KeithAug

Thank you Keith. I have spent couple of day making the crosstrees. I needed some .165" wide brass strips. I had bought a few brass door "finger" plates a few years ago when they were being sold off at a huge discount. From these I slit off a number of strips on the mill. The cross section of the crosstrees is .2" high by .160" wide. To ease bending I decided to laminate them from 3 strips of .2" x .053" mahogany. I soaked the strips in boiling water for 5 minutes before clamping them in the bending jig and leaving overnight. I then used the bending jig to clamp the laminations while glueing. . I then cut and bent the bracing straps and soldered them to the mast bands. Various holes were drilled through the crosstrees to allow the shrouds to pass through and various instruments and fittings to be mounted. the holes for the shrouds were strengthened with brass tube. I checked the look by doing a temporary install on the mast. The finished article:-

The next job is the crosstrees but these come with a few challenges. Firstly it isn't proving easy to get their correct span. Photos taken from the deck suffer from parallax error and all the photos taken off-board Germania are either side or three-quarter shots. I decided the best approach is to make the spans equal to the beam at the fore mast and main mast positions. The second problem is that the photos of the cross trees are proving difficult to interpret and I can convince myself that they are constructed from metal or wood and are both rectangular and round in section. Here are the better photos:- I think I am going to go with my interpretation of the third photo which is a rectangular wooden spar shaped around the front of the mast and secured with a metal brace to the rear. I did a sketch of my interpretation. The top sketch is of the main crosstree. this has a span of 8.8". The lower sketch is of the fore crosstree and is only done to record the relevant dimensions. In this case the span is 6.5" Having decided on a plan I made myself a jig to assist bending and assembly. The hole positions match the circles drawn on the sketch. The jig allows both crosstrees to be made. The dowel up-stand is the diameter of the mast and is replaceable as i need 2 because of the different diameters of the main and fore masts. The holes towards the top edge take nylon pins, these will locate the bending points. Different holes will be used for the two crosstrees. Hopefully this will make more sense when I do my next post (assuming that it works!!!).

Shaun Nice woodworking skills. You must have been working with wood for some time???

Must remember the toothpick oar idea. Now filed for later use.

Innisfree - Thank you for commenting on my build. Your suggestion re the radar prompted me to check web images and as you say the dome may well house a weather radar. Mark / Pat - thanks to both of you for your thoughts.

More mast fittings but at least these are a bit more interesting. On the main mast are two supports for mounting the main radar and what I glass is a satellite communications dome. On the fore mast is a further support on which is mounted what appears to be a small radar. Why two radars? Starting with the bracket for the communications dome ( which also carries the fog horn and the main mast fore brace). The fog horn mount only features in one of the pictures but I like it so will go with that option. I started with a very basic sketch, i didn't feel I needed to draw all the detail so I only committed the basic dimensions to paper. I like soldering jigs because they make the work easier and more accurate. On this occasion the jig was machined from a scrap of wood The dowel locates the previously made mast hoop and the cross slots locate the flanges for mounting the dome and the horn. A brass pin at the end locates the tube for the mast brace. The components were soft soldered together. The bracket cleaned up well. The horn was machined on the lathe with a bit of double handed turning to create to curve, The motor for the horn is carried in a rectangular box at its rear end. This has a bit of profiling and was made on the mill. The bracket for the main mast radar is less complicated but was made in a similar manner. The fore mast radar bracket was similar - but shorter. Thats all for today folks.

Yes Gary, but i can't help thinking that I should be doing something for society. However i will probably just do more modelling. Tank you Chris and Veszett

Keith - unfortunately the cube root is a much better way of considering the relativity between the original and my creation. So that means i should charge 1/(36x36x36) or 1/46656 of the sale price = 107. For 4000 hours that means .026 per hour. I think I am undervalued.

Thank you Valeriy, sometimes however the detail is based on guesswork

Keith Much too many, fortunately i don't count because if i did would be depressed that I was wasting my golden years. Total elapsed build time is just coming up to 3 years. Preliminary research started about half a year before that. However I take comfort from knowing that many builds are much longer than mine -------- I may be mad but not as mad as some of you.

That sounds interesting. I look forward to seeing how it goes.

beautifully done - as ever Valeriy.

An interesting build which I will be pleased to follow.

Neat idea - must remember that one. Very clean build - impressive.

Thank you Bruce - I looked with interest but unfortunately it is a bit to expensive for me. Interesting thought Mark.

Mark, The photos I have are only part views but the sketch below hopefully shows what I mean. Eberhard, Keith, John, Druxey, Pat, Thank you all for your comments - you are too kind. I am pleased to report the weather has turned milder - 15c (59f) in the workshop today - second jumper postponed.

Thank You Druxey and Keith. At the risk of boring everyone I am proceeding with the mast fittings. Starting with the brackets for the main mast gooseneck. 2 brackets are mounted on separate bands to form the attachment points for the hinge. These were machined from .312" square section bar using end mills. The brackets were rounded using a file. The hole in the front edge takes a location spigot. They were then soldered in place. Small lugs were also attached to simulate the flanges on the band. The equivalent fitting on the fore mast has a horizontal axis for the hinge unlike the main mast which is vertical. It isn't obvious why the main and fore masts are different in this respect but interestingly the same discrepancy was also a feature of Altair. Does anyone know why this is so? Again the bracket was machined from .312" square bar using end mills and a bit of filing. I then went on to make and mount the mast bracket for the spinnaker boom. I then moved up to the brackets for attaching the top masts. These are quite indistinct on photographs but they seem to be square externally. See arrow. I made these from .5" x .125" brass rectangular section bar (more end milling). Because of the taper on the masts the hole to curved edge web distance has to be different thicknesses for the lower and upper brackets. This is necessary to make the axis of the top mast parallel with the axis of the lower mast. You can just about see the difference in the above photo. The two pairs are slightly different in size matching the difference in diameters of the main and fore masts. The next photo shows the brackets with their matching bands. Once again the parts have location spigots as seen in the next photo with the parts assembled ready for soldering. With the brackets soldered they were test fitted to the mast with a steel bar representing the upper mast. The workshop is starting to feel a bit colder - 10c (50f) today. I was feeling a bit cold after 4 hours. I may need to break out a second jumper.

Hello Michael - yes and it was very quick to make. It saves a lot of time looking for the holders particularly if I keep them in the same order. I always find I have 2 holders less than I need, but when I but 2 I am still 2 short. Thank you for the comments. John / Eberhard thank you and thanks to everyone for for all the likes. And so to the mast bands. At deck level I have fairly good images of the various mast fittings, but as I raise my eyes to the heavens everything becomes a little vague. The following series of shots gives a feel of what I am dealing with. The images gave plenty of scope for interpretation - which I don't really like. However I pressed on regardless. I can't make the manufacture of bands very interesting - mostly it is matter of turning internal and external diameters with small radial holes (for eyebolts) being machined on the mill. The most interesting part was sorting out tube stock, near enough in size to minimise waste. Where I didn't have appropriately sized tube my box of redundant brass plumbing fittings came in handy, It wasn't an inspiring task so when a slightly more complex band presented itself it was a bit of a relief. `Such was the case with the dual band at the bottom of the main mast. Here two bands are connected by a vertical strip. I started with a 1/2 inch plumbing connector which I bored out to the desired internal diameter and then glued to a wooden spigot. The outside diameter was then turned before moving to the mill with a vertically mounted rotary table. Using an end mill I cut away the unwanted walls. The various radial holes were then drilled. The application of a little heat broke the superglue bond and allowed the part to be removed and checked on the mast. That is it but for now but I do have all the bands for the main and fore masts so the next post may be a little more interesting.

Beautiful hull - impressive.

I do admire your commitment to detail, A beautiful little ship.

Keith - Maybe you can emulate the "Scarecrow" and get a diploma in rigging, then you can be really smart.

Hakan, Sailing is much better excuse for lack of progress than my excuse of household maintenance. She is a cute little tub and so nicely made. Good luck with the treatment and get well soon.

lovely paint job Eberhard. You seem to have made rapid progress of late, is it the sprint to the finish?

Druxey, Pat, Gary - thank you all for your comments. Last week I made the hinges for the goosenecks. I did the sketch on the whiteboard (a handy addition to the workshop). . Complicated little pieces to make, they were milled from .250" square brass bar using the sides and face of a .125 diameter end mill. The through holes are .062" diameter. The outside curves were filed using filing buttons. I then moved on to making a start on the masts. I have sized all the masts and spars, 11 in all excluding the bowsprit which is already made and fitted. The fore and main mast were made from mahogany dowel. Having cut 2 lengths for the main and fore masts i marked the positions for all the mast hoops. I then drilled each position with a through hole of .040"diameter so that the position wasn't lost during further machining operations. I calculated a series of cylinders to give me the correct taper and then machined the cylinders on to the mahogany dowel, The mast lengths are longer than I can cope with on my lathe so I took the tailstock apart and used an oak bush in the bore as a steady. With this set up I machined the cylinders. Once done the steps were removed by sanding to produce a smooth taper. The 2 masts were drilled axially to fit over the steel bars previously installed in the deck. Once stained and finished the masts were positioned on the steel bars to see what the looked like.

You sanded your wife!!!!! Brave man.