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Thanks, as always, for the likes and comments. I hope you are enjoying the write-up. After the hull was shaped and sealed it was plated. The midships plans show only a few wide strakes of 1” steel plates that run the length of the hull. They were marked out and cut from 0.05” black styrene sheet, then applied to the hull and secured with contact cement. At the bow they were tapered and curved to meet the round bow plate. This was done in a similar fashion at the stern. After plating the hull was given several coats of grey primer, sanding between coats. At the bow the deck house was built from the section of PVA pipe ground oval to match the plans. The roof of the deck house was cut from a piece of 1/8” hardwood. The rear corners are sharper than shown on the plans, but match photos of the Colgate. At the stern the three supporting structures were made up from solid wood sheathed in plastic and secured with cyano. The forward two are oval, while the aft one is round. The upper deck of the aft house was also cut from 1/8” hardwood sheet, following the plans which were tacked in place to guide the cut. It is only placed on the supports for now until they can be detailed. The twelve hatches were built up from wood pieces bent to a curve to match the hull, then topped with styrene sheet. The contract calls for the model to be displayed on a molded seascape, as with all of the models in this commission. The process was similar to that done for the Leviathan. This was actually done before that of the Leviathan, so I was experimenting a bit as I went on. I did it early in the building process so if it failed I could scrap it without too much time lost. It started with a baseboard cut from a commercial ¾” MDF shelf which was the desired 12” width, but too long. It was cut to length, then the cut end was sealed to prevent moisture entry that might have warped the base. The hull was wrapped in kitchen plastic and secured to the base with two screws from the underside. A ¼” lip was secured all around the perimeter and dollops of prepared spackle were plopped onto the base. The first layer of spackle was spread in an even layer up to the hull. It was roughly shaped with a spatula to form parallel grooves at a slight angle to the hull. Since she was lost in a storm I wanted to show a choppy sea, so the grooves were fairly deep. This first layer shrank as it dried, giving me room for the second layer, which was good, but the plaster cracked, which was not. After the first layer had dried for several days the top layer was laid on. I thinned it a bit and laid it on with a stiff paintbrush. This filled and hid the cracks in the first layer. While the plaster was still wet I dabbed it all over with a damp coarse sponge. The sponge lifted up the plaster into many small peaks, imitating the surface of a vibrant sea. Where the plaster was still too wet it slumped down, and those areas were dabbed again until it held the little peaks. After another two days of drying I started coloring the sea. Artist’s acrylic paints were used throughout. The deepest hollows were painted flat black, as were the edges of the base. The black was followed by dark green overall, with some sea blue applied to random areas. I did not worry about complete coverage since the small spots that did not take the paint would show up as random variations, just like the real sea. Painting continued with multiple coats of clear gloss finish tinted with blue or green which built up a convincing feeling of depth. Flat white was dabbed onto the crests of the wave forms and pulled aft as would happen with the direction of the wind. Similarly, the wake was stippled onto the sea aft of the hull. At this stage the model was removed to finish construction. Once completed, additional plaster will be formed to the hull and even more layers of transparent glaze will be applied to tone down the waves even a bit more. Final construction and presentation next time. Until then, stay safe and well. Dan
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- James B Colgate
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Nice and clean, Marc. I like the color combinations. Dan
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Hi Keith - Like you, I use thin CA on small hardwood parts, especially open end grain, to stabilize the wood. However, on larger parts and softwoods I use a product from Minwax called "Wood Hardener" which does the same thing and is orders of magnitude less expensive than CA in the small bottles. Available from Amazon for $13 a pint. Probably less from some other sources. As always, I am left speechless at your precision metalwork. Dan
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Really beautiful, Keith - I can easily imagine walking her deck in a fresh breeze with a cold cocktail in my hand. Is she available for a charter to the Bahamas when this wretched covid thing is behind us? Dan
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Hi to all - And thanks for stopping by and for all the likes and comments. Roger and Lou - yet another nice bit of maritime history about the Everett. She would make an interesting subject to build (if someone will pay me to do it - - LOL) Research and construction began, as for all of my models, with an exhaustive search of the available images on the Internet. In addition, two books were of particular assistance: “McDougall’s Great Lakes Whalebacks” by Neel R. Zoss and “Whaleback Ships and the American Steel Barge Company” by our fellow MSW member C. Roger Pellett. Thanks go to him for his excellent book and for graciously answering questions when I was stumped. From these I obtained a good idea of the shape and arrangements of whalebacks in general and the Colgate In particular Of course, a decent set of plans is a necessity. After a canvas of the available sources a set was obtained from the National Museum of the Great Lakes for not much money, and I thank their librarian for her help. Although the plans are for steamers 119-121 which are slightly longer than Colgate, the beam and depth are the same. Accordingly, I shortened the plans in Photoshop to the correct length and cleaned up the foxing that obscured some of the details. The lines plan of the whaleboats clearly shows how unique the design was. To my mind it almost looks as though the hull of a “normal” ship had been turned upside down. What do you think? From another source I located a plan of the stern deck house that laid out the two oval and one round supporting structures along with some of the details of the bridge, cabins, and stern bollard and winch. The midships engineering drawing from the museum was of great help in locating hatches, railings, and longitudinal half-round stiffeners along the side of the hull. It also indicated that the hull was plated in wide, in and out strakes. This was confirmed by several of the photos of various whalebacks. Using this midships plan, I cut it along the centerline, mirrored it, then overlaid red lines for possible lifts. Since the model was requested to be a waterline display, only 9 feet of freeboard would be needed. This meant that the hull blank would be 9/16” high/thick. I added an additional 1/16” so the final blank was a half inch lift over a 1/8” lift. These were glued together with black PVA glue that indelibly indicated the waterline location. The wood was then shaped with a plane and power sander to close final shape and dimensions. The bow tapered to a round flat stump – the pigboat look. The stern tapered to an oval stump where the name and home port legend will appear, as seen in the first photo in this segment. After close shaping the hull was given several coats of primer before final sanding and shaping. After a coat of white primer the hull was marked with a centerline and several station line locations to match the plans. Four slices of 1” plumbing pipe were temporarily placed on top to visualize the bow deck house and the supports for the stern house. Construction continues with hull plating in the next segment. Until then, stay safe and well. Dan
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Really great work, Gary. I followed along from the beginning and learned many excellent techniques along the way. Looking forward to your next project. I have my popcorn all ready. Thanks again for sharing. Dan
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Hi to all who followed this build log. I hope you enjoyed the journey, and I thank you for all the likes and comments. I have just posted the first piece of a new log of building the Great Lakes whaleback steamer SS James B. Colgate (1892) If you want to follow along just click on the ship's name in the 'current build' line of my signature below. Everyone is welcome. Stay safe and well, and a Happy Thanksgiving to all. Dan
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Hello to all in this strange time – And thank you if you have followed me here from my last build log of the USS/SS Leviathan I apologize for the long delay between the end of the Leviathan build log and this, and also that It will also not be as detailed as my last write-ups. I will point out some building techniques that are a bit different from former ones, but for the most part it is more of a tour of the completed model than a blow-by-blow description of the construction. This is the second of seven models for the US Merchant Marine Academy museum. The subject is the whaleback steamer James B. Colgate, built in 1892. Designed by Capt. Alexander McDougall, these boats were a major departure from accepted ship design. Rather than sitting high on the water these boats rode, when loaded, with little of the ship above the waves. The idea was that, like a floating log, it would let rough seas pass over it rather fighting them. As an aside, the postcard above, titled “Blockade of Boats at Sault Ste. Marie,” commemorates a significant moment in the history of shipping on the Great Lakes. On September 5, 1899 the 500 foot long bulk cargo steamer SS Douglass Houghton was towing a barge named the John Fritz. Both were owned by John D. Rockefeller and together were loaded down with 15,000 tons of ore. The Houghton lost control and came to rest completely across the navigation channel leading to the Soo Locks, the bottleneck between Lake Superior and Lake Huron. Unfortunately the size of the ship made it nearly impossible to free her and the entire volume of shipping traffic through the locks, greater than at any other point in the world at the time, came to a standstill. It was not until five days later that divers and engineers were able to free her by dynamiting the banks of channel. By then more than 200 ships, many of them the largest in the world, were sitting idle. There were so many that when the blockade was finally cleared the line of ships moving single file through the gap was more than 40 miles long. The event triggered hearings in Congress and ultimately led to changes in the administration and maintenance of the inland waterways of the United States. The whaleback design proved surprisingly successful and 43 barges and steamers were built between 1888 and 1898. Although there may have been little of the hull above the waterline, like an iceberg there was a lot more below that the eye could not see. McDougall designed them around the new triple expansion steam engine that used 40 percent less coal, yet could still drive them along at 14 knots, very speedy for bulk carriers at the time. Twelve large hatches opened into a large cargo hold which could be loaded quickly from automatic conveyor belts. The design was finally supplanted in the early 1900s by much larger ships which could weather the large winter storms (the example of the Edmund Fitzgerald notwithstanding). Despite their commercial success, the whalebacks were not popular. The design was too radical, and was resisted by the old guard. They were also not very attractive. The upturned bow with its round stubby front plate may have helped the boats to skim over the water, but earned them the nickname “pigboats.” The Colgate was a typical whaleback steamer, 308 feet LOA with a beam of 38 feet. She carried up to 3,500 tons of cargo in her hold, usually iron ore or coal. A small round deck house at the bow handled the anchor machinery and helped with navigation. On the roof of the deckhouse were several bollards and fairleads for the mooring lines. The midships hatches, as designed, had flush covers that had to be bolted down individually. A later modification had raised coamings which were easier to operate. At the stern was a much larger two-story deckhouse which contained the bridge and some small cabins on the upper deck. These were supported by three round structures similar to the bow deckhouse, designed to allow large waves to flow around and between them with as little resistance as possible. Despite these design innovations the Colgate was lost, with four other ships, in the large ‘Black Friday’ storm on Lake Erie on October 20, 1916. 25 of her crew of 26 were lost, with only the captain surviving. So, after a full 24 year career of productive and profitable service, the Colgate is remembered as an example of radical marine design that was successful for a few decades, and as an icon of Great Lakes memorabilia. Next time, research and construction begin. Thanks for looking in, and stay safe and well. Dan
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Hi Marc - Excellent work on the QG base and details. Those compound curves must have been a bear to get right. Stay safe and Happy Thanksgiving. Dan
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Hi Toni - It's always a delicate matter to raise what may (or may not) be a mistake by another modeler. I usually hold my tongue unless the issue can be resolved quickly and relatively easily. I am glad that you had not gone too far before changing direction. I'm also happy that the final solution will actually be easier than before. Looking back, you may have been confused between the look of bolts and clench nails. Both were used in the construction of lapstrake hulls. The clench nails had broad heads, went through the planking, were fitted with roves on the inside and were hammered from both sides like a rivet. Bolts went through more substantial timbers and had washers on both sides to prevent overtightening. The final exterior look of a bolt fitted this way is very much like a clench nail with a rove on the outside. As well as the articles mentioned by Druxey and Greg, you might look at a thin booklet called "Clenched Lap or Clinker" by Eric McKee and published by the National Maritime Museum in England. I'm pretty sure it is available for not a lot of money. Great work nonetheless. Be well Dan
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Hi Toni - You've achieved a really nice solution to a tricky problem. When I tried to make metal foil roves I completely failed and fell back on paper saturated with glue. It was for the Gokstad ship, so the roves would have been iron in any case. I could not tell from the photos. Are the roves on the inside or the outside of the hull? Great work. Thanks for sharing. Dan
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Hi Charlie - Just got back in the city on a semi-permanent basis. Unpacked, refilled the pantry and fridge, and got a chance to look through MSW. You have certainly made a lot of progress, and all of it quite nicely done. Bravo. The planking and trenneling came out particularly well. I like the copper tape too. I made the impressions from the back side, through the paper, so they made positive bumps on the face of the tape. Then I burnished the bumps back down so the final look was of a flush circular blemish, which looked a lot like the flatheaded nails that were used. I'm wondering what yours will look like if you burnish the face of the tape. Might be an improvement over mine. Here's a toast to an effective vaccine in the very near future so we can start up club meetings again and I can see your stuff in person. Stay safe and well Dan
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Beautiful work, Marc - I really like how you achieve the look of wood on the plastic. It's truly hard to tell that the decks are anything other than individually laid planks. Stay safe. Dan
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Hi Marc - Frustrating work, I can see, but the results are stellar. I plugged in "Tamiya paint retarder" and Amazon came up with a 40ml bottle for about $9. It says it is for acrylics, but I have no idea how or how well it works. Stay well Dan
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Hi Marc -- No guess as to the number of different structure/detail/rigging choices I might have made. There are a bunch, though, especially if you count each individual gunport lid. I tip my hat to Piet for even trying to quantify them. As for rigging, the book by R.C. Anderson, The Rigging of Ships: in the Days of the Spritsail Topmast, 1600-1720 (Dover Maritime) , available from Amazon for a few bucks, was a godsend when I was rigging the Sovereign of the Seas and the Queen Anne's Revenge. He presents not only the basic English style, but also shows how French {Continental} practice differed. I took it a page at a time and tried to understand each line before moving on to the next. It was slow going, but working from the gammoning up and aft it was doable. If I haven't said so before, that figurehead looks great. Dan
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Hi Marc - Well thought out and analyzed. The head structures should come out well with your excellent level of persistence. I do recommend that you fill the gammon holes at this time. The kit ones are much too level, I think, and probably mislocated. The holes should angle up and forward, much like the ones in the St. Phillippe drawing. (The ones on Marc Yeo's model are, I believe, too angled.) I found it nearly impossible to locate and angle the holes on my models until the headrails were planned out precisely, or even until after they were installed. The holes should lie just under and parallel to the lower edge of the lowest headrail. My old eyes think they see them in this location in the drawings. This gives the greatest radius of curvature for the gammoning, and therefore the least strain on the ropes as the ship works in high winds and seas. The holes are angled so the gammoning turns press against each other as they are laced, starting from the aft (lower) end on the bowsprit to the forward (upper) end of the hole. And yes, this does mean that the turns cross over each other, a detail that is hidden by the final frapping turns that tighten them, which explains some of the confusion. You can always reopen the holes if you find that they are correct and I am wrong. (Perish the thought . . . LOL . . . ) Dan
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Can't go wrong with Daryl - - - If I say she has a beautiful body, will she hold it against me? Dan
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Hi Marc - Your carvings are getting better and better. Sweet! I saw that you are puzzling over the way the mermaid's thighs fit against each other. Do mermaids have thighs or do the legs fuse at the hip level? Dan
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Hi Marc - If I understand your problem, there is a geometric solution using a fan-shaped set of lines. I would love to include a drawing, but I don't have access to my library, and I am stumped, at the moment for its name (another senior moment). I am sure that it appears in either Roberts' or Dressel's books on planking. Maybe you already know the trick. If so, ignore this. Here is how I make it, sorry if it's a little long. On graph paper I draw an X-Y pair of lines with their intersection toward the left of the page. I draw another vertical line set some convenient distance away to the right. On the vertical line I make equidistant marks up to as many, or more, than the planks I expect to need. A set of lines from the intersection go to each one of these, making a fan shape. Now any similar vertical line will cross those fan lines an equidistant space from each other, no matter how tall or short. Lay a strip of paper on the fan and mark off the divisions that match the space you want to fill and the number of planks you want. Lay the strip on the deck athwartships and mark out your plank widths. As a possible addition, increase the space for the king plank location on that initial vertical and it will always be proportional to the planks. I have not done this and it may not end up looking like you want. If you are still doing research, you should look for 'coamings' rather than 'combings'. They sound alike, but are very different animals. Stay safe and well. Dan
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I'm with Druxey on this. In fact, when carving a figure, either human or animal, I start with the eyes. Nothing sets the tone and realism like them. If I get the eyes wrong, I always discard the piece. Dan
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Thanks, Marc - This is a really useful tutorial on miniature carving and should improve the work of everyone who reads it. Looking forward to seeing how all your many intricate carvings come out. Dan
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Ron - There is a strong epoxy called JB Weld that I use when I need a strong rigid joint with only a small mating surface. If you can't make a safe trip to the hardware store, I am sure it is available on line. Best of success with a tricky problem. Dan
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Ron - You have my most sincere sympathies. Been there, done that, - - thrown the results across the room . . . I saw in an earlier photo that you are using a mini-torch to do the heating. I never liked the one I have. Like you, I had a lot of trouble localizing the melting. Now I use either a resistance soldering unit (Cold Heat) or a small soldering iron used for the electronics industry. It takes a bit longer, but I have much more control over where the heat is and where it isn't. A wet piece of folded paper towel is all I ever need to keep the heat from travelling too far. Best of success. Dan
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Hi Marc - Happy to be of some small help. The wood is, if I remember, apple. I used to use a handheld drill as a lathe before I got the benchtop drill press. I set up a piece of wood with a conic depression in it to steady the free end of the dowel as it turned. This does require that either the drill or the wood, or both, need to be clamped in place. Or you will need three hands. Dan
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