kruginmi
-
Posts
622 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Gallery
Events
Everything posted by kruginmi
-
Thanks for looking. Everyday I have tried to get something done in the workshop. Today was two items: one, the boxes for the steerage cables on their way up to the quarterdeck and two, finishing the bow wall planking. For the cable boxes, I didn't want to use just a flat glue joint so I extended one side down into the floor planking: The height of these boxes is equal to the size of the other coamings on the deck. Pretty straight forward but really cleans up the look. The second item was another major milestone - completion of the bow wall planking (and thus - all of the gundeck planking). Next up is more sanding, the stern window frames, the hinges for the stern lockers and then the bulkhead partitions. -mark
-
Today was the internal hawse hole linings. Given the size of the holes and proximity to the edge of the pieces, opted for boxwood for this detail work. First used some basswood to size things out though. This lining will project out from the other wall planking by 1/32 (1/2 the width of the 1/16 wall planking). The initial prototype built on the waterway just didn't look right and it was obvious this thick stuff needed to go down to the deck. So, after measuring out the required distance I chiseled out the waterway. Once I had the hawse hole lining roughed out I put it in place and did a light drill from the outside to place the location of the two hawse holes. Once this was done the piece was removed and (as shown in the next pic) I used a smaller drill to locate these locations to the other (finished) side. I could then drill the full size hole from both sides to avoid tear out and get a very neat and accurate hole. I then used a file to put in a shallow groove providing a smooth groove leading to the deck. Once put in place the drill showed a clean smooth hole through the whole hull I sized to fit under the first opening then rounded the edges exposed to the wall planking. This will make the planking neat and tidy. Now I can move on to the final bow planking. -mark
-
Bill, great build - keep the pictures coming! Just one thing - throw a tool or two out of place on your bench, maybe an errant piece of wood or some paper. Way too clean. Love the Connie. -mark
-
Still plugging away and actually have a lot of fun. I am now putting stuff on that will actually be easily seen in the finished product. The big additions lately are the cap rails over the mid-deck section. I used boxwood for these because of its hardness, given the potential for banging around during the construction to come. Pretty much everything else is basswood. This morning I got the chesstrees re-attached and the pass through hull sheaves on one side of the ship. Still many details to work (eg I am adding a manger, window sills) on the gun deck - my goal is to finish this section up early next week. Lots of sanding, sanding, sanding. I have partially gel coated completed sections of the hull to highlight the plank seams, this will be 100% as the assemblies are finalized. -mark
-
A hull to be truly proud of. Congratulations. You have set a high standard for the rest of the ship! -mark
-
Sailor, I tried directing the oldest one and that failed so I am just letting my 9 year old go with whatever he likes- just so long as glue is involved. John and all the likes - thanks for stopping by. I have been working on the wall planking as the next step: I have refined my theorem: Sand until you believe you are 100% - you are actually 25%. Repeat for the same time period - now you are 50%. Do two more times and you will be done. I have thought I had gone over these walls so many times smoothing them down. Well, start putting the planks and all the irregularities arise out of the smoothed walls to create a landscape looking more like the moon than a polished piece of glass. With the last pic you can see the deck addition clamps put on by the British forward of the quarterdeck. My belief is that I am currently at the 50% mark for sanding. Still room for improvement but should be there later tonight. The bow is currently untouched. -mark
-
Version 2.0. What a little sleep and doodling during some (boring) meetings can do to you. This is a cargo ship so simpler is probably better. Still some embellishments, sanding and finishing to go but this is the version I will go with. Now to start getting those walls planked. Mark
-
On to the lockers. These aren't on the plans but the rudder head required a cover and I decided to spruce things up a bit. I prototyped a first vision (nothing is glued down): I am thinking the rudder head locker should be less wide and stick a little farther into the cabin. The side lockers should have less depth and maybe a little less height. I don't think I will extend them to the bulwarks on either side. Once decided on how it will look, there will be hinges, knobs and trim added to clean up the final version. Pretty much lost to view under the quarterdeck but there will be glimpses if you look hard enough. Suggestions invited. - mark
-
The F-14 (glue splattered, fingerprinted, hacked off the stem) is a thing of beauty to my son. I am trying to pass on the merits of modeling but the first four kids (I have six) have shown little to no interest. The youngest (at four) is still a little early. He has become excellent at patience for his age. I won't go into the pull of digital games (a topic for another part of this forum). I do have a couple of basic ship kits in the wings but for now I let him pick his own subjects to keep any momentum going.... For myself, I think the stern fixtures around the rudder cap is up next for treatment - then on to the wall planking. mark
-
Luckily, this will not be masted or rigged......(even the masts shown will be eventually cut down a little more). Still sizeable, but manageable. My better half has said she likes the look of a rigged ship, but I will get only one in the house of this size. Still undecided as to which ship that will be, but I do like 1/48th scale. Being practical that scale eliminates anything over a 36 gun ship. Mark
-
A pretty big milestone in my build - the gun deck planking baseline is complete! I had hoped to finish it this weekend but had had my doubts. Finally I was able to stand back and view the deck as envisioned. Still lots of details to work on for this deck before I can move up but I take the victory today. I did put everything that had been laid aside back on to insure I still had everything as well as see that nothing had changed fit wise. Finally to add some proportionality I provide a view of myself and the ship. Tonight I move on to my 9 year old's F-14 plastic model (last hope in the family). mark
-
Thanks for all the likes (and looks), I am still pounding away at the port side. Making those irregular planks at the bow / stern sure take some thought and time. One they are attached though, the work pays off. A lesson learned is to always use basswood first. Even if I move to other woods I will always have a supply of at least 1/16th inch basswood boards for prototyping and trying things out. I do start with paper, but that wrinkles and folds and can only get you so close. Basswood is pretty easy to work with and will generate a 1:1 template for very little cost (even if the first one or two don't work out). At the other end of the ship I am still looking at a gap that I hope to fill by tomorrow night: My current plan shows this ship finishing up the middle of the year at the current pace and tasks remaining (making it around 13 years since the first cut). I even caught myself looking at some plans thinking about the next one. Must focus! Lots of things left to do. -mark
-
Finally got the starboard side all planked up (with a coat of gel coat). It became evident pretty quickly that in order to plank the outer sides (with locking planks) you need to have the plan in place for the bow and stern planking. This was my first go at this. These areas are totally covered up by the quarter deck and forecastle but I still wanted something seemed plausible with my knowledge. The result was: The gel coat enabled the seams to really pop so all this hard planking work was not lost (hah, hah). I ended up using a trim outline (around half a plank width) to frame in the open area of the deck. So there is no end grain visible. It really seemed to tidy things up and give a finished look to it. So, when I take a step back and look at the final view of the cut out deck (at least the starboard side) I am left pretty happy with my efforts. It took a little longer than anticipated - but what doesn't in this hobby? I am relying on the stern planking on the wall to clean up the join with the floor. I need to construct a rudder head box along with a seating / storage area in this section. So on to the port side and trying to produce close to a mirror result. - mark
-
If you look at the nail varnish removers, some of them will be pure Acetone. So yes, you use it by itself.
-
James, I use Acetone to clean the metal prior to blackening. This is easily procured in small quantities as nail polish remover in most stores that cater to such. In my Druid build I show a couple of pics on the process that I use - pretty straight forward. Mark
-
Thanks for the good information Gary. Constantly learning in this hobby. This evening I had some time and have diagrammed out my plan for the outside planking. I had wanted to include some locking planks for the experience in making them and also the look they provide. With the space available I am opting for two regular plank runs, one on both sides of the locking planks. The final run is the trim piece that totally encircle the open space. I am still undecided if I should work from the mid section to the outside or from the hull towards the middle, but will probably work from the outside in. Lots of sanding and fitting in my future. mark
-
I looked in a lot of my books and this subject is just not talked about (is this rigging or hull?). However, 'Sailing Man of War' by Peter Goodwin does talk about this on pages 135 - 138. He talks about the use of tensioning tackle to take up issues with cord stretching from temperature and humidity, and not affixing the line to the spool. He also talks about that around 1815 hemp tiller rope was replaced by rawhide to reduce this play. I am assuming affixing to the spool is for smaller wooden craft without recourse to the above. For my ship (again, I have an out because it was built for cargo) I will drill through the spool at the center point and pull up the two separate lines through this hole and affix. Then the lines around the drum will be pulled over this hole so it can't be seen. Since I do not have miniature people to rig this up with one line it is either this or somehow splice them together. Mark
-
Hey Gary, Being on the 'Great Lakes' I have befriended a few mariners, particularly one who has sailed his whole life - both small and large wooden craft. He has taken an interest in my hobby and likes to see what I am doing. It was in conversation with him on the steering mechanism that this was discussed. He saw the original rigging leads and through questions had me think through the issues and come up with the correct solution. He was pretty adamant that you would have quite a problem if the ropes were allowed to just slip over the drum (not be affixed), that the tension would be very difficult to remain sufficiently tight under all weather conditions. It certainly sounds plausible. Maybe some of the other mariners on this site can chime in. mark
-
One item I should mention concerns the run of the steering tackle. Without too much thought I had originally 'assumed' the lines went straight up from the tackle below the gun deck to the wheel spool. So....only tubes were needed for where the lines passed through the decks. WRONG. Below is the top view of the setup I finally arrived at: The tackle below the gun deck is at a fixed point (here denoted as the circle below the gun deck). It doesn't move. The rigging as shown travels through two decks to the spool attached to the ships wheel. This spool is not filled with this rigging. There has to be a portion that is clear both at the fore and aft end. Why? Because as the wheel turns the wrapped rigging will move either forward or aft - depending on a turn to port or starboard. So you need to understand how many full turns the wheel needs to turn the rudder in both directions (hopefully the same amount if the rudder is centered). This becomes the distance denoted as 'A' in the diagram. This measurement will be the same for the aft and forward part of the spool. Now if you zoom back out to the full diagram, the rigging will form a V with the bottom vertex at the fixed point as it moves through its total rudder allowance. It is now seen that at the deck pass through points more than just a hole in the deck is required. Looking at a simplified top view: You can see that slits are actually required to allow this full rotation (equal to defined distances 'B' and 'C'. This is larger at the top given a larger distance from the fixed point. The gun deck slit will also need to be boxed on the Druid given it is the main deck and often wet. Additionally, I had thought this rigging on original ships was one continuous line. However, I am told the wrapping on the spool is not always tight enough given the sea state and tension leading to potential slips. So, the lines were usually brought up independently and affixed to the spool at the center point to insure this does not occur. Such much information once taken for granted to relearn! mark
-
Thanks for stopping in and taking a look! On to the gun deck planking! Unlike most of the berth deck there are all sorts of items poking through the deck requiring special consideration and thought. As an example the following (and where they fit): For the target plank width I decided one fourth of the width of the coamings would be just right. I do have some liberties here since this ship was originally built in America as a cargo ship before being bought into the British navy. This decision made for some clean lines: After getting these affixed I thought the open sections needed some cleaning up to get good lines for the eye. I decided to go for a trim piece slightly less than half plank size and framed out the opening, using mitered corners at all joins. There is no end grain visible. For clean up I find a scraper (usually a straight razor blade) works best. A few swipes and everything looks clean. Now on to the deck sides. mark
-
Success breeds progress. Tonight was to climb the mountain.that I had thought about for a long time - the pumps. I had lathed out rods to represent the pumps a LONG time ago (in a galaxy / home far - far away). Ever since then I had known that I wanted to improve their look above the deck where they were most visible. That decision had churned in my brain ever since, growing larger and larger in mythical proportions of complexity. Today was the day, they had to be done. The following shows a before and after shot (hopefully you can tell the bottom pump is the before): As is usually the case, the reality wasn't that bad at all. After marking where the pumps came through the deck, that line was scribed with a knife and the rod paired down. I used a draftsman guide of six sided shapes to find the appropriate size that I wanted. Wood was cut to these dimensions and I eyeballed the necessary bevel at the edges. These were then glued together and onto the rod. I used piece of boxwood for a cap. The actual handle will be generated later. Tomorrow the gun deck planking begins. mark
-
Harvey, With the jig I can make a ladder in less than 5 minutes. As a side note I did put that guide piece on both sides of the jig to avoid tilting the treads as they glue up. I also only tacked the guide pieces at the top and bottom to keep the very slight flex to hold each tread. I am quite happy with that creation. mark
-
Making some headway, the last connection to the berth deck was the ladder. I decided a jig was necessary and I came up with below: The length of the gaps allowed some tension to be available to hold the treads while the sides are applied. I first measured the tread depth from the plan unfortunately from the stairs from the gun / main deck to the quarter deck. After putting the stairs in place it was pretty obvious this didn't leave a lot of room for sailors to make it through the coaming! Upon further investigation I found a view off to the side that showed a much skinnier tread. The jig now paid off since it was just five minutes before I had a replacement made. The result was much more viable: With the windlass plate off you can see the two sets of stairs from both decks. This will definitely work. As i complete the deck requirements from bow to stern I will very soon be laying the deck planks. Mark
-
Thanks Bugra, Believe it or not 95% of this is basswood, not boxwood. Mark
-
As I move to the gun deck (which is actually visible as the top main deck) everything added really has a big impact. As I work to get the hatch coamings affixed I got one last look at a component that I was particularly proud of. Once it was affixed most of the beauty was hidden but at least I have photographic evidence! The following is the installed view with and without the associated quarterdeck roof. To permanently affix the deck beams I needed to add the waterways. Given the flow of the hull, the waterway from the stern to close to the bow was affixed in one straight piece, slightly bent and glued into place. For the profile, the same scraper was used as the berth deck. For the bow, I used my favorite technique of using post-it notes to get the rough shape, followed by a piece of paper to refine, finally using the correct wood. When the port piece was cut out I was happy to find that by flipping it over it fit just fine in the starboard side. I love it when these things like that happen. Mark Now on actually laying planks (as soon as the stairway coaming is put in).
Our Emblem ®
