Bob Cleek

Not to hurt feelings here, but...  Those of us "of a certain age" can remember the time when every boy's education in how to hone and dress a fine edge on a cutting tool began around age seven or eight when he was given his first pocket knife, an item of personal kit every male carried in his pocket for the rest of his life.  Sadly, with all the metal detectors around, few men carry pocket knives anymore and few mother's would tolerate their seven year old son having a pocket knife of his own.  (I suppose they are strictly forbidden on the grounds of any grammar school these days. Parents today seem ignorant of the fact that what "can put your eye out!" is really the most fun when you're a kid.)  Consequently, outfits like the good folks at Lee Valley have made quite a business of selling all sorts of slick gizmos that promise to ensure success in an endeavor which, up to maybe fifty years ago, most kids had mastered by age ten or twelve.  Strange how one generation can master operating a personal computer without a second thought, but can't sharpen an edged tool without all sorts of guides and machines and so on.
 
Honing guides are like training wheels on a bicycle.  They ensure greater success on a first effort by the inexperienced, but encourage dependence.  I'd encourage folks to take off the "training wheels" and learn to sharpen "freehand."  It is an easily acquired skill, regardless of whether you rely on an Arkansas stone, a Japanese waterstone, a "diamond" stone, or even a piece of emery or aluminum oxide paper taped to the (flat) top of a table saw or whatever and giving it a few licks on a strop or steel.  There's lots of instructional videos on YouTube for those who don't have grandfathers to show them how to sharpen an edge and fettle and adjust a plane, spokeshave, or whatever. (The trick is "feeling" for when the bevel is flat on the abrasive surface and keeping it there.)  This was the second thing any apprentice learned, after how to sweep the floor.  You can spend lots of money on electric shop vacuum systems, honing guides and machines and the like, or serve an "apprenticeship" learning the basics instead of buying tools sold to make people believe they will make them better craftsmen.  Unfortunately, the woodworking hobby seems to be going the way of golf, where slick marketers are always trying to sell you a club that's going to improve your game.  Don't let them play you for a sucker!
 
(Okay, rant over!)

Not to hurt feelings here, but...  Those of us "of a certain age" can remember the time when every boy's education in how to hone and dress a fine edge on a cutting tool began around age seven or eight when he was given his first pocket knife, an item of personal kit every male carried in his pocket for the rest of his life.  Sadly, with all the metal detectors around, few men carry pocket knives anymore and few mother's would tolerate their seven year old son having a pocket knife of his own.  (I suppose they are strictly forbidden on the grounds of any grammar school these days. Parents today seem ignorant of the fact that what "can put your eye out!" is really the most fun when you're a kid.)  Consequently, outfits like the good folks at Lee Valley have made quite a business of selling all sorts of slick gizmos that promise to ensure success in an endeavor which, up to maybe fifty years ago, most kids had mastered by age ten or twelve.  Strange how one generation can master operating a personal computer without a second thought, but can't sharpen an edged tool without all sorts of guides and machines and so on.
 
Honing guides are like training wheels on a bicycle.  They ensure greater success on a first effort by the inexperienced, but encourage dependence.  I'd encourage folks to take off the "training wheels" and learn to sharpen "freehand."  It is an easily acquired skill, regardless of whether you rely on an Arkansas stone, a Japanese waterstone, a "diamond" stone, or even a piece of emery or aluminum oxide paper taped to the (flat) top of a table saw or whatever and giving it a few licks on a strop or steel.  There's lots of instructional videos on YouTube for those who don't have grandfathers to show them how to sharpen an edge and fettle and adjust a plane, spokeshave, or whatever. (The trick is "feeling" for when the bevel is flat on the abrasive surface and keeping it there.)  This was the second thing any apprentice learned, after how to sweep the floor.  You can spend lots of money on electric shop vacuum systems, honing guides and machines and the like, or serve an "apprenticeship" learning the basics instead of buying tools sold to make people believe they will make them better craftsmen.  Unfortunately, the woodworking hobby seems to be going the way of golf, where slick marketers are always trying to sell you a club that's going to improve your game.  Don't let them play you for a sucker!
 
(Okay, rant over!)

Yep, silicone sprays are death to fine finishes in the shop environment.  The silicone "dust" gets into the air and settles on things.  Then it transfers to the finish surfaces and coatings (particularly varnish) will form "fisheyes" wherever they come in contact with the slightest bit of silicone.  (It seems to affect the surface tension of the coating material.)  Just don't go there!

Not to hurt feelings here, but...  Those of us "of a certain age" can remember the time when every boy's education in how to hone and dress a fine edge on a cutting tool began around age seven or eight when he was given his first pocket knife, an item of personal kit every male carried in his pocket for the rest of his life.  Sadly, with all the metal detectors around, few men carry pocket knives anymore and few mother's would tolerate their seven year old son having a pocket knife of his own.  (I suppose they are strictly forbidden on the grounds of any grammar school these days. Parents today seem ignorant of the fact that what "can put your eye out!" is really the most fun when you're a kid.)  Consequently, outfits like the good folks at Lee Valley have made quite a business of selling all sorts of slick gizmos that promise to ensure success in an endeavor which, up to maybe fifty years ago, most kids had mastered by age ten or twelve.  Strange how one generation can master operating a personal computer without a second thought, but can't sharpen an edged tool without all sorts of guides and machines and so on.
 
Honing guides are like training wheels on a bicycle.  They ensure greater success on a first effort by the inexperienced, but encourage dependence.  I'd encourage folks to take off the "training wheels" and learn to sharpen "freehand."  It is an easily acquired skill, regardless of whether you rely on an Arkansas stone, a Japanese waterstone, a "diamond" stone, or even a piece of emery or aluminum oxide paper taped to the (flat) top of a table saw or whatever and giving it a few licks on a strop or steel.  There's lots of instructional videos on YouTube for those who don't have grandfathers to show them how to sharpen an edge and fettle and adjust a plane, spokeshave, or whatever. (The trick is "feeling" for when the bevel is flat on the abrasive surface and keeping it there.)  This was the second thing any apprentice learned, after how to sweep the floor.  You can spend lots of money on electric shop vacuum systems, honing guides and machines and the like, or serve an "apprenticeship" learning the basics instead of buying tools sold to make people believe they will make them better craftsmen.  Unfortunately, the woodworking hobby seems to be going the way of golf, where slick marketers are always trying to sell you a club that's going to improve your game.  Don't let them play you for a sucker!
 
(Okay, rant over!)

It's obviously a poor second to the Horror Fright "Mini Mite table saw" alternative.  (Sorry, this site won't permit pasting the URL... go to "Harbor Freight" on-line catalog and use their search box.)  I have one of those and it's pretty much gutless for sawing and offers poor accuracy unless you want to start modifying it.  It lists for $37, but with the usual Harbor Freight discount coupons and all, can probably be had for $29.  Comes with regular and a diamond edged blades about 4" or so.  I bought it on a whim to play with.  I ultimately cut a flat disk to mount on the arbor and glued sandpaper to it.  It makes a serviceable disk sander, but I wouldn't advise expecting much from it as a table saw.

I've previously encountered overheating problems with battery powered Dremel tools.  Not related to this recall, but my wife used a rechargeable Dremel with a sanding drum to manicure her show dogs' toe nails.  (It's a common practice in that endeavor. ... sheesh!  Don't get me started!)  This required continuous running under load for five minutes or more and the battery contacts would heat up and melt.  Obviously, this wasn't one of the "1001 Things You Can Do with Your Dremel Tool."  After exchanging a few burned up batteries, she "confiscated" by corded Dremel.  I still have the battery one, but rarely, if ever, use it.  When she took my corded Dremel, it gave me an excuse to buy a Foredom system.  As most probably know, there's just no comparison between the Dremel and the Foredom.  While the Foredom is more expensive, of course, it will probably outlast a half-dozen Dremels.

Both blocks contain hooks.  It certainly could be used as a gybe preventer, but that ignores the fact that there are reef clew line turning blocks on the aft end of the boom, yet no other cleat upon which to belay them.  There is an eye at the end of the boom to which the main clew could be fastened, which would permit the tackle to be used as both a preventer (when the main was fully set) or a reef clew tackle when sail was shortened.  My money remains on it being a clew reefing tackle, though.  Preventers are generally single part lines without any blocks for purchase.  They are not set up to haul under tension, but rather just tied off once the main boom is run out on a run and cast off before hardening up or commencing a controlled gybe. They aren't intended to apply any forward tension to the boom, but rather to simply prevent the boom from swinging aft.  Also, any rigger worth his salt wouldn't use a full length tackle as pictured even if he wanted purchase on a gybe preventer.  It would be a waste of line.  He'd run a pendant from the end of the boom and then clap on a short tackle (a "handy billy") only long enough to provide the purchase.  There'd be no point to using up all that line running through the blocks to the extreme ends of the attachment points. Capice?  Gybe preventers are not to be confused with boom downhauls rigged on modern jib-headed mainsails, which are intended to pull down on the boom to flatten the main on a reach or run and so do require purchase.

At the end of the day, I prefer to leave the mast slightly loose and adjust its rake and centering by "eyeball" it, and adjusting it with the standing rigging, the same as is done in full-sized construction. (I bring a lot of my full-sized wooden boat building experience to my modeling work.)  A plumb line from the ceiling or wherever provides a handy reference if need be.  I prefer also to adjust the masts with wooden wedges in a hole slightly larger than the mast diameter, as in full size practice, but not rigidly so, unless I am lucky enough with a solid block hull to be able to set it up in my drill press and drill a dead-accurate hole.  The wedges allow for "fine tuning" with the tap of a small jeweler's hammer on one side or the other and permit further adjustments which may be required as the standing rigging is set up (and if I can still get to them inside the shrouds at that point!)  I like to ultimately set up the rake and athwartships alignment of masts conservatively adjusting the tension on the standing rigging with as little tension as is necessary, again as in full sized practice. (When a sailing vessel is underway, the leeward rigging always goes slack while the windward rigging hardens up and so the masts are never exactly plumb in real life except when standing still anyway.) 
 
The point of watching the tension on the standing rigging is that the forces generated by the rigging are cumulative as the various elements are added and at the end one can have considerable forces locked into the whole structure. A loosely stepped mast gives you some room to move. Short of an hermetically sealed case, wood always moves with the ambient humidity, to one degree or another, no matter how stable one thinks its environment might be.  Structural damage to full size vessels due to overly tight standing rigging is quite common. (Think "bow and arrow" forces where the mast is the arrow, the standing rigging the bowstring and the mast heel is concentrating all that force to one isolated point on the keel causing the adjacent garboard seams to open up or "pant" in heavy weather.)  With models, the same principle can result in snapped spars, pulled out eyes and other rigging attachments, chainplates pulled out, and so on, as both the wood and the cordage shrinks and swells.  Stretched, saggy rigging is often found in old models (of ships and people!)   They weren't built that way.  The cordage just stretched over time.  Modern synthetic cordage holds up much better with less stretch, but again as with the full sized vessels, the trade-off for longer lasting low-stretch synthetic cordage is that the forces are transferred more efficiently to the model's structure and afford less elasticity as the wood may expand.  If I asked for a show of hands of all those who have had the experience of an inexplicably broken bit of rigging on a cased model or upon tightening that last bit of standing rigging on their model, hearing something somewhere go "snap!"... but I won't.

I saw a "waxing" sign in the window of a beauty parlor the other day and asked them if they did ship model rigging and all I got was a blank stare.
 
You should wax because:
 
It eliminates the "fuzz" so your rigging will appear true to scale.
 
It tends to seal the thread and prevent its holding moisture ambient in the air.
 
It makes the thread stiffer, which can be a help in forming catenaries when portraying slack lines.
 
It can make threading the thread through holes easier as it makes the thread stiffer, although dipping the end of a thread in CA glue these days will turn the end of a thread into its own "needle" and is easily clipped off when the threading is done.
 
Beeswax will eventually dry to a hard surface which won't hold dust, but if you don't put your model in a case, it probably isn't going to last long enough for dust to be a problem.
 
I simply draw the thread over a block of pure beeswax several passes and then between my thumb and forefinger to remove any excess and even out the application.  Always has worked for me.

To put a finer point on it, it is the clew pendant tackle.  Aft block of the tackle is hooked on the eye as illustrated when the mainsail is not bent to the spar or furled and lashed to the boom.  The fall of the tackle is secured to the cleat on the boom, as illustrated.  In a model without the sail raised, The after block would be hooked to the eye on the boom, pulled up tight and the fall secured to the cleat on the boom.  Neatly done, the remaining fall would be coiled, frapped and hung on the cleat on the boom.  In use, the mainsail clew and each reefing clew would have a clew pendant running either from the main clew and each reef clew.  Depending on the size of the vessel, the pendents would run from either the boom at the turning block, often tied around the boom with the turning block providing a "stop" to prevent the end from being pulled aft when set, or the end simply secured directly to the clews (with an eye splice, or just a knot.)  Secured to the boom and run up to the clews and then back down to the turning blocks provides a further purchase, unlike a direct connection to the clews. The pendents would then be run down from the clews to their respective turning blocks and through the turning blocks. Depending on the size of the vessel, the turning blocks may have sheaves or simply be fairleads. You've referred to the turning blocks as "bees," which is perhaps not the accurate term. (A "bee's seat" or "bees" are longer rails generally fastened on either side of a bowsprit or jib boom to which bowsprit netting is tied.)  The plan illustration does not provide the detail to show the sheaves, but the shape of the turning blocks leaves no doubt that they contain sheaves.  If they did not contain sheaves and thus were fairleads, they would be shorter and simply consist  of a block of wood with a round hole with the edges relieved drilled into them.    Beyond the turning blocks, an eye is worked into each clew pendant so that when the sail is raised fully each eye hangs free (without tension) just below the turning block or fairlead.  When the sail is set, full or reefed, the clew pendant tackle is hooked to the eye of the respective clew intended to be pulled taunt and hauled up tight (or loosened if more belly is desired to the set of the sail) and tied off to the cleat at the forward end of the boom with the tackle fall coiled and secured to the tackle cleat.

Bob, I'm most impressed with your Hoga/City of Oakland.  You did very well under the constraints imposed by the lack of informational resources.
 
Just a brief historical correction: Hoga is the only Navy hull still afloat of any kind which saw combat at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. (The USCG's cutter Roger B. Taney was also present and saw combat that day, she being the only other such US vessel in existence and now an historical memorial.)
 
To my regret, I came across your build log a day late and a dollar short.  In 1995, I wrote the original application to the Navy's ship donation program for Hoga's donation as an historical memorial.  I had access to technical assistance from the Navy's Sea Systems Command and the Oakland Fire Department crew that had just then returned her to the Navy.  Let me assure you that at that time she was hardly a hulk.  She had just recently enjoyed a motor rebuild with new platinum contacts and a major servicing of one of her two ALCO diesels and was "good to go."  (The supplemental hose manifolds and fire fighting equipment mounted for service as a fireboat were in large measure powered by a couple of large diesel generators and pumps mounted on the after deck and not present in her service configuration.)  As politics sometimes have it, Oakland's city council was sold a bill of goods by a vendor in the form of a smaller jet propelled shallow draft fireboat and so, over the objections of the fire department crew, Hoga was declared no longer needed. 
 
I would expect that you would have been able to secure line drawings from NAVSEASYS or the Navy Historical Department at the Washington Navy Yard, which I believe retain copies of everything the Navy has ever owned, but that's water under the bridge now.  She was at that time surveyed in detail by Tri-Coastal Marine in Berkeley, CA, a well-known vessel surveying firm and I also had their reports.
 
The application I wrote for a local yacht club and for the purpose of securing Hoga for restoration to her 12-7-41 configuration for use as an operating tug serving the Liberty Ship Memorial vessel, Jeremiah O'Brien, in San Francisco.  The application had wide-spread support in all the right places, but ran onto the rocks when, at a certain level, a Navy bureaucrat refused to waive the usual requirement that memorial vessels be essentially "gutted" and rendered entirely non-operational, which, of course was a ridiculous proposition in this instance.  She'd been meticulously maintained by the OFD since Oakland had obtained her on a post-war surplus dollar-a-year lease right after WWII.  That was "game over" for our proposal.  We had no interest in rendering Hoga non-operational.  We wanted to see her sailing.  (The legalities of all this are fascinating, if one has an interest in them.  The Jeremiah O'Brien is fully operational because as a Merchant Marine vessel, she was obtained from the Maritime Administration's ("MARAD") "mothball fleet," not from the Navy.  The carrier Hornet now on display in Alameda, CA, was preserved only at the last minute because a group was able to buy it from the winner of the auction when she was sold as scrap.  The Navy wouldn't sell or donate her for memorial purposes, but insisted she be sold for scrap, although once sold, the scrapper could do whatever he wanted with her... go figure!)
 
Actually, as it turned out, we turned over a rock at NAVSEASYS that nobody ever saw coming.  Although it was originally thought that Oakland's "return" of the leased surplus vessel would make our obtaining it, also as surplus, an easy task, it was, supposedly to everyone in Washington's amazement, ascertained upon our application that Hoga had never been stricken from the Navy roll and had been carried on the Navy roll and funded as an active USN vessel in the Navy budget since the end of the war!  While I wasn't a "fly on the wall," it seems there must have been a lot of fancy dancing and dust swept under the rug to correct that paperwork.  Who knows what it cost for crew, fuel allotments, maintenance and the rest, year after year, and where did that money really go?  Your tax dollars at work, no doubt!  Pretty amazing that the Navy wouldn't have noticed they were "missing" a 100 foot tug for fifty plus years, no?
 
Once the Navy got Hoga stricken from the rolls, they sent her up to the MARAD "mothball fleet" in Suisun Bay where MARAD preserved her, after a fashion, as they do with various surplus vessels such as Howard Hughes' Glomar Explorer.  A group in Honolulu applied to take her as a memorial at Pearl Harbor, hoping to operate her in conjunction with the BB Missouri memorial.  I heard that they were unable to justify the expense of shipping her out to Pearl from SF because the Navy had by then decided that she was a "treasure" which could not be risked on making the trip on her own bottom.  The last I heard, she was supposedly donated to a group in Arkansas, IIRC, who wanted to display her in a local park up some river there, but they had run out of money and she was languishing again.  The last time I was up at the "mothball fleet," which I guess was maybe a year ago, she was still there, covered in seagull poop.  I have no idea what justification the Navy had for giving Hoga to a group in Arkansas which has not the remotest connection with the vessel's long and illustrious history.  She spent her entire working life at Pearl Harbor, "for the duration" and then as the City of Oakland.  One or the other... but Arkansas? Well, I guess at least the seagulls won't be using her for their head.
 
And to provide a further ironic finish to the whole sad story, the Oakland Fire Department found upon taking delivery of their new jet propelled shallow draft fireboat, that when they cut loose with the monitors, the "recoil" from their flow of water pushed the lightweight shallow draft bucket all over the place, so much so as to pretty much render it useless.  It might have been faster than City of Oakland getting to a fire, but it wasn't much help when it got there!  The old City of Oakland was like a rock and indeed no lightweight.  Last I heard, Oakland had sent their new fireboat back for modifications to try to cure the problem.  At least that was the rumor.

Bob, I'm most impressed with your Hoga/City of Oakland.  You did very well under the constraints imposed by the lack of informational resources.
 
Just a brief historical correction: Hoga is the only Navy hull still afloat of any kind which saw combat at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. (The USCG's cutter Roger B. Taney was also present and saw combat that day, she being the only other such US vessel in existence and now an historical memorial.)
 
To my regret, I came across your build log a day late and a dollar short.  In 1995, I wrote the original application to the Navy's ship donation program for Hoga's donation as an historical memorial.  I had access to technical assistance from the Navy's Sea Systems Command and the Oakland Fire Department crew that had just then returned her to the Navy.  Let me assure you that at that time she was hardly a hulk.  She had just recently enjoyed a motor rebuild with new platinum contacts and a major servicing of one of her two ALCO diesels and was "good to go."  (The supplemental hose manifolds and fire fighting equipment mounted for service as a fireboat were in large measure powered by a couple of large diesel generators and pumps mounted on the after deck and not present in her service configuration.)  As politics sometimes have it, Oakland's city council was sold a bill of goods by a vendor in the form of a smaller jet propelled shallow draft fireboat and so, over the objections of the fire department crew, Hoga was declared no longer needed. 
 
I would expect that you would have been able to secure line drawings from NAVSEASYS or the Navy Historical Department at the Washington Navy Yard, which I believe retain copies of everything the Navy has ever owned, but that's water under the bridge now.  She was at that time surveyed in detail by Tri-Coastal Marine in Berkeley, CA, a well-known vessel surveying firm and I also had their reports.
 
The application I wrote for a local yacht club and for the purpose of securing Hoga for restoration to her 12-7-41 configuration for use as an operating tug serving the Liberty Ship Memorial vessel, Jeremiah O'Brien, in San Francisco.  The application had wide-spread support in all the right places, but ran onto the rocks when, at a certain level, a Navy bureaucrat refused to waive the usual requirement that memorial vessels be essentially "gutted" and rendered entirely non-operational, which, of course was a ridiculous proposition in this instance.  She'd been meticulously maintained by the OFD since Oakland had obtained her on a post-war surplus dollar-a-year lease right after WWII.  That was "game over" for our proposal.  We had no interest in rendering Hoga non-operational.  We wanted to see her sailing.  (The legalities of all this are fascinating, if one has an interest in them.  The Jeremiah O'Brien is fully operational because as a Merchant Marine vessel, she was obtained from the Maritime Administration's ("MARAD") "mothball fleet," not from the Navy.  The carrier Hornet now on display in Alameda, CA, was preserved only at the last minute because a group was able to buy it from the winner of the auction when she was sold as scrap.  The Navy wouldn't sell or donate her for memorial purposes, but insisted she be sold for scrap, although once sold, the scrapper could do whatever he wanted with her... go figure!)
 
Actually, as it turned out, we turned over a rock at NAVSEASYS that nobody ever saw coming.  Although it was originally thought that Oakland's "return" of the leased surplus vessel would make our obtaining it, also as surplus, an easy task, it was, supposedly to everyone in Washington's amazement, ascertained upon our application that Hoga had never been stricken from the Navy roll and had been carried on the Navy roll and funded as an active USN vessel in the Navy budget since the end of the war!  While I wasn't a "fly on the wall," it seems there must have been a lot of fancy dancing and dust swept under the rug to correct that paperwork.  Who knows what it cost for crew, fuel allotments, maintenance and the rest, year after year, and where did that money really go?  Your tax dollars at work, no doubt!  Pretty amazing that the Navy wouldn't have noticed they were "missing" a 100 foot tug for fifty plus years, no?
 
Once the Navy got Hoga stricken from the rolls, they sent her up to the MARAD "mothball fleet" in Suisun Bay where MARAD preserved her, after a fashion, as they do with various surplus vessels such as Howard Hughes' Glomar Explorer.  A group in Honolulu applied to take her as a memorial at Pearl Harbor, hoping to operate her in conjunction with the BB Missouri memorial.  I heard that they were unable to justify the expense of shipping her out to Pearl from SF because the Navy had by then decided that she was a "treasure" which could not be risked on making the trip on her own bottom.  The last I heard, she was supposedly donated to a group in Arkansas, IIRC, who wanted to display her in a local park up some river there, but they had run out of money and she was languishing again.  The last time I was up at the "mothball fleet," which I guess was maybe a year ago, she was still there, covered in seagull poop.  I have no idea what justification the Navy had for giving Hoga to a group in Arkansas which has not the remotest connection with the vessel's long and illustrious history.  She spent her entire working life at Pearl Harbor, "for the duration" and then as the City of Oakland.  One or the other... but Arkansas? Well, I guess at least the seagulls won't be using her for their head.
 
And to provide a further ironic finish to the whole sad story, the Oakland Fire Department found upon taking delivery of their new jet propelled shallow draft fireboat, that when they cut loose with the monitors, the "recoil" from their flow of water pushed the lightweight shallow draft bucket all over the place, so much so as to pretty much render it useless.  It might have been faster than City of Oakland getting to a fire, but it wasn't much help when it got there!  The old City of Oakland was like a rock and indeed no lightweight.  Last I heard, Oakland had sent their new fireboat back for modifications to try to cure the problem.  At least that was the rumor.