AnobiumPunctatum

Not only the build log, also the model is coming along great. Nice progress

What a lot of stuff to read this morning Very nicely done and described.

Hey Tony,
Maybe the book: 'From tree to sea' could be a help for you. It is written by late Ted Frost, a former wooden ship builder from Lowestoft. He discribes the building of a wooden steam trawler. It is a book with plenty of detailed images. (ISBN 0 86138 033 9)
 
Geert

I make now the main topsail sheet bitts. I think that the pictures are self explaining. I made the bitts sheaves in the same way as Tony (Tkay11) explained in his post 50 with the big difference that I made them of wood (I have no metal lathe). My pictures of the production process of the seaves are to unsharp to post them.
I will wait to fix the bitts until a later stage.

Once the glue is dry, I can sand down the lower deck.

When all ledges are made, it is time to glue the knees in place. Therefore I remove the ledges again in different stages.  To find my way in the puzzle I lay them out in same pattern as they are placed on the carlings.
Then I put tree nails in the carling ends.

Meanwhile the limber boards are divided in lengths of ± 3 feet, following the advice of Pete38. Thanks again Pete for the information.

The final touch for the knees is putting some treenails in it.

G.L.

The process of making the lodging knees is pretty well the same as for the hanging knees. Where a hanging and a lodging knee are meeting each other, a notch has to be made in the hanging knee.

Once the knee is sawn to the correct shape, I round the corners of with the Dremel sanding drum.

I make the knee a bit too high. The top edge of it can be marked when holding it in place. 

What a lot of stuff to read this morning Very nicely done and described.

What a lot of stuff to read this morning Very nicely done and described.

A ROUNDABOUT WAY OF DOING THINGS
I ended the last part of my log with the statement “I need to finish the planking of the gun deck walls, sand down the fore and aft section faces, and then I’ll be working on installing the eyebolts for the cannon and making up the gangway brackets”.

Well, it became a bit more complicated than that.

I did start by planking the gun deck walls, but then worked on the gun carriages in the thinking that it would make more sense to fit the bolts once the guns were done.
Then, once the carriages were done, I reckoned I’d need to place the gangway knees so that I’d be clear about the placement of the bolts. That drew me into a discussion about where the aft guns would be rigged to since the gangway knees cover exactly the correct position (according to the plans) for the bolts for the gun rigging.

So I made the knees following Grant’s Triton build, but then reckoned that it might be better to complete the outer hull planking before working on the inside – in the belief that with all the handling of the outer hull any more done on the gun deck and gangway might well suffer. So I did the planking. And then I realised that unless I documented progress in my log, the task of writing it would become too big and bothersome.

So although I’ve completed the gangway knees, I’ll just concentrate in this section of the log on the guns and the hull planking.

THE GUN CARRIAGE BRACKETS

Having had experience with the small cannon in the Sherbourne, I wanted to avoid the problem of drilling holes through the brackets when they are not parallel to one another. So I made a jig, as documented in the following photos.

First was getting the angles right for the jig.
 
 

 
 



To save time, the jig allows for several pairs of brackets to be cut at once. I’m only making two guns, so there’s more than enough room for the jig.


Setting the height for the table saw was simple using the template I’d made with TurboCAD.
 

 



 
QUOINS

Using a simple template and making the handles with the Proxxon drill being used as a lathe was quite simple:
 

 

 

 

 
 



DRILLING THE BRACKETS FOR THE BOLTS

When it came to drilling the brackets, I decided to double check the verticality of my drill stand, as I’d noticed that when making blocks there seemed to be a very  slight deviation. There was. It was small, but enough to be a problem. Luckily, the solution was the simple addition of a 1.5mm wedge into the stand as shown in the following picture:



And with that corrected, I then unglued the outer part of the brackets jig, placed another template on the side, and drilled away.




CAP SQUARES
I fiddled around a bit with black paper to make the cap squares, but finally thought it would be better if I could make them from brass. My efforts didn’t turn out nearly as well as those of the experts around here, but I still enjoyed the process of learning.


 

 

 

 
LOOPS FOR THE CARRIAGE RIGGING

Instead of using simple bolts for the loops, I decided to use David Antscherl’s measurements for the loops and make some loops of my own. This was far simpler than I expected, using 0.5mm black-coated copper wire as follows.

 
TRUCK STUBS

I decided I’d try out Frolich’s method of making the truck stubs. This involves making a cutter from brass rod, and cutting in a lathe.

 

 
 
 
TRUCKS

It was easy to turn the trucks on a lathe and then cut them off with the table saw.

 

 
 
 
The pins for the trucks were made from bamboo strips passed through a drawplate and then stained.

 
The vertical bolts were then added as brass rod and then blackened with lead patina using the tip of a paintbrush.


 
 
CARRIAGE BEDS AND TRANSOMS

The beds and transoms made and fitted.

 

 
DRILLING THE TRUNNIONS IN THE CANNON

I thought I’d try a more accurate method of drilling the trunnions than the one I used for the Sherbourne. First off was to cut the cannon whilst leaving both ends of the brass rod at the same diameter. This would mean any vertical drilling would be easy.

So after turning the brass cannon on a lathe, I made a box to the exact diameter of the outer stubs. I then made a cover with a template of the cannon that would fit just inside the top of the box. The height of the box was made a little smaller than the diameter of the cannon stubs, and a piece of sandpaper fitted to the inside of the lid: that would ensure that when clamping the jig the cannon would not roll round whilst drilling.

I used as a marker the edge of the reinforce ring nearest the trunnion.

 

 
 
 
 
 
I’ll show the assembled guns in a future post, but my next section will deal with the planking of the hull.

Tony

PLANKING THE OUTER HULL

I thought I’d have a bash at anchor stock planking for the wales. This proved to be a bit tricky without making a special jig from metal. I did try using a sander, but in the end the method I used was to paste a template on to wood and sand that down using a sanding stick. It would be far better with a jig, of course. Perhaps next time!

Having prepared the planks, an important question was how to place them so that the butt ends would lie over frames. So I used TurboCAD to superimpose the planking outlines layer on the frames layer and move it until the ends covered the frames.



This worked fine for the port wales. And on the port side the planking went easily enough. I decided to leave a section unplanked just to show how the hull was structured.

It also was fairly straightforward to make the trim mouldings using an old hacksaw blade tempered over the gas hob to red heat and cooled slowly before cutting with a grinding wheel and filing.



Unfortunately when it came to planking the starboard side, I found that the forward end of the wale was about 1.5mm higher than the aft end. At first I thought it was to do with the curvature of the hull as I thought I had measured the position for the wale fairly carefully. In this blissful ignorance I started the planking above the wale by trimming the immediately next plank to suit. It was only a little while later that I realised that I had not cut the top strake of the wale correctly, and it was in fact at an angle. Rather than unglue everything (I’m getting really short of wood) I decided I’d live with the mistake. After all, I reasoned, I’m not going to be showing this model to anyone, and I’m only using the exercise to learn. Seeing as I’d learnt from the port side, I reckoned I’d be all right for any future builds. Lessons learned!

I followed David Antscherl’s book on the Fully Framed Model by making the plank underneath the wale to be 4” tapering down to the 3” of the planks beneath.



So I’ll now be continuing with the gangway knees and placing the guns.

Tony

excellent milling job

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.

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
 
 


 

 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

The box for the frames kit is ready to be shipped.
 
I needed 5 copies of the frames. Frames are drawn ½, Frames 28 to 31 and 37 are not drawn, they are identical to other frames. I need both sides, each frame is doubled front and rear, plus 1 copy for later assembly. I drawn 3 copies and I had 2 photocopies.
 
Next step to sand flush the parts and after prepare the keel and begin the assembly.
 
The picture with 2 planks is the additional wood quantity I had to add, I failed in my guessing for the preparation of the wood quantity. In fact I guessed it by eye, because it is too much difficult to calculate, and to try to guess it is much  faster.
 

Hello,
 
Another update on the construction progress. The hull is done now: keel installed, exterior planked and nailed. I started working inside it.
 
Alexandru

It's looking really good. Will you go the way with doubble and single frames, if we discussed at January?

It's looking really good. Will you go the way with doubble and single frames, if we discussed at January?

That actually works quite well Greg.   The finishes can vary however but yes I have used that technique.  Its actually easier than using the dies that you mix with the resin before pouring.  BUT for cannon and black items there are better alternatives.  Several black resin and plastic products are available that cure black.
 
http://www.reynoldsam.com/product/smooth-cast-onyx/
 
and 
 
http://www.alumilite.com/store/p/928-Alumilite-Regular-Black.aspx
 
These work great for casting and afterwards you can use some weathering powders to really make them look like black metal.  
 
Here is a link with something like Greg was referring to about making parts look like metal...its a powder rather than a spray or liquid application.  I have used these and it works well.  For example...if you use the pewter powder with black resin it looks pretty awesome on a cannon casting.  But you have to experiment.  I prefer the powders. 
 
http://www.alumilite.com/store/p/1082-Alumidust-clone.aspx
 
http://www.alumilite.com/store/p/953-Alumilite-Metallic-Powder.aspx
 
The monogram for example which is usually shown on a barge gold leafed...would look rather nice with the casting made using the gold powder.  Just for giggles I will order some so you guys can see how it works and looks on these cast carvings for the barge.  They come out much cleaner than painting them.  the downside is they remain on your mold somewhat and you have to have a dedicated mold for that finish....more mold prep before casting subsequent copies is needed to make sure the mold is free from left over powder that might clog small details and textures the next go-around.
 

Hi,
 
I asked for a quote for boxwood with the thickness you sent but it was more then I was expecting and because it was my plan from the beginning to plank the all cross session and I want to buy a table saw and a lathe I rather save the money for the tools. So my plan now is to make the frames as they are in the plans and later when I have the tools I will make them "properly" and the decks only, with no planking.