tarbrush

Some progress with prow details, grouting and priming.



 
Thanks

And finally added the wales to the top half of the hull. You will also notice at the stern that I have built a small frame piece out of plywood. This is for the quarter galleries.
 

 
Here is the final result on Starboard side:
 

 
Both sides with the wales attached:
 

 

 
Now she has the first coat of varnish. I will post some more photos once I complete the varnished hull!
 
Cheers
 
Adam
 
 
 

As I progressed planing the top half of the hull I measured, marked and cut out the cannon port holes. Sore fingers were a result of cutting out 90 holes!
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

Young America - extreme clipper 1853
Part 5 – Keel Structure
So, finally some real work and some pictures.
 
Young America’s keel was sided 16” by 31 inches deep.  The main body of the keel was two tiered.  The upper tier was 15” deep and the lower was 12” deep.  In all of these posts I will use the word “was” rather freely, since original scantlings lists do not exist.  “Was” will mean based on the best data and/or reasonable assumptions.  In general, I relied heavily on the more complete data for Challenge.  I think that extrapolation is a reasonable approach.  One builders sidings were not all that different from one ship to the next – unless the first was not successful.  Under the two main members is a 4” shoe – a sacrificial protective covering of the main members and boltheads..  This was installed just before launch by removing blocks under the keel slipping it in and fastening it.
 
I will not dwell on my sawmill operations.  These were well covered in the opening parts of the Naiad posts.  The first picture shows some blanks for the keel members and a piece of the swiss pear material from a few steps upstream in the process.
 

 
The pear was cut into the piece shown at the top from a roughly 2” thick by 12” wide by x feet long piece.  The planks were then cut to rough size on a bandsaw and reduced to final thickness (16”) on a thickness sander.  One edge was then planed straight using the small modeling plane at the top – so the final pieces could be accurately ripped to size.  The next picture showns all of the pieces needed to make the keel – cut to final width and depth.
 

 
The members were then cut to final length based on the drawing shown above.  Because of the large number of bolts through the actual keel, placement of joints relative to each other, masts, etc., the lengths had to be laid out carefully beforehand to avoid interferences.  I did this on the drawing for the model, even though many of the invisible bolts will not be installed.  The next picture shows a typical joint of the type used in the top two tiers.
 

 
The joints are hook scarphs with wedge driven into the center.  They are identical except for size to the larger keelson scarph shown on the drawing.  That view shows the typical bolting for one of these joints.  It also shows one large bolt through the keel for each floor and another longer bolt through the entire keel/keelson centered on the frame timbers aft of the floors.  The next picture shows one of the lower tier joints being glued.
 

 
Darkened Titebond wood glue is used to give a subtle highlighting to the joints.  The two parts were clamped with light pressure, the wedge shown was driven through to make the ends butt, and finally the clamps were fully tightend.  Excess glue was washed off with clean water – hence the darkened area.
 
With the lower tier fully assembled, the upper tier was added on piece at a time as shown in the next picture.
 

 
To keep the final two-tier assembly straight, a straightedge and the flat top of the shipway was used to clamp the pieces.  Waxed paper was used underneath to prevent gluing to the shipway.  The next picture shows some joints in the final three layer structure.
 
 

 
The final picture shows the assembled keel lying on the shipway drawing.  It is an actual 37” long.  Full length keels make for pretty boring photos, but here it is.
 

 
The next step will be to form the rabbet on either side of the top – at least partially.  The top corners of the final rabbets are quite sharp and fragile and will be subject to damage during erection of the frames.  However, I want to cut at least some of the rabbet now so water stops can be inserted before framing,  but after the bulk of the rabbet has been scraped out.  This will be discussed further in the next parts.
 

Ed

Wow!  I am awestruck by your figurehead carving Sherry, that you accomplished that with basswood is totally amazing! 

Just one more thought Ed..will you be building her in this fashion...like the antique model of the Thermopylae? 
 
 

And this?

I really like Michael's "definition" for what I am doing.
It's actually quite true.
 
So....I did some more "juggling the order" and decided to carve the figurehead. It's not that I don't like planking, it's just a tad monotonous compared to other tasks.
 
The figurehead is in 2 pieces and was hand carved from a small block of basswood. The scalpel in the photo is for size comparison.
 
The figurehead appears larger than it really is when dry fitted on the stem because of the angle of the photograph. (That being said - it is probably a little off scale, but I'm happy with and will leave it as is.)
 

 

 

Young America - extreme clipper 1853
Part 4 - Webb’s Young America

Well, they say that every good plan eventually degenerates into hard work. The research and planning for the model has been fun, but now it is time to get down to business. That does not necessarily mean getting right into the workshop, although apart from the frame process tests discussed in Part 3, I do hope to start forming the keel in a week or two. Right now there is a ton of frame lofting to do and sometimes that can get tedious. With 80 frame pairs, totaling 160 frames, there are a lot of patterns to create. Please be patient.

In Part 3 I had intended to discuss Young America, and my choice of her as a subject, but I inserted the framing process work instead. So, I will discuss YA here while I take a break from lofting frames.

Webb
William H. Webb was widely regarded as the premier American shipbuilder of the mid-19th century period. His father Isaac Webb took over the New York shipyard of Henry Eckford in 1825 and operated it under the name of Webb and Allen until his death in 1840. During that time, 23 ships – from cutters to packets were built. In 1840 William Webb took over the yard. Over the next 30 years, 135 ships were built – packets, clippers, steamers, barks, ironclads, and of course, extreme clippers – 9 of them. Following Celestial and Gazelle, the third.of these was Challenge, launched in 1851. The purchasers single requirement was that Challenge should be the finest and fastest merchant ship in the world, regardless of cost. At 252’ feet she was the largest extreme clipper to be launched to that date. Comet at 241’ was launched two months later. There were four more before Young America in 1853 – the ship that Webb considered his masterpiece. He knew the extreme clipper era was ending and that YA was the last he would build. He went on to build many more ships through 1869. In later life Webb turned to philanthropy, starting a school of marine architecture for boys of limited means. To this day, tuition at Webb Institute is free to qualifying applicants.

Young America

Young America was named after a broad, popular cultural-political movement that flourished in pre Civil War America. The movement advocated democratic reform, free trade, expansion and similar themes. It was a largely urban, middle class movement that became associated with the Democratic party and Stephen Douglas. It paralleled similar movements in Europe.

Some design particulars:
~243’ long od, 43’2” extreme breadth, ~26’ depth of hold
1961 tons – old measure
20” floor deadrise (9 deg)
deadflat forward of midpoint 25’
swell of the sides (tumblehome) 20”
3 decks
circular stern
cost $140,000

Excuse the approximate numbers on her size. There seems to be a variety of measurements reported and due to lack of standardization, it is not always clear what they are. Fortunately the original offsets (see below) ensures that the model will be correct. Other features will be described and compared to other similar ships as they occur later in construction.

I include deadrise in this list because it was considered a key variable in improving speed. Of course as the angle of the floors increased, hold capacity decreased, so the pronounced deadrise of up to 20+ degrees that was employed on the early extreme clippers clearly emphasized speed over capacity in these ships. As the period advanced, bottom shapes became more flat, without an attendant loss of speed. At 9 degrees YA is a good example of the evolved design.

The key structural issue in these ships was the prevention of hogging – the downward deformation of the hull at the ends – sometimes to the point of failure. The problem occurred in wooden ships because of reduced buoyancy at the ends due to less hull volume at the bow and stern. The long length and the sharp entry and run aft in these ships severely aggravated the problem. The obvious solution was to increase hull strength by various means – huge keelsons, heavy inboard planking (called bilge keelsons), various forms of triangular bracing, anti-hogging chocks, diagonal iron lattice-work bolted to the frames, kneed pillars, and generally heavy construction - to the point of reducing hold capacity. Relative to the competition, Webb employed these features with a lighter touch, generally keeping scantlings smaller. He also employed some innovation in going to variable frame spacing with frames spaced further apart toward the ends of the hull where the smaller sections required less structure. This is said to have reduced the dead weight of the structure at each end by up to 25 tons – a substantial relief of the hogging strain effect. The long life of Young America (and others) is a testament to this good engineering.

Availability of data on Webb’s ships is limited to books of plans from his papers for some of his ships. Data for Challenge is fairly complete, since at her launch detailed descriptions were printed. For Young America, less original data is available.

Building a fully framed Young America would not be possible for me without the work of William L. Crothers, specifically his recently published (1997) The American Clipper Ship, Characteristics, Construction, Details. The book is a thoroughly researched tour de force on clipper ship construction. In it he has reproduced Webb’s original table of offsets for both Young America and Comet – essential for producing hull drawings. He has also included substantial basic scantling information for a variety of ships. Based on the assumption that Challenge, Comet and YA would all be similar in structural design, I believe an accurate framed model design can be made forYoung America. Having reached this conclusion, I made my choice to proceed. Crothers also published model plans for a number of ships under the name Sea Gull Plans. The plans for YA (1:96) do not include framing or structure, but will be useful for deck arrangements and rigging. I have also used his similar plans for Challenge and McKay’s Lightning for reference. I have acquired and studied a variety of other sources, but in the main, Crothers has nicely collected most of the useful data – and has usefully referenced his sources in detail.

Below is an image of the CAD body plan from Webb’s original table of offsets. This provides a good description of the hull shape. It is very different from my previous model of Naiad and ships of her type. The method of creating the body plan was also much different. Gone are the heights and breadths of rising, the circular sweeps and points plotted on diagonals. It is possible that a half hull model was made first and the waterline/butt line offsets taken from that to loft the ship. This was a common practice.



This body plan is a starting point for the frame lofting. It shows only profiles at primary station lines. To this drawing I have added all of the intermediate frame profiles as well as profiles between these to permit beveled frame patterns to be lofted. The intermediate profiles were plotted from points measured on a half breadth plan constructed from the original table. That body plan is shown below.



The cant frame profiles are not shown in this plan. The square frame lines are extremely close together, especially near midship. Fortunately, only the computer has to see them.  The diagonals on this plan were added only to set the height of the frame joints in fair lines. I do not believe the American builders paid too much attention to this, but it will make a neater model.

In addition, a table of scantlings is being progressively constructed from various sources.
 
As proof that there will really be a model starting soon, I have included the following photo of the old Naiad building board sporting the framing plan for YA. The shipway is just long enough.




Ed

Hello, Following the bow
soon
Isalbert

Hello, some pictures of the bow.
I could not find photos of the old forum under the name Olivier, sorry
Isalbert

Hi guys, I'm very glad you like my boat building .
I finished the the rudder and I added a belt of decorations on the boat. The boat is in fact done.
 

Jastrzab: thanks for comments. Next pictures are following special for you .
Sparrow: Jan, I am very glad to serve as a source of inspiration .  Some years ago I was in the same situation, but after busy years in business I have now a lot of time on ship modeling .
The inside of the boat is completely ready, the rudder remains to be completed and then anchor and oars.
 

Young America - extreme clipper 1853
Part 1 - Decisions 
I took most of the summer deciding whether I would undertake another ship model and if so, what the scope and subject would be.  I had a lot of time to think about this while catching up on neglected home maintenance and repair projects.  After deciding that I needed the challenge of another ambitious project, the decisions on scope and subject kept me busy through July.  I also had to decide whether I could commit to another Naiad-like build log.  We shall see.
 
I received a number of suggestions on subjects and that input is most appreciated.  Since I expect this project to span a number of years, the decision was a big one.  I have enjoyed wrestling through the process of deciding.  I had a number of criteria:  1) significant design/drafting content, 2) fully-framed construction to further explore my interest in structures, 3) a change from the well-trod path of fully-framed 18th Century Royal Navy subjects, 4) avoiding commonly modeled ships, and 5), I thought it was time to do an American ship. 
 
Before focusing on the extreme American clippers, I considered, among many other possibilities, a 19th Century American warship, perhaps steam-sail, and looked seriously at some of the ships by John Lenthall, built locally at the Philadelphia Navy Yard – examples: Germantown (sail), Princeton (screw/sail), Susquehanna (paddle/sail).  
 
In the end, the idea of the extreme clipper was too attractive to dismiss.  To me, this type represents an apex of achievement in wooden sailing ship design and construction – in terms of sleek hull lines, sailing performance, structural development and sheer beauty.  In the design of the extreme clippers, minimum tradeoffs were made to the one paramount design parameter  - achieving the shortest sailing times between far-flung ports.  Speed meant not only sleek hull lines and a spread of canvas, but also the strength to withstand continuous hard driving, day-in, day-out. 
 
After deciding on the clipper – and an American (meaning all wood) clipper - I chose the work of William H. Webb of New York.  It would have been easier to select something from his more popular competitor, Donald McKay, but McKay’s ships built at East Boston, have long been widely modeled – Staghound, Flying Cloud, Lightning and others. McKay’s papers do include substantial structural detail – very tempting.  Webb, too, has left papers, and these have been explored, with information published in the secondary sources I have used.  There are many gaps, but there is a family resemblance in details to all these ships and many practices and scantlings were commonly adopted.  Webb presented more of a challenge – in more ways than one – as I will describe later. 
 
Of Webb’s ships, I chose Young America, built in 1853, his last extreme clipper.  Less is known about her construction than some of his others, so the task of piecing her structure together is more interesting.  I will discuss this, the ship, and the extreme clipper era in the next posts.
 
Below is a photo of Young America, docked at San Francisco, a frequent port of call for her.  She was built mainly for the East Coast to California trade.  In the picture she is rigged with double topsails - a modification from her original single topsail rig.  There are also some paintings of her.  She was considered Webb’s masterpiece – one of his twelve clippers in a list that included renowned ships like Challenge, Comet, Invincible, Flying Dutchman – all of these examples being 200 to 240 feet in length. YA enjoyed a thirty-year career that included fifty passages around Cape Horn.  She set a number of sailing records and earned a ton of money for her various owners – and for those who made money betting on passage times.  In 1883 she left Philadelphia carrying 9200 barrels of Pennsylvania case oil, cleared Delaware Bay and was never heard from again.
 

 
The model may be fully rigged.  I will decide later.  With the hull length involved (240’) the scale is likely to be 1:72, but that is not yet cast in stone.
 
Structural drawings are well along and I expect to start construction later in September.
 
I hope these posts will be of interest and perhaps draw some attention to this somewhat neglected modeling genre.
 
Ed
 
 
 
 

Some more photos of the cabin installed, and some fitting installed.
lower deck sides covered with 0,5mm veener.
Benches completed, and put in place.
Fitting of the mast, and boom with some fittings installed.
Made a mast support on the lathe to fit in the front of the cabin.
Most of the deck fitings is now in place.
 
Børge
 
 

Pictures from the making of the cabin interior, i remember we had a lot of fun with theese on the old MSW
 
Børge
 

BassicBill, sorry about the slow response, my internet has been out since yesterday.  I just went and snapped a couple of pictures of the old girl, she got knocked around pretty good on my cross country move and I have repaired her yet.  shame on me.  but here a couple of pics.

Starboard upper gallery done - now on to the lower ones.
 

 

BassicBill, sorry about the slow response, my internet has been out since yesterday.  I just went and snapped a couple of pictures of the old girl, she got knocked around pretty good on my cross country move and I have repaired her yet.  shame on me.  but here a couple of pics.

To determine the size of the ship I traced the bottle and freehand drew the ship into the bottles outline. Then I traced the hull from that drawing onto tracing paper. I repeated that step three times trying to adjust for the perspective view in the original print AND have a hull  that looked like a plausible ship. usually I do the scaling and drawing in photoshop on the computer, but then again usually I already have a nice plan to work from whereas in this case I had to make my own. So then I drew in a rig, omitting the t'galants as I had imagined I would.  If I had included the loftier spars the entire ship would have been scaled that much smaller, and I want the ship to take up as much interior volume of the bottle as possible. Note that in my tracing paper sketch I drew a circle representing the diameter of the inside of the neck of the bottle- this dimension should NEVER be far from your mind when you are laying out a bottle model!
Next I got a chunk of basswood out and carved away at it with an x-acto. After a few passes I plugged in The Jersey Heartbreaker, chucked in a sanding drum, and took it down to the shape you see here. It will next get some more sanding and  grinding around the stern and the deck will get taken down a bit too. But at this stage I was happy to see that I have a hull size I can live with and that it fits into the bottle.

Hi. 
As a former "ships in bottles" modeller, I have already taken another seat...
A Greek modeler has been inspired by the same print and made a small diorama, using clay for the monster...
Here you have to deal with something more complex .
I would try something from rubber but first I would visit a fishing shop to see what I could do modifying some fishing rules or octopus plastic replicas.
Thanks

In a dumpster at Liberty Landing Marina in Jersey City, on the banks of the mighty Hudson River, I found a nice bottle. Seldom in life is ambiguity avoided so cleanly. The moment I saw that bottle lying there in the dumpster I knew what it was meant for, I knew what I would put into it, there was no question in my mind. As I retrieved the bottle from within the dumpster I reckoned it already had a pretty salty provenance. No doubt the rum that was in it had been consumed at sea by sailors. I took it home and cleaned it and there it sat with my other bottles, waiting for its destiny.

BassicBill, sorry about the slow response, my internet has been out since yesterday.  I just went and snapped a couple of pictures of the old girl, she got knocked around pretty good on my cross country move and I have repaired her yet.  shame on me.  but here a couple of pics.

Next week we will be  moving, the entire workshop has been packed
so it will be some time before there will be more from my side. Here's a final picture before the move:
 
 

 
Best,
Michiel

Hi Mark,
 
The planking is looking really good.  As far as Ebony - I attempted using it on my Confederacy's wales using laminations.  I had no success with it.  You may want to ask Rusty how he did it.
 
I used Fiebings Leather Dye on the swiss pear and it worked really well.  I think i applied 3 or 4 coats to the finished wales (i made sure to apply Tamiya tape and not flood the tape edges with dye) buffing between coats.  And then top coated it with Watcos Danish Oil.  
 
You need to be extremely careful dying on the model - this stuff does bleed easily - but with some advance planning you should be OK.
Chris