Endurance by Tomculb - OcCre - 1:70

[Tomculb]

Briefly following up on the personal note that started my last update, the depth of field problems disappeared within a day or two of posting that comment.  I had cataract surgery on the other eye yesterday afternoon, probably won’t be doing anything on my model today, but expect that today’s issues will gradually disappear as well.  😄

 

I thought this post was going to be about davits for the ship’s boats, but there were several things that needed to be done before tackling that job.

 

A couple of the many Endurance photos available online show the forward pair of davits to be significantly different from the rear ones.  The forward ones are mounted within the bulwarks, while the aft ones are attached to the outside of the hull, similar to what OcCre would have you do with both pairs of davits.

I ordered some 2mm diameter aluminum wire to make the davits (more on this in my next post, about the davits).  The bulwarks are made from 2mm thick plywood; an obvious problem.  I decided that the best solution to that problem was to glue a couple of 2mm (or perhaps 1/16”?) thick strips on the inside of each bulwark, just below the rail cap.  Much easier said than done in the narrow space available, especially for the forward strips. Fortunately the beam holding the aft end of the boats was only dry fit, and I was able to remove it, making a little more room available. After trying too many unsuccessful methods to talk about, what worked was applying a small piece of double sided scotch tape to a finger to which I stuck a strip, applying a bit of glue to the exposed side of the strip, and pressing it blindly into place.  For some reason I had a dentist’s mirror (plastic: probably a toy) where I store tools I never use, and I used that to view and make necessary adjustments. All of this so there would be enough wood available in which to drill holes for the davits.

Before I could install the davits, I needed to glue the boats in place, and before that I needed to rig the lines which lash the boats in place, and before that I needed to glue the planks which run between the deck house and the deck behind it, and before I did any of that, I needed to glue the aforementioned beam in place. And of course I needed to fabricate the davits, but that will be the subject of my next post. My fingers are too big and clumsy to rig the boat lashings with the boats in place, so I did the rigging very loosely, leading the threads through the previously installed eyebolts in the appropriate order, then sliding the boats though the loose loops of thread and into place after carefully placing a dab of glue where each boat’s keel will rest atop the beams.  After the glue dried, I tightened the thread and somehow tied off the end of each thread with a half hitch. Both ends of the thread were knotted to the same eyebolt, on the inside rather than the outboard side of the boat, so as to hide the unsightly knots.

I also found some time to rig a few ratlines.

 

 

 

[SaltyScot]

I am happy to read that your eye issue resolved itself, Tom. Let's hope the after effects of this latest surgery go the same route. I found your sticky tape solution ingenious! That is what a lot of this hobby is about, solving tricky issues like that. Nicely done.

[Tomculb]

A year ago March I made anchor davits from some 1mm aluminum wire that I had lying around.  It was very easy to bend and otherwise work with, and I had no idea where it came from.  Some Google sleuthing revealed that it’s often used in crafts, which led to the realization that this wire was probably something our daughter played with probably more than 25 years ago.

 

That wire was too thin to work for these davits, but I found some 2mm wire online that worked just fine.  At least for these two boats, the davits supplied by OcCre not only don’t work facing inboard, but IMHO they are too large for this scale.

Bending this wire to the desired shape was quite easy.  I found a highlighting pen that made a perfect jig. I then used some blunt nosed pliers to flatten the upper end of each wire and put a hole in each one to attach the tackle to.  The latter proved to be far more difficult than I expected; in part because my mini drill bit set is not very good quality, and in part because flattening the ends probably made the aluminum harder and denser.  The problem I had was creating enough of an indentation so that the drill bit didn’t dance all over the place before finally digging into the aluminum. What finally worked was driving a tiny nail through the metal, and enlarging the hole with an appropriately sized bit.

 

Then I realized that the tackle couldn’t travel in a straight line to a cleat positioned where any crew member could reach it; it would drape against the side of the boat, which just didn’t look right.  So I drilled holes for small eyebolts for the line to pass through. I don’t have, and probably couldn’t reliably handle, blocks small enough to fit the bill.  Next challenge was making cleats for securing the end of the tackle, very much like the wire cleats I attached near the bottom of each mast. The masts of course are significantly larger in diameter than these davits, and they provided a much better gluing target than these davits.  After an hour or two of unsuccessful efforts, I gave up and decided another eyebolt would have to serve as a faux cleat. Next step was to give the assembled davits a bath in denatured alcohol to get any finger grease off of them (I kind of guessed that was a good idea), then painted them with the same Model Shipways “Warm White” paint that I used on everything else that is white on the ship.

Rigging the tackles was pretty straight forward.  As with the anchor tackles, I used photo-etched hooks (left over from my prior build) to attach the tackles to the eyebolts previously installed in each boat. Those hooks are all but invisible in the photos below. Tying off the running end of each tackle was pretty straightforward as well.  Far more challenging was hanging a rope coil on each eyebolt rather than on a cleat; it took quite a bit of effort for something that is almost not visible. A dab of white paint on the top of each davit hides the thread used to tie the upper blocks to the davits.

[SaltyScot]

Tom, you did a fantastic job with those davits! They look great, truly. When the time comes, I am so going to steal your idea!! Nice work indeed.

[Tomculb]

Thanks for the kind remarks Mark.  I had some fun putting the boats and davits together.

 

 

About a year ago, I installed railings on deck, using realistic looking brass stanchions I ordered online from somewhere instead of the flat photo-etched ones supplied by OcCre. I Installed the railing that runs around the stern as instructed by OcCre (the railing topped by a cable), and later remembered a photo of the ship which shows a wooden cap atop the railing.  Ever since then I have thought about a do over to make my model better match the real thing, but that thought was always accompanied by another thought . . . I’ll approach the issue another day.  Well, another day has arrived.

 

 

Once I decided that the do over was in fact doable, I photo-copied the aft deck plan included in OcCre’s instructions, then cut out the rail, intending to use that as a template, to make sure the fit was right and for cutting out the rail from a sheet of 3/32” basswood I had. The paper was too flimsy to use for checking the fit, so I used it to cut a template from something thicker (an old file folder). I then cut out the rail using an Xacto knife. The result was a little asymmetrical, but I was hopeful that wouldn’t show. Laying it on top of the stanchions allayed my fears in that regard, but I discovered it was a couple of millimeters too narrow at the open end of the horseshoe. Fortunately  it could be pulled to the appropriate width without stressing the wood much at all.

The point of no return came when I clipped off the tops of each of the stanchions. That took some courage, but I grit my teeth, held my breath, and did it.

To stretch the rail cap to the desired width, I drilled holes in each end and slipped them over the stanchions.  Getting holes precisely drilled for all the other stanchions was going to be a challenge, so instead I tried leaving a drop of CA on top of each of the remaining stanchions and simply laid the rail cap on top of the rest of them.  That worked better than I expected. I’m sure it’s a little fragile, but that’s true of most of any ship model. Unfortunately the rail cap is a bit too thick (I later found a 1/16” sheet that would have been better), but over all I’m pretty happy with the result.

Finally, I have now glued the dog kennels in place.