5/18/2012: Bowsprit

I found an old piece of pine with a good straight grain and decided to make the bowsprit from it.

The bowsprit is pretty straight forward. It's square from the heel to just outside the bulwark, 8-sided to the end of the knee, and round out to the end. It's 3/4" square but inboard, the bottom tapers up to 1/2" so it sits level with the deck, though not on it. The whole thing is 18-3/4" long.

I cut a hole in the bow for the sprit, worked it to size with files.

If you look close, you'll noticed the waterline has changed. Something always looked off, and I finally set the hull up, leveled it off, and measured somethings, and yep - the waterline was painted 1-1/2" too low at the bow. I'm not sure how I managed, or mangled, that - but I did. So, I restruck the line, masked it off, and took it outside and painted it. Now it looks right.

I put the big cyclops eye on the pattern for the t'gallant - the Lord Baltimore colors, the emblem of the City of Baltimore. I always thought it was just plain ugly, and they always flew the Baltimore flag on the mast right above it anyway, but she had it, so the model gets it too.

5/19: The bow sprit was made 8-sided from just outside the hull to the end

From just outside the head knee, the bowsprit is round out to it's end and gets a tenon for the cap. The heel of the bowsprit sits in the forward bitts. The real boat had a shear-pin through the bits holding the bowsprit from moving back. The model gets the same in the form of a brass rod. The holes in the bitts and the bowsprit are lined with brass tubing.

After a coat of cream paint inboard, and black outboard, I started making the cap.

5/20: Made the pump handle and basically finished the pumps.

5/22: Continued on the bowsprit. Made the bees, mostly by guess work, but I think they're close. I reenforced the stay holes in the fore cap with brass tube, and made the holes in the stem for the bobstay the same way.

5/23: Made a jib boom, dolphin striker, and spreaders. There's guys that support the spreaders top and bottom, there's an eye bolt at the top of the cap for the upper guys, the lower ones connect to the dolphin striker. The dolphin striker is glued and nailed to the end of the bowsprit, but there's two 'U' bolts of brass rod to make it look like the real boat did.

5/24: Put the spreader guys on first thing. then went about making holes in the jib-boom for the stays to pass through.

The collars arrived in the mail today, so I made the tiller set-up. A piece of heavy copper sheet was cut and shaped to fit under the wooden tiller. It was soldered to a collar with the set screw offset so it can be made fast to the rudder post. It was screwed and epoxied to the wooden tiller

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