Dr PR

Austin, Good to hear from you! The last I heard the Cape was somewhere in the Puget Sound area. Do you have any recent pictures of the vessel? What condition is it in? I suspect the other members of this forum would like to hear more about how the Cape is today and what it is doing. If you want you can send me a personal message through the forum, or you can contact me through this link: https://www.okieboat.com/Contact page.html

What was the surprise in post #46? Something to do with the mast but you didn't say what. In post #47 are you allowing for the thickness of the cap rail on the bulwarks for determining bulwark height above the deck planking. If the cap rail is also 1/16 inch thick will the height be correct above the 1/16 inch deck planks? From your photos it looks as if part 13 (the subdeck at the stern) is cocked up at a pretty sharp angle.

I have been using the ring light for about seven months now. I did get the lithium battery and charger. The rechargeable battery lasts MUCH longer than four AA cells! It charges with a standard cell phone charging cable from a USB jack. I have had no problems and the unit still works perfectly. I have used it for all sorts of photography - even taking it into the field for wildflower pictures.

I started work on the garboard strakes today. As described above, I will make the garboard strake in two layers. The first layer is an ordinary plank to set the run of the rest of the planks. The first problem was bending the plank to the curvature of the hull. It must fit vertically at the bow and stern, but twists almost horizontal amidships. I used a single plank for this strake. It was cut it to fit into the rabbet at the stern. I clamped it into the vertical notch on the keel siding, fitting into the rabbet. Then eight bulkheads forward I used another clamp to force it to twist into the almost horizontal position against the keel siding. At the bow I did the same thing. To make the twists in the plank permanent I heated it with my quilting iron/plank bender/sail making tool. First I brushed water onto the twisted plank and let it soak in a couple of minutes. Then I heated it with the plank bender. The water turned to steam and carried the heat into the wood. I repeated this several times, allowing the wood to cool between heating sessions. It is the heat that softens the wood structure, not the water. The water just carries the heat into the wood. Water isn't necessary - I have bent many pieces using heat alone. But I think the water speeds things up a bit. After several heating/cooling sessions the plank retained the twist when the clamps were removed. Then the plank was clamped into place along the full length. Another plank was laid alongside and allowed to ride up and over the garboard strake plank at the bow. I marked a line on the garboard plank along the edge of the second plank. This showed where the straight edge of the second plank would run. Then I trimmed the garboard plank to taper to a point just forward of bulkhead #2. The blueprints do not show a clear diagram where the forward end of the garboard strake ends, but they do show the internal bulkheads in this area, and the garboard strake ends between frames 7 and 9, just a bit forward of my bulkhead #2. After the plank was trimmed I glued it into position using SIG Bond cement. I clamped it securely along the entire length. The glue sets in about 40 minutes, but doesn't fully harden until overnight. But after three or four hours it is OK to remove the clamps. Here is the hull with the starboard side garboard strake. Here are close ups of the forward and aft ends of the strake. I decided to try another method to put the twists in the port garboard plank. I clamped the end vertically. About seven inches from that I clamped the plank horizontally, putting a 90 degree twist in it. Then I alternately wetted the wood and heated it with the plank bender. This was repeated four or five times, allowing the plank to cool between heating. After the plank had cooled the last time the clamps were removed. The plank retained the twist with only a little spring back. The 90 degree twist is more than needed on the hull, so the plank fit into position properly along the port side rabbet. The forward and aft ends must be trimmed to fit and then I will glue it in place over night. The next step will be to mark the plank spacings for the other 24 planks on each side. These planks will be tapered to fit the curvature of the hull.

I saw this little Mini Iron II (Clover No. 9100) "quilting iron" recommended as a plank bender in another thread. It is sold as a small iron for use with quilt making. However, it is basically a small 40 Watt soldering iron with a special tip. I have used it many times now and can recommend it as an inexpensive and versatile model making tool. The picture on the left shows the tool being used to bend a plank that is already clamped in place on a hull. The photo on the right shows it being used to heat the bend into a plank that has been twisted between two clamps. In both cases brushed some water onto the surface of the plank and then heated it with the iron that was set to the highest heat setting (it has low, medium and high settings). It is the heat that sets the bend into the fibers in the wood. All the water is for it to conduct the heat into the wood. But this is not the only use for this tool. It is also useful for making sails. I used it to iron the sail material smooth - it is not nearly as bulky as a large fabric iron. I also used it to set the glue when adding tablings, linings and bolt ropes to silkspan sails. The low heat setting is safe to use with silkspan. And who knows? Maybe some day you (or someone you know) will want to make a quilt.

Dowmer and John, thanks! A nice thing about the diluted white glue (Elmer's Glue All) is it dries clear and is invisible. So it is perfect for gluing down the ends of the points. Even better, it is totally transparent when the sail is back lighted - although the glue is there it is not visible but the shadow of the points on the back side is. The combination of silkspan and white glue is very good for sails. In an earlier post I said if I couldn't erase all of an errant pencil mark I could just paint over it with the same paint I used to color the sails and the mark wouldn't be visible. While this is true, the additional paint shows up as a dark splotch when the sail is back lighted! Not perfect! But most models are viewed with light from the viewer's direction so it really isn't noticeable. But is is better to not have errant pencil marks! Another thing I have noticed is that some modelers use multiple layers of silkspan on each sail. I am not sure why they do this. One reason for using silkspan is that it is very thin, close to scale thickness for sail material. Perhaps for larger scales (1:35 or 1:25) a thicker material would be better, but there are several thicknesses of silkspan, I used the thinnest for this 1:48 scale model, and it is about 0.001 inch (0.0254 mm) thick, or about 0.05 inch (1.27 mm) at 1:1 scale. Light weight modern cotton sail cloths are 0.012 to 0.025 inch (0.3 to 0.65 mm) thick (1:1 scale). So the thinnest silkspan is about a medium weight scale sail cloth at 1:48.

After fiddling with it a bit, removing wood at some places and adding at others, the run of the sheer planks fairs nicely. I have seen several otherwise nice models that had very noticeable "warped" deck edges or bulwarks when viewed end on, and I really wanted to avoid that here. I think it is worth the extra effort. Two down and fifty more to go!

Sort of reminds me of the spaghetti I had for dinner.

John, Thanks! I will need to iron the sails again before installing them. The wrinkles iron out nicely. I have built only one model previously with sails - a 1969 model kit (Billings?) of the Santa Maria with paper sails. Only three sails with none of the details. For this model I wanted to see how much detail would be needed. The sails and their rigging are almost as much work as the rest of the ship. I still have a long way to go before it is finished! If I ever build another model with sails I think I will cut the silkspan into 2 scale foot strips and glue them together instead of drawing in the seams with pencil. When doubled like that the seams look more realistic when backlighted than the parallel pencil marks.

Someone will have to explain to me how the lines would work if they were wrapped around the horizontal part of the bitts. Think about it. even if you had only one loop around the bitts the entire length of line would have to be pulled through around it. This would have to be repeated for every turn around the horizontal piece. This would take forever, and could never be used at sea! It looks pretty silly to me. Has anyone seen a period model or photos of a period model (or a modern replica ship) that had lines tied off like this? Has anyone read a period rigging book that described belaying lines like this? Is there any reference for this??? The first photo in Lees Masting and Rigging (after page 37) of a model of the Breda shows two small lines wrapped around the horizontal beam of bitts at the base of the main mast. It looks like one of them is a fall from a runner block. Or it might just be a small line used to secure a larger line to the bitts. Some of the lines could be belayed to eye bolts in the deck behind the bits. But most of the lines that belay at the base of a mast are falls from tackle, often from blocks belayed to eye bolts in the deck at the base of the mast. But when they are belayed to eye bolts they are distributed around the base of the mast so it is easy to distinguish each line - they aren't bunched together as in the Speedy model photos. Until someone can provide a period reference for this practice I will remain skeptical.

Here are the sails with reef points installed. Fore topsail. Fore sail (fore gaff sail). Main sail (main gaff sail). The ends of the reef points are fastened to the sail with drops of white glue. Some will need repositioning to make them "hang" more realistically. Now I need to add blocks for the sheets and clewlines to the topsail and ties to attach the gaff sails to the mast hoops. The topsail will be tied to the topsail yard and the gaff sails will be laced to the gaffs. Then I should be ready to start rigging the sails to the masts.

John, It will be better to see it finished! I thought I had done a pretty good job fairing the bulkheads to get a smooth planking run from bow to stern. However, I can see now after placing the sheer strake that there are a couple of bulkheads that are not quite right. They cause "bumps" or high points in the run of the planking. These are obvious if you look down the line of the planking from bow to stern. This isn't my first rodeo, so it isn't totally unexpected at the start of the planking. One place is on the port side at bulkhead 15, and the other is on the starboard at bulkhead 11 and 12. In both cases the discrepancy is about half a plank width. I could just sand these places to remove the high spot, but I really don't want to make the planking that thin - I might sand a hole in the planking. It won't be a problem to remove material from the edges of the bulkheads - except where I just glued the sheer strakes in place. I will have to cut between the planks and the bulkheads very carefully. I have some very narrow kerf saw blades for my hobby knife that should do the job. But I am not looking forward to doing it!

I have started planking the hull. I started with the port sheer strake. First I glued it to the filler wood between the first two bulkheads. After the glue set I proceed aft, gluing the plank to a few bulkheads at a time. I had to work slowly near the bow where the hull flairs outward at the top, getting the right twist in the plank to make it fit flush against the bulkhead. But after the first five or six bulkheads the plank fit snugly against the remaining bulkheads. After the sheer strakes are in place I will install the garboard strakes. Then will come the long process of tapering the remaining planks and installing them. This will take some time.

Up to this point I have thought the most tedious part of this build was rigging the cannons. I certainly do not want to build a model with several dozen cannons on deck that need to be fully rigged! But today I found something even more tedious than rigging cannons. What you are looking at is 80 reef points (or just called "points"). 13 for the topsail, 25 for the fore sail, and 36 for the main sail - plus 6 extras. The fore course would have 17 more, but I plan to rig that sail furled to the spar and I don't want the extra bulk in the sail. It took several boring hours to tie all of these! The points will be 1 inch (25.4 mm) long on each side of the sail. I experimented and found that the overhand knots will consume 1/8 inch (3.2 mm) of the point thread each. I cut 80 pieces 2.5 inches (63.5 mm) long. Then I tied an overhand knot in each, positioned 1 inch from one end. I placed a crop of white glue (diluted 1:1 with water) on the knots so they won't come untied. After that I dipped the long end of the thread in the white glue to stiffen it. This end will have to pass through a hole in the sail in the reef band. After passing the long end through the hole in the sail I will need to tie another overhand knot in each point, snugging it up as close to the sail material as possible. Then the long ends will be trimmed to 1 inch long. I suspect this will be even more boring and tedious that creating the 80 individual points. I am also working on my MSI model, and have it built to the point of planking the hull. That will be a slow process, installing one plank at a time and waiting for the glue to set. While waiting for that I will be doing work on the schooner model to finish rigging the sails.

I cut the rabbets deeper at the stern and shaped the fairing around the propeller shaft. The fairing is still a bit over sized. I will sand and file it to the final shape after the stern frame for the prop shaft and rudder has been attached. I have been thinking about plank widths, planking fans and such. Since I have the basic hull patterns in CAD I decided to measure the distances from keel to deck on the bulkheads and divide the distance by the number of planks to determine the plank widths at every other bulkhead. Then I can print the patterns and transfer them to the edges of the bulkheads. Because there are only shallow curves to the hull (no bulbous bow or curved tuck at the stern) the planks will have very gentle tapers. It is easy to bend a plank around the deck edges with curvature for the sheer. After studying how the planks fit on the hull I decided to make the top strake and the garboard (bottom) strakes without taper. Then the planks between these will be tapered. I ordered 3/16 inch (4.8 mm) basswood strips for the hull planking. However when I measured them none are close to 3/16 (0.1875) inch. The widest was 0.185 inch and the narrowest 0.176 inch. I measured 65 strips and the average width was 0.1797 inch (the median was 0.180 inch). So I have to plan the planking pattern around 0.180 inch (4.57 mm) planks. Actually, this isn't a bad thing because the scale plank width is a bit smaller than 3/16 inch. Here is the hull planking expansion drawing relative to the rabbet for the garboard plank. The planks won't actually be wavy because this is the pattern of the curved hull sides laid flat. Thr different lenghs along the bulkhead edges plus the number of planks at each bulkhead cause the curvature. From this I prepared the bulkhead plank spacing scales. I will use these to place marks on the edges of the bulkheads to guide plank tapering.