qwerty2008

I knew I was forgetting something  , ah that's better  .


 
 
 
Lextin.

I tried my hand at sail making today and came up with this, I tried attaching the bolt ropes but it didn't come out very good so I removed them, because the hem at the edge is so bulky I might leave off the bolt ropes altogether. I like the look and feel of this material for the sails but it is rather difficult to work with, if I went with a synthetic material I would be able to skip the hem and just cut the material with a hot knife to keep it from fraying.




 
 
Lextin.

I haven't been working on the Byzantium as much as I would like lately because the Black Pearl but I will hopefully be getting back the Byzantium soon here are some pics of the progress since my last post. First I did some rearanging and made room in my closet for the Byzantium.
  I decided to go with bowsies for the shrouds instead of deadeyes but the bowsies were kinda ugly so I will be disguising them as deadeyes. I also have started making the sail templates from masking paper.



 
 
Lextin.

For now I am going to move on, I will revisit the cannons later. In the mean time I will be working on miscellaneous other parts.
   Since my last post I made the chain plates and the cross trees for both mast. Oops looks like I forgot to take pictures of the cross trees, I will try to post some soon.

 
 
Lextin.

I made a carriage for the cannon. As for the casting I will first try resin but if I cant get it to work I will try lead.

 
 
Lextin.

I made the master cannon that will be used to make the mold for casting the rest. The cannon is made from paper brushed with diluted PVA  and rolled around a piece of brass tube then turned on a lathe. In order to make the cannon I first needed to make a lathe to turn it on to do this I strapped my Dremel to a board and put some eye hooks in another piece of wood which was clamped onto the first. one end of the tube that I rolled the paper around was placed through the eye hooks and the other was chucked into the Dremel.




 
 
Lextin.

I dug a pond a few days ago so I decided to have the Byzantium's first outdoor float test. Here are the pictures.




 
 
Lextin.

I sealed the hull with thinned fiberglass resin yesterday and today I applied the first coats of paint. The red beneath the waterline is just a temporary placeholder until I get copper.


 
 
Lextin

I made the beakhead'ish thing, I made it by cutting grooves into my mockup version then setting small pieces of square stock into the grooves which were then glued onto the sides with some CA, I temporarily glued each halve into place then glued two pieces of square stock between them to hold them together.
     Should I go straight along the top edge or have a curve like the one I marked on it in the last two pictures?









 
 
Lextin.

I took some pictures of today, overalls and closeups.

A closeup of the stem showing a mockup of the proposed beakhead'ish trim piece.


A closeup showing one of the gunport sills.

The inside.




 
 
Lextin.

Sorry its been so long since my last post. Since my last post I have made the weeping angel figurehead, there's nothing more intimidating than a twelve foot tall statue of an angel covering its eyes. the figurehead is made from Sculpty. After I took the pics I did some work on aging.




 
 
Lextin.

I finished the Sophie. Here are the final pictures.




 
 
 
 
Lextin.

I installed the first bit of radio control gear, the rudder servo and the rudder linkage.
I was also wondering if I should ad another gun port on each side towards the stern where I have drawn the [?] I could then get rid of the planed stern chasers by making the two aft most cannons able to be unshiped and moved to the chaser ports when necessary. 










 
Lextin.

Congratulations, Lextin.  One sweet looking SIB .

I was having a problem with the mast hoops binding on my Byzantium and upon advice from other members of this forum I made them slightly larger so they would fit looser around the mast and that fixed the binding problem.
 
 
Lextin.

I've been working on some very fiddly bits the last few days so it doesn't seem to me that I have much done when I look back on the time I spent at the bench.
 
I made a test assembly of my dead eyes. 
 

 
The dead eyes were fabricated from two discs .060 in./1.5mm in diameter of ca stiffened card stock with another disc .040 in./1.0mm sandwiched between and centered. In this test I seized the thread around the dead eye by passing the thread through itself twice with a needle. If you think threading a needle is challenging try piercing a thread with a needle. Satisfied with the general results I punched out the discs needed to make 24 dead eyes with plenty of extras to cover mistakes.
 
I also made my ship's wheel from the ca stiffened card stock. Made 3 rings, glued two together then cut notches for the 36 gauge wire to fit into. Did similar with the hub of the wheel, then assembled the wheel and glued another ring and hub in place. I also used the card stock to build up the wheel stanchions. I turned the spindle from basswood.
 

 
Here's the wheel after going into the paint shop, attaching the tiller rope and installing the completed unit to Ogallala's deck with the tiller ropes passing through holes in the deck.
 
 
While working on the wheel I also assembled the dead eyes and painted them.
 

 
Here's one of the dead eyes with a shroud seized as in the test.
 

 
This dead eye has blackened 36 gauge wire wrapped around it and twisted just enough turns to conceal the twist when attached to the channels. I may need to blacken the wire some more, it looks black in normal light but with the lights for photography the copper shows through. If I blacken the wire too much it just flakes off.
 
I haven't decided if I'm going to drill holes for the lanyards or just fake them by gluing short pieces of thread to both sides of the dead eye pairs. Now to make smaller dead eyes for the topmasts. 
 

Dave

I got some more work done on the Sophie. I prepped the new lightbulb and cut the threaded portion shorter so it would fit in the base with the LEDs behind it then I made the sea from non hardening modeling clay. I made the sails from paper then painted them white a slightly off white color. I still need to add some finishing touches then I will bottle it.


 
 
 
Lextin.

I got some more work done on the Sophie. I prepped the new lightbulb and cut the threaded portion shorter so it would fit in the base with the LEDs behind it then I made the sea from non hardening modeling clay. I made the sails from paper then painted them white a slightly off white color. I still need to add some finishing touches then I will bottle it.


 
 
 
Lextin.

Its been awhile since my last post but i'm back. I made the mast and started on the rigging.


 
 
Lextin.

I have decided to build a Ship in a Lightbulb. I have rigged a base to light up using parts from a cheap LED flashlight. The base is an old light fixture. the LEDs push into the light socket which is wired to the flashlights battery pack and on/off button, I have also added a sheet of thin plywood stained with some redwood stain. Sadly during the process of making the base I broke the lightbulb there is still enough of the bulb left for me to be able to size and make the model but I cannot use it in the finished product because it has a large hole in the side, incandescent lightbulbs are hard to get in California but I think I can get a halogen that will work.
     I am thinking of making the HMS Sophie from Master and Commander by Patric O-Brian.







 
Lextin.

Ahh so that's a clapper. I was thinking of lining the rubbing edge of the yolk with a brass wire to reduce friction but my son and I put some thought into it and came to the conclusion that the best way to reduce friction is to reduce the number of items causing friction so I removed half of the hoops so now there is one every 40mm instead of every 20mm and this has helped the sail itself go up and down the mast.
 

 
Then instead of running the lazy jack through loops every 20mm on the sail I reduced it to just three loops, this dramatically reduced friction there and while the sail is not as controlled as it is hauled down it is still managable. You will see that I also moved the point of attachment on the gaff forward to a point that equalises the down pull so it happens smoothly without the outboard end of the gaff heading down first which caused the yolk to jam on the mast.
 

 
The other step was to add a lanyard from the master block on the gaff halyard to the yolk on the gaff, this ensures the gaff pulls up at the correct angle, again, preventing it from jamming on the mast.
 

 
The result is a sail that can be raised ad lowered very easily.

I got some more work done on the Sophie. I prepped the new lightbulb and cut the threaded portion shorter so it would fit in the base with the LEDs behind it then I made the sea from non hardening modeling clay. I made the sails from paper then painted them white a slightly off white color. I still need to add some finishing touches then I will bottle it.


 
 
 
Lextin.

Its been awhile since my last post but i'm back. I made the mast and started on the rigging.


 
 
Lextin.

I started work on the ship which is going to be HMS Sophie from Master and Commander by Patric O-Brian. The hull is made from some fine grained softwood I had left over from a previous project, the bulwarks are made from card.
   The HMS Sophie changed paint schemes throughout the book so I chose the one that I could make with the paint that I had.









 
 
Lextin.

I have decided to build a Ship in a Lightbulb. I have rigged a base to light up using parts from a cheap LED flashlight. The base is an old light fixture. the LEDs push into the light socket which is wired to the flashlights battery pack and on/off button, I have also added a sheet of thin plywood stained with some redwood stain. Sadly during the process of making the base I broke the lightbulb there is still enough of the bulb left for me to be able to size and make the model but I cannot use it in the finished product because it has a large hole in the side, incandescent lightbulbs are hard to get in California but I think I can get a halogen that will work.
     I am thinking of making the HMS Sophie from Master and Commander by Patric O-Brian.







 
Lextin.