Doug McKenzie

Folks, I've refurbished a few plastic models of famous schooners for a friend and I'm left with the boat described in the title. The father of my friend built all of these models in the 60s or the 70s and they were scrambled during a hurricane some years ago. I'm trying to collect information to help an accurate refurbishment of this particular boat and have not found anything on the internet. The name 'Wanderlust' appears on the transom but the picture is not very clear. If anyone has any information on the boat or the plastic model, I would be very appreciative. Thanks very much, Doug McKenzie

I've received word that Leon has arrived in Larvik in good shape - I have no details! Also I have received a link - https://colin-archer.no/LEON.html - to a history of Leon written by Jeppe Jul Nielsen. This material is now available for the first time and along with the technical details behind it, can now be used by any modeler interested in expanding Underhill's material to create an even more authentic model of Leon than was previously possible.

Thanks for all the kind words, folks. So I guess I was mistaken when I said the last post would be the previous one since THIS will be the last post. The reason another one is needed is because I failed to mention that Leon is being donated to a foundation in Norway, Tollerodden, which is helping to keep the memory and accomplishments of Colin Archer alive. He was the designer and builder of Leon. He built 4 ships (Leon was one and Fram, a polar ship, was another) but his reputation was solidly built on very successful and numerous pilot boats and rescue boats. The foundation is located in Larvik, Norway where Leon (original) was built in 1880. Please invoke whatever good luck mechanisms you find effective that Leon arrives in Larvik in great condition. To help me remember her we've had a 'photo' constructed that's kind of neat - 6 views of her in one picture: Some particulars will be in the rectangle in the center in the final picture. Since the research work of Jeppe Jul Nielsen was not available until the framing and outer and inner planking were pretty much complete, there were some details that couldn't be fixed on the model. The most important of these is the moulded dimension of the frames. The model frames (moulded) are 45% larger than the original. There are a few other interesting details. The beam's end supports on the original ship (and on the model) are 2 diagonal (aka angled) hanging knees rather than the common arrangement of 1 lodging knee and 1 hanging knee. I have never encountered this on any other ship nor has anyone I have spoken with. The windmill pump was very common on Norwegian (and possibly other Scandinavian ships) but I had never encountered them before this project. In fact, it was not until late in this project that Jeppe found proof that Leon had one. I failed to serve the entire length of the first port and starboard fore shrouds. Although this may not be noticed by many, it was a feature that I was looking forward to implementing from the beginning of the project. I didn't even notice this lack until I was putting on the ratlines. Other details that may be of interest are given in "Leon - Technical Details" (an attachment in Post #101). Thanks and good fortune to all Doug

This will be the last posting for this model of Leon as she is finished. There are two documents following. The first, Leon-Overview is just a short intro the Leon. The second, Leon-Technical Details, discusses how authentic is the model This document describes the research findings of Jeppe Jul Nielson about Leon and how those findings were incorporated into the model. LEON - Overview.docx LEON - Technical Details.docx

We are a little further on towards completion. The windmill pump is installed just forward of the mainmast. I should mention that some time ago we had a question of whether Leon had a windmill pump. We know now she definitely did because of a newspaper article at her demise and because Norwegian maritime law required she have one. The white card on the back of the starboard main shrouds is used to get proper spacing of the ratlines and rat boards. When the ratlines are finished we'll add the braces and be done.

Thanks very much Rob it's always nice to get positive feedback You seem to have a healthy respect and interest in Donald Mckay so I figured I would tell you that in high school and college Donald Mckay was kind of my hero of all heroes Your boats look absolutely gorgeous. One of my sons went to Webb institute And they have a wonderful model of Young America in the main lobby

It's been about 2 months since we have had a posting and we are near completion so I figured I'd put up some pictures. What remains is some headsail halyards and downhauls, a starboard demo of how the anchor is brought aboard, the royal yard, a few backstays and ratlines. It may sound silly but the most enjoyable task recently has been figuring how long each coil on a belaying pin should be e.g. a staysail's downhaul coils a lot more line than that staysail's halyard.

In responding to Matt D about "Little Leon" (the 1:8 sailing 'model') I have since learned from my wife that the 3 1/2 minute video is on YouTube. Here's the address: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkJW7So95YQ You can see (from a distance) the square sails being furled in preparation to come about. What a wonderful 3 year project! PS My wife and I have just finished moving so a few more weeks of settling in and I'll be able to get back to Leon. The photo below shows Leon in her new home.

The main lower shrouds are done, the fore topmast is shipped and fitted with shrouds and the fore yard is in place. I considered not putting any yards in place until all of the standing rigging was in place but I realized that I could mount yards without getting in the way of other rigging too much so I'm doing it because I like the way it looks. For this picture, I have also included the fore lower topsail yard in order to show a different way that I'm making the jackstay. For the fore yard, I bent little pieces of wire around the jackstay but for the fore lower topsail yard, I soldered little pieces of wire to the jackstay making it a little less prominent. (The jackstay stanchions have not been put in their holes yet so they can be seen)

Matt D, There were some simplifications introduced to make sailing her feasible with just 2 people. All 5 braces were combined into a single line which was a big loop no ends. Pulling on on side of the loop brought all 5 yards around while the other side of the loop was free to pay out the other side of the yards. In addition, each sail had its buntlines combined into 1 line, looped, just like the braces. Pull on one line and all the buntlines are taken in furling the sail, In addition, both sheets were attached and paid out as the buntlines were taken in. To set the sail, you pull in on the sheets and the buntlines release. This arrangement was used on all five square sails. Lastly, the sheets of the outer jib, inner jib and fore staysail were all carried back to the cockpit, aft of the main mast to increase ease of sailing. The result of all of this is that she had a lot of mobility. She would wear ship very easily and she could also come about but that requires furling all five square sails and then resetting them after the maneuver was complete. I've got a 3 minute video of her sailing and coming about but I don't know how to put the video in this blog. Doug

Rhian, As far as what happened to Leon after her catastrophic leak in 1915, I don't know. I doubt if she was used in any normal service. I will ask my friend in Norway if any of the newspaper articles talk about that or maybe there was just a standard way of dealing with ships in that condition. As far as the lovely sail plan goes, this is one of five (I think) sheets of plans that Harold Underhill drew in the 50s I think. They are sold by Brown, Son and Ferguson. It might be that the copies of the original drawings are larger than the ebay picture - I can't tell how big the ebay picture is. A bunch of years ago I built a 'model' (1 to 8 scale) of Leon so that I could actually sail her. Here's a photo: Thanks for your interest in Leon, Doug

The rigging has started in earnest. The fore shrouds are up but the lanyards have only been adjusted once trying to get the upper deadeyes to be in line with each other. They will keep being adjusted over time. The fore stay is up also. Jeppe found a signed contract dated a month before Leon was launched which specified that the fore-aft stays were to be wire and the shrouds were to be rope. This is why the forestay is so thin compared with the shrouds even though it's doubled. The green cards help keep some lines which are not ready to be installed yet neat - these are the main stay, the main middle stay and the main topmast stay - these were fitted to the foremast before stepping the mast for ease of handling. At the end of the bowsprit are the martingale and the two heart-lanyard fittings waiting for the bobstay chain. The masthead shot below shows some of the details. My target is to serve everywhere that it was done on a full scale ship. So far there is one deviation. I haven't served the lower ends of the shrouds going around the top deadeye My serving material is 0.006" diameter thread, full scale 0.29" which is too big. Mostly, it seems to be OK but in conjunction with the deadeyes and the shrouds being rope it seems too big so the serving was left off. This is a good place to mention that the mast caps were probably iron but I have made them out of wood. The reason is simple - when I tried to construct them from brass or copper, my silver soldering skills were grossly inadequate. The dimensions of all rigging both standing and running were taken from tables in Underhill's Masting and Rigging the Clipper Ship & Ocean Carrier, In other sources we found that the length of a rope block should be roughly 3x the line's circumference. This formula was used to size all of the blocks.

The two lower masts are installed, held in-place with wedges that are covered with the mast coats. In order to make the mast coats look like canvas a little fine material was varnished over the imitation mast coat made of wood. The two lower masts were installed so that the chain plates for the shrouds could be angled accurately. The backstay chain plates will similarly need the top masts to be installed. I had given a lot of thought, over a period of months, as to how I was going to fabricate the deadeye strops, the chain plates and the chain plate cleats (aka backing cleats) since my miniature metal working skills are very limited (my large scale metal working skills also). I settled on the following techniques: First, I used 1 1/2" round copper rods for the chain plates as Underhill made the comment that Leon had round chain plates (how he knew this is a mystery but it was very convenient for me). I wrapped this rod around the Syren deadeyes to form simplified strops. The chain plate cleats were fabricated along the lines of a posting in MSW for the Victory. (When I tried to find it again, to give credit, I couldn't find it!) In the photo below, we first see the 'strop' on the completed assembly on the far left. On the far right, a fine wire wrapped twice around two pins is the beginning of the backing cleat. Then, moving to the left, the wire is crimped between the two pins and then removed from the two pins. One more to the left and the crimped wires are soldered and the two tails are removed. The upper eye is one wire thick and the lower eye is two wires thick. One more to the left and the single wire eye has been cut forming two prongs. These prongs are straightened and soldered around the bottom end of the chain plate to complete the assembly. The thin wire was doubled in order to make the top of the dummy chain plate cleat about the same size as the lower part. The 5 assemblies for the port fore lower mast shrouds are shown in the next photo. Underhill talks about blackening brass (or copper) with thinned black paint. Up to now I have always used a chemical blackening agent but I figured I'd give the thinned paint a try. I found it easy and effective but not so durable as the chemical blackening agent. You can also see in this picture that little slots were cut in the rail to meet the holes that had been drilled. This allowed the entire strop / chain plate / backing cleat assembly to be fabricated off the ship and then installed finally plugging the slot. On the starboard side the viewing ports do not permit the full chain plate assembly to be installed so the chainplate is bent around the wale and terminated there as seen in the following photo.

The steeve of the jibboom / bowsprit and the rake of the masts (along with sheer) are some of the first impressions that an observer gets of a model sailing ship. I noticed almost immediately that the jibboom in Underhill’s plans seemed a lot flatter than the jibboom in the well-known photo of Leon. I figured I could do some research and get a better idea of what these parameters really were. The photo below shows the model with masts done except for some paraphernalia. The steeve and rakes are selected based on the research documented below. The picture was taken so that the camera was nearly on the same level as the waterline and as directly off the beam as possible. These conditions provide the best estimates for the 3 angles. Values for the other photos are likely more error prone for not satisfying these conditions. All the numbers are in the picture below. We’ll talk about just the jibboom because it is the simplest and yet still gives a good idea of what the research entailed. The masts are more complicated because there is more variation between the sources and also we consider not just the rake of each mast but the difference in the two rakes. A note on the use of one decimal place for the angles - it is not meant to imply great accuracy rather it makes it ease to see exactly where a number in the text comes from in the table below. It's a trick from actuarial practice which was the profession I retired from. The first step of the analysis was to divide the variety of sources into 3 categories. The first is what values was Underhill basing his plans on. The second is what values were used in 1880 when Leon was launched. The third is what values were appropriate later in her life in 1912 (the year of her photo) when she was 32 years just three years before she was lost. Beginning the research, I had no idea that there might be changes in these angles over time, but I think there were, at least in the jibboom steeve. 3 sources were identified for determining Underhill’s values. 1-- Underhill’s plans, 2-- A photo of Underhill’s model and 3-- A photo of his friend’s, Favez, model. The two model photos are consistent (26.0 and 24.7) but Underhill’s plans (19.3) is lower by about 6 degrees. All these values are in degrees. A question arises as to why both models are significantly larger than Underhill’s plan. It is easy to imagine that when building their models, the photo of Leon was disconcerting as it’s steeve is significantly steeper than Underhill’s plan. 3 sources were also identified for determining the As Built in 1880 values. These three sources are quite consistent. The Construction Sheer Plan gives 16.7, the Builders Sail Plan (my term) gives 17.7 and a drawing of Leon under sail gives 17.2. Only one source is identified to determine the values As She Was Circa 1912. The well-known photo of Leon gives 29.4. Absent any other explanation for the increase in steeve angle of 12.2 degrees, maybe it was a change made during a refit. The rakes of the two masts As She Was Circa 1912 are much closer to their As Built in 1880 values being about 1 degree less.

I've started on the spars beginning with the bowsprit and jibboom. I don't yet feel up to the metal work for the bands so I used Chartpak Graphic Art Tape (matte) from Amazon. I have 4 width - 1/32" 1/16", 3/32" and 1/8" (full size 1.5", 3", 4.5", 6"). The adhesive is not all that strong when wrapped so I use CA also. If a band has eyes, an eye is used to tack the end of the tape. If there are no eyes, mini nails (3/32" long) from Micro-Mark are used. Two sizes of eyebolts are used. The most common is 1/32" (full size 1.5") and less common 1/16" (full scale 3"). Both come from Bluejacket. The second photo is taken a bit off the starboard bow to show some of the eyebolts more clearly. In addition, the focus is much better on this photo so zooming in gives a sharper image . I should also mention Drill Bits Unlimited. They supply drill bits that are normally used in machinery but can be used in a pin-vise or drill press. They come in many small sizes. These drill bits are very sharp and very brittle - they break frequently. However, with care, they are a blessing to work with. Incidentally, in these pictures it looks as if the jibboom is tapered towards it's heel rather than it's head - please believe me, this is an illusion. A detail for research - I tried to find how the battens were fastened to the bowsprit - I assume it was with bolts or such. But I found no information so I left them blank.

All the scroll work is finished - first shown is the quarter board, then the trailing board and finally the transom. The only new technique was typing the name and home port on tracing paper and then adding the actual scroll work. When gluing the finished work to the hull the tracing paper should have a very thin layer of glue. Then the wood becomes visible as seen on the transom. If this is not done then the tracing paper itself is seen as on the quarter board. Thanks again to David for his suggestion of string and gesso!

Thanks GrandpaPhil, I think this modeling must really be a labor of love otherwise why would we ( graciously? ) accept all the failed experiments. Meanwhile, I've painted the scrollwork black because of the drawing that Beckman posted on December 14, 2018 from Aust-Agder-Museum. I'll post more pictures when I finish all the scrollwork \ Thanks again for the affirmation,, Doug

At this point I figured that if I'm going to do the scroll work I better do it now. There was no way I was going to carve the scroll work or paint it so I asked if anyone would be willing to take on a commission of doing the carving for me. What I got instead was great advice from David Antscherl, aka druxey. Instead of carving out the wood, he said, why not build up the filigree with something. He recommended trying string and gesso. I don't have the skill to paint the gesso freehand so I used kite string coated with 4 coats of gesso. The first picture shows the kite string strung between nails. The second pictures shows the kite string coated with 4 coats of gesso. We'll try to reduce the unevenness of the gesso but that comes later. This gesso coated string is then easily bent to follow the curves on the tracing of the scroll work . The end of the string is first tacked to the tracing paper with CA. Then with needle pointed tweezers, the string is bent around the curves of the scroll work tacking it in place with CA when ever necessary to hold the curves. The following pictures show first, the filigree right after gluing the gesso coated string to the pattern. The second picture shows the filigree after it has been cleaned up. The clean up is done with tiny files and consists of 1) removing the tracing paper so that it won't be visible and 2) Rounding off kinks and corners so that the curves are all smooth. The last picture shows the filigree glued onto the .hull. It's pretty rough but at least I was able to do it.

Some miscellaneous items on the deck - First is the spanker sheets. These are a problem because the double block shackled to the deck would be very difficult to install after the wheel box is in place. and even more difficult would be threading the sheet itself through the sheaves of that block. Therefore the whole tackle is assembled and installed. The fife rail and bilge pumps are next. The hand-bars for the bilge pump are included so that the operation of the pump is clear. The anchor operation is shown next. The anchor chain can be seen entering the hause pipe which it passes through to the anchor windlass which can't be seen in this picture. The head of the anchor is seen hanging from the cat-head tackle which has been taken to the warping capstan to provide the power to lift the head of the anchor from hanging below the hause pipe to hanging below the cat-head. Lastly, a large hook at the bottom of the treble block fish tackle engages one of the flukes and the tackle lifts the fluke over the rail. The bill board is the wood plank that prevents the flukes from damaging the planking, the wale and the rail. This is the way the starboard anchor will be displayed in the final model. The port anchor will be stowed.

I need ornamentation for a 1:48 model. Relatively simple as it is for a brigantine built in 1880. I'd be happy to discuss.

Ed, I also was pretty flabbergasted by the difference between Underhill's stem and the true stem. It is really odd since the photo shows the correct profile very clearly. As to 'other details of the plan' the good news is that the 1880 construction sheer plan agrees with the photo. I've read that these construction plans are not always trustworthy and yet, in this case, the stem shape is accurately reproduced.. And we know from previous posts that Underhill's deck layout is pretty close to the layout shown in the 1880 sheer plan so apparently we can be satisfied with the deck paraphernalia. This is a short posting but many hours of thought have gone into the result. I really wanted to modify the model to reflect the true stem. But no matter how many problems I solved more would arise and then I had the idea of 'painting' the true stem onto the model. This is practical because at every elevation the true stem is inboard of the model stem hence nowhere does the true stem project forward of the model stem. My ability to 'paint' the true stem is very marginal (you may remember the lumber hatch) therefore I asked a professional artist, Lisa Brown, to help. She proposed using 1/8" wide tape. She showed me how to ease the tape into position where there are curves. The final result is seen in the photo below.

This posting includes some miscellaneous items as well as the beginning results of comparing the model to the picture. Having purchased all the miniature rope that I'll need from Syren, I realized that I needed to do some organizing. So first, I wound all the different sizes on 2" sections of 2" cardboard roller. Then, I stacked these 'spools' on two poles - one for the 7 sizes of standing rigging and the other for the 4 sizes of running rigging - voila! well organized with a small footprint. The little bucket with little sticks of all sizes and types of wood has also greatly reduced clutter on the bench top - I don't know why I didn't discover this years ago. Next, I've glued up all of the the 4 part spars - each spar has an extra inch at each end. As far as I can tell most ship modelers use a single stick for their spars and they have no problem with twisting or bending. For some reason, I've gotten it into my head that I need to make each spar from four sticks confident that they will then stay straight - I don't know where I got this idea. Comparing the model to the photo for the aft cabin showed that the companionway roof was too steep and that the skylight was too far aft and too high. Before and after photos follow. Unfortunately , I don't have a useful before picture so we make do. And lastly we compare the profile of the stem. We actually have two views of the stem one being from the photo and the other being from the 1880 construction sheer plan. It's encouraging that the photo and the construction sheer plan are basically the same as this means we can probably also trust the below waterline curve that the construction sheer plan shows.. Unfortunately, the model stem is straight and differs significantly from the true stem. It is not at all clear why Underhill did not follow the curve so clearly evident in the photo. Another disappointment is that I do not see how to 'fix' the model to match more closely to the photo. My son, Nate, trained as a naval architect, is not ready to throw in the towel on this. In addition he has software which constructs a 3-D model from a 2-D photo. We hope to extract further quantitative information from the photo. I'll remove some of the mystery of what's coming up by saying that I think I'll be building a third mid-ship deck house based on the photo. The good news is that it needs to be bigger hence making the case for housing the crew even more plausible.

Ed, Great idea to start Leon again after all where are you going to find a more beautiful ship. If you do start her again and if your planning to show the interior then I'll send you the 1880 DNV survey which will tell you the correct number of frames, the correct sided dimension used for all the frames and the correct moulded dimensions of the mid-ship frame (and a LOT more). I had to use my 'curve' method for the moulded dimensions because I didn't find the survey until I was finished most of the planking. And of course be sure to start a log! I totally agree with Longridge. On a completely different topic I just recently came up with the idea of comparing the model with the well known photo of Leon and this is shown in the picture below. This is actually a difficult comparison to make because the photo of the model has to match 3 parameters of the photo of the real ship. 1 - The angles forward of the port beam have to be the same. The model has an angle of about 10 degrees and I believe the real ship's angle is more like 20 degrees 2 - The distances from the ship have to be the same. The distance for the model photo is 770' which might be pretty good. 3- The roll angle of the two photos have to be the same. In this case you can see that the starboard rail on the photo of the real ship is not visible but on the photo of the model it is very visible. In any event we certainly get the impression that the the model's bowsprit is steved a little too high and that both the foremast and the mainmast have too much rake. I have some ideas about how to determine better parameters for the model photo in order to check these impressions. I took the rakes off of a 1880 sheer plan but unfortunately those kinds of plans can be inaccurate. Good luck and many blessings, Doug

Hi Ed, You know, you are correct - I am very satisfied. For the first year or so I bemoaned my limited 'micro carpentry' skills - other builders seemed to have joints that you couldn't see, surfaces that were ultra smooth etc etc. But more recently when I look at her I see something that's almost alive even with her imperfections and I love it! As far as frames go there are two separate issues. The one I think you are asking about is referred to as the moulded dimension i.e. outside to inside. And yes you are correct that this dimension is thickest at the bottom (at the floors) and gets gradually thinner as you approach the upper most deck. The way I quantified this thinning was to look at some ships about the same size as Leon and assigning the positional value of 0 to the moulded thickness of the frame at the bottom (at the keel)- the actual thickness I gave as 100% because I'm expressing all the moulded thicknesses as % of the largest value at the bottom. Then I assigned the positional value of 1 to the moulded thickness at the deck and gave the actual thickness as, lets say, 56%. I think I then marked off positional values at 25%, 50% and 75% and assigned them actual thickness values as percentages of the max thickness. I compared these percentage curves for a few ships and generated a curve just by judgement that I used for Leon. I used the same curve for all the frames that went down to the keel. I don't remember how I adapted the curve for the frames that terminated on the deadwood rather than going all the way down to the keel. Another point, you need to have a diagram that shows both the outer curve of the mid-ship frame and also shows the inner curve. You probably will not find this on a plan but rather in a diagram in a book that shows a cross section of the construction of mid-ships. PS I only generated the curve for the mid-ship frame. I assumed that the same curve could be used for all the other frames. The second issue has to do with the other thickness of the frame - the sided dimension i.e. the fore-aft thickness. Every model I have built (and the vast majority of models that I've seen) have no tapering in this direction BUT in real life this is tapered also. I've seen that the segments (futtocks) that go into a real frame are a little thinner as you go up so the fore and aft surfaces of the frame are not smooth because each time a futtock gets thinner it introduces a little jog in the surface. I don't know if each futtock is also tapered a little. but I'll guess not. I'm attaching 2 drawings one for the moulded tapering and how I analyzed it to compare different ships and one for the sided tapering but remember I know very little about this. Good luck - I hope this is clear and helpful. Doug

The Pin Rails and Taffrail have been added. Both the belaying pins and the taffrail pedestals come from Model Expo. I haven't decided yet whether to paint the pins brown or keep them as raw brass.