jaerschen

Excellent work Jeurgen Not the easiest of planks to clamp in position
 
Kind Regards
 
Nigel

Hello,
 
Thank you so much for your nice comments and also for the likes. I'm very pleased about this great interest.
 
Here's a little update. Some strakes below the wale and the garboard strake are fitted. The progress is very slowly because It's partial a bit tricky.
Also I needed time to find a way to add the planks without leaving any trace at the frames. Therefor the build from Ed of the Extreme Clipper is a great help.
 

 
In the TFFM-book this strakes are reffered to as thickstuff under the wales. There is a little step from the second to the third strake to see on the following photo. That's why the thickness of the strakes decreases. I will sanding down them when the fourth strake is installed.

 
That's the current progress.

It's always a pleasure to see this fine model Nils. Well done

Build log part 71
 
 
 
a little update, moving on, to fitting and mounting the square sails....., starting with the main course attached to the main yard.
 
I decided to pre-rig the square sail to the yard, and then put the yard with the sail at it`s place.
Most of the lines are sheaved in to the tiny blocks, also truss tackle, clue lines for the main, and sheet line for the main topsail. Also the main yard-sling will be pre fixed to the yard.
The leech- and buntlines will be sheaved to the blocks under the main top platform, before the yard goes to its place.
 
I hope all shall go well and that the lines do`nt get tangled whilst mounting
 
Nils
 
 

 
first a few sights of non-complete fitting out status
 
 

 
 

 
 

 
 

 
I decided to put flemish horses to the outer yard tips
 
 

 
blocks, stirrups and horses mounted
 
 

 
first trial hanging in of the main yard
 
 

 
stern view
 
 

 
the sail is now standing square to the ships length axis, the square sails will later on be braced as sharp as possible
(Fouling with the shrouds)
 
 

 
Pre rigged main course
The vertical lines are for truss tackle
The other line are preliminary lead through the outer stud sail spar supports, for easier mounting
 
 
 
 
 
 

Hello,
 
Thank you so much for your nice comments and also for the likes. I'm very pleased about this great interest.
 
Here's a little update. Some strakes below the wale and the garboard strake are fitted. The progress is very slowly because It's partial a bit tricky.
Also I needed time to find a way to add the planks without leaving any trace at the frames. Therefor the build from Ed of the Extreme Clipper is a great help.
 

 
In the TFFM-book this strakes are reffered to as thickstuff under the wales. There is a little step from the second to the third strake to see on the following photo. That's why the thickness of the strakes decreases. I will sanding down them when the fourth strake is installed.

 
That's the current progress.

Hello,
 
Thank you so much for your nice comments and also for the likes. I'm very pleased about this great interest.
 
Here's a little update. Some strakes below the wale and the garboard strake are fitted. The progress is very slowly because It's partial a bit tricky.
Also I needed time to find a way to add the planks without leaving any trace at the frames. Therefor the build from Ed of the Extreme Clipper is a great help.
 

 
In the TFFM-book this strakes are reffered to as thickstuff under the wales. There is a little step from the second to the third strake to see on the following photo. That's why the thickness of the strakes decreases. I will sanding down them when the fourth strake is installed.

 
That's the current progress.

Outstanding craftsmanship Alex, perfect.

Hello and thanks marsalv for warm words!
 
not much to show, only a little update: have worked on chain pump handles, so there the result. The images show main steps from alignment to installing. The axle is from 1mm brass rod, the crank handles from 0,8mm rod, all soldered together.
 

 

 

 

 
Alex

Young America - extreme clipper 1853
Part 103 – Planking and Wales continued
 
The work proceeds apace.  Post-holiday lull and the winter weather helps.  Work on the lower hull requires either some gymnastics or some other support for the model.  The first picture shows the simple setup that allows the model to be tilted as needed – a very un-shipyard-like look.
 

 
The wale on this side is about one-half planked in this picture.  The next picture shows the wale planks converging at the lowest perimeter strake at the stern.
 

 
The brass rod is the diameter of the gudgeon eyes and is being used to mark the center of the helm port by laying it on the sternpost.  In the next picture a hole for the port has been roughed out.
 

 
The rudder head was round and was encased at the port in a sleeve – wood or iron – to prevent ingress of water.  The diameter of the rudder shaft was 16” – matching the sternpost.  With the sleeve the opening will take up much of the area as yet unplanked.  I decided to fill the area with a single chock as shown in the next picture.
 

 
A circular opening for the sleeve and rudder head will be cut through this later.  In the next picture the hole has been centered.
 

 
Additional wale strakes are being added in this picture.  In the next picture the final piece on the port side has been boiled and is being fitted to dry.
 

 
The planks on this side are being stepped back at each frame to allow the stern area to be completed without adding more strakes on this unplanked side.  Hence these last two pieces are very short – the lowest will be half the length shown.
 
The next picture shows the final wale strake in place at the stern on the starboard side.
 

 
This side will be planked down below the waterline so there are more strakes to be fitted at the stern.  These will diminish down to the thickness of the common lower planking.
 
I don’t want to use this forum to pitch the forthcoming book, but I feel that a few words are in order, since several people have asked about it. 
 
Bob Friedman of Seawatchbooks and I were both quite enthused about a book on American clipper ship modeling.  We both felt this was a neglected area.  However, I had some concerns about another “full framing” methodology book that would be a rehash of previous material.  I was also concerned about writing a book about a large, fairly advanced structural model that would probably appeal mainly to a small slice of experienced modelers.
 
 It took some time for me to resolve these issues and decide to write the book – two books hopefully – the first on modeling the hull and the second on masting and rigging. 
 
Like the Naiad books – and unlike this build log – the books will be very heavy on methods – I like the word processes.  As work on YA progressed, the processes used were both different enough and in some ways unique and this allayed some of my concerns about redundancy. 
 
However, I still wanted to reach a broader range of modelers – specifically potential or less-experienced scratchbuilders looking for a foothold and some help on methods.  To this end the book will also include methods, drawings, text and pictures for construction of a smaller, simpler POB version of the model.  The processes developed for this model are designed to provide a basis for advancement to fully-framed modeling using the upright, shipyard-like, methods that many of us favor.  The planned volume on rigging – if we get that far – will apply to both versions. Simpler tools, fewer fancy devices and readily available materials will also be used for the POB model.
 
To support this important content, a second, 1:96 POB model is being constructed.  Until making the book decision, I have been careful to exclude this from posted pictures but that precaution is now no longer necessary so I will show one picture of the current work area with both models in progress.
 

 
Although having two models in the shop has exponentially increased the clutter, the biggest problems are keeping the two scales straight and using the right drawings – and getting all  the work done on schedule.
  
Ed

Some nautical trivia from my beach holiday. The town of Whitianga in Mercury Bay is know for a visit by Cook aboard the Endeavour but another of his majesty's ships left a more enduring mark.
 
HMS Buffalo was a transport ship built in Calcutta in 1813 and later used to carry convicts and colonists to Australia ( New Zealand was never sullied with transported prisoners) and transport kauri timber spars from NZ for the admiralty. She was blown ashore in a gale in 1840 and later broke up on the beach which was named after her and where I now paddle about with the kids. Only two souls were lost during the wreck.
It's hulk was briefly uncovered during a tsunami scare only 100m off the beach in 1960 and there are various small bits and pieces of her including copper sheathing in the local museum.
 
There are some rather nice images of the Buffalo by artist G Jackson on signs marking the spot of the wreck with the one of her grounding capturing the sense of stricken inevitability that must have hung over her once she was on the beach in a then-remote bay with little in the way of other vessels or infrastructure about for aid.
 

 

 
The waters are somewhat more calm today..

 
There are plans for the various conversions of the vessel in the NMM but little in the way of a proper hull plan that I can see with some initial looking although there are some slightly misshapen looking models in Australian Museums that can be seen online.
It would make a nice scratch build project one day...

Hello,
 
Here's a little update and I would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a Merry Christmas.
I started to fit the ribbands and coloured the Main-Wale black.

 
The ribband-nails are done in the same manner as described in the book from David Antscherl of the Swan-Class. Only the insertion tool was made of a screw and two screw-nuts.

 
For securing the nails I used white clue and think that it works.

 
 
The Main-Wale is coloured with black stain. Mark gave me this advice in my build of the Leopard and it works very well.

I have fully sanded the deck smooth.After this,the deck was wiped with an extremely diluted mix of Liver of sulpur gel,http://www.metalclay.co.uk/patinas/,thiswas to take the shine off the copper,rather than turn it black,which a stronger mix would have done.It has removed the shine and darkened the copper ever so slightly.So far two coats of poly have been applied and the deck has been rubbed down ready for the third.
 
Happy New Year everyone
 
Nigel

I'm away from home for a couple of weeks on summer holiday but after days of boating, fishing, swimming and general lounging about I've been rigging the yards in the evening. These are now all complete with the exception of the stirrups for the horses which are brass rod and will need some crafty cutting twisting and blackening when home again.
 
From left are the mizzen yards sitting on the mizzen upper and top mast and at right the main. At lower left is the spritsail yard.
 

 
Note the early style rigging of the main yard horses with deadeyes. This would presumably have allowed them to have the tension adjusted as per the shrouds but seems to have dropped out of favour in latter years.

Hello Ian,
 
I think I will have to see this one again :-)
 
Meanwhile a small picture of my ever growing family ...
    Some already knew about the freshest member in the front. As I had lately some requests regarding my Victory fittings for USS Constitution, I finally managed to do a first sample.   These are the oob ones, not too bad for plastic ...     ... and these are the original parts from my Vic :-)     Cheers, Daniel

OK, Druxey, here is my step by step.
 
I am no artist and the results will probably reflect that but so far the results don't look too bad.  I made the first trial section of frieze only to discover that I painted it upside down and without enough background aft to run out to the hance of the forecastle.  So I used this "opportunity" to document a step by step method for painting the friezes.  For my technique I used the instructions given in Vol II of TFFM.  I also had the pleasure of sitting in on a demonstration of frieze painting by David Antscherl at the most recent NRG national meeting.  
 
The first step is to have a background of the correct color.  I chose a blue background although there is a contemporary model of Atalanta in the NMM holdings that has a red background. The next step I found to be the most difficult.  David says to moisten bond paper (aka printer paper), stretch it gently, tape it to a flat surface and allow it to dry.  Then the background is painted.  The prestretching is supposed to prevent the paper from wrinkling when the acrylic paint is applied.  Well...  I tried three different types of paper, different moisture levels, different tape and weighting the paper under a sheet of glass.  I occasionally ended up with a strip of paper that looked passable.  After that I painted the paper with artist acrylics and ended up with wrinkled paper!  I could not find any blue archival markers.  Ink would cause the same problem.  Regular blue marker would bleed when I apply my solvent based finish.  I seriously thought about printing a sheet of blue paper but was concerned about the lifespan of inkjet pigments.  My solution was to use enamel spray paint without prestretching.  Three coats with a quick sanding of 600 grit between coats gave me good depth of color while smoothing out any imperfections in the paper.  It is still flexible and accepted acrylic paints well.
 

 
Although there is no freize shown on Atalanta's plans, there is one for Fly.  I used these for my design.  I traced the design on to regular bond paper.
 

 

 
The plan shows the starboard side but I am putting the frieze on the port side.  So I turned the paper around and traced the sketch on to the back of the paper, giving me a mirror image.  The drawing was placed on the painted paper and transfer paper was used to transfer the outline.  Transfer paper is found at any craft store and is used for stenciling and applying patterns onto cloth.  It comes in several colors.  White is best for this application.
 

 

 
The images were painted with two coats of ochre.  All the paints used were Liquitex artist acrylic.  
 

 
The highlights were applied with a mixture of ochre and white.  
 
 
 
The lowlights were applied with a mixture of ochre and burnt sienna.  Finally details such as the stems and leaf veins were added with a mixture of burnt sienna and burnt umber.
 

 
I used a pencil eraser to remove any white lines and powder from the transfer paper.
 

 
At these extreme magnifications, the detail work is a little heavy.  At normal viewing it looks much better; definitely better than I thought I could do.  

Thanks all.
 
David B, well the thing is I'm building Admiralty style so as I'm not adding any more planking it looks like the straps are underneath the planking. But if you  look closer you can see small shims I used to compensate for the lack of planking on the lower two gudgeons.
 

 
Remco

Hello,
 
Here's a little update and I would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a Merry Christmas.
I started to fit the ribbands and coloured the Main-Wale black.

 
The ribband-nails are done in the same manner as described in the book from David Antscherl of the Swan-Class. Only the insertion tool was made of a screw and two screw-nuts.

 
For securing the nails I used white clue and think that it works.

 
 
The Main-Wale is coloured with black stain. Mark gave me this advice in my build of the Leopard and it works very well.

The design of the parallel frames is finished. I tried to follow the original drawing as close as possible without one change.
 
If you have a closer look at the gun port position of the original drawing you will see a pencil note, which indicates that there was added a 5th deadeye, which is not common for cutters. I did not know any other cutter drawing with more than 4 deadeyes.
 

 
So I decided that I like to show this update of the original design - the Marshall drawing also shows 5 deadeyes. For this change I modified the gun port position and the top timber heads in this area.
 

 
My biggest problem during the design was, that the gun ports and top timber heads did not match the position of the double frames. I could not solve this problem with using another design, so I decided to shift the futtocks as I've seen in some contemporary drawings.
 
If you compare this design with the known design of the Aots-book (I don't like adding a scan to avoid problems with Copyright issues) you will see that this design is much more rugged. The gunports ar not put on top of the framing as Goodwin did.
 
I don't know but I hope that it's a little bit closer to the original framing. If you think that I can optimize the position of some frames, please let me know. Next I start with the fore cant frames.
 

Thanks Augie and Chuck, also thanks for the offer to re-cut the windows. You are right the angle was
off and now makes this an oh crap moment. I adjusted the rear most upright and that corrected the
angle for the rest of the windows.
 
Here is the new angle.
 

 
 
For the roof I had to make shingles and as Chuck described slicing them from a strip of 1/8” boxwood instead of
cutting from a 1/32” sheet was much easier. The pieces are cut a little thinner than 1/32” and then sanded to clean
them up and make them even thinner. The shingles were placed one row at a time. Once dry the tops of the shingles
were sanded smooth to match the roof angle so the next row would sit flat.
 

 

 

 

 

 
This catches me up on the work I had done while my pc was down. Now I have to decide do I rip it all out and get the
new windows at a different angle or continue on and make the columns for between the windows. Hmmmmmm.  

Hi All. Sorry for the delay in posting but between pc problems, the holiday and general family stuff I’ve been a
little busy. That’s not to say I haven’t gotten any modeling done. Well now that I have a new pc and I’m not using
the Admirals laptop and the backup files have been transferred I’ll start getting caught up.
 
I have completed the moldings on the transom and while doing so I noticed a minor problem. Self induced I must say.  
The upper counter is supposed to be uniform from port to starboard. Mine wasn’t! It was easy to correct this but in doing
so it threw off the height of the bottom of the quarter galleries. They are supposed to set on top of the black strake. Mine
will be into the black strake. It was the only way I could correct my error without tearing out the transom and wales. It just
goes to show the relationships between so many portions of the build. Miss on the wales placement and it alters the counter
which alters the quarter galleries.  
 
 

 

 

 
Here you see a set of laser cut lights and trim on laser board that I got from Chuck. This is really nice
stuff. Very thin and delicate but durable. I don’t the gentlest touch but the outer lights survived my
handling.
 
 

 
 

 

 
More to come in a bit.

Hello,
 
Here's a little update and I would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a Merry Christmas.
I started to fit the ribbands and coloured the Main-Wale black.

 
The ribband-nails are done in the same manner as described in the book from David Antscherl of the Swan-Class. Only the insertion tool was made of a screw and two screw-nuts.

 
For securing the nails I used white clue and think that it works.

 
 
The Main-Wale is coloured with black stain. Mark gave me this advice in my build of the Leopard and it works very well.

Another update on the planking.  I've had a bit of extra time at the museum over the New Year period so have been able to get ahead with the planking.
 
The photo show the current state of the model.
 
We're just about to leave for a week long conference up in the Blue Mountains, so I'll see you all again next weekend!
 
John
 

Standing Rigging
With all the shrouds and ratlines tied I decided to add as much of the standing rigging as possible before the topgallants masts went on. Again another small issue not enough 5mm dead eyes, to complete all the back stays to the main mast, so some extras were ordered, there are 88 supplied, which I admit I did not count, but I still counted up 90 needed, and at this point I am 6 short, I may have dropped and lost a couple, but who does not, I also think there should be a few spares built into the kit. Next the main and preventer stays to all three topmasts were made up and added, this did meant that bowsprit needed to be fitted, which has the down side of making it more difficult to turn her round, side to side, when adding rigging to each side.
One aspect, I have been having difficult with, is using  the rigging plans, so far I have found that some rigging rope runs overlay others, some of the runs I cannot even work out how they start or how they terminate, maybe it is just me, but, I did not have this problem rigging Pegasus, as a result this promoted me to dig out the Pegasus rigging plans and(in conjunction with Peterssons book), and as Pegasus is a ship rigged Sloop, her and Diana should be rigged nearly the same, so I am using both sets of standing rigging plans, and where I cannot, be sure, or work out, were the rigging runs on Diana s plans go, I will rig her as per Pegasus, this should be OK as naval rigging practices were most likely standard on all ships.

little update......
 
 
going on with the main yard....., stirups, horses, brace pendants and truss tackles still to be attached.
I thought it would be easier to attach the main course to the yard, and then to hang it it place with the main jeers, sling and truss tackle, and let myself be surprised if it works or not. Would probably need to attach some ratlines on the lee-side shrouds, because I`m going to the sails in braced mode.
 
Nils
 
 

 
Again a hand scetch is made first
 
 

 
block attached in different sizes
 
 

 
lengths of stirups and position of horses checked, (here figure standing on the wrong side of the dummy yard )
 
 

 
thats a working ship...... no yacht, chainpump levers with supports go on after the main gallow support is fitted
 
 

 
quarter deck with view down inside
 
 

 
likewise at forecastle and waist deck

I admire this excellent quality of the planking at the Stern. Wonderful work Ed.