Leon by Doug McKenzie - 1:300 - Ship-in-a-bottle

[Doug McKenzie]

This will be my third rendition of Leon - one might surmise that I'm rather fond of this ship!

 

The first attempt was a 2 1/2 year build with launch in about 2007 of about a 1:8 scale model (about 22' sparred length).  Pic 1 shows her with the wind off her port beam with a crew of 3.  I described her construction in a now defunct website.  She nows lives on a lake somewhere in Kansas.  She's a model of Leon like a movie that is based on a book.  The only picture known of the real boat is shown in Pic 2.

       

 

The second model was a 1:48 scale model about 3.5' sparred length documented here on the NRG MSW website and shown in Pic 3.  An interesting aspect of this model is that it is based on some contemporary documents such as an 1890 DMV survey as well as Underhill's book "Plank-On-Frame Models".  These contemporary documents were found and translated by Jeppe Jul Nielson while the model was being built.  The two most intriguing unexpected details (to me) uncovered in these documents was 1) Leon's use of "diagonal hanging knees" for the deck beams rather than the more conventional hanging knee and lodging knee combination and 2) her windmill pump for 'automatically' pumping out the bilge.  She lives now in the Colin Archer's House Museum in Larvik, Norway where the original Leon was built in 1890.  Colin Archer designed and built Leon.

 

The third model, and the one that will be documented here, will be a 1:300 scale ship-in-a-bottle.  I've never enjoyed the commercial ships-in-a-bottle that I've seen because they seem not to be in scale with spars and rigging too heavy and beams too narrow.  Also, I've mostly not been interested in sails (just a personal preference).  So when the idea appeared of building a true scale model in a bottle, I thought that might be fun to round out the scales of models of Leon.  The first job was to find bottle.  A search in my local liquor store yielded this Woodward Reserve whiskey bottle (Pic 3) which had a slightly larger neck opening (3.1 cm) than most of the other bottle.  In addition, the height to length measurements were an almost perfect for Leon.  The narrow width of the bottle (5.2 cm) will not be a problem since, without sails, Leon will be at dock and her yards will be braced around.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There will be plenty of engineering and modeling challenges ahead and ain't that great!

Edited November 1 by Doug McKenzie
Had to add content

[ccoyle]

12 hours ago, Doug McKenzie said:

Brigantine, ship-in-a-bottle

Doug, is your post missing some photos?

[Doug McKenzie]

It's missing photos and text and... because I messed up.  I am about to remedy those lacks shortly

[ccoyle]

Okay! Looking forward to seeing your project.

[Doug McKenzie]

Starting the hull with the sheer and deck cuts.  Pic 1 shows the block after the two bandsaw cuts.  The pencil line shows where the wale will be is.  I made the sheer cut first so that the maximum amount of flat wood would be on the bandsaw table as possible.  The "waterline' that I used is about the 80% full load waterline because, in my opinion, when she's fully loaded (as in the picture above) she looks pretty deep in.  The deck cut was easier because the entire water line surface is on the table. Pic  2 shows the shape of the waterline.  As a start to shaping the hull to match the section curves, I'll make cuts that connect the waterline shape with this wale.  The only exception to this is forward of station 4, at the bow, the cuts will connect the waterline shape with the fo'csle deck.  These cuts will minimize that amount of material that has to removed with a roto tool to complete the matching to the section curves.

 

 

Pic 3 shows the stern after the cuts (and subsequent wood removal) and Pic 4 shows the stern after some roto work.  It turns out that it would have been easier to just roto out the stern without using the cuts except that the cuts enabled me to see the shape of the stern pretty clearly before using the roto tool.  I should have mentioned before that my carving and roto tool experience is very very limited and so this part of the modeling effort caused me some anxiety.

Pic 5 shows the exposure of the main deck with the fo'cs'le and poop decks still intact.  All of the instructional material that I have seen recommend chiseling out the main deck.  The problem with this is that the bulwarks would be too thick.  The main rail on Leon was about 6" wide which scales down to about 0.5 mm (for my skills, impossibly thin).  I have 3x5 cards, however, that are 0.3 mm thick which will make lovely bulwarks.  The 2 challenges with this technique will be to 1) reproduce the proper sheer line and 2) fair the bulwarks into the hull nicely.  In Pic 6, the bulwarks are on with the sheer curve roughly correct and the fairing issue is clearly illustrated.  Everyting on this model will, of course , be painted.  For me, this is unusual, because unless the model is for sailing it is ALWAYS left as wood with a clear satin finish - not this one. Even Little Leon, the 22' psuedo model of Leon, which does sail, had a clear gloss finish!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Enough for this post.  Next I need to clean the hull up, add the stem and stern post and prepare for all the deck fixtures.

[Doug McKenzie]

First improvement is stem and stern post and then painting the hull so that the lines on the 3x5 card are not visible.  In junction with Jeppe, I selected topsides white and bottom copper as she was coppered in 1890.  The deck is tan.  Houses will be white.  The hull has been sawn into two pieces at the WL. Pic 1  This gives the spars a little more room in the neck of the bottle as the bottom slice will be installed first.  LWL is 4.25" (10.8 cm).  LOA is 4.75" (12.2 cm). Pic 2.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                     The midship house, Pic 3, is completed but it will not be glued in place until after the hull and spars have been installed in the bottle.  This is because the foremast, which passes through the midship house, will pivot close to the main deck rather than the top of the house to make entry into the bottle neck easier.  The house will be split down its centerline and then glued around the upright foremast.  The black stack is the galley stove vent.  The aft house has been started.  When it is completed it also will not be glued in place until after the hull and spars have been installed in the bottle.  The main mast will be about 3/4" (19 mm) forward of the aft house.  To allow it to pivot down to the taffrail, a grove will be filed in the forward part of the poop deck and the the aft house will cover the groove.

Edited Wednesday at 02:09 PM by Doug McKenzie

[Doug McKenzie]

The aft house is complete.  As is the taffrail and the 3 hatches  Pic1 . 

 

 

2 errors have been found:  The first is that a painted door was made on the forward bulkhead of the aft house and this is incorrect - there probably was no door so that has been removed.  The second error is a bit more difficult to fix.  The anchor deck has been cut as if there was an aft bulkhead, Referring to my research notes for the 4' Leon model, however, this is not correct in two ways: first, there was probably no bulkhead and second, the after edge of the anchor deck was not straight but rather followed the angle of the catheads.  Future posts will document how this error was corrected - you know, once I figure out how to correct it!