Greg Davis

Today Le Pourquoi-Pas? received its billet and trailboards. I mixed up some paint and started painting the upper-works. Three coats on so far; a good start, but not sure how many more it will take before I will be ready to move on from this task

While I continue to wait for the linseed oil to cure before contouring the deck, I have started to fabricate the 12 uprights that will serve as the main supports for the superstructure. 

Over the next couple of days I hope to clean up the uprights and start work on the carlings that they will support. These carlings do not maintain a constant distance from the deck (due to the sheer), nor are they parallel to the vessels bottom - but instead slope slightly downward from stern to bow. Because of these facts, each of the six pairs of uprights have their own unique height above the deck, also the segment the goes below the deck is modified from pair to pair. Thus the final dimensioning of the uprights will be done in concert with the carlings once the outermost deck strake has been put in place - which won't be done until the deck beams are given their final contour.

The linseed oil now is very dry to the touch. I just want to make sure that there is little or no chance of dust from sanding adhering to the innards. Since there are many other ways to make progress at this point I think it is best to leave the hull structure alone and go to work on other pieces of the vessel. 

I decided (and the Magic 8-Ball affirmed) that the lower portion of the hull would be left in a varnished state. After 2 coats of matte varnish, this is what she is looking like:

Soon I should be able to mask off and paint the upper section of the hull.

Today's pleasant progress saw the deck beams permentantly attached. Here's a picture taken partway thru the process:

Next I will be able to provide the top of the beams with their final contour. It doesn't appear that much actually needs to be done at this stage - I'm taking this as an indication that the fabrication of parts has been done reasonably well so far. Still I will be taking this next step rather slowly as it will have a great impact on the final shape of the deck.

Sounds like a plan!

Kurt -

I purchased the applicators on Amazon - here is the link https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09YHJK6N4/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1 .

Thank you for the kind words on the progress made so far. If all goes well, I hope to be able to bring it to Manitowoc in the spring. 

Greg

Jim -

Emma C. Berry was first stained with Minwax Golden Oak and then was given a coat of matte varnish. I find that Minwax stain-sticks are easier to use than getting out a can of stain in many cases. Of course, it does take more time to do a larger area this way. On the up side, I find the stain-sticks to be easier for smaller / precise applications and they are easy to keep at hand. Also, I  have experienced good color consistency from stick to stick. On the down side, the stain-stick color labeling is small compared to that on the can (which also shows a color picture). I must admit that I did need to re-carve one of the scrolls on Emma because I grabbed the wrong color stain-stick and all of a sudden had a red mahogany carving.  

At first I wasn't sure how I was going to get the linseed oil everywhere it needed to be on the dredger, yet not over-apply the oil. Here I used several adhesive applicators to apply the oil and had no problem getting to all the nicks and crannies. It was not a fast process and it is amazing how little oil is needed to coat the surface. By the way the whole interior has been oiled now.

I used to get applicators under the Testors label at hobby shops and these would cost about 10 cents an applicator - not a lot; but I found that I could buy applicators online an order of magnitude lower. In fact, the ones I am using now cost $5.99 for 500 applicators. 

Greg

Yesterday, I was able to take care of the remaining interior bolts and the stern windows. Today I have begun oiling the interior of the hull. I chose boiled linseed oil for the finish. The four inside sides are done, the bottom comes next. I can then set in the deck carlings and finish those along with the main carlings. 

Obviously, there is no going back at this point so it is good that I like the look of the oiled wood - to me, it looks very fitting for a working vessel. 

All the pillars are fitted - actually, there are ten (not eight as a said earlier), two of which are also climbing posts. I have glued and pinned the pillars to the deck carlings, but have not made any permanent attachments to the main carlings. I can still remove all of the deck beams as well as the deck carling / pillar structures in order to work inside the hull.

Tomorrow I plan to clean up a few details inside the hull - for example, I still need to bolt the deck ledges to the frames and there are the two windows in the stern that need to be opened. Past that, I believe that everything is complete inside.

An excellent Holiday read made it to me last evening:

Hopefully, someday I will have accumulated the skill to take a stab at modeling this extremely interesting ship!

The under-deck carlings are done. Next the eight posts that hold them up.

My upcoming plans are:

• Make the posts and put the carlings in place for good (after a last check that everything else is in order below deck)
• Make and fit the small supports / knees that further secure the center carlings with the bow and stern
• Once that is all done, I'll apply an interior finish
• Fix the deck beams in place
• Prepare the upper deck beam surfaces for deck planks
• ...

I hope you, and your family, recover quickly and well.

Greg

I'm considering that as well. It might look as nice or nicer that way. If it is plated below the water line, then there will be just a narrow band of natural wood between the plating and white painted topsides. I may need to consult the Magic 8 Ball for a final decision on this topic!

Keith, sorry about the delay in response here - I have spent the better part of the last two weeks dealing with a bout of COVID. Testing negative now, but still feeling some residual effects.

Just a small bit of progress on the vessel over the past couple of days. I opened the space for the screw and constructed the nacelles that precede the screw.

The deck beams (less the two that butt against the bow and stern structures) have been let into the shear clamps. Just a bit of fine tuning to do and I will start to fit in the four underdeck carlings and their supporting pillars. I don't want to finish the top of the beams until they are supported by the carlings as these thin beams do flex a little.

Thank you all for the well wishes! We seem to be well past the worst of it and onto the final recovery process. I wouldn't wish this on anyone.

I did keep away from the power tools for quite a few days - there was a period that I didn't feel steady / in control of my movements and didn't want to be near a sharp moving blade. For that matter, I wasn't in any mood to be by a sharp knife or chisel either.

Today I finished sanding the deck beams to a thickness between 2.6 and 2.7 mm. This will leave me with about 0.3 - .04 mm for final finishing once they are in place. Here's what they look like sitting close to where they belong:

Now to get them all lined up proper and marked for notches that match the shear clamp.

Sorry about the delay in progress, it has not been a good week or so. Even with all possible vaccines and taking care in our comings and goings, COVID finally got me (and my wife). 

On the up side, a new 10" bandsaw made its way to our house and I was able to set it up a couple of days ago. I tried it out by resawing some 4" material to 5/16" - it was a smooth operation. Then I used a thickness sander to bring the thickness down to a speck over 6mm for the deck beams. 

While not feeling well, I 'thought-created' a number of jigs and/or methods to cut out the beams. I finally settled on making a pattern for the beams that I could trace their shape with:

The shape of the beam was drawn on a piece of plywood and a strip of wood was glued perpendicularly along the shape. The strip has thickness just under the 2.25mm finished beam thickness so that when a pencil is run against each side, the result is the proper thickness. There are stabilizing feet, with bits of sandpaper so the template does not move during the tracing process. Also there are two pins that I use for aligning the multiple drawings of the beams. I line the pins up on what becomes the common center line, draw the shape, and then move the template along the center line and then draw the next beam outline. In this manner, I had no difficulty drawing the outline of 15 beams stacked along a 4" axis.

The beams where then cut out on my scroll saw. I am now in the process of using a spindle sander to bring the beam thicknesses to about 2.75mm. (Just 2 beams have made it to this stage.) After fitting the beams to the vessel, they can be reduced to the requisite 2.25mm.

By the way, I have also done some (minimal) work on the model and it now has its stem and keel - I think that I will now get to cutting out the opening for the screw.

I am having no success on the size of the steel plates. I agree that in all of the pictures that I have seen, no nails are visible, so Keith, your solution seems viable. However, I was hoping to minimize the amount of paint so I am not too much in favor of painting that much of the hull - I was leaving my comfort zone by painting the upper portion of the hull white! Right now I am leaning toward copper plates without any indication of fasteners.

The last week or so, I have been immersed in reading Charcot's log of Le Pourquoi-Pas? in the Antarctic. The work and risks undertaken during this time period are amazing. It is also really interesting to compare their voyage and ship to that of Shackleton's famous trip on Endurance. 

Fasteners for the first layer of planking on the bow and stern have been installed (stern lights still need to be pierced):

In my last post, I thought that I would now go onto the doubled planking along the bottom of the hull. Not that this could not be done, I have had a change of heart. Before the stern and bow areas are double planked the keel would need to be installed as it is 'locked' by the doubling of planks. But without the keel the hull sits nicely on the bench and this will facilitate working on some interior and superstructure elements. I know I could get around the keel issue (and will likely need to at some point) by routing a slot into a building board to accept the keel and still let the hull sit flat. 

So now I think that I will set my sights on the deck beams and the uprights (that will support a pair of carlings and ultimately the wheels).

Installation of the fasteners on the starboard side went well.

Time now to get to the fasteners for the bow and stern faces; then on to some plank doubling.

The drill and I did the required port side drilling successfully. As expected it was no where as time consuming as it was stressful.

On the other hand, it take close to four hours to install and smooth all of the fasteners.

On to the other side ...

Actually, I don't mind the repetition of inserting the fasteners - drilling the holes is the part I'm not fond of. With every hole, I'm thinking drill bit please go in the right place, straight, and don't break as I just don't know how an error here will be fixed! 

So on that note, I'm getting ready to drill another 300+ holes into the port side of the model. Here is how I've gotten everything ready (the bottom was done this way as well). First 1/16" and 1/8" art tape was used to mask the location of frames. The tape doesn't have a great deal of stick and I found that using a rubber 'paint eraser' to bed down the tape is useful:

Then, while consulting the plans a multitude of times, the fastener locations are marked on the planks just outside of the tape. I pull off the tape and check that all the pencil marks are all in the correct locations - a few more need to be put in where planks adjoin within a strake. Once all looked good, a scribe was used to create indentations for the drilling process. The holes will then be drilled with a small Dremel tool. The drill bit will be adjusted to the needed depth - about 3.5 mm here and drilling will commence tomorrow when I have the needed rest, concentration, and coffee! Also, I have placed a piece of felt on the drill bit so the chuck will not mar the planking.

It was probably noticed that I did not mark fastener locations near the top and bottom of the side. I decided that I would not place fasteners in the regions that would be double planked and thus not seen. Also, there should be less chance of hitting an already installed fastener when drilling holes for fasteners of the doubled planks. 

Just finished installing and smoothing nearly 700 fasteners on the bottom of the vessel.

The copper pins should be a bit more obvious once a finish is applied to the wood.

Next the four much more visible sides!

Thank you very much!

The bottom is planked and the five planked sides have all been smoothed to a state that the multitude of plank fasteners can be added. The keel is also complete, but I didn't want to put it in place until after the rest of the bottom work was completely done. In this way it will be easier to have both sides of the bottom to have the same thickness as I can use sanding blocks the span the whole width.

Here is a current view from below:

And a view from above:

Time to get the #74 drill bit and the copper wire out - this is going to take awhile!