Endurance by Tomculb - OcCre - 1:70

[Tomculb]

Somewhat presumptuously, given the many Endurance build logs already on these boards, I have decided to add yet another one. This post will explain why. Within the next day or two I will add posts listing the research sources I have come across, and photos of some kit-bashing I am doing at the very beginning of the build.

 

It seems to me that ship models can be placed on a continuum, with beautiful models at one end, and historically accurate, or at least realistic, ones at the other end. Built as instructed, OcCre models are toward the former end -- exposed brass, different kinds of unfinished wood, etc.  My first model, 30+ years ago, was Artesania Latina’s Bluenose. Nothing on it is painted, and it has a variety of beautiful woods, and brass anchor chains. I’m proud of the work I did, and I admire the beautiful models of this style others have displayed on this great website.

 

But since that first model, I have gravitated more toward the other end of the continuum, trying to build models that are at least credible reproductions of the real thing. Not better than the ones just described; just a different style. Doing so with this OcCre build will require some kit-bashing, and that is what I hope to devote most of this build log to. I also hope to be advised, informed and inspired by the comments of those who choose to follow me on this journey. And with a little luck, maybe I can return the favor.

[Snug Harbor Johnny]

  There is a lot of potential for enhancing this OcCre kit, as Clearway has shown on his build log.  Many are always looking for more tips and opportunities on any given ship, so more logs can provide this very thing.  Best of results, mate !       Johnny

[clearway]

Welcome to the Endurance club- yes the Occre kit is open to a lot of improvements- i found the book South With Endurance and pics on getty images good- also Hakezou has some links to some good pics on his log 😉

 

Keith

[Tomculb]

Johnny and Keith, I am delighted that you came across my post.  I have followed your build since the beginning Keith, and your research and knowledge of the ship Johnny is a great addition. The ongoing dialog between the two of you has been really helpful to me.  Thoughts and comments about my build, once it's truly underway, will be more than welcome. 

 

Another post coming along shortly.

[Tomculb]

Generally I have to say I prefer building to research, and I have not done much of the latter as part of my previous builds.  But Endurance will be a little different.  

 

The ship was built in Norway, under the name Polaris, completed in late 1912.  Ernest Shackleton bought it before it ever set sail, and with remarkable prescience, he renamed it Endurance.  The ship sailed from England on his ill-fated journey in August 1914. Endurance became trapped in the ice 5 months later, it was eventually crushed and destroyed, and the rest is well-known history. Shackleton and a few members of the crew reached civilization after a harrowing journey in one of the ship’s small boats, and he returned with another ship to rescue the rest of the crew, all of whom survived two winters in Antarctica.  

 

Determining what any historical ship looked like can be challenging, in part because most of them changed over time. In the case of Endurance, much has been written and even photographed about the remarkable human achievement. But that story is so gripping and compelling that it seems that the ship itself has been neglected. I have not been able to determine what changes Shackleton made to the ship after he purchased it. Endurance's voyage began only a handful of days after World War I broke out, and obviously the world's attention was not focused elsewhere.  Frank Hurley, the well-known early 20th century photographer, did not join the voyage until the ship left Buenos Aires in October 2014. 

 

Just under a year ago the remains of the ship were found on the ocean floor, and a book has just been released (which I haven’t seen yet) about the search and the discovery. Hopefully we will be learning more about the ship soon.

 

What little I have learned about Endurance came from the following:

 

• Alfred Lansing, Endurance, originally written in 1959 and reissued more than once since then. I read this book several years ago, and seem to have lost it sometime since then.

• Caroline Alexander, The Endurance: Shackleton’s Legendary Antarctic Expedition, 1998  

• South with Endurance, the Photographs of Frank Hurley, 2001, the most extensive collection of photographs taken by Mr. Hurley

• Richard Wright’s article in the Spring 2016 edition of Nautical Research Journal, Building Shackleton’s Endurance, describing his pre-Occre, scratch build of the ship

• Numerous Hurley photographs various places on the web, mostly part of the Getty Images site

• Website of the Shackleton Museum, located in Athy, Ireland.  Two things stand out here:  a very large scale model of the ship, which can be viewed from many angles, and a video from a submersible, showing the discovery of the ship last year

• Website of the National Library of Scotland, which includes a photograph of a sheet of plans for the ship (search “Endurance Diagram”)

• http://www.ernestshackleton.net, which includes photographs, including one of a plan sheet said to be “from the family collection” 

• The Alamy photography website with photos, including an interesting cutaway drawing found by searching for “cutaway view of Endurance”

• And last but certainly not least, the several build logs on these boards, and the contributions of many who have followed them.  To the best of my knowledge, the only FINISHED one is the excellent log posted by HakeZou

 

I thought I would also post my first build photos this morning, but life seems to be getting in the way.  Hopefully later today.

[Tomculb]

Right off the bat I made two modifications to the MDF false keel.  First, I cut out the part that runs between the first and second bulkheads, to accommodate the open area under the forward deck. An opening in the second bulkhead has been included in at least one other build on these boards, and a part of the opening is evident in a few of Frank Hurley’s photos.  

The second cuts were to make the propeller space rectangular rather than half moon.  Again, there are one or two Hurley photos, and old plans, that show a rectangular space for the propeller.  I was initially concerned about leaving a narrow piece of false keel along the bottom of this space that would be easily broken off, but then remembered that the keel will be added later in the build, and this small strip can be restored at that time.

The opening also required cutting away part of the second bulkhead.

As others have noted, the portholes are too small, although they are made to appear larger by brass flanges supplied with the kit.  However, most of the portholes on the ship did not have any fixture like this surrounding them, and I decided to not use the flanges.  Instead I enlarged the holes from 1/8” to 1/4”, using eight progressively larger bits.  I was paranoid that a bit would catch on the soft wood and break, or at least badly damage, the bulkhead.  What I found to work quite well was to run my electric drill slowly, and in reverse rather than the usual direction. 

A few photos of the ship show the bulkheads to be planked on the outside surfaces above the deck. Perhaps the most common alteration made by builders is to use narrower wood strips for planking the deck than those that are supplied in the kit. For this planking I cut supplied wood strips from 5mm to about 3mm, a task I found to be somewhat difficult, since the supplied strips are sycamore and harder to work with than the more typical basswood. I have ordered some 1/32 x 1/8 basswood strips for the deck planking.  

 

I painted the bulkhead planking white. I used a Model Shipways paint labeled “Warm White”.  It is slightly off white and not as bright as straight white, which I find more appropriate for a work boat.  I painted the insides of the portholes black to give them some depth.  I also painted black the visible part of the area under the foredeck, and installed some wood strips to support decking in there. The subdecks shown in the photos below are only dry fit in place for now.

In the next to last bulkhead, which faces aft, the existing holes are too close to the top edge to enlarge them to 1/4”.  In the photo below you can see that the middle section of the plywood came out next to the right two portholes. I stopped drilling when the holes had reached 7/32”.

That bulkhead needs to be planked, and then I move on to planking the decks.

 

Edited March 6, 2023 by Tomculb

[BobG]

The book, Endurance, is one of my favorite books about arctic exploration that I've ever read and I've always wondered why it took so long for a model kit of this historic ship to become available. I'll be following along with great interest, Tom. Good luck!

[Tomculb]

On his build log, Clearway  was kind enough to point out that the propeller insert is not exactly a rectangle; rather, the upper part slopes at about 30 degrees.  That should be a relatively easy thing to fix.  Thanks Clearway.

[Gus M]

On board, great work

[Tomculb]

Also referring to Clearway’s blog, there is a discussion between him and Snug Harbor Johnny in which the latter says “The idea for any ship build is to pick a time, place and situation that one wants to represent ... all ships tended to be 'works in progress'.”  Certainly good advice. 

 

I think my primary reference going forward will be a photo of a sheet of plans I found on the website for the National Library of Scotland, which purport to be plans for the ship Endurance, not the ship as originally built in Norway and given the name Polaris. That would of course be Endurance before it embarked on its journey south and would not include any modifications made along the way or after it got stuck in the ice. To the extent I remain true to Johnny's good advice, these plans will be my reference point.

 

While not entirely clear, these plans would suggest that the lower deck between the foredeck and the cabin simply continues forward under the foredeck, uninterrupted by any bulkhead. There is at least one Frank Hurley photo (I can’t find it now) that shows a partial bulkhead like what B-Ram did on his build and I have pretty much copied on mine.The slope in the propeller insert mentioned in my last post can also be seen in those plans (although ironically those plans could be interpreted as showing the half moon shaped insert as provided in the kit).

Edited March 12, 2023 by Tomculb
added link to B-Ram's build

[clearway]

the two "rooms" under the foredeck will need walls adding to represent the aforementioned lamp room and wc - also note the anchor windlass- the half moon shape which fooled me into leaving it on my build is actually the two bladed prop (note the prop shaft continues through the prop into a bearing on the sternpost). Also the funnel has flattened sides and is oval shaped in cross section (i didn't fancy working the flange into the funnel top on an oval shaped tube- chicken i know)!

 

Keith

Edited March 12, 2023 by clearway
typo

[Tomculb]

The foredeck and what I am calling the lower deck are now planked.  Some observations:

 

As mentioned previously, the supplied 0.6 x 5mm strips are, to my eye anyway, too wide. I therefore ordered a handful of 1/32 x 1/8 planks to use instead. Assuming my calculations are correct, 5mm translates to about 13¾” wide on the real deck, while 1/8” is a more reasonable 8¾“.

 

I had several stains hanging around, and after a brushing few dabs of each on the backside of the lower deck, I chose one labeled Red Chestnut.  

I applied Verathane wood conditioner first, brushed it on the foredeck, wiped off the excess, and then let it dry for a few hours.  Then I applied a coat of stain.

 

I am not super pleased with the result.  It’s darker than I expected, and blotchy.  There are plank specific inconsistencies in the appearance, and that’s OK since it highlights the fact that this deck is actually planked with individual planks.  But there is a blotchiness that covers multiple planks that I’m not really happy with.  Hopefully these issues will become less noticeable with an anchor or two and other deck furniture on deck.

 

I began planking at the aft edge of the subdeck, but then realized as I worked my way out from the center to the edges of the opening below that I should have extended the planks 0.6mm beyond the subdeck, to cover the tops of the planks I previously glued to the bulkhead. Hard to see, but in the photos you can see that I added a 0.6mm strip across the top of the opening to fill the gap. The ends of the deck planks and the face of this strip will be hidden by a strip which will eventually run the width of the ship across the top of the bulkhead.

On to the lower deck.

 

Every other plank will extend into the open area under the foredeck, and those planks will be glued in place only when the lower deck is glued in place.  Both that deck and the foredeck are only dry fit in these photos.

 

In ordering the narrower planks I made an arithmetic error in calculating how much I would need, and I forgot that the cabin has its own deck to be planked.  In the hope that I would have enough wood strips without buying more (a futile hope I later realized), I left unplanked the area under the cabin. In retrospect that was probably not a great idea.  Keeping all the planks straight and headed in the same direction, it’s a lot easier to work your way outward from a carefully located center plank. I ended up with some crookedness that fortunately is not very apparent.

 

In the photo below, note the very stupid mistake I made (I think the medical term is “cranial flatulence”) -- while trimming the edge planks to conform to the subdeck, I very carefully cut out one of the slots that hold the top ends of the bulkheads.  Those are supposed to be concealed under the planks.  Fortunately removing and replacing the damaged planks was not as difficult as I feared.

There are two slots in the deck intended to hold tabs on the pieces that make up the fore and aft ends of the cabin, and I cut my planks to leave these slots open.  I later discovered that the slots are wider than the tabs that are supposed to fill them. And in the second picture below you can see that with the cabin slid forward to hide that slot, there is an unfortunate gap in planking at the aft slot. I’ve thought of a couple of possible remedies, but haven’t decided yet exactly what to do about that issue.

As an aside I mentioned using the under side of this subdeck to test various stains.  After the stains dried, I discovered that the subdeck had warped in kind of a wavy way, I guess due to the dabs of liquid.  Some years ago I purchased a device designed to help in the assembly of things like cabins -- it’s a steel tray, with magnets to hold pieces in place. Generally it hasn’t proved to be as useful as I expected, but it proved to be very useful here.  I turned it upside down and held the subdeck in place on flat bottom with some magnets that came with it, along with a couple of industrial strength magnets I had purchased for some long-forgotten purpose years ago.  Planking the subdeck with it forced into an unwarped position reduced the warpage substantially, so that gluing it in place at the appropriate time will be easy.

This time I applied the stain more carefully, trying to avoid any accumulation of liquid on the surface.  I am much happier with the result, but it's still not quite what I would like it to be.  The color isn’t consistent in the photos below, but I think the middle one is probably the most accurate.  It's not as red as any of these photos.

Finally, there are two holes near the outer edges of this subdeck in line with the hole for the main mast.  I planked right over them for now.  The instructions show what look like stacks or vents that go in these holes (maybe cookstove stacks?).  Looking at the plans shown in my last post, I can’t see that they show up in the side view, but the holes are definitely there in the deck views.  Do any of you who have worked on this model or researched Endurance know what they are?

[B-Ram]

Hi Tom,

 

I have looked through all of my pictures and none of them show any stacks or vents in that area. Unfortunately, I did not notice this when I was planking the deck. Now I will have to figure out how to eliminate these holes.

 

Bill

[Mike Dowling]

I have both stacks and vents on mine, definitely needed the holes.

[clearway]

23 hours ago, Tomculb said:

Finally, there are two holes near the outer edges of this subdeck in line with the hole for the main mast.  I planked right over them for now.  The instructions show what look like stacks or vents that go in these holes (maybe cookstove stacks?)

they are actually the location of the coal holes for the bunkers- i think Occre got confused with the plans and the galley stove pipe on pictures of Endurance- the galley is in the foremost part of the deckhouse or "ritz" as it was referred to. Unfortunately i opened them up on my deck(will need to make a couple of round covers to hide the holes. Build is coming along nicely Tom  (dont forget the sides on the bulkheads under the anchor deck)

 

Keith

[Tomculb]

Thanks Keith, that makes a lot of sense.  I think I'll simply devise some sort of coal hole cover for holes that aren't really there.

 

Yes, I haven't forgotten the WC and lamp locker walls.  The anchor deck isn't glued in place and probably won't be for some time to come.

[Tomculb]

I have now finished planking and staining the upper deck and the aft deck.  The aft edges of both decks need some clean up and perhaps even replacement of a plank or two, to cleanly cover the tops of the bulkhead planks, but I won’t attempt that until I am ready to glue the decks in place (more on this in a minute).

 

I should have mentioned in my previous post that I did not incorporate treenails in my planks (obviously).  My rationale is that with the narrower (⅛”) planks, that is a detail that is just too small to do effectively.  Someone will undoubtedly prove me wrong (or already has).

The instructions call for gluing the decks in place, as well as the bulwarks (and accompanying stanchions), aft cabin sidewalls, and various other things before planking the hull. My hull planking always seems to involve a lot of not-so-gentle man-handling of the hull, so I decided to plank most of the hull with little more than bulkheads in place.  I don’t want to risk damaging any of the work I’ve already done.

 

The first step of course is to glue in the supplied filler pieces (and perhaps some full on filler blocks) and fair them and the edges of the bulkheads. I’ll start at the keel and work my way up, at least for a while.  Right now I’m thinking about how best to fair the planks into the stem and keel.

[B-Ram]

Hi Tom,

You’re doing a great job on the Endurance. Regarding the treenails. In all of the pictures of the Endurance I have seen, I have never been able to make out any nails. I left them out also.

 

Bill

[Gus M]

Great job, thanks for sharing Tom

[clearway]

i used a dremel with a sanding drum on mine Tom- though watch out it is easy to take too much off and whatever happens dont take any off the forward edge forewards of midships and after edge towards the stern.

 

Keith

[Tomculb]

Thanks for the likes and kind words everyone.

 

Keith, I used my Dremel tool last night to do some fairing, and I was pretty happy with the results.  You're right, you do have to be careful.  It's a bit like doing brain surgery with a chain saw (although I guess I really wouldn't know).  🤕  As an aside, we're vacationing in Scotland later this summer . . . the big cities and north of there.  Looks like Cumbria is northwestern England, so a little south of where we'll be.  Definitely looking forward to it.

[clearway]

On 3/29/2023 at 9:31 PM, Tomculb said:

Looks like Cumbria is northwestern England, so a little south of where we'll be.  Definitely looking forward to it.

Pack plenty of waterproof clothing Tom! Cumbria is on the south western border of Scotland -the old county of Cumberland which was altered in the 1974 county boundary change forms a large part of Cumbria which was the first part of Scotland to be annexed by Henry 1 for England in the 1100s (no town, parish or hamlet from Cumberland appears in the doomsday book). 

 

Keith

[Tomculb]

You mean it rains in Scotland?  😀  Actually we'll be well prepared.  ☔ And will hopefully have done some history reading.  Thanks for the head start Keith, and nice work on your Endurance.

[Mike Dowling]

It doesn't actually rain that much - no more than parts of England and the scenery is to die for. I know, I moved here 17 years ago and love every minute of it rain, snow,wind, sun the lot!!!!

[Tomculb]

We're certainly looking forward to our trip Mike.  Scotland does look like it has jaw dropping scenery,, and for the most part bad weather is only weather you didn't properly dress for.

[Tomculb]

Slow progress since my last post . . . 

 

Since I intend to paint the entire hull, I think I’m going to try only one layer of planking instead of the two provided by the kit. A lot of filler and sanding, followed by a few layers of paint, have worked well for me in the past (most recently Joshua Slocum's Spray) and hopefully I can pull that off again. In the meantime, that first layer looks pretty ugly. I just recently read a couple of Chuck Passaro’s articles on his Syren website (particularly the second chapters of his Winchelsea and Medway Longboat instructions), and I’m hoping to learn a thing or two about planking from them. 

 

The instructions have you nail the planks to the bulkheads. I don’t think I have ever nailed anything to a ship model in the past (I don’t even have a hammer in my shipyard), and I’m not inclined to start doing that now.  

 

When it comes to bending planks, there are almost as many methods out there as there are bloggers on these boards. Several people on these boards have said that what makes a strip of wood bendable is heat, and that water is only the medium for transmitting heat.  Rather than soaking, what has worked for me is to dip a finger in water, run your finger along the surface of the wood strip, then run an iron along the strip, slowly bending the strip to the desired shape. Multiple applications of water and heat may be needed. While I still need to clamp in place while the glue dries, I do find that the wood becomes as pliable as it would have had it been soaked for some period of time in hot water.

 

The iron I use is one I bought decades ago, made for applying Monokote to R/C airplanes (gliders in my case). 

 

OcCre being a European company (Spanish), all the wood is supplied in metric sizes.  I used 1/16” thick strips to plank my previous POB builds, and the strips supplied in the kit are 2 mm, which is about 20% thicker. That calculation has convinced me that these planks don’t just seem 20% harder to bend, but that they really are that much more difficult to work with!  

I am now thinking that I will go back to where I was before I started planking. I’ll glue the decks in place, otherwise follow the order of things as directed in the instructions, and then continue planking, working my way down to what I have done to date.

 

[Tomculb]

Leaving aside hull planking for now, I did the following:

• Glued the lower deck in place

• Extended the planking on that deck into the open space below the foredeck

• Planked walls for the W/C on the port side and the lantern locker on the starboard side (more on this later)

• Added trim where the bulkhead and the newly added walls meet the deck 

• Made doors by gluing two 1/32 x 1/8 strips side by side, painted them brown, added tiny door handles painted black (which are barely visible), and glued the doors to the walls

• Drilled holes in the forward bulkhead, when it occurred to me that the anchor chains will pass through the hull through hawse pipes, pass through these holes in the bulkhead (a bulkhead that did not exist on the ship), and then pass aft to a windlass yet to be installed in this open area

• Drilled holes in the deck a little forward aft of where the windlass will be, and lined them with a couple of the fittings I will not be using to line the portholes. The chain coming off the windlass will drop into the chain locker through these holes.

• Glued the foredeck in place

• Trimmed the upper edge of the bulkhead/foredeck with a 1/32 x 1/8 strip

The plans I previously posted and similar ones I have seen reflect a W/C and locker that appear considerably smaller than the ones I have built.  I don’t see how that can be done with a bulkhead, portholes and open area as they appear in the Hurley photos. And as for the doors , , ,  that is pure historical speculation on my part. But I think they look credible.  I cut the doors 16 mm high, which translates to 3’8” on the ship, requiring a major stoop to get to the head. Similarly, I don't see a chain locker anywhere on the plans, but it has to be directly below the windlass. 

 

Edited April 25, 2023 by Tomculb
Oops!

[clearway]

looks credible enough Tom, and yes the chain will pass through the deck.

 

Keith

[Tomculb]

Gluing the remaining decks in place was pretty straightforward.  The only “issue” I had was that the upper deck was a little warped, and I needed to use strong rubber bands looped around the hull and ⅜” square stock to hold it in place while it dried.

 

Incidentally, does anyone know the correct terminology for the decks, if there is any?  I know a quarter deck was usually the raised deck at the stern from which the captain ran the ship, but that doesn’t really describe these decks.

 

Several weeks ago Clearway and I exchanged posts about how none of the plans show the vents or stacks OcCre would have you install at the aft end of what I have been calling the lower deck. His thought is that there should be capped holes there through which coal is loaded into bunkers.  That makes a lot of sense to me. I made the caps with a three hole punch, using thick paper/thin cardboard from a manila file folder, painted dark gray. The little knobs are the heads of tiny nails pushed through the middle of each one.

 

The doors are photo etched-brass parts, and for the moment they are temporarily held in place with double sided tape while I try to decide what color scheme I want for those parts of the ship not stained and not painted black or white. Unfortunately I haven’t seen any Hurley photos that are helpful.  OcCre supplies dark wood for the outer hull planking and for trim elsewhere, and the photo/instructions show a lot of things (dog kennels for instance) painted dark brown. My initial reaction to the contrasting white and dark colors is that it looks too much like a yacht and not enough like a work boat, but that’s just me. But I do think I want something that looks a bit weathered. I ordered three shades of brown paint and what you see below is the lightest one. But I’m not convinced that’s what I want. In any event, the jury is still out on this matter.

[Tomculb]

The kit comes with laser cut pieces for the sides of the hull with eight port holes in each of them.  As I did with the bulkheads, I enlarged the portholes to look more like those on the ship, this time using my Dremel tool and a conical shaped bit.  That was much easier than the drill bits I used to enlarge the bulkhead portholes.

 

The instructions have you plank these pieces (horizontally) quite a bit later in the build, but I decided to do that now, using .6mm x 5mm supplied strips.  I also painted them white (with black on the inside edges of the portholes) before gluing them in place, rather than waiting  until later.  They fit well with a minimum of bending and twisting.

The bulwark pieces are also laser cut, and they were a little more challenging.  I made the job a bit more problematic when I installed the lower deck without noticing a pronounced downward bend in the deck at the aft port corner.  A small shim in the notch in the bulkhead piece took care of that problem.  

Similarly I could not make the tab at the upper forward corner of the bulwark pieces fit into the notch cut cut in the laser cut bow “railings” (I can’t think of a better word for these pieces), so I filled those notches with small pieces of wood.

Moving from aft to forward, these pieces have quite a bit of inward bend and outward twist (about 30°). As I did with the hull planks I have installed, I used water and my small iron to facilitate the bending and twisting.  I also painted the inside surfaces of the bulwarks white before gluing them in place. The instructions would have you do the painting later, taping the decks to avoid getting paint on them.

 

Edited May 11, 2023 by Tomculb
Replaced "bulkhead" with "bulwark" a couple of places.