AnobiumPunctatum

I have started the capstan.  The diameter of the capstan on the Atalanta plans (as well as the Fly) is larger than shown in TFFM Vol 2, which represents Pegasus.  I redrew the capstan to reflect this.  The first thing I did was look at Greg's pictures in TFFM Vol 3.  Next, I re-read Dan's tutorial for Vulture's capstan.  Finally, I put wood to machine.  
 
After several years of threatening, I finally took the plunge and bought a Sherline mill.  I already own their lathe and so saved some money by using the motor from the lathe.  It takes less than two minutes to swap it out and that includes walking from one end of the house (where I have the lathe in my workshop) to where I set up the mill (better natural lighting this time of year).  I used English boxwood for the barrel and whelps to provide a subtle color contrast between the capstan and the framing.  The barrel wood has a few checks in it but the flaws will be hidden under the whelps.  The whelps are of good clear wood.
 
I took a square piece of boxwood and rounded it down to eight sides, like one would do for a mast.  I do not own a 4-jaw chuck and this made holding the wood blank easier in the 3-jaw chuck.  In the lathe, I turned the blank to the proper dimensions. I made all three sections longer than necessary to make sure there was sufficient length for final assembly.  
 

 
Now I was able to play with the new toy!  The upper barrel is divided into 12 sections for the 6 whelps and the lower barrel is divided into 10 sections for 5 whelps.  I mounted the blank onto a rotary table so that all of the sections could be milled to the same width.  The flats were milled while supporting the end of the blank to prevent downward deflection.  The upper and lower sections were then cut away from the central round section.
 

 

 

 

 
The next things to make were the whelps.  The upper and lower whelps are different in shape and width.  I traced the outline onto the end of a piece of boxwood, orienting the whelp along the grain. The blank was mounted into the vise, which was attached to a tilt table. The first one took over an hour (but half of that time was figuring out the correct setup); the second one took 30 minutes.  They will be sliced off the loaf when I am ready to install them.
 

 

 

 

 

 
 
 
 

Both Pegasus and Confederacy arrived at the new home without damage, Phew!
Movers did a great job of the packing.
Now to start building a new workshop.
 
Ben

I have finished installing the bulwark planks on the inner and outer side of the hull.  The outer hull above the wales still needs to be sanded smooth and treenails will need to be installed on the gun deck and outer hull planks above the wales.  Once that is done, I will move on to finishing up the guns and making all of the deck furniture.  I plan to use walnut for the deck furniture.
 
It may be a few weeks until I get work on it again due to a surgery that is scheduled for Tues on my left wrist; but I hope to be back at it in about 2-3 weeks. 
 
On to the good stuff, here are some pictures for your viewing pleasure.  I snapped a few with the guns placed on the deck to get an idea of how it will look. 
 
Enjoy......
 

Build log part 20
 
 
putting the hull to the stand first time and marking / checking the waterline
 
 
Nils
 

 
due to the length a 3-pedestal stand is adequate
 
 

 
the brass pedestals are from candle holders, drilled with 4 mm centerholes  for the three M4 spindles that are anchored securely in the ship`s "backbone"
 
 

 
the waterline has been marked with a soft pencil, all around
 
 

 
 

 

Congrats Dan for both, for the honor and for finishing a beautyful model

Congrats Dan for both, for the honor and for finishing a beautyful model

How did you know that Mark??? EDIT - ah, I just found the post that Grant put up earlier. Thanks Mark and Grant
 
Yep, Vulture took out the Members Choice trophy, their equivalent to "Best in Show" at the Canberra Model Shipwright's Society Show last weekend. She also came 2nd in People's Choice.
 
I'm pretty chuffed :
 

 
I'm taking it to the Mid North Coast Maritime Museum at Port Macquarie later on today after I mount the Binnacle.
 
  Danny

Binnacle
 
When I said I was finished, not quite. The Binnacle isn't a part of the main section of TFFM, it's hidden away in the Appendix. Easy to miss .
 
I knocked it up in a couple of hours. No finish has been applied yet :
 

 

 

 

 
  Danny

Hello all,
 
Here is another update with the progress over the last couple of weeks.
Alexandru
 

Hello,
 
without much words, the knees are ready. It wasn't so bad as I first thought. Because I had not to dive so deep into the hull. From that point of view were the knees at the gun and upper gun deck the most worse things I had to do.  
 

 

 

 
The next thing to do is to install the cannons with all there tackle.  
 
Regards,
Siggi

After several hours of careful sanding, I managed to complete the fairing of the bulkheads and move on to installing the gun port sills.
First, seen here, using a temporary batten to mark the smooth alignment of the sills on both sides....

Then carefully cutting and fitting the sills and uprights according to the plan sheets with exactly 17/32nd openings.


Also note that all gun port sills have been faired perfectly flush with the fairing of the bulkheads.
 

Well, I've returned from the wild and will eventually get back to modelling. First, though, some relevant photos from the Bertrand museum and elsewhere.
 
A few introductory notes on the museum. As the Bertrand was discovered, and excavated, within DeSoto National Wildlife Refuge, it became the property of the US Fish & Wildlife Service. Thus they built the museum as an add-on to a visitor's center otherwise dedicated to the refuge. It's a nice museum, but not one staffed by "steamboat people", per se. It's just a wing of the larger center. We had very little time there, even less than I had intended, because of the very long drive that day (we had to make it from central Missouri to western Nebraska before dark).
 

 
A cute, if primitive, Bertrand model in the lobby. 
 


 
One of the museum's centerpieces, a large-scale model of Bertrand; me for scale. This is a beautiful model, with complete interior, but in several places it departs rather severely from the archaeological drawings of the boat. The most blatant difference is the relationship between the main deck and the boiler deck just above. In the drawings, and the accompanying documentation, it's concluded that Bertrand's boiler deck extended as far as the width of the main deck and was supported by vertical stanchions between the two, on the very outer edge of the decks. On the model, the stanchions are set well inboard, with a set of curved supports ducked in under the boiler deck. I don't know why the discrepancy exists, since the model was almost certainly made after the excavation (no information was provided).
 

 
A painting of the Bertrand, by the same artist/illustrator who drew the graphic reconstructions included in the archaeology reports I'm working from. Note that he portrays the stanchions correctly, as vertical supports at the very outer edge of both decks. EDIT: I forgot to note that the cute, primitive model shown above DOES get the stanchions right.
 

 
A nice touch; one wall of the gallery is a full-size outline of Bertrand's aft third (roughly), with an actual paddlewheel hub mounted within. Me for scale. 
 

 
The gallery includes a huge collection of artifacts salvaged from the wreck, which are a day's worth of contemplation for a history buff. Unfortunately, as you can see by the photos above, the lighting is kept very low for preservation reasons, making photography a real, well, hassle. This shot gives some sense of the gallery's scale. In the foreground are various munitions from the wreck, which I thought might be of interest to some of you. For example, several racks of howitzer shells and a stand of .50 caliber Maynard cartridges. One assumes these were part of consignments for various Army posts on the frontier.
 

 
The stretch of river on which the Bertrand sank is no longer part of the mainstem Missouri River, which changed its course quite regularly before being channelized and controlled by the US Army Corps of Engineers. The location is now part of a large oxbow lake, a former bend in the river now cut off by a straighter channel and left as a horseshoe-shaped lake. The site of Bertrand's sinking is on the opposite shore, about as far as you can see.
 

 
And here is the actual site, the pit left over from excavation now filled with water and overgrown with shrubbery. Bertrand is still down there; once the teams had recovered the cargo and documented the hull, they left her be. It's perhaps 100 yards in from the old channel, in what used to be a field, where it was left by an early shift in river channel. The active river now is maybe 1/2 mile away.
 
Finally, a few other images from the trip, most of which was spent hiking in Yellowstone and Grand Tetons National Parks. I could bore you all with lots of imagery of backcountry thermal features, wildlife, and geological eye candy, but will restrain myself to these two, whose relevance should be apparent:
 

 
This is Steamboat Point, in the Bighorn Mountains of north-central Wyoming. It's a nice basic climb of 800' vertical feet or so, giving a clear 360 view of the east slop of the Bighorns. 
 

 
And this is Steamboat Geyser. It erupts unpredictable and rarely, the last eruption being just over a year ago. Here it's just steaming in the cool, crisp,  morning air, but even so it reminds one of a boiler hissing away gently, awaiting the engineer's touch to build pressure once more.
 
Next up for my version of the Bertrand are the engines, for which more research and planning is needed. I also need to get everything else in life back under control after two weeks away. But I hope you all enjoy the images above.

It's allways fascinating to follow your logs. I've learned a lot fromin the past years. Thanks

Hello Dirk,

do not worry, I am not bored ...
 
Hello Joe, Carl and Mark
I am very pleased about your nice comments, thanks!

Here is a small update:

Hello Michel. I'm doing a 1 / 48.francoise
progress of the day

Great, really great.

It's allways fascinating to follow your logs. I've learned a lot fromin the past years. Thanks

Young America 1853 – POB 1:96
Part 20 – Knightheads
 
The knightheads reinforced the stem on either side and provided a base for securing the hawse timbers that formed the forward hull back to the first cant frames.  This detail is shown in the posts for the full framed version of the model.  Rising above the top of the sides, the knightheads also provided lateral support to the bowsprit.  To accommodate the 36” square section of the bowsprit, additional space was provided between knightheads by additional members, 10” thick stem timbers, bolted to the sides of the stem assembly.  The two 10” stem timbers astride the 16” thick stem provided the necessary 36” spacing for the bowsprit.
 
On the POB model only the upper parts of the knightheads and stem timbers were modeled.  In the first picture their patterns have been pasted to the correct size stock.
 

 
As with all of the stock for this demonstration model, ¾” wood was used, allowing all the thicknesses to be cut on a good model circular saw.   This was done to allow the model to be made from readily available stock without the need for a thickness sander/planer – a rather expensive tool and not one that beginning scratch builders might have.  In the next picture the members have been cut out and given an initial bevel based on the pattern lines.
 

 
These were cut from hard maple.  The knightheads will be exposed on the model but painted black.  The members to the right are shown in their relative positions.  In the next picture the starboard head timber is being fitted into the space between the stem and the most forward bulkhead.
 

 
To prepare for this, the pine spacers forward of the first bulkhead were removed by sawing and paring with a straight chisel.  These spacers had been installed to protect the forward bulkhead during initial rough fairing of the hull. 
 
In the next picture the breadth across the installed head timbers is being checked for the eventual fit of the bowsprit.
 

 
At 1:96 the breadth needs to be 3/8”.  This precise breadth was obtained by sanding the sides of the members after they were glued in.  In the next picture the port knighthead is being glued into place.
 

 
With both knightheads firmly secured they could be faired into the stem rabbet.  In the next picture a gouge is being used for this.
 

 
With the shape roughed out with the gouge, a curved rasp was used to refine it – as shown below - followed by 120-grit sandpaper.
 

 
With the knightheads in place and faired, the topside planking could begin.
 
Ed

It's allways fascinating to follow your logs. I've learned a lot fromin the past years. Thanks

Great, really great.

Mortar Barrel continued....
 
Once the barrel had been bored, it was time to part off the workpiece to its final length and shape the base end.  A mandrel was then turned down from some aluminium bar stock, so that it was an easy slide fit in to the barrel, and this was then drilled with a 3/32” end mill, using the same set-up on the Mill as previously.  The mandrel was then placed inside the barrel and a securing pin of 3/32” brass rod was inserted to hold the mandrel securely in place. The pin was a tight push fit, which made the whole assembly quite secure.
 

 
Now it was time to break out the “secret weapon”.  The base of the Mortar Barrel is a hemisphere in shape.  I’d been pondering how to achieve this, when I discovered that Sherline make a “Radius Turning Attachment” for exactly this purpose.  Happy days – a solution to my quandary AND a new accessory!     
 
Here is a picture of the setup, showing the mortar barrel being held in a 3-jaw self-centring chuck by the temporary mandrel.  The radius turning tool is mounted on the cross slide and is quick and easy to set-up and to use.  In this picture, I’ve already started to shape the end, having taken the first couple of passes with the tool.
 

 
A few minutes later and voilà, a perfect hemisphere:
 

 
Prior to commencing to use the radius turning tool, I had used a small centre drill to mark the centre of the end of the base.  Once the radius had been turned, a 3/16” end mill was inserted in the tailstock, and a hole drilled to a depth of 5/16” – the reason will become clear shortly.
 
With this hole drilled, the workpiece was again moved across, with the chuck, onto the rotary table on the Mill, this time mounted in the horizontal position.  The 3/16” end mill was transferred to the Mill and the previously bored hole was used to index the mill table into alignment. The pin in the mandrel was used as a guide to align the barrel such that a slot could now be cut at 90-degrees to the pin. In the following picture, the slot has already been cut to the depth of the previously bored hole (ie 5/16”).
 

 
The base of the mortar barrel is an interesting configuration, and includes the trunnion bar that also blends into the mortar barrel body.  I elected to make this in two pieces, both from 3/16” square stock. The first piece would carry a trapezoid shape to blend into the barrel body, while the second piece would have its end turned into a cylindrical shape to form the trunnions.  Sounds complex, but was really quite easy.  A piece of 1/4" square stock was first re-sized to 3/16” square using the Brynes disc sander. The trapezoid shape was also achieved using the disc sander, while the trunnion bar was simply turned down on each end in the lathe.  Here is a picture of the components prior to assembly:
 

 
The pieces were then assembled and the mandrel and locating pin removed. The hole from the locating pin was filled by a mixture of PVA glue and some of those ebony shavings saved from the first part of the process.  Two handles were made by bending a piece of 1/32” brass wire, chemically blackened and epoxied in place.  Here is the final product prior to receiving a coat of Wipe-On Poly:
 

 
 
And here it is with a “test” fit to the Turntable:
 

 
The completed assembly was given a coat of Wipe-On Poly, and then posed in the firing position for a few final photos (the poly is not yet dry here, hence the slight sheen):
 

 

 
 

 
All in all, I’m well pleased with the way this turned out.  Time spent up front measuring and working out the workflow process was well invested, as was the money spent on the radius turning attachment.  Amazingly, there were no re-dos in the entire process!     Next up – the 4-pounder guns and carriages. 

Great, really great.

Great, really great.

Lower hull planking progresses. Chuck says that Cheerful can be planked without spiling by edge bending the planks (and has proved it beautifully on his own model). Well, so far, so good. I have now done the upper belt of the port side lower planking. While it doesn't look anywhere as good as Chuck's, I'm reasonably satisfied. 
 
Each plank was first tapered, then bent, then edge beveled where necessary for a tight fit. I followed the butt pattern shown in the plans.I must admit that it's hard to teach an old dog new tricks, and I went back to my old methods of plank bending, using water and heat, rather than the method used and shown by Chuck. In any event, it's now on to the same work on the starboard side.
 
Bob 

Young America 1853 – POB 1:96
Part 19 – Planksheer
 
In the angle between the toptimbers and main deck beams, a massive 12” x 11” waterway was fit to reinforce the deck beam connections to the frames and to provide a watertight seal around the outer deck planking.  The planksheer was a large member that fit directly on top of the waterway and enclosed the toptimbers.  It provided a watertight cap over the hull frames, waterway and outboard planking.  It was wide enough to show as a molded rail both outboard and inboard.  It was either mortised to fit down over the toptimbers or, more likely, made in two parts that were notched to fit both inside and outside, then bolted through horizontally.  On the model, I installed the planksheer as spacers between the toptimbers capped by rails inside and out.
 
Since the planksheer rests on the waterway which in turn rests on the deck beams, I believe the height of the planksheer is most accurately set by fitting the inboard rail first.  The height was set using a temporary pine spacer cut to the depth of the waterway.  This is shown in the first picture.
 

 
Why not install the waterway first, then the planksheer?  If the model is to be painted, the waterway will be painted blue, the inboard works, including the adjoining inboard planksheer rail white.  To avoid having to cut in sharp paint lines after construction, I wanted to paint the white then install the pre-painted blue waterway below it.  The natural finish decking would later be installed against the blue waterway. The sequence to accommodate painting is also described in the posts for the 1:72 framed model – as well as in detailed in the book.  The inside rails were molded using a scraper and cut to size as described for the larger version.
 
With the inside planksheer rail glued in place to the toptimbers, spacers between toptimbers were cut and fitted – glued to the outboard face of the inner rail and end glued between toptimbers.  In the next picture, these spacers have been installed and their outer edges are being faired to the outside of the frames.
 

 
In the next picture the tops of the spacers are being filed flush with the top of the inside rail.  The upper face of the rail is horizontal in the athwartship direction.
 

 
Before the outer part of the planksheer or any exterior planking could be installed, it was necessary to fit the knightheads.  I will describe that work in the next part.
 
Ed