gak1965

Rick, That makes a lot of sense. The ship was not a great sailer, and if it was pinwheeling a prop with a steam engine attached, I imagine it would be a lot worse. Regards, George

One last propeller update. Mounted on the ship. On the stern side it is mounted into a small cradle made from brass strip and painted. On the forward side, there is a channel that runs from the shaft to the hull above (you can see it in the ship photo a couple of entries back). That is there to enable to prop to be pulled out and replaced from the deck in the event of damage. I've added that in using painted brass. So, here it is: One thing I didn't model is the actual octagonal hole that goes through the hull that allows the access from the deck (and a similar rectangular access point for the rudder). It's mostly hidden, it isn't a regular octagon, and it just went into the too hard pile. I will be modeling the access port on the deck (it's a piece of deck furniture). I mentioned that it isn't a regular octagon, but, sort of a flattened octagon. Seven sides are the same length, but one is not - I presume related to the width of the hull at the exit point, but still very weird. Anyways, have a great weekend everyone! Regards, George

Okay - the prop is done. Here is the basic sequence. I cut out the blades from brass sheet, using a bit of painters tape to draw the outlines: I used a knife handle to curve the blades, and then fit them into a curved cut I made in the hub: Here it is before painting: This was where I made, an, ah, mistake. I had a bottle of Tamiya "bronze" paint. Here is what it looked like after a coat of paint (yikes): So, suddenly doing additional research I should have already done (and frankly when I opened the bottle, I should have cottoned to), I learn that the bronze used on most propellers is in fact an alloy of copper, tin, and zinc, which makes it both a bronze (copper + tin) and a brass (copper + zinc). Either way, I took some Tamiya gold paint and mixed it with the bronze until I got a shade that made more sense. A quick sand with 320 grit sandpaper to even out the first coat, and we get the following: which I think you will all agree is much nicer. Regards, George

Concur. Plus, as the boat ages and things break, they get repaired with what is available - if it's a different size or looks a little different, well, no one is going to replace all of the block for aesthetics. She's looking great! George

Quick question. So, I gather most propellers were made of bronze (even to this day). What would the shaft have been made of in 1901? Iron? Steel? Bronze? Trying to decide how to paint the shaft. I mean, Given that this is meant to be removable, would it make the most sense for it to be a single bronze casting? Any help appreciated. Thanks, George

I tend to use annealed wire as well - same reasons - it's black and easy to work with. GAK

@Rick310, appreciate the comment! Now, the prop. Here it is on the ship. My initial question was how to make the ball that holds the blades and the shaft as one piece, two pieces (a ball with a hole drilled through it for the shaft), or three (a ball with two dowels glued on as shaft segments. My initial thought was to try to fabricate it as one piece and see where we go from there. This is one place where the plans have let me down, as they don't show much detail on the prop - so I've been forced to work from photographs like the above. The "ball" at my scale should probably be in the 12-15 mm diameter range with about 4 mm worth of shaft visible. I didn't have a big enough dowel or single piece of wood handy, so I glued up 12 segments of 1/4" by 3/16" (4x3) into a 3/4 by 3/4 inch wide billet, cut it in two, and mounted it in my little lathe. So, step 1 was to round out the square billet (this photo is from attempt 1, all of the others from attempt 2). I've also started defining the boundaries of the shaft vs. the ball. Here it is further along. I've defined the ball and shaft pretty definitively, marked the center of the ball, and started cutting away ball shape on the right hand side. And here it is after trimming further, and sanding with some 150 grit. I've cut it out and I need to see if it is visually the right size (it may be a bit too large), in which case, I'll put the piece back in and sand it down until it appears correct. Once that is done, fill any gaps and cut out where the blades will mount into the ball. I'm not going to try to model the "bolted on" blades at this scale, but I think it's going to look just fine. As always, thanks for looking in and for the likes. Regards, George

Today's update is the rudder. This is the rudder as it was when the Discovery was in dry dock in Australia (a section from https://www.spri.cam.ac.uk/picturelibrary/catalogue/article/p83.6.2.3.2/: The rudder is one piece, and quite wide (as wide as the sternpost), and doesn't seem to have much in the way of beveled edges. Here is the blank: Rather than build a separate iron work for the pintle, I made the "iron" pintle holder out of wood, and glued slightly smaller dowel pieces above and below, and then shaped the wood that represents the iron holder semi-circular. The rudder was then painted hull red, as all of it is below the waterline. The rest of the "iron work" was made from 1/4 inch copper tape that I cut to 1/8". I made the "bolt heads" with a nail and a ball peen hammer, and then painted the copper black, and added it to the rudder. The pintle was fitted into the previously made gudgeon, and the top of the rudder glued into place. As always, thanks for looking in and the likes. Regards, George

Thanks Jared. Looks like it's going to work out in a good way, particularly given my father and in-laws advanced age. Back to the actual ship (which had been sitting on the side for a bit while I did some work on the Kearsarge. The forecastle on Discovery is closed off, so I needed to build up a bulkhead with two doors. Here is a photo of the real ship (from the Scott Polar Institute website): It's hard to see (although not on the original) that the bulkhead is made up of vertical sections of wood that appear to be about 3 feet thick, and there are two doors. The insides of the doors are white, but it looks like the outside is darker (and that is the way the ship is today - although that is of questionable value for here. I want the bulkhead on the model to be 1/16 inch thick and still show the vertical planking. First thing, was a took a piece of 1/32" thick stock and fitted it to the opening to the forecastle. Then I took my 1/32" stock and made 6 mm wide strips, which I cut and glued onto the piece I had cut out and fitted to the opening. Here it is partially complete: And here it is, complete, partially sanded. After sanding it to fit, I cut out the openings for the two doors, put some scrap behind the openings for the doors to fit into, and painted it white, as per the photograph. Then, install into the opening: The base of the bulkhead is 1/32" square basswood stained red oak. I made the doors out of some scrap, scribed decking I had from another project, backed with 1/32" basswood. The doors were stained with red oak, so that the scribing still comes through, while providing some contrast. I glued a bit of stained 1/32" square bass on the base of the door as in on the bulkhead, and used leftover belaying pins for the doorknobs. The hinges were made out of brass. I didn't paint the hinges because they were within about 30 feet of the magnetic observatory, and would have fallen under the "no ferrous metal" rule, like the fore chainplates, which were made out of brass. One door was closed and the other left ajar: Finally, I mounted a bit of 1/32" square stock painted white across the top of the bulkhead, a similar decorative touch is visible in the photograph. All in all a lot of work, considering that the vertical lines are practically invisible. BTW, one of the reasons that the port door is open is so I can get to the anchor points for the lower forestays which are in the forecastle. So, the door should swing open more, but since there is nothing to see in there, it will likely stay only ajar once the stays are in place. As always, thanks for looking in, and the likes! I hope everyone had a wonderful St. Patrick's Day if you indulge. Regards, George

My wife and I were both graduate students there with the relevant crew of friends at JPL. A bit of an aside, I was telling my younger daughter over the weekend how we watched the telemetry coming in live from the 1989 Voyager 2 encounter with Neptune. It was a combination of incredible excitement (the first images from Neptune!) and watching paint dry, because the transmission bit rate was so low it would take a minute or more to do a single line of one image. Still pretty cool. George

Looks pretty awesome to me...

Yep. I lived in LA 9 years in the mid 80s to the late 90s. It was much better then, but because the inshore breeze keeps LA (but not the San Gabriel Valley where we lived) cool, it also pushes all the smog up against the mountains so that they become hard to see. My first day in Pasadena, I was told that there the San Gabriel Mountains were only 5 miles away, and yet I couldn't see them. On better days (and especially after a rain, or when the Santa Ana winds come off the desert, the view from the airport is unbelievable.

An update on the Kearsarge. The next step was to put the trim (black and white) on the hammock netting. On both the inside and the outside it is black on top and white on the bottom of the nets. Because the aft of the ship has a fairly sharp curve, I soaked the 1/32 square stock, fitted it around the curve, and let it dry. While I was at it, I soaked the basswood that was going to become the waterway and clamped it in place until it dried. In the photo below, the trim for the hammock nets is outside, and the waterway is inside (the deck is not yet tacked down). Once dry, I painted half of the trim black, and the other half white, and then painted the waterway blue. I mounted the trim to the hammock netting, and once the black (upper) trim was in place, I also touched up the black paint at the top. Next, I attached the deck, and then fitted the waterway in place. In the photos below, I have temporarily fitted the pieces that produce the channels and the pinrails. Here is the ship from a couple of angles. First the whole ship (with the 1:72 Discovery in the background. The forward half of the ship. As you can see there is a visible gap that is retained, but that is where the tracks for the guns will sit, and I will probably align the gun to cover it up. There is also a small issue between the deckhouses in the stern, but as described, a bit of rope or other item will no doubt cover that up. Anyways, thanks for looking in, and a Happy St. Patrick's Day to those that partake! I will probably set this aside for a little while and do some work on the Discovery for a little while. If I do work on it, it'll probably be to put the copper plating on. Regards, George

Appreciate it guys. FWIW, my younger daughter kept telling me that if this potential employer had been a man, I wouldn't want her dating him! So, probably for the best. The Scott Polar Research Institute was quite cool. They operate a small museum, library, and picture library, and obviously support research. They were extremely accommodating - all I had to do was sign up for a study desk in the picture library, and they brought me whatever I asked for. The URL for the institute is here: https://www.spri.cam.ac.uk/. They cover a whole range of expeditions, not just Scott's, and they have a nice (if incomplete) online picture catalog. Great people all around. Regards, George

Well, I am back from the UK. 9 hours of interviews in Manchester (Thursday), 8 hours of interviews in Oxford (Friday), and then a panel in London (Tuesday). I returned Tuesday night to another 3 hours of interviews for something else Wednesday morning - most of us are generally best jet lagged out of our minds. Alas, I will not be moving to the UK, I found out the day after that they had decided on someone else (I was one of 4 at that point). I wasn't overly surprised, but rather than contacting me directly, they went through the search firm to tell me. Okay. With that said, on Monday, I did one of the coolest (ha ha!) things I've even done. I went to the Scott Polar Research Institute in Cambridge, and they let me look at the ORIGINAL photo albums from the 1901-1904 British Antarctic Expedition. I couldn't take photos, but I got 2.5 pages of notes on details about the ship. The facility also had some pretty cool artifacts. A model of the Roald Amundsen: Here is a model of the Fram. The Erebus: The Terra Nova: Tagging @Tomculb who is working on Endurance, this is the only piece of the ship that made it home: Like I said, very cool. Getting back to work on the ship this weekend. Regards, George