Rattlesnake by JSGerson - FINISHED - Mamoli - 1:64 - Using Robert Hunt’s practicum

[Chuck Seiler]

JS,

 

I just came upon your log. I am planning on building the Hunt bashed MS Rattlesnake in the near future. I will review your build log in great detail and will refer to it often.

[JSGerson]

Thanks, you verified my thinking

[JSGerson]

Chuck, I welcome another Rattler. You will find I have documented a lot of errors. Just don't follow too close and make the same ones! 8-)

[historyguysteve]

Hi JS

   I just got the Rattlesnake by Model Shipways and I was looking for some good tutorials and lo and behold here you were to the rescue. I note that you are starting on the rigging. Allow me to give a small piece of advice. You have to get at least two books - Lennarth Petersons 'Rigging Period Ship Models' and either Roth 'Ship Modelling Stem to Stern' OR capitain Biddelcome 'The Art of Rigging'.

   ALL of your rigging questions will be answered - I promise your money (these books are actually really affordable) will be well repaid in time saved - every conceivable question will be answered in one of these works.

   BTW GREAT JOB so far - I'm really looking forward to the finished results.

   Maybe some day I'll be brave enough to start my own build log.

   Steve (historyguysteve)

[JSGerson]

Steve - When I started this build soooo long ago I knew nothing except how to follow directions. I had no books and few ship building skills. Now I have so many directions it gets confusing, as I have noted above numerous times. Actually I have all of the books you mentioned plus another 20 or so. I have spent a fortune in books alone. My latest one is The Fully Framed Model, Rigging a Sixth Rate Sloop of 1767 - 1780 Vol. IV by David Antscherl which excellent. I wish I had known about and read his first three volumes when building the Rattlesnake hull. That's one of the reasons I go so slow, I'm always pouring through my reference library.

 

I can't stress enough the importance of a build log. I was afraid, like you, to write a log knowing there were craftsmen out there who had skills way beyond mine. I was pushed and reluctantly started to write. It was the best thing I could have done. Just organizing my thoughts to tap them out on the keyboard helped me understand what I was doing, plus the feedback was invaluable.

 

Jon

[JSGerson]

Finally, I've drilled what seemed like a billion holes into the fighting tops.

[JSGerson]

I finally got to cut the boxwood pieces for the trestletrees (1/8” x 1/16”) and its crosstrees (3/16” x 1/16”).

[JSGerson]

These were in turn notched using the Byrnes Saw and the sides angled using a disc sander for their clean cuts and consistency.

[JSGerson]

Once dry fitted and trimmed, the trestletrees and the crosstrees were mated and glued together using WeldBond. I chose the white glue over the CA glue because it gave me wiggle room to make sure everything was square before it set.

[JSGerson]

The chocks are the little cross pieces inside the trestle tree. According to the Practicum, the aft piece is glued in place butted against the aft crosstree. According to everyone else, it a bit forward of the aft crosstree. The chocks were made from 1/32” x 3/32” boxwood in the shape of a “T” with a fat stem. A set of notches were cut with an X-Acto knife for the aft chock first based on Hahn’s plans. With that chock set in place as a dry fit, the assembly was then slipped over its mast to determine where the forward chock was to be placed. The forward chock notches were then cut.

 

Additionally the Practicum called for bolsters to be made from 1/32” square boxwood a little later on. I saw no reason why they couldn’t be set into place at this point. Unfortunately, I had run out of 1/32” square boxwood, so I used 1/16 x 3/32”. The bolsters have a quarter circle cross section to allow lines to drape over them without damaging them.

[JSGerson]

The platforms were then glued into position on the trestletree/crosstree structures. The images below show the fighting tops on their mast as a dry fit. They won’t be glued into place until all the components of the masts have been made.

[MEDDO]

Outstanding!

[Martin W]

Jon -- It's nice to see all 3 masts there together.  Well done.

 

Martin

[scott larkins]

Looking good.

[KenW]

Just started following your build log.  Very outstanding - both in showing your growing skills and as a set of instructions for someone like me who is thinking of attempting this kit bashed model for his next challenge.  

I look forward to watching your rigging adventures and advise.

Keep it coming!

Cheers.

[JSGerson]

Welcome aboard, glad to have another spectator, but be prepared for a long read. I work slow. That's because I usual don't know what I'm doing and have to mentally figure it out. And I make mistakes...lots of them. If I am not making the same mistake twice, I'm usually trying out a new one 8-).

 

If you are going to make the Rattlesnake, I strongly suggest getting Robert Hunt's Practicum. It may not be perfect (as I had documented), but I could not have gotten as far as I have without it.

[KenW]

Thanks for the welcome.  I still have a lot of work left on my current build, so I don't worry about your speed.  As a "friend" on this site (russ) says, "T'aint a hobby if you hurry".  And besides, even if I started tomorrow, it would take me quite a while to catch up with you.

So have fun, and I will keep watching.

Cheers.

[JSGerson]

According to the Practicum, Mr. Hunt constructed each mast assembly as a whole before moving on to the next one. I elected to work on all the masts at once working my up. The instructions give you the choice of using stock square boxwood or the dowels to create the remaining mast sections. I would have preferred using the boxwood as I did for the spares stored under the ship’s boat, but I did not have much left of the sizes I needed or the size called was not part of the wood package [3/16” square boxwood for the mizzen mast], so I used the dowels.

 

I found myself actually squaring the dowels to get the proper widths along the length of the masts based on Hahn’s plans and then rounding them out again. Unfortunately my lathe is a bit too heavy for the delicate turning required -it was all done by hand.

 

The topmast trestletrees were constructed based directly on Hahn’s plans, not the dimensions the Practicum gave. I found that the plans of Mamoli, MS, and the Practicum were not consistent in their measurements of the trestletree, so I fell back to Harold Hahn.

[JSGerson]

The image below shows the dry fit of the masts. The mast caps will be painted black because I didn’t have any ebony wood. All of the blocks, rings, etc. will be installed before the first masts are installed into the hull.

[KenW]

Glad to see your build is coming along.  I take it you are not painting the masts except for the mast caps.

They look good - and I like the wooldings.

Cheers.

[JSGerson]

Having never built a wooden 3 masted ship before, I really put a lot on my plate especially because I was "coloring" the model by using different woods. No chance to cover errors with wood filler and paint. The Practicum called for the use of ebony in many places but at the time I purchased the wood package from HobbyMills, Jeff Hayes its owner, didn't have any. So where ever you see black, it's painted because it should have been ebony wood. As near as I can tell, it still looks OK.

[Martin W]

Hi Jon -- Glad to see you're back at it.  The trestle trees look good; they can be surprisingly tricky, since they're a bit small and vary in size.  Like you, I relied on Hahn's dimensions, but studied the MS plans diligently to get all the blocks in place.  Even after I mounted the masts, however, I still found that I'd missed some details and had to squeeze my fat hands through everything to put them in place.

 

As for the ebony -- I managed to get some for the Ratt, and actually found it pretty unpleasant to work with.  It doesn't take shapes willingly -- won't bend.  And I've heard over and over again that the dust is toxic, so that sanding has to be done carefully.  Most people, I think, do what you did, and that is dye an easier wood.  I painted some of the QD rails, and in the end can't tell the difference between them and the ebony.

 

Cheers,

 

Martin

[JSGerson]

I heard the same thing about the ebony wood. I guess it was a blessing in disguise I didn't use it. And you are right, those trestletrees were tricky and delicate. I broke a few pieces it its construction. The masts will be installed piece by piece as the rigging progresses...at least that the plan. I still have to create the bowsprit parts not to mention the all the yards. So I got a bit more work to complete before full fledged rigging commences. 

[Martin W]

Jon -- There's actually quite a bit of riggin you can do while the masts & spars are off the ship.  Especially with the bowsprit, if you attach the spars to the mast, you can then attach many of the running lines, giving yourself plenty of extra line that will be belayed onto pins later on.  I made a secure base to hold the masts and bowsprit so that I could rig them by drilling large holes into an 8" long 2x6 -- 2x4s weren't stable enough. 

 

It's surprising that what seems like chaos before you start, really turns into a logical series of (somewhat repetitive) steps that make real sense.

 

You'll enjoy it.

 

Cheers,

 

Martin

[JSGerson]

That is the plan. Do as much as I can off ship where it's relatively easier.

[JSGerson]

Bowsprit

 

The last of the masts to be made were the Bowsprit and the jib boom. Actually I made the basic bowsprit way back when I was constructing the bulwarks and needed the bowsprit to measure for the bowsprit bow opening. That was before I realized that Mr. Hunt was cutting corners and was not all that accurate with his dimensions it the late stages of the Practicum. As it turned out, the Practicum called for the bowsprit to be 5 1/16” long which I blindly followed and made back then. However according to Harold Hahn’s plans, it’s actually 5 7/8”. A new bowsprit has to be constructed.

[JSGerson]

What I thought would be straight forward and fairly simple…well, I got an education. Hahn’s plans only had an elevation view which indicated the Bees were 3/4” in length x 3/64” in depth and the Bee blocks were ½” in length x 3/64” in depth; therefore no width, rigging hole pattern, or plan view shape were shown. The Practicum stated the bees were 1/8” wide and the bee blocks 1/32” square. Looking at the two kit plans, they indicated the bees were between 5/16” to a ½” length. Both the Practicum and the kit plans showed one rigging hole per side diagonal from each other all with subtly different shapes. Here is what the Practicum would have you build: 

 

[JSGerson]

According to James Lees’ The Masting and Rigging of English Ships of War 1625 – 1860 the Bee’s dimensions are as follows:

 

Bees

·        Length: Same as the length of the bowsprit cap

·        Width: ½ the greatest diameter of the bowsprit

·        Thickness: ¼ of the width at the edge next to the bowsprit thinning to ¾ width at the outer edge

 

Bee Blocks

·        Length: 7/9 the length of the bees

·        Width: ½ the bees width

·        Thickness: 2” per bees’ foot length

 

Configuration

The bees stood up from the level at the outer edge by the thickness of the inner edge plus 1”

[JSGerson]

Shape

[JSGerson]

Based on the above and rounding out for 1/64 scale, I determined that the bees on my model should be:

 

Bees

·        Length: ½”

·        Width: 3/64”

·        Thickness: 1/32” at the bowsprit

 

Bee Blocks

·        Length: 25/64” rounded to 3/8”

·        Width: 3/128” rounded to 1/32”

·        Thickness: 5/64” rounded to 3/32”

 

Here is a case where nobody agreed on the shape, dimensions, and number and shape of the rigging holes. As a confirmation as what the bees should look like, David Antscherl’s The Fully Framed Model, Rigging a Sixth Rate Sloop of 1767 – 1780, Volume IV, showed this:

 

Now all I have to do is follow David.

Edited August 12, 2014 by JSGerson