Tecumseth 1815

[Dave Stevens (Lumberyard)]

a quick bit of information before we get back to waterways

do you know how trees access the internet?

they log on

 

[Jimsky]

do you know how trees access the internet?

Did you take the right pill this morning, Dave?

 

[Dave Stevens (Lumberyard)]

Did you take the right pill this morning, Dave?

humm i checked and i take atorvastatin, isosorbide mononitrate and metoprolol tartrate same as alwys

 

[Dave Stevens (Lumberyard)]

ok anyhow

back to the waterways like i said nothing remained on the wreck, however there might of been some remains but the brutal attempt at salvage destroyed any information that might of been there.

first is to define WATERWAY and what was its purpose? from drawings it looks to me like a waterway is not really a structural part of the hull but more like a molding.
Defined
The warerway was a strake of planking worked along the sides of the ship which sat on top of the deck beams. In some cases it is considered as part of the deck planking and in other cases it is considered part of the hull planking either case is correct. The function of a waterway was to provide a water tight seal between the side of the ship and the deck. The area between the deck and side of the sips was a vulnerable to water leakage. Should this area leak water would quiclky rot the ends of the deck beams and the clamps they sat on.



The war of 1812 resulted in an arms race on the Great Lakes and ships needed to be built fast. A big problem for fast built ships were the knees used to secure the deck to the sides of the hull. Knees were expensive to obtain and labor intensive to install. Someone came up with the idea to use the light molding type of waterway and turn it into a structural timber to replace the decks lodging and hanging knees. This idea was used by the British, Irish, French and American shipwrights all around the lakes. This new idea seems to have applied to ships pre 1820. Once the war was over there was a ship building boom and knees were back in use for commercial built vessels.

 

[Dave Stevens (Lumberyard)]

This brief time and place in ship building gave us a look at an innovative idea to solve a problem of how to build ships fast, by eliminating the use of knees. This idea may of sparked the use of iron braces to replace wooden knees.
The waterway became a heavy structural timber so lets take a look.

A few observations the waterway does not blend into the deck planks like the drawing shows they stand above the deck.



gun port sills sat on top of the waterway



waterways curved around the bow, that make you wonder how did the ship carpenters bend such heavy timbers edge wise? answer is they did not bend the timber. The waterway at the bow were short section from 6 to 8 feet long and were shaped to fit. From shipwreck date there were no fancy joinery between sections the waterway sections they were simply butt to one another.



the lighter type of waterway shown in the drawings rested against the inside of the frame timbers then the bulkwards were planked inside and out starting with a heavier plank that sat directly on the waterway called spirketting which you can see in the pictures it is the red plank above the waterway.
question is did these heavy waterways rest on the inside of the frames or were they notched around the frames and ran to the outer face of the frames.

 

[Dave Stevens (Lumberyard)]

We don't know if the waterways on the Niagara notch around the frames or butt against the inner face of the frames.
What i do have is a wreck and from the wreck we know exactly how the waterways were installed
lets take a look.

tinted brown you see the waterway and i looks like the top of the frames go through it.



looking closer the answer here is yes the waterway is notched around the top timber it is a notch open at the outer edge and a molding is used along the outer edge. Like the war ships the waterway is above the deck planking.



what is holding the waterway in place after the deck caved in? you still see the waterway tinted light brown on the right and if you stare at the left the waterway is still in place.



look around midship where the deck caved in and fell, the waterway is still in place so we can assume the waterway is not part of the deck structure. The black arrows are pointing to the frames so the waterway does not just butt against the frames, if they did they would have collapsed with the deck.
They are sitting on the tops of the frames and acting more as a structural timber as apposed to a molding between the deck and hull. Maybe this is a hybrid of the waterways used on the war ships and also as the molding to seal the deck and hull from water.

 

[Dave Stevens (Lumberyard)]

About those knees i see why those guys did not use them to build the war ships, heck we need 80 some knees just for this schooner deck and that does not even count the 40 hanging knees. Good thing we are only putting in the lodging knees. Breaking down the scaffolding and reassembling and moving it is a job in itself.



this is crazy first you have to send a crew out into the woods to find suitable trees, cut them down, haul the logs back to the yard, trim out the knees, dress them to a rough shape and each and every knee is cut and fit to the deck. Just the cut off from the process is enough firewood to heat and entire town for a winter. Thinking about it how many knees are you going to get per tree? two or three at the most?

 

[Dave Stevens (Lumberyard)]

Without knees there needed to be a strong connection between the deck and the sides of the hull. Henry Eckford, William Bell. the Brown brothers and the rest of the shipwrights of the time must of had a method in mind.
What were they thinking?
first iron rods were run through the deck clamps and into or through the frames, then iron was run down through a heavy waterway, through the end of the deck beam and all the way down into the clamp.


turning the structure we see the rods run through the clamp and would run into the frames.

 

[Dave Stevens (Lumberyard)]

from shipwreck data we know for sure a heavy waterway was used and set against the inside of the frames and on the ends of the deck beams. So that is what i did. I clamped the waterway from the deck clamp to the top of the waterway to pull it tight to the deck beams.



It took a lot of clamps to pull the waterway tight to the frames.



but it worked out just fine. I would suspect around the bow area shorter pieces were used and cut to fit rather than trying to bend the timber.



The waterway is a heavy timber almost the same size as the keel. and it runs from the stern all the way to the knighhead timbers at the bow.

 

[Dave Stevens (Lumberyard)]

Durning this time period here in North America the bulwarks were filled in solid and planked up to the caprail. In the case of the Tecumseth there are no bulkwards just an open rail. The tops of the frames you see here were cut down to the top of the waterway leaving only a few stanchions for a railing.



stanchions were indicated on the original drawing so i marked with an X the top timbers to cut down.



This was an easy job and cutting by hand made short work of cutting down the frames. After cutting the first two i realized the offset of the teeth on the saw was chewing into the top of the waterway. A simple solution was to hold a box knife blade on the waterway and let the saw slide across the blade. This also prevented accendently cutting into the waterway.



Within a short time all the frames were roughly cut down.



Top timbers were cut on an angle so i drew one and copied it then printed out the patterns.



Using rubber cement i stuck a pattern on each timber



There was very little material to cut away so it only took a wood rasp and sanding block and all the stansions were shapped. Also a quick sanding of the timbers even with the top of the waterway was done.




This will take a few days to cut and shape all the top timbers so for now i will go below deck, turn out the lights and get back to you when the job is done. By the way you can see that one heavy timber for the 24 pound cannon to sit on.

 

[Toleolu]

Brother Dave;

You never fail to impress with the precision of your work.

Charles

 

[Dave Stevens (Lumberyard)]

Brother Dave;

You never fail to impress with the precision of your work.

Charles

well thank you Charles

 

[Dave Stevens (Lumberyard)]

Last 2 weeks i have been working on the stern of the Tecumseth.
Sterns can be built in any number of styles and configurations this is the largest stern model i was involved in building.

That is me and yes everytime Ev and i go somewhere she will ask "is that what your wearing" she will dress up to go grocery shopping as for me i like loose fitting comfort XXX large, got a lot of upper mass to stuff in a shirt.



It was built for the Cuyahoga Valley National Park and is on display in a barn at the Western Reserve Historical Society, it is the stern of a typical cannal boat.



so time to jump right in and build the stern of the Tecumseth.

 

[Dave Stevens (Lumberyard)]

every stern has a set of stern timbers which are the timbers that give shape to the stern.



these timbers sit in notches on the wing transom




the wing transom sits on the inner stern post and supported at the ends on the fashion timber



sometimes the stern timbers will be be set in notches on the side of the transom.



With nothing left on the wreck to give a clue to the type of stern the next best thing is fortunately having the original drawing.
here are examples of stern construction of the period and about the same size ships

it is very common to have the lower part of the stern transom below the level of the deck


as a result the deck will run to the inside of the transom showing the top section of the stern timbers



in another drawing the dotted line is deck level and it is well above the lower part of the transom.



this creates a stern that will look like this



in some cases a margin plank will be fit around the stern timbers and the deck planking run up to the edge

 

[Dave Stevens (Lumberyard)]

if you know what to look for on the drawing you will be able to figure out the type of stern.



zooming in to take a closer look the image is low res so it looks a bit fuzzy but it shows what we need to know. The red line is the deck line and notice it is well below the top part of the timbers. This is telling us this stern is nothing like the sterns in the last post.

 

[Dave Stevens (Lumberyard)]

As luck would have it a reconstruction was done of the Tecumseth by actual ship builders and this is their interpretation of the stern. Who am i to disagree their stern seems to be what the original plan is suggesting.

All following photo are credited to Winston Scoville from Model Ship Biulder

The blue tinted area is a metal framework around the stern which i would think is a modern addition.


There is no right or wrong with details on sterns they seem to be whatever the builder liked. Here is an example of the same type of stern that is planked on the inside

 

[Bryian]

You should consider offering this as a timbering set with plans Dave.

 

[Dave Stevens (Lumberyard)]

You should consider offering this as a timbering set with plans Dave.

first off i am glad to see you are part of the staff congratulations

ok as far as a timbering set

it is possible but i must let you know there is still work to refine the drawings. i made corrections as i am building the prototype so i would need to go back and "fix" the drawings.

this is more of a working type of vessel with no frills, not fancy carvings not a lot of guns ( 4 to be exact) it is more like a exercise in woodworking and model building.

it could end up as a project build on the forum, a semi kit a full blown commerical kit
lets see what it looks like when i get it done or should i say as far as i will take it. I have no plans to plank the hull or deck.

 

[Dave Stevens (Lumberyard)]

to start first cut out the timbers, each timber is a different size and shape which will create the different arcs of the stern. The rough cut was done on my 10 inch table top bandsaw, the tools to the left are what i will use to build the stern.



Each timber was carefully drawn on the plan



Building from scratch you have no step by step instructions to see what comes next. One day talking to Harold Hahn about the artistic process he described it as working backwards. An artist or craftsman will see the entire finished piece in his head. Once he has a clear picture of the piece it is then a process of back engineering it, taking it apart in you head and figuring out how to achieve the end result.
When i installed the waterways i extended them beyond the stern because i knew they had to be incorporated into the stern structure. It saves a lot of grief knowing where you are going before you get there, or you may end up building yourself into a dead end.



So those waterways extend beyond the stern, 3D modeling helps a lot to see how the structure will look and go together also just closing your eyes and picturing the final structure. You can also see the wales extended beyond the stern,



this is the final ending for the waterways, did i know eactly how this went together? no not really i figured something like this and actually surprised myself how it all lined up.



by installing the two end timbers gives me the outer boundries for the stern.




maybe that is why i built one or two kits in the early days and jumped right into scratch building, i must like to push myself or tourture myself and sit there staring at a project trying to figure out the "how and why".

To prep yourself for scratch building take a kit and toss out the instructions and exercise your engineering and creativity and build the model.

 

[Dave Stevens (Lumberyard)]

Without any evidence from the wreck the only thing to go on is the original drawing, it may not look like much information but it is everything you need to know.


the shape of the stern is set in the drawing of the stern timbers



in this photo it looks like all the stern timbers are the same shape and size but actually they are not each is slightly a different size and the arc of the lower section changes with each timber. It is the shape of each one when installed on the transom will give the stern its shape.



When you first set up the timbers the top arch is not yet refined



Once the stern timbers are all secure then you can begin to shape the top arc.



same deal applies to the side to side arc of the stern, when first set up there is no bevel to the outer edge of the timbers.



the final shaping comes after the timbers are secure in place.

View attachment 273860

building a stern is a matter of a series of arches which all relate to one another.

I can see why on the replica of the Tecumseth an iron arch was used to support the timbers. This structure of the stern timbers seem a little bit weak and the timbers can very easy be broken away from the transom. Like the hull when it was in the early stages of framing it was prone to breakage and distortion but as more and more structural timbering was added the hull became very strong, so strong i can almost stand on the deck. I suspect the same will happen with the stern the more parts that are added the stronger it will become.