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This thread has piqued my curiosity in possibly trying my hand at sculpting some 1:24 scale miniatures. I'm building a 1:24 scale Gunboat Philadelphia and would rather it 'not' look like an abandoned ghost ship when completed. I'd like to have two or three scale figures aboard to give my build a more lifelike appearance. Problem is, I cannot find any 1:24 scale figures for sale that would be period correct for a Continental Gunboat built in 1776. Plenty of British pieces found, but not American. I'll need to try and make my own. Fingers are crossed as to the outcome. I've purchased some polymer clay and wire. The only thing missing is a few period correct drawings, images, etc. of some 'Ordinary Seaman' types of crew members. 1776 Continental Officers and their uniforms are easy to find. I don't need officers. I need to know what the lower ranking Continental sailors dressed like in 1776. If anyone has any images or links to share, I'd be grateful!

" Ah ha, there you are!" "Let's get this done!"

Thanks guys. It's a slow go, but I'm getting there as fast as I can. I now have about 50% of the bottom holes drilled and ready for receiving additional trunnels, however. I only have enough trunnel material made up to fill about another 1/8 of the holes I've just drilled. I now need more trunnels. Seeing how Mr. Ribbit watched me make the first load of trunnels, while he was a bit hung over, hopefully he won't mind helping out this time around knowing that I'm not asking him to do anything that I, myself, aren't willing to do. We'll see. "Ribbitttttttt... where are you?" "There's something that we need to do!"

I thought I was abusing myself by staying up until 1:30am wanting to get a bit of trunnelling out of the way on my Philadelphia. You've got me beat by 1.5 hours. That makes me a 'lightweight'! *sigh*

Nice job so far! If it's not too late... you might be interested in finding this book. It's the "Bee's Knee's" when it comes to B17's...

I like to stain 'before' gluing because cured glue does not take stain very well. The glue joints will become very noticeable, after staining, if you stain 'after the fact' and there was any glue squeezed outside of the actual glue joint. When staining prior to gluing, just make sure that your choice of stain is glue friendly. Stain some scrap and try gluing it together. If the glue doesn't hold very well... buy a less oily stain. If the glue holds, you're golden!

... and here's the bottom view.

Toothpicks are good. 'Not' Bamboo! 🙂 I'm off to the races now! The Birchwood isn't as light in color as I was hoping it would be. That's okay. I can live with this so "here goes!"

Keith, if you ever go with a 'bottle-project' please let me know. I have a good supply of .042" diameter 'deadeyes' that I'd be willing to share with you... free of charge! 🙂

A new load of Amazon 'Birchwood' toothpicks just arrived. I haven't made any trunnels yet, but red flags are already being thrown! These things are 'also' made in China (why don't the Amazon adds selling this stuff disclose that, the actual packaging, etc.?). Upon close examination of the toothpicks, it 'does' appear as though the texture of the wood is a bit different, however. That could be due to toolmarks and manufacturing procedures. The only way to find out if they are truly 'Birch' is to make a trunnel and examine the finished end grain results after all is said and done. I'm willing to accept bets on the end results of this next test... just keep it quiet and don't let the moderators see us gambling. There's probably some silly forum rule against members gambling here! 😕

I'm 'miffed' now! I ordered a good supply of Birchwood toothpicks, from Amazon, because I'm almost out of the ones I've been picking my teeth with. I went to the trouble of drawing out some trunnels, gluing them in place, clipping them off and sanding them down only to discover that those new toothpicks are 'NOT' Birchwood at all. They are Bamboo!!! 100% false advertising on Amazon!!! Who would ever know that the toothpicks they were buying were not really Birch unless they were making 1:24 scale trunnels out of them? I actually like the look of the end grain of Bamboo, but not for 'this' model. The Philadelphia did not have 'wedges' in its trunnels. Maybe a 1:24 build with wedged trunnels would look good with bamboo, as the bamboo 'does' add character... but not this build. Totally out of place! I put in for a refund and ordered a different brand of 'Birchwood' toothpicks. I wonder if those will prove to be bamboo too! "!@#$" "Buyer Beware!" Here's another picture, showing the scale with a U.S. dime. The trunnels are .042" in diameter. The end grain is noticeable. Bamboo just doesn't look proper for 'this' build...

It's hard to say if any of your dimensions are actually 'oversized' or not. I'll say that they are probably Spot-On for the "Keith Black Manufacturing Company, Inc.!" I'm sure that there were many companies who made these things, and I doubt that any two of those companies made them exactly the same way. Even the drawing that you posted is not sure, only guessing. It definitely looks like a period correct "Keith Black" model to 'me'!

Birchwood looks pretty good... "Hmm?" I'll draw out some trunnels and test 'this' material...

Holes look crisp and the color of the trunnels is good, however. Bamboo won't work for my trunnels at 1:24 scale. The internal porosity is much too pronounced in a treenail this size. I'll try Birchwood toothpicks and see how 'that' works.

I caught the shop supervisor dumping some personal debris into the company dumpster today. Seasoned branches and twigs from his back yard. He claims it is willow, but I'm not so sure, nor do I care. It has a nice off-white, cream color to it and a very tight grain. I warned him about using the company dumpster for personal use, then asked him to put the rest of the branches in the back of 'my' truck! 😐 What can I say? "One man's garbage, another man's treasure!" He surely thought I was nuts until I told him what I was up to. Anyway. I cut a couple of branches that look about right for the size and shape of my Philadelphia's stem and stern posts. I haven't officially verified their correctness, yet, but I will. If these two cuttings don't work, I'm sure that there are other specimens that will. I simply grabbed two branches off of the top of the pile that looked somewhat promising.

I made good progress on both Basswood 'and' Bamboo trunnels today. I've made maybe enough trunnels to do 1/3d of the boats bottom and flooring timbers. I'm trunneled out for the day. Time for a break! Before getting too carried away, I want to do another test to ensure that the colors of the trunnels 'and' my drilling crispness is truly where I want them both to be. There's still a lot that could go wrong, as you can see by the sloppy holes from my first test. It took me 8 tries to get the speed and feed of my drill-bit correct via that first attempt. I'm now just letting glue dry to get ready for the next test. Fingers are crossed!

I'm really liking this project of yours! It's different and quite nice. If I start building an old wooden oil derrick, or windmill... "It's YOUR fault!"

I thought I'd try using a rotary tool with my drawplate. It actually works on both round toothpicks as well as 1/16" square stock. The round toothpicks are Bamboo, and the square stock is Basswood. I can't go more than 4" long on the square stock otherwise it starts to wobble wildly at my Dremel's lowest setting. So far this is working great!

Ribbit doesn't like making trunnels. Last night he begged me to let him clean windows, scrub toilets, do "ANYTHING" but spend the day making trunnels! I couldn't oblige him. It must be done! This is how I found Ribbit early this morning when it was time to get started. I guess I'd better get a large pot of strong, black coffee going!

All four drilling bosses are ready. Time to start making the trunnels...

Trunnel material problem has been solved. As per the photo below... the end grain of my basswood trunnel material is shown on the left. It's quite dark after being treated with Tung Oil. What you see on the 'right' is a Bamboo toothpick that I clipped and treated with the same Tung Oil. The end grain of the Bamboo does not darken to the extent that the basswood does. I'll be drilling my trunnel holes all the way through the components to be tree nailed, however. My trunnels will only be 1/2 of that length. Trunnels inserted from the bottom planking side will be made from Basswood. Trunnels inserted from the top of the flooring timbers and frames will be Bamboo. This will provide a nice, subtle contrast in colors no matter what part of the boat is being viewed by one's eye. Nothing glaring, nothing rude... just noticeable.

Please don't feel intimidated or 'left out' by what I am doing here. As per my 'aforementioned' post... there is no reason for anyone to approach this trunnel drilling thing in the same manner that I am doing it. Traditional methods of 'trunneling' any wooden ship model will work just fine on this model too! I'm simply being impatient, lazy and cheating by taking advantage of technology that I happen to have on hand.

I called the laser operator yesterday evening and told him to burn only 'one' of the four templates. First part inspection required. When dealing with so many holes, flooring timbers of various widths, and human error... I needed to ensure that all of my measurements were actually correct and that all of my holes were truly in their proper places. So far so good. The forward template with 128 holes is spot on. No holes will be out of place nor blow through the sides of any of my flooring timbers, at least not on 'this' drilling template. The slots cut in the middle of the template are simply sight gauges allowing me to locate the center line and also see the edges of the flooring timbers to verify that the trunnels will not break through the sides of those timbers. 'This' template passes QC inspection, so I'm going to have the other three templates cut without inspection.

I'm actually using a Dremel and a Dremel drill press. The problem is that the only proper sized drill bits I could find for a 1:24 scale hole are a bit long. I can't seat them far enough into the Dremel's chuck to only have a short part sticking out. That's where the wobble and bit wandering comes from. I could probably cut the bits shorter, but with a SS drilling boss, why bother. My templates will guide the bit without allowing any drift.

Still experimenting with the trunnels. I was going to simply print out a paper drilling template but noticed that my drill-bit would wander off target, just a bit, every time the point of the drill bit touched the wood. That probably wouldn't happen if I used an awl to poke a 'pilot' indentation into the wood prior to drilling, but there was also another problem that I ran in to. That problem being close tolerances to prevent me from accidentally drifting too far off target, for my holes, and accidentally blowing out of the sides of the flooring timbers via me just missing the target, or the drill bit drifting upon initial contact with the wood. With a paper template I could not see if I was properly aligned with all of the flooring timbers before drilling. I also noticed that after leaving my paper template taped to a practice dummy, overnight, the paper had expanded due to a sudden change in humidity and the template was no longer fitting proper for drilling accurate holes. "Hmm?" That's not good. It's going to take me a few days to drill all of those trunnel holes, and I can't have my template changing every day. To solve this problem, I'm getting rid of the paper template and going with a hard template that won't be affected by the weather. I've divided the bottom of this build into four sections. Each section will have its own separate template with viewing slots to ensure that everything lines up properly. These templates will be made from .035" thick stainless steel. There's no reason why such templates cannot be made from cardboard, thin plywood, etc. The only reason that I chose thin stainless steel is because I have a ton of that stuff at work and also a laser to cut it with. It saves me a lot of time, which is something that I currently just don't have enough of. I need to cheat if I'm going to keep this build from bogging down and going stagnant right after getting going! I've also purchased some Bamboo toothpicks to draw down into .042" diameter trunnels. I want to see how the 'end-grain' of those drawn bamboo trunnels take to a clear-coat finish. Fingers are crossed! The night shift is supposed to cut out my templates. Hopefully they'll be ready tomorrow.