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

[captainbob]

I'm with Michael and Robbyn. Waiting for the next step.

 

Bob

[Jim Lad]

That's a huge milestone, Steve!

 

John

[Bedford]

Michael

 

Me too! I have a fair idea of how it will all pan out but once i have mounted the prop shafts there will be a LOT of thinking and planning to see what has to go where. Oh, and shopping too.

 

Robbyn

 

Thanks, I have learned to read the planks and how they want to lie, I run them in a compromise position between where I want them to lie and where they want to lie favouring their choice a bit then I fill the gaps later. It has turned out quite well. I'm glad I have you fascinated, hopefully I will pull this off well and not disappoint.

[popeye the sailor]

nicely done steve.......I really like the 'construction photo' 

[Bedford]

I have made the first hole in the hull, for the bow sprit. Now you can see her real lines for the first time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 29, 2014 by Bedford

[Jim Lad]

Looking very nice, mate!

 

John

[augie]

Beautiful lines.  Great start on the bowsprit.

[Shazmira]

Big and beautiful. She really does have a graceful beauty to her, I really am beginning to love the lines of this type of ship...may have to try one for myself!

Does she just sit on that counter top without any need of support or bracing?

[captainbob]

I can almost see her in the water.  Such grace in her lines.

 

Bob

[Bedford]

Yes, when I first saw the plans online I kind of fell in love with her. She just looks right doesn't she.

 

Robbyn the keel is 13mm thick or just over half an inch and at this point she is still well enough balanced that she stands upright on her own.

[Bedford]

I am drawing some inspiration from the James Craig in Sydney even though she is a barque.

 

She is of similar age and size to this schooner so there are going to be a lot of similarities, I paced out the James Craig the night before I sailed on her and reckoned she was 55 - 56 metres in the hull which pans out pretty well with the schooner because with a deck of just over 1 metre and a scale of 1:54, well you get the idea.

 

It turns out the length of the hull on the Craig is 54.7 metres so I was pretty close considering I was on the wharf when I paced her out.

 

I have been wondering how much the schooner will need to weigh to ride at the water line and I keep thinking somewhere around 6 kilos. I worked out that the Craig with a displacement of 1500 tonnes would run a scale weight of 9.5 Kilos and given that she is not a coastal trader and therefore has a deeper draft I can see that the schooner may well come in at around 6 kilos or maybe a tad over.

 

It will be interesting to see once I have her sealed and ready to float. I will load her up and see exactly how much she needs to carry to ride at the waterline.

[Shazmira]

I am amazed at the balance. Yes, the keel may be wide, but for you to have achieved perfect balance like that to me is a very important achievement. Since you intend for this ship to actually float (sail) on the water, to me the balance is a necessary thing to prevent capsizing. My point is, that even at this early stage balance is needed because every step (or error) is compounded from here on out. I realize you can add ballast, but I would think the goal is to not need added ballast to correct flaws in building, so the fact that after planking you still have balance is a great achievement. I can see this is going to be an awesome display of your skills as a builder!!!

[Bedford]

Gee Robbyn, no pressure !

 

I had not considered the balance as being quite as important as you have pointed out but you are wise, the less corrective ballast I need to distribute to make her float level the more I have to use in the sailing keel to keep her upright in a gail and she will always be sailing in a gail !

 

I had mentioned the need to build lightness into her so I could save as much weight as possible for the sailing keel and building balance into her is one way of achieving this.

 

Never mind my skills as a builder, you are going to see my skills as a plummer in due course..............that has you guessing doesn't it?

[Bedford]

I needed to get some 1.5 x 1.5 timbers but didn't want to order them and wait so I worked out a way to cut them without too much fuss. I won't call them "whales" but I have forgotten what they are called, you will see them in the following pics.

 

The hull planks are 1.5mm thick so I glued two down on my cutting board with a third jammed between them on edge.

 

Once the glue had dried I just had to hold the plank between the two that were glued down and run a blade along one of them to cut into the stock piece. Three runs with the blade then move the plank along and repeat until the whole plank is partially cut through. Then lay it flat and just gently finish the cut freehand which is easy because there is now a good deep guiding groove.

 

 

Finally onto the epoxy, why is it that every time you do something like this bugs appear out of nowhere and land on it ?

 

 

 

I am using the "West Systems" epoxy as recommended and the mob I got it from have mixing cups for it that are marked with the part A level and then you top it up to the part B level. There are different scales for different ratios and there are 10%, 20% and 30% markes for adding additives like acetone for thinning. They only cost a couple of dollars so I got two, they are brilliant!

 

 

Edited March 30, 2014 by Bedford

[augie]

Nice job on the epoxy.  Really shows off your planking skills.

[Jim Lad]

That oughta keep the damp out!

 

John

[Bedford]

I thinned the first coat with the aim of having it soak into the timbers a bit and strengthen her. When I painted it on I could see it sat on the surface at first but then as I went colour changed indicating that it was indeed soaking in. I will do an even thinner coat on the interior to really get it into everything, every gap, every joint.

[Sailor1234567890]

I find warming it up thins it considerably and allows you to get it to run better. Keep in mind that changes the pot life though. I usually sit my cans of a and b in a pot of boiling water for a few minutes to warm them up. My epoxy work has all been full scale though, not model scale.

[Shazmira]

Steve, glad to know I am wise without being aware of it...just seemed logical to me. The epozy finish really does make the woodworking look even more beautiful!

[Bedford]

Yes the exterior looks great but you should see the interior.

You will in the future as I start fitting her out.

 

Next step is to fit the prop shaft tubes, I want to do this now because I will use a bit of fibreglass cloth around them in the next coat of epoxy to really strengthen that area because the planks are now weekened there and there will no doubt be a certain amount of vibration when the motors are running.

[Bedford]

Sailor, it is 32 degrees C here at the moment, (sorry Floyd) so there is quite enough heat in the epoxy I reckon, I am only mixing small amounts and it is starting to get warm by the time I am finished each coat so I don't think it would be wise to add any more heat to it. Thinning it a little with acetone seems to be working quite well.

[michael mott]

Bedford, the epoxy really shows what a tight job you did on the planking.

 

Michael

[Bedford]

All these compliments on my planking..... I will be embarrassed to show my filling work around the prop shafts now.

 

I did put more effort into accurate fitting than usual and took my time, the old carpenters law, measure twice, cut once.

[Bedford]

Well so much warm epoxy, nature did that for me. When I fitted the prop shaft tubes I used Araldite, 5 min epoxy adhesive. I only got about 30 to 40 seconds after mixing to use the stuff before it started getting hard.

 

I should have know better than to start applying fibre glass in this heat.

 

I have done the second coat on the exterior this time without thinning and I added fibre glass to the rear of the hull to strengthen the area the prop shafts come through. I got the first side completed then started the second side, I got 65% of the glass done and the resin started to harden so I had to mix a second batch quickly so I could continue. Some of the glass would not fully accept the resin as it had been partially wet in the previous batch so it will need sanding and redoing but even the rest of that side with the new batch of resin didn't go as well as the other side. I had little lumps of gel appearing as I went and just had to go at it madly and hope for the best.

 

I will have a look at it in the morning and see how bad it is, thankfully I am planning to sand and paint but I fear there will be a lot more sanding than I hoped for.

Edited December 20, 2013 by Bedford

[Sailor1234567890]

Yes, I should have noticed, Australia. I'm in Canada so we have a bit of a temperature difference. Disregard my last then.

[fnkershner]

Thanks for remembering me. Just in case you want a comparison. Here in Seattle today we currently have a temp of -5 degrees C and the forecast says the high today will be 1 or 2 degrees C. On and by the way it is snowing. I might just have to mix up some epoxy as a hand warmer. Keep up the great work. I will try to feel warmer when I look at your log.

[Bedford]

It's not uncommon to get -4 deg C here in winter with max of 6or 7 but we don't get much snow.

Our normal summer range is about 26 to 30 but we are getting into the mid 30's and that's hot for us. Probably hotter in the garage too.

 

I used to work for a large company that occasionally did stuff like wearing a promo T shirt. they did it one winter and someone from head office rang to ask  how the promo was going, are we all wearing our T shirts? I replied "Madam, when I come to work in the morning it is minus 4, do you think I am wearing a T shirt"

 

Glad I don't live in Sydney, they are getting into the mid 40's and this side of Aus is humid.

Edited December 20, 2013 by Bedford

[Bedford]

I last used fibre glass and epoxy resin in my late teans, so long ago, I am finding that with a more thoughtful approach and the right stuff it isn't that bad to work with. Climactic considerations aside.

 

The micro sphere filler is working beautifully and having isopropyl alcohol and acetone at hand means not much mess. Very cheap paint brushes help too, I clean them by binning them and reaching for a new one.

 

 

Here you can see how the mixture with micro spheres is filling the gaps nicely, I am using it at about the consistency of honey.

 

 

 

The forward ribs need more filler in the aft part of the joint to the planks. There is a very good reason I did not "fair" the entire width of the rib and that is because the line drawing I got the shapes from shows the profile of the hull at that precise point at 90 degrees from the keel. Given that the ribs are 10mm thick if I had faired the entire face of the rib I would have effectively moved the profile astern by 5mm so I only faired the forward half up front and the rearward half astern.

 

 

My next epoxy mix will be one of simmilar consistency with which I will go over the glassed area on the exterior to reseal what I have sanded and fill the glass sheet better to allow sanding back to a smooth finish. The micro spheres are supposed to sand well. Then once I have coated those two patches of cloth I will add more micro spheres to really thicken the mix and prop the hull up on its bow so I can fill the gaps on the rear faces of the forward ribs.

Edited March 30, 2014 by Bedford

[fnkershner]

I did much the same thing on my R/C sail boat. And when it got to the point of installing the deck. I made my epoxy the consistency of Pudding. Then laid a heavy bead along the sides of the hull, installed the false deck, and turned it upside down. Over night the epoxy ran into the crack and did a wonderful job of sealing the joint. the deck was 1 solid piece.

[Bedford]

Yeah, I fear I may have to install my deck in a cool room.......

 

I have finished the epoxy coats. The Glass cloth on the stern left the hull looking messy as anyone who is familiar with its use would undestand, you have a beautiful smooth wooden hull then in one place you have this cloth with frayed edges in the finish, yuck!

 

I sanded it as much as I dared, or could be bothered in this heat, and then did the coat over it with micro spheres mixed in and it smoothed it all out pretty well !

 

Just a light sand then a normal coat over the entire exerior this morning and it is done.

 

Seems a pity to have to paint over it all now................

 

Edited March 30, 2014 by Bedford