KevinR

Patrick,
Thank you for stopping by and for your kind works. This being my first scratch build I am happy with how the planking has turned out. But the pictures do not show everything, there are gaps at the edges and some of the planks did not lay as flat as they should. The plank thicknesses are not uniform, so I have had to soften the edges of some with a chisel blade or else they would be trip hazard.
 
I am also working at 1:24 scale, not the small scale you work at. Patrick, your planking on that scale is amazing. 1:24 scale has some advantages. I believe the gaps are not as obvious as they are in smaller scales. The drawback I am finding, is that a lot of the detail that can be omitted at the smaller scale, would be noticed if missing at 1:24 scale. When I started I figured I could get this done in about a year. I have been working on this for 7 months (I did take 2 months off over the summer, so say 5 months actual working). I think I will be doing good to have started the deck planking when 1 year rolls around.
 
I am trying to plan out long term, so I will not have to rush to get supplies when I need them. There are several items that will need to scratch built.
Windlass Stove Coffee Pot ( You can't go to sea without Coffee) Winder (Dredging Winch) Dredge Rollers Oyster Dredge Dredge A-Frame Steering Mechanism 2 Lanterns Running Lights I have been on the look out for Items that would be useful in building those parts. I believe my best find was some decorative gears at the local Michaels Craft Store. I have picked up 2 sizes of wooden barrels, fish hooks with straight shanks and some assorted brass.

Hopefully I can use some of the gears in the winder and the windlass.

Hi Kevin
 
I think you're may be being too hard on yourself!  The Skipjack is a working boat, whose hull would never have been perfect.  Most likely, the hull would've been full of imperfections, dings and scrapes.  At your scale, a few planks slightly thicker than the next would, in my opinion, mirror full sized reality.  Thus, in many respects, your hull has realism and character, just like the real thing.
 
Having saying that, I still find the structure of your hull beautiful and interesting.  I guess I always prefer to see the framework exposed rather than hiding the construction details with planks...but that's just me, hence why I like building my hulls with exposed frames and deck beams.
 
All the best with your boat.  Keep up the fabulous work!
 
Cheers
 
Patrick

Patrick,
Thank you for stopping by and for your kind works. This being my first scratch build I am happy with how the planking has turned out. But the pictures do not show everything, there are gaps at the edges and some of the planks did not lay as flat as they should. The plank thicknesses are not uniform, so I have had to soften the edges of some with a chisel blade or else they would be trip hazard.
 
I am also working at 1:24 scale, not the small scale you work at. Patrick, your planking on that scale is amazing. 1:24 scale has some advantages. I believe the gaps are not as obvious as they are in smaller scales. The drawback I am finding, is that a lot of the detail that can be omitted at the smaller scale, would be noticed if missing at 1:24 scale. When I started I figured I could get this done in about a year. I have been working on this for 7 months (I did take 2 months off over the summer, so say 5 months actual working). I think I will be doing good to have started the deck planking when 1 year rolls around.
 
I am trying to plan out long term, so I will not have to rush to get supplies when I need them. There are several items that will need to scratch built.
Windlass Stove Coffee Pot ( You can't go to sea without Coffee) Winder (Dredging Winch) Dredge Rollers Oyster Dredge Dredge A-Frame Steering Mechanism 2 Lanterns Running Lights I have been on the look out for Items that would be useful in building those parts. I believe my best find was some decorative gears at the local Michaels Craft Store. I have picked up 2 sizes of wooden barrels, fish hooks with straight shanks and some assorted brass.

Hopefully I can use some of the gears in the winder and the windlass.

Hi Everyone,
Well I spent the past 3 days planking the Ceiling Floor in the hold and the forward cabin. Next I think I am going to finish the deck beams and the forward cabin bulkhead and bunks. I need to stat planning for paining as well. I want to paint the interior before I glue the deck beams on. Ben Lankford in his book stated that the interior of the boats were painted grey. I would have thought the interior would have been white to reflect as much light as possible. I guess I will look for a light grey. I have not decided weather to paint the interior by brush or airbrush. When I have been around wooden boats the interior seems to have had a buildup of paint on all of the surfaces. I am planning on airbrushing the hull.

Hi Kevin
 
One thing that really impresses me about your Skipjack is how clean and sharp your planking is. This, coupled with all the other visible construction details, makes your hull structurally beautiful. I hope I'm making sense, because the simplicity of the construction masks the skill taken for you to build it. To the novice, the hull is actually more complex than it initially appears.
 
Keep up the great work.
 
Cheers
 
Patrick

Al,
To upload photos, There is a link at the bottom of the editor "More Reply Options", click on this. It will open up a more advanced editor. At the bottom is a button "Choose Files". This will open the dialog to upload files. Once the file is uploaded, there will be a link "Add to Post" beneath the file name. This will add text that looks like: (square bracket)attachment=210587:Strong_Back.jpg(square bracket)
You can place this anywhere in your text. There is a button "Preview Post" that will load up what you have typed with the images so you can get an idea how it looks. If you are still having problem PM me and maybe we can figure this out.
 
Al are you still on active duty?
 
Good Luck,

Hi Everyone,
Well The weekend is over and I have made some progress. Most of the progress was in researching and planning my next move. I spent 3 days planning where to put everything. My skipjack is very close in size to the Willie Bennet, so I did not want to use the same deck layout. I was hoping to put the second cabin midship like on EC Collier and Kathryn, but there was not enough room. So I believe my only concession to be different is that the forward cabin will have a flat roof and not sloped like the Willie Bennet.
The living accommodations on the Skipjacks were pretty slim. The headroom in the aft cabin on the Willie Bennet was only 3-1/2 feet. On the EC Collier (50') which was 7 feet longer, the headroom was 5 feet in the aft cabin and 3-1/2 feet in the midship cabin. Apparently the second cabin on Skipjacks was only big enough to lay down in and the aft (main) cabin was barely big enough to sit and cook in.
 
I got back to work on the boat and added the aft strongback, the forward strongback with knees and started adding the ceiling floor in the fo'c'sle cabin.

Hi Everyone,
Well I spent the past 3 days planking the Ceiling Floor in the hold and the forward cabin. Next I think I am going to finish the deck beams and the forward cabin bulkhead and bunks. I need to stat planning for paining as well. I want to paint the interior before I glue the deck beams on. Ben Lankford in his book stated that the interior of the boats were painted grey. I would have thought the interior would have been white to reflect as much light as possible. I guess I will look for a light grey. I have not decided weather to paint the interior by brush or airbrush. When I have been around wooden boats the interior seems to have had a buildup of paint on all of the surfaces. I am planning on airbrushing the hull.

Hi Everyone,
Well I spent the past 3 days planking the Ceiling Floor in the hold and the forward cabin. Next I think I am going to finish the deck beams and the forward cabin bulkhead and bunks. I need to stat planning for paining as well. I want to paint the interior before I glue the deck beams on. Ben Lankford in his book stated that the interior of the boats were painted grey. I would have thought the interior would have been white to reflect as much light as possible. I guess I will look for a light grey. I have not decided weather to paint the interior by brush or airbrush. When I have been around wooden boats the interior seems to have had a buildup of paint on all of the surfaces. I am planning on airbrushing the hull.

If you haven't yet run across it, you would, I'm sure, be very interested in a book called "Chesapeake Sailing Craft" by Robert H. Burgess. While he covers more than just skipjacks, there are 37 pages on skipjacks with many excellent historic photos. Lots of good details there. The rest of the book is very good as well for anyone with an interest in the subject.
 
It has been quite a few years since I was last at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum in St. Micheals, MD, but they then had E. C. Collier on exhibit inside a building and you could walk along the hull and see inside. According to their website, the exhibit is still there.
http://www.cbmm.org/v_oystering.htm but it might be worth a call or email to be sure. If you've never been to that museum, I'd certainly encourage you to go - there is a lot to see. Nice weekend trip for you.
 
Back in 2006, I built a model of a crab scrape. The hull is very similar to a skipjack in construction. I have a few pictures here - http://modelboatyard.com/crab_scrape1.html - in case you're interested.
 
Cheers -
John

Hi Everyone,
Well I spent the past 3 days planking the Ceiling Floor in the hold and the forward cabin. Next I think I am going to finish the deck beams and the forward cabin bulkhead and bunks. I need to stat planning for paining as well. I want to paint the interior before I glue the deck beams on. Ben Lankford in his book stated that the interior of the boats were painted grey. I would have thought the interior would have been white to reflect as much light as possible. I guess I will look for a light grey. I have not decided weather to paint the interior by brush or airbrush. When I have been around wooden boats the interior seems to have had a buildup of paint on all of the surfaces. I am planning on airbrushing the hull.

Cap'n'Bob,
Thank you for the information. That helps me understand some of what I have read. When I search the internet I was coming up with "Center of Lateral Plane" and "Center of Effort". Which to someone who has never learned to sail, is Greek. I also read that it was not uncommon for the masts to be repositioned during a refit to correct handling issues.
 
Thanks again.

Hello everyone.  This is my first post here and new to model ship building.  This is supposed to be the start of a build log for a Brig Syren by Model Shipways (yes - another one for the armada) but seems like myself and everyone else in the model ship building community decided to order kits at the end of last year, which means mine is currently back-ordered.  So in the meantime, I thought I would hack away at a detail - a few deck lanterns.  
The idea was to make a lantern that would be carried by hand or hung on a fixture on the deck.  I have seen pictures of historical ships that have lanterns hanging from the ceilings but I assume they must have had other portable lanterns for working on-deck during the night.  Any of you naval experts know of if/how this was done?  If it wasn't done this way, then this was just a fun exercise in making really tiny brass stuff, which should be helpful when my ship actually arrives...
 
Here is how I made a prototype.  Hope it isn't too much for a post.
 
I assumed that a lantern was roughly about 14" tall, which in 1:64 works out to about 5.5mm tall.  I needed to make a body, top, base, glass, handle and lighting.  I suppose most of this could have been made out a single piece of brass and turned on a lathe, but that would have taken away the fun of trying to hold a fiddly little piece of brass in your fingers.
Here are the final pieces before assembly:

 
For the body, I started with 1/8" brass tube, and filed 3 slots for the "windows" of the lantern.  I left it attached to the base tube for as long as possible to make it easier to work on.  This took files, Dremel tools, and carving with a knife.  it was then lightly polished.

 
The top and base were turned from a single solid rod of brass using my highly accurate Dewalt vise lathe:

 
I needed to drill a hole in the top to allow for the handle later on, which is much easier to at this stage instead of waiting until it was nearly finish turned.  Fortunately, my Dewalt vise lathe also has a milling and pin-drill bit attachment, so I proceeded to slowly consume most of my pin drill bits making a tiny hole:

 
More by luck than skill, I was able to turn both the top and the base at the same time:

 
All the brass parts where then polished.
 
I then needed to make the "glass", which I decided to make using a heat-and-stretch method with plastic.  I found some thin, clear packaging plastic (I think it was from a package of 5-minute epoxy).  Then I used a drill bit slightly smaller than the ID of the brass lantern body.  Using my heat gun, I heated the plastic and then quickly stretched it over the top of the drill bit to form a cylinder.  This took some trial and error but I finally ended up with something close.  (Later on, I remembered that a lot of paint brushes at the art store come with little protective sleeves for the bristles, which might work just as well.)

 
Brass wire was bent into a handle shape, and a small blob of epoxy was added and painted to simulate a grip.  After looking at the macro pictures, it seems like this grip is too large, so I will probably file it down and repaint again later.

 
Lighting was done with "Pico" sized LED, which is really, amazingly tiny.  I found mine here:
www.modeltrainsoftware.com
For this lantern, I have the wires coming out of the bottom, assuming it would be set on top of some surface that would hide the wires.  I also think I could route the wires out of the top and hide them in the handle so that the lantern could also be hanging.
 
I assembled the pieces using clear glue.  The final piece is about 7mm long, which is 1.5mm longer than I hoped (scales to ~17"), so future try 2 or 3 or 4 may get it right.

 
Here it is with the LED on with the ambient lights on/off.  Power comes from 2 "AA" batterys.  I think in future iterations I might try to dim the light a little.  (The LED instructions recommend a small coat of paint on the LED to reduce the intensity).


 
That's all.  Happy building!
-Brian
 

Mike, Welcome aboard!
 
Michael, I believe I read that the average life expectancy of a Skipjack was 20 years. Of course The actual life expectancy for each boat varied based on how well they were maintained. The Skipjack Kathryn was built for oyster dredging about 1901, and worked until ~2008. From the survey Kathryn appeared to have been in much better shape than EC Collier and to have had fewer stop-gap repairs.
"KATHRYN is not typical of the skipjacks in her construction. Most skipjacks were cross-planked and built principally of pine. KATHRYN's bottom is plankd fore-and-aft, and most of her original structural members and her bottom planks are oak. This construction technique allowed the builders to round the chin much more than is found on cross-planked skipjacks. Kathryn is the only skipjack known to have fore-and-aft planking and a rounded chine." (Taken from the "Historic American Engineering Record" for the Two Sail Bateau "Skipjack" - Kathryn.) I believe the Kathryn was built by someone who, just believed, that the boat should be built to last.
 
Thanks everyone for stopping by,

Thanks to several members who gave help in uploading photos.
 
 

The photo above was taken about December 16, 2014.  I was well on my way in the planking process.
 
 

The finished work on basswood planking. 
Here is a view of the model as of today, January 23, 2015. 
 

All planking with .025 walnut, oak and jatoba is yet to come.
 

I have been studying material on planking to improve on the walnut on the lower hull to have as good a look as possible.  I am using DAP DryDex spackling for fill in some low spots and gaps in the hull.  More cleanup is required before I continue planking. 
 
I soaked the basswood planks for up to several hours before applying to the hull with cyano adhesive.  It worked well except in the bow area where the wet planks went straight from bulkhead to bulkhead in a relatively straight line creating a depression.  If I do this style of construction again I will place basswood fillers between bulkheads to provide a "fair" bend where the curvature takes place.

Several members have added Indexes to "Points of Interest" to their Build Logs. This helps both themselves and others to quickly find the page or post to certain items during the course of construction - e.g. selecting "Capstan" will take you directly to the first post dealing with it's construction.
 
Here's how you do it :
 
The Index is merely a collection of Links. For those of you familiar with the method of creating a Link you can skip this next bit.
 
How to create a Link :
 
Find the Post you want to create a Link to, preferably by opening MSW in a separate Window. RIGHT Click on the Post Number :
 

 
This will bring up a Menu. Click on "Copy Link Location" :
 

 
Click on the "Edit" button in the post you want to create a Link :
 

 
Select the word (or words) that you want to turn into a Link by dragging your mouse across it while holding down the left button or using Shift + Arrow on the keyboard :
 

 
Click on the "Add Link" Button in the menu bar :
 

 
This brings up a small Menu. RIGHT Click in the "URL" bar. Make sure the cursor is inside the bar. Click "Paste" in the menu :
 

 
The Link is now attached to your selected word/s.
 
Example of an Index
 
It's helpful to place the Index in the first post of your Build Log, but if you can't do that for whatever reason you could create a Link to the Index page in the first post of the Log.
 
You can Format the text in the usual way (font, size color etc)
 

After many adjustments with the starboard cap rail (and yes I didn't get it right towards the stem, still there is a gap) I have the rail in place.
The connection between port and starboard is almost invisible.

While waiting for more lumber to continue with Cheerful, I ordered the windlass kit from Chuck.  It's very neatly organized and the pieces (50 +) are very small.  The most impressive pieces IMO are the sprockets.  I could never do them from scratch with the tools I have.
For the sides of the barrel parts, the instructions just say to bevel them.  I need to be more precise if I want it to look anywhere near as nice as Chuck's illustration.  I cut a jig from some scrap to the exact angle of the eight pieces (22.5  degrees).  For those interested, each angle for an (any)  sided piece is determined by dividing the number of sides (8) into 360 degrees = 45.  The bevel on each piece will be half of that number = 22.5 degrees so that when they mate, you get 45 degrees.  By holding the barrel sides against the jig while moving it back and forth over a sanding stick results in the exact 22.5 degree bevel.  I sanded them down to just being able to see the laser char on one edge, but when assembled, they were just a hair too wide.  I think you have to sand to the point where the char is just no longer visible.  Once sanded, I rubbed a pencil along the inside angle so I could see to line up when gluing to the octagonal end pieces.  I started with section "C" as it is the largest part of the barrel and best for ramping up the learning curve.  Holding the little pieces is tough.
Maury

unfortunately no Patrick,
 
the boiler still is unreparable (must be new built), and the motor needs complete overhauling
 
Nils
 
 
 

 
I ripped open the boiler outer skin to see where the leakage is (Unreparable)
 
 

 
here a view into the firing tube, there the smaller cross spicked instant steam tubes can bee seen inside
 
 

 
this is how the motor fits into the engine room
 
 

 
here the boiler with removed wooden cladding insulation

Introduction :
 
This project has been completed already in the years 1984 / 1985, when I was still a young man. I had the intension of building my own designed steam engine for a model ship. A regular steam engine with crosshead-guides and Stephenson reversing  control device, was too complicated to build, in lack of neighther lathe nor milling machine (still do`nt have….). So I decided to design a steam-motor with a minimum on moving parts, and yet powerful enough to propell an appr.  1100 mm long RC controlled ship model. And the driving challenge was also to see if I could do it anyway……
 
 
Current status :  After some years of perfect performance, the boiler became a hair crack leakage in one or two of the inner heating tubes solderings, that unfortunately could not be mended without destroying the boiler. So neighther ship nor motor had been moved since. I wanted to rotate the motor the other day by trying to rotate the crankshaft  but all was blocked somewhere, probably the pistons are sticking to the cylinder walls. Shall have to dismantle everything completely for overhaul, and build a new boiler if I want to have fun on that behalf again. Fortunately the was a raghther short little super 8 Kodak film made of the model travelling on the lake at full steam in those wayback years, the film in miserable quality, but at least a document of a successfully completed project. I`ll try to put that film in a little video here on MSW in this log later on. Some of the pictures I found fortunately  in my photo-archive and scaned them in, and was myself surprised that I even had pics of motor complete, and boiler in the building stage. I thought this may be of interest for the one or other fellow builder here at MSW. The ship itself is still ready to be launched at any time, only the prop has a bit patina on it
 
 
 
 
 
The ship
Model-length       1090 mm
Steam powered, gas fired, RC controlled, fictional version  river tug “Lorbas” in nostalgic look
Model Build year : 1984 / 1985
Ship is POB scratch design, self drawn lines, ply frames and diagonal planked with balsa stripes,
Hull coated with glass-fibre rowing cloth and epoxy resin
Removable deck housings and many maintenance opening hatches and doors, and
ventillation openings for the boiler- and machine room
large self made 80 mm 4-blade brass propeller
 
RC control
Simple oldtimer 2-channel radio-controller, Make “Robbe” and on the ship two-channel
receiver and two servos (one for steam reverse valve, stop, foreward, aft) one for rudder
port / stb. One power pack comprising  4 x 1,5 V mignon Batteries. I`m not allowed to use
this RC equipment any more  due to national postal radio frequency regulations
 
The Engine
Self designed Six cylinder Steam motor in Vee-6 design, for superheated steamflow, with direct piston rods to crankshaft, ball bearing crankrod head-bearings,  each cylinderhead  with common, horizontal working slide cam control bars, manifolds for steam inlet and steam outlet (reversible)
Steam reverse valve (for swapping inlet / outlet channels with RC servo function.
Motor designed for 2 bar constant steam backpressure when running at 200 RPM in direct
(quick disconnectable) coupling to propshaft
Idle unbreaked motor runs up to 3000 RPM, if control cam positions are set correct
Model speed like modest walking pedestrian
Lubrication by means of oiler-device in live steam line (high viscosity steam engine oil)
Piston rings made of Teflon in circumferential pistenring grooves
Manifold gaskets made from Viton O-rings (heat resistant)
Elbow- and t-fittings and flanges silver soldered, tubes soft soldered in
Materials:  brass and stainless steel and commercial available bearings
Six Cylinders 10 mm diam.  X 10 mm strokelength
Due to the six cylinder arrangement the motor is capable of starting rotation at any crank position
 
The boiler
It was my aim to create a powerful lightweight design for firing with butan gas burner and gas from commercial, exchangeable  cylindrical cartridges that fit into the boat (like used for refueling cigarette lighters).
 
Function:
 
The boiler has one central flame-tube cross-spicked through with 6  smaller instant steam tubes that mount into the area of the upper steam collector dome. The hot gas of the flametube then reverses direction in the outer end-camber, that also contains the superheater tube coil and from there 13 heating air tubes lead back through the boiler, into the opposite chamber that takes up the chimney tube (inner liner of the ships funnel)
The waste steam tube is connected to the inner chimney liner in order to burn out the micro-oil-fume of the exhaust steam in the upstreaming hot air together with the firing exhaust. (avoid lakewater pollution !)
The safe running time with one distilled boiler-water filling is 20 minutes
The boiler is capable of providing constantly 2 bar backpressure at ships full speed
The boiler is equipped with a stand, wooden plank cladding, a blow off safety valve, a pressure gauge, a main steam valve, an oiling device, a water level indicator, a draining  point, and a heat exchanger for pre-heating  the expanding butan gas from the gas cartridge
The boiler is mounted to a common aluminium baseplate that also takes up the motor mounting bracket and the burner mounting bracket.
To fire up the boiler, the flame tube is heated with a external (more powerful) gas tourch outside the ship. When reaching 2 bar steam pressure the complete baseplate is set into the ship from above
Materials:
Boiler complete from stainless steel, silver soldered, pressure tested with 4 bar
 
Enjoy......
 
Nils
 
 

 
 

 
 

 
 

I've milled the rings and soldered the bars on, next step will be to fit it to the ship and work out the geometry of the pulls.
 

 

 
Before mounting I must remember to turn up the pin that will mount to the servo horn and engage the bars.
 

 
Once it is mounted and I have worked out the geometry I will solder on the rings to tie off the lines to.

I am learning from using the lathe and as such decided to make something else for the ship, a tool.
 
I used to just have this as a piece of 2.4mm brass wire about 200mm long but thought I would make a better version for the sake of the exercise.
 
The tool is for tying off the running rigging to belaying pins. I catch the line in the groove at the end of the tool and while keeping tension further down on the cord I can easily place it around the pin, top and bottom.
 

 

 

 
I am learning, the ferrule on the handle end is straight of the lathe and is a much better finish than the tool end which has been buffed with the dremel after soldering the tip in.

Patrick, John, Kevin, Popeye, Nils, and all you who hit the like button.  Thanks for looking in and telling me you like what I am building.  This is the third stove I built.  First I tried to make it out of wood covered in foil,  and it looked like wood covered in foil.  Then I tried plastic, I’ve never made anything out of plastic.  Still haven’t.  For years I've  kept telling myself, ‘If the prototype is wood make the model wood, if metal, make it metal’.  So I ended up making it out of brass.  Why didn’t I do that first? 
 
This is the first time I have tried the modular method and I like it.  I’ll probably use it in other boats as well.  Until next time.
 
Bob

It has been a while since I last posted.  We went through Christmas and other activities but I continue to work on the AVS.  However I did some "outside" work that I will describe here
.
I could not understand some of the instructions that I was reading concerning the planking of the hull. So I decided to build what I’m calling a hull section pictured below.
 I copied the bulkhead patterns for bulkhead L and a couple more which had the spacing to provide a gun port.   The results are seen in figure 1.
 

 
I created the sub deck by gluing together lengths of 1/8 inch Basswood and applying them to the bulkheads. (Figure 2).
I then planked the bulkheads as shown in figure 3.
 

 

 
 
Figure 5 shows the interior of the bulwark complete with waterway installed. I have two designs for the waterways.   The section on the right of the deck area is the waterway installed as called out on the plan. To the left is a sanded down waterway on a 0.047” spacer to allow decking edges to be hidden.
 

 
 Figure 8 shows the outside of the hull section showing from the top the sheer strake in mahogany the gun port planking, the upper planking of a wood called Jatoba. Just below is the black strake and the wale, both painted black.   Below the planks are mahogany.
 
I plan to use the jatoba to provide a contrast on the interior bulkheads and on the rear deck.  For the main deck I am planning to use oak.
 
I stained the planks with Watco Danish Oil and was very pleased with the results.  I tried varnish made from urethane and did not like the gloss.  Since the Danish Oil contains a varnish, I plan to go with that. 
Also, I painted the wale black.  For the model, I plan to use a dark mahogany stain rather than black paint.

Hello,
 
Here is where I am with the fashion pieces in place.  I added to the port side to get better proportions prior to adding the fashion pieces.  I used a scroll saw to cut the round pieces and wonder why the kit designer did not add this to the laser cut sheets supplied with the kit.  I actually used some scraps from one of the laser-cut sheets.
 
Al