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Jared

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  1. Jared
    Thanks for your positive feedback Grey. Following up on ClipperFan's helpful feedback on my scribed ship's boats, two of which I had before already scribed incorrectly, I went into damage control mode to see if I could improve upon what I have done. Using model puddy I filled incorrect lines where I could and then did my best to scribe new lines that conformed better to general shape of the 2 boats. I think they are new better than they were, but not perfect. Scribing the lines on such a small curved surface isn't at all easy! Fortunately the human eye does not have the resolution to pick up all of the small imperfections that the closeup camera does below 😃
  2. Jared
    Thanks Clipperfan. Very helpful
  3. Jared
    After my not so successful attempt at using vacuum forming to make my ship's boats, I spent a lot of thought on how I could make the hull appearance of the Britannia boat castings look more realistic, without adding to the thickness of the boats. I decided to try using an Exacto knife to scribe shallow line on the outside hull surface, to try to create the appearance of a planked hull. Here is my first go. I used a proportional divider (with some difficulty) to lay out the plank lines. The actual scoring of the metal with the knife requires a very steady hand, which I hope to improve upon in my subsequent attempts.
  4. Jared
    Following up on the suggestion by Roger Pellett, I had a go at trying to use the vacuum forming technique he described in the tips section of this website to make my the ship's boats in place of the thick metal Britannia boat castings supplied in the kit. FIGURE 1 below shows the setup I built. I used the Britannia castings as the basis for the mold. I stapled individual sheets styrene (Evergreen Scale Models; 0.02 and 0.015" thicknesses) onto my wooden frame (Fig. 1) and heated them at 350 F for 3-3.5 min in a small oven at which time the plastic was sagging in the frame. I quickly removed the frame from the oven and placed it on my vaccum box under suction created with a shop vac.. In each case, the softened plastic quickly pulled down onto the Britannia molds and solidified. My results I obtained with the 0.015" sheet is shown in FIGURE 2. I encountered two problems: 1) In some spots the plastic did not pull down evenly over the mold, leaving folds. You can see this in Fig. 2 at the ends of the boats. The problem was worse with the forms I made with the thicker plastic; as 2) the plastic did not pull down well enough at the level of the frame. I suspect that more vacuum may be necessary to overcome these problems. So whole I enjoyed this learning experiment, I probably will be using the Britannia castings supplied, which I will try to enhance in other ways.
  5. Jared
    That's what I found. I have some photos of my drilled taffrail on page 1 of my build.
  6. Jared
    The build this week focused on the wheel box and steering wheel (photos attached). The wheel box was fairly easy. I build the unit around a small scrap block of balsa wood in a manner like what I described in my previous build entry for the water closets. The Britannia steering wheel casting was one of the better castings in this kit. I primed then painted it before assembly on the wheel box. I then glued a rudder extension onto the bottom of the wheel box, then glued the completed assembly onto the aft deck. According to the plans, there are 2 grates on the deck adjacent to the wheel box. I had a go trying to hand build these following the simplified grating procedure described in the manual. As I expected, at this small scale, it is near impossible to hand build a realistic-looking grate. The basswood I used was too weak and splintered easily under the drill and needle file. The square smallest holes I could make were about 3/64 in. square and spaced about 1/8 in. apart. While I am sure better grates could be made this way using other types of woods or materials, I think the way I will go is to purchase one of the the precut gratings that are available from Model Expo.
  7. Jared
    I did a trial today with my full size wood lathe. I was able to turn a 1/4" wood dowel on it and if I was very careful and worked slowly, could shape the wood. However, I eventually broke the piece at a thickness of about 1/8". I think if I stick to sandpaper I should be able to shape my masts on it. On my previous build (Morgan Whaler) I shaped the masts with sandpaper, turning the wood dowels on a drill.
  8. Jared
    Thanks for the info on the lathe.
  9. Jared
    Very interested in how you are building your masts. Nicely thought out. What small wood lathe did you get? I am not sure what method I will use yet. I have a large lathe but not sure if I will be able to use it. I would probably need to design an adapter to hold the small diameter masts.
  10. Jared
    This week I scratch-built the 2 water closets on the Flying Fish. Their construction required a lot more hours of work than I had anticipated. As with the other deck structures I have discussed above, I elected to build the 2 water closets on top of solid wood blocks I shaped on a drum sander. Carving the lower back end to fit into the bulwarks etc. was the most challenging part. Thin sheets of solid basswood were then glued onto the front, top and sides of each, then I added wood strips for the various moldings. The water closets doors were made with some etched basswood I had on hand. The Capstan bars were made from a bamboo kebob skewer, using sand paper and then a draw plate to bring the diameter down to the desired size. The same size wood strips used for the deck were used to fabricate the roof's. After gluing they were sanded and finished with tung oil. The various other parts were painted after different steps in the construction.
  11. Jared
    I am enjoying reading about you unique approach to building your Hull.
  12. Jared
    Great experiment. Very helpful. Thanks.
  13. Jared
    With the new year comes a few completed deck structures. The Britannia cast water tank looked good so only I only needed to give it some primer and paint. The cast binnacle cabinet was not cast anywhere as nicely. Sanding its top surface smooth considerably improved it. This was then primed and painted, and the bell mounted on top via a small diameter brass rod I bent to shaped. This was glued into 2 small holes I drilled into the top of the binnacle. The aft storeroom hatch / skylight was scratch built (about 4 hours work). Due to the frail nature of the outer walls, I built the structure around a small solid wooden block. The walls were made from a thin sheet of basswood, with the window openings cut with an X-acto knife. The latches on top of the structure were made using a pair of finely etched metal castings I had. I chose not to bother putting bars on the skylight openings, given the scale.
  14. Jared
    I will be very interested in learning how you make out with your lathe. Also I really like your idea on improving the cast boats. I think this will add a lot to the look and will experiment myself. 😁
  15. Jared
    Finishing up the year with completion of the 2 gangways and scratch built portable ladders. Happy New Year to you all!
  16. Jared
    All postings from today going forward will show the current status of my model. This week I have been working on the various ship's ladders and had a go at building several from scratch, using the method summarized in the second image below. For the ladder side rails, I cut 68 degree notches into a wide piece of basewood stripping using a mini table saw. The basswood strips were slightly thicker than desired thickness of the ladder side rails. The strips were then ripped to the size (side of side rails). The steps were cut on a chopper, then were glued into the notches on one of a matching pair side rails, after which the matching side rail was affixed. I found it difficult to make ladders that were longer than about 5 or 6 rungs, because as the ladder grew longer distortions caused by the tiniest of errors resulted in visible distorted (twisted and bent) structures. No doubt with more practice I could get better at this. In the end I used scratch built ladders at the aft sides of the poop deck and forward deck houses, and the Britannia castings elsewhere shown in the photos below. The hand rail on the steps leading to the forcastle will be constructed later.
  17. Jared
    Thanks
  18. Jared
    Since September I have been working towards completing the various deck structures on the Flying Fish. This is still in progress. Here is where things stood as of the end on November. I thought the design of the anchor pull chords a bit flimsy and vague and decided to model mine after the ones described in Fig. 68 of C.N. Longridge's outstanding book on the Cutty Sark.
  19. Jared
    As noted in my Sept. 24 post, when I started back up with my build late this summer, my first task was to construct a mahogany mounting board. I then mounted my model onto it, using brass pedestal's I purchased from Model Expo. Rather than using the brass screws supplied for the attachment, I followed the recommended mounting using brass rods I cut from wire instead. This made it much easier to ensure the hull was mounted squarely. There is a thread on mounting the hull this way in the help section of Modelshipworld.
  20. Jared
    Thanks George. I have been trying to make ladders the last two days. Not decided yet whether to use them of the metal ones. it does not take much of a cutting error to throw the whole ladder off into a twisted mess. A question or afterthought for anyone who understands railings. The forecastle deck has an elevation of about 5 feet above the main deck. The plans show that there is a rail on the ladder leading between these decks. but not on the aft overhang on the forecastle. In a book I have on clipper ships, it does show rails on some of the larger clipper ships, but not on all. By modern standards that would be a safety no no. It is odd that there would be a safety rail on the ladder but not on the forecastle itself. As on isn't in Buttersworth's painting of the FF, I guess it really didn't have one (He does show the rail on the poop deck in his painting). Merry Christmas
  21. Jared
    Thanks for this information on the figurehead of the Flying Fish ClipperFan, and for your feedback gak1965. Merry Christmas..
  22. Jared
    Nice work on the deck structures George. I don't know the answer to your question of the pin placement. I think I just followed the design on the plans. I am impressed with the work on the railing on your poop deck. Looks like a challenge ahead for me. It appears that my build is not much far behind yours. I am trying to decide what to do about the ladders - to use the Brittania cast ones supplied in the kit or scratch build them. I think am going to have a go at the latter and see how that works. Merry Christmas, Jared
  23. Jared
  24. Jared
    This set of images shows the construction of the Deck and Poop Houses, and a number of the other structures on the deck as of early 2012, when my work on my Flying Fish model unfortunately had to be mothballed, only to be picked up in late summer of 2021, 9 years later. I decided to build the two houses on solid blocks of balsa wood, to provide additional structural support and strength See first image below).
  25. Jared
    Sorry I have been preoccupied on other things. Here I pick up on my build log with the building of the chain plates and deadeyes. I used marked dowels with thread attached as temporary masts to help me lay out the positioning of the chain plates and deadeyes (see second photo). I don't recall the details of how I made them other than following the plans and soldering them together, then mounting them on the hull, adding the wood planks and painting.

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