olliechristo

Hi Ollie,
 
Glad to hear you had a nice holiday in a very beatiful part of the country and it looks you had quite a nice haul with your metal detector.
 
I have been to that museum many years ago, back in '95 and it was a great display back then they had a couple of very good detailed  models of the Endeavour on display then along with the relics from the ship that you have shown. A great little town

COOL!!!!  been to lots of museums here in San Diego, San Francisco, Portland and Mystic Seaport ... love em' ... missed the Bounty though but got to see the Constitution. Shame how they put 'newer' Headrails and stern details on her, the originals are so much better.
Nice to see you back!
 
Tom

Hi all, no modelling for a bit..  As some of you may know the profile picture I have is of the mermaid in the Endeavour River, Cooktown.. Far northern Australia.
 
Well that is where i have been since xmas, staying with friends not far from the river....  Great to get away..  I got a chance to bring a little history home with some metal detecting finds, my oldest coin 1862 British Ha'penny... . 
 
I also got to check out the Captain Cook museum and got to see the real anchor and cannon from the Endeavour.. And a piece of the tree he supposedly tied to...   Lots of great old shipping and mining objects...  It all got my imagination juiced up and keen to get back to the model..   Thought I might share some of my adventure with you..   Ollie

Hi all, no modelling for a bit..  As some of you may know the profile picture I have is of the mermaid in the Endeavour River, Cooktown.. Far northern Australia.
 
Well that is where i have been since xmas, staying with friends not far from the river....  Great to get away..  I got a chance to bring a little history home with some metal detecting finds, my oldest coin 1862 British Ha'penny... . 
 
I also got to check out the Captain Cook museum and got to see the real anchor and cannon from the Endeavour.. And a piece of the tree he supposedly tied to...   Lots of great old shipping and mining objects...  It all got my imagination juiced up and keen to get back to the model..   Thought I might share some of my adventure with you..   Ollie

Heck ... give it a whirl you might like how it comes out.  A sample could change your mind!?!?
Back to scratch building I guess. Insert an evil chuckle here!!
Object is to have fun and make something you can hand down to your kids!
 
Tom

While I am waiting for my planks to dry, I started bending the frames, using the construction jig as a guide. I know that all of us have our own way of bending frames, but I have never seen this method described on MSW or anywhere else, for that matter. It is far from my role to teach you experienced modellers how to suck eggs, but it may be useful for beginners. So here it is, step by step.
 

 
Soak the wood for 24 hours, then clamp one end on the frame.
 

 
Using a steam iron, press down on the plank for a few seconds. The wood will soften and bend easily.
 

 
Once the wood bends, clamp it down before attempting the next curve.
 

 
Almost there ...
 

 
Finished. Note how tight the plank is to the jig. Leave it to air dry for 24 hours, then remove the clamps.
 
I believe that this method has quite a few advantages over other plank bending methods:
 
- you already own the equipment (you do own a steam iron, don't you?),
- pressing the plank between the iron and the jig lessens the risk of breaking the plank,
- very tight bends, and very precise fit can be achieved
- the iron is not as hot as a soldering iron, so it won't scorch the wood
 
When I removed the clamps, the plank was curved so tightly to the jig that I had to gently pry it off. Anyway, this is where I am up to. Will continue the build log as the model progresses.

Looking really tidy Jeff. The copper matches in nice with the keel colour and I think all that time spent on plates is really going to make this model.. regards Ollie

Hi All,
 
 Another small update. I have shaped the middle and upper wales and fitted the middle wales and I have done a little more copper plating, I have been cutting the plates with a pair of scissors, the big angles only the slighter angles have been adjusted with a file only, and although there is a little bit of curling of the plate I can straighten this out by sitting it on the jaws of my vice and tapping it lightly with a small hammer.
I think the results are OK so far but we will see how it pans out as I progress down the hull. I do know it is time consuming little process to make sure each copper tile sits right against the one above and next to it
 
A few pictures follow
 
 

 

 

Hi Ollie,
 
You could try a few different treenailng metohds on a sample deck and see which , if any, you prefer

Hi Ollie
Very nice looking deck there. I wouldn't discount tree nailing though. Have a look at my Fly log. The deck is holly which is very pale and I mixed a wood paste of 4 parts neutral to 1 part pine (the palest colour I could find). The tree nails are only visible at certain viewing angles and certainly don't leap out at you. I think it is a nice detail if kept really subtle.
 
Cheers
Alistair

Thanks John and Jeff, I appreciate your compliments.. Jeff I am thinkin I will leave tree nails out, I think at this scale they would be pretty tiny and if colour was matched to decking they would be basically invisible. Thinking perhaps do the fake nails with micro drill and putty if at all..what do you think off that? Ollie

Deck looks really great! Nicely done...you have a real knack for this!
 
Merry Christmas to you and all the rest of the guys!
 
Tom

Hi All,
 
I have made a little bit of progress today I have attached the lower wale strakes above the waterline and shaped the lower strakes for the other 2 wales. Because I had no way of clamping them to the hull while the glue dried I drilled and pinned the strakes with brass nails which were later removed and bamboo treenails fitted into the holes these will be sanded flush with the wale and as the hull will be painted they will not be seen.
 
I am going to fit the lowwer strake of each wale first to get them even and lined up properly with the ports and then the next strake will be easy as it only has to fit up against the one below it
 
I also got a few more copper plates laid

Looks great Jeff. I was going to suggest something sticky like masking tape to help hold them.. Some great tips. I look forward to doing my copper plates and glad i have stacks extra to play around with.. regards Ollie

Ollie,
 
That's very neat deck planking - well done.
 
Yes, you're better to have slightly longer rather than very short planks, and although some ships have the deck openings 'framed' by the deck, most ships have the deck 'underneath' as you suggest.
 
John

Thanks Guys, really enjoying the deck...  Adding another 4 hours to log...
 
I am wondering about gangway and skylight.  Is it most realistic if decking goes underneath or do they sit on top of the decking like most other deck fixtures such as windlass?
 
Thanks for looking and Merry Christmas and holiday season to all. Happy crafting..  Ollie

Thanks Guys, really enjoying the deck...  Adding another 4 hours to log...
 
I am wondering about gangway and skylight.  Is it most realistic if decking goes underneath or do they sit on top of the decking like most other deck fixtures such as windlass?
 
Thanks for looking and Merry Christmas and holiday season to all. Happy crafting..  Ollie

Nice start on the deck, Ollie!
 
John

Oooh an update, and a Christmas update   looking great,, thanks Ron and have great Xmas mate...

Okay so adding 20 hours to build log...
 
No worries Tom. Glad it shed some light on the Mermaid for you...
 
Jeff, i don't mind at all mate. If i could be of advice to Sailor I would..
 
Well i have made good progress on planking my deck.. The shift planking is much like some of the mosaic and tiling patterns i have done just different terminology.. I have it well under control, only query is how to calculate when joggling should begin?? I gather it is when the cut at end of plank exceeds a certain length.. ? Regards Ollie..

The drawing is perfect,. That's all I need, totally understand now. Thanks Jeff I'm really enjoying the deck. The plank widths vary considerably so I'm trying to keep same plank to each run, thanks ollie.

Bob
 
it seems that you are more familiar with photoshop by me, and I need some litlle help there
 
My original TEHNODIDAKTA plans have no mark of scale, and all drawings of ship are a little bit larger than in Campbell plans. So, my idea is to rescale Campbel plans to scale it to TEHNODIDAKTA plans, and to print them again in that rescaled size, but I can not determine the percentage of increase it. Only way I see is to determine same benchmarks for measuring on both plans, and to calculate percentage.
 
By your experience, what points on plans are optimum for benchmarking ? And, please, crop them as pictures and past in post ( my English and poor understanding of nautical terms)
 
Thx
 
Nenad

The drawing is perfect,. That's all I need, totally understand now. Thanks Jeff I'm really enjoying the deck. The plank widths vary considerably so I'm trying to keep same plank to each run, thanks ollie.

Hi All,
 
I did forget to mention in my previous post that this will be my first attempt at copper plating a ship, even 1/3 of one
 
After some further reading and some more thinking I have have come up with a plan on how to attack the copper plating. Most logs and books recomend starting from the keel up in the centre of the hull but, as Grant suggested, I am going to start from the waterline and come down 12 rows to establish a gore line for the bottom half of the hull
 
The first thing to do will be to attach a battern along the waterline so that the copper plates will have an edge to butt up against. From what I can find out after a bit of research is these batterns were about 3 inches wide which equates to approximately 1mm wide at this scale. I took a piece of 3 x 0.5mm saplele and cut it in half and then sanded the two pieces down to 1mm thick, these will glued along the waterline.
 

 

 
The next part will be to lay 12 strakes of copper plates from the waterline down, so I can achieve a line on how the strakes would take there natural line from the centre of the ship is to lay a temporary plank underneath the first few plates and let it take its natural line and where it crosses the water line this is where I will start cutting the plates at an angle to sit against the battern and then do the same for the following strake and so on until I reach the 12 rows required. I will then run the strakes from the keel up to this gore line.
 

 

 
This all sounds great in theory so we will see how it works out in practice
 
 

Thanks a lot for the link!  Wrecked twice in 18 hrs ... not a good day!!  She is a nice little canoe and I bet she sailed like a witch.
I myself love the cutters and your right they are small craft. I dont know of one in this time frame over 26M. Ships that size usually went to two
masts right in there. After all the Bounty is only about 29M. and she is a 3 master and viewed as a "full rigged ship". She moved coal most of her life.
The Endeavour was roughly the same size but was only a cat-built bark also built for the coal trade. I love history so much interesting stuff happened.