capnharv2

So, after more then 3 years I can tell you that the rigging is done....
Not the total build because there are a few things that has to be done like.....hammock netting ( yep, still to do ) anchors and lanterns.
But as it goes in the whole build now and then an update.
Don't ask me where all those ropes are going.....I don't know it anymore.
I have done the best I can do with it.
At the end it looks like spaghetti and all the time the hands are in the way.
I had the feeling that tying blocks will never come to an end.
Even at the last drawing I have to make blocks.
I think it is to difficult to show it in the first drawings.....
I try to put all the ropes on there own position but even that was not possible.
The belaying pins are that small that I can not put an hair around it !
I try because you don't see the difference with my grey hair or the grey rope 
But i'm satisfied with it.
Then rest me only one thing and that are pictures.
 
Sjors

COPPER PLATES....
Now that I'm adding a few planks to the hull (around the gun deck gun ports).... I am looking out to the copper plating and the thousands of copper plates eventually required.
Resources indicate there are over 3,000 of these 14" x 48" plates.
I am using 8 cm X 20 cm plates to represent the plates on my 1:60 model.
 
Used a paper cutter to slice the 8 cm strips from the 4" x 10" sheet purchased from a local hobby shop. 

Also purchased this little pattern wheel I found at WalMart, then cut the notches to create a pounce tool.... (the tools I found on the market do not have the right spacing of the serrated tips)

The results appear to be a pretty consistent pattern of dimples to represent the surface rivets....

So I figure I need to create about twenty five per day to accumulate a good starting supply by the time I get around to the need.
  
 

Hi all
 
Had to take a brake from building but now I appear to be back again, hopefully with some more regular updates. Finally done with the keel. Now on to do some frames!
 
Niklas

Thanks again. And once again I have changed my mind and decided NOT to add the crows feet. I am just not comfortable adding them to the Constitution, since the Hull model does not show them. 
 
I have been working on the collars for the masts and thought I'd show how I made them. I started by serving a piece of line, then seized small loops into each end, so I could make two collars at a time.

I then folded the line around a bullseye and got the lengths of the legs so they had a decent gap when wrapped around the mast.

I then seized a small loop into the other leg:

Then I seized the bullseye into the center of the collar:

After everything was trimmed, I tied a lashing line to one of the small loops and lashed the collar around the mast. I did not use a rose lashing, in case you were wondering. Here are some results:


I have finished up the mast tops with all the various eyebolts and blocks, so I am finally ready to start adding the lower masts to the hull.

The next item on the agenda was the quarter deck rail.  All told, this took me about 20 hours to fabricate and install.  There are no construction photos but I will do my best to describe the process.
 
There are five stanchions and a double rail at the break of the quarter deck. The stanchions are morticed into the breast rail inferiorly and the upper rail superiorly.  They pass through the lower rail.  The rails have a beading scraped into them but the thickess is so small, 0.065", that the beading is barely notable.  The stanchions were made as follows:   The profile of the central portion of the stanchion was cut into brass sheet stock as both a template and final shaper.  (I use very thin dental cut-off discs for this operation.)  Square stock slightly larger than the finished dimension was chocked into the lathe. The central portion of the stanchion was then turned just enough to remove all the edges.   Then the profile was roughly shaped by eye.  Finally, the template was used as a scraper to provide the final shape.  Slots were drilled and cleaned up for the sheaves.  These are simple discs, turned with a Dremel and sandpaper to the correct diameter and then center-bored before cutting off to prevent splintering.
 

 
The rails were shaped by placing them in a moist paper towel in the microwave...low power  and 10 second bursts.  They were then clamped to a curved chair back to dry.  It is very fiddly to get everything plumb and square, especially when the deck and the rails curve.  My sequence was to first insert the stancions into the breast rail mortices.   When the glue was set but not dry I inserted the lower rail and glued it into position.  After that was set I added the top rail and clamped everything to dry.  In the picture above, I still have to remove escess glue.  It really looks better than the photo would suggest; on my computer screen this is 5X magnification.  It looks better in the next photo.  It also looks like I have a ring bolt to replace!
 

 

 

 
 

 

I had originally decided to build my Confederacy kit from Model Shipways before building the Raleigh, but once I opened the box and put the bulkhead former together I noticed that it was warped.  Emailed Model Expo and have a new one on the way.  Since that build is on hold and the fact that I want to build and not wait; I've decided to start my US Frigate Raleigh build from the Hahn plans that I have.  The plans and timbering came from the Lumberyard.  The ship will be in 1:96 scale.  The timbering is cherry for the frames, keel and stem and holly for the decking.  The timbering did come with some laser cut parts for the stem, stern and keel.  Guess I'm kinda cheating, lol.  I really hope that I am up for the challenge of a Hahn style build. 
 
So far, I have cut the 1/8 cherry strips into the pieces to make the frame blanks and have started gluing the frame blanks for the cant and half frames.  There are 33 of those and 78 full frames.  I suspect that it will take roughly about a week to finish gluing up all of the blanks.  Anyways, on to the pics.  As always, any and all comments are welcome.
 
All the pieces for the half and cant frames, 34 each.

The pieces for the center full frames, 33 each.

The pieces for the rest of the full frames, 12 each.

Some of the half and cant frame blanks glued up and drying.

I finished working on the pre rigging of my foremast yards.
 
The royal yard
 
 

 
The top gallant yard

The topsail yard

The main yard

All four foremast yards

Tom, thanks I will continue to follow your build, it looks like you are ahead of me with the yards. I finished up the shroud lines and have mastered using my Sherline lathe setup for seizing lines. The real trick is speed being slow and slight tension on line being seized and feeding the thread at a slight angle towards the chuck end for the tight wrap. 
 
I started adding the deadeyes to the shroud lines tying off at four locations on the back lash. I found with my line that using tweezers at about 1/8" above the final position and bending the line back and tying a loop off with thread then add the deadeye adjust to final location 1/8" and lash off that this would take up the stretch in the line when tying off to final location. I used a ruler to maintain alignment of the deadeyes which I found could easily be slightly adjusted using the stretch in the line. Once one side was complete I added the sheer pole to hold the deadeyes facing forward before I will add the ratlines. I hope this makes sense, but pictures may help as well.
 

 

 

 

Now back to adding sheer poles to the next two masts.
 

Mike , here how it looks behind the movie screen.

Gary, thanks! I have been busy getting roof quotes to replace the entire roof per insurance company. I have been adding shroud lines and just finished up the lower main mast. In the meantime, the Museum folks came through with an authentic gathering net and 1/2" to 5/8" small abalone shells from the abalone farm north of us. I just could not find a suitable netting to replicate the original net so my wife offered to tie one up using a macrame technique and as far as I am concerned she did a great job of tying it up. I finished it off and it was a fantastic team effort that should please the museum. Here is a sequence showing how we fabricated the net. 






Now to test some Sculpty clay in the shells to make abalone as caught. Also back to shroud lines.
 
QUESTION: Should the ratlines be Black or Brown I have seen both versions? Options please.
 

Roughly,  62 frames are made of 1000 parts, each part has 4 sides to sand.
The setup is as follow : inside curve, ends, outside curves.
Then the tracing paper is remove with a scraper. A faster method is to pass the parts in the sanding drum, This machine is quite precise, much more than a planer because the adjustment can be made in 0,001 inch increment.
 
Frames part are divided in 3 groups : left, center and right components.
Left and right are put aside to keep the center parts which are going to be use to prepare the keel.
 
 
 
 
 

Thank you very much Pat, effectively, some process are very long to elaborate. I will explain an example in answering vossiewulf question.
 
The first model  at 1/24 was made on a low table which was even lowered later. The main disadvantage of a table is a fixed height. I wanted to find a better solution. Next step was a beauty chair with an oil cylinder. That was an improvement with a limited height adjustment but the  horizontal stability was not great. Legs were added to help. But still I was not satisfied. There had to be a better way.
 
Jewelers work on height adjustable table. This photo allowed me to enter in a new world to help to work ‘’in the better position’’. Working on the model at the wrong height is much more tired. I had to find a better height adjustable table.  I thought to a electric dentist chair. If  the back is expanded horizontally,  you have a good base to install a table. There are 2 adjustments on the table height and angle 0 to 45 degrees. On internet, in Quebec we have Kijiji who sell all kinds of used things. There I found a used dentist chair for about $500.  I am very satisfy with this new table. The only modification I did I changed the color blue to white, I prefer the look.
 
Then this chair brought me to the next step by making me to understand that working at the good height makes a lot of difference and it is a lot easier to work and you can work  for a longer period of time. When I began the first model at 1/24, I did a small table to be use a work bench charged with tools. It became very heavy so  tools were separated from the table. All the small tools for model ship modeling were regrouped in a same place, a chest with lower drawers to lose as less space as possible.
 
Then, only one thing was missing, a height adjustable workbench. I found a mechanism on Internet for an height adjustable table it can lift 300 pounds, around 150 kilos. I made a top for it.  All these big tools often needs to be moved at the good place to work. If I have to go 100 times to the sanding belt, I do not want to have to walk 10 feet every time, I want to have the tool close to me. The easy way to do it is to install wheels and then you can work more efficiently.
 
Our friend Mike, found at IKEA, a very affordable height adjustable tables : 2 or 3 positions, adjustable with a  hand crank or electric. Knowing what I know today, this is not the last tool I would buy, it would be the first one.

Gaetan,
So you went to your dentist and instead of asking for an old scraper or pick, you asked for a chair?  Wow.   "If you don't ask, you don't get."
Maury

Young America - extreme clipper 1853
Part 201 – Lower Mast Coats
 
When I decided to wedge the masts with pieced wedges, it was clear that some sort of mast coats would be required to cover the openings between wedges – not to keep out water as in real life practice, but to simulate the real coats and to improve the appearance at the bases of the masts.
 
Apart from terse descriptions, there was not a lot to go on in making these.  My usual search through photos gave some ideas, but ultimately the solution came from the question, "What would I do to make a watertight canvas 'flashing' over the mast wedges?"  I am comforted by the thought that many ships' carpenters asked similar questions – and came up with a variety of solutions - as the few pictures I have seen illustrate.
 
The canvas for the model coats is tissue and in the first picture a strip of this is being wound around the glue-coated main mast and its wedging.
 

 
Several strips were used with plenty of glue and not too much effort to smooth out the result.  Canvas would most definitely have wrinkles when forced into the required shape.  The next picture shows rope being tied around the top to clinch it tightly around the mast.
 

 
In practice the coat would have been caulked and tacked around the mast and deck, but rope cinches would keep it from tearing out from the nails and risking damage to the high-value cargo these ships often carried.
 
At the bottom, a flange was simulated using card and fitted around the mast at the base as shown in the next picture.
 

 
When this was glued in place and allowed to dry, a second rope cinch was added at the base.  The next picture shows the coat being "tarred" with fairly thick, dark grey, artists' acrylic paint,
 

 
After drying the coat was brushed with black, thinned, acrylic wash to highlight the wrinkles in the canvas and the ropes as shown below.
 

 
Those that have been following the project will note that the glistening brass pump wheels, by now well tarnished and lacking their original appeal, have been painted.  Next job for the painters, the equally tarnished poop monkey rail.
 
Other true followers may also notice in the picture that I have finally gotten around to adding the central posts to the fore and aft fife rails that were previously omitted.
 
 
Ed
 
 


 

 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Hello and welcome to my log of the HMS Victory by Panart this is not a rolling log as I built the ship before discovering MSW this was my first model ship I completed it in around eleven months ,knowing what I know now about ship building I would have spent more time and added much more detail however I am happy with the results and would like to share the images with you all as from time to time in my other logs you may hear me refear to the victory thankyou for viewing and please enjoy the following
 
steve
 
 



 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Looking good Dave! And glad to see you back at it!
 
Harvey

Dave,
 
Your model looks so good. Thanks for bringing her to the meeting Saturday.
 
Harvey

Here's part 2
As mentioned in previous post, the model has no crowsfeet, but it's a nice detail and I like the contrast between the black masttops and the light color of the thread.

I wasn't happy with the way my first attempt at rigging the foremast yard. I knew it would bother me too much, so I decided to redo it.
 
Here are my results. I am very happy the way the foot ropes turned out. Overall, things just look better.
 
 
 
 

Sanded and faired the starboard side inside and out. Much easier than the initial fairing. Port side tomorrow. 

Here's the aft gunport repair. It looks straight now. I guess I made one or more lintels too snug and they put lateral stress along the whole series of lintels. When the bulkhead was cut it allowed the stress to relieve itself with an upward bulge. Moral of the story....do not make lintels too snug.

I'm working up the energy to start sanding, so to still stay busy without sanding, I built a 15/32" X 15/32" square  jig to help me when I start making the gunport sides. Somehow using a jig to supplement my eyeballs will give me square gunports. 

I finished sanding the port side sill. You can see the plank I bent on to use as a sanding guide.

The kit comes with detailed patterns. When I cut them out I carefully cut along the bottom line which depicts the gun sill. This way when laid on the bulkhead frames it will give me the exact vertical as well as horizontal locations for all pieces.

I finished the bulkhead fillers as per the instructions. I had the hardest time keeping the keel straight. It never got very warped, but just enough to drive me crazy. I tweaked it and tweaked it until finally it is straight!
 
I might add some more filler when I am planking if I think it will help glue the planks on. Also, my fillers don't look as pretty as the instructions, but I think it is all hidden from view anyway.