usedtosail

Henry, I am glad that you are back to shipshape. I know the feeling as you watch your model fall. The other night I was holding the hull to line up some masking tape and the next thing I know it is bouncing off the work bench. No damage except to my heart, luckily.

I think these were all wood, so brown may be a more appropriate color. If you don't have brown beads, I'd go with black.

I have been using rubber cement to hold sandpaper to a wood block. The paper can be pealed off easily when worn and replaced.

Congratulations on your Anniversary. We just celebrated our 26th on Friday. Have fun with the guitar, too.

Nice work on those metal bits, Henry. I am sure it will be worth all the effort once you have those guns rigged.

The launch came out really nice, Meredith. I love those sails.

I have gotten the basic interior of the hull done, so I started getting the exterior finished. I gave it another once over with thinned wood filler and a finish sanding, then another coat of primer. I then mixed up some off white using white and gray paint, and gave the bottom of the hull a few coats of it.

That clamp is what I came up with to keep the turntable from turning while spraying. In fact, I usually use two so it won't turn in either direction.

I also cleaned up the rudder and scored in the plank lines, then primed it and gave it one coat of the off white, so far. I masked off the top so it will be stained like the gunwales, when I get to them.

While the various coats of primer and paint were drying, I made up the cradle.

I drilled holes from underneath through the supports and sides, and glued in brass rod to give the stand more support.

This won't be a heavy model, but I did have trouble on the Beagle build when I didn't do this and transported it to my office at work. I ended up having to leave the Beagle on its side while I took the broken cradle home to re-glue it. I was not happy.

It looks much better and will look even better when blackened.

Thanks Wayne and John. That little lathe comes in handy but is a little under powered. I use it mostly with sand paper, not carving tools, but the few times I did use them I was able to get something reasonable out. My hope is to someday have a Sherborne lathe, but I don't know when or if that will happen.

I built the Dapper Tom kit a few years ago. Here is a pic of the final result:

It was the third solid hull ME model I built - the Phantom and Sultana were the first two. Since these were the first three models I ever built, I didn't have a good appreciation of solid hull vs. Planked hulls, although I did add planks to both the Sultana and Dapper Tom above the water line.I was very pleased with the kits and since building a few plank on bulkhead kits, I think the amount of work is less for the solid hulls, but getting the correct hull shapes was harder for me with the solid hulls. Once I had the approximate shape in both types, then I think getting the final smooth hull was more work with the POB hulls, mostly because of my bad planking techniques.

BTW, I loved the look of the Dapper Tom as soon as I saw a picture of it and it was what got me into this hobby.

I think you will have a great time with it and you will be proud of the result.

You are off to a good start Mike. I am a one model at a time builder, but I do admire those that can work on multiples at a time. I think my problem would be keeping all the parts separated.

That's an interesting ship and history. I will enjoy following along with your build.

I do feel lucky to have a workshop. We finished part of the basement in the house when the kids were small for all their big toys. They are both away at college now, so I was able to take over one of the rooms for a workshop (and I am starting to creep into the other room, but so far the admiral hasn't noticed  ).  I was able to buy the tools I have slowly over the last five years, but that is it for now (did I mention I have two kids in college?  ) I would like to eventually get a Byrnes saw and thickness sander but that will have to wait. I still seem to do a lot of work by hand, and I really enjoy it, but when I do need the power tools, it is nice to have them.

Mike, I see how this type of oar wouldn't work with a single thole pin to sit on. This model has two thole pins that the oar sits between, so I can use this shape. Your oars do look good, and I can see the shape more clearly than from the plans.

The continued oar shaping process.

The next step was to sand the blades down with the sanding block to get nice even blades on each side.

You can see the blade at this stage:

Now it was time for the lathe. I put the oar into the lathe with the blade out and sanded the area between the blade and the shaft to get it round. I also rounded the area of the shaft sticking out of the lathe chuck at this stage

I have the small Proxxon lathe which works great for these small round objects, like masts and yards. One nice feature it has is that the piece to be worked can extend out the back of the motor housing, which worked out great for these because I could turn the oar around and stick the handle and top of the shaft out from the chuck, then round these areas with sand paper:

The final step was to round the corners of the blade slightly. So here is the almost finished product. I will probably gives these another sanding with fine sandpaper just before staining them.

I hope this process description was useful.

Thanks Robert, Bob, and Pawel. Your comments are greatly appreciated.

I have really enjoyed the process sequences that I have seen on other build logs, as I have learned a lot from them. I thought that I would share my process for shaping the oars. it's not very innovative but maybe someone starting out may learn something. I was a little unsure how I was going to do this when I started on them myself. Plus I was in the mood to take some pictures the other night.

I first started on the oar shafts and handles. I worked on these while I was away from the workshop last weekend, so I don't have before pictures of the oars, but they were basically squared off oar shaped laser cut pieces. I used the small plane first to roughly shape the handles and to make the shafts eight sided from square. I then used the sanding block to round them out, but at this point they were still a little elliptical.

Back in the workshop, I then worked on the blades and lower shafts. Here you can see what I started with and the first finished blade:

I first used the disk sander to remove much of the excess blade on both sides, holding the oar at an angle so that the blade was thinner at the end:

I then used the belt sander to thin out the areas between the blade and the shaft:

These sanders can take off a lot of material in a hurry, so I had to be very careful not to take off too much. In fact, I left quite a bit still on:

These still have a ways to go but they are getting there. More in the next post.

Another instalment in the continuing saga of building this little boat. Previously, I had added the center three floor boards. I added the rest of them without too much problem, except that I had to use medium CA to get these to stay tight to the frames where the hull curves up toward the bow. Keeping the CA off the planking was a bit of a challenge, especially along the outer floor boards, where any glue spots would not be hidden by the next boards. Well, I managed to get them all down with only a couple of glue spots, which I cleaned up with some debonder and acetone. When I finished, I realized that there was a problem with the three center boards just behind the fore mast step. These did not end on a frame, so the ends were too far down; in fact they were glued to the planks. When compared to the outer floor boards, this looked awful. Maybe you can see it in these pictures:

So, I decided to fix this. I figured if I could get the fore mast cap off, I might be able to pry the ends of the floor broads up enough to get a piece of framing underneath them, to raise them to the height of the other boards.If the mast step wouldn't come off, I would stop and live with it as they were. I used a bit of acetone on a Q-tip to get under the mast step, and carefully pried the step off. There was room to get a small screwdriver under it and twist, which did the trick without any damage to the step. Once it was off, I used the small screwdriver to get under the boards and was able to get two of them up no problem. The third was more stubborn, and it kind of cracked, but the crack was on the underside, and the top of the board held together (I was lucky!). I was able to get a small piece of framing under the ends of the boards and reglue everything back down.

I used a wood strip to wedge under the plank as I added the frame piece, both of which you can see in this picture:

All the boards back glued down:

Then it was just a matter of regluing the fore mast step down after a bit of clean up to it. When everything dried, I gave it a good sanding in preparation for staining to match the rest of the interior:

If you compare the last picture with the third one, you can see the difference. I feel much better now, but it would have been nice to realize this was a problem before all the floor boards were installed.

Your launch looks fantastic. I like the way you added detail to the thwart risers.

I bought one of these a few years ago and it lasted about a year before it burned out. But, I was able to buy a cheap Radio Shack soldering iron and swap its tip for this one's large tip. It works great, and the nice thing about the RS iron is that it has a light on it so I can see if it is still plugged in when I am finished for the night.

Mike, I have seen those plans and the picture before, probably on a build log on this site. The ME kit seems to be close to those plans except for the differences that others have pointed out.

Andy, let me say how much I am enjoying your build here. I finally got caught up after reading through it all. A very impressive build. Your rigging especially is wonderful. Now that i have caught up, I was wondering if you could send me the instructions to build your serving machine. I have not done any serving yet, but the look of your shrouds and stays makes me want to attempt it.

I also have a question. You use Hypo cement for your rigging. Have you found a way to tame the tube it comes in? I have used it in the past for attaching acetate because it doesn't yellow it like CA does, but every time I use it it oozes out of the tube faster than I get the top back on and makes a mess. .Any tips on how you use it would be appreciated. Thank you.

Oh, and welcome back.

Some more progress to show, as well as bit of a problem. First the progress. With the thwart risers glued in, I added the mast steps and the first couple of floor boards.

No real problems there, except getting the mast steps to lie flat and stay glued in. I finally resorted to medium CA to hold them down. There was some lateral bending needed for the two outer floor boards near the fore mast step, but I used CA to hold them and with the clamps on the frames to hold the bend, I held down the boards tight to the fames while the CA dried.

Now for the problem. I decided to test fit all the thwarts, as I had to fit the fore thwart to get the fore mast step in the right position. That thwart fit fine, but all of the others were too short side to side. Here's why:

The plans show the maximum width at the rail to be about 13.8 cm, so the actual edge to edge dimension, which is not shown on the plans is actually a little less. As built, however, I measure almost 14 cm at the edge, so somehow the middle of the boat has become wider after taking it off the building jig. The measurement of the jig is the same as the plans, so that wasn't the problem.

So, I took stock in what thwarts I had and was able to get all but two using what came with the kit by cutting down longer ones to use for shorter ones. To replace the other two, I cut out two strips from thicker basswood sheet that I had and thinned them down using first s disk sander than hand sanding. I have left these longer than needed for now and will cut them to fit when I install them. That solved the thwart problem, but I am for seeing a problem with the supplied rails not being wide enough to cover the edges, so I may end up having to make new rails too. We will see.

No progress tonight as the Patriots are playing the Jets. I have to see if Tom Brady can connect better with his new young receivers than he did on Sunday. Go Pats!

You're welcome, Mick. I am always glad to help, especially because I have learned so much on this and other ship modeling sites. I haven't been building very long, so it is nice to be able to provide some help back. What's is funny is that the Endeavour is on my short list of ships to build in the future, maybe my first scratch build. The reason I picked the Bounty Launch as my current build is that my wife asked me to build something smaller that would fit on our mantle, and I like the look of the Model Expo kit.

As far as the OcCre kit, to me it looks like a completely different boat, mostly because of the bow sprit, I guess. I haven't done very much research on the launch, but I did follow along with other build logs, especially Cap'n Rat Fink on this site. He built his Model Expo kit with original plans and worked off Capt. Blye's journal during the voyage. I believe he talks about whether or not the launch had a bow sprit but I don't remember the details. A few other things I noticed about the OcCre kit is the they do include thwart knees, but they look too big to me, as does the winch and winch supports. They do seem to get the main mast in a more forward position, which is one of the modes that Cap'n also made.The other consideration is the scale, as the OcCre kit is a good bit smaller than the ME kit. The ME kit includes material to make sails, so you can have sails on either kit. I have built an OcCre kit before and I liked it, but in this case my preference would be to stick with the Model Expo kit and bash it the way Cap'n Rat Fink did, which is my intention - no bow grate, no holes in the thwarts for belaying pins, add thwart knees, etc. I suppose you could bash the OcCre kit the same way if you like, but that is up to you. As for availability, I am surprised that ME kits are hard to get in the UK. Maybe if you contact them directly they can work out some arrangement for you to get their kit.

Mick, you are doing a great job. Do what you think is best. I for one am more pleased if I have something that looks good than something that is technically correct but looks bad.That said, I am always trying to do something better on the next one than the current one.

Your instructions are showing you to drill four holes in the end of the cathead, straight down through the cathead. You then can make it look like two slots by connected the front and back holes at the top and bottom surfaces of the cathead. On the real ship this would be two parallel slots with sheaves in each one. Now, you could also do that if you had two very small sheaves and a way to cut the full slot, but that is a lot harder to get right. I have always used the four hole method to simulate these sheaves. Also, the holes should really be drilled at the angle that the cathead will be mounted on the model, so they are perpendicular to the water line. You can see this in the first photo from Edward. I have not done this on any of mine, but will on the next one. That sheave in the instructions (155) goes on the outside of the cathead in the wooden holder. I can't tell what the line that goes through it is used for.