Brewerpaul

FWIW-- I have a metal working (machine) lathe. On my only (previous) build, I chucked the spar in the chuck and lightly gripped the dowel with a piece of folded over sandpaper. Started sanding near the center of the spar, moving the folded sandpaper to the outboard end. As the diameter shrank, I started my strokes further out, leaving the center parts alone. I worked very gradually, with frequent diameter checks. When I got one end of the spar the way I liked it, I flipped it in the lathe and repeated the process, with frequent checks for diameter symmetry. I made my final sanding by hand, lengthwise to the spar to remove the sanding marks extending around the spar.

A small wood lathe would work too. The advantage over the dowel in the drill method is that you can pass a long spar into the headstock of the lathe which gives a lot more stability than a couple inches in a drill chuck.

Is this the right forum for glue questions? If not, moderators please feel free to move this to the right place.

I need to glue some TINY, thin wire eyebolts into wood. This particular time, they're going on a masthead, but there are plenty of others on the Pride of Baltimore II!  I'd like to do it neatly, but the joint needs to be fairly strong as rigging blocks will be attached to them. So far I've tried CA, both thick and thin with varying results. The tail of the bolt is too thin to pick up enough glue from a "puddle" of glue, and putting a droplet of glue on the masthead is messy.

How do you folks tackle (pun intended) glue jobs like this? Type of glue? Technique? Thanks.

I have one totally different thought.  Why not put this model in storage for a while and build a simpler, different ship to learn to use the tools, learn terminology, get a feel for rigging, and then tackle the repair job?  The ship you have is pretty complicated and learning how to do it right will not be easy. Having another build under your belt might make that task a LOT easier. Something like a two mast topsail schooner for example.

I've looked at lots of rope making info, and I simply don't want to go that route.

I want to replace the supplied rigging rope from my Pride of Baltimore II with something better looking, but I can't spend a fortune.

I used some Syren rope for my Constitution cross section and it was truly first rate so that was the first place I looked. If I calculated correctly, rope to rig my Pride would cost upwards of  $50, assuming I bought the same lengths as the cord from the kit*. This is 'way out of my budget. I know, you get what you pay for, etc and I agree, but I have to be somewhat frugal.

Anyone know of alternative replacement ropes at a lower price?

* The kit comes with

0.008 Black 30 yards

0.021 Black 10 yards

0.008 Manila hemp 50 yards

0.021 Manilla hemp 10 yards

Do these lengths sound reasonable or too much? If any of those are 'way too long, I might be able to pare down the list and afford Syren.

Although I've loved tall square rigged ships for most of my life, I really didn't have any idea how they were sailed. All I knew was that it HAD to be a lot more complicated than my old Sunfish 😁

Any of you who are in the same boat (pun intended) check out this videos which I got wind of (pun also intended). It's amazing and gave me a great appreciation about how complicated and sophisticated these magnificent ships were/are;

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=star+of+india+ship

YouTube has a lot more related videos.

FWIW-- I sailed on the Pride of Baltimore II this summer as guest crew. The port anchor is on chain, the starboard is on un-tarred rope.  Both do go around the winch (not windlass).

Come June, it'll be my wife's and my 20th anniversary. Our reception was held on the Dutch Apple cruise ship from Albany NY.

As a gift, I'd like to build a model of the ship and naturally there is no kit remotely similar.

The nice people at Dutch Apple have sent me a drawing of the ship to work from , plus some photos of the ship out of water to show the hull design.

I've never done a scratch build and have no idea how to proceed.

I'm thinking that a solid hull would be  easiest, maybe balsa for ease of working,otherwise basswood. Probably a foot long or so.

I'm concerned mainly about getting the hull pretty close. I can pretty easily enlarge the drawing to size, paste the side view of the hull onto my block, and bandsaw that profile. It's the  fore and aft contours I'm not sure how to translate.I am NOT looking to produce a museum quality reproduction, just something that looks pretty much like the Dutch Apple. I'm thinking that the parts of the ship above the main deck ought to be fairly straight forward to build from sheet stock.

Any and all suggestions welcomed.

Sometimes the materials supplied in a kit are not easy to use for one purpose or another. On my current build of the Pride of Baltimore II (modified into a more generic War of 1812 era Baltimore clipper) I was having a heck of a time cutting the 1/32" stock neatly for the trim around the transom and the "fancy pieces" on the sides of the stern. My blades are surgically sharp. In fact, they're actually real surgical blades, brand new. The wood kept splitting while I cut the pieces and trying to bend the fancy pieces on the sides of the stern also split them. Eventually I came up with the idea of using file folder material for these pieces. I don't know if the thickness is to scale, but the card stock cut neatly and easily, and didn't crack when I bent it. The cut edges had a bit of paper "fuzz" which was easily handled by using sanding sealer and then sanding it off.

Now I'm at the stage of building the bowsprit. There are some metal bands at the base of the jib boom but I  can foresee that bending them neatly wouldn't be easy, and getting the required holes drilled in the brass without having the drill bit wander off, even with a pilot dimple, would be tough.

I'm going to resort to my card stock again. It should bend and glue easily and I think the drill bit will stay in place better than in brass. Once painted I think they'll look just fine.

Anyone else here use alternative materials to make life easier? 

That's a really nice build! I hope mine comes out as nice.

The text and pictures are out of order, but you get the idea.

One item of news-- my wife and I will be sailing on a 2 night cruise aboard the real Pride of Baltimore II as guest crew at the end of June. Excited much? You betcha!

I'm still plodding along with my Baltimore clipper build. It's from the Model Shipways kit of the Pride of Baltimore II. I decided to de-modernize it,eliminating some of the not so beautiful things like radar, props etc. It has slowly morphed into a generic Baltimore Clipper called Fair Charlene, after the admiral.

Right now I'm working on the aft cabin. On the real Pride, the hatch/entry looks like this;

The hatch is slid forward so you can see down into the cabin, although you don't see much since it's dark in there.

My cabin thus far looks like this;

Those rails are just taped,obviously, to show where they'll be. I'm thinking putting the hatch in the slid forward position, then cutting a square hole in the cabin roof between the rails.There is deck below that, so I'd paint that area black to simulate the dark cabin, then add a couple of rungs worth of ladder going down. What do you think?`

Update. My progress has been slow,but although my work isn't up to the level of some other builds, I'm pretty happy with my ship.

The picture shows her as of last night. Some things are glued down, others such as the rails around the masts, ships boat etc which might get in the way of future work are not. That the aft cabin is unattached and has more things to be added.

You'll note that the foremast channels are not in place. I only recently noted that the port channel was not parallel to the mainmast channel, too much to tolerate. I broke it loose and it's a good thing I did for another reason. I had installed it backwards with the aft end forward and vice versa. This meant that the deadeye spacing would not match that of the starboard channel and would have been VERY obvious once I started adding shrouds 🥶. I ended up taking both channels off and reworking them so they're both correct (I think). I reinstalled them after I took this picture.

Other Pride of Baltimore II news-- my wife and I will be sailing on her as guest crew for a two overnight cruise!! It's been a lifelong dream of mine to sail on a tall ship, and I'm more eager than you can imagine. I'll take many pictures, so if anyone wants views of any particular parts of the ship, let me know. This will be at the end of June,starting on my birthday.

I'm glad to see this topic. I wouldn't mind some figures for my modified 1/63 Pride of Baltimore II model

On 3/18/2021 at 6:42 PM, Chazz said:

Whjen I was MUCH younger I used Wood Hardener from Minwax to fix (harden) rotten wood in windows etc. and then filled the result with their companion wood filler.  They still sell this stuff.

 

I have thought of this on occasion for hardening softer wood as suggested here using CA but never got around to trying it.  Has anyone tried it?

 

Chazz

I haven't used it for model making, but I make Irish Penny Whistles from exotic woods, and I've used the Minwax hardener to strengthen some spalted woods. It works really well. Note that it does discolor the wood, which may or may not be an issue on a pin rail. Actually, I think I have a bit left in the can so I may give it a try.

Wow-- it's been too long since I updated. OTOH, I haven't accomplished a huge amount in the interim. Not for lack of trying. This stuff takes a LONG time. Things that look like they'd be really easy on the plan end up being whole projects unto themselves, especially for a newbie.

As one other builder did, I decided to mount the cannons in the stowed position against the bulwarks. This was mainly because I didn't want to tackle (no pun intended) all the blocks and cordage that these tiny guns would require. I glued all the gun ports shut, which I think makes for a cleaner look from the side.

I've partially made the bowsprit and jib boom so I could determine the position of the Samson Posts and winch. Those are not glued yet. The winch, Samson Posts,  were a couple of those little details that ended up taking up a long time fabricating and finishing. Ditto for the pin rail forward of the mast. Drilling those holes without splitting the rail was a big problem. I ended up using bigger timber than called for but I think that's less objectionable than a broken rail with pins all over the place. Similar difficulties with the fife rail aft of the mast.  They're not museum quality, but I'm happy enough. The foc'sle hatch was comparatively simple.

I replaced the crew berthing galley with a grated hatch for the simple reason that I love the look of those. These are laser cut walnut from Model Expo. I'll have a second one further aft.

On a related note, for fans of the Pride of Baltimore II-- every Saturday at 9:00 they host Coffee With The Captain on their Facebook page. They discuss a great number of Pride related topics, and any fan of wooden sailing ships would enjoy this. They are currently uprigging the ship after her year long hiatus under wraps, so it's particularly interesting. Older broadcasts are still available. The Pride IS planning on sailing this summer and you can be sure I'm planning on getting aboard!

I just came across this build, years later, but I just wanted to give my compliments on a beautiful completion of a fascinating historic ship.

If anyone is still following this, why is the standing rigging white rather than the usual black or dark brown? Maybe I missed the explanation in the build log.

On 2/27/2021 at 12:25 PM, Brewerpaul said:

I haven't drilled them yet, but I'm about to face this problem with my Pride of Baltimore II . Two ideas I have are

 

1) Use scrap from the thinnest stock from the laser cut parts. It's a lot stronger than the basswood strips

2) Drill the holes in an oversized piece of that stock,maybe 2 or three times as wide as the rail, and longer also. Once I have a nice straight,evenly spaced line, I'll trim the rail to size. The oversized wood should be a lot stronger than a really narrow strip.

Well, that worked up to a point. I drilled a nice line of holes in an oversized piece of laser stock and trimmed it down to size. The problem came when I tried to notch that piece to mate with the notch in the pinrail post (this is just foreward of the foremast).  That's when the rail split along the perforated line I had just drilled 😒

I ended up making a decent rail from a piece of 1/16" basswood strip. It's too thick for scale, so I beveled the front edge to make it thicker. Installed, it looks like the rail is thinner.

One reference I found for this said that a "cut splice" was sometimes used to attach the rope.  Sailors being what they were, it was often called something referring to the female anatomy due to it's appearance.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rope_splicing

Note that the naughty sailor's term is cited here.

I haven't drilled them yet, but I'm about to face this problem with my Pride of Baltimore II . Two ideas I have are

1) Use scrap from the thinnest stock from the laser cut parts. It's a lot stronger than the basswood strips

2) Drill the holes in an oversized piece of that stock,maybe 2 or three times as wide as the rail, and longer also. Once I have a nice straight,evenly spaced line, I'll trim the rail to size. The oversized wood should be a lot stronger than a really narrow strip.

I had the channels all in place on m Pride of Baltimore, but yesterday I accidentally put a bit of pressure on one, and it came off.  I had cleared paint off the area where the channels attach, then glued the channel with CA glue.

I'm glad it happened before I started rigging! How can I attach them better? I'm thinking of adding a piece of square stock to the wale where the channel rests on it for more glue surface. Maybe carpenter's glue? Pinning it would be great, but the channel is too thin for me to want to drill it.

We just bought something whose packing included some nice big pieces of Styrofoam. Back when I built wooden model airplanes, I used to lay the full size plan on a suitable board,cover it with wax paper, and pin and glue the parts right on the plan. I think I'll try that for some deck furniture.

I want some gratings for a current build but I'm in the dark about how they're described on dealers' sites. For example;

Model Shipways GRATINGS, 2-3/64 x 1/8"

or

Model Shipways GRATINGS, 50 x 2mm

My guess is that the first number is the size of the finished grating, and the second is the height of the grate.

Right?

On 3/22/2019 at 1:21 AM, AndyMech said:

Now, most ship builders, myself included, usually mount the cannons in a ready-to-fire mode, pointing out the ports, elaborate rigging, etc.  However, I saw some photos of the modern Pride, at sea, and the cannons were stowed sideways, and lashed to the bulkhead/railing.  So, in the interest of doing something different, I decided to mount them that way on my model.

 

I also then made and glued the cannon port doors, in the closed position:

Thinking ahead in my Pride build, I haven't been able to conceive of how to rig the cannon outhauls at this small scale. Mounting them stowed is a very good option!

I can't tell from the photo; are those cannon doors flush with the bulwarks, or added  on top of it?

I'm in the process of building this kit. Due to some mistakes on the part of the guy I bought it from ,who had started the build, the transom came out too small for the proper Pride of Baltimore graphics. She's now been christened "Fair Charlene" after the admiral ;-)I was already planning on leaving off some modern additions like the propellors, radar gear, life preservers to make her look a bit more like a period Clipper. The deck is much to cluttered to have been used as a working vessel back in the day. Engine compartment hatches could be eliminated etc. I've installed a tiller instead of a ship's wheel and would like to know what else I can eliminate or replace. I'm thinking that a period BC would have a capstan rather than the more modern winch included in the kit. Any other suggestions welcomed.

I'm not after a museum quality totally accurate model. I'd just like something that looks reasonably like a period ship. Thanks.

Here's the link to my build log so far;