jdbondy

I got to the bandsaw tonight with a 12 inch log of about 4-5" diameter, and a smaller one about 2-3". The smaller one already has a big check in it: But I cut it up to get flitches of about 3/8" thickness. How's this for a first attempt at quartersawing: These pieces are 1/2" to 3/4" in thickness. I took what the bandsaw would give me. My technique needs work; the pieces are of variable thickness due to difficulty controlling the log against the fence of the bandsaw. I forgot to finish cutting one of the corner pieces on the right. My kiln! AKA a shelf in the garage. I am gonna need A LOT more space. There is a lot more wood to come, including pieces of 24" length.

Keith, I love the gilded cage that is my workshop! OK, we have to talk. The moment I received the builders plans for the Mary Day, I had envisioned building a model that was a true reflection of the way in which the Mary Day was constructed. After all, I have all this information. May as well make the most of it. So to do that, I would have to accurately craft a keel to serve as a backbone. I would then need to create 51 sets of frames, whose shapes are determined by a 3D reconstruction of the model so as to obtain frame shapes that lie between the eleven stations that are detailed in the lines drawing. These 51 frames would of course need to be accurate in their outer shape, but then also they would need to be accurate in terms of their width (molded dimension) as they travel from the keel up toward the sheer and the caprail. They would also require accurate cutting of a notch where they articulate with the keel, so that their shape flows accurately into a rabbet carved into the keel. Since each of these frames would then be quite fine in dimension, they would have to be composed of strong and stiff material, and be dimensionally stable. (There must be some traditional way of determining what the molded dimension of a given frame should be, but I haven’t yet found anyplace where that is described. If you know what it is, please let me know!) But…do I intend to fully plank the model? Why go through all that work if it is just going to be covered up? If I do plan to fully plank the model, shouldn’t I just stick with the 11 stations, and forget about creating all 51 frames? Is there a middle ground, where I do use all 51 frame stations, but don’t worry about milling each frame to its true molded dimensions? In fact, I have already done a lot of the work toward creating 51 frames. So I have not yet crossed any Rubicons that would keep me from moving forward with a traditional build. (Except that some of the frames I recently cut out were made from 3/32” Baltic birch plywood, instead of the laminated boxwood that I used prior to learning about Baltic birch ply.) Fortunately, at this particular point, there is still a lot of work I can do prior to having to make the decision on how accurate a construction to use, and on whether to, say, plank only one side of the model. I still have to create a few more frames. I have to mark all the frames up for the waterline, sheerline, and planking bands. I still haven’t finished carving the rabbet, and I need to create filler blocks for the bow and stern after finishing the rabbet. Then the outer surfaces of the frames would need to be faired to their final shape before I would consider removing any material from the inside of the frames. To aid in the fairing process, the spaces between the frames on the baseboard are filled with 3/16” thickness pieces of basswood, to stabilize the whole structure while sanding the outer surface of the frames with what amounts to a longboard, a 4” piece of wood with 100 grit (or so) sandpaper. So I guess I am putting this post out there in order to see what opinions people have. Feel free to let me know what you think!

I found even nicer pieces of holly on my second visit to the brushpile, including logs of 5-6" diameter with extensive straight segments and no branching. Some are as long as 24"! And there is even more there if I want it; but I am having to restrain myself! I took a couple of pieces with painted ends, and started work on de-barking them. For this I was using my best available tool, a sub-optimal 3/4" width chisel. Now I am in the market for a draw-knife! Hopefully I will be able to get to the bandsaw later this week.

Great feedback. OK, my plan is to cut this recently harvested wood into logs of reasonable lengths, then put exterior latex on the ends. I will get it to my neighbor's bandsaw as soon as I can for "slabbing", as you call it Druxey. For an individual log, I will probably split it right down the middle first, then slice what is left in such a way as to exclude the pith. Then I have to find a place to sticker all this wood! For the older piece I showed you, that will go to the back burner since it is already dried over many years. As you can see, it already has long splits in it. And much of the bark is still on.

Coincidentally, I just scavenged some holly from a neighbor that is freshly cut down. These pieces have a greatest diameter of 3.5" and smallest diameter of 2". I tried to cut it so as to exclude major branch points. These segments are about 12" in length. Jaager, I guess I should paint the ends and peel the bark when possible. But are you recommending that I go ahead and rip it into sheets prior to letting it dry? For the fun of it, I labeled the straightest piece with the date and with its weight. I also have this older and fully seasoned complex piece of holly that is as great as 8" at its base. Since I now have momentum, I will probably start on cutting it up. When using holly for ship modeling, is it necessary to worry about excluding the pith at the center of the log, or is all of the wood fair game? Edward, sorry for hijacking your post but it seemed like very good timing to add to your post and not start a new one.

The illustrious Keith! Honored to have you following me! I enjoyed your Altair build. Hopefully I will have another post soon.

My last post consisted of work that went through October of 2018. At that point, I became involved in a craft project for a Christmas gift, so the model went on the back burner through the holidays…and MLK holiday…and Valentine’s Day…anyway, we pick back up in April 2019. I excitedly returned to the project and pulled out frames that I had cut from boxwood sheets that were 1/8” thickness, and found that the frames had warped along the narrow dimension of the wood sheets I had cut them from. I covered this topic on a post I made on MSW back in the spring of 2019 looking for guidance on how to solve this problem. If you have already seen it, my apologies. I bet that the warping would not have been as profound if the frames did not have the central part cut out of them. I imagine that a relatively triangular piece of wood with the outer edge cut to the shape of the frame would not have warped, at least as much as occurred here. There is of course the well-documented method of building up a ship’s framing by laminating thin layers of wood together. This is a test frame made of pieces of 1/32” boxwood, layered up with wood glue. Then pressed together overnight sandwiched between sheets of wood and layers of wax paper. I then cut this frame to shape using one of the printed patterns from my Rhino model, and created a keel notch. Upon close examination, you can see the 3 layers of wood. So proof of concept! As if the concept needed proving… So from here, how to go about doing this efficiently? I grouped frames so that a particular pattern could be used to craft a series of frames. These sheets of paper were used to model frames that had some degree of crossing of the grain. Using the table saw and thickness sander, multiple sheets of 1/32” boxwood were created. Here I am cutting the strips according to the paper patterns. Frames were layered up according to the patterns. These were glued up, and were pressed in a more efficient manner involving sandwiching them between wood boards, which were then pressed down using multiple heavy books and a 15 pound weight on top of the books. An example of how a particular pattern could be used for multiple frames. A scroll saw was used to cut close to the pattern, then a drum sander to bring it even closer. Hand sanding using 180 grit sandpaper was the final step. These frames were grouped into bags; some of these bags contain cut boxwood sheets prior to assembly, with their associated patterns in case more frames had to be made. I am happy to report that since these frames were created in April 2019, none have warped over the past year. The frames in the bow obviously will require extensive beveling to accept the planking. The following pictures are an attempt to pre-bevel these frames prior to installation. This frame is sandwiched between two thicker sheets of wood that are cut to the shape of the forward and after surfaces of the frame, as calculated by the Rhino program. This is a small spokeshave used to smooth the edges of the frame and the adjacent wood sheets. This is frame number 2 after beveling, removed from its wood sandwich. I did this process for the first 7 frames in the bow, but I haven’t done it for any other frames since then. This is because I envisioned fairing the frames once they were placed on the baseboard, with wood sheet inserts between the frames to stabilize them while a sanding board is used to do the beveling. Back to the baseboard and keel in the next post!

That's a big help, Toni. Eventually I will be confronted with the same issue on my current build.

I have another deck planking "rules" question. How were the nibs of the planks laid out in the bow and stern? Are those specifically delineated in your plans, or are there once again "rules" as to when to end an edge plank and nib it into the adjacent plank? I can see that the adjacent inboard plank would have to be narrowed as you approach the nib, in order to end up with a full width plank at and beyond the nib.

Looking good!

As mentioned in the last post, the keel construction was done by creating a copy of the builder’s plan on to transparency. Pinpricks were used to mark the dimensions of the multiple pieces that constitute the stem. These were initially transferred on to basswood of 3/16” thickness. The scroll saw is the weapon of choice for cutting the individual pieces out. They were cut as close to the line as I dared, then finished with files. Following the builder’s plan to the letter, the stem is built of eight different pieces. However, I learned 2 things from this: 1. Basswood is too fuzzy to allow for accurate joint formation between individual pieces. 2. Making the keel out of so many different pieces created a final product that did not fit the overall shape of the keel on the builder’s plan. At this point, I reverted to 3/16” thickness boxwood, and built many of the parts together so that the stem was made of only 3 parts, which fitted together very accurately. Once these were joined together, the assembly was thickness sanded to correspond to the thickness on the builder’s drawing, approximately 0.158”, or about 5/32”. This represents 10 inches in width at full scale. This jig was created to ensure accurate joining of the segments making up the long, straight keel. The segments are joined by scarf joints that were carefully created by a very small hand plane. A second joint further aft. The sternpost and a piece of deadwood have been added. The keel was carefully checked against the builder’s plan to make sure that the spacing of the slots for the frames was correct at the stem… …and near the stern at the start of the deadwood. Got a good shape to the keel overall. The small pieces in the center of the picture will be used to create the keel notches for the frames. All of this was possible without needing the help of Rhino 3D. The same is true for the base upon which the model will be built. It will be built upside-down, with the surface of the base in the shape of the curve of the sheerline. Specifically, the sheerline at the level of the top of the bulwarks (which would be the same as the undersurface of the caprail). These are basswood sheets that will each be cut to the shape of the sheerline, then glued against one another. Sheerline is cut into the first of the basswood sheets. Then two of them are glued together. 8 sheets become 4, then 4 become one. The surface was smoothed with a low angle block plane, with the carpenter’s square ensuring a smooth and even surface. This anti-skid material was glued to the undersurface of the base. This insert was created to support the keel. I initially thought I would slot frames into this insert as well as the keel. So the idea was that I could notch each frame, and notch the insert, so the frame and keel could be brought together reliably. Shims are visible on the base that locate the upper part of the frame. Multiple frames have now been put in, with shims adjacent to the top edges of the frames to stabilize their position. The frames were cut from 1/8” boxwood sheets, and using the thickness planer were thinned to 3/32”. The edges were cleaned up using a shaper table with a ½” sanding drum, then hand sanded to the shape of the paper templates. So far, so good…we’ll see what happens next…

Ha ha Michael, I wish I was that good with Rhino! Of course if I was, I would be doing something else for a living... Druxey, it was an incredible feeling having those plans put in my hands. I couldn't believe it. The builder's plan in fact was a blueprint, essentially an original! Skipper Barry King said, "You know, I've been thinking I need to give a copy of these to someone for long term storage." I said, "how about that museum back up the road?" (The Penobscot Marine Museum is where I had gone searching for the plans in the first place!)

The first order of business was to figure out how to make use of these wonderful builders plans I got from the crew of the Mary Day. The plans consisted of 3/8” scale builder’s plan showing the structure of the keel, the frame locations, the structure of the deck, and location of the cabinhouses on the profile view; then there was also a 3/8” scale lines drawing of the hull that was essentially the same as the old 3/16” scale lines drawing I had received from them shortly after our cruise. These very large plans (24x36”) were scanned by the staff at Brooklin Boat Yard, creating very large image files. Once I got back home, I had the scanned files reprinted at the original 3/8” scale, and I had multiple copies made of the plans at 3/16” for use in the shop. I had previously played with Rhino 3D many years earlier, back when I was doing some research involving CT scans of historic ship models. All that had been done using a trial version of Rhino, but it was time to make the investment. So I plunked down the four-figure amount of money for a full version of Rhino 3D. I could have gone cheaper, but I figured it was better to build on what I already knew about Rhino rather than have to start anew with some other program. It took some doing to remember how to take an image such as the builder’s plans and make it appear as an image in Rhino so that tracings could be taken. Help was found in the form of at least one article in the Nautical Research Journal that refreshed my memory on the necessary commands. The builder’s plan was thus imported, and it had to be carefully leveled to make sure everything was square. A long line was drawn through the waterline, and this was used as a handle to grab the plans and make very small incremental rotations in the plans. I could go into a lot of detail about the steps involved in generating a 3D model of the ship, but the condensed version is that after inputting all the possible information from the builder’s plan, the lines drawing was used to take the shapes of the molds at eleven stations. These shapes were then moved to their appropriate station fore and aft on the profile view. In addition, the shape of the keel had to be created, and there was a lot of detail work involving the shape of the bow and the transom. But once all this information was present, Rhino was able to render the surface of the hull and give me the shape of the hull from the tops of the bulwark stanchions to the bottom of the keel. I could then take a cross-section of the hull’s shape at any point along the fore-and-aft length of the vessel. Using a surface offset function, the thickness of the hull planking could be deducted, giving the needed shape for the frames upon which the planking would rest. Frame patterns were created in this way for each of 51 (!) frames along the length of the hull. The image above is a pdf output from Rhino, and for each station it shows the shape of the station, outlined by a pair of lines that indicate the thickness of the planking. The width of the keel is indicated by the parallel lines at the bottom of each station, and the waterline is also drawn in. These frames were printed on cardstock, carefully cut out, and numbered. This process required about 7 months to work through. Fortunately, while I slogged through this process, it was also possible to actually work on building the keel shape using the 3/16” scale builder’s plans. These were copied on to transparency, and pinpricks through the transparency were used to transfer the patterns to wood. I will go there in the next post.

Thanks for all the likes and followers!

The schooner Mary Day is a passenger schooner on the coast of Maine that is based out of Camden. She was built at the Harvey Gamage shipyard that was located in South Bristol, Maine, and launched in 1962. Her designer was Arno Day, and she is named for his daughter. The Mary Day was designed and constructed to be a passenger schooner, and therefore has not been converted from any previous use. It was Havilah Hawkins that conceived of the idea of a schooner built specifically for the passenger trade. You can learn more about her at schoonermaryday.com, and I encourage everyone to visit their webpage. She is such an important part of coastal Maine’s heritage. My wife and I took a cruise on the Mary Day in 1997, as a sort of delayed honeymoon since we got married when I was still in medical training (in 1994). Barry King was the captain of that cruise, and shortly thereafter he and his wife Jennifer Martin took over ownership of the boat. It was during this same time frame that my interest in model boat building was developing, and I always kept in the back of my mind the idea of building a model of her, even though my skills at that time would only permit the idea of building model boats from kits. Before evolving to my current skill level, though, I did learn how to build half hull models by taking a course with Eric Dow at the Wooden Boat School in 2004. In the course of a week, each student built two models. The first was one based on purchased lines drawings from the Wooden Boat Store to build one of a variety of models, plus we could do a second model of our choosing. Shortly after our trip on the Mary Day, Barry and Jen had kindly sent me the lines drawing for her: Only now do I regret using this plan sheet to directly transfer the lines to the pieces of wood used to build up her hull. I should have had accurate copies of this original made, then used those to actually build the two models I ended up creating. As a result, this original is quite beat-up after about 20 years of existence! While I was at the school, we had a surprise visit from the Mary Day, which I had not seen since our cruise 7 years earlier. To my surprise, when I reintroduced myself to Cap’n Barry, he remembered me and spontaneously asked how my wife Susan was doing! What a memory. I got this lovely picture of her as I was being rowed out to meet her. This is the product of that school week, and it hangs on the wall in my shop. I built a second model a few years later as a gift to Barry and Jen, and it resides at their business office. The lifts are made of basswood and mahogany, and the backboard is also mahogany. Before I could consider building a fully rigged model of the Mary Day, I would need more information than just a lines drawing. Over the next few years, I stayed in touch with Barry and Jen and would intermittently inquire about more complete plans for the Mary Day. There was certainly no hurry, as I was finishing a kit model that ended up taking about 20 years to build. Harvey Gamage’s shipbuilding yard had since closed, and when I checked with its successor (now known as Gamage Shipyard) about possible builders plans, they suggested that nothing would remain from their predecessor. Research at the local libraries in the area of Camden did not yield any information. In February 2018 I spent a week in Southwest Harbor, Maine, and I let Barry and Jen that I would be paying a visit to Camden. When I arrived, the first thing Barry did was to present me with full builders plans, in 3/8” scale! A dream come true. The most important sheet looks like so: More than enough detail to build out a very accurate hull. I could even choose to model it as it really exists, with a fit-out interior including deckbeams, carlins, mast partners, and centerboard trunk. Without these plans, no model could be generated, so I am greatly indebted to the staff of the Mary Day for their help. Cap’n Barry and first mate Tony in February 2018. Having learned a lesson from the previous lines drawing they had sent me, I promptly had these plans scanned to electronic format, thanks to the good people at Brooklin Boat Yard, where I visited the next day. Having the plans in digital format would of course be very important for constructing a 3D model of the boat using Rhino 3D. I am not (yet?) the kind of model builder that is interested in researching a no-longer-in-existence vessel; I doubt I would have the patience to do the research necessary to resurrect a bygone vessel into an accurate model. My last project was of a currently existing vessel (Pride of Baltimore 2), and having direct access to the vessel was extremely important. So this project greatly appeals to me on multiple levels, not just the personal connection via our previous travels on the Mary Day, but also the physical connection of being able to return to her in Camden, Maine, and obtain any needed documentation. So buckle up! Here we go. First order of business will be to generate a 3D model, because that will enable me to determine the shape of the schooner’s frames at any point along the hull.

Michael, I have been delinquent in following your build. Great work! When you made the homemade scraper, what kind of incredibly small file were you using to cut the desired shape into the scraper?

By the way, when you pull up my build log, is the entire build log on only two pages? Those seem like two awfully long pages compared to other peoples' posts.

I get lots of comments from visitors to the house. Definitely better than in the corner of the shop!

This picture shows installation of the sheets for the fore topsail yards. These lines for the upper yard run to the blocks at the mastcap of the mainmast, above the radar dome, then down to the deck. The sheets for the lower yard arise from the mainmast shrouds, running to blocks on the lower yard, then back to a pennant that is also attached to the mainmast shrouds. Then down to the deck. This pennant is about ½” in length. It took a lot of wraps of fly tying line to make it. Here is one of the rigs for securing the boom when at anchor or tied up at the dock. It ties off at a solitary pin on the deck rail. Here I am cleaning up the lazy jacks. It was difficult to work on one without over-tightening it and making the others suddenly look slack. Cleaned up pretty well, though. The mainsheet is of course quite long since the sheet runs through an extensive series of blocks, including a triple block between the (missing) ship’s wheel. The navigation lights are located on boards that are secured to the shrouds. The boards were manufactured from thin sheets of pearwood. Painting the lantern was a very delicate matter! Starting to work on the flags. The flag on Pride 2 is a 15-star flag, which as I recall indicates the number of states at the time of the War of 1812 or thereabouts. The flag was drawn using Paint, originally in a rectilinear manner. Then the skew function was used to skew the flag as you see it here. It helps to create a more naturally drooped final product. (Credit for the flag making techniques shown here belongs to Dan Pariser.) The Maryland flag was also drawn using Paint, and skewed in the same way. This one is printed onto fine cotton cloth, and before cutting it free, the edges were treated with an anti-fraying treatment. This was a first try for the pennant, printed on paper or silkspan. However, it didn’t handle crinkling well, as extensive cracking developed that you can faintly see here. A small amount of extra fabric was left on one short edge to accommodate the flag halyard. For each flag and pennant, the image was printed onto each side of the cloth, requiring mirror images of each flag and pennant. Pieces of fabric were taped over a paper onto which the flag had been printed, then run through the printer for the first side. Then each piece of fabric was flipped over and carefully taped to overlie its mirror image, and run through the printer again. Multiple attempts were done and the best was selected. The flag halyard cleats were very small. This image shows how much reduction of one of my stock cleats had to be done to achieve a scale size. These were then lashed to their respective shrouds with fly tying line. Ready for my closeup, Mr. DeMille... A yellow clamp at the level of the desktop secures the two halyards for the flag and the pennant at the mastheads. The Maryland flag did not droop quite as much as I would like. But I got a better result with the US flag. Each of these was crinkled by wetting with a spray of water, then crinkling it up and allowing it to dry. The lowest corner of the US flag was put under some tension to help it droop. This flag is rigged essentially on the boom topping lift. The finished model, with flags in place. A journey of more than 20 years is now at an end. I didn’t realize that there is a nice little history behind me of my other ship models! This one is by far the most complex, and the most satisfying. I moved it into the corner while awaiting the arrival of the display case kit. On the wall behind it is a model of Cuilaun, built by Rob Eddy of Camden, Maine. On the other wall is an antique map of the island of Martinique. My shop looks so clean at this time! I have mentioned it before, but my main workbench is actually a motorized sit-stand desk that has been essential. After a lengthy delay, the display case was ready. My neighbor and I VERY carefully put it in place while my wife took pictures. The glass case is actually a little too large for the bookshelves it is on, so I cut a piece of plywood for the case to rest on. My wife spontaneously said that it needs to be more prominently displayed than in the corner of my shop, which I was very pleased to hear! So initially it went onto the sofa table. But it seemed sort of vulnerable there. So instead, we cleared off this piece of furniture that was bought to support an antique mirror that came from France. And now both sides of the model are on clear display!

It’s time to address the issue of rope coils at the various pin rails throughout the ship. After rigging the foremast and foresail lines, I had a jumble of coils that were behaving badly, as shown above at the starboard fore pinrail. What a mess. This is the port side fore pinrail. I wasn’t happy with the technique I was using to this point, as I was getting very inconsistent results. These were some trial coils. Of course, as I am sure is common among us, the line is tied off to the pin rail and then the extra is cut, then a rope coil is created off the boat and applied over the cut line. Hey, if you don’t tell anyone my secret, I won’t tell on yours… I spent time playing with a piece of full scale line to try to come to a stable way of coiling line and adding a loop that would go over the pin, while leaving a coil that would realistically hang down. I also solicited a lot of helpful feedback from others on MSW, although when I try to go find my post, I can’t seem to find it. I gravitated toward this technique, with two metal posts in a block of wood around which line was coiled up. Then smaller thread was used to force it out of its round shape. Then one end of the line was passed through the wraps to give the loop that would go over the pin. A lot of effort at this point centered around what glue to use to get the line to hold these shapes. Thin CA certainly worked but was too difficult to control. These are what my coils looked like prior to forcing them out of their round shape. This is more like it. I settled on an Elmer’s product called Elmer’s Pro Bond Advanced. White glue didn’t seem to work well on Morope, which was probably because of its synthetic fibers. A finalized loop. I tried to avoid the use of CA due to the varying opinions about its stability over the long term. However, it was the best option for securing the coil of line to its pin. I could direct a very small droplet to the pinrail and place the loop over the pin, with just enough time to adjust the position of the coil before it firmed up. A couple of loops at the pinrail at the foot of the mainmast. Finally, a reproducible technique that I will hopefully be able to remember when it comes time to rig my next model! These logs are invaluable for that. And just in the event of another website crash (sorry, shouldn’t have mentioned it!), I keep these logs in Word format too. A brief interlude to acknowledge the reinstallation of the ship’s boat, Chasseur: Chasseur was removed earlier because I had to reinstall a cleat located on a bulwark stanchion immediately next to the cannon visible in the picture above. I was able to duplicate the line scheme that secured the boat to its cradle. Nostalgic moment: the first part of this project I did when I resumed building the Pride 2 after raising our first child to the age of 10 was to build the ship’s boat! I am very satisfied with how it turned out. Next topic: Shrouds and ratlines! Here I am using fly-tying thread to seize the shrouds around the deadeyes. I learned later, and maybe I mentioned already, that the technique I was using to tie these seizings is called a “country whipping”, where overhand knots are tied on the front and then the back of the shroud, over and over again to achieve the long seizing depicted above. Country whipping sounds like something I used to endure as a kid… The forward deadeyes on the port side are now seized, and the lanyards have been reeved through the deadeyes. Next the sheer pole is installed. Footropes applied to the port side foremast shrouds. A white card behind the shrouds made the line so much more visible. Now the after shrouds. The sheer poles were placed first, in order to accurately space out the footropes. What follows is a series of images showing my sequence of events for tying a footrope. Started with the center shroud, using a clove hitch for all the knots. It’s quickly evident that the footrope to the right of the center shroud is going to try to bend upward against gravity, while to the left of the shroud, the line hangs more naturally. There was no way to counteract this upward slope of the footrope to the right of the shroud except to fix it in a downward angle with a tiny amount of CA. That’s better. Fortunately that was the only part of the footrope where the angle of the line had to be corrected. CA was also used to secure the clove hitches at the ends of the footropes, so that the excess could be cut neatly without risk of the hitch unraveling. Pretty neat. Once again, white cardstock was essential to be able to visualize things well. Getting pretty close to the end! Gonna stop here for today, I think. Maybe I will finish up these posts tomorrow...

At the prompting of Meddo, I am going to try to finish off posting my pictures from the Pride 2 build. And high time too, as I am now making significant headway on my next ship model, so I will need to start that post once I finish this one! So, I created a jig that would support the mainmast while I worked on the main boom and gaff, and its associated sail. The mainsail had been ironed to give it a flaked appearance. Black thread is being used to bundle everything up temporarily. It was a bit of a trick to keep the gaff from falling to one side or the other. Next problem: the relative stiffness of the sail fabric caused the leech of the sail to bunch up and stick up. Putting tension on the outhaul lines helped matters, but still needed more work before the temporary black thread could be removed. In the end, I had to take fine fly tying thread and essentially sew down the folded leech to the sail material underneath it and give it a neat appearance. In preparation for installation of the mainmast and mainsail, these lines had to be installed. These are control lines for the boom that are used when the ship is docked. They are rigged to double blocks that have an associated hook, and the hook attaches to the boom. Now the mainsail has been tacked down, and the mast is ready for placement. The main mast in place, awaiting adjustment of its lines. A really exciting moment, as both masts are in place! I did not glue either mast in place, figuring that it was not necessary. They aren't going anywhere... Starting to rig the mainsheet through its blocks. Hey, wait a minute...isn't something missing that was there before?? The view from the starboard quarter. What followed next was an extensive process of rigging the halyards for the gaff, putting them under some tension, and then tightening the mainsheet and the boom control lines. This took a lot of trial and error to make sure that both of the halyards and the mainsheet were under tension…but not too much tension! Then each of the mainstays for the mainmast had to be secured at their rigging points adjacent to the foremast base. Here the mainstay rigging line is being coiled adjacent to its cleat, and is secured with dilute glue. I love working on the rigging! It is so very satisfying to see that jumble of lines begin to take order as everything is put in its proper place. My favorite part of building ship models. And this has been my most intricate model to date. Very close to being finished, so I think I will keep the momentum and work on the next post. That mainly means shrouds and ratlines, and putting rope coils in place. Hopefully that post will be here shortly! Plus this Coronavirus stay at home thing really has me in a productive mode.

Meddo! Been thinking of you as we wait for the onslaught of patients in Dallas and Dayton. Work is slow because aside from the cases of viral pneumonia, everyone has been keeping away from the hospitals, as you probably know. The model is finished, I just haven't done a good job of continuing my retrospective posts. But you will inspire me to resume them...

Sadly, no. I have too many other travel plans this fall, particularly during October. Have fun!

Before we get to the mainmast, got to deal with Chasseur, the ship’s boat. I created tie-downs for the boat that thread through holes in the cradle. I didn’t have any particular description of the tie-downs, so I just created what seemed to make sense. Uh oh, now I have a problem. There is a cleat along the port side rail where one of the backstays for the foremast ties off. With the ship’s boat in place, that cleat is very difficult to access. To make things worse, at some point the cleat broke off from the bulwark. Replacing it with the boat in place is impossible. Sigh. So those tie-downs were cut after I made a note of how I had made them, and the boat was removed. I had to create a hole to attach the new cleat. The old cleat had no firm physical attachment to the bulwark besides glue. So here I am drilling a new hole. I drilled a hole in the base of a cleat and glued a short segment of wire into the hole. This was used to create a more secure attachment point for the cleat. A small amount of paint was scraped off of the bulwark surrounding the hole, and the cleat was glued to the bulwark. The line is secured to the cleat in the proper configuration; later on a coil of line will be added over it. So now work begins on the main topmast. Blocks have to be attached to the mainmast cap, which are control blocks for the fore yard. This is the same technique used for attaching blocks in other parts of the rigging, with a double loop of Syren line that is then seized with fly tying line. Once everything is tightened, Flexament is applied to the seizing, and topcoat is applied to the block. I love being able to see what the seizing looks like up close using my microscope. I really need to get a camera attachment for the viewfinder, because getting this picture with my iPhone is actually very difficult to line up through the eyepiece. This seizing has not yet been treated with Flexament and topcoat. This is the topsail rigged to the main topmast. Since it will be modeled in a furled state, its overall shape doesn’t matter. This rectangular shape worked well for furling it into a nice tight bundle. The sail is being rigged to its mast hoops with line that will get all cleaned up once the seizings are secured with glue. For that step I was able to remove the sail from the mast and bundle it up, first with coarse black thread… …then more properly with tie-downs made with Morope. Very small reefing knots… Now it’s on to the main boom, which had previously been manufactured and cleats and jaws attached. Here I am attaching some footropes to the aft portion of the boom. Well, they aren’t actually footropes, but rather the attachment lines for the mainsheet blocks. This picture shows the relationship between these ropes and their respective cleats. These loops will serve as downhaul points for the reefing lines of the mainsail. Fly tying line was used to secure them to the boom. So here they are in place, giving some idea of where the reefing downhaul points are on the boom. This is one of the blocks for the mainsheet, which will get rigged to the black lines shown above. The mainsheet system consists of a single and a double block attached to the boom. The lines run from these blocks to additional blocks at deck level on either side of the ship’s wheel. Time to rig the mainsail to the boom. Ready to start securing the foot of the mainsail to the boom. Plus the same process for the head of the sail, attaching to the main gaff. And now, the luff is getting attached to its mast hoops. The usual technique, using a double loop of line that is then seized in the middle. Only these seizings are significantly longer than the ones for attaching a block to the rigging. A bit messy, but these lines will get trimmed off and things will look neater. Under the sail and its spars, I have some anti-skid material that is used under rugs. It’s great for keeping things from sliding around on the desktop. Will continue on the main mast in the next post.

My most recently completed model took over 20 years to build. Within it lie many memories, both good and bad. Mostly good, fortunately. I came to learn that the model is like a surrogate of my marriage: something that took much attention to detail to build; something to be very proud of; something that is very fragile and can easily be destroyed. I am hopeful that your model will remain with us so it can continue to serve as a testament to everything you have been through.