usedtosail

I finished cutting out and cleaning up the bulwark supports and sanded the inside planks above the frames. To remove the excess wood along the stem and stern posts, I first used a pointed grinding bit in the Dremel tool to hollow out the pieces, then a chisel and knife to clean out the rest of the wood. Of course once the support was gone the plank ends were unsupported, so I cleaned up the ends with an X-Acto saw blade then inserted small strips of wood to close the gaps. I used thin CA glue to hold them all together, then a riffler file to file the wood strips down. The inside planks will hide these wood strips, but I will have to use wood filler on the outside to cover them up. I could now start the interior planking. After some planning on how to attack this, I started by gluing plank strips along the top of the bulwarks in the middle of each side. I then temporarily clamped the plank below so it extended out past each end, which gave me the angle of the top bow and stern planks. I cut planks to fit and glued them in place. As you can see these planks do not go all the way to the stem or stern post, as that would need a very severe edge bend. Instead I am cutting them off where they intersect the top of the bulwarks with a more gentle bend. This will allow the second row of planks to fit flush to this top row. For all of you who celebrate, have a happy Easter.

Nice save on the punch. Those bulwarks look great and very authentic.

Well done, Captain Steve.

I received this new addition for the workshop yesterday, as a birthday present from the admiral. It was on sale for a very good price at Harbor Freight so I picked it up for her, so all she has to do is put a bow on it.

Nice job on the quarter gallery bases and the stern windows. Those are two very tricky areas to deal with.

I gave the outside hull a course sanding for now. I give it a final sanding later when I am ready to apply the paint. There are still some areas that need some filling but not much. I then started removing the bulwark supports on the inside of the hull, which needs to be down before the second layer of planking can be applied there. I am using a thin X-Acto saw to cut them. I had tacked the first layer of planking to these so they break off fairly easily after they are cut. Once they are all removed, I need to file the cut areas down to make a continuous curve from the central areas of the frames. I also have to remove some wood along the stem and stern posts. Then I can add the second layer from the sheer down to these frames.

Thanks guys. I just spent about a half hour filling some of the larger cracks with wood glue, then sanding over them to fill them with saw dust. It really worked great, as they virtually disappeared. I know I have tried this in the past with poorer results so I don't know what i am doing different now, but what a difference. More pics after I get the whole outer hull sanded and looking pretty.

A small milestone - second planking is on. I will give it a good scraping/sanding before planking the inside bulwarks.

Thanks Popeye. Almost done with the port side planking now. Two rows left to put on, then a bunch of sanding.

Yes, good to see you back Jeff.

I love the Coke delivery truck Popeye. Looks so cool.

Thanks Stevinne, Rich, Popeye, Jonathan, Todd, Capt Steve, K, Dan and the likes. As for heirloom, I hope one of my kids wants this once I am dead and gone. I wouldn't blame them if they didn't, but hopefully they will find a good home for it. Let's hope that won't be a problem for many, many years. K - keep up the great work on your Connie. You are doing a great job on it and your build log is excellent too. Dan - I really enjoyed your articles in the NRG Journal on building QA's Revenge. Your are as talented a writer as you are a modeler. A couple of last pictures that I took last night after dark. I was really curious how the LEDs would look and I was very happy with the result. We started calling this the Museum Room last night.

Thanks Fernando and EJ. Almost done with the starboard side and about half way on the port side. I will be happy to move on to the next phase.

Thanks everyone. Well, now I can say this project is really finished. Here she is in her new home. I am really happy the way the case turned out. My full size woodworking skills leave a lot to be desired, but this project I tried to be a lot more precise. One thing I did over the last few days was to remake the cradle. I had originally made it a few years ago using 3/16" walnut for the supports. In all the moving they suffered a few dings and breaks that looked terrible, so I took them off the base board and remade them in 1/4" walnut. I am much happier with the result. That's it for this project. Thank you all who have followed along through the journey. I have certainly learned a lot and I much appreciate those of you who built this model before me so I could learn from your experiences. I also hope this build log will prove useful for those who build this model in the future. I would highly recommend the experience. Just make sure you have a big enough place to put it when finished.

When I got close to the keel on the starboard side, I started planking down from the keel, so that I could use a shutter plank underneath the hull. This will be whatever width I need to fill the last gap, so I want it to be less noticeable. I am also planking both sides now. The port side is about half way there. On the starboard side I have now got to the point where I need to add two planks to finish the planking. I decided to use two planks that are slightly wider than the 6mm planks I have been using, as tis way there won't be one plank that is a lot bigger than the others. I cut a long strip 8mm wide from the 1mm sheet you see in the photos, and used it to create the last two planks in the middle of the hull. Here is the first one being glued in place. This morning I added the other one, so now I need to add the bow and stern planks in the gap, then tackle the planks at the sheer.