vossiewulf

Thanks Steve

That's a little simplified, isn't it Mark? As I recall the progression went from full lateen mizzen course, to keeping the lateen boom but stopping the sail at the mast as it would be here, and then the final evolution was straightforward fore-and-aft gaff sails with a boom on the bottom and a gaff up top. At least that's what I recall reading. Can't remember the dates between lateen mizzen and shortened lateen mizzen, maybe 1690-1710 or so? And the final step was fairly late, after 1800 I think.

Fixed that sentence for you

Thanks @popeye the sailor I posted one pic in the thread on how to rig these anchors, but I should catch up progress here. I've made all the rigging for both anchors, and have rigged one but the other is in limbo while the experts determine if a cutter could operate two anchors at once, and if so, how. Since you can't engage or disengage the hawsers from the windlass without pulling all the cable up on deck and detaching it from the bitts, either they went through extreme anguish trying to operate two anchors, or you could loosen one set of wrappings selectively, and work on one anchor without affecting the other. There is a surprising (to me) amount of discussion on this point, considering the commonness of cutter models built and the consistency of their windlass/anchor arrangements. If I'm allowed to wrap both hawsers on the windlass, I will hang the port anchor from the cathead. If not, I will stow it with no hawser. As expected, starting with those 2mm blocks means that working with even a 1/8" block is all giggles and rainbows. The catfall blocks with their hooks, which once again proved the axiom that no matter how many gauges of wire you have, you will never have the right size. These involved a fair amount of hand filing as what was needed fell between the two closest gauge sizes I have. Anchor ready to be installed with hawser, catfall block, and buoy rope. I went with an anchor bend as the line was too thick to do the fisherman's bend recommended for small anchors, and an anchor clinch was only used on large ship anchors. I had to flip her over to drill the holes for the catfall eyes in the underside of the catheads, which of course I didn't know I needed until now. While I was at it, I finished drilling holes for CF rod in the keel that will go in the pedestals. And we get a probably last clear view of the planking. Starboard anchor installed, but not finished. I need to put a small cleat on the top of each cathead where it sits on the rail for the catfall line. Also, if anyone is reading in enough detail, how does one finish a line belayed to a timberhead? I'm not sure what the line is called (the fully served one), but usually it goes from a belaying point on one side of the cathead to another on the other side, but since I didn't have two belaying points I went from the timberhead through the anchor and back to the same timberhead. So does the end of the line just stick out in space? Or did they go under other lines a few more times to completely hide it? Another view, I seized a loop in one end of the fully-served line and that went over the timberhead first. How I lashed the other end to a timberhead, and a good look at the buoy rope. In retrospect (AGAIN), I should have gone from timberhead to the shank of the anchor instead of the fluke. The way I have it, it would move. OTOH, if I went across the shank the lashings would be bearing on the buoy line, I don't know if that was considered a problem or not. And the controversial windlass, with the starboard anchor hawser having turns around it. As noted, just waiting for final decision before mounting the other anchor. After I do that, I HAVE to stop doing other things and mount the rudder before the whole mess becomes too fragile.

Everything I see is very nice, very clean work Jean-Paul. No need for help here, just sit back and watch a pretty ship being made

Isn't this another kit that was designed by Chuck Passaro? You're right that you solved the problem well and are moving on, but out of curiosity's sake and future needs, you might could drop him a PM and see if he has any input on bending the wood that MSW is including in the kits these days. You're right, woods have different fundamental bending processes and you could do everything right and still have problems with certain woods. The beauty of the steam cleaners is that you just tell the admiral you're buying an excellent tool for cleaning bathrooms and kitchens to total sterility, and she approves and awards you a medal of bravery

The F-8's other claim to fame, that Slog has already shown, is that it's the only production aircraft that had a variable incidence wing. It was an odd feature in that it was fairly Russian in its sledgehammer approach to solving the competing needs of supersonic wings vs. wings that would allow a reasonably slow approach to the carrier- the hell with that complex swing-wing idea, we'll just tilt the whole damned wing! Problem solved! Pass the vodka comrade! Also, anyone with a vague interest should watch the below, it's one of the best Dogfights episodes and its title is The Last Gunfighter

An excellent example of a Linus Battlei, probably of the species Franconium LXXIV. And Tiziano gets the singing of angels also, like Amalio, as it's the only proper music to match his work

Jim, I haven't checked this case, but all of your machines that I own are built in a straightforward fashion with standard fasteners, making them easy to disassemble as needed. Is it really not possible for us to remove the current table and install the larger one?

I've looked at as many contemporary cutter models as I can find, and I've never seen a gun port lid of any kind on any of them. And all have bow ports, and virtually all of them look as if it would be nearly impossible to operate a gun from there, and many are such that you'd have had to lift the gun and carriage just to get them to the bow ports. So like B.E. and others, I'm at a loss as to why they are that way, and consistently so when there is written evidence that they actually were used. It's a conundrum that is unfortunately unlikely to be resolved without the use of a Delorean going 88mph with a Mr. Fusion powerplant attached to the back.

The degree to which you can bend wood is a function of how hot you get it for how long, at high temperatures the lignin that provides the strength of the wood structure gets progressively more flexible. The hotter you get it, the more you can bend it without fracture. That's why steam is much better for serious bending as it gets the wood considerably hotter without burning than other options. She looks fine as is with the bow planks covered, so no worries, just something for the next time around. Good steam cleaners that produce lots of steam on demand are pretty cheap these days, and all you need is a clear plastic tube to attach to the output end of one of those and you have a perfect plank steamer. Leave them in there for 15-30min and you'll be able to tie bows with them. Ok you won't be able to tie bows with them but you can bend them around very tight curves. Look up Kortes' boier build, it's apparently against the law in the Netherlands for a boier yacht to have a straight line anywhere, and their hulls are closing in on being circular. He had to do lots of severe wood bending for that, all done with steam.

Sam, I finally had success blackening with a good finish after rinsing the parts well in alcohol to clean and remove any finger oils, and then leaving the parts in vinegar for 30 min or so. You have to do two things- generally clean the parts, and remove the oxide layer so the blackener works. You could just use your ultrasonic cleaner for the cleaning part, and use vinegar to remove the oxide layer. I also had better luck dabbing the blackener on with a q-tip and periodically rinsing it off in water rather than dipping the parts in, as nonsensical as that may be.

Ok so now do I put hawsers going to both anchors, and have both of them going around the windlass? I agree that letting out an anchor by easing out line wrapped around the windlass would be more controlled, but even the anchor on a cutter was plenty heavy, would that have been a reasonable process? I'm thinking it was heavy enough that you'd have to go very slowly, and all of the anchoring procedures I've read seem to involve the anchor going down quickly.

Nice job Slog! F-8, was called "the last of the gunfighters" as it still carried guns during the time where they were being eliminated in favor of missiles, which turned out to be a bad mistake at the time. Today of course guns are pretty much superfluous, the chances of planes evading both modern radar and dogfight missiles is really pretty slim. As for the F-8, everything I've read says that pilots loved flying it, the maneuverability and power were very good for the time. And even though the F-4 proved popular, they should have gone with the Super Crusader, it would have flown rings around the Rhino.

Wow, now that's a busy deck. I thought you said you hadn't seen any contemporary models with turns around the windlass? That one has both anchor hawsers on the windlass.

Thanks to everyone for the information and comments. As Greg notes, having turns around the windlass helps explain to the less knowledgeable how the anchors were worked. So I think I'm going to leave the starboard one as is, the ship just raised that anchor and the hawser will be detached and stowed shortly, and just have the port one stowed- I'm not sure how they even fit the runs of hawser on this small and busy deck, they had to have the train tackles stowed at least, and I have those on deck.

Lots of knives here from reasonably good to extremely good. Western and Japanese knives. If you want to try western knives, try Pfeil and Two Cherries and they also carry Ron Hock's blades. And any of the Japanese marking/woodworking knives here are going to be Rc63 or so and therefore sharpenable to a very good edge. You just regrind them to whatever you want and make a handle. And if you want an insanely good edge, buy really good Japanese marking knives, they'll be pushing Rc64-65, but edge fragility is an issue.

Jo, looks pretty good to me. However I would even up the bottom of the blocks/bulkheads. Either you need to add material between frames 1 and 2 or remove material between frames 2 and 3, or both. This is going to establish where your planks are coming into the stem and not too far from now, you probably have to cut a rabbet (US) or a rebate (UK) along this line so that the planks will fit correctly, and you want the substrate (fillers and frames) to flow smoothly into the rabbet. Below is me smoothing out the rabbet on the bows of my Lady Nelson, easier to understand by seeing it.

Thanks @el cid, @mtaylor, and @Roger Pellett. The question remains though, what do I do on the port side? Run a hawser to the port anchor and run it around the windlass barrel, assuming they could loosen one or the other as necessary? Or do I leave the hawser off entirely?

Don't hold your breath waiting to be impressed by the sharpness of Flexcut, their steel is just average. I bought one of their knives, it ended up being used to open boxes that arrive at my door.

Thanks to @el cid, @allanyed, @Roger Pellett, and @popeye2sea. Here is my problem: I am trying to rig anchors on my cutter complete with anchor buoys. But as you see, once a hawser is bent to an anchor, there is no way to either engage or disengage it from the windlass- that has to happen before the hawser becomes attached to the anchor. But at the same time, they can't raise an anchor unless it's engaged on the windlass. So I am thinking it simply wasn't possible for a cutter with this type of windlass to drop and recover two anchors, and in terms of rigging I am inclined to leave the hawser entirely off the port bowyer because I can't see any way for both hawsers and anchors to be in action at the same time.

Hope anchor issues go here and not in the rigging section. Anyway, I am confused as to how one operated two anchors from one windlass, was not the normal anchoring process to drop one anchor, drift, drop another and then winch yourself back to midway between the two? Or did small vessels like cutters only use one anchor? I can't see how you could have both hawsers wrapped around the windlass and still be able to operate on one at a time, but if you don't pass the hawser around the windlass before dropping an anchor, I have no idea how you're supposed to drop said anchor safely, much less how you're going to get the hawser around the windlass to be able to raise that anchor post facto.

It looks fine Jolene, that's what it should look like, nice job. Only thing is if you're going to add more balsa blocks, you want to do that all at once because as you see, when you sand down the balsa you're sanding down and beveling the frames also. You really want to do that process all at once to end up with a fully smooth result, as each frame needs to be sanded and beveled into something exactly halfway between the frame in front and the frame in back.

That's the only solution if we don't have dimensions wrong somewhere- they'd have had to shorten the breeching ropes until the carriage couldn't really move at all, and hope the bulwarks could take it. And you'd have to work the guns outboard, probably over top of the rail rather than trying to do it through the small ports.

Yes, I have the advantage of doing an imaginary ship that has some very odd features for a cutter (like the stern) so I can pretty much do whatever I want and get away with it. I changed the way the main boom will be rigged, replaced the windlass and boomsprit mount to something that looks like Trial, pretty much making it up as I go along. I like that in one respect but certainly will be looking to do specific ships in the future. And yes, no matter what you learn there are simply now more questions.