davyboy

peace 😉
This is a long term project.
Nothing thoughtless is done before moving on.
But every now and then you will see something like this 
Then there is removal and rebuilding😉

Post One Hundred and Seventy-six
 
Casing the model.
Today 'Indy' was finally encased and moved to her display position.

4713
Quite a fraught business lifting the heavy glass cover over the base, but at least there are no tall masts to negotiate and yards to snag.

4717
The cover was set with the model/base on the floor, and the combination case lifted in two stages onto the chest of drawers.

4715
I had been waiting for the arrival of the ‘Indy’ Admiralty  plan which I have had framed. This was also a tricky exercise to hang being 53” in width, supported by three hooks.

4708
This is the last available space I have for a large model, but I think I can still accommodate a few smaller ones.

4723
The final act is to compile the build photo record book that I do for all my builds, this is now ready to go to the printers.
 
I can now finally declare the project completed, and I again thank those who have shown an interest.
 
Regards,
 
B.E.
18/05/2024

"Oh and 13 is just the start !" More power to your elbow Steven as it's all in a good cause.
 
Dave 

"Oh and 13 is just the start !" More power to your elbow Steven as it's all in a good cause.
 
Dave 

"Oh and 13 is just the start !" More power to your elbow Steven as it's all in a good cause.
 
Dave 

"Oh and 13 is just the start !" More power to your elbow Steven as it's all in a good cause.
 
Dave 

Another small update.
 
The first image is an overhead view of the very long poop deck - now cleaned of dust, dirt and general grunge. 
 
The second image is of the forecastle, showing the first tentative steps towards correction of some errors on the model. Part of the railing has been removed on each side of the deck, as these sections were removable and had chain, rather than steel bar railings.
 
More thinking and study of photos has brought to light another major problem. The original ship had a beautiful teak capping rails all around the poop rather that the pipe rail shown on the model. The Senior Curator would like to have this changed to conform to the original, so - yet another major alteration. My current thinking is that the simplest way around this will be to file down the tops of the stanchions a little to bring them to the height of the bulwarks forward, and then to run the wooden capping around on top of the current steel piping. A lot of work, but I think easier than ripping out all of the railing and starting again. If anyone has any better ideas, I'd love to hear about them as I'm not looking forward to all that additional work.
 
Another problem is the number holes and gaps in the deck caused by the removal or alteration of items that were no longer on the ship at the time of her last voyage. I need to find some kind of filler to close up all those holes and make them a little less obvious.
 
This model is turning into a real lesson for anyone thinking of taking on a restoration; the number of problems on deck on this model that have come to light since I started serious cleaning operations is amazing!!
 
John
 

Glen, 'chuffed' means pleased. You can be mildly chuffed or extremely chuffed. I think they were near the top end of the scale. One asked me if it would be possible to get his yacht model repaired, others were very interested in the idea of selling the models to the public - lots of people come here from Melbourne and have a nice trip in the lake in the paddlewheeler. What nicer than to then buy a model of the boat? 
 
Roger, I agree about the cost factor. The wood is donated - we have far more than we know what to do with, and the machinery to cut it to size. I'm hoping I can figure out a jig to make mass production easier.
 
Oh, and 13 is just the start!
 
Steven

I see that you like French cheeses....
 
Yves

It has been a while since I last posted any update - and to be honest I haven't had a lot of time to devote to modelling in the last few weeks. What time I have had has mostly been spent either reorganising tools and workspaces or taking just a few steps forward and then a few steps backwards with the build!
 
I thought it would be a good idea to get a proper spindle sander setup and as space doesn't allow me to have a dedicated spindle sander I instead purchased some sleeveless sanding drums to use in the drill press. The sleeves are 1 inch, 2 inch 2.5 inch and 3 inch in diameter. I made a little spindle sanding station so that there was a nice flat baseboard on which to place the pieces when they are being sanded - here is the 1 inch drum in the press.

I have made and then subsequently discard two attempts at making the stemson. The stemson is made from 15" stock and in each case I found it difficult to get the join between it and the stem nice and uniform. I am now on my third attempt and rather than using a cut out template from the plans I have this time traced the shape of the inner curve of my stem onto the piece of wood. This has then been cut out on the scroll saw and now needs sanding to ensure a snug fit. I have purchased a cheap A5 lightboard to help me with checking the fit of the joint and hopefully that will help me improve on my earlier less successful attempts!
 
One useful piece of knowledge I have recently acquired is that it isn't a good idea to use tracing paper as a template for any of the pieces. I had traced the shapes of the aft deadwood pieces on tracing paper and then glued then to some 15" stock but when I came to cut them out on the scroll saw I noticed that the act of gluing the tracing paper to the wood had actually resulted in the tracing paper becoming stretched in one dimension. Luckily this meant that my templates were too long rather than too short and so the pieces were still useable, but at least now I know not to do that again! 


I have glued the three aft deadwood pieces together with black tissue paper in the joints. The top curve of the assembled pieces have been sanded to the correct shape but the base and the rear line of the aft deadwood is still a little oversize. I will sand those to size once I have milled in the shape of the stepping line. I also need to drill holes in the base of the aft deadwood so that it can be pinned to the centreline of the keel at some point in the future.

 

Just a quick follow up....All of the coamings and hatches and partners are now glued onto the model.   Not much to see but here are the details.
 
The mast partners went in first.  Really important was to get them down the center line so your masts arent slanted or crooked.   It is best to use a dowel or even any strip of wood near the same diameter as the masts to also check the rake of the masts to determine the position of the partners.   I dont have a picture of that but you guys mostly know this already.
 
The main mast partners needed to have the pump tubes made before I could glue it on the model.  I am only making the pump tubes below deck at this time much like Greg did on his model.  I used a 1/4 x 1/4 cedar strip and marked it out to become octagonal.  I used the 7-10-7 template provided on the plans.   You can see it in the picture below.   Then I drew lines down each side so I could begin shaving the corners.  I just use a sharp #11 blade to carefully shave the corners down to the lines.  Just before the lines actually.   Then I use a sanding stick to finish it off.   Some of you may have some machines that could do this more accurately but this works just fine.   
 

You will notice a small length of 19 gauge black wire I inserted into the top end.  This will be inserted into the holes laser cut in partners.   The pump tubes are not vertical...so when glued into the bottom of the mast partner I created the slant for these using the plans as a guide.
 

 
Then it was just a matter of gluing the main mast partners onto the model.  You can barely see these pump tubes under the partners but here is a bad photo showing them entering the well below deck.  We will make the top half of the pumps much later and the same holes on the mast partners will be used to register them so they look continuous through the deck.  So dont make the wire too long on the top of the tubes.  Make them short enough so some room remains to do the same when we add the top of the elm tree pumps later.
 

The other gratings and hatches were added down the center line permanently.
 
The last remaining issue was the capstan partners.   We need to make the capstan drum below deck.   This is easy enough.  Its just a round drum that tapers.   I started with a 3/8 x 3/8 strip of cedar.  Then I converted that into an octagon just like we did for the pump tubes.  I have provided another 7-10-7 template for this strip so you can proceed to make it an octagon. 
 
Here is a photo after I rounded it off and tapered the octagon.  I just dis this by hand but you can chock it in a hand drill or if you happen to have a lathe....have at it.  The length can be taken from the plans as well as the diameter at the bottom so it fits in the capstan step below deck.
 

 
Once completed I glued the capstan partner onto the center line of the deck so the drum sits in the step nicely.  You might also notice that I made the drum a certain length so there was still room in the hole of the capstan partners.   This will allow me to register the actual capstan above deck after we make it.  Hope that makes sense.
 

 
Thats it for now as I am off to the beach for a few days to recharge....and decompress.   I will be back sometime next week ......or maybe not....
 
 
 

Real simulation :
 


 

Late pics of my shipyard :
 

I had some issues with attempting the Sphinx and the CAF Granado. I made some mistakes on the Sphinx, and I think mostly to do with the size of the parts I was working with. The Granado was another story and certainly for the very experienced scratch builder. After agonizing over some of the larger scale kits including Surprise, Bonhomme Richard and Royal Caroline I chose the Indy. Kudos to Chris for this model. With very careful thought to assembling the kit, even a mere mortal like me finds it extremely easy to build up to now. What other kit would allow you to get to where I am in less than 8 hours of time. I am enjoying every moment. A pleasure to work on.
 
I am not going to do a complete build thread but only post when I run across problems that I need some help with. There are very able modelers that are building this model, and their threads are tutorials for me. I'm up to step 83 and happy that the main hull structure is finished.
 
Till next time.
 
Some pictures:
 

Frame Preparation
 
The next step is removing of the char on the frame parts. The layer of char on those parts is quite thick and cleaning them up requires a fair bit of work.  The photo below shows the tools and equipment I used for this task. Char from the hull (concave) side of the frame can be removed using sand paper.  First using standard woodworking 400 grit sand paper and then finishing with waterproof automotive 400-600 abrasive paper.  I find the later works very well. Since it is black, every sanding stroke is clearly seen so it is easy to move your part around to clean areas at every stroke (sanding over a dirty section of the sand paper just imbed the char within the wood fibers).  Once the sand paper sheet is saturated with char, it can easily be cleaned by soaking in water, dried and reused.  For the  inside of the frames (convex regions) I first used Lee Valley's mini scrappers. Most of the char can be remove this way.  A clean surface is achieved with further sanding with sanding sticks of diamond needle files. I use a crepe block to frequently clean the sticks and files from accumulated char.  Otherwise the char removed is simply moved around.  With the same idea in mind, it is a good idea to keep your working area clean by frequent wiping/vacuuming.  All this is done wearing a N95 mask (a must) and optional nitrile gloves. 

Frame preparation is a slow process.  It took me about three weeks to complete the square frames.  By the end, I could complete one frame in about one hour.  

Once the char removed, I also sanded the frame sides to remove any residual char. An example of a completed frame (10f) is shown here.   Note the misplaced notch in one of the parts (lower right hand corner) for this particular frame.  This is the only part that shows such anomaly.  Hard to understand how this could happen in the production process. If others see the same it could indicate a mistake in the drawing file used with the laser cutter. 
 
The next step is the frame assembly. At this point I am wondering whether or not WOP should be applied to the sides prior to assembly?  It is not clear to me how the frame sides can be finished once assembled (how to deal with the various steps when scrubbing with a steel wool) or installed on the keel (limited access).  I welcome suggestions. I am also trying to devise a method to keep joints as tight as possible and minimize skewedness of assembled frames.  The photo below shows all the frame parts s in individual ziplock bags ready for assembly. 
 

 
 

Thank you everyone for the likes, much appreciated and it keeps me motivated!
 
Here’s the completed keel, being on the long side, it’s hard to get decent pictures. I’ve also started on the forward apron, the wedges are glued together and ready to start fitting them. 
 
 Best Regards …. Rick

Here’s this morning’s efforts. I added the bottom of the keel, but first had to make the angle cut. To make the cut more accurate, I drew a line on the plan extending the required angle. Then placed the wood over the line.  Next, using your favorite cutting utensil score the wood using the lines on each side as a guide. After that, use a machinist square to draw a line across the wood. Now you have a guide for a straight cut. I used a new razor blade to make the cut and only needed a quick touch with sandpaper to make a perfect cut. Next, I used that cut to set the angle on my Byrnes disk sander for the mating part. All parts lined up perfectly for gluing in place.
 
Best Regards …. Rick

Everything is looking absolutely top notch Chuck.
 
Now a question. How was the Anchor Cable passed below deck to the cable tier when weighing anchor? It certainly would not have been left lying on the deck. Nothing to see on David's or your plans. Normally one grating had cut outs for this purpose the gratings on Speedwell are over passageways with cabins on each side,can't see any stowage area there. One of the hatches maybe ? I asked both of the Book authors and never got a suitable answer to this question. It is/was my intention on my 1/48th Speedwell to have a catted anchor with the cable still attached and led aft to pass below decks. Adds a bit more interest to a model IMO. 
 
Cheers,
 
Dave 

Thought this may be of some interest to many on here:
 
https://boatnerd.com/boatnerd-news-may-16-2024/

Everything is looking absolutely top notch Chuck.
 
Now a question. How was the Anchor Cable passed below deck to the cable tier when weighing anchor? It certainly would not have been left lying on the deck. Nothing to see on David's or your plans. Normally one grating had cut outs for this purpose the gratings on Speedwell are over passageways with cabins on each side,can't see any stowage area there. One of the hatches maybe ? I asked both of the Book authors and never got a suitable answer to this question. It is/was my intention on my 1/48th Speedwell to have a catted anchor with the cable still attached and led aft to pass below decks. Adds a bit more interest to a model IMO. 
 
Cheers,
 
Dave 

John, Roger, Ian, Veszett and Druxey thank you for commenting.
 
Just a brief update:- 
 
I got to the 3rd row of planks before the planks began to run out at the stern. This necessitated a wedge being inserted. Just visible between the second and third planks in the next photo.

I did however continue with parallel planks.
 
In the boiler room area I needed to start aligning the plank edges using stainless steel clothes pegs where alignment proved to be unsatisfactory.

Having included the wedge between the 2nd and 3rd planks the 4th plank went on as a parallel plank without a further wedge.


I am now on layer 7 and probably near the end of parallel planking. At maximum beam I am going to have to start adding more width (which in practice means narrowing the planks at stem and stern).

I am checking the symmetry of the planks (with callipers) on an ongoing basis. The green lines also help me judge the symmetry. As yet everything is looking good. 
 
 

The inner planking of the bulwarks ....

So I have been working on getting the templates set up for the main deck. 

Having got the general shapes sorted out I can set out the locations of the various items that come through this deck. The mizzen location is sorted for this level. However, the Fore and Main masts are located on the false deck but I now have to calculate the location on the main deck taking into account the degree of rake of each mast. 

I will clean up the pencil marks on these templates and redraw some guide lines for the final ply deck to eradicate the errors on the templates. 
The more observant will notice there are a few bits of damage to the tabs on the frames. Two down to my heavy hands and the other two down to my four legged assistants. 

Hi, and thanks 
 
 

Very neatly constructed, Chuck.
 
John