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I guess the technique for tightening up loose frames is pretty intuitive and obvious. I glued some thin strips into strategic places and now have the frames glued in. When they are dry, I'll install the deck and then see about that pesky rabbet. Below is a my super cheap Central Machinery 1" belt sander. It did a great job of shaping the bow filler blocks. It'll do a nice job of beveling your knuckles too. The next pic shows the gaps between the frame and keel. The rest are of the glued-up framework. This model shipbuilding is pretty fun--so far...
 
Thanks for reading.
 
Steve
 
 

Thanks Tom
I am one who likes having various things to so I don't get stuck on something
I know it's still ship building, but the ship is so different it will be like doing something different
 
Ah hi there Sjors
Great to have you on board   
 
Now you know me
Hard at work always 
Working mebbe a shade too fast   
So here's how I am going
 

 
Here the one piece lower part of the hull is fitted and the first plank is pinned into place
 

 
Here is a view to show the line of the planks
Quite a curve to bend to similar to the Endeavour
 

 
In fact that curve made the use of the white glue impossible for me so I made use of thick CA and here she is planked out and with a quick sand
A lot more sanding to do obviously
 

 
Another view showing the inner hull before it get covered up
 

 
And finally the almost finished hull
The fit of the deck was not perfect and I had to open some of the slots up slightly and as the middle part of the deck is left bare I may use some veneer strips to make it look perfect 
It does seem wierd that it was out as I treble checked all the frames for vertical   
When I do the other half I will make use of the deck to get them fitted to it
 
I may sand the hull down a bit tomorrow, but I will also do some work on the Endeavour   

Both gun port patterns in place, and they look to be even and have good smooth runs which mirror each other well. I also framed out the stern cabin light with some basswood sheet and painted it black since those ports will be open and there is nothing in there. The forward one will be finished once I install the quarterdeck bulkhead a little later on. 
 
That's it for today, off to my son's baseball game. 
 
 

Just spotted a possible issue.
 
The four stern extensions don't stick out the same distance. I made sure everything was square and even, and got the two outer ones angled ins lightly as is proper, but not sure why they are protruding differently. The outer two are not out as far as the inner. All are flush with the last bulkhead. 
 
It would be easy enough to shim them, and as it is now it doesn't look like the transom would lay flat. 
 
 

I was looking for something a bit different for my next build, and most assuredly did not want to copper, having done so on my last three builds, so after much thought I have settled on the Caldercraft Granado. There are some nice builds of her going on her on MSW which have given me some great ideas and nice inspiration. 
 
The kit is very nice right out of the box, with decent looking wood, nice fittings and excellent plans and instructions. I have yet to decide how far I'm going to go with changes and alterations wood wise, but I have some time to decide on that. 
 
So...let's get started!
 
She's upright on her building board with rabbet and bearding line cut and the first few bulkheads installed. I'm glad we saved (my now teenaged sons') Legos!
 
Nothing too exciting yet...
 
 

Minor progress with the chain plates pinned in place. A mast was put in place and some rigging line tied off to give the run of the chainplates.
I pulled my old Sherbourne out recently to contribute to a display of my dad's woodwork and boats and noticed I must have fixed the chainplates as per the plans rather than following the rigging line. It's only noticeable on the Sherbourne now I know what to look for but I'm keen to avoid that mistake with Granado.


The fleet takes in the last of the autumn sunshine together.

Channels unvarnished but pinned on.
There are elbow brackets that sit on the tops of the main channels that are provided in the kit as photo etch but it simply looks too thin so they will be fabricated out of kit walnut. Probably ply with the laminated surfaces painted.
There's also a couple of pedestal brackets on each side to sit on the main channels.

Building beer of the day is a Black Duck Porter from Hawkes Bay Independent Brewery. A London style porter with some decidedly chocolate and coffee tones and possibly a hint of smoke. Nice but a bit syrupy so one is certainly enough.

Channels and chainplates under construction. The facing on the outside was 2mm walnut, the 1.5mm recommended in the kit seems too narrow.


Facing yet to be trimmed but here is a problem in the offing- one of the sweep ports on the main channel on the starboard side is too far to the rear. As a result it's partially obstructing the chain plate. It's not quite as bad as it appears on the pic as the chain will be slanted further aft but it looks a little awkward compared to the others. The port side is fine but I'm wondering how I got one positioned about 4mm off.
Tomorrow I might shave the port lid and hinge off and see if I can shift it forward a couple of millimeters without exposing the port hole.
Any other suggestions welcome.

I'm filling in for someone else at work so am on 2-10pm shifts. It's quite surprising how much i can get done in a morning before having to head to work - that includes cooking dinner for the family, hanging out washing and occasionally seeing my beloved. When working 'bankers hours' of 8am-5pm i'm just too tired to do any modelling at night. On those weeks it's 2-3 hours on a sunday afternoon in the garage for modelling if i'm lucky with my three lovely girls roller blading or scootering around me. good times.
Anyway onwards to some building.
Today involved some gratings. The Granado has only two gratings with the largest on the fore deck almost under the forecastle.
This is a lot less than the four included on something much smaller like the shrebourne. The other is yet to come on the poopl deck.
A simple jig involving two timber strips keeps the grates in place during construction. The top one is my old faithful ssquare edge sander made from a sushi chop stick sanded square with sandpaper glued on- great for evening up gunports.
 

 
Forward grating fixed. It was sanded to a very subtle curve across the top surface. The coamings were shown in the instructions with mitred edges. They look nice but anatomy of the ship shows square edged corners. plainer but correct so that 's what i did.The 3x2mm walnut is a dramatic difference in colour but looks ok. The hard top edges on the coamings were rounded slightly
The main hatch cover was also constructed. I'll wait until the reinforcing planks(walnut) are dry fitted until fixing to make sure they match in width.
 

The insides finished and painted. The small gaps left at the bow due to the notches in the inner gunport patterns were filled. This area will be filed out to take the bowsprit later but it's easier to fill gaps now and get a clean edge than do it later.
 

 

 

The sheer rail presented a couple of minor problems - Firstly it had to bend in three planes to follow the line needed across the upper edge of the gunports and around the bows and they needed to be placed level and correctly for the forecastle deck to sit on. Some test fitting and marking is advised here.
 

 
 
The strip provided is 10mm walnut with the width to take the taper needed on the underside as it slants upwards on the underside towards the bow.
The strip was soaked and clamped in placed for the cruve before cutting. Note how it doesn't clear the gunport on the left as it should. For this reason and to avoid too harsh a taper to get it to align wioth the gunport edge the sheer raile was installed in two pieces - from the bow forward and then another strip from there towards the stern. The edges were sanded in.
 

 

 
Sheer rail cut and tapered on the under edge.
 

 
Sheer rail installed and sanded flush along the top edge of the hull.
 

 

Bow ports lined with any gaps on the inside edges filled and sanded
 

 
 

 
The spirketting was pre-painted and installed with clamps to hold it down. Not entirely happy with the fit along the deck but it's barely noticeable from anything but direct horizontal view, which will be increasingly difficult to see as guns etc are added to the deck.
 

 

 

 
 
 

The Granado has nine sweep ports each side but the instructions make no mention of them until much further into the build. This is a good point to jump ahead and add them if you want as it's hard enough to cut them in on the inside at this point as it is. They are reasonably prominent on the inside of the bulwarks but are not included on the gunport patterns.
If you want them you'll have to mark as shown on the plans and cut them in yourself.
 

 
The instructions offer either open or closed gunports. Obviously if you have them open you'll need to cut the square port all the way through. There's also the option of just adding the closed port and hinge to the outside of the hull with no port being cut on the inside. This is one difference I've noticed between the Victory kits, which appear to have the ports included and presumably pre-cut.
I like the busy feel of the added ports so in they go.
 

 
The ports align with the top of the inner bulwark spirketting - the strip that runs along the bulwark between the gunports and the deck. Before this was added the top edge was marked in pencil and the position of the ports added. The edges were cut on the inside with a scalpel and drilled through from the outside.  A square file and more scalpel work cuts the hole. Given the roughly 3mm size of them and the difficulty of access from the inside it's difficult to get them square further than a couple of mm in but give they'll likely be closed on the outside and painted inside it shouldn't be too noticeable.
 

 

 
 

Thank you Sjors for your encouraging words.,
I continued with the last series of windows and here I had to compromise a bit.
Either not all of the windows fit nicely between the columns or the columns are not in a “straight” line from top to bottom ..
 
This must be because I’m building the stern “blindfolded in the dark”   ...
Anyway, I decided not to redo the windows but decided this time to learn from it for next time..
 
Underneath you will see I had to dig deep in my scrap box to get the wanted curves and to make sure the structure fits onto the ship ..
 

 

 

 

 

 

Wow i didn't realize it had been that long since the last time i posted.
I had to prioritize several other projects @ home & work, .. but now “I have again a bit of spare time left” ..
So I immediately continued with the ST build and here’s the progress so far.
 
I had to think a bit about what to do with the next part of the build: “the stern”, as you can see the provided stern is also made of cast metal .
 

 
I have the intentions to build it from scratch, but I’m not sure how to do it ..
As I have some ideas in my head, I decided just to start with trying-out a few techniques to see if I can make it from wood and just go along with it.
 
I decided to start with the columns (as this seemed to be the easiest part)
Down below an quick visual go-through on how i made them..
 

 

 

 

 

 
Next on the list: windows
The provided windows are nice, but doesn’t seem to fit that perfect and are not made of wood.
 

 
So I came up with the following:
I Leveled several sheets of thin veneer (0.6mm) in between 2Pcs. of thicker wood
 

 
Cutting app. 0.3 mm grooves with equal distance in them with a small router.
 

 
Cutting them on the table-saw in thin strips.
 

 
And “combining” the strips into one “big window”
 

 
And here's the very first "try-out" assembly and result of my efforts so far 
 

latest pictures, planking the hull, planking a slow process as I'm sure many have done many times but this is my first so I have no idea what pitfalls lie ahead.

Hi All,
 
Hi Joe, the Missouri would build into one fine ship, look forward to seeing it one day.
 
Thanks David, it's certainly going to test my patience.
 
Hi Sam, its definitely got some presence.  The Admiral got a shock in the morning when it suddenly appeared on top of the computer desk hutch
 
 
Continuing on, the middle deck which separates the upper and lower hulls comes in three parts.  After careful measuring and using a 600mm steel rule to line everything up I joined the 3 parts using big squares of card cut-offs to bridge the joins.
 
I also placed cut-offs down one side of the centre ‘Keel’ to have a firm edge to hold against when it was time to attach the hull halves.  During glue up I pressed the keel against these cut-offs and stuck down more sandwiching the keel. At I couple of spots I did both sides of the keel and bulkhead. This kept the hull positioned both centrally and longitudinally for gluing.


 
 
When it came time to glue up both halves I placed the horizontal deck upside down on the kitchen counter (and applied more guide scraps) and glued the lower hull down to the deck using PVA glue.  The handy thing about working in the kitchen is I raided the cupboard for tins and jars of soups, sauces etc and used these to weigh down the hull.
 
Once this was left for a hour or so I flipped it over and repeated for the upper deck.
 
Underside of finished hull

 
Topside of finished hull

 
 
Looking down the spine of the hull it is pretty straight(ish), there a few bulkheads slightly to one side or the other but this was my fault due to rushing to get it all positioned before the glue started to go off.

 
 
There is the very slightist twist to the leading edge of the bow.  This is in part to the narrow cross section of the first few bulkheads.  Once you go back 4 or 5 they are wider and support more on the centredeck so resist twisting.  I can get rid of the twist when I come to shape the bow.

 
 
Well the hull frame is more or less complete and as usual being the first time doing this lots of lessons learned and a few ideas to improve the assembly the next time I do a card hull.  Still have the strips of tabs set back from the edge to do.
 
First thing was the amount of gluing surface with the full length of the keel plus all the bulkheads meant that I was working pretty quick during glue up so the PVA didn’t start to skin up.  This caused 1 or 2 little alignment issues.  In future depending on the hull configuration I think I would try locating and gluing the centre keel down first then do the bulkheads.
 
Moving on, apparently only need to fair up and then stick some card strips on to the edges then ‘skin up’ with the hull sections.  This I think would be very difficult to get right, so I am going to get some balsa and bulk up the bulkheads and put in longitudinal stringers before fairing the hull.  Will probably fully fill in the bow and stern with balsa so I can get the correct shapes sanded.
 
Cheers
Slog

Four more guns made up, mounted and rigged -- only four more to go on the gun deck. I can't imagine doing this on a 74. As usual, I added the deck ringbolts. I also ran the anchor cables into the open hatch and added a piece of grating in an open position. Lastly, I tied off the fore lower sheets to their bulwark cleats since they will be unreachable when the deck framing goes on.
 
Bob

Hull done.

The aft section of the spar deck is ready to attach but Revell has several lines secured at the gun deck. I believe they are lower main and foremast halyard clew lines - but they are not labeled and I have not found a label with confidence. The 1927 refit shows this line  to be 3" circumference and this seems small compared to the instructions so more research is needed. At any rate I sized the running rigging to support whatever the research tells me.
 

 
At least it is a starting assortment. There are some color variations so I will need to make a decision of which to use.

THAT IS THAT.
 
 
 
 
 
Tony

So baby steps.  Getting some time in and was able to place the stern side window.
 
I planked a bit of the stern first.
 

 
then measured for the window
 

 
then.....
 

 
ouch...
 

 
and i guess it doesn't look too bad
 

Rich, Robbyn, Thanks!
 
Quick update. While I noodle over how I want to make my trucks I am making the various bits and assorted furniture. I have made the Fore Jeer and Sheet Bits. I think thats what they are called. I am pretty pleased with the Jeer Bits, I may remake the Sheet Bits, they are a little inconsistent on the chamfers.
 
I was really pleased with my tenons on the Jeer Bits, I wish I had taken pictures, they are the cleanest scale tenons I have cut in mahogany since I started this build. I reinforced all the joints with pins after the glue dried. 
 
Once I get a few more parts made I will get some finish on everything.
 
Hopefully this weekend I can make a cutter for the carriage trucks, I want to make them with flat stock instead of dowel rod. Mostly because I have plenty of flat stock and no dowel rod.
 

 

Just a quick update. I have assembled all my carriages to a certain point. Still ned to make the Bolsters, Quoins and trucks as well as all the metal work. 
 

 
I am thinking of displaying with an unconventional arrangement with the carriages lashed sideways, at least the two front carriages. That will hide my oops from earlier. I need t do some research and see how common this was. 
 

 
Sam

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