G.L.

The fore sail is attached to the fore stay with hanks. Making the hanks.

 

 

 

Sewing the hanks to the sail and the forestay.

Rigging sails is serious business.

The shrimper with main sail and fore sail. Two more sails to go.

 
Thank you for reading this log, for your likes and for your constructive comments.
 
Till next week!

Now it is time to hang the main sail on the spars. I fix it first to the gaff. It is marched with a rope.

The main sail is attached to the mast with six mast hoops. Sewing the sail to the hoops.

All six hoops are sewn.

 

The mainsail is secured to the end of the boom with a ligature. On the picture you see also already the two reef fair lines, but I will finish the reefing installation a bit later and describe it then.

 
Thank you for reading this log, for your likes and for your constructive comments.
 
Till next week!

Before hoisting the main sail, I have to fix the reef lines. I punch the holes for the lines through the sail with an awl.

I put the line through and tie a knot to block it. At the other side of the sail comes also a knot.

 

I stretch the lines and fix them with textile glue.

Then I cut them to length.

A new boat first sailed a year with new white sails until they get well their shape, than they are tanned. The tanning was done by soaking the sails with an infusion of oak bark or the bark of betel palm or acacia. The reason of the tanning was to protect the sails against mold or rot. The tanning was done with scouring brushes on a concrete or stone floor. After the tanning the color of the sails can vary from dark brown to red.
(Source of the photo: Noord Hollands Dagblad)

To make my color a modeler friend gives me the necessary ingredients: bister powder of walnut and cashew nut and soda crystals (sodium carbonate). The color has to be made by diluting some bister powder in boiling water and adding a bit soda crystals as a fixate. I make two colors : dark brown with walnut and red with cashew. I use a table spoon walnut on one liter water and a teaspoon cashew on one liter water (cashew is more intense).

I want a color that leans more towards the red and start to try out various mixtures on samples of sail textile.

I finally find the shade that I need and start to color the sails. The tanning is done with a wide brush in a photo development tray.

I hang up the sails to let them drain.

After a while, the color starts to sink and the sails darken on the underside.

That's why I turn them over to get an even distribution of the color.
 
Thank you for reading this log and for your likes.
 
Till next week!
 

Once rigged, the model had to receive its sails and at this point the project fell asleep. I had no idea how to start to make sails. I had to learn to work with the sewing machine; my threshold fear was a bit too high, so I postponed this as long as possible. I thought I rather worked with wood than with textiles.
In the meantime I have built a model of gaff sailboat with a simple sail wardrobe. My wife taught me how to handle a needle and thread and taught me how to work with her sewing machine. (In the beginning of the covid pandemic, I even made face masks for the whole family).
Now during winter time I reserved the sail making work for the days when it is to cold to work in my worshop.
Before starting to sew, here is a contemporary photo of the vessel that is the subject of this log.

I made paper templates for the model:

These patterns serve to cut the fabric for the sails.
Once the sails are cut the work with the sewing machine can start. I stitch the borders of the sails with the sewing machine and double parallel lines to simulate the lanes. Concentrated on the sewing machine:

I described the sail sewing process already before in detail in:  -day-gaff-sailing-boat-with-center-board-
Now we switch to manual sewing. First I sew ropes at the sides, the leaches.

That is written in one sentence, but it takes me several weeks to sew the leaches of all four sails.
Each sail has several holes with thimbles like you see on the bottom of the picture..
I start by making a hole with a pricker.

Then I lay a copper ring over the hole.

And I start to sew in and out around the ring.

 

The main sail has two reefing levels. I sew now the reefing cringles with a thimble in them.

 

Again several weeks later the sail wardrobe for my shrimper is sewn.

This is the first time since three years that I look back to this log.
Looking to the amount of dust that covers my model, I realize that I neglected this project too long. I was rigging the spars when I ceased regular updates. The rigging work is finished but I failed to take regular notes and pictures on the progress.
Before reviving this log today, I'll give you a short summary of what has been done since my story began to sleep. From next week on I promise again weekly updates until the shrimper is ready to set sail.
The necessary rope is made:

Fastening the forestay:

 

Rigging the mast and shrouds.

 

 

 

For whom I fly a little too quickly through this topic I refer to cross-section-fishing-smack-by-gl-scale-1/20-pof-approx-1920-finished . Here a more detailed explanation is included.
From here I don't have pictures any more of the rigging work.
This is like I presented her the last time to my modeling friends long before we even heard of corona or covid.

 

I restart now with deep cleaning the model (when it will be finished a display case will be necessary).
Next week I will start with sail making.

Nearly done, rust to go 

Just a quick update... I was gone for the long weekend.
Managed to get about a quarter of the ribs in place:

Spacing is accomplished using a couple pieces of the planking material... worked great except when I glued it in place with the rib! Fortunately, I was able to get it back out with no damage!
I'll post again soon.

The dog ramp is finished so I am back in the workbench.  At this time I am concentrating in completing all of the fixed deck detailing before continuing with the mast and the rigging. First item was to install all the eyebolts and cleats at the deck level. This was done. Then I thought that the chains running to the rudder presented an obstacle to the traffic through the stern.
 
 
 
I built a sort of gangway with leftover wood:
 


 
Then I fabricated and installed the bilge pump and the steam winch.
 


 
I am still considering adding insulation of the engine exhaust pipe and the free standing steam boiler flue. Would appreciate comments about this. I have seen the actual pictures of the working fifies but it seems to me that the hot pipes present a hazard on deck.
 
 
 
 
 

MCB, I just discovered your log and read it diagonally. What an interesting project! Tonight I will read your full story again, but this time carefully. I should have discovered this earlier. Congratulations on this beautiful work.

Thank very much for your kind comments, Roger, Patrick and Phil

MCB, I just discovered your log and read it diagonally. What an interesting project! Tonight I will read your full story again, but this time carefully. I should have discovered this earlier. Congratulations on this beautiful work.

Thank very much for your kind comments, Roger, Patrick and Phil

Hello everyone,
I thought I should report in as it has been a while since my last post.
I have installed three of the discharge tubes with somewhat simplified rigging.  They were not as difficult as I was expecting.  I will leave the last one until after the marine legs are in place to avoid interference.
After the marine legs: clean up/ touch up and perhaps add some details, then finished, I hope.
Thanks for looking,
MCB

A great job on a difficult subject with those tiny frames.
 
Roger

Very nice work 👍

This week, I varnished the hull. It took a week to do so because I had to give five or six layers before I was happy with the result. Between every layer the  hull was sanded with fine sand paper.

Sanded between two varnishes.

A new layer laid.

 

 

 

 

It is always a bit dark in the workshop, therefore some pictures in the living room where the light is better.

 

 
Thank you very much for reading this log and for your likes.
 
Till next week!

8. Floor timbers
The hull is now liberated from the building board, the inside is free accessible to work in it.  This week I am making the floor timbers.
The floor timbers are not only reinforcements for the hull, but most of them are also the base for the bottom boards. That means that their bottom must have as much as possible the shape of the inside of the hull and that the top of those on which will lay the bottom boards must be at equal and correct height to form stabile base for the boards.
To determine the inside shape of the hull where the floor timbers will be placed, I use a piece of thick solder.

That can be pressed in hollow shape of the hull.

I trace the shape onto stiff paper for both sides and cut them out. I glue them together with another piece of stiff paper just on top of the keelson (red marking, I was a bit lazy in making pictures). A vertical lath, attached to a horizontal lath which can be moved along the hull at a constant height helps to determine the height of the floor timber.

The floor timber can now be sawn ...

... fitted and glued.

 
All floor timbers placed.

 
Thank you very much for reading this log, for your likes and for all your kind reactions.
 
Till next week!
 

The hull can now be removed from the building board. Better to say the building board can now be dismantled from below the hull.

It is feather light.

 

 

The hull, sitting in its new chair:



 


 

Only one more strake to place.

The last one will probably be the hardest one because this one has to fit at both sides. No need to calculate any more, I can measure the width immediately between the two planks.

The last plank fits surprisingly well.

Time to tackle the portside.
I don't know if you remember that I intend to place only a couple strakes at the port side to give an clear view of the inside of the hull after the example of the model of Mr. Orsel.
I start with the strake just below the wale.

Now I divide the space between the two extreme strakes by three and that gives me the location of the only two planks which will be added.

 

Planking is completed:
 

 
Thank you very much for reading this log, for your likes and for all your encouraging reactions.
 
Till next week!

I'm afraid it is getting a bit monotonous, but also this week I can show nothing but pictures of the planks. From now on I alternately place a plank at the top and one at the bottom.

 

 

 

 

I hope to close the gap in my next post.
 
Thank you very much for reading this log, for your likes and for all your interesting reactions.
 
Till next week!

Still busy with planking. The hull is slowly revealing its elegant lines. To say it in Wefalck's words: she begins to look like boat, rather than the carcass of a dead animal

 

 

Time to reevaluate and recalculate the strake shapes.
 
Thank you very much for reading this log, for your likes and for your encouraging and inspiring comments.
 
Till next week!

My plank job is a lot easier than yours in your fishermen's launch and your yawl longboat. The hull is straight throughout and the planking does not run over the dead wood. My planks are also less than one and a half mm thick, so they are very easy to press against each other without having to use all kinds of difficult bending techniques.
To cut the planks I use on my table saw a tool copied from Mr Bruno Orsel's construction log on the French forum 'Marine & Modélisme d'Arsenal'.

It consists of a fixed and a sliding part. The fixed part has a metal spring. A (curtain) rail is integrated in the sliding part. Wooden clamps can be slided over this rail and can be secured with a wing nut. The clamps hold a long brass bar (squared shaped 2mm x 2mm).


How does it work now?
I mark the spacings of the frames where I measured the strake subdivision (needs to be redone for each strake as they vary slightly in length) . On these marks I fix the brass bar with the aid of a caliper at a distance equal to the relevant strake width from the edge of the slide (see inset).

I now place the plank to be sawn in the slide against the brass bar ...

...and slide it through the saw.



The spring pushes the plank tight against the brass bar and my plank is cut nicely curved into shape.

 
Not easy to explain this clearly. I hope that the pictures are more or less self explaining.

The planking is continuing. There is not much different comment to give other than I have to be more and more inventive to clamp the planks. Rubber bands come in very handy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Thank you very much for reading this log, for your likes and for your encouraging and inspiring comments.
 
Till next week!

The first plank is cut. It is very straight, narrow at the ends and a little wider in the middle.

Gluing the first strakes at both sides. The thin planks bend easily.

 

The port side of the model will be left open. This plank will be the last on that side for the time being.
And that is it for this week

 

 
Thank you very much for reading this log, for your likes and for your reactions.
 
Till next week!