Landlubber Mike

The new windlass color looks like a much better match. Nice decision to bite the bullet and build a new one. Preparation of the cannons takes forever, especially if you rig them. Nice in some ways in that it's a repetitive task that you can get into a rhythm doing, but I'm still glad my models have fewer guns than some of the big ones out there.

Thanks very much Spyglass. At this scale, I think it's beyond my capabilities to come up with an angled miter joint - would be more historically accurate, but I think the box joint should suffice. If this was an admiralty model, maybe I would try to use angled lap joints, but the deck will be busy enough that I went with box joints. On the camber thing, I'm probably going to sand a very slight camber of 0.5-1mm into the hatch. The hatch will sit on the deck template and not on top of the planking, so with 0.5mm planks, the top and bottom tongues of the joint will roughly match - at least that's the plan Thanks Martin - I'll let you know the results of my stain tests. I'm a little annoyed at Woodcraft in that I ordered the stains last Sunday, and last night got an email that the order is "in process." So, I might not get the stains for another week which is a bummer. On the ladders, I should take a better look at TFFM - maybe they say something about the orientation.

Hi John, glad to see you're back! Hope you had a nice trip. Your Morgan looks fantastic - I was able to visit her a month ago, and can't wait to start building her. Looking forward to checking out your website. That sounds like a very handy one-stop-shop for all things Morgan related. Thanks for doing that!

I've made a little more progress on the Pegasus this past week. After putting together the grating pieces, I cut them to the appropriate size (or thereabouts) using a small X-acto saw blade, and then used my disc sander to square the pieces. You can see that the kit gives you plenty of extra grating pieces, which was nice. I used Minwax "golden oak" to darken them a bit. I like the color, but man, that Minwax stuff stinks. The stains from General Finishes seem to not have much odor to them, or at least the odor doesn't persist like the Minwax stuff. I've also been plotting out the upper deck planking pattern, and started to work on the hatches. I made the fore hatch which will have a ladder down to the lower deck. I decided to use the TFFM measurements, and went with a 24mm x 24mm size. The kit plans have the hatch a bit more rectangular (I think 21.5 x 23.5mm or so). On my Badger, I think I just glued four wood strips together (I might have gotten fancy and mitered the corners, I forget). Here, I decided to use box joints like my fellow Swan class builders. I think the joints came out fairly well. I first marked out the joints on the four wood strips, then used a small Xacto saw blade to the the vertical part of the joint, and then finished with chisels, needle files, and sanding blocks. I still need to round the corners above the deck level, but otherwise, the first hatch came out pretty well. I have to say that it was fun cutting out the hatch. Using my Byrnes table saw and disc sander, I had a great time, and better yet, I think I'm getting pretty good results. The picture below shows the hatch (in pear) on top of the stained gratings. I don't think the colors work very well together. The pear will turn a warm light brown when treated with tung oil, but not dark enough I don't think. So, I'm waiting for some General Finishes stains to arrive and I can test out what would work. I'm thinking a more darker medium brown (like walnut) would look much better. Just out of curiosity, does anyone know how the ladders are positioned in the companionways? The plans show them running athwartships, but I didn't know if it mattered whether they went down from port to starboard, or from starboard to port.

Really nice work Bill. Glad your arm is feeling better

Hey J Sherrod, did you have a chance to watch the DVD? I'm curious what you thought. I have a table saw book as well, but I think seeing what you can do with the table saw, as well as safety issues and tips, would be a very good thing.

Nice score I bought the same scroll saw a year ago off of Craigslist as a "used once for 5min" deal. Paid a bit more that you did and got the stand (nice) and light (not as necessary), but it's a very nice tool. I've used it quite a bit the last few months and it does the job nicely.

You won't regret it I was originally planning to just buy the disc sander and table saw, but thought why not buy the thickness sander and ordered it. I've used it a few times already, and it, like his other machines, is built like a tank and very precise. The sandpaper drum can use two different grits at the same time, or one longer sandpaper sheet. I was sanding larger stock so I replaced the sandpaper with a larger sheet, and was very impressed not only by the quality and fit of the parts, and the simplicity and elegance in the design. One other point is that Jim provides great customer service. I sent him an email because of some issues I had with the table saw (user error), and he actually called me over a holiday weekend in response (when I was just expecting a reply email) to walk me through things and make sure I got back on track. You can't beat that. I don't know if there are videos of it in use, but you can probably watch videos of similar hobby thickness sanders from Micromark and maybe Proxxon to get a good idea.

Really nice work Joe as always. Your planking and painting are super crisp. I can see what you mean by the windlass. It does look a bit darker than the other walnut you used elsewhere. I'm running into similar issues with my Pegasus, where the walnut is all over the place in color - very frustrating!

Thanks Mark, that's great information. I bought some maple and holly from Hobbymill - you're right, the maple is not quite as light, and has a little more grain. I want this build to be a little darker and grainier, so I figured maple might fit the bill nicely. I'll have to test out some finishes on it before the final product though. The swiss pear I got from Jeff is a pinkish color. I tested out tung oil on it, and it turned a nice medium brown color. ChrisLBren's Confederacy shows what a well-oiled pear hull will look like - absolutely gorgeous build in my opinion. I'm using General Finishes black stain on my Pegasus build - the walnut seems to take it very nicely, so I'll stick with that finish rather than go the shoe leather dye route. I'll use the shoe leather dye on my Lyme build though, to hopefully get results close to Chris' Confederacy.

Hi Martin, It's good to have a partner in crime on this painting with wood stuff I haven't tried staining or oiling the maple yet - I did try the stain on some scrap basswood (which is roughly the same color as my maple) to get an idea of color changes. You can find that post here: http://modelshipworld.com/index.php/topic/7267-hms-pegasus-by-landlubber-mike-amativictory-models-scale-164/?p=245802 Ultimately, I'll test different finishes/stains on the maple I got from Hobbymill. It's good to know that oiling the maple did bring out a nice rich color to it. I just haven't seen too many gray decks on here (I think I've only seen one on a weathered build, but I forget which build log that was on). By the way, I really like your holly deck. Holly was a bit too white for the look I was going for, so I figured that I would try maple out. Along with the color of the decks, I've been thinking about the planking patterns. The TFFM books show a very unique pattern that mostly uses curved and tapered planks, along with a few rows of anchor stock planking. The benefit of the pattern is that you don't need to create nibbling joints at the margin planks, but otherwise, you're customizing every plank. I don't know if I can pull it off or if it is otherwise worth the effort, but like you (from what I read on your log), I see this as an opportunity to improve my woodworking skills.

Thanks very much guys. I think when you look at some of the master modelers out there, they may be using some type of product that has stain-like properties. Their wood looks like it has a touch of patina to it, which leads me to wonder what they are using. Pear with tung oil turns a very nice lighter shade of brown. I'm planning on using pure natural woods on my Lyme build (pear, boxwood, ebonized pear, and probably redheart) to go with the look that ChrisLBren has with his Confederacy. My Lyme won't be coppered, and so I think Chris' approach would work very well on my Lyme build. For my Pegasus on the other hand, it's going to be coppered, and so the hull won't have much of the base wood exposed. I wanted to go with a darker palette on the build (with dark browns, blacks and reds accented by the maple decks and boxwood railings and masts) - and while I like the look of oiled walnut, the walnut in my kit is all over the place in color. I might try and see if I can salvage enough walnut with uniform color for the upper hull planking and deck items. If not, I will use pear and stain it. Do you guys have any thoughts about using that antique oak stain to get a more grayish hue on my decks? Most decks I've seen for builds on here go with a very light color or a yellowish/light brown color. Thanks!

Hi Mark, this looks great. Just so I'm reading the pictures correctly, you are using the high fence pre-cut, and then on the exit side of the blade, you now have extra space between the blade and the standard fence? Very interesting idea. This leads me to ask - is it necessary to have a fence that runs the full length of the table? I have a Byrnes saw, and used to experience kick back until Jim suggested I push the back end of the fence slightly further out. That seemed to work pretty well, but kick-backs are a pretty scary thing. Has anyone asked Jim or Micromark the reason for not including a splitter? I'm just curious as safety books videos seem to say to use a splitter.

I'm probably the king of indecisiveness at this point. After staining the gratings last night and thinking about stains in general, I'm wondering about using stains more throughout the build. I was planning on replacing some of the kit walnut with pear (the parts that won't be black), since the walnut is all over the place in color. I actually wanted a darker color like walnut for the hull planking and hatch coamings, which led me last night to think about staining the pear a little darker. I sourced my pear from Jeff, so it's a very uniform color and grain and should stain very evenly. Has anyone used stains/dyes other than black on pear? I know some people prefer painting and/or using wood with very tight grain, but I'm thinking that on this build that I want to actually highlight the grain a little so that the ship comes out darker, and more aged looking if that makes sense.

Good point. I think I'm going to cut out the various gratings now, and then glue them together. I already stained them, but I am going to need to sand them for shape and camber anyhow so will just need to re-stain them.

Thanks Mark - I wondered about that. By my calculations, I think I have plenty for all the gratings on the build, but I should double check before I start gluing things

I spent some time last night mapping out my upper deck planking pattern. I realized that it might make more sense at this time to build the hatches, since I will butt the planks against the hatches (as opposed to sitting the completed hatch on top of the planking). So, I started putting together the gratings. Like other kits, the kit gives you enough to create six full sized ones (with two extras), which you then cut down to size to fit the grating you need. The quality of the gratings seems very good. The pieces are clean and fit together very well. I think the wood for the gratings is a little on the lighter side. Since I'm going to use pear or redheart for the coamings (probably pear), I think I'm going to darken them with a little stain. I ended up buying Minwax "Golden Oak" and "Antique Oak" this afternoon, and tested them out on some scrap basswood, which is close to the natural color of the gratings (and the maple I got from Jeff). Golden Oak is on the right: I like the look of the Golden Oak so will use that for the gratings. I'll probably stain the gratings first, then use a very dilute glue wash over them, as I'm not sure if the stain will penetrate the glue wash coating. The Antique Oak surprised me, as it came out more gray than what I thought from the picture on the can. I actually like the look of it for deck planks, as I think decks took on a more gray hue. The Charles Morgan's deck was gray, and so I was wondering whether I needed to use one of the wood ager products out there to get that color hue once I get to that kit. I might test it on some maple scrap to see if I like it. I'm more interested in a darker model with more patina on it than a crisp model, so I'm wondering if the natural maple will end up looking too light. Anyway, just thought I'd share my experiments on here. Back to the shipyard I go.

It's been a few days since I last posted, but not too much progress here. I did end up adding some planks to the lower deck under the upper deck fore hatch (which is open with a ladder). The planks were probably not necessary, but they add a little detail if one looks at the right angle. For the lower deck planks, I ended up using a single lime strip from the kit. I was originally planning to use the tanganyika, but it's a bit more yellow and the lime matches the maple that I'm ultimately planning to use for the decks much better. The size of the lime strips (at 5mm) is probably a closer match to the width I plan to use for my deck planks in general (the tanganyika in the kit is 3mm). The lime in the kit is actually very nice - clean, nice edges, etc. Aside from it being 1.5mm thick, I would almost think that you could use it for the deck planking in general it's that nice. Most of my time has been spent researching the size of planks, how to run the planks on the upper deck, etc. The TFFM series has nice pictures of deck planking plans that one could use. The plans, however, use curved planks, anchor stock planks, etc., making planking a little more complicated than using straight, square planks. At the same time, the TFFM plans are easier in that they don't use nibbling planks into the margin planks. The TFFM plans also have thicker planks with fewer runs (11 or so per side between the king plank and margin plank, versus 18 or so if you use 3mm straight planks per the plans), but require more customization of the planks. I might do a bit of a hybrid by using straight planks for as many runs as possible, then switch over to the TFFM plans. Most of the lower deck planking will be covered up, but it will give me a little practice for the quarterdeck and fore deck planking if I go the TFFM route. In the meantime, I'm going to start preparing the hatches. I plan to attempt to butt planks against the hatches, rather than sit the hatch on top of the planking, so it might make sense to build them and install them first, and then determine the run of planks that will but against them.

I'd say Petersson as the first as well. TFFM is very good if you are planning to add sails to your build. On my Badger, I started with Petersson to get a visual of the rigging, and then used TFFM for the details. For what it's worth, I think Petersson is available on the web somewhere - not sure if it is a permitted or otherwise authorized publication or not, but I think I've seen people post link to those sites here.

Gorgeous work! I love the look of furled sails as you know. I think I'm going to add a mix of furled and full sails on my Pegasus build, modifying my furled sail technique with your improvements. Thanks for sharing!

Thanks guys. I took a look at Dan's log, and he uses a king plank that is 12" wide (4.76mm scaled) and the remaining planks 8" wide (or 3.17mm scaled). Interestingly, it looks like he used a wider king plank for the lower deck, quarterdeck and forecastle planking, but hard to tell if he used a wider plank for the upper deck. Alistair, I liked your approach on your log (though BE's approach of dropping the hatches onto the deck works nicely also). I'm leaning towards doing it your way, which means that I'll need to do a little planning to make sure that things line up properly.

Thank you!

Hi folks, I posted this on my Pegasus log, but was hoping that maybe posting here I would get other thoughts and opinions. I've been doing a little thinking and research on planking the upper deck. I plan to plank a portion of the lower deck under the fore hatch ladder in the waist using the kit supplied tanganyika, since it will barely be visible. Otherwise, the upper deck, the quarterdeck, and the forecastle will be planked with maple. I don't think I'm going to try and precisely line up the butt joints with the supposed locations of the frames from the NMM plans. A big thank you to Ulises and AEW for putting together the deck planking practicum and calculator (available at the link below). Now I understand what a four-butt shift of 1324 means http://modelshipworl...d-downloads.php I had a few questions on the proper deck plank dimensions. The build is at 1:64 scale, and I'm planning on using the four-butt shift from the template in the Ulises practicum. Width of standard planks. I was planning on using 4mm wide planks. At full scale, this results in planks approximately 25 cm wide (or about 10 inches). Length of standard planks. I couldn't seem to find the general range for standard plank lengths. Somewhere in the deep recesses of my brain I recall that planks were something like 12-25 feet in length, but I could be off. The Excel scale planking calculator on the list of resources here suggests using 3.75" long planks (or 95.3mm), which would scale to a length of 20 feet/6 meters. The Bob Hunt practicum says to use 4.5" long planks (or 114mm), which would scale to a length of 24 feet/7.3 meters. For simplicity, I might just go with a length of 100mm. Margin planks. I think I read this information in Goodwin last night, but it sounds like the margin planks are 1.5 times the width of the standard planks. That results in margin planks that are 6mm wide. King plank. I didn't use a king plank on my Badger, but for that kit, the deck template was one piece. Given the Pegasus deck template is in two pieces, putting historical accuracy aside, I'm thinking that a good reason for adding a king plank will be for the mere need to cover the seam between the two halves. Does anyone know if the king plank is generally wider or longer than the standard planks? I read last night (in TFFM I think) that the king plank was a bit taller than the other planks, but at this scale, I don't think that getting into such detail would be visible or otherwise worth it. Do these measurements seem reasonable? Does anyone know if the king plank tended to be wider/longer than the standard deck plank, and if so, by how much? Also, do any of these measurements need to change in planking the quarterdeck and fore deck? Thanks very much in advance!

Thanks guys, this is all very helpful. Alistair, I printed out your templates this morning - hope you don't mind if I shameless steal your work Any sense from anyone about whether the king plank should be wider than the standard planks or not? Maybe I'll post in the planking section as well.

Thanks Steve for chiming in and the pictures. Nice feet I like the pictures of the planking running into the margin planks. Very helpful to see. It also looks like the planks ran straight in the middle and then the ones to the sides started curving in. I'm probably just going to keep my runs with straight planks.