WANDERER by BETAQDAVE - Aurora - 1/87 - PLASTIC - heavily modified Whaling Bark

[BETAQDAVE]

    I was finally able to get back in the shop to start making the pintels and gudgeons for the rudder which has turned into quite an involved little project of its own.  The first step was designing a jig to hold the parts while being soldered.  I sketched up the jig design first on paper to save a lot of wasted effort of fiddling around cobbling together something that wouldn’t work anyway.

    By taking a common spring wood clothes pin that would, with some modification of the ends, give me a jig that would also serve as a clamp.  Having already cut the 1/16” wide straps from some .016 brass, I cut eight 1/16” lengths of 1.56 mm thin wall brass tubing and four pieces of 1.02 mm piano wire in 1/8” lengths for the pins.

    I bent one of the straps over the rudder to the required size to test the fit.  So, now the required parts for one of the hinges have been made to help me size the jig/clamp and are show here.

    Taking the clothes pin to my disc sander, I sanded the ends of the pin flush and square.

Then, by twisting the ends of the clothes pin to offset them, it allowed me to clamp it in my woodworking vise without taking it apart and work on shaping the top and bottom jaws separately. 

    The bottom jaw was done first.  My razor saw was well suited to the task, as it easily cuts a very thin kerf in the hardwood pin.  The projecting pin was roughly sized to be in the center of the pin. The left side was sawn first, cutting somewhat deeper than was needed to make the face cuts a little easier.

    The face cut was then made to remove the left side.

    The right side was done similarly after sizing the width of the projecting pin by placing the formed strap on the end for a direct measurement, rather than using a ruler, to guarantee a good tight fit.

    Now the lower half of the projecting pin was also removed.

    The strap was placed over the pin to allow the length of the projecting pin to be marked.

    Now the jig/clamp was set in my machinist vise where the projecting pin was filed down to my mark and I filed out a V groove in the top jaw of the clothes pin with a square edged file to hold the hinge tube in place.

   Now the strap and tube were clamped in the jig to test how well it would actually work.

    Using a very small brush, I spread some solder paste on the sides of the tube and top of the strap.  I cut some chips of solder and placed them in the pasted joint. (That’s one time were the paste does triple duty.  It cleans the parts, controls were the solder flows, and being sticky, it holds the chips of solder in place.)

    Rather than using my soldering torch and destroying my jig/clamp, I opted for the soldering iron.  All I had to do was touch the hot tip of the iron to the end of the tube, and within a second or so, the paste burned away, leaving the solder to flow into the joint.  The jig/clamp lives on now to do the job on the other seven fittings!

     This shows the components needed and the straps in various stages of their shaping.

    That's as far as I was able to get, so I still need to finish the other seven fittings and work out the actual installation on the ship and rudder.  I will also be attempting to cover the rudder with some black vinyl foil as I don't believe that the rudder was copper plated.

 

 

[BETAQDAVE]

    Just a short update here.  I took the rudder blank in hand and applied some of the black wood grained adhesive backed vinyl foil to one side to test out it's work-ability on an uneven shape.  As you can see here, it can be effective when applied with the method described by Doris.  I think that it clearly shows how a single piece of wood can be given the appearance of several separate pieces.  Both the variation in the grain pattern and the appearance of wood joints contribute to this effect.

    Later, I will try to illustrate in more detail just how I did this when I do the opposite side, now that I think I have it worked out to my satisfaction.

[BETAQDAVE]

    This is the procedure that I have adapted from Doris’s method of applying my vinyl “foils”.  While she cuts her planks with a straight edge and a sharp blade, I use this rotary cutter from Fiskars. 

    As the scale that I am working with here is basically HO or close to 1:96, and thus quite a bit smaller than hers, some of my procedures are a little different.  By using my 1/8” scale architectural ruler, it’s close enough for me to use for my sizing of components.  You can see here that I have taped down a heavy strip of paper for a stop, set at 1/8” or about 12 scale inches from the cut line to represent the individual planks on the rudder.

    I simply slide my piece of foil up to the stop (finish side up) and hold it in place with my right hand while I lower the cutting guide with my left to hold it down while I make the cut with my right.

    I run the cutter twice across the foil to ensure a complete cut.  Now I just lift the cutting guide to remove the cut “plank” and repeat. 

    Using this procedure I was able to cut all of these “planks” in about a minute.

    These are the tools and materials (shown below) that I use for application of the vinyl “foils” for the rudder finishing.  They include a can of clear matt finish acrylic spray varnish, a 2 speed hair dryer, several strips of self-adhesive black vinyl foil, a scalpel, a pair of fine tipped tweezers, and a good pair of  scissors.  Also needed is a basswood stick for burnishing, a few misc. fine files, a multi-grit sanding stick, and a small clamp for holding the rudder for spraying.  For painting a bottle of black acrylic paint with a small paint brush is needed along with a small plastic cap, and a small syringe with water for thinning the paint solution.

    The first step for actually applying the foil was to put two drops of water and four of Model Shipways #MS-4830 hull/spar black acrylic paint into a small plastic cap to mix up a diluted paint solution that was applied to the rudder in two thin coats that were both dried with a hair dryer and sanded smooth. (This was one of the few MS paints [that hadn’t turned into a hockey puck in the jar] that I had which was still usable.)  I transferred the paint into a flip cap covered plastic bottle that I picked up on Amazon that allowed me to dispense the paint by the drop, and gives a positive seal for preserving the paint.

     A light spray of Tamiya TS-80 clear matt acrylic varnish was applied and dried with the blower. (Notice the spray can holder that was clipped onto the can that allowed me to use the spray.  My MD really limits my finger strength and this holder allows the use of four fingers rather than just one.)

    The only tedious part of using the vinyl foils was removing the foil from the backing with a scalpel as it takes a steady hand and eye to get it to separate.

    Once one end of the foil was separated and put in place with a pair of tweezers, I pressed it down with my thumb and used the tweezers to steer the rest of it loosely in line.

    While still holding one end of the foil with one hand the other hand grips the excess lose end, stretches it slightly and presses it down tightly to hold it in place.

    Once the foil is stuck in place, I use the dryer to heat it and use a wood burnishing tool to firmly secure it to the rudder. 

    Taking my Curved Surgeons Castroviejo Scissors, I trim the excess off as close to the edge of the rudder as I can. (These light weight scissors are spring loaded with super sharp jaws that have anti-slip microscopic serrations that cut like a dream allowing me to get in real close.  I think that I need to order myself another pair with the straight jaws.)

    Now I spray another light coat of varnish on the rudder and heat it again with the dryer.  Since the edge of the rudder is slightly rounded, I use the burnishing tool again to make the edge of the foil follow the curve.                    

    Next, I used fine files and sandpaper to carefully trim the edge of the foil back to where the edge started to round over. Then I trimmed all of the remaining square edges of the rudder.

    Since this procedure usually removes some of the paint on the edges, I re-coat the entire rudder with another layer of paint, and it’s once again dried with the blower.  Once I am satisfied, the rudder has a final light spray of varnish applied and dried.

And Walla, it’s done!!!  My next step on this build will be to continue working on the pintles and gudgeons.

[Heinrich der Seefahrer]

That looks great -

here the original that caused the wreckage some yards later. From Albert Cook Church's book WHALE SHIPS AND WHALING (Newyork, 1938).

Edited April 21, 2019 by Heinrich der Seefahrer

[BETAQDAVE]

    Just before my little internal misfortune, I had decided to do a few things before continuing to work on the pintles and gudgeons.  Since the hull coppering needs to be painted before installing the rudder fittings, I would be doing that, but I also needed to construct the model stand to keep from damaging the paint job once that is done.

    I have decided to support the ship on launching ways, so I did a lot of searching for ideas on that.  Having finally come up with a combination of various systems that I came across to accent the model display, I started construction with my excess stock of basswood.

    A long tapered ramp was the first phase to work on.  The design used was a pair of timber retaining walls filled with earth or gravel fill capped with timber planks and heavily braced. (Of course my ramp would not be filled, but rather hollowed out for installing the light switch and battery.)  Keel blocks were set on timber beams spanning the timber planks.  Two long cross timbers were run on grade through the lowest retaining wall timbers and projected well beyond the faces of the wall.   A pair of heavy diagonal braces was anchored on top of it to brace the hull of the ship.

    The first step was to make the side retaining walls by taking two 24” lengths of ¼” x 1” basswood and marking the taper from ½” at the lower end to 1” at the upper. The taper was then cut just short of the drawn line with my band saw and then trimmed to the line with a small block plane.

    Now taking a 24” long sheet of 1/16” x 3” basswood that was prescribed with ¼” wide planks, I ripped it down to 1 3/4” for the timber planking on the top of the ramp.  A homemade sliding cutoff table was put on my Micro Mark table saw with a stop clamped to it for cutting 3/8” x 3/8” basswood strips into 26-1 ¾” lengths for the timber beams that would span the timber planks on the top of the ramp and provide support for the keel blocks.  This photo below shows the setup for cutting all of the various timbers to length, with the stop clamped to the fence.  

      My SOP for short cutoffs is shown with my right hand holding a block to hold down the cut off end (to spare the fingers) and the left hand (well away from the blade) is shown holding the other end of the timber to be cut.  The table is pushed well beyond the blade before the saw is turned off and the two pieces are removed.  Pulling the table back, the timber is advanced to the stop to repeat the process.

    Once those beams were cut, they went over to my small belt sander to round off the tops of their ends.  Looks like I need to adjust my dust pick up fitting, as even with my dust mask on and the room fan running, there was quite a bit of dust on the loose during this operation. Even though the ends were now rounded over, some hand sanding was still required to ease the corners and sand the surfaces.

    Now the cutoff table was employed once again to cut 26- 1” long pieces of 3/16” x 3/8” basswood for the keel blocks, which of course also needed some finish hand sanding.  While the cutoff table was still in place I cut some scrap basswood into several 1 3/4” long pieces for blocking for the interior of the ramp.

    With the majority of the parts cut, I moved onto the actual construction of the ramp.  The 1/16” basswood sheet was placed with the scribed side face down on the building board.  The two tapered retaining wall sides were butted up to both edges of the sheet and several of the pieces of blocking were set onto the backside of the sheet.  Two small bar clamps were put into place to hold the assembly in position for alignment.  Once satisfied, I tightened the clamps and placed the remaining blocking in place.  Three more clamps were placed and the ends were filled with some 1/16” planking sheets.  Once more, the alignment was checked and adjusted.  The assembly now appeared as shown below.

    Wood glue was spread along all inside edges and the assembly was set aside to dry overnight.

                                                      

Edited May 22, 2019 by BETAQDAVE
typo

[BETAQDAVE]

    Now that the ramp assembly was dried, I tuned it upside down and trimmed all of the excess projections off with a plane and sandpaper.  On the top of the ramp I took a No. 2 pencil and ran it along the scribed lines on the top planking to make them stand out better.  I did the same to the joint between the planks and the retaining walls.  This is the result here.

    The sides of the retaining wall also needed some indication of individual timbers, so using a long metal straight edge three joints were drawn parallel to the top of the ramp on both sides.

    That same long metal straight edge was now aligned with the marked line and clamped to the sides.  To ensure that the resulting scribed lines were very pronounced and straight, my small back saw was slid back and forth with a light amount of pressure along the edge for about a dozen strokes. 

     Making sure that the timbers appeared to be individual lengths, I made some tic marks on the individual timbers at a maximum scale length of 24 feet with joints offset by 4-6 feet from layer to layer.  Going back to my scrap pile, I made a small wooden square as shown below.  The square was set perpendicular to the top edge of the ramp and using a No. 2 blade those joints were scribed in.

    Setting the ramp on the building board and placing the ship where it would be sitting on it, I located the position of the two hull braces.  I marked the two notches for those 3/8” x 3/8” grade level long cross timbers on one side.  The ramp was placed upside down in my carpenters vice and using my back saw the saw kerfs of the notches were cut down to the top edge of the marks.

    Using my wood square, those kerf lines were extended over to the opposite side of the ramp.  Setting my back saw blade into the kerf on the near side and lining it up with the new marks on the opposite side, I had somewhat of a miter saw setup that ensured the kerfs would line up across from each other.  A chisel and scalpel were now used to clean out the waste from all of the notches. 

    The entire ramp was given two heavy coats of Minwax light oak to give it the appearance of weathered oak timber construction and set aside to dry overnight with it as it stands now below.

 

Edited May 22, 2019 by BETAQDAVE

[BETAQDAVE]

    This log entry will catch me up with the actual construction before I get back to it tomorrow.  Sometimes a medical timeout can work to your advantage.  Since I was unable to actually work on the ship for a while, I could still use the computer to do the log.  (No strain, no pain.)

    The cut components for the ramp had been stained and dried so all of the keel block support beams were glued down with wood glue and the current status of the ramp is as shown below.

    Rather than glue them down and waste time waiting for the glue to grab each beam, I made up this spacing tool to speed things up a bit.  As you can see it’s just one short piece glued to a longer one that has a total width of four feet to scale.

    Here is a short review of the process.  Holding down the beam just glued down with my thumb and three fingers of my right hand, one other finger was used to hold the spacer in place.   The next beam in line had glue applied and was held in place with my left hand as shown.

    Now with my right thumb, I slide the spacer forward until it releases.  All the time through this procedure, pressure needs to be carefully maintained on the beams to keep them from shifting out of position until the spacer is released. 

    Then it’s on to the following beam.  I placed all 26 of the beams in about 30 minutes, so my system worked just as planned. (Imagine that!)

 

Edited May 22, 2019 by BETAQDAVE
extra photo at end

[BETAQDAVE]

    I finally relocated this photo taken from an old magazine AD I filed in an old misc. ship info folder that I used to put everything nautical in nature into.  That was way back when I built my 1/6” scale scratch built whaler Wanderer w/ plans & fittings from A.J. Fisher.  That’s also well before I had a computer and became aware that a site like MSW even existed.  It did however; give me the inspiration to construct this particular ramp for my display.

    Coincidentally the model shown in that AD is also an old whaling ship, which while it’s obviously not the Wanderer, the similarities were enough for me.  (Judging by certain features including the billet head, false gun ports, seven whaleboats, and the fact that it carried a full ships rig, indicates to me that it may have been the James Arnold, a 346 ton whaler out of New Bedford in 1852.)

    The next step was to glue all of the keel blocks on the top of the supporting beams.  To line them all up evenly I glued the two end blocks first.  Then taking a long straight plank butted up to the glued blocks, I tacked that in place temporarily with rubber cement there and a clamp in the center.  With the guide now tacked in place it was a simple matter of lining the ends of the keel blocks with it and the edges of the beams and gluing them in place.  Here is the ramp shown with the guide in place.

    Once all of the beams and keel blocks have been attached, I will be adding a little more detail by using some small steel brads to represent the bolts holding them in place.  For the retaining wall timbers some brass rod will represent the drift pins normally made from long lengths of iron pipe or rod. 

    Impressions were made in each end of both the keel blocks and the beams with just the point of a pencil.  The brads are ¾” long and 18 gauge which measures 1.2 mm, so I had to use a 1.32 mm bit that was the closest size that I had that would be long enough to do the job.  The glue would probably be sufficient to hold everything in place, but a little help from the brads wouldn’t hurt either.  (I need to get a new collet for my Dremel drill press as their standard sizes can’t hold the bit.)  Luckily the chuck on my shop drill press can handle very small bits.

     The holes were all bored and the brads were given a bath in full strength brass black.  Since the holes were very slightly over-sized, a hammer will not be needed to drive them in.  A pair of pliers can be employed to set them in place and a nail set can be used to press them home so there will be less chance of wearing off the coating.

    The next thing to do was to design some braces for the retaining walls.  Varying lengths of 3/16” birch dowel will be used for the diagonal braces and beveled on both ends.  Lengths of 3/32” x 1/4” basswood will be glued up against the timbers from the ground to the tops of the walls to hold the upper ends of the diagonal braces.  The top ends will be shown bolted, and to hold the bottom of the braces, some short lengths of round tooth picks will be used to represent the pegs driven into the ground. Here is a slightly out of focus photo of the typical retaining wall brace.

     The ground itself will be indicated by some cut sheets of 150 grit sandpaper glued down to the base.  Once the sandpaper is glued in place, the setting of the 52 braces can begin.  All of the braces are different lengths, so mass production won’t be feasible here.  It looks like it will be a lot of cut and fit for each one with diagonal holes drilled in the base for the pegs.

    The actual hull braces were formed with some hefty sized timbers which in this case will be ¼” birch dowel to represent the scale 24” dia. peeled timbers.  These will have their top ends beveled to match the hull of the ship and the bottom to the 3/8” x 3/8” grade level long cross timbers. Here is a close-up view of a hull brace temporarily set in position.

   Here the ship is propped in place and located on the ramp to measure and cut the hull braces and to also align the holes through the keel and keel block for the light wiring that will have the batteries and the switch routed into the bottom of the base board.  (That’s that brass rod sticking out in the photo.)

 

    Two additional holes also need to be located and drilled through the bottom of the ramp into the hull of the ship for a pair of mounting bolts that will go into some nuts set into wood blocks glued inside the hull.  Between painting the copper portion of the hull, (not to mention constructing my spray booth) finishing the pintels and gudgeons to mount the rudder, finishing the ramp details, and mounting the ship onto the base, it may be quite some time before my next ship posting.  (I plan on posting the spray booth construction on the Modeling Tools And Equipment section  on the MSW site.)

[JesseLee]

Wow Dave, I love your attention to fine detail. It sort of boggles my mind! You do some really good research.

 

Jesse

[popeye the sailor]

great look'in stand Dave  

[BETAQDAVE]

    Well Popeye, I see that your avatar was spotted recently at the 43rd Annual Midwest Model Ship And Boat Contest held in Manitowoc WI.  Seems like a long way from home just to put in an appearance.  That must be Bluto manning the lobster traps.

[popeye the sailor]

they needs tas let me know hows they got us ta woik together.....A-K-k-k-k-k-K!   that is so cool!.......love it!  now if I had found some suitable figures when I was doing the Lobsie twins    the model looks better than mine too  ...looks like a Midwest kit {of course....hence the name of the contest}.          thanks for showing me.......I have a plan to build the S.S. Olive Oyl one day,  and I've bee having a fit trying to find the right scale figures for it.   I wonder when that was,  because a year or two ago,  Midwest sold it's model ship line........I think to BlueJacket {hard to remembeer....pull'in at straws here}.   thanks again......renews my thoughts about the plan I have.  I'll keep look'in for the figures   

[BETAQDAVE]

    Well, I guess that I was not kidding about the time involved to get back to this ship.  The spray booth project ended up taking much longer than I thought and then holiday projects came up, but now I can finally get back to it. This posting is a bit out of order as I needed to stage some of the illustrations after the fact but this is the gist of it.

    Working once again on the launching ways, I finished drilling the rest of the holes for the bolts in the support blocks and gluing down several that came loose when being drilled.  The brads representing those bolts needed to be blackened, but since the only part that would remain visible was the heads, I thought why blacken the whole brad?  Using a length of scotch tape laid down sticky side up flat on the bench, the brads were stuck in place with just a small portion of the head projecting beyond the edge of the tape.

    Then another piece of tape was stretched out sticky side down over the first strip.

    The next step was to form the strip into a coil as shown below.

    Using a plastic dish with some previously used brass black that had a bit of fresh mixture added to it, the coil was set into the dish with the brad heads down as shown and set aside for about five minutes for it to work its magic.

    Removing the coil from the mix, it was set on a paper towel to soak up the excess and let it sit overnight to completely dry out. 

    The next day, the remaining brads were pressed down with a nail set into the drilled holes.  A small hammer and the nail set were then used to set the brads until the head was still just visible.  So the ramp is ready to be drilled for the mounting bolts.

    Way back on post #42 I installed two LED lights for both ends of the open hatch and drilled a hole in the hull for the wiring to run to the switch and battery components. Changing my approach now to this problem, I decided to run the wires through the keel and hull support blocks rather than the far side of the hull so it would be less visible.  So, I’ll just fill-in that hole in the hull.

    At this point I discovered that the mounting bolt and wiring hole locations through the keel should have been done before the deck beams were installed as it was not possible to get a drill of such a small diameter (the keel is only 9/64” thick) in a long enough length to pass all the way through the ship and through the ramp, but once again hind sight never really helps much.  Luckily I had this battery powered screwdriver/drill made by General with a very slim profile with a lot of torque for such a small tool.

    Inserting my small 3-jaw keyless chuck for a rotary tool with a 1/8” shank into the tool that I picked up from Micro-Mark, I put a 3/32” bit into it and found that I had just enough space for it between several  of the beams.

    With clamps at both ends of the keel for balance the ship was placed on the ways in its approximate final position.  I picked the gap between beam numbers 11 and 12 and drilled through the keel for the LED wiring. With a thin brass tube inserted through that hole, the ship was shifted just enough until the tube could line up with the center of one of the support blocks and it was given a light tap to mark the position.  Replacing the tube with the drill the hole was extended through the ways.  Once the hole was finished, the brass tube was reinserted to hold the ship in its final position.

    The gap between beams 13 and 14 was sufficient for the drill so it was chosen for the first bolt hole.  With a pair of dividers I set the distance from the center of the support block with the wire hole to the center of the closest support block that would line up for the bolt.  The dividers were able to transfer that distance to the inside of the hull and the hole was drilled there.

    Actually drilling the hole was fairly simple as the drill was easy to keep centered since the hull seam made it easy to align the bit and the centerline of the beams helped to align the upper portion of the tool.  The fact that there was so little space between the beams also made it easy to stay perpendicular to the keel.

 

    For the second bolt hole the technique was somewhat different as the divider couldn’t mark the location inside the hull.  I picked the gap between beams 2 and 3, then located the closest support block to that space and marked on the keel where it lined up.

    Drilling from the outside was a bit more trouble as there was no flat area on the seam to set the drill.  So, I filed a flat spot and used an awl to give the drill a place to start.  Keeping the thinness of the keel in mind I carefully drilled a hole with a 1/16” bit perpendicular to the keel through to the inside of the hull.  Now that there was a hole to guide the larger bit, I enlarged the hole from the inside of the hull with the 3/32” bit.

    While I was locating the LED for the skylight the decision was made to install LED lights inside the two rear shelter houses.  The three of these LEDs were now all temporarily taped in their positions.

    So, now I will be installing a total of five LEDs to run through one battery and switch.  The wires are not long enough to pass through the hull and into the base were the switch and battery will be placed and thus need to be spiced with another section of wire to make up the difference.  The splice will remain inside the hull with just the wire extension running into the base. 

    Joining the wires is fairly simple.  I just need to gather up all of the black wire leads including the extension wire, twist them together, apply some solder, and slip a section of heat shrink tubing over the joint to protect it.  Then all of the red wires need to be joined together similarly.  A section of heat shrink tubing will protect the two lead wires where they pass through the keel and base.  Once the ship is anchored permanently to the launching ways, the finish connections can be made in the base.  For now they will just be taped out of the way.

 

 

 

 

Edited December 26, 2019 by BETAQDAVE
extra photo

[BETAQDAVE]

       Time for some more thought on making the base board.  The top surface with the launching ways has been worked out to my satisfaction, but I need to figure out how to work out some means of getting access to the battery clip and on/off switch without having to turn the entire case upside down.  

    I have decided that the oak board itself is just wide enough to accommodate the ships spars so I won’t be able to cut a ¼” wide rabbet all around it for the Plexiglas cover as I had originally envisioned. This leaves me with adding a strip around the board to form a ledge for it instead.  The length of the base is a bit overlong and also needs to be trimmed down, but due to having our old waterbed frame leaning on both my table saw and radial arm saw waiting to be sold, they will not be available for the tasks of cutting it to length or ripping the oak trim strip.  As you can see below, it’s not the easiest obstacle to move aside.

    As far as cutting the oak board to length, I guess that I will just make a very careful cut with my band saw and clean it up with a hand plane and a bit of sanding.  As far as the trim goes maybe a trip to the a wood supplier is in order.  While a flat ¼” thick (the thickness of the Plexiglas) lattice type molding is what I would prefer, something else may work as well.

Here is a photo of the battery clip and the push-button switch components.  (Those are ¼” squares to give you a size reference.)

    I sketched up a diagram of what should work for the battery and switch that’s shown below here.

    A hollowed out recess in the front edge of the board will be needed for the battery holder and the switch that will be hidden behind a short removable section of the molding.  The battery holder really has a very tight grip on the battery requiring me to be able to pull it outside the recess to handle it with both hands.  The switch is a different problem altogether since I don’t want to unscrew the section of molding every time I want to switch it on or off.

    As you can see by the sketch there will be another recess for the switch module, but it will be a tighter fit and it will be held in place with some adhesive.  Some routing will also be needed to accommodate the connecting wires.  A hole will be drilled through the molding to line up with that switch and a somewhat tight fit length of doweling will project slightly from the surface of the molding.  When in place the switch can then be pressed by depressing the doweling without removing the trim section.  At least that is the plan, so we’ll see how well that works out.

[BETAQDAVE]

 

    Another problem has come up concerning mounting the ship on the base.   As the keel on this model is just 9/64” wide, I discovered during my search for a source for mounting hardware that while getting 2 bolts in 7/64” diameter in anywhere near the 3 ½” lengths that I will be needing is possible, it would also be extremely expensive!  (Like $45 each expensive.) I also thought about using some threaded rod, but there again the cost would be prohibitive.

    I found that the smallest diameter that is readily available and at the same time still affordable would be 1/8”.  So, the problem now becomes how to conceal a bolt that will clearly show as it passes through the 9/64” keel and into the keel supports.

    It appears that my only solution will be to have some timber blocks on both sides of the keel where the bolts pass thru.  While I haven’t been able to find any more info anywhere in any of my references on blocking the sides of the keel, I shall incorporate two pair of them on mine regardless.  (Although there is an indistinct indication on the AD photo of some kind of blocking between the keel blocks just below the mainmast and the stern of the lowered whaleboat, it isn’t at all clear exactly what that is.) 

    Each pair of side blocks will span two keel supports and although the exposed portion of the bolts will be minimal, they will be painted black.  I made a sketch below to show the location of the blocks and the drilled holes.

    I had also contemplated threading the ends of a solid metal rod for some nuts, but as I don’t possess a tap and die set for this I didn’t see that the added expense would have been worth it.  At any rate, the 1/8” bolt should provide a more secure mounting of the model than one of a mere 7/64” diameter, so maybe it’s for the best anyways.

[BETAQDAVE]

    Finally, after a rather extended time away from this build and its log for a long list of reasons including work on my Phantom build log and waiting to remove the bed frame that blocked my access to my saws, I returned to working on this display base.  The 1 x 10 oak base board was trimmed to its final length, the top edges were eased (slightly rounded over) and then lightly sanded.   

    I positioned the launching ways on the base board and using a 7/64” drill bit through the predrilled mounting holes, I gave it a light tap to mark the locations of these holes on the base board.  Since I had finally determined that I needed to use 1/8” bolts now for mounting the ship, all of the predrilled holes needed to be enlarged.  I started by carefully enlarging the holes in the ships’ hull with a 1/8” drill bit mounted in my battery powered screwdriver/drill once again to avoid  overdoing it.

    Once the holes in the hull were enlarged, I used my drill press to enlarge the holes in the launching way blocks.   I drilled all of the 1/8” holes through the base board, and to reduce the length of the mounting screws, I used a Forstner bit to counter bore the holes about 1/2” deep on the bottom side.  With the radial arm saw, a recess for the battery and switch was cut through the front edge and into the bottom. Then I used chisels to finish carving out the bottom of the recess. 

    This was the bottom of the base board at this point.

     Then, just to be sure everything was properly aligned, I test fit the entire assembly to avoid the dreaded “Maybe I should have done things differently” syndrome later.  (Its happened before!!)   

    Now I made some hardwood blocks to glue inside the hull to mount some captured nuts for the bolts to screw into when the ship is finally mounted. The block for the stern bolt was the easiest since the inside of the hull was nearly flat there.  The block for the bow end however, had to be shaped on the bottom side to match the curve of the inside of the hull at that point.     

     The holes in the blocks were drilled one bit size larger than the bolts since their function is just to act as wooden washers that can be glued inside  the hull.  The bolts were inserted through the holes in the blocks and the nuts were then threaded down flush to the blocks.  To “capture” the nuts, I simply glued some wood scraps with a heavy coat of wood glue up against opposing flats of the hex nuts to keep them from rotating when the screws are tightened. (A square nut would no doubt have been easier, but I didn’t have any on hand.)  The scraps were clamped and set aside overnight to dry.  Here are photos of the bow block after the clamps were removed.

    It was a bit tricky working the blocks into place with all of the deck beams in the way!  (I could have used more than two hands, but of course there wouldn’t have been any room for them.)

    You can see below that the block in the bow was also very close to the heel of the foremast so it was made narrower than the stern block with the two wood scraps extended around the mast.

     I threaded an extra nut on the bolts well down from the end and inserted the bolts through the keel and then threaded the bolt through the captured nut on the block.  Once this was done that extra nut below was used to pull the blocks up tight against the inside surface of the hull for gluing.

     After the bolts were tightened, I applied a heavy dose of plastic cement with a long wood skewer where the blocks met the hull.  Once this cement hardened I added some medium CA to help secure them (since I was not sure how well the plastic cement would bond with the wood) and set the ship aside overnight for it to set.

     Now that this was finished, the hull was carefully masked with painters’ tape and paper towels to prepare for spraying the copper sheathing with my brand new homemade spray booth!  Here you can see that the tape was purposely set about 1/16” back from the copper line as the black foil tape “planks” will cover the gap. 

    So, here is the model itself as it stands now.

    Getting back to the base board once again, I combed through my “modest” scrap wood pile in the garage.

    I was able to dig out this 3/8” x 1 1/4” eased edge oak door stop for the moldings to go around the base and form a lip for the 1/4” Plexiglas cover to rest on. 

    My first thought was to rip it down to ½” width and set the bottom edge flush with the bottom of the base, but after a trial fit, I really didn’t like the way it looked and I also realized that the Plexiglas really needed a little more overlap.  

    So, I decided to use it as is and add some 5/4” thick scrap cedar furring blocks to the bottom along the edges of the base.  That would leave the top of the trim 1/2” below the top surface of the base leaving a wider ledge to support the 3/8” Plexiglas cover.  However, this presented another problem.  The ½” deep chiseled out notch for the switch would now be exposed on the front edge! 

     (Remember that dreaded “Maybe I should have done things differently” syndrome that I recently mentioned?)  Oh well, it’s not as if it’s the first time that I had to go “back to the drawing board”. (It probably won’t be the last either.) 

    At least now I won’t have to carve out any more recesses for the light wiring since the whole area below the base board would now be open.  I carved the notch in the edge a little larger and cut an oak plug to fill the resulting gap.  The plug was glued and clamped in place along with six 5/4” cedar blocks.

    Since the edges of this trim are eased, I will also need to miter the corners rather than butt them.  As a sort of added bonus, the furring blocks should also make attaching the trim easier, especially at the corners. 

    The next job will be to apply the trim to the base and figure out how I will actually install the battery and switch for the lights.  

 

 

 

   

                                            

[BETAQDAVE]

    Despite my best efforts to blend that plug into the base, the wood grain didn’t match very well and as a result it was still somewhat noticeable.  So I simply redrilled the holes for the mounting bolts to allow the unplugged side of the base to now become the front. 

    Once the base was redrilled, I pieced together three sheets of 150 grit sandpaper to represent the surface of the ground around the launching ways.  The joints in the sheets were placed to align with the extended timbers that will brace the hull.  Once the edges of the paper were trimmed off, I held them down on the base and traced the outline on the baseboard. 

 

    Since the board was already prefinished, that finish was sanded off the surface up to the traced outline of the paper to allow the carpenters wood glue to bond.

                                                           

    A 50/50 water to glue mix was spread out with the edge of an old credit card up to the traced outline.

                                                            

    One unforeseen complication that developed was the fact that the paper soaked up the glue much faster than anticipated and the edges of the paper quickly curled up.   So it was a bit of a scramble to flatten and hold it down to dry.  The launching ways, various boards, clamps and weights were assembled and applied as shown here.

                                                            

    The base was left to dry overnight and the next day the surface was given a light coating of Minwax honey oak just dabbed on here and there with a paper towel and given a quick brushing to even out the coloration with a wide stiff bristle brush.  Then all of the excess was soaked up with paper towels and set aside for a couple days to dry again. 

    Now it was time to work on the trim molding.  Using my Makita chop saw shown here, the back side and the two end pieces were cut to length.  The saw doesn’t slide, do compound cuts or have a laser guide, but then I bought it way back in the 90’s so I just had to “rough it”.

  (One trick that my grandfather taught me when cutting miters, was to stain the cut ends before assembly, making the joint less visible even if your cut wasn’t as precise as you wanted it to be.)

                                                            

    Once these three trim pieces were cut, they were nailed in place with my pneumatic Makita brad nailer show here that even predates my chop saw.  However, it still works much beter for me with my diminishing manual skills at trying to use trim nails and a hammer.  

                                                            

    Now that the easy parts of the trim were done it was time to work on the more involved job of making the front piece.  The trim at the front needed to have a central portion removable to mount the switch and to allow replacing the battery when needed without turning the whole case upside down.   In order to make it appear to be more like one continuous piece of molding, it was composed of three separate pieces cut from the same length of trim so the grain pattern would appear to continue somewhat uninterrupted as show here.

                                                            

    Unfortunately, my chop saw uses a 1/8” thick blade, so the overall piece needed to be about 3/8” overlong with a miter cut on each end. The location of the removable central piece was determined, allowing the joints to overlap the blocks.  Then with two 90 degree cuts it was separated from the end portions. Those two mitered end pieces were now nailed to the base.   Next, to make the central portion fill the gap, I crept up on its length with my disc sander until it was a fairly tight fit.  Here is a view of the unassembled front trim before the final fitting.

                                                           

    Now that all of the trim was cut and fit to my satisfaction it was time to work on the mounting of the light switch and battery fittings.  The first step was to make a mounting block for the switch; I sketched up this diagram of how the switch would function.

                                                            

    Since the switch function was actually a push button, I needed an extension plunger to go through the face of the molding.   Being a notorious scavenger with limited metal working tools or skill, I went through my misc. metal bins and came up with some 16d solid copper nails. 

    I shortened one nail to about two inches long with a hacksaw and chucked the shaft of the nail in my “metal lathe.” (alias drill press)  With the drill press on, the nail was machined into shape with a coarse metal file. 

                                                           

    Being just a common nail, the head was not really centered on the shaft with anything approaching accuracy so it was ground down until it was even and the diameter was just slightly smaller than the step on the face of the switch.  The shaft was also filed down until it was looking more like a polished custom fitting.  Here you can see both the full size copper nail and the finished copper extension plunger in the background of this photo.

 

    Using a small scrap of the molding for the block, I glued and clamped it to the back side of the trim located to fit in the open space between two of the base board spacing blocks.  Once the glue set, I selected a spurred wood bit sized to match the step on the switch and drilled into the back of the block until it was just short of the molding.  Then, switching to a drill bit matching the shaft of the plunger, I drilled all the way through the block and trim.  Here is the trim at this point.

                                                            

     Using wood chisels and files, a groove was routed out the width of the main body of the switch.  It was only about 1/16” deep, just enough to hold the switch in place.  The switch itself operates with a spring mounted plunger, that when in the off position is fully extended.  Once the plunger is depressed it clicks and stays depressed just proud of the step on the face of the switch housing and is in the on position.  (You can see in this photo of the switch that shows both the plunger and that step on the face of the switch.)

                                                           

      After much checking and fine tuning,  the depth of the bore for the head of the plunger was adjusted.  While holding the switch and plunger in place, the actual operation of the switch was checked while hooked up to the battery and lights.

                                                           

    The copper plungers’ projection beyond the face of the molding while the switch was in the on position (fully depressed) was noted and marked on the end of the plunger.  Adding about 1/16” to this mark, the plunger was removed and cut off at this length.  The cut was filed smooth to a polished finish and sprayed with Tamiya TS-80 clear matt acrylic varnish.  Here is the molding in place showing the copper plunger installed.

                                                            

    At this point the switch still needed to be fixed in place so that when the plunger is depressed it doesn’t push the switch housing out of place.  I ripped down two narrow strips of oak to flush out with the backside of the switch housing and glued them in place on both sides of the switch with wood glue.  In the unlikely event that the switch needs to be replaced at some point, I glued and clamped another small block of wood alongside the switch block. 

                                                           

     A thin piece of plastic was cut and screwed to that extra block with a single screw to allow it to swing over the back of the switch and hold it down and yet still be able to swing away allowing the switch to be removed.  So here is the completed switch housing below.

                                                           

    As far as the battery housing is concerned, it will just be taped to the backside of the removable trim piece to hold it in place and yet be easily released for changing the battery.  I had to splice some additional lengths of wiring to reach the new location of the switch.  The splices were done with the help of this recently purchased new tool that could strip the insulation off of the very thin wire that came with the lighting system without damaging the copper.

                                                            

    The ends of both wires were bent back and hooked together with the wires tightly twisted to form a very secure mechanical splice.  Additionally, the wire splice was soldered and covered with shrink tubing heated with an old blow dryer.  All of the remaining loose wire will just be taped to the bottom of the base board with sufficient slack to allow removing the switch trim piece to get at the battery.

     An additional length of shrink tubing will be applied to the wires as they are run through the base board, launching ways and the keel of the ship for a little bit more protection.  I think that a couple pieces of double faced tape will be sufficient to hold the switch trim piece in place on the base.  If not, I could always recess pairs of thin magnets to do the job.

[BETAQDAVE]

    Sometimes it seems that there are times when everything that can go wrong does just that.  With Covid-19 we started this year off with a bang, and that just keeps on going way beyond the miracle endings proclaimed by the one least qualified to know.  Things just seemed to accelerate from there. 

    They really started to go more awry last month when our clothes dryer was out of commission for a week or so.  Then I went in for a little MOHS surgery with a little extra trauma for my toe just thrown in for giggles.  I no sooner pretty much recovered from that, when I had to go in for Colonoscopy surgery yesterday.  Now today I found out that the elevator to our basement has also just decided to go on the fritz!   Luckily the admiral was here when I got in the elevator. Because, the door to the cab wouldn’t open to let me back get out.   She had to use the emergency exterior key to the door to let me out. 

    Luckily it was at the top when it happened, so we didn’t have to find some other way for me and the wheelchair to get back upstairs!    I just got off the phone with the new service manager (the third one since we had it installed in Dec. 2018) to try and schedule a service call.  They can’t have anyone here till later next week and that comes to the tune of $375 🤑 for the call plus labor and any parts needed.  

    Hopefully it can be fixed quickly, easily. (And cheaply?)  Someday, I may be able to get back down to the basement model shop.  However, at this point I’m not going to hold my breath after the way over extended time for the original installation of the elevator.  Only time will tell I guess.                                                          

[popeye the sailor]

hi Dave......can't put a like to that last post........what a frustrating predicament !    neat base you've put together......some great progress.

[BETAQDAVE]

    After I left seven messages for the elevator service manager to get some service and finally an impatient call by the admiral to the head office on the 26th, I finally recieved a reply that same day.  The manager said they needed to have a company meeting the next day to  rearrange their scheduals due to the elevator service tech just returning from quarantine.  On the 28th I called again, but they had no decision yet.  This morning  I was finally informed that they would come on the 9th.  Like I said previously, I won't be holding my breath. 

Edited November 5, 2020 by BETAQDAVE

[BETAQDAVE]

     Surprisingly enough, the elevator tech showed up on the 9^th as promised.  After about an hour of testing and adjusting the limit switches, it was ready to go again!!!  So now I was finally able to get a few things taken care of.

     The launching way ramp was glued into place on the display base with the anchoring bolts tightened down to help clamp it in place.

    Now the braces for the ways were begun by gluing the 3/32” x 1/4” basswood vertical braces up against the timber walls with carpenters glue.  (The concept was shown on a June 7, 2019 posting.)  Each one needed to be a different length, so it was all “cut to fit”, no mass production here. 

    I just held each brace momentarily in place for the glue to get tacky before setting the following one.  To keep the spacing more consistent, I cut this spacing block to go between.

Once all 32 vertical braces were installed, I gave them a good coating of Minwax light oak finish with a small brush.

     Now it was time to make the diagonal braces that were made with short pieces of 3/16” birch dowel. Unfortunately, each one of them was also a different length so more “cut to fit” was involved.  These were set at an angle of roughly 45 degrees. The bottom ends were set with carpenters glue into shallow depressions drilled in the base and the top ends were also glued and partially beveled to sit flat against the vertical braces.  On the top of each brace, a small depression was made with a very sharp F drafting pencil lead to represent a metal spike to secure them.  (Similar to my method of showing trennels made in the decking on my June 28, 2018 log entry.) Once all these diagonal braces were installed they were also stained in place.  Here are the ways shown below at this point.

    The bottom ends of all the diagonal braces were held in place with wooden pegs driven into the ground at an angle of roughly 45 degrees.  To make the pegs I clipped the pointed ends off of some round wood tooth picks and used the remaining center portion. (The pointed ends will be used later as trennels to hold down the false deck.)  One end was sanded smooth for the exposed end of the peg.  Using a steel center punch, I located the hole for the peg right up against the bottom of the diagonal braces and gave it a sharp rap with my hand as shown here.

    Once all of the impressions for locating the pegs were made I came back with a drill bit matching the diameter of the tooth picks and drilled about  a ½ “  deep hole  at a 45 degree angle.

    I laid out the pegs at the holes with the sanded ends set near the holes to speed things up a bit and keep me from putting the wrong end in the hole. 

    Now, production style, I installed the pegs one by one.  I bottomed out the sanded end of the peg in the hole, clipped it to length, removed the peg, dipped the clipped end in carpenters glue, and pushed that end of the peg back into the hole using a D sized battery. (Using the flat end of the battery gave me more control and caused less damage to the sanded ends of the pegs than using a hammer.)  I repeated this operation for all 32 pegs.  Once the pegs were installed they were all stained in place.

    So, the launching ways as shown below are complete except for the main hull braces which won’t be installed until the hull is in mounted on the stand.

    There are some more details to add yet, but they can wait until later.

Edited November 26, 2020 by BETAQDAVE

[lmagna]

"Congratulations on getting back into your dungeon and onto your build Dave. I think I would have been a little upset if it only took the guy a few minutes with a meter to fix the elevator. It has been a long wait and way too many Jigsaw puzzles trying to get access to your full house. Happy Thanksgiving. 

Edited November 26, 2020 by lmagna

[BETAQDAVE]

      What‘s that saying about the best laid plans of mice and men?  Oh yeah.   I decided that the next step now had to be changed from painting the copper hull to installing the wooden deck.  Due to the manhandling of the hull that would be necessary while installing the decks, all of my masking now had to be removed.  Oh well, better than risking damage to the paint job.

    The false deck needed to be installed first, but clamping the false deck down presented quite a problem since it curved front to back and side to side at the same time and the bulwarks were in the way.  Because the glue needed to be spread out on all of the deck beams, by the time the glue was spread, there wouldn’t be enough time to set all the clamps before the glue set up.  So, rather than trying to glue the deck directly to the beams, I ended up pinning it down. (That’s where the ends of those tooth picks used for the pegs in the last posting got to be used up.)

    Taking the starboard side of the false deck in hand, I lined it up with the centerline of the ship and clamped it in place.  I put tic marks along the centerline to mark where the edges of the beams were located.  While the starboard side was still in place, the port side was fit in place and the tic marks were transferred to that side also.   I also cut small holes in the decks where the wires for the cabin lights would be located.

            

   At this time I needed to figure out how I was going to fit the finish deck in place with the hawse pipe fittings attached to the bottom side of the deck, since once the deck was attached I would no longer have access to the inside of the hull.  My solution called for separating the bow ends of the false deck from the remaining deck to make things easier to handle.  Once the bow ends were separated, a section of the false deck surrounding the pipes was cut free and the remaining bows false deck was cut just a bit bigger so that when the finish deck was attached it would allow some extra clearance.  I fit the pipe through both the hole in the false deck bow section and the bottom of the finish deck, and glued it in place with medium CA leaving the pipe flush with the top surface of the finish deck as shown below.

                                       

    The false decks were removed and the tic marks were extended across the top surfaces using my thin beam metal square that I picked up from Micro-Mark.  (Yes, I know their stuff is pricey, but they do carry some products that you can’t readily find anywhere else.)

    Starting with the port side deck, it was realigned and clamped in place.  The outer edge of the deck was fitted with pairs of 1/32” thick wedges set under the plastic waterway to force it down to the perimeter ledger and the tops of the beck beams. (That’s 1/32” for the finish deck and 1/32” for the additional wood waterway with scuppers shown way back on post # 15.)

                                                        

    In addition to the wedges, I used some small C-clamps wherever they could be set and used heavy weights to hold down the center of the deck.  (These small C-clamps were rather cheaply made and turned very hard.  Using this Slipstick dry lubricant on the threads helped quite a bit.)

                                                            

    Using a 3/32”” drill bit in my battery powered General screwdriver/drill, holes were drilled through the false deck into the beams below as shown on the layout that I had just drawn on the topside of the false deck. Drilling one hole at a time, working around my clamps and weights in two rows, I used the cut off ends of those toothpicks, dipped the end in carpenters’ wood glue, and pressed them into the holes (with those D batteries again) to pin down the deck. (A-la trennels.)  This section of the false deck was then set aside to cure overnight.  Removing the clamps and wedges, the ends of the pins were snipped off and sanded flush.

                                                            

    So now the starboard side of the false deck was clamped and installed similarly.

                                                         

    So here it is with both port and starboard false decks finished.

                                                          

    The two bow sections of the false deck were now done similarly.

                                                      

    The false deck is now complete.

                                                                                                                     

[Cathead]

Nice solution!

[BETAQDAVE]

    As I was waiting for my elevator to be serviced recently, I spent some of my free time (maybe too much) trolling the Internet looking for additional info on the Wanderer.  I came across numerous photos of the actual ship that I hadn’t come across before and unfortunately, to my dismay, discovered that a lot of the info I did have was wrong.  That even included some of the details that I followed on my first build of this ship from my A.J. Fisher blueprints. Although to tell the truth, those plans didn’t supply all that many details to begin with.  I had to use quite a bit of guess work since that was built back in the 60’s prior to the internet and this forum.

    It’s also evident that most of the models of this ship that are shown on the internet do not reflect the actual features shown on the photographs. One model even shows the height of the bulwark to be closer to shoulder height rather than waist height that is shown on the photos and the figurehead as a woman in a dress rather than the eagle that was actually on the ship! 

    The kit from Aurora that I am working with is also especially deficient as far as the accuracy of those details, but the main form of the hull seems to be close enough for me to modify to be a closer match to the actual ship.

    For example, the kits tryworks show brick exposed on all four sides rather than the iron sheathing on the sides and back by the carpenters bench.  And one feature that was seemingly important on a whaler that is totally missing would be the trypots to boil the blubber in!  So, this will be one major rework.

    Another detail that is quite a departure from the actual ship is fact that the anchor chain locker is located closer to amidships rather than right at the windlass as indicated on both the plans and the model kit.  So I will now need to modify the deck to relocate those pipes.

    The main whale on the model is grossly oversized and will also require some major revision by reducing its size and changing its profile to show the double beaded edge that was on the actual ship.  Luckily I didn’t paint the hull or mount it on the ways yet as this will take quite a bit of manhandling to remedy.  Obviously the planking appearance will change, but then it will be covered with the vinyl foil tape anyway.   Some areas at the bow and stern require an additional topgallant rail and cap not shown on the plans, so the planking will need to be consistent.

    To maintain some semblance of historical accuracy that is important to me, there will be many other details too numerous to mention here for me to modify.  It looks like the project completion date will be getting extended, but I would not be satisfied with the model if I didn’t do them.  Installing the finish deck will be on hold for a while until I figure out some of the other modifications that will need to be done first. 

    The first revision will be correcting the main wale, and I expect that to be quite a chore.

[Cathead]

Ugh, what a frustration. Best wishes for getting it the way you want!

[BETAQDAVE]

    The main wale is shown in the photos as being the same thickness as the cap rail with a double beaded edge.  Since the cap rail is going to be 1/16” thick, that’s what I’m going with.  So the first step was to set my dividers at 1/16” with one point slightly extended to ride along the top edge of the plastic wale.

   Starting with a light amount of pressure, I scribed the short point along the entire length of the ships wale. (Incidentally, I worked on the port side first to work out this operation just in case it didn’t work out so well, because this would become the back side of the model.)

    Once I had a good line to follow, I switched to pulling the backside of an exacto knife with a #11 blade with the tip broken off.

    Gradually after a few more passes, the scribe line became deep enough for this plastic scriber to follow the line.

     Now I gradually increased the pressure and continued to deepen the scribe through the full thickness of the wale.  This may sound easy, but it took at least 40 passes to do this on each section of just one side of the hull!! The next step was to chew off the lower portion of the plastic wale.

    Now I started working on the bottom of the wale, using a similar method of scribing a line along the bottom edge of the wale with that exacto knife. (The scriber handle prevented its use here.)

    Removing the bulk of the waste from the wale was pretty tough.  At first I tried just using my 2MM dogleg chisel, but even though plastic would seem to be soft, it carves very hard.  After much tough carving, I finally managed to finish the port side, but wasn’t looking forward to doing the same on the starboard side.

     So, I decided to modify one of the blades for this Craftsmen vibrating saw before working on the starboard side.

    With a hack saw I decreased the width of an old blade to make it more maneuverable. The blade basically vibrates with a very short stroke side to side.  Following the scribed groove on the bottom of the wale I leaned the flat of the blade up against the hull.

    This really made short work of the majority of the waste without damaging the lower hull.  (Wish I thought of this before doing the port side!!)  However, some areas like here where the wale meets the eagle figurehead I still needed the chisel to finish it.

    This left just a bit of fine work with the chisel to clean up this modified surface of the hull.  With a little filler and sanding, applying the foil tape should make all this work disappear.

[BETAQDAVE]

    At this point, I continued to work on the outer hull.  The vertical rub rails on the Aurora kit are misrepresented as solid lumps rather than the actual rails, which are shaped metal bars with spacers to hold them away from the hull. (The photo below clearly shows this.)

    Also there are not nearly enough of them as each pair of davits required two or three of them and the kit had only one.  Therefore those plastic lumps were also filed and sanded off and will be scratch built.

    Another feature that is shown different than the actual feature is the removable gangway section of the bulwark at the cut-in platform.  The kit indicates a pronounced pair of wood jambs that project well beyond the surface of the hull and above the cap rail as you can see below.

     Once again, that’s not an accurate representation as shown in this photo below.

     Very early on, I had decided to display the model with the gangway left open, so I cut it loose from the bulwark at that time.  Now, I also needed to remove those jambs, so a bit more surgery was required so I could once again improve the accuracy of my model.  In that photo, there also appears to be an additional layer of protective planking that I will be adding below the opening where the whale carcass would rub against the hull. 

    Assuming that the average shoe size back then was around 10 or 11 inches long, the photo also allowed me to get a good idea of the actual size of a lot of the details.  On the lower left of the photo it also shows the stud-link anchor chain running past the hatch apparently to the chain locker pipes just after the main mast.  (I have no exact location.)  That’s opposed to the chain pipes just behind the windlass as shown on both the Aurora model and the A.J. Fisher plans.  Another benefit of removing both the vertical rub rails and the gangway jambs is that it will make installing the vinyl tape planking easier with uninterrupted runs.  

    Further review of the photographs led me to make a few changes to the interior of the bulwarks.  One thing became readily apparent.  The stanchions are way too far apart, and while their width seems accurate, the depth should be thicker.  So once again I’ll need to go back to the drawing board and revise my original diagram for the bulwark that I drew up way back on 6/23/2018 in post #15.  Meanwhile I’ll remove the too thin stanchions that I’ve already changed once before.   

Edited January 4, 2021 by BETAQDAVE

[BETAQDAVE]

    Well, I did go back to the drawing board and started to recheck some critical measurements concerning the bulwarks due to discrepancies revealed by the additional photos that I came across.  Using the HO (1:87 scale ruler supplied by one of our sponsors (Evan Designs) the top of the cap rail on the model measured 5’-2” tall, whereas the actual ship in the photo below indicates that the top of the main cap rail was actually waist high or about 36”!  Not exactly a minor discrepancy, considering that the entire bulwark will need to be revised.

 

       There is an additional topgallant rail also shown on the photo in certain areas that appears to be 7” tall with an additional cap rail of about half the thickness of the main cap rail.  So, now the total height of the bulwark in those areas should be roughly four feet or about the shoulder height of an average 5’-7” man at that time.

       Curious, I measured one of the figures below that was included with the kit and found that he only measured about 4’-6”.  Perhaps he was the cabin boy? It appears that if I want scale figures aboard I will need to pick up some HO scale RR figures.

 

    The more I look at the photos, the more errors I find.  It makes me wonder where the manufacturer came up with the details to produce the model in the first place!  While the internet nowadays makes it easier for me to find photographic evidence of the correct details, they should have been able to locate the info that at that time was only a few decades old.

    In addition to using the HO scale ruler to measure the model and a 1/6” scale ruler to measure the A.J. Fisher plans, I used my Art Minor degree and some basic anatomy that shows that the overall height of the human body is 8 times the dimension of the head (Measured from the crown of the head down to the chin) to help with scaling items in the various photos.  Taking the average mature male height of 5’-7” of that era divided by 8 gives you a head size of 8 3/8”.  So that in turn allows you to determine the height of various other body parts. (Like 1’-4 ¾” to the bottom of the knee cap)  One drawback of this method is that you need to make a separate measuring stick for each photo and only measure items that are the same depth in the photo.

    So anyway, speaking of major discrepancies, I found that the most critical detail as far as my model is concerned would be the location of the main hatch and the anchor point for the mizzen mast stay.  The rear edge of the main hatch scaled 8’-0” on both the plans and the model ahead of the main mast fife rail.  However, on all of the photos of the real ship, that dimension appears to be less than a foot!!!!  The actual anchor point of that stay was actually an iron fitting on the back side of the main mast that also has numerous fairway leads for the running rigging down to the main fife rail. (which, by the way, does not have a fife ring on the main mast) So……..my efforts to make an accurate representation of the Wanderer would seem to be all for naught since at this point nearly everything on the deck around the hatch is wrong.   

       To correct this error, I would need to merely remove the false deck, cut out and revise the majority of the deck framing, take out the lower two exposed decks and try to shift them to the correct positions along with the lighting. Then I would just need to completely replace the finish main deck planking including the new hatch.  Right!!  No problemo!!!

     This, despite my desire to actually make an accurate representation of the actual Wanderer, is well beyond what I am willing to do at this point.  Apparently this has now become more of a generic version of a whaler.  Needless to say, I have become very disappointed by this particular major development!

    I apparently made too many assumptions about the model being at least somewhat accurate and just needing a few minor corrections.  Of course, as they say, when you assume things you only make an *** of you and me.  For now, I’ll keep reviewing the photos and mark all of the needed changes on the plan.

[BETAQDAVE]

    Well…………….perhaps I am being foolish, but I have decided that I can’t go on with the Wanderer being done incorrectly.  As that friend of mine that I began this build for has passed a while ago, it became my own project to complete.  To build it as shown on the plans and model kit, knowing that those inaccuracies are there would just continue to gnaw at me no end. 

    So now I’m looking at quite a lot of major surgery.  To get a look at how to move the hatch to the correct location, the majority of the false deck needed to be removed first.  Since the deck already had a break at beam #4, just ahead of the foremast, the job was already half done.   I figured that the second break should be on frame #11, just aft of the main mast.

    Using a cut off wheel in my Dremel and a #11 Exacto blade when near the waterways, I cut the second separation line.  Luckily for me, the false deck was merely pegged in place with wood trennels rather than being completely glued down.  So using my smallest brad pointed drill bit (so it wouldn’t wander) once again in the Dremel, I drilled through the false deck cutting off the end of the trennels.  There was a little glue that had spread around the trennels, but with a little gentle persuasion with a long thin flat metal bar, the sections were popped off.

    Here is a photo below of the results of this process so far. 

  

    Since the inner deck was suspended with four posts hanging from the beams above (see post #24), I’ll need to saw through those posts and more than likely make new ones to hold it in the new location.  Looking at it now, it appears that another small section of the false deck will need to be removed to get access to the bottom of beam #12 to rehang the assembly.

     As the bottom deck was glued to the plastic hull with CA glue, getting that loose may be futile, so I will probably just glue another layer of decking right on top of it.  Moving the hatch aft should also be entertaining as the main mast will have to pass through both of the lower decks!

Edited January 29, 2021 by BETAQDAVE