USS Cape (MSI-2) by Dr PR - 1:48 - Inshore Minesweeper

[Dr PR]

I mentioned earlier that the center/keel piece is only 1/8 inch (3.175 mm) thick and it should be 3/16 inch (4.76 mm) thick - at least at the keel. To widen it to the desired thickness I cut some keel extension pieces out of 1/32 inch (0.79 mm) three ply plywood.

 

 

The thin plywood cut easily with kitchen scissors, and was finish shaped with sandpaper and files. These pieces were glued onto both sides of the keel with SIG Bond adhesive and clamped tight with all the clamps I could find. After all the keel extension pieces were in place I added a 3/16 x 1/16 (4.6 x 1.6 mm) basswood strip keel foot to the bottom of the keel.

 

 

With these pieces added the frame is ready to hold the bulkheads in place so I can start planning the planking.

 

 

This leads to the next problem - the garboard strake puzzle. It will fit from where the bow starts to curve upward back to the beginning of the skeg ahead of the propeller and rudder. But in the ship's blueprints the strake is anything but just another plank.

 

 

In this drawing (above) the red objects are cross sections of the garboard strake at each bulkhead position on the model. For reference the frame scale for the ship is shown. The green parts are the keel extensions and the keel foot. The blue rectangles are the first ordinary 3/16 x 1/16 (4.6 x 1.6 mm) basswood hull planks. The extra thickness of the garboard strake is more like the thick wales on older wooden sailing ships. The irregular four-sided shape varies from frame to frame. Tricky!

 

Right now I think I may just cut a variable width 1/16 inch (1.6 mm) thick basswood strip to fit into the rabbet to serve as the inner part of the garboard strake. Then the rest of the planking can proceed. Meanwhile I will fashion a second piece with the odd four-sided cross-sections to be glued on top of the inner garboard strake plank.

[bdgiantman2]

1 hour ago, Dr PR said:

Right now I think I may just cut a variable width 1/16 inch (1.6 mm) thick basswood strip to fit into the rabbet to serve as the inner part of the garboard strake. Then the rest of the planking can proceed. Meanwhile I will fashion a second piece with the odd four-sided cross-sections to be glued on top of the inner garboard strake plank.

If I understand you correctly, I would think it would be a lot easier fitting a block of wood at the base between each of your bulkheads  as your garboard, starting at bulkhead 1 and continuing to bulkhead 15 as you are showing us with the red highlighted areas and having it run slightly beneath each bulkhead as well then sand to the desired shape underneath. The middle six or seven bulkheads show the same shape of the garboard to my eyes so that ought to make shaping a bit easier.

 

Brian D

[Dr PR]

Brian,

 

Are you suggesting placing 15 separate blocks "at the base between each of your bulkheads?" I can't see how that would make it any easier.

 

Or are you thinking of fitting one long strip the full length from bulkhead 1 to bulkhead 15 and then shaping it in place? I thought about this. The thicker piece would be difficult to twist to conform to the changing angles. It would require shaping the piece to fit the angles between the keel and bulkheads at the rabbet at each bulkhead. No two angles are exactly the same, but I think I probably could do this. This shaping would be on the interior so it wouldn't have to be "pretty." I was thinking of using a 1/4 x 1/4 inch (6.35 x 6.35 mm) basswood strip for this.

 

But I do not think it would be possible to form the visible two sides by sanding with the strip in place. It would have to fit against the keel, and I cannot sand right up to this joint without damaging the surface of the keel extension piece. The garboard piece must also be the same thickness at the outboard edge as the 1/16 inch (0.039 mm) planks and parallel to the plank edge. That outboard edge actually has two surfaces at slightly different angles and this "corner" would be extremely difficult to shape in place. See the single piece garboard strake in the right hand side of the drawing.

 

Note: I can simplify the shape to just four sides by trimming the Keel Extension piece but it would have to be done very carefully to avoid having a messy joint showing.

 

The virtue of first using a 1/16 inch thick basswood strip for the inner garboard strake (left side of the drawing) is that it automatically has the right thickness at the left and right edges, and it will fit easily into the rabbet with a bit of sanding. It will twist to conform to the bulkhead shapes from almost horizontal midships to vertical at the skeg. I have already tried this and a plank bends easily with just finger pressure.

 

Then I would trim another plank (outer garboard strake) to the desired thicknesses and angles and glue it onto the first plank. This second piece would be thin and would also twist easily to conform to the shape. It is basically the same thing you would do for a double planked hull, but only one strake.

 

Whatever I try to shape these outer pieces I suspect I will have to repeat it several times to get it right.

Edited October 29 by Dr PR

[bdgiantman2]

More the one long piece, but either way is doable.

[Dr PR]

Caution: This is a nauseating tale!

 

The Cape was a very small ship - too small to be out on the ocean, in my opinion. Shortly after I reported aboard I discovered I was prone to sea sickness - motion induced nausea. This is caused by conflicting reports to the brain from your eyes and the inner ear balance organ. If one reports you are moving and the other says you aren't - as can happen when you are in an enclosed box bobbing on the sea - you become nauseous.

 

On calm days there was no problem and I enjoyed being at sea. But if the sea was rough and the weather nasty I was nauseous all the time. On one occasion we left Long Beach in a line of minesweepers headed out for an exercise in the Santa Barbara channel off the coast of California. As the day progressed the wind picked up and the ocean became very choppy. My watch station was on the bridge, and it pitched and rolled pretty actively. I was nauseous the whole time and hung out by the rail on the downwind side. If I had to puke I would wait until the ship rolled that direction.

 

Once while I was contemplating such a move my supply petty officer came up and asked how I was doing. He was peeling an orange and the smell of it immediately cured my nausea! I asked if we had any more, and he pulled another one from his pocket. I told him that from then on when we got underway I wanted an extra crate of oranges on board. Hey, I was Supply Officer and if I wanted oranges we would get oranges!

 

Unfortunately oranges only cured mild nausea. Later than evening we ran into a full blown gale, with waves high enough to come crashing down on the bridge. It was an open bridge, but we did have a frame with windows across the front and a canvas awning above. Still, when green water washed onto the bridge we had ankle to knee deep water sloshing across the deck. My shoes and pants were soaked, I was really nauseous, and by the time my watch was over I was exhausted from hanging on. It was like a very wet hours long roller coaster ride.

 

After I was relieved I went below and crashed in my bunk. I managed to catch short stretches of sleep, but was suddenly awaked, only to realize the ship was dead quiet - the engines had stopped. I slipped on my shoes and stumbled toward the engine room. As I passed through the mess deck the starboard weather deck door was open, and I saw a large gray wooden wall pass very close down our side. When the engines stopped we lost all power and went totally dark. The ship following us in the storm lost sight of us and almost ran us down from astern.

 

When I reached the engine room I found that the duty watch had forgotten to fill the day tank at the beginning of the watch and we ran out of gas. Both the propulsion engines and the generators ran from the same day tank, so everything shut down in short order. The engine crew used a manual pump to transfer fuel from the main fuel tanks to the day tank, and in about 15 minutes we were underway again.

 

When I got back to my bunk I was exhausted and nauseous. Through the night I would occasionally flop out of the bunk onto the deck and crawl to the head. There I embraced the porcelain throne and called for Ralph O'Rourke. I was too weak to walk, and eventually was pukeing up liver bile. It is bright yellow and tastes horrible. I was unable to stand my next watch. But by morning we reached the shelter of the lee side of Santa Rosa Island and dropped the hook. There it was relatively calm and I got some sleep. When I woke I was able to eat something and hold it down.

 

So why am I telling you this? Two things came out of that experience. First, I became conditioned like Pavlov's dogs. Pavlov rang a bell before feeding his dogs. After a while he discovered that if he rang the bell, even when there was no food in sight, the dogs began to salivate. This is known as a conditioned reflex. For me, when the last line went over the side and the ship sounded three toots on the whistle to signal "underway" I immediately became nauseous - even in calm waters in port. Three toots and I wanted to puke. It took me years to get over this. I don't know, maybe I might still have this conditioned reflex!

 

The second result was that a note that I became chronically seasick went into my medical record. When I later reported to the Oklahoma City the Commanding Officer asked me about it. I told him I did become nauseous but I could still stand watches and do my duties. He was especially interested because I was replacing an Ensign K. who became incapacitated because of seasickness. It was so bad he wanted a medical discharge from the Navy. But instead of a discharge he was transferred to the Yokosuka Naval Hospital where every day they strapped him in a chair and rotated and tumbled him until he puked. They wanted to be sure he wasn't faking it. So Ensign K. was tortured for several weeks until they finally sent him back to CIVLAND.

 

And just to be sure about me, when we were next at sea the CO had the Officer of the Deck I was assigned to (as Junior Officer of the Deck) smoke particularly nasty cigars and blow the smoke in my direction. All just to see if he could make me puke. I didn't, and the CO was satisfied.

 

But I did toss my cookies once in the 27 months I was on the cruiser. It wasn't in the typhoons when we alternately walked on the decks and bulkheads and hung on for dear life - I was too busy to become nauseated. It was one night on relatively calm seas with a long steady roll, when I was on watch in the Combat Information Center deep in the bowels of the ship. I didn't even realize I was nauseous until I was returning to my bunk. The ship rode up on a swell as I was climbing a ladder and suddenly dropped just as I reached the top step, leaving me hanging in the air. I came down without my supper.

 

I tell this tale to describe for you a little mentioned part of the experience of life on a small ship. And now you know why I am not interested in going to sea again!

Edited October 30 by Dr PR

[Valeriy V]

Phil, thank you for your amazingly artistic story! 👌👍

Once upon a time I had to get into a severe pitching for the first time on a six-meter plywood sail shell. And it turned out that the Lord had gifted me with the ability to endure pitching without any problems. But what was happening to my crewmates was not a funny sight.

[FlyingFish]

Just read the whole log - wonderful to have the build punctuated by your stories Phil. Enjoying it very much.

[gak1965]

For what it's worth, being in a small boat in the California coastal zone is one of only two times I've been seasick, and I've ridden ferries to the Arran Islands in gales, and been through a storm with 75 mph winds and 40 foot seas during our honeymoon (off the coast of Alaska in the old 1950s SS Rotterdam) without difficulty. The combination of (a) small boat, (b) slow, rolling chop, and (c) the fog that rolls in during the morning makes you completely lose the horizon and your senses don't know what to think. The other time was in an absurdly overheated ferry heading out into the arctic ocean. I stayed on deck for the return - rather be cold than seasick.

 

The Cape is looking great. It's nice to see the less loved ships get some attention.

 

Regards,

George

[Dr PR]

George, Thanks.

 

I guess I should have known I would get seasick. When I was a kid we would start out every other weekend for my grandparents home. It was a two hour drive over crooked and hilly gravel roads, and there was one part that always made me nauseous. But by the time I was in high school it didn't bother me. We had a small boat for fishing and water skiing and that never bothered me no matter how rough the waters. So I didn't expect to get seasick in the Navy.

 

Thinking back I remembered that I had been conditioned to puke earlier on in my life. My dad always had the radio on in the car when we made trips. When we left the city the only stations (AM) that we could get were country music stations. Not country-western, but old timey country music. Grand Ole Opry stuff. So we got in the car, listened to country music and when we got into the hills I puked. By the time I was in middle school I was programmed to throw up when I heard country music!

 

I still had an aversion to country - and country-western - music when I met the Admiral. She was a country girl and always listened to country-western stations and CDs. I had to grin and bear it, and today I can listen to it without getting nauseous. But I wouldn't press my luck by listening to country-western on a moving boat!

[FlyingFish]

Jeez Phil, thats some inner-ear thing you have going on there. Here's a test:

How are are you feeling?!!!🤣

Edited October 31 by FlyingFish

[Dr PR]

That is cruel!

[Dr PR]

I have made a little progress over the last few days. The hull framing pieces have been glued together and the bulkheads have been faired.

 

 

It looks about like the last picture of the assembled parts. I rubbed black pencil into the edges of the bulkheads and sanded with a long sanding block until only a thin line of black remained to get the proper angles on the edges.

 

All but one of the bulkheads fit perfectly square to the center frame. Considering the parts were hand cut that was surprising. I think 15 of the 21 bulkheads lined up with a near perfect fit. However a few were a bit off center so I had to do a lot of sanding to bring the high points down, and in a few places I had to add wood strips to bring up low places. But I expected this since the parts weren't laser cut or NC machine routed. After a few days sanding and filing everything lines up nicely when I put battens lengthwise along the hull and deck. It is almost ready for planking.

 

The next step was to add filler material between the forward bulkheads and stem to provide a faired surface for the planks to glue to.

 

 

I used 1/8 x 1 inch (3.2 x 25.4 mm) balsa strips for the filler. The Internet and big box stores finally shut down our local hobby shop where I normally would have found a selection of thicker material better suited for this job. Now I have to take whatever I can find. I found this at the local Michaels "craft store." It has a very limited selection of balsa, mostly small square dowels, Here is the built up structure.

 

 

Yes, I know it is ugly! But after it is faired it will have a more comely shape. Besides, it will be on the inside so who cares what it looks like? Inner beauty is for losers (unless you are building a plank on frame model with the interior exposed)! I think I have added enough material so it will fair smoothly, but I might have to add a bit more filler here and there.

 

The stern also needed a bit of work. The final bulkhead is mounted vertically just before the transom. But the transom will be angled back a bit. To accomplish this I needed a few triangular spacers to set the correct angle. It was then that I noticed that the plan I made was drawn with the 1/16 inch (1.59 mm) transom piece attached to a 1/8 inch (3.2 mm) inner transom piece. Don't ask me why. I originally thought this inner transom would be made of 1/8 inch plywood. But when it came time to add the inner transom I realized a couple of 1/8 inch spacers would do the job, and would be a lot easier to make - I'll save the plywood for a time when it is needed.

 

 

The actual transom piece will be glued to these spacers. It has been cut oversized and will be faired in line with the deck and hull sides.

 

The transom will have 13 vertical guard beams that are 1/8 x 1/16 inch (3.2 x 1.6 mm) cross section, and a 1/8 x 1/8 inch (3.2 x 3.2 mm) boundary piece all around the sides and bottom of the transom. Across the top of the transom will be mounted several pieces of minesweeping gear.

 

The boundary piece will be interesting because it is curved a lot. It might be possible to bend a 1/8 x 1/8 inch stick that much, but I am not sure. Instead I plan to extend the 1/16 inch thick planking 1/8 inch aft of the transom. Then I will glue several very thin 1/8 inch wide wooden strips around the inside curve of the planking to build it up to 1/8 inch thick. Then I will seal, sand, seal, sand ... until it looks like a single piece of wood when painted.

Edited November 6 by Dr PR

[Dr PR]

More progress. I carved, filed and sanded the bow filler and it now looks respectable.

 

 

 

The SIG Bond cement is much harder than the balsa when it dries. The glue seams are quite apparent. Actually, I think it must be harder than basswood, because when sanding the edges of the SIG plywood it seems the wood is removed first, leaving a bit of a high point at the glue seams.

 

I kept working this until a batten lay flat against the balsa surface in any orientation I put it.

 

 

The next project was the well for the magtail reel (the magnetic minesweep gear).

 

 

The well sides will rise above the 1/16 inch (1.6 mm) plywood sub deck, and then be sanded down flush with the top of the sub deck. The 1/16 inch deck planking will lay over the top edges of the well sides (at the level of the black pencil line). The fore/aft length of the well opening should theoretically be 2.12 inches (53.8 mm) and it came out to 2.15 (54.6 mm). I can live with that. I had some metal clamps that were exactly 2 inches (50.8 mm) wide and square that I used to make the width of the well very precise to 2.0 inches. When I took this picture the SIG Bond glue hadn't dried yet.

 

Then I installed the transom.

 

 

The 1/16 inch (1.6 mm) thick transom piece is oversized all around. It was glued to the spacer pieces to get the correct angle at the stern. Later it will be faired to the curvature of the hull and deck. Then the hull should be ready for planking.

Edited November 5 by Dr PR

[bdgiantman2]

Saw this and thought of your blog on here. I hope this is approved 

 

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1062011819046190&set=a.523280112919366

[Dr PR]

bdg2,

 

Thanks for that link. There are not many minesweepers on display to the public. From the look of the photo they have a long way to go to restore the ship. Some minesweepers were converted for private yachts, and all of the minesweep gear was removed. Finding replacement MSO sweep gear, winches and such will not be easy!

[Dr PR]

I have been plodding along on the model when I can find time. I cut out the 1/16 inch (1.6 mm) plywood subdeck. It is in two sections. The aft piece has been fitted around the well for the magtail reel. I am using rubber bands to pre-form the plywood pieces to the sheer and camber of the hull. I'm not sure this will help much but it is worth a try.

 

 

The subdeck hasn't been glued to the bulkheads. I will do that after the hull planking is complete. This gives me access to the interior of the hull during planking, and afterwards for coating the interior with clear epoxy to glue everything together. The subdeck pieces are cut wider than the finished size to allow the plywood to be shaped to fit over the top of the hull planking all around. The plank sheer pieces around the deck edges will be shaped to fit to the edges of the sub deck. A guard piece will fit over the edge of the plywood and part of the top planking strake.

 

Next up was cutting the rabbet for the planking at the bow. The 1/32 inch (0.79 mm) thick keel siding creates a rabbet suitable for the garboard strake. But at the bow the rabbet should be 1/16 inch deep for the planking, so I had to carve out a shallow cut behind the edge of the keel siding.

 

Carving the stem will be interesting. In theory (according to the blueprints) the stem will be shaped to continue the angle of the hull planking, creating a relatively sharp prow. Along the front edge of the stem will be a thin brass "stem band" 0.050 inch ((1.27 mm) wide. 

 

I say "in theory" because as I place hull planks on the bow the angle changes constantly from the keel up to the deck level, and I am not sure the resulting width of the forward edge of the stem will be a constant width. To be continued ...

 

Another thing that had to be done before I start planking the hull is to create the fairing around the propeller shaft on the keel/deadwood at the stern.

 

 

 

 

The keel is 0.202 inch (5.1 mm) thick, but there is a swelling or fairing around the propeller shaft that should be 0.302 inches (7.7 mm) wide as shown in the drawing above. The vertical height of this fairing is about 0.54 inches (13.8 mm). I cut two pieces of 1/16 inch basswood to be glued onto the keel/deadwood to fashion the fairing. These were pre-shaped to create the approximate curvature of the fairings.

 

 

The propeller shaft exits the hull with a slight downward angle. After the glue hardens I will finish shaping the pieces with round files and sandpaper. A bit of putty might be needed here. The hull planking will have to be fitted around these fairings and that could be interesting. I will also probably need to carve the rabbet a bit deeper here in front of the keel siding pieces.

Edited Saturday at 10:08 PM by Dr PR

[Jim Lad]

Coming along nicely, Phil!

 

John

[FriedClams]

Been reading through your log and I'm enjoying this build very much.  Interesting subject and stories, Phil.  And thank you for your service.  Will be watching for updates.

 

Gary

[Dr PR]

I cut the rabbets deeper at the stern and shaped the fairing around the propeller shaft. The fairing is still a bit over sized. I will sand and file it to the final shape after the stern frame for the prop shaft and rudder has been attached.

 

I have been thinking about plank widths, planking fans and such. Since I have the basic hull patterns in CAD I decided to measure the distances from keel to deck on the bulkheads and divide the distance by the number of planks to determine the plank widths at every other bulkhead. Then I can print the patterns and transfer them to the edges of the bulkheads.

 

Because there are only shallow curves to the hull (no bulbous bow or curved tuck at the stern) the planks will have very gentle tapers. It is easy to bend a plank around the deck edges with curvature for the sheer. After studying how the planks fit on the hull I decided to make the top strake and the garboard (bottom) strakes without taper. Then the planks between these will be tapered.

 

I ordered 3/16 inch (4.8 mm) basswood strips for the hull planking. However when I measured them none are close to 3/16 (0.1875) inch. The widest was 0.185 inch and the narrowest 0.176 inch. I measured 65 strips and the average width was 0.1797 inch (the median was 0.180 inch). So I have to plan the planking pattern around 0.180 inch (4.57 mm) planks. Actually, this isn't a bad thing because the scale plank width is a bit smaller than 3/16 inch.

 

Here is the hull planking expansion drawing relative to the rabbet for the garboard plank.

 

 

The planks won't actually be wavy because this is the pattern of the curved hull sides laid flat. Thr different lenghs along the bulkhead edges plus the number of planks at each bulkhead cause the curvature. From this I prepared the bulkhead plank spacing scales.

 

 

I will use these to place marks on the edges of the bulkheads to guide plank tapering.