vossiewulf

Next up was the problem of wood stock preparation.
Majority of the interior construction is made out of relatively small lumber, 2-4mm in 1:48 scale.  I could never cut those perfectly on a table saw, they always need a lot of finessing later on, resulting in an uneven strip. The wood sheets I have are 1 or 2 or 3mm thick, so more sanding is needed if you need something in between. The strip preparation was taking too much efforts.
A thickness sander would be ideal, but the only one in a small scale is Byrnes, which is rather a collector item nowadays.
DYI options are not appealing either, and they are still noisy and dusty.
Another alternative is a thickness planing jig. Most of them are too complicated for my task - with knobs and adjustments leading to inaccuracies, so I decided to use spacers. The range of required thicknesses is rather narrow - on of the largest parts (gun deck beam) is just around 4mm thick. 
 
Decided to build the jig out of scrap piece of walnut. Did not want to risk using plywood, the grooves might end up on a wrong layer, resulting in an uneven surface. They are tiny, but need to be smooth. 
 
Cutting precise grooves on a table saw is not so easy, but slow and steady does the job

Router plane helps to clean up the bottom of the groove:

Resulting jig, custom made for the miniature Veritas bench plane:

Spacers are made out of styrene, very good material for that. Easy to get in a variety of thicknesses, affordable, does not warp with moisture, fairly hard (to avoid compressing too much when planing). I have cut a bunch of spacers with a smallest increment of 0.25mm, should be enough for the range of thicknesses I need.

Jig in action:

Quite happy with it! Simple jig, but very effective. And perfectly quiet  
The finish is incredibly smooth out of the box, so I can use the part right away with no further surface cleanup or sanding. If necessary - should not be hard to add a sanding block for the same jig. 
I could easily get down to 1mm thickness, anything lower - and it is better to hold the "tail" of the strip rather than push it into the stop, otherwise it might get wavy.
 

Thanks Dan! It's the C3 SIEG 7x14 lathe. It's basically the same as the lathe I have except it's newer, has a somewhat more powerful motor, and has a bed that's 4" longer. Long enough to turn a decent mainmast between centers, I'm really not confident I could do a good job with the top turning free. 

Thanks Pat!
 
The lathe was packed pretty well. I'm guessing it took a pretty significant drop onto concrete to rip the electronics box off like that. But thankfully looking at it it otherwise seems well, although obviously I can't run it to do thorough tests. But I am less than happy that I have to repair something that happened before I took possession of it, and I'm going to mention that to Little Machine Shop. I still have to replace my mill that died and I was assuming I'd buy the Hi-Torque LMS mill, but this hasn't encouraged me.

Finished all of the lower shrouds. Using scrap wood, I was able to create rigging templates for the channels that helped to keep them consistent.
 
Once done, I wanted to take a stab at rigging some of the deadeyes. I managed to do 8 of them on the main mast, port side.
I have to research exactly how they're tied off when completed to be sure I did them correctly and I have to add the cleats prior to finishing them.
 
They will remain loose until all 6 sets of shrouds are strung up.

Yeah but simulating wood with paint is a whole thing in and of itself, requiring at least two colors (one translucent) for best results and doing that without clogging the sheave holes would be a problem on smaller blocks. 

Hi All,
Update time....
 
Over the past few weeks, I have not been a "Slouch...."
I have continued on the Masts/Yards.
 
(I know the Hull needs some love, I'll get on to this after I have drilled holes for Pedestal threaded rods.)
 
Today I painted the various Mast components and put them together, (Without Glue at this stage (With the exception of Mainmast fittings and alternate Mast Caps to enable disassembly.)), to see if everything lined up. Not too bad, some touch-up work required.
Mast Coats brought all Masts into line and the Mast Plug-In Housings were a real bonus. (I am pleased that I spent the time on these.)
(The Top Mast Tops/Backstay Spreaders are yet to be assembled/painted. (The Tops require small holes for Topmast Yard Lift Blocks.
 
Mast Coats required quite a bit of work to get them to fit as did the majority of Mast/Yard fittings.
 
I assembled the Yards, again, no glue at this stage apart from the inboard Stunsail Boom fittings. (Yards need painting first, Bocks installed and then Stunsail Booms/Jackstays, Etc.)
 
So, there you have it!!
 
A footnote: Some castings are extremely brittle.... 🙂
 
Cheers....HOF.
 
Photos:
 
 
 
 

Pegasus is in her place in my office. Love just staring at it. 

Features like that are highly likely to be embedded in the forum application they're using and are therefore not changeable except with coding customization which is I'm sure beyond the budget of MSW. 

Sorry to hear about your back problems Vossie, best wishes for a full and speedy recovery. 
 
Makes you wonder why some of these companies do not pack their items better.  I understanding making savings where possible, but packaging is one area that proper packing would negate the costs of replacements etc. Hope it all is still in alignment?
 
cheers
 
Pat

Get better soon. Curious to see your new lathe. Good luck with it!
Dan

Scrollwork cut out.  Some fine tuning done, but more to go.  
 

Paul Le Wol is correct! It seems so obvious now. Thanks everyone for the input. 

Second planking laid down and sanded.



As in the first layer, FF (Funky Fettlin') was done near the keel.  It is not a paragon of historical correctness, but once the filling, sanding, and painting is done, no one other than viewers of this post will ever know.

I have began working on this and should be done glueing the frames together this is my third build and biggest yet. I will be making this RC and I’m setting my finish date for opening day for boating here in Seattle (May 3rd) so I have a bit of work to get done and and may have some questions along the way. I have not seen anyone post much further than just glueing the frames together so if anyone has done a similar build please show me thank you
 
day 1 frames glue. Don’t mind the plaid wax paper it is all I could find but it’s slightly helpful lining things up 

Back to the CS after an all-consuming home renovation project.
 
Produced a capstan, windlass, and two mooring posts fitted on/under the forecastle.  From an historical point of view this was fun as none of these items are as they might have been when the CS was originally launched.  What I have modeled are Portuguese owner modifications.
 
Capstan – This was no mystery as I have clear pictures of the double-head iron pattern.  I neglected to add whelps to my model but don’t think anyone will notice.  I used greeting card stock to fabricate the iron head discs.  Simply cut out the circles and apply water thin CA to harden.  The pawl tray was built up by rolling up two widths of printer paper and then saturating with water thin CA to harden.  Worked pretty well.  The pictures below should help.
 
Mooring/Towing Posts – These are for sure a carry-over from the original CS design.  Would have also served to support the original windlass.
 
Windlass – This was really interesting to research but very hard to decide what it might look like.  I got clues from Longridge who described it as of an “ordinary” pattern with bevel drive gear and drum (band) brakes, installed by the Portuguese.  I was also able to pull some detail from a Falmouth photo (see below) that clearly shows the anchor chain and pocket drive sprocket (wildcat).  No brake drum outboard of the wildcat so that helped narrow it down.  I eventually decided that some version of an Emerson/Emerson-Walker was used.  Of course, I don’t know that for sure and it hardly matters as all my modeling efforts are essentially hidden.  You can only capture a glimpse of it when looking at a shallow angle with illumination.  Once the ship is all finished you will be hard pressed to see it w/o a bore scope or dental mirror.  It seems like a terrible waste of effort, but it was important to me to have it there.
 
 


 
The pigsty turned out good enough, but I used paint brush bristles for the bars, and they keep moving around as temp/humidity fluctuate.  Not good.  Will probably replace with something metallic for stability.


 
 
Capstan



 
 
Windlass
Wildcats cut from small brass washers and backed with thin high-density polystyrene packaging rescued from trash can.  Spacer between halves made from rolled up printer paper and frozen with CA

 
Brake drums made with small steel washers ground down on Dremel "lathe".  Cast iron supports made out of greeting card stock and frozen with CA.

 
Made shaft bearings out of rolled up printer paper to make a tube and then frozen with CA.  Worked well.

 
The pawl wheel is made out of a steel washer and hand cut with small file.  Warping drums are wood turned on my Dremel tool.  Didn't bother with including a vertical drive pinion gear.  As with most everything else on this part, there is a big reduction in detail as who is ever going to see it!

Well, so what happened? 
 
In the end there was a tiny issue remaining. There is a winch on PS with a wire that leads up on the bow connection to lift the floating line into the coupling. I wanted that wire to be depicted, but never had a really good idea how to do that, since the bow piece was on a different part of the model. Eventually I figured out a way to do it, but I had to use the hair-thin Uni Caenis thread. So I glued a long piece of uniCaenis to my winch and glued the winch to the model. 
 
All said and done the model was resting, with only the two hull parts on top of the eraser with the winch attached. That Uni Caenis is a rather curly kind of thread and (definitely with the dark green back-ground of my cutting board) nearly invisible. 
I wanted to grab the thread with my tweezer tip, but failed since my tweezer tips don't close properly anymore. However, during that manipulation a curled part of the rope got between the back of my tweezers without me seeing it. 
I moved back with my arm since I had the idea I didn't grab it and the whole ship came with it. During my surprise jank, the PS part remained attached and dangling on that rope and winch, but the SB released and crashed to the floor. 
After my initial shock, I saw it laying on its side and thought it was ok, but upon closer inspection it really wasn't ok. Don't know how (or how many times) it hit the floor, but somehow a mooring winch on the aft along with the aft anchor were gone (anchor support still there but thrashed), but worse, the bow section broke off. The bulwark broke where I drilled the 0.5mm fairlead hole, but took some of the filler with it. 
 
Also the "cloud" broke off the dredge pipe, but that was really no concern. The dredge pipe gantries also came off, dangling to the ropes on the dredge pipe, but since they were just dry fitted over pins, they released cleanly. 

 

On the first search I found the winch back. The anchor was of course nowhere to be found. But both of them were not my concern. That would could not be fixed in any proper way given the size and bulwark breaking. Filing/sanding after applying any filler would definitely ruin that bow and I'm kind of eager to finish this project as it has stalled the Chaconia build for long enough. 
 
But here comes some good news. I was kind of "lucky", because I found the broken part back. Tiny as it is, it does seem to have broken in a clean way, so I managed to glue it back on. It only needed some paint. The clean cut on the fairlead was a good match, so it's hardly visible. There is only a tiny corner missing, but that corner is hidden below the bow connection platform, so I can live with that. 
 
At first I feared for a total loss as I wouldn't be able to fix that bow in probably a week's time, but now we're back on track. 
 
 
 

I had some time over the last few days and spent it attaching the brass rudders in anticipation of painting the hull. Also added and faired the observation bow nose.  Now it looks like the Calypso I remember. To create the openings for the port holes, I marked where they would go and then heated up a pointed awl and created small dimples in the ABS rounded plastic nose where I would drill.  That prevented my drill from dancing around the curved surface.  I anticipated some separation in the two halves of the bow nose when drilling since the material is so thin and there is not much surface area to glue. Before I installed the nose, I glued some scrap ABS plastic strips across the seams on the inside which worked well. Also started with a small drill bit and worked my way up carefully. So far, so good.
Cheers from Florida

I propose some photos of the progress.
The sailor is starting to take on brilliant colors! This sailor is from the 18th century, and this is not absurd, even if his clothe suggests that he is more of a shipowner than a simple sailor.
Mario Marzari informs us that the first reference to a Trabaccolo found so far dates back to 1667 and is attributed to Francesco Maria Appendini, even if it might be an interpretation of documents made by the author himself. The first actual documents that refer to this type of boat, found in Rimini by the historian Maria Lucia De Nicold, date from 1683.
In Venice, on the other hand, Levi mentions the presence, in 1711, of a trabaccolo and a trabaccoletto inside the Arsenal itself. The oldest reference to the trabaccolo found in Trieste dates back to 1721, while Kandler specifies that no less than three armed trabaccoli were part of the new Austro-Triestine fleet in 1733. In 1735, this same Navy purchased several trabaccoli to arm them with cannons and swivel guns.
[...]
According to the old documents consulted, it therefore appears that it is only from the 18th century onwards that reference is made to a real ship called trabaccolo.
It remains that the kit version is closer to the architectures of the 19th century.
The vaigrage (fasciame interno) is finished up to the stringers.
 

 
The mast steps of the main mast and the foremast are in place on the keelson.
The mast steps of the two mooring bitts (bitta di ormeggio) are also positioned next to their respective mast.
 
 
The captain's cabin is well advanced. I will have to refine the steps of the staircase; there are also the beds to install.
 
 
 
 
Gilberto Penzo gives us some information on the accommodations.
"The accommodations were spartan, but almost luxurious compared to those of fishing boats, due to their height and the presence of real berths. In the drawing of the Souvenirs by François Edmond Paris, in the forecastle accommodation, we can distinguish a bunk with a profiled edge, towards the bow a raised shelf that could be the third bunk and two chests or perhaps tide boxes (casse da mar). There is no hold for ropes or anchor chains. The stern one, where one could only stand between the beams, measured 240 cm long, separated from the hold with removable floorboards (palgioli) and from the stern by thin partitions (parapetti). On the wall, we see a square opening that could be the access to the bunk. The spartan furnishing is completed by a simple chest and a shelf towards the stern that could also serve as a bed.
 
 
Fig. 239. Giovanni Pascoli, interior of the forecastle accommodations.
 

Foremast under construction
 
I have been whittling away making lots of bits for the fore mast and have mostly completed the lower section now. The topmast 'stick' is ready to be attached and rigged but that will be a job for next month. 
 
This is the lower section. From left to right we have 
Step for the mast cap
Masthead with shrouds looped over
Trestle trees and cross trees
Cheeks (hounds)
Copper plate for gaff jaws
Mini clothes peg to hold the shrouds
Hoops for gaff sail
Pin rail and belaying pins
Single cleat
Waterproofing ring over the partners

The photos below show some of the details. I have not found out how to reduce their size so please forgive the messy look in places from the magnification. 
 
The cheeks (or hounds if you prefer) have simulated bolts on the sides. I finally have found a use for the little brass nails in the Caldercraft kits! The copper plate is half of a plate I used for the hull (Amati) and I imagine that a coppersmith would have used the same thing. John Roach's logbook records visits by a coppersmith. 

I put bolsters on the trestle trees and a rope grommet over the bolsters and here is the first pair of ropes: the pendant and first shroud seized together. The rope is 0.6mm linen thread that I painted brown to simulate serving and the seizing is 0.15mm fly tying thread. I also realised that the cross trees I had drawn were too long so I reduced them for the model. 

Four loops go over the masthead and this has to be done before fitting the mast cap and topmast. The second pairs of shrouds are from Ropes of Scale 0.6mm dark thread. 

The hoops for the sail are from laminated paper. I chose a cream colour which provides some contrast with the mast and suggests new wood. I calculated that I would need 11 for this sail and have fitted 13 just in case. 

The mast ring with belaying pins was inspired by the schooner in Peterson's book on Rigging Fore and Aft Craft. I added one cleat below it because I needed one more belaying point. 

The design of the 'partner ring' comes from my imagination as a way to waterproof the gaps between the mast and the partner planks in the deck. I guessed tarred canvas which is held in place by turns of rope. 

Next jobs on this mast are to drill holes for eyes in the back of the mast head. The ones I had predrilled are too widely separated and the lowest of them is covered by shroud loops. The topmast and mast cap are ready and waiting. 
 
George
 

Just FYI for anyone following, I managed to injure my back early last week and have been mostly bedridden since. It is getting better, slowly. Also I am kind of stuck on the Lady Nelson, because of the tight fit of the jibboom I will need to rig the forestay before mounting the jibboom, which means I need to make the mainmast first. I decided to replace my 7x10 lathe with a 20 year newer 7x14 lathe so I could turn the mainmast for Lady Nelson between centers, as well as accommodating the need to also turn much longer yards and masts in the future.
 
But of course there have been delays. Specifically the lathe arrived with the electronics box having been ripped off in transit, nice. So I am waiting for a wholly new electronics box from Little Machine Shop to repair the lathe so I can turn the mast and get back to making progress.
 
Hopefully between back and lathe I will be on the positive side of things by late next week.

Yeah but simulating wood with paint is a whole thing in and of itself, requiring at least two colors (one translucent) for best results and doing that without clogging the sheave holes would be a problem on smaller blocks. 

Just FYI for anyone following, I managed to injure my back early last week and have been mostly bedridden since. It is getting better, slowly. Also I am kind of stuck on the Lady Nelson, because of the tight fit of the jibboom I will need to rig the forestay before mounting the jibboom, which means I need to make the mainmast first. I decided to replace my 7x10 lathe with a 20 year newer 7x14 lathe so I could turn the mainmast for Lady Nelson between centers, as well as accommodating the need to also turn much longer yards and masts in the future.
 
But of course there have been delays. Specifically the lathe arrived with the electronics box having been ripped off in transit, nice. So I am waiting for a wholly new electronics box from Little Machine Shop to repair the lathe so I can turn the mast and get back to making progress.
 
Hopefully between back and lathe I will be on the positive side of things by late next week.