Dr PR

Smoke Stack/Funnel The next "detail" to add to the deck houses is the smoke stack. It is a fairly complicated truncated oval cone. I suppose I could have carved it out of a block of wood, but I wanted to try making it from brass sheet. All this brass work is practice for the machinery on the stern of the ship. First I made a CAD model of the smoke stack. The funnel cap piece was a bit tricky in CAD, but there is no way I could have made it free hand! Then I unfolded the 3D CAD parts to make 2D patterns for the pieces. I made the base for the smoke stack from 1/16 inch (1.6 mm) basswood sheet. It was sanded to the correct thickness (about 0.055 inch/1.4 mm) at the edges, and to fit the curvature of the deck. It was glued in place with Titebond Original glue, and this is where Murphy stepped in to help. While I was working on the other pieces the wood curled up at the edges to a shallow "U" shape. I didn't notice this until the glue had set, so I soaked the glue under the edges with water until it loosened. The wet glue was removed, more fresh glue added, and the thing was weighted down with a small anvil resting on a plywood scrap to force the edges to lie flat. I cut out the oval ring at the base of the stack from 0.005 inch (0.13 mm) brass sheet. Then the oval top plate that holds all the exhaust pipes was made and drilled for the pipes. A paper template for the shell of the stack was rolled up and taped closed to form the oval cone. The paper cone was fit into the base ring and the top plate was slipped into the top of the stack. This assembly fit nicely in place at the rear of the main deckhouse on the O1 level. The paper template seemed to be the correct shape so it was time to cut out the remaining brass pieces. These parts were cut from 0.005 inch (0.13 mm) brass sheet. It is pretty thin, but I think this will be sturdy enough after it is rolled up and the base ring and top plate are soldered in place. I will install the 11 exhaust pipes into the top plate before starting the assembly. They should all have tiny cover pieces, but I doubt that I can make the minute hinge parts shown in the CAD image. That top cap piece will be a bit of a challenge to solder directly onto the top edge of the shell piece. Then a 0.025 inch (0.6 mm) diameter brass wire is to be soldered along the top edge of the cap piece! It will be good soldering practice. I have already done all this once before with the funnels for the USS Oklahoma City CLG-5 model - but at 1:96 scale.

Here is a drawing from the Anatomy of Ships book on the Beagle. This shows nibbing and not hooking. You can see the planks near the bow were not nibbed because the met the margin board at less than a 45 degree angle. The nibbed planks seem to be cut into the margin board about half a plank width. It is difficult to see a consistent angle for the nib cut, but it doesn't seem to be cut in perpendicular to the margin board edge. Most appear to b cut perpendicular to the plank edge. This came from usedtosail's Beagle build: https://modelshipworld.com/topic/37665-hms-beagle-by-usedtosail-occre-160/?do=findComment&comment=1083788

The purpose of trimming the ends of planks is to avoid sharp points that might foul lines or break off and leave a gap in the planking. Basically, if the point on the end of a plank will be sharper (less) than 45 degrees the plank should be trimmed. Planks that fit up to the margin boards with greater than a 45 degree angle do not have to be trimmed. At least that is the way is was done in the 20th century on US Navy ships. But I have seen some models where an attempt was made to nib every plank, even where the angles were much greater than 45 degrees. Check to see what Royal Navy practice was in the 1800s. For "nibbing" planks into the margin board the important thing to remember is that the cut into the margin board for a new plank starts where the outboard edge of the last laid plank meets the margin board. Then you cut into the margin board 1/3 to 1/2 a plank width. From there the cut angles back to where the outboard edge of the new plank meets the edge of the margin board. The length of the outboard edge of the nib is different for every plank. The length of that first nibbing cut seems to vary from vessel to vessel (model to model). Some people cut 1/3 of a plank width, some cut 1/2 the plank width. But the cut depth should be the same on all nibs on a vessel. The modern Navy ships I served on had 1/2 plank width nibs, but it seems older sailing vessels may have had 1/3 plank width nibs - at least some modelers do it this way. See if you can find a reference for the Beagle. The angle of the nib cut also varies. Some modelers make the cut perpendicular to the edge of the plank - this would be the same for all planks. Others seem to make the cut perpendicular to the edge of the margin board, but this means the angle of the cut on the end of the plank would be different for each plank. I know of no reference for this practice, but it may have been used on some vessels. Again, see if you can find a reference for the Beagle. This is a link to how I nibbed the planks on my topsail schooner build: https://modelshipworld.com/topic/19611-albatros-by-dr-pr-finished-mantua-scale-148-revenue-cutter-kitbash-about-1815/?do=findComment&comment=605072 I used black construction paper for the grout between planks. Some people use pencil and some don't model the grout. Just about everyone seems to have their own opinions about grout and whether to model it. ***** Older sailing vessels (pre 1800) seem to have used "hooking" instead of nibbing. In this case an extra wide plank was used where the plank run encountered the margin board. Each new plank was cut into the inboard extra wide plank by about half a plank width, and not into the margin board. The wide plank was trimmed back to the width of a normal plank from the "hook" that was formed on the end that met the margin board. The hook planks were shaped to fit the curvature of the margin board, and there were no cuts into the margin board. To do this properly you need a supply of extra wide planks for the ends of the plank runs, and ordinary width planks. For me this is trickier than simple nibbing. There are example of hooking on the forum, but I don't have a good link. Maybe someone else can provide a link.

Nice work! Doing good work in a situation where everything fits together orthogonally is relatively easy. Fitting things together where all the angles are different and curved surfaces are involved requires skill and a LOT of patience! Card templates help reduce the amount of waste of good materials. Enjoy your holidays with the grandkids.

I put dilute white glue on the ratlines after it has been tied, and hang a wire hook with a light weight attached (small clamp) to make the catenary droop. Leave the weights on until the glue dries and then move on to another catenary. The white (school) glue dries without a stain. But if you are going to paint the ratlines you can use any glue.

Paul, Very nice. Now have a merry holiday season!

John, Yes. I was a 120 day wonder (from Naval Officer Candidate School) and knew nothing of mine warfare when I reported to the Cape. Like 2nd Lt Fuzz in the Beetle Baily cartoon. I had some schooling for my new job on the USS Oklahoma City CLG-5. I did a better job there!

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 men 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