David Lester

Hi All,
I'm still just barely started on deck and hull details, but nevertheless felt like a change of pace, so I started shaping the lower masts. I was curious to find out how well the styrene would work for the chafing fish. I find that styrene very unpleasant to work with generally and it seemed to me that the .03 sheet would be very resistance to bending around the masts. However I was pleasantly surprised to find that it worked like a charm and wasn't even too hard to do. The secret is to do it in stages and to hold it in place with large paper clips and leave it for a long time. I often make the mistake of thinking CA glue is instant, but for something like this it needs to set for quite a long time.
 
I first applied glue only to the lower narrow part of the piece and clamped it in place. Then to the centre only of the upper wider section. Then to one side of the wider section and finally the other side. That's four separate steps to the process and for the one mast it was actually five as I needed to give the extreme outer edge on one side another gluing and clamping.
 
I sanded the edges and once it's all painted it should be just fine.
 
As always, thanks for checking in.
David
 
 

Hi All,
I'm still just barely started on deck and hull details, but nevertheless felt like a change of pace, so I started shaping the lower masts. I was curious to find out how well the styrene would work for the chafing fish. I find that styrene very unpleasant to work with generally and it seemed to me that the .03 sheet would be very resistance to bending around the masts. However I was pleasantly surprised to find that it worked like a charm and wasn't even too hard to do. The secret is to do it in stages and to hold it in place with large paper clips and leave it for a long time. I often make the mistake of thinking CA glue is instant, but for something like this it needs to set for quite a long time.
 
I first applied glue only to the lower narrow part of the piece and clamped it in place. Then to the centre only of the upper wider section. Then to one side of the wider section and finally the other side. That's four separate steps to the process and for the one mast it was actually five as I needed to give the extreme outer edge on one side another gluing and clamping.
 
I sanded the edges and once it's all painted it should be just fine.
 
As always, thanks for checking in.
David
 
 

Good Moring All,
I have a brief update. I've pretty much finished preparing all of the components for the deck and have begun installing them. I'm working from the stern to the bow and completing all the elements for each area as I move along. I've eliminated some of the rigging on the carronades. There are supposed to be two sets of tackle on each side, but I'm just modeling one of them. The scale of the blocks seems too big to me and when I tried to include the shorter set of tackle I ended up with the two blocks sitting very close together or even touching. It just looked too crowded and messy to me, so I've stripped it back a bit and leaving it at one set of tackle plus the breech line. I'm not sure if coiling the ends of the rope on the deck is historically accurate or not, but I'm doing it anyway for two reasons - I like the look of it and it's not hard to do and it tends to draw the eye away from some of my less skillful detailing.
David 

Hi All,
I'm still just barely started on deck and hull details, but nevertheless felt like a change of pace, so I started shaping the lower masts. I was curious to find out how well the styrene would work for the chafing fish. I find that styrene very unpleasant to work with generally and it seemed to me that the .03 sheet would be very resistance to bending around the masts. However I was pleasantly surprised to find that it worked like a charm and wasn't even too hard to do. The secret is to do it in stages and to hold it in place with large paper clips and leave it for a long time. I often make the mistake of thinking CA glue is instant, but for something like this it needs to set for quite a long time.
 
I first applied glue only to the lower narrow part of the piece and clamped it in place. Then to the centre only of the upper wider section. Then to one side of the wider section and finally the other side. That's four separate steps to the process and for the one mast it was actually five as I needed to give the extreme outer edge on one side another gluing and clamping.
 
I sanded the edges and once it's all painted it should be just fine.
 
As always, thanks for checking in.
David
 
 

Thanks Dave,
When I was doing some google research on Flemish coils, most of the references I found were to modern sail boats rather than old war ships. It seems there is a school of thought that overuse of these coils can be considered "yachty" which is evidently a pejorative term. I don't know enough about sail boats to have an opinion one way or the other, but I guess to some I will have a very "yachty" Constitution!
 
David
 

I moved on while waiting for the planksheer and ceiling planking to set and dry. Here is a sequence of how I make the rope coils that will lay on the deck by the in haul tackle. I am using my .013" rope that I made. The key is to file the end of a set of spring loaded tweezers for the twisting operation in a puddle of 50/50 glue/water mixture. The free end is positioned on the lid edge to dry in an up position for indexing into the tackle.
 

 

 

 

 
Next I made the bowsprit rope leads which required drilling 8 .020" holes  across a 1/2" wide strip. The challenge this small is splitting the wood hole to hole; so I harden the strip with CA allowing the CA to wick up the end grain and once set then drill. The holes are drawn on a strip over sized and will then be cut down to needed size. This works for many hole drilling operations with a series of adjacent holes.
 

 
I then added the ceiling planks down both sides starting at the planksheer and working up cutting planks to size around gunports and other openings.
 
Here is a bow view showing the planks as well as the rope leads, bow pin rail. I am finding that pre painting parts and then adding them keeps the finish clean and crisp. I pondered about adding the bolt heads and looking around at other builds I thought that they came off too large in scale. Here is a link to what I would use if funds were not an issue being retired. I have used these on car and plane builds on commissions I have done and Bob is great to work with and has a great selection of hardware:
 
http://www.scalehardware.com/miniature-rivets-c-10
 

 

 
My son-in-law is back; he is a Captain of a Maresk container ship and is on a 72 day rotation and I will be helping him with a major house renovation/expansion doing things that we can do instead of the contractor, yesterday we removed stucco from the garage wall that will be bumped out and installed an attic drop down access ladder. The fun begins so ship building may slow down a bit.

Hi All,
I'm still just barely started on deck and hull details, but nevertheless felt like a change of pace, so I started shaping the lower masts. I was curious to find out how well the styrene would work for the chafing fish. I find that styrene very unpleasant to work with generally and it seemed to me that the .03 sheet would be very resistance to bending around the masts. However I was pleasantly surprised to find that it worked like a charm and wasn't even too hard to do. The secret is to do it in stages and to hold it in place with large paper clips and leave it for a long time. I often make the mistake of thinking CA glue is instant, but for something like this it needs to set for quite a long time.
 
I first applied glue only to the lower narrow part of the piece and clamped it in place. Then to the centre only of the upper wider section. Then to one side of the wider section and finally the other side. That's four separate steps to the process and for the one mast it was actually five as I needed to give the extreme outer edge on one side another gluing and clamping.
 
I sanded the edges and once it's all painted it should be just fine.
 
As always, thanks for checking in.
David
 
 

Thanks Geoff,
That's very helpful information.
David

Thanks Geoff,
That's very helpful information.
David

Hi Geoff,
Thanks for your quick response. I will use the mast sizes directly off the plans too. I think what I'm seeing in the practicum is a small error, there are a few in this practicum. My dowels don't seem to be too bad, except for one, which is quite different than the others and is some kind of very coarse grained wood which I recall from my AVS and had to replace. It was almost impossible to shape and had huge rough grain. All of the others are very smooth grained, not sure if they're basswood or just what they are (look like maple, but I somehow doubt that.) They're very light in colour and seem ok to me. 
 
Running rigging always seems to present me with a problem. I bought a lot of cotton line from Blue Jacket to replace the kit supplied, (I did that too for my AVS) and it seems to be quite good. The black presents no problem, but the white is very white. I dyed it for my AVS but was only somewhat happy with the colour and found the dying process a real pain in the neck and a bit of a crap shoot. I bought some crochet thread online this time which seems ok. I could find it in size 10, 20 and 30 which corresponds to much that's required. I can't find a conversion chart anywhere to know what sizes it actually is; I'm just going by eye. I think I need something a little smaller than 30, so have located a different supplier and ordered some size 80 which should be quite thin. I think those four sizes should cover it more or less. The colour is a sort of taupe-y shade which looks great on the spool, but seems a bit too light on my deck (gun rigging). It will probably be ok as the running rigging though.  I'm nowhere near ready to get involved with rope walks and such at this point in my ship-building career. I might order some more crochet thread in a darker colour, but it's quite a nuisance ordering online, not knowing for sure what the colour will look like and having to wait for it. I wish I could just pop into a store and see the colours for myself.
 
Anyway, thanks again for your input, much appreciated.
David

Hi Geoff,
I'm enjoying your build log. I believe you have the LLS practicum as I do and I've been reading ahead in it a little bit. I have a question that maybe you've already come across as you're ahead of me in the build. It appears to me that Bob only addresses the mast measurements for the fore mast and skips over the main and mizzen and furthermore it appears to me that there's a discrepancy between his measurements for the fore mast and those in the plans. Specifically he says to measure up 4" from the top of the mast boot, whereas the plans say to measure up 4" from the deck (or bottom of the mast boot.) Did you find that to be the case, or am I misreading something. It appears that we must take the measurements for the main and mizzen from the plans and if that's the case then I'm inclined to take the measurements for the foremast directly from the plans too, rather than the practicum. I'm just curious as to how you handled this part of the build.
Thanks,
David

Some progress has been made on the Trabakul, after taking off two weeks to work on Mayflower I have brought her to the front of the bench again.
 Since last I have started the ceiling(first four strakes) then installed the bilge keelson. I stopped there then went onto the floor in the fore and aft hatch, very important to do this now as if you were to finish off the ceiling you would have no way of getting fingers inside to put planks on the floor.
 Flooring in the aft hatch is complete and flooring in main hatch is partially complete, I'm working on the forward hatch now and expect to have it complete today.
 The aft hatch was done by installing the floor boards first, trimming them to fit stern( sort of a V shape) then finishing off the ceiling to meet the floor. This was accomplished by edge gluing four boards together then cutting to shape(kind of a four sided triangle) then bevelling the fore, back and top edges so they fit flush to adjoining surfaces. This took many attempts and lots of wood to complete and as always I kept my cool    .
 With all frustrations behind me I'm thinking things are going to be all good now. I will add that I am by no means a seasoned veteran but so far this kit has been my most challenging build to date and has been quite the adventure so far. 
 Next up after flooring is planking the bulkheads, will send more pictures soon
 
 

 
In these last three pictures you can see the bilge keelson(the oak planks) and also some of the centre flooring(lime wood) sanding is still required everywhere.

Hello everyone, thanks to all for stopping by and for your comments and likes.
 Since last update I have been working on the floors and ceiling also the bunk rooms. It has been a lot of work but it all came together, I was expecting the floor to be the hard part, however, the bunks turned to be the hardest(for me at least). The six bunks took me about 10 hours to build even though they were laser cut. trying to hold the pieces in place in such a confined space to test fit proved to be a real test of the nerves. It was a good exercise in holding my breath and stretching my tongue
 I am really impressed with the planks, so far all have been milled really good and the color variation is almost non-existent I have yet to pick through to find a lighter or darker one.
 Even though this ship is a single planked hull it feels like I have one layer done already, I'm hoping the outside of the hull is as easy as the inside was to plank.
 The last 5 pictures show it finished with a fresh coat of brushed on wipe on poly.
 

 
These are the parts for the bow and stern bunks
 

 
 Next up is several more coats of poly then the hull begins
 
Have a Good One
 
 
 

Hi Don,
Yes, I started my build log up again today. You should find it under USS Constitution.
David

Hi Don,
Well this certainly looks like an interesting model. I'm looking forward to following along.
David

Hi Geoff,
Thanks for your quick response. I will use the mast sizes directly off the plans too. I think what I'm seeing in the practicum is a small error, there are a few in this practicum. My dowels don't seem to be too bad, except for one, which is quite different than the others and is some kind of very coarse grained wood which I recall from my AVS and had to replace. It was almost impossible to shape and had huge rough grain. All of the others are very smooth grained, not sure if they're basswood or just what they are (look like maple, but I somehow doubt that.) They're very light in colour and seem ok to me. 
 
Running rigging always seems to present me with a problem. I bought a lot of cotton line from Blue Jacket to replace the kit supplied, (I did that too for my AVS) and it seems to be quite good. The black presents no problem, but the white is very white. I dyed it for my AVS but was only somewhat happy with the colour and found the dying process a real pain in the neck and a bit of a crap shoot. I bought some crochet thread online this time which seems ok. I could find it in size 10, 20 and 30 which corresponds to much that's required. I can't find a conversion chart anywhere to know what sizes it actually is; I'm just going by eye. I think I need something a little smaller than 30, so have located a different supplier and ordered some size 80 which should be quite thin. I think those four sizes should cover it more or less. The colour is a sort of taupe-y shade which looks great on the spool, but seems a bit too light on my deck (gun rigging). It will probably be ok as the running rigging though.  I'm nowhere near ready to get involved with rope walks and such at this point in my ship-building career. I might order some more crochet thread in a darker colour, but it's quite a nuisance ordering online, not knowing for sure what the colour will look like and having to wait for it. I wish I could just pop into a store and see the colours for myself.
 
Anyway, thanks again for your input, much appreciated.
David

Hi Geoff,
I'm enjoying your build log. I believe you have the LLS practicum as I do and I've been reading ahead in it a little bit. I have a question that maybe you've already come across as you're ahead of me in the build. It appears to me that Bob only addresses the mast measurements for the fore mast and skips over the main and mizzen and furthermore it appears to me that there's a discrepancy between his measurements for the fore mast and those in the plans. Specifically he says to measure up 4" from the top of the mast boot, whereas the plans say to measure up 4" from the deck (or bottom of the mast boot.) Did you find that to be the case, or am I misreading something. It appears that we must take the measurements for the main and mizzen from the plans and if that's the case then I'm inclined to take the measurements for the foremast directly from the plans too, rather than the practicum. I'm just curious as to how you handled this part of the build.
Thanks,
David

Hi Geoff,
I'm enjoying your build log. I believe you have the LLS practicum as I do and I've been reading ahead in it a little bit. I have a question that maybe you've already come across as you're ahead of me in the build. It appears to me that Bob only addresses the mast measurements for the fore mast and skips over the main and mizzen and furthermore it appears to me that there's a discrepancy between his measurements for the fore mast and those in the plans. Specifically he says to measure up 4" from the top of the mast boot, whereas the plans say to measure up 4" from the deck (or bottom of the mast boot.) Did you find that to be the case, or am I misreading something. It appears that we must take the measurements for the main and mizzen from the plans and if that's the case then I'm inclined to take the measurements for the foremast directly from the plans too, rather than the practicum. I'm just curious as to how you handled this part of the build.
Thanks,
David

Thanks Skip, Now I'm fussing that the line is too white. It isn't actually white at all; it's a real taupe colour but it looks white against the deck. It seems I'm never happy unless I'm unhappy about something! I noticed in the picture you indicated (I can't imagine that there's a copyright problem with simply including a link) has quite light coloured rigging too.
Thanks again,
David

Thanks so much Jim, and the rest of the likes.
 
I finished installed the belaying pin racks. They are all held to the bulwarks with wood glue and wire pins that are CA glued into the pin rails and bulwarks.
 

 

 
I used Blue Jackets Brass Brown on the brass belaying pins and they came out pretty nice. I used a 10:1 dilution with distilled water and let them sit in it for about 30 minutes, then rinsed them in water.
 

 
When they dry I will add them to the pin racks.

Thanks Skip, Now I'm fussing that the line is too white. It isn't actually white at all; it's a real taupe colour but it looks white against the deck. It seems I'm never happy unless I'm unhappy about something! I noticed in the picture you indicated (I can't imagine that there's a copyright problem with simply including a link) has quite light coloured rigging too.
Thanks again,
David

Thanks Skip, Now I'm fussing that the line is too white. It isn't actually white at all; it's a real taupe colour but it looks white against the deck. It seems I'm never happy unless I'm unhappy about something! I noticed in the picture you indicated (I can't imagine that there's a copyright problem with simply including a link) has quite light coloured rigging too.
Thanks again,
David

Good Moring All,
I have a brief update. I've pretty much finished preparing all of the components for the deck and have begun installing them. I'm working from the stern to the bow and completing all the elements for each area as I move along. I've eliminated some of the rigging on the carronades. There are supposed to be two sets of tackle on each side, but I'm just modeling one of them. The scale of the blocks seems too big to me and when I tried to include the shorter set of tackle I ended up with the two blocks sitting very close together or even touching. It just looked too crowded and messy to me, so I've stripped it back a bit and leaving it at one set of tackle plus the breech line. I'm not sure if coiling the ends of the rope on the deck is historically accurate or not, but I'm doing it anyway for two reasons - I like the look of it and it's not hard to do and it tends to draw the eye away from some of my less skillful detailing.
David 

Good Moring All,
I have a brief update. I've pretty much finished preparing all of the components for the deck and have begun installing them. I'm working from the stern to the bow and completing all the elements for each area as I move along. I've eliminated some of the rigging on the carronades. There are supposed to be two sets of tackle on each side, but I'm just modeling one of them. The scale of the blocks seems too big to me and when I tried to include the shorter set of tackle I ended up with the two blocks sitting very close together or even touching. It just looked too crowded and messy to me, so I've stripped it back a bit and leaving it at one set of tackle plus the breech line. I'm not sure if coiling the ends of the rope on the deck is historically accurate or not, but I'm doing it anyway for two reasons - I like the look of it and it's not hard to do and it tends to draw the eye away from some of my less skillful detailing.
David 

Good Moring All,
I have a brief update. I've pretty much finished preparing all of the components for the deck and have begun installing them. I'm working from the stern to the bow and completing all the elements for each area as I move along. I've eliminated some of the rigging on the carronades. There are supposed to be two sets of tackle on each side, but I'm just modeling one of them. The scale of the blocks seems too big to me and when I tried to include the shorter set of tackle I ended up with the two blocks sitting very close together or even touching. It just looked too crowded and messy to me, so I've stripped it back a bit and leaving it at one set of tackle plus the breech line. I'm not sure if coiling the ends of the rope on the deck is historically accurate or not, but I'm doing it anyway for two reasons - I like the look of it and it's not hard to do and it tends to draw the eye away from some of my less skillful detailing.
David