qwerty2008

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 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.

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.

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.

A little bit of progress.
 
Sometimes when I catch a glimpse of her in the corner of my eye, with the masts standing, she looks like the real thing in for a refit.
 
First a little stern shot, I think the props are a tad small so I might have to go the 25mm ones.
 

 
See if you can work out what I am planning for her. Some may think I'm mad but it's what I do.
 

 

 

 

 
 

I was really suprised that I did not find a build log about the Naval Cutter Alert on MSW 2.0. I know that there exist some pictures of a model on the old MSW
 
The first source for building a model of this small vessel are Peter Goodwins book "The Naval Cutter Alert, 1777", published by PhoenixPublications Inc. 1991 and the two original drawing of her sister Rattlesnake (1776) which you will find on the homepage of the NMM.
There also exist two paintings of Joseph Marshall of the ship, which are exhibited in the Science Museum, London.
I found also an Sheer and Profile drawing of Alert which was published by the NRG.
 
The sheer and profile of the NRG and Goodwin differ from the original drawing. They show the maximum width of the ship not at frame 0. Perhaps my Engish is to bad, but I could not find any reason for this. So I decide to draw my own lines. which were based on Goodwin and the original drawing.

 
The drawing is not finished, because I decided only to draw what I need for my build.
 
Next step was the keel. Goodwin shows for the pass between keel and lower apron a solution which I could not find on any original cutter drawings.

 
For the after deadwood he does not offer any possible solution

 
I decide to follow the original drawing of Cheerful 1806 for the pass between keel and lower apron. The flat joint at the foremost keel part is shown on original drawings of this period (for example on HMS Triton). For the after deadwood I decided to use a bearing line. I am not sure if this is common for ships of this period.
The next picture shows my completed keel drawing:

 
Goodwin uses for his design the common frameing pattern of double and single frames. I am not sure that this design was used for the original ship. For the Swan class sloops only single frames were used. This you will also find on the drawing of Cheerful and other cutters. Also the wide of the frame parts are not clear. In his drawing he uses much smaller futtocks than he descibed in the text part of the book. In his "Construction and Fitting of Sailing Man of War" he gives a third solution.
What now? Alert is a practice model for me to get the experience to continue my HMS Fly build. Marshall shows on his paintings an simplified frameing design, so I decided to use this. Every frame is 8'' width followed by 8'' space. For the port side I like to show the clinker planking.
On my drawing the final design for the last frame and the hawse pieces is missing in the moment.

 
The drawings for every 31frames and 21cant frames are finished.

 
I am not sure in the moment if I will use the original practice with chocks or the simplified method of Harold Hahn for my build.
 
It will be very nice if you have further information about the cutters of this time. I found the Marmaduke Stalkartt on Google-books, but they didn't scan the plates. Perhaps one of the MSW user can help me to confirm my decisions.

I have just been given this old yacht or coastal trader by a guy at work in his 60's,his dad used to play with this model as a young boy.It will be a slow restoration there is some good work on it,brass and some plastic.It looks like it's carved out of solid timber.It's about 1 metre long.The name on it is from a steamship that used to call into Lyttelton.I may strip all the paint off wait and see the deck is 10mm solid wood,the strip at the bottom is lead.Any info or advice to it's restoration will be greatly appreciated thanks ron.

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.

Continued.









 
Lextin.

Those anchors look really good. 
Happy Christmas,
Jakob

Thank you, Bob and Michael (and the lurkers who don't comment or even hit "like" from time to time  ), for your continued interest and support.
 
 

 
Where I am; moving ahead with spars, hull, carriage and wheels.
 
 

 
Photo montage of assembling an eighteen spoke wheel. Clockwise from upper left:  fixture and pattern, and the spoke cut-off station; calculating, cutting and fitting the first three spokes to the same length is important as it makes fitting the rest much easier; fitting some of the intermediate spokes allows the builder to visually check spoke spacing and make adjustments as work progresses; fitting more spokes in the spaces - half way done with this wheel; hurrah, one spoke left; two eighteen spoke rear wheels (1.060 in. / 27mm dia.) and two fourteen spoke front wheels (.860  in. / 22mm dia.) fabricated and ready for a little paint touch-up, further detailing and mounting on the axles.
 
 

 
Close-up of the two piece hull posed for a photo with axles and other carriage components. Strips of black construction paper were glued around the rims to replicate the shrink-fit iron tires. Carbon fiber pins (.020 in. / 0.5mm dia.) were glued into holes drilled through each wheel hub into the ends of the axle to reinforce the glued connection. The black strakes at the sheer line are glued in place; three more (on each side) to go. They seem to take more time to prepare than the wheels did.
 
 

 
Macro of Fore (to right) and Main masts, tops and topmasts. The tops were fabricated from .015 in. x .030 in. (0.4mm x 0.8mm) plywood strips.
 
 

Dave
 

The diameter is about. 3.5mm, (between 3 and 4 inches in full scale) I made it from four strands of some Nylon string that I got from Wal-Mart a few years back. I might change it later on in the build this one was just so I could see how the anchors would look when finished.
 
Lextin.

Here is a close up of the cable.

 
Lextin.

I broke out the rope walk and made a short length of hawser the took some more pictures. I also got a shot showing the inside of the bulwarks.
 
 
 
 
Lextin.

I finished building up the thickness of the bulwarks all the way down to the deck and made the anchors. The anchors are made mostly from wood, the flukes are card and the rings will be copper.
 
 
 
 
 
Lextin.

Those anchors look good Lextin.
 
Michael

First thank you all for your kind remarks, and all the likes.
 
New Cockpit part 4
 
Regarding the deck oxidation at the moment there is no surface treatment on it it is just a scraped finish, so a final scraping before applying the teak oil should take care of it.
 
I have begun gluing together the boards for the flat areas of the cockpit these have a micro bevel on all four edges this will need a little touching up before the final varnish.
 

 
The corners have been rough sanded to shape now, when all the walls are complete and glued together I will make the cap by laminating a few .020" veneers together around  formers for the corners when it is shaped and finished it will be stronger than a bent piece and will look like a solid piece. similar to this bent piece as part of a wicker seat which was made by bending a group of veneers around a stainless steel strip and gluing them. After they had set up they were removed from the strip then shaped with files and sanded.
 

 
The next picture shows the top edge of the flat section.
 

 
I will need to make a new grating for the floor or rework the edges with some new boards.
 
Michael
 
 
 
 

Welcome! 
 
​I worked on several parts of Ogallala - the undercarriage components, several deck detail items and some of the wagon detailing.
 

 
The four undercarriage components that will be assembled inside the bottle set in place on the bottom of the lower hull section - from left: front axle, axle tiller, brake / tiller attachment beam and rear axle. The three cross pieces have pegs that fit into holes in the hull section. The tiller fits in a hole in the front axle. I did a mock fit-up in an imaginary bottle with a toilet paper tube neck to check that it can be assembled working through the neck. That test went well, I hope the real assembly will be as easy. The front and rear wheels will be attached to the axles before the axle assemblies go in the bottle.
 

 
Hatch frame with cover planks, and fore and main pinrails. The fore pinrail will also serve as the bits for the bowsprit. The belaying pins were cut from .010 inch (0.25mm) entomology pins. Each pinrail leg has a belaying pin reject glued into the end that will glue into holes in the deck upon assembly.
 

 
Deck details in their approximate positions for a photo.
 

 
Each cargo hatch has three simulated planks that need handles to use when they are removed for loading and unloading. I decided to try making ring bolts as handles. Here's the first one made from 40 gauge wire (.0055 inch / 0.14mm) with a ring that is 4 scale inches (100mm) in diameter - 1/32 inch (0.08mm) on the model. Yes, it was very fiddly. Just 17 more to make.
 
 
No photos yet on the exterior hull detailing, still in progress. Thanks for viewing.
 

 
 
 

Hello Dan I have checked the major suppliers and so far the smallest appears to be 3/16 radius.
 
New Cockpit part 3
 
All four corners are now glued and the final shaping is underway on the corners.
 

 
The sharp radius turned out well.
 

 
The oxidation of the fir decking is obvious now that the wide section of the old cockpit has been removed.
 
Michael

Thank you all for your comments.  I did some research on the paint and with some help from a couple guru's on this forum and in the club I found my answer to the color scheme.  I also think it fits the Queen Anne's Revenge rather well.  She took a much darker turn.
 

 

 

 
Ships in this day in age generally came in three colors.  Ocher, red and black.  Usually a mixture of the three.  The colors came from different things mixed in the paint.  Black was created from ash.  Red from oxidization or essentially rust.   I'm not sure about ocher I'd have to ask again.  A very common theme for the day was a black ship with an ocher stripe a long the gun ports and red on the inside of the bulwarks.  This seemed to fit so I went with it.  
 
The masts are in place but I plan on cutting them down and stepping them.  Still more to do.    

New Cockpit Part 2
 
The second cutter was not quite a successful as the first so a bit of handwork was needed to clean up the round, Basically I made it a bit too small.

 
I shaped a piece of .008" shim-stock to the aft curves on the deck hole to act a a platform to lay the boards while they set.
 

 
After they set one edge was trimmed on the disk sander .

 
This method is working well enough so on to the forward curves.
 
Michael
 
 

The cross jack lifts were installed next.

This is a few photos as she sits now.

At last, the planking is finished !
 
Now to fill the gaps and seal the hull inside and out. I am not going to be too keen to get a smooth perfect finish because these schooners were made of timber and therefore imperfect and I think a few irregularities make a hull look better than glass smooth, they give it character.
 

 

 

 
I am happy with the stern, it looks about right given pics I have seen
 

 

 
When I finished the planking and turnd her over I was surprised at how much bigger she looks from the inside that the outside, I may have to call her "The Tardis"