Wintergreen

Denis, I hear what you are saying...

Stylish Keith :-)

Nice looking vessel.
Count me in as a bystander :-)

Over the last couple of days I made progress on the stand. Im planning to suspend the yacht on 4 legs and the starting point is to work out the proportions of the legs. This I have done by selecting the frames where the legs will sit and then drawing the adjacent leg to scale.
The legs are made from polished stainless steel. Not a material I am very fond of working with.

Where the side arms abut the hull I wanted something more forgiving than metal so the ends are machined from nylon. A brass insert between the side arm and nylon end will can be machined to tune final fitting.

The top of the legs provide side restraint and where they bear on the hull they softened with "O" rings. The "O" ring grouves could have been machined directly into the stainless but I thought the brass end added a bit of interest.

The bottom of the legs are drilled and threaded to take the base attachment bolts.

A 1/4 inch thick stap joins each pair of legs.

The base board is next.

For someone without artistic ability... I would say that that carving is p-r-e-t-t-y d-a-n-g g-o-o-d!
I think you should reconsider your abilities Toni ;-)

Well it has been a while but finally had some time to put in a couple of hours of work on this project.
 
I would like to thank all those who have followed, commented on and liked this thread it is greatly appreciated. Also a special thanks to member robdurant who provided a great photo tour of the HMS Victory. I would encourage anyone who has not seen them to follow the link HMS Victory Photos as they provided most of the detail and ideas for this build.
 
On to tonight's progress report
 

Using a scrap piece of bass wood I started rough shaping.
 

and more hacking
 

and some sanding
 

and more shaping
 

Then some cussing. An hours work on what was shaping up to be a nice powder horn in the scrap pile. I tried to repair it but could not make it line up right so I might try again later.
 
I decided to go with the rigging in the stowed configuration shown in the photos by robdurant. I thought it was a little different from all the other examples of this kit I have seen.
 

And I think we can call this one finished. If you are wondering about the "period correct red bucket" follow the link at the beginning of this post.
 
Again thanks to all and I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.
 
 
 
 

If I said that around the house I would loose so many "points".
Maury
 

Hi Greg,
 
I am like an aging film star; no closeups, soft filters on the lens required!
 
But in a Hollywood-like expose, here to reveal all, is a closeup of the plank I just glued one, before sanding. You can see all my dark secrets.  The re-drilling of the temporary batten, the stain on the hull that has been there for 10 years and I have no idea where it came from, and most important, the seams opening up between frames in places.
 
These seams open up in the winter, with the lower humidity, and close in the summer. This is a classic problem of cross grain construction, where the wood expands and contracts much more at right angles to the grain than it does lengthwise. I measured this seasonal change at 3/16" to ¼" over the length of the hull. Good wood construction argues for avoiding this, or using slotted screw holes on wood at right angles to the grain; otherwise, the construction can tear itself apart.
 
This is obviously not possible in this project, with deck clamps, wales, spirketting, planking all glued on at right angles to the frames. But several centuries of this construction methods seems to have worked, and I hope it will work for me. The humidity shifts are not nearly as severe here in Montana as they were in Colorado, so  I see less annual movement already. And cross fingers, the planking above the wales still to come should cover up my other dark secrets...
 
Best wishes,
 
Mark
 
 

Mark, if you're going to continue doing work of this quality (which obviously you are) you must take some of that hoarded retirement income and invest in a camera with macro capabilities and post higher resolution photographs. I had no doubt you were going to solve the wale planking issue flawlessly and we all want to see your work close up to find those .001" gaps you must have somewhere. I mean, you are human aren't you?!?!

As per requested, the day was spent in the small ship yard ;-)
What did master accomplish? 
Some much needed clean up of some rubbish in the corners of the shop.
Assembled the keel, stem and stern.
Managed a decent tapering of the structure.
And also something to be not so overly proud of, though I thing it happens to all of us...
 
For the assembly I started with the fore knee and glued it to the keel. Then I faired the surface that faced the stem. My template was faired alongside this to get angles of stem and stern fairly close to spec.
The aft part then, sternpost and knee glued together. Some minor adjustments and it was glued to the keel.
Drilling for bolts were done on freehand (which can clearly be seen in pic 1) with my bulky Dremel.

Note to self: Save up for a Proxxon multitool and drilling station.
Tapering of the structure was accomplished with another annealed mat knife blade.



Sometime during the day I recognized that my floor was a mess so I wiped. In hindsight I would have benefited from looking if any of the pieces had gone astray before I wiped the floor.
Find the anomaly...

Note to self 2: Keep small parts contained in something (anything!)
Apart from that minor setback I'm fairly satisfied with the day.
Til next time, ta!

Hi again all,
another update.
The days I don't have to commute to work I save three ours of my life. Today I spent those hours at the yard :-)
Work continued with forming the pieces. First by file in my vice and then at the disc sander. Yes, it's the same lathe that doubles (or triples) as thickness sander also, except being a lathe...

Vaddoc, I now know what you mean with the glue. It took a thorough wipe with methylated spirits to get the glue off. The glue can come in handy in other applications perhaps.
When all parts were ready, the rabbet was next. I've seen from other logs how the builder has shaped a mat knife blade or similar to scrape  mouldings and stuff. The rabbet here is quite straight forward, just some different angles, that's it. 
As a first attempt the blade was squeezed in one of my clamps. If examined closely it can be seen that the rabbet takes a shortcut over the most acute bend on the stern. It was due to the clamps being too clumsy. Also, the tip of the blade broke off leaving an uneven rabbet as well.

(funny, what are my shoes doing in that picture...)
Option two. Two mount plates held together with wing nuts. Fairly easy I'd say. To fix the blade the torch came out to anneal it. After sharpening to an angle of ca 30 degrees the torch came to work again. This time the blade was quenched in water to be hardened again.
It is a bit fiddly to set the cut up, but then it is just to scrape away.
Now I appreciated my two sets of boat pieces because I fiddled a bit too much with the blade on the first set and had to go over the rabbets a second time.
With the other set I will be meticulous in setting the blade and then do all the rabbets at once.

For the weekend I might take a trip to my real boat or I might choose to stay at home in the yard. What do you reckon?

Tanks, Amalio
last photos of the outside, before moving on to internal work:

I am making steady progress on the wales. My old clamps are proving quite serviceable for this; I have started to run them through gunports as I get further astern and they no longer reach from below. The last photo shows why Gary's idea of a batten is such a good one. There are numerous little pieces around the pierced gunports, and I can see they will easily go astray without a constant guide from stem to stern including going over the gunports.
 
Mark

As per requested, the day was spent in the small ship yard ;-)
What did master accomplish? 
Some much needed clean up of some rubbish in the corners of the shop.
Assembled the keel, stem and stern.
Managed a decent tapering of the structure.
And also something to be not so overly proud of, though I thing it happens to all of us...
 
For the assembly I started with the fore knee and glued it to the keel. Then I faired the surface that faced the stem. My template was faired alongside this to get angles of stem and stern fairly close to spec.
The aft part then, sternpost and knee glued together. Some minor adjustments and it was glued to the keel.
Drilling for bolts were done on freehand (which can clearly be seen in pic 1) with my bulky Dremel.

Note to self: Save up for a Proxxon multitool and drilling station.
Tapering of the structure was accomplished with another annealed mat knife blade.



Sometime during the day I recognized that my floor was a mess so I wiped. In hindsight I would have benefited from looking if any of the pieces had gone astray before I wiped the floor.
Find the anomaly...

Note to self 2: Keep small parts contained in something (anything!)
Apart from that minor setback I'm fairly satisfied with the day.
Til next time, ta!

Nice looking vessel.
Count me in as a bystander :-)

For someone without artistic ability... I would say that that carving is p-r-e-t-t-y d-a-n-g g-o-o-d!
I think you should reconsider your abilities Toni ;-)

Thanks everyone for the kind comments and likes.  As I said in my last post, the carvings are going to take a lot of time.  I have absolutely no artistic ability, making carvings anything other than leaves and flowers a tremendous challenge.  Here are the stern carvings after an additional 20 hours of work.  I am getting close to the point where I am afraid of damaging the carving if I fiddle with it too much more.  The center carving represents Aphrodite grasping an apple tree and she is flanked by Hippomenes and Atalanta, each holding apples.  The outer carvings, which look like fancy beer steins to me, are supposed to be Greek temples.  For those not up on their Greek mythology, Atalanta was a virgin-warrior, daughter of Jason (as in Jason and the argonauts) who could outrun all the boys in town.  Her father was forcing her to marry so she came up with a plan she thought would keep her safe.  If anyone could beat her in a foot race she would agree to marry him.  If they lost, they also lost their head!  Hippomenes approached Aphrodite who gave him golden apples to throw on the ground to distract Atalanta.  As she bent to pick them up he outran her and won the race.  It gets better...  Hippomenes forgot to thank Aphrodite.  On the way to their ship,  Atalanta and Hippomenes suddenly became amorous (thanks to a spell from Aphrodite) and had sex in Zeus's temple.  He became furious and turned them into lions.  In this era it was thought that lions could not mate with each other so Hippomenes and Atalanta could never mate again.  
 

Well, I finally have some slight progress to report the last couple of days. What with the holidays and then the bitterly cold weather we have had the last couple of weeks, it has been difficult to get any shop time. Here, I have the large rub rail on the port side and the chain plates installed. In the next couple of days I will get the starboard chain plates installed and then I can do some painting.  
 
Russ

The starboard planking is complete below the bulwarks. Some sanding has been done, but there will probably be a bit more here and there. Three more planks on the port side and I will be ready to plank the bulwarks.
 
Russ

That is a very sharp looking launch. Well done!

As all your work, stunning.
 
But, rinsed under running water... then you are very sure the yard wont bend when in water. Straight grained should not be a problem though, but there could be surprises. I guess one should consider which wood, and how it was milled before opting to soak tiny long structures in water. 
 
Oh, and btw, Santa brought your first Naiad vol. A very nice piece I must say!

Pat, thank you and yes she is a rich mans toy.
 
Hakan, Thank you.
 
John, Thanks. a wee dram sounds like a good idea.
 
The time came to introduce the launch to it mother. I made it cradle from mahogany strip, shaped using the templates for the frames. The holes for the lashings were reinforced with brass rivets (visible in the photos). The cradles are each held down using 4 spectacle repair screws. I made a card template to align the cradles and get them in the correct position.
When the launch is on the cradles it fills the available space and must restrict deck operations to a significant degree. 


Altair actually has 2 other boats, both smaller than the launch. Photographs of Altair frequently show no boats on deck and when they are carried the smaller boats seem to be favoured. In the photograph immediately above I have removed the aft davit to ease access.
 
I lashed the launch in place using a length of twine. Several photographs show the launch lashed in place. Mother is very pleased to have baby on board.

 I'm going to try and make some progress on the stand this week - before a diversion into refurbishing my daughters bathroom - yuk!!!

I will lay my vote for the Chewbacca.. sorry the Chebacco. 
Mostly because, as some stated, there are numerous kits of those with cannons.
Then I'm not overly fond of the Dutch lines, they don't appeal to me (Note, very personal opinon!)
Therefore the other work boat. Nice lines, fair amount of detail, manageable size.
 
But that's only my to cents.

As all your work, stunning.
 
But, rinsed under running water... then you are very sure the yard wont bend when in water. Straight grained should not be a problem though, but there could be surprises. I guess one should consider which wood, and how it was milled before opting to soak tiny long structures in water. 
 
Oh, and btw, Santa brought your first Naiad vol. A very nice piece I must say!

That is a very sharp looking launch. Well done!