FriedClams

Wonderful work Dan - Very nice. Such a tangle of ductwork to sort out. If you ever tire of ship modeling, it looks like you have a career in HVAC waiting for you. Gary

She’s looking sweet Keith. The hull is gorgeous and drilling all those portholes must have been nerve wracking. Your control pedestal also turned out extremely nice. Well done. Gary

Very interesting build log G.L. Packed with useful techniques and a pleasure to read. Very creative and wonderful results. Thank you for sharing your work. Gary

Thank you Keith and Druxey for stopping by and for your comments. Thanks Druxey. None of these techniques are of my own invention. I've picked them up from other modelers who have skills far superior to mine. But I enjoy the process of seeing what works and what doesn't. Here is a link that drills down into one of the many modeling projects by Chuck Doan. It is typical of the level of his work. Shown is a tugger hoist that he drew up and had 3D printed in 1:16. But the magic happens when he weathers it. Check it out. https://public.fotki.com/ChuckDoan/model_projects/fordson-skagit-tugg/29853155738-4a01be-1.html Gary

Thank you John - I appreciate it. And thanks to those looking in and hitting the like button. Fish and Ice Hold Hatches I intended to include the equipment storage and checkers in this post, but that will be the next one. The fish hold hatch sits slightly forward of center on the aft deck. It measures 8 feet long by 4 feet wide and has three covers. The hatch coamings are 11” high, but I’m building the box out of slightly wider material. This will allow me to profile the bottom edges to conform to the crown and sheer of the deck without loosing the 11 inches in height. The ice hold sits aft of the fish hatch and is 4.5 feet x 2.5 and stands 8” high. I begin by drawing up the hatch coamings and covers for both fish and ice holds. From 1/16” thick stock, I cut the coamings needed for both hatches. I use a 1-2-3 block as an aid in producing a square corner. CA is being used because I’ll be using alcohol to color them. And as you know, PVA and alcohol don’t play well together. I use a flat sanding surface to maintain flat square surfaces all around. I find it easier to push pieces around on a stationary flat surface than to sand a stationary piece with a moving sanding surface. I’ve made several of these surfaces - different grits of paper and emery that are glued down to both sides of a 4” x 7” piece of craft plywood. Having grit on both sides keeps them from sliding around. Before I begin the hatch covers, I confirm the frame size. To make the covers, appropriate sized strips of wood are glued directly to the drawing extending across all three covers. I then cut along the dashed location lines with a straight edge and blade. They are left wide and will be adjusted later. Coloring the frames starts with applying a mixture of India ink and 70% ethyl alcohol. (Any alcohol works.) Then the frames are painted with an off-white acrylic and allowed to dry for about ten minutes. Applying regular cellophane tape to selected areas of the paint and then tearing it off like an old bandage leaves a peeled paint appearance. More paint can be pulled off in areas where you burnish through the tape surface. There is a window of time when this technique works most effectively – letting the paint dry too long or too little produces disappointing results. Experimentation on scrap is essential. Different species of wood and stain/paint combinations work with varying degrees of success. But it always works. (Batteries not included and your mileage may vary.) The hatch covers are stained next. They are placed on a sheet of paper with double-sided tape. Chalk is scrapped off the side of soft pastel sticks (dry, not oil based) into three small piles – black, brown and white. After applying a wash of ink/alcohol, I highlight areas with the chalk. Black and brown for general coloration, and white to simulate sun and water bleaching. The chalk is applied with a brush wet with straight alcohol. Touching the chalk dust with the brush produces a puddle of wash as subtle or bold as you wish depending on the amount of alcohol applied. It penetrates the wood and can be blended and re-worked with straight clean alcohol. White is the most difficult to work because you can’t see it while wet. You have to wait for the alcohol to evaporate off to see the results. Where too much chalk was applied, I remove and/or blend it back with clean alcohol. This photo shows the three-stage progression. For lifting rings I found some guy wire eyes in my styrene junk yard that scale to 3” in diameter. They were painted flat black enamel and glued into indents in the hatch covers. Brown chalk was used to simulate traces of rust on and around the pulls. This helped in visually setting the pulls into place. Finally an insert is placed into the frame to hold the covers. The ice hatch was built in the same way. I’m going to hold off placing these hatches on the deck for now, as they would interfere with upcoming work. Next - equipment storage and checkers. Thanks for taking a look. Gary

Such excellent work Kortes - in every aspect. Gary

Wonderful looking hull Keith, very nice - and a beautiful shop too. Gary

Hello Dan and John, Yes, the blowers can exhaust or supply air. In your photo above it is being used for exhaust because the output of the blower is going to atmosphere. If fresh air is supplied to the intake, the output of the blower at the spiral end can be ducted to wherever the fresh air is needed. But the air can only move in one direction - from intake at the center of the impeller then out the spiral. Reversing motor rotation will not move air in the opposite direction. So I should have called it a “centrifugal blower” being used in an exhaust application. Sorry that I caused some confusion there. Gary

Keith and John - Thank you for your comments and interest in my build. And thanks to all who have stopped by and for hitting the like button. Railcaps Here is a short update showing the rail cap and stern area bitts installed. To begin I needed a pattern for the rails. I took a sheet of letter-sized paper and placed it on the deck/bulwarks of the model. Running my finger over the paper and along the edge of the boat left a nice clearly defined crease in the paper. I did this for both P/S rails. Care was needed to keep from shifting the paper while tracing the edges. I found this much easier than tracing with a pencil. Using a French curve, I refined both creases into smooth arcs. I then cut along these lines and held them to the model to check for accuracy. Satisfied, I then transfer the arcs to cardboard and cut them out. These were then glued to a cardboard base. This would serve as my forms for the railcaps. To make up the caps, I laminated two strips of basswood with PVA and pinned them to forms to dry. Waxed paper was put down to keep them from sticking to the cardboard. Once dry, they were sanded flat and smooth then trimmed and fitted. They were attached to the model using CA. Extra material was added for a wider rail at the aft deck. Inwales were installed and rail cap was added across the top of the transom. All were base painted white. Bitts were made up and installed through the railcap in each corner of the stern. This turned out to be one of those tasks that you think will be simple and fast, but ends up taking a lot longer. The bitts took no time to make – a square piece of wood cut to length with a piece of blackened brass stuck through it. But cutting the square holes through the railcap took much longer. They have to be positioned the same on each side. They have to stand parallel with the deck boards rather than the railcap. And one errant stroke of the file and the hole would be out of square, crooked or worst of all - too big. Some other views. Next, I begin on the equipment storage area, ice and fish hold hatches and the checkers. Thanks for taking a look. Gary

Hello Dan, Your Leviathan built is coming along great and a real pleasure to follow. Beautiful work. You probably already know this, but perhaps not all of your readers do. The snail shaped fans are called “centrifugal exhaust blowers”. Mounted directly onto the motor shaft inside the spiral housing is a squirrel cage impeller. The intake to the blower is always into the center of the impeller on the side opposite of the motor. The exhaust is out the end of the spiral. So what appears to be an end cap is probably an elevated cover or hood protecting the blower from rain while still allowing the blower to exhaust. And just like the name implies, they are installed to exhaust a given space or area. Here in the US, the capacity rating is in CFM (cubic feet per minute) and its application is sized according to the volume of space to be evacuated and how many air changes per hour are required. Here is a photo of a few blowers sitting on the manufacturer’s production floor. So, that’s all the irrelevant air handling minutia that I know. Looking forward to the continuation of your build. Gary

Keith, your planking is looking terrific - so tight edge to edge. And a good call on the keel plank. The beautiful form of the hull belies the complexities in planking it. Gary

Thank you Druxey and Keith for your words of encouragement. And thanks to everyone for looking in and hitting the like button. Decking To begin, I make up the deck beams by cutting 1/8” square basswood stock into approximately 4” lengths. Each beam is allowed to soak in ethyl alcohol for about 15 minutes before bending them to match the arc of the CAD printout. For gentle sweeping bends like this, I prefer alcohol simply because it dries so quickly. Only 9 beams total are needed. As soon as the beams are dry, they are cut and sanded to fit, then glued into place. The beams are installed beginning at the point where the hull is the widest and then installed toward the bow and stern. If a beam is inadvertently cut too short, it could still used at the adjacent narrower hull position. Additional stanchions are needed beyond those that are provided by the hull bulkheads; so intermediate stanchions are placed at the aft deck. Acrylic gray is applied to the stanchions and bulwark as a base color. Next, the covering boards are notched around the stanchions and checked for fit – then adjusted and re-checked over and over and … Finally, they are painted off-white acrylic as a base and glued into place. Before the decking can begin, a socket for the mast is made up and installed. A short mast placeholder is inserted. The deck planking used on this model scales to about 3.5” wide by 2” thick, which is in line with what I found to be typical for this boat. The deck boards are placed on a piece of waxed paper and pre-stained with a mixture of India ink and alcohol. They are stained unevenly so the decking has a wide range of light to dark coloration. This is a base only and is applied to accentuate the wood grain and provide depth and visual separation between individual planks. When the decking is complete, it will be sanded and color washed. At the beginning of every modeling project a decision about level of detail must be made. This is often driven by scale. The deck planks are .072” wide and a total of 62 planks make contact with the covering boards, so I decided not to nib them in. This model is not being built to celebrate its beauty - it is a working boat built to depict gritty reality. Or at least that is the goal. If this sounds suspiciously like a justification of laziness posing as a reasonable explanation – you might be right. The king plank is the first to go on and then the planking proceeds to the covering boards. With the aft deck completely planked, it looks like this. After the deck is sanded, a wash of gray gouache is applied. It is thinned down considerably with water. Unlike watercolor, gouache is opaque but can be made translucent. It is also very flat, even dusty looking when applied in this way. And it is very forgiving and can be re-worked. Here is a before and after of the same section of deck. There will be more work done to the deck surface once equipment and hatches are installed and wear patterns established. It’s hard not to look at the top of the stanchions and bulwark, but the weathering and wear to the covering board is the purpose of this photo. The acrylic paint was picked at with a dental tool and ink/alcohol applied. The alcohol bubbled up the paint and the ink stained the wood beneath. Loose paint is then scraped off. Next, an area for the pilothouse is framed in the forward deck. The planking and coloring is applied same as the aft deck. Thanks for taking a look. Gary

Doris, I have read your log from the beginning and I echo the compliments others have already made. Your work in card and paper is wonderful, but it is your modeling in polymer that I find just so very exceptional and elegant. Thank you for sharing your work with us. Gary

Very nice work on this model Jean-Paul. Very cleanly built and a pleasing warm coloration. Keep up the great work. Gary

Such wonderful work Kortes - very nice indeed. Gary

What a beautiful ship you’re building Paul. Excellent craftsmanship. Your Brodie stove came out great. Very nice. Gary

Thanks to all for the hitting the like button - I appreciate it. Keel Correction Whether it’s a scale model or a bathroom re-model, I expect to encounter problems in just about everything I do. For me, finding solutions to the unexpected is part of the fun of model building. But it’s not fun when I cause the problem. There should be a minimum of 6 inches of keel showing below the hull planking – there is only 2. So I added on 5 scale inches to the keel. I also added one scale inch to the stem. This brought the keel back to the proper exposure. Some sanding and some paint will cover the patched-on wood. Here is a before and after: In the next photo, notice how the lowest hull plank swings upward away from the keel as it approaches the sternpost. It should remain parallel with the keel. Sometimes my desire to push ahead causes me to lose focus on the task at hand. I should have either tapered those lowest planks wider as they ran toward the stern or added steelers. Rather than pull the lower 5 planks off each side for a re-do, I opted instead to mitigate the error with a cosmetic alteration. Also, I sanded down the planks that are lying flat against the sternpost to a thinner profile so that they appear rabbeted in with a slight reveal. Thanks, Gary

Congratulations Steve on the completion of your John Cudahy. It came out great and is just dripping with atmosphere and realism. Very nice! Gary

Hi Frank, I've been away from this forum for almost two years. but I remember you starting this model and I remember well your wonderful Dunbrody build. This Kathryn build is also exceptionally well done and a pleasure to read through. You take such extraordinary care in your research, modeling and your log presentation. Thanks for sharing that with us. I wish you a peaceful 2019. Gary

I've been away for a while and sorry I missed your Genesis build. It turned out great just like your other miniature marvels. You sure do pack your models with details and at such small scale. Great stuff Patrick. Gary

Interesting subject Mark - I will be following. Gary

Transom Here are a couple of photos of the transom backing taken after the hull was cut away from the base and before the top three courses of hull planking were put on. The tab that secured it to the building base hasn’t been removed yet. You can see the temporary jig holding the transom backing to the required curvature. Now with the hull planking on but still running past the transom, I am able to remove the temporary jig and apply the three transom boards that will make up the outer surface of the transom. First I cut the boards from the basswood sheet leaving extra material to sand and fit each board. Unlike the transom backing where the wood grain is vertical, these boards are cut so the grain is horizontal. Test fitting these outer boards was rather tedious and fiddly because I couldn’t cut the hull planking flush until the outer transom boards were on. They also had to be pre-bent against the grain to fit the curvature of the transom backing. One at a time they were fitted, held in position with clamps and glued with very thin CA. A few drops of the CA applied to the upper edge of each board were all that was needed to secure them. The watery CA raced down between the two wood surfaces, effectively creating a two-layer plywood. At this point the base tab was removed and the hull planking trimmed and sanded flush. Marking the water line was simple by placing the model back onto the base. The irregularity of the cuts when the boat was separated from the base allowed it to key back into place exactly and perfectly level. There are several problems with the keel, stem and area around the sternpost that need to be corrected. They will be addressed on the next post. Thanks for looking in. Gary

Beautiful work on this Launch Michael. The lantern is wonderful and your engine is true craftsmanship to say the least. Thanks for sharing your work methods, approach and techniques. Gary

She’s coming along beautifully John! An interesting subject, so cleanly crafted. Gary

Hello Keith, I just wanted to stick my head in to say what wonderful progress your making on your schooner. Your process is well thought out and meticulously executed. The log is a pleasure to follow and educational as well. Thanks for sharing this with us. Oh - and yes I am envious of your sophisticated sanding devices that you chose to shamelessly flaunt back on post #136. Gary