JerseyCity Frankie

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 
 
 

Greetings,
 
This will be the build log of the Schooner Atlantic (Half Hull).  
 

 
 
Some background history:
 
The Atlantic was built in 1903 by Townsend and Downey shipyard, and designed by William Gardner, for Wilson Marshall. The three-masted schooner was skippered by Charlie Barr and it set the record for fastest transatlantic passage by a monohull in the 1905 Kaiser's Cup race. The record remained unbroken for nearly 100 years.
 
Trans-Atlantic sailing record:
 
In 1905, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany proposed a race across the North Atlantic and put forward a solid gold cup to be presented to the winner. Eleven boats including the Kaiser's yacht Hamburg and the schooner Atlantic skippered by Charlie Barr took part.
The competitors encountered strong winds and gales which ensured a fast passage time and all eleven boats finished the race. Atlantic won, breaking the existing record with a time of 12 days, 4 hours, 1 minute and 19 seconds. The record stood for 75 years until broken by Eric Tabarly sailing the trimaran Paul Ricard. However Atlantic's monohull record stood for nearly 100 years until was broken in 1997 by the yacht Nicorette completing the crossing in 11 days 13 hours 22 minutes.
 

 
 
Passing of a legend: 
 
Atlantic deteriorated and sank at the dock in Norfolk, Virginia. In 1982, the wreckage was removed for the installation of a floating dry dock at Metro Machine Shipyard.
 

 
Tim
 
 

I would like to add my two cents about posting youtube video links on MSW. Often I click on a submission with a title like “ Rudder straps in the 1700’s” or something like that, only to find that the post consists entirely of a youtube link with nothing else. I have a slow internet connection and I am NEVER going to click on a youtube link. So for me it feels a little bit like a bait and switch. I would NEVER say that there is no place for youtube links on MSW. In fact If I had a fast connection I would probably be lobbying for an entire sub category for online videos. but I do think that if your content consists entirely of a link to youtube, you should admit as much in the submissions title. Perhaps the title could be “youtube video: Rudder Straps in the 1700’s”.  In general I think submission titles on MSWneed more attention in that often they fall short of explaining the submission they represent in the way that a newspaper headline represents the story that follows.

My two cents: I’m not familiar with what ship your working on but I can point out the nature of a downhaul on a staysail, a line running from the head of the staysail down along the stay back to the bowsprit or jiboom, used to pull the sail down to the spar in order to strike it. The canvas of the sail itself necessitates the block in question to be on one side or the other of the centerline of the spar, since the line would have to run down one side or the other of the sail, along the luff. So your downhaul block should be near to but not directly aft of wherever the stay terminates on the spar. If the downhaul block was on the centerline of the spar and/or immediately aft of the block for the stay, the canvas of the sail, as it was being struck, would quickly smother the block. folds of canvas would get in the way while the downhaul was being used, and the downhaul  would chafe away at the sail. I would recommend locating your downhaul block at about a 3:30 or 7:45 position in relation to wherever your stay leads to in the headrig, or at any rate whichever point is under the tack of the sail as it is struck.

Never thought I'd say this but that's a good looking Kraken.  
 
 
Bob

Having a bit of fun with the pasta machine and an old rat

Here's most of the framing work, the dreaded hawse timbers as most of you will remember and the reinstallement of the port stills

Unfortunately construction is not shown from the beginning. However, I hope in a short time to fix it.

With a bit of twisted wire I propped the unfinished hull, freshly rigged with temporary toothpick masts, into the proper attitude of foundering. The unfired floppy arms are then draped over and around the hull and rig. After only ten minutes in the oven at 250 to 300 degrees, the kraken's embrace is made more firm as the sculpy hardens.   Now the ship is snared within the hardened arms. I will next have to cut the arms in strategic places in order to free the ship, but not tonight. Until next time.

"Mr Hooper drives the boat, Cheif"

I too want to put in a word for "artist" acrylic paint. In tubes or in small jars, manufactured by Golden, Liquitex or whatever. All of them are water based and can be mixed with other brands. Full strength or thinned to nearly nothing at all, acrylic can be anything from a stain to an thick opaque coating. Water is all you need to thin or clean up. The paint dries as fast as water dries and when its dry its no longer water soluble and will stand up to U.V. light, changing humidity and who knows what else? Acrylic artists paint is available in nearly any size, from a very small tube the size of your pinkie on up to gallons, and in every color. Its possible to find "student grade" acrylic colors and these will have a "hamburger helper" dumbed down pigment content but the artist grade paint will contain the best sorts of pigments available anywhere and the pigment content is listed on the container- something I suspect other hobby paints won't do for you. Note that the use of the finest pigments includes poisonous ones like cobalt and cadmium which should NEVER be used with a sprayer. Sometimes the "student grade" colors are better for what you have in mind and they cost about 1/3 less than the Artist Grade ones. You can't use Acrylic over unprimed metal though, nor any sort of smooth ceramic like surface. But it will stick fairly well to plastic. The shelf life of the paint is pretty good. If you leave a tube of acrylic paint sealed it will still be fine a year later. 

I too want to put in a word for "artist" acrylic paint. In tubes or in small jars, manufactured by Golden, Liquitex or whatever. All of them are water based and can be mixed with other brands. Full strength or thinned to nearly nothing at all, acrylic can be anything from a stain to an thick opaque coating. Water is all you need to thin or clean up. The paint dries as fast as water dries and when its dry its no longer water soluble and will stand up to U.V. light, changing humidity and who knows what else? Acrylic artists paint is available in nearly any size, from a very small tube the size of your pinkie on up to gallons, and in every color. Its possible to find "student grade" acrylic colors and these will have a "hamburger helper" dumbed down pigment content but the artist grade paint will contain the best sorts of pigments available anywhere and the pigment content is listed on the container- something I suspect other hobby paints won't do for you. Note that the use of the finest pigments includes poisonous ones like cobalt and cadmium which should NEVER be used with a sprayer. Sometimes the "student grade" colors are better for what you have in mind and they cost about 1/3 less than the Artist Grade ones. You can't use Acrylic over unprimed metal though, nor any sort of smooth ceramic like surface. But it will stick fairly well to plastic. The shelf life of the paint is pretty good. If you leave a tube of acrylic paint sealed it will still be fine a year later. 

With a bit of twisted wire I propped the unfinished hull, freshly rigged with temporary toothpick masts, into the proper attitude of foundering. The unfired floppy arms are then draped over and around the hull and rig. After only ten minutes in the oven at 250 to 300 degrees, the kraken's embrace is made more firm as the sculpy hardens.   Now the ship is snared within the hardened arms. I will next have to cut the arms in strategic places in order to free the ship, but not tonight. Until next time.

With a bit of twisted wire I propped the unfinished hull, freshly rigged with temporary toothpick masts, into the proper attitude of foundering. The unfired floppy arms are then draped over and around the hull and rig. After only ten minutes in the oven at 250 to 300 degrees, the kraken's embrace is made more firm as the sculpy hardens.   Now the ship is snared within the hardened arms. I will next have to cut the arms in strategic places in order to free the ship, but not tonight. Until next time.

Funny you should mention that lambsbk, as it was about this time the model got wet for the first time 
 
On October 4th 2009, I had taken my daysailer Lydia out and tossed Constellation in the truck.  When we got back I put the hull in the water for it's first float.  I forgot the rods that held the ballast on, so the closest thing that might be deemed a test was when I pushed the hull down to it's waterline.  No leaks.
 
 
On the 7th, wanting a better "test" I tossed her in the truck and took her to the end of my street to Sloop Cove - where else do you float a sloop of war, eh?
In total there was 50 pounds of lead on board; 42 in the torpedo, the rest in baggies placed in the hull.  There was also about 4 pounds more consisting  of battery, radio gear, and a couple of hand tools; plus her lower masts, which together don't weight half a pound.
She floated 2 inches above her load waterline.  I figure it'll take 12-15 pounds of internal ballast to get her down to waterline, that includes her running gear and battery.
   
 
Next up: Radio Control

Work Resumes
 
So, life went and changed things around a bit.  My wife and I went different ways and the farm was sold.  I moved into an apartment and the workshop and the plug went into storage.  In the late spring of 2008 I bought a house with a 12 x 29 shed that became my workshop, subsequently known as "The Damn Yankee Workshop."
 
 
With the shop set up, I began to work on the plug in earnest.  Those details needed for the mold still had to be added and the quarter galleries were a big part of that, so that's where I started.

 
These things didn't need to be very structural as the entire plug would be destroyed in removing it from the mold.
 
In the mean time I visited the restored vessel and learned some things.  The bulwark on the spar deck was actually planked up hammock stanchions.  When the ship was being "restored" as a frigate, they took off the hammock irons and tossed them into the bilges, the restoration recovered all but one and reinstalled them.
 
 
This changed the shape of the hull for me.  Instead of "solid" bulwarks continuing smoothly up to the cap rail, the hull stopped with a cap on top of the waterways, and had these stanchions mounted on top of that cap and covered with wainscoting.  So, I cut the plug down to the lower level at the top of the waterways.

 
The whole idea of the plug being destroyed when the mold was made began to nag at me.  There was a chance, a very good chance in my opinion, that the mold might not turn out and the whole thing would be a disaster and a major waste of time and effort.
 
Next: A Course Change