capnharv2

Mark, I like your ladder jig. That looks very handy and adaptable! Thanks, Harvey

Mark, Thanks for this log. You, like Chuck, are showing what a wonderful job can be done with basswood. Harvey

That's impressive Jay. I would have burned the tape first. Harvey

Mark, I appreciate full framing, even though it's planked over. I've often thought of doing the same when I start scratchbuilding. I guess, to me, it's not a whole lot different than making details in the bowels of the ship that nobody will ever see-but it's still worth doing. Have fun! That's what it's all about. Thanks, Harvey

I've found that brass eyelets (like on shoes) make great porlight/deadlight frames. I also use double backed tape on a square of plywood to make a good sanding block. I've used 1/4-1/2" think wood before for sanding blocks, but find they do warp. When putting beeswax on line, I stretch and drag the waxed line over one of my lights (the shield, not the bulb itself). The heat from the incandesent bulb gets the cover to about 150 deg F, and melts the wax into the line. To straighten a piece of brass wire, clamp one end in a vise and the other in vice grip pliers. Pull hard for a little bit and the wire will work harden into a straight rod. Harvey For a quick sharpen of a chisel or plane, I tape a sheet of 400 or 600 grit sandpaper on a sheet of glass instead of using a sharpening stone. It also works on exacto blades.

CaptainSteve, If it were me (and I have no experience either, so anything is fine) I would lay the rudder flat on the seats. That way it can slide around (unless you lash it down) but not fall out. Also, I'd bring the tiller completely inside the hull. Anything to keep lines from snagging on the rudder and tiller. Also, if you're going to add oars, mast and booms, you could lash the rudder and tiller down with them. They wouldn't be needed until the oars and spars are needed anyway. Thanks, Harvey

CaptainSteve, Somewhere on my computer is a book on small boat (pinnace, gig, etc) handling, and I believe I saw something in there about rudder storage-but I can't find it yet. I would think the best place to store the rudder is someplace on the floors near the stern of the boat. I know that's where we store the rudder on our small sailboats. But, they may have had other plans that made more sense under the circumstances. Anyway, I'll look for that book some more in the next couple days. I must say, your ship's boats are looking very nice! Thanks, Harvey

Or a shipyard diorama. Remember the Frigate Constellation was cannibalized for the Sloop Constellation.

Mark, I'm sorry that the issues you found were troubling enough to start over. It's really a hard and personal call. Thank you for sharing some of your lessons learned in your build. I'm sure version 2.0 will be much more satisfying. Harvey

I have Delftship. It looks extremely powerful (especially for a free program) but it is intimidating.

Thanks Jay. With my fat, fumbling fingers, I'll need all the space I can get (and then some)! Harvey

I believe some members are using Google Sketchup, which is free. I tried it a couple of times, and it kept crashing my computer. Harvey

Thanks everybody! CapnSteve, I used the kit parts for the carronades, but I wanted to do something different for the cannon. So, I made the carriages out of boxwood and decided to leave them bright. Personal preference, that's all. I started making the runner pendants last night and found the plans call for thimbles, which are not included in the kit. I thought about using bullseyes, but I don't have enough of the correct size. So, I guess I'll try experimenting with making thimbles. We'll see. Thanks, Harvey

I don't know where the last 3 months have gone, but I've made some progress. I've got the bowsprit installed and rigged. I wanted to start the standing rigging for the lower masts, but I needed to install the hammock cranes and nets first. Photos courtesy of Mike Graff. Now that the netting is in place, I'll start on the mast rigging. Little by little, she's coming together. Thanks, Harvey

No problem. Thanks for the explanation. When I drafted my Speedwell, Deane mentioned some of the waterlines were defined by quadratic equations. I just spent some time looking for the origin of Copenhagen Ships Curves, but couldn't find anything. I've often had similar questions on lofting airplane wings.For a long time, airfoils were defined by NACA cross sections, but I don't know how the hows and whys of spanwise taper, or the transition of a fairing into the basic wing shape. I'm not an aero guy, and it was never a requirement to understand it for my work. But it's always been a passing curiousity, just like mathematical definitions of hull shapes. Perhaps, for those of us who are not Naval Architects or Naval Historians, the history of mathematics in ship design (prior to CAD) might create an interesting thread. Thanks for bringing it up. Wayne, I tried the small angular rotation in TC and it worked like a champ. I suspect part of my problem is understanding how to adjust the image reference point. I'm still learning how to do that and use the snap feature better. I'll eventually get it, but it will take time. Thanks again for your help. Harvey

I have to say that I get a chuckle from the sailing/selling terms used Ebay (how many nautical terms can I get in the description?) . . . 2 Photos Newly listedModel Schooner Ship Does anybody remember the Franklin Mint? A co-worker bought a finished model of the Cutty Sark from them in the 1980's. He paid $1000.00 for a finished model because "it's going to be worth a lot more one day". It wasn't a bad model, but it wasn't worth 1000.00.

Thanks for the responses everybody! Doreltomin, thank you for you explanation of the copy process. I remember some of that from doing drawings on the board, but we had dimesionally stable mylar copied at 1:1, not 200 year old drawings that had been copied and modified numerous times. I don't like breaking the profile up into chunks and re-assembling it. I fear I would create more errors than I would correct. I do have the image on a separate layer, and have been rotating and/or moving the image as required, based on a set of horizontal and vertical lines I have down. Jud,I didn't understand your question. Was it addressed to Doreltomin or me? Wayne, thanks again for your voice of reassurance. I was just starting to construct the waterlines from the traced station lines and waterlines. I didn't expect the constructed waterlines to follow the originals, but I was surprised how far off they were. There was a time 20 years ago when I did a set of plans on the board for a small cargo vessel, using Deane's Doctrine of Naval Architecture. It was a fun and enlightening experience-too bad I've forgotten most of it I'll try playing with small rotations again. A lot of these problems I attribute to my slow learning ability. I used to be able to jump from CADDS 3 to CADAM to CATIA V3 and V4 with no problem. Then V5 came along and wham!-I went from understanding a lot to understanding nothing. Since I never used Autocad, Turbocad has been that same type of stumbling block. I'll probably get there, but it will be a couple more years, not a couple more months, till I feel reasonably proficient at TC. The other problem I struggle with is how much interpretation and/or interpolation of the plans is considered reasonable. I don't know what the building tolerances were in the 1700's, but many of my wooden boat builder friends are still building boats to .03/.06" tolerance on a 50 ft boat. With that in mind, when I need to move a line or curve 1 or 2 or 3 or 10 inches from where it was originally drawn, I question whether or not I'm on the right track. Of course, the completed model is a representation of the original ship, not an exact copy, that I'm building,so maybe I'm too picky for my own good. I'll play with these ideas some more. I still have a lot to learn. Thanks again everybody. Harvey

I'm still playing around with transferring the NMM plans of the Ardent Class 64s to Turbocad (v17). Thanks, in part, to the folks on this forum, I've learned a lot and have made a lot of progress. But, I've stumbled across problems that have left me stumped. I had a digital copy of the plans made (I don't know the process they used to make them), so it's been pretty straightforward in tracing the profile. When I start tracing the body plan, I start having problems. The first thing I found was that the body plan is offset vertically from the profile. It's about 10" (when I trace the plans at full scale). It took a while till I figured this out, but I've managed to work thru that issue. Now, I'm seeing angular errors between the body plan and profile. They are off by .5 to .8 degrees (depending on the line I'm measuring). There's also some curvature to the straight lines from the copying process, but I think I know how to deal with that. I'm finding that TurboCad doesn't like to rotate images in less than 1 degree increments (I've tried increasing the angular precision from 2 to 4, but it still won't let me fine tune the angle). I plowed ahead and started the half-breadth plan from tracings of the body plan and the grid of the profile (if for no other reason than practice). The half breadths are way off. They follow the basic shape of original plans, but are offset from the original half breadths in one direction at one point (by about 10") and the other direction at some other point, and spot on in few places. I don't mind redoing the lines if I've made a mistake (I've redone them 4 times already), but I'm not sure how to resolve planss where the orthagonal views aren't orthagonal, and my program doesn't seem to be capable of correcting this. Any pointer on how to proceed? Thanks, Harvey

Very brave of you to take that on Danny-and you're doing a wonderful job of it I assume no rigging? Thanks, Harvey

Jay, LIke you and many others, I have Flemished the lines on my Connie's carronades. But in actual practice (during battle), how were these lines handled? They certainly didn't have time to coil them, yet I don't know what they did with the excess line. Any thoughts what the lines looked like once the cannon or carronades were run out? Thanks, Harvey

Very nice Shawn! I'm glad you had a good time. Harvey

Impressive! Excellent restoration! Harvey

Shawn, That looks wonderful!! I did this model about 20 years ago, and I really had a great time with it. My model did not have the large bottom planks. The original skipjack had a herringbone plank arrangement, and we had to plank the bottom with 1/4" wide strips. It was fun. BTW, why do they have those large blocks at the bow? Because that's what the original skipjacks had (boatwrights had to carve them out, just like you). Since the herringbone planking went up to those bow blocks, I assume Midwest left the bow blocks in and covered the bottom with single sheets of basswood. This particular boat is shown in American Small Sailing Craft. According to Chapelle (maybe you already know this), this boat was called an "Oyster Pirate", because, at the time, dredging for oysters was illegal (Tonging was the only legal method of harvest). So this boat would go out at night and dredge for oysters. He also said that someone later installed a gasoline engine in it, and it blew up and sank about 1930. If you don't have the book The Skipjack by Steve Rogers, you should get it. His Skipjack is a larger model (both in size and scale) and he has a lot of good weathering techniques in it-he also shows how to build an oyster dredge. That is a fun project in itself. Have fun! Harvey

That looks really neat Jay, and I'm glad it works for you. But knowing my klutziness, I'd probably be reaching for something on my bench and know the whole kaboodle on the floor. That, or sweep over the tops of them with my arm-breaking most of them and leaving dozens of nice scratches in my arm Thanks, Harvey

Hi Nenad, No, I haven't started a log on the Flying Cloud yet. I got it about 4-5 years ago from an older gentlemen who didn't want to finish it. I finished the first and second layer of planking, got the deck and rails on, and kind of stalled there. I've been working on my Constitution lately, and my wife want me to start on the Agamemnon soon, but the FC is sitting on my desk, and I hope to get back to it soon. Thanks, Harvey