Emma C Berry by craigb - Model Shipways

[craigb]

Wayne: thanks for the advice. I will be fully detailing the interior including ceilings- this will be a warm up for planking the hull outside. 

 

After thinking about it for a while, and staring at the plans for hours, it seems the entire interior of the boat depends on the location of the wet well. So, I started building that. 

 

I faired the inside of the hull, mounted up a few temporary deck beams to mark the location of the wet well hatch, then marked and cut the... thing.  I don't have the plans in front of me and I forget what it is called  .  It is the beam at the bottom-most part of the wet well sides and it has to be carefully to fit the deck beams. It took a while of going slow to get the fit up pretty good. Early on the fit was bad, and I considered starting over but I slowly worked on shaping it and it eventually fit well. 

 

 

One weird thing I noticed is that most of the deck beams are not lined up with frames. Some rest just on top of the clamp, "floating" between frames. Weird. I would think structurally it would be much better to have all the deck beams fixed to a frame. 

[russ]

Craig:

Your framing looks excellent. Very nice work.

 

On the deck beams, they have to fit according to the deck layout rather than the hull framing plan. There needs to be a complete beam at either end of hatches and deck houses. To accomplish this, beams are fitted where they need to be and they rest on and are fastened to the beam shelf or deck clamp. Because their location depends on the deck plan and not the framing plan of the hull, some beams will butt against a frame while most will probably not.

 

Russ

[J Haines]

I learned somthing, I should have left the transom off to allow easier installation of the clamps. your doing a great job. 

[J Haines]

Your post pics have answered a few questions I had. thanks.

[craigb]

Russ: thanks for the explanation! I knew there had to be a reason. 

 

Building continues. I framed out the bottom part of the wet well which involved making a kind of interesting piece. I held the raw wood up to the frame, traced the outline with a pencil and cut it out. I fully expected to have to make a few of these before the fit was good, but lo and behold it fit up great the first time. Sweet! The end was left long to facilitate fenagling it into place.  In the second photo you can see it fit into place. The deck beams aren't glued in yet- they are held in place temporarily with rubber bands. 

 

 

I also tried to carve up a figure so that there is a sense of scale. The pose is anything but natural, and despite trying to make a decent relief, it still looks really flat. Meh. At least it is 6 scale feet tall. 

 

 

After I got done framing the bow end of the wet well, I double checked the plans and noticed that I had framed the wet well to frame #8, not #9! Yikes! So, after about 30 seconds of thought, I decided that this particular ECB will simply have a bigger wet well than most. As far as I can tell, the only thing forward of the wet well is a storage locker that will barely be seen in the finished model anyway. 

 

The last step was to re-fair the outside of the hull. 

 

Until next time- Cheers!

--craig

[craigb]

Veeeery slow progress for the last couple of months but I did manage to get out to the Charles Morgan launch party at Mystic Seaport. While there, I took a BUNCH of photos of the details on the Emma. 

 

Please check it out!

 

http://modelshipworld.com/index.php?/topic/3221-emma-c-berry-photos-at-mystic-seaport-2013/

[craigb]

All I managed to accomplish on the Emma over the last, wow! 2 months! was framing in some hatch gratings. The deck beams are still not glued in- I plan on building the entire deck as a removable ift-off thing to make building the interior details easier later on. Only at the last minute will it be glued in. 

 

I attempted to do the true mortise shape with the little hook on the end, but it is so small I couldn't cut it without the "hook" flaking off because of the grain. Maybe with a different wood it would be easier to do? After about a half dozen tries I gave up.  

 

So I settled on simple square notches, and I think they are turning out pretty good. Of course, they will all be covered over with planking anyway...

 

Happy building 

--craig

 

 

 

[craigb]

After a really long time, I finally got a day off to put a few hours into the ECB build. I made a few more deck beams and hatch grating frames. 

 

 

The beams and whole deck really are not attached to the hull at all. I'm doing this so that I can pop the thing off and work on the interior details without fighting very much.  For now, rubber bands hold everything in places.  

 

 

I think the deck is constructed enough that I can get the alignment of the wet-well frames right. 

 

This construction method has me giving serious thought to leaving at least one part of the deck as a lift-off piece in the finished model so that you can see all the interior details. One school of thought is "if I built it I might as well look at it."

On the other hand, I recall seeing an exhibit at, I believe, the Naval Academy model collection where they took a surgeon's endoscope and looked in a period ship model to show that the entire inside was totally fitted out with ladders, gratings, tables and chairs and everything, even though it was impossible to see in the completed model. I think this is a real quite dignity to that! The building of the model is the reward I guess!

 

Thoughts? 

 

-cheers

[trippwj]

Coming along very well, Craig!  I have seen some of those interior pictures of models and they are impressive.  I have also seen some that were built to open and let you look inside.  I guess it depends on how you feel about the two options.  I am contemplating making my ECB as though she is undergoing repairs - some of the hull planks off, some of the deck planks off to show off the interior.  Haven't worked through all the details to get there, yet - still another 10 frames to prepare and fit to the keel!

[craigb]

Wayne,

I’ve been following your build and it looks great.  I have been thinking about “unique” ways to show the work that went into a model. Here is a photo from the Muse National De Marine (something like that!) in Paris with a very elaborate cutaway system.  As detailed below, I hope I came up with something subtle but effective. 

 

 

And now more photos and stuff.

 

Another day off, another bit of progress on this wonderful model.

 

This time, I tackled the wet well. As you probably know, this is a very unique feature to this particular historical boat, so I really wanted it to shine.

 

As I mentioned above in this build log, I was considering a “lift off” section of the deck to showcase the plank-on-frame construction, while still fully fitting out the interior of the boat.  Well, I decided that I definitely wanted to do that, and thought it would be a good opportunity to showcase the wet well.

 

I will also mention that, during this point of the build, I’m really glad I didn’t glue in the deck beams, as many parts required repeated fitting that would have just been aggravating if I had to carefully snake the bits in through the ribs and deck beams.  I highly recommend this method to anyone building this (or any other, really) model!

 

Enough blah, on to the photos.

 

Here I’ve cut the wet well planking to approximate length and simply stacked them up to see what they looked like.  Here, I decided that the fit between planks was so nice with the kit wood that I would just glue the wet well planking to the corner posts, not to each other to avoid glue squeezing out and messing up the wood. This, too, was really the way to go because, in the finished shots later, my wife thought it was a solid piece of wood! Even in real life she thought that! Nice.

 

 

Speaking of the corner posts, they were interesting builds, with several complex angles that had to be cut and sanded “just so” for a good joint. They are glued down at the bed logs, but “floating” on top at the deck without glue, though the are held in place quite well by the fit. Actually, sharp eyed viewers will not that the corner posts are supposed to extend fore and aft to sit directly on the frame, OUTSIDE the bedlogs. Then the wet well planking is supposed to go outside the corner posts on the port and stbd sides, but inside the corner posts on the fore and aft ends. Well, I messed it up and it was too late to fix it, so I did what I always do.  Move on.  I think, aside from you guys, no one will ever know!

 

Here is a shot with the wet well planking glued on port and stbd but the deck popped off.

 

Here I have started fitting the forward side wet well planking.  At this point, I realized I didn’t have enough of the proper sized wood to plank up the after side. 

 

The, I got to thinking!  Uh Oh!

 

With the interior of the craft eventually covered in ceilings (ceilings are the equivalent of hull planking, only on the interior side of the boat) there really won’t be any way to see the hull frames, even if I have a lift-off deck section. So, what I decided to do was something more fun.

 

I “planked” after side with a custom cut and fit piece of acrylic. This will allow one to peer in through the lift off deck into the back of the wet well, showcasing this unique feature as well as giving a glimpse of the framing inside the wet well also.  Well, that is the theory at least. 

 

For a mini how-to, please see the next post!

 

Here you can see the ends of all the planks trimmed to final dimension. I started by roughing it down with a sharp #11 blade, the realized that I had a lot of control with that, and sanding sort of de-highlighted (?) the plank ends, making it further look like a single sheet of wood instead of individual planks. So the finish you see is the result of shaving them down, not sanding. Minor detail, but (hopefully) interesting.

You can also see the top-most wet well planks, and the complex shaping and fit-up needed. Again, here, having the deck NOT glued in was a godsend.  Those three (P, S, and Fore) took as long to make as the rest of the wet-well put together!

 

 

 

Finally, a parting shot of the completed wet well, with acrylic after-facing “planking” in place.

 

 

Cheers and happy building

-c

[craigb]

Mini How To: Making an acrylic faux-planking piece

 

After deciding to attempt a clear “vista” section of my model, I immediately looked around for pieces left over from my last acrylic-working shenanigan debacle (As seen here). Turns out I was so peeved I threw all of it away, so off I went to the local art supply store. Turns out an approximately 4x6” piece was about $15. Yikes. So I looked around, and instead bought this architect’s triangle for “only” $10, with the idea of cutting it up and harvesting its parts. I also re-purposed a junk mail flyer for template duty.  Well, junk is a strong word.  I strategically avoided cutting into the coupon itself, because I’ll be damned if I’m going to miss out on $25 off a $50 purchase next time I go to Orvis.

 

 

Moving on.

 

Turns out that making the template took much longer than I expected, but going slowly I eventually ended up with a very good template that was transferred over to the acrylic sheet.

 

 

Next, I used a Dremel tool with a cut off wheel (Always wear safety glasses!) to carefully rough out the shape as close to the line as I dared.

 

Then, using a flat file, I cleaned up the edges and beveled them even. This took less time that I expected, but I expected it to take forever. It still took a long time. It was actually surprisingly easy to make the edges an angle, rather than pure 90 degrees. The bottom side, in particular, looked weird without an angle filed in, and left a big gap.

 

All the edges were lightly chamfered, giving it a surprisingly professional appearance.  I expected the whole thing to look pretty bad, but I think it looks darn right nice, much better than expected.  Sometimes you even surprise yourself.

 

Then I fitted it up, and the thing was so convincing that it looked like nothing was there at all.  So I carefully marked where all the real wood planking was, and scribed some lines into the acrylic using the tip of a small round file to simulate planks. 

 

This is the same photo as my previous post. 

Edited October 21, 2013 by craigb

[gerty]

Looking Good !   Nice job .

[craigb]

Got a few hours off this weekend and spent some time with Emma.  Don't tell my wife.  

 

I continued fitting out the interior details. Aft, I installed the "sleepers" which are the beams that support the "sole" (the floor of the rear cabin). Similarly, the beams that hold the forecastle floor were installed. As an aside, any sailing vessel I've been on calls the forward storage area the "sail locker" so I will call it that.  It is my boat after all and I'm the captain 

 

Here are some detail shots of laying for forward floor boards (joists if you build houses).  

First, the foremost and after-most beams were installed, taking care to make sure they were semi-level.  Then the middle beams were installed using a "checking" plank /straight edge thing.  You can see it labeled "DOWN" in the photo.  Clothespins were used to hold them in place as the glue set.  

 

As another aside, clothespins have a "just right" amount of tension that doesn't dent the wood.  My metal spring clamps hold like nothin' but can dent the wood.  I prefer a piece that fits, and the "clamp" is simply to hold it in place as the glue dries, rather than force it in place as the glue sets. I almost NEVER use pins.  They leave holes that I find unsightly and can occasionally distort the piece being glued in. 

 

Here you can see the fore and aft sleepers installed.  Please note too that I continue to thank myself for making the deck beams removable. Soooooo much easier to work on the interior but still be able to locate parts according to the deck plan. 

 

After laying the joists/sleepers, I was really exited to start some deck planking.  I first planked the sail locker.  I really wanted to joggle the decking up in the locker there, if not for any other reason than to say "joggle" a few more times. Joggle Joggle joggle.  Joggle is a funny word.  Alas, I figured that if I were building a real boat, I would just cut the beam ends square, leaving a hand/arm gap so when I inevitably  drop my keys down into the bilge, I at least can reach in and get them out of the muck. 

 

Here I cut all the planks to length for a fit-up. They aren't glued in yet. The instructions are notoriously poor, so I used my judgement. 

 

 

Then I glued them in using absolutely tiny spots of glue.  It looks exactly the same as the non-glued in photo above. 

 

It occurred to me when I was stalking others' build logs that you can get lost in the details.  I think I might try to end each post with a "big picture" shot or two. So here is a front-on and a port quarter shot with everything glued in and the deck beams resting in place.  

 

 

 

Cheers!

-cb

 

**post updated March 23 to include missing photos from server crash

Edited March 23, 2014 by craigb

[trippwj]

Beautiful work, Craig.  I truly appreciate the tutorial you are providing - I will be getting back to my ECB soon (I hope...)

[J Haines]

Looking Excellant. Amazing job on the live well. Hope you dont mind but I am going to use your live well for reference. I am almost done with the front sole then off to the live well.

[craigb]

A three day weekend and the wife out of town visiting a friend means a day to work on the sailboat. 

 

I continued setting up the bunk area, but can’t figure out what height to make the bunks. To make my life easy, I decided the bunk support beams should just go under two ceiling boards.  This would mean no cutting out holes in the ceilings or anything for the beams.

 

That also meant I needed to start mounting the ceilings, which lead to a fun mini-project: Making some clamps to hold the ceilings in place.  I also was going to use them to hold the hull planking in place, but a bit of thought lead to the conclusion that, with the ceilings in there, there won’t be any space to hold planks on the outside of the hull!  Oh well, they are handy and kinda neat looking.  And, certainly, for the next project they will come in handy.

 

I started by making a little sketch of what I wanted them to look like.  Then a trip to the hardware store and art supply store to get the necessary goodies.  As a bonus, the art supply store has a full rack of K&S metal and all sorts of milled bass wood and stuff. Definitly one of the great things about NYC: all this within a couple of blocks walking distance.

 

 

The metal I used was 0.5” wide, 12” long and 0.026” thick. Each strip was cut into 12 ea. 1-inch pieces, enough for 6 clamps.  This was repeated to give a total of a dozen handy clamps.  The metal is thin-ish, with the idea being they could be bent a bit to any needed curve.  I also got some smaller but thicker (0.25” wide by 0.032” thick) metal strips, in case I wanted to make some more clamps for another reason later.  This was rounded out with some bolts and washers and wingnuts. 

 

 

The project isn’t that impressive, basically making some rectangular, glorified, washers but it was surprising how much work it took.  Everything was marked, laid out, holes centerpopped then drilled out to size in steps. The bolts themselves are about 1/8” in diameter, but wouldn’t fit through a 1/8” hole so the holes ended up being drilled 9/64”   The holes are centered left-right, but are spaced 0.30” from one of the long edges, off center. The idea was to provide some increased or decreased clamping force or at least a little flexibility.  In practice, it doesn’t seem to matter much.

 

 

The strips of brass were cut off using a Dremel cut-off wheel. ALWAYS WEAR SAFETY GLASSES! These wheels shatter and go all over the place at high velocity.  I have yet to make it through a job using this tool where I didn’t break at least 2-3 wheels, and also got hit directly in the face with the pieces. Additionally, I always always always wear safety glasses when working with metal, even when using hand tools.  This is ESPECIALLY important with non-ferrous metals like brass because if you get a shaving in the eye, a magnet can’t recover the piece.  Wear safety glasses when working with metal is what I’m saying.  Real safety glasses with side shields.   And if you don’t believe me that shavings get everywhere, here is a picture of my trusty coffee cup. I went to take a sip and, Lo, it had the twinkle of gold in it- brass shavings that made it some distance and settled in the cup. 

 

 

Each piece was finished by hand-filing all edges, rounding the corners, and removing burrs from the holes.  I think tool-making like this is one of the most satisfying parts of the hobby.  These are handy little things that look nice and will be with me forever.  I probably could have bought something similar for about the same amount of money, and not spent a day doing it either.  But that isn’t the point as you all well know

 

 

Anyway, I first made 6 brass clamps and used them to lay the first ceiling under the clamp (the wood one on the rail of the boat!).  The plans show a 1/32” gap between the clamp and the first ceiling.  I considered using a 1/32” square piece of wood as a spacer, then decided that the patented Eyeball Method was a better way to go. I glued in the foreward part, let it set up, then unclamped it and finished gluing the after part.  Then, I decided this was too much work, and took too long waiting for glue to dry etc, so I spent another couple of hours making another 6 brass clamps.  The second ceiling thus could be glued up in one go, and looks kinda neat too!

 

 

With these ceilings hung, I can now proceed with framing out the rest of the bunks. 

 

Happy building!

 

Edited June 24, 2014 by craigb

[egkb]

Coming together nicely Craig, love the little clamps. That 'Fish Hold' looks sweet too.

 

Eamonn

[J Haines]

Looking great. very ingenious clamps... inner ceiling is looking good. Im impressed with the "modular" way You built the deck beams and the live well.

[russ]

Craig:

Your hull is coming together nicely. I agree about the clamps. Very smart.

 

Russ

[Senior ole salt]

It sure is fun to see a true craftsman at work. Reminds me of the old watchmakers one would see in the windows of NYC shops a half century ago. I remember all they had was a loop in one eye.

 

S.os

[craigb]

With the latest round of exams out of the way and a full weekend without chores, it was time again to return to the model shipyard with the goal of finishing off the bunks.

 

I laid the floor beams and then planked the floor area of the rear bunk house. With some rubber bands and “test sticks” I fiddled with the layout until it looked about right. 

 

The bunks are not a straight line, and the aftermost part of the bunk has a weird little dip in, so I tried just laying some sticks out to get an idea of how that would look as well.  I will also mention that the height of the bunks was set up such that two plank-widths on the edges would provide a nice little lip around the bunk.

 

The fore and after ends of the bunk beams were done in one shot, with the goal of being to saw out the middle part after everything was built up.  This would add rigidity when cutting and sawing on it, as well as assure the larboard and starboard bunks were aligned with each other.  Then the weird dip-section was end-glued.

 

It was cut short, a tiny support post fitted in place at the joint, then the length of the bunk beam  siderail was fitted and glued in place. You can see little posts holding the whole thing up.  There should be a little support post at every rib, and also support beams for the bunk planking, but that stuff will all be covered up, and without some serious destruction, would never be visible on the finished model.  Thus, I elected to omit. 

 

Here is a shot of the completed bunk framing, sans extra bunk beams and support posts.

 

The middle section of the end beams was then sawed out.  This building method was definitely beneficial; I highly recommend it.  I admit I got the idea from Chuck’s modeling of full plank-on-frame longboats and such where all the ribs have a beam that later gets broken out.

 

 

I then dry-fit the bunk planking, and settled on leaving a small gap on the outboard edge.  In real life, this would provide a nice place to drop your keys into the bilge.  Real boats are full of this kind of stuff . Someone remind me to model a small keyring in the bilge. 

 

All the planking was glued in.  I usually use just a tiny dot of glue on the ends, and nothing on the butt-edges of the neighboring plank.  This provides a very clean “joint” between adjacent deck planks.  The ends were then carefully shaved with a sharp hobby knife to the edge of the framing.

 

Here is a closeup of the jointery. I liked how it looked just like this a lot, and in real life such a setup would allow you to shove stuff under the bunk.  But I really wanted the edge lip around the bunks, so I settled on taking these photos and moving on.

 

Here is what the aft part with the weird cut out looks like.

 

At this point I was interrupted by a marathon in my front yard.  Undeterred, I continued working on the boat but did yell out the window from time to time. 

 

Edge planking was fit up, the ends scored, cut, and shaved to final dimension.

 

The starboard side is done, the larboard in progress.

 

Here is a photo of the lip on the bunk I worked so hard on.  The wetwell is in the background.

 

Finally, I took some of my wife’s makeup remover cotton pads and cut them to simulate mattresses. 

 

A parting shot with all the deck beams replaced, and the model as it currently sits. 

 

Happy building!

-craig

 

[egkb]

Brilliant update Craig.. and all that whilst a marathon was going on outside..

The bunks look great, can't wait to start her myself but I've a ways to go before that can happen, am still 2nd planking a certain Ballahoo ! :mellow:

 

All the Best Mate

 

Eamonn

[J Haines]

Wow... looking great!

[J Haines]

Your pics just helped solve a question i had.

[hamilton]

Hi Craig:

 

Just read through your log - it's quite a read! Lots of chuckles and I'm finding it very informative. I'm contemplating this kit as a gift to my son's kindergarten teacher for her classroom - but I've never built a pof model before....a bit intimidated, but your build log is giving me confidence - looking forward to following along

hamilton

[bobc622]

Craig,

 

I just discovered your build and am highly impressed. I am trying to save the build for my future Emma C. berry project in order to avoid some of the pitfalls that are found with this project.

 

I see that DSCO 3065.jpg through DSCO 3076.jpg didn't download on my viewing of your build. Any chance of sending me those photos?

 

Are you still adding to this build after part 4?

 

Thanks,

 

Bob

[Mirabell61]

very good looking Framework Craig,

 

precise and clean, are you going to do cutaways in the outer Skin later on ?

 

Nils

[craigb]

Bob: I guess MSW did some server changes or something and the photos were deleted.  I re-uploaded them, and I think the build log is complete again.  After the Monster Crash I have been very careful to back up everything!

 

Nils: I plan on doing a lift-off section to allow viewing the interior of the boat.  I think I will make the rear deckhouse just pop right off, but I haven’t figured out the specifics yet.  I do like the diorama style showing the boat mid-repair, but several others have done that way better than I could, so I want to try something novel.  That said, I do sort of like the idea of fully fitting out the interior then sealing it off forever.  I recall at least one of the models in the US Naval Academy collection was of a large-ish man of war.  They took a surgical flexible endoscope and found out the entire interior was fitted out, and there was absolutely no way to know that. 

 

And, thanks yet again to everyone following my build! Your words of encouragement are very much appreciated!

 

**----------------------**

 

With yet another life hurdle out of the way, and working a pretty light night shift, I have some day light work hours to put toward model ship work.

 

I continued with mounting ceilings, the third on each side below the topmost “clamp.” I also took the opportunity to try my hand at some practice hull-planking in the aftermost section, aft of the bunks. I figured I could warm up and practice tapering planks to fit in an area that will probably never be seen again once the decking is in place.

 

 

I carefully measured the distance to be covered, divided by the number of planks, and went about marking the width with a digital caliper and laboriously sanding the taper.  The run was pretty flat, and the planks sat in nicely without much (sometimes no) need for actually clamping in place as the glue dried.  Once in a while though, some creative clamping had to occur.  The silver disc is a neodymium magnet with a matching one on the other side.  These things are shocking strong! This was an AWESOME way to hold planks.  Better than my cute brass clamps even which makes me both happy and sad.

 

 

In fact, it worked so well I ordered 50 rectangular magnets from amazingmagnets.com (no financial interest in that company!) to use when I do the hull planking. 

 

Here is a close-up of the planking.  It looks pretty good, if I do say so myself.  It is funny, I worked from outboard to inboard, and the joints got better and better as I went.  They aren’t “bad” outboard, but definitely tighter and neater inboard. 

 

 

I also hung another ceiling on the larboard side. 

 

 

I trimmed the aft ends of the finished ceilings flush with a frame using a new, sharp #11 blade going slow. Very classy!  I’m pretty encouraged that hull planking will go well and I’m really glad I did this little test.  The next challenge will be to match the opposite side in both number of planks used and getting the spacing to match.  

 

 

Finally, I test-fitted another interior ceiling along the wet-well.  This is a dry-fit, and I fiddled with it quite a bit to get the compromise right between “looking good” and “avoiding as much edge-bending as possible.”  I plan on using the same “measure and divide, sand to taper” method to fill in the gap.  Yet more practice tapering planks before committing to the exterior hull planking.

 

 

Until next time, thanks for reading and happy building!

 

 

[russ]

The model looks great. Good job on the planking. Your clamps are very interesting. Good work all around.

 

Russ

[michael mott]

Just read through the entire build, very nice work in less than ideal workshop conditions, I would not be able to work on the floor with such small parts. I would think a small folding table would be a good addition to the shop.

 

Michael