Swan 42 by shipmodel - FINISHED - one-design racing yacht

[shipmodel]

Hi all -

 

Thanks for the interest and compliments. 

 

Tom - the self tailing fitting is about 1/4" overall.  It is made up from three layers of 0.005" chrome shim.  The lowest is cut to the shape of the arm, while the upper ones are 1/8" and 1/16" discs.  A hole is drilled in the top for the crank handle and the tailing arm is bent and trimmed as needed.

 

It came out pretty well on the fourth try.

 

Dan

[shipmodel]

Hi all -

 

The theme of the past two weeks has been - improve, improve, improve, so there is not much new to see.

 

Most of the time was spent on the hull sides.  Although they were already good, I wanted an almost mirror finish.  Experiments with many gloss coatings, sanding and polishing, finally gave me the finish I wanted.  Ultimately it came down to sanding with up to 13,000 grit, several coats of clear gloss acrylic, and a final polishing with jewelers' rouge.  Here it is -  

 

 

The non-skid coating process has continued.  Here are a few more photos of the masking process using 1/32" and 1/16" vinyl striping tape for the the masking.  The bone burnisher was used extensively.  However, although the masking was good, it was not perfect.  I will be working on it some more in the coming weeks till I am satisfied.  This same fate will overtake the three hatch covers.  They have gone from 'acceptable' to 'not good enough' as my standards rose.

 

 

I am satisfied, for now, with the small details in the cockpit.  Here are the vent, throttle, guages, and electrical port on the starboard wall of the cockpit, both in miniature and against a photo of the boat. 

 

 

Here are the three-arm wheels mounted on their bent posts.  They are still removable at this point until the deck has been redone.  On top of the posts is a compass which is 1/8" across.  It is made from a drop of clear epoxy whose surface tension gave it the dome shape.  You can see the markings through the epoxy although it is much too small to see any numbers, even if I could write that small . . . :-))

 

 

One step back and two steps ahead.  But as General Patton used to say, "Forward, always forward."  

 

Dan

Edited June 26, 2013 by shipmodel

[mtaylor]

Love this build.  The hull is beyond "nice"... wow!.  Excellent details and the way you're showing us how they're done.

[michael mott]

Exquisite finish on the hull Dan.

 

Michael

[gjdale]

Wow!  That's all - just WOW!

[druxey]

The X-Acto knife is a reflection of your skills, Dan. (Sorry, I couldn't help that!) Seriously - seriously good.

[Chuck]

Awesome paint work Dan.....just fantastic.  

 

Chuck

[Byron Rosenbaum]

Dan: Thanks for recommending that I join this very interesting MSW 2.0 group. I did join.

Your work is admirable.  I'm pleased to see your progress updates as this model is completed.

Thanks for sharing. Is this the model that requires using the metal block design ?

Good luck and happy building.

Byron

[Byron Rosenbaum]

Dan: An alternate nonskid deck suggestion, not that your method lacks perfection.

 A company named Small Parts Inc. sell micro medical filter material that was used on a 1:16 model to create the non skid deck pattern. 

Cut to the pattern shapes between the smooth surface separation lines, and applied to the deck then painted, the effect is very realistic.

I'll add my WOW about your fantastic talent. 

Byron

[shipmodel]

Hi all -

 

Thanks, as always, for the compliments.  It is coming along slowly but well, I think.  The past several weeks have included the July 4th long holiday and the move of my son and his family from Brooklyn to Michigan, which took me away for some time from the construction yard. 

 

Mostly I worked on the railing fixtures at the bow and stern.  These are not only complicated three dimensional metal pieces, but require detail soldering and electroplating.  Many almost completed, or even fully completed iterations were discarded before acceptable ones were fashioned.  Without dwelling too much on past mistakes, here is how it went -

 

The fixture at the bow consists of a top bar that bends around the bow and then bends down to becomes the aft two of the four angled legs that support it.  The pair of legs on each side is connected by a low bar as well.  Here is what it looks like on the boat.

 

 

The plans provided gave only a profile view, but I found a detailed deck fitting drawing which shows the plan view. 

 

 

Similarly, the stern fitting has a top bar that bends at almost a right angle around the corner of the transom and becomes a short foreleg and a much longer transom leg, with a vertical piece and horizontal pieces connecting everything together.  Here it is on a boat

 

 

And here from the plans and drawing

 

 

To match the dimensions, I used brass tubing of 1mm o.d. and internal diameter of 0.020".  I could have used solid bar stock, but using tubing provided a lot of advantages during construction.  Here is the setup for the bow fixture, surrounded by my soldering tools and supplies.

 

 

I do most of my soldering with this inexpensive "Cold Heat" device that I heard about through an infomercial on TV several years ago.  This is the first time that I am using it for a commissioned model.  It is a battery powered resistance soldering unit made for the miniatures or jewelry market.  It works by passing an electric current between two carbide electrodes set in a "cloven hoof" configuration with a small gap between the electrodes.  When both tips contact metal the current flows between them, heating the metal by induction, or resistance in the metal.

 

For the solder I use Tix brand high-silver content solder along with Tix brand flux.  Both can be bought at Micro-Mark and other suppliers.  The solder comes in sticks, which is easily cut in pieces about 1/16" long.  Although it is easy to cut, once melted and cooled it is quite hard and strong.  Also, since it has a lot of silver it electroplates much like the brass tubing.

 

 

The dimensions of the fixture was figured out from the plans, opened up as if lying flat, and drawn onto a piece of scrap basswood.  Pieces of tubing were cut to length and bent to shape.  At the appropriate spots I drilled angled  holes through the top bar and the forward legs.  0.020" brass rod was fed through the holes, the tubing pieces strung in place, and the entire assembly was secured in place with thumb tacks.

 

 

In this closeup you can see that at the joint on the left there is a piece of the solder resting on the joint.  Actually, the joint was painted with flux, which gets tacky and holds the solder in place till it is heated.

 

 

Now the Cool Heat tool is turned on and the tips straddle the bar next to the joint.  In a few moments the flux sizzles, then the solder softens and sags.  Do not remove the heat, but wait until the solder melts completely and forms a shiny dome over the joint.  Remove the heat and the solder will flow into the joint, filling and securing it.  There is a soldered joint at the right edge of the photo.

 

 

Once all of the joints have been soldered the extra connecting pieces of the rod were clipped off and the joints were filed to remove any excess solder.  Taking a deep breath I folded the piece around a suitably sized dowel to form the rounded 'pulpit' that goes around the bow.  Fortunately, all of the joints held.  Now the legs were trimmed to final size so the fixture sat level and in the right position.  With a wire wheel every bit of the fixture was polished in preparation for chrome electroplating.  As with painting or other finishing, the surface preparation is key.

 

 

The electroplating kit was set up as I described before when making the handrails, and the piece was dipped for only 15 seconds, which gave it a very nice silvery finish after rinsing and polishing with a cloth wheel.

 

 

And here it is installed on the model.  Using tubing also allowed me to insert brass rod into the lower ends of the supporting legs which were bent to drop into holes drilled into the deck.  This creates a 4-point mechanical attachment for the piece, which should be enough, even at the vulnerable spot at the extreme bow. 

 

 

The stern fixtures were build up in much the same way.  After the design was calculated and drawn, brass tubing was bent to the shape of the top bar and legs.  Holes were drilled for the 0.020" rod which was used as an armature to hold the tubing pieces in place.

 

 

And here are all of the joints soldered.  Most are good, but you can see that the joints at the central crossing are a little starved for solder.  Flux and another piece of solder were used and heated, and the joint was filled quite easily.  The loops for the wire railings are made of the same brass rod as the armature and soldered in place.

 

 

Now the fixture was bent to its final angle.  This is where a number of fully soldered fittings died.  The bend of the lower bar is just too close to the central joint, which fails time and again.  I finally resorted to leaving off that piece of tubing and bending the top bar alone.  Since it is a continuous piece of metal there was no failure.  Now the lower bar piece had to be pre-bent, trimmed to size, and set in place with the internal rods.   These last joints were soldered to complete the construction.  Here are the mirror image fittings, the one on the right has the attachment pins installed. 

 

 

As with the bow fixture, these were cleaned up with a file and then polished with a wheel before electroplating.  And here they are set in place.  I just have to add some feet to the legs, which will be small pieces of chrome foil and they will be complete.

 

 

Next I will make up the individual railing posts before turning to the mast and rigging.  But I have to do some work on another project the rest of the month, so I will post again in August, when I should be almost done.

 

Until then, be well.

 

Dan

 

 

 

[thowen]

What a beautiful model.

[druxey]

Sounds like quite the struggle to achieve the result you wanted, Dan! But you've succeeded brilliantly in the end. I'm surprised that those essentially soft-soldered joints held. Food for thought....

[gjdale]

Fabulous work Dan, and really interesting to read your description of how you achieved the end result. Really well done!

[michael mott]

I am really enjoying this build Dan and also how you are solving the fabrication challenges of some of the parts. The interesting thing about using tube is that is heats up more quickly than the solid rod.

 

Michael

[shipmodel]

Hi all -

 

Hope the summer is being good to you.

 

Now that the complex railing pieces at the bow and stern are done, I turned to the allegedly simpler deck edge stanchions.  They are two feet (scale 3/4") tall, tapered towards the top, and have two through holes for wire railings.  Six of the ten have side supports.  All have a triangular base piece and a collar at the base. 

 

 

These were initially made from 0.062 brass tube, with the supports from 0.03 rod.  Each was cut off to length and the two railing holes were drilled with a 0.0012 (#80) drill.  I found this easiest to do with the piece in a simple jig that held it in place with the locations of the holes marked out.  I first tried to do the drilling in a miniature drill press, but the bitt kept skipping off the curved surface.  Ultimately, I did it by eye, with the drill bitt in a cordless Dremel.  Lots of light and magnification are essential.  A drop of oil makes the drill cut much more efficiently.  After the railing holes were made at locations marked on the jig, the stanchion was turned 90 degrees and a loose drill bitt inserted through the top hole.  This held the stanchion in the jig so the 0.020 hole for the support could be drilled perpendicular to the railing holes.  With all the holes drilled the stanchion was chucked into a Dremel and the top quarter was tapered to match the boat photo.   A full set of ten was made and electroplated.

 

 

The customer wanted some progress photos, so I temporarily mounted the railings on pegs into the deck.  The railings were strung on the starboard side using 0.0095 beading wire.  The diagonal lacing at the bow is fly tying line, nominally 0.0030 diameter, although the cross section is not actually round. Here is how it came out.

 

 

The more I looked at it, however, the less I was satisfied.  0.062 scales out to two inches, which is very close to the actual diameter, but on the model the optical illusion effects made them too heavy.  A bit over a day of extra work and another set was made from 0.045 rod and 0.020 supports.  Here you can see the difference.

 

 

And here is how the redone stanchion looks.  Note the other small deck details - the padeye at the base of the support, the scammell on deck and the cam-cleat with the red tops on the posts.

 

 

The next item is the most complex miniature assembly on the model.  The main sheet traveller consists of a large block mounted on a car that runs on a track athwart the cockpit with rigging to pull it side to side.  It holds down the end of the boom while still allowing it to move from port to starboard.  Here you can see one in use on a boat on the water.

 

 

Here is a picture of the car from the Harken catalog.  It consists of a base that rides on the track, three small sheaves on each side and a camcleat on each end, with the large block hooked to an eye in the center.  It is just over 9 inches long.

 

 

Here is the final one for the model.  At just over 1/4 inch long it contains 24 parts.  These include 1/16 inch diameter punched plastic sheaves, chrome foil base and retaining straps, and camcleats made from 0.025 styrene rod.  The spaces around the sheaves are clear to permit the run of rigging.

 

 

And here it is installed in the cockpit with the rigging running out to double blocks set horizontally at either end. 

 

 

Here is what it will look like when the steering wheels are installed.  This was set up as a check to compare to the photos of the actual boats.

 

 

Now the rest of the small deck details were made and installed.  Here is the jib sheet traveller.  It is much like the main sheet traveller, but smaller and less complex, although its rigging is more complicated and involves several sister blocks that were made by pinching in the waist of a cast Britannia block from Bluejacket.  I settled on these blocks as they are the correct size, strong, and reasonably accurate.  A little cleanup, some adjusting and detailing and they are impossible to tell from the actual ones at this size and scale.

 

 

So here it is, set up on its temporary mounting.  Next time we move to the boom, its support arm, and the rigging.  I think I see the light at the end of the tunnel, and just hope that it is not a train coming at me.

 

 

Be well

 

Dan

Edited July 30, 2013 by shipmodel

[yvesvidal]

Amazing work Dan. Beautiful.

 

Yves

[gjdale]

Simply fantastic Dan. A beautiful model.

[TBlack]

The main sheet traveller;24 parts in 1/4"? The mind boggles! Your ability to see and solve these problems is truly outstanding!

[mtaylor]

Don,

 

All the good explatives have been taken... I'll just say "WOW"!!!!!

[dgbot]

Nice work Dan.  Too bad you do not own the real thing.  It is gorgeous.

David B

[shipmodel]

Hello, all –

 

My name is Peter.  Dan is working in the shipyard so he asked me to give you a tour of the completed Swan 42.  As you can see, I brought with me the world’s largest dime for a bit of size comparison.  Since the last segment of this build log we have installed all of the various pieces and subassemblies that were created before, set up the mast, boom and rigging, and installed her on a custom made presentation base ready for delivery.

 

 

So let me show you around, from bow to stern and bottom to top.  Here she is, neatly balanced on her keel bulb.  You can see just how tall her rig is.  The laminated wood mast rises 62 scale feet from the deck, some 20 feet longer than the hull itself.  The spreaders which set up the shrouds are of different lengths and are set at different angles to the mast and to vertical.  They are cut from brass sheet, given a layer of epoxy and then faired to their aerodynamic shapes.  The standing rigging is 0.012” stainless steel beading wire, which is too small to see in this photo, but will show up later.

 

 

Here is a view of the entire deck.  If Dan did his job well there should be nothing that draws the eye and disrupts the overall impression of being aboard the actual boat.  He always says that it has to obey the Rule of 3 – it has to look good from across the room, with detail work that makes you want to see it much closer.  Then it has to look good from 3 feet away, like the point of view of this photo, with new and interesting details to see.  And then it has to look right from 6 inches away, with even more details that create the ‘texture’ of the actual boat.

 

  

 

Of course, the hull and deck have to be symmetrical, so we checked it repeatedly as the mast was being installed.  Here is how it came out, viewed from the middle distance.

 

 

Now let’s move in to the 6 inch viewpoint and look around.  At the bow is the pulpit.  Dan has explained how this is made from brass tubes that are assembled, soldered and electroplated in chrome.  Now it is installed with small feet at the end of each leg made from chrome foil.  The jibstay is made up from beading wire with a sleeve of insulation taken from black speaker wire.  The furling fittings at top and bottom are simply made up from a short piece of tubing and punched discs as caps.  The railing is 0.009” silver beading wire which is turned back on itself and seized with black fly tying thread. The lacing is also fly tying thread, which is looped over the top rail and then goes through some tiny eyebolts set into the deck.   

 

 

The railing stanchions are turned and tapered brass rods with holes drilled for the railings.  The support bar is a thinner brass rod soldered to the upright and bent to shape.  The base, feet and other fittings are chrome foil.  The turnbuckles are made up from sections of 0.04” brass tube that surround and secure the beading wire shrouds to a pair of large deck eyebolts.  All of the brass is electroplated like the pulpit.

 

 

Amidships is the mast, boom and boom support arm (vang?).  The running rigging is color coded so that during a race there is no confusion or delay in identifying the right line to haul.  The halyards travel mostly inside the mast tube, then emerge not very far above the boom, run down to single blocks at the foot of the mast, through a wide flat tunnel under the cabin roof, up and through the line clutches and then to the winch.  Here they are displayed as if for dockside presentation at a regatta.

 

 

The boom is laminated wood, attached to the mast with a hinged and pivoting fitting of machined brass pieces.  The arm is constructed from three pieces of telescoping brass tubing with a double block slung underneath on a brass crescent fitting.  The pink vang line runs from the port side camcleat near the aft cabin handrail to a single block secured to the deck, then through a single block on a strap tied to the lower hinge fitting for the boom arm, back and forth between the upper triple block and lower double block (note how the line switches from under/over the triple block to over/under during its second pass), then out a matching set of single blocks and camcleat on the starboard side.  All of this is just to get the purchase to haul on the large single block whose line reeves through several pulleys inside the boom arm. The mechanical advantage of this setup must be immense.

 

 

Much of the rest of the deck details have been shown before, but here they are all installed. 

 

 

The wheel pedestals are set at a 10 degree angle to vertical.  The main sheet traveler track and car are rigged for use with the main sheet running up to blocks attached to the fore and aft ends of the boom.  At the extreme aft end of the deck is the hydraulic tensioner for the backstay.  Again, this is telescoping brass tube and rod, securing the backstay which is heavier beading wire painted to simulate the Kevlar coating.

 

 

Below the waterline is the keel fin, keel bulb, and rudder.  All are carved from basswood, sealed and painted.  Between them is the small propeller for powered maneuvering in port.  The blades of the prop close like a clamshell when not in use and stay most of the time in this streamlined configuration.

 

 

Finally, at the very top of the mast are the instruments that read wind direction and speed.  This data, along with that from other sensors, is displayed on a series of screens mounted on the mast below the boom that you can see in other photos.

 

 

So there she is, completed and mounted.  Here are a few overall photos.  It has received some critical praise from owners of the actual boats and hopefully will be accepted for display in the Model Room of the New York Yacht Club.

 

 

The shipyard is now moving back in time 300 years from 2005 to 1705 to build the Queen Anne’s Revenge, a 20-gun light frigate that was the flagship of the pirate Edward Teach, known as Blackbeard.  It is being excavated underwater at Beaufort Inlet in North Carolina.  Go to http://www.qaronline.org/History/TheShipwreck.aspx   Look for a build log here in the future.

 

[dvm27]

Gorgeous model, Peter. Give Dan my compliments!

[TBlack]

Peter,

You and Dan have quite the shipyard there. I count from April 7 to now as 5 months and a week to build this beauty. Fast work! Nicely done. BTW, where do you stow that huge dime?

Tom

[druxey]

Should be accepted for display? Should be, Peter??? If not, MSW will come down hard on the NYYC. Please give Dan my congratulations on such a fine detailed model. Very well done!

[Wintergreen]

Excellent model Peter (Dan)!

 

Boom vang is correct, over here it is also known as kicking strap or rod kick.

 

I've seen pictures of the NYYC model room...that is some confirmation of your work to have it on display there!

(but then someone told us you were good )

[gjdale]

Fabulous work Dan / Peter. Congratulations on a truly outstanding build.

[dgbot]

Marvelous work.

David B

[mtaylor]

Just amazing in the detail and beautiful to behold.  I think Druxey's assessment is correct.  We may need to march on the NYYC if they turn it down.

 

I'm looking forward to your QAR. 

[shipmodel]

Thank you all for your compliments.  Peter and I have been very gratified by the responses, both from you and from the owners.  In fact, I received two inquiries about models for individual owners.  With 55 boat owners out there, this could become a cottage industry for me in my dotage - as if I am not there already . . . :-))

 

Be well

 

Dan

[JerseyCity Frankie]

As much as I love wooden ships and tar and three stranded line I have to admit our hobby does not have enough modern sail vessels being represented. Dan I think yours is the ONLY fiberglass sloop on Model Ship World and I see no kits available for them out there either. Which is amazing since there is a WORLD of modern sailing vessels of every size and shape on ever lake river and sea the world over. There are kits and builds of modern motor vessels aplenty but where are the recreational sail models? I can see you have "invented the wheel" on this model, with no aftermarket parts available. For each part you had to invent the process then build the part, over and over again! I'm impressed with the whole project.