Dr PR

A number of things have kept me away from the Cape model over the last couple of weeks. One was an experiment to see if I could make some 1:48 scale crew figures for the Cape. Here is a link with details about the figures. https://modelshipworld.com/topic/1006-in-need-of-shipyard-workers-or-boats-crewmembers/?do=findComment&comment=1124933 I made two enlisted men and four officers, plus one female "Rosie the Riveter" figure for comparison. The officers were experiments with different dress and working uniforms. They won't all be used on the model. Here you see Captain Fred (seated), Devine Dave and Ensign Fuzz on the Cape's bridge. Dave's uniform had a lot of sand on it - he must have just gotten back from surfing.

I am modelling in 1:48 or 1:50 scale (O scale) and have had problems finding suitable nautical figures. I still don't have a source of good sailing ship era figures. But I did notice a 50 pieces set of 1:50 figures for US$14.99: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CSC79VSQ?ref_=pe_123509780_1038749300_t_fed_asin_title&th=1 There are seven different male figures and five different female figures. One of each is seated. At 1:50 the males are about 5'-8" to 6'-2" (1.7 to 1.9 meters) and the women are about 5'-2" to 5'4" (1.5 to 1.6 meters). These might be typical people found in a railway station or department store. They are made of a fairly soft white plastic - I assume it is styrene. It glues well with plastic cement. I found six of the male figures that were easily painted to represent US Navy sailors for the 1960-1970 period I am modelling. Two were painted as enlisted man and four were painted in various officer's uniforms. Some of the "officers" could be painted as enlisted. I also painted one of the women as a yard worker - maybe Rosie the Riveter - for comparison. I wanted to use the seated male figure for the Captain on the USS Cape MSI-2 model I am making. However, the seated man had folded arms and looked rather strange. In addition, his posterior/legs were too broad to fit into the Captain's chair. I heated the figure with a hair dryer and squeezed the legs closer together. Then some material was filed away from the outside of the thighs until the figure fit into the chair. The arms were a bigger problem. I used files and knives to cut away the arms below the elbows. Then the remaining plastic was shaped to create the lapels of the officer's dress blue uniform. Well, close to what it should be at least. Then the arms were cut off above the elbows on one of the standing male figures. These were shaped and glued onto the stubs of the arms on the seated figure. They fit nicely with a bit of shaping with small files. No putty or filler was needed. Then I made an officer's cap from styrene rod, with a brim fashioned from scrap 0.003 inch (0.08 mm) brass sheet. So here is an inexpensive way to get a few 1:50 scale modern era Naval figures with a little bit of reshaping and add-ons.

Are you going to let Benji play with the trains, Grampa? I had some old Lionel trains from when I was a kid - recovered from my folk's storage shed. We put them up around the Christmas tree and the grandkids ran the wheels off of them.

I usually use Squadron white putty. It dries quickly - 30 minutes. It sands easily. But it is chalky white and not very hard, so it is best for filling small holes and cracks up to about a millimeter wide. For narrow cracks in wood I use a glue mixed with sanding dust from the wood to be filled. Duco Cement is colorless nitrocellulose in acetone and makes a nice hard filler when mixed with wood. SigBond or Titebond aliphatic resins are white or pale yellow when dry so they changed the wood filler color a bit. Elmer's school glue is white, but it dries colorless. These all set up in 20-30 minutes, but need to sit over night to harden.

Very nice! The sails look good. And a metal film can! That goes back quite a while.

This is a beautiful ship! I will be watching to see how you rig the fisherman's staysail. What little I have found showed the sheets belayed to cleats on the boom. But your photos seem to show it belayed to the bulwark. I suppose it could be rigged either way depending upon how they were sailing.

Kurt, Willapa Bay is on the West Coast of Washington, just north of the Columbia River. There is no clear weather half the year. That lumber would have sat out in the rain at the mill for some time before being loaded (probably in the rain). That's a good photo of a loaded lumber schooner. It always amazes me that they floated at all! It has a high center of gravity, and that means it will roll a lot in swells. And it will be heading south along the Pacific Coast to California for about 500 miles with swells parallel to the coast all the way. That's several days rolling in the troughs between swells. It would be a rough ride in clear weather!

I used to use my drill as a "lathe" and turn masts and spars with files and sandpaper. But when I started my topsail schooner build I decided to get serious about mast construction. Sailing ship's masts were not cylinders or cones and had a lot of faceted sections. Here is a link to the traditional method of mast making: https://modelshipworld.com/topic/19611-albatros-by-dr-pr-finished-mantua-scale-148-revenue-cutter-kitbash-about-1815/?do=findComment&comment=908539

I don't know ... I was brand new once, and it has taken me 80 years to achieve this old and worn look. Not much of a challenge though! Your model looks really nice!

I was about 6 when I started building balsa airplane kits. These used very thin sheet wood that had to be rolled and curved to make the fuselage and wings, and it was pretty tricky. Really out of my class at the time. They weren't a thing of beauty when I finished them, but I enjoyed building them. At about 7-8 I saw my first plastic model (panther jet - probably Monogram) and I was hooked. I had a fleet of 18 plastic ships (mostly Revell) and a bunch of airplanes while in grade school. I built three or four plastic sailing ships with minimal kit rigging. When I was about 10 I wanted a model of a schooner but there were no kits in my hometown hobby shops (mid 1950s and no model magazines or Internet). Our city library had no books on ship modelling. So I built my first scratch build out of balsa based on sketches of schooners from television ("Adventures in Paradise"). That was followed a year later with a scratch built 40 foot Chris Craft cabin cruiser like one of Mom's friends had. When they visited our lakefront place I got to drive it! Again, no plans, just sketches. I used a motor drive and propeller from a Lindberg destroyer kit. So you shouldn't rush or delay kids if they are interested in ship models. 10-12 would have been way too late for me! Just encourage them if they show some interest and offer help if they need it. They will either try to build something or just forget it. If you are going to start with a wooden kit, make it very simple, like a canoe kit, or one of the Vanguard wooden boat kits (the 18 foot cutter was pretty easy). There is a lot more to learn with wooden builds than something simple like gluing pre-shaped plastic pieces together. **** Let me stress that there is no "one size fits all" age for kids to start modelling. Watch them, and if they like using their hands to make things they will be ready for some level of modelling. If they would rather read or play video games you will be wasting your time trying to introduce them to modelling.

John and Steve, Thanks for the compliments. And thanks to everyone for the likes.

Final venturi work. For all the worrying I did about making the venturis, I think they came out pretty nice! They seem to be very sturdy. The vents and horn on the face of the deckhouse complete (I think) all the details on the sides of the deck houses. But I still need to make the name boards.

First I painted the chokes and supports. Then I cut cardboard templates for the sections of the venturis. This let me make an approximation of the lengths and angles for the parts. Then I started cutting pieces out of 0.005 inch (0.13 mm) brass sheet. This was frustrating! I used the shear to cut the strips, and it was nearly impossible to make multiple strips of the same width throughout the entire length. I cut eleven 4-6 inch (100-150 mm) long strips in all, and only four were the desired 0.260 inch (6.6 mm) width! I debated whether to use CA glue or to solder the strips onto the supports. CA would be faster and easier, but it is somewhat brittle and might break if the venturis were hit. Soldering would be stronger and less susceptible to breaking. So I chose soldering. It went pretty smoothly, with only one of the supports being knocked off (twice) before everything was all together. Now I just need a bit more clean up to remove excess glue and solder, and then paint. The "mahogany" cap rail on the bulwarks came out a bit worse for wear while I was installing the venturis and needs another coat of paint.

I don't know when venturis started appearing on US Navy ships. I do know that we didn't have them on the USS Oklahoma City CLG-5 while I was aboard. I stood bridge watches in heavy weather and realized their absence when standing on the open bridge wings. But they were added at my last in port period (March-April 1972). I noticed the new venturis as I was departing the ship the last time in early April 1972. I posted the photo of the Cape's venturi supports in post #424. This was my first photo of the Cape taken the day I reported aboard in April 1969. But this wasn't the initial installation. The blueprint showing the venturi construction is marked "AS CONSTRUCTED PLAN" and dated 18 Sep 1959.