Landlubber Mike

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!

Looks great Per. On my Badger, I tree nailed the deck using bamboo skewers and the Byrnes draw plate. I liked the end result, but it was a lot of work. The wood filler method seems to give a very similar result with a lot less hassle.

Per, do you have Abebooks.com or something similar? It's a website consortium of smaller used book dealers. I've gotten some really great deals on used books for my ship modeling library through that website. If I remember correctly, Abebooks had both US and UK sellers listing through it. I have all four volumes and find them incredibly helpful. I used Vol. 4 extensively for the rigging and sails on my Badger build. I haven't been using Vol. 1 very much. If you are interested in details like mast partners, etc., then there is some info there. But, on all the visible deck details, Vol. 2 is a wonderful resource. Vol. 3 is great as well as Martin says in that you can follow along as Greg builds his Pegasus.

If it has similar properties to cherry, it might be a great alternative. Completely different hobby for me, but I know the barbecue guys down in your area use peach a lot instead of cherry when they smoke meats because it has a similar, yet softer, flavor profile. Now I'm getting hungry

I ended up getting my copies of TFFM on eBay. On average, for new copies, I was paying about $35 per volume. Looks like I'll have to shell out for the new rigging supplement.

I ended up planking my stern counter too, and used curved planks. I ended up taking wider straight planks and sanding them back so that I ended up with curved planking (rather than bend the planks laterally against their width).

Looking really great Per. Welcome to the Swan Club.

Really amazing work Alex. Nice job on that stove, wow!

Thank you Greg, that's very helpful. Appreciate you chiming in!

Thanks very much guys! I'll give it a go and see what happens I saw that as well SpyGlass, though the model on the box cover art doesn't show the cut out step. I also took a look at TFFM and other sources, and didn't see a similar cut out step so I'm ignoring it as well.

Thanks very much Martin, this is all very helpful. I literally spent hours marking off the wales and the rails. I'm fairly confident (I think ) that my wales are marked correctly. At this point, I'm thinking that I will stick with the 2mm planks as I don't want to have to go through that exercise again if I switched to two layers of 1mm planking! In terms of the sweep of the wales, there is a slight upward sweep at the stern as the wales generally follow the sweep of the gun ports. At the stem, I probably overstated that it was a downward sweep - you are correct that it's more of a flattening of the wales. I recall reading this in TFFM (and I think on some build logs), so I think a flattening is what one should see. I need to take another look at the sample planking diagram in TFFM 2, but I recall that the planks looked fairly straight above the wales. I'm going to attempt to plank above the wales according to that diagram, but I fear that I'll have to customize the black strake to be able to use straight planks. At least I'll be coppering and so only the planks above the waterline will be visible Where I'm really making things difficult on myself is in using stains and different woods, rather than paint, above the wales. I don't think that the runs of planks cleanly fit within the various color bands, so it's going to be very interesting working my way up from the wales. I think it's doable, but it's going to take a lot of planning and plotting out as you suggest. Fun times!

Hey guys, I started to work on the planking for the wales the past couple of nights. I'm going to start with the top row of the wales, which consists of straight planks, and then work on the top and butt planks for the next two rows. I decided to go with 2mm planks, rather than planking twice with 1mm planks, which I think would make for a cleaner presentation. It's been a bit tricky bending the first plank at the stem - my first couple of attempts, the pear planks split a little. My second attempts seem to have worked better. Soaked the planks in water, slowly bent the planks back and forth to loosen the fibers, and then I put them in a jig that approximated the curve. Since I'm planning on using smaller planks, I'm thinking about running a temporary full length planking strip to mark the upper line of the wales. This way when I run that first line of planking for the wale, it will butt against that temporary planking line and be a smooth continuous line. Question: For those that have built or are working on the Swan class, I just wanted to confirm that the wales generally have an upward sweep as you go from the stem to the stern, and actually have a slight downward sweep at the very front section near the stem. Is this the case? If you use the full length kit planks as suggested by the instructions, I think you would ultimately have to bend the planks laterally against their width. My issue: By starting with the wales and using 2mm planks, this naturally affects the remaining planking above the wales and below - i.e., those planking lines would have a similar sweep. This is probably less of a problem using smaller planks and spilling them, but it's making me think whether it would have just been easier adding the second row of planking using straight runs of planks, and then adding the wales on top with a second layer. If I ever want to get back to a straight run of planks, particularly above the wales, I'll almost have to customize the row of planking immediately above the wales to get back to a straight line. Any thoughts or advice would be greatly appreciated!

Bow and figurehead look much better than the kit approach. Well done!

John, thanks very much for that. That seems to be the safest approach. I'd like to keep all my fingers, so just wanted to make sure that I reached out to see what others with more experience are doing.

Thank you Greg, that's very helpful. I believe I saw similar pictures in TFFM 3? This might seem like a dumb question, but how and where did you use the push stick? Do you hold the knurled knob on the taper jig to keep the jig against the fence, and with your left hand, hold the wood strip against the taper jig? In your second picture, it seems like the push stick would have to be very thin, like on the order of a few millimeters given the small angle on the jig.

Hi everyone, I'm in the process of working on the wales for my Pegasus, and plan on adding two rows of top and butt planking. Earlier for my deck, I added top and butt planks, but those were hand-cut as the maple I was using was only 0.5mm thick. I'm using 2mm pear for the wales. I was thinking about using the taper jig on the Byrnes table saw to cut identical planks. Since I'd like to keep all my digits, I was wondering if anyone had any tips for using the taper jig. Specifically, how does one set up the hold downs for the plank? The planks are only going to be about 6mm wide and maybe 135mm long, which doesn't leave much clearance from the saw blade. Also, is it worth considering stacking up a bunch of planks and running them through the saw at once? If so, how do you hold them all down? Do you glue them together, cut the two tapers, then use isopropyl alcohol to separate them? Or is it just better to cut each plank individually? Thanks very much in advance!

Beautiful work Mark. Wow, this lady sure has a lot of curves! I can see how all the spilling, etc. takes plenty of time.

Hi Jason, good idea to start planning all this in advance. I throw these thoughts out there with the caveat that I only have one build under my belt, and my Badger had much simpler rigging given its size and only two masts. Like Joe, I would strongly recommend leaving the spiritsail for as late in the build as possible. I can't tell you how many times I clipped it, which popped off rigging on the bowsprit and even the fore mast. I felt like I was spending literally 30% of my time redoing my previous work to fix all these accidents. In terms of the masts, I went fore to aft. Given my problems with the bowsprit, I'm going to think about whether it makes sense to start from the stern and work my way forward - even leaving the bowsprit off for as long as possible. Someone else had suggested that to me, and I think that person said that zu Mondfeld suggested that approach. I don't know if that included doing both the standing and running rigging together (i.e., start with the mizzen and run all the rigging, then move to the main mast and do all the rigging, etc.), but obviously you're past that decision point now. A few more suggestions. When it comes to belaying points, it might be helpful to fix lines starting at the center of the model and work your way outwards. Also, if possible, consider not fixing the standing backstays until towards the end of the rigging. I don't know how I would have gotten to the center belaying points if the standing backstays were fixed earlier on (the Badger instructions called for installing all the standing rigging, then do all the running rigging). Along those lines, if you are going to add small boats, I went ahead and installed them before starting much of the rigging. The Badger instructions called for them to be installed as the very last item on the build, but I have no clue how anyone could add them once all the rigging was on. I'm sure you'll do great whatever you decide. Just watch the elbows!

Hey Chris, congrats on the move, new place, and of course the growing family I set up my workshop in my basement. It's in the unfinished room where my HVAC and water heater are. No windows, about 20% is above grade, and concrete floors. I use two Harbor Freight workbenches placed back to back for a workbench "island," and have a Fein shop vac. I have the Byrnes suite of tools, a sherline mill and lathe and a Dewalt scroll saw that sits on a stand separately. I had a lot of similar concerns on dust collection, lighting, the proximity to the HVAC unit, etc. Since I'm not ripping big boards or anything, and my modeling is very slow, I'm not really making all that much sawdust and got comfortable putting the workshop in that room. I use the shop vac regularly, and hung one of those dust filtration devices similar to the one you linked to from the joists in the ceiling. Mine is a Rikon from Woodcraft which I got when it went on a good sale. The nice thing about the Rikon is that you can set it to run on a timer, so that it continues to run for an hour or longer after I leave the room. If I was doing any heavier work, I likely would have found a different place to put my workshop given that the room is enclosed and contains the HVAC unit (even though the air intake to the HVAC is from outside the room). That being said, I don't spend all my time on my builds in that room. I usually spend most of my time working on the model or various assemblies for it in my living room. Other than that, I added overhead fluorescent lighting over the workbenches and a few of those cushy standing mats around the workbenches (they actually make a big difference to your comfort if you are standing!). I am envious of people with nicer workshops with TVs, windows and finished walls and the like (though, working with power tools, it's probably better for me at this stage to not have any distractions). Until my kids move out, which won't be for a couple of decades, that's not really an option for me at this moment. Maybe if I didn't have twins the second time around, but not much I can do now Let us know what you decide!

Hi Mike, great start on your Unicorn. Ian and John have great build logs on here with a lot of information. I started the Unicorn, which I decided to convert to her sister ship, the Lyme. I'm taking a break from it while I get a little more experience on the Pegasus (especially since I plan on scratching a lot of the Lyme), but will turn back to it in the near future. In any event, welcome to the club I agree on moving the figurehead. It's a bit tricky using the kit piece as it's fairly narrow, and I think more narrow than the stem in some areas. I still think it can be done though. Take a look at my log for where I originally thought I would install the figurehead (now I'm planning on using a lion as the figurehead which is what the Lyme used).

Subscribed. This is going to be awesome. I have the CWM on my shelf and will be following your log. No pressure

Great work so far Charlie. Keep taking your time on getting the lines right - all this work will pay off in dividends in the end.