JerseyCity Frankie

Some stuff done up at the sharp end . . . and a couple of questions to come.
 
Catheads and roundhouses made. Finished roundhouse stands beside the blank for the other one >>>
 

 
I used a 12mm dowel for the form of the roundhouses. The dowel was sliced lengthwise to leave just over half of its diameter. At 12mm it was a little underscale for the model, so before applying the vertical planks I wrapped the half-dowel with thin card then glued the planks and the bindings on to the card.
Here's the front end with the catheads loosely placed in position, and some dowels placed in 'holes' while they pretend to be masts >>>
 

 

 
. . . and now the questions ~~~
 
The catheads -- at what point is it 'normal' to fit these? Just looking at how they stick out they seem a little vulnerable to me. However, I want to be getting the forecastle deck planked soon and the inboard parts of the catheads are virtually concealed below that deck but I don't want to be messing around trying to make a neat job of fitting the catheads through the deck planking. (As this is my first build I don't want to be fitting one part only to find that later on it hampers my attempts to fit another part or parts.)
 
. . . and a general question about the roundhouses ~~~
 
I've never been sure what their function was -- I've googled looking for an answer but only found reference to the roundhouses at the stern of the ship. In my absence of accurate knowledge of this I've imagined they may have merely been "posh toilets" for some ship's officers ??? --- but someone may know differently ???
 
 

Here is the finished knot drawn up on a cylinder. Its nearly the same knot as the Clove Hitch but it stays tight when you pull on the ends and I actually find it easier to tie. If your tying a pair of shrouds or backstays you can tie it in the center of the line and the ends can lead port and starboard. 

Hi Jim. Your post caught my attention about your cat heads and I don't believe that they was covered by the deck planking. Am not 100 percent sure but the most forward beam of the forecastle was very wide and had a rabbet on the aft edge for the planks to land on. On top of this beam the cat heads would set. I went through the book and most of the 50 gun ships show this type of set up if they had a beakhead bulkhead.  Much like Alfred had. If you look in the 50 gun ship book by Winfield, on page 82 and 83 at the most forward end of the forecastle deck you will see this very wide beam. Also on page114 that plan gives a side view of the beam setting behind the beakhead platform. Am not quite sure why McKay shows the deck planking covering up the cat head beam which looks a little odd to me. Of course it being you ship, you can do it as you see fit sir. Here is a picture of Alfred's beakhead along with one of the cat heads waiting to be finished. You will also see the large beam with the rabbet  in the photo's. Just something to think about and might help keep you from putting them on to early. Gary

As much as I love wooden ships and tar and three stranded line I have to admit our hobby does not have enough modern sail vessels being represented. Dan I think yours is the ONLY fiberglass sloop on Model Ship World and I see no kits available for them out there either. Which is amazing since there is a WORLD of modern sailing vessels of every size and shape on ever lake river and sea the world over. There are kits and builds of modern motor vessels aplenty but where are the recreational sail models? I can see you have "invented the wheel" on this model, with no aftermarket parts available. For each part you had to invent the process then build the part, over and over again! I'm impressed with the whole project.

As much as I love wooden ships and tar and three stranded line I have to admit our hobby does not have enough modern sail vessels being represented. Dan I think yours is the ONLY fiberglass sloop on Model Ship World and I see no kits available for them out there either. Which is amazing since there is a WORLD of modern sailing vessels of every size and shape on ever lake river and sea the world over. There are kits and builds of modern motor vessels aplenty but where are the recreational sail models? I can see you have "invented the wheel" on this model, with no aftermarket parts available. For each part you had to invent the process then build the part, over and over again! I'm impressed with the whole project.

Another elevated image

And my carved figure.

Hey there Popee I have not read your whole log but I have been admiring parts of it and I noticed your Reversed Cloths Pins. What a great idea! I hope somewhere in your build you mention them, its like you made a hot rod clothspin, I'm going to use the idea on some of my pins now.

I was mussing on the presumed necessity of the pendants. With a capable boatswain, couldn't they just rig a strop of some kind when they needed a point from which to rig a purchase, like a selvagee? sure they could but it would always have to be attached to one of the other shrouds, which are already under some degree of strain and you wouldn't want to compromise any of those in any way- although you do see lead blocks for braces and things on them, and that is surely a strain, albeit usually lateral strain. And there are collars lashed around masts to direct the stays to the deck, and these are certainly under a lot of strain, why not an eye like one of those lashed up high? But the stay collars too have a mostly lateral strain on them and a vertical strain would probably make them slip down. The pendants are made off right around the masthead, an unambiguous strong purchase. Any strain placed on them would be translated directly to the strongest part of the ship aloft with no chance of damaging or carrying anything else away. "Nothing too strong ever broke".

I think of the Burton Pendants as being auxiliary handy places to hang something heavy from, and I do believe they just hang down under the tops when not being used in conjunction with a temporary lifting project. I know one of their uses was for setting up the lanyards on the deadeyes, with tackle hooked to the Burton Pendants to put tension on the lanyards, which in turn kept the shrouds tight. The lead from the Burton Pendants is PERFECT for this. I hear tall ships to this very day have issues keeping their shrouds tight- those few that do not use steel wire rope standing rigging, so this reason alone would be enough to keep the pendants on all the rigs. I am certain that the gear would be struck down after the job was done though so I wouldn't place anything on them on the model.
The toprope I would just leave off too. Its only in use when they are striking the topmast down on deck and I seriously doubt anyone would leave that line in place if it wasn't in use. Why risk the wear and tear on a line you REALY don't want to part? Striking or Housing the mast was certainly done often enough. I recall reading somewhere of an English frigate crew that had trained so well they could strike topmasts in a matter of minutes, but it was a big 'all hands" type of job and setting up the tackle would be just one part of the sequence of events. Incidentally the Top Rope is one of the Seven Ropes on a ship. There are only seven ropes on a ship, it is said. All the other ropes are properly called lines.

Fine job for sure Frankie.  I never have built a ship in a bottle before...I even have a kit.  I know it takes some engineering to lay everything down and then pull it all back up once in......still pretty nifty stuff.
 
Watching with anticipation.
 
Rob

The ship building and preparing will reach a point where I will need to start using the bottle in the planning and prep. I will need this round bottle to be stable so I should at this point build the base for the bottle and I may as well build the base I intend to display the model in rather than make a temporary jig that would be discarded later. A square bottle is nice since it will sit on the workbench but this one has the word "KRAKEN" embossed on it and two nice loops (presumably so that it may better be grasped with tentacles) so I want it to sit exactly at the right position. I need two brackets to conform to the profile of the bottle so I trace the bottle onto the timber I want to use and cut out the arcs. I learned the trick of finessing the cut to fit the bottle by wrapping some sandpaper around the bottle and sanding into the rough cut to make a nice fit even nicer.

The ship building and preparing will reach a point where I will need to start using the bottle in the planning and prep. I will need this round bottle to be stable so I should at this point build the base for the bottle and I may as well build the base I intend to display the model in rather than make a temporary jig that would be discarded later. A square bottle is nice since it will sit on the workbench but this one has the word "KRAKEN" embossed on it and two nice loops (presumably so that it may better be grasped with tentacles) so I want it to sit exactly at the right position. I need two brackets to conform to the profile of the bottle so I trace the bottle onto the timber I want to use and cut out the arcs. I learned the trick of finessing the cut to fit the bottle by wrapping some sandpaper around the bottle and sanding into the rough cut to make a nice fit even nicer.

With everything dry you can cast off from the building jig and fold the masts over to check for fit in the neck of the bottle. Drop the model right in with confidence since you can pull it back out again via the stays. If its a tight squeeze, sand file or shave off some of the bottom of the hull. In a conventional ship in a bottle, you are making a waterline hull anyway and shaving off the bottom is no big deal. Another conventional ship in a bottle practice is to attache the yards and have them stay with the masts through the insertion and erection inside the bottle. I have done this in the past but the yards add a TREMENDOUS amount of bulk and complexity and you have to finagle them back out of their inevitable cockbilled disposition once the masts are up.  I am opting to attach the yards AFTER the ship is in and the masts are up and glue them on one at a time.

The stays were bent to the mast, then they pass through holes I drilled right through the deck and are left long outside the hull, about ten inches long. I paint one, two and three white stripes on the bitter end of each lower stay so that I can identify them outside the bottle. When the time comes to erect the masts within the bottle you will spend a lot of time trying to find which exact line to adjust during the process. Paper tags would work but I find the lines get pulled out and re-run a few times during the whole process so the paint works best for me. If I put on the upper stays they will pass through the wire eye fairleads aft of the tops and on the bowsprit. The ones the go through the tops will also pass through holes in the hull.

Shrouds and Stays: The masts flop around chaotically without anything holding them up so there is some degree of frustration in this step. When the shrouds and stays are tight the masts are rigid and behave themselves. But with JUST the shrouds or JUST the stays they will flop around. This is where the belaying pins on the base come in so handy since you can make one handed adjustments with the line while you hold the mast at the proper angle with the other hand. (As on a real ship, you can belay a line with just three figure eight turns around the top and bottom of a pin) I tie the stays onto the masts first and give them a drop of glue. Then I put the shroud gang on under the caps (each pair of shrouds middled and overhand knotted just under the top and a drop of glue) and leave their ends long. I hold the mast at the proper position and make off the stay on a pin at the base. Please note that the line you cut to make the stays has to be very long in order to reach outside the bottle later. With the stays belayed I move the shrouds, one opposing pair at a time, into their positions against the hull. I pass the ends of the shrouds to opposite sides under the keel to keep them flat against the hull and tape them temporarily in place. Once all is as I could wish it I white glue them onto the hull in one of those instances in which you want a REALLY SECURE GLUE JOB since the shrouds will be out of reach within the bottle when you erect the masts and you DO NOT WANT THEM TO COME FREE when you are tugging on the stays. The stays are going to be the only rigging outside of the bottle and they are opposed only by the shrouds. I put on some paper deadeyes made with a paper punch. A bit out of scale but I can live with them and I like adding any sort of detail I can at this small scale. After the glue has dried I cut off the tails of the shrouds. 

More catch up...!

JerseyCity Frankie - Thank you for recommending Milton Roth's book on August 8th.  I have just received it and am learning a lot from it.  Very comprehensive and practical book: great recommendation.

The bulwarks are then cut to the proper shear and hatches made of the origami paper are glued onto the deck. On the exterior hull I have the silly looking caterpillar stripes. I cut some pieces of black origami paper, with the proper shear line and when I glue them to the hull at the proper spot they define the lower edge of the Nelson checkers. I literally cap it off with a cap rail, which is made of a black artist paper heavier than the Origami stuff. I could have laminated the origami to get it thicker but I love this paper called Stonehenge, an artist paper. Black all the way through and acid free, it glues on with perfect ease with white glue. I could have simply painted the checkers on but I get a very quick very crisp checker using the paper, and the paper laminations add a great deal of rigidity to the otherwise floppy bulwarks. (I do have a world of caution though. I used this technique on a bottle model with a light grey hull. The oil in the plastecine clay soaked into the paper and turned it very dark. So if the paper will touch the plastecine you should seal it with something. ) A transom is glued on and then cut fair with some small personal grooming scissors which have the perfect camber. Parts of the caprail extend forward serendipitously and become the headrails I didn't even plan on making. Its not a bad little hull for the small amount of effort expended. Looks to me a little like Niagara.

The bulwarks are then cut to the proper shear and hatches made of the origami paper are glued onto the deck. On the exterior hull I have the silly looking caterpillar stripes. I cut some pieces of black origami paper, with the proper shear line and when I glue them to the hull at the proper spot they define the lower edge of the Nelson checkers. I literally cap it off with a cap rail, which is made of a black artist paper heavier than the Origami stuff. I could have laminated the origami to get it thicker but I love this paper called Stonehenge, an artist paper. Black all the way through and acid free, it glues on with perfect ease with white glue. I could have simply painted the checkers on but I get a very quick very crisp checker using the paper, and the paper laminations add a great deal of rigidity to the otherwise floppy bulwarks. (I do have a world of caution though. I used this technique on a bottle model with a light grey hull. The oil in the plastecine clay soaked into the paper and turned it very dark. So if the paper will touch the plastecine you should seal it with something. ) A transom is glued on and then cut fair with some small personal grooming scissors which have the perfect camber. Parts of the caprail extend forward serendipitously and become the headrails I didn't even plan on making. Its not a bad little hull for the small amount of effort expended. Looks to me a little like Niagara.

For what its worth, here is a photo I just stumbled across on the web of Niagara's stay lashing. In the photo they started the seizing with a cow hitch holding the middled line above the heart and then took turns around the hearts with the two ends. Or at least that is how it appears to me. Before I saw this photo I would have said they would have finished off the seizing with round frapping turns across the main turns, with hitches to hold them end end the knot but clearly there are no frapping turns here. I see no visible termination on the seizing so I suspect there is some sort of hitch on the underside? Its possible the two ends are seized back to another bit of line underneath and out of view. There is a short splice visible on the outermost portside turn but that is NOT a way to terminate a seizing, I think they just used some old line. I'm too lazy to go look in Lees Masting and Rigging, I am sure he covers this. But seeing something in actual use is worth considering, they do nothing half assed on Niagara.

Its the fore and aft stays that will be doing the mast pivoting job inside the bottle. The stays will be bent to the the masts high up in the rig and run to the mast or deck in front or to the bowsprit. In some cases the stays will have to run through a fairlead to get to where they are going- from the mizen mast over to the main and then down to the deck for instance, with a fairlead needed on the main to allow the line to make the turn back down to the deck and still be able to run. You could drill through your spars to get this to work, but thats hard at this scale and even a small hole through a spar is going to cause more friction than a wire eye, which is what I am showing being made here. I use some really thin 34 gauge wire and a medium sized sewing needle. Twisted around the shaft of the needle, forming a "neck" of just a few turns and leaving long tails on either end in order to twist the tails around whatever part of the ship the fairlead will be fixed to.

Here is a shot of the nameless ship with the masts stepped. If you look closely you will see the hinges. I should not have drilled the holes in the deck for the toothpick rig I had in place, but I thought I needed the toothpicks back in that earlier step in the process when I was firing the sculpy Kraken arms. I can dowel up the holes or disguise them or leave them, they will be hard to see. The hinges are very small. Everything will be viewed through the wavy glass of the bottle and be difficult to see clearly so there is a lot of leeway regarding visible contrivances on the deck. I have added tops and topmasts of brass. I used 5 minute epoxy to glue the brass together but its not as good as solder. My soldering iron is a big ugly crude affair though and I cant do detail work with it. At this point in the rigging the masts flop around in any direction. 

Here is a shot of the nameless ship with the masts stepped. If you look closely you will see the hinges. I should not have drilled the holes in the deck for the toothpick rig I had in place, but I thought I needed the toothpicks back in that earlier step in the process when I was firing the sculpy Kraken arms. I can dowel up the holes or disguise them or leave them, they will be hard to see. The hinges are very small. Everything will be viewed through the wavy glass of the bottle and be difficult to see clearly so there is a lot of leeway regarding visible contrivances on the deck. I have added tops and topmasts of brass. I used 5 minute epoxy to glue the brass together but its not as good as solder. My soldering iron is a big ugly crude affair though and I cant do detail work with it. At this point in the rigging the masts flop around in any direction. 

Thanks Mark and Anthony for your likes!
 
Anthony, It's really not difficult to have several irons in the fire.  I admit though that I'm slacking off with my picture painting and drawing    I have about five started but it seems that my models, specially the O 19, takes preference.
I get up at seven in the morning at at eight I'm rearing to go, stop for a break with coffee, then lunch and at it again till seven in the pm.  The admiral cooks dinner most of the time so I can get stuff done.  I do all the house maintenance and yard work, including my koi pond.  I am most fortunate being able to do all the things I do.  My admiral helps though with keeping "order in my life" 
 
Old?  Yeah, I understand that some people are not as spry as others.  Most folks guess me at 60 or 65 years old, which I take as a compliment, being 79 and some.  Other then a few physical setbacks I feel just great and keep on moving like the proverbial pink wabbit.   
And then to think that I actually stared death in the face several times, some violent and some being felled by deadly diseases as POW with the Japs.
 
Anthony when you wake up and see green grass it's a good day, then set one foot in front of the other and keep moving.  keep the body and mind active my friend.
 
The Friendship Sloop is a reposting from MSW 1 so all I need to do is write the stories behind the pictures and yes, that also takes time and I hope that some folks may be enticed enough to try their hand at scratch building   
 
 Y'all have a great weekend and
 
Cheers