Tim Curtis

17.3 The maintop, cap and other parts
Making the cap

 
All the parts soldered together.

 
The cap on top of the mast, holding the top gallant in place. The lug with a small hole in front of the cap will keep the block for a lantern line.

 
Making the pendent for the mainsail.

 
The maintop gear.

Looking great Jesse!
Tim

Praying for your recovery Jesse. 
Love your Syren in the meantime.
Tim

completely my model

Hi to everyone, and thanks again for the comments and compliments from craftsmen and artists whose work I so highly respect. 
 
With the funnel cages and pillars completed, I turned to the smoke deflection caps.  There are no plan views of them, but in this photo their shape can be seen.  They are wedge shaped with a rounded front.  The funnel tube exits towards the front with a raised ring around it.  There is a round plate at the front whose purpose I could not determine.  Low railings go around the cap near the edge and another railing around the exit plate.  The back of the cap has a shallow vee shape.

The plans show the cap from the side.  It has two portions, an upper one with a constant height, and a lower one that is shaped and tapered to set the upper surface at an angle.  The length of the cap was measured and the photo above was adjusted to correct for the foreshortening caused by the camera angle.  The adjusted photo was printed out and used as my pattern.

Construction began by cutting two plates 2mm thick from hardwood.  The lower plate on the left is upside down with the outer ring of the cage marked on it and a hole drilled to accept the top of the pillar.  The upper plate, on the right, has a slightly smaller hole drilled to fit a brass tube that slides inside the pillar tube for a secure joint.

The lower plate was marked to show how it was to be beveled, while the upper plate got its tube, disk, and cover plate.

With the lower plate shaped the two were joined.  A bit of hand sanding finished the edges.  Some 2-bar railing had its top rail trimmed, then the remaining 1-bar rail was installed as seen in the photos.  When the construction was satisfactory the entire cap was painted matte black.

The cages and pillars were located and secured to the cap with white glue, locking them in place in relation to each other.  Once everything was solid the intersections of the reinforcing ring were drilled to accept 0.12” wire.   The holes had to be angled, sometimes pretty severely, so the wires would land on the inner ring around the pillar in such a way that they radiate in a regular pattern from the inner cylinder to the outer oval.  The wisdom of the added reinforcement was fully realized and I had no breakage of the brittle cages despite some fairly large machining forces.  After gluing with cyano the wires were clipped and the stubs ground flush.

With a small brush I reached through the openings in the cage to paint the radial wires white, as shown in the photos.  In the forward funnel two grommets stand in for the foghorns, while a painted piece of pierced brass sheet makes up the walkway.  The cages got a touch-up with white acrylic paint and a final coat of gloss clear finish.

Here is how they look, set in place, the photo taken using a flash with the blue background set a little too close.

Here they are backlit.

And here is the look from dead ahead.  It is not quite the Times cover, but pretty close

With the pools and funnels in place the ship is starting to round into final form.

Next, the two masts that define the height of the ship.
 
Until then, be well.
 
Dan

Mostly finished.  A few more attempts at laying down the anchor cables and anything else anyone sees in the pictures that I may have missed...






 

Thanks for all the support and comments along the way.
Maury
 

Praying for your recovery Jesse. 
Love your Syren in the meantime.
Tim

Just beautiful. Thanks for this wonderful build log.
Tim

I took a little hiatus the last two weeks for a brief trip down to San Antonio and for some out of town visitors.   But yesterday and today I completed the planking, but not the treenails, on the starboard side of the hull.  I still have 5 planks to do on the port side of the hull.  After I do those five planks, I'll draw a rough water line and do all the treenails above the water line.  

A few latest shots.
 
OC.
 

Good morning all. Thanks to all for your likes, comments and for stopping in.
 A month has passed and there really is not much progress to show. Time has been spent on other little projects and of course the all important holidays. As our spring is far from starting this year the next few weeks should prove to be a little more productive, I'm hoping.
 At any rate here is the progress:

The bending problem was solved by milling some walnut and cutting to shape, three pieces per side
 

The results for the freeboard, scarf joints cannot be seen but I know they are there
 

Scuppers drilled in hull
 

scuppers in deck
 

$ holes made in hull for mooring ropes
 

Hull blocks assembled
 

Hole started for block
 

Block installed
 
How it looks now with two coats of flat black paint, below waterline will be copper plates.
 
 Thanks for stopping in and have a good modelling day!!
 
 

Thanks for all the likes and encouraging comments. 
 
Got the lower catharpins rigged on. I rigged them the way the plan sheet shows them instead of the simplified way the instruction book shows. This wad very difficult because of the very tight space and the scale size.  After doing one I really wished I had just tied them off at each end. Now I dread doing this again when I get to the upper ones. ( Sorry but the pics loaded in reverse again)
 
Jesse

There are increasing other sculptures - karyatides. I like this work very much.....
 

Again, thank you for all the kind words and likes to my post about my Mom.  Today would have been her Birthday. 
 
610 Hours into the journey.  I think I am at the most fun part of the build yet!  The installation of the ribbands has proved to be very therapeutic and enjoyable. After the ribbands are installed, I can now beginning to apply finish to those sections that are complete.  I am using turpentine and wax as Ed recommends in his book.  You have to be incredibly diligent and disciplined on what you finish because it will literally be finished after that - no glue will stick...  That being said, after applying the wax and turpentine, I sand the spots over the brass bolts to remove the residual CA that I spoke of in my last post. 
 
I am very happy with the results.  The ribband installation is a slow process.  Each piece has to be test fit and many have to be steam bent before applying.
 
More next week.

Gary

Just beautiful. Thanks for this wonderful build log.
Tim

Just beautiful. Thanks for this wonderful build log.
Tim

Looking great Jesse!
Tim

Just beautiful. Thanks for this wonderful build log.
Tim

Just beautiful. Thanks for this wonderful build log.
Tim

Thank you very much.

Looking great Jesse!
Tim

Looking great Jesse!
Tim

Looking great Jesse!
Tim

Looking great Jesse!
Tim

Thanks for all the encouragement and likes! 
 
Completed the Main preventer stay, Fore stay and the Fore preventer stay. Same process as the Main stay. I did a much simpler mouse for these and can't visually tell any difference.  It was much easier to do the lanyards on the Fore stays because the location of the hearts. If only the rest of it could be this easy to get to, lol. I couldn't find any illustrations on the proper way to tie off the lanyards so I just did what I could on these.
 
Jesse