dvm27

Plank on frame airplane modeling...a far cry from the plastic models of my youth. Makes me want to take a stab at a WWI biplane or triplane. Or recently, I was diverted by a You Tube modelers chanel specializing in WWII aircraft https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-Mdr1mgVuU. The level of detail and finishing is amazing. And those damned Pocher classic automobiles...

Torbogdan,
Glad to see a plane build on this site. A few years back I scratch built this plane as part of the Fokker series with the Eiendecker E-IV and the D VII all being left either wood or brass as the original either wood or metal. One detail many of the kits overlook is the wind baffle behind the pilot's seat which was an attempt to reduce drag; while the British usually left a space at the rear of the fuselage to allow airflow. If you need any information or details let me know. Here are a couple of pictures of my build. Keep up the great job you are doing.
 
Here the cowling is hammered out of .020" dead soft aluminum.

Here is the wind baffle behind the pilot seat.
 

The tail plane that you are working on.
 

Let me know if you need anything.

Bedford - re polishing
 
If the part has machining marks I polish them out with progressively finer grades of wet and dry paper (used dry). I tend to start with 400 grit before moving to 600 grit and then 1200 grit.
 
Where I can I tend to polish using a bench polisher. I have polishing compounds for hard and soft metals. The compound comes in coarse and fine grades. However I find that I don't get much use out of the hard metal compounds and to be frank as often as not I go straight to the "blue" fine grade compound for soft metals.  
 

That said I find I often want to do a small amount of polishing on an awkward component and here the convenience and simplicity of the following method tends to win out.

In the words of a very old song:-
 
Shine your buttons with Brasso
It's only three ha'pence a tin,
You can buy it or nick it from Woolworths. 
But I don't think they've got any in.
 
The rest of the song isn't really printable on this forum but can be viewed on you tube.
 

little progress:

 

 

 

 

 

 

At least Ancre`s drawing for cutter Le Cerf ( built 1779 - 1780) suggests the lower type. Funny thing is that I have just finished the 16 pcs 6 pounders, and still working with the 8 pounders for my model:
 

Bob
Here it is.

I thought I'd share a couple of photos of the framing in the actual Kathryn.
 
The first is from the HAER drawings.  The frame pointed to by the number 15 is one of the original frames.  They don't look like the joint was held together by much more than a few bolts, and I would love to know how they built Kathryn.  They must have used a lot of temporary ribbands to hold her together before she was planked.  The mortising of the frames into the keelson also looks very flimsy.
 

 
The following photo is from the recent rebuild that was completed in early fall 2015.  As can be seen in the photo there is a fairly complex (and strong) knee arrangement holding the frames to the keelson, and there are knees installed in the joints of the frames.  I don't think ceiling planking was installed during this rebuild, so these knees didn't interfere with anything.  Since I'm building Kathryn as she was originally built, I can't use any similar structures that might interfere with the internal planking.
 

 
 
 

Build Log 3 – Shaping the hull
 
Hi all –
 
Thanks for the likes and comments, devilishly clever as some of them are. . .
 
And thanks to Druxey, Michael, and especially Bob for helping me with the funnel cages.  It looks like I will be working with Bob to have them printed in 3-D.  I’ll report back on the progress and results. 
 
Leaving aside the issues with the funnel cages, the next step was to shape the hull.   The first problem was that the plans did not have the specifics of the lower deck spaces, just a drawing labeled “steva” or bilge.  It covered much more than the lowest two lifts, so the outline of the hull shape for these lifts was impossible to determine.  I had to go back to my high school class in engineering drawing to plot them.  I took the station lines plan and drew the horizontal lines for the locations of the tops of the first two lifts.
 
Plotting the distances from the centerline for each station gave me the offsets, which were laid out on the bilge plan and joined by smooth curves.  Here they are shown in red for the lower two lifts.
 
The paper lifts were cut out and laid down on basswood planks along a drawn centerline.  They were affixed with spray adhesive for photo mounts, which can be repositioned as needed and then removes easily.  The lifts were cut along the plotted lines with the band saw.  In the lifts plans you can see two black dots along the waterline.  These located holes for the captured “T”-nuts which will be used for the future mounting hardware.  The nut goes into the hole in the lower lift and its flange is then trapped by the upper lift.  The hole in the upper lift allows free movement of the mounting bolt to any depth.
 
At the bow some extra material was left on these lifts to build up the bulb that increases efficiency at high speeds.  Here are the first 4 lifts laid up but before shaping.

 
Above the second lift I made the hollows in the hull.  This was first of all to lighten it a bit, but primarily to give any stresses from wood movement somewhere to go rather than deforming the exterior of the hull.  Here are several lifts in the process.  I first select basswood planks that are half the width of the overall model.  Two of them are clamped side by side and the paper plan glued to them along that line.  A sharp knife is run along the seam and the port and starboard sides are separated.  The lift is sawn along the exterior line, and two large spaces are cut from the middle.  A bar of wood is left amidships for strength.

Sharp eyes will notice that these are not the lifts for the Michelangelo, but reprised from the Doria.  I did not think that I was going to post this portion of the build, since the techniques are the same as on the Doria.  But I decided that to tell a complete story I had to show how the hull was built up.  Unfortunately, I had missed the chance to document the process, so I am using the old illustrations.  
 
As with the Doria, I used black glue to join the lifts.  This is nothing more than a few drops of black acrylic paint mixed into the glue.  It starts out messy, but gives an indelible line between the lifts and, because of the split lifts, along the centerline at the bow and stern.  Here are the first 4 lifts of the Michelangelo glued up.  You can must make out the location of the mounting hole in the aft hollow chamber.
 
Later in the process the hull block is almost complete.  The next lift to be added is cut short at the stern to make the space for the open working deck and fantail deck.  It is also solid, to make a continuous surface that can be sanded to the curve of the sheer.

 
Once the block was fully laid up the shaping process started.  Using powered sanders and grinders the hull was brought to approximate shape.  
 
Where there were concave areas, such as under the stern fairing into the rudder post, or under the flare of the bow, various hand held curved rasps and sanders were used.   Here you can see the benefit of the split lift and black glue.  No matter how much material I removed, the lines always remained.
 
Next time I will cover the final shaping of the hull block and the beginning of planning for the upper decks.
 
As always, be well
 
Dan
 
 

Another photo 
 

Hi Ed,
 
Have you considered Sheet styrene? Not the stuff the hobby suppliers sell, but the large size stuff for industrial/commercial use. It still comes in "standard" hobby thicknesses (0.020" or 0.030") for example, but for a reasonable price you get a good sized sheet. Have a look: http://www.usplastic.com/catalog/item.aspx?itemid=22883
 
Andy

Part 8 – Frames, cont’d
 
Framing Kathryn has been continuing – albeit slowly.  There have been a lot of other activities interfering with the modeling work, so there hasn’t been as much progress as I would have liked.
 
It quickly became apparent that the model’s frames are very delicate, and some additional steps were needed to strengthen them.  This resulted in some additional structures that are not in the actual boat, but these structures will be hidden by planking and shouldn’t cause any issues.
 
The first such structure was the addition of a reinforcing plate at the joint between the frame floor and the frame side.  This plate was added after the chine had been shaped and the glued-on drawing removed.  After the glue attaching the plate to the frame had dried, the plate was then sanded to match the curve of the chine.  The following photo shows one of these plates in place.
 

 
The individual frames are only attached to the keelson with a minimal glue joint, so individually these frames are very easy to disturb.  By tying the frames together the frame assembly would be much stronger.  I decided to tie them together by using 1/8 x 1/8 stock, cut to match the distance between frames at the keelson.  Since this distance varies from frame to frame, the braces needed to be measure individually.  They are then installed at approximately the midpoint of the frame floor to join the frames together.
 
The first frame installed – frame 12 – was held perpendicular to the keelson by the c-clamps shown in the following photo, and then the subsequent frames were joined to that frame via the braces.  The c-clamps were left in place until the first 4 frames were joined and the glue set. 
 

 
The first 4 frames were very stable after the glue had cured, and didn’t need to be held in place for installation of bracing for subsequent frames.  It was easier to use the long-nosed spring clamps for this work, rather than the miniature machinist clamps used in the prior photo.
 

 
As described in the prior post, structural bolts would be used to fully secure the frames to the keelson, and pilot holes for these bolts were drilled as part of the construction of the frames.
 
After the installation of the first six square frames (12 through 17) was completed, it was time to insert the first set of structural bolts.  The model was removed from the shipway and placed in an adjustable keel clamp.  This clamp was positioned so that the pilot holes were visible. 
 

 
This allowed drilling through the pilot holes and into the keelson, as in the following photo.  Pieces of 3/64 brass rod were then epoxied into these holes to serve as structural bolts.
 

 
While the model was in the clamp, the forward edges of the mortises for the cant frames were angled to allow the cant frames to be properly positioned.  This work was performed with a diamond bit in a rotary tool.
 

 
The middle 8 square frames are now in place.  Since each half of a frame is a separate installation, this is the equivalent of 16 frames having been installed.
 

 
The frames installed so far have not needed any dubbing (shaping) to allow the planks to lay flat against them.  The remaining seven square frames in the rear of the model will need shaping.  In addition, the forward eleven frames are cant frames, which will require a modified installation procedure.  These topics will be covered in the next post.
 
Thanks everyone! 

All the bulkheads have now been cut out, sanded to shape and dry fitted.

I now need to ensure everything is square and the deck line is symetric. Given that I'm using an old GMC band saw and a tongue depressor with sandpaper held on with double sided sticky tape I'm happy with the results so far.
 
Spot the error - counting from the prow third and fourth bulkheads need to be swapped!!  At least they're only temporarily dropped in to place. 
 

Wonderful precision joinery Alexandru.

Thank you, Albert!
Here is an update on the construction of the masts and topmasts.
 
On the first picture is to see how I just made the hole for the sheave of the top ropes.

The next picture shows the topmast heel with the fidhole and the fid.

On the last picture, the components are provisionally composed.

 
 
 
 

advancement:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Today I did a bit of turning - bollards and the 6 larger winches. The plans only show the 6 deck winches whereas photos / videos clearly show some smaller secondary winches which I will have to make and position.
 

The critical task was marking out the position and making sure that I drilled the mounting holes in the correct position. Check twice cut once was the watchword of the day.
 

Nothing much further to add other than a few photos.
 

 
 

The latest photos show what a mega-model this will be!

dry assembly of the keel, long process of adjust and check
last picture beginning of assembly

Hi all
 
Had to take a brake from building but now I appear to be back again, hopefully with some more regular updates. Finally done with the keel. Now on to do some frames!
 
Niklas

I roughly sanded the 5 rows of strakes I've been working on.  Working my way up from the keel.  Only 5 more rows to go!
 
Erik

Just an update on progress on the Eagle. I have been putting quite a bit of time into researching the rigging configuration for the model. Dr. Crisman has a fuzzy hand drawing of how he thinks the ship's Rigging Profile would have looked. For my purposes, I need to drill down to much further details. My model will not have sails but there will be a combination of standing and running rigging on the model.
 
I am using several references. The American ships were rigged following most, if not all the basic rules used for British Ship's of War. This makes things much cleaner. Given the expediency with which the Eagle was built (19 days) there were in all likelihood shortcuts in some of this. There certainly was with the hull construction. However, following these guidelines along with Crisman's expert opinions should give a good approximation of the ship as she sailed to battle. Here is a list of the reference material I am using in this effort.=
 
Crisman's The Eagle Steel's Elements of Mastmaking, Sailmaking and Rigging Lee's Masting and Rigging of English Ship's of War Lennarth Petersson's Rigging Period Ship Models David Antscherl's Swan Vol 4, Rigging a Sixth Rate Sloop (while much earlier than the Eagle, it is a valuable treatise on actually rigging a model The first order of business was to attempt to identify those lines shown in Crisman's drawing and record these on a new CAD drawing (I am attempting to do) of the rigged ship. I also had an email discussion with Ed Tosti asking his advice on approaching designing a detailed rigging profile. His sage advice was to develop a detailed spreadsheet that would capture all the lines as well as the details around them, i.e., size of rope, serving, color, blocks etc.
 
I found that the Petersson book was great in identifying lines typical to that period. I used this in conjunction with the Crisman drawing to develop a list of those lines I would be installing. This could then be cross referenced with the Steel and Lee volumes to flesh out the details.
 
One key aspect of this is deciding the size of the ship itself. Steel has a table for sizing ship's based on the number of guns on board. I will be using the 20 to 22 gun tables. There is a difference in line and block sizing between Steel and Lee. Steel's number tend to be slightly larger in both line circumference and blocks. However, there is also inconsistency in these tables that Lee's smooths out using common block sizing ratios. However, this does not answer which method to use. There was nothing left of the rigging in the wreck other than the lower chainplates and mast steps. However there was an inventory list for the supplies sold from Whitehall during the sell off of the Lake Champlain fleet and supplies in 1825. While circumstantial at best, it does point to those supplies that were common in the fleet. The sizes of running rigging and blocks falls more neatly into the Steel tables than Lee's So I feel comfortable using these.
 
I have compiled my list of lines, but have only started working on fleshing out the spreadsheet. This will be an on-going project I will be doing in conjunction with completing the masting and spars for the ship. 
 
I had built a manual serving machine when rigging the Connie (1:92). However at 1:48 the Eagle will show much more detail in the rigging and require much more serving to be done than I wanted to do on my old manual machine. In preparation for this, I purchased Alexey Dumanoff's powered serving machine. It seems like a great machine and I can't wait to put it into service. It will be a great match for the Byrnes ropewalk.
 
I also have been putting in time actually making sawdust (and brass shavings). The photos below show the ship where she stands. I have been playing with my Grizzly Milling machine trying to develop the skills to actually use it well. More on that later. For this update, I used it to build the upper mast cheeks as well as sheave slots for the masts. The sheaves were turned on the lathe out of brass stock. I decided I did not like the previous iteration of the topgallant masts that I had done. On the Eagle, Crisman call for these to be exactly the same. So I redid these building them in parallel. These like all my masting were done first by cutting square strips of Maple to the size of the widest part of the mast, then using files, chisels and sand paper shaping the various sections per the drawings. By doing the fore and main topgallants at the same time I was able to better insure they were matched section by section. I still need to build the foremast cross trees and caps. The main mast caps also still require fitting and I may decide to redo some of those before all is said and done. 
 
Anyway, that is where she is today. Once the foremast is complete, I will work my way through the bowsprit and jibboom, then the spars. At that point, I hope to have all the rigging spreadsheet filled out. This will give me a good estimate for the numbers and sizes of the blocks to be made as well as the inventory of rope I need to make prior to starting the rigging. 
 
Here is a close up of the topgallant cheek blocks.
 
Topmast and topgallant masts. The fids will be cut to length after the cross tree is installed.Main mast topmast and topgallant masts. 

 
 
Main mast topmast and topgallant mast

Main mast topmast and topgallant at cross tree.

 
 
 

Hi! Barrel  


 

 

 

 

Thanks.  This is just a test run, to see if the method I had in mind for constructing it worked, so it is all changeable.  In looking at the photos, the intermediate ring should also be higher up, as well as straightening out some of the struts.  I'd also like to get a more accurate cross-section for the strut members.  With a higher- resolution elevation drawing and a bit more time studying the drawings, I think it should be fairly straight-forward to tweak it in the right direction.