Staghound 1850 by rwiederrich - 1/96 - Extreme Clipper

[rwiederrich]

Well getting back on track. 
I began the planking on the Staghound.  
Before anyone starts to freak out…… remember,  I’m a hack model builder.  I rarely do thing the typical way.   As is my habit…..with Great Republic, Glory of the Seas, I use thin milled planks.  Similar to veneer.   I lay them along the contour, when all is dry, I sand, fill and paint.  Many sessions of filler will be employed I think.  Since some discrepancies are in the bulkheads. 
 

First session.  
 

Rob

[Rick310]

Very nice Rob!  You can already see the beautiful contours of her hull!

Rick

[rwiederrich]

14 hours ago, Rick310 said:

Very nice Rob!  You can already see the beautiful contours of her hull!

Rick

Thanks Rick.  I'm not so much about the process...but about the final look and finish.  Paint covers a multitude of sin.  It doesn't matter what the woodwork looks like...so long as the finish is smooth, contouring and replicates the true hull form.  Once I get the wood laid....I'll begin to form with wood Bondo....then I will begin to refer to the images Rich provided of the McKay half hull model....and finalize her shape.

 

Rob

[MrBlueJacket]

1 hour ago, rwiederrich said:

Thanks Rick.  I'm not so much about the process...but about the final look and finish.  Paint covers a multitude of sin.  It doesn't matter what the woodwork looks like...so long as the finish is smooth, contouring and replicates the true hull form.  Once I get the wood laid....I'll begin to form with wood Bondo....then I will begin to refer to the images Rich provided of the McKay half hull model....and finalize her shape.

 

Rob

ancient modeling phrase ----  "Putty and paint..... makes it look like what it ain't"

[rwiederrich]

36 minutes ago, MrBlueJacket said:

ancient modeling phrase ----  "Putty and paint..... makes it look like what it ain't"

Or something there abouts...  The ole Earl Schibe's moto.   As modelers we rarely use the actual material used on the prototype...were plastics, paper, brass can do the job nicely.

Rob

[rwiederrich]

Slowly laying the planking. 
 

Rob

Edited Thursday at 10:23 PM by rwiederrich

[Luis Felipe]

Excellent job, congratulations!

[rwiederrich]

Slowly laying the planking……still. This is the port side. 
 

Rob

[rwiederrich]

Throwing down some putty.      
Rob

[rwiederrich]

Both sides are puttied up and waiting to dry so I can sand like a madman.   Once all the initial sanding and contouring is done.    I’ll prep for the next coat.    Once this is all done , I’ll cut in the stem and cut water.  
 

Rob

[druxey]

!!!!  That will be a lot of sanding!

[rwiederrich]

A little bit of sanding.    More filling and contouring.  
 

Rob

[rwiederrich]

48 minutes ago, druxey said:

!!!!  That will be a lot of sanding!

When is it not?   👍😎.

 

Rob

[ClipperFan]

10 hours ago, rwiederrich said:

A little bit of sanding.    More filling and contouring.  
 

Rob

@rwiederrich Rob, your hull is already shaping up to be the most accurate one ever produced. As proof, here's an image of the beautifully crafted 1850 extreme California clipper Stag Hound done by Cornelius McKay as compared to a couple progress pics of your hull. To remind everyone, Cornelius carved his meticulously accurate 1:48th scale 4 foot half-hull model from the actual lines lifted from the mold floor as the vessel herself was being laid out. Besides being recognition of your abilities it's also a tribute to the incredibly hard work and research of @Vladimir_Wairoa in his CGI reconstruction efforts. Accuracy is uncanny. 

Edited 13 hours ago by ClipperFan
italics removal

[Jared]

Incredible work Rob.  Question:  What is the putty material that you apply before sanding Rob.

[sob]

I read that it was the other way around - the half hull was the master and the lofts were done from that

 

Scott

[Snug Harbor Johnny]

 'Guess you have a lot of sanding dust.  I try and vacuum at intervals for wood chips & dust, metal filings and odd bits.  Hmmm, lost pieces get sucked-up too, but by then I already made duplicates and put them in plastic bags.

[Kenchington]

3 hours ago, sob said:

the half hull was the master and the lofts were done from that

For a 19th-Century fishing schooner, yes. But I very, very much doubt that Donald McKay designed a ship that way. He was working in the era of mathematical design of ships, then dominated by waveline theory as Froud's towing-tank wrk did not come before the 1870s.

 

Trevor

[sob]

see, for example https://landandseacollection.com/id267.html

 

also from https://www.busaccagallery.com/gallery_view.php?id=6292&page=video

"McKay had learned his lessons well in the construction of water-line half-hull models from the master, Orlando B. Merrill, from his earlier days at Newburyport. Once he was satisfied with his workmanship, he removed the dowels and the rectangular slices of wood, known as "lifts," and one by one transferred the lines of each "layer" of the hull to graph paper called a "sheer plan" by maritime architects. The scale ratio translated out to one quarter of an inch for each foot of the ship, 48 times the original length of the lines. The lines were now ready to be transferred to McKay's huge mold loft that was the size of a ship. It was here that a full side of the Flying Cloud was charted in chalk with a different color of chalk used for each lift layer. The shape of each lift edge's chalkline on the mold loft floor showed the exact water lines of the hull at various depths. With his keen attentive mind and trained eye, Donald McKay had no trouble visualizing his one dimensional colored chalk lines of the Flying Cloud's three-dimensional hull."

 

many other references

 

[sob]

also page 57 of https://www.dieselduck.info/historical/06 books/1980 - The Seafarers - The clipper ships.pdf

 

[Kenchington]

59 minutes ago, sob said:

It was here that a full side of the Flying Cloud was charted in chalk with a different color of chalk used for each lift layer. The shape of each lift edge's chalkline on the mold loft floor showed the exact water lines of the hull at various depths.

When your source spouts nonsense like that, everything else it claims should be taken with a truck-load of salt.

 

What were drawn out on a mould loft's floor were the sections, from which the moulds for the frame timbers (floors, futtocks, top-timers) were shaped. As there were no pieces that followed the waterlines, there would have been no point in lofting those.

 

Trevor

[sob]

I could list 50 other sources but if you will not accept them there is no point

 

[Kenchington]

When you are able to offer just one piece of original evidence, of course I will accept it. 

 

What I will give no credence to at all are multiple repetitions of silly fallacies. You can find no end of those in published works. One of the challenges of any research task is cutting through such nonsense to find the truth. That's a big part of my day job.

 

Trevor

[ClipperFan]

@sob in this particular case, we have direct confirmation that Donald McKay's son Cornelius crafted his builder's half-hull model from the molding loft floor. Here's the excerpt written in his own words. This is from his letter to Captain Arthur H Clark when he turned over his hand crafted builder's model to him. This comes from Richard McKay's book "Some Famous Sailing Ships and Their Builder Donald McKay."

[Kenchington]

17 minutes ago, ClipperFan said:

Cornelius crafted his builder's half-hull model from the molding loft floor.

That seems definitive for the particular model. Yet the reproduced text refers to a "first, or the 'working' model, of a ship". On its face, that suggests that McKay was designing by half-model -- which I find surprising but interesting if true. However, the wording is less than fully clear and subject to interpretation.

 

ClipperFan: Do you know of any definite evidence either way? I understand that nothing survives of McKay's original notebooks or draughts but is there anything in letters he wrote or some such?

 

Trevor

[ClipperFan]

1 hour ago, Kenchington said:

That seems definitive for the particular model. Yet the reproduced text refers to a "first, or the 'working' model, of a ship". On its face, that suggests that McKay was designing by half-model -- which I find surprising but interesting if true. However, the wording is less than fully clear and subject to interpretation.

 

ClipperFan: Do you know of any definite evidence either way? I understand that nothing survives of McKay's original notebooks or draughts but is there anything in letters he wrote or some such?

 

Trevor

@Kenchington Trevor, I corresponded with a very generous lady at the Bostonian Society by email. Besides many wonderful pics of the original 1850 half-hull model, she sent me digital copies of the entire Cornelius McKay typed and handwritten letters. An intriguing fact is that Cornelius mentioned he included line drawings of the ship as well. She also included an ultra rare Chinese export painting on Stag Hound as well. In respect, I've left their watermark on although I later secured another for $25.00 watermark. In the highly detailed appendix of Richard McKay's book, he mentions that The Peabody-Essex Museum, Salem, MA has the only Donald McKay manuscript which he was preparing for a planned European trip for marketing purposes. A single example is the beautifully detailed construction illustration of the twin packets Star of Empire and Chariot of Fame.

[rwiederrich]

I began the second round of compound application. 
 

Rob

Edited 1 hour ago by rwiederrich

[rwiederrich]

The bow will be cut back slightly.  I over extended it to assure the proper insertion of the stem and cut water. 
 

Rob

[rwiederrich]

I’ve installed the base for the stern.   Lots of carving and woodwork due here.  I also dry fit the forward keel to get some measurements. 
 

Rob