GuntherMT

All 22 cannons have now been rigged aboard! Now, I have to neaten things up a bit and then see if I want to add rope coils or not. At least I added blocks and rings on the cacabels whereas Constructo just used plain rope.  
 
My Admiral just stopped by and commented, "Boy, they sure had a lot of guns!"

Ladies and Gents...  
 
(Actually - I have not detected any Ladies following this build so we're all free to belch and scratch without fear of retribution...)
 
Thank you all for the kindness of your remarks.
 
Here is where the job stands after some time spent on the half hulls:
 






 
You'll see that I've done a fair amount of work on the underside and have the foundation in place for the gun stripe and red port sills.
 

 
I started by giving the underside a light coat of Vallejo Air Copper as a base.  I then began to randomly mix different blends of Vallejo Air Copper, Vallejo Hammered Copper, Microlux Air Roof Brown, and MicroLux Grimy Black in small batches and applied using some disposable micro brushes (Model Expo).  I would slink out to the workshop whenever I had an odd 15 or 20 minutes to spend filling in individual plates... After a week or so I had most of the two half hulls done.  A final (obligatory) coat of Vallejo Sepia Wash was then applied and - as with the decking - quickly wiped down with a clean soft cloth.  This had multiple good effects: It knocked down the shine, helped to blend all of the contrasting colors, highlighted some of the plate seams, and - most importantly - removed just enough paint to "expose" the riveting and define the edges of the plates.  I had to press down firmly when wiping it down to get an even exposure of the riveting.
 
The gun stripe was masked off a bit wider than the final dimension to allow some overlap and a cleaner line once the black is laid down.  After a base coat of Vallejo Air Interior Yellow (A near equivalent to Floquil Depot Buff), a thin layer of Vallejo Sepia wash (the old standby) was applied and lightly wiped down to leave a good patina behind.  This deepened the color enough to generally match what is seen in the Corne paintings.  Next I masked off everything except the gun port sills and airbrushed a few coats of Vallejo Air Ferrari Red.  I wanted the red to be deep and eye-catching.  None of this wimpy wannabe red... It looks blood red in the paintings and that's what will be on the model!  Still a few more detail touch ups remain, but it is almost there.
 
Here is the discarded tape used for masking just one of the half hulls!

 
I have not done much in the last week or so.  I thoroughly gunked up my very cheap airbrush and decided to invest in something more substantial.  I'm tired of constantly stripping it all down to clean after every small paint session.  Once done I can attack the black part of the hull.
 
Thanks to all for your continued interest!
Evan

So this afternoon and evening have been pretty productive (what happened to the last 6 hours anyway?  I seem to have forgotten dinner).
 
After I repaired the hole in the hull, the next thing on the agenda was planking the bulwarks and stern.  I found a new use for alligator clamps!
 

 

 

 

 
Then on to the guard rails, where I found a new use for battery clamps (and lots of rubber bands).
 

 

 
Then I cut these little boards for the insides of the bulwarks.  The instructions just call them 'rough timber', so I'm not really sure what the actual nautical terminology is for them.  They'll be supporting the inside of the deck railing.
 
I had to remeasure the spacing for these little guys and remark them 4 times before I got the spacing where I was happy with it relative to the plans, and the spacing to the future location of the knightheads.  Seems that 0.15 ~ 0.25 mm makes a fair bit of difference when it's multiplied by 14.  Glad I bought that digital caliper!
 

 

 
During all the work on the hull, I often forgot to place something soft under the ship while I was working on it, and the result of that is some damage to the poop deck planking that I need to pull off and replace now.
 
The gap between the bulwark and the planking is caused by my very early mistake on the stern block placement and shaping, but it should be covered by the trim and railing later.
 

 
Still unsure on what to do with the hull, but I've read a bit today about using sawdust and white glue as filler to match the wood, so I'm considering using an X-acto knife to try to cut out the putty that shows up so well, and use that method to re-fill the hull and see how it looks and whether I can then get away with leaving it natural.
 

 

 
Tomorrow I'll trim the 'rough timber' and start forming the deck railing after work.
 
Oddball question about the forum etiquette.  Is there a 'normal' number of pictures per post, and should I continue to use the forum attachment system, or host them off-site myself?
 
Thanks,
 

Beautiful work Harvey.

Thanks Frank and Blackie!
 
Onward to today's update.  Started off by trimming the rough timbers on the bulwarks and sanding them even with the top of the bulwarks, then started working on the gallant rails.  I've been having problems clamping stuff right at the tip of the bow, so I took a tip from someone else's build log (I think hipexec's Connie?) and decided to try to pin it.
 
I drilled a #71 hole in the bulwark and the gallant rail, cut the tip and head off of one of the brass planking nails, and cut it in half.  Glued the tiny little pin into the gallant rail before placing it on the bulwark.  Worked like a champ.
 



 
Used alligator clips mostly to hold the gallant rails in place while drying, but used some larger clamps back at the stern.
 


 
Before finishing the stern gallant rails, I decided I needed to do something about the poop deck damage.  Also, as you can see from the pictures (sort of), my very early misplacement of the stern blocks (or the bad keel alignment) caused the deck to be out of alignment with the gallant rails.  The port side is where it needs to be, with the gallant rail almost completely above the deck planking, but the starboard side is almost 2mm high, leaving the top of the gallant rail almost even with the deck.
 


 
So, I decided to take my first foray into making a real repair to something I screwed up earlier.  I used an X-acto chisel blade and removed the planking from 2/3 of the poop deck, and the top of the stern.
 

 
And then I carefully removed material from the false deck (and stern block, not sure if I got into it or not) until the port and starboard sides looked even to me.
 

 
Crossing my fingers, I re-planked the poop deck and the stern.
 

 

 
I'm more than happy with how that turned out, and the level, as you can see from the above picture, is almost exactly the same side to side now.
 
Added the stern gallant rail, trimmed the excess and sanded. 
 



 
Pretty happy with my first 'real' rebuild of a messed up area (well, I guess I patched the hull once too), and the gallant rails came out quite well I think.
 
At this point the instructions say to add the rudder, the knightheads, and then varnish everything.  I am going to have to decide now whether to attempt to do anything about the wood putty and go with varnish, or go with paint.
 
I also need to make a stand of some kind to hold the ship, or get one of those ship vices so I don't continue to damage things while I'm working on it with my dumb clumsy hands.
 
Do most people use regular varnish like the instructions say, or do they use something that is less smelly and cures faster? 

So this afternoon and evening have been pretty productive (what happened to the last 6 hours anyway?  I seem to have forgotten dinner).
 
After I repaired the hole in the hull, the next thing on the agenda was planking the bulwarks and stern.  I found a new use for alligator clamps!
 

 

 

 

 
Then on to the guard rails, where I found a new use for battery clamps (and lots of rubber bands).
 

 

 
Then I cut these little boards for the insides of the bulwarks.  The instructions just call them 'rough timber', so I'm not really sure what the actual nautical terminology is for them.  They'll be supporting the inside of the deck railing.
 
I had to remeasure the spacing for these little guys and remark them 4 times before I got the spacing where I was happy with it relative to the plans, and the spacing to the future location of the knightheads.  Seems that 0.15 ~ 0.25 mm makes a fair bit of difference when it's multiplied by 14.  Glad I bought that digital caliper!
 

 

 
During all the work on the hull, I often forgot to place something soft under the ship while I was working on it, and the result of that is some damage to the poop deck planking that I need to pull off and replace now.
 
The gap between the bulwark and the planking is caused by my very early mistake on the stern block placement and shaping, but it should be covered by the trim and railing later.
 

 
Still unsure on what to do with the hull, but I've read a bit today about using sawdust and white glue as filler to match the wood, so I'm considering using an X-acto knife to try to cut out the putty that shows up so well, and use that method to re-fill the hull and see how it looks and whether I can then get away with leaving it natural.
 

 

 
Tomorrow I'll trim the 'rough timber' and start forming the deck railing after work.
 
Oddball question about the forum etiquette.  Is there a 'normal' number of pictures per post, and should I continue to use the forum attachment system, or host them off-site myself?
 
Thanks,
 

Thank you Michael,
 
The repair came out better than I expected, I'm not unhappy with it at all, given my complete lack of experience in woodworking.  I think woodshop in the 8th grade was the last time I did anything beyond nailing unfinished planks together to make ramps type of wood working.
 

 
The repair is visible, but I imagine that once the model is finished and being displayed in an upright position, I'd be the only one to notice it even if I leave it natural instead of painting it.
 

 
Edit: It has actually been more than four days, as I started this on the evening of August 15th, I just didn't start the build log until later, as at the time I started I didn't know this site existed.  Someone on another forum completely unrelated to the hobby gave me the link here. 
 
Also, your Maria is awesome.

So I 'sunk' my boat last night.  There was a spot on the hull where the putty looked bad and had a gap, so I decided I would try to redo that, and when I prodded it a bit, the entire piece of putty fell out, along with a bit of the wood plank.  Turns out that plank was one that was sticking up too far at that point, and I had sanded it to almost nothing without realizing it.  The wood was paper thin at that point.
 
So, I'm going to cut out that entire section of that plank to span bulkhead to bulkhead and replace it with a new piece of planking. 
 
For the bulkheads, I ended up going with my #3 option, and it turned out much easier than expected.  I was considering using a Dremel and sanding down the tops of the plank to the bottom of the deck, but I used a sharp X-acto knife, and working carefully and shaving just a razor thickness at a time, it was surprisingly easy to cut the planking down to the bottom of the deck in a fairly short period of time.
 
I mounted the bulwarks, then cut and mounted the keel, and they all came out quite nicely I think.  Then of course, I punched a hole in the hull.  Oops.
 

 
This is only partially filed back.  I was initially thinking to just bevel the hole and make it fairly square and lay in a matching beveled patch, but now I think I'm going to extend it to the bulkheads on either side to completely replace that very thin plank in that area.
 

So, to bring this up to date.
 
This was about the point where I realized that I should have been narrowing the planks at the stem starting with the second plank, due to how many more plank widths are needed in the middle of the hull vs. the stem and stern.  Woops, not nearly enough space left to fix that.  Another lesson learned.
 

 
I just 'faked' it as best I could, using inserts and stealers until I had it all closed up.  Pretty ugly, but I certainly learned a lot of things not to do when planking.  Hopefully other first time builders can learn from my mess.
 

 
I sanded it down, used some wood putty on the gaps I couldn't otherwise fix, and sanded again.
 

 
Figuring that there is no better time than the present to find out if it will work as natural wood, or will need to be painted, I went ahead and prepped it and varnished.  Paint it is!
 

The wood putty I used shows up glaringly here as you can see.  If it wasn't for that I think I'd go ahead and leave it natural, even with the planking blemishes, but I don't know of any way to make the putty issue go away other than sand it down and paint it.
 
From a hull/planking perspective, I wonder if a larger model wouldn't actually be easier.  While it would be more time consuming, the larger number of planks, and their size relative to the hull size would make the bends less severe, and require less spiling on each plank to make everything work I would think.
 
The other solution of course would be to double plank it, but I think I'll just go with paint on this one, as the entire point of this project for me was to learn about the entire model ship building process, and to determine if it's something I want to take on as a long-term hobby.  So far I'm certainly enjoying the process, and I think I'll just keep moving forward, blemishes and all and see where it takes me.
 
Tackling the poor alignment of the top plank vs. the deck line for the bulkheads is next.

Finished up the port side by setting the last stealer on this side of the hull. Bottom half of the other side still to go.

I screwed up how the planks were laid, so ended up having to do a lot of little filler planks in the middle, when that should have been happening at the ends, so it's a little rough, but I think most of it will fill and sand well and look ok when it's done.
 
It's embarrassingly ugly compared to a lot of the 'first builds' posted here, but I'm not too disappointed with it, as I've never done any woodworking before, and I'm definitely learning a lot of lessons as I go.
 

 
That compound curve in the middle of this hull was quite a challenge for me, some of the bigger ships in the logs actually look like they have a lot simpler curvature, just a lot more of it.

Sunday morning, I removed the clamps, and was amazed by how well the stringers kept their shape.
 

 
When I removed the final clamps, I discovered that the stringers were actually stuck to the deck, and had to pry them off with a small screwdriver.  After they were unstuck, they did spring out a bit and not stay exactly shaped to the deck, but they were very close, and quite easy to hold in place with very little force, so I added glue, and clamped everything to dry.
 

 
After the stringers, the next item in the instructions is hull planking.
 
The forming method I've been using has been a combination of wetting and then holding over a soldering iron to dry while holding a bend, and sometimes clamping to the bulkheads and repeatedly wetting over time.
The first plank on either side went in quite well, but I managed to mess up the alignment against the deck on one-side.  I'll have to make a small insert when I'm done to meet up with the bulwarks where I did this.  The first plank I was able to do just fine using nothing but a bunch of rubber bands to hold them in place against the bulkheads to dry.
 

 

 
For the second plank on each side, I took a bunch of binder clips, and glued a small piece of craft stick cut to size with super glue, and made myself a set of ghetto 'plank clamps'.  They worked pretty well for about 3 planks, until I started to run out of room on the bulkheads for the clips to grab onto.
 

 
I got four planks on each side by Wednesday, but with a meeting on Thursday night, and going out on Friday night, no progress was made on those days.
 
On Friday, my new work bench was delivered (up to this point I'd been occupying the kitchen table), so I stayed up late Friday night assembling it, and then moving everything to the new bench in my library/office (probably not the best choice of rooms, and eventually I'll clean out another room to turn into a work room).
 

 
Yesterday I continued to work on planking, but now that there isn't much room on the bulkheads for my little binder clips, I'm using all sorts of different clamps depending on what I can make work.
 

 

 
Today I've been continuing to work on planking, but now I'm starting to insert extra planks in the middle, and stealers at the stern.
 
And that brings the project up to current as of this morning.
 
 

Once I had the basic shaping of the stem and stern complete, I began to work on the deck planking.  In this area the combination of it being fairly simple, along with some very good pictures, meant that I really had no difficulty with the plans / instructions.
 
I began by laying down a single plank along the measured center-line of the main deck.
 

 
Then added planks until I had the entire port side planked.  I clamped the edges to dry with the every handy binder clips from Staples that are 4 bucks for 80.
 

 
After it was dry I removed the clamps and trimmed.  I then cut away the planking for the holes for the masts.
 

 
Next step was just to repeat the process for the starboard side.
 

 
I then used some scraps to plank the 'step' from the main deck to the poop deck.  The instructions say nothing at all about how this should be done, so I just looked at the pictures, and used up a bunch of the scrap from the main deck planking.
 

 

 
Seemed to work out just fine, but I did manage to get the vertical planks out of alignment with the main deck planks and had to trim some pieces on the port side to try to get them back into alignment.  Again, visually I'll probably be the only one to notice this when it's done.
 
Trimmed the deck and step, and cleared the mast holes.
 

 
Repeated the main deck planking process for the poop deck and trimmed them, then used the method in the instructions to add the deck planking pattern via scribing the plank ends, and using a very small punch to make nail holes.
 
In this step my complete inability to do free-hand work well shows, as the nail holes are pretty random and misaligned compared to most of the pictures I see here.
 

 
Next up was the stringers.  My first experience with needing to bend wood in the kit.  The stringers were quite a challenge fore me, as the wood used is very hard, and has to be bent against the wide section of the plank.  I ended up soaking it for a long time, and then using all the worlds binder clips to hold it to the edge of the deck to shape it.
 

 
I was struggling with how to hold the ends in shape at the stem, when I found that a pair of flat bladed pliers would hold them well, but I really didn't want to spend the night holding pliers.  I cheated and let a bunch of rubber bands take my place on the pliers, and it worked quite well!
 

 
I used an eye-dropper to add water every 10 minutes or so for a few hours, and then went to bed to allow it to dry, and hopefully retain the shape.
 
Next up.  Sunday!
 

In my introduction thread, numerous folks suggested that I do a build log, so this will not only be my first ever wooden ship, but also my first ever build log.  Life is full of new things.
 
I've been getting the itch lately to get back into modeling, which is something I did with gusto when I was much younger.  I did the typical plastic type models, everything from 1/35 scale cars, to 1/48 tanks, 1/72 aircraft, all the way to 1/700 scale ships (small!).  My last modeling project was a super detailed 1/350 scale model of the German battleship Tirpitz, which was packed away into a box at about 20% completion when I was moving, and was never unpacked, although I still have it.  That was about 25 years ago.
 
As I was looking at that model and trying to make a list in my head of all the stuff I would need to start up again, it occurred to me that since I was starting from scratch as far as materials and tools, that I didn't need to go back to plastic.  Wooden models have always interested me, so I started looking around without too much seriousness, about what was available.  I was astounded at the variety and detail of the kits I found on the web, so on Friday the 15th, after work, I set out to a hobby shop that I had found in the internet that had tons of ship models.  The shop was a massive disappointment, with a terrible selection of plastic models and no wood stuff at all.  So, my trek began, as I went from one hobby shop location to another (several found online weren't even there anymore).  Eventually I decided to visit what was one of the best hobby shops in the valley (Phoenix) when I was younger, but was stupidly far away from both my home and my office.  I ended up at Hobby Bench in the far north valley (some 50 miles from my house).  Hobby Bench did not disappoint on selection, with 3 full shelves dedicated just to wooden ship models!  There were probably 40 or so kits to choose from.  Unfortunately nobody in the shop that evening had a clue about wooden ship modeling, so I just randomly picked the Carmen by Constructo as it looked nice, and didn't look super complicated or difficult as compared to the big square riggers, nor was it a simple one-piece hull model.
 
I bought the kit, a bunch of random stuff that I thought would be useful, and headed home, where I opened up the box and saw that there was certainly some assembly required!
 

 
Now that I had the kit, I was excited to begin, and being somewhat of an impatient person by nature anyway, I dug right in on Friday night at about 8:00 and started assembly.  In retrospect, this was probably a bad idea, as I did not do many of the things that I've since read on articles and build logs about squaring up the keel and bulkheads, so my false keel & bulkhead assembly is not true.
 

 
The other very early mistake I made was with the stern blocks.  The plans are fairly muddy for a complete newbie like myself, and I thought the blocks needed to be squared up against the bulkhead as seen here.
 

 
Unfortunately, the truth is that they should be aligned with the top of the false keel, not the bulkhead.  This means that my poop deck will not have the correct angle, but I think that once it's complete, I'll probably be the only one that knows it's wrong, I guess time will tell.
 
This shows that the assembly is not square.
 

 
I stayed up was too late playing with my new project, and in the wee hours of Saturday morning, just before 4:00am, I had something that was at least shaped somewhat like a ship.
 

 
After some much needed sleep, I got up, and did some web time, found this site, got on Amazon and ordered some miscellaneous tools and a copy of Historic Ship Models by Wolfram zu Mondfeld.  After lunch, I went back to work on the Carmen.
 
I started off with the shaping of the stem and stern, as the blocks were obviously not the correct shape.  In this area the Constructo plans are seriously lacking, as there are no plans to layout the correct shaping of these pieces.  I did my best guesses from the photographs and what seemed to make sense to me.
 

 

 

 
At this point my plan was to rough shape everything, then move forward and do more/final shaping when I reached a point in the model where other items would give me better reference points.
 

 

 
Continued next post, as I begin on the deck planking...
 

It can be found here - http://modelshipworldforum.com/ship-model-framing-and-planking-articles.php

Hi
The making of the hammock cranes
 
You do not get all the cranes needed to fit all the netting in the kit, and the ones you get are all one size so buying more was not an option.
 
As I have already fitted some, I had to make some that looked the same with a 2mm ball on the top,
 
Could not find any brass balls locally so soldering balls on was out,
So being a welder by trade  I used copper, by stripping electrical wire I found .97mm copper wire and to get the ball on end of the wire I used a TIG welder by holding the wire upside down and setting the welder to about 40 amps DC and pulsed the foot pedal the copper will naturally want to ball.
 
I did not get any pictures of the welding but as I have more to make I could, let me know.
 
 

 
Next is to drill 0.8mm hole for the rope
 

 
Fitted on the upper deck
 

 
Now I have to make the ones on the quarterdeck and poop deck.
 
Post more soon
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

HI
I thought its about time I do a quick update; it seems I have spent a long time building and not getting anywhere
Fitted the knees and finished painting the stern
 

 
Also fitted the emergency steering chains, But I might change the chain for smaller link chain as it doesent look right.
Have you spotted the mistake yet, not by me although i must have made many.
but the decoration on the stern is back to front like a mirror image
 

 
post more soon

Hi everyone!
This is my third build, the HMS Victory.
 
I started this build many years ago and it has been stored for a long time.The kit started as a Coral but has been extensively modified. I removed all of the formers so the decks could be built up, putting in  additional details such as gun carriages, deck beams, and pillars.
 
I will continue to update as the build progresses, but for those interested in seeing more, HMS Victory and Royal Caroline photos are available at harvey-green.co.uk

This is the last post of the missing pictures.  All 31 of them are now back here on my log.  Apologies to those who'd already seen them and moved on, but I hope they are helpful to anyone who was unable to see them before.  Although I haven't posted anything new lately, I am about finished with the bow, have installed the poop deck and am closing in on finishing the quarter galleries and stern fascia.  Will take some pics and post soon...promise!
 
Patrick

Thanks Frank and Blackie!
 
Onward to today's update.  Started off by trimming the rough timbers on the bulwarks and sanding them even with the top of the bulwarks, then started working on the gallant rails.  I've been having problems clamping stuff right at the tip of the bow, so I took a tip from someone else's build log (I think hipexec's Connie?) and decided to try to pin it.
 
I drilled a #71 hole in the bulwark and the gallant rail, cut the tip and head off of one of the brass planking nails, and cut it in half.  Glued the tiny little pin into the gallant rail before placing it on the bulwark.  Worked like a champ.
 



 
Used alligator clips mostly to hold the gallant rails in place while drying, but used some larger clamps back at the stern.
 


 
Before finishing the stern gallant rails, I decided I needed to do something about the poop deck damage.  Also, as you can see from the pictures (sort of), my very early misplacement of the stern blocks (or the bad keel alignment) caused the deck to be out of alignment with the gallant rails.  The port side is where it needs to be, with the gallant rail almost completely above the deck planking, but the starboard side is almost 2mm high, leaving the top of the gallant rail almost even with the deck.
 


 
So, I decided to take my first foray into making a real repair to something I screwed up earlier.  I used an X-acto chisel blade and removed the planking from 2/3 of the poop deck, and the top of the stern.
 

 
And then I carefully removed material from the false deck (and stern block, not sure if I got into it or not) until the port and starboard sides looked even to me.
 

 
Crossing my fingers, I re-planked the poop deck and the stern.
 

 

 
I'm more than happy with how that turned out, and the level, as you can see from the above picture, is almost exactly the same side to side now.
 
Added the stern gallant rail, trimmed the excess and sanded. 
 



 
Pretty happy with my first 'real' rebuild of a messed up area (well, I guess I patched the hull once too), and the gallant rails came out quite well I think.
 
At this point the instructions say to add the rudder, the knightheads, and then varnish everything.  I am going to have to decide now whether to attempt to do anything about the wood putty and go with varnish, or go with paint.
 
I also need to make a stand of some kind to hold the ship, or get one of those ship vices so I don't continue to damage things while I'm working on it with my dumb clumsy hands.
 
Do most people use regular varnish like the instructions say, or do they use something that is less smelly and cures faster? 

I started this AL kit Harvey some 12 years after 2 other kit builds - Mercury and Panart Saint Lucia, a tartan. The build progressed very slowly and I abandoned it about 8 years ago due to work and other interests. Finally in mid last year I was able to get back to it and I finished the hull planking just before Christmas. However, about then I began a lot of research into Baltimore clippers and I realised that the Harvey kit is "not true to form". My version of the kit materials-wise does seem to be quite good compared to those that I have read about so perhaps the kit has deteriorated over the past decade. Anyway, I now see that the deck layout could not be as shown in the kit and I have decided to scratch build my deck fittings to a new layout and I have almost completed a scratch build of the jolly boat for the stern davits.
 
The deck fittings are made but not attached and I am also building new cannon carriages about half the size of the kit parts - this is the correct size as far as I can determine using the same brass cannon in the kit which seem to be 4 pounders. I must admit that I have been a bit distracted by other things and doing some research on the rigging but hope to get going again now on the build.
 
I welcome any comments.

Hello everyone.  I felt well enough today to spend a couple of hours in the dry dock and was able to do a little more of the final rigging, the clusterstrop, the spiders and a main yard sheet.  It seems to work out OK if I do a little work that is so enjoyable and then rest until the next session, usually the following day.  Here are some photos of the essentials needed for rigging the Main yard clueline, and sheet.  
Have a great day,  Jerry

Hey, hey, hey. Time for new pictures, some words and advices for the young at heart.
 
    I took a pause from my ship since I was waiting for the Blacken It to arrive. As it arrived, I resumed my work. For using it the Blacken It Trials topic, by E&T was used. I did follow all the steps only replacing the muriatic acid by vinegar. I was about taking lots of pictures from the process, but, that is really unecessary since the Trials´ topic shows how it works so fine it would be a waste of time. But I do took a picture from a mistake I made...
 

 
That´s how I put the metal pieces on the solution. I tried to shake the solution from time to time, but my results weren´t that great - lot´s of parts were stained - instead of a flat darkened surface, I got a stripe stained one for most of the metal parts. Even if I liked that way it wasn´t my goal they look so. Next time I´ll dump lesser metal parts on blacken it solution for a consistent result.
 
Well, then I started on my ship´s hole, as it'll need some attention before rigging. I worked on taking out the planking around it so when I fix all the eletronics it´ll be easy to glue new planks over it. Now I´m waiting for some copper foil I bought to finish that part.
 

 
After that I coated a second layer of varnish on the hull and a first one over the rails and castle. That was a called step from the ship´s instructions some pages before, but I decided to postpone it while I was still using sharp tools around.
 

 
It was time for the rudder, then. I´m still thinking if I´ll set some brass stripes to it. Some old pictures shows rudders with no iron on them. Seems an obscure subject to build the rudder. So far, I followed the kit´s instructions.
 

 

 
After the rudder I fixed all the metal fittings missing before. Cannons aren´t there yet cause I´ll paint them black - I tried blacken it on them, but didn´t like the results. The following pictures are from the fittings instalation and the ship´s general look so far.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Next steps will be the lighting fix finish and rigging beginnings.

Evening everyone
 
Update time. Another planking section finished. Woohoo! Two more to go before second planking end milestone!
 
Here are few photos.
 




 
and finally...
 

 
I do have one question. Although I have no reason (well... ) to doubt Nigel's assertion that the garboard plank shape will reveal itself how can I split the last section into strips as the garboard is supposed to be slightly bigger? (Just to be clear I'm using the fanout template to work out plank widths and this assumes all planks are equally wide) Surely I need to put the garboard in first and then split the remaining part of the section?
 
Any pointers gratefully received.
 
Thanks for looking in.
 
Nick

The last 4 guns have been rigged and installed.  That completes the work on the hull, except for some items used for rigging, such as the channels and sheet horse.  Also, I didn’t add the bow sprit bitts since that determines the final angle of the bow sprit.  So I’m going to have a little private launch party and begin on the bow sprit and the rest of the rigging.

I looked at several sites that featured capstans and their designs.  But, finally I realized that the answer was right in front of me – on the plans.  So I did my best to create a capstan that matched the one on the model’s plans.  I think it came out alright and I like the look better than the capstan that came with the kit.  (Still need to add the pawls, of course.)