A Port Dredger 1750 by Greg Davis - FINISHED - Scale 1:36

[Greg Davis]

Druxy -

 

Thank you for the input.

 

The reason I thought to bend them is that the beams will be 6 mm wide and 2.25mm thick, the longest are to have chamber of 9mm. Because they are relatively thin with respect to the width, I thought that cutting them out of 6mm thick material would be challenging. But then I have considered making a pair of metal plates to sandwich the beam blanks and then sand / mill them to shape. This could be used to make a single beam or a longer piece that would be parted into separate beams. There are 28 beams in the vessel and they need to dovetail into the ledges, so I'm sure that I will be making 35-40 beams before I like what I need. Maybe the time spent on the making the plates would be well spent - especially to maintain consistent deck camber.

 

Greg

[Greg Davis]

I just finished smoothing the starboard planking.

 

Probably call it a day now. Tomorrow the bottom can be prepped for planking.

 

 

[Greg Davis]

The bottom is planked and the five planked sides have all been smoothed to a state that the multitude of plank fasteners can be added. The keel is also complete, but I didn't want to put it in place until after the rest of the bottom work was completely done. In this way it will be easier to have both sides of the bottom to have the same thickness as I can use sanding blocks the span the whole width.

 

Here is a current view from below:

 

And a view from above:

 

 

 

Time to get the #74 drill bit and the copper wire out - this is going to take awhile!

[Jim Lad]

Just catching up, Greg.  That's a nice job of planking!

 

John

[Greg Davis]

Thank you very much!

[Greg Davis]

Just finished installing and smoothing nearly 700 fasteners on the bottom of the vessel.

The copper pins should be a bit more obvious once a finish is applied to the wood.

 

Next the four much more visible sides!

[Jim Lad]

Well done for your perseverance, Greg.  Not the most enthralling of jobs.

 

John

[James G]

Very nice Greg! She is coming along beautifully.

[Greg Davis]

Actually, I don't mind the repetition of inserting the fasteners - drilling the holes is the part I'm not fond of. With every hole, I'm thinking drill bit please go in the right place, straight, and don't break as I just don't know how an error here will be fixed! 

 

So on that note, I'm getting ready to drill another 300+ holes into the port side of the model. Here is how I've gotten everything ready (the bottom was done this way as well). First 1/16" and 1/8" art tape was used to mask the location of frames. The tape doesn't have a great deal of stick and I found that using a rubber 'paint eraser' to bed down the tape is useful:

Then, while consulting the plans a multitude of times, the fastener locations are marked on the planks just outside of the tape. I pull off the tape and check that all the pencil marks are all in the correct locations - a few more need to be put in where planks adjoin within a strake. Once all looked good, a scribe was used to create indentations for the drilling process. The holes will then be drilled with a small Dremel tool. The drill bit will be adjusted to the needed depth - about 3.5 mm here and drilling will commence tomorrow when I have the needed rest, concentration, and coffee! Also, I have placed a piece of felt on the drill bit so the chuck will not mar the planking.

 

It was probably noticed that I did not mark fastener locations near the top and bottom of the side. I decided that I would not place fasteners in the regions that would be double planked and thus not seen. Also, there should be less chance of hitting an already installed fastener when drilling holes for fasteners of the doubled planks. 

[druxey]

Very methodical, and I like the felt 'buffer' that you have over the drill chuck. Clever idea! Acts both as a depth stop and anti-marring device.

[Greg Davis]

The drill and I did the required port side drilling successfully. As expected it was no where as time consuming as it was stressful.

 

On the other hand, it take close to four hours to install and smooth all of the fasteners.

 

On to the other side ...

 

[Greg Davis]

Installation of the fasteners on the starboard side went well.

 

 

Time now to get to the fasteners for the bow and stern faces; then on to some plank doubling.

[Greg Davis]

Fasteners for the first layer of planking on the bow and stern have been installed (stern lights still need to be pierced):

 

In my last post, I thought that I would now go onto the doubled planking along the bottom of the hull. Not that this could not be done, I have had a change of heart. Before the stern and bow areas are double planked the keel would need to be installed as it is 'locked' by the doubling of planks. But without the keel the hull sits nicely on the bench and this will facilitate working on some interior and superstructure elements. I know I could get around the keel issue (and will likely need to at some point) by routing a slot into a building board to accept the keel and still let the hull sit flat. 

 

So now I think that I will set my sights on the deck beams and the uprights (that will support a pair of carlings and ultimately the wheels).

 

[James G]

I like your call on not attaching the keel yet. Why work around an obstacle that’s not yet necessary? Sure enjoying watching your progress.

[Greg Davis]

Sorry about the delay in progress, it has not been a good week or so. Even with all possible vaccines and taking care in our comings and goings, COVID finally got me (and my wife). 

 

On the up side, a new 10" bandsaw made its way to our house and I was able to set it up a couple of days ago. I tried it out by resawing some 4" material to 5/16" - it was a smooth operation. Then I used a thickness sander to bring the thickness down to a speck over 6mm for the deck beams. 

 

While not feeling well, I 'thought-created' a number of jigs and/or methods to cut out the beams. I finally settled on making a pattern for the beams that I could trace their shape with:

 

The shape of the beam was drawn on a piece of plywood and a strip of wood was glued perpendicularly along the shape. The strip has thickness just under the 2.25mm finished beam thickness so that when a pencil is run against each side, the result is the proper thickness. There are stabilizing feet, with bits of sandpaper so the template does not move during the tracing process. Also there are two pins that I use for aligning the multiple drawings of the beams. I line the pins up on what becomes the common center line, draw the shape, and then move the template along the center line and then draw the next beam outline. In this manner, I had no difficulty drawing the outline of 15 beams stacked along a 4" axis.

 

The beams where then cut out on my scroll saw. I am now in the process of using a spindle sander to bring the beam thicknesses to about 2.75mm. (Just 2 beams have made it to this stage.) After fitting the beams to the vessel, they can be reduced to the requisite 2.25mm.

 

 

 

[druxey]

Sorry that you caught the wretched covid bug. Hope that you and your wife are fully recovered in time for the holidays. Nice to see progress on the model again!

[bruce d]

So sorry to hear about catching covid after all this time but I am still enjoying the build.

Forgive me sounding like a parent but ... please be careful using power tools (especially new ones!) while you are host to the bug. 

[mtaylor]

I too am glad you made it through the virus attack.  And what Bruce said about using power tools I totally agree with.

[Greg Davis]

Thank you all for the well wishes! We seem to be well past the worst of it and onto the final recovery process. I wouldn't wish this on anyone.

 

I did keep away from the power tools for quite a few days - there was a period that I didn't feel steady / in control of my movements and didn't want to be near a sharp moving blade. For that matter, I wasn't in any mood to be by a sharp knife or chisel either.

 

Today I finished sanding the deck beams to a thickness between 2.6 and 2.7 mm. This will leave me with about 0.3 - .04 mm for final finishing once they are in place. Here's what they look like sitting close to where they belong:

 

Now to get them all lined up proper and marked for notches that match the shear clamp.

[Greg Davis]

The deck beams (less the two that butt against the bow and stern structures) have been let into the shear clamps. Just a bit of fine tuning to do and I will start to fit in the four underdeck carlings and their supporting pillars. I don't want to finish the top of the beams until they are supported by the carlings as these thin beams do flex a little.

 

[Jim Lad]

Just catching up, Greg.  She's looking really first class.

 

John

[Greg Davis]

The under-deck carlings are done. Next the eight posts that hold them up.

My upcoming plans are:

• Make the posts and put the carlings in place for good (after a last check that everything else is in order below deck)
• Make and fit the small supports / knees that further secure the center carlings with the bow and stern
• Once that is all done, I'll apply an interior finish
• Fix the deck beams in place
• Prepare the upper deck beam surfaces for deck planks
• ...

 

 

[Greg Davis]

An excellent Holiday read made it to me last evening:

Hopefully, someday I will have accumulated the skill to take a stab at modeling this extremely interesting ship!

[Greg Davis]

All the pillars are fitted - actually, there are ten (not eight as a said earlier), two of which are also climbing posts. I have glued and pinned the pillars to the deck carlings, but have not made any permanent attachments to the main carlings. I can still remove all of the deck beams as well as the deck carling / pillar structures in order to work inside the hull.

Tomorrow I plan to clean up a few details inside the hull - for example, I still need to bolt the deck ledges to the frames and there are the two windows in the stern that need to be opened. Past that, I believe that everything is complete inside.

[druxey]

Catching up also. Great progress!

[Greg Davis]

Yesterday, I was able to take care of the remaining interior bolts and the stern windows. Today I have begun oiling the interior of the hull. I chose boiled linseed oil for the finish. The four inside sides are done, the bottom comes next. I can then set in the deck carlings and finish those along with the main carlings. 

 

Obviously, there is no going back at this point so it is good that I like the look of the oiled wood - to me, it looks very fitting for a working vessel. 

[James G]

Greg, the linseed oil looks great! Quick question, what finish did you use on the Emma C. Berry? Thanks for your help.

[Greg Davis]

Jim -

 

Emma C. Berry was first stained with Minwax Golden Oak and then was given a coat of matte varnish. I find that Minwax stain-sticks are easier to use than getting out a can of stain in many cases. Of course, it does take more time to do a larger area this way. On the up side, I find the stain-sticks to be easier for smaller / precise applications and they are easy to keep at hand. Also, I  have experienced good color consistency from stick to stick. On the down side, the stain-stick color labeling is small compared to that on the can (which also shows a color picture). I must admit that I did need to re-carve one of the scrolls on Emma because I grabbed the wrong color stain-stick and all of a sudden had a red mahogany carving.  

 

 

At first I wasn't sure how I was going to get the linseed oil everywhere it needed to be on the dredger, yet not over-apply the oil. Here I used several adhesive applicators to apply the oil and had no problem getting to all the nicks and crannies. It was not a fast process and it is amazing how little oil is needed to coat the surface. By the way the whole interior has been oiled now.

 

I used to get applicators under the Testors label at hobby shops and these would cost about 10 cents an applicator - not a lot; but I found that I could buy applicators online an order of magnitude lower. In fact, the ones I am using now cost $5.99 for 500 applicators. 

 

Greg

[kurtvd19]

Greg:

Please list the source for the applicators.  That's a fantastic price.

Your work on this model is great and I am following with great interest.

Kurt

[Greg Davis]

Kurt -

 

I purchased the applicators on Amazon - here is the link https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09YHJK6N4/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1 .

 

Thank you for the kind words on the progress made so far. If all goes well, I hope to be able to bring it to Manitowoc in the spring. 

 

Greg