North Carolina Oyster Sharpie by Paul Le Wol - 1/24 - from plans drawn by Thomas Pratt

[Paul Le Wol]

1 hour ago, FriedClams said:

 

What Keith said.  Simply wonderful work, Paul!

 

Gary

‘Thank you Gary. I appreciate your Comments very much!

[Paul Le Wol]

Hi Everyone, I hope you’re all ready for the holidays. Thank you so much for the Comments and Likes. I started making shackles with a jig that was made for a previous build. The vertical bit is a #59 and the horizontal bit is a #70. I think the vertical bit should have been a little smaller. The copper wire is 22 gauge.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The shackle was slid onto a 1/32” piece of brass and squeezed flat. The end of a wire was squeezed flat to make it appear to be a thumb screw and soldered to the shackle.

 

 

 

 

 

I’m not sure of how many shackles, rings, and turnbuckles were used on these boats as opposed to other types so I’m just going with the minimum amount. The blocks mounted on the gaffs for the peak halliards were seized to a loop of rope and the ends of the rope were threaded through a hole that was drilled in the gaffs. The rope was long enough to be able to loop the block around the end of the gaff although it could have been threaded through the hole in the opposite direction. 
 

 

 

CA was applied at each end of the hole. The gaffs were mounted and rigged.

 

 

 

 

The windlass was finished using some spare parts from Cheerful. It’s kind of rudimentary but I ran out of spare parts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Right now I’m tying off and trimming excess rope and planning the fences that run each side of the cabin. Have a great Christmas and New Year’s.

 

[JacquesCousteau]

Excellent work, this is really looking phenomenal. You may have mentioned it earlier, but did you paint the shackles, or chemically blacken them?

[Glen McGuire]

Superb metal work.  The shackles are particularly well done!  

[Keith Black]

 Great work, Paul. Thank you for sharing the way you made the shackles, I've stored that bit of information away for the future. 

[Paul Le Wol]

12 minutes ago, JacquesCousteau said:

Excellent work, this is really looking phenomenal. You may have mentioned it earlier, but did you paint the shackles, or chemically blacken them?

Thank you Jacques, I have been airbrushing them and then touching them up with a brush after they are installed. For some reason these two ended up being different colours.

 

11 minutes ago, Glen McGuire said:

Superb metal work.  The shackles are particularly well done!  

Thank you Glen, I appreciate your comments very much.

 

9 minutes ago, Keith Black said:

 Great work, Paul. Thank you for sharing the way you made the shackles, I've stored that bit of information away for the future. 

Keith, thank you very much for your nice comments!

[Keith Black]

 Paul, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and yours. 

[Paul Le Wol]

5 minutes ago, Keith Black said:

 Paul, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and yours. 

Thank you Keith. Merry Christmas to you, your family, and to everyone in this wonderful community!

[Paul Le Wol]

Hi Everyone, I hope you all had a great Christmas. Thanks to all for the Comments, Likes, and support. Finally decided to sit down and make two fairleads for the bow. They are made from 1!16” x 1/64” brass strip soldered together, cut and shaped.

 

 

 

 

They were sprayed with Vallejo Oily Steel and then touched up after mounting. Mostly to paint the brass nail heads that had been filed and sanded while chucked in a dremel. 

 

 

 

The drawing that I have shows the anchor rope going through some sort of block that is mounted to the side of the bowsprit. I’m thinking that it might be a snatch block although my block doesn’t really look like a snatch block. 
 

 

 

 

This rope was shaped in place using Vallejo Matt Polyurethane Varnish. The rest of the rope coils are being made using the following procedure. Cotton thread is taped to a dowel and the rope is then wrapped around it. The coil is tied with the thread and then slid off of the dowel. I like using the Press’nSeal because it sticks to most things in this case a piece of foam board.

 

 

 

 

The coil is brushed with varnish being careful not to get it on the cotton thread. Once the varnish has dried I trim one of the loose ends ( depending on how you are going to mount it)  and glue it with CA where it won’t be seen. For some reason I found that the CA works better after the rope has been varnished. Varnish is used to glue the coil to whatever it is mounted to and once it has dried the coil is shaped and varnished again.

 

 

 

 

 

A bit more rope work and then on to the fences and the deadeyes. Have a great New Year!

 

 

[Keith Black]

 Paul, those fairleads are beautiful and the rope work is very natural and tidy. Great stuff. 

[druxey]

Lovely work, Paul. Although adding whipping to the ends of the lines would be icing on the cake!

[Paul Le Wol]

26 minutes ago, Keith Black said:

 Paul, those fairleads are beautiful and the rope work is very natural and tidy. Great stuff. 

 

19 minutes ago, druxey said:

Lovely work, Paul. Although adding whipping to the ends of the lines would be icing on the cake!

Thank you gentlemen for your kind remarks. I appreciate your confidence druxey, but I don’t think I’m there yet 😀

[Jim Lad]

More lovely work, Paul. That's looks a great way to make cleats, by the way.

 

John

[Paul Le Wol]

Thank you John for your comment. I appreciate it very much.

[Glen McGuire]

Ditto what everyone else said about your work.  I particularly like the brass work on the fairleads.

[Paul Le Wol]

1 hour ago, Glen McGuire said:

Ditto what everyone else said about your work.  I particularly like the brass work on the fairleads.

Thank you Glen, I’m finally absorbing some of the metal work knowledge that’s available in this forum.

[davec]

Beautiful metal work and coils.  Amazing work!

[Paul Le Wol]

Dave, thank you very much for your support.

[Paul Le Wol]

Hi Everyone, I hope you are all having a great New Year. Thank you very much for the Comments and Likes. This will probably be the second last post for this log. It’s coming together quickly. I started by stropping the 5mm deadeyes that a friend gave me. They are from an abandoned Billing kit. Slices were cut from a 1/4” brass tube. After being cleaned up they were heated. When cool they were shaped around the deadeye and then the whole thing was placed into blackening solution.

 

 

 

 

The fences were made next to see if there would be any clearance issues with the deadeyes. A template was made from a file folder. There is a slight curvature in the deck where it runs past the cabin so the horizontal slats were edge bent all together. They are 1/32” x 3/32”. According to Chapelle’s drawing, none of the posts are spaced equally. Probably to avoid scuppers and things.
 

 

 

 

After a test fit the fences were given a coat of clear shellac and then airbrushed. A #22 copper pin was used in every other post to attach the fence to the deck. The posts are 3/32” square. The pins are glued into the posts but not the deck.

 

 

 

 

 

A length of.009” rope was attached with a clovehitch to the shroud ( with a bit of varnish) where the top of the deadeye is located. This rope is used to tie the knot where the shroud passes itself at the top of the deadeye.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once these are finished it will be just a matter of cleaning up some ropes on the deck. Hope to see you soon.

 

 

 

Edited Sunday at 06:49 PM by Paul Le Wol

[Keith Black]

 Really really nice work, Paul. I know you'll be glad to have this journey end but I've enjoyed the ride very much and will be somewhat sad to see it end. 

[Paul Le Wol]

31 minutes ago, Keith Black said:

 Really really nice work, Paul. I know you'll be glad to have this journey end but I've enjoyed the ride very much and will be somewhat sad to see it end. 

Hi Keith, thank you for your comment and thank you for joining me on this ride. It’s been a lot of fun!

[Jim Lad]

She just continues to delight, Paul!

 

John

[Paul Le Wol]

43 minutes ago, Jim Lad said:

She just continues to delight, Paul!

 

John

John, thank you very much for your generous comments!

[Glen McGuire]

Beautiful craftsmanship.  Every line is so clean and tight.  Well done, Paul.

[Paul Le Wol]

13 hours ago, Glen McGuire said:

Beautiful craftsmanship.  Every line is so clean and tight.  Well done, Paul.

Hi Glen, thank you for your comments. They are appreciated very much!

[davec]

Beautiful work - great to see the model so close to being finished!

[Paul Le Wol]

59 minutes ago, davec said:

Beautiful work - great to see the model so close to being finished!

Thank you very much Dave. Started this build in March of 2023. That’s quite a while ago and it’s gone by very quickly. Hope time starts slowing down some 😀