Bedford

Yeah I must admit, I came home today, drove into the garage and there she was on the bench and I thought WOW that looks good! The epoxy has given it a warmer tone and it is beautiful. My son saw it today and said the same as Hipexec but he then saw the pencil marks preserved for all time under the epoxy, there is filler there too that you can't really see in the pics as well as traces of glue. I had always intended to paint it so I didn't worry about keeping it "clean" so it has to be painted. I never paint my static ships because I love the timberwork but this is different. She has reached a milestone.......... Today she went down the slipway. This is empty, you may be able to see a small black mark on the stern post, this is the sailing water line, she has a lot of ballast to take on yet. After carefully putting rocks into her I finally got her to that line, one rock missed the boat, as it were! Not a drop of water got in, not even through the shaft seals, I did add a smeare of vaseline (petroleum jelly) to them. It was a very strange feeling, putting on of my tallships into the bath tub. It felt wrong to be honest. But I am so happy with it. The placement of the rocks to get her to float level along her length confirmed what I thought, the centre of gravity is forward of centre so this will be considered when attaching the fin keel. I did put a mast in at one point and try and pull her over but she resisted quite well, makes me wonder if my original idea of just extending the keel along her length by adding mild steel plate would work, I may have to find a way to test this concept. On another note I have been wondering how much weight she would be able to carry and have been guessing about 6kg all up, I weighed all the rocks when I pulled them out of the hull and she will weigh 5.7Kg all up and could easily run to 6Kg if I had to. I am now confident that I will be able to put plenty of ballast below the hull to keep her upright because at present I have 4.25 Kg to play with.

Yeah, I fear I may have to install my deck in a cool room....... I have finished the epoxy coats. The Glass cloth on the stern left the hull looking messy as anyone who is familiar with its use would undestand, you have a beautiful smooth wooden hull then in one place you have this cloth with frayed edges in the finish, yuck! I sanded it as much as I dared, or could be bothered in this heat, and then did the coat over it with micro spheres mixed in and it smoothed it all out pretty well ! Just a light sand then a normal coat over the entire exerior this morning and it is done. Seems a pity to have to paint over it all now................

I last used fibre glass and epoxy resin in my late teans, so long ago, I am finding that with a more thoughtful approach and the right stuff it isn't that bad to work with. Climactic considerations aside. The micro sphere filler is working beautifully and having isopropyl alcohol and acetone at hand means not much mess. Very cheap paint brushes help too, I clean them by binning them and reaching for a new one. Here you can see how the mixture with micro spheres is filling the gaps nicely, I am using it at about the consistency of honey. The forward ribs need more filler in the aft part of the joint to the planks. There is a very good reason I did not "fair" the entire width of the rib and that is because the line drawing I got the shapes from shows the profile of the hull at that precise point at 90 degrees from the keel. Given that the ribs are 10mm thick if I had faired the entire face of the rib I would have effectively moved the profile astern by 5mm so I only faired the forward half up front and the rearward half astern. My next epoxy mix will be one of simmilar consistency with which I will go over the glassed area on the exterior to reseal what I have sanded and fill the glass sheet better to allow sanding back to a smooth finish. The micro spheres are supposed to sand well. Then once I have coated those two patches of cloth I will add more micro spheres to really thicken the mix and prop the hull up on its bow so I can fill the gaps on the rear faces of the forward ribs.

It's not uncommon to get -4 deg C here in winter with max of 6or 7 but we don't get much snow. Our normal summer range is about 26 to 30 but we are getting into the mid 30's and that's hot for us. Probably hotter in the garage too. I used to work for a large company that occasionally did stuff like wearing a promo T shirt. they did it one winter and someone from head office rang to ask how the promo was going, are we all wearing our T shirts? I replied "Madam, when I come to work in the morning it is minus 4, do you think I am wearing a T shirt" Glad I don't live in Sydney, they are getting into the mid 40's and this side of Aus is humid.

Well so much warm epoxy, nature did that for me. When I fitted the prop shaft tubes I used Araldite, 5 min epoxy adhesive. I only got about 30 to 40 seconds after mixing to use the stuff before it started getting hard. I should have know better than to start applying fibre glass in this heat. I have done the second coat on the exterior this time without thinning and I added fibre glass to the rear of the hull to strengthen the area the prop shafts come through. I got the first side completed then started the second side, I got 65% of the glass done and the resin started to harden so I had to mix a second batch quickly so I could continue. Some of the glass would not fully accept the resin as it had been partially wet in the previous batch so it will need sanding and redoing but even the rest of that side with the new batch of resin didn't go as well as the other side. I had little lumps of gel appearing as I went and just had to go at it madly and hope for the best. I will have a look at it in the morning and see how bad it is, thankfully I am planning to sand and paint but I fear there will be a lot more sanding than I hoped for.

All these compliments on my planking..... I will be embarrassed to show my filling work around the prop shafts now. I did put more effort into accurate fitting than usual and took my time, the old carpenters law, measure twice, cut once.

Sailor, it is 32 degrees C here at the moment, (sorry Floyd) so there is quite enough heat in the epoxy I reckon, I am only mixing small amounts and it is starting to get warm by the time I am finished each coat so I don't think it would be wise to add any more heat to it. Thinning it a little with acetone seems to be working quite well.

Yes the exterior looks great but you should see the interior. You will in the future as I start fitting her out. Next step is to fit the prop shaft tubes, I want to do this now because I will use a bit of fibreglass cloth around them in the next coat of epoxy to really strengthen that area because the planks are now weekened there and there will no doubt be a certain amount of vibration when the motors are running.

I thinned the first coat with the aim of having it soak into the timbers a bit and strengthen her. When I painted it on I could see it sat on the surface at first but then as I went colour changed indicating that it was indeed soaking in. I will do an even thinner coat on the interior to really get it into everything, every gap, every joint.

I needed to get some 1.5 x 1.5 timbers but didn't want to order them and wait so I worked out a way to cut them without too much fuss. I won't call them "whales" but I have forgotten what they are called, you will see them in the following pics. The hull planks are 1.5mm thick so I glued two down on my cutting board with a third jammed between them on edge. Once the glue had dried I just had to hold the plank between the two that were glued down and run a blade along one of them to cut into the stock piece. Three runs with the blade then move the plank along and repeat until the whole plank is partially cut through. Then lay it flat and just gently finish the cut freehand which is easy because there is now a good deep guiding groove. Finally onto the epoxy, why is it that every time you do something like this bugs appear out of nowhere and land on it ? I am using the "West Systems" epoxy as recommended and the mob I got it from have mixing cups for it that are marked with the part A level and then you top it up to the part B level. There are different scales for different ratios and there are 10%, 20% and 30% markes for adding additives like acetone for thinning. They only cost a couple of dollars so I got two, they are brilliant!

Bob, every ship I have made has my name and date of commencement in her somewhere. It will never be seen but it's there. Steve

Gee Robbyn, no pressure ! I had not considered the balance as being quite as important as you have pointed out but you are wise, the less corrective ballast I need to distribute to make her float level the more I have to use in the sailing keel to keep her upright in a gail and she will always be sailing in a gail ! I had mentioned the need to build lightness into her so I could save as much weight as possible for the sailing keel and building balance into her is one way of achieving this. Never mind my skills as a builder, you are going to see my skills as a plummer in due course..............that has you guessing doesn't it?

The name plates are dreadful, I didn't bother with the stern one because it is so bad.

There is one thing that MAY help keep it together while you document it all to allow for re-rigging. Hairspray. It would most definately not be a fix but may slow the decay and allow some time. I think the idea of passing it on to be re-rigged by your son is actually rather good. Think of it, every generation gets to restore the rigging and therefore have some ownership and pride in what you made and passed on. Steve

Looking very nice. I made this model years ago when it still had the etched brass fittings which were rather nice. You and your fellow shipwrights are doing a good job with what you have. I tried to recall where the pieces with 2 holes in them went but can't for the life of me. She is a beautiful model when finished. I made mine as a gift for a 21st and have not seen it for several years and I miss it. Steve

I am drawing some inspiration from the James Craig in Sydney even though she is a barque. She is of similar age and size to this schooner so there are going to be a lot of similarities, I paced out the James Craig the night before I sailed on her and reckoned she was 55 - 56 metres in the hull which pans out pretty well with the schooner because with a deck of just over 1 metre and a scale of 1:54, well you get the idea. It turns out the length of the hull on the Craig is 54.7 metres so I was pretty close considering I was on the wharf when I paced her out. I have been wondering how much the schooner will need to weigh to ride at the water line and I keep thinking somewhere around 6 kilos. I worked out that the Craig with a displacement of 1500 tonnes would run a scale weight of 9.5 Kilos and given that she is not a coastal trader and therefore has a deeper draft I can see that the schooner may well come in at around 6 kilos or maybe a tad over. It will be interesting to see once I have her sealed and ready to float. I will load her up and see exactly how much she needs to carry to ride at the waterline.

This is looking beautiful ! I often think such a project would be worth doing and this makes me want one, I have seen an "Armed Pinnace" somewhere that I really liked. You have given me inspiration. Steve

A lovely schooner there Bob, I love the square riggers but there is something special about a good looking schooner isn't there. I will tag along too. Steve

Yes, when I first saw the plans online I kind of fell in love with her. She just looks right doesn't she. Robbyn the keel is 13mm thick or just over half an inch and at this point she is still well enough balanced that she stands upright on her own.

I have made the first hole in the hull, for the bow sprit. Now you can see her real lines for the first time.

Michael Me too! I have a fair idea of how it will all pan out but once i have mounted the prop shafts there will be a LOT of thinking and planning to see what has to go where. Oh, and shopping too. Robbyn Thanks, I have learned to read the planks and how they want to lie, I run them in a compromise position between where I want them to lie and where they want to lie favouring their choice a bit then I fill the gaps later. It has turned out quite well. I'm glad I have you fascinated, hopefully I will pull this off well and not disappoint.

At last, the planking is finished ! Now to fill the gaps and seal the hull inside and out. I am not going to be too keen to get a smooth perfect finish because these schooners were made of timber and therefore imperfect and I think a few irregularities make a hull look better than glass smooth, they give it character. I am happy with the stern, it looks about right given pics I have seen When I finished the planking and turnd her over I was surprised at how much bigger she looks from the inside that the outside, I may have to call her "The Tardis"

I think we all know how good it feels to be at this point. I am pretty happy with the way the planks have come together but just to show it's not all like that, here is a better shot of the stern planking. It looks awful at this point but bear in mind the planks were just long enough to reach so short filler pieces will need to be added, some have already been done. I find the stern is never as easy as the bow, especially when it is a modern style bow, but it will all come good in the end.

Apparently 4.5 pounds is about 2 Kg so hopefully I will have plenty of ballast to play with. Anyone want to guess the finished weight to get her to float at the waterline?

A few progress pics, Robbyn you can see the planking looks great at the bow but is a real mess at the stern, that's the way the planks flow. Once all the long planks are in place the stern filler pieces will be fitted slowly but surely and it will look almost as good as the bow. I am weighing her now and then and the frame was 900 gramms, at this stage she is 1.15Kg. With masts and bowsprit she is 1.4Kg. I am going to have to build lightness into her somewhere because I want as much weight in the keel as she can carry.