GuntherMT

A little update to my slow going project. All deck items are painted and attached on model. Becouse deck is already varnished I used 5min epoxy glue + all parts are secured with pins. It was quite a chalenge to achieve correct position of holes on deck.
Next stage are two on deck boats in 1:100 scale. I will  scratch build them, but need to figure out how

Sorry about the break in transmission. Some clot at my front door trying to sell me building enhancements 
despite the notice telling him that I neither buy nor sell from the doorstep. He has gone now and will, no doubt, be digesting the advice that I gave him.
 
Where were we? 
 
The last image in my previous post showed the rear frame uprights removed and the start of stanchion fitting.
The stanchions are pinned top and bottom though the bottom ones are not seen.
 

 
Stanchions completed. Note that I have omitted the centre outboard stanchion in order to make room for some extra internal fittings that I have in mind for later.
 

 

 
Knees. I did not like the kit knees very much so I cut some new ones. As I did not have any suitable dark wood available these have been stained ( despite my earlier reply to Jan! ) I will gloss varnish these later to distinguish them!
 

 

 
Knees fitted. 
 

 

 
Gunport lids. These were cut to shape on the Byrnes saw using the tilting table. Oh, how easy!
 

 

 
The lids will be fitted later.
 
At this point I decided to stray from the plans again and add a ladder between the decks as this seemed to link the two levels of the model in a natural way.
 

 

 
The ladder fitted with its hatch combing. Later on I will decide how to finish this off .....grating in situ, set aside or none at all. 
 

 
Next the top deck planking. This caulked with black card and properly trenailed.
 

 
The completed top decking with a "finishing strip" added.
 

 
This image shows the butt shift and caulking before trenailing and sanding.....
 

 
....and this is a general top view after trenailing.
 

 

 
And finally the "finishing strip" at the rear of the deck.
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Back again.
 
Internal planking round the gun ports and adding a waterway.
 
I decided to set the cills of the gun ports into the planking as.....
 

 

 
....and make a template for the trenailing. The trenails in these planks are simple plugs with no structural component.
 

 

 
Planking progress....
 

 

 
....and adding a waterway not in the kit plans.
 

 

 
Inside planking completed.
 

 

 
Back shortly,
 
Mike.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Back for more. This time it is the gun deck planking.
 
Before the planking can be fitted a hatchway and grating must be made.
 

 

 
The next image shows my jig for laying out the planking, working out the butt shift and trenailing.
 

 
As this deck will eventually be almost completely covered by cannon and various other fixtures and fittings I am not going to caulk and trenail properly but simply fake these features. The caulking will be black pencil edging and the trenails indentations in the planking made with the Patent Trenail Marker as per the other build that I mentioned in the intro to this one. I have, I think, improved on the original concept of the PTM by the addition of my impact centre punch!
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Now the planking is laid out on the jig, the butt shift joints are all marked up and the trenails have been punched in.
 

 
Laying planking commences....
 

 
....and completes with the fitting of the hatch.
 

 

 
Back later.
 
Mike
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

I turned the hull around and used the same technique on the starboard side:
 

 

 

 
One nice thing about having the plans scanned into the computer was that was able to flip the image in the computer and print out the three pages for this side, so I didn't have to work through the back of the plans.
 
Now that this little task is complete, I will be focusing my attention to planking the transom and counter, then finish the rest of the hull planking.
 

I haven't had a chance to test blackening the britannia metal yet, but I have been working on the hull. As I mentioned last time, I wanted to drill all the holes in the wales for the air ports and scupper covers now, just in case I messed them up. So, to start, I scanned the side view from the plans into the computer and used an image processing program to align the three page size pieces. I had to scan the plans in pieces as I only have a letter size scanner. To check the alignment, I exported the full image to a vector graphics program and drew a straight line on top of the reference line along the bottom of the plans. I would them go back and rotate the pieces again, then check the reference line. It took about three iterations to get the three pieces aligned nicely.
 
One thing that bothered me from the plans was that the scuppers, which are on the bottom of the gun deck, and the air ports, which are in the top of the berth deck, looked too much in line. When looking at images of the Constitution, like this one:
 

 
it looks like the air ports are a little lower than shown on the plans. So, since I had the plans now in the graphics program, I made up little symbols to help drill the holes and positioned them just a little lower at each air port location. I then printed the plans out with the symbols as three sheets, like this one:
 

 
I was going to cut and tape these piece together to make one long template, but found that I could use them separately and tape them to the hull as separate templates. I cut them out so that I had the locations of the gun ports for horizontal alignment, as well as the top of the wales for vertical alignment. I taped all three templates to the hull and lined them up where they overlapped:
 

 

 

 
I then drilled pilot holes through the templates, which you might be able to see on this image:
 

 
Then enlarged the holes using very sharp bits in a pin vice and this drill bit holder that I found somewhere online:
 

 
To clean up the holes after drilling, I first sanded them flat, then used the back of the drill bit to clean out the hole:
 

 
I used the air port and scupper cover fittings to check the holes and here are the results:
 

 

 
There sure are a lot of holes in the wales now, but they came out nicely without any tearing around them, which is what I was mostly afraid was going to happen. While testing the scupper covers to figure out what drill bit size to use for them, I found that the posts on the back of them were oblong, not round, so I filed them a little smaller and round so I could use a smaller drill size. Even so, the top of the hole can still be seen when a few of these are in place, but I can use a bit of filler later to hide them.

Thankyou again. The spirit sail yards are now complete with the addition of the braces. I snuck my phone under the rigging to get a few forward shots. 6 blocks, 4 toggles and two yards to go,and I've added a really confusing picture with lines all over it to show how the lines runs on this yard alone.

here in the pic u see i have added head edges for the cabins to set ok there a 1x5 walnut thay sit up from the deck 0.2mm came out looking good 
 
 
 

So yesterday I placed the inner two stern frames based on how the Bob Hunt practicum indicates it should be done, but got nothing else done as I had a long work day and an HOA meeting at night.  This evening I sat down and started trying to get the outer frames to line up in a way that they looked right, and no matter what I did, if I had one edge aligned properly and the window tight, the other edge was all kinds of out of whack. 
 
So I went back and stared at the plans for a while, and it dawned on me while I was looking at them that the Hunt practicum is wrong in this area.  He has the #1 frames only beveled to match the sub-deck, and then glued to the keel, but the plans show something completely different.  The plans show that frame #1 needs to be angled in such a way that the top and bottom of the window frames are level, meaning that the top of frame #1 needs to be narrower than the bottom, and the wing transom ends up completely flat, not angled as shown in the practicum.  But then the 'expanded transom' detail does show a slight curve, so in reality, perhaps it's a little bit of both.
So tonight ended up being a 'go backwards' night, as I soaked the #2 frames to remove them so that I could get to the #1 frames and then re-align the #2's.  Unfortunately I managed to rip off part of the sub-deck with one of the #2 frames, and all the water has made it all wavy because it's so thin.  Hopefully I'll be able to fix that after it's dried by gluing it down to blocks or the top window frame supports.
 
I left the #1 frames in place, as in looking at things, I only need to angle the outer edge where the window frame will sit, and I think I can do that with it in place, rather than trying to remove it from it's very well glued spot against the keel.
 
From last night, placing the frames:
 

 
The various plan views showing what I mean above.

 
And the destruction showing the damage to the sub-deck.  Going to let this mess all dry overnight before I touch it and try to make it right.
 

When last we saw our intrepid little boat, the subdecks had been glued, but no fairing had been done.  Since then some progress has been made in that department.
I began by doing a 'rough' fairing to see where I needed to add any shims.
 

 
Because of adding all of the shims to the bottom of the bulkheads prior to mounting them, I found that no shimming was needed except for about half a dozen extensions that were not going to touch the planking without causing a 'dip', or needing to remove far too much material from their neighbors.
 
Once again I dipped into the 3/64ths basswood deck planking, and cut pieces for the extensions.  I used a second piece of basswood in the clamping so that the alligator clamps I used wouldn't leave divots in the shims where I didn't think I needed to sand very much material away.  Here you can see my clamping system so that I could use regular wood glue to hold the extension shims in place.
 

 
I made some blocks to reinforce the mast mortise, and placed them.  I made them overly long as I didn't want to apply a lot of glue right around the mortise.  This is also why I added a 'shim' to the edge of them, to get more glue surface away from the mortise opening.
 

 
I cut out bow fillers to a rough size with a hand scroll saw (I see a nice power band saw in my future I think, every time I use the scroll saw I see how useful of a tool it would be where I could guide a piece with both hands or a fence) and then did all the shaping with my Dremel and a drum-sanding attachment.  Once I had them nearly right I glued them in place before the final fairing, as I wanted them fixed in place to do the final shaping against the bulkhead, keel, and deck.
 

 
I did another run with a rough (120 grit) sanding block and reduced all of the bulkheads until I was seeing 'kit bulkhead' material on all the higher bulkheads, so that my mass shimming didn't cause the hull to be too 'fat'. 
 

 
I also realized that I had never beveled the stem, so I finished that, and trimmed the excess wood from the keel that extended aft beyond the sternpost.  At some point I need to make a tiny filler for the hole where the sternpost and keel connect that was left because of the keel being the wrong length.
 
And a couple test plank runs.  Very happy with how nicely they lay all the way from the keel up to the top of the bulkheads.
 

 
Still need to do a final pass with a 250 grit sanding block, but I am going to build out the stern and get it faired up with the hull before I do that.  Looks like the stern should occupy quite a few hours to get it right.
 
Fairly amazing to think that on the Carmen I was at this point in the build within a few hours of starting, since I didn't know any better, and did pretty much none of this early preparation work!  Then again, the planks didn't lay anything like this when I started working on them.

Made some more progress today.  Weekends with no plans are pretty good for getting stuff done if I actually work on stuff!
 
Began by fairing the poop deck, which was pretty easy, just a sanding block needed here.
 

 
The notches were not correct in the sub-deck, so I had to adjust them.  The deck was too short as well, but looking ahead to the deck finishing, you end up cutting the leading edge of the sub deck off later to place a trim piece there, so I just shifted the sub-deck rearward and adjusted the notches accordingly, rather than having to trim it off later.
 
Used more pieces of the basswood deck planking material that I won't use for the build to 'clamp' the sub deck rather than using nails or pins.
 


 
Then installed the support beams for the quarter deck and the rear of the main deck.  Used a little collar pin that I think I got from Micro-Mark to hold the forward quarter deck beam in place while the glue dried.  Got them sometime after I could have used them on the Carmen because they looked like they might be pretty useful, and this is the first time I've used one.
 




 
After this, the fun part began.  Fairing the main deck.  This was quite a challenge, as the bulkhead extensions really get in the way of doing much work with a reasonable sized sanding block, and I was quite worried I'd break one off.  I ended up putting a fine grinding stone on the Dremel tool, and held it vertically using the 'flat' face of the stone (cylindrical shaped stone) to grind away on each bulkwark top, and measuring with a plank that extended most of the length of the deck.
 
The bulkhead F that I had shimmed up, I ended up completely sanding down the shim back to the bulkhead material, and then ended up shimming the other side of that bulkhead.  The best laid plans and all.  At the end I had added full shims to the top of 4 bulkheads, and half-shims to another couple before I was happy with how the plank laid from the center line out to each set of extensions.
 

 
After a lot of notch trimming, and breaking off a few pieces of the edge of the very fragile sub deck, I got it glued on, and clamped with the same 'plank & rubber band' system I used on the other sub-decks.
 

 
The odd streak near the center line of the main deck is just a dark spot in the wood.  When I first saw that on the pictures, I do admit to having a bit of a panic moment, wondering how I had a big split in the deck without noticing it.
 

 
Next I'll begin fairing work on the hull, and working on the stern transom.

When last we saw our intrepid little boat, the subdecks had been glued, but no fairing had been done.  Since then some progress has been made in that department.
I began by doing a 'rough' fairing to see where I needed to add any shims.
 

 
Because of adding all of the shims to the bottom of the bulkheads prior to mounting them, I found that no shimming was needed except for about half a dozen extensions that were not going to touch the planking without causing a 'dip', or needing to remove far too much material from their neighbors.
 
Once again I dipped into the 3/64ths basswood deck planking, and cut pieces for the extensions.  I used a second piece of basswood in the clamping so that the alligator clamps I used wouldn't leave divots in the shims where I didn't think I needed to sand very much material away.  Here you can see my clamping system so that I could use regular wood glue to hold the extension shims in place.
 

 
I made some blocks to reinforce the mast mortise, and placed them.  I made them overly long as I didn't want to apply a lot of glue right around the mortise.  This is also why I added a 'shim' to the edge of them, to get more glue surface away from the mortise opening.
 

 
I cut out bow fillers to a rough size with a hand scroll saw (I see a nice power band saw in my future I think, every time I use the scroll saw I see how useful of a tool it would be where I could guide a piece with both hands or a fence) and then did all the shaping with my Dremel and a drum-sanding attachment.  Once I had them nearly right I glued them in place before the final fairing, as I wanted them fixed in place to do the final shaping against the bulkhead, keel, and deck.
 

 
I did another run with a rough (120 grit) sanding block and reduced all of the bulkheads until I was seeing 'kit bulkhead' material on all the higher bulkheads, so that my mass shimming didn't cause the hull to be too 'fat'. 
 

 
I also realized that I had never beveled the stem, so I finished that, and trimmed the excess wood from the keel that extended aft beyond the sternpost.  At some point I need to make a tiny filler for the hole where the sternpost and keel connect that was left because of the keel being the wrong length.
 
And a couple test plank runs.  Very happy with how nicely they lay all the way from the keel up to the top of the bulkheads.
 

 
Still need to do a final pass with a 250 grit sanding block, but I am going to build out the stern and get it faired up with the hull before I do that.  Looks like the stern should occupy quite a few hours to get it right.
 
Fairly amazing to think that on the Carmen I was at this point in the build within a few hours of starting, since I didn't know any better, and did pretty much none of this early preparation work!  Then again, the planks didn't lay anything like this when I started working on them.

So I do believe that you lot of scallywags in this community have completely warped my concept of what exactly a "kit" for building a model is...
 

So yesterday I placed the inner two stern frames based on how the Bob Hunt practicum indicates it should be done, but got nothing else done as I had a long work day and an HOA meeting at night.  This evening I sat down and started trying to get the outer frames to line up in a way that they looked right, and no matter what I did, if I had one edge aligned properly and the window tight, the other edge was all kinds of out of whack. 
 
So I went back and stared at the plans for a while, and it dawned on me while I was looking at them that the Hunt practicum is wrong in this area.  He has the #1 frames only beveled to match the sub-deck, and then glued to the keel, but the plans show something completely different.  The plans show that frame #1 needs to be angled in such a way that the top and bottom of the window frames are level, meaning that the top of frame #1 needs to be narrower than the bottom, and the wing transom ends up completely flat, not angled as shown in the practicum.  But then the 'expanded transom' detail does show a slight curve, so in reality, perhaps it's a little bit of both.
So tonight ended up being a 'go backwards' night, as I soaked the #2 frames to remove them so that I could get to the #1 frames and then re-align the #2's.  Unfortunately I managed to rip off part of the sub-deck with one of the #2 frames, and all the water has made it all wavy because it's so thin.  Hopefully I'll be able to fix that after it's dried by gluing it down to blocks or the top window frame supports.
 
I left the #1 frames in place, as in looking at things, I only need to angle the outer edge where the window frame will sit, and I think I can do that with it in place, rather than trying to remove it from it's very well glued spot against the keel.
 
From last night, placing the frames:
 

 
The various plan views showing what I mean above.

 
And the destruction showing the damage to the sub-deck.  Going to let this mess all dry overnight before I touch it and try to make it right.
 

Hrs 841-851
 
So building up the bowsprit area.
 
Then developing the yellow striping, used styrene for flexibility. Note painted original black and then added trim.
 

 
Then blue trim with yellow edges; these were difficult to get clean.
 

 
Looks pretty good for a first time effort. Hard to get the trim exactly parallel, but works with some careful manipulation and clamps. Off to bed.

All of the dredge parts are made! Time to make many, one, or in this case, two.
 

 

I cut and fitted the lower sections of each mast, fore, main & mizzen. They fit very easily and wound up to be perpendicular and all lined up with minimum shimming. I marked them so they will be easily put back in the same place since I have to remove and install them many many times.

painted and assembled canons

Some rig fittings have been installed on deck, and now it's official: the boat is named!
John
 

A piece of the tubing was then cut off from the stock material about the same thickness as the seized line. Using tools I bought for making jewelry, I used a bead reamer to flare out the inside hole of the brass “donut” on each side and filed a groove around the outside edge to hold the line in place. Then it was just a matter of placing it inside the line loop.
 
It was at this point I realized I now had a problem as how was I going to get it on the yard. This component should have been made and installed before the cleats were glued into place. Then the line would have been formed into a circle with a pseudo splice. The circle would have been cinched and seized to form a figure 8 with a smaller loop on top for the thimble. The larger loop would then slide onto the yard. Of course the dimensions of the initial circle would have had to been dead on.
 
But I didn’t do it that way. Instead I had to glue in increments first to put it into position and then to wrap the two open ends around the back to cut them to size so that they would butt up to each other. Then I glued them down.
 
Maybe the way I did do it was easier, I don’t know.

My next project was the posts.  They are 3-dimensional, composed of two halves that you glue together.  I had already cut away enough of the clinker planking on the sides of the hull that the posts could sit reasonably securely.  I also had to scratch some extensions as part of the inside framing of the transom, since the kit doesn't specify them and their transom top isn't quite the right shape.
 
The lower post sculpture is a king and matches reasonably with what's on the real ship.  The upper sculpture is completely different from what's on the real ship so I had to invent a color scheme for it.  Here's the first cut:
 

 
As I did with the other sculptures, I let it sit there for a while and figured out what I didn't like about it.  Then I added more detail - some highlights here and there, and some outlines.  I've found when you have two colors near one another and they are at all similar, you really need a contrasting border between them.  That's particularly true for the shade of gold that I use - it tends to blend in with whatever's around it unless you make a clear border - I did that for the kilts on the kings.
 

 
A side view, where you can see the scratched extension behind the top of the sculpture.
 

 
Next up were the Gideon warriors between the transom grotesques and the medieval knights.
 

Finito!!  
 
I have finished the display base and have mounted the ship and launching ways.  I made a temporary name plaque and just need to have a final one engraved.  Although I'm excited that I've finally finished the ship and pleased with the way it came out I'm going to miss working on her. 
 



 
Deck is a little too clean, need to throw some more rope coils on the deck
 






 
 
 
And now for the acknowledgements.
I would like to thank Model Expo & Model Shipways for putting together a great kit that has been most enjoyable to build.  The quality and quantity of material was first-rate.   I think I only needed to fabricate four or five eye bolts.  There were more than enough blocks, plenty of copper tape, plenty of standing rigging and just enough running rigging (could have used a little more to make some rope coils with).  All in all I am very pleased that I chose this kit for my first build.  The only issue I had, and this is not a fault of Model Shipways, was the instruction manual that came with it.  If not for the practicum by Chuck Passaro, that supplements the kit’s instructions, this ship would have looked a lot different and would have taken me much longer to build.  For that I am most grateful would like to thank Mr. Passaro for his fine practicum.  I would like to thank all my followers and fellow Phantom builders for taking the time to view my build log.  I hope this log will help others as past builds have helped me.  I would also like to thank everyone for their help and comments and for everyone’s ‘likes’.  Last but not least I would like to thank Model Ship World for hosting a great site.  It’s truly amazing the expertise, knowledge and craftsmanship that can be found on this site.  I've learned a great deal by reading other peoples build logs and hope to use this knowledge on my next ship.   And on that note, good night and may God bless.

Mast building continues, and I'm ok with the results so far.
 
The boom has an interesting detail that I wanted to simulate. The main sail attachment to the boom used many small steel fittings. The kit plans show a rope spiraled through the sail and around the boom. I would have likely done this too, but I've discovered Johnson's yacht pictures of Puritan and Mayflower. Pictures like these are really a blessing for scale details, but also impart the burden of "doing it right".
Below shows my sequence of making them.
 
John
 
 

It has been a while since my last post. But now that it is the Week of the Cutter on MSW here a few pictures – there is some small progress to show.

 
It’s still crowded in the top. But it is better once the shrouds and stays have some tension.

 
Still, nothing is glued or belayed definitively. Shrouds and deadeyes are in place. There is a simple slipknot with three turns that holds the deadeyes in position; it’s movable, so I can now adjust an even tension.

 
Lucky me, I had a stack of suitable books handy to lift my third hand so I could make the slipknots outside of the model. Once I feel comfortable, I will put in the lanyards.

 
This is the detail I like most: The Five-hole-deadeye is in place, together with the preventer stay.

 
And that is the whole ship; it has grown a little.

 
And finally, one of the reasons for my slow progress: I made the skeleton for my next project. It’s the lovely small French schooner La Jacinthe (1823) after Jean Boudriot, scaled down from 1/48 to 1/64.

 
I will finish the Sherbourne before I glue the bulkheads of the Jacinthe, I promise.
Cheers,
Gregor

Now some pictures of the finished monkey rail and bow rail. The last image is a first sanding of the deck. 
I hope to get my chain plates finished this weekend... and start the final painting of the hull.