gak1965

Congratulations Jared! She looks really great! A long, difficult job that is paying off! Regards, George

Not as much progress as I would have liked. The management company for the house we were trying to lease refused to budge on the extension cord/adapter issue so we told them to pound sand, and I had to make another trip to find an alternative residence. Fortunately, we found an equally nice place about 0.3 miles away, and the lease is acceptable. Expecting the DocuSign Monday, at which point, thankfully, we can start actually planning the move. In the interim, I finished up the tiller box and tiller. To make the metal parts (except the actual tiller), I took 3/16" wide copper tape, made 3 rows of dots for the bolts, and either cut them 1/16" inch thick (the bottom, the iron around the rudder post, and the two straps on the top) or, I cut a 1/8 strip and applied 1/16" to the top of the box and 1/16" on the side. The tiller is brass with a hole cut into it at the end for a wire loop that will be the attachment point for the chains. View from the front: and the side: Then, paint the whole thing black (as on the current ship): To some extent, I don't know why I'm bothering. It will be mostly hidden under the monkey poop, although maybe I'll leave one of the grates off so that it is visible. Thanks for looking in! Regards, George

Ping me. We are looking like we are going to land in University Heights. Only about 20 - 25 minutes to Mentor - heck, we were there on Wednesday, visited James Garfield National Historic Site.

So it seems! Once we settle down I expect us to subscribe to the Symphony and a local baroque group called Apollo's Fire. Sports are potentially more complicated. My wife grew up in Baltimore (where the rest of her family live), meaning that visibly rooting for the Guardians could be problematic (they are rabid Orioles fans). And, well, considering that the Baltimore Ravens were the artist formerly known as the Cleveland Browns and are in the same AFC Division... I grew up with the Washington Senators and then the Orioles, and then the Dodgers while we were in LA. I've been to a few Nats games, but I've never really connected with them, and they are NL anyway. I also grew up with what are now the Washington Commanders, but again, NFC, not AFC, so no problem. Regards, George

National Maritime Museum in the UK. There are a couple of plans of the 1901 version available online but they are really hard to read. Dundee Heritage (which owns the ship) has a lot of digitized, high quality plans from her refit in the 1920s. Regards, George

Hello, it's been a bit of time (looks to be about 3 months) since I updated this log. Partially, that was because I was working a bit on the Kearsarge but also because, as I've mentioned, I've been in job hunting mode, about which, more anon. I've now restarted work on the Discovery. Very brief update. First, I was not happy with the starboard rail (there was too much of a gap with the bulwark), so I removed it, cleaned everything up and reattached it. I'm happy with it now. I also started the first piece of deck furniture - in this case the mount where the rudder post comes through the deck. Plans here: The forward part is actually taller than the after part, and so the initial piece is thus: The tiller will be made from brass, and the whole thing painted, and finished with some brass work that is visible in the side and top views. On the current ship it is black - I have no images to confirm or deny that suggestion, so I'm going to go with it (the whole thing is going to be hidden by the monkey poop that is missing on the current ship. As I said, I've been job hunting, and I have found a new position in a new city, so we are going to be moving soon. Dealing with that, and a bunch of home repairs here has eaten up a large part of the last couple of months. We aren't selling our current place, at least not yet, as both my father and my in-laws are quite elderly and in the area and I will be spending about 10% of my time where we currently live. Finding a rental house has been an interesting exercise; we have a place identified, but I'm having to negotiate with the management company whose lease, as written, would prevent us from working from the house, and prohibits the use of any extension cords or electrical adapters! Their response has been that they aren't worried about people doing office type work from the house, but that is not what is in the lease. I have pointed out that as written, you can't use a computer in their property as pretty much every piece of electronic equipment has an AC adapter. Hopefully, they will accept the proposed language that I provided as an addendum so I can charge my car, run a power tool outside, use a power strip, and plug in our computers. Otherwise, I will likely have to go back again to find someplace else, because I am not going to sign a contract that says one thing with only an email saying the opposite. I can't speak to who the position is with (and anyway I think that we all tend to keep our work out of this), but I will provide a site appropriate clue as to where we are headed: Not exactly subtle, I know. Anyway, come September, a 60 year old couple is headed to a new state to start anew. Exciting but scary, and our (adult) children are ambiguous about it. It will be interesting to see if they come visit us in the new location, or if they only visit us when we are in Rockville where many of their old friends still live. Regards, George PS: My intention, BTW is to split the two models between the two locations. Work on the Discovery in the new place, and the Kearsarge here. And yes, the new place has somewhere for my worktable.

Great looking boats Jared. You are definitely nearing the end of the journey.

Looking great Rick. Love the stern detail, must have missed it all of these other times! George

I assume you are going to put some bulwark planks on, correct? If so, put on the planks and Dremel the down to size once you are done. The extra adhesive on the planks will keep the from flying off. I've done that before with good success. Regards, George

Copper plating continues. The first picture shows the plating before I was really reaching the gore line: As the plating was "bending" up at the stem and stern, it was terminated at the tape marked gore line, where I will start a new row of plating that is more in line with the final waterline. Here it is at the stern: and the stem: The next two show the plates up to the gore line with the tape still in place: And removed Finally, here is the first of the plates above the gore line: One thing that surprised me was that I started a new roll of Venture tape when I went to the gore line and it seems a bit redder to me. I doubt that it will matter once it tarnishes a bit, but it was still a surprise. Fortunately, I ran out of the old roll just as I finished both sides below the gore line, so it will at least be consistent. If it really starts bothering me, I can hit it with some copper paint, but, like I said, my guess is once it starts tarnishing it won't be very obvious. Regards, George

Looking great, Jared!

Jared, Is it only the forestays, or are you seeing other stays sag a bit as well? If it's just the forestays, did something happen to the bowsprit or the dolphin striker? That seems more likely than the foremast starting to bend forward to any degree.

Okay, it's been a couple of months where I've been mostly focused on the Discovery. Here she is now, including the bow decoration which was a royal pain to make: So, back to the Kearsarge for a bit. As I indicated above, next is going to be the copper plating, after which, I can mount on a build board. I like to use 3/16 venture tape, which is now discontinued, for making plates at 1:96 scale. I also like to make them about 1/2" long, which translates to a 18" by 48" plate in real life. The Flying Fish called for 14" high plates, looking at some of the ones on the Constitution makes me thank that this is close enough. So, step 1 is to put copper tape on the keel and at the stem and stern to sort of frame the bulk of the copper work. I have a batch of 1/4" Venture tape that I used for that. Obviously I wasn't going for precision, but it won't matter, because, except on the actual keel, it will be covered by the rows of plates. The blue tape marks the point where I will stop coppering. Next, here is my plate making apparatus, which I kept from the Fish. I run two sets of tape through the jig, use the pizza cutter to score along the two gaps on the left. Then I move the tapes so that the new scores are even with the left side of the jig and repeat. I tend to cut the strips into 6 plate sections, as anything larger can be difficult to work with. I use the adhesive from the tape to attach it to the hull, but don't bother with nail marks, which would be pretty much invisible at this scale. Instead I let the imperfections in the tape suggest the surface (including the nails). Here is the first few rows on the starboard side. First, overall, with the Disco in the background: And two closer looks: I wasn't sure how it was going to lay on the hull, but if you look at the bow you will see that the natural flow has a definite "upsweep". I expected as much, so will be laying down a bit of tape to mark a gore line. Basically, I'll run the tape up to the gore line and then restart the plates in a flatter arc. I'll point it out when I get there. Thanks for looking in! Regards, George

Hi Jared, Glad you had a good time in Costa Rica. When you say that some of the lines are starting to sag, can you be a bit more specific? Are you concerned about the bit of slack in the tackles that are connecting the lifts with the deck or other lines, and if so, are we talking mostly standing or running? I found that I got a bit of slack in the tackles as well. Part of the problem (I think) is that the stress on the lines was bending the yards slightly up, which caused a bit of slack in the tackles. The crane on the model was made of brass, not iron and so bent more easily than on the real ship. In a couple of cases, it got loose enough that I was able to do a wrap on one of the belaying pins, but I mostly just ignored it. No one else noticed, and real ships tend to not have running lines that are extremely taut when they don't have sails. Regards, George

It took more than a little bit of futzing around, but I tried @Javelin's idea of using wire, in this case, primarily 24 gauge annealed steel wire. The hardest part was actually making two sets of the wires. However, here it is, mounted on the ship: It's not exactly the same as the real ship, but it is much better. Regards, George

Looking great, Rick!

Getting really close there, Jared! Regards, George

Thanks @iMustBeCrazy, @Lecrenb, and @Kevin-the-lubber, thank you for the suggestions! I tried using card, but I found it tore too easily. Maybe my blades aren't sharp enough, but it didn't work. And unfortunately, I don't have access to a 3D printer or an entity that will make a brass copy alas... However, I then returned to a thinner piece of polystyrene, and was able to make something that, I think works...? (the pieces are not glued on yet, they are just sitting there to see how they look). It's not perfect, it's probably as good as I'm going to get at this scale. I also made the shield that is the figurehead on the ship. It's not perfect, but it is probably as good as I'm going to get. Anyway, I need to make a duplicate of the scrollwork for the port side, and then I can mount on the ship. On a more amusing note. My wife and I teach math to apprentice shipwrights at the Alexandria Seaport Foundation, and when I was there, I noticed two gaffs being stored on the roof. At the jaws of one, there were standard wooden parrel beads. On the other, were these rather atypical ones: Waste not, want not, I suppose. As always, thanks for looking in! Regards, George

Thanks Rick. Let's just say it took more than one try and leave it at that! I've been working on the stem now. I had earlier cut and bent two pieces of wood that would represent the naval hoods (?) which have the hawse holes and the scrollwork on the stem. Drilling the hawse holes was easy, I've been working on the scrollwork which is much harder. Here is the ship stuck in the ice in 1901, you can see the scrollwork (probably gilded since it is a different color than the white stripe). Here is the ship in 2010 with (nominally) the original bow: Here is the ship today with a replacement (nominally identical) bow (licensed CC-BY at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1901_wurde_die_RRS_Discovery_in_Dundee_vom_Stapel_gelassen._02.jpg: The scrollwork is, to say the least, complex. My original thought was to simplify somewhat, cut it out from 1/32" thick bass, sand the edges, paint them, and mount onto the naval hoods (or whatever the correct terminology is). However, I have found that I can't cut even a simplified version out of 1/32" bass, the things just break (repeatedly). I've tried cutting things out from polystyrene sheet. This seems more promising, but getting something that doesn't look like it was done by a child has proven complicated. Any thoughts on this? I've looked at some of the carving tutorials on the site, but they seem more focused on taking pre-cut items and carving them to be more three dimensional. Are there other materials I should be thinking about? I know that I'm going to have to simplify it given the scale, but so far my best attempts have looked simplistic at best. Anyway, appreciate any insights anyone might have. Regards, George PS - The Union Jack is going to be made separately.

Jared, She's really looking fantastic! Glad you took the time you needed, and are ready to proceed apace. Regards, George

Hello! I am also George from Washington, DC (well, Rockville a bit north of you). Welcome to MSW! George

Quick update. I've cut, stained and installed the cap rails. Most of the rail is made from 1/16 thick bass I cut to 6 mm wide. The stern is cut to match the stern from a piece of 1/16 bass sheet and fitted in place before staining and permanently gluing. Regards, George

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