HM Schooner Ballahoo by georgeband - Caldercraft - Haddock drawings

[georgeband]

Progress with the hull in the last couple of weeks. 

 

I finished the sanding, and the stem and stern posts and keel, and the wales. The upper wale is in 2x2mm walnut and sits on the top edge of the top-and-butt planking. It needs the uprights for the bulwarks to hold it in place. The photo below shows the top-and-butt now that the wood has aged by a few days. The keel is in limewood because I had some of the right size and it will be covered by the copper plates later. 

 

The bulwarks are now growing. I cut away the sticky-up bits on the kit bulkheads, finished my curved uprights and put a short piece of walnut between each pair to give the lower edge of the gun ports. Each 'H' in walnut on the photo is the beginnings of a gun port. 

 

The outer face of the bulwarks has now been planked with two rows of 4x1mm walnut between the gun ports. They need to grow another 2mm taller and I will wait for the inner layer to catch up and then place a 3x2mm wide plank to complete both the inner and outer bulwark planking. Gunwale to go on top of that. More work to do on the bulwarks and then I will get some photos here. 

 

I have another thread going about chase gun ports in the transom, and the ship's name. Here is the link if you want to see that discussion. 

https://modelshipworld.com/topic/27728-chase-gun-port-lids/?tab=comments#comment-796589

 

Off to get my Covid vaccination shortly. Hopefully some normality will return eventually. 

 

George

 

[georgeband]

I have now finished the bulwarks and am pleased with the way they curve inwards (tumblehome), something which the kit plywood bulwarks cannot achieve. The design relies on curved uprights that I glued to the inner face of the hull and then planked them inside and out to give a strong structure. The uprights provide the sides to the gun ports but the bulwarks are mostly hollow. (Two of the sections have a pale top. This is because I was a bit too enthusiastic with the sanding and had to build up the height a little.) 

 

 

The outer face of the bulwarks is in 1mm thick walnut. Two rows are 4mm wide and one at the top is 2mm wide. The bottom row sits on top of the upper wale and leaves a narrow step that shows off the wale. 

 

 

The inner face of the bulwark is planked with the 0.5mm thick deck planks from the kit (tanganyika?). The two lower rows are 4mm wide again and the top row is from lengths that I split down to 2mm wide. They look a bit stark now but I will stain them walnut to match the others, or possibly paint them. The spirketting plank below the bulwark planks is 1x4mm walnut and has a narrow, 0.5mm step at the top. 

 

 

Next jobs are the transom and the gunwale. Discussions in a separate thread about the transom (see previous post for a link) guide me towards open gun ports and no name on the back. I have also started a thread about the gunwale and its construction 

https://modelshipworld.com/topic/27872-gunwale-details-1800-schooner/?tab=comments#comment-799993

 

It feels like spring here and I am off now to give the lawns their first cut of the year. 

 

George

[georgeband]

More building to report. 

 

The gunwales are now in place. The relatively straight sections are in 2x4mm lime wood and have two fake scarph joints scribed on them. The fore ends of the straight bits have a real scarph joint where they meet the bow sections. I soaked and bent the gunwales to shape, then put a row of pins in the underside of them so that they would not slip sideways while they were gluing to the tops of the bulwarks. 

 

 

The fore section of the gunwales over the bow has a tight curve and I made them by laminating two 2x2 pieces of walnut which were individually bent to shape. I used two different lengths of wood and found that for one them 2x2 was not quite right and I had to add a third layer to get the correct width. That's why the photo below shows a pale inner face to the bow section of the gunwale. I will paint the gunwales later. 

 

 

I sanded the inner and outer edges of the gunwales to get the angle (parallel to the bulwark) and the overhang right. 

 

The transom revealed a mistake I had made with the ply former which should have been 2mm higher. I cut and edge-glued an extension before planking the outside faces of the counter and transom with a generous overhang at the sides. Between the counter and transom is a 2x2 piece of walnut, glued to the face of the transom.  I then drilled holes through the corners of the gun ports to give datum marks on the inner face. (The photo does remind me of an owl.) 

 

 

The inner face then received four uprights (2x2 walnut) and planking that matched the outer face. For the inner face planking I used 0.5mm deck planks to keep the thickness down. I also planked the forward face of the transom where it projects outside the bulwarks with 1mm walnut. The schooners had 'wings' on the transom which I think were fashion statements. On the model they are 2mm thick and I sanded them to shape. 

 

 

There was a frame around the transom and at the top-centre I cut in a piece of 1x4mm walnut. A piece of 0.5x4 deck plank then went around the whole transom. Once the glue had set I put in two extra laminations of the same wood on the inside face of the frame. Careful sanding afterwards left a nice lip around the transom. I also glued a layer of 0.5mm over the join between the counter and transom to build up its thickness. 

 

 

The gun ports in the transom remain blocked with thin ply. I still have not decided whether they should be open or if they should have port lids. If I do choose closed lids then I will plank onto the ply to represent them. 

 

George

[georgeband]

I have completed some detailed work on oar ports and reinforcing bars above the gun ports. 

 

 

The reinforcing bars are shown as a horizontal dotted line on one Admiralty drawing. My interpretation after guidance from other MSW members is that the ends were iron plates which were set into the gunwale (also known as the cap-rail by some). The reinforce itself is probably a bar but could be a rod; there is not much difference at 1/64 scale with a 2-foot viewing distance. The iron plates are rectangles of card and the bar is a staple that has had one leg straightened and then bent again to give the correct spacing. 

 

The oar (sweep) ports are keyhole shapes on the drawing. The round hole was easy to make by drilling and trimming but the slot was tricky because it is less than 1mm wide. I drilled a couple of 0.5mm holes to start the slot then joined and extended them with delicate knife work. There are 12 of these ports on the schooner and every one has to be good, and there is no option to make more and choose the best ones. (The gun ports are 9mm wide to give you a sense of the scale.) I found it essential to work with an illuminating magnifier for these. 

 

 

The gunwale will get a coat of black paint, as will the other wales. I will probably paint the outside face of the bulwarks between the gunwale and the upper wale in yellow ochre. The inner face of the bulwarks is currently stained with walnut and I think I will leave it natural. John Roach's log book mentions painters coming on board but he did not record what they painted or in which colour so the choice is fairly open. 

 

George

 

[georgeband]

The hull has had its first coats of paint. I chose to paint the bulwarks in yellow ochre and the wales are black; this is a simple guess based on the idea that these colours were cheap and could be afforded by a newly promoted lieutenant. I took the idea a bit further and the gunwale is black on the top and sides while the wales are black on the sides only to save even more cost. 

I used acrylic paints (Rowney artist) and thinned them to get an even finish. The yellow ochre needed six coats before I was happy with the results and fortunately with acrylics the waiting time between coats is quite short. 

 

I also made the hawse hole covers from walnut planks glued together for width and for thickness, then carved to get the right shape and a good fit against the hull. They are only two little pieces but it took me the best part of three hours to make and fit them. Drilling the holes was the easy bit. 

 

My earlier, careful work on scarph joints in the gunwales has been largely obscured by the paint but the reinforcing bars over some of the gun ports can just be made out. Detail features that are painted black on a black background have little chance of standing out. 

 

 

 

 

George

 

[egkb]

Looking Good George ..  Colouring is nice and subtle too

 

Eamonn

[georgeband]

Whiting now has two lengths of brass tube sticking out of her bottom. These are the stands and I will thread optical fibres through them later. For now they are a push fit into a block of wood  and hold the schooner so that her waterline is horizontal. The tops of the tubes are level with the lower decks. The tubes were a push fit into the hull and I secured them with a generous amount of epoxy resin (Araldite rapid) which I poured and poked into the bottom of the hull where the tubes are exposed. 

 

 

The next time consuming job was to design interiors as card models. The Admiralty drawings have plenty of detail about the lower deck(s) and I used Powerpoint to replicate them. This work was iterative with trial prints on paper, test fits and large and small adjustments until I was confident that I could get the folded card into the confined spaces between the bulkheads. The colour of the floors was also by trial and error and I wanted to match sanded Eastern Red Cedar which is the closest available alternative to Bermuda pencil pine. The walls I left in white on the assumption that they would be whitewashed to try and get the most light into the spaces. 

The captain's cabin was the simplest card model and it has a floor, front wall and back wall all in one piece. I painted the sides of the cabin white. That's when I learned that the inner face of the hull was called the ceiling. 

 

Captain's cabin looking aft. There is a scuttle in the floor.

 

Captain's cabin looking forward. The hole in the floor is where optical fibres will come in. 

 

The large space between frames B and D aft of the fore mast was made in two pieces because a single piece cannot be inserted between the sloping cuts in the spine and bulkheads. 

 

View forward. The black area is the floor below the cooking range. I will disguise the hole with a bucket or something. Lots of hatches in the deck.

 

The entrance lobby is the most complicated card model and I used one piece for the back wall, floor, step and front wall. Two separate pieces are needed for the sides where the sub-lieutenant and surgeon have their cabins. 

 

Parts for the entrance lobby. The holes in the back wall are for optical fibres

 

Entrance lobby, view forward and to port

 

Let me know if you want a pdf copy of the card models for the interior. I will put it on my website at some stage. 

 

The improving weather here means that model making will slow down for a few months while I tackle full size jobs around the house. I hope that a few rainy days will let me work on furniture and lighting at 1/64 scale. 

 

George

 

[georgeband]

The captain's cabin now has some furniture in it. I made a hammock with a blanket over it, some storage chests and a table and chair. These will only be visible through the skylight when Whiting is finished so I made these bits so they look good from the available viewing angles; at the back there are blocks and blobs which hold them together. I know some modellers who are of the school where even the hidden bits must be right, but for me there are other priorities in life. Each to his own and have joy in the way you prefer to work. 

A few photos here of some of the furniture and the completed cabin. 

 

The hammock has representative stringing at one end only. The other end gets glued to a wall, out of sight. The blanket is cut from a paper napkin and the hammock itself is paper kitchen towel that has been folded over several times. 

 

The table and chair can only be seen from above. The map is in pencil and has a couple of weights to stop it from rolling up and some calipers from brass wire. The wood blocks underneath the table and chair will not be visible. 

 

View of the cabin from above. The skylight is above the table and allows slant views of most of the cabin. The two small circles above the table are candles on little shelves and now have white paint in them. 

 

Angled view of the cabin. The hole in the floor for optical fibres is shielded by the chair

 

I am now thinking about the ladder in the entrance lobby. The Admiralty drawings show many features such as the ladder as perpendicular to the keel when I would expect them to be perpendicular to the sea when Whiting is afloat. There is something wrong here and I suspect that our Admiralty draughtsman took a short cut or two and followed the lines of the frames for everything which is 'vertical'. There is another thread where this is being discussed. 

 

 

I am still undecided about how to proceed with these 'verticals' but will likely choose the approach which looks better to my eyes. It is a slippery path when we choose to think that the Admiralty drawings are wrong because they do not show what we want or expect to see, so I will be cautious. 

 

George

 

[Roger Pellett]

Ships launched on slipways were NOT constructed with the keel blocks on a level plane.  The declivity had to be sufficient to allow gravity to do its job.  Eric Ronnberg, a highly regarded model builder and historian of New England maritime history has written that declivity was 3%.

 

When the ship was ready to be launched, the slipways were laid down and heavily greased with tallow.   Cradles sitting on the slipways were erected bow and stern under the hull.  On launch day 100’s of wedges were driven into a space in the cradles left for that purpose.  These lifted the hull very slightly to allow the weight to be transferred from the keel blocks to the cradles.  There was some sort of trigger mechanism built into the one of the cradles and when this was released, hopefully gravity would do its job.

 

While it would be theoretically possible to build the vessel on level keel blocks and then launch it on an inclined slipway erected for the purpose, practically this would be  impossible to do with the technology available.  If the vessel had a keel length of 100ft, the bow would have to be raised by 3ft, the stern lowered by 3ft or a combination of the two.  

 

Roger

[egkb]

Hi George .. I really like the cozy feel of the cabin, very Compact and Bijou .. Was also admiring your Chart Dividers and the Chart itself (was wondering what it would look like if you shrank an actual 'period' chart down to suit .. or am I over thinking it here.. It may not be visible at all through the grating etc.. but I did locate something suitable that you might like to try, it is attached below)

 

Keep up the wonderful work

 

Eamonn

Edit .. this is from circa 1780's

 

Edited May 6, 2021 by egkb
Adding Chart Date

[georgeband]

Eamonn,

Thanks for your comments. The captain's quarters are luxury compared to the nearly 20 crew who shared the main hold between the masts. Headroom for them was a little over 4 feet, less below the deck beams. Whiting had a brief career as a slaver after her time in the Royal Navy and there are records which show that more than 80 slaves survived the passage. I don't know how people could endure that, or inflict that. 

The map looks good and a large print would be a fine backdrop to a model. Shrink it down to 1cm though and we get a grey area with little contrast. That's why I drew something which would show through a skylight even though the features are far too coarse. Sometimes modelling preferences outweigh true scale sizes and that is why some people put a lot of effort into trenails which are pretty much invisible. Do you remember the giant rivets that used to adorn Airfix kits of aircraft? 

 

Roger,

I have put ruler and set square to the Admiralty drawing for Haddock and there are several features worthy of comment. 

• The keel has a small taper. The height/thickness is 6mm at the bow and 4.5mm at the stern (at 1/48 on the drawing, the keel is about 300mm long). 
• The upper edge of the keel is parallel to the ruled datum line below it. 
• The lower edge of the keel is not parallel to the ruled datum line. The stern is higher by about 0.5 in 100 which is another way of saying that the keel tapers. 
• The frames are perpendicular to the keel. I cannot tell if there is a better alignment with the upper or the lower edge of the keel or something in between. 

One other snippet of qualitative information comes from James' Naval History of Great Britain. He says (and I am quoting from memory...) that three or four of these schooners were built across a slip. 

 

So what does it all mean? I believe our surveyor when he drew the frames perpendicular to the keel. I suspect that he used the upper edge of the keel as his datum, if only because it is dry, and then adjusted the thickness on the lower edge. Were these schooners built this way, or was the lower edge of the keel tipped slightly on the stocks? We will probably never know but I look forward to hearing your opinion. 

 

George

 

 

[egkb]

Yea.. I've been below in tight head-space compartments and can only guess at the discomfort involved in conducting day to day life in such spaces .. and that for the crew .... 80 slaves doesn't bear thinking about.. Jeez !! 

 

I've looked a few contemporary plans (Inc Ballahoo's) where the ladder sides are parallel to the Frames, but the treads are parallel to the Deck .. this of course will tilt the ladder sides when Ballahoo sits to her marks but the threads become 'more' level.. (not fully level) not really an issue to a sailor on a rolling boat though.

There are a lot of plans which also show the 'lift/taper' of the keel as it runs aft (some are even very gently curved upwards)

 

Eamonn

Edited May 7, 2021 by egkb
Additional

[georgeband]

More work on the interior to report, this time on the entrance lobby. 

 

I added a 'skirting board' along the aft face of the entrance lobby and continued it across the door to the captain's cabin which opens away from the lobby. My thinking here is that when water comes down the ladderway it will not get into the cabin. The side cabins have doors that open into the lobby and I would assume they have a similar board inside the cabin. 

 

Rear face of the entrance lobby with a 'skirting board'. The tops of the pump pipes are visible at the fore end

 

The pumps are just aft of the main mast and the pump pipes are in the fore end of the entrance lobby. (The kit places the pumps midships which is quite wrong but fills a space on deck.) I made the  pipes from bamboo barbeque skewers which are 4mm diameter. 

 

Entrance lobby looking forward. The pump pipes stand on the step

 

The ladder width and the gap between treads is shown on the Admiralty drawing for Haddock, but it does not show the slope or whether it is to port or starboard. I think that the lower end is to port and the upper end to starboard; the photo above shows that the entrance lobby extends further to port which would make it easier to scend the ladder. (Scend is a word I have found in contemporary books and it combines both ascending and descending.)  Access to three doors also has a simpler route, and a scuttle in the deck is not directly at the foot of the ladder. All in all, it looks like the companionway cover should open to starboard, opposite to what Caldercraft suggest. Marquardt in 'The Global Schooner' says that starboard opening was the more normal choice. 

I made the ladder in a conventional way which I am sure lots of people have invented independently. I drew a template, pinned down the sides and glued on tread supports. When the glue had set the sides were cut free and trimmed and then the treads were glued in. 

 

Construction of the sides of the ladder

 

I placed the treads perpendicular to the sides which will not be parallel to the frames. After all the agonizing about what should be right, in practice it is pretty much invisible on the model. I left gluing the ladder in place until after I have laid the deck. 

 

Now I am working on the cooking range. 

 

George

 

[egkb]

Hi George .. Looking Brilliant, I really like what you are doing with Haddock..

If I were to start my Fish Class all over I would have placed the Pumps as you are, just abaft the Main Mast which is of course correct.. I would also have relocated my 'Stove Flue' to the (Correct) space abaft the Fore Mast .. this was simply a placement error at the time (I got distracted somehow) but didn't worry too much about fixing it .. Not ideal I know LOL .. (I have a lot more reference materiel now than I did all those years ago)

 

Eamonn

[georgeband]

Eamonn, 

 

Thank you for your kind comments. 

 

I have made models where later research shows that I followed a convention or made a mistake and got something wrong. My Sherbourne is one example where I would now do some things differently. I now look at Sherbourne with more critical eyes but family and visitors are still impressed by the look of her with sails set and activity on the deck. 

 

One thing I have learned over the years is that kit manufacturers are not omniscient and they make mistakes. It is a leap of faith for a newcomer to trust their own research when it contradicts the kit instructions. My Sherbourne and, I think, your Ballahoo are examples where we have built a kit and added details and features to enhance it. I (we?) assumed that the kit was basically correct and that some simplified areas could be improved. It is disappointing to learn afterwards that elements of the kit are wrong and we did not correct them. But, we still have a fine model and should focus on what went well and the overall look. There is a similar issue with DIY projects such as wallpapering; my eyes are drawn to a mistake I made where the edges do not meet properly but others see the big picture and like the pattern/ colour/ smoothness. 

 

The workmanship on your Ballahoo is outstanding and displays your skill as a model maker. So a few bits are in the wrong place but who apart from you (and people on this forum...) will ever know? Visitors to your house will be amazed by your model so keep quiet about what you found in later research. And don't invite anyone who has an intimate knowledge of the Haddock drawings. 

 

George

[tkay11]

Well said, George. We all have our own particular motivations. I make models for my own enjoyment, not for others. I enjoy the simple exploration of how to do it and still come out with some kind of a complete model. I also like exploring the different types of look of ships and boats. In any case a true replica would not only involve something at full size, but also detailed photographs of the original, together with detailed explanations of the actual rigging practice and sail plan of each particular captain of the boat in question, together with a choice of the actual time of a particular day that the replica was to be built. Some folks in fact try to do that, but each to their own limits; the level of faithfulness is up to each modeler. I still much enjoyed your Sherbourne, especially as you helped me understand how to interpret plans and instructions. Thanks for the continuing stimulation!

 

Tony

[egkb]

What nice things to say George & Tony.. perhaps some of the wisest comments I have read on MSW, it is so easy to forget the original motivation for our builds and try to achieve the near impossible, perhaps the best we can strive for is our interpretation of these vessels !  I have sailed on Sister Ships, built to the same specification in same yards side by side and to a sailor they are as different as chalk and cheese, even their tonnage was significantly different and that was using relatively (80's) advanced building methods.. What would it have been like over 200 years ago ? 

 

I'm off now to put the finishing touches to Ballahoo and take some very blurry photos of her ... 😉

 

Eamonn

And Sorry George for hijacking your thread..

[georgeband]

Interior details below the fore hatch.

 

There was a cooking range just aft of the fore mast and its front face is visible through the hatch. Peter Goodwin in his book on Alert has detailed drawings but his range is too big for Whiting. I used his drawings as inspiration to create my own range, and took the liberty of moving it aft by 4mm in comparison to the Admiralty drawing. The reason for the shift in location is so that the optical fibres will be hidden inside the range. 

 

I built the range from scrap materials - 1mm thick wood, paper and wire. The photo below shows the basic structure with a grate at the bottom, an open space above it, and then a tapered area that leads to the chimney. There is also a swinging arm that carried a cooking pot which I made from bamboo and wire. The base below the range is painted burnt umber to represent brick and has a contrasting wood lip around it. There is a slot in the base that fits around the optical fibres and the spine which projects aft of frame D. 

 

Cooking range. Unpainted except for the brick floor beneath it.

 

I painted the inside of the range black and the outside in dark grey with flecks of silver along exposed edges. I also painted frame D in black behind the range. 

 

Cooking range, painted and with the cooking pot in place

 

The third photo shows the range in position though it has not been glued yet. I want to bring the optical fibres into the hold and secure them before fixing the range. The angle of the photo gives a view similar to what I will have on the finished model. The hatch is right over frame B which I have cut back. 

 

Cooking range in position

 

The second (and final) item for the fore hatch is a ladder. The Admiralty drawing labels the hatch as a ladder way but there is no drawing of a ladder. I assume that the ladder was easily demountable since its feet rested on hatch covers in the lower deck. I made mine using the same template as for the ladder in the entrance lobby though of much lighter construction: the sides and treads are 0.5x2mm tanganyika which I split down from the deck planks in the kit. As with the main ladder, this one will be trimmed and fitted after the deck has been laid. I intend to provide hooks at the top of the ladder to stop it from sliding and falling but will position them when the lip around the ladder way is finished.

I might yet paint or stain the little ladder because its wood is a bit bright for me and not right for Bermudan cedar. I could claim it is newly made from fir during Whiting's refit at Portsmouth. 

 

Both ladders. The pointy ends to the left are the tops

 

I think that optical fibres will come next and feel that I am delaying starting this job. If the weather clears then I prefer to be outside while it is possible. If it stays wet and miserable then I might have to find my soldering iron (for the LEDs and wiring, not to melt the fibres). 

 

George

 

[georgeband]

Optical fibres

 

I have fitted optical fibres through the aft stand (brass tube) and coaxed them into position. Basic geometry shows that seven 1mm diameter fibres should fit through a 3mm internal diameter tube but it all depends on manufacturing tolerances. My fallback position was to fit only five fibres if they were too tight. Fortunately all seven were a comfortable fit and slide without scraping bits of the sides. 

 

Initially there was a tree of fibres that poked up through the brass tube I have used as a stand. I allowed a 20cm / 8 inch tail from the bottom of the tube so that the ends of the fibres will be accessible when Whiting is on her display stand. I wrapped insulating tape around the fibres at both ends of the brass tube to stop the bundle from sliding. I will experiment with a few glues before I fully fix the fibres because I do not know how the plastic will react to the solvents. 

 

Tree of optical fibres fed in through the hollow stand

 

The fibres were then routed through the holes I had pre-drilled in the bulkheads. The fibres will bend with a radius of about 2.5cm / 1 inch and there is little risk of them breaking. The bigger problem with tight bends is that light spills out of the sides of the fibres. I cut the ends of the fibres with a knife or scissors; a precise cut is not needed because I want the light to spread out in a broad pattern. 

 

The next photo shows the fibres in position and lit. Two at the aft end of the cabin shine near the candles, two point directly up and their light will reflect down off the ceiling, three are fed into the entrance lobby. 

 

Optical fibres in place and lit

 

I used an amber LED to provide the light because it gives a colour that resembles candle light. A 'warm white' LED is too white for my taste though I might fit some to the display case to back light the sails. A 3mm diameter LED is a standard size and a short length of brass tube at the lower tail of the fibres is an easy way to make the connection. 

The power for the LED came from a simple constant current source (two transistors and two resistors) that I have to hand, but for the display model I will probably use a 5V USB supply and a simple resistor to limit the current. This gives plenty of options for mains electric supplies or battery power banks. 

 

I have now added some foil to the fore corners of the entrance lobby to better reflect the light back. I will also glue some foil to the underside of the main deck to illuminate the floor of the cabin. 

 

Next job is to fit the fibres in the fore stand. 

 

George

 

[egkb]

This is going to look fantastic George.. Loving what you are doing here !

 

Eamonn

[georgeband]

More optical fibres

 

I have now fitted optical fibres through the front stand. I glued the cooking range in position then used the same methods as for the rear stand. Four fibres illuminate the area below the fore ladder way, between frames D and O. In the photos, two of them point upwards and will be bent down by the main deck when that is fitted. Three fibres are routed further aft and are angled up to shine through the grating over the main hatch. 

 

Fibres that enter through the forward stand illuminate two areas

 

The photos also show where light leaks out of the sides of the fibres. In the cooking range this simulates a fire and I will leave it as it is, though I have considered putting black tape around the fibres to hide them. 

 

Fibres coming up through the cooking range

 

George

[egkb]

Liking that Range George .. I can feel the heat coming from it !

 

Eamonn

[georgeband]

I am now doing some detailed planning for the deck and hatches. I want to keep this topic as a build log and move wider discussions out of the way so I have opened a new topic about hatch covers over ladder ways. What an exciting life I lead!

https://modelshipworld.com/topic/29209-hatch-over-a-ladderway/

 

George

[georgeband]

Deck - first layer

 

A little bit of progress to report on the deck for Whiting. I have now fitted the ply first layer which has been fairly straightforward though there were a few unexpected issues to deal with.

 

I printed the Admiralty drawing (ZAZ6117), cut out the main deck plan and separated it into three sections. I glued these to the ply part from Caldercraft. 

 

 

The hatch openings all had to be adjusted. One surprise was that the rear mast did not align with the ply part and after a lot of measuring and rising worry I realised that ZAZ6117 (top view) does not entirely agree with ZAZ6116 (side view) and there are inconsistencies around the rear mast and entrance lobby. Who can you trust? My model so far is based on the side view so I chose to ignore the marked position of the rear mast on the deck plan. 

 

I cut slots in the fore section of the deck so that it could curve from side to side (rounding) to follow the top edges of the bulkheads and curve from fore to aft to follow the sheer on the spine. I don't see how the kit can allow any rounding. I stuck it down with wood glue and used pins in the sides and a block with elastic bands to hold it down. It needed more pressure between the two hatches and my thumb grew weary while I waited for the wood glue to grab and hold. 

 

 

One other issue is that the kit is designed for 6mm dowels for the masts, but they supplied quarter-inch 6.3mm dowel which does not fit. This and the similar issue with the spine and bulkheads suggests that someone at Caldercraft thinks that 6mm and 3mm are equivalent to quarter and eighth inch. Close but not the same. 

 

The mid and aft sections did not need saw cuts and were held down with pins while the glue set. 

 

I continue to ponder about the deck planking and have started another thread about scarf joints. Any help would be much appreciated. 

 

George

 

 

[tkay11]

I may be a bit out of my depth on this, but do the scarf joints need to be where you place them? A little further round might solve the problem without giving much work to those who had to cut the planks.

 

Tony

[georgeband]

Tony,

 

Thanks for your reply. I think that you have identified a separate question which is about where along a strake you have the scarf joints. The issue of right or left handed, or A or B from my sketch, still remains. For the straight binding strake the position of a scarf is largely dictated by the length of the available wood but the direction of the joint could be at the whim or habit of the shipwright. 

 

I imagine that the shipwright would want to minimise the number of joints and so the positions were set by the available wood. If he has suitable compass timber to curve around the bow then he does not need scarf joints between shorter pieces. This results in a stronger structure and less work.

 

For the waterway on my model of Whiting I plan to have a spiled piece around the bow, one scarf joint, and then a relatively straight piece back as far as the step in the deck. The binding strake will have one joint but I have more flexibility about where it goes. I have tried to put myself in the place of the shipwright who has access to local Bermudan cedar and is using his skill and experience to build a schooner. I know that my knowledge is meagre in comparison to the un-named shipwright but wood and engineering principles have not changed. I can claim that what I have is 'reasonable' even though there is little real evidence to justify it. Sod's law says that something will turn up after I have glued the wood down!

 

George

[georgeband]

Deck planking 

 

I have now completed the planking of the mid section, above the captain's cabin, and the aft section by the transom. The fore section is currently work in progress. 

 

The mid section was quite easy and I did it first. I used the 4x0.5mm Tanganyika planks from the kit to lay down the partners either side of the centre line and binding strakes which are further outboard. I set the gap between the binding strakes at 20mm which is the width of the opening for the main hatch. I split some Tanganyika and Obechi to make narrower planks which fit between the partners and binding strakes. A gentle rub with a pencil along the edges of the planks simulates the caulking. There are no joins in the planks because they are not needed. Why add joints when the timbers are long enough? 

The waterways are a gentle exercise in spiling and I used 6x0.5mm Obechi. The outboard edges were trimmed to fit against the bulwarks and then I used dividers to mark a constant width of 4.5mm. 

 

Centre planks, binding strakes and waterways, with narrow planks filling the middle gaps

 

I used tapered planks for the gaps between the binding strakes and waterways. They are 3.5mm wide tapering down to 2.5mm (approx.) and only the outer one has a curve to match the waterway. I decided that the shipwright in Bermuda took the easier option to make them straight and tapered rather than curved and tapered. Trimming the ends and light sanding and scraping finished the job. 

 

 

The aft section was tackled in a similar way. I laid down the partners, binding strakes and waterways (all in 4mm Tanganyika) then filled the gaps with a blend of straight and tapered planks. The aft ends are hidden in the pantry or necessary, or under a plank that runs along the bottom of the transom. This final plank, in two parts, did need some careful cutting to make it fit because the joins cannot be disguised. 

I could not sand the deck planks because my fingers are too big and used a knife blade instead to scrape them until the deck felt smooth to the touch. 

 

Aft section of the deck with the main planks fitted

 

Aft section of decking complete

 

George

 

[georgeband]

Deck planking finished

 

The fore section of the deck is the largest area and the more complicated one for deck planking. I followed the sequence of waterways with scarf joints, partners down the centre, and binding strakes with false scarf joints. The gaps between them were then filled with other planks. 

 

Waterways

I made these in two parts. The aft section is almost straight and I spiled it from 6mm wide Obechi to achieve a width of 4.5mm. The fore section at the bow needed a 12mm wide piece of Obechi for spiling.

 

 

The hooked scarf joint between the two pieces was time consuming and I cut the joint in the aft piece first then marked it on the fore piece and trimmed until they slotted together. It was easier for the second one when I glued ordinary paper under the wood which strengthened it enough to stop accidental splitting. The paper sanded off easily after the joint was complete. 

 

Hooked scarf joint in waterway (and a repaired split in the aft piece of wood)

 

The partners and binding strakes were from 4mm wide Tanganyika. The hooked scarf joints in the binding strakes are false and are grooves cut in with a knife point and then filled with pencil dust. The gaps between the partners and binding strakes were filled with 3mm wide planks. 

 

 

The gaps between the binding strakes and waterways needed two straight planks and four planks that were curved and tapered. Three of them had a 'hook' at the fore end so that the adjoining plank would not taper to a sharp point; I did not want to have 'joggling' in the waterway on this model. The joints in the deck planks are over deck beams. 

 

 

When the planks were secured and trimmed and sanded I gave them all a coat of pink wood dye. This changes the image of the schooner somewhat and is quite distinctive. I have bought some Eastern Red Cedar so that I can see the colour of the wood when it is freshly sanded and the next photo shows the deck and the actual wood either side. I think that the pink dye is a close match. 

 

Deck stained pink and some real wood of the right species

 

For completeness here is a final photo with a closer view of the deck at the bow. It shows the joints and the 'hooks'. 

 

 

The deck took a long while to complete. My next job will be to copper the hull but I will have a break before then. 

 

George

[georgeband]

Anchor aweigh and breasthook

 

Yesterday I visited the plans section at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich and had a look at the original drawings for Haddock. (No touching allowed!) The site is 2 miles from the main NMM buildings and quite forbidding, but the staff were very helpful and friendly. 

 

ZAZ6118 is the drawing with scantlings and a cross section of the hull, and an intriguing note about an attached letter that has not been digitised. Two comments in the letter are particularly useful:

• '... she had one Breasthook above the Bowspreet'. This tells me that I should join the bulwarks together above the bowsprit with a hooked timber and not some combination of iron straps. 
• '... and the Anchors were weighed by a Tackle.'  This closes the discussion from 2015 at the head of this thread about whether Haddock should have a windlass and the drawings have an omission. No windlass. A block and tackle would have been used to raise the anchors. 

 

The joy of research and discoveries like this is a great source of pleasure for me. We don't have to rely on drawings or contemporary models alone and the hand-written word can be just as valuable. 

 

George

 

[georgeband]

More research on the original drawings for Haddock at Greenwich shows that the cooking range was (very probably) originally aft of the fore ladder way and was moved to the fore position during her refit. What looked like an extra hatch cover aft of the ladder way was (very probably) coamings around the chimney hole and steam vent. Thanks to Jason and Mark for helping with the interpretation.  https://modelshipworld.com/topic/29209-hatch-over-a-ladderway/?tab=comments#elControls_846285_menu

 

 

If you want to model one of the Fish class as they were in the first year of service then the chimney and vent should be aft of the ladder way. I assume that they all had the same refit and around 1806 the cooking range was moved forward. This is what I am doing with Whiting and it leaves the problem of what to do with the redundant chimney hole. The drawing of the deck shows nothing aft of the ladder way so it is unlikely that the coamings were left in place and the holes filled in. The more likely course of action would have been to remove these coamings and put in two new lengths of partner planks. These could run from the main hatch to the fore ladder way, or only over the patched holes. Any guesses? I could justify both options. My guess is that the new deck planks would only cover the old holes. They are (very probably) of the fir used in England for decking and will look different from the pink Bermuda cedar around them. 

 

I scored a join line across the partner planks, 13mm forward of the main hatch and 16mm aft of the ladder way, which is above a deck beam. I prepared myself to cut out the deck planks between the scored line and the ladder way and glue in new lengths of 'white' Tanganyika. Fortunately this was not necessary because some gentle scraping with a knife blade took off the pink, dyed layer and exposed the original wood. My deck now has two short lengths of fir among all the pink planks. A little pencil dust adds some emphasis to the joint.

 

Deck between main hatch (left) and fore ladder way (right). Two partner planks in 'fir' cover the old chimney and vent holes