Landlubber Mike

So I finally got the wales done. I used 2mm pear planks, rather than two separate layers of 1mm planks. I went ahead and used the planking pattern from TFFM, with a top row of straight planks, and the remaining two rows using top and butt planking. The Swan class is very curvy, so I took my time with the planks. All planks were soaked and pinned, and then when dry, beveled (bottom two rows) and shaped to fit (the stem end planks got an initial soaking and drying in the jig I posted earlier). I originally thought about using the miter jig on my Byrnes table saw to cut the various top and butt planks, but since each of these planks were generally different in sizes and tapers, I cut and sanded them each by hand. The stern end of the wales is a bit different from the wales on my Badger, which was a single plank and just ended along the side of the ship. According to TFFM, the bottom aft end of the wales curves around and under the stern a bit. After a few rounds of soaking and bending, I managed to get the last plank on using 2mm planks. TFFM suggests, because of the shape, to take a thicker piece of stock and carve and sand it to shape - the approach Martin took on his Fly. It didn't seem too tough with the 2mm planks. The space under the planks will be filled when I add the hull planking in the area between the end of the wales and the stern counter. Here it is after some rough sanding - I plan on eventually sanding it into a more pleasing curved shape. I left the piece a little longer so it tucks probably a bit more under the stern than it should, but I plan to carve and sand it back probably a little bit. So the wales are done, with the initial sanding. Once the hull planking goes on, I'll do a final sanding with finer grades of sandpaper, and work the stern end of the wales a bit more to add a finer curve and end to it. Took me a lot of time, but I think it's critical to get the wales in the proper position. I actually redid the first row of the wales when the line wasn't a smooth run between planks. Was frustrating at the time to do that, but, in the end, I'm glad I took them off and redid them as I think the current wales look a lot better. Now for some fun spiling the lower hull planking!

How helpful are these books? In particular, I'm wondering about the chapter on the Corel Unicorn in Volume 3. I plan on modifying the kit to create the HMS Lyme, a sister ship of the Unicorn, so I'm wondering how much detail is included in the volume. As a number of us building the Unicorn kit have noticed, there are a lot of inaccuracies in the kit. Thanks!

JC Frankie, it's funny, I was at a liquor store the other day looking at bottles for building a SIB, and saw the Kraken rum bottle. I thought it would be cool to add a ship and kraken to that bottle - looks like you beat me to the idea!

Just wanted to add to this thread a link to JerseyCity Frankie's Victory. He uses a mixture of full and furled sails, and his technique gave incredible results. I plan on adding similar sails to my Pegasus and Lyme builds http://modelshipworld.com/index.php/topic/9359-hmsvictory-by-jerseycity-frankie-–-heller-–-plastic-1100-–mostly-rigging-and-sails/

JCFrankie, thanks so much for your detailed log on your sail techniques. I went with furled sails on my Badger, but was planning on doing a mixture of furled and unfurled on my Pegasus and future builds. Your results are fantastic, and I will certainly bookmark your log for when I get to that point! I experimented with tissue and a few other materials as well, but ended up with cloth as well. Once again, a big thank you!

I can't find it on the website either. I'm fairly certain it was under building materials or something and listed as Modelspan. I looked at the packaging, and it had the Mantua name/emblem on it, but I don't see it under the Mantua fittings. Maybe email them and ask?

Damn, that's looking really nice Jason. Great work!

I think it also depends on what material is used for the bulkheads. I didn't fill on my Badger or Pegasus. The Badger had very stiff plywood, while the Pegasus had solid MDF. On my Lyme build however, Corel used thin plywood with a lot of flex. Rather than fill between each bulkhead, I added in braces in between: http://modelshipworld.com/index.php/topic/6223-hms-lyme-1748-1760-by-landlubber-mike-kit-bash-of-corel-unicorn-scale-175/?p=220346 To me, filling the entire area between each bulkhead seems like a bit of overkill. But, it's probably the safest way to do things.

Looks great Martin, very nice job!

Thanks very much for the recommendation Martin. I'm using a thicker Xacto blade which I think is a chisel blade (fits the bigger handle) to cut the 2mm planks. It's a bit slow, but running the blade against a straight edge seems to be giving me good results. I've heard a lot about these Lee Valley tools though, and maybe it's time I upgrade. Seem to be very good quality and you can sharpen them I think. Stupid question, but since this is a chisel, are you using a hammer to get your cuts? I'm assuming not, but when I hear "chisel," I think of someone with the chisel in one hand and a hammer in the other chipping away at stone.

Looks really great Martin. I love the specialty planks around the gun ports - great look! Can I ask, for the wales did you use GF's black stain or ebony dye? I liked the color of the black stain a little more, but I'm thinking of trying out the Fieblings Leather Dye to see how well it covers. Also, are you thinking of tree nailing the wales and/or hull planking? I have 10 planks to go for the wales. I've been doing the top and butt planks per TFFM. I decided to cut and sand them by hand, given that they are not all uniform. Takes quite a bit of time! I'll be glad when it's all said and done.

Gorgeous work John. The modifications are coming along really nicely. Opening up the waist was a good call - thanks Ian for showing us the way!

Thanks Martin, I'll give it a go I saw that TFFM had top and butt patterns below the wales as well - looks awesome, but I think I'll first start with the wales and go from there.

Happy Birthday Mark!

Ha, I'm not sure I'll be cheering just yet Martin Martin, when you did your top and butt planks for the wales, did you cut them all to the same length? The diagram in TFFM shows them in different lengths along the hull, which makes things a little trickier.

Looking great. The Le Renommee is a gorgeous ship and I look forward to your updates!

Hi Martin, really nice work, things are coming along nicely. Not sure what to tell you on the sills. They are inset a bit from the outside from what I understand. I forget if the bulwark planking covers them up from the inside though. On the pictures, light plays a huge effect. I bought a point and shoot camera with a much bigger light sensor, and my pictures are a lot clearer. There are some basic ways you can touch up the photos as well. I usually increase the exposure level a bit for a brighter picture, and sometimes tweak the sharpness as well to bring out the fine details.

Thanks Chris. Frankly, going with 2mm planks wasn't all that bad. I had a couple of the pear pieces split on the stem pieces (interestingly, not on the bend itself but at the far end where the plank was straight). I soon figured out that after soaking, it was good to loosen the wood fibers but bending the planks backward and forward a few times, and then bending to the final configuration. I had no more issues after that. All in all, it was a little more work with the 2mm planks, but then I only had to run the planks once. Yeah, the staining is going to be a little tricky. I might have been better off going with walnut for the dark brown areas from the beginning, but I was scared off by the fact that it tends to be very grainy and more splintery than pear. I'm going to take my time and do the best I can. I'm hoping that the 2mm rails will hide any color runs between the brown and blue areas (and frankly, I can probably pre-color the blue planks ahead of time). The color transition between the brown and black should be fine, as hopefully the brown doesn't bleed onto the black wale (plus, the wale is 2mm, and I can always touch it up with the black again). For the red area, I'm planning to use redheart so no bleeding issues there to worry about. The General Finishes stains that I'm planning on using seem to combine stain properties of being a very thin finish with paint properties of coverage and deep color, so I think that should help me. A little ambitious, but so far my modifications are going nicely so I might as well try it out.

Thanks Chris. Do you mind sharing how to do that technique? I assumed you meant glue two pieces of 1mm stock together, then glue the combined 2mm piece to the hull. It obviously sounds like there is more to it than that. Do you overlap the butt joints of the lower piece and then sand the combined piece to get a nice continual curve?

Thanks John, really appreciate the kind words. I'm actually going to be staining the pear (I know, sacrilege!) on this model in various hues - darker brown, black and even blue. I want a darker look to the model, but plan on sticking with pure pear (and ebonized pear) and boxwood on my Lyme build. A happy and safe 4th to you and your family as well! Jeff's pear at 2mm actually bent quite nicely without any issues. I'm not sure if there was really a need to laminate it as I got it to bend around to the stem fairly easily with some soaking and time in the jig. I saw in the TFFM series something about laminating the stern. I'll have to read it again to understand why that approach is taken.

Finishing the wale is going to be tricky. The kit appears to have left off the quarter piece that extends just below the taffrail into the wale. So, what you end up with if you follow the kit is the taffrail just hanging out to the sides of the ship. The kit supplies you with a photo etch decorative piece that flows where the quarter piece would normally be, but I'm not sure how one is supposed to add it if it lays on the second planking with the bottom of it on the top of the wale (essentially, bumping up an extra mm to go onto the wale). Here is a picture, I think from BE's log, that shows what I mean about the taffrail just hanging out there: Here are some pics from the NMM plans showing what I think are quarter pieces: I think Blue Ensign spotted this on his build, and added quarter pieces to his Pegasus. I'm going to do the same. I think it would not only add accuracy to the model, but aesthetically, it would essentially round off the taffrail in a much nicer way than just having square ends like the kit. So, I'll probably take a piece of pear and try and carve it into the correct shape. BE has a detailed section on his build log on putting together the quarter piece. I've also been taking a look at the quarter badges. While they look nice, I'm thinking of making them a little more three dimensional by making a sorta bow window look to them. Realworkingsailor took that approach on his Pegasus to really nice effect, and it seems like some other modelers have taken a similar route as well.

Well, I started working on the wale, and am laying down the first line of planks. I plan on planking it according to TFFM, so the upper row will be straight planks, and the next two below will be top and butt planks. I've laid the first three planks down, and have the remaining plank on either side to go. This doesn't look like much progress, but I've had hours upon hours on getting the line correct. I'm using 2mm planks for the wale, rather than two rows of 1mm planks as per the kit directions. I first plotted out the lines in pencil, then ran blue masking tape to outline the lines to give me an idea of how the planking would run. Easy enough. Then I started overthinking things. I worried that in running the planking line using four separate planks, the line wouldn't be a smooth curve but rather would be angular at the joints between two planks. So, I added a temporary batten on both sides marking the upper boundary of the planking run as in the picture below: In theory this would have worked great, but after running three planks on either side and confirming the measurements against the plans, I found that I was off a bit in a few places by as much as 1mm! Argh! While I was able to pop some of the planks off to refit in earlier rounds, this time was too much and they all started cracking. So, back to the drawing board. I spent a few hours redrawing the wale and rail lines. Interestingly, my original lines had been off for some reason even though I checked and rechecked it numerous times. I think my new lines are much more accurate. From there, I soaked and pre-fit planks as I went along, and after they dried, I glued them using pins and sometimes just my fingers to keep them on the line. Much better results this time around. Couple of things that helped when it came to the first plank at the stem. First, I widened the rabbet for the wale at the stem to 2mm using some micro gouges. The rabbet really helps to anchor that first plank at the stem. Next, I used the jig in the picture below that I got from Micro Mark a while back. First time I used it, but after eyeballing the general curve and setting the pins, it did a nice job pre-bending the wet 2mm pear planks. After the planks dried, I soaked them in hot water again and pinned them to the model in the right position. Once dry, I glued with white glue. The other planks didn't need to spend any time in that jig thankfully.

The tanganyika in my kit is a lot nicer than the stuff that was in my Badger kit (which was splintery and warped). When all was said and done however, it worked out nicely for my build. Your deck looks really great. I switched to maple just to change things up a bit. It's a great wood to work with, and I like the character in the grain. Others use holly, but I found it a bit too bland for the deck.

Nice work Per, and good choice on the TFFM series. For the deck planking, did you use the kit tanganyika? It looks pretty nice.

Very nice work. Great job on bending the boxwood for the taffrail - impressive!