around a piece of wood cut to the same shape as the quarterdeck, and left for twenty-four hours to dry. Since the upper rail on the foc's'le head should carry out the flare of the hull, it is best to cut it from a wider piece of wood, in the same manner as the main rail was fashioned, then carve it carefully on the outboard side to follow the flare of the hull lines, carving the inboard side afterward until the strip is of the proper thickness. The forward end of the first portion glued on should also be flared as it approaches the foc's'le, so that it will make a fair joint with the foc's'le rail. This may be accomplished by beveling the underside slightly, so as to make the top lean out. The flare at the bow is a little too extreme to make this easy to do with the foc's'le rail, hence the advice to cut this from a solid piece. A small knee, Fig. 36, is cut and fitted in the joint at the bow, down on the waterway, and the bow ends are glued and pinned to this.
When pinning small pieces like this, use the "Lills." and where there is danger of splitting the piece, screw a small C-clamp on the wood at the point where the pin is to be driven, and drive the pin down between the jaws of the clamp. The secret of driving these small pins straight is to use a very light hammer, and only the lightest blows: they will bend at once if struck hard. Where possible, a leading hole should be drilled for the pin, to help in keeping it straight. If small drills are hard to obtain, get a package of assorted needles, choose the size you want for the drill, and snip the eye off, leaving two little projecting prongs, as shown in Fig. 31. Take a three-cornered oil slip and sharpen the prongs in the same way as a flat drill is sharpened, slip the needle drill into a pin vise, and you will have the handiest drill possible for fine work. The modeler should have two sizes of the pin vises; one holding a drill around No. 65, the other the small needle drill. The larger drill will make leading holes for the larger pins.
When gluing the various pieces forming the bulwarks and rails together, be sure that both surfaces to be glued are well coated with the glue, but do not apply too much: then, when the pieces are pinned together and before the glue has set, run over the joints with a sharpened toothpick or similar tool and remove the surplus glue. Nothing looks worse than to see blobs and beads of glue in the joints, and it is only a matter of a second to remove the surplus while the glue is still soft. The cap rail is a stout 1⁄16 in. thick and 5⁄32 wide. The midship and foc's'le portions are easy to bend and apply "cold," using the points of small pins for fastenings, but the after part must be steamed and bent. Use the same block as before. Since it is difficult to bend a thin strip in the direction of its width without having it buckle, cut the piece to be bent 5⁄32 in. square, steam and bend it, then, after it is glued and pinned in place, file it down to the same thickness as the rest of the cap. Make scarf joints in the cap as in the other parts. Sandpaper the cap and the inboard edge of the main rail to the shape shown in Fig. 32.
One more rail must be added; the top rail on the foc's'le. This must be as thin as it can be made without splitting in applying, not over 5⁄64 in., and better 1⁄16 in. Remember that in this scale (1⁄8 in. to the foot) 1⁄16 in. represents 6 in., and a 6-in. timber is a pretty "hefty" one. This rail runs from the bow to a point on the cap 21⁄8 in. aft of the foc's'le: it is 5⁄32 in. high at the bow and 1⁄16 in. high at the after end. Notice, in Fig. 42, that the bow ends of the upper rail and this top rail slope forward, and make allowance for this in fitting. Some readers may find it easier to carve the top rails from the solid in the same way as the upper rail for the foc's'le,
