FriedClams

It's been awhile since I posted on my build. As some of you know I have been casting parts for my build. These are the latest, some anchors for the fore deck. I made up a master out of brass and copper. Made a vulcanized rubber mold to fit a tray a friend made for me. Spun up some anchors and added a cross arm made from copper wire with a small copper ring soldered on for a stop along with a couple small blobs of solder for the balls on the ends. Lightly sandblasted and drilled for arm, chain ring with a little color added.

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

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

Hello Jan,
 
I think you mean how I managed it? The short version is, with much patience and and strong glasses.
 
The long version is trying and trying. I think it's the 4. generation you see there. Here some pictures who may explain more then words.
 

 

 

 
And that are the guys who did't make it and now had to suffer for some experiments
 

Hi Siggi,
 
congrats on modeling those lovely figurines, I just love them.....   
very well done !
Nils

Hello,
 
today we had an inspection from the admiralty. That is the guy with the red coat. The shipwright try to explain, why the shipyard is't working at all: because the main worker did't feel very good. But he should soon start working again. 
 
In the background his assistant controlled the high of the deck clamp. It's pretty low. Here you could stay only between the beams!
 

 

 
And here is the new crew. I build them from sheets of brass, wire, plaster , paper and cotton for hair. And of coarse a lot of paint. And yes, these clumsy hands could build such small and delicate things. 😉 But it was't easy. 
 
I feel a little better now and hope that I could start working again soon. My main problem is that I'm so spiritless, and the next time I have to build the gun ports for the upper decks. That is nothing that really encourage you.
 

 

 

 

 

Hello Marc,
 
that sounds all very logical. But do you think that all modellers of that time make the same shortcut? And also the painters? I did one side of the ship this way, it's more complicated then making the lid with a step. I think that it's a shortcut of modern modellers. Also when that exist already in earlier times. 
 
As I once before tried to say, the lids of the contemporary models seams to have the right thickness. Outer planking the same size then the ships planking with a 1-1,5" lining. So they had to cut back the frames a little. And the rabbet is much les then 3-3,5"= 1,6-1,8 mm broad. May be 0,5mm =1" This 1" or a little more and another 1-1,5" deep, that would be the rabbet I'm speaking about. And it's above the gun deck, so the ship would't fall apart from this. 
 
On the other hand, who told us, that the outer planking of the lid is of the same thickness then the outer planking of the ship? I found that in Goodwin's book, but what is the source? I cant remember. What is, when the whole lid is between 3-3,5" thick? The magical number from Steel around 1800!  Then Victory's Lids are of the same thickness then the planking of the ships side (it looks so), then no extra rabbet is to cut. If that is also true for the older ships, I don't know. As I said before, they look at the models as if they have the right thickness. 
 
One argument we did't discus till now is the fact, that if the inner lining of the lid has the same size of the the outer planking, all for sides of the lid lie in the rabbet. Not only the left and right side and the plank above and below, when the lining is cut back. I think the construction is weaker when the lining is only nailed to the back of the outer planking.
 
Druxey, that are your strong arguments? You could put these two sentence in a grinder, there would't come out more. 
 
For those who did't know what we are speaking about, that is all from a book of 641 pages! At least it mean, the lid is not less then 3-3,5" thick

Greetings everyone;
 
Having seen Steel's description, sent by Druxey, I can now present a solution which we both agree is the most likely one. 
 
Steel specifies that the port stops must be a minimum of 3 to 3 1/2 " depending upon the rate of the ship.
 
The contracts I quoted in an earlier post state that the outer planking of the port lid is the same thickness as the outer planking of the ships side, and that this is backed up by an elm lining laid vertically and nailed to the outer planks of the port lid.
 
By the way Mark (SJ Soane, see post above) I never envisioned a rebate in the frame timbers. A misunderstanding somewhere along the line. Siggi's left hand sketch in post 201 was as I interpreted the contract description.  This has now been slightly refined, see attached sketch. 
 
The stop distance given by Steel is the distance by which the outer planking of the port lid overlaps onto the face of futtock or toptimber.  He also states that the lining is to be 1" to 1 1/4" thick.  This will be the thickness of the elm lining boards on the inner face of the gunport lid.
 
No extra work required, no need to form rebates, no need for the stated dimensions of the gunport to be reduced by a separate lining, and no need to fit the separate lining. 
 

 
All the best,
 
Mark P
Gun port sections002.pdf

Hello,
and many thanks for your likes and comments.
 
Today I finished the first ten gun ports at the Gun deck. These one are not so complicated, but the next will be. The next one I have to do manually for each port. 
 
I think I must not to explain the pictures.
 

 

 
At the inside I made them nearly flush with the hull, so that I have not so much to file and sand later.
 

 

 

 
At the last picture the outside of the port frames are cleaned up and are flush with the outside of the hull.
 
The next time you will hear not so much from me, because I'm busy doing the rest of the ports.
 
 
 

Hello all,
 
after building the Dragon, I'm starting now the blog about building the Tiger from 1747.
 
The Tiger was a 60 gunner after the 1745 establisment. Last year I ordered the plans for the 60 gunners of the 1745 establishment, but learned later that all the 6 ships, build after that plan, where all a little different. So I decided to build the Tiger and that, because it was the only plan that shows also the artwork of the ship. Interessting is also, that they moved the captains cabin sometimes down to the upper deck! There was more space.
http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections.html#!csearch;searchTerm=Tiger_(1747) Here you could see the plans.
 
Then last fall I went to Chatham to see two models of 60 gunners, the Centurion and a unspecified ship (SLR0442 SLR0472). Both ships from the 1730s, but the models are made ca. 1745/47. They will be my reference for the Tiger.
 
And because I had build the Dragon already with frames, I decided to be lazy and build in the bulwark technique. So I started early this year with the hull and that he is.
 

 

 

 
 
 
But before I started with the hull, I made the figure head. Just to see if I could do it after pause for a year. 
 

 
And before the questions come, with what did you do the carving, here is most of it to see. Just with hand tools. To the right you see Leo the second.
 

 
And here is Leo III. From toe to crown hi is 9 cm high, in reality he was 4,5 m high  
 

 

 

 
Here Leo did a sit sample. The guy in the background it's me. 
 

 

 
The next steps would be to close the counter and then made the cannon ports. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Ok while I am waiting for paint to dry let me provide some details about the real tug.
 
After the Exxon Valdez disaster Alaska has implemented additional requirements for oil tankers in the area. This includes what is called a Ready Response tug. This tug escorts any tanker coming into the fuel terminal. And before any oil is moved the Ready Response tug deploys a containment boom around the vessel. The Alert class tugs (there are 3 of them) were designed specifically in response to these new regulations. the Alert carries 2000 feet of containment booms on board. she also had 2 skiffs to help deploy the booms. The alert has 2 fire cannons that can dispense a mixture of foam and water at the rate of 10,000 gallons a min. She also has a built in tank that can hold 50,000 gallons of crude if there is a spill. The school decided that if they were going to have a model it might as well have these additional features to demonstrate to the students.
 
This season the Alert tugs were under bid and so they have returned to Seattle. Which allowed us the opportunity to be on board and take pictures. the pictures below are of the real vessel underway. All 3 tugs were built in a Washington ship yard.
 
 

So a bit of detail for this group. The overall length of the tug model is 3 ft 9 inches. and the max size of bed on all the available 3D printers is 6 inches. so we had to slice the model into 7 slices or sections and then slice again down the keel. and for the final slice (section 7) we needed a flat surface for the printer bed. So section 7 became section 7A port, 7A starboard, & 7B. So a total of 15 hull pieces. I also had some issues with under extrusion. This was solved by using Spackle to fill. Tomorrow I will be using a process called PLA welding to fill the major cracks. Then comes the spackle and sanding.
 
I found it a bit different to create a build board for a model of this size. I used some lengths of 2 X 4 and bolts as you can see below.
 
PS to make the admiral happy I created a spray booth in my garage. And I am learning to air brush!
 
 

I should also mention that like any other project we had a bit of scope creep. When they asked if the model could have Navigation lighting. I said sure no problem. Since I had experience with lots of sailboats and power boats. I figured a light in the cabin, at the masthead, and red & green. no sweat. That is when I was invited to attend a 2 hr. class on the phone about Coast Guard regulations. In the end we will have 16 different circuits of LEDs with several colors. It was also agreed that I would create scale model oil containment booms to go along with the tug and barge.
 
With reluctant help from the Admiral we purchased International Orange cloth and are manufacturing scale model containment booms.
 
I should mention that no one was able to come up with plans for the barge. So work on that model had been significantly delayed. Finally in January we received detail design information for a barge that was twice as big as the one described in the contract. Dr. Per has been slaving away on this part of the project. And will likely complete the design review in the next couple of weeks.
 
Meanwhile Floyd has been experiencing a very steep learning curve on 3D printing and slicing software. I would estimate that for every hull section successfully printed there are 2 failures. And did I mention how long it takes to do a 3D print? The hull consists of 15 sections due to the maximum size we can print a part. These Hull sections can take from 15 hours to 5 days to print.

I have been very remiss in not posting this log. So let me make up for my omission. and please stay with me while I share my complicated story.
 
In late July of 2018 a friend came to me and said "you build model boats don't you?" And when I said yes he handed me a piece of paper with a name and phone number on it. He said "Call this guy. he has money". And with that my adventure began.
 
When I called the guy (his name is Mike) it turned out he is an instructor for a school that trains students for careers in the maritime industry. The school has a harbor tug that is approx. 70 years old and needs to be retired. They don't have a lot of money and came up with the idea of building a model of a tug as an inexpensive way to teach about a modern tug until they can raise the money for the real thing. So they offered me several $1000 to build this model and a fueling barge to go with it. They wanted a tug model that was approx. 4 feet long. As mentioned elsewhere in this site I have been learning Fusion 360 and experimenting with 3D printing. So I thought what a great opportunity to use these skills. Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined what happened from here. Both good and bad.
 
Thanks to this wonderful web site I already knew about someone who had used Fusion to make 6' long 3D printed Battleships. So my first contact was to get an estimate of what it would take and how long. I also knew that my good friend Dr. Per had much more experience in CAD than I have and reached out to him.
 
So I won't go into all the details. but as it turned out This school is part of the federal government and it took several weeks to just get approval on how not to spend any US tax dollars to do this project. It took many more weeks to get connected to the company that designed the Tug. And finally with the help of an attorney and an NDA. We got to spend a day on board the tug here in Seattle and received partial plans. So the non modeling part of this project took 4 1/2 months.
 
Neal was given 6 weeks to develop the CAD drawings and then we had a design review with the customer. All of this was completed 12/21/2018. And now we could start actually modeling. I should also mention that the project was being funded by donations from a 3rd party and it took a while but we got set up as a vendor to them and got paid an initial $500.00 to cover materials.

Hi Paul.
 
The advantage of this approach is that you eventually end up with twice as much material as you started with. You will be able to sell on the spare and plough the surplus into a workshop central heating system.

Caprails and timberheads removed

The middle piece has been sanded down to the correct height of two and a half feet, timberheads on top of eighteen inches will bring it all up to four feet high as it should be

Whilst trying out the fitting I was thinking about the rest of the rigging for the sled so came to msw and searched carronade rigging, lots of options to read and then I noticed a picture of someone's Diana and noticed there was no bulwarks on the forecastle, checking my plans and the Diana book I realised I had a problem and my 12 pound cannons wouldn't fit

As can be seen above more deconstruction has started, always one move forward and two back, in my wisdom I have built up the bulwarks to High and will have to remove all the caprails and timber heads and lower it all down
In fairness to myself the frames were cut nearly seventeen years ago and I made them to the full height including the berthing up, I have then gone ahead and added the timberheads on top, so am now standing at approximately two feet too high

A couple of days off work and reasonable temperatures have got me back in the garage, I started with finishing off some parts for the carronade, breeching rings etc out of brass, and then made up some rope of the right size to check how it all looked

Interesting subject Mark - I will be following.
 
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

Thanks Keith
 
Lining OFF
Beginning the sawdust phase, I cut the bulkheads out with my scroll saw leaving the piece large (cutting to the outside of the template line.)  I do this because I have no skill with the saw and cannot keep to a line.  I then use a bench top disc sander and work back to the template outline.  This works great with the convex edge and I use a Dremel sanding drum for the inside curves.
 
I glue these forms to the platform base and attach the keel/stem.  Before the keel went on, I cut a rabbet on the stem.
 

 
Using a batten to see how the bulkheads faired, I found a problem.  Station #8 was too small and #7 was ridiculously too large.  Looking back at the body plan it’s hard to see how I missed it.  But, that’s the point of going through the fairing up process.  So, I built up #8 and went after #7 with a file.
 

 
Based on photos and drawings, the planking widths for this vessel seem to vary in the 5” to 7” range.  I have a stash of stripwood that scales to approximately 6.5” wide x 1.75” thick so decided to use those.  Because station #7 has the longest edge length of any bulkhead, it will be the location where the planks are at there full width.  From here they taper to the stem and taper back to the stern.  It will require 23 courses of planks per side.
 
There will be 4 belts per side of 6 planks each.  Belt #1 beginning at the keel will have only 5.  From station #7 back to the stern, 4 planks are lost in belt #1.
 
I measure the length of each station edge and check it against what my CAD drawing says it should be.  Knowing how many planks will be required, I generate the following plank width tick mark strips for each bulkhead edge.
 
  
 
The width of the planks at the bow is just under 5.25” which satisfies the “not less than half” plank width guideline.  No steelers or drops are needed.
 
The strip marks are temporarily taped on the bulkheads and a batten strip is used to get a general sense of the curve following the tick marks.
 

 
Happy with the way it looked, I transferred the tick marks to the stations with pencil and temporarily attached thread at each belt as a final check to see how the plank courses run.  After a few minor modifications, I was ready to start planking. 
 

 
Planking
The coloring and weathering the model will receive will not only reveal but also accentuate the planking on the hull, so I won’t be using any filler or putty.  On a previous model, I planked the hull somewhat haphazardly, knowing that I was going to slather Bondo on it and sand it smooth.  I’m happy with the way the model came out, but it would have been more realistic with the planks showing through the paint.
 

 
I set up a little jig to hold the stripwood firmly in place as I slice the taper into it - then sand to fit

I begin planking at the keel with the garboard and lay on two belts of planks on one side.  Each course is tapered on the upper edge of the planks so that each successive course starts with a straight edge.
 
Each course of planks is made from a single strip of wood.  After it is tapered and test fit, it is then cut to simulate the butt ends of two individual boards.  The joints are reinforced on the reverse side. 
 
Two more belts are added to the other side.

 

 
Then the last 4 belts are added minus the top three courses.
 


 
At this point, I cut the hull from the platform.
 

 

 
The next course of planking requires the scuppers.
 

 
Finally, I sand the hull and finish it off with a soft brass wire brush.  The wire brush removes the sanding shine and any cross grain scratches and in general sort of unifies the look.  It will also help with the weathering later on.
 
These final photos were taken in full direct sunlight in hopes that the effect of the wire brush can be seen.  A few final licks with 800 grit paper will take the remaining wood fuzz off. 
 

 

 
This post brings me up to date in real time on this model.  
 
Thanks for taking a look.
 
Gary
 
 

Interesting subject Mark - I will be following.
 
Gary