Jond

3 partway through the planks We had a little excitement last month when our annual Northeast Shipmodelers Guild show took place in Bath Me. We went this year to the shed associated with Maine's First ship. That is the reconstructed replica of the 1607 Pinnace built here,named Virginia, known to the be first European vessel built in America. Here is their website internet image of her sailing from the shed Here is an image of Gjoa sitting with other of my collection at the show inside the shed. The idea was for all of us to bring models being worked on. The audience was lots of fun, some came for the models and others were waiting to go sail on Virgina. Over the past several weeks I dove into the reading of Amundsen’s diaries of the venture across the top of Canada. Wow. What incredible people and how, according to Amundsen they all got along so well. Lots of fun sailing tales too. The gaff seemed to break several times, and the lack of wood was a big impact. During their third winter they were on a beach loaded with driftwood and the tried to replace it....more on that later. Progress The next 7 images are the familiar porcupine type images of early planking and all the finagling we do to fit clamps. Here are two images while at a breathing point, when the first two bands are done and planning the tough center ones commences. Since this is a painted hull, I am milling a few types of scrap wood. most of the planking is cut down bass wood, but a few maple planks are in the stock.

Dear Sheepsail. thanks for your interest. I think San Francisco has lost a treasure but the whole story of her return to Norway was fun. And now the Maud recovery from Arctic Canada..... the beat goes on. cheers

12. we are back to work This update is to celebrate the resumption of my build of this fun schooner. During the past year I diverted into the arctic where half of my current and near future builds are planned. I hope to continue in parallel with arctic stories and vessels and the Boothbay region shipyards, stories and vessels. The real live full-size work in our town this year is the rebuild of the vessel Niagara from Erie Pennsylvania. I have been down several rabbit holes over the years following the Ernestina Morrissey and Bowdoin rebuilds but have chosen not to focus on this area. I will visit a few times and what I learn I will share on whomever has an open log. She is quite the popular vessel, so I am sure I will find one. The first event that got Elizabeth Howard off the shelf was our annual model show in Bath, Maine. This year we moved to the shed that houses Maine First ship, the 1607 Pinnace Virginia. I stood up the masts and added a few shrouds just to have some visible change. The intent is to include models that are being built as a part of the show. In the view below she is among several other builds and anxious to return to the shop and not to the shelf. 1 here she is at the show in Bath me. In my posting of last year, I showed the photos that I am using to figure out how best to show the deck. My current activities include adjusting things to better fit the dimensions that I have extracted from the photos. 2 here is image showing a printout of the fore deck photo with hand measurements. It’s very low tech as the view shows the dimensions on the photo compared to the 11 inches bow to foremast. I also realized that the foremast head stay is not going to the samson post, so I needed to move that aft and then, like on other schooners, rig an iron loop from deck structure around the bowsprit to take the load of the lower foremast stay. I also have rebuilt the bowsprit so it can now come aft to the samson post near the windless. Next up is the windless and its machinery. Probably 10 years ago I bought a “fisherman windless kit “ . It has been sitting in a box all these years so now is the time to use it. 3-5 here we see first setting the main mast and rigging the shrouds. One can also note my arctic build Gjoa is at the far end of the worktable, so I can divide my time. The other two deck overviews show where we are starting, with the kit windless in place……. something is just not right I find it is missing a key ingredient, a direct drive wheel to connect to the donkey engine that surely would have been there. Looking even more closely to the photo above I see what I wanted to see; a second set of bitts just forward of the engine box, very fuzzy but clearly with a flywheel. So, borrowing experience from my schooner Bluenose build, I went ahead and had some fun. Here is my low-tech approach to adding a drive gear to the barrel. These 4 images show: First attempt to simply cut the “barrel and drill a hole to receive an extended shaft to hold the gear. This was an oops Second attempt when I realized I needed to shrink down the spool to make room for the gear drive. Drilling the winch to receive the other end of the shaft Using the drill press to carve two new winches And here is the partial reassembly. I will need to add some chain and the breaks for the anchor windless. One of the details I like in this option is the second windless is obviously a higher speed than the big windless barrel and more reasonable for raising sails. All for now I am just happy to have at least started again.

02 Starting the reading and preparing Drawings In preparing for my builds there is always a lot of fun reading. I just added about 8 books to my library, [ it's like stacking fireplace wood before winter] and I am sure more are in the wings. I got the Fram Museum illustrated diary of Amundsen’s voyage through the passage, a joy. I also bought the two-volume reprinted [ English] diary that Roald wrote. The publisher printed it in the faint broken font of a 1910 typewriter. What fun This build is but a chapter in the tale of the Scandinavians. I believe my tale will include: • Nordenskiold on the Vega making the Northeast passage 1878 to 1880 • Nansen- Sverdrup [FRAM to be another build but same story} 1893-1896 • Sverdrup FRAM. Canadian Arctic 1898 – 1902 • Amundsen Gjoa Northwest passage 1902-1906 • Amundsen FRAM Antarctica 1910 -1912 • Sverdrup/Amundsen Maud 1917-1926 Before deeper study these are my understood points of reference. Mostly from other reading or recent internet sources. I hope to expand my understanding though this winter as I build the two models. Nordenskiold is our starting point. There is some cross reference as Sweden and Norway were not separated until 1905. My reason to pull this story in is the geographical relevance, but more to our mission, a study in the evolution of active exploration vessels. The Vega was a steam powered bark, a Sealer. She was launched in 1872. Many of the vessels used by explorers up through 1913 included a wide selection of similar whaling/ sealing steam powered barks. Robert Peary used them, including the Winward which the year before had recused Nansen from Franz Josef land. Greely and Hall used them 1860’s to 1880's, and MacMillan used them from USA up through 1913 and found much difficulty. He was finally rescued by Robert Bartlett in 1913 after being in Etah, Greenland for 4 years. Nansen understood the effects of ice on the hulls though over wintering, and FRAM was all about the shape. She was quite successful. The fact that Amundsen not only took her to the Antarctic but used her design for the third vessel Maud speaks to the correctness of “fit for purpose”. Gjoa was a 1872 Norwegian fishing sloop [ cutter rig ]. Amundsen understood the need for less than 10 feet of draft, and a small profile to be able to maneuver through the narrow and shallow inshore passages which he both expected and indeed did find. He had a new type 13 horsepower engine that could burn many things. I hope to learn more about it. I look forward to the details by reading his diary. Off to the drawings. There are several exchanges in the MSW logs about drawings for these vessels. The models of Gjoa are apparently not currently available as kits. Dialogues suggested that the Model Shipways 1950 vintage drawings for their solid hull kit were even better than the expensive ones from the Oslo museum. I found an old Model shipway kit on eBay and thus I have a set of prints. Scale….I plan to build this vessel at 1:48 as that is the same scale as my Schooner Bowdoin. I will show these vessels side by side as an extended chapter. It will discuss the influence of this little gem of a vessel and its impact on MacMillan programing his schooner in 1920. The scene….it is too early now but starting out I think it be good to show her moored in ice /water as she spent over 14 months in what today is Gjoa Haven, Nunavut. Working To change the scale of the drawings I scanned the lines, added them to TurboCad…simple 2d cad… and traced out the stations and what I call the “keelson” assembly. The first 3 images show the Turbocad effort. First is the rescaled line drawing followed by a typical station layer. I added lines to mark the top plank [ planks are thicker below this line][ then the deck and the top rail. The 3rd image shows the transom that needed to be stretched to accommodate the angle of the transom from the vertical line. The next two images show the keelson drawing rescaled in front of the old kit box. Not sure what I will use the hull for and all the other stuff all went into general supplies. The stations are all printed out and glued to 4mm plywood. The next two images show the marking and cut out of the keelson assembly. I used a maple blank for this piece. The paper plan is glued with kids glue, so with a simple brush of water it will all come off. The final three images show front or back views of the glued stations and then the overall with the outer blocking supports. Next up is a slower process...it is all the prep needed before planking

Just a postscript. First…Where does one keep a diorama of this size? Here we are in the study. Perhaps it is now the arctic room. Not sure if this is sustainable but it's good enough for now. Second… I was asked to give my talk a second time and wanted to avoid carting the big diorama around. I made up a few slides to focus on the story. I just wanted to save them into the log. Thanks all ... this has been a journey Jon

01 The Beginning. This build is the first of three I plan for the next series of stories. Over the next year, I plan to return to Greenland via Iceland following the Viking trail. That is to the best of my knowledge the beginning of the story of European explorers. To Complete the story of the Northwest Passage, begun with my recent build HMS Terror, I will have two Norwegian builds, Gjoa and Fram. Finally, my last of three builds will be to go along with my planned trip to the Greenland settlements. I will build a Viking vessel. First up will be the two Norwegian vessels. Fram will be a kit build and follow this scratch build of Gjoa. So let’s get to it! The cutter Gjoa was the ultimate winner in the search for a sailing route through the Northwest passage. I first learned of this vessel several years ago while studying the life and times of Donald MacMillan and the schooner Bowdoin. The Schooner Bowdoin was built in our town here on the Maine coast in 1921. That story is with my build of Bowdoin that I display as a diorama showing her second overwinter experience in the summer of 1924. In the story of MacMillan’s early life, and the issues that led to his having the Schooner built to his specification, was his research into other experiences. He was fascinated with the Fram story of a round bottomed vessel designed to survive mid arctic ocean ice. He also realized after all of his personal experience, that Amundson got it right when he chose the small sailing vessel with its auxiliary engine to find his way through. The relationship of Macmillan study of these two vessels demonstrates the value of their design. By example, Admiral Peary had MacMillan with him on his last venture to try to get to the pole. Their vessel the Roosevelt, built in 1905 at Bucksport, Maine, was quite different. It was quite big and powered by a 1600 horsepower engine. It had in Bob Bartlett a great captain to smash their way up through the Kennedy and Robeson channels to the shore of the Lincoln Sea on the North coast of Ellesmere Island. They got there yes, but when they returned to New York the following year, the vessel was in sad shape. Gjoa did not smash its way anywhere. She was the right size to squeeze through the shallow inshore waterways south of King Williams Island. After staying in Gjoa Haven for two winters and spending one more winter further west, she sailed into San Francisco harbor as a hero. There are other builds of the vessel and a current one that is a must read for both research and beautiful craftmanship of this vessel. My build is once again to build a prop for telling a tale. I am scratch building it in the same scale as the Schooner Bowdoin, so they can sit side by side and one can appreciate the comparison. One tale will be about Gjoa and Fram and their influence on Macmillan and the other is of the great man Amundson at both ends of the globe. As I understand it, he took Fram South in his race against Scott to get to the South Pole. Time to chase up some drawings.

Chris, Keith, Greg Thank you for your kind comments. Greg the lathe came from my past brother’s shop many years ago. He had bought it as a combo that sherline offered. One removes the lathe motor assembly and connects the mill “stock” assembly including its motor. I am able to switch back and forth. I also have a normal midi lathe and except for tiny things too small for the midi, I mostly use the sherline as a mill. My brother scratch built some 25+ steam engines. I on the other hand have yet to machine any metal parts. I really valuable it most when drilling tiny holes and am concerned about where they end up. 🤓A small drill press is great, but i find it harder to drill fife rails and the like. Small holes through spars are easier too. i have a friend who is an excellent machinist, and he has been working on me to shape some brass fittings. My next scatch build is Gjoa and maybe it’s time for me to try.

19….the end After a few months of resting on the bench and summer activities taking over my time, the punch list didn’t really get done. I also did not find the right adhesive to attach the black corners to the case. I picked her up and took her to the Yacht club for the summer art show, and then a few nights ago, I gave my talk on the general history of the Northwest Passage explorers and the vessels. The model showing HMS Terror laying at Beechey Island getting ready for winter was featured. My talk also covered highlights of how today one follows the path of the Franklin expedition. The images show her resting at the Yacht club after the art show, I was traveling in New Brunswick and missed it. Then she was in the lobby advertising the talk....Tracing the Northwest Passage. So, to the future. I will be next focusing on the two Norwegian vessels Gjoa and Fram for new builds, the first to be scratch and the second a kit. I also need to return and plug away at the Schooner Elizabeth Howard. And truthfully, I need to find a place for this huge box of a diorama. That is currently a mystery. I still have the alumnum strips and some day I will attach them. I also have the remaining soars and things to place on the deck. Our Guild has a show at the end of September in Bath Maine, and that will be fun too. So, Terror may rest , but no rest for me I guess. cheers jon

Keith one thing that should be said move often is that your sense of photography makes reading your updates extra valuable. I really look forward to seeing your work as time goes by. I have learned a lot from it. Another of your fine lessons is the sense of sequence. Getting all of ths tie off points in place early makes so much sense. thank you for sharing so well! Jon

18. almost done; Setting crew, building a case and working off the punch list It has been a while since any real progress was made as spring finally came and outside work took over. I need to get the diorama ready to go for show and tell in July, so I’m back to work. 1 I took her to the local Guild meeting in May and posed a few questions. Happily, I receive some good answers: • the footropes on the yard arms would have been lines and removed, or as lines been inconsequential as to being stored in the racks on deck. I should remove them all and then store the two top gallant yards, along with some spare blanks. • How to build a case. Buy green Optix at Home Depot or Lowes. The Optix green means the edges are green and it looks like glass. The cost is about $50 for each 24”x36” piece. Then follow U-tube to see how to weld them into a box. • Support for my opting out to attempt to paint of wash or fool around with coloring within the ice, since the back lighting is early morning. I am no artist and the white with more added snow will be just fine…..I hope . I can always change my mind. • I had about 10 crew on board, and the group all agreed that more crew would add to the story. So after much yard work, and a detour to cut down two previous dioramas that are too big sit on shelves. we are back to work. 2-3. here a few days back I had many of the crew located. The full crew including officers and scientists etc. was 64. In these two images I have 50 placed. 4-5 here was an adventure. How to incorporate the poster into the case. A key issues is that glue between acrylic and other materials is just not recommended. My approach was after cutting the 16.5-inch top piece, I took the remainder from the 24” inch sheet and cut it in half. I then welded it to the top and bottom of the back. I then laid the poster on thin mdf on 3/16” strips of wood using normal wood glue. I used aluminum channel and weights to keep all as flat as I could. In the second photo of the completed back, one sees the two wood strips adjacent to the two back strips. They are extended past the sides to hold the poster in place. I hope it works… 6-7. here we see the welded up case…my first so there are a few oops…. In the first view we see the green edges. For simplistic affect I agree the green choice was a good one. However, every oops is there to see. In the second view I have taken aluminum strips and spray painted them flat black over auto primer. Before I proceed to add the aluminum, I need to learn how one glues painted aluminum to acrylic. I thought to try clear silicon sealer, but it failed. I guess I need to experiment. 8-9. after more thought, I decided to take the remaining figures and put them all out. There are 21 on the ice and 39 aboard. That is all but 4 of the crew who may well have been up and about on the early morning in the later fall of 1845. My real reason was to show in the story how huge the crew of the adventure was. That huge size is one of the key reasons the attempt to traverse the passage became such a tragedy. These two views are both not what will be normal . the first is from the top and the second from behind. Next up is the punchlist and completion of the case. Then to move it, does it stay inside the case? I hope so and that is one reason I did not repeat my earlier uses of glass. It is just too heavy for moving. Happy summer

post 34 This one-time post is to update the life of the diorama of the pinky schooner Superb. As a reminder, since this is 5-year-old build, this pinky schooner Superb was the first built by the Hodgdon family of Boothbay in 1816. They are a still running active shipyard where the 6th generation is just taking on the leadership from Tim Hodgdon. I used the kit for Glad tidings as a material source and drawings from the Adams shipyard [ contemporary with and adjacent to the Hodgdon yard]. I have discussed in other logs that the museum Store in downtown Boothbay Harbor was closed after several fun years. It was a very unfortunate occurrence as today, some two years later, there still is nowhere sufficient to collect and share the 200 plus years of maritime history we have. Both dioramas of Superb and schooner Bowdoin had been relegated to my garage…..not nice. I have been concerned but as they had cases and it is heated, I felt they would be ok. In my recent build of the HMS Terror, I came to the time that one must considerer a home for the completed project. That is without building a new home. Before I get back to another build, I want to fix this problem. A two foot plus square platform is not practical for home display. The first option is to remove the vessel and put it on a traditional stand. That takes too much away from the story. After much consternation, a light bulb went off in my head……cut the diorama to a 10-inch depth and place it on a shelf. Then she can come to the model gallery and sit with the others. If we ever do get a museum type opportunity to tell the story, I could make a poster for a backdrop to regain the imapact of the larger format. So here is the renovation 01 -02. here the platform has been stripped of the vessel, work crew and loose parts. I then turned it up so I could remove the bottom frame that I will replace with a smaller one later. 03-04. here I am cutting. The power saw blade was too short to go through all so I needed the old fashion one to complete the two cuts. After rearranging the landscape, a little bit and focusing the work crew on the front side, I used some thin ply to band the cut edge and paint it out. I also added a small bottom frame to lift the platform off the shelf. 05-09. these shots show the completed rebuild on the work bench and ultimately in its new home shelf in the gallery. Not that many will get to see it, Superb is waiting for a chance to escape. Cheers

17. little people, little boats. Other little things It has been a month and slow. "little' progress gets made. Competition with spring outside requirements always interfere. I also I spent much time this month cleaning up and sorting the shop. This two-part update comes as I need to prepare and present the diorama to the local Shipmodelers guild. One is never totally ready for that…ha ha. First up is details and punch lists before the meeting and the second part will include the process to pick up and move the whole kit and bring it home again. The crew had arrived months ago and it is time to prep them and to start to put them to work. The 1:75 scale limits the choices. More importantly I am looking for a good sized crew. They sailed with some 64 people. It is possible that all were up and about at the same time, but I figure many were and 'many' is a loose number. Second what did they look like working in subfreezing weather. Here we go…. People……... I purchased a pack of 100 +/- figures, likely meant for a train station or the like. Taking the men, I wrapped them with some paper mache [ paper tower scraps and dilute white glue.] Then painted them light and after darker gray to simulate wool hats and sweater coats. The officers were selected as the 12 figures in coats, so I painted the coats dark blue and the hats black. The scientists perhaps were in civilian clothes, so I guess part of the officers in all black. About a dozen figures were sitting and that was fine. Everyone got black pants. I then coated the paper mache parts and officers with Mod Podge to improve the surface of the paper towel and hopefully add a little bulk to the jackets. 1-5 these views show first most of the crew in finishing steps of paint, trim, repaint, etc. Then I realized I need a few figures to be in action with arms reworked to hold lines or themselves to the rigging. I used the soldering station to maneuver them and went through 7 figures. the action figures have first application of paper mache. Finally to follow some protocol, I placed two officers near the helm to be first aboard. 6. here is a question of what to do. The two topgallant yards would have been lowered and stowed. I have gone ahead and started to add fittings to one of them. It would have been very awkward to handle and stow, but also a pain to disassemble. Perhaps I should remove the foot ropes. I am not sure and still thinking. Perhaps I think too much. 7-8. these views show an experiment. I bought some veggies in these neat little yellow net bags. I have always wanted to make a net carrying barrels on to or off of a model. Maybe this time is my chance. Using a little magic marker to blacken the martial and cutting it into a circle, I weaved tie lines and drew up the bag with 6 barrels inside. I think it is a nice idea but…. They would have done it after iced in to set up emergency supplies on the ice off the boat in case of crushing etc. The trysail gaffs just barely makes it over the side. Was there more rigging attached to the idle yard arm for this purpose? Finally, I note the trysail gaff is not long enough to reach the hatch. How would they have rigged for pulling barrels and other goods from the hold to the deck? Perhaps, like a whaler or other vessel managing such things at sea, there had to be more rigging spanning the two masts to get to the hatch and then the yard arms to get over the side. 9-10 the boats are now on board, and the main Pinnace is overboard. I made up anchors with brass wire, as any from fitting options that i saw seemed too big for a small boat. I still need more oars and coils. so off to the meeting this week. I capture what happens to transport this monster, as it most go two more times this summer. cheers

Thank you John and keith it is unfortunate the museum store in Boothbay had to close. I had three dioramas and a schooner there and enjoyed helping out with minor repairs to others from time to time. Now those models have all come home. The Pinky Superb built by Hodgdon in 1816, the Schooner Bowdoin built here 1921 and replanked in 2016 at Bristol Marine and Ernestina Morrissey Bob Bartlett's schooner completely rebuilt here in 2020 bracket 200 active years of Boothbay shipbuilding. the latter two also highlight my fascination with the arctic. Unfortunately continuing to tell the local story is a challenge. Your builds including your Red jacket are part of our Maine story too . Unfortunately both the pinky and Bowdoin are no relegated to my garage. cheers

Guy I am not an expert but I agree. I started to make them for Terror with a bend and thought to myself....this makes no sense. I then checked out the Mathew Betts drawings and went with straight. Yes they point in a little bit, but a smaller boat suspended worked out OK. Your doing a great job. I applaud you for persevering with the aluminum bow plates. I opted for the copper tape. cheers jon

16. I wanted to record the process to build up the diorama, so it can be relocated for showing and it needs to hold the backdrop. As I have said before I am finding my way. 1-2 these images show the diorama upside down for fixing the base. I use scrap pine from storage…nothing is fancy here. The board on the back side is slotted to receive the 1/8 inch back drop poster. 3-4 with exposed surfaces all painted black we are turned right side up. 5-6. the poster is currently clipped to a thin MDF sheet. Once all is good, I will glue it down. 7-11 these shots show 5 views of Terror set at the time. Note the many lines and clips getting ready to add the small boats. Next up is to complete the boats and crew and figure out what they are doing. I have about half of the coils in place, so that continues as well. Finally, I need to enter a new world and decide….do I leave the ice as it is or do I try to paint it to fit in more closely with the backdrop. I will experiment first and then decide…. sometimes doing less is better than making a mess. all for now