davec

Hi all another update from me - this one's going to be a bit picture heavy.  This time I'm approaching the gunwales; moulding and timber heads.
 
So I started with the easiest pieces which were the lower gunwales.  These were easy to make and I pre-drilled all of the holes for the guard rails


Next I needed to sort out a piece that I had failed to see in the drawings - goodness how long ago was that!  It was this piece coloured in red below - Its a small extension of the short frame which supports the fancy transition between the quarter deck and main deck gunwales.  Because I didn't see this another issue was that I cut the interior planking too short.

So I made a piece that could fill the gap and also go far enough inboard to be flush with the interior planking


Next was the mouldings  - these were pretty straight forward.  I scraped them to shape and to hold the tricky bits still I PVA'd them to a piece of scrap and then heated the back to release them.  They did take a bit of fitting but I got there and I took the opportunity to finally shape the timber heads.




Now this is a tricky part to make - the gunwale transition.  It is such a prominent part it needs to be as good a possible.  The gunwales are different widths and they need the transition to "S" a little too.  So what I ended up doing was to make the part much wider that I needed it.  In fact I made it 13.5mm wide.

I then roughed the "S" out but left loads on to finalise the shape once the quarterdeck gunwale was fitted.  This is one of those parts where if you force it - it will snap so I just slowly worked away at them until I got a good fit.


Lastly I made the remaining wale - It fits around the timber heads and also the guard rail stanchions so I made sure that they fitted correctly.  I think this would be difficult once they are fitted.

A few pictures of where I am now.






So next I guess I need to finish the planking between the mouldings and also make the decorative face for the first beam on the quarterdeck.
 
Thanks for all of the nice comments
 
Mark
 
 
 

Just a brief post to let you all know I am still alive. The subject is the hawsepipes, and this was a perilous adventure! Even though I have finished the process, I am curious to know how others handle such a delicate matter. The entry point on the knighthead has to be precisely located, as does the exit from the hull planking. I started with very fine drill bits and estimated the path the pipe should follow, drilling in a very shallow manner starting at the knighthead, then doing the same starting at the hull surface, then deepening each hole with the hopes that they would meet in between. While I was still working with relatively small bits, I could tell I was off on the starboard side, as the pipe was emerging too low on the hull.

But as I gradually scaled up, it became possible to work on the pipe with the tip of an X-Acto blade and open up the passage in a favorable direction.

And in the end, I ended up with two symmetrical passages. The diameter is currently 1/16". They will probably still require further enlargement, and additional wood will be applied to the inboard and outboard surfaces to duplicate the appearance on the real vessel. That will be helpful in that it can potentially cover up other imperfections.

So how does everyone else handle this delicate matter?

When repeatedly test fitting these pieces, care had to be taken in order to maintain consistent placement of the two articulating planks against their stanchions.

For this reason, I drilled a couple of holes in the aft plank and its underlying stanchion, large enough to accommodate a T-pin. One was also placed in the forward plank. These ensured that the planks were landing against the stanchions the same way every time.

The forward end of the forward plank was shaped to meet the filler block.

But besides the filler block, this end of the plank currently has nothing to land against.

So, it’s time to model the visible portion of the knightheads, the solid gray pieces of wood on either side of the bowsprit. The hawsepipes for the anchor chain travel through these pieces.
 
It’s worth noting that this picture exemplifies a difference between my model as built to the original builder’s plans and how it exists today. During the refit in 1999-2000, additional stanchions were added toward the bow that were not part of the original design. Those stanchions are visible in this photo but are absent from my model.

 

The knighthead pieces were built up from a couple of pieces of scrap, and their surfaces sanded down to accommodate their angle against the deck and the area of the bowsprit.

There is a small hole for the anticipated location of the hawsepipe where it emerges from the planking, previously estimated by eye.

However, this photo from 2024 suggests that my initial attempt is located too far aft.

So the position was adjusted and marked with a pencil mark.

Then the old hole was filled with a dowel and cut smooth, then painted over.

I placed a small pin in the bottom surface of the knighthead and drilled a corresponding hole in the underlying covering board, to give it some strength.

 

Now it is fitted in place. This piece will be trimmed down in the future to accommodate the width of the 8-inch-wide bowsprit. The beginnings of a hawsepipe have been started in it; the hawsepipe will not be brought to its outer surface until the overlying planking is installed.

Now it’s time to dry fit the first of the four bulwark planks, again ensuring that there is no gap between it and the covering board, but also ensuring that the plank is pressed up against the stanchions.

I made these little things to sit on top of the plank so that a clamp could push against them and the underlying plank, forcing the plank down against the covering board.

After a lot of dry fitting, and after purchasing many more clamps, the glue-up was performed and left to dry overnight. But first I attempted to reach any squeeze-out of glue between the clamps that would be visible inboard.

Here is the next morning, with the clamps removed and showing the various support pieces of scrap that enabled a proper grip of the clamps on the plank.

The scrap pieces on the stanchions ensured that the grip of the clamps on the plank was directly inboard and not on an angle.

Voila!!

No gaps!

There are some areas on the inboard surface of the plank that will require some touch-up painting, but the overall result is really nice.

 

These pictures remind me to say that the inboard surface of the plank was pre-painted, and any paint drifting into the areas where the plank meets a stanchion had to be scraped away before applying glue.

Here I am dry-fitting the forward plank; I have not yet glued this one in place.

 

Let’s have another look at that scarf joint area! (This one is actually for the opposite, port, side.) Very pleased with how that looks.
 
So, once the remaining 3 planks are installed, then planking of the rest of the bulwarks should go pretty quickly, followed by installation of the rail.
 
At the same time, I am working on marking out the waterline, plus I am continuing to work on the miniature carving of the trailboard. So much to do!
 

So, now on to the first bulwark plank. In this picture, I am mocking up how many planks there will be in order to get to the undersurface of the rail. The first plank is slightly thicker than the rest, and again it will feature that bead that is visible in the initial picture above.

Next step is to create the bead in the top edge of the first bulwark plank. This required me to learn about how to make a scraper. There will be four strips of wood for modeling this plank, 2 on each side with a scarf joint at midships.

I used a cutoff wheel on a Dremel to carefully cut into the edge of this X-Acto blade. I found that the gap between the top edge (on the left) and the barb of metal adjacent to it was too small to accurately cut using the cutoff wheel. The solution was to make the strips overly wide, then scrape in the bead feature, then run the strips through the thickness sander while tilted up on their edges.

In this way, I could end up with planks of the right width, with the bead feature right at the top edge and in scale with the actual appearance.
 
I had these great pictures taken through the microscope showing some of the process of cutting in the scuppers, but MSW has decided not to accept those pictures! Oh well.

This picture shows that the first plank needs to be steam bent to accommodate the curve of the hull, of course along its thin dimension, but also including edge setting. This is particularly necessary in the bow, where the hull has a degree of “powderhorn” that leads to the first plank initially curving upward, but then curving in a downward direction as it approaches its end at the bowsprit.

The powderhorn is accentuated in this picture. The plank ends against a temporary spacer applied to the stem, which corresponds to the width of a support block located below the bowsprit. The bowsprit itself will be much wider than this spacer.

Here we have one of the aft planks, with its scuppers cut into it. Placement had to be precise due to the location of the scuppers as well as where the aft end of the plank meets the transom planking.
 
In addition, the bottom edge of this plank had to be shaped so that it cleanly met the level surface of the covering board, accounting for how great or little the underlying stanchions leaned in comparison to the covering board.

This picture illustrates that simply placing a clamp on the plank leads to a gap at its lower edge, in part due to the force placed on the upper edge of the plank by the clamp, but also due to the shape of its bottom edge.

Shown here is the scarf joint and its placement relative to the underlying stanchions, as well as some gapping between the covering board and the plank.

Here I am beginning to work the other side of the scarf joint into the forward plank.

It’s always satisfying to see a scarf joint come together!
 

And this one has the added complexity of a scupper within it, as will the joint on the port side.

This shows how the scupper is worked into the joint.
 
More posts will follow shortly...

I got the Lotus 49c over the finish line. Final assemblies were the rear wing, the tiny metal nets over the air intakes, the steering wheel and clear parts around the cockpit and many small parts. The wing was easier mounted then thought, luckily. The rods were fragile and I can understand, why wings were banned sometimes in F1 due to the risk of flying around and hurting somebody.
I hope, I did Jochen Rindt´s 1970 Monaco winner some justice. The build was not always pleasant, but I like the result despite some shortcomings.





















Cheers Rob

Not pictured, but I used the one-piece bottom, so I scribed between the planks to give it some definition. Sanded the frames, and then glued up!
 
 

And so it begins.  

Hello all! After a very long absence I am back. The last few years had a lot of unexpected twists and turns that took me away from ship modeling. Life has calmed back down and set me to follow one of my long-time dreams of building a very large, scratch built model ship. I debated for a while about what ship it would be and what scale I would use. I wanted the opportunity for lots of details both outside and inside the ship, however, the model also had to fit within the confines of my garage and be able to pass through the overhead door. I decided upon the Vasa for a few reasons. The first was that I wanted to stay within the 17th century as I love the look of those ships. Second, I have not built a model of the Vasa, and the third, and most important, is the vast wealth of knowledge available about her. While I do not claim that every component will be 100% accurate, I intend to get close. 
 
With the ship selected, scale came next. I wanted it to be as large as possible, but still able to pass through the overhead door. This restricted me to 7'-2" of clearance. 1:24 is the largest scale that I can use to allow for the ship's masts to be fully rigged as the top of the flagstaff on the mainmast will be right at 7'. (I may make this part removable to give myself a little extra room for the day I have to move it.) Finished, the model will be about 9' in length, 7' in height, and a little over 2' in width. 
 
My next challenge was drawing up plans for the main components, keel, frames, transom, etc. Using several sources, including the Vasa museum, books by Fred Hocker, and a brilliant dissertation on Vasa's architecture by Kelby James Rose at Texas A&M, I was able to get accurate dimensions, angles and curves on the main components, as well as pictures and explanations on what the internal structure looks like, details on construction joints, and functions of many elements that are not always shown on typical models. One of the major issues that I've run into is that Vasa was not built along the typical guidelines of the later 17th century. Many deviations in the Dutch building practice along with changes that both builders, first Henrik Hybertsson then after his death, Hein Jakobsson, made to the structure mean that some of my usual resources that I use for 17th century ships, will have to be dismissed as they are not applicable. Fortunately, while I strive for accuracy, this project is most importantly about fun! 
 
I used large graphing paper to draw up 1:24 sale drawings. This is allowing me to test fit elements and see how they interact before cutting them on wood. I can then trace out the individual pieces that I need onto parchment paper to use as a stencil to transfer the shape onto wood. This is especially helpful on the curved parts. It also allows me to try to make my mistakes on cheap paper rather than expensive wood. 
 
I started this project technically in May with the drawings, then I cut my first pieces of lumber on September 7th. This is likely to be a very long build, but I really don't know of any other kind!  I hope you all enjoy this as much as I do. There are still lots of things I've yet to figure out such as how I will make the cannons and all the carvings, plus how much of the interior I plan to show. I have a rough plan, so we shall see. In any event, it should be entertaining.  

Lifelong modeler and woodworker, about to retire maybe. One of the things on my modeling bucket list is building a serious gunship wooden model. I'm also cognizant of the fact that, if I tried to do one of those as my first project would almost guarantee a rage quit. Instead, I'm going to work through several smaller kits first, beginning with Model Shipways Grand Banks dory. 
 
If you are a degenerate football (American) fan as I am, there are going to be many hours watching NFL and NCAA games. I find it very conducive to modelling, as you only have to look up for 6-8 seconds, then do some building between plays and during commercial breaks. I've cleared all the tools that are Gundam/plastic model specific and am ready to get started.
 

Dear all,
after long time spent in my home country, I back home and I am again here for posting a WIP about a new Airfix kit, i.e. their recent Bristol Bulldog in 1:48 scale. The subject is a classic British biplane which was produced and flew during the inter-war period. 
This is a little kit which is quite known by now and this is its box with its rather nice box art:

You might find reviews on the web concluding that this is a nice kit and indeed the level of surface details is very nice:

However, in my opinion, one drawback is the quality of the plastic which is a bit rubber-like, hence difficult to cut and sand cleanly. I started with the cockpit which renders the internal truss structure and few other details rather nicely. I replaced the seat with an Eduard resin, not because the one of the kit is not good, but because I wanted to buy their p.e. harness which came with a resin seat.

The cockpit assembly had to be painted black and once included in the closed fuselage, very little can be seen from the cockpit opening. I also painted the inner sidewalls of the fuselage with two colors to represent the metallic panels and the fabric covered part:

I replaced the instrument panel of the kit with a Yahu one which is quite nice:

Finally, the complete assembled cockpit is placed inside the fuselage. From the dimension of my fingers you can see that this is really a tiny model:

Once the fuselage was closed, the distinctive fairings of the cylinder heads were also glued on.

Several points on the junctions had to be addressed on the upper and on the lower side. As said, the plastic gets crazed when sliced or sanded and this makes for me difficult to judge when a seam is finally ok. Several applications of Mr. Surfacer were necessary to fill small gaps.

I also separated the elevators from the tailplanes before gluing them on the fuselage. The trailing edge of the wings are too thick for this scale and some extending sanding is necessary.

Finally, the lower wing is sanded and glued in place. Now everything is ready for a preliminary coat of Mr. Surfacer 1500 that will allow to check the work done so far.

The result is not bad, with only few blemishes requiring further work. I am going also to wet sand everything with a very fine grit to insure a smooth surface in view of the silver finish.


That's all for now,
best regards,
Dan
 
 
 

Thanks Adam. I need the Dremel right angle attachment. I think you mean the sanding disks that adhese via the backing, right?  Not sure what you mean by attaching by the clip in the back.
 
As you said, getting the taper to the timber heads will be tricky. I've left off the short top timber on some of my frames so I can shape them later.
 
I am installing and truing the seven full frames and will fair their bevels before moving on to the stern cant frames. First I need to lay the cants out from the plan view picking up the offsets at each height at the appropriate angle to the keel. At least less beveling required if set perpendicular to the plank line at the center height.
 
The attached photo shows the sanding tool I made which has become a favorite. It uses a strip of 60 grit paper secured by two screws. Quick to change. Cuts better than my rasps and files and good for concave situations, so will be a help for finishing up the inside surfaces.
 

Four frames fitted to the keel and keelson, but removable to work on the bevels. Hoping that cutting the outside and inside bevels on each frame individually will work by picking up the angle at different heights from the plan view, as would have been done by the shipwrights before installing it. Hopefully I've allowed enough extra thickness on the inside, if not, add shims.  Anyone have thoughts or experience with this process? Sure to be tedious and questionably accurate.

Starting on the after third of HMB Endeavour at 1:30 scale. This matches up with my completed center cross-section which is in the collection at the British Columbia Maritime Museum in Victoria. For the this section I intend to stop with the framing and perhaps the wales, clamps, beams and knees, but no planking. I'm using the drawings from K H Marquardt's Anatomy of The Ship. I was able to scale up his 1/8" to the foot drawings to 1:30 by enlarging 325% on my printer.
 
Six frames assembled, one fitted to the keel and sternpost assembly.

Welp, after finishing, I realized a few mistakes for next time. I put some of the planks on backerds and didn’t true up anything to make sure it was square. It made for a little wonkiness to the boat. I also didn’t feel like adding more than two oars or anymore thole pins than necessary. I think it gives a nice lonely feel and allowed me to be lazy. I also mistook the cap rail for the gunwale so I never put on the latter. Whoopsies. I also neglected painting the hull before putting on the cap rail as a result. This ended up taking more time than it should have. Overall, a very fun experience! I’m trying to figure out which ship to try next. Maybe a masted one? Thanks!

I attended the International Plastic Modelers Society (IPMS) National Convention in Hampton, Virginia, held August 6–9. My Club, the Hampton Roads Ship Model Society, had a display in the Clubs section where several of our members displayed their models.
 
The event was great, drawing people from all over the United States, many of them were ship modelers. There was a wooden ship model category sponsored by the Nautical Research Guild, so I entered my Medway Longboat.  I was thrilled to take home a third place award.
 
Here is a photo from the IPMS featuring my model:
 

I also really like the natural wood and think it would be a shame to hide the precise and careful planking.  I had the same dilemma with my first ship and left it natural.  Since then I've used different color woods to try to create a little bit of the impression of the painted ship without using paint.

I was initially going to paint different colours on the suspension but I have not yet received my airbrush system. I am going to paint the model as per photos in the build manual.  Front friction dampeners added.

I have started on this build, my first car in over 50 years.  It will be a slow build as I am still waiting for my airbrush set up.  There will be a learning curve and lots of practice before putting paint to the model.  Step 1 and 2 complete

Now back to the pillars!
Pink Ivory put my planing jig to the test. It is not easy to work with - burns when sawing, very prone to tearout, one must be very careful with the grain direction at all times. That made it unrealistic to plane multiple blanks in one go without messing up grain the direction.
The other downside of that jig is the requirement to keep the plane straight, without rocking it side-to-side (this photo is exaggerated to illustrate the point).

But in the absence of a proper thickness sander it gets the job done, cheap and silent

I decided to cut real mortise and tenon joints into the pillars, mostly to help myself with the alignment. I doubt I can drill precise holes join them with a pin, and without some mechanical help to ensure alignment - gluing those together without making a crooked mess would be impossible.
Mortise would allow for some adjustments in the very end - if I need to move the end of the pillar a tiny bit - I will just shave off one side of the tenon!
And you can't imagine how satisfying the dry fit is, it is held nice and tight without any glue!

It is hard to make such a tiny mortise deeper than 0.5mm though (due to the angle of the chisel), but it is enough to firmly register the beam in place.

To help mark up the mortises I made a small styrene jig. It has a friction fit to the beam, a bit lower than the beam, and scored marks align with the centerline marked on top of the beam:

On the underside a square opening is centered around these scored marks, and the chisel fits nicely in it. Not much pressure is required to mark it.

But then I overestimated the strength of the beam, cracking it all the way through along the grain imperfection A clumsy builder can break even a boxwood beam!  

Luckily the crack is quite clean, so should be easy to glue back like it never happened.

I was trying to imagine the process of marking up the deck inside the hull. Even with carefully prepared notches in the deck clamps it's not an easy work - the downside of Hahn's method is that working deep inside the hull always feels like a surgery, working through an narrow opening on top.
So I decided to make my life easier and do it off the model instead  Luckily that hull has a very modest tumblehome, so getting it in and out is geometrically possible.
Beams are spot glued to boxwood strips and the entire deck would be assembled on them. Later strips would be removed using some alcohol or water. It would require a bit of a cleanup, but much easier overall.


It fits perfectly into all notches, very satisfying! Now I can work with it

The deck has a very gentle curve along the hull, so I will take care to glue carlings and ledges on the model to avoid loosing that curve.

I mill my own wood and have been using a Preac thickness sander for 10-12 years.  I have been happy with it, but keep looking at the Byrnes.  Main difference is that the Preac has a 1/8 hp motor and can only remove a little from a 2.5-3" wide boxwood billet on a single pass without binding (does a little better with woods that aren't quite as hard).  Not a big deal when I am only sanding one or two pieces of wood, but it turns sanding more than that into an afternoon project in itself.  The Byrnes has a 1/3 hp motor.  Will the bigger motor make an appreciable difference when sanding compared to the Preac?
 
thanks!
 
Dave

For some reason, I kinda lost interest in finishing these two dioramas over the past few months in part trying to decide what to do with the Opel Blitz truck and in part with the next step of painting and decals.  I did turn back to them more recently as interest returned.
 
I mentioned before that the SOL Opel Blitz kit was a total mess with fragile parts, warped parts, etc., so I broke down and bought the Tamiya kit.  Wow, the Tamiya kit went together like a dream!  Perfect fit, great instructions, etc.  I built up most of the kit a few months ago, but then had to figure out how to modify the kit to match the picture in the towing diorama.  Today I finish the modifications, which included using brass rod (round and square) and some of the wood planks from a Sol Model Opel Blitz kit.  


I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.  I primed it and the various cab parts tonight, so hopefully can get started on painting it later this week.  
 
Thanks for looking in!

There is a song from The Reverend Horton Heat, which is called "It´s Martini Time". The song is like a anthem to me as I love cocktails and specially Martini cocktails, albeit, I never prepare them with Martini. Anyway, the BT45 would fit into the bar, but no chance, no models in the living area .

After two more sessions, the BT45 was done surprisingly rapid in the end. The innards of the nose section fit perfectly and on went the nose. It is removable as are the cockpit and engine fairing. 
It felt nearly indecent, to paint the beautiful turned aluminum rims, but my car had them in black. After drilling all the needed holes very carefully, not to scratch the precious parts, I primed them with Mr. Surfacer 1500 black and found the matte black looked so good, why spoiling it with a color coat. Finally the tyres were mounted onto the rims and then I added the air vents, which proved fiddly. The tyres are absolutely perfect, with pre printed branding and much heavier and durable then e.g. Tamiya tyres. They need to be with the weight of the car, which is also supported by two spacers under the chassis.

Well, let the pics speak:







































Cheers Rob


 

Slowly, I´m nearing the finish line. I added many details to the body, like fasteners, bolts and rivets and worked on the final fitting of the body parts. I am always a little scared when it comes to vacuum formed parts like the smoke clear windshield. It´s always best to cut it with a pair of scissors, than sanding, because the burr is very hard to remove. Finally I got it done, using Tamiya flexible masking tape as a guideline.
The clear part was glued to the body with 1mm wide double sided clear adhesive tape and then received the tiny rivets. The side air intakes are not finally glued to the body, I may let them removable for better sight on the engine, but then, I add some guiding bolts.
Now I´m preparing the rims and the nose section and then wroarrrrrrrrrrr 🏁.





Cheers Rob

 

Today, I joined the engine with the monocoque. Test fitting was done before, but a last aggregate with three tubes attached needed to be fittet in between. That proved very difficult, but after some attempts, I got it done. If you ever build the kit, don´t glue the metal end plates (M142, M143) to the monocoque, like shown in step 13. Luckily I didn´t, because other ways I would have had to remove them to fit the engine in step 17.











And finally, I tried the fit of the center body parts.



Cheers Rob