egkb

Nice delicate work there Shawn !
 
Eamonn
 
Happy New Year BTW

"Drilling and filling" took less time than I thought that it would and, so, the treenailing  of the deck is done. I chose to fill with the lighter Golden Oak filler for the holly deck, rather than the Walnut that I used on the boxwood hull planking. After sanding, I finished the deck with Wipe-on Poly to seal and protect.
 
With the deck done, I have multiple choices as to what to do next. While the temptation is high to do some fun stuff, probably, in keeping with long standing habits, I'll drill all of the holes for the inner bulwark eyebolts, ringbolts and cleats.
 
Bob
 
 

Finally got through to JoTiKa today and should hopefully have a new 2mm walnut sprue on it's way over to me tomorrow.

Not a heck of a lot done tonight, just the mast, boom and jib clubs painted and blocks added. I can't sleep so I'm going to tackle making the main and jib sails yet before bed. Hopefully I get the rigging finished tomorrow sometime.
 

 

 

 

Can you believe it? It was a week ago that I was going to cut out the spiled planks for the Port side hull. I wish real life would get out of the way of my modeling. Well as mentioned above. I had had my fill of mistakes so I was going to use heavy paper instead of wood until I was satisfied. Well obviously I had plenty of time to think about it while going out to dinner with friends and entertaining house guests. (don't tell them what I was really thinking about). anyway I decided that since the lines came out so nice on the paper. I would just this as a guide and cut both paper & wood at the same time. I carefully clamped everything down along with a metal ruler and French curve. I put a new #11 in the knife, and off I went. Here are the first 2 planks. I am pretty happy.
 
Now time to cut the remaining 6 planks and get them on the hull. Hopefully today!

Next step was to furl the sail as much as possible off the build before attaching the gaff to the main mast:
 

 
 
I was able to completely furl the head area along the gaff up to the throat of the gaff.  You'll see I used three gasket type lines to hold the furl here, to somewhat represent the brail lines.  Not sure if this would be accurate as I think the brail lines actually ran through brail blocks at the gaff, and then were belayed down to the deck.  But, this would have been overly complicated at this scale, not to mention that multiple pins and cleats would have to be added.  So, I went with these three gasket type lines.  Ultimately, I went with two along the gaff, and moved the remaining line to the throat area of the sail (and not at the throat of the gaff itself).
 
I was also able to get the luff edge furled pretty well at this stage as well.  My plan of not angling the foot worked out pretty well, as you can see that the bulk is greatly reduced at the tack, with most of the bulk at the throat.  In case you're wondering, I'm using napkins under the red clothespins because I've found that the color on these colored clothespins can rub off on the sail cloth
 
From there, it was a matter of installing the gaff and lacing it to the mast.  As noted above, the lacing for the mast is a bit different than the lacing to the gaff - I think zu Mondfeld has 10 different approaches in his book.  From my research, part of the reason for the different lacing was so that the sail could slide more easily up and down the mast.  I used the mast lacing pattern as in this diagram:
 

 
 
Next I furled the rest of the sail, and added two more brail lines against the mast.  I also added a block and tackle arrangement at the deck as you can see in the third picture below.  I'm also planning on adding the outhauler line, which would run from the tack clew, through a sheeve at the end of the boom, and belayed at a deck cleat at the base of the main mast.  The kit plans have two pairs of deck cleats to be installed at the base of the main mast, with only one pair used, so all I needed to do was add an extra pair of eyebolts to the deck.
 

 
 

 

 
 
They still need some work to try and get in some folds, etc., but overall it came out somewhat ok I think.  I'd also note that in addition to real drivers having brail lines and blocks, there are a number of other inhauler/outhauler lines at the peak, as well as lines at the end of the boom.  For my build, I thought they would add too much complication given the kit's pin and cleat configuration, and I had already installed them per the kit plans before deciding on the furled sails.
 
So that's how I added a furled driver.  There are probably better ways of doing this, but hopefully this helps give people a jump start on how to approach them - I had searched all over the internet for methods on how to install a furled driver, but couldn't find any so hopefully this helps a bit.  
 
Thanks for reading!

My approach
 
Like the other sails, I started by drawing a general outline of the driver sail, tracing the plans for the gaff, main mast and boom, and then just drawing a line for the leech end of the sail.  The next step was to draw the pattern for the reduced sail. Here, there were three considerations:  (1) how to reduce it enough that I could get a tightly furled sail; (2) how to design the pattern so that the furled sail bulk would be thinner at the peak and tack, and thicker in the area in between; and (3) mechanically, how would I proceed with the furl given that the furl takes multiple directions along the brail lines. 
 
Here is what I came up with:
 

 
The total bulk of the sail is reduced to about 40% of the full sail size.  The depth along the head and along the luff is about the depth of what I used for the furled fore and main course sails.  
 
The shape is a bit odd in that at the head area, the leech end is angled inward, while at the foot, it runs parallel to the boom (on actual mizzen sails, I believe the foot of the sail was curved).  This was because of the way I planned to furl the sail.  First, I furled the sail up to the gaff, similarly to how I furled the square sails.  So, the leech end, like the sides of the square sails, was angled inwards to reduce bulk at the peak.  Second, I furled the sail at the throat area and the luff side.  The foot is parallel to the boom and not angled as the head was because I realized that as I furled the gaff area, the outer edge of the foot would be pulled upwards, essentially angling the leech end near the foot upwards.  So, there was no need to cut the pattern to an angle like I did with the head (otherwise, I would have almost no sail to work with at the tack).  Hope that all makes sense.
 
The other thing to note is that I added a mock clew at the edge of the sail.  Given the shape of the overall driver sail, I thought the clew on the actual sail would end up midway along the luff, rather than at the throat.  I also wanted to add an outhauler line that was attached to the clew.  I modeled this off the MS Brig Niagara instructions, where the clew is brailed up the middle of the luff.
 
With the pattern cut, I prepped the sail to attach it to the gaff.  I added lacing holes along the head (5mm apart) to run the lacing to the gaff.  I also added cringles along luff area (10mm apart) so that I could subsequently attach it to the mast.  I also added clew and tack cringles at those areas.  
 

 
 
From my research, it seemed that these sails were bent to the gaff with simple lacing that ended at the throat of the gaff.  I went with 5mm apart for the holes, which was what I used on the square sails.  The sails are bent to the mast using a different lacing pattern (shown in the next post) using cringles, which I represented by running a line of thread along the edge using fabric glue, and pulling it up every 10mm to create the cringle.  Given that the sail will be furled, these will not be visible later on.  They did serve as a good guide for the mast lacing however, which I couldn't accomplish using holes drilled into the sail itself.

Furled Driver Sail
 
Here is what I did for the driver sail.  I've seen these types of sails under a variety of names, including mizzen sails, gaff sails, driver sails and spanker sails.  I think mizzen and gaff sails refer to the overall category of these types of sails.  From what I can tell, "driver" and "spanker" are particular types of sails where the driver is associated with a boom, whereas a spanker is set free without a boom.  The Badger has a boom, so this sail is a driver.  Before I get too far, it might be worth attaching a diagram of a gaff sail's parts:
 

 
 
In some ways the driver was easier than the other sails, but in others, it was more complicated.  Unlike the other sails where the sail is bent to the yard on only one edge of the sail (the head for the square sails, and the luff for the fore sails), the driver is attached on both the head and the luff.  So rather than furling the sails in one general direction, furling the driver takes on multiple directions.  On real sails, this was accomplished using brail lines that start along the leech side, and run up to the head and luff ends.  A bit hard to explain, but this picture might help.
 

 
 
From my research, it seemed like gaff sails had around 5 brail lines, with 2-3 on the head and another 2-3 on the luff.  The diagrams I've seen, however, on how/where the clew was furled differed from resource to resource.  Some diagrams show a brail at the clew.  Others show the bottom most clew on the leech as being about 2/3 of the way down the leech (and not at the clew).  Then there is the matter of where the clew ends up.  Some diagrams had the clue ending up at the throat, others, midway along the luff.  
 
So, a lot of things to consider.  The next post will outline my approach.

Sorry to have not posted pics in a while.  I've been busy in the shipyard though, and have made some good progress.  
 
The bow and fore masts are just about completely rigged - just need to belay the lines from the staysail and jib sail, and add the braces.  I'm taking an alternative path to what the instructions  would have you do.  Instead of going spar to spar, then line to line (like all buntlines followed by all lifts), I've been pre-rigging all the lines to the spars (aside from the braces) then attaching them.  It gets to be a mess of lines, so you have to be a bit careful, but it seems to me to be easier to belay them and align the spars in the right orientation if all the lines are pre-added.  It also helps because the furled sails are attached to the yards, which make running the lines a bit trickier.
 
Another deviation I had from the plans was to not install the backstays before the running rigging.  I can see the merit of installing them before the running rigging to help keep the masts from moving forward as more rigging is installed, but I think it would be pretty difficult to belay the lines with the backstays in place - it seems to me to make more sense to work from inside the ship to outside so that you can get at the inner belaying points.  So, I'm going to leave them for the end, or maybe just before I add the braces.  My thinking on the braces is that they can be used for final adjustments to the spars to get them in the proper orientation (I think my fore topsail yard needs a bit of tweaking, while the other two are in pretty good shape).
 
I also installed the driver gaff now, rather than at the end.  I figured that it would be easier to add the furled driver sail now, before the main mast yards are in place.  I'm going to wait on the driver boom for now, as I am adding an ensign and want to belay the ensign halliards before the boom is in place so that I have a little more room to maneuver.  I'll post my method for adding the furled driver in my next post.  
 
Here are some pictures of where I am at the moment.  The finish line is near  Thanks for reading!
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Coppering has now been fully replaced and the hull looks so much better now. The new plates don't actually stand out that much from the old plates so I will let them be and see how they look in a couple of weeks.
 
Now working on re-rigging the shrouds. I had two chainplates snap on the starboard main channel, and all five went on the port channel that was torn off the hull. The easiest way to replace these has been to use 0.75mm black thread in place of the deadeye strop, and tie a double knot to the deadeye to simulate the strop.The loose ends are then fed through the channel and tied to the chain plates. I have had to replace these as well as they were bent out of shape.
 
Used a little jig to create new chains from 0.5mm brass wire by looping several turns round two nails and then clipping down the side of one length.

Thanks Guys, a happy new year to all of you to.
 
Wont be long now before i am back in the build, have been workng a lot with the CNC mil lately.
 
Børge

Cheers Mort! Happy new year to you.
 
That image above does show the crack in the stem piece. Possibly more obvious as it is full of filler.
 
Once the coppering is finished it will be gone....!

Main deck is now attached to the hull - so in reality, in two months i have built 7 pieces, but a lot of the superstructure is built up, and i detail it as i go along
 
Next i have to add all the port hole PE and steeps, then prime the hull and main deck, i know the decking goes over it but a lot shows through, so will save doing it later

lol -  the stand may be the wrong way around 

the kit does not contain a stand so i have made one
 
i used 2 curtain pole end caps
two bolts with nuts 
two part expoxy
 
this is temp as i dont know how she will be displayed at the end of the build
 
the nuts are fixed inside of the hull and screwed from the outside
 

Happy new year everyone
 
the seawater inlets and outlets are grilled, the photos dont look that good due to over spay from painting inside the hull black, then to complete the illusion of depth, i put some tanks on inside, at least you cannot see daylight from the other side now
 

Now that my lobster smack has been finished, I'm getting back to work on this build. Right now I'm working on the mast and boom, I'll post more as I get something done.

Having never seen this boat built before I was wondering why they didn't just continue the 'flat' bottom pieces right up to the bow? if you follow me.
I too like these smaller boats, there is something 'comforting' or 'personal' about them that seems absent on the large ships (to me anyhoo )
 
Eamonn
 
BTW best of luck with the carving/sanding of the bow block piece.
E

I am now in the South of France for some weeks (looking for a better weather??) and so, there is no more progress on my Aggie.
I wish to all friends a very happy (shipbuilding, as Christian said) New Year!
Best regards
Pierre (coming back soon)

Channel has been re-pinned and glued back in place.
 
I am now replacing the copper tiles along the keel bottom and at the stem. Port side is almost complete.
 
Time to sign off for the new year. See you all in 2014!

Hi all, no modelling for a bit..  As some of you may know the profile picture I have is of the mermaid in the Endeavour River, Cooktown.. Far northern Australia.
 
Well that is where i have been since xmas, staying with friends not far from the river....  Great to get away..  I got a chance to bring a little history home with some metal detecting finds, my oldest coin 1862 British Ha'penny... . 
 
I also got to check out the Captain Cook museum and got to see the real anchor and cannon from the Endeavour.. And a piece of the tree he supposedly tied to...   Lots of great old shipping and mining objects...  It all got my imagination juiced up and keen to get back to the model..   Thought I might share some of my adventure with you..   Ollie

Bit more progress last night. I have airbrushed black any areas that are likely to be visible through the deck. I need to have another look at the Haddock plans though to confirm as they are different to Caldercrafts Ballahoo layout.
 
Added mast supports from a little scrap wood and used balsa to make fillers at the bow and stern to aid planking.
 
Finally, the stern has been built adding the supports and pieces of the transom.
 
Next step is to soak and shape the bulwarks to shape and add the false deck.
 
Coming together nice and easily so far......

A very happy and healthy New Year to all. 
 
Somehow, I did manage to find enough "sneak away" time from my houseful of visiting family to complete the deck planking. The limited nibbing at the bow was pretty easily done using small chisels. It is amazing to me that I had never used chisels until I did the Triton cross section, but now I can't imagine working without them. The diminishing planks moving toward the stern were done with scarphed planks, although I'm not really certain whether that is correct. 
 
As a final step, I added a waterway from boxwood strip. While not prototypically accurate construction, I believe that at this scale it provides the correct appearance.
 
Next up is the treenailing of the deck, which I have just begun. A lot of holes to drill and fill.
 
Bob

i was aware that the Grill were not included - but the suggestions quoted in another site that i follow - they have stopped selling it

 
, i have some netting (tule) that i am unable to use for the Victory build, and will most likely use this over the mesh already in place, might give it some sort of depth/ - even though the people that will see it when it is collecting dust on the shelf will say " why did you drill holes in the side - wont that make it sink"

John,
Thanks to  a few days off work and some lousy weather, I was able to get in some  quality model building time!    
 
Cheers,
Tim