captainbob

Thanks to all of you.  You guys are great.  It's comments like these that keep me building and posting.
 
Thanks also to those that click "LIKE" and don't post.  It lets me know you are all enjoying the build.
 
Bob

Hello all, and back to the boat.
 
I mounted the bow and stern sprits, added the bulwarks and cap rail and put in eye bolts all over the deck for the rigging.  I painted and put the hand rails on the cabin roof.  I also added the companion way hatch, which still needs painting.  If you look carefully you can see the anchor chocks at the bow, and that reminds me, I will need to make an anchor.  Ah well, one thing at a time.  Next are the masts, booms and gaffs and all the little bits that hold them together.
 
Bob
 

 

 

 

 

Hello all, and back to the boat.
 
I mounted the bow and stern sprits, added the bulwarks and cap rail and put in eye bolts all over the deck for the rigging.  I painted and put the hand rails on the cabin roof.  I also added the companion way hatch, which still needs painting.  If you look carefully you can see the anchor chocks at the bow, and that reminds me, I will need to make an anchor.  Ah well, one thing at a time.  Next are the masts, booms and gaffs and all the little bits that hold them together.
 
Bob
 

 

 

 

 

I wasn't sure so I went out and cut a curve.  If you are cutting a convex curve you can rotate the material very close to the cutting edge of the blade and by cutting off a little at a time, make very small discs.  The problem is with the concave curve where the thickness of the blade and the width of the blade causes binding as you cut the curve.  The tightest I could cut with my 3/8" blade was a 1 3/8" (35mm) radius or a 2 3/4" (70mm) inside diameter.  
 
The boat I am making now is 30 feet long.  At 1:48 scale the beam is 2 1/2".  For this the scroll saw is what I used.
 
Bob

Hello all, and back to the boat.
 
I mounted the bow and stern sprits, added the bulwarks and cap rail and put in eye bolts all over the deck for the rigging.  I painted and put the hand rails on the cabin roof.  I also added the companion way hatch, which still needs painting.  If you look carefully you can see the anchor chocks at the bow, and that reminds me, I will need to make an anchor.  Ah well, one thing at a time.  Next are the masts, booms and gaffs and all the little bits that hold them together.
 
Bob
 

 

 

 

 

Hello all, and back to the boat.
 
I mounted the bow and stern sprits, added the bulwarks and cap rail and put in eye bolts all over the deck for the rigging.  I painted and put the hand rails on the cabin roof.  I also added the companion way hatch, which still needs painting.  If you look carefully you can see the anchor chocks at the bow, and that reminds me, I will need to make an anchor.  Ah well, one thing at a time.  Next are the masts, booms and gaffs and all the little bits that hold them together.
 
Bob
 

 

 

 

 

Hello all, and back to the boat.
 
I mounted the bow and stern sprits, added the bulwarks and cap rail and put in eye bolts all over the deck for the rigging.  I painted and put the hand rails on the cabin roof.  I also added the companion way hatch, which still needs painting.  If you look carefully you can see the anchor chocks at the bow, and that reminds me, I will need to make an anchor.  Ah well, one thing at a time.  Next are the masts, booms and gaffs and all the little bits that hold them together.
 
Bob
 

 

 

 

 

The new transom looks good.  Sometimes we just have to bite the bullet and correct what we don't like.  Nice job.
 
Bob

I'm pulling up my chair.  Let the build begin.
 
Bob

Tom,
 
Use a try-file to cut a notch where you want the hole.  This gives the drill somewhere to start and the hole will remove the notch.  Using the pin vice cuts down on the drill walking.  It may not be fast, but it's not hard.
 
Bob

Thanks Sherry for reminding me....        Caught by my own advice...    

Hi Mark,
 
I'm inclined to agree with Aldo.  Plus, if there is not a definitive reference, then "Captain's Choice" is automatically invoked! 

This is the way I did it.
 
microchisels
 
Bob

Brass Etching
 
The next issue I dealt with was the tracks for the pivot guns. Having recently purchased a brass etching kit from Micromark, this was one of two perfect opportunities for making use of it, the other item being the wheel house fan decoration (My first test was actually to make some trailboard decorations for the Yacht America, but that’s another subject...). The Micromark kit contains pretty much everything you need to get started right away. It is a chemical etching process that uses a photo resistive material to transfer your artwork onto the metal. 
 
 

 
 
You begin by creating your artwork as a negative image printed onto clear transparency using an inkjet printer. By negative image, I mean that the metal will remain where the page is blank. The areas to be etched away are the areas where ink is printed onto the page. Of course, you will have to have software to create the artwork on your computer. I used Adobe Illustrator for this - a very old education edition that still works well on an old computer.
 
 
 

Here, I made the fan pattern for the wheel houses
 
 
 
The next step is to clean the metal you are going to etch really well to get the photoresist film to stick well to it. This is a critical step as any dirt or oxidation may cause  bubbles in the photoresist film and the process will not be satisfactory. Note that the photoresist is light sensitive so all work with it must be done in very low light conditions.
 
The kit includes a laminator to get the photoresist to adhere to the metal. If all goes well, the next thing to do is to sandwich the artwork and the photoresist-coated metal between two pieces of included acrylic and clamp them together using provided clips.
 
Then one of the parts that takes some experimenting to get right. The photoresist must be exposed to a light source, like a 100watt lamp shining close to the work for about 10 minutes. When done, the metal is washed in a diluted solution of Sodium Hydroxide, otherwise known as Caustic Soda or Lye and it’s nasty stuff. It will burn your skin. Believe me, I know. 
Carefully, the unexposed parts of the photoresist are washed away, leaving bare metal exposed for the etchant to do its work.
 
Next step is to actually immerse the metal into the etchant. This is the easy part as it’s mostly a matter of waiting and periodically checking progress.
 
 

 
 
The kit uses Ferric Chloride as the etchant and includes a plastic tank for the etchant bath with an air pump used to keep the etchant circulating. The stuff is good for several uses, but takes longer with each use as the etchant is expended. The bad part of all of this is that the expended etchant has to be disposed of properly, and legally, taking it to a hazardous waste facility.
 
 

A close up of the “Witches Brew”
 
 
Rotating the work every 10 minutes, the metal will finally etch through
 
 

Checking the progress of a project
 
 
Once the etching is done, the piece is removed and the photoresist is removed using a full strength bath of Sodium Hydroxide solution, and it’s done.
 
 

The completed etched fan decoration for the Saginaw’s wheel houses
 
 
Next time, getting back to the pivot gun tracks.
 
Clare

This is the way I did it.
 
microchisels
 
Bob

WOW, I thought I was the only one that did that.
 
Bob

Welcome home, Sherry.  Glad you had a good time.
 
Bob

Thanks Popeye.
 
$600.00 ! !    WOW !  
 
I'll sell the whole boat for $600.00 .
 
Bob

John, It's not that hard.
 
Popeye & Wayne,  Your comments remind me of the man who was driving through the country and saw a chair for sale.  He asked the owner where it came from and how much.  The owner said he had made it and it was $25.00.  The man thought it would make nice dinning room chairs and ordered six.  The owner said that would cost $600.00.  The man asked, "Why so much" ?   The owner said, "Well the first one was fun".
 
Bob

Actually, on the real thing there were no treenails in the decks. What you see (or rather mostly not, except when really standing on a deck) are wooden plugs that cover the holes drilled for iron bolts (at least in later ships). The plugs do not show end-grain (as would treenails do) but were cut so that the grain runs in the same direction as the planks. The idea was to make them almost invisible for  aesthetic reasons.
 
It seems to be a fashion among modellers to use treenails to show how much effort they put into a model. There is also some mechanical reason, as the treenail securely fastens the plank. Otherwise, I would ignore them on a true 'scale' model.
 
wefalck

Popeye, thanks for the ideas on the gun ports. 'Tis a puzzlement!
 
Cap'n' Bob, Bill, thanks for the nice comments on the stack. It sure beats the heck out of the first attempt at the stack, which I am too embarrassed to show. Anyway, I destroyed all copies of photos of the original for good measure 
 
As it is, I'm really happy with the second attempt. Now, if I can only get other parts of the model to come out as nicely...
 
Clare

Moving right along.  I made templates for the cabin.  As you can see the first sides of that wrap-around broke.  Finally, got the sides, the top and the companionway hatch without breaking any more.
 
Next the bow sprit and the stern sprit. (Is that the right name?) Then on to the masts, booms, gaffs and sails, after that the rigging.  It feels like I'm not even half way through.
 
Bob
 

 

 

Moving right along.  I made templates for the cabin.  As you can see the first sides of that wrap-around broke.  Finally, got the sides, the top and the companionway hatch without breaking any more.
 
Next the bow sprit and the stern sprit. (Is that the right name?) Then on to the masts, booms, gaffs and sails, after that the rigging.  It feels like I'm not even half way through.
 
Bob
 

 

 

Moving right along.  I made templates for the cabin.  As you can see the first sides of that wrap-around broke.  Finally, got the sides, the top and the companionway hatch without breaking any more.
 
Next the bow sprit and the stern sprit. (Is that the right name?) Then on to the masts, booms, gaffs and sails, after that the rigging.  It feels like I'm not even half way through.
 
Bob
 

 

 

Sorry, I forgot the pictures in the last entry.
 
Bob