Keith Simmons

Hey Popeye, very clean looking build, everything thing nice and straight. I'm jealous..lol

Hi Patrick, Thanks a lot, I really like to start a ship and see where the process takes me, kinda fun that way. I believe I have come up with an idea for the finished ship, I hope it turns out as cool as I see it in my head....lol

Well, finally have the hull and deck planked, time for a little thought as to where I go from here. Guess I can do that while I'm sanding ...  The bulk of the hull is planked with quarter sawed African Mahogany ( which I call Bubble Wood ) , the transom was made with rough sawed  African mahogany as well.. The lines of the hull are broken up a bit by the Bubinga wings but still has the sleek look I was going for. The deck is planked in Maple, forgot to take a picture of that. 
Back to the drawing board... Thanks for taking a look....

Well, finally have the hull and deck planked, time for a little thought as to where I go from here. Guess I can do that while I'm sanding ...  The bulk of the hull is planked with quarter sawed African Mahogany ( which I call Bubble Wood ) , the transom was made with rough sawed  African mahogany as well.. The lines of the hull are broken up a bit by the Bubinga wings but still has the sleek look I was going for. The deck is planked in Maple, forgot to take a picture of that. 
Back to the drawing board... Thanks for taking a look....

Thanks Patrick, as soon as I get The Lindworm ready for rigging I will rig all three ships at the same time. I sometimes get distracted by another design..lol

Hi Patrick, Thanks a lot, I really like to start a ship and see where the process takes me, kinda fun that way. I believe I have come up with an idea for the finished ship, I hope it turns out as cool as I see it in my head....lol

Hi Keith
 
I'm not sure how, or, why, but for some reason, the hull looks a lot like Jules Vernes' Nautilus submarine. I like it!!!
 
The other thing I like is the fact that you're applying your imagination to such good effect. Throw out the rule book and just go where your heart and imagination takes you.
 
Nice and refreshing, I say.
 
Cheers and all the best.
 
Patrick

interesting concept for hull construction    I noticed that you didn't rib out the bow or stern.  amazing that you were able to retain the shape,  by simplt using the center spine     so cool!      gives it that  'Capt. Nemo' flare.

super shine........really makes the grain pop!   I really like the design.........are you going to have sails as well?

Hi Keith
 
Very nice and I can't wait to see her all rigged and ready for the maiden voyage.
 
Cheers
 
Patrick 

Moved into finishing stage on my hull and masts, after several coats of lacquer I will begin final assembly. The only things left to make are the cannons, trim on sterncastle and the black sails. Then I will have a rigging session with both Blockade Runner and this one...
 
  Thanks for your interest in this ship, I believe I have chosen a style for my next ship and  going to attempt a real plank on frame build. I am in the process of designing the hull now. After seeing the great work being done out there, there was no where else for me to go..lol
 
 

Hey Popeye, very clean looking build, everything thing nice and straight. I'm jealous..lol

Hi all, this is my first attempt at mapping out a hull design.With no particular ship in mind I started out by making a grid on a piece of cardboard and drew a basic deck outline.With that done I cut out some cardboard ribs to form the middle section,
then using spacer blocks to stand the ribs up I adjusted the shape of the hull by eye with sandpaper and a utility knife. At this point it looked like I was going to end up with some sort of cabin cruiser.
 
   Looking around the shop I found some old scrap squares of 1/2" plywood to use and started jigsawing out some ribs.After getting what I thought was the bulk of the middle section cut out I assembled them with 1 1/4" spacers. I then clamped the whole section in my small work table and proceeded to shape the frame with an orbital sander. Here is where my mind starts to race..lol

Well, finally have the hull and deck planked, time for a little thought as to where I go from here. Guess I can do that while I'm sanding ...  The bulk of the hull is planked with quarter sawed African Mahogany ( which I call Bubble Wood ) , the transom was made with rough sawed  African mahogany as well.. The lines of the hull are broken up a bit by the Bubinga wings but still has the sleek look I was going for. The deck is planked in Maple, forgot to take a picture of that. 
Back to the drawing board... Thanks for taking a look....

Once I had a basic shape I decided to run some African Mahogany planking so I could figure out how to fill in the bow and stern with solid blocks.I then added a Mahogany keel strip to help me eyeball the bow rise. Not sure what happened but I saw something and went off in a whole other direction. By adding Mahogany bow and stern sections I elongated the hull by several inches and that is when it became a dragon ship. The middle section looked like a belly of a beast and changed my plan, so I added blocks at the keel and transom lines to allow for diagonal planking. From here on anything is possible as the ideas are racing around in my head...
 

Hey Popeye, very clean looking build, everything thing nice and straight. I'm jealous..lol

so now it's a toss up........do I want to plank the aft deck......or continue what I'm doing here?   I have a neat idea going....so I'll just continue.   I had finished assembling the top landing for the stairway.
 

 

 
the underside of the landing was boxed in,  so I can add some supports to it.  now that I had the size of the landing figured out,  I could add the other side of the fore deck border,  on the deck.   it's just fitted in place for now.
 

 
I had bought that package of small diameter dowels......they will make the perfect supports for the landing.   I even added in some bracing.
 

 
after I added in the front support brace and the borders for the railings, it was sanded and dry fit.   clean it up a bit more and it will get paint.
 

 
the border on the fore deck was painted and cemented in place.
 

 
holes were drilled.......the railings on the starboard side were bent to follow the companion way.   these will continue on and around the landing.   the post side will terminate at the end of the run.
 

 

 
I sorta goofed a little on the port side.......I did manage to straighten it out a little,  but the turn of the railing is not perfect.  
     I think to fix it further might cause a bigger problem.......so I'll leave it the way it is for now  {or until it bugs me enough to fix it}.   the landing is painted and put back in place to check where to drill the rest of the holes for the railings.
 

 
I'd have gone further,  but >sigh<  it was time to go to work.   more tomorrow  

Más

do not. I'm doing a 1/24 scale.
some progress

Rochefort will begin.  
short all the frames and keel.  
 

 

Hi Ray,
 
I have seen many great wooden ship models built with just simple hand tools. Some of the fancy tools make certain jobs easier but the hand tools do just fine. I mostly use hobby knives, razor saw, measuring tools and clamps. There are a few other tools that you can get as you go. One of the best tools is this forum. 

Head figure for Pegasus model. First, design model in 3D, then CNC mashining and manual finishing of.

Here are the posts from my Badger log on how I added a furled fore topmast staysail and a furled jib.
 
 
Before I get too far, let me mention the resources that were of immense help in figuring out what to do:
 
1.  Lennarth Petersson - Rigging Period Ship Models - pictures say a thousand words, and this book really simplifies the mysteries of rigging.  Helpful to see the pictures of how the rigging for these sails works, but I would say that it shows rigging for larger ships so, for example, the haliards would be more simple than the block and tackle arrangements shown in this book.  Still, very highly recommended.
 
2.  The Fully Framed Model (TFFM) Vol. 4 - This Swan series book is an incredible resource for anyone that wants great detail into rigging period ships.  Antscherl compiles a lot of research into this book, with excellent pictures, to help one go step by step.
 
3.  Lees - The Masting and Rigging of English Ships of War - Good detailed historical account and narrative description of these sails and their rigging.  
 
4.  Harland - Seamanship in the Age of Sail - Excellent descriptions of the actual mechanics of bending, raising, furling, etc. sails.  Very helpful discussion of what went into furling sails, particularly how the sails were gathered and then a "skin" was draped over the entire bundle.  The remaining 2/3rds of the book goes into fantastic details on how the sails operated in various conditions, etc.
 
Here are the pictures of where I am now, and I'll set up the next couple of posts to talk about the construction of both sails.  Needless to say, for what ultimately looks like rolled up wet tissues, these things took a while to figure out how to construct and to install.  But, I very much like the end result, which to me anyway looks better than a ship bare of sails.  The staysail needs a bit more positioning, which I will do once the sheet whips are installed.
 

 

 

Thanks very much everyone.  I ended up doing an amalgam of things from other furled sail resources that I found.  Here is a pictorial of how I proceeded.  I wanted to find a way to furl the sails without needing to do any sewing - given that the sails are tightly furled, I think you can drop off a lot of the lines (hems, reef, etc.) which was why I went the furled route.  Hopefully this looks convincing.  Also, please excuse the pictures against my hobby cutting mat, which has seen better days 

 

The cloth I used was the thinnest weight cotton (muslin I think) that I could find at JoAnn's Fabrics.  Frank (riverboat) was very kind to send me a sample of the cloth he used on his Supply, which I was able to find at my local store.  After washing and ironing, it was soft and thin enough to use.  Thanks very much Frank!  Others use tissue paper and silkspan which are thinner, but likely need to be painted afterwards.  I wanted to avoid using paints, and thought that the fabric I found had a nice natural color that worked for my build.

 

The first item was to draft the sail plan for each of the sails.  Much of this was guesswork from using the plans with distance between the yards.  The Caldercraft plans have the topmast and topgallant yards in the lowered position (note, however, that the lower yards are always fixed), so to I had to draw the plans with the yards in the raised position to create the plan for the full sail.  These were sketched out on paper.

 



 

Next step was to reduce the size of the sails to avoid them looking too bulky.  Tightly furled sails should be about the size of the yard, so resources I've seen said to reduce the sail by 1/3 to 1/2 or more.  As you'll see, I ended up reducing the sail to probably only 1/3 of the full sail volume.  The shape may seem a bit odd, but it's intended to reduce the sail volume as you get closer to the ends of the yards, as well as include the clews which are the dog ears on the bottom.  The sails will be folded twice to not only get the dog ears to the top of the sail, but also to pull more volume of the sail to the middle of the yard.  The pattern is folded a bit as I practiced how those two folds would work.

 



 

Next up was to cut out the sail using the pattern.  Hems are usually added to the edge of the sail to avoid issues with the cloth fraying, as well as to give a stronger area on which to sew the various lines (so the thread doesn't pull through and rip the thin cloth, especially where the sewed holes are close to the edge).  I found a way to avoid all that - anti-fray adhesive    It worked very well in not only preventing fraying as the cloth was cut, but it also stiffened up the fabric a tad bit to make cutting the cloth in straight lines very simple and strong enough to sew close to the edge without needing a hem.  I also used Aleene's fabric glue in various steps to glue the cloth - it is thicker and much tackier than diluted PVA, which made for much quicker gluing times without needing pins or clamps to keep the glued portions together - a few seconds of holding them together did the trick.  Both adhesives glued clear, without any sheen, and without stiffening the cloth much at all.  It's probably worth trying them out on whatever cloth you use as a test to make sure you get similar results.

 



 



 

Next post will show how the sails are bent to the yard and furled.

Hi everyone, I started working on furled sails on my Badger build and posted a mini summary on my Badger build log.  At the suggestion of a couple of friends, I thought it might be helpful to repost my technique here on this forum, instead of it possibly being buried in my build log.
 
Here are the pictures of the topgallant yards, which still can use a bit of tweezer work before being set with diluted PVA.  I think there's some room for improvement, but overall I was pleased with how the furled sails are coming out.  I'd love to hear of other techniques or possible suggestions for enhancements.    Thanks!