usedtosail

Thanks Mike. That looks like a great method that I will try on a future build.

As promised, here is the completed painting of the exterior. I made up the latch and hinges for the toolbox and blackened them last night, I should have pictures of the completed toolbox later this week. Next to tackle are the rails. It looks like I will be able to use the kit supplied rails, even though my hull is a little wider in the middle (much like me). I think I can wet and bend them to the correct shape using a spacer in the middle to get the width I need.

Yes, Dunolde, There was a lot of material to remove. I did get a bit carried away however, and had to add some back with wood filler, mostly in the area under the last two gunports. I am still not sure how I did that, except that I didn't use heavier stock for the templates. I do remember being uncertain where the templates aligned at the deck level. I believe I had them too high. Good luck with this step, I am sure you will do fine. Just take it slowly and keep checking the fit.

That coaming is just perfect. Nice job.

Henry, that stern is outstanding.

Here is the hull so far, with the off white and grey colors: I re-masked the whole hull for the yellow stripe, being a lot more careful at the top edge, as the yellow needs to get right up to the edge: I first sprayed yellow straight, but ended up toning it down with some white so it was a paler yellow. I sprayed the last coat last night so I should have some pictures of the whole painted hull soon. I started making the lid for the toolbox by gluing two planks to the two end pieces, after sanding the end pieces smaller so the lid will fit flush on the box. I have had this magnetic jig for a while and it worked OK but not great. When I added the Legos pieces to use as small squares, it really made this much more useful: Finally, I stained the oars, but did not like the finish, so I ended up spraying them with some burnt sienna paint, which I liked a lot better. I also added the lashings to them, which I painted with a very diluted solution of white glue and water to fix them in place. I am very pleased with the results:

Its looking great Mick. I love all those details going on.

Jaager, that is exactly how I marked the water line on the Bounty Launch. The only trick was keeping out of the way of the laser while applying the masking tape.

I marked the waterline on the hull but forgot to take any pictures. I used a laser level on a tripod, with the hull in the cradle, to project the waterline onto the hull, then instead of marking the line with a pencil, I placed long strips of masking tape along the laser line. I did it this way because I didn't want any pencil marks showing up on the white portion of the hull. I also masked off the rudder at the same level so the waterline will continue from the hull to the rudder. I masked off the rest of the hull and rudder with masking tape and paper, and sprayed three coats of grey paint above the waterline: Between coats, I started putting the tool box together. Here I am adding some of the trim pieces. I mitered the joints between the trim pieces at the corners. I am going to try making the lid for the toolbox from the two side pieces that came with the kit, but instead of using the solid pieces for the rest of the lid, I am going to use wood strips to plank the lid.

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.