Supplies of the Ship Modeler's Handbook are running out. Get your copy NOW before they are gone! Click on photo to order.
×
MAGIC's Craig
-
Posts
122 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Gallery
Events
Everything posted by MAGIC's Craig
-
Over the next month or so, the bulwark was primed and painted, the bottom repainted with a bottom paint color, and a friend with a decal machine kindly made up the 2-color decals for the transom and bows. At the bow, I fitted a bobstay attachment fitting which had been cut out and filed from a scrap of 1/8" thick silicon bronze. The stem was morticed to take the tang and additional shear pins were fitted when the tang was glued in place. ( While the photo is upside down, it seems to make more sense in this attitude) The "deck furniture" began with the construction of the forward, curved-top scuttle for the forepeak access. This was built of bits of the 3/32" th. plywood, basswood and meranti. The main cabin began with the fitting of the plywood sides to the deck carlins and cabin beams (most of which would later be cut away). A rear bulkhead was attached to the lower bulkhead and to the cabin sides with shaped corner posts. Forward, vertical staving pieces of basswood were glued together, fitted to the curved deck carlins forward and the solid blocking at the upper edge. The elliptical port openings were cutout prior to assembly. The cabin top was planked fore-and-aft with 1/8" x 3/8" basswood strips And then sanded fair.
-
Hawses were drilled, filed and cut out from brass flat stock, then located on the bulwarks according to the outboard profile plan. Once bonded in place, the openings in the bulwarks were drilled out and sealed. A bowsprit of tight-grain Douglas fir had been previously fashioned to permit a careful fit with the bulwarks at the bow.
-
The deck covering was given a couple of coats of epoxy to fil the weave of the cloth, a light coat of fairing and then detailed along the sheer. The chainplates were glued and pinned in place below decks and they emerged inboard of where the bulwarks would be (mostly). The bulwarks were built up from 1/8" lifts in a similar manner to how Bent Jespersen laminated up the original's 1-1/2" lifts in 1992. Once the bulwarks were scarfed together and sanded, they were lifted off of the deck and given a layer of FG/epoxy on the inboard and out board faces before being bonded in place with a coved radius to the deck on the inboard face. To check
-
Tony : Yes, that article was a while ago! I hope you will find this build interesting as well. Thanks for checking in. Nils: Thank you for the compliments. I appreciate them especially in light of all of your modelling experience.
-
Thank you, Roger for the compliments. We are hardly objective about her, but grateful for those who appreciate such as MAGIC.
-
The summer of 2021 contained various interruptions to the building process, however some progress was made. Blocking was glued in belowdecks for the chainplate attachments as well as for the R/C sheet and rudder controls. The extra glue in the interior of the hull was scraped/sanded away to prep the hull to be sealed and painted. After a final bit of fairing of the deck structure, the 3/32" Baltic birch ply deck panels could begin to be glued down. The compound curvature required of the plywood did require additional clamping efforts: After the clamps, etc., were removed, the deck was given a light sanding and then glassed over for watertightness.
- 67 replies
-
- 10
-
-
-
May , 2020 With the model upright, work began on additional deck framing, fitting the breasthook and the bowsprit bitt, mast partners and mast steps. Planking and fairing were completed on the hull and in preparation for the sheathing of the hull with fiberglass cloth set in epoxy, the future ballast keel blade slot was cut through the keel and a trunk epoxied in place. Using this trunk, a piece of scrap wood was slid through amd supported the hull on blocking when she was turn on her beam ends. The glassing of the hull was done with a light aircraft cloth wet out with marine epoxy, both side received two coats to fill the cloth weave. Once cured, this was given a light fairing coat, sanded and then 2 coats of primer before the initial coats of gloss were applied to the hull. And somewhen in this sequence, I laminated a thin veneer of African mahogany onto the transom, sealing it with 3 coats of clear epoxy. We then painted the hull, topsides and bottom with some contrast to see how mini-Magic was looking. And that will be enough for today's updating...
-
My next step involved laminating up the deadwood from 1/2" lifts of basswood and getting out the outer stem from some lovely, tight-grained old growth Douglas fir. More fairing followed of the deadwood and then it was time to build a new cradle to hold the hull "right-side up".
-
Planking was done using 1/8" th. basswood, spiled as necessary and edge-glued to the adjacent planking and frames. Knowing that the hull would ultimately be painted, I elected to start planking on the easier, "flatter" runs of the bilge. I realized that the reverse tuck near the deadwood/keel as well as the tumblehome in the quarters would be challenging.. Planking from the keelson "down" Working towards the sheer:
-
The model building time during the winter of 2019 - 2020 was a time spent carefully fairing the hull framework to prepare for planking as well as fitting the clamps into notches in the frames and gluing what would be their upper edges to the underside of the harpins. (Bent Jespersen, the builder of MAGIC, followed this West Coast practice with nearly all of his cold-molded hull builds.)
-
The keelson was made up from 4 layers of basswood and one inner layer of meranti. After the glue cured, the keelson was scarfed to the inner stem and mortised into the lower forward face of the transom.
-
The model was built inverted with frames made from glued double futtocks of basswood, located on the stations. Frames #2 and #8 also incorporated 3mm ply bulkheads to create "watertight" compartments in the bow and stern. The deck beams rest atop the corresponding station molds and are held in place with small friction-fit wooden clamps The photos from here on out are by me unless otherwise noted. Fore-and-aft temporary blocking locked the stations vertically. Once all of the stations were situated, blocking for the transom and the inner stem were set up. A transom blank was laminated over a curved form, the inner stem was glued up around the lofted profile piece and port and starboard harbins were scarfed together to be fitted at the level of the bottom of the deck. Next chore was to laminate in place the keelson atop the frames.
-
This is my first scratch POF R/C work. I designed the original full-sized 40' LOD MAGIC for my wife and myself as a cruising home and she was professionally built by Bent Jespersen and his crew in Sidney, B.C., Canada. We were fortunate enough to sail her for some 25,000 miles over the course of nearly 20 years. She currently sails out of Maine and the Abacos under her current owner. In November, 2019, I embarked on this project to create a working 1/8th scale model of her. The original 3/4" = 1' scale plans had been digitized and so I took my files to a local copy shop and had them printed at 1-1/2"= 1' (200%). Like many in the forum, progress was not always steady, but we are close to being finished. If the posting of her past photos is acceptable, I will build this blog to bring the project up to date. Photo by Michael Berman Once i figure out to get the next few photo rightside up, I'll continue...
-
Jond: Nicely done and as a new member of MSG, I appreciated seeing the amount of time you put into documenting the build. As an aside, I went to a high school in Colorado with David Nutt, Jr. If you see him again, please pass on our hello. We also are finished with our schooner voyaging. Craig (and Vicky) Johnsen
-
I also have just found your excellent work. Lots of memories coming back as a result. I served aboard USS Hitchiti (ATF-103) from 1972 into 1975, at that time, homeported out of San Diego. I was a JO aboard. She was a good ship and we were fortunate to have a mustang LT as a skipper for the latter portion of that time frame. Deployed to Westpac and had a variety of entertaining duties. As it happened, when she was decommisioned, she was sold to Mexico. One year in the '90's, my wife were cruising aboard our schooner bound into La Paz, BCS and came across her (carrying the numerals, "IX" painted over the welded on "103" on her bow). We subsequently had the opportunity to see her at the wharf in La Paz in pretty decent condition, given her age. I look forward to following your build thread, Steve
-
Please allow me to add my welcome and my delight that you are "back". Like others, I look forward again to seeing your posts and the marvelous work you demonstrate. Your work has served as a steadying sail whenever my model-building efforts bashed into choppy seas.
-
Michael: While going through some of our sailing photos, we came across a card showing the painting on the December, 1934 Yachting Monthly cover by F. B. Harnack entitled, "Dawn". Not sure, of course, whether you have it in your collection of "research" materials. It struck us as an image which could well have been composed while sailing aboard your lovely cutter model, so we send it along for any enjoyment you might find in the setting. Our best, Craig and Vicky Johnsen ex schooner MAGIC
-
Michael: Over in the WoodenBoat forums, there is an account of a man in England who fairly recently built a full-size copy of the Gill Smith Catboat, "Lorelei", in case you have not come across that. If not, you may find it informative for your project. It is a lovely craft indeed. the link is: http://forum.woodenboat.com/showthread.php?224859-Gil-Smith-catboat-quot-Lorelei-quot&highlight=gill+smith+catboat
Our Emblem ®
