Norwegian sailing pram by Kenchington – Model Shipways – 1:12

[Kenchington]

5 hours ago, SaltyScot said:

What is a turk's head grip?

There is a very large (maybe unlimited) family of knots called "turks heads", basically regular inter-weaving of (usually) a single length of cord to make a tube -- normally formed around something solid, like a tiller, (though you can make turks-head bracelets if the material is stiff enough and there is someone in your life who would wear one!). They are hard to describe, so maybe an image extracted through Google:

 

Edited Saturday at 04:48 PM by Kenchington

[SaltyScot]

5 hours ago, Kenchington said:

They are hard to describe, so maybe an image extracted through Google:

 

Oh, yes, I am familiar with these. I wasn't aware they were called Turk's heads. Are you going to weave it onto the tiny tiller yourself or carve it out of wood?

[Kenchington]

IF I try (and it's still a big "if"), I would tie it in a fine thread around a dowel, then slide the finished Turk's head off the dowel and over the end of the tiller. That's the easy part. Taking the slack out of the weave until it was tight around the tiller would be the challenge. A simple Turk's head (like the one illustrated), tied in cord around a 1-inch dowel, is easy. Working in thread around a 1/8" diameter model tiller, with a longer knot? Maybe worth trying?

 

Have to make the tiller first. So far, I have thinned down some scrap jatoba, producing crude 1/4-inch stock. But trying to whittle a tiller out of that with modelling tools very quickly taught me why we work in basswood! I'll need to get busy with coping saw and Dremel, both its cutting and sanding attachments. It won't be quick but plenty else in the kit to keep me busy.

 

Trevor

[Kenchington]

Steps 36 & 37 (first metal parts) completed, Step 40 (display stand) advanced

 

While waiting for a chance to get serious with my replacement tiller, I have pushed ahead with other steps in the build. For one, the pram needs an eyebolt in the middle of the bow transom (for towing, hauling onto a trailer or whatever). The inboard end of that bolt bears a plate to anchor the lower end of the forestay. Although  the instructions make no mention of it, the kit includes a length of brass rod pre-bent to form the eyebolt. It also has the rigging plate as one item on a sheet of photo-etched brass. The model-builder is required to cut off a short piece from a (kit-supplied) length of 1/16" brass tube, to serve as an imitation "hex nut". The cutting went easily, following a recommendation (found here on MSW, not in the instructions) to insert a 1/32" brass rod into the tube, then roll it under a craft-knife blade. However, I did need to bell the end of the tube with a jewellery reamer. That also came into use to slightly enlarge the bolt-hole in the rigging plate.

 

When ready for fitting to the model, the three pieces seem tiny:

The instructions call for the eyebolt to be set into a slight groove around its bolt-hole, thus sinking the bent end out of sight -- the groove to be formed by pushing the blade of a very small screwdriver into the wood. That didn't really work for me but I did bed the bolt down nicely, none the less. Getting the plate and the tube-as-nut over the end of the bolt was challenging, but mostly because of poor lighting and poor eyesight. Once all was ready, it just needed a drop of CA glue, then the "nut" pushed home, while keeping the plate aligned with the pull of the future forestay. A few minutes for the glue to set and the end of the bolt could be clipped off. All looks OK:

 

Next up were the two chainplates ("stay plates" in the instructions), inserted into the slots previously sawn in the inwales. I don't know whether oiling the wood caused the slots to close up or perhaps I was just too scared to saw far enough. Whatever it was, the slots were way too small. Once I accepted that and sawed them longer, the chainplates (photo-etch pieces identical to the one for the forestay) fit easily. The problem is with the kit-supplied nails. As other MSW build-logs have noted, Model Shipways should provide their 0.7mm nails with this pram kit but they actually pack it with a supply of much larger nails, as in:

That's one of the chainplates (larger hole for the shroud, smaller for the fastening nail), with the kit-supplied nail above. No way that will go through the hole intended for it! To the left is an alternative nail that came with a rather nice Amati pin-pusher that I picked up at my local hobby store, but even that is too large. Below it is a 0.6mm nail from a supply I ordered in from Dry-Dock Models. (Those readers in the USA can go to the source and get extra nails from Model Shipways. I don't fancy the unpredictable delays at the border just now, with our respective governments edging into a trade-war!) The Dry-Dock nails proved OK in diameter but had to be clipped to half the length, lest they go right through the side of the boat.

 

Holes have to be drilled for the nails, of course. I thought that it would be a huge challenge to line up the nail (in its drilled hole) and the hole in the chainplate, while both were embedded deep inside the inwale. In practice, I pushed a mounted needle (i.e. a point set in a handle) into the drilled hole, used that to ream the hole out a bit, then jiggled the chainplate until the needle found the right hole. Pull the needle out, insert the stump of the nail, add a drop of CA glue, push nail home and all was well. Just needed a little bend of the chainplate to align with the future position of the shroud:

 

I tried moving onto the rowlocks (in Britannia metal) and the protective plates (photo-etched brass) that go on the pads seen in those two images. It proved too difficult without daylight, so that must wait for tomorrow.

 

Meanwhile, I have been pushing ahead with the display stand. That is needed sooner rather than later, as the model needs elevated support once the (projecting) rudder is in place. I'm still waiting on the weather, so that I can spray another coat on the baseboard but I have made up the supports:

The top pieces are kit-supplied and shaped to match the hull (needing only a little bevelling, after removing char). I decided to paint them, so that they are distinct from the boat itself. I toyed with the idea of a metallic finish but decided on less-prominent white. The kit includes a 1/4" dowel for the supporting pillars but the instructions suggest acrylic rod and I figured that would be nicer. Its also turned out to be very easy to work. Whichever material is chosen, there have to be slight flats where the wood supports fit over the rods. The acrylic yielded very easily to a file. After the first flat began to take shape, I laid it flat on top of a box, then worked the file on the other side of the rod, parallel to the box-top -- flipping the piece over every few file-strokes, until the supports just fit over matching, equal flats. I suspect that would have been much harder if done in wood.

 

A dab of CA and tops were glued to rods. They do need a little care to ensure that the horizontal axes of the tops are perpendicular to the length of the rods.

 

One annoyance yet to be faced is that the laser-cut holes in the baseboard are much larger than 1/4". As I have some adhesive-backed metallic-copper tape on hand, I am wrapping enough of that around the bottom end of the acrylic rods to make a firm push-fit. Most will be out of sight, down in the baseboard, but I'll add a final neat turn to give a flash of colour. That, however, must wait on the weather for outdoor spray painting, then the fitting of the supports to the baseboard.

 

 

Still have to do the tiller etc. (Step 35), the rudder, with its metalwork (Steps 38 & 39), the oars and rowlocks (Steps 45 to 48 ... the first of two "48s") -- and then it will be on to the sailing rig (Steps 42-44, 48-57).

 

 

Trevor

[SaltyScot]

25 minutes ago, Kenchington said:

That, however, must wait on the weather for outdoor spray painting, then the fitting of the supports to the baseboard.

 

There is definitely an unpredictability to our weather here right now. Yesterday and today we had 81F, fantastic weather to be outside doing stuff. Tonight we are expecting thunderstorms and highs tomorrow of 57F. Grab the sun while you can I guess  I hope it shines up there, Trevor, so that you can get out and get your spraying done.

[Kenchington]

11 hours ago, SaltyScot said:

I hope it shines up there, Trevor

Heavy rain today, but not complaining: It's the same system that coated much of Ontario with ice, bringing down power lines and cutting power to many. It's passing to the north of us, fortunately for me, though not for those living around the Gulf of St.Lawrence. And hard on anyone making their living at sea, as ever.

 

And for me, more rain now means more water in the well, come July and August!

[SaltyScot]

7 hours ago, Kenchington said:

And for me, more rain now means more water in the well, come July and August!

 

I know that feeling!

[Kenchington]

Step 48 (first "48", rowlocks) advanced, Steps 42, 43 & 44 (spars) commenced

 

With daylight for aid, I got the brass rowlock-pad protection on. First thing was to drill the rowlock holes down into the inwale (previously, they only passed through the pads). In a full-size boat, the holes would need to pass right through, so that a length of cord or light chain, attached to the rowlock, can hang down inboard, preventing loss of the rowlock but allowing it to be unshipped when not in use. That's great but drilling so deep risked damage to the sheerstrakes, so I only went far enough to accommodate the kit-supplied rowlocks.

 

Placing the photo-etched brass protective pieces wasn't hard. I impaled each one in turn on the point of a bamboo cocktail stick, touched a tiny dab of CA to each end of the brass, inverted the boat, put tip of stick into rowlock hole, flipped everything upright, assisted gravity in getting the brass into place, then gently pressed it down. The only trouble was when I had too much CA, letting the brass swim around before the glue caught. I then left the glue to set before getting onto the hard part.

 

Each of the four brass plates needs two nail holes drilled. (OK after the first one: That time, I drew the drill back too vigorously, it caught in the brass and pulled the metal off its glue. Back up and try over ...) Then each of 8 0.6mm nails had to be picked up with forceps, snipped for length, placed in its hole, lined up ... and pressed home. I think I snipped twice as many nails as I placed, though where the others went, I cannot say. Anyway, the job was done and adds some nice, shiny brass to the model:

Rowlock (technically a "crutch") only inserted temporarily, as I don't want it causing trouble until the rigging is finished.

 

While the CA was setting, I got the three spars out of their basswood sheets. The mast is in two halves that have to be glued together, back to back:

Lots of clamps and yellow glue -- yellow for strength and because the edges where it might ooze out will be sanded for char anyway.

 

Once the two halves were united, they formed a spar with rectangular section. That will need to be taken down to square, including the tapering towards head and heel, matching the laser-cut sides -- all before taking off the corners (making it "eight-square") ad rounding off.

 

The boom has its own complications which can wait for later. I did begin work on the yard (which the instructions bizarrely call a "gaff"). Its lower edge needs to be straight, to receive the straight-cut head of the sail, but its upper edge can taper from the slings towards either end. I just gave it straight tapers. The basswood stock was thicker than the laser-cut piece was wide, so the spar started with a rectangular section throughout. I have shaped the upper and lower surfaces into half-rounds but, so far, I have not tried to reduce the thing to circular. Strength and stiffness would be better with some depth to the section. later, I'll take another look and see whether I like what I have. I might sand more.

 

Enough for now!

 

Trevor

[SaltyScot]

23 hours ago, Kenchington said:

though where the others went, I cannot say.

 

Been there, Trevor. My shipyard is in a spare bedroom here in our home. When I get the vacuum out and get in here, I hear all the bits of nails (and the odd tiny cleat) scuttling on up the vacuum hose.

[Kenchington]

Step 40 (Display Stand) completed

 

Finally had some half-decent weather, though colder than the spray paint would like (10C, meaning 50 for those who still follow Herr Fahrenheit), so I warmed it and the baseboard over a heater vent before heading out to a windless, sunny spot. Paint went on well despite the challenges, though my masking was less than perfect and I will need to re-touch the oil on the display-stand's plinth. Still, once the paint was dry the model supports went in nicely, all square without trouble (and a drip of CA in each hole to keep them that way:

That's kit supplied basswood baseboard (sprayed with hardware-store primer and glass white), glued to a $5 offcut of jatoba (run across my router table with an ogive blade mounted, then oiled and wax-finished), acrylic-rod supports (optional extra recommended in kit instructions), with copper tape for filler and decoration, topped with kit-supplied basswood supports (primed and painted with kit paints). Far from perfect but much, much better than my dory model has (so I am learning!).

 

Looks nice with the (still incomplete) model on it too:

 

I have been working on the spars too, but they will keep for a later update.

 

 

Trevor

[druxey]

Looks nice? Agreed!

[Kenchington]

Steps 42 (mast-making) completed, 43 (first of two "43s", mast fittings) advanced & 44 (yard) completed

 

Thus far, this log has dealt with topics that mostly belong in the province of the boatbuilder -- which I am not, though I am an end-user and have maintained their products. As the build progresses into the pram's rig, however, I am moving into areas that properly belong to the sailor and there I do claim some expertise. That work begins with three spars: mast, boom and yard. (The rig is technically a boomed standing lug. Lug sails have their heads bent to "yards", which are hoisted by a single halliard at the slings, not to "gaffs", which have jaws encircling the mast and are hoisted by both peak and throat halliards -- albeit some clever arrangements make those from the same length of line).

 

The yard is the simplest of the pram's three spars. I had that more-or-less shaped last night but it was about 3mm deep at the slings, say 1.5" full-size equivalent, which seemed excessive for such a small sail. So I reduced that to about 2mm (1"), restored the tapers and rounding, then gave it a first coat of Model Shipway's clear finish. (It will need a quick rub-down to remove raised grain, then a second coat.) As supplied in the kit, the yard has a top-to-bottom laser-cut hole in each end for the earrings (to stretch the head of the sail along the yard). Those would be better drilled side-to-side but I won't mess with such a small spar. The piece also has two holes at the slings for an eye for the halliard, which leads me to ask:

 

What kind of a sailor drills bolt holes through a spar, at the point of greatest load?

 

Resisting the temptation to question someone's sanity, I suspect that the answer is: The kind of sailor who thinks that rigging a boat starts with a visit to a yacht shop to buy nice, shiny, stainless-steel fittings!

 

The proper way to attach our pram's halliard to its yard is a stuns'l halliard bend (Ashley's #25) -- simpler, quicker, lighter and cheaper than any metal fitting. Plus, it is easy to move the halliard along the yard, if you think that some adjustment would improve the set of the sail. So, while I won't bother about filling the two tiny holes, there will be no metal eye.

 

 

While the yard is better with more depth than width, the mast definitely needs a circular section throughout, yet the two thicknesses glued together made it very much greater in one dimension than the other. Fortunately, while buying miniature plane and chisels for shaping planks, I also picked up a tiny marking gauge for marking bevels on inside curves on a table I was building. That came with a matching double gauge which I never expected to use but which proved ideal for marking the required amounts to take off the mast blank:

The miniature plane then made short work of thinning the mast-blank down. (A case of having the right tools for the job ... though they don't come cheap.) Both ends of the mast are very gently tapered, so the planing had to be followed by some careful sanding. With everything "four-square", it was time to drill any holes. The mast comes with only one hole, for the halliard, laser-cut. That only needed cleaning up with a drill bit (mostly because the two parts of the mast blank were not absolutely aligned). The instructions call for a second hole and some shaping to give the appearance of a sheave for the halliard, set in the mast. I would not do that full-size for such a small boat and hence there is no need in the model. {With such a small, light sail, a "dumb sheave" (a shaped hole, with no rotating sheave inside) is fully adequate, whereas an actual sheave would require a large slot cut through the mast, with a second hole at right angles for the axle -- together a major (and quite unnecessary) area of weakness.} What the halliard-hole does need is a bit of a groove on either side, so that the halliard isn't hauled across any sharp angles. Those grooves were easily worked with a suitable jewelry reamer.

 

Next below that hole, the mast will get two brass photo-etched tangs, for the upper ends of the shrouds. The instructions want each one fastened by its own nail, with those cut so short that they do not interfere with one another -- meaning about 1mm long. That would be madness. I will use one nail and peen its cut end into a second head after all is assembled. However, it did need a hole drilled through the mast, from side to side. No problem.

 

Lastly, the instructions call for two more holes to be drilled, to take an eye for the tack downhaul to reeve through -- though they do not explain where that line should be belayed. That, again, makes no sense. What the tack downhaul needs is a cleat, not an eye.

 

So, with little more than a single hole drilled, it was time to turn the four-square mast into an octagonal section one ("eight-square" in the terminology of mast-making) then round off to circular. The kit includes a "spar shaping jig" -- a narrow board with a stop-block at each end and 5 notched supports that hold a four-square spar with one angle upwards for sanding to an octagonal section. (The kit only provides 4 of the 5 supports but the Muscongus Bay sloop kit has the same rig with another 4, one of which can readily be pirated.)

That worked well, though the previous planing had (inevitably) removed the laser-burn marks showing how much to take off to achieve a regular, octagonal section. I just judged it by eye. Careful work with sanding sticks and paper then produced a nice, rounded mast.

 

There are two, or in my case three, wooden fittings to be added to the mast after it is rounded. The first is a cleat (in the original nautical sense of that term, meaning a projection from a spar or other object, usually to stop something sliding along the parent piece), in this case for the upper end of the forestay. The kit-supplied cleat is tiny, even before char removal, and would hardly be there at all after cleaning up. It was easy to shape a replacement at double the size:

To get that to sit on the curved surface of the mast, I followed the instructions and wrapped 220 paper around the mast, then sanded the base of the cleat to match the spar's curvature. My attempt to glue it in place using white glue failed because it was too difficult to hold the cleat in place while the glue set. A dab of CA solved that one by the much-reduced holding time.

 

The other two required fittings are cleats for belaying the halliard and tack downhaul ("horned cleats" in original terminology, before "cleat" came to mean, amongst the yachting fraternity, any belaying point). Again, the kit-supplied one was grossly inadequate. It was under 1/4-inch, meaning 3" full-size. I might use one like that to belay a flag halliard on a small boat (if our pram was to show any flags) but it is laughably inadequate for either halliard or downhaul. I made two new ones, of 1/2-inch (6" equivalent) size. They turned out clunkier than I would like but that will mostly be hidden by the lines belayed on them:

Note the kit-supplied version in the second image.

 

Once those were glued on also, I had a mast fit for its first coat of clear finish, hence to two near-ready spars:

 

Tomorrow: Boom, maybe rudder and/or tiller. Or maybe I will turn to sailmaking. That should be fun!

 

Trevor

 

 

[Kenchington]

1 hour ago, druxey said:

Looks nice? Agreed!

Thank you for the approval!