rybakov

I agree with you fully.  I had concluded just the same. Because Chappelle's drawing shows space between the portico and the mizzen mast.  With a fife rail crammed between them.  His fife rail is three sided with a front with a horizontal bit. This design is all well and good for the fore and main...to affix the lower stays too...but not on the mizzen.  Your depiction affixes the fife rail to the head of the portico...leaving the front and sides of the rail exposed for pins.  Side doors make more sense ergonomically.  Freeing up the front for the mizzen fife.
 
The roof of the portico, could be just a roof....but, as you say, why not use it as a fore perch...surrounded by stanchions and a rail(Giving easy access to the gaff foot).  There needs to be a simple 2 rung step up from the house roof/poop deck to access it.
 
I like where we are going with this.  It makes sense and still is in line with Duncan McLean's description.
 
Rob

@rwiederrich
Rob,
Here's a contemporary image of a clipper ship with both headboards and trail boards, exactly as the Crothers illustration describes. From below it's clear that the headboard is more of a decoration than an integral extension of the ship. There are old fashioned open frames between the headboard and stem. The cutwater has a trail board, which is a beautiful embellishment but not as substantial as the unique McKay bow. That's why I'm so convinced he wanted to keep manufacture of it secret. 
Again, you want to avoid the trap of misunderstanding McLean's emphasis on lack of decorations. As we discussed before, Scottsmen like McKay and his friend McLean put more focus on seaworthiness than superfluous decorations. However brief though, McLean actually does mention that Stag Hound was equipped with both naval hoods and cutwaters. It's just two sentences and if you blink and you'll miss it:
"An idea of its sharpness may be formed from the fact that, at the load displacement line (as the cutwater is tapered to an angle), a flat surface applied to the bow, from its extreme, would show no angle at the hood ends. Her bow commences at the cutwater, and swells from that point in unbroken curvature."
Not until his description of Flying Cloud McKay's second extreme clipper, does McLean introduce the more clarifying term navel [sic: naval] hoods. But to me, his description of the Stag Hound  clipper is identical to Flying Cloud with the exception of the word "naval."
When I did my reconstruction, I kept all components to scale and in proportion identical to what we saw on Glory of the Seas. The only revision that I see necessary is to realign the cutwater taper to the Cornelius McKay bow profile.
 
1851 Daguerrotype of Clipper ship Seaman's Bride courtesy of H. Furlong Baldwin Library, Maryland Center for History 

Ok , here are my scribbles. I used both Vlads drawing and that of Crothers. I’m assuming Vlad’s is a replica of McKay’s.    I did this on the fly…..but it shows us the difference.  
Also, I reviewed Duncan’s observation that Staghound has no  headboards or trailboards.   That means she was nearly  *naked*.  I’m including several pics showing this and my renderings .
 
First, could have Donald Not included his famous hoods?  Or could it have been added, just not as pronounced as the typical headboard of the day, so Duncan didn’t recognize or mention it?
 
Lastly, the trail board typically flowed along the head of the stem, inserting into the howes hole.  McKay never followed that typical pattern of others.  
 
Now about the hood renderings on both prowes.  I think the Vlad rendering is the closest of these two…….with even yours being closest.  
 
Your thoughts?
 
Rob

@rwiederrich
Rob 
My tracing of the 1881 Henry Hall online illustration used 1 verticle line = 8'. When I printed it out, serendipity, each line is precisely 1" apart, printed out at 1:96th scale! Using a ruler, the copper line is exactly at the 16' line (2"). Horizontal line 7 on the Hall lines. Line 8 is possibly when the ship is fully laden. Vladimir's computer overlay of my drawing and what I figure is the Cornelius McKay half-hull model shows that I was very close. It will be no problem to revise the sketch to match the Cornelius McKay profile. In fact, it appears like it's just the bow profile that needs to be corrected. The image is reversed since I originally traced the print from the back. I've posted Vladimir's overlay from both port and starboard views. Seeing how accurate this is, it looks like I'm already a third of the way to getting an accurate hull.
 

@rwiederrich Rob 
While I haven't heard back from Vlad yet, I'm sure he won't mind if I share his work here. Vladimir's source for these vessel's line all come from Crothers' "The American Built Clipper Ship 1850-1856." This is developing amazingly quick. At this point, Vlad appears to be relying heavily on the impressive lines of Crothers. It's hard to tell from these plans which appear remarkably close to the Cornelius model. Since McKay's son built his Hull replica directly from moulding loft lines, as they were being laid out for the actual construction of the vessel herself, I want to adhere as precisely as possible to that source. I only hope Vlad concurs.

@druxey
Thanks for the Latin course. I had to use a translation app just to find out it simply means "with a grain of salt" or "don't take literally."
Actually, Chappelle's plans are quite close in profile to the Cornelius model. Spacing for masts and deck fittings appear to be slightly off but that could also be due to some distortion from challenges in scanning a thick book. 
The thing that has always baffled me is this. Why have such an apparently cavalier treatment of McKay's clipper ships always been given by a commercial modeling industry? Whenever I saw a McKay clipper it always bugged me how plain the bow was. In addition, it made me uncomfortable to see how awkward figureheads looked, just tacked on below a bowsprit. It makes me wonder, Lars Bruzelius did his copywrite for his website in 1999. Before that, were Boston Daily Atlas articles that hard to locate? 
Now we've learned that my suspicions were right all along. Every McKay model has been wrong. A plain stem was not how he designed his revolutionary clippers. In fact, after looking at dozens of other big American clippers, we've learned that one of Donald McKay's closely guarded secrets, which nobody else copied, was his complex prow structure. Cutwaters extended the stem. They were in turn then thoroughly bolted through on both sides by durable naval hoods, really an extension of the graceful hull. 
As a comparison, Rob shared an image of the prow of the bark Amy Turner. Typical clippers had a simple cutwater to which a figurehead was mounted. This in no way resembles the unique McKay bow. As we develop Stag Hound it will become clear how much of an advantage this rugged prow was. That will just be one of the exciting features as we finally realize McKay's first beauty.
 
 
 

@rwiederrich
Of course, we all noticed that compared to the Chappelle plans, the Cornelius model looks a little slim. Reading the son's letter he revealed that the 30" keel has to be added below. I know for a fact too, that the uppermost monkey rail is not included on half-hull models. That adds 16-18" on top. Which would then make her appearance more full.
Here's where @Vladimir_Wairoa added in his computer imagery talents. He created profiles of the Chapelle lines and compared them to both Hall and Cornelius. It's clear that the Chappelle hull is a little short vs the Cornelius model. That's most likely due to Chappelle plans being scanned from a book where part in the center bends in. As we proceed, that will be fixed. 

@rwiederrich
Afterwords, I found the large, precisely carved "half-hull" model, crafted by McKay's own son Cornelius, taken from moulding lines directly off the lofting floor as Stag Hound was being built! There's no more authoritative source than a direct descendant of Donald testifying as to the historical authenticity of his own creation honoring his father. Even more fascinating is that the image with excerpt of a letter originated in a 1928 publication by another relative, Richard McKay in his encyclopedic book "Some Famous Sailing Ships and Their Builder Donald McKay."
Two profiles are very similar with an exception being the authentic model has a more vertical underwater prow. Next step is to redraw ship and bow accurately using the McKay model.

 

@rwiederrich 
While researching bow structure for Glory of the Seas I stumbled on the exact same description of the elusive naval hoods and cutwater overlapping the stem for the bow of Stag Hound! Using plans online from the "Report on the Ship-Building Industry in the United States 1884" by Henry Hall, I sketched this 1:96th scale reconstruction of her surprisingly beautiful yacht like prow. The image is reversed since I traced the lines.

@rwiederrich Rob,
I wouldn't worry about the technicality. If someone knows, I'm sure they'll share the "how to." 
Meanwhile, here's more of the images we shared privately before to get your build log up to date. First 5 are lightened up lines from Howard I Chappelle's 1967 publication "The Search For Speed Under Sail", including Vladimir's computer matched plans. Last is a first edition book cover, for anyone unfamiliar with this comprehensive work. Chappelle's works are beautiful but still unfortunately inaccurate (slightly off topic but another bone I have to pick, besides her completely plain bow, is the ridiculously small rear coach house on Sovereign of the Seas. "She has a full topgallant forecastle, a large house amidships and a spacious trunk cabin, in two divisions, built into a half poop deck, with steerage room abaft." The Boston Daily Atlas, June 19, 1852. The line "steerage room abaft" says that this was a large cabin which occupied the entire poop similar to Flying Fish which preceeded this vessel, yet every model I've seen has that tiny small cabin instead! Back to the current topic.) 
So when constructing scratch built replicas, in order to get accurate results, I've learned it's quite essential to compare actual historical descriptions by Duncan McLean in The Boston Daily Atlas to other purported sources. Regardless, we still plan on referring to Chappelle's deck layout but getting it faithful to the December 20, 1850 details.

@rwiederrich Rob,
To help others avoid pitfalls of incorrectly modeling Stag Hound based on erroneous plans, I'm sharing this evaluation we made of a beautifully crafted but wildly inaccurate model.
Most likely due to a lack of accurate information and misinterpretation of another's description of a half-poop deck, EB Douglas drafted these Stag Hound clipper plans in 1922. Hull form looks very close to Howard Chappelle's lines and sailing rig is very similar to David Macgregor's.
Too bad Mr Douglas apparently had no access to Duncan McLean's far more accurate description, which included the fact that the Stag Hound poop deck was 44' long, "half" the size of others. That, and typical of all McKay models, the bow is plain. Nothing at all like the real ship which had complex naval hoods and cutwaters overlapping her stem, which augmented her sharp prow.    

@rwiederrich since I see you've already laid out the Chappelle lines from his book "The Search for Speed Under Sail" I will endeavour to keep up with your remarkably swift construction pace. Meanwhile I'm going to share another inspiring work of this magnificent McKay first. This one's titled "Stag Hound in the Tea Trades" by Cape Cod artist Frank Vining Smith. He really captures her lean lithe hull and very lofty rig in a beautiful ocean setting.

Rob,
At first, I couldn't locate your Stag Hound build log because I looked for it in the section for vessels built between 1801-1850.
With your permission, I'm going to share some of the most beautiful artwork that inspires me to love Donald McKay's premiere inaugural extreme clipper.
Back in the late 50's for Christmas presents, our parents gave us two Revell clipper ship models. I was given the Flying Cloud while my elder brother received the Stag Hound. I remember really loving my model which had a spectacular image of the clipper ship flying dramatically in stormy rough weather. Meanwhile, my brother's had a peaceful painting of his ship by artist John Steel. That was my first exposure to Stag Hound. Time-Life Books Seafarer Series "The Clipper Ships" had an inspiring piece by JE Buttersworth. Since it's a two page spread the fold can't be eliminated. Later I found another image of the same piece courtesy of The South Street Seaport. The majesty and impressive length, not to mention lofty spars of McKay's premiere extreme clipper are all on beautiful display.
At the time of her launch, Stag Hound was the undisputed largest merchant vessel in the world. However. to my knowledge, there's not one accurate version of this marvelous ship that's ever been created. That's primarily due to Donald McKay himself being so successful at guarding his nautical secrets that his unique bow construction has been lost since 1850! Rob, Vladimir, I and a few others like Druxey with unparalleled help of author Michael Mjelde engaged in a remarkable journey to reconstruct McKay's final, longest lived medium clipper Glory of the Seas. Through the ever generous documents and even more rare contemporary images, dating all the way back to her launch and fitting out in 1869, Michael Mjelde has been a priceless contributor in our goal to finally realize the stalwart beauty of this spectacular ship. As we gradually unveiled McKay's secrets, repeatedly the thought occured to me that Glory of the Seas was becoming a maritime "Rosetta Stone" to discovering the true appearance of Donald McKay's other beautiful clipper ships. So, armed with the experience and knowledge we've garnered, we're applying our research abilities to finally realize the historically accurate appearance of Stag Hound the innovative vessel which started it all for McKay and which put Boston on an equal footing with rival New York.
While there exists no known photos of this early clipper, there are some useful resources. Chief among them is a large 1:48th scale, 4 foot, 8 inches half-hull Stag Hound model carved by McKay's own son Cornelius. There's a single, useful broadside picture of the model featured in the 1928 publication "Famous Sailing Ships and Their Builder Donald McKay." This encyclopedic book with many beautiful full color illustrations was written by another relative, Richard McKay. To researchers, besides the spectacular model itself, the first hand account by the son emphasizes how meticulously accurate his model was, since he literally constructed it precisely from lines of the full-sized ship taken right off the moulding loft floor as she was being built. Cornelius further emphasized that all of his father's "builder's models" had been previously destroyed. Another valuable resource comes from Lars Bruzelius's wonderful website which contains dozens of highly accurate, very specific construction details of sailing vessels. Among them, I discovered an article by publicist Duncan McLean, The Boston Daily Atlas written on December 21, 1850. Here's a link to the entire article: http://www.bruzelius.info/Nautica/News/BDA/BDA(1850-12-21).html
 
Based on that description, I sketched this bow of Stag Hound, for the first time illustrating her authentic, historically accurate appearance including those pesky, misunderstood naval hoods and cutwater overlapping her stem, which everybody before have missed! Since my original drawing was based on the 1881 Hall lines, they differ slightly from the more accurate Cornelius McKay model. Vladimir's using his computer skills to reconcile the two lines. His red line of the half-hull model overlap the gray lines of my original pencil sketch. This promises to be another fascinating collaboration.


 

 
 

To begin we need some drawing.   We begin with Cappelle’s and we will correct any issues we discover as we research other material,  such as writings of historical reporter.  Duncan McLean. 
Vlad has already lent his expertise with CAD. 

Here we go again.   After doing some re-evaluating, I opted to put aside the clipper Donald McKay for now because the reused CS hull from Revell, just isn’t cutting it and the hull curves are just all wrong.  
Like the Glory of the Seas, I am going for full authenticity, even to the magnitude of correcting previously held and modeled errors, namely the lack of one of Donald McKay’s ingenious contributions to naval architecture….the Naval Hood.  
As before with Glory of the Seas, I will be employing the aid of my friends, Clipperfan, and Vladimir.  Both have aid so much even up to this point.  Behind the scenes,  they and I have hashed out many issue.  Much more is needed, but I’m not waiting to gain full understanding ,   So I’m beginning now with introductions and plans, so our MSW friends can benefit from our journey.
 
We begin with some paintings and line drawings. 

Well, I would say that I have reached the point of no return... but that happened back in April when I decided to grind off the wales! Again, I can't thank Marc (MSW "Soleil Royal by Hubac's Historian - Heller - An Extensive Modification and Partial Scratch-Build") and Guy (SOS "Soleil Royal 1671 modified Heller kit") enough for sharing their experience and advice with me as I go down the path of Soleil Royal 1671, and the primary resource being the VDV sketches of Royal Duc.

 
Besides all of the other modifactions that had to be done to approximate the Royal Duc drawings, it became apparent that all of the exposed timberheads had to be removed (as in the waist) or walled up, in order to make "solid walls" that are a result of the very high bulwarks and that pronounced sheer, especially at the stern, at that period in time. One result is that in the VDV sketches, the guns on the fore deck/quarter deck/poop deck poke through solid walls, as opposed to poking through railings.
 

 

 
So at all levels of the bulwarks (and the waist), the only exposed timber heads will be very short (I will target 2.5mm in actual height, about half of the Heller kit height) and be covered with a cap rail throughout. The rear/front bulwarks have been scraped free of any decorations/mouldings, and have been scribed with planks. The rear bulwark, especially, will afford me a lot of space to "redecorate"... which likely will just be a mass of fluer de lis (as seen on Royal Louis).
 
The following two photos show the inner planking. Before I glue in the bulwarks, I have a checklist of all of the things that would be better to do now, than after the the bulwarks are installed (as per GuyM, I am going to affix the bulwarks much earlier in the process so I can finish the upper wales and adorn them with listons d' or). I think I see the starboard bulwarks being attached in 3 weeks!
 

 

 

Well, a bit of an update. If you look carefully at the photos in my previous entry, you will notice that somehow I managed to put the aftmost gunport in the wrong place. It's way too far aft - I apparently misread the marks that I put on the bulwarks that indicated where it was supposed to go. 100% my goof.
 

 
So, repairs commenced. I cut out a bit of wood, fitted it to the gap:
 

 
Sanded to match the curves of the bulwarks:
 

 
Rinse and repeat on the other side:
 

 
Once the paint the hammock nets are in place, you'll never know it was there. Annoying, but completely on me.
 
I've since cut the correct gunports, and mounted the 10 gunport frames. Thank goodness for having 10 to fill 8 slots, as two of them were destroyed sanding them down to the thickness of the bulwarks. The trick is to leave cut the center piece, but leave it in the frame as you sand. Put the pressure on the frame as much as possible so you don't have to sand down a solid piece of wood, but it keeps the pressure off the relatively delicate piece of wood that is the frame. As you might have guessed, the answer to my question above was to sand the frames to the thickness of the bulwarks, and I've pretty much concluded that the parts are just mislabelled as I mentioned. So, next step will be to add the frames for the large pivot guns, and then I think it's time to start cutting the slots for the channels and building gunport nettings. 
 

 
Thanks for looking in everyone!
 
Regards,
George
 

@Pirate adam
@FriedClams
Thank you very much for your interest and the nice comments. Also many thanks to all for the LIKES.
 
Continuation: Peak halyard - Drisse de pic
The peak halyard of the French corvette led over a double block with iron fittings and was probably hooked to an eyebolt on the cap des mizzen mast, similar to a depiction in the Atlas du Génie Maritime.
 

Source: Atlas du Génie Maritime - detail
 
I made the double block with a length of approx. 4 mm in the usual method from service tree. The fittings were made in the manner already described from partially prefabricated etched and cast brass parts. The hard soldering of the hook is a tricky job, but I've managed it in the meantime with some practice. The biggest problem is destroying the part with too much heat from the torch. 

 
After adjusting the fitting to the block and soldering in the hook, the solder joint was sanded clean.
 
The next two pictures show the finished double block with the eyebolt, which will later be attached to the cap.

  
And last but not least, a picture of the hooked double block.

 
Now there are still a number of different blocks to be made for the gaff and the boom.
To be continued ...
 

Thanky you
 
Applying the deck clamp strengthened the hull so I could complete the limber-passage.

Sorry for the long delays in posting. Lots going on in the summer outside the shop, and progress is very slow when I am in the shop!
 
Thanks so much, druxey, Albert, Marc and Michael for your kind thoughts. These keep my spirits up as I plod through the slow business of building the quarter galleries.
 
I have found it most effective to treat each level of the quarter galleries--at levels of both decks and railings--as a little platform with the structural rails temporarily glued to the outside edges. This allows me to keep the correct curve and location where the rail hits the side of the hull.
 
 

I used the mouldings at the stern as guides for the angle at which the platforms are temporarily glued in their locations, and carefully measure from the channel wale to find the correct sheer fore and aft. I check with a height gauge to ensure the platforms are symmetrical port and starboard.
 
I recalled reading many years ago that the fore and aft curves of the quarter galleries must be parallel to each other, although offset fore and aft by the amount of the slope of the aft windows. This is to ensure that the vertical mullions are parallel to each other and not in different planes which would create a twist in the plane of the windows themselves. Not good for flat sheets of glass! So I was very careful in maintaining the angle at the aft, outboard, intersection of the two structural rails. This ensures that the platforms above and below the window will remain parallel to each other even as the sides of the hull at different heights vary in their angles due to the tumblehome.
 
This should become clearer in later posts, when I start to lay out the mullions themselves.
 
Here are more images of the platforms slowly coming together. The first one below also shows how the structural beam at level C had to be notched for the window frame to slide up behind the stern moulding. It is actually a blind window, but I needed to do this so my windows would remain constant in their heights across the full width, for ease of construction.
 
Best wishes,
 
Mark
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

continue:
 

The steering wheel: my personal method of construction:
 











 

Gluing deck clamp, making temporary deck beams to check the location.