bhermann

Now I’ll begin with the new aft deck house front.   It begins much closer to the main mast.  
 
The front will contain 4 entry doors and space for 2 ladders and the catwalk 
This will have the poop deck on top and it will wrap around the mizzenmast and be a flush weather deck…….much like the forecastle. 
 
Lots to do….but I’ll begin with the front being built and dry fitted. 

The gunwales was 7”, making the deck flush with it. 
Rob

Next…….I removed the aft hatch on the main deck.  
 
Space is cleaned up and ready for Measurement taking. 
 
Rob

Decking completed…

Cheers 🍻 

I've made some progress, but not much to show now as we've been in Boston for our younger (and final) child's college graduation (technically she finished her degree in December, but she didn't graduate until yesterday). While we were there we visited the Museum of Fine Arts (she lives about 1/2 mile away) and stumbled into the ship gallery. Thought I might share a couple of clippers from there; have a look at some professional level skills...
 
First up, the Marie Rose at 1:64

 
And the Flying Cloud at 1:64

 
Not a Clipper obviously, but a 100 gun ship of the line at 1:64

 
Tis is Boston, so USS Constitution 

 
And he a French ship Héros (1778). This is not technically at any specific scale, but the craftsmanship is amazing considering it's bout 14 inches long. It was made by a French POW around 1781.
 

 
Regards,
George K

Worked on the water base.    Beefed it up and painted it leather, and I glossed the sea.  

No spray or foam yet.  
 
Rob

Hull details continued…

Airbrushed Hull Copper Red on bottom of the hull. 

Applied white vinyl stripe to waterline and finalized with Clear Coat. 

Hull completed and mounted on the kit supplied walnut wood stand. We can only go up from here.  😆
 
Cheers 🍻

That is some nice work!  I agree with Joshua that a gloss finish looks out of place on these models, but you are the captain here and can go with what pleases you.
 
Bob

Here is a quick update, I've slowly been putting together the deck pieces. These are only the few I've completed so far.
there are a few metal pieces used in this model, the steering wheel is one, each I have to paint, the other ones (not shown) are going to be painted black, now I was thinking about putting a gloss coat on the black pieces, what do you guys think? is it going to make the pieces look better than just the plan black paint?

Well, the 'potential' break became an actual one because my mother had gone into the hospital. On that Tuesday evening we were all thinking it was relatively minor, and just waiting for the definitive test that was going to be done the next day, and that Friday morning she was gone. We were grateful to have her as long as we did, and she lived to see both of our children graduate from college, and my siblings' children graduate from high school, and, fortunately, she had her faculties until about the last 36 hours.  I think she really wanted to reach her 87th birthday and 64th wedding anniversary, both of which would have been next week, but it was not to be. However, she had her husband, all three children (one of whom was fortunately in town from Denver) and 2 of the three spouses (one had to stay in Denver to deal with one of the grandkids) with her for the last week, hopefully that helped. 
 
With that, and the week making various arrangements having passed, I have had some time for a little bit of wood based therapy. Not a lot has changed, but, I mounted the fore topgallant yard, and its halyard. I installed the tackles that hold the topmast halyard, and anchored the first set of live ends from the halyard tackle) on the pinrails. I've installed the first of the fore topgallant sheets and attached it to the tackle on the deck. Once the other sheet is installed, I will anchor everything that terminates on the fife rails (the four chain sheets and the live lifts, as well as the 6 clew lines (which anchor on the pinrails. At that point, I'll add the Royal and Skysail yards, and I'll be close to finished on the foremast square yards. I think I'm going to rig the fore spencer before I have a bunch of main yards in the way. Here are a couple of photos.
 

 

 

 

 
@rwiederrich or @ClipperFan, the halyard tackle for the topsail yard goes to the pinrail via a deck mounted block (that is, the live end leaves a double at the point where the tackle is shackled to the chain, passes through a deck mounted single and is then belayed to the pinrail). I presume that this is meant to allow the crew to pull up rather than down, which makes sense. The drawings are ambiguous for the other halyards (topgallant, royal, and sky). On other McKay clippers did all the halyards have deck mounted blocks or was that specific to topsail yard because it was so heavy and had that unfortunate lever arm that made it harder to pull into place?
 
As always, thanks for looking in and your encouragement and comments!
 
Regards,
George K

i am sorry for the long delay, I've been kind of busy lately. any how I finished painting the hull. for the red I mixed navy blue and bright red together, there are about three coats of red on the hull. then two coats black, and like five coats of white. then to finish it I spraypainted a gloss coat over the hull.

oh, also sorry about my terrible pictures I am not an expert with the camera lol.

One more: I had a case custom built through Nick Melchin at Pro Model Builders in Vancouver. I've worked with Nick on a variety of projects in the past and always come away impressed with his skill and sheer versatility; he's built everything from architectural models, to scale product replicas, wargaming terrain, movie props and a great deal besides. And so it came to pass that he built a display case for the first large scale wooden model ship that I have built and I couldn't be happier with it.
 
In particular, I'm just delighted to see it without its construction cradle that was composed of two rice filled socks.
 

Hull detailing…
 

Above the water line completed. 
 
Model Expo “Hull Copper Red” to be airbrushed on the hull below the water line. 
 
Cheers 🍻 

A couple of quick updates, as I may wind up being away from this for a time. I've started the ratlines on the mizzen (about halfway up the lower shrouds), as can be seen in this photo.
 

 
Eagle eyed observers will likely notice two things. First, I didn't move the lower forestay over the top. I was just too worried about the impact on the tension in all of the rest of the forestays and at this point, I have no meaningful way to tighten any of the shrouds without completely redoing it. The trade painting shows them going through the lubber's holes, that will have to be good enough for this time. If I do another McKay clipper, I will probably adjust accordingly. Second, the fore topsail yard is in place. Here is a view looking aft:
 

 
And a couple of closeup views:
 

 

 
You can see that I have rigged the topsail clews and sheets. The live ends of the sheets are attached to their relevant tackle, although the clews are just taped onto the bulwark. Once I rig the sheets for the topgallant (which also attaches to a deck tackle), the fife rails will be clear enough to actually start belaying the relevant ends. I've also run the topsail halyard which runs through three gin blocks (one on the yard), two in the crosstrees. That turned out to be more painful than I expected, but I ran a bit of very fine wire through the chain and twisted the two ends like I was making a flattened eyebolt. This was stiff enough to send through the blocks although it took me a while. The two live ends are meant to be attached to tackles on the channels, which are not yet in place, so the live ends are kinda just hanging for now.
 
In the last photo you can see the iron band that nominally holds the yard in place. That is basically just a thin piece of painted brass and the pin that is attached to the crane goes through the brass and into hole in the mast so it is actually pretty solid. I then glued down the brass leaving a "tail" of brass where the two sides met, which I cut down to size to represent the place where the hoop is bolted together.
 
As always, thanks for looking in and the likes!
 
Regards,
George K

Back to the masts:
 
The fore topmast is shaped--  

 
The main topmast will be identical--

 
I have made a few more pairs of carronade tackle blocks.  I'm more than half done now, and getting a little better/faster at it, but I still don't enjoy it!
 
Ron

Since the plans called for these straps to be galvanized steel, I decided to make them out of aluminum instead of brass.
Started with 2 pieces of 1/8 inch thick plywood

Glued (CA) a piece .016 thick aluminum between the pieces of plywood and clamped until set up


Then cut .05 wide strips on the Burns saw, needed 4 but cut a few extras

After soaking the cut pieces in acetone to release them I marked where I needed to drill holes for the bolts. The far left mark is the cut off. Then drilled holes with a #77 bit


After shaping the 4 halves I mounted the gooseneck to the bands and the bands to the foremast with .05mm bolts and nuts. Touched the bolts with CA to hold them in place then added a coat of amber shellac. Dropped both the foremast and mainmast into the model, but did not glue in place yet.



Now it’s onto the foremast boom….

Well, ratlines are continuing apace. Starboard side is now most of the way up the main mast (just a little work on the topgallant to go), and I'll be starting on the mizzen, so the finish line is in sight. 
 
However, the real step is the first of the yards is basically ready to go. The photos below show it in position, but it's not glued and I still have to set the chain sling up. 
 

 
The upper end of the chains that are the course sheets are taped to the the mast so I can estimate how long to make them as there is no clew up there to attach the end to. The live end is held with yellow tape you can see in the photo. The next step is to fabricate a hook somewhere above where the tape is and then hook that to the tackles that you can sort of see around the base of the mast. At the moment the running lifts are just taped to the side of the hull, I want to move some of the sheet tackles out of the way (i.e. attach them to the sheet chains before I try to run them down into the mass of line down there. You can (may?) see the blocks for the clew and the reef tackle. On my Niagara I hooked the reef tackle to the clew on the course (above the course the clew was always attached to the sheet). I also mounted the bunt and leech blocks; I'm going to tie a knot in the end of each and leave them sitting up on the blocks. It gives the yard a bit of interest. 
 
Another view, with all of the lines strewn around the deck - as I imagine it was as she was being initially rigged.
 

 
And a quick overview of the whole ship:
 

 
As always, thanks for looking in!
 
Regards,
George K.
 
 

Oars. Who would think such a simple object would be so time consuming. The problem is they're so tiny. The shaft is 0.9 mm(scaled from the plan) and the handle on the end is only half to three-quarter of that. I looked around at hobby supplies online for oars. While there were plenty of options none were quite right for Bluenose dories. Had to make my own.
 
My vision isn't what it used to be and I'm shakier now. I broke a few of these, especially the handles, during construction. I decided to make the oars as two pieces. The shaft and blade separately.
 
First blanks for the blades were cut from 1.5 mm stock lumber. These were clamped in the drill press and a 5 mm deep x 1 mm hole drilled centered on the end. This is tricky because the hole must be centered and drilled perpendicular to both sides of the piece. If the hole is angled the oar shaft will be at an angle.

I used the smallest toothpick I could find. This makes a sturdy shaft as toothpicks are hardwood. Because I don't have a horizontal lath I created a vertical one using a small piece of brass with a .75 mm hole clamped in the vise for a support. The hole was carefully centered under the spindle of the drill press. Using moderate speed and a strip of 220 grit sandpaper the toothpick was reduced to .9 mm diameter. Broke a couple before I got the pressure right.

A gauge was used to mark the shaft for length and for the handle on the end. It looks like this when it comes out of the chuck.

Note the gauge and marks for cutting. After cutting to length, the shaft was reinserted into the chuck upside down. An Exacto knife was used to carve the handle while it spun in the drill press. This was touchy work. The piece is now so thin that only extremely light pressure can be used. A firm hand is needed.

Next the two pieces are mated using PVA. The bond is about as strong as the wood itself.

Ready to sand the blade shape into the block. I used a small sanding block and lots of patience. Delicate work. Notice I broke one of the handles. Fortunately I had made a couple extra.

After that, the oars were shellacked, given their final shape and sanded. Painting very light objects with an airbrush is tricky. The air stream simply blows small objects away at even very light air pressures. I opted to use a thin strip of double-sided tape to hold them down. This meant painting one side at a time and waiting for it to dry before painting the other side.

Here's the final result. Not sure the handles were worth the trouble. You really don't see them at viewing distance after painting;

Finishing the hull…
 
Cutting in the Hause Holes and Bowsprit…



Main Rail…

Stern and Bow Railings are laser cut pieces. The remaining railing all has to be cut from wood strips. 

I created a template of each section with tracing paper. 

I then laid each template on to the strip wood with rubber cement. 

Using a belt sander, trimmed away the edge of the strip wood up to the template. 

Main Rail completed…

Back to the paint booth…

Hull finished and ready for details…

First coat of paint on the Main Rail. 
 
Cheers 🍻 
 

The next step was to make the vertical rod on which the gooseneck rides.
I began by taking a piece of 1/32 inch brass round stock and flattening one end with a pin driver and hammer. Then slid the gooseneck on the round end before flattening that end with the pin driver.
In order to drill the holes in the flat ends without the drill bit wandering, I glued (CA) a .05mm washer on each end to act as a guide for the drill bit. Then hand drilled the holes with a pin vice. After words I used acetone to remove the washers.



Now to build the bands that attaches the gooseneck assembly to the foremast.

Hello all. My last entry was on the order of 3 weeks ago, not because of massive progress, but rather because of a bunch of other things prevented work. They ranged from the Cherry Blossom 10 mile running race here in DC to visiting my (eek) now 25 year old daughter in Boise where we (double eek) met her boyfriend's parents. I don't quite know why this has me so freaked out (this isn't the first set of parents we've met) but it feels radically more likely to be permanent.
 
Anyway, since returning I have managed to get some time in the shipyard and some progress is being made. First the ratlines on the foremast are done, and I'm starting on the main.
 

 

 
I also attached the sheet blocks and painted the masts. Next step is to touch them up and attach the foot ropes. They are all in the photo below but kinda distributed while they dry. Once the ratlines on the main are done, I'm going to start mounting the fore yards. My assessment is that I don't want my elbows to whack one of the yards trying to tie the ratline knots, so, nothing until I'm working on the mizzen. Once I'm on the mizzen it will be time to start making the remaining 4 main yards (the course was finished in the first batch).
 
I am curious about some that that is going to come up soon. If you look at the section of the plans that are shown below, you will see the tackle that attaches the course, top, and topgallant sheet chains to the deck. The other end of the sheets are generally attached to the clew for the yard above (i.e. the other end of the course sheet is connected to the top clew line) when the sails are off the ship. According to the rigging plan, the live ends of the tackle are belayed to pins on the port or starboard pinrails. That (sorta) makes sense for the topgallant (the outer of the three) where the live end is coming down to the deck from a single block where it is attached to the chains. But the other two make no sense to me at all. The live end exits a double block on the deck and then appears to go straight to the pinrail for belaying. 
 

 
Am I missing something here? This seems like it would leave a set of two lines at each mast, port and starboard that runs from the deck to about 4 feet off the ground. What a colossal pain in the posterior that would be. And I keep hearing the bosun's mates telling me to watch lines on the deck. I know that it isn't impossible, the lines that control the tiller on the Niagara are equally in the way, but geez, these ships carried passengers as well, and I dunno there has to be a better way. I looked for signs of deck blocks near the pins that would at least keep the lines near the deck (easier to step over) but the plans show blocks for other lines, but not these.
 
So, am I mad? Missing something? Or is this just the way these ships were rigged? Any help appreciated.
 
As always, thanks for looking in and the likes,
 
George K.

Hi Ed,
 
Let me try this:

Thanks, JJ.
 
After a couple of tests with different numbers of threads, I was able to make a cable of the right size for Oneida's larger anchors--

 

 

 

 
The anchors won't be attached until near the end, but I wanted to get the cable on board before getting heavy into the rigging, and access to the deck becomes more difficult.
 
Ron
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Time to put the frames into the rest of the dories!

I chose to use .5 mm strip for the gunwales. This makes the total thickness 1 mm which is the thickness scaled from the plans. Looking at the photos of the original this seems correct.

I did depart from the plan by making the height of the gunwale 3 mm as the scale  size would have been .5 mm and very difficult to work. Actually looks pretty nice.

Because the interior of the lower boats in the stack will not be visible, I'm only doing the center frame (for structural support) and the gunwales. Only the top two boats will be fully constructed. Making the frames was very difficult. Of the eight frames, there wasn't one that didn't break in some way. Trying to cut 1 mm basswood requires a delicate touch. The real scale frames would be .5 mm thick.
TIP: use boxwood or some other sturdy material.

Eventually all the frames were installed, trimmed and glued in place. Along with all the seats, cleats and braces. Again, for practicality, the frames are a bit larger than scale.

Now the usual painting procedure. Sand, primer, fill, sand and top coat. I painted the exterior medium gray as that's what seems likely in the photos and the interior light grey for contrast and to bring out the detail.

I drilled the holes for the lifting ropes and experimented with installing them. Due to the small scale the rope does not lay naturally. I'll have to do a little research on how to get a natural effect. Suggestions are very welcome. Finished top dories:

After looking at the photos of prototype I noticed the ropes on the dories are quite stiff and stand up on their own. That means the ropes on my dories DO look accurate. I went ahead and added the lifting ropes to all the dories.

Here they are in their cradles on the ship. I chose not to glue them down at this point as that would make rigging more difficult. I'll put them on permanently after rigging. I did drill the tie-down holes at this time.

It felt good to complete some bit of the project.
 

In over 15 years, I may never have made a post with only one photo.  Here it is, the current state of the mast work--

 
The hounds/bibs have been shaped and glued onto the masts.  The trestle/cross trees are not glued.  Chamfers and tenons have been cut into the mast tops.  The small loose pieces are the bolsters which will be glued to the trestle trees, and the two pieces at the top are the topmast blanks.
 
I have neglected the carronade tackle blocks, and will have to buckle down and put some time in to get caught up to my one set a day goal.

After looking into what other people have done for the dory frames, I didn't find anything satisfactory. I really only need one sturdy frame. The others can be made from basswod. Only the middle frame has any real force on it. I also took into consideration that only the top two dories need all the frames. They nest so tightly that no inside detail can be seen on the lower ones.
 
After considering various materials I settled on steel. Hardwood will break along grain lines when made so thin. I didn't have any suitable thickness of brass bar in my shop. There will be a lot of waste in cutting these out and brass is expensive. Copper is too soft and would bend. Same for plastic. What I did have in my shop were some large steel washers. They were nickle plated and too shiny to mark with a pencil. I didn't have any machinists blueing around so I used Birchwood Casey Brass Black. That way I could scribe an accurate layout on them.

After layout I used a bench disc sander to grind the sides to the layout lines.
TIP: Use pliers or vise-grips. They get HOT!

The sander was fast and did a great job of getting straight lines with a nice finish(240 Grit). Obviously this won't work for the inside cuts. The blanks were clamped in a machinists vise along each straight side in turn. The vise was aligned with the direction of travel of the X/Y table. This simplified cutting straight lines on the inside. First, a drill was used to remove bulk material. Then an end mill was used to create a nice finish for the inside edges.

The ends were left attached during the drill/mill process to facilitate clamping while working the metal. A jewelers saw was used to cut the finished frame from the blank.

Trial fit is good!

A tick strip was used to transfer the frame location from the plan to the dory. Epoxy(for strength) was applied to the frame which was then clamped into the dory. The cross brace is removed at this point to allow the sides of the dory to conform to the frame.  Much work but the results were excellent.