JerseyCity Frankie

I was going to wait until I had the brake pumps completed, but here are some quick snaps of the current state of things:
 
I've got the bitts completed (except for some rings for the stoppers that'll wait until after the initial painting):


 
Also have completed the cisterns and covers for the chain pumps - still need to fashion some handles:

 
Just for a bit of extra fun... I've left off the cover on one of the cisterns to "expose" the underlying chain wheel:


 

 
It started with me strolling through the model train store for something to use for my capstan drumheads.  I didn't find anything suitable, but this little packet did catch my eye:
 

 
And I thought, hmmmm...
 
So after forking over too much hard earned cash (I think each wheel ended up being over a buck!) I trimmed them up slightly and glued on some small lengths of styrene rod then snipped off the ends.  I suppose some spare PE railings or scale ladder bent around the circumference would've worked as well:
 

 

 
They are really cable sheaves and aren't quite perfect for the job, but at this scale, and barely visible thru the openings, it should suffice well enough.  I'm just gonna paint it black then leave well enough alone - I don't fancy trying to replicate the chain.  That'd be too fiddly and would likely diminish the effect.
 
And just to make sure people know these things don't all work out on the first try... Here is my debris field:

 
Thanks for following along

Now it is on to the deck details - starting with the capstans.  The one provided in the kit sucks and begs for replacement. I also need to provide one for the gun deck.
 
But how to do the drumheads - especially when using styrene?  I pondered and pondered and finally came up with an approach that worked reasonably well.  The key was to visit the local hardware store to acquire some metal washers of appropriate size - 1/8" (#6) did the trick.  The washers will serve as the outline of the circles as we spin everything around on the drill press and use a file to shape the drumhead.
 
Here are the raw materials:

 
After outlining the circles on some sheet styrene (using the washers as a template), I punched the centers and rough cut the shapes.  Those were then mounted on a bolt sized to the washer opening with two washers sandwiching each side of the styrene.  Everything was then clamped tight with the nut:


 
I mounted the set up in the drill press, gave it a whirl, and filed the blanks even with the edges of the washer templates:

 
After removing the styrene from the bolt - viola!  


 
Next I snipped some small styrene stock (.040 x .080 Evergreen 144) and glued them around the perimeter leaving spaces in between to represent the bar openings:

 
After sandwiching those between two of the styrene "washers" I nipped off any protruding material, mounted the rough drumhead back in my bolt assembly and gave it another spin with some light filing to clean the final shape.

 
The whelps were easily managed - just stuck some short pieces of .080 x .080 (Evergreen 164) styrene to some tape and used a round file to carve out the centers:

 
Everything was glued to a small length of styrene rod (6.4mm - Plastruct 90864) and a few small details were added to complete the effect. Coincidentally, the rod fit exactly into the center openings defined by the washers.
 
Here is the gun deck capstan:

 
I wanted the spar deck capstan to look more like the one on the Hull model in the PEM - more mushroom shaped and svelte in comparison to the stockier gun deck capstan:


 
Thanks for enduring the process explanation!

I will put in a word for basswood. The original poster said his samples were in a sad state but that doesn't mean all basswood is junk. Where I live its available in all sorts of dimensions at craft and art supply stores and I buy square stock and work it down to the spar I want and if you select a straight piece of wood you will get a straight spar. Kit manufacturers are notorious for providing poor wood.

I wish I had better photo coverage of the intervening stages of this build. I made the sails out of two or three layers of tissue paper that was dipped in Minwax water soluble polyurethane called Pollycrilic which dries fast and transparent. I made forms of clay in the shape of the billowing sails and draped the wet tissue over them. When they hardened they had the belly shape I was after and I painted them and cut them to size and glued them to the model. The inner face of the sails were too smooth since they were in contact with the forms and there were some air bubbles but I disguised them with “patches” of more tissue.  
 
 

Sophie deck. My favorite ship model photo. You can see the scribed deck in this shot. The black football shaped objects are the smallest seeds I could find. I hope they never get wet and start to sprout one day since they are all over the rigs of a lot of my ship models! Donald Mcnarry describes using "Lobelia" seeds on his miniatures but I have never had any luck finding them. The cannons have a very slight blue color drybrushed onto them. I was watching a film and the cannons in the movie had a bluish cast to them so I said "why not"? It plays off the red nicely and to me it doesn't leap out at you and offend the eye but at the same time it suggests (to me anyway) the reflectivity of a glossy black surface. The coils of line are deliberately all different shades of grey and pale tan to suggest lines of various age and use.
 
 
.

I finished this model four years ago and I have had some trouble finding the photo documentation since I had a computer die on me and files were all over. Likely I will add more as I find them.
This is a scratch built solid basswood hull model of a fictional ship based on the actual brig H.M.S. Speedy made famous by Lord Cochrane and fictionalized by Patrick O’Brian. Drawings were found on the web and the novel itself gives a great deal of useful information including measurements.

On the Lettie the headsail with the spar attached is known as the Jumbo, and the spar is known as the Jumbo Club. Why its not known as a jib I can't tell you. Clubs on headsails are not uncommon, at least not on schooners, and they help the sail maintain an optimal shape. Tacks are not the line your thinking of Themadchemist. Sheets adjust the headsails, The tack is the forwardmost lowest corner of a fore and aft sail and there is a tack line holding it in place but its never adjusted and is more like a lashing. Incidentally I have sailed on Lettie and in the photo its likely she has JUST come about and the photo was likely taken in the instant before the sheets were adjusted. She wouldn't be sailing around with her hadsails like that, this is a temporary condition.

Just to bring the narrative up to date: Lettie G Howard is back from her four month refit in Main and is tied up once again on pier 17 in lower Manhattan-right by the Brooklyn Bridge- with her spars back in place. in Main a new keelson was built, made of purpleheart. This month the South Street Seaport Museum announced a partnership for the vessel with the New York Harbor School and she is expected to be sailing again in the spring. So things are looking up for Lettie. The museum is still of VERY shaky legs though and things could still get dire, but this time last year the damage from the hurricane made it seam like the whole seaport district could have been bulldozed and today there is a plan for Lettie's future and skilled, tenacious people in place who are determined to make things work down there.

Just to bring the narrative up to date: Lettie G Howard is back from her four month refit in Main and is tied up once again on pier 17 in lower Manhattan-right by the Brooklyn Bridge- with her spars back in place. in Main a new keelson was built, made of purpleheart. This month the South Street Seaport Museum announced a partnership for the vessel with the New York Harbor School and she is expected to be sailing again in the spring. So things are looking up for Lettie. The museum is still of VERY shaky legs though and things could still get dire, but this time last year the damage from the hurricane made it seam like the whole seaport district could have been bulldozed and today there is a plan for Lettie's future and skilled, tenacious people in place who are determined to make things work down there.

Just to bring the narrative up to date: Lettie G Howard is back from her four month refit in Main and is tied up once again on pier 17 in lower Manhattan-right by the Brooklyn Bridge- with her spars back in place. in Main a new keelson was built, made of purpleheart. This month the South Street Seaport Museum announced a partnership for the vessel with the New York Harbor School and she is expected to be sailing again in the spring. So things are looking up for Lettie. The museum is still of VERY shaky legs though and things could still get dire, but this time last year the damage from the hurricane made it seam like the whole seaport district could have been bulldozed and today there is a plan for Lettie's future and skilled, tenacious people in place who are determined to make things work down there.

That is when I realized that the used Krick-deadeyes were drilled too unevenly for my taste ... As I did not want to discard my painfully soldered parts and get better deadeyes, I startet closing the holes with toothpicks and filed them even. 
 

 
Just then I realized that because of the size and curved surface the planned drilling templates did not work :-(
At least I know by now why they those bastards are drilled the way that they are ...
 
OK, good old solid handwork, putting each part into the vise and mark the central line for the two middle holes ...
 

 
... and with patience, a template and a good eye drill the preliminary holes with 0,5 mm, set the third hole with a fresh eye ...
 

 
... and finish the drilling with 0,8 mm.
 

 
I usually drill small holes by hand with the drill fixed on a round material as it gives far more control as any machine! .
 
Now came the tricky part of straightening everything up, worked best upon a cutterblade, even the smallest loops :-)
 

 

 
And finally I had a complete set of deadeyes and preventer plates for the main-mast channel on my adhesive tape. :-)
 

 
Hourray
 
 
... and finally came the montage :-)
 
First à la nature ...
 

 
... then with a little bit of colour ...
 

 

 

 
... and it looks like it was all simple! ;-)
 
 
 
Liebe Grüße, Daniel

Here comes the lower part for the fore- and main-channels ...
 

 
... bent around two steel pins and  squeezed in the middle.
 

 
For the bolts I use sewing pins. I grind the diameter on a file by putting the pins into my Dremel and afterwards still reduced the hight. The needed lengh will be around 4 mm. On the left the original needle.
 

 
And now the soldering - what a hell to learn :-)
 
First the lower ring, then sliding it into the loop of the deadeye, putting it into the third hand for soldering ...
 

 
... and ready. Looks sooooo easy ;-) The black is not burnt but just some paint :-)
 

 
Here the ensemble is already in place, the part that is ment to go into the hole of the hull is lenghend in its place and bent ...
 

 
... putten into the hole and the needle forced in with it. Take a thread and check direction and angle. Secure it with a drop of superglue. 
 

 

 
A package of tree with different lengths.
 

Found this great photo of life aloft on a square rigger, the caption was "The barque "Claudia" of Marstal in the Atlantic, 1931" with no other info. I was struck by how smooth the sailcloth is, I could not make out the seams for the individual cloths on the course and I am not 100% sure I can make them out on the topsail. The course sail does indeed look like it is constructed of very wide individual pieces of sailcloth, not the usual two foot wide ones. I wonder at what point wider sizes of canvas became commercially available. And I wonder if there wasn't some sacrifice in strength when they abandoned the smaller cloth size? Its a great photo though isn't it?

I did some more work on the rigging (the foot ropes are out of scale but I couldn't get them any smaller) the topmast shrouds are complete the lower shrouds will be attached to the hull and have long strings that will be threaded through a hole drilled in the top of the mast when I install the mast I will pull the strings to tighten up the shrouds.
 






 
Lextin.

I haven't got much work done around Turkeyday but I was able to make the lower gundeck cannons and the mast. The mast is made from a bamboo skewer the topmast and topgallant mast are made from bamboo toothpicks the yards are also toothpicks.
 






 
Lextin.

Some more progress on the Victory I made the finale deck and painted the hull I also added the wales and the starboard gunports. 
   As promised here are some pics of it apart.




 
Lextin.

Found this great photo of life aloft on a square rigger, the caption was "The barque "Claudia" of Marstal in the Atlantic, 1931" with no other info. I was struck by how smooth the sailcloth is, I could not make out the seams for the individual cloths on the course and I am not 100% sure I can make them out on the topsail. The course sail does indeed look like it is constructed of very wide individual pieces of sailcloth, not the usual two foot wide ones. I wonder at what point wider sizes of canvas became commercially available. And I wonder if there wasn't some sacrifice in strength when they abandoned the smaller cloth size? Its a great photo though isn't it?

Found this great photo of life aloft on a square rigger, the caption was "The barque "Claudia" of Marstal in the Atlantic, 1931" with no other info. I was struck by how smooth the sailcloth is, I could not make out the seams for the individual cloths on the course and I am not 100% sure I can make them out on the topsail. The course sail does indeed look like it is constructed of very wide individual pieces of sailcloth, not the usual two foot wide ones. I wonder at what point wider sizes of canvas became commercially available. And I wonder if there wasn't some sacrifice in strength when they abandoned the smaller cloth size? Its a great photo though isn't it?

Found this great photo of life aloft on a square rigger, the caption was "The barque "Claudia" of Marstal in the Atlantic, 1931" with no other info. I was struck by how smooth the sailcloth is, I could not make out the seams for the individual cloths on the course and I am not 100% sure I can make them out on the topsail. The course sail does indeed look like it is constructed of very wide individual pieces of sailcloth, not the usual two foot wide ones. I wonder at what point wider sizes of canvas became commercially available. And I wonder if there wasn't some sacrifice in strength when they abandoned the smaller cloth size? Its a great photo though isn't it?

Herewego, Dr. dafistein coming straight from his lab ...
 
... breaking little bones of little people ...
 

 
... and reassembled, on the right, the poor lad before being transformed ...
 

 
... in his new life as gun captain, holding a leather bag against the vent  to air seal it, for that no smoldering ashes is pushed upwards, while the barrel is sponged.
 

 
Two of the Misters got funny tails ...
 

 
... a bit of paint applied ...
 

 
.... and the crew is complete :-)
The lieutenant, the gun captain, loader 2 with the bullet, sponger 2 with the wad pads, powdermonkee, the marine (at ease, the crossbelts off and the button opened). Sponger and loader are already at their place, waiting for the rest of the gang, the second gun captain and the 7 auxiliaries to pull the strings ...
 

 

 
Cheers, Daniel

Sails ARE floppy and droopy if there isn't any wind to fill them. It becomes a question of how you want to depict the model. I like to have sails full of wind on my models but getting the look, stiffening and shaping the sails, adds a lot of time and effort. I think its worth it but there are times when I am trying to get the perfect look to the billowing sails that I could almost wish I had opted for sails in a calm.

I made the sails and did a final test fit. Next will come the cradle and the final install.


 

I started on a HMS Victory cross section in a bottle. I made the hull by laminating strips of card over a form the decks are made from card as well they will be attached to the hull by strings that when pulled will assemble the model then the mast and rigging will be added. I still need to make one more deck then I can start making the details such as cannons the mast step and the chain pumps.




 
Lextin.

I was so tempted to get Niagara last time I saw it was on sale. Shes such a nice looking ship and there is so much available reference material on her. Brigs too appear to be so much more manageable, fitting into a smaller space but still giving you all that sail and rigging area. I'm wondering what my next project will be, I think I will have what I am working on done by midwinter at the latest and I have to think of something to build next. If I go with a kit I am certain it will either be Niagara or Pride of Baltimore.

started on the transom planking