Salty Sea Dog

Worked on the gaff halyards & the yard braces. I usually like to tie onto the pin & form the rope coil with the same line like is in reality but I'm having a very hard time reaching it- too much stuff in the way. So I'm tying off & forming rope coils separately & laying the coil over the pin.
 
 

Thank you all for the kind words of encouragement Things are moving along a little better now. Made the holes in the sails for the mast rings. Rolled the tip of a steel pick in gel CA. When you punch the hole the glue seals the edge of the hole similar to how heat would seal nylon. Makes clean neat holes. Started attaching sails to spars anywhere I could because it is more difficult for me to add them after the spars are added to the masts. Adapted some parrel sets I found from 3 line to 2 line parrels. Began adding gaffs with sails to the masts, attaching mast rings & working on the rigging in these areas.
 

Likewise Jesse, hope you're feeling better soon and able to move on with this - the finish line looms ever closer!

Oh !!!
 
 
Well, no like for THAT post, I can assure you !!!
Hope you are feeling better and back to your ship-yard as soon as possible, Jesse.

Hi Marc - No I haven't built any doll houses but I had considered building a miniature timber framed birdhouse once! Never got around to it though.

As you can see in the photos first I draw the spaces between the holes. I drilled small ones and then enlarged them about 1.5 mm dia. Finally I rounded the edges and gave the last shape.

Building the bowsprit deck is a hard and boring step... I gave a break for the right part and started to do something else...
 

I think another bucket might fit on this penny...

5) Prepping the hull for finish
 
The gaps and splits in the walnut planking that had occurred over the years due to dryness and wood shrinkage (shown in the earlier photos) were repaired with sawdust and thinned white glue and sanded. The triangular garboard fillers at the ends of the keel were stained for a better color match.
 

 

 
Then the fun part. Lemon oil was applied to all the bare wood. Instant magic! I just love the look of oiled wood. The main thing was to NOT use an oil with wax or silicone in it as that could interfere with my plans for a shellac top coat.
 

 
The exterior was rubbed down with a few applications of oil and the interior was oiled using a brush. The previously shellacked floorboards and seats were unaffected and any stray oil was wiped off of them.
 

 

 

 
This will need to sit for a few days before I apply a thinned out shellac wash coat to seal it.

3) Work done during the last year
 
So my little whaleboat sat around for a bunch of years and I would look at it every now and then. I wasn't ever satisfied with the fit of the keel between the stern and the prow. The kit supplied keel is fit with a butt joint at each end and it was just a tiny bit too short. Not too bad, but just enough of a loose fit to nag at me when I looked at it. It taunted and mocked me! I had been working on another project and had a scrap piece of mahogany that was a nice color match to make a new keel, so I cut/chopped/chiseled/filed the old one out and made a new one using half-lap joints at each end. I figured that would look more boat-like but mostly it was just fun to play with a little saw and a chisel.
 

 

 
I got such a kick out of fixing the keel that I kept going. I liked the look of the really dark wood wales and gunwales (cap rails?) used in the photo on the box lid. I had a left over Brazillian Rosewood binding strip from a guitar repair job and decided to use it for the gunwales. FYI - Per the CITES treaty, Brazillian Rosewood is banned for sale in the USA unless it is certified as pre-ban or salvaged from old stumps like these strips were. I had been lucky enough to locate 3 binding strips for the repair job (a 1927 Martin OO-18 if you're into guitars) and one strip was a spare. It was a special piece of wood to me and I thought it would be cool to use it in my boat. I used a dark scrap of cocobolo for the wales since it looks similar. The centerboard case, thwart seats, mast hinge and the rest of the top of the boat was also built at this time. The kit supplied mast hinge was huge and had to be cut down.
 

 

 
I had the most fun making the rudder. The kit showed using a clunky looking folded piece of brass to attach the tiller and it just seemed wrong to me. I cut a little bridle joint and double pinned it instead. The hinge pins were soldered in place as were the cross pins through the straps and rudder.
 

 

 

 
(edited to correct typo of Martin guitar model to a OO-18 instead of D-18, still a very cool guitar!)

Lawrence - Would you be able to use a bucket on your Annie build? I reduced the bucket plan to 1:50 and I'm not sure I can pull it off, but will give it a try if you can use it. I would be honored to contribute to the build of a boat that has so much history to your family.
 
Matt- Jim Baumann's skills seem other-worldly. Maybe he was a guest who escaped from Area 51!
 
Best wishes,

gee......who would you have had in mind.......David Hasselhoff?     ohhhhh,  right.......he was known for brawn....not brains!! 
 
soooooo.......anyway......tinkering still going on.....cleaned up the nasty rod ends on the reels and touched them up.   added some strip stock to the top edge of the pilot house,  to stiffen the side walls up.   I took a look at the Tree Boat's hull frame to get an idea where the bulkheads are on the Andrea Gail.  the area of interest is between the third and fourth bulkhead.......if I remember,  it's roughly 51 mm.
 

 
from this,  the template was made.  the fourth bulkhead is the fore deck bulkhead on the A.G...since the top rub rail follows along the main deck line, I used it as a reference.   staying within the increment,  I was able to drill the pilot holes.......then a size larger.
 

 
the next size after that put the holes close to the size of the porthole inserts.   19/64ths......I used a rat tail file to enlarge them the rest of the way.
 

 

 
it went well........only one very........very tiny chunk occurred!   I figure paint will take care of it     the fore deck railings were adjusted and cemented.......still need to be trimmed
 

 
I drilled the holes for the aft section of the trawl rig.......but it made the rig unstable....bother!   the Billing's kit doesn't have the portholes....figured I'd put 'em in. 
 

 
small issue with the exhaust fan..........working to get it resolved 
 
 
 

George,
 
I'm glad you got the double posting sorted out.   The one thing I've found about modeling these old ships has the same effect I found in engineering:  "Every answer begats two more questions.".    I guess I'll never get it all sorted out with that kind of progression.

So I did some work on the windlass. I made the ratchet gears out of wood so that I could make it to whatever size need be.
 
It was recommended that I bulk up the windlass, so I decided to add whelps. Only thing left to do is installing the pawls.
 
I decided to install the gears opposite of each other so there would be a locked position for both up and down.

Hey Matt,
  My log is not very great. MSW1 was upgraded to MSW2. But they had a crash that wiped everything out. But I have a some what more detailed build log here. It might help you with some questions if any. But you are really doing a great build here. Have fun.
 
http://modelshipbuilder.com/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?3529.0
 
I had a lot of fun building this boat. Right now I'm not building. Just putting my wood shop together. Then i will get back at it.

Hi Marc - No I haven't built any doll houses but I had considered building a miniature timber framed birdhouse once! Never got around to it though.

Hey Buck,
 
Maybe Jim Baumann worked at Area 51?
 
Matt

Wow great topic. Good thing to get all these ideas together in one thread.
I hope to contribute in the future 

I needed to drill some holes in a position where I could not get the dremel. A drill bit extension was required.
Taking an old `Rabbit Ears' TV aeriel that I had lying around, I found that the shaft of my proxxon drill bits fitted
snugly into a section that I cut from the end. The fact that these telescopic  `Rabbit Ears' sections taper, means
that a section could be found and cut to fit most drill bit diameters.
 

 
I then inserted a broken proxxon drill bit into one end and silver soldered it in place.
 

 
The drill bit I wanted to use also fitted snuggly in the opposite end. I found that it was a tight enough fit to use
  `as is' but if too loose, it could be soldered into place as well.

Thanks for that, Greg !!
I'm hoping to light up the stern galleries on my (soon to be re-continued) Connie build, so your window idea will prove to be very useful.

Salty Sea Dog do you create doll house furniture as well? The extreme miniature work you do, making doll house furniture would be pretty easy with your talents.
Marc

This is one of the best topic on this forum. Thank you CaptainSteve. The sharing of how we build, what parts we use, where we scour and purchase parts. I am going to scour ebay and visit HobbyLobby and Michael's again - jewelry department.
Marc

CLEAR PLASTIC JARS OR BOTTLES, BRASS TUBING & STUBBORNNESS
 
The Captain invited me to his table to share how I recently made a compass box for my whaleboat. One of the pieces needed was a 'glass' lens for the compass. I ended up using a piece of clear plastic cut from the side of a plastic jar. The curvature of the jar adds a bit of magnification to the lens which makes a nice effect.

 
It proved tougher than I expected to make a little lens and I ended up with a few rejects.

 
Here's what I learned from my failed attempts:
 
1) Do not shape it with sandpaper or a double-cut file. The thicker jar plastic actually seems to be a 3-layer lamination, and I'm guessing the heat from coarser shaping methods causes a de-lamination that clouds up the edge of the lens. It actually swells up too. In hindsight, the really flimsy clear water bottles are probably a single layer and may not have these problems. However, it may be the thickness of the jars that help create the little bit of magnification. I don't know if all of the thicker plastic containers are laminations. More testing is needed!
 
2) When using a single cut file, don't keep filing for long in the same place or the heat will start clouding the plastic.
 
3) Use scissors to cut the plastic as close to the final shape as possible so you don't have to file very much. Don't try to cut tight curves with scissors though or it will cloud up. Cut straight litle segments instead of curves, and then file to a smooth curve.
 
4) It's really hard to file a perfect circle. I wasn't able to. 
 
 
The compass box itself was made with thin pieces of hardwood because I was concerned the tiny box joint fingers would snap off if I used too soft of a wood. This is 1mm thick purpleheart. I used guitar nut slotting files and progressively widened the little slots between fingers from .010" up to .032" wide. These files cut a rounded bottom (for guitar strings) so I squared up the corners of the .032" slots with the skinny .010" file tilted to get into the corners. The joints were then fine tuned for fit with 320 grit sandpaper. The sides of the box were labeled for orientation since the joints at each corner were unique. It's a little tedious but it looks cool! If I were going to do a lot of this sort of thing, I think that I would jig up a Dremel flex shaft with a cut-off wheel under a little table and cut the pieces just as you would at 1:1 on a table saw with a sled.
 

 

 
 
Here's the pieces ready to assemble. The housing is a short piece of brass tubing. The rose compass was from Google Images, and I found that if I put the image into a Word document, I could shrink it way down with decent resolution by grabbing the corner of the image and making it tiny on the document itself before printing. I shaped a piece of cedar to almost fit inside the tubing and then pressed it in and the tubing shaved it to shape. If you happen to have a dowel of the right size, just use that. Note that the end of the cedar that the compass rose is attached to is intentionally at a slight angle. I was after the effect of the compass tilting on its mounting giblets....mounting gimlets?...mounting gimbals? Anyway, whatever those mounting thingies are called that alows a compass to self-level.

 
The assembled compass box:


 
Best wishes and Happy Nw Year!
 
EDIT TO ADD: This compass box is 1:25th scale and is 7mm x 7mm x 5mm tall with a compass (brass tubing o.d.) diameter of about 3/16" overall.
 
Those of you building the Bounty Launch are at 1:16 or 3/4" scale. The compass box sizing is from my New Bedford Whaleboat plans, which are also 3/4" scale, so your compass box should be a huge 7/16" x 7/16" x 5/16" tall with a compass diameter about 5/16" overall.  

Haha! No need for talk like that - you have done some spectacular work! If you really want to see some crazy good tiny work, check out some of Jim Baumann's stuff. I think he has one of those Sci-Fi shrink ray guns! 
 

The first full week back to work after the holidays was crazy for me too. I did get in some shipyard time today.
 
Yup, another bucket does fit on the penny!

 
For the latest bucket, I tried pulling out the big guns, well maybe the little gun. I used a 1/8" Japanese chisel I got years ago to help when cleaning up corners in inlay cavities on ebony guitar fingerboards. The heft of a "real" chisel made cutting the ebony end grain much easier than an Xacto knife. For the bucket staves, shaving the edges for a nice fit was a breeze with this chisel, and the bevels were much more precise than sandpaper.
 


 
The problem with scratch building these buckets is now the kit supplied line buckets look pretty bad. Dang! I may set a record for the longest time to finish a boat that was nearly done.
 

 
Best wishes,