Elia

Hello my friends, Edwin, I thank you for visiting my build log, for your nice comments and also for your likes. I am very glad that  I helped you . If you have any questions about painting procedures let me know.
Elia I thank you too for your nice comments, for visiting my build log and also for your likes.
Mike thank you for visiting my build log and also for your likes.
I did some additional work...
 
Cheers
Dimitris

I use an Optivisor for all of my modeling.  If it looks good at a magnified view, it will even look better with the naked eye.  I have an aftermarket LED attachment for the Optivisor.  The good points are the intensity of the light and the natural color of the light.  The bad points are that it eliminates shadows, making depth perception difficult at times.  Also the battery pack attaches to one side of the headband so unless you add a counterweight to the other side (rendering the headband extremely heavy) you have to tighten the headband a lot to keep it from listing to starboard.

I have used a similar type - Optivisor.  The one  had been using for years just wasn't cutting it any more and at a trade show I tried their glass lenses  - this made a bid difference.  Check the Optivisor brand with the glass lenses.  They are a bit pricier but they are so much better - 8 hours w/o eyestrain.  The Optivisor plus good bright light makes a world of difference.  A big help for aging eyes.
Kurt

Dimitris,
 
That is an excellent paint job. The glass/resin layed a smooth foundation and you took great advantage it. It looks very smooth, consistent, and clean. Very nice!
 
Cheers,
 
Elia

I finished up the mizzen mast and temp mounted it. I also weathered it too.

Well, all the hull planks are finally on! While I enjoy planking, I'm really glad that this part of the build is completed and I can get on with other stuff - like drilling lots of holes and then filling them in again - otherwise known as treenailing!
 
Here are some photos of what she looks like at the moment.
 
John
 
One Plank to go!


 
No Planks to go!!


 
And a close up of the partly cleaned up stern just to see what it might look like later.

Patrick,
 
Amazing and such detailed work. So engaging to study! Keep up the great progress - I thoroughly enjoy each update.
 
Cheers,
 
Elia

Ed,
 
Beautiful.
 
Elia

Hi everyone
 
Hope your week's been going well.  Rainbow's progress continues...my main objective though, has been to concentrate on the major bulkheads and cupboard, etc.  Once I'm happy that these are in place, then I'll start on the other details, such as the doors, mattresses, sink, galley, etc.
 
I hope you enjoy these photos.
 
Cheers
 
Patrick

Bee-ootiful, Ed!
 
Your comments on 19th century paint are interesting. I agree that oil based paints dry to a glossy finish, but the addition of turpentine as drying agent will tend to flatten the finish somewhat. Without drying agents in the paint, the film would take weeks if not months to polymerize, i.e. 'dry'. I imagine that the shipyard would have used some turpentine in their paint mix.

This is an awesome project - in every sense of the word!
 
I actually attended Webb Institute for my NavArch degree - so this post is very interesting to me, given that it is a unique insight into the design and construction of one of Webb's ships.
 
I would highly recommend contacting the school regarding your project (if you haven't done so already.) Even if it is a little late for trying to compile any research on the ship that they may be in a unique position to offer, they would at a minimum be interested (and likely inspired!) by your dedication to re-constructing the ship in miniature ('building a model' does not seem to carry enough weight!) and would love to see it! If you like, I can fish out the contact for the person that kind of heads up the volunteer group that focuses on the history of Webb and his projects. 
 
There was a model of Young America at the school (of course) but it didn't stand out as anything other than a model of the ship. Had something of your caliber been there, it would have engaged me for hours inspecting the details of the construction! I'm not at all suggesting yours should be there; just contrasting the caliber and attention to detail of the only other model of YA I am personally familiar with.
 
This is a great project I am really looking forward to following your progress, even if I am showing up to the project a little late.
 
Regards - Ben

Young America - extreme clipper 1853
Part 109 – Pin rails/Hawse holes/paint
 
Since the last post, the four long pin rails were made and installed.  The first picture shows one being pinned in position.
 

 
These fit up under the main rail and are glued and bolted to the toptimbers.  Paint was filed off these first.  The rails are cherry.  Most of the main deck natural wood structures will be of this species - slightly darker than pear.  The pin hole drilling was aided by the right angle drill in the picture.  The wood blocks help keep the rail up until the pins are in.  In the next picture the rail is ready for glue.
 

 
Before the hull could be painted, scuppers and hawse holes needed to be fitted.  In the next picture the hole for the smaller of the two hawse openings is being drilled out.
 

 
These openings are parallel to the keel on the lines from the chain tube openings on the main deck.  They slant down to emerge at the correct position on the outside.  Small pilot holes were drilled then enlarged to fit metal tubes.  The tubes are shown in the next picture.
  

 
After fitting, they were epoxied in, sanded off flush and rounded off.  They will eventually get painted red.
 
All of this was in preparation for painting the hull below the planksheer.  This consumed most of the time since the last post – reminding me why I prefer not to paint models.  My father used to say painting covers a multitude of sins – until it dries.  He was right as usual.  This is especially true with gloss finishes.  The next picture shows the finished starboard side.
 

 
The paint is fluid artist’s acrylic, thinned and applied in several coats over acrylic sanding sealer, then rubbed out when dry between coats.   Why gloss?  I may be wrong, but I do not think flatting agents for paints were invented until the 20th century.  I am sure in 1853 the paints were linseed oil and lampblack – or white lead for the white. Definitely gloss but probably not this smooth.   In any event, the hulls of these clippers were usually finished as smooth as practical given their size.
 
The last picture shows the view from the stern.
 

 
The planked area below the black on this side will be metal sheathed – once I get comfortable with the paint finish.  The planking on the port side extends only a few strakes below the channels – no sheathing required.
 
 
Ed

Hello shipmates , Lawrence-Xristos and Mikegerber , Thank you for visiting my build log and also for your likes. :)
A small update...

Hello shipmates! Elia thank you for visiting my build log and also for your likes. Mike thank you for your kind and encouragement words and also for your likes.
Edwin I thank you also for your visits to my build log and for nice and encouragement comments. And of course for your likes.
Lawrence thank you for your likes  for visiting my build log and also for your very encouragement and nice words about my work.
Now regarding the painting of the ship I use Vallejo model air with an airbrush.The primer was not Vallejo and on the second white stripe i noticed that the paint did not seem well attached. So i decide to remove the paint and applying a Vallejo surface primer that is surely compatible with Vallejo Paints.Also I noticed that Vallejo primer has more sticky texture. (Just in case to avoid future problems).
 
Cheers
Dimitris

@bear, I must say, you rather embarrass me with your praise   I gather, a professional mechanic would throw up his hands into the air seeing me doing things, being just a self-taught amateur. Actually, collecting old machine tools and their restoration developed into a hobby of its own: http://www.maritima-et-mechanika.org/tools/toolsmain.html
 
********
Back to the subject ….
 
Rack-and-pinion drive for training the gun
 
The gun was trained by pinion acting on a circular rack. The pinion was driven from under deck by a sets of gears and a couple of cranks manned by a number of sailors. The chief gunner was able to connect and disconnect the drive with levers from his aiming-stand behind the gun.
I set up my hand-shaper (http://www.wefalck.eu/mm/tools/shaper/shapers.html) for cutting the rack teeth, but had to throw away the first two attempts because of the poor material and because - again against better knowledge - I did not lock the traverse slide when cutting. The table was removed from the shaper and the home-made dividing head bolted on instead. For lack of a proper tool grinder (another project now in hand) I hand-ground a cutter for the rack teeth (0.1 mm at the bottom) from a rod of high-speed steel. For holding this tool-bit in the shaper, an old lantern-style tool holder from the watch lathe came very handy. The unwanted parts of the ring were cut away on the shaper using ordinary left and right hand lathe tools. Finally the necessary sections were trimmed off with a fine saw blade on the lathe's sawing table.
 

Hand-shaper set-up for cutting the toothed rack
 

Cutting the toothed rack with a specially ground tool
 

Cutting away the unwanted part of the ring with an ordinary tool
 

Rails and rack provisionally in their place inside the barbette
 
 
To be continued ...

Hello
 
As a retired Tool and Diemaker I bow to your skills sir. You are truely a Master at machining and most impresively in minature machining. At the watch making levels.I have patience but your level is truly wounderful to see. I just hope that people around you can let you know just how good your work is.
 
 
 
So much for the CNC button pushers now machining parts. These are the real skills of a great trade,and have all but gone away now in the modern world.
 
Those who have never machined parts or designed progressive die's have no way of completly knowing just what you are doing here. Or just how hard it is to do. Only with God given tallents can you get to this level of work. No training can get you to this level of mastery.
 
It is sometimes hard to see this kind of work when you know just how much time and work it takes to acomplish.I have been in the amchining and toolamker world my whole life. I am second gereration toolmaker,who was trained by my Father and worked with him for over 25 years,and was working in the trade for 44 years.
 
You are the master my Friend.
Keith
 
Keith.

The 30.5 cm Rk/l22 gun
 
The main armament of the WESPE-Class was a massive 30.5 cm (12”) Krupp breech-loading rifled gun (Ringkanone, abrev. Rk). This caliber stayed the bigges in the German Imperial Navy for many decades and well into the Dreadnought-era. It is this gun that essentailly made the boats in floating batteries, rather than ‘real’ ships.
 
http://www.dreadnoughtproject.org)
 
A few years ago a detailed dtawing of gun-mount originating in the adminralty archives in Berlin surfaced on the site ‘dreadnought’. The arrangements for all the heavy Krupp guns of the time were similar, so that a visit to the Finnish fortress Suomenlinna (http://www.maritima-et-mechanika.org/maritime/models/wespe/suomenlinna/suomenlinna.html) off Helsinki was helpful; here a number of Russian clones of 28 cm coastal Krupp guns are still in place since the time, when Finnland was part of the Russian Empire.
 

28 cm Krupp-clone coastal guns in the Suomenlinna-fortress off Helsinki
 
Rails for the Lower Carriage
The lower carriage of the gun is supported on four races that run on semicirucular cast-iron rails bolted to the deck inside the barbette.
These rails need to go into their place in the barbette early during the construction. The same applies to the semi-circular toothed rack that is part of the gun-training machinery. I decided to make the rails from steel, even though ferrous metals in model construction are frowned upon by many. My justifications were that it is difficult to represent cast iron or steel by paint and that there hundreds of models in museums around the world that contain iron. I have used steel in models some twenty years ago and presumably due to the lacquering they shows no signs of rust.
 

Roughing out the rails from a metal disc with the backing of a wooden disc
 

Grooving the races with a specially ground bit
 
Cutting thin disks from round stock of large diameter is a pain I wanted to avoid. Against my better knowledge I picked a suitably sized steel washer as starting material. Unfortunately, the steel used did not machine very well and lot effort was spent to avoid chatter marks while turning and to obtain a reasonably good finish. The various types of wheel collets and chucks available for the watchmaking lathe came into good use for working on inside and outside diameters of these discs. The rails were shaped using a specially ground forming tool.
 

Cutting out the inside of the large ring for the tail-races of the lower carriage, while holding it in a so-called bezel-chuck
 

Trimming the outside of the smaller forward ring holding the material in a so-called wheel-chuck
 

The rails laid out in the barbette
 
To be continued ...

Engine-room skylight
 
The frame of the engine room skylight consists of a an etched brass part, folded up and soldered together. On the inside, grooves have been etched that will serve to locate the protective bars to made from thin copper wire. The lower frame was constructed from Pertinax. The ‘wooden’ gratings on both sides of the lower frame are again etched parts.
 

Unglazed framework for the engine-room skylight
 
Once this structure was complete, a square block of the size of the footprint of the skylight was milled from a piece of Plexiglas.
 

Squaring up a Plexiglas block for the skylight
 
In the next step the roof-shaped faces were milled on. To this end, a small insert vice was set to the appropriate angle of 40° in a larger vice bolted to the mill table. The fixed jaw of the insert vice pointed upward and the side of the block to be milled rested against it. This ensured that all four inclined faces would have the same angle and would start from the same height with respect to the reference (bottom) face of the block.
 

Milling the sloping faces
 

Polishing the sloping faces  
 
A very smooth surface with little tool marks can be achieved on Plexiglas. The final polishing of the surfaces was done using CRATEX-type drum polishers followed by a felt drum loaded with polishing paste. All in the same vice setting to ensure a flat surface. I was lucky the Plexiglas 'house' fitted like a plug into the skylight frame.
 

Finished Plexiglas 'glazing' block
 

Glazed engine room skylight
 
To be continued ...

Thanks 
 
*************
 
Skylights, Companionways etc.   I have used two basic techniques for the construction of skylights, companioways etc., depending of the type and purpose. Skylights particularly were constructed around small blocks of Plexiglas milled to shape. Other types were constructed from strips of Pertinax. More intricate parts were etched from brass. For some of the skylights a combination of the techniques were used.   Etched parts for skylights   Boiler-room skylight The prototype construction of the boiler-room skylight is not completely clear from the drawings I had, so that I had to 'fudge' it a bit. First the central piece that supports the chimney was shaped from a piece of Plexiglas. The PROXXON drilling machine was abused as a milling machine to this end: a diamond-cut milling bit was taken up into a collet and the height of the machine set so that the bit reached just below the table. Now the Plexiglas part was passed free-hand along the mill. The form to be cut out was printed on a piece of paper that was stuck to the Plexiglas. It was tested against the shape of the etched grilles in order ensure a snug fit. The box around the skylight was constructed again from Pertinax.   Shaping a Plexiglas-core for the boiler-room skylight   The assembled boiler-room skylight   To be continued ...

Chain-stoppers
 
One pair of chain stoppers is located immediately behind the hawse pipes as usual. A second pair is placed above the chain locker, which is located immediately in from of the armoured barbette. The bodies of the stoppers are rather complex castings, calling for some complex machining operations in model reproduction. The same basic technique as for the bollards was used. Given the complex shape, however, machining is not possible in one set-up. For certain operations the axis of the spigot has to be perpendicular to the milling machine, while for others, such as drilling it has to be parallel. For the latter and for milling the various slots, I choose to transfer the dividing head to the lathe. This has the advantage that its centre line is at the centre of the lathe spindle.
 

Milling the profile of the fore chain stoppers
 

Milling operations using a dividing head in the lathe
 
The slots were milled using a micro-tool made from a broken carbide drill, the end of which was ground flat. This results in a non-ideal clearance of 0º, while the cutting angle and side rake are that of the original drill bit. However, not much metal is removed so that this doesn't really matter here.
 

Home-made milling bits made from broken carbide drills ground flat
 
One set of stoppers was milled from brass, while for the other one I used PMMA (PLEXIGLAS®, PERSPEX), the main reason being that I ran out of brass stock. However, genuine PLEXIGLAS®, is pleasant material to machine and easy on the tools. It holds sharp edges and it easier to see what you are doing than on the shiny brass. Acrylic paints seem to key-in well - basically it is the same molecule, of course. On the downside one may note that small and thin parts are rather brittle. Using diamond-cut carbide tools gives a nice smooth finish, but normal CV- or HSS-tools can also be used.
 

Milling in an upright collet-holder on the milling machine
 
While for the bollards and the front pair of stoppers the spigot could be on the geometric centre of the part, making it easy to measure while machining, for the after stoppers I had to place the spigot to the centre of the pipe down to the locker, so that the concentric rounded edges could be milled. The pictures show this operation.
 

Round-milling the body of the after chain-stopper using the rotary table of the milling machine
 
The stoppers have now completed with etched brass releasing levers, etc. The fore stoppers were also soldered to surface etched base plates.
 

The completed chain-stoppers (right column, the grid of the cutting mat is 10 mm x 10 mm)
 
To be continued ...

Yes, the squares on the cutting mat are 10 x 10 mm ...
 
*******
 
Anchor capstan
One component that always has puzzled me somewhat as to their manufacture in a model has been the sprocket on capstans. While the geometry on horizontal windlasses is quite simple, with suitable depressions for the chain links around the circumference, the sprocket on a capstan is a complex affair. In any case the capstan head cannot be manufactured in one piece. So I broke it down into three pieces: the spill head, the sprocket and the base drum with the pawls. The whole capstan has more pieces including four guiding rollers and a finger to pull the chain off the sprocket. The cast base on the prototype will be reproduced as a surface-etched part.
 

Milling the sprocket, 1st step
 

Milling the sprocket, 2nd step
 
The sprocket started out as a 2.5 mm brass rod taken into the dividing head and five notches were milled to produce something like a five-pointed star (these sprockets typically have five or six arms). The notches for the horizontal links were cut on the lathe with a forming tool. The sprocket then was faced and drilled to fit onto the capstan stem. The next step is cutting it off. This produces some burrs that need to be taken off. Luckily I have collected over the years almost every type of work-holding device that was ever made for the watchmakers lathe. Here the insert jewel chucks came handy to hold the 2.2 mm by 0.6 mm sprocket for facing-off.
 

Cutting with a forming tool
 

Facing-off the sprocket in a jewel chuck
 
The capstan head is a simple turning job. The curved surfaces are pre-cut with appropriate lathe tools and then finished with very fine files. Incidentally, the implement shown on the appropriate picture is a rare miniature micrometer, also coming from the watchmakers toolbox and very handy for measuring narrow recesses and the likes. They came in sets of three, the other two are a depth-micrometer and one for measuring the width of notches respectively.
Finally, the three parts are soft-soldered together.
 

Assembled capstan head
 
To be continued ...

The base for the double bollards were intended to be a surface-etched parts, but I was not happy with the results I produced in my simple home-etching arrangement. So I decided to make them from solid brass. Solid brass was easier to handle for machining than brass sheet. Nevertheless the envisaged machining operations prompted me to make a couple of gadgets, fixtures, for the mill and the lathe.
 

Drilling of the bollard-bases in the work-holding block
 
Milling around the edges or on top of flat material always presents work-holding problems. Worse, if several identical parts have to be produced. Hence I divined a work-holding block with several clamps and stops running in a T-slot.
 

Milling a bevel to the bollard-bases
 
Similarly holding small parts for cutting off on the circular saw is tricky and best done on the lathe with a special saw table clamped to the top-slide. This saw table allows parts to be safely clamped down for cutting.
 

Cutting-off individual bollard-bases
 

The three parts for each bollard (apologies for the poor picture)
 
The three parts of each bollards were soft-soldered together.
 

Work-holding for soldering
 

The finished bollards on the top-left (the other parts will be discussed later)
 
To be continued ...

Deck Fittings
The hull taking shape, at least in its rough outline, I turned my attention to some pieces of deck fittings. I know, many modellers more or less complete the hulls etc. including the paintwork first, but as many pieces may require repeated handling and fitting on the hull, I leave these finishing touches to the end.
 
Bollards
The ships were fitted with four pairs of bollards of square cross section; two at the rear and two on the raised quarterdeck. Luckily a good, rather close-up photograph of the real specimen is available.
 

Rear deck with emergency steering stand and other pieces of deck fittings
 
The bollards are milled from round brass stock. Round stock was chosen as a starting point rather than e.g. flat stock, because it can be held easily in the lathe for turning on a spigot, by which the part can be held for further machining. Otherwise it would be difficult to mount such a small part on the miller for machining on five sides. The spigot is a convenient reference for machining and for fastening the part on the model eventually.
 

Indexing head on the milling machine
 

Before the milling operations
 
From the lathe the raw part is transferred to an indexing head mounted on the milling machine. After each pass with the cutting tool, the part is turned by 90º or 180º depending on requirements. Thus a square and symmetric part is produced.
 

Milling nearly completed
 
For a final machining step, the part is transferred back to the lathe and the dome shaped head formed using a very fine file on a roller-filing rest.
 

The nearly finished bollard with the roller-filing rest in the foreground
 
The job is completed by rounding off the corners using a not-too-hard rubber-bonded abrasive wheel (CRATEX) in the mini-drill. Remaining machining burrs are removed by offering the part to wire brush wheel.
 

The bollards on part of the working drawing
 
To be continued with the bases for the bollards ...

The Barbette for the 30.5 cm Gun
The barbette mainly consists of a semi-circular breastwork armour, backed by hardwood and by an open space covered with thin plate. The latter presumably to retain splintering wood in case of an impact. Since no tube of suitable dimensions for the breastwork was to hand, I made a short, laminated one from Bristol board layers glued together with white glue. The edges were soaked in thinned white glue before being trimmed down on the lathe. The tube then was varnished with wood-filler before the edges were sanded. Finally the tube was cut into half on the fret-saw. More wood-filler was applied before final sanding. The other inside wall of the barbette were lined with Pertinax to provide a smooth surface.
 

Trimming the laminated tube on the lathe
 
The fore-deck has been covered in a sheet of thin Bristol board and the camber of the wooden decking built up with an additional piece of board and putty (I am using fast drying bodywork putty from car repair suppliers). The anchor pockets have also been lined with thin Bristol board, but Pertinax would have been better for this.
 

Tube for the barbette armour made from laminated Bristol board
 
All surfaces that would have been iron plating, will be covered in thin sheets of Pertinax. The necessary holes for portholes and other opening will be drilled or cut before the sheets are fixed.
In between, I had also improvised a disc-sander from a PROXXON router. In think in the meantime this manufacturer offers a small disc-sander.
 

Smoothing the hull on the newly constructed disc sander
 
To be continued ...

@Tadheus, thank you very much for your efforts ! However, could you please check on my Web-site first, before posting a link, whether the picture you found has not been already published there. These pictures are all well-known to me and I may want to use them later to illustrate specific points.
 
*******
 
And off we go with the actual model construction ...
 
Materials
 
I had been contemplating a variety of materials for the hull; for instance Plexiglas® layers with bulwarks made from brass foil. In the end, I choose MDF (medium-density fibre) board, which is available in thicknesses down to 1 mm from architectural model supply houses. Other parts will be constructed from or covered with Bristol board, which is also available in various thicknesses (or rather weights per square metre). The bulwarks etc.. will be made from Pertinax® (phenolic resin impregnated paper, FR-2), which is available in thicknesses down to 0.1 mm. Bristol board and Pertinax® are easily cut with a scalpel, a razor blade or scissors and will not crease or dent as metal foil might. I currently have no facilities for photo-etching large parts, but if I had, perhaps I would have made the bulwarks from brass still. The other advantage is that Bristol board can be readily and permanently glued using white glue. Bonds between large areas of metal foil and Plexiglas® might become detached. Pertinax® can be glued using cyano-acrylate or epoxy-resins.
While I have been shying away from thermoplastics, such as polystyrene, on account of it being suspicious to be not ‘permanent’, practical experience shows that my plastic models built over 40 years ago are still intact. So I may reconsider my position in this respect. Polystyrene, of course, has several advantageous properties. One has to be sure, however, that it is properly painted to exclude the deteriorating UV-radiation.
 
The hull and superstructures
 
The basic bread-and-butter construction of the hull is shown in the pictures below.
 

Cutting out layers for the hull
 

Using the drill press as a makeshift disc sander (I have since constructed one)
 

Using the drill press as an improvised miniature drum sander
 

The layers of the hull with the barbette and the anchor-pockets cut out
 

Milling a recess into which later the rubbing strake will be inserted
 
To be continued ...