Schooner Mary Day by jdbondy - 1:64 scale (3/16" to 1 foot)

[KeithAug]

Nice planking job and I loved the build sequence photos.

[jdbondy]

Thanks Hubac, thanks Keith!

HH, Le Francois awaits!!

[Hubac's Historian]

Will you begin the Francois, while this project progresses?  Many guys like to have simultaneous builds going.  This is something that I personally lack the discipline to do.  None of my projects would ever cross the finish-line, if I did that.

[jdbondy]

I have been working on the Francois in the sense of studying her plans, understanding her framing structure, and doing some proof of concept work on how to build up her frames most efficiently. I also got a batch of English boxwood recently, and I took a class on doing resawing with the bandsaw so I could learn about how to best use the wood. I used it to create futtocks for several frames but have not tried assembling them yet. 

[jdbondy]

I am working on a side project for the Mary Day, dedicated to carving her nameplate in miniature. At 3/16" scale, this nameboard comes out to just under 1 inch in length. So this is going to call for the microscope, as well as some specialized carving tools.

 

 

My starting tool is the #11 scalpel blade, and from there, I made very fine tools using the smallest Japanese sewing needles I could find. These were ground down using a diamond stone. From left to right, there is a "blunt tip" tool, then a "coarse" (ha ha) chisel, then a fine chisel, then a sharp point tool.

These images were taken under the microscope, focusing on the fancy detail at the edge of the nameboard.

It's simply not possible to capture an image of me actually working on the piece, as one of the eyepieces has to be replaced by the camera insert.

In general, I make tiny stop cuts in the wood using the chisel, then I force the cut open with one of the needle tip tools. Probing around with the tips of those tools frees up tiny bits of wood that are then cleared from the cuts. The cuts gradually become deep enough and wide enough that their detail becomes more visible. 

End result.

A dime for scale purposes.

As I said, the overall piece is less than 1 inch long, and perhaps 3/32" in height.

 

Next is to figure out what paint will work well to fill the letters. So far I have tried a popular water-based acrylic, but it seems too "goopy" so far. I have another brand of acrylic I can try. I do also have my ageing stash of Floquil oil based paints, but I don't know if any still remain in liquid form. I am open to suggestions on the choice of paint.

 

 

 

[jdbondy]

It's time to clean up the hull in various ways before moving on to the interior of the hull.

First I built a stand for the hull to rest upright, conveniently aided by cut-outs of four of the station shapes.

"Non-skid" was applied to the bottom, consisting of a piece of carpet pad.

This image of the bow shows two things to be addressed: First, pencil marks on the hull indicate low spots in the planking that require filling prior to fairing. Second, the topmost sheer strake is fastened to the hull so that its top edge will not be fair with anything. If I were to lay down a covering board on the top edge of this plank, there would be a big gap due to the angle between the sheer plank and the covering board. 

Also, at the stem, the top sheer plank dives down in an unacceptable manner. This area needs to be filled.

In addition to the fairing of the planking, I have to stabilize the exposed frames before I go grinding out their interior surfaces and give them the actual shape of exposed frames.

Then, the tops of the stanchions are not regular at all; they were purposefully made a little long so that they could be faired down.

I made a feeler gauge out of cardstock, with the necessary 7/16" height for the bulwarks planking. A strip was applied to the tops of the stanchions as they were faired down to the correct height.

Just ensuring that everything is nice and level.

Here I am applying a much larger than necessary strip of wood that will fill the gap at the top of the sheer planking at the bow.

Tape was then applied in order to indicate the proper sheer line. I then used a blade and a file to bring down the thickness of the plank between the stanchions, then carefully cut down the wood next to the stanchions before sanding it into a smooth sheer line.

If left uncorrected, the gap at the stem would have been very large.

I don't have many pictures documenting the fairing process. But this picture shows a strip of appropriate width filling a low spot at the level of the sheer planking. 

 

The Mary Day does not have a clear step-off between the sheer planking and the planking of the rest of the hull. When originally built, there was a clear transition between the hull planking and the sheerstrakes, but the builder (and his sons I am told) didn't like the way it looked. So they later planed out the step-off, so there is a smooth transition between the hull planking and the sheer planking.

 

Next episode I will report on my progress on the interior work.

[jdbondy]

Hmm. It seems my pictures attached to that last post somewhat out of order. Which means I didn't explain an image toward the end.

 

The last picture shows support blocks I have temporarily glued in between the bulwarks, which will next be ground down to frames. I didn't want to be violently grinding them down without some fore-and-aft support. Thanks to Greg for the suggestion of how to do this most easily. The support blocks came from the jig I used earlier in the process. I was able to individually select pieces of appropriate thickness to fit each of the gaps between frames. Once internal fairing is done, these blocks will come out and the faces of the frames will be cleaned up. They will end up being painted, as will the rest of the hull.

[KeithAug]

Hi JD

 

Nice work on the planking. in some of the shots the planking wood looks quite fibrous. is that the case or is it just the magnification?

[jdbondy]

Keith, I think it's a combination of the magnification of the image and the relative coarseness of the sanding job at that particular time.  Here is a more recent photo showing the same area after more sanding (but not finished yet). The planking is Castello boxwood.

[KeithAug]

It now looks much more like boxwood. The previous shot had me wondering if it was bass wood. Such are the tricks the camera can play. 

[jerome]

Regarding the name boards.

Have you tried gold leaf? 

[jdbondy]

Jerome, I have not tried gold leaf. I think for this tiny scale I am doing ok with paint.

[jdbondy]

Wow, it's been 6 months since my last post!

 

This next post is sort of a moment of truth. It’s time to grind out these numerous bulkheads down to forms that resemble the actual shapes of the interior framing of the boat. Which is no small task given the volume and number of these bulkheads. Numerous tools were considered for the job. The work in the above picture was done with the drum sander attachment to a Dremel.

 

Here are some hand tools I tried, in an effort to see how safely and efficiently wood could be removed.

 

But it was pretty clear that the job called for more than just a Dremel. It was time to invest in a Foredom rotary tool. The Foredom is essentially the same kind of tool as a Dremel with a flex-shaft, but there are an amazing number of handpieces that can be attached to a Foredom.

 

So I set up the workbench outside, with a hanging stand for the motor and a bullnose bit attached to the handpiece. This tool works very well and generates huge amounts of sawdust.

 

It makes quick work of grinding down the frames, but I had to make a deal with myself to only go so far with this tool. It could very easily do serious damage if I lost control of it.

 

In the bow, there are four frames just aft of the bow filler blocks that I will not grind down.

 

As a reminder, certain of the frames had been previously brought down to their proper molded dimensions, to serve as guides for future fairing of the frames between them. Three of these frames are visible here.

 

As I got closer and closer to proper molded dimensions, I decided to temporarily glue sacrificial blocks that were of the target thickness of the frames in those areas.

 

I could mark these with pencil and watch to see when I was starting to hit their surface in order to get an idea of when I was getting close.

 

Sort of like topography lines on a topo map, the blocks are lined up on the points at which each frame should have a certain molded dimension.

It was a lot of work bringing the frames down to their proper dimensions. Here I am using sandpaper to take off the really coarse marks left behind by the bullnose bit.

 

 

 

 

This was how I handled the forward third of the hull. In the middle third, I kept the bulkheads in place for the moment, because I wasn’t certain of the stability of the hull.

 

In order to stabilize the ground-out bow segment, I moved on to installation of the deck clamps. In this picture, the measuring blocks for the molded dimensions of the frames at the level of the sheerline have been removed. In their place, new blocks have been installed that properly space the deck clamps from the sheerline.

 

Using these blocks, the initial stringer of the deck clamps was installed. (I guess this particular piece would be called the deck clamp, and then additional pieces inboard of it would be the beam shelf.)

 

These spacer blocks were then removed.

 

Here the thickness guide blocks are being removed from the areas where proper thickness has been achieved.

That is a very satisfying look.

 

If you look closer, though, you can see the difference between the frames that were made from sandwiched layers of Castello boxwood and those made with Baltic birch plywood. Also visible are beads of squeezed-out glue from planking installation.

 

Now I moved on to the stern third. The two aftmost bulkheads will stay in place.

 

Once again, the bullnose bit was used initially.

 

And then thickness guides were installed. I really needed a faster way to bring the frames down to proper thickness, without the violence of the bullnose bit.

 

I had seen this device used by other builders on their build logs, and it appeared to be ideal for getting into small areas better than any other attachment. It requires a different handpiece attachment to the Foredom (a right angle attachment) and is a bit of an investment, but the same handpiece can be used for other useful things like an angle grinder.

 

 

After smoothing the frames, the deck clamp was installed.

 

Then on to the midships portion of the hull, with the same technique. Here I am using a hand held thingie to which I could apply adhesive-backed 60 grit sandpaper for fairing of the interior surfaces of the midships frames.

 

These support blocks did their job of supporting the free-floating frames in the unplanked portion of the hull.

 

The midships portions of the deck clamps are being installed.

 

Then the keelson was manufactured in 3 parts. It was carried to just short of the deadwood.

 

The keelson installed.

 

 

 

Deck clamps and beam shelves fully installed.

 

Time to remove the support pieces of wood between the frames.

 

 

 

In addition to the unplanked frames, a portion of the deck in this same area will be omitted to show the deck beams, carlings, and ledges.

 

Primer has been applied to the exposed frames.

 

I applied some paint just to see how it would look, and the appearance indicated that smoothing with filler would be necessary. Doing this helped to make the frames look the same as one another, whether they were sandwiched boxwood or birch plywood.

 

This was after 2-3 coats of brown paint.

 

Since the deck will be partially unplanked, I also applied the paint to the portion of the interior that would be visible through an unplanked portion of decking.

 

This picture gives a preview of some of the deck beams and carlings. This process will be covered in the next post.

 

[druxey]

Oh, man; that was labor intensive work! Result looks great, though.

[Hubac's Historian]

She’s rounding into form beautifully, J.D.

[ccoyle]

I don't think I've ever seen a POF hull built in that manner before, but the end result looks great!

[jdbondy]

Thanks, Druxey, Hubac, and Chris. Yes Chris, the manner was chosen because of the fact that at this scale, frames would be entirely too fragile to stand up to the planking process.

[jdbondy]

Time to start building the deck structure, which will help solidify the sides of the hull. I had been thinking about installing temporary spalls, but the shape of the hull seemed very stable without them and it didn’t seem to change much when I was fitting the deck beams at the point of maximum beam.

 

I made a pattern template for the curvature of the beams to match the camber of the deck on the actual ship. On one of my visits to the Mary Day, I strung a string from one side to the other at the point of maximum beam, secured with tape to a stanchion on each side. I then dropped the string on each side until it barely touched the deck in the centerline, then measured the height at each stanchion. The rise in the centerline was 4.5”. I then used the method described by Chapelle in his Boatbuilding text to draw out the appropriate curve on cardstock. Which is challenging to do at this small scale. This was then transferred to a piece of wood for additional stability.

 

Some of the beams were made with Castello boxwood, while I started to splurge with some English (Buxus) boxwood for some of them so I could see if it was noticeably different from the Castello. The pattern was transcribed onto stock of appropriate thickness, for both the upper and lower surfaces of the beams. Multiple pieces of appropriate length were created, and the center point on the curve was also transferred to each piece.

The joint of each beam with the planking and each beam shelf was often very complicated and called for a lot of trial fitting. Trimming at each end was very gradual and symmetric in order to try to preserve the position of the centerline marks.

There were multiple facets of the joints that had to be trimmed in a symmetric fashion, as the beams articulate with not just the beam shelf but also with the frames themselves.

This beam is almost completely flush with the sheer strake.

A lot of work just to install the eight deck beams, and that was after I decided to neglect some beams normally found near the stern.

These Castello beams have their center points marked. There is a fine thread strung from stern to stem, and it appears that they don’t quite line up. The difference is about 1/32”. I am thinking that the stem may be leaning to one side a tiny bit.

Next up are the carlings that make up the support for the deck houses. This will be my first opportunity to cut joints. The plans indicate dovetail joints, but I decided to cut square joints.

Marking off the joint locations and cutting the carling to length.

The microscope was a huge help in cutting these joints.

This joint actually has a bit more of a gap in it than I was shooting for. But overall they made for a very rigid deck structure, and it was a very satisfying process.

Time for the ledges. In the areas of the deck that are to remain unplanked, all of the ledges will be installed. But in the areas to be covered over, I decided to install every other ledge.

This particular carling was a lot of work, with ten joints in it. Each had to be placed accurately, so that the ledges would stay parallel and would articulate properly with their corresponding frames.

Due to all this trial and error, I set the model right next to where I was cutting the joints under the microscope so I didn’t have to keep getting up from the microscope and go back to the workbench.

Each ledge was of course unique, as they had to be of the proper length, they had to have proper camber, and they had to be notched on the underside to articulate with the beam shelf.

Port and starboard side surrounding the forward deckhouse is done. Also installed are coamings for a forward hatch, as well as the mast partners.

Now moving towards the stern, with all but one carling trimmed to length and installed.

All carlings cut to length. But not glued in place yet, until I was satisfied with how everything articulated.

In order to make sure that I painted all interior areas that would be visible following deck planking, I covered the entire deck with the exception of the area that would remain unplanked, then visually inspected the interior. Fortunately it looked like everything was covered.

Pretty happy with how the frames have turned out.

Painting this area accurately will be tricky, since I will want the exterior surface painted accurately, but the cut surfaces of the planks will need to be brown.

 

All beams, carlings, and ledges were dry-fitted to make sure everything is shipshape. Then, the ledges in the area that will be exposed were removed and everything else was glued into place.

Before painting the areas that would remain exposed, I addressed cutting down these two bulkheads at the stern to appropriate height. The more forward of the two was marked using a template of the deck camber.

The excess was carefully chiseled away to allow for a fair run of planking as dictated by this batten.

Painting of the exposed deck structure was then performed. The beams and carlings were painted, sanded, and re-painted while in place. The ledges were painted to appropriate smoothness prior to installation.

The unpainted ledges indicate where the planking will cover.

 

All painting and installation is complete.

 

Several spalls were added to two forward bulkheads to provide support for the deck planking in the bow. This area was also sanded with coarse sandpaper in an effort to start the deck fairing process.

 

That was very satisfying! And even more exciting will be when the deck planking begins to take shape. But at the same time, I am obsessing about fabricating the covering boards, which are very complex and delicate in shape. Next post!

 

[jdbondy]

The covering boards are very complicated and completely bespoke pieces. Still working on them and I hope to have an update soon. I am just hoping that I don’t break any of them!

[Wawona59]

What a fantastic build log jdbondy!  I've learned a lot from your log and the different approach you took building the hull.  These have been filed away and archived for future reference when I finally have the skills to build my dream project; the Lumber Schooner Wawona in 1/8 or 3/16 scale.  Beautiful Work!

 

[jdbondy]

Hi John, thanks for your post. I bet the Wawona is well documented and should make for a very interesting build!

 

I will be posting some stuff here soon as I regain momentum on my build project.

 

 

[jdbondy]

Back in July I lost momentum on working on the hull of the model. Happily, one of the distracting projects was deciding to work on a carved version of the transom carving, shown above. This decoration was added to the schooner after its refit in the year 2000 time frame. I don’t know who created the carving for them.

 

In the off season, the carving hangs on the wall at the skipper’s house. I took a picture of the carving hanging on the wall in the winter of 2022. Its actual dimensions are 5 ft 9 inches across and about 2 feet in height. Its approximate thickness is 3 inches total. At 3/16” scale, this will translate to a total width of just over 1 inch.

 

I was able to take an image and reduce it to the appropriate scale, then I used tracing paper to copy the outline of the shield, pennant, and eagle. This was then transferred to a piece of boxwood about 1/8” thick. To be safe, I transferred the pattern to two pieces of wood in case I screwed something up along the way. So far, though, the backup piece has not been necessary.

This and other pics that look like it were taken through the viewpiece of my microscope. The traced pattern is evident, and I have already started working out the right side of the eagle, shield, and pennant.

Now both sides are getting worked out.

This photo shows some relief involving the body and legs of the eagle.

Now jump forward substantially, and lots of details have been worked in. Dots on the pennant indicate where the stars will be. The talons haven’t been worked out yet.

As predicted, the carving has a maximal dimension of just over 1 inch.

This is my microscope setup. Thanks to Margie Buckingham, widow of Doug Tolbert, who offered for sale this articulating microscope!

A jeweler’s ball vise is essential for this kind of work.

And now I am carving out the stars from the surface of the blue area of the pennant. The talons have also been defined.

Painting is now under way. The blue is much too electric, so I added a small amount of black paint to it. White paint has been dropped into the recessed stars. I was warned that the paint may obscure the surface details of the eagle, but I was pleased with how it turned out.

I have darkened the blue paint. Much better.

And now I have carved away some of the splotches of paint that were on the backing wood.

 

So after about 45 hours of work, it is pretty much finished! When the time comes to mount it, I plan to very carefully carve off the wood from the backside of the piece. The piece and its backing is glued to a separate piece of wood that is clamped in the vise. Rather than soaking the piece to free it from the other piece of wood, I plan to gradually carve it free. I will wait to do this step until it’s time to mount it because the freed piece will be exceedingly fragile on its own and I don’t want to risk damaging it. The workpiece started out as a 1/8” thickness piece of wood, and when I am done carving off the backside it will be around 1/16” in thickness. Wow.

 

I am happy to report that I have regained momentum on the rest of the model project, so I should soon have a new post that is about the covering boards.

 

[druxey]

Sweet! Looks almost better than the full sized original! Well done, JD.

[Retired guy]

What a fantastic build you are doing Jon, really like all your pictures showing how you did it.

Carvings are brilliant 👍

 

Regards

Richard

[Jim Lad]

Excellent work, JD. That seagull has turned out really well! 

 

John

[Hubac's Historian]

Excellent work all-around!  That eagle carving is very nicely done and very small!

[KeithAug]

Wonderful eagle 👏

[jerome]

Beautiful workmanship!

I hope you are sending images to the Captain.

he will be very impressed.

Is Barry King still Captain?

[Rick310]

Beautiful work!!

Rick

[davec]

JD - not sure how I never came across this log before - amazing project.  The eagle carving is magnificent!

 

Dave