JerseyCity Frankie

So finally, after about 3750 hours, I got to the finish.
Thanks to everyone for watching my log and I would like to invite you to watch my next building log - Le Gros Ventre POF.

Thank you guys, the sails and riggings are finally completed. It remains now to make back lanterns, fix the anchors and the last part - the boats.

fantastic job.
One question: how do you finish the knots of the cabuyeria? With cyanoacrylate? no stain or color change is seen.
a greeting cabrapente

To Druxey - some sails will be partially furled - fore and main course, sprit sail and sprit topsail - from this reason I saved little bit time and made no water holes - they will not be visible.
To Ilhan Gokcay - there are only two folds at the edge. The edges are reinforced with diluted PVA ( 3 (water):1 (PVA) ratio). After drying is posiible tu cut the cloth without fraying.The belts are made from the same reinforced cloth - without folds.
Mike R - bolt rope is attached with glue for textile.
Now all the sails are attached to their yards.

Thank you guys for very nice comments and likes.
I added all strenghtening belts and bolt ropes with cringles. For the finishing of the sails, it is only necessary to add the reef points.

Thank you to all for kind words and likes.
Preparation works for deck planking - instalation of waterways, margin planks, forecastle and quarter deck bulwark planking.

Thank you guys.
To sailor123456789 - maybe help you tne next pictures.
All parts are now installed on the deck, I added the rest of deck beams and the quarter deck is prepared for planking.

Darrell - thanks, and I did briefly consider leaving them "as is" but then I have no idea what the impact might be when fixing them (without essentially "starting over" is no longer an option. Plus, it would not ever look right, at least to me and after all I am the Captain (at least for this small part of the world) so it better look right "or else"!

I am coming into this discussion a little late, but I thought I would throw my two cents into the pot.  While I agree with many that sails on square rigged models can detract, the Bluenose schooner almost screams for its full dress of sails.  Or at least that was my conclusion as I came to the question in my Bluenose build.  For what it is worth, here is a picture of my Bluenose completed and mounted under an acrylic display case.
Jim

I also felt that sails on a schooner model were important. I also agree that if you have sails, you need water. Here is my We're Here. (Please forgive the temporary tape on the display case). 

I found that it was essential to reduce the sail area to about 60% of actual or the volume of sail material overwhelms the model, if sails are furled. Also, I find I get better looking sails when made of tissue paper than any cloth I've found. By saturating the bolt ropes in dilute white glue and allowing to dry before furling, the sail can be draped easily. 

I’m curious about this too. But I have a caution for using it: it’s very delicate. If you have never seen gold leaf before, google it and you will be surprised: the sheets are so thin they are lifted by static electricity on a paintbrush. They eisily blow away on the lightest puff of air. The material has less structural integrity than ANYTHING and disintegrates into the tiniest bits with any handling with any tool. You can not lift a corner with your fingers, this just tears off the corner and what is pinched between your fingers has already disintegrated.
ive used the imitation gold version of this product on my Niagara brackets. I was able to glom sufficient quantities to cover, but I was unable to get the sheets on smooth and without bumps and wrinkles. 
what I am saying is: applying leaf is a skill that will take time to acquire. The issue for coppering  a hull will be the consistency with which you can lay the sheets on smoothly without bumps and ridges. 
On the other hand ALL OTHER actual copper coverings are grossly out of scale? I would say it’s worth pursuing leaf as a coppering solution, it’s REAL COPPER and as thin as is possible to achieve, but it’s not going to be a walk in the park getting it onto the hull. 

I’m curious about this too. But I have a caution for using it: it’s very delicate. If you have never seen gold leaf before, google it and you will be surprised: the sheets are so thin they are lifted by static electricity on a paintbrush. They eisily blow away on the lightest puff of air. The material has less structural integrity than ANYTHING and disintegrates into the tiniest bits with any handling with any tool. You can not lift a corner with your fingers, this just tears off the corner and what is pinched between your fingers has already disintegrated.
ive used the imitation gold version of this product on my Niagara brackets. I was able to glom sufficient quantities to cover, but I was unable to get the sheets on smooth and without bumps and wrinkles. 
what I am saying is: applying leaf is a skill that will take time to acquire. The issue for coppering  a hull will be the consistency with which you can lay the sheets on smoothly without bumps and ridges. 
On the other hand ALL OTHER actual copper coverings are grossly out of scale? I would say it’s worth pursuing leaf as a coppering solution, it’s REAL COPPER and as thin as is possible to achieve, but it’s not going to be a walk in the park getting it onto the hull. 

I’m curious about this too. But I have a caution for using it: it’s very delicate. If you have never seen gold leaf before, google it and you will be surprised: the sheets are so thin they are lifted by static electricity on a paintbrush. They eisily blow away on the lightest puff of air. The material has less structural integrity than ANYTHING and disintegrates into the tiniest bits with any handling with any tool. You can not lift a corner with your fingers, this just tears off the corner and what is pinched between your fingers has already disintegrated.
ive used the imitation gold version of this product on my Niagara brackets. I was able to glom sufficient quantities to cover, but I was unable to get the sheets on smooth and without bumps and wrinkles. 
what I am saying is: applying leaf is a skill that will take time to acquire. The issue for coppering  a hull will be the consistency with which you can lay the sheets on smoothly without bumps and ridges. 
On the other hand ALL OTHER actual copper coverings are grossly out of scale? I would say it’s worth pursuing leaf as a coppering solution, it’s REAL COPPER and as thin as is possible to achieve, but it’s not going to be a walk in the park getting it onto the hull. 

I’m curious about this too. But I have a caution for using it: it’s very delicate. If you have never seen gold leaf before, google it and you will be surprised: the sheets are so thin they are lifted by static electricity on a paintbrush. They eisily blow away on the lightest puff of air. The material has less structural integrity than ANYTHING and disintegrates into the tiniest bits with any handling with any tool. You can not lift a corner with your fingers, this just tears off the corner and what is pinched between your fingers has already disintegrated.
ive used the imitation gold version of this product on my Niagara brackets. I was able to glom sufficient quantities to cover, but I was unable to get the sheets on smooth and without bumps and wrinkles. 
what I am saying is: applying leaf is a skill that will take time to acquire. The issue for coppering  a hull will be the consistency with which you can lay the sheets on smoothly without bumps and ridges. 
On the other hand ALL OTHER actual copper coverings are grossly out of scale? I would say it’s worth pursuing leaf as a coppering solution, it’s REAL COPPER and as thin as is possible to achieve, but it’s not going to be a walk in the park getting it onto the hull. 

With the bulwark trim pieces painted it is time to "fish or cut bait" with the bulwark planking. So I trimmed the bulwark sections to fit now that the upper filler is installed and glued the sections in place. Picture shows the stbd side with nine of the eleven planking sections installed. Some how, after check fitting the sections what seems like a hundred times, one of them ended up 1/8" short and the forward most section just did not fit the way it should so I am back to rebuilding these two. I am going to fit the port side sections before starting them as I now fear one or more of them are not correct. That is really maddening - that I would not notice an 1/8" error. Oh well, getting older and not wiser I guess.

Harry, 
Melbourne was cold and extremely rainy and windy!!! A long two weeks of work.
Since my return, I've been working in the dock yard 
I've been serving yards and yards of lines (the Cutty has all of here standing rigging 100% served!!!)  Chuck's serving machine is still holding up fine.
 
I rigged the spencer  sail to the main mast.  I took photos, but can't seem to locate them neither on my phone or camera! 
It was actually a fun sail to rig, I really liked the brails.  After learning how the operate and I had fun playing with them until finally furling the sail.  One interesting aspect was that it appeared that three brails shared the same pin as the halyard and downhaul.  There are some photos of the cutty and other ships where you can see clearly that two or three lines share the same belaying pin.  I guess it makes total since that the brails would share the same pins as the lines to take in our out the sail that they are attached to, however it makes rigging the model a little challenging.  I was able to belay the lines and then applied coils made off ship, although I wasn't able to attach four coils to each pin, so I chose to attach three to one and two to the other to assess how they look.  It maybe hard to see, but the starboard pin in view has four lines figure eight belayed and three coils belayed to a single pin.  It looks like the photos of the Cutty's pins. Actually mine are neater than the coils in most of the old photos of the Cutty.
 

a View of the spencer

Here's a photo of the lower shrouds attached and the lanyards temporarily tensioned.

And on to fitting the backstays!

And onto dry fitting all of the main shrouds, backstays, and stays.  All of the backstays and shrouds are completely set up and ready for the lanyards to be set with the cow hitch.  The fore stays are just clamped in place.  I wanted to tension everything up, let it sit for a couple of days to make sure that there wasn't any stretching or adjustments in tension that needed to be made before finally setting the lanyard.  all of the lanyards are waxed and will actually hold the tension, but the lanyard running through the last hole in the deadeye sometimes relaxes slightly while I'm tying the cow hitch,  so when I'm a confident of the tension, I add a little bit of dilute wood glue to the line and hole -just enough to hold the line from moving but easily unglued with alcohol. 
 
The white tags on the stays have writing reminding me that I need to mount the stay sails before finally rigging the stays.  I spent tonight making hanks for the sails!!
 
 

The hemostats are for keeping tension on the lanyards from the other side.  Helps me when I'm adjusting the tension of the line.
 
Best
marc
 

Hi everyone,
So I'm still alive.  And I have worked on the Cutty over the past few months with several long breaks due to travel etc. and a side track into improving my working area.
 
I'll cover the side track in improving my work space.  The side track was due to being aggravated that my gear was always boxed up. So I built a workbench on the opposite wall of the garage and then noticed that there was no lighting nor an electrical.  So I had two lines pulled to the garage and four new four outlet power boxes and seven LED shop lights installed.  Now I have lots of light!!
 

 
I also added more space for more tools! Excuse the mess,  I was in the middle of working when I took the photo
 

The other side of my workspace.  this is the new bench with my new toys from the past couple of years.  Finally out of the boxes (almost - the lathe is still back in its box, but it has its own storage shelf).  As I said, up to this point, if I needed to use the sander, table saw, drill press, etc, I had to unbox the tool.  Move the ship to another location, put the tool together put it on the bench where the ship was, use the tool, box the tool and put the ship back into its original location.  UGH!
Problem is now solved.
 
Almost all of the wood was left over from two pergolas that I had built for our house or other left-over scraps.  so the benches and carts are the prettiest, but the function well and I saved a ton of money.
 

So under the bench are four carts that roll out and are full of equipment storage.  There are two short and two tall carts. 
 
The short carts have the Byrne saw and sander as well as the Proxxon table saw and a chop saw permanently housed on their tops.  I also made drawers for these carts and lined them with velvet from several yards of velvet from the bargain bin I found in the fabric store.
 



 
The two tall carts are exactly the same height and can be clamped together to create larger work tables.  They are also the correct height to act as out-feed tables for the Byrne's.  I made a bridge that attaches to the Byrnes saw and the edge of the tall carts for that purpose.
 


 Now on to the ship!
 
I have the fore sail in place as well as all of it's rigging is attached, but not belayed yet.  In a previous post I spoke about the need to step the Main mast and install all of it's standing rigging before I can continue with the fore sail.  I've also rigged and jibs and have belayed all of their rigging except the halyards which are run through the blocks but not belayed yet, waiting for the Main mast standing rigging to be executed.
 
I think that the shape of the sails look good.  To me they look like they actually have wind blowing on them.
 


In the next photo you can see the sheet chains from the lower top sail sheet running through the fore course yard.  I can tell you that these chains are a royal pain to rig through the mast and blocks.



the fore rat lines with the bunt and clew from the course sail feeding through the fairleads

detail  of the fairleads - nothing is had been pulled tight yet or belayed.

 
Last night I built the spencer gaff goose neck and other rigging eyes and installed the gear into the main mast and spencer gaff.
 
 

 
 
 

 
 
 

 
Sorry for the great delay in posting, but a great deal of work was in serving all of the standing rigging for the main mast, which took forever because the cutty has the standing rigging 100% served!  UGH!  Also, I didn't think showing progress of rigging the ratlines on the fore and main mast exciting so I didn't take any photos or post that work.  I ended up having to tear all of the upper ratlines out and re-rigging them because I used the wrong size line!!!  oh well, I'm always doing one step forward two to four steps back!  But I'm still having fun!
 
thanks for checking in!
Marc
 

Well, I'm finally back from medical leave.  Thank God for modern science and medicine as well as my wife!  She has been nursing me back to health.  I had to take a month off to recover. 
 
Now I'm back making up for lost time. I haven't had time to post  - too busy building ,
so here is a chance to catch up.
 
I worked on the fore castle.  I created walnut molding to cap the end of the deck. I also cut through the deck and added the posts for towing the ship (sorry the proper term has slipped my mind  ).  I built the paint locker for under the deck on the starboard side and the pig sty for under the deck on the port side.
 
Here are some photos
 

A photo of the kit for reference.
 

where the paint locker on the ship should be. It was missing this time, but present the first time I was there. I have a photo, but not a scanner to digitize it. Also note the towing post running through the deck viewable above the hatch (black and white post)
 

Paint locker and towing post on the left (forward)
 

Pig sty on the ship
 

Pig sty on the model created from soldering brass wire.  I also added the belaying pins per Campbell. although the pins are the same size as those provided with the kit, I think that they are too large and will most likely replace them with smaller ones.
 
I really didn't like the windless that came with the model, so I built one from scratch.  I think that it turned out really good!

The actual ship for reference.  The towing posts are on the left and right.
 

With the handles
 

I ended up taking the handles off.  Since I was going to have the ship under sail, it didn't make sense that the crew would have left the handles in longer than necessary to get the anchor up.  So off they came.
 
Here are the cats. I made them from scratch (except the whiskers).  I made the anchor release our of brass, using the book by as a reference. The cat is actually in relief.  I'm not sure how good the sculpt is but it was the best I could do.


 
That's it for now.
 
Take care and stay healthy!

Hi All,
 
Thanks for dropping by and your comments.  I ordered the hose from Airbrushmegastore last Saturday night and came on the Wednesday so pretty good service.  One end connects straight to the airbrush (as you would expect) and the other has a 1/4inch BSP female end so a compressor connector fits straight on.
 
Okay, here is my set up and first attempts at airbrushing. I’ve had this cheapo generic compressor for a few years now and mainly used it for blowing down my tools and blowing up my tyres. The air reservoir is 40 litres so plenty of storage and the pressure cut-off is about 100psi. I will leave the compressor regulator set at max and reduce the pressure with a combined regulator/moisture trap at the airbrush.
 
The compressor is very noisy when running but I have enough airline to leave it in the shed with the door down and run the airline into the house.

 
I purchased the combined regulator/moisture trap from Supercheap Auto. Unfortunately because I do my modelling at the kitchen table I screwed a piece of MDF on to the regulator bracket . Now when spraying I can just clamp the regulator to the kitchen table with a quick release clamp.

 
Having the regulator next to the airbrush has a couple of advantages, obviously the first is being able to adjust the pressure without stopping work and going outside. Secondary, since I am using such a long line from the compressor to the house I would expect some pressure drop at the airbrush so setting 20psi at the compressor would be less at the airbrush. Having the regulator close to the airbrush the set pressure should also be the pressure at the airbrush.
 
 
When it comes to mixing paint I found plenty of YouTube videos about mixing Citadel, Tamiya, Floquil and other modelling paints for airbrushing but nothing on Caldercraft’s Admiralty paints which I will be using. The recurring theme about mixing paints for airbrushing is to obtain the consistency of milk. This has to be the most ambiguous comment of all time!
 
I used Tamiya acrylic thinner to reduce the paint, but others have successfully used Windex (window cleaner) to reduce model acrylics. I will probably also try out readily available General Purpose thinners from the local hardware store as dedicated modelling and airbrush thinners are expensive for the volume. A$12-A$15 for 250ml as opposed to A$10 for 1litre.

 
Okay here is my first attempt at spraying and after a quick test on a piece of posterboard I sprayed the lantern top and bottom.  I cleaned the brush and just messed about with black trying stuff out.


 
Right first off, paint thickness and pressure is the 2 main things to get right.  I initially started at 20psi which I think was maybe too high and tried different pressures down to 10psi which seemed to low.  I messed with it constantly and settled around the 15psi mark give or take.
 
Paint mixing was a pain, firstly I think I mixed the yellow to thin and to be honest I don’t think Tamiya thinners was the best for this paint.  With the black it was probably slightly too thick as after a while the build up around the nozzle and needle was enough to stop the paint which didn’t happen with the yellow.
 
I will say that 9mls of paint goes a long way!  The black in the last picture was probably less than 1/3 of the cup and I poured the last out to clean to clogged nozzle.
 
Thoughts; Will need to experiment a LOT more to find alternative reducer/medium to thin the Admiralty paints I used and also to try different brands as not convinced Admiralty paints are really that great for spraying…saying that it might just be my n00bishness.
 
Cheers
Slog
 
 

Bow Structure Progress....
I finally corrected an issue that has bothered me for months.... the bowsprit steps.  It was brought to my attention by a local modeler who asked me about the angle of the steps.
OK, so the flats of the steps were noticeably pitched at an angle that would not have served well for walking on.
 
So, I ripped them off and re-cut them.... much better.
I also painted the flats of each step.  Also note the gammon irons have been added (a royal pain in the butt).  I definitely think they should have been added before installing the heads.

Next, I created the little life ring - and added the three steps to the bulwarks.

Finally, I was able to fill in the opening above the bowsprit....
Think I'll move to the stern and begin detailing the stern bulwarks next.

All they need now is some scale figures of the cast of 1974's Murder on the Orient Express to complete the kit. (Not exactly a bunch of unknowns!)  Here is that main cast listing: 
  Albert Finney ... Hercule Poirot Lauren Bacall ... Mrs. Hubbard Martin Balsam ... Bianchi Ingrid Bergman ... Greta Jacqueline Bisset ... Countess Andrenyi Jean-Pierre Cassel ... Pierre (as Jean Pierre Cassel) Sean Connery ... Col. Arbuthnot John Gielgud ... Beddoes Wendy Hiller ... Princess Dragomiroff Anthony Perkins ... McQueen Vanessa Redgrave ... Mary Debenham Rachel Roberts ... Hildegarde Richard Widmark ... Ratchett Michael York ... Count Andrenyi Colin Blakely ... Hardman George Coulouris ... Doctor Denis Quilley ... Foscarelli Vernon Dobtcheff ... Concierge Jeremy Lloyd ... A.D.C. John Moffatt ... Chief Attendant  

Stem wood in progress.  The pieces are propped up with some scrap and the joints are tighter than they appear.  The 4-40 brass bolts
I was going to use to hold the keel down to the building board are too large (diameter) to safely go through the keel so I've ordered some 2-56
threaded rod with a .086" diameter.  A 3/32" hole will leave enough meat on the keel which is 8" (.1668" at scale).

The steps for the cant frames are 1/32" patterned wood added to the stem stock.  It's easier for me than to uniformly chisel out the steps.  Now that those thicknesses are established, I'm going back to re-loft the cant frames.  I had originally drawn them butting up against an 8" stem but the new stem means I have to add 1-1/2' (1/32") to the frames.
Maury

While lofting (and re-lofting) I've run into a few questions.  Latest ones regard the framing of the transom area.  Randy Biddle (Windship Studios) has provided me with a lot of photos and drawings from the region that are proving quite helpful.  Three of the many are shown below.

 
 

 
 

 
Back to lofting.
Maury

First I would like to thank everyone for your expressions of sympathy on my brother's passing. It was much appreciated.
 
Back to the ice yacht build. 
 
After many failed attempts to make a bridle saddle for the gaff I decided to give up and use the split rings instead. Not having the machining or metal working skills and the extremely small size of the piece it was just too frustrating to continue.  The gaff is now rigged.  Next up is making the sails.  The Rocket as it exists today is rigged with modern sails with grommets instead of a bolt rope. I've got some very very tiny grommets I picked up in Michaels some time ago but there is no "anvil" for flaring the back side of it.  So I'm undecided as to whether I should replicate the modern sail or go with one that was probably used in 1888.  More research is needed on that item.
 
Photos below show the completed gaff as rigged.  The pulley blocks are Chuck's SYREN internally stropped 1/4 inch single and double blocks as are the cleats. The jig holding the gaff is copied from a jig Ed Tosti (@EdT) uses. (Thanks Ed for the inspiration. It's easy to build and easy to use.) The silver clips on the tip of the gaff is there just to provide some tension for the lines, the sail will provide the tension when completed. 
 

 
 

I suggest you start with a relatively simple free download model to build up your new skill set. Print out two copies of each page of parts - you WILL need extras .
 
Thanks for the comment Richard .
 
There are 35 of what I assume are 4-door lockers scattered around the ship. Some of these are adjacent to the already fitted sub-assemblies, so it's a good idea to fit these before the deck starts to get cluttered. I'm fitting all the smaller parts from the "inside" outwards as much as possible.
 
The lockers have a PE face, and on that are the four PE door edgings. A day and a half's work making all of these :




 
Once all the PE was glued on I gave them a light spray of grey, there was a bit of paint removed in the fitting process :

 
Another step that needed doing now was to fit the funnel rigging. I really SHOULD have done this earlier, some of it will be missing as it's impossible to drill holes in a few places with the fore and aft superstructures in place :


 
Danny