Lancha Chilota by JacquesCousteau – Scale 1:32 – Chilean Coasting Sloop

[Paul Le Wol]

Jacques, your hardware fabbing  is looking great! 

[Glen McGuire]

7 hours ago, JacquesCousteau said:

there's a section that feels as smooth as the rest of the board, but looks white-ish, almost like a rough patch (but, again, it feels perfectly smooth).

It looks lie a small bit of chatter from a planer, but as Wefalck said, it's hard to diagnose from the picture.  What does the other side of the board look like?

[JacquesCousteau]

Thanks, all! We'll see how well it turns out on the spectrum between looking like a good representation of improvised parts, and looking like I have no clue what I'm doing.

 

@Glen McGuire, I think it is a bit of chatter. I don't really understand how it can be smooth to the touch and still appear rough, but when I used a slightly damp cloth to wipe dust off, I noticed that that area seemed to absorb more water and retain it for much longer. The other side has a bit of lengthwise chatter marks, and had the price and bar code stickers. Despite spraying alcohol, scraping, and sanding, there still seems to be a bit of sticker residue that I can't seem to get off, so I think this side it will be.

[JacquesCousteau]

Checking it in the light of day: yes I think there's a bit of chatter. I'll see if I can sand it out.

[JacquesCousteau]

I've made a bit of progress on the rigging, painting the shroud hooks and adding the traveler block, below. For the latter, I left the hook as unpainted annealed wire, as I needed to bend it shut around the horse. The color difference doesn't stand out too much, thankfully.

 

I also made more progress on the cherry base. After a bit more searching, I think the gouging I mentioned above may have been tear-out from where the grain direction shifted around the knot. After a lot of sanding didn't quite get rid if it, I tried to use a cabinet scraper. Despite following a lot of "how to" videos, I couldn't get a good burr on it, and it only ever produced dust instead of shavings. So, I kept sanding. Finally it seemed acceptable. At that point, I cut out the base, adding a point at each end, which I accidentally made sharper than I had planned--good reminder to measure twice, cut once! I also lightly beveled the edges with my mini plane.

 

I then cut out the 3/32-inch brass tube supports, using my razor saw. As I didn't quite get the holes drilled perfectly in the keel, I had to add some slight bends to get the supports right. Next, I drilled the holes for the supports in the base--this time triple-checking they were properly lined up and measured before drilling. Finally, I was able to dry fit the hull. I'm pleased with how the base has turned out, although I still need to decide how to finish it--I do have some linseed oil that I'm testing on some scrap, although it will take a long time to dry. I also need to slightly adjust the bends in the brass tubes, and to think about how I want to orient the model on the base.

 

 

Next up, I need to figure out the deck cargo and furnishings/fittings, and finish the rigging. On the latter, if I complete the build without sails, there's relatively little left to do--just add the mainsheet and its boom block, add the lifts and sheets, and add thimbles to the shrouds and forestay and tie them off. But, if I want sails, it will be much easier to fit them with the mast off the hull and add the mast at the very end. 

[wefalck]

On harder woods I use single-sides razorblades as scraper (the ones that have a reinforced back). However, getting things smooth around knots may indeed be difficult. What would help is to treat the surface with a sanding-sealer. That would harden the soft fibres around the knot, making sanding/scraping easier. Another good way to smooth the surface is the use of different grades of steel-wool in between coates of sanding-sealer.

 

However, there is no point then applying lineseed-oil, as it would not penetrate the wood treated with sanding-sealer. There may not need to be a need for further treatment, as the wood treated with e.g. cellulose-based sanding-sealer and rubbed down with fine steelwool takes on a nice satin shine.

 

[JacquesCousteau]

Thanks, @wefalck, I'll have to look into a nitrocellulose wood sealer. The sealer/varnish I have is water based, so I don't know if it would have the same effect.

 

I was able to make a little progress on the turnbuckles and shroud hooks. As seen in photos like those below, these were often held together (and to the shrouds and chainplates) with rather improvised-looking lashings of wire and/or rope. 

Source: https://www.bibliotecanacionaldigital.gob.cl/bnd/629/w3-article-644834.html

 

Source: https://www.carlosvairo.com/galeria-puerto-montt-lanchas-chilotas

 

While two of my turnbuckles are directly attached to the hooks, the other two are lashed in this fashion. I used 0.25mm black rope from Ropes of Scale to represent a wire lashing, and tried to get an improvised look, with the "wire" tied off in different ways. I think the lashings turned out all right (although up close the limits of my pre-made "turnbuckles" are pretty apparent--I think that making better ones would require soldering, which is a skill I don't have). I plan on using similar wire lashings to attach these turnbuckle assemblages to the chainplates, then rope lashings to attach the tops of these snugly to the shrouds.

 

As can be seen, there's some variation in height, which I was going for.

 

Finally, I temporarily tied the turnbuckles to the chainplates with flt-fishig thread, slotted the mast in place, and did another test rigging. This was useful to check how the turnbuckle assemblies looked in place, as well as to practice the rigging steps--I've learned that I need to pay attention to the order in which I run the gaff halyards through the double blocks, as it impacts which side they need to be belayed on. It also helps me get a sense of how the model will look on the stand if I go without sails. I had been considering some sort of angled stand to show it as though it was beached on its guardaplayas, but I ultimately think I like the look on a brass stand better.

 

[JacquesCousteau]

I'm inching toward the finishing line here. Next on my list: attaching the thimbles I made earlier to the shrouds and forestay. This would have been much easier with the mast off the model, but I couldn't do that because I needed everything in place to work out where on the lines the thimbles needed to be located. As everything had to be done in the air, I really couldn't take any photos mid-work. My process, after a bit of trial and error, was to figure out the approximate height, use locking tweezers to hold a small loop in the line, and then loosely tie a bit of fly-tying thread around it. Then, put a drop of superglue on the thimble, place it in the loop, and move the thread knot close to the thimble and tighten, adding a few more knots while wrapping it a bit around the line and securing with a drop of superglue. After trimming the excess, add another knot with fly-tying thread further up, and trim the excess.

 

The forestay thimble, the first I did, is shown below.

 

And, below, a shroud thimble before trimming the excess thread.

 

By now, I've added all the thimbles. Next, I'll need to unstep the mast, add the final sheet block to the boom, add a parrel in the gaff jaws, and set up the mast again, this time using the correct rope for all running rigging. The end of the rigging is nearly in sight!

[Glen McGuire]

Nice work, JC!

[Keith Black]

Nice on ship thimble rigging, Jacques. My arms tire too easily to do that on ship business, I have to do as much off ship as possible. 

[Paul Le Wol]

Very good looking thimbles Jacques!

[JacquesCousteau]

Thanks, all! Adding those with the mast stepped was definitely a challenge. Fortunately the rest will be done off-model until the final rigging.

[JacquesCousteau]

As I advance on the build, I'm also looking at finishing the base. I was very curious to see what linseed oil would look like on the cherry, as I really like how it turned out on my Half-Hull model. I also tried a bit of my very basic water-based sealer/varnish, testing both on sone scraps.

 

Below, you can see the results compared against the still unfinished board. I was surprised. The linseed oil (at top) significantly darkened the cherry in a way that I don't love. The sealer, in contrast, at right, slightly darkened it and brought out the grain patterns a bit more.

As a result, I've decided to go with the sealer/varnish on the base, allowing it to naturally darken a bit with time.

 

[wefalck]

The darker colour shows that the linesee oil penetrates deeper, while the water-based sealer stays more on the surface.

The oil penetrates into the pores and acts as a kind light conduit deeper into the wood, similar to fibre optics, so less light is reflected and hence the wood appears darker.

Water-based sealers do not penetrate so well, as wood is naturally somewhat hydrophobic, even wood that does not contain much resin, like cherry.

That's why I am still using solvent-based sealers ... as long as one can get them.

[JacquesCousteau]

More slight progress as I cross items off the build's to-do list. First up, I needed to add the parrel rope that holds the gaff to the mast. The clearest photo I could find is below. As can be seen, instead of using parrel beads, the rope itself is doubled up and twisted around itself.

Source: https://www.bibliotecanacionaldigital.gob.cl/bnd/629/w3-article-644834.html

 

 

So, I tried to replicate this with .45mm rope.

 

Unfortunately, after adding it, I realized that I hadn’t quite left enough space in the parrel to let the gaff rest horizontally when lowered--due to the angled jaws and the taper of the mast, when fully lowered it wanted to point up a bit. So, with the gaff still attached to the mast, I carefully filed and cut the inside of the gaff jaws (and repainted it) until it lay better.

 

After doing that, though, I took another look at the photo of a real lancha, and decided that my parrel rope was a lot lumpier than it should be. So, I redid it in .35mm rope. This time, instead of just looping the rope around, I tied a series of simple knots to better hold things. Below, the new parrel, with the original held above it. I'm not sure if it really looks all that much better, but I think I can accept the result.

 

Besides the parrel, I also stropped the sheet block to the boom (the final block on this model).

 

And I added sealer/varnish to the base, sanded with 600-grit sandpaper, added a second layer, sanded again, and rubbed it down with a cloth (I'm not sure if that last step really did much). I'm happy with how the base turned out, it's very smooth to the touch and the very slight darkening effect of the sealer/varnish is exactly what I was looking for.

 

Finally, I've begun experimenting with adding a small load of lumber to the deck. Although there are a few photos of lanchas under sail with decks crowded with lumber, it seems to have been more common to keep things in the hold and only bring them out for display upon arriving in the port to sell the wood. See below, for instance.

Source: https://ceph-puerto-montt.blogspot.com/2009/02/album-del-recuerdo-imagenes-de-nuestra_22.html?m=1

 

For now I've chopped up a few coffee stir sticks to try to represent fresh-cut lumber, although I'm not sure how well they represent what I'm going for.

[Paul Le Wol]

“ So, I tried to replicate this with .45mm rope.”

 

Jacques, by adding all of these details, you have indeed turned this model into a replica.