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Lecrenb
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Hi Alan... well spotted! That is the engine exhaust used by the original diesel. St. Roch did not get a funnel until the larger engine was installed in '44. -
My rub rail is made from one single piece of lumber, scaled 4 x 8 inches, each side port and starboard, and a curved section across the stern... These rails fit over top of the chain plates and overlap the lower edges of the fo'c's'le portholes, so the first order of business is to take measurements back from the bow of the model, and notch the rails appropriately... The cutouts are where the portholes line up. The notches are for the foremast chains. Here it is being test fitted to the hull... Then the rail is steamed, bent, clamped to the hull to dry, and painted semi-gloss black. Yes, the main chains pass under the rub rail but over the poop deck wale... Here is the starboard rail glued and clamped in place... The cocktail toothpicks make sure the rail does not encroach over the scupper. The block assemblies transfer clamping pressure down onto the rail. Fingers crossed everything stays in place and I only have minimal cleanup to do tomorrow, then on to the port side! Of interest is this picture of St. Roch showing parts of the main chains. These were not removed when the main mast was taken out in 1944, presumably they were sawn off at the top of the rub rail because the shipwrights did not want to deal with the resulting exposed notches! As always, thanks for looking in and comments are welcome!
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G'day Hamilton... I heard back from the Executive Director, David Jordan. If the visitor services staff is not too busy they are prepared to give you private access to St. Roch's engine room. You should be able to identify the water pump and associated lines that draw water in and discharge it overboard. Just tell them you are Hamilton and are looking for engine cooling details for Bruce LeCren, hopefully they will have time to let you in! Do you have a rough idea of when you might visit? Thanks and regards, Bruce
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I'm now making the chain plates... there are a total of 14; 3 each side of each mast and two main mast preventer stay plates. They are made from simple steel bar stock that bolt flush to the hull, passing behind the rub rail and bolting below it. Turnbuckles that tension the standing rigging bolt to the top of each plate. I derived the lengths of each plate (they are not all the same) by scaling from drawings. The first picture shows the two sets for the foremast, complete with turnbuckle ends I made from solid core solder. I drilled a .020 hole through each assembly then pinned each shackle to its' plate with Grandt Line 1 1/2" scale bolts and washers... The turnbuckles that tension the rigging have fork ends that bolt to the plates, but detailing those while installing the rigging would be a recipe for disaster! I plan on modifying the turnbuckle ends to fit over my 'shackles', so they will look like forked ends. The plates are not straight up and down on the hull, they follow the line of the rigging. I temporarily set the mast and used thread to derive the correct line... in the picture the thread passes down the aft side of the mast to the rear chain plate. And here are the port fore chain plates installed using CA glue. Now to pin them into the hull, then do the other sets and move on to the rub rail, which is the last structural member of the hull! Regards, Bruce
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Thanks very much!
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Hi Hamilton, Thank you very much for your kind offer! The cooling water inlet would be under the superstructure area, where the engine room is located. Probably around the curve of the bilge, no idea port or starboard, but definitely below the water line. I have been down there as well and never noticed anything, but it never crossed my mind back then to look for it! I will let the curator know you're coming, if they unearth anything they can let you know! Regards, Bruce
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Thanks Hamilton... Actually there is a topic I have reached out to the museum curator about, unfortunately with no success so far... There has to be a sea chest or similar in the lower hull to provide cooling water for the engine, but my plans give no reference to this and neither do my photos. Not an urgent requirement, but if you're going to be visiting the museum can you please and thanks take a look at the lower hull for such an opening? Regards, Bruce
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To finish the exterior hull I began with the portholes... these are RB Models 5mm flanged and glazed, exactly what is needed. I scaled the locations of the portholes onto the hull using photos and original plans, and I used a piece of lumber sized to match the rub rail to ensure proper alignment. A Forstner bit is essential to drill the holes as the spurs cut cleanly and do not tear out the wood. Test fitting the portholes... the rub rail will overlap a part of each flange per the original ship. For this reason the fasteners are not evenly spaced around the flange. The portholes come with five holes drilled into the flange. St. Roch has eight fasteners per porthole. I used .032 diameter Grandt Line rivets, their heads superglued around each flange, and filled the unused flange holes. Then the portholes were glazed, the glazing recessed per the actual ship. After painting they were superglued into the hull. Next up is the chain plates, then the rub rail. Thanks for looking in!
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And here is the base complete! 2 oats of clear coat finished it off... St. Roch trying out her new cradles... And my parts from Cornwall Model Boats arrived today... 10 days from the UK is not too shabby! I will have to modify some of them to be period correct, so that work and getting them on the ship are next!
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I was asked to include a picture of my Dremel router, so here it is... It is an attachment that screws onto the end of the Dremel, then add the cutter of choice, set the depth stop, and off you go! Actually I found it easier to mount the cutter with the router off the Dremel, just more room to work around the chuck. I am cutting one of St. Roch's cradles.
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Now I am making cradles for St. Roch to sit on when mounted on the base. I debated on whether or not to use finials, simulate drydock blocks, or copy the mounts used on the original ship in the Vancouver Maritime Museum. In the end I decided to use some pieces of 3/16" thick acrylic I had laying around to make a pair of cradles. First I used my contour shaper to take the hull shapes at each cradle location, about 10" apart. Then I transferred the shapes to graph paper to complete the cradle outlines. Note the forward cradle raises the keel higher than the aft cradle, so the waterline will sit level (St. Roch draws more water aft). Then transferred onto the acrylic sheet... Next I used my Dremel router to cut out the shapes. Patience is key because the acrylic will melt onto the cutter and needs to be frequently cleaned. If you're careful the pattern will come out clean. The picture shows the aft cradle after some filing and a first edge polish after cutting out. "PA" refers to port, aft... so I don't lose track of the cradle orientation. Multiple fittings and adjustments followed... just a little bit of fine shaping each time... Here is the aft cradle test fit to the ship and the base... Now I get to have more fun cutting and fitting the forward cradle... I'll come back here after the base is completed! Regards, Bruce
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Still waiting on parts to arrive from Cornwall Model Boats, I was going to paint the rudders but decided to wait until I had made the cradles since some lower hull touch up will be required then for sure! So it is on to making the display base... I decided to laminate pine strips. It looks similar to the Douglas Fir that St. Roch is made from, and I had a supply of pine offcuts in my shop from other projects. I made my HMCS Chicoutimi base in similar fashion but using oak (Hearts of Oak and all that!), and it is a great way to use up wood that would otherwise be consigned to the fire pit! This picture shows the model sitting on the base, just making sure there is about 3 or 4 inches clearance all around... First I rounded the corners about an inch, just to take off the sharp edge... then I routed a simple Ogee all the way around. The base will have either a glass or acrylic cabinet to protect the model, I haven't decided which yet. Since the thickness of the cabinet material is not known at this point I decided to install cabinet stops around the base edges, instead of routing a groove. Here is that work in progress, once all four pieces are installed I will do a bit of cleanup. I used oak strips, just for a bit of contrast and I thought pine stops might chip easily when taking the cabinet on or off. Next I will move on to making the cradles that St. Roch will sit in. Thanks for looking in!
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Thank you very much everyone for checking in and for watching the video! It was certainly a learning experience for me and I do appreciate all the quality feedback!
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Continuing with the rudders, I primed and sealed them the same as the white hull... then I used styrene strips and Tichy Train Group rivets to apply reinforced steel straps in the same manner as I did on the stern post of the ship. Styrene rod served as my pintles, and some thin resin rod made the lifting pins... Now the rudder was test fit on the ship... St. Roch's rudder was designed to be lifted to the deck via the rudder well using a tackle rigged to the main sail boom. The lifting pins, that can be seen at the top of the rudder, align with guides set into the sides of the well. I made mine by scaling from the same plan as the rudder... using styrene strips for the guide rails and .010 sheet for the bases. I painted them Tamiya 'Gunmetal'... The rudder head extends above the poop deck. The brass collar is the inner half of the rudder bearing. The outer half is bolted to the deck. The hex section at the top of the rudder stock is where the tiller bolts on, the tiller is part of the quadrant assembly. The top of the guide rails can be seen flush with the deck. This picture shows the spare rudder stowed on the main deck... This last picture is the rudder of the actual ship in the Vancouver Maritime Museum. Now I have to make holes in the hull for various fittings such as portholes, hawse holes and fairleads. These need to be installed before further work can be done... So thanks everyone for looking in and I do appreciate your comments and critiques!
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Happy New Year, and it is -30 here this morning... a good day to hunker down and start making rudders... This is the original plan, drawn in 1":1'. I checked actual dimensions on the plan to verify it is accurately scaled, and it is, therefore it was a simple job to divide by 4 to convert to my 1:48 scale dimensions... The blanks for the two rudders are three basswood sheet laminations, which in turn are laminated using 3M double sided tape. Then I sanded one edge flat as my reference and drew the rudder onto the face of the wood. Off to the bandsaw, then a first sanding to ensure both rudders are the same shape before separating the two blanks and rough sanding the profiles... Next is a test fit on the ship... everything seems to line up! The second rudder is a spare that was carried on deck...
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I am now at the point where I can drill holes into the hull... besides the various pump and engine discharges I need openings for the fairleads, hawse and portholes. Following that and while waiting for my order from Cornwall Model Boats (the postal strike is over, at least for the time being!) I will be installing various fittings around the outside edges of the decks, and building the rudders (two of them, St. Roch carried a spare on deck). The main wale, also referred to as the rub rail, can't be installed until the portholes and chain plates are on since the rail overlaps parts of them. Bottom line is it may be a while before my next update, so I will leave you with some pictures of St. Roch as she is today. Thanks everyone for looking in and for your comments and critiques!
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Good morning, and I hope everyone on the forum and in the Guild had a very Merry Christmas! In my last post I told a bit of a fib... I did need to saw kerfs into the poop deck wale where is made the sharp turn around the stern... The picture below is the wale being installed on the port side, where I used the same jig to set the spacing below the rail. The next picture shows the cuts being made into the stern section of the wale. Even though the Zona saw kerfs are narrow the give me sufficient flexibility to bend the wale around the stern after soaking it in hot water. The last picture is the wale drying in place on the ship, after which it will be gap filled, sanded, painted, and glued onto the ship.
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Good morning all... Moving right along to the fo'c's'le rails, I sawed kerfs about 2/3 the way across the width of my lumber. After a bath in the hot water it then easily conformed to the shape of the bow. I clamped it in place to dry and it held the shape. I then painted the sides and exposed edges of the rail bottom off the ship so I would not need to worry about masking and touching up. After gluing in place I applied a smear of filler to hide the kerfs, then sanded and painted. The upper wales are basswood strips and did not need to be sawn. Once steamed and clamped for shape they were also painted off the ship then glued. I used a spacer to set a constant distance of the wale below the rail. Cutting the kerfs, so the wide lumber will bend along the bow. clamping the rail in place to dry after hot water treating. The kerfs are visible near the bow. Bow rails competed and the fo'c's'le wale being glued in place. The next photo shows the spacer I made to set the distance below the rail.
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Thanks Alan and Druxey... I appreciate your comments and advice. I would have preferred using thin laminated strips but neither I nor the LHS had what I needed and the postal strike was looming when I made the rails. I had a good supply of correctly dimensioned scale lumber on hand, so at the end of the day I used the method that I did, with eventual success after some frustration... The string wrapping is similar to a pipe bending trick to keep a pipe from collapsing when bending, and it did work on my rails. I did use shapes cut from basswood sheet to plank the hull around my stern section, and this method matches the plans of the original ship! I presume the shipwrights also had problems making sharp bends in Douglas Fir and Ironbark! As you will see in my next post, when faced with bending the rails across their width to follow the curves of the upper decks, I used the saw kerf method with success, and more basswood sheet shapes to work around the stern rail. Merry Christmas!
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