Lady Nelson by vossiewulf - Amati/Victory Models - 1:64

[vossiewulf]

Seems to be a required rite of passage to publicly flail your way through a first build. For introductions, name is Jay and I'm director of production support for the MAP division at Visa that includes Cybersource and Authorize.net. That means I'm on call 24/7. So, no stress or anything.

 

When it comes to the subject at hand I'm something of a ringer though, as I have extensive experience making small precise stuff in many materials, and I have two entire rooms dedicated to workshop. One is for medium-sized power tools and a small scale machine shop (mini-lathe, mini-mill, etc.), other is primarily a woodworking area for hand tool work (this is where ships will be set up). Well three rooms because the semi-finished "bonus room" has my full-sized table saw and I have plans for a Laguna bandsaw to go in there too.

 

And I've already spent a couple years reading extensively on the ships and the building techniques while working on my game, which also needs to continue to make progress, called Line of Battle.

 

Anyway, I have a crapton of tools and my home is arranged around my workshop areas, so you can assume I am divorced and have no constraints

 

The plan for now, and I already have all the kits, is to go Lady Nelson -> brig Syren -> MS Constitution -> Victory HMS Revenge -> Caldercraft Victory. But I also want to do some very small scale also, we'll see.

 

Since this part is uninteresting, only a couple photos - one of squaring up the transom bulkhead and the assembled frame. In case you're wondering, all my little brass flat sanders that are used with PSA paper were machined perfectly square so I don't need to fiddle with heavy machinist's squares except for outside 90s.

 

 

 

In case you're wondering, it's being held in a GRS engraver's block. But anyway all clean and straight and square and ready to go to next steps.

 

 

 

Planned next step is balsa filler blocks at bow and stern, and to make things super easy on myself I'm probably going to fill in the first three gaps on both ends, so everywhere significant bending is occurring I'll have a surface to work against.

 

However, need some advice on wood. I bought the Crown Timber boxwood package for this, so I have a bunch of boxwood coming. However, I have my own wood and don't want to do it 100% in boxwood, whatever I don't use will get used later in something else. Right now what I'm thinking of is cocobolo for the keel, wales, and rails, lightly stained boxwood planking, and a holly deck. BTW these 1x1x12 American holly turning blanks are available at Woodcraft for $10, good deal if you can resaw to scale timber.

 

 

 

However, I'm not sure about the cocobolo, the color of course is great but it has pretty strong grain and figure and may not look good in this small build. Also I'm not sure about the idea of having a keel/stem darker than the main planking. Anyway, advice appreciated, as I'll have this ready for the keel and planking soon.

 

I know, I'll plank it in snakewood. Cut this into 4mm strips, cut in half (it's 5/16" thick) and then plank both sides with strips in the exact order we see here Just kidding of course. That's a $150 guitar fingerboard blank and will be used for that purpose in the future.

 

[tkay11]

It's a nice ship to build, Jay, and you're off to a great start. If you haven't done so already, it's worthwhile to have a good look at the logs of the Lady Nelsons, Sherbournes, Cheerfuls and other cutters which are very similar and give lots of good suggestions for historical accuracy, rigging details or modifications you may want to make.

 

I don't think it's a rite of passage to produce the build log. I think the idea is more to give people the opportunity to post their own progress and ideas -- firstly to help others who want to do the build, and secondly to discuss problems or questions they find as they arise during the build.

 

The great usefulness of each log is that no two builds of the same ship are ever identical (just as no two ships of the same type were ever completely identical) and there is a huge variety of approaches to making the same pieces (even if you try to stick rigidly to the suggested approaches in the kit and use only their supplied pieces), so there's plenty of leeway to come up with your own way of doing things.

 

Everyone also brings their own particular previous history, experience and tools to their builds. So each build is also unique in that additional way. There are approaches from almost every walk of life -- including carpenters, lawyers, engineers, dentists, doctors, archaeologists, anthropologists, readers of marine history, bus drivers, bankers, sailors, and 12 year old students.

 

It's these aspects that can make build logs so interesting, especially when the builder gives great detail about their methods of construction and reasons for their choices. What is not so interesting is to see a build log just with pictures of final results, where the comments are just full of 'oohs' and 'aahs' and 'likes'.

 

I look forward to seeing your own approach, expecially given your own skills and experience you bring to it.

 

Tony

Edited January 17, 2017 by tkay11

[vossiewulf]

It's a nice ship to build, Jay, and you're off to a great start. If you haven't done so already, it's worthwhile to have a good look at the logs of the Lady Nelsons, Sherbournes, Cheerfuls and other cutters which are very similar and give lots of good suggestions for historical accuracy, rigging details or modifications you may want to make.

 

I don't think it's a rite of passage to produce the build log. I think the idea is more to give people the opportunity to post their own progress and ideas -- firstly to help others who want to do the build, and secondly to discuss problems or questions they find as they arise during the build.

 

The great usefulness of each log is that no two builds of the same ship are ever identical (just as no two ships of the same type were ever completely identical) and there is a huge variety of approaches to making the same pieces (even if you try to stick rigidly to the suggested approaches in the kit and use only their supplied pieces), so there's plenty of leeway to come up with your own way of doing things.

 

Everyone also brings their own particular previous history, experience and tools to their builds. So each build is also unique in that additional way. There are approaches from almost every walk of life -- including carpenters, lawyers, engineers, dentists, doctors, archaeologists, anthropologists, readers of marine history, bus drivers, bankers, sailors, and 12 year old students.

 

It's these aspects that can make build logs so interesting, especially when the builder gives great detail about their methods of construction and reasons for their choices. What is not so interesting is to see a build log just with pictures of final results, where the comments are just full of 'oohs' and 'aahs' and 'likes'.

 

I look forward to seeing your own approach, expecially given your own skills and experience you bring to it.

 

Tony

 

Thanks Tony. As for approach, I've never built a kit of anything out of the box, I'm sure that will be the case here. Certainly I think I can do better on the masting and rigging looking at the plans and the kit photos. And otherwise do it as well as I possibly can, I will try my best to make a perfect Lady Nelson, but know I will never get there.

 

I have looked at some finished ships and skimmed the build logs, but I'd rather figure out my solutions than follow someone else's steps. so I only look at what other people are doing in detail if I'm struggling to find a workable solution. A major part of the fun is figuring out whatever I need to do next from first principles. For example I have looked at a number of discussions of planking, enough to understand the concepts and the options, but I'm still not exactly sure of the process I'm going to follow, except that I've decided to start with a plank bender. I'll figure that out once the rabbet is in place and I'm ready to start. In the meantime I'm cogitating on shooting boards for taper and bevel and which of a number of small plane options to use. Probably a scraper plane to avoid any issues of tearout.

 

As for this step, I thought about it but it didn't make much sense to me to bevel the builkheads prior to assembly, trying to guess what the final bevel contours should be considering the vagaries of kit manufacture and minor variances in assembly seemed unlikely to be fully accurate. And anyway it's such a small amount of material to remove. So right now it has the balsa in place and that's been brought down until I'm just starting to shape the builkheads. Tomorrow it won't take long to finalize, then I'll move on to the deck. To avoid a clamping circus, I'm just going to glue that on one bulkhead at a time with CA, gluing from underneath.

 

I'll remember to take more pictures and explain more, my first thought is people have to have seen bulkhead setup eleventy trillion times and a cutter is not exactly scratchbuilding Le Soleil Royale at 1/24 scale level of interesting. I'll have more photos later when I start using the 18/0 fly-tying thread to serve and seize all the rigging correctly. Or at least trying to.

[vossiewulf]

Anyone who has any ideas on the color scheme please let me know. To reiterate, currently thinking of cocobolo for stem/strenpost (keel painted white) and wales and rail tops, boxwood for the main planking (probably stained light brown to go with the cocobolo), holly for the deck, and maybe ebony for the yards. One of the points here is to make a minimal-paint version, it's likely to be the first and last I do this way, in general I prefer the historically-painted look.

 

The one I'm worried about is the cocobolo because of its large figure, and have to think it's a pain to bend also.

Edited January 17, 2017 by vossiewulf

[donrobinson]

Good morning and welcome to MSW, sounds like you have a good plan with your wood. I think cocobolo will work good as is not porous like oak, for instance, which is a problem at these scales. Being it is as dark as it is and the size of the pieces being used the wider grain will not be that noticeable. As for bending, I don't think it should be too much of a problem as the pieces to be bent will only be 1.5 mm thick. Myself I would use it for the keel also, I am not so sure how you could blend in a white paint line so it would look good with the cocobolo and boxwood. The boxwood and holly are also good choices and ebony, although lots of work, will look great. What do you plan on using for the mast then?

 Looking forward to more updates

Edited January 17, 2017 by donrobinson

[vossiewulf]

Good morning and welcome to MSW, sounds like you have a good plan with your wood. I think cocobolo will work good as is not porous like oak, for instance, which is a problem at these scales. Being it is as dark as it is and the size of the pieces being used the wider grain will not be that noticeable. As for bending, I don't think it should be too much of a problem as the pieces to be bent will only be 1.5 mm thick. Myself I would use it for the keel also, I am not so sure how you could blend in a white paint line so it would look good with the cocobolo and boxwood. The boxwood and holly are also good choices and ebony, although lots of work, will look great. What do you plan on using for the mast then?

 Looking forward to more updates

 

Good question. I'm not sure. Probably boxwood, but I haven't decided that or the color, except that I don't want to use the dark brown shown in the kit as that's not even in the ballpark of being correct (at least I think so, correct me if I'm wrong). Although I haven't yet confirmed, I'd also be surprised if it was actually made in one piece like in the kit, with no iron hoop or other reinforcement. Whatever is the correct real configuration of the mast is what I'll be making, and if yellow/buff is the correct color for the mast then boxwood would be the obvious choice.

 

And thanks for the input on the cocobolo, I'll plow ahead then with my plan. Only sticking point being I ordered from Crown Timber a couple weeks ago and have gotten no response on my request for a timeline. If they don't deliver relatively soon, we're going to be stuck.

[vossiewulf]

Question for the knowledgeable crowd, since I'm doing no paint I should do the stem correctly in multiple pieces scarfed together. Where can I find the correct layout for this class, or at least some RN cutter from the period? I don't see this joinery detail in the period plan elevations, and it's not in the kit drawings.

 

Also looking for rigging detail in James Lee's Masting and Rigging book - is the one mast of this cutter essentially exactly the same as a ship-rig's mizzen mast? Only discussion I see in the entire book seems to assume a three-masted ship rig.

[vossiewulf]

Speaking of shooting boards for tapering and beveling planking strakes (no really I did mention it up there!), I'm considering using a method I employed for something similar a couple years ago - taking my LN scraper plane, flipping it upside down, clamping to benchtop, then do my tapering and beveling freehand and Mk.I Eyeball. When I did it before, I found it much easier to control than I thought it would be, so going to run some tests using scrap stock. If that doesn't work as planned, I think I'll just make a traditional shooting board and use that to do the taper. I'd then do the bevel freehand with one of my small scraper planes.

[Rick01]

" I will try my best to make a perfect Lady Nelson, but know I will never get there."

As this kit is actually generic in that there was no cutter "Lady Nelson" as long as you follow the general layout etc. for an 18th century cutter you will have produced your own "perfect" model. Lennarth Petersson's "Rigging Period Fore_and-aft Craft will give you a reasonable rigging plan (better than the stripped down version supplied) and a look here at contemporary cutter models will also provide some illumination.

 

Rick 

[vossiewulf]

Weird, I was posting 1000 x whatever it was pixels images and they weren't getting resized, if I post a 4k image it gets resized to 680px or something, I guess the breakpoint is above 1000. 

 

Ah hell these are still 600 or so px when you click on the thumbnail, what is the purpose of having the thumbnail function then? Ok I go back to 1000px next time unless someone can tell me how to get bigger ones to be shown when someone clicks on a thumbnail.

 

Anyway, in spirit of a documented build log, more photos. Here filling in balsa in first three bulkhead gaps on bow and stern.

 

 

Excalibur saw, rough cutout.

 

 

Quickly rough-shaped with knife and gouge.

 

 

And glued in place. I was using CA until one grabbed and refused to move, leaving it slightly out of position. Reminded myself CA is not always necessary and did the rest with yellow glue.

 

 

Once all blocks were in place, both ends got another quick go-over with the gouge prior to sanding.

 

 

The deck sides of the blocks were knocked down to .5mm above deck with a chisel plane so I could get into the stanchion corners. He was made intentionally somewhat dull as balsa can be cut with a butter knife along the grain and doing so made it easier to prevent him from nose-diving into the wood, which every chisel plane tries to do. This is more or less the same as doing it with a paring chisel, but I think I have more control with the plane, and both were down to the very minimal sanding required point quickly and easily.

 

 

 

And sanding began but had to call it a night at this point. Sanding is being done with a flat plywood piece and a 9" long segment of 1" diameter aluminum rod, both covered in PSA 120. Next time around I will start with 80 for speed's sake, this time being cautious to figure out how to get to the final shape without taking too much anywhere.

 

 

 

[vossiewulf]

" I will try my best to make a perfect Lady Nelson, but know I will never get there."

As this kit is actually generic in that there was no cutter "Lady Nelson" as long as you follow the general layout etc. for an 18th century cutter you will have produced your own "perfect" model. Lennarth Petersson's "Rigging Period Fore_and-aft Craft will give you a reasonable rigging plan (better than the stripped down version supplied) and a look here at contemporary cutter models will also provide some illumination.

 

Rick 

 

I'm aware of that, but I have a set of plans that say Lady Nelson, I'm not going to call it "generic cutter from the 1800s".

 

Thanks for the pointer to the book, I didn't realize this rig qualifies as fore and aft rig, when I saw that book some time back I decided I didn't need it for now. And I'm still confused between brig and brigantine, I know the description but Wiki's diagram doesn't make much sense. It says the Brig has two square rigged masts and the Brigantine has one square rigged and one hybrid. Don't see how that's the case when both have spankers, just one a bit bigger than the other.

 

            Brig                                               Brigantine

                            

 

Edit: I'm aware the cutter isn't either, but its one mast is one or the other of those two's mizzen masts, I'm trying to figure out which one and why.

Edited January 19, 2017 by vossiewulf

[Rick01]

The first item in the book is actually of a cutter with enough information to fully rig your "Lady Nelson". Much more detail is provided than on the plans (I'm building this myself at the moment).

 

Rick

[vossiewulf]

The first item in the book is actually of a cutter with enough information to fully rig your "Lady Nelson". Much more detail is provided than on the plans (I'm building this myself at the moment).

 

Rick

 

Awesome, thanks Rick. Off to order it.

[Overworked724]

Looking good!

[vossiewulf]

Instructions want to first have the keel/stem/sternpost added and then deck and then the last stern hull bulkhead, so I've left the hull in the "almost sanded fully down" state, and fully sanded the deck side so it's ready for the false deck to be added.

 

First I made a sanding block out of maple with a radius somewhat less than the radius of the deck sheer so I could sand the deck lengthwise without fear of flattening the sheer.

 

 

And used it to fully clean up the deck along with knives and planes.

 

 

Then it was time to start making the cocobolo replacements for the keel/stem/sternpost, so I first ripped that 2x2 turning blank, making a .550" x 2" piece that I could then take to my little table saw. Checking the existing keel shows .124" thickness.

 

 

So I ripped my .550" x 2" x 12" piece into strips that were .550" x .150". Then I took those to my Mk. I Thickness Planer, you see it's a pretty high tech machine consisting of a Veritas low-angle smoothing plane with PM-V11 iron, a 1/8" thick piece of scrap, and two cam clamps. It's more physical effort of course, but I'd be surprised if a Byrnes thickness sander was faster than this method for anything less than a whole pile of planking stock. And this method leaves a far superior finish, absolutely perfectly glass smooth, even if you wanted to improve that surface, you couldn't.

 

 

Here's the replacement keel.

 

 

And it doesn't vary more than .001" over its length, not bad for three total passes on each side.

 

I like sturdy, so I decided I'd put some .040" carbon fiber rod reinforcement to the keel glue joint. For this kind of thing I just use my rotary tool with nice twist drills from Otto Frei on 3/32" shanks, they drill wood like it isn't there. I can drill reasonably orthogonal holes in surfaces freehand looking at a 45 degree angle, and that's what I did here since we can ream it out if there's a problem, but there wasn't in this case. Still for real precision holes I use a pin vise and constantly flip between two 90 degree views to ensure perfect alignment. Sometimes I use my mill, but most often done by hand by one of these two methods.

 

 

 

Here are the keel and sternpost/stem pieces, arrows point to marking knife cuts showing shape of stem and sternpost pieces. With the keel piece, I just flipped it up on its side and planed a perfectly straight and smooth and square edge with the smoothing plane.

 

 

First I drilled holes in the kit false keel and made the carbon fiber pieces. Red arrows pointing to those, since they're hard to see.

 

 

 

Then drilled holes in my cocobolo keel, and here it is mounted on the kit false keel with no glue. So I think we're good here, and I will rip it down to final height now.

 

However before I did that I also planed about a .005" sweep in the glue joint of my new keel, so when it goes down on the carbon fiber pieces the two ends hit first. So when I go to glue it I can use CA and just press down in the middle for 30 seconds and the whole length should have a good glue line.

 

 

That's where I knocked off. Next up is cutting out the stern post and stem pieces, gluing the latter together, and then then gluing them along with the keel onto the boat.

Edited January 19, 2017 by vossiewulf

[vossiewulf]

Again, how does one link to larger versions of images here? I can't figure it out, and these small 700px or so images are not very good at showing detail.

[BANYAN]

Hi Vossie, just found your log.  You have made a great start here and I look forward to seeing the model develop.

 

WRT photos, there is a setting I think WRT how thumbnails are handled.  i simply take my photos and resize to 72dpi and about 2040 x ???? depending on orientation and any cropping.  When I add to the post, the site software simply creates the thumbnail and wwhen I click on them they are then open to full size.  I am not sure if you are adding the attachment to the post (in the 'more reply options) after downloading the photo?

 

WRT colour, not sure but I have a series of (poor quality) photos of a model of the ship which is at Mount Gambier here in Australia which shows a brown with black livery - not sure if this was the actual scheme?  i can send you copies if you think they would help just PM me.  The model is not the best I have seen

 

cheers

 

Pat

[vossiewulf]

Hi Vossie, just found your log.  You have made a great start here and I look forward to seeing the model develop.

 

WRT photos, there is a setting I think WRT how thumbnails are handled.  i simply take my photos and resize to 72dpi and about 2040 x ???? depending on orientation and any cropping.  When I add to the post, the site software simply creates the thumbnail and wwhen I click on them they are then open to full size.  I am not sure if you are adding the attachment to the post (in the 'more reply options) after downloading the photo?

 

WRT colour, not sure but I have a series of (poor quality) photos of a model of the ship which is at Mount Gambier here in Australia which shows a brown with black livery - not sure if this was the actual scheme?  i can send you copies if you think they would help just PM me.  The model is not the best I have seen

 

cheers

 

Pat

 

Hey Pat, thanks for the kind words and the suggestions on the images. I'm not using attachments, just the insert image button because you can't interlace text and attachments at least as far as I know. Let me see if I can find the options that control the max image size.

[vossiewulf]

Well first I found that >I< was using large thumbnail links from Imgur so that was part of the problem, I've edited and now that last post is at least showing the 1000px versions. I found no options controlling max image size. I will try submitting a large image again, but if it still doesn't work I found you can set a link on an image, so in worst case I can set links on all the small images to 4k versions on Imgur.

Edited January 19, 2017 by vossiewulf

[BANYAN]

Sorry mate, I was not too clear - I don't think you/user can change it.  There is a setting the Admin makes which limits the overall size and number of images per post, for the whole site; there is discussion in one of the stickies on this.  This is governed by a limit of 2MB per image and there are certain file types not supported.  That is why I always reduce the resolution ad limit the pixel size to around the 2040 on the longest side; the initial rules were 1600 x xxxx but I have had 2040 go through as long as under the 2MB limit. There is also this how to.

 

As to interlacing, if you use the More reply options, once you have uploaded your images, there is an option to the right (may be governed by which theme you are using) which allows you to add the image to your post (rather than leave it as an attachment).  you can use this to place the  image anywhere and interlace it with the text should you wish to.

 

Hope that helps?

 

cheers

 

pat

Edited January 20, 2017 by BANYAN

[vossiewulf]

Yes thanks, exactly what I was looking for.

[vossiewulf]

Am sick as the proverbial dog, although I managed to get the keel all made and fit before sick as dogness set in yesterday morning. Have slept most of the last 36.

 

And thanks again Pat, I think this is the first time the images are going to be doing what I want them to do.

 

As mentioned, keel and stem and rudder post, need to do the stem now before I can cut the scarf joint between it and the keel. I decided to make it out of four pieces, with the kit's original top piece being the fourth to save a bunch of machining time. I wasn't worried about the color differential in the woods, as you'll see below.

 

Funny thing is all of this and the keel and rudder post are not going to be seen, as of now the only paint I intend to use is the white bottom. But long way until there, we'll see. But I've never made a stem and keel from scratch so wanted to do it anyway for practice and challenge.

 

 

 

Which piece isn't cocobolo again?

 

 

That's some red-brown alcohol-based aniline dye I keep mixed, along with a green-brown, between the two you can solve lots of color issues. It will come off in the subsequent machining but is easily added back at the end, we know the color will be good.

 

Carbon fiber pins between all joints, note they are always orthogonal to the glue surface; drilling wood like cocobolo at an angle is a problem you don't want.

 

 

All glued up with all joints pinned.

 

 

Rough sanding outside.

 

 

Now rough sanded inside and out and top and bottom, all looks good.

 

 

Kit confirms we're still a bit big which is good.

 

 

First test fit of stem to hull. Cue Bob Uecker with "JUUUUST a BIT outside..."

 

 

In here is lots of slow careful work, mostly with good riffler files. The problem you always run into here is a surface getting rounded from sanding shaping so it's touching in center and neither edge is touching. So I use round riffler riffler files down the length of the joint so the joint is actually a slight concavity. This guarantees that if you're square, both gluelines will be good.

 

This is the riffler file set I have, in cut 2. It seems really expensive until you use them, they can easily make very difficult materials like exotic hardwoods do what you want them to do.

 

Looking a bit better now. Couple small gaps but the rabbet will be over this area, so it's a better joint than was really needed.

 

 

That allowed me to mark out the joint between the keel and the stem, here we are test fitting, this looks good. They were done with very fine-toothed saws and knives and files and sandpaper on flat brass. Don't bring just your knife to an exotic wood joint fight.

 

 

The keel had been rough ripped down, but now I tapered it in situ while dry fitted with its carbon fiber pins holding it in place, it reduces from about 2.75" at the stem joint to .212" at the rudder post. I used my long straight brass piece with PSA 120 sandpaper. Cocobolo mostly points and laughs at 220.

 

 

And now stem and keel together, after another 15 min of fiddling the fit. The joint is good but not well-centered, the scarf is badly out of balance, something I will have to do better next time.

 

 

And finally the rudder post that was ever so slightly easier to make being just some straight lines. Here it is dry fitted with pins holding it in place and this looks good too.

 

 

So whenever I can stand up again I'll be gluing all that on, and should be able to CA all of it with no clamps. Right now back to sleep I think.

Edited January 22, 2017 by vossiewulf

[tkay11]

Really nice explanations of your process and build. Are you going to stick to the three holes at the top of the stem for the forestay as per the kit advice, or put in 5 as it would have been? If you have Petersson already, you'll have seen this, but I'm raising it now as it's the perfect time to drill those two extra holes.

 

 

Tony

[vossiewulf]

Really nice explanations of your process and build. Are you going to stick to the three holes at the top of the stem for the forestay as per the kit advice, or put in 5 as it would have been? If you have Petersson already, you'll have seen this, but I'm raising it now as it's the perfect time to drill those two extra holes.

 

Rigging Period Fore-and-aft Craft-24.jpg

 

Tony

 

Thanks, If you're wondering about anything let me know.

 

I'm going to try to do everything in that chapter. And Rick, it arrived today and yes chapter 1 should be retitled The Advanced Rigging Manual for the Amati Lady Nelson". I know I can make all the wood bits with no problem, I've done super-detailing at way smaller scales, but I've never done rigging like this. On the other hand I sent several years as a youngster sailing Lasers and 420s and 505s for the Annapolis Yacht Club and more years doing fly tying, I'm hoping those two will help me along.

 

As for those holes, having snapped that top bit off twice already because of the crappy grain direction I'd already decided that was a "shortcuts lead to long delays" decision and am going to replace one way or another. It can be made much stronger without too much difficulty by making it from multiple pieces as such I'll do whatever the Advanced Rigging Manual tells me to. For five identical holes in cocobolo I'll take it to the mini-mill and then bevel 

 

Are 1/64 thimbles available somewhere? I wouldn't mind buying those, otherwise it's doable on the mini-lathe but complicated, At least I can't think of an easy way to do it unless you have a micro metal-spinning rig and if you do I will bow in obeisance as you are a way bigger tool geek than even me.

[tkay11]

Gregor did a nice re-make of the stem to drill the extra holes. I never bothered as it was beyond my skill level at the time.

 

As for thimbles, you can make them in a number of ways. A lot of people just use micro brass tubing. I made some of mine that way, and others from winding thread around a rod and then fixing it with CA. But then I didn't bother to shape them exactly as the originals.

 

Tony

[BANYAN]

Nice work; if that is what you do when crook, I really look forward to the quality of your work when you are feeling well

 

cheers

 

Pat

[vossiewulf]

Thanks Tony. I've never bought ship fittings but it seems a real crapshoot considering the fairly random number of sizes offered by any manufacturer vs what size they should be considering the plethora of ship scales from manufacturers. I did find these guys making bronze thimbles that look pretty realistic but I haven't figured out what size mine should be yet. 

 

I did figure out a way to make them, though, but the basic requirement is telescoping tube. If you can get tubes small enough you cut the thimble-sized one in half lengthwise, giving you a nice long c shape. Make a thimble-opening shape to wrap it around, and wrap it on that form with open side out, using the telescope-fitting rod to make the bend and prevent the c shape from collapsing. 

 

Thanks for the compliments Pat, I try

 

Only a couple photos, as noted not feeling well and all I managed was gluing on the keel and sanding it down. And I only remembered to take a couple pics.

 

As I mentioned, I already broke off the kit top piece, not good kit engineering; no matter which way you point the grain that piece is going to be very weak made out of one piece like they do. So I will make a replacement in three pieces and I have to take a look at the upper bulkhead planking strip fit before I decide what order I'm going to put them on.

 

Here it has its pins added. Normally for something like this they'd be twice this long, but being at a 90 degree angle to each other meant they had to be very short to get them in the holes on the ship without snapping the stem.

 

 

Because of my pins and the fitting work, as I hoped I could just CA on the pieces with no clamps, starting with the sternpost and then the keel itself. Only mild complication was the stem where I needed a little help to ensure straightness so I clamped a piece of brass on the keel that was nice and straight to give me a reference line when hand-clamping the stem.

 

 

And there they are all glued on and ready for level sanding.

 

 

And we could do the final profile also, here it's being checked against the little piece of balsa I was using as a template. For those less experienced making stuff, it generally makes more sense to make your template out of something harder than your work as you can clamp it in place then sand your work quickly down to that. But I knew I was very close already in this case so I made my template out of something quick, if I'd had card stock within reach I'd have used that.

 

 

And now all level-sanded on both sides and profile done, time to attach deck.

 

 

As for the little carbon fiber rod sticking out of the keel, the sun was in my eyes, the check is in the mail, the guy was already dead when I got there, I DIDN'T DO IT

Edited January 23, 2017 by vossiewulf

[Rick01]

When you do get to the rigging you'll find that you need a few more belaying points than the kit allows. I've 8 ring bolts around the mast I should have remade the belaying pin rack (can't think of the correct word!) as the pins are to close together - would have been better split in two and set between two cannon positions.

 

Rck

[vossiewulf]

When you do get to the rigging you'll find that you need a few more belaying points than the kit allows. I've 8 ring bolts around the mast I should have remade the belaying pin rack (can't think of the correct word!) as the pins are to close together - would have been better split in two and set between two cannon positions.

 

Rck

 

A pin rail. Ok, thanks again, noted that I need to stop and figure that out when installing the pin rails comes up to bat. 

[vossiewulf]

Still haven't gotten over flu but feeling better. Then I'm back at work Tuesday and first thing we have a crisis and I'm on a conference bridge trying to manage incident response with 50 or so people spread around the globe for the next 10 hours. Thanks work, I missed you too.

 

Anyway got a bit of progress. We're getting ready to put on the deck so I wanted to make space under the gratings so, you know, there's actual space there and it should look more natural. 

 

So here we can see that involved extensive work at a level of precision that would make an Incan stone mason cry tears of joy.

 

 

Either that or I hacked at it like a baboon. You can see where I cut the keel plate back under the other two grates.

 

I cleaned up my baboon-hacking and painted matte black under the grating areas to be sure. this was actually taken during gluing on the deck, I did it by steps, gluing the bow section, then the two middle bulkheads one at a time, then the stern, all with CA. Here just the bow is glued. You can see I also added yet more balsa blocks in an uncontrollable fit of over-engineering.

 

 

And speaking of which, deck looks ok and I'm happy that it has what looks like the correct inside of a toroid double curve of the cutter deck Actually is there any 18th century warship with more sheer on one short deck than these cutters? I can't think of any.

 

 

The piece of wood on the bulkhead was put there to fix the deck line there so it's fair

 

 

Grating cutouts look good.

 

 

I sanded down the deck edges again to the "almost done" point and was ready to move on to the fashion pieces but then I noticed this little problem on the starboard counter bulkhead. Bummer how did that happen. Well, prorbably moved it out of square when I added the balsa block, but I was carefully checking them for squareness also just for this reason. Ah well.

 

 

Wait maybe it's the deck..no Square. Pthhtthththtt.

 

 

Have to fix it and need a special shape since I don't want to glue on a piece and then try to machine a bunch of material away, so I make a tapered basswood piece.

 

 

Glued it on.

 

 

This is why we taper it off-work, so very little needs to be removed now.

 

 

All fixed.

 

 

Fashion pieces. The MDF or whatever this stuff is is odd, it can look pretty gnarly like this but are actually acceptably smooth. Once in place though they'll get a sanding sealer coat and light sanding to remove any fuzz sticking out.

 

You've seen me use my carbon fiber pins one way, installing them before piece goes on work, this is another way- glue hole only in piece, glue on piece, use existing hole to guide drilling of other side, install pin and sand down like an insanely strong treenail.

 

 

Here I have the outer ones glued on with no pins, and am cleaning out inner holes. They're not Alexander's carving tools, they're from Woodcraft and the steel is seriously meh and I can't get a decent edge and they don't much hold what edge they get. So they're relegated to this kind of work cleaning glue out of places but they're still useful for that.

 

You know I just realized I'm doing that with left hand. I throw and do big muscle stuff lefty but write and use tools right handed, but over time the left has learned to operate tools fairly well.

 

 

And here's something else useful, you can use the pins to like pin things. The inner fashion pieces are supposed to be parallel to the rudder post, not perpendicular to the deck, so they have to sit at a cant on the deck. I sharpened the CF to a very sharp point and stabbed it into the balsa below and used it to position the piece, then flooded in some thin CA to tack it in position and then medium to fill.

 

 

Added other pins to outer fashion pieces and cleaned everything up.

 

 

And will continue tomorrow if the work world doesn't explode in flames again.