gak1965

One other thought is to get a set of Britannia davits from Bluejacket or Model Expo. It looks like BlueJacket has several sizes, and they make 1:96 ships that use them (e.g. Red Jacket), and they will sell definitely you a couple pair even if they aren't in the catalog. I don't see them in the model expo catalog, but my Flying Fish has 4, so they must make them, and I imagine that if you call or email they will sell you some. Britannia fittings are also somewhat soft so you will need to use some care, but they will do better than soft plastic. I'm not in love with the model expo ones generally, as I find they have a lot of flash and sometimes casting defects such that I've replaced a subset of them on my Fish with either Bluejacket or scratch replacements, but I'm not planning on doing that with the davits at the moment. George

The 2017 instructions don't make a lot of sense to me. It looks like they are trying to set up the boats to be lifted out of their cradles, but the rig for that looks all wrong to my eyes. Something I have done to flimsy wood parts is add some wire or brass in unobtrusive locations (like underneath spreaders). Can you take a bit of brass or steel wire, CA glue it to the hidden side of the davit and paint the whole thing? I'm not sure exactly how big these are, but maybe that would work enough to keep things steady. Could you set the spacing between the blocks with the line in place and then paint it with dilute glue while hanging down? It would presumably stiffen the tackle and you could attach it on the other davit without worrying that it will go slack. Never tried it, it's just an idea. George

Fast as well. You are making great progress

Can't say for WWII. However, if you go here: https://www.dailypress.com/2019/10/29/the-aircraft-carrier-john-f-kennedy-to-float-in-dry-dock-12-at-newport-news-shipbuilding/ and go to the third picture, you will see that on modern ships at least, the shafts are painted.

Wow. Six capstans. Is the helm in that aftermost house on the poop? Given the skylights I assume there are some kind of cabins in the after 1/3 of the ship whose overheads make up the poop deck? She must have been a bear to unload with only two hatches, both in the waist. Regards, George K

Saratoga and Lexington were repurposed battlecruiser hulls. Under the Washington Naval Treaty, they could be either scrapped or turned into aircraft carriers. Yorktown and Enterprise were designed as carriers from the ground up, and was based on the US Navy's first such clean sheet design, USS Ranger, although both were much bigger than Ranger. Wasp was a smaller ship, more like Ranger because of the available limits under the Washington and London Naval Treaties. After the treaty system was concluded, the Navy built Hornet to the Yorktown specification. George K

Thanks Rick! I did the standing rigging fore to aft, but would do the opposite next time, as you are proposing, mostly because I think that getting the forestays on the mizzen and main will be easier without the shrouds from mast in front of it getting in the way of the anchor points on the next mast forward. However, I'm glad I'm going fore to aft on the yards. Because the majority of the lines end aft of the mast itself, by going fore to aft, I don't have the yards from the main or mizzen getting in the way as I have to reach into the gap between the masts to anchor onto to the pin rails. Your mileage may vary. Once I start installing the main yards, this thesis may be proved wrong, but so far I think it's working George K

Hello all! Well, just a quick photo, the foremast is now complete, minus the braces, so a milestone. I will be away from the bench for a week, as I'm going to Chicago for the annual American Society of Clinical Oncology conference. I haven't been since 2019 because of the pandemic and various job changes, so looking forward even though it means being away for a while. As always, thanks for looking in, and for the likes! Regards, George K

Good evening to all. Memorial Day is a holiday that has many meanings to different people, so I will just say that I hope that all that mark the day found their observance satisfactory. I've been busy on the foremast, which now has all five yards (course, top, topgallant, royal, and sky mounted. All of the halyards are mounted, and the live ends secured. The course lifts are fully in place, as are the iron sheets for the top and topgallants. I mounted five trucks on each set of fore shrouds to act as fairleads so that I can start the clews and sheets that are higher up the mast. The top clews and sheets and topgallant clews and sheets are fully installed, the royal sheets are mounted and threaded through the trucks, and the skysail clews and sheets have yet to be installed. Still progress is being made. Here are some photos: One little oopsie that I discovered was that after installing the topgallant yard, I had failed to drill the sheaves for the sheets. When I went to drill one side, I put enough pressure that it ruined one of the lifts, which required replacement. When I went to do the other side, I was determined not to do so much damage, so I set up the following jig using a bit of dowel, held in place with Tamiya tape. It kept the yard from moving so much and I was able to drill the hole without additional damage. Eagle eyed individuals may also spot a point where I repaired a chain that broke under stress (I basically made another link with very fine wire). I figure that the latter is probably something that happened on the real ship, so, it's a feature, not a bug. As always, thanks for looking in and for the likes! Regards, George K.

Those must have been a royal (hah!) Pain to adjust. However you threaded them, it seems like you would have lanyards on top of lanyards, with many of them preventing the set under them from moving...

I have nothing to offer on the best way to build her, certainly not compared to some of the folks that have actual expertise. My only observation looking at the side view plan (and where I m in my current build) was "I hope you enjoy tying ratlines", because that ship has a lot of shrouds... Good luck, I'm sure she's going to turn out great! George K

The Balaos and Gatos were all designed with having to transit the large distances of the Pacific so that they could operate with the battle fleet. As a result they were designed with certain comforts such as enough racks for each sailor to have their own and lots of food storage. While the nominal range of the Type IXC was longer, it seems like (at least in the beginning) the Germans were anticipating shorter patrols and less need for the creature comforts that took up space in US fleet subs

I've made some progress, but not much to show now as we've been in Boston for our younger (and final) child's college graduation (technically she finished her degree in December, but she didn't graduate until yesterday). While we were there we visited the Museum of Fine Arts (she lives about 1/2 mile away) and stumbled into the ship gallery. Thought I might share a couple of clippers from there; have a look at some professional level skills... First up, the Marie Rose at 1:64 And the Flying Cloud at 1:64 Not a Clipper obviously, but a 100 gun ship of the line at 1:64 Tis is Boston, so USS Constitution And he a French ship Héros (1778). This is not technically at any specific scale, but the craftsmanship is amazing considering it's bout 14 inches long. It was made by a French POW around 1781. Regards, George K

Hi, To the person that is maintaining the list. There is a mixup in two of the Flying Fish listings (1851-1900). Rick310's Flying Fish is the Model Shipways clipper JimmyK's Flying Fish is the Corel schooner Thanks, George K

Thank you. I'm sorry your mom (and family) had to go through that. I'm hard pressed to imagine a worse way to go. Fortunately, as I say, my mother was mostly with it until the very end; but I know far too many that went the other way. Regards, George K

Absolutely amazing. It's great to see a model with all that spread canvas. It makes me think about the (usually pretty small) crew having to manage all of that sail so that the ships could make top speeds. The finish line must be visible now... George K

Thank you both for the sentiments, it is appreciated. Could be, although the capstans are poorly placed for that. I assumed (as was suggested somewhere earlier) that it was because when you pull down you are limited in how much force you can exert by your weight, vice when you are pushing up from a (basically) immovable object. Turns out the instructions had something to say about that. It appears that the block was only on the topail. Next time, I should RTFM I guess. The instructions are fine, but I've been tending lately to just build from the plans. Regards, George K

She looks great! Glad you took it to the finish line

Well, the 'potential' break became an actual one because my mother had gone into the hospital. On that Tuesday evening we were all thinking it was relatively minor, and just waiting for the definitive test that was going to be done the next day, and that Friday morning she was gone. We were grateful to have her as long as we did, and she lived to see both of our children graduate from college, and my siblings' children graduate from high school, and, fortunately, she had her faculties until about the last 36 hours. I think she really wanted to reach her 87th birthday and 64th wedding anniversary, both of which would have been next week, but it was not to be. However, she had her husband, all three children (one of whom was fortunately in town from Denver) and 2 of the three spouses (one had to stay in Denver to deal with one of the grandkids) with her for the last week, hopefully that helped. With that, and the week making various arrangements having passed, I have had some time for a little bit of wood based therapy. Not a lot has changed, but, I mounted the fore topgallant yard, and its halyard. I installed the tackles that hold the topmast halyard, and anchored the first set of live ends from the halyard tackle) on the pinrails. I've installed the first of the fore topgallant sheets and attached it to the tackle on the deck. Once the other sheet is installed, I will anchor everything that terminates on the fife rails (the four chain sheets and the live lifts, as well as the 6 clew lines (which anchor on the pinrails. At that point, I'll add the Royal and Skysail yards, and I'll be close to finished on the foremast square yards. I think I'm going to rig the fore spencer before I have a bunch of main yards in the way. Here are a couple of photos. @rwiederrich or @ClipperFan, the halyard tackle for the topsail yard goes to the pinrail via a deck mounted block (that is, the live end leaves a double at the point where the tackle is shackled to the chain, passes through a deck mounted single and is then belayed to the pinrail). I presume that this is meant to allow the crew to pull up rather than down, which makes sense. The drawings are ambiguous for the other halyards (topgallant, royal, and sky). On other McKay clippers did all the halyards have deck mounted blocks or was that specific to topsail yard because it was so heavy and had that unfortunate lever arm that made it harder to pull into place? As always, thanks for looking in and your encouragement and comments! Regards, George K

Looking forward to your build. Just so I understand, you aren't restarting the old Donald McKay model, but rather you are converting an old Glory of the Seas model and using the base from the the prior Donald McKay model (suitably adjusted)? George K

Concur. And the main would have been even worse because it was heavier and had a longer lever arm. I think it's no accident that the topsail yards use chains and are attached to two sets of tackles (one each P/S) with greased leather as a lubricant under the parrel band. They must have been a royal pain the posterior to bring into position. Hopefully they didn't need to do a lot of such evolutions most passages. George K

A couple of quick updates, as I may wind up being away from this for a time. I've started the ratlines on the mizzen (about halfway up the lower shrouds), as can be seen in this photo. Eagle eyed observers will likely notice two things. First, I didn't move the lower forestay over the top. I was just too worried about the impact on the tension in all of the rest of the forestays and at this point, I have no meaningful way to tighten any of the shrouds without completely redoing it. The trade painting shows them going through the lubber's holes, that will have to be good enough for this time. If I do another McKay clipper, I will probably adjust accordingly. Second, the fore topsail yard is in place. Here is a view looking aft: And a couple of closeup views: You can see that I have rigged the topsail clews and sheets. The live ends of the sheets are attached to their relevant tackle, although the clews are just taped onto the bulwark. Once I rig the sheets for the topgallant (which also attaches to a deck tackle), the fife rails will be clear enough to actually start belaying the relevant ends. I've also run the topsail halyard which runs through three gin blocks (one on the yard), two in the crosstrees. That turned out to be more painful than I expected, but I ran a bit of very fine wire through the chain and twisted the two ends like I was making a flattened eyebolt. This was stiff enough to send through the blocks although it took me a while. The two live ends are meant to be attached to tackles on the channels, which are not yet in place, so the live ends are kinda just hanging for now. In the last photo you can see the iron band that nominally holds the yard in place. That is basically just a thin piece of painted brass and the pin that is attached to the crane goes through the brass and into hole in the mast so it is actually pretty solid. I then glued down the brass leaving a "tail" of brass where the two sides met, which I cut down to size to represent the place where the hoop is bolted together. As always, thanks for looking in and the likes! Regards, George K

Not at all. If I can manage it without major repairs, I will. If it's going to mess up a bunch of other things, I won't. If the latter, I can live with the knowledge that the forestay is wrong. In aggregate, it will still be an improvement over the out of the box kit on the basis of the cutwater, naval hoods, figurehead, binnacle, the composite masts, etc. that I scratch built rather than use the fittings. There is already at least one case where I decided to go for inaccurate to the real ship for a (sorta) historic and aesthetic reason (the green hull that McKay wanted to do, but didn't). I really appreciate all of the information that I've gotten, even when I didn't make the suggested mods (e.g., the big windows on the carriage house, and hoops on the mizzen). It's really interesting and has been a great teacher about doing historical research on ships that I intend to use when I start RRS Discovery. It existed in the era of photographs, and there are plans and the actual ship available, but, as with so many ships there have been a lot of changes over time, so I need to define the when and even then, will probably need to make some educated guesses. Regards, George K

Those photos are pretty clear. And the main and mizzen stays are through the lubber's holes. Okay - I just need to figure out if that kind of change is going to mess with too much else. It shouldn't but I want to validate that it's not going to do something undesirable with the shroud tension and that the foretop is sturdy enough on the model to take the strain. The mast itself (which has a beech core and basswood fishes) is solid as a rock - I'm less certain about the entirely basswood top. Replacements happen. I cut out and replaced the starboard side main topgallant shrouds a couple of days ago b/c they were too loose to effectively tie the ratlines without undue deflection. Interestingly, as I was prepping the fore topmast for its eventual installation, I finally understood how the tackles at the base of the foremast are supposed to operate. Somehow I thought they were for 3 sheets, when it was actually for two sheets and the running lift on the course yard. And that what I had been thinking of as a fore sheet was really the fore top sheet, and the fore top sheet was the fore topgallant sheet. That leaves the live ends of all six of the tackles (3 each port and starboard) belaying to the fife rail (which makes sense). The four where the live end rises from the deck are the sheets, and the two where they descend from above are the lifts (again, sensible) and the "fore sheet" if for the spencer. Why I got so confused over the nomenclature, I have no idea - this is not the first ship I've rigged. Thanks, George

So, if I understand you correctly, the stay doesn't go through the lubber's holes but rather over the forward edge of the top? I can see that there is not much in the way of clearance between the fore course and the forestay, and that it has a less acute angle than the main or mizzen stays given the anchor point on the knightheads. I figured it would probably limit how far you could realistically move the yard. Was there some kind of reinforcing at the edge of the top or some kind of spreader to ensure that the stay landed on the top directly over the trestletrees? Right now, this is still potentially changeable (as I say, it's not glued in place yet), and my recollection is that the forestay is the highest and outermost of the lines so replacing it won't (shouldn't?) mess up the shrouds, but I need to think about this a bit. Thanks, George K