keelhauled

Just beautiful work!  Love the figure head and the windlass.  Just great work!

Wow! What Beautiful work.  Gun port cuts are amazing.

Thanks for sharing your build with us!  I'm really enjoying it.

Marc

Brian, 

Thanks for the kind words.  You should go for the wheel!  This is my first wooden ship model and any model since I was a teen.  You just have to go for it.  But I know what you mean about mean about adding new things and never finishing.  I've rebuilt from scratch stuff that I've already completed from the kit.  But if I didn't go back and change some stuff, I'd probably regret it.  I try to limit what I do, but where do you draw the line?

Nenad, 

I thought we were skipping down the devil's road together, with Bob of course!

Grant, 

Thanks for the feedback!  I really appreciate it.  By the way I'm really enjoying your new build.  It looks fantastic.

Marc

Thank George,  It really means a lot to me. It took me three weekends to make.  Partly becuse I kept having to make replacement parts because I would either break them or drop and loose them.  Don't know what was wrong with my butter fingers!

Marc

Now I had to make the rim.  I tried making it as you would a real wheel.  However, I found that I didn't have a way of accurately making the angles..  So I made the rim out of two parts.  I made two hoops, one from  walnut plywood and one from thin walnut sheet.  I placed the spoke and hub assembly on the plywood hoop (from the back) and marked the position of the spokes.  I then used a rotary tool to remove wood until the spokes where embedded into the rim.  

I glued the spoke assembly into place and then glued the wood hoop onto the back.

The wheel parts

Here is the completed wheel

Here is the my wheel with a new steering box

Here is the kit supplied wheel next to my scratch build wheel with is actually at the correct scale.

So I sectioned off the hub into eight with a pencil and by sight.  I drilled 8 holes and the hub feel apart.  Oh well, such is life.  I went back to square one for the hub, turned another hub and this time only drilled 4 holes 90 degrees apart.

I then glued 4 spokes into place and let it dry overnight.

I then drilled the other 4 holes and glued spokes into the holes.

Well I finished my new ships wheel.

A few posts back I talked about turning the spokes on my rotary tool.  After turning the spokes, I turned the hub on the rotary tool drill press using it as a lathe.

My next step was to drill the holes in the hub for the spokes to seat into. I  found that I couldn't put the tapered portion (the axle?) of the hub into the drill press, it was too small.  So I made a holder for the hub, by taking a dowel, drilling a hole in the center smaller than the hub axle, then increased the diameter with a file, until the axle fit into the dowel was tight, but not in danger of breaking the axle when inserting or removing the hub.

I made the copper cover for the the wheel making it out of wood and creating a peg so that it is easy to align and glue into the hub.

Nenad,

Your skills are great and getting better every day as is your ship model!  Thank you for sharing your approach, thoughts and experiences with us!

Take care of your health.  Without it you have nothing.

Marc

Hi Jim,

If you are planning on putting recessed water ways or especially jogging it will make the work much much easier.  With jogging you have the ability to place the end planks in place at the bow or stern, jog the deck planking and lay over the margin plank (end planks that are at an angle to the run of the deck planks), trace in pencil  the edge of the jogged deck planks  on the the margin plank and then remove the margin plank, cut out the overlap at the pencil line and have a perfect fit.   Then you can put the jogged planks in place as well as the margin plank and then trim the outside edge of the margin plank to the shape of the waterway or deck. Look up jogging the deck planking and you'll see what I'm trying to explain.

this is jogging the planks into a margin plank

If you have the bulwarks in place, It makes the whole process very tedious and you will have a much harder time trying to get the fit right.  Also if you cut out a space for one plank to large in the margin plank it is ruined. I ruined several margin planks and ended up using each subsequent one as a pattern for the jogged planks that were good, but the time wasted was huge.  If you won't be jogging planks then it doesn't really matter that much.  Jogged planks are a nice detail though.

Hope it helped

Marc

Hi Jim

First, If I were to do it again, I'd plank the deck first and dry fit sections of recessed waterways before planking the bulwarks

As to planking the bulkhead extensions for the bulwarks - I actually wrapped the tape around the extension. The tape needs to go all the way to the deck line.  The trick is to prevent the extensions from becoming glued to the planking.  If the extension becomes glued to the planking I'm not sure you could ever separate them.  I used artist tape.  It comes off easily, but most importantly, wood glue doesn't stick to it well.

Put tape on the outside of the bulkhead extensions for the bulwarks.  plank the bulwarks using nails.  Be very, very, careful nailing the extensions, they break easily.  I placed glue into the seams between the planking and wiped it clean.  After drying for a few days remove the nails.   The planks are strong enough that after they dry from steaming they will hold their shape.  The nails just hold them in place while they are drying.  With the glue in the seams, the are very solid.

Use the artist tape and run it along the waterways and planking near the bulwarks to protect the deck.  Thus why I use artist tape because it won't pull on the wood deck planking,( However, you need to test this to make sure that your tape won't harm the deck!!)

Use a rotary tool with a cut off disk or more preferably a small Japanese dowel saw, cut the extensions.  I guess you could use a shap chisel to cut through the extensions like the instructions say.  However, you do it, be careful not to cut through to the hull bulwark planks.  My extensions didn't stick at all to the bulwark  planking because of the artist tape.

Good luck!

Marc

Beautiful work.  Looking great.

Hope some of these photos might help

Marc

These are from below the rail.  They show the belaying pins and deadeye stays

Nenad,

Any detail I can help out with or maybe have a photo you need?  Like you I have quite a few photos saved.

Also, very nice work on the rails!  I ran into the same problem about support and used the same solution. I applied a great deal of force and no movement.  Your rail should be just as secure.  I really like the eye bolt plates.  Also very nice drilling work for the pins and deadeyes!

Marc

stunning!

Very nice work!  rails are looking great!

Nenad,

I was surprised at the quality of your Campbell plans.  My 25 year plans are really sharp.  My 10 year old plans are not as sharp but still not bad.

I'll be happy to check any text that you have questions about.

The text reads: " 2 eyeplates  for Main and Upper Topsail Brace Blocks"

Looking good!

OK.... So this shipyard sign thing might take a little (a LOT) longer than I originally planned....

 

DSCN0733.JPG

 

Why must I make everything so darned difficult?

Because everything related to ship modeling is more complicated and difficult than we estimate and takes 2 to 3 times longer than what we expect....If we're successful the first time!  If not, all  bets are off!  It's the fun part of the hobby!

Figured it might just be the photo, but I wanted to make sure before you went too far.  The scale is tricky.  2 pins between the deadeyes is pretty tight!  Still working that out myself.  I think that i might decrease the size of the pins, but worried that they might be too small in scale.  The problem is that I plan on rigging sails, so I'll need to use those pins.

Nenad,

Looks good, but aren't the belaying pins supposed to be in line or slightly in front (in board) of the deadeyes?

I think that if you have the pins as positioned in your photo, you won't be able to belay lines to them very easily.

Could be just the photo

marc

Nenad,  

You always know how to make me feel good!

Bob,

I don't have any support for the other end.  It probably would have made it easier.  

I think that the wood was birch.  I tried walnut, but was having issues.  Probably the lack of skill and knowledge on my part.

The diameter of the actual spoke is 3/32 inch for the the thickest part and about 3/64 inch for the thinner part and about 1/2 inch long.  The dowel itself was 1/8 inch. 1/16 would have saved quite a bit of reduction in wood and saved time, but the 1/8 was all I had.

The speed was at a setting of 3 out of 6.  Not sure of the RPM.

I think that the biggest issue was not having a hand or tool rest to help steady my chisel (sharpened precision screw driver).

These took a good part of Saturday and Sunday afternoon.  Mainly because I kept stopping to check with calipers.  

I was hoping to get some more work on it Monday and Tuesday, but had a headache.  I didn't want to mess with these small parts when I'm having trouble concentrating.  You know one second of lack of concentration and an hour of work destroyed.

thanks

Marc

.

Bob, what's a ship without sails? a raft? you have to have sails....so says my admiral , if I want it displayed in the living room 

So I'm working on the ship's wheel. Trying to see if I can do better than what was supplied.

Here's the high tech micro lathe that I'm using on this project

... yes it's a rotary tool drill press laying on its side

Here are the spokes. I turned them free hand.  They are laying with the handles to the right. Next it to finish off the handles and cut off the bottoms.

 then figure out how to do the rim and drum.

Great bonding opportunity.  Treasure it.

Campbell's plans are available at the Cutty Sark museum gift shop

http://shop.rmg.co.uk/cutty-sark/books/cutty-sark-plans/product/cutty-sark-general-arrangement-plan.html

Longridge's book (two volumes also available as one book with both volumes)  is a great resource as well.  Just be aware that Longridge documented the ship as she was early 1900's.

Marc

Wow!  that is a great looking sail.  I think that the shape of the sail looks great!  I'm really looking forward to the step-by-step process!

sorry to hear about your hull.  We've all done similar things.  I've swung my ship around on the turn table and slammed the figure head's arm into my cement wall.  Unfortunately more than once.  I just broke chains and boomkins last week.  Just finished remaking them.  In fact, the more you scratch build items, the more confident you become that there isn't anything on the ship you can't make or make better the second time around.  It's very liberating!

Marc

I started building the swift, which is like your kit.  I used the same set up as captain Bob suggested. I used this same clamp.

 I also used the stiffening blocks.  I then planked on strip at a time alternating from one side to the next.  No issues with warp.  The keel is straight as an arrow.  

Here's filler blocks taken to the extreme.  It was a technique that professional Bob Evans used to use.  I used it on my Cutty Sark