MAYFLOWER by Captain Al - Model Shipways

[Captain Al]

Hey Danny, so good of you to drop by and offer your compliments and thoughts.  I take it as a sign that you are feeling well and that is great.  Thanks for this tip; I will try it out.

[Captain Al]

Yes, the bow fillers have to be flush and if there was a mistake made with the reference marks it was in my favor.  For whatever reason they lined up where they did when the tops were flush and I accepted the reference marks as confirmation that they were on right.  As much as I love the instruction booklet, the pictures can be deceiving.  Its often hard to tell when two pieces are flush.  As for the wooden piece -- following a message I got from Chuck (question was why such a large eyebolt; answer was anything much smaller would be really hard to get hold of when there was lots of other things going on in and around the recessed filler) not to mention your mention that the holes were disoriented, I changed my mind and went with the eyebolt exactly how Chuck describes making it.  I am going to post some pix and words about that and my work yesterday on the stern.  But that'll have to wait til after breakfast.  Getting a late start today. 

[RichieG]

It's looking like some progress is being made. I'm looking forward to seeing the stern work; I've read up on it, but it not the same as seeing someone actually do it.

PS I have another shipment in process from Model Shipways. Hopefully this one gets me to ready to get going, and I can follow in your footsteps...

[Captain Al]

I know I'm belaboring this point, but my sense of perfection (where did that come from?) seeks an answer if there is one.  So please endulge this for one more post.

 

I know from both modeling and real sailing, that both standing and running rigging need to run smoothly through their blocks or deadeyes toward the point where the lines will be rove through a second set of blocks or deadeyes.  There should be no twist in the lines.  To make this happen the sheaves (or holes in deadeyes) of both sets of blocks must be parallel to each other and to the lines themselves.  If they get hung with the sheaves perpendicular, the lines will twist 90 degrees.  Knowing this, when hooking a block to an eyebolt (say for example on the deck), its important to know how the hook to eye connection will end up orienting the sheaves (in our modeling world, the holes through the blocks).  This, is why (I assume) in the case of the eyebolt in the foremast filler, Chuck makes note to face the eyebolt forward.  But, this also begs the question of what is the proper orientation of the hook attached to the block?  Is there a right way and a wrong way?  Should the eye of the hook be parallel to the sheaves (i.e. looking in the same direction), or is the proper way to attach a hook (or becket)  to a block being to make the eye and the sheaves perpendicular?

 

I've noted somewhere that in modeling, when the time comes for rigging, and lines are being rove through the blocks, if it should turn out that either the eyebolt or the hook is oriented incorrectly resulting in lines that are twisted, the problem can easily be fixed by making an addition quarter twist to the hook (assuming that's the way you've stropped on the hook to the block).  But in real life, if the eyebolt is secured to the deck facing the wrong direction, or the hook has been stropped to the block incorrectly, its alot more work to fix it.  So I'm guessing that for  the sake of communication and everyone knowing what someone else will be doing, there is a right and a wrong way to strop a hook to a block -- and knowing this is the way it will be done will determine correctly which way the eyebolt is oriented on the deck.

 

So my question is: what is the correct way to strop a hook to a block?  With the hook parallel or perpendicular to the sheaves?  Which one of the pictures here shows the correct way of doing it?  I'm not sure yet which way the lines from this "ramshead block" will  run or where the upper block of the tackle  comes from.  So even though I believe the eyebolt in the filler block is now oriented correctly -- "facing forward" as instructed, depending on whether the hook is put onto the block one way or the other will ultimately be what determine if the lines run smoothly or become twisted.  Like I said above, if I get to that point and I've done it wrong, I'll just twist the block 90 degrees.  But I would like to know if there is or isn't a correct way.  OK I have belabored the point.  Sorry.

 

[Captain Al]

Time to move on and glue on the stern pieces XX, YY, and ZZ (shouldn't ZZ have been on Top?) 

 

The reference lines are great.  Sure beats taking measurements off of plans and transferring them to the parts to draw our own refrence marks.  So the east west orientation of all 3 parts is a given.  Chuck notes that the orientation or reference lines of part ZZ (if you still haven't gotten it I guess you weren't into '70s R&R) are only 1/8th apart.  This is because by this time we've tapered the stern to 1/8th and it leaves no wiggle room.

 

I went through a long process of test fitting the 3 parts cause the top and bottom edges are not as straight forward as the side to side placement.  Starting with part XX, the top edge needs to be beveled to match the slope of the BF and the two stern frames.  I think the bottom edge should also be beveled.  It appeared to me that it would be alot easier to do this off the boat before gluing on.  Seems like a good deal of wood will need to be removed.  I did most of it by hand filing.  At the end I used a disk sander to just take the slight roundness off the beveled edge.  In doing this care must be taken to keep the camphored shape to the part.  Swoop the piece in an arc across the disk.  And like I said, very very gingerly.

Or better yet, don't leave the bevel with a roundness to it in the first place.  First two pics show the part in process.  Last one shows it glued on after the disk sanding.  Hard to tell but the line to the frames and BF is good and flush and the false deck will sit nicely.

[RichieG]

good questions. first of all, remember that this eye bolt is a simulation of how this would really have been hooked up, so there really isn't a 'correct' answer. (the real way was more like you had with the knight, but that would be tough to do on this particular model.) But, if you look at page 37, there is a drawing of a block with a wire hook on it, and it looks like it's oriented in your second picture. So, my best guess (and it is a guess) is that you would go with the hook pointing parallel to the wire around the block. That being said, all of this will be completely hidden in the model (or almost completely, anyway) so no one but you (and anyone you tell) will know...

[Captain Al]

Going to try Danny's way of inserting pics into my text.  Hope it works.....

 

Part YY's bottom edge forms part of the counter which is a finely curved section that will be planked over shortly.  These pix show this curve in the frames and how the part YY overhangs it and needs some radical shaping.

I

[RichieG]

and, those stern parts look good. Another approach might be to glue them on, and then use a sanding block to 'fair' the piece in place to match the slope of the BF. Keep the up the good work.

[Captain Al]

Well maintaining a build log is more technologically challenging for me than model ship building.  Just can't get the method down to insert pix where and when I want and to caption them.  So the previous post contained several more photos than I intended.  But all of them in there own way shows my dilemma -- how to shape the bottom edge of part YY to conform to the curve of the frames so they can be planked over?  What tool to use?  To do all or most or none of it off the boat?  Does it really entail taking off as much wood as the pix show?  Its not just photography exaggerating it -- it looks like a lot of wood cause it is a lot of wood.  Am I conceptualizing the planking of the counter incorrectly?  There are going to be several strips of very narrow wood (like 1/16th x 1/16th) put under there so I'm wondering if those will change the shape -- at least the shape that I'm seeing in my head which is a curve that continues through the profile of YY.

[Captain Al]

Richie, thanks for continuing to tune in and for your input.  As for the hooks in the blocks -- I'm not worried about doing the model incorrectly.  Like I said, if so it can be fixed easily when the time comes.  God knows how many blocks were done incorrectly on Bounty and later given an extra twist.  I'm just wondering if there is a standard way in real life (for one reason or another), that the hook would be stropped parallel or perp. to the sheaves.  Maybe the answer is that in real life the hook would be lashed to the block through its own eye at the top of the hook, and not be part of the stropping wire as it is in modeling.  That then would beg the question whether the eye of the hook is perp. to the half eye of the hook or are they parallel.  Enough is enough I would say.  I need to take a valium to stop thinking about this.  Its minor.

[RichieG]

Al, that overhang on piece YY looks odd. I haven't built up the bulkheads and stern pieces yet, but I did pop out YY and put it up against the BF, and the bottom edge fits pretty much right on. You're comparing the bottom edge of YY to the bottom of laser cut stern frames, while I'm only comparing it to the BF itself, but is it possible that either 1) you haven't pushed YY up against the upper notch all the way or 2) might you have glued the stern frames on a bit too high? (the stern frames look to be in good alignment with the top of bulkhead 5, so I don't think that's going to be it...)

[Tigersteve]

Regarding the eyebolt- even though I have not thoroughly gone through my set of plans and practicum yet, I believe I remember that there's an illustration on the plans as to how the eyebolt works  later on when stepping the mast. 

 

I'm actually going through my kit now just to make sure I have all inventory. It's looking good so far, luckily! Not starting this build for a while though. 

Steve

[Captain Al]

I believe I solved the problem of how to make the curve of the counter flow nicely into the YY stern piece.  In the process I rekindled my interest in moving to scratch building.

 

Problem I had was I didn't know how much wood to take off the YY piece in order to make a smooth curving planking surface.  If it was going to be a lot of wood I preferred to do most of the work off the boat.  So how to know?  I decided to make myself a spare part out of the remains of the template plywood.  Hint (probably everyone knows this) don't throw that stuff away -- it comes in very handy many times).  So I cut the piece to shape on the Dremel scroll saw and "perfected" the edges with the disk sander.  Placing the new experimental piece in place with the boat upside down it came clear that the curve could flatten out alot when it hit the stern piece; meaning a whole lot less wood to take off.  I also realized I would be dealing with 1/8th x 1/16th inch planking here which is considerably smaller than the 1.5 x 5 mm planking I was used to using on my last build.  Its interesting to find how much my thinking has to change having moved to a much smaller scale model.

 

So I beveled this spare piece and and laid some of the planking over it.  Yes.  I think it works quite well.  So well in fact that I started thinking about using my newly made piece in place of the kit piece.  No reason really other than I could avoid doing the beveling over again.  And, my hour's work would not have been  in vain.  But to do so I'd have to cut out the 3 windows.  Decided to go for it.  Drilled 1/4" holes (in three steps) in the center of the window spaces (copied from the real piece) and began filing into rectangles.  I've finished just the middle window and that alone has taken 2 hours.  So tomorrow I'll decide whether to bevel the kit's piece and use it, or continue to finish my spare piece.  I'll probably do the kit's piece.

 

The day's work was quite a lot of fun and like I said above, showed me that with patience I could probably do a credible job of scratch building a simple vessel.

[Captain Al]

Richie, I hear you regarding what might be the issue with this curve.  I'm going to check it all from the perspective that my placement of the stern pieces might be off.  But here's the thing -- even if I put the stern pieces on too high (or low looking at it upside down -- which I often find easier to see things), this YY transom piece sits on it (or under it when the boat is right side up) so those would move in tandem with the stern frames and the issue would still be the same.  Also, I put those on where they would be flush to the BV so that the false deck would lie flat.  All in all I think it comes down to my freaking out over having to bevel off a ton more wood than turned out to be the case.  After all, it now appears that virtually all edge pieces need fairing and beveling to comply with the contour of other pieces.  It comes down to the fact (as someone noted) that laser cuts have to be square.

[RichieG]

Al, I'm just doing a little midnight reading before bed, and I have to point out that: you have the YY piece upside down! the windows have to be near the top when the ship is upright! The narrow part is supposed to be up by the XX piece! (You had it right with the original YY, but the new one you cut was placed on upside down.) !!!

[Captain Al]

Good eye -- in part.  I think the new part is ok except that in posing for a couple of those pix (the ones with the planking balanced on it) the piece was put on the model upside down.  I'm looking at the pic of the pieces sandwiched together and the one of the two pieces side by side and those are pretty definitive that the new one is an exact replica of the old. 

 

I am opting to use the original piece anyway.  I don't feel like finishing the job of filing out the windows today.  More or less it was an exercise in proving to myself that if I should really screw up a part I can probably make a new one.  So I'm going to glue on parts YY and ZZ this morning and hopefully (after chores are done and hair is cut) still have time today to put on the dummy cannon strip and the framing for the cannon ports.

[RichieG]

agreed, the new one is a very good match for the old, and agree that filing out those windows is time consuming (and it's tough to match the crisp sharpness of the laser for the windows). But either way, make sure it's not glued on the wrong way when it's time to glue. (I get confused a lot, especially when the ship is upside down, so I'm kind of attuned to that kind of thing...)

[Captain Al]

Stern pieces beveled and glued on.  I think its a good idea to do the beveling (call it fairing) off the boat.  Particularly for the YY piece which will be planked as part of the counter.  It would be touch to get the right files into that space once the pieces are glued on.  Pix below are upside down.    You can see how the counter has to curve smoothly onto the YY piece so as to lay the planks down.  The XX piece was beveled on its top edge to conform to the BF angle.  The ZZ piece didn't get any beveling at this point but I think later its side edges will be faired to the hull.

 

The ZZ piece was a bit tricky to glue on.  Not much glue surface -- only the BF down the middle.  The two outside stern frames do not extend down far enough to make contact with the surface of ZZ.  ZZ sits on a bit of a notch in those frames and the BF.  Actually, when right side up, ZZ sits on the tail end of the stern flush with the rabbet, and tucks under those notches in the stern frames and BF.  So there is actually a triangular shape gap between this ZZ piece and bulkhead 5.

 

Also note that the top edge of piece YY is camphored.  I noticed that when I test fitted it to the frames that because of this camphor it could rock from side to side like a hobby horse.  The frames are not adjusted to this situation.  So when gluing it on, to be sure that I had it on squarely and not tilted a bit to one side or the other, I put a temporary shim on each of the outside notches (.6mm did the trick).  As soon as the glue set enough I pulled these shims out, leaving a .6 mm gap between the top edge of YY and the notches in the frames.  I worry not about these gaps.  There is plenty of glue surface in other places.  Trick I do when I'm applying glue is transfer the reference lines to the backside of the piece so I know where to apply glue.  Remember: Pix below are upside down

 

 

[Captain Al]

Richie my friend you're not the only one.  I can stare at the model for hours trying to get things straight in my mind.  Particularly when I'm going to bevel a part off the boat.  I don't know how many times I bevel the wrong edge.  I've taken to penciling onto the piece the area that needs to be taken off.  Then of course its worse like you said when the boat is upside down -- but its alot easier to work on it in that position sometimes.  So far on this build I have only applied glue to the wrong surface but once.

[RichieG]

Al, I think it all looks great, and all the pieces are glued on upside-right for sure. In fact, the only criticism that I can make (and I'm always looking to make some kind of criticism) is that I think that when say 'camphor' (which is a waxy product of the camphor tree which smells a lot like menthol), you probably mean 'camber' (which means to arch slightly; bend or curve upward in the middle). Other than that, I can't think of anything to say other than 'good job!'

[Captain Al]

Got started on the dummy cannon strips and the cannon port framing.  Turned out to be surprisingly intricate work.  Some of the little rebate notches to hold the upper and lower framing strips needed to be faired.  Again, laser cuts only do 90 degrees and there is a definite curve to these strips.  Not a lot of holding surface to these little notches either, and not a very good position to use strong clamps.  So I decided to use CA glue on the first and last bulkhead as well as a dab of it on the middle one.  The other 4 I marked and applied PVA to both the notch and the strip.  This is one place where spot gluing is called for.  Applied the PVA first, then when ready, dab on the CA gel and press the strip into place.  Its nice to be working with a size model where my hand can span just about the whole work area, allowing me to apply pressure to the 3 CA spots.  When the CA set up I added some clamps to the other 4 spots, though they were all sitting pretty snug in their notches.

 

Came time for the last strip and it just wouldn't test fit well.  It all looked pretty well faired but I couldn't get the strip to sit comfortably in all the bulkhead notches at the same time.  I soaked and bent the strip onto a "jig" and in the morning I hope it'll sit better.

 

 

[Captain Al]

LOL Richie... I had a feeling I wasn't using that word correctly. 

[Captain Al]

Gun Port Framing

 

Well I surely didn't expect the complexity that this process has turned out to entail.  I think I put in 8 hours today and got 8 of the 16 frames in.  Going into it I thought it was simply a process of cutting these little 1/4 inch frames and gluing them in.  Not hardly.  Here's why:

1.  The two strips between which the frames sit are not directly on top of one another.  Because of the curvature of the hull the top frame sits a mm or so more inboard.  Chuck's instructions note that the frames need to be cut at an angle (turns out to be 76 degrees) in order for the top and bottom to seat under and over the two frames.  Interesting since I don't know of any miter box that will cut a 76 degree angle.

2.  Unless you've put the two strips on super perfectly (which I didn't apparently), the gap between them can vary from the 1/4 inch that the frames are supposed to fill.  In my case there were variations in the gap from less than half a mm to a bit over half a mm.  More or less a 1/64th to a 1/32nd of an inch.  This meant that each of the frames had to be measured, marked and cut individually to both length and the angle.

3.  There is nothing backing the two strips, so when a frame is pushed into its place, I had to hold a swizzle stick behind it so as not to push it too far in.  The framing will faired to the hull later, but I wanted these frames to sit flush to the strips.

4.  If I could get the frame to have a nice snug fit I used CA to hold it there.  It there was any wiggle to the frame I used carpenters glue.

 

It would be hard to describe the process I finally developed for marking the 3/32 inch strip of wood at 76 degrees, cutting it, filing it, etc.  Needless to say it was an interesting day.  The pix tell a better story.  I hope I've learned a few tricks (I must have cause the first frame took 4 hours and the last 7 only 4 more) that I'll apply tomorrow in doing the other side of the boat.  The last photo shows where I got the 76 degree angle from.

 

 

[jbshan]

Are you sure that aftmost port is still at 76 degs.?  It looks to my eye to be about 75 degs. 30 min.

Just pulling your leg.  One more fiddly bit to deal with, but ensconced in the 'no straight lines nor any right angles' challenge.

[RichieG]

 

Al, I don't know where I saw this, but I think someone put a temporary spacer on top of the lower gun port frame so that the upper one was a consistent height above it. That way, all the side pieces can be the same length, and you don't have to custom fit them all. You might try that for the other side.

[Captain Al]

But wouldn't the spacers have to be of different thicknesses?  The gap between the upper and lower frame is not consistent across its full length.  Some places its a bit more others a bit less than the 1/4inch its supposed to be.  I think the best solution (now he tells me) is to even more careful than i was in laying down those two strips.  But that would be very hard to do given the vagaries of those little notches they sit in.  Which, btw, takes up back to the topic of "how much char to remove."  My thinking is that I may have altered the notches a wee wee bit (but enough to make a difference) by being over zealous in taking off char.  Lesson learned for me is that while I might take char off edges, I will never touch a notch with a file or sand paper.  Especially if the kit mfr seems to have done a very good job of laser cutting in general.

 

Remember that funny caliper I described to you?  Essential for measuring the inside dimension (height) between the strips at the point where the frames will fit.

[Captain Al]

Just to say thanks to all those who've stayed aboard.  Happy Easter Sunday.    And Joel, can I blame it on my cheap tools?

[RichieG]

Al, I get that the notches are a little different (maybe due to sanding char), but I think the idea is to make the gunport strips exactly the same distance apart all the way across. I think it's more important to keep the gunports consistent than to have them fit exactly into the notches. So a (1/4"?) spacer allows you to keep the gunports nice and square even if the notches are a little off. That's my thinking anyway. (factor in that this is coming from someone who hasn't actually done this part yet...)

[jbshan]

No, not the tools, just the fact that the real thing was done by holding the work piece or a template up to the place it needs to fit and marking it with a pencil or scribe.  That scribe mark to scale would not be visible even under whatever magnification we can afford.  It seems to come down to mark and cut a bit large then take it down to fit with sandpaper.

Hope you didn't trip over the Bunny this AM, anybody.  Makes a big mess with all those eggs.

[Captain Al]

Hey Richie, I think we are confusing each other by talking about different dimensions.  You seem to be talking about the inside width of the gunports, from left to right.  I agree that these should be consisten and your idea of a temporary spacer to position the frames is a good one.  The gunports, by my measurement of the plans, should be 8 mm apart (inside dimension).  So the spacer you suggest needs to be 8 mm wide.  Now, for the spacer to even sit inside the horizontal strips it needs to be 1/4" high.  This is the dimension that that is difficult to make consistent because despite all the effort I put in to position these horizontal strips correctly, they don't run as perfectly parallel to each other (at a 1/4" distance from each other) like a train track does.  So its not your suggested spacer that's the problem, its the actual vertical frames.  The have to slide snugly into these parallel horizontal strips, and at the size we're working with even a half mm can make them either too big to get in there at all, or too small and they are hard to hold steady and squared up til the glue dries.  Now the spacer might help with this issue a little bit.  Given that if they were slightly to loose they would have this spacer to lean on and that might help (note that pva glue is usually enough to fill the gaps if they're less than .5mm) but if you've cut these frames just a tad too big (top to bottom) and they won't slid between the horizontal strips, then the spacer isn't going to help with that.

 

Having read this, I wish I'd used a spacer like you suggest just to keep the port openings consistent at 8 mm wide.  I've finished the work today and in the end the ports may vary in width by .25 to .5 mm.  But that don't worry me none cause I will either file/sand the inside of one or the other or both of the frames to make them exactly 8mm apart, or I will build the gun ports one by one and cut those inside pieces so they fit into a port opening that is like 7.75 mm instead of 8.  Believe me, .24 - .5 mm is almost impossible to recognize with the naked eye.  At least not by the octogenarians that will be viewing my Mayflower.  Now your young eyes may be different.