Badger by Landlubber Mike - FINISHED - Caldercraft - 1:64 - Brig

[Landlubber Mike]

Hi Ian, happy holidays and 2014 to you and your family!  

 

I'm looking forward to joining the Unicorn gang next year.  I was thinking/hoping that I would finish the Badger by the end of the year, but that's looking quite iffy at this point.  Now that I've run a few lines and have a better handle on things, I think I can wrap it up next month.  We'll see.  In the meantime, I've been giving a lot of thought to the modifications to and colors for the build.  I think I'm going to plank the hull in pear, and I've bought samples of a variety of stains, dyes and paints to test out.  Should be a lot of fun, particularly working alongside you and Zyxux!

[ZyXuz]

looking forward your photo updates, Mike

 

Modifying a kit is always fun! and most importantly a chance to learn more skills  

I'm going off again to a small island (Koh Lipe) in Thailand this Christmas. So, Merry Christmas and Happy Winter Solstice in advance!

[texxn5]

Hi Mike, just wishing you and your loved ones a Merry Christmas and Properous New Year.....keep up the good work.

[Landlubber Mike]

Hi ZyXuz and John.  Merry Christmas and Happy New Year/Winter Solstice to you and your families as well, thank you!

 

I had a few hours to add some more of the running rigging.  I think I spent 70% of the time making forward progress, and the remaining 30% of the time fixing things I broke - blocks inexplicably separating from their lines, I knocked into the bowspirit and the spiritsail braces and fore topgallant shrouds came undone, etc.  But, I did manage to get the fore course and topsail yards up

 

I'm really glad that I decided not to install the backstays per the kit instructions.  I don't know how I would have been able to get at the rigging in the interior of the ship, particularly attaching the deck cleats.  i'm also glad that I installed the ship boats early on (the kit instructions have that as the last thing to install).  It seems to me to be a little better to work from the inside of the ship out, and from front to back.  The kit, on the other hand, has you install the yards, then attach all the lifts and buntlines, then the clew lines and sheets, and then the braces.  I was going to do all the braces at the end, but the fore topsail and fore topgallant braces are belayed to deck cleats right near the galley, and I think they would be extremely difficult to fit at the end once everything else is up.

Edited December 23, 2013 by Landlubber Mike

[Ferit]

Hi Mike,

Like This buttons on what I have clicked are in fact Really Like This Very Much buttons... 

[Landlubber Mike]

Thanks very much Ferit, I really appreciate the kind thoughts.  Are you thinking of adding sails (furled or otherwise) to your Berlin?

 

By the way, your Berlin is really coming along nicely.  I've been following your log for a while and really am impressed by your work.  I was able to get my hands on the Euromodel Friedrich Wilhelm zu Pferde kit, which is a very similar 17th century German frigate.  I'll be referring to your work all the time once I start on the kit

[Ferit]

Thank you Mike, your thoughts are so kind about my work...

I am decisive to build her full-sailed.

A period ship without sails open or furled seems to me like somewhat incomplete...(It's my opinion.)

Friedrich Wilhelm zu Pferde is one of the Brandenburg Navy like Berlin and Wappen von Hamburg (my hope).

You are right about the ressemblance but the lines and the contour of Friedrich Wilhelm zu Pferde are more complicated and much more beautiful than Berlin's. Euromodel as I see through the web is a premium quality kit    but If I remember correctly she has no sails . Both your choice of the kit and of the model are apropos and appealing for me... Congratulations...

It should be a pleasure to follow your log...

[Landlubber Mike]

Happy New Year to all my friends here on MSW!  Hope it is a happy, healthy and prosperous 2014 for you all!  

[Landlubber Mike]

Sorry to have not posted pics in a while.  I've been busy in the shipyard though, and have made some good progress.  

 

The bow and fore masts are just about completely rigged - just need to belay the lines from the staysail and jib sail, and add the braces.  I'm taking an alternative path to what the instructions  would have you do.  Instead of going spar to spar, then line to line (like all buntlines followed by all lifts), I've been pre-rigging all the lines to the spars (aside from the braces) then attaching them.  It gets to be a mess of lines, so you have to be a bit careful, but it seems to me to be easier to belay them and align the spars in the right orientation if all the lines are pre-added.  It also helps because the furled sails are attached to the yards, which make running the lines a bit trickier.

 

Another deviation I had from the plans was to not install the backstays before the running rigging.  I can see the merit of installing them before the running rigging to help keep the masts from moving forward as more rigging is installed, but I think it would be pretty difficult to belay the lines with the backstays in place - it seems to me to make more sense to work from inside the ship to outside so that you can get at the inner belaying points.  So, I'm going to leave them for the end, or maybe just before I add the braces.  My thinking on the braces is that they can be used for final adjustments to the spars to get them in the proper orientation (I think my fore topsail yard needs a bit of tweaking, while the other two are in pretty good shape).

 

I also installed the driver gaff now, rather than at the end.  I figured that it would be easier to add the furled driver sail now, before the main mast yards are in place.  I'm going to wait on the driver boom for now, as I am adding an ensign and want to belay the ensign halliards before the boom is in place so that I have a little more room to maneuver.  I'll post my method for adding the furled driver in my next post.  

 

Here are some pictures of where I am at the moment.  The finish line is near  Thanks for reading!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 1, 2014 by Landlubber Mike

[Landlubber Mike]

Furled Driver Sail

 

Here is what I did for the driver sail.  I've seen these types of sails under a variety of names, including mizzen sails, gaff sails, driver sails and spanker sails.  I think mizzen and gaff sails refer to the overall category of these types of sails.  From what I can tell, "driver" and "spanker" are particular types of sails where the driver is associated with a boom, whereas a spanker is set free without a boom.  The Badger has a boom, so this sail is a driver.  Before I get too far, it might be worth attaching a diagram of a gaff sail's parts:

 

 

 

In some ways the driver was easier than the other sails, but in others, it was more complicated.  Unlike the other sails where the sail is bent to the yard on only one edge of the sail (the head for the square sails, and the luff for the fore sails), the driver is attached on both the head and the luff.  So rather than furling the sails in one general direction, furling the driver takes on multiple directions.  On real sails, this was accomplished using brail lines that start along the leech side, and run up to the head and luff ends.  A bit hard to explain, but this picture might help.

 

 

 

From my research, it seemed like gaff sails had around 5 brail lines, with 2-3 on the head and another 2-3 on the luff.  The diagrams I've seen, however, on how/where the clew was furled differed from resource to resource.  Some diagrams show a brail at the clew.  Others show the bottom most clew on the leech as being about 2/3 of the way down the leech (and not at the clew).  Then there is the matter of where the clew ends up.  Some diagrams had the clue ending up at the throat, others, midway along the luff.  

 

So, a lot of things to consider.  The next post will outline my approach.

Edited January 2, 2014 by Landlubber Mike

[Landlubber Mike]

My approach

 

Like the other sails, I started by drawing a general outline of the driver sail, tracing the plans for the gaff, main mast and boom, and then just drawing a line for the leech end of the sail.  The next step was to draw the pattern for the reduced sail. Here, there were three considerations:  (1) how to reduce it enough that I could get a tightly furled sail; (2) how to design the pattern so that the furled sail bulk would be thinner at the peak and tack, and thicker in the area in between; and (3) mechanically, how would I proceed with the furl given that the furl takes multiple directions along the brail lines. 

 

Here is what I came up with:

 

 

The total bulk of the sail is reduced to about 40% of the full sail size.  The depth along the head and along the luff is about the depth of what I used for the furled fore and main course sails.  

 

The shape is a bit odd in that at the head area, the leech end is angled inward, while at the foot, it runs parallel to the boom (on actual mizzen sails, I believe the foot of the sail was curved).  This was because of the way I planned to furl the sail.  First, I furled the sail up to the gaff, similarly to how I furled the square sails.  So, the leech end, like the sides of the square sails, was angled inwards to reduce bulk at the peak.  Second, I furled the sail at the throat area and the luff side.  The foot is parallel to the boom and not angled as the head was because I realized that as I furled the gaff area, the outer edge of the foot would be pulled upwards, essentially angling the leech end near the foot upwards.  So, there was no need to cut the pattern to an angle like I did with the head (otherwise, I would have almost no sail to work with at the tack).  Hope that all makes sense.

 

The other thing to note is that I added a mock clew at the edge of the sail.  Given the shape of the overall driver sail, I thought the clew on the actual sail would end up midway along the luff, rather than at the throat.  I also wanted to add an outhauler line that was attached to the clew.  I modeled this off the MS Brig Niagara instructions, where the clew is brailed up the middle of the luff.

 

With the pattern cut, I prepped the sail to attach it to the gaff.  I added lacing holes along the head (5mm apart) to run the lacing to the gaff.  I also added cringles along luff area (10mm apart) so that I could subsequently attach it to the mast.  I also added clew and tack cringles at those areas.  

 

 

 

From my research, it seemed that these sails were bent to the gaff with simple lacing that ended at the throat of the gaff.  I went with 5mm apart for the holes, which was what I used on the square sails.  The sails are bent to the mast using a different lacing pattern (shown in the next post) using cringles, which I represented by running a line of thread along the edge using fabric glue, and pulling it up every 10mm to create the cringle.  Given that the sail will be furled, these will not be visible later on.  They did serve as a good guide for the mast lacing however, which I couldn't accomplish using holes drilled into the sail itself.

Edited January 2, 2014 by Landlubber Mike

[Landlubber Mike]

Next step was to furl the sail as much as possible off the build before attaching the gaff to the main mast:

 

 

 

I was able to completely furl the head area along the gaff up to the throat of the gaff.  You'll see I used three gasket type lines to hold the furl here, to somewhat represent the brail lines.  Not sure if this would be accurate as I think the brail lines actually ran through brail blocks at the gaff, and then were belayed down to the deck.  But, this would have been overly complicated at this scale, not to mention that multiple pins and cleats would have to be added.  So, I went with these three gasket type lines.  Ultimately, I went with two along the gaff, and moved the remaining line to the throat area of the sail (and not at the throat of the gaff itself).

 

I was also able to get the luff edge furled pretty well at this stage as well.  My plan of not angling the foot worked out pretty well, as you can see that the bulk is greatly reduced at the tack, with most of the bulk at the throat.  In case you're wondering, I'm using napkins under the red clothespins because I've found that the color on these colored clothespins can rub off on the sail cloth

 

From there, it was a matter of installing the gaff and lacing it to the mast.  As noted above, the lacing for the mast is a bit different than the lacing to the gaff - I think zu Mondfeld has 10 different approaches in his book.  From my research, part of the reason for the different lacing was so that the sail could slide more easily up and down the mast.  I used the mast lacing pattern as in this diagram:

 

 

 

Next I furled the rest of the sail, and added two more brail lines against the mast.  I also added a block and tackle arrangement at the deck as you can see in the third picture below.  I'm also planning on adding the outhauler line, which would run from the tack clew, through a sheeve at the end of the boom, and belayed at a deck cleat at the base of the main mast.  The kit plans have two pairs of deck cleats to be installed at the base of the main mast, with only one pair used, so all I needed to do was add an extra pair of eyebolts to the deck.

 

 

 

 

 

 

They still need some work to try and get in some folds, etc., but overall it came out somewhat ok I think.  I'd also note that in addition to real drivers having brail lines and blocks, there are a number of other inhauler/outhauler lines at the peak, as well as lines at the end of the boom.  For my build, I thought they would add too much complication given the kit's pin and cleat configuration, and I had already installed them per the kit plans before deciding on the furled sails.

 

So that's how I added a furled driver.  There are probably better ways of doing this, but hopefully this helps give people a jump start on how to approach them - I had searched all over the internet for methods on how to install a furled driver, but couldn't find any so hopefully this helps a bit.  

 

Thanks for reading!

Edited January 2, 2014 by Landlubber Mike

[Beef Wellington]

I take my hat off again to you Mike, looking very sharp indeed.  I can only imagine the time and effort that goes into these, definitely is paying off.

[flyer]

Hi Mike

 

Those furled sails look really good!

Thank you for sharing your technique and your research.

 

One thought about that working order:

On my first model I started according Wolfram zu Mondfelds advice for masting and rigging: Start aft and low and work upwards and forward. So far it always went quite well that way and also on Pegasus the first installed yard will be the crossjack and the first furled sail the mizzen topsail.

 

The way you reduce your sails seems quite daring. I’m just asking myself if I should reduce a bit less. By keeping the original form and reducing it just by perhaps 30% (also an advice from aforesaid W. z. M) I hope to retain a certain bulk in the furled sail. You achieved quite slim forms. Perhaps those would be a bit too elegant for my working horse.

I hope you don’t mind what is in no way meant as criticism. I just like to share my thoughts with somebody who is as well working to achieve good looking, furled sails.

 

Keep up the good work!

Cheers

Peter

[ianmajor]

Mike,

 

Fabulous work. Thanks for the detailed description.

[ZyXuz]

very nice work, Mike

And thanks for the complete tutorial 

[Landlubber Mike]

Hi Mike

 

Those furled sails look really good!

Thank you for sharing your technique and your research.

 

One thought about that working order:

On my first model I started according Wolfram zu Mondfelds advice for masting and rigging: Start aft and low and work upwards and forward. So far it always went quite well that way and also on Pegasus the first installed yard will be the crossjack and the first furled sail the mizzen topsail.

 

The way you reduce your sails seems quite daring. I’m just asking myself if I should reduce a bit less. By keeping the original form and reducing it just by perhaps 30% (also an advice from aforesaid W. z. M) I hope to retain a certain bulk in the furled sail. You achieved quite slim forms. Perhaps those would be a bit too elegant for my working horse.

I hope you don’t mind what is in no way meant as criticism. I just like to share my thoughts with somebody who is as well working to achieve good looking, furled sails.

 

Keep up the good work!

Cheers

Peter

Hi Peter, thanks very much for looking in.  The zu Mondfeld approach seems like great advice - I'm working fore to aft, but I think working aft to fore would have been a better approach.  I'll probably try that next time.

 

No offense taken at all on my furled sails - I appreciate all thoughts, comments and advice, as I'm always looking to improve things.  One thing I would note is that the amount of sail to be reduced is very dependent on the thickness of the material that you are working with.  Even though the material I am using is the thinnest weight cotton that I could find at a fabric store, it is still a bit too thick for my liking.  I originally was going to go with zu Mondfeld's suggestion of reducing by 30%, but the sails would have come out too bulky.  If I had used something else like silkspan or the like, then I probably could have gotten away with keeping more material.  For future builds, I'll probably see if I can source thinner material, like high quality linen handkerchief type of material or maybe very fine cotton material used for bedding, or tissue-like material like silkspan.  In any event, that is why I had to get a little creative with the pattern of the sails.

 

I'll mention one other thing about the thickness of the material I was using.  It might have been easier to create folds and creases using thinner material.  Maybe that's less important at the scale I'm working with now (1:64), but I would have liked to have been able to get more folds and creases in the sails.  Even reducing the sail by as much as I did, the furled bulk is still very tightly furled with little extra space within the bulk to help create the folds and creases.

 

It's also amazing at how tightly sails could be furled to the yards.  I've read that the furled bulk should be about the size of the yard, which is not all that big - in fact, this led me to believe that perhaps my topgallant and maybe even topsails were a tad too big.  Here are some pictures I found of the Niagara and another ship.  Amazing that even the driver could be furled so tightly!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[egkb]

Mike, I too love what you have done with your furled sails (impressed enough to want to give it a go myself!) just be careful comparing modern sail material on tall ships (Dacron etc) with the proper 'canvas' in the time of Badger, there would be a world of difference in thickness and flexibility.

Loving this build BTW !

 

Eamonn

[Landlubber Mike]

Thanks very much Eamonn, really appreciate the kind words.  Give them a try!

[Landlubber Mike]

Mike, I too love what you have done with your furled sails (impressed enough to want to give it a go myself!) just be careful comparing modern sail material on tall ships (Dacron etc) with the proper 'canvas' in the time of Badger, there would be a world of difference in thickness and flexibility.

 

This is a good point Eamonn - I've been thinking about your comment most of the day today which made me go back to some of the resources I consulted when trying to figure out how to approach the furled sails.  The diagrams in Harland show very tightly furled sails, relatively close to the scale of mine.  Zu Mondfeld also cautions that the furled sails should be neither too thick nor too thin - he includes a picture on page 331 of an 1867 French corvette whose furled sails he praises.  It's a bit hard to tell from the black and white photo, but it looks like the ends of the square sails are at the same scale as mine if not smaller, but the bulk in the middle is significantly larger.  Maybe this is a factor of the sails being furled on top of the yard, rather than down and in front?  The general bulk of the driver/spanker seems to be a little larger than mine as well.  

 

So, definitely a point of consideration.  Now I'm hoping that mine aren't too thin 

[Sailor1234567890]

A well furled sail should be smooth, not creased and wrinkled. The reason for this is that a smooth sail sheds rainwater while creases in it will hold rainwater. This is damaging to the sail. A well furled sail should not be seen from below and abaft the yard in question. As to sails being furled "down and in front" of the yard, this has to do with where the clews are triced up to. Older ships would normally have the clews brought to the bunt of the sail (middle or belly of the sail so middle of the yard, by the mast). More modern ships (roughly the clipper ship era and later) they started to bring the clew up to the end of the yard when furling. This made a difference in how the mass of the sail was seen. An older ship would have a larger bundle of sail cloth to furl in the middle because the clew brought the lower corners of the sail up to the middle of the yard. With the clews furled to the outboard ends of the yard the sail could be furled much neater and give that cleaner appearance. That being said, there were some "radical" designs such as for roller furling topsl's that rolled the sail on a jackyard of sorts or "curtain" style sails that were drawn together at the mast like curtains. These obviously worked completely differently and my previous comments no longer apply. Hope this helps guys.

Cheers,

Daniel

[Landlubber Mike]

Daniel thanks for that great explanation.  Makes a lot of sense, thank you!

[texxn5]

Good discriptions Mike, thanks...

[Landlubber Mike]

Thought I'd pass along this link of a spectacular model of the Victory that I came across today.  Take a look at the furled sails - they are furled very tightly against the yard for a rather thin profile.  Amazing work!

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2219810/Magnificent-model-HMS-Victory-complete-Lord-Nelson-Captain-Hardy-deck-took-pensioner-10-years-complete.html

[j21896]

Wow, great link Mike!  He used draughtsman's linen for the sails -- wonder how that compares to the thickness of your material??

 

Robert

[Landlubber Mike]

Good question Robert.  Probably thinner than what I used I imagine.  I think his Victory was at 1:96 scale, so his cloth is probably a lot thinner.  I'm going to have to look into that material for my next builds.

[Landlubber Mike]

Hi everyone, here is a quick update of where I am now.  The spars and braces are up, and at this stage, all that I have left is some rigging at the bow and stern, the backstays, jib stay, tighten up some other lines, and add the remaining detail items (driver boom, some more coils, the anchors and non buoys, rudder chain and flag).  I was originally planning to have the ship completed by the end of last month, but came down with shingles of all things.  Thankfully I'm better after about three weeks of excruciating pain, and making some good progress.  I'm not in a rush at this point, as I'm not expecting the upgraded wood packages for my next two builds, the Corel Unicorn and MS Charles Morgan, until April or May.  So, that gives me time to enjoy the home stretch and finish the display case.

 

Enough rambling, here are some pictures.  Again, sorry for the poor quality, but this is the most neutral background I can find in my house   Thanks for looking in as always.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 2, 2014 by Landlubber Mike

[Landlubber Mike]

This is how I made the rope coils for the belaying pins.  First few pictures show the simple jig from balsa which was set up to handle three coils at once.  Slots are cut on one end to hold one end of the thread.  I then looped it around the two push pins three or four times, then the line comes under and around the middle of the loop into a simple knot.  I bit of diluted PVA was run over the knot and the loops to keep things relatively secure. 

 

 

 

 

Once dry, I used a block of balsa to try and get the coils to hang in a somewhat natural fashion.  You can see in the next of pictures my high tech jig.   By placing the top pin over the corner of the block, it helped get the coil into a better position I thought to hang naturally from the pin.  Diluted PVA was added again to freeze them in place.

 

 

 

 

Here are the final results.  I think they came out somewhat ok, but if I had to do it over, I probably would have made them longer and probably a bit messier looking.  Even pre-shaped, I found it was necessary to use a rigging hook to hold down the bottom of the coil to position it better after liberally applying another dose of diluted PVA.

 

 

Edited February 2, 2014 by Landlubber Mike

[riverboat]

Look'n really good Mike

[Stockholm tar]

Hi Mike,

 

Just catching up with your log again, and looks generally good overall.

 

There are however a couple of points I would make. As you know at that date the clewlines furled the sail towards the centre of the yard, the upper blocks being secured at that point. This inevitably resulted in the bulk of the sail ending up in the middle of the yard. Later in the nineteenth century the blocks were moved to the yardarms, resulting in the 'slimmer' furled look, with the sail stretched out along the whole yard. Your sails look good, but I think I might have made them slightly bulkier. Moot point though.

 

My other point concerns your coils. My apologies for pointing it out, but rope coils on ships were not really done in that fashion. You have to think of the seaman doing the job, or yourself coiling the rope in your hands. One hand makes the coil and then passes it to the 'passive' hand, where it is held against the previously made coils. When the whole line is coiled in suitably sized coils, they are then offered up to the pin at the rail. The line coming off of the top of the pin is then passed through the coils, brought back over the top of them and the top of the pin. There shouldn't be any turns halfway down the coil, they should hang open – a seaman wouldn't thank anybody for making his life more difficult! On the model of course you normally make the coils separately.

 

Hope you don't mind me pointing this out.

Edited February 2, 2014 by Stockholm tar