Young America 1853 by EdT - FINISHED - extreme clipper

[Mahuna]

Great progress, Ed.  Your work on YA continues to amaze.

[archjofo]

Hi Ed,

your report is always fascinating.
You describe step by step how to make one and another detail.
This is like a textbook for ship model making at the highest level.
I learn a lot from you.
Thanks, Ed!

[druxey]

I believe that the spiders are entitled to a day off now and again, Ed. Seriously - seriously fine work.

[rwiederrich]

It may have been mentioned before...but what museum will be enjoying this fine model?

 

Or is it a family room mantle piece?

 

Rob

[BANYAN]

OK that's done it - I need a better (BIGGER) dictionary to find further superlatives - I have run out of ways to compliment your work ED

 

That is craftsmanship at its highest standard.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[cog]

Nicely done Ed ...  A real joy to behold ... you make me smile!

[allanyed]

Sorry if this has been brought up before, I may have missed it.    Your background set up is great.  I have used light grey backdrop paper in the past and it makes for much cleaner pictures with no background clutter.   Yours looks like a "small" enclosure with similar material.    Unless you have a third arm and hand, you must have an assistant taking the pics.   If that be the case, tell her these are great shots.  Cudos all around the Tosti house!

 

Allan

 

 

[EdT]

Thanks again, everyone, for all these comments and "likes."  As I have said many times already, they are much appreciated and help me tremendously.

 

Rob, I have not begun to think about future homes for any of the models,  but will need to do at some point, especially for Young America, which is much too large for a place in our home.  Victory fills an entire bay window behind me as I write.  Naiad is essentially in storage awaiting a case.

 

Allan, thank you.  The camera, on its tripod, is an ever-present necessity and obstruction in the workshop.  The white background for the model is provided by the white foamboard lining of the dust case - an essential feature in a shop that is also used for woodworking.  My bench tops are white melamine-coated particle board, so to take a picture at the bench, I usually sweep the clutter away, out of the shot, and take it.  Sometimes a use a sheet of Bristol board for close-ups of parts or use one of the drawings as a background.  I take all pictures using the 10-second timer on the tripod-mounted camera so I can setup the shot, then put my hands in if necessary.  All the pictures are taken in available light, using auto focus and aperture priority with the lens stopped down for maximum depth of field.  I sometimes use a screw-on macro lens for very close-ups.  White balance is a problem with the variety of lights in the shop - florescent, LED, and incandescent.  As I mentioned earlier, this usually requires some postwork color correction.  I probably average 200 pictures per month.  It is definitely a major part of the job.  Thanks for the question.

 

Ed

[Amalio]

Congratulation. Is a perfect work.

[stm]

Ed finding a final berth for our art work is always a daunting issue. You mentioned that your Victory is displayed in your home bay window. You probably are aware, but some of your readers may not be, that the suns rays can be very unforgiving to ships regardless of scale. The USS Constitution located in Boston has to be reversed each year so that the ship weathers evenly on all sides taking into consideration both the sea and sun. This is not just beneficial for the paint and planking, but also the mast which has a tendency to bend towards the sun over a length of time.

 

Scott

[EdT]

Young America - extreme clipper 1853
Part 285 – Mizzen Topmast

 

At this stage in the model I am feeling like most of the modeling methods are well developed, with kinks worked out and reduced to standard practice.  With a lot of repetitive work ahead, I believe efficiency and time saving will benefit by "mass producing" or at least grouping similar work.  So far, work has been mostly sequential – to avoid tedium as well as "systemic" process problems affecting a lot of parts.. 

 

Making all the remaining masts – the mizzen topmast, the topgallants, and the royal/skysail/pole integral masts are described in this and the next part.  Having these all made will allow me to reduce repeated setup time on the mill for boring matched, sized holes for the caps and the parral trusses.  This work will be described later.  This part describes the mizzen topmast, a repeat of earlier spar-making descriptions with some additional detail and at least one process improvement.

 

In the first picture the sized square of the "first trim" is held in the vise to file the square of the mast head.

 

 

The remaining square was then tapered - again by filing - using the fixture described in an earlier post to grip the tapered sides.

 

 

Tapering these smaller spars uses more filing and less of the planing and scraping that was used on the larger pieces.  Breadth of the spar was checked at each quarter frequently throughout all this shaping to conform to the specified dimensions.

 

The next steps create a regular octagonal shape over most of the spar.  Each surface is first marked with the lines of the apices of the octagonal shape.  The next picture shows two tools used for this marking.

 

 

The tool on the left – and its use - was described earlier.  It consists of a scriber point located 7/24 of the distance between the insides of two guide pins.  The tool marks a line at this proportional distance on tapered spars by holding the guides against the sides while marking.  The newer tool to the right has the same configuration, but substitutes a sharp drafting lead for the scriber.  This has the advantage of being easier to use, especially on small spars, but the disadvantage of having to frequently replace the lead.  It is also important that the point on the lead be sharpened on center.  The next picture shows this tool being used to mark lines on a small spar.

 

 

These lines serve for initial roughing out of the octagonal shape.  Final dimensions along the spar are refined by trial and error measurement with digital calipers.

 

The next picture shows the fillets being filed out at the square-to-round transition at the base of the mast.

 

 

This is done as the first step in creating the octagonal shape.  The next picture shows the octagon being filed on to the spar.

 

 

As described in an earlier post, the v-groove fixture is used to hold the piece for this work.  After completing and final dimension checking, the spar is rounded as shown in the next picture.

 

 

The last picture shows the finished topmast spar.

 

 

Note that the hounds area is left octagonal and that the fid opening at the base has been squared and sized.  The lower mast cap shown in the picture has the hole for this mast sized to fit the actual final diameter of the mast.  More on that later.

 

 

Ed

[Maury S]

Ed, Drilling all the holes in the spar while still square certainly helps.  Thanks for that tip earlier.

Maury

[BANYAN]

A great tutorial on scale mast making Ed; appreciated.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[Sailor1234567890]

Those fid holes look square. I would have envisioned the fids rectangular in section and therefore taller than they are wide. 

Edited May 19, 2018 by Sailor1234567890

[Sailor1234567890]

The P shaped block and the other larger block are my topmast fids. A lanyard hole is required yet but it is much more rectangular than square. Parral beads, parral dividers, belaying pins, my newly turned carving mallet and a centreboard cleat at the bottom of the image are the other bits you see there. It's all Black Locust, my favourite wood. Sorry, it's 1:1 scale.

 

 

Edited May 19, 2018 by Sailor1234567890

[EdT]

Sailor, I believe the fid hole in the last photo is 5" x 4" to fit the rectangular iron fid of that section.  You will see those dimensions in the lower corner of the drawing in the picture.  Fid sizes on the model range from 6"x 4" down to 3"x 2".

 

Ed

[Sailor1234567890]

A 5x4" section of iron almost 4 feet long? CRAZY huge compared to my little topmast fids. 

Edited May 19, 2018 by Sailor1234567890

[EdT]

I was thinking the same thing, Sailor, but we have to remember that this ship was about as long as a football field and almost as tall.

 

Ed

[Jeronimo]

Hi Ed,

beautiful work.

Karl

 

[EdT]

Young America - extreme clipper 1853
Part 286 – Upper Masts

 

I decided to make the six upper masts at one go.  This will allow me to use one basic set up of the milling machine to bore the holes in each of the six remaining caps and for the yard parral yokes.  It will also permit the actual finished mast diameters to be used to set the bore diameters.  This should ensure a tight but smooth fit on the caps.

 

The six masts include the three topgallant masts and the three single-stick royal/skysail/pole masts.  The topgallants were made by the process described in the last post.  In making the combined masts I started with the upper pole sections first and worked down.  The first picture shows one of the very slender poles being rounded.

 

 

After rounding the pole one of the skysails sections has been stepped is being tapered in the next picture.

 

 

Each section was converted to an octagon as shown in the next picture.

 

 

On these small pieces the octagons are too small to be marked as was done on the lower masts, sothey were formed by eye with frequent measurement checks.  The next picture shows one of the small poles being sanded to its final size.

 

 

 

 

The pole and royal sections on one of these are shown completed in the next picture.

 

 

 

In the next picture the fillet at the foot of a royal section has been filed and work on the octagon is in progress.

 

 

Finally, the six completed masts.

 

 

Trucks need to be added to the tops of the poles, the fid openings need to be squared, and all the sheave openings need to be formed.  The next step will be to make the caps and parral yokes based on these finished pieces.

 

Ed

[EdT]

Young America - extreme clipper 1853
Part 287 –Mast Caps and Parral Yokes

 

As was mentioned in the last post, making all the upper masts allowed the bores for both the caps and parral yokes to be made and fitted efficiently using one basic milling machine set up.  Holes were bored using the rotary table with the milling bit offset to produce each required bore diameter to fit its appropriate mast.

 

The first step was to create the necessary blanks of proper thickness for each required piece.  The first picture shows the collection of blanks for all the remaining caps and parrals.

 

 

To make these efficiently, a list of thicknesses was tabulated from the drawings.  Long (12") wood blanks were then reduced to size on the thickness sender starting with the thickest, then cutting off a roughly 3" blank, then reducing the thickness, cutting off the next blank, and so on. 

 

The next step on each of these was to cut it to the required width.  The next picture shows a correct-width blank for a cap with its center being marked using a center point in the mill chuck that has been precisely centered on the rotary table.

 

 

This mark – on the center of the bore - permitted a center line to be drawn on the piece that will later be used to mark out the shape of the cap and the square mortise for the masthead tenon.  This line was only needed on cap pieces.  The four-jaw centering chuck is a convenient way to hold these pieces, but a check should be made to determine which pair of jaws centers the work most precisely. 

 

The next picture shows a centerline being drawn with a compass.

 

 

To set the bore, the actual mast diameter was used, although this differed from the drawing diameter by at most a few thousandths of an inch. 

 

 

I did not leave an allowance for a simulated leather lining on either the caps or the parrals, but this could be done by increasing the offset by the thickness of the expected lining.  The milling bit diameter – smaller than the final bore - was subtracted from the mast diameter measurement and the remainder divided by 2 to determine the radial offset of the bit.  The table is rotated to make the hole.   The next picture shows the offset bit boring a hole in a cap piece.

 

 

These blanks were made long enough to produce at least two final pieces as insurance against later finishing errors.  Also, each setup was checked for fit after initial boring – usually on a scrap piece – so any necessary offset adjustments could be made before making the final bores.  The next picture shows a cap piece after boring and fitting to the mast.

 

 

This piece will later be marked out for final length, shape, and cutting of the square mortise.  After boring each cap hole, the same mill setup and offset was used to bore the parral yoke for the yard above.

 

Each parral blank was first ripped to double width based on measurements taken from the drawings as shown in the next picture.

 

 

The calipers were used to measure the parral width, which was then doubled to set the blank width for boring.  This method is accurate enough for the purpose.  After boring, the piece was ripped to the width measured above leaving a half-circle.  No centerlines were not needed on the parral pieces.  The next picture shows the main upper topsail parral piece being checked on the mast.

 

 

The parrals will be cut to length and shaped later when the yards are made. 

 

The last picture shows all the basic bored pieces – masts, caps and parrals - with some duplicates, ready for the next steps.

 

 

The mizzen topmast was included here since it has not yet been permanently installed.

 

This process worked well and saved a lot of machine setup time vs. making these parts one at a time as needed, although re-centering of the milling chuck was required a few times.  With the smaller bores, offsets were adjusted based on the previous bore then checked by trial and error, rather than returning to center each time.  Scrap pieces were used for trial and error fitting of the bored holes.

 

It took about four hours to make all these cap and parral pieces – pre-work thinking time not included.

 

Ed

[rwiederrich]

Nice.....

 

Rob

[druxey]

Methodical or what? Very nicely done, Ed.

[BANYAN]

Nice work and a very efficient method of doing it Ed.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[Hyposphagma]

Pretty nice. Masts are more work than normally expected....

 

[rwiederrich]

One thing I want to point out about clippers, is that they were build far and above what was normal practice.  From their Massive keel and framing construction to their iron lattice cross bracing and the extensive use of iron and brass frame securing pins.  So well built was the clipper design, with their long slender hulls, that new and improved methods were invented to prevent the dreaded *Hogging* effect that plagued long, narrow hulled ships.  Not to mention the enormous spread of canvas and towering masts required to sustain them...because the goal was speed and the ship was required to sustainably wisthand the driving of their captains, who were rewarded with substantial bonuses if they *drove* their vessels and crews to near destruction.  No other vessel design could meet this grueling requirement.

The true simplicity in their overall lack of ornate embellishment was, in one regard, what made them so attractive and said to be the finest creation man could produce that sailed the seas, not to mention the most beautiful Model ever designed.  Ed's exemplary reproduction is a marvel in of itself...but more so, demonstrates to us all the attention to strength the builders of these wooden Greyhounds designed into their creations to make their *Clippers* strong against the elements bent on tearing them apart.  Not to mention their captains who pushed them to near destruction.

Young America is an supreme example of all the elements of construction and design beautifully coming together to produce the best in naval architecture that endured for decades.

Ed...I applaud you , not only for your mastery in building such a fine representation of this renowned  model, but in demonstrating the same attention to detail that the original builders must have used to produce them.

 

Rob

[EdT]

Thank you, Rob, and thanks for all the other comments and likes.  Yes, the masts and yards are a lot of work - even before getting to the rigging.  A lot of pieces and a lot of ironwork.

Ed

[Sailor1234567890]

Rob, I completely agree with everything except one statement. I don't think they were the ultimate in strength to withstand the punishing their masters gave them. I think that palm goes to the iron and steel ocean carriers of the next generation. Pamir, Padua, Garthsnaid etc. Otherwise, your statements are eminently correct in my mind. I say this with a very strong preference for clippers over the later ocean carriers. Clippers were the ultimate sailing ship design in my mind. Beauty, speed, grace. They had it all. Now we have box like super tankers and container ships that can carry infinitely more cargo with a fraction the crew size but where's the fun in that? 

Keep building Ed, your work is outstanding and I love to watch the progress, dreaming that one day someone might actually build one of these and show the world what it was like at sea in them. 

 

[rwiederrich]

Sailor.....The claim was focused upon the wooden Clipper design.  When I mention this *Model*, I was referencing the Young American or Yankee Clipper *Model* which was not a composite design or a iron hull design which came later.  Iron hulled designs were of European origin.  Massive (2000+ tons) wooden hulled, fast clippers (American) and their immediate predecessor, the *Down Easter*. This MODEL was the subject of my  claim of strength.  I never suggested or said they were the *Ultimate in strength to withstand the punishment their masters gave them*. Up until the advent of the Clipper(American), no other ship design could withstand the grueling requirements  of the True clipper (speed and hauling a specialized cargo) and their owners demanded it of them. 

It has been said and recorded that there are 4 things that qualify or enable a vessel to be considered a clipper.  1) A fine lined Hull, 2) an emphasis on a streamlined appearance, 3) A large sail area, and 4) a Daring and skillful master.

 

I concur with you...no other ship design compared/s to the clipper design.  She is the Belle of the Ball, and Ed has demonstrated that here with his Young America.

 

Rob

[Sailor1234567890]

OH, I must have misinterpreted then. Yes, she is most certainly one heck of a beautiful ship. I'm more a fan of the smaller British clippers, Cutty Sark in particular but for the most part both the earlier American and the British clippers that came 20 or so years later look the same. Sleek lines, graceful towering rigs and driven JUST to the breaking point and hopefully no further. Damage to rigging was all too common though as evidence that they were driven extremely hard. I'd put forth that they were driven harder than the iron and steel ocean carriers of the next generation. The iron and steel carriers could take more punishment but they weren't pushed quite as hard as the graceful clippers were. Almost, but not quite. Keep at it Ed, we all love your work. Sorry for the thread drift. 

Cheers,
Daniel