America by gsdpic - FINISHED - BlueJacket Shipcrafters - 1/48 scale

[gsdpic]

Stepping Forward

 

I have continued to work on the deck beams....more on that in a future post.

 

But first I took a step forward.  The plans show a mast step on the keelson, but the instructions do not talk about it until they talk about the masts.  That would be fine for someone who leaves large parts of the deck or hull unplanked, but for those who completely or nearly completely plank the hull and deck, it seems it would be problematic to get the mast step in there, and without the step, it seems it might be difficult to secure the masts.  So I decided to go ahead with doing the mast steps now, which also meant cutting a tenon in the end of the masts.  The old hands here probably have their own (much better) techniques for this, but I'll describe what I did.

 

The masts on the America have a fairly significant rake (2.75 inches per foot), so one needs to cut the bottom of the mast dowel at an angle, then cut again to form a tenon across the width of the mast.  Of course after I did this, it struck me that it would have been much easier, and probably just as good, to cut the mast at an angle, then glue on a short 1/8th x 1/8th basswood strip for the tenon.  Instead I cut it.

 

To do the cut, I used the 3/4ths square poplar sticks that I had used to hold the keel earlier.  They were screwed together to hold a mast, and the end was cut at the proper angle.  I used that as a guide to cut the dowel at an angle.  I then slid the dowel down the clamp an eighth of an inch or so.

 

 

I then made two more cuts from the front and back of the mast (from top and bottom of the picture above), along the same angle.  Finally I made two cuts up from the bottom of the mast, keeping the saw perpendicular to the angle at the bottom of the mast to form the tenon.

 

Finally I made a couple mast steps to be glued on to the keelson once I know exactly where they go...which depends on the placement of some of the deck beam assemblies shown above.

 

(oops, I see now the mast is a little chewed up, I guess from the screws in my clamp.  I hope that is below deck...if not I can fill and sand).

 

Edited November 11, 2017 by gsdpic

[GuntherMT]

Nice progress Gary.  I really like your system for making the deck beams where they don't go all the way across by making the entire assembly and then cutting out the center.  Great idea!

[gsdpic]

Thanks to all for the likes and for the comment, Brian.

 

The last, and most complex, deck beam assembly is complete.  This one surrounds the rear companionway and cockpit area.

 

I also cut and drilled the holes for the masts, capstan, and skylight in the pads on some of the other assemblies.  That was more problematic than I expected...not sure if it was technique or tool or dull drill bit but I tended to just tear up the wood.  A couple times I had to cut out the pad that had been glued in and replace it with a new one.

 

 

[Tim Curtis]

Really enjoying your build. Lovely to see a genuine plank on frame model kit being built. Its quite a step up from the POB kits I am used to. Very intriguing. Presumably the next step is scratch build POF?

[gsdpic]

On 11/14/2017 at 4:23 AM, Tim Curtis said:

Really enjoying your build. Lovely to see a genuine plank on frame model kit being built. Its quite a step up from the POB kits I am used to. Very intriguing. Presumably the next step is scratch build POF?

Thanks Tim.  I've enjoyed it as well and have been pleased with the kit and how it is going together so far.   As for what's next....I have some time to think about it

[gsdpic]

Yay, A Milestone

 

So I now have all of the framing done of both the hull and the deck.  I figured that milestone deserved a bit more care with the photos, even getting out the "real" camera.   In the photos below, obviously the pedestals are just stuck on the keel and the thing is balanced on the base board.  In the last, the masts and bowsprit are just balanced as well, and not trimmed to length or tapered (and yes the holes in the deck have enough wiggle room that I 'll be able to make the masts parallel).

 

This also marks a bit of a turning point....probably 90% of what I have done up to this point won't be directly visible on the finished model, but 90% of what I do from here on will be directly visible.  The pressure is on!

 

What's Next

 

The instructions call for cutting and installing the waterways, then planking the hull, doing deck furniture, planking the deck, then masts and rigging.  But me?  I think I'll likely take a bit of a break from this build, first to clean up the work bench, then maybe do some side experiments to help me decide what finish to use (natural, paint, copper?) and a few other little side projects I have in mind that I'll probably only share if they are successful.

 

Enough boring text, here are the pictures....

 

[Nirvana]

Gary, very nice pictures.

Something interesting I am seeing though in the last picture with the masts is the rake.

I did experience the same thing as the distance where the mast are setting in the deck versus the top of the masts. 

Maybe it's an illusion in your picture and the distances are the same. But for me the distance are different, it's not much but it's noticeable.

[Tim Curtis]

Superb!

[gsdpic]

1 hour ago, Tim Curtis said:

Superb!

Thanks!

9 hours ago, Nirvana said:

Gary, very nice pictures.

Something interesting I am seeing though in the last picture with the masts is the rake.

I did experience the same thing as the distance where the mast are setting in the deck versus the top of the masts. 

Maybe it's an illusion in your picture and the distances are the same. But for me the distance are different, it's not much but it's noticeable.

Thanks for noticing and commenting.  I knew it would not be easy to get things lined up, so the holes in the deck are a bit oversized.  When the masts are finally installed, I will put wedges between the edge of the deck and the masts to get them positioned correctly.  At this point, the masts are just sitting in there, resting against the edge of the hole.  I did not take a picture from the front with the masts in because they also were not both vertical....something else that will be corrected when I permanently install them.

[gsdpic]

Experiment #1

 

So I am well into one of the experiments that I had in mind.  In the past, I have carved things like bow blocks and the stern part of the America (and enjoyed doing so), but I have never really done any "decorative" carving.  I wanted to give that a try here.  I messed around a little with some bass wood but it was very quickly apparent that would not be productive.  So I ordered some Pear and Boxwood from Wood Project Source, and some very small chisels and gouges from Micro-Mark, and started practicing a bit more.

 

On the America, there are two decorative swooshes near the bow.   I am sure these things have a name but I don't know what they are called.  The plan shows them like this:

 

The Bluejacket kit includes two cast metal parts to be used for this decorative thingy.   I thought this would be a good thing to try to carve a replacement for.  Here is my first attempt, next to the metal part from the kit.  For scale, the white lines on the green mat are half inch apart, so the carving is about 2 inches long.

So it is far from perfect, but for a first try I was pretty pleased with how it came out.  I won't use this one on the finished model, but I am encouraged enough that I think with a bit more practice I will be able to produce one that I prefer to the cast metal pieces for the finished model.  This was done on the pear wood.  This also has me thinking about trying to pick up some better little chisels and gouges.  I was not impressed with the ones from Micro-Mark, particularly the flat chisels and the v-shaped one.  the rounded gouges were better.

 

 

 

[Gregory]

Nice work..

 

The design is typical of the various plans I have seen.  I have seen numerous contemporary paintings, with insufficient detail to determine how accurate the design is.

Here is a photo from 1940.  I suppose it is the result of modifications after 1851.

 

 

 

FWIW, Here is an image of the actual stern decoration that now resides in the New York Yacht Club

 

[gsdpic]

Gregory, thanks for the photos.  I have the book "The Low Black Schooner", recommended in one of the other America build logs, which has many paintings and photos, including the two above.  But as you say it is hard to tell what this part really looked like.  The paintings shown there do not have enough detail to really tell, though none of them really look like that 1940 photo, so like you, I suspect that is a later modification.

 

One can also use google to find photos of the replica America, but again who knows how accurate the replica was in this regard.  Here's one of the best pictures of that part that I found, though the leafy design on this one is too detailed to replicate on a 1/48th scale model (well, at least too difficult for me).  http://www.scaranoboat.com/america-p42.html

 

And yes, trying to carve the eagle has crossed my mind (the kit also provides a cast metal part).  But that is an order of magnitude more difficult than these little leafy things.  So I need a lot more practice before I tackle that.

 

[Nirvana]

Gary, 

Here is another view of the stem piece. This is from America II.

[gsdpic]

Thanks Dr. Per.

 

Just for fun, tried again, this time using the Castello Boxwood.  It was a bit easier to work though I think the pear could provide cleaner, sharper results.  From the top:

- first attempt, in swiss pear

- second attempt in castello boxwood

- cast metal part from kit.

[MrBlueJacket]

The trailboards are a pair of boards that may be found at the bow of certain sailing vessels, where they run from the figurehead or billethead back to or towards the hawsepipe. They are in the main decorative, though they often bear the name of the ship; they may be more or less elaborately carved and painted.

[gsdpic]

9 hours ago, MrBlueJacket said:

The trailboards are a pair of boards that may be found at the bow of certain sailing vessels, where they run from the figurehead or billethead back to or towards the hawsepipe. They are in the main decorative, though they often bear the name of the ship; they may be more or less elaborately carved and painted.

Thanks Mr Bluejacket.  I figured someone would pipe in with the real name of them.  Funny, trailboards sounds like something that should be at the stern, not the bow.

 

[Gregory]

I don't know if this painting is included in "The Low Black Schooner",  but it is a contemporary painting located in the Peabody Essex Museum.

 

There is some limited zoom functionality at the above link, and the trailboard shows some scroll work, not apparent in the Bluejacket and other plans..

 

 

 

Edited December 15, 2017 by Gregory

[Nirvana]

Gregory, that's very close to what my kit from Constructo has provided. 

[gsdpic]

Gregory and Dr Per....thanks for the additional info, and thanks to others for the likes or just for looking in.

 

Gregory...that painting is interesting.  There is one in "Low Black Schooner" that is very, very similar but not identical.  Perhaps one is "version 1" and the other is "version 2".  The one in the book has a more stormy looking sky, more muted colors, and a few more details on the deck.  But looking at either one, the lack of some details makes me wonder how accurate the trailboard representation is.  In other words, the painter was not too detail-oriented on the deck, did he really pay attention to, and duplicate, the details of the trailboard or did he wing it?  We'll likely never know.  Regardless, thanks for linking the picture as it was interesting to see.

 

As for my efforts, below is one more attempt.  This time I cut out the shape first, using the scroll saw, then glued it to another piece of wood for easier handling, did the carving, then cut it off of the wood.  I spread the leaves out a little bit, and tried to leave a raised edge around the outside.  And I even managed to photograph it right-side-up.   There are some obvious mistakes, places where the wood split or the gouge slipped.  I think I'll put this effort to rest now, until I get closer to actually needing these parts. 

[gsdpic]

Back to Work

 

After a couple little side projects, and some family time for the holidays, I resumed work on the America.   The next task on the list is to work on the waterways.   There are four pieces, two on each side, due to the way the deck is split into two levels near the middle.   Doing these is a bit fiddly due to cutting out around all the bulwark stanchions.

 

But first, a funny thing happened.  When I ordered the wood for my carving experiments, somehow, completely mysteriously, the appropriate sizes and amounts of cherry wood strips to do the deck of the America magically appeared in my cart when I placed that order.  I think it was a Christmas Miracle    So, I thought I'd try using cherry for the deck instead of the supplied basswood.  It is a bit harder to work with, as it seems more brittle and prone to split, but I think it will look good.  Once the deck is complete, I'll just do some clear wipe on poly.

 

To do the waterways, I started by creating a paper template, using some heavy paper (from a page of a newly obsolete 2017 calendar).  I first cut it to match the curve of the bulwarks, then I used an xacto knife to cut a bunch of little square notches for the stanchions.  That is shown in the first two pictures below.

 

Next I glued the template to the cherry wood sheet, making sure to glue the top of the template to the underside of the wood.  After that, I roughly cut out the piece.  I then filed, sanded, and shaved down the notches until I had a reasonably good fit.  That is shown in pictures 3 - 5.

 

Obviously I still need to cut down the piece to the correct width.  It will probably be very fragile once I do that, so I am going to wait until just before I install it.  The fit is just ok....there are some gaps that I'll try to fill with sawdust/glue after I install the waterways.  You can see on the fourth notch back from the front I had a problem with the wood splitting and the notch is bigger than it should be.  That is the main one I'll have to fix up some how.

 

I have also decided that I'll be painting this model, so before I glue these in, I will paint the stanchions white.

[gsdpic]

Ready for Planking

 

Been a little while since I posted, but I have been working a bit on the America.  I now, finally, have the waterways cut and installed, and also have painted the timberheads white, and I have done a few other things.  Here's a summary

- finished cutting waterways and bow and stern edge pieces

- cleaned up the bow filler block and added some 1/32nd bass wood sheet on the outside.

- on the inboard side of the bow filler, added some pieces, also 1/32nd bass wood, along with some fake hawse timbers, all primed and painted white

- sanded, shaved, and in some cases augmented timberheads in the seemingly never ending effort to get them to flow nicely from one to the next on the inboard side, outboard side, and top.  Even looking at these photos I still see a few little jogs and wiggles.

- went through several iterations of priming, sanding, and painting the timberheads white.

- glued in the waterways; used some glue/water/sawdust wood filler to try to fill in some of the gaps between the waterways and timberheads

- sanded the outer edge of the waterways.  I intentionally cut the notches a bit deep so that the waterways would stick out a bit, then sanded that edge down to match the frames, in an effort to avoid having any gap between the waterways and the inboard side of the planking.  I see in one of the pictures I have a little bit of repair work to do on the waterways near the bow.

 

With all of that, I am ready to start the hull planking. 

 

I know, I know, all you are really interested in are the pictures....here they are:

Edited January 21, 2018 by gsdpic

[mojofilter]

Looking very nice!  She's nice and big at 1/48.

Will you plank hull or deck first?

[gsdpic]

4 hours ago, mojofilter said:

Looking very nice!  She's nice and big at 1/48.

Will you plank hull or deck first?

Thanks for the likes, looks and comment.  Yes, she is a nice size....the hull is just about 24 inches with 5 1/2 inches of beam.  I think she'll actually be a bit too large for the place I had intended to display her.  Oh well. 

 

Planking the hull first, per the instructions.  They actually also have you do a lot of the deck furniture as well, before planking the deck.

[gsdpic]

Whoops

 

I started to think about the planking, trying to figure out how to do it and where it would go.   I wanted to establish the location of the sheer plank, so I knew just what space I had to fill with the planks.  And looking closer, I discovered a mistake that I made.  Fortunately it should be pretty easy to fix, and the fix will be covered by the planking. 

 

On the last 20% or so of the hull of the America, the bulwarks are notched in a bit from the side of the hull.  This feature has already been a bit of a thorn in my side, as I felt the pre-cut frames in that area were a bit off, so the tops of the frames required more shaping than the others.  And that is also where this mistake occurred. 

 

Here is a scan of one cross section from the plans, with the indented bulwark circled in red.

 

And here is a picture of the stern of my hull:

 

See the problem?  In the cross section, the deck beams extended to the outer edge of the frames, and the sheer plank and quarter cap lined up with the deck.  On mine, I chopped the deck beams off to line up with the outer edge of the bulwarks.  And worse, I also carved that stern piece to line up with the tops of the frames while it should have lined up with the tops of the deck beams.

 

So, I'll have to glue in some small chunks of wood on top of the frames, and around the edge of the stern piece, to raise up the outer edges in this area, so that everything lines up the way it is supposed to.  Once I do that, I'll be able to identify the exact position of the top of the sheer plank all the way across the hull.

 

 

 

[Tim Curtis]

Just love this kit....and what you are doing with it.

So exciting to see one of the few genuine plank on frame kits in action.

Loving it.

Not surprised you are encountering a few challenges along the way.

You seem to be mastering them well enough though.

 

Tim

[gsdpic]

Thanks for the looks and likes, and Tim, thanks for the encouraging words.   I am well along into fixing the issue, and while I am at it, I am reshaping my stern a bit...err, reshaping the stern of the model ....to try to better match part of the plan.  More on that in my next post.  During the last two weeks, one thing that has taken away from time working on the America has been watching a bunch of tennis matches from your home town.  The television coverage in the US always includes plenty of "Visit Melbourne" type commercials.  Looks like a beautiful place.   Maybe some day....

 

 

[Tim Curtis]

Melbourne is great.

Currently just over 100 degrees. A little on the warm side.

Keep posting....this is one of my favourite build logs!

T

[gsdpic]

Just quick update.   I've fixed my mistake, I think.  I also noted how the plans show stern and rail cap really flaring upward above the transom.  It is more noticeable here than on other models of America that I have seen, and perhaps more pronounced than shown on contemporary paintings.  It also seemed the transom area is less thick and heavy than mine was.   So, in addition to fixing the issue with the frames, I took the carving knives and sanding block to my stern filler piece, and cut it down a bit.  I also put a few additional pieces at the top of the rail around the back to give it least a little bit more of an upward flare.  I failed to take a "before" picture, but I can show what it looks like now.  I think I still need to take a bit more off of the stern, though it is a bit tricky carving it now that it is attached.

 

[Tim Curtis]

Hi Gary,

How is your America build going?

Keep posting....really look forward to seeing what you are doing with this great kit.

Tim

[gsdpic]

4 hours ago, Tim Curtis said:

How is your America build going?

 

Slowly    I typically only find a few hours per week to work on it.  I have the garboard strakes cut to some workable shape, and glued on.  I am working on cutting the first "broad strake" above the garboards.  I have one for the starboard side pretty close and have started to work on the other.  Once I get both of those done and glued on I'll post another picture.   The strakes have a pretty good twist from almost vertical to almost horizontal....once I get them cut, I soak them in water a bit, then clamp them on and let them dry.  Once dry I glue'em on.

 

Oh, I guess I also did a bunch more carving away at the stern block to make it a bit smaller and thinner.