AnobiumPunctatum

I wanted to share how I decided to make the davits. First of all, according to the monograph, the davits can be constructed in two different ways. One way is to make each davit out of a single piece of wood; the second is to make it out of three pieces - one central piece and two sides. The model presented in the monograph has davits built in three pieces; whereas I've seen the davits made in one piece presented in online build logs. I chose to make each davit out of one piece of wood. After I made this choice, I formulated several orders of operations in which to fabricate them. This is what I finally settled on. I don't know if it is the most efficient way to do the job, but it did seem to work well for me. The first attempt was a fail, but then I got the two I needed on the next tries.
 
I started by rubber cementing profiles of the davit to a length of wood 13.3 mm square in cross section. Note the center axis of the top/bottom profile is centered on the blank. 

I then milled the top profile. Having the top/bottom profile centered let me mill this portion perpendicular to the blank. Here I have started to smooth the curved region, but you can still see the horizontal lines left as steps from each pass of the milling process.

Next the bottom slot, where the davit locks on the superstructure was milled - note this is at an angle and there are specific left and right davits.

I then milled the two sides, the last milling operation. 

Using a scroll saw, the front space was opened up, after which the front length was shortened and then finished on a disk sander.

The back length was then adjusted so the davit fit correctly on the supperstucture.

Now it was time to remove some material in the middle to provide passage for the scoop chains. First I marked and sawed boundaries for the region to be removed.

The unnecessary material was mostly removed with a small chisel.
 
And the final shape of this inner region was developed using a sanding stick.
 

Since last post, I have been skipping around a bit and getting various tasks completed and/or worked on. I also got to take one of my grandsons down to the Wisconsin Maritime Museum yesterday. While the WWII submarine Cobia was the main reason he wanted to go, he does seem to be getting more and more interested and knowledgeable about the model ships displayed there - I harbor a hope that one day we build a ship together! The museum is in Manitowoc, Wisconsin - a city of about 30,000 and with a strong heritage of ship building. 
 
All of the steps are in the big wheel and I am preparing (bending) planking material for that wheel now.
 

The two big davits are shaped and ready for some metal work. All the bollards have gotten their final shaping. The 12 knees that support the pillars at deck level are finished and installed along with the appropriate fasteners. Similarly the two sets of bits and knees are permanently connected to the vessel. 

The last thing I did today was to cement the superstructure unit to the pillars. The davits are just sitting on the structure for the pic.

 
 

Today I made it to having the big wheel timbers installed. After doing so, I couldn't help but 'mock-up' the vessels configuration with the wheels!
 


You can see in the second picture that I have completed planking the small wheel. The small wheel will now get about 200 fasteners thru the planking and steps. Then the excess material on the steps will be trimmed and it shall be done. Repeat for big wheel coming as well,

All of the foot steps are in the small wheel now. I have gotten the first piece of planking formed and it is now being attached to the wheel.

Here you can also see my progress on the big wheel - one rim done. I've still to mill the joints for the other big wheel rim. Quite a difference in diameters between the wheels!

Some more progress on the wheels today. Here is the status of the small wheel. It now has 75% of its steps, the remaining 8 will probably be added tomorrow. They are the ones that need to be cut to exact length before attaching because they fit inside of the outermost timbers. The other steps currently extend beyond the rims and will be trimmed after the wheel is planked. The disk under the cup of steps is not a drink coaster (yet). It is a disk cut to the diameter of the wheel where the planks will be fitted and is being used to induce the proper curvature on the plank material. Here a strip of wetted plank material has been wrapped around the disk and is being held in place with a rubber band as it dries overnight. The 6mm wide planking is just 0.55mm thick and bends easily; however, I want to minimize any strain on the steps as they are fairly delicate.

As far as the big wheel, the rim segments are ready to have their scarf joints milled. I also have made a disk for forming the big wheel planks.

Working on the wheels was the winner. Yesterday I milled wood for the wheels - three 3" x 24" sheets with thickness one each of 2.25mm, 1.5mm, and 0.55mm. This should be more than enough for all of the parts plus a few missteps.
 
Today I was able to start forming the 12 pieces needed for the rims of the small wheel:

Now they need to have scarf joints made to join together. 
 
This is certainly more tedious than building bicycle wheels. Back in the day when I raced regularly, I laced and trued my own wheels. No more racing now, and technology has changed so much that almost all my current bike wheels are factory made. Still follow professional racing closely - VPN software is amazing for picking up live feeds all over the world! But got a bit more modeling minutes today when today's stage of Paris-Nice got cancelled due to high winds.

After shaping the starboard knees, today I went on to create the opening in the deck for the big wheel. I am pleased to say that the surgery was a success!
 

I have material milled for the edging and plan to fit those pieces next. There are a number of fasteners that will then need to be added to the edging. When I do that, I will also put in the missing fasteners along the other edge of the deck.
 
There is now little that needs to be done to the hull before attaching the bitts, the superstructure pillars, and their associated knees. I think just the final shaping of the bollards needs to be done first.
 
Getting close to being able to oil the deck and the hull exterior.

Here's how the fore bit system is looking. All the pieces have been fabricated and now fit together properly. Now they just need to be drilled for their fasteners before they are attached to the model. 
 
Druxey, I have remembered your earlier comment and made sure to adjust the direction of the wood grain when making the knees - thanks again.
 

The aft bitt is coming together as well; just the knees need their final shaping.
 

I have nearly all of the fasteners for the doubling planks in place and smoothed. There are a lot of them, especially below the waterline where they are spaced just 5mm apart as you go down the length of a strake. In all there must be nearly 1000 in this operation. Here's what it's looking like now - I'll do a bit more fine smoothing before applying the oil finish.
 

Once I got temporarily tired of sanding little copper nobs, I decided to start working on the bitts. One set of uprights have been fitted so far. The two bitts stand vertically and square with one another when clamped to the rectangular spacer. The spacer also marks the bottom of the cross-bar that will be fitted to the uprights.
 

 

Over the past week, I've completed attaching all of the plank doublings. Along the sides, there is a single stake at deck level made of two pieces joined with a scarf; whereas at the bottom there are three strakes of two pieces that meet with butt joints. Similarly, at the bow and stern, there is a single doubling piece at deck level and three planks at the bottom. Here are pictures of the starboard side, port side, and one showing the bow with its doublings:
 



The bow and stern needed to be planked first, followed by the two sides. But before the lowest bow and stern stake was attached the keel finally needed to be attached as it is partially locked in place by the aforementioned strakes. I also added a pair of bolts (epoxied in place) to later use for display mounting purposes.
 
  
Once again it is time to drill a lot of holes and insert a lot of bolts.

Today I finished shorting the pillars, as well as making the mortices and tenons. All the pieces fit together nicely.
 

So after I gaze at the current state for a while, it will be time to take the superstructure off and get work on the hull done.

It has taken quite a few days of careful filing, but now the superstructure pillars pass thru the deck planking and have their exterior portion perpendicular to the vessel. It also looks like the pillars line up where they should with respect to the the superstructure carlings.  Very glad to have this done - it was a bit nerve racking for me!

All of the pillars need to be shortened to their correct heights and provided with mortices for connection to the carling system. Once this is done, I will be setting these pieces aside for a while. I don't plan on actually attaching these prior to adding the doubling planks to the hull. 

The remaining deck planks have been fitted. The holes for the fasteners have been drilled and a good start has been made on inserting and then smoothing the copper fasteners - only 300 or so to go!
 

Some additional sanding / smoothing will then be done. Not too much though as the planking came together quite nicely.

The most exterior port deck strake was completed a couple of days ago. Today I spent a good deal of time with the easier deck planks. Six more planks, each having at least one curved edge, to go and I will have as much of the deck planked as I have planned.
 
The region in the center of the deck that needs to be removed has been marked on the beams. So maybe some beam sawing soon; and yes, that is some whiskey on the right!

 

While I continue to wait for the linseed oil to cure before contouring the deck, I have started to fabricate the 12 uprights that will serve as the main supports for the superstructure. 

Over the next couple of days I hope to clean up the uprights and start work on the carlings that they will support. These carlings do not maintain a constant distance from the deck (due to the sheer), nor are they parallel to the vessels bottom - but instead slope slightly downward from stern to bow. Because of these facts, each of the six pairs of uprights have their own unique height above the deck, also the segment the goes below the deck is modified from pair to pair. Thus the final dimensioning of the uprights will be done in concert with the carlings once the outermost deck strake has been put in place - which won't be done until the deck beams are given their final contour.
 
The linseed oil now is very dry to the touch. I just want to make sure that there is little or no chance of dust from sanding adhering to the innards. Since there are many other ways to make progress at this point I think it is best to leave the hull structure alone and go to work on other pieces of the vessel. 
 

Today's pleasant progress saw the deck beams permentantly attached. Here's a picture taken partway thru the process:
 
Next I will be able to provide the top of the beams with their final contour. It doesn't appear that much actually needs to be done at this stage - I'm taking this as an indication that the fabrication of parts has been done reasonably well so far. Still I will be taking this next step rather slowly as it will have a great impact on the final shape of the deck.

The bottom is planked and the five planked sides have all been smoothed to a state that the multitude of plank fasteners can be added. The keel is also complete, but I didn't want to put it in place until after the rest of the bottom work was completely done. In this way it will be easier to have both sides of the bottom to have the same thickness as I can use sanding blocks the span the whole width.
 
Here is a current view from below:

 
And a view from above:
 

 
 
Time to get the #74 drill bit and the copper wire out - this is going to take awhile!

I just finished smoothing the starboard planking.
 

Probably call it a day now. Tomorrow the bottom can be prepped for planking.
 
 

First - thanks for all the support that you have been giving me!
 
Over the past couple of days, I have been able to plank the bow and stern faces. I'll take care of the bolts and finish sanding later.
 

It looks like this week the main activity will be working on planking the sides.

I made up plenty of planking material today and have started to form the lowest plank for the port side of the vessel. First I clamped a piece of planking material to the lower part of the side and marked the contour of the bottom of the dredger on it. This shape was then cut on a scroll saw and refined with an oscillating spindle sander. Then the piece was re-clamped to the side and final adjustments to the lower edge were made to give it the correct curvature. 
 
I've measured and recorded the total height of planking along each top timber. These measurements were then divided by 8 to determine the width of each plank as it crosses each frame. The frame locations were marked on the plank that is being developed. The width of the plank at each frame was noted along the frame locations and a flexible strip of wood was used to guide a smooth curve through the points. Tomorrow the upper edge of the plank will be cut, smoothed, and prepared for fitting.
 

I will be planking all of the port side and leaving a portion of the starboard side open for internal viewing.

The lowest strake was made from one piece of wood so that I could get a nice starting position and any joints would not be seen as another layer of planks will go across this part of the vessel.
 
Starting with the next stake (second from bottom) I will be respecting the proper location of planking butts. This particular strake is to be made from two planks joined at frame 14. I chose to join the two blanks for these planks before laying out the shape. In the following picture, the juncture is just to the left of the vertical line marking the line between the timber top and knee for frame 14. The horizontal curve is a tracing of the upper edge of the first completed strake. The tracing being done before fastening the first strake to the vessel - this simplifies the spiling process (for me).
 

I then marked the height of the strake at each frame and drew a smooth curve through them, cut the top edge and smoothed to the final shape. Before attaching this stake to the model, it was used to mark the lower shape of the next strake on another blank. Once attached to the dredger, the plank joint looks good to me. In particular a nice smooth curve has been formed over the joint area - something that is not real easy for me to achieve when making the joining planks independently.
 

Finally, here's a look at the lower two strakes in place - already 25% of this side done!
 

I finished planking the port side and have given it two rounds of smoothing; first with 100 grit sandpaper and then with 150 grit. This is how it will stay until the 'bolts' are in place. At that point I will do the finish sanding as it will be more difficult to do so once the doublings have been added. Final contouring of the top edge is also on hold, until the deck beams are in place.
 

Next, I will work on partially planking the starboard side.
 
I know there are a couple of tasks to take care of before the deck beams, but I am trying to decide how I should construct them: cut them out individually, shape a larger piece of wood to the proper camber and then slice off the beams, or create a mould and bend strips to the correct shape. The mould method might be good practice before making the planking for the two dredger wheels ...
 

Today, I was able to drill and then insert / smooth the 'bolts' that hold the curved carlings to the frames. As I used on the three other carlings the bolts are 24 GA copper wire. I am really glad to have these two curved carlings completed - they were a bit of a test for me!
 

Next I will 'bolt' the side strakes and then will be set to create the knees that join the side strakes. 

The second curved carling is done and of a matching quality to the first one. 
 

There is a final bit of milling that I will do before attachment - space for a dozen additional timbers need to be cut through the outer edge of the carlings. These twelve timbers are the ones that extend above the deck and will ultimately support the dredging mechanisms.

A lot of the work on the first of the curved carlings is getting done with hand tools and fitting is in progress.