grsjax

Just a word of caution. Make sure your slitting saw blade is capable of handling the speed of the tile saw. Tile saws generally run at higher rpm than wood saws and the blade needs to be manufactured for these higher speeds.

A 14' boat could be either carvel or lapstrake planked but I would guess in this situation it would be lapstrake as it would be lighter and easier to manage than a carvel boat of the same size. As for how it was launched and recovered it was probably just manhandled over the side and recovered the same way. These old sloops had relatively large crews and could handle a boat of this size. Alteratively could be a spar from the mast rigged as a crane.

Thanks for the info. I will try and get a couple of pics posted in the next few days. Looks like a nice kit.

A long time back I remember reading an article about a model of an arab dhow. The builder carved sails from a very fine grained wood that looked amazingly real in the photos.

Could be a misprint. Score might supposed to be sheave or maybe it is an obscure way to indicate the size of the opening in the block for the sheave. Just a WAG.

I use this type. Not perfect but works well and doesn't cost a lot. I think I paid about $35 for it. Harbor Freight has these and they show up on eBay regularly.

Just picked up an old kit for a "Hurricane Island Pulling Boat". Wondering if anyone has built or is familiar with this kit. This is what I know so far. The boat is a modified version of the old US Navy whaler designed for sail and oar. The boats were built in the '70s for the Hurricane Island Outward Bound School. The kit was made by Laughing Whale. That is pretty much the sum of my knowledge. If there are any build logs or other information out there I would really like to find it.

In defence of Fair a Frame. I agree that it isn't as usefull as it could be but I find it good for keeping the bulkheads straight on small models like Midwest's Sakonnet daysailer. Biggest problem is that it is really to short and not strong enough to handle larger models.

What mtaylor said. Another consideration is to use a scraper to do the final fitting. This works best with hard woods like cherry although with care it can be used on fine grained softer woods like basswood. An Xacto #11 blade works well as a scraper but it isn't the only option. I have seen broken glass, small chisels and pieces of sheet metal used. Scrape the joint a little at a time with the scraper held flat to the surface. Trial fit after each scraping. Scraping, if done right is better than files or sandpaper for fine fitting work and is the method actually used in old time shipyards to fit tight joints. A few cavets, if scraping across the grain you can get an uneven surface, be very carefull to keep the blade in the correct plane or you will end up with a surface that is tilted out of line.

Don't know why I didn't think of this first. I looked up pictures of the USS Constitution's guns. The carriages are painted a red ochre color with the trucks painted black. Don't know if this was a standard color scheme for US Navy ships but it is the best data I can find.

I believe the British painted broadside gun carriages red during the war of 1812. A couple of questions, 1; Did they also paint pivot gun carriages the same and 2; did American Naval practice follow the British fashion?

On a slightly different subject, are the decorations necessary at all? Endeavour was a Whitby collier originally and I would be surprised if it had even a small amount of carving on the transom or anywhere else. Did the royal navy add carving to the transom during the refit or is this just a flight of fancy by the kit designers?

Amazon has some good ones for less. Depends on how big you want the magnifier to be. I bought one several years ago that has a 2x lens about 3" across and a 60w light. I think I paid about $30 for it.

Any of the above.

I have been looking at a set of plans for a boat that used wire rope for shrouds and stays. Has anyone tried using a ropewalk to make wire rope? I was thinking about trying it with very thin copper wire lubricated with bees wax. Any help, suggestions are comments welcome.

"Shine looks sort of like the armed Bermuda sloop yet has two masts." Entirely possible. It wasn't unknown for a cutter or sloop hull to be remasted and rigged as a schooner or brig. BTW The smallest fully rigged brig I can find reference to was only 50' overall and it worked for a long time as a merchantman around Britian.

An old dremel table saw with a 4" blade can be had on ebay for less than the asking price of this one. Anyway you cut it the Dremel table saw is a much better deal.

The locks were only mounted to the guns when ready for action. Few pictures were taken when the guns were about to be fired so it isn't suprising that there are few pictures showing them.

Dapper Tom is a good kit but suffers from the same problems as the others. For one thing it is based on a set of lines taken off by a French officer in 1925 from a ship being built. This puts it well outside the time frame for the Baltimore Clipper. The model also has so many sails and cannon that it would probably capsize on launching. Last but not least it shows the aft quarters being below deck in an area where the head room would only be about 3'. Still makes a good model and if modified to a more appropriate sail plan with a rearranged deck layout it would actually be fairly accurate for the second quarter of the 19th century. Chapelle discusses this ship in his book.

Try Bookfinder.com. This is a great website for finding out of print books and comparing prices from different vendors.

Few if any of the baltimore clipper type model kits are very accurate. Most are way over canvased, carry to many cannon and pretty much ignore the deck layout found on most of them. H.I. Chapelle's book "The Baltimore Clipper" is an excellent reference on these ships. If you want a model to start with that is challenging without being impossible for a beginner I would recommend Model Shipway's skipjack model "Willie Bennett". If you want a ship with cannon try the MSW "Armed Virginia Sloop". For a simplier but very nice kit look at the offerings from Midwest's apprentice series.

A while back I asked on this forum if anyone had experience with the Genesis 7.2v rotary tool. I got one to test out as it was not to expensive and it looked like it could be a very useful addition to my tool collection. Here is what I found when I got one. 1. First one I got had a defective switch but the vendor replaced it without any problems and the second one works fine. 2. Fit and finish are very good, at least as good as any of the other rotary tools on the market. 3. Has plenty of power for drilling. I used a 1/16" (1.5mm) drill to test it and it drilled through dry hardwood with no problems. Only issue is you can't push it, if you start to press to hard it tends to wobble a bit. Other wise no problems. 4. Very comfortable to hold. Fits in my hand well and doesn't cause hand cramps like holding a regular tool does when you need to do a lot of work in one session. 5. The on/off/speed switch is in an ackward place at the upper rear end of the tool. You can't position the drill bit and then turn it on. A trigger switch on the pistol grip would be a big improvement. 6. The small LED light is useless. Might be useful if you were working in complete darkness but is otherwise to dim to add any value. Maybe putting a trigger where the LED is would be a good design change. 7. A Proxxon 3-jaw chuck fits the spindle and is a worthwhile addition. Over all I would rate this tool a 7 out of 10. I might rate it higher or lower depending on how dependable it turns out to be over the long haul. As of now I am very satisfied with it and at $30 delivered from Amazon the price is right.

The good news is that if HomeDepot is carrying something like this the product will continue to get better and cheaper. In a few years it may be possible to buy a decent 3-D printer off the shelf in your local big box store for a reasonable price. Early days yet on these things.

The elm tree pump was just a hollowed log with a valve in it. The valve would let water through on the down stroke and lift it during the up stroke. The "tree" part of the pump, i.e. the pipe or body goes all the way down to the bilge and doesn't usually have a well or other structure associated with it. The pump body or tree doesn't necessarily have to be of elm although that was the traditional wood used. Any hard, rot resistant wood would do. If the pump was set up as a wash pump it would go through the hull and would probably have had a separate well structure to keep the water out if the pump had to be removed for repairs.

Scientific name of Washington Hawthorn is Crataegus phaenopyrum. Tree grows to 25' or so and during the early years grows from 13" to 24" a year in good soils. I have seen speciments in the Willamette valley of Oregon that appear to be taller than 25' and were 12" to 14" in diameter. I don't know how old they were but assume they must have been there a long time.