Usgecko

Started on the planing for the ceilings - on both inner and outer sides of the hull. I elected to cut them individually so progress has been slow I attached the planks directly to the hull at the bow, rather than pre-fabricating them as I have above

The first two lengths of planking attached to the outside of the hull progress!

After framing the gun and sweep ports I found there was a gap between the plank sheer where the gun ports were and the edge of the frames. Filled this in with some thin bits of wood then sanded to ensure smoother fit once the first two hull planks were attached. you can see the result below on the outside edges of the cannon ports.

Framing for the gun and sweep ports completed, along with a lot of sanding to ensure a level fit for when planking gets attached

Thanks for the comment Abelson. I will be honest that if I had the equipment to cut the stern timbers out of hardwood, to replace the plywood that comes with the kit, I would have. As it is I was not willing to suffer the inevitable breakage of these parts as seems to afflict those that have posted their Niagara building logs in the past. The effect of trying to re-glue these parts, ensuring they were precisely aligned etc. and hoping they didn’t break again just didn’t make sense to me. Fabricating the parts in plastic was not simple and will in this case be covered by wood as construction progresses and it is something that I am personally ok with for my build. The question of use of parts other than wood in a wooden ship I will leave to others to debate. it is an interesting question however in the context of wooden ships. Would it imply that someone who scratch builds everything from wood they have cut from the tree more of a builder than someone who assembles laser cut wooden parts from a kit? Does it really matter in any case as the goal is got self satisfaction through completing the building process. Does someone who has a lathe and electric saw to fabricate parts and turn square dowels into masts deserve less regard than those that only use hand tools. i would note that those who have the capability, and not inexpensive tools, to complete a scratch build deserve real respect for their skills. Thanks Stuart

Some tidying up of space between waterways and bulkheads and 3/32 square section rail attached to top of bulkhead (seen in previous builds for reason of height needed fro cannon ports Next step - framing of cannon ports

wrapped up the knightsheads and top stiffner first made sure the stiffners were snug to what will be the bowsprit Also worked o n the stern framing. Th plans didn't quick make sense to me and seemed more complicated than they need be for the quarter stanchions. Instead I decided to cut a piece of boxwood to the required shape and attached this to the horn timbers and the spacers blocks.

Next on the list - attaching the waterway and planksheer. Some of the slots for attaching the planksheer did need widening as others have noted.

Mike appreciate the comments. i have mentally accepted that I will need to get better ropes and blocks and Syren seems to be the best place to get them. do you by any chance recall how much of whatever types of rope/blocks you got from them?

Got the corner fillers in

On to fitment of the stern timbers - the plastic sheet replacements for the wooden ones (because I knew I would break them! After attaching the two horn timbers I attached the filler blocks at the stern. These took a great deal of shaping, and may still require some hand sanding after fitting. I wanted to attach these so I had a better chance of getting the remaining stern timbers attached to align the the horn timbers

Steve, thanks for the suggestions. so sorry to hear you were bludgeoned on your build by the “experts”. I have experienced this when I was building a Titanic model. One or two of the individuals who did have a high level of knowledge were completely obnoxious. Rather than sharing their knowledge they wanted to make sure that other less knowledgeable builders were aware that they were uninformed and wrong. Very sad but that’s one of the downsides of Internet forums. The majority of people are great but there is a small group of keyboard “warriors” display a level of rudeness they would likely not do face to face. I have not experienced such issues on this forum! Cheers - Stuart

Next stage of my build - having read that everyone seemed to have issues with the stern timbers breaking I decided to replace these with plastic I photocopied the sheet of wood with the stern timbers on them, then used the photocopy (glued to plastic sheep using white glue) as a template. Needed three cut out from the sheet plastic for each timber. Fun! These are the timbers before final cleaning and tidying up. That was accomplished through frequent comparison to the wooden originals. It seems whenever I start something with this model I start with a larger piece of wood plastic, then many hours later end up with a really big pile of sawdust/wood shavings and a much smaller finished piece!

Mike & Steve, Thank you for the comments - food for thought for sure. Given lack of historical detail I am possibly inclined to build as per instructions maybe with reduced number of cabins - choice of this ship to build was down to my wife being from Erie PA and she is familiar with seeing the Niagara on Lake Erie. Please keep any comments/suggestions coming. I was planning on getting rope from Syren - suspect that will be a hit to the wallet. I want decent rope because it is the rigging stage I am aprehensive about so investing in better quality rope may help! Stuart

Hi Mikie - appreciate the input. Do you have any suggestions for good readings on the historical background to the Niagara. My initial inclination was to build per the instructions but info on how to backdate it to the original ship would be great to review. Thanks Stuart