Kathryn by Mahuna - FINISHED - 1:32 - Skipjack Based on HAER Drawings

[Kurt Johnson]

You’re amazing.

 

Kurt

[Mahuna]

2 minutes ago, Kurt Johnson said:

You’re amazing.

 

Kurt

Thanks Kurt

[druxey]

Congratulations on that finishing touch and completion of your model, Frank. An outstanding piece of work!

[Jim Lad]

Congratulations on the completion of your beautiful model, Frank.  I, too, am looking forward to the addition of the dredges.

 

John

[Omega1234]

Hi Frank!

 

Amazing as usual!

 

Congratulations on finishing your model.  You must be justifiably proud.

 

Well done.

 

Cheers

 

Patrick

[Mahuna]

22 hours ago, druxey said:

Congratulations on that finishing touch and completion of your model, Frank. An outstanding piece of work!

Thanks Druxey.  I'm very pleased with how it came out.

 

15 hours ago, Jim Lad said:

Congratulations on the completion of your beautiful model, Frank.  I, too, am looking forward to the addition of the dredges.

 

John

Thanks John.  I've started working on the dredges and hope to have some progress to show soon.

 

4 hours ago, Omega1234 said:

Hi Frank!

 

Amazing as usual!

 

Congratulations on finishing your model.  You must be justifiably proud.

 

Well done.

 

Cheers

 

Patrick

Thanks Patrick.  It's great to hear from you again.  

[usedtosail]

Very nice job Frank. She looks amazing.

[FriedClams]

Wonderful work Frank - as close to perfect as it gets.  Congratulations.  I look forward to seeing your dredges and of course the final "studio" shots.

 

Gary

[Mahuna]

Thanks Tom and Gary.  The dredges are proving to be an interesting project by themselves.

[John Allen]

Frank,

 

Figured out how many teeth on the lead bar? Are you going with ring mesh bag or rope and rings, would think this would be the most difficult part of dredge build.

 

Good Luck John

[Mahuna]

Hi John.  I'm going to try the rope and rings, since that's what I see in any photos I have.  

[Mahuna]

Part 96 –Oyster Dredge

 

Kathryn’s dredges are very similar to the dredges found on all skipjacks.  They consist of a dredge body of welded steel rods, with a basket consisting of linked rings for the bottom part of the basket, and a rope net for the upper part of the basket.  The basket is attached to the body via rings.  The following photo is one of the better dredge photos I was able to find online.

 

                        

 

The plans for the Willie Bennett have a very good pictorial description, including measurements, for the dredges.

 

                        

 

My intent is to make the dredges as close to reality as possible.  My first task was to determine how to make the network of rings for the basket.

 

The rings were made by wrapping 34 gauge black wire around a #53 drill bit – this gave coils of rings that are the correct scale dimensions.

 

                        

 

The individual rings were cut off the coils

 

                        

 

The rings needed to be pressed closed and straightened.  This was accomplished using a pair of Xuron needle-nose pliers.  In the following photo the ring on the left is as cut from the coil, while the one on the right has been straightened.

 

                        

 

Given the number of rings involved (plus plenty of spares) this was a fairly boring but necessary task

 

                        

 

When manufacturing the ring groups, the individual small rings were held in the miniature copper alligator clips from Radio Shack.  These clips were in turn held by third-hand tweezers held in a weighted base.

 

                        

 

I decided to use thread as the figure-eight small rings that are used to join the round rings of the net.  I tried .007” thread, but this proved to be much too thick. I have some 16/0 fly tying thread (about the diameter of a thick human hair) which proved to be satisfactory.

 

                        

 

The only problem in using this thread is that it’s so thin that it easily slips through the opening or split left in the rings. To correct this, each ring had a small drop of medium (gap-filling) CA glue applied to the split in the ring.

 

Each end of the thread was fed up through the pair of rings to be joined

 

                        

 

and then down through the opposite rings.

 

                        

 

The ends of the threads were brought up each side of the thread weave created above and tied in a simple knot.

 

                        

 

The ends were brought down around the thread weave, and double knotted.

 

                        

 

Finally the thread ends were brought up again and a final knot was made on top of the ‘figure eight’ configuration.

 

                        

 

                        

 

A drop of CA glue was applied to the knot to secure it, using a small pin held in a pin vise as the applicator.

 

                        

 

After the CA dried the ends were trimmed using a sharp scalpel.

 

                        

 

The result was a passable pair of rings joined by a “figure eight”.

 

                        

 

I proceeded to tie a few rings together, and found that holding a string of rings required an adjustment to the placement of the holding devices.

 

                        

 

                        

 

(As can be seen in the above photo, Optivisors were a necessity for this process)

 

Overall, the experiment was a success.

 

                        

 

                        

 

I found that I’ll need to use something to keep the intervals between the rings consistent, and I also need to follow a better method of tying and gluing the threads to allow the joints to remain loose and flexible.

 

I’m fairly confident that I’ll be able to make a net of rings for the dredge basket.  The net of rope or twine will also take some experimenting, but I have a few ideas of how to get it done.  This will have to wait until the dredge frames and the ring nets are completed.

 

So, the next priority is to make the dredge frames.

 

Thanks everyone.

[cog]

Frank, as we say: a monks job. You are doing well

My two cents on your production ...

To assure a fixed distance between the rings, you should either fixate your third and fourth hand, probably screw them on a plank or take a piece of wood of the appropriate distance and put it between the legs of the two hands. To make a flexible joint, you could loop several turns through the rings, and after that loop the thread arund those loops, tie at one end, and CA to the ring, so the CA doesn't harden the entire link

[Omega1234]

Hi Frank!

 

Just when I thought your boat couldn’t have any more detail, I now find you’re working on the dredges.  Talk about intricate work...but you’ll tackle them with aplomb, I’m sure.

 

Cheers. 

 

Patrick

 

 

[druxey]

Pins on a board for a simple jig to keep the distance between rings consistent? That is fine work, in both senses of the word!

[thibaultron]

Frank, I think that the figure "8"s are not rope knots, but twisted rings. See the enlarged section of your photo.

 

What is the address of this picture, I'd like to look at the site.

 

 

[donrobinson]

Beautiful work Frank. It looks like to me that the top row of rings are independent of each other and not tied together, The second row of rings are looped around the first and  this row is then tied together. Just my observation. Hope this makes sense

[Mahuna]

8 hours ago, cog said:

Frank, as we say: a monks job. You are doing well

My two cents on your production ...

To assure a fixed distance between the rings, you should either fixate your third and fourth hand, probably screw them on a plank or take a piece of wood of the appropriate distance and put it between the legs of the two hands. To make a flexible joint, you could loop several turns through the rings, and after that loop the thread arund those loops, tie at one end, and CA to the ring, so the CA doesn't harden the entire link

Thanks for the suggestions Carl - I'll give them a try.

 

2 hours ago, Omega1234 said:

Hi Frank!

 

Just when I thought your boat couldn’t have any more detail, I now find you’re working on the dredges.  Talk about intricate work...but you’ll tackle them with aplomb, I’m sure.

 

Cheers. 

 

Patrick

 

 

Hi Patrick - I'll keep on trying.

 

1 hour ago, druxey said:

Pins on a board for a simple jig to keep the distance between rings consistent? That is fine work, in both senses of the word!

Hi Druxey.  I'll try that - I'll need really small pins (probably very small piano wire).

 

1 hour ago, thibaultron said:

Frank, I think that the figure "8"s are not rope knots, but twisted rings. See the enlarged section of your photo.

 

What is the address of this picture, I'd like to look at the site.

 

 

Ron.  Yes, they are twisted rings, but I'm using the thread to simulate that.  It's a stock photo site, so I'd rather not post it online.

 

1 hour ago, donrobinson said:

Beautiful work Frank. It looks like to me that the top row of rings are independent of each other and not tied together, The second row of rings are looped around the first and  this row is then tied together. Just my observation. Hope this makes sense

If you're referring to the photo of the real dredge you're correct.  They're not really part of the net - they're holding the ring net and the rope net to the frame.

[John Allen]

Frank,

 

Go to e bay seller yadanabeads1  antiquated 32 feet of copper figure 8 connectors $ 17.60 2x5x3.1 mm when zooming in on pic look at the 8 connecting rings may help I didn't look further but there were lots of other options.

 

May be promising.

 

John

Edited April 27, 2019 by John Allen

[Mahuna]

Hi John - thanks for the suggestion.  Unfortunately 3.1mm scales to 4 inches on the model.  The rings and connectors are only about 2.5 inches.

 

I'm satisfied with the approach I've taken - just need to make some changes to get a little more precision and consistency.

[HIPEXEC]

I'd be blind by now if I tried making that!    Great work!!

[Mahuna]

On 4/28/2019 at 8:25 PM, HIPEXEC said:

I'd be blind by now if I tried making that!    Great work!!

Hi Rich.  Yeah, I need frequent breaks to keep my vision (and sanity).

[HIPEXEC]

8 hours ago, Mahuna said:

Hi Rich.  Yeah, I need frequent breaks to keep my vision (and sanity).

Now it's my turn to strain my eyes.

[Kurt Johnson]

Frank, Maybe you’ve mentioned somewhere in this build and I missed it. Have you seen a skipjack in the flesh or just going from research? I saw one in Maryland once a long time ago, and you have nailed it spot on. Just beautiful work.

 

Kurt

[Sea Hoss]

Fantastic work!

[Mahuna]

17 hours ago, Kurt Johnson said:

Frank, Maybe you’ve mentioned somewhere in this build and I missed it. Have you seen a skipjack in the flesh or just going from research? I saw one in Maryland once a long time ago, and you have nailed it spot on. Just beautiful work.

 

Kurt

Hi Kurt.  I've actually been on Kathryn twice while she was docked, so I was able to take a lot of photos.  I also have a couple of friends in the area, having met them at the Ward World bird carving show several years ago.  Both of them are modelers and are very knowledgeable about Chesapeake work boats (one of them actually crewed on a skipjack when he was younger) and have been a great help in understanding some of the details.

 

12 hours ago, Sea Hoss said:

Fantastic work!

Thanks Hoss!

[Kurt Johnson]

That’s the best when you get the opportunity to climb around on something like that. It makes the project so more personal to you.

The area is real nice. I went to Oxford, Md with my wife when she had to go on business down there.  

 

That’s some wonderful carving at those shows. I like the fish carvings too. Way above my class.  

 

You should post a couple of your beauts. Show everyone where you honed those detail skills!

 

Kurt

[popeye the sailor]

she looks fantastic Frank!!   figuring things out usually takes most of the time........the irony is,  that once you get 'em the way ya want them,  it's when your almost done      they look good though......some really great work!   

[Mahuna]

Thanks Popeye.  You're absolutely right - I think most of my time has been spent trying to find the right way to do something, and then it gets done pretty quickly.

[Mahuna]

 

 

5 hours ago, Kurt Johnson said:

You should post a couple of your beauts. Show everyone where you honed those detail skills!

 

Hi Kurt - a while back (several years) I posted a couple of photos in a topic about other hobbies, but the post seems to be gone.  Here are a few photos of my latest carvings:  a miniature Peregrine Falcon and a Green Heron.