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

[bdr449]

[JSGerson]

Igor - I understand, that was my intention. They ended up looking like they do because they were based on the measurement from Hahn's plans which my model pretty much approximates. It should be an exact match but somehow it didn't work out that way. It's easy to draw lines on an image to get the exact angle but I wasn't quite certain how to do it with accuracy on the model itself. I suppose I will have to adjust them in the future when I know better where the lines will actually be. Thanks for your insight.

[Martin W]

Jon -- You have my sympathy.  On my first model, I tried doing a mock-up of the masts set in the deck, then running lines from the tops to try establishing the angles for the chainplates.  I got just about every angle consistently wrong.  For the Ratt, I just waited until I was belaying the shrouds.  Ok, I got the angle right, but the lengths of the chainplates (which I custom made, using a jig to make them all the same) ended up at different heights up and down the hull. 

 

 

Next time??  Dunno -- maybe I'll have to work on my understanding of basic geometry.

 

Enjoy your New Year!

 

Martin

[JSGerson]

Miscellaneous Stuff

 

It was time to install three more items to the deck, two of which I had previous fabricated. First the tiller was added to the rudder post and the binnacle was glued to the deck. The third item, the “iron horse” was not addressed in the Practicum. This piece is nothing more than an upside down square shaped “U” wire structure behind the rudder post. Seemed simple enough, but because of the problems I encountered earlier with the transom and quarter deck, I had little room for its installation. My rudder post was practically against the transom. So being technically minded and handy with the tools, I fudged it, artistic license…so sue me. The kit called for brass wire, but that is very soft and therefore deforms very easily. I chose to use music (piano) wire. It’s dark in color and very stiff.  My “horse” had to go above the rudder post for clearance due space considerations I mentioned earlier. As a result, mine looks a bit tall and narrow as opposed shorter which would make it look squatter. 

[JSGerson]

Boarding Ladders

 

Surprisingly (or not) the Practicum also does not address the boarding ladder, those little steps on the outside of the hull. Mamoli does have an illustration as to how to construct them but I didn’t like the looks of it when I reviewed how other models made theirs. they were to be made with stacked upside down L-shaped channels. So to put it into technical terms, I winged it.

 

Based on the picture of the steps I “guestimated” their dimensions. The steps are not simply slabs of wood stuck to the side of the hull. They appear to be either two layers of wood, one smaller than the other, or one thick piece carved.

 

Because of the size of the step pieces, I chose to make each out of one piece of wood. I converted my rotary drill into a pseudo router again using a dentist sized ball burr tip as my cutter. A piece of 1/16” x 3/32” boxwood about 2” long was placed into my pseudo router to cut an inverted rounded corner along the whole length of wood strip. Then eight ¼” pieces were cut, four steps for each side of the model. The new two edges of each piece were then “routed” leaving the fourth side untouched.

 

Edited April 18, 2014 by JSGerson

[JSGerson]

Pins were then added for added strength when attaching to the side of the hull

Edited April 17, 2014 by JSGerson

[JSGerson]

At this point, according to the Practicum, the hull is complete. What is left in Chapter nine of the Practicum to complete is the ship’s boat and the spare masts it rests on; and maybe a tweak or two here and there. Here are a couple of parting shots.

 

Well, it not perfect. I would have been very surprised if it was but it will have to do.

Edited April 17, 2014 by JSGerson

[Martin W]

That's a good looking build, there, Jon.  You've done the Practicum more than justice. 

 

I like your solution with the boarding steps.  I used my Byrnes saw to cut the bottom rabbets -- it was a bit tricky, and not nearly as safe as your solution, but it worked.  It's also good that you reinforced them with those pins -- I've knocked mine off several times.

 

That iron horse gave me trouble as well, and it's something that other Rattlesnake builders should keep in mind.  First I had to make several adjustments to the rudder and the way the post passes through the Captain's Cabin.  And then because, as you say, Bob doesn't address the issue (and I really think something is off in his explanation of how to align the rudder post), I couldn't figure out what the MS plans were showing. 

 

You might want to go over the MS plans before getting too far along with the rigging to check on all the eyebolts and ringbolts you'll need to install.  There are a couple at the base of the main mast that require some fine maneuvering -- I broke my pumps about 5 different times.

 

Congratulations on a great looking build!

 

Martin

[JSGerson]

I had thought about the eyebolts and elected not to install them at this time because I thought a block or something would be attached to them. I reasoned that it would be easier to seize a line or add a block to the eyebolts off-ship and then install the complete component at once like I did for the cannon rigging. I would install eyebolts that are not used (say for use with the running rigging) now if I only knew which ones they were.

[Martin W]

If you read the parts of the MS plans in read, you can work out which lines belay to bolts.

 

Your idea of waiting to install the bolts with the blocks is probably good.  6 or half a dozen, I'd say.

 

Cheers,

 

Martin

[scott larkins]

Wow, that looks GREAT!!!.  I can only hope my model looks half that good.

[Senior ole salt]

That sure is a great looking model. I have the same  ship in just about the same stage. It has sat on a shelf now for about 3 years. Why one might ask. Well I'm wary about painting it. That is where I screw up the most. I'd like to preserve the look of the planked hull but afraid the paint might hide the planking detail. Are thined out acrylics good enough ? 

[JSGerson]

Sr. Old Salt - This model was built using Robert Hunt's Practicum with the expressed intention that it would NOT be painted. That is why different colored woods were used. That being said, some paint was used primarily for the black color. Ideally I would have used Ebony wood in these areas but my supplemental wood package did not come with any. That may have been a blessing as I have read that Ebony is very hard and difficult to work with and the wood dust is slightly toxic.

 

I'm no expert on paints so I can't tell you off the top of my head whether to use diluted paint, stain, or dye acrylic or otherwise. If it were me, I would try out some test strips and see what happens.

 

If anyone out there knows more about this, please jump in.

[JSGerson]

Spare Main Topsail Yard and Main Topsail Mast

 

The Practicum’s next step is the Ship’s boat and then the spare Main Topsail yard and Main Topsail mast. I’m reversing the order and building the spares first. The boat has to be mounted on the spares so I might as well make them first.

 

These are my first ever yard and mast constructions, so bear with me. Luckily any mistakes I make will probably be hidden under the ship’s boat.

 

CAUTION:

 

Because the spares are obviously duplicate pieces that have to be made again for the model, Mr. Hunt copied pasted the instructions from Chapter 1 of Rigging of the Rattlesnake into Chapter 9 of Modeling the Rattlesnake. Also since the steps required to make one mast and its yards are duplicated to make the other two, he states that most everything is the same except for the dimensions. All fine and good except that all of the detailed instructions for the yards and mast are for the Foremast. When he copied those instructions into Chapter 9 he didn’t alter the dimensions for the spares which are for the Main mast.

 

The builder must ignore the dimensions given in Chapter 9 for the spares. They are for the Foremast topsail yard and fore topsail mast. The Builder must take off his own dimensions from Hahn’s plans.

 

It took me a while to figure this out. Luckily I didn't cut much material before I realized something was amiss.

 

Spare Main Topsail Yard

 

Of the two spares, the topsail yard looked easier to create. Staring with a 6” piece of 1/8” x 1/8” boxwood, I rounded and tapered the ends to length as indicated on Hahn’s plans. Interesting enough, neither the Mamoli plans nor the Model Shipways plans provided separate drawings or dimensions for the mast sections or yards. The center of the yard is eight sided. This looked easy enough to do, just trim off the four corners to make eight. Not so, I had a lot of difficultly maintaining an even cut.

 

If anyone knows a simple yet effective way to precisely cut a square cross section into an octagon, I would love to hear about it. I've got a bunch more carving to do soon.

 

The cleats were made from 1/16” boxwood. The Practicum did not state to add them, but because of other Practicum omissions I've documented, I couldn't be certain they weren't supposed to be there or not. I just don’t how complete the spares were built when stored on board ship.

[Martin W]

That octagon gave me fits too.  Every one of the instructions I've read make it sound easy, but I found that when I smoothed out one of the 8 sides, it made 2 of the others too narrow.  If I recall, though, Blue Ensign -- that repository of skills and information -- has an account of cutting the octagon.  My guess is that it just takes lots of practice and care.

 

After using the electric drill method for trimming down the spars (which does work well), I switched to using hand tools -- cutting the basic shape with an exacto, and then clamping the wood so I could run a narrow band of sand paper over the spar.  That worked just as well or better, and I had fewer broken pieces.

 

Good luck!

 

Martin

[TBlack]

Jon,

 

I drop in from time to time to watch your progress. You may think the model is not perfect, but you're the only one who knows that, so keep it to yourself. She looks pretty good to me.

 

With regard to installing blocks later, I'm sure it doesn't matter one way or the other, but be aware that you'll need to get your pin vise down on the deck to make holes for the eye bolts. You might want to put the holes in now while you've got swinging room for the drilling.

 

Tom

[JSGerson]

TBlack - Thanks for dropping in. Your tip for putting in the eyebolt holes now is a good idea. I'm so used to drilling holes and immediately filling them with something it just never occurred to me to leave the holes open. It's so obvious, I just didn't think to do it.

 

As for perfection, I never expected it, being relatively new to this aspect of model building. I was just trying to convey to others that although it's not perfect, it's good enough for my purposes and those imperfections will not be noticed by 99% of the people who will actually view the physical model. If anything I want to encourage new builders to try their skills and not be discouraged by errors along the way. For me, the enjoyment is the journey of the build, the model is just the trophy of the journey.

[JSGerson]

Spare Main Topsail Mast

 

The other spare is the Main Topsail Mast which is a little bit more complicated to make. It starts off as a 6 1/8” piece of 5/32” x 5/32” boxwood. I measured off where all the transitions from square to round to octagon sections were. Hahn’s plans conveniently provide the thicknesses of the mast and yards at multiple key points to get the proper shape. One just has to remember that those numbers are for the original scale of ¼”=1’. Each of the dimensions had to be reduced by 74% to get to the 1:64 scale.

Edited April 17, 2014 by JSGerson

[JSGerson]

Two holes had to drilled for the sheave at the top and a square hole at the bottom for the fid. The square hole was made by drilling the appropriate size hole with my Dremel drill press and then cutting out the corners. One can’t tell, but the “squareness” of the hole is just near the surface. 

Edited April 17, 2014 by JSGerson

[JSGerson]

Using my newly constructed V-block jig, the spare mast was cut, carved, filed, and sanded to shape. 

Edited April 17, 2014 by JSGerson

[JSGerson]

The spares were then glued to the bits. In this photo they haven’t been lashed down yet.

Edited April 17, 2014 by JSGerson

[scott larkins]

Nice work on those.  I'm not looking forward to that step.  May be picking your brain when I get there.  Say, later this year.  LOL

[JSGerson]

Scott - Welcome aboard the Rattlesnake Armada! It's nice to see another "Rattler." There are a number of us building this classic here as you know and probably many of the problems that you may encounter will already have been discussed at length on other builds be they Rattlesnake or others. There are no stupid questions. If you don't know or can't find the info, just ask. Enjoy your build.

[Martin W]

Hi Jon -- That's good progress on those spars.  These make for pretty good practice runs, since any mistakes you make here will be covered up by the boat.  I think you'll find that sanding -- especially with the finer grits -- and 2 or 3 coats of polyurethane will make good spars and masts look outstanding.

 

Cheers,

 

Martin

[bdr449]

Hello Jonathan and all zmeelovy! Good is a mast. I am a "Rattler." completed. Progress in construction.
Sincerely, Igor

[bdr449]

Here's what I've got

[scott larkins]

Nice.  Got any more pics of the back and close ups of the rope work and bow?  thye may inspire the rest of us.

[JSGerson]

That's one good looking ship, Igor! I hope mine comes close to that. I go along with Mr. Larkins, more pictures!

 

Make sure you protect it by putting it in a case. It would be a shame if it got dusty or damaged sitting out in the open.

 

For mine, the last few weeks has been going slow for one reason or another but some progress has been made. Hopefully I'll post something new soon.

[JSGerson]

NOTE:

 

The last item in Modeling the Rattlesnake - Chapter 9 is the Ship’s Boat. I’m going to put that off for a bit. I will explain latter.

 

Rigging the Rattlesnake - Chapter 1

I never thought I’d see the day; it’s been a little over four years to get here.

 

The Masts

The Fore Mast

 

The Practicum starts off with the construction of the Fore Mast. The masts do not have a simple shape; they have cross sections that are round, square, octagonal, and rectangular.  I did not follow the Practicum exactly. The Practicum would have the builder make the square cross section first and then taper the round cross section area next, but I had a small simple wood lathe I wanted to try. 

Edited April 17, 2014 by JSGerson

[JSGerson]

As stated previous, the Hahn Plans provide cross sectional dimensions (provided one recomputed them for the 74% reduction in Plan size). The only dimension that couldn't be used was the total length of the mast since it didn't reach into the bowels of the model.

 

Starting with a ¼” dowel, it had to be inserted into the deck opening and marked where it protruded through the forecastle deck. Now the mast could be measured 7” long above the forecastle deck. With the dowel marked and cut to a working length for the lathe, and armed with course sand paper on rasp like holder, and a micrometer, I proceeded to create the contour of the fore mast taking measurements along the shaft of the dowel as material was removed to match the plans. All fine and good.

 

Now I had to square the top of the mast, not so easy, the mast was now tapered except where it was held by the lathe. I wanted to use the Byrnes saw to provide nice clean and precise cuts. I needed to remove material from the round cross section and end up with a 3/16” square cross section. Not trusting my own measurements, I removed a little at a time, and measuring each time I cut. Also the dowel had to be rotated exactly 90° to make cuts again. What made it so tricky was that I had to hold the dowel at the unmodified ends so it was square against the saw fence.

 

Actually I did try it the other way first, squaring off the mast top and then placing it in the lathe. Whether I set up my lathe wrong or something else, when the lathe began to turn, the dowel broke as it twisted where it was square cut. It wasn’t pretty.

 

Surprisingly (or not) the Practicum did not address the iron rings around the mast. Following Blue Ensign’s lead I made them out of file folder card stock. They were colored black with a Sharpie pen and glued into place with Weld Bond glue first gluing one end of the strip then waiting a bit before wrapping and gluing it around the mast and trimming off the excess.

Edited April 17, 2014 by JSGerson