Emma C Berry by ahb26 - FINISHED - Model Shipways - 1/32

[ahb26]

My experiments with the Minwax PolyShades varnish were promising.  The first coat soaks in and acts as a sealer.  After a day or more, a light sanding with 400 grit paper takes off the slight roughness and results in a very smooth, hard surface.  The second coat produces slightly deeper color and, somewhat surprisingly, no sheen (this is a satin, not gloss, varnish).  I went ahead and put two coats on the deck.  It hasn't dried completely but it feels smooth enough that I may just leave it as it is without sanding.

 

 

I like the way it highlights the plank seams and butts.

 

 

I also finished painting the bowsprit and I've started fooling around with the gammon iron.  But the next big task is the bulwarks!

 

 

[PRS]

All I can say is WOW!

 

This is looking great and I like what you are doing. The minwax stain looks good.

[Maury S]

Nicely done.

Maury

[turangi]

Your build is looking great! I delayed on installing the bulwarks as long as possible as I thought it would be very challenging and error prone. I finally went ahead and it was actually quite enjoyable. A few of my challenges and solutions as best I could manage: I built a simple gauge to set the stanchions to the same height. I used some tiny wedges to hold them in proper position as needed, on the side with some planking omitted it was much easier to apply glue and see where it was in relation to the stanchion, where there was planking and ceiling in place I used extra glue and hoped for the best! The cap rail didn't align completely and did a bit of judicious edge bending to conform to the run of the  stanchions and bulwarks. The directions indicate installing the cap rail before the bulwark planking, it seemed better to me to install the planking first to the stanchions, sand the tops level and then install the cap rail, more glue area for the cap and everything is level   Have fun and I look forward to your report.    

Edited May 27, 2021 by turangi

[ahb26]

Paul, Maury, turnagi - thanks for the kind words.

 

I took a good deal of time installing the first stanchion, but then I got the hang of it and the rest went pretty quickly.  The little wedges are key to holding the stanchion tight against the inside surface of the hull planks.

 

 

However, getting them fair was another matter.  A few leaned in too much.  I was able to break them loose (being able to reach up under the planking was a help).  The alignment of the outer edge of the hole in the covering board with the inner surface of the planking is critical, and for these stanchions I needed to file the hole slightly to get them to line up.  That solved the problem.

 

 

However, I've discovered another problem and I hope for some advice.  I inserted the knightheads that I made previously into their slots and found that the knighthead leans out much more than the foremost stanchion.  There's no way for the upper bulwark planks to run fair from the stanchion onto the knighthead.

 

 

I cut the knightheads to the pattern shown in the plans, and have sanded the outer surface (that bears on the inside surface of the hull) quite a bit already.  It appears that I need to make the knightheads shorter (less material below the covering board) to get them to line up.  Have others encountered this?

[turangi]

Great job on the stanchions! As I recall I remade the knightheads at least once, they look a simple part in the plans not so much in execution. I did use a Dremel with a very small bit to open up the below deck area. I would suggest trying to get the below deck portion correct as much as possible, then trial fit a bulwark plank or batten to set the proper angle of the knighthead and finally lay the cap on the stanchions to determine the proper height from the first stanchion to the top of the bowsprit and scribe a line on the knighthead and trim it to that height. You will have to temporarily fit the bowsprit in place to set the meeting angle of the knighthead, cap rail and planking. It took me a lot of fussing to get it to my satisfaction. There are several angles to conform to and taking them one at a time seemed to help. 

Edited May 30, 2021 by turangi

[mek]

Hi Andrew,

The suggestion of turangi is good. You really have to put all the parts together provisionally, especially with the bowsprit in place. The description and drawing actually presents this as fairly simple, but it is not. I made the critical parts for this again and was able to find the right fit more easily. Unfortunately, I do not have better pictures for this.

Have a nice Sunday and stay healthy !

Michael

 

 

 

 

 

[ahb26]

Thank you for the suggestions.  I arrived at the same conclusion: that it is better to wait until the bulwarks are in place to trim the knightheads to size and and glue them in position.  (In fact, it may not even be necessary to glue the knightheads into the covering board and hull; gluing the bulwark planks  and cap rail to the knightheads should secure them.)  I did remove a substantial portion of the knightheads below the deck level to allow them to sit at the correct angle.

 

I marked the scuppers on the scupper strake, cut them out, and installed the strake.

 

 

The three light-colored clothespins have been trimmed to provide a squared-off clamping surface.  The two thinner strakes were next.  I am installing the bulwarks at a height of 3/8" instead of 5/16" to avoid having to trim 1/32" off one of the strakes.

 

 

 

There is some unevenness between the two thin strakes and a thin gap in some spots, which I have filled.  With the knighthead still unsecured, I also trial-fit a bit of left-over bowsprit:

 

 

It looks like this will work out.  I think I will need the full 3/8" bulwark height at the bow, to allow the cap rail to clear the bowsprit.

 

So now to do the whole thing again on the port side, hopefully applying lessons learned on the starboard!

 

[ahb26]

Slow progress, but the port bulwarks and the knightheads are almost done.

 

I took more care when installing the port stanchions to maintain alignment, including small shims at the base of some stanchions to counter an inward lean.

 

 

I still had to add thin wedge-shaped shims to the outer surface of a couple of stanchions, but overall, the stanchions were more fair than on the starboard side, and the bulwark strakes laid down very nicely.

 

As I did on the starboard side, I installed the port strakes before gluing the knightheads in place.  In hindsight, I think this was a mistake.  The planks obscure the alignment of the knightheads and make it difficult to fit the full bowsprit.  I used the stub, which didn't give me a full picture of the situation.

 

 

 

When I was able to see what I was doing and fit the bowsprit, I found that the front edges of the knightheads were too vertical and too far aft.  Also, the bowsprit didn't quite align with the cutwater.  I had to sand the edge of the port knighthead to get the bowsprit to line up, leaving a gap on the starboard side.

 

 

If I had it to do over, I'd try to install the knightheads earlier on, possibly while installing the covering boards, to assure proper alignment.  Fortunately, I have yet to install the hawse doublers - I should be able to extend them out to hide the gap and give the appearance of correctly angled knightheads.  That and the cap rail will hide my sins.

[turangi]

Looks good, the knight heads are surprisingly complex to install correctly and you are correct that the cap rail will cover any tiny issues. Coming along great!

[ahb26]

Life has gotten busy recently but I've tried to do a little something on ECB each day. I've reached the point where I can paint the bulwarks in preparation for adding the cap rail.  To do that I had to add some bits and pieces.  I added the doublers at the bow, extending them to the bowsprit as described previously.  Looks OK from the sides:

 

 

 

but from above you can see the adjustment, including a shim between the starboard knighthead and the bowsprit.

 

 

I also drilled the hawse pipes (tricky), installed and drilled the doublers for the mooring chocks, and made and installed the rings at those locations.

 

 

 

 

More on the rings in another post.  I noticed on the plans the outline of a fashion piece at the stern, but no details on how to make it or mention in the instructions.  However, the photos in this post show it clearly.  I made up something similar:

 

 

And of course, there has been a lot of sanding, filling, adjusting etc.  I've started fitting the cap rails but I want to get the bulwarks, especially the insides, painted before the cap rails go on.

[ahb26]

As a relative novice, I'm somewhat reluctant to share techniques I've "discovered" because most of what I think up has surely been thought up many times before.  I'll puzzle over a problem, probably recall something I've seen on MSW that inspires me to work out an approach, think about it for a while, and try it out.  Thus it was with the rings on the hawse pipes and mooring chocks.  I offer the following in the hope that it will be of use to someone.

 

My Bowdoin kit included cast metal "hawse lips" but for ECB, I was on my own.  I saw a post that showed them made up from wire, so that was a start.  I have a quantity of thin (just under 1/32") copper wire left over from another project.  I wound some wire around a 9/64" drill bit:

 

 

 

and cut the resulting coil into rings, then aligned the ends.  Fortunately, I learned how to solder at my father's knee, so there was no difficulty soldering the joint with lead-free solder:

 

 

Once soldered, I squeezed the rings into the appropriate oval shape (shown in the foreground above), then flattened them slightly in a smooth-jawed machinist's vise.

 

 

This process was greatly aided by precision wide pliers, especially useful for the ovaling step:

 

 

Once made, I had to get them glued on in the correct alignment.  I foresaw a lot of frustration trying to get them in the right position before the CA set, but then I made a simple alignment tool, just a U-shaped wire, that would locate the oval-shaped rings correctly in the oval-shaped hole.

 

 

I have to say, this worked a treat for the mooring chocks (shown here).  The hawse pipe, on the other hand, is drilled at a severe angle to the bulwarks at the bow, and the wire tool wouldn't work.  I was able to put a little CA around the edge, enough to tack the ring in place, then work additional glue around the ring to secure it.  The glue is a little sloppy, but all this will be painted and should look OK in the end.

[turangi]

Looking great and wonderful tips! As a novice myself I am sometimes reluctant to post my methods of work as I assume they are well known but do so anyway as it may help another person like me. I admire your soldering skill, I usually muck it up an end up with a huge blob of solder.

Edited June 19, 2021 by turangi

[ahb26]

Soldering... When my father was drafted just before WW II, the Signal Corps trained him to be a radar technician - he eventually became a sergeant in charge of a radar platoon.  When he was quite young, he taught me how to make a proper electronics solder joint and how to recognize a cold joint vs. one that had been properly heated.  I made a number of Heathkits growing up, culminating in a color TV, so I had lots of practice both with discrete component wiring and circuit boards.  It has been a valuable skill over the years.  This kind of metalwork soldering is new to me but the principles are the same.  I read in some post here that we don't need silver solder for this work but lead-free solder with slight silver content is superior to solder normally used for electronics work, and doesn't require temperatures beyond what a normal iron can produce.  I've been using it and like it.

[ahb26]

Previous post, should have said "when I was quite young."

 

Big milestone - the cap rails are on.  In the end it wasn't too difficult, but I spent more time worrying about the task and trying to figure out how to do it than actually doing it.  First I cut and installed the lashing rails, which was straightforward.

 

 

I glued together the cap rail sections:

 

 

I decided to glue the two sides of the rail together before installation.  I wanted to make sure the bow ends were exactly where they needed to be on the knightheads - didn't want to get into the situation where one side was glued in and the other side was in the wrong position.

 

 

Attached the bow end with PVA to give myself time to micro-position everything:

 

 

I was concerned about getting the proper overhang of the rails on the bulwarks, so I made up an alignment tool.

 

 

It's made of 5/32" scrap, which is the width of the rails.  The tab that goes on the outside of the bulwarks has a 1/32" shim to give the correct overhang.  The tab for inside the bulwarks is there to hold the railing in place.  I applied CA glue to (usually) two stanchions, then positioned the railing in the tool and pressed it down onto the stanchions with the outer shim against the bulwarks.

 

 

It worked very well.  I had no problem with the rails being the wrong shape - nothing, anyway, that resisted correction.

 

As others have discovered, the supplied transom cap is a little too narrow.  I also had a significant arch in the top edge of the transom that I had to sand flat and parallel with the cap rails, as best I could.  I decided to widen the part in the hopes I might be able to use it rather than cutting a new one.

 

 

After much fettling and trial fitting, I came up with something that is probably better than I could do making it up from scratch, and glued it in.

 

 

 

There is still some cosmetic work left, but I'm really pleased to have this part of the build behind me!

[gjdale]

Nicely done Andrew. She really is looking lovely.

[Moab]

Superb work Andrew. Very helpful...Moab

[ahb26]

Grant, Moab - thanks for the kind words.

 

Taking a cue from Yves (see post 99 on this page) I decided to use the old style mooring bitts instead instead of the bitts mounted on the bulwarks.  One reason was that the cap rail overhangs the aftmost stanchion by a significant amount, so much so that I would have needed to cut a hefty notch in the cap rail.  That did not appeal to me, and I like the simpler look of the older bitts. I measured out from the centerline along a beam to what looked like the right distance and marked the deck.

 

 

Was this going to end in tears?  I had visions of a drill bit shredding the deck but I went up by 1/64" increments with no drama, stopping well short of the 3/16" dimension of the bitt and continuing with a file.

 

 

On the open side of the deck, I framed an opening for the bitt as I imagined it might have been done.  On both sides, a notch cut into the bottom end of the bitt engages a frame.

 

 

Another construction project was the buffalo rails.

 

 

Naturally, my wife asked me why they are called buffalo rails.  The Web is mute on the topic.  I found one on-line glossary of shipbuilding terms that at least contained the term and defined it thus:

 

An American term. A short decorative bulwark on the fore deck of motor boats and extending from the stem each side. Also called a fashion piece in the U.K. and a monkey rail in America.

 

So we remain ignorant of the term's derivation.  I am currently painting the cap and buffalo rails, and touching up the areas that need it.  Next big task is the cabin.

[turangi]

Your model is looking wonderful! Have you considered leaving part of the cabin roof off in order to see the interior details?

[ahb26]

On 7/3/2021 at 9:08 PM, turangi said:

Have you considered leaving part of the cabin roof off in order to see the interior details?

Funny you should ask.  I have considered it, have in fact done it.  Building the cabin has been enjoyable - more so than painting.  I started with the corner posts (tried to "notch the posts over the coaming" but that wasn't happening) and sides.  My cut-off clothespins came in handy.

 

 

 

The framing, with all the little mortises, went pretty well.

 

 

There were a few places where I probably should have mortised the beam ends into something, but didn't.

 

 

Planking the roof on the fully-covered side was straightforward.  I planked enough on the open side to define the companionway  and the inner edge of the scuttle, then partially planked around the scuttle. 

 

 

That leaves enough open to see the bunk, although it's dark in there.  (I cannot imagine being belowdecks on this boat in bad weather, with nothing but a lantern for light...)

 

 

I may fix the companionway doors in the open position and the sliding cover also open, to improve the light and view.  I'll keep working on the cabin but probably start on the windlass and metalwork as well.  I don't do a lot of multitasking - working on another part of the model while paint dries, for example - but it's a little too easy to become obsessed with one item, like the cabin, and forget that there's much more to do.

[turangi]

Excellent, looks very nice!

[mek]

Very good and accurate work !

Michael

[Sea Hoss]

Nice!

[ahb26]

Thanks!

 

Slow progress this month, with a lot of other things happening.  I continued work on the cabin trunk and it is now lacking only a stovepipe.  It took a while to figure out how to build the arched companionway cover.  I cut the pieces for a framework:

 

 

and made up a jig to hold everything in place while glue set.

 

 

 

Then it was fairly straightforward to plank over the framework.

 

 

I added small vertical strips along each side edge.  I also built the scuttle coaming and hatch:

 

 

I built the doors and painted everything inside and out.  Here it is, placed (not glued) on its coaming:

 

 

The windlass was also a challenge.  I thought and researched about attaching the whelps (my nautical vocabulary grows by the day) and decided to try CA.  I stuck the sanded whelps on some masking tape in order to stain them, then scraped thin lines on the windlass where they needed to go.  The CA gave me just enough time for positioning. They seem quite firmly attached.

 

 

 

After more painting and gluing on the purchase arms (again with CA), it was time to enclose the axles in the two parts of each windlass bitt.  I had previously done a lot of filing of the axles and the bitts to ensure the barrel could turn freely, but wasn't sure how I would hold everything in position while gluing the parts together.  Eventually I stumbled on this Rube Goldberg setup:

 

 

A trial fitting.  I am still thinking about how (and whether) to build the handles.

 

 

So here is the state of play...

 

 

The plans indicate the wet well gratings should be "oiled" but I thought I would try them with anti-fouling red - I can always turn them over, but I think I like the red accent on what otherwise is a light beige-to-yellow deck.

 

Much done, but so much left to do!  This project has taught me to be patient and take one thing at a time.  All the small steps will add up in the end.

[turangi]

Great job on the windless! I used 5 minute epoxy to attach the whelps, gave me a bit more working time. As far as the handles I made mine based upon a photo of the ECB windless, may not be the original configuration but worked for me. Post #50 and 56. https://modelshipworld.com/topic/25110-emma-c-berry-by-turangi-model-shipways-132/page/2/?tab=comments#comment-815288

 

Edited August 2, 2021 by turangi

[ahb26]

Still chugging along.  My retired life includes volunteering at a local non-profit two mornings a week, mostly moving furniture that has been donated and that we distribute to people in need.  That just started up again in the spring following the pandemic.  I also have a part-time job as admin assistant for our local land trust.  That generally takes very little time but we just completed helping out with a major land acquisition, which kept me busy.  Finally, I've been learning to play the ukulele after years of failing to learn to play guitar - yeah, it's "just" a ukulele, but at least I can make progress with it.  The ship modeling fits in with the rest.

 

After much delay, I shaped the transom trim ring, painted it a brighter yellow than the rest of the trim, and glued it on.  I masked off the area above the ring and painted that yellow also (three coats to cover the black).

 

 

The masking worked OK but required some touch-up after this photo was taken:

 

 

I didn't use the lettering that came with the kit, and didn't want to deal with getting and applying gold rub-on lettering.  I made up the lettering in Photoshop and ended up saving it as a PNG and importing it to MS Word to resize and print (printing directly from Photoshop resulted in broken type).  I was able to match the color of the trim ring reasonably well.

 

 

I eased into the metal work with the stem plates -

 

 

then took on the bowsprit bands.  After several failed experiments, I made up the band with one "ear" included.

 

 

 

I soldered that joint, then butt-soldered the other ear. 

 

 

The key was gluing a notched stick to the base to hold the band steady.  Still tricky, but do-able.

 

 

Thanks for the continued support and encouragement!

[ahb26]

After putting it off for too long, I finally got around to arranging for mounting the model.  I wasn't able to find suitable stanchions, but I did find a post that suggested making up mounting pins from hardware-store steel rod.  I bought a length of 1/8" rod - too large to use as-is since the keel is only 5/32" thick.  With my drill press, an assortment of files, and patience, I created reduced sections 5/64" in diameter:

 

 

The pins differ in length by 1/4" to allow for the drag in the keel.  Spacing the pins at about 5-7/8" gives the correct drag angle.

 

I inverted the hull on a sturdy box, positioned such that the waterline was level, and secured it with rubber bands.  I drilled the front mount hole to go through the keel into a floor frame; the rear hole is in a taller section of keel.  This was a nervous moment but all was well.

 

 

The pins slide right in.

 

 

To test the mount, I drilled a piece of scrap hardwood as a surrogate base.  The holes need to be drilled to the same depth and the pins bottomed out, to get the correct height.

 

 

Very pleased with the results.  The waterline looks good and the hull is straight up and down when viewed endwise.

 

I guess the chainplates are next.  That should be interesting.

[niwotwill]

How deep into the keep are the mounting holes? Wondering if they may get loose and cause wobble.. I really like the colors and the color contrast between the red and black it looks great. Also leaving so much open makes an interesting viewing of all the interior detail.

 

 

[gjdale]

Nicely done Andrew. I’ll bet there were some nervous moments in that little job!

[ahb26]

8 hours ago, niwotwill said:

How deep into the keep are the mounting holes? Wondering if they may get loose and cause wobble..

The pins are about 11/16" long and fully engaged with wood over their entire length.  They are a pretty snug fit, no wiggle at all, so I don't think they are likely to wear their holes larger.