Ryland Craze

Update as of 12-04-14:
 
I've been working on the 04/05 Navigation Bridge and with the exception of Pelorus's, other small deck items, and whip antennae, it's complete. As usual, these pix show the superstructure together when in reality they are sitting in place only.
 
I chose the kit bridge over the Pontos PE bridge as it was easier to work with at this point. Had I thought about it, I would have enlarged the window openings slightly in both directions as these are just a tad bit undersized. One of the Volunteers in WISCONSIN (Norfolk) made dimensioned posts regarding this earlier in the year. However, with a family situation finally coming to a close, my thoughts have sometimes been elsewhere...
 
In any event, I have been critiqued by another battleship acquaintance who is associated now with IOWA (LA Ports) and mentioned to me a couple things that need adjustment on the 08 Level - I will handle this when I am back at my shop in early January '15. Thru the 42 years of his work at LBNSYD, he has, at one time or another, worked on all the IOWA class ships in addition to many others that came thru the shipyard. His knowledge is impeccable.
 
I am STILL waiting on my special order Pontos Deck set and replacement PE parts (3 weeks now  - nothing!)
so, until it arrives, I'm unable to go too much further on superstructure work. I may begin basic hull work but that is predicated on one of the other Calif. modelers who is working on a hull replacement module (3D printed in ABS plastic) to replace the mis-sharpened after 1/3 of the kit hull. He's getting close and it's phenomenal what he's done using Solidworks and 3D professional printing.
 
8 bells and time to bug out.
 
Hank
 
 
 

Thanks
 
Its all Boxwood and from Hobbymill.   Jeff was kind enough to cut me all the wood for the lower planking and the remainder of the project from a really nice piece.  Its the best boxwood I have ever seen.  
 
Heres a picture...I should have waited so I could use this better stuff above teh wales...but most of that will be covered up anyway.  So it should be OK.
 

 
Chuck
 
OH and another not so flattering image of the square tuck on that contemporary model.  Lots of cracks and damage.  It looks pretty beat up.  Also the last photo shows teh cheerful drawing I made.....you can see the differences
 
I dont think its the original blue paint on that model.   My reason is that you can see bits of it within the splits and cracks which means it was painted after the cracks developed.
 

 

I am not sure what you mean....wood list or materials list???   Since its a scratch project more or less there are no parts to inventory.  Except for those few I mentioned so far.
 
As far as a wood list goes...I do have a preliminary.  I wont know for certain until after I build her.  Its impossible to know before its built with 100% certainty.
 
The wood list I have used and stocked up on are as follows.  It should be very close. Remember that this is not a kit.
 
1/4" Ply 4' x 4'
 
All boxwood sheets are 24" long......and 3" wide
 
7/32" Boxwood sheet  2
1/4" ........1
1/8" ........2
5/32" .......2
3/16 .........5
1/16" .......3
1/32" .......3
.025 ........1
3/32" ........1 but maybe 2 sheets depending.
 
One 3/8" x 3/8"  strip for the lower mast 24" long
 
Basswood sheets....
 
1/32" ....two sheets
1/16" ...2 sheets

Ryland, Floyd, Divarty, thanks for the likes.
 
Updates: Painting of cap rail and interior completed; I stained the interior and exterior hull with Minwax Natural, while the floorboards are stained slightly darker with Miniwax Golden Oak. The lighting doesn't bring out the color too well. Using the flash at this close distant totally washes out the photos.
 
Gluing the floorboards in place:
 

 

So much has developed with this little lifeboat in such a short time frame, I thought I would take a few moments and bring all of you special modeling friends at MSW up to date.
 
What was intended to be a small local project, very quickly within less than a month, spread to major cities across North and South Carolina through their city Parks and Recreation Departments…. (Fayetteville, Raleigh, Charlotte, Charleston & North Charleston to name a few) All of these programs are being scheduled to launch in the mid-March time frame under the official name of Lifeboats for Warriors Project.
 
My favorite motto of all time has been…. “If you think you can…. Or if you think you can’t…. YOU ARE RIGHT!”
 
Please visit our home website designed to explain the Parks and Recreation program…. http://www.l4wproject.com/
 
The following build log was developed for the instruction manual for the lifeboat kit.
 
Anyone interested in building one of these and donating it to the project, please send me a PM and I'll be glad to send you a PDF with plan sheets and instructions.
 
 

Adding the seats....
First, the inside of the sideboards have been marked for the support strips....
 

 
The seat support strips have been fitted to the inside of the sideboards....
 

 
Seats have been fitted....
 

 
 
 
 

Planking and Cap Rails....
Three overlapping planks per side....
 

 
The cap rails are painted black....
 

 

The Wales....
 
Wale strips painted black.  Stern added first.... then sides.
 

 
Wales fitted.... ready to begin planking.
 

 
 
 
 
 

Rudder and tiller drawings....
 
 
 

 
Rudder and tiller fitted....
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

All done....
 

 
Lifeboat reporting for duty SIR!
 

 
 

Turns out I made the two hatches the wrong size.  The forecastle false deck has squares marked on it for the placement of these hatches. Instead of adding the 1/16" square strips outside of these markings I placed them inside. My thinking was that the markings represented the overall size. Wrong! Chuck's watchful eye caught the mistake.
 
Before and after
 

 

Let the second planking begin!
 

 
So far done completely with PVA glue and no clamps, just holding each plank in position until the CVA takes enough set to hold it.  We'll see how far along I get with this system.
 
For the stern, I've only gotten two of the planks wrapped to the transom so far, and I've used water and heat to get them into shape prior to gluing.  Hopefully will be able to continue to get the shape of the planks at the stern very close to shape before placing.  If not I'll likely have to resort to clamps at some point.

Not Really Kurt
 
There are a few magazine articles,  the Peterson book on Rigging,  A few other books may have a nugget or two, but thats it.  Its pretty much spread all over the place.  You really cant count on the AOTS book for Alert.  Its much earlier than Cheerful.  The cutter didnt change all that much but there are still vast differences in some areas.   Its also has a few errors in it which have been discussed to death.  The windlass is one of them.
 
Luckily there are quite a few contemporary models of cutters out there.  There are also tons of plans for cutters on the NMM site.  AND the Cheerful plans are excellent in every respect. Very detailed which is why I chose it.
 
I pent the day planking.  Got the first belt done ob the starboard side.  It went quickly.  Only eight planks.   The starboard side is now half planked.  I must complete the square tuck on the starboard side next before I can plank the lower belt.  Luckily because its a POB design and NOT a fully framed model,  I dont have to follow actual practice for building the square tuck.   So based on my design I can do one half of the tuck at a time.  I am eager to get it done to see how it will work out.
 
Once the square tuck is done then I will plank the remaining 10 strakes in the lower belt....then I must repeat the process on the other side.  
 
Chuck
 

 

 

 

 

This model is actually not that small.   At 1/4" scale the hull is 17 3/4" long......fully rigged she is 29 1/4" long....and 25.5" tall.
 
Chuck

Update:  Bow stem repaired. Temporary braces removed, Cap rail installed and sanded. Red tape applied to mask off areas to be painted. I'm going to paint the cap rail, inside and stern red as the others. Interior I think I will stain (not sure which color yet). Have not decided whether I will paint the lower hull white or leave it "natural". The red "masking" tape I'm using is Great Planes brand 1/8" EZ-Mask Flexible Masking tape. I started using it when I was building the plastic Tamiya armor kits. It's very flexible, low tack and applies easily.
 



 

After a week of not going into the ship yard because of the broken mast I finally bit the bullet and went back to work.  I glued the mast back together, it was still partially attached, and I used two strips of the brass to brace up the sides, I then painted them black.  Overall not the ideal fix but I was dreading a redo as I had spent quite a bit of time getting my iron work up to snuff.  From a short distance you can't even really see the "fix"
 
(sorry for the blurry pic)
 
 I was working on the boom and the the gaff and trying to figure out how to tie the block for the boom (I couldn't find closeup photos that showed the loop when I came to the realization that I had used the wrong blocks on my mast.  Doh.
 

 
So I cut them off and redid them with the correct 1/8" single block.
 
After finishing that, rereading the directions and finding some close up photos I finally figured out how to do the block for the boom.  While tying these I remembered that ship building is like bomb disposal in one respect, make sure you know which thread you have in hand before you cut it or bad things happen.
 

 

 
I finished up the boom and gaff, here's what all the stick work looks like in one place.
 

 
I also mounted the bowsprit, the red goes beyond the ironwork because I had the bowsprit all set in place when I painted it, I failed to pay attention to the support in the boat however and after having finished painting I realized it was leaning backwards at a 30 degree angle, when I pushed it up to the correct 90 degree angle the red on the bow sprit was in front of the iron band, so I squared it up and called it good.  Another good point to bring up, fortunately the simulated sheave ended up in the right location by pure luck, I failed to check its position before the glue set, in the future I will ensure I pay attention to the entire part when setting it.
 

 

 
I've begun work on the stand for the boat as well, I purchased a pine display stand at Michaels and turned a couple of pedestals for the boat to sit on, I will either stain the base with the reddish Ipswitch pine that I used on the interior of the boat and the pedestals the same fruitwood stain as the hull of the boat or I will go with a darker stain overall, not sure yet.
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Yet ANOTHER Syren log!  After following the advise on the newbie page, and getting a nice discount, I got my kit on Friday from Model-Expo, who were nice enough to combine two orders so I could get the free shipping. I like them already.  
 
As suggested I inventoried everything against the parts list and found everything... lots of little-bitty-parts!  I confess I didn't count all the blocks and such, as I figure I'm gonna lose some anyway.  Did I mention how small some of the stuff is, WOW.
 
I decided to label the wood by wrapping each group with a sticky note, why measure everything twice (or more)?  After writing the decimals next to the fractions for quick ID with the calipers, and trying not to squish some of the smaller ones, I barely bumped the 1/32x1/32 bunch and managed to bend/break a few already.
 
With the suggested tools lists from this site, the next step was to see what tools and materials are available around town before gathering the tools from Dad, not the best time to do that since it was 3 Saturday's from Christmas.  The wife was out of town and I wasn't in a hurry so no a problem, might as well practice the patience needed for the actual construction.  Lowe's did't have much no balsa or hobby woods, Michael's did't have much either probably b/c it was half full of Christmas stuff, but full of shoppers. After that Hobby Town USA, which was a disappointment not much wood modeling stuff but I did get some x-acto blades and CA glues.  Next, a Wal-Mart with a crafts area, again not much available.  
 
Hobby Lobby was the final stop and they had a very nice selection of woods including finally the balsa I need for the bulkhead blocks, self healing cutting mat and other stuff I needed.  They had one of the rulers with handle suggested by Dirk.  Here was also the only place I found some PVA wood glue (other than Elmers with the huge spouts) called SIG-BOND, more on it later. I will be going back to Hobby Lobby often I suspect.. but other than one more stop for chisels, I'll wait until AFTER Christmas.
 
Probably the WORST afternoon to go to Hobby Lobby, 10 lines 10+ people deep.  Oh well but then ended up right next to a guy from another town who worked for the company I was swapping GIS maps with for some needed survey work after the New Year.  I hadn't met him before and managed to get a little work done, talk about coincidence.   
 
On to Dad's and his garage of modeling tools.  He had gathered up some stuff already and we proceeded to go thru 50 years of modeling tools.  Files, knives, hundreds of used blades, clamps vices, etc. many things on the list including 3 airbrushes, a scroll saw and combination disk and belt sander.  I was even given the cabinet and an unused wooden machinists style toolbox.  After dinner provided by the Fleet Admiral I headed home an unloaded my goodies.  
 
Something that is important to me is to have an organized workspace and plenty of room to move things around.  Building something is hard enough without too little room to work and having to look for tools scattered around.  I still have some organizing to do of all the stuff Dad gave me but I decided it was time to start building, not just planning and organizing to build so I cleaned up and filled the tool cabinet with some of the stuff I knew I would need right away.
 

 
 
 

I have started to line out the hull for planking.   There are 20 strakes under the wales.   The first two are already done....those were the ones with the drop plank.  So I measured midship for the remaining 18 strakes.  They will be 3/16" wide.   Interestingly,  the strakes fit perfectly as they did on the contemporary draft.   There will be just two belts of strakes.   The first will have the remaining 8 under the wales.  The bottom belt will have ten.  Basically the hull was split in half down to the bottom of the square tuck as shown in that contemporary planking expansion.
 

 
I used black line tape to split the hull into the two belts.  I am spending a great deal of time examining it from all angles until I am pleased with it.   Then I marked along the tape and removed it.  All there is left to do is to take the space remaining in belt one on each bulkhead and transfer it to a tick strip.
 

 
The tick strip is divided into eight with the help of the planking fan.   Then the tick marks are transferred back to that bulkhead.  Once again I am amazed at how the cutter is so well designed by the naval architects.  Almost every bulkhead except for the four forward bulkheads have strakes exactly 3/16" wide.  Its a straight run to the square tuck with 3/16" planks.  No tapering/widening required in this first belt . Only those at the extreme bow need to be tapered which is a huge time saver.
 

 
This will not be the case in the lower belt.  The strakes will get wider at the stern as they run off the hull and also require tapering at the bow.  But it should be a very very close match to that original planking expansion for 1806.  Yippee for me.  It all worked out.
 
I also started fixing the wales at the bow which you can see in the photos.  They are now the proper thickness entering the rabbet or nearly so....almost there!!

Thanks...I am fixing up the wales as we speak.  I will post another picture soon after its done.  I noticed after I posted the photos that that I didnt take the wales down at the bow enough before painting them.  Basically, in actual practice,  the wales would fit into the same rabbet.  Therefore they would not be thicker than the surrounding planking at the bow where it enters the stem rabbet.  They gradually reduce in thickness until they are the same as the surrounding planks.
 
This is a nice little detail that no one would probably ever notice but after its done it will make the model even more historically accurate.  I am reducing the thickness right now and will repaint.
 
See this contemporary model from the rogers collection...notice how the wales dont stand proud of the planking along the stem rabbet.   They are flush....and all fit into the rabbet nicely as compared to my model which will soon be all fixed up.  This is true for most ships during this period including frigates like the Winchelsea.  But because its one of those little details often overlooked...I always forget.... and have to go back and fix it later.  Its a carry-over habit from my kit building days where this is never mentioned.
 
I also included a picture of a mermaid class frigate 1780ish.   Look at the stem where the wales enter the rabbet.
 
 
 

 
Chuck

Hi Mike,
 
 
Carefully . I used a Push Stick to hold the piece down on the table.
 
  Danny

So I decided that good is good enough, and I'm tired of painting black layers.  So, I decided tonight would be the night for the 'big reveal'.  How well did my masking work?  Was all of this a huge waste of time because the black bled all over the yellow ochre?  (insert drum roll here)
 
 
 

 
I can live with this.  This is prior to buffing (not fully dry on the final coat of black) and adding a couple layers of clear poly.  Needs a bit of touch up here and there, especially in the bottom and top of the gun ports, but certainly a paint job I can live with for my first run at wood painting.
 
As far as colors go, I painted 4 different color strips (3 different blues and a green) and laid them up against the hull to eyeball, and while the blue certainly adds a nice splash of color, I think I'm going to be different from every other AVS build I've seen, and leave the sheer strake black.  In the instruction manual, painting the sheer strake blue, red, or green is 'optional', and I'm kind of fond of the black right now.
 
Tomorrow I can put the taffrail on, and then apply a couple coats of poly to protect the paint, then it's time to start the 2nd planking of the hull! 

And the weeks have slipped by!
 
Next came the mast.  Quite a complicated piece.  Well, pieces, really, as there are top and lower masts.  And plenty to screw up!
 
I shaped the lower mast reasonably easily - even though I kept forgetting which way it went (forrard or stern, not top or bottom!).
 
Here is the bottom of the lower mast, with its various bits and pieces:
 

 
 
And the top, with trestle trees etc.  I had to reposition the trees - again I was glad I used PVA glue:
 

 
 
The topmast caused some difficulties.  I missed the bit about leaving a bead at the top, so glued one on after.  In retrospect, that's actually a good option.  Glued, unshaped:
 

 
 
Rounded:
 

 
 
The bottom of the top mast, after squaring:
 

 
 
Then it's time to join the two. 
 

 
In the above photo you can see little "fids", painted black, supposedly resting on the trestle trees.  The instructions say to make a hole through the top mast for a single fid.  WHY????
 
Far easier to make 2 dummy fids, and glue them either side of the topmast.
 
Finally, I think I'm getting the hang of this! 
 
Cheers,
 
Brett

I added the first two strakes below the wales.  This was to get the drop plank out of the way.  The drop plank was shaped from a piece of card stock first just to get the hang of it.  After I was satisfied that it fit OK I  cut the real ones from wide stock the same thickness as the planking.  They were pre shaped as you can see.  You can also see my pencil on the edge to simulate the tarred seams. Now I will line off the remainder of the hull into two belts and finish the planking.  I also painted the first of many layers of red paint on the counter at the stern.
 
Chuck
 

 

 

 

 

I have decided to use a finish that will not yellow the holly.  In TFFM David mentions a solvent-based sealer for his finish.  For those of you who own his Comet book or have seen the photos, that is the look I am trying to achieve.  The bottle of solvent-based sanding sealer I have was quite a few years old so I purchased some from Midwest Models, as well as a bottle of flat finish.  I have not decided whether to stick with just the sealer or put a coat of finish on as well.  The pictures are taken after two coats of sealer, the first sanded down to 320 grit and the second sanded to 400.  Later this week I will test applying a coat of the finish on some scrap wood.  One of the nice things about the sealer is that the drying time is very fast but as this is solvent based the smell is pretty strong.  Unlike a oil based finish, the odor dissipates quickly.
 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks Marty, Bob and the "Likes".  I appreciate everyone checking out my build log.
 
Marty, I look forward to seeing the photo of your Longboat.  I like to study the photos of everyone's Longboat build.
 
Bob, I am flattered by your comment about my build.  I have studied your build log and have used your techniques throughout my build.  If my build comes out half as nice as yours, I will be really pleased.  Your build has set the standard for Longboat builds.
 
I have completed the rear platform and the forward wall of the locker.  I used BobF's method of making templates to cut out the platforms.  The templates really help to get a good fit.
 

 
Here is a picture of the overall look at the interior of my Longboat.