druxey

Sorry to read about your slipped disc, Kats. I hope you'll soon be fully functional again. Best wishes for a full recovery.

Gravers are specialized small cutting tools used in metal work, engraving, jewelry, and such. They are usually small, hard, difficult to sharpen without diamond files. That said, they can be quite useful in doing fine or small work. The major difference from gouges and chisels would be size and hardness.
Unless you're doing metal work or stone work, I would think that actual gravers would be overkill.
 
I have found that small chisels and scrapers offered by Model Expo and Micromark are very useful in doing any scratch work, but must be sharpened properly...to the correct angle as well as sharpness...if they are to work well. As they come, they may seem sharp, but they really need a good sharpening job to work right.
A number of woodworking tool and hardware suppliers have tutorials online about sharpening. Highland Woodworking is one.
 
Chazz

Lower athwart-ship planks sanded back to just below the limber board intersection.  THe lid to the shot locker is two boards glued and beveled, but I only scored for the two doors rather than cut all the way through.  Hours spent on the shot locker hardware.  After cutting the three pieces for each hinge (two parts of the "T" and the wire for the hinge barrel) I started to hard-sloder them.  On most attempts, the pressure of the butane torch blew the wire off center.  Solution;  Work with long pieces, high temp. solder on the "T" and lower temp. on the wire.  By using the long pieces I was able to hold them in place while using the torch.  Bent to shape, then a quick filing, dip in acetone and a vinegar bath cleaned them up enough for blackening.  Very dilute (5:1 water: Chem)  "Blacken-it", then a stopper bath in vinegar.  Much more difficult to see the hinge details now.  I'll glue them in place with CA.
Not quite as clean a job as Greg's, but I'm happy with the progress so far.

Ah, yes. measurements. I have a favorite cartoon that goes like this:
 
Manager: "My philosophy is, measure twice, then cut twice, then, uh...."
Underling1: "...give the tape measure a bad performance review?"
Underling 2: "Hee, hee! (Pause) Ooh."

......
 
 
            rekon54

I think I'll fall back to the "how long is a piece of string"....  The term "best" is relative.  What's best for you may not be best for me and vice versa.  We have scale tall ships here from 1:400 (ships in bottles) to 1:24 for a 74 (I think it's a 74...gotta' check) and it's huge.  Each of these is "best" for the person building them.

Martin, I do not intend to paint anything. We do not know what the original decoration was so this is all speculative. We do know that at the time, the Admiralty was cracking down on decorative carving and trying (we don't know how successfully) to eliminate it.
 
Yes Druxey, I agree on the open space. A few months ago I added some more water lilies. If I were doing these figures again, I believe I would also extend the arms of the figures just outside the ports up to the cap rail as in the original painting. I don't have the heart for that at this stage, although I may include a pattern for that pose in Vol2.
 
Attached photo taken in February.
 
Ed

Another important fitting was the ship's wheel. These schooners used an Edson brand wheel in the early 1900s. Earlier on they may have used an all wood wheel, but from the photos of the 1920s, we know that the Edson wheels were quite popular.
 
Here is a nice example of an Edson wheel.

 
Here is what I was able to create for the model.

 
My wheel is not perfect, but it is a close approximation. It was created using several different materials. The basic rim is 1/16" plywood. The inner and outer bands of the rim are poster board. The spindles are bamboo. The handles are hand turned from cherry and have dowels formed on their ends to glue into holes in the rim. The hub is a piece of basswood and the sockets for the spindles on the outer part of the hub are brass tubing.
 
Note the locator dowels at each corner of the bottom of the wheel box. This is now a standard method for me. I can drill corresponding holes in the deck to locate a piece of deck furniture and always be able to remove and replace the fitting during construction. In fact, I do not think I even glued the fittings to the deck permanently because the fit was so snug with the locator dowels.
 
Russ

Thank you, Grant and Kurt.  Chuck, I do not make individual cases for my ships.  When we built our house I incorporated display cases into the design of the living room.  This will sit along side my Swan class cutter.  As far as next projects...back to Atalanta.  That will take me at least two years if I don't rig her and sky's the limit if I do.  Just as my Victory which is waiting for me to complete her rigging above the mastheads!

Thanks, guys.  Just for comparison I took a picture of the longboat next to Atalanta.  They are both 1:48 scale.
 

Thanks, Bob.
 
I remade the seizings for the shrouds using fly tying line.  It looks much better to me now.  The starboard shrounds have the flag halyards tied off to them as well. 
 
 
 
The rest of the rigging was installed per the directions without any difficulty.  I painted the belaying pins tan and permanently installed the rest of the lines.
 

 
 
 
The mounting base is courtesy of Hobby Lobby.  I broke the bank on it (79 cents...OK, 85 cents with tax).  I sealed and stained it and then applied two coats of Watco's.  The holes for the brass wire had previously been drilled into the keel.  The rudder was removed for safe keeping.
 

 
I am getting close to the end of this little adventure.  All that remains is making the rope coils, anchor and oars and touching up the paint.

Ah, yes. measurements. I have a favorite cartoon that goes like this:
 
Manager: "My philosophy is, measure twice, then cut twice, then, uh...."
Underling1: "...give the tape measure a bad performance review?"
Underling 2: "Hee, hee! (Pause) Ooh."

I posted this picture of the longboat and Atalanta under the longboat build log.  I am reposting it here for future reference.
 

Amendments of Cathead-rope
 
Karl

One way to mark out small spars is to take a strip of card stock and mark the 7-10-7 proportions on it's edge to the maximum spar diameter. As you mark along the spar, turn the card at an angle so the outermost marks coincide with the edges of the foursquare as it tapers. Pencil the inner marks on the flats at intervals. Make sure that the pencil point is very fine! That will be sufficient guide to cut the octagon accurately.

1:60 HMS Naiad 1797
Part 144–Stern Galleries 10 – Taffrail Figures Cont.
Posted 7/23/12
 
Work continues on the taffrail figures. The first picture shows the almost complete central figure temporarily pasted in place. The others were permanently installed last week.
 
 

 
The next picture is a closer view of the central figure, a naiad in a pool of water surrounded by water lilies.
 

 
There is no finish on these figures so the relief is still somewhat obscured by the sanding dust. These actually look better in real life – not always the case with the Naiad model photos. I may do something with the finish to accentuate the relief. Perhaps the wax will suffice but I may go to Tung oil. We’ll see. First some tests. Fortunately there are lots of first draft figures to practice on.
 
The next picture shows the taffrail with the additional groupings of water lilies added.
 
 

 
These are just pasted on. Some more fitting of all the last parts is needed to integrate them into the taffrail.
The last picture shows a view from below the starboard quarter. The angled lighting helps with the relief in this photo.
 

 
 
Ed

1:60 HMS Naiad 1797
Part 143–Stern Galleries 9–
Taffrail Figures Cont.
Posted 7/16/12
 
The work on the stern galleries continues. Progress seems slow. There has been a lot of rework. In the first picture the holes for the two chase ports are finally getting cut.
 
 

 
After drilling holes as shown, the rough opening was cut using a jeweler’s saw and the holes were refined to the line on the pattern with files followed by a sanding dowel.
 
The next picture shows the beading for one of the holes
 

 
These were turned on the lathe from a piece of flat stock glued to a chucked piece with paper between the pieces. The inner diameter was turned first to match the opening and the outer diameter turned to give the width of the bead.
 
At the same time work on the two figures over the stern windows was completed. The two are shown in the next picture picture as they near completion.
 

 
These are a later version of the same pose shown in an earlier post - with more relief – but they are still friezes, not fully sculpted figure like the quarter posts. They were carved stepwise together to help keep the similar.
 
The next picture shows the second figure being glued to the taffrail.
 

 
Before this step and after removal from the carving block the carvings were sanded on the back surface to a thinner depth and the back of the figures carved to add some relief. Starting with a thicker carving blank allows for some error and some flexibility in the amount of relief of each part of the pose. This can be seen in the next picture..
 

 
The back sides of the head, arm and leg in this view can be seen to be carved back where the meet the taffrail.
 
The next picture shows the inverted model at its current stage.
 

 
The aft windows of the quarter galleries have be reworked to incorporate a solid panel behind the simulated window grid. This seems to have been the most common practice for these windows.
 
The last picture is another view of the stern at present.
 

 
The central figure for the taffrail has not yet been added. There is also some additional “gingerbread” in the form of water lily carvings to be added, perhaps some additional bead rails and the name board.
 
Ed

1:60 HMS Naiad 1797
Part 142–Stern Galleries 8–Quarter Gallery Windows
Posted 7/16/12
 
There were some comments on milling the windows. Milling these small pieces, for me at least, was the easiest part of the job – compared to assembling these and fitting them into the window openings. These later steps require a steady hand and that is a problem. The first picture shows the milling setup used to notch the pieces
.
 

 
The slotting saw blade is about 2” thick (.028”). The only one I had of this size was 4” in diameter, hence the oversize blade in the picture. Two-inch thick stock is held down in the jig with two screws with large round heads. The angle is set to the angle of the windows, in this case the quarter gallery windows. A small strip helps keep the wood tight to the jig, but many of the cuts required holding down the piece. Once set up the cutting of the slots was easy using the calibrated wheels to match the 9” x 10” size of the panes.
 
The next step is a bit more fun. The next picture shows a window being assembled.
 
 

 
In the next picture an inside grille is being fit into its frame.
 
 
 
 

 
This was done by sanding the frames until they just fit. The inside grilles were installed deep enough in the frame to allow a second grille to be fit over the glass – a piece of transparency film.
 
In the next picture the forward window with its glass and outer grille has been installed.
 

 
The outer grille of the second window is fit into place and slight differences between the inner and outer matching grilles are being filed out. Also, a slight bevel was put on the outer mullions at this stage. The outer grille was then removed, the glass fitted and the grille glued back in over it.
 
The last picture shows the finished quarter gallery windows.
 

 
Ed

1:60 HMS Naiad 1797
Part 140–Stern Galleries 6–Quarter Galleries/Trim
Posted 6/26/12
 
 
Comments on the last part convinced me that my shingled roof over the quarter gallery needed to be reworked. I still do not know how these were constructed on the original ships – they may have been lead sheet – but the way they were handled on contemporary models is clear. I decided to mimic that, but still using individual shingles. The new shingles are paper thin and wider. The next picture shows these. There is still a bit of work to do on the front tiles.
 

 
The decked area above the shingled finishing piece is only pinned at this stage, pending the final cleanup of the shingles. This picture also shows the cap molding fitted to the top of the taffrail and also the permanent attachment of one of the Naiads.
 
The next picture shows another view of the shingles – and the starboard quarter piece Naiad.
 
 

 
And one more for good measure.
 
 

 
This picture also shows the central stern window installed and more of the taffrail cap molding.
 
The next picture shows another view of the window, the entire cap molding, and both quarter piece Naiad figures.
 
 

 
With the figures glued on, the fingers of their raised hands can be carved. Although I tried to give the arms some strength by running the wood grain from the outside foot to the hand, I didn’t want to risk an arm fracture so the detailing of the hands was deferred until the they were fixed in place on the rail.
 
This first window, although glued in, is a test. The window parts were milled so the grid parts interlock and also fit into mortises in the sides, tops and bottom frame pieces. The grid mullions are 1 ¾” square (.028”), so all the notches were dadoed with a .028” thick circular blade on the mill with the pane size and the notch depth set with the mill’s calibrating wheels. The frame was made slightly oversize and custom fit into the windw opening.
 
The window has a thin piece of clear plastic sandwiched between two grids. This can be seen in the next picture.
 
 

 
The grids have to be matched. They are also beveled after assembly on the side away from the glass to avoid a squared appearance. The sandwich construction allows them to appear correct when viewed from both sides – but it doubles the work.
 
I can only deal with the fitting of these tiny window parts in small doses, so I am splitting time between that and some of the other work to keep my sanity.
 
 
Ed

Hello,
 
Foremast, Foretop, Bibbs, Rubbing-paunch
 
Karl
 
 
 
T e i l  23

Final installment on the rebuilt log. The yards and running rigging and the final details:
 
The yards, like the masts, were made from dowels with the eight sided sections built up. The blocks were commercial items with some shaping. Specialized blocks such as long tackle blocks were made from strip wood. The rigging line is tan linen line that I have had for some years. The sequence of construction and rigging was fore to aft ( opposite to how I do the standing rigging, but also to give the greatest access), and lower to upper on each mast. The most difficult task was running the main jeers through the jeer bitt sheaves and attaching to the bitts. In hindsight, it wold have been much better to have made that attachment at a much earlier stage of construction before the bitts became very difficult to reach.
 
The final details included the anchors and their bouys and rigging, the entry ropes and the installation of the swivel guns and the elm tree pumps.
 
In summary, this kit, although it had numerous shortcomings, provided a unique opportunity to build a fully framed boxwood model without the necessity of cutting all of the framing. For me, without power tools, that was a critical plus factor.
 
Bob

A more accurate proportion is 7-10-7. Another way of saying this is that the width across the spar when square at any point is 24 parts. Measure in 7 parts of the 24 from each edge and this will, when planed off at 45 degrees, give you a perfect octagonal cross-section.

A more accurate proportion is 7-10-7. Another way of saying this is that the width across the spar when square at any point is 24 parts. Measure in 7 parts of the 24 from each edge and this will, when planed off at 45 degrees, give you a perfect octagonal cross-section.

First picture is a participation to encourage people to have a hobby. Few days ago I read a report concerning pictures on Internet. Here is a summary of my understanding. If I put new pictures on line today, these pictures become the property of the public domain. If I add a pseudonym on the picture side, it means nothing concerning intellectual property. Other statements like copyright expressing my will to appear as the author of the work of the mind should accompany the picture.
I saw Fiebing leather dye at the shoemaker store. Here is a comparison between ebony, leather dye and chinese ink. For the ink and dye, 1 layer to the left and 2 layers to the right. On this picture ebony look like charcoal. For what I see, black is black.
I began to do joinery for the first deck planking.
 
 
 

1:60 HMS Naiad 1797
Part 134 – Upper Deck continued/Stern detailing
Posted 5/25/12
 
 
Again it has been quite a while since the last update, but I can assure you I have been on the job.  It has taken some time though, to get visible progress.  The beam setting on the quarterdeck has proceeded and this is shown in the first few pictures, but that had to be discontinued because of some construction sequence issues.  First, since I am making the capstan in one piece it needs to be installed before the beam aft of it – or it won’t fit.  Also, since I want to invert the model to do the detailing of the stern galleries, I did not want to install the capstan or the wheel before doing that – to prevent them from possible damage while the model was upside down.  This took me on a long detour to draft the structural detail of the stern and quarter galleries and to design the decoration for them.  I will describe this below. 
 
The first picture shows the last beam to be installed before moving to the stern work.
 

 
The two removable iron pillars have been installed under this beam with the bearings for the pump cranks.  There is a ladder way forward of the capstan and a picture taken during its fabrication is shown below.
 
 

 
The next picture shows the ladder installed.
 
 

 
So, on to the work on the stern.  I needed to do quite a bit of research to understand and draft the stern structure, especially the quarter galleries, which are not descri9bed well in Steel or in the contracts.  Goodwin and White were a big help, but the structure is complex and everything is curved, so it took a while – and a whole new drawing - to get it drafted for building.  The modeling of this will be described later.
 
The priority for the next phase will be the stern galleries, including their decoration.  Since there is no decoration plan available for Naiad, the model decoration will be speculative.  Naiads were mythological fresh water nymphs, so the decoration needs to follow that theme.  There will be five figures on the stern galleries, one on each quarter post and three on the taffrail.  The evolving arrangement can be seen in the following pictures.
 
The first picture shows a pattern for one of the figures being pasted to a thick block of European boxwood.
 
 

 
The basis for this figure is a painting by Henrietta Rae - a 19th century artist specializing in romanticized mythological themes.  It depicts a reclining  nymph gazing down into a pool from  a bank.  The quarter piece figures are based on a painting by Arthur Hacker – same period, same subjects.  These won’t be needed until later.  The central figure in this picture is a water lily, but will likely be changed to the figure shown below – also a nymph.
 
After the outline of the figure was cut out from the block on a scroll saw, the shape was sliced into multiple slabs for the bas-relief carving.  The picture below shows two mirror-imaged pieces.
 

 
Patterns have been applied to both, and both have been glued to a base using wood glue with a layer of paper between so they can be easily removed later.  The next picture shows the carving just about complete – if it ever will be – for the three taffail figures.
 
 
 

 
There are couple of practice figures in the picture.  They helped define the carving issues and final sizing.  The last picture shows a closeup of the two mirrored figures.
 

 
Carving these two together was my best idea yet.  It made it a lot easier to keep them as identical as possible.  I won’t go through all the steps here.  They are quite small for my eyes and my increasingly unsteady hands so I wanted to make sure I could get something acceptable before putting a stamp on the design.
 
They may be small, but they certainly involved the use of more tools per square inch of wood than any other work I’ve done.  The picture below was not posed and more tools were brought to bear after it was taken.  This array is a sure sign of someone without a process.
 

 
By the way,  this picture shows the Henrietta Rae picture used – with modifications – as a source.  With these carvings done, I feel reasonably comfortable with the design, so the construction of the stern can begin.
 
 
Ed