Colonial Schooner Sultana

[Dave Stevens (Lumberyard)]

in order the maintain a 90 degree cut on all four sides i made a simple jig. One side is the length of the V shaped top of the timber and the second side is the length of the timber. These timberheads are small and the slightest difference in length will show up.



once i have the stop piece glued i added a second side making sure the ends line up.



now i have a slot to slide the end of a 1/8 inch piece of wood in on for the V top and one for the length.

 

[Jimsky]

The problem when making a V shape on all 4 sides is going around the timber and ending up matching at the last corner. Making a stop cut freehand ends up as a mismatch at the corner.

This can be avoided once you mark the cuts with a pencil on all 4 sides. Also, you can use a small miter box to mark the notches. Obviously use a table saw to get the perfect notches.

 

[Dave Stevens (Lumberyard)]

Jim is right and there are a number of ways to get a perfect V shape. This is jusy one way i used. The how, why and way i approach doing something is not the correct way or only way it is just "this is what i did" Model building is inventing ways of doing things your comfortable with.

I slipped the end of the square stock into the notch and with a razor blade against the end of the jig made the stop cut.



one problem i ran into is the fact the length of the top is so short making sure the material is square every time you rotate the the piece is a hit and miss however, hits were more than misses.

 

[Dave Stevens (Lumberyard)]

the point of jigging the timberheads is making sure your perfectly square on all 4 sides so i used the jig to mark the stop cut on one side and used my vice for the other 3 sides. Now i can use the side face of the vice and make a perfect 90 degree stop cut.



looking really close the first stop cut was lined up to the face of the vice, a second stop cut was made and the material rotated until all 4 sides had a stop cut.



final results all 14 timberheads were cut pretty darn close to the same size every time.

 

[Dave Stevens (Lumberyard)]

up to this point i avoided adding anything that might break off or get damaged while i work on the model. but now the time has come to start adding the details. This stage of the build completes the decks and all the stuff that goes on it.

This coming weeks work will be at the bow and all about the head rails, cheeks, knees and head timbers. So i will be seeing ya all next Saturday morning.

 

[Dave Stevens (Lumberyard)]

Before the head rails can be installed i had to back track and add the hawseholes for the anchor ropes.

These hawseholes come in a variety of shapes and styles and changes over the years. So lets take a look at some.
The early ones these had a heavy timber or plank under the hole


some where cheeck or bollards ( not sure if this term is correct) you can see one pointe to by the green arrow



one thing they all had in common is a heavy block of wood between the frame top timbers. With this one dated around 1830 had cast iron rings inside and outside. Later hawse pipes were used.


once again a heavy plank or timber was on the outside.



The construction of a bow would have had the stem then on either side were the knightheads and then next to them were the hawse timbers.

now lets take a look at the Saltana under construction, you can see the cheeks or bollards under the hwaseholes



taking a look at the inside you can see the used of solid blocks of timber.



We do not know exactly what was used on the original Sultana of even if there were hawseholes. Most likely there were.

taking into account the different types i came up with my own version which is not to be taken as the correct way or historically correct. This is what i did and you can do it your way.

 

[Dave Stevens (Lumberyard)]

the area of the hawseholes is a solid wall of timbers either made up of the tops of the hawse timber frames or large blocks of timbers added between the knightheads and frames.

The problem i had was this area was hollow with the planking running to the front face of the knightheads. so i had to figure out a correction. First thing i did was cut away the planking.
This should have been done before the planking was finishes and the cap rail added. It is what it is a mistake in the sequence of building the model.
when the planking was cut out it exposed the waterway and the wood below.

 

[Dave Stevens (Lumberyard)]

i could not just drill a hole through the outer hull planking add the bollards under the hole and call it fixed. Inside would be hollow and that was not right.
The area should be a solid block of timber.
A block was shaped to fit under the cap rail ans sit on the waterway filling the area as a solid block. You can see the results on the inside view.



as far as the outside i cut down the upper section at the hole to fit under the cap rail then carved the bollards into the face of the block. I let the bottom part the bollards run to the stem. From what i found this lower section ran to the stem in many images i could find and in some cases were just short cheeks under the hole. My version is a combination of both ideas.



The hawseholes and the bollard will be somewhat hidden when the headrails and swivel gun mounts are installed. So either way works for me.



the black strip running down the stem is the final thickness of the stem when it is tapered. I will sand down the stem on both sides until i hit the edge of the black tape.

there was no exact placement of the hawseholes on the original plans as a matter of fact there wasn't even hawsehole drawn on the original. Right from the start it is just a best guess.

 

[Dave Stevens (Lumberyard)]

To start the head construction the first thing done is to taper the stem. starting at the top taper the stem as you get to the keel the taper gets less and less.


the top of the stem is tapered until the figurehead fits over the stem

 

[Dave Stevens (Lumberyard)]

i drew around the legs of the figurehead to mark the position then using a piece of cardboard i cut it to fit against the hull and stem. Then roughtly drew the shape of the cheek.

 

[Dave Stevens (Lumberyard)]

using a sheet of 1/8 thick Basswood i cut out the cheeks and upper section. The cheeks were cut out over size and first fit to the hull and stem. Once i got a good fit then i trimmed down the cheecks to the correct size.

 

[Dave Stevens (Lumberyard)]

the cheeks and railings have a molded edge. What i do is make a cut down the center of the edge and use a diamond bur and widen and shape the molded edge.



The trick to get a nice even molded edge starts with an accurate cut down the center of the edge.

What i did was make a jig out of 2 pieces of scrap and clamped an Exacto blade to the top. The point of the blade is exactly in the center of the edge.



now i can take a cheek and hold it on the bottom pieces and run the tip of the blade along the edge. Starting with a light pressure just to score the edge and after a few passes make a deeper cut. Once i have a deep enough cut i can use the diamond bur and follow the cut.



This works great on the edges of a piece that are flat. I have not tried it on the curvrd rails yet. i will let you know later if it works.

 

[Dave Stevens (Lumberyard)]

once again you are looking very close at the pieces and they do look fuzzy, they are also very small. With the naked eye they look smooth. All these pieces will be painted or stained black so i might use a sealer and give the pieces a once over with a fine sanding before painting.

 

[Dave Stevens (Lumberyard)]

it was a very busy week on the home front with getting the basement preped for a new furnace to be installed. i did manage some time on the Sultana.
After i experminted with finding a way to make a molded edge on the cheeks i went to glue them on to the model. That is when i discoved a problem.
i made the cheeks flat as you can see in post #192.
Looking at the image the end of the cheek did not hit at the foot of the figurehead, it was to low and it just did not look right.



After looking at several pictures of the cheeks i realized the part of the cheek that sat against the stem swept up.



My first idea was to cut the cheek into 2 pieces and join them back together on the model. That has way harder to do than expected, first trying to get a tight fit between the 2 parts was really difficult and trying to line up the molded edge complicated the fit.



Next idea was to cut out a blank of the cheek then cut it in 2 pieces and rejoin them at the correct angle. Getting the exact angle was still an issue and the glue joint made cutting the molded edge a problem.

 

[Dave Stevens (Lumberyard)]

I set the Sultana aside and thought about the problem. These cheeks are quite a complex shape and difficult to fit on to the model. My solution was to carve the cheeks in one piece. Using a thicker piece of Basswood i marked the finish thickness along the wale. The bottom half will be the cheek and the top half i will cut away.



The edge of the cheek where it sits against the stem i marked out at an angle



Looking at the corner view



Turning the cheek around and looking at the molded edge. It shows the flat section along the wale and the sweep up at the stem to meet the foot of the figurehead.



With the blank marked out all i have to do is carve it to shape. I did draw a line on the top from the back corner to the face to use as a guide.

 

[Dave Stevens (Lumberyard)]

As it turned out, not bad at all i got the shape i needed. It was an easy carve to shape out, now i need to add the molded edge and do the final fit to the hull.

 

[Dave Stevens (Lumberyard)]

good Saturday morning fellow ship builders

this last week was finishing the cheeks

Making the two sets of cheeks was a process of sanding, fitting, testing the fit and sanding until they fit to the hull and stem. The upper cheek was made in two parts the the forward section was traced from the plans and cut out. Using a shary pointed pencil i drew a line down the center.



when making the upper parts of the cheeck i clamped them together and shaped both of them at the same time

 

[Dave Stevens (Lumberyard)]

As for the cheek i cut the molded edge as described back in post #192. The curved section had to be done freehand so using an Exactp blade i made a light cut along the pencil line then with the diamond burs i followed the cut until i widened the channel down the center of the piece. Checking the finished cheek off the model shows the shape from the side and top.

 

[Dave Stevens (Lumberyard)]

I made the extended part of the cheek extra long back to the hull giving myself enouth to fit the two pieces together.



Taking the finished piece i traced in on a piece cardboard to use as a pattern. The scoll at the end has to line up to the top of the stem behind the head of the figurehead. With the cardboard pattern in place i held the cheek to the hull and marked the length of the upper section.

 

[Dave Stevens (Lumberyard)]

The fit between the two parts of the upper cheek worked out just as i hoped it would with a nice tight fit and the molded edge lining up.



The cheeks give the bow a nice graceful look as the upper cheek hugs the hull, curves and sweep up to a scroll at the top end.



Looking down at the cheecks the start at the top of the stem curve and spread out to the sides of the hull. When you make these parts it is important to make them as a pair to be sure they are a mirror image of each other.