Bedford

I've been a bit busy with other things lately but I've finally spent a little time on the lathe and made the handle for the centreboard, the original full size one was much easier!

Spectacular photos Keith, thanks and welcome back

Just found this, very interesting

Yeah that sounds like a plan, thanks. I'll have a look for the Creole build.

Meanwhile the centreboard case and centreboard are in.

23 hours ago, wefalck said:

I am curious as to how you will be replicating the excellent leathering jobs on the full-size boat in 1:8 scale

 

Mate, I knew I could count on you to consider the finer details

I have seen in one of Michael Motts models that he scraped the back of the leather to make it thinner so that's in the back of my mind, still not sure how I'll go actually fitting it though. As for the "D" brass, I can find half round in larger sizes but half round is the wrong shape anyway. Draw a 45mm diameter circle then rule a line 30mm long across it edge to edge and you'll see the kind of profile I need. 

I was considering making a steel guide with a tangential hole through which I could pull the brass past a mill bit but that would be begging to fail badly. Your idea of gluing it into wood is now at the top of the list. 

Yeah, Iain designs beautiful boats and having built it in 1:1 it's pretty easy to replicate at 1:8, they just go together so nicely.

The captain comes down to the shipyard to cast his eye over her every now and then

More progress, the exterior of the hull is finished and is ready for paint. I have to work out a way to turn 5mm brass rod into 3mm "D" profile to create the rubbing strips.

Well the whisky plank is on, sadly no whisky in the house.

1 hour ago, AndyG said:

 Is there something in the air? 😀

 

Yeah, the mains'l and jib when it's warm enough to go sailing!

Meanwhile I've now got the model of my boat half planked!

The beauty of making it is I get exactly what I want. It is short and fat so it fits entirely in my hand and I just have to apply slight pressure as I run along the joint rather than a long contraption that requires greater muscle movement and is therefore less accurate.

I found that letting the next plank into the previous one at stem and stern required a fine chisel or miniature shoulder plane. Found a plane online but a bit much $$ and a bit big so I made a chisel from a short length of 1/8" HSS tool steel and it works a treat!

Next problem was applying the glue along the length of the plank without it skinning over due to reverse cycle heating, I needed a quicker way to apply it so I made a glue syringe, it's short and fat (the plunger is 10mm diameter) with a 1mm nozzle. The glue goes on very quickly now.

More progress, both garboards, skeg and keel fitted. On the 1:1 the keel was in 2 pieces joined aft of the centre board slot but on the model it's 1 piece from the fore foot to the transom. I will cut the centre board slot on the mill with a 3mm bit.

Greg, the 1:1 molds were stepped to locate each strake and give a flat land on the mold for the strake. The lands between strakes were still planed to give a proper mating surface. So if you took a completed boat and pressed a giant profile gauge into it you'd get the shape of the mold if that makes sense.

The stepped molds just worked as a guide so all the strakes overlapped by the correct amount etc.

It's very hard to replicate at his scale because the ply is only 0.8mm thick so in this case they are more just guide lines to work to.

This pic doesn't show it very well because it's of a concave part of the hull and the next strake did fall flush on the garboard at that mold but was then rebated into the garboard as it flowed to the transom. You can see the step for the third strake and a straight edge placed on that land would hit the edge of the second strake so you remove material from the second strake until the straight edge lays flat on the third strake land and fair it to the next mold etc.

Yes John, it was the same with the full size version. An occasion that called for single malt in that case!

Port garboard is on!

I knew I had drawings of the strakes at a small size to show how they went together. As luck would have it the drawing is at 50% of the build size so I just had to double the size and tweek them a bit to make them fit, well the first one anyway. The ply at 0.8mm is easily cut with good scissors which makes life easy and means I can cut the strakes inside, no sawdust!

Now that I have the molds sorted I've been able to attach the transom and the keelson is now glued to the transom with the same strengthening knee I decided to add to the full size boat.

I had a set back with this project. I'm guessing that the heating inside caused the building "spine" to warp a bit so everything went out of whack. I walked away from it for a while!

Hopefully the problem is now solved by using different materials and approach. Everything is now clamped and aligned very nicely.. Rather than removing the molds to add glue and re-position them I will cut several small blocks and just glue them into the right angles in the jig so it all stays aligned.

Quite appropriate John

On that, when Neil Armstrong died I worked for a car dealer, in the workshop. In the lunch room I saw the headline on the paper and said "I saw that man walk on the moon" crickets, tumbleweeds. I was the only one old enough to have seen it 😕

A little more done, this time I steam bent the apron while the original is laminated.

I've joined the keelson to the apron and started fairing the keelson to accept the garboards but here I have to stop because I'm waiting on a sheet of 0.8mm plywood from which I'll laminate 2 layers and then a layer of mahogany to make the transom before I can finish fitting and fairing the keelson in preparation for the planking which will be done with the 0.8mm plywood.

Popeye, thanks for the compliment.

I am building her again exactly (almost) the way I built the original. The building form shown is a 1/8th scale representation of the original and will be scrapped once the hull is finished and righted for fit out. Each individual plank land is cut into the molds to aid correct fitment. I even have a sheet of 0.8mm plywood on order for the planks.

Thanks Jim, I'm sure it will and at the scale of 1:8 detail should be easier than normal.

She'll be one of very few models with sitka spruce spars I'd imagine.

The planking will be interesting because the full size model had them cnc router cut to shape but I'm going to have to take the lines from the hull as I go in this case and they are some interesting shapes!

When I met Mark Pearse recently I mentioned that I might do this as a model, he was pretty keen that I should so here it is

Well I have finished building the 1:1 boat so now I'm doing the model. The plans are drawn at 1:8 scale so I'm going 1 to 1 off them which is very convenient.

I aim to make it as much as the original is made as is practical, including using the same timbers from left overs. The exception to this is the transom because the original is rosewood but the grain is so open it was barely usable at 1:1 so I'm going to use mahogany instead.

When I met Mark Pearse a while back I mentioned that I might do this and he was very keen that I should so here you are Mark.

The plans have all the lines I need so it was pretty easy to draw it up plus the understanding of having already built it goes a long way.

Beautiful work Keith

That was a great read, thanks Mark