Monthly Archives: June 2015

Finishing Off the Deck Edge

Denise delivered the third mate’s jersey, complete with all the details: hand embroidery of RELIANCE NYYC, ribbing at the collar, and ribbing at each sleeve end. Thank you very much!

Meanwhile, Bill, Herb, and Sandy have dry fit one of the deck edge toe rails into place so we can perfect our plans to complete attachment.

This toe rail assembly was actually an extension of the shell plating at roughly deck level to hold an angle iron piece with bull nose at the top. At the bow of the real RELIANCE, the nickel steel shell plate was 5/40″ thick, which lead to another of our “moments.” In our scale, that is 1/48″ thick!

Our RELIANCE model–with its deck the length of a J-24–had only 21 web-frames to which tobin bronze and nickel steel plates from about 1/48″ to about 5/128″ thick were attached. Imagine sailing your J-24 with that hull!

The toe rail really finishes off the deck, as you can see here:

(The bottom of the angle iron had been laid earlier as can be seen in the foreground)

Deck Edge Update, Shipments, and Spreader Progress

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Work continues on the deck edge toe rails. One is complete and the second one is going into the jig for some final-finish work.

We received a large shipment of nickel plating from R.E. Sturdy, our third such shipment from them. Again, we give them our most sincere thanks and praise for donating to our team’s success.

Also received in that shipment were plated topmast shroud turnbuckles and mast hoops; thank you Tom and Dorothy!

Keith continues to make amazing progress on the spreader and now it is on to the truss!

Finally, we moved our benches to align the mast, topmast, and topsail yard so initial work on rigging can be done. This will also enable us to complete our topmast with sheaves and cone parts.

Design Exploration and Some Extra Recognition

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Mike and Sandy took a trip to the Museum’s sail loft and curatorial space to check out special thimble, span hook, and hank designs. Span hooks were used for gaff and boom spans, and we’ve got 65 hanks to make along with 75 rings. The hanks were not clipped to the forestay and topmast stay, but instead to rings on these wires:

This past week also brought news that German yachting magazine Goose had published a three-page article on our model. We’ve also received inquiries from other yachting and travel magazines, so our RELIANCE seems to be showing well!

Steve, the SCOUT, and the Steam Engine

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Steve continues to work to the upper section of the mast; the angle iron cheeks and, as you can see, the fourteen ladder rungs which Burr had made for us earlier in the year are involved.

We also had a visit from the Okerholms. Bob brought his beautiful model of HMCo’s SCOUT which was one of the first boats through the Cape Cod Canal when it opened.

SCOUT’s external condenser coil must have made running aground a real nightmare, even in mud!

These photos lead us to Don working to restore our triple expansion steam launch engine, another of our projects in Building 28 (Don’t you love candid photos!)

Boom and Spreader Progress

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Sven has been working on the boom…

…and Keith has been seizing the spreader chain plates with wire, just as it was shown in our drawings.

It still seems incredible that there was only one set of spreaders on this ~190′ tall rig; 34 feet tip to tip of 3-inch thick Douglas fir. Here’s some spreader progress:

Continuing to See Progress

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We’ve been fretting about constructing our deck edge, having decided we needed the strength of a thin metal toe rail. First, we were going to shape it on our table saw in jigs and a metal cutting blade, then back to the old router routine. seen here:

This has routed surfaces on both sides, and–in fact–has three routed surfaces and a bulb to very tight and thin dimensions. You can see there are two of us taking care of everything while Bill carefully guides the router along. By the end of the day, we had one 12-foot section completely routed out, and three others almost so. We were so curious about the fit that we just had to dry fit this first piece in place, and WOW it really changes everything. We’ll show you profiles of both sides once we’ve filed and sanded the surfaces to perfection next week.

RELIANCE As She Stands

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What would be the point of updating you all on RELIANCE’s progress if you didn’t get to see some pictures of the model?

Note: the crew member doing maintenance on the boom sail track is to scale!

Back on Track

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We’ve missed a couple of blog posts because we’ve been deep into detail work, which doesn’t seem to lend itself to blog creativity!

We’ve made a miniature exhibit of our winter lecture series presentation: “Wonderfully Modern Herreshoff Manufacturing Company”, which you can see in our shop if you come by for a visit.

Steve has been finishing the metal angle iron cheeks on the mast; these hold four upper main shrouds, forestay, two preventer stays (main running back stays), and the throat halyard strap.

Meanwhile. Keith has been working on the spreader, and you can see the start of Bill’s jig to make the deck-edge toe rails in the background; Sandy has also been filing, grinding, and polishing more than 150 shackles. You see these in rough form (dark bronze), polished state (bright brass), and finished nickel-plated product in the bins. Hooks are next, and then the dreaded 140 ash blocks from scratch.