allanyed

I have never heard of heating a glued plank, but as they say, live and learn. When you heat the plank they should expand so when they cool they will shrink and I and surprised you have no gaps. Can you post a photo? Allan

Thanks Gary, very much appreciated! Not so much working fast as just being lucky to have a lot of hours available. I do stay out of the work shop after 4:30 or so. I found that happy hour in these retirement communities starts a lot earlier than in our past neighborhoods and a martini and power tools, scalpels, and chisels, do not work well together. Allan

There are numerous things to compliment on your model, but one of the many that I love seeing are the proper edges of the gratings. So many otherwise nice models have gratings that are not closed on the outer edges. There are times when I actually make the gratings first then adjust the openings and/or ledges slightly to fit the grating having the outer border a solid run versus teeth like ends. Allan

Jarod, I just watched the segment on the fiberglass application. This was extremely well filmed and explained. I enjoyed the segment on the bomber maiden flight as well!!! I take it from your accent, you are in the middle of Canada which is as you say, a bit of a ride to the ocean. Allan

Carpenter's glue such as Titebond and other brands is what I have always used with success. For metal to wood, CA is OK but I prefer epoxy as it is not shear sensitive like cyanoacrylate glues. Allan

TMJ Interesting question! If the ship was ballasted with Belgium blocks, there was not need for anything else to keep them from shifting as the were flat sided and stacked along the curvature of the hull. If river bed stone stone was used, I suppose it depended on the size of the stone. If the stones were the size of an Idaho potato, they would weigh about 4 pounds so maybe were prone to moving around, but if more like the size of a melon it would weigh in the neighborhood of 25 pounds and not so likely to move around. Keep in mind that the stones would likely settle and lock together. If there were pebbles and sand dumped in between it would probably wind up with a Brazil nut effect so the same situation would exist in the upper portion anyway. I will be interested to see any contemporary information. Allan

Hi Joe, Just took a seat on this ride and enjoying it thoroughly. The detail on the engines &c. are great. Regarding the engines, what is the finish materials that you used? From the photos, the finish looks great. Also, what is the wood that you used for the deck planks? Thanks Allan

I love horror movies, wish someone had filmed your incident, NOT. Would sure make a great commercial!!! I am VERY happy that all ended well and I thank you very very much for your building log, it has been a true pleasure to follow. It has also opened my mind to new subjects for future projects. Do you have a new project in the making? I for one will definitely follow your build if you start a log. Thank you very much for sharing. Allan

There are pictures of the rudder head cover but I cannot copy and post as they are in published books. The Fully Framed Model shows it in Volume II on page 280 as does Lavery on page 14 of Arming and Fitting English ships of war. The cover was sometimes actually a bench seat on larger ships that sat over the rudder head where it came into the ward room or other aft area depending on the number of decks and accommodation layout. Sorry I don't have anything more detailed to show you. Allan

Messis Water squirting up especially in a following sea was indeed a problem. There was often a rudder "coat" made of tarred canvas or perhaps leather around the hole where the rudder passed through the counter. In addition, the head of the rudder was housed in a removable box, often octagonal in shape so if water did come up to that point it was contained and could run back down and out. Allan

David, Assuming you are building the J Class yacht Endeavour 1934 racing yacht which was 129 feet long, definitely not a knock about. I would guess that the planking does not meet at the bow but rather rests in a rabbet. There are plans of J class yachts on the net that you can research. I did a quick look and found drawings of Shamrock and Cheveyo which I think are similar to Endeavour in construction. I had some luck about 10 years ago to get into the NYYC and they had a LOT of model yachts, including many J boats. Perhaps you can contact them for sources on more detailed plans. You can also search the Library of Congress and Mystic Seaport as they have a lot of photos, and perhaps some detailed plans that are accurate as far as how the vessel was actually constructed. Allan

At the welcomed suggestion of one of our top model builder members, I adjusted the flag to hang down more naturally. I soaked it in situ with matte medium with a brush and hung a small clamp to pull it down until it dried. The matte medium is water proof and dries perfectly clear. I think the end result is more natural and looks better. Allan

Alan, Same idea but a LOT easier the way you and David do it. Thanks for the tip, a great help for many of us. Allan

Welcome to MSW Peter/ There are choices here. Ideally, redo the planking so there are no gaps. Realistically, it could be very difficult to match the pearwood. You can try making a pile of saw dust with any pear wood that you may still have then make a putty of the sawdust and wood glue to fill the cracks. The finer the sawdust the better. You can quickly make a pile of saw dust with a thickness sander or even a hand held orbital sander. Even a sanding stick with a 220 or finer grit will work, just takes a little longer. It may not be exact, but might just be better and easier than trying to find a store bought filler that matches in color. Allan

Welcome aboard Mike, very happy to have you join this crew. Now that you will have a couple kits under your belt, would love to see you become another member that takes the step over to the dark side and do a scratch build!! Allan

Thanks Pat! As much as I have enjoyed working on this model and have learned a LOT as there were a number of new things I have learned to do, I am anxious to finish and get going on finishing Ernestina for them. Will try to post in my old log on the Effie M. Morrissey/Ernestina once I get going on it again in the next month or two. More traditional old schooner and a heck of a lot more detailed information on rigging is available from Chappelle and others. Allan

Keith, I think most of us have run out of words to use on how beautiful your work is. Maybe monumental is still available, and if it is, that's my comment on your work for today's post. It is certainly an aspiration for 99.9% of us. Allan

Thanks Keith! I have had the walnut for what seems like forever and a long story that goes with it and the tree it came from, but that is for another day. I figured I may as well let it go to a paying customer and it does no good just sitting in the shop. Quick??? Not really. I have a loose deadline, but as I can work on it for at least 4 hours a day on most days, it goes pretty quickly. Allan

Ahh, she is bringing back memories. Great work so far!!! Allan

Well done, you are making great progress. Hope to see more soon. Allan

Standing rigging is about complete, including flying backstays which I suppose are more running rigging than standing rigging. I turned the parrels on the lathe using boxwood. I finally bought a block tumbler to round the edges of all the blocks and put the parrels into the tumbler for about 20 seconds to round the edges as well. Saved a lot of time hand sanding and came out more even. The parrels are supported on a metal (brass in this case) rod similar to those on many of the Gloucester fishing schooners rather than rope. The back drop material I used for some of the photos is not good. I usually like to use roll back drop paper which does not wrinkle and is easy to set up without a seam where it goes from horizontal to vertical. Another lesson learned and a wasted $15 I will never see again on the material I bought. The flag is cloth and the staff and support plate and sleeve are brass. I used brass nails in lieu of bolts, which at this size show relatively well. The fore and main boom guys or tackles have a hook on a single block as well as a double block. The plans show a single block at the end of the boom, but in looking at a lot of rigging plans for schooners, they invariably have a double block which makes sense when rigging in the unused mode and would work well when the booms are swung outboard. The photo showing the boom saddle also shows a single block on the fore boom before I replaced it with the double block. That was not fun as there was very little room to work. As suggested at MSW many times by many folks, I rig everything I can on masts, booms, and spars before fixing them in place. It is sooooo much easier to get it right. The base is walnut that I have had laying around and kept moving with us for 48 years. The model rests well on the cradles but I do not want to put hulls in the hull so will use threaded stock or perhaps brass rod with threaded ends between the cradles that will go through the base and into the keel. I was thinking of using Velcro on the cradles in lieu of the brass rods, but not sure these will be sufficiently secure for a truck ride of 1600 miles. If anyone has gone this or another route I would love your feedback. I made two frames and plugs for silk span sail making. The one in the photos is large enough for the main sail, but impractical for the small sails. This is my first time using this method so I made a smaller frame for the smaller sails and a practice run. Glad I did the practice run on a smaller size as it did not go very well. I am using the method David Antscherl describes in his sail making supplement to Volume IV of TFFM, but will be trying a few alternative ideas along the way. If they work out I will post once they are proven. Allan

Michel, The attached first page is a sketch of the backstay rigging for a 65 foot schooner. Note that the block and cleat in this sketch are inboard. The eye is in the cap rail or alternatively may be secured to the deck. The next three pages by Jennison may help in much of your rigging. As Bob mentioned not all vessels were rigged the same. A great reference for schooners of the late 18th century is Chapelle's American Fishing Schooners. One caveat is that while this book is loaded with details, it has no useful index and I find myself scouring it every time I need to find a detail. The rigging subjects are "somewhat" in alphabetical order in the book but a pain in the neck to find anything quickly. On the plus side, I find every time I use it, I get a LITTLE more used to how he laid out the items. Allan

For the main back stays, these are usually flying back stays that are set up with blocks to allow one side or the other to be "let go" in order to swing the boom. Allan

Druxey, ain't that the truth! As I mentioned previously, common sense has to come into play. For example, many of the blocks are secured on pads on the deck with corresponding cleat nearby to belay the line. BUT, not all. There are several blocks set up in this manner with no place to belay the lines. The "Captain" that I am working with at Bristol Marine has given me pretty much carte blanche in getting things right as I see them, including adding fife rails, but I worry about gross errors. There is one issue in particular that I hope to work out with the shipyard today, but if not I may post here to get some feedback from the membership. Allan

Hi Richard, My apologies but I think a few of us (me for sure) have no idea what your post means about extreme tension fiber and extreme compression fiber. When you say beam column thickness, do me mean the frames, and regarding thickness is it the sided or moulded dimension? To make things a little easier, what ship are you building, nationality, name, rate, year, etc? From the photos and your checking with Greg, it sounds like a Swan class sloop. If this is not the case, for British ships, there are several sources (The Establishments of 1719, 1745 and 1750, Shipbuilder's Repository 1788, and Steel's Elements of naval Architecture (1805) that give the sided (fore and aft) dimension as well as the moulded (in and out) dimensions of each futtock and the top timbers at the foot and head of each as well as at the gun ports in the case of Steel. The moulded dimension also varies slightly in some cases in the range of the quarter deck and forecastle . Better information is sometimes available from a contemporary contract for the ship you are building or a sister ship in her class. If this is of interest you can contact the National Archives in Kew and the RMG in Greenwich. Allan