US Brig Niagara by Laxet - FINISHED - Model Shipways

[Don Quixote]

Silly me, I thought steaming meant to soak the plank in water and run it over a soldering iron or in my case one of those irons with the rounded end that model expo sells, because when one does that, the wood steams.

 

I assume one simply runs the plank in front of the steam slowly? Off to buy one now, I should be ready to start planking soon.

[Laxet]

Just be careful not to burn your finger tips. I did that a lot. When you move it back & forth in front of this, apply pressure to create the bend while steaming. The effect dissipates quickly after you remove it from  the steam.

[Laxet]

A bit of marlinspike seamanship here. I have never tried this at such a small scale before. It looks pretty good, even if I twisted a stitch or two. This is very difficult at this scale. Sorry for the out of focus picture. Can you believe I'm also a photographer?

[Laxet]

BTW, the anchor stock isn't really as lopsided as it looks. It is a trick of the lens.

[Guest Tim I.]

Those anchors look great!

 

- Tim

[Laxet]

Thanks Tim. I'm pretty pleased the way they came out. If nothing else, I'll have nice anchors.

[Laxet]

All right, it's time to give up some secrets (you guys, not me). I need to know how to tie off the gammoning lashings after I finish tying down the bowsprit. Do i just tie the ends together or something fancier? Any special knot?

[BillLib]

This is how I did the gammoning on my Niagara.

 

Bill

 

[russ]

That is a good solution.

 

You can also make the seizing out of a separate line. Form a U shaped loop against the gammoning, leaving a free end or tail dangling a bit below where the seizing will be applied. With the loop in place, wrap the long end of the line around the gammoning several times moving upward from the bottom edge of the seizing, leaving the loop exposed at the top and the short tail exposed at the bottom of seizing. When you have several turns of the seizing, cut the long end of the line so that there is a little left over. Then feed that end into the loop. Now, tug on the end of the line at the bottom and it will pull that loop and the free end of the line beneath the seizing and it will be secured there with nothing left showing at the top. Then trim the tail flush with the bottom of the seizing and you are done. This will work anywhere where you have a seizing and you do not want to leave a cut end visible.

 

Practice this on some spare thread to get the hang of it.

 

Russ

[rfolsom]

Anchors look great, deck looks incredible;  I found that most of my plank bending can be accomplished with soaking in normal (130 degree or so F.) tap water, but for steam bending I use an old pressure cooker, without the jiggler, The focused steam can turn a plank into pretty much any shape you want...

[Laxet]

The nice thing the shark is it sits right on my desk.

[Laxet]

Thanks Bill & Russ. Russ, the method you suggest sounds like what I have used in the past for mast wooldings. Bill, I actually knew this method, but it didn't look like anybody used it on their Niagaras. I guess I should go back & have a closer look. Did you seize the gammoning separately on each side or wrap it between the bowsprit & the stem? Hope that is a clear question.

 

Also, how about the jib boom? Is it done the same way or some way different?

[BillLib]

I wrapped and tied off the gammoning in between the bowsprit and stem as in the illustration.

 

As for the jib boom, I just wrapped circularly around and then brought the free end under the siezing and glued it in place.  Similar to mast wooldings.

 

Don't know for sure if I'm right or wrong for the period, but it turned out the way I wanted to do it.

 

Regards, Bill

[Laxet]

The other anchor came out even better, although you can't tell by the crappy picture. I'll be darned if I can focus my phone. People are going to say, "Boy, that's a crappy ship, but wow, look at at them anchors!"

[Laxet]

And for good measure I'll put this on the stand to distract them! They'll think I'm a genius.

[Laxet]

For some reason, that picture came out upside down. Hmm.

[Laxet]

I'm looking at the lashing of the jib boom & flying jib. The plans call out .006" line (kit comes with .008"). I tried some test wraps & the stuff seems so small. It looks like it could take 20 or more wraps to make a seizing. Is this right or did you guys use larger line?

 

Speaking of line, I just discovered today (after 16 years) that I received two .008" spools of black line & no .028" spools. Earlier on (a couple of months ago) I found that I had 102 belaying pins instead of 120 & an extra package of 1/8" single blocks. I guess I did a lousy job of inventorying everything when I got it. So far, Model Expo has been great at replacing everything without question. Today I also asked for another two sets of quarter boat lifts. I attempted to carve mine probably at least 10 years ago when I knew absolutely nothing about what I was doing. Today, thanks to this group, I have an inkling about what's going on. Thanks to all for the clue.

[rfolsom]

When I received my Niagara a couple of years ago, I noticed the belaying pins were too large per the plans. The part numbers matched up from the inventory sheet, however.   I had ordered belaying pins for my (mostly) scratch built Cutty Sark from them previously, that matched the size I needed and consulted the MSW community if they'd had the belaying pin size problem, which they hadn't (older releases).  A couple of emails to Model Expo (I did take actual pictures of the two pins on the 1:1 plans;  they initially said that the pins were correct; subsequent email showed that part numbers were wrong on the new inventory sheet) and a batch of new pins were sent.

 

I say: "Bravo; to Model Expo for being a kind company that preserves services and traditions;  and Hurray for the MSW site and community; for the wonderful people who post and help each other out."

[russ]

For seizing, that .008 line sounds about right. You could go up to .010, but not much thicker. For scale accuracy, the slightly smaller line would look better. The seizings ought not to be bulky looking.

 

The plans were probably detailed to show what was actually needed and the kit is supplied with the closest line they had in stock.

 

Russ

[Laxet]

Well, here it is so far, using .008 line. I've really gotten rusty rigging over all these years. I think the .008 does look about right now that I see it done.

[russ]

It looks neatly done. Good job. I do think you could have gone thicker with that particular application, but it looks good so I would not change anything. Just as soon as you go thicker, you will run into scale issues. Even if it not too thick, the eye will probably fuss about it. The eye always catches things that are too large for scale.

 

Russ

[Laxet]

Well, here is my latest screw up. Minor in the grand scheme of things but it's something I did a couple of months ago & just caught it. You can see where the stops were & where they go. Didn't discover this until trying to attach the spritsail yard. At least I caught it before I tried to rig the bow.

[Laxet]

Unbelievable. I did it again. I must have been having a real bad day when I built the spritsail yard You can see the mistake (barely, since I still can't focus this stupid phone camera) inside the circle. This time I had to correct it attached to the bowsprit. AAaarrgggg!

 

It looks like I swapped the positions of the two sets of chocks.

[russ]

I am sure it will be okay. But, each of us has to decide what is good enough on our models and what must be changed. I would think on it a bit before I made a decision.

 

Russ

[Laxet]

It is already corrected. That's what the new wood you see is. It wasn't that tough to fix & it needed to be done. Now I have to touch up the paint. It's just frustrating to find a bunch of mistakes so long after building the part. I must have picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue!

[russ]

This is actually quite common in model building. We all go through it. You are doing really nice work on this model. Have fun.

 

Russ

[Laxet]

Thanks Russ. I appreciate the encouragement. I guess I'm trying to turn this build log into one that shows the things nobody else's does. Especially the ways things can go wrong. There are a lot of questions I have that other build logs don't answer, so those are the things I want to show. If I could master this stupid phone camera.

[johncole]

Dale,

This build log is very informative and inspiring. I hope to one day build this model, when I gather more courage and skill.

 

Well done.

John

[Don Quixote]

 

If I could master this stupid phone camera.

Sounds like you have a smart phone. Mine hasn't helped me one bit. Get it? Bit? bits, bytes, megabits, megabytes, terabi... Never mind...

[Laxet]

Yeah, it's an iPhone. It wants to focus on the largest thing in the viewfinder, which in my case is always the background. I ought to go back to the DSLR, but the little guy is just so darned handy. All it needs is a competent operator.