Mike Y

First of all I want to thank you for all the likes and the comments, much appreciated.  I had found some time in the last two days to continue building on La Palme.  It's a minor update.  Thanks again for the encouragement and your feedback.
 

 

 

Thanks for likes and comments! Always appreaciated 🙂 
So, filler work continued in stern area. Since I hadn't drafted this part mostly due to lazyness all pieces were cut oversized.
First a copule of pictures for scale...


I especially like the second picture and the little fella with the torch. What also can be seen in the second picture is how even and nice all the filler pieces are.
Mine, not so much as we'll see shortly.
In the next picture starboard side is more or less roughly to shape. Port, as can be seen, is not started.

When both sides where filled and after some initial sanding with 60 and 100 grit paper I drew a bunch of waterlines to see the shape more clearly.
Looks okay from this angle...

Not so much from this angle (see below) 😮 
As the lines reveal the lady needs to loose some pounds from her rear end. (Do Not, I repeat, do Not say that to the Admiral!)
The lines should in a perfect world describe a nice arch and lines from both sides should meet att no more than 90 degrees to the centreline. Problematic areas are highlighted.

After even more sanding things are starting to look okay.

A bit wavy close to the centreline, but I put that in the bag for hard to reach areas when drawing the waterline.
Right side up and things are looking even better (yup, I'm biased).

 

Now over to the rabbet and planking can soon be started. Yay!
Pax et bonum, friends!
 

Thanks guys for all the well-wishes ❤
A couple more progress photos today.
The shapes are a bit crude, but nothing some sanding can't fix. "Oh, glorius sanding" 




 

I don't know if you've been dying for an update?
Anyway, at last, here is one. 🙂 
Since last update I have been fairing the outside of the frames. I used my blue Bosch orbital sander. All in all it looks good. Areas left are closest to the keel where more work is needed.
For the next step I have been debating if I should start carving the rabbet or if I should try to make the cant frames at the stern.
After some messing around with the rabbet just to see if it was plausible to work on I decided to focus on the aft section. The challenge to solve was for some kind of jig for ease of fitting all these flimsy and small frame pieces. On the real ship the stern is completely filled with timber and I intend to do likewise.
 
As can be seen in the images the structure is movable and the upper part is detachable. To get the shape right I switched from one type of CAD to another... that is from Computer Aided Design to Cardboard Aided Design 😄 
The upper face of the lower part is the deck line and the upper face of the top part is the top of stanchions line.
From the book it is clear that the rail stanchions only go halfway down to the keel bar the foremost one. That is a blessing since it will be much easier to fit those compared to the first pair seen in the pictures.
 



Another subject under debate is my health. It was supposed to be a DT for pre-operative planning but instead it became me vs cancer Round 2. At the moment I've been to one MRi last Monday and was right away scheduled for another one three weeks from now. The worry is metastatis in the liver.
 
What can I say... Life is what it is and there is no guarantee for a long and healthy life for any of us. Try to make the most of it or as Gandalf says to Frodo:
"All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."
 

Voliá!
Here I am again. No boating this summer to blame, instead  a lot of other fun activities.
I guess the picture material calls for some sort of celebration, right? Yep, that is framing done. Well, almost... there are filler pieces that goes up to the stem and then there are the stern timbers also. Now I must make plan for sanding the hull and how to support it. My plan for now at least is to temporary glue strakes to the timber tops. That will give me an even curvature of the frames. 
As far as my drafting goes I had made a couple of mistakes so I had to redo 4-5 pieces. Not much at all and I'm satisfied of the result.
 



 

Me again. Thanks for likes and comments! Always appreciated.
As can be seen in the photos below progress is being made. My goal is one frame per day. As of now, #30 is glued in place (yes, after the picture was taken) which means I'm not exactly up to target. After frame zero, actually no 22, I'm on the home stretch regarding framing. The hull shape is starting to show now.
Apart from that, not much else to report at the moment. Feeling quite well and been out MTB-ing a couple of times in the last week. Feels good!


 
 

I thought that it's time to treat the audience with a small update.
The "quick recovery" is unfortunately not what my body was in for. However, on the upside I've skipped the painkillers and I'm back to work tomorrow at 50%. Downside, I still need IV Mon through Fri, but I think that is about to change soon. My bowel is slowly going back to normal speed. Right now I'm only 10-15% above target. It has been 70-90% previously. And I still get (very) tired after any kind of exercise. 
 
Anyway, that about my health. 
Now about the build. 
Frames are coming along at a slow and steady pace. No 9 is in place. No 10 is what you see resting on the board. Before it got too crowded I took care of the keelson (laying beside the keel structure).
With No 10 in place I'm 1/3 done with building the frames. Parts for No 12 to 32 are already sawn and waiting for their turn. 
If you wonder, the ruler is set at deck level. I chose that as reference instead of any other line. Timber tops will need trimming and the waterline is secondary to the build I thought.
It can't be seen in this photo, but the timbertops are waywing a bit in and out. That will be remedied when the horizontal help beam is removed and sanding commence. 
Also, the templates are mounted to the frames with double adhesive tape. No too tricky to remove after sanding has taken place.

Finally, a Big thank you for likes, comments and well wishes!
 

Vaddoc, well, that remains to be seen, doesn't it? And I also am looking forward to see if it will come together.
 
Anyway, it's been a while and I was not released from hospital on that particular weekend. Instead it became almost three weeks in hospital with an additional surgery Fri April 1st. It's a story for itself and I will not recapitulate it here.
Status now is that I need IV every day to keep my fluids balanced and I can be up and about for a hour or so before pain takes the fun out of it. They've been rummaging about in my lower abdominum and it takes a while before it "sets" again. Hence the pain.
 
Boatbuildingwise four frames are now in place. Frame no 4 was prepared before my hospital experience and today I felt good enough to glue it in place.
It looks like this:


Four frames done means it is 32 to go...well, one at a time. Slow and steady, slow and steady.
 
Finally, thank you for likes, comments and well wishes!

Thought I better post this update since the fatigue-thing is unpredictable...
A bigger bench was called for. Here you have it. Also added a scale yard worker (hm... hands deep in pockets, not much work going on there I can tell) and a one meter rule for reference. John, just a tad bigger than your usual scale of 1:96 😄
 
Next I will focus on the stem. Define the bearding and rabbet lines in the wood and taper the forward piece. After that I can attach the keel to the stem and focus on the stern structure for a while before it also gets attached to the keel.
 

 

1.     Plans and drafting
I will not delve into too much detail about this process, instead I suggest anyone interested to have a look in Waynes document. What I will do is to point out my own challenges, retakes, and mistakes. That’ll be fun (they said) 😉
 
As previously mentioned, the plans are scanned originals in PDF format. Through some online service I had them converted to PNG, which I understand is the desired format (after BMP) for images with great detail. Both PNG and BMP are uncompressed formats, therefore retaining sharp images even when blown up beyond full scale.
 
The CAD software I use is Turbo CAD Deluxe version 20. It is a reasonable priced software for those without too big ambitions. It says it can handle 3D but I’ve never got my head around using it so I stay in 2 dimensions.
These are the plans I got:
Lines plan with body, sheer and half breadth plans. 
Construction drawing showing all major details as frames, deck beams, mast supports, deck and side planking, deck openings and what not.
Sail plan
Finally, a big PDF with mast and hardware. Several pages long.
 
 
The process of drafting is to take the lines plan first, load into your CAD software and trace all lines of the sheer and body part and leave out the half breadth plan with all its waterlines. Make sure you have the loaded image in correct size. It usually takes a little fiddling about. I used the length between perpendiculars, because I couldn’t really understand the body plan. More on that later…
 
Next you create a new half breadth plan from your traced body and sheer. Corrections need to be made when you see uneven waterlines, and these corrections propagate back through the body plan all the way to the sheer plan.
When you are satisfied dump the body plan and all corresponding station lines on the sheer plan. Add new stations and draft a new body plan. Easy peacy.

I then took the sheer plan into a new drawing and added the image of the construction plan. The first goal was to create the center line with keel, false keel, keelson, stem, stem pieces, stern, deadwood and all that. I noted that the two drawings weren’t too far off one another which was good. On the construction plan the rabbet was presented and so I added that to my center line.

 I took a while to disassemble the structure. One challenge when using the polyline to trace parts is that what looks like a piece is actually a void. Like the small triangular deadwood piece closest to the inner sternpost. Such things become obvious when you explode your drawing.
 
I keep the perpendiculars and waterline to always have a common reference point when moving between drawings.
 
Next I was to start drafting al frames, 47 all in all. The first one sits at the sternpost, like in this picture.

 
The last frame sits at the junction between the keel and the stem.  Forward of that is just bollard timbers, which I don’t really know how to fasten to the hull.

 
The stern is made up of every so much timber there can be. The square-ish timber in the lower left is the fashion piece rising up from the sternpost.

 
Just as I was about to start with the frames I came to a full stop. Something wasn’t quite right. To loft frames one uses the half breadth plan and the sheer plan. The half breadth plan gives you the width of each frame at any given waterline and the sheer gives you the height at any given station/frame line.
 
However, when I was to start with the foremost frame (because they are simple) things didn’t add up. I couldn’t get the waterlines to create a frame for me and I also lacked the rabbet line. Suddenly one thing caught my attention.
 
This is a close up of the stem. Notice how the waterlines all meet the stem very far forward?

 
The only reasonable reason I could think of is that instead of waterlines depicting the shape at the inside of the planking all lines were of the outside! Sure enough, what do you say – sometimes your eyes clouds your vision?

 
Yellow highlighted by me. Say no more.
 
That’s why the waterlines come all the way forward. And also my body plan needs to be re-done. Sigh. But like a chain event I suddenly understood why I had troubles with the body plan.

 
This is a magnification of a part of the body plan. The vertical, straight leftmost line is the square that defines the “body”. But no station goes all the way out, why? Simply because the extreme breadth of the ship falls between two station lines. Not like on old drawings where station 0 is at the extreme breadth. Some things are just plain obvious once you revisit them 😉
 
How to proceed? First I need to re-trace the body plan and make a new half breadth plan.
 
When that is done I can take the body plan and do a line copy of each station at 65 mm inwards. 65 mm is the thickness of the planking. With this new body plan I can then make a new half breadth plan. Just doing a straight line-copy enters a slight error because the inner line is a tiny bit smaller. Think circles inside circles. I will play around in my CAD sw to see if I can remedy this.
 
And when that is done - Then I can start lofting frames!
 
Why didn’t the draftsman just draw to the inside of planking? Probably because the lines come from Gratitude, the sister ship, and that they measured her up to create drawings for Atlantica.

Well, what do you know... thanks to Reverend above I realized it was  exactly 4 years since I started this little thing.
Just had to finish it today!
Here are some final shots of how the rigging turned out. More in the Gallery soon.
 
A big thank you to all that have supported and liked my trials and tribulations along the way!
 
First the stay sail. In reality it is a hank-on sail. But I could not be bothered to try to mimic that so I just sewed it on. A small knot on either side of the cloth, a dab of CA and snip the ends off. It is hoisted with a tackle though.
 

 

 
The jib is set flying. The conclusion from the book is that since the jib boom is so delicate and un-stayed the jib was only flown in light to moderate winds. Hence no need for a tackle to hoist it. 
Both sails are belayed on pins under the main thwart. 
To keep the coils coiled I cheated and tied them with a little lashing.
 

 

 
This is the third boat I finish in 12 years. A boat every 4th year, hm, with plans for future builds that might be a tad to stressed 😄 
 
Now I need to tidy up the yard, take some nice pictures and then get on with next project.
 
Again, thanks to all that joined for the ride!

Hi Mike, 
 
I guess yo could say that the standard shape looks like the second one.
I have metal ones exactly the same, I think it was from Lee Valley.
Also I have boxwood ones similar and I broke 1 in 20 years.
 

Very interesting wiring! Have you considered stripping the insulation and using a bare wire, since you can ensure that it would never contact another wire?

Slowly progressing with the keel / stem / stern assembly.
 
Finished the deadwood and the slots for the wing transoms. Instead of chiseling, made that slots by gluing a wood strips and sanding it down to a smooth surface. (Tar simulation is done with a black paper again).
 

 

 
Simulating the iron bolts with 0.5mm black monofilament:
 

 
It is a little bit not to the scale, should be 0.52mm instead of 0.50 (assuming that original bolts were 1 inch thick). But that is the biggest monofilament I found.
Maybe on a next, true replica model will use the real iron bolts (with the heads). But this time - a small simplification.
Only one side of a frame has a bolts, because another side would be fully planked anyway.
 
Lots of sanding ahead - need to go through 240 -> 320 -> 400 -> 600 -> 1200 -> 2000 grits to achieve a consistent thickness of a frame and a smooth finish. 

Very interesting wiring! Have you considered stripping the insulation and using a bare wire, since you can ensure that it would never contact another wire?

I've stocked up on lumber. Here in Italy you don't find much. In the past I bought from Crown Timberyard which has now closed or from Lumberyard. Browsing the net I found this site:
https://www.rarewoodsusa.com/all-species/

Construction of the bulwarks

Engine housing compartment

Engine construction
The engine was made with forex and plasticard
Some parts of the starter, the wiring and the muffler with the exhaust are still missing.
After the top is treated with a tamyia gray primer, then filled and treated with white primer and then painted.
Thus it will be possible to take the exact measurements for the shaft line and the assembly of the propeller and the bridge with the motor housing.

Hi
 
I would like to add hobbymill.eu to supplier list also. Located in Estonia, EU.

Sponsorship also announced today.
 
Https://www.hobbymill.eu 

The Ferris wooden steamships had an electrical lighting system.  Since I was planning to put a lot of detail into the model that I wanted viewers to see, I installed an electrical lighting system in the Okesa. A family member who is an electrical engineer designed the circuit(s) for me.   The Ferris wooden steamships had an   The following pictures Illustrate the installation of the lighting system for the lower hold.  In the background you can see many of the upper deck framing and lower hold components that were installed in the model.

I finally made my first foray into miniature carving. I started with the lion heads on the outboard ends of the cat beams. 7.85 mm or 5/8 inch square, so tiny enough to keep me focused!
 
I used my Russian chisels for the first time. They are as wonderful as everyone says. Super sharp, well balanced, controllable cuts.
 
I glued 3000 grit paper to a hardwood block for sharpening. I have been able to sharpen freehand with success, using the fore and middle fingers to hold the chisel at the right angle to the block, and the fore finger to press slightly down on the cutting edge. It brings back the super sharp edge in only a few strokes. And it does have to be touched up regularly, like every 8-10 cuts. I haven't had to do the gouges yet. That looks more challenging, especially the .5 mm one.

 
 
At first, I took chisels out and put them on my desk when switching to another chisel. I quickly found out that this does not work. First, they were all to easily starting to roll towards the front edge of my bench when I wasn't looking. Second, the cutting edges are so tiny that I would have to pick up each on on my bench to look very carefully to find the right one. I decided it was a better idea to keep them in their box whenever not in use. To facilitate finding them, I made a small chart and double sided taped it to the back of the box. Now it is very easy to find a chisel right away, and put it back safely between uses.
 

I held these in my GRS vise. Its ability to pivot really helps get at the wood from the right direction. Since this vise mounts on the edge of the bench, I pulled out my sliding platform beneath the bench (that usually holds my cutting board), and built a small platform to sit on top the platform and around the wood block to be cut. This gives me something to rest my hands on as I try to control these very fine cuts.
 

Gosh, a three dimensional figurehead doesn't look so scary after this!😏
 
 

Hi Jaager
 
Ship modelling community is small and mostly consists of older men (no offence please!).
 
Me being 36 years old and not even finished my first build im thankful to community for warm welcome and all the advice: advice and blessing from Hobbymill US Jeff, kind words and advice from James and Chuck, positive support from everyone from MSW.
 
You have been supportive in MSW community with your deep knowledge on different topics and have been kind to share them!
 
Please contact me via pm and you get the briar for free of charge, only cost shipping. Please note that i cant choose a piece, it will be what it is-i just find the box and take fair amount from there.
 
br
Vahur
 
 

Hello all,
 
Havent posted anything for a long time .
 
First of all I would like to thank you all for the trust. Its very pleasant to see that 99% of Clients are very happy with their products.
 
Secondly i would like to apologize for long delivery times. Its summary of holidays, being sick and moving to house. Im trying to catch up on those.
 
Thirdly there has been so many orders/requests lately so i cant really understand whats going on. This created a situation where queue is 4-6 weeks as i only work on Sundays and evening as for me its hobby also.
At some point i thought if i should close the shop as it just takes so much time from family. I have read stories about good wood suppliers closing exactly for the same reason.
After thinking over it for a week i decided to make investment to bring shop to next level and keep up with the normal deadlines of 2-3 weeks.
As a side note i run custom made metal facade factory on daily basis so setting up a shop something im use to.
In nearest months + during the summer i will update the shop with some new equipment (machines, feeders etc) and also room layout to make it more efficient.
Until then please accept little longer delivery times as usual .
 
The webshop has been closed as most orders come in as email anyways but webpage is up there (not been updated).
 
Sadly i have to say that i had to look trough the prices also as everything has gone so expensive starting from heating, saw blades etc etc etc.
 
Regarding stock i have limited myself to: pear, c.boxwood, Alaskan yellow cedar, colored hornbeam, white hornbeam and holly.
Cherry and other spices are might be available based on request.
 
Thank you all again for trust and support!
 
BR
Vahur
Hobbymill.EU