Littlebob

Wow that is amazing work, the stern painting is great, and your copper work looks perfect.

Well guys and gals it's time for the final update of this build. I posted plenty of pics so check them out and feel free to leave any comments you like. I would like to thank everyone on the forum for all the views and comments I got a lot more than I thought I would.
 
I will start a new build and in a few days with pics of course.

Sounds like you went above and beyond what you need to do to fix the keel, I would send an e-mail and try to get another one.

Time for an update.
 
1. I did a little more work on the stern filler blocks.
 
2. I installed the keel, stem and stern post, all are made from walnut and pinned for strength.
 
3. The false deck was also added. All comments welcome.

Time for an update.
 
1. I did a little more work on the stern filler blocks.
 
2. I installed the keel, stem and stern post, all are made from walnut and pinned for strength.
 
3. The false deck was also added. All comments welcome.

Well done your plank work looks very good, I really like the area around the stern that is always a pain.
 
As you said I have never seen a build of this interesting kit until now, I will be following along with great interest.

Hi.
Many thanks four likes and help.
 
I have glued the decks into place.

Not forgetting the holes for the Masts.
Then trimmed the excess decking off.

Antony made up some small doors to add onto this.

 
Next I added the bulkheads between the deck levels.


Antony was not happy to use the timber suppled with the kit so he made up the bulwarks with plywood.

We used brass nails to hold the bulwarks in place while the glue dries.

Antony says we can file the heads away later.
 
Thanks Alex S.

Shaping and testing the middle parts of the foremast and main mast

Well done Pete, that boat looks fast standing still.

Thank you Kees, I made the Boom for the boat today ( So the masting has started, I had already made the Mast , I still have to add the Spraeders) after adding the thru Deck Fittings for the Stays, and the Toe Rail , I painted the Deck.
 
Thanks Piet, I am really into these Boats, they are just Amazing. I am having a great time building this one . I re- Faired the Hull this morning and decided to take away some of the Blue on the Deck .
 
Best Regards,
Pete
 
Here are the results

Thanks for the nice words. I am very happy because I was absolutely unsure if ever someone likes what I do. I have not so much experience and try a lot without knowing whether it succeeds.

As you can see, I have now closed the first piece doors. Again, I used walnut strips for this purpose. I have it installed so that they protrude half a millimeter. So they are not flush with the planking of the ship. I know that this is not quite correct. But I think that they are now better seen as gates.

Yards and booms fitted.



 

My erratic build continues. It is becoming harder to find enough time lately to sit down and spend any time on my build. I was lucky last week as I was able to spend a couple of un-interrupted hours on it.
 
Some pics of where I am at.
 



After advice from a post here, I decided on Brass Black for my brass fittings. After a bit of experementing, I am happy with the result. I found that soaking the fittings in a diluted solution of Hydrochloric Acid first, the Brass Black gave a much better result.



I have attached the rigging blocks to the masts & yards.



I couldn't help myself, I had to see what she looked like with masts & bowsprit on. Starting to really look like a ship now.
Hopefully more progress soon.
 
Dave
 

Time for an update.
 
1. I did a little more work on the stern filler blocks.
 
2. I installed the keel, stem and stern post, all are made from walnut and pinned for strength.
 
3. The false deck was also added. All comments welcome.

To glue, or not to glue?
 
I've assembled my first (fore) mast which went smoother than anticipated.  I started by shaping the lower foremast by using the method described by Dziadeczek in the ‘How to Taper Masts’ post by using two paint stirring sticks.  I glued the sandpaper to one side of each stick and set the taper between the sticks as per the plans.  I then chucked the dowel in my portable drill and fed the dowel in between the two sticks.  One problem I had was that the paint sticks seemed to be too flexible and the top stick tended to bow upward as the dowel was inserted.  I used a sandpaper with a 220 girt which may have been to fine for this application.  I finished shaping the mast by holding a piece on sandpaper between my fingers and running it along the dowel while spinning it with the drill.  After shaping the mast I squared off the top to fit the mast cap but did not glue it in place.  I then painted the top and bottom white.
 
For the mast bands I decided to use some of the left over copper tape used for the hull.  I had seen this in craigb’s Phantom build log and thought it was a good solution.  I cut the tape lengthwise into 1 mm wide strips and wrapped them around the mast.  Next I drilled the holes in the bands for the eye bolts and glued them in place.  I decided to position the eye bolts for the shrouds 90 degrees from what was shown in the practicum.  I did this because after having a difficult time threading the thin foot-rope thread and thicker bowsprit guy thread through the same eye bolt I didn't think I would ever get the two thicker shroud lines through the same hole.  Instead I will attach the two shrouds to a shackle and insert the shackle through the eye bolt. Before gluing the mast cap to the mast I drilled the holes for the span iron and eye bolt.  After gluing the mast cap in place I glued the eye bolt into it but not the span iron.  I will leave this free to move and will glue it in place after I rig the jib stay line to get its proper angle.   I then painted it all white.
 

 
Next I chucked the dowel for the top foremast into the drill and shaped it by holding sandpaper between two fingers.  At this point I tied all the blocks to the individual masts.  I thought it would be easier to do each mast separately then when they're combined.  I still find tying these very difficult.  Don’t know if it’s just lack of experience; or my fingers are too big; or I can’t see too well anymore, probably a combination of all three.   In spite of my short comings I attached all the blocks.  I then inserted the top foremast through the mast cap and wrapped the bottom with more copper tape.  Finished by touching up the paint.
 


 
Now back to my original question.  Chuck’s practicum says to glue the mast to the model, but the directions that came with the kit recommends not gluing the mast and using the rigging to hold it in place.  I was just wondering what the general consensus is on this. So, to glue, or not to glue, that is the question.

Today I've created the top for aft companion using 1 mm thick tanganyika. The little windows were the hardest, but the wood held together, so my first go was successful one. 
 
Looks like I will have to mend it a bit to make it flush with the gratings.
 
 

 

 

A relatively simple, but tedious, job underway. I am making and installing the remaining gunport lids (earlier, I had done a few just to see how they would look and fit). As can be seen from the photos, I added the PE brass hinges and eyebolts only  to the lids that won't be covered by the channels. For whatever reason, the tight tolerances under the channels wouldn't allow for them (they will be completely covered and invisible in any event).
 
The lids are made from boxwood strip matching the hull planking with an inner piece painted red. The PE hinges are from the kit. The lids are pinned as well as glued for strength.
 
Next will be the channels.
 
Bob

I have finally made it back home. After some thoughts if I should move my workplace to the nuclear disaster shelter or my room, I opted for my room, as the light down there is relatively dim.

(sorry for the bad quality of the image)
 
Today I couldn`t make any progress, tomorrow the handrails will hopefully be finished and I shall start planning for the cabin, after finding some great but few builds with the interior decorated, I want to give it a plan and am ready to fail/succeed. One question that rests upon my mind is how I shall varnish and stain the hull, any suggestions are welcomed. By the way the Vasa museum was amazing, a real beauty. It was the first time I had to make a queue to enter a museum, it was worth the waiting. 

Hi guys here is my next build the Halifax.
 
I saw this kit on ebay for a very good price, it was new and still sealed so I could not resist. I have a few other reasons for choosing this kit, below.
 
1. I wanted a ship from the mid to late 1700 period.
2. I wanted a ship with a few more cannons than the Virginia.
3. I wanted a kit that would be a little more detailed.
4. More important than the first 3 reasons, I wanted more rigging.
 
I have checked the kit everything looks good all accounted for and no damage except a warped false keel. I already like this kit better than the Latina kit, the wood looks pretty good, the instruction appear to be a little better and more important most but not all of the fittings are wood.
 
I could only post a pick of the box as in the process of correcting the warped keel I snapped it in half oops! to bad I almost had it straight, it has been glued and clamped but I want it to dry over night.
When it dries I will add some ply wood along the break for strength. All comments welcome.

The finished model looks awesome. I am starting to learn that a lot of the Al kits are to be polite just a bit off.

Antony and Dave – you are flattering me (it feels good, I admit). There is really no big story to tell; I’ve spent the last few weeks preparing parts and pieces (and sometimes throwing them away again). I spent many hours with the serving machine I’ve made earlier. Here an example: The sling for the stay sail, which will go around the mast after the stays and the hanger for the square yard, shown on the right. The stay sail halliard has already been bent on.
 

 
The next great challenge will be the fitting of all the parts in the crosstrees, where it is already crowded. This is mainly because I just “shrunk” the masts to fit Sherbourne’s small hull, when the shrouds and stays (which are not yet here) do not shrink to the same proportions…
 
 
 
My biggest mistake so far was that I glued on the cap before bending on the shrouds. That made the job unnecessarily challenging.But now that I’ve put together all the prepared lines, I see there is some progress.
 
 
 
Still missing are the main and preventer stays with their mice – another thing that lets me believe that Petersson’s model has a very much younger rigging added later: There the main stay is simply spliced together. 
Cheers,
Gregor

..An minor update..
I’m working on some details for the channels, chains and lower deadeyes.
The instructions/drawings are not really revealing anything about this, so I searched the forum/internet for as much detail as possible.
 
I started with straps for the lower deadeyes and ended up with these:
 

 
If you’re interested, I show in another topic in “Wooden Tips and Tricks and Making Jigs”  LINK how I made these.
 
..The ST uses chains to fix the lower deadeyes to the hull..
According to the instructions this is simply done with a “nail”, but this seemed a bit to basic for me..
 

 
So again after searching the net I found out that these are normally fixed in place with help of an “preventer”.
I made one, and it looks much better already but I still wasn’t really satisfied.
 

 
So I made another version which I think looks better, but is (off course) more difficult and time consuming to make..
 

 
Here’s a picture showing all 3 solutions.
.. during blackening of the provided nails i also found out that they are not made of brass/copper  .. 
 

 
.. I think there’s no other way and I have to settle for solution no.3 ..

Way past time for an update.
 
In this update I faired all the bulkheads and filler blocks, I still have about 15 or 20 minutes of hand sanding just to clean things up a little. I know my bulkhead filler blocks look sloppy that's because I used what ever scrap I had on hand.
 
I will try to keep the updates coming a little faster. Next up I will add the false deck and a few planks and that's when the interesting stuff starts. All comments welcome.

Work on the forecastle is now complete. I have made and added the roughtree rail. This was a straightforward task, but still fussy, mostly because of my desire to strengthen it by pinning all of the pieces.
 
The first job was to make the stanchions from boxwood strip, paint them black and then pin and glue them to the cap rail. I then made the rails themselves. Initially, I had thought that I would cut them from boxwood sheet, but decided to try bending them to shape from boxwood strip. Somewhat surprisingly, I found that I could edge bend 1/16" x 5/32" strip using boiling water and my old electric plank bender. I added the pin rail portion with additional pieces of bent strip. After rounding the edges, I prepainted the rails, drilled the holes for the belaying pins, added pins for the attachment to the knight heads and then glued the rails to the stanchions and the knight heads. Once the glue had set, I drilled through the rails and into the stanchions and used brass wire pushed into the holes with a drop of CA to pin them. After cutting off the wire and filing it smooth, I then did the final painting and added the belaying pins.
 
The result is a fragile looking structure that should be strong enough to withstand rigging stress. I'm pleased. My avoidance of the headwork will continue for a while as I do the channels and the remainder of the port lids.
 
Bob

Time for an update.
 
I was able to salvage the false keel, I had to use a lot of 3/4 by 3/4 stock and dowels to get it straight and remove the warp, I also added the kit filler blocks at the bow and stern.
 
I think I may add another set of filler blocks between the first and last bulkheads to ease the planking process. All comments welcome.