Aspinet 1908 by gkharrin - FINISHED - Scale 1: 120 - ship-themed wood inlay cribbage board

[gkharrin]

This is not a ship model in the strict sense of the word.  I hope you will allow it.

 

This is my first attempt at wood inlay.  I was inspired to build a board for myself when, early on in the process, I damaged the one I was making for my father. There is a big chip from the router on the bottom of the board, hidden except when you turn it upside down.  I started over and set aside the damaged piece. Years later I've finally gotten around to making it.

 

The wood is from a cherry tree felled by Hurricane Isabel in 2003.  It was in the back yard of one of my wife's coworkers.  Very pretty color!  The finish is Watco Danish Oil.

 

The board I made for my father is a relief carving of the Isle of Palms, where my mother lived as a child and where they both are now in retirement.  It's nothing to do with the new board, but I'll show and explain his board too.  You start at the house near the left/south end of the island.  There are a few novelty features that we never play, but it was fun to add them.  The first is for the inside player only.  If you peg 5 you have to do a 3-point penalty loop.  You've stopped to watch the ladies play beach volleyball (thus the bikini) at the Windjammer (their logo is the sail), a very popular beach bar owed (partially?) by my aunt's childhood classmate.  The second is for both players.  If you land at 40 you have to play a hole of golf at Wild Dunes.  There is a four-sided die for your tee shot.  If the inside player lands at 80, he/she has a 2 point diversion while listening to my sister sing (music notes) at Morgan Creek Grill. The outer player has a similar penalty for charter fishing (hooked fish).  The outer player has a 3-point penalty for swimming in Breach Inlet (badly carved "dangerous current" sign at far left).  Incidentally, this is where the submarine Hunley exited the intercoastal to attack the USS Housatonic.  The shrimp is just for fun.  The local shrimp are excellent.  The "To 'Da Beach' sign depicts the one at the end of their driveway.

 

Not Aspinet (clearly)

Keep reading and I'll get back on topic

The card backs are a painting my aunt did of my parents and their dog at the beach.  A new deck was given last Christmas to replace these worn ones.

 

OK!  So much for the background.  The following posts will be all about my new board.

 

 

[gkharrin]

Drawing from "American Fishing Schooners"

, Howard I. Chapelle

Edited August 17, 2022 by gkharrin

[gkharrin]

 

I started by scoring the lines with a #11 hobby knife blade.  There are a few wobbles here and there.  I would have gotten better results if I'd cut out templates to press the knife and chisel against, but I got the impression it wasn't needed after a deceivingly successful test run doing it freehand.  Even when applying light pressure, it is difficult to keep the grain from taking the knife off line.

 

The template was made by pasting the scanned drawing into Solid Edge 2D and "tracing" the lines and holes I wanted over it.

[gkharrin]

All the lines scored and opened up a bit (V-groove) by running my chisel sideways and at an angle as a scraper.

[gkharrin]

The chisel is from a set of micro chisels with much longer shanks.  This one broke when I carelessly applied too much side pressure while working on my dad's board.  The broken part hit the brow of my eye.  No glasses on.  Learned a lesson there.  I held on to broken chisel.  Now that I needed a narrower chisel than any in the original set, I cut back some of the wood and squared up the round shank that was exposed to my desired width.  Then I filed away a chisel point.

 

Nearly all the carving was done by using the chisel as a scraper, not driving the edge into the wood.  As mentioned in the previous entry, I started by running it sideways at a slight angle.  This simply helped me stay in the groove scored by the hobby knife.  I then scraped away with the back of the chisel instead of the side, gradually moving it upright for the full width.

 

 

 

[gkharrin]

I was originally just going to do an etching or another relief carving.  At some point I got the crazy idea I could do inlay without any prior experience.  Here the first few pieces are going in.  I don't know the species of wood, only that it is very black and very brittle.

 

[gkharrin]

The first few buttock lines.  I'm using TiteBond liquid hide glue, as it does not discolor the wood and has a decent working time.  Before fully curing, it cleans up very easily.  It becomes the consistency of rubber cement when partially dry and is easy to scrape away.

 

Edited August 17, 2022 by gkharrin

[gkharrin]

I tried doing a rubbing for the areas that were not just narrow grooves.  Cutting with a knife was more accurate.  In either case I cut well outside the trace mark and slowly sanding my way in.

 

Edited April 28, 2023 by gkharrin

[gkharrin]

I managed to get a pretty good fit on each piece.  But to be sure, I mixed some cherry sawdust in with the glue, hoping the color of any visible glue line would be a better match.

 

[gkharrin]

I steamed an pre-bent the holly for some of the tighter curves.  The holly would bend well enough dry, but this way I wasn't fighting it so much.

 

[gkharrin]

The masts are another mystery species of wood.  Both were given to me by a friend whose late husband did working as a hobby.

 

I regret choosing the purplish tone. A darker brown would have been better.

 

[gkharrin]

Moving along....

 

[gkharrin]

Some gaps were revealed after scraping well and a light overall sanding.  I gouged out the worst areas to rework.

 

[gkharrin]

Mostly done with the inlay at this point.

 

Edited August 17, 2022 by gkharrin

[gkharrin]

After applying Watco Danish Oil

[gkharrin]

I am pretty disappointed with myself for over-sanding and over-estimating how far I was driving the holly into the grooves (as opposed to just crushing the top that got scraped and sanded away).  The pieces that were driven in well are still nice and white.  Those that were not got sanded too far, and the glue is making it look gray.  However, most people said they like the effect (maybe just being kind), and I'm afraid that if I try to fix it at this point the cure will be worse than the disease.

[gkharrin]

I had custom cards printed by youreondeck.com

 

Backs are the body plan for Aspinet

 

Spade pips are replaced by eye splices

Diamond pips are replaced by rigging blocks

Heart pips are replaced by .... hearts

Club pips are are replaced by deadeyes

Each face card is a different fishing schooner from Chapelle's book

Though not used in cribbage, the jokers delivered with the poker deck may as well be custom.  Since it fished the Grand Banks (or so I presume), I made them cod.

 

[gkharrin]

Yet to be done:

 

1. Turn belaying pins to use as the counters, one set from brass and other of some white metal (aluminum, stainless?)
2. Inlay some belaying pins or other decoration on the sides?
3. Inlay the name "Aspinet" or add a brass plaque?  If I inlay the name, I would carve it out and fill it with colored epoxy (after several trial runs).  No way I could inlay script letters and I would not want blocky ones.  The plaque would be safer.

[Charter33]

A beautiful, well executed and unusual project - thank you for taking me through it. I have a feeling that the black and brittle wood in post #6 is probably ebony...

Graham

[Javlin]

I like it and it's definitely different with a nice way to learn/preserve the history.The purple wood could be purpleheart starts off red and goes purple later if I am not mistaken.We get some  of it comes in through Gulfport Harbor a couple times a year along with others from S.America.I think that you have given insight for a project much the same just not a game for the local Museum dealing with the history of the Gulf Coast in MS.A buddy of mine which I am doing a base for now a different commission job is doing the the "Trojan" for the City of Gulfport.

 

I see your strip and it's purpleheart.

 

http://www.historicalsocietyofgulfport.org/trojan.html

Edited August 17, 2022 by Javlin

[gkharrin]

I see my post was moved to "Non-ship/categorised builds".  I get that, because it closer to scrimshaw than a boat model.  But when I looked at the rest of the posts in the category, I was dismayed my ship-themed item buried among dozens of plane and tank models.  Why are those even on this site at all?  At least mine is a ship.

 

It was also changed to "finished", which isn't quite true.  Not a problem.  But as noted earlier, there are still a few details to add.  This is the first of the belaying pin counting pegs.

Edited August 25, 2022 by gkharrin

[ccoyle]

10 hours ago, gkharrin said:

I see my post was moved to "Non-ship/categorised builds".  I get that, because it closer to scrimshaw than a boat model.  But when I looked at the rest of the posts in the category, I was dismayed my ship-themed item buried among dozens of plane and tank models.  Why are those even on this site at all?  At least mine is a ship.

 

I will answer those questions for you, since I'm the one who moved your topic. As you admitted, it is not a ship model, so the build log sections were not the right place. I admit that I wrestled with where to move your project -- it's one of those projects we get from time to time that doesn't fit neatly into one of our established sub-forums. It then becomes a judgment call about where to place it. If I'd left it in the build logs area, I'm sure some members would have wondered why a non-model was in that area. You can see the dilemma.

 

The reason why we have that non-ship sub-forum "at all" is because members asked for it, and as you can see it is a popular feature at our forum. And your build log is no more "buried" in that area than in any other part of our site. I use the "all unread content since my last visit" feature and your topic came right up.

 

The reason why I marked your project as finished is because it did appear to be finished, and it is not uncommon for members to not mark their projects finished when they are done with them. Again, it's a judgment call.

[Mirabell61]

Great idia with the card game Greg

 

Nils