Maine three-masted schooner by Bedford - 1:54 - RADIO

[Bedford]

While Michael talks about it being warm enough to get stuck in and paint the cutter, Floyd you'll love this, the next thing I have to do is make the upper guides for the masts (immediately below the deck) this involves spending a few hours in the garage and even though winter has just started it is just too flamin' cold to go out there and do it.

Hopefully a warmer weekend will grace us in the not too distant future.

[fnkershner]

It is so nice of you to think of me. Up here in the northern hemisphere Summer solstice is just around the corner.

[Bedford]

The weather was kind this weekend so I got the work done in the garage.

 

I had to make them in two halves so I can fit them around the masts and glue them in place without having to unship the shrouds etc and lift the masts out, I have to do that later.

 

I made the two halves for each station and drilled the holes for the masts at 86degrees and the holes for the sail controls vertically.

 

The biggest drill bit I have is 12mm and I needed 14mm for clearance in the hole so after goning to the hardware store and seeing that they were over $70 I decided to give that a miss and find another way. Eventually the penny dropped, LATHE.

 

I turned some bar down to 14mm and then a smaller shank to go into the drill chuck and because I already had 12mm holes I tapered the cutting end down so the bit would self centre in the hole. Then I just cut two grooves into the stock to form the cutting edges of the flukes and filed the excess away ahead of the flukes to provide a cutting edge.

 

Set the drill bed back to 86degrees and bore out the holes to 14mm. easy.

 

 

 

Bracket made

 

 

In place around the mast with the pipe for the cord to run through back to the servo

 

 

I was concerned about having a smooth fair leed for the line to run out and in this case it will run through a sweeping arc from side to side each time she tacks so I can't run the cord over a cut brass edge. Luckily I have glass beeds that fit very nicely in the end of the larger tube size I bought to use to make couplings for the control plumbing. I will cut the larger diameter piece into 15mm lengths and glue a glass beed into the end, this will then just slip snuggly over the smaller tube that protudes from the deck. The beauty of this is that I can remove it and attach a vacuum cleaner over the control tube to draw replacement lines through without it getting caught on a restrictive fair leed placed inside the control tube.

Edited June 22, 2014 by Bedford

[JerryTodd]

I just saw someone mentioned somewhere mast steps being brass tubes with a RC car suspension spring dropped inside.  The mast is pressed in and all the shrouds are hooked, the spring pushes up on the mast keeping tension on the rigging.

To remove, press the mast down against the spring, unhook the rigging, and it's lose.

Edited June 22, 2014 by JerryTodd

[michael mott]

Nice work on the cutter Steve. I like the bead idea I wonder if you were to give a slight pinch in the tube below the bead and a slight peening at the end whether you could use the same bead but have it as a swiveling fit instead of a glued one?

 

Great Idea with the sprig Gerry.

 

Michael

[captainbob]

Great idea on the spring.  I’ve seen a lot of static boats with sagging rigging that could use that idea.

 

Bob

[Bedford]

Michael, the beads are not sperical, they are more cylindrical so that can't happen. Wouldn't be a bad idea though.

 

Bob, I think a lot of people who build these models are terrified of breaking them so they don't tension the rigging enough, especially the standing rigging. When you think about it though all that rigging is designed to strengthen and support the masting and even in a model it does just that so my rigging is tensioned quite well on all my ships, I do tension it gradually and evenly so as not to over tighten one side which could lead to breakage. I did read once that you should soak all the rigging cord and hang it out to dry under tension to take all the stretch out of it but I didn't do it with the first ship, built in 1997, and it is still nice and tight. I did it with the second model but don't think it made any difference so I haven't done it since.

 

I have more to do in the garage, ie make the aft deck house to mount the servos in, but again it is way too cold, snow is looming and they are experiencing what they are referring to as a megablizzard in the snowfields not that far south of here.

[Bedford]

Progress at last!

 

I have worked out how to mount the servos and have done so in the aft deck house. The "box" will be epoxied to the ribs below and it holds the servos. The aft deck will be over half way up the sides of the box.

 

Once it is all done there will be a box lid in the form of the aft deck house that will fit neatly over the control box to close it.

 

 

[torpedochief]

Innovation at its best! Wonderful work!!

[Bedford]

I've started the "plumbing" in earnest. I tried getting all the bends right so I could run one unbroken pipe but it's not easy to do. I always knew I would probably need to cut and re-join to adjust angles and lengths and as you can see there are two such alteration points in this run.

 

This is the line that will control tacking on the mizzen mast, the fore and main will share one line onto the same winch.

 

[michael mott]

 

This is the line that will control tacking on the mizzen mast

Steve I am curious about how the line stays taught on the drum, is it purely the pull of the sail?

 

Michael

[Bedford]

Michael, in this one instance, yes.

I need to remember to pull the sail to centre and then let it out during tacking in order to keep tension on it. It will be aided by the fact that the winch drums sit inside the white cups you can see on top of the servos and the tolerances are quite close, less that the thickness of the line, so I am hoping there won't be any dramas with it.

 

The balance of the controls will be a closed loop system so there should be no problems with them. With the possible exception of the stays'ls because they let out much further than they pull in but it won't be using a winch drum so as long as I keep the area of operation foul free I think it should be ok.

[Bedford]

Well wouldn't that rot your socks!

 

When I was using epoxy in summer the stuff was going off as quickly as I could mix it and now in winter it doesn't want to go off at all!

 

I realised that I had better pull out the control room and epoxy it for waterproofing. I did that this morning and because it is a balmy 9-10 degrees C here I left my front and back doors open to freshen up the house. After about 3 hours the epoxy was still quite tacky so I turned the heating on to 16 degrees and went out for a while, came back and still no better.

 

I have had to turn the heat off again because it is just too warm so I will see if it goes off over night.

 

 

The upshot of all this is that I can do no more control fitting until the epoxy is set and the control room re-fitted.

[fnkershner]

So now I can get even with you.  Would you like to know the weather here in wonderful Seattle?

[Bedford]

Go on, you know you want to......................what is the weather like in Seattle.

Please convert to metric or I won't even bother reading it. If you are going to gloat, you do the work 

[fnkershner]

Alright, just for you! Yesterday, I took the Border Collie for a hike in the woods. It was 27.5 Centigrade clear and sunny. We had a wonderful time. We hiked about 8.5 Kilometers. It was a new area near my home that was logged about 50 to 80 yrs ago and just left natural since. I can't wait to go back. Might need to take some water next time. There was lots of shade in the forest but it was still warm. Just to bug you I will take a picture next time.

 

Maybe I should tell you about the wonderful fun we had sailing 3 R/C T37s on the lake last week? I do have pictures of that. Had to quit is was so hot standing out in the sun on the dock.

 

Now back to our regularly scheduled R/C boat building.

Edited July 28, 2014 by Floyd Kershner

[Bedford]

27.5 degrees, that's about 1.5 too hot to be comfortable for me, you can keep it !  

 

Back to ship building.

 

The epoxy has set, the control room is re-fitted and I have done more "plumbing"

 

I hope the pics make sense.

 

This shows two tubes running to the winch drum, just held together with wire for now. I was going to solder them together but I am worried about the heat so I think I will use epoxy and epoxy putty to secure it all.

 

 

In the following pics you can make out the two tubes from the fore and main masts coming together and aiming towards the stern. There is another tube with a flared end facing forward towards the other two.

The idea being that a line off each boom will join to a single line that runs back to the winch drum. The gap between the tubes that allows for joining of the lines is located in the area of a large cargo hatch to allow repeat access should it be required.

 

Nothing is permanently aligned yet.

 

I flared the receiving tube to allow the join in the ropes to pass into the tube easily, I did this in the lathe. Anneal the tube then mount it in the chuck, place a centre drill in the tail stock and run the lathe in reverse while easing the centre drill into the tube. The cutting edge of the drill does not bite into the brass because the lathe is going backwards so the angled step on the drill acts as a gentle flaring tool.

 

 

[qwerty2008]

Now I wish I had a lathe (I did all the tube flaring for my model by hand with a small nail). I was wandering how you plan on getting the line threw such long tubes?

[Bedford]

There is an old electricians trick for getting a draw string through a long conduit run, it's called a vacuum cleaner.

I will look into making some type of adapter to fit my cordless vac to the tubes by way of a clear pvc tube so I can draw the lines through.

[Bedford]

First a pic of the flared tube fresh off the lathe. These are for the joined ropes from two or three masts to easily pull into the final tube back to the servo.

 

 

More plumbing done, that's tacking of the courses and raising of the gafs taken care of.

 

 

 

I have found that epoxy putty is excellent for fitting the tubes in place, easy and it allows time to adjust the position properly while getting a good hold on it fairly quickly.

[Bedford]

More plumbing done, I am getting better at bending the pipes without needing to cut and adjust, the joint in this run is to make the distance, the pipes are only 30cm long.

 

 

 

[Bedford]

We have reached a truly momentous occasion...........

 

http://youtu.be/oVoMhYSnHvA

 

I am so pleased with how the sails raise, it takes a fair bit of effort but the servo handles the task with ease.

I can't lower them properly yet because I have yet to run the lazy jacks to the servo, when they are connected the gaffs will pull down easily and the bulk of the sail will be controlled rather than spilling out all over the deck.

[captainbob]

Looks like a winner.  Well done.

 

Bob

[Jim Lad]

Just catching up after some time away.  Looks like you've conquered the halliards!

 

John

[Bedford]

Halliards are one thing but it appears I may have a problem tacking. I put her outside in a breeze yesterday and the sails wouldn't reliably pull the line out of the tubes in a light breeze. If I let line out and the sails don't draw it through the tubes then it can foul around the winch drum.

 

I may have to completely re-think them, possibly running them above deck through blocks and attach to the booms from either side but I see problems there too in that because the point of attachment to the boom will move in an arc the pulls will exponential rather than linear.

 

Just another challenge for me.

[captainbob]

Sorry to hear friction was too great.  But I'm sure you'll figure it out.

 

Bob

[Shazmira]

Love the you tube video Steve, I can't wait to see one once she is complete and on the water!

[Bedford]

I have been slack lately, not looking forward to the lazy jacks.

 

I have sorted them now and I can now lower the sails properly. The video is a little bit dodgey as the camera kept trying to auto focus but it's ok. Once all the running rigging for the tops'ls is done I think it will be smoother and more controlled too.

 

[Omega1234]

Hi Bedford.  What a masterful achievement!  Well done.  Can't wait until we see the videos of your ship storming through the waves.

 

Shouldn't be too far away, for sure.

 

All the best!

[Jim Lad]

   you deserve one!

 

John