druxey

Nicely completed, Clare. The Royal Standard is flown only when the king was aboard. He must be below, somewhere aft.... Usually jack was flown from the jackstaff on the bowsprit. No criticism - just thought you'd like to know.
 
(The painting is of the second or new Mary - not to be confused with the original Dutch Mary. In this instance, the yacht is carrying William of Orange. His standard flies from the masthead.)

@rwiederrich Rob, 
A Father’s Day gift of a sort for you. From Monthtly Nautical Magazine Quarterly Review, April 1855 there's an article on the 5 year old McKay California Fleet clipper Stag-Hound. While she had the fastest times among other clippers for the seasons she sailed in. I found a confirming spec that her masts raked 1 & 1/4" each instead of the erroneous 1 & 1/2" printed in the Boston Daily Atlas. There are 2 errata in this article: it's inconceivable that her keel clear of the garboards was 39" as that would leave an impossibly thin 7" for her inner keel. The specs in the Hall lists her outer keel as 30" leaving a more sensible 16" inner keel. In Cornelius McKay's handwritten specs lists her bowsprit steeve as 4.2" (19.34° inclination) not the more aggressive 4 & 1/2" (20.56° inclination) of this article. As we've discussed, using multiple historic sources results in greater accuracy.

Rob,
Once again we're proving the incomparable value of decent research. Your 50 years of model building prowess shines with this exciting Stag Hound build.

That is a fascinating looking vintage milling machine!

That is a fascinating looking vintage milling machine!

Nicely completed, Clare. The Royal Standard is flown only when the king was aboard. He must be below, somewhere aft.... Usually jack was flown from the jackstaff on the bowsprit. No criticism - just thought you'd like to know.
 
(The painting is of the second or new Mary - not to be confused with the original Dutch Mary. In this instance, the yacht is carrying William of Orange. His standard flies from the masthead.)

Thank you guys.
To Chris - I don't like the black caulking between the planks to be too prominent, so the caulking here is created only by blackening the edge of the plank with a pencil so that it is not too prominent. The only exception is the planks on the decks, where the caulking is created with black paper. Here this color contrast makes a bit more sense (at least from my point of view).
I continue by planing the "thicker" part of the bow.

In between business-related absences from home, I managed to progress a little bit ...
 
****************
 
Cabin Skylight
 
As noted previously, the cabin skylight is a somewhat perilous position, but nevertheless contemporary drawings and some old models indicated, that they were of relatively lightweight construction. The actual construction is somewhat conjectural, but it seems that the hatch was covered by frame into which glass-panes were insert. Over this, there is a shallow roof-like structure with protective iron bars. In this arrangement, the glass-panes are not actually insert into the roof-like structure, but are at some distance below. The effect is, that even in the event that the iron bars are bent, the glass would not be touched. It also conceivable, that in the Baltic not real glass was used, but rather muscovite, which would be obtained by trade from Russia. In the event of very bad weather, the roof-like grille presumably could be replaced by a plain hatch cover.

Milling to shape of the acrylic glass core for the cabin skylight
 
This structure was built up in my preferred way, that is around a core of acrylic glass. It was milled to size from scrap piece of acrylic glass. For the ‘glass’ surface, I was able to use one of the original - as manufactured - surfaces, so no polishing was required. The high-speed milling with a fly-cutter a low feed-rate left almost transparent surfaces.

Milling to shape of the acrylic glass core for the cabin skylight

Milling of the recesses for the laser-cut frame parts
 
The parts for the roof-like structure were produced again with the laser-cutter from Canson paper. The structure was to be designed in two parts, namely the frame attached to acrylic core and the two roof halves with the grilles, to allow painting. During painting the horizontal pane will be masked off and the roof halves painted separately.
 
In order to ensure equal spacing of the ‘bars’, the roof was built up from three layers with the middle layers having notches. This layer was lacquered onto one of the outer layers and the ‘bars’ attached with drops of varnish – quite a fiddly bit of work and I am not entirely satisfied with the result. In the past, I made such parts from surface-etched brass and this seems to have worked better, but I didn’t want to set up everything for etching just a couple of small parts.

Basic structure of the skylight, waiting to be painted and finally assembled
 
I prefer to defer painting to the late stages of the building process in order to avoid handling the painted parts as much as possible, so construction of the skylight stops here for the moment.
 
To be continued …

She’s looking smart.    When the keel is done…….paint.  
 
Rob

A little keel foot coppering.  
 
Rob

Prepping the single plates for the keel foot. 
 
Rob

Finished the port side.   Now to finish off the keel foot.   
 
Rob

Working at finishing up the starboard side.  
 
Rob

Okay, final pics. Managed to fabricate a decorative piece for the last of the flag staffs. Got the last flag added.
 
This isn't a perfect model, but it was one I wanted to finish for the original builder, the late Richard Fletcher.
 

Learned a few things, RE-LEARNED a few things, and had fun working on the model, and I'm satisfied with it.
 
I still have another, original Mamoli Yacht Mary kit in my stash. I don't know that I need it anymore. There are a lot of ship modeling subjects I want to build. Perhaps I'll tackle it later.
 
Don't know the final disposition of this model. I will take it to a couple ship model club meetings in July and August, and probably display it at a miniatures show in October. Then, we shall see.
 
But, now, it's back to HMS Wolf and others!
 
 

Adding flagstaffs now, and discovered that one of the decorative fixtures for the flagstaff tops is missing. 🤨
 
So, now, I need to either replicate one, or make something simpler...

It's a bit hard for e to get this exact shape, and I want them all to look the same. I'll see what I can do to replicate this one, but since I want to take this to the IPMS show in Fremont tomorrow, I may end up clipping them down to the ball at the base. That's easy to reproduce.
 
Anybody know how accurate these are for the Mary?
 
In the meantime, I've been adding flags.
 

Something interesting that I've noticed about this Dusek produced Mamoli kit. The flags are just a tad different than the original Mamoli kit. The original kit had a pennant flying from the end of the bowsprit, but with a red pennant with a Union Jack at the base, whereas the Dusek kit has a red pennant with St. George's Cross at the base. I know nothing about what's correct, or where each of the flags should fly, except for what the instructions call for. I'll be following the instructions on this.
 
Below, I've already cut out the flags I printed, and am giving them some shape. I shaped them with various round instruments – a pen, a dowel, a paint brush handle, etc. Then to help them hold their shape, I applied a bit of pressure to the folds by slipping them underneath my cutting mat. The weight of the mat was just enough to hold them in place until the paper "relaxed". The folds turned out surprisingly well and I'm very happy with the results.


Two more to mount. But first, I need to figure out if I can replicate that decoration.

Hello Ab,
 
Thank you for the advice. I will consider changing the topsail later. I may save these suggestion for a future model of the Mary, as I have my own un-started kit in storage. If I build another, I will remember to alter the mast so that the sheave for the topsail halliard is higher, and modify the topsail itself so that foot arcs up higher to clear the jib. Also, might lower place the tackle for the jib halliard a tad lower on the mast.

 

I don't think the length of the spreader yard is much of a problem. It is carried by the topsail. The pendant which is attached to the spreader yard is so long that it hangs loosely when the sail is in use. It only carries the yard if the sail is not hoisted.
If you would consider to make another topsail (which would add to the atmosphere of the model, but is of course not necessary) you would see that the 'hollow' lower side of the sail goes much higher up, to avoid chafing with the halliard of the jib. With a yard hanging as low as on the model, very little of the surface of the sail remains.
 
 

Thank you for the comments Ab.
 
The mast was already constructed by the original builder, and I chose to keep as much of his work as possible. But, even so, I'm afraid I don't have much general knowledge of Dutch shipbuilding, and the it plans, as you may already guess, are somewhat lacking in the accuracy of these details.
 
I did make some modifications to the rigging, which was based, in part, on your models. If I build another similar model of the Mary or similar, I will remember your comments about the location of sheave of the topsail halliard.
 
I didn't know about the iron brace. After this weekend, perhaps I'll go back and see if I can add it to the model "after the fact".
 
Another issue I noticed when I started adding the topsail is that the spreader yard seems a bit too long and heavy. If I were to do this model again, I would consider correcting that as well.
 

You did well on this model. But I have some small remarks on the side on this topsail if you allow me:
The sheave of the halliard was placed inside the topmast and was situated much higher up, which caused the topsail to be much longer.
And I miss the 8-shaped iron brace that kept the topyard close to the topmast. It was loosely situated around the topmast and stayed up, even if the sail was hauled down on deck:

I hope this sketch clarifies it.
 

Yesterday, I had the day off, so I took the opportunity to add the topsail and finish tying off all the running rigging. I ended up having to belay a lot of the lines incorrectly, but you can't tell in most cases. In other cases, I figure that I'll be adding rope coils at a later date to hide some of those details.
 
Flags are yet to go on, but I'm no longer feeling pressed for time to get the model done for the IPMS show this weekend. And, in any case, I should have time to get the flags done by tomorrow.
 
Would like to have braced the topsail around more, but the spreader yard was starting to hit the port shrouds and I din't want to deform them. Also, not sure what others do about this, but that spreader yard has no lines that pull down on it. On most ships, you at least have the sheet lines, which can be rigged to apply some downward pressure. As a result, the spreader yard halliard was too slack. So, I cheated, and if you look really closely, there's a thin black thread pulling the yard down, tied off to the staysail sheet horse. It's hardly noticeable, and it works!

Anyway, flags are next...

Thr problem with paper plans is a considerable degree of expansion or contraction depending on humidity. You can be absolutely 'on' with that keel today,and be off several mm by the next day. It's like chasing a chimera. Madness will ensue!
 
Two solutions:
 
1) Take a known scale measurement  such as keel length and apply a scale rule against your work. 
 
2) Produce a scale drawing on Mylar sheet. It is dimensionally stable regardless of humidity. Use that rather than a paper plan. 
 
The second solution is one I've used now for decades, since I discovered paper plans were a snare and delusion for accurate work. Sure, it's more work, but saves my sanity in the long run! The photo is the prelude to my current project, the South Carolina, ex L'Egyptian.

Got the frames cut out and glued to the vacuformed canopy. Afterwards I noticed that there is a slight defect on the aft starboard side that didn't allow the lowest frame on that side to sit level. It remains to be seen how that will affect fitting the canopy to the fuselage later. I will let the glue fully cure before cutting the canopy free from its blank.

 
Since I invested in an upgraded cockpit interior, I'm leaning toward displaying this model with the canopy open.

Thank you! Pre-molded canopies are certainly convenient, but I don't think I've ever had one yet that didn't pose its own unique challenges, and this one was no different, so I'm happy with this result.
 
Next it was on to the ailerons, and naturally with this being a Halinski kit, each one had to consist of no less than thirteen separate parts. 😑 

 
In the end, though, I was completely dissatisfied with how the control horns turned out, so I ended up replacing them with much simplified scratch components, which knocked the parts count down to only twelve per side. As seems to be my habit, I also ended up with the gap between the wing and aileron being much more noticeable on one side than the other, which you can't really see from this angle. What can I say? And lastly for this session, I also added the brass 20 mm cannon barrels and their shrouds.

 
I believe the landing gear are next if I follow the numbered sequence.
 

Canopy is on.
 

After another relatively long break, I've managed to find a bit of time to work on Echo this afternoon. No great strides forward, though I did manage to make a test of one of the upper deck beams. I made a template out of card paper using the drawing in the practicum against some carbon paper, and then rubber cemented this to some 9" boxwood that came with the original framing package. I think that next time I will simply use copies of the drawing itself, printed onto card. I think this will likely lead to a more accurate template and a better result. Fortunately I have enough of the 9" box to do a bit of testing before committing to anything.
 
I had imagined that the test beam would be fit forward, but it ended up being a fraction to short for that purpose. But it fits perfectly athwartships in the aft beam position at frame 5. So even though right now the piece still looks very rough (as seen in the photos below) I hope I can tidy it up and perhaps use it since it does fit so nicely....I also made a strake of deck planking to fit in line with the port side lower deck waterway - not too difficult or exciting. 
 
The upper deck framing is going to be quite tricky I think - I'm not looking forward to making and fitting the beam arms and am a bit concerned about the beams being at the correct height.....but we'll see in the next little while how it comes together.
 
Enjoy the photos and bye for now
hamilton