Landlubber Mike

I guess for me, 1/8" or more picks up a lot of wood cuts. If you wanted something smaller, I suppose you could always run the cut off the side of the blade opposite the fence?

I suppose another thing you could try to do is have the cut pieces come off the side of the blade opposite the fence so that you are not limited by the 1/8" leg. You would still run the Grip-rrr against the fence for a straight cut - the downside of doing this is that you would have to continually adjust the fence after each cut if you wanted to cut identical strips - a bit hard to do with precision.

Hey Tom, The Gripper works by keeping one leg against the fence and then another leg on the other side of the blade. You can't cut pieces any thinner than the leg against the fence. I suppose you could modify the leg to be thinner (though, it's tough plastic so I'm not sure how easy that would be) or not use the leg against the fence and hope that you can use the block to push the wood stock on a straight path through the blade. You could maybe use some kind of spacer I suppose the same thickness as the wood you are cutting and put it in between the fence and the wood to be cut, but I'd have to think about it and wonder if that would work. If you're looking for pieces thinner than 3mm, I suppose you could always try cutting them by hand?

Hi Martin, I bought mine from Amazon. It's actually marketed for full-sized table saws, but I found a youtube video where someone used it on a mini table saw which made me feel comfortable buying it. I bought the 200 model which allows you to do a little more, but just installed the components for the standard 100 model. I also bought the optional 1/8" leg to rip narrower planks (the 100 and 200 models come with a 1/4" and 1/2" leg standard, which are a bit too large for some planks). Having seen pictures of table saw injuries and experienced kick back myself, I have been very nervous about using the table saw. I tried using feather boards, push sticks, etc., but nothing really seemed to work well enough. The Grr-ripper really is a game changer. It's important to maintain a healthy respect for the saw, but using this device makes using the saw almost foolproof when it comes to safety.

Thanks SpyGlass, we'll see if the stain approach looks good, or if I end up treating the model as kindling On the mast holes, I did test the holes during the deck template installation and they seemed to work fine. I can always expand the holes a bit if necessary, but you're raising a good point in that I should confirm that things are ok. Installing the deck template is a bit nerve wracking - you have a lot to glue, and not much time to keep things centered, the deck pinned down to the tops of the bulkheads and spine of the keel, etc. I'm not looking forward to the gunport patterns which are much harder to install

Thanks very much Alistair for this advice. Now that you mention it, I think you noted this on your build log. I considered doing this, but I didn't want to cut a full length plank for a variety of reasons - and given the issues I had with cutting straight planks, I would have potentially wasted a lot more material. The main reasons for not taking that approach were (1) I'm planning on going with the TFFM deck planking layout, which uses a lot of custom cut planks (with curved planks, anchor stock planking, etc.), and (2) the only portion of the deck that will be visible is in the waist area (the area under the forecastle and quarterdeck are more for practice, and I'll probably cheat in not fully adhering to the TFFM layout in those sections). I used my iPhone to take pictures, and given the angle, etc., I think there's just an artifact in the picture where it appears that there is some drift. I'll measure again tonight, but I was very careful and actually reinstalled the plank after I found it had some slight drift on the first installation. It's also a bit hard to see in the pictures, but what I did to avoid further drifts in the waist area was to draw lines parallel to the center line in the waist area. Those will help me to keep the planking from drifting too much. As long as the waist is centered, I won't care if there's much drift in the other areas where the planking won't be seen anyway. We'll see if it all works out in the end. The nice thing about using custom planks as opposed to straight planks is that I can account for small differences and drift. The bad thing about using custom planks is that I'll have to cut custom planks

I made some more progress tonight - I installed one whole deck plank between the main hatch and the fore hatch! Actually, a lot of work has gone into just making this one plank. I am using 0.5mm maple for my deck planking. I was having a lot of trouble cutting straight planks with my Byrnes saw, as the wood is close to paper thin and would at times slide under the fence or even ride up over the saw blade. I tried hand cutting the planks with a little better success, but still not good enough. So, I tested out the Microjig Grr-Ripper with the 1/8" leg option. Man, that device is a godsend. It supports the wood piece perfectly, so you don't have to worry about adding fingerboards, using push sticks, etc. This plank is 6mm, but with the 1/8" leg, I think I calculated that I could cut planks down to about 3mm in width. I wholeheartedly recommend it, and I'm actually surprised that more people aren't using it on MSW. It's not cheap, but for the added safety, it pays for itself many times over. Here is a picture in case people are interested: I should be able to zip along a little faster now that I've worked out my plank ripping issues. I'm just about done with making the upper deck furniture (made the capstan step last night), but I still need to decide on whether to stain the pear a little darker. In the meantime, I tested wipe-on poly, Danish oil and Tung oil on some test maple pieces. Wipe-on poly barely impacted the finish, and Danish oil made it a bit too yellow for my taste. Tung oil gave a nice richness to the maple, so I will likely go with that. I used Tung oil on my Badger build, and really liked how it brought wood to life.

Funny you should mention that Bill. Tonight I used the Microjig Grr-Ripper for the first time with my Byrnes saw and absolutely loved it. I am surprised more people on here aren't using it. It is fantastic - easy to use, keeps your hand away from the blade, and you no longer need to deal with featherboards, etc. Well worth the money in my opinion. I used it to saw 0.5mm maple sheets for deck planking. I was having trouble cutting straight planks due to the fact that the wood was thin as paper and would slip under the fence at times, or even ride up over the blade. The Micro jig worked like a charm and made cutting straight planks a breeze - and with 100% safety. I wholeheartedly recommend it. Here is a picture of it in case people are interested.

Hi Martin, Sorry about the labels - I see that on the second pic I labeled two pieces the same color. If you need clarification, let me know I actually stained the gratings to make them slightly darker. The gratings in the pictures show the effect of the stain. I used Minwax but a week or two later, the gratings still stink. Since I have to sand in the camber, I might just restain the gratings with the General Finishes Country Pine or Early American. It's a bit tricky to put together the gratings and hatches, as I'll be using two different stains and when I sand in the camber, I'll need to re-stain the gratings. So, I haven't glued in the gratings into the hatches yet. It's also tricky in that I want to butt the deck planks against the hatches - it's probably easier to run the planks, and then sand the hatches back to size. Alternatively, I could finish the hatches and glue them down, and then run the planks. The latter approach is probably easier to get a perfect line of planks running fore to aft between the deck items (i.e., the planks butting up against the head ledges), but the first approach is probably the easier way to get the planks to butt against the coamings. Fun times.

Hi Alistair, thanks for looking in. I really was intending to build the kit mostly out of the box, but my goal of not using any paint forced me to down the path of replacing some of the kit wood given that the walnut was all over the place in color. It's been a bit of a detour, and it forces me to think three steps ahead, but it's been an interesting process. I'm not in any rush to complete models, as the journey to me is more interesting than the destination (and my wife isn't too keen on me turning our house into a ship model museum). That being said, I think on my Lyme build I'm just going to stick with pear and boxwood, and not try to stain anything aside from ebonizing the pear for the wales, spars, etc. That build is complicated enough given that I'm almost completely scratch building it

I've been slowly working on the deck hatches and companionways. In the meantime, I thought I would share the results of some General Finishes stains that I tested on plywood (first pic) and on pieces of scrap pear. The reason for the stains is that I'm hoping to go a little darker on my build, and the pear is a bit light for my liking. Included in some of the pics are two companionway coamings and a grating that still needs to be sanded back, corners rounded, etc. I thought about going with walnut, but with pear having superior characteristics and workability for modeling, I thought I'd try staining pear a little darker. You can see the stains I tested in the pictures above. I also tried out a few colored stains as you can see - Yellow, Amber and Blue. Yellow is fairly yellow, but the Amber might be an interesting stain to lay over boxwood if you want to darken it a bit. I was very interested to see the results of Blue. Some Pegasus builds use a bluish color on the upper hull. I thought about possibly going with a french blue, but didn't want to use paint. It looks like the blue stain could work nicely. Back to the brown stains. The country pine barely changed the color of the pear, but did darken it slightly similar to what pear treated with tung oil looks like. The others worked very nicely on pear, darkening it considerably. I'm still undecided on which to use. I plan on matching up the upper hull planking with the hatch coamings - walnut might be too dark, but I think Light Brown and Antique Oak could work out very nicely. I have a little more time, so I'll mull it over before making a decision. I'm quite excited by my results though.

Nice work, looking forward to following your build. Very nice Unicorn - a number of us on here are building the same kit at the moment.

Wow, this is really incredible work Kees. Thank you for sharing your journey and techniques with us - I've learned a lot today reading your build log

Very nice work Vince. I like the dark walnut for the hatch coamings.

Nice work Joe. Cannon rigging is tricky business, I'm sure you're glad to get the 2mm blocks behind you A week of golf and ship modeling sounds ideal. I'm jealous!

That's my preference as well. On my first build, I loved where I used stains and oils, but was less satisfied where I used paints - to me, it seems to impart a more "plastic-y" look to a build, and you lose the wood quality. Not saying that the painted/clean look isn't nice, but I just like models that have more of an aged, patina look. I look forward to your guide, thank you for sharing!

For my Badger sails, I relied heavily on Lees and TFFM Vol. 4. TFFM Vol. 4 cites to Lees often (and Steel if I remember correctly), so it was more like a compilation of sources based on the author's research. Both were very helpful

Chris, thanks very much for sharing your info on this post. I agree 100% that what distinguishes the really amazing models out there from the very good is the finish and decorations (at least that's my relatively novice opinion). I'm testing out some of these techniques on my Pegasus and Lyme using stains and oils for woods, and plan to test out undercoats/washes/dry-brushing highlights and lowlights onto the decorative pieces - eventually, I'll try carving. I saw that folks in Europe were using bitumen, and I've always been curious as to what it is, how it is applied, etc. Hope you're getting some sleep these days. My twins are a year and a half now, and I feel like we've finally turned the corner.

What damage? There was damage? Very nice work Frank, very clean planking.

This is really great work Chris. I especially love your technique for the cast metal parts - I'm planning on using the exact same approach on my Pegasus, and love the Warhammer colors and inks that you used. I'll have to check them out . For the wood sections, I was planning on using stains to get a more aged look, which seem to give a similar effect to the inks you are using. I was wondering how all these techniques would look on a model ship, as I used them to relatively good effect when I painted miniatures as a kid Sorry about your issues with the parts and the plans. I ran into the exact same issue with my Corel Unicorn kit where even the plan sheets disagreed with each other. Interestingly, from the colors and shapes and plans, it looks like Mamoli and Corel are using very similar woods and parts for the skeleton of the build (keel and bulkheads). I've pretty much had to scrap the Corel plans and just go figure things out on my own. I'm subscribed to your log - looking forward to future updates, and thank you very much for sharing your techniques!

It's interesting - the wood cuts very cleanly and seems to be tightly grained, but it just broke without much stress at all. Makes we want to get the gunport pattern on as soon as possible to give the extensions added stability. On a more positive note, I got an email from Woodcraft that my order of General Finishes stains has been shipped.

Hi guys, thanks very much for all the responses, I really appreciate it! BE and Alistair, that's very helpful information, thank you! Alistair, I know what you mean about hiding the details. I figure that I'll actually cheat a little with the run of the planks under the forecastle and quarterdeck, but try to accurately show the planking pattern at the waist. Even though the planking will be hidden, it will be good practice for when I plank the fore deck and quarterdeck, and for planking in general. Spyglass, I still need to go ahead and fair the bulkheads. I'm not really looking forward to this task, which is why I've delayed and have been working on the upper deck. I'll probably start that soon though - the picture on your log is very helpful, thank you! Martin, I think I might cheat a bit at the ends when it comes to curved planks. I'll probably just keep them as straight tapered planks, mostly to save on wood stock. We'll see how it goes though. One thing on the redheart - it might be a little more fragile than it looks, even as a close-grained wood. I picked up my Pegasus by the hull as well as one of the bulkhead extensions, and the redheart extension snapped in two (maybe it was just the piece I used that had some kind of structural defect). I was able to glue it back, but I'm a bit concerned about it's structural integrity when it comes down to fairing the bulkheads and planking (of course, it was bulkhead 1). Anyway, just have to be careful I suppose. Thought I would pass that along.

I spent the day plotting out the upper deck. I'm going to attempt to plank it as in TFFM, with curved planks and all. I'm also going to try and add the mast partners, which should add a nice touch as in Alistair's log. Excuse the mess - I got a little stain on it the other day. It took a bit of time, as I'm using both the kit's plans, TFFM and the NMM plans. In a few areas, I'm deviating slightly from the measurements of the hatches in the kit plans - mostly, to conform to TFFM and so that I can butt the planks against the hatches, rather than lay the hatches on the deck planking. So, it does take some planning. I plotted out the deck items, the king plank, and the seven or so planks between the king plank and the start of the anchor planking. In the waist area between the fore hatch and the main hatch, the planks are relatively straight, so I marked them out as the base for the rest of the planking. The lines perpendicular to the planking are frames on which the butts of the planks will sit. Aside from the planking run, I'm making one pretty big change from the kit plans. The kit has the after hatch immediately behind the bitts. From TFFM and the NMM plans, however, it looks like the bitts actually ran through the after hatch. It makes things a little more complicated, but hopefully it shouldn't be too bad. After transferring the plans over to the upper deck template, I went ahead and glued it to the hull. The extra supports I added were of great help - thanks very much to all who recommended adding them. Without the supports, the template would have a tendency to "tent" up at the seam in those open areas. I used plenty of push pins as you can see in the picture below, and also some weights in some of the unsupported areas. All in all, a bit of progress and I can finally start planking the deck Question for the other Swan class builders out there. I was looking at Volume 3 of TFFM today, and the author built his Pegasus adding a full bulkhead under the aft portion of the forecastle. Has anyone else considered doing this? I'm not sure that I want to go that route, but just thought I'd ask to see if anyone else considered it.

Gorgeous picture John. You're right, I did visit her after she returned. I'll have to find my pictures and send them to you in case you want others. I tried taking a lot of pictures of the deck items and the outside, but at the same time had to keep an eye on my 4-year old who loved running around the "pirate ship."

Thanks Martin, hope that means that they will turn the order around quickly I think my last order with them arrived within a week.