AON

Thanks for everyone's help with my anchor winch drive.
Today I wrote to the Fram Museum in Oslo, custodians of Maud from whom St. Roch's lines and Arctic construction features were taken by naval architect Thomas Halliday in 1927.
The museum also has the exploration ships Gjoa and Fram, either under restoration or on display. Since they have the machinery from these ships I hope they can be my arbiters on St. Roch's winches.
Regards,
Bruce
 

Post 96
Completing the Fore shrouds.
Shrouds are a very fiddly business, and applying the throat seizings is a tedious thing.

4915a
I find that using a fine needle helps with the threading of the line  between the shroud and its return.

4924a

4921a

4922a
The Fore shrouds  gave me more trouble than the Mains;
I seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time tweaking the  shroud length before the Lanyards are eventually tied off.
This involved unpicking previously seized upper deadeyes and re-setting.
On a model a sloppy line of deadeyes is not a pretty thing.

4930a
The next step is the application of the futtock staves.
According to Steel these are set as far below the trestletrees as the mast cap rises above.

4931a
In reality the staves were of 4” circ served line, but it makes sense to use something more solid for model purposes.
I used 0.7mm ø Brass rod served with 0.1mm line.

4932a
‘Quad hands’ are a useful tool for this job, holding the bar steady whilst the outer lashings are applied.

4936a
The Futtock staves are a great device for evening out the shrouds, as well as providing the anchor point for the Futtocks and Catharpins.
 
The Fore stays beckon….
 
B.E.
02/07/2025
 
 

Hello everyone.  I haven't forgotten about this project, despite some inconvenient changes in circumstances. I've had to temporarily shelve Brig Eagle because of change in housing situation and many of my tools had to be put in storage for a few months. However, I am still doing lots of research and making frame templates for this model to work on once housing situation improves. Lately, I've been doing additional comparisons of different ships, this time the American brigs Syren and Oneida. Syren seems more like Brig Eagle in deck layout and overall hull contours (even though Eagle is 20 ft longer than Syren and Syren was a deep water hull with additional deck like European ships HMS Blandford and Le Cygne discussed in Post 41), whereas Oneida would be more followed for rigging and was also a "shallow draft" hull design with just only berthing deck and gun deck like the Eagle was and Niagara.  However, I found one article interesting about Oneida saying she was a slow performer under sail, I am guessing that she may have been top heavy for a ship her size. Will have to do more digging around work schedules. 
 
Brian D

Bruce
Ray (MSON) had built the GJØA.
You can email and ask him.
I would have thought it was gear driven... but that is from someone that has absolutely no idea! 😉
Alan

Every weekend I look and think if I just sit for more than an hour I could just get so much done but then I look out and it’s just too nice and so I glue a stick or two and go. I like where it’s going but I should really get going so I can actually use it. 
Anyway more planking and hoping thinks line up
 
this weekend boat adventure was on the schooner adventuress sailing out on the sound such a cool old boat and we had perfect wind

Hi all
 
Back from our lovely holiday and straight back onto Le Rochefort
 
I'm now working on the crews quarters below the quarter deck and have started with the bulkhead which has a double entry door.  This is quite a feature on this ship so I want to get it as good as possible.  I started by making the shiplap planks that form the walls which I then glued together to make the actual walls.


Next was to look at the doors themselves - I usually just get a solid piece of wood and then mill out the features to make them look like doors.  In this instance I thought that I would try a new exercise for me and make them from individual parts and include all of the relevant joints as they possibly would have been made originally.    Each frame is made of 5 pieces which then require 4 inserts in each door.

Milling out the rebates to fit the 0.7mm inserts

Sorry I should have taken more pictures but here are how the doors turned out.  Assembling the parts actually proved to be one of the hardest parts.

Next I needed to make the door frame uprights which have 2 rebates cut into them and also the base rebate that the walls slot into.


It all took a little bit of fettling to get all of the parts to fit correctly but I'm just about there now.



I did have one issue and that was with the door frame uprights which stopped the whole assembly from sitting flush with the beam.  This maybe because I miss read the drawings but to get around this issue I cut some rebates into the beam which actually makes the whole thing stronger and more stable
 

It's all still a work in progress but I'm getting there with this particular part of the build.
 
Mark

Thanks a bunch Alan! There is enough information there to let me fabricate a replication of a cable gripper...
Regars,
Bruce

Nearly there... as per my earlier thoughts, I painted the rotating parts gun metal. The warping drums are flat aluminum. I wrapped the cable spool with suitably sized rigging thread from my stash to serve as the port anchor hawser, then I dry brushed Tamiya X-1 gloss black, followed by Vallejo rust, and lastly Tamiya XF-1 flat black. I think I achieved the look of wire rope??
The drive gear shaft extends out so the drive clears the hatch on the main deck... I have to make a supporting frame and pulley for that. My 1928 plans sketch shows the port warping drum also extending on the winch shaft... not sure if I will do that yet. It will depend on if there is room to wrap and unwrap lines once the drive pulley is on.


As always, thanks for checking in and feedback is appreciated!
Bruce

Post 95
Main stay. (Part 2)
The lower end of the stays have hearts turned in.
I am using Syren Resin versions, (6mm) for the Main Stay and (5mm) for the Preventer.
The kit provided deadeyes for this purpose are easier to fit than hearts and lanyards, but were an old fashioned option by the  time of Harpy.

4901a
It is easier to fit the Preventer stay and collar with the Main stay and Fore shrouds out of the way.
I had fitted the Preventer stay at this point but found I had fed it incorrectly through the mast top.
Annoying when you have spent  time doing tiny seizing and fitting of lanyards, but I couldn’t let it stand.

4895a

4897a

4898a
Lashing of the Main stay I used Syren 0.45mm line.
For the collar 0.88 mm line served with 0.1mm line was used. The tricky part of the collar is forming the eye in one short leg.
 
Main Preventer stay

4904a
Stropping the Preventer stay heart.
 
4905a

4908a
0.3mm line used for the Lanyard.

4909a

4910a
I can now attend to the Fore Shrouds.
 
B.E.
27/06/2025
 
 

Good morning Bruce
I am going to send you 3 PNG photos from A Ship Modelmaker's Manual by John Bowen that might have the answer.
The images are too large to post.
Cable Stoppers pg 41 fig 64, pg 141, fig 252 and pg 166 fig 311.
Alan

Post 94
Main stay. (Part 1)
The kit plans show a simplified form of the Main/Preventer stays.
A more authentic version includes serving of the stay collars including the eye splice through which the stay passes, and a more stylish mouse to replace the kit plastic version.
The kit indicates use of deadeyes for securing the stays but I have opted for hearts which were more common during this period.
 
I am using Steel’s tables for an 18-14 gun ship.
 Mainstay                - 10”  - 1.26mm   - 15” Heart  (6mm)  Main Preventer Stay - 7”  -  0.88mm  -  10” Heart  (4mm) 
 
The kit line dimensions are close to this using 1.3mm line for the Main stay, and 1mm line for the Preventer stay.
For the Mainstay I am using Syren 1.37mm line, and for the Preventer 0.88mm line. The lines are stretched under weights to remove the spring before fitting.

4880a
The position of the mouse needs to be tested on the model.

4881a

4884a
Here the  un-dyed Preventer stay serving is apparent, and the ‘weave’ of the mouse shows through.

4889a
I have been thinking about the positioning of the stays.
 
The kit arrangement has the Main stay fixed by a collar to the Foremast, and the Preventer stay  running above it and beyond it to a collar on the Bowsprit.
I have some doubts about this arrangement, generally Mainstays run beyond the foremast to the bow.
Steel says that The main Preventer stay is lashed to the Foremast and the Main stay to the Bowsprit chock.
Lees comments that the Preventer stay was usually carried above the stay but that on small ships was sometimes carried  under it.

4888a
Full details of my preparing and fitting of the stays and the related Mouses is fully covered in my Pegasus log, so I won’t repeat it all here.

4883a

4890a

4885a
In the case of Harpy I have decided to run the Preventer stay below the Main stay, and reverse the locations of the lashings.
Onto the lower end stay fixings.
 
B.E.
25/06/2025

It has been about 2 weeks since my last update, and co-incidentally since I got my second knee! I'm now able to use the basement stairs, despite admonitions from SWMBO not to overdo things, so I was able to get a start on my summer to-do list!
First up is to build the small platform that extends out from the starboard fo'c's'le. Photos show this was added by the crew in 1929 during St. Roch's maiden voyage. She spent much of her career sailing through uncharted shoal waters, and Captain Larsen wanted a place from which to swing the lead and communicate easily with the wheelhouse.
Design plans show a sounding machine on the poop deck, but there is no information that it was ever installed. Larsen makes no mention of using it, and I am sure he would have found the location unsuitable for reporting soundings. I am not including it.
The first photos show the sounding platform being roughed out on my bench, then trial fitted on the ship...


The platform is hinged to the hull and there is a chain holding a brace in place underneath. 

The last photo shows the platform complete with the lead line...

The fo'c's'le railings are visible in some of the previous pictures, this next photo shows the starboard rail being formed...

Finally, here is an overview of the fo'c's'le deck with the rails and platform.

The rails are not painted white today, but period photos from 1930 to 1934, while b&w, show a very light colour, so I painted mine white.
It is time to build the anchor windlass and install the anchors before moving aft to finish the hull...
As always, thank for checking in and comments are always welcome!

A good source of plans for winches is the US Patent Office. When I was making my CLG-5 CAD model I started searching through patents and found an amazing number of patents for things on the ship, including a couple of the winches. The patents have drawings that helped me figure out how to model the parts.
 
If you know the manufacturer you can limit the search. Of course if you know the patent number - often molded into cast parts or on an attached label - you are home free.
 
There are patents and drawings for things you would never expect. I found the patents for the Talos guided missile (101 pages) and missile launcher! The Tarter and Terrier missiles and launchers are also there. I would have thought these would be classified!

Bruce:
I think you are on the right track and your thoughts on colors are good.  
Kurt

I am using stud link chain by Krick for the anchor... expensive but the look of the stud links goes, in my opinion, a long way to completing the finish in this scale. Starting with the chain, the first thing to make is the gypsy...
I used three sizes of nested styrene tube, cutting away whatever did not look like a gypsy until I was satisfied...

From the final size of the gypsy I scaled three winch supporting frames onto a piece of scrap styrene...

And test fit to the ship. I am checking here for size... does it look right in the absence of plans or photos?

I will thin down the gypsy on one side, the wider side will become the brake band. The warping drums are by Billings Boats, they are correct for size so it was easier to buy the four I will need as opposed to turning them myself.
Here are the parts so far, test fitted onto the winch shaft...

You can see the brake band and crank, and the warping drum is finished with scale hardware from Grandt Line. The frame on the end has a flange for strength. Details like this are my conjecture, in the absence of plans or photos of St. Roch's winch...
Now I turned my attention to making the remaining end frame and the cable spool. I had to be careful here to ensure the winch was not going to outgrow the base, which is already mounted on the deck!

The cable spool gets its' own brake band. It is time to go to my stash of old RC servo gears and find some that would look proper to make the drive assembly...
This last picture shows everything so far, test fitted together on the ship, with the drive gear on the end of the shaft.

There are some adjustments needed to fit the base, then it will be time for paint and assembly. I am thinking of black overall, with gun metal on the rotating parts for contrast, and maybe a rust wash on the cable and chain, again for contrast rather that weathering purposes.
I still have to make the final gear drive and pulley assembly, and am trying to think good thoughts about how to include a dog clutch, or whether it would be better to leave it off??
Thoughts, comments, and critiques are always appreciated, especially as I am making a lot of it up as I go along!
Regards,
Bruce
 
 

Building the anchor winch is going to be very interesting, because there are no plans or photos of it in existence! The attached portions of the 1928 designer's plan give a side view and a plan view of what was envisaged: a winch having a chain gypsy on the starboard anchor, a cable spool on the port anchor, and a mechanical gearing that drove the winch from a power take-off on the main engine, via the cargo winch at the foot of the main mast.
After the maiden voyage Captain Larsen complained that the winch was under powered, and it was replaced in 1930. It was replaced again in 1944 by the one on the ship today.
 
Here is the plan view, it shows the driving gears off the winch base on a separate support... but was the same arrangement kept in 1930? Who knows!?
Here is the side view, showing a drive chain or belt to operate the anchor winch from the cargo winch, and a pulley set slung from the cargo derrick to guide the drive.

I decided to follow the plan view more or less as presented, because the 1930 winch was still mechanically driven, and to keep the drive clear of the cargo hatch it would have to be extended to port with a separate support as shown on the plan.
I did try and search out period plans or photos of other mechanical winches, without much success... if anyone has information or suggestions it would be great to hear from you!
 

Well, a couple of days has turned into 2 months but whose counting.  At least the ocean is done now!  My friend Marty and I managed to get the epoxy resin into the bottle without making too much of a mess and the neck of the bottle is quite clean.  The basic technique used I saw in a YouTube video about a year ago but I can not find it again so I can not properly give credit other than say thank you.

We used the MAX CLR products of The Epoxy Experts of Canada.  A 45 minute phone conversation with them was instrumental in the successful creation of the ocean.  The first problem was that epoxy normally generates an enormous amount of heat as it cures.  When thin films are involved there is no problem as the heat can dissipate easily but in this application a very thick glob of epoxy is curing and the heat could easily damage the bottle.  To prevent this, equal parts (by weight) of a Calcium Carbonate Epoxy Filler is mixed with the resin.  This filler conducts heat apparently and solves the problem.  After mixing these two components we mixed in the hardner (1 part by weight of hardner to 2 parts of resin or 1 part of hardner to 4 parts of resin + filler).  All this mixing, by the way, was done with little plastic stirrers driven by an electric drill.  Lastly, the blue dye is mixed in.  We had about 750 grams of epoxy and we used less than 1 drop of dye to acheive the color in the photo.  We broke off the tip of a toothpick and stuck the blunt end into the bottle of dye so that about 3/16" of the toothpick was covered in dye.  That was enough to acheive the color in the photo.  One alert here- when mixing the dye into the epoxy, it took almost 30 seconds before the epoxy had any coloring at all.  The first time I tried this, I thought I was going to have to add more dye -  If I had, the color would have been much too dark.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Now to getting the epoxy into the bottle.  The tools used, in order of use, are 1)  the red funnel (the big open part of the funnel is not shown - it screws in to the long narrow part shown), 2)  the clear plastic tubing 7/8" ID,  3)  the plunger made out of wooden dowels and lastly 4)  a strip of aluminum foil bent around the plastic tubing that fits into the neck of the bottle. 6 of these strips were made before starting to insert the epoxy.  The aluminum foil covered about 1/2 of the circumference of the tubing. A lot of square pieces of paper towel were made available to assist in any cleanup necessary.
 
Loading the Tubing -  The plunger was pulled out of the tubing right to the end (roughly as shown in the photo).  The funnel was inserted into the othe end of the tubing and the tubing was held near verticle over a garabage can.  The epoxy was slowly added to the funnel and the tubing was filled up with an 1" or 2" to spare.
 
Inserting the Tubing into the Bottle - The aluminum foil was wrapped around the tubing and the tubing extended about 1" further than the aluminum foil.  The end of the tubing is wiped clean of any epoxy that may have stuck to it. The tubing was inserted into the neck of the bottle until the end of the tubing was about in the middle of the bottle.  The plunger is pushed in to the tubing ejecting the epoxy out to fall to the bottom of the bottle.
 
Extracting the Tubing from the Bottle - Problem - we don't want any dripping of the epoxy to get in the neck of the bottle.  Before extracting the tubing, we push the aluminum foil forward so that it captures any drips from the tubing.  Then the tubing is extracted, pulling aluminum foil with it.  The aluminum foil is tossed into the garbage.
 
It took 5 injections to bring the ocean up to the required level.  The working time of the epoxy mixture is beteen 1 and 2 hours so we had no difficulty finishing the job.

 
 
The surface of the ocean is actually quite flat whereas the picture makes it look concave.  There are two little bubbles that are not supposed to be there.  Also note that the bottle has been clamped to the workbench.  This turned out to be a really good idea because with all the inserting and extraction of the tubing, there would have been problems if it had been loose.
 
Leon is ready so it just remains to fold her up, insert her into the bottle and then raise her up again!
 
 
 
 
 
 

Thanks very much, Patrick! Your encouragement means a lot to me!!

Kevels made from "wasknijpers" (Dutch)
well found and very realistic 

Hello shipmates~! 
 
Some updates on GH2 (Golden Hind 2) where the methodologies I applied and/or materials I used differ from GH1.
 
The whipstaff house design is more or less same as GH1, but I used slightly different methods to put them together more solidly.






 
For the staghorn kevel, I was looking for a more solid material that could be thinner/smaller and still provide strong structural strength.
 
I accidentally came across a small wooden tweezer in a discount store that satisfied my original purpose but also provided me with basic shapes that I can utilize as is for the kevel creation.


As you can see from above picture, I used most of its original shape to construct the kevel. Saving me much time!


Slightly thinner and smaller ones are the new kevels. 

Making a bit of progress adding sheets of balsa as a base for planking may not butt up perfectly but it will all be hidden. Carved down the walls of the hull to be flat. Up next more planking, and sanding but feels like I’m getting a lot done and closer to epoxy and paint. 
its boat season hear in Seattle so getting distracted on weekends but it is totally worth it.

Thanks so much, everyone. This was a major hurdle for me, thinking about it for many years, and now able to move forward.
 
A couple more thoughts, for those working on paintings like this.
 
1. Using frisk to lay down the base yellow ochre actually accomplished a couple of things. Not only did it allow a smooth application of airbrush paint, but it also solved part of the problem of getting the design transferred to the hull. Because the frisk is based on an accurate drawing, there is no need to worry about sketching in the design on the model itself, trying to keep faithful to proportions and sizes. It is as accurate as the drawing used to cut the frisk.
 
2. To get an accurate underlying drawing, I scanned photos of the painting on the original Bellona model, and imported them into my CAD software (HighDesign 9 for Mac). I then resized them to approximately the correct sizes and printed them. When I cut out each print and laid it onto the hull, I could see where the shape needed to be adjusted for more or less curve, a little wider or narrower. I would then make these adjustments to the CAD drawing, print again, adjust and so on until the CAD drawing was an accurate fit. Then I knew the frisk would fit well in its assigned space.
 
3. Regarding airbrush paint, I also started with Vallejo, which is highly regarded by many modelers online. But I also had problems with these clogging my airbrush (Harder and Steenbeck Evolution). Although I tried a number of suggestions for thinners seen on YouTube videos, nothing seemed to work reliably for me. It may be that I did not work out a good way of mixing the paint and thinner, or it may be that spraying on wood rather than plastic makes a difference. Golden High Flow paints worked without thinning, which does allow for a greater consistency in what is going to happen when you pull the trigger. And they match the Golden Fluid acrylics for hand painting.
 
4. As David Antscherl pointed out in his section on painting in the Fully Framed Model, the base layer of yellow ochre is a translucent paint, not opaque. So when spraying or hand brushing yellow over Prussian blue, the resulting color goes green. David's advice of mixing some white into the yellow ochre for hand brushing helps, while a number of layers of airbrushed yellow ochre eventually goes opaque. They dry so quickly that it is possible to get an opaque finish in one session of airbrushing.
 
I look back and wonder why it took me so long to work out this painting business; and now I remember the many experiments, dead ends, different products....
 
Mark
 

Thank you Phil, much appreciated. Here is a picture of the prototype...
Regards,
Bruce

I have now dipped the pins in a dark oak stain which I think tones them better with the model and provides a range of subtle shades.

4811a
An original pin is second from the right. (excuse the working detritus)
 
Working on the thimbles now, modifying the Pendents of tackles, I think they will be 👌
 
Hard to imagine from even a short time ago such fine detail on items so small.
 
Cheers, Chuck.
 
B.E.

HI everyone,
A long time since my last post. I realized that I was getting to far ahead of myself, building up the stern with everything just pinned. I needed first to paint the lower and upper counters before I could actually start assembling things.
 
And learning how to paint the friezes was a major learning curve!
 
I greatly followed David Antscherl's advice on painting in the Fully Frame Model, vol. II section 7.26. It was exceptionally helpful for everything from paint and brushes to technique.
 
Alas, I discovered after a great deal of experimentation that hand painting alone did not work well for me. Particularly for the background Prussian blue and the letters "Bellona" on the stern, I needed a way to get things sharper and more even in tone. So, I turned to my airbrush. I masked everything but the counter and sprayed away.
 
 

I glued artist's frisk onto a print of the upper counter letters and frieze elements (a woman riding a sea monster, a man riding a galloping horse). I could then turn the frisk/print every which way on my light table, and very carefully cut the frisk with a scalpel. I then attached the frisk and sprayed everything that would be the yellow ochre base for all of the frieze work:
 

I then used white graphite transfer paper to trace the rest of the pattern onto the surfaces:
 

Then following David's advice of painting highlights and shadows on the basic forms, I eventually got to an imperfect copy of the original Bellona model:
 

I learned to admire those original model builders for their painting skill. Try as I might, I just could not get to the same level of skill. But as good as I can do! So, moving on to actually gluing together the stern!
 
I did learn a few good things that I will pass on for anyone else attempting these kinds of friezes.
 
First, after trying a number of airbrush and hand paint brands, I settled on Golden. They have the same colors in different densities, for airbrushing and hand painting; the colors match the historic colors I was looking for; they come in plastic bottles with ball bearing inside, for mixing. They spray without problems through my airbrush. And they are highly regarded in the artist community.
 
Second, I struggled with the acrylic paint drying too quickly on the palette when I was trying to mix colors. My son introduced me to the model gamers' favorite tool, the Army Painter Wet Palette. This tray holds a water saturated pad, upon which is placed a parchment sheet. Paint mixed on top of the parchment can stay wet and mixable for as long as 48 hours. A huge help!
 
A glass of wine tonight in celebration, and on to assembling the stern!
 
Mark