Enterprise by src - Constructo - 1:51 - or Lessons in Adapt Improvise and Overcome

[src]

Lou, yes, mine is the same way. I figure I would have to clean the bowl out with denatured alcohol and then soap and water. Then use Some #60 sand from our sand blaster at work. I don’t think corncob or walnut husks would do it. I have not had good luck with just a chemical dip for cleaning, I have had better results with an abrasive cleaning followed by soap and water then an acid like vinegar to get the last of the impurity’s off. Even then small parts have never really come out the way I would like. 

Carl, that’s good to know because at some point better half and I are supposed to take our “real” honeymoon to Ireland. 

 

Sam

Edited April 19, 2019 by src

[lmagna]

Sand blasting sand should do a great job even though it may be a little harsh on your polisher as well. An extra pIus is that you can get it from work! I kind of wonder how Kitty litter, or what ever you may call it where you live, would do? 

[SHIPSCAT]

5 hours ago, src said:

HAHAHAHAHAH!!!! Jo, you should be a comedian my friend

Hello Sam

Well I am pleased I made you laugh but I stand by what I said.

Carl is correct, if you order from the UK they should deduct the VAT before they invoice you, that is if the cost includes the VAT if not on the invoice in the VAT part should read 00.00.

 

Jo.

[src]

Lou, sand might be a little harsh but considering it has sat in a box for more than 15 years I think it's safe to say I wont do it any harm. Heck, it may not even work anymore. and yes, not having to pay $5.00 for 50 or more pounds of sand when all I need is a quart or two is a plus. I dont know about kitty litter, we use the clumping kind, I wonder how that would be absorbing the excess polishing compound in the bowl.....

 

Jo, that Carl's a smart feller aint he?

 

Sam

[cog]

5 hours ago, src said:

Carl, that’s good to know because at some point better half and I are supposed to take our “real” honeymoon to Ireland.

Listen to Jo, she's right (because she's right, I am too )

Some shops sell tax free at the shop if you can proove you are from outside the EU. You can always ask ... It won't work at restaurants, hotels and such though ...

 

But ... aren't you a bit late for honeymooning ... did your boss get the better part of the deal ?

[mtaylor]

10 hours ago, src said:

Size wise they are close to the kits and I will most likely go with them. In my bumbling way I was saying I dont really know how tall a belay pin should be; I have been too lazy to look it up. 

 

Sam

Usually (very vague actually) they were about 18 inches long.  But that depends on the ship and lines being tied off.   As I said... very vague answer.

[src]

Mark, that will have to be close enough for me. At 12 mm its just a hair over 2', but they dont fall through my holes and filled with rope nobody but us here will know.

 

I managed to retie the hook to my Gaff Peak Halyard. Its was moderately easier than I expected, it only took 2 tries. I was able to move things around and get my fly tying vice close enough to hold the block. The scary part was the stern was hanging off the end of the work bench. I had constant visions of knocker her off to the floor. 😧  I ended up tying the hook to the strop with a constrictor knot and then looping the strop around and tying that off with another constrictor. Then soaking the whole mess with 50/50 white glue and water. After that I walked away it can dry overnight. I will wrap some hitches of fly thread around the join then see how well it holds under tension.

Back to where I was last Saturday..😂

 

Carl, Our "honeymoon" last October was blown off course by hurricane Wilma. 2 hours after we left port the captain came on the PA and announced a change and why. We could still see the hills of above the Port of LA we were so close to home. So, instead of the Mexican Riviera we cruised our home state of California; San Francisco, San Diego and Ensenada just over the border from San Diego....Two cities we go to at least once each year......... I told Better Half right then "this isnt our honeymoon". We still had a great time, good food, good wiskey, all was well. Just a lot of money to see two cities I have been to and a third I can drive to if I had the urge.

 

Sam

[cog]

Sorry to hear about the honeymoon, expect they did at least gave a partial refund ...

 

After ten years we might have expected some prowes, so a mere 2 tries sounds about acceptable, if not extreme. Glad your vision didn't come true, and you finished tying up the hook, even ifit is  not exactly to your wishes.

[src]

Thank Carl, that really would have been unfortunate if she took a tumble. the second attempt was because I was trying to forestall the tumble by moving things around before the glue dried, it all came undone.

 

Refund??? Not at all, there was a clause about "diverting for safety reasons."

Sam

[popeye the sailor]

I had my tiff over belaying pins.......the ones I got in a kit looked like knewl post tops!  considering the scale of the kit,  they never would have worked!

     I fancy the brass ones myself........I changed the way I run the lines too.  I thread the rope through the hole and then stick the pin in.  it saves on me having to hang clothes pins to keep the lines taught,  I'll never forget where they are supposed to go,  and if the hole is small enough,  I don't have to cement them in place.  your ship's look'in good.....keep up the good work!  

[src]

Dennis, Thanks. I might try your trick of running the line through the hole. Right now I have run out of alligator clips!

 

Still haven't sat down and re-tensioned my back stays. Hopefully this weekend and then I can get back to building.

 

Sam

[src]

Long story short, I have a new phone. I switched from an IPhone to a galaxy s10. Not sure how I feel about it yet. There are things that are really different. One thing I do like is the camera, it is far superior to the camera on my old Iphone. Bare with me while I play.

I am making the Gaff for the Fore Mast and took a few pictures of the process, nothing special the usual procedure; four square the blank, taper, epoxy the parts for the jaws, 8 square the whole thing and start shaping the jaws. Then finish rounding the corners and a good scraping. Other than cropping out extraneous bits the photos are right off the camera, no color correction, sharpening etc. Not bad overall, a little pink but passable on my monitor. My focus could be better but again passable for this.

Whilst I was happily carving away and pitchure takin' I noticed Murphy capering about in the corner, giggling to himself. I looked over things and couldn't see anything amiss so decided he was just trying to distract me. That is until I went to fit the gaff up to the mast.....

Huston, we have a problem....

 

OH! Murphy! BAD Murphy! Tricksy, evil wicked Murphy!  It appears that once again by dumping the instructions and diving in head first without really knowing what I am doing I burned myself. My Main Top Stay and Preventer Stay run right where the jaws of the Gaff sit. GRRRRR🤯

At the moment I see two options, 1) dont bother with the gaff, "Keep Calm and Carry On" or, 2) since I still have to re-tension my stays I can re-position the blocks  so the stays run outside the jaws.  Anybody have any idea how these stays would have been run in this situation? It is looking difficult to try to do anything major at this point. Quite frankly I am leaning towards option number 1, leave the gaff off. It would, however be nice to know what the "correct" solution would be for the future.

Ok, off to have an adult beverage and do a bit of lite reading, My alarm went off at 2am this morning for a job walk at 5....in the rain....without an umbrella.... MURPHY!!!!!!!!😂🤣😂

 

Sam

Edited May 7, 2019 by src

[vossiewulf]

Yeah, I keep running into those things, totally obvious in retrospect but look fine to the untrained eye up to that point.

 

I have an S10, but I've always used Android. It's pretty consistent across all UIs so once you get the pattern you won't have any problems with anything.

 

As for your new camera, for some reason the shots of you making the gaff have a very narrow depth of focus, almost like you have a tilt-shift filter turned on. However the longer shot of the ship itself doesn't seem to have that problem.

[mtaylor]

How much tighter would the lines be if you spread them apart to fit the boom?  I did that on my Constellation build.  Had enough slack to install the boom and everything came out ok.  Luckly, I hadn't rigged the other masts to that point yet so boom first and then rig on those.

[src]

9 hours ago, vossiewulf said:

totally obvious in retrospect but look fine to the untrained eye up to that point

HAHA The story of my life Vossie. As far as the focus, I just pushed the phone up until I had more or less the composition I wanted.  Since the focal plane was not parallel to the subject and I was really close the narrow depth of focus threw out the closest and farthest area of the picture. Had I been using an SLR and macro lens I would have also had a tripod or at least a mono pod attached and could have stopped down for better depth of field. When I took the overall shot of the masts I was further away so had a greater depth of field.

 

Mark, spreading/shifting the stay will tighten them up a bit. I can rotate the preventer stay easily, the top stay will take a bit more work. it will foul the lanyards of the T'Gallant Stay. That lanyard will need to be re-done if I go that rout. Not a difficult process. I will have to strop a hook on to one end instead of the eye that I am currently stropped to. I doubt I can get in there and do a decent job of tying off to the eyelet at this point.

 

Thanks to everybody who stopped by and hit the like button, always appreciated.

Sam

Edited May 7, 2019 by src

[popeye the sailor]

that's really your only recourse........the line would pass by the gaff,  by the boom {as you have already done},  and terminated as you have them.  hate to say it........I'm sure you've already remedied the problem  

[src]

Hey Dennis, Yea that was the last thing I did before going on vacation. They will still rub the jaws a little, I can live with it.

Before I went away I started cutting blanks for my yard arms, nothing to show at the moment, hoping to get some bench time in tomorrow.

Thank to everyone who hit the like button.

Sam

[src]

Hello patient strangers!

Made it back for a bit. Lots going on in my personal life; work related mostly, nothing bad. Better Half and I are both on really screwy schedules, resulting in the usual story of no time/energy to play. You have all heard my lamentations before. We did take a cruise to Alaska last month, that was a great trip and we actually ended up in the ports advertised this time; no hurricanes!

 

I haven't been a TOTAL slug since though. I have decided not to mount the gaff  from earlier, most likely I will look for a way to lash that and a couple of failed masts to the deck. I started tinkering with the Fore Yard, results below. Today's task is to work on the iron work for the stuns'l yards.

Now, off to see what the rest of ya'all have been up to.

 

Sam

[SHIPSCAT]

Sam your back, you know what they say don't you, all work and no play haha.

 

Jo.

[src]

Jo,

Sorry, nope not back yet. We have two parade floats due in 6 weeks I have popped in to MSW to check on a couple of ongoing PM conversations but other than that I am really out of the loop MSW-wise.

I have done a small aount of work on the Enterprise, working on the Fore Yard. I finished up tying the blocks on last night. I will try to get a picture up in the next couple of days.

See ya!

Sam

[JimArr]

Sam,

 

Thanks for the link.  Although I have only had time for a quick skim of your thread,  I can see you have done a great job recording your progress.  And its a great looking model.  Will have to take some time later for a more detailed study.  There are lots of ideas here that I will need in the future for my build.  

 

Jim

[src]

Hey all!

I have a day off and some time to venture about here as well as get a bit of build time in. Over the last couple of months i have had some time to finish my Fore Yard as well as get started with the Fore Top and Fore T'Gallent yards. Current status below. I am not 100% satisfied with teh footropes and Lanyards? Slings? that support them. They are kind of misshapen. If I cant straighten them out I will have to re-do them.

 

I believe the center portion of the yards were supposed to be 16 squared, I am finding it exceedingly difficult to 8 square stock at this size, I stopped there.

 

I originally built the Stuns'l hardware completely from brass but the banding that mounts to the yard looked to thick even at 1/64" so I made those from the foil that caps wiskey and wine bottles. It worked well, but I need to prep/prime them better in the future, some of the paint peeled off and required a repaint. I suspect a more thorough cleaning with alcohal and maybe a brushing of vinegar to slightly etch the foil will work better. Thoughts anybody?

 

That's all the news that is fit to print. Best guess is November before I get back on a more regular build schedule. (Murphy, you stay in your corner!!)

 

Sam

 

 

 

[SHIPSCAT]

Wow nice work Sam.

 

Jo.

[mtaylor]

Good to see you were able to get some free time, Sam.  Looking good still.

[src]

Jo Mark and those who hit the Like button, Thank you.

Baby Steps....Baby Steps...

 

Sam

[popeye the sailor]

that's right Sam....it's not a race     nice work on the yard!  looks good  

[src]

Thanks Dennis.

Nothing much going on here at the moment. She is sitting quietly on my work table collecting dust.

4 more weeks, 4 more weeks.

LOL
Sam

[src]

Well now, 4 weeks turned into more like 10 or 12. We delivered the project to the buyer and finished up some details on site. The last week was intense; start at 5 am work through to 8:30 PM to get out of the building we were in before a nightly fire works show. The entrance to the building is 75 feet from the main launch tubes so the building gets closed off for two hours. one night we decided to just work through as we had a final acceptance test the next morning. Holy Smokes, when those first rounds went off I about jumped out of my skin!

We finished up took a couple of weeks off for the holidays then went back to it. Been driving down to a project location again 5 days a week. Start at 5am leave at 1:30pm. Its amazing what a difference a few hours makes; I can make it to the site in 30 minutes but it takes an hour and a half to get home sometimes.

 

OK, enough rambling about non build related details. Last weekend I made my boom irons and blackened them. Apparently I left one in the solution and wandered off to do other things. When I went to clean them up and get some wax on them I could only find 3. HHmmmmmmm. Where on earth did it go, I know I made 4. Looks in the jar of blackening solution. Whats that line of black fuzziness? I bet thats my other iron, lets get the tweezers and dig it out. Hmm, cant grab it, whats up?? The wire I made the standoffs with had completely dissolved into powder, all that is left is a lump of brass ring that was the hoop. Ok, time to make another one, it just came out of the solution a few minutes ago.

 

 

 

Three irons and a lump (sounds like a song), still need some clean up:

 

Current state of my Fore Top Yard. Not much different than a few(?) weeks ago. Got the bands on and primed as well as moved the 4 stops to a more accurate position, apparently I had them too far out.

 

Looking at the pictures I posted back in November I have shaped the Fore T'Gallent yard, now, where is THAT disappeared to?? Perhaps its time to clean the work bench? Nah, I would rather blame the dog.....

 

Sam

Edited February 1, 2020 by src

[mtaylor]

I feel for you Sam on the long hours.   Been there, done that, myself.   The update looks pretty darn good.

[popeye the sailor]

your still working on her....that's the good thing    yard looks really nice