Roger Pellett

Apply stain to bare wood. Let sit for a few minutes.  Wipe off any excess.  You can apply an additional coat if the result is not dark enough.  Once stain has dried you can apply your preferred finish.

Roger

Eric,

I’m sorry about the loss of your friend.

Roger

The tight grained fruitwoods like cherry, apple, and pear as well as the classic boxwood can be difficult to stain.  Ordinary oil based stains sold in hardware and home improvement stores are pigments suspended in oil, and often do not penetrate the wood well.  I have had much better luck with analine dye stains.  These are sold by specialty woodworking businesses and come in small bottles.  To use, a small amount is mixed with either water or alcohol.  A bottle goes a long way.  Don’t worry too much about the name instead look at a color chart.  I have some “Colonial Maple”. That can yield light to quite dark results depending on concentration.

Roger

The two volume Shop Notes published by the Nautical Research Guild are worth owning.

Roger

First decide what you want the finished model to look like.  Your artistic vision should determine your wood selections.  The original ship was probably treated with a preservative like pine tar.  If you are trying to reproduce this look choose a wood that will take a dark stain or choose a wood that gives an impression of the color.  Cherry or Swiss Pear come to mind.

Ok, but instead of trying to plank the bulwarks, you could simulate metal by using very thin model aircraft plywood.

Roger

Kieth,

Another masterpiece.

You write about planking the bulwarks.  Are you sure that they are not metal?

Roger

In the metal fabrication business bending a rectangular tube where the side to be bent is the widest of the two is called “bending the hard way” and this is an apt description here.  I don’t understand how the kit manufacturer intended you to bend a 3/16” thick piece of wood with a width wide enough to accommodate cutting out the inside curve.  Frank’s idea of cutting both sides of the curve from a sheet of 3/16” basswood is the practical solution.

Roger

We could help you better if you could tell us more about what you are trying to do.  Is your kit a solid hull or a plank on bulkhead,  are you trying to carve the waterway from the solid hull or you cutting a strip of wood to use? 

As as posted above the waterway is a timber at the junction between the deck and the bulwark.  In some solid hull models it is necessary to thin the bulwark.  Did you mean to say that you are trying to thin the bulwark?

like the old saying goes, "A look is worth a thousand tells."  Post a photo of your situation.

Roger

I visited our  Menards store, our local big box Home Improvement/ Hardware store.  While there I checked out their metals rack.  They stock Aluminum 

Channel in small sizes, for example 1/2”x1/2”.  Wall thickness looked sufficient to thread.

Roger

Depending on where you live there are backwoods sawmills that will custom saw a log into planks.  In Southern Ohio they are known as “pecker mills” as in woodpecker.  Two problems.  First of all, you have to get the log to the mill and second many of these guys will refuse to saw up a log if they know that it came from a surburban location due to the possibility that there is a nail embedded in it.

A better choice would to advertise in the paper for someone with a portable bandsaw or chainsaw mill to saw up the log on site,  the sawing cost to be paid as a share of the lumber.  Our local paper has a free swap column that would accept such an advertisement.  Keep in mind that basswood lumber is not expensive so the log may not have as much commercial value as you might expect.

Actually, for modelers shorter pieces that can be split are easier to use as a quartered piece can be cut into blocks with a table saw or bandsaw.  

Roger

Most big box home improvement stores have a rack of handyman steel.  If you can find some small channel (u shaped stock) it would be perfect for your purposes.

Making sharp bends in Aluminum can be iffy.  Aluminum and it’s alloys is subject to age hardening.  As Aluminum sits around at room temperature it hardens over time and loses ductility.  It can, therefore, crack during bending.

Roger

I see no reason not to use “mild steel” from a big box store.  I believe that the previous discussions about tool steels had to do with making edge tools where heat treating to maintain an edge was required.  This is not your situation.  You only need sufficient strength to withstand clamping forces.

Another source of small sized square steel bar is “key stock,” used in keyways of rotating shafts.  You should be able to find this at any industrial supply business. One such company that has retail outlets, at least here in the Midwest is Grangier Supply.  You can also find them online.

Roger

Try Online Metals.

Hang in there!

My hands shake from neuropathy but I find that if I keep working my brain seems to rewire itself.  My doctors agree that it is good to keep doing this kind of work to maintain dexterity.  I hope that you can continue doing something that you obviously like.

Roger

Michael,

In the 1920’s The Herreshoff Manufacturing Company Built a 30ft Tender for J. P. Morgan’s yacht Corsair III.  You can find information by googling Corsair HMC Co. #381.  This will take you to information held by the Herreshoff Museum.  The Hart Museum at MIT owns Herreshoff’s Drawings and their holdings have supposedly been digitized.

I also have a SNAME paper about the boat’s recent restoration that includes a drawing with a body plan.  If this interests you send me a PM.

I realize that this is not the model that you are trying to build but it is a well documented example of a small, well appointed, motor boat from the early 20th Century.

Roger

Michael,

Another nice project by you.  I don’t know if you are copying an actual set of lines but if you are not you may wish to “harden” the bilges to improve initial stability.

Roger

Jay’s technique nicely solves the problem as his spectacular results show.

Roger

The problem with carving solid kit hulls is establishing and maintaining a datum that templates can be registered against.  Like Pete, I enjoy carving hulls but I usually carve two half hulls, port and starboard so that there is always a flat datum, in this case the hull’s centerline to lay against a flat surface when checking progress with templates. 

In in your case you will need to accurately establish the centerline on the roughly carved hull and you will have to be very careful that the templates do not get rotated as you progress down the length of the hull.

Roger

I thought that I was the only one that did that!

Roger

For many of us building ship/boat models is an evolutionary process.  My advice- build the model!  Don’t worry about the poor instructions.  You’ll learn by doing.

Roger

Very nice!

Roger

I don’t believe that anyone has mentioned it but Ed Tosti is building what should be the definitive model of Young America on this site.  Look for his posts under the scratch built models section.

Roger

Strictly my opinion, worth what you paid for it, but I believe that you could build a successful model from the NRG plans by “lofting with a xerox machine.”  You have selected a model where the full sized prototype was not lofted.  The flat bottom was built then the frames were erected.  The frames were shaped using moulds many of which were the same shape.  If it were me, I would get the NRG plans and try to use them first.

Roger

Complete plans of the Philadelphia were published many years ago in the Nautical Research Journal.  The plans were drawn by the Smithsonian staff that researched the real thing. Try the index on their website or call the office. A download of a Journal Article costs less than one of the designer coffee drinks that some Admirals buy.

Roger