AnobiumPunctatum

WASHINGTON GALLEY PART 6........FIRST FRAME IS RAISED!!!!
 
HI ALL
HAVING MADE THE LAST HALF FRAME AFT I DECIDED IT WAS PERHAPS WISE TO RAISE THIS FRAME FIRST
THE SINGLE AFT CANT FRAMES LEADING EDGE BUTTS UP AGAINST THE REAR FACE OF THIS FRAME SO IT MAKES SENSE.
 
I CAN THE WORK TOWARDS MIDSHIPS WITH THE REST OF THE AFT HALF FRAMES. I MAY THEN SWITCH MY ATTENTION TO THE FORWARD CANT AND HALF FRAMES AND THE DREADED HAWSE PIECES.
 
MIDSHIPS FRAMES ARE FROM ( 6 FRAMES FORWARD OF DEADFLAT AND 6 FRAMES AFT OF DEADFLAT) ALL THE SAME BASIC SHAPE WITH NO BEVEL. THE HEIGHTS ARE SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT,TO ACCOUNT FOR THE SHEER,AND SOME HAVE RECESSES FOR THE GUNPORT SILLS AND SWEEP PORTS.......BATCH PRODUCTION TIME!
 
SO THATS WHERE I AM AT THE MOMENT.....TIME FOR A CELEBRATORY SNIFTER
 
PHOTOS OF THE FRAME RAISING FOR YOUR DELICTATION
 
CHEERS........MICK
 
 

I held off on fabricating the brake pumps because of their fragility and small size.  I know I will lose them so they will be made when I am ready to install them.  My approach to the rhodings is not quite prototypical.  Because they are black and the axletree is also black, detail is difficult to see, so I went for ease of construction.  The rhoding on the main jeer bitt is a simple brass strap that has been cinched around the axletree and glued to the bitt.  There is a spacer block between the main topsail sheet bitt and the rhoding.  The spacer block is wood that has been shaped and painted black.  The rhoding is another brass strap.  I have drilled the bitt to represent the bolts holding the spacer block/rhoding assembly.  In the picture these have not been blackened yet.
 

 

 
I put together another short length of chain and inserted it into the port pump tube.
 

 
There are two athwartship bulkheads aft.  So far, everything on the starboard side has been left open to highlight the structure.  I am changing course and building the bulkheads port and starboard.  I am toying with the idea of furnishing these cabins.  First, stubs of deck planking are laid to support the bulkhead. Then, card templates are made.  The bulkhead will be made sandwich fashion, with outer wood planking and a "meat" of template. There is a big color difference between the old and new planking.  All this planking came from the same sheet of holly.  The rest of the planking was installed in July, 2014 (page 29 of this log).  Since I will not be  permanently installing the bulkheads for some months, hopefully the colors will blend together.
 

 

 

 
 

Mick, thanks for your explanations.

Mick, thanks for your explanations.

Congrats Ed. The book would be a nice Christmas gift

Thank you all for the comments and likes.
 
 
Greg, the planks are 5mm by 1.5mm.
 
Here is another update.
 
Alexandru
 
 

Here is the continuation of my report is to build the chaloupe:
 
The rudder for the sloop I made of two parts, as in the original.
The fittings I make of brass.
The rudder was designed to insert and remove, for example, when the boat
was stowed on the ship.
 
Please look to the images.
I hope that they like.

 

 

 

Hi Christian
Nice to hear my heath Robinson contraption is of some help!
The jig in the picture is mk3. Absolute accuracy is a must otherwise a tinyfraction of an inch or millimetre out leads to a cumulative error. The piece of brass I used as a key was 1/32 x 1\4 a stock price from k& s metals range. The milling cutter was an imperial size of 1\4 inch. All this was specific to this model.....so I would have to make another jig for a different model. The crucial thing was getting the distance from the brass key to the edge of the milling cutter at exactly 9/64 inch.
Once this is done its a quick process to run of a length of moulding.
I hope this makes sense.
Obviously you would have to adapt your measurements to suit.
Cheers....mick

Really intersting jig for the milling job, Mick.
I'll cover your idea for my build. Thanks

Really nice work, Tony

Your wheel looks really good

Your wheel looks really good

Congrats Ed. The book would be a nice Christmas gift

The Book is out!
 
I hope I may be permitted some euphoria over the publication of Modeling the Extreme Clipper Young America, Volume I.  It took a lot of effort by Sea Watch Books and me to get this to market this year.  There were times early in the year when the amount of modeling and writing required to meet this deadline seemed insurmountable.  All the generous and supportive responses to the two build logs on this site helped us keep our nose to the grindstone.
 
The picture below of the book and its supplementary material hardly does justice to Derek Gardeners beautiful rendering of Young America on the Irish Sea on a winter’s morning as she approaches Liverpool – but it does serve as proof that the book is in print.  I have examined every inch of this first copy and am delighted with the result.  We hope you will be as well.
 
As I did with the Naiad books, I will start a topic in the book review section for comments, questions, addenda, and what I hope will be very few corrections. In the meantime, this posting on each of the two build logs will at least serve notice that the book is out.
 
Thanks again for all your support.
 

 
Ed
 

Really intersting jig for the milling job, Mick.
I'll cover your idea for my build. Thanks

WASHINGTON GALLEY....PART 4.....TRANSOMS
 
 
TWO UPDATES IN AS MANY DAYS.......BUSY,BUSY.....CANT YOU TELL IM ON PAROLE FROM WORK!!!
 
PATTERNS HAVE BEEN PASTED TO SOME APPROPRIATE STOCK IN THIS CASE 1/4 " THICK,JUST TO ALLOW PLENTY OF ROOM FOR MANOUVER.
 
THE TAFFRAIL HAS BEEN PASTED TO 1/8" INCH STOCK.
 
THE WING TRANSOM HAS BEEN CUT AND SHAPED BUT IVE LEFT THE ENDS UNFINISHED AS YET AS I NEED TO MAKE THE AFT CANT FRAME AND ITS ASSOCIATED HALF FRAME IN ORDER TO SEE HOW EVERYTHING FITS.........OR DOSNT AS THE CASE MAYBE!
 
APART FRON A WEE BIT OF FETTLING IM HAPPY WITH THE FIT OF THE WING TRANSOM TO THE INNER STERN POST.
 
PHOTOS INCLUDED.
 
CHEERS.....MICK

Your wheel looks really good

Back from another summer trip and eager to to get back to Cheerful.
 
I chose to deviate from the sequence that Chuck and the other Cheerful builders have followed at this point. Rather than doing the wales and the lower planking, I decided to treenail the upper planking. My reasoning was simple -- I hate to do all of the treenailing at once, and this allowed me to break it up. The treenailing was done by the drill and fill method, but I chose to use a more visible filler, rather than the subtle ( and likely more accurate) route taken by Chuck. I must admit that I simply like the look of the more visible treenails better. After completing the treenails, I applied a coat of Wipe-on Poly as a sealer.
 
Now I will move on to the wales and lower planking.
 
Bob 
 

I've finished the "Disposition of Frames" drawing.
 

 
I am not quite happy with the position of the timberheads between station line 17 and 19. But this is the position I got from the As Built plan of the Fly.
 
Next I will built my building board and start with the model.

Robin, just to make sure he didn't creep back into sight, I snapped off his feet and threw him into the brink.  Thank you Druxey, Mark, David and Maury.  And thank you everyone for the likes.
 
The final assembly is complicated by the fact the the height of the axletree must exactly fit the opening in the cistern cover, both in height and distance from the midline.  I had to remake the stanchions twice (and in one case, three times) to get the perfect fit.  The outer leg of the stanchion is inserted into a hole drilled in the hatch coaming.  The inner leg is secured with a bolt.  In the photos the metal looks unevenly blackened.  In real life it does not look blotchy.
 

 

 
This is one of the rare times I used CA.  I was concerned that the Elmer's Yellow would not hold the metal.  Once everything was secure, the chain was glued into the outer pump tube and then draped over the wheel assembly.  The port assembly turns; the starboard does not.  You can also see the pump dale sitting next to the port cistern.  This is a straight-forward box with a tongue to insert into the side of the cistern.  Since I have not decided what I will eventually do with the ordinance, I decided not to install it onto the cistern.
 

 

 

 

 
Now that everything is secure, I will make and install the rhodings.
 

Your wheel looks really good

Your wheel looks really good

The paddle wheel is done! Here's how I approached it:
 

 
While the Bertrand's wheels didn't survive to be recovered, one of the wheel hubs did, so we know the wheel had thirteen spokes. Using the estimated wheel diameter of 18', I laid out a template on my computer of 13 evenly divided spokes with a scale diameter of 18', and printed out five of them. These would form the basis of my wheel.
 
Meanwhile, I chose a dowel of the correct thickness for an axle. Then, for the hubs, I glued two pieces of styrene together, traced a series of circles of the right diameter (based on the recovered hub), and drilled axle holes through them. Then I cut out the rough circles with a hobby knife, smoothed them round with file and sandpaper, and painted them a dull metal black.
 

 
Apologies for the quality of this photo, but it shows the assembled wheels. I mounted each paper pattern with a pin at center, then laid thin strips of double-sided tape along  each spoke. This let me set the spokes in exactly the right orientation, before attaching them with carefully cut and fitted frame pieces. A careful look will also notice the inner ends of the spokes sanded to a slight angle to make them all fit together at the hub. On the real thing, the hub would have had sockets to hold each spoke, but I didn't think I could simulate that acceptably at this scale, so didn't. Better no detail than bad detail, in my opinion. As you'll see, it's almost impossible to tell once the wheel is finished. Removing the wheels from the double-sided tape was tricky, and I broke one by being too aggressive. It was fixed.
 
After sanding and shaping with a file, I painted these with diluted red paint. A bit too diluted, as I overdid it on several wheels and the diluted paint dissolved the wood glue holding these together and the wheels began to fall apart. With some very careful reassembly, a coat of glue along all surfaces, and some appropriate riverboat language, I salvaged the wheels no worse for the wear. Then I attached each hub, lightly weathered everything with brown pastel, and was ready to move on.
 

 
Now the real fun began. I carved the pillow blocks which support the axle, painted these and the axle, and began assembly. I'd wanted the wheel to turn, so had no intention of gluing the wheels onto the axle. I strung all five wheels loosely along the axle, glued on the pillow blocks, and glued the whole assembly to the support arms on the hull. Above you see me test-fitting the first paddle planks. I marked a few of these with the exact locations of each wheel, and clamped them on to hold the whole structure stable. Then I started gluing on other planks, all of which had been pre-painted at the same time as the wheels. 
 

 
Here's the hedgehog effect of the wheel covered in clamps. I glued every other plank to give the clamps room, then went back and filled in the gaps when the first round was done. Then I did the second, outer layer of planks. This went quickly and easily.
 

 
And here's the final result. The five wheels are near perfect copies of each other, such that the planks lined up perfectly. Another reason I left the wheels to turn freely on the hub, was to ensure I could get the best possible alignment between them. There were a couple spokes not quite right, a legacy of the dissolved glue and repair, but I can easily turn the wheel to hide them down by the rudder. It's really quite fun to sit there and turn the wheel gently. I may want to add some more detail, such as the bolts and straps that hold the paddles to the wheels, and some detail to the outer hubs, but not right now.
 
Someday it would be fun to build working machinery for such a paddle wheel, but this wasn't the project. The driving arms will attached permanently to the axle, and will not be in motion; only the wheel itself moves, unattached to the axle. It's good enough for me. 
 
I think it looks pretty neat with the wheel on, a real step forward toward looking like a steamboat. Now I'm off on vacation, two weeks hiking in Yellowstone National Park in northwestern Wyoming. As we're both former geologists, and Mrs Cathead worked at the park for three seasons many years ago, we're quite excited to return. On the way, we're stopping at the Bertrand museum at DeSoto National Wildlife Refuge just north of Omaha, Nebraska, a place I've been many years ago but am now very excited to return to. The museum is at the location of Bertrand's sinking, and is full of recovered cargo from the boat and various other exhibits. I'm also hoping to collect some driftwood and sand from the Missouri River at that location for use in a future display base. 
 
So this build will be on hold for a bit, but for a good cause. 

Young America 1853 – POB 1:96
Part 18 – Fairing the Upper Works
 
When the hull was faired earlier, in the inverted position, little attention was paid to the upper works, so the outside of the toptimbers needed some work.  The sanding required to fair the outside of these was light.  The first picture shows this in progress using 220-grit paper on a Softsander® foam pad.
 

 
In the next picture the fairness is being checked with a pine batten.
 

 
The toptimbers were molded 6” at the top.  In the next picture this is being checked with calipers. 
 

 
You can see from the reading that they are still oversized somewhat at .076”.  They would later be faired to the final 6” (.0625”) by sanding the insides – but only after some reinforcing outer planking was in place.  However, it was necessary at this stage to fair the deck “beams” accurately – as shown in the next photo.
 

 
Fairing of the deck was particularly important to avoid waviness in the thin deck planking that would be added later.  In the next picture this is being checked during the sanding process using a pine batten.
 

 
When this work was being done, I did not expect to take this model to much further and consequently spent less time getting the deck line faired than I should have.  I will show the final deck planking later.  While acceptable, more attention at this stage would have yielded a truly beautiful installation of the long, spacious open main deck..
 
With this work completed, the construction of the topside planking and rails could begin.
 
 
Ed
 

Attaching rudder
 
Thank you Nils and Bob. ;-)
 
Four set of pintle and gudgeon braces were fixed on the rudder and stern post with brass nail. The nail heads were blackened after hammering. I think this work seems one of the hardest part to get neat result.
 
Cheers,
Lee