Geoff Matson

Here is how I set up my rigging process. I make the rope on the ropewalk and use the serving machine to serve and seize my line and install the line on the Masts
 

I took some time from rigging and made a proper case for my ropewalk
 

 

Here is how I set up my rigging process. I make the rope on the ropewalk and use the serving machine to serve and seize my line and install the line on the Masts
 

I took some time from rigging and made a proper case for my ropewalk
 

 

I finally made a proper case for my ropewalk
 

 

 
I just made it out of some simple wood and plexiglass
 
 

I finally made a proper case for my ropewalk
 

 

 
I just made it out of some simple wood and plexiglass
 
 

I took some time from rigging and made a proper case for my ropewalk
 

 

While working on the next batch of guns, I decided to make the lower main capstan, the first of three capstans that will be done. As with the other deck items, I chose to make the capstan from boxwood strip and sheet. It was a very enjoyable piece to make, with the exception of the 16 tiny chocks that had to be individually fitted between the whelps. Very fiddly work, but satisfying to get it done.
 
The guns are well along and should be mounted and rigged in the next few days.
 
Bob

I have the shrouds done around the foremast. Things are just dry set.
 

 

I started to rig the Foremast with shrouds. I am using Lizbeth 20wt 3 strand thread for the shrouds. The shrouds are served with Gutermann 50wt thread one the center 5 inches. Then the shrouds are seized to mast with Lizbeth 80wt thread. All thread seizings and servings are glued with watered down white glue. Here are a few pictures.
 

 

 

 
 

Thank you dragzz .
 
I finally feel well enough to make a return to my van and therefore this Build .
 
In three days I managed to fit the rest of the deadeyes and chains, and made a start on the Shrouds. The lower Foremast ones and half the lower Mainmast ones are now fitted. I'm not totally happy about the varying heights of the upper deadeyes, but they look in keeping with the rest of the ship   .
 

 

 

 

 
More work will be done in the coming couple of weeks, as I'll be returning to the van over Easter and the Anzac Day long weekend.
 
  Danny

Thanks all for your kind words.
 
Sometimes you run into a part and had no clue that it would be that hard to make. The quarterdeck transom is such a part, looking rather unexciting. One redo and the better part of a couple of days work went into it. I had expected the counter timbers to be trickier but after watching Mark doing his Belona's counter with the help of a jig, I constructed a small jig that saved a lot of head aches. The mortises on the wing transom I had made light-years ago had to come off as the spacing was all wrong. Where would a shipwright be without his bottle of isopropyl
 

 

 

 

 
Remco

Young America - extreme clipper 1853
Part 54 – Treenailing, steps, water tank plinth
 
The first picture shows the treenailing of the ceiling planking on the port side in progress.
 

 
Treenails have been glued in and clipped off on the center to right side of the picture.  To the left, holes have been drilled and are waiting for nails.  The next picture was taken later around the midship area.
 

 
In this picture the nails have been filed off flush and the planking finish sanded and polished up with some steel wool.  The iron blunts at the butts are more pronounced.  The step of the main mast is in position but has not been permanently fixed.  It still needs assembly bolts.  The next picture shows more of the port side ceiling and both forward mast steps.
 

 
I had to catch up on some drafting in order to move forward with the permanent fixing of the steps.  I had not yet detailed some additional hold members.  The next picture shows some of the additional members required in the midship area.
 

 
Some of the pillars in this area are located outside of the openings for the main hatch, the mast partners and the two large square tanks that stored fresh water.  These off-center pillars will be installed on the long base members shown loose in the above photo.  The next picture shows the beginning of construction of the plinth that will support the water tanks.
 

 
These two iron tanks rested on the keelson and are about 6 feet wide, so additional supports were needed on either side.  These are being built up as a solid base of 8” x 8” members.  The first layer of these is shown in the above picture.  The next picture shows this first layer being leveled off on the port side.
 

 
The lower members were shaped to match the hull curvature, but the final structure needs to be flat at the top.  The next picture shows the completed plinth.
 

 
The top of this substantial base has been fitted with 6” x 6” dunnage beams.  The two flat-bottomed iron tanks will rest on these.  The aft tank is 6000 gallons and extends up to just below the main deck, a height of about 20 feet.  The smaller 2000 gallon tank is 12 feet high with its top just under the middle deck.  I don’t know why these were so tall.  I would have thought shorter tanks with a larger footprint in the hold would be better for stability, but the source is reliable.  These were usually round, but Webb installed square tanks in Challenge and that was the basis for this design.  I assumed no change would be made in the short interval between Challenge and YA.
 
The pillar support members seen in this picture have not yet been shaped or installed.  There will be three pairs of pillars on the forward set and two pairs on the set astride the tanks.
 
The last picture shows the final installation of the foremast step.
 

 
After gluing the assembly on to the keelson and the ceiling planking, holes for the bolts in the horizontal arms of the knees were drilled down through the frames.  Copper wire through-bolts were then epoxied into place.  Long bolts through the centerline of the cap were inserted into the keelson in what had been locating-pin holes.  All these bolts were iron and will be blackened before applying finish.
 
Ed

Thanks Patrick. I am happy with that solution, since they will be painted anyway. If I ever try to build a model in all natural wood someday, i will be in real trouble. 
 
I am going to add the vertical and diagonal knees to the gun deck walls. I am not sure if these were in the 1812 version, but here is what they look like on the current ship. There is a vertical knee under each beam and the diagonal knees meet between the beams, probably at a carling (if that is the right term). Since I won't have any carlings, I will just have them end under the spar deck planking.
 

 
I made one from some 1/8" basswood sheet to use as a template for the rest:
 

 
I made this template a little thinner than the knee I wanted, because I have found in the past that once I trace it, it gets fatter in the end, so by starting smaller, it should come out close to the right size. I used the template to trace the shape onto some basswood sheet that I cut close to the correct height.
 

 
I traced these so the curved edge was always on the short side of the blank, so I could use the blank as a handle when sanding it. I cut off the excess with a razor knife, which left a nice triangular piece that I put aside to use to make the quoins for the gun deck cannons.
 

 
I then used a Dremel sanding disk in the drill press to sand in the curves:
 

 
I cleaned up the knee with small files and some sand paper.
 

 
Then cut it away from the blank with the razor knife:
 

 
I got into a good rhythm and was able to crank each one out about every couple of minutes, so it took less time than I thought it would. And here is how it will look as a vertical knee:
 

 
The trick is getting them all to look similar, so here are the first 10 or so and I think they do look similar:
 

 
And here are 33 of them, which is getting closer to the number I need, but not there yet. And the triangular waste pieces too.
 

 
Tonight I will figure out exactly how many I need and finish making them, then start attaching them.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

One more picture and then I will hold off until I get some better gun barrels.
Below I installed the support rods for the tapered platform. The 'up-side-down' view is to show that the rod is held in place with a dab of CA.

I now also decided to fix the wheels in place after some cleaning, etc.
 

Here is the first carriage without the saddle (or transom as Harold calls it). I also have to add the bolster, stool bed and the rod that goes across. The shape of the saddle will depend on what I do with the gun barrels
Because of that the wheels are still loose (and perhaps they will remain so).
I also improved the bonding fixture by clamping the fixture to the axles and then gluing the sides to that.

 
 

I wanted to test fit the cannons I bought from Model Expo to make sure they fit in the gun ports, so I assembled one of them and did a quick test. These did not come with instructions, so I basically just fit a support piece between the two side pieces for this test cannon, but the real ones will have a small tapered piece and a front support piece instead. I also just used some 1/16" square wood for the axles, but will use wider pieces of wood in the final version. I made a jig to hold the side pieces up while I glued them to the axles. Here is the test cannon from the jig:
 

 

 
I rounded the axles to fit the wheels and just slid the wheels onto them for now:
 

 
When I put this cannon onto the gun deck I could see that it was about 1/8" too low. This made sense to me given that the bulkheads as supplied by ME are at the height of the gun deck after planking, but I had reduced the height of the bulkheads by 1/8" to account for the 1/16" of the gun deck support piece and the 1/16" deck planks. If I had just planked the deck without lowering the bulkheads, these cannons would fit fine or be close.
 

 
My first idea was to add more height to the axles, but that would only get me another 1/16" or so without looking awful. I then looked at the supplied gun carriage sides and realised that I could cut them in half without hitting any of the notches, then I could add a 1/18" by 1/16" piece to make up the height difference. I did this for two sides and after sanding them they looked fine.
 

 
I glued them up with the axles and support piece, added the wheels and this is how it came out:
 

 
And here it is in one of the gun ports. It fits nicely and more importantly, the barrel comes out straight so I can (hopefully) line them up with the dummy cannons that will be in the other gun ports.
 

 
Here is a comparison of the stock cannon (right) and the modified version (left):
 

 
I was lucky to have some extra cannons to experiment with. At some point I will make up the 16 cannons that will be rigged on the gun deck, but I have a lot more work to do to get to that point.

Here are a couple of updates. I'll show the interior wall planking of the gun deck in this one and the experiments with the gun deck cannons in the next one.
 
I planked the insides of the gun deck walls using the same 1/8" by 1/16" planks that I used for the deck planking. I started with two full length planks at the bottom of each side. I mixed up some off white paint and painted the bottom planks before installing them, although the color looks very similar to the basswood itself.
 

 

 
Those clothes pins held the planks very nicely in place while the glue dried.
 
I then cut three short planks for between each of the gun ports and glued them in. I made them slightly longer than the span between the gun ports and will clean up the gun port openings later. These plank ends will be flush with the gun port openings, where as the outside hull planks will leave a slight gap for the gun port lids to fit in.
 

 
The next plank up was a full length plank, then I had to make shorter planks with either notches for the deck beam ends or cut to fit between the deck beam ends.
 

 
I ended up gluing the upper planks directly to the edges of the planks below. I really did not need the little supports I added for these planks before, as they really didn't support them. I did add a thin strip from the outside onto these upper planks to tie the top three together to give them a little more strength. These strips will be hidden when the outer hull planking is added. I cleaned up the gun port openings from the outside using some small diamond files, after cutting some of the excess plank ends with an X-Acto knife. I still have a little more cleaning to do from the inside to get the corners more crisp. I only had to do a little sanding of the interior planks, which I did with a riffler file first, then taped some sandpaper to the end of it and used that for the final sanding. Here is how the starboard side interior looks so far.
 

 

 

I've now completed the quarter deck framing at the aft end and finished it with Wipe-on Poly. This was done as a unit off the model as I had done with the forecastle deck. As with the forecastle, the beams, carlings and ledges are boxwood strip and the knees were cut from cherry sheet. Of course the beams had been fitted on the model and the spacing measured before the off model construction proceeded.. The photos show the deck framing in place, but it is not permanently installed yet. That won't happen until I attach lines for the main lower yard sheets to the bulwark cleats that will be impossible to reach once the decking is in place. I can't do that until I figure out the sizing for the rigging. That's a tedious job that I've started, but is a long way from done.
 
In the meanwhile, in my haphazard fashion, I'm going to move on to some work on the exterior hull for a bit.
 
Bob

A small update. I've added another batch of guns at the aft end of the gun deck. They were made and rigged exactly like the first batch at the fore end. Since I really hate repetitive tasks, there will be no more guns for a while. Next, I will do the aft end of the quarter deck framing, and then likely will do some work on the hull exterior before returning to more guns.
 
Bob

Thanks for the comments Alistair, Druxey, Joe, David, Mark, David, John, Remco, Alex, Patrick, Grant, Sherry and Popeye .
 
 
Alistair, it probably depends on the particular ship as to how much camber (or "roundup") the gratings have. On the Swans it's quite a bit more than the roundup of the decks.
 
 
Take a look down the page a bit Remco .
 
Continuing on with the wheel .... I turned the Barrel and fitted it to the wheel :
 

 

 
Last things to make were the two Stanchions that support the wheel assembly. These have a molded section in their faces, which I cut with an Xacto :
 

 
Here's a pic showing how small the wheel is compared to a 5c piece :
 

 
The wheel dry-fitted to the deck. I'll leave it off for now as it could get damaged fairly easily. Oh yeah, and the wheel is fully operational (or will be when it's rigged ) :
 

 

 

 
  Danny

Thanks so much Hamilton.
 
I've now completed the framing of the forecastle deck. This is a total departure from the kit construction which calls for only the beams to be installed. I went with beams, carlings, ledges and knees. All of the parts were made from boxwood, except the lodging knees which were cut from a sheet of cherry of the appropriate thickness, which I happened to have on hand (I had no boxwood sheet of that size). 
 
Owing to the small size of the parts and the cuts needed to be made, I decided to build up the deck framing in sections off the model and then install the completed sections and connect them in place on the model. This was a method that I had tried successfully on my Triton cross-section and I am pleased with the results here, as well. I'm hoping that similar results can be obtained on the larger sections of deck framing for the quarter deck and midship areas. Wipe-on Poly was used to finish the framing.
 
Prior to installing the deck framing, I mounted the stove on its previously mounted base.
 
I still haven't decided how much deck planking will be used, although i'm sure that it will not totally cover the framing. Right now , I'm thinking of using very little planking, at least in this area. I can defer that choice until the rest of the gun deck fittings are done and the remaining upper deck framing is in place. The remainder of the gun carriages have arrived from the Lumberyard and I'm now working on the next batch of guns to be installed.
 
The last photo is a current full profile shot , since Nigel has pointed out that I haven't posted one in quite a while.
 
Bob

..... Continued
 
(Thank you Geoff and Caroline)
 
The unit after milling the slots. I must have miscalculated one of the cuts, but I later managed to correct it by cutting and gluing tiny portions of wood back in. The repair turned out invisible :
 

 
The spokes needed the sections where they join the hub and rim squared off, and also reduced in thickness to keep the spokes central :
 

 
The first three spokes glued in. I used CA for a temporary fix to keep them aligned :
 

 
After gluing in all the spokes I cut another 10 thin segments of the rim and hub and Epoxied them on. Then it was back into the lathe to trim them down. The pic below is how they came off the lathe before cleaning up :
 

 
Cleaned up with a very sharp Xacto :
 

 
Last step, and the scariest   , was to soak the unit in Isopropyl Alcohol to soften the PVA which attached the wheel to the block. I held my breath when I started removing it, but ..... SUCCESS :D :
 

 
A little bit of final cleaning up is still needed after the alcohol has fully evaporated.
 
  Danny

Thanks for the kind words.
 
Maury, I had to make the door a bit longer, but now you're mentioning it, I probably better put the extension above the door. It does look a bit strange now. I fear taking the door out will damage the pantry, let me think about that.
 
Fleas Druxey? I thought I was a step ahead of you by adding the palliasses and now your starting about fleas. Boy where does this end.....
 
Work moved to the outside of the hull. The knee of the head (made 1,5 years back) is now permanently fitted as I had to add the iron plates to the bottom of the hull.
 

 
I glued them temporarily in place to draw the outlines and then used a chisel to remove the wood so it fits flush to the hull. I'll remove them to prevent any damage to the plates.
 

 

 

 
This concludes TFFM Vol 1, a bit of a milestone, this took me 4,5 years to complete and still two volumes to go......... I hope everybody is patient enough to bear with me till the end (and throwing challenges at me will make the journey longer..)
 
Remco
 
 
 
 

Still working on rigging the foremast. The deadeyes and blocks are just dry fitting into the line and will be adjusted once put on the model. So far I have been happy with my off model approach to rigging. The platforms holding the mast has worked well. It makes it easy to use the third hand to do the seizings and the miniature clothes pin I picked up at Hobby Lobby really work nice holding things in place. I am learning a lot about the names of the lines and their points of origin and attachment.