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I was finally able to get back in the shop to start making the pintels and gudgeons for the rudder which has turned into quite an involved little project of its own.  The first step was designing a jig to hold the parts while being soldered.  I sketched up the jig design first on paper to save a lot of wasted effort of fiddling around cobbling together something that wouldn’t work anyway.

    By taking a common spring wood clothes pin that would, with some modification of the ends, give me a jig that would also serve as a clamp.  Having already cut the 1/16” wide straps from some .016 brass, I cut eight 1/16” lengths of 1.56 mm thin wall brass tubing and four pieces of 1.02 mm piano wire in 1/8” lengths for the pins.
    I bent one of the straps over the rudder to the required size to test the fit.  So, now the required parts for one of the hinges have been made to help me size the jig/clamp and are show here.

    Taking the clothes pin to my disc sander, I sanded the ends of the pin flush and square.

Then, by twisting the ends of the clothes pin to offset them, it allowed me to clamp it in my woodworking vise without taking it apart and work on shaping the top and bottom jaws separately. 
    The bottom jaw was done first.  My razor saw was well suited to the task, as it easily cuts a very thin kerf in the hardwood pin.  The projecting pin was roughly sized to be in the center of the pin. The left side was sawn first, cutting somewhat deeper than was needed to make the face cuts a little easier.

    The face cut was then made to remove the left side.


    The right side was done similarly after sizing the width of the projecting pin by placing the formed strap on the end for a direct measurement, rather than using a ruler, to guarantee a good tight fit.


    Now the lower half of the projecting pin was also removed.

    The strap was placed over the pin to allow the length of the projecting pin to be marked.

    Now the jig/clamp was set in my machinist vise where the projecting pin was filed down to my mark and I filed out a V groove in the top jaw of the clothes pin with a square edged file to hold the hinge tube in place.

   Now the strap and tube were clamped in the jig to test how well it would actually work.

    Using a very small brush, I spread some solder paste on the sides of the tube and top of the strap.  I cut some chips of solder and placed them in the pasted joint. (That’s one time were the paste does triple duty.  It cleans the parts, controls were the solder flows, and being sticky, it holds the chips of solder in place.)
    Rather than using my soldering torch and destroying my jig/clamp, I opted for the soldering iron.  All I had to do was touch the hot tip of the iron to the end of the tube, and within a second or so, the paste burned away, leaving the solder to flow into the joint.  The jig/clamp lives on now to do the job on the other seven fittings!
     This shows the components needed and the straps in various stages of their shaping.

    That's as far as I was able to get, so I still need to finish the other seven fittings and work out the actual installation on the ship and rudder.  I will also be attempting to cover the rudder with some black vinyl foil as I don't believe that the rudder was copper plated.
 
 

Been off a few days with other projects, but did manage to clean up the definition of the stern copper plates and the transom as shown. 


    I guess the next step will be to form the pintles and gudgeons and get them put into place.  That may take a while as I need eight sets of them soldered up.  That’s more even tinier parts than the hawse pipes.

Well, it was kind of a judgement call on my part as to the shape of the new rudder. I just tried to duplicate the new shape as best I could since the photo was at a difficult angle to make any measurements from.  I made the upper portion of the rudder the same including the tenon at the top.  I made the bottom just wide enough to still attach a pintle and made a smooth curve for the remainder with a slightly wider bulge toward the bottom.  The kit didn’t make a very accurate representation of the pintle and gudgeon joints either.  So, making a lot of extra work for myself, I decided to remove and replace all of the straps from both the rudder and the stern post.  Below is a comparison between the kit original, my first rejected wood duplicate, and my current version taken from the photo mentioned in the last post.

    I had also noticed that other ships about the same size as the Wanderer had fewer hinge points than shown on the plans and the kit, so going with just four seemed more suitable and left me with a little more room for longer legs on the bottom pintle, not to mention more space between the hinge points.
    Taking the new rudder to my vice, I did just that by dividing the edge into in four equally spaced notches and making a sketch (shown below) of how each one would be represented.

    I made eight cuts with my razor saw to the depth set by the vice jaws.  The spacing between the cuts was made twice the width of the strap and then cleaned out with a scalpel.

    The bottom edge of the notch was extended and cleaned up with a round file, leaving an overall space of three times the width of the straps.

     And finally the top of the notch was cleaned up with a square one.

    Here is the result to this point.

As I said in an earlier post, the plastic rudder provided with the kit was too short to go through the deck to connect with the tiller so I wanted to make a replacement in wood.  Taking ½ of the plastic rudder supplied with the kit, I laid it on a strip of maple the thickness of the rudder and traced the outline onto the wood.
      The pintle locations were also carefully marked (as shown) to assure alignment with the corresponding gudgeons on the ship.

     A small square was used to mark a perpendicular line across the rudder to make sure their legs could be set square with the edge.  The rudder was carefully cut to the overall shape on my scroll saw and then filed and sanded to its final shape including a small square tenon at the top end to fit into a matching mortice in the tiller.

    Now I needed to make the straps for the pintles and gudgeons from some .016 brass.  The end of the brass was heated with my torch till cherry red and set aside to cool.  Since the straps needed to be cut to 1/16” wide they were set in my vice by projecting the brass strip through the jaws until they flushed out with a piece of 1/16” scrap and clamped. 

 
The brass was then scribed with an exacto blade using the vice jaws as a guide.

    To set up for the cuts a strip of plywood with a straight edge for a saw support was clamped to the edge of my modeling table.  Now the brass strip was clamped into place with the scribed line just the thickness of my jewelers saw blade away from the edge of the plywood. (The clamp on the other end of the brass was set to keep it from twisting during the cut.)

    I shifted my wheelchair so that the arm holding the saw was parallel to the cut to be made.  A stick of wax was used on the blade every so often to lubricate it. Then using a smooth steady stroke with the saw at the angle shown, and using a finger of my other hand to control the chatter, the cut was made.

     After several cuts, it became an easier operation and I was able to cut each strip in quick succession.  When each cut was done, the edge of the remaining brass was squared up and filed smooth in the vice before proceeding onto the next piece.  Ten were cut in about an hour this way.
    Then, having found a photo of the Wanderers’ rudder washed up on shore after she ran aground, I noticed a couple more discrepancies.  Contrary to the shape of the rudder on both my plans and the kit, the trailing edge appeared to be a smooth curve rather than straight.  There was also no indication in that photo that it was sheathed in copper.  Following these discoveries, I have decided to remake the ships rudder as shown in that photo.
    So, while the rudder itself was to be tossed out, it wasn’t a total waste as the brass strips for the legs of the pintles and gudgeons could still be used since they haven’t been formed or cut to length yet.
 

These are two shots of the blueprints at the bow showing the details of the hawse pipes. 


    You can see that the anchor chain travels from the hawse pipe opening at the bow, then up through the deck, around the winch, and then back down through the deck.  The first step was to cut out some notches in the frames for the pipes as shown below.

    Through some rather poor planning on my part when spacing the beams, I put beam #2 right where the upper end of the hawse pipe turns up to go through the deck.   Taking some 1/8” brass tubing, I first beveled one end with a file by trial and error to match in with the hull at the hawse hole.  Then I cut that section of tubing off to end at the edge of beam #2.

    So far, it looked good so I cut the other one the same.

    In order for the chain to go up through the deck, I mitered the end of the tube to let the chain make that bend.  Tilting the hull bow up, the chain was passed through the pipe.

    I tried to pull the chain up across the edge of the miter, but found that it didn’t want to go.  Thinking that I would just shorten the pipe short of beam #2 to allow the chain to make its own way around the bend I tried pulling the chain again and found that it seemed to work a little better. So I did the same to the other pipe and coated both of them in brass black and let them dry. I then glued one in place with some thin CA to test it again. 

    Apparently all the coating did was just increase the friction between the pipe and chain and it didn’t function as well as I would have liked.  It was time for me to rethink this whole detail.
    So now, looking a bit closer at the blueprints, I realized that the hawse pipe just needed to be larger.  The too small pipes were then pried out and I started over with two 7/8” long sections of 3/16” brass tubing.  Of course that required reworking the notches to allow the larger pipes to fit flush with the bottom of the false deck, but between the larger pipes and no coating applied, the chain now slid quite freely.  Both pipes were therefore glued in place.

     I guess that it was just a bit of overkill with the brass black as when the chain was in the pipe I wasn’t able to see the brass tubing anyways.   Now I was left trying to figure out how to make the end of the hawse pipe where it went through the deck.  Again taking the 3/16” brass tubing, a section just long enough to go through both the 1/16” false deck and the 1/32” finish deck with a little extra above for the lips and maybe a bit more below decks to give the illusion of a hawse pipe.  Therefore, the notches on beam #2 were also cut larger to accommodate those sections of tubing.

    Now I’ll have to contemplate just how to make those lips on the exposed portion of the pipes on deck.

Just a note here to say that my plans from A.J. Fisher that I have based most of my speculations about the details of the Wanderer were originally drawn by Captain E. Armitage that first appeared in three issues of  Popular Science magazine back in 1932.  He, himself, actually built a model of her based on those plans.  They are the most complete version of this ships’ construction and details that I have been able to find.  I felt fairly confident that, as he was able to actually go aboard the ship to take photos and measurements just before she started out on her last tragic whaling voyage, that the information was accurate.
    While many of the details of the Wanderer and the C.W. Morgan are similar, the sterns differed quite noticeably.  Once again referring back to a photo on the Mystic Seaport website you can see that the stern deck cabin on the Morgan continues right into the transom with the rudder shaft portion of the steering gear housed in a small enclosure (see below), but the Wanderer deck cabin stops short and has the stern portion of the deck exposed with the entire steering (commonly referred to as a shin knocker) mechanism exposed.

    What was provided in the Aurora kit is somewhat true to form in that it’s exposed, but it’s still a far cry from what was actually on the ship.  Anyway, I hardly think that this small pin (shown below) through the deck could handle turning that large rudder!

    So, I went back to my drawings from A.J. Fisher to determine how to show this detail.  The deck plan and the cross section shown on the blueprints below indicate that the rudder shaft continues through the hull and, although reduced somewhat in size, the actual rudder shaft is notched down, passed through the tiller and pinned with some type of through bolt.


    The drawing below included with the blueprints shows a good illustration of this detail.

    Since the shaft of the rudder supplied with the kit is way too short, I think that I will just make a new one.  So, the first order of business was to notch the last floor support beam to allow the shaft to pass through the deck and into the tiller.

  
    As I was making that notch with a drill and rasp, I decided that putting another LED light below the skylight would also be a nice touch.  For the light to show better, I needed to clear an opening for the light to show through better. The inside face of the skylight was measured and marked on the beams.  Rather than replacing the existing beams and re-framing the whole area, I just remodeled the opening a little.
    First cutting some reinforcing blocks that were lined up with the inside edge of the skylight; I glued them in place with CA, and let it set overnight (since they would be getting some rough treatment) before cutting back the beams.  Once that was done and the glue set up, I took the entire hull to my drill press to remove most of the material by drilling through the parts to be removed at the corners and then paring down the rest of the opening with a chisel.


 
    While I wait for my new order of LED lights to arrive, I will start working on the hawse pipes.
 

Here is just a short update.  Try as I might, I was unable to come across any photos or sketches of the Wanderer below the main deck (including the 1921 film) so I find myself looking closer to the wealth of info available on the C.W. Morgan which was similar. 
    Finally I was able to relocate this photo on the Mystic Seaport web site of the lower deck of the C.W. Morgan.

    It clearly shows both the knees for the main deck support beams above and the ones on the lower deck floor.  You can also see that the knees have more than a dozen bolts each.  True, the C.W. Morgan and the Wanderer were different ships, but overall they shared many of the same features and I can’t see why they should differ greatly on this detail.
                                                           
    Well, I did try to remove the lower knees to install more bolts, but apparently they were glued too solidly, as they didn’t want to budge. I was afraid if I tried too hard, I might ruin the lower deck assembly.
     So, I resigned myself to leave them in place as they were and made up the eight new knees for the main deck support beams pretty much the same as the knees previously put in.  They don't actually attach to the floor beams above, but that will not be readily visible even with the lights on when the deck above is installed.  This is about the best angle available to see them at all.

    The existing knees had been easier to install as there was still enough room to get access with just my fingers, but they were now reducing the clearance available for the new ones.  Since the new ones basically stand on their tips, the hull needed to be laid on its side so gravity would allow me to attach them on the inner hull walls and the other knees.  The photo below shows one side complete.

    The knees alongside the hatch were the most difficult as I needed one hand to set them in place and the other hand with a stick held at an odd angle to hold them against the wall and the other knee as shown below until the glue could take hold.  Using medium CA was definitely the way to go here, as just a couple small dabs were needed and I didn’t need to hold them in place for very long. 
                                                          
    This is the status of my ship right now.

    I’m thinking that installing the deck will be the next phase to tackle.  There are some things to take care of first, namely some things that have to pass thru the deck itself that won’t be accessible once the deck is fastened down.  The rudder shaft, the hawse pipes and the anchor chain for example.
 

While trying to determine what size to make my oil barrels for the Wanderer, I found that apparently among some historians, there was a lot of disagreement on what size the barrels were for oil on these ships.  I found that 31.5, 35, and 42 gallon sizes were most common, but some barrels were 750 gallons or more.
    For example, check out the size of this barrel in this old photo (shown in Google under the heading whale oil barrels by Spinner Publications #ST 00841) below that three dock workers in New Bedford were trying to move around.   It looks to be over 400 gallons or so as near as I can estimate.  It must have been a royal pain trying to muscle this thing around below decks, and this isn’t even one of the really big ones!

 
     Further searching through google revealed that apparently the barrels actually came in many different sizes as shown below in an illustration diagram included in an article that I came across written by Sara Kay Bierle in a posting of gazette665.com.  If you look closely, you can see at least six or seven different sizes and that in the area of the bow, the knocked down barrel components were stored until they were needed.   
   
   
   
    Ship’s Layout

This diagram from an 1887 publication shows an example of the interior of a whale ship.
 
    Logically speaking, I guess that that does make some sense, since they were trying to get as much oil as possible below decks. In the complex shape of the inside of the hull some areas could accommodate the larger barrels, but then again, the tighter areas couldn’t be efficiently filled unless the barrels were smaller.  Many barrels had elongated shapes to fit into some of the tighter spaces, and in some cases the ships coopers were even known to have made custom sized barrels as needed.   
    As whalers owners were paid by the number of barrels of oil she could hold, it leads to some confusion as to exactly how much oil this would have been.  I suppose that when the final tally was taken in port, the officials there would measure each barrel, calculate its volume and multiply by the number of similar barrels.
     In some of the articles that I came across, buyers would pay the ships owners by the number of 31.5 gallon barrels that this converted to.  Seems to me that just converting to the number of gallons and paying so much per gallon would have been simpler, but who knows for sure. So, I guess that as far as I’m concerned, I'll just make a few different sizes for my Wanderer. 
    By the way, during my search for oil barrel sizes, I came across some photos taken below decks of the C.W. Morgan that did show my reinforcing knees between the inner deck and the inner hull.  However, in addition to those knees and right beside each one of them was an additional knee between the inner hull and the beams for the upper deck! 
    So, now it looks like I need to make another set of knees.  Good thing I found this out prior to attaching the deck!  I think that I may have cast a few choice phrases about while trying to squeeze them into place somehow. 
    There were also quite a few more bolts in each one than the number that I put in, but trying to add them now to the ones that I have already installed might not be feasible.  I think that I may try to see just how hard they are to remove and put in more bolts, but otherwise I’ll just stick to two bolts in each one.
    So, for now it looks like I’ll just have to get back to making more knees for a while.

Still not sure about the knees, but on to something else for now.
    One reason that I decided to make a grating for the lower hatch was that my kit for the MS Phantom had precut grating strips that, @ 1:96 scale, were overlarge for that kit.  Since I was working now @ 1:87 scale, I thought they would be a little closer to scale size for this ship. (Maybe?  Maybe not?)

    At any rate, I wanted to try making some grating anyway.  These were intended to be assembled by overlapping, but I thought that the thickness would still look too much out of scale.   Cutting off some lengths close to the required finished size, I took them once again to my square sanding jig and sanded one end square. As the nubs were very fragile, I was careful to only sand toward the guide or risk snapping them off!


    Needing a surface that was both flat and that my carpenters glue would not adhere to, I found a framed picture with glass of our favorite neighborhood dog Chester. (He passed several years ago, but I didn’t think that he would object to helping me out.)  Anyway, the frame corner was square so it would also serve as an assembly jig.

    I took one strip at a time, and with a tooth pick applied just a small dab of the glue to each of the nubs. Then they were butted into the corner and against each other briefly to let the glue grab hold.

     This was repeated for each piece until the assembly was wide enough for the size of my grating.   I took a scrap of basswood with wax paper on the bottom, laid it on top of the grating blank with a size D battery on top to make sure it remained flat, and let it dry overnight.

    While this method allowed me to have enough material to make the grating and make the thickness more to scale, I was thinking that those minuscule dabs of glue wouldn’t be sufficient to hold it together.  As it turned out, I was right, the assembly was very weak and kept separating when sanded.  I applied some medium CA to the backside of the joints which helped some, but I decided to add a frame around the grating to add some more strength to it.  I ripped down some 1/32” strips of 1/32" maple for this frame.  The grating still needed some downsizing on the long dimension, so I cut the frame pieces so the ends would overlap and glued two pieces to one corner with more CA and put aside to set overnight.

             
    Next, I took the assembly to my disc sander and very carefully trimmed the long end of the grating down to match the length of the long frame piece.
                                                                                                     
    Here, the remaining frame pieces were glued on with AC and left to set.

                                                                         
    Once it was dry, I sanded the faces of the completed grating flat by hand, as I still had my doubts about its strength.

 
   I decided not to stain the grating frame, so just two coats of poly were applied for my finish to leave a little contrast between the grating and the frame.

 
    I plan to leave the grating off to the side of the hatch as the ship will be displayed in the act of loading a cask of oil down into the hold.  So, now to figure out what comes up next.

I decided to install two orange flickering LEDs in the lower deck.  One to be placed one frame from the hatch toward the bow and the other one frame from the hatch toward the stern.  Here you can see that the beams at the hatch have been reduced in depth closer to scale.


     For the one at the bow frame, the wires had to be run between the inner and outer hull sides as shown here.

    The one toward the stern was offset slightly to avoid the main mast.  The LEDs were glued in place with some medium CA.

    I drilled a 3/32” hole (large enough to pass the four wires with the shrink wrap) in the bottom of the hull on the port side which will be the side of the ship against the wall when displayed and thus less visible. The excess wire was coiled and taped to the hull for now.


                                             

I set up this drilling jig with rubber cemented scraps and mounted it on my Proxxon X-Y table as shown.

    The knees were all placed in the jig as shown to place the bolts consistently.  I drilled the holes clean through for a .023” x 1/4” steel brad in each leg.
  
    I soaked the brads briefly in a full strength solution of Brass Black and let dry.  The brads were then pressed through the legs of the knees.

    The brads were slightly too long, but rather than trying to cut them shorter and risk having them disappear, I just put them in my vise to file off the excess.

 
    The knees were then glued in place with some medium CA.

    Now I came to realize that the beams had not been sized to scale, as they were originally not going to be visible, but now that this had changed, I thought they needed to be reduced in depth.  You will notice that a line was now drawn on the face of the beams here.

    With a good deal of trouble they were reduced in place with scalpels and chisels.  This also would allow a little more to be visible inside the hull, so I thought overall it was a good thing.  Also, in this view from above, you can see that the bottom of the hull would be visible.

    Taking another section of the pre-made decking, I marked the treenails and plank ends on this sheet.  This was finished the same as done previously.  To make this sheet of planking conform to the bottom of the hull, I made numerous shallow cuts in the backside of the sheet parallel to the deck boards.  This allowed the sheet to flex enough to match the curve of the hull bottom.  The sheet was slid in from the stern, and held in place by using a pencil eraser down through the hatch.  I then dribbled some thin CA down alongside the gap in the hull walls that secured it in place.

 
    The next thing to do now is to set up for the LED lighting.

Now here is my knee production method.  First off, I took a billet of basswood of the desired thickness and cut triangular pieces with the grain running parallel to the long edge.  The remaining edges of these pieces were squared up with my sanding fixture as shown here.

    Then I drew a rough outline of the shape of the knee on all eight triangles to help keep track of their orientation, as one leg was longer than the other. 

    These were grouped in sets of four that were glued up with a thin coating of rubber cement on all the facing surfaces and clamped in place overnight to dry.  The next day I drew the pattern on a stiff piece of manila folder and cut it to shape.  Holding the pattern in place on the face of the glued up blocks, the pattern was traced onto the top blocks.

    I clamped the blocks in my vise and using a small back saw trimmed off the majority of the waste.


    The blocks were then sanded close to the outline of the knees on my 2” belt sander being careful keep the block flat on the table.

    Now, using several grades of sand paper on sanding sticks the blocks were sanded to their final shape.


    Now the blocks were separated from each other with a chisel driven into the glue joint.  Even though I only used rubber cement to join them together, they were still held together surprisingly well.

 
    Now I had the eight knees duplicated to the same shape.

    Using a fine sanding stick, I eased the exposed edges of all the individual knees.


   Here are all the knees cut to final shape and given a coat of stain and two coats of polyurethane.  I still need to add two bolts to each knee, which will be included in my next posting.

As I continue to replace the deck beams, I thought I should show how I remeasured and re cut them to fit.  I decided to make a small version of a measuring jig that my grandfather taught me a long time ago to make the inside measurements for the deck beams easier to make accurately.  Of course the jig that he showed me was quite a bit larger as he used it to make furniture.
     The first photo is the basic four pieces: the two longer pieces have one end cut square and the other end cut at an angle, the short two pieces are just slightly wider than the thickness of the longer ones.  The short ones are glued with CA to the edges of one of the long ones.  The remaining long piece is waxed to allow it to slide easier in the assembly as shown in the next photo with the short pieces to keep the measuring stick straight.


    All that is needed to complete the stick is a small clamp to hold it in place.

    The divider takes measurements off of the layout sheet from the reference point by the main hatch to one edge of a beam where it intersects with the ledger on both sides of the template.

    Then taking that setting on the dividers with one tip on the reference point on the hatch beam and the other on the both sides of the ledger where a tic mark is put on the ledger.

    Now the measuring stick is stretched out between the ledgers to get the length of the deck beam at that point. 

    The length is marked on a scrap of paper and the center is found.  The beam is then marked so the same amount can be trimmed off of each end.  Once the maximum length is marked, the beam is trimmed down to include the angle of the ledger.  Slow trimming with a lot of rechecking the fit often is required here.  Nothing to it!  It just takes awhile.  

Today I cut some white adhesive foil strips on my rotary cutter to give me three rows of planks to fill in the inside face of the stern bulwarks.  Once they were applied I cut out a space for the center stanchion as shown.

    Using thick CA, I attached the center one, clamped it temporarily, and repeated the above steps for the other two.

    The two in the corners were a bit trickier as they had to follow the slope of the sides, but eventually they were similarly applied.  Some watered down white paint was then applied to both the planks and the stanchions and set aside to dry.

    The next deck beam (12) was trimmed down equally from both ends, tack glued with thick CA, clamped in place and given fillets of carpenters glue to solidify the installation. This was repeated for the following beam. (13)

    The next two beams (14 & 15) that were previously ganged together with blocking for the mizzen mast were also similarly installed, although trimming four ends at one time was a lot more difficult to handle.

    When I get back to working on it (hopefully tomorrow), I will continue to trim and reapply the remaining deck beams

After pondering how to fix the misaligned transom for a while, I tried out a few different ideas.  The one that I have settled on is to cover, not only the transom, but the entire wooden portion of the outer hull with the adhesive foil technique that Doris employs.
    The first step was to fit the transom the best I could with some filing to get a better fit.  Once satisfied with that, I clamped it together as shown below.

   I then put a heavy coat of plastic cement on the inside of the stern of the ship as shown here.

    I let this sit overnight before continuing, to make sure nothing would shift on me.  Taking my black roll of adhesive foil to my rotary cutter, I cut a few pieces to match the width of the transom planks.  I applied a few of these strips to the transom as shown here.


    As you can see, the seam was still quite visible and needed some more work yet.  I applied some filler and tried sanding down the seam to allow the foil to disguise it.
 

    I tried applying a strip of foil on the curved portion of the bulwark to see how well I could match the curve.  With a bit of heat applied to the foil, I could see that it might not be as difficult as I first thought.

    Tomorrow I will try finishing the inside of the transom bulwark.

Here and there, I have been able to gain access to my basement model shop for a little work on my Wanderer.  When I left off before, I had just removed all of the deck beams to correct errors in their lengths.  Six of the frames shown in photo below were trimmed to the correct lengths and glued back in place with carpenters glue and put aside overnight to set.

    These six were done first so that I would have easier access to suspend a partial lower deck visible through the open upper hatch.  I sized the lower deck length to equal the distance from one beam beyond the hatch frame to the stern and one beam to the bow.  The width was sized to span across the inside of the hull at approximately a scaled 6’ below the upper deck and still allow some clearance for the lower deck framing. 
    To make the inner deck, I trimmed three left over scraps of pre-made 1/32” thick decking to be applied to a sub-deck of 1/16” thick piece of sheet basswood.  I repeated my earlier method of marking the deck plank ends and treenail impressions.  I stained and sealed them to match.  Once dried, they were glued with carpenters’ wood glue and clamped to the sub-deck.  I first used a vice for the center portion and then heavy weights for the outer portions to ensure a flat deck.



    Looking through my copy of Whale Ships and Whaling by Albert Church, I found an ink sketch of the wooden cooling tank between decks of the bark Commodore Morris that also showed an inner hatch with a coaming.  While not the Wanderer, I assumed that it was probably similar.  So I decided to trim the opening with a coaming similar to the upper hatch for it.  I marked the location and size of the hatch to align with the upper hatch and bored holes in the four corners, and used a fine coping saw to cut the opening.

 
    Once it was rough cut, I took a sanding stick to trim it down to the final size.

                                                                (Opps, looks like the camera focused on the wrong subject!)  
    To suspend the lower deck from the upper deck I took some 3/32” x 5/32” basswood to make a pair of U shaped frames for suspending the front and rear edge of the lower deck.   I cut one piece the length of the deck width for a horizontal beam and glued a pair of 1” long posts vertically at each end of the beam.  These U-frames were set aside to dry.  Once they were set, I sanded the bottoms of the U-frames to allow more clearance in the hull.   
     I cut four spacers to give me a scaled 6’ ceiling space between decks.  The U-frames were glued to the front and rear of the inner deck and the spacers were glued to the 1” vertical posts leaving an open notch for the lower deck and an overlap at the top to be attached to the deck beams above.
    For the coaming itself, I cut some more 3/32” x 5/32” basswood to length for the outer trim and some 1/32” square basswood for the inside ledgers and glued them all in place with CA.


    The assembly was slid in from the stern and past the front deck beam to test the fit and propped in place with a sanding stick.

    At this point it looks good enough to me.

     I masked off the lower deck and gave the coaming two coats of paint and light sanding between.  I took a couple narrow pieces of decking to serve for the interior hull sides and finished them to match the deck.

    The masking was removed and it was ready to install.

    The assembly was slid back in with the side pieces unattached, glued and clamped in place. (I tried with them attached before installation but didn’t have enough clearance to slide the whole assembly in place.)   So, now with a lot of fiddling and cussing, the side pieces were glued into place.

    I measured the hatch opening before installation, as I was not sure if the hatch would be solid or a grating, so I just left it open for now.  As you can see here, the sidewalls were maybe a bit much, as they are not easily seen, but maybe a couple of subdued LED lights would help.

    I’ll give it some thought, as I was impressed with the way Doris did it in her ships.  I plan on installing a few knees that would also be partially visible and maybe an oil cask or two.  So, now that the lower deck is in place it's time to decide what to do with the transom problem.  I will experiment with a couple of solutions and get to it!

I scraped down the decks, put a light coat of Minwax light oak finish on it, let it dry briefly, and ran a rag over to remove the excess stain.  After letting it dry, I put 2 coats of polyurethane over it while lightly sanding between coats with 400 wet/dry sandpaper.  As you can see, the treenail and caulk impressions left showing provided a nice bit of detail even though it’s probably a bit over scale.  Here is a photo of the deck with its finish applied.

                                                 
    Almost forgot to duplicate the fore deck.  Using rubber cement, the plastic deck was glued down to a section of wood decking, carefully lining up the deck seams with the plastic pattern.  I shaped the deck section with my belt sander using the same method that I used to make the main deck.  The center notch for the bowsprit was carefully cut out by hand with a thin fine toothed backsaw and finished off with a fine file and sandpaper while still glued to the plastic pattern.  Very carefully, the pattern was peeled away (at this point it was very fragile) and the bottom side of the decks surface was filed to match the bevel of the bowsprit. 

                                                            
    Treenail impressions were made and the deck was finished as shown here to match the main deck.

                                                           
    Now that the hatch and mast partner beams were done and clamped in place, I used plastic cement straight out of the tube, applied it to the keel seem, and set it aside to dry overnight.  Taking the deck pattern in hand, the remaining beams were located, numbered and drawn in place perpendicular to the center line.  Using my rubber cement again, the remaining beam blanks were glued in place on the deck pattern, numbered and set aside to dry.

                                                         
    Once dry, the pattern was flipped over.

                                                         
  Now the projections were marked on the beams which gave me the proper curve going into the hull sides.

                                                       
  By drawing a line inside and parallel to this marked line (to allow for the ledger thickness), the length of the beams at the top edge of the ledger could be followed.  However, with the varying slope of the deck sides to be accounted for, both ends of each beam had to be filed to match. (The cuts were basically a curved compound angle.)  A very tedious business this!  (This was especially true at the three beams at the bow.) Every beam was different and you had to go at it carefully or you could take off too much. 
    After a lot of time trimming to fit, the beam ends were then located with the dividers and marked on the ledgers.  Now some real fun began.  As clamping the beams in place was not feasible, each beam had to be held in place with a locking tweezers while applying some thin CA.  (At times I thought that I could really have used another pair of hands!) While waiting for the glue to take hold was in reality just a few seconds, it seemed to take forever trying to hold the beam steady.
    Most of the ships main deck frames have now been installed, but I am unsure at this point about having the main hatch left open or not.  I am also unsure about leaving the transom as is or removing it and replacing it with wood as you can see here that the plastic seam is a poorly matched fit.

                                                         
   That is why the final three deck beams haven't been installed yet, as I need to leave a little access space to get the lower deck slipped into place and replacing the transom.


 
 
 
 
 

Well, it looks like my ship modeling will be delayed somewhat now.  My access to my shop will be limited for a while by the fact that my elevator is now in need of either some major service or a complete replacement! 
      It’s about 16 or 17 years since it was installed, so it’s apparently nearing the end of its service life.  Originally it ran around 12K plus installation and remodeling of that area of our home.  The estimates for repair are about 10K.  I haven’t gotten a quote on a new unit yet, but I guess I’m leaning towards its placement with a new unit with increased weight capacity.
     Someday when I get promoted from my manual chair at a mere 40 pounds to a power chair like my brothers’ at around 450 pounds,  the existing unit wouldn’t be able to handle the extra weight.  So as it stands now, I’m limited to only using it a few times a week. (I guess it’s like adding too many miles to your car at this point.)  It may cost a bit more to replace it with a new unit now, but as I see it, why spend the 10 K for the repairs now when it will soon need to be replaced anyway. (Who has an extra 10 K just lying around anyway?)
    However I did manage to switch to doing some things in my office that don’t require trips to the basement shop.  Working on the finish deck is one of them.  I sketched up a plank layout pattern based on a three plank shift with the frames at about three feet on center and a basic plank length of about 24 feet.  Taking a long paper strip, I placed a mark at three foot centers to scale.  The strip was taped down to my desk along my parallel rule.
    Then the two deck pieces were taped together on their backsides and taped down to the desk with the centerline also set parallel.  Now by using a triangle to transfer the locations of the beams to the deck, it wasn’t necessary to draw any lines on the deck that would need to be removed later.   (Remember, the decking is just soft basswood at only 1/32” thick.) 
    The photo below shows my setup for this operation.

 
                                                            
    I started with one of the center planks and using an F softness very sharp lead in a mechanical drafting pencil, marked the plank end butt markings at 24 feet lengths based on my previous sketched layout.  Skipping three planks, I marked the fourth plank the same way.  This was repeated for the full width of the deck.
     Now moving the triangle over two marks, the butt was moved down one plank.  These plank butt joints were then marked for 24 foot lengths and the process was repeated until all of the butt marks were marked. (Allowances were made along the way so the plank lengths were at least four feet.)
    I then went back to all of the butt joints with a narrow straight chisel and pressed it lightly into the marked line just enough to leave the impression of a joint.  Once this was done the pencil lead was given a sharp point, pressed into the plank at each butt joint for two treenail impressions at each end and twisted lightly in place.
    Using the triangle again, similar impressions were made for treenails over all of the remaining deck beams.  Setting the triangle just to the right of the beam location marks, one treenail impression was made in the near edge of each plank all the way across the deck.  By shifting the triangle just to the left of that same beam location, another impression was made in the far edge of each plank all the way across the deck as shown by the photo below.
 
                                                            
     Now, this procedure was repeated at all of the remaining beam locations.  This was done to keep all of the impressions in line with each other all the way across the deck while showing a staggered pattern with two impressions per plank as shown in the photo below.

                                                            
    Here is an overall photo of the deck as it stands now.

    My next step will be to stain and poly the deck.
                                                            

(Here is a clearer photo of the problem of the projecting stanchions tops.)

 
    Actually, I literally did have to go back to my drawing board to come up with a solution. Going back over my research notes and photos, I started this drawing below to figure out how to take care of the stanchion projection, but found that it also revealed some other unforeseen problems.

    The first problem was that the cap rail on the plastic model was just a single rounded over edge, but I found that the cap rail actually had somewhat of a double beaded edge.  The second problem revealed was that the waterway was too small and there were no drain scuppers!

 
    By adding a 1/32” square piece of maple to the inside face of the plastic cap rail, the exposed end of the upper stanchions will be concealed.  Then, by adding 1/32” thick maple cap rail over the top of the plastic rail and wide enough to cover the extra 1/32”, it will be possible to make it a cap rail that can have the double beaded edge formed on it.
    To adjust the waterway problem, I will add a strip of 1/32” x 1/16” maple that projects out a little beyond the plastic one to make it thick enough to allow the scuppers to be added    Problems solved, right?  As I mentioned in the previous post, none of these problems can be handled right now due to the warped hull.  They will have to wait along with the pin rails until the hull can be assembled.  But wait!  Now I realized that the deck itself may also be a problem to install.
    When adding a wood deck to my Revell Constitution, the installation was fairly easy. The rear transom was a separate piece and allowed the deck to be slipped through that gap.  Then the transom was put back in after the deck.  However, the Wanderer has no separate transom, it’s moulded right into the hull and there is no practical way to cut it out, so a different method will be needed.

 
     After some more thought, and rejecting several different ideas, I decided to make two additional cuts across the deck that would align with the rear deckhouse partition and thus be less noticeable. Since the deck is already split down the centerline, it would allow me to slide the front two deck sections on top of the deck beams and under the plastic waterway.  Then the two rear deck sections could be similarly done.  Once all four sections are installed, the new waterway can be wedged into place and drilled for the scuppers.
  OK!  Now that that all of those problems seem to be worked out, I can get back to cutting and fitting the rest of the deck beams.  Because the waterway will now be 1/32” thicker, I will need to start by trimming down the top edge of the ledgers to lower the beams.  Time to get back to the bench and start doing some actual modeling again!

OK, now for a little more work on the belaying pin rails.  First step for doing that was to measure the belaying pin shaft diameter.  I used my digital micrometer and came up with .74 mm.  The #66 drill bit proved to be the best as it measured .83 mm and would allow the pin to seat easily and still not allow the crown of the pin to fall through.
    As the rails were curved, it meant that I needed two bearing points pretty close together that would allow the rail to slide along and keep a consistent distance from the edge.  I set up a simple jig with some scraps by spot gluing two pieces of basswood to a small piece of plywood. 
    Taking my jig to my Dremel drill press with my Proxxon X-Y table, I clamped it in place.

                                                           
  I mounted the drill bit in a small collet and installed that into the Dremel collet.  (By the way, my MD has weakened my grip to the point that I always need to use pliers to tighten small things like collets which can be a little cumbersome, but such is life I guess.)

                                                            
  Using the adjusting wheels, the jig was then maneuvered to line up with the drill bit.
                                                            
     I almost forgot to set the drill depth so it wouldn’t go through the plywood base of my jig onto the Proxxon table, but remembered just as I was starting to drill the first hole!

                                                           
    Sometimes when you get in a hurry, you find yourself doing something stupid.  Most of the time if you don’t take the time to think things through ahead of time, you end up having to do it over.  Which brings to mind one of my favorite sayings: Why is there never enough time to do it right, but always plenty of time to do it over?  Well anyway, this time I was able to catch myself in time.
    The other two rails were then done the same so the next thing to do was to steam bend the two long rails to match the shear of the deck.  I simply taped the rails together side by side with the top sides up.  Then I put a scrap of wood (about twice as thick as the amount of bend needed) on my counter under the front end of the rails.

                                                            
  I would normally have used a heavy weight on the rails right where the curve started (as most of the rail run was relatively flat), but this time I just used a bar clamp instead. (I guess I had just mislaid the weight somewhere)

                                                           
    While trying a test fit with the short pin rail with the top piece of stanchion in place, I discovered that even though the stanchion was only 1/32” thick, it still projected slightly beyond the inside edge of the models’ cap rail. (maybe a little hard to see in this photo)  Hardly a proper detail for my model!

                                                          
    Also, the hull sections have such a pronounced warp to them that I won’t be able to actually install the pin rails until the hull is assembled!  I need to have a closer look at this problem to come up with some kind of solution to this new glitch. 
    At this point, I will just use the short pin rail as a spacer for fitting and installing the upper portion of the stanchions so the cap rails can be set into the gap later when the hull is put together.  Giving the pin rails three coats of the thinned white paint and sanding each coat, these were just set aside to dry for now.
    So, I guess it’s back to the drawing board as they say, for a bit to ponder a solution to this new problem. 

Wow! Somehow I found a couple hours free, so I could work on the pin rails.  The first step was to shape the rails to the curve of the bulwarks.
     Taking the manila template in hand, I held it in place up against the hull pieces and marked the locations and lengths of the rails onto the template.  I taped it down onto a strip of maple (previously sanded down to 3/64” thickness) and traced the outline onto the strip for the outside edge of the rail.

 
      I marked 5/32” (the width of the rail) on the template at both ends, then shifted the template to these marks and traced the same curve onto the strip again for the inside edge.

                                                          
     Now I had both edges of the rail drawn on the strip.

                                                          
    Taking the strip to my scroll saw I cut it out, keeping the blade about 1/16” outside of the lines.


                                                           
 
                                                               
     Then it was off to my 2 inch belt sander where I sanded it down just short of the lines.

                                                            
    Taking the rail to my vice, I smoothed out the curve with a rough sanding stick and just removed the lines. Switching to the finer grade stick I gave it the final shape.

                                                            
    The procedure was then repeated for the other two rails.  At this point I had the overall shapes, but I still needed to locate the holes for the pins.

 
   Holding each rail in their proper position on the hull, on the underside of each rail, I marked the location of all the stanchions.  Since I wouldn’t be able to put a pin where the stanchions were located, I laid the rail upside down on my bench to mark the pin locations between them.  I decided to put two pins evenly spaced at about 3/8”between each stanchion which would give me the proper number of pins.  I marked the spacing for the holes on their bottom sides for all three rails.  This photo below shows all of the rails at this point in their proper locations on the hull.

                                                            
    Oops, times up!  When I return I will be drilling the holes for the pins.

Getting back to my log once again, I decided to try a trial fit of the hull.  When I clamped the two hull halves together, I dry fit the plastic deck in place to see how things lined up.  Unfortunately they were a poor fit and had to be forced together with clamps.  Once they were together however, I thought that it was a problem that I could work around.
     Measuring the width of the hull (90.89 mm) once assembled, I made note of it and then measured it again (86.88 mm) with the deck removed.


    As you can see above, without the deck in place it turned out to be quite a bit less.  Obviously one or both of the hull sides warped inward and needed to be held in place at the 90.89 mm measurement.
     So, knowing that I needed some kind of reference line to use that didn’t involve measuring from the sides, I decided that the best bet would be to establish a centerline to aid in placing the deck beams.  That way I knew that as long as I kept the beams perpendicular to that line I could be assured that my location measurements for all of the other beams would line up with the locations of all the mast holes and the hatch opening would be square.
    To help me to set things perpendicularly, I made up a small (it had to be to fit inside the hull) wood square with a perpendicular line drawn on its face as shown below.

     To set up this center-line I took a length of black thread and ran it through the hull seams at the bow and stern, stretched tight and taped in place.  (As the shear of the deck was quite pronounced, the thread could be shifted up or down as needed to allow the line to be above the beams.)  Then the hull halves were clamped back together again.

    The first beam had to be carefully measured for length so that when set in place it would not distort the hull beyond the 95 mm measurement.
    By the way, all of the measurements for the length of the beams were done “old school” with a pair of inside calipers that I inherited from my grandfather.

    The first beam was placed at the approximate location of the rear of the hatch opening perpendicular to the center-line. A clamp was set across the hull to hold the beam in place.  The hatch opening was cut out of the manila template and I slipped it back into place.
     It took a few adjustments until I was able to get the beam where it belonged, but once the beam was correctly in place, I took an awl and punched a hole through the template into the beam to set up a reference point to make all further beam placement measurements from.

    The template was then removed and I put locating marks on the faces of the ledgers for that first beam.  The first beam was used to locate the forward edge beam of the hatch, which was cut and put into place.  The space between them was measured and then both beams were taken out, the cross beams were cut to length and the framing for the hatchway was assembled with glue and pins.  I took this assembly and clamped it in place once again inside the hull.

     The locating hole on top of the first beam was then marked and labeled as shown below.

    The template was lined up with the backside of the plastic deck and a hole was drilled thru the deck that now would line up with the hole previously made in the first hatch beam.


    Now when an items’ location was needed, a set of dividers would locate it on the plastic deck and be transferred to the location of the same item on the deck of the model.

    Now I needed to place a pair of beams with a spacer block for all three masts. Working on the main mast first, I used my dividers to locate the rear beam, measured the space, and cut the beam to fit.  Then the spacer was centered and glued to the forward face of that beam.  The other beam was then measured, cut, and also glued to the spacer as shown below.

    This mast beam assembly was then marked on the ledgers, and then this procedure was repeated for the mizzen and the fore mast.
    I changed my ideas on how to do the bulwarks and stanchions, so now I will be making a few more revisions to my build once I order some special products to do them with.  More to follow.

To shape the deck beams with the camber for the ships deck, I first found an appropriate ships curve.  I traced around the curve with a .5 mechanical pencil with a soft lead installed from the center mark on the top of the beam to the marks that I had previously put on both ends of the beams.
 
Taking this beam to my belt sander, (being careful not to sand off the marked center-line) I sanded down to the curve. (just taking off the line)    


Now, taking my micrometer to each end I measured them again and sanded the wider of the two of them till both ends matched.
    This beam was now marked template #1 and was used to make two other templates marked #2 and #3.   Using #1 to make 5 more beams, I switched to #2 to make 8 more beams and finally to #3 to make the rest. Using the templates tends to wear them down if used too often as it was just made of basswood.
 
    With the beams shaped with the camber, I now took the two plastic hull halves to a sink filled with warm soapy water and scrubbed them down with an old toothbrush. This needed to be done to remove the mold release agent from the plastic to allow paint to adhere properly.                 
 
 

This model was just sitting on a shelf patiently waiting for some attention when a friend of mine saw it and wondered if I could build it for his office.  While I am currently working on the MS Phantom, I thought I could do both and try my hand at making a build log for this one.  I suspect that this method of model building is quite unusual, To tell the truth, I was not certain that this belonged in the kit built category, as the only part of the kit that is being used is the hull with all the rest being scratch built from wood and metal.
    My friend was actually interested in a wooden ship, but I told him that I could replace most of the plastic parts with wood.  I told him I’ve done that before and he agreed that it would probably look better that way, as the kit had heavy plastic sails moulded right to the spars and the deck had a lot of  the details moulded right on which he thought looked pretty bad.
    As I reopened the box to examine the kit I found that the instruction manual was missing!  Luckily, I had built this ship before in wood and still had the blueprints from A.J. Fisher.  The plastic deck was not very impressive with a lot of the details moulded on it, but it was a one piece deck so that would make it easier to use as a template to make a wood  replacement. 
    Before I actually started construction, I decided that I wanted to do a search in the internet for more details of the actual ship.  One thing that really caught my attention right off the bat, was the fact that the real ship only had four sails on the main and foremasts and not five as shown both in the kit and my set of blueprints. These two pictures below show both the box art and one of the pictures that I found showing the ship as it was built.

                                                            

                                                          
     Discovering this, I decided to really do some digging to see if any other discrepancies were evident.  There were a few, but nothing as glaring as the sails.
    Taking the plastic deck in hand, I traced the outline onto a piece of manila folder including the mast holes, marked the center line of the deck, and transferred the outline of the hatch as shown below.

                                                           
    As the end of the hull was closed in and the tumble home of the hull sides was too severe to allow a one piece deck to be slipped into place, I decided that I would have to split the deck down the middle for it to be installed. I took two 3”x24” sheets of glued up 1/8” wide 1/32” thick decking boards that were glued up with black colored glue to represent the caulking joints and joined them together edge to edge with tape across the backside. 
    Placing the manila pattern over the pair of decking sheets, I taped them together, being careful to align the center-lines of the pattern and the joint of the two decking sheets.  I traced this outline onto the decking sheets and unassembled it to allow easier cutting of the rough outline of the two deck pieces on my scroll saw.

                                                          
   After cutting, the next step was to carefully tape the rough cut decking sheets back together again on their backside and tape these under the original plastic deck.  Once again, I was careful to align that center joint of the decking with the center of the plastic deck.  This assembly was then taken to my belt sander and sanded close to the edge.  I would sand up to the tape and re-position the tape as I went along.  (This was necessary because the plastic deck was quite warped and once untapped; it wanted to spring away from the decking sheets.)

                                                           
    At this point the assembly was taken to my drill press.  I drilled all of the larger round holes right thru the plastic deck to assure that they would align exactly.  (This was especially important for the heel of the masts to align with the mast steps on the inside of the hull.)  I then took the whole assembly to my workbench and drilled all of the remaining round holes with matching small bits in a pin vice.  Here is a picture below of my progress to this point.

                                                            
    Taking a look here at the inside surface of the hull, you can see that the waterway was already moulded on and would remain.  However, the projecting tabs for support of the plastic deck and the injection mold stubs would have to be removed.
 
                                                            
    Taking my new battery powered Dremel, I ground off all of these unwanted projections and sanded them smooth to allow me to glue some 1/32”x 13/64” basswood strips to serve as a ledger to support some new deck support beams.

                                                           
    I decided that I should make a 1/16” thick basswood sub-deck, as the decking sheet was very thin, so I cut up two sheets of basswood for the sub-deck similar to the decking sheet as shown here. (notice the plastic decking springing away from the tapped wood deck)

                                                          
    Then I made up a spacing jig to help align the top edge of the planking to the underside of the moulded waterway. Taking short pieces of the decking and sub-deck for spacers, I glued them to a thicker piece of wood for a handle as shown.

                                                          
    Here is a picture of the spacer jig in use.

                                                            
    Using this spacer jig as a guide, I used some thin ACC to attach the 1/32”x 13/64” basswood for the beam support ledger and clamped it in place for it to totally set up overnight.

                                                            
    While the hull was drying I decided to work on the upper structure.  The first thing I did with the masts and bowsprit was to do a trial assembly without glue of all the components to see how they all fit together.

                                                            
    Disassembling these assemblies, I drew up some dimensioned diagrams of all the components for making their wooden replacements.  The lengths were all drawn full size and the widths were written out next to their locations.

                                                           
      Returning to the hull construction, I cut 17 3 ½” long pieces and 4 shorter pieces of 3/8”x 3/16” basswood to use for the deck beams.  The kit was designed (as most plastic models are) to have a flat deck, so I worked up a method of adding the camber to it.  I marked the center-line of all of the beams on their top edge as shown below.

                                                           
    The camber was scaled off the 1/6” scale A.J. Fisher blueprints and converted to the models 1:87 scale.  This worked out to about a 1/16” slope.  Flipping over the whole stack of full length beams, I shifted the full size beams up against a piece of 1/32” scrap wood (to account for the approximate 1/32” width of the pen point), and marked all of the pieces on both ends.

                                                           
    I set the beams on top of the plastic deck to get an idea of how to arrange them.

                                                            
    That’s as far as I’ve gotten so far, I will post more later on the shaping and installation  of the beams.  

I have done a little more coppering, which was to fit brass rings over the support stands. These are plumbing olives which glue over the brass tubes easily. The ones by the keel, where the stand enters the hull, are purely decorative. Two that are lower down the brass tube sit on the wooden base and set the height of the hull and make sure the waterline is horizontal. 
 
I can now return to carving and improvising and making the fittings on the deck. First off was the bed for the bowsprit heel, which also has rings for the anchor bitts, and a fife rail. Both of these sit forward of the fore mast. The Haddock drawings provide a clear plan view but the side profile is lost among the other lines. The Cuckoo drawings are better for the side view. 
 

The pink colour is deliberate and is a close match to Bermudan cedar
 
The fixed eyes are etched brass (Caldercraft) and the rings are from copper wire, all blackened with Carr's solution. 
 
I have started on a breasthook which looks somewhat like a boomerang. Work on it has paused while I try to work out how many holes for belaying pins I need to put in it; I will probably drill as many as will sensibly fit. More to come on this and a chimney. 
 
George