I was inspired by a few other models with very elegant posts For the same aesthetic reasons iron bolts are omitted and edges are aligned with the run of the planking.
I really love the look of curvy pear parts, big fat black dots would spoil it a bit. And after all these parts would be hidden deep in the hold.
It is more labor intense without a disk sander, so shaping and beveling involved a lot of chiseling. Though it is a pleasure with a nice and honed chisel.

The most pleasuring moment was chamfering these edges with some relaxing background music Super happy, the joy is back!
 
Finished with my new go-to finish Osmo Polyx 3062. Contemplating leaving smaller parts unfinished later during the build, but these are right next to the dark shiny pear frames, would be too much of a contrast. 
Before and after the finishing, side by side:

 
In the hull (dry fitted). Quite ashamed with the quality of planking at the bow, who left all these giant gaps? 🫣 Did not look that bad on photos from 2021...
No big deal, it only means I should be more careful next time. Also spotted an obvious misplacement of the top breast hook notch, it was the same guys fault. I was too young back then  


 

The main deck completed to the midline and the bowsprit step is temporarily installed

Dick

After some delays due to Easter I collected my Speedwell kit yesterday and was able to get started today.

New to the forum, I noted that Chuck would like to see buildlogs and figured why not, I can use all the help I can get. This is definitely a deep end type project for me and I expect that I will be building quite slowly. Happily I seem to have gotten a generous amount of spare parts.

Started with the stem, not sure if I did something wrong but I ended up with a bit of a ledge along the curved inboard surface. Attempted to remove the ledge by sanding along the joint marked in red, which seems to have worked out ok.



 

 
This is where I'm at with a loose dry-fit, will sleep on it and try to refine the joint a bit more before glueing.

Cheers Guys, I will do a set of completion photos before I encase her, but the wooden framed glass case is  very heavy compared to my previous  acrylic covers, not very convenient for multiple  off and ons, and all the associated risks involved.
 
@ Bug - A lot of the deck fittings are removeable including the rope coils, so these are taken off when cleaning.
I simply start at the top;  firstly cleaning the rigging lines, then the masts and yards, using a soft paintbrush.
For the dust on the decks I pick it up with a soft brush and suck the dust with a hand held vacuum (Dyson) I finish off the outside of the hull.
 
Considering she has been uncased for many years she comes up pretty well, takes around 3hours + to do it.

2007a
Here she is stripped down for cleaning, built at a time before the availability and quality of fittings we have today she still remains one of my favourites.
 
Regards,
 
B.E.
 

unfortunately i have put my indy on a short hold, here is the reason why, copied from one of my many FB Cocker Spaniel sites
 
 
Dobbie Pingate Periscope  Blogg Day 3159 aged 8 years 8 months
Two weeks ago during a referral ear infection check-up, I mentioned that the boi was a bit grumpy, and out of sorts, and I suggested it might be a flare up of his pancreatitis, the Vet  examined his tummy area  and suggested that it should be looked at again at his next visit, his ear infection had not improved so  another course of antibiotics and Metacam for his tummy problem
Two weeks passed and another vet visit Wednesday 3 April, took a fairly happy boi into the vets
What she felt previously had grown and it was decided to leave Dobbie in for a ultra sound, this detected a large mass on his spleen,
He was booked in for a general anaesthetic, Xrays and spleen removal yesterday, 4th April but a phone call after the x-rays confirmed the dreaded news that he had tumours throughout his body and classed as stage 4 cancer,
We have been given 3 to 6 weeks life expectancy 6 to 9 months with surgery and chemo
Dobbie is showing very little signs of being ill and that helped us with the decision we as a married couple made, that hardest decision was to cancel surgery and bring home our boi and let him enjoy his time with us
Perhaps not written very well, and maybe against many others’ views, I felt it was important to let others know what is happening, after all, a lot of members have been seeing posts of him for over 8 years now
Please don’t flood this blog with hate messages, the quality of life for a short period of time outweighs the slightly longer time he possibly could be given with all the surgery and drugs, we will let Dobbie enjoy his remaining time with us, and not allow him to  suffer
From a devastated Dobbie owner
Kevin, Ruth and puppy Apollo

 
i will of course return to my Indy when i can and feel up to it,
 

Post One Hundred and Sixty-six
My version of Indy is effectively completed now and with some serious moving about of models within my workroom/office, I have found room to house Indy in the prominent position she deserves, and without encroaching on other areas of the house.
4223
She has displaced Norske Love which now has a new position vacated by Alert which also has a new location.

e2008a
Had I completed the masting on Indy it would be in the order of that of Norske Love which is of a slightly smaller scale of 1:70.

e2012a
Norske Love has received a well overdue clean, having endured all the dust created during the construction of ‘Indy’.

4022
Not quite ready for the glass cover to be on yet, but at least the issue of ‘where are you going to put that’ is now resolved.
As a bonus the lower profile of Indy compared to Norske love will allow me to re-arrange the wall Pictures and perhaps get one of Indy.
 
I have decided to have a further dabble with the boats, and have started assembly of the 26’ Launch, pity not to make them up as they are provided with the kit.
 
B.E.
06/04/2024