Echo by tlevine - FINISHED - Cross-Section

[tlevine]

I hesitated starting this topic in the Echo Cross Section area because it will not really be a build log and it will probably take a long time for me to complete.  In 2012 I had the pleasure of taking the Echo course presented by David and Greg.  Over that weekend I was able to raise two frames and purchased the completion kit which included necessary wood, armament and a CD with the plans.  Atalanta has taken me longer than anticipated to complete and Echo has been ignored.  I knew I would be traveling this month and did not want to risk injuring Atalanta but when I considered a month without sawdust but when the thought precipitated anxiety attack and I picked up Echo.  My eventual plan is to completely plank the starboard side and leave the port side open.  The primary wood will be costello boxwood with the lower hull planking in holly.

 

All my frame components were rough cut prior to leaving home since the only power tools traveling with me would be a Dremel and my little Preac saw.  Those two frames I built in 2012 could not be used in the actual model because the actual scantlings were different than those used in the course.  Let me describe some of the highlights of the hull.  There is one gun port, a sweep port and two scupper ports.  The sills of the gun and sweep ports are parallel to the water line but the scupper ports angle upwards to facilitate drainage.  There are two cast frames that help form the gun port.  The top of frames 4-aft and 5-aft are tapered in preparation to forming them into stanchions.

 

 

The keelson was installed and bolted to every other frame.  The starboard ceiling planks and lower deck clamps have been installed. On the port side I installed the limber strake and the thick stuff over the floor and first futtock head joints.  Everything has been treenailed with bamboo.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[clifforddward]

I'm impressed with the speed of your build Toni...I'm still trying to get time between work and family commitments to get my keel laid...seeing your progress I'm beginning to think I have excuses rather than reasons for not advancing my own build!...must remedy that in the coming weeks

[tlevine]

Cliff, from here on out it will be progress in fits and starts.  Atalanta is still my first priority.

[dvm27]

Very nice job, Toni. I think you'll find the cross-section a pleasant diversion from the fully framed model. Those scupper insets look spot on.

[tlevine]

The lower part of the well and lower deck beams have been temporarily installed.  The well is still missing the finishing touches like the hinges on the doors.  There are pins extending from the corners of the well into the bottom of the lower beams.  Once completed, the mast step will be almost invisible (but we will all know it is there).

 

 

 

 

[druxey]

The mast step there? Why so it is! Looking good, Toni.

[paulsutcliffe]

Very nice Toni

Regards

Paul 

[davec]

Toni - Beautiful work!  Sorry I missed your log until now- I'm just coming up for air after a busy month at work, and looking forward to getting back to my build.  Somehow this cross section really works well with 'progress in fits and starts.'  Mine started about the same time yours did.  Looking forward to watching your progress- its great to have some company in the Echo Build Log section.

 

Best,

 

Dave

[tlevine]

Thanks, everyone.  My progress will be directly related to my frustration index with the carvings on Atalanta!

[tlevine]

I told you this was going to be slow going!  The upper deck beams have been fabricated.  They will not be permanently installed until the lower deck has been completed.  The lower deck beams have been notched to accept the carlings.  The notched were made with a razor saw and 3 mm chisels.  Four of the carlings have been temporarily placed between the beams.  Hope to have another update soon.

 

 

[tlevine]

Just a quick update.  The carlings have been cut to accept the ledges.  I have started making the inner belt of ledges.  The outer belt will not be make until the knees have been installed.

 

[tlevine]

It's only been 3 1/2 years since my last posting!  Swallow is on the shelf until Spring.  I have decided to return to Echo, hopefully taking it almost to completion in the next few months.  

 

I have now finished the lower deck.  The port side will remain in frame and the starboard will be planked.  The gratings are made in two pieces using the same technique I showed in the capstan construction.  The key is to have the grating made first and then fit the hatch coaming to the grating.  Everything is made from castelo unless otherwise stated.  The coamings are made from cherry.  The lower mast partners are in place.  The square and octagonal holes are for the pump tubes.  The deck is planked with holly and the treenails are bamboo.  In this cross section, the hatch abaft the mast partner is just visible, along with a bit of grating.

The upper deck framing has been completed.  The mast partner are much more complicated on the upper deck.  Compare the pictures above and below.  The two missing starboard ledges have been installed since the picture was taken.  The beauty of a cross-section is that I can slide out the entire deck to work on it away from the model.  Finish has been applied to the completed lower deck and the port hull exterior.  The Watco's really gives the castelo a warm look without any shine.  Next up are the upper deck hatches.

[Maury S]

Toni, making the grating first is VERY smart.  Nice piece of work!

Maury

[VTHokiEE]

Great work! I'm glad to see you back at this build (mainly because I started it recently and hope mine comes out somewhere close). I appreciate you listing what wood you used where; I think the combination looks very nice.

[tlevine]

I have had a little more time to work on Echo.  The upper deck planking has been laid.  Parts of it were laid twice since I forgot to locate the openings for the pump tubes.  And speaking of making things twice, my new motto is measure three times, cut once.  I discovered that somehow the location of the chain pump openings in the mast step was off by 1/8".  I am happier with the remade step anyway.  The ringbolts have been installed surrounding the mast opening.

The next step was to begin installation of the pumps.  There are a pair of brake pumps and a pair of chain pumps.  Temporary chain pump cases have been installed.  You can see from the picture that they are vertical but form a V-shape when viewed fore-to-aft.  The brake pumps are octagonal.  I made these in the V-jig that is normally used to shape masts.  A chisel was used to knock down the corners of a square blank the final shape was obtained with a sanding stick.  The pump was bored by chucking it on the lathe and putting a drill bit in the tail stock.  A second hole was drilled for the discharge spout.  I wanted a color contrast; they were made from apple.  I apologize for the out of focus picture.

The pumps are temporarily installed.  Next up is the cover and winch for the chain pump.  

[dvm27]

Looking terrific, Toni. I seem to recall having trouble with my brake pumps landing inside the well and had to adjust their location. Do yours extend to the limber space or are they abbreviated?

[druxey]

Looking good, Toni.

[tlevine]

Thanks for all the likes.  Greg, I also had problems with the locations of the pumps extending into the well.  I adjusted the brake pumps location to compensate.  I had to do the same thing with the outer chain pumps.  The port pump extends all the way down to the channel.  I truncated the starboard one for the simple reason that I ran out of wood and did not want to make up another one.  The chain pump boxes extend all the way down.

[Cathead]

Looks very nice, I'll be jumping in late. Cross-sections have always fascinated me as someone who likes to know how things work.

[tlevine]

I should have mentioned this earlier.  For anybody considering this model, I have one word of advise.  Do not measure off the practicum.  Unlike the drawings in TFFM, these drawings are off scale by up to +/- 6%.  I initially thought it was my printer but after three printers gave me the same error...  If you need to make a template, import the plan into a CAD or drawing program and, using the measurements cited in the text scale the image as needed to get the correct scale.  

[tlevine]

The next items to be make are the cisterns and winches.  I decided to show the starboard cistern with its hood and the port cistern open, showing the sprocket wheel and chain.  The cisterns are straight forward in their construction.  They are simply a box with openings in the bottom for the pumps, and a slide on the outboard side to allow insertion of the pump dale.  The inboard legs rest on the mast step and the outboard ones are on the deck.

I was lucky enough to have a sheet of photo etch from Admiralty Models developed for the Swan class.  They are no longer available.  I used this for the sprocket wheel.  The photoetch sheet has the rim of the wheel; short lengths of brass wire were silver soldered to them.  I also made a segment of chain from pieces of the same photoetch sheet.

The next photo shows my tipsy cisterns.  The drainage plugs are in place.  A rope handle in the plug will be added later.  The chain was lifted up to illustrate the detail in the photoetch.  

The winch assembly is supported by rhodings on the cistern hood, bitt pins and end support pillars.  The hood and pillar rhodings are repesented by brass tubing.  Those on the bitt pins are inset into a spacer block, as seen in the last photo.  These will all be blackened.

[Matt D]

Beautiful work, Toni.  The chain pump section is a really neat piece.  I haven’t seen anything like that on other builds.

[tlevine]

The log pumps, pump cisterns and winches have been installed.  The section of the winch which goes through the cistern is square;  the rest is round.  I could not find a short piece of brass rod to fabricate this from (and my purchasing option was for 20+ feet), so this section was made from castelo, dyed black with archival ink.  Round brass rod was annealed and bent into shape.  Repeated heating and hammering the piece against the edge of a machinist square gave me reasonably sharp corners.  Brass tube was soldered onto the aft end.  This was blackened and threaded onto the square rod.  The winch actually extends beyond the area of the cross-section and was therefore cut off at the edge of the model fore and aft.

 

Next is the exterior hull planking.

[druxey]

Looking good, Toni!

[tlevine]

The exterior hull planking was next.  I forgot to take interim pictures, sorry.  The main wale was installed first.  This consisted of three rows of holly planking.  The upper and lower rows outer edges were tapered to match the thickness of the rest of the hull planking.  The wale was painted with dilute artist acrylic.  The holes are for the scupper pipes.  These were made from brass sheet that was tempered and wrapped around the appropriate diameter drill bit.  The long edge was soldered closed.  The upper planking is castelo and the lower hull is planked in holly.

Making treenails is one of the most tedious tasks I can imagine.  I find it at the same level as tying ratlines.  With that in mind, I decided to copper the hull.  I found a picture of one of the plates removed from the Cutty Sark and used that to determine the number of nails and their pattern.  At 1:48 scale, the nail heads would have been the diameter of 28 gauge wire.  I tried using that initially but found that the wire kept bending so I used 26 gauge brass wire instead.  So that the nail heads would not be too crowded appearing, I eliminated one of the diagonal rows of nails.  Each plate is 14" x 48".  The copper is conductive tape.  The picture shows the nail head pattern. 

First, I drew the waterline onto the hull (the pencil line below the first row of hull planking).  Coppering then progressed from the keel, upwards.

a

After the coppering was completed, I burnished the plates to make the dimpling more subtle and washed them down with isopropanol to remove any grease from my hands.  The elm battern was installed overlying the top of the coppering.  The inner bulwark planking is next.

 

 

[tlevine]

I have installed the stops around the gun port and the oar port.  The gun port is framed on the bottom and sides, the oar port on all four sides.  The quarter deck clamps have been installed.  You can see that the stops are flush with the inner face of the frames.  The inner bulwark planking is next.

[Nirvana]

Beautiful work!

 

[tlevine]

I made the gallows and installed it onto the bitt pins.  To keep it secure, I drilled the pins and the gallows for a brass rod, which was inserted.  The inner bulwark planking and the bolts and rings for the gun were installed.  The breast beam was made up of three pieces.  The beam itself was made, using the pattern found in the practicum.  A rounded-over piece of wood extended forward from the beam.  This provided a step for the deck planking to rest against.  Quarter-round was glued under the rounded-over piece.  Rings were inserted through the rail and the bolts can be seen on the aft side of the breast beam.

The quarter deck railing was next.  The rail assembly consists of five stanchions, an upper and a lower rail.  The stanchions are morticed to allow them to be bolted to the aft side of the breast beam.  These were made up on a lathe.  A sheave was located below the lower rail.  I simulated the sheave by drilling and squaring off the sheave slot and painting the area between black.  The centerline stanchion was glued and pinned first.  In these pictures you can see the rebate for the deck planking on the beam.

Once this was secure, the lower rail was inserted over the stanchion; this acted as a template for the locations of the remaining stanchions.  They were inserted through the lower rail and spacers were used to keep the rail at a constant distance from the beam.  The stanchions were then glued and pinned.  After they were completely dry, the lower rail was glued onto them.  The upper rail was installed.  Because some of my tenons were not exactly the size of the openings in the upper rail, I shortened them so they did not extend all the way through the rail.  Dummy tenons were inserted and the top of the rail sanded smooth.  Finally, short segments of deck planking were installed.

 

[Nirvana]

Toni, that's inspirational job you have done. Beautiful as well, best part - once finished it will be easy to display without taking up a lot of space.

[michael mott]

Lovely piece of work Toni., I am also curious about the little notations of time between posts I have not seen those before. This model has got me thinking that a cross section of one of the Bristol pilot cutters or a fishing smack would be interesting, and it could be done in a larger scale because it is such a smaller vessel.

 

Michael