Elia

Update as of 12-04-14:
 
I've been working on the 04/05 Navigation Bridge and with the exception of Pelorus's, other small deck items, and whip antennae, it's complete. As usual, these pix show the superstructure together when in reality they are sitting in place only.
 
I chose the kit bridge over the Pontos PE bridge as it was easier to work with at this point. Had I thought about it, I would have enlarged the window openings slightly in both directions as these are just a tad bit undersized. One of the Volunteers in WISCONSIN (Norfolk) made dimensioned posts regarding this earlier in the year. However, with a family situation finally coming to a close, my thoughts have sometimes been elsewhere...
 
In any event, I have been critiqued by another battleship acquaintance who is associated now with IOWA (LA Ports) and mentioned to me a couple things that need adjustment on the 08 Level - I will handle this when I am back at my shop in early January '15. Thru the 42 years of his work at LBNSYD, he has, at one time or another, worked on all the IOWA class ships in addition to many others that came thru the shipyard. His knowledge is impeccable.
 
I am STILL waiting on my special order Pontos Deck set and replacement PE parts (3 weeks now  - nothing!)
so, until it arrives, I'm unable to go too much further on superstructure work. I may begin basic hull work but that is predicated on one of the other Calif. modelers who is working on a hull replacement module (3D printed in ABS plastic) to replace the mis-sharpened after 1/3 of the kit hull. He's getting close and it's phenomenal what he's done using Solidworks and 3D professional printing.
 
8 bells and time to bug out.
 
Hank
 
 
 

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Hello shipmates, the 4th and the last coat of car primer it is done. Now it needs one more sanding with 400 grid sandpaper and it is ready for painting. Some photographs..
 
Regards
Dimitris

Hello Shipmates, a small update... I applied a second hand of car primer to the ship, the first one sanded with 400 grid.Some photos.
 
Regards
Dimitris

After a debate with myself as to whether or not to add the cabin details I decided I would.  So here’s a start on the cabin.  I’m building it as a separate unit.  I plan to put a stove in the recess on the port and a sink in the shelf on the starboard.  Now that I’ve told everyone I stand a better chance of doing it.
 
Bob
 

 

 

OK, Druxey, here is my step by step.
 
I am no artist and the results will probably reflect that but so far the results don't look too bad.  I made the first trial section of frieze only to discover that I painted it upside down and without enough background aft to run out to the hance of the forecastle.  So I used this "opportunity" to document a step by step method for painting the friezes.  For my technique I used the instructions given in Vol II of TFFM.  I also had the pleasure of sitting in on a demonstration of frieze painting by David Antscherl at the most recent NRG national meeting.  
 
The first step is to have a background of the correct color.  I chose a blue background although there is a contemporary model of Atalanta in the NMM holdings that has a red background. The next step I found to be the most difficult.  David says to moisten bond paper (aka printer paper), stretch it gently, tape it to a flat surface and allow it to dry.  Then the background is painted.  The prestretching is supposed to prevent the paper from wrinkling when the acrylic paint is applied.  Well...  I tried three different types of paper, different moisture levels, different tape and weighting the paper under a sheet of glass.  I occasionally ended up with a strip of paper that looked passable.  After that I painted the paper with artist acrylics and ended up with wrinkled paper!  I could not find any blue archival markers.  Ink would cause the same problem.  Regular blue marker would bleed when I apply my solvent based finish.  I seriously thought about printing a sheet of blue paper but was concerned about the lifespan of inkjet pigments.  My solution was to use enamel spray paint without prestretching.  Three coats with a quick sanding of 600 grit between coats gave me good depth of color while smoothing out any imperfections in the paper.  It is still flexible and accepted acrylic paints well.
 

 
Although there is no freize shown on Atalanta's plans, there is one for Fly.  I used these for my design.  I traced the design on to regular bond paper.
 

 

 
The plan shows the starboard side but I am putting the frieze on the port side.  So I turned the paper around and traced the sketch on to the back of the paper, giving me a mirror image.  The drawing was placed on the painted paper and transfer paper was used to transfer the outline.  Transfer paper is found at any craft store and is used for stenciling and applying patterns onto cloth.  It comes in several colors.  White is best for this application.
 

 

 
The images were painted with two coats of ochre.  All the paints used were Liquitex artist acrylic.  
 

 
The highlights were applied with a mixture of ochre and white.  
 
 
 
The lowlights were applied with a mixture of ochre and burnt sienna.  Finally details such as the stems and leaf veins were added with a mixture of burnt sienna and burnt umber.
 

 
I used a pencil eraser to remove any white lines and powder from the transfer paper.
 

 
At these extreme magnifications, the detail work is a little heavy.  At normal viewing it looks much better; definitely better than I thought I could do.  

I have proclaimed the lower hull planking finished!  In the end I applied three coats of sanding sealer and one coat of flat finish.  This was sanded to 1200 grit.  The finish coat adds luster without shine and is a harder finish than the sanding sealer.  The upper planking will be finished with Watco's to match the rest of the Costello after the channels, moldings, etc. have been installed.  I repainted the wale and put her back in the cradle.  
 

 

 

 

 

I have decided to use a finish that will not yellow the holly.  In TFFM David mentions a solvent-based sealer for his finish.  For those of you who own his Comet book or have seen the photos, that is the look I am trying to achieve.  The bottle of solvent-based sanding sealer I have was quite a few years old so I purchased some from Midwest Models, as well as a bottle of flat finish.  I have not decided whether to stick with just the sealer or put a coat of finish on as well.  The pictures are taken after two coats of sealer, the first sanded down to 320 grit and the second sanded to 400.  Later this week I will test applying a coat of the finish on some scrap wood.  One of the nice things about the sealer is that the drying time is very fast but as this is solvent based the smell is pretty strong.  Unlike a oil based finish, the odor dissipates quickly.
 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks, everyone for the comments and the likes.  I have finished the treenails.     I estimate that the whole process consumed about 25 hours of my life.  So my ugly duckling is now in the process of becoming a swan (class).  Sorry, couldn't help it.  I removed the hull from the board for the sanding process.  I find it easier to sand a curved object while holding it in my lap.  This gives me easier access to the various rabbets and the intersection with the wing transom.  In the process, despite using masking tape, the main wale has gotten fairly scuffed up and will require another coat of paint.  In the pictures the hull has been sanded down with 100 grit.  The treenails are hard to see because no finish has been applied yet.
 

 

 

 

 

I am not sure which is more tedious, treenailing a hull or tying ratlines.  At this point I am over halfway done with an estimated time so far of 15 hours.  This includes marking the locations for the treenails, drilling the holes (#75 bit), drawing the treenails (hole 20 on the Byrnes drawplate) and finally inserting the treenails.  I have used bamboo for these to give me the least color contrast with the holly.  I usually dry-fit treenails but for extra strength these are all dipped in dilute yellow glue.  I hope to finish them up next weekend and then start sanding the hull.  Right now it is pretty ugly, covered in lines and holes and little bumps which make it look more like a plucked chicken than a ship.
 

 

 

Michael,
 
Thank you very much for describing your plan and approach.
 
And that last update showing the timing gear looks sweeet. So very nice.
 
Cheers
 
Elia

Thanks, Mark, druxey and Siggi. It is always nice to get some affirmation on those many moments when you have to make educated guesses on  historical information.
 
I forgot to mention that the Muller book was exceptionally interesting as a glimpse into the early dawn of the industrial age in Great Britain in the mid 18th century. He dutifully reports on the proper, historically received proportions for guns. But he then complains about how arbitrary these are,  not based in reason or fact. Some examples:
 
After explaining that the proportions given apply to all sizes of cannon, he says "The reader may easily perceive the perplexity of these constructions, arising from the different scale that are used with the least necessity. That the greatest part of the mouldings should have the same dimensions, from a 3 pounder to one of 32, appear contrary to reason..." He then complains that experiments on a 24 pounder for weight of powder and distance and trajectory, were then extrapolated to other sizes of guns without then testing these.
 
He also complained about the location of the trunnions so that the top of the trunnion is located at the center of the cannon. He said "...it is so absurd, that is is amazing no author or artist has thought proper to change it...to show the absurdity of it, suppose AB to present the center line of the bore, and CD the distance of the center line of the trunnions from that of the bore. Now because when the piece is fired, the explosion acts against the breech B, and makes the piece recoil, but being fixed to the carriage by the trunnions, endeavours to turn about the point D....the piece therefore acquires a pendulous motion about the center D."
 
And he complains about the tradition of breaking the cannon into three different diameter cone shapes (first and second reinforce, chace), because powder does not explode in stages but rather continuously, suggesting a design for a cannon with no breaks in its profile.
 
I think we see here the first signs of challenging traditions handed down for their own sake, and proposing a more scientific view of designing ordnance. Of course, this kind of thinking eventually leads to artifacts more functional than beautiful. Or, perhaps we eventually find a different kind of beauty in more functional objects. But then I wonder why so many of us are drawn to the beauty of these pre-Industrial Revolution artifacts?
 
I love how history provides endless opportunities to ponder the great imponderables!
 
Mark

Hi everyone,
 
A long time away from the shipyard. I last got the deck clamps in before the winter humidity in Colorado drops dramatically, and I will have to wait until spring to start on the main wales when the humidity comes back to match what it was when the clamps went in. So, I am backing and filling for a while....
 
I learned about sail making from Greg Herbert and David Antscherl's workshop this December, and may post some pictures of my sail efforts for the Bellona at some point when I have something to show. It was a terrific workshop. I highly recommend it.
 
In the meantime, I am working on the 32# guns for the Bellona's gundeck. I spent a fair amount of time researching guns that would be appropriate to ca. 1760. I may have this wrong, but I believe the guns at this time were based on a pattern developed by Surveyor General of Ordnance, General John Armstrong, in the 1720s. This was updated slightly by Charles Frederick in 1753. And the dimensions were given in John Muller's Treatise on Ordnance of 1768. Using Google books, I was able to reproduce the gun and carriage for a 32 pound cannon. The details are a little different from ones more commonly found in the 1770s in a number of modeling books. The most obvious are that the cascable is shorter, with a compressed set of moldings behind the base ring. Also, the transom on the carriage is vertical over the fore axtree (which looks very much easier to build than the angled ones seen later). And the stool does not sit on a thick bolster, but rather a rather thin vertical plank. It looks a little fragile compared to later carriages.
 
I pasted my gun and carriage over a scanned image of a cross section showing the guns in Falconer's Dictionary of the Marine from the 1760s. The Armstrong/Muller details lined up almost exactly with the Falconer drawing. The only difference is that I had to reduce the height of the carriage body by about 1 1/2" to get the cannon at the right height relative to the gunport, matching the Falconer height (which is the same as the Bellona's). Also, the Falconer drawing shows an elongated neck for the ball at the end of the cascable. I could not find any other examples of this in other resources, so I stuck with the drawing in Muller's book. Interestingly, the drawing in the Muller book does not match the text, regarding the length of the cascable; the text calls for something longer than the drawing shows, probably getting closer to Falconer's drawing. But I could not draw this convincingly without further information. The text also explains a method for determining the length of the body, which does not match the length given in a table. Research from primary sources sometimes has its challenges!
 
I spent some time working out the dimensions for the cannon, relative to one origin. You will see one set of dimensions in purple, aligned to the first and second reinforce which is a 1 degree taper. The second set in orange aligns with the chace, whose angle is 1.5 degrees.  I hope to use this to turn a master on the lathe, and then try casting the 28 guns required.
 
Stay tuned!
 
Best wishes,
 
Mark
 

Some photos with the resin sanded...
 
Dimitris

Good morning shipmates, waiting for the resin to cure....I paint the bow rudder housing.
 
Cheers
Dimitris
 
 

Hello shipmates, the port side of the Vespucci is also applied with fiberglass and resin . Tomorrow I will sand the resin and after that I will apply another hand of resin. After that I will sand the second hand of resin and  I will apply grey car surface primer to spot if there are any imperfections.For the record I used 25 gr. of fiberglass and L&L resin ,(They say is no toxic but I used a mask anyway). The resin had 30 minutes work time. A friend of mine that builds r/c airplanes suggested this resin .
 
Cheers
Dimitris

Hello shipmates, the starboard of the ship is covered with fiber glass and resin . I upload some photos from the procedure. First of all i left the fiberglass on the ship for one night to take the shape of the ship. Today I applied the resin over the fiberglass. In some photos the reflections are from the resin and not bubbles on the fibeglass. Requirements are : A pair of gloves , glasses and mask.
 
Cheers
Dimitris

Hi everyone!
 
Rainbow's journey continues, albeit slowly.  I've applied putty to the external planking of the hull and proceeded to sand it back.  There's still more sanding and filling to go before I can achieve a nice and smooth surface to paint upon.  But here's the results so far.
 
Hope you enjoy the photos.
 
All the best
 
Patrick

Young America - extreme clipper 1853
Part 103 – Planking and Wales continued
 
The work proceeds apace.  Post-holiday lull and the winter weather helps.  Work on the lower hull requires either some gymnastics or some other support for the model.  The first picture shows the simple setup that allows the model to be tilted as needed – a very un-shipyard-like look.
 

 
The wale on this side is about one-half planked in this picture.  The next picture shows the wale planks converging at the lowest perimeter strake at the stern.
 

 
The brass rod is the diameter of the gudgeon eyes and is being used to mark the center of the helm port by laying it on the sternpost.  In the next picture a hole for the port has been roughed out.
 

 
The rudder head was round and was encased at the port in a sleeve – wood or iron – to prevent ingress of water.  The diameter of the rudder shaft was 16” – matching the sternpost.  With the sleeve the opening will take up much of the area as yet unplanked.  I decided to fill the area with a single chock as shown in the next picture.
 

 
A circular opening for the sleeve and rudder head will be cut through this later.  In the next picture the hole has been centered.
 

 
Additional wale strakes are being added in this picture.  In the next picture the final piece on the port side has been boiled and is being fitted to dry.
 

 
The planks on this side are being stepped back at each frame to allow the stern area to be completed without adding more strakes on this unplanked side.  Hence these last two pieces are very short – the lowest will be half the length shown.
 
The next picture shows the final wale strake in place at the stern on the starboard side.
 

 
This side will be planked down below the waterline so there are more strakes to be fitted at the stern.  These will diminish down to the thickness of the common lower planking.
 
I don’t want to use this forum to pitch the forthcoming book, but I feel that a few words are in order, since several people have asked about it. 
 
Bob Friedman of Seawatchbooks and I were both quite enthused about a book on American clipper ship modeling.  We both felt this was a neglected area.  However, I had some concerns about another “full framing” methodology book that would be a rehash of previous material.  I was also concerned about writing a book about a large, fairly advanced structural model that would probably appeal mainly to a small slice of experienced modelers.
 
 It took some time for me to resolve these issues and decide to write the book – two books hopefully – the first on modeling the hull and the second on masting and rigging. 
 
Like the Naiad books – and unlike this build log – the books will be very heavy on methods – I like the word processes.  As work on YA progressed, the processes used were both different enough and in some ways unique and this allayed some of my concerns about redundancy. 
 
However, I still wanted to reach a broader range of modelers – specifically potential or less-experienced scratchbuilders looking for a foothold and some help on methods.  To this end the book will also include methods, drawings, text and pictures for construction of a smaller, simpler POB version of the model.  The processes developed for this model are designed to provide a basis for advancement to fully-framed modeling using the upright, shipyard-like, methods that many of us favor.  The planned volume on rigging – if we get that far – will apply to both versions. Simpler tools, fewer fancy devices and readily available materials will also be used for the POB model.
 
To support this important content, a second, 1:96 POB model is being constructed.  Until making the book decision, I have been careful to exclude this from posted pictures but that precaution is now no longer necessary so I will show one picture of the current work area with both models in progress.
 

 
Although having two models in the shop has exponentially increased the clutter, the biggest problems are keeping the two scales straight and using the right drawings – and getting all  the work done on schedule.
  
Ed

Ed, thank you, your comment means a great deal to me.
 
this evening I am having a hard time wiping the silly grin off my face.
 
Beginning cuts
 

 
Half a day later the last tooth cut
 

 
Back to the lathe for some rough shaping
 

 
I ground up a bit of a form tool to get the curved recess better.
 

 
After parting it off I slipped it onto the camshaft .
 

 

 

 
It is actually on the shaft backwards I have to set it up in a fixture on the four jaw chuck now and machine the eccentric cam for the water pump then it can be flipped to finish the front side.
 
It did mesh nicely though even without any clean up yet,
 
Michael

Elia the short answer is Yes.
 
I began with the base external Dimensions of the Engine, as noted in the Buffalo catalogue. determined the bore and stroke based on a scaled version of original core dimensions such as the diameters and lengths etc. Some dimensions are absolutely critical, Gear meshing , piston fits shaft diameters and so on. I do have leeway over many ancillary dimensions though. for instance the outside diameter of the hub for the 30 tooth gear, I drew it at .250" I think the final finished dimension was .249" is doesn't matter and without miking the diameter it is impossible to see. it could just have easily been .235"
 
Without actually having the real engine in front of me to measure, and this is a model after all I certainly have taken dimensional liberties as well as material and design ones.
 
I have no way of knowing some dimensions and so they are guesses, there is enough "stacking " as you say that I can make some adjustments as I go along.
 
One of the most critical and challenging fits is going to be the smooth meshing of the gears, on the real engine the DP of the teeth is an unknown to me, I could have done more research and found out exactly no doubt but being impatient I scaled from photographs of the engine counted the number of teeth, in actuality the real gears are 64 and 32 a 2:1 ratio.
I do not have a proper dividing head or gears with those numbers of teeth to use as masters, only a rotary table albeit a good but very large one it can measure into degrees minutes and seconds.  The key information is the ratio of 2:1.
 
The camshaft had to be clear of the con rods, and I had some general dimensions based on the catalogue and photographs Gears are really no more than a couple of discs ( Pitch Circle) that rub against each other with teeth projecting from each so as not to slip. There are tables for all the standard tooth sizes these are based on the Diametral Pitch system which is the number of teeth in the gear for each inch of pitch diameter. lots of small gears use 64 or 48 teeth per inch these are standard ones that are sold through the commercial vendors.
 
On the engine that I am building neither of these pitches provided a pair of gears that were the correct ratio and the correct number of teeth to look scale or the correct Diameter(approx in any case ). I used the formulas to calculate from the diameters that were formed from the two circles on my drawing for the crankshaft and for the camshaft a set of gears that would give me 60 teeth and 30 teeth it worked out to 75 teeth per inch of pitch diameter.
 
A non commercial gear size, so using another set of tables in an article in a Model Engineer magazine, developed by model engineer D. J. Unwin, I made the tool to make the cutters for the 75DP gears.
 
Here's the rub, on paper they mesh perfectly ,I will find out soon enough if my machining tolerances are good enough for them to mesh perfectly in situ.
 
In the (unlikely   ) event that I need to make a minor adjustment I can make the camshaft bearing housing which are 3/16 diameter carrying a 1/8th inch shaft  (.18725" and .125" respectively ) I can make a second set that is very slightly eccentric which would allow for the camshaft to be moved to in order to have the best meshing. This is my fall back position.
 
I think that we always need to consider the fall back position when we are building our models because  "life is."
 
Apologies for another long winded answer, but a nice break from winding the table on the mill , only 30 teeth to go on the big gear.
 
Michael
 
 
 

Michael,
 
My wife appears ready to call emergency medical technicians...  as I sit at my computer, silent, mouth agape, working my way page by page through your build log.  I am speechless.  This engine and gearbox are outstanding.  Truly.  
 
I have just a few questions on your design, fabrication, and assembly approach.  As all fabricated components have dimensions, and dimensional and positional tolerances, did you conceive a plan for dimensional tolerance management ahead of commencing with the machining of the components?  Or are there few enough 'stacks' of components that you can control individual parts dim's/tol's to allow assembly?  
 
I am now here and on board for the long haul.
 
With great respect,
 
Elia

Row, Denis, Jeff, Carl, Jack, that you all so much for the encouraging remarks, they take the edge of these types of screw ups.
 
Thanks to all who are following along and noting it with the like button.
 
Today was a much better day nippy (-32 this morning)  but better.
 
I went back to square one with the tooling and reset the rotary table in the vertical position, and spent the time needed to get the chuck properly centered on the table with the dial indicator. I turned down some new stock to the .422" diameter the advantage to using the mill table and rotary is far greater accuracy can be achieved.
 

 
the depth of tooth cut can also be very accurately regulated the depth is .031" and I fixed the quill on the mill so that it could not rotate and unplugged the mill, then worked the table in the same manner as the compound slide on the lathe, in other words I used the mill like a shaper this time. I prefer the way the material finish occurs with the shaping cut versus the rotating cut.
 

 
The indexing was simply a matter of rotating the table in increments of 12 degrees.
 

 
Once the shaping of the teeth was completed the chuck went back onto the lathe to finish the other operations , drilling and boring to 1/8th and cutting the hub for pinning.
 

 
It cleaned up nicely and is now waiting for its big brother, on the camshaft, but i have to make a new cutter first.
 

 
Michael
 

Math is definitely not my strong point it seems. yesterday I spent a fair bit of time cutting the (30tooth) gear and as I came to the last tooth I could see that something was awry because I cut a half tooth.  Thinking I had skipped a tooth on the indexing I counted the teeth 32.5 noooooooooooo counted again 32.5.  I used a felt marker and recounted the big (60tooth) gear on the lathe 65 ..... 65!! . Somehow I had got it into my head that the big gear was a 60 tooth gear? hearsay ...myth,  a wild guess  I don't know.... what is the old saying about assumptions?
 
So one step forwards 5 steps back, a rethink of what to do next. All I know is that it involves setting up the rotary table in the vertical position on the mill which is what I ought to have done in the first place. It is just such a pain in the neck to do, because it is a very heavy bit of tooling, and really a bit too big for using as a dividing head, that is why i was so pleased that the gear on the lathe was a (60 Tooth one)perfect one for the job.
 
Oh Well....tis a good job that I am not getting paid for this and it is just my education that I am dealing with.... don't make assumptions you would think that I would have learned that one by now. Lesson learned!
 
to be continued
 
Michael

Jeff, Row thanks for your comments, and to all who posted likes.
 
Spent some time today cutting up firewood so did not get as much time in the shop as I would have liked.
 
This evening I did manage to make a 75DP gear cutter took a long time to figure out how to hold the cutter in order to cut the gear using the shaping principles, the first attempt at making the tool to make the cutter I did not get the pins hard enough and the steel cutter blank damaged the pins so a second hardening did work. I rotated the pins to get a clean area for the tool.
 
The first gear blank turned out to be just some ground mild steel and did not harden at all. the second one was made from some 1/2 inch drill rod I also changed the type to an integrated shank and cutter.
 
The first pic shows the tool to make the cutter shaping the blank cutter.
 

 
the next shows the cutter after hardening and grinding the cutting face.
 

 
The next one is a quick test on some 3/8 diameter brass I just wanted to see how it cut this is a crude 30 tooth 75DP gear the final gear will need more care setting up the cutter to the tangent of the gear blank and the depth of cut will need proper measuring , but at least I know I can make one.
 
I still need to make a second cutter for the 60 tooth gear because the cutters are designed to cut a specific range, the one I made today is for gears ranging from 26 teeth to 34 teeth and is a number 4 cutter the other one is #2 cutter which has a range of 55 to 134 teeth.
 
Michael