Chuck

Its been a crazy two weeks. My Daughter is all set up at college and a room has opened up for my Mother In Law in assisted living. I will be moving her in this week so she is all settled by Friday....hopefully. Which one will get homesick and ask to come home first, LOL.😂 Anyway, its been a while since I had an update but I have fallen behind a bit understandably. I painted the cap rail and inboard sheer strake. I did this first before adding the knee at the bow below. I still have some touch up and repainting to do there but you can see the results so far. I have dozens of more coats of paint before I am going to be satisfied with the finish. I have also been creating and testing the frieze for the transom. Here is one such test where a sample is temporarily tacked into position. The size and shape is good and I am finalizing the color and design. Its getting close though even though this photo seems a bit washed out because of the lighting. Here is an image of the frieze on the contemporary model. I am not sure yet if I will paint the white border and the edges of the molding on this model. But we shall see as things develop. In addition i did start simulating the nails in the planking. I am using 10lb black mono filament (fishing line). Its going well but will take a good amount of time. I held the hull up to the light so I could accurately mark the locations for the frames. I couldnt start work on the interior with the floorboards and platforms until this is completed. Remember that these are nails and not wooden treenails. I wouldnt have been able to see the frames through the planking with those installed. So once this is completed I will move to the interior details. So this project is moving along even though it slowed down getting the two girls set up in their dormitories...LOL. I will post more details when I get some time to breath.....

I only use it for the planking and then I switch back over to titebond.

Well done, exceptional 😊

Honestly though I didnt see any reason for a need to clamp the planking at the stern at all. I pre twist off the model and then just glue the strakes on with CA. No clamping or rubber bands needed. Clamping causing more issues than it helps on a delicate model like this. Its not as sturdy as a POB or large frigate. You dont need to use a hair dryer like I do but any heat source or mold will do the trick. Chuck

It was very nice....bitter sweet because its always tough dropping off your only daughter at college. Having said that......she wants me to drive down and bring her back home for labor day..... Nice clamping system...very hi tech. But be careful as the frames are still quite fragile. Too much force on those and the frames will break. Chuck

That is looking very good. Nicely done so far!! 😊

Yes basically !!! same as the outside😃

Looking very nice. You are making some great progress. Hope you are enjoying the project. Chuck

If you are using the planking material supplied which is straight you wouldnt have the shape needed to conform to the frames. You will need to make a card template to find the shape or even some tape applied to the frames. You will soon find that the shape you need is curved as shown below. A plank shaped like this and then bent and twisted ahead of time will conform and lay flat against the frames.

Its 1/2" scale actually so its only 1 1/2" at scale. Chuck

Beautiful progress. Very precise work.

Probably not the internally strapped blocks. They are much later and this longboat wouldnt have used those.

No its scraped off the model see below. You can see the profile. And some pictures with better lighting. I had the brightness up too high on the last ones.

I added the inboard sheer strip which is also laser cut to shape. It is 1/8" wide and really finishes off the cap rail. Then rather than paint the top of the cap rail red which would have been smart, I decided to work more on the frieze. Once that was added I can use the bottom edge of the frieze to align the molding strip below it. The molding strip is 1/8" x 3/64" and it is scraped to a simple profile. The interesting thing you might note is that the molding strip below the frieze is NOT yellow cedar. The molding is actually boxwood. I find it is the best material for scraping moldings. I will post an illustration of the profile I chose soon. But if you look closely you wont see any real difference in color or appearance in the boxwood strip in comparison with the yellow cedar planking. They work really well together. The frieze itself is an exact copy of the one on the contemporary model. I took the image of the cont. model and cropped and sized the frieze strip from it. After printing it out I went back in and cleaned it up with some paint and color pencils and scanned it again. That was cut out and applied to the model. I am still working on the frieze for the transom.

I am working on having the package available to build the hull by mid September if everything works out. Then a rigging and masting package will follow after. Chuck

Same with this one...but there will be no comparison in my opinion.

No ...I kind of just wing it but I am careful. I take a about a three inch long piece of sandpaper and cup it to a curve when sanding inside. I usually go in one direction only to avoid catching a corner of the sandpaper on a frame. I will sand from each end towards mid-ship...or in this case, mid-boat.

Good to know......if you need new frames just let me know which ones.

The outboard edge of the caprail was thinned down...it was easier to do this while holding the hull upside down. You want to leave 1/32" overhang with the cap rail. But that is a bit excessive but for now it is good to leave it a bit more. The top of the cap rail will be painted red. I will inevitably get paint on the outside edge which should remain bright, so once the cap rail is painted I will sand it nice and clean and make it less of an overhang. Then it was time to fair inboard which always makes a mess. The goal here is to careful fair the frames so they get gradually thinner as they work their way to the sheer. In our case, the goal is to reduce the cap rail to a minimum width of 5/32". Any wider would look way out of scale. If you can manage a bit narrower that is even better. You can see in the photos what mine looks like and its 5/32" wide. There will be one strake inboard that is 1/32" thick. So that would make the overall width 3/16". So after I install this I will sand it a bit thinner then paint. Then I will sand outboard edge again and the results should leave a cap rail that is just under 3/16" wide. Then the interior was cleaned up a bit and I applied a coat of wipe on poly. You can see the difference in the before and after photo and see how the cap rail was shaped etc....especially at the bow. I used 220 grit sand paper to fair the inside because anything coarser would grab the frames and possibly break them if they werent glued to the planking securely. Slow and steady is the way!!! 😊 Note that the inside edge of the cap rail at the bow is flush with the aft edge of the stem. This is what you are shooting for. The aft edge is sanded flush with the sides of the transom and then the shape of the transom on each side was tweaked to clean everything up. I still have some minor tweaking to do but its just about done and ready for the next step.

There is very little CA seepage on the Longboat. Those photos of the frame removal are of the barge. Since that area was going to be covered by a lot of interior planking it didnt need much cleaning up. The longboat however is a different story. I just sand it off. But in fairness there is very little of it as I knew that there wasnt any interior planking. So I was extremely careful. What little was found is just sanded away. It isnt very thick and doesnt stain the wood at all.

I am leaning towards that as well!! It also simplifies the build a bit. I think there will be so much going on that it might be a little "kitchen sink" which I dont like. Better to keep it the simple rail and just neatly finish it and paint the top. I can always change my mind and add it later if I dont like it. That will be easy enough. Chuck

You guys are too much!!! Thanks One thing I wanted to point out because its the next step, is the fact that the contemporary models dont have particularly fancy molding around the cap rail. That is usually the case but in this instance the edge is completely flat actually and hangs just a little over the exterior planking. I have been contemplating if I should follow suit or perhaps add a fancier profile molding. Would it be historically inaccurate and simply a self indulging pleasure? Anyway, what are your thoughts. The molding below the frieze is plenty fancy and wider. Maybe that will be enough. Have to decide now as its the next step. See below for the contemporary version.

Thanks Dirk, Moving right along, the cap rail was added. It is made of 4 laser cut pieces. They are made over sized and we will thin them down considerably later. A few things worth noting are the cut-away for the roller at the bow. This is on the port side only. So I had to remember to put it on the right side. A 50-50 shot of screwing that up. Anyway, you will notice that I penciled in some reference lines to show everyone what this will eventually be shaped like. But this will happen gradually as we need to take this in steps. There are many details to be added which are easier with an over sized cap rail. At the stern you will notice how the cap rail goes UNDER the wings of the transom. This is important to note as you are planking. There will be a gap between the plank and the transom and that is normal and as designed so the cap rail will fit. It is 1/16" thick. The reason why we cant just start thinning down the cap rail as usual is because this longboat has an interesting feature at the bow we must complete first. Normally we would sand the cap rail flush with the outboard planking. But before we can do that, we have to fabricate the bolsters at the bow. There are two bolsters on each side of the stem. This "beefs" up the stem and helps support the area with the roller. In addition, it strengthens everything up there to help support the bowsprit iron and bowsprit. You can kind of see the bolsters in this photo of the contemporary model. Here is what ours will look like. On every model that I make there are at least one or two parts that are quite a challenge to make. On this model, it will be these bolsters. There are many compound angles to consider. But if you plan it out ahead of time it will go smoothly. You will start with a laser cut blank. Because these parts have the potential for many attempts to end up in the trash....I will provide everyone with eight blanks so you will have plenty of fun. But I will explain step by step how I shaped these bolsters and hopefully it will become clear. First, I recommend starting with the starboard side which has no roller. The blanks are all the same so it doesnt matter which ones you choose. Below you can see that if you hold the blanks against the stem tightly that the aft edge will need to be beveled quite a bit so it sits flush against the hull planking. This is the first thing that you should do and dont worry about any gaps at the top too where the bolster sits under the cap rail. Just concentrate on the getting a snug tight fit against the planking first. I have guestimated the amount of bevel required below by marking it in pencil for you guys. Note how there is more of a bevel towards the bottom of the bolster. I used sand paper and files to create the bevel. I stopped and tested its fit dozens of times as I tweaked it. The photo below shows that its almost there. There is plenty of meat on these blanks so you can sand and reshape quite a bit. So just keep going until it fits good against the planking. Once you are satisfied, You can do the same thing with the top edge and how it fits under the cap rail. It should also be a tight fit here. In the previous photo you can see it fits pretty good without any tweaking. But I will give it a few passes anyway. Next you want to draw in the line that represents the concave shape of the bolster on its outside face. It will taper down to just 1/32" thick at the bottom. This line should follow the run of the sheer and planks. You should place the line even with the bottom of the first plank. I placed mine a bit low in the photo below...so adjust yours to be even with the plank line. Once completed the two bolsters will look like this. And after you create the concave shape you can trim the bottom so it lines up with the bottom of the third plank. Its over-sized and will need to be trimmed. In addition, the front edge will eventually be sanded flush with the stem. But right now it hangs over quite a bit. That is OK. Just deal with shaping them and trimming the bottom edge right now. Note how you will need to make a matching pair of these. The only difference is that a small notch needs to be carved out of the top of the one for the roller. You can see that below. It adds more room for the roller itself. Its shown on the left. Glue them into position and then sand the front face of both flush with the stem. Thats all there is to it......easy-peasy right??? Dont worry its not too bad. JUst go slow and take your time. You will be able to adjust the shape a bit after its glued into position as well. This will make it easier to get a matching pair port and starboard. Dont sand the side of the cap rail yet!!!! Other than the front edge, leave it as is near the bolsters. We will be sanding other parts of the cap rail first.

Thank you so much guys. It was time for the fun part.....to remove the buildboard and break away the frame centers. The first step was to remove the braces for the stem and stern post. At the stern post I just pushed them free from the bottom. Then I shook them out. After I removed the tape holding both halves of the buildboard together, I carefully and gently coaxed one half of the buildboard free. Dont rush this and slowly pry it off a little at a time working one side then the other. It will be tricky to get it started especially on a humid day. But once it starts wiggling free it will come off readily. Then using your special tool of choice (everyone has their favorite) you can carefully and slowly cut through the tabs on each side of the frame centers. Then bend them back and forth to snap them out. Do this one at a time. Dont worry about breaking any frames because that will not happen if you have glued the top of your frames securely to the sheer plank. If when you start cutting the tab you see that the entire frame is loose and not secured to the sheer plank, stop and apply some CA. Let it "wick" down to glue the frame to the plank. Then resume cutting that tab. I used the thin saw on the left this time but often use a simple file as well. Whatever you are comfortable with. Here is a shot of a frame center on the barge being removed as I didnt take any of the longboat. Same principle. So I didnt want to duplicate in order save some time. And finally some pictures of the model after removing all of the frame centers. The next step will be fine tuning the sheer. I will sand the tops of the frames flat to the sheer and also sand the sheer so it has a good smooth run. I dont want any dips or high spots. These can be seen by viewing the hull head-on and stern -on at various angles. Once satisfied I will add the caprail which is laser cut. Hopefully over the next day or so. 😊

That is correct. I only sometimes when needed do any gluing along the edges. Just in spots if need be. Chuck