Chuck

Beautiful work.     It is so nice to see you back working on the model.
 
Well Done!!!

What a year this was!! Life threw one curve ball after the other. There was more hospital time for both my wife and myself. My diabetes took a slight turn for the worse but is fortunately still manageable.
 
I still do not have any way of ripping the planks for the build, still thinking of building a (very basic) small table saw for it as I simply cannot afford to buy one, If anybody got any sort of drawings/plans for one I would appreciate it.
 
Cheers

Thank you for the kind words guys.
 
The lower backstays are completed so next up was to make the sling and then add the mainstay.
 

 
The sling for the lower yard is served its entire length.  I used .035 dark brown rope.  It has a thimble seized to it with a hook made of 22 gauge wire and eyes formed on each loose end.  After determining the length for the loose ends I formed the eyes and you can see how the eyes close up the sling by being inter-twined.  I originally thought it would be easier to make the sling off the model.   Which it was.  BUT there were trade-offs.  This meant that I had to unhook all of the blocks on the mast to get it in position.  That wasnt too bad BUT afterwards I discovered that the sling wasnt long enough to get around the forward spreader.
 

 
This was bad.  I either had to cut the sling off and make another one...rigging it in place.....OR, try to carefully remove the forward spreader.  I ended up removing the spreader without any damage.  BUT I wouldnt recommend this to all the Cheerful builders out there.  Best to rig it in place.
 
The main stay was rigged from .054 dark brown rope.  It was served around the masthead only down to about 1/2" below the splice.  Thats right....a splice rather than a mouse.   This was very common on cutters of the period and appears much more often on contemporary examples than the one or two found with a mouse.
 
  
 
The other end of the stay had the 5-hole deadeye turned into it.  The lanyard was rove through it as usual but the loose end was taken up around the stay once and then finally seized to the stay as shown.  I used very fine fly-tie thread for this.  It finished it off nicely.
 

 
Now that the main stay is completed I can go back to all these loose ends at the belaying points and re-tension the lines.   After that I will cut off the excess and add rope coils....
 

 

 
Next up....ratlines!!!!!

When I first started rigging Cheerful It all seemed a bit overwhelming and I wasn't having all that much fun, honestly. I had no real plan for completing the Peak Halliard so I decided to concentrate on one task at a time and try not to think about all that had to be done. Making a decent looking hook, for example, required a lot more effort than I originally thought. I spent the whole day trying different methods and threw out a lot of wire. Making more wouldn't hurt, but the process did get easier and I'm happy with the results overall. Taking things really slow has made the rigging process a whole lot more enjoyable.
 

 

 

Thank you very much....
 
See this topic for mounting........
 
http://modelshipworld.com/index.php/topic/14432-getting-startedmounting-your-carving-blanksand-removing-them-when-finished/

I am going to try and carve one of the blanks from Yellow Cedar.  Its beautiful stuff and I just got some from my supplier.  In case you want to try it check out his site.  He also mills boxwood and a whhole bunch of other stuff.  His prices are fantastic.  So far I am more than happy with the quality and respoinsiveness of this guy.   Hopefully once he gets his site up and running it will be even easier to place an order.n  As far as I know, he is the only supplier of milled yellow cedar on the web.  
 
http://www.woodprojectsource.com/
 
Right now he doesnt have any items listed on his site as in stock because he is just finishing it up.  It should be real soon because he never had a website before and I convinced him to build one.  But you can contact him at any time because he is open for business.  But thanks to some prodding from me he is starting off by adding the woods we prefer.  But he mostly caters to local wood carvers which apparantly there are a lot of.
 
Here is an example in Yellow Cedar of a carving and my test build of the barge.  Compare with teh cherry version behind it.  I really like it for what we do.  Its softer than box but harder than basswood yet the color is beautiful and since I took this photo the color has deepened and it looks almost identical to boxwood although a bit more yellowish....but not an obnoxious yellow at all.
 

 

 
Chuck

Thank you very much....
 
See this topic for mounting........
 
http://modelshipworld.com/index.php/topic/14432-getting-startedmounting-your-carving-blanksand-removing-them-when-finished/

Maybe...but for right now this is all I have time to create.  

I just finished laser cutting the Yellow cedar he dropped off yesterday.  The Alaskan Yellow Cedar is such a wonderful wood to laser cut.  The parts are for a second barge I am building which will be made entirely out of the yellow cedar.  I hope to have pictures real soon but I am really enjoying working with it.
 

 
If you are looking for a light golden/yellow wood that is easy to work with I do recommend you give the yellow cedar a try.   The top board has some Wipe on Poly on the end.    It makes teh color come out nicely. I should have the planking done this weekend so you guys could have a better look at teh stuff as part of a model. 
 
Chuck

I carved my pieces using only a #11 blade.
 

 
I also tried a few micro chisels from Flexcut.  They worked really well.  I only really used the "v" shaped one.  The important thing is to keep them very sharp.....as soon as the #11 blades got a little dull I threw it away and got a new one.
 

 
I havent done any rotary carving because I dont like the look of the pieces after using the bits. Too rounded for my tastes but only probably because I dont know how to do it correctly.   I also like the feel of the blade vs. the rotary tool.
 
But guys,  please discuss your tools and approaches here and hopefully we will have a few that will try rotary carving.
 
Chuck
 

I just finished laser cutting the Yellow cedar he dropped off yesterday.  The Alaskan Yellow Cedar is such a wonderful wood to laser cut.  The parts are for a second barge I am building which will be made entirely out of the yellow cedar.  I hope to have pictures real soon but I am really enjoying working with it.
 

 
If you are looking for a light golden/yellow wood that is easy to work with I do recommend you give the yellow cedar a try.   The top board has some Wipe on Poly on the end.    It makes teh color come out nicely. I should have the planking done this weekend so you guys could have a better look at teh stuff as part of a model. 
 
Chuck

I just finished laser cutting the Yellow cedar he dropped off yesterday.  The Alaskan Yellow Cedar is such a wonderful wood to laser cut.  The parts are for a second barge I am building which will be made entirely out of the yellow cedar.  I hope to have pictures real soon but I am really enjoying working with it.
 

 
If you are looking for a light golden/yellow wood that is easy to work with I do recommend you give the yellow cedar a try.   The top board has some Wipe on Poly on the end.    It makes teh color come out nicely. I should have the planking done this weekend so you guys could have a better look at teh stuff as part of a model. 
 
Chuck

I just finished laser cutting the Yellow cedar he dropped off yesterday.  The Alaskan Yellow Cedar is such a wonderful wood to laser cut.  The parts are for a second barge I am building which will be made entirely out of the yellow cedar.  I hope to have pictures real soon but I am really enjoying working with it.
 

 
If you are looking for a light golden/yellow wood that is easy to work with I do recommend you give the yellow cedar a try.   The top board has some Wipe on Poly on the end.    It makes teh color come out nicely. I should have the planking done this weekend so you guys could have a better look at teh stuff as part of a model. 
 
Chuck

I just finished laser cutting the Yellow cedar he dropped off yesterday.  The Alaskan Yellow Cedar is such a wonderful wood to laser cut.  The parts are for a second barge I am building which will be made entirely out of the yellow cedar.  I hope to have pictures real soon but I am really enjoying working with it.
 

 
If you are looking for a light golden/yellow wood that is easy to work with I do recommend you give the yellow cedar a try.   The top board has some Wipe on Poly on the end.    It makes teh color come out nicely. I should have the planking done this weekend so you guys could have a better look at teh stuff as part of a model. 
 
Chuck

I am far from being an expert at carving in wood.  This was my first attempt and it seemed to work really well.  I am sure some of you will have alternative methods for mounting your carving blanks.
 
The Queen's cipher is probably the easiest of the designs to start with so I recommend starting with those.
 

 
To mount the blank,  I used a thicker 1/8" or 3/16" thick piece of scrap wood (not included with the blanks).  Its cherry and is hard enough to take a beating.  I would imagine softer woods are not the best to use and probably should be avoided.  The base was cut just a little larger than the piece being carved.  It was glued on with a childs glue stick.  This glue is easy to remove and cures permanent and strong....but will easily be treated with rubbing alcohol when the time comes to remove it.
 
  Dont be shy with how much you use.  You want this piece secure.  These are fragile pieces at 1/32" thick.  Take special care with the areas that would be prone to breaking like the bottom tails for the letters.  The glue will dry hard but also flatter.   If some squished out its not a problem because you can easily scrape it away while carving.     Because the designs are so thin it will have a tendency to curl when wet with glue.  To solve this problem I sandwiched it with another small scrap piece and clamped it to dry.  I let it dry overnight before starting to carve it.     To remove the piece after you are done...I literally just filled a small plastic container with 90% rubbing alcohol and dropped it in.  I let it fully submerge in a 1" deep bath for about 3 hours.  It actually fell right off the base without any trouble.   Feel free to share other ways here or in your logs when you start one.  I would NOT recommend trying to carve these blanks without mounting them to a base.  They will just break apart in the first 2 seconds.   Chuck

The log is not abandoned, just a very slow building due to an upcoming Christmas and everything related to it.
 
Notches lined up:

 
Whoopsie, forgot that wings are at an angle. Argh, redoing this piece again from scratch.

 
Two curved things are in place, one to go and then I can fair it nice and flush:

I just finished laser cutting the Yellow cedar he dropped off yesterday.  The Alaskan Yellow Cedar is such a wonderful wood to laser cut.  The parts are for a second barge I am building which will be made entirely out of the yellow cedar.  I hope to have pictures real soon but I am really enjoying working with it.
 

 
If you are looking for a light golden/yellow wood that is easy to work with I do recommend you give the yellow cedar a try.   The top board has some Wipe on Poly on the end.    It makes teh color come out nicely. I should have the planking done this weekend so you guys could have a better look at teh stuff as part of a model. 
 
Chuck

I just finished laser cutting the Yellow cedar he dropped off yesterday.  The Alaskan Yellow Cedar is such a wonderful wood to laser cut.  The parts are for a second barge I am building which will be made entirely out of the yellow cedar.  I hope to have pictures real soon but I am really enjoying working with it.
 

 
If you are looking for a light golden/yellow wood that is easy to work with I do recommend you give the yellow cedar a try.   The top board has some Wipe on Poly on the end.    It makes teh color come out nicely. I should have the planking done this weekend so you guys could have a better look at teh stuff as part of a model. 
 
Chuck

Thank you very much....
 
See this topic for mounting........
 
http://modelshipworld.com/index.php/topic/14432-getting-startedmounting-your-carving-blanksand-removing-them-when-finished/

I prefer a mounting board to prevent the small thin sections from breaking while carving.   Everyone works differently.  But sometimes it achieves the same result.  Whatever is most comfortable I guess.
 

Nothing other than gluing them to the base before carving.

Maybe....but I am going to leave it as it seems to look just fine after I applied the wipe on poly.   They are removed from the base so I dont want to mess with them at this point.  but maybe I will try on the others I have yet to start.

There is a download in the other forum on signing up....it shows them the actual size.

Nice progress!!!   You are getting a lot done. It looks just great.  

Thanks,  I do know about those but never thought about using them on wood.   I finished the third leaf design needed for the starboard side of the barge last night.  I applied some Wipe-On-Poly and I am happy with how they look, so rather than continue noodling with these I am just going to press on.  I have 5 more carving designs to get done for the model.
 
Next I will mount these three on a piece of scrap wood so I can make a mold.  I will pull a bunch of castings in resin for those who dont wish to carve them for their model.  I just hope these masters dont get ruined in the process because I plan on adding them to the model shortly after.
 

 
Chuck