Elia

Hi Nils, and thank you.  I can’t believe I put this log in MSW almost 11 years ago.  Once our kids became active hobbies like this collected some dust.  I’ve begun on it again, backtracking a little bit, fixing a few things I wasn’t happy with.  Maybe more to come, here in the month(s) ahead.
 
Elia

Some of today's effort: assembling some of the Syren Ship Model Company's internally iron stropped blocks.  
 
In the first picture you'll find, on the left, how the mini-kits arrive.  
 
In the center/top are blocks glued together using medium CA and toothpicks (per the online instructions).  
 
At the right are the sheave pin 'wire' and the incredibly fine strip stock used for the strops in the remaining bags.
 
In the center you'll see blocks snipped off the frames and also blocks which have had the sprue and laser burn sanded off.  I found using a no. 11 blade wasn't the best way to separate the blocks from the frame - it is easy for the sprue to snap off at part and remove a small chunk of the block. The shears shown worked quite well at separating the block without the damage to the block.
 
The second picture is a close up of the blocks.
 
I tried inserting the fine strip stock into the laser cut slots - they worked perfectly on the couple I tried.
 
I will have to wait a short while before I can tumble them to smooth the edges.
 
Elia

While I putter along with things here is an in-process picture of the masts and spars and their associated ironwork.  I still have some to do on the topmasts.  And there are a few fittings which I'll fret saw and file from thicker brass sheet.  I'll solder the soft or load bearing joints shortly.
 
Elia

So .... here are some initial 'casting my dories' images (taken with my cell phone).
 
The first two are my dory, puttied, sanded, and primed.
 
The next is of my mold box constructed of Lego blocks.
 
Following that is my mold box with clay, the blank, and vented tubes placed.
 
I purchased a starter kit from MicroMark - showing the mold two part materials.
 
Then there is slowly mixing up the silicone mold batter.
 
And lastly the mold filled.  
 
I have taken the blank out out of the mold and the first half looks pretty good - though I don't have a picture of it here...
 
Elia

Hi Nils, and thank you.  I can’t believe I put this log in MSW almost 11 years ago.  Once our kids became active hobbies like this collected some dust.  I’ve begun on it again, backtracking a little bit, fixing a few things I wasn’t happy with.  Maybe more to come, here in the month(s) ahead.
 
Elia

Hi Nils, and thank you.  I can’t believe I put this log in MSW almost 11 years ago.  Once our kids became active hobbies like this collected some dust.  I’ve begun on it again, backtracking a little bit, fixing a few things I wasn’t happy with.  Maybe more to come, here in the month(s) ahead.
 
Elia

Hi Nils, and thank you.  I can’t believe I put this log in MSW almost 11 years ago.  Once our kids became active hobbies like this collected some dust.  I’ve begun on it again, backtracking a little bit, fixing a few things I wasn’t happy with.  Maybe more to come, here in the month(s) ahead.
 
Elia

Thanks Joe!  Your log really helped, there is no way the deck would have come out so well without the tip of adding the sub-deck, and removing the timbers from the frames.  Now only if I had remembered there were two false timbers between each frame section.. Your rigging on the Latham is amazing, and the build has been inspiring..
The final chainplate "bolts" are a little out of scale, of course now that the are painted I see this, but I have plenty of material I can remove to improve it.  I mean there's no hurry, time enough to get it right.

The fixture worked out well; the plates are all coming out even and identical. Time for some paint.

Working on chainplates, I wanted to use thinner brass, but couldn't find any.  So I thinned out the ends with a file, and got a good tight loop.
I also machined a fixture to drill the mounting holes. As I mentioned when I was drilling the holes for the rudder pintles the drill walked so they are not as even as I wanted. This fixture should make the hole spacing and they should be well centered., then I will trim them to size.  Hard to tell teh scale, but those are M4 screws and 0.028" (#69 drill) holes

At this point I've got the deck and bulwarks painted, but not quite ready to start the top rail. I want to consider the right way to approach it, bent 1/4, or 1/2 inch that I trim and shape. I think the latter, but I want to think a bit. Scuppers are cut and cleaned up after this photo, prow is mostly shaped, and cut for the bowsprit.  The hull above the water line is just primed.  When cutting the scuppers I realized I somehow miscounted the timberheads!  There should have been 2 between each frame section, and I only added 1.   My next step will be creating the chainplates, that's going to require some work, based on the "lessons learned" from creating the pintles, I want to create a fixture to ensure the chainplates are drilled evenly, the drill walked a bit while making the pintles and given the prominence of the chain plates I want them as uniform and identical as possible.

Thought I wold share some previous accessories; I tried a few ways to make barrels, the one that worked best was turning some soft wood in the lathe.  I then created an "index" mark on the lathe chuck, then draw a tool across the round to create even grooves representing the staves of the barrel.
I then marked and tapered the the individual barrels while in the lathe, and drilled the hole through the round.  Finally at the workbench I carved the details to the staves, and wrapped the "sapling" around the barrels before cutting off each barrel. I didn't drill all the way though so some barrels could be "closed". Using a small chisel I cut back the the face of the "closed" barrels to create the recessed lids.  All this was made easier by having a decent piece of wood to hold on to while working. Hope all this makes sense. I made a lot, and using different finishes, so I can pick and choose.

Using a similar technique I made a couple of buckets. Also shown the completed gutting trays and the net.  The cheesecloth was very easy to work with, so I'm looking forward to creating the sine net as well.

Thanks Jacques, I'm starting back to work on the hull.  I think I'm going to plank the deck, before finishing the monkey board or top rail.  I think having the deck "clear" will allow me to plank using full pieces.
Meanwhile, I've been doing a few other details.  The boom rest, and the foresail boom, rail thingie.  Also the pintles.. almost out of brass strips.

Meanwhile the hull is done and primed.  Once I have a lot of the mast details made up, the spreader and mounts, I'll get back to the hull.  The planking isn't perfect, I need to work on tapering the bulkheads.  Even after making lots of measurements, I still had some planks "miss" the bulkhead.  Also the way the planks meet the transom, yikes. I'm not going or obsess about the gaps in the planks, as long as they are stable, I've worked glue into the gaps to be sure no planks "pop", if the planks show, well, it's a planked boat, they will show.

I did not like the dowels that came with the kit, and hardwood like these were bound to frustrate me, so all the masts and spars are laminated basswood, then carved down to the right size and shape.  While they are not perfect, I think they will stain nicer, and the grain being finer will look better at scale.
At the same time I'm making the bands, these are from brass strips, curled and soldered.  I put a coat of matte spray paint, then a coat of flat with a brush.  The kit supplied cast parts as well, also I made up the spreader struts off the drawings from copper wire.

And we're almost caught up to where I'm at. (planking the hull) I remade the windlass brake bar, it wasn't the right size and didn't fit into the pivot casting right, I also made new links.  In general the castings are OK in this kit, other kits I have tossed most of them as the scale it wrong, or they just don't look right.  The MS Sultana for example, I build up the windlass from scratch as it was all wrong.  The Latham windlass is very good in this kit, as were most of the brake parts.

Like a crazy person, I did fully plank the cabin. I also constructed the sky light in a way that I used painted copper wire for the bars. On all the furniture, I'm leaving off the bottom trim, until they are on the deck, this way I can match the contour of the deck when they are in place.  All the furniture is built measuring from the deck surface.  This way I can make full length deck planks and not "work around" hatchways or cabins, if needed I could carve away the deck planks, but I want them to be full runs so they curve and fitment is tight.  The ports on the cabin are leather rivets.  They are the right size and I will add a flat finish to them. A bit of a short cut, but one that I think worked well.

I made a great discovery! Durhams putty, my son had this can, he made game miniatures. This worked great to finish the anchors to the drawing's design, and blend in the attachment of the ring. I'm really please with how well it adheres and how fine it can be sanded

All the hardware is made from copper wire, I did not make all the oars, they are so small... I made as many as I could stand to.


 

The Seine boat went well, a similar build up as the Armed Longboat by Model Shipways, but much smaller. Carving away the bulkheads took some time.  No idea why one photo is posting upside down.. I have tried a few times to fix it, weird.

OK the ship..  Actually the Dory... What I generally do is while parts are setting up, while researching or just taking a break form the hull, I have been working on furniture and the other boats.  The Dory was frustrating as it was the first fully scratch built hull I have made, after a bunch of false starts I created a spine that held the keel and "false" bulkheads. I was then able to get the planks to curve well.  I'm not convinced about the interior finish, I have added several coats of danish oil, but as it's displayed upright on the deck I might sand it down and refinish.

I didn't take too many photos of the start, I live in Arizona so generally work on the model in the summer, in the winter there are lots of garage and outside projects to work on. For example last year I rebuilt the "craft room" my wife's office and where I work on my models and sometimes watches.  This was my first time building cabinets, and I was pretty pleased with the results, my wife and I now have large stable surfaces and drawers.

The build log reconstruction begins...
 
It has been a long time since I’ve started a new sailing ship build, with my sailing ship model (Oneida) taking about 4 years to complete.  Ever since building Smuggler, an 1870’s mackerel seiner from Gloucester, I’ve been smitten by 19th and 20th century American fishing schooners.  There are a number builds, both in progress and completed, that have been inspiring to me – Bluenose builds, a couple of Ben Lathams, a scratch build of Columbia, and even a few of the “yachty” Americas.  Jim Lefever, who’s impressive Benjamin Latham build was a great inspiration for me, provided me with a list of great reading references on American fishing schooners.  After receiving a number of them as gifts, and reading through them, I knew my next build would have to be another fishing schooner.  I have to admit right up front that Arethusa, an early 1900s fishing schooner and the topic of this build, was never called the “Goddess of Gloucester”.  She was a goddess in Greek mythology.  The schooner was named after one of Thomas McManus's daughters.  I just thought that 'Goddess of Gloucester' fit to her will and made for a catchy name for this log.  Arethusa, the schooner, was big, beautiful, and had a colorful history – sounds interesting to me.  Enough about my motivations and ramblings….let’s get on with the ship.     Arethusa was designed by Thomas F. McManus in 1907 and built by James and Tarr in Essex, Massachusetts, in 1909.  She was what is termed a knockabout schooner.  Unlike traditional schooners, with bowsprits (and jibbooms, and flying jibbooms), knockabout schooners had an extended bow and no bowsprit.  The extended bow essentially placed the fore topmast stay at the same position as on a traditional schooner.  With that configuration of stay location the crew wouldn’t be required to climb out on the typically poorly maintained footropes aside the bowsprit in order to perform tasks involving the sails and rigging.  This was a Thomas McManus innovation, based on his observations and discussions with fisherman and owners, and was meant to reduce sailing crew injuries and deaths.   I am using Howard I. Chapelle’s lines drawing and sail plan of Arethusa from his “American Fishing Schooners”, plate 120 and figure 30.  “American Fishing Schooners” (AFS) has a great deal of detail in it’s appendix on most of the features of late 19th century and early 20th century schooners, and it is these I will use to build the details of the model.  If anyone knows of more details about Arethusa I would be most grateful to learn of them.  I have contacted Mystic Seaport Museum about their collection but found that while Arethusa is listed in their collection they don’t have any more information than that (little) which is shown in AFS.   Following are some excerpts from “Thomas F. McManus and the American Fishing Schooners”, by W.M.P. Dunne, on Arethusa: James and Tarr “...completed her on 25 September 1907.  Fifteen feet longer than the Pontiac, the Arethusa was, nevertheless, a deep, short ended knockabout, with the typically knuckled straight run of the keel (although with less drag), that Tom favored in this class, and more tumblehome.  Once again he experimented with the rig.  He stepped the foremast farther forward with the masts further apart.  Right from the start, the big fisherman earned a reputation as a speedster.  Captain Clayton Morrisey, the Arethusa’s first skipper waxed poetic: “She’s the slickest bit of wood that ever went down to Bay of Islands.  Nothing can touch her and an eight-year-old girl’s little finger is stout enough to spin the wheel no matter how fresh it breezes.”  “Can she sail?” exclaimed Captain Morrisey, opening his eyes as if he didn’t quite believe his ears.  “Why, when we were coming up from the herring grounds she cut out her 13 knots an hour for six consecutive hours.”     “We’d see a blotch of smoke away ahead on the horizon and in a little while would make out a tramp steamer bound our way.  Pretty soon the Arethusa was kiting alongside the tramp and then we’d lose sight of her astern.  She did that trick a number of times.”     In fact, with Clayt Morrissey at the helm in 1912, the Arethusa would easily outrun the Canadian Dominion fisheries’ patrol steamer Fiona, “whose commander opined the Arethusa was violating the three-mile limit.”           “At the beginning of 1921, soon after the new [prohibition] law was in place, Captain William F. “Bill” McCoy, a sometime Daytona Beach, Florida, boatbuilder, guided his fully-laden McManus schooner, the Henry L. Marshall, past the Tybee Lighthouse and up the river to Savannah, where, in the dark of the night, he discharged not fish, but 1,500 cases of illicit liquor.  With the proceeds, McCoy replaced himself with a new skipper on board the Marshall and went to Gloucester in search of the boat of his dreams, Tom’s speedy Arethusa.  Although McCoy had fished the Marshall legitimately until after the Eighteenth Amendment dried out the country, he had always thirsted for Arethusa.  With Gloucester feeling the effect of postwar economic contraction, the owners of the fourteen-year-old schooner…..sold her to McCoy in April 1921.  The Arethusa became a rum runner, a fast freighter of bootleg spirits.  McCoy renamed her Tomoka, added a bowsprit so she could carry two jibs, jumbo and jib topsail-and a lot of liquor (she had the capacity of 6,000 cases of illegal alcohol).     He brought the Tomoka to anchor just outside the then three mile limit of United States waters, but well within site of the beach.  He soon began a thriving business with New York and New Jersey bootleggers…. “  [this is where the term ‘the real McCoy’ came from]   Arethusa later returned to fishing, and was lost off Halifax in November 1929.  Her particulars are:   Designer                Thomas F. McManus Builder                    Tarr and James Launch date                25 September 1907 Gross tonnage                157 tons Molded length at caprail of        127’ – 3”     Molded beam                25’ – 0” Molded depth                13’ – 2” Registered dimensions        114.0’ x 25.6’ x 12.5’

Roger,
 
Thanks for the additional information.
 
John,
 
The mirror floor is different and sharp.  That does impart an airy feel, and I’ll bet it provides reflected light onto the lower hull and planking, usual in the shadows.
 
The planked floor is clever and different too.  In my ‘case’ I’m not sure that would help solve my issue of the planked hull being overwhelmed by the large wooden case.
 
Thanks for those!
 
Elia