vaddoc

My 2 c Justin Making blocks is very time consuming. It can be done with a good result but needs to be approached as a separate stand alone project. A lot of time needs to be invested initially to standardise a method of making the blocks using whatever tools one has. Then the stropping will take a while, they are fiddly little buggers. Getting Chuck's blocks is a good option but you ll certainly be able to make acceptable blocks yourself. It will take lots of headscratching and time though. I think I made about 70 for my current boat and that was a gigantic work but I am in no hurry-I kind of overengineered it though. This can be a tedious task and if you d rather build your boat, get Chuck's blocks.

This is certainly an unusual shape. Looking forward to this journey, I ll take that sit in the back.

There is a heat wave here in England and the garage is getting a bit too hot so work is suspended till it cools. However, I have finished the mast part of the running rigging. 7. Topsail leader. This is essentially a line running down from the top of the mast to a block at the tabernacle. Its purpose is to provide a somewhat fixed point for the luff of the topsail to be attached. This is shackled to the top sail downhaul so that both can be tighten with the same line. 8. Topsail downhaul. As above 9. Topsail outhaul. This is attached to the clew of the topsail, through a sheave at the end of the gaff and then led down to the cabin roof 10. Topsail halliard. No purchases needed. This concludes this part of the rigging and all the lines should be visible on the photos that follow. I used two bought shackles as they have the advantage that they can be removed. This is important as the rigging for the topsail needs to be taken down when the sales are furled an in this case the topsail halliard will be shackled to the leader. You may notice an unused block at the starboard side attached to the tabernacle, it just needs to be removed. The black thread on the gaff and boom are just to keep things together Next probably to do some work on the boom, I ll need to make a mock main sail. The worrying part will be the sheets for the foresails Vaddoc

Thanks, it was indeed a very fun boat to build. I still have not got round to taking some photos for the gallery!

Hi Richard, very nice work, the boat is coming out fine. How did you apply the ink to the wood? It seems to have taken up the colour evenly, I like how it looks.

Thanks Vlad! The Deben is a very fun boat to build and like your clipper, I think deserves a large scale! Now, I d like to share with you a few more models that I ve been building. You see, I have a 3 and a 5 year old and this lockdown is an opportunity for some creative time together by doing school projects. They actually take a lot of time but the girls love it! Back to the boat, I must admit I am having a great time. Progress is now very fast, I mostly draw info from the books by John Leather and Tom Cunliffe. They do have limitations though but more on these later on. Also, the size of the boat creates a problem taking good photos. Another problem is that I am running out of single blocks, I think that I will have just enough. I really do not want to make any more! So far , these are the components of the running rigging that have been installed 1. Jib topsail, which is combined with the stay and self tensioning 2. Jib, which is set flying with some powerful blocks 3. Staysail, again with powerful blocks. Next, it was time to add the gaff. It has a sheave for the gaff top sail. 4. Throat halliard. It is currently made fast to the port pin rail but Cunliffe is adamant it needs to be on the starboard side so I ll change it later Yes, the hoops need to be bellow the gaff-fixed later on 5. Peak halliard. The wire will look fine once the sail goes on and there is a bit of weight and pull on the gaff 6. Topping lift. This again has some powerful blocks. The line will be tied to one of the mast pins-this pin will be shared with the topsail downhaul as the two lines will never be used simultaneously. The topping lift is the upper most block The next 3 sketches explain how the rigging works. S1 means single block one ended, S2 two ended etc I then actually moved the topping lift to the other side of the mast to make room for the lines rigging the topsail The next two photos show how things are currently. I started rigging the topsail but run out of time. Certainly the mast is starting to look busy! I now am confident that there will be enough room on the boat for all the above components. However, I am concerned that there will not be enough room for the sheets of the foresails. The two books I mentioned earlier, "Gaff Rig" and "Hand, reef and steer" do not elaborate enough on how the sheets are arranged. I searched the net and also watched several You tube videos and this is what I came up with: The jib top mast is a weak sail, does not need a block and the sheet goes straight to the stern The jib will have on each side a single block, one end of the line tied to the deck, the other through the block, through a lizzard and straight to a cleat at the stern The staysail needs powerful blocks The problem is that 3 cleats will be needed at the stern on each side, and with the Highfield levels and the main sail sheet blocks, I do not think there is enough space. Maybe I should not have made the cockpit so generous. Anyway, we ll need to make do. I also would like to add a boom vang but I ll leave this for later.

Is your rope 3 strand Vlad? I mean, is your rope made of 3 individually made smaller ropes? If so, splicing is very satisfying and ultimately quick and time effective. If your rope is made from threads, splicing does not work well. I used splicing extensively in the past and that was my experience.

Danbloch, it is difficult to recommend a very specific finish as things work differently for different situations and people. For example, I never liked shellac and I use a lot a water based sanding sealer, Tung oil and water based varnishes-enamel varnishes if I need extra tough protection. A lot of people use wipe on poly-never used it myself. Matt varnishes can be temperamental if the mat medium within is not stirred carefully. I think you need to try a few finishes on scrap pieces of wood and see what you like and what works for you. Cheap plywood is great to try finishes. Also, there are a lot of threads with relevant discussions with a wealth of information-have a look. Do not try your chosen finish on the model itself, a failure on a large surface will need a lot of work to fix.

Just came across you wonderful log, this will be a great model! Clearly you are having to much fun! I think the scale is spot on, you are capturing the feeling of massiveness that you get with these large ships. Looking forward for the rest of this journey.

It seems that back then, if you had just a plain grey plane, nobody would actually want to fight you! I do have some thoughts but currently there is a lack of both time and funds!

Indeed, your boat looks very nice! Yep, your description of model boat building seems accurate enough. Welcome to MSW!

Congratulations Geert, this turned out a wonderful model. Beautiful!

Very nice Paul! Regarding the hatch, it took me a very long time to make mine. Looking back maybe it would be easier to make it from a solid piece of wood with grooves to imitate individual planks. Much easier to make the curved top. Indeed, your bowsprit will cost you a lot in port fees!

Fantastic work Gary, fantastic paint skills. Good at maths too-we will not tolerate over or undersized boards!😉

Building a model from 90 year old plans, isn't this fantastic! I somehow had the impression that boats with wide beam were slow. Any idea Mark what purpose this very wide beam served on this boat?

I just finished going through the log Carl, very enjoyable, wonderful models! The strip down plane seems incredibly fragile. Lovely!

I think Jaager's post summarises things well, although I use epoxy a lot for laminating wood. For this task contact cement does not look too appropriate. For wood-wood you can't really go wrong with PVA. Yellow (aliphatic) PVA has very short opening time, white gives you more time to adjust the pieces. However, if you coat a large surface of thin wood with PVA it will absorb the moisture and buckle (does not happen that much with plywood). To avoid this you can wet the opposite surface.

Many thanks Keith, indeed the plan is for full sails. The rigging is actually quite beefy and potentially could take a lot of tension. The shackles are also strong. There are 2 weak areas though that might give in. One is the cranse iron that took too many bumps and is just nailed (ca glue on the nails). The other is the backstays, I did not take into account that they would need to actually take some serious load so they are not as strong as i would like. The pull of the main sail should take some of the load off. However, it will mostly have the sails furled. Due to the functional blocks, hoisting sails is easy. Hopefully not long before we find out!

Thanks Bedford! My 5 year old daughter popped in the garage, saw the boat and asked "why boats have so many cables?" I did a bit more work today, it is really a very enjoyable part of this journey. This is how I work now, I have a pot of blocks, one with shackles and my box full of ropes. I added to the mast the three brass pin holders I had prepared many months ago and also added a cleat. I hope I won't run out of point to tie lines coming from the mast top, I think I could add a couple of more cleats to the mast-I d rather not though Next I added the rigging for the staysail. The single block that would be attached to the head of the sail is temporarily attached to the crance iron with a bit of copper wire. Plenty of pins to tie the bitter end! I also put some proper rope to the forestay tensioner. The mast hardware is certainly becoming very busy-it will get even busier. The bow is now completed, just a loose line needed to the bobstay chain. Of course, there will be 6 lines from the sails that will need to be sent aft and 6 cleats will be needed, maybe to the outside of the cockpit coaming. Next some work will be needed on the boom and gaff as they should be next to go on the boat.

Start building and buy tools as you go, you will know what you should get. According to the scale and whether you scratch build or not, your needs might be different. You will however accumulate a lot of staff so first get a large work bench (or two)! Regards Vaddoc

Thank you all for your likes and comments! Today I installed a few cleats to tidy up a bit the boat. The cleats are very securely attached with 1 mm stainless steel screws. The bow looks much more tidy now. I thought of installing a pin rail but I think the heel timbers would certainly be used to tie ropes so maybe it will not be necessary. I am not sure how to arrange the excess rope so for now I used fine copper wire to hold the loops I also installed pin rails on the shrouds and temporarily the boom, mainly to know were on the mast to install more cleats and pins The boat is very big so difficult to get it all in a photo

Thanks Keith, indeed ageing eyes is the main problem! Carl, I agree, gluing some white panels on the walls and also ceiling should be a relatively easy solution to get some light reflections. Today, I continued work on the boat and overall was a very satisfying day. I brought down the mast to pass the hoops and then I secured it properly to the tabernacle with the brass axle. It kind of looked like a shipwreck. I then tied the proper ropes on the dead eyes. I replaced the wire ropes holding the spreaders and added a temporary wire aft to hold the mast. The backstays should be doing this but I will at them last otherwise they will be constantly in the way. So now the mast stands on its own. The Highfield levers I think should be placed somewhere here, next pics show the open and close position Adding the rigging is really good fun, it is very satisfying to see the boat slowly being completed. The next photos show the rigging that is already in place. So bob stay and both whisker stays are ready as well as the out and inhaul of the traveler. The forestay is in place. The jib topsail goes all the way to a block at the top of the mast and is actually a self tensioning stay. The two ends now tied with a bit of wire would normally attach to the sail The jib is a flying jib and as such needs a lot of tension. The block that is attached to the traveller would normally be attached to the jib. At the mast there are two blocks and two lines reach the deck. The starboard one just ties and loosely sets the tension, then the port blocks put some real tension. Now, I really need to start adding some cleats, there are now many lines that need to be tied somewhere. I am hesitating though as there will be a lot of components in this very small boat so I don't want to be in a position needing to pull some cleats out. This is now great fun, hopefully I ll make some more progress this week.

But a drill press is a great thing to have.

Thanks Bedford! The real problem is that my garage walls are bare brick with no ceiling so light does not reflect. At one time I considered painting the walls and boarding up the roof but it was just too much work and expenses.

It was raining today so no cycling. The children were tired and the admiral had no jobs for me. That meant I had lots of time to work on the boat! Before moving on to the boat though, a small word on lighting. I have about 1000 W of fluorescent lights but it is actually not enough. I think that for the detailed work I do, I would need twice as much. I bought a lamp from IKEA and paired it with a daylight bulb producing 5000 lumen. This made a huge improvement. This is how my work area looks like now Today I replaced the bob and whisker stays using the newly stropped blocks. I think they look much better. It is a bit difficult to capture the boat well on photos, it is very big and my cheap samsung phone is struggling. Next I installed the outhaul for the traveller and a line to haul it back in. I also installed the line for the flying jib which also acts as a self tensioning stay. In the next photos there is a piece of copper wire joining the two ends that would normally be attached with shackles to the flying jib or to each other when the jib is furled. I have just starting the rigging and already I have 7 lines to find cleats for. There will be many more by the time the boat is done. I will finish rigging the bowsprit area however and then decide where to install more hardware. Today was a lot of fun, hopefully I ll be able to do a bit more work soon. Regards Vaddoc