davyboy

I've finished up the starboard hull planking and I must say that I'm quite happy with it. So far it's been sanded with some 180 grit sticky back sandpaper attached to soft sanders. You can find them here, just search for "soft sanders" https://www.woodcraft.com/ I prefer the coarser grit as it allows me to even out the undulations in the wood more easily than if I went with a finer grit. I'll finish up with some 320-400 in order to remove any scratches that can be seen.

I still need to add the hance piece at the quarterdeck. Once that is in I will final shape the shear of that last filler plank.

Mike

Progress on the transom

You have a deft touch with the chisel (must be quite sharp) used thusly ... Hats off to your courage !  Said the cowardly Lion, "What makes a King out of a slave? - Courage.  What makes the flag on the mast to wave? - Courage.  ...  What makes the Hottentots so hot?  Who put the ape in apricot?  What do they got that I ain't got? ... Courage. - You can say that again."

All those metal fittings look so ‘last century’ to my eye, and stub guns, takes me back to Norske Love of the 1980’s.
Times have moved on……..
 
B.E.

Tomorrow morning, the Amsterdam will leave Shanghai. I hope they have a smooth journey

Thank you Yves. I have to say that the lack of English instructions intimidated me at first, but as I'm working my way through things, if you can follow illustrations and plans and take your time and think things through, it starts to make sense. Admittedly, it's early days yet and I'm sure I'll be left scratching my head a few times! I had to laugh at one illustration in the manual with the English instruction "Get out!"  I started to leave, then thought "Wait a minute! This is my house!", and finally understood that the instruction actually meant "Remove"!
 
Cheers!
 
Patrick

Morning @Patrick Haw nice to hear from you, in 2021 i moved out of the garage into the conservatory, and made a display area in the empty space, there are now far more models in there, but thats where they are nowadays
 

 

Quite an interesting read. I work in Imperial at 1:48th scale. A foot is 0.250"at 1:48th,an inch at 1:48th scale is 0.021",actually it is 0.0002" less but I use the 0.021" as I'm building a model ship from wood not a million Franc watch.  Easy enough to work out whatever scale one uses in imperial or metric I guess.
 
Dave 

Quite an interesting read. I work in Imperial at 1:48th scale. A foot is 0.250"at 1:48th,an inch at 1:48th scale is 0.021",actually it is 0.0002" less but I use the 0.021" as I'm building a model ship from wood not a million Franc watch.  Easy enough to work out whatever scale one uses in imperial or metric I guess.
 
Dave 

Quite an interesting read. I work in Imperial at 1:48th scale. A foot is 0.250"at 1:48th,an inch at 1:48th scale is 0.021",actually it is 0.0002" less but I use the 0.021" as I'm building a model ship from wood not a million Franc watch.  Easy enough to work out whatever scale one uses in imperial or metric I guess.
 
Dave 

Eberhard, I laughed at your comment because it's all too true. All one can do is laugh at our frailties.

"I think good lighting helps more than magnifyers." ... Unfortunately, there comes a time, when this doesn't help anymore 🥲

You are quite correct. The first couple of months, after starting my frame drafts for the Hancock, I was losing my mind on a regular basis. I'd get frustrated, delete my work then start over again, time and time again. I've lost count on how many times I started over with a clean slate. I finally came to the conclusion that I was being a bit too anal about being 100% accurate and started keeping my work and making adjustments as needed, be it truly accurate or not. Maybe my work will be off a few scale inches in length, breadth, and this/that and the other, here and there, but "What the Heck." It became time that I either had to stop trying to be completely accurate and start focusing on just getting things as close as I can, otherwise I'd never finish my design nor begin to actually start building a model. I'll blame this behavior on my 40-year background and career where .005" could mean the difference between "Go, or 'No Go'!" From now on I'll just try to stay as close as I reasonably can and simply focus on a nice-looking design. If something is off a bit, nobody will ever know but 'me'!
Okay, I've highjacked this thread for long enough. Time to return it to its original owner...       

Last night I laminated 3 strips together to create the keel. I have drilled holes in the former and am using the same cord as I am using for Stays on CS. This is prewaxed but I have run it over my beeswax block for good measure. 
I have then secured the keel to the former using a simple running stitch. This will not get in the way until I have to do the final 2 strakes on each side but by then, the boat will be pretty solid in its shape. 

The top most strake has been secured on both sides. 
I know I say "you can't have too many clamps" but in this instance, clamps are not working for me. 
I saw a video the other day of someone building a canoe (full size) and he strapped each longways strake to the ribs and this made me think, hence I am using cord. 
This is where patience comes in. Each time I lay down a fresh strake, I run a cord from a knot or clamp around the boat, this is then run around the glued in strake and the new strake to hold them together. The cord then is run around the model moving on to the next frame and rib and repeated until you reach the end, securing the end of the cord with a clamp. 
I then touch a small amount of ca glue between the strake and each rib. 
You then have to wait for the glue to set up. 

So wrap, glue, wait, repeat is the order of the day. 
I am trying not to mess up the planking so here are 4 strakes cut and sanded to taper identically.

 
Simon

The quarter deck breastwork:
 









 

A bit more work was completed; few keel pieces done with small details left to be done..




With holiday season it does take time to make those parts..

Happy modelling.
 

All wales on the clinker planking are installed.

On the starboard side a beam has been simulated where the swivel cannons will later be placed

And the thinning of the frames has begun
First a pencil line.

Then the more "heavy tools", used carefully of course.

One side is from 6 to 5 mm, the intention is to later make the frames even thinner above the beam of the swivels to 4 or, if possible, 3 mm

Progress continues to creep ahead. After a bit of adjustment to the shapes involved, I was able to fit the figurehead that was made some time ago by Janos Nemath, one of our modelmakers. I really should have left it off a little longer, but I was anxious to see the 'Duchess' with her brightly coloured figure, which was painted at sea by the captain's wife without his knowledge. The damage to the port bulwark has now also been repaired and is ready for re-painting.
 
John
 

Keith, almost all the fine detail on this model will not be covered with paint. Nickel plating or polished brass coated with varnish will be used.

Valeriy. They look smart. Presumably you aren't planning to paint them?

And now I tried them on the model hull.

Саша ,  Gary , Roel, Ricr  and that's all, thank you for your kind words and attention to my topic!   
 
  The photo shows a small number of nickel-plated parts.

Adding the bolt ropes to the edges of the sails. Glued to the edge of the sail with matt acrylic varnish. Much more fiddly than I'd expected. I had to do a short section, let it dry and then do another until I'd gone all around the outside. I discovered the assembly would then stick to the cutting board, so I needed to peel the section of sail and bolt-rope off each time I did this, otherwise it would stick fast and tear as I removed it. And I had to go back over it to repair the places where the rope hadn't adhered properly to the sail.

Now that's complete, I've started adding the mizzen sail to the yard with robands made of cotton sewing thread, using a needle to pierce holes in the sail and then tying a reef knot in each individual roband.


It turned out that I needed to glue the first thumb knot together and to the yard, then come back later and do the other half of the knot and glue it in place. Otherwise it would all come loose and untie itself. And by that time I'd forgotten which way I'd done the first part, so I think I ended up with a decent number of granny knots. Not to worry, though. At this scale you can't tell anyway.

I used a cunning mechanism (a clothes peg) to keep the top of the yard facing upwards so all the knots ran along the top.

Still in progress. Once they're all done I'll go back and trim the free ends back close to the knots.

And I'm just getting into designing the anchors. Though there are plenty of contemporary representations of anchors from the 14th century, I've been able to find only a single one from the 12th - in another mosaic in San Marco which appears to have been done about the same time. It shows three anchors at the bow - the arrow is pointing to the foremost one. I've worked out how big they would be and their proportions, but the shank looks terribly short to me.
   
What do the rest of you think? Should I lengthen the shank? And also add flukes - it is, after all, pretty difficult to portray these on a mosaic - and for the same reason perhaps taper the stock as well?
 
Steven
 
 
 
 

Adding Main and Mizzen Main Yards to Indy
I have now painted all the yards black and have started the installation process, noting I did install the fore mainyard a few weeks ago.
 
Here is a couple of photos showing the Indy with most of the yards fitted. The topsail and topgallant yards have not been secured to the masts so they are little bit lopsided.

Starting with the main mast yard I have added the rigging for the sling. The truss pendants have also been added but they have not been belayed. I have not added the jeers as yet which will be the next job.
 
In the next photo the main yard sling rigging can be seen.

The next photo shows the main yard nave line which has been added to the truss pendants. Again this line has not been belayed.

The next photo shows the crossyard jack, which has been added to the mizzen mast.

The next photo shows the crossyard jack sling rigging.

Thank you John and mikegr.
 
And so onto the taper planks. Because I want both sides of the hull symmetrical I set about making the taper planks as matched pairs. Two parallel planks were taped together using double sided sellotape.
I then marked the "unshaped" edge of the joined planks so that I would retain the reference orientation of the planks on each side of the hull.
The planks were then mounted in my "plank clamping vice" and the edges were reduced. It is probably not clear from the photos but a reference taper strip is glued on to the jaws of the "plank vice" so that I can follow this reference when creating the taper. Additionally the clamping vice has inch subdivisions along its length. By moving the end of the planks to different positions along the vice I can create different widths of plank. Currently I am reducing the planks to 2/3 width at the stern and 1/2 width at the bow as per the measurements in the previous post. 

The following shots are just a sequence of taper planks going on to the hull.
 

For the moment the taper planks seem to be working and I am not having to force bend them in the width direction. Consequently I am not experiencing and "Clinkering".
I am bevelling one edge of each plank as it goes on to the hull to keep adjacent planks abutted tightly. I did make a small tool to assist with the bevelling.

However in the end I found that it was just a easy to shape the plank edges with a small sanding block and the tool was consigned to the bin.
 
So it was that I progressed steady to plank 14.


I am finding the pins on the "string" line are really convenient for storing the planks prior to fitting. You can just see one parked on the opposite side of the hull in the next photo.

More planking fun to continue next week.