Tim Curtis

What a wonderful daughter you are...helping your Dad with his hobby.
I pray that you would have great patience with him. Bless you.
 
Tim

What a wonderful daughter you are...helping your Dad with his hobby.
I pray that you would have great patience with him. Bless you.
 
Tim

What a wonderful daughter you are...helping your Dad with his hobby.
I pray that you would have great patience with him. Bless you.
 
Tim

Doris.
Your work is amazing. You set a standard most of us could only dream of.
Just brilliant.
Tim

Doris.
I think you have extraordinary talents. A master craftswoman at work.
I stand amazed.
How delightful you work is to all of us.
Tim.

Hello: I have regularized the frames, and finished carving the stern. The stuck tag marks the top of the tape. Aa greeting  
(Hola:
He regularizado las cuadernas, y terminado de tallar la popa.
La traca pegada marca la parte superior de la cinta.
 
Un saludo)

Doris.
Your work is amazing. You set a standard most of us could only dream of.
Just brilliant.
Tim

Doris.
Your work is amazing. You set a standard most of us could only dream of.
Just brilliant.
Tim

Rigging of the yards: almost finished (a bit of touch up and a final trimming is needed).
 

SHIPS BOATS
I decided to scrap the sliced bread boat frames provided by the kit. Instead, I downloaded a plan for building a jig that allowed me to scratch build the boats.
I copied the jig frames and glued them to some birch plywood and cut them out on the bandsaw. I then assembled the jig and attached cherry veneer strips on the outer edge of the frames and inserted the ends in the bottom slit in the jig frames which held them in place.
I then cut a series of thin holly (very white) strip wood to use as planks. Using CA, I started to glue the stripwood to the cherry lined frames, being careful not to spill any glue onto the cherry strips that would affix them to the frames, since you have to remove the entire assembly from the jig after it is done. I also decided to overlap the holly stripwood to give it a realistic look. This eliminated the need to taper any of the strips.
Here are some photos of my first proto-type. Not bad for my first time, but I discovered some problems. As stated, I used cherry veneer for the frame wood, because it was easier to bend around the sharp corners of the jig frames. However, it was not stiff enough to hold the shape of the boat when I removed it from the jig. The vertical lines of the frames drifted outward quite a bit since the cherry veneer was not strong enough to hold it in place.
So back to the drawing board.  I need to use a stiffer material, and that means that I need to decide whether I can bent it around the jig frames, some of which are sharper than 90 degrees, or whether I can cut them out of solid wood in the proper shape, and still make them thin enough and strong enough to meet my needs

Thank you folks for your kind comments and thanks everyone for the likes.
 
After much wailing and gnashing of teeth I have finally completed the quarter badge.  The lower finishing is comprised of five separate pieces: three carved pieces and two moldings.  The patterns were taken from the plan.  The round part at the bottom appears to be a carnation-type flower on the plan.  I hope you don't have to use your imagination too much!  The console brackets are the carved decorations on either side of the badge.  Having practiced with the NRG/Passaro carving blanks made this go a lot easier than I had anticipated.
 

 

 

What a wonderful daughter you are...helping your Dad with his hobby.
I pray that you would have great patience with him. Bless you.
 
Tim

just a shot with billowy sails......more finishing to do before launching......by the way, i think what got me started with the romance of sailing ships, may have be some capt. blood movies when i was a kid......i seem to remember a rear shot of a ship sailing slowly away in the evening with lights on, and some beautiful serene music in the background...this image stuck with me all my life for some reason......

The 2nd planking is done and there is lots of it.  I've enjoyed the exercise but I'm pleased to be on to a new step.
 


 
And like others who have gone before me I wanted to see what the hull would look like with a coat of wipe-on-poly
 

 
My intention is to follow build instructions and paint above the waterline and copper below so we won't see the beech wood in a while.
 

Doris.
Your work is amazing. You set a standard most of us could only dream of.
Just brilliant.
Tim

Doris.
Your work is amazing. You set a standard most of us could only dream of.
Just brilliant.
Tim

What a wonderful daughter you are...helping your Dad with his hobby.
I pray that you would have great patience with him. Bless you.
 
Tim

Ditto Dirk.
My thoughts exactly.
Tim

Doris.
Your work is amazing. You set a standard most of us could only dream of.
Just brilliant.
Tim

Hello,
today a short update.
I hope the pictures speak for themselves.

Hello dear friends, thank you all for your kind words and support. I do appreciate your comments a lot.
Well, after a very short break I continue again, but it was really struggle to create the statues/quarter pieces correctly. I had some problems with their realistic appearance and accurate position, but friends have adviced me, how to do it better. Special thanks belongs to my great advisor and top expert from Czech Modelforum - Kpt.KL, who provides me professional advice and plenty of patience as well.
https://www.modelforum.cz/viewtopic.php?f=177&t=110763&start=435#p2110580
 
Here is the current version of decoration:

 

OK, another one done. A final few photos to show the wolf and the sheepdog depending on what side you're on.

Hi everyone,
So I'm still alive.  And I have worked on the Cutty over the past few months with several long breaks due to travel etc. and a side track into improving my working area.
 
I'll cover the side track in improving my work space.  The side track was due to being aggravated that my gear was always boxed up. So I built a workbench on the opposite wall of the garage and then noticed that there was no lighting nor an electrical.  So I had two lines pulled to the garage and four new four outlet power boxes and seven LED shop lights installed.  Now I have lots of light!!
 

 
I also added more space for more tools! Excuse the mess,  I was in the middle of working when I took the photo
 

The other side of my workspace.  this is the new bench with my new toys from the past couple of years.  Finally out of the boxes (almost - the lathe is still back in its box, but it has its own storage shelf).  As I said, up to this point, if I needed to use the sander, table saw, drill press, etc, I had to unbox the tool.  Move the ship to another location, put the tool together put it on the bench where the ship was, use the tool, box the tool and put the ship back into its original location.  UGH!
Problem is now solved.
 
Almost all of the wood was left over from two pergolas that I had built for our house or other left-over scraps.  so the benches and carts are the prettiest, but the function well and I saved a ton of money.
 

So under the bench are four carts that roll out and are full of equipment storage.  There are two short and two tall carts. 
 
The short carts have the Byrne saw and sander as well as the Proxxon table saw and a chop saw permanently housed on their tops.  I also made drawers for these carts and lined them with velvet from several yards of velvet from the bargain bin I found in the fabric store.
 



 
The two tall carts are exactly the same height and can be clamped together to create larger work tables.  They are also the correct height to act as out-feed tables for the Byrne's.  I made a bridge that attaches to the Byrnes saw and the edge of the tall carts for that purpose.
 


 Now on to the ship!
 
I have the fore sail in place as well as all of it's rigging is attached, but not belayed yet.  In a previous post I spoke about the need to step the Main mast and install all of it's standing rigging before I can continue with the fore sail.  I've also rigged and jibs and have belayed all of their rigging except the halyards which are run through the blocks but not belayed yet, waiting for the Main mast standing rigging to be executed.
 
I think that the shape of the sails look good.  To me they look like they actually have wind blowing on them.
 


In the next photo you can see the sheet chains from the lower top sail sheet running through the fore course yard.  I can tell you that these chains are a royal pain to rig through the mast and blocks.



the fore rat lines with the bunt and clew from the course sail feeding through the fairleads

detail  of the fairleads - nothing is had been pulled tight yet or belayed.

 
Last night I built the spencer gaff goose neck and other rigging eyes and installed the gear into the main mast and spencer gaff.
 
 

 
 
 

 
 
 

 
Sorry for the great delay in posting, but a great deal of work was in serving all of the standing rigging for the main mast, which took forever because the cutty has the standing rigging 100% served!  UGH!  Also, I didn't think showing progress of rigging the ratlines on the fore and main mast exciting so I didn't take any photos or post that work.  I ended up having to tear all of the upper ratlines out and re-rigging them because I used the wrong size line!!!  oh well, I'm always doing one step forward two to four steps back!  But I'm still having fun!
 
thanks for checking in!
Marc
 

Doris.
I think you have extraordinary talents. A master craftswoman at work.
I stand amazed.
How delightful you work is to all of us.
Tim.

Doris.
I think you have extraordinary talents. A master craftswoman at work.
I stand amazed.
How delightful you work is to all of us.
Tim.