G.L.

I got everyone together. Gods and heroes, beasts and monsters. Figureheads of sailing ships.

Over the last couple of days I focused on fabricating the 16 wing ribs that are not part of wing panels. They are all cut to the correct length, have their nodes added, and painted to match the rest of the work done to this point. 
 
After being soaked, the rib material had been in the rib bending jig for a couple of weeks. When I pulled them out of the jig, very few held any of the desired bend. I am hoping that the airfoil shape of the ribs will be held reasonably well by how they are attached to the spars. To do this, the mid-section of the ribs need to be pushed upward between the spars. My attempt to do so involves clamping a third spar at the point where the ribs have their maximum height. This temporary spar was clamped to the three corresponding ribs in the wing panels (and propped up at the end near the fuselage connection). 
 
Here is a picture of the lower ribs being added to the right wing. 

The extreme ends of the ribs are held down by wood strips clamped to the jig after the rib is threaded under and over the spars. The ribs can be pushed down under the two actual spars enough to get a glue stick between them. Finally, the rib is clamped to the spar until the joint dries. There's not a lot of room in there to position the clamps!
 
The upper ribs were slightly easier to attach!

I expect that the ends of these ribs will spring up outside the spars when the structure is removed from the jig. It will most likely look worse at the end near the fuselage, but this will get better when the four spars are connected to the fuselage. Unfortunately this will be the best that can be expected as the rigging has no opportunity to hold the rib shape.
 
On to the left wing!

Stretcher boards.  Long boards sit in those "V"s which the rower then pushes against with their feet.
 

 

I received good news via e-mail today from Model Expo - 
 
Mr. Davis,
 
Hope you are doing fine.
 
We are checking your request for parts.
It seems that your kit is missing one full sheet, with parts  # N7 (two) Part # N8 (two) Part # N9 Part # N11 Part # N13 Part # N15.
We are providing it.
 
As for part #N2, it seems that it was printed wrong. 
It's the part #N10 in sheet 2
Please see image attached.
 
 
Best Regards,
Ricardo
 

It is the sheet of parts in the middle of the picture that were missing from my kit and it looks like they will be getting to  me soon!

Starting on the armaments. 

another piece:





 

Not so far away from Verrebroek 
 
 
Small "two-week" update 
location the location of the holes, drilling the holes and hammering treenails : a slow but steady work in progress 

 

Poop.

Spardek

And now they are all posing together on the model’s hull.

Boxes for spare torpedoes. On the ship they were made of aluminum alloys.

I continue my soldering of brass parts.  
 
The photo shows the engine room hatches.

Well, simply put...there is no reason to wait in order to paint.   Its best to have painted those areas before they became hard to reach.   Usually that is best when planning.   It is much easier to do a bit of touch up later and dust can be cleaned away without hurting the painted surfaces.
 
Having said that...I do keep several brushes of good quality in a cup of water all the time.   I do this to actually force the tips of the brush to bend and keep the bend.  This allows me to apply a bit of paint to the tip of the brush which can be used to get in some tight spaces.  But not that tight.   It is always best to paint parts before they become inaccessible. 
 
I have other brushes with even more of a bend.  These are three I had readily at hand.
 

The remaining canard side has been added.
 
There is an axle that passes through the canard and has a tube attached to it. The tube will eventually have a shaft passing thru it that attaches to the fuselage. Left / right motion for the canard will happen along this shaft. Up / down motion will happen along the axle in the canard.

Four bamboo support beams will be added between the central axle bearings and the top / bottom of the canard - something to do tomorrow.
 
The tubes that cross in the middle (where all the movement occurs) are soldered together. This may be the only soldered joint on the model. A jig is provided in the kit to properly align the tubes to be soldered. The jig worked great when I resistance soldered the joint.

 

Here the canard sides are being connected to the top (bottom?) of the structure. I've used 1-2-3 blocks to keep the sides perpendicular to the third side. I should be able to do the same for attaching the fourth side.

To keep the top and bottom the same size, all the connecting pieces were ganged and then cut together on my table saw. I did this for the side pieces as well. The diagonal pieces were formed individually.

I just got back from the set where they will be filming.  It was very interesting indeed.   I brought about half of the ship models and tools needed to set up the house and workshop.   I met some of the actors and an army of crew moving furniture around and staging the house.
 
I have to be back there for the next few days as they get most of the heavy stuff done.
 
Just a few of the items I am bringing.
 
All this stuff is mine and also from my local NJ club members.  The paintings will hang in a yacht club scene or two.  Painted by my friend and club/msw member Richard Lane.
 
Some of the models are his also along with Tom Ship Model (Tom Ruggiero) here on MSW and from local club. Some old tools and a kit stash etc. Old Nr Journals and books and an old Preac.
 
My old ropewalks and serving machine. An old coffee mug from a Joint clubs conference,LOL and one of my old hats.
 
You might notice my Longboat model is now American and the flag and name are changed for the movie…along with the Ed Harris character’s name on the side.  I made the name plate in my laser cutter…all together a very interesting experience so far.
 
The last photo shows how I will be setting up his workbench while he works on his longboat.
 

There will be a junk scrap box and all around messy shop my own and many of yours.

 

small stern decorations:

Hi all, i thought i had posted some progress,… but forgot.
as my workshop is manual it takes time. Fairlead production continues, also made the (removable) tripod that is used to swing out the spar (backspier in german). 
cheers sascha
 

All of the crosspieces, top and bottom have been attached. In this photograph the two most forward top crosspieces are still pinned and drying. The instructions seem to imply that (top and bottom) you can pin the fuselage sides front-to-back right to the building board. In actuality, there is some curvature in the top / bottom profiles so this cannot be done. For both the top and bottom crosspiece installation, I was able to pin the sides flat starting at the front and going toward the rear to all but where the last two crosspieces would attach. After the 8 forward crosspieces dryed, the structure was unpinned and rotated until the region of the remaining crosspieces were flat on the building board. As with the wing panels, I am putting a bit of CA on both sides of each joint.
 

I'm thinking about moving now to the basic canard construction. The canard is the last major bamboo dowel construction. Once that is done, I will be painting the wing panels, fuselage, and canard bamboo parts. After that, these subassemblies can be attacehed to non-bamboo parts and subassemblies.
 
There is actually one more bamboo based subassembly - that of the ailerons. The initial flights of the 14bis were made without ailerons. They were added prior to the final flights the aircraft made and were controlled by wires connected to a shoulder harness that Dumont wore when piloting the machine. Right now I see them as being optional for the model.

The bulwark is welded from parts and its half is installed on the forecastle.

Brass blanks for the bulwark on the forecastle.

Finally finished up the stern details today.  At least up to the point I would like to do them for this chapter.
 
First up was to paint the top of the transom before adding the actual carvings.  I didnt have to paint all the way to the upper edge.  I didnt want a painted seam to show afterwards.  I also marked the lower areas so I knew where to stop the painting as well.  You cant tell in the photos but its not black at all.  Its a very muted brown black and even gray.   I didnt want it to be too stark a black.  I also dusted some blue on there as well.  So much for my photo skills, LOL.
 

The two figures (port and starboard) were removed as they wont be added till last in this series of steps.  Then the actual carved transom was glued into position.  Once again this was after some initial cleanup and staining to make it match the wood color.  Old masters gel stain (fruitwood) was used once again.
 

With the transom carving secure it was time to focus on the forward side of the carving.  Basically the thickness of the carved transom is thicker port and starboard.   Where it hangs over on both sides.  There is a little carved detail in the center of this as well which can be seen on the contemporary model.  My solution was to build up this area with two layers.  The first middle layer is laser cut in boxwood.   This layer was cleaned up of it laser char and then shaped a bit with some sandpaper and files.  The edges were rounded off and I just had some fun with it.  You can see my example being held in the clamp.  You guys can do as much as you like with this piece.  Photo is below.  Then the most forward layer will be glued on as well.   This is a resin casting.
 

When gluing them on you must finesse them a bit.  Meaning you may have to trim some of the hull molding etc.  You can fill any cracks or seams with wood filler and generally speaking try to blend them all together.  The photo below shows these two layers on the model.  They were glued to the forward side of the transom.
 

Next up was to add the columns.  This is pretty straight forward.   All of these pieces are laser cut for you.  The tops and bottoms of the columns are 1/16" thick.  They were cleaned of laser char and filed to suit.  Then glued on the transom.  The long fluted columns are thinner but laser cut as well.  The laser char sanded from these and the each column was sanded to length for a tight fit between the tops and bottoms we just added.  This takes a while to do but isnt difficult.  You may also notice some molding at the base of each window.  They are between the columns bases.   These are laser cut too.  Just remove the char and round off the top edge like a quarter round.  Then glue them in.
 

Lastly we can put those two standing figures back where they belong.  But before you do...there are tiny laser cut bases made for them.  These bases or the floor...rock...the ground...whatever you would like to call them need to be shaped.  They are shaped like a little step.  I did this rather than incorporate them into the casting.  Everybody's model is slightly different.  You can customize this base so your figure fits perfect on your model.   See the photo...
Just sand it free of char and file some bumps and grooves into it.  Mine are hardly noticeable in the photo but they are there.  Make it look like a stone or rock base.  Using this keeps the nice run of the molding that wraps around the stern while covering the seams between all those layers we created.   It covers up where the figures will stand while creating the correct angle for the figure to match the transom.  It will be hardly visible.   Shape yours to suit.

Here the figure is glued in place but not until after the tiny base was glued in position first.  You can see the figure stepping on the small rock carved base.  This pretty much finishes up the stern to the point where I want to be in this chapter.  Its for the most part complete except for some very small features we add much much later.  I think it came out rather nice considering this is a kit.   But my goal was of course not to make it look kit-like at all.
 


 


 
The contemporary model...
 

 

Dear all
 
The boat is finished! 
 
After a lot of head scratching I ended up with a solution for the davit sockets that looks reasonable. The davit it self was also quite challenging to make but I think it came out fine.

Last thing to do was to install the thole pins and the cleats.
I still need to take some proper photos, make some type of cradle and order a display case. I think it is also appropriate to order the print from the National Maritime Museum or place some compact version of these plans within the case - we ll see.









This has been a very enjoyable build and I certainly learned a lot. In future I will post pictures in the gallery.
 
In the mean time however, there is another hull that has been gathering dust waiting patiently to come back into the shipyard. I do hope you will join for the Chapelle's fishing launch. 
 
I regret I have not been able to keep up with many logs I had been following - This is a period that life demands too much from me!
 
My deepest thanks for your company and support in this journey
 
Vaddoc

The last two weeks were spent travelling on business, to Stockholm (including a renewed visit to the Maritime Museum there 😉 ) and to Brussels. Friday and Saturday I spent at the information desk of Association des Amis du Musée de la Marine, which has been finally re-opened (see other thread on this). So, not much time in the workshop, but I still managed to complete the
 
Banisters
 
These banisters are flimsy matters so that I left them to the end as far as possible, still following the pattern to work ‘inside-out’ in order to not damage delicate items.
 
The information is somewhat patchy as to what the banisters actually looked like. They are represented in the lithographs and on one or the other photograph, one can see parts of them. Basically, there are two types: bend pipe-work and straight stanchions located in sockets that support a wooden rail.

As the metal parts are laid out in yellow on the lithography, they appear to have been made from brass (or bronze). One picture shows bare metal for the pipe-work. Hence, I decided to make them from bare 0.3 mm brass wire. At the moment this looks rather bright, but I assume that it will tarnish somewhat with time.

 The pipework ones were bent over a scale copy of the lithograph. The ends, where they attach to the stairs appear to have been flattened, which duly was represented on the model.
 
For the ones with wooden rail at the end of the deckhouse, I cheated a bit and instead of having individual stanchions, I flattened the wire in the area of the wooden rail to have a support for it and bent the stanchions down sharply. The sockets were cut from 0.5 mm OD brass tube, which is a sliding fit on the 0.3 mm wire. The ends were milled down to the appropriate angle. The wooden rail was fashioned from two laser-cut strips of paper laminated together with varnish. With hind-sight, fashioning all parts from brass and soldering them together in a jig might have given crispier results.

 All parts were cemented in place with clear varnish.
 
Overall, these quite simple parts took surprisingly long to produce.
 
To be continued ....

Treenail update,
 
The weather forecast has been the same here for several weeks : rain and occasional showers...
So a lot of time to drill holes and add treenails...

 
After all the treenails have been applied it is time to scrape and sand. Pieces of old Stanley knives are used for scraping.

The original and the model (picture of the original is thanks to @firdajan)

After sanding, the hull was cleaned with a wet cloth.

The starboard side is ready. 
Wales still needs to be done, probably also with treenails, and bolts??.
I sent this question to the Mary Rose museum, but no response yet

Thanks for following