wefalck

Done so far, phew. I have to continue to paint the figures and to clean up my bench, which I guess will take longer than the build itself .



















Cheers Rob

I've been doing some more thinking about the hinges. The pintles are more or less straightforward to make, but the gudgeons are giving me trouble given all the right angles they take wrapping around the rudder post (which is external) and onto the transom. So I began to wonder if there was a way for me to fake it: what if I could cut slits in the transom around the rudder post so the gudgeons could just go straight back and run into the interior of the hull, and I then glued extra pieces of brass along the transom to represent the gudgeon's extension along the transom?
 
I first tried to draw it out:

 
Then I decided to test it with some scrap. I made a fake transom with a rudder post down the center and applied some sealer to stiffen it. Once that dried, I bent one of my gudgeon's arms back straight, and used my smallest drill bit to make a small slit on each side of the rudder post. I was then able to push the gudgeon into place.

 

 
It's actually very secure even without being glued. I then tested how it would look to place a strip of brass (in this case, the other gudgeon) to fake the arms of the gudgeon running out on each side of the transom. By placing it right up against the gudgeon body, I was able to largely avoid any visible gap. (Terrible photo below, it was hard to hold it in place and take a photo at the same time).

 
I'm planning on blackening the brass. I think that I should be able to avoid gaps with careful shaping. Any remaining gap I can probably cover with a tiny dab of black paint--at worst I'll just have to paint the whole hinge black, which would not be the end of the world.
 
Overall, this seems like a much easier way to do it than trying to get so many precise 90-degree bends into a small space. I just need to properly plan the gudgeon location so that the slits are covered from view by the helmsman's platform.

A glass-hard spindle on bronze-bushing, properly lapped-in, at that time was considered superior to ball- or roller-bearings in terms of cocentricity. And they live long, when kept oiled properly. Today, the quality of (pre-stressed) roller-bearings is equal. My watchmakers lathe has a glass-hard spindle on glass-hard steel bushing - still probably the best you can get for fine work.

A glass-hard spindle on bronze-bushing, properly lapped-in, at that time was considered superior to ball- or roller-bearings in terms of cocentricity. And they live long, when kept oiled properly. Today, the quality of (pre-stressed) roller-bearings is equal. My watchmakers lathe has a glass-hard spindle on glass-hard steel bushing - still probably the best you can get for fine work.

Everything you ever wanted to know about this (and other) lathe(s): http://www.lathes.co.uk/atlas/index.html
 
But beware, it may make you drool, when you see what kind of attachments etc. once were available.

A glass-hard spindle on bronze-bushing, properly lapped-in, at that time was considered superior to ball- or roller-bearings in terms of cocentricity. And they live long, when kept oiled properly. Today, the quality of (pre-stressed) roller-bearings is equal. My watchmakers lathe has a glass-hard spindle on glass-hard steel bushing - still probably the best you can get for fine work.

Well, it’s been a while since my last update. Lots of things going on in my household - including an open house for the happy occasion of my mother’s 90th birthday 🎂.  I’ve found this build to be challenging because of the small parts and the instructions being less clear than I’d like. The bevelled edges that need to be glued are also a bit tricky to stabilize as the glue sets.   Here’s a photo of my current progress. Thanks for looking in, Scott
 

Hello All,
It is time for another small update.
I turned a mast on the drill press.  I think it is the only wood on the model.  
Added hooks and cleat for the anchor light halyards.  The cleat is about as small as I can work.
 
Also added interior details for the pilot house and winch control house.  Probably overdid it.  Very little, if any of it, will be visible in the end.
Thank for looking,
mcb

Everything you ever wanted to know about this (and other) lathe(s): http://www.lathes.co.uk/atlas/index.html
 
But beware, it may make you drool, when you see what kind of attachments etc. once were available.

The Dutch company Artitec makes some resin-kits of small German railway ferries around the island of Rügen (I think) in HO- and N-scale:
 
https://www.artitecshop.com/en/railroad-ferry.html

https://www.artitecshop.com/en/wittow-ferry.html

https://www.artitecshop.com/en/ferry-fehmarn.html - This one I remember seeing in operation, when we spent our summer holidays with may grandparents up at the Baltic coast.

 
 
 
 

I seem to have read of similar examples from Russia, where tracks were laid across frozen lakes to provide short-cuts, rather than going around the lakes.

Interesting subject! These 'Trajekts', as we call them in Geman and neighbouring languages, once have been quite common at places, where it would have been too difficult, not cost-efficient, or impossible to build bridges. Some of them are still in operation, although bridge-building has become more daring in recent years and they were laid off. In some cases there was joint use by railway carriages and vehicles.
- On Lake Constance, between Switzerland and Germany was one in operation for many years.
- At lower reaches of the River Rhine one took whole trains, including the engine
- At the German Baltic coast several connected islands with the mainland to allow through trains.
- There used to be a two-stage one that connected the German mainland with the island fo Fehmarn and then on to the Danish island of Lolland. In the 1960s the small rail ferry to Fehmarn was replaced by a bridge. I once took, just for the fun of it, the through-train from Hamburg to Copenhagen along this route.
- The once famous Trelleborg to Sassnitz train-ferry that connected Stockholm with the rest of Europe via Germany was discontinued after 111 years of service in 2020.

Indeed, making the split at the long part and soldering there, as druxey said, would have been my first thought too. Also silver-soldering with some paste might have been easier and stronger.

I've moved on to the rudder. 
 
I wasn't happy with my initial attempt at carving a rudder from basswood in a similar shape to what I used for the Cargo Canoa. So, I decided to try something different. Although I don't have any good images of a full rudder, a number of photos depict a long rudder with one or two support beams. After trying out several shapes in card, I made a decision. I built it out of 1/16‐inch-thick cherry. In hindsight it would have been nice to use cherry for the hull frames and other parts, for more consistency, but I didn't have any then.

 
For the tiller, I followed the same process as on the Cargo Canoa, making it from some of the mango wood I collected.

 
The hinges have been giving me trouble. I first tried to make them by splitting part of a 1/64x1/4-inch brass strip in half lengthwise. For whatever reason, I couldn't seem to anneal it. It was difficult to work with and hard to get even, and difficult to cut.

 
I then was able to order some 1/64x1/16‐inch brass strips, so that I would only need to cut it to the right length. These annealed very easily, but it's still been very difficult to make the hinges. This is especially the case for the gudgeons, which need to wrap around a 1/8x1/16 rudder post and then extend further on the transom. There are a lot of right angles in a very short space to bend for that, and I've found it tricky to bend it properly. It's also been tricky to get the pin-end to be properly shaped to accept the pin, which will be a simple length of brass rod. Is there a limit to how many times I can bend a brass strip, or will re-annealing it keep it from becoming brittle and breaking?


 
I'm still working on getting them right. Once I get hinges I'm happy with, my plan is to use brass blackening to color them, super-glue the pins into the pintles, and then attach them to the rudder and hull and hang the rudder.
 
Any advice on making rudder hinges would be appreciated! I'm very impressed by the many examples that I've seen on other logs, but some seem to require more metal-working tools than I can really access now.

Thanks! Between cutting away some of the upper layer straws and poking new ones into the gap between layers, I think it's turned out in a way that I can accept.

 

 

 
The rancho isn't glued in place yet, just held by the pins.
 
Next, I'll need to add some protective/stiffening varnish, especially over the new additions. Then I'll be working out the cloth covering that runs along the top.
 

Greetings!

The derrick dock shed and the upper yard storage shed have been completed. Not much to add as the instructions and construction are both very straightforward. Here's the derrick dock shed...


...and the upper yard shed below (the first photo shows the "strip wood trap" where just a mm or 2 of the first plank is glued to the underlying template, thus creating a space where the side walls will be glued.  The joint between the walls is barely visible in the photos below.)...






note the crow resting on the roof.
Onto the saw shed. The frame has been completed. It is quite delicate at this stage.


Jeff

You have the propeller-makers decals - I was about to ask 

Somehow, I overlooked that these are pencils. Then there are not acrylics (probably). They are what is called 'artistis water colour pens'. They have been around for decades. Unlike normal coloured pencils that are bonded with a greasy substance (not sure what they used), the pigments in them are bonded with a water-soluble binder (chatCPT could probably tell you what it is). The problem from my point of view is that after application the pigment remains water-soluble. One has has to keep this in mind for the following steps in painting. Applying light coats of varnish could solve the problem.
 
I suppose the Tamiya 'clear' lacquers are water-based acrylics? That would explain the smudging effect on your 'wood' layers, because you partly redissolved the pen-pigment, particularly when applied by brush.

These acrylic paint pens (assuming that is what the AK pens are also) are handy and their soft sharp tip allows good control - in the meantime I have a whole range of Faber-Castell Pitt Artist's pens.

Somehow this e-book had escaped my attention so far - unexcusable !
 
I really love those pictures that combine models with a digital seascape and atmospheric effects.

Everything you ever wanted to know about this (and other) lathe(s): http://www.lathes.co.uk/atlas/index.html
 
But beware, it may make you drool, when you see what kind of attachments etc. once were available.

You have the propeller-makers decals - I was about to ask 

Greg, what do you mean by 'dernier line'? Dernier normally is a measure for the fineness of a thread (1 den = 1  g per 9000 metre) and was also used to classify ladies' stockings and pantyhoses. There are other systems, such as the tex.
 
I am not a great fan of monofilament, as it tends to be relatively springy and, thus, knots tend to unravel, unless immediately secured with some varnish.
 
Some time ago, I became aware of this high-end Japanese fishing line. It's braided, available in 'steel-gray' and down to diameters of 0.06 mm: https://fish.shimano.com/en-GB/product/line/braided/a155f00000c5ijoqa3.html. Quite pricey. I have not tried it myself, because I didn't have a need for 'wire-rope', which it might simulate quite well. 
 

You have the propeller-makers decals - I was about to ask 

You have the propeller-makers decals - I was about to ask