texxn5

Phew! thanks guys, I guess I will need to persevere with the hand method. I find using the miniature planes quite tricky, they often get caught in the wood for me. Maybe I need to get some spare dowel to practice on too

Great Mike, I'm glad to hear you got Jason's wood, it makes all the difference in the world. Anal, yeah, maybe some, but nothing wrong with that as it makes our attempts better. Keep it up and you'll be proud. Have you ever been aboard the Niagara? If not, be sure and check out my photos about Niagara. If I had room I'd be building her.
John

Ahh, forgot about the copper! And I hear ya on trying to match the plans to the letter.
 
I'm using boxwood from Crown and the widths are probably more consistent than the MS basswood. It also sands a lot better - no fuzzies and it keeps an edge. But I'm probably still being too anal about it.

Hi Tim, a friend of mine was involved in the salvage and I got 50 of the coins from him. It was done with a Drill Ship and once located (my friends information as he had the Ship's Purser under contract) a string of drill pipe was lowered and punched through the deck and a gel which solidifies when mixed with salt water was injected to cover the silver coins, then a grappel was used to pick up the globs and bring what they could to the surface. Slow and expensive so they quit when they had around 500,000 of them. The cost then was $20Mil for 500,000 coins. They weigh about an ounce and look like new. The Shek kept the coins so there aren't many of them around. Fun project.
 
John

Count me in, I've always had an interest in Liberty Ships. I have a couple of bits of treasure from the SS John Barry, sunk in the Straits of Oman after radio silence was broken by the Brittish purposely exposing her location to the German U-Boat known to be in the area. She was carrying 2,000,000 silver Saudi Ryals to start the company ARAMCO. There's a book on it called Stalin's Silver. She is in 8,900' of water and about 500,000 of the coins were recovered by the Sheik of Oman in the late 90's. Fun ships they all have a story. My recollection is the SS is for SteamShip as they weren't Naval Ships.
John

Mike, if I recall I didn't worry about the plank count because the planks were somewhat irregular, mostly a little larger so the count wouldn't come out the same. Since I was coppering the hull it didn't matter to me as well as it's not visible. Unless your wood is a perfect width and a perfect fit it probably will be off. My Garboard was of proper width but most of the others weren't so when it came time to close up the hull the pieces were trimmed and shaped to the remaining hole.
Hope that helped,
John

Hi Tim, a friend of mine was involved in the salvage and I got 50 of the coins from him. It was done with a Drill Ship and once located (my friends information as he had the Ship's Purser under contract) a string of drill pipe was lowered and punched through the deck and a gel which solidifies when mixed with salt water was injected to cover the silver coins, then a grappel was used to pick up the globs and bring what they could to the surface. Slow and expensive so they quit when they had around 500,000 of them. The cost then was $20Mil for 500,000 coins. They weigh about an ounce and look like new. The Shek kept the coins so there aren't many of them around. Fun project.
 
John

Mike, if I recall I didn't worry about the plank count because the planks were somewhat irregular, mostly a little larger so the count wouldn't come out the same. Since I was coppering the hull it didn't matter to me as well as it's not visible. Unless your wood is a perfect width and a perfect fit it probably will be off. My Garboard was of proper width but most of the others weren't so when it came time to close up the hull the pieces were trimmed and shaped to the remaining hole.
Hope that helped,
John

Hi Mike, the planking is shaping up nicely. Things do get dusty and into everything. Don't know if you have a need for an Amati Keel Clamp Vise or not. I've used mine on 2 ships and it's really versatile. If you decide you want it PM me or email me, I think you have my email address. We can eliminate the shipping and I'll deliver it to you. These are rare.
John
 
Forgot the link: http://www.proxxontoolsdiscount.com/store/p339/39527_Amati_Keel_Klamper_Only_1_Avail..html

Thanks John - I have one. Used it a lot at first. Now during planking - with all the turning one end or the other, right side up, upside down -  I am finding the foam holder to be more practical, and a soft surface. I imagine I will switch back once the hull will be right side up most of the time.
 
Hey, since your last build was a Model Shipways kit, did the plank count listed in the plans in the last band (closest to the keel) include the garboard?

Hi John,
I ran across the John Barry treasure news story when I was doing my research, sounds like there is still quite a bit coin onboard, hard to believe they were able to get it from so far down. 
Your right - SS does stand for steam ship
Tim

Liberty Ship SS Stephen Hopkins - BlueJacket Shipcrafters - 1/192 scale
 

 
While mulling over what kit to select for my next build I was giving some thought to taking a break from warships and BlueJacket’s Liberty ship kit caught my attention because of the amount of rigging on it:
 

 
Although I never served on any type of cargo or replenishment ship I figured “How complicated can it be?” Doing some photo research I came across the next photo of BIG CHAINS hanging from the masts of the SS John Brown and realized there is a lot I don’t know about cargo rigging and that this might be a good way to learn about it so I will be building BlueJacket’s kit of the Liberty ship SS Jeremiah O’Brian, which is still operating in San Francisco (BTW, I eventually found out that the chains are called Bull Chains).
 

 
The next decision was what Liberty ship to model. With over 2700 Liberty ships built between 1941 and 1945 there is an embarrassment of ships to choose from but after a little research the choice was obvious.  Although the Stephen Hopkins had a very brief life, being sunk on her maiden voyage, she would be a contender in any contest to name the greatest fighting ship in American history, despite being an “SS” vice a “USS.”  It’s an amazing story, one that I’m surprised Hollywood hasn’t pick up on. So I won’t be taking a break from building warships after all . . .

 
You can read her full story at http://www.armed-guard.com/hoppy.html, but in brief, after fitting out in San Francisco as one of the earliest Libertys, the Hopkins crossed the Pacific and the Indian Oceans, steaming alone and entered the South Atlantic  where on 27 Sep 1942, in low visibility, she encountered at the range of about a mile two ships laying to. The ships turned out to be the  heavily armed German raider Stier and the blockade runner Tannenfels. With a crew of 340, six 6-inch guns, torpedoes and numerous smaller caliber weapons the Stier had the armament of a light cruiser, in fact ten months earlier the similarly armed raider Komoran sank the cruiser HMAS Sydney off the West coast of Australia, although the Komoran was sunk also.
The Stier opened fire immediately and the Hopkins’ Master decided to fight it out rather than surrender as most ships in her position would have done. The Hopkins’ single, obsolete 4-inch gun was moved by hand cranks and manually loaded but her Naval Armed Guard had been practicing at every opportunity and it began to show. The Hopkins quickly knocked out the Stier’s steering and repetitive hits along the waterline soon caused fires to break out in the Stier’s engineering spaces and she went dead in the water, as the Hopkins did too, with her boilers disabled. Both ships continued to drift and fight at about a thousand yards distance, like something out of the War of 1812.
 
The heavy firepower of the Stier began to tell and after about 20 minutes the Hopkins was afire and sinking with two-thirds of her crew of 55 dead. Engineering Cadet Edwin O’Hara, from the US Merchant Marine Academy, made his way to the 4-inch gun after the engineering spaces were abandoned. He found the gun crew dead and the magazine destroyed but was able to locate 5 loose shells and single-handedly fired them at the Stier just before before he was killed.

 
Nineteen survivors from the Hopkins managed to launch the one undamaged lifeboat. Meanwhile the Stier’s crew was unable to control the fires spreading out of the engine room and she had to be scuttled. Her survivors were recovered by the Tannenfels, who made no effort to aid the Hopkins survivors. Under the command of the 3rd Engineer and without any charts or navigation instruments except a compass the Hopkins’ boat set out to cross the Atlantic to Brazil. Amazingly enough they made it 30 days later with 15 men still alive.
 
The ships were built in 18 purpose-built yards, which themselves were constructed in remarkably short time, turning mudflats into complex shipyards in just a few months. Locations of the yards were based on available manpower, however untrained, and political considerations to “spread the wealth” of government contracts across the coastlines.

 

 
The Libertys were based on the then yet-to be built British “Ocean” design that was, in turn, based on successful coasters. The goal was to design a ship that was both inexpensive and quick to build, simple enough in design that inexperienced shipyards and workers could build them, that could make 11 knots and carry a significant amount of cargo. They departed from the British design in that they were largely welded, most of the accommodations were in a large deckhouse, rather than divided among the foc’sle, midships and aft.. Their boilers were water tube vice Scotch, and were oil-fired rather than coal. Without having to accommodate coal bunkers they could be fitted with heavier masts rather than king posts.
Although by 1941 the advantages of turbines over reciprocating steam engines were well known, the technical skill required to build turbines was much greater and the small number of plants capable of producing them were all dedicated to warship construction so the decision was made to go with reciprocating engines.
 
The Ocean design was further simplified to minimize the amount of curved plates in the hull and wherever possible bulkhead penetrations for piping were avoided by running them outside the skin of the ship. Cost saving measures included waiving a large number of US regulations related to Merchant ship safety, comfort and, ominously for the Hopkins, fireproofing. The ships had little in the way of forced ventilation and had the reputation of being hot and uncomfortable in most climates.  
 
Although the building time varied between shipyards , the common trend was that as they gained experience the time required to complete the ships steadily dropped. The first few could take up to 5 months to launch, although most only required a few weeks. The record was set by the SS Robert E. Peary, while admittedly a publicity stunt involving a lot of pre-fabrication and unlimited manpower, required only 4 days, 15 hours from keel laying to launch. By the end of the war an average of 3 Liberty ships a day were being launched.
 

 
If you are interested in learning more about the Liberty ships this URL will take you to a decent study produced by the American Bureau of Shipping:
 
https://www.eagle.org/eagleExternalPortalWEB/ShowProperty/BEA%20Repository/News%20&%20Events/Publications/WorkhorseOfTheFleet
 
 and this one will take you to a one-hour, color, wartime documentary film about the ships and the shipyard in Richmond, CA where the Hopkins was built:
 
https://archive.org/details/cubanc_00004#
 
I'll be using the following references: 
SS John W. Brown, a working Liberty ship berthed in Baltimore. Although she has some modifications from her conversion to carry troops and as a school ship in NYC she is still in remarkably good condition and largely unchanged from her WWII days. I was able to spend a few hours onboard, take a lot of photos, and watch the cargo booms at work. She takes day trips from ports along the East Coast. A Call to Arms by Maury Klein. Although the book covers the entire US WWII industrial mobilization, the chapter on shipbuilding is well done. Ships for Victory by Frederic C. Lane. Thank God I was able to get this from the library rather than spend any money on it. If 900+ pages of meeting by meeting and memo by memo descriptions of bureaucracy at work excites you then this is your book. Even while skimming it I was worried that I would pass out and then drown in the puddle of my own drool. The book provided some insight into the welding problems encountered in the early program but that was about it. Websites devoted to the SS John W. Brown, SS Jeremiah O’Brian, and SS Hellenic Victory all have extensive onboard photos to help with details 5)  http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/army/fm/55-17/ch3.htm   is a webpage that has extensive info on cargo rigging, it will be my primary reference for rigging.
 
 
In the next post I’ll give an overview of what comes in the kit

Great to have you onboard Steamschooner. Coincidentally,  the aerial photo above showing the 11-way shipyard, is the Kaiser Portland Yard.

I'm going to pull up a chair for this one as my dad was in the merchant navy during the 2 world war he was on tankers.
 
Rgd BV

A good amount of us will be pulling up a chair for this one. Time for a joint.

Welcome aboard BV,
Merchant Sailors like your dad were the unsung heroes of the war, especially those on the tankers.

Most of the activity of late on this thread has been me yapping about this or that, so I thought I would get back on track.
 
Still planking, but nearing completion. So far everything has followed the plans. While there has been some serious edge bending happening, the only adjustments were the 2 stealers called for in Band D. There are also 2 called for in Band C.
 
I started Band C (top down) then decided I wanted to see how Band D would shake out. For all the times I measured D it just didn't look right marked on the bulkheads. So I've laid 4 strakes there + 2 stealers. This has raised a question that is not apparent from the plans or instructions. The plans call for 8, 8, 8, 5 strakes for Band A - D respectively. Does the 5 for D include the Garboard?
 
With 1 strake left for D and 6 left for C I decided to consider the remaining area the last band. I knew the start and end points. All the remained was to decide the width of the planks. Both C & D use 5/32"x1/16" in the plans and it looks like the combined width of 7 strakes of that width still fit into the widest space on the bulkeads. Oddly, bulkhead H started out as the widest bulkhead (the longest outer edge) but now that honor has shifted the bulkhead G. Strange, but I'm not going to lose any sleep over it.
 
So with 1 band remaining, using 7 5/32" strips, my dividers can still tell me how wide the strips should be at each bulkhead. Well, almost. There is still a critical milestone coming up, that being laying of planks at the stern so that the planks terminating at the sternpost (running vertically) meet perfectly with the planks that terminate on the transom edge (running horizontally)
 

 
It's almost a perfect corner at the junction so planks will have to lay in there precisely. It appears that I have 2 more strakes to lay that will terminate on the transom. How these end up can be controlled by the final width of the plank. They both will need a little bit of tapering so I should be able to get a good fit in the corner. There are 5 more to lay that will terminate on the sternpost. The problem here is the total width of the 5 is less than the amount of space left to cover. Bring on the stealers. The plans call for 2 within the area I have left. I'm assuming it to be more of a 'play it by ear' thing. The sole purpose of those stealers is for width adjustment so that the 5 strakes (plus stealer(s)) will terminate in the corner as well?
 
It all gets a little crazier because the shape of the band is narrow at the bow, widest amid ship, narrow right before the stern and then wider at the termination.
 

 
A few shots of my overall progress:
 

 

 
All the sanding from tapering has left a pretty big mess in my work area. Yesterday morning, I took EVERYTHING off the workbench, got out the leaf blower and hosed it all down. Then the rest of the garage. Then put everything back. Nice & clean?
 

Thanks for that insight into how your build was, David.  I rechecked and rechecked my measurements, and every thing seems kosher here.  I thought I might have not made my counter deep enough, but it is spot on.  I did compare my unmodified transom frames with the drawing, and noticed and extra bit of length, but it shouldn't have been enough to justify the almost 1/8th inch error I have.  I think I will finish the port side gun ports while I think about it.
 
Following is a picture or two of the starboard side gun ports.  They are glued in now, and if I had it to do over again, I would probably not build the gun deck ports off-ship.  I would probably stick build them in place if I were to do it again.  There is really no advantage to making them separately, and they require a bit of adjustment while fitting each one for gluing.  I made myself more work, in other words.  But what is done is done.  I should have the port side completed to this same point in 2 days though, if nothing of momentous importance rears it's ugly head.
 
I did take a moment to stand back and really look at what progress I have made to this point, since it is 4 days short of a month since I started this build log.  I know I am not a fast builder, and I realize I am trying to take my time building this ship.  But I thought I would have been further along by now.  And then I stopped and really thought about it.  I considered how many parts had to be scratch built, and just how many there were.  I figured it was about 150 parts in the ship total to this point.  I decided that I should count them, and see how many were actually there, and figure out how many were actually needed to bring both sides to where the starboard side is now.  I was genuinely surprised.
 
In 2 more days, I will have 352 parts glued up.  That includes the transom frames.  At this moment, I have 262 parts in place, most of which have been custom cut for their unique space.  I really had no idea so much went into these ships, but it is a pleasant surprise.  It has been a very satisfying trip.  I really have to commend you all who take on this challenge.  It is a lot of work.  Fun work, nonetheless.    I know I will have a lot of fairing to do... lol.
 
Anyway, here are the pics:
 
Matt
 
 

It is always kind of a nice shock when you take a moment to sit back and look at all the progress that has been made and the time involved. I always keep running time of actual hours spent working on my ship. I don't count research time though mostly because I'm not sure where to begin on that. I'm constantly reading articles, build logs, questions and answers, watching You Tube videos and talking to people about tips, tricks, facts, and ideas that it would be almost impossible to track that time. Time building a ship can be an interesting thing. I have some days when I spend 3 hours working on her and I can see a lot of progress planking. Then days like yesterday happen and I spent 5 hours working on canons and all I have are piles of parts waiting to be assembled.
 
The fact that you are taking your time and building correctly without taking shortcuts will benefit you in huge ways later on. There are no set time frames to these projects and as you are building for your own enjoyment there are no deadlines to meet. I would rather a ship take me years to complete so that I can look upon it with pride and not regret. Sure, there are always ways we can improve upon a model but improving skills is always a good thing. It's those shoulda, woulda, couldas that we eliminate by taking time.
 
You are doing a great job. Keep it up!   

That's looking really fantastic Bruce. Great work. 

Ha!
I hate to think of building this without your blog.

Very nice framing Dave I think it's going to look very good when finished. Definitely a bold approach with good results.

Very nice framing Dave I think it's going to look very good when finished. Definitely a bold approach with good results.

This is the work so far - the frame is off the jig (obviously still oversized) and some of the mid  deck supports are missing still. I had to leave them out because their placement is dependent on the Revell bulwarks toward the edges and dependent on the ships gun deck furniture toward the center. They will be added off jig. The next step is to cut out the Revell spar deck supports on the model. They are now in the way. I will be sweating bullets bringing the Dremel cutting blade so close to the completed sections of the build but I have practicing first on the scrap spare hull I have for...well...practicing.
 

Hi Chuck,
 
Here is how to serve and set up your shrouds and deadeyes.
 
Strop and attach your lower deadeyes to the channel.  The channel is the platform that sticks out from the side of the ship.  Depending on which ship and when it was built will determine the shape and style of the chains (the extensions of the strops that secure the deadeyes to the hull).
 
Measure the distance from the masthead to where the upper deadeyes will be.  The distance, or drift between the deadeyes was usually about 2 times the diameter of the deadeye.  Now double your measurement.  The shrouds are going to be put on in pairs.  Do not cut to the final length yet.  You need to leave extra length for setting up the shrouds.
 
Now serve the middle 1/3 of each shroud, calculated from your doubled measurement above.  This will be the portion that forms the loop around the masthead.  If you have calculated the length of the service correctly it should end slightly below the point where the futtock shrouds meet at the futtock stave. The forwardmost shroud on each side of the mast was usually served its entire length to prevent chafe from the sails and their gear.  
 
Middle the shroud pair around the mast head and clap on a seizing to form the loop around the mast head.  The seizing should come just below the bolster on the trestle trees (the bolster is a quarter round molding placed next to the mast on top of the lattice of beams that supports the top platform.  It's purpose was to ease the angle for the shrouds passing over the trestle tree. For each succeeding pair the seizing should lie just below the previous one.  This would prevent the seizings from chafing against each other.
 
Next, turn the upper deadeyes into the ends of the shrouds.  Some find it helpful to make a jig that will position the deadeye at the proper spacing.  The shrouds go around the deadeyes in a specific way that is determined by the lay of the rope.  Looking from the outside of the ship, if you are using right hand laid rope the shroud will pass counter-clockwise around the deadeye, behind the standing part (that is to say more inboard) and then the end is seized to the standing part with three seizings.  For left-hand laid rope the shroud runs the opposite, clockwise around the deadeye.

 
 
The first seizing to be put on is called a throat seizing and it is put on where the two parts of the shroud cross above the deadeye.  The next, the middle seizing,  is a short distance up the shroud and the third, the end seizing, an equal distance above that.

 
 
The rope that runs between the upper and lower deadeye is called the laniard.  The laniard should be a bit less that half the diameter of the shrouds. It always starts on the upper deadeye in the hole furthest away from the end of the shroud.  The stopper knot will be on the inboard side of the deadeye.

 
Pass the laniard from outboard in through the corresponding hole in the lower deadeye then up and from inboard out through the middle hole in the upper.  Continue passing the laniard through the remainig holes.  You will end up with the laniard passing from outboard in through the last hole in the lower deadeye.  The end of the laniard is then hitched around the shrouds where they cross above the deadeye.

 
It is best to leave some extra length on the shrouds and laniards so that final adjustments can be made later in the rigging.
 
Set up the shroud pairs starting with the forward most and alternate sides until all of the shroud pairs are done.  If you have an odd number of shrouds on each side the final one will go on single.
 
I hope that helps,
.
Regards,