Pelican 1943 by FriedClams - 1:48 - Eastern-Rig Dragger

[Hubac's Historian]

Pure model-making magic, Gary!  Brilliant stuff.

[Valeriy V]

Gary, you never cease to amaze! Great process! 👌👍

[jerome]

That ice is the best looking ice I ever seen.

Excellent!

[FriedClams]

Greetings Fellow Modelers

 

Marc, Valeriy and Jerome - thank you for your kind words and thanks to all for the "thumbs up" and stopping to take a look!

 

 

Deck Beams

 

I've been working on the deck beams and they are now in place.  Even though I'll be using rather stout deck planking, I will most likely be adding intermediate beams where the spacing between them is too wide.

 

I determined the crown of the beams by measuring the distance between the “top of main deck at side” and “top of main deck at center.”

 

 

 

This measurement and the distance of the span across the hull, defines the beam at any given point along the length of the hull.  And it provides a template in which to shape and cut the beam. 

 

 

The crown of the deck is not consistent from stem to stern meaning that in some areas the arc is flatter/shallower than other areas.  I plotted the arc of each beam individually, but to be honest, they were so close to each other that this exercise felt unnecessary and at times pointless.  The beams are scale 6” x 6” (15.24cm) and heat was applied to bend them.  I over-bent them first and then compared and adjusted the relaxed beam to the template.

 

 

 

The hatch openings were drawn and used as a construction guide.

 

 

 

 

The hatch openings were placed using a tape edge as a centering guide.

 

 

 

LED lighting is installed over the fish hold.

 

 

 

Clearly, the deck will have to be light-leak proofed in some way.

 

 

 

The beams are installed but as you can see a minimum of five more are needed to fill in the gaps.

 

 

 

The drawings refer to the raised aft deck as the “break deck” which stands 8” (20.32cm) above the forward deck.  It begins at the blue line shown below and extends to the stern.  This keeps most of the water and fish sleaze forward of the winch and pilothouse.

 

 

 

I'll be planking the forward deck first and then placing the forward most break deck beam on top of that, so in the photos below the break deck is still 10' (3.05m) short.

 

 

 

Bunker Plates

 

In a diversion from deck beams, I decided to make up the bunker plates.  These plates are positioned over the fish bunkers and are used for filling them with ice and sometimes fish.  Note the skid of uninstalled plates behind the shipwright below.  The plate itself which has a cast no-slip surface, lifts out of the stationary outer ring.  What look like three gigantic straight slot screws are actually quarter-turn latch mechanisms and in the center of the disc is the lifting point that accepts a hooked rod.

 

 

 

The plate, not including the outer ring is 18” dia (45.7cm) which converts to 3/8” (9.5mm) in 1:48.  The plate has some nice detail, but I don't have any machine tools and so I decided to make them from polymer clay with a brass perimeter ring.  I began by cutting 1mm slices from 3/8” OD brass tube.

 

 

 

This boat has only four bunker plates which bewilders me because it has eight bunkers.  Other dragger drawings I've seen have one per bunker, typically eight.  I'll talk more about this in a future post, but for now I'm making up only four.  The perimeter rings are blackened using Jax Flemish Gray.

 

 

 

I used Sculpey 3 polymer clay because it's readily available at craft stores.  The stuff isn't really clay, but it's kneaded and worked in the same way.  When your done forming the part, it goes into an oven to cure.

 

Here's the process I used.  Once kneaded, I rolled it to the thickness required.

 

 

 

Then a fine brass screen was used to leave an impression in the clay.  A 60-mesh screen - 60 apertures per linear inch (25.4mm).

 

 

 

A section of the 3/8” OD brass tube leaves a surface impression on the clay.

 

 

 

A scale template of the plate is printed on a clear laser sheet and the lift and latch locations are transferred.

 

 

 

A modified toothpick for the latch mechanisms.

 

 

 

Sharpened toothpick for the slots.

 

 

 

Dowel for the center lift.

 

 

 

The 3/8” brass tube is re-registered and pushed down like a cookie cutter.  The reason this is done last and not first is that embedding the latch impressions into the clay deforms the circle if there is no surrounding clay mass.

 

 

 

 

The sequence photos above were taken just to show the process.  The bunker plates for the model were formed in white clay and on sheet steel for putting in the oven (bright lights and shiny steel don't make for good photography.)

 

 

 

The lifting bar thingamajig.

 

 

 

Primed gray and placed into the perimeter ring.  A little rust color was added followed by a dry-brushing of silver enamel.

 

 

 

The outer stationary ring/receiver that embeds into the deck will be made another time.  Thanks for stopping by.

 

Be safe and stay well.

 

Gary

 

[Keith Black]

 Gary, you never cease to amaze. Great realism. 

 

 Regarding there only being four bunker plates, possibly the flexible tube was inserted through the plate and moved from one fish hold to its adjoining neighbor?

[druxey]

A most ingenious solution. Brilliant!

[KeithAug]

Gary - thank you for the bunker plate tutorial. I am sure that I will make use of that technique at some time. You paint work is up to its usual excellent standard.

[Glen McGuire]

Wow.  Just wow.

[FriedClams]

 

Druxey, Keith A and Glen - thank you kindly for the nice comments.  And as always, thanks to all for the "thumbs up".

 

21 hours ago, Keith Black said:

Regarding there only being four bunker plates, possibly the flexible tube was inserted through the plate and moved from one fish hold to its adjoining neighbor?

 

Hello Keith and thanks for your post.  Yes, they did use a single plate to service two bunkers, and they did this by positioning it over the partition walls separating two bunkers.  See the deck detail below.  Notice the plate to the left is positioned entirely over one bunker, but a jog in the partition wall was constructed to share half of the opening.  Or at least that is the way it appears to me.  Obviously, the plate position is dictated by the deck beams and there just happens to be one over that partition.  But I don't believe there is enough room at the top of the partition to sort of snorkel over it though.

 

 

 

What baffles me is why not simply add more plates to where they are needed like the boat below, and I'd be willing to bet the photographer is standing with one right in front of his feet.  Also, the plate spacing in the photo of the shipwright in the post above suggests to me that there will be a fourth one behind him in the area of the skid. 

 

 

Here's what I'm wondering.  The Pelican was designed in 1943 during a time of severe metal shortages due to the war effort.  Ration stamps for food and gasoline were a part of everyday life.  No automobiles, commercial vehicles or auto part were manufactured from February 1942 to October 1945 and all focus had shifted to wartime production of ships, tanks, planes, etc.  Large fishing vessels were conscripted for military activities, but smaller F/V prospered due to wartime protein demands.  So, it seems you couldn't buy a new dump truck, but you could have a new F/V built.  A wooden dragger does have quite a bit of steel and iron on it, most of which is necessary like a winch, diesel engine, gallows frames and steel cable.  But are eight bunker plates necessary if you can get by with four?  Or was it because every foundry no matter how small had shifted to military component production and bunker plates were simply hard to find?

 

I don't know - just typing out loud.   Thanks again.

 

 

Gary

 

 

[JacquesCousteau]

7 minutes ago, FriedClams said:

So, it seems you couldn't buy a new dump truck, but you could have a new F/V built.  A wooden dragger does have quite a bit of steel and iron on it, most of which is necessary like a winch, diesel engine, gallows frames and steel cable.  But are eight bunker plates necessary if you can get by with four?  Or was it because every foundry no matter how small had shifted to military component production and bunker plates were simply hard to find?

Really fascinating stuff. I wonder if there are any oral histories of fishermen or boatbuilders during the war that might have an answer?

[Landlubber Mike]

Amazing build as always Gary!  Those bunker plates came out fantastic!  Thanks for sharing your modeling techniques with us mere mortals.

[FriedClams]

Greetings all,

 

Thanks so much for the wonderful comments, the thumbs-ups and for finding the time to visit this build. 

 

Bulwark Stanchions

 

Before work could begin on the stanchions for the bulwark, I first had to finish up from the last post by adding five more deck beams where the span between existing beams was too great.

 

 

 

With that done, I started on the stanchions which the drawings refer to as the “top timbers.”  This boat has 106 top timbers and are spaced about every 18” (45.7cm). In full disclosure, there are several details of these timbers that I didn't model because I felt there would be little return on the effort invested.  First of these details is a taper of the timbers from 4.75” (12cm) at the deck to 4” (10cm) at the underside of the rail.  In 1:48 that's a difference of .016” (.39mm), so I used wood that doesn't taper and scales to 4.5” square instead.  Also, the drawings call for chamfered edges on the inside facing corners - very nice, but no.  The most glaring omission is that I didn't bevel the outside and inside faces as they approached the stem and stern.  In the image below, the top timbers below the red line are obvious enough that I should have beveled them, but I didn't.  Forward of the blue line will be a raised “whaleback”, so those extremely beveled timbers are all hidden.

 

 

 

This is the profile of the whaleback (green) visible above the main rail (red).

 

 

 

And the same thing aft, but there are no beveled timbers as they round the stern and there is little discernible bevel moving forward through midships. If it sounds like I'm constructing a justification for not beveling any of the top timbers, you're onto something.

 

 

 

I made four off-model stanchion bulwark assemblies.  One each for the port and starboard bulwarks forward of station #7 and two more for P/S aft of station #7.  I created a template for each assembly based on the distance between bottom of deck at side and bottom of main rail.

 

 

 

The top timbers are at a right angle to the waterline, not the rail.

 

The angle of bend at each body plan station is found.

 

 

 

 

The upper waist strake for the bulwark section is bent to the proper arc and then attached to the template with double-sided tape. The top timbers are then glued to it.

 

 

 

 

The section of top timbers is affixed to the hull.  Note that a strip of wood equal to the deck thickness has been glued to the upper most hull strake.  The bottoms of all the top timbers are glued to its inside edge.

 

 

 

The final eight timbers at the stern were placed individually.

 

 

 

The scant number of timbers in the bow area were placed willy-nilly to temporarily hold the waist strake in its proper orientation until the bulwark is complete and the whaleback structure starts taking shape.

 

 

 

 

Next up – finish planking the bulwark, installing the inside rail stringer and fitting the covering boards (oh boy!).

 

Be safe and stay well.

 

Gary

 

Edited August 3 by FriedClams
Spelling

[TBlack]

Fantastic!

[Paul Le Wol]

Hi Gary, beautifully done. Those 3/4 bow and stern photos are something to behold.

[Keith Black]

 Beautiful work, Gary. She's really taking shape, all very clean and tidy. 

[KeithAug]

Gary, the last couple of shots show her off to perfection, beautifully done. Being super critical just to bring you back to earth, are 2 of the planks at the port bow a little recessed or am I looking at a bit of filler?

[FlyingFish]

The sheer line is very nice - poetic even. Very nice work.

[Rick310]

Beautiful hull, very impressive!

Rick

[FriedClams]

Thank you, Tom, Paul, Keith B, Keith A, Andy and Rick for the nice words!  And thanks to all for the visits and the "thumbs up". 

 

On 8/3/2024 at 12:43 PM, Paul Le Wol said:

Those 3/4 bow and stern photos are something to behold.

 

22 hours ago, KeithAug said:

Gary, the last couple of shots show her off to perfection, beautifully done.

 

Thanks!  I have a Sony RX 100 that a bought about eleven years ago and use for all the posted photos. It's a fixed lens pocket camera that has features you would only expect to find on a DSLR, like RAW capture.  It takes great images even in bad lighting and can focus inches away from the subject.  It makes taking a decent photo easy.

 

 

 

22 hours ago, KeithAug said:

are 2 of the planks at the port bow a little recessed or am I looking at a bit of filler?

 

If you mean the third and fifth hull plank down where it is attached to the stem - no, that's a spot where I got CA smeared onto the surface when I was forcing those planks to submit to my will.  After the hull was fully planked, I washed it with india ink/alcohol to give it little age, but the solution couldn't absorb into the wood where CA had penetrated.  In fact, all the lighter colored splotched or streaked areas are due to this.  In the end, the hull will be painted, weathered and I wouldn't be surprised if there is chipped and flaking paint here and there exposing some of that aged wood underneath.  Not sure yet.  Thanks for observing that, Keith, because if it had been recessed - now would be the time to fix it.

 

 

20 hours ago, FlyingFish said:

The sheer line is very nice - poetic even

 

I agree, Andy.  A utilitarian design for sure, but I think the designer had an aesthetic eye just the same.

 

Gary

[Landlubber Mike]

Wow, nicely done!  Stellar work!

[KeithAug]

4 minutes ago, FriedClams said:

if you mean the third and fifth hull plank down where it is attached to the stem

Yes that's it Gary. The further picture highlights it perfectly. Someone is bound to follow up with a method of removing unwanted CA. Sadly I don't have a clue but if anyone does it will save me endless hours of chewing it off my fingers.😬

[FriedClams]

Keith, I must be experiencing the first stages of dementia.  Back on page three, post #61, I explained how I repaired two recessed planks by adding on additional wood to the surface and then sanding it back to flush.  I did this to a number of areas on the hull, but the planks I was using to demonstrate this process were these two very same planks.  They are indeed repaired, and it was that repair that saturated the wood with CA.  Good grief - this getting old business is not easy and at times downright troubling.

 

Thank you, Mike, for the kind comment

 

Gary

Edited August 4 by FriedClams

[FlyingFish]

2 hours ago, KeithAug said:

Someone is bound to follow up

Well you can't get away with that sort of challenge....   and just to spare your fingers - Gary, try swabbing with pure acetone -it should remove the ca from the surface enough to allow a weathering dye to penetrate. It doesn't work so well with thin ca glue spills on your trousers. Don't ask me how I know.

[KeithAug]

20 hours ago, FlyingFish said:

It doesn't work so well with thin ca glue spills on your trousers.

Praise the lord for trousers. It could have been much worse!😬

[KeithAug]

21 hours ago, FriedClams said:

Back on page three, post #61, I explained how I repaired two recessed planks by adding on additional wood to the surface and then sanding it back to flush.

Now you mention it I remember reading that post. Maybe dementia is catching.

[FriedClams]

Greetings friends.

 

Thanks to all for the comments and "thumbs up".  

 

Bulwark planking, scuppers and freeing ports.

 

I expected to have the covering boards and rail stringers on by now, but . . .

 

This fishing boat has a total of 104 scuppers and 8 freeing ports.  The scuppers are 2” (5cm) in height and their width varies from 3” to 8”.  There are three sizes of freeing ports, with the largest being 16” (40.6cm) wide by 9.5” (24cm) tall.

 

 

 

The bulwark planking above the deck is the same thickness as the hull strakes and the waist strakes just below the rail are significantly thinner.

 

 

 

Below is a closer look at the scuppers and ports at the forward deck. The cutouts are parallelograms that conform to the sweep of the sheer and their tilt angle is steeper the further forward they are positioned. The scupper cutouts below the gallows frame are almost as wide as the distance between the top timbers. Eventually they will be fitted with extensions that reach out through the vertical sheet steel that protects the hull from the heavy otter boards. Also, note the small freeing port in the sheet steel that has vertical bars instead of a hinged door.

 

 

 

I made up the bulwark planking in four sections – P/S above the forward deck and P/S above the aft deck. I began with the forward port and made myself a template for the cutout positioning between the top timbers. As per the drawings, the top timbers are set to 18” centers except in the areas where the freeing ports are placed, which require added width.

 

 

I printed out the template and checked registration against the “as built” top timber spacing by shadowing the timbers onto the drawing. I tweaked the drawing until it matched.

 

 

 

I initially tried cutting out the scuppers/ports from a single wide plank using a scalpel and safety razor.  Bad idea - crooked, sloppy and inconsistent.  The majority of the cutouts are 2” x 3” which in 1:48 equates to approximately 1mm x 1.5mm and getting a uniform look was difficult.  So rather than subtracting material from a wide plank, I added the material to a "header" plank between the cutouts to build up the plank width needed.

 

The scuppers are of equal height, so the header plank provides for a nice even top edge.  Many of the distances between cutouts are the same, so once I cut a wood strip of the correct dimensions to butt against the header plank, it could be used multiply times.  I simply butt glued the strip to the header, chopped it to length with a razor blade and then moved it to the next location requiring that same width.  Also, using the butt strips meant the vertical edges are always parallel and uniform.  And to achieve the proper parallelogram tilt, I simply beveled the butt end of the strip as required.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The freeing ports were enlarged with a scalpel and needle files.  I rough cut the area out then hardened the basswood with “super thin” CA and file finished it.

 

Next, the aft scuppers were done in a similar way, but because I cut them from thinner material and there are no freeing ports, I simply segmented a strip of wood and added back the spacing distances.  Also, there is little or no parallelogram cutting needed.

 

 

 

 

I added the lower waist strake and then glued on the scupper strips.

 

 

 

 

At the stem, the waist strakes are sistered to increase the plank thickness for fitting into the rabbet.

 

 

 

Thanks for stopping by.

 

Take care and stay well.

 

Gary

 

 

Edited September 1 by FriedClams

[Keith Black]

 That's great stuff right there, Gary. 

[Glen McGuire]

That bare hull is a work of art!

[Jim Lad]

Delightful, precise work, Gary!

 

John

[Rick310]

Beautiful!!  Great technique!

Rick