Posted by - watjr
Post date - 08-04-2007, 02:03 PM
This log will give my experiences as a first time scratch builder of the Ben Nevis. I have built several kits and models my entire life but this is a new experience.
This ship was built in St John, New Brunswick in 1952 and is a near sister to the Marco Polo. Upon completion it was loaded with timber and sailed to Liverpool where it was purchased by Pilkington & Wilson, the precursor to the White Star Line. Pilkington was primarily engaged in the Gold Trade with Australia and also with passengers and immigrants. England had strict regulations for ships that were engaged in the immigrant business so the Ben Nevis was converted to carry immigrants and apparently--according to the London Illustrated News, was well done.
In 1854, a group of Wends from Saxony and Prussian Lusatia immigrated to Texas, one of only two groups that came to the United States, the rest going to Australia. Amazingly, the ship carried 588 Wends on a vessel 146 feet long and although plagued by cholera and diarrhea, 512 survived the passage. This was considered a high survival rate in that this was a 1 in 8 survival rate whereas the normal loss was 1 in 6. Also, it was noted in Galveston that the Wends kept their ship very clean at a time when the only thing that smelled worse than an immigrant ship was a slaver.
The Wends eventually settled in Central Texas in a small community called Serbin located between Houston and Austin and the Ben Nevis became a sort of icon for the Wends with pictures of the ship in St Paul Lutheran Church in Texas a church built and painted in the unusual Wendish fashion.
I did not learn I was half Wendish until my mid 30's as most Wends considered themselfs "Germans" which was true. However, they actually were Serbs that lived in Germany and spoke their own Slavic dialect which has been mostly forgotten except in Germany. I also learned about the ship. On a visit to the Wendish Museum in Serbin and viewing the absolutely awful model they had to represent the Ben Nevis began my research to build the ship. After years of research, collecting a fair library of books regarding these ships, a trip to St John and finding a line drawing of the Marco Polo which I found depicts more accurately the lines of the Ben Nevis upon measuring I decided to scratch build the model.
My main sources of information on scratch building has been Underhills books, including his rigging book which I picked up at various used book stores, Crothers invaluable book on the American Built Clipper gave in valuable information on techniques and the actual construction of these ships. Other information on the ship, its appearance, deck furniture and the like I have been able to glean from the internet and various museums all of whom have been extremely helpful including the Mariners Museum in Newport News Virginia, the Liverpool Museum, Mystic Seaport, Peabody and various libraries. I even received some help from the Australian Museum in Sidney, Australia. I learned, it never hurts to ask and these people that work at these museums and libraries love these ships and their history and will go out of their way to help if you just ask the correct question. I have had a few dialogues with a few curators because of their interest in what I am doing. The museum in St John was of particular help as they actually have a 1/2 scale model of the Marco Polo.
So that is the background and now I will go into the actual construction of the model. I will first discuss my preliminary steps to the current point of the project. I will warn the builder, everything has to be thought through very carefully and consideration made early on about scale, techniques, materials, steps to be taken etc. I have read Underhills books more than a few times from cover to cover including his Masting and Rigging. Each time I learn something new. I have been over Crother's book many times and studied the pictures so I could learn proper construction and fabricating used in the actual construction of these ships. You are building a model and many of these fabricating and construction methods are equally applicable to your model even though they were used on the large ship. Time taken thinking out problems and techniques and writing and rewriting them even before cutting the first wood is extremely important. I also have the plans of the Flying Cloud and it is invaluable for planning the fabrication and construction of parts and for the rigging.
The first step was to decide on the scale. Since I intended to donate the model to the museum I asked the size of their existing case and was able to establish a 1/4 scale model would fit nicely. I obtain two line drawings 1/4 and 1/2 scale of the Marco Polo from the Maritime Museum and in return made a nice contribution for these. I also obtained a letter from them allowing me to make copies. This letter was actually useful as many places are very sensitive about copyrights
So, my research done, I began the process of planning construction and decided to begin with the frames for no particular reason other than it seemed a good place to start.
Lofting the frames and fabricating the frame templates: In any event I made numerous copies of the 1/4 lines drawings and using Underhill's description of "lofting" proceeded to lift the frames. At first I was going to use a modified bulkhead method but finally decided on the modified frame in that I would place the frames approximately 1/2 inch apart rather than the frame and space used in ships of this type. Using Crother's as a reference, I decided that a 1/4 inch frame placed every half inch would give enought for proper planking. I also decided to fabricate two frames using 1/8 material, one frame up to the sheer and one up to the top of the monkey rail. These would be fastened together to make the 1/4 inch frame. I also decided I would cut templates from 1/8 inch plywood to make certain the frames were symetrical. I have now cut each of the plywood templates and have draw each frame on tracing paper. Using Underhill's method, I will build each frame for fitting into the keel assembly. I am now waiting for my wood order which should arrive shortly. I will discuss the fabrication and fitting of the frames in my next post.
Assembling the Keel, Stem and Stern While waiting for the order of the wood, I directed my attention to the Keel and again after studying Underhill and Crother have decided to build the Keel from 1/4&1/2 for the keel itself, 1/4X1/4 spacers and a 1/4X1/4 Keelson. I will then fasten the stem and stern and assemble the dead wood. In this way I only have to slightly notch the frames and locate them on the keel, place the spacers and beginning from the mid ship and fit the frames alternating between bow and stern to the cants and then fit the cants. While planning this, I have begun to write a narrative on framing the ship up to and including the monkey boards, shears, bench, beams, sheer, and mainrail. In this way, the ship will be completely framed before I begin planking and decking. But again, I am waiting on the material and when it begins I will post eacj construction step with pictures to show my progress and the problems incured and techniques developed.
What I am learning is that scratch building takes a lot of thought and planning before you even cut the wood. Crothers book which breaks down the ship into various components provides an excellent outline on how the model should be built which frankly follows closely how a ship was built during this time period.
But more later. I will detail the fabrication of the keel, stem, stern and frames before moving on to fitting the frames to the keel. Then the next step will be installing the deck beam bench, the sheer, mainrail and monkey rail as well as the mast steps, Then on to the deck beams, framing the hatches and the mast steps. Finally the decking, planking and assembly of the various deck furniture, and machinery. Then the masting and rigging. It should be a fun project and I will enjoy sharing it on this forum.
This ship was built in St John, New Brunswick in 1952 and is a near sister to the Marco Polo. Upon completion it was loaded with timber and sailed to Liverpool where it was purchased by Pilkington & Wilson, the precursor to the White Star Line. Pilkington was primarily engaged in the Gold Trade with Australia and also with passengers and immigrants. England had strict regulations for ships that were engaged in the immigrant business so the Ben Nevis was converted to carry immigrants and apparently--according to the London Illustrated News, was well done.
In 1854, a group of Wends from Saxony and Prussian Lusatia immigrated to Texas, one of only two groups that came to the United States, the rest going to Australia. Amazingly, the ship carried 588 Wends on a vessel 146 feet long and although plagued by cholera and diarrhea, 512 survived the passage. This was considered a high survival rate in that this was a 1 in 8 survival rate whereas the normal loss was 1 in 6. Also, it was noted in Galveston that the Wends kept their ship very clean at a time when the only thing that smelled worse than an immigrant ship was a slaver.
The Wends eventually settled in Central Texas in a small community called Serbin located between Houston and Austin and the Ben Nevis became a sort of icon for the Wends with pictures of the ship in St Paul Lutheran Church in Texas a church built and painted in the unusual Wendish fashion.
I did not learn I was half Wendish until my mid 30's as most Wends considered themselfs "Germans" which was true. However, they actually were Serbs that lived in Germany and spoke their own Slavic dialect which has been mostly forgotten except in Germany. I also learned about the ship. On a visit to the Wendish Museum in Serbin and viewing the absolutely awful model they had to represent the Ben Nevis began my research to build the ship. After years of research, collecting a fair library of books regarding these ships, a trip to St John and finding a line drawing of the Marco Polo which I found depicts more accurately the lines of the Ben Nevis upon measuring I decided to scratch build the model.
My main sources of information on scratch building has been Underhills books, including his rigging book which I picked up at various used book stores, Crothers invaluable book on the American Built Clipper gave in valuable information on techniques and the actual construction of these ships. Other information on the ship, its appearance, deck furniture and the like I have been able to glean from the internet and various museums all of whom have been extremely helpful including the Mariners Museum in Newport News Virginia, the Liverpool Museum, Mystic Seaport, Peabody and various libraries. I even received some help from the Australian Museum in Sidney, Australia. I learned, it never hurts to ask and these people that work at these museums and libraries love these ships and their history and will go out of their way to help if you just ask the correct question. I have had a few dialogues with a few curators because of their interest in what I am doing. The museum in St John was of particular help as they actually have a 1/2 scale model of the Marco Polo.
So that is the background and now I will go into the actual construction of the model. I will first discuss my preliminary steps to the current point of the project. I will warn the builder, everything has to be thought through very carefully and consideration made early on about scale, techniques, materials, steps to be taken etc. I have read Underhills books more than a few times from cover to cover including his Masting and Rigging. Each time I learn something new. I have been over Crother's book many times and studied the pictures so I could learn proper construction and fabricating used in the actual construction of these ships. You are building a model and many of these fabricating and construction methods are equally applicable to your model even though they were used on the large ship. Time taken thinking out problems and techniques and writing and rewriting them even before cutting the first wood is extremely important. I also have the plans of the Flying Cloud and it is invaluable for planning the fabrication and construction of parts and for the rigging.
The first step was to decide on the scale. Since I intended to donate the model to the museum I asked the size of their existing case and was able to establish a 1/4 scale model would fit nicely. I obtain two line drawings 1/4 and 1/2 scale of the Marco Polo from the Maritime Museum and in return made a nice contribution for these. I also obtained a letter from them allowing me to make copies. This letter was actually useful as many places are very sensitive about copyrights
So, my research done, I began the process of planning construction and decided to begin with the frames for no particular reason other than it seemed a good place to start.
Lofting the frames and fabricating the frame templates: In any event I made numerous copies of the 1/4 lines drawings and using Underhill's description of "lofting" proceeded to lift the frames. At first I was going to use a modified bulkhead method but finally decided on the modified frame in that I would place the frames approximately 1/2 inch apart rather than the frame and space used in ships of this type. Using Crother's as a reference, I decided that a 1/4 inch frame placed every half inch would give enought for proper planking. I also decided to fabricate two frames using 1/8 material, one frame up to the sheer and one up to the top of the monkey rail. These would be fastened together to make the 1/4 inch frame. I also decided I would cut templates from 1/8 inch plywood to make certain the frames were symetrical. I have now cut each of the plywood templates and have draw each frame on tracing paper. Using Underhill's method, I will build each frame for fitting into the keel assembly. I am now waiting for my wood order which should arrive shortly. I will discuss the fabrication and fitting of the frames in my next post.
Assembling the Keel, Stem and Stern While waiting for the order of the wood, I directed my attention to the Keel and again after studying Underhill and Crother have decided to build the Keel from 1/4&1/2 for the keel itself, 1/4X1/4 spacers and a 1/4X1/4 Keelson. I will then fasten the stem and stern and assemble the dead wood. In this way I only have to slightly notch the frames and locate them on the keel, place the spacers and beginning from the mid ship and fit the frames alternating between bow and stern to the cants and then fit the cants. While planning this, I have begun to write a narrative on framing the ship up to and including the monkey boards, shears, bench, beams, sheer, and mainrail. In this way, the ship will be completely framed before I begin planking and decking. But again, I am waiting on the material and when it begins I will post eacj construction step with pictures to show my progress and the problems incured and techniques developed.
What I am learning is that scratch building takes a lot of thought and planning before you even cut the wood. Crothers book which breaks down the ship into various components provides an excellent outline on how the model should be built which frankly follows closely how a ship was built during this time period.
But more later. I will detail the fabrication of the keel, stem, stern and frames before moving on to fitting the frames to the keel. Then the next step will be installing the deck beam bench, the sheer, mainrail and monkey rail as well as the mast steps, Then on to the deck beams, framing the hatches and the mast steps. Finally the decking, planking and assembly of the various deck furniture, and machinery. Then the masting and rigging. It should be a fun project and I will enjoy sharing it on this forum.