Cathead

Micha, this is your first build, not you last. Very few new modelers hit home runs on their first build. I daresay the majority of first builds go into the rubbish bin or are set alight as was my first model when I was very much younger. Take this build for what it is, a learning experience that will make your second build easier and more enjoyable. 
 
 

Hi Johnny, that´s what I intend to do, sanding the bow and stern smoother and thinner. It looks a bit very bulky tbh. I also want to give all the planks a smoother surface, not much just to get rid of the excess of glue that is visible on some planks.
 
 
After all it makes sense to do the halves of the hull but I think my way is still a bit easier since the clamps are already tight to get in because of some really narrow spaces at the bow and stern. When the hlaf is laying flat on the MDF board (which is suggested in the instructions) then it will be even harder to get the clamps on. But that is my humble opinion about it. I liked my way to build the hull, I just would build a better jig for sure, where the bow and stern are secured to prevent them from moving / warping and I would definitely glue the planks on each side at the same time, for example Part 11 (first plank to the spine) I would glue on both sides at the same time and so on... so the hull "grows" on both sides simultaneously.
 
 
Thank you Johnny, it boosts my confidence that someone is interested in my LOG and that it might help you to avoid mistakes or errors to make on your own build or someone elses future build.
 
Micha

* Chapter Six *
 
Planking Galore
or
The Hull rests on the Stand - finally 
 
I just thought I will finish the planking today so I can start with sanding over the weekend. I like smooth surfaces and especially a smooth bow and stern. Unfortunately the spine / keel is warping because of my planking. Meaning the bow bends to the port and the stern to the star side. Also the planking is not exactly mirrored, some planks are not exactly equally set in height on both sides which will maybe cause issues to get the ribs in. I will use the little nails to connect the planks to the ribs - at least that’s my plan. 

View from atop onto the hull, unfortunately you can see some gaps where I put the glue not properly onto the planks. Will fix that when sanded and ribs in. 
 


 
View from the bow and you can see the warping to the port side. You can also see that the lines of the planks are not equal / mirrored. I think I have still a lot to learn. 
 


 
A view from an angle just to show the lines. I’m not happy with that… can’t change it anymore…
 


 
The hull placed onto the stand (which I don’t really like).


 


 
The rest of my supper / dinner…
 

 

Micha

* Chapter Five *
 
The Orgy continues
or
Why do Ships have two Sides to plank…
 
Since the last post of the ship some time went by and my situation changed a bit. Work took over most of my day time now (how dares it) but I kept glueing planks on the ship. Only one and a half is missing.
 
This is part 16 (plank) secured to dry half way on. 
 


 
I never expected to be in need of sooo many clamps lol. 
 


 
For the bow and the stern I prefer the metal clamps since they are thinner on the tip and therefore fit better into the narrow spaces inside, also the keep the planks tighter in place.
 


 
There is quite some tension on the planks as you can see the gap on the unglued side. Gladly the planks are flexible enough to be bend properly to be fitted on after the other side is dried up.
 


 
Keeping the unglued side in place…
 


 
After 15 minutes of waiting and giving the glue time to dry and bind up I glued the other side on. Unfortunately it still takes a lot of clamps to keep it in place. The tension is higher than I expected. Again metal clamps in the narrower spots to keep the plank properly in place. 
 


 
Part 17 (plank) glued on one side. Procedure is the same, a bit repetitive the entire job but that is what it is.
 
I noticed that the sides (port and star) might not be mirrored but a wee bit different. Not sure yet. It’s still a learning process. As I wrote in an earlier post, I would do it definitely different the next time. I would glue each side the same time so it’s easier to measure the distances to the spine and between the planks easier. So the sides would look mirrored properly.
 
On the other hand, in real life the ships wouldn’t have been that accurate because they wouldn’t have had the tools (long level and proper measuring tape) to properly mirror their planks. 
 


 
And again there is the tension noticeable on the opposite side. 
 

 
I will try to put the last plank (part 18) on today so I can start sanding the bow and the stern. They look quite weird with the planks stacked up. I will sand them a bit more rounded and smoother, also the edges of the planks I will smoothen and even them a bit to give a more neat and smooth look.
 
Micha 

Druxey, Glen, Keith, Roger and Tom – Thank you for the positive and encouraging comments.  I sincerely value them.  And thanks to all for clicking on the "like" button.
 
 
 
Druxey and Glen.  Too bad about the cloud cover - disappointing no doubt.  Here in Maine, early April is a time of year when we expect fast changing and unsettled weather. In fact, four days prior we had a late snowstorm – wet heavy stuff with strong winds that dropped many trees and limbs and left us without power for several days.  The day of the eclipse was some of the nicest weather we had seen in weeks.  Unbelievable good luck.
 
 
@Glen McGuire @Keith Black @TBlack Thanks for the comments on the eclipse photos. I shot about 20 photos with a cable release during totality.  All were exposure bracketed sets of three - so 60 images total.  All were very over exposed, and the three I posted were the most interesting of the lot.  Never thought I'd be grateful for lens flare. 
 
 
 
Hey Keith - yes, because I'm not sure one would see anything down there without it.  But it will be on the dim side.
 
Thanks everyone.
 
Gary

That's ok. Take your time and concentrate on getting well.
 
And when you get the time, you'll probably find the diorama work is good therapy in your recovery.
 
Steven

Hello Steven, at the moment it slows down a bit. I returned to work after 6 month of illness and I returned to restricted duties only. I might face a surgery as well. So yes, building process slowed down a bit, but I might go for the harbour scenario especially since it seems to be very hard to get viking figures in 1:25 / 1:24 scale that are not warriors but merchants.
 
I will keep you guys updated for sure, just at the moment I don´t post much of the progress even if I should do. Will try to change my "attitude" for this.
 
Micha

Oops. I'd meant to reply to this earlier,  ut it somehow got missed. Very glad to be of help in providing a possible 'backdrop' for your knarr.
 
I'll  be interested to see what kind of setting you do end up giving it. I've been thinking seriously about dioramas myself recently (ever since I saw the endless lines of near-identical tanks and aircraft at the Ballarat Modelling Exhibition - interesting for enthusiasts but boring for the general public). I think a setting adds immensely to a model.
 
Looking forward to progress on this one.
 
Steven

Yep, Roger, I have those plans you gave me and they're in the someday mental file! I definitely thought of them, and you, as soon as I saw that model.
 
I've been hoping to take a trip on the Badger someday. 

I'd have no trouble believing that!

Neat examples, wefalck! Steamboat ferries were fairly common on the Missouri River for a period of time, before bridges were finally built. But in winter they couldn't operate, so in some cases where the river froze solid enough, tracks were laid directly across the river ice, as in these examples from North Dakota:
 
1879 photo (University of Washington libraries)
 

 
1879 wood-cut print (North Dakota Heritage Center). Notice the steamboat drawn up on the bank for winter.

This thread has gone a bit dormant but I'm going to revive it with a very neat model I got to see recently. I was actually attending a model railroad convention, which included some personal layout tours. One fellow, in addition to a spectacular layout, had a scratchbuilt model of a real rail ferry that operated across the Missouri River at St. Charles (near St. Louis) in the early days of railroading. He gave me permission to share some photos here. 

This vessel operated until 1872, when a bridge was completed and its services were no longer needed.
 




This is in HO scale (1:87), the same scale as my current build Peerless (see signature). And for reference, here's one view of his layout, depicting Moberly, Missouri in extraordinary and highly accurate detail. This is on the same rail line as the ferry above served, though the layout is set almost 100 years later.
 

He's been writing a detailed article for the local railroad historical society and I told him about the NRG and encouraged him to submit the article to the NRG journal as well. 
 
I thought you all would enjoy this!
 
 
 

Sorry for lack of progress, haven't touched the model since my last update. But I did have a pretty cool model-viewing experience recently, getting to see a fantastic scratchbuilt Missouri River rail ferry from ~1870 at a model railroad convention. I wrote a full post about it in the Steamboats and Other Rivercraft General Discussion thread so as not to clog up this one, but here's a teaser image to encourage you to go over there and check the whole thing out. This is at the same scale as my Peerless (1:87).
 

 
Hoping to get back to Peerless soon, but other commitments have had to take priority lately. Thanks for your patience!

Wow, my last post was towards the end of March, time has certainly gotten away from me. My apologies for the delay for a Maggie update and a response to Brian @mbp521, Keith @clearway, Tom @TBlack, Eric @Cathead, Keith @KeithAug, Gary @FriedClams, and Mark @AnchorClanker. To each of you, thank you for your kind thoughts and well wishes. And thank you to all for the likes and for following along on this new part of our journey.
 
 Maggie is much improved in the clarity of her speech, fascial expressions, the strength in her left hand, ams, legs, and her independence. She is getting her own  breakfast and lunch. She's managing to do her laundry, she's washing some dishes (we don't have a dishwasher) or drying dishes after I wash. She's able to get in and out of the shower and gets dressed on her own accord. She's managed to do a little knitting, it's sure not pre stroke quality but that she's able to knit at all is a small miracle.
 
 She made meatloaf the other night with some help but she was able to make the effort and it was a welcome change from my cooking. While we were prepping we play bickered at one another and she reminded me that I was in her domain. Sweeter words were never spoken. This is coming none too soon as the other night I caught myself on Amazon looking at frying pans and paring knives. 
 
 She has a devil of a time with opening lidded containers so on those nights when I have pool league I have to place plastic wrap over those (lid removed) containers she'll be needing to get into for her supper and she has no issues using the microwave. I'm so grateful for her getting to this point as it allows for some much needed Keith time. 
 
 The above is answer to prayer, a peaceful rhythm of life has returned, our lives no longer feel like it's been stirred with a stick.
 
 Though we be knee deep in that time of year that requires outside attention, I'm getting real close to resuming work on the Tennessee. The other night I managed to attach a rigged pair of deadeyes to the port side and it felt good to be sitting at the worktable again. The third hand awaits, stropped deadeyes and thread callout,  time for this part of my journey to continue.
 
 Thank you for following along,
 
  Keith 
 
 

When I built my longship, I was able to find a whole set of 1:32 bare metal figures that were quite well done. That would be pretty close to your scale, most people can't tell the difference. I had a great time hand-painting them. Here they are displayed with my vessel, whose build log is linked below if it's of interest and use (there's more detail in there about painting them and so on, too).
 

Yep, Roger, I have those plans you gave me and they're in the someday mental file! I definitely thought of them, and you, as soon as I saw that model.
 
I've been hoping to take a trip on the Badger someday. 

Greetings Fellow Modelers
 
After a busy month with little time for modeling, I've finally begun work on the fish hold of this dragger.
 
 
But first, please allow me a quick diversion.
 
The path of the recent solar eclipse tracked over Maine on a day when there was barely a cloud in the sky.  My wife and I traveled several hours north on country roads to get close to the center of totality.  A total solar eclipse is such an astronomical coincidence that it's hard for me to get my head around it. That from a moving 100-mile diameter shadow on earth, two spheres appear to be the exact same size because one being 400 times larger is 400 times farther away, and that they line up precisely with the smaller sphere blocking all the direct light of the larger while leaving the entirety of its corona visible.  Perhaps I'm a simpleton, but I find this extraordinary.  To be honest, I thought this was going to be an interesting but ho-hum visual event, but when it went dark and I took off the glasses to see where the sun had gone, I was mesmerized.
 
I had a DSLR mounted on a tripod with 200mm of lens.  I promised myself beforehand to enjoy the experience and not spend the few minutes of totality tinkering with camera settings.  So, I preset the camera and hoped for the best - manual focus, aperture priority, exposure bracketing, cable release and crossed fingers.  I pushed the cable release quite a few times without ever looking at the results.  Later, I found most were completely blown out and a few were just terribly overexposed.  But I'm not disappointed.
 

 

 
 
The lens flare image below is my favorite.  A lousy eclipse photo, but an interesting image just the same – kind of surreal.
 

 
 
 
Fish Hold
 
My decision to display the boat with the hatches open and maybe a bunker plate or two, requires that the entirety of the hold be modeled as I can't predict what will be visible through each opening and view angle. Mainly that view will be small fragments of individual bunkers and planked partitions, so this modeling will be on the quick and crude side.
 
Before I started in on that, I first washed the hull exterior with India ink/alcohol to give it a little age. About 2 parts ink out of a hundred. I've yet to decide on how the hull will be painted/weathered, but this small amount of coloring doesn't narrow my options, and the alcohol tends to remove shiny sanding spots and helps to unify the overall look – at least to my eye.
 

 
 
I then penciled on the water line. I placed the hull back onto the base and used a squared scrap of construction lumber with a pencil glued to it.
 

 
 
The fish hold uses up almost 17' (5.1m) of hull length. The area is partitioned off into 20 individual bunkers/pens as shown below in the top-view drawing. The pens with green dots hold the ice/fish and the red dot areas do not. The blue dots are the stationary posts that hold the wood slats which make up the partitioning. The four pens in the center over the keel functions as a walkway but can also be partitioned to hold ice/fish.
 

 
 
Shown below is the lower half-section at station #7. The open space against the side of the hull is the area identified by red dots. This area is empty and begins at the lowest bilge ceiling strake. This drawing detail is actually from the “transverse section” plan sheet of a completely different boat by the same designer a few years prior to the Pelican, but it is labeled as the “type plan” for the Pelican.  Consequently, the dimensioning is incorrect for my boat, but the structural construction is the same – presumably.
 

 
 
The bases for the posts are 6” square timbers and on the model the six center bases are mounted on wood strips that span the entire length of the fish hold. The six bases away from the center are beveled to reflect the changing shape of the hull as it narrows toward the bow. The drawing below shows the bevel for the posts in the area near station 6A.
 

 
And for the posts in the area near station 4A. Note that the bevel has changed due to the base sitting higher up in the hull. This is necessary because the interior space is narrower yet the distance between posts must be maintained.
 

 
I print out spacing guides to locate the center line for the wood strips the post bases will sit on.
 

 
I mark the center line for the inner and outer strips on each station bulkhead.
 

 

 
 
The strips are placed, and the outer post bases are beveled and glue on.
 

 
 
As per the plans, there are three planks below the lowest bilge ceiling strake and below that is concrete. Although they are not yet glued down, the image below shows those three planks in position. The six inner post bases have been added as well as some styrene sheet material to act as a support floor for the “concrete”.  Also, note how the post bases (top of photo) incrementally sit higher from left to right as the hull narrows.
 

 
It would have been easier to place the two lowest bilge ceiling strakes as one piece and mount the post bases on top of that. But, I didn't and decided instead to piece it together around the posts for reasons that in retrospect make absolutely no sense. But that's water under the bridge and in the end it won't show anyway.
 

 

 
 
I smeared on some Hydrocal to form the floor of the main fish pens.
 

 
 
Colored up the bulkhead planking with chalk/alcohol (burnt sienna, raw umber and black).
 

 
 
Made up the grating to place over the keel and gurry trough.
 

 
 
I'll be placing some dim-ish lighting in the hold, so a gloppy PVA mixed with black acrylic paint is slathered onto the hull to prevent light leaks. All of this mess will be hidden by the wood plank partitioning.
 

 

 
Next – posts, partitioning and completing the hold.
 
Thanks for taking a look.  Stay well.
 
Gary

Started on the planing for the ceilings - on both inner and outer sides of the hull. I elected to cut them individually so progress has been slow
 

I attached the planks directly to the hull at the bow, rather than pre-fabricating them as I have above
 

Just a final note now that the hull is mounted and taking up it’s place on the wall.
To keep out excess dust I have covered the open top with black card supported by a simple framework on the open side.
 


 
David
 
 

Finished up the ratlines, there's plenty of mistakes but I feel like by the end I got the hang of the process and I am happy with my results for my first go around. 
 

 
Before I continued any further I wanted to complete a few tasks on the ships boats before it gets closed up by the rigging and got too hard to work with.  Inside the top boat I added some oars, boat hooks, anchors and some coiled ropes.  I got the oars from Vanguard models, and boy are they small and fragile, VERY hard to work with and I broke probably half of the larger ones while trying to shape them to be less square.  

 
I am now working on the backstays, these are the last task of the standard rigging.  After the backstays I will start on the yards and then start on the running rigging. 
 

Last couple nights I have been working on the rat lines, probably another couple nights before I complete them.  The rat lines definitely take a while to complete, but they are easier to complete than I what I had imagined. 

Various spars/yards shaped. Next is to add hardware and paint. I'm going to join several others that thought the PE fittings for the stun'sl booms didn't look right But on closer inspection it turns out that they're perfect.

As always, thanks for the likes.  I do appreciate you all following along.  After all the metal work of making the chain plates, backstay plates, eye bolts, and deadeye strops, I decided I'd work on a relatively straight forward sub assembly.  I went ahead and installed the rudder, and gudgeons and pintels (I had shaped the rudder itself a couple of months ago).  I used Chuck's mini kit for those.  You have a choice in the mini kit of .010" thick paperboard material or .028" thick plywood.  I opted for the thicker plywood and sanded it down to .018" thick.  By my eye that's a good compromise.  I used .020" diameter styrene rod for the bolts.  Yes, yes, I know it's probably sacrilege among purists to use plastic on a wooden ship build.  Haha.  But since the bolt heads are covered in paint I chose the easier to cut and work with styrene rather than metal wire.  Everything was painted with black paint and then once mounted I taped the simulated metal straps off and applied rust brown weathering powder. I haven't glued the rudder on yet.  I'll do that at a later date after I drill the final hole to mount the tiller (I did drill a small pilot/locator hole though).  That said, the rudder sits correctly straight and true with the pintels snugged down into the gudgeons.
 
On a related note, I received the last few packages of blocks I'll need for the build, and a serving machine, from Chuck this week.  If I'm inventorying correctly, I think that may be the last stuff I need to complete the build.
 
Erik

Thanks Tom and Mugje and the likes. More progress to show.
 
 I finished making the fore and main courses, then carefully cut them off the frame. The topsails will be next to be made.
 

 

 
I painted the Captain Cochraine figure, although I have never painted anything like this before. I think it came out respectable. I used a disc sander to remove most of the base, then an X-Acto knife to cut the rest away from around the boots. Here he is just placed on the deck temporarily, wondering when the rigging will get done. He has been put away until much later. I gave him yellow hair as a nod to Captain Aubrey.
 

 

 
Finally I have competed the anchors. I made all four but have decided to only put two on the ship. I picked the two best then wrapped line around the rings (puddened?). These have also been put away until later.
 

 
Work continues on the yards. I have the PE parts installed on all of them and am in the process of painted them black. I will then add the blocks and man ropes to them. I have also been making rope in preparation for rigging the shrouds and backstays. It is all starting to come together now.

I meant to mention that Ron Neilson (Hollowneck) seems to be our resident interviewer, and he deserves a lot of credit for the aforementioned interview. I wonder if he went to England to conduct it?
On other fronts, I've finished the hardware on the main masts. None of the masts are glued together yet.