coxswain

I started cutting up more of the deck.

The main yard on Red Jacket was 90 feet long, and the yardarm 5 feet.

Post 61
Blocks and strops around the Masthead
 
There are a number of blocks and strops to fit around the masthead for the yard ties, and other tackles.
I held-off fitting these before stepping the mast and fitting the standing rigging so I could better assess the pendent lengths and positions relative to the yards.
 
Atop the running backstays the pendent and strop for the Gaff jeer tackle block is fitted.

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A 4mm double block is stropped into the pendent.

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At the lower end a 4mm single block is hooked to the gaff.
 

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This now allows for the gaff and its tackle to be fitted to the model, temporarily secured at present in the lowered position.
 
Above this are the pendents and standing blocks for the Spread-sail and Square-sail yards.
I adopted the Alert book arrangement of hanging the Yard tye pendents from the mast head rather than follow the kit arrangement of having separate cleats to support the tyes at different levels down the mast.
 
However, once again there are inconsistencies in the Alert Book
Drawing H18/3 AND H22/1 show the spread-sail and Square-sail tye blocks in opposing positions.
 
I took the view that the longer Spread-sail tye pendent went over the masthead first.
 

4408
Seizing the pendent around the mast head.
 

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The tyes were made from 0.3mm ø served line stropped with a single 4mm blocks.
 
The final strop below the T’gallant mast is for the Topsail yard tye.

0180

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This fits between the trestletrees and is held in place by cleats on the Topmast head.

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The three standing tye blocks for the Topsail, Square-sail, and Spread-sail yards.

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Now getting into a very messy stage with loose ends, there are still strops to make and the fitting of the horse to figure out.
 
 
 
B.E.
27/01/2020
 
 

Today I glued the spanker mast in place and am preparing to build the lower stays and their rigging.
 
Rob

Warning exotic tool use! (Cont’d)
Now that I have correct dimensions roughly, I needed to add the curves to match the sweep of the hull.
 
For the lower half of the deck house slab, I could have used a wide gouge, but I happen to have some old-school molding planes - what folks used before machine routers, from a project to make porch rails with my kids. I took my widest one and dished the center of the curve and then used sand paper wrapped around my mis-cut piece to create the concave curve. I did that twice because I penciled the curves to be cut to match my mis-cut piece instead of the hull.
 
Once that matched, I used the block plane to round the top convex curve. Note: all the curves fan out slightly as the width of hull changes; a few diagonal swipes were used to handle that. For the bottom curve, I then used the hull as a sanding block to match the hull curve.
 
I included a few photos in ‘raking’ light so show the tool marks before sanding and after, so folks have an understanding of how messy (or not) the process is.

Warning exotic tool use!
Having mis-cut the boat house slab, I needed to replace that kit part. The company seems to have departed this mortal coil, so I went and made a replacement. I took a scrap piece of pine and penciled in my dimensions. I used a small saw to cut across the grain (since my scrap was twice as thick as I needed) down to just above my desired depth. I then used a flat chisel and a mallet to wack out the waste wood. The cross cuts allow the waste wood to pop out quickly. It also means the chisel doesn’t have to be razor sharp. The whole operation took four or five minutes (plus time for finding the tools). I then used a block plane to flatten the slab.

In the older days before the solid gun mounts they would hold the M-60 Rambo style from a lanyard attached from the overhead. The Loach gunners still did it that way when I was in. I suppose it could have been this method. On our mounts we had a limit on the mount and also a tether attached to the barrel that would limit upward travel to below the rotor arc. Not really much chance of hitting the rotor. I have never seen it happen either. Even more amazing, my personal fear of being shot by a fellow gunner in another chopper never happened either.
 
The story of shooting your own rotor could have also been a war story made up by the instructor to put the fear of God into the new recruits, I would not put it past him. When we were in basic training and being introduced to the M-16, the instructor held out a M-16 at arms length one handed like a pistol, and fired three fairly rapid shots at the 25M target to demonstrate how little recoil the M-16 had. He then retrieved the target and showed us three holes that could be covered by a .50 cent coin. I always thought that he had made those holes from three feet away before we got there and the three we watched him shoot never came close to the target.

Beakhead bulkhead installed & second planking finished.  Lots of sanding to go yet,then the upper gun deck ports will be opened up & lined.   Pardon the dust - I haven`t cleaned anything up yet.  A little paint touch-up will be needed after sanding.  Plenty of planking strips were supplied - I probably have enough left to plank a small ship!
 

 

 

 
Mark

This photo (from left to right) Finished main yard, partly done fore yard, and roughed out mizzen.

The template in the kit for the deck house wrong, way wrong! I should have caught that but I didn’t. Even the most causal observer will note the difference in the gray cut out and the photocopy with decking (except me; I missed it until it was too late).

I believed back then most of those protesters weren't there to protest because they believed on the protest. Nope, most of them seemed to be there to meet members of the opposite sex.  Laugh... but heard too many say they found their mate there.  Sadly, those idiots didn't have boundaries. Even sadder, they've passed that apathy, etc. on to their children.   The catch was/is that most of those didn't understand that those of us in the military were in control such things as war, etc.   
 
I'll get off my soapbox and also apologize for hijacking this topic.   

So we have a couple of things in common Dave. Helicopter riding, and being stationed in the Cockroach, Tarantula, hurricane, pit of the world! I was fortunate enough to waste six months of my precious life stationed at Ft Sill! Do they have a "Good" season there? If so it didn't show up while I was there. Not all but many of the towns people had attitudes toward the military to match as well. There were "No Military" signs in a number of places in 68-69. I thought it was odd for a town that would dry up and disappear if it was not for the base! It was almost a blessing to get orders to ship out overseas! 
As for your inaugural helicopter ride, I'm sorry but like CDW I can't help but chuckle a little. If it makes you feel a little better I  could tell you of at least three cases of "Pilot humor" where the intent was to scare the livings daylights out of the passenger(s). In one case the targets were pilots themselves! 
 
It is fairly certain that the pilots could not hear you, but there is little doubt they were getting a blow by blow account from the crew in back who were "watching over" your welfare.😈

They may have been lawyers, but many served in the Continental Army (Monroe and Hamilton) or had their lives messed with by the Redcoats. Hence, the Bill of Rights for all of us.

That's the difference between writing about it and spilling blood to achieve it.

Dave
I know that had to be a harrowing experience, but it is funny as heck reading about it after the fact and realizing you made it okay without a bad outcome. 😁
 
 

Here is my not so good (or funny) trip on an Army Helicopter. 
    Sometime in the spring of 71, while on temporary duty at the Ft. Sill Army Hospital, I had my first and only experience with an Army chopper.  In a joint Army/civilian disaster exercise,  I was volunteered (?) to participate as a victim in a major highway accident.  My part was to pose as a victim with severe head trauma which required me to wear a neck brace and to have my head, including my eyes, to be heavily bandaged.  I couldn’t see a thing after that and was strapped down onto a gurney which was hustled off to a waiting chopper and set inside with the doors still wide open. 
    Well, the pilot seemed to think that trying some drastic evasive maneuvers was needed for some unknown reason or other.  All I could think of the whole trip to the hospital was that I prayed that the gurney had been solidly anchored in place as I desperately gripped the sides of the gurney hoping not to be ejected from the cabin as the wind howled by me and he made some pretty wild twists and turns. 
    I may have yelled out some choice oaths at the pilot, but with the racket from the choppers engines he probably couldn’t hear me at all.  (That was probably for the best anyway since I’m quite sure he outranked me by quite a bit.) It was like riding a monster roller coaster with your eyes closed and you couldn’t remember if your seat belt was hooked up.  Luckily, I had not eaten much that morning or I’m sure I would have left quite a mess to clean up. 
    I have never been that close to a helicopter since!!!!!

I’ve made a bit of progress on the hull well. I won’t use the term ‘ship shape’ but I’ll say I’m missing by less!

Cut out the pattern for the boat house and have trimmed the plank accordingly. The supplied plank has the compound curve “pre-cut” so just a small bit of trimming and sanding was necessary.

While trying to decide about the deck i did a mini project: swivelguns.  Here i also got to try out my new airbrush which was quite fun but also abit of a challange to use. 

Once again, the design with resin guns with photo etched parts made this not that difficult. Everything is very small but came together nicely.  It was even easy to drill out the guns with a 0.8mm drill.

I think I‘ll try dark grey paper next, see how that looks. My brother also agrees that the cardboard is too wide.

As you can see I have a wider King Plank in the middle a wider plank for the Binding Strakes, which should actually be two. Outside of these is where the fir planking starts, but only on the lower deck.

My brother, who is an expert ship modeller mostly leaves his wood natural, but I‘m thinking of airbrushing(!) a fine mist of grain filler as some protection, as I‘m worried the untreated wood would pick up dust too easily especially in moist and humid conditions.

When I want better photos it looks like this… but most of my production photos is just with my mobile.

My whole armada getting ready for war... Here you can see that Speedy is not the largest boat... but it is one of the more beautiful!

That looks better:

I tried again with two sheets this time so I could mix and match pieces to break up grain patterns. I used birch instead of the kit’s oak. I taped one sheet on top of another and cut them with an x-acto blade at the same time.