Erik W

Over the last couple of weeks I made the catheads and bow pin rail.  These were pretty straight forward, though they required a lot of measuring, and as always I proceeded slooooowly.  It was a bit nerve wracking cutting out the sections of the cap rail.  The more hours I have into this build, the more nervous I get when I have to remove material!  This was my first time cutting sheaves into wood.  I used a technique Chuck had posted about a while back for those of us using hand tools.  I practiced a couple of times on some scrap wood before creating them on the catheads.  The results turned out decent.
 
One technique I'd like to share with you folks is when you look at where my catheads meet the bulwark you see that it's seamless.  To achieve this look I shaped the cathead as close to the correct profile as possible, and then after they were glued in place I made a mix of 50/50 wood glue/water and using the tip of a straight pin to apply, ran a thin bead down the seam.  Once dry, I then used a small paint brush to paint the red or black over the seam.  It's pretty effective on parts that will be painted.  I've found if you do the same with mat medium thinned with water, it even works on seams between painted parts and bare wood.  The mat medium is used in this case to avoid a shiny seam on the unpainted joint between the painted and non-painted parts.
 
As always, thanks for looking,
Erik

Log #89: Mainmast Finished
Time for a minor update. I finally got round to finishing the topsail bowlines and so was able to put in the topgallant sheets. I am not planning on adding bowlines to the topgallant yard.
 
For the topgallant sheet I used .35mm rope and for the topsail bowlines 0.25mm rope with the eyes served with fly tying thread.

The topgallant sheets are belayed to the foremost shroud cleats. With that done, the mainmast is finished apart from the topgallant stay which will have to wait until I get to the end of the bowsprit.
 
Then more rope coils. I feel at this point I have the hang of them and my latest jig seems to give me the right shape. Just two small spots of super glue to tack things in place, a blast from the hair dryer and then a coating of very thinned matt varnish to hold it all together. If you want a more detailed explanation of my process you can find it here and here.

You can see below the progress I have made on these. The one on the rightmost cleat was my first attempt, the next was somewhere in the middle and the leftmost is the latest one using the above jig.

And that is all I have for today. Not a huge amount of progress, but it has been a busy week so I only got a little time to work on the model. I now have to give some thought as to what order I will tackle the ropes associated with the bowsprit.
 
Thank you to everyone who has stoped by to take a look.

Upper bulwark planking
With the hull planking completed I decided to hold off on the wales and do some upper bulwark planking.
 
I made the hance pieces in three layers rather than two. I might have gotten away with two but it would have been close regarding width. I added the first two upper bulwark planks at the forecastle. Around the area of the bowsprit there is a tight 3/4" radius. Those 3/32" cedar caps are just sitting on top of the shear to give you an idea of what they would look like once I add them.

Mike

I love looking at your work Mike. So nice and clean!

Hull sanding completed.

I spent the week making 17 belaying pins using my Dremel tool.  While it's not too difficult to make one belaying pin, trying to make a bunch that are identical proved to be impossible.  Glad I'm done with that step!  They turned out pretty good anyway.  I remind myself that once all is said and done, there will be rope placed around all of them, so any variations in shape that are visible now, won't be able to be seen then. 
 
Erik

I spent the week making 17 belaying pins using my Dremel tool.  While it's not too difficult to make one belaying pin, trying to make a bunch that are identical proved to be impossible.  Glad I'm done with that step!  They turned out pretty good anyway.  I remind myself that once all is said and done, there will be rope placed around all of them, so any variations in shape that are visible now, won't be able to be seen then. 
 
Erik

support for swivel guns:











 
 

I spent the week making 17 belaying pins using my Dremel tool.  While it's not too difficult to make one belaying pin, trying to make a bunch that are identical proved to be impossible.  Glad I'm done with that step!  They turned out pretty good anyway.  I remind myself that once all is said and done, there will be rope placed around all of them, so any variations in shape that are visible now, won't be able to be seen then. 
 
Erik

@druxey
Thank you for your interest and everyone else for the LIKES
Continuation: throat halyard – Drisse de mat
We continued with the manufacture of the block strops for the throat halyard. The hook was tied into the lower double block with a thimble. The halyard with a diameter of 0.46 mm (ø 2 mm in the original) was attached to the block strop of the upper block using an eye splice.
I then quickly attached the gaff to the finished throat halyard, as can be seen in the following pictures.


To be continued...

I spent the week making 17 belaying pins using my Dremel tool.  While it's not too difficult to make one belaying pin, trying to make a bunch that are identical proved to be impossible.  Glad I'm done with that step!  They turned out pretty good anyway.  I remind myself that once all is said and done, there will be rope placed around all of them, so any variations in shape that are visible now, won't be able to be seen then. 
 
Erik

I spent the week making 17 belaying pins using my Dremel tool.  While it's not too difficult to make one belaying pin, trying to make a bunch that are identical proved to be impossible.  Glad I'm done with that step!  They turned out pretty good anyway.  I remind myself that once all is said and done, there will be rope placed around all of them, so any variations in shape that are visible now, won't be able to be seen then. 
 
Erik

I spent the week making 17 belaying pins using my Dremel tool.  While it's not too difficult to make one belaying pin, trying to make a bunch that are identical proved to be impossible.  Glad I'm done with that step!  They turned out pretty good anyway.  I remind myself that once all is said and done, there will be rope placed around all of them, so any variations in shape that are visible now, won't be able to be seen then. 
 
Erik

Making the guns..
 
There are 8 cannon.
 
First sand the char off both sides of each laser cut sheet of carriage parts.  Do this before removing the parts.  Its just easier.   Then proceed to remove the char from the edges of all pieces.  Dont sand too much.  Just a light touch is needed.  The two sides or the "brackets" of teach carriage are laser cut with all the holes for your various eyebolts etc.
 

Then if you intend to paint the carriages...do that on all parts before assembling.  Its just easier.  Note the axle are left bright as well as the wheels (trucks).
 
In addition, this chapter will come with a carriage jig.  It is a simple jig.   Add the center piece of the jig first.  Then it is best to add the two axles in position so you can better position the other two jig pieces.   Position the two jig elements on the far sides of each axle so they can be easily slipped in and out of the jig.  Dont make it so the axles are too tight in the jig and hard to remove.   Finish up the the jig with the final fourth piece which is used to secure the brackets at the correct width apart from each other.   
 

Then you can glue the two brackets to the axles....after they dry remove this assembly from the jig and you can repeat for all eight carriages.
 

Next up...add the front (transom) and the back (bolster) atop each axle between the brackets.  Note the stool bed and quoin ready to go in the next step along with some 3/64" dia brass rod.  
 

Insert the longer brass rod (not included) through the carriage.  The stool bed will sit on this.  The two smaller lengths simulate the transom bolts.  Normally this would go through the transom from one side to the other.  But in our case they wont.   They are just cosmetic.  Just fill the hole so it looks like it does.  They can be be blackened.
 
Then I glued the quoin atop the stool bed in advance.   Then glued this on top of the bolster and long brass rod.  See the photo.

Small eye bolts were made with 24 gauge black wire and inserted according to the plans.   Many of you will be familiar with this repetitive task.  I also made ring and bolt for the breech line.  Even though the photos show it on the carriage, they will be removed for now.  It is easier to add them to the breech line itself and then insert them into the carriage sides.  That is if you intend to rig the guns which I do.  I also turned the quoin handle from some scrap 3/64" boxwood strips.   But you guys ,ay choose a commercial option of using a belaying pin...if they dont look too out of scale and huge.   Which they almost certainly always look out of scale.

To finish up the carriages I drilled the holes along the stepped sides of each bracket.  I inserted 30 pound black fishing line to simulate the bolts.  I also added the the trucks (wheels).  To finish up the trucks a small length of either 24 gauge black wire or even 25 pound black fishing line can be used to simulate the truck keys.  The keys are run through the laser cut holes in each axle.

The cannon are resin...they are cleaned up and finished with some weathering powder as I usually do.   The trunnion were sanded shorter to match the width of each carriage.
 
The capsquares are interesting.  I hate making these. So this time around I spent basically an entire day figuring out how to laser cut them.   Thats right....laser cut.  No 3d printing or casting.  I designed and laser cut the capsquares in one piece.  They do have some 3 dimensionality to them.   I am quite pleased with how they turned out.  It took many many failed attempts.  Just clean them up and weather them if you like.   Then glue them on....

 
The finished product...
 

 
 
 

Questions or comments are always welcomed.

Thank you.
Filling pieces.

I spent the week making 17 belaying pins using my Dremel tool.  While it's not too difficult to make one belaying pin, trying to make a bunch that are identical proved to be impossible.  Glad I'm done with that step!  They turned out pretty good anyway.  I remind myself that once all is said and done, there will be rope placed around all of them, so any variations in shape that are visible now, won't be able to be seen then. 
 
Erik

Over the last couple of weeks I made the catheads and bow pin rail.  These were pretty straight forward, though they required a lot of measuring, and as always I proceeded slooooowly.  It was a bit nerve wracking cutting out the sections of the cap rail.  The more hours I have into this build, the more nervous I get when I have to remove material!  This was my first time cutting sheaves into wood.  I used a technique Chuck had posted about a while back for those of us using hand tools.  I practiced a couple of times on some scrap wood before creating them on the catheads.  The results turned out decent.
 
One technique I'd like to share with you folks is when you look at where my catheads meet the bulwark you see that it's seamless.  To achieve this look I shaped the cathead as close to the correct profile as possible, and then after they were glued in place I made a mix of 50/50 wood glue/water and using the tip of a straight pin to apply, ran a thin bead down the seam.  Once dry, I then used a small paint brush to paint the red or black over the seam.  It's pretty effective on parts that will be painted.  I've found if you do the same with mat medium thinned with water, it even works on seams between painted parts and bare wood.  The mat medium is used in this case to avoid a shiny seam on the unpainted joint between the painted and non-painted parts.
 
As always, thanks for looking,
Erik

I spent the week making 17 belaying pins using my Dremel tool.  While it's not too difficult to make one belaying pin, trying to make a bunch that are identical proved to be impossible.  Glad I'm done with that step!  They turned out pretty good anyway.  I remind myself that once all is said and done, there will be rope placed around all of them, so any variations in shape that are visible now, won't be able to be seen then. 
 
Erik

I spent the week making 17 belaying pins using my Dremel tool.  While it's not too difficult to make one belaying pin, trying to make a bunch that are identical proved to be impossible.  Glad I'm done with that step!  They turned out pretty good anyway.  I remind myself that once all is said and done, there will be rope placed around all of them, so any variations in shape that are visible now, won't be able to be seen then. 
 
Erik

I spent the week making 17 belaying pins using my Dremel tool.  While it's not too difficult to make one belaying pin, trying to make a bunch that are identical proved to be impossible.  Glad I'm done with that step!  They turned out pretty good anyway.  I remind myself that once all is said and done, there will be rope placed around all of them, so any variations in shape that are visible now, won't be able to be seen then. 
 
Erik

I spent the week making 17 belaying pins using my Dremel tool.  While it's not too difficult to make one belaying pin, trying to make a bunch that are identical proved to be impossible.  Glad I'm done with that step!  They turned out pretty good anyway.  I remind myself that once all is said and done, there will be rope placed around all of them, so any variations in shape that are visible now, won't be able to be seen then. 
 
Erik

I spent the week making 17 belaying pins using my Dremel tool.  While it's not too difficult to make one belaying pin, trying to make a bunch that are identical proved to be impossible.  Glad I'm done with that step!  They turned out pretty good anyway.  I remind myself that once all is said and done, there will be rope placed around all of them, so any variations in shape that are visible now, won't be able to be seen then. 
 
Erik

I spent the week making 17 belaying pins using my Dremel tool.  While it's not too difficult to make one belaying pin, trying to make a bunch that are identical proved to be impossible.  Glad I'm done with that step!  They turned out pretty good anyway.  I remind myself that once all is said and done, there will be rope placed around all of them, so any variations in shape that are visible now, won't be able to be seen then. 
 
Erik

With outdoor temperatures up to 98 degrees (37 Celsius) here this week, it was easy to want to stay indoors and work on my Cheerful.  After procrastinating for a bit, I tackled a couple of things I've been putting off.  I built the ladders.  These were a bit of a challenge as they are not straight, even though they look straight.  They actually lean aft with the sheer of the deck.  It took a while to get all the steps cut to exactly the same length, and the notches filed into the ladder sides, since I did all that by hand.  They wound up turning out the way I had hoped with the right amount of lean and both ladders being symmetrical when compared with one another.  I know the model will rarely be viewed from dead ahead or dead astern, but hey, you have to put your best foot forward.
 
The other thing I had been procrastinating was making the belaying pins.  In my 45 years of model making I've never fashioned a part using a power tool.  So, the photo you see below is my first attempt at making a belaying pin.  I used the Dremel rotary tool my dad gave me as a gift in 1985 when I was fifteen years old.  I followed the dimensions Mike (Stuntflyer) had used for the belaying pins on his Cheerful build.   The pin is .375" long, or 18" in 1/48 scale.  I turned the square stock down to .045" in diameter, then shaped the top.  The bottom shaft was then reduced to .030" in diameter.  It looks rough obviously, but turned out OK for a first attempt.  The little collar between the lower shaft and the handle looks a little clunky, so on the production pins, I'll reduce the width of that a bit.  I still have some playing around to do with which specific files I'll use, but I'm happy I got over the mental hurdle of giving it a try in the first place!
 
Erik