tlevine

I have finally had some time to devote to the workshop. Construction has resumed on the head structures. There is a grating on top of the main rail. This is supported posteriorly by the head beam and anteriorly by the cross-piece. The head beam has two knees on its posterior face, connecting to the main rail. In front of the head beam, the grating mortices into the lining of the main rain. Behind the head beam, the grating connects to the hull with the use of a morticed bolster. There are openings in the grating to accomodate the fore seats of ease. I forgot to take pictures during the process so what is shown are the deconstructed structures after it had been partially completed. You can see that everything is pinned together. If only one thing shifts, the rest of the construction will be wrong. In the first two pictures the battens, cross-piece and head beam assembly are in place and the carling and liner are marked for the grating. The next two pictures show the curvature of the carling of the head and how it mortices into the cross-piece. The third photo shows all of these structures in place.

I used the monograms from Syren on Atalanta. I was very pleased with them. Take a look at my build log.

Thanks Danny. I can barely see the laminations, even when I am looking for them. My thoughts were that even if it looked badly I would have a perfect template to work from for the redo. Thank god, that was not necessary.

Thanks everyone for your words of encouragement and the likes. And yes, Druxey, it does get easier. Before the figurative ink dried on yesterday's post I decided that I could not live with how the upward extension of the rail looked. I put three very thin layers of lamination on the for end of the rail extension so the angle could be adjusted. By putting several layers, the eye is tricked into "seeing" the grain of the wood whereas with one layer the added piece would be obvious. I am much happier. I also added the bolster for the hawse holes. The timberhead height was determined from the plan. The heads were then cut in.

I has been forever since my last post but I have two excuses. The first (painful) reason I back in December I agreed to restore a clipper ship model for a friend. Yes, I know..."just say no". But I was suckered into it, not realizing that every stick needed work and every piece of rigging needed replacing. Two hundred plus hours later I am done and can concentrate on Atalanta again. The second excuse is that the next items to make are the main rails of the head. This has been the hardest part to fabricate, bar none. They are not finished yet and they are far from perfect but so far I have put in over 40 hours over the last month trying to get them as close to OK as I can. The first step is to develop the shape for the main rail. TFFM describes how to make a projection drawing from the plans. Once the shape of the rail had been roughly determined, I made a template and fit this to the model. I used cardstock which, in retrospect, was not stiff enough. After the final shape is determined, the individual pieces must be cut out. The main rail is comprised of five scarfed pieces. There is a lining to the main rail which is made of three scarfed pieces. First I made the main rail and then the lining was made by gluing the pieces directly onto the main rail. This is the easiest part of the whole process. Now comes the real fun. There is a reasonably complex molding cut into the main rail. In addition, the rail tapers in width and thickness so the molding changes continuously along the rail. Finally, scrapers work best on a straight line, not on a curved object. I made two scrapers, one for the aft third and one for the middle third of the rail. The fore end of the rail was cut in with micro-chisels and needle files. I spoiled a few rails before I finished two that look reasonable. Since the port and starboard rails are mirror images, the whole scraping motion is different on the two sides. There are two step-downs on the aft part of the rail. The first one goes down to the level of the rail without the planksheer and the second is where the molding starts. The ascending (aft) portion of the main rail is supposed to be perpendicular to the water line and the fore end blends into the top of the hair bracket. You notice that I say "supposed to". This is where I have gotten into a little trouble. I believe my template was not stiff enough and the angle of rise of the tapering end was not great enough. Consequently, my ascending portion is not quite perpendicular. After so many hours of work, the thought of redoing them was more than I could handle. The aft end of the rail has a score in it for the cathead. Two drill holes are placed after temporarily gluing the pieces in place. Later these holes will accept wire bolts for security. The next step is to make the timberhead, now that I have the height correct.

Absolutely beautiful, Karl.

She's looking very sweet. Add me to the list as well. Are you coming to the Conference in October? It would be a great time to show her off and boost pre-publication sales.

Eric has hit the problem on the nail head. Many of us still have real jobs and we all have real lives. Sometimes I am unable to do serious post reading for a week at a time. By then, there is little incentive to add to the thread. Also, with limited time to dedicate to the hobby, I have select areas that I read w/i MSW. For example, I rarely look at the kit builds and shore leave.

Birchwood Casey, like most blackening liquids works best diluted. I typically use a 1:3 BC:water solution that I keep in a separate container (aka pill bottle). I reuse this but never contaminate the original bottle. Cleaning is the most important part. Many modelers use a heated Sparex solution. I typically start with soap and water, followed by a good soak in 90% isopropanol. Finally, for something large like a cannon, I apply a coat of clear matte finish to protect the blackening. Be careful with those wire brushes. Unlike painting, which fills in tiny imperfections, blackening will potentially highlight those wire brush marks. There are liquid CA adhesive removers but either soaking in acetone or iso. should take care of it.

Thanks, everyone. Greg, the statue is a Chinese woman. I know nothing about it other than one of our neighbors was throwing it out and I took it.

Not too much to show for this weekend's work The weather has been so bad for the last several weeks that the garden called to me louder than the workshop. I had just enough time to make the trail boards. These are located between the upper and lower cheeks. There is a hole through it for the gammoning. On Atalanta there is a frieze painted onto it. This show's two of Atalanta's apples. On the Fly, the only other Swan class whose plans I have, there are two dragons on the trail board and the cheeks are decorated as well. I left the starboard side unadorned and put the frieze on the port side. The gap between the starboard trail board and the hull represents the thickness of the planking. The frieze was made the same way the rest of the friezes were made, painted onto paper and then applied to the wood with a thin layer of glue.

Thank you everyone for the likes and comments. Time to move on to the head. This is an absolute birds nest of inter-related structures which appears daunting but (so far) is not horribly difficult if one fabricates and installs one piece at a time. Sorry that there are no construction pictures but taking photos of 3-D objects while keeping everything in focus is beyond my simple camera. The key to each structure is one word...template. The lower cheek is constructed first. Make a template in the horizontal plane. On the plan, determine the total thickness of the cheek, remembering that there is a gentle curve upwards as the cheek follows the knee of the head. Also remember that the hull drops away inferiorly so make the aft arm wider than per the plan. Draw out the templated cheek on the wood, keeping the arms along the grain as much as possible. Cut out the rough blank and offer it up to the hull until a good fit is achieved; It is still oversized in thickness at this point. Next, draw the curve onto the side of the blank and shape it with sanding discs. The edge of the cheek has a molding cut into it. Make another scraper (since none of the other shapes made so far are correct) and carefully scrape the shape onto the cheek. Simple, right? Actually, very tedious although not technically difficult. The first one took four hours to complete. On my model the starboard side is unplanked so there is a gap between the frames and the knee corresponding to the thickness of the planking. The upper cheek is made in similar fashion except that it must fay into the hair bracket with a scarf. On Atalanta it is slightly thinner than the lower cheek at the aft end and tapers in width going forward. That simply makes adding the molding even more fun because the fore arm molding must be cut free hand. The hair bracket is simple to make after the cheeks are installed. Again, make a template. The molding is cut in free hand because the width continues to diminish on the ascending arm. I used a dull #11 scalpel to gently impress the design. Then a 2 mm V-chisel was used to cut the groove, changing direction as necessary to always cut with the grain. Finally, it was finished with jeweler's files. The scarf was cut into the hair bracket first. This was then drawn onto and then cut into the already installed upper cheek. The hair brackets were installed and the joint cleaned up so that the molding flows between the cheek and the hair bracket. This can be seen when one compares the second and third photos below. The total time invested so far on the headwork is two weekends.

Well it has been quite a while since the last update. I had the pleasure of spending a two weeks abroad and then had to catch up on everything which was neglected during that time. The next item to tackle was the fixed gangway. It is comprised of a lightweight frame with planking. This platform is situated a few inches lower than the quarter deck breast beam. It is attached to the undersurface of that beam and the fore end is supported by a hanging knee. There is a newel post at the aft end of the curve but this will be made later. I found the description in TFFM a bit confusing, and hope I interpreted it correctly. The text states that the outboard edge of the gangway is above the level of the planksheer (by about 2" in the sketch) and that it is canted at the same angle as the deck beams to facilitate drainage. In looking at Atalanta's plan and comparing it to Fly's it looks like the outboard edge on Atalanta is at the planksheer, not above it. So this is what I have constructed. Please chime in if I am wrong in my interpretation as it is easy enough to correct at this stage. The planksheer was installed next. There is a decorative molding on the outboard edge. The gangboards extend from the fore end of the fixed gangway to the forecastle breast beam. The rest of hanging knees which were installed earlier. There is a breast hook overlying the bowsprit opening. A shim was placed under the starboard arm of the breast hook to simulate bulwark planking.

I actually use the Preac more than the Byrnes saw. I use the Byrnes primarily for more heavy duty cutting. I feel like I am less likely to accidentally injure myself with the Preac. Since I travel a lot, the Preac is a lot more portable as well.

This was also my first wood ship model back in the "80's. I look at it in horror because of all the mistakes (mine and Mantua's) but friends think it looks great so I still keep it on display in my living room. Use this kit to learn and hone your skills.

Thank you everyone for the compliments and likes. Yes, the stanchion is all one piece. Chuck, I like the GPS idea better!

The next item on the agenda was the quarter deck rail. All told, this took me about 20 hours to fabricate and install. There are no construction photos but I will do my best to describe the process. There are five stanchions and a double rail at the break of the quarter deck. The stanchions are morticed into the breast rail inferiorly and the upper rail superiorly. They pass through the lower rail. The rails have a beading scraped into them but the thickess is so small, 0.065", that the beading is barely notable. The stanchions were made as follows: The profile of the central portion of the stanchion was cut into brass sheet stock as both a template and final shaper. (I use very thin dental cut-off discs for this operation.) Square stock slightly larger than the finished dimension was chocked into the lathe. The central portion of the stanchion was then turned just enough to remove all the edges. Then the profile was roughly shaped by eye. Finally, the template was used as a scraper to provide the final shape. Slots were drilled and cleaned up for the sheaves. These are simple discs, turned with a Dremel and sandpaper to the correct diameter and then center-bored before cutting off to prevent splintering. The rails were shaped by placing them in a moist paper towel in the microwave...low power and 10 second bursts. They were then clamped to a curved chair back to dry. It is very fiddly to get everything plumb and square, especially when the deck and the rails curve. My sequence was to first insert the stancions into the breast rail mortices. When the glue was set but not dry I inserted the lower rail and glued it into position. After that was set I added the top rail and clamped everything to dry. In the picture above, I still have to remove escess glue. It really looks better than the photo would suggest; on my computer screen this is 5X magnification. It looks better in the next photo. It also looks like I have a ring bolt to replace!

No time like the present to renew, Sam!

I would suggest you narrow your choices down to a couple of kits and then read some of the corresponding build logs. This will give you the best way to compare the kits you are interested in. After all, every company makes both good and bad kits.

The ship is very nice. The background story is amazing.

Thanks everyone for the comments and the likes. One thing I forgot to mention is that the "glass" on the binnacle is mica.

It really depends on personal preference. For example, some builders prefer water-based and others prefer oil or spirit based. Your best bet is to look at some of the builds and pick out your preference in appearance. Then try it out on some scrap to make sure you like the look. On my Atalanta, for example, all of the wood is finished with Watco's except for the holly on the lower hull which is clear flat dope. In particular, look at the difference between the deck planking and the lower hull... They are both holly but have totally different appearances because of the different finishes applied.

Discount Campus is who I purchased my mill from.

I ordered my Sherline mill from an authorized retailer for significantly less money. The name escapes me but it was somewhere on the East coast. The advantage of buying direct from Sherline is the advise you will receive to guide your purchase. Don't forget, the accessories will cost you at least as much as the mill itself, so plan your purchase accordingly.

The plans do not show a binnacle but the contemporary model does. I decided to build one. The binnacle was made out of pear and is glazed with mica. I toyed with the idea of putting a compass and lantern inside but for the time being I have left it empty. The "sliding" door on the back is tack-glued so I can remove it later if I decide to make them. The binnacle will eventually be attached to the deck with ropes via two eyebolts in the deck. I have shown it in the correct position just abaft the mizzen mast. The chimney is turned brass and will be kept bright. The tiller has also been reinstalled...correctly.