bhermann

Young America - extreme clipper 1853
Part 53 – Mast Steps
 
With the ceiling planking finally installed, I could move on to some other, more interesting, work – the mast steps.  The planking and some of the bilge ceiling still needs to have many fastenings installed before the mast steps are permanently fitted, but for a change of pace I decided to make the steps next – installing fastenings concurrently in small doses. 
 
The first picture shows the parts of the foremast step before final fitting.
 

 
The next picture shows the general configuration of these roughed out, unfinished  parts.
 

 
The typical step consists of a cap – as yet unmortised – two side chocks with their grain direction vertical and four knees.  The next picture shows some of the parts of the main and mizzen steps.  I installed a horizontal chock under the cap of the mizzen step to provide additional height for the knees.
 

 
The caps are supported directly on the keelson and the side chocks.  These chocks rest directly on the frames.  I mentioned earlier that the limber channels by which water runs to the pumps are cut on the underside of the frames on these ships, so the step chocks as shown would not block this flow.
 
In the next picture a clamp has been used to hold the chocks against the keelson. Tthe cap was then glued only to the chocks, so the assembly could be removed.  In this picture the cap glue has set and holes for bolts into the chocks are being drilled.
 

 
The cap will next be bolted to the chocks (copper wire epoxied) to secure the connection.  Pin holes to precisely locate the step are also drilled into the keelson and will later be used for bolts.  Below, the foremast step has been pinned in place for fitting and gluing of the knees to the sides.
 

 
One of the knees is being glued in this picture.  The step is still removable.  It can be installed permanently only after the treenailing and bolting of the ceiling planking is finished.  The next picture shows the knees attached.
 

 
In this picture the step assembly had been removed to the bench for the installation of the bolts holding the knees to the side and the simulated bolts through the chocks and the keelson.  The next picture shows the main mast step with the knees glued but not yet bolted to the sides.
 

 
The last picture shows the positions of the steps within the hull.
 

 
Knees are still needed on the mizzen step.  This picture also provides a good view of the extent and shape of the ceiling planking.  At this stage all of the ceiling bolts on both sides are installed, but the Treenailing of the port side has yet to be done.
 
Ed
 
 

I made Both tp'galant sails today as well as the flag which was printed on a piece of paper then the two sides were cut out and glued together back to back.


 
 
Lextin.

Below are a few pictures of the current state of the build. I did not make a decision to post a build log until well into the model. Actually a major, almost 'turn it into firewood issue' showed up. It actually was part of the decision to do the build log.
 
Here are few photos up to this stage, after the fix. 
 

 

 

 
The almost firewood issue is shown in the photos below. The bow was lopsided. I didn't see it when working on it. I found it when I turned over the piece I was going to use for the margin plank at the bow. Keep in mind I found this issue AFTER installing the side planking and making it pretty.
 
doesn't look too bad... maybe a little bit noticeable. 

 
Now, with the piece flipped over... Holy crap ! how did that happen !

 
Ok.. let's fix this puppy. I decided to fix the issue by reshaping the port side of the bow to match the starboard side. If you look close you can see some of the planking left in place to improve the Bow shape.

 
Some of the planking is excised out so the bow can be reshaped and new planking installed.

 
Now ..go back and look at the second picture in this post. The repair blended in well with the original work. 
 
To avoid this kind of mistake I should have checked the symmetry of the hull before starting the planking. Lesson learned. I didn't get it 100% where it should be, but I'm happy with the outcome. If you didn't see the problem pictures you would probably never know there was an issue. I share this in hopes others do better at avoiding the problem.
 
Anyway.. I built some of the deck fixtures and starting work on the deck planking. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Moving on to the rail sections that are drilled for the foremast deadeyes, I noticed an unevenness between holes on opposite sides.  Moving the starboard section forward 1mm squared up the holes with the opposite side, which also checked out with deck landmarks (i.e. the inner border of the fore deckhouse coaming lines up with the outside of the sixth belaying-pin hole on each side).  The pre-drilled holes in the waterway for the deadeye poles also now aligned at the correct angle with their corresponding rail holes. (Note the needle).
 
However, this left a 1 mm gap from the previous section on the starboard side, which will need to be filled and (hopefully) camouflaged.  Even though each section was made at the same time and exact lenght with it's opposite, this shows how errors can crop up; especially along a curved surface.
 
Forget "Measure twice, cut once"...  More like "Measure five times, then again 3 more times from a different angle, test fit, measure again 4 times, test, cut or glue, and then be prepared to fix your mistake anyway!"

I'm slowly installing the rails & trim  (pinned & glued) to the aft half of the ship. Constructo's use of 2mm x 2mm pieces, two across and three across, makes for interesting rails. I'll have to fill them in before varnishing. I'll start on the bow section next, but with its severe curves, It will be harder to trim. The bow stem fits pretty good, but that's because I worked on it for days right after I planked the hull.  

Not much done lately;  main rail is two-thirds done;  I alternate back and forth between port and starboard to keep everything symmetrical (as possible).  I touch up bulwark, stanchion, and waterway painting as I go.  In the photos you can see the wavy-ness of the rail;  this is due mainly to my uneven deck.  I can (and will) live with this.  You can also see the holes drilled into the waterway sides for the deadeye rods.  This is not accurate, (they are really anchored to the bulwarks) but will suit my needs just fine...

Merhaba her kese. sakin ol ...

Thank you Russel, Timmo and Kevin.
 
 
Well how about this then Timmo ?
 
Ladderway Railings
 
The Stanchions for the railings are turned from 1.2mm brass wire. They taper from 0.7mm at the top to 1mm at the bottom. The lugs that hold the railings are made from a couple of spare chain links (left over from the pump chains). They are silver soldered to the stanchions - a bit tricky to hold in position, as the double ones are only 1.6mm long and the singles are 0.8mm :
 

 
Here's the coin again - the stanchions are 18mm long :
 

 

 
Fitted to the ship :
 

 

 
  Danny

Hi guys,
 
Here are some pics of the upper masts and most of the stays on.  She wasn't a lofty ship as launched. The Brits added more when they took delivery, McKay gave her an extra wide rig instead, with the main yard being 95 feet long. I feel that he wanted to get power this way, maybe to minimize heeling as she was a passenger ship. Any of your views on this would be interesting.
 
Bruce

Young America - extreme clipper 1853
Part 52 – Port side ceiling continued
 
The planking of the floor on the port side continues – dull work, but with some interesting quirks as the planking approaches the keelson.
 
The first picture shows some planking strips sawed off of a wide blank of Castelo – a substitute for real European boxwood.  I am using Castelo wherever hard or yellow pine would have been used on the original.
 

 
These planks are 8” wide and slightly over the 4” thick specification.  This allows some extra thickness for leveling out and sanding the installed planking.  The 4” strips are cut from the 8” thick blank to the left that has been painted with two coats of dark brown acrylic latex paint – ordinary hardware store variety – to simulate the caulked joints between planks.
 
The next picture shows a strake of this planking being installed.
 

 
After the plank is cut and fit, yellow glue is applied to the top of each frame.  Dark glue is then applied to the painted edge of the plank and the butt end.  The plank is then held in place at each frame, drilled and pinned. The pins fit tightly and need to be forced into the smaller holes with pliers to hold the piece until dry.  The holes will later be used for treenails and iron blunts at the butts.  Water is immediately used to brush off excess glue.
 
Because the line of these strakes is closer to the keelson at the fore and aft ends, a number of planks need to be “dropped” so the planking will finish parallel to the keelson at the limber channel.  I started dropping planks after a few of the initial strakes were installed over the full length.  The next few pictures show – very briefly – how the number and positions of the dropped planks were determined,
 

 
The process is conceptually simple but can get confusing in practice.  I will not try to describe it completely here.  As shown in the above picture, the widths of the planks are marked off on a slip of card and numbered from the end.  The number of full strakes to the keelson can then be determined and marked at each point along the hull using the marks on the card.  The distance between the marks can then be used to set the taper from two planks down to one – thus dropping a plank toward the ends.
 
The next picture shows the marks being used to set the point where the next plank will be dropped.  I normally do not drop more than one or two planks in a single strake.
 

 
The plank has already been tapered to half-width at “6”.  It will be notched at the point marked “7”, cut halfway through at that point, then tapered up to full width at the point being marked at  “8”.  The next picture shows the plank that is being marked above being filed to shape – on the unpainted side.
 

 
In the next picture this plank is being installed.
 

 
I hold the plank tight to its neighbor using the pliers as shown in the above picture.  The pin hole location is then center-marked and drilled.  The pliers are then used to push in a pin and secure the plank.
 
In the next picture the aftermost piece in this strake has been tapered to the “drop” point and is being fit into position
 

 
The last picture shows the floor after the installation of this strake.  A few more planks will need to be dropped before getting to the limber strake next to the keelson.  This method was used on the finished starboard side.
 
 

 
I usually recheck remark the drop points after each strake is installed.  I expect the divergence to be fully corrected before installing the last two strakes.
 
I hope this brief explanation has not been to confusing.
 
Ed
 
 

I've been busy on a customers RR project and am catching up a bit. I'm now ready to start putting on the jib boom rigging. As I've mentioned, I'm working stern to bow. This is giving me easy access to the areas I need to attach the stays to. Not sure why books recommend the other way like a real ship. I don't have real live 1/96 people to work for me on there.
 
I'm pretty bust on these RR projects right now, if you want to know anything about the photos let me know.
 
A can't figure out why I can't rotate the photos, I can't even find some that need it in the file!?!
 
By the way, this latest RR work has allowed mew to add a brass casting set up,[jewelery set up]. Once I get it figured out I'll be able to use it for my ship modeling. And heck, I'll make some freaky jewelery too.
 
Bruce

Popjack - like you I noticed the internal stropping of the blocks. I decided to try drilling holes for the hooks and eyes that needed to be added to blocks.  I used a #74 drill (or thereabouts) with a pinvise and CAed the hardware into the block.  I have been able to do this with all the sizes of blocks included in the kit.  I am using 24 gauge galvanized steel wire at the moment although some of my early attempts used the brass wire included with the kit.
 
After getting the hooks on the blocks and hanging them on their eye (or bail or whatever) they kept annoying me by falling off with almost no provocation from me so I decided it was time to mouse them.  My first attempts were  pretty clumpy looking but I kept at it until I liked the look.  I used Coats and Clark cotton-poly blend thread and took the strands apart to get a single filament line to use for mousing.  I think my later results look pretty good.  Here is a photo of the foremast top with several blocks moused in view.  (If you don't want me to clutter your log with photos, let me know and I'll pull this one.)
 

 
I think I had the mousing process documented in the MSW1 log, I'll have to add it to the new version if I find I haven't done it already.
 
Bob

Popjack - like you I noticed the internal stropping of the blocks. I decided to try drilling holes for the hooks and eyes that needed to be added to blocks.  I used a #74 drill (or thereabouts) with a pinvise and CAed the hardware into the block.  I have been able to do this with all the sizes of blocks included in the kit.  I am using 24 gauge galvanized steel wire at the moment although some of my early attempts used the brass wire included with the kit.
 
After getting the hooks on the blocks and hanging them on their eye (or bail or whatever) they kept annoying me by falling off with almost no provocation from me so I decided it was time to mouse them.  My first attempts were  pretty clumpy looking but I kept at it until I liked the look.  I used Coats and Clark cotton-poly blend thread and took the strands apart to get a single filament line to use for mousing.  I think my later results look pretty good.  Here is a photo of the foremast top with several blocks moused in view.  (If you don't want me to clutter your log with photos, let me know and I'll pull this one.)
 

 
I think I had the mousing process documented in the MSW1 log, I'll have to add it to the new version if I find I haven't done it already.
 
Bob

I can attest to the methods described by Alistair, as I also use brushing for large paint areas.  Especially what he said about not scrimping on brush quality -- they're one thing I have found that you DO get what you pay for.  Get good ones, treat them nice, and they'll serve you well for years.

Popjack - like you I noticed the internal stropping of the blocks. I decided to try drilling holes for the hooks and eyes that needed to be added to blocks.  I used a #74 drill (or thereabouts) with a pinvise and CAed the hardware into the block.  I have been able to do this with all the sizes of blocks included in the kit.  I am using 24 gauge galvanized steel wire at the moment although some of my early attempts used the brass wire included with the kit.
 
After getting the hooks on the blocks and hanging them on their eye (or bail or whatever) they kept annoying me by falling off with almost no provocation from me so I decided it was time to mouse them.  My first attempts were  pretty clumpy looking but I kept at it until I liked the look.  I used Coats and Clark cotton-poly blend thread and took the strands apart to get a single filament line to use for mousing.  I think my later results look pretty good.  Here is a photo of the foremast top with several blocks moused in view.  (If you don't want me to clutter your log with photos, let me know and I'll pull this one.)
 

 
I think I had the mousing process documented in the MSW1 log, I'll have to add it to the new version if I find I haven't done it already.
 
Bob

Ed,
 
I just well spent the last two days reading this entire log.  Not sure why it took me so long to come above it.  We are truly fortunate having you as a member plus giving us all your unselfish time to supply such a wonderful detailed build log.  I just want to give a big thank you and look forward to your additional updates.  This only forifies my opinion of this forum and the many others who give their time allowing to come here and share and learn from their experiences.
 
Thanks again.
 
Happy modeling,
Len 

Thanks for the kind words.
 
Maury, I had to make the door a bit longer, but now you're mentioning it, I probably better put the extension above the door. It does look a bit strange now. I fear taking the door out will damage the pantry, let me think about that.
 
Fleas Druxey? I thought I was a step ahead of you by adding the palliasses and now your starting about fleas. Boy where does this end.....
 
Work moved to the outside of the hull. The knee of the head (made 1,5 years back) is now permanently fitted as I had to add the iron plates to the bottom of the hull.
 

 
I glued them temporarily in place to draw the outlines and then used a chisel to remove the wood so it fits flush to the hull. I'll remove them to prevent any damage to the plates.
 

 

 

 
This concludes TFFM Vol 1, a bit of a milestone, this took me 4,5 years to complete and still two volumes to go......... I hope everybody is patient enough to bear with me till the end (and throwing challenges at me will make the journey longer..)
 
Remco
 
 
 
 

Update, a couple hours later with a glass of wine:
 

Hi
I'm a bit surprised by the very positive comments on my painting work on my Fly model. It is a quite easy process from my point of view so I thought I'd share my technique. Forgive me to all of you who know this already or do it better. My painting technique dates back to house painting in my student years, the principles are the same.
 
Brushes:
- Do not scrimp by buying cheap brushes. Get the best quality, sable hair, that you can afford.
- For painting a large area of your model use a square headed brush about 3 mm - 4mm wide with a tapered head and medium stiffness. Same as house painting but at a much smaller scale.
- Look after your brushes. Clean them in lacquer thinners, turpentine or water according to the paint you use. Do not let them soak in any of these solutions. After the first clean wash them in hot water and concentrated dish wishing liquid. The idea is to get rid of any paint residue in the brush and especially in its barrel. Always clean straight after you finished the area painted. Good brushes treated well will last for years.
- For clear finishes I use a larger, soft, round or oval head brush - these give a softer application and allow quicker application than a square head. I find clear finishes work best if they go on quickly. I use Testors Dullcote but that is just my choice.
 
Application
- Several or many thin coats are better than a few thick coats. If the wood behind is showing behind your first coat you are on the right track.
- Do not overload the brush with paint. I take the paint from the pot or bottle and lay it with the brush on to a piece of fresh paper. I then brush out the loaded brush on the paper until it is only lightly loaded with paint.
- Work in one direction from one end to the other of the ship - aft to stern or the other way round. Never start in the middle and then head aft followed by forward.
- Never go back to a perceived mistake behind you in a single application. The paint will have tacked and, especially with enamels, you will get pulling which will turn a minor mistake into a major mess. You can fix that perceived mistake on the next coat.
- Always allow the paint to fully dry. Enamels need at least six hours. Partly dried paint if processed will make a major mess. When you sand the paint should turn to dust. If it rolls into little slivers it isn't dry.
- After each coat lightly sand with 1200 grit paper. If this takes the paint back to wood it doesn't matter there is another coat to come.
 
Finish
- After your last coat of paint, leave it to fully dry and the rub it down with tissue paper. This will even out any brush strokes and colour differences.
- Apply a lacquer (or your favourite clear finish). I use Testors Dullcote. When dry, Testors can again be rubbed back with tissue paper to a dull sheen. I also do a second coat of clear and rub it back again. If you have any shiny spots 1200 grit plus a further tissue rub will get rid of them.
 
The above only applies to easily accessed surfaces. Strakes, fenders and other things in the way will make the rub off impossible. My theory is to get the base painting about right before those bits are added. I could be proved wrong...
 
Here is a picture of the upper works paint plus the wales paint. the upper works are a Humbrol enamel, the wale a Polly Scale acrylic. A little bit of grain shows through which suits me. This is more paint grain than wood grain. A too perfect finish would make the model too plastic looking (I'm not meaning to deride plastic models).
 
If any of you have better ideas I'd be keen to hear them - this works for me.
 
Cheers
Alistair

I have a little bit of an update today. I believe these parts are called quarter badges...correct me if I'm wrong.
The first pictures show them underway, and then installed on the ship and painted.
 

 

 

 

 

 

Anchor Hawses
 
The first topside job is to fit the anchor hawse pipes. The hawses consist of 2 pieces pf Britannia cast metal; the hawse lips, which are the portion on the outside of the hull, and the hawse pipes, which are on the main deck. Don’t get too aggressive when filing off flash from the hawse pipes – the upright pin on them should remain, it’s called the bolster or bitt.
 
The hawse lips are oblong and one end is thicker than the other. The thicker end is placed on the bottom and, although the plans don’t show it very clearly, the lips are glued on at a 45-degree angle, which matches the angle that the anchor will rest on them when it is housed. This picture shows what I mean, in addition to showing a disillusioned young man in the process of discovering that the Navy’s recruiting slogan “Navy: It’s not just a job it’s and adventure!” isn’t always true – sometimes it’s just a job. Note also the holes in the anchor flukes – I’ll be adding those to the kit anchors, not in some OCD lust for detail (that will come later) but because they will be used to tie off the anchor bouy for each anchor.


The hawse pipe locations are marked on the deck (using a copy of the deck plan and some pinpricks into the deck) and a 1/16” hole is drilled down and angled toward the hawse lips (don’t go too far).


Then the drill bit is placed in the hawse lips and drilled up toward the deck until in intersects the 1st hole drilled. A rat tail file is used to enlarge this hole to correspond with the size of the lips.

The anchors come with long stocks.

It is really hard to fit them so that they poke up thru the hawse pipe – I’m not going to do that since on a real ship they are barely visible in the hawse and I don’t want to have to attach a shackle on the end. I’ll just put the end of the anchor chain down the hawse pipe and trim off some of the anchor stock. Here are my modified anchors with the stocks trimmed and bent to fit (the stocks on real anchors of this type pivot at their base) and the holes drilled.

And the anchors dry fitted. I’ll leave them off until later because it is too easy to damage them while handling the hull. 

Thanks so much Hamilton.
 
I've now completed the framing of the forecastle deck. This is a total departure from the kit construction which calls for only the beams to be installed. I went with beams, carlings, ledges and knees. All of the parts were made from boxwood, except the lodging knees which were cut from a sheet of cherry of the appropriate thickness, which I happened to have on hand (I had no boxwood sheet of that size). 
 
Owing to the small size of the parts and the cuts needed to be made, I decided to build up the deck framing in sections off the model and then install the completed sections and connect them in place on the model. This was a method that I had tried successfully on my Triton cross-section and I am pleased with the results here, as well. I'm hoping that similar results can be obtained on the larger sections of deck framing for the quarter deck and midship areas. Wipe-on Poly was used to finish the framing.
 
Prior to installing the deck framing, I mounted the stove on its previously mounted base.
 
I still haven't decided how much deck planking will be used, although i'm sure that it will not totally cover the framing. Right now , I'm thinking of using very little planking, at least in this area. I can defer that choice until the rest of the gun deck fittings are done and the remaining upper deck framing is in place. The remainder of the gun carriages have arrived from the Lumberyard and I'm now working on the next batch of guns to be installed.
 
The last photo is a current full profile shot , since Nigel has pointed out that I haven't posted one in quite a while.
 
Bob

PROPS AND STRUTS
 
The prop blades are made up of PE brass, the hubs, collars struts and shaft bosses are cast Britannia.

The instructions call for making the props quite a ways further down the road but I’m doing them now to prevent a potential problem that I will explain in a bit. The prop parts fit together well. Twisting the blades to provide a right and left hand prop is easy enough but giving the blades the proper pitch (curl) is a little more tricky. Fortunately I have a set of four metal forming pliers that I got from Micro-Mark, one of which made this step easy.

After marking the axis’ of the shafts, checking them against the rudder post locations, and marking the locations for the struts slots are cut for each strut.

The shaft bosses (the shaft tube where it penetrates the hull) now have to be fitted so that they mate with the shafts, keep the shafts at the right angle, and most importantly – maintain their axis parallel with the axis of the struts so there are no “bends” in the shafts. By a combination of filing on the boss bases and getting them lower to the hull by removing some wood below them everything finally lines up.

When planning this section I had to stop and think “How can I possibly screw this up?” The worst scenario would be to get ready to add the props right at the end of the whole build and find they didn’t fit – that’s why I made them up now. The final check before everything is glued in place is to dry fit everything to make sure that the screws have adequate clearance longitudinally to the rudders and vertically to the hull.
 
After gluing the bosses and shafts in place strip plastic is cut to size to make up the inner shaft struts. I gave everything a preliminary coat of red so that when I get around to spraying the hull underbody I won’t have to try to reach the back sides of this stuff.


 
The props will be removed and stored in a safe place until they are added just prior to casing the model. They are very fragile and would be easy to damage during the build if left on the model.
 
Next up will be building the sonar dome.

Continuation of  #197
 
 
The blanks now filed
 
 
   
 
 
 
Now the self-made holding tool is used http://modelshipworld.com/index.php?/topic/5248-holding-tool-for-holding-small-parts/
 
 
 
   
 
 
 
   
 
 
 
 
The result looks like this
 
 
 
 
and so in wood
 
 
 

 
 
 
have fun

Tell me ....... have I already shown, how I've made the blocks ? ..................
Not ?
well then
 
 
 
At this point should be said....... exactly the same method applies to wooden blocks
 
 
 
First, as always choose the material
 
 
 
The length of the blocks and the length of disk apertures are marked on the raw material and cut out on the table saw. The bar is sawn on both sides for two-disc Blocks, so it is guaranteed that both discs openings are parallel
 
 
 
   
 
 
 
Now the parts are joined together. So that nothing can slip secured with guide pins
 
 
 
   
 
 
 
Next step is to make the axle holes. The holes are the same diameter as the discs
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Bring the pieces together with bone glue.
 
 
   
 
 
 
   
 
 
 

 
 
 
Now mounting the rotated axes / turn washers ..... if you will, that the discs are portable, leaves  the glue away at this point
 
 
 

 
 
 
will be continued