Lynx 1812 by SaltyScot - Manuta-Panart - 1:62 - building as Mosquidobit

[Dr PR]

I agree with Bill. Don't worry about it.

 

After all, we have examined Chapelle's drawings of the Lynx and Musquidobit and he has drawn the rake angle of the main mast a bit greater than that of the fore mast. So maybe he changed his mind? We will never know what the actual rake angles were. Who knows, maybe what you have decided on is what the vessel really had?!

 

I posted that Chapelle quote with chagrin because I have been reading over everything I could find about this vessel and had missed this bit at least several times!

[SaltyScot]

Today I busied myself with the gun carriages. As I have often stated throughout this build, the quality of some of the wood leaves a lot to be desired, the plywood for the most part being the worst. Because of that fact and for the sake of continuity throughout matching parts, I took the pieces of the carriage from the plans into Fusion 360, put them together and then 3D printed them. The dimensions of the carriage brackets exactly match the plywood ones in the kit. Another reason for me doing this was that there was no specification in the plans as to what exactly I should use for the fore and hind axletrees. I could have thrown some scraps together but wanted all carriages to look exactly alike. I will be making all the quoins by hand out of maple wood though, just cuz I can  :

 

 

 

 

The kit supplied enough cannons and fittings for 8 sets (although they did mess up with the axles, there were odd numbers of each). I will only be putting 6 guns on my build (see Chapelle's The Baltimore Clipper, top of page 82).

 

I printed an extra set and rigged up a "prototype" to see how everything went together and how it looked on deck. I know that the breeching ring bolt has not been added yet. Also, the cascabel is missing its ring. I am toying with cutting some small brass rings and adding a tiny spot of CA glue to secure them to the top. The capsquares need a little reshaping too. They are TINY so I have to be careful how I mess with them. I also want to add some details to the trucks, they look very bare right now:

 

 

 

 

 

 

The placement of the guns can be seen below. Again, I will only be adding 6 to this build so I do have some leeway should there be an issue with the height of the bulwarks:

 

 

Before the cannons can be placed I obviously have to cut the gunports. I have read differing opinions on several blogs for this build regarding how they should be positioned. Here is what master model builder Frank Mastini has to say about that:

 

 

 

 

 

[Glen McGuire]

Love the way that cannon looks!  Nice job, Mark.

[Dr PR]

Mark,

 

I was worried about getting all of the gun ports exactly the same size. I made a gun port tool from some scrap wood to ensure that all of the ports came out the same. Can't say this was my invention - I saw it in a book about building the hull of ship models.

 

On the Albatros build the gun ports were cut immediately under the cap rail. The tool fit under the cap rail to the point marked "edge of cap rail," The surface with the black centering mark slid under the cap rail.

 

The gun port opening was cut just large enough for the part marked "size of gun port" to slip fit through. I used files to open the original small drill hole to the right size and shape for the tool to be inserted until the edge marked "edge of cap rail" fit against the cap rail.

 

Then I built up the port lining inside the bulwark so the part marked "size of port lining" slip fit into the lining. The gun port lids fit into the opening and rest against the port lining.

 

 

The trick is to remove material from the planking slowly until the tool fits tightly into the opening.

 

Here are a couple of pictures showing the results. On the left you can see the port linings inside the port opening. On the right is the view of the inside of the bulwarks showing the lower cill (lighter color wood) and the vertical linings (darker wood) inside the bulwark framing around the gun port.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The gun port lids had a thin inner layer just large enough to fit into the lining/cill opening, while the outer layer fit tightly into the port opening and rested against the lining/cill.

 

 

Hope this helps.

Edited yesterday at 04:26 PM by Dr PR

[SaltyScot]

7 hours ago, Dr PR said:

The trick is to remove material from the planking slowly until the tool fits tightly into the opening.

 

Definitely something not to be rushed, Phil. Yes, this was extremely helpful, thank you. I have a list on my workbench of things to do. One of the items on the list was to make a gun port jig. I can cross that out now, thanks to you, sir.