Long9Ron

Thanks for the input Rusty, Pete, Russ and Larry.
 
Seeing that this is my first build I don't want it to get too complicated with stains and such, so I have decided to go with the natural look for now. I think it looks better myself. More experiments to come in the future. Anyway, I have a few more pictures below. I have made my jig and have mounted the keel. Also made a revolving table from a flat screen TV stand that I had laying around. Keiko the cat wanted to get into the picture.   Next step is to find some timber to do the frames. Also, had to reinforce my thickness sander, I had to much vibration in it. The board wasn't thick enough. 

Got the 2nd Cannon Cut but had a collision between the bit and the part during a move doing an end trim!! Just nicked it a tad, a little bondo and she'll be ok.... LOL It was my Boo-Boo in some hand made gcode I did, I told the machine to move from one end to the other and drop in height at the same time, the machine is blind and so must I be at times because I didn't think about it hitting as it went to the other end... LOL  Another problem I need to work on is drilling the barrel hole, I normally use my HF mini-lathe 7x10 to bore a hole in a shaft but these Cannons are too long for the tailstock & bit to accommodate them. So I'll need to make a jig that holds the blank vertical and drill on the Cnc wood mill.
 
The cannons pivot shaft hole was bored from both sides, I feared a tear out of the wood as the bit came out the other side so I only bored half way, did I 180 degree rotation and bored again into the same hole location. I was a tiny bit off but close enough to make it work with no wood tear out in the poplar wood. The gcode to do that simple thing had to be coded by hand, the expensive gcode software can't do it!!! So now my gcode is getting more things to do, one step at a time, I can bore the pivot hole & trim the ends by Cnc. It's still taking roughly  2-1/2 hours to make one Cannon, not exactly production run speed by any means..... LOL
 
 
 

 

 

 

 
 
AL

Hi Mates,
 
Still plodding along with carriages putting all of the bits together. It turns out that each assembled cannon will have just shy of 50 parts including the 10 parts that make up the wood carriage itself.
 
So 50 X 14 carriages;  Hmmmm 700 bits, I hope that this obsessiveness "pays off" (:-) I think that it will.
 
Next step is putting all of those brass bits into the blackening caldron then assembling them one at a time.
 
Thought the right angled and lengthy brass bits that attach to the upper and front edges of each carriage will have to be "blackened" carriage by carriage, as the bits are specifically sized to each carriage that have, it turns out, minor variations in size here and there. 
 
My error for the lack of standardized forward thinking. So throwing all 56 of those bits into the caldron would turn into a minor puzzle on the backside.
 
Please note that the method employed for drilling the axle hole stop pins was an absolutely Brilliant suggestion from Nigel, the sage that he is. Worked effortlessly. Once set up, the twenty-eight axles were drilled in less than fifteen minutes. That in-and-of-itself saved me lots of mental wear-and-tear. Thanks my friend.....
 
FYI: the red markings on the axles were so that I knew that I had adjusted the front and rear track widths, and the tips were OK to be drilled, and the longer left-over bits Dremel'd off.
 
Also regarding the Proxxon Milling tool, I did purchase a Proxxon chuck. I have sooo many tiny drill bits so this attachment becomes a one size fits all helper. It will accept the tiniest of bits and keep them super straight during use. Highly recommended part.
 
Again thanks so much for dropping by always so appreciated.
 
Regards,
 
Michael
 
 

Wow. Just Wow... Came across your build and starting reading it and I love the way you have added your own ideas to make it your build. You build fast but nice (very nice). You have inspired me to get back to building my cross section. Looking forward to seeing your completed build, and I believe that will be very soon. lol  

Greetings to all,
Mark, Tim, Pete, and Bindy thanks for looking in on my build and for the advice, motivation, and/or kudos. You all inspire me to continue giving my best and looking for ways to improve myself.
I thought Woody blended in too well (like a ninja), into the surrounding ship and decided to paint him so that he could stand out a bit. I decided to also get started on the aft quarterdeck and framed the QD beam by adding the carlings and ledges, and planking the port side of it. I’ve managed to start on the entry steps but still have to get started on the fenders. I also started on the gangway in order to best determine how I would go about making the brackets. I will be honest with all of you and confess that soldering the brackets was not my cup of tea and I did a little research on line and came across a web site (http://model-ship-plans.com/Campbell/Deck%20furniture.html ) and it explained that gangway brackets were made with either iron or wood. Since I am not too savvy on soldering and I have already incorporated plenty of wooden knees on my Triton, I decided to make wooden brackets for my gangway. The following photos will show how she is starting to look.
On a side note, whenever I place Woody on board the Triton, I tend to forget he’s there and move my ship from place to place, hence Woody falling to the ground a lot (I believe he may be a little suicidal, what do you think?).

Greetings to all,
The newest update to my Triton consists of planking around the gun ports both inboard and outboard (to include the outboards trim moldings). I’ve also completed the gun deck’s section of planking over the chain pump casing well, permanently attached both main topsail sheet bitts. I constructed the chain pump, one of the two hand pumps leading down the well, and installed the gun deck’s grating. I’ve also placed the first quarterdeck beam as a means of establishing how it is going to look once I get started on its.
Now here is my dilemma, in a couple of photos below you will see a couple of 7/8” barrels I purchased in Hobby Lobby. At this scale, the barrels will be equal to 42” in height which I believe are ideal size for the storage of the ships freshwater supply. My question is, did the Triton have platforms in its hold area? I ask because I believe that it will add for more details in the hold’s area and at the same time allow for the storage of barrels.

Greetings to all,
Many thanks to all for your kind words. Please excuse me for not posting lately. I just feel as if I don’t have enough to post, then I should continue to work on my model until I do have enough. Now that being said, here it goes.
I last left off with just the lower deck planked, lower deck hanging knees, and ladder going into the lower hold complete. Since I’ve only been working small items at a time, I’ve managed to install the hold pillars, add the gun deck beams (which have been planked to include the waterway and spirketting). Added the gun deck hanging knees, coamings for the gun deck hatch and ladder way, and made the main topsail sheet bitts.
I plan to make the gun deck stanchions, quarterdeck clamps and beam, and start planking around the gun ports over the weekend. The following photos will show you what she is starting to look like.

Greetings to all,
Well, where to begin. I know it’s been a while since my last post but I must confess that I’ve only been working on my model for one to two hours a day or at the very least every other day. Guess what, that adds up pretty quickly and before I knew it I was already getting started on the second deck. I am currently pulling a 24-hour shift at my job and after I got here, I realized that the gun deck I had already started stayed at the house and I was not able to get any more work on it. So I concentrated on finishing all of the ledges, add the louvers on the lower deck, plank the lower deck, install the hatch coaming, make and place the ladder to the lower  hold area (which I thought I needed hence its placement), add limber boards against the keelson, and finally finish the outboard planking. All of my planking received simulated tree nails by using an awl to mark the location and following up with a pencil. The following photos will show you where I am so far.
P.S. I forgot to mention that I've also added the hanging knees on the lower deck (Hooray).

Greetings to all,
Please excuse the fact that I have not posted anything new recently. The fact of the matter is that I’ve been pretty busy at work and other side projects. Speaking of side projects, a Buddy of mine wanted me to help him enclose the back porch of his house to which I was thinking of doing for free but he insisted that I charge him something for my work. What I then did was tell him that I was looking at Model Shipways New Bedford Whaleboat on eBay. If he truly wanted to pay me for my work then I’d take that as payment. So, I’ll give you a guess as to what my next future project is.
Well back to the subject at hand. I have only been working on the Triton at least an hour a day sometimes two. As per the general consensus, I decided to plank the port side of the Triton and have added the ceiling up to the lower deck beam clamps. I’ve also completed the lower portion of the well with shot locker. I’ll be honest with all of you, looking at it outside of the Triton, I can’t help but think it looks like an ice-machine found at any hotel. I also added the shot locker’s door and door entrance to the lower well. I also made the chain pump casings for the well and just dry fitted them inside the lower well to see how they look. Not too shabby if I do say so myself. I hope to finish the lower deck in order to commence work on the gun deck sometime this week.

Hello,
thanks to everyone for the kind words and likes..
 
12 pdrs cannon barrel
 
Pictures from the production of the negative mold to the finished
cannon barrel in the tin casting method.
Karl
 
 
T e i l  46
 
 

Thanks Ray! This is using 25% step over with the 1/4" ball nose bit for roughing to within .001" of finial shape and a 5% step over for the 1/8" ball nose bit to do the finish cut. What that means is that when it makes one cut end to end, it steps over 5% of the cutter diameter and does the next cut. Takes 1 hour to complete the job. As you can see it's capable of very fine cutting down to the width of a human hair if need be!! The real limitation is the size of the cutter used, a 1/8" ball nose leaves a rounded edge where I'd like a sharp edge, I need a smaller ball nose bit to get more detail But the smaller the bit the more chance of bit breakage!!! The smoothness of the cut speaks well of the machine's stability and stiffness.
 
AL
 
Here it is next to a pen to see the size of it, brush painted with some gray primer and some gold leaf paint I'm been wanting to try out, very rough surface and gold leaf paint is way too thin for my liking. Rough surface is typical of MDF when not sanded smooth.
 

 

Got the hull former plank layouts completed but haven't started cutting yet. For a little change of pace, trying my hand at Cannon making using my home made Cnc Router wood mill. There are several ways of making a Cannon as most of us know, the hard part is figuring out how to hold the blank while it gets cut on. Here is just one example that I just tested, cutting a half model of a Cannon. This was 5.619" long with a diameter of .867" at its widest point and fits a 1/4"  diameter cannon ball, approx. 18:1 Scale. This was just a test to see how much detail can be done and how smooth the cut would come out on my Cnc Router wood mill using a 1/4" Ball Nose for Rough cut, 1/8" Ball Nose bit for Finish cut, not bad at all, just needs a few improvements done. I would still prefer a rotating blank to cut on but don't have my 4th axis rotator modifications built yet. Material for Cannon blank is MDF 1/2" thick x 1" wide glued to standoffs on a throw away pine board. The beauty of this process is that when the blank is done, it is band sawed off the glued dowels and then glued to another half prepared the same way. Barrel hole would be drilled in both half's held together before being cut to shape. Again, this is just one way of doing it. No sanding was done to smooth surface, its as it was just after cutter finished with it.
 
AL
 

 

 
 
 
 

Couldn't wait any longer, just had to see how she looked with one complete hull former clamped together.... LOL She's a big lady for sure!! Still working on parts placement on boards for cut path's. Laying out 101 hull former parts can be a mind bender for sure, must be done by hand to get the best fit and use the least amount of wood, then double checked against my cut list to make sure I'm not cutting out duplicate parts or missing any!! 
 
AL 
 

 

 

 

Got some more ship timber in and a 1" Poplar dowel to make cannons with! So we are back at it again making chips!!
Cut out a couple parts to check size and fit, for those who think CNC is flawless, think again.... LOL There is a slight mismatch in parts, several reasons for this, main one is..... its HARD wood with a GRAIN!!! The small 1/8" End Mill cutting bit will try to follow the path of least resistance in the grain of the wood, even a Carbide bit will flex a little while cutting, I even try to chuck the bit up close so it doesn't hang out too far from the router chuck, too long a bit will chatter, ( bending while cutting ), and make a wider cut path ( also known as Kerf ). Its just like a table saw, you only use as much blade as you need to cut the wood thickness!!  So a CNC wood router is not perfect but its close enough for me to deal with. Another item of interest is that this router is a ( bought from Lowes ) Hitachi M12VC variable speed 8,000 RPM to 24,000 RPM, I never use this router on HIGH speed. The speed dial has a scale of 1 to 6, I never go above 3 which is maybe 12,000 RPM. Most of the guys that run full out and under a heavy load, end up replacing their router bearings after a year of hard pressed wood cutting, I've had mine running for over 5 years with no trouble. So bottom line is..... go easy on your tools and they will last a long time! Your mileage may very!!
 
AL
 




 
Notice the mismatch in cut between the next two pictures.
Top side perfect match.

Bottom side mismatch.

 

1st 2" x 6" x 48" Red Oak plank cut finished, enough parts for 2-1/2 ea. hull former's, if my math is correct.... LOL  That's approx. 8 hours of Cnc wood cutting! Need a run to Lowes lumber department to get some more ship timbers now, the ship yard is depleted of Red Oak!.... LOL  
 
AL
 



 
 

Hi everyone!  Got the aft cant frames raised.  Please let me know if you notice anything amiss or incorrect.  I don't see anything too bad, and am pretty happy with the way it turned out.  I haven't done any heavy fairing on them yet, that's the next step, and add the copper bolts to the floor futtocks.  I am going to leave 20-23 or so a little thick until I get the aft square frames in so I make sure I don't take off too much.  After fairing the aft portion, going to move onto the fore cant frames.  Have a good one guys.
 

More.. 
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 

 

Hello, thanks to everyone for the kind comments.
 
Karl
 
 
Upper-Deck
prepared for the installation of the cannons.
 
 
 
 
T e i l  45

Black picture, find the needle!
When I installed this black floor, I thought that finding a small part on the floor would be hard. In fact, it is the contrary, it is easier to find a small object.  Since I installed it, I did not lose any parts on the floor.

I think I'm back on track, now onto raising the aft cant frames.  Here's photos of the stern section redo.  I am very happy with it and think it looks better than the original attempt.  Happy modeling everyone...
 

Some more pictures!
 

 

 

 
At this point I have to mill some more wood for frames. I have already printed out and cut up the patterns.
 
This process is comming along quite nicely and I am enjoying it
 
 

Sanding angle on cant frames, the sander is homemade and way underpowered, but it works slow but sure.
 

 

 

 
Lining up and setting cant frame to deadwood
 

 

 

 
Two more cant frames and I can start the bollards and hawse construction
 
Progressing! couple more years and I will have it done
 

 
I have anouther project that I am working on so I am dividing time between them

Hi all, back with a little bit more progress...   The first set is the mounting to the board to get ready for framing.  Since the build board is a pretty good size, I acquired some table legs with locking wheels so I could rotate it around to get to all aspects from any angle.  Also, the mounting is set up the same way with as little in the way as possible without compromising security and support for the keel, stem, and stern.  The second is the second go with the transoms, they're almost ready to glue in place, plus I have to remake filling #3, that's why it's not in the photos.  I broke it in half while I was tapering it, oops.  I learned quick not to cut the notch before I shape them, lol.
 
Build board mounting...













 
The transoms, test fitting...
 




 
Have a good week everyone!
 
Randall

Hello,
 
capstan prepared for installation on the gun deck.
 
Karl
 
 
 
 
 
T e i l  42

Hi everyone!  Hope everyone is having a great day.  It's like spring here in the Denver area today, very nice.
 
I'm back again, this time with a little progress finally after having to pretty much start over.  I hope the photos came out better this go 'round.  So I have the fore pieces, aft deadwood (finally came out acceptable, but still not absolutely perfect), and the keel rebuilt.  I carved the steps on the deadwood by hand as you tell by the pile of shavings in the photos.  Now I'm off working on the stem, apron, and fore deadwood.