G.L.

The final touch for the knees is putting some treenails in it.

G.L.

The process of making the lodging knees is pretty well the same as for the hanging knees. Where a hanging and a lodging knee are meeting each other, a notch has to be made in the hanging knee.

Once the knee is sawn to the correct shape, I round the corners of with the Dremel sanding drum.

I make the knee a bit too high. The top edge of it can be marked when holding it in place. 

The contours of the mould can now been marked off on a piece of oak and sawn out.

On that profile, I draw the knee shape and cut it out. Before using it as a mould to saw the knees, I check it on the model.

I make now the hanging knees.

First of all I attach a piece of drawing paper to the model to be able to copy the profile of the inner planks.

Tony, I am glad that my log is perking up your evenings. I am a interested follower of your cross section log and have learned a lot after you.

The result of an afternoon of carving:

Anyway, I make the notches for the ledges in the carlings while they are still removable.

... and it works!

While drawing the notches  for the carlings on the deck beams, I realize that it would have been better to carve them before fastening the  deck beams. Anyway it is too late now, I have to carve them while they are in place. I learned my lesson for the gun deck.

Now they are glued at the correct interspaces.

I did not see my mistake before everything was dry and fixed: I didn't look to the plan before fixing the deck beams and glued N° 1 to 3 at equal distances. That means: unfasten deck beam N° 3 and replacing it.

Now I can glue the deck beams in place. To fix the pillars, I drill a hole for a bamboo pin in both sides of the pillar and also on the locations where they will stand on the keelson and in the deck beams.

The deck beams are made, now I make the 4 hold pillars. I make five in case one of them is not good. On the plan they are represented as square pillars, I will round off the corners. I do it with a small chisel.

When the tree nails are glued, it is time to sand the lower deck.

To reach the narrow planks which are thinner then the surrounding planks, I made a sanding block of a piece of plywood.

Thank you Allen, but do not overrate my skills, I am rather new in ship modeling.

Tree nailing is a bit a boring job. I didn't count them but at this stage I have to drill some hundreds of holes and fill them again with as much bamboo nails.

While the glue is drying I start to make the lower deck beams and the lower deck beam arms. On the fourth picture the deck beams are laid in the model but not yet fastened. Before I will do that, the lower deck has to be tree nailed.

The deck clamps are in place and the last gaps in the planking are filled.

Some special attention is to be drawn to the lower deck clamp. To determine the angle of the upper side of the plank I fasten with clamps a lath on the bottom level of the lower deck beam. I hold a piece of cardboard against the frame and mark the lined of the bottom deck beam and the frame.

This cardboard will be the template to saw the deck beam.

Next thing to do is fixing the inner planking of the lower deck.

Pete and Mark,

Thank you very much for this useful information.

Geert

Thank you Mark,

I have a question about the limber boards. I guess they were removable to check the level of the water in the bilges. I suppose they were shorter than the lenght of the cross section and there were (finger)holes in it in order to make it easier to lift them up. Do you have an idea of the lenght and the look (from above) of the limber boards?

Geert