Landlubber Mike

Thanks very much Dave! Hope you're having fun at Mystic! It's a fun place, I took my oldest daughter there a couple years ago, and she liked going on board the Morgan, or as she called it, the pirate ship

Hey Mark, thanks so much for the link and tips. Unfortunately that's the only saw I have. I have a scroll saw but that probably won't cut it (sorry for the pun). I'll have to check some of those sources out. The one thing I liked about Jeff was that he milled your order with wood that all matched up quite nicely. I worry about ordering from other places where you get variations in the wood.

Thanks guys for the tips. Really appreciate it. Doc, thanks very much for chiming in. Not sure why I haven't gone through your builds before, but wow! Very nice! Love how you mix the various woods together. I think I'm very much in your camp of avoiding paints and "painting with wood" instead. Few questions if you don't mind: 1. Where do you source your wood? And do you use a mini-table saw like a Byrnes saw to cut blocks into planks? I haven't tried that yet on my Byrnes saw, which is the biggest saw in my shop. I'm wondering if I can buy small thickness wood under 1", saw it into mini sheets, and then cut planks from those sheets. I just don't know how large in thickness I can go with that saw. 2. Do you have any pictures comparing African blackwood with Bolivian rosewood? I did a quick search and most of the Bolivian rosewood that I came across seemed on the lighter side. 3. Given your experience with African blackwood, is it going to be a tough job using it on the Morgan? I'd use it for the upper hull planking (so, there will be plenty of bending near the bow), the cap rails, the stem (which I'd have to carve from 5mm stock), and the beginning part of the bowsprit, which I think is on the order of 6-8mm in diameter. Thanks in advance!

JP, welcome back! I picked up the kit off of eBay a while back and logs like yours make it hard not to start it Just out of curiosity, is that blue paint or stain? Manufacturer and name? It looks really nice.

Thanks guys. I've seen a couple of European builders who used it on their builds who said it was easier to work than ebony. I can't recall if they were using it as extensively as I would need to on the Morgan though. Not too many people in the states have used it from what I can tell. A lot of people have used ebony for the wales or smaller pieces, but that's about it. Woodcraft had a big sale a while back, and I bought some pen blanks and other sized pieces of exotic woods. I think I've got a pen blank of African Blackwood, and a 1.5"x1.5"x18" of ebony. I might try cutting some planks out of both to see if those woods would be too much trouble. If anyone else has any experience with African Blackwood, I would greatly appreciate hearing about it.

I'm so pleased with the "painting with wood" on my Pegasus that I'm all gung-ho for doing the same on my Morgan. My initial thought was for the black areas (upper hull planking, part of stem and cap rails) to use pear that is stained black. Now I'm think about using African Blackwood instead. The black-stained pear looks really nice, but it tends to hide the grain (at least the stain I'm using). I'm thinking about going all natural with my Morgan - holly for the white areas, boxwood for the ochre areas, and something like maple for the deck. You see a little grain with those woods, so I'm thinking African Blackwood might look fantastic. It sounds like it's less difficult to work as ebony, and possibly less of an allergy inducer. It's a decent amount of area to cover, but pretty limited to things that aren't too difficult to craft. Am I crazy? Has anyone else here used African Blackwood on the builds that can share their views on it? Thanks!

Hi Don, I just took a look at my build and took some rough measurements of the various top and butt planks. The lengths of those planks and the "normal" planks seem to have been around 85-110mm in length. As for width, most ended up at about 5-6mm at the widest part. If you are spiling, however, you'll need to add a little extra to account for the curves. If I remember correctly, for some planks I went with 8mm wide planks, and even went as wide as 10mm in a couple of cases. Take a look at the spiled plank here - the plank itself is not very wide, but the curvature required starting with a fairly wide plank (for reference, the squares on the hobby mat are 1/2" or roughly 12.5mm in height and width): http://modelshipworld.com/index.php/topic/7267-hms-pegasus-by-landlubber-mike-amativictory-models-scale-164/?p=365802 I got a little better as I went along with using narrower planks so there was less waste, but where there were a lot of curves, like at the bow, I still needed extra material to be on the safe side. For all my planks, I would cut the shape out like in the link above, but then test fit, hand sand, test fit, hand sand, etc. until I got a tightly fitting plank. Took a long time, and certainly spiling uses more material per area than cutting taper into normal square planks, but I think the results are well worth it. Definitely try it if you have the patience. It's really not as hard as it might look, and as you do more and more of them, you get better and faster. The two craziest planks that I had to craft were in the links below. They were at the bow and at the stern, respectively, and not only were spiled, but also had to account for a drop plank above them. The second one almost killed me (and you can see that I probably had to start with planks at least 12mm wide). Those took me a few hours each to craft http://modelshipworld.com/index.php/topic/7267-hms-pegasus-by-landlubber-mike-amativictory-models-scale-164/?p=366765 http://modelshipworld.com/index.php/topic/7267-hms-pegasus-by-landlubber-mike-amativictory-models-scale-164/?p=367440

Don, welcome to the Swan Club! Glad to see you starting your Pegasus! Like you, when I saw the kit and the various logs of it, I also knew that this was an absolute must-build for me. And thank you for your kind words - this is only my second kit, so I'm still very much a novice and learning from others on here each day. Great start - the MDF is so precise and fits together like a glove. I wish more kit manufacturers went with MDF for the skeleton of the hull. One bit of caution - when fairing the bulkheads, it might be worth doing so outside and/or with a dust mask on. I usually am not too sensitive to wood dust, but the MDF burned my chest and made me cough quite a bit. Using a dust mask helped a lot. One thing I noticed on your model is that you have the stern extensions square to the ship. Take a look at my post below - I think these actually need to curve inward a bit to follow the hull/quarterdeck line as you can see in the pictures (it's quite possible that I have that all wrong though): http://modelshipworld.com/index.php/topic/7267-hms-pegasus-by-landlubber-mike-amativictory-models-scale-164/?p=267492 One last thing - if you can get your hands on the TFFM books, they are a really nice resource. Volume 2 is probably the one I have been most using as it has lots of great information and tips on the various detail items. Volume 1 is mostly for constructing the hull and its frames, and I haven't referred to it much. Volume 3 shows one guy's journey step by step as he scratch builds a Pegasus which is interesting to see, but probably not critical. Volume 4 is all about rigging and sails, so it's probably worth considering if you are going to add sails to the model. So long story short, I'd highly recommend Volume 2 for the pre-rigging stage. The volumes are pricey and worth every penny, but I was able to find mine on eBay for a good price. The NMM plans for the Pegasus are really beautiful too. Again, not necessary but an interesting resource if you are open to deviating from the kit. For me, I've used them to locate and resize certain of the deck items like the hatches and bitts. I also noticed that the rails were of slightly different widths from the kit, but nothing major. Overall though, the kit and its plans are very close to the NMM plans. Looking forward to following your build! Please don't hesitate to reach out if you have any questions.

Very cool project Maury - it's nice seeing other subjects besides the usual 18th century gun vessels on here (I'm one to talk, I know!). I followed your Fair American and Longboat builds, so I only have the highest expectations for this one - no pressure now!

It's been a while since I caught up with your build Doug - very nice! Love how the tanganyika deck came out!

Nice work Herb. A pain I'm sure to do this, but taking one step backwards here will really make life easier for you down the road. Which manufacturer's gun carriages are those? They look really nice.

You're close Mark - those rails came out fantastic by the way. Really nice job!

Looks really great Don. Get that prep work done, and you'll have a great base on which to plank on. Looking forward to seeing how this comes out, it's a cool subject!

Thanks Martin, lots of fingers crossed when I started what was somewhat of an ambitious plan, but it's all worked out pretty nicely. For a what can be a crumbly wood at times, redheart has some very good properties for this hobby. I was fully expecting it to snap or otherwise crack, but after soaking it in hot water for 20 or so minutes, I flexed it one way then the other to help loosen the fibers, then clamped it to the hull. I couldn't use those pins because I was at the top of the planking pattern obviously, so used an assortment of clamps with scrap wood between the plank and the clamps to avoid indenting the redheart. My limited experience with putting big bends in wood suggests that it's better to go with longer strips than you need - when I've gone with the actual size I need in the past, I've had issues with splitting on even stuff like pear. My sense is that the longer strips help with the leverage factor while apportioning the same stress over a larger area, but I could be wrong. Oh, girls got me a Darth Vader t-shirt and some Star Wars pajama pants, and my 6-year old has been helping me throw a couple of racks of ribs on the smoker, so all is good Thanks Mark. I haven't tried the heat method yet, but it sounds like a good one. I think I bought one of those heating irons from Model Expo when I was first starting, but never used it. I assume the heat steams the water out of the wood and so you don't have to wait as long for it to dry?

You too Don, Happy Father's Day to you and all my other friends here on MSW.

Thanks very much guys, really appreciate the kind words. I'm glad I ripped out the first planking strake and a half a few months ago - it was a tough decision given how much time I had put into it, but the planks were the wrong size and me trying to taper them was the wrong approach. Don, I think the purpose was to drive me nuts Lots of time was spent trying to ensure that the planking runs would end up precisely where the various colored areas would intersect so that the rails, which are only on the order of 1-2mm. Not much wiggle room! Plus, some of those planks took me a good hour plus to craft, especially the tricky ones around the gunports. Lots of measuring, cutting and sanding by hand in order to get the planks to fit tightly. That being said, I'm really happy with how the deck and hull planking has gone. I still can improve, but I feel like I've gotten a lot better with the planking from my Badger days. Using better wood and having the Byrnes saw to cut custom planks with clean lines has really helped. Some tips I learned along the way that I can share: 1. Soak and pin. I soak and pin the planks around the bow. Let them dry overnight so you don't end up with shrinkage issues down the road. Once they are dry, they keep a pretty good shape that makes it infinitely easier to glue them to the hull. On my Badger I tried doing everything in one go, and things got messy, especially when I tried using CA for quick adhesion. Soaking and pinning is a much better approach. 2. Bevel. I sand in a slight bevel onto the planks which helps give a tighter fit. Even when using 1mm planks, beveling helps. 3. Pin planks along length. I found it's important to pin the planks along their length to ensure that the plank fits tightly against the hull/first planking. I've really liked using these grip pins from Midwest, which have a very narrow pin so they can pierce the first planking very easily, yet have a soft plastic head which doesn't mar the planks (can probably find it cheaper from other sources): https://www.amazon.com/Midwest-Products-Hobby-Craft-50-Pack/dp/B000O8IPXW 4. Use good quality, sharp blades. Working with dull blades is a no-no. Too much risk for slippage and injury (trust me on this one - the red areas on my Badger are probably not exclusively from paint ). I used to use X-acto craft blades but recently tried out Swann Morton blades - the latter are much much better. They hold an edge better, and are much stronger so you don't get the degree of lateral movement you get with X-acto blades. Ian posted a picture of a S-M handle that actually grips the blade to provide even greater stability on my post at the link below, but I haven't been able to find it here in the US. Anyway, I would highly recommend the S-M blades. http://modelshipworld.com/index.php/topic/7267-hms-pegasus-by-landlubber-mike-amativictory-models-scale-164/?p=267612 5. Don't settle. If you aren't completely happy with the plank for any reason, re-do it. Especially if you start getting clinking effects, which will just continue to cause difficulties down the road. It can be a tough decision to make, but in the end, it's usually worth it. I tend to complain about how slow a builder I am, but I'm really enjoying the journey. Waking up this morning and peeking at my build, all that time and work was well worth it. This is a really great hobby It's especially satisfying sharing my and other builds with other Swan-class and other ship builders from all over world. I've learned a ton from many people here on MSW who have been gracious sharing their wisdom and experience. I don't think I would be anywhere near my current level (which is still pretty low on the scale here at MSW) without the internet and MSW. In particular, reading Swan class logs from BE, Alistair, Martin, Nils, RWS, Aldo, and others (as well as logs of other models) pushes me to build the best Pegasus I can.

Upper hull is finally completed! Big milestone passed in completing the upper hull planking. Took me a while as I was planking according to TFFM, which had a bunch of oddly shaped planks, and even a scarph joint thrown in for good measure. Because I was using a mixture of woods and dyes, I was also trying to ensure that the planking ended up in such a way that the intersections of the areas would be overlapped by the various rails for a clean look, especially if the stains bled from one area to another or there were other blemishes. For the frieze areas, I used boxwood as I thought it looked best when stained using General Finishes Blue Dye Stain. I loved working with pear, but wow, boxwood is a really nice wood to work with. Here are some pictures after finishing the boxwood planking and installing the fixed blocks: The boxwood looked so nice in its natural state that it was a tough call to proceed with staining the area blue. But, I went ahead with my original plan and added the blue stain, and then added a row of redheart planks to the very top of the upper hull near the forecastle and quarterdeck: For the forecastle area, I had soaked the redheart for a while as one long piece that went around the full forecastle. It surprisingly bent very nicely and didn't give any problems. I thought about keeping that area as one piece, but since I had two planks on the quarterdeck I went with two on the forecastle. I still need to do some touchups, including sanding and otherwise finishing the redheart, as well as ultimately sanding back the planking to the gunport patterns (left a little extra on purpose just in case...), but I couldn't be happier with how this came out. The colors in my opinion complement each other nicely (they should deepen a bit after I apply a finish to it), and I really like that they show the grain and planking lines. There are a few areas between the blue and dark brown that aren't perfect, but like I said, these will be covered with the rails. And while I was very careful to follow the TFFM planking pattern, on both sides of the model, I had a weird extra gap just forward the third gunport. Since that gap will itself by covered by the rails, I didn't worry about it. So, I'm super happy where things are right now, and am pretty burned out by all the custom planking. I might remove the bulkhead extensions at the waist and finish my deck planking, but I don't know that I have the desire to start on the bulwark planking. TFFM has a sample planking pattern that probably won't be too hard to execute, but the thought of fitting more planks right now is not all that appealing. I might switch back to my Morgan build and think about something other than fitting crazy shaped planks for the next few weeks. Looks like I'm approaching the 2-year anniversary of the start of this build. At the rate I'm going, especially since I'm looking to add full sails to the model, I probably have at least a good 3 years left on the build, but likely longer.

For PVA which I usually dilute, I use the clear caps that come with the big laundry detergent containers. The PVA of course doesn't stick to it, and it makes for a small, reusable container. With three kids we're always doing laundry in my house, so I have an endless supply of these

Drops are looking really nice Mark. Thanks for the tip on the scroll sanders - what a great idea! Best wishes to your wife as well

Good luck Ulises - your Royal Louis is gorgeous, and I'm sure this will end up being only a minor, temporary setback. What about making them in wood?

David makes a good point. I think it would be hard to spile woods that tend to splinter. Walnut and tanganyika come to mind - the strips in my Caldercraft Badger were hard enough to taper without splitting.

Beautiful, crisp work as always Bob

Are you able to slide a knife between the pattern and bulkheads to pry it off? I guess that's the catch-22 with using an adhesive like that - goes on and stays on, but problems if you need to take it off

Beautiful job David, really impressive work.

Andy, great to see you back on here! Your Pegasus is a real inspiration as I work on mine. In particular, I'm shamelessly borrowing your color scheme for my build Looking forward to following your Diana!