bdgiantman2

I used to have a copy of that article from Coffins of the Brave, until the USB I had it stored on decided to cease working for me without giving any warning at all.  I will have to get a new copy downloaded.

Hello Roger, thank you for the input. Some of the information I did know, others I didn't. The knees being omitted, for example, I did know about which Dr. Crisman described well in his thesis papers.  I have tried studying in more depth and details the sonar pictures provided of the wreck looking at areas such as the possible hawse timbers in the bow which has either completely deteriorated or maybe buried in mud. And while it is very well documented that  many construction short-cuts were taken as possible to speed up the building process, I personally can't imagine the Browns altering the standard construction especially about her bow. Many of the models I have seen of Brig Eagle show her with bow timber construction more like what you find on modern steel vessels, which I don't believe would be historically accurate which is why I am drawing her with traditional hawse timbers. If I remember correctly I do think that many clipper ships have same bow timber used real life that the models of Eagle show, but the clippers were half a century out still during 1814 war and the Browns were gone in history by then as well.
 
It is amazing learning increasing details about this project. The population of Vergennes, VT, at the time when the ship was constructed is estimated to have been 700-800 individuals including lumberjacks and carpenters and fur hunters -- so the Brown brothers had a good supply of workers to recruit for the project. It is quite a feat that they built ships that size that fast, had to be working around the clock all hours. And despite having used a lot of unseasoned wood for the project, the ship was floating reportedly for a decade following her famous moment in history before nature did its thing and Eagle slipped under the water entirely. This tells me  she may have been rebuilt with better planks after the war although the wreck doesn't provide such information that we can tell, or else there was a big enough furnace that was at the construction site must have dried the starboard side of the ship enough to keep that side intact for more than two centuries. 

Great demonstrating this project, Toni, your model is looking fantastic! With doing the lanyards, as well as cross seizing and others, is it easier doing these with a curved sewing needle or a straight sewing needle?

I didn't time them but it was not really appropriate. As I was designing the files virtually every one is print first one, test fit, check appearance, place in bin, adjust drawing and reprint.
 
The parts were designed in 1/50 then rescaled to 1/200. The rescale has to then be adjusted to produce a printable part. Some detail is lost, other detail exaggerated to get it to print OK.
 
When I am designing the files I tend to not have  the luxury of being able to add lots of parts to the same print job, they tend to to be small jobs with one or 2 parts (remembering a lot of them go into the bin)
 
Now that the parts are right, you can load the Resin printer with as many parts as can be fitted to the build plate as the print time is always the print time of the tallest part. That dramatically speeds things up a bit.  
 
Not so with the filament printer, extra parts means a longer print time.
 
A straight up print with the current files would take around 2 weeks on 2 printers (One Filament, one Resin), around 1.5kg of filament and 2 kg of resin.
 
 

Amazing outcome of this ship!! I am seeing an increasing crowd for doing 3d printing and the quality has been vastly improving. How long did it take to print up all those pieces?? Looks like at least two weeks worth of printing continuously in my estimates.

It's been a slow year in the making with progress, but here is a snippet of my attempts so far using AutoCAD doing a 3D edition of how Eagle would have looked and getting shapes of her ribs.  I am open to feedback concerning this and suggestions how to proceed.
 

Amazing outcome of this ship!! I am seeing an increasing crowd for doing 3d printing and the quality has been vastly improving. How long did it take to print up all those pieces?? Looks like at least two weeks worth of printing continuously in my estimates.

Great demonstrating this project, Toni, your model is looking fantastic! With doing the lanyards, as well as cross seizing and others, is it easier doing these with a curved sewing needle or a straight sewing needle?

It's been a slow year in the making with progress, but here is a snippet of my attempts so far using AutoCAD doing a 3D edition of how Eagle would have looked and getting shapes of her ribs.  I am open to feedback concerning this and suggestions how to proceed.
 

It's been a slow year in the making with progress, but here is a snippet of my attempts so far using AutoCAD doing a 3D edition of how Eagle would have looked and getting shapes of her ribs.  I am open to feedback concerning this and suggestions how to proceed.
 

The futtock staves were made from 3” served rope and are located as far below the trestle trees as the top of the mast is above the trestle trees, approximately seven feet.  For ease of installation, I used served 24 gauge wire, rather than rope.  They were lashed to the shrouds.  The picture on the left shows the lashing in white for clarity and the finished product on the right.
 
And now it is time for the dreaded ratlines.  There are some lines on a ship that are a do not change with the size of the ship, such as the footropes and ratlines, both of which must hold a seaman’s weight.  The ratlines are made of tarred 1.5” rope.  At this scale, I simply tied, rather than lashed, them to the outer shrouds.  They are secured to the inner shrouds with clove hitch knots, a drawing of which is below.  This picture is also from The Boy’s Manual.

Ratlines are spaced 12-15” apart and are parallel to the waterline.  The easiest way to keep them even is to make a line jig.  There is a tendency to pull the shrouds inward as the ratlines are added.  I like to secure a brass rod or stick to the outer shrouds to keep them straight.  This is my setup.  The clips are holding the line jig in place.  The ratlines are parallel to the waterline, not to the deck. After several hours, 220 knots and fifteen scale feet of rope, the ratlines were finished. 
 
Catharpins are ropes with an eye at each end which extend across and are seized to the shrouds at the level of the futtock staves.  According to Steel, sloops were not equipped with catharpins but I included them in the kit to illustrate their construction.  I made them from 22 gauge wire with a loop on each end.  As there is no tension on them, I did not solder the loops closed.  The catharpins are served and the ends are painted black to simulate the eye splice.    The first catharpin is located just aft of the mast and the other two are spaced out evenly along the futtock stave.

This completed the standing rigging of the lower mast.  As mentioned earlier, because this is a cross section model, lines that would not terminate on the model, such as the stays and backstays, were omitted.

Some more progress. I've installed the wales, the lower one was difficult to bend at the stern but I got it done. I've also gone ahead and trimmed the frames to their (almost) correct height and made the cutouts for the upper gun emplacements (not shown on the first photo which is from a week ago).
I'm now turning my attention to the interior, I installed the keelson and will start on the strakes on which the deck beams are resting.

The shrouds were installed next.  The starboard shroud is always placed first and are they are installed from fore to aft.  Because this ship has an odd number of shrouds, the first shroud is single; the rest are double.  The first shroud is served its entire length, protecting it from the lower sail.  The starboard and port first shrouds are secured to each other with a cut splice, just as was done with the pendant tackle. 


The remaining paired shrouds are served where they could be chafed: the center 20-25%, based on the ship being rigged.  I cut a two foot piece of line and marked the midpoint and 10% the length of the shroud on either side of the midpoint, in this case 1.2”.  This is the area that was served.  The doubled shrouds were secured with a throat seizing tight to the mast head.  The lower ends of the served portion of the shrouds should be level when they are installed.  This means that the throat seizing is not exactly in the middle of the served section, but offset enough to allow this to occur.  You can see this in the next picture.  The aft shroud seizing is slightly longer than the fore.

The shrouds were installed, alternating starboard and port, taking care to stack them neatly.  The topmast is temporarily installed in the following pictures.
 
The next step was to attach the upper deadeyes to the shrouds.  The distance between the upper and lower deadeyes is a constant.  The easiest way to ensure this is to make a spacer jig.  You will actually need ten, five for each side.  The picture shows two jigs.  The one on the left is made by soldering the two wires together.  The other one uses twisted wire.  The prongs go through the two inner deadeye holes.
 

I started by inserting the prongs through the upper holes of the lower deadeye and bent the wire around the back of the deadeye to prevent it from coming out.  Next, I wrapped the shroud around the upper deadeye and adjusted the shroud length so that the upper deadeye could be threaded onto the jig.  These shrouds are cable laid (left twist), so the short end of the shroud went on the aft side of the shroud.  If the shrouds were rope (right twist), the short end would be on the fore side.  I secured the shrouds to the deadeyes with alligator clips.  I find it important to leave the model alone for several hours at this point.  This allows the rope to stretch and helps prevent sagging in the future.

The upper deadeyes are secured with three seizings.  A cross seizing was placed where the shroud crossed over itself next to the deadeye.  I  marked the location of the cross seizing on both sides of the shroud and removed the deadeye.  If left in, the loop is too big.  After making the cross seizing, the deadeye was reinserted and the middle and end round seizings were added.  The drawing shows a round seizing. 

And the picture illustrates the relative location of the seizings, using white thread to make it easier for you to see.

Brown paint was used to represent the leather cap at the end of the shroud.

The shroud lanyards were installed next.  They are considered running rigging and are not tarred.  A knot was tied at the end of the lanyard and it was inserted through the back of the upper deadeye in the foremost hole.  After reeving it through the deadeye, excess line was kept for tying off.  Once they were done, the lanyards were gradually tightened, making sure the mast was straight.  Just like with the shrouds, I gave it a few hours to allow the line to stretch.  To tie off the lanyard, the rope was passed between the shroud and the deadeye (below left) and looped under the last line of the lanyard (below right).  The lanyard was wrapped around the shroud a few times and finished by inserting it under the last loop.

Don't forget that many of us don't have access to a mill, much less a CNC mill. So Chuck's offerings give us an opportunity to have the best results, despite not having a machine shop.
 
Best Regards .... Rick
 

I am looking forward to getting my hands on this kit after it gets released in several months, thanks for demonstrating this for all of us on here.
 
Brian D

The post you have drawn in blue is the sternpost.  The post in red is the inner stern post. The blue sternpost you will leave thick as the keel itself. The inner sternpost does get thinned down. I have copied and provided for you images from Gaetan Bordeleau that have been a big help to me in understanding and shaping the stern and will be using for my own model. 
 
Brian D

Thank you for this information,  don't know how I missed that before.  So then the royal mast, on a real ship, would be 2" approximately in diameter if same size rules apply??

Toni, I don't know if this kit will be including any of the deadeyes on the mast platforms (I've always only known them as crowsnests),  but I've heard that the deadeyes get smaller in diameter as go higher up the mast. Was this typical practice as I don't know???

Thank you for this information,  don't know how I missed that before.  So then the royal mast, on a real ship, would be 2" approximately in diameter if same size rules apply??

Toni, I don't know if this kit will be including any of the deadeyes on the mast platforms (I've always only known them as crowsnests),  but I've heard that the deadeyes get smaller in diameter as go higher up the mast. Was this typical practice as I don't know???

It was so great to see everyone at the New London show yesterday.  There were some fantastic models on display.  I hope everyone has a safe trip back to their workshops.
 
And talking about a safe journey back to the workshop.  Many of you may recall that 4 and maybe even 5 years ago, Someone swiped my mini-me off the Winnie model under construction at the show.  
 
I am happy to report that after several years as hostage…and with no ransom paid,  someone anonymously released mini-me and placed him in the depths of the speedwell model at this years show.  I was happy to find him below deck upon my return to the shop.  No harm was apparent on “mini-me” and he is in good health.  Thank you goes out to person for having a change of heart and I am sure that both of you will sleep a bit  more soundly this evening!!   Since I have lost 30 pounds this year so far...mini-me will now undertake the same dietary and exercise regime that I am now unfortunately tolerating.
 
You cant make this stuff up!!!
 

Yes, the kit will have the lower topmast deadeyes.  And yes, they are smaller.  As I stated in my post above, "The diameter of the deadeye is 1.5 times the size of the shroud or stay it is attached to..."  The topmast shrouds are 3.5", in contrast to the lower shrouds (5.5").

Toni, I don't know if this kit will be including any of the deadeyes on the mast platforms (I've always only known them as crowsnests),  but I've heard that the deadeyes get smaller in diameter as go higher up the mast. Was this typical practice as I don't know???

I am looking forward to getting my hands on this kit after it gets released in several months, thanks for demonstrating this for all of us on here.
 
Brian D

I am looking forward to getting my hands on this kit after it gets released in several months, thanks for demonstrating this for all of us on here.
 
Brian D