New Bedford Whaleboat by Mike_In_RI - FINISHED - Model Shipways MS2033 - Scale 1:16 - Small

[Mike_In_RI]

Short update. I wanted a natural look to the oars and proceeded to test all kinds of ways to get the color and and a good way to apply it. The oars are one piece birch wood. I will probably not use dowels again, at least not for oars. Half the oars had grain reversal along the blade which took all the fun out of chiseling them into that sharp section along the center of the blade.

 

The coloring consists of three thin coats of sanding sealer each sanded back.  Then several very thin wiped on coats of mahogany Vallejo Model Air acrylic using 50/50 paint/medium thinner. The first piece I worked with used no medium thinner and dried too fast and darker than I wanted. With some experimenting, the addition of the thinner medium made the application more controllable. Also, I should have waited to attach the iron staple, wood pin and shoulder cleats on the mast until after the wipe on process. It was awkward getting the color on smoothly in the little nooks and crannies. Lesson(s) learned!

[PJG]

These look great Mike. Carving the entire oar rather than the 2-piece method I used is definitely the better way to go. I may need to revisit mine...for the 3rd time!

[Mike_In_RI]

Thank you PJG. I appreciate your input. It was actually fun except for the grain reversal issue. After I posted the picture of the oars I read in the Ronnberg book that the last 1/2" or so of the blade should be more rounded. So, I fixed that and of coarse had to then re-paint that area. The lesson? Don't read the book after you think you have something finished. 

 

I've been working on the oar locks, hull painting and hoop blackening. Here is a picture of the rope work on an oar lock on one of the Delano half scale whaleboats at the New Bedford Whaling Museum.

 

I have no idea how the ropes were started and finished so I just used clove hitches on both ends. Maybe someone can lend an idea.

 

 

Luck finally struck when I was able to find a single color Vallejo Model Air color that was an almost a perfect match to the original 3 mixed colors (Golden Artist) that I had intended to use. So the hull now has 1 wet coat over 4 light coats of olive green. I should be able to get it done with 2 more wet coats.

 

Originally, the brass blacking was a bit disappointing in that all hoops had some degree of blotchy bare spots. I've read just about everything online about cleaning procedures and tried several versions but could not quite get them right. As black as they were coming out of the Brass Black, when I started the polish procedure, I got flakes of reacted material coming off. It turns out that when I left a part in the solution for a while, the reacted material built up a to a thickness that became a "flake" ready to come off when polished. So the final fix in my case was to not even put the part into the brass black but to swab it evenly and constantly removing the discolored material. Literally, per the directions. In any case, all is well now, I just need to decide how dark to make them. I reworked all the hoops, the lantern, etc. The little piece in front that looks like a busted skate board is the steering oar brace.

 

Back to working on the harpoon & spades.

Mike

[Mike_In_RI]

For the lances, it took a while to sort out how to hold the lance blade and file or grind it. I dropped using the thicker/folded etched lance technique in favor of using .025" copper sheet stock which is just about the same thickness as the lance shank. It seems there were a lot of methods to make lances over the years. Here is a shot of a full scale Beetle whaleboat lance where the blade is actually thinner than the shank. The shot is from the New Bedford Whaling Museum.

 

This is the fixture used to hold the lance blade for finale grinding/filing. The blade is stuck onto the end of a shaped dowel held on with 3M heavy duty double-sided tape. The 3M regular two sided tape was too weak.

 

The blade is drilled at it's base just a little larger the the copper shank and filed down to expose a small half circle for silver soldering the shank.

 

The lance sockets are made of .005 copper rolled over with a tiny overlap. The final size, after lots of trials, is easier to get to by making it slightly oversized, forming it around the wire pliers and sliding it up and trimming to fit. These cones do not show once they are served and tarred but I enjoy working through different building techniques for some similar case that will surely show itself.

 

There are four versions of harpoon irons suggested in the plans along with etched blade variants. The easiest for me was the "improved toggle iron" using the corresponding etched piece but not the suggested method for attachment to the shank. The suggested method is to hammer the end of .024" copper wire and drill it out for the blade. For me, there was no where near final copper area to drill and support the blade. It was much simpler to silver solder a small rectangle of .025" copper sheet to the end of the shank, drill it then shape to fit.

 

 

 

 

Hopefully, I don't ruin it when putting a little pivot pin in there.

 

[PJG]

Amazing metal work Mike...your craftsmanship is second to none!

[Mike_In_RI]

Thank you again for the encouragement. I'm running into little roadblocks... finding suitable twigs for the harpoon wood and learning how to tie small knots in tight spaces. I also spent almost a day figuring out how to resize the photos in my log as they were unnecessarily too big.

 

Good Luck on your new kit.

[Mike_In_RI]

Although it has been a month since I've had a log update, I have been working steadily on my knot and splice tying shortcomings. So, I am now an owner of The Ashley Book of Knots and The Arts of the Sailor as well as a practice kit of three strand, right laid, synthetic rope. All in the effort to set up the harpoon and lance splices in the scale required in the plans. I have learned some sailor vernacular and really got into the weeds of tying essentially all the assorted variations of the eye splice... sticks, tucks, against the lay, with the lay, marlin splice, half tuck, Z, S,... whew!

 

On to the rope mountings of the harpoons and lances. The harpoons use a lightly tarred version of the whale line which is right laid, three strand and  ~.045 inch in scale. The only .045" miniature rope I have is the Syren left laid, 4 strand rope and can't seem to find any other source of the right laid three strand version. So, just to keep the project moving, albeit slowly, I went with what I have in stock.

 

Harpoons: Syren .045" left laid, 4 strand, light brown rope "bent to the shanks with a round turn and eye splice". The splice is stuck against the lay and terminated with just one tuck. Two tucks made the splice look too long to me. As is, I think the eye splice looks a little chubby.

Lances: Syren .025" left laid, 3 strand, light brown rope with a Marline splice stuck into the lay, skip two crowns and tucked one more time against the lay. I could not repeat a .025" regular 3 strand eye splice with any good consistency.... more practice is in order as usual!

 

The last big storm that hit Rhode Island was about 3 weeks ago so I finally got a reasonable amount of dead oak branches to make the harpoon shafts. The grapnel and boat spade is next along with a few remaining small items.

 

Thank you for the likes. I really appreciate them and any comments and suggestions.

Mike

 

[Vladimir_Wairoa]

19 hours ago, Mike_In_RI said:

Although it has been a month since I've had a log update, I have been working steadily on my knot and splice tying shortcomings. So, I am now an owner of The Ashley Book of Knots and The Arts of the Sailor as well as a practice kit of three strand, right laid, synthetic rope. All in the effort to set up the harpoon and lance splices in the scale required in the plans. I have learned some sailor vernacular and really got into the weeds of tying essentially all the assorted variations of the eye splice... sticks, tucks, against the lay, with the lay, marlin splice, half tuck, Z, S,... whew!

 

On to the rope mountings of the harpoons and lances. The harpoons use a lightly tarred version of the whale line which is right laid, three strand and  ~.045 inch in scale. The only .045" miniature rope I have is the Syren left laid, 4 strand rope and can't seem to find any other source of the right laid three strand version. So, just to keep the project moving, albeit slowly, I went with what I have in stock.

 

Harpoons: Syren .045" left laid, 4 strand, light brown rope "bent to the shanks with a round turn and eye splice". The splice is stuck against the lay and terminated with just one tuck. Two tucks, especially with 4 strands, looked too long to me. As is, I think the eye splice looks a little chubby.

Lances: Syren .025" left laid, 3 strand, light brown rope with a Marline splice stuck into the lay, skip two crowns and tucked one more time against the lay. I could not repeat a .025" regular 3 strand eye splice with any good consistency.... more practice is in order as usual!

 

The last big storm that hit Rhode Island was about 3 weeks ago so I finally got a reasonable amount of dead oak branches to make the harpoon shafts. The grapnel and boat spade is next along with a few remaining small items.

 

Thank you for the likes. I really appreciate them and any comments and suggestions.

Mike

 

Amazing Mike. wow. 

[Mike_In_RI]

Thank you Vladimir, I appreciate your comments. 

Best, Mike

[Mike_In_RI]

The grapnel was made from four pieces of AWG 14 copper, annealed and hammered to a roughly square cross section. They are hammered to provide flat mating surfaces for soldering. In retrospect, I could have left the lower hook sections round which would have made filing a little easier. The shank on all four pieces were filed at an an angle so the shank narrows toward the top.

 

There are two longer pieces for the central core and two short pieces that are added to the sides of the core.

 

Fluxed and torch soldered using tiny pieces of cut off Stay Brite solder.

 

 

The shorter side pieces were bound with steel wire and soldered using no lead solder which will melt at a lower temperature than the silver bearing solder.

 

Two copper rings are soldered on top.

 

A little more filing then on to blackening....

 

Mike

 

[PJG]

Great work as always Mike!

[Cap'n Rat Fink]

Your boat looks wonderful. Very nice modeling skills Sir!

[Mike_In_RI]

Hi Mario, thank you very much for the encouragement. Just today I was looking at your very sharp and clean whaleboat. I really like your use of different woods as well.

 

I have slowed down some in the last few weeks when I didn't get the look that I wanted from the .045" whale line. It just seems too pudgy to me as they sit on the harpoons. In any case I ordered a Rope Rocket from Syren and today ordered assorted threads for experimentation. I'm trying to get as much scale into the project as I can so I'll attempt to get the line a little thinner and a more "bright straw" color. I hope the learning curve isn't too long! In the meantime I put some time into the steering oar brace chaff mat: (somehow all my shots are smaller ..??..)

 

 

... trying out the look of a "sword mat". Ashley #2964

 

 

The oar lock lanyards and the shroud lines are in as well as the trip line and steering oar strop.

 

 

The strop covering is a piece of shrink tube painted with a little burnt umber. 

 

Comments, corrections and suggestions are always welcome.

Mike

 

[Vladimir_Wairoa]

17 hours ago, Mike_In_RI said:

Hi Mario, thank you very much for the encouragement. Just today I was looking at your very sharp and clean whaleboat. I really like your use of different woods as well.

 

I have slowed down some in the last few weeks when I didn't get the look that I wanted from the .045" whale line. It just seems too pudgy to me as they sit on the harpoons. In any case I ordered a Rope Rocket from Syren and today ordered assorted threads for experimentation. I'm trying to get as much scale into the project as I can so I'll attempt to get the line a little thinner and a more "bright straw" color. I hope the learning curve isn't too long! In the meantime I put some time into the steering oar brace chaff mat: (somehow all my shots are smaller ..??..)

 

 

... trying out the look of a "sword mat". Ashley #2964

 

 

The oar lock lanyards and the shroud lines are in as well as the trip line and steering oar strop.

 

 

The strop covering is a piece of shrink tube painted with a little burnt umber. 

 

Comments, corrections and suggestions are always welcome.

Mike

 

im coming to learn Sir, Splendid.  

[Mike_In_RI]

Hi Vladimir, thank you for visiting the page. I do appreciate your input and comments. I think this kit is a great one for putting in as much scale detail as one feels like. I've decided not to rush this one so I could pick up all the tips on this web site as I can before moving on... and there are plenty of tips to check out.

 

So, this is a proud day for me. I finally pulled off a satisfactory "in place" eye splice using 4 strand .035" rope. Of course, tomorrow I will need an appointment with the eye doctor for a realignment of my eye balls! The eye splice is for the boat warp and has a line length of 45 inches per the build manual.

 

I made a couple of sweedish fids from brass tube for the sticking and tucking.

 

I only used 2 tucks. It seems to me that the rope twist gets tighter using more tucks which makes it more difficult to lift a strand with the fid. I could be imagining that (??). This shot also shows 10 or so chock pins. They were whittled into shape and meant to snap when the whale line got snagged.

 

 

Time to glean some more tips from this site on how to coil up the line to look authentic.

 

Thanks again,

Mike

[Mike_In_RI]

Thanks guys for the likes. I do really appreciate your input.

 

Just a quick update before I begin rope making practice. The boat warp was pre-wound on a tongue depressor then lashed in place. It has the 45 inches of line as called for in the build manual but it looks just a little too hefty. I may trim it back a little.

 

Also, the five paddles have been lashed to the thwart risers. They are painted grey to blend in with the ceiling planks.

 

Time to try my hand a making whale line.

 

Mike

[ccoyle]

Looking very nice!

[Mike_In_RI]

Thank you Chris. I really appreciate you comment.

 

The finish line is almost in site although I've taken a fork in the road in an attempt to make my own rope🙄. The first  two tries with short lengths look OK for color and twist but I still need to pin down the right size and sort out a small unwinding issue. I'm using the Syren Rope rocket and it really is a lot of fun!

 

Thanks again,

Mike

[Cap'n Rat Fink]

Well done Mike. Your rope looks real good.

[Mike_In_RI]

Thank you Mario. I appreciate that. I never thought I would be making rope on this, or any other project. But I must say it's a lot fun except for waiting for the sample types, sizes and colors to come in the mail. I'm hoping the last order of some cotton colors will do the trick. I want to end up with ~.045", right twist rope that's on the lighter side for the whale line. In the meantime....

 

The sail was finished today. It it is made of 00 Silkspan and air brushed with a light tan coat of acrylic paint.

 

Because the sail will be furled, I made a template outlined in orange noting the parts of the sail that will be visible so I paid more attention to those parts. The folded down peak of the sail was cut out and the remainder of the Silkspan was hemmed by folding over the edges twice and using thinned glue to keep them tight.

 

Thimbles were placed at the throat, tack and clew then attached to the mast.

 

Save for the whale line, the boat itself is just about complete.

 

 

Considering the method of presentation, I'd decided to mount the whaleboat on davits without the bulwarks. Here's a shot of a (failed) attempt to bend 3 pieces of yellow cedar into the required curve. Upon removing the clamps, the wood sprung back too far to be workable.

 

The build manual recommended using basswood but I used some yellow cedar which turned out to be too thick and/or too stiff. In any case I am now trying 4 x 1/8" pieces of boxwood and, fingers crossed, the process goes more smoothly.

 

Thanks again for the likes and I appreciate you looking in.

 

Mike

 

 

 

 

[Mike_In_RI]

Quick update... Finally, after a few weeks of thread sampling and home made rope trials with the Rope Rocket, the color, size and twist of  3 strand whale line is just about what I have in mind for whale line. Eye splices, back splices and crown stopper knots were more manageable. Note: the line in this shot looks darker than the actual line.

 

The davits were much easier to bend using 4 pieces each of 1/8" boxwood vs the thicker yellow cedar I previously tried. The wood was soaked for two hours in water then pre-bent on the form for a day. Once removed, they spring back about 30 degrees and left to dry a little longer. They were then laminated using Titebond III and set on the form for another day. The shape stayed on the original curve with no spring back.

 

The davits were drilled out for trennels using 5/64" toothpicks. Today, I hope to get the upper section of each davit hogged out to receive 3 sheaves.

 

Thanks again for the comments and likes,

Mike

 

 

[Mike_In_RI]

Thank you guys for the likes. I appreciate you looking in.

 

Here is an update of the abbreviated (no bulwarks) davit presentation. The cranes use mortise and tenons as suggested in the build manual. Yellow cedar was used and it chiseled out very nicely although it was slow going getting the joints to look tight.

 

The davits and cranes will show from about the davit straps up. This is essentially the "cruise" position of the cranes. The hard part is to ensure the two cranes are parallel to each other and horizontal in that this is affected by the final hinge positions as well as the initial 7 degree back angle of the davits and crane supports.

 

This is the full kit of davits, cranes, crane supports, faux pintles, hinges, blocks, sheaves, crane hooks, horn cleats and thumb cleats.

Setting the cranes in the lower position would cause the project to be 1 1/2" inches taller and need more hardware so I'm trying to simplify here a little.

 

Thanks again for looking in.

Mike

 

 

 

Edited October 30, 2020 by Mike_In_RI

[JpR62]

Superb job on these davits. The details worked out really well.

It will be a magnificent support for the whaleboat !

 

[BobG]

Beautiful whaleboat and fantastic craftsmanship!

[Mike_In_RI]

Jean-Paul & Bob, thank you for your kind words. 'Just working on air brushing and brass blackening today.

 

Best,

Mike

[PJG]

Superior work Mike...this really is a museum quality build. Well done!

[Mike_In_RI]

Thank you very much. I'm not sure about museum quality but I'll take the compliment anyway. 😏

 

I'm getting closer to the finish line. Some acrylic sheets should arrive today for making up the top of the case. The davit structure and painting is complete notwithstanding the rope work that goes along with it. So, as you mentioned at the end of your project... lots of little things to decide about whether to include or not. 'Just now making up the last (I hope) thimbles as part of the lashings for the boat to the crane supports.

 

Any progress on the Fifie?

 

Mike

 

[catman42]

Mike    Your work is extraordinary   Museum quality

thanks

 

Brad

[Fentone]

An staggering attention to detail, Mike. The 'nails' look terrific, and I really like the color scheme.

[catman42]

Hey Mike

 

I was wondering what you used for the pins in the oar locks in your picture they look like something that was supplied? or did you make them your self. There was nothing in my kit that looked like that.

 

thanks again

 

Brad