Aussie048

More on the boat... This is one of those jobs you start knowing that there's a fair chance you won't get it right first crack...Making sure the gouges are really razor sharp  - less likely to slip and get buried in your thumb...and using a very light touch help.The two halves were gouged out till they were thin enough to be translucent.


 
Carved out and in... then a really thin bit of Degame  was cut to be the keel/deadwood/cutwater...2 attempts.

 
Then the interior was detailed.....

 
The hull planking is paper, think i might have used slightly thicker paper to make the 'clinker' more apparent. Now it just needs oarlocks cut, a rudder and oars, and paint and it can then be put onto the ship.

 

Oars, 6 of them for the ship's boat. Printed out the blade shape, doubled which is then cut out, folded and glued to the shaft. Then painted and put into the boat

The head rails had a centre section carved out to created raise prfofiles on either side. It's a little rough thanks to the file slipping and he grain on the walnut but it'll do. The centres were painted up to match the rest
Two part epoxy was used to attach the head rails. It claimed a setting time of 4 minutes but was more like an hour resulting in a lot of smearing to remove and paint over later.



 
While the epoxy was out the remaining stern figures were added. The castings are not quite symmetrical so bit of gentle pressure bent them on the right angle to have their heads resting against the taffrail. The bases they rest on had the edge facing the hull shaped to fit neatly.
The wee dolphin carvings were set further back towards the stern than the kit instructions show. According to AOTS Granado they are almost a continuation of the stern carvings.


 
His majesty's bomb vessel Granado as she now stands

Autumn is in the air for today's spell in the garage shipyard.
The dregs of cyclone Lusi pass overhead bringing a gusty wind and spot of rain from the dark sky. A porter ale in hand to match the mood and On to the port headrail/ cathead knee.
Symmetry is the issue here. A trace of the one already completed onto paper and a fold to invert the image to proved a template to help with the other side piece.

 
The same method of Dremel, bench sander, file and sandpaper was used to and shape the piece.
Plenty of test fitting is the order of the day.

The largely finished piece, right, compared to the other. None fixed as yet. I was a bit too vigorous on it and snapped it. Easily glued back together but that spells the end of progress today while the glue sets.

I'm filling in for someone else at work so am on 2-10pm shifts. It's quite surprising how much i can get done in a morning before having to head to work - that includes cooking dinner for the family, hanging out washing and occasionally seeing my beloved. When working 'bankers hours' of 8am-5pm i'm just too tired to do any modelling at night. On those weeks it's 2-3 hours on a sunday afternoon in the garage for modelling if i'm lucky with my three lovely girls roller blading or scootering around me. good times.
Anyway onwards to some building.
Today involved some gratings. The Granado has only two gratings with the largest on the fore deck almost under the forecastle.
This is a lot less than the four included on something much smaller like the shrebourne. The other is yet to come on the poopl deck.
A simple jig involving two timber strips keeps the grates in place during construction. The top one is my old faithful ssquare edge sander made from a sushi chop stick sanded square with sandpaper glued on- great for evening up gunports.
 

 
Forward grating fixed. It was sanded to a very subtle curve across the top surface. The coamings were shown in the instructions with mitred edges. They look nice but anatomy of the ship shows square edged corners. plainer but correct so that 's what i did.The 3x2mm walnut is a dramatic difference in colour but looks ok. The hard top edges on the coamings were rounded slightly
The main hatch cover was also constructed. I'll wait until the reinforcing planks(walnut) are dry fitted until fixing to make sure they match in width.
 

The insides finished and painted. The small gaps left at the bow due to the notches in the inner gunport patterns were filled. This area will be filed out to take the bowsprit later but it's easier to fill gaps now and get a clean edge than do it later.
 

 

 

The sheer rail presented a couple of minor problems - Firstly it had to bend in three planes to follow the line needed across the upper edge of the gunports and around the bows and they needed to be placed level and correctly for the forecastle deck to sit on. Some test fitting and marking is advised here.
 

 
 
The strip provided is 10mm walnut with the width to take the taper needed on the underside as it slants upwards on the underside towards the bow.
The strip was soaked and clamped in placed for the cruve before cutting. Note how it doesn't clear the gunport on the left as it should. For this reason and to avoid too harsh a taper to get it to align wioth the gunport edge the sheer raile was installed in two pieces - from the bow forward and then another strip from there towards the stern. The edges were sanded in.
 

 

 
Sheer rail cut and tapered on the under edge.
 

 
Sheer rail installed and sanded flush along the top edge of the hull.
 

 

Bow ports lined with any gaps on the inside edges filled and sanded
 

 
 

 
The spirketting was pre-painted and installed with clamps to hold it down. Not entirely happy with the fit along the deck but it's barely noticeable from anything but direct horizontal view, which will be increasingly difficult to see as guns etc are added to the deck.
 

 

 

 
 
 

The Granado has nine sweep ports each side but the instructions make no mention of them until much further into the build. This is a good point to jump ahead and add them if you want as it's hard enough to cut them in on the inside at this point as it is. They are reasonably prominent on the inside of the bulwarks but are not included on the gunport patterns.
If you want them you'll have to mark as shown on the plans and cut them in yourself.
 

 
The instructions offer either open or closed gunports. Obviously if you have them open you'll need to cut the square port all the way through. There's also the option of just adding the closed port and hinge to the outside of the hull with no port being cut on the inside. This is one difference I've noticed between the Victory kits, which appear to have the ports included and presumably pre-cut.
I like the busy feel of the added ports so in they go.
 

 
The ports align with the top of the inner bulwark spirketting - the strip that runs along the bulwark between the gunports and the deck. Before this was added the top edge was marked in pencil and the position of the ports added. The edges were cut on the inside with a scalpel and drilled through from the outside.  A square file and more scalpel work cuts the hole. Given the roughly 3mm size of them and the difficulty of access from the inside it's difficult to get them square further than a couple of mm in but give they'll likely be closed on the outside and painted inside it shouldn't be too noticeable.
 

 

 
 

The Granado is my second wooden ship build.  This follows the cutter Sherbourne which you can follow the link to in the MSW gallery.
The Granado was chosen for a vessel offering more than a single mast but still able to be displayed in a reasonable space.
Firstly a tribute to all the prior Granados on MSW's former incarnation - they proved immensely helpful and I owe a huge tribute to you all in helping to spot impending difficulties and work around them thanks to your efforts. 
After wantonly pillaging MSW for help with my first build it's time to add to the basket of knowledge that MSW members have so graciously given to me.
This build is by no means complete but hopefully of use to others as I found previous members' posts.
So on to the build...
The build was started in April 2012 and at this stage I've just completed the second planking above the wales and filed out the gunports.
The Caldercraft kit is all the usual business like efficiency with little in the way of complaints. The fittings are top quality with turned brass cannon, limewood for the first planking and walnut for the second.
 

 
No, it's not a botch. The lens curve making the stem appear out of alignment here.
 

 
One thing to watch for on this kit is setting the gunport patterns correctly. I thought I was being very clever in measuring the placement from the base of the keel. It resulted in patterns not quite meeting the tips of the bulkhead patterns. As a result at least half of the gunports had to be raised slightly.
Better to just fit them to the tops of the bulkheads. Oh well.
 

 
Another thing to watch for is the sweep ports. The instructions don't mention them until after the gunport patterns have been installed despite the plans showing them as illustrated. From there it's the somewhat more difficult matter of cutting them through from the outside and matching them up with the inner spirketting - no easy task. If your want the sweep ports showing on the inside then tak e gauge of where they should be before installing the gunport patterns and adjust once the lot is installed. It's not difficult but comes down to reading the instructions all the way through before taking any steps.
 

 
I found it made more sense to skip ahead in the build and install the lower stern counter before the upper hull sides were planked. It allowed the upper stern counter to be shaped to fit and also allowed the wales to be shaped to fit around it. The black used here is probably a bit too dark to see the chase ports to best effect. That might be looked at later.
 

 
The mortars went together nicely after some cleaning up. The mortars themselves are nicely cast brass that just needs some time with a file to bring out the best. Some brass wire handles were added as per Peter Goodwin's excellent Anatomy of the Sip Grandado book.
The example here is the stern mortar - the smaller of the two on board.
Following shots show the mortar surrounds in place which are identical for each of the two mortars aboard.
 

 

Thanks again Doris, John, Patrick (welcome to my Log) and Edwin .
 
Belfry
 
The Belfry roof is carved from a single piece of English Box :
 

 

 
The two stanchions are dark Swiss Pear and the Headstock is English Box. I turned the bell on the lathe and scratchbuilt the two cleats from brass sheet :
 

 
The belfry assembly fixed in place :
 

 

 
  Danny

This is how it looks on the historical museum vs original in norway, notice the shape of the "wings", positive on the model but negative on the original.

Hello my dear friends ...
 
some pics now as promised... more in the Gallery, but I wait  for better weather to take pics outside in the bright sun (thats the best light)
 
thank you all for sharing my Passion for this Half Monn
 

 
Cheerio
 

Thanks Bob.
 
I finished up the triple block today.
The first picture shows the beginning of the second set of strapping for the outside of the three sheaves the inside one is already installed, these were bent up using some drill bits clamped in the vice to get the correct curves.
 

 
the next one shows the way I formed the second bend by reversing the direction this allowed me to bend the strip until the outside leg was parallel to the side of the block. a little tweaking was needed to get the exact width for it to slide easily into the slots.
 

 
The next one shows the set up for drilling through the rest of the wood and the brass bars after clamping the block to the wood table snug packing pieces of soft spruce were wedged into the sheave slots to prevent the drill from buckling the brass bars.
 

 
The next shows the code numbering on the spacers so that I could get them sanded and returned to the same locations within the stack.
 

 
Next the spacers were sanded to a consistent dimension using a simple jig, one for the top spacers and at the opposite end for the bottom spacers.
 

 
I checked that there was enough room for the 7/8ths rope.
 

 
The assembly was then glued together and given some final sanding and shaping.
The next picture shows how I made the cover plate for the shaft for the sheaves.
 

 
The brass shim-stock is .0015" the pencil is a 9H I drew the image in Corel draw full size at 1/4 inch diameter then mirror imaged it so that I could follow the lettering on the brass. the 9H is hard enough and because it is graphite there is a built in lubricant. it took a few tries scribbling the letters in reverse to get an acceptable rendition, (where's Leonardo when you need him?).
 

 

 
Now to make the bottom block which is a double, and then two singles to complete the main sheet primary tackle.
 
Michael
 
 

Just some more pics...
 

Viewing this thread one can really get a feel for what it must have been like to be a crew member during those times.
 
I hope you consider adding at least one gun crew to this masterpiece.
 

 
Thanks
 
S.os
 
 

Hello friends.
 
 C  Gun - Deck      /  Equipment complete.
 
  8    Sheep-pen   -   Schafspferch
  9    Main hutch   -   Hauptluke
10    Bread - oven  -  Brotofen
11    After ladder (for crew)    -  Treppe nach achtern für die Mannschaft
16    After -hatch    -  hintere Luke
12    Lower barrel of main capstan   -   unter Teil von dem Haupt-Gangspill
 
Karl 
 
 
T e i l   44
 

Nothing too exciting, just making frames...
 
 

Thanks for the photos, Dee_Dee, that interior mast shot in the Friendship was exactly what I was looking for. I also love the stove. Although I'm thinking of installing one like this:

 
  I think on my boat, I am going to give it shrouds. I know Chappelle said there weren't any, but I keep seeing pictures that have them, including the ones they made in the apprentice program.  The good thing about these boats is that there are as many variations as there were people who used them, as long as we make reasonably logical decisions, we should be "in the ballpark" historically.

This first photo (courtesy of Apprentice Land and Sea) shows the full length of the MBLS keel, including the centerboard trunk, (note the extra boards at the base of the trunk and the opening for the centerboard. )   Note the area where the Land and Sea Apprentice in the foreground is working and how the keel is built up.  The step is placed on the keelson so the weight of the mast is distributed.  On our boat, the step was a tight fit port to starboard with 3" of adjustment for the rake. 
 
As for square or round mast, the MBLS has no shrouds and a square mast and step would be the only means to prevent the mast from spinning around.   Here's a link with pictures:  http://www.davidjonesclassics.com/sail/2309/wings-of-the-morning-1967-31-friendship-sloop-38500/

 
 

 
This photo is from my build log and shows how I built the mast step.  After I cut away the excess false keel, I built the keel back up and made the step.  Only the bottom two feet of my mast will be square.      

 
 

 
Looking forward to seeing more of your build!

Instructions point you in the right directions of what to do next and give a sense of security.  I think I'm close to being over the impulse to reach for those instructions......
 
Only 8 parts from the kit were used and all were altered; 4 bulkheads (2 were removed,) 1 transom, 2 combings and 1 cut water.  The further I got into this build, the errors started to show up and a couple almost derailed this project.  But this is an adventure in learning and I worked my way through each one.  However, this build has come to a temporary halt due to the problems with the hatch cover.  I have thought it through and need to order some specific dimensional lumber so I can rework it and complete this build. 
 
  
The planking turned out really nice.  The center board operates smoothly, it's a bit short in length, but it's a cool feature.   

 
The transom ended up be straight across, this photo shows the camber of the decking. 

 
Since the planking was off a bit, the decking is not even on both sides.  But I like the way it turned out, the basswood takes on different colors.  Chapelle's drawing shows a bench, but I decided not to install it, this is a working boat!  These fish wells are smaller (than my first build) and are very simple in design.  

 
Close up of the rudder.  Since I didn't add the wrought iron bracing on the centerboard, I decided against adding it on the rudder.  This photo gives a nice close up of the hull planking.  

 
The base layer for the cabin combing was a bit crooked, but I took my time with adding the veneer and it ended up looking good.  I was planning on sliding covers for the windows, but I didn't have the lumber needed to build them.  The rectangular windows are per Chapelle's drawings.  The bottom of the mast will be square and a foot or so above the deck, it will be rounded.  I need to remake the square mast coat, I lost the first one that was a nice tight fit.  (This one is just for show and it's not square.)  And the build comes to a screeching halt!  I need order some lumber to redo the rails the cover slides on.  There's a big gap where the rails meet the door and cover

 
So that's where I'm at!  While I'm waiting for the lumber, I'm going to start my next build, but I have not decided which one yet. 
 
Thoughts and suggestions are welcome.

Here's a small update on the jacks:
 
Carving the roman soldiers. The real ones are very corroded and little details can be seen, so I went for a design I liked.
 



 
/Matti

Phew, got the final knight finished. The last ones are a little better then the first ones but I decided not to redo them, but keep and remember them as my first go at carving.
 

 
 
/Matti

The last couple of days have been spent primarily on trying to come up with a satisfactory method for rigging the cannon. I believe I now have my method down. First I take the rigged block sets. For the outermost sets (these go to the stern of the carriage, I use a ring on one and and a hook on the other. Seizing the hardware to the lines adds too much bulk to the fittings. The blocks are already seized to the stropping threads. Seizing the rings and or hooks, make them large. I decided to try the same technique I used in making the hangers for the spar foot ropes. I tie the strops around a nail and apply CA. Then I cut off the extraneous thread leaving a small ring. This is what I put the brass hardware in (either the ring or the hook). For the innermost block sets, I use this technique on the bulkhead rings. For the cannon carriage, I thread the strops directly through the holes in the carriage and CA the knots there.
 
I use epoxy to glue the cannon to the deck, then apply a thinned down version of the white glue to stiffen the ropes to allow me to loop them on the deck. I use a small nail set to wrap these around since it is tapered so once the rope is wrapped, I can push it off with tweezers and position it on the deck. Then I add a small amount of CA to hold the loops in place on the deck.
 
I also tried my hand at carving with the rotary tool based upon Bill Short's carving techniques. I took some fairly fine grained wood that I had and cut it down to about 5 x 5 x 5mm. I glued these to a small piece of wood to stabilize them. I used the .5mm ball to carve a semblance of the cat face. Since the wood was not really suitable it was creating a lot of fuzz so I added a drop of CA to the face of it and let it dry. This hardened up the wood sufficiently to complete the carving.
 
Once carved, I used a #11 Xacto blade to slice the face off, trim it to the 4x4mm size and glued this to the end of the cathead on the ship. I painted it gold. I tried adding the details of the back in black and white (per the Constitution photos) but it was too small to really show well. All gold still shows the face well. 
 
 

Hi guys, rookie is back again...
 
So, I was all excited to raise my first frame, #28.  Got the ends of the transoms prepped and ready to go then came the test fit with some rubber bands and as you can see from the pics, the width is way off.  I have no idea where this error came from or how to fix it yet.  If I push them out, to get the brace in-between, I won't even be able to attach it to the transoms.  What boggles my mind even more, is that it fits fine on the template. Any thoughts or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.  I hope the blacking out is ok for the copyright stuff as I don't know how else to get my explanation of the problem across.  Thanks in advance guys...
 
View from fore:

 
View from stern:

 
Plan View (assembly)

 

Hi everyone, been a while, but I have also been busy making the aft can't frames and they're ready to start raising.  Not to many pics this time around.  In one of my research books, it was stated that the frames were bolted with 1" copper bolts and also anchor chocks were placed in-between the futtocks.  I did the bolting, but not the anchor chocks on the aft cant frames as I couldn't see exactly how to cut them into the futtocks before I faired them in.  I do intend to place them into the square frames though.  Next up is raising the aft frames them moving on to the fore cant frames and hawse pieces, then fill in the middle.  Thanks to Guy and Daniel very much for the help with the angles, they worked out really well.
 
I'm all set to start raising them.  Have some good scrap pieces to make the support block spacers and some walnut for the gunport lintels & sills, and a set of braces for the top to set the correct width.  Until next time...