900-ton wooden barque

Friday, 8th May, 2020
900-ton barque
Over the past few days, I have made quite a lot of deadeyes, that was rather tedious. Then I completed and fitted all the shrouds and ratlines on all three lower masts. This involved soldering a pair of deadeyes on the bottom of each shroud - a total of 28 pairs of deadeyes. Then I completed the running rigging on the mizzen boom and gaff. That was quite a trial, as I can't really see as well I did a few years ago close-up, but at 76, I suppose one has to accept certain ageing processes, but I can manage OK with the aid of a head band magnifier. The topmast shrouds and ratlines have also been made, but require 16 pairs of deadeyes to be soldered to them before I fit them. After that, I will need to make the t'gallant shrouds and ratlines, another tedious job. So far, I have made well over 500 soldered joints in the work already done. But after they are complete, the rest of the rigging will just be glued on, so things should get easier, or less tedious, I should say! The images, incidentally, were taken using a short tripod, with camera settings at 100 ISO, F8, at 1/60th of a second. Shutter actuated by 2-second delay timer. The background was a piece of curved white card to eliminate the junction between vertical and horizontal. I was never too keen on the ever-popular crumpled sheet background!

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Tuesday, 12th May, 20202
900-ton barque
I have now completed the mizzen mast with all its standing and running rigging and furled sails. All of the shrouds and ratlines have been fitted to the fore and main masts. The next task is to complete all the standing rigging on the fore and main masts. This will consist of three topmasts backstays, two t'gallant backstay and one royal backstay on each side of each the two square-rigged masts. The model will then be ready for the ten yards for the square sails, five on the fore and five on the mainmast.

DSCF6641 (Large).JPGDSCF6640 (Large).JPG
 
Wednesday, 13th May, 2020
900-ton barque.
I have now completed all the standing rigging (thank goodness!). This included a total of 70 pairs of tiny deadeyes all with the lanyards visible - a very tedious task. I have also made and painted the lower yards, lower and upper topsail yards, but not yet fitted the furled sails to them. All that was completed this morning, so have been taking it easy since then!
DSCF6642 Standing rigging complete (Large).JPG
 
Such a grand ship, and details in such a small scale are fabulous to say the least.

Are hulls of solid wood design?

I am only 60 and have problems with small details on larger scale ships.

Kurt
 
Thanks Kurt,
For me, this is a fairly large scale of a small ship, at 20 feet to 1 inch. I normals use 32 feet to 1 inch or 25 feet to 1 inch. The vessel is of my own design (very unusual for me, as I normall build from plans). However, I have used normal design practices and dimesnions for a 900 ton merchant vessel of the late 1860s. The masts and spar are in correct proportion as stated in the mastsing and rigging spar tables and dimensions for British merchant ships. It is fairly simple, having virtually no decoration , gunports or guns etc. I really don't have the skills necessary to build ancient warship. I am building this model as the basis for more instructional writing either in the form of another book, or downlaods, possibly both. For ease of build, I used balsa wood this time (again unusal for me), and all the cutting was done with a scalpel rather than a saw, and build on the bread and butter principal. The image below shows it in the early stages of the hull. If you can manage a kit, you could certainly manage one of these, but most model shipbuilders just decide they can't do it, and there the matter rests.
Bob
4 Waterlines and aluminium copy (Medium).jpg6a Hull assembled (Large).JPG
 
Thank you for the hull info, a very easy way to make a solid hull vessel.

I would look forward to reading your book when published, please let us know.

Kurt
 
Hi Kurt,
Thanks. There are already 44 e-books available via this link: https://payhip.com/Shipbuilder/collection/miniature-merchant-ship-construction-history Click any front page, and scroll down a bit after it opens to read the full synopsis, and then, if you wish to purchase a download, a button is there for Paypal or cards. The system is automatic. Most are for less than the price of a cup of coffee, and many contain plans. Several are free of charge.
Bob
 
Friday, 15th May, 2020
The main lower topsail, and both upper topsail yards have now been fitted, and a lot of rigging added. The fore and main braces have also been rigged. As I was rigging the lower topsail yards, I was uncomfortably aware that it was not as easy as previously, as I found it difficult to focus on the fine wires all in close proximity to each other. This was not caused by the right eye that had the surgery in September, as that is near perfect, but by the left one that is the less dominant one. Normally, I am not aware of this, and can even read without glasses. I was beginning to think that I was at last coming to the end of small-scale sailing ship modelling. But in the afternoon, when I moved further up the masts with the upper topsail yard rigging, I experienced no real problems, maybe because the further up the masts I go, the less cluttered it is. Also, the main yard on this model, at 20 feet to one inch, is only three inches long. If I had been building a four-masted barque at the same scale, a typical main yard would be 100 feet long or five inches, and I probably would not have had any problem at all. After completion of the rigging of the six yards already fitted, there only remains the two t'gallant and two royal yards to make, paint, fit and rig, so I am now very close to completion. I am really pleased with the way this model is turning out.
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Keep up the FINE work on details, if you pardon the pun there.

It reminds me of fellow model railroaders who model in 1:220 scale, way to small for me. I model HO 1:87 scale.
 
In your build photos, if you had not had the pen for size comparisons or the support board underneath, you would not be able to tell how small the ship really is.

This is quite impressive to me as a novice builder.
 
Long ago, I build large ones like everyone else, 8 feet to 1 inch (1:96), but having very little patience, I found it took too long, and found making small ones a lot easier, cheaper and more convenient. This is one of my earlier large models completd 55 years ago, but it was not as deatiled as the same ship in miniature, and took ten times as long to build!o_O


Medea (First model).jpg
 
shipbuilder said:
This is a miniature of the same ship -
View attachment 151475
Click to expand...
Bob, be the kind chap we know you to be and save me the trouble (I'm too tired to bother)....could you please give the (metric?) conversion of your models scales, ie. 8' to 1'' = 1:96. I'm aware the former has been the traditional figure for ship models. However, like most of the Imperial stuff, it's somehow got lost in the mists of time.
I do think your excellent new model deserves a proper name now....what is your dear wife's name?
 
Afraid I don't know the metric conversion, but 1 inch is about 25mm! I was indeed thinking of naming the barque Christine, after my wife, whose grandfather was an able seaman in deepwaters square-riggers .
Here is Utube presentation of building a small collier brig -
Bob
 
shipbuilder said:
Friday, 15th May, 2020
The main lower topsail, and both upper topsail yards have now been fitted, and a lot of rigging added. The fore and main braces have also been rigged. As I was rigging the lower topsail yards, I was uncomfortably aware that it was not as easy as previously, as I found it difficult to focus on the fine wires all in close proximity to each other. This was not caused by the right eye that had the surgery in September, as that is near perfect, but by the left one that is the less dominant one. Normally, I am not aware of this, and can even read without glasses. I was beginning to think that I was at last coming to the end of small-scale sailing ship modelling. But in the afternoon, when I moved further up the masts with the upper topsail yard rigging, I experienced no real problems, maybe because the further up the masts I go, the less cluttered it is. Also, the main yard on this model, at 20 feet to one inch, is only three inches long. If I had been building a four-masted barque at the same scale, a typical main yard would be 100 feet long or five inches, and I probably would not have had any problem at all. After completion of the rigging of the six yards already fitted, there only remains the two t'gallant and two royal yards to make, paint, fit and rig, so I am now very close to completion. I am really pleased with the way this model is turning out.
View attachment 151467
Click to expand...
Nice work! And the speed of build!
Ted
 
Thanks,
It doesn't take very long because there are no knots anywhere. I simply do not have the patience to mess about with twine and knots on large models. This one is taking longer than usual because as we are all more-or-less confined to the house, I have more time. At the moment, I am coming to the end of my last tube of glue, but did order some more several days ago, so I am hoping it will arrive today.
Bob
 
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