JacquesCousteau

Progress has nearly ground to a halt, as I've been very busy with work and my hobby time has been focused on rigging the Lancha Chilota build (something that has proven much less tedious so far than I thought it would be) and, in my carpentry class, building a TV stand/bookshelf. I've put together one further frame, number VI, seen below with frame VIII. I've also filed out the frame slots in the building jig. Each frame takes a lot of time, most of which is spent in slowly sanding the frames into shape, leaving a little extra for fairing. I don't have any power tools, so I'm just using sanding sticks. This is extremely tedious, and I'm beginning to wonder if I should get some sort of power tool. Here in Mexico, I can pretty easily get Dremel rotary tools and various knock-off versions. Other manufacturers, like Proxxon, are substantially more expensive. Most disc sanders that I see available are much too large and attached to a belt sander, which I don't need, and in any case it doesn't seem like they would be useful for sanding the concave shapes on the interior of the frames. So I wanted to ask if anyone has any recommendations on what to look for in a rotary tool. What rpm range would be appropriate? And how useful is the dremel workstation (the thing that looks like a small drill press)? I'm thinking that it could be useful to essentially turn the dremel into a spindle sander, but I don't know if it's too fragile for that. (I should note that I don't have any ability to machine metal to make my own.) Thanks in advance for any advice!

Nice job! That said, you may want to double-check that the bulkheads are on square to the keel. Maybe it's the angle, but in the first photo they look a little crooked, which might cause problems with the hull later on.

Very nice work!

You may want to check out Chuck Passaro's guide to stropping blocks, which is available as a pdf for free download at Syren's website on the "blocks" page. I found it extremely helpful for figuring out stropping techniques, and relatively easy to do. I'm not totally sure about the best way to add a loop to both ends, though. In general, searching MSW for "block stropping" should return helpful results. Best of luck!

Congratulations on an excellent model, and on the new family member!

Looks like an interesting build!

I started work on the rudder hinges, making one out of 1/64x1/16‐inch brass strip. It ended up protruding about 1/8 inch beyond the rudder, which is a bit more than I would like--as can be seen below, the gap is a bit excessive. I still have a hard time making precise bends in brass, which is part of why it sticks out too far. As can be seen below, the 90-degree bends aren't very precise, and the bend for the pintle is simply too big. I'll have to try again. That said, it occurred to me that this piece could also potentially be used to replace the eyebolt on the end of the boom, as seen below in a test fit. This would fill a little more of the excess space between the gooseneck eyebolts. The main issue is that the loop for the gooseneck pin is quite large, so the boom will bounce around quite a bit more than with the eyebolt unless I pinch the loop closed or something. With the metalwork (real and faked) on the mast finished, I was able to add all the standing rigging to the masthead. The shrouds were put in place and seized together with black fly-tying thread, first the starboard pair, then the port. Then, the fore stay was added. I made sure the standing rigging was snugged down against the crosstrees, clamped the lines at the bottom of the mast with clothespins to add a slightly bit of tension, and then applied watered-down white glue to hold everything in place. It was then time to add the throat halyard block, which, instead of being hooked to an eyebolt like the other masthead blocks, is stropped around the masthead. This proved tricky to do. First, I served a short length in the middle of a bit of rope. I then looped the served portion around the masthead and tried to seize the loop closed. This was very difficult for me to do, as there were a lot of moving parts to juggle--the rope, the seizing thread, and the mast itself were all sliding around. Eventually I used a dot of glue to secure the rope to the masthead in the proper location, but it was still tricky to seize it shut. I ended up deciding to seize it a bit further down the line first, as shown below, and then to seize closer to the masthead. While this certainly made it easier to add the closer seizing, unfortunately, that first seizing wasn't quite centered. I therefore added a further, properly centered seizing between the two I had made, to be against the top of the block, and then cut off the lower seizing, carefully removing the glued fibers as best as I could. I was then able to finally add the block, as can be seen below, which I held down in the proper position with sewing thread before adding watered-down glue to hold everything in place around the masthead. With all the blocks added, the masthead is now complete!

Nice job, it looks fantastic!

Nice job! Metal work remains the most difficult part of modeling for me, but it's gotten slightly easier with more practice. Having a bit of thin sheet brass (K&S metals sells a variety and is pretty widely available) on hand to replace and remake parts as needed certainly helps.

Thanks! Thanks! I do think I'll taper the aft end a bit before painting. Incidentally the photo you shared shows another detail I'd like to include on the gaff spar, which has been extended slightly (or perhaps it was a repair) at the tip. I think it would add a bit of character to the model.

A bit more progress. First, I stropped the block for the topping lift. I forgot photos, but it's the exact same process as for the peak halyard block, just with a smaller 4mm block (as a number of photos showed smaller blocks for the topping lift). Next, the gaff boom and gooseneck. I had puzzled over exactly how to make this for a while, as none of the photos I could find are very clear on this part. About all I could say for sure is that it wasn't like the goosenecks discussed in John Leather’s The Gaff Rig Handbook, or like those shown in build logs for other vessels--notably, there was clearly no band around the mast. But then I realized that one of José A Garnham's sketches included a side view of a gooseneck arrangement. It clearly shows two eyebolts lined up on the mast, with a hinge of sorts attached to the front of the boom, and a bent rod inserted to allow it to pivot. Source: http://lanchaschilotas.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/1MG_2946-2L.jpg (Note: that’s the address for the screenshot. However, the page no longer seems to be up. I’ve noticed several images and pages on Garnham’s lancha chilota site seem to have gone down, unfortunately.) I decided to make this arrangement in the same way as I made the eyebolts in the masthead--using paper for the metal strip on the boom and for a metal base for the eyebolts, and then three wire eyebolts linked with a bit of brass rod. Below, the mast eyebolts are shown. The boom portion, meanwhile, required finally making the boom. After looking at a lot of photos, I decided that a boom roughly half the diameter or so of the mast at its widest point seemed reasonable. I made the boom from some of the same alder sheet I'm using for the Bateau de Lanvéoc's frames, cutting a 5/32-inch wide strip, tapering it, and then rounding it off with a mini plane and sandpaper. I did not do a great job of shaping it and it's very slightly curved if you look down its length, but many booms seem to have been bent slightly like that from their weight and use, so I just arranged the gooseneck eyebolt so it would curve slightly upward. Finally, the metal "key" going through the gooseneck eyebolts was twisted from some brass rod. With that, I was ready for a test fitting. (Of course, many of the parts still need to be painted.) As can be seen, I probably could have stood to position the mast eyebolts slightly closer together--I wanted to leave room for a bit of motion, but this is probably a bit excessive. I'll need to consider whether I want to remove and replace one of the mast eyebolts, or something else, or to just leave it as it is. The gooseneck is functional, though, and I think looks a bit better at a normal distance. As can be seen below, I used simple thread as a rough topping lift and sheet to keep the boom from flopping around too much in test fitting. Besides the gooseneck, I'm also wondering whether the boom should be tapered slightly more. In any case, I'm enjoying this build quite a bit, and am definitely learning a lot from it!

Good luck with your build! Thankfully it's pretty easy to repair most broken parts with glue (especially if the part will be painted), or even to replace parts by tracing and cutting out of scrap wood or a sheet of basswood (which is readily available in craft shops in 1/32‐, 1/16‐, and 3/32-inch thick sheets at a very reasonable price). You've chosen a tricky first model, given that it's single-planked and an open boat, so any errors in the planking will show up on the interior as well. To include photos, you have to click "add files" and add the photos you want. Then you click your cursor where in your text you want the image, and scroll down to click "insert" and it should appear.

Nice progress, and great job on the oars, they look excellent! It looks like you've done a lot of good work fairing the hull more than before. That said, I think you may run into trouble around the inner support pieces that the thwarts will rest on. It looks like the support is sticking out a ways beyond some of the frames, which will make planking there difficult unless the instructions say it's supposed to be that way for some reason. Sanding it down even with the frames now will probably save you a big headache later. Also, how high up the bow do the planks extend? If they go too high up, it will be very hard to fit other planks against the stem.

After having primed the metal parts, I was able to paint them dark grey with acrylic paint and to add a dash of dry-brushed rust coloration and some pencil marks to highlight certain areas, although the varnish seems to have darkened things slightly. I added the horse rail, making sure to leave room for the tiller. Unfortunately the wood split on the right side while I was test fitting, but I was able to glue it back into place and re-drill the hole (this time using a slightly bigger bit so that the horse wouldn't get stuck). It was then time to try stropping a block with a hook--in this case, the peak halyard block, as I already had a double block stained and ready. Once again, I followed Chuck Passaro's stropping instructions, which I'm finding to be very clear and relatively easy to do, with the modification of doing a few half hitches instead of just wrapping the seizing. I also had some difficulty getting the super glue (which you mostly wipe off immediately) right, as it was very easy to either wipe off too much and have nothing stick, or to not wipe off enough and end up with a shiny spot (which I'll try to take down with a bit of matte varnish). The false splice turned out pretty neat. I'm using .45mm rope from Ropes of Scale for the blocks, and 140-size fly tying thread for the seizings. Sharp-eyed viewers may note that I accidentally used the wrong hook for this--I should have used one with a perpendicular eye instead of twisting the eye of the stropping 90 degrees. Oh well, I think it's hard to notice unless specifically looked for. Now that I finally have the necessary hooks, I'm finding block stropping to be pretty fun. I know this is all pretty basic information to be documenting here, but it's new for me. I'm quickly reaching the point, though, where I'll need to do a bit more woodworking to make the gaff and boom.

Welcome! Having built the dory, and having the lobster smack on my shelf, the model shipways set is a good introduction that will set you up well for more complex kits or for scratchbuilding, if it interests you. If you're interested in fishing and workboats, there are a number of vessel types from Florida history that would make great models, although they'd have to be built from scratch.

Thanks Paul! Unfortunately I don't have annealed steel wire, the 24 gauge wire I have has a black plastic coating. I need to pick up some annealed wire soon, it would be a lot stronger and wouldn't require painting. Thanks John! I've now primed the metal parts that I've made so far, after first bending the chainplates into shape. This proved a bit frustrating, as I first tried sticking the hooks and thimbles (the latter of which will go on the ends of the shrouds and forestay) onto a bit of double-sided tape for priming. I didn't realize just how sticky our double-sided tape was, though, and it left a ton of residue. After soaking in alcohol overnight, it still took quite a bit of work to scrape it all off. I ended up instead placing the small parts, like the larger parts, on a loop of 28-gauge wire for priming instead. I also finally added the cleats to the hull, although I still need to add a couple eyebolts with rings and a pair of the blocky double-cleats (not sure if there's an actual term for them) as well to finish up the deck furnishings.

Nice job on the hull, the color scheme looks great! The metal cleats are unfortunate. There are lots of better wooden ones for sale, thankfully, and they aren't hard to make by hand either.

Thanks, @wefalck and @Thukydides! Your responses are very helpful and make a lot of sense. I decided against serving the strops themselves, as while it may be accurate, it would substantially increase the amount of work to do and would make the stropping thread much harder to work with. I also decided to use hooks to attach blocks to eyebolts, following the examples in photos of the gaff. This required making hooks, which was a bit of a process. Hats off to the many of you who work in smaller scales, making tiny fittings is tricky work! Last year when Crafty Sailor was having its going-out-of-business sale, I picked up two sets of photo-etch hooks in 5mm and 2mm. Looking at them alongside the blocks I have for this build, though, they seemed alternately too big and too small. I tried making a couple hooks from the thinnest brass rod that I have, but found it too difficult to make hooks smaller than 5mm or so due to the thickness of the material. I then tried with 24-gauge wire and was able to get a smaller size, but the coating got very ripped up and they didn't look very good. At that point, I remembered that I had a small bag of eyebolts made of thin brass wire, which worked much better and after a false start resulting in a very oversized hook, I was soon able to make hooks of about 4mm. The hooks are not particularly consistent in shape, but I figure that they're widely spaced enough on the model that it won't be all that noticeable. Below, between the photo-etch hook sets, there are, from left to right, the brass rod hooks, the 24-gauge wire hooks, and then the brass eyebolt hooks, with a 4mm and 5mm block below (and my finger for scale). Of course I only notice now that some of the hooks will need the eye parallel to the hook instead of perpendicular, but that's not a difficult fix before painting. I also did a bit of prep on some blocks. The "beautiful blocks" from ModelExpo look very good to my eyes, but I went to soften some hard edges with fine sandpaper and found that their wood is actually a lighter color than they appear (presumably they look darker because of laser char or some other effect of the manufacturing process). So, I sanded one lightly on all sides, and then stained with minwax golden oak. Below, the 4mm single block has been left untouched, while the 5mm double block was sanded and stained. I think it's a subtle difference, but a nice one. I also did a bit more work on the rigging, this time focusing on the forestay. I began by serving a length of black line. Once I reached the desired length, I secured the end of the serving, but didn't snip it off. Instead, I did a false slice through the opposite end of the served area, forming a served loop, as seen below. The idea was to then continue serving around the splice and a bit down the stay. Unfortunately it didn't work out. My set of helping hands seems to be getting a little loser, despite tightening the screws, and while I've been able to serve straight lengths of line ok, it was impossible to serve around the splice. The rope, which was doubled on the loop side, kept wrapping around itself instead of letting the serving wrap around it, and it became very difficult to maintain tension. I had to stop. So instead, I decided to go for a simpler method of using a couple of seizings to make the loop in served black rope, as seen below. Finally, I did the jib halyard block in the way that Wefalck suggested several posts ago. I used a 4mm block (sanded and stained) as several photos seem to show a smaller block, relative to the gaff halyards, in this location. To strop it, I followed the instructions that Chuck Passaro recently posted on Syren's blocks page, finding it to be clear and easy to follow. The only change was that I ended up using a few half-hitches instead of just wrapping the seizing thread, as I found it hard to maintain pressure otherwise. After stropping the block into place, I did a false splice at the other end to create a loop to fit around the forestay. I then trimmed it and tried to serve around the splice, which was a bit difficult and didn't turn out very smooth. I still found the result acceptable, though. Below, in an unfortunately blurry photo, the forestay has been temporarily put in place, as has the jib halyard block, which will look better once the halyard puts a bit of pressure on it so it doesn't try to pop upward. I think I'll make the gaff throat halyard in the same way, just larger so it loops around the masthead. I'm debating whether I should serve the masthead loop, though--I think I should--and whether that serving should be black or brown. Probably black to match the shroud and forestay serving, although those are meant to be wire while the throat halyard block stropping will be rope.

Thanks, @Keith Black and @gak1965, good to know that I can mix sizes a bit. Looking again at some photos, it does look like at least some lanchas did have varying block sizes. Not much progress on the build at the moment, as I'm finding rigging to be a bit trickier to wrap my head around than I thought. It doesn't help that most sources I've found are for earlier time periods and/or focus on large ocean-going ships. Specifically, I'm stuck on how blocks were joined to eyebolts and the like. If I'm going with rope-stropped blocks, would it make more sense for a block to be tied directly to the eyebolt, or to an eye in the strop on one side of the block and then to use a separate line to join the block eye to the eyebolt? The latter seems more likely for internally stropped blocks, but I'm not sure about rope-stropped blocks. Also, how much of a strop would be served? Thanks in advance for any advice!

I'm looking forward to following along! I've often been curious about how AJ Fisher kits compare to similar ones--Bluejacket seems like the closest comparison. And a Great Lakes schooner is an excellent subject. How do the fittings look? The plans look great, very detailed. Too bad that the display base is warped, though.

I've seen that on some plans, especially near the bow and stern of some coasters in Souvenirs de Marine, it definitely threw me for a moment before I figured it out. The Bateau doesn't have any tumblehome, though, they apparently just decided to draw the top-down view at wale level. After arranging all the frame templates, I felt very relieved to see that I can get all the frames out of a single sheet, leaving an entire extra 5x24-inch sheet for any do-overs. Sawing all these pieces by hand is a bit tedious, so I'll be doing it in portions at a time in the carpentry workshop in between working on a full-scale tv stand. What seems to be working for now is to first saw across the wood sheet cutting the tips of each frame (which I'm leaving long for now). Getting the frames out is then a simple matter of cutting to one edge and then the other. I've also realized that cutting from one side and then the other, meeting in the middle as in the photo below, seems to really reduce the chances of the wood snapping because the frame is only held in place at one of the tips. (Probably an obvious point, but one I hadn't had a chance to learn until this build.) After a while, I had a pair of rough-cut frames (obviously not glued yet), and a few floors and other parts, all ready for final shaping. Given that it will be another week until I'm back in the carpentry workshop and can cut out probably a similar number of frame parts, it's pretty clear that this will be a very slow project.

Very nice work!

Thanks! You are correct, the widths match when checking at the level of the wale. Thank goodness, that would have been quite a problem otherwise. Not any build progress at the moment, just laying out the frame templates--so far the floors and cant frames--on the wood sheet for cutting. After being a bit wasteful cutting the first frames, I'd like to be more efficient and save what wood I can for the inevitable do-overs.

Cool, looking forward to following your future builds! I also did the Model Shipways Dory credit, even though I had bought it through Amazon as well. I wasn't interested in building the Pram, so they were flexible enough to let me use the credit to get the Midwest Maine Peapod kit instead, along with the Model Shipways Lobster Smack.

Nice work, that looks great! Excellent work repairing the cap rail. Do you have plans for your next build?