JSGerson

The Next Step At this point I have no instructions on what to do next. The practicum and the kit instructions do not describe the kit bash I’m about to plunge into. After a number of false starts, I thought I would start by making the sills for the gun deck gunports only to quickly realize that I needed a reference point to measure from. This lead me to think I should use the floor of the gundeck, but I had chopped them down to make room for the plywood floor support and planking. If those cuts weren’t perfect, all my subsequent measurements would be off. Also, the wood needed to make those sills was going to be different than what the kit called for because I wasn’t planning to use a lot of the dummy cannons which require a “cannon barrel box” to be fabricated. When I started to research whether I needed to buy additional wood for “my” gunports or if I could recut the kit suppled wood, I checked the practicum to see what Mr. Hunt used for the “cannon barrel box”. I discovered that he didn’t get to that stage until Chapter 3 in his practicum while I was in the middle of Chapter Two where he had come to the same question: where do you measure from? He stated: Even though he is referring to the spar deck, the planksheer reference point will also apply to the gun deck. Hence, the next step is the construction of the waterway. This should be interesting as this element bends and is beveled 45° on the inner side and varying acute and obtuse angles on the outer depending where along its length it meets each bulkhead.

The kit offers, as an option, the creation of bulkhead stiffeners. I took the option. I discovered that as careful as I was making sure the bullheads were installed at eight angles to the keel, there were some differences in distances between the outer edges of the bulkheads from one side to the other by as much as 5/32”. To counter act this, the stiffeners were cut the average of the two sides. So, if I added 1/32” to the port side stiffener, I reduced it by 1/32” on the starboard. This forced the bulkhead to twist back to a right angle.

Then my curiosity got the better of me. I wanted to see what the gun deck looked like on the model. I will have to know where the ladders are located and whether I need to make those or gratings if I leave the stair openings covered. Using the US Navy plans, I matched their scale to the kit’s and printed the layout (3 sheets). These will also be used to make the template for the gundeck support flooring for the planking.

What to do next? What to do…According to the kit instructions, I should be attaching the transom extensions (the aft side of the quarter galleys) but I don’t want to add those on until I’m actually working on the quarter galleys. I’m afraid I could snap those off by accident. But in looking at the transom, I thought I’d better check how the planking boards will curve into the stern. I discovered that I needed to trim more wood off the filler blocks. You can see in the image below, the subtle but significant difference between the untrimmed port side and the trimmed starboard side.

Thanks for the compliment Captain, flattery will get you everywhere with me! Mast Reinforcements Before I go off script again, the next items to be added per Mr. Hunt’s practicum and the kit instructions are the mast reinforcement. These add sides to the mast slots in the keel bulkhead. The main and mizzen mast are constructed the same. The foremast has the added complication that it also is in a slot of a bulkhead. The kit plans state that the pieces are to be 1/8” thick, no width or length is specified. The practicum calls for 1/8” x 5/16” stock (basswood). The problem is that the kit does not supply 1/8” x 5/16” stock. I used 1/8” x ¼” stock which close enough. The main and mizzen masts reinforcements were cut to length by eyeball and glued into place. The foremast had to be notched along one side to allow for the bulkhead to slide by and notched at the bottom so that it could sit low enough on the bulkhead to cover the keel notch. Once those were done, stock dowels for the fore (3/8” ᶲ), main (7/16” ᶲ), and mizzen (5/16” ᶲ) masts were notched to create a mortice to fit into those slots.

Glad that I could be of some help. Some of that stuff really requires fine dainty fingers and a delicate touch, not to mention patience and tenacity. We're lucky if we have one or two of those attributes. Looks good though. Jon

My first attempt to create the rudder top box also failed. I had tried using a block of basswood with a hole drilled into it As I tried to increase the hole size to accommodate the rudder shaft, it obviously got closer and closer to the edge of the block till it structurally failed. The green strip (1/32” basswood) reflects the internal counter bending toward as seen in the actual photo above. Because the rudder top box will not be seen clearly, it did not require much detail other than its overall shape. That meant it didn’t even have to be made from wood. My second attempt, I tried cardstock. Using a single piece of cardstock, I fashioned a pattern with glue tabs which was then folded into shape. It worked. I gave it a splash of stain and you would swear it was made from wood.

Rudder and Rudder Head Box Continuing with my idea of creating an essence of this space and not an actual reproduction, the last major element to be installed in this area was the Rudder Head Box. Since this obviously involves the rudder fitting into the rudder top box, this was a good time to finally shape it. The rudder tapers down top to bottom from 3/16” to 1/8”. It also tapers near the bottom, forward to aft 1/8” to 3/32”. This was done with a very light and delicate touch with the disk sander and elbow grease with a block sander. Interestingly, the plans call for the rudder shaft to be “round stock” but I believe that is not necessary. That part of the rudder is not seen. I checked a lot of the model builds where they show that detail, and no one fully rounded the shaft if they bothered at all. The pictures below show the actual ship rudder in which you can clearly see the taper and my rudder in which I attempted but failed miserably to show the taper I created.

In my last post, I stated that I thought the #3 frames’ “rooster tail” didn’t seem to match up with the other frames’ “rooster tails.” That still may be true, but I decided to leave it for now. Hopefully I’ll know better what the true angle should be when I start building upon it. For all I know at this point, it may be correct. So., I took the plunge and glued the #2 frames into place. The last of the inner frames are the completely modified ones. The more I looked at those frames, the more I disliked them. They didn’t have enough “meat” on them. I wanted something as robust as the original #1 frames in terms of thickness. So, I rebuilt them using the center wood that was punch out and left over from the ship’s boats shells. The vertical and horizontal pieces were then glued into place. Once these were in place, it became obvious that some of my notches for the cross beams did not line properly. Those had to be adjusted. As planned, my cross beams are 1/16” thick as opposed from the plan’s 1/8”.

Thank you for the fore studding sail brackets images. I really appreciate it. You brought up another subject that has been in the back of my mind: How do you safely move these delicate models? I have heard of numerous tales of damage done when putting them in a car and the car has to make a sudden stop, etc. I'm curious as to how you're going to it. It would be even better if you could photograph the process. A some point, in my future, I too will have to move my models, so here is another lesson to be learned. Jonathan

One can not have too many pictures of details. You never know which ones you'll need. So yes, please post those images. BTW, I hope my effort at this build can compare to your wonderful build, and so many others. We all learn from each other. Jonathan

Now tell they weren't fun to make! Very nice job. Jon

I can see that I have my work cut out for me when I get to this stage. Nice work!! Jon

Then I noticed another problem. Now that I’ve got the outer #3 “rooster tails” spaced horizontally correctly, they do not have the same aft angle as the inner frames. I had noticed this earlier, but thought it was to compensate for the counter’s curve. It may have been, but not to this extreme. I know others have had problems with this area and have rebuilt the transom corners. It may come to that, but first I want to install the inner frames to calculate from the inside out the final shape of the #3 frame.

Problems arose after I had glued in the outside #3 frames into place. They were beveled so they matched the vertical angle of the tumblehome of bulkhead R as well as the horizontal angle of the stern counter side. When I dry fitted frame #2, I noticed something was wrong. The rooster tails (my term) of the frames that will form the frame work for the transom at the spar deck level, were too close to each. When I measured the full width at the gun deck level, they were too close by about ¼” and even more so at the top of the future bulwarks and taffrail. While measuring (and muttering to myself) my sleeve lightly brushed against the starboard “rooster tail” and knocked it off. Then while trying to spread the #3 frames apart just a bit, I broke the starboard frame off almost to its base. I was able to get the port side off with just 2 cracks. This time, I re-glued the frames back into place with a spacer jig

What is it with transoms? I just don’t seem to have an easy go it. Yes, I’m modifying the heck out of it, but I’m taking my time, still it’s fighting back. Of the six solid frames that make up the transom, I’ve modified four to lower the gundeck support as I mention earlier: the outside #3 and the next inner one, #2. This meant removing the 1/8” of material and lowering the notches for the cross supports. However, I’ve also cut the thickness of the cross supports by a half so instead of being 1/8” they are now 1/16”. The #3 outside frames were also modified with a square entrance access to future quarter galleys. The two #1 inner frames were completely redesigned to open the space for the aft cabin. These once solid frames are now two shaped timbers, one “vertical” and the other horizontal. The horizontal member with the notches for the cross supports, will fit into a notch in the “vertical” timber. Until the pieces are glued into place, the horizontal timber final length will not be cut.

Not knowing at this point how much I will reveal the gundeck especially the aft section, I wanted to make sure I had at least some source of light to illuminate the aft cabin. The quarter galleys have lots of windows, but they’re mostly for looks as they only illuminate the small side room used as a head and washing area. The entrance to the port quarter galley is from the captain’s stateroom is through a gunport like opening. The captain’s stateroom has two additional doors, one directly to the aft cabin and the other forward into the gun deck. They have a window of sorts, but they have no glass. It is more like fancy wooden bars on a prison door. Of course, the captain’s stateroom and head are mirrored on the starboard side marked as the Commodore stateroom on the US Navy plans. The same is true of the two aft cabin doors, one on either side of the alcove. I was able to recreate those barred doors in the #2 frames but not on the R Bulkhead. They will have printed images of doors openings. Had I thought about it before I installed the R bulkhead, I could/would have made them. However, it was the #2 frame windows I really needed open to allow what little light I had coming in from the quarter galleys. The last source of light, will be from the three transom windows. Of course, if I open up the spar deck a bit, I’ll get a bit more.

Looking at pictures of the interior of the cabin, one can see the fine appointments on all the white walls of the aft cabin. To recreate this affect, I borrowed something I saw David Antscherl do for his model of a sixth-rate sloop at the NRG convention in Charleston SC some years back. This is the model he wrote four book volumes about. He had a checkerboard floor in the captain’s cabin. At that time, I had just finished doing the same thing for my Rattlesnake. I asked him how he got all his checker squares to line up so perfectly. He gave me a wry smile and said he printed the pattern on paper and pasted it in. I, following Robert Hunt’s practicum, had made mine out wood. It was a good build exercise and I’m glad I did it the hard way, but the master builder took the simpler route and got excellent results. Since it will difficult to view this room in the model, going through all the effort to recreate seemed pointless, yet I wanted to capture the essence of this space. So, I printed wall pattern as well as the planking for the floors. Yes, I CHEATED!

Transom, Aft Cabin, Captain Stateroom…Still Using the US Navy plan for the gundeck as a guide, an opening was cut into bulkhead R for an alcove where presently a couch resides. Walls were fabricated, painted white (after photo was taken), and glued into place.

The boats are coming along very nicely. Jon

There's a lot of detail packed into those boats. Hope you have as much fun as I did making mine.

Problem I’ve been going over and over the stern bash working out first, what I want as a final product and second, what do I have to do to get there. Basically, bulkhead R and the stern frames must be modified. In the process of doing this, I discovered I have a major error: my unmodified stern frames are off vertically by an 1/8”. If the frames were to be installed as called for by the kit plans, the tops of the stern frames should be flush with the top of bulkhead R to support the planking. In my case, the frames exceed the height of the bullhead by 1/8”. Reading Robert Hunt’s practicum at the end of section 2.2, he states: “…my transom frames [are] sticking up higher than they should. This is because my counter piece was too thick…” He then goes on to say he corrected the problem but did not discuss why it happened nor how he fixed it. Either there is a design flaw in the kit, or he and I committed the same error somehow. Now the good news is because I already planned to modify the frames, I should be able to correct the problem. I just don’t know where I went wrong. Unlike Mr. Hunt, my counter piece appears to have the correct dimensions and is seated flush right on the keel frame. All the individual parts appear to have the proper shape and dimensions, all the reference lines line up, and the parts fit like they are supposed to… except when I measure them as a whole. I’m 1/8” too tall. I need to remove that 1/8” but from where? I don’t want to fix one problem only to create others further into the build. As I see it, I really have only two options: I can either remove the 1/8” from the top of the frame or I remove it from the bottom. If I remove the excess material from the bottom of the frames, I will be changing the exterior shape of the stern. If I remove the material from the top of the frames, I am only affecting the interior of the stern. In effect I would be lowering the internal structural support to line it up with the remainder of the bulkheads. If this were a real ship, it would be like lowering the stern gundeck ceiling 9.6”. So, lowering the ceiling is what I’ll do. I still don’t know where I messed up. Here in the picture below are the #3 exterior frames with the mocked-up corrections. The internal frames will have extensive modifications including the error correction and still need to be designed.

With regards to the gunport spacing, or any other dimensional detail, I always check the US Navy plans. As I read it, the spacing is close but not consistently the same. From a distance, the eye may not see the differences. Jon

I'll say this, you have courage, tenacity and are stubborn. But, I glad you made all the trial and error attempts so that I could profit by it and avoid all the pitfalls you've revealed. Thank you. BTY, any chance you could post larger size images the next time? Jon

Stern and Transom From what I have read, the stern and transom seem to give a lot of builders, fits, I’m no exception. Just look at my Rattlesnake log. I decided that if there were going to be windows in the transom and quarter galleys (which there will be), then there ought to be something inside to see through those windows (never mind poor internal lighting and confined space). That means I must alter the kit’s method of forming them. To do that, I need to understand what is the kit’s method, so I can alter it to my needs. My plan of attack was to mock up the stern based on the kit’s instructions and then make plans for the alterations. The kit provides 6 laser cut stern frames to sit on the stern counter to provide the support and create the shape of the transom. Those frames are almost identical to each other save for the two outer pieces (#3) which are a bit thicker and have subtle angle changes. I don’t know if #1 and #2 are supposed to be different, but I can’t tell the difference. Right off the bat, I had a minor problem, one of the two #3 pieces was not formed properly. This by the way is not unique to me. I noticed this flaw in at least one other build log. Another problem that seems to catch a lot of builders off guard is the subtle curve of the transom as seen in the plan view. If the builder was careful when he created the stern counter, it should have been noted. The problem usually rears its ugly head when installing the laser cut the taffrail. Bob Hunt in his practicum made me aware with his warning. He stated that nowhere, either on the plans or the instruction booklet, is this curve specifically addressed. The problem arises because the 6 laser stern frames tend to create a flat transom surface as apposed to a slightly bowed one. Based on and inspired by CaptainSteve (he’s doing a more extensive modification), It now appears that I will have to modify the 4 inner frames (#1 and #2) to allow me to create an open space for the Captain’s area and hopefully, I’ll address the errors I’m aware of and not create any new ones. I’m really flying without a net as I have never kit bashed without someone’s detailed instructions to follow. CaptainSteve has not finished his modifications or at least documented them so far.