Glen McGuire
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Everything posted by Glen McGuire
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When the Captain of the Alabama, Raphael Semmes, got his first glimpse of his new ship he commented: "Her model was of the most perfect symmetry, and she sat upon the water with the lightness and grace of a swan. And when her awnings were snugly spread, her yards squared, and her riggings hauled taut, she looked like a bride ready to be led to the alter." My model here is probably more appropriate for a shotgun wedding, but I'm very happy with how it all turned out. What an amazing journey it's been! -
And now, the final product... I will post these to the gallery of completed kit builds.
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OMG!!! After an incredible 8 months and 1000+ hours I was done with the ship! OMG again!!! But there was still one last thing to do. And of course it would require more kit-bashing (love that new term that I've learned from this community). The display base that came with the kit was pretty pathetic and certainly did not do justice to all the hours of work, so I decided to build my own base. As I was working on the ship, I bought the book "Wolf of the Deep" by Stephen Fox to learn the history of the ship and its captain, Raphael Semmes. It's a great read. The book mentioned that some of the wood used to build the Alabama was English Elm. I just happened to have some pieces of English Elm (that actually came from a tree that was cut down on the south lawn of the Texas capital years ago), so I thought it would be pretty cool to make a base out of the same type of wood that was used for part of the ship's original construction. I ordered the silver nameplate online.
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And FINALLY it was time for the last step, hanging the 5 life boats - 2 on each side and a small one on the stern. Piece of cake, right? Actually, it was more challenging than I thought. The instructions didn't help much in the way of how to hang them and I struggled with figuring out a way to keep them secure AND level. I finally came up with the criss-cross rope work which was quite secure and I thought it looked kind of cool. The lashing of the paddles to the bench seats was also a tiny bit of kit-bashing I added at the last minute.
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@Keith Black That is cool to hear! Actually, the steam aspect of this ship is what caught my eye when I was thumbing thru the Micro Mark catalog trying to figure out what ship to try. I knew very little about the history of sailing ships but I was fascinated by the picture of the Alabama because it had sails AND a prop. I had no idea why you would need both. I started doing some research and found the whole history of the Alabama really fascinating. So that's why I chose it. I hope you decide to give the Alabama a try. I would LOVE to see what you could do with it. Would you do it from scratch?
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Getting close! I was pretty excited at this point as I was pretty sure all of the really hard stuff was behind me. The rope coils were next and were not too difficult. Tedious? Of course! And at the start of this project would have seemed near impossible to me. But by now they were fairly easy.
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After much debate (and trying to figure out exactly how I could pull it off) I decided to add futtock shrouds and a tiny little sheer pole, neither of which were in the kit instructions. Second pic shows the addition of the last 3 sails - jib, flying jib, and fore stay.
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@mtaylor Thanks for the comment on the sails! And I will definitely be picking your brain when I begin work on the Constellation. I glanced thru your build log which was quite impressive! It kind of irks me that the AL kit is misleading but the thought of making the kit more historically accurate is intriguing.
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More work on the deadeyes here. I got a little better at keeping the upper row in a line but still not great. Practice, practice, practice! I did add the sheer pole which was not in the instructions. I used a small piece of piano wire.
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Now, the moment of truth, the running rigging. Actually, it seems like there had been about 50 moments of truth along the way. But honestly at this point I was getting pretty confident that I could pull this thing off. Every step along the way seemed so daunting at first. But it was just a matter of being patient and plowing ahead. Those belay pins are SOOOOOOOO tiny. My gosh it was a challenge to tie some loops around them. I found this great video of how to secure a rope to a belaying pin but I couldn't do all the loops because there just was not enough space.
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Before diving into the running rigging, I decided to take a break and do something a little easier - circle back to the rudder I had made the strap hinges earlier for and go ahead and install it. After that, I finished copper plating the keel. And now, every time I look at the prop those casting marks stick out like a sore thumb! UGH!!!
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Time to figure out how to display the sails and then add them to the yards/gaffs. I looked at a million pictures online of different models and how their builders chose to display their sails. The configuration that really caught my eye was a version of the Constitution being sold as a fully completed model. I liked way the square sails were rolled up in the middle but the ends were allowed to hang down giving it sort of a pleated look. To me, this struck the perfect balance of having the sails displayed but not completely dominating the view and covering up all the rigging. So that's what I tried to copy. The mizzen sparken I decided to hang fully unfurled. The main sparken and foresail sparken I wanted to roll up against the corresponding mast and let the top of those sails hang a bit from their gaffs. After I finished the running rigging I planned to add the jib sails. The first pic below is the Constitution I was trying to copy.
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@Keith Black Your foot ropes look great! Thanks for the pic. That will be my guide for next time. Gonna review your Tennessee build log now.
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@mtaylor Wow Mark. Your Constellation is just magnificent. I will be studying your build log closely when I begin my Constellation effort. I've learned so much from my Alabama project, but your work shows me that I've still got a loooooong ways to go. I am intrigued to see how much bashing is required to make the AL kit more historically accurate. I had no idea the kit was not as advertised. Looks like I've got some research to do. Regarding books, I just ordered "The History of the American Sailing Navy" by Howard Chapelle. I thought it might help with the Constellation when I get around to it. Any other books you would recommend?
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Close up of the fore top gallant sail with bolt rope added. I used CA glue to attach it to the edges of the sail. The 2nd pic is the full complement of completed sails. I breathed a huge sigh of relief when this 3 week sail making effort was over. But it was also a huge thrill because I'd learned 2 new skills of ironing and sewing that I never thought I'd need. That's one of the great things about this hobby!
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Next up, sails. More research and more different opinions. Some said don't add sails because it hides all the rigging. Others said sails make the ship look more complete. My preference was the latter. It's the Age of Sail, right? Well, maybe sail and steam for this ship but you know what I mean! So I figured you gotta have sails. Of course then you gotta decide how many you are going to display. I decided to go for broke and put every single sail on the ship. I don't know if ships ever actually sailed that way but that's what I wanted to do. The bad news was that the kit did not have any pre-made sails. There was a single, white piece of cloth and patterns for 12 sails of various sizes and shapes. The even worse news was that I'd never sewn anything like this in my life and did not know anyone who knew how to use a sewing machine. Actually, I didn't know anyone who even owned a sewing machine. So this incredible learning experience was about to go into overdrive! I bought a new singer sewing machine (model 44S which was fantastic) and started hitting youtube tutorials. I also bought a bunch of muslin fabric to practice on before actually trying it out for real on the kit fabric. After getting the sewing basics down, I then realized I needed to be able to sew a hem around the edges of each sail to keep it from having frayed ends. This meant sewing a tiny double fold hem about 1/8" in width on each edge of each sail. Which meant I also needed to buy an iron and learn how to use it. Ironing was the only way to get the hem fold to stay flat enough to put thru the sewing machine. It was way too tiny for pins to work. So add a sewing machine and an iron to my expanding tool kit for this project!
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After attaching as much rigging as I could to the masts it was time to attach the yards to the masts and step them into the deck. I had a lot of trouble getting the yards secured to the masts. The yard cleats in the kit were so tiny and fragile. You can't really see it in the picture but I ended up wrapping safety wire around the junction of the yard and mast to keep it in place. It turned out to be almost invisible when I was done. Also in the pic below you can see a little more "kit bashing" (my new favorite term). The kit instructions did not have ratlines running from the cross trees to the top of the upper main and fore masts which I guess would have provided access to the top gallant yards. And the picture on the box didn't show them either. But in my research, pretty much all the paintings I saw of the ship showed upper ratlines on the upper main and fore masts. So I decided to add them.
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I read in some places that it was best to put as much rigging in place as possible before stepping the masts into the deck. Other places said to do the rigging afterwards. I chose the former. Curious to know if there is a consensus for this community on which way to go. Below is my first effort at tying ratlines. I started with the mizzen mast since it was the shortest. I also tried several methods of holding the shrouds taut while tying the ratlines but never came up with one that was all that great. My first try at tying deadeyes is shown in the 2nd pic. I had trouble getting the top row in a line as you can clearly see. I tried a little bent wire tool to hold the upper and lower deadeyes equally apart but it was a struggle.
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With all of that done, it was finally the moment of truth! The whole time I was doing everything up to this point, dark thoughts of rigging were always floating around in the back of my mind. I had read somewhere that something like half the people that buy these kits never finish them. And most of the time they quit when the rigging starts. Not sure if that's true or not but it was definitely making me anxious. At this point, I also happened upon a book that looked like it might be helpful so I got it off Amazon. "Wooden Ship Models" by Wolfram Mondfeld. I found it to be a great help in understanding not only how to build all the different things on a ship, but also how the things work as well. Great reference. I think it will be particularly helpful should I ever truly go over to the "dark side" and try a scratch build as Bob Cleek and mtaylor have suggested.
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Lashing the yard arms to the yards and adding footropes. I don't think the footropes turned out all that great but I could not figure out a good way to hang them. Any suggestions?
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Now it was on to the masts, yards, and yard arms - and another rude awakening. Guess what, everything needs to be tapered to a point and of course nothing in the kit is tapered. So I did what I'm guessing many of you have done, which was turn my electric drill into a mini-lathe. After practicing on a bunch of dummy dowel rods, it actually worked quite well.
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@Keith Black Thanks for the tips on the thread. I read something that recommended rubbing beeswax on all the rigging lines which is why I got the waxed thread, but what you say makes a lot of sense. I will definitely check out the Gutermann products for my next build. This is the kind of info I was hoping to get by posting this build log. I'll be posting my rigging work later tonight or tomorrow so hopefully you can look at it and comment on anything you see I could have done better.
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