Dr PR

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.

Instructions for using shellac on furniture caution against getting alcohol or water on the finished surface. Water can cause it to turn a lighter color. However, they say that you can apply alcohol with cotton sponges and reflow the shellac to restore the finish. It is a good bet that the alcohol in the paint softened or dissolved the shellac.

Banyan, In the drawing I posted for a wooden pin after 1800, the diameter of the lower part of the pin was 1/16 of the full length of the pin (1). So, if the lower part of the pin was equal in diameter to the rope diameter, and the rope diameter was 1 inch, the pin would be 16 times as long as the diameter of the rope. 16 x 1" = 16" I agree with Wefalck that zu Mondfeld covers such a broad range of dates and nationalities it really must be considered a summary and not a detailed compilation. I think its greatest value is to show just how different similar things were throughout time and geography. While studying schooner rigging I came across several authoritative works telling how to build and rig these vessels, each with its rules or formulae for calculating dimensions. No two sets of these "rules" were the same, but the results were similar. There were distinct differences among nationalities, and within each nationality the construction and rigging differed for warships, merchantmen, privateer, slavers and pirates. And each Captain or owner had a preferred way to do things. I doubt that there ever were any two ships that were exactly the same! I would bet there really was no "standard" for belaying pins. Each locality probably had it's own "right" way to make them, and even individual ships may have had a "better" way. So take all these rules with a grain of salt.

I have been plodding along on the model when I can find time. I cut out the 1/16 inch (1.6 mm) plywood subdeck. It is in two sections. The aft piece has been fitted around the well for the magtail reel. I am using rubber bands to pre-form the plywood pieces to the sheer and camber of the hull. I'm not sure this will help much but it is worth a try. The subdeck hasn't been glued to the bulkheads. I will do that after the hull planking is complete. This gives me access to the interior of the hull during planking, and afterwards for coating the interior with clear epoxy to glue everything together. The subdeck pieces are cut wider than the finished size to allow the plywood to be shaped to fit over the top of the hull planking all around. The plank sheer pieces around the deck edges will be shaped to fit to the edges of the sub deck. A guard piece will fit over the edge of the plywood and part of the top planking strake. Next up was cutting the rabbet for the planking at the bow. The 1/32 inch (0.79 mm) thick keel siding creates a rabbet suitable for the garboard strake. But at the bow the rabbet should be 1/16 inch deep for the planking, so I had to carve out a shallow cut behind the edge of the keel siding. Carving the stem will be interesting. In theory (according to the blueprints) the stem will be shaped to continue the angle of the hull planking, creating a relatively sharp prow. Along the front edge of the stem will be a thin brass "stem band" 0.050 inch ((1.27 mm) wide. I say "in theory" because as I place hull planks on the bow the angle changes constantly from the keel up to the deck level, and I am not sure the resulting width of the forward edge of the stem will be a constant width. To be continued ... Another thing that had to be done before I start planking the hull is to create the fairing around the propeller shaft on the keel/deadwood at the stern. The keel is 0.202 inch (5.1 mm) thick, but there is a swelling or fairing around the propeller shaft that should be 0.302 inches (7.7 mm) wide as shown in the drawing above. The vertical height of this fairing is about 0.54 inches (13.8 mm). I cut two pieces of 1/16 inch basswood to be glued onto the keel/deadwood to fashion the fairing. These were pre-shaped to create the approximate curvature of the fairings. The propeller shaft exits the hull with a slight downward angle. After the glue hardens I will finish shaping the pieces with round files and sandpaper. A bit of putty might be needed here. The hull planking will have to be fitted around these fairings and that could be interesting. I will also probably need to carve the rabbet a bit deeper here in front of the keel siding pieces.

I would do the soldering and and shaping or polishing first, then blacken the finished piece. Birchwood Casey Brass Black does blacken solder at least as good, if not better, than it blackens brass. Note - I use tin/lead solder and I suspect it is the tin that is blackened, I don't know about silver solder or some of the newer lead free solders. Be certain the metal is clean of oils and solder flux.

Here are some things I found for belaying pin dimensions. Chapelle's American Fishing Schooners had this illustration: Mondfeld gives has a diagram of belaying pin proportions and gives a general description in Historic Ship Models: "Generally speaking, the lower diameter of a belaying pin was never less than the diameter of the rope which was to be belayed. As only one size of belaying pin was kept on board, its diameter was that of the thickest rope to be belayed." Starting with the largest rope diameter to be belayed, and using that as the lower diameter of the pin, you can calculate the overall pin length from these diagrams. For example, if the largest rope was 1 inch diameter and the pin was wooden from after 1800, the pin length would be 1 x 16 = 16 inches. Mondfeld also says the British used metal pins that tapered at both ends in the late 1700s. These were force fit into the holes in pin rails.

bdg2, Thanks for that link. There are not many minesweepers on display to the public. From the look of the photo they have a long way to go to restore the ship. Some minesweepers were converted for private yachts, and all of the minesweep gear was removed. Finding replacement MSO sweep gear, winches and such will not be easy!

More progress. I carved, filed and sanded the bow filler and it now looks respectable. The SIG Bond cement is much harder than the balsa when it dries. The glue seams are quite apparent. Actually, I think it must be harder than basswood, because when sanding the edges of the SIG plywood it seems the wood is removed first, leaving a bit of a high point at the glue seams. I kept working this until a batten lay flat against the balsa surface in any orientation I put it. The next project was the well for the magtail reel (the magnetic minesweep gear). The well sides will rise above the 1/16 inch (1.6 mm) plywood sub deck, and then be sanded down flush with the top of the sub deck. The 1/16 inch deck planking will lay over the top edges of the well sides (at the level of the black pencil line). The fore/aft length of the well opening should theoretically be 2.12 inches (53.8 mm) and it came out to 2.15 (54.6 mm). I can live with that. I had some metal clamps that were exactly 2 inches (50.8 mm) wide and square that I used to make the width of the well very precise to 2.0 inches. When I took this picture the SIG Bond glue hadn't dried yet. Then I installed the transom. The 1/16 inch (1.6 mm) thick transom piece is oversized all around. It was glued to the spacer pieces to get the correct angle at the stern. Later it will be faired to the curvature of the hull and deck. Then the hull should be ready for planking.

I have made a little progress over the last few days. The hull framing pieces have been glued together and the bulkheads have been faired. It looks about like the last picture of the assembled parts. I rubbed black pencil into the edges of the bulkheads and sanded with a long sanding block until only a thin line of black remained to get the proper angles on the edges. All but one of the bulkheads fit perfectly square to the center frame. Considering the parts were hand cut that was surprising. I think 15 of the 21 bulkheads lined up with a near perfect fit. However a few were a bit off center so I had to do a lot of sanding to bring the high points down, and in a few places I had to add wood strips to bring up low places. But I expected this since the parts weren't laser cut or NC machine routed. After a few days sanding and filing everything lines up nicely when I put battens lengthwise along the hull and deck. It is almost ready for planking. The next step was to add filler material between the forward bulkheads and stem to provide a faired surface for the planks to glue to. I used 1/8 x 1 inch (3.2 x 25.4 mm) balsa strips for the filler. The Internet and big box stores finally shut down our local hobby shop where I normally would have found a selection of thicker material better suited for this job. Now I have to take whatever I can find. I found this at the local Michaels "craft store." It has a very limited selection of balsa, mostly small square dowels, Here is the built up structure. Yes, I know it is ugly! But after it is faired it will have a more comely shape. Besides, it will be on the inside so who cares what it looks like? Inner beauty is for losers (unless you are building a plank on frame model with the interior exposed)! I think I have added enough material so it will fair smoothly, but I might have to add a bit more filler here and there. The stern also needed a bit of work. The final bulkhead is mounted vertically just before the transom. But the transom will be angled back a bit. To accomplish this I needed a few triangular spacers to set the correct angle. It was then that I noticed that the plan I made was drawn with the 1/16 inch (1.59 mm) transom piece attached to a 1/8 inch (3.2 mm) inner transom piece. Don't ask me why. I originally thought this inner transom would be made of 1/8 inch plywood. But when it came time to add the inner transom I realized a couple of 1/8 inch spacers would do the job, and would be a lot easier to make - I'll save the plywood for a time when it is needed. The actual transom piece will be glued to these spacers. It has been cut oversized and will be faired in line with the deck and hull sides. The transom will have 13 vertical guard beams that are 1/8 x 1/16 inch (3.2 x 1.6 mm) cross section, and a 1/8 x 1/8 inch (3.2 x 3.2 mm) boundary piece all around the sides and bottom of the transom. Across the top of the transom will be mounted several pieces of minesweeping gear. The boundary piece will be interesting because it is curved a lot. It might be possible to bend a 1/8 x 1/8 inch stick that much, but I am not sure. Instead I plan to extend the 1/16 inch thick planking 1/8 inch aft of the transom. Then I will glue several very thin 1/8 inch wide wooden strips around the inside curve of the planking to build it up to 1/8 inch thick. Then I will seal, sand, seal, sand ... until it looks like a single piece of wood when painted.

Thick paint should work, building it up in layers. Epoxy "paint" might be good because it hardens and can be filed, sanded and polished. I like working with solder because you can carve it with a hobby knife, scrape and file it to shape, and polish it with a wire brush. But whatever you do I am sure it will come out excellent!

Nice model!

If you photo etch brass you can then add solder to build it up to a rounded shape.

Lucien, These mast tackles and Burtoning tackles are used to lift and move heavy objects on deck, and to move things over the side. Here is a drawing showing how they typically are rigged. First is a heavy runner pendant that loops around the mast top and hangs down 1/3 to 1/2 the mast length. It has a single runner block on the end. On larger ships the pendant loops around the topmast head. On smaller vessels without a topmast head the pendant loops around the lower mast head. On vessels with an odd number of shrouds the pendants are often just the ends of one of the shrouds after taking it around the mast head. The pendant may also be a separate line that loops around the mast head and descends on both sides, ending in a single runner block. A line fastens around the double block of a luff tackle and the fall runs through the runner block on the pendant and then down to an eye bolt on the channel. Typically the fall will have a hook on the end that secures to the eye bolt. The lower single block of the luff tackle has a long leader with a hook on the end. The hook attaches to another eye bolt on the channel. The fixed end of the luff tackle line fastens to the single block, runs up through the double block, back down and through the single block, up to the double block again, and the fall comes down and belays somewhere on deck. It may belay to a belaying pin in a pin rail, to a cleat on the bulwark, or just tie around the leader. Note: Lines 9 and 11 in the drawing you posted are not mast tackles. Line 9 is a "running" backstay that can be tightened and loosened as needed. It appears to be rigged like the mast tackle except the pendant extends almost to the deck. Line 11 is a tye tackle for the topsail yard. The tye is used to raise and lower the topsail yard. Here is an illustration showing how the mast (Burton) tackles and yard tackles are used to move heavy objects. In this case both for and main Burton tackles are linked with a span to bring the pendant bocks close together over the object. For longer objects, such as the ship's boats, the length of the span is the distance between lifting points on the object (boat). The Burton tackles lift the object near the ship's center line. The yard tackle hangs from the end of the yard. It is used to move the object inboard or outboard. Using a combination of Burton and yard tackles objects can be moved around anywhere on deck. The Burton or mast tackles ae not part of the rigging used to control the yards and sails. They hang loose and are secured to the eye bolts in the channels when not in use. The falls and leaders are usually both hooked to the eye bolts and are not tied to them permanently. This allows the greatest flexibility for using these general purpose tackles.

That is cruel!

Wefalck, I have been doing the same with my MSI build. I am assembling bulkheads to the center frame - not plank on frame - but I realized after I had cut out the bulkheads that I had missed an opportunity. For planking the hull I amusing a technique where I mark the plank edges on the bulkheads. At midships between the deck and keel there will be 25 planks and the garboard strake. I will taper the planks to be 1/25 the distance along the edge of each bulkhead. For this I am using tick strips and a planking fan. There are 21 bulkheads, and I will need to mark at least every other one. This would have been MUCH easier if I had just calculated the plank widths in my CAD program and printed lines on the bulkhead templates!!!!! I'll know next time! Perhaps you can do this on your frame templates.

Darren, Many people get hung up on their first build and give up. It takes a few builds under your belt to get to where you are confident you can build anything. Looks like you are well on your way to becoming an excellent ship modeler!

George, Thanks. I guess I should have known I would get seasick. When I was a kid we would start out every other weekend for my grandparents home. It was a two hour drive over crooked and hilly gravel roads, and there was one part that always made me nauseous. But by the time I was in high school it didn't bother me. We had a small boat for fishing and water skiing and that never bothered me no matter how rough the waters. So I didn't expect to get seasick in the Navy. Thinking back I remembered that I had been conditioned to puke earlier on in my life. My dad always had the radio on in the car when we made trips. When we left the city the only stations (AM) that we could get were country music stations. Not country-western, but old timey country music. Grand Ole Opry stuff. So we got in the car, listened to country music and when we got into the hills I puked. By the time I was in middle school I was programmed to throw up when I heard country music! I still had an aversion to country - and country-western - music when I met the Admiral. She was a country girl and always listened to country-western stations and CDs. I had to grin and bear it, and today I can listen to it without getting nauseous. But I wouldn't press my luck by listening to country-western on a moving boat!

If the wind is blowing even moderately strong the rain and spay would soak the bottom of such a tarp and everything under it! In fact, it could serve to channel the winds so it was wetter under the tarp than on open deck. In port awnings are raised to provide shade from the sun. They might serve as shelter from light rain only if it was not windy.

Caution: This is a nauseating tale! The Cape was a very small ship - too small to be out on the ocean, in my opinion. Shortly after I reported aboard I discovered I was prone to sea sickness - motion induced nausea. This is caused by conflicting reports to the brain from your eyes and the inner ear balance organ. If one reports you are moving and the other says you aren't - as can happen when you are in an enclosed box bobbing on the sea - you become nauseous. On calm days there was no problem and I enjoyed being at sea. But if the sea was rough and the weather nasty I was nauseous all the time. On one occasion we left Long Beach in a line of minesweepers headed out for an exercise in the Santa Barbara channel off the coast of California. As the day progressed the wind picked up and the ocean became very choppy. My watch station was on the bridge, and it pitched and rolled pretty actively. I was nauseous the whole time and hung out by the rail on the downwind side. If I had to puke I would wait until the ship rolled that direction. Once while I was contemplating such a move my supply petty officer came up and asked how I was doing. He was peeling an orange and the smell of it immediately cured my nausea! I asked if we had any more, and he pulled another one from his pocket. I told him that from then on when we got underway I wanted an extra crate of oranges on board. Hey, I was Supply Officer and if I wanted oranges we would get oranges! Unfortunately oranges only cured mild nausea. Later than evening we ran into a full blown gale, with waves high enough to come crashing down on the bridge. It was an open bridge, but we did have a frame with windows across the front and a canvas awning above. Still, when green water washed onto the bridge we had ankle to knee deep water sloshing across the deck. My shoes and pants were soaked, I was really nauseous, and by the time my watch was over I was exhausted from hanging on. It was like a very wet hours long roller coaster ride. After I was relieved I went below and crashed in my bunk. I managed to catch short stretches of sleep, but was suddenly awake, only to realize the ship was dead quiet - the engines had stopped. I slipped on my shoes and stumbled toward the engine room. As I passed through the mess deck the starboard weather deck door was open, and I saw a large gray wooden wall pass very close down our side. When the engines stopped we lost all power and went totally dark. The ship following us in the storm lost sight of us and almost ran us down from astern. When I reached the engine room I found that the duty watch had forgotten to fill the day tank at the beginning of the watch and we ran out of gas. Both the propulsion engines and the generators ran from the same day tank, so everything shut down in short order. The engine crew used a manual pump to transfer fuel from the main fuel tanks to the day tank, and in about 15 minutes we were underway again. When I got back to my bunk I was exhausted and nauseous. Through the night I would occasionally flop out of the bunk onto the deck and crawl to the head. There I embraced the porcelain throne and called for Ralph O'Rourke. I was too weak to walk, and eventually was pukeing up liver bile. It is bright yellow and tastes horrible. I was unable to stand my next watch. But by morning we reached the shelter of the lee side of Santa Rosa Island and dropped the hook. There it was relatively calm and I got some sleep. When I woke I was able to eat something and hold it down. So why am I telling you this? Two things came out of that experience. First, I became conditioned like Pavlov's dogs. Pavlov rang a bell before feeding his dogs. After a while he discovered that if he rang the bell, even when there was no food in sight, the dogs began to salivate. This is known as a conditioned reflex. For me, when the last line went over the side and the ship sounded three toots on the whistle to signal "underway" I immediately became nauseous - even in calm waters in port. Three toots and I wanted to puke. It took me years to get over this. I don't know, maybe I might still have this conditioned reflex! The second result was that a note that I became chronically seasick went into my medical record. When I later reported to the Oklahoma City the Commanding Officer asked me about it. I told him I did become nauseous but I could still stand watches and do my duties. He was especially interested because I was replacing an Ensign K. who became incapacitated because of seasickness. It was so bad he wanted a medical discharge from the Navy. But instead of a discharge he was transferred to the Yokosuka Naval Hospital where every day they strapped him in a chair and rotated and tumbled him until he puked. They wanted to be sure he wasn't faking it. So Ensign K. was tortured for several weeks until they finally sent him back to CIVLAND. And just to be sure about me, when we were next at sea the CO had the Officer of the Deck I was assigned to (as Junior Officer of the Deck) smoke particularly nasty cigars and blow the smoke in my direction. All just to see if he could make me puke. I didn't, and the CO was satisfied. But I did toss my cookies once in the 27 months I was on the cruiser. It wasn't in the typhoons when we alternately walked on the decks and bulkheads and hung on for dear life - I was too busy to become nauseated. It was one night on relatively calm seas with a long steady roll, when I was on watch in the Combat Information Center deep in the bowels of the ship. I didn't even realize I was nauseous until I was returning to my bunk. The ship rode up on a swell as I was climbing a ladder and suddenly dropped just as I reached the top step, leaving me hanging in the air. I came down without my supper. I tell this tale to describe for you a little mentioned part of the experience of life on a small ship. And now you know why I am not interested in going to sea again!