FriedClams

Greetings Fellow Modelers,
 
Thanks for the comments and "likes".
 
In the past several months, the most I’ve seen of the Pelican has been when walking by it. This is due to a lack of time and not a lack of interest, but with a friendly nudge from Phil, here’s an update on what I have been doing - sacrificial hull sheathing and protective sheet metal in way of the gallows frames. I want to mention that Phil @Dr PR has already installed protective hull sheathing (a feature rarely modeled) on his excellent USS Cape build. Check it out if you haven't already.
 
In my last post, I described the construction of the gallows frames and associated brackets. It would seem logical that the next step is to now paint, weather, and install these frames. But doing so now would greatly complicate installing the sheet metal below the gallows. This led to yet another task that had to be done before the sheet metal could go on - laying down the protective hull sheathing.
 
Many mid-century wooden fishing boats in New England had partial sheathing that protected the hull from damage when raising and lowering the heavy trawl gear. This sheathing (typically ¾” oak) was sacrificial, and the planks were installed straight and untapered making them easy to replace/repair. The Roann, built in 1946, is a small eastern-rig dragger in the collection of the Mystic Seaport Museum. It was designed by Albert Condon a few years after he designed the Pelican. In the photo below one can see that the sheathing under the starboard gallows extends down below the waterline nearly to the keel. The sheathing also extends forward in a waterline band all the way to the stem. This forward band of sheathing was added to protect the hull from floating ice slabs at a time when harbor freeze-overs were not uncommon. Because the Roann was not equipped to “drag” off port side, only the waterline sheathing was installed, which extends back to midships.
 

 
 
Based on the plans and other boats by the same designer, here’s what the sheathing looks like on the Pelican.  The boards are scale ¾” by 4” and will be applied to both sides, because this vessel could drag off both sides.
 

 
 
Vertical strips of wood are installed against the end grain to reduce water absorption, crushing and splintering of the board ends. Perhaps tar or some other waterproofing was slathered on the ends before the vertical strips were attached.
 

 
 
The sheathing extends onto the stem.
 

 
 
I added the rub rail which sits just below bottom of deck. It’s made up of two pieces which combined stand out from the hull about 3 scale inches. The outer piece is half round styrene.
 

 
 
In the cross section below the sheet metal under the aft gallows is highlighted in blue. The metal is #10 galvanized steel, about .138” (3.5mm) thick. I don’t have a forward cross section of this detail to show, but it’s very similar. Note the added wood structure that holds the sheet metal out from the bulwark and guides it over the rub rail.
 

 
 
The main area of sheet metal consists of seven vertical sections, so the structure is constructed to support them.  Here’s the forward support framing.
 

 
 
And the aft framing.
 

 
 
The drawing below shows the individual sheet panels and their arrangement – also there’s a “U” shaped cap that fits over the rail.
 

 
 
I drew up the forward starboard sheet-metal group in CAD and then adjusted it to match the “as-built” framing of the support structure. On the full sized boat, the vertical panel seams overlap, but on the model they simply butt to each other. The drawing was separated into individual panels to be used as templates.
 

 
 
Thinking that copper would be the material to simulate the metal, I purchased foil that closely scaled to the actual #10 gauge used on the real boat – but that was a bust. While the copper was malleable enough, it dented, scratched and crinkle creased way too easily and so I tried a variety of different materials including aluminum, brass, paper, card and styrene. Each had appeal and issues, but for the small panels on this model, I decided on using inkjet photo paper instead. More precisely, the reverse side of the paper because of its smooth coated surface. It sort of looks and feels like styrene and there’s no sign of fiber. When folded, it creates a nice sharp bend, and the cut edges are clean and fuzz free. This paper is left over from when I had an ink printer, and I suspect any dense hard surface paper would work just as well. Out of curiosity, I did try painting the front “photo” side of the paper. Not good. Think of how an old photo looks that’s been folded, creased, reopened and flattened.
 
Anyway, I printed out the templates directly to the reverse side of the photo paper and cut free the lower section panel to work on first. The upper seven vertical panels will shingle over this panel.
 
I began by slowly going around the perimeter with a black permanent marker allowing time for the paper to absorb the ink. I then flattened/burnished the edges with a spoon shaped sculpting tool.
 

 
 
I then colored it with oxide black acrylic ink.
 

 
 
I painted it with True Metal “iron” and stippled it to remove brush strokes while allowing some small peaks to remain. No attempt at a uniform look.
 

 
 
Letting the paint dry half an hour or so, I then polished the surface with a scrap piece of clean styrene sheet. I just flop the styrene (about 4” square) on top and briskly rub in one direction at a time. The thickness and pattern of paint that was applied in combination with the speed and pressure used when polishing will yield different results.
 
This process reminds me of the drywall texturing I did on a house we renovated about thirty years ago. Called “orange peel knockdown”, it was all the rage back then and great for obscuring a less than stellar drywall installation. The procedure was to splatter spray drywall mud on the wall, wait for it to partially dry, and then knockdown the peaks with a clean trowel. Similar idea here in micro scale.
 

 
 
You can create a variety of different looks by modifying the paint thickness, texture and by how long you let it dry. The test piece on the left in the photo below is True Metal iron on .05” styrene. The paint was gently streaked vertically with just the edge of a toothbrush, allowed to dry then polished with the styrene sheet.  In the middle is TM steel with a speck of burnt umber oil paint added and then applied to 24lb copy paper. The paint wasn’t quite dry when polished leaving long streaks. On the right is TM iron on the back side of photo paper. Because all these materials are thin, any imperfections on the work surface will telegraph up onto the surface of the "metal". This can be used to advantage. Back to the example on the right, I took a piece of double-sided cellophane tape with a fine thread stuck to it and fixed it to my work surface. Placing the photo paper on top and polishing it left a vertical image on the metal. A close look even reveals where the butt end of the tape was. This works so well because the paint is wax based and it’s looking for any excuse to clot. A slight protrusion or hump that develops a hot spot when polished is all it needs. For size reference, the piece on the right is a tad over 1” square.
 

 
 
I cut the seven vertical pieces out and blackened their perimeters. It would have been great to do this as a single piece, but it needs to bend in two dimensions, so that was out.
 

 
 
Painted.
 

 
So here it is all glued to the boat. I used aluminum for the “U” shaped rail cap and applied the same paint and polish to it. The paper cap just looked lumpy.
 
The hull paint is not final and it’s more of a color test than anything.  Hull weathering won't be for some time, but I want to see how the metal weathering will look surrounded by those colors. Typically, I like to start with something that looks new and progressively add wear and age.  This "metal" clearly needs darkening, dents, gouges, streaking, rust and other fun stuff.  
 

 
I wish I liked this metal more than I do, so, I’m going to take another crack at using styrene for the aft metal work and see how they compare. I'll post those results and that of the weathering.
 
Until next time – Take care and thanks for stopping by.
 
Gary

Greetings Fellow Modelers,
 
Thanks for the comments and "likes".
 
In the past several months, the most I’ve seen of the Pelican has been when walking by it. This is due to a lack of time and not a lack of interest, but with a friendly nudge from Phil, here’s an update on what I have been doing - sacrificial hull sheathing and protective sheet metal in way of the gallows frames. I want to mention that Phil @Dr PR has already installed protective hull sheathing (a feature rarely modeled) on his excellent USS Cape build. Check it out if you haven't already.
 
In my last post, I described the construction of the gallows frames and associated brackets. It would seem logical that the next step is to now paint, weather, and install these frames. But doing so now would greatly complicate installing the sheet metal below the gallows. This led to yet another task that had to be done before the sheet metal could go on - laying down the protective hull sheathing.
 
Many mid-century wooden fishing boats in New England had partial sheathing that protected the hull from damage when raising and lowering the heavy trawl gear. This sheathing (typically ¾” oak) was sacrificial, and the planks were installed straight and untapered making them easy to replace/repair. The Roann, built in 1946, is a small eastern-rig dragger in the collection of the Mystic Seaport Museum. It was designed by Albert Condon a few years after he designed the Pelican. In the photo below one can see that the sheathing under the starboard gallows extends down below the waterline nearly to the keel. The sheathing also extends forward in a waterline band all the way to the stem. This forward band of sheathing was added to protect the hull from floating ice slabs at a time when harbor freeze-overs were not uncommon. Because the Roann was not equipped to “drag” off port side, only the waterline sheathing was installed, which extends back to midships.
 

 
 
Based on the plans and other boats by the same designer, here’s what the sheathing looks like on the Pelican.  The boards are scale ¾” by 4” and will be applied to both sides, because this vessel could drag off both sides.
 

 
 
Vertical strips of wood are installed against the end grain to reduce water absorption, crushing and splintering of the board ends. Perhaps tar or some other waterproofing was slathered on the ends before the vertical strips were attached.
 

 
 
The sheathing extends onto the stem.
 

 
 
I added the rub rail which sits just below bottom of deck. It’s made up of two pieces which combined stand out from the hull about 3 scale inches. The outer piece is half round styrene.
 

 
 
In the cross section below the sheet metal under the aft gallows is highlighted in blue. The metal is #10 galvanized steel, about .138” (3.5mm) thick. I don’t have a forward cross section of this detail to show, but it’s very similar. Note the added wood structure that holds the sheet metal out from the bulwark and guides it over the rub rail.
 

 
 
The main area of sheet metal consists of seven vertical sections, so the structure is constructed to support them.  Here’s the forward support framing.
 

 
 
And the aft framing.
 

 
 
The drawing below shows the individual sheet panels and their arrangement – also there’s a “U” shaped cap that fits over the rail.
 

 
 
I drew up the forward starboard sheet-metal group in CAD and then adjusted it to match the “as-built” framing of the support structure. On the full sized boat, the vertical panel seams overlap, but on the model they simply butt to each other. The drawing was separated into individual panels to be used as templates.
 

 
 
Thinking that copper would be the material to simulate the metal, I purchased foil that closely scaled to the actual #10 gauge used on the real boat – but that was a bust. While the copper was malleable enough, it dented, scratched and crinkle creased way too easily and so I tried a variety of different materials including aluminum, brass, paper, card and styrene. Each had appeal and issues, but for the small panels on this model, I decided on using inkjet photo paper instead. More precisely, the reverse side of the paper because of its smooth coated surface. It sort of looks and feels like styrene and there’s no sign of fiber. When folded, it creates a nice sharp bend, and the cut edges are clean and fuzz free. This paper is left over from when I had an ink printer, and I suspect any dense hard surface paper would work just as well. Out of curiosity, I did try painting the front “photo” side of the paper. Not good. Think of how an old photo looks that’s been folded, creased, reopened and flattened.
 
Anyway, I printed out the templates directly to the reverse side of the photo paper and cut free the lower section panel to work on first. The upper seven vertical panels will shingle over this panel.
 
I began by slowly going around the perimeter with a black permanent marker allowing time for the paper to absorb the ink. I then flattened/burnished the edges with a spoon shaped sculpting tool.
 

 
 
I then colored it with oxide black acrylic ink.
 

 
 
I painted it with True Metal “iron” and stippled it to remove brush strokes while allowing some small peaks to remain. No attempt at a uniform look.
 

 
 
Letting the paint dry half an hour or so, I then polished the surface with a scrap piece of clean styrene sheet. I just flop the styrene (about 4” square) on top and briskly rub in one direction at a time. The thickness and pattern of paint that was applied in combination with the speed and pressure used when polishing will yield different results.
 
This process reminds me of the drywall texturing I did on a house we renovated about thirty years ago. Called “orange peel knockdown”, it was all the rage back then and great for obscuring a less than stellar drywall installation. The procedure was to splatter spray drywall mud on the wall, wait for it to partially dry, and then knockdown the peaks with a clean trowel. Similar idea here in micro scale.
 

 
 
You can create a variety of different looks by modifying the paint thickness, texture and by how long you let it dry. The test piece on the left in the photo below is True Metal iron on .05” styrene. The paint was gently streaked vertically with just the edge of a toothbrush, allowed to dry then polished with the styrene sheet.  In the middle is TM steel with a speck of burnt umber oil paint added and then applied to 24lb copy paper. The paint wasn’t quite dry when polished leaving long streaks. On the right is TM iron on the back side of photo paper. Because all these materials are thin, any imperfections on the work surface will telegraph up onto the surface of the "metal". This can be used to advantage. Back to the example on the right, I took a piece of double-sided cellophane tape with a fine thread stuck to it and fixed it to my work surface. Placing the photo paper on top and polishing it left a vertical image on the metal. A close look even reveals where the butt end of the tape was. This works so well because the paint is wax based and it’s looking for any excuse to clot. A slight protrusion or hump that develops a hot spot when polished is all it needs. For size reference, the piece on the right is a tad over 1” square.
 

 
 
I cut the seven vertical pieces out and blackened their perimeters. It would have been great to do this as a single piece, but it needs to bend in two dimensions, so that was out.
 

 
 
Painted.
 

 
So here it is all glued to the boat. I used aluminum for the “U” shaped rail cap and applied the same paint and polish to it. The paper cap just looked lumpy.
 
The hull paint is not final and it’s more of a color test than anything.  Hull weathering won't be for some time, but I want to see how the metal weathering will look surrounded by those colors. Typically, I like to start with something that looks new and progressively add wear and age.  This "metal" clearly needs darkening, dents, gouges, streaking, rust and other fun stuff.  
 

 
I wish I liked this metal more than I do, so, I’m going to take another crack at using styrene for the aft metal work and see how they compare. I'll post those results and that of the weathering.
 
Until next time – Take care and thanks for stopping by.
 
Gary

Greetings Fellow Modelers,
 
Thanks for the comments and "likes".
 
In the past several months, the most I’ve seen of the Pelican has been when walking by it. This is due to a lack of time and not a lack of interest, but with a friendly nudge from Phil, here’s an update on what I have been doing - sacrificial hull sheathing and protective sheet metal in way of the gallows frames. I want to mention that Phil @Dr PR has already installed protective hull sheathing (a feature rarely modeled) on his excellent USS Cape build. Check it out if you haven't already.
 
In my last post, I described the construction of the gallows frames and associated brackets. It would seem logical that the next step is to now paint, weather, and install these frames. But doing so now would greatly complicate installing the sheet metal below the gallows. This led to yet another task that had to be done before the sheet metal could go on - laying down the protective hull sheathing.
 
Many mid-century wooden fishing boats in New England had partial sheathing that protected the hull from damage when raising and lowering the heavy trawl gear. This sheathing (typically ¾” oak) was sacrificial, and the planks were installed straight and untapered making them easy to replace/repair. The Roann, built in 1946, is a small eastern-rig dragger in the collection of the Mystic Seaport Museum. It was designed by Albert Condon a few years after he designed the Pelican. In the photo below one can see that the sheathing under the starboard gallows extends down below the waterline nearly to the keel. The sheathing also extends forward in a waterline band all the way to the stem. This forward band of sheathing was added to protect the hull from floating ice slabs at a time when harbor freeze-overs were not uncommon. Because the Roann was not equipped to “drag” off port side, only the waterline sheathing was installed, which extends back to midships.
 

 
 
Based on the plans and other boats by the same designer, here’s what the sheathing looks like on the Pelican.  The boards are scale ¾” by 4” and will be applied to both sides, because this vessel could drag off both sides.
 

 
 
Vertical strips of wood are installed against the end grain to reduce water absorption, crushing and splintering of the board ends. Perhaps tar or some other waterproofing was slathered on the ends before the vertical strips were attached.
 

 
 
The sheathing extends onto the stem.
 

 
 
I added the rub rail which sits just below bottom of deck. It’s made up of two pieces which combined stand out from the hull about 3 scale inches. The outer piece is half round styrene.
 

 
 
In the cross section below the sheet metal under the aft gallows is highlighted in blue. The metal is #10 galvanized steel, about .138” (3.5mm) thick. I don’t have a forward cross section of this detail to show, but it’s very similar. Note the added wood structure that holds the sheet metal out from the bulwark and guides it over the rub rail.
 

 
 
The main area of sheet metal consists of seven vertical sections, so the structure is constructed to support them.  Here’s the forward support framing.
 

 
 
And the aft framing.
 

 
 
The drawing below shows the individual sheet panels and their arrangement – also there’s a “U” shaped cap that fits over the rail.
 

 
 
I drew up the forward starboard sheet-metal group in CAD and then adjusted it to match the “as-built” framing of the support structure. On the full sized boat, the vertical panel seams overlap, but on the model they simply butt to each other. The drawing was separated into individual panels to be used as templates.
 

 
 
Thinking that copper would be the material to simulate the metal, I purchased foil that closely scaled to the actual #10 gauge used on the real boat – but that was a bust. While the copper was malleable enough, it dented, scratched and crinkle creased way too easily and so I tried a variety of different materials including aluminum, brass, paper, card and styrene. Each had appeal and issues, but for the small panels on this model, I decided on using inkjet photo paper instead. More precisely, the reverse side of the paper because of its smooth coated surface. It sort of looks and feels like styrene and there’s no sign of fiber. When folded, it creates a nice sharp bend, and the cut edges are clean and fuzz free. This paper is left over from when I had an ink printer, and I suspect any dense hard surface paper would work just as well. Out of curiosity, I did try painting the front “photo” side of the paper. Not good. Think of how an old photo looks that’s been folded, creased, reopened and flattened.
 
Anyway, I printed out the templates directly to the reverse side of the photo paper and cut free the lower section panel to work on first. The upper seven vertical panels will shingle over this panel.
 
I began by slowly going around the perimeter with a black permanent marker allowing time for the paper to absorb the ink. I then flattened/burnished the edges with a spoon shaped sculpting tool.
 

 
 
I then colored it with oxide black acrylic ink.
 

 
 
I painted it with True Metal “iron” and stippled it to remove brush strokes while allowing some small peaks to remain. No attempt at a uniform look.
 

 
 
Letting the paint dry half an hour or so, I then polished the surface with a scrap piece of clean styrene sheet. I just flop the styrene (about 4” square) on top and briskly rub in one direction at a time. The thickness and pattern of paint that was applied in combination with the speed and pressure used when polishing will yield different results.
 
This process reminds me of the drywall texturing I did on a house we renovated about thirty years ago. Called “orange peel knockdown”, it was all the rage back then and great for obscuring a less than stellar drywall installation. The procedure was to splatter spray drywall mud on the wall, wait for it to partially dry, and then knockdown the peaks with a clean trowel. Similar idea here in micro scale.
 

 
 
You can create a variety of different looks by modifying the paint thickness, texture and by how long you let it dry. The test piece on the left in the photo below is True Metal iron on .05” styrene. The paint was gently streaked vertically with just the edge of a toothbrush, allowed to dry then polished with the styrene sheet.  In the middle is TM steel with a speck of burnt umber oil paint added and then applied to 24lb copy paper. The paint wasn’t quite dry when polished leaving long streaks. On the right is TM iron on the back side of photo paper. Because all these materials are thin, any imperfections on the work surface will telegraph up onto the surface of the "metal". This can be used to advantage. Back to the example on the right, I took a piece of double-sided cellophane tape with a fine thread stuck to it and fixed it to my work surface. Placing the photo paper on top and polishing it left a vertical image on the metal. A close look even reveals where the butt end of the tape was. This works so well because the paint is wax based and it’s looking for any excuse to clot. A slight protrusion or hump that develops a hot spot when polished is all it needs. For size reference, the piece on the right is a tad over 1” square.
 

 
 
I cut the seven vertical pieces out and blackened their perimeters. It would have been great to do this as a single piece, but it needs to bend in two dimensions, so that was out.
 

 
 
Painted.
 

 
So here it is all glued to the boat. I used aluminum for the “U” shaped rail cap and applied the same paint and polish to it. The paper cap just looked lumpy.
 
The hull paint is not final and it’s more of a color test than anything.  Hull weathering won't be for some time, but I want to see how the metal weathering will look surrounded by those colors. Typically, I like to start with something that looks new and progressively add wear and age.  This "metal" clearly needs darkening, dents, gouges, streaking, rust and other fun stuff.  
 

 
I wish I liked this metal more than I do, so, I’m going to take another crack at using styrene for the aft metal work and see how they compare. I'll post those results and that of the weathering.
 
Until next time – Take care and thanks for stopping by.
 
Gary

Greetings Fellow Modelers,
 
Thanks for the comments and "likes".
 
In the past several months, the most I’ve seen of the Pelican has been when walking by it. This is due to a lack of time and not a lack of interest, but with a friendly nudge from Phil, here’s an update on what I have been doing - sacrificial hull sheathing and protective sheet metal in way of the gallows frames. I want to mention that Phil @Dr PR has already installed protective hull sheathing (a feature rarely modeled) on his excellent USS Cape build. Check it out if you haven't already.
 
In my last post, I described the construction of the gallows frames and associated brackets. It would seem logical that the next step is to now paint, weather, and install these frames. But doing so now would greatly complicate installing the sheet metal below the gallows. This led to yet another task that had to be done before the sheet metal could go on - laying down the protective hull sheathing.
 
Many mid-century wooden fishing boats in New England had partial sheathing that protected the hull from damage when raising and lowering the heavy trawl gear. This sheathing (typically ¾” oak) was sacrificial, and the planks were installed straight and untapered making them easy to replace/repair. The Roann, built in 1946, is a small eastern-rig dragger in the collection of the Mystic Seaport Museum. It was designed by Albert Condon a few years after he designed the Pelican. In the photo below one can see that the sheathing under the starboard gallows extends down below the waterline nearly to the keel. The sheathing also extends forward in a waterline band all the way to the stem. This forward band of sheathing was added to protect the hull from floating ice slabs at a time when harbor freeze-overs were not uncommon. Because the Roann was not equipped to “drag” off port side, only the waterline sheathing was installed, which extends back to midships.
 

 
 
Based on the plans and other boats by the same designer, here’s what the sheathing looks like on the Pelican.  The boards are scale ¾” by 4” and will be applied to both sides, because this vessel could drag off both sides.
 

 
 
Vertical strips of wood are installed against the end grain to reduce water absorption, crushing and splintering of the board ends. Perhaps tar or some other waterproofing was slathered on the ends before the vertical strips were attached.
 

 
 
The sheathing extends onto the stem.
 

 
 
I added the rub rail which sits just below bottom of deck. It’s made up of two pieces which combined stand out from the hull about 3 scale inches. The outer piece is half round styrene.
 

 
 
In the cross section below the sheet metal under the aft gallows is highlighted in blue. The metal is #10 galvanized steel, about .138” (3.5mm) thick. I don’t have a forward cross section of this detail to show, but it’s very similar. Note the added wood structure that holds the sheet metal out from the bulwark and guides it over the rub rail.
 

 
 
The main area of sheet metal consists of seven vertical sections, so the structure is constructed to support them.  Here’s the forward support framing.
 

 
 
And the aft framing.
 

 
 
The drawing below shows the individual sheet panels and their arrangement – also there’s a “U” shaped cap that fits over the rail.
 

 
 
I drew up the forward starboard sheet-metal group in CAD and then adjusted it to match the “as-built” framing of the support structure. On the full sized boat, the vertical panel seams overlap, but on the model they simply butt to each other. The drawing was separated into individual panels to be used as templates.
 

 
 
Thinking that copper would be the material to simulate the metal, I purchased foil that closely scaled to the actual #10 gauge used on the real boat – but that was a bust. While the copper was malleable enough, it dented, scratched and crinkle creased way too easily and so I tried a variety of different materials including aluminum, brass, paper, card and styrene. Each had appeal and issues, but for the small panels on this model, I decided on using inkjet photo paper instead. More precisely, the reverse side of the paper because of its smooth coated surface. It sort of looks and feels like styrene and there’s no sign of fiber. When folded, it creates a nice sharp bend, and the cut edges are clean and fuzz free. This paper is left over from when I had an ink printer, and I suspect any dense hard surface paper would work just as well. Out of curiosity, I did try painting the front “photo” side of the paper. Not good. Think of how an old photo looks that’s been folded, creased, reopened and flattened.
 
Anyway, I printed out the templates directly to the reverse side of the photo paper and cut free the lower section panel to work on first. The upper seven vertical panels will shingle over this panel.
 
I began by slowly going around the perimeter with a black permanent marker allowing time for the paper to absorb the ink. I then flattened/burnished the edges with a spoon shaped sculpting tool.
 

 
 
I then colored it with oxide black acrylic ink.
 

 
 
I painted it with True Metal “iron” and stippled it to remove brush strokes while allowing some small peaks to remain. No attempt at a uniform look.
 

 
 
Letting the paint dry half an hour or so, I then polished the surface with a scrap piece of clean styrene sheet. I just flop the styrene (about 4” square) on top and briskly rub in one direction at a time. The thickness and pattern of paint that was applied in combination with the speed and pressure used when polishing will yield different results.
 
This process reminds me of the drywall texturing I did on a house we renovated about thirty years ago. Called “orange peel knockdown”, it was all the rage back then and great for obscuring a less than stellar drywall installation. The procedure was to splatter spray drywall mud on the wall, wait for it to partially dry, and then knockdown the peaks with a clean trowel. Similar idea here in micro scale.
 

 
 
You can create a variety of different looks by modifying the paint thickness, texture and by how long you let it dry. The test piece on the left in the photo below is True Metal iron on .05” styrene. The paint was gently streaked vertically with just the edge of a toothbrush, allowed to dry then polished with the styrene sheet.  In the middle is TM steel with a speck of burnt umber oil paint added and then applied to 24lb copy paper. The paint wasn’t quite dry when polished leaving long streaks. On the right is TM iron on the back side of photo paper. Because all these materials are thin, any imperfections on the work surface will telegraph up onto the surface of the "metal". This can be used to advantage. Back to the example on the right, I took a piece of double-sided cellophane tape with a fine thread stuck to it and fixed it to my work surface. Placing the photo paper on top and polishing it left a vertical image on the metal. A close look even reveals where the butt end of the tape was. This works so well because the paint is wax based and it’s looking for any excuse to clot. A slight protrusion or hump that develops a hot spot when polished is all it needs. For size reference, the piece on the right is a tad over 1” square.
 

 
 
I cut the seven vertical pieces out and blackened their perimeters. It would have been great to do this as a single piece, but it needs to bend in two dimensions, so that was out.
 

 
 
Painted.
 

 
So here it is all glued to the boat. I used aluminum for the “U” shaped rail cap and applied the same paint and polish to it. The paper cap just looked lumpy.
 
The hull paint is not final and it’s more of a color test than anything.  Hull weathering won't be for some time, but I want to see how the metal weathering will look surrounded by those colors. Typically, I like to start with something that looks new and progressively add wear and age.  This "metal" clearly needs darkening, dents, gouges, streaking, rust and other fun stuff.  
 

 
I wish I liked this metal more than I do, so, I’m going to take another crack at using styrene for the aft metal work and see how they compare. I'll post those results and that of the weathering.
 
Until next time – Take care and thanks for stopping by.
 
Gary

Greetings Fellow Modelers,
 
Thanks for the comments and "likes".
 
In the past several months, the most I’ve seen of the Pelican has been when walking by it. This is due to a lack of time and not a lack of interest, but with a friendly nudge from Phil, here’s an update on what I have been doing - sacrificial hull sheathing and protective sheet metal in way of the gallows frames. I want to mention that Phil @Dr PR has already installed protective hull sheathing (a feature rarely modeled) on his excellent USS Cape build. Check it out if you haven't already.
 
In my last post, I described the construction of the gallows frames and associated brackets. It would seem logical that the next step is to now paint, weather, and install these frames. But doing so now would greatly complicate installing the sheet metal below the gallows. This led to yet another task that had to be done before the sheet metal could go on - laying down the protective hull sheathing.
 
Many mid-century wooden fishing boats in New England had partial sheathing that protected the hull from damage when raising and lowering the heavy trawl gear. This sheathing (typically ¾” oak) was sacrificial, and the planks were installed straight and untapered making them easy to replace/repair. The Roann, built in 1946, is a small eastern-rig dragger in the collection of the Mystic Seaport Museum. It was designed by Albert Condon a few years after he designed the Pelican. In the photo below one can see that the sheathing under the starboard gallows extends down below the waterline nearly to the keel. The sheathing also extends forward in a waterline band all the way to the stem. This forward band of sheathing was added to protect the hull from floating ice slabs at a time when harbor freeze-overs were not uncommon. Because the Roann was not equipped to “drag” off port side, only the waterline sheathing was installed, which extends back to midships.
 

 
 
Based on the plans and other boats by the same designer, here’s what the sheathing looks like on the Pelican.  The boards are scale ¾” by 4” and will be applied to both sides, because this vessel could drag off both sides.
 

 
 
Vertical strips of wood are installed against the end grain to reduce water absorption, crushing and splintering of the board ends. Perhaps tar or some other waterproofing was slathered on the ends before the vertical strips were attached.
 

 
 
The sheathing extends onto the stem.
 

 
 
I added the rub rail which sits just below bottom of deck. It’s made up of two pieces which combined stand out from the hull about 3 scale inches. The outer piece is half round styrene.
 

 
 
In the cross section below the sheet metal under the aft gallows is highlighted in blue. The metal is #10 galvanized steel, about .138” (3.5mm) thick. I don’t have a forward cross section of this detail to show, but it’s very similar. Note the added wood structure that holds the sheet metal out from the bulwark and guides it over the rub rail.
 

 
 
The main area of sheet metal consists of seven vertical sections, so the structure is constructed to support them.  Here’s the forward support framing.
 

 
 
And the aft framing.
 

 
 
The drawing below shows the individual sheet panels and their arrangement – also there’s a “U” shaped cap that fits over the rail.
 

 
 
I drew up the forward starboard sheet-metal group in CAD and then adjusted it to match the “as-built” framing of the support structure. On the full sized boat, the vertical panel seams overlap, but on the model they simply butt to each other. The drawing was separated into individual panels to be used as templates.
 

 
 
Thinking that copper would be the material to simulate the metal, I purchased foil that closely scaled to the actual #10 gauge used on the real boat – but that was a bust. While the copper was malleable enough, it dented, scratched and crinkle creased way too easily and so I tried a variety of different materials including aluminum, brass, paper, card and styrene. Each had appeal and issues, but for the small panels on this model, I decided on using inkjet photo paper instead. More precisely, the reverse side of the paper because of its smooth coated surface. It sort of looks and feels like styrene and there’s no sign of fiber. When folded, it creates a nice sharp bend, and the cut edges are clean and fuzz free. This paper is left over from when I had an ink printer, and I suspect any dense hard surface paper would work just as well. Out of curiosity, I did try painting the front “photo” side of the paper. Not good. Think of how an old photo looks that’s been folded, creased, reopened and flattened.
 
Anyway, I printed out the templates directly to the reverse side of the photo paper and cut free the lower section panel to work on first. The upper seven vertical panels will shingle over this panel.
 
I began by slowly going around the perimeter with a black permanent marker allowing time for the paper to absorb the ink. I then flattened/burnished the edges with a spoon shaped sculpting tool.
 

 
 
I then colored it with oxide black acrylic ink.
 

 
 
I painted it with True Metal “iron” and stippled it to remove brush strokes while allowing some small peaks to remain. No attempt at a uniform look.
 

 
 
Letting the paint dry half an hour or so, I then polished the surface with a scrap piece of clean styrene sheet. I just flop the styrene (about 4” square) on top and briskly rub in one direction at a time. The thickness and pattern of paint that was applied in combination with the speed and pressure used when polishing will yield different results.
 
This process reminds me of the drywall texturing I did on a house we renovated about thirty years ago. Called “orange peel knockdown”, it was all the rage back then and great for obscuring a less than stellar drywall installation. The procedure was to splatter spray drywall mud on the wall, wait for it to partially dry, and then knockdown the peaks with a clean trowel. Similar idea here in micro scale.
 

 
 
You can create a variety of different looks by modifying the paint thickness, texture and by how long you let it dry. The test piece on the left in the photo below is True Metal iron on .05” styrene. The paint was gently streaked vertically with just the edge of a toothbrush, allowed to dry then polished with the styrene sheet.  In the middle is TM steel with a speck of burnt umber oil paint added and then applied to 24lb copy paper. The paint wasn’t quite dry when polished leaving long streaks. On the right is TM iron on the back side of photo paper. Because all these materials are thin, any imperfections on the work surface will telegraph up onto the surface of the "metal". This can be used to advantage. Back to the example on the right, I took a piece of double-sided cellophane tape with a fine thread stuck to it and fixed it to my work surface. Placing the photo paper on top and polishing it left a vertical image on the metal. A close look even reveals where the butt end of the tape was. This works so well because the paint is wax based and it’s looking for any excuse to clot. A slight protrusion or hump that develops a hot spot when polished is all it needs. For size reference, the piece on the right is a tad over 1” square.
 

 
 
I cut the seven vertical pieces out and blackened their perimeters. It would have been great to do this as a single piece, but it needs to bend in two dimensions, so that was out.
 

 
 
Painted.
 

 
So here it is all glued to the boat. I used aluminum for the “U” shaped rail cap and applied the same paint and polish to it. The paper cap just looked lumpy.
 
The hull paint is not final and it’s more of a color test than anything.  Hull weathering won't be for some time, but I want to see how the metal weathering will look surrounded by those colors. Typically, I like to start with something that looks new and progressively add wear and age.  This "metal" clearly needs darkening, dents, gouges, streaking, rust and other fun stuff.  
 

 
I wish I liked this metal more than I do, so, I’m going to take another crack at using styrene for the aft metal work and see how they compare. I'll post those results and that of the weathering.
 
Until next time – Take care and thanks for stopping by.
 
Gary

Greetings Fellow Modelers,
 
Thanks for the comments and "likes".
 
In the past several months, the most I’ve seen of the Pelican has been when walking by it. This is due to a lack of time and not a lack of interest, but with a friendly nudge from Phil, here’s an update on what I have been doing - sacrificial hull sheathing and protective sheet metal in way of the gallows frames. I want to mention that Phil @Dr PR has already installed protective hull sheathing (a feature rarely modeled) on his excellent USS Cape build. Check it out if you haven't already.
 
In my last post, I described the construction of the gallows frames and associated brackets. It would seem logical that the next step is to now paint, weather, and install these frames. But doing so now would greatly complicate installing the sheet metal below the gallows. This led to yet another task that had to be done before the sheet metal could go on - laying down the protective hull sheathing.
 
Many mid-century wooden fishing boats in New England had partial sheathing that protected the hull from damage when raising and lowering the heavy trawl gear. This sheathing (typically ¾” oak) was sacrificial, and the planks were installed straight and untapered making them easy to replace/repair. The Roann, built in 1946, is a small eastern-rig dragger in the collection of the Mystic Seaport Museum. It was designed by Albert Condon a few years after he designed the Pelican. In the photo below one can see that the sheathing under the starboard gallows extends down below the waterline nearly to the keel. The sheathing also extends forward in a waterline band all the way to the stem. This forward band of sheathing was added to protect the hull from floating ice slabs at a time when harbor freeze-overs were not uncommon. Because the Roann was not equipped to “drag” off port side, only the waterline sheathing was installed, which extends back to midships.
 

 
 
Based on the plans and other boats by the same designer, here’s what the sheathing looks like on the Pelican.  The boards are scale ¾” by 4” and will be applied to both sides, because this vessel could drag off both sides.
 

 
 
Vertical strips of wood are installed against the end grain to reduce water absorption, crushing and splintering of the board ends. Perhaps tar or some other waterproofing was slathered on the ends before the vertical strips were attached.
 

 
 
The sheathing extends onto the stem.
 

 
 
I added the rub rail which sits just below bottom of deck. It’s made up of two pieces which combined stand out from the hull about 3 scale inches. The outer piece is half round styrene.
 

 
 
In the cross section below the sheet metal under the aft gallows is highlighted in blue. The metal is #10 galvanized steel, about .138” (3.5mm) thick. I don’t have a forward cross section of this detail to show, but it’s very similar. Note the added wood structure that holds the sheet metal out from the bulwark and guides it over the rub rail.
 

 
 
The main area of sheet metal consists of seven vertical sections, so the structure is constructed to support them.  Here’s the forward support framing.
 

 
 
And the aft framing.
 

 
 
The drawing below shows the individual sheet panels and their arrangement – also there’s a “U” shaped cap that fits over the rail.
 

 
 
I drew up the forward starboard sheet-metal group in CAD and then adjusted it to match the “as-built” framing of the support structure. On the full sized boat, the vertical panel seams overlap, but on the model they simply butt to each other. The drawing was separated into individual panels to be used as templates.
 

 
 
Thinking that copper would be the material to simulate the metal, I purchased foil that closely scaled to the actual #10 gauge used on the real boat – but that was a bust. While the copper was malleable enough, it dented, scratched and crinkle creased way too easily and so I tried a variety of different materials including aluminum, brass, paper, card and styrene. Each had appeal and issues, but for the small panels on this model, I decided on using inkjet photo paper instead. More precisely, the reverse side of the paper because of its smooth coated surface. It sort of looks and feels like styrene and there’s no sign of fiber. When folded, it creates a nice sharp bend, and the cut edges are clean and fuzz free. This paper is left over from when I had an ink printer, and I suspect any dense hard surface paper would work just as well. Out of curiosity, I did try painting the front “photo” side of the paper. Not good. Think of how an old photo looks that’s been folded, creased, reopened and flattened.
 
Anyway, I printed out the templates directly to the reverse side of the photo paper and cut free the lower section panel to work on first. The upper seven vertical panels will shingle over this panel.
 
I began by slowly going around the perimeter with a black permanent marker allowing time for the paper to absorb the ink. I then flattened/burnished the edges with a spoon shaped sculpting tool.
 

 
 
I then colored it with oxide black acrylic ink.
 

 
 
I painted it with True Metal “iron” and stippled it to remove brush strokes while allowing some small peaks to remain. No attempt at a uniform look.
 

 
 
Letting the paint dry half an hour or so, I then polished the surface with a scrap piece of clean styrene sheet. I just flop the styrene (about 4” square) on top and briskly rub in one direction at a time. The thickness and pattern of paint that was applied in combination with the speed and pressure used when polishing will yield different results.
 
This process reminds me of the drywall texturing I did on a house we renovated about thirty years ago. Called “orange peel knockdown”, it was all the rage back then and great for obscuring a less than stellar drywall installation. The procedure was to splatter spray drywall mud on the wall, wait for it to partially dry, and then knockdown the peaks with a clean trowel. Similar idea here in micro scale.
 

 
 
You can create a variety of different looks by modifying the paint thickness, texture and by how long you let it dry. The test piece on the left in the photo below is True Metal iron on .05” styrene. The paint was gently streaked vertically with just the edge of a toothbrush, allowed to dry then polished with the styrene sheet.  In the middle is TM steel with a speck of burnt umber oil paint added and then applied to 24lb copy paper. The paint wasn’t quite dry when polished leaving long streaks. On the right is TM iron on the back side of photo paper. Because all these materials are thin, any imperfections on the work surface will telegraph up onto the surface of the "metal". This can be used to advantage. Back to the example on the right, I took a piece of double-sided cellophane tape with a fine thread stuck to it and fixed it to my work surface. Placing the photo paper on top and polishing it left a vertical image on the metal. A close look even reveals where the butt end of the tape was. This works so well because the paint is wax based and it’s looking for any excuse to clot. A slight protrusion or hump that develops a hot spot when polished is all it needs. For size reference, the piece on the right is a tad over 1” square.
 

 
 
I cut the seven vertical pieces out and blackened their perimeters. It would have been great to do this as a single piece, but it needs to bend in two dimensions, so that was out.
 

 
 
Painted.
 

 
So here it is all glued to the boat. I used aluminum for the “U” shaped rail cap and applied the same paint and polish to it. The paper cap just looked lumpy.
 
The hull paint is not final and it’s more of a color test than anything.  Hull weathering won't be for some time, but I want to see how the metal weathering will look surrounded by those colors. Typically, I like to start with something that looks new and progressively add wear and age.  This "metal" clearly needs darkening, dents, gouges, streaking, rust and other fun stuff.  
 

 
I wish I liked this metal more than I do, so, I’m going to take another crack at using styrene for the aft metal work and see how they compare. I'll post those results and that of the weathering.
 
Until next time – Take care and thanks for stopping by.
 
Gary

Greetings Fellow Modelers,
 
Thanks for the comments and "likes".
 
In the past several months, the most I’ve seen of the Pelican has been when walking by it. This is due to a lack of time and not a lack of interest, but with a friendly nudge from Phil, here’s an update on what I have been doing - sacrificial hull sheathing and protective sheet metal in way of the gallows frames. I want to mention that Phil @Dr PR has already installed protective hull sheathing (a feature rarely modeled) on his excellent USS Cape build. Check it out if you haven't already.
 
In my last post, I described the construction of the gallows frames and associated brackets. It would seem logical that the next step is to now paint, weather, and install these frames. But doing so now would greatly complicate installing the sheet metal below the gallows. This led to yet another task that had to be done before the sheet metal could go on - laying down the protective hull sheathing.
 
Many mid-century wooden fishing boats in New England had partial sheathing that protected the hull from damage when raising and lowering the heavy trawl gear. This sheathing (typically ¾” oak) was sacrificial, and the planks were installed straight and untapered making them easy to replace/repair. The Roann, built in 1946, is a small eastern-rig dragger in the collection of the Mystic Seaport Museum. It was designed by Albert Condon a few years after he designed the Pelican. In the photo below one can see that the sheathing under the starboard gallows extends down below the waterline nearly to the keel. The sheathing also extends forward in a waterline band all the way to the stem. This forward band of sheathing was added to protect the hull from floating ice slabs at a time when harbor freeze-overs were not uncommon. Because the Roann was not equipped to “drag” off port side, only the waterline sheathing was installed, which extends back to midships.
 

 
 
Based on the plans and other boats by the same designer, here’s what the sheathing looks like on the Pelican.  The boards are scale ¾” by 4” and will be applied to both sides, because this vessel could drag off both sides.
 

 
 
Vertical strips of wood are installed against the end grain to reduce water absorption, crushing and splintering of the board ends. Perhaps tar or some other waterproofing was slathered on the ends before the vertical strips were attached.
 

 
 
The sheathing extends onto the stem.
 

 
 
I added the rub rail which sits just below bottom of deck. It’s made up of two pieces which combined stand out from the hull about 3 scale inches. The outer piece is half round styrene.
 

 
 
In the cross section below the sheet metal under the aft gallows is highlighted in blue. The metal is #10 galvanized steel, about .138” (3.5mm) thick. I don’t have a forward cross section of this detail to show, but it’s very similar. Note the added wood structure that holds the sheet metal out from the bulwark and guides it over the rub rail.
 

 
 
The main area of sheet metal consists of seven vertical sections, so the structure is constructed to support them.  Here’s the forward support framing.
 

 
 
And the aft framing.
 

 
 
The drawing below shows the individual sheet panels and their arrangement – also there’s a “U” shaped cap that fits over the rail.
 

 
 
I drew up the forward starboard sheet-metal group in CAD and then adjusted it to match the “as-built” framing of the support structure. On the full sized boat, the vertical panel seams overlap, but on the model they simply butt to each other. The drawing was separated into individual panels to be used as templates.
 

 
 
Thinking that copper would be the material to simulate the metal, I purchased foil that closely scaled to the actual #10 gauge used on the real boat – but that was a bust. While the copper was malleable enough, it dented, scratched and crinkle creased way too easily and so I tried a variety of different materials including aluminum, brass, paper, card and styrene. Each had appeal and issues, but for the small panels on this model, I decided on using inkjet photo paper instead. More precisely, the reverse side of the paper because of its smooth coated surface. It sort of looks and feels like styrene and there’s no sign of fiber. When folded, it creates a nice sharp bend, and the cut edges are clean and fuzz free. This paper is left over from when I had an ink printer, and I suspect any dense hard surface paper would work just as well. Out of curiosity, I did try painting the front “photo” side of the paper. Not good. Think of how an old photo looks that’s been folded, creased, reopened and flattened.
 
Anyway, I printed out the templates directly to the reverse side of the photo paper and cut free the lower section panel to work on first. The upper seven vertical panels will shingle over this panel.
 
I began by slowly going around the perimeter with a black permanent marker allowing time for the paper to absorb the ink. I then flattened/burnished the edges with a spoon shaped sculpting tool.
 

 
 
I then colored it with oxide black acrylic ink.
 

 
 
I painted it with True Metal “iron” and stippled it to remove brush strokes while allowing some small peaks to remain. No attempt at a uniform look.
 

 
 
Letting the paint dry half an hour or so, I then polished the surface with a scrap piece of clean styrene sheet. I just flop the styrene (about 4” square) on top and briskly rub in one direction at a time. The thickness and pattern of paint that was applied in combination with the speed and pressure used when polishing will yield different results.
 
This process reminds me of the drywall texturing I did on a house we renovated about thirty years ago. Called “orange peel knockdown”, it was all the rage back then and great for obscuring a less than stellar drywall installation. The procedure was to splatter spray drywall mud on the wall, wait for it to partially dry, and then knockdown the peaks with a clean trowel. Similar idea here in micro scale.
 

 
 
You can create a variety of different looks by modifying the paint thickness, texture and by how long you let it dry. The test piece on the left in the photo below is True Metal iron on .05” styrene. The paint was gently streaked vertically with just the edge of a toothbrush, allowed to dry then polished with the styrene sheet.  In the middle is TM steel with a speck of burnt umber oil paint added and then applied to 24lb copy paper. The paint wasn’t quite dry when polished leaving long streaks. On the right is TM iron on the back side of photo paper. Because all these materials are thin, any imperfections on the work surface will telegraph up onto the surface of the "metal". This can be used to advantage. Back to the example on the right, I took a piece of double-sided cellophane tape with a fine thread stuck to it and fixed it to my work surface. Placing the photo paper on top and polishing it left a vertical image on the metal. A close look even reveals where the butt end of the tape was. This works so well because the paint is wax based and it’s looking for any excuse to clot. A slight protrusion or hump that develops a hot spot when polished is all it needs. For size reference, the piece on the right is a tad over 1” square.
 

 
 
I cut the seven vertical pieces out and blackened their perimeters. It would have been great to do this as a single piece, but it needs to bend in two dimensions, so that was out.
 

 
 
Painted.
 

 
So here it is all glued to the boat. I used aluminum for the “U” shaped rail cap and applied the same paint and polish to it. The paper cap just looked lumpy.
 
The hull paint is not final and it’s more of a color test than anything.  Hull weathering won't be for some time, but I want to see how the metal weathering will look surrounded by those colors. Typically, I like to start with something that looks new and progressively add wear and age.  This "metal" clearly needs darkening, dents, gouges, streaking, rust and other fun stuff.  
 

 
I wish I liked this metal more than I do, so, I’m going to take another crack at using styrene for the aft metal work and see how they compare. I'll post those results and that of the weathering.
 
Until next time – Take care and thanks for stopping by.
 
Gary

Greetings Fellow Modelers,
 
Thanks for the comments and "likes".
 
In the past several months, the most I’ve seen of the Pelican has been when walking by it. This is due to a lack of time and not a lack of interest, but with a friendly nudge from Phil, here’s an update on what I have been doing - sacrificial hull sheathing and protective sheet metal in way of the gallows frames. I want to mention that Phil @Dr PR has already installed protective hull sheathing (a feature rarely modeled) on his excellent USS Cape build. Check it out if you haven't already.
 
In my last post, I described the construction of the gallows frames and associated brackets. It would seem logical that the next step is to now paint, weather, and install these frames. But doing so now would greatly complicate installing the sheet metal below the gallows. This led to yet another task that had to be done before the sheet metal could go on - laying down the protective hull sheathing.
 
Many mid-century wooden fishing boats in New England had partial sheathing that protected the hull from damage when raising and lowering the heavy trawl gear. This sheathing (typically ¾” oak) was sacrificial, and the planks were installed straight and untapered making them easy to replace/repair. The Roann, built in 1946, is a small eastern-rig dragger in the collection of the Mystic Seaport Museum. It was designed by Albert Condon a few years after he designed the Pelican. In the photo below one can see that the sheathing under the starboard gallows extends down below the waterline nearly to the keel. The sheathing also extends forward in a waterline band all the way to the stem. This forward band of sheathing was added to protect the hull from floating ice slabs at a time when harbor freeze-overs were not uncommon. Because the Roann was not equipped to “drag” off port side, only the waterline sheathing was installed, which extends back to midships.
 

 
 
Based on the plans and other boats by the same designer, here’s what the sheathing looks like on the Pelican.  The boards are scale ¾” by 4” and will be applied to both sides, because this vessel could drag off both sides.
 

 
 
Vertical strips of wood are installed against the end grain to reduce water absorption, crushing and splintering of the board ends. Perhaps tar or some other waterproofing was slathered on the ends before the vertical strips were attached.
 

 
 
The sheathing extends onto the stem.
 

 
 
I added the rub rail which sits just below bottom of deck. It’s made up of two pieces which combined stand out from the hull about 3 scale inches. The outer piece is half round styrene.
 

 
 
In the cross section below the sheet metal under the aft gallows is highlighted in blue. The metal is #10 galvanized steel, about .138” (3.5mm) thick. I don’t have a forward cross section of this detail to show, but it’s very similar. Note the added wood structure that holds the sheet metal out from the bulwark and guides it over the rub rail.
 

 
 
The main area of sheet metal consists of seven vertical sections, so the structure is constructed to support them.  Here’s the forward support framing.
 

 
 
And the aft framing.
 

 
 
The drawing below shows the individual sheet panels and their arrangement – also there’s a “U” shaped cap that fits over the rail.
 

 
 
I drew up the forward starboard sheet-metal group in CAD and then adjusted it to match the “as-built” framing of the support structure. On the full sized boat, the vertical panel seams overlap, but on the model they simply butt to each other. The drawing was separated into individual panels to be used as templates.
 

 
 
Thinking that copper would be the material to simulate the metal, I purchased foil that closely scaled to the actual #10 gauge used on the real boat – but that was a bust. While the copper was malleable enough, it dented, scratched and crinkle creased way too easily and so I tried a variety of different materials including aluminum, brass, paper, card and styrene. Each had appeal and issues, but for the small panels on this model, I decided on using inkjet photo paper instead. More precisely, the reverse side of the paper because of its smooth coated surface. It sort of looks and feels like styrene and there’s no sign of fiber. When folded, it creates a nice sharp bend, and the cut edges are clean and fuzz free. This paper is left over from when I had an ink printer, and I suspect any dense hard surface paper would work just as well. Out of curiosity, I did try painting the front “photo” side of the paper. Not good. Think of how an old photo looks that’s been folded, creased, reopened and flattened.
 
Anyway, I printed out the templates directly to the reverse side of the photo paper and cut free the lower section panel to work on first. The upper seven vertical panels will shingle over this panel.
 
I began by slowly going around the perimeter with a black permanent marker allowing time for the paper to absorb the ink. I then flattened/burnished the edges with a spoon shaped sculpting tool.
 

 
 
I then colored it with oxide black acrylic ink.
 

 
 
I painted it with True Metal “iron” and stippled it to remove brush strokes while allowing some small peaks to remain. No attempt at a uniform look.
 

 
 
Letting the paint dry half an hour or so, I then polished the surface with a scrap piece of clean styrene sheet. I just flop the styrene (about 4” square) on top and briskly rub in one direction at a time. The thickness and pattern of paint that was applied in combination with the speed and pressure used when polishing will yield different results.
 
This process reminds me of the drywall texturing I did on a house we renovated about thirty years ago. Called “orange peel knockdown”, it was all the rage back then and great for obscuring a less than stellar drywall installation. The procedure was to splatter spray drywall mud on the wall, wait for it to partially dry, and then knockdown the peaks with a clean trowel. Similar idea here in micro scale.
 

 
 
You can create a variety of different looks by modifying the paint thickness, texture and by how long you let it dry. The test piece on the left in the photo below is True Metal iron on .05” styrene. The paint was gently streaked vertically with just the edge of a toothbrush, allowed to dry then polished with the styrene sheet.  In the middle is TM steel with a speck of burnt umber oil paint added and then applied to 24lb copy paper. The paint wasn’t quite dry when polished leaving long streaks. On the right is TM iron on the back side of photo paper. Because all these materials are thin, any imperfections on the work surface will telegraph up onto the surface of the "metal". This can be used to advantage. Back to the example on the right, I took a piece of double-sided cellophane tape with a fine thread stuck to it and fixed it to my work surface. Placing the photo paper on top and polishing it left a vertical image on the metal. A close look even reveals where the butt end of the tape was. This works so well because the paint is wax based and it’s looking for any excuse to clot. A slight protrusion or hump that develops a hot spot when polished is all it needs. For size reference, the piece on the right is a tad over 1” square.
 

 
 
I cut the seven vertical pieces out and blackened their perimeters. It would have been great to do this as a single piece, but it needs to bend in two dimensions, so that was out.
 

 
 
Painted.
 

 
So here it is all glued to the boat. I used aluminum for the “U” shaped rail cap and applied the same paint and polish to it. The paper cap just looked lumpy.
 
The hull paint is not final and it’s more of a color test than anything.  Hull weathering won't be for some time, but I want to see how the metal weathering will look surrounded by those colors. Typically, I like to start with something that looks new and progressively add wear and age.  This "metal" clearly needs darkening, dents, gouges, streaking, rust and other fun stuff.  
 

 
I wish I liked this metal more than I do, so, I’m going to take another crack at using styrene for the aft metal work and see how they compare. I'll post those results and that of the weathering.
 
Until next time – Take care and thanks for stopping by.
 
Gary

Greetings Fellow Modelers,
 
Thanks for the comments and "likes".
 
In the past several months, the most I’ve seen of the Pelican has been when walking by it. This is due to a lack of time and not a lack of interest, but with a friendly nudge from Phil, here’s an update on what I have been doing - sacrificial hull sheathing and protective sheet metal in way of the gallows frames. I want to mention that Phil @Dr PR has already installed protective hull sheathing (a feature rarely modeled) on his excellent USS Cape build. Check it out if you haven't already.
 
In my last post, I described the construction of the gallows frames and associated brackets. It would seem logical that the next step is to now paint, weather, and install these frames. But doing so now would greatly complicate installing the sheet metal below the gallows. This led to yet another task that had to be done before the sheet metal could go on - laying down the protective hull sheathing.
 
Many mid-century wooden fishing boats in New England had partial sheathing that protected the hull from damage when raising and lowering the heavy trawl gear. This sheathing (typically ¾” oak) was sacrificial, and the planks were installed straight and untapered making them easy to replace/repair. The Roann, built in 1946, is a small eastern-rig dragger in the collection of the Mystic Seaport Museum. It was designed by Albert Condon a few years after he designed the Pelican. In the photo below one can see that the sheathing under the starboard gallows extends down below the waterline nearly to the keel. The sheathing also extends forward in a waterline band all the way to the stem. This forward band of sheathing was added to protect the hull from floating ice slabs at a time when harbor freeze-overs were not uncommon. Because the Roann was not equipped to “drag” off port side, only the waterline sheathing was installed, which extends back to midships.
 

 
 
Based on the plans and other boats by the same designer, here’s what the sheathing looks like on the Pelican.  The boards are scale ¾” by 4” and will be applied to both sides, because this vessel could drag off both sides.
 

 
 
Vertical strips of wood are installed against the end grain to reduce water absorption, crushing and splintering of the board ends. Perhaps tar or some other waterproofing was slathered on the ends before the vertical strips were attached.
 

 
 
The sheathing extends onto the stem.
 

 
 
I added the rub rail which sits just below bottom of deck. It’s made up of two pieces which combined stand out from the hull about 3 scale inches. The outer piece is half round styrene.
 

 
 
In the cross section below the sheet metal under the aft gallows is highlighted in blue. The metal is #10 galvanized steel, about .138” (3.5mm) thick. I don’t have a forward cross section of this detail to show, but it’s very similar. Note the added wood structure that holds the sheet metal out from the bulwark and guides it over the rub rail.
 

 
 
The main area of sheet metal consists of seven vertical sections, so the structure is constructed to support them.  Here’s the forward support framing.
 

 
 
And the aft framing.
 

 
 
The drawing below shows the individual sheet panels and their arrangement – also there’s a “U” shaped cap that fits over the rail.
 

 
 
I drew up the forward starboard sheet-metal group in CAD and then adjusted it to match the “as-built” framing of the support structure. On the full sized boat, the vertical panel seams overlap, but on the model they simply butt to each other. The drawing was separated into individual panels to be used as templates.
 

 
 
Thinking that copper would be the material to simulate the metal, I purchased foil that closely scaled to the actual #10 gauge used on the real boat – but that was a bust. While the copper was malleable enough, it dented, scratched and crinkle creased way too easily and so I tried a variety of different materials including aluminum, brass, paper, card and styrene. Each had appeal and issues, but for the small panels on this model, I decided on using inkjet photo paper instead. More precisely, the reverse side of the paper because of its smooth coated surface. It sort of looks and feels like styrene and there’s no sign of fiber. When folded, it creates a nice sharp bend, and the cut edges are clean and fuzz free. This paper is left over from when I had an ink printer, and I suspect any dense hard surface paper would work just as well. Out of curiosity, I did try painting the front “photo” side of the paper. Not good. Think of how an old photo looks that’s been folded, creased, reopened and flattened.
 
Anyway, I printed out the templates directly to the reverse side of the photo paper and cut free the lower section panel to work on first. The upper seven vertical panels will shingle over this panel.
 
I began by slowly going around the perimeter with a black permanent marker allowing time for the paper to absorb the ink. I then flattened/burnished the edges with a spoon shaped sculpting tool.
 

 
 
I then colored it with oxide black acrylic ink.
 

 
 
I painted it with True Metal “iron” and stippled it to remove brush strokes while allowing some small peaks to remain. No attempt at a uniform look.
 

 
 
Letting the paint dry half an hour or so, I then polished the surface with a scrap piece of clean styrene sheet. I just flop the styrene (about 4” square) on top and briskly rub in one direction at a time. The thickness and pattern of paint that was applied in combination with the speed and pressure used when polishing will yield different results.
 
This process reminds me of the drywall texturing I did on a house we renovated about thirty years ago. Called “orange peel knockdown”, it was all the rage back then and great for obscuring a less than stellar drywall installation. The procedure was to splatter spray drywall mud on the wall, wait for it to partially dry, and then knockdown the peaks with a clean trowel. Similar idea here in micro scale.
 

 
 
You can create a variety of different looks by modifying the paint thickness, texture and by how long you let it dry. The test piece on the left in the photo below is True Metal iron on .05” styrene. The paint was gently streaked vertically with just the edge of a toothbrush, allowed to dry then polished with the styrene sheet.  In the middle is TM steel with a speck of burnt umber oil paint added and then applied to 24lb copy paper. The paint wasn’t quite dry when polished leaving long streaks. On the right is TM iron on the back side of photo paper. Because all these materials are thin, any imperfections on the work surface will telegraph up onto the surface of the "metal". This can be used to advantage. Back to the example on the right, I took a piece of double-sided cellophane tape with a fine thread stuck to it and fixed it to my work surface. Placing the photo paper on top and polishing it left a vertical image on the metal. A close look even reveals where the butt end of the tape was. This works so well because the paint is wax based and it’s looking for any excuse to clot. A slight protrusion or hump that develops a hot spot when polished is all it needs. For size reference, the piece on the right is a tad over 1” square.
 

 
 
I cut the seven vertical pieces out and blackened their perimeters. It would have been great to do this as a single piece, but it needs to bend in two dimensions, so that was out.
 

 
 
Painted.
 

 
So here it is all glued to the boat. I used aluminum for the “U” shaped rail cap and applied the same paint and polish to it. The paper cap just looked lumpy.
 
The hull paint is not final and it’s more of a color test than anything.  Hull weathering won't be for some time, but I want to see how the metal weathering will look surrounded by those colors. Typically, I like to start with something that looks new and progressively add wear and age.  This "metal" clearly needs darkening, dents, gouges, streaking, rust and other fun stuff.  
 

 
I wish I liked this metal more than I do, so, I’m going to take another crack at using styrene for the aft metal work and see how they compare. I'll post those results and that of the weathering.
 
Until next time – Take care and thanks for stopping by.
 
Gary

Greetings Fellow Modelers,
 
Thanks for the comments and "likes".
 
In the past several months, the most I’ve seen of the Pelican has been when walking by it. This is due to a lack of time and not a lack of interest, but with a friendly nudge from Phil, here’s an update on what I have been doing - sacrificial hull sheathing and protective sheet metal in way of the gallows frames. I want to mention that Phil @Dr PR has already installed protective hull sheathing (a feature rarely modeled) on his excellent USS Cape build. Check it out if you haven't already.
 
In my last post, I described the construction of the gallows frames and associated brackets. It would seem logical that the next step is to now paint, weather, and install these frames. But doing so now would greatly complicate installing the sheet metal below the gallows. This led to yet another task that had to be done before the sheet metal could go on - laying down the protective hull sheathing.
 
Many mid-century wooden fishing boats in New England had partial sheathing that protected the hull from damage when raising and lowering the heavy trawl gear. This sheathing (typically ¾” oak) was sacrificial, and the planks were installed straight and untapered making them easy to replace/repair. The Roann, built in 1946, is a small eastern-rig dragger in the collection of the Mystic Seaport Museum. It was designed by Albert Condon a few years after he designed the Pelican. In the photo below one can see that the sheathing under the starboard gallows extends down below the waterline nearly to the keel. The sheathing also extends forward in a waterline band all the way to the stem. This forward band of sheathing was added to protect the hull from floating ice slabs at a time when harbor freeze-overs were not uncommon. Because the Roann was not equipped to “drag” off port side, only the waterline sheathing was installed, which extends back to midships.
 

 
 
Based on the plans and other boats by the same designer, here’s what the sheathing looks like on the Pelican.  The boards are scale ¾” by 4” and will be applied to both sides, because this vessel could drag off both sides.
 

 
 
Vertical strips of wood are installed against the end grain to reduce water absorption, crushing and splintering of the board ends. Perhaps tar or some other waterproofing was slathered on the ends before the vertical strips were attached.
 

 
 
The sheathing extends onto the stem.
 

 
 
I added the rub rail which sits just below bottom of deck. It’s made up of two pieces which combined stand out from the hull about 3 scale inches. The outer piece is half round styrene.
 

 
 
In the cross section below the sheet metal under the aft gallows is highlighted in blue. The metal is #10 galvanized steel, about .138” (3.5mm) thick. I don’t have a forward cross section of this detail to show, but it’s very similar. Note the added wood structure that holds the sheet metal out from the bulwark and guides it over the rub rail.
 

 
 
The main area of sheet metal consists of seven vertical sections, so the structure is constructed to support them.  Here’s the forward support framing.
 

 
 
And the aft framing.
 

 
 
The drawing below shows the individual sheet panels and their arrangement – also there’s a “U” shaped cap that fits over the rail.
 

 
 
I drew up the forward starboard sheet-metal group in CAD and then adjusted it to match the “as-built” framing of the support structure. On the full sized boat, the vertical panel seams overlap, but on the model they simply butt to each other. The drawing was separated into individual panels to be used as templates.
 

 
 
Thinking that copper would be the material to simulate the metal, I purchased foil that closely scaled to the actual #10 gauge used on the real boat – but that was a bust. While the copper was malleable enough, it dented, scratched and crinkle creased way too easily and so I tried a variety of different materials including aluminum, brass, paper, card and styrene. Each had appeal and issues, but for the small panels on this model, I decided on using inkjet photo paper instead. More precisely, the reverse side of the paper because of its smooth coated surface. It sort of looks and feels like styrene and there’s no sign of fiber. When folded, it creates a nice sharp bend, and the cut edges are clean and fuzz free. This paper is left over from when I had an ink printer, and I suspect any dense hard surface paper would work just as well. Out of curiosity, I did try painting the front “photo” side of the paper. Not good. Think of how an old photo looks that’s been folded, creased, reopened and flattened.
 
Anyway, I printed out the templates directly to the reverse side of the photo paper and cut free the lower section panel to work on first. The upper seven vertical panels will shingle over this panel.
 
I began by slowly going around the perimeter with a black permanent marker allowing time for the paper to absorb the ink. I then flattened/burnished the edges with a spoon shaped sculpting tool.
 

 
 
I then colored it with oxide black acrylic ink.
 

 
 
I painted it with True Metal “iron” and stippled it to remove brush strokes while allowing some small peaks to remain. No attempt at a uniform look.
 

 
 
Letting the paint dry half an hour or so, I then polished the surface with a scrap piece of clean styrene sheet. I just flop the styrene (about 4” square) on top and briskly rub in one direction at a time. The thickness and pattern of paint that was applied in combination with the speed and pressure used when polishing will yield different results.
 
This process reminds me of the drywall texturing I did on a house we renovated about thirty years ago. Called “orange peel knockdown”, it was all the rage back then and great for obscuring a less than stellar drywall installation. The procedure was to splatter spray drywall mud on the wall, wait for it to partially dry, and then knockdown the peaks with a clean trowel. Similar idea here in micro scale.
 

 
 
You can create a variety of different looks by modifying the paint thickness, texture and by how long you let it dry. The test piece on the left in the photo below is True Metal iron on .05” styrene. The paint was gently streaked vertically with just the edge of a toothbrush, allowed to dry then polished with the styrene sheet.  In the middle is TM steel with a speck of burnt umber oil paint added and then applied to 24lb copy paper. The paint wasn’t quite dry when polished leaving long streaks. On the right is TM iron on the back side of photo paper. Because all these materials are thin, any imperfections on the work surface will telegraph up onto the surface of the "metal". This can be used to advantage. Back to the example on the right, I took a piece of double-sided cellophane tape with a fine thread stuck to it and fixed it to my work surface. Placing the photo paper on top and polishing it left a vertical image on the metal. A close look even reveals where the butt end of the tape was. This works so well because the paint is wax based and it’s looking for any excuse to clot. A slight protrusion or hump that develops a hot spot when polished is all it needs. For size reference, the piece on the right is a tad over 1” square.
 

 
 
I cut the seven vertical pieces out and blackened their perimeters. It would have been great to do this as a single piece, but it needs to bend in two dimensions, so that was out.
 

 
 
Painted.
 

 
So here it is all glued to the boat. I used aluminum for the “U” shaped rail cap and applied the same paint and polish to it. The paper cap just looked lumpy.
 
The hull paint is not final and it’s more of a color test than anything.  Hull weathering won't be for some time, but I want to see how the metal weathering will look surrounded by those colors. Typically, I like to start with something that looks new and progressively add wear and age.  This "metal" clearly needs darkening, dents, gouges, streaking, rust and other fun stuff.  
 

 
I wish I liked this metal more than I do, so, I’m going to take another crack at using styrene for the aft metal work and see how they compare. I'll post those results and that of the weathering.
 
Until next time – Take care and thanks for stopping by.
 
Gary

Greetings Fellow Modelers,
 
Thanks for the comments and "likes".
 
In the past several months, the most I’ve seen of the Pelican has been when walking by it. This is due to a lack of time and not a lack of interest, but with a friendly nudge from Phil, here’s an update on what I have been doing - sacrificial hull sheathing and protective sheet metal in way of the gallows frames. I want to mention that Phil @Dr PR has already installed protective hull sheathing (a feature rarely modeled) on his excellent USS Cape build. Check it out if you haven't already.
 
In my last post, I described the construction of the gallows frames and associated brackets. It would seem logical that the next step is to now paint, weather, and install these frames. But doing so now would greatly complicate installing the sheet metal below the gallows. This led to yet another task that had to be done before the sheet metal could go on - laying down the protective hull sheathing.
 
Many mid-century wooden fishing boats in New England had partial sheathing that protected the hull from damage when raising and lowering the heavy trawl gear. This sheathing (typically ¾” oak) was sacrificial, and the planks were installed straight and untapered making them easy to replace/repair. The Roann, built in 1946, is a small eastern-rig dragger in the collection of the Mystic Seaport Museum. It was designed by Albert Condon a few years after he designed the Pelican. In the photo below one can see that the sheathing under the starboard gallows extends down below the waterline nearly to the keel. The sheathing also extends forward in a waterline band all the way to the stem. This forward band of sheathing was added to protect the hull from floating ice slabs at a time when harbor freeze-overs were not uncommon. Because the Roann was not equipped to “drag” off port side, only the waterline sheathing was installed, which extends back to midships.
 

 
 
Based on the plans and other boats by the same designer, here’s what the sheathing looks like on the Pelican.  The boards are scale ¾” by 4” and will be applied to both sides, because this vessel could drag off both sides.
 

 
 
Vertical strips of wood are installed against the end grain to reduce water absorption, crushing and splintering of the board ends. Perhaps tar or some other waterproofing was slathered on the ends before the vertical strips were attached.
 

 
 
The sheathing extends onto the stem.
 

 
 
I added the rub rail which sits just below bottom of deck. It’s made up of two pieces which combined stand out from the hull about 3 scale inches. The outer piece is half round styrene.
 

 
 
In the cross section below the sheet metal under the aft gallows is highlighted in blue. The metal is #10 galvanized steel, about .138” (3.5mm) thick. I don’t have a forward cross section of this detail to show, but it’s very similar. Note the added wood structure that holds the sheet metal out from the bulwark and guides it over the rub rail.
 

 
 
The main area of sheet metal consists of seven vertical sections, so the structure is constructed to support them.  Here’s the forward support framing.
 

 
 
And the aft framing.
 

 
 
The drawing below shows the individual sheet panels and their arrangement – also there’s a “U” shaped cap that fits over the rail.
 

 
 
I drew up the forward starboard sheet-metal group in CAD and then adjusted it to match the “as-built” framing of the support structure. On the full sized boat, the vertical panel seams overlap, but on the model they simply butt to each other. The drawing was separated into individual panels to be used as templates.
 

 
 
Thinking that copper would be the material to simulate the metal, I purchased foil that closely scaled to the actual #10 gauge used on the real boat – but that was a bust. While the copper was malleable enough, it dented, scratched and crinkle creased way too easily and so I tried a variety of different materials including aluminum, brass, paper, card and styrene. Each had appeal and issues, but for the small panels on this model, I decided on using inkjet photo paper instead. More precisely, the reverse side of the paper because of its smooth coated surface. It sort of looks and feels like styrene and there’s no sign of fiber. When folded, it creates a nice sharp bend, and the cut edges are clean and fuzz free. This paper is left over from when I had an ink printer, and I suspect any dense hard surface paper would work just as well. Out of curiosity, I did try painting the front “photo” side of the paper. Not good. Think of how an old photo looks that’s been folded, creased, reopened and flattened.
 
Anyway, I printed out the templates directly to the reverse side of the photo paper and cut free the lower section panel to work on first. The upper seven vertical panels will shingle over this panel.
 
I began by slowly going around the perimeter with a black permanent marker allowing time for the paper to absorb the ink. I then flattened/burnished the edges with a spoon shaped sculpting tool.
 

 
 
I then colored it with oxide black acrylic ink.
 

 
 
I painted it with True Metal “iron” and stippled it to remove brush strokes while allowing some small peaks to remain. No attempt at a uniform look.
 

 
 
Letting the paint dry half an hour or so, I then polished the surface with a scrap piece of clean styrene sheet. I just flop the styrene (about 4” square) on top and briskly rub in one direction at a time. The thickness and pattern of paint that was applied in combination with the speed and pressure used when polishing will yield different results.
 
This process reminds me of the drywall texturing I did on a house we renovated about thirty years ago. Called “orange peel knockdown”, it was all the rage back then and great for obscuring a less than stellar drywall installation. The procedure was to splatter spray drywall mud on the wall, wait for it to partially dry, and then knockdown the peaks with a clean trowel. Similar idea here in micro scale.
 

 
 
You can create a variety of different looks by modifying the paint thickness, texture and by how long you let it dry. The test piece on the left in the photo below is True Metal iron on .05” styrene. The paint was gently streaked vertically with just the edge of a toothbrush, allowed to dry then polished with the styrene sheet.  In the middle is TM steel with a speck of burnt umber oil paint added and then applied to 24lb copy paper. The paint wasn’t quite dry when polished leaving long streaks. On the right is TM iron on the back side of photo paper. Because all these materials are thin, any imperfections on the work surface will telegraph up onto the surface of the "metal". This can be used to advantage. Back to the example on the right, I took a piece of double-sided cellophane tape with a fine thread stuck to it and fixed it to my work surface. Placing the photo paper on top and polishing it left a vertical image on the metal. A close look even reveals where the butt end of the tape was. This works so well because the paint is wax based and it’s looking for any excuse to clot. A slight protrusion or hump that develops a hot spot when polished is all it needs. For size reference, the piece on the right is a tad over 1” square.
 

 
 
I cut the seven vertical pieces out and blackened their perimeters. It would have been great to do this as a single piece, but it needs to bend in two dimensions, so that was out.
 

 
 
Painted.
 

 
So here it is all glued to the boat. I used aluminum for the “U” shaped rail cap and applied the same paint and polish to it. The paper cap just looked lumpy.
 
The hull paint is not final and it’s more of a color test than anything.  Hull weathering won't be for some time, but I want to see how the metal weathering will look surrounded by those colors. Typically, I like to start with something that looks new and progressively add wear and age.  This "metal" clearly needs darkening, dents, gouges, streaking, rust and other fun stuff.  
 

 
I wish I liked this metal more than I do, so, I’m going to take another crack at using styrene for the aft metal work and see how they compare. I'll post those results and that of the weathering.
 
Until next time – Take care and thanks for stopping by.
 
Gary

Greetings Fellow Modelers,
 
Thanks for the comments and "likes".
 
In the past several months, the most I’ve seen of the Pelican has been when walking by it. This is due to a lack of time and not a lack of interest, but with a friendly nudge from Phil, here’s an update on what I have been doing - sacrificial hull sheathing and protective sheet metal in way of the gallows frames. I want to mention that Phil @Dr PR has already installed protective hull sheathing (a feature rarely modeled) on his excellent USS Cape build. Check it out if you haven't already.
 
In my last post, I described the construction of the gallows frames and associated brackets. It would seem logical that the next step is to now paint, weather, and install these frames. But doing so now would greatly complicate installing the sheet metal below the gallows. This led to yet another task that had to be done before the sheet metal could go on - laying down the protective hull sheathing.
 
Many mid-century wooden fishing boats in New England had partial sheathing that protected the hull from damage when raising and lowering the heavy trawl gear. This sheathing (typically ¾” oak) was sacrificial, and the planks were installed straight and untapered making them easy to replace/repair. The Roann, built in 1946, is a small eastern-rig dragger in the collection of the Mystic Seaport Museum. It was designed by Albert Condon a few years after he designed the Pelican. In the photo below one can see that the sheathing under the starboard gallows extends down below the waterline nearly to the keel. The sheathing also extends forward in a waterline band all the way to the stem. This forward band of sheathing was added to protect the hull from floating ice slabs at a time when harbor freeze-overs were not uncommon. Because the Roann was not equipped to “drag” off port side, only the waterline sheathing was installed, which extends back to midships.
 

 
 
Based on the plans and other boats by the same designer, here’s what the sheathing looks like on the Pelican.  The boards are scale ¾” by 4” and will be applied to both sides, because this vessel could drag off both sides.
 

 
 
Vertical strips of wood are installed against the end grain to reduce water absorption, crushing and splintering of the board ends. Perhaps tar or some other waterproofing was slathered on the ends before the vertical strips were attached.
 

 
 
The sheathing extends onto the stem.
 

 
 
I added the rub rail which sits just below bottom of deck. It’s made up of two pieces which combined stand out from the hull about 3 scale inches. The outer piece is half round styrene.
 

 
 
In the cross section below the sheet metal under the aft gallows is highlighted in blue. The metal is #10 galvanized steel, about .138” (3.5mm) thick. I don’t have a forward cross section of this detail to show, but it’s very similar. Note the added wood structure that holds the sheet metal out from the bulwark and guides it over the rub rail.
 

 
 
The main area of sheet metal consists of seven vertical sections, so the structure is constructed to support them.  Here’s the forward support framing.
 

 
 
And the aft framing.
 

 
 
The drawing below shows the individual sheet panels and their arrangement – also there’s a “U” shaped cap that fits over the rail.
 

 
 
I drew up the forward starboard sheet-metal group in CAD and then adjusted it to match the “as-built” framing of the support structure. On the full sized boat, the vertical panel seams overlap, but on the model they simply butt to each other. The drawing was separated into individual panels to be used as templates.
 

 
 
Thinking that copper would be the material to simulate the metal, I purchased foil that closely scaled to the actual #10 gauge used on the real boat – but that was a bust. While the copper was malleable enough, it dented, scratched and crinkle creased way too easily and so I tried a variety of different materials including aluminum, brass, paper, card and styrene. Each had appeal and issues, but for the small panels on this model, I decided on using inkjet photo paper instead. More precisely, the reverse side of the paper because of its smooth coated surface. It sort of looks and feels like styrene and there’s no sign of fiber. When folded, it creates a nice sharp bend, and the cut edges are clean and fuzz free. This paper is left over from when I had an ink printer, and I suspect any dense hard surface paper would work just as well. Out of curiosity, I did try painting the front “photo” side of the paper. Not good. Think of how an old photo looks that’s been folded, creased, reopened and flattened.
 
Anyway, I printed out the templates directly to the reverse side of the photo paper and cut free the lower section panel to work on first. The upper seven vertical panels will shingle over this panel.
 
I began by slowly going around the perimeter with a black permanent marker allowing time for the paper to absorb the ink. I then flattened/burnished the edges with a spoon shaped sculpting tool.
 

 
 
I then colored it with oxide black acrylic ink.
 

 
 
I painted it with True Metal “iron” and stippled it to remove brush strokes while allowing some small peaks to remain. No attempt at a uniform look.
 

 
 
Letting the paint dry half an hour or so, I then polished the surface with a scrap piece of clean styrene sheet. I just flop the styrene (about 4” square) on top and briskly rub in one direction at a time. The thickness and pattern of paint that was applied in combination with the speed and pressure used when polishing will yield different results.
 
This process reminds me of the drywall texturing I did on a house we renovated about thirty years ago. Called “orange peel knockdown”, it was all the rage back then and great for obscuring a less than stellar drywall installation. The procedure was to splatter spray drywall mud on the wall, wait for it to partially dry, and then knockdown the peaks with a clean trowel. Similar idea here in micro scale.
 

 
 
You can create a variety of different looks by modifying the paint thickness, texture and by how long you let it dry. The test piece on the left in the photo below is True Metal iron on .05” styrene. The paint was gently streaked vertically with just the edge of a toothbrush, allowed to dry then polished with the styrene sheet.  In the middle is TM steel with a speck of burnt umber oil paint added and then applied to 24lb copy paper. The paint wasn’t quite dry when polished leaving long streaks. On the right is TM iron on the back side of photo paper. Because all these materials are thin, any imperfections on the work surface will telegraph up onto the surface of the "metal". This can be used to advantage. Back to the example on the right, I took a piece of double-sided cellophane tape with a fine thread stuck to it and fixed it to my work surface. Placing the photo paper on top and polishing it left a vertical image on the metal. A close look even reveals where the butt end of the tape was. This works so well because the paint is wax based and it’s looking for any excuse to clot. A slight protrusion or hump that develops a hot spot when polished is all it needs. For size reference, the piece on the right is a tad over 1” square.
 

 
 
I cut the seven vertical pieces out and blackened their perimeters. It would have been great to do this as a single piece, but it needs to bend in two dimensions, so that was out.
 

 
 
Painted.
 

 
So here it is all glued to the boat. I used aluminum for the “U” shaped rail cap and applied the same paint and polish to it. The paper cap just looked lumpy.
 
The hull paint is not final and it’s more of a color test than anything.  Hull weathering won't be for some time, but I want to see how the metal weathering will look surrounded by those colors. Typically, I like to start with something that looks new and progressively add wear and age.  This "metal" clearly needs darkening, dents, gouges, streaking, rust and other fun stuff.  
 

 
I wish I liked this metal more than I do, so, I’m going to take another crack at using styrene for the aft metal work and see how they compare. I'll post those results and that of the weathering.
 
Until next time – Take care and thanks for stopping by.
 
Gary

Thank you, Glen, Paul, Keith, John, Phil and Wefalck for your comments and support.  It is so appreciated, and I thank all for the "thumbs up".
 
I want to clarify that when stripping the brass, both layers of the two-sided tape are being cut, and the strip remains taped to the stainless. The only way I know the cut is complete is when the blade glides smoothly across the stainless.  A single edged razor blade is then used to release it from the stainless plate.
 
 
 
Paul and Phil - they are indeed handy, and it provides precision when folding such parts.  It's great for making angle iron and such from aluminum beverage can sidewall.  But of course it is limited to thin, soft materials. 
 
 
It is a DSPIAE model # AT-MPB - just shy of $30 US.  It's a quality tool that I've seen military modelers use.  They work with a lot of PE so I figure they must know.   The top clamp (red) can be lifted and turned as needed.
 

 
 
Hmm, never thought of that.  Must give that a try sometime, especially with slightly thicker material. Thanks.
 
Gary
 
 

Keith B, Paul, Chris, Druxey, Bowwild, Glen, Keith A, Andy, Marc and Rick - I thank you very much for the compliments and support.  And thanks for all the "thumbs up" and to those watching quietly. 
 
A brief update.
 
The wave break diverter that I installed in the last post has been removed and replaced with one of a different design.  The original one is something that might have been installed on a metal hull boat, but never on a wooden fishing vessel of this era.  The Pelican’s plan set shows a side view of the diverter, but no details or even a top view and what I ended up building was simply wrong.  Further research showed the wave breaks on these wooden draggers were built directly onto the deck and not constructed in a shop and then bolted on.
 
The images below show the before and after.
 

 

 
Creating the new wave break was the easy part.  Fixing the deck after tearing off the old one was the hard part because chunks of the “rubber membrane” tissue came off with it.  Heavy sigh.
 
Moving on, I built the galley stove stack and the only info I have on it is the outboard profile.  I lifted dimensions from the drawing but placed an alternative cap on top instead of the conical diamond shaped one shown on the drawing.  The lower half of the stack has a double wall which allows hot air to travel up between the two pipes and exit at the beveled cap where the outer wall terminates.  This helps protect the crew from burns when brushing against it.

 
 
It's made from brass and two modified plastic pieces from a Grandt Line boiler stack.

 
 
Solder and glue.

 
 
Once I knew how it would stand above the deck, I soldered on a deck collar.  Then blackened, oil paints and pigment powders.

 
 
A hole was cut through the deck and the stack inserted.  It still needs a support bracket off the doghouse and some butyl or tar at the deck.  But deck wear patterns around it and deck weathering in general will be done after all other objects and details are in place.  Meaning, not for a while.
 

 

 
Thanks for stopping and take care.
 
Gary

Greetings Fellow Modelers,
 
Thanks for the comments and "likes".
 
In the past several months, the most I’ve seen of the Pelican has been when walking by it. This is due to a lack of time and not a lack of interest, but with a friendly nudge from Phil, here’s an update on what I have been doing - sacrificial hull sheathing and protective sheet metal in way of the gallows frames. I want to mention that Phil @Dr PR has already installed protective hull sheathing (a feature rarely modeled) on his excellent USS Cape build. Check it out if you haven't already.
 
In my last post, I described the construction of the gallows frames and associated brackets. It would seem logical that the next step is to now paint, weather, and install these frames. But doing so now would greatly complicate installing the sheet metal below the gallows. This led to yet another task that had to be done before the sheet metal could go on - laying down the protective hull sheathing.
 
Many mid-century wooden fishing boats in New England had partial sheathing that protected the hull from damage when raising and lowering the heavy trawl gear. This sheathing (typically ¾” oak) was sacrificial, and the planks were installed straight and untapered making them easy to replace/repair. The Roann, built in 1946, is a small eastern-rig dragger in the collection of the Mystic Seaport Museum. It was designed by Albert Condon a few years after he designed the Pelican. In the photo below one can see that the sheathing under the starboard gallows extends down below the waterline nearly to the keel. The sheathing also extends forward in a waterline band all the way to the stem. This forward band of sheathing was added to protect the hull from floating ice slabs at a time when harbor freeze-overs were not uncommon. Because the Roann was not equipped to “drag” off port side, only the waterline sheathing was installed, which extends back to midships.
 

 
 
Based on the plans and other boats by the same designer, here’s what the sheathing looks like on the Pelican.  The boards are scale ¾” by 4” and will be applied to both sides, because this vessel could drag off both sides.
 

 
 
Vertical strips of wood are installed against the end grain to reduce water absorption, crushing and splintering of the board ends. Perhaps tar or some other waterproofing was slathered on the ends before the vertical strips were attached.
 

 
 
The sheathing extends onto the stem.
 

 
 
I added the rub rail which sits just below bottom of deck. It’s made up of two pieces which combined stand out from the hull about 3 scale inches. The outer piece is half round styrene.
 

 
 
In the cross section below the sheet metal under the aft gallows is highlighted in blue. The metal is #10 galvanized steel, about .138” (3.5mm) thick. I don’t have a forward cross section of this detail to show, but it’s very similar. Note the added wood structure that holds the sheet metal out from the bulwark and guides it over the rub rail.
 

 
 
The main area of sheet metal consists of seven vertical sections, so the structure is constructed to support them.  Here’s the forward support framing.
 

 
 
And the aft framing.
 

 
 
The drawing below shows the individual sheet panels and their arrangement – also there’s a “U” shaped cap that fits over the rail.
 

 
 
I drew up the forward starboard sheet-metal group in CAD and then adjusted it to match the “as-built” framing of the support structure. On the full sized boat, the vertical panel seams overlap, but on the model they simply butt to each other. The drawing was separated into individual panels to be used as templates.
 

 
 
Thinking that copper would be the material to simulate the metal, I purchased foil that closely scaled to the actual #10 gauge used on the real boat – but that was a bust. While the copper was malleable enough, it dented, scratched and crinkle creased way too easily and so I tried a variety of different materials including aluminum, brass, paper, card and styrene. Each had appeal and issues, but for the small panels on this model, I decided on using inkjet photo paper instead. More precisely, the reverse side of the paper because of its smooth coated surface. It sort of looks and feels like styrene and there’s no sign of fiber. When folded, it creates a nice sharp bend, and the cut edges are clean and fuzz free. This paper is left over from when I had an ink printer, and I suspect any dense hard surface paper would work just as well. Out of curiosity, I did try painting the front “photo” side of the paper. Not good. Think of how an old photo looks that’s been folded, creased, reopened and flattened.
 
Anyway, I printed out the templates directly to the reverse side of the photo paper and cut free the lower section panel to work on first. The upper seven vertical panels will shingle over this panel.
 
I began by slowly going around the perimeter with a black permanent marker allowing time for the paper to absorb the ink. I then flattened/burnished the edges with a spoon shaped sculpting tool.
 

 
 
I then colored it with oxide black acrylic ink.
 

 
 
I painted it with True Metal “iron” and stippled it to remove brush strokes while allowing some small peaks to remain. No attempt at a uniform look.
 

 
 
Letting the paint dry half an hour or so, I then polished the surface with a scrap piece of clean styrene sheet. I just flop the styrene (about 4” square) on top and briskly rub in one direction at a time. The thickness and pattern of paint that was applied in combination with the speed and pressure used when polishing will yield different results.
 
This process reminds me of the drywall texturing I did on a house we renovated about thirty years ago. Called “orange peel knockdown”, it was all the rage back then and great for obscuring a less than stellar drywall installation. The procedure was to splatter spray drywall mud on the wall, wait for it to partially dry, and then knockdown the peaks with a clean trowel. Similar idea here in micro scale.
 

 
 
You can create a variety of different looks by modifying the paint thickness, texture and by how long you let it dry. The test piece on the left in the photo below is True Metal iron on .05” styrene. The paint was gently streaked vertically with just the edge of a toothbrush, allowed to dry then polished with the styrene sheet.  In the middle is TM steel with a speck of burnt umber oil paint added and then applied to 24lb copy paper. The paint wasn’t quite dry when polished leaving long streaks. On the right is TM iron on the back side of photo paper. Because all these materials are thin, any imperfections on the work surface will telegraph up onto the surface of the "metal". This can be used to advantage. Back to the example on the right, I took a piece of double-sided cellophane tape with a fine thread stuck to it and fixed it to my work surface. Placing the photo paper on top and polishing it left a vertical image on the metal. A close look even reveals where the butt end of the tape was. This works so well because the paint is wax based and it’s looking for any excuse to clot. A slight protrusion or hump that develops a hot spot when polished is all it needs. For size reference, the piece on the right is a tad over 1” square.
 

 
 
I cut the seven vertical pieces out and blackened their perimeters. It would have been great to do this as a single piece, but it needs to bend in two dimensions, so that was out.
 

 
 
Painted.
 

 
So here it is all glued to the boat. I used aluminum for the “U” shaped rail cap and applied the same paint and polish to it. The paper cap just looked lumpy.
 
The hull paint is not final and it’s more of a color test than anything.  Hull weathering won't be for some time, but I want to see how the metal weathering will look surrounded by those colors. Typically, I like to start with something that looks new and progressively add wear and age.  This "metal" clearly needs darkening, dents, gouges, streaking, rust and other fun stuff.  
 

 
I wish I liked this metal more than I do, so, I’m going to take another crack at using styrene for the aft metal work and see how they compare. I'll post those results and that of the weathering.
 
Until next time – Take care and thanks for stopping by.
 
Gary

Greetings Fellow Modelers,
 
Thanks for the comments and "likes".
 
In the past several months, the most I’ve seen of the Pelican has been when walking by it. This is due to a lack of time and not a lack of interest, but with a friendly nudge from Phil, here’s an update on what I have been doing - sacrificial hull sheathing and protective sheet metal in way of the gallows frames. I want to mention that Phil @Dr PR has already installed protective hull sheathing (a feature rarely modeled) on his excellent USS Cape build. Check it out if you haven't already.
 
In my last post, I described the construction of the gallows frames and associated brackets. It would seem logical that the next step is to now paint, weather, and install these frames. But doing so now would greatly complicate installing the sheet metal below the gallows. This led to yet another task that had to be done before the sheet metal could go on - laying down the protective hull sheathing.
 
Many mid-century wooden fishing boats in New England had partial sheathing that protected the hull from damage when raising and lowering the heavy trawl gear. This sheathing (typically ¾” oak) was sacrificial, and the planks were installed straight and untapered making them easy to replace/repair. The Roann, built in 1946, is a small eastern-rig dragger in the collection of the Mystic Seaport Museum. It was designed by Albert Condon a few years after he designed the Pelican. In the photo below one can see that the sheathing under the starboard gallows extends down below the waterline nearly to the keel. The sheathing also extends forward in a waterline band all the way to the stem. This forward band of sheathing was added to protect the hull from floating ice slabs at a time when harbor freeze-overs were not uncommon. Because the Roann was not equipped to “drag” off port side, only the waterline sheathing was installed, which extends back to midships.
 

 
 
Based on the plans and other boats by the same designer, here’s what the sheathing looks like on the Pelican.  The boards are scale ¾” by 4” and will be applied to both sides, because this vessel could drag off both sides.
 

 
 
Vertical strips of wood are installed against the end grain to reduce water absorption, crushing and splintering of the board ends. Perhaps tar or some other waterproofing was slathered on the ends before the vertical strips were attached.
 

 
 
The sheathing extends onto the stem.
 

 
 
I added the rub rail which sits just below bottom of deck. It’s made up of two pieces which combined stand out from the hull about 3 scale inches. The outer piece is half round styrene.
 

 
 
In the cross section below the sheet metal under the aft gallows is highlighted in blue. The metal is #10 galvanized steel, about .138” (3.5mm) thick. I don’t have a forward cross section of this detail to show, but it’s very similar. Note the added wood structure that holds the sheet metal out from the bulwark and guides it over the rub rail.
 

 
 
The main area of sheet metal consists of seven vertical sections, so the structure is constructed to support them.  Here’s the forward support framing.
 

 
 
And the aft framing.
 

 
 
The drawing below shows the individual sheet panels and their arrangement – also there’s a “U” shaped cap that fits over the rail.
 

 
 
I drew up the forward starboard sheet-metal group in CAD and then adjusted it to match the “as-built” framing of the support structure. On the full sized boat, the vertical panel seams overlap, but on the model they simply butt to each other. The drawing was separated into individual panels to be used as templates.
 

 
 
Thinking that copper would be the material to simulate the metal, I purchased foil that closely scaled to the actual #10 gauge used on the real boat – but that was a bust. While the copper was malleable enough, it dented, scratched and crinkle creased way too easily and so I tried a variety of different materials including aluminum, brass, paper, card and styrene. Each had appeal and issues, but for the small panels on this model, I decided on using inkjet photo paper instead. More precisely, the reverse side of the paper because of its smooth coated surface. It sort of looks and feels like styrene and there’s no sign of fiber. When folded, it creates a nice sharp bend, and the cut edges are clean and fuzz free. This paper is left over from when I had an ink printer, and I suspect any dense hard surface paper would work just as well. Out of curiosity, I did try painting the front “photo” side of the paper. Not good. Think of how an old photo looks that’s been folded, creased, reopened and flattened.
 
Anyway, I printed out the templates directly to the reverse side of the photo paper and cut free the lower section panel to work on first. The upper seven vertical panels will shingle over this panel.
 
I began by slowly going around the perimeter with a black permanent marker allowing time for the paper to absorb the ink. I then flattened/burnished the edges with a spoon shaped sculpting tool.
 

 
 
I then colored it with oxide black acrylic ink.
 

 
 
I painted it with True Metal “iron” and stippled it to remove brush strokes while allowing some small peaks to remain. No attempt at a uniform look.
 

 
 
Letting the paint dry half an hour or so, I then polished the surface with a scrap piece of clean styrene sheet. I just flop the styrene (about 4” square) on top and briskly rub in one direction at a time. The thickness and pattern of paint that was applied in combination with the speed and pressure used when polishing will yield different results.
 
This process reminds me of the drywall texturing I did on a house we renovated about thirty years ago. Called “orange peel knockdown”, it was all the rage back then and great for obscuring a less than stellar drywall installation. The procedure was to splatter spray drywall mud on the wall, wait for it to partially dry, and then knockdown the peaks with a clean trowel. Similar idea here in micro scale.
 

 
 
You can create a variety of different looks by modifying the paint thickness, texture and by how long you let it dry. The test piece on the left in the photo below is True Metal iron on .05” styrene. The paint was gently streaked vertically with just the edge of a toothbrush, allowed to dry then polished with the styrene sheet.  In the middle is TM steel with a speck of burnt umber oil paint added and then applied to 24lb copy paper. The paint wasn’t quite dry when polished leaving long streaks. On the right is TM iron on the back side of photo paper. Because all these materials are thin, any imperfections on the work surface will telegraph up onto the surface of the "metal". This can be used to advantage. Back to the example on the right, I took a piece of double-sided cellophane tape with a fine thread stuck to it and fixed it to my work surface. Placing the photo paper on top and polishing it left a vertical image on the metal. A close look even reveals where the butt end of the tape was. This works so well because the paint is wax based and it’s looking for any excuse to clot. A slight protrusion or hump that develops a hot spot when polished is all it needs. For size reference, the piece on the right is a tad over 1” square.
 

 
 
I cut the seven vertical pieces out and blackened their perimeters. It would have been great to do this as a single piece, but it needs to bend in two dimensions, so that was out.
 

 
 
Painted.
 

 
So here it is all glued to the boat. I used aluminum for the “U” shaped rail cap and applied the same paint and polish to it. The paper cap just looked lumpy.
 
The hull paint is not final and it’s more of a color test than anything.  Hull weathering won't be for some time, but I want to see how the metal weathering will look surrounded by those colors. Typically, I like to start with something that looks new and progressively add wear and age.  This "metal" clearly needs darkening, dents, gouges, streaking, rust and other fun stuff.  
 

 
I wish I liked this metal more than I do, so, I’m going to take another crack at using styrene for the aft metal work and see how they compare. I'll post those results and that of the weathering.
 
Until next time – Take care and thanks for stopping by.
 
Gary

Greetings Fellow Modelers,
 
Thanks for the comments and "likes".
 
In the past several months, the most I’ve seen of the Pelican has been when walking by it. This is due to a lack of time and not a lack of interest, but with a friendly nudge from Phil, here’s an update on what I have been doing - sacrificial hull sheathing and protective sheet metal in way of the gallows frames. I want to mention that Phil @Dr PR has already installed protective hull sheathing (a feature rarely modeled) on his excellent USS Cape build. Check it out if you haven't already.
 
In my last post, I described the construction of the gallows frames and associated brackets. It would seem logical that the next step is to now paint, weather, and install these frames. But doing so now would greatly complicate installing the sheet metal below the gallows. This led to yet another task that had to be done before the sheet metal could go on - laying down the protective hull sheathing.
 
Many mid-century wooden fishing boats in New England had partial sheathing that protected the hull from damage when raising and lowering the heavy trawl gear. This sheathing (typically ¾” oak) was sacrificial, and the planks were installed straight and untapered making them easy to replace/repair. The Roann, built in 1946, is a small eastern-rig dragger in the collection of the Mystic Seaport Museum. It was designed by Albert Condon a few years after he designed the Pelican. In the photo below one can see that the sheathing under the starboard gallows extends down below the waterline nearly to the keel. The sheathing also extends forward in a waterline band all the way to the stem. This forward band of sheathing was added to protect the hull from floating ice slabs at a time when harbor freeze-overs were not uncommon. Because the Roann was not equipped to “drag” off port side, only the waterline sheathing was installed, which extends back to midships.
 

 
 
Based on the plans and other boats by the same designer, here’s what the sheathing looks like on the Pelican.  The boards are scale ¾” by 4” and will be applied to both sides, because this vessel could drag off both sides.
 

 
 
Vertical strips of wood are installed against the end grain to reduce water absorption, crushing and splintering of the board ends. Perhaps tar or some other waterproofing was slathered on the ends before the vertical strips were attached.
 

 
 
The sheathing extends onto the stem.
 

 
 
I added the rub rail which sits just below bottom of deck. It’s made up of two pieces which combined stand out from the hull about 3 scale inches. The outer piece is half round styrene.
 

 
 
In the cross section below the sheet metal under the aft gallows is highlighted in blue. The metal is #10 galvanized steel, about .138” (3.5mm) thick. I don’t have a forward cross section of this detail to show, but it’s very similar. Note the added wood structure that holds the sheet metal out from the bulwark and guides it over the rub rail.
 

 
 
The main area of sheet metal consists of seven vertical sections, so the structure is constructed to support them.  Here’s the forward support framing.
 

 
 
And the aft framing.
 

 
 
The drawing below shows the individual sheet panels and their arrangement – also there’s a “U” shaped cap that fits over the rail.
 

 
 
I drew up the forward starboard sheet-metal group in CAD and then adjusted it to match the “as-built” framing of the support structure. On the full sized boat, the vertical panel seams overlap, but on the model they simply butt to each other. The drawing was separated into individual panels to be used as templates.
 

 
 
Thinking that copper would be the material to simulate the metal, I purchased foil that closely scaled to the actual #10 gauge used on the real boat – but that was a bust. While the copper was malleable enough, it dented, scratched and crinkle creased way too easily and so I tried a variety of different materials including aluminum, brass, paper, card and styrene. Each had appeal and issues, but for the small panels on this model, I decided on using inkjet photo paper instead. More precisely, the reverse side of the paper because of its smooth coated surface. It sort of looks and feels like styrene and there’s no sign of fiber. When folded, it creates a nice sharp bend, and the cut edges are clean and fuzz free. This paper is left over from when I had an ink printer, and I suspect any dense hard surface paper would work just as well. Out of curiosity, I did try painting the front “photo” side of the paper. Not good. Think of how an old photo looks that’s been folded, creased, reopened and flattened.
 
Anyway, I printed out the templates directly to the reverse side of the photo paper and cut free the lower section panel to work on first. The upper seven vertical panels will shingle over this panel.
 
I began by slowly going around the perimeter with a black permanent marker allowing time for the paper to absorb the ink. I then flattened/burnished the edges with a spoon shaped sculpting tool.
 

 
 
I then colored it with oxide black acrylic ink.
 

 
 
I painted it with True Metal “iron” and stippled it to remove brush strokes while allowing some small peaks to remain. No attempt at a uniform look.
 

 
 
Letting the paint dry half an hour or so, I then polished the surface with a scrap piece of clean styrene sheet. I just flop the styrene (about 4” square) on top and briskly rub in one direction at a time. The thickness and pattern of paint that was applied in combination with the speed and pressure used when polishing will yield different results.
 
This process reminds me of the drywall texturing I did on a house we renovated about thirty years ago. Called “orange peel knockdown”, it was all the rage back then and great for obscuring a less than stellar drywall installation. The procedure was to splatter spray drywall mud on the wall, wait for it to partially dry, and then knockdown the peaks with a clean trowel. Similar idea here in micro scale.
 

 
 
You can create a variety of different looks by modifying the paint thickness, texture and by how long you let it dry. The test piece on the left in the photo below is True Metal iron on .05” styrene. The paint was gently streaked vertically with just the edge of a toothbrush, allowed to dry then polished with the styrene sheet.  In the middle is TM steel with a speck of burnt umber oil paint added and then applied to 24lb copy paper. The paint wasn’t quite dry when polished leaving long streaks. On the right is TM iron on the back side of photo paper. Because all these materials are thin, any imperfections on the work surface will telegraph up onto the surface of the "metal". This can be used to advantage. Back to the example on the right, I took a piece of double-sided cellophane tape with a fine thread stuck to it and fixed it to my work surface. Placing the photo paper on top and polishing it left a vertical image on the metal. A close look even reveals where the butt end of the tape was. This works so well because the paint is wax based and it’s looking for any excuse to clot. A slight protrusion or hump that develops a hot spot when polished is all it needs. For size reference, the piece on the right is a tad over 1” square.
 

 
 
I cut the seven vertical pieces out and blackened their perimeters. It would have been great to do this as a single piece, but it needs to bend in two dimensions, so that was out.
 

 
 
Painted.
 

 
So here it is all glued to the boat. I used aluminum for the “U” shaped rail cap and applied the same paint and polish to it. The paper cap just looked lumpy.
 
The hull paint is not final and it’s more of a color test than anything.  Hull weathering won't be for some time, but I want to see how the metal weathering will look surrounded by those colors. Typically, I like to start with something that looks new and progressively add wear and age.  This "metal" clearly needs darkening, dents, gouges, streaking, rust and other fun stuff.  
 

 
I wish I liked this metal more than I do, so, I’m going to take another crack at using styrene for the aft metal work and see how they compare. I'll post those results and that of the weathering.
 
Until next time – Take care and thanks for stopping by.
 
Gary

Greetings Fellow Modelers,
 
Thanks for the comments and "likes".
 
In the past several months, the most I’ve seen of the Pelican has been when walking by it. This is due to a lack of time and not a lack of interest, but with a friendly nudge from Phil, here’s an update on what I have been doing - sacrificial hull sheathing and protective sheet metal in way of the gallows frames. I want to mention that Phil @Dr PR has already installed protective hull sheathing (a feature rarely modeled) on his excellent USS Cape build. Check it out if you haven't already.
 
In my last post, I described the construction of the gallows frames and associated brackets. It would seem logical that the next step is to now paint, weather, and install these frames. But doing so now would greatly complicate installing the sheet metal below the gallows. This led to yet another task that had to be done before the sheet metal could go on - laying down the protective hull sheathing.
 
Many mid-century wooden fishing boats in New England had partial sheathing that protected the hull from damage when raising and lowering the heavy trawl gear. This sheathing (typically ¾” oak) was sacrificial, and the planks were installed straight and untapered making them easy to replace/repair. The Roann, built in 1946, is a small eastern-rig dragger in the collection of the Mystic Seaport Museum. It was designed by Albert Condon a few years after he designed the Pelican. In the photo below one can see that the sheathing under the starboard gallows extends down below the waterline nearly to the keel. The sheathing also extends forward in a waterline band all the way to the stem. This forward band of sheathing was added to protect the hull from floating ice slabs at a time when harbor freeze-overs were not uncommon. Because the Roann was not equipped to “drag” off port side, only the waterline sheathing was installed, which extends back to midships.
 

 
 
Based on the plans and other boats by the same designer, here’s what the sheathing looks like on the Pelican.  The boards are scale ¾” by 4” and will be applied to both sides, because this vessel could drag off both sides.
 

 
 
Vertical strips of wood are installed against the end grain to reduce water absorption, crushing and splintering of the board ends. Perhaps tar or some other waterproofing was slathered on the ends before the vertical strips were attached.
 

 
 
The sheathing extends onto the stem.
 

 
 
I added the rub rail which sits just below bottom of deck. It’s made up of two pieces which combined stand out from the hull about 3 scale inches. The outer piece is half round styrene.
 

 
 
In the cross section below the sheet metal under the aft gallows is highlighted in blue. The metal is #10 galvanized steel, about .138” (3.5mm) thick. I don’t have a forward cross section of this detail to show, but it’s very similar. Note the added wood structure that holds the sheet metal out from the bulwark and guides it over the rub rail.
 

 
 
The main area of sheet metal consists of seven vertical sections, so the structure is constructed to support them.  Here’s the forward support framing.
 

 
 
And the aft framing.
 

 
 
The drawing below shows the individual sheet panels and their arrangement – also there’s a “U” shaped cap that fits over the rail.
 

 
 
I drew up the forward starboard sheet-metal group in CAD and then adjusted it to match the “as-built” framing of the support structure. On the full sized boat, the vertical panel seams overlap, but on the model they simply butt to each other. The drawing was separated into individual panels to be used as templates.
 

 
 
Thinking that copper would be the material to simulate the metal, I purchased foil that closely scaled to the actual #10 gauge used on the real boat – but that was a bust. While the copper was malleable enough, it dented, scratched and crinkle creased way too easily and so I tried a variety of different materials including aluminum, brass, paper, card and styrene. Each had appeal and issues, but for the small panels on this model, I decided on using inkjet photo paper instead. More precisely, the reverse side of the paper because of its smooth coated surface. It sort of looks and feels like styrene and there’s no sign of fiber. When folded, it creates a nice sharp bend, and the cut edges are clean and fuzz free. This paper is left over from when I had an ink printer, and I suspect any dense hard surface paper would work just as well. Out of curiosity, I did try painting the front “photo” side of the paper. Not good. Think of how an old photo looks that’s been folded, creased, reopened and flattened.
 
Anyway, I printed out the templates directly to the reverse side of the photo paper and cut free the lower section panel to work on first. The upper seven vertical panels will shingle over this panel.
 
I began by slowly going around the perimeter with a black permanent marker allowing time for the paper to absorb the ink. I then flattened/burnished the edges with a spoon shaped sculpting tool.
 

 
 
I then colored it with oxide black acrylic ink.
 

 
 
I painted it with True Metal “iron” and stippled it to remove brush strokes while allowing some small peaks to remain. No attempt at a uniform look.
 

 
 
Letting the paint dry half an hour or so, I then polished the surface with a scrap piece of clean styrene sheet. I just flop the styrene (about 4” square) on top and briskly rub in one direction at a time. The thickness and pattern of paint that was applied in combination with the speed and pressure used when polishing will yield different results.
 
This process reminds me of the drywall texturing I did on a house we renovated about thirty years ago. Called “orange peel knockdown”, it was all the rage back then and great for obscuring a less than stellar drywall installation. The procedure was to splatter spray drywall mud on the wall, wait for it to partially dry, and then knockdown the peaks with a clean trowel. Similar idea here in micro scale.
 

 
 
You can create a variety of different looks by modifying the paint thickness, texture and by how long you let it dry. The test piece on the left in the photo below is True Metal iron on .05” styrene. The paint was gently streaked vertically with just the edge of a toothbrush, allowed to dry then polished with the styrene sheet.  In the middle is TM steel with a speck of burnt umber oil paint added and then applied to 24lb copy paper. The paint wasn’t quite dry when polished leaving long streaks. On the right is TM iron on the back side of photo paper. Because all these materials are thin, any imperfections on the work surface will telegraph up onto the surface of the "metal". This can be used to advantage. Back to the example on the right, I took a piece of double-sided cellophane tape with a fine thread stuck to it and fixed it to my work surface. Placing the photo paper on top and polishing it left a vertical image on the metal. A close look even reveals where the butt end of the tape was. This works so well because the paint is wax based and it’s looking for any excuse to clot. A slight protrusion or hump that develops a hot spot when polished is all it needs. For size reference, the piece on the right is a tad over 1” square.
 

 
 
I cut the seven vertical pieces out and blackened their perimeters. It would have been great to do this as a single piece, but it needs to bend in two dimensions, so that was out.
 

 
 
Painted.
 

 
So here it is all glued to the boat. I used aluminum for the “U” shaped rail cap and applied the same paint and polish to it. The paper cap just looked lumpy.
 
The hull paint is not final and it’s more of a color test than anything.  Hull weathering won't be for some time, but I want to see how the metal weathering will look surrounded by those colors. Typically, I like to start with something that looks new and progressively add wear and age.  This "metal" clearly needs darkening, dents, gouges, streaking, rust and other fun stuff.  
 

 
I wish I liked this metal more than I do, so, I’m going to take another crack at using styrene for the aft metal work and see how they compare. I'll post those results and that of the weathering.
 
Until next time – Take care and thanks for stopping by.
 
Gary

Greetings Fellow Modelers,
 
Thanks for the comments and "likes".
 
In the past several months, the most I’ve seen of the Pelican has been when walking by it. This is due to a lack of time and not a lack of interest, but with a friendly nudge from Phil, here’s an update on what I have been doing - sacrificial hull sheathing and protective sheet metal in way of the gallows frames. I want to mention that Phil @Dr PR has already installed protective hull sheathing (a feature rarely modeled) on his excellent USS Cape build. Check it out if you haven't already.
 
In my last post, I described the construction of the gallows frames and associated brackets. It would seem logical that the next step is to now paint, weather, and install these frames. But doing so now would greatly complicate installing the sheet metal below the gallows. This led to yet another task that had to be done before the sheet metal could go on - laying down the protective hull sheathing.
 
Many mid-century wooden fishing boats in New England had partial sheathing that protected the hull from damage when raising and lowering the heavy trawl gear. This sheathing (typically ¾” oak) was sacrificial, and the planks were installed straight and untapered making them easy to replace/repair. The Roann, built in 1946, is a small eastern-rig dragger in the collection of the Mystic Seaport Museum. It was designed by Albert Condon a few years after he designed the Pelican. In the photo below one can see that the sheathing under the starboard gallows extends down below the waterline nearly to the keel. The sheathing also extends forward in a waterline band all the way to the stem. This forward band of sheathing was added to protect the hull from floating ice slabs at a time when harbor freeze-overs were not uncommon. Because the Roann was not equipped to “drag” off port side, only the waterline sheathing was installed, which extends back to midships.
 

 
 
Based on the plans and other boats by the same designer, here’s what the sheathing looks like on the Pelican.  The boards are scale ¾” by 4” and will be applied to both sides, because this vessel could drag off both sides.
 

 
 
Vertical strips of wood are installed against the end grain to reduce water absorption, crushing and splintering of the board ends. Perhaps tar or some other waterproofing was slathered on the ends before the vertical strips were attached.
 

 
 
The sheathing extends onto the stem.
 

 
 
I added the rub rail which sits just below bottom of deck. It’s made up of two pieces which combined stand out from the hull about 3 scale inches. The outer piece is half round styrene.
 

 
 
In the cross section below the sheet metal under the aft gallows is highlighted in blue. The metal is #10 galvanized steel, about .138” (3.5mm) thick. I don’t have a forward cross section of this detail to show, but it’s very similar. Note the added wood structure that holds the sheet metal out from the bulwark and guides it over the rub rail.
 

 
 
The main area of sheet metal consists of seven vertical sections, so the structure is constructed to support them.  Here’s the forward support framing.
 

 
 
And the aft framing.
 

 
 
The drawing below shows the individual sheet panels and their arrangement – also there’s a “U” shaped cap that fits over the rail.
 

 
 
I drew up the forward starboard sheet-metal group in CAD and then adjusted it to match the “as-built” framing of the support structure. On the full sized boat, the vertical panel seams overlap, but on the model they simply butt to each other. The drawing was separated into individual panels to be used as templates.
 

 
 
Thinking that copper would be the material to simulate the metal, I purchased foil that closely scaled to the actual #10 gauge used on the real boat – but that was a bust. While the copper was malleable enough, it dented, scratched and crinkle creased way too easily and so I tried a variety of different materials including aluminum, brass, paper, card and styrene. Each had appeal and issues, but for the small panels on this model, I decided on using inkjet photo paper instead. More precisely, the reverse side of the paper because of its smooth coated surface. It sort of looks and feels like styrene and there’s no sign of fiber. When folded, it creates a nice sharp bend, and the cut edges are clean and fuzz free. This paper is left over from when I had an ink printer, and I suspect any dense hard surface paper would work just as well. Out of curiosity, I did try painting the front “photo” side of the paper. Not good. Think of how an old photo looks that’s been folded, creased, reopened and flattened.
 
Anyway, I printed out the templates directly to the reverse side of the photo paper and cut free the lower section panel to work on first. The upper seven vertical panels will shingle over this panel.
 
I began by slowly going around the perimeter with a black permanent marker allowing time for the paper to absorb the ink. I then flattened/burnished the edges with a spoon shaped sculpting tool.
 

 
 
I then colored it with oxide black acrylic ink.
 

 
 
I painted it with True Metal “iron” and stippled it to remove brush strokes while allowing some small peaks to remain. No attempt at a uniform look.
 

 
 
Letting the paint dry half an hour or so, I then polished the surface with a scrap piece of clean styrene sheet. I just flop the styrene (about 4” square) on top and briskly rub in one direction at a time. The thickness and pattern of paint that was applied in combination with the speed and pressure used when polishing will yield different results.
 
This process reminds me of the drywall texturing I did on a house we renovated about thirty years ago. Called “orange peel knockdown”, it was all the rage back then and great for obscuring a less than stellar drywall installation. The procedure was to splatter spray drywall mud on the wall, wait for it to partially dry, and then knockdown the peaks with a clean trowel. Similar idea here in micro scale.
 

 
 
You can create a variety of different looks by modifying the paint thickness, texture and by how long you let it dry. The test piece on the left in the photo below is True Metal iron on .05” styrene. The paint was gently streaked vertically with just the edge of a toothbrush, allowed to dry then polished with the styrene sheet.  In the middle is TM steel with a speck of burnt umber oil paint added and then applied to 24lb copy paper. The paint wasn’t quite dry when polished leaving long streaks. On the right is TM iron on the back side of photo paper. Because all these materials are thin, any imperfections on the work surface will telegraph up onto the surface of the "metal". This can be used to advantage. Back to the example on the right, I took a piece of double-sided cellophane tape with a fine thread stuck to it and fixed it to my work surface. Placing the photo paper on top and polishing it left a vertical image on the metal. A close look even reveals where the butt end of the tape was. This works so well because the paint is wax based and it’s looking for any excuse to clot. A slight protrusion or hump that develops a hot spot when polished is all it needs. For size reference, the piece on the right is a tad over 1” square.
 

 
 
I cut the seven vertical pieces out and blackened their perimeters. It would have been great to do this as a single piece, but it needs to bend in two dimensions, so that was out.
 

 
 
Painted.
 

 
So here it is all glued to the boat. I used aluminum for the “U” shaped rail cap and applied the same paint and polish to it. The paper cap just looked lumpy.
 
The hull paint is not final and it’s more of a color test than anything.  Hull weathering won't be for some time, but I want to see how the metal weathering will look surrounded by those colors. Typically, I like to start with something that looks new and progressively add wear and age.  This "metal" clearly needs darkening, dents, gouges, streaking, rust and other fun stuff.  
 

 
I wish I liked this metal more than I do, so, I’m going to take another crack at using styrene for the aft metal work and see how they compare. I'll post those results and that of the weathering.
 
Until next time – Take care and thanks for stopping by.
 
Gary

Nice progress, John.
 
John

Continuing on the sail, I first laced it to the mast hoops, securing all the knots with a dab of superglue. The photo below is from before trimming the loose ends.

 
Next, the robands on the gaff. I was initially going to just loop the rope through the eyelet in the sail and then directly around the gaff, as below.

 
But, looking at photos, I decided it would look more accurate to first do a half hitch through the eyelet around the boltrope, and then around the gaff, as below. Subtle, but worth it.

 
As with the mast hoops, I first tied off everything around the sail before attaching the gaff spar.

 
The throat took some thought, as I wasn't sure whether it should be attached to the gaff or the mast, and once I decided the former, it wasn't clear how to tie it off, as it's located at the gaff jaws. After a bit of searching, I noticed in the photo below that there was a thin rope running around the gaff jaws.

Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/luchinmardones/5232587713/in/photostream/lightbox/
 
 
After seeing it in a few other photos, I now think that the throat was simply tied off around the jaws on many lanchas, so I did that, as seen below.

 
To make the robands, I used the same "fake splice" as I've used for stropping blocks: tie a half hitch, secure with a bit of glue, and trim the ends tightly.

 
A quick check, with the gaff temporarily held at the right angle with scrap thread and wire, to make sure none of the angles are wrong.

 
For the boom, I ultimately decided to go with the continuous loop instead of robands. While it at first looks like the continuous loop uses more rope, that doesn't take into account that each roband needs excess rope that gets trimmed after tying the knot. Handling it as a continuous loop was much easier than doing separate robands. That said, while I've seen a number of photos with a continuous loop lacing on the boom, none of them show that on the gaff spar, so this is accurate.

 
Finally, the photo below shows that, unlike the rest of the mast where hoops were used, the tack was held in place with a wrapping of rope.

Source: https://www.carlosvairo.com/galeria-puerto-montt-lanchas-chilotas
 
This was a pretty straightforward matter to represent.

 
With that, the gaff sail itself is finished! Next up, I need to figure out how to properly represent the hanks on the jib, and add the running rigging. At this point, I have about 1.5 feet of the .35mm rigging left, hopefully I won't need much for the jib.

Thanks, @Glen McGuire! I agree, I think the second option looks less bulky. 
 
Thanks, @wefalck, it's good to know that robands and continuous lacing can be mixed. While it would make a lot of sense to leave the foot of the gaff sail loose, photos show it was attached. Below, the looped continuous lacing is very clearly shown:

Source: https://www.carlosvairo.com/galeria-puerto-montt-lanchas-chilotas
 
Of course, that photo's from the early 1980s, so I wanted to check earlier photos as well. The photo below is from 1940 and shows what look to me like robands:

Source: https://www.bibliotecanacionaldigital.gob.cl/bnd/629/w3-article-613541.html
 
At this point, I'm leaning toward robands on both gaff and boom, as I think it might use less of my dwindling supply of .35mm rope.

I like the 2nd option.   The knot and rope look like they lay more naturally than the first.

Glad to have been of service ...
 
As to the robands vs. continous lacing, I have seen both used on the same sail. I didn't check on the photographs, but was the foot of the sail actually tied to the boom? On vernacular craft sails were often loose-footed, as this allowed tricing them up quickly and thus take the pressure out of a sail e.g. in an emergency.
 
Whether and how a sail was tied to the boom may also be depending on whether the boom was used as a cargo derrick. Robands may be easier to untie than to unravel a continuous lacing.
 

Thanks, all! Yes, Wefalck's bark technique is really excellent. If anyone gives it a try, my main advice is to not judge it until it's dry, as it looks odd and fuzzy when the paint is still wet but really sharpens up once it dries.
 
I've continued to advance on the sails. I added the bolt rope to the gaff sail and, taking advantage of a brief break in the clouds, applied the transparent spray. I then measured and drilled holes where needed to attach the various bits of rigging.

 
I also added a loop of rope to the clew of the jib, as photos showed that the jib sheet ran through a loop here.

 
Next, it was time to start actually attaching the sails. After looking at several photos, I decided that thin wire mast hoops would be the most realistic-looking option. I made them out of 28-gauge wire, wrapped around a length of dowel. The dowel was a little oversized, so I trimmed a bit off the ends before gluing them shut with superglue.

 
Next, lacing the mast hoops to the sail. A lot of other build logs show people adding the mast hoops directly to the sail and then sliding the whole thing onto the mast, which which would definitely be easier, but with everything already on my mast, this option wouldn't work for me. I drew inspiration from diagrams in John Leather’s The Gaff Rig Handbook and examples in a lot of build logs to figure out how best to loop it. I experimented with using fly tying thread, but found it a bit too thin and tricky to work with as strands kept coming off it when threading it. Instead, I went with. 35mm rope. Initially, after looping it through itself around the hoop and running it through the eyelet twice (once from each side), I tied a simple knot on each side with the remaining thread, as shown below:

 
I had a hard time getting it tight on each side, though, and was worried that it was a bit bulky. So I retried by just tying the loose ends off to each other.

 
I'm still deciding whether the first or second option looks best--feel free to weigh in! Both are simplifications from actual practice, but completely following how it was actually done would result in a very bulky knot here. While I decide, I've been attaching the lacing to the mast hoops.

 
Finally, I'm trying to figure out how to attach the sail to the gaff spar and boom. It's a bit tricky. I've seen some photos where the boom very clearly has a continuous rope lacing, and others where the gaff spar very clearly uses robands. So both options seem to have been used. But would a single boat combine both methods--e.g., continuous on the boom and robands on the gaff--or would it make more sense to be consistent?