Scottacus Triton - (repost by mod)

[Matrim]

Here are the main wales done in anchor stock pattern.

 

 

The black is India ink with a coat of shellac over it. The ink covered very well and dried quickly with a slight gloss to it. I think that I read somewhere that they add shellac to the ink which is why it will gum up pens. This shellac might account for the initial gloss of the ink. I added an additional coat of shellac for protection and toned down the gloss with fine steel wool so that it now has a satin finish.

I shined the light down the hull to show the pattern and was disappointed at how open the grain of the cherry looks. I might use some filler on it so it looks a little more "ebony-like."

Scott

 

 

[Matrim]

Hi Jim,

Unfortunately, these were sanded before inking. It could just be the particular segment of cherry that I used was more open grained. If I sand any more I am afraid that I will only open up new pores so filling looks like my best option for a smooth surface. The ink covers very well so I suppose any filler would blend into the wood. I'll experiment first however! Since the ink covers so well, I suppose you could use just about any species of wood you like and it should turn out black. This would allow better control over the openness of wood grain patterns.

Scott

[Matrim]

Hi Clark and Russ,

Great ideas! Scraping is a very good way to get a fine finish on wood. If you look at the edges of the frames, the finish you see was accomplished by scraping. I tried it on the wale and it still looks pitted. I suppose if there are "voids" in the wood, there is no way around them other than filling.

Scott

[Matrim]

After a week at scout camp (4 inches of rain one night ) I am back to building again . The gun deck beams are installed, the planked landing for the gun deck ladder has been made and several of the beam arms are being fitted.

 

 

The gun deck knees and carlings are now in place. I got smarter this time around and put a coat of finish on the knees and underside of the carlings before assembly. I found that these were next to impossible to reach and finish on the lower deck once assembled. Just a suggestion to anyone who is at this stage of building.
 

 

 

 

Scott

[Matrim]

About half way done with the ledges in the upper deck works. Just keep plugging away...
 

[Matrim]

The thing to remember when cutting anything is to cut it on the small side first then adjust the opening and fit, adjust and fit, and so forth until you get a nice fit with a just a breath of friction in the joint. The best wood joints are the ones that take some time to make.

Russ

[Matrim]

Hi All,

Back after a short time away. The carlings and ledges are now complete and the uprights for the sheet bits are in place along with their sheaves.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Matrim]

Hi Scott,

your section is coming along very nice.
Especially the Carlings and Ledges are fitting very good inside the notches of the beams
......very clean and exact work

Also the dark Sheet bitts are looking great. As I see (on the top it is visible) you painted them, which kind of paint you used?
It is a very good contrast which I like very much

One other question:
Are the uprights of the sheet bitts already finally fixed?
It seems that the right one is a little bit out of angle
....the beam arm of the Lower deck seems to be a little bit longer than on the Gun deck
....sand at the Lower deck a little bit and the upright of the sheet bitts will come really upright

[Matrim]

Thanks for the comments. Uwe you are right about the sheet bits. They looked good when I glued them up and I figured it was some sort of paralax error in the photo but measuring showed that the tops were a full mm further apart than the bottom. I broke open the joint on the right and realigned so they are the same distance on the top and bottom. How does this look now before I glue again?
 

 

 

The black is India Ink laid down in two layers.

Scott

[Matrim]

I just finished the cannon for the cross section. 

 

[Matrim]

Thanks Raul, I am a big fan of your work so I appreciate your comments! Sorry for the late response but I've been away from the site for a while. The deck is holly but the rest of the model is cherry. The black tar is construction paper which I cannot recommend because it is too flimsy to leave a good sharp edge.

Scott

[Matrim]

Thanks Uwe and Lee it is good to be back at it although the house work is not finished. It seems that every time I try out something on the house I have a new project on my hands (like the three frost free sillcocks I tried today, they all leak and need their guts replaced ).

On a happier note the gun deck is now planked. I'll treenail the planks soon and get the hatch combings made and in place. Thanks Uwe for the post on making gratings. I think that I'll follow in your footsteps.
 

[Matrim]

You know Uwe, I never really thought about hatch construction before. I was planning on making combings and laying them over the opening but that probably isn't right. I doubt that they would have left the end grain of the deck planks exposed to the elements. I assume there were trim boards to finish off the inside of the hatch and cover over the planks and possibly beams? Likewise caulking to seal out the elements makes sense. Thanks for pointing that out. I'll wait to proceed till I hear back from you.

Scott

[Matrim]

After a week away in Washington DC here is the current status of the build. The one side is planked and the other is left with exposed frames. On both sides the gunwales are planked inside and out (so the skid beams can be placed across the deck. The deck has been treenailed and the end frames and their plank edges have been trued up. I used basswood for the upper portion of the gunwale to add some contrast to the cherry that makes up the vast majority of the model.

[Matrim]

The fenders and boarding steps have now been added. The steps are a little tricky because the angle of the back side has to be changed with each step to keep the top surfaces parallel. I tried a bunch of different methods and it seems that a sanding block and trials worked best for me.
 

[Matrim]

Hallo Scott,

your steps are looking really good, all in the same distance and accurate installed...

...there are only two missing at the wales
the steps started slightly over the waterline, so also at the wales....
Take a look at the drawing "Cross Section Outboard Works"

[Matrim]

You are right Uwe! I was hoping no one would notice since I will have to pin them to secure them to the india inked main wales. Last night when I was working on the steps I got them all installed, even and level (they looked great)! I then looked at the drawing that you refer to and noticed that I had installed the steps on the wrong end of the model . I had to remove all of them, clean up the hull and make new ones to replace them. Not a particularly happy time

Scott

[Matrim]

I got a fair amount done this weekend. Here is the way that I made the wheels for the gun carriages. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The wheels took less than a couple of minutes to turn, the axles took a bit longer. The chuck on the Dremel left black marks on the wood so I used tape to protect the axle.
 

attachment=41134:s52.jpg]

 

 

One gun carriage was partially assembled. Here is what the hull looks like now that all of the boarding steps are installed, the wales are fully planked and the rail caps are in place.
 

 

 

[Matrim]

I took the boy scouts canoeing tonight so not much got done other than assembly of the second carriage and making the quoins.
 

[Matrim]

Here are the most resent photos of the build. The grating and hatch combings are now made and placed on the deck.

 

 

I am now working on silver soldering the braces for the walk ways (with various levels of success. When I silver solder pieces that are well fitted together and hold together by themselves (like rings and eye bolts) it goes well. My problem with the braces is that I have one "L" shaped piece and a second piece that fits in as a crutch in the "L".
 

 

 

I have held them together with alligator clips and place a small bit of solder/flux paste in the gap. I think the clips act like heat sinks and keep the joint from getting hot enough to completely melt the solder. I will try holding the pieces together with wire and see if that works better.

Scott

[Matrim]

I managed to get all of the braces silver soldered and set up for blackening all of the brass and iron on the build. The first thing that I did was re-read the excellent "Metal Blackening" tutorial by Pat Majewski at MSD. I set up my materials in my spray booth which doubles as a "chemistry hood."

 

The brass was first run through a Hydrochloric Acid bath to clean off the oxidation.
 

 

Next the brass was washed with clean water.
 

 

Then into the Acetone bath to remove any organics.
 

 

 

When removed from the acetone the brass gleamed like new even though this cannon was turned quite some time ago.
 

 

 

Next "Blacken It" that was diluted 1:1 with water was used. The little flakes are tiny pieces that fall off of the brass and grow like crystals over the course of hours. The bath worked as well for these last pieces as it did for the first in spite of the flakes.
 

 

The Blacken It was washed off with water and a final acetone bath was used to remove any residual water. The pieces were buffed with a paper towel. Here is what the assortment of blackened pieces looked like when finished.

 

 

Here is a close up of the cannon. The handle of the quoin was glued on so I'll paint it later. It shows a good "before and after" effect for the cannon.
 

 

 

 

The tutorial speaks of covering the blackening with matte lacquer. I'll take a look at doing that tomorrow.

Scott

 

[Matrim]

Your photo-essay on blackening is well done. I should like to point out a couple of things that you may wish to consider. One is that the 'Blacken-it' works well at 1 part to 8 of water. (Used distilled water if you can.)

The second is a safety question. I don't know what kind of filter and fan your spray booth has. If the booth vents to outside and the motor is spark-proof, then no problem. Otherwise it will be dangerous to your health if using acetone or other volatile, flammable solvents.

[Matrim]

Thanks all for the comments! I noticed that some of the pieces that were blackened seemed to have a bit of shine in one area or another and when wiped off a little brown was seen on the paper towel. I was pretty tired when I finished up and didn't check all of the pieces over very well. Yesterday morning a few of the pieces had some bronze blotches and I assume that it was because of residual material (acetone, Blacken It or water?) that was left on and marred the finished surface. Yesterday I re-blackened the damaged pieces and they turned out well. A coat of flat lacquer was applied which didn't change the appearance of the pieces.

I should mention that the blacken it worked much faster on annealed steel than on brass. I also tried the 1:8 dilution which also worked well but much slower (at least at first). Once a few of the grains appeared in the bottom of the solution it seemed to blacken faster almost like a catalyst.

Scott

[Matrim]

Thanks Druxey for the information on Blacken-It dilution!

She now has a coat of finish on all of the wooden surfaces and the brackets are in place held by one nail and epoxy. In the process of predrilling the holes in the gunwales for the braces I dinged up the black on some of the brackets. I used a little India Ink as a touch up and it blended very well, especially on the nail heads.

[Matrim]

Thanks Lee 8)

Good question Jim, I guess the thing to do is try it out an a piece of scrap brass. The india ink is probably not as durable as the blackening but I was surprised at how nice the result looks. It took me an afternoon to blacken all of the pieces with blacken it, but it would take a fraction of the time to paint them with india ink. Having said this, I really like how the cannon turned out with the blacken it. I was able to buff the finish with a soft rag and (as you can see in the photo) it turned out really nice looking.

Scott

[Matrim]

The Triton now has some teeth!
 

[Matrim]

  All of the blocks and tackles are in place and the guns are pinned to the deck. A dilute white glue solution was used to set the lines in place and the coils were made using Bosco's masking tape trick. 

 

 

Here are close ups of the two guns.
 

 

[Matrim]

Thanks Tweety, your cross section turned out very well!

The walk ways are now in place and the ladders are also built and in place. I made the walkways off of the model for easier finishing and installed them with epoxy onto the iron work. Once installed I realized that the rope coils for the gun hauls were going to be in the way of the landing for the ladder. No matter how much I try to plan ahead it seems that little mess-ups are unavoidable

Here are the photos with the new installations and the removal of the offending coils!
 

 

 

 

The ladders went together fairly well. I used the miter on the table saw to cut the angles. The thickness of the treads is the width of a single pass with a saw blade. A small scrap piece was used as the index for spacing the slots for the treads.

We are getting close! Only replacement of the coils, manufacture of a stand, the top of the sheet bits and coppering of the hull and we are done.

Scott

[Matrim]

The sheet bit cross piece, the gun haul tackles, the skid beams and the base has been roughed in. 

 

 

 

Coppering the hull and finishing off the base are about all that is left to do.

Scott

[Matrim]

I wanted to copper the hull so I followed the excellent technique that Reklein showed us in his post. I used his technique with a few minor changes. Here are the materials that I used: 1/4 inch copper tape, a jig with a card stock off set of the same thickness as the copper tape, ponce wheel, dulled 11 blade, metal ruler and a small brass t-square that I made and silver soldered together. The jig has a base plate attached to the bottom so that it can rest against the edge of a table so that it stays in one place when in use. 

 

 

The first step is to lay the copper tape against the card stock offset and place the ruler over it as a guide for the ponce wheel.
 

 

Next the back edge of the dulled 11 blade was used to score the individual plates. The t-square assures a straight line (that is when I don't screw it up) and the index lines on the jig allow for precise spacing.

 

The t-square is adjusted to the lines for the side nails and the ponce wheel is run over the tape to make these.
 

 

 

Here is what the finished tape looks like. 

 

 

 

According to my sources the plates were around 4' by 1'3" so my scores were about 3/4" apart. Two different types of plate were made to allow for a one half offset for each row. I debated about putting the nail heads on the plates. They would probably be difficult to see in this scale and would be closer together than my ponce wheel would allow but I liked the effect so much that I decided to incorporate them anyway.

This is the first time that I have coppered anything and I found a few things that worked for me on this cross section. You have to bear in mind that this is probably the easiest portion of a ship's hull to copper and there are two free edged to trim the plates against.

1) Make the tapes a little longer than the hull and trim them in place rather than try to get them just the right length on the hull. This also gives you a little extra area to hold the tape with when putting it in place.

2) The tape is fairly delicate to be sure to keep it as flat as possible when removing the backing paper. Double the backing paper back on itself as you remove it and be very careful with the lat quarter inch or so so that the tape doesn't get a crease in it.

3) The length of tape that I got from Model Shipways was 15 feet long. The inner most part of the roll was not usable because of creases in it. The best portion of tape was the first several coils on the spool. If you could find tape that hadn't been coiled fairly tightly it would be best. I sorted the tape plate and put the worst of them on the ares least likely to be seen (the portion of the hull that sits parallel to the base).

4) Only run the ponce wheel once over the tape. A second pass back over the tape turns the circles into slots (at least with my ponce wheel).

Scott