tlevine

The fore channel deadeyes are next. There are seven 10" deadeyes and three 7" deadeyes. I wanted a color contrast with the rest of the hull without wanting to stain the wood so they were made of cherry. Next time I will use a finer grained wood and then stain them. These were made on the lathe using a jig. I ground the profile of each deadeye into opposite ends of a piece of sheet brass. The pictures illustrate the process. One of the keys to success is to have as little wood protruding from the chuck as possible to prevent deflection of the wood. The larger deadeyes have a four-piece chain assembly: upper link, middle link, toe (or lower) link and preventer plate. The smaller deadeyes do not have a preventer plate. The larger deadeyes have links made of 1.25" iron and the smaller deadeyes have links of 1" iron. The basis process was to form appropriate sized loops of brass wire and silver solder them. These are then squeezed around the deadeye, leaving a lower loop through which the middle link will insert. There is an inward angle on the lower loop but I did not form this until I was ready to install the entire assembly. The toe link was made similarly, using a nail instead of the deadeye to form the upper curve. The heights of the lower bolts of the toe links was taken directly from the plans. The middle link was formed and threaded through the upper and toe links. Using a heat sink on the two ends of the middle link, the middle link was also silver soldered. The preventer plates were made from brass strip. In real practice, these were forged from square bar stock. To simulate this, I engraved a line down the middle of the plate. You can just barely make this out in the plates shown below. The top of the plate has a bend in it to compensate for the thickness of the toe link. The location of the lower bolt was determined after the entire assembly was finished. The final result after blackening and installation of the channel molding and the four preventer bolts. The shankpainter chain attaches to the hull above the fore channel. It's purpose is to secure the anchors. I had some chain left over from a kit which had almost the correct size links (3/4" diameter). The spanshackle ring was made from brass rod. The curved section was shaped first. Then the rod was bend to form the side arms. Finally, the length of the lower arms was determined and the ring was soldered closed after the ring bolt had been threaded on to the ring. I chose not to add deck planking under the ring so it is installed elevated above the beam the thickness of the deck planking.

Not all Swan class ships had the style of chimney shown by Greg. Both Fly and Atalanta had a straight flue as seen below.

Patrick, your wife is 100% correct. What you are describing is having several incomplete projects. True multitasking is when you are working on a build while simultaneously running the washing machine, prepping dinner and picking up after the man of the house!

Beautiful work, Mike. Cannot wait to see more.

Beautiful job on the planking.

Great to see you back at work. Getting those counter frames correct was one of the more difficult parts of the hull construction.

Thank you Kurt for giving me the obvious solution.

The berthing rail attaches to the main rail with two eyebolts. A stanchion is threaded onto the rail before it is inserted into the eyebolts. This is secured to the false rail. Netting extends from the berthing rail down to the main and false rails, leaving an opening for the boomkin. Conceptually, this is pretty straight forward. However... Tulle is netting used to make veils and formal wear. The netting openings are 0.05" which is 2.5" at this scale. The netting opening needs to be 3-4". There is no fabric manufactured that fits the required specifications. (Believe me, I looked!) Other options I looked at were hand-tying the netting or finding a non-fabric substitute. Hand-tying was not going to happen. The closest I could get was screening material. This comes in two basic types, metal and nylon. I found an old screen door and helped myself to a piece of the screening. The net opening was 3 1/2". I attached this to the berthing rail with multiple knots. Still not sure if I like the looks of it, since the netting should be natural and not dark, but for the time being it is the best I can do.

Thanks Danny. I remember your jig to get the angles correct..

Thanks, Druxey. I start by brushing it on and then wipe off the excess after five minutes.

The cat block for the falls has been fabricated and installed. This is a snatch block, meaning that one end of the slot is left open. The aft end of the block is mortised around a timberhead. I have also installed the fish davit cleat with a slot inboard and a straight appearance when viewed from the side. This is also mortised around timberheads. The boomkin capsquare is located on top of the false rail. It is secured to the rail with a hinge aft and an eyebolt and key fore. It looks better in person than the photos suggest! I have now reached a milestone: the woodwork has been completed on the front half of the ship. For both protection and appearance I applied the initial coat of finish (Watco's Danish Wood Oil). What a difference the finish makes. Now one can see all those treenails that were installed a long, long time ago. Unfortunately, it also shows up the flaws. the last photo shows the difference the finish gives. The aft half of the ship does not have finish applied.

Thanks Tom. That's the problem when you do not know the correct name for things...you can't look it up in the index! Druxey, I am leaning to your interpretation and will score the cleat inboard.

In the meantime I have made the plankshear. This is made of three pieces of plank, scarfed together. There are mortises for the three gun supports and the edge has a decorative molding on the inside and outside faces. In order to get the molding to flow across the joints, I make and temporarily installed the planksheer. Next I popped it off the timbers, leaving the joints intact. I was now able to cut the molding in one sweep with the scraper. The photo shows the three pieces glued together and removed from the model. This actually is a discarded piece as I forgot to extend it to the midline and I did not like the shape of the hance. Once this was glued into place, I cut mortises for the timberheads and installed them.

Although a little out of sequence, I decided to do something "simple" today and make the timberheads. I cut off the timberheads at the level of the plankshear on the port side because I knew I would never do an adequate job of shaping them in situ. The false timberheads will have a stem to pass through a slot in the plankshear. Here is how I made them. First thing was to dimension the appropriate size lumber. On my table saw I set the fence and the blade to delineate throat of the timberhead. I made this a little shallow to allow for final shaping with the chisel. I drew a pencil line a little below the top of the timberhead. This marks the top of the chisel cut. Next I cut down from that line into the notch formed by the saw. The top of the timberhead was beveled as was the area below the throat. Finally I made a tenon and cut the piece to final length. There are six timberheads on Atalanta.

Thanks Druxey. Like I said...time for a little more research.

Danny and Wayne, thanks for you input. Danny, the same item on the Fly looks just like yours. On Atalanta's plan it is solid across the top, instead of having "horns", thus my confusion. Time to do a little more research.

Thanks everybody for the nice comments and the Likes. I have run into a bit of a quandary. I have been working on the fore timber heads (more on that in a later posting). While looking at the plans I noticed a structure on the rail at the level of the fore shrouds. In the picture it is circled. I looked at the plans for Fly and it shows a similar object, although a bit more decorative than on Atalanta. If anyone knows what this is I would appreciate your input.

Also turn the piece around every other pass so that you compensate for any angulation while feeding the wood into the sander. I also sand down both faces unless one of the faces has been planed smooth.

For a test run they look great. I take it the capstan is double with one assembly on top of the other?

The next things to tackle are the cathead supporter and eking rail. Unfortunately, I left my camera at work so all I have are completed photos, not work in progress. I will try and describe the process as well as I can. The cathead supporter is just that, a knee under the cathead which then curves and blends in the lower rail via an intermediary eking rail. My first step was to lightly draw the curve of the supporter/rail assembly onto the starboard (unplanked) side of the hull. I made a template of this shape to duplicate the curve on the port side. Next was to make a template of the angle between the hull and the inferior surface of the cathead. Both templates were transferred onto an over-sized block of wood and the excess wood was sanded away with a Dremel and sanding sticks. This is a lot harder than it sounds since the supporter must snug up against the hull as it curves inward anteriorly and outwards inferiorly. I used the same scraper that was used on the lower rail to carve the decoration into the face of the supporter and, eventually, the eking rail. Once this had been done, a scarf was cut into the lower aspect of the supporter. The eking rail was also cut overly thick and offered up to the hull for final shaping. On Atalanta, the eking rail does not extend above the top of the hawse hole and so is actually one longer piece and two short ones. I presume this is just for visual effect as there is no structural advantage to these short segments. The other end of the scarf was cut into the eking rail before the final shaping to ensure a tight fit. The port side was done in similar fashion, using the curve template from the starboard side to get the curve correct. I removed the decorative rails to facilitate fabrication of the pieces and then replaced them after the supporter/rail were secured. Like I did with the the cheeks, I offset the cathead supporter and rail a plank's thickness from the hull on the starboard side. The gap between the false rail and the main rail will be filled in with sawdust. Visually, I thought it more important to have the panel edging the same thickness all around. Now on to something a little less complicated. I have decided that Atalanta had four seats of ease. One is out on the carlings and the other is tucked in behind the false rail. I did not make the ones for the starboard side so that the joinery at the base of the seat could be seen. As one can see in the first photo, there is a straight shot down through the hole without (theoretically) soiling the rails and cheeks.

Something else to consider for the library is the CD collections of Ships in Scale and Model Ship Builder. The older magazines would have serialized articles, some spanning well over a year detailing construction of specific ships or kits. This was the era before internet so these magazines were the ultimate build-logs of their time. For example, the SIS series on Mantua's 1:98 Victory was detailed enough to be published later as a ring-fold-binder book and (although not completely accurate) was instrumental in my kit bash of that kit 20 years ago.

I have finally had some time to devote to the workshop. Last weekend was spent chasing the eclipse in Kentucky and testing (tasting) the Bourbon Trail. Time very well spent. After all...it was educational! Next up were the head timbers. Atalanta had three; some of the Swan class ships had four. These were a royal pain-in-the-you-know-where to fabricate. They have to fit the stem assembly as well as meet the main rail. They also have the same camber as the grating. The notches at the base of the timbers are because the various components of the stem assembly did not mate perfectly way back when. I decided I would to more damage than it was worth to make it better and so modified the head timbers to fit instead. In the second picture, one can see how the third head timber (the largest) fits under the head beam. Each beam is a different thickness, with the fore beam being the thinnest. This is most readily seen in the third picture. These photos are all taken while the timbers were being shaped and so do not fit correctly at this stage. The next step is to cut an opening in the head timbers to accommodate the middle rail. This was simply a matter of trial and error, many hours and even many more expletive deleted's. As I mentioned in a previous post, in the first timber the slot for the middle rail needed to be cut from the bottom rather than from the outer edge. The next item was the head saddle which extends from the fore ends of the main rail to the tip of the stem. I started with an oversize piece of wood and carved the underside to fit first. Then I cut the upper face and finally finished it on the model. Now everything is ready for assembly. The covering boards are 1" thick and cover the outer edge of the head timbers. They have two panels carved into them. Looking at the next photo I now see that the third timber needs to be unglued and re-positioned to make it perpendicular to the water line. Hopefully I can accomplish that without damaging anything else. The holes from the brass pins also need filling.

Welcome to MSW, Piotr. What other models have you built in the past?

Thanks everyone for your comments and likes. Elijah, the notches for the gratings are started with a razor blade saw. Ask Kurt to show it to you at the meeting next week. Then I used a combination of #11 blade scalpel and 2 mm chisels to deepen them and square them up. Maury, you are looking at this waaay to closely if you are checking out the number of holes for seats of ease. Knowing you had the same problem Danny makes me feel more comfortable. I also noticed you had the same situation with the second head timber that I am experiencing with the notch directed down instead of outboard. So far, those head timbers have taken 15 hours to get right and I would expect another 10+ to mate them to the middle rail. I will post pictures when they are finished up.

Work continues with the fabrication of the lower rail. Compared to the main rail, this is duck soup. Only one size of profile cutter is necessary. The shape is determined by the same expansion drawing that was done with the main rail. In the pictures you can see pin holes for securing it in place. The head beam and cross piece were removed to facilitate fitting. The first photo shows the mortices marked on the various structures. I started with the fan-shaped grating behind the head beam. As Atalanta had four seats of ease, only six ledges were required. If there were only two seats of ease, then eight ledges were installed. Each piece was marked since they would be stored away until the entire head was completed (or for photos). This provides, along with the pins, a lot of structural stability for the head assembly. At this point, the rest of the ledges and the small carlings for the seats of ease were constructed. The false rail is a decorative board located on top of the main rail. It screens the aft seats of ease, so it must have been the preferred location for doing one's duty. The pictures show it set on top of the mail rail but it has not been finish sanded at this point.