09 - Sails

Have managed to get the sails pretty well sorted out in the last few days. Portions of this work have taken place at various times almost from the beginning, so this will be a summary of what has transpired to get to this point, which included removal of the original hardware, re-sewing the sails and the installation of more appropriate hardware, etc.

First of all, here is a shot of the original sails that came with the model. I've already removed the brass rings that had served to secure the sails to the masts.

The first order of business was to remove the brass eyelets. Here's a shot of the fore sail, showing how the eyelets detract from any scale appearance.

Once the eyelets were removed, the edge treatment of the sails left quite a bit to be desired, including the black thread edging (not on the full scale sail) and the non-scale appearance of the sewn edge. 

Without going into detail, I fashioned metal rings for all corners of each sail, leaving enough length in each "arm" to allow it to be glued to the sail. A boltrope was also sewn into each edge that would be fastened to a spar (booms or gaffs), or to which metal rings would be secured, either for attaching mast hoops to the sail or for securing the sail directly to standing rigging, eg, the jib to the jib stay.

I also removed the original reef lines from the main and fore sails - again, these were vastly out of scale and too few in number.

As a bit of an aside, there is a need for quite a few metal rings on this model, in various sizes. After making a few individually, I devised a way of essentially mass-producing them. Start with a metal rod of the appropriate size to produce the desired ring diameter - a drill bit serves nicely. Then wrap metal wire around this rod.

Once wrapped, use a cut-off disk on a Dremel tool to slice off the rings.

Repeat several times and you will have enough rings to meet your needs.

Here is a shot of a ring applied to a jib.

The following shots show the results of my efforts to date. Note the changes that I made to the top sails to correctly match the configuration of the full size sails. This is needed in order for the sails to clear the junction of the bottom and top masts. Mast hoops have now been installed on all sails as needed.

The main and fore sails fastened to the respective booms. Note the revised reefing lines.

As a last point, here are close-ups of the main and fore gaffs, again with the sails attached.

Next, I'll try and get the masts sorted.

08 - Mast Hoops

This is another post to catch up on some of the build that I managed to get done some time ago.

One of the least faithful depictions (and there were many!) of the original model was the use of brass wire to represent the mast hoops - and then using only three of these for the main sail when the full size vessel has 15! As the mast hoops are a fairly prominent feature, I felt they warranted as much attention as the rigging blocks. Here is how I made them.

One of the references I found on-line described making the mast hoops from thin wood shavings. While this approach would obviously replicate very closely the structure of the full size hoops, I doubted that I would have the patience - or the skill - to produce satisfactory hoops in this manner.

Instead, I elected to form the hoops from rolled card stock. This simplified the basic procedure to one of rolling glued card stock around a suitably-sized form, and once dry, slicing rings (hoops) from the resultant tube to form the basis of the final item. Although I ended up painting the hoops after I had completed the assembly, I initially tried to reproduce a wood-grain pattern on the tube. While it looked OK on the tube, the pattern, such as it was, was not apparent once the slices were cut off and was a wasted step.

The following pictures show the sequence of steps. Again, having a lathe simplified the process but a similar approach could be taken using a power drill.

1. Dried and painted cardboard tube on the form and mounted on the lathe.

2. Showing thickness of rolled cardboard, about three-four sheets thick.

3. Preparing to cut off a mast hoop.

4. A potential mast hoop.

5. Formed wire, used to make the fastening ring.

5. Showing the fitting arrangement of the fastening ring and mast hoop.

6. Hole drilled in the mast hoop.

7.  Fastening ring inserted in the mast hoop, with the loop perpendicular to the edge.

8.  To finish off the mast hoop, I epoxied the wire inside the hoop and once dry, I painted the assembly. Tried to get a colour that matched the full-size hoop, but that proved harder that I had initially envisaged, and not fully satisfied with end result. But will live with it.

Here are a set of completed hoops, attached to the fore sail. The diameter of each hoop is large enough to cope with the thickness of the wire epoxied to the inside and once installed on the mast, the wire will not be visible. Also note the orientation of the attaching ring, which will correctly link with the sail ring when the hoop is on the mast and positioned horizontally. 

On to the sails.

07 - Making the Rigging Blocks - Part 2

In the last post, I described how I scaled and designed a template for the blocks. In this post, I'll describe the fabrication details for the two scale sizes that I eventually decided would be sufficient to represent the range of seven blocks on the full-size vessel. (Jenson listed 87 blocks, ranging in size from 6 inches to 13 inches.)

Having generated templates for the two sizes, these were then pasted on 1/4" X 1/8" strips of boxwood. For the smaller blocks, the long dimension was positioned across the strip; for the larger block, the long dimension was positioned lengthwise. The picture below shows some of the smaller blocks cut from the strip, ready for shaping.

Small block template applied to boxwood strip, ready for shaping.

Once separated, I used the Dremel tool with a mini-sanding drum to rough out the shape to the template.

Deremel tool, table-mounted with sanding drum. 

With a little manual sanding, the basic shape of the block was arrived at without too much difficulty.

Shaped boxwood block, ready for detailing. 

At this point, another decision was required. On the Bluenose II, the modern-style blocks do not have external stropping. This is in contrast to older blocks, which had an external band (or strap) to both hold the block together as well as attach the eyes (used to secure other hardware such as hooks, shackles,and thimbles to the block). Since I wasn't prepared to make a "built-up" block with internal hardware, the external stropping approach seemed the obvious way to go.

Besides, I think the stropping adds to the visual effect - without it, the blocks look a little bland.

(After build note: Although at this point in the build I was still intending to configure the model as the Bluenose II, in the end, I decided to fit it out as the original Bluenose and so the stropped blocks look just right.)

After some experimentation, I settled on the following method to produce the blocks. First, drill a hole at one end of the block to represent the sheave, through which the rigging will run.

Drilling the sheave "hole".

Next, using a mini-rasp, add a grove along the edge of the block on both sides to further define the sheave.

  Detailing the sheave.

Finally, cut a grove on each side of the block to hold the stropping.

Cutting grove for stropping.

With these details done for all blocks, I started on the stropping. Twenty-seven gauge wire was used; anything smaller was unlikely to retain its shape when formed into eyes and subjected to the strains of rigging. Eyes were formed using a suitably size rod; in this case 1/16". A hole drilled into the building board held the rod and allowed me to form the eye. The following series of pictures are self-explanatory.

Rod and wire, ready to form an eye.

Two loops to form the eye.

Wire stropping applied to the block.

Securing the stropping.

With the stropping wire twisted secure and the excess cut off, the block is essentially finished. In those instances where an eye is needed at both ends, a loop of wire will be inserted at the other end.

Finished block. Tried an ink spot to simulate sheave axle. (Not applied to final versions.)

A dip in clear polyurethane was the final step.

Complete blocks dipped in urethane hanging to dry. 

For double and triple sheave blocks, wood strips were glued together prior to shaping.

Completed one, two and three sheave large blocks and
single and three sheave small blocks.

The following pictures show a set of blocks assembled on one of the jibs for a test fit.

Single sheave small block.

Double sheave small blocks.

Next post: the sails.

06 - Making the Rigging Blocks - Part 1

One of the first items that I undertook to try and reproduce to an appropriate scale appearance were the rigging blocks that were on the original model. In fact, to refer to them as "blocks" is an overstatement! They were merely round hardwood bobbins with a single hole and a groove around the circumference - there was no way that the rigging lines could be run through them to represent proper blocks.

Original model blocks.

(Note: the two-hole versions were used to represent 'deadeyes'.)

The first thing I did was to ascertain how many blocks were used on the full-scale ship, as well as their sizes. Fortunately, Jenson concisely summarized the utilization of blocks on the Bluenose II (and their sizes) in the extract below. Notice that the size ranges from 6 inches to 13 inches, with the majority being single sheave but there are also a few double- and triple-sheave blocks as well.

Listing of rigging blocks used on the Bluenose II.

I was a little surprised at the range of sizes (6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12 and 13 inches) and so the first decision was whether to try and replicate all the sizes in 1:44 scale. Didn't take me long to figure that most people would be hard pressed to distinguish between 0.136" and 0.205" (the full scale dimensions of 6" and 9" respectively) or 0.227" and 0.295 (full scale dimension of 10" and 13" respectively), particularly if the items weren't located side-by-side. So I elected to go with two sizes only, representing blocks in the 6" to 9" range with one size and blocks in the 10" to 13" range with a second size.

Next, I had to determine what to use as the source material. Seeing as the full-scale block is made of hardwood (usually oak), I initially tried to make the model blocks out of this type of wood.

Actual Bluenose II oak block.

Unfortunately, hardwood proved to be too difficult to shape, especially when dealing with something this small - and my limited skill level! Research on the internet revealed that boxwood was a good candidate material, and fortunately the craft store Michael's was a good source. I selected strips 1/4 inch wide by 1/8" thick. These dimensions would allow me to make two sizes of blocks, depending on whether the long dimension of the block was across the strip or parallel to the long dimension.

Now I had to determine the proper shape for the blocks. Having visited the Fisheries Museum of the Atlantic in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia (http://museum.gov.ns.ca/fma/en/home/default.aspx) several years ago, I had a photograph of one of the original Bluenose I blocks at my disposal.

Bluenose 1 block.

(Note pen for size measurement - didn't have a ruler with me on the day!)

I then inserted the picture on a page in Microsoft Word and using the drawing tools, outlined the edge of the block.

Outline shape in red using MS Word drawing tools.

Now I could scale this shape to whatever size I needed.

Block outline shape moved to the side.

Now it was a fairly simple matter to copy the shape to a blank MS Word page, draw several pairs of parallel lines a 1/4 inch apart and then size and position the block shapes accordingly.

Lines drawn 1/4"apart in MS Word.

 (Note: Page was scaled to 200% - hence the screen ruler reads 0.5 inch. versus 0.25 inch.)

Large and small block shapes added to the page.

(Some additional detail  added to make the outline more representative.)

Showing how the block shapes were inserted between the lines.

To make the production template, I merely copied and repeated each of the shapes on their own sets of parallel lines.

Production templates, ready to be cut and glued to boxwood strips.

Here is the template glued to one of the wooden strips and a stack of blocks cut from the strip and ready for shaping.

Block template applied to wood strips, with some already cut off, ready for shaping.

In Part B, I'll continue with the fabrication of the blocks.

05 - Refurbishing the deck planking.

Well, I'm finally back at it. No, I didn't spend all of the last six months down in Florida - just five weeks or so! The rest of the time, I've been enjoying our summer. But now that we're officially into fall, time to pick up where I left off. In fact, I'm going to skip a few of the items that I've already done some work on - I'll get back to them in future posts - and bring you up to speed on the deck refurbishment in the meantime.

To start with, the original decking was very poorly executed. The manufacturer used a single piece of what looked like laminated particle board. This was then grooved to simulate planking. Unfortunately, the result was imitation planking that was much wider than the scale would indicate, and the router grooves were far too wide. In addition, the planking was parallel for the total length of the deck, whereas the real planking was curved at the aft section.

Original model decking. (Marks were made during removal of deck furniture.)

As noted in a previous post, I made use of cherry wood strips sourced at Lee Valley. I initially purchased 1/8 inch strips (which would have more closely matched the full-scale width of 5-6 inches) but decided that they would look a little small. So instead, I chose to use 3/16 inch, which equates to a full-scale plank width of 8-10 inches.

Various sizes of cherry wood strips (1/8, 3/16 & 1/4 inch x 24 inch).

Having experimented a bit, I chose to stain the strips and blacken the edges to highlight the planking, once installed. The stain you use is a personal choice but I attempted to match the plank colouring of the Bluenose II. However, it is difficult to stain cherry to match oak, and in the absence of first hand observation, have no way of knowing how close I came. (And since the original decking of the Bluenose II no longer exists, it having been relegated to a wood chipper during the recent "renovation", we'll never know!)

To save time, I bundled 20-30 stained strips together and used spring clamps to hold them fast.

Cherry strips bundle and clamps.

Once clamped, I lightly sanded the bundled edges and them used a permanent marker to paint the edges black.

Using a permanent marker to blacken the edges of the strips.

Once the strips were dry, I glued a starting strip down the centreline and then worked outwards to either side of the ship. In the forward section, the planks are installed parallel to the centreline, whereas in the aft section, they are curved parallel to the sides.

Installing cherry wood strips on forward deck.

Before and after sanding of cheery strips.

Once all the strips were installed, I elected to simulate end joints and peg-ends randomly over the deck. There was no indication of full-scale plank lengths in the Jensen book. (I could have cut strips to various lengths prior to gluing them to the deck but felt that this was an unnecessary complication and could be simulated just as effectively.)  To aid in making the simulated peg ends, I fabricated a little template jig to locate the peg-end holes on either side of the simulated joint. The joint itself was made by using a metal awl to scribe a line across the strip wherever a simulated joint was to be created. The awl was then used to pierce the strip on either side of the scribe to simulate peg-ends.

Jig for locating peg-end holes on either side of the simulated plank joint.

Once the deck covering was complete, a light sanding was in order. This necessitated another coat of stain to make the surface uniform in colour. I then sealed the deck with a coat of clear polyurethane; I've used gloss to date but suspect that semi-gloss, or even matte, might be more appropriate.

Completed deck. Note the curved planking on the aft section of the deck.

Next time, I'll try and cover some of the items I've already fabricated.

04 - On Vacation

As indicated before, nothing new to report on the Bluenose II rebuild, seeing as we're enjoying non-stop sun here in SW Florida. However, thought I'd share a couple of snapshots from what the locals like to remind you each morning is "another day in paradise"!

Can quibble with definition of 'paradise" but for many people there is no argument that the sugar sand of the beaches probably beats the dirty snow of late winter any time!

Fort Myers Beach.

Fort Myers Beach pier.

Sunset, Fort Myers Beach.

Fort Myers Beach.

The end of another 'day in paradise'.

Till next time...