US Brig Oneida 1809 by rlb - The Lumberyard - 1:48 scale - POF - Lake Ontario Warship

[rlb]

Thanks Håkan.   I can only guess that when they were assembling that page of the book, the true scale illustration just looked too small on the page, so they enlarged it and didn't change the caption.  Who knows?!  Hopefully I will remember to always double check the illustrations.

 

I finished the trestletrees, and test fit the pieces, checking to make sure they would also fit on the topmast--

 

Then I made a rudimentary jig to hold the trestle pieces, for gluing the crosstrees.  I rarely make these kind of jigs, because I am too impatient and lazy, but it was a good idea to do this, and it only took a few minutes--

 

I ended up making deeper notches in the trestletrees, and none in the crosstrees, though you can see I had marked some, and even started to cut a couple notches in one of the crosstrees, before deciding it would be wiser to just notch the trestletrees even though not historically accurate.  I test fit the crosstrees many time, adjusting the notches in the trestle trees for depth, and to make sure the crosstrees were parallel to each other, and perpendicular to the trestletrees.  I then glued the crosstrees in--

 

The photo makes that first set of notches look very bad.  It's not so noticeable in person, but I'll fill the gaps and all will be stained black when done--

 

There is more work to do now on the topmast: filing a tenon on the end, for the cap, and angling the top of the octagonal haunch so the trestletrees sit parallel to the water line--

 

 

Now it's on to the topgallant masts.

 

Ron  

 

 

Edited January 14 by rlb

[Wintergreen]

Nice work, Ron!

[rlb]

Thanks Håkan.

 

Only a few photos today, but I'm happy to report that I worked up the motivation to finish the carronade tackle blocks.  This shows the 13 sets that were done, and last four sets (16 blocks) I still needed to do--

 

The total here is 17 sets, because one is on the already rigged carronade that has been on the ship for years.  And here they are done--

 

That was probably the least pleasant task I have had to do on the build so far (literally taking me years of off and on work), and I'm glad they are finished!  

 

And here is one of the topgallant masts roughed out, next to a topmast, and the other topgallant blank--

 

Next is rigging the carronades, and continuing work on the masts.

 

All for now,

Ron

 

 

Edited January 21 by rlb

[scrubbyj427]

Making all that tackle is tedious indeed. Well done Ron, they look good.

[rlb]

Thanks, JJ.

 

Now that I have finished stropping the blocks, the ship comes out on to the table for rigging the carronades, and two 6-pounder cannon--

.

 

Tackle lines have been cut, dyed a little darker, and are in process of tying to an eyelet in one of each pair of blocks--

 

I had assembled one of the 6-pounder cannon carriages a while ago, now I need to assemble the other one, as well as finish the first with cap-squares, breeching rings and other eyelets.  I have two extra axles pieces here!--

 

All for now,

Ron 

Edited January 28 by rlb

[rlb]

I spent the last week lashing down the carronades--

 

At the bow are the tackles for the two 6-pounder cannon, and also their breeching lines.

 

The two carriages are nearing completion here, black monofilament fishing line was used for the truck "pins"--

 

After they were finished, fitting the breeching lines was next.  One end was lashed to it's eyebolt and temporarily fixed into the bulwark.  The line was checked for length, allowing for a loop around the cascabel, and the fastening to the other eyelet--

 

The cascabel loop was temporarily tied, as well as the first lashing of the eyebolt, and the length was checked again--

 

As the first breeching line was finished, the second could be made up more quickly using the first as a guide, without needing to check it in place on the ship--

 

 

I've reached my stopping point for the day.  

 

Ron

 

Edited February 3 by rlb

[CiscoH]

looks great!  i’ve personally always preferred the look of cannons/carronades when they are tied up for travel, whatever thats called, like you did here, as opposed to having the ropes coiled up on the deck.  

[Wintergreen]

That looks all ship shape to me Ron. Very neat and tidy installation of the guns. And I agree with @CiscoH above here. It looks a bit odd with all cannon pushed out, like when you decide to thoroughly tidy your car in the spring and hav all doors and boots open.

 

Keep it up!

[davec]

Very impressive - carronades and rigging came out great!!

[scrubbyj427]

That looks great Ron, very tidy. Well done.

[rlb]

Thanks, CiscoH, Håkan, davec and JJ, and all who are looking in and liking.

 

Yes, I like the "workaday" stowed look better than perfectly coiled lines.  The inspiration came from seeing how the working carronade on the Niagara replica ship had been tied down.   There is a photo of it earlier in this log (post #116), but here it is again--

 

My take on it is a little different (simpler to accomplish), but retains the idea of wrapping the tackle falls back and forth across the top of the carronade.

 

The 6-pounder long guns have been installed--

 

Now it's time to put the ship away again--

 

And continue work on Oneida's spars--

 

All for now,

Ron

 

 

Edited February 4 by rlb

[rlb]

The masts have all been shaped, and fid holes and sheave holes cut into them in various places also.  I blackened using my usual method (shown a few times earlier in this log), and here they are--

 

They are not completely finished.  Tung oil finish is only partly applied, as part of the procedure to minimize bleed of the staining.  I need to attach some eyebolts to the caps; and the shroud deadeyes and some blocks to the tops, but they can finally be temporarily assembled to see how they look--

 

And on the ship--

 

Next will be finishing those parts I mentioned earlier, and checking the deck to see if there's anything else that should be done before starting the standing rigging.   Also making the rest of the bowsprit, and the trymast that attaches to the aft side of the mainmast.  And I'm sure I'll discover additional things that should be done before the stays and shrouds go on!

 

All for now,

Ron

   

Edited February 11 by rlb

[scrubbyj427]

That looks very nice, Ron. Well done

[rlb]

Thanks JJ,

 

Going off course a little bit, I worked on making some closed hearts for the bowsprit stays and shrouds--

 

I need two different sizes--4 for the stays, and 4 slightly smaller for the shrouds.  After doing a few after cutting them off, I realized it would be much easier to shape them before cutting them off--

 

Now I need to make a bunch of deadeyes for the topmast shrouds, as well as the backstays.

 

All for now,

Ron

Edited February 18 by rlb

[rlb]

I thought I would share my method for making deadeyes.

 

I made a bunch a long time ago for the main and fore shrouds, and half what I needed for the topmast and topgallant backstays.  They were about 5mm and 4mm respectively.   I made them using a method described in Underhill's book, and it worked out fine.  The little jig is very fiddly to make.  The method is shown from post #184-198 in this log. 

 

However I now need 32 topmast shroud deadeyes at 3.5mm, and 12 more of the backstay deadeyes at 4mm.   Partly because of the smaller size, and partly because I have better tools now, I wanted to try something that might be more precise.

 

This first batch is the 3.5mm set.   I turned a squared piece of pear down to 3.5mm, and then scored it on the lathe with grooves for the futtock plates, and cut-very slight cut off grooves to help with parting them off with a saw.   While the dowel was still on the lathe, one by one, I smoothed and rounded the outer edge, then cut it off.  I didn't take pictures but here is the result--

 

You can see they have one smooth side, one rough side, and a groove.  (Noticeable on one of the deadeyes standing on edge.) 

 

Next I drilled a hole in a piece of scrap wood just under 2mm thick (the thickness the finished deadeye needs to be), filed the hole to to 3.5mm diameter, and glued it to another piece of scrap wood.  This has a smaller hole drilled through it centered on the larger hole--

 

A deadeye fits very snuggly in the hole, the rough side slightly proud--

 

The rough edge is filed off flush with the surface of the wood--

 

I filed the one shown below just a bit more with a smaller file after taking the photo--

 

I then marked by eye the spots for the holes to be drilled--

 

And drilled them on a mill.   I wasn't great at locating the drill precisely at the marks, so I tried drilling a couple by hand.  I could get the drill in the mark very easily that way, but at that small size, my accuracy (keeping the pin vise vertical) wasn't good enough. 

 

 After some practice with the mill, I could locate the drill above the punched markings more quickly and pretty accurately--

 

The deadeye is then pushed out from behind--

 

And the flattened surface is rounded off with a file--

 

Here are two finished--

 

It took me about 5 before they started looking good.  The first few had problems with my marking of the holes with the right spacing, as well as the stated problem with hand drilling them.   I started with one spare, so I'll ponder whether the first are okay to use, or if I have to turn a few more blanks.

 

All for now,

Ron

 

 

Edited February 19 by rlb

[Ebomba]

Ron ,you have a long way since those early ones , your tools are more sophisticated (and more expensive) but your quest for excellence remains the same, nice work and thanks for another lesson 

 

Best

Ed

[rlb]

Thanks Ed.  Yes, my shop has grown enormously from the first days.  I cut the original masts from a billet with a jewelers saw, and spent hours (days) sanding them flat and square.  Now it's a few minutes work.  But I spend most of my time still with files, chisels, and sand paper.

 

I'm getting the fore and main tops ready.   One of the tasks is making the futtock plates for those deadeyes I showed in the last post.  I used the method described by David Antscherl in Vol. 4 of The Fully Framed Model.

 

Here is the test piece, and a bunch of square wire cut for the rest--

 

The wire I bought was supposed to be "dead soft" meaning it should be not spring back when bent, but I found I still had to heat it red hot to make it truly malleable.  The wire pieces were bent around a drill--

 

They were then silver soldered at the "bottom" end. This would allow them to be bent back apart to insert the deadeyes.  This shows a series of them ready to solder.  You can just see the dab of solder paste about halfway along each piece--

.

 

That arrangement didn't work so well.  Only three of the pieces soldered well, because when liquid, the silver followed gravity rather than the gap in the wire.

Turning the pieces this way worked better--

 

Here are some ready to be soldered, some successfully soldered and filed smooth, and some cut to length with a hole drilled for a hook--

 

 

All for now,

Ron

Edited February 28 by rlb

[rlb]

Continuing on--

 

After all the futtock plates were made and blackened, the deadeyes were crimped back in, and being held firmly, this was a good time to refine them with the easing of the lanyard holes--

 

Next the futtock plates and deadeyes were installed on the tops.  I contemplated the light colored deadeyes, wondering if I had made a mistake to make the ones on the channels black.  But the die (dye) had been cast, and the top deadeyes were blackened (in situ) to match--

 

You can also see some blocks hanging below the tops.  You can't tell, but the outside one is single, and the inner double.  I initially had three blocks on each side and they looked too crowded together, so I eliminated the middle one on each side.  I'm not sure I can really do that though.  I'm sorting through the rigging requirements (which are overwhelming), and I think I will have to put the middle block back.  The outer blocks are needed for the spritsail, and the others for the bunt and leech lines of the yards on the mast, so four sheaves on each side needed, at least for the fore top, I believe.  I'm going to do single, single, double, on each side.  Theoretically maybe it could be double, double, but it doesn't seem right to combine the spritsail block with one for the main yard.

 

While I study rigging, and some other bits and pieces that need to be added to the tops, I'm making the trymast.  The trymast is a secondary mast on the aft side of the mainmast where hoops for the boom sail (placeholder while I look up the correct name) will travel.

 

I've got the trymast, and the start of it's support from a piece of scrap--

 

This is further shaped, and test fit to the mast--

 

The support bracket needs some support brackets of it's own.  And I have to figure out how the trymast and the top resolve themselves.

 

All for now,

Ron 

 

Edited March 1 by rlb

[Wintergreen]

As neat and tidy as ever Ron!

 

Keep it up!

[bigcreekdad]

This is easily one of the best builds I've seen. Superb!

[rlb]

Thanks Håkan and bigcreekdad!

 

I was sure my main top wouldn't have enough room on the aft side to have the trymast come up through it the way it is supposed to do.  I was pleasantly surprised that there was enough room, just barely.  I filed a hole in the middle of the aft end for the trymast.  (I also spy a deadeye that didn't get completely blackened).  The top looks pretty dusty!--

 

The seat for the trymast is just about done.  I may do some further shaping.  Here it is pinned temporarily to the main mast--

 

And fitting the top in place--

 

There is supposed to be a fid through the trymast into the trestle trees, and possibly a spacer block between the trymast and the mast just under the trestle trees.  I'm not sure I'm going to elect to show those.

 

 

All for now,

Ron  

 

 

 

Edited March 2 by rlb

[rlb]

Skipping around some, I decided to tackle the hammock cranes.  Although they will probably make getting to the belaying rails more difficult, on the other hand, I think they will be more difficult to install after the shrouds are on.

 

I'm aiming for something like what is on the Niagara replica--

 

Only more like Glen Greico's model of the Brig Jefferson, without the wood rail at the top--

 

I'm going to make it a little easier on myself and do three ropes vs. four.

 

Here are some attempts at figuring out the size, and exactly how to make them--

 

The first three are some 20 gauge square brass wire, bent, and pounded a little flatter.  The first two are too big, and the third, which I tested drilling holes on, is actually a bit too small, though too thick.  I was able, though, to figure out how to make a tight radius in the bends.  The third is 22 gauge square wire, annealed, pounded just a bit flatter, and with some smaller test holes drilled.  It's close to the right size, both overall dimensions and gauge of the wire, and I think this method will work, though it leaves no room for error on the hole spacing.  I drilled one hole too far off center, and I also broke a drill bit.  I'll have to be more careful, or I will be buying more bits to finish them.

 

I figured out how many hammock cranes I will need (17 per side) and cut thirty-eight (four extra) pieces of brass--

 

These were annealed (heated to red hot) with a soldering torch.   I also routed a groove in a piece of scrap wood as a guide to make sure they are bent to a consistent shape, and as well to hold the piece for drilling the holes (which hopefully will help with the bit breakage)--

 

The ends of the wire that extend beyond the block will be trimmed off--

 

I put a piece of tape at the spot that was the right width for bending the wire--

 

And the bends were given a light tap to make the radius tighter--

 

Then after some straightening and checking the squareness of the shape, the wire was pounded just a little flatter, mostly just to give me a few thousandths of an inch more width to try and center the drill on--

 

 

The holes will be drilled next.  Hopefully that will be successful and I won't have to abandon this method.   After the holes are drilled I'll solder a short pin to the bottom of each one to epoxy them onto the rail.  At that point I may also adjust the angle of the legs to follow the bulwark angle--

 

All for now,

Ron

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 8 by rlb

[CiscoH]

i really like your simple jigs Ron.  you read about my struggles with my gudgeons; i am excited to see how you tackle drilling that many holes

[Theodosius]

I should look more left and rigt, to find such gems like this one! 🙂 

[rlb]

Thanks, Cisco and Theodosius, and all watching.

 

Here is how I tackled drilling 228 holes with a #78 drill (.016" or .40mm)--

 

Two pieces ended up being deemed unusable, so I now have the 34 hammock cranes that I need, plus two extra--

 

I broke two more drill bits (for a total of three).  Those carbide bits break if you breath hard on them.  Actually, after the initial careless one, the breakage on the other two seemed to be related to how many holes I had drilled already (they may have been getting dull?), and how flat the piece remained held in the wood through the drilling--sometimes the piece lifted up when withdrawing the drill, in spite of my care to hold it in place.

 

Now I need to trim them, file the ends, and hope that I can thread a line through the tiny holes.  Hopefully I won't have to experiment on "punching" the holes a bit bigger.  Oh, and soldering pins on the bottoms.

 

All for now,

Ron 

 

 

Edited March 14 by rlb

[rlb]

Another brief update:

 

I tried making some rope small enough, but with the thread I had on hand, it wasn't quite thin enough.   After thinking I might have to try enlarging the holes, I found (I think it came from Bluejacket) a spool of rope in my small stock that fit!   I will dye it just a shade darker--

   

You can't quite make out that the line is through the hole, so--

 

I also tested soldering the pins.  Since they won't be seen, I can overlap the brass, instead of butting it.   This is a much easier joint to solder.   I clearly missed centering the pin on this one (I maintain it moved while soldering!), but again, it won't show, and I'll drill each hole in the cap rail "custom" to match.  (Or maybe I won't use this one!)  I think I have now satisfied myself that these will work. 

 

While I continue the production of the hammock cranes, I am considering how to replicate the oiled cloth (which I guess it is) as shown on Glenn's model that covers the hammocks stowed within these cranes. 

 

All for now,

Ron

 

 

Edited March 14 by rlb

[Dowmer]

Nice work on drilling those tiny holes Ron.  Not an easy feat.  For the oiled cloth to get something close to scale, you may consider the method of using Silkspan for sails that Lauria explains.  I think you paint over the silkspan to give it the correct opaqueness but still is very thin and scale like. Just a thought.  But I suppose you have it figured out by now. I’ll intently keep watching. Love the detailed build 👍

[BETAQDAVE]

    I could suggest another possible option here Ron. Before I throw out old appliances or tools, I always disassemble them and salvage anything useful, especially if they can be used for models. If you have a small old electric motor driven tool that you no longer use, you could use some of that fine copper wire that's wrapped around the armature. The smaller the motor, the finer the wire.  If it's disguised as rope and it needs to be draped, it can easily maintain the curve and there is no fuzz to deal with.  

[rlb]

Dave, I think I want a light color for the hammock crane line, so actual rope seems to be my best option.  But I appreciate the suggestion.  And we do tend to be pack-rats.  "Never know when I might need this!" 

 

Dowmer, yes, Silkspan seems to be an option here, and you will see my attempt at it.

 

As I work on the hammock cranes, soldering the pins on and finishing them, I am also sidetracking into another project: making a bunch of metal thimbles for the rigging.  When I get to blackening the hammock cranes, I want to be efficient, and the thimbles are something else that needs to be blackened, that I will need soon; so I will show my progress on making those now.

 

Basically, I need to cut pieces of brass tubing, and flare them out.  Easier said than done.  They are tiny.  To cut the pieces, I first tried using a my Zona saw with the 1mm OD wire held in a groove of scrap wood.  Nope.  Then I tried the rotary tool with a cut-off wheel.  Nope.  The biggest problems were holding the wire firmly enough to get a clean cut, and not losing the tiny cut-off piece. 

 

I settled on a method where I drilled a 1mm hole through a piece of scrap wood, and pushed the tube through--

 

The tube was then pushed back flush with the edge, and sawed through--

 

Then, a pin (which just happened to be the perfect diameter) was inserted into the end of the tube--

 

And the tube with the cut piece pushed through--

 

The pin held the cut off piece securely--

 

That piece after being sawn is too long, but it was made that way because I was afraid of snapping off the bit of wood on the edge, if I had made it thinner.  So the next step was to drill another hole in some scrap wood of the right thickness (this part is described in David Antscherl's TFFM)--

 

And the piece then filed--

 

This worked sometimes, but what began to happen more often (as the hole got a little loose, or my filing not square), is that the piece ended up with skewed ends, as on this one--

 

The next step was setting the thimble on a hard surface, and punching it with a modified nail set punch--

 

This took some practice to get a good result.   The end of the tube on the punch would flare, but not the bottom.  Then I would turn it over, and the flared end would just flare more.  After a few failures, I seemed to have better success if I barely started the flare, and then turned it over before punching again.   I had a success rate of about 1 in 5.  Partly because of the problem mentioned earlier about the skewed ends.  If they were skewed, no dice, it would just skew more when punched.   Here is a successful one, and another attached to a hook--

 

So decided to skip the filing step.  Maybe it would have worked just fine if the pieces were closer to the right length to begin with.  In the end I just pulled back a little (by eye) on the tube, rather than having it flush--

 

This gave me square ends, and the right length (more or less).  I cut 20 or 30 of these this way, but haven't started punching them into thimbles yet.  Hopefully I'll do better than 1 in 5.

 

 

Now for some exploration into the Silkspan hammock covers.  This is my first experience with this material.

 

I made a frame out of old unused paint stirring sticks, and cut a piece of medium weight Silkspan--

 

This was then wet, and taped to the frame to dry--

 

Painter's tape is probably not the best choice, because it doesn't stick well when wet, but it seemed to work well enough.  I then used some acrylic paint, diluted just a bit with water, and painted it on--

 

After drying partway it looked opaque enough, but when I held it up to the light, it seemed pretty transparent--

 

I'm going to give it another coat, and see how it looks.

 

So, a number of things going on:  fine tuning the hammock cranes (which consists of rounding the cut off ends and general straightening), making thimbles, and experimenting with the Silkspan for the hammock covering--

 

 

All for now,

Ron

 

Edited March 18 by rlb

[rlb]

I continued work on the hammock cranes, and also punched out a number of thimbles.  I'm happy to report that my success rate improved greatly, and I only lost one!!  These are now ready to blacken--

 

After blackening--

 

The thimbles are in groups of ten, plus four.  Fifty-four in all.  Hopefully enough, though I may need a few that are bigger.  I don't know.

 

On to the Silkspan.  After putting a second diluted coat on the piece, it was just as transparent as before when backlit--not so much when viewed normally.  So I painted a coat on undiluted--

 

It was pretty opaque, but there were now brushmarks that would be out of scale.  It was also uneven coverage. Most of it was smooth (though with some brushmarks), but some areas still showed the fibrous texture of the Silkspan.  All in all not a satisfactory result.   I also wasn't sure it had enough sheen to look like oiled or tarred cloth.   So I tried painting the back side with Tung Oil finish to see how that looked--

 

It really accentuated the texture.  Not at all to scale.  What was worse, the Tung Oil seeped through the thin areas on the "front" side, making that side kind of a mess--

 

Off the frame this is the back side--

 

And this the front--

 

When doubled over, similarly to how it will be seen on the model, the sheen of the painted (front) side may be okay.  Maybe less than actual oiled cloth (I'm not even sure!), but as is typical with scale models, gloss looks better if it's toned down--

 

So I will try another piece.   I'll build up the layers with diluted paint, until the fiber is filled in evenly without brush marks.  I'm also using a much larger brush.  I don't feel like I'm "scrubbing" into the material nearly as much.  After the second coat it was much more opaque than the first attempt, even though I don't think the paint was any thicker.  This is coat number three.  I'll need at least one more--

 

All for now,

Ron

 

 

Edited March 18 by rlb