bartley

Yes indeed, shipman, this is true. Liver of sulfur is a complex mixture of sulfides and polysulfides. Over time in air these decompose to in active sulfates. Shelf life may be less than a year, Strangely it works well on copper but not very well on brass which is 60% copper. John

Yes, Kurt this "sharp rap" is somehow different. Many years ago my son was sailing in a small boat constructed as a "klegicell sandwich" . This is foam core with kevlar fiber on each side. It was like rigid like a sheet of steel with respect to movement against the water but once coming around a mark, the boom of an another out of control sailor hit the side of his boat. Punched a neat hole straight through. So, very strong in one sense but very poor impact strength. John

Dave, My experience is that if it is bare wood there is usually some staining (depending on the timber and how long you leave it in contact). However, if the timber is painted there is no problem. These bolt heads were blackened after installation. John

Shipman, A couple of extra tips: A clean surface is the key. You obviously know about pickling but don't overdo this step. Pickling is etching the surface of your brass so 10 min at 60 C is usually enough. Don't handle with your fingers now. So, into your soda bath to neutralise the acid, rinse under the tap, drain and into the blackening reagent. Don't immerse your items into the bottle of reagent. Put a small amount into another vessel which you can seal so you keep the original solution uncontaminated. Neat Birchwood Casey reacts pretty fast (10 sec) so to give a bit more control I dilute this decanted solution 1:1 with water. Then you can probably immerse your items for about 30 sec, into the soda bath, wash and allow to dry. You will need to experiment with the time a bit - too short and blackening will be incomplete, too long and you will get "flakey" layers on top of the original. These flakey layers rub off easily. By the way the black stuff which rubs off is selenium which is toxic so wear gloves when you are cleaning up the surface. John

OK shipman, Shelf life of the blackening agent should be indefinite if you keep the lid on. Pickling solution: make it up about 8:1 of the water to solid. Note: add the solid (sodium hydrogen sulfate) to the water not the other way round. The soda water: it doesn't really matter; I add the bicarbonate to the water until there is a little left undissolved. This is called a "saturated solution". John

Dave, I have dealt with this disposal issue here. If you search my thread you should find it more on this. As I have mentioned also here the Birchwood Casey product is a little different from the other brands in that it contains both Selenous acid and Molybdate so it reacts with both copper and zinc- both of which are in brass. So it reacts a bit more quickly and probably forms a deeper black. Also it will react with any alloy containing either of these metals John

Although I did not end up using this, I did I believe produce a good simulation of the canvas covering by using tissue paper

All credit to Glenn. His Cheerful build is magnificent. Great workmanship! but we must credit Chuck Passarro for the invention of this weathering method. From chapter nine of his cheerful monograph:- "I also weathered the black backstay plates ever so slightly. This was just a matter of brushing on some weathering powder and buffing it off. I prefer to make all of the metal elements have a different texture and look than the black painted areas of the hull such as the wales. Its very subtle and can be overdone very easily. So if you want to give this a try it’s a lot of fun and you might just like how it looks too. My weathering powders come from Micro-Mark and there are several colors to choose from. I decided to use Rusty Brown. I will use this for all of the metal work on the Cheerful. The photo on the next page shows the powder being added to a carronade later in the project. Grimy black is another color I sometimes use but in this case I decided to go with just the rusty brown. After the parts have been painted black, just apply a generous amount to the piece with a soft brush….apply it all over. Then buff it off with another soft clean brush. Repeat this process to suit your preferred level of color and appearance." John

There are really only two versions of Artistic Wire to consider: "black" and "bare copper". The black is quite glossy and in my opinion does not look like rope. Bare copper can be blackened with one of the selenium products like Jax Black. The plated versions are coated and could not be blackened this way. Alternatively, you could use Chuck Passaro's method where he paints the item black and then uses weathering powder to make it look more like metal. Incidentally, this wire is not stranded. It is essentially copper wire with an enamel coating (except for "bare copper" of course which has no coating. John

Post 50: Constructing the Mainmast All the deck features are now complete and it is time to start on making the main mast. The mast itself was made from 13/32 square boxwood. I decided that it would be easier to establish the square section at the head of the mast before rounding it. Once this was done I first planed the edges to form a hexagon using the 710 7 rule and then turned the lower section on my home made lathe powered by a hand drill as described earlier. The next task was the curved cross pieces for the cross trees. I cut these using my Knew Concepts jewelers saw. These saws are a joy to use. The lever system ensures that the blade has the same tension every time and I find I can cut really close to the line . They were then sanded to shape using sanding sticks and files The slots in the linking pieces were cut on the mill and the unit put together. The mast cap was simply made from 5/32 sheet with two round holes drilled at the appropriate distances and one of the squared with file to take the square tennon at the top of the mast. The boom support ring and the mast hoops were fabricated on the mill using the rotating head as described earlier for the mast coat. Cleats from Syren were sanded to shape and added below the boom ring The cheeks were fabricated from 3/54 sheet and the metal bands simulated with black pin-striping tape John

Actually, too long Tom. Being a chemist I know a bit about the technical side of this. The selenium in the blackening agent etches tiny pits in the brass and black selenium is deposited there. If you continue another layer deposits on top of this and this rubs off easily. There is a kind of happy medium between incomplete blackening and too much flakey stuff. The exact time depends on how much you dilute the reagent. Incidentally, watch out for this flakey stuff. It is selenium and is toxic. Wear gloves and wash you hands well afterwards if any gets on your fingers. John

Yes, there is no adjustment on these. Our x and y are perfect - easily adjusted but not sloppy. However, the z one is tight as you describe. Maybe a bit of dust which might blow out with compressed air or very small touch of lubricant. Good work by the way - certainly surpasses mine. John

Glenn, I think I mentioned this once before but all machine knobs like this have backlash. This is like a kind of deadspot where rotating the knob dos not change the setting. It is very small but on fine readings it can make a difference and means that if you set a reading by rotating the knob clockwise you will get a different setting than if you rotate it anticlockwise. so you should always approach a setting from the same direction. John

This is true, but if you use a cow hitch at the first and last it kind of simulates this. John

Glenn, This is not quite true here. On a square rigger the wind does indeed come mostly from the aft quarter and so the seats of ease were locate in the bow. Hence the term "heads". However, this cutter is fitted with large fore and aft sails so she would sail mostly into the wind and hence the seats of ease are located aft. Your other comments are true though. In modern times we would be a bit squeamish about such an open arrangement. John

Post 49: Rigging the Bowsprit 4 blocks need to be installed on the the ring-bolts at the end of the bowsprit: The bobstay needs a block with a becket seized on one end. My method is established from several posts on this site but I include it here for completeness I start by forming the becket. I do this by wrapping the line around an appropriate sized drill, passing a needle through the line an pulling it tight I seal this with a drop of CA and stiffen the becket with shellac. Now I add the block and glue it to the line with PVA. Then I begin the false splice by fraying the ends cutting them on the diagonal, adding a drop of PVA and rolling the splice between my fingers Since this bobdstay is seved for its whole length I serve over the splice as well In order to thicken the splice a little I wound some 0.3 mm line just over the splice itself. The other end of the bobstay is spliced to the stem in a similar way and then the block is reeved to the lower 3/16double block on the end of the bowsprit. The bowsprit guys were made in a similar way but spliced onto thimbles. a hook fabricated from 24 gauge wire was added to the outer The whole assembly was attached as shown in the plans between the ring-bolt at the and of the bowsprit and the ring bolt in the bow of the hull None of these was tightened at this stage. I will wait until the rest of the bowsprit rigging is in place. John

Actually, there is more sec -butanol in their thinner than iso-propanol so I would stick with their thinner rather than try to use a substitute

Did you use Tamiya thinners or some other brand? There looks to be an incompatibility somewhere here. As Ron points out you should use their thinner even though it is quite expensive John

Post 49: Bowsprit Installation The bowsprit itself was constructed and test fitted earlier when there was less deck furniture to obstruct it. It is now time to install it permanently. The bowsprit is fed through the bulwark hole hole in the bow and inboard end is located by the lower strip of the bowsprit step. As Chuck points out it is not necessary for the strip to bass all the way through the bowsprit. The strip can be cut in half and inserted about half way through the bowsprit from each side . It appears to go all the way through. The windlass fits behind the bowsprit step with the pawls engaging in the ratchet wheels. In fact, when I was manipulating the bowsprit later on the bowsprit step detached. It was clearly not glued down securely. I had to remove the windlass to attend to this and the bowsprit step is now re-glued pinned to the deck with twisted pair pins like these: Whilst on the subject of the fore-deck it is clear that once the bowsprit and step are in place there is insufficient room for recoil of the port chase gun. This fact has been pointed out by several other builders. The second gun-port is vacant but positioning this gun there makes it look unsymmetrical. The plans show the gun in this position and and the specification calls for "two 6 pound chase guns" so I have chosen to leave it positioned as shown even though it could probably never be fired in this position. John

Wow! Thanks guys. The knowledge on this site is amazing. I will let my friend know. John

A friend of mine who lives in Italy has been given this ship but he knows nothing of its history. can anybody shed some light on th type of ship? the flags may be of some help. John

Yes Glenn, I agonized over these belaying pins. In the end I started with some tooth-picks like these Chucked them into my hand held Proxxon I then marked the vital transition points on a paper behind and used files and sanding sticks too turn the shape Initially I could not make two the same! However, like most such endeavours, I improved with practice. Even so I probably made 40 to produce the 20 or so required. I think you have a lathe so it might be a little easier. John

Post 48: Bowsprit step and Windlass To complete the fore-deck paraphernalia there are two more nice little mini-kits from Chuck. First up was the the bowsprit step: This could be scratch built but the square holes might present problems. So the kit looks like this: The uprights are constructed in three parts It is important to sand these well so that the joins are not visible after painting. The brackets are then added I simulated the bolts with 24 gauge black wire. After filing these flat the brass ends were chemically blackened with a selenium based product. I find that there is no staining of painted timber using this technique but bare timber often does show some staining and more care is needed. The pawls were painted black and weathered with rusty brown powder as suggested by Chuck for all metal parts. These were pinned through. the uprights and finally the uprights were joined with 1/16 inch square boxwood strips, left unglued for the moment. Next up the windlass which would be a real challenge but thanks to another kit from Chuck I nice, though challenging job, can be made First a set of " barrels" is constructed on hexagonal end pieces These are threaded onto a square boxwood strip and the supports and end-pieces added before guleing the whole lot together. The bowsprit itself was made some time ago and the hole in the bow widened to allow a tight fit of the bowsprit so the next task is to install the bowsprit permanently. John

Mast Coat Revisited As Chuck points out in his monograph, the version of the mast coat he presents is somewhat stylized. In reality a circular set of wedges were driven in around the mast and these were covered wit canvas. In view of this I produced a more "authentic" version. The two versions are shown below: In fact in, keeping with the style of this model, I think that Chuck's stylized version looks better. What do you think. Guys? John

Glenn, This mast coat is superb, as is the rest of your work! I made mine the same way (and I thought I discovered the method!) I was going to have another go to try for a better profile than the one I showed in my log but I am having second thoughts. I know this is what Chuck shows in his log but, with all respect to him, I think he has used a bit of poetic license. I understand that in practice a set of wedges was used around the mast and these were covered with tarred canvas. Maybe I will try to model this. John