KAROO 1930 by Mark Pearse - FINISHED - 1:12 - 20' open sailing boat - half-hull - SMALL

[Bedford]

She's looking beautiful Mark

[BANYAN]

Just came across your build Mark, your half model is looking great.  I am into bigger vessels, but the grace and beauty of these 'flyers' catch my imagination.  Following along with interest.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[Mark Pearse]

Thank you Steve, & welcome Pat. This one isn't one of the skiffs, although her shape is certainly influenced by them. 

 

More progress. Tiller arm roughed up & rough sanded.

 

 

Next, the centreboard. Better get out the extra delicate thicknesser for this job...

 

Sawn, planed, sanded, shaped & approximately in position. Looks little too far forward.

[Mark Pearse]

I have been reflecting a mirror surface for mounting the half model. Glass has issues in that the reflective surface is at the back of the glass & you would see that as a gap between the half model  & its reflection. I thought about chrome or nickel plated brass, but in my experience there's some surface corrosion & it would need regular polishing to remove. I'd been investigating mirror finish stainless steel, even though the colour is a bit cool. Anyway, I managed to get an offcut at a good price.

 

The SS sheet is 750 x 300mm, not yet polished. This poor photo gives an idea of the proportion.

 

As an aside for those that love tools (which is probably everyone on this forum), the mate who I got the SS from makes acoustic guitars in his spare time. The pic below shows part of his workshop - the timber hand planes he made himself. I have never seen dovetail saws like these ones, they were a pleasure to hold.

 

 

 

[Bedford]

serious tool envy

[BANYAN]

That SS looks good, yep a little cool but as your hull is 'pale' it suits/compliments I think.  Tool envy indeed; they are some seriously nice hand tools.

 

cheers

 

Pat

Edited May 18, 2021 by BANYAN

[Tony Hunt]

He must spend several days a week sharpening!

 

[vaddoc]

Wonderful tool set. How very clean and tidy, every plane has its own tight fit partition.

I actually like this blue background Mark, reminds me of the blue sky we have not seen in the UK since last summer...

[Mark Pearse]

I made & attached the gunwale, first cutting a strip of Huon Pine:

 

The shaping & bending it. Initially I used a heat gun to bend it, but although it was happy to curve that much it didn't want to stay there. Plus, because it was being bent against the wider dimension the timber wanted to twist away. So I used boiling water & clamped it for 24 hours, after which it still wanted to spring quite a lot. So the initial plan to just glue it was upgraded to plugs of timber (actually bamboo I think). The plugs stand out a bit, but I wondering about staining it, or maybe even painting the gunwale.

 

Still just roughly sanded, but I love what adding a gunwale does for showing off the lines. She's really starting to show pedigree; & the fine entry & hollow exit lines are showing well. On an historical note, gunwales do seem to be larger & wider in the past. I carefully enlarged a stern photo of this boat & measured the size, & this is accurate, around 90mm wide actual.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[KeithAug]

Hull looking very sharp Mark.

[BANYAN]

Impressive work Mark.  the second from last pic of your build is so very lifelike.

 

cheers

 

Pat

Edited May 28, 2021 by BANYAN
typo

[Mark Pearse]

I'm working on the outer parts of the stem & keel. The lines drawing of the design appears to stop at the rabbet line, so I guessed the visible amount below the rabbet line at 45-50mm. This boat would have been lightly built.

 

I'll glue the pieces on before doing final shaping where it meets the bow lines.

 

 

I don't have a pic of the stem piece, but the curved part (name?) is below. I chose a part of the timber near a knot, that suits the shape.

 

The bowsprit is roughly shaped, & it still looks a bit thick to my eye. The forward part of the gunwale is lifting, I've bound it with rubber bands & tried some epoxy.

 

 

The hull is looking good. The virtue of adding the gunwales & other details in showing; compared to photos without these details the sweet lines are more visible. And the coaming is glued in - I managed to domesticate the Makita table saw enough to get a 1mm slice, & with the heat gun it bent easily. The bowsprit is definitely too heavy looking, & the coaming needs to be trimmed parallel to the deck line.

 

[Bedford]

The bowsprit seems fine to my eye but you would be far more familiar with the type than I.

 

I've often wondered how epoxy would work with huon pine due to it's natural oilyness.

[Mark Pearse]

11 hours ago, Bedford said:

The bowsprit seems fine to my eye

Assuming the bowsprit has a bobstay & whisker stays, the main load on the spar is compression. The old 18' skiffs have a bowsprit about 20' (6.6m)  long, they are about 75 x 45mm in section - & they actually hollow out the underside.

[Jim Lad]

Absolutely delightful work, Mark!

 

John

[BANYAN]

Can only comment on the high quality of your build Mark as I am not familiar with the spars and rigging of these vessels.  To eye, doesn't seem too thick.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[Mark Pearse]

I started hand polishing the SS sheet that will be the half model backplate, using some mesh type sanding sheets of 400, 600, 800 grit. I hand rubbed in a parallel direction across the sheet & used some spray lubricant as well. The metal is getting there, & in the next couple of days I will try a rag polishing head with Tripoli wax.

 

You can see (above), that the deck line needs tweaking. It's not yet an even curve. Below, the sky & street power lines reflected in the semi-polished metal.

 

I did a test of brown shellac on some Huon Pine, see below. It's lustrous, shown here with an unfinished piece - the centreboard. 

[bruce d]

Hello Mark,

I am late to the game but delighted to have found the thread. Beautiful model, great use of the grain for visual effect, looking forward to seeing more.

 

Bruce

[Mark Pearse]

Hi Bruce, glad you enjoyed the visit. 

 

This is my idea for mounting the half model. Split battens, the lower one fixed to the wall & upper to the model backboard. Vertical side battens also fixed to the backboard. To hang the model you fix the lower split batten to the wall, then put the model on it (the battens will mean it will happily sit there. Then screw through from the sides to fix in place.  

 

 

 

[Mark Pearse]

Some more work today: the boot top line & shellacking is underway.

 

I did the boot top line because it shows the hull shape off better if you can visualise the waterline. I sprayed it with an airbrush, black paint not diluted but sprayed on a restricted setting so that it is far from solid. I also did the centreboard to differentiate it. This is two coats of shellac, no sanding yet.

 

I will be able to do some decent photos later, but at night it's not easy as the lighting is too much from one side.

 

 

 

[Bedford]

She's coming along very nicely Mark

[Mark Pearse]

The stainless steel backplate went very well. Using the metalwork section of this forum I asked for advice (https://modelshipworld.com/topic/28771-polishing-stainless-steel-sheet-to-mirror-finish/) & the method I used is explained in more detail there. The good news is that I am more pleased with the result than I expected to be. I did get a mirror finish, but the effect is a lovely soft sort of mirror finish, just the thing for a half model of a 1930 design - the mists of time etc.... The photo below shows nicely how it looks, the reflection of my drill has a soft ghosting effect. And yet the reflection is nice & clear.

 

I started on the mounting brackets - below is the back of the backplate. It follows the design a few posts ago. Essentially its split battens & then screwed to hold it there. The side strips will also visually cover the split battens from the side.

 

I glued the stainless steel sheet onto this plywood, using some sikaflex marine sealant I had left over. I think it will work better than epoxy...will see. I ended up fixing the timber by screwing it from the back & not using glue.

Edited June 17, 2021 by Mark Pearse

[Jim Lad]

Just catching up, Mark.  She looks first class.

 

John

[michael mott]

Just found this build Mark, funny how we miss these sometimes, A lovely piece of model-work, I was not sure about the stainless, but the effects of the soft reflection will be great. I too find the contrasts in the wood grain to be a delightful way to represent planks.

 

Michael

[Mark Pearse]

Thank you all. I think the model is finished now.

 

Some finishing details: I scribed some lines to indicate water, I think it looks quite good. The trim is from Australian Red Cedar, which is not a pine timber. It's light & looks like Mahogany, & also takes shellac well. I cut some 9mm strip, rounded the front edge & finished with brown shellac, screwed with bronze screws because the colour goes better.

 

I painted inside the hull a dark grey, it looks better than plain timber.

 

As the half model will be a trophy for our sailing club, there will be a plaque below the hull, & I realised the centreboard would interfere with the plaque, so I cut the centreboard down just so that the  visible sliver indicated it's presence. 

 

 

 

 

The reflection works quite well, the boat really seems to float in the air. And from some angles you see the hull shape very well. 

 

The bowsprit is quite wide, but the story from the designer's son (now 95 & I spoke to him today, but unfortunately I now can't visit him tomorrow morning to show him the model) is that Cliff got so sick of rowing the kids back & forwards to the shore when they went picnicking that he put a bronze shoe on the forefoot of the bow to protect from sand grinding, made a wide bowsprit so he would pull the bow onto a harbour beach & the kids would use the bowsprit to get on & off. So, that's why it's wide & flat.

 

Lovely bow lines. Fine entry & plenty of volume to give lift in waves. Cliff sailed this boat the 10 or12 km ocean sailing to Broken Bay, & this little boat apparently did some trips in difficult conditions. As noted at the beginning (& photo), he had a removable cuddy cabin made for this sort of use.

 

[G.L.]

A very nice half hull model of an elegant boat. Congratulations, Mark!

[Jim Lad]

A really beautiful build, Mark.  What a wonderful trophy for the club.

 

John

[Mark Pearse]

thanks everyone

 

I completed the supports this morning - if you want more details there was a post that sketched the design. The photos below show if from the wall point of view. The wall plate is the lower split batten, pre=drilled for up to 8 fixings. The weight of the model is held by this. The model is dropped onto the wall plate, then the side screws, visible below, are put in. They really stop it from being accidentally bumped off, or the opportunistic thief (that isn't carrying a large flat head screwdriver....)

 

[Bedford]

Mark, well done!

 

Cliff was obviously a pragmatic man who designed sensible boats. The bowsprit as a boarding plank is testament to that.

[Mark Pearse]

thanks Steve, 

 

Yes the bowsprit as a boarding plank is a good one. It would have been a small boat for a family with 4 strapping boys. Not surprised that Ranger came soon with its generous cabin size (relatively speaking)