28' Ranger-type Yacht by Mark Pearse - FINISHED - 1:12

[cog]

That's some lovely metal work, Mark. It certainly looks like it is in scale, nothing to bulbous or grotesque. Very well done!!

[Jim Lad]

Very realistic looking swaged splices, Mark.

 

John

[Mark Pearse]

The main parts of the standing rigging are done; and the gammon iron is done & installed. The gammon iron is probably not accurate to reality, it has no bow rollers for anchoring etc. This is the point at which I want to separate the point of this model from doing a fully accurate model of a yacht. I won't be doing fairleads, bow rollers etc, the important part of this model is to realistically show the last yacht design by Cliff Gale, and some of the minor details will not be necessary. Partly this is because the details on a model seem to be more visible than on a real yacht, so in a way not doing them is trying to keep the focus on what I think are the most important parts - hull shape in particular.

 

So, the mast bowsprit & standing rigging:

 

 

Some of the rigging details, shrouds chain plate connections:

 

Gammon iron:

 

Mast cap from bow starboard side 

Mast cap seen from the stern side. The small rings will take the running backstays & the empty cleat is for the peak halyard.

The spreaders:

[cog]

Very crisp. I do love the riging, nice and simple

[KeithAug]

Looking Good Mark.

[Omega1234]

Beautiful work, Mark!

[michael mott]

The thimbles on the ends of the shrouds look great Mark, overall the effect is really clean looking.

 

Michael

[Mark Pearse]

thank you everyone, 

[Bedford]

I was out on Sydney Harbour at the wheel of the 1902 stem tug Waratah on Sunday and we came across a small fleet of these up near Rose Bay from memory. They truly are beautiful boats!

[Mark Pearse]

Hi Bedford,

 

good to hear from you. Yes we saw the Waratah over towards Kirribilli & I remember hearing the steam whistle. You're right, we were racing - there's two annual races Rangers vs Couta Boats. Very light conditions but great racing. Some photos below - our boat is A4.

 

Mark

 

 

 

 

[Bedford]

Mate I love the couta boats but the rangers leave them for dead, they're just gorgeous. I must admit it was nice, thanks to your build, to be able to identify them to the ships master who agreed with how beautiful they are.

[KeithAug]

Mark, looks a lot of fun, the sin off envy is raising its ugly head.

[Mark Pearse]

I haven't been working enough on the model yacht, but some recent progress:

 

the boom is done with thumb cleats each side & the gooseneck fitted, plus the fitting on the cap iron on the end of the boom is done also. The boom really sets the hull lines off.

 

 

 

 

 

Some other minor bits: the running backstay chainplates are done. They will be mounted on the sides at the step in the deck.

 

 

I refined the shape of the cutwaters, they now taper down in height as they go further aft. (they are angled boards on the deck).

 

 

And I've been looking at some fairly cheap brass blocks, as below, & wondering how they can be improved.... I sanded off the knurled edges of the riveted axle (which wouldn't look great on a scale model), & good news is that the block didn't fall apart .... so ... the plan is to glue thin pieces of timber each side of the block to replicate tufnol, or timber. If I can sand the sides very flat I might be able to turn them into double blocks by gluing or soldering two side-by-side. 

 

 

 

 

thanks all , 

[Jim Lad]

She's really looking superb, Mark.

 

John

[Mark Pearse]

thanks,

 

I made the forward sail tracks tonight & they were surprisingly easy - a classic T track from a wider piece of brass soldered on top of a narrower piece, in this case the narrower is from two very small squares - as that's what I had & the size is good. Full size for the track is about the standard size 32mm or I guess that's 1 1/4" imperial. There will be longer tracks further aft on the deck, a #1 headsail on this boat would probably have the clew about 2' or 600mm from the edge of the raised deck.

 

I'd like to drill some shallow holes along to give some texture & replicate the car stop holes, but it seems that the drill bits I have get blunt very quickly. I'll see if I can get a tungsten tip one from the local hardware store, anywhere from 0.5mm to 0.8mm or so would do, about 6-10mm diameter full size. 

 

In the photos they tracks are in the approx position, just sitting there. I'll colour them also.

 

 

 

[vaddoc]

Lovely boat Mark! Your metal work is truly inspiring. 

I think you are right, this beautiful design shows better without too many stuff on deck.

Vaddoc

[Mark Pearse]

thanks,

 

I made the forward sail tracks tonight & they were surprisingly easy - a classic T track from a wider piece of brass soldered on top of a narrower piece, in this case the narrower is from two very small squares - as that's what I had & the size is good. Full size for the track is about the standard size 32mm or I guess that's 1 1/4" imperial. There will be longer tracks further aft on the deck, a #1 headsail on this boat would probably have the clew about 2' or 600mm from the edge of the raised deck.

 

I'd like to drill some shallow holes along to give some texture & replicate the car stop holes, but it seems that the drill bits I have get blunt very quickly. I'll see if I can get a tungsten tip one from the local hardware store, anywhere from 0.5mm to 0.8mm or so would do, about 6-10mm diameter full size. 

 

In the photos they tracks are in the approx position, just sitting there. I'll colour them also.

 

 

 

[Mark Pearse]

The sail tracks are now completed. As they were left from the last posting the plain surface looked a bit blank, so I got some decent quality 1mm bits & drilled some part-depth holes to replicate the car locating points down the tracks, & also scribed a centreline - to help locate the drill bit plus I thought it would look right for some reason that I can't explain. I drilled some through holes to peg the tracks down & they are shown below pegged in their position but not glued down, the deck might need some more paint & there's no guarantee the colour will still match, or indeed even be usable so another full coat of deck paint is a definite maybe. The track holes didn't look very good or convincing, so I put a dot of darkening solution in each plus in the scribed centreline. I'm happy with the result, & I must say it's much faster to drill brass using a good bit than some piece of cheap rubbish that I bought in sets....

 

A longer track for overlapping headsails, plus a short one forwards for #3 & #4 headsails.

 

thanks all, 

 

Mark

 

 

 

 

[Jim Lad]

More lovely blacksmithing work there, Mark.

 

John

[Mark Pearse]

I fitted the running backstays chainplates, after avoiding them for some time because two thin & shaped timber pieces were required, which were tricky to get accurate. But done now, as below. This will require a tackle system for the backstays so that the resultant loading on the chainplates is more or less vertical, rather than pulling them off - which would be the case if the backstays were 1:1. The angle between the backstay to the mast & the tail to the winch is such that if you bisect it (1:1 backstay), the angle would be pulling the chainplates aft by quite a lot. Likewise, they lean inboard to the same angle as the run of the backstays to the top of the mast.

 

before:

 

after:

 

I have also done a mast track for the mainsail. A yacht rigged in the mid-late 1960s would have had a track for the luff, which I replicated using an off the shelf brass C channel. It's oversized for tracks of the time, but doesn't look wrong & there seems to be only limited sizes available for the C section in brass.

 

 

The gap at the top to the spreaders is because the gaff throat would sit just above the top of the track when there was a reef in the main.

 

thanks,

Mark

[michael mott]

Very nice progress Mark the yacht looks so sharp and clean.

 

Michael

[druxey]

Very clean and impressive work, Mark!

[Mark Pearse]

I've made the gaff jaws & gaff spar, but not done the final finishing & assembly yet. The jaws are what I am guessing would have been modern at the time of the yacht design, the mid 1960's. The part that would once have been a timber jaws piece is here a curved piece of metal, probably 6mm aluminium sheet or similar with cleats welded to the aft face, & the mast face clad in leather - which I probably won't try to replicate to scale.

 

 

This photo shows it approximately in its working angle - mocked up with a scrape dowel to replace the mast. The gaff angle in Australia seems to have been usually a high peak & the gaff spar length was usually almost as long as the boom. The angle means that the resolution of the parts is a bit tighter to fit in. 

[michael mott]

Hi Mark I just noticed that you have round headed screws holding the tracks to the deck. I would have thought that these would have been flat head screws to keep the surface free of obstructions, especially the pin of the car.

 

Michael

[Jim Lad]

She just continues to look better and better, Mark!

 

John

[Mark Pearse]

thanks, & on consideration Michael I have to agree with you that visually the heads are too bulbous to get away with. For this model there's a number of things that are simplified technically but I'll have a look at this one & see what I can do. I bought some packs of brass miniature rivets & I like them so much they are appearing all over the place.

 

Mark

[michael mott]

Mark if you use a jewelers saw and take a couple of strokes across the flat of the rivet it looks like a screw. like this

 

Michael

[kees de mol]

Beautifull work!

[Mark Pearse]

thanks all, 

 

having the spars made I wasn't really confident that they looked right, I had difficulty seeing if the sizes looked about right or not, so I made some paper sails. It was a lot of fun & it also confirmed that the sail & spar sizes are quite good. To my eye the sails look just slightly conservative in area, but I would prefer that than if they looked a little oversized - this boats look chunky but I believe it would be lightly built & lightly ballasted. The headsail is intended to be a #2 & is still a little too large, probably move the clew forwards by 15 or 20mm & up about 10mm.

 

I'm starting to think whether it's better for the sails to be set to appear as if they have wind, or just hang.....

 

I'll post some photos of the rigging details shortly, 

 

Mark

 

 

 

[Mark Pearse]

I made the traveller rail, starting with the small parts because they needed to be on the bar when it was fabricated due to the bends.

 

Below is the sliding piece that the main sheet connects to - tube with wire bent & soldered. As a form for bending I held a thinner piece of wire next to the tube to wrap the wire around both to get the shape.

 

Below are the flanges that sit on the deck - 1/4" rod drilled down the centre & cut off. The thin rod was made to fit the hole tightly by some end tapping, to help in cleaning them up. 

 

All the small pieces plus a sketch:

 

The bending jig for the bar:

 

The small pieces were soldered on, & then the rod bent:

 

Then feet soldered on & the piece has been dry fitted. Not glued until I'm sure the deck doesn't need painting again. I put a gentle curve into the top bar, it looks nice & it seems that I didn't quite get enough clearance to the tiller - a bit of tiller reshaping helped also. I find that things tend to look better on boats if there are gently curves & slight angles, even if you think it should be square.