Landlubber Mike

Thanks so much for the kind words Martin. This has been an interesting new way for me to build a kit. The Badger and the Pegasus, as you know, use the European approach of adding gunport patterns. We all complain about them, but in the end, they do make things very easy once installed. I think the Model Shipway kits tend to use this bulwark framing approach, at least I saw that the Constitution seems to do so. One thing I think I might do for future builds is put together a framing jig which keeps the keel straight and perpendicular to the building surface, so that measurements are much easier to make. It's been a real pain to try and line up the hull square to measure heights and the like.

Ohayoo gozaimasu Fukui. Beautiful work.

I completed the transom side of the main rail with respect to the yellowheart and ebony sections. It's a tricky piece to fit in that it there is not only a curve fore to aft, but also longitudinally (not sure if that's a word, but the main rail has a slow curve going up from the bulwarks to an apex at the midline of the stern and back down to the other side). This took a little planning, but what I did was to cut a wider piece of yellowheart and sand it to get the fore to aft curve. Then, I soaked it and put this plank forming jig I bought a while back from Micromark: http://www.micromark.com/plank-forming-jig,7164.html Once that was all done, it was a few hours of work to fit it against the main rail sections running along the sides of the ship. Lots of measurements to make sure that the curve at the transom worked and was uniform (thankfully, somehow the transom framing pieces were pretty spot on). Then it was on to gluing it to the hull - not easy with the various curves and lack of anchor points! Eventually after some pins and clamping, I glued it and let it sit overnight. Then this morning I laminated the ebony strip to it which wasn't too bad, and squared everything up. Some artifacts from the camera, but the lines are very smooth and continuous. A ton of time, planning and stress, but the main rail came together pretty nicely. Eventually I'll finish it by laminating holly to it to represent the white pinstripe that runs the hull, but I think next I'm going to start planking the bulwarks and preparing the deck area by adding support pieces for the various deck items. It's a relief to, for the most part, get the basic framing done so that now I can start adding things that will be seen on the model!

I ordered both sets of micro shapers too. Never knew those were out there, and saves me from trying to file out patterns on blades. Dave, did you make a decision on the quarter badges yet? Personally, I'd add them if you think they would be historically accurate (from Charlie's post, seems like they would be). Like the stern ornamentation, I think quarter badges add a neat little decorative touch and a lot of character to the model.

Those micro shapers look great Dave - easier than having to create my own shapers, thanks for the recommendation!

I've used them and find them pretty helpful for planking in screwing them into bulkheads. They worked nicely on the Pegasus, where the bulkheads were in MDF. Like Andy said though, the cross piece is soft metal which bends, and the screws themselves can bend (I ruined a couple that got bent). The biggest annoyance is the knurled screw though - they are really brutal on your fingers if you are trying to screw them into something like MDF.

Calculate your Admiral's daily/monthly hobby and guilty pleasures expenditures. If yours is like most admirals, including mine, model ship building is a mere pittance

These are long term projects, but of course, there is a pretty big upfront cost (particularly if you get into buying power tools, etc.). Annualizing the cost of the hobby, even with power tools, better wood, etc., you are still probably well south of $1000 a year (even better would be to compute the cost on a per hour basis). I'd second eBay as an excellent place to buy kits for a fraction of retail. Same for buying directly from people on this site (both of which I have done). You can also look into buying those packages where they send you a portion of the kit in installments over time. Just don't buy from the Chinese pirates!

Thanks very much for the suggestion Al. The kit has you build the whaleboats in a bread and butter fashion. That approach seems to work very nicely and easily, but I don't know if I can use that method and "paint with wood." Seems like I would have to do the framing approach like you are thinking about. I've barely started thinking about it, but have looked at logs with much interest where people are scratch building small boats around plugs or temporary bulkheads.

Thanks Doc! This framing thing is taking a while to get done right, but it looks like it might work out nicely after all. Holly seems much easier to bend, but I think I'm going to wait until I add the cheeks to the stem as the white strip extends from the main rail onto the cheeks. The nice thing about painting with wood in this way is that you avoid having to paint straight lines on things like the pinstripes. You can use your trusty table saw to essentially cut out the lines you need.

Elijah, thanks for looking in. Thankfully the Morgan has pretty distinct areas where there are color changes, so for the most part you don't need to change colors mid-strake or mid-piece. The trickiest part will be on the bowsprit I think, which changes from black to white so that will require two separate dowels attached together. One tricky area I'm working through at the moment is the main rail. The main rail is ochre inboard, black outboard, with a white stripe at the outer edge for one of the Morgan's pinstripes. So, what I am attempting to do is laminate three pieces of wood - yellowheart, ebony, and holly - to form the main rail. So far so good - I was worried about bending a thin strip of ebony around the yellowheart, but after a few failed attempts at bending ebony, I finally came upon a way to do it. The best success I had was to soak the piece, put it against a former with the curve I wanted, then use a hot iron plank bender that I got from Model Expo against piece to get the bend I wanted. After a few rounds of this, I was able to rubber band the piece along the former to help keep the bend. One thing to bear in mind is that the hot iron can burn the wood and even cause tiny divots, so it's best to use the iron against the opposite side of the visible piece of the wood - essentially, if the curve is concave, you use a former that is convex, and vice versa. Here are some pictures of the main rail after laminating a 1.5mm x 1.5mm ebony strip to the earlier installed yellowheart:

Hey Don, like Doc said, yellowheart does seem to keep its color which is nice. I did put tung oil on a test piece, and it turned a nice vibrant yellow. If it changes, I blame Doc who recommended yellowheart to me All kidding aside, this is a good resource for thinking about what woods change colors and how much. Interestingly, Bloodwood is listed as a wood that experiences pretty strong color changes: http://www.wood-database.com/wood-articles/preventing-color-changes-in-exotic-woods/ From my limited understanding, applying a finish isn't a foolproof method of avoiding these changes. I even asked the guy at Woodcraft whether their UV-resistant finishes would help, but he said that the UV-resistance of those finishes breaks down over time, so you end up just delaying the inevitable.

I grew up in Bayside I'm probably not the best person to ask about varnishes and lacquers. I've never tried lacquer. For varnish, I bought a small bottle of Vallejo varnish. They make paints and finishes for wargaming miniature figurines and models, and are very high quality. The paints and the varnish go on very thin and easily. I'm avoiding paints on my larger scale models, but I've been using them on ship-in-bottle models that I work on here and there. If you're looking at stains, I've really liked working with General Finishes products which you can find at Woodcraft. They go on very evenly, no smell, easy clean up. I recently used their blue stain on boxwood to good effect (at least I like it) on my Pegasus build. I also used GF Antique Oak on pear to get a nice deep brown look (interestingly though, if you use that stain on a light wood like maple, it turns the wood a grayish color). For finishes generally, I really liked using Tung Oil - they sell at "Tung Oil Finish" which is only partially made up with tung oil, but I use 100% tung oil. Minwax wipe-on-poly is another one I like. I did some tests with my Badger, and thought the tung oil barely edged out the wipe-on-poly. A year or two later, I looked at the same test piece, and really couldn't tell the difference between the two. The oiled finish really brings wood to life in my opinion, especially on woods like walnut (I'm sure cherry is another that becomes very rich). It's too bad that walnut doesn't have the finer properties of woods like pear and boxwood, because oiled walnut is absolutely gorgeous in my opinion.

Hey Martin, thanks very much for the recommendation. In my workshop, along with a shop vac connected to my power tools, I also have a Jet air filter hanging from the ceiling (good thing the workshop is in the basement as I don't think my wife would be happy if I hung it in a finished room). I think it's the model a step below this one: https://www.amazon.com/708620B-AFS-1000B-Filtration-Electrostatic-Pre-Filter/dp/B00004R9LO/ref=sr_1_1?s=hi&ie=UTF8&qid=1484317848&sr=1-1&keywords=jet+air+cleaner I also purchased a table-top unit, mostly for when I start carving. The ebony dust is pretty heavy, so between the shop vac and the Jet unit I think I'm in pretty good shape. I also make it a habit of immediately wiping down and vacuuming the area when working with ebony. I found the unit below on eBay for significantly less than retail - I haven't tried it out yet, but it seems to have a pretty strong air pull which will be great for when/if I start carving, especially with power tools): https://www.amazon.com/PSI-Woodworking-DC725-Portable-Collector/dp/B000REX1UU After seeing Alexander's carvings, makes me want to get a good set of carving tools and start carving - wow! http://modelshipworld.com/index.php/topic/5412-carving-from-belgorod/

Hey Charlie, looking fantastic. Lots of interesting planning and techniques, thanks for sharing! I've also been doing a lot of experimentation with various woods, stains and finishes on my various logs. I haven't tried holly yet, but I've read that holly does tend to take a yellowish tone with certain finishes. I think a quick search of logs on here and you can find out what finishes people tried. I would think that most oils and wipe-on-poly would yellow the holly. I wonder if a varnish would have the same result? One thing I've found is that certain woods turn almost black when the end grain is oiled (e.g., redheart). However, when I applied varnish to the end grain of redheart, the color of the redheart was preserved nicely. It and other finishes like lacquer are certainly worth a look. Queens is my home town too by the way!

I'd probably have to bring a parka and thermal underwear this time of year? Wow, those plans look beautiful. Lots of detail there.

I bought this a while back for my Pegasus, and couldn't recommend it highly enough. It makes setting nails super easy. I had one of the push tools (I think from Amati) that worked pretty nicely for my Badger build, but then it broke shortly thereafter. I tried out the Excel one listed by the OP, but find the Xuron one linked above much better.

Looks great Don. These kits really seem to be creative in the way they make things easier, and more precise, for the kit builder. I'm still very impressed with the dowel approach of lining up and squaring the bulkheads.

Don, I think you give me way too much credit. I'm actually learning a lot from you in your builds. Some of the stuff I've been doing I think is some kind of subconscious desire to torture myself I went over the NMM plans very carefully, and the Amati plans are incredibly close to them. I think in a few minor areas there are deviations, mostly intended to simplify certain aspects of the build (for example, that one bitts I mentioned earlier). The NMM plans are not necessarily how the actual ship came out either, particularly on the more decorative elements from what I gather. The TFFM books are not necessary. They are a nice educational resource for sure. When I originally bought the kit, I was intending to just build it from the box as a more advanced kit to learn from. When I got the books, I ended up getting the tools and the wood and now the build has morphed into a close to scratch build. I've enjoyed learning the woodworking and modeling techniques, but there are times when I think about "what if" I had just build the model from the box. The kit is so great that frankly, I'm wondering if there would have been any meaningful difference in outcome had I just build her straight from the kit.

Solid start Don. The patterns look fantastic - you got a really nice curve along the bulkhead extensions which will make for a nice curvy lady. If I remember correctly, I don't think there are any tricky things to be aware of at this stage. The wale was tricky for me to line up, but wasn't too bad. I found, like the TFFM series, that as the wale approaches the stem in an upward curve, it flattens out right around the last bulkhead or two. I think I mentioned earlier that if you look at the NMM plans, the kit's plans deviate on some of the hatch locations and sizes. I think the rear-most bitt actually extends through the hatch behind it, and I believe the cross bar (I'm not sure if that is the proper term) is on the opposite side of where the NMM plans show it should be (aft rather than fore). These are all very minor variances though and in many cases, won't be noticeable if you decide to go with the kit plans.

Beautiful work - very crisp and clean. You must get a lot of compliments on your cheeks

Really great work Rossi - you sure this is your first build? You look like a seasoned pro!

Thanks BE! The Morgan does have an an interesting history, and it's great that you can still visit her at Mystic Seaport. The restoration was very well done. There's lots of little detail pieces on whalers which make for a fun time - a nice change from the typical warship kit that is out there, and a nice reprieve from rigging cannons with 2mm blocks

Next, I attached the lashing rail, which is attached inbound of the stanchions maybe 2/3 up the way. I used the lashing rail as a means of securing the stanchions in position, and then started to work on the mail rail. At this point, I decided to make the opening for the starboard gangway, rather than run the rails and planking, and then try to cut it out. Seemed much cleaner and easier to just maintain the opening at this point with a 36mm spacer block. As a note, the two stanchions on either side of the gangway are slightly further apart than the kit's pre-cut plank sheer, and I believe one is wider than the other. I'm making the main rail, which sits on the stanchions, in 4 pieces: one piece to go around the bow made out of a single piece of yellowheart, one long piece for the remainder of the port side, and two pieces on the starboard side which are divided by the gangway. The bow section was custom cut with grooves to set against the knightheads. For the remaining sections, I cut the sections on the Byrnes saw, soaked them, and pinned them to maintain the slight curve of the hull and they ran from the stem to the stern. I haven't glued them to the hull yet, as I'm using them as templates for the the log and topgallant rails (which is why the main rail looks a little wonky in the pictures below). The main rail will be laminated with ebony and holly strips for the outbound portion. Right now I'm in the process of finalizing the log rail (which sits on top of the main rail) and the topgallant rail, which sits on top of the log rail. I'm using formers to get the bow curve of the log rail, which will be yellowheart on the inbound portion, laminated with ebony strip for the outbound portion. The topgallant rail is entirely in ebony, the pieces of which you can see in the first picture below. Yellowheart takes a curve nicely with soaking. With ebony, I found you need to soak and use heat. You have to be really patient with ebony, with multiple soakings and hot iron treatments - but, you can bend thin pieces pretty nicely. While I was able to bend the yellowheart for the main rail laterally to get the correct curvature of the hull, you can't really do that with ebony. So, for the topgallant rail, first cut out wider strips than the rail itself, and sanded them back, mostly by hand, to get the curved rails. Hours of work, but I'm happy with how things are looking so far.

I've made some progress over the last couple of days. Finally got the stanchions set up - there are a bunch of them, you have to account for different heights, and they are slightly inclined inbound, which leads to a lot of work. I cut them out of yellowheart, and inserted a brass pin in the bottom to help keep them secure to the plank sheer. The kit's planksheer pieces are laser-cut with square holes for the stanchions - no way to replicate that with a tricky wood like yellowheart, so I went with pins which worked very nicely. I created a number of spacer blocks of different heights to help with the spacing and orientation of the stanchions, in particular, to help keep them parallel to each other.