rlb

I've worked on the stem scarfs.  
 
Here are the three stem pieces test fit together against the drawing--
 
 
 
 
And a look at the joints--
 

 
 
These are just being test fit, and the shadow on the first (upper) joint is due to the upper stem piece being wider than the rest, to allow for the stem taper.
 
In this photo, the scarf between the lower and middle stem has been glued, and paper shims are being used to (hopefully) maintain the alignment as the scarf between the middle and upper stem is glued--
 
 
 
 
Now I can test fit the stem to the boxing joint and get a rough look at what needs to be refined.  There is a lean to starboard that will need to be corrected as the joint is made--
 

 
 

 
 
I have to say, that tree trunk is distracting!!
 
 
Ron

Thanks, druxey.  The bar is high, and I am trying!
 
The false keel is glued, one piece at a time.  I am using pigmented glue in the joints, and the first few times were a mess, but I am getting better at judging how much glue needs to be used, and how to keep it relatively clean. --
 

 

 
 
The final false keel piece glued.--
 

 
 
The basic keel assembly is glued.  It hasn't been tapered yet at the bow or stern, nor scarf bolts installed, or rabbet cut.  I have cut out the stem and apron pieces, and am getting ready to cut the stern deadwood.--
 

 
 
The boxing joint is done, I mistakenly didn't angle it as the scarfs are, but as it won't be seen, that's okay.--
 

 
 
Ron

Rick, generally, counting the chocks, either 9 or 11 pieces.  They form a pair together, though they need to be built and installed separately.
 
Allan, the sawdust and chips are pretty well relegated to the workshop (at least so far), but the exercise point is well taken!
 
After dry fitting, and adjusting each scarf to make sure the overall length is correct, I have glued the keel pieces together except for the formost.  Still working on the boxing joint and scarf for that one.   The keel height dimension (is that the sided or molded dimension?--I should know that) has been sanded to the final 15".  The width is still 16-17".   The false keel pieces have been cut out and dry fit.  They will be glued one at a time to the keel.--
 

 

 

 
 
Both the foremost keel piece and false keel piece are being left a little long until final shaping of the boxing joint and scarf, then they will be trimmed to length and glued.  Then the assembled keel width will be sanded to the final 15" dimension.
 
Sorry for the poor photos-a mixture of poor light, and different color light sources causing white balance issues.  
 
Ron

Thanks, Ed.  I will continue work on Oneida.  It would be unacceptable to abandon her at this point!  
 
I plan to use Swiss Pear for the framing.  The stock I have is a light shade--not as dark as most I see.  Hopefully this will not cause problems down the road (when I run out and have to restock).  Castello Boxwood for hull planking and carvings, and maybe Holly for deck planking.  I'm not sure, will have to see how it looks.  Black will be "ebonized" pear, as I did on Oneida.  I'm very happy with the way that looks.
 
Still using hand tools, though I have also become a Byrne's customer!
 
Right now this is taking shape in my living room.  This is one advantage to being single!--
 

 

 
 
I don't have a place for it in my regular workshop.  I'm running up and down the stairs (my workshop is upstairs) constantly.  Eventually I'm going to have to fit it in my workshop somehow.   Ah, that's why I should finish Oneida sooner rather than later.
 
I have the gantry mostly complete, have installed a sternpost support, have trued two more of the keel scarfs, and worked on the boxing joint a bit.--
 

 
 
The last three keel pieces lie true, and you can see I have work to do on the forward two scarfs.--
 

 
 
Ron

Work continues--
 
I have fastened the layout plan to the baseboard, though I had some issues when I sprayed a matte protective finish over it.  The protective spray seemed to weaken the spray adhesive underneath, and in the high humidity of recent days I have some bubbles in some areas.   I don't think it is a problem, but I am considering taking the plan off, re-copying it on heavier paper, and trying again.
 
I built two clamp squares (a sliding gantry will also be built), and cut out the 6 keel pieces.  They are slightly oversized—especially the foremost which will receive the boxing joint. The keel alignment pieces are adjustable and can be snugged up when the keel is finished to its final width--
 
 
 
 
I cut the keel scarf edges with a razor saw--
 

 
 
And after cutting the long angle roughly on a bandsaw, worked to smooth and true it with a chisel and files--
 

 
 
The scarf between 6 and 5 is ready to be glued, but that won't happen until the rest are also ready--
 

 
 
I have also made a few "Tosti" clamps (of the simpler "basic" variety), which I plan to use to clamp the keel pieces together when they are ready--
 

 

 
 
Ron
 
 
 
 
 

I am embarking on a new build.   I had thought to not start another until I finished Oneida, but progress is going slow on her, and I am not getting any younger!  Since Oneida is getting near the rigging stage, perhaps going back and forth between hull work on Euryalus, and rigging on Oneida, will keep my interest up in both.
 
I am building a proper layout board, and this is the extent of my progress to date!   It's not finished, and the framing guide is not fastened down yet.
 

 

 

 
It is based on Ed Tosti's Naiad building board, but bigger, as his was for a similar sized ship, but at 1:60 scale.  I understand why the smaller scale.  When I saw the Euryalus plans which are drawn at 1:48, I was quite surprised at the size.  However, I quite like the idea of always building at the same scale, so as my Oneida is 1:48, so also will be my Euryalus.
 

 

 
As I mentioned, I am rigging Oneida, but I have no plans to rig Euryalus.  I would have no place to put it.
 
I have one issue, as I begin.   Volume 1 of Euryalus is now sold out, and out of print at Seawatch books.  I have purchased a new Vol. 2, so I have a complete set of the second volume drawings, but I am missing some drawings from Volume 1.  I am wondering if anyone out there, who owns Volume 1 would allow me to copy the ones I am missing--I believe the ones I need are #6 Body; Bow Pieces; Rudder; Cross Section, and #13 Beam Patterns; Stern Timbers.  Or, if you own Volume 1 (with all the drawings) and do not think you want to keep it.....
 
If the book was still in print I would, of course, purchase it and support the authors, Allan Yedlinsky and Wayne Kempson; and Seawatch books.  Allan and Wayne have been very helpful to me in getting off the ground (off the ways?).  I just need to get copies of those missing drawings!  PM me if you can help.
 
Ron
 
 

Thanks, Allan ☺️
 

Hi, Thanks Alberto, Tanks to all
 
 

I continued work on the hammock cranes, and also punched out a number of thimbles.  I'm happy to report that my success rate improved greatly, and I only lost one!!  These are now ready to blacken--

 
After blackening--

 
The thimbles are in groups of ten, plus four.  Fifty-four in all.  Hopefully enough, though I may need a few that are bigger.  I don't know.
 
On to the Silkspan.  After putting a second diluted coat on the piece, it was just as transparent as before when backlit--not so much when viewed normally.  So I painted a coat on undiluted--

 
It was pretty opaque, but there were now brushmarks that would be out of scale.  It was also uneven coverage. Most of it was smooth (though with some brushmarks), but some areas still showed the fibrous texture of the Silkspan.  All in all not a satisfactory result.   I also wasn't sure it had enough sheen to look like oiled or tarred cloth.   So I tried painting the back side with Tung Oil finish to see how that looked--

 
It really accentuated the texture.  Not at all to scale.  What was worse, the Tung Oil seeped through the thin areas on the "front" side, making that side kind of a mess--

 
Off the frame this is the back side--

 
And this the front--

 
When doubled over, similarly to how it will be seen on the model, the sheen of the painted (front) side may be okay.  Maybe less than actual oiled cloth (I'm not even sure!), but as is typical with scale models, gloss looks better if it's toned down--

 
So I will try another piece.   I'll build up the layers with diluted paint, until the fiber is filled in evenly without brush marks.  I'm also using a much larger brush.  I don't feel like I'm "scrubbing" into the material nearly as much.  After the second coat it was much more opaque than the first attempt, even though I don't think the paint was any thicker.  This is coat number three.  I'll need at least one more--

 
All for now,
Ron
 
 

Dave, I think I want a light color for the hammock crane line, so actual rope seems to be my best option.  But I appreciate the suggestion.  And we do tend to be pack-rats.  "Never know when I might need this!" 
 
Dowmer, yes, Silkspan seems to be an option here, and you will see my attempt at it.
 
As I work on the hammock cranes, soldering the pins on and finishing them, I am also sidetracking into another project: making a bunch of metal thimbles for the rigging.  When I get to blackening the hammock cranes, I want to be efficient, and the thimbles are something else that needs to be blackened, that I will need soon; so I will show my progress on making those now.
 
Basically, I need to cut pieces of brass tubing, and flare them out.  Easier said than done.  They are tiny.  To cut the pieces, I first tried using a my Zona saw with the 1mm OD wire held in a groove of scrap wood.  Nope.  Then I tried the rotary tool with a cut-off wheel.  Nope.  The biggest problems were holding the wire firmly enough to get a clean cut, and not losing the tiny cut-off piece. 
 
I settled on a method where I drilled a 1mm hole through a piece of scrap wood, and pushed the tube through--
 
The tube was then pushed back flush with the edge, and sawed through--

 
Then, a pin (which just happened to be the perfect diameter) was inserted into the end of the tube--

 
And the tube with the cut piece pushed through--

 
The pin held the cut off piece securely--

 
That piece after being sawn is too long, but it was made that way because I was afraid of snapping off the bit of wood on the edge, if I had made it thinner.  So the next step was to drill another hole in some scrap wood of the right thickness (this part is described in David Antscherl's TFFM)--


 
And the piece then filed--

 
This worked sometimes, but what began to happen more often (as the hole got a little loose, or my filing not square), is that the piece ended up with skewed ends, as on this one--

 
The next step was setting the thimble on a hard surface, and punching it with a modified nail set punch--




 
This took some practice to get a good result.   The end of the tube on the punch would flare, but not the bottom.  Then I would turn it over, and the flared end would just flare more.  After a few failures, I seemed to have better success if I barely started the flare, and then turned it over before punching again.   I had a success rate of about 1 in 5.  Partly because of the problem mentioned earlier about the skewed ends.  If they were skewed, no dice, it would just skew more when punched.   Here is a successful one, and another attached to a hook--

 
So decided to skip the filing step.  Maybe it would have worked just fine if the pieces were closer to the right length to begin with.  In the end I just pulled back a little (by eye) on the tube, rather than having it flush--

 
This gave me square ends, and the right length (more or less).  I cut 20 or 30 of these this way, but haven't started punching them into thimbles yet.  Hopefully I'll do better than 1 in 5.
 
 
Now for some exploration into the Silkspan hammock covers.  This is my first experience with this material.
 
I made a frame out of old unused paint stirring sticks, and cut a piece of medium weight Silkspan--

 
This was then wet, and taped to the frame to dry--

 
Painter's tape is probably not the best choice, because it doesn't stick well when wet, but it seemed to work well enough.  I then used some acrylic paint, diluted just a bit with water, and painted it on--

 
After drying partway it looked opaque enough, but when I held it up to the light, it seemed pretty transparent--

 
I'm going to give it another coat, and see how it looks.
 
So, a number of things going on:  fine tuning the hammock cranes (which consists of rounding the cut off ends and general straightening), making thimbles, and experimenting with the Silkspan for the hammock covering--
 
 
All for now,
Ron
 

Another brief update:
 
I tried making some rope small enough, but with the thread I had on hand, it wasn't quite thin enough.   After thinking I might have to try enlarging the holes, I found (I think it came from Bluejacket) a spool of rope in my small stock that fit!   I will dye it just a shade darker--
   
You can't quite make out that the line is through the hole, so--

 
I also tested soldering the pins.  Since they won't be seen, I can overlap the brass, instead of butting it.   This is a much easier joint to solder.   I clearly missed centering the pin on this one (I maintain it moved while soldering!), but again, it won't show, and I'll drill each hole in the cap rail "custom" to match.  (Or maybe I won't use this one!)  I think I have now satisfied myself that these will work. 
 
While I continue the production of the hammock cranes, I am considering how to replicate the oiled cloth (which I guess it is) as shown on Glenn's model that covers the hammocks stowed within these cranes. 
 
All for now,
Ron
 
 

Thanks, Cisco and Theodosius, and all watching.
 
Here is how I tackled drilling 228 holes with a #78 drill (.016" or .40mm)--

 
Two pieces ended up being deemed unusable, so I now have the 34 hammock cranes that I need, plus two extra--

 
I broke two more drill bits (for a total of three).  Those carbide bits break if you breath hard on them.  Actually, after the initial careless one, the breakage on the other two seemed to be related to how many holes I had drilled already (they may have been getting dull?), and how flat the piece remained held in the wood through the drilling--sometimes the piece lifted up when withdrawing the drill, in spite of my care to hold it in place.
 
Now I need to trim them, file the ends, and hope that I can thread a line through the tiny holes.  Hopefully I won't have to experiment on "punching" the holes a bit bigger.  Oh, and soldering pins on the bottoms.
 
All for now,
Ron 
 
 

Skipping around some, I decided to tackle the hammock cranes.  Although they will probably make getting to the belaying rails more difficult, on the other hand, I think they will be more difficult to install after the shrouds are on.
 
I'm aiming for something like what is on the Niagara replica--

 
Only more like Glen Greico's model of the Brig Jefferson, without the wood rail at the top--

 
I'm going to make it a little easier on myself and do three ropes vs. four.
 
Here are some attempts at figuring out the size, and exactly how to make them--

 
The first three are some 20 gauge square brass wire, bent, and pounded a little flatter.  The first two are too big, and the third, which I tested drilling holes on, is actually a bit too small, though too thick.  I was able, though, to figure out how to make a tight radius in the bends.  The third is 22 gauge square wire, annealed, pounded just a bit flatter, and with some smaller test holes drilled.  It's close to the right size, both overall dimensions and gauge of the wire, and I think this method will work, though it leaves no room for error on the hole spacing.  I drilled one hole too far off center, and I also broke a drill bit.  I'll have to be more careful, or I will be buying more bits to finish them.
 
I figured out how many hammock cranes I will need (17 per side) and cut thirty-eight (four extra) pieces of brass--

 
These were annealed (heated to red hot) with a soldering torch.   I also routed a groove in a piece of scrap wood as a guide to make sure they are bent to a consistent shape, and as well to hold the piece for drilling the holes (which hopefully will help with the bit breakage)--

 
The ends of the wire that extend beyond the block will be trimmed off--

 
I put a piece of tape at the spot that was the right width for bending the wire--

 
And the bends were given a light tap to make the radius tighter--

 
Then after some straightening and checking the squareness of the shape, the wire was pounded just a little flatter, mostly just to give me a few thousandths of an inch more width to try and center the drill on--

 
 
The holes will be drilled next.  Hopefully that will be successful and I won't have to abandon this method.   After the holes are drilled I'll solder a short pin to the bottom of each one to epoxy them onto the rail.  At that point I may also adjust the angle of the legs to follow the bulwark angle--

 
All for now,
Ron
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

I continued work on the hammock cranes, and also punched out a number of thimbles.  I'm happy to report that my success rate improved greatly, and I only lost one!!  These are now ready to blacken--

 
After blackening--

 
The thimbles are in groups of ten, plus four.  Fifty-four in all.  Hopefully enough, though I may need a few that are bigger.  I don't know.
 
On to the Silkspan.  After putting a second diluted coat on the piece, it was just as transparent as before when backlit--not so much when viewed normally.  So I painted a coat on undiluted--

 
It was pretty opaque, but there were now brushmarks that would be out of scale.  It was also uneven coverage. Most of it was smooth (though with some brushmarks), but some areas still showed the fibrous texture of the Silkspan.  All in all not a satisfactory result.   I also wasn't sure it had enough sheen to look like oiled or tarred cloth.   So I tried painting the back side with Tung Oil finish to see how that looked--

 
It really accentuated the texture.  Not at all to scale.  What was worse, the Tung Oil seeped through the thin areas on the "front" side, making that side kind of a mess--

 
Off the frame this is the back side--

 
And this the front--

 
When doubled over, similarly to how it will be seen on the model, the sheen of the painted (front) side may be okay.  Maybe less than actual oiled cloth (I'm not even sure!), but as is typical with scale models, gloss looks better if it's toned down--

 
So I will try another piece.   I'll build up the layers with diluted paint, until the fiber is filled in evenly without brush marks.  I'm also using a much larger brush.  I don't feel like I'm "scrubbing" into the material nearly as much.  After the second coat it was much more opaque than the first attempt, even though I don't think the paint was any thicker.  This is coat number three.  I'll need at least one more--

 
All for now,
Ron
 
 

I continued work on the hammock cranes, and also punched out a number of thimbles.  I'm happy to report that my success rate improved greatly, and I only lost one!!  These are now ready to blacken--

 
After blackening--

 
The thimbles are in groups of ten, plus four.  Fifty-four in all.  Hopefully enough, though I may need a few that are bigger.  I don't know.
 
On to the Silkspan.  After putting a second diluted coat on the piece, it was just as transparent as before when backlit--not so much when viewed normally.  So I painted a coat on undiluted--

 
It was pretty opaque, but there were now brushmarks that would be out of scale.  It was also uneven coverage. Most of it was smooth (though with some brushmarks), but some areas still showed the fibrous texture of the Silkspan.  All in all not a satisfactory result.   I also wasn't sure it had enough sheen to look like oiled or tarred cloth.   So I tried painting the back side with Tung Oil finish to see how that looked--

 
It really accentuated the texture.  Not at all to scale.  What was worse, the Tung Oil seeped through the thin areas on the "front" side, making that side kind of a mess--

 
Off the frame this is the back side--

 
And this the front--

 
When doubled over, similarly to how it will be seen on the model, the sheen of the painted (front) side may be okay.  Maybe less than actual oiled cloth (I'm not even sure!), but as is typical with scale models, gloss looks better if it's toned down--

 
So I will try another piece.   I'll build up the layers with diluted paint, until the fiber is filled in evenly without brush marks.  I'm also using a much larger brush.  I don't feel like I'm "scrubbing" into the material nearly as much.  After the second coat it was much more opaque than the first attempt, even though I don't think the paint was any thicker.  This is coat number three.  I'll need at least one more--

 
All for now,
Ron
 
 

Dave, I think I want a light color for the hammock crane line, so actual rope seems to be my best option.  But I appreciate the suggestion.  And we do tend to be pack-rats.  "Never know when I might need this!" 
 
Dowmer, yes, Silkspan seems to be an option here, and you will see my attempt at it.
 
As I work on the hammock cranes, soldering the pins on and finishing them, I am also sidetracking into another project: making a bunch of metal thimbles for the rigging.  When I get to blackening the hammock cranes, I want to be efficient, and the thimbles are something else that needs to be blackened, that I will need soon; so I will show my progress on making those now.
 
Basically, I need to cut pieces of brass tubing, and flare them out.  Easier said than done.  They are tiny.  To cut the pieces, I first tried using a my Zona saw with the 1mm OD wire held in a groove of scrap wood.  Nope.  Then I tried the rotary tool with a cut-off wheel.  Nope.  The biggest problems were holding the wire firmly enough to get a clean cut, and not losing the tiny cut-off piece. 
 
I settled on a method where I drilled a 1mm hole through a piece of scrap wood, and pushed the tube through--
 
The tube was then pushed back flush with the edge, and sawed through--

 
Then, a pin (which just happened to be the perfect diameter) was inserted into the end of the tube--

 
And the tube with the cut piece pushed through--

 
The pin held the cut off piece securely--

 
That piece after being sawn is too long, but it was made that way because I was afraid of snapping off the bit of wood on the edge, if I had made it thinner.  So the next step was to drill another hole in some scrap wood of the right thickness (this part is described in David Antscherl's TFFM)--


 
And the piece then filed--

 
This worked sometimes, but what began to happen more often (as the hole got a little loose, or my filing not square), is that the piece ended up with skewed ends, as on this one--

 
The next step was setting the thimble on a hard surface, and punching it with a modified nail set punch--




 
This took some practice to get a good result.   The end of the tube on the punch would flare, but not the bottom.  Then I would turn it over, and the flared end would just flare more.  After a few failures, I seemed to have better success if I barely started the flare, and then turned it over before punching again.   I had a success rate of about 1 in 5.  Partly because of the problem mentioned earlier about the skewed ends.  If they were skewed, no dice, it would just skew more when punched.   Here is a successful one, and another attached to a hook--

 
So decided to skip the filing step.  Maybe it would have worked just fine if the pieces were closer to the right length to begin with.  In the end I just pulled back a little (by eye) on the tube, rather than having it flush--

 
This gave me square ends, and the right length (more or less).  I cut 20 or 30 of these this way, but haven't started punching them into thimbles yet.  Hopefully I'll do better than 1 in 5.
 
 
Now for some exploration into the Silkspan hammock covers.  This is my first experience with this material.
 
I made a frame out of old unused paint stirring sticks, and cut a piece of medium weight Silkspan--

 
This was then wet, and taped to the frame to dry--

 
Painter's tape is probably not the best choice, because it doesn't stick well when wet, but it seemed to work well enough.  I then used some acrylic paint, diluted just a bit with water, and painted it on--

 
After drying partway it looked opaque enough, but when I held it up to the light, it seemed pretty transparent--

 
I'm going to give it another coat, and see how it looks.
 
So, a number of things going on:  fine tuning the hammock cranes (which consists of rounding the cut off ends and general straightening), making thimbles, and experimenting with the Silkspan for the hammock covering--
 
 
All for now,
Ron
 

I continued work on the hammock cranes, and also punched out a number of thimbles.  I'm happy to report that my success rate improved greatly, and I only lost one!!  These are now ready to blacken--

 
After blackening--

 
The thimbles are in groups of ten, plus four.  Fifty-four in all.  Hopefully enough, though I may need a few that are bigger.  I don't know.
 
On to the Silkspan.  After putting a second diluted coat on the piece, it was just as transparent as before when backlit--not so much when viewed normally.  So I painted a coat on undiluted--

 
It was pretty opaque, but there were now brushmarks that would be out of scale.  It was also uneven coverage. Most of it was smooth (though with some brushmarks), but some areas still showed the fibrous texture of the Silkspan.  All in all not a satisfactory result.   I also wasn't sure it had enough sheen to look like oiled or tarred cloth.   So I tried painting the back side with Tung Oil finish to see how that looked--

 
It really accentuated the texture.  Not at all to scale.  What was worse, the Tung Oil seeped through the thin areas on the "front" side, making that side kind of a mess--

 
Off the frame this is the back side--

 
And this the front--

 
When doubled over, similarly to how it will be seen on the model, the sheen of the painted (front) side may be okay.  Maybe less than actual oiled cloth (I'm not even sure!), but as is typical with scale models, gloss looks better if it's toned down--

 
So I will try another piece.   I'll build up the layers with diluted paint, until the fiber is filled in evenly without brush marks.  I'm also using a much larger brush.  I don't feel like I'm "scrubbing" into the material nearly as much.  After the second coat it was much more opaque than the first attempt, even though I don't think the paint was any thicker.  This is coat number three.  I'll need at least one more--

 
All for now,
Ron
 
 

I continued work on the hammock cranes, and also punched out a number of thimbles.  I'm happy to report that my success rate improved greatly, and I only lost one!!  These are now ready to blacken--

 
After blackening--

 
The thimbles are in groups of ten, plus four.  Fifty-four in all.  Hopefully enough, though I may need a few that are bigger.  I don't know.
 
On to the Silkspan.  After putting a second diluted coat on the piece, it was just as transparent as before when backlit--not so much when viewed normally.  So I painted a coat on undiluted--

 
It was pretty opaque, but there were now brushmarks that would be out of scale.  It was also uneven coverage. Most of it was smooth (though with some brushmarks), but some areas still showed the fibrous texture of the Silkspan.  All in all not a satisfactory result.   I also wasn't sure it had enough sheen to look like oiled or tarred cloth.   So I tried painting the back side with Tung Oil finish to see how that looked--

 
It really accentuated the texture.  Not at all to scale.  What was worse, the Tung Oil seeped through the thin areas on the "front" side, making that side kind of a mess--

 
Off the frame this is the back side--

 
And this the front--

 
When doubled over, similarly to how it will be seen on the model, the sheen of the painted (front) side may be okay.  Maybe less than actual oiled cloth (I'm not even sure!), but as is typical with scale models, gloss looks better if it's toned down--

 
So I will try another piece.   I'll build up the layers with diluted paint, until the fiber is filled in evenly without brush marks.  I'm also using a much larger brush.  I don't feel like I'm "scrubbing" into the material nearly as much.  After the second coat it was much more opaque than the first attempt, even though I don't think the paint was any thicker.  This is coat number three.  I'll need at least one more--

 
All for now,
Ron
 
 

Chuck,
Since your captain clearly loves a good book, you will need a bookcase.  Not too big, though.
Ron

I continued work on the hammock cranes, and also punched out a number of thimbles.  I'm happy to report that my success rate improved greatly, and I only lost one!!  These are now ready to blacken--

 
After blackening--

 
The thimbles are in groups of ten, plus four.  Fifty-four in all.  Hopefully enough, though I may need a few that are bigger.  I don't know.
 
On to the Silkspan.  After putting a second diluted coat on the piece, it was just as transparent as before when backlit--not so much when viewed normally.  So I painted a coat on undiluted--

 
It was pretty opaque, but there were now brushmarks that would be out of scale.  It was also uneven coverage. Most of it was smooth (though with some brushmarks), but some areas still showed the fibrous texture of the Silkspan.  All in all not a satisfactory result.   I also wasn't sure it had enough sheen to look like oiled or tarred cloth.   So I tried painting the back side with Tung Oil finish to see how that looked--

 
It really accentuated the texture.  Not at all to scale.  What was worse, the Tung Oil seeped through the thin areas on the "front" side, making that side kind of a mess--

 
Off the frame this is the back side--

 
And this the front--

 
When doubled over, similarly to how it will be seen on the model, the sheen of the painted (front) side may be okay.  Maybe less than actual oiled cloth (I'm not even sure!), but as is typical with scale models, gloss looks better if it's toned down--

 
So I will try another piece.   I'll build up the layers with diluted paint, until the fiber is filled in evenly without brush marks.  I'm also using a much larger brush.  I don't feel like I'm "scrubbing" into the material nearly as much.  After the second coat it was much more opaque than the first attempt, even though I don't think the paint was any thicker.  This is coat number three.  I'll need at least one more--

 
All for now,
Ron
 
 

Dave, I think I want a light color for the hammock crane line, so actual rope seems to be my best option.  But I appreciate the suggestion.  And we do tend to be pack-rats.  "Never know when I might need this!" 
 
Dowmer, yes, Silkspan seems to be an option here, and you will see my attempt at it.
 
As I work on the hammock cranes, soldering the pins on and finishing them, I am also sidetracking into another project: making a bunch of metal thimbles for the rigging.  When I get to blackening the hammock cranes, I want to be efficient, and the thimbles are something else that needs to be blackened, that I will need soon; so I will show my progress on making those now.
 
Basically, I need to cut pieces of brass tubing, and flare them out.  Easier said than done.  They are tiny.  To cut the pieces, I first tried using a my Zona saw with the 1mm OD wire held in a groove of scrap wood.  Nope.  Then I tried the rotary tool with a cut-off wheel.  Nope.  The biggest problems were holding the wire firmly enough to get a clean cut, and not losing the tiny cut-off piece. 
 
I settled on a method where I drilled a 1mm hole through a piece of scrap wood, and pushed the tube through--
 
The tube was then pushed back flush with the edge, and sawed through--

 
Then, a pin (which just happened to be the perfect diameter) was inserted into the end of the tube--

 
And the tube with the cut piece pushed through--

 
The pin held the cut off piece securely--

 
That piece after being sawn is too long, but it was made that way because I was afraid of snapping off the bit of wood on the edge, if I had made it thinner.  So the next step was to drill another hole in some scrap wood of the right thickness (this part is described in David Antscherl's TFFM)--


 
And the piece then filed--

 
This worked sometimes, but what began to happen more often (as the hole got a little loose, or my filing not square), is that the piece ended up with skewed ends, as on this one--

 
The next step was setting the thimble on a hard surface, and punching it with a modified nail set punch--




 
This took some practice to get a good result.   The end of the tube on the punch would flare, but not the bottom.  Then I would turn it over, and the flared end would just flare more.  After a few failures, I seemed to have better success if I barely started the flare, and then turned it over before punching again.   I had a success rate of about 1 in 5.  Partly because of the problem mentioned earlier about the skewed ends.  If they were skewed, no dice, it would just skew more when punched.   Here is a successful one, and another attached to a hook--

 
So decided to skip the filing step.  Maybe it would have worked just fine if the pieces were closer to the right length to begin with.  In the end I just pulled back a little (by eye) on the tube, rather than having it flush--

 
This gave me square ends, and the right length (more or less).  I cut 20 or 30 of these this way, but haven't started punching them into thimbles yet.  Hopefully I'll do better than 1 in 5.
 
 
Now for some exploration into the Silkspan hammock covers.  This is my first experience with this material.
 
I made a frame out of old unused paint stirring sticks, and cut a piece of medium weight Silkspan--

 
This was then wet, and taped to the frame to dry--

 
Painter's tape is probably not the best choice, because it doesn't stick well when wet, but it seemed to work well enough.  I then used some acrylic paint, diluted just a bit with water, and painted it on--

 
After drying partway it looked opaque enough, but when I held it up to the light, it seemed pretty transparent--

 
I'm going to give it another coat, and see how it looks.
 
So, a number of things going on:  fine tuning the hammock cranes (which consists of rounding the cut off ends and general straightening), making thimbles, and experimenting with the Silkspan for the hammock covering--
 
 
All for now,
Ron
 

I continued work on the hammock cranes, and also punched out a number of thimbles.  I'm happy to report that my success rate improved greatly, and I only lost one!!  These are now ready to blacken--

 
After blackening--

 
The thimbles are in groups of ten, plus four.  Fifty-four in all.  Hopefully enough, though I may need a few that are bigger.  I don't know.
 
On to the Silkspan.  After putting a second diluted coat on the piece, it was just as transparent as before when backlit--not so much when viewed normally.  So I painted a coat on undiluted--

 
It was pretty opaque, but there were now brushmarks that would be out of scale.  It was also uneven coverage. Most of it was smooth (though with some brushmarks), but some areas still showed the fibrous texture of the Silkspan.  All in all not a satisfactory result.   I also wasn't sure it had enough sheen to look like oiled or tarred cloth.   So I tried painting the back side with Tung Oil finish to see how that looked--

 
It really accentuated the texture.  Not at all to scale.  What was worse, the Tung Oil seeped through the thin areas on the "front" side, making that side kind of a mess--

 
Off the frame this is the back side--

 
And this the front--

 
When doubled over, similarly to how it will be seen on the model, the sheen of the painted (front) side may be okay.  Maybe less than actual oiled cloth (I'm not even sure!), but as is typical with scale models, gloss looks better if it's toned down--

 
So I will try another piece.   I'll build up the layers with diluted paint, until the fiber is filled in evenly without brush marks.  I'm also using a much larger brush.  I don't feel like I'm "scrubbing" into the material nearly as much.  After the second coat it was much more opaque than the first attempt, even though I don't think the paint was any thicker.  This is coat number three.  I'll need at least one more--

 
All for now,
Ron
 
 

Dave, I think I want a light color for the hammock crane line, so actual rope seems to be my best option.  But I appreciate the suggestion.  And we do tend to be pack-rats.  "Never know when I might need this!" 
 
Dowmer, yes, Silkspan seems to be an option here, and you will see my attempt at it.
 
As I work on the hammock cranes, soldering the pins on and finishing them, I am also sidetracking into another project: making a bunch of metal thimbles for the rigging.  When I get to blackening the hammock cranes, I want to be efficient, and the thimbles are something else that needs to be blackened, that I will need soon; so I will show my progress on making those now.
 
Basically, I need to cut pieces of brass tubing, and flare them out.  Easier said than done.  They are tiny.  To cut the pieces, I first tried using a my Zona saw with the 1mm OD wire held in a groove of scrap wood.  Nope.  Then I tried the rotary tool with a cut-off wheel.  Nope.  The biggest problems were holding the wire firmly enough to get a clean cut, and not losing the tiny cut-off piece. 
 
I settled on a method where I drilled a 1mm hole through a piece of scrap wood, and pushed the tube through--
 
The tube was then pushed back flush with the edge, and sawed through--

 
Then, a pin (which just happened to be the perfect diameter) was inserted into the end of the tube--

 
And the tube with the cut piece pushed through--

 
The pin held the cut off piece securely--

 
That piece after being sawn is too long, but it was made that way because I was afraid of snapping off the bit of wood on the edge, if I had made it thinner.  So the next step was to drill another hole in some scrap wood of the right thickness (this part is described in David Antscherl's TFFM)--


 
And the piece then filed--

 
This worked sometimes, but what began to happen more often (as the hole got a little loose, or my filing not square), is that the piece ended up with skewed ends, as on this one--

 
The next step was setting the thimble on a hard surface, and punching it with a modified nail set punch--




 
This took some practice to get a good result.   The end of the tube on the punch would flare, but not the bottom.  Then I would turn it over, and the flared end would just flare more.  After a few failures, I seemed to have better success if I barely started the flare, and then turned it over before punching again.   I had a success rate of about 1 in 5.  Partly because of the problem mentioned earlier about the skewed ends.  If they were skewed, no dice, it would just skew more when punched.   Here is a successful one, and another attached to a hook--

 
So decided to skip the filing step.  Maybe it would have worked just fine if the pieces were closer to the right length to begin with.  In the end I just pulled back a little (by eye) on the tube, rather than having it flush--

 
This gave me square ends, and the right length (more or less).  I cut 20 or 30 of these this way, but haven't started punching them into thimbles yet.  Hopefully I'll do better than 1 in 5.
 
 
Now for some exploration into the Silkspan hammock covers.  This is my first experience with this material.
 
I made a frame out of old unused paint stirring sticks, and cut a piece of medium weight Silkspan--

 
This was then wet, and taped to the frame to dry--

 
Painter's tape is probably not the best choice, because it doesn't stick well when wet, but it seemed to work well enough.  I then used some acrylic paint, diluted just a bit with water, and painted it on--

 
After drying partway it looked opaque enough, but when I held it up to the light, it seemed pretty transparent--

 
I'm going to give it another coat, and see how it looks.
 
So, a number of things going on:  fine tuning the hammock cranes (which consists of rounding the cut off ends and general straightening), making thimbles, and experimenting with the Silkspan for the hammock covering--
 
 
All for now,
Ron
 

Dave, I think I want a light color for the hammock crane line, so actual rope seems to be my best option.  But I appreciate the suggestion.  And we do tend to be pack-rats.  "Never know when I might need this!" 
 
Dowmer, yes, Silkspan seems to be an option here, and you will see my attempt at it.
 
As I work on the hammock cranes, soldering the pins on and finishing them, I am also sidetracking into another project: making a bunch of metal thimbles for the rigging.  When I get to blackening the hammock cranes, I want to be efficient, and the thimbles are something else that needs to be blackened, that I will need soon; so I will show my progress on making those now.
 
Basically, I need to cut pieces of brass tubing, and flare them out.  Easier said than done.  They are tiny.  To cut the pieces, I first tried using a my Zona saw with the 1mm OD wire held in a groove of scrap wood.  Nope.  Then I tried the rotary tool with a cut-off wheel.  Nope.  The biggest problems were holding the wire firmly enough to get a clean cut, and not losing the tiny cut-off piece. 
 
I settled on a method where I drilled a 1mm hole through a piece of scrap wood, and pushed the tube through--
 
The tube was then pushed back flush with the edge, and sawed through--

 
Then, a pin (which just happened to be the perfect diameter) was inserted into the end of the tube--

 
And the tube with the cut piece pushed through--

 
The pin held the cut off piece securely--

 
That piece after being sawn is too long, but it was made that way because I was afraid of snapping off the bit of wood on the edge, if I had made it thinner.  So the next step was to drill another hole in some scrap wood of the right thickness (this part is described in David Antscherl's TFFM)--


 
And the piece then filed--

 
This worked sometimes, but what began to happen more often (as the hole got a little loose, or my filing not square), is that the piece ended up with skewed ends, as on this one--

 
The next step was setting the thimble on a hard surface, and punching it with a modified nail set punch--




 
This took some practice to get a good result.   The end of the tube on the punch would flare, but not the bottom.  Then I would turn it over, and the flared end would just flare more.  After a few failures, I seemed to have better success if I barely started the flare, and then turned it over before punching again.   I had a success rate of about 1 in 5.  Partly because of the problem mentioned earlier about the skewed ends.  If they were skewed, no dice, it would just skew more when punched.   Here is a successful one, and another attached to a hook--

 
So decided to skip the filing step.  Maybe it would have worked just fine if the pieces were closer to the right length to begin with.  In the end I just pulled back a little (by eye) on the tube, rather than having it flush--

 
This gave me square ends, and the right length (more or less).  I cut 20 or 30 of these this way, but haven't started punching them into thimbles yet.  Hopefully I'll do better than 1 in 5.
 
 
Now for some exploration into the Silkspan hammock covers.  This is my first experience with this material.
 
I made a frame out of old unused paint stirring sticks, and cut a piece of medium weight Silkspan--

 
This was then wet, and taped to the frame to dry--

 
Painter's tape is probably not the best choice, because it doesn't stick well when wet, but it seemed to work well enough.  I then used some acrylic paint, diluted just a bit with water, and painted it on--

 
After drying partway it looked opaque enough, but when I held it up to the light, it seemed pretty transparent--

 
I'm going to give it another coat, and see how it looks.
 
So, a number of things going on:  fine tuning the hammock cranes (which consists of rounding the cut off ends and general straightening), making thimbles, and experimenting with the Silkspan for the hammock covering--
 
 
All for now,
Ron
 

Thanks once more gentlemen for your encouraging praise!
************************************************************
 
Toolkit for the gun
 
The operation of the gun required quite a few different tools for handling the projectiles and the powder-bags, as well as for cleaning and maintenance.
 
There were two different wipers, one for cleaning with soap-water and the other one for greasing the bore after use. This still was the era of black powder, which means that the bore had to be cleaned frequently.
Loading required a rammer to push the projectile and the powder-bags into the chamber of the gun. The rammer also served to unload the gun by pushing it through the muzzle. It had a depression in the front so that one would not push onto the fuse.
 
The large-scale instruction model in the (former) Orlogmuseet in Copenhagen came with many of the necessary tools. Their look tallies with the description of a textbook on the Imperial German naval artillery (Galster, 1885). The length of the shaft was given as the length of the barrel plus some extra for one or two men to be able to hold onto it, while it was fully inserted. If there were not enough space for such long implements, there were also versions in two parts with a brass connecting sleeve.

Wiper (top) and rammer (bottom)
 
The body of the implements was turned from some 2 mm steel rod, as I had this to hand. The shaft is a 0.8 mm piano wire. The latter appears to be quite hefty, but seems to tally with the photographs.

Wipers and rammer before painting
 
As the gun will be shown undergoing a drill, the wipers are not needed and will be shown in their protective canvas covers, stored in the racks on deckhouse as per photograph below.

Wipers in their protective canvas covers
 
The canvas covers were simulated with some Vallejo liquid putty. According to Galster (1885) the covers were supposed to be painted black, but the above photograph indicates that they were white, which is what I opted for.
The rammer body has two copper-bands to protect it, which were simulated with paint. The limited space in barbette seems to prevent the use of a full-length rammer, so I gave the end of the shaft a connecting sleeve simulated with paint.
 
Tampion
The photograph of the instruction model in Copenhagen also shows the expanding tampion that was constructed from two brass discs with some fibre material in between that was contained by a leather sleeve. An internal screw operated by a T-shaped handle squeezed the fibres between the disc and made them expand to lock into the muzzle.

Expanding tampion for the 30,5 cm gun
 
The tampion is probably going to be the very last machined part on this model. It was turned from a length of brass rod. The handle was first turned as a thin disk and then the excess material was milled away to leave the T-shaped handle standing. The greased leather sleeve has been simulated by some brown paint.

Turning the tampion
 

Milling the tampion handle
 
 
The painted wipers, rammer and tampion
 
Next on the list are the anchor-crane, the flagpole and flag and finally the gun-sights
 
To be continued ....