trippwj

If I were to believe them to be accurate as drawn, 3 feet on both capstans. I do not think that is correct. I need to do some checking in other sources to see what they use.

Wow - I had not realized that it has been over a month since I gave any update! Sorry about that! Have not gotten a huge amount done - my very special grandson has been here for the summer, so have been spending most spare time doing stuff with the boys. Between whale watching, Independence Day, the British Invasion and visits to other nations (Campobello Island, Canada), along with cleaning up from our hurricane, not a lot of time in the build yard. I have, though, made a small bit of progress. First, I have, indeed, gotten my first planks on the hull installed. Not the best looking, but since this will be double planked I am not terribly upset. View from bow - on (not quite in line, but follow the deck line nicely). View of stern (tough to see, but it is planked under there). View along the starboard side from the stern. I also placed an order with Bluejacket (local to me, so gave them a try) for some 1/64' ply for the false deck. Delivered in 3 days, very nice looking stuff. So, I started on the false deck. Since there were no good plans for the deck itself showing the bulkhead locations, I started by taking off the dimensions for each bulkhead (with great thanks to the Admiral, who lent her support to the cause). I captured the maximum diameter of each bulkhead (fore and aft face), the minimum width inside the hull, and the distance from fore of one to fore side of the next aft (all were the same thickness). Transfered these onto a large sheet of paper Faired the lines with a ships curve. Note the gap indicated at frame 2 - it exists with the first planks I put on. Verified the fit of the sheet into the hull after trimming out the bulkheads, then used this to shape and fit the plywood false deck. Once that was done, I then used the plywood to trim a printout of the deck plans - will use this to in turn place the various deck openings that need to be made in the false deck before I install it to the hull. So, that's where things are right now. Continuing to work the Essex for another month before switching back to the Emma C. Berry. Suggestions, observations, recommendations are always welcome!

Nice job, Max.

To do the Harriet Lane, starting with the hull downside up, I used calipers at each station to get the widths, then marked the midpoint off the rule. A bit of eyeball guided adjustment to align at bow and stern and drew the line.

Welcome back, sir, and many thanks for the update on your build - may take a bit of time for each stay, but dang they look good!

Nice work, Sal. The detail you are achieving on this bitty boat is most impressive!

Very interesting bit of data, Phil. Thank you for sharing that! Have been digging around on the Doughty cutters as well (starting when I found the Corel model of the USRC Ranger is totally fictitious!). I suspect, but have no proof, that the splashboards are actually a couple of separate construction items. The bitts there would tend to indicate an extension of solid framing timbers (knightheads) - would need additional strength to do the job there. The rest is likely solid planking (perhaps a bit heavier than normal bulwark planking would be) to both aid in diverting the spray since these cutters would have a tendency to want to ship water over the bow in a heavy sea, and also to provide stiffening between the bitts. Of course, that is all conjecture - but it seems reasonable given the way similar size topsail schooners were built at the time. There was no 1823 USRC Ranger (the kit name). I had a choice of several similar topsail schooners, but opted for the Detector. The Detector was built in 1825 by Fisher & Webster of North Yarmouth, Maine. She was stationed in Portland Maine for her career. I like the USRC Detector - my Admiral was an instructor for several years on Radiation Detectors, so thought it would be a good way to pay her some honors. I did some length on deck measuring on the two plans and worked the scale thing backwards to see how it worked out with Chapelle's descriptions. Using highly nautical terms, I measured the length along the centerline to the raised edge board thingies around the perimeter of the deck. I went to the closest 1/16". In "The History of American Sailing Ships", Chapelle says the Dallas was a sister ship to the Surprise built to William Doughty's 69'-6" plan (pg 194). I measured 17.25" on the AL Dallas plan and at 1:50, that would be 17.25 divided by .24 = 71.875'. If the scale were really 1:48 instead of the more Euro 1:50, the 17.25 would be divided by .25 = 69' which matches Chapelle's info more closely. On the Corel Ranger plans, I measured 10-15/16" to the perimeter board thingies. Dividing that by .1875 for the 1:64 scale, that ends up at 58'-4". On page 186, Chapelle describes the Massachusetts as being 58'-6-1/2". So the Dallas would be the largest tonnage and the Ranger would be the mid-size one based on the model plans, at least. I don't know if this is helps, but it was fun to open the boxes and look stuff over!

Glad to see you back online! The pictures post in somewhat of an arbitrary manner if you just upload them. What you can do is, after uploading said pictures, place your cursor where you want the photo to appear in the text and then click add to post next to the picture you want. Hope that made sense, but probably not.

The latest issue of the MSB journal is now available for download at http://www.modelshipbuilder.com/news.php This month's Table of Contents: Tidbits from the Past - Cats on Ships Model Ships of the Royal Museum Greenwich Shipwrecks of the World - the Steamship Beaver To Build a Hatch HMS General Hunter Proto-type Model—Part 3 Rijksmuseum acquires oldest known engraving of a herring buss The Book Nook - Ship Models: How to build Them by Charles G. Davis (1925) Badges: Heraldry of Canadian Naval Ships Gene’s Nautical Trivia Editor’s Page Note the following request from the Editor - she would be greatly pleased to have folks contribute articles to the journal. Great News! We will be starting our “One Eyed Willy” contest again in the September issue of MSB Journal. The contest will be run quarterly so we don’t exhaust the goodwill of those kind sponsors who generously donate items for us to use as prizes. Let me again make a request or two—if you enjoy the journal, spread the word among your friends and as always, I welcome any and all ideas, comments or articles. This journal has, and always will, depend on the readers to provide content. Do you have a favorite technique you use? Have you come up with a novel use for an item? Send it in—- if I get enough I can do a regular column on ‘tips and Techniques”, otherwise I can use them to fill in space at the end of articles. Please send your articles or ideas for articles to Winston@modelshipbuilder.com and put “MSB Article” in the subject line. Until next time, Ro

Like they all said - many happy returns of the day. Pictures?????

Superlatives escape me, Grant. That is amazing work.

Give or take a stone.

Don - the weight is given in cwt, qrs and lb Hundredweight (cwt) Unit of weight, equal to 8 stones. 20 hundredweight to a ton. Quarter (qrs) Unit of weight, equal to 2 stones. 4 quarters = 1 hundredweight. Pound - avoirdupois (lb) Unit of weight, equal to 7000 grains, or 16 avoirdupois ounces. 14 pounds = 1 stone.

And I just KNEW that after hitting post I would find the reference! Here is some information from The Neophyte Shipmodeller's Jackstay by George Campbell (available from Model Expo and other sources). This is a great resource to have on your shelf! The shrouds are set up and adjusted by means of DEADEYES and LANYARDS. Start rigging them with the foremast on the starboard side. Seize (or bind) the first deadeye into a loop formed in the shroud. Fig. 67. Reeve (or thread) the lanyard through the deadeyes (you have already mounted the lower ones along the channel, Fig. 18.) according to the sketch in each case drawing the deadeyes together the distance given on your plan which may be anything from 3 to 5 deadeye diameters. Temporarily secure the lanyard in a hitch around the shroud end. It is finally secured by a hitch and a few round turns (you could glue this in place). Now run the free end of the shroud up through the lubbers hole, over the bolster, around the mast and down again to form the second starboard foremast shroud. Seiz;e a second deadeye into this end at the same height as the first one and all subsequent deadeyes similarly. When there is an odd number of shrouds on one side, the odd shroud is rigged on starboard, goes up and makes a full loop around the masthead and down the port side to form the odd shroud on the port side.

I can't find the reference at present, but recall that in general, subject to era and individual (rigger/captain's) preference, it was between 2.5 and 3.5 deadeye diameters between the deadeyes. Here are 2 diagrams - one from Steel (1796) and one from Biddlecombe (1848) that show part of the process and how the shroud and lanyard are reeved together. I'll see if I can find a better one with detail on reeving the deadeye. Hope these help!

In terms of the dimensions, I have come across quite a range - between about 20" and 32" in length. Interesting artifact recovered in the Great Lakes of a ramrod for a swivel gun that measured 14 inches long (the rammer, that is) with a 1/2 pound shot. Not sure who may have accurate period swivels - will do some checking when I get a chance.

According Sutherland in his The ship-builders assistant : or, some essays towards compleating the art of marine architecture, (1711), the top-gallant yards are 1/2 the top-sail yards. R.C. Anderson citre a similar ratio in his The Rigging of Ships in the Days of the Spritsail Topmast, 1600-1720 (1927). For French vessels during the 18th century, there is some interesting information in Marquardt's Eighteenth-century rigs & rigging (1992) where the top-gallant yard was 0.256 of the ship's length. He also offered that Chapman used 0.7 the length of the main topsail yard for the main top-gallant on Swedish ships, He provides a ratio of the fore and main top-gallant yard to the corresponding topsail yard of 0.690 from Falconer (1769) for all rates, and several possible ratios for English ships between 1711 and 1756 - ranging from 1/2 of the main topmast (1711), 3/4 of the beam (merchant ships, 1711), 5/17 of the topsail yard (1735) and the common 1/2 the topsail yard (several listings). These refer to proportions from Davis (1711), Sutherland (1711), Love (1735), Mountaine (1756) as well as Steel (1794), Falconer (1815 edition) and others. See Marquardt pages 33-36 for the various tables. Recalling always the vagaries of rigging at the time! These were somewhat more of a guideline - frequently not meeting the approval of a given builder or skipper and adjusted for personal taste.

Looking really good, Augie. I like that color choice for the deck furniture. Very 'warm" without being "fake" looking. All the best for a successful summer of fly fishing (maybe even a little bit of fish catching???)

Okay, here is what I have come up with. First, I was wrong on the plans for the ship - The Revenue cutter Dallas was built by A & N Brown of New York and was completed in 1816. She was one of the several cutters built to replace vessels the service had lost during the War of 1812 and was one of two vessels of the "Surprise" class, the other being the Revenue cutter Surprise, also built by A & N Brown. In the case of the Dallas (and several contemporary cutters), I have seen models both with and without ratlines. Many similar sized topsail schooners used as fishing or merchant vessels of the same era also did not have ratlines, with the topsail yard being lowered to the deck and not always at the head of the mast. As Chris mentioned, may have used a bosun's seat to get to the tops if needed.

Yep - those 2 were much larger and different design. I think Dallas (1815) was one of the Doughty 51ton cutters. I'm home at last so going through some of my books for info. I recall a similar thread here on MSW last year.

I need to get home to my references, but no rat lines is correct. Will see what I can dig out tomorrow.

Interesting stuff. The mechanics and dynamics factors are probably unintended benefits, since the vast majority of early shipwrights that developed the concept of tapering had little or no training in mechanics and often very little math. Worth a look at Anderson's books on Rigging in the days of the sprit sail topmost for his historical analysis.

Two reasons really. First, the natural tree trunk had some taper but, more importantly, weight. According to R. C. Anderson, as the length of masts and yards increased, there was a need to keep the center of mass lower and along the centerline of the ship. By tapering, the strength was retained but the total mass/weight was reduced and kept lower (masts) and centered (yards). Resulted in greater stability.

Staples should be able to do via the online approach, delivery to your home. Not sure the price. FedEx/Kinkos does the same thing. Good luck!

Very nice work, Tony. Gonna need a step ladder soon!