robdurant

Hi everyone,
 
Three weeks later, and I've had another good day to work on Stefano. I finally made and died some more .5mm rope for the standing rigging, which allowed me to complete the backstays. I've also got some more work done on the yards, adding eyelets, blocks, and bending the forecourse to the main yard on the foremast. Again, this has caused the model to take up significantly more space on my desk, but it feels like we're on the home straight now as we move towards running rigging. I counted, and I think I have 8 sails left to bend to yards / stunsail yards. There's a lot of tidying up to do with rope ends fixed with watered down PVA (a big advantage of making your own rope with DMC cordonnet thread, as it's natural, not synthetic), and trimmed to make them neat.
 
Thank you so much to all of you who've hung in there through what has proved to be a lengthy build
 
Here are a few shots of how she stands right now.  




Happy building
 
Rob

Hi everyone,
 
Three weeks later, and I've had another good day to work on Stefano. I finally made and died some more .5mm rope for the standing rigging, which allowed me to complete the backstays. I've also got some more work done on the yards, adding eyelets, blocks, and bending the forecourse to the main yard on the foremast. Again, this has caused the model to take up significantly more space on my desk, but it feels like we're on the home straight now as we move towards running rigging. I counted, and I think I have 8 sails left to bend to yards / stunsail yards. There's a lot of tidying up to do with rope ends fixed with watered down PVA (a big advantage of making your own rope with DMC cordonnet thread, as it's natural, not synthetic), and trimmed to make them neat.
 
Thank you so much to all of you who've hung in there through what has proved to be a lengthy build
 
Here are a few shots of how she stands right now.  




Happy building
 
Rob

Hi everyone,
 
Three weeks later, and I've had another good day to work on Stefano. I finally made and died some more .5mm rope for the standing rigging, which allowed me to complete the backstays. I've also got some more work done on the yards, adding eyelets, blocks, and bending the forecourse to the main yard on the foremast. Again, this has caused the model to take up significantly more space on my desk, but it feels like we're on the home straight now as we move towards running rigging. I counted, and I think I have 8 sails left to bend to yards / stunsail yards. There's a lot of tidying up to do with rope ends fixed with watered down PVA (a big advantage of making your own rope with DMC cordonnet thread, as it's natural, not synthetic), and trimmed to make them neat.
 
Thank you so much to all of you who've hung in there through what has proved to be a lengthy build
 
Here are a few shots of how she stands right now.  




Happy building
 
Rob

Thanks Rick! I look at yours to see how I should have done it.
 
I've been working on the stuns'l booms. The yard mounted ones are all shaped, stained, and 8 of them are mounted. I'll post some photos once they are all mounted and the ties are in place. In the interim, I was hoping someone might have some insight about the location of the of the davits. (I've started prepping them for installation) The China Trade painting and the Buttersworth painting both show black davits (so that is clear) and the forward davit mounted just aft of the mainmast channels but one shows the after davit mounted between the 3rd and 4th mizzen shroud (counting from the forward end) and the other shows it between the mizzen shrouds and the mizzen lower backstays. If anyone has any insight from other McKay clippers (or wherever) I would appreciate it.
 
The practical answer would seem to be to put it between the shrouds, (a) because there seems to be more room there to drill a hole and the shrouds are a little more out of the way than the backstays (plus there is currently a block from one of the halyards there) and (b) because it would seem to separate the fore and aft davits much longer than the apparent length of the boats. I'm actually not going to mount the ships boats (they are off on business somewhere), mainly because the castings are so bad, so it won't matter in that sense, but I would prefer to do this properly.
 
Any insights appreciated.
 
Regards,
George

Today I complete the topgallant masts.  The second photo show a side view of the model, with the various masts loosely attached.  I still have more to do on them, including installing fids, eyebolts, and blocks.

Looking magnificent!

Hi everyone,
 
Three weeks later, and I've had another good day to work on Stefano. I finally made and died some more .5mm rope for the standing rigging, which allowed me to complete the backstays. I've also got some more work done on the yards, adding eyelets, blocks, and bending the forecourse to the main yard on the foremast. Again, this has caused the model to take up significantly more space on my desk, but it feels like we're on the home straight now as we move towards running rigging. I counted, and I think I have 8 sails left to bend to yards / stunsail yards. There's a lot of tidying up to do with rope ends fixed with watered down PVA (a big advantage of making your own rope with DMC cordonnet thread, as it's natural, not synthetic), and trimmed to make them neat.
 
Thank you so much to all of you who've hung in there through what has proved to be a lengthy build
 
Here are a few shots of how she stands right now.  




Happy building
 
Rob

That's some cool looking stuff you've got there, Ian... and that book looks great, too. I've been really enjoying watching your progress with your Roman warship. A magnum opus, to be sure!
 
Okay - so here's the plan for waterproofing... Having sanded the hull some more the other day, I noticed that when I hold the hull up to the sun, I can see not only thin areas where the planking had gaps, but more than that, I can see pinholes where the planks and the filler haven't completely bonded...  Suffice it to say, if I were to try and float this boat right now, the water would be getting in right away... So... I've had a bit of a look around, and this is the plan.

It's called Eze-Kote, and it's designed specifically as a finishing resin, but it's water based, so clean up is easy, and it's low odour - it's a much nicer chemical to be dealing with. In addition, I've bought the lightweight glass fibre they recommend to go with it. I wanted something very light weight, so that it forms round the hull shape nice and easily, and is relatively smooth out of the box. 
 
Last time I used fibreglass resin, I used automotive stuff, and both the results (I used fibreglass mat, not knowing that was a disaster in the making), and the resulting headache and rough breathing for a few hours after were enough to tell me I hadn't taken enough / appropriate precautions, so I'm hoping this experience will be far less unpleasant.
 
I'll let you know how I get on, but there's a little more prep to be done first round the prop shaft and rudder post. I'm working on the assumption that good prep is always time well spent.
 
Thanks for looking in, and for the advice and encouragement.
 
Rob

That's some cool looking stuff you've got there, Ian... and that book looks great, too. I've been really enjoying watching your progress with your Roman warship. A magnum opus, to be sure!
 
Okay - so here's the plan for waterproofing... Having sanded the hull some more the other day, I noticed that when I hold the hull up to the sun, I can see not only thin areas where the planking had gaps, but more than that, I can see pinholes where the planks and the filler haven't completely bonded...  Suffice it to say, if I were to try and float this boat right now, the water would be getting in right away... So... I've had a bit of a look around, and this is the plan.

It's called Eze-Kote, and it's designed specifically as a finishing resin, but it's water based, so clean up is easy, and it's low odour - it's a much nicer chemical to be dealing with. In addition, I've bought the lightweight glass fibre they recommend to go with it. I wanted something very light weight, so that it forms round the hull shape nice and easily, and is relatively smooth out of the box. 
 
Last time I used fibreglass resin, I used automotive stuff, and both the results (I used fibreglass mat, not knowing that was a disaster in the making), and the resulting headache and rough breathing for a few hours after were enough to tell me I hadn't taken enough / appropriate precautions, so I'm hoping this experience will be far less unpleasant.
 
I'll let you know how I get on, but there's a little more prep to be done first round the prop shaft and rudder post. I'm working on the assumption that good prep is always time well spent.
 
Thanks for looking in, and for the advice and encouragement.
 
Rob

That's some cool looking stuff you've got there, Ian... and that book looks great, too. I've been really enjoying watching your progress with your Roman warship. A magnum opus, to be sure!
 
Okay - so here's the plan for waterproofing... Having sanded the hull some more the other day, I noticed that when I hold the hull up to the sun, I can see not only thin areas where the planking had gaps, but more than that, I can see pinholes where the planks and the filler haven't completely bonded...  Suffice it to say, if I were to try and float this boat right now, the water would be getting in right away... So... I've had a bit of a look around, and this is the plan.

It's called Eze-Kote, and it's designed specifically as a finishing resin, but it's water based, so clean up is easy, and it's low odour - it's a much nicer chemical to be dealing with. In addition, I've bought the lightweight glass fibre they recommend to go with it. I wanted something very light weight, so that it forms round the hull shape nice and easily, and is relatively smooth out of the box. 
 
Last time I used fibreglass resin, I used automotive stuff, and both the results (I used fibreglass mat, not knowing that was a disaster in the making), and the resulting headache and rough breathing for a few hours after were enough to tell me I hadn't taken enough / appropriate precautions, so I'm hoping this experience will be far less unpleasant.
 
I'll let you know how I get on, but there's a little more prep to be done first round the prop shaft and rudder post. I'm working on the assumption that good prep is always time well spent.
 
Thanks for looking in, and for the advice and encouragement.
 
Rob

That's some cool looking stuff you've got there, Ian... and that book looks great, too. I've been really enjoying watching your progress with your Roman warship. A magnum opus, to be sure!
 
Okay - so here's the plan for waterproofing... Having sanded the hull some more the other day, I noticed that when I hold the hull up to the sun, I can see not only thin areas where the planking had gaps, but more than that, I can see pinholes where the planks and the filler haven't completely bonded...  Suffice it to say, if I were to try and float this boat right now, the water would be getting in right away... So... I've had a bit of a look around, and this is the plan.

It's called Eze-Kote, and it's designed specifically as a finishing resin, but it's water based, so clean up is easy, and it's low odour - it's a much nicer chemical to be dealing with. In addition, I've bought the lightweight glass fibre they recommend to go with it. I wanted something very light weight, so that it forms round the hull shape nice and easily, and is relatively smooth out of the box. 
 
Last time I used fibreglass resin, I used automotive stuff, and both the results (I used fibreglass mat, not knowing that was a disaster in the making), and the resulting headache and rough breathing for a few hours after were enough to tell me I hadn't taken enough / appropriate precautions, so I'm hoping this experience will be far less unpleasant.
 
I'll let you know how I get on, but there's a little more prep to be done first round the prop shaft and rudder post. I'm working on the assumption that good prep is always time well spent.
 
Thanks for looking in, and for the advice and encouragement.
 
Rob

As I near the completion of Barque Stefano, I had a hankering to build something that was simple, where I could just follow the instructions, straight out of the box. Time will tell how closely I manage to do that, but having looked longingly at Nordkap as a teenager, she was the vessel I settled upon.
 
Here's a picture of what she's meant to end up looking like
 

 
Nordkap builds up into an 81cm l.o.a, 21cm beam vessel - so there'll be loads of room in the hull for all the radio gubbins. She's also small enough not to be too cumbersome to move around when building. I bought a new building board, and set about separating the laser cut frames from the "sprues".
 
Then I looked at the plans and noticed some strange discrepancies... There are two sets of measurements on plan 1 - the first shows the gaps between the forward extents of the frames (4-7) - this should measure up to 159mm. A second set of measurements show the filler blocks that will sit on top of the keel - these are 48mm, 50mm and 50mm - 148mm, leaving only 11mm for three frames - but the frames are 4mm at the least - closer to 5mm in fact... The instructions simply say that the frames are "quite vertical" and then leave the builder to work it out. Instead of guessing, I decided that using the deck would be a neat way of ensuring that the frames were essentially in the right position, so this part was cut out as well and used as a guide to get the frames in the right place. So... so far I've fitted the frames, and added the blocks in between - which have all turned out to be around the 48mm mark. This _may_ come back and bite me later, but I feel much more confident knowing that the deck fits with the frames in their locations, than simply hoping for the best.

The observant among you may notice a curvature of the keel (higher in the middle than at bow and stern - it's around 4mm, although it looks worse, perhaps because of lens distortion in this photo) - ironically, having cut the keel parts to be 55cm and 52cm respectively, I now realise that these are perhaps slightly short for the deck... removing the deck after gluing the frames in place got rid of this curvature entirely, and so I probably will need to modify the deck a little down the line, but that's fine - it'll be millimetres here and there, not centimetres, and the hull will be the right shape. The next step is to add the stringers along the bulkhead tops, and as I do that I can ensure the keel is straight. I'm not worried about modifying the deck to fit, I just wanted everything to be in the right ballpark.
 
I've also added the doublers that create something of a rabbet at bow and stern. 
 
More soon
 
Rob
 

Hi everyone,
 
Three weeks later, and I've had another good day to work on Stefano. I finally made and died some more .5mm rope for the standing rigging, which allowed me to complete the backstays. I've also got some more work done on the yards, adding eyelets, blocks, and bending the forecourse to the main yard on the foremast. Again, this has caused the model to take up significantly more space on my desk, but it feels like we're on the home straight now as we move towards running rigging. I counted, and I think I have 8 sails left to bend to yards / stunsail yards. There's a lot of tidying up to do with rope ends fixed with watered down PVA (a big advantage of making your own rope with DMC cordonnet thread, as it's natural, not synthetic), and trimmed to make them neat.
 
Thank you so much to all of you who've hung in there through what has proved to be a lengthy build
 
Here are a few shots of how she stands right now.  




Happy building
 
Rob

Hi everyone,
 
Three weeks later, and I've had another good day to work on Stefano. I finally made and died some more .5mm rope for the standing rigging, which allowed me to complete the backstays. I've also got some more work done on the yards, adding eyelets, blocks, and bending the forecourse to the main yard on the foremast. Again, this has caused the model to take up significantly more space on my desk, but it feels like we're on the home straight now as we move towards running rigging. I counted, and I think I have 8 sails left to bend to yards / stunsail yards. There's a lot of tidying up to do with rope ends fixed with watered down PVA (a big advantage of making your own rope with DMC cordonnet thread, as it's natural, not synthetic), and trimmed to make them neat.
 
Thank you so much to all of you who've hung in there through what has proved to be a lengthy build
 
Here are a few shots of how she stands right now.  




Happy building
 
Rob

She’s looking very impressive Rob, really nice to see all those sails! 

Hi everyone,
 
Three weeks later, and I've had another good day to work on Stefano. I finally made and died some more .5mm rope for the standing rigging, which allowed me to complete the backstays. I've also got some more work done on the yards, adding eyelets, blocks, and bending the forecourse to the main yard on the foremast. Again, this has caused the model to take up significantly more space on my desk, but it feels like we're on the home straight now as we move towards running rigging. I counted, and I think I have 8 sails left to bend to yards / stunsail yards. There's a lot of tidying up to do with rope ends fixed with watered down PVA (a big advantage of making your own rope with DMC cordonnet thread, as it's natural, not synthetic), and trimmed to make them neat.
 
Thank you so much to all of you who've hung in there through what has proved to be a lengthy build
 
Here are a few shots of how she stands right now.  




Happy building
 
Rob

I am working on chapter 3.  The videos have you shape, paint and install the main bulwarks.  When that is done you sand the transom to the correct angle so the last piece can be installed.  I chose to make a card template so that I could sand and test fit.  This is a crucial part as the hull planking must come up flush with this piece. Once I have a good fit here, the main bulwarks will be glued in place.  They are plywood and somewhat fragile, no need to damage them when moving things about while sanding.  I am almost there, just a little bit to go.

Hi Frank and thank you for following along.
I don’t have a date yet, I’m making some slight revisions to a few parts on the 1st chapter as well as adding a much needed frame support jig. I will hopefully begin building soon but I need to be well ahead in the construction before I can release anything otherwise I could leave people hanging. This is a hobby for my hobby and I cannot dedicate myself full time yet. But  once I complete the hull and planking I plan to move much quicker…unless I decide to rig all the guns again.
JJ

Glad to hear you managed to remedy the situation. 

Small update for today.
Frank.

Disaster averted.  I managed to un glue the joints and raise the deck enough to clean everything up.  I will give a light sand after the new glue dries, should be OK.

Good evening, today’s update is all about the cranes located at the bow. The hardest part for me was building the tackle, these pulley's are very small, just 3mm at the widest part.
 

That deck looks great. Thanks for sharing this build, I'm enjoying following along.

That deck looks great. Thanks for sharing this build, I'm enjoying following along.

Well I know I haven't posted anything for quite a while, but I have not abandoned ship.  Attached are two (not terrific) photos of the PEGASUS as she stands right now.  Progress is being made, albeit somewhat slowly.