Medway Longboat (1742) by gjdale - FINISHED - 1:24

[Canute]

Looking good, Grant. Everything is coming along nicely. I'm lagging right now as we  have been preparing for our Thanksgiving holiday. Not getting the shop time to fair the frames.

[BobG]

Well done as usual, Grant!

[gjdale]

Thanks for all the kind comments and also for the "likes".

 

Progress seems to have been slow of late, but I have completed the floorboards and platforms. The only problem I ran into with the floorboards was that when I went to fit the outer floorboards, I somehow got them mixed up and fitted them to the wrong sides, requiring quite a lot of additional shaping that resulted in quite narrow extensions at the aft end. Fortunately, I realised my mistake before gluing them. I was then able to re-cut these parts from some spare kit material, using the original laser cut sheet as a template.

 

The platforms were a little tricky to fit, and the bow platform required significant shaping to fit. All “nailing” was done off the model prior to fitting of both floorboards and platforms.

 

Unfortunately, the cap rail took a little bit of scuffing during all of this and will require some touch up. I’ll wait until I’ve installed the risers before doing that.

 

Progress shot of the internals.

 

[Nirvana]

Grant, very nice job with the detailing.....

[Rustyj]

Well done Grant. Keep the paint handy if you're anything like me with the scuffing.

[gjdale]

Slow progress, but progress nonetheless. I have completed preparing and installing the risers. Using the heat/hair-dryer method to pre-bend the risers makes attaching them much easier.  I picked up a tip from a couple of other logs about using a small T-square jig to position the risers at the correct height at each frame. Rusty’s log is a good demonstration of this jig and its use, so I’ll not repeat it here. The method is also described and demonstrated quite nicely in the Queen Anne Barge instructions. Note for Chuck – it might be worth copying and pasting that section into the Longboat instruction manual next time you revise it. It’s a great tip/trick and worth repeating in both instruction manuals.

 

 

Onto the thwarts next...

[captain_hook]

Nicely done! 

[Ryland Craze]

It's looking good Grant.  I cannot wait to see the thwarts and cockpit added.

[Chuck]

That is looking fantastic....

[gjdale]

Thanks again for the kind comments and likes folks.

 

Some more small progress:  

 

The thwarts have been built and fitted to the model, though not glued in yet. The cockpit seats have also been built, fitted and glued in place. I followed the example of Ryland and others in adding small tabs to the underside of the aft thwart and the aft end of the cockpit seats to provide additional landing places to help keep everything aligned. More work to do yet on the thwarts, and lots of painting in the cockpit…

 

[Helli]

Hello,

Great work! Very clean!
Congratulations 

Helli

[Canute]

Coming along nicely, Grant. Looks good.

[gjdale]

Quite a bit of progress over the last 2 weeks, aided by retirement from 18 Dec!

 

First up, while waiting for paint to dry on the cockpit seats, was the windlass. I ended up having several goes at this. I wasn’t happy with the shape of the ends after my first attempt. On my second attempt, I wasn’t happy with the shape of the square holes (I’d managed to elongate them). On my third attempt, I decided to machine the tenons on the ends. When I placed this inside the boat, it seemed to me that there was too much of a gap between the square section of the windlass and the riser bracket. I compared the windlass template to the plan drawing and noticed that the position of the square holes differed markedly – by about 10mm between centres. In other words, the whole of the square sections on the plan drawings were 5mm further towards the riser bracket than those on the template. I checked in with Chuck on this and his advice was to stick with the template dimensions. Just for the heck of it, I decided to have one more go, this time moving the square sections further out (by about half the actual difference in the drawings). I also decided to do as much of the shaping as possible using a combination of mill and lathe. Since I was going to the trouble of setting up the machines, I took the precaution of preparing two blanks (these were made from some spare 1/2” square boxwood that I had in my stash). I first thinned these down to the 3/8” square using the Byrnes thickness sander. It turned out to be just as well that I prepared two blanks. I was just completing the final machining process on the first blank (turning the final diameter for the tenon) when I took too big a cut and broke the part. Fortunately, I had completed all of the machining processes on both blanks as I went, so it was no big deal to simply complete that last process on the second blank, taking lighter cuts.

 

The picture below shows the final result. Going from left to right, my first attempt through to the final version, along with the two windlass bars also finally shaped. The fourth (and final) version show the effect of moving the square sections further outboard. I decided I preferred this position. The square holes were achieved by first drilling with a 3/32” drill bit, and then cleaning up with a 3/32” micro chisel (one of my lovely Russian set made by Mikhail).

 

 

 

Next up was the mast ironwork. No issues here – just followed Chuck’s excellent instructions and used JAX Pewter Black for blackening. I did find the belaying pins a bit of a challenge, but again following Chuck’s advice I managed to achieve four reasonably similar results.

 

 

The Thole pins were next. Here I departed from Chuck’s suggestion of turning these in the Dremel/rotary tool. Instead, I used my Byrnes draw plate to bring the 3/64” square stock down to a diameter of about 1mm. Following Ryland’s excellent idea from his build log, I made a small jig to position the thole pins a consistent distance from each other within each pair, and also from the edge of the cap rail. The picture below also shows the completed cockpit seats, as well as the three sets of knees on the relevant thwarts.

 

 

The Fixed Block for the Stem was made up according to the instructions and fitted to the starboard side of the Stem. 

 

 

And the Roller for the bow was made up and fitted on the port side.

 

 

The rudder was next. I first tapered the rudder from forward to aft, per the instructions, and also rounded over the forward edge. The rudder hinges presented no particular problem and were installed per the instructions. Of note here is Chuck’s advice to thin these down once fitted, before adding the wire bolts. Once these were completed, the hinges were painted black, the red section painted at the head of the rudder, and the friezes applied. The tiller was made up from a section of the supplied 3/32” square stock, chucked in the Proxxon rotary handset and shaped with sandpaper and files. A small round tenon was made on the rear of the tiller and a hole drilled in the rudder to accept the tenon.

 

 

 

I also decided to take Ryland’s advice and fit the stands to the hull at this stage (actually prior to fitting the thole pins). I’ve also made up the grapnel, although there are no pictures of this yet. Here are a few overview shots showing the completed hull. The rudder has been installed in the photo but has since been removed for safe keeping to avoid damage during the next phase of building.

 

 

 

And finally, one with completed hull posed on the display stand.

 

 

On to the masting and rigging next but will probably have a slight pause while I attend to a 1:1 scale project for a friend….

[Canute]

Looking very good, Grant. Windlass turned out nicely. 👍

[Ryland Craze]

Great progress on your Longboat.  I like the last picture with the Longboat posed on the stand.  Beautiful work.

[Chuck]

Oh boy,  that is great progress.  You did a fantastic job on the hull.  Nice and clean.  I hope you are enjoying the kit.  Cant wait to see the rigging take shape.

[Rustyj]

That is some great work Glenn, GRANT. Man I'm brain dead! 

Edited January 7, 2021 by Rustyj

[gjdale]

Thanks very much for the kind comments guys. And yes Chuck, I have enjoyed this kit very much - it’s such a pleasure to work with a kit that has been so thoroughly well thought out and with such  clear instructions on HOW to go about things while still allowing some room for individual preference. I still think my planking could have been a lot better, but that is on me and I’m sure I’ll take those lessons on to the next build.

 

And Rusty, I’m sure Glenn did a fine job too....😉😎😁...

Edited December 27, 2020 by gjdale

[BobG]

Very nice, Grant. Now on to the rigging which was a really fun part of the build.

[Merriann B]

Beautiful, precise work!  Looking forward to seeing the rigging!

[EricWilliamMarshall]

She looks great. I’m work towards having the skills to do justice to this kit. I’m glad you restarted!

[gjdale]

Time for an update of sorts. Looking at my last log entry, I noted there would be slight pause while I attended to a project for a friend. That was the building of a Garden Bench / Picnic Table. It was almost immediately followed by another furniture project for home (a Hall Table), some Box-making (for charity) and then another furniture project for home, this time a Japanese-style Garden Bench to go in our newly re-modelled back yard. And suddenly, five months had passed…

 

Finally, this weekend I made a start on the mast and yards. There is not much to say about this as the process has been so well documented in the build logs of others. I followed Chuck’s advice and used his templates to take the square stock to octagonal shape first. Rather than trying to use a ruler to draw the lines, I set a drawing compass to the width on the templates and just ran that along both edges on all four sides. Before doing any shaping, I drilled all of the sheave holes while the stock was still in square section. Then I set the piece in the jig shown in the middle ground of the photo below and used a block plane to bring the pieces down to size. The jig is just a piece of MDF with a 90-degree “V” groove cut into it and a stop at one end. Two different sized grooves cater for differing stock thicknesses. The planing goes quite quickly and easily.

 

The octagonal shapes were then mounted in the lathe and rounded off with sandpaper, applying the various tapers by reference to the plans and checking regularly with the digital callipers. The only oops I had was when I tried to get too smart with the main mast and used a cutting tool on it. Bad idea! I managed to break the mast in two. Not having a stock of Alaskan Yellow Cedar ready to hand as a replacement, I decided to use a piece of Rock Maple cut from a 12mm thick board that I had in my timber stash. This worked well and the colour is a reasonable match.

 

After a relaxing afternoon at the lathe, I had a complete set of mast/spars ready for the next step.

 

 

 

[gjdale]

Progress has been slow but steady of late. I completed shaping and painting the Mast and Spars. Rather than using tape for the mast bands, I used some heat shrink tubing, which seems to have worked quite well. Eyebolts and hooks were made up as appropriate and inserted.

 

 

Here they are sort of in place:

 

 

I then made up a bunch of hooks and thimbles for the hooked blocks. I tried several ways of doing the thimbles, but in the end just cut some 2mm copper tubing in thin slices. I was unable to achieve the nice flare that Chuck did, but in final use I don’t think it’s noticeable. I wasn’t happy with my first attempt at making the hooks, so in the end remade them from brass rod and blackened them. The blocks were stopped with the provided 0.025” line and seized with 3/0 fly tying thread. Here are the final versions of the hooked blocks:

 

 

I’ve also made up the hooked deadeyes and their straps for the shrouds. I’m not altogether happy with the blackening of these parts and may end up painting them instead. I’ll do the same with the horse before starting to rig the various lines.

[Nirvana]

Grant, 

The progress of yours is amazing.

It's so clean, but I found an easy way to get the blackening done in another way.

I used matt black spray paint (enamel - Testor) and once dried a coat of flat varnish (also spray).

 

[BobG]

31 minutes ago, gjdale said:

Rather than using tape for the mast bands, I used some heat shrink tubing,

Nice work, Grant! What exactly is shrink tubing? Those bands look good. 

[gjdale]

Thanks Per - I've just used some enamel Floquil Engine Black on the horse and it has come up nicely. I will likely do the same with the other metal parts.

 

Thanks Bob. Heat shrink tubing is used in electronics. Basically it is oversized rubber(?) tubing that is meant to slide onto electrical wires prior to soldering and then slide down over the solder joint. Heat is then applied (I just used a heat gun, but any heat source will do) and as the tubing heats up it shrinks down over the joint. It comes in a variety of sizes and even in tape form. I think I pinched this idea from Blue Ensign originally - very useful where any metal band is called for. I suspect it can be further enhanced by the application of some weathering powder too.

[gjdale]

More progress! After spending considerable time preparing stropped blocks and deadeyes, and then serving sections of shrouds and stays, the rigging seemed to come together quite quickly. The Boom and Gaff were the first items added:

 

 

And a close-up showing the mess of extra lines awaiting clean-up

 

 

  

I got quite engrossed with what I was doing and forgot to take any progress shots until suddenly the rigging was all but finished. Here is an overall shot of where I’m at today:

 

 

This close-up shows the section of shrouds and stays that were served. I used my Domanoff serving machine to do this. The only hard part was remembering where I had put it as the last time I had used it was about 5 years ago! It was useful not only for serving the lines, but also for stropping the blocks and seizing the deadeyes.

 

 

I seized the deadeyes into the ends of shrouds prior to installing the shrouds and seizing them to the mast. I decided to add a throat lashing to the deadeyes and it turned out quite well. To complete the lanyards, I threaded the ends between the throat lashing and the upper deadeye and then tied a couple of half hitches. As these were working lines, I thought it would be unrealistic to seize these to the shrouds, even if it would have looked neater!

 

 

Backstays were next. Nothing much to add here, except that Chuck says to tie these off above the lower tackle block. I thought it might be more practical to tie them off just below the lower tackle block.

 

 

The forestay was the last line added. Again, nothing much to add here. The lanyard was finished off in the same way as the shrouds.

 

 

The Bowsprit is next…

[gjdale]

Quick question for Chuck (or any others who have reached this point before me): The plans and instructions are not clear about the installation of the foresail halyard. I can see the hooked block going into the stem, and the instructions say that the loose end can be belayed to any free pin on the thwart, but where does the fixed end attach? On the plans, it looks like it might be seized to the mast above the shroud/stay gang. Is this correct?

[Chuck]

Yes it is correct…just tie it around the mast above the shroud gang.  
 

the model looks excellent.  Really nice rigging work.  Very neat and clean.  
 

chuck

[Trussben]

Nice Grant.