mikiek

Now we're talking I finished up the last square sail last night and after letting everything dry I put the sail assembly together this evening. Keep in mind this rigging is there just to give the impression of ropes hanging & laying about. It is not an accurate representation. For instance the sail assembly is made by taking the top gallant sail (which is lashed to the t'gallant yard) and tying the clews to the top yard. The top yard has the top sail lashed to it and the clews tied to the course yard. Which of course has the course sail lashed to it. So you can pick up the t'gallant yard and you'll be picking up all 3 sails with their yards. And DANG IT I forgot to take a pic of that. Anyway the t'gallant yard fastens to the top of the mast and basically that hangs the entire assembly. There are some braces to be added. The jibs have wire in the hems that extend out from the corners 7-8 inches. The wires are used to fasten the sails to the mast and deck. They are bent a bit to give the sails some shape. I've said it before, this is a very cool technique to use to put some action into the sails. Wires were also used in the square sails and again I like the shape you can add. I think I have dirtied up the sails enough although not evenly from bow to stern. Oddly you can barely see it in the pix. They were dyed with walnut crystals. The I darkened the mixture and splattered that on the sails. I also got a lot of the fabric glue smeared on the material and that darkened just a tad when it dried. I guess overall it will do. So tomorrow it'll be the braces, some touch up painting and finally made up my mind to paint the hull. Trying to mix a matching green was no easy feat. Here's how she sits tonite:

Well I've been working this restore almost every night but haven't had much to show. I'm trying to finish up this weekend (doubt if I'll make it) and some things are coming together. Like the main, I took everything off the fore mast pretty much in 1 piece. Got the mast cleaned up and the fore deck as well. The fore has been stepped and now I can start working with the stays & shrouds while I'm doing to the sails. My idea for connecting shrouds to channels worked out pretty well and the shrouds with ratlines fastened up pretty easy. As per my goal I was able to keep the original shrouds & rats. The backstays were tougher since there was not enough rope to reconnect - I did realize this when I originally cut them. So I ended up using a bullseye to fasten the stays to the rope coming up from the channel. Yup, I deviated from the original on this but there were few options. I did the mizzen? for the fore mast. Still working on the square sails. My biggest screw up so far is the hems for the sails are not all on the same side. She's coming along. Maybe the hardest thing is going to be repainting the name on the transom. I've tried twice already and have painted over my attempt both times. Who woulda thunk that would be so difficult?

Good suggestion Russ!

You know, I remember thinking about this kit right before I bought it. Looking at it online, I figured it would be a cinch to knockout. A small footprint. No rigging. A cheap price. How hard could it be? WRONG! It's coming along well Steve.

That's why I'm kinda partial to Minwax Natural now. I just makes the wood look wet but no color change. You know now that I think about it, that finish you had on Phantom would look pretty good here also. The only problem is you would have 2 boats the same color.

Just wanted to be sure. I got burned once doing that. Tested on basswood, real material was boxwood. It looked awful. Hardwoods take stain a lot differently than softwoods.

Elijah - the wood you are going to stain - is it all the same species? I ask because I have the Provincial stain and it looks different on different woods. It gets pretty dark on softer woods (basswood) as it soaks in a lot. On harder wood (boxwood) it fills in the grains but doesn't soak in as much. Make sure you do a color test with the same type of wood.

Assembly line is great for a lot of what we do. I just got burned on the materials planking and decking. You almost have to cut planks one at a time because they must end on a frame. So you can't just go and cut a bunch of 4" planks. When you get to the deck you can decide on a standard size (I went with 20 footers) and cut more at one time but you still need to be aware of that width problem I mentioned. I heard somewhere - treat each plank as its own project. SO TRUE!

When you are cleaning your dual action do you know about the 'backflush'? Put a little cleaner in the cup. Put the cap on tightly. Unscrew the little crown on the end where the paint comes out. Don't lose it, they can be expensive. Put a finger or thumb over the opening at that end - careful you can stick your finger with the needle. Run the brush for a few seconds, both air & paint. If you do it right you'll get a spray or mist coming out the tiny hole on the cap. Your basically forcing air backwards and that can blow out stuff that normal cleaning doesn't move. Empty any extra cleaner from the cup - it will be all dirty. Then add a bit of fresh cleaner and spray normally. There may be a way to do the same with the bottle type but I don't know it. I have both types and the single action bottle brush rarely gets used.

One other question Per - does your airbrush have the bottle underneath or the cup on top?

Per - what paint are you using and are you thinning it? Even the "airbrush" paint can stand to be thinned out. There are various ratios but surprisingly you can add a lot of thinner. Vallejo also makes some good additives. And of course your weather can have a major effect on how the paint comes out.

I think that's the right decision Tom. More realistic too. One thing to watch out for though. I would have thought the planking sticks would be fairly consistent in width. My mistake. One night I grabbed a handful and cut them all to the appropriate length and tossed them in a pile. Thought I would be saving some time using the assembly line method (one task at a time). The next night when I started planking I just grabbed a plank from the pile and glued it to the frames. Pretty quickly I realized I was having to sand the long edge of many of the planks so they would match the previous plank when the ends were butted up to each other. Trying to evenly sand down even a 4" edge is problematic. The moral of my story is take 1 stick. Cut it to plank size. Glue all those planks in place. Lather, rinse repeat. You'll have the same issue on the deck.

re: fairing - you can fair all you want right now. You will still have to do more as you lay planks. Strake by strake. Don't knock yourself out yet. Have you decided if you are going to plank with a whole stick or cut sticks for each strake?

It's the only way to fly....

1 meter - Good thing you don't like cases

Hey Don - had to search around to see what you're up to now that Trabakul is retired. This one looks cool. Interesting bow line. Think I'll tag along.

Reminder - don't forget to mark your bands before you go any further. Also you'll want to add your garboard and a strake or two above it before too long.

re: holes in chock rail - depending on how/what you are going to rig you may not need any. I didn't. You are about to hit the most difficult area for planking the stern for the next 5-6 strakes. You will need some twist and after that a bend upwards. I actually put a twist in the sticks - similar to how we bend them. Soak them, clamp at the half way point with one anvil, put half a twist in the stick and hold the end with a second anvil. Heat to dry or let it dry naturally. The stick will look a bit like a corkscrew. Be aware that sticks on the port side need a twist in the opposite direction as those on the starboard. Don't remember which but one side takes a clockwise twist. The other side a counter clockwise twist. The twisted sticks will lay almost naturally around the curves at the stern. I documented that pretty well in my log.

Per - this project has been quite different than what we're used to. Tearing something apart as the first step feels odd. Remembering how it goes back together - even with pictures - has been trying. Really a wake up call to how bad my memory is getting. There is a thrill that you just don't get from a build. That is seeing the dirt & crud or loose ropes and then admiring when it's cleaned and back together again. Also an exercise in self control. So many little "touch ups" I want to do. Given that this is almost an antique kit - Megow's is long gone - I have to stick with how it was supposed to be assembled, with the same type of parts. I may experiment with the hem. With the double fold and the adhesive I don't think a sewing machine needle could get thru it. Of course that leaves the hand sewn option

Sail making is taking longer than I thought. Cutting , dyeing and hemming. The last takes longest. I have to load the hem with a piece of brass rod, double fold and then glue. It takes about 1 hour for the glue to dry enough so I can safely handle the sail to glue the next hem - 3 or 4 per sail. I still wonder if I am making the right decision by gluing only. No stitch. I'm still really liking the wire in the hems. It's going to be fun to shape all the sails. I will definitely use the same technique should I ever decide to add sails to one of my builds. Making the jibs at the moment, but I decided to go ahead and pull the foremast. I couldn't stand seeing all that dust any longer. Got that cleaned up and a first coat of varnish. Much better. Broke a few pieces during this process. I've been commenting on how easy it is to "unglue" many of the parts due to the age. It appears that time has taken it's toll on the wood as well. The rail pieces are as brittle as they can be. This is the second piece of rail I have broken. Also broke one of the fore channels while removing the mast. I caught myself trying to "improve" on parts. Rather than belay pins with racks most sail sheets tie off to a wooden ring (those fake deadeyes) that is fastened to the deck. IMO the rings are kinda bulky, so I was about to replace those ( I had to pull them out of the deck anyway) with a brass eyebolt seized to a brass ring. No huge thing but still a step away from the original equipment. I made a few more wood rings and am back to using those. I'll save my brass for my builds.

Ken, Don - Thank you both. I recognize that both of you have ridden along since day 1 and I appreciate that. That was one of the hard things in posting something for Joel - I don't want to slight the fact that others (you guys included) have contributed to this project. The MSW family is an amazing group of people!

In Memorium – Joel Sanborn (JBSHAN) It's hard to find words for someone you never met. Never shook their hand. Never looked in their eyes. Words don't come easy for me anyhow. I never did any of that with Joel Sanborn (JBSHAN) and yet in this screwy electronic age none of that seems important. A few keystrokes and you're making exchanges with just about anyone. So many of them you will never meet. Thanks to the forums here at MSW I did get to know Joel. It's funny what you can pick up about someone if you try. His first few responses to me were somewhat terse. In hindsight I think direct would be a better descriptor. And Joel was direct to a fault. You were never left wondering how he felt on a topic. But that also meant honesty, the thing I cherished about him most. An encyclopedic mind. Seems like he knew any and everything nautical. Probably other subjects as well. From this came all his comments, pointers and tips and I always looked forward to getting his thoughts on questions I raised. Something that I miss even today. A dry sense of humor. If you weren’t paying attention, you might miss the pun entirely. Joel helped me along on my first build – Niagara. He was one of the first to pass along opinion rather than “nice work” or “keep it up”. We both had the same ideas about how the build should look – historical rather than contemporary. Thanks to him I began to think beyond just the gluing of wood parts. What was going on at during the original build? Why was it built? Where? All questions that have an impact on the outcome. When I got to the rigging stage of the build I resisted. I really didn’t want to do it. Niagara went to the back burner and I moved on to other builds. I’m sure this must have been a disappointment to Joel. He seized every opportunity for a friendly jab to get back to work and finish Niagara. And I resisted. Then came a short few weeks back in April when I realized I hadn’t heard anything from Joel in a while. A search of the forums showed no activity for his username. This was odd. Joel loved this site and was always active. A few weeks more and I got concerned enough to try to reach out to him. Surely some Google searches would turn up a phone number or address. Unfortunately the first thing I came across was his obituary. Quite distressing to say the least. But that’s another quirky thing with the internet. You get to know someone and then they “disappear” and you may have no idea why. At that time, I decided to dust off Niagara, put my head down and finish her – for Joel. It was the least I could do. It was also the first time I’ve ever done something like that for someone else. So I’ve rigged and I’ve grown from the experience. Thanks to Joel. His spirit lives on. Sharing this was the last task for this build. I'll be changing the log title to FINISHED now. I hope that'll put a smile on his face. I know he's still checking in to see what's going on. So this Niagara build is done and is dedicated to Joel B. Sanborn..........

You're welcome. It's an incredible set of books. Any and every thing you wanted to know about naval guns.

Michael - I was surprised to see that blocks are often seized to shrouds particularly higher up the mast. Can't be too sturdy but I guess it's good for some things.

Nibbing is always a bear. That's why so many people skip it. Nice work!