catopower

Hi Andy, Your model is looking great. It was a pleasure meeting you recently and I'm anxious to see your progress updates! Clare

Hi Jay, Glad to see you haven't given up on ship modeling after all. Sorry you didn't come to our little gathering in Vallejo. It was a nice get-together and I got to meet a couple more ship modelers in the general vicinity. Hope I wasn't bugging you too much to attend, but I really wanted to meet the man behind the beautiful model! I'll be looking forward to following your updates. Nice job on those windmills too! Clare

Hi Popeye, Your build is looking great regardless of the whole caprail issue. And on that, there is one of the dangers of having photos of an actual ship or replica available. If you didn't have those photos, you might be perfectly happy! And as far as kits and those "Oh, Sh**" moments, as Bob put it, I've been working on a scratch project and seem to have a lot more of those moments than ever before. You just can't escape them no matter what... Clare

Thanks for your thoughts John, Cap'n'Bob. I agree that red will look nicest and create a nice color contrast for the paddle wheels. The illustration with the red paddle wheels would have been how she looked pre-war. My build, being 1870, the year she was lost, is post-war, so maybe red makes sense there too. I have some Tamiya Bright Red, which when sprayed onto a surface just looks plain red and seems good. A darker red is probably less accurate, so I'll try this and see how it looks. I'll get the hubs of the wheels done first and give it a shot. Thanks, Clare

Hello Ed, I'm watching you build with a great deal of fascination. The Young America is one of the subjects I have considered for a future build, but certainly nothing remotely close in detail to what you are doing here. I'd figured on sticking to plank on solid hull at a smaller scale and using the Crothers plans or the Chapelle plans (for the hull) and using some high resolution scans of photos I'd gotten of the Young America. Some of the poop deck detail, like the small cabin at the forward end is a bit confusing since the various sources don't agree. I'll definitely be watching your progress to see what you come up with. I'm not sure if I'm ready to handle the POF work that you're illustrating in this build. It's just fantastic work. However, I have been considering getting your books and taking on the Naiad build. Thanks for posting here in such great detail! Clare

And, I should add about the handspike/capstan bar question... Clearly capstan bars have to be stored somewhere and the bulwarks seems to be the place, so I will definitely add those. I'm thinking that hand spikes should be stored similarly. Probably, at 1/96 scale, handspikes and capstan bars won't look any different, so I just have to make a mental note as to which are which and where to store them. That ordnance instructions e-book should give me an idea of how many hand spikes are needed per gun. So, I'll just plan on putting an appropriate number of "poles" in various locations. As to what is actually shown in the photos, I'm not sure since both capstan bars and hand spike I think are usually tapered a little and have more of a square cross section at the heavier end. Those bars in the photos look round and straight. And then where were boarding pikes kept? Would there be lockers for those perhaps? Questions, questions... Clare

So, the next issue coming up now is going to be the proper color for the paddlewheels. A lot of civilian ships appear to be painted red. The USS Powhatan, which served in the Pacific around the same time as Saginaw, appears to have been painted black on most models. Also, Japanese woodblock prints of Perry's arrival, while stylized and not detail accurate, probably have the color right and show the wheels as black. I do have one color illustration of the Saginaw in her original configuration that shows red paddlewheels, but I don't know the history of this illustration. If the paddlewheels were red, I would expect them to have been painted with red lead. The problem I have with that is that red lead is a color that most people don't see anymore and it's actually more of an orange red. It's not particularly nice looking on the model. So, I'm trying to decide, if I use red and, if so, if I should use a little artistic license and use a darker shade of red so that model looks nice. Or, I could try to be color accurate and use a red-orange. The other option is to go with another ship of the time and paint the wheels black. Not sure yet, but will have to decide soon. Undated illustration of the Saginaw in her 1859 configuration. Model of the USS Powhatan. Clare

Mark, you rock! What was particularly interesting was an e-book link in the Civil War Talk forum you posted at the end there. Interesting discussion about handing pivot guns, but that e-book "Ordnance Instructions for the US Navy, 1866" that was an incredible find! 100+ pages of all the details about handling boat howitzers, the maneuvering of pivot guns, what everyone's job is at the guns, organization of boarding parties and small arms... everything. I've got a ton of fascinating reading material now. Thanks for the info! Clare

Thanks for the ideas about those bars John and Cap'n Bob. I think I originally dismissed the possibility that they could be capstan bars because they seemed too light. Also, on the Nipsic, that boat gun appears to be on the Quarter Deck, which I figured was probably officer's country and didn't seem like it would be a place they would store capstan bars. Plus I wouldn't think there'd be a capstan that far aft. Unless perhaps those particular bars are actually hand spikes for use on the boat gun pictured. I suppose I should see if I can track down a deck plan or more photos of the Kearsarge to see if there is a capstan somewhere fairly close to where the bars are pictured. Thanks again, Clare

Yikes! Are you just giving me a hard time about my ongoing photo etching issues? Shall I just pass the salt so you can rub some of that into the wound too?

By the way, does anyone know what these poles are that sometime appear on the bulwarks of Civil War era ships? The following is a photo of the Kearsarge. There are some that look very similar behind the Dahlgren boat gun on the USS Nipsic. Finally, there is something similar, but not painted white in a rack behind these officers aboard the USS Malvern. Any thoughts? At first, I thought they might be hand spikes for handling the cannons, but they seem too small for that, particularly for the large pivot gun in the first photo, and there are a lot of them together in one place. Boarding pikes? Seem short for that too, though that might just be a perspective issue. Clare

Thanks for the support guys! Sorry progress has been so slow. Perhaps with this "breakthrough" on the paddle wheels, I can get some forward momentum going again. I did finish all four sets of rims. Next, I'll be working on the hubs of the wheels and the connecting spokes. Finally, come the cross bracing and paddles themselves. We'll see how all that goes. I'm thinking now about how I want to make the hubs. I was initially thinking of making one-piece hubs turned from brass. But, now I'm realizing that adding the spokes will be easier if I can make separate hubs for each rim, add the spokes and then put the halves together. I'll let you know what I come up with... Clare

Paddle Wheels I decided to set aside the armament constructions while I get back to an assembly that's been holding everything up on this model as I was trying to use brass etching and improving that technique. So, I finally decided that enough was enough and it was time to just build the paddle wheels. I went back to an old fashioned method of metal working to make flat rings for the paddle wheels. I had use large gauge (relatively speaking) copper wire wound into a circle and then flattened with hammer and anvil making the wire into a flat ring. I used this method to make circular tracks for pivot guns on a few models in the past. It worked then and maybe my touch has improved a little. At least I can hope. For the Saginaw's paddle wheels, I would need 2-1/2" diameter outer rings. The diameter of an inner set of rings depends on which drawings you look at. I chose to use the original sheer plan drawings of the Saginaw, which show a basic paddle wheel structure. There is another set of detailed drawings available, but it's not clear if these drawings are actually specific to the Saginaw since the name doesn't appear anywhere on them. In any case, the inner ring diameter I'm using is approximately 1-9/16" diameter. I made up some template on my computer and used them to create a set of MDF formers for the ring sizes needed. The templates were glued to the MDF board and cut to shape. The formers were then glued to an MDF board base. 18 gauge copper wire was bent around formers to create rings of appropriate size. The copper wire rings were then carefully set on an anvil and tapped carefully with a hammer, flattening out the wire little by little. The wire tends to straighten itself in the process and is regularly bent on the former back to shape. The wire also tends to twist, so the piece is turned over regularly to undo any twist. As the wire is tapped flat, the ring flattens and widens. At this scale, the ring should actually be only about 1/32" wide (just under 4" at full size), but that makes it too flimsy for me to work with, so my aim has been about 3/64" to 1/16". Once the rings were made, I had intended to silver solder them closed, but found it was easier for now just to CA the ends together. The effort here is to get these done so I can get work on the hull and deck structures going again. I made another template for lining up the rings and the spokes, again printed off the computer. For the spokes, I used 1/32” thick by 3/64” wide boxwood I had on hand. For the time being, I just deal with the part of the spokes connecting the two rings. The longer spoke sections that reach out from the hub, do so at an angle, so I simply left room along the inner ring for these to seat. The very first spoke was run across the whole assembly to hold the rings into place while all the short spokes were glued into place. Clare

I loved the mini-series and have seen it MANY times. Following that, I've been meaning to read the books, but haven't gotten around to it yet. Thanks for your post. I will definitely get the books now. Clare

I have the MicroLux thickness sander (it's MicroMark, by the way) and I'm perfectly happy with it. I've use it and I've used the Byrnes and both work about the same. As someone pointed out, you can't pre-set the thickness on the MicroLux, but I don't recall being able to do that with the Byrnes. For both the MicroLux and the Byrnes Machines sanders, I've had to take off a little bit of wood at a time and then measure the resulting piece. The comment that the MicroLux sander only sands basswood is hogwash. I've never once thickess sanded basswood with it. As I've been milling most of my own wood these days, I use it regularly on Boxwood, Cherry, Pear, Holly and Beech. It works fine, is very heavy and feels very rugged, very sturdy. The main difference between the two, in my experience, is in design. The MicroLux sander works. It's not super user friendly. The Byrnes Machines sander works. It's well designed, so it's more user friendly. For instance, the Byrnes sander uses a screw to adjust the thickness and it has a large diameter thumb wheel. The Microlux model uses a hex bolt. It works, but it's not as nice and its location is a bit awkward. Plus, as I recall, on the Byrnes sander that adjustment screw is easy to reach and the fine threads on it give you more precise adjustment. The vacuum hose attachment on the Byrnes sander is on top so it's out of the way. The Microlux sander put's it on the side where the wood comes out, so you have to do more to get it out of the way of your work. The Byrnes sander uses standard sandpaper making it inexpensive to operate. The Microlux uses special sanding sleeves which cost a lot more, though they seem to last a long time. I haven't changed mine since I bought it, which is a good thing as the Microlux drum sander requires you to practically disassemble the whole machine to change it. The Byrnes sander is much simpler here - again a better design. Plus, on the Byrnes, you can use grits of your choice. On the Microlux, your choices are limited to the 3 available grits. One thing I should add is that the Microlux thickness sander has a big heavy roller on the feed side that is designed to hold down your work as you feed it in. I found this was more of a hassle than an asset, so I removed mine. Every time a piece was almost through the sander, the think would drop with a thunk and jar the unit and the work piece so that the last bit of the work piece would come out uneven. I was much happier with the machine after I took this piece off. Overall, the Microlux is less expensive but it's clearly not as well designed as the Byrnes product. It's still VERY useable and I have no sense that I've missed out by buying it. It's clearly not perfect, but it does its job and I use it about once a week or so. But, the Byrnes thickness sander is really not that much more money than the Microlux model unless you can get it at a good sale price from Micromark. So, you may want to pay a little more and spring for the Byrnes model. Clare

Thanks Dan and Mark for the suggestions. Dan, I may give that a try. Not sure how to keep the drill bit centered on something as small as .050" and keep it from wobbling. I'm a little concerned about destroying the cascabel, so I'll try on some similarly sized wire first. If I can get that to work well enough I'll try it out on the cannons. Thanks for the encouragement! Clare

Wow, thanks all for the nice comments. I appreciate the support. You've all inspired me to finish up by turning the Dahlgrens... So, here's the last of my machining for the moment. I turned the four 24-pounder Dahlgren boat guns yesterday. This turned out to be much more of a task than I'd expected. I did one test a week ago and it seemed easier. I think the trickiest part was probably that I had to try to make all four identical – or as close as I could come. Note that the cascabel on the end of the breech end is supposed to have a hole in it, but it was way too small for me to work with. I know for the future I'm supposed to drill the holes before I do the turning. But, at this scale and with the small size of the cannons, I think the tolerances necessary are too tight for my current skills. So, I elected not to drill them. I'll fake the elevating screws somehow. Also, I haven't soldered on the mounting lugs yet. That's next after I clean up the barrels a little. By the way, here is a picture of my Sherline lathe modified with the addition of a milling column. Makes this thing extremely versatile, though I think the Unimat is more designed for versatility. Still, I only have to turn one hex screw to remove the head stock, place the milling column and tighten a similar screw, attach the head stock in its new location and tighten the screw again and it's all set. Also, thanks for the tip Mark. I've certainly got a lot to learn on using machine tools. Clare

Turning the Parrot Guns The Saginaw gave me my first opportunity to really put my new Sherline lathe to work and to put me to the test. This is the first lathe I’ve ever used, though I did learn to use a vertical mill many long years ago in a physics department machine shop. I first took a drawing that was published in a Ships in Scale article of a 30 pounder Parrot rifle (originally from the National Archives) – the exact gun I needed for the Saginaw – and scanned it into Adobe Illustrator. I have a very old version of the software on an old Mac. It won’t run on my newer system, so I signed up for the trial version of Adobe’s Creative Cloud version. At 30 days, it was plenty of time for my purposes. I scaled the image down so that it matched the model size and then used Illustrator’s measuring tool to get exact measurements for the guns. I can’t really tell you much about the process of making cannon barrels on the lathe except to say that I haven’t done so much math in a long time. Basic stuff, simple addition, subtraction, occasional division, but lots of it. As I mentioned in a previous post, I’d figured on making one successful cannon and then using that for casting. But, I ended up turning both the Parrot guns instead. For this reason, I wrote out a step-by-step description of each cut and each related measurement so that I could repeat it easily. I made three barrels so I could take the best of the three, though the very first couple I did, I rejected pretty quickly and had to start up a couple more. To keep them as uniform as possible, I decided to do a couple steps at a time on one barrel and then switch barrels and repeat those steps, keeping all three barrels taking shape at the same time. This seemed to help keep me from making silly mistakes and kept the barrels fairly uniform. I know I should have cut the holes for the trunnions first, but I managed to add them later, though at great difficulty. I was just more concerned about getting the three barrels to look right, figuring I could deal with drilling them later. To make a long story short, I managed to finish them and I’m happy with how they turned out. They aren't perfect, but I'm happy and when blackened, many of the flaws will be pretty well hidden from view. In the end, I learned a lot and really enjoyed the machine shop work. As for the lathe itself, I originally wanted to get a vertical mill, but since I had more immediate need I went with the lathe. My funds are pretty tight, so I decided to simply accessorize and build up a mill over time. I know it’s more money in the long run, but it’s really easier to take smaller steps. I’ve since purchased a milling column that will fit in place of the lathe’s headstock and then the headstock mounts on the column. So, for $170, I have a basic mill. I’ve already tried it for some basic work and already I love it. Operation is so precise and so smooth. Next on the Sherline, I’ll be turning the Dahlgren boat guns. They're simpler in shape so they should be easier to do. More on that later... Clare

Thanks Brian, but it sure feels like it's moving along slowly... By the way, I've always wanted to mention that I like your big brain Talos IV guy photo. Grant, I was really happy when I bought it, though for a while I really didn't know what to do with it. Plus, I had to figure out what accessories I needed, just to use the thing – I bought the very basic lathe with no accessories. Clare

No worries, Sam. Good explanation of the spelling changes in compound works. I was going to respond to that, but I figured my explanations would just confuse the matter Clare

Thanks for your comments Grant. I plan on writing about being successful with the brass etching very soon! Just as soon as I succeed... Mark, thanks for the suggestion. I was figuring I'd eventually post there, but maybe I'll do it sooner rather than later. I'm going to give another shot to making the rings for the paddlewheels from etched brass. I just got my order in from Micromark on Friday, so I'll get back to that soon. In the meantime, I got a bit distracted by starting work on the guns. The Saginaw carried two 30-pdr parrot rifles in 1870, along with four 24-pdr dahlgren boat guns. I bought myself a Sherline lathe a couple months ago and this will be the first attempt to make something significant with it. I've got very little lathe experience, so it's a slow learning process. I'll write a post about it, but I'll say now that I've been really enjoying the metal work. It was a bit intimidating at first, but I'm just now starting to get comfortable with it. Initially, I figured I'd be lucky to make one of each type of gun and planned on using them as masters for casting. But, after I found that the initial silicone molds I made weren't very good, I decide with so few guns, I'd just turn them all. Anyway, I need the practice on the lathe. More on that shortly. Clare

Hello Alexandru, A very interesting build! I've been in contact with someone who is building the Woody Joe kit that appears to be of the same subject. Would love to learn more about the actual ship's construction. By the way, the name Fune is fine as it's just Japanese for "Boat".

Today, I just received my copy of Ancre's monograph of the cutter Le Cerf, 1779-1780. It's a great product, but I really want to point out here is that if you live in the U.S., I strongly advise you to pay the extra money to order by a trackable express shipping service. I first place an order for this product on March of this year. Figuring it might take 4 or 5 weeks to get, I waited a couple months and nothing showed up, so I emailed them. I didn't hear anything back, so I posted on the Seaways mail list asking what other people's experiences were with ordering from Ancre. Next thing I know, I got an email from Ancre asking how they could help. He immediately shipped the product to me and all was looking well. Then, 4 weeks went by and 6 weeks. As the 8th week was approaching, I wrote again. Mr. Didier Berti (Hubert Berti, his father, had passed away in the Spring) offered to reship it by express service if I wanted to pay the cost and I was very happy to spend the extra money this time. So, today, the book shows up at my home in California, a mere 4 days after it was shipped from France. I have the product, an excellent product by the way, and all is well. Maybe shipping to other parts of the U.S. will have better luck, but for shipping to the west coast I STRONGLY advise you to pay the extra chunk of cash to order via trackable, express shipping. Anyway, you're going to want your Ancre orders quickly so you can enjoy the amazing quality of their products right away. Ancre - Collection Archéologique Navale At last, another happy Ancre book owner. Clare

Hi John, I just wish I could give you a detailed account of my SUCCESSFUL etching experience. Might be MORE helpful Clare