Triton (1:48) by kellrandy (Randall)

[kellrandy]

Hello everyone, newbie here.  I have followed this forum for quite some time and finally decided that I would love to give it a go.  Like TJ, it's also my first scratch build, so I'll need all the help I can get.  I'll try to keep it updated, but just know that this will be a very slow process for me as I work full time and will be headed back to school the end of August.  It's sort-of a therapy for me when I want to wind down.

 

I've only built one other ship, a kit from Occre, the Albatros.  Its a nice kit, and wasn't too difficult to build, but almost nothing was to scale, so I modified most of it to make it as close to scale I could based on my research of late 18th century American schooners.  My disappointment with having to modify everything to make it to scale, I figured why not, the Triton is a beautiful ship, so here I go... wish me luck, I'll probably need it.

 

Also, I have posted for permission for access to the plans in the Keel Drawing post so I can study how to go about the deadwood.  It doesn't seem that there is enough info in the keel drawing to start on that just yet.

 

I've decided to go with mahogany for most of the elements, ebony for the wales (I don't want to paint them), walnut for trim pieces (and false keel).

 

Build board ready, keel cut and ready to be glued, began work on the keelson...

 

[Pete38]

Welcome to the group...You will find lots of help here........

 

Nice start on your build....looking forward to more.

[Long9Ron]

Welcome aboard. You're off to a great start. I will be building the full build Triton once I finish the Triton X Section. So, I will be following your build closely. By the way I love your framing jig. Can you tell me where you got the rulers with all the marking on them? They are great and just what I need to set up for my build in order to set my frames correctly. 

[the learner]

Welcome aboard! Great start! I too like your height/framing jig.

[kellrandy]

Thanks for the welcome guys, I appreciate it very much. I don't know if its sacrilege to post from another forum, but here's where I found the build board. The first is the board with all of the instructions to build it, the second is the link to the scales. He's got a few for other scales, and states he uses plain architecture drafting scales to make them.

 

http://modelshipbuilder.com/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?5571

 

http://modelshipbuilder.com/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?5572

[harvey1847]

GOOOD Luck!

 

Wellcome aboard! Nice log you have and nice board too. I wouldn´t go with the ebony for the wales unless you have worked already with it and it´s a "familiar wood" for you. It´s pretty tricky to work with. Allways tents to break when try to bend it. It´s my opinion ofcourse...

 

Best wishes!

 

 

Daniel.

[kellrandy]

Thank you for the tip Daniel. I didn't realize ebony may be too brittle for shaping. I'll give it a few test tries before I give up on it then see where that takes me.

[BubbleHead]

Welcome aboard Randall.

 Nice start. I to like your board, but like Daniel says I wouldn't go with ebony as it takes some practices. I bought a stick and it's still in it's waxy form. I went with Fiebineg's leather dye and it looks grate, but when applied to the stern lights I found out that it didn't penetrate the wood very well, it kind of laid on top of the wood. I think next time I'm going to try some kind of ebony stain.  Just my opinion there has been a lot of debate on the subject.

 TJ

[SaturnV]

Hi Randall and welcome to the Triton build. Good to see others joining in. It has been a very satisfying project for me so far. A little test of my skills but not too much to make me want to give up. I'm sure you will do fine as your first parts look very good and you seem to have a grasp of what is required.

Mahogany is a great wood for making ship models - I just can't seem to find any mahogany trees growing around here in Colorado or else I would be using it too! lol

 

Richard

[kellrandy]

Thank you for the kind words and confidence boost, Richard. It's been very slow progress lately on this project, thanks to work and school, but I'm still chugging away at it. I've make up the keel, have the false keel cut and finish sanded, the aft deadwood is coming together ok, however has given me a challenge which I love. I don't have any power tools as of yet ( Byrnes disk sander is on the way though), so I've cut everything so far by hand with a miter box and jewler's saw. It took me quite a while to finish the deadwood pieces finishing the shape with block sanders, lol. Now I'm carving out the steps. I have one side almost done, carving by hand with a set of chisels. It works, but taking forever as I don't want to redo things because of the time involved until some of my power tools get here. I'll make sure to post up some more pictures sometime this weekend.

 

Almost forgot... Did some testing with shaping ebony for my wales. I built a steamer and steamed some test pieces, and made up a mini "work bench" top like you would use for standard wood working for furniture or something else, only much smaller for model work complete with bench pegs made out of steel rod that I could arrange as I wanted for creating whatever shape I needed. I initially steamed them for 30 minutes and had two of the five pieces I had break. I upped my steam time to an hour from 30 minutes. Worked like a charm and the ebony bent very nicely using clamps to pull it against the pegs. I let it dry for two days and when I removed the clamps, I had very minor spring back and slight indentations where they were clamped to the pegs. So, my little experiment worked pretty good and I think I'm safe using ebony for the wales as originally planned. I'll add some scrap and steam them as well to use as support for the ebony so I don't get any indentations when I do it for real.

 

Thanks guys and I'll post some pics soon.

[mtaylor]

Randall,

 

Good to hear about your progress.  You might try using a hair dryer on the ebony once it's in the jig. Depending on thickness, that stuff is a bear to keep from springing back.  Might even take a couple of soakings.  I know it did for my Licorne.

[rdsaplala]

Hi Randall,

 

Beautiful work Sir, she's coming along nicely, it's nice to see another full build

[harvey1847]

Way to go Randall!

 

  Congrats with the ebony cooking! Can you put some pics of how you actually steamed the timbers? Is it a close box or just a big pan where you boile water and put the wales for a while?

 

Best wishes!

 

 

Daniel.

Edited November 4, 2013 by harvey1847

[kellrandy]

Hi everyone, back after a long hiatus thanks to work and school. I have been busy with making a little bit of sawdust lately and finally have the keel assembled, false keel installed and have started (round 3) with the aft deadwood. I have also run into a problem with inconsistencies with the plans I have printed and the larger assembly plans I have had printed at a local big-box office chain. I'm trying to figure out which ones are right. My keel matches precisely with the lengths provided in the cutting templates (which I printed), but the assembled keel is about an 8th of an inch too long compared on the full size keel plan I had printed, the same for the false keel and the aft deadwood. When I have the office store print them, I state I want it 100%, no scaling and I print them at 100% as well. I guess what I'm asking is how long the keel is supposed to be before I go any further because this will just make assembly almost impossible if the build board plan is off or my printed cutting templates are off.

 

I'll get some pictures and to answer your question, Daniel, it is a full steamer box, steam provided by a steamer I purchased for 50 bucks. I built the box with the provided hardware and plan included with it. It's not very big, about 3 feet long, and 8 inches square.

[harvey1847]

Hello Randall and Happy New Year!!

 

I do not know what could happen with your plot plans. Sometimes the “printing guys” think by themselves that are smarter than us and even if you state to them to print the stuff at no scale at all, they just send the different pdf´s to the plotter by anxiously clicking and clicking and the result it´s what it is… It could be one possibility. It has happened to me once or twice.

 

I always check the “scale on feet” on every single plan plot out.

 

A deviation of 1/8” means in the real ship about 15.24cm if I am not wrong so don´t worry too much…

 

Best wishes!

 

 

Daniel.

[kellrandy]

Thank you for the information Daniel.  I double checked the scales, and they are correct (1' = 1/4") on the keel plan I had printed at the office supply place and the templates I printed, so there aren't any errors in the printing, however, I did find that the lengths for keel sections are 1/16" longer on the cutting templates than the full keel plan, hence where my discrepancy is coming from, and much bigger than I thought at 5/16".  So now I know it's an actual discrepancy between the cutting templates and the assembly plans.

 

Since I have to build to the assembly plans and the length of the keel isn't on the framing template for the build board, I have no idea whether to chop off 5/16" from my keel and mount it to my build board or leave it because I don't know which plans are correct or not.  Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[harvey1847]

Hi Randall,

 

If I were you I would try to divided that different of 5/16 onto the different scarfs of the pieces #2,#3 and #4. Hope you have not glued the keel pieces. If you have done it, soak the pieces in water and try to separate them, let them dry for one day and cut the scarfs.

 

good luck!

 

 

daniel.

[kellrandy]

Thanks again Daniel, as I said when I started this thing, this is my first scratch build.  The past couple of days, I have found quite a few more discrepancies but have just accepted it and will just build from the assembly plans from now on and the cutting templates I'll leave as a starting point.  So, I'm going to rebuild the keel (this will be the fourth time building it).  I didn't like the way the rabbet turned out anyhow, lol.  In the mean time, here's a few pictures of my progress so far...

 

I'm wondering what to do with the bobstay, as it is a shade lighter than the rest of the mahogany.  It does add a little character I guess.

 

Aft deadwood, ready to carve the steps.

 

The scarf joint on the keel, which is getting re-done.

[AnobiumPunctatum]

Randall,

 

these differences are quite normal. If you print out the parts on your deskjet, you will see that it makes a difference if you use landscape or portrait format.

They are very small (0.1) and are up to the manufacturing process of the paper. Another source of the porblem is the thikness of the line. If I remember right they are about 0.25mm. If you saw out a part and sand to the correct size, you see normally more than the half of the line.

 

0.25mm in sum are very small but if you glue more than one part together your get very quick a difference of 1 mm and more. I didn't count how many deadwoods I have casted off until I understand how to work with these problems:

 

Try to use allways the same paper and paper direction and sand your parts until the whole line is nearly invisble. And the rest is handcraft - so small differences are totally normal.

Edited January 3, 2014 by AnobiumPunctatum

[kellrandy]

Thank you for the info, Anobium. The way I have gone about it so far is cutting it out close to the line with my scroll saw, then sand to the line and no further. The parts fit but we're off on the full keel plan. I went back and measured the thickness of the lines, and from my printer, they are dang near 1/32" thick. Two thicknesses add up to 1/16" and across all five pieces of the keel, 5/16" of an inch, wow. It adds up fast. I think my problem is solved!! Thank you so much!

[kellrandy]

Hi everyone, one little update and a question...

 

I have the keel rebuilt complete with the copper bolts and everything worked out great this time around. I also have the sternpost and inner post finished up as well. I made quite the error in carving my deadwood that I'll have to re-do that again as well, but hey, I'm still having a blast. I'm not going to bother with pics until I get past the deadwood and can show some progress.

 

Now on to my question... I was told that EdT's books of the Naiad were great sources of information for this build and wow, aren't they ever, thanks again Guy for that. I also found this book called "The Arming and Fitting of English Ships of War, 1600-1815" by Brian Lavery and it had some great samples and even some formulas! (I'm an engineer by trade and love formulas). One sample gave a formula for the keel's bolt diameter which I used for mine. I was wondering if it is also an accurate source for information on building methods as well?

[mtaylor]

In short... yes it is an excellent source.  

[harvey1847]

Randall,

 

We love pics and more pics, you do not bother us at all! You can buy the Anatomy of the Ship book series, the HMS Diana for example. Those a pretty good books and quite cheap.

 

best wishes.

 

Daniel.

[the learner]

Your pictures look a little blury and out of focus, besure to set the Mega pixel's to the highest possible setting on your camera and use the closeup function!

 

Good Start

[kellrandy]

Sorry about the photos everyone. I'll try to do a better job with them next time. Using my phone to take them probably doesn't help much either, lol.

[harvey1847]

Go for it Randall!

 

We´ll be here waiting...!!

 

Daniel.

[kellrandy]

Hi everyone!  Hope everyone is having a great day.  It's like spring here in the Denver area today, very nice.

 

I'm back again, this time with a little progress finally after having to pretty much start over.  I hope the photos came out better this go 'round.  So I have the fore pieces, aft deadwood (finally came out acceptable, but still not absolutely perfect), and the keel rebuilt.  I carved the steps on the deadwood by hand as you tell by the pile of shavings in the photos.  Now I'm off working on the stem, apron, and fore deadwood.

 

[42rocker]

Looking Good

 

Later Tim

[sport29652]

Wow great job ! I'm a newbie to scratch myself. Have some kits but am having 10x the fun doing this scratch build. What are you using for your joint, paint, pencil, tar ?

[kellrandy]

Hi Eric, thanks for the compliment. For my joints, I use a plain ole sharpie. I tested with some paint and a pencil, but the sharpie gave me the best look, at least for me. Just test first before using anything on some scraps with them glued together, and also to make sure it doesn't bleed into the wood too much especially on the end grain. The glue does change the color slightly.