18th Century Longboat by mike - FINISHED - Model Shipways

[mike]

I am a member of the San Diego Shipmoddelers Guild community build. I am behind in posting my progress so will post photos to try and catch up with minimum dialog.

 

I have followed the kit instructions and used kit materials up to this point with a couple of changes. One thing I did before planking was to stack all the planking material face to face and tack glue the ends together. This gave me a block that I could feed through my thickness sander. When seperated this gave me planking material of equal width and with nice square edges. One of my deviations was to leave off some of the planking on one side to show off the frames.

 

 

 

I made a special tool for sanding the inside of the frames. It consisted of a section of dowel with sandpapper glued to it and a handle added. The length of the dowel was just wideer than tghe distance between frames.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[mike]

The following photos will bring my build up to date. One other deviation from the kit was painting on the friezes instead of using the printed ones. My wife did the painting.

 

Mike

 

 

 

 

 

 

[trippwj]

Absolutely beautiful job - boat and painting!

[st george]

Hi Mike,

 

What Kit is this? Looks really nice and I do like the painting.

 

David

[mike]

Wayne

 

Thanks

 

David

 

This is Model Shipways kit of the 18th Century Longboat in 1:48 scale, that our group (San Diego Shipmodelers Guild) chose as the subject of our community build. We have several under construction (maybe 10).

 

Mike

[42rocker]

Always have liked the idea of leaving part of the hull unplanked to show off some of the work that would normally be covered. Good Luck with your build.

 

Later 42rocker

[CaptainSteve]

Beautiful work there, Mike. And of great interest as I am currently building the ship's boats for my USS Constitution.

 

Thanks for the pics.

[Chuck Seiler]

Mike,

Welcome back! Looks great.

[mike]

Thanks,  Chuck and  Cap Steve.

 

Mike

[BRiddoch]

Looks good Mike.  Glad to see you made it onboard.

 

                Bob R

[Trussben]

Wow, your wife is a hell of a good painter, nice idea leaving some of the hull unplanked, haven't seen that before on this kit.

 

Ben

[Chuck Seiler]

Mike,

   I like the 'sanding mallet' for the interior of the frames.  I look forward to trying the concept.

[the learner]

Mike the build is looking great. Good progress since you brought it in to an SMA club meeting

[mike]

Have finally made some progress on my longboat build.

 

The windless has been completed and installed. To this point I have used kit materials for the build, but decided to use boxwood for the windless barrel. I think I got much sharper edges with the boxwood. The rails that mount the windless are not vertical , so I added mounting pads to the rails. I have seen this feature in photos of contemporary drawings and models. The handle is made from a piece of 3/64 inch square pear.

 

 

Next the mast was made so the final seat with mast support hardware could be completed. I wanted to install real sheavs in the mast so the three slots were cut. The mast was then tapered to final size.

 

 

The next photo is of the mast with the block support bands installed. The bands were created of kit brass strip. The strip was annealed and formed arround the mast. The ends were silver soldered together and the hole fof attaching the block drilled. They were then epoxied in place.

 

 

 

The final seat with mast support hardware was completed and installed. The seats will be colored with some very dilute golden oak stain to help accent the scribed lines.

 

 

 

Mike

 

 

 

[BRiddoch]

Looks great Mike.  I'm looking forward to getting home and working on mine.

 

           Bob R.

[Chuck Seiler]

Mike,

    Looks great.  Looked even better in real life. 

 

    You did not say, but based on your past work, I am assuming you blackened the brasswork rather than paint it.  Correct?

[mike]

Yes  I use the blackening solution from Bluejacket. It seems to blacken the silver solder as well as the brass.

 

Mike

[Chuck Seiler]

Mike,

Will you be making your own sheeves or buying them?

[mike]

Chuck

 

I will turn the sheaves for the long boat. I have some Lignim Vitae that I have been wanting to try. Failing that I will go back to boxwood, which has worked well in the past. To make them I turn a up a dowel in the proper diameter. I put the dowel vertically in the vise of the mill. The sheaves are then cut off using a dremel saw blade in the mill chuck. I can move the saw blade down a known amount and cut off very thin sheaves as required.

 

Mike

[BRiddoch]

Can't wait to see those sheaves.

 

        Bob

[Chuck Seiler]

I think Mike is too busy working on FLY. We may have to strong arm him.

[mike]

OK! OK! I,m working on the longboat. Added white rails under friezes,restained seats to accentuate molding and am working on the rudder. No time for pics now-off to SDSMG meeting. Will have rudder finished tommorrow and then will post photos.

 

Mike

[mike]

Rudder finished sans paint. I am not sure yet how I want to decorate the stern and rudder. Here are some shots of the model as it stands now.

 

 

Mike

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[mike]

I have completed the sheaves for the mast and bow sprit. The mast required two small ones, .080 dia x .020 thich, and one large one, .125 dia x.020 thick. The bow sprit only one of the small ones. I made these of ebony. A square blank was rounded on one end to fit the chuck of the lathe. The free end was then turned in two steps to the required diameters, leaving a short square section for clamping in the vice later. Since I only needed two diameters I did them at one time to save setups. The blank was then clamped in the mill vice and using a saw blade in the mill arbor the table is advanced to cut off the sheaves. Using the vertical feed any thickness can be cut. The hardest part of this operation is capturing the sheave before the floor monster gets it. The followinf photos should help show the process.The bow sprit in the photo has a sheave installed.

 

Mike

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[BRiddoch]

Looks great Mike.  I guess I need to get busy.

 

              Bob R.

[TBlack]

Well, Mike, don't leave us in suspense! How DID you catch the sheave before the saw spun it off to eternity? Nice photography, by the way.

 

Tom

[mike]

Thanks for the comments guys.

 

To capture the parts I advance the saw blade very slowly. As it nears the end of the cut the part will start to raise up. I stop the blade at that point and then turn the saw by hand to finish the cut. There is always a burr, but a stroke across some sandpaper gets rid of it. I still seam to loose a bunch of them.

 

The hull is back in the paint shop for decoration of the stern. Photos when complete.

 

Mike

[mike]

The longboat is back from the paint shop, where the stern decorating was completed..

 

I have completed making of all the parts and will start the rigging. I intend to follow the example of the contemporary longboat posted by Chuck P. with the rigging attached to the hull with hooks for easy removal.

 

Mike

 

 

[Chuck Seiler]

Mike,

Looking good. I see Hewitt talked you into putting the horse below the tiller.

[BRiddoch]

Looks great Mike.

 

      Bob R.