Day 248.

Continuing the effort to install the variety of miscellaneous deck pieces…

There are a number of small things that needed to be built and installed on the deck for the Model Shipways Bluenose kit.  None of these are particularly difficult or time consuming.

Main Sheet Lead Block Horse

The main sheet lead block horse is a small metal structure that is part of the main sheet and boom crutch tackle.  Obviously.

Looking at the plans, this piece can best be described as a ‘U’ shaped metal piece that is stuck into the deck.  It looks a lot like a staple that isn’t all the way in.

To make this part, I took some brass rod that I had on hand (the same brass rod used to make the pins on the pintles and gudgeons), and bent it to the right shape.  Holes were drilled in the deck, and the piece was glued in place.

The horse is made from bent brass rod.

When installed, it looks kinda like a brass staple.

Main Boom Crutch

The main boom crutch is a ‘stand’ that holds up the main boom.  According to the plans, this piece is removable, and is stowed when the ship is under way.  The plans suggest only adding this piece if you aren’t going to add full sails.

I’m not sure if I’ll be doing sails or not, so I’m going to go ahead and add this piece.  I figure that if I end up doing the sails, the casual observer won’t notice that this necessary piece is there.

The kit provides a laser cut piece for the stand, and the base must be made from strip wood.  The laser cut piece was sanded down to remove the laser char.  The base was made from a piece of strip wood with two notches cut in the sides to fit the bottom of the stand.

The main stand of the crutch is a laser cut piece.  The base is made from strip wood.

I went ahead and glued these two pieces together prior to painting.

The crutch would be removable on the ship, but I went ahead and glued it in.  I might regret that later.

Quarter Bitts

The quarter bitts are two ‘posts’ that things get tied to.  The posts have small arms that extend out to help with tying things off.  The plans call for the posts and arms to made from wood.

I decided to take a different approach.  I made the posts out of square strip wood.  It took several tries to get the right bevel on the top and the slight chamfer on the corners.

Instead of making the arms out of wood, I made them from brass pins.  At this scale, I’m not confident I could make these look good if I carved them from wood.  I’ll be painting these arms a different color so they stand out as distinct pieces.

The quarter bitts were made from square strip wood and brass rod.

I drilled a hole in the bottom of each quarter bitt and glued in a piece of brass rod.  This will serve as a ‘handle’ to hold the pieces during painting.  These rods will be cut shorter and used as pins to help secure the quarter bitts into the deck.

Long pins were glued into the bottoms to make handles for painting.  These pins will be trimmed shorter and used to help anchor the bitts to the deck.

The installed quarter bitts.

Bilge Pumps

The bilge pumps are provided as cast metal pieces in the kit.  These two pieces are pumps that would be used to pump water out.  They are mounted to the deck, and they have removable handles that are only attached when the pumps are in use.

The raw cast metal pieces for the bilge pumps.

Like all other cast metal pieces, these were filed down and cleaned up prior to painting.

One note…these had a rather large piece on the bottom to help anchor them to the deck.  I think the idea is to drill a hole matching the size of this, and seat the pumps into those holes.  I think that is a pretty big hole to be drilling in the deck.  So, I cut those pieces off, drilled small holes, and glued in some thin brass rod (like I used for the quarter bits).  These small pins should do a perfectly fine job of securing the pumps, and now I don’t have to drill large holes in the deck.

Cleaned up, painted, and installed near the hatch on the quarter deck.

Stern and Bow Chocks

The open chocks are also provided as cast metal pieces.  These pieces sit on top of the rails and help to route cables and ropes.

As is customary, these are filed and cleaned up before being painted.

The kit provides cast pieces for the four chocks.

These get installed at both the bow and stern.  Even though I’m focused on the quarter deck details at the moment, it seemed logical to knock out the bow chocks at this point as well.  As long as I’ve got the bag of chocks out on the bench.

Stern chocks installed.

Bow chocks installed.

With the exception of the fife rail, which is a notable project on its own, I’m now finished with all the miscellaneous stuff on the quarter deck.