Bedford
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Everything posted by Bedford
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Hey Robbyn, looking good my dear. I notice you are getting your head around the terminology too. You have gone from "string" " thingy" etc to bowsprit, boom, block and the word we all come to know, B***** !!- 234 replies
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Yeah I love them and hopefully she will look good under sail. She has great classic lines too. I made Thermopylae years ago and still have the plans, I want to make that in this size and r/c her but that is a major task running all that rigging via r/c and learning to sail her so I thought a classic schooner first. This project might put me right off the Thermopylae idea too, you never know, but I do enjoy a mechanical challenge.
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Jim Lad, She should stand in the back of this one, I will have to lay her over a little to get her in. Failing that if I take the back seat out, which is dead easy, she will fit fully rigged in there. I have another large 4 door sedan with a fold down rear seat too so if I make a suitable cradle it would lie in the boot of that. He said, hopefully! Steve
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Aye Popeye, big she is! If I am clever the top masts and bow sprit jib boom will all retract far enough to fit her in one of my cars. Be a bugger if they don't retract enough !
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I sincerely hope I fail to disappoint but this is my first attempt at such a thing. I like to work all the mechanics and problems out my way but will always welcome suggestions. The masts and tressles are made of Tasmanian Oak which is readily available here and quite strong. More pics, that is a 12 inch rule behind the mizzen mast.
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Well I figure it is about time I start a new build and post up a thread. This will take a while so be very patient. I love tall ships, I love tall ship models and I love scratch building working models. Hence this project. I aquired a fairly rudementary set of hull plans a few years ago and am now in a postition to put my money where my mouth is and build it. The aim is a fully operational schooner done my way. It will be what aeromodellers used to call stand-off scale because I am making consessions to my lack of knowledge about the forces that will be applied to her under sail as well as the fact that the plans include nothing of the rigging and precious little detail of the deck fittings. I know how to rig a ship because I have done a few kits, two schooners among them. I have never sailed anything in my life so she will be made in the guise of a replica or restored ship which has had engines added, ie she will have twin screws like the replica Endeavour. She will never be becalmed. Stats:- Hull length - 1045mm Beam - 210mm Mast height - 930mm from keel Sails - Cotton (at this stage- open to suggestion) 3x sails, 3x top sails, 3x stay sails. Construction - Marine ply keel and ribs, plank on frame, fibre-glassed. I have started in an unusual way in so much as I have made the masts first. I was going to make one to test the principles but decided that it was going to be much more expedient to machine multiple parts in one hit than do three seperate set-ups. The first pic shows the style of schooner rig I am aiming for. Squaring the top of the masts It is nice to be able to use full sized tools on a model for a change Cross tree or tressle, the timbers are a bit heavier than scale and not tapered to the outer extremeties but they are what the top mast shroud lines will attach to so they are deliberately heavy for structural reasons. Machining the mast tops, all three at once.
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Looks like I was right, the SF has made you a better modeller hasn't it? Always remember, because of the lousy instructions and missing steps etc you have learned so much from her. Steve
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Hey Robbyn, I had my lady friend here today and we were talking about perfection etc and how she does things to a standard that make her happy. I told her about my Schonner for Port Jackson which we were looking at and the fact that there are imperfections there that I know about but no-one else would ever see because they see the whole thing. I told her about your dilemas and starting, stopping, stripping and re-doing to try and get it right. She said to tell you about the Navajo (spelling?) indians and the rugs they make. Apparently they deliberately include errors in them because "nothing is perfect" Good attitude I think. Steve & Angela
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"the boat I am in" Pun intended Robbyn ? It sounds to me like you picked a good kit to start with. You have learned so much from it that you may not have had it come with the best set of plans and instructions in the business. Much you have learned, good builder you will become! I may have mentioned before that my first kit was shy a few blocks but I just made them, it really isnt difficult and only takes a few minutes but I guess you are a bit over it now and no-one would blame you for that, all of us get that way now and then. Having the other boat to go on with is a great bonus, I always had the mind set of one thing at a time so I only ever had one kit at a time but I now have the CW Morgan on hold and my big scratch Schooner I am starting to get into soon ( there is a LOT of thinking and planning to be done there before getting too heavily into it ) as well as the Royal Caroline but I think it a winter job maybe.
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Hi Robbyn, I tie the line off as per the real thing, ie up and down around the belaying pin as per the pic you show. I took a piece of brass wire about 1.5mm in diameter and beat one end out flat so it looks like a flat screw driver blade, then filed a groove into the end of the wedge. Hold the line with one hand well beyond the belaying pin and catch the line near the belaying pin in the groove of the tool. You can then use the tool to push the line in behind the bottom of the belaying pin and loop it around it, then catch the line again and draw it across and over the top of the pin and loop it there, repeat a few times then simply tie off by doing an inverse loop over the top of the pin, ie instead of running the tail OVER the line, finish it so it is UNDER the line and pull tight. Leave the long tail until you are finished. This way you can undo and adjust if required as you proceed with other rigging. When you are finished you can then add a drop of glue to each one, once dry trim the ends and then place fake loops over the pins as shown by others above. Hope this makes some sense. Steve
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You reckon YOU need smaller fingers, how do you think I get on? When I buy gloves I need to find extra large! Looking good Robbyn and I know what you mean about the end being in sight and feeling a bit sad but there is another waiting for you and another after that and neither will give you the grief this one did! Steve
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Wow, it's been a long road to get here but good on you, she looks great ! Steve
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Yeah Robbyn it seems to me that you have just had a big break from everything but it was more hectic than normal life. You need a holiday to recover from your holiday. Kick back and take it easy for a while. Go back to her when you feel the desire to do so, that makes it a hobby, not when she calls you, that makes it a job. Steve
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That is just beautiful !
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Hi there Robbyn, I know what you mean about being over it, my first very nearly became a flying boat several times! Patience and perseverance. I think you have gone all out on this one and it is doing your head in. Perhaaps you need to accept the the first isnt going to be the best and be happy to look on it as what it has been, a huge education. Steve
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Magnificent !
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Hi, sorry I have not checked this thread for a while. I enjoyed working with the timbers in this kit although the walnut sections, keel, rudder, masting etc took forever to dry when varnished for some reason. The ply pieces that make up the deck houses are rubbish so I made solid parts and clad them in timber. Two of the ribs are mis-numbered but I forget which ones, you need to stack them on one another and work out the order in which they belong by how they match up. The sail fabric is just callico and I found it quite good, my ex had a good sewing machine with all the accessories needed to sew the sails nicely and I knew about making the top sails so that the curved hem to go around the mast step was on the bias so I could easily make the hem. Sorry, I built her before I joined this forum so there is no build log. Steve
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You are brave Robbyn and I admire your determination to get it right, I am sure the new rope will look so much better than the cheap crap that came with the kit. You will be able to rig it with your eyes closed !! In light of this I am sure the Syren will be beautiful ! Steve
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I think you have made a good decision Robbyn, if not for the SF, for the Syren, you want to get all the lessons learned before you start that one, although there will be different challenges with her too.
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Magnificent, very keen to watch the progress. Steve
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Very nicely done, must get myself a rotary table for the mill Steve
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See Robbyn, you are now the teacher, I like that cardboard template with the lines on it, I do it freehand but keep checking spacing etc. the needle seems to be a good tool as well. You say your shrouds are quite tight, as they should be, all mine are because I reason that they were on the real thing so as to brace it all. It will work exactly the same way on a model. You will find though that you won't be able to tighten the top mast shrouds as much because the "chainplates" for want of a better term will only be decorative. Model shrouds are nowhere near heavy enough to attach a deadeye chainplate to and tension it. Instead you have to glue the dead eye rope "chainplate" into the tressle so it takes all the strain. You can still apply reasonable tension but not too much.
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The thing is Robbyn, forget what the terminology is, forget the crap plans, you are making ladders. One climbs from the deck up the shrouds and onto the tressles or cross trees or if you will, crowsnest. The top mast shrouds, which are the ones above what you are doing now will tie off to dead eyes and via lanyards to dead eyes on the tressle and those dead eyes will have a rope securing them to the shrouds below, these are the uprights of the ladders so you need to be able to climb up the shrouds til you reach the ones that angle out to the tressle, you then climb up them to the outer edge of the tressle so this is where the ratline "ladder" has to go. Make sense? You can climb up the inside and come out onto the tressle through the "lub" hole which is where the shrouds pass through the tressle on their downward journey. If you did this though you would be referred to as a "land lubber" Steve
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To be scale perfect, I believe the shrouds should go up to the point at which the top mast shroud lower dead eyes are secured to the existing shrouds, as stated above in more technically correct terms, however, it is a small scale model and it may not be possible to get them looking right all the way up so just do the best you can. The ratlines look spot on !!
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Oh Robbyn, Robbyn, Robbyn, the shrouds are the nice part ! There are hundreds and hundreds of knots to be done on the ratlines! In all hoesty though, there was a pic posted a while back when you were asking how the shrouds should go over the mast, it showed how to tie the ratlines Use the knot shown as it will look right and it will be easy once you get the hang of it. I use a long pair of angle nosed tweezers to pull the line through the knot and you end up doing an action not unlike crocheting. You can also use the tweezers to slide the knot up and down the shroud to get it nice and neat, just grab hold of the shroud with the tweezers ever so lightly and then push the knot by sliding them up or down accordingly. Cut the line to about two feet long, run it through the wax then start, I leave a bit at the last knot incase it comes lose so cut about an inch out. keep going up the shroud and when you have used up your two feet of line just use a tooth pick or similar to apply a small amount of pva to the outer knots, don't worry about the inner ones because if the outer ones can't come lose neither can the inner ones. When the glue has had time to set cut all the tails off leaving avery short tail.
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