Leon by Doug McKenzie - FINISHED - a beautiful little brigantine

[Beckmann]

Hi Doug, the photo, Chuck posted, ist exactly the one. It has some handwritten informations about the ship (see below). The Aust-Agder-Museum at KUBEN in Norway has some items about LEON. A bottleship-model, the ships bell and the drawing I was talking About. I wrote to them to ask for permission to use the Images. If they allow, I will post them here. 

I will think about the build log, perhaps I will start one.

Matthias

[Beckmann]

Hi Doug,

I have no reaction from the Aust-Agder-Museum yet, so I just send you the link for the

drawing of LEON.

https://digitaltmuseum.org/011012548813/ukjent

the ships bell

https://digitaltmuseum.org/011022541446/skipsklokke

a nice model

https://digitaltmuseum.org/021025899933/fartygsmodell

By the way, today I posted some photos of my own model. 

Matthias

[Beckmann]

In the meantime I have got the permission from Aust-Agder-Museum to use the Images, so here we go:

 

[Doug McKenzie]

It's been awhile but progress has been made!  Jeppe and I are reasonably sure now that we have the bulk of primary material that exists.  So, now I'm in the process of incorporating the new material into the model itself.  The first was to model the doubled frames of the original.   This is important because of the 6 viewing windows which clearly show the framing.  It took me awhile to figure out how to do this.  The problem is that the model has 44 single frames sided at 12" while the original had 56 doubled frames sided (combined) at 18".  What I finally decided to do was to match the portion of the original's 22" center to center which was wood (i.e 82% = 18" / 22").  Thus, the model's 30" center to center needs 24.6" of wood (= 30" x 82%).  I actually achieved slightly less (24") by just doubling the 12" frames already in the model.  The 5 doubled frames an be seen in the photo below.  I still have to insert about 60 little stubs to mimic doubled framing where the frame cuts are visible.

 

The two mast steps can also be seen.  Sources were Crother's American Built ... in the 1850s, Tosti's Young America Vol 1 and numerous postings of Bob Cleek (thanks for the extended 'conversation', Bob).

 

The fresh water tank is shown in the second picture.  Sized at 750 gals, it will rise up just below the deck.  I followed Tosti in modeling the tank and used both Tosti and Crothers to position it.  There is almost no info on these tanks.  As a result, I do not even know how they accessed the fresh water (plumbing pipes? pump with a hose?  buckets?)

 

Lastly, I've gone from flat varnish to low luster.  The response from people who have seen both is very positive. I like it better too!  Detail seems to stand out more clearly.

 

Till next time,

 

Doug

Edited February 4, 2019 by Doug McKenzie
simple edits

[Doug McKenzie]

The fo'c'sle is nearly complete.  The first picture shows the construction of the fo'c'sle bulkhead and a corner of the sole.  This picture is taken at an odd angle in order to show the lumber hatch (aka, plank hatch, timber hatch).  This is the slender rectangle on the starboard side just above the water line.  This hatch could be opened to allow very long planks to be slid into the hold.  Fortunately, it is clearly marked on the 1880 sheer plan.  There is very little documentation on these hatches and how they opened but there are a number of photos of them being used.

 

The second picture show the hold side of the bulkhead and the entire sole.  An opening in the bulkhead is shown with the door held open upwards.  When the lumber hatch was used the planks were passed through the fo'c'sle and out this opening in the bulkhead  and into the hold.

 

In the third picture the fo'c'sle is shown fully outfitted except for the coal stove and coal bucket which will be installed later.  With no details available, a typical arrangement was used.  Three bunks are provided with storage below and the two forward bunks have pipe berths above them.  This seems consistent with the report that Leon had 8 crew members when she was lost in 1915.   When the lumber hatch was used. the table and the two starboard bunks were moved out of the way.

 

The original deck beams are thinner than Underhill's,  As a result, the previously installed beam shelf/clamp is a little too low.  A 1/32" strip was glued onto the previously installed beam shelf/clamp so that the deck level will  be flush with the top of the wale.  This strip is a lighter color than the previously installed beam shelf/clamp so it is clearly visible in all three pictures.

Edited February 10, 2019 by Doug McKenzie
grammer

[Doug McKenzie]

Once the fo'c'sle was nearly done,  I realized that Leon probably didn't have a fo'c'sle for the crew, rather they probably bunked in the deck house.  Before acting on this realization, I posed the question to another MSW forum under the topic, "Deck House versus Forecastle for Crew Quarters".  A consensus was quickly reached that the crew was most likely quartered in the deckhouse.  The question, of course, arises why did I think the crew was quartered in the fo'c'sle in the first place?  My wife has the best answer - "You wanted to build a fo'c'sle so you just believed what you needed to". 

 

So the fo'c'sle has been removed from Leon and a separate little display shows "The Fo'c'sle That Never Was."  The repaired Leon is shown with the little display in the two photos below.  I made the shell of the hull for the little display out of 3x5 cards pressed into the inner surface of the bow and glued together.

 

The next thing I'll be working on is the deck beams and their diagonal hanging knees which replace the more conventional lodging knees and hanging knees.  

[Doug McKenzie]

Before discussing the diagonal hanging knees, we'll finish up on the doubling up of the frames to correspond with Leon as described in the 1880 DNV Survey.  There are three places, beyond the exposed frames in the 6 ports, that needed attention.  At the bottom of each port and at the top of each port short pieces were glued in to represent double framing.  Then, on the port side, opposite the 6 ports, little doubling pieces were glued in where 3 ceiling planks were left off.

 

 

The picture below shows 2 deck beams along with the diagonal hanging knees that support them.  The beam marked with a yellow pin head shows clearly how the diagonal hanging knees serve as both lodging knees and hanging knees.  This arrangement was discussed in a topic of an NRG forum under the title "An unusual (to me) arrangement of hanging knees and riders on brigantine Leon."  Note that knees from adjacent beams are fayed together.  We only have a single diagram of diagonal hanging knees (from Norwegian sources) and this is for just one deck beam so we can not see how the knees meet one another.  The method used here seems reasonable.  It is of note that the 1882 DNV Rules and Regulations describes these diagonal hanging knees as only being acceptable for single deck vessels.  It is possible that the arrangement is uniquely Norwegian, or at least that opinion can be held until contradicting evidence is found. 

 

As a side note on Norwegian uniqueness, the 1882 DNV Rules and Regulations gives acceptable scantlings for the hold stanchions as 4" to 5" by 8" to 12" - Leon uses 4" by 10".  Other references that I have seen for America and England specify square, circular or a near square oblong rectangular cross section.  Are there other places that use large aspect ratios like Norway?

The next picture is from beneath the deck beams.

Lots of work to finish the deck beams and the knees.

 

Doug

 

[Doug McKenzie]

These diagonal hanging knees are apparently very rare so how they were made for the model is probably of little interest.  On the other hand, posterity and all that...

 

We start with the cylindrical shape of the knee (like a piece of molding) and then make slices to give the left hand pair (in the photo).  The arms are then  beveled so that the knee will fit flush against the side of the beam (center pair).  The ends of the body are beveled so that the two knees mate.

 

The jig used to glue the two knees together has two "deck beams" sticking up from the base.  A wedge ensures that the arm bevels are pressed against the sides of the beam hence maintaining the correct beam spacing.  The body bevels, which are glued together, are held together by a clamp.  Note that the resulting 'compound' knee supports 2 adjacent deck beams.  The two knees that support a single deck beam do not come into contact with each other and as a result cannot be 'compounded' and the compounding makes the fitting easier

Finishing the knees involves fairing the tops of the arms to the top of the beams,  rounding appropriate edges and fitting the knees to the clamp/shelf and ceiling planking.  

 

Doug

Edited March 11, 2019 by Doug McKenzie
pictures

[Doug McKenzie]

The 5 deck beams that span the main hatch are shown below.  The marks for the 'scores' of the 2 carlings can be seen on the 2 outermost beams.

 

The 2 carlings are in place and they in their turn are marked for the scores of the 6 half deck beams that will butt up against them.

 

The scores are made in a simplified way shown below.  

 

With the 6 half beams in place the lodging knees are fitted.  These were made in the same way as the diagonal hanging knees by glueing 3 sticks of 3/16" x 3/16" together in a cross section of an 'L'.  Then, after some shaping, 3/16" slices become the raw knees.  This whole assembly of full deck beams, carlings, half deck beams and lodging knees can be removed from the hull so that continued work on the interior is easy.

 

 

[Kurt Johnson]

Chuck, That's the clearest picture I've ever seen of her.

 

Kurt

[Doug McKenzie]

Kurt,

 

Here's a view of the stern of Leon taken from the same photo.  My guess is that Jeppe created this cropped version to send to me with good resolution but not too big for his email.  It certainly indicates that the original photo had excellent resolution.

 

 

We now have a little more info on when this photo was taken since the brigantine rig was cut down to a schooner rig in 1897.  So she was at most 17 years old when the photo was taken.  She foundered in 1915 when she was 35 years old so she was a brigantine for just about one half of her life.

 

Doug

[Doug McKenzie]

Well, it's been about 3 or 4 months since I've posted anything on Leon.  This is because I've been refurbishing a model that I built about 35 years ago of the schooner Emma C Berry.  A trip down the Danube and some sickness took up the rest of the time.  So here's the Emma on her shelf in the garage awaiting her first sail. 

 

 

Leon's deck framing is nearing completion as there are only 3 or 4 frames left in the stern.  So now the internal detail needs addressing since we can't glue the deck structure down until all the internals are taken care of.

 

The first internal detail is the iron knee riders.  From the survey we know that these were installed at every other beam.  They were about 11/2" thick and 3 1/2" wide.  From the rules and regulations we know that these riders could be installed either perpendicular to the keelson or diagonally.  Because of the use of diagonal hanging knees, it makes sense to use diagonal riders.  The R & R also says that around the main hatch the riders are perpendicular to the keelson and that is what is shown in the picture below.  The R & R also says that in the case of a ship like Leon, these knee riders only go to the top of the deck clamp/shelf and they are not fastened to the deck beams.  They proceed down far enough that 1 or 2 bolts can be put into the floors.

 

 

[Leslie McKenzie]

Hi Doug,

Your model is so beautiful. You were born to build!  Love, Leslie

[Doug McKenzie]

The structure of the hull is complete now - everything that remains is internal details, i.e. limber boards, anchor chain lockers, bilge pump pipes and hold stanchions.  Our primary sources do not discuss any of these internal details (except hold stanchions!).  As a result, we typically use Underhill to identify the location of these details (from his deck  plan) and other sources to suggest plausible appearance.

 

The limber boards are shown as roughly 8' lengths with 3" hand holds.  Two adjacent boards are from one piece of wood with a notch to suggest the butt joint.  This is done so that we can install a longer piece of wood and make a neater job of it. Here, the aft most boards are shown butting up against the base of the fresh water tank.  I chose not to bevel the top edge of these boards because there was no consistency in the 'other sources' on this detail and having less sharp edges makes some sense.

 

The two chain lockers are located on either side of the main mast.  This is a puzzling feature of Underhill's plans.  The tops of the anchor chain pipes are located virtually on either side of the main mast or about 64% of the LOD from the bow.  The vast majority of ships in the 2nd half of the 19th century that I am familiar with have their chain lockers well in the bows generally below the windlass so that the chain drops off the windlass directly into the chain pipes.  A few ships have the chain lying on the deck from the windlass back to the chain pipes but only for a short distance.  The question is, why did Underhill show the chain on the deck for about 52% of the LOD aft of the windlass. 

 

The first objection could be that it seems to be an extremely rare layout.  The second objection could be that carrying deck cargo does not seem consistent with so much chain lying around on the deck - this objection was brought to my attention by Wayne (trippsw).  We have a newspaper article, however, that refers to Leon having lost all her deck cargo so we know she carried stuff on her deck.

 

The dimensions that were picked for these lockers was 4' by 4' by 6' high.  (The square section is advised for strength.) The dimensions give a volume of 96 cu ft which is about 35% more than a table of chain volumes (in Desmond, Wooden Ship Building) indicates.

 

One side is left un-planked and will receive a little piece of plexiglass so that the chain can be seen through the 6 ports.

 

In the following photo the chain lockers can be seen nestled between the main mast step and the fresh water tank base.

In this forward looking photo below, a small piece of one of the knee riders can be seen through the un-planked side.  This is a reminder that these anchor lockers had no bottom.  The chain merely piled up on the ceiling.  Other lockers hung from a deck and those, of course, had bottoms.

 

Notice the tops of the two diagonal knee riders.  They are sloped at the same angle as the diagonal hanging knees - 20 degrees.  This compares to the 20 - 35 degrees that the Rules and Regulations require for riders in ships greater than 900 tons.

 

Holes will need to be drilled in the tops of the lockers for the tubing which will represent the chain pipes

Edited July 12, 2019 by Doug McKenzie

[Doug McKenzie]

We start the installation of hold stanchions and the simultaneous gluing the deck beams into place from the stern as there are no more internal details back there.  The stanchions are 4" x 10" and the deck beams are sided 11 1/2" (both from the survey).  The picture below shows how the top of the stanchions are prepared to be attached to the deck beams with two straight 24" iron plates (from the CA Thayer).  These plates are modeled as if the 10" width of the stanchion is the same as the 11 1/2" side of the beam.  The bottoms of the stanchions will be fastened to the top of the keelson with 2 iron "L"s with each leg being 12". 

 

A detail - Should the 4 vertical corners of the stanchions be beveled?  CA Thayer's were not, so I left the corners sharp. 

The tops of the stanchions are not glued qt this time.  That will wait until a number of beams are glued in place and then an accurate centerline can be drawn and the stanchions can be positioned accurately.

 

Another detail - Since the stanchions support every other deck beam, should there be a stringer across the tops of the stanchions to support the unsupported beams?  CA Thayer does not appear to have such a stringer.  Even more important the survey does not mention a stringer and I would think that it would if it was there because it would be very visible and it is clearly structural..  

[Doug McKenzie]

All the stanchions are in place and the deck beams have been glued to the deck clamp and the diagonal hanging  knees.

 

The anchor chain pipes slope aft to the anchor chain lockers.  The bilge pump pipes drop nearly vertically to the bilges.  These pipes will all be blackened before installation.

From the hold, the anchor chain pipes are seen to enter the lockers on their tops.  On the front surface of the lockers and a little above the main mast step, can be seen bungs that represent the fastening of the bitter end of the anchor chain to the locker.  The purpose of this connection is to prevent the chain from running free hence losing the chain altogether.  There are emergency situations, however, when we do want to lose the chain.  In these situations a mallet is used to break the connection.  Although there is very little documentation on this equipment there is one rather humorous comment.  We paraphrase this comment as - "You want to be able to break the connection from outside the locker since, in an emergency,  it would be inconvenient to have to enter the locker."

 

The bilge pump pipes just drop into the bilges.  Both sets of pipes will be blackened. 

In the picture below, the stanchions can be relatively clearly seen along with how the tops of the stanchions are attached to the deck beams.  How wonderful it would be if Stephen Maggipinto of the Ship Model Society of New Jersey could take these pictures - they would be clear, sharp, well lit, etc, etc, etc...  I will refrain from characterizing my pictures made with my phone.

.

Work that follows:

1--  Add little lights because the hold is pretty dark with the deck beams in place.

2--  Fairing the deck beam tops to receive the deck planks.

3--  Plank the starboard side of the deck leaving the port side open.

[Doug McKenzie]

In the photos below, the viewing ports are shown without lights on and with lights on.  8 chip LEDs run from a 9v battery.  I haven't figured out yet where to put the battery and the switch.

Before fairing the deck beams and planking the port side of the deck, I decided to describe making the fore lower mast.  The reason for this is that when I built Little Leon, a 16' LOD 'model' of Leon that sails with 2- 4 people,  I used the actual ship yard technique on all 14 spars and had a lot of fun doing it.  This technique requires a sort of jig and I couldn't remember its name so I did searches in NRG-MSW and the internet to find out what it's called.  I was very surprised to find very few references to this technique.  As a result, I figured I could describe it in case anyone was interested.  

 

I have always built the spars up from 4 square sticks glued together to ensure that the spars stay straight.  The four sides are cleaned up leaving a square cross section.  The 3 quarters are marked along with the heel, partners, hounds and head.  Tables show the diameter of the mast at each of these points as a percentage of the diameters at the partners. 

 

On big spars, e.g 2", I mark those diameters directly on the wood but on the 1/2" lower fore mast of the 1:48 model, I used paper.  In either case, smooth curves are drawn.  I used a band saw to remove the extra wood and then sandpaper cleans things up.  Now the same curves need to be laid out on one of the cut surfaces.  If the curves were drawn on both sides at the start, one set is destroyed when the first tapering is done.  Cleaning up the four tapered sides with sandpaper allows you to make sure all the cross sections are square.

 

Now we need to mark the lines that guide us when beveling the corners of the square to form an octagon.  This is the first step in making the mast round (except for the hounds to head which stays square and the housing, heel to partners, which will stay octagonal).  Ideally, you can make a jig, whose name I don't remember, as shown below.  By keeping the guide pins pressed against the square spar the pencils will mark the required curves.  With the jig, these curves are drawn quickly and accurately.  The photo below show a 5" jig drawing the curves on a 4x4,  On the 1/2" lower fore mast, I couldn't see how to make a jig so I just marked a piece of card and used it like the jig.  It takes a lot longer but at least it gets the job done.    The card is reversed to make another pair of marks because this compensated for slight errors in the marks on the card.

After the octagonal curves are drawn on all four sides, a plane can be used to remove most of the bevel but you won't want to go all the way to the lines.  The reason for this is that its important to make sure that the 8 surfaces are all the same width - that's more important than meeting the lines which might be slightly in error.  Fortunately there is an easy method for making sure the 8 sides are all the same size.  It requires that before the planing starts, lines are drawn on all four faces at the stations between the heel and the hounds.   The octagonal curves and the station lines are shown in the photo below.  The next photo shows the mast after the 4 bevels have been removed.  At each station, we compare by eye the width of the bevel (no station mark) with the width of the station mark that is visible.  These widths should be equal.   The picture distorts these widths  - actually they are equal.  When the octagon is finished, the mast is rounded between the partners and the hounds.  In the shipyard, the octagon is taken to a 16 sided cross section and then to 32 sides and then to a circle.
 

 

Edited August 16, 2019 by Doug McKenzie
fix little errors

[Sea Hoss]

Beautiful work!

[pmckenzie]

The way the lights show the interior is quite excellent!

[Doug McKenzie]

Thanks Sea Hoss.  My wife thinks I must have sailed on Leon in a previous life.  It's the only reason she can think of to explain why I enjoy working on her so much.

[Leslie McKenzie]

I think your wife sounds like a very interesting woman! I like the way she thinks.  

[Doug McKenzie]

I wasn't planning to make a post at this point, but when the king plank was installed it looked so cool I had to record it.  Now I may be able to stop telling my wife "Wow that king plank is cool"  I've also put in the two lower masts and the bowsprit.  The vellum screen is a jig to set the mast rakes correctly- here they were used to make sure the mast step mortise and the holes through the partners provided enough flexibility to permit the correct rake. Later, when the deck and deck items are done, it will help in the final fitting of the masts.  The camera distorts the rake but they are a respectable 4.2^o  and 5.8^o while Underhill's were 1.7^o  and 3.4^o .  The ones I used come from the Sheer Plan - they may not be right as sometimes contemporary plans are not exactly right but since they are reasonable, I decided to use them.

 

[Doug McKenzie]

The deck planking is well underway.  pencil lead on the edge of a plank simulates caulking.  Only the port side is going to be completely planked.  I'm going to plank around the various openings on the starboard side so that the deck items sit flush all around.

This view at the bow shows how the deck planks are carried between the bulwark stanchions.  This will provide some support for the waterway which will extend all the way out to the inner face of the bulwark planking.  We are making significant simplifications from the survey in the margin plank, waterway and cover board timbers.  This will be discussed more fully in the next posting.

 

 Till next,

 Doug

[Doug McKenzie]

In this post, we show the waterway and an adjacent plank (called by the DNV survey Inner Waterway Plank #2).  Some of the information in the survey is confusing - it mentions an Exterior Waterway Plank (I have no idea what this is) , the Covering Board is given as 6 3/4" wide (much narrower than a conventional covering board) and there is no mention of a margin plank.  The Inner Waterway Plank #1 is  8" thick x 12" wide and thus can be taken as THE waterway.  The Inner Waterway Plank #2 is  5" thick x 6" wide - no obvious name comes to mind for this.  To my eye, the 12" wide waterway seems quite large so I made a quick comparison to two other ships - the full rigged ship, Young America, and the three masted schooner, CA Thayer.  The ratio of the waterway width to the beam on the weather deck is 2.6% for YA and 2.7% for CAT.  Leon's ratio is 3.6% - a third larger.  This is probably another indication that Colin Archer built his ships strong since the waterway was a significant timber.

 

It can be seen that I notched the waterway around the stanchions.  This gives the impression of a covering board without actually including one.  I did this because I couldn't make sense of the information on the covering board in the survey.

 

Any comments on the way I handled this will be warmly welcome!

 

Next, I'll be fitting the three hatches.

 

[Doug McKenzie]

Before getting to the hatches, I just wanted to mention that I tried to make the pintle and gudgeons out of brass strips and failed completely.  I've done very little metal work over the years and it shows!  Bending the stuff cleanly was impossible for me.  This probably means that I'll be doing all the rigging ironwork with paper strips unless someone can guide me to a way of learning how to do the metal work.  Now on to the hatches.

 

The photo shows the three stages of creating the hatches.  The main hatch {temporarily installed) shows the completed coaming.  The smallest hatch (the fore hatch) shows ledges installed to support the hatch boards (aka hatch covers).  The aft hatch (installed)  shows 3 of 4 hatch boards in place.  Notice the single planks starboard of the main hatch and aft hatch so that the hatches are completely supported by deck planks.  The original sheer plan  shows the fore-aft position of each of the hatches, but it does not show the width.  I could have used Underhill's proportions but instead I used his actual widths.  As I said somewhere earlier, the sheer plan's placement of the hatches is 2' - 3' forward of Underhill's placements.

 

Now we can take a look at the hatch boards in the aft hatch.  We are using 3" thick boards roughly 12" wide which are first cut to length to fit the coaming snugly - shown in the top most board in the photo.  Then a 6" hole is drilled at each end but not all the way through.  I drilled these holes in a drill press with the hatch boards resting directly on the top of the metal jaws of the vise.  I drilled gently until the bit just touched the metal.  There was a small hole at the bottom that I filled with wood putty - shown in the middle board in the photo .  Then a blackened brass wire was inserted into a hole drilled in the edge of the hatch board from one side to the other passing through the middle of the 6" hole - shown in the lower board.  The wire simulates a 1/2" iron bar which is easily grabbed in the 6" hole.

I'm not sure what I'm going to work on next.

 

[Doug McKenzie]

Here is the completed main hatch.  A member of the crew  (5' tall) helps to understand the scale.  The last 4 hatch covers (nearest the crew member) are wired together and not glued in place because I'm thinking of leaving 2 or 3 or 4 covers off in the spirit of maximum visibility, but I haven't decided yet.

 

This photo shows all three hatches completed along with the completed rudder and the pawl bitt (in the bow).  I used plastic striping for the pintles and gudgeons.  Since that provides no strength, I pinned the rudder to the stern post at the lowest pintle / gudgeon pair.   The fine wire (red and black) ends in a connector that allows the battery and the switch for the lights to be left off the ship except when being used.

Before framing the quarter deck and anchor deck, Underhill recommends fitting the cavels, the hawse pipes, the eyes for the forestay.  I also want to make a correction at this time.  The bulwark planking for the quarter deck is supposed to be thicker then the bulwark planking in the waist creating a slight ledge which is actually quite visible.  I need to double plank the quarter deck bulwark to achieve this effect. 

[Doug McKenzie]

The 6 kevels (aka but rarely used, cavel, cavil) have been installed with one mooring port.  A kevel is a large, generally horizontal timber bolted to two adjacent bulwark stanchions providing a very strong belaying point for large lines such as mooring lines.   On Leon this is 9" x 9" following Underhill.  You can see the two iron pins (1 1/2" diameter) which could be used for smaller mooring lines and in some cases running rigging.  To the left of the kevel is an inboard view of a mooring port.  I'm probably going to model a mooring line to show how the kevel is actually used.  Underhill shows 6 kevels in his plans.  I understand the 2 at the bow and the two towards the stern but I do not understand the 2 at midships.  There is not even mooring ports for them.  Oh well, I included them regardless.

 

The inboard view of the mooring port also shows the wooden chock inserted between the adjacent bulwark stanchion to ensure that the thin bulwark planking does not fail under strain.  The outboard view of the mooring port, in the next picture, shows the results of two techniques from Underhill.  The first is to let the thickness of the brass tubing serve as the flange of the port.  The second is to make the port first from brass tubing and then fashion the hole in the wood to fit the port.  The second is 'obvious' but I needed to be told!

In the picture below, the starboard blackened bilge pump pipe is shown descending from the deck into the bilge.  The next picture shows the treatment of the bilge pump pipe on the deck.  I tried to find authentic material on the 'flange'  but Tosti's Young America was the only one I found so I more or less followed his.

 

[Doug McKenzie]

All the 'pipe' work is now done i.e. the port bilge pump pipe, both the navel pipes (the pipes that lead the anchor chain down from the deck to the top of the anchor chain lockers.  aka chain pipes) and both hawse pipes.  The picture below shows the bilge pump pipes and the navel pipes.  The relatively steep slope of the navel pipes facilitates the smooth movement of the chain when it comes up on deck.  The next picture shows the deck plates where the pipes come through the deck.  These are 1" thick plates which scale down to about 1/64"  To work with these thin pieces of wood I flooded one side with super thin CA to provide some strength.  This permitted the 3/16" holes to be drilled as well as making it possible to enlarge the drilled holes with round files without splitting the wood.. 

 

 

 

For reasons, that I do not understand, the hawse pipes leave the hull about 2’ forward of where they should, so they actually touch the stem.  This occurred during filing rather than the drilling of the holes but I didn't notice it until it was too late.  I don’t see any way to fix this so the mistake will just stay with the model.  The hull flange was formed with two brass tubes telescoping around the main tube.  The main tube is 10” in diameter.  I used soft solder since I still haven’t bitten the silver solder bullet.  The angles both at the hull and deck were obtained by using the vertical belt sander and seemingly a never-ending progression of Does it fit? No, sand a little more. Repeat.  The process was so inelegant that I haven’t bothered to show any photos of the process.

 

I was pleased that from the bow, the two hawse pipes at least look as if they are nearly mirror images. 

On the deck, the hawse pipes end in deck plates that are 1” thick just like the deck plates on the bilge pump pipes.

In all three pictures, the lumber hatch, the 2’ x 8’ rectangle, is clearly seen just above the water line.  The scratched outline is supposed to represent the closed lumber hatch which I’ve been told is practically invisible on a real ship.  A poor job was done here and I do not know how to make it look better so I guess that, like the horizontal position of the hawse pipe, it will just stay with the model.  Any thoughts on how to clean this up would be most appreciated.

 

 

Edited January 31, 2020 by Doug McKenzie
Change 'anchor chain locker pipes' and 'anchor chain pipes' to 'navel pipes' due to comment by sailor1234567890

[Mahuna]

Hi Doug - very nice work on your Leon.  I've been looking in now and then, and just saw your comment on the lumber hatch.  One thing you might try is to mix some sawdust from the same wood as the planking with Scenic glue and use it as a filler.  Scenic glue (from Woodland Scenics) is a PVA glue that dries without any sheen, so when you use it this way the wood dust visually blends in with the wood around it and flaws are covered really well.  I've used this approach with small gaps between planks and it worked for me.

[Sailor1234567890]

Those chain pipes to the lockers are called either spurling pipes or naval pipes. I agree with some sawdust glue and then re carve them. I think those doors were more square than elongated rectangle. Maybe that's the design of that particular one, I'm not sure. Most I've seen in old images have been more square and a bit further aft from the stem.