allanyed

Regarding treenails or trennals or trunnels, bamboo is probably the strongest for its size. It is RELATIVELY easy to make by splitting bamboo skewers found in any grocery store and then running them through a good drawplate such as that from Jim Byrnes. That said, a lot depends on the scale your model is. If 1:96, to stay in scale, the holes you are drilling should be about the size of a #80 bit (0.013" diameter) and the pins or trennels you use should be that small or there is the danger of having out of scale dots and what looks like the measles all over the hull. If the scale is larger, say 1:48 it is much easier as you can go to a #71 bit or thereabouts and making the trennals is doable and would show nicely. If in doubt, don't pin or use trennals. Pre taper and bend the planks with heat so they hold the shape and you will not need pins or clamps just some PVA, a little finger pressure and a minute or less to let the glue begin to cure and hold the plank in place. Allan

Greg. Assuming the tie for the halyard, or the halyard itself is hitched directly to the yard with a timber hitch, there is no hardware needed on the yard for this particular line. If you are asking about other hardware, there may also be the brace pendants, blocks for the lifts, leechlines and buntlines and the truss. Allan

Mark, At your scale of 1:78 a 25 foot boat would be about 3.85 (97.7mm) inches long and the overall length of the oars would be in the neighborhood of 2" to 2.15" (50mm -54.7mm) Again, hope this is of some help to you. Allan

For these smaller yards, two single blocks makes sense to me. 😀 I just wasn't sure if they were shown on the plans. Thank you for the clarification. Allan PS, Sorry for addressing you by Nic, just assuming (which is rarely a good thing) by your screen name you are Nic Damuk

Mark, The Art of Making Masts, Yards, Gaffs, Booms, Blocks and Oars as Practised in the Royal Navy, Steel and Goddard, London gives dimensions of each part of the oars including the handle, loom, body and blade which add up to the total length. Steel does mention that the length of the oars was about 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 X the beam of the boat. Some information on both ship's sweeps and ship's boats oars follows. Also, Up to 1780 Victory would have carried six boats from four oared cutters to launches over 30 feet long. After 1780 she would have had the launch replaced with a long boat of similar size plus another 4 oared cutter of about 18 feet for a total of seven boats. Hope this helps. Allan DIMENSIONS OF OARS FOR BARGES, LIGHTERS & SHIPS' BOATS Breadth or Length Loom Blade Handle (Square) Tonnage Sweep Handle Loom Body or Blade Broad Thick Diam Shank Inner Outer Inner Outer of Tons feet ft. in. ft.in ft.in. ft.in. in. in. in. in. in. in. 130 27 1-3 11-0 6-0 9-0 4 ¼ 4 7 3 ½ 1 1 ¾ 20 21 1-0 8-6 4-6 7-0 4 3 1/8 6 ¼ 2 7/8 7/8 1 ¾ Breadth in Ft In 7-0 20 0-10 6-0 6-10 6-4 4 3 1/8 6 1/8 2 7/8 7/8 1 ¾ 6-0 19 0-10 5-0 7-2 6-0 3 7/8 3 6 2 ¾ 7/8 1 ¾ 5-0 18 0-10 4-0 7-6 5-8 3 7/8 3 6 2 ¾ 7/8 1 ¾ 4-6 17 0-10 3-6 7-4 5-4 3 ¾ 2 7/8 5 2 ¾ 7/8 1 ½ 4-0 16 0-10 3-0 7-4 5-4 3 ¾ 2 7/8 5 2 ¾ 7/8 1 ½

Well, we did not get a full meter of snow like Binghamton, NY got in the past day or so, but it will be in the 40's (Fahrenheit) the next couple nights. BRRRRR. Actually, most of my modeling years were in New Jersey and it was the same there, albeit with the furnace going in winter. 😃

Nic, Depending on the weight of these yards, wouldn't ties and blocks also be present? Are these shown/described in the plans? It is unlikely that the halliard would go directly from the yard, through the sheave and straight down to a belay point without a tie and blocks. I am not at all sure on these smaller vessels if that would be the case, just me being curious. 😄 Allan

Found an error or omission on the drawings which meant having to reset to make more deadeyes and strops. I had two extra, but needed four but got it done. Set up takes longer than actually making these pieces at times, thus a good idea to always make a few extras, maybe more than a few. The deadeye rigs include all the pieces in the photo below, so a bit of work goes into setting up each one. The strops are made of brass rod that was heated with a torch to soften them. A flat was formed at the end of each piece with a hammer and punch. The punch was and old nail punch ground down to a diameter near that needed on the ends of the rod. A hole was then drilled in these flats of each strop and the flats filed to make them round. I tried making these eyes at the end of the strop by bending the ends into an eye, but they were far to large given the diameter of the strop, which is to scale. The photo below shows the parts before assembly, including the three "bolts" that go through the strap and into the hull. The straps were cut from copper sheet and one end filed to a narrower dimension, folded over a stainless steel pin and soft soldered. I have never been good at getting these straps cut into strips evenly and have to do a lot of filing. I am considering making sandwiches of wood and plate and cutting strips with a slitting blade on my small table saw similar to how Keith described doing this in his Germania build log. If anyone has a trick to making these more efficiently and precisely, I would love to learn how you do it. Allan

Greg, Lines 30 and 31 look like they are made fast to the masts so might be stays. What do your plans identify these lines as? The topsail yards would have likely had a double block seized to the center of the yard and two single blocks, one for each tie with a loop around the top of the top mast . A line came up from the deck, rove through a single block, down and through one sheave of the double block, up and around the masthead, back to the double block, up to the other single block and then back to the deck. There is a very clear drawing on page 85 in Lees Masting and Rigging. While it is particular to British ships, it may be close to what was done on US ships. Again, from Lees, for a topgallant yard the tie was hitched to the yard, rove through a sheave in the top of the mast, and set up with a halliard, probably to the trestle tree of the lower mast. There would be a double block seized into the end of the tie and single block seized to the lower trestle tree. The hauling part of the halliard was belayed to the bitts near the mast. Allan

Just happened onto your build log Joe and wanted to say what a beautiful build. Hitting the like button was just not enough. As a fan of these fishing schooners, it is nice seeing one of the best. Allan

Thanks Spyglass. Overall, I think we are both on the same page. I have found that properly shaped planks hold fine within 30 seconds most of the time, and always within a minute using the "yellow" version of PVA. It all comes down to making sure the planks are pre-bent and have no spring in them. Allan

In the end, whatever works for each person is the best way to go, but based on experience of quite a few builders at MSW, if the planks are tapered and spiled or pre-formed using the method Chuck Passaro has described, there really is no need for any clamps or rubber bands. Carpenters' glue and finger pressure for about 30-60 seconds is really all that is needed. Any kind of clamp presents the danger of denting the planks, even if using a piece of scrap between the clamp and the plank. Just one more opinion based on trial and error over the years. Allan

Juhu, I just sent an email to Bristol Marine asking about this as they are rebuilding the Effie M. Morrissey 1894. A member here, Jond, visits their yard regularly as he is building a model of Effie (renamed Ernestina) and may already have an answer as well. Will let you know what I hear back from their yard. Allan

Jaager, You are correct. I failed to mention I "smooth" sand the surfaces to be seen and not glued. Great catch on your part! Allan

Josh, If you are going to buy a quality set of chisels and spend this kind of money, you will find rave reviews from many members here, including me, for the chisels from Mihail Kirsanov. If these are of interest PM me and I can forward his direct email as it is not a good idea to put an email address in these posts per recommendations from the moderators. Allan

Roger, I have been using the Byrnes sander for many years. If he had serial numbers on them (maybe there is one on there somewhere) mine is probably in the number 10 to 20 range. I have never had an issue with tipping. It weighs a lot and as said above, the main thing is to not take off too much wood at once. I stand to the side just in case a piece does launch and cannot catch me, but rather connects with the concrete wall. Once of my favorite things about this sander is that I have a rough paper on one half of the drum and finishing (400 grit) on the other side. Allan

Welcome to MSW!!! I hope to see more of your build and suggest you start a build log. You will receive good advice when and if you run into any build problems. Have a good day, I know from personal experience within our family the effects of PTSD and some days and nights are better than others. I hope making new friends here will give you more good days! Allan

So more than seven years have gone by since starting this model of the Ernestina/Effie M. Morrissey and it is now back on the work bench. The hull was completed about early 2014 along with much of the deck furniture then set aside as another project came up. Now that she has a buyer it is again a work in progress. I began making the deadeyes the past few days. Using the drawings from the Library of Congress they are between 0.16 and 0.17" diameter at scale. I have a drill bit that is 0.17 so began making them at this diameter. I made a jig with a brass ring with an ID of 0.17 and a table with lines 120 degrees apart I had a small rotary table that I made quite a few years ago and set this up for drilling. The ring was epoxied to the square table and left to cure overnight before using it. Using epoxy instead of CA gave some time to move the ring to get it perfectly centered on the three lines. The eyes were turned on the lathe to 0.17 diameter using castello box wood. These were then inserted into the brass ring. The drill bit was set in the chuck with just enough exposed to clear the deadeye. This prevented the bit from wandering so predrilling a pilot hole or punching a starter hole was unnecessary. Once I made 30 eyes (6 more than needed, just in case) they went into the tumbler for 20 seconds to round off the edges and it also took the diameter down to 0.168, so within a thousandth or two of the diameter on the drawings. I now have 27 eyes to work with as one is somewhere on the floor hiding and two had the holes quite a bit out of synch with each other even using the jig. If I ever get myself a mill and rotary table the drilling should be more exact and consistent. The first photos show the hull today, boom buffer and rigging, windless. The last is the deadeye jig set up on the mini drill press. Allan

Mike, As usual, photos would likely get you more responses. Are you sure the backstays would go to the deck and not to the cap rail or channel? If to the channel, deadeyes could be the way to go, but if to the cap rail, a pair of single blocks seems to be the rigging on plans I have looked at. Allan

Hi Kathy, Glad to see you took the plunge into the dark side of scratch building! For a first attempt you chose a pretty complex project and did a lovely job of it. For the future, you may want to consider the blocks, if building a model of ship from the late 19th century onwards, as there were internally stropped blocks as you show in the actual ship photos. These can be tricky to make from scratch , but the ones you can get from Syren and assemble yourself are quite good and represent this type of block very well. I look forward to your next project and hope you start a build log so we can follow along as you progress. Allan

Bill, You had asked about books on rigging. My suggestion is volume four of The Fully Framed Model as it deals with rigging a model. There are several books on contemporary rigging of actual ships that I use a lot, but these do not give the "how to" information you are seeking. Allan

As Wayne said, each page can be saved from the link above and a book put together. If one wants it in printed form rather than reading on the computer, it is cheaper to buy the book for about $25 for hardcover and a tad less for paperback rather than burning up ink and paper at home. Not to confuse Echo with Ecco, but the print size in the Ecco (Eighteenth Century Collections Online) copy that I have is sufficiently large for my old eyes but there may be versions out there that are not so good as Wayne kindly points out. The plates are indeed on the smaller side as they are not fold outs. Allan

Going back to your list from February, if you are still in the hunt, did you contact Turquoise Yachts in Turkey asking about getting plan or at least lines for Amphitrite which was owned by Johnny Depp and then Rowling before she put it up for sale again. If you explain your project they may send you the information you need. Better still, call them. I did this back in the late 70's and of course it was snail mail or phone back then. I was able to acquire sets of plans from both Islander Yachts and Californian Yachts, just giving written assurance that it was for making a model and the plans were not to be copied, shared, etc. etc. Allan

Keith, If your skills in cooking are half as good as your modeling skills, I hope you don't mind that I am inviting myself over for dinner the next time I am near Sussex!!! I know it is off topic, but do you have any specialties? I love cooking, (about twice a month,) and one of my favorites is making pasta with mussels, clams, and shrimp. I always use DeCecco and lately I have been able to find it with the boxes marked that it is from bronze dies. Makes for a rougher texture than stainless steel thus holds the sauce better. At least that is what my coworkers in Italy always told me. I little (or more than a little) wine, some in the sauce, the rest in our glasses and it is a good night. Back to business, how did you slice each rail so cleanly and evenly once the brass inserts were in place? What kind of glue did you use with the press fit? Thanks!! Allan

Eberhard, You have kindly pointed out the obvious which I failed to notice. What you wrote makes a lot of sense. I checked on the architect's drawings and the gaff indeed has 6 inches clearance should it lie perfectly horizontal. Thank you very much!! Allan