Zebedee F Cliff 1920 by Jond - 1:40 - Rebuilding previous model to be Maine schooner

[Jond]

Re-Build for Zebedee F Cliff

 

The beginning

This build is a retrofit of a previous model.   The story follows:

Back in 2001 I built my first ship model of this end of my career.  As a teenager, I built several plastic models of the typical range, HMS Bounty etc.    The first model in this century was a pair of 50-inch Marblehead RC sailboats started at the Wooden Boat School in Brooklin, Maine. My son and I did the basic hulls in school that summer, and I finished them as a pair and we both sailed them a few years back.   I decided to build historic vessels in the future and to make them sail.  Most of this story comes out in my Charles Notman, BHYC One design and Bluenose 1:24 build logs that spanned up through 2015.

 

Since then, my focus has been on the local scene, as I continue to study and find the maritime history of our peninsula more than enough for my lifetime.  While preparing to build Charles Notman, I was working with the late Jim Hunt.  He taught me that there were no surviving plans of any of the WW I era Boothbay schooners.  He also noted after his study that the high shear in some of the Boothbay Schooners was unique. He too opted for a Bath designed schooner for his model.   At the time I thought it was better just to copy the plans and build Charles Notman, a Bath Schooner of similar size.  

• 1 
• Jim Hunt published NJR article on the ten Boothbay Harbor Schooners of the WWI era.  Note:  there were two others built in East Boothbay 15 and 20 years earlier.

This summer while my daughter was visiting, she agreed with me that I should re task the schooner to be a Boothbay Schooner.  I went north to travel through the Northwest passage so she house sat, kept the dog and took the first step.  She painted the hull of Charles Notman white, as the two potential Boothbay schooners built in 1917 -1920 were both white.  So, when I came back, I was committed.

 

Choose which schooner to build.

 

There were two yards in town.  One was called the East Coast Ship Company on the east side of the harbor and the other was Atlantic Coast Company on the west side of the harbor. One of my recent builds was the Ada Cliff built by the East Coast Ship Co. So I started off favoring the Atlantic company.   The vessels were the Bradford F Jones built 1919 by Atlantic at 221 feet 1600 tons and the Zebedee F Cliff built 1920 by East Coast at 206 feet 1361 tons.     The current hull of Charles Notman is supposed to be 219 feet and 1518 tons.  Therefore, she sits between.    The deciding issue though was not the size but the deck profile.

• 2 -3 here is a deck completed on Mary Bradford Piece built right after Bradford Jones by Atlantic and a view of Bradford Jones mid deck area framing while under construction. It seems on this deck profile the mid deck section is about 3 feet lower than the fore deck.  The balustrade is only on the aft section behind the mizzen/spanker mast
• 4 here is a thumb nail of the great photo of Bradford Jones nearing completion. There are several more of her after launching. She had a normal life until many of the local schooners were retired in about 1930 and she was sold to Portuguese interests in 1931.  

 

• 6-7   here we see a view of Zebedee F Cliff from land side nearing completion and a second view of her at the wharf sometime after launching.   Note the Balustrade going forward past the foremast shrouds.  This profile means a flat deck throughout.  I have similar views of other East Coat schooners, and they are the same.  The Zebedee Cliff life was more interesting.  Like others she retired and sat in Boothbay starting in 1930.  There are many surviving images.  She was laid up for a while in Eastport and then sold to a firm in Portland, Me in 1938.  In 1942 she was sold to the navy, broken up and sunk as submarine protection at Portland harbor.

 

I will share photos in the next posting to show the unusual and unorthodox deck profile of Charles Notman.  The Poop deck was brought forward all the way to the main mast.   The upper deck was then omitted til forward of the foremast where the fore deck continued forward.   Understanding the broken truss design one quickly sees why this unorthodox design was not carried forward after 1894 when Charles was built.

·        To emulate the Bradford Jones design……This task would require depressing the main deck roughly ¾ inches and removing the balustrade back to the mizzen.   A major undertaking

·        To emulate the Zebedee F Cliff design… This task means demolishing the fore cabin then filling the main deck and rebuilding the fore cabin.  There are minor alterations to raise the foresail.  Then the balustrade needs to be extended forward past the fore shrouds.  A more manageable undertaking

 

For some reason that I cannot image at this time, the length on deck of the model I built 10 years ago is 60 inches.   Using 1:48 or ¼” to foot that means my model represents a 240-foot schooner.   OOOPS!  So, I must declare that when I do my model of Zebedee F Cliff, it will have a few dimensional flaws. One solution is saying the scale of the model is 1:40 or close to 5/16 to a foot.  Despite that clarification, the effort shall be to represent the largest and final schooner built by East Coast Ship Company. Humorously I have figures that were sold to me on line from Europe that fit that bill.   They showed up in many images of the Notman build before I realized these guys were 7 feet tall in 1:48.   They now have a new home.

 

There won’t be many updates to this build.  I reference the original build of the RC schooner Charles Notman for all the previous work. There are three grouped tasks:

 

·        Complete demo, deck and cabin structure [sort of done now], and complete the new decking[ on order].

·        Complete new fore deck house and complete detailed hull painting/ transom work.

·        Complete new balustrade, raise foresail and reconnect rigging.

  

Off we go again.  My two other current builds are comfortable on the shelf for a little while, let’s see if I can get this one done before heavy leaf blowing. all the photos 2-7 here are owned by Boothbay Region Historical Society.

 

Happy first day of fall

Edited September 24 by Jond

[Jond]

2  get started with step one 

Looking Back first to the Charles Notman build there are a few images to tell her story of the past few years.

• 1 here she was sailing in the local West Harbor Pond

 

• 2  here she was during the winter after retiring from the sea, getting all the rigging added that could not be in place if RC sailing.

 

• 3  here is the image of my finding that the painted figures I had bought placed against the clear Shapeway 1:48 printed figures. It is easy to see the painted figures were too tall for 1:48.   Now however they will be perfect as they return to the smaller schooner at a recalculated 1:40 scale. I just need to find them and sign them up.

Now to work

 

• 4-5  here I laid her out on the shop bench as I was leaving for Canada.
• 

 

• 6-9  here my daughter and friends painted the hull as I ventured through the Northwest Passage.
• 
• Now that I am really committed, I set her up on the bench and looked to what had to be done. It was now that I made the decision as to which vessel to emulate.
•  10-11          here we see Charles Notman’s unorthodox design, where the poop deck carried forward of the main mast, was interrupted till the fore mast and then resumed as a raised foredeck.   It was not very strong to say the least. 
•  

 

• 12-14 shows today where step one is partially complete.  I have demolished and rebuilt the fore cabin structure and added deck framing for the raised deck. I also extended the base for the balustrade.  
• 

Next up is the decking. When the material comes, I will work on how best to remove strips and nest the new planks in.  Hopefully I can pull it off. I will also use the photos I have to make the outside cladding of the fore cabin and add the roof deck.  

All for now
 

[Jim Lad]

A very interesting rebuild!

 

John

[Jond]

thank you John

 

She isn't up to your museum work but she is definitely a lot of fun to do and I look forward to more local celebration of years gone by in our past shipyards.

 

cheers 

[Jond]

3 decking

 

Decking is an interesting project.  It really includes other things that we hopefully think about before we lay the deck and go darn, I wish I had painted that waterway before I glued the decking plank next to it. Notwithstanding a few of those oops’s here we are.  I share a few photos of the progress and few showing the crew on board after finishing the deck and thinking about the fore cabin and raising the foresail.   I used a little hand rubbed poly over a combination of three stains to try to match the old decking , and it seemed to come out reasonably close.  By light washing some of the stain and poly over the old decking it all looks close enough for folk music.

 

The white paint on the old girl however looks tough, but I remind all this vessel was pond sailed over two summers and has sat idle for years.   It will take several more attempts to get things close enough, but I doubt she’ll ever be ship shape. Also, painting around completed rigging is a tough order.  The point here is that if one had all the time in the world, one would remove much more rigging that I have done, then sanded and painted everything before re rigged it all.  I admit here that is not the current plan.  The rebuild of this pond sailor is just to have it represent a Boothbay Schooner to accompany the research I did years ago to tell the story of the 12 four-masted schooners built here.    

 

Finally, as an old, retired engineer I just have a problem with Charles Notman’s extended poop design.  I am now very happy that is no longer the case on the only four masted schooner I have.

 

Progress

• 1   here is a cropped image of the real Zebedee Cliff fore cabin.  This image is what I will try to emulate.
• 2-4. progress planking. 
• 5-6 last planks are in, and the hatch combing and waterways are in and painted
• 
• 7-8  the crew arrived and the deck house under roofing is ready.
• 
• 9-11. the decking is stained and two light coats of hand rub poly.  The stain is this sequence…..  first cheery, second special walnut[ medium], third golden sunset.     Then I did a light wash of the walnut stain over the old decking and two more light coats of poly. 
• 

So, Step 1 is done now for step two.  

Cheers 
 

[Jond]

Step 2. Get the deck house, balustrade and other deck work done

This second step was basic.  There is continuous humor however, as my forced dimension compromise is needed to achieve the goal of switching schooners.   Declaring the scale different to make the length of the vessel close [ changing from 1:48 to 1:40 does not increase cabin height and all the other work.  I hope the audience will forgive me.

 

Here are a series of progress images showing the fore cabin coming together.  The sides went on, then the roof deck, then the stove pipes, the  boiler hatch, doors, portlights etc.  The main mast fife rail hand to be replaced as well and then the balustrades brought forward. So here we are with the deck work basically complete.  

 

Other than a few things like the  stove pipe supports, angle braces put on the aft cabin, figuring how to rig the jumbo sail with the high roofed forecabin, we need to get the rigging back in place. Ultimately the naming will be a little challenge, possible experiment and I frea another needed compromise.  That will include another story.

All for now 
 

[Jond]

Step 3 get the rigging back together and finish

Much of this stage involved repairs, then resetting rigging where it went before and finally adjusting for the raised balustrade taking the forward running rigging. Another final step involved the transom.  In the following cropped image, we can see that when launched, our schooner had what I assume to be a mahogany transom.  

• 01.   

 

Several years ago, I bought some mahogany veneer. I was happy to find my second use in many years.  At first, I cut out the shape, but alas there was no way to get it to flatten over the shape of the transom.  Obviously if I sliced it into say 1/8-inch strips it would have gone on nicely.  I don’t find mahogany veneer likes that type treatment.  In the four views we see the fist “no fit” followed by a mid-section cut away and multiple bands to hold it.  Then two views of the final, unfinished.  I have ordered letting in vinyl. And will apply it.

• 02-05    

Here I have several views of the focused area of alteration. I also added a little more detail to the aft cabin.  Please remember this is a RC boat to begin with, and there are too many areas that could use more and more detailing.  The photos did not show the little bars on the cabin features meant to avoid fowling lines.  Perhaps these sailors were confident.

• 06-09. 

So yesterday I moved her back to here resting place.  {Please see her now in the gallery with her older sister ADA Cliff, the three masted schooner built in the yard in 1917.  Starting with the completion of ADA in 1917, Zebedee E Cliff, mayor of Somerville Mass took over the yard and they built 4 each four masted schooners based on the ADA Cliff design concluding in 1921 with our altered vessel named after the good mayor himself.

• 10-11 

 

 

 

I am sorry about the scale difficulty but here we are with two rather large bookends.  I will share a photo of the naming when it hopefully occurs in a week or so.

Cheers