Ian_Grant

Sorry about the grumpy old man. As I said this topic gets me all hot and bothered. One last kick at the horse........ My brother has a hybrid Corolla and in the summer gets as efficient as 3.3litres/100km. If everyone had ordinary non-pluggable regular hybrids we could take a significant bite out of emissions without changing anything else at all. So far we've only driven our new hybrid 42km, and the total average fuel consumption since 0km, reported on the dash, has been steadily drifting down. When we got it the reading was 10litres/100km, based on 5km driven. Today it's at 6litres/100km and falling, as opposed to our 2009 ICE RAV's ten on a good day. And yes, the immediate torque from the electric motors is fun.

Yeah, we have similar legislation in Canada; all car sales are supposed to be EV by 2035. Ain't gonna happen in that time frame unless the government allows China to take over the auto market and kill all those domestic jobs. The UK is quite compact, but here one can drive hundreds of miles between big cities which is problematic for an EV if it's -20C outside. The recharging infrastructure is miniscule compared to what would be needed. The electrical grid cannot support the projected load without hugely costly upgrades. The EV prices are still far higher than straight hybrids. Early adopters brag about "refilling" their EV with pennies worth of electricity but in the event that ICE cars were obsoleted the government's "gas tax" revenue would be zilch. Governments never downsize, especially here in Canada where a getting-dangerously-large percentage of the population depends on the government for their income, so inevitably they'd start taxing electricity to make up the shortfall. On top of the electricity price increases to fund network and generation upgrades. Also, we currently have zero capacity to recycle those toxic Li ion batteries; bit of a chicken and egg thing there. The environmental zealots are cheering it all, but what will they say when companies want to open some lithium mines in Canada to dig up the ore required? Our idiot PM has given away about $30 billion dollars to VW and Stellantis to build battery plants. Why them? -- because they had the best lobbyists. Once again, know-nothing politicians think they can pick the ultimate winners in a new technology instead of allowing the free market to determine the best solution. Imagine giving Toyota the cold shoulder. We just took delivery of a hybrid RAV-4 for which we have been waiting for months. Great vehicle! And people agree; hybrid sales here are booming (hybrid RAV only costs about $3300 more than ICE) while EV's sit unsold. Whew! Sorry, this topic touches several nerves - incompetent politicians, government lobbyists, especially our former Greenpeace activist environment minister, and our idiot PM above all. Spending us our children and grandchildren into oblivion.

It's been while since I posted; I've been messing around with a few things. I cut the holes in the deck for access ladders and ventilation gratings. Then it was back to the 3D printers..... Here is a shot of the ladder assembly to "below decks", printed in 4 pieces, and matching hatch coaming. I printed two sets of these. One ladder is forward of the archery tower, the other is near the stern end of all the oars. Second shot shows "in place" (not glued, the printed coaming is a neat enough fit to hold it). I will be adding a strip of fake deck at the ladder bottom to represent a catwalk between the oarsmen. These ladders occupy the space between the moving oar mechanisms. I do need to move each lift servo 3" towards amidships to get them out of the way; I had planned to do so anyway to make the lift linkages more nearly equal in length. I shamelessly copied Richard Braithwaite's mast tabernacle, in maple. It still needs the small flat square of wood to prevent backwards movement of the mast foot. Pardon the burn marks. It will be painted. I attempted to make the fantail decoration by hand using 1/8 cherry and 1mm x 1mm Evergreen but I could not get perfect consistency along the fingers, so I bit the bullet and spent several hours painfully drawing it in TinkerCAD using the available shapes. It is a nightmare of elliptical tube segments and multitudes of "hole" shapes to erase parts I don't want. I drew it in two halves so I could get two clean faces out of the PLA printer but the halves were so thin that the library adviser recommended I print them elevated from the drawing plane, and with a tilt. This was to make it easier to separate the thin parts from the print bed. However, the tilt resulted in a stair-step pattern on the faces because the print layer depth is finite. Pic below shows my attempt (it probably would have been good enough) and one of the printed parts. You can see the pattern of lines across it, delineating the stair-steps. I will try again with 1/8" of support under the parts, and no tilt. And what's a mast tabernacle without a mast to put into it? Instead of using dowel I decided to use a square blank and turn it, leaving a square cross section at the foot to lock into the tabernacle. For this I pulled out my Rockwell-Beaver lathe which I've had for about 30 years but HAVE NEVER USED! I was given a set of Marples lathe chisels many many Christmases ago; I pulled them out and honed the 3/4" gouge. After reading a bit of how-to about lathe tool use (haven't used a wood lathe since high school in the 70's) I practiced on a junk piece of spruce, then started on a 3/4" x 3/4" blank of clear pine for the real thing. Well, it just was not going to happen with pine. Two blanks snapped in two during rough turning down to 1/2" DIA. I switched to maple and was able to produce a mast fairly easily. I wanted the colour of pine; I guess I will stain the maple but maple doesn't seem to absorb stain so well. Maybe a dye would be better? Here is my lathe. Many many years ago I mounted it on a long plank for clamping to the work bench, and mounted the motor beneath the bench where it hangs on a pivot to use its weight for belt tensioning. I even went to the trouble of installing an electrical box at the top of the bench's left leg with a switch and an outlet for the lathe motor! Then I slid the lathe on its board under the bench and never used it. 😐 Here is my mast. The square section up high will have the sheave for the yard halyard. Deck shot; nothing is fixed in place as yet. Still need to print at least two more hatch gratings. And an overall pic. Thanks to all who follow!

Bill, I've only ever planked one hull and that was in the 70's (which may indicate how much I enjoyed it?). If it was me, with that bluff bow, I would fill ahead of the 1st bulkhead with soft wood and carve to shape. By the way, is there no rebate to carve along the keel in this model?

You seem to have started at your usual blazing pace, Bill. Looking forward to your model's assembly. Especially your first planking....😏.

Steven, off topic I know; apologies: with your research into these ancient ships, do you have any idea what scale diameter mast might be suitable for my Roman galley? It must not have been too massive since the guys had to tilt it up into the tabernacle, and also lift it onto the storage racks. I was thinking maybe 14"??? Which would be 7/16" at scale, so 1/2" dowel. What do you think?

Yes, or pour it. That would be a lot of resin for a model the size of the SR, but it would look awesome!

Hi Bill .... what I have seen done is to make the water surface from a sheet of lexan with the waterline profile cut out of it; make your wavelets on it and colour it; have clear sides on the stand so the viewer can see the ship u/w too. Some transparent blocks of lexan can be used to support the ship so the "sea" doesn't sag.

Well done! But to me the biggest problem with these shroud jigs is the absence of all the served shroud pair centres stacked up the masthead. I suppose one could CA the shroud ends at the base of the masthead (at about the bolster) then "serve" part of the masthead to make it look more like the shrouds are properly constructed. Having said that, in the "Victory" kit the lower mastheads above the bolster are separate parts from the remainder of the masts. If memory serves, the shroud jig for this kit has a spot for the masthead to attach and then you really can wrap and serve the shroud pairs around the masthead, although Heller still shows the wrong way of seizing them together.

I've been really impressed with some of these card builds on the site; first Chris Coyle's airplanes and now ships such as yours (which looks great by the way). They're amazing when done well. I must try one someday.......

Mon Dieu, monsieur! You are going to the nth degree in details Malcolm. Congratulations and if you keep this up your ship will be magnifique!

Man, I wouldn't want to have to (carefully) dust your outstanding model ... ☺️

I really like the look of your deck Malcolm. And your quarterdeck rail netting... I take it that's your new stuff, compared to the bulwark netting? Like the coat of arms too.

Steven, there's also "Albion Alloys" in the UK which similar to K&S makes brass/aluminium tube and rod down to micro sizes. Last time I needed some 1/32in DIA tubing I obtained it from Albion because K&S would only sell me in large paks, not onesies and twosies. Albion may be in your country too, being British.

Watch out for cyclists - it could be me. 😏 It is a nice road especially nearer the Narrows end. Remember when it was mostly unpaved from Stanleyville to the Narrows? I remember once coming across a couple whose car had slid into the very sandy ditch at the side. Hopeless - call a tow truck. Geez that was a long time ago.

Not at all; I just remember the problems I encountered with the kit, and what I did to get around them. Photos trigger the nightmares again. 😉 By the way Malcolm, don't forget about the extra eyebolts at the mast feet for the truss pendants, like we talked about during your visit.

The two bays .... five minutes by canoe from our place. Look forward to it!

Westport, we have a cottage on Pike Lake near Stanleyville and I often cycle a loop along #10 to Westport then back through Newboro to cross at Narrows Lock and hence back to Stanleyville. The three of us should get together this summer for Cheers, Ian

Mike, I can't believe this; first you help us get plans for "SS Klondike" from the Parks Canada office in the same Whitehorse building where you work, now you tell us you still have a cottage on Pike Lake. Our cottage is also on Pike near Stanleyville! We go in past the playground and cemetery and keep to the left at every intersection to reach our cottage which is just opposite the largest of the group of three islands, on which people used to camp. Our kids called it "Beaver Island" because there was an active beaver lodge on it when we bought the place, only to watch all the big old birch trees on the island be chewed down one by one. What a small world.

Absolutely; they towed the boats into battle to reduce flying splinters on board, though they'd be towed astern (check that shot of my print "England Expects" that you included in one of your earlier posts). I've also read that they cast off the boats when battle gets engaged to get them off their tail, but maybe that's a myth. You know how there always seem to be ships' boats rescuing men in the foreground of so many period sea battle paintings? Maybe just artistic composition. You could always rework the sea if you moved the 2nd boat aft.

I'm sure it was always her dream to see this ship, Malcolm. HaHa. Welcome to MSW; I am your newest follower. Seeing the photo with the foremast head in place reminds me to recommend: By all means glue the mast heads on, but leave off the cleats on the side faces on fore and main (for the jeer block lashings) and any rigging blocks for now. Reason being is that it is far easier to loop (the served) shroud pairs around a suitably sized drill or dowel for seizing then slip them over the masthead and down, rather than trying to seize each in turn around the masthead. Once the shrouds are in place the mast cap and topmast (and the jeer block cleats) can be added.

Excellent! If I ever build her it will be for RC. Wondering if I could have two servos act as the engines, pulling the paddle wheel at 90 degree offsets .... 😜

Bill, At anchor with the sails set? Your story could be that the anchor is fouled on the bottom and they are trying to sail it out of the ground (like in the Hornblower story "The Happy Return").

Thank you all! Much appreciated. I very much enjoy the comments, suggestions, and bantering asides during this build. It will be nice to add the finishing touches to the model and finally reclaim my workshop from this long drawn out project. I have some new kitchen drawers to make. Cheers, Ian

Here is a short video of the galley in the RC boat club indoor pool session. You can see my hastily-thrown-together transport dolly at the corner of the pool. Embarrassingly, I forgot to put the main deck on at launch hence the return to "shore". No rudders installed as yet hence the pivoting to turn. After a pivot she seems to keep veering in that direction for a while when rowing "straight". Nothing the rudders won't cure. Also note the 6V square lantern battery sticking up a little out of the stern deck. It's too tall to fit under the rear hatch. Still haven't bought the fancy 5-cell NiMH which will fit into the hull. Was planning to put it aft which is quite empty, but the only thing it connects to is my arduino daughter board in the bow. Here I used lamp cord running through the bilge for the connection. I'm not sure what current the giant sweep servos draw when rowing but I plan to insert n ammeter to find out, and to measure the 6V at the battery and at the bow to see if there's a substantial voltage drop. Lamp cord is a pretty big wire. If the drop is substantial the NiMH battery would be best in the bow, if I can fit it in this already crowded location (two sweep servos, Arduino, RC Rcvr, 12V battery). Or use something even bigger than lamp cord. It does look a little odd with the clear sweep of the empty deck. Will be doing something about that shortly.