Der Alte Rentner
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Everything posted by Der Alte Rentner
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I only had 40 minutes at the shop today, but I managed to finish the stern rails.
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I will be revisiting these pages relatively soon and benefiting from your example and expertise. Very well done! The detail explanations are very welcome as well.
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USS Constitution by mtbediz - 1:76
Der Alte Rentner replied to mtbediz's topic in - Build logs for subjects built 1751 - 1800
Man, you do impressive work. Beautifully done. -
Es tut mir leid, dass Sie in den sauren Apfel beißen müssen, aber ich bin sicher, dass Sie dieses Chaos in den Griff bekommen und das Kit besiegen werden.
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Thanks again Gregg. Because I forgot to take photos of the bottom of the topgallant rails - and in case it wasn't obvious, I thought I'd mention that I used the same setup as shown in the first photo of post 406 above to carve out the grooves along the entire length of these. I raised the bit on the mill so that it only cut about halfway into the rail. I had to reposition vice and the rail after each two inch cut - because the vice is only about two inches wide.. As I type these words, it dawn on me that I won't be able to do that on the curved sections at the bow, unless I cut them first and then TRY to bend them to fit afterwards. Wait, wait.. What if I use Mustafa's method of forming these as laminate but in such a way that the center piece of the laminate is recessed?!? I spent several hours yesterday making the combination main rail, bulwark, topgallant rail section for the transom. That was much more involved than I expected it to be, and in retrospect, I should have used the same technique I used for the port and starboard sections. I'm heading back to the shop in a few hours to fit that piece and will add photos to this post then - and I definitely want to try Mustafa's lamination technique! In the mean time, work on the 2025 calendar continues and I'm counting the hours to Manhattan Club. I earned it this week.. Back soon..
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Hi Gregg, der Alte Rentner here. I only found the link to this build today but henceforth will be checking in periodically along with rest of your fans and followers. Reading through your blog, a memory surfaced from the deep. The first model ship I ever built was the Santa Maria. It was a very small scale plastic kit that I attempted at around age 12. This prompted a search through the photo archive, where I found an old photo of her on the mantle piece in the living room of the apartment we lived in at the time. Now that I think of it, I also featured it in a Columbus Day diorama in grade school. (Geez, that seems like a lifetime ago..) Until today, I had thought the Blue Nose might be my next project. However, I may now be having a change of heart. I'm delighted that you are providing such detailed posts, so that if I do attempt this kit later, I'll have the benefit of your experience and expert analysis to draw from. Have fun, and good luck.
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Some whittling at the stern yet to come, but getting there with the rails.. The grooves on the bottom of the top gallant rails work great to center them. Rough cuts on the miters. Tomorrow I'll fine tune and build the joining section.
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Sadly, with year end projects like our 2025 family calendar, Christmas card, and honey do list items, I have had to squeeze in the rare few minutes to get anything done at the shipyard. Continuing on with the main rail and the planking between that and the top Gallant rail.. Once again, Mr Filler Block has been busy. These provide more surface area to glue the planks to and add strength for future add-ons like cleats, etc.
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It's a one and a quarter inch resaw blade, with three teeth per inch. I bought it when I bought my Laguna bandsaw nearly 20 years ago. Geez, time flies! If you have cleanly sanded or planed faces, you can shave wood almost paper thin. It's a fantastic tool. That resaw blade is not presently on the bandsaw, in case you're wondering about the photos below. I needed a thinner blade for the tricky work on the bow and stern filler blocks.
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I agree with the Jon that it doesn't much matter the order of assembly here. For what it's worth, I didn't find it that difficult to line up the edges and ends. Perhaps because I chose to taper the planks aft of amidships, therefore requiring very little tweaking with a sanding stick to fit. On the veneer front, I'll suggest again that, if you have access to a band saw with a good resaw blade, you can easily make your own veneer. In the past, I've made my own as thin as two mil, but could have gone thinner. For the purpose I put it to, I thought I'd rather have a bit more material available to sand at the finishing phase of that project. These photos are of an older version of the humidor, which I gave away as a gift, where I probably went 2 mil plus. In the more recent version, which I made for myself to use as photo boxes, I measured the thickness of the zebrawood veneer. It's 1.5 mil. Ironically(?) I forgot to photograph the photo boxes..
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with the passage of time, even you won't notice (or remember). one of the few blessings of aging.. 😁
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It looks okay to me. Why do you not like it?
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The gunport lid hinges are temporarily on hold. So I'm moving on to the main rail. I haven't yet started the forward portion with the big curve, because my stock isn't as thin as mustafa's. I may have to do some milling before I can do the laminating. However, I have made use of my milling machine. Turns out that one of the cutters is pretty much the same diameter as the thickness of the pins that hold the rail to the top of the bulwarks. No need to buy toothpicks her Bob Hunt's practicum. I used the same material for the pins that I will be using for the planks that go up above the main rail. Nothing is glued in yet. I just had a thought. Perhaps I'll make those pins stand just a bit proud of being flush to the bulwark planks. Then I will mill a shallow groove down the center of the bottom of the topgallant rail, which should make centering that a piece of cake.
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USS Constitution by mtbediz - 1:76
Der Alte Rentner replied to mtbediz's topic in - Build logs for subjects built 1751 - 1800
How opportune! I'm working on the rails myself, only I'm trying to make them out of boxwood, which does not bend well or easily along the wide side. I've already broken several small lengths in the process. I'm going to switch immediately to your laminate method. This is my lucky day. Thank you Mustafa. -
I'm working from the Hunt practicum. The deck forward of the center hatch is made up of parallel decking, but in Chapter 4, on page 63, Hunt begins the discussion of planking the stern half of the deck with, "You’ve probably already noticed that the aft end of the ship is narrower than amidships." Then follows that up with "That means we are going to have to start tapering our planks". That's when I checked the plans, and, sure enough, the planks are indeed tapered aft of amidships. I don't have them in front of me at the moment, so I can't confirm whether they are also tapered to forward, but since I was following the practicum, at this point in the build, I didn't think about it until I read the above. I did in fact do the tapering aft. Here's the link to my build log at around that stage of the planking: (click on the light blue rectangle immediately below. Navigate to the beginning of page 10 of my build if the link takes you to page 1 instead) If you scroll back a bit from there, you can see how I went about accomplishing the tapering of those deck planks using a thickness drum sander. Before I committed to the tapering, I checked at least a half dozen other builds of notable builders here. Only about half of those did the tapering, so you are in good company. (again, scroll back a little further to see my research on that topic).
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That is an excellent question. My thought is that it might be very difficult to shave a precise 1.5mm off of the bulkheads. There will be more "fairing" after your first planking. So, some of the material you wish to pare will come off at that time. I can't think of any real downside to having a smidge more material on the planking, as long as you allow for this in the rabbets. I would leave the bulkheads as they are. You're moving along at a pretty nice clip. Congrats.
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I will add my voice to the chorus. Can't wait to see you get started. Happy Thanksgiving to one and all..
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Because my family in Florida is perusing these pages today, I'm adding the most recent photo. Happy Thanksgiving to the snowbirds.
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USS Constitution by mtbediz - 1:76
Der Alte Rentner replied to mtbediz's topic in - Build logs for subjects built 1751 - 1800
Drat, Looking at your photo (below), I noticed that I missed a few details on mine. If I can find them again, I have some more work to do before installing them. Of course, If I can't find them, I'll have a model to draw inspiration from. Nice work, as usual, sir.
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Tried that. I just don't have the dexterity to hold tweezers in one hand and another tool in the other to push the part into position. Perhaps the problem with the ones I'm working on now is that I have those pillars already glued to the transom. There's very little space to maneuver between these and where the hinges belong. For the transom, given how thin these hinges are, I think my best would be to cut hinge shaped slots into masking tape and use the tape as stencils to paint on the hinges. Plan B would be to omit them altogether. I will try gluing a hinge on the as yet un-affixed lids for the gun deck. ..after the holidays. Thanks for the suggestion
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Your plan to paint and add the waterways later is solid. I noticed you're not tapering your deck planks. That should make that job a lot easier. Looks great.
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I just had an amazingly disappointing session at the shipyard. I spent the solid hour trying to get a single hinge on one of the stern gunport lids. Nothing I have tried works. The hinge sticks to the tweezers or my fingers or falls to the floor. It just can't Wrangle it into position where it needs to be. Does anyone have any tips on how best to put these hinges on the gunport lids? I'm thinking about just painting them on now.
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USS Constitution by mtbediz - 1:76
Der Alte Rentner replied to mtbediz's topic in - Build logs for subjects built 1751 - 1800
Hasn't Mustafa's ship already sailed on that Jon? Happy Thanksgiving at your sister's either way! -
USS Constitution by mtbediz - 1:76
Der Alte Rentner replied to mtbediz's topic in - Build logs for subjects built 1751 - 1800
Having read Gregg's comment on my build log, and then seeing that you're just making the catheads, I'm asking myself: Self, where did you put the catheads you made oh so many months ago? As always, it's a pleasure watching the master at his craft. -
Having been sidetracked with matters mechanical in my Shipyard, I haven't gotten much done in the last few days. Today at least I managed to deal with the Constitution name plate. I took a tip from the Bob Hunt method and obtained the dry transfer decals he suggested using. I didn't see the need to make a separate name plate out of styrene. Instead I just sanded the top of the laser cut piece that came with the kit, painted it, and positioned the dry transfer decals over the outlines of the letters spelling Constitution. Since I already have the black/white contrast on the gallery windows, I thought I'd repeat that theme here, as opposed to staining the name plate. It's a good thing that the dry transfer decals from Woodland Scenics we're still available online.
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