markjay

Great stuff, Clare!
 
John

Thanks Richard, Bob, John. Welcome Antony – No worries, there's plenty of project left...
 
I got stalled for a bit when I got to the rails, but managed to complete the bow and stern decking. 
 
 
The bow deck first required installation of support beams. The beams are provided pre-cut, but the ends needed to be tapered to fit snugly against the hull planking.
 

 
 
The deck itself is made up of two pre-cut pieces of cedar.
 

 
 
The stern deck is made up of 5 pre-cut boards, but the pieces are of different widths. The instructions don't show you, but the plans provide the labels, so you can locate the needed pieces. You don't have to read Japanese, but you do have to match the characters on the plans with those on the parts.
 
To those familiar with Japanese, the labels are all in the phonetic alphabet known as Katakana. In this case, the parts are:
ウカイ
ウカロ
ウカハ
ウカニ
ウカホ
 
These characters don't actually mean anything, they're basically no different than labeling parts as A1, C2, etc. Most of the parts in the kit are identified this way. Something else to note is that the pieces aren't necessarily placed on the sheets in any order. Efficiency of material was very obviously given precedence here, so related parts may be separated  quite a bit. You can see this by how these deck pieces are located on the laser-cut sheet.
 

 
 
The deck parts are glued up and I then placed them on the hull and traced the edge onto them using a pencil. This was then trimmed by knife and sanded to fit the hull.
 

 
One thing you'll notice is that the part labels are etched onto each part, so you have to either hide the labels or sand them off. Or, you could always just ignore them. They're not that easy to see unless you're looking closely. In this case, I just glued the boards so that the labels will all be on the underside of the deck.
 

 
 
Now, here's where I was at a bit of a loss. There are rails that attach to either side of the boat. The ends are notched to fit to the beams at the bow and stern, but the pieces are too long to fit. So, the notch at one end can be used, but the other end has to be cut to deepen the notch.
 
More than this, where on a western style ship, we're accustomed to installing framing and then attaching the rail onto that, with Japanese boats, the process is reversed. The rail is installed to existing attachment points first, then the supports are added afterwards. This is something that I've seen in hull construction of Japanese boats too. The hull planks are edge fastened and bent/clamped into place in the process, and the framing is installed afterwards – Lessons in traditional Japanese boatbuilding!
 

 
 
Of course, this isn't limited to the Japanese or Asian ship/boat building. Thinking back, I recall local ship modeler and marine archaeologist Ed Von der Porten talk about modeling a Basque whale and about how frames were added after the planking process had begun.
 
Anyway, I finally worked it out in my head, and the rail construction is in progress.
 

 
 

 
 
I should have the rail completed soon, but I think it's been the hardest part of the build so far. More later...
 
 
Clare
 
 
 
 

I continue to make progress on the model, but there isn't really much to say. I completed construction of the rail, adding the pieces that make up the underside. With these in place, it's a much stronger structure.
 
To fit the pieces into place, I had to soak the cedar pieces a little bit to impart a slight bend or twist here and there. I took the shortcut of wrapping the pieces with a wet paper towel and put them in the microwave for about 30 seconds. This was just enough to do the trick.
 

 
 
Along the underside of the rail on the upper hull planks there is a laser-scribed line to help position the underside pieces of the rail.
 

 
 
The pieces glued and clamped into place
 

 
 

 
 
After the rail was completed, I went ahead and added the stem and other hull details include a thick strake located on the upper hull planking, just underneath the recently completed rail. 
 

 
You may notice that the stem is lighter than the rest of the hull. Like the stern beam, the stem is make of Hinoki or Japanese Cypress instead of Sugi, Japanese Cedar. 

Thanks!  Good to be back!

Hello,  here's a link to blocklayer.com, a website for various calculators and other things.  I think you will find many of them useful.  Blocklayer.com (Greg Tarrant) supports a chidrens foundation, so if you find this site useful please consider a donation.
 
http://www.blocklayer.com/Scale-RuleEng.aspx

Well I reverted to the old fashion method and pulled out a yardstick measured the cordage. Did some math 20ft=6 meters and the numbers came out reasonably close to what was supplied in the kit. So I guess "mt" means meters. Tom you are the winner.
Thank you all.

Well I reverted to the old fashion method and pulled out a yardstick measured the cordage. Did some math 20ft=6 meters and the numbers came out reasonably close to what was supplied in the kit. So I guess "mt" means meters. Tom you are the winner.
Thank you all.

Young America - extreme clipper 1853
Part 1 - Decisions 
I took most of the summer deciding whether I would undertake another ship model and if so, what the scope and subject would be.  I had a lot of time to think about this while catching up on neglected home maintenance and repair projects.  After deciding that I needed the challenge of another ambitious project, the decisions on scope and subject kept me busy through July.  I also had to decide whether I could commit to another Naiad-like build log.  We shall see.
 
I received a number of suggestions on subjects and that input is most appreciated.  Since I expect this project to span a number of years, the decision was a big one.  I have enjoyed wrestling through the process of deciding.  I had a number of criteria:  1) significant design/drafting content, 2) fully-framed construction to further explore my interest in structures, 3) a change from the well-trod path of fully-framed 18th Century Royal Navy subjects, 4) avoiding commonly modeled ships, and 5), I thought it was time to do an American ship. 
 
Before focusing on the extreme American clippers, I considered, among many other possibilities, a 19th Century American warship, perhaps steam-sail, and looked seriously at some of the ships by John Lenthall, built locally at the Philadelphia Navy Yard – examples: Germantown (sail), Princeton (screw/sail), Susquehanna (paddle/sail).  
 
In the end, the idea of the extreme clipper was too attractive to dismiss.  To me, this type represents an apex of achievement in wooden sailing ship design and construction – in terms of sleek hull lines, sailing performance, structural development and sheer beauty.  In the design of the extreme clippers, minimum tradeoffs were made to the one paramount design parameter  - achieving the shortest sailing times between far-flung ports.  Speed meant not only sleek hull lines and a spread of canvas, but also the strength to withstand continuous hard driving, day-in, day-out. 
 
After deciding on the clipper – and an American (meaning all wood) clipper - I chose the work of William H. Webb of New York.  It would have been easier to select something from his more popular competitor, Donald McKay, but McKay’s ships built at East Boston, have long been widely modeled – Staghound, Flying Cloud, Lightning and others. McKay’s papers do include substantial structural detail – very tempting.  Webb, too, has left papers, and these have been explored, with information published in the secondary sources I have used.  There are many gaps, but there is a family resemblance in details to all these ships and many practices and scantlings were commonly adopted.  Webb presented more of a challenge – in more ways than one – as I will describe later. 
 
Of Webb’s ships, I chose Young America, built in 1853, his last extreme clipper.  Less is known about her construction than some of his others, so the task of piecing her structure together is more interesting.  I will discuss this, the ship, and the extreme clipper era in the next posts.
 
Below is a photo of Young America, docked at San Francisco, a frequent port of call for her.  She was built mainly for the East Coast to California trade.  In the picture she is rigged with double topsails - a modification from her original single topsail rig.  There are also some paintings of her.  She was considered Webb’s masterpiece – one of his twelve clippers in a list that included renowned ships like Challenge, Comet, Invincible, Flying Dutchman – all of these examples being 200 to 240 feet in length. YA enjoyed a thirty-year career that included fifty passages around Cape Horn.  She set a number of sailing records and earned a ton of money for her various owners – and for those who made money betting on passage times.  In 1883 she left Philadelphia carrying 9200 barrels of Pennsylvania case oil, cleared Delaware Bay and was never heard from again.
 

 
The model may be fully rigged.  I will decide later.  With the hull length involved (240’) the scale is likely to be 1:72, but that is not yet cast in stone.
 
Structural drawings are well along and I expect to start construction later in September.
 
I hope these posts will be of interest and perhaps draw some attention to this somewhat neglected modeling genre.
 
Ed
 
 
 
 

Young America - extreme clipper 1853
Part 121 – Coach
 
The coach was really just a vestibule at the break of the poop to provide access from the main deck to the entrance of the “mezzanine” level cabin deck below.  It is an interesting and intricate structure.  Its forward end is just large enough to fit an entrance door on each side and that part is supported on a coaming on the main deck.  The aft part merely provides headroom above the main deck level over the head of the staircase that leads down to the cabins.  At the break of the poop is a double-door entrance to the head of the cabin deck staircase.  As mentioned before, the design of all this interior work is speculative.
 
The first step was to make and fit the starboard side panel on the coamings on both decks and to the bulkhead at the break of the poop.  In the first picture that wall has been built up of planks in the usual way and then cut to fit.  In the picture the forward corner post is being glued on.
 

 
In the next picture the studs on the inside of the wall have been installed and the door opening cut out flush with those members using the circular saw for most of the cut length.
 

 
A panel for the entrance door was then cut and fitted to reinforce this very fragile structure and provide a base for the door paneling.  In the next picture the panel is being glued in.
 

 
The outer door jambs and header are being added in the next picture.
 

 
In the next picture the door has been paneled inside and out and the wall installed on the coamings.
 

 
I made the doorway into the cabin itself a bit more ornate, using the same wood and trim style used in the cabins as shown in the next picture.
 

 
In this picture the double doors have been fitted with simple brass hardware.  As with the cabin woodwork, I used black walnut for the doorway.  In the next picture the finished forward bulkhead is in place and aft bulkhead is being glued in.
 

 
The wall on the port side consists only of the stud framing – to provide some visibility to the interior.  In the next picture that framing has been installed and other work is in progress.
 

 
In the picture the overhead rafters have been installed as well as the structure and panels on either side of the doorway.  The exterior end trim pieces are being glued on in the picture.  The last picture shows the freshly painted roof on the finished coach.
 

 
This picture also shows a new entryway on the port bulwark and some modifications that I will explain in the next part.
 
Ed

Thanks for the comments and all the likes.
 
To answer your questions Harvey:
 
The tool to remove the area between the rim and the hub was a small, square-ended, relieved parting-off bit with the underside ground back to clear the rim - a pretty fragile tool.  I did not take any photos of this.  However, here is a photo of this step on a European boxwood, double wheel I made for Naiad.  On this double wheel I drilled holes for spokes after turning the rims/hub.  I did not use this wheel because I decided to make square, turned spokes instead, so the slots for those would have been cut before this step - as was done for the single YA wheel.  The Naiad wheels were much more complex  - two rims, pentagonal offset segments laminated for the rims, precise spacing between the rims, milling of slots between laminating steps, spokes spaced correctly between the segment joints, etc.  However, the picture does show the tool used  - in this case the depth of cut had to reach through both rims.
 

 
I am not sure what you mean in  your next question about the rim moving around on the spokes.  The centering of the rim is well held in place even without gluing the spokes.  With all the spokes inserted there is no direction that it can move.  However, the spokes are not strong enough to take the stress of turning the rim, but they do not have to, because until the rim is parted all the cutting stress is taken by the connection to the main block - until the rim is cut through.  No turning of the rim is advised after parting through the rim.
 
The spokes only go through to the center hole - not all the way through.
 
Even with the rotary table - or the indexing head I used for Naiad - and the precision of the mill, it is very difficult to get good hole alignment with very small drills needed for smaller scales.  They wander.
 
Ed
 
 

10 - 12 inches is correct, the paint wants to be almost dry when it hits, but start the stream off the object on one side, move across the object and stop the stream once you are off the other side.  Make your passes close enough so the paint gets full coverage from pass to pass.  In the amount of paint per pass, you have a sine wave, thin at the edges and thicker in the middle.  The next pass must be offset enough so its thin matches up to the thick of the previous and you get 100% overall.  My old professor called this the peanut butter effect.
 

First off, I'm new to this whole modeling gig so I have had to do a lot of experimenting. Regarding painting on wood, or more accurately priming. I have tried hand painting (Valejo Poly), airbrushing (Valejo Poly unthinned) and spray cans (Krylon).
 
Obviously the airbrush did the best job, but priming is a mass coverage process. For convenience, the spray can wins out, but I am getting too much primer on the wood. Even with quick bursts from 10"-12" away I can see the overage.
 
I'm hoping you guys can provide a few pointers on spray can technique. Or should I go back to the airbrush?

I've seen a technique were a black thread, washed in diluted glue, was laid in after the the run of planking was complete (fore to aft). The the next line of planking was laid against the thread and so on. The ends of the planks were touched with black marker on one end only.
Has anyone employed this technique? Seems that this would give a clean none smearing line.

Mark

I've seen a technique were a black thread, washed in diluted glue, was laid in after the the run of planking was complete (fore to aft). The the next line of planking was laid against the thread and so on. The ends of the planks were touched with black marker on one end only.
Has anyone employed this technique? Seems that this would give a clean none smearing line.

Mark

Hi Lou, welcome the site.
You say you are working on the Sergal/Mantua kit. I worked with Ages of Sail (who advertise on this site) to get some replacement and upgraded parts for my Cutty Sark. They were able to help me out and it was easy working with them. You might have to wait a bit if the parts are not available as Sergal is a smaller outfit hence a slower turn around.

Welcome and good luck.
Mark

Hi Lou, welcome the site.
You say you are working on the Sergal/Mantua kit. I worked with Ages of Sail (who advertise on this site) to get some replacement and upgraded parts for my Cutty Sark. They were able to help me out and it was easy working with them. You might have to wait a bit if the parts are not available as Sergal is a smaller outfit hence a slower turn around.

Welcome and good luck.
Mark

Hi folks,
 
I am just starting the 'rattlin down' of my HMB Endeavour (Scale 1:60) and am a little confused with the various authorities in how these should be rigged.
 
The following depicts several possible options of interpreting what Lees, Steele, Lever and others have described but not illustrated.
 
Which would be the correct sequence noting it is a English ship, rigged Naval style (even though a collier) for the year  circa 1768.  I am reasonably sure (but stand to be corrected) that Endeavour did not carry Swifters, so I am assuming Option 2 is incorrect? 
 
Any guidance or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
 
cheers
 
Pat
 

Just want to thank all of you for your help with my question on serving. 

I'll be starting a log for this build. I'm finishing my current project but I've done a dry fit of center keel and bulkheads and this is as good a place ever to start. The kit is the newer version of the Cutty Sark and I have gone through the counting process. Some pieces and such were short on the count and Ages of Sail will be getting the materials to me (nice folks). I'm sure I'll be needing advice and guidence and any comments will be appreciated. For reference I will be using Longridge, Campbell and plans from the Maritime Museum. I intend to do some bashing but my goal is not to go overboard with details.





 



 
 

I'll be starting a log for this build. I'm finishing my current project but I've done a dry fit of center keel and bulkheads and this is as good a place ever to start. The kit is the newer version of the Cutty Sark and I have gone through the counting process. Some pieces and such were short on the count and Ages of Sail will be getting the materials to me (nice folks). I'm sure I'll be needing advice and guidence and any comments will be appreciated. For reference I will be using Longridge, Campbell and plans from the Maritime Museum. I intend to do some bashing but my goal is not to go overboard with details.





 



 
 

I'll be starting a log for this build. I'm finishing my current project but I've done a dry fit of center keel and bulkheads and this is as good a place ever to start. The kit is the newer version of the Cutty Sark and I have gone through the counting process. Some pieces and such were short on the count and Ages of Sail will be getting the materials to me (nice folks). I'm sure I'll be needing advice and guidence and any comments will be appreciated. For reference I will be using Longridge, Campbell and plans from the Maritime Museum. I intend to do some bashing but my goal is not to go overboard with details.





 



 
 

I'll be starting a log for this build. I'm finishing my current project but I've done a dry fit of center keel and bulkheads and this is as good a place ever to start. The kit is the newer version of the Cutty Sark and I have gone through the counting process. Some pieces and such were short on the count and Ages of Sail will be getting the materials to me (nice folks). I'm sure I'll be needing advice and guidence and any comments will be appreciated. For reference I will be using Longridge, Campbell and plans from the Maritime Museum. I intend to do some bashing but my goal is not to go overboard with details.





 



 
 

I'll be starting a log for this build. I'm finishing my current project but I've done a dry fit of center keel and bulkheads and this is as good a place ever to start. The kit is the newer version of the Cutty Sark and I have gone through the counting process. Some pieces and such were short on the count and Ages of Sail will be getting the materials to me (nice folks). I'm sure I'll be needing advice and guidence and any comments will be appreciated. For reference I will be using Longridge, Campbell and plans from the Maritime Museum. I intend to do some bashing but my goal is not to go overboard with details.





 



 
 

I'll be starting a log for this build. I'm finishing my current project but I've done a dry fit of center keel and bulkheads and this is as good a place ever to start. The kit is the newer version of the Cutty Sark and I have gone through the counting process. Some pieces and such were short on the count and Ages of Sail will be getting the materials to me (nice folks). I'm sure I'll be needing advice and guidence and any comments will be appreciated. For reference I will be using Longridge, Campbell and plans from the Maritime Museum. I intend to do some bashing but my goal is not to go overboard with details.





 



 
 

Im sifting the internet looking for information about pre-radio control Pond yacht rigging. Working rigging for sailing scale models.
Before radio control, as I am sure all of you know, pond yachts reached a high degree of sophistication. Self tacking steering gear controlled by wind vanes, with a lot of complex brass hardware with elastic bands and adjustable sliders, were visible on deck and could be set by the user on shore to match the prevailing wind conditions and desired point of sail.
My problem is in finding authoritative information on these mechanisms. Nearly ALL of the images I find of historic Pond Yachts, those not in actual contemporary photos, are of models that have been restored and have had their steering gear simplified, presumably by antique dealers with little working sail understanding. In most of these cases its very obvious that brass fittings remaining on deck are not rigged in a way that would have an actual effect, they have merely been mocked up to look like they function and are often left unconnected to the sails.
Have any of you R.C. guys come across books or websites that deal with this aspect f the hobby? I hope there is a repository of this knowledge somewhere, it would be a shame to lose it.