Seventynet

Thank you Greg, that’s an excellent idea. I will do that before I turn it over. Ian

Thanks Paul, I appreciate it. I have found this part of the build to be very enjoyable and working with these woods makes life very easy. Ian

Hi all, Thanks for all the likes. I have planked the deck and fitted bulwark planking and am now ready to turn it over to plank the hull. Nothing remarkable about these last steps. I am not certain that the holly decking fore and aft can remain but I'll decide what to do once I've finished the hull planking. Ian

I am totally impressed with how you have everything squared up with that building board. It's going to be a lovely model. Ian

Gorgeous build!

Hi all, I constructed the waterway using three pieces laminated together. The widest piece was edge bent to a card pattern and then the two other thinner pieces were laminated to the main plank. I used a chisel to scrape the waterway to 45 degrees. Black acrylic paint was used on the outboard piece to represent caulking between the waterway and side planking. The ladder was milled using the approach shown in David's book. I had to redo the tread slots on the carriages because of a poor end mill (prior try shown). The 8-sided pump tubes were made on the mill using a highly sophisticated tailstock and broken end mill :-). Carlings and ledges were installed to enclose the 10 inch tubes. They extend into the limber channel and are topped with a 3inch faux iron band. Note I wish I had read ahead to see that I could have made the carling and ledge notches before installing the beams. The photo shows a 10 sided pear tube which I switched out for boxwood and proper 8-sided configuration. Scupper holes were carefully filed in and tube holders inserted between frames in 4 locations. The outboard holes were located one and a half strakes above the wale so that they don't emerge between strakes. Top view: Thanks all for the comments and likes. I am on to planking the deck. However I think I will plank the upper decks with Castello instead of Holly because otherwise there seems to be too much color. I don't see any good reason to pull out the existing holly decks and restart.

Off to a nicely organized start. I’m pulling up a chair!

Lovely clean work Glenn.

Masterful job Paul! I look forward to following and learning from your next log. ian

Welcome back and lovely job so far! ian

Thanks druxey, the QCC is getting pretty full right now.😁

Wow I just caught up on this fascinating log and beautiful build. Thanks for sharing your wealth of information. Ian

Thanks very much Keith. I was angling for the admiral to talk me out of the redo but she said I very well knew I’d always regret it.

Well it turns out the massive main hatch wasn't big enough. I made a measurement booboo which meant that the hatch was 1 cm too narrow. So...I had to rip everything out and redo most of the supporting structures. After I made the repairs I started on the main hatch coamings and ledges. They were assembled by forming the same 90" radius for the longitudinals and the 26" radius for the ledges (concave and convex) and milling half lap joints. A strip was laminated onto the logitudinals to form an inside rabbet while the rabbet was milled into the ledges before they were bent. The strip on the longitudinals was extended to overlap the gap on the ledges. The cross pieces (battens) were tricky to make and I will redo them at some point in the future. The end stops are very difficult for someone of my limited chiseling skills. They too must be bent to match their respective orientations. Mast parteners were straightforward and dropped about 2mm below the carlings and the underside rounded up to fit the respective curves. The mast is raked 2 degrees so I was as precise as I could be in positioning it (although it is not glued in place yet). The companion coaming abuts the forward end of the parteners and will be later fitted with a ladder. Cheers, Ian

Looking so good Paul!

Thanks very much Albert. Your Victory build is absolutely stunning! Ian

Time for a brief update. Everything has gone without too many redos 🙂. I must say David’s book explains things very well and I rarely have to go beyond it for guidance. A few notables: I found my self-levelling laser quite helpful for getting things to stand vertically. If I would just find the energy to build a proper height gauge I would accomplish the same goal, but the laser is a pretty good substitute. When it came time to make the windlass pins I was puzzled about how to make a round hole on both holders considering each holder is in two parts (pins and retaining caps). This is likely elementary to many of you. My solution was to first slice the mid part of where the hole would go using a slitting blade. I then made sure I could get a solid clamp with my mill so that it would hold firmly when I used my 3/8 inch Brad bit. The carlings for the huge main hatch follow the deck sheer so they should be pre-bent before installation. Ian Laser setup. Checking deck beams for height. Hole for windlass pins and retaining caps. Windlass pins installed. Carlings, hanging and lodging knees. Forward starboard bulkhead made of baltic birch core and 9 inch holly planks with dados to key into pawl post and windlass pin. Forward starboard bulkhead installed. Capstan holder (unattached). Tapered to be level. View from stern. Bow to stern.

Superb work Paul!

Greetings, This update seems minor but it took quite a bit of time to complete the planking to the ceiling and then to shape and install the floor and futtock riders. Now I need to determine whether I can poly the floor planks and riders without compromising future gluing operations. Comments, criticisms welcome. Ian

Paul, this is an absolutely beautiful, meticulous build! I wish you had beaten me to my build because I would have picked up a ton of techniques. Ian

A quick update folks. I have planked the fore platform and installed the scuttle. One notable departure from the plan is that I decided to chisel the breast hook corner flush so that the margin plank fitted over it. As is explained in the book, the reason it was left intact was for strength in this critical area of the hull. I actually tried the other way first but concluded that it didn't look similar enough to David Antscherl's version (see B&W photo - I hope it is ok to reproduce the occasional photo from the book David, please let me know if not) that protruded a bit higher. So the shipwright decided that this would allow more deck space. 😁 Ian

Thanks so much for the likes, encouragement and overly generous praise Allan, David, dvm27, giampieroricci and VTHokiEE; and thanks mtaylor for moving this log to the correct area. Very much appreciated. Ian

And here is where I am at the moment. I have used pear to contrast with the Castello Boxwood and holly for the decking. I am not sure I'll use holly for the starboard exterior planking but will likely start with that and see how it is to work with for hull planking. I am not clear on how to lay the forward ends of the planks onto the breast hook because obviously there is downward angle as it approaches the stem that will not allow one to achieve a flush situation. I am going to fashion some kind of angled piece that the planks can lie on. No big deal, it is likely just a typical thing a scratch builder has to deal with. Cheers, Ian

This last tranche brings me just about to where I am today but I will post a separate one marking that situation. Couple of things worth noting. First, not everything has gone smoothly by any means resulting in several re-dos especially with the clamps and breast hook locations. My failing was not appreciating how important it is to find a way to clamp these structures while the glue is setting. So I had to re-do many of them more than once. On the other hand I think I can be considered an expert de-gluer now. Whereas I used to rely heavily on water and alcohol I now exclusively use heat with my heat gun. A couple of pictures of the bow and stern that I think illustrates the amount of wood that must be faired. Call me crazy but I actually like that part of the build. What remains to be done is the final fairing at the top timber level and a few places where the external planking will meet the stem and stern.

Thanks all. Apologies for the somewhat haphazard collection of photos as I'm drawing from a bunch of different devices from different time periods. Here is a picture of my pile of frames that precedes several of the pictures above. Rather than waste your time with numerous photos that I have little recollection of, i will jump to close to where I am today. The next one is of the transom and filler pieces. This was one of the most challenging tasks so far.