G.L.

7. Planking the hull
The inside of the hull is black and the outside natural mahogany color. Mr Bruno Orsel uses planks made of a layer of ebony veneer, glued on a layer of mahogany veneer. I don't have ebony veneer so I make black veneer myself by staining mahogany veneer black. I glue two blades (black and natural) on each other. I let the glue dry between two glass plates to obtain a thin (± 1.2 mm thick) plywood sheet to cut the strakes of.

 

Of this sheet I can cut the planks one side black and one natural mahogany.

I start the planking at the bottom side with the garboards. Gluing the port garboard.

 

The next is the starboard garboard.

Between the garboard and the wale come 18 strakes. To determine their shape, I measure every five frames the frame length and divide that by 18.
 
Thank you very much for reading this log and for your likes.
 
Till next week!

Well Hakan, the hull is not deformed, but I had a different incident😒.
 
When I removed the clamps and supports which had to keep the starboard wale in place, the starboard side of the transom and the after frame cracked. The force of the ebony wale pressing on the transom was probably too great.

So, no progress to report this week.
I carefully remove the remnants of the frame and the transom. Fortunately this succeeds without causing further damage.

I re-laminate the frame ...

... and the transom.

Forgot to make a picture of the replaced pieces. Instead of that another picture of a painting of clippers d'Argenteuil by Gustave Caillebotte.

I hope I can report some progress again next week.
Thank you very much for reading this log, for your likes and for your reactions.
 
Till next week!

6. The wales
Before placing the wales, I glue at regular distances a small support to the frames at the correct height.

The wales are made of ebony to contrast with the mahogany hull. To give the stiff ebony somewhat the round shape of the hull, I pre-bend the wales over the heat of a paint burner.

Gluing the port wale. Starboard wale lays ready in front of the model.

My method to keep the wales into place while the glue is drying

Next day, the supports can be removed. It is now the turn of the starboard wale.

 

Below the wales comes a mahogany ornamental bumper edge.

 
Thank you very much for reading this log, for your likes and for all your encouraging reactions.
 
Till next week!

5. Transom
The transom of the clipper is bent, therefore it will be laminated with three layers of veneer. I make first the mold to laminate.

The three veneer layers. The inner layer is stained in black.

Here they are glued.

The next day I take them out of  their mold.

 

This is the shape of the transom.

The transom is sawn out.
The top and the bottom sides must be sanded diagonally. One on the inside, the other on the outside.

Gluing the transom into position.

 

 
Thank you very much for reading this log, for your likes and for all your encouraging reactions.
 
Till next week!

4. Horn timbers
I now remove the frames behind the rudder post.

The horn timbers are made of ebony and they have to be glued at each side of the helm port.
Fitting them.

The frames will be incorporated into the horn timbers. Sawing the slots for the frames.

 

Gluing the horn timbers into place. I use two spacer blocks to keep them parallel.

The after frames can now also be glued definitively into place.

I am now also gluing the cant frames.
 

3. Keel, stem and rudderpost
 
Before placing the frames definitively, the keelson has to be made.
The keelson is made of ebony. To make the slot for the centre board I lay the keelson on the saw table with the saw blade fully turned down.

Then I turn up the running saw slowly until the desired length of slot is reached.

The ends of the slots still have to be cleaned up. I do it with the fret saw.
The keelson is ready to be placed

The keelson attached on the building board. The frames involved are removed in advance.

The keel is made of mahogany. The slot for the centre board is made as described above.

Cleaning up the ends of the centre board slot.

Gluing the dead wood.

 

fitting the keel on the keelson.

Getting ready to glue the frames on the kelson: the involved frames are removed from their templates. I label them to make the puzzle afterward easier.

 

I reattach now the frames on their templates and glue them on the keelson.

As the some frames now run over the slot of the centre board, the middle pieces have to be cut to give space for the keel.
 

The other frames go through the keel. Marking and sawing the slots for them.

 

 

Fitting the keel

When the rudderpost and the stem are glued on the keel, it can be glued into position.
 
Thank you very much for reading this log, for your likes and for all your interesting reactions.
 
Till next week!

The closer I get to the bow and the stern, the greater becomes the slope of the frames. To my pleasant surprise, I can bend the veneer strips nicely along the template without breaking them. This probably wouldn't have been possible with the stiffer ebony.

 

The frame production continues steadily.

 

This week all frames are made.
 

 
Thank you very much for reading this log, for your likes and for all your interesting reactions.
 
Till next week!

2. Making of the frames
Before making the frames, something about the wood. Mr Bruno Orsel states that mahogany for old models is often associated with pleasure craft. He recommends to use mahogany for the exterior and ebony for the interior, included the frames, and indeed his model is a real beauty.
The frames are laminated with ebony veneer, thickness 0.6 mm. To find the necessary mahogany was not a problem. Ebony beams are more difficult to find but also available. Ebony veneer on the other hand is another story. The only ebony veneer that I could find (picture below) has an average thickness of three mm, not really veneer, but rather planks.

They cost also about 50€/500 grams. That means that you see about 100€ wood above. I will not plane those planks from 3mm to 0.6mm, that would be a waste. They will be used for making more structural parts. But I also need black 0.6mm veneer. I have 0.6mm mahogany veneer and decide to use that for making the frames.
I start with cutting an amount of mahogany veneer strips with a paper cutter ...

... and stain them black (color: wenge).

 

To make the laminating easier, I drill holes around the templates.

The frames are built up from three veneer strips which are glued together round the template. I fix them with wire. On top of the frame I lay a thin wooden strip to prevent the cracking of my veneer strips when bending them around the template and also to protect them from being damaged by tightening the wire.

 

I place them on the building board to dry.

Next day I can remove the laminated frame from the template. It nicely keeps its shape.

It can now be sanded. I use the 3mm thick template as thickness jig.

With the sanding some of stain disappeared. When it is re-stained, I place the frame back on the template and on the building board. A piece of card protects the spots where the wire is tightened.

Oops! Not been careful enough when sanding.

That's it for this week. Nine frames are finished and two re-laminated after being broken during the sanding.
 
Thank you very much for reading this log, for your likes and for all your interesting reactions.
 
Till next week!

Chapter II. The hull
 
1. The building board
 
The drawings in the monograph give frame drawings every three frames. The frames will have to be laminated, so I will need a frame template for every frame, therefore I draw the missing frames by taking over the measurement from the line plan.

 

I use the frame drawings to saw out 29 frame templates in 3mm plywood. I make also a base and a backbone for the building board.

Base plate and backbone screwed together.

Starting to place the frame templates. The forward four are cant frames and have to be placed in pairs at an angle to the backbone.

All the others are perpendicular to the backbone.

The frame templates are placed in such a way between guide slats that they can easily be lifted out again. I check the horizontal and vertical angle while gluing the guide slats.

 

After a while all the templates are placed.

All frames have a different bevel, depending on the position at the front or rear. To smoothly sand the beveled edge of the templates, I start by coloring the edge of them with a red pencil.
  
The third after template is visibly wrong and has to be remade.

 

Sanding the templates. I use a kind of bow to do it, a flexible batten with a strip of sandpaper stapled on it. I sand until the pencil color has just disappeared

Portside is done:

when both sides are sanded, it becomes clear that the fifth frame from the front is also a bit too narrow. This one must also be remade.

Frame remade and sanded.

 

Now I can start to make the frames.
 
Thank you for reading this log, for your comments and likes.
Till next week!

Chapter I. Introduction
 
 
It is already a year ago that I bought this monograph of 'Ancre' publications. Since a couple of months it is laying on my desk waiting for me until I have enough courage to start with it because it seems to me to be a project of high difficulty. A few weeks ago I made my decision and bought the necessary wood.
It is the first time that I have purchased an Ancre monograph, so I was very curious. It is a study, written by Mr Bruno Orsel about the 'Clipper d'Argenteuil', a small open regatta sail boat for use on inland waters. Mr Orsel calls his model 'Louise', but that is a fictional vessel. His model is not the reproduction of a specific clipper d'Argenteuil, but a thorough study of the boat type.

The photo above comes from the website of Ancre publications and suggests that the monograph is a voluminous book. In reality it is only half as thick as it looks in the picture. However the folder contains a booklet with a lot of nice drawings, 3D images and color pictures of the model with a detailed description of all plans and, very important, 10 very detailed plans in 1/15 scale.
Before I discovered this monograph I did not know the type of vessel at all. I was immediately struck by its elegance. It reminded me of the sandbagger of which I read the construction log on this forum months ago. The plans are drawn on a scale of 1/15. This is perfectly within the range of scale I enjoy working with. Mr Orsel built his model as a semi-open model. That is also something that attracts me enormously.
Everything I know about the clipper d'Argenteuil comes from the monograph. Here is a very brief summary:

In the second half of the nineteenth century the rail network began to expand in France. It became easy for the Parisians to leave the city. It was the 'Belle Époque' when townspeople began to appreciate the countryside. Many of the Parisian bourgeoisie took the train with their families at the end of the week and arrived half an hour later in the small villages on the banks of the Seine to spend the weekend. A lot of them practiced water sports: swimming, rowing or sailing in the Seine.
One of those villages was Argenteuil where the river Seine was about 200 meters wide and there were no obstacles like bridges for over a distance of 10 km. The 'Bassin d'Argenteuil' was an ideal place to organize sail regattas.
(Painting: 'Le Bassin d'Argenteuil' by Claude Monet property: Musée d'Orsay, Paris)

Originally they sailed with uncomplicated small sailing boats, but in 1850 a member of 'Le Cercle de Voiles de Paris' participated at the races with an American sandbagger 'Le Margot' and was joined some years later by a catboat (also imported from the United States) the 'New York'.  The ordinary sailing boats were no longer a match for these super-fast competitors. The more affluent club members had new boats designed by local yards. They used the sandbagger and the catboat as a base for their designs. The Clipper d'Argenteuil' was born.
(source drawing: publicity brochure Ancre publications)

One wealthy club member, the impressionist painter Gustave Caillebotte spent fortunes designing and building increasingly high-performance racing yachts. Between 1878 and 1880 he had three consecutively built. When the last one, the Condor, did not win during its first participation in the regatta, he rigged the yacht with silk sails. With this secret weapon, the yacht beat all opposition in the next race.
(Photos: Gustave Caillebotte and yacht Condor with silk sails)
       
Clippers d'Argenteuil, painted by Gustave Caillebotte

The 'Lison' standard example of a clipper d'Argenteuil (source: 'Manual of yacht and boat sailing' by Dixon Kemp).

I don't know if there are still sail regattas on the basin d'Argenteuil. I visited Argenteuil on Google Earth and I have the impression that the village has been absorbed in the last 150 years by the expansion of the Paris metropolis. It doesn't look as idyllic as it did when Claude Monet had his floating painting studio there. But maybe I am mistaken because I have never actually been there.
(Screenshot Google Earth)
Mr Orsel he based his study on the clipper 'Argenteuil on drawings that appeared in the magazine of le Cercle de voile de Paris and on yacht models of the 'Musée de la Marine'.
(Image extract promotion brochure monograph Ancre)

This is the model, built by Mr Orsel. I hope my model can approach this standard somewhat.
(Image extract promotion brochure monograph Ancre)

Now it's time to stop dreaming and get started so that I can show something tangible next week.
 
Till next week!

10. Finishing the project
The boat can now be placed in the davits.

 

 

 

 

 

 
This also concludes this project.

This project was fully realized during the Covid 19 epidemy. The lockdowns and other contact restrictions over the past months allowed me to spend more time in the workshop than usual. However, this is little consolation as I miss real contact with my modeling friends during our regular meetings to view, admire and discuss each other's work.  Let's hope that life soon comes to normal again. Fortunately there is also this forum where we can keep in touch with so many like-minded friends worldwide.

As for the near future: a monograph from the publisher 'Ancre.fr' for a next project is already laying on my desk. 
But first of all, I will finish an old project first.

I thank who read and viewed this log. I thank you for your likes, your advises and your comments.

9.7 Finishing the display stand
The davits are ready to receive the boat. With the boat on the cranes its full weight comes to the front of the stand. The boat and the equipment don't weigh that much that there is a big risk that the stand falls forward but some more stability will not hurt. Therefore I will expand the base of the stand a bit forward. At the same time it gives the opportunity to show height above the water level at which the boat is hanging.
I start with sawing an MDF base plank.

About half of the plate will remain visible in front of the davits model. I paint is in dark blue to simulate the sea water.

I hammer a wooden frame around the base plate.

To make it a little bit more 'sea' like I cut a plexi glass with a wrinkled surface to make the sea surface a bit more realistic.

 

The davits are now ready to receive the boat.

9.6 Deck and pin rail
The deck is consisting of two layers, first the deck planks and on top of those a thinner wooden sheathing. I presume that this was done because flensing and boiling the whale blubber was a dirty job and the oil made the deck greasy and slippery. When a whaler was prepared for a new voyage it was easier and cheaper to remove and replace the upper plank sheathing than replacing the whole deck.
Laying the deck planks.

Covering the deck with sheathing planks.

 

The deck is ready.

In the picture above , you see in the fancy rail twelve holes. The fancy rail is at the same time pin rail.
Making the belaying pins on the lathe with some small chisels and files and with the help of a wooden jig.

The twelve belaying pins, ready to be stained.

The belaying pins in the fancy rail.
 
Thank you very much for reading this log, for your likes and for your encouraging comments.
 
 
Till next week!

9.6 Lower blocks
The boat is lowered by two-sheave blocks.
Each block is made with three wooden slices.

Gluing them together, separated by wooden sticks.

Sanding the blocks when the excesses of the sticks are sawn off.

 

 

And here I forgot to make some pictures of the finishing of the blocks (final shaping by sanding the edges and placing the sheaves). I'll make up for it by posting some more pictures of making the hooks.
Starting by making an eye in a copper wire.

 

Sawing of the excess.

 

Folding the hook.

 

 

Filing the end sharply.

 

 

When the blocks are ready, I hang them with weights in the davits to straighten the ropes.
 

9.5 Boat protection
In the logs for model boat kits I found the log of Mike_in_RI who was building a New Bedford Whale boat in the davits. He made mats to protect the keel of his boat from shafing on the cranes. His first idea was to use mats but finally he  made baggy wrinkles. Personally I like the idea of mats and I use his method to make some. I suppose that Mike can forgive my plagiarism as he didn't use himself mats.

 

When the two mats are weaved, I stain them with dark brown stain and soak them with textile glue around a piece of wood with the same dimensions as the crane to fix the shape of the mats and to flatten the rope fibers.

Then they are tied on the cranes.

With the boat keel standing on the mats:

 

When standing on the cranes, the boat is also leaning against the bearing posts. In heavy weather the boats' rub rail can be damaged by chafing against the bearing posts. To protect the rail I make a rope seizing round the bearing posts.

As finish of the seizing I want to  place a Turkish knot above and below it. To make the knot I use a googled jig 

 

When the whole pattern of the jig has been followed I slide the knot on a round tube to tighten it up a bit ...

... and to double it.

Then I place the knot on the bearing post on top and at the bottom of the seizing.

 

Finally the rope work is stained dark and coated with mate varnish.

 
Thank you very much for reading this log, for your likes and for your encouraging comments.
 
 
Till next week!
 

9.2 Dead eyes and chain plates (cont.)
Now I can place the dead eyes and the plates.

 

 

Here the boat cranes are swung out. They are kept in their position by metal crane hooks which are hooked in an eye in the davit.

The boat slides can now also be placed. The boat cranes are in their open position for hoisting of lowering the boat.

Very nice lettering and a neat display board.

Thanks Geert,  i
It was nice to do some "plastic modeling"

Yes，that's basically the first chapter.
 
And then I went on to process the 1:48 parts, and I started to make this model in a real sense, I want to show you my idea, that is, how to simplify a complex POF model into several large parts by machine and hands, so that modelers with common skills and no professional tools can make this complex model.
 
This is the first step. Let's take a look at the basic parts of pear wood and the pre assembled parts of jujube wood on the right.I will process a set of Asian boxwood samples at the same time.Maybe you are tired of looking at those model parts all the time. Indeed, I am too busy. I have to go to work during the day, and then design and process the ship model in my spare time. Maybe I only have a few hours of spare time every day. However, my classmate's processing factory can process these parts in batch ,I insist on testing these parts myself in the hope of finding more mistakes and modifying them.

 
On the left is Chinese pear wood, and on the right is jujube wood. Asian boxwood and jujube wood look similar, but undoubtedly boxwood is the best, more delicate than pear wood, and has good color. In the future, I will release about 3-10 full boxwood kits, if anyone likes them.

This week, I varnished the hull. It took a week to do so because I had to give five or six layers before I was happy with the result. Between every layer the  hull was sanded with fine sand paper.

Sanded between two varnishes.

A new layer laid.

 

 

 

 

It is always a bit dark in the workshop, therefore some pictures in the living room where the light is better.

 

 
Thank you very much for reading this log and for your likes.
 
Till next week!

Mast stepped (I used proper yards, the instructions say 1 but the photos show 2), guns added, 

Just as I did on the Pram, I broke the gaff at the central eye, during shaping and again while lacing the sail. The repair looks a little better this time. Somehow, my measurement was off and I ended up with 7 mast hoops instead of 6, and had to add a hoop while tying to the sail, but I don't have a problem with that. It looks OK to me.
 
Next is the jib sail, rope coils, and a little touch-up paint. . . a day or two and one more post, and I'll call it done! Happy 4th of July to all!
 
Bob
 

 
 

And another shot, wouldn’t want to be working these in an open ocean 

So I just found 2 photos from Navtechlife.com of Claymore , 

Very nice lettering and a neat display board.