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DRW-FJ40

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About DRW-FJ40

  • Birthday 09/29/1962

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  • Gender
    Male
  • Location
    Narrows, VA

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  1. And thanks for the compliment. post a link to your build... maybe it will motivate me to get back on it. I have to many hobbies.
  2. I have made some, although looking at the date of my last update, the progress I have made isn't too impressive. I have the cabin on & seats, combing in. I did design and 3D print portholes for the cabin. I'll try to get some pics up this weekend. I 3D printed some portholes to fit the curvature of the cabin. I did them in plastic to make sure I had the fit right with the intent of printing them in brass but... probably will just paint them.
  3. Well... I'm not breaking any speed build records here but I have made some progress. deck planks on, trimmed & stained. I kept fiddling with the hull finish to the point that you can no longer see the plank lines through the paint... not what I had intended but at this point, I have a fairly decent shape and it has enough slight imperfections so as not to look like a fiberglass hull and not so much that it looks like a botched model. I had resigned myself to the idea that I'll need to put a new mahogany veneer on the transom so I figured I'd paint the one that's on there and see how I liked that look... and I like it... I think I'm going to keep the paint the same color as the hull.
  4. I finished the second layer of planking. I wasn't real sure how to handle the transition into the keel and ultimately I just transitioned to a single 1/32" plank and then transitioned to the first layer of planks just past the garboard strake. I did this to keep the width of the keel per the original plans. I put a coat of primer on which revealed a few areas that still need a bit of work. Mainly that transition around the garboard strake. I'm using model expo paint applied with a brush. On some of my hulls I've gone for a highly polished surface and I didn't want to do that here because I plan to paint it and I want it to look vintage ~1910 & still be able to see some of the plank lines & I think a sprayed and polished paint job would look like a modern fiberglass hull. Anyways, here is where I'm at & I'll work on a few spots and then start the deck planking. Nice to be moving on to another phase.
  5. More than 30 days now... Ok, times up. Here is my stuff. And let me just say, I'm glad I chose to redo it this way. The second layer of planks went on very straight forward and fitting each plank, although it sounds tedious, is actually not bad once you develop a little system and far less work than precutting planks that don't quite fit right.
  6. Well... not too much further along than I was but! ... I did purchase some basswood strips. I went with 1/16" x 1/4"... and I've got a pretty good shape on the hull I think... a lot of sanding... too much sanding... I tend to overthink these things. Also, I get to these "no turning back" points and... hesitate. Is the hull shape to my liking? Once I start laying the second layer of planks is not the time to revisit the hull shape. It is funny, seems like I let some time go by & then move in the direction of picking the project back up and I get a notice that someone has replied to this thread. Last night I decided to go ahead and start laying planks and I think I mentioned that I was going to use the method outlined in Frank Mastini's book and I figured I'd brush up on that chapter first... And I can't find the book! I think I know where it is though.... Hopefully I'll be able to report some progress soon.
  7. Thanks for all the kind words of encouragement! Looking at it by myself for hours on end, I tend to only see my mistakes. I do still intend to double plank. Every boat I plank, I get a little better... learn a few tricks... so I figure I'll get a two for one deal on this one. I'm debating 1/32" or 1/16" though. Originally, I thought of the second planks as a veneer of sorts and the thinner strips would be easier to bend & shape. But I'm now thinking that could work to my disadvantage in that they would be more likely to conform to every imperfection & the thicker planks would have a greater tolerance for sanding smooth, i.e. I'm thinking the 1/32 would be too easy to sand through in the final smoothing.
  8. Here is where I'm at with the hull. I had put this project down for a while because I really didn't know how to proceed. I wasn't pleased with the hull shape and didn't want to start over at this point and it wasn't that bad... mainly, some flat spots between bulkheads. So as I said, my intention is to fill the flat spots, create a reasonably decent hull shape and then plank over it. The challenge now is getting the shape. You can see I've added a few shaped 1/32 pieces of wood in a few areas to build up the worst flat spots. I was reluctant to do this because I knew once I deviated from the framing to get the hull shape I'd have to rely on eye to get it right... I think it will be ok, just taking my time at this point.
  9. Thanks Bob... the RC park is fun... a bit time consuming but fun. I have a small "lake" in there that I sometimes park a 1:8 Dumas CC racer in. Most of the RC trucks are advertised as "10 scale" but in fact they are all over the place in terms of scale but most are on the larger side of 10... like 8.5 - 9 scale. So 1:8 looks more appropriate that 1:12 and I had thought long and hard when I decided on the Friendship sloop as Bluejacket has a 1:8 Muscongus Bay lobster smack... 48" model... I love big models... but that was bigger than my lake so....
  10. Funny you should ask. I just picked it back up this weekend. Essentially, I'm rough sanding the initial planking with intentions of double planking with basswood. I want to paint the hull & basswood is familiar and easy to work with. The tapering chart I pretty much deduced or pieced together from the limited description in the instructions and grainy photos. I believe I figured out the intended steps but knowing what I do now I would recommend skipping this portion of the instructions and using one of many tried and true methods available on line or in books. I'm no expert but I read a few books on the topic and plan to do my final planking using the method outlined in Frank Mastini's Ship Modeling Simplified book. It just made sense to me. But that does support your argument that the instructions should reflect the skill level. Midwest kits are nice for beginners because you can follow the directions to the Tee and wind up with a decent model. I purchased this kit thinking I might stray a bit but thinking I could follow the directions verbatim if I chose to go that route and that's not been the case. Thanks Ian, I will... finish it that is. Just slow.
  11. Yes, I didn't want to sound critical of the kit because I don't have a lot of experience to compare it to but I've done a few small midwest planked kits and I was pretty meticulous relative to laying out the keel and positioning the bulkheads and I still came up with some discrepancies, and the bulkhead alignment with the false deck was one of them. A more experienced modeler could have made wiser decisions as far as what to curves to hold & what to trim, etc. The fact the the keel slopes and the bulkheads, although parallel to one another, are not perpendicular to the keel makes it challenging as you can't slap a square on it but have to rely on the drawings for that angle. I enjoy small fishing craft, in fact this is the largest "ship" I've attempted. My others have been canoes, skiffs and a snipe sailboat. It's easy to become enamored with this sloop... an interesting evolution of design at an interesting point in history for Maine and fishing by sail. Along with this kit, I purchased "Lasting Friendships: A Century of Friendship Sloops".
  12. Well... this one sat for a while but I've picked it back up. I'm almost finished with the first layer of planks. The kit only calls for one layer of planks but I'm not real happy with my planking. I had intended to paint the entire hull and thought for a while I would use filler to correct my mistakes but there are some areas that would require a lot & I would have to do a polished paint surface since some of the plank lines would be completely covered with filler. So my plan now is to focus on getting a smooth correct hull shape and then double plank so that when I paint the final hull, I can do an old weathered paint scheme. How I got the point that I was so unhappy with my hull is due to a number of things. I won't pretend that the bulk of it is due to my own inexperience but I followed the directions to a tee for trimming the planks. In retrospect, I should have used their dimensions as a general guide line and adjusted my plank trimming as I went along. As a result, some of the planks weren't lying as flat as they should & my forcing them to fit made things worse. Also, the bulk heads are pretty far apart compared to some of my others and some of planks developed flat spot between bulkheads. By the time I realized this, I had to make a choice, to bow the next plank a bit and achieve the proper hull shape or line up with the previous plank so that the edges fit against each other smoothly. At this point I think my best option is fix the flat spots and get a decent smooth shape and then double plank.
  13. I found this interesting about the Indian Girl, that it was supposed to be canvas. If I'm not mistaken, the canvas coating was an inexpensive way to make mass produced wood strip canoes watertight. I made mine a regular wood strip canoe and finished it clear. Nice job! Your planking isn't going to require too much sanding... mine was much sloppier which is easily fixed with sanding... lots of sanding. But these are excellent boat kits to learn from.... on my next, I paid a lot more attention to precise planking.
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