Elia

Rigged the spreaders and the spring stay. The spreader lifts are fully served and secured with lanyards. Lots and lots of serving...

Worked on the stays and topmast hardware.
 
At least the stays are only served at either end, unlike full length on the shrouds; still a lot of serving. Made shackles from brass wire as well as the topmast crane. Bails for the stay and figure 8 links for the topmast stays are also made from brass wire. The small gray circles in a few of the pictures are Grandt line bolts/washers, used to simulate anywhere a bolt head would be. They add a lot in this scale. You can see them painted in a few of the other photos, especially on the mast cheeks. The Model Shipways plans are very good with this detail. 

Shrouds are installed as well as all of the bowsprit rigging. All of the shrouds (masts and bowsprit) are served over their entire length. It seems to take forever and gets a bit tedious, but it does add a lot going to the effort to do it. The pin racks have also been installed between the deadeyes and seized. 

Well, we are complete.
On to the next project!

Allan,
 
I’ve just (re)found your Effie build log after too many years, following through your progress to its conclusion.  I remember when you started this many years ago.  Your model is so sharp.  The colors and wood tones, the ironwork details, the rigging and sails all look great and complement each other.  Your attention to detail shows.  Congratulations on this beauty of a build!
 
Elia

Allan,
 
I’ve just (re)found your Effie build log after too many years, following through your progress to its conclusion.  I remember when you started this many years ago.  Your model is so sharp.  The colors and wood tones, the ironwork details, the rigging and sails all look great and complement each other.  Your attention to detail shows.  Congratulations on this beauty of a build!
 
Elia

Couple pics as she is today, nearly ready to be packed up and shipped.  Top mast hoops are being remade and need to go on and a few little odds and ends.
 
 

 

 

Jon,
Lacking better information, I agree, Chapelle is my "go to" source.  Even there, he gives multiple rigs for some lines showing that not all vessels were rigged exactly the same, even if those vessels were similar in size and type.    
18 degrees  -- no thank you.   
Allan

Jon,
I was concerned about the number of pins available as well. The drawings from the National Archives only show  10 port and 10 starboard on the rails as well as seven eyes.  There are also the   pin rails around each mast and two pins forward near the bow.   Plus we know of the two at the boom saddle for a total of 34.   Chapelle mentions a total of 43 with their positions listed on the schooner Phillip P. Manta, including four in the stern seat.   To be sure there were a LOT of variations in the number and locations of the belay points over the years so I am unsure of the exact location on the Effie at the time she was built.  I would be absolutely thrilled to have an exact belay plan based on contemporary information on Effie specifically.  With her modifications over the years, including for Arctic exploration service, there were changes in many things as you know, including different deck houses, an engine, air cowls, and so forth so could have been with the rigging as well. 
Regarding the boom seat, yes, from what I could find the saddle/yoke did not rest directly on these but rather had a boom seat on the forward side of the mast.
 
The more I learn the more I find I don't know and that is a great thing as life will never be dull. Thanks for your input!   Do you have the current belay plans for Ernestina from the shipyard or what they are basing the plan on?   Even  though it is current, it may be closer to what she had when launched than plans from other sources I have found.  
 
Allan

Thanks Keith!
I cannot recommend enough the internally stropped blocks from Syren.  I followed the instructions for assembling them on his website but modified to using PVA and found the results to be better than  using CA.   His rope is also a pleasure to work with as I have not yet tried making my own.  With this material available at a good price I doubt I will ever make my own unless I do a fully rigged rated ship in a relatively large scale. 
Allan   
 

Progress photos of Effie follow.   Should be done with the standing rigging in a week or so then on with sails and running rigging.  As with models of ships of old where it is far easier to pre-rig the spars with the various hardware, I have done so with the gaffs, booms, and spike and continue to find it a good practice to follow.   
 
Allan 
 

 

 

 
 

With the main mast stepped and secure, time to work on the shrouds.   For the Effie size and late 19th century she has three shrouds on each side for both the main and foremast.   The shrouds are galvanized steel, 3.25" in circumference and painted black.   Having totally failed using wire in the past, I have painted appropriate  line black.  In this case I am using 0.025 diameter line from Syren.   Easy enough to put a full coil in a small jar of watered down acrylic paint, give a few shakes then hang the line to dry.  A small clip for weight on the end prevents shrinkage or kinks as it dries.
 
Because the line is steel and the deadeyes are wood, canvas was wrapped around the line where it went around the upper deadeye then painted white.  Same thing where the shroud goes round the mast head.  I used silkscreen painted with tubed acrylic titanium white and glued with matte medium and wrapped it around the line as can be seen in the photo.  I went overly long as the shroud was spliced then served from the deadeye upwards for a few inches (at scale)  so the serving covered the excess "canvas" on the model shroud. 
 
As there are three shrouds, the foremost was a swifter as described by Chapelle in his notes in The American Schooners.  The swifter was cut spliced with one shroud starboard, one port.  The next two are paired, with the starboard going on first.   
Allan

 
 
 
 

Masts and main boom are nearly complete.   For most of the metal work I have been using copper which is so easy to blacken with liver of sulfur, and a few instances where I need something harder I have gone to brass then treat it with Blacken It.  
 
For the mast tops, there are a series of blocks, cranes, heart iron on the main crane and bails as well the trestle trees, cheeks, and bolsters.  The fore and main mast heads are round as they went from square tops to round about the time Effie was built.   
 
The main boom was a fun project.  The only thing missing in the photos is the main sheet fairlead which will go on the starboard side and the iron strap that goes from the jaws around the mast.  There is a ring at the aft end of the boom for the topping lift eye wye and shackle and there is a clew outhaul band forward of the topping lift band with two topping lift sheaves in between.  There is a third ring about 1/3 of the way forward from the aft end with a wye on the under side for the sheet.  At the jaw end there are the jaws, clapper, tack iron, tack iron block beneath, bail, and belaying pins. 
 
On the main mast, below where the jaws go around the mast is a wooden ring with iron band.  Two belaying pins go into the wooden ring, one port, one starboard.  The fore end of the iron band has an eye shown very clearly on page 539 of The American Fishing Schooners as well as on the drawings of Efffie from the Library of Congress, but I cannot find any information on the use of this eye.  If anyone can share information on this, it would be greatly appreciated.
 
Allan

The quarter bitts on Effie have double cross pieces.  which was a first for me.  Chapelle notes that these were used on the Philp P. Manta as well as in a few vessels in the late 1890's which fits for Effie.  Each cross piece is secured with a single bolt.
 
I made the post to the proper dimensions from the deck level upwards, but made the lower portion smaller.  This way I could cut the hole in the deck smaller rather than trying to get a perfect opening to match the post.  The larger cross section of the post at deck level then rests on the deck and there is no chance of a gap on any side.   Simple but effective.   The lower end of the post is cut at an angle to match the curve of the frame on which it rests.
 
Allan
 


 
 

Allan
 
I thought you might like a photo of the recently abandoned Ernestina anchor.   According to Ross, they had one of each when they showed up a few years back.  A wood "banks" stock [ in photo below] and loose metal "club" stock.   They will apparently be building new anchors and he is not yet sure what design.  I am sure like Bluenose II it will be more about the coast guard than history.
 
enjoy your holiday
 
jon 

 
 

 
 
 

Couple update photos.  The spiral is holly strip that was soaked in water for five minutes then wound round the mast and clamped to keep it from unwinding.  45 minutes  later it was dry and holding it's shape.     Once dry, I cut rings with an overlap and beveled opposing sides on each end of the rings.
PVA and a clip to hold in place for a few minutes and they were then sanded to get off any fuzz and placed on the mast.   These need to go on before the boom rest is glued in place.   Yes, I forgot and had to break off the ring and make a new one.   Thought I would have learned by now......   
The top has a few eyes to be secured in place, otherwise, pretty much done.
 
Allan

A little project for the Effie

Found an error or omission on the drawings which meant having to reset to make more deadeyes and strops.  I had two extra, but needed four but got it done. Set up takes longer than actually making these pieces at times, thus a good idea to always make a few extras, maybe more than a few. 

The deadeye rigs include all the pieces in the photo below, so a bit of work goes into setting up each one.    The strops are made of brass rod that was heated with a torch to soften them.  A flat was formed at the end of each piece with a hammer and punch.  The punch was and old nail punch ground down to a diameter near that needed on the ends of the rod.  A hole was then drilled in these flats of each strop and the flats filed to make them round.  I tried making these eyes at the end of the strop by bending the ends into an eye, but they were far to large given the diameter of the strop, which is to scale.
 
The photo below shows the parts before assembly, including the three "bolts" that go through the strap and into the hull.  The straps were cut from copper sheet and one end filed to a narrower dimension, folded over a stainless steel pin and soft soldered.   I have never been good at getting these straps cut into strips evenly and have to do a lot of filing.     I am considering making sandwiches of wood and plate and cutting strips with a slitting blade on my small table saw similar to how Keith described doing this in his Germania build log.  If anyone has a trick to making these more efficiently and precisely, I would love to learn how you do it.   Allan
 

 
 
 
 
 

So more than seven years have gone by since starting this model of the Ernestina/Effie M. Morrissey and it is now back on the work bench.    The hull was completed about early 2014 along with much of the deck furniture then set aside as another project came up.  Now that she has a buyer it is again a work in progress.    
 
I began making the deadeyes the past few days.  Using the drawings from the Library of Congress they are between 0.16 and 0.17" diameter at scale.  I have a drill bit that is 0.17 so began making them at this diameter.  I made a jig with a brass ring with an ID of 0.17 and a table with lines 120 degrees apart  I had a small rotary table that I made quite a few years ago and set this up for drilling.  The ring was epoxied to the square table and left to cure overnight before using it.  Using epoxy instead of CA gave some time to move the ring to get it perfectly centered on the three lines.  
 
The eyes were turned on the lathe to 0.17 diameter using castello box wood.   These were then inserted into the brass ring.  The drill bit was set in the chuck with just enough exposed to clear the deadeye.  This prevented the bit from wandering so predrilling a pilot hole or punching a starter hole was unnecessary.  
 
Once I made 30 eyes (6 more than needed, just in case) they went into the tumbler for 20 seconds to round off the edges and it also took the diameter down to 0.168, so within a thousandth or two of the diameter on the drawings.  I now have 27 eyes to work with as one is somewhere on the floor hiding and two had the holes quite a bit out of synch with each other even using the jig.   If I ever get myself a mill and rotary table the drilling should be more exact and consistent.  
 
The first photos show the hull today, boom buffer and rigging, windless.  The last is the deadeye jig set up on the mini drill press.
 
Allan

 

This update covers some down time as I travelled North through the Northwest passage in August and a few extra activities in the model shop this fall. Before setting EH aside for a bit of a rest last August , I had fun on the shop toys making some of the deck furnishings and spars.  
01-04. these photos capture making the masts and setting them up for the right rake
05-9 capture the annual visit of my daughter and some of her friends. She loves to make sails.  So since I am out of prepared silk span she prepared four large sheets for me, sure enough to make the sails this winter. I also have found a better image to use for the sail planning.

10 Finally we see EH sitting on the shelf as the rebuild of the schooner Zebedee Cliff took over the shop

10   oops rework the deck based on review of photos
 
I mentioned above a dumb move / oops.  I was in a hurry and somehow laid out both masts incorrectly.  Based on that layout, I shaped the rails and included the pin rails.   I took the model to the garage, so I could peck away each day a bit while summer guests made working in the shop not convenient. I posted the installed decking.    I should have just waited.
 
Here is the sequence…..
 
01   returning to the shop, I proceeded to carry on and installed all the chain plates.   Dumb!
 
Back at my shop computer, which coincidentally I replaced my long-gone computer at this same time.  We all know that resetting a new computer means another week that I should have waited.    I finally resumed studying all the available images to figure out how the deck was laid out.  As I mentioned earlier through the net I found the several collections in both Gloucester and Boston Library collections.  I “borrowed thumbnails” and blew them up, scaled spars etc.  I had previously shared the sail plan that I did in cad months ago based on a broadside racing image.  Why did I not use that drawing when I located the Mast?   Who knows
 
02-05 In these photos one can see the relocated masts and re-laid decking.    The foremast wrong hole is amazingly close enough to the round fish loading hatch with which I will plug the hole. The main mast hole was plugged and covered in new decking.  The pin rails and chain plates were all relocated and are back together.  At some point I need to do more remedial work, especially the outer hull where the chain plates were removed.  The pin rails will be mostly covered with coiled lines so they will work out.

 
Going forward
 
Photos 6-8 To plan the deck work, here are two cropped images that come from different internet images and sites.   When blown up, they give a reasonable sense of what was on deck and where.  I also have one of our Historical Society photos of the sister schooner Louise Howard.  The similarities carry through after scaling and measuring the sail plan. So they both confirmed the error made and after the fix I am ready to move forward.  
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
cheers
 
 
 

9  the deck
 
As I move forward into the deck work, I am fully dependent on just a few photos to understand the layout. Fortunately, a couple of photos showed me the lay of the decking followed the waterway inward. As to the furniture we will get to those assumptions later. Before I share a progress update, I would like to revisit the history of the two sisters.   Elizabeth and Louise Howard were both built one after the other. As discussed, Elizabeth was extended about 6 feet in the bow for that little push of speed. Louise apparently retained the McManus 1908 Oriel design length of 126 feet. 
 
1   this view is one of the better views of the Adams shipyard. It was taken in 1903 with the four masted schooner Eleanor Bartram in the shipways.
 
 
2-3   Here are two views of Louise sitting on the shipway with the harbor frozen in  
 
4                     here we see Louise just after launching. In the background we see The Rice brothers’ yard with their 1918 steel hull dragger Alden Mills.  That dragger was one of 6 that they built. Last year I built a model of the 6th one Harvard.     
 
 
Back to progress
 
6,7   
 I like to share my oops moments.  In these two progress images we see that the predrilling of the main mast hole needed relocation.  An advantage to running the planking inward from the waterways is one finds the real center.  I stretched a thread bow to stern as the center became more evident, and that guided me in confirming the king planks location and the need to relocate the Mast hole. I dowelled the wrong hole and redrilled in the center.   The benefit of 3/16” plywood under deck covered with about 1/8” poplar made this an easy fix.
 
7,8   
here the decking is complete, and the sanding partly done. I progressively advanced in grits up through 320.  There really isn’t grain to bring out in Alaska Cedar, but a rich color and shine that is hard to see in the photo.  It is all amusing as the real decks of fishing schooners were really a mess. Also the summer invaders have gone and I am back to the model shop.
 
8-11 
 
here are four images of the decking with two coats of hand rub Poly.   I chose the poly because I find it more resilient to the abuse than the tung oil of my recent builds, which will occur while building out the deck.   I also have started playing with the masts.  
 
 
all for now

8 continue views of hull painting
 
here the tape is removed the bottom retouched and off to show

 
next up more cleanup and prep for decking

7 Bulwarks progress  
 
Occasionally, something serendipity happens.  One of my many projects continues as we are digitizing our local historical society documents and photographs.  I am overlooking the photos.   We are up to finding 16,000 so far.  What I mean finding is that as one opens a storage sleeve marked with a label, we find just one or several prints negatives etc.  As views are different, the index grows accordingly.   At the beginning of this build I shared the image of the EH as she hit the water during, her 1916 launch.    Some details are in the photo, but not with a lot of clarity.  Last week I found the following image that I have annotated for this build. The print was sitting in sleeve marked East Boothbay waterfront.   I was thrilled to find it. I am not sure how to make the little trim strips, but I will try.

 
Here are some progress images.  I first secured a plank outside the raised deck, inserted the stanchions on one side at a time. I secured them with clamps on future plank stock.  This process repeated four times and then the water ways went in. I filled in cut pieces between stanchions and then marked, drilled and set the scupper planks in place.   Finally, I added the upper bulwark planks.  

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
I end this progress piece showing I have now cut the stanchions back to the underside of the future rails.  Just for fun I share the image of the new cedar deck planking that just came from the Sawmill.  I love their material. There quite a bit of work before I get that that stage, but it is fun to look ahead.  The first of our crew has shown up too.
 

Lots to clean up and then I need to complete the rails.  The transom and bow need attention.   I also want to lay out basic rigging so the side pin rails, cavits etc.  can all be done before painting the topsides and the bullwarks. 
 

All for now
 

6 launch the hull and install under decking
 
I am doing a few new things in this build.  Some steps may help, and some may not.  We just must wait and see. First up there were about three more cycles of touch up putty, some more primer and sanding. Eventually at 800 grit,  I called uncle.    I took her back outside and gave her a new view of the water, before leaving on my second Canada adventure this summer.

Next was to paint the bottom and launch her.   I followed some advice and bought some “frog tape” that says it gives a sharp line.   Here we see my low tech set up for marking the water line.    I also decided to build and add the rudder now. I think the waterline is better than previous…yeh for Frog tape.

 
 
To launch, I found an old RC sailboat sling in the shop to use. Before cutting off the bulkhead stands, I measured and marked a line 1 inch below the future rail at each bulkhead.   There will be 4 stanchions between each mark.  Then off with the stands. I then cut up the soft Luan plywood stand material to fill in for a complete under deck. A few extra hours here instead of figuring out where blocking will be needed for rigging eyes etc. The Holes for the stanchions are in as well.  Finally, I am now in the process of the smooth under decking.   This process means instead of perhaps 1/16 decking over many more hours off effort to get the under deck really nice, I use, 1/32 plywood and I ordered precut 3/64” cedar from the sawmill website.  So, expecting a little sanding I am close to the 1/16th inch scale for the decking material.   For the raised after deck I am adding 5/32 poplar.  It will get sanded as well before decking.  The cross beam at the step is cut down Alaskan Cedar.  It is high now but i will  sand it closer before decking.   

We’ll have to see how this under deck and stanchions comes out.  Once all is in place and sanded to clean up. I will install all the stanchions and bulwarks.    Then I hope to paint all before moving on to the decking.   

All for now