cdrusn89
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Everything posted by cdrusn89
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Getting the hang of the new scroll saw is going to take a bit of practice. I did get the chock rails made (it took about five tries to get one close enough to not spend the rest of the day sanding) and installed. I then got the yellow cedar Catheads fabricated and cut out the main and chock rails to fit them in place. Once that was completed and after a final 320 sanding and paint thinner tack rag I put the first coat of Wipe-on-Poly on the main and chock rails.
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Jim, I have a cousin who was CO of the USS Norfolk (SSN 714) and one of the crews of the Henry M Jackson (SSBN 730) but that would have been 30+ years ago). I know the Norfolk was decommissioned a few years back (I was living in the Norfolk area at the time). Every ship I served on has long been used for razor blades or target practice.
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Thanks Jim - one thing I have is plenty of cedar sawdust. Lets see TMC, would that be Chief Torpedoman? I spent my time on targets so don't think I ever ran across an E-7 Torpedoman.
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Scroll saw arrived this afternoon just in time to cut the two forward sections of the mail rail from the 3/64" yellow cedar sheet. Just as with the other five pieces, I traced around the piece from the kit and then cut and sanded to the line. Made the joints after getting the correct shape. Everything looked great with all the pieces clamped on but when it came time to glue, one of the joints ended up with a 1/16" gap on the exterior and interior "corners. Since this will be finished with poly and not painted the Bondo is NOT a candidate for filling this one. I have some Elmer's wood filler somewhere - hopefully it is fine enough to fill a 3/64 X 1/16 X 1/16 opening. So, mail rail is on, yellow cedar chock rail and Cat Heads next.
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I took the eyebolts I made up yesterday while watching football and completed the eyebolt installation on the interior of the hull. There are another twenty or so that are on the outside of the hull, cat head etc. I will do these after I get the main rail installed. Scroll saw arrives tomorrow (UPS promises) but I decided to start the main rail since several of the pieces are almost straight. Nothing a disk sander and some sanding sticks can't handle. The stern transom piece was somewhat of a struggle but I got it and the two adjoining pieces on the sides aft cut, sanded and fitted to the hull. Having the gun ports makes holding the rail on really easy. No excuses for it not being exactly where you want it. So here is the hull with three pieces of the Alaskan yellow cedar main rail in place for a trial fit. Here is a close-up look at one of the 1/8" (3mm) single blocks. I used 32 ga (.012") annealed steel wire to do the stropping. I saw the "practicum" on the site on stropping the blocks using .008" black line and the 3mm hooks from Syren but thought this would be easier and maybe faster. I am only about a third the way through these (and half way through the doubles using the same wire) so I am not sure how it will all come out in the end. For the singles, I just caught the .012" light brown Syren line between the wire and the block at the bottom and then seized it when I was finished with the stropping. I cut 7" of line for each block so have about 6" left after the seizing - hope that is enough. My plan is to just take the line to the deck and cover the end with a coil of rope. Another thing to look forward to - making 200 rope coils.
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During one day of watching football (although neither of the early games on in our market were worth watching - Dolphins/Pat and Bucs/Bears) I was able to create about 100 eyebolts and thirty or so single 1/8" blocks with becket and line ready for use in the gun tackle. Only about seventy more to go - maybe I can get a few more done during the Monday night game. As I figure things I need five sets of 1/8" double and 1/8" single with becket for each cannonade (two gun tackle, two train tackle and one in-haul tackle) so that is 5 X 18 = 90 each of doubles and singles, plus three sets each for the two long guns so that is six more of each total 96 of each. I plan on making 110 as I am sure to mess up a few along the way. Next step is to install the train tackle eyebolts (and the rest of the ones shown on the plans) on the hull.
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Starboard side pin rails completed. Waiting for scroll saw delivery on Tuesday to start main rails. Have some touch-up to on the hull then mask and spray two coats of clear on hull below the bulwarks. Added the mooring line fair leads to the stern gun ports and found yellow dry transfer letters the correct size in Roman font to put the name on the stern (will be delivered late next week while I am in Minnesota pheasant hunting). Setting up to strop gun tackle blocks during the Pats/Dolphins game this pm.
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Port side pin rails installed and epoxy has set - I put a pin in each end and also some epoxy along the seam with the bulwark. Would be really bad to have one of these come loose while installing the running rigging. Stbd side underway.
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Got the rudder hung. Not much drama, just slipped the rudder post in the hole and slide it in place, drilled the holes for the wire, put a dab of CA on the end of each wire and "slide it home". Touch up with flat black paint and there you are. Also completed the "bell tower". Still working the pin rails. Made the mistake of using phosphor bronze wire for the support "iron". After I get the size correct for the rail location have to stop and paint them black, sometimes twice as the paint doesn't stick well to these. It is much easier to cut than music wire, which isn't really black either but I could probably have used it without paint. Anyway, hope to get all ten rails installed in the next day or so. Then on to stropping more blocks for the guns. Have about half of the doubles done. Only 150 more blocks to go (50 doubles and 100 singles with beckets). Speaking of gun tackle, the plans call for .016" line for the gun tackle but the Syren line comes in .012 or .018. What have others used. My choice would be to go smaller but not if it doesn't "look right". Any thoughts?
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Got the rudder ready for mounting and making progress on the "bell tower". Also did the galley smoke stack. Getting the top part to actually show light through was a challenge on the first one. I soldered two successive sizes of brass tube together and then used the Dremel saw to notch the top piece of tubing to form the supports for the top. Slots are so narrow that I had to make four instead of the three in the plans. Made the top from a 3/16" disk I punched out a a 1/64" thick brass sheet. I used a center punch to try and form the "Coolie hat" shape. Came out more curvy than I had hoped. I used epoxy to attach the top to the rest and painted it all flat black. Not bad for a first effort but I have a few ideas of how to get closer to the plans. Awaiting a new punch set (3/16" is the biggest I can do with what I have) so I can have a little bit more material to work with for the top. I used the Syren Pintles and Gudgeons for the rudder hangers. I used them on my last build and they are the correct scale for this one too. I had to slightly enlarge the notches on the rudder to make sure the two pieces would not stick too far beyond the rudder face but other than everything has worked out (so far). I opted to follow the advise on the Syren web site and used annealed wire cut flush and then touched up with flat black paint to simulate the bolt heads. I though about using the plastic hex heads but I had so much problems with the eight on the capstan (kept losing them when cutting them off the spline or having them snap out of the tweezers) that the thought of doing 20 for the rudder was more than I could bear - plus I would have been dangerously close to running out of the hex bolts and the train people I got them from were not very fast in shipping.
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Shipyard has reopened a day early after a 1223 mile non-stop journey home from Ontario (Canada not California) due to an allergic reaction to a cat that just had to be petted. She had one eye so swollen she could not see out of it. So it was a solo drive to boot. Anyway, as for the ship model, I completed the capstan and assembled and painted the rudder Pintles and Gudgeons which are now drying. I addition I cut and painted the 10 belaying pin racks. Next up is rudder installation and then the pin racks. I got the brass bell from Billings Boats so I will work the ship's bell structure when I get the pin rails and rudder done. Here is the capstan. I used a piece of file folders to simulate the metal band and some plastic hex bolts from a model train supplier on the top. Probably a bit out of scale and it is my understanding that hex heads bolts came after the Niagara but I think it looks letter than lumps of glue.
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Thanks Darrell - it took two tries on the aft fife rail to one that would hold together with only three sides. I have to take a week+ off - HQ wants a trip to her home in Michigan for her brothers b-day (the big 70). Work in shipyard is suspended until the 28th.
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Spent some more time on Deck Furniture while waiting for plumbers and electricians to hook up my new standby generator. No more worrying about power outages in storms (hurricanes or severe thunderstorms, both have been known to happen here in Central Florida). Got both fife rails and the pump completed. Ordered a brass bell from Billings Boat, kit one is Britannia metal so will work on the the ship's bell next. No scroll saw yet, UPS guy is late. So here are the three pieces that I got finished. I used rubber cement to attach a copy of the drawing to my build board, then drilled the posts on the fife rails for metal pins and drilled holes in the build board (through the plan) to hold the fife rail posts. Fashioned the connecting rails (and added some support pieces to help provide some more area for the glue to work) and then glued everything together. I will transfer the plan pieces to the deck and use the holes to locate the holes for the fife rails. Probably will not mount any of the deck furniture until after all the guns are mounted and the masts, yards, etc. are ready for mounting.
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Jim/Darrell - thanks, found a Delta on Facebook Marketplace. Will have it tomorrow. Haven't decided whether to buy the stand (is does not come with one). Will put it on my "power tool" bench for now.
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Sounds like a good excuse to by a jig or scroll saw - I will check with HQ and see what the art of the possible might be. Have any suggestions on a particular jig/scroll saw to get?
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Darrel, Thanks. I just got another slug of cedar from Syren so I plan on building the rest of the deck furniture to match the deck. Not sure about the main rail yet. Have to decide painted (per instructions) or "bright" and if bright kit wood or cedar. At the moment I am leaning to bright cedar but need to see what additional wood and effort (like recreating the kit pieces in cedar) that would require.
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Finished the deck planking sanding and after running a test of both the Model Master Acrylic flat and flat Wipe-on-Poly I decided to use the WoP although it was virtually impossible to tell the difference on my test sample. Three coats of WoP with #400 sanding between the first and second and #600 between the second and third. Am thinking about a fourth coat (I have some #800 sandpaper). The planking is Alaskan Yellow Cedar that I got from Syren. I bought it in two batches of 50 pieces each. The first batch did about two thirds of the deck and looking at the views from forward and aft you can see that the second batch was considerably lighter than the first. Another lesson learned - if the wood is from different lots, mix them up (or alternate) before you use them. Now to mask everything off to prepare for putting the finish paint on the hull
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Tom, At the deck level this arrangement is only slightly different from the plans. The somewhat larger companionway is further aft and what was the Capt's skylight takes its place aft of the capstan. The real difference is the removal of the "structures" above the coamings for the Capt's and salon skylights to make way for sailors to operate the capstan. It would also allow more room to work the guns at the gun ports near the capstan.
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Deck planking is completed. The end joints seem more prominent than I would like. I have been working them one by one with a small blade and 180 sandpaper to try and make them less obvious but so far it has been slow going. I also put the deck furniture in place (more or less) to get and idea of where I do NOT have to worry too much about how the deck looks. This is the different deck furniture configuration that I referred to earlier. It makes better sense to me but, the capstan will be much more prominent so I will have to make an effort to add as much detail as my limited skills will allow. I have not decided what to use to finish the deck. I do not plan to stain it as I prefer the light color of the yellow cedar. The two candidates I have available are Model Master Acrylic clear flat and Wipe-on-Poly flat. I am doing a comparison on some spare deck planks but am open to other suggestions. Anyone have any?
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Two lessons learned from the first half deck planking. At the stern it is useful to add some additional support between the horn timbers, especially on the outboard side. As you get further outboard there is essentially no support for the of the deck planks between the horn timbers. I had to use the CA to glue the plank to the end piece before gluing the rest of the plank down. As you get closer to the edge this gets more and more difficult so for the port side I added supports between the horn timbers to hold up the extreme aft end of the deck planks. The second problem occurs as you approach the last two or three rows of planks on the outboard side. When the nibbling strake/deck plank joint (which can get pretty long out here) happens between bulkheads it was hard for me to keep the ends aligned vertically. So I added supports under the nibbling strake which are glued to the bulkheads and nibbling strake with thin CA. Hopefully this will make the port side an easier job than the starboard was.
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It took all day (except for time out to watch one baseball game) but I got half the deck planked. I am using Alaskan Yellow Cedar in 1/16 X 3/32 X 14" which I got from Syren Ship Model. It is half the price of boxwood (from Syren) and ships quickly. Given that it comes in 14" lengths I decided to follow the same joint pattern as on the hull planking. As it turns out using short (four or five bulkheads) lengths means I have enough fingers to pull the pieces into place. I apply the glue (yellow carpenters on edges, medium CA on bulkheads) and press the measured and cut piece in place, hold for 10-20 seconds to let the CA set up then move on to the next piece. I used a carpenters pencil to darken one side of each piece to simulate the caulk. I have tried other methods but this works out better for me. It still makes a mess and leads to considerable clean-up sanding. I decided to forgo the curved, tapered pieces and kept all the planks parallel to the centerline. I did use a nibbling strake and it came out reasonably well. I will include more detailed pictures when I have the deck planking completed and cleaned up some.
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While working on the re-planking of the port side bulwark I noticed that it was difficult to get the planking to follow the hull lines, a problem I did not have the first time because I used a 1/64" plywood "carrier" that was soaked and shaped to the lines (more or less) before the planking was applied. This time I decided to forego the carrier and use the 1/32" bulwark planking directly on the bulwark stanchions. The stbd side came out with a noticeable depression between bulkheads A and B. I used Bondo filler to correct this but thought I should pay closer attention on the port side and see if there was some was to avoid more red hands and red dust all over. What I found was that after the first two rows (starting from the plank sheer) the planking wants to take the straight line between Bulkheads A and B rather than follow the curve. My solution was to fit in two additional "stanchions" (3/32" X 1/16") between A and B. They were glued to the inside of the first two rows of planking (which follow the hull curve pretty well) at the bottom and to the top rail. I had to trim them at the top to make sure I had at least the 1/32" clearance needed so the hull planking is at least flush with the top rail. The picture below shows the two extra stanchions after several more rows of planking have been added. It looks much better than the stbd side did at this point. Another lesson learned.
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With the gratings done I focused on the companion way which as I indicated above will be located where the plans show the Captain's Skylight. After two tries at getting the coaming correct I gave up and opted for a solid base made from 3/32" boxwood sheet. The actual companionway structure used the 3/64" strip wood supplied for the sides, front and back and 1/32' strips for the tops. I decided to simplify the paint scheme and substituted the yellow used on the bulwarks for the buff called for on the plans. I have not decided yet on the treatment of the main rail, I may leave that "bright" but if it is painted it will be bulwark yellow.
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