Chuck

Excellent start...enjoy the project!!! Its so good to see another get started.

Beautiful work. Well worth the time and effort. Its such a fine model.

Yea there will be a second layer for the wales. I just prefer to build that way. But it would be easy enough to make them thicker from the start. But it does look a bit odd at this stage. Adding them in a second layer has some distinct advantages. I will also be treenailing before I add that second layer of wales. Thank you all for the kind words. Chuck

Continuation with planking above the wales. I am trying to complete the five 7/32" wide strakes above the wales. I had two of them completed, but before I move further up towards the shear, I needed to add the sweep port lids and fixed block shells on the outboard side. This is just like on the Winnie and all other projects I build. These must be added so we can plank around them neatly. Use the template to find there locations. Below you can see how the plank directly below the sweep ports needed to be cut around each and every port. I basically followed the template. This does take some time to do but if you just go slow it will all turn out fine. I made sure I had a very sharp blade as I was cutting the plank around the sweep ports and gunports. One wrong move or if impatient and you can remove too much from the plank and you will have to start over. Thank goodness there are only six gunports but there are plenty of sweep ports to carefully cut around. I have one more 7/32" strake to go which will need to be cut around the tops of the sweep orts next. You may notice that I am also leaving a 1/64 to 1/32" rabbet around the bottom and sides of each gun port. Even though this sloop didnt have gun port lids, they may have used bucklers during heavy seas and bad weather. Its just a guess but it seemed like the way to go. You could omit this and simply cut to the edge of your port openings if you like. Its hard to tell on the contemporary model if they have this rabbet.

The hooks are the total length…including the eye. blocks are in development. I am not sure about 2mm. I can make them but they are so small it is a product with a very limited audience. The larger sizes will be made first.

I actually already had to make more.

Well OK ....I made a few and they are now in stock....I will make more when I get a moment but there are about a dozen available right now.

I agree with you Greg about PE hooks. They are not nearly thick enough and look kit-like. The plastic hooks look better and seem pretty strong. I had a file around for a while but never tried it on this new material. I just laser cut some and they are pretty good actually. They are of course not as strong as metal etched hooks like PE. But these are plenty strong, even the smaller ones. I would never apply so much tension when I rig that they would fail. But I worry about some others. I have seen how much tension some folks apply to the rigging and it is just not a good idea...tight as drum... I tension just barely enough to prevent sagging and then try to even introduce a gentle sag because its more realistic. But thats just me. I could absolutely make these if there is interest. If I remember correctly I placed forty 3mm hooks, Forty 4mm hooks and ten 5mm hooks all on one sheet. You would get 90 hooks in a package for $11.00. I could cut these tomorrow and have them in stock. Let me know if you guys are interested. Pictured is a 5/32" single block rigged with a 4mm hook as test.

I am not sure if it is strong enough at the thicknesses needed. But I can always run some tests. I can also give some to folks who are rigging at the moment so they can test for me. they will be perfect for stuff like rigging guns…I am not sure about if they are under tension from rigging though.

Yes you need the Medium size....will be making those today. Literally cutting them right now. My measurements have the ports at at 3/16" x 5/32" however at 1/4" scale. It wont matter though. Just wipe them down first. If you want them really black very lightly sand the horse shoe part of the hinge with very fine sandpaper...like 400 grit. That gives them a nice finish based on my testing. But not the hinge pin because thats raised and you dont want to sand that away. These are the actual medium hinges below right out of the laser. Tough to photograph as they are black. These have a smidge of weathering powder on them before I removed them from the sheet. Chuck

Call me crazy but I think they look fantastic. But thats just me. I would love to find and use wood that color for my blocks. The darker ends look really good to my eye as well. You dont want them to look plastic and they look very authentic now. Try test stropping one or two blocks with tan rope of the appropriate size and they will look just fantastic.

Wonderful news Tom. Glad to hear that. Stay safe!!!

In this case I agree with Allan 100%. Its not hard to sand in a taper or design a taper into your kit. The only reason why builders are unaware of this detail is because few if any have kit designers have bothered to include it or explain it in their instructions for the last 50 years. Maybe they didnt know either. It literally takes ten minutes to taper a stem. Its important for this reason below. The larger issue which hasnt been mentioned (to my surprise) is this. That in most models with a figurehead of a human, if there is no taper to the stem then the figurehead must be designed too wide. This makes the figure appear squat and fat rather than correctly proportioned. In some cases ridiculously so. A tapered stem allows for a properly proportioned figure that doesnt look like a cartoon. If a kit was designed with a poor figurehead that looks out of proportion then no amount of tapering after the fact will make it look decent. I see this all the time with the kits from Asia. So adding the taper after the fact would not help and may even make the poor design decision worse. It takes about ten minutes to properly taper a stem. On my projects if you dont do this, the properly proportioned figurehead wont fit. had I not tapered the stem on the winnie, the figure would look like a fat squat cartoon character. Same with the Speedwell. Or the legs would be so thin they would look awful. Contemporary examples. This has nothing to do with not caring about these fine details. It has everything to do with making a figurehead look proper. Especially when its a human figurehead. For this last image on Speedwell the stem is 3/8” thick and tapers to around 5/32”. A rather large taper. Thats just the way it was done back then. The figurehead would look ridiculous if the stem wasnt tapered and I designed it to fit that 3/8” wide gap between the legs. It would look like he was riding a horse at best. With a huge torso to span that width to match. And no amount of tapering after the fact would ever make it look good. chuck

Its just a small square of 1/8" thick cedar with all the ports and planking and even treenails laser etched into it. It was the quick and dirty cheat of making a mock up. LOL....I do love that scene in Back to the future though. Made me laugh Greg.

AND.... Sweep Port Hinges will be available soon. In fact the largest of them will be in stock tomorrow. I am making 3 sizes. The first will be the largest size which will be used on Speedwell. The sweep port lid hinges will fit 1/4" to 9/32" sweep port lids. They are made from the same material but very thin. They have etched details such as raised bolts and hinge pin details. I hope you can see the details in this photo. Also The next sizes will fit 3/16" sized sweep port lids and then a smaller size for 1/8" to 5/32" sweep port lids. Sold 24 per package. Just give them a quick wipe with a damp cloth to remove any dust from the laser etching process which will leave nice blackened hinges ready to use straight out of the package. You may even want to add weathering powder before you remove them from the sheet. Also note the image below shows the wider 1/16" gun port lid hinges. Excuse the crude mock up to show the products. Chuck

Now Available as 1/16 wide hinge straps.....Syren gun port hinge mini kits. They are laser cut from a special high density plastic. Some prefer a wider strap. Also great for the Winnie. Those can easily be shaped differently too, being extra wide. There are 36 hinges per package. They can be made shorter if needed as well. 1. What a hinge looks like straight off the sheet. 2. Round off the bottom with fine sandpaper. Drill a small hole for the split ring if needed. Use a #76 drill bit for a 28 gauge wire ring. 3. What the gport hinge pin looks like straight off the sheet. 4. Sand the actual pin slightly thinner and to a point. This will be inserted and glued into the hull above the port. Also insert and glue a length of 28 gauge black wire into the laser cut hole and cut off the excess as shown. Use CA glue as it is plastic. 5. Join the hinge strap and hinge pin by slipping the wire pin into the hole of the strap. This makes a working hinge. Once glued onto the port lid, you can sand the straps even thinner. Just gently sand the face of the port with fine sandpaper and taper the hinge straps even thinner if you like. Apply weathering powder if you like that look. Make some split rings (not shown) and add them on the hinges as is typical.

Thank you very much folks....Hopefully I can find time to get some planking done outboard this week. But first I must add the sweep port lids and fixed blocks. So that is next up on the list. But today sadly is a rope day....all day a rope day. Chuck

I added the keelson today. This is made up from 4 laser cut lengths. There are probably many ways to attack this. But I decided to assemble all 4 pieces first. There are scarph joints between each length. Then I sanded it clean of laser char. It may be hard to see below but I also drew a reference line down the center of the keelson. This is where the bolts will go. It was easier to mark the center of this 3/8" wide keelson now instead of when its on the model. I used a compass opened to 3/16" with a pencil on one side. I handy tool to have around. I test fit it on the model. The shape is so specific to each model after inboard that yes I had to tweak the bottom of the keelson and the bottom of the hull inboard to get a good fit in places. I used various riflers and sanding sticks to match the curve and shape of the keelson as closely as possible. Then the bolts were added. I used 30 pound black fishing line. One bolt goes every other frame. This is except for the scarph joints which get two bolts. Now the inboard side of the hull is completed for now. Its nice and clean. I can now return to planking the outboard side of the hull.

Looking great Mike!!!

Great…glad you joined the group Bill. I look forward to seeing your progress on the model.

Fantastic job…just beautiful. But now you have to find a place to display her.

It works well Toni You just have to remember to lower the tops of your frames or bulkheads by the thickness of your fairing cap when designing or cutting them out. In this case it is 1/16” thick so all of my top timbers are 1/16” shorter than the sheer. Otherwise your hull will be too tall.

Once I shaped the and sanded the proper sheer it was time to add the fairing cap. I did in fact sand the top of the sheer as Greg describes. Either a side to side sanding with the stick posted in the last update or by holding the stick on one side as a pivot. Then sanding on the opposite side with the stick moving it in an arch fore and aft. The fairing cap will now be added. This serves two purposes and I discovered with the Winnie project that this is a great design element to help me when fairing inboard. First it establishes a consistent width along the entire sheer. It will be hard to screw that up as long as I dont sand into the strip. The fairing cap is 5/32" wide. In addition, the fairing cap is glued to the top of each frame which really strengthens the hull. There is no wiggle in any of the frames as you fair inboard or out. There are 2 sections of fairing cap for the waist. I added the forward piece first (#1)...then the aft section (#2). These must be added first because a hance piece sits on top of the forward length. We will add that later. These are labeled #1 and #2 on the laser cut sheet. When gluing these on the outside edge is flush with the outboard framing which should already be faired. You can see below what remains inboard to be faired. The only fairing I have done inboard up to this point is whatever I managed to get done progressively after raising a half dozen frames. I had reached inside under those cross jigs to at least get rid of the heavy stuff. But the cant frames are virtually untouched. The qdeck fairing cap (#3) needs to be beveled on the aft end to sit flush against the transom. The bow section of fairing cap is self explanatory. Just make sure its flush with the outboard framing for all four of these pieces. Then you will know exactly how much material you need to remove inboard. In this photo after the fairing cap was added, the two hance pieces were added at the bow. You can see how it sits on top of the waist fairing cap. Also check out the framing plan for clarity. Its at the break in the waist up to the fcastle sheer. A scroll will be added much later after we finish planking everything. I originally thought that I would need to wait until all the outboard planking was completed before I could fair inboard. But the hull seems so strong with the fairing caps glued on so I just decided to go for it. The gull has now been completely faired inboard...or about 98% there. There are still some areas that will require some "noodling". But I really wanted to get this done because it makes so much dust and its a pain in the butt. I started with 60 grit sandpaper to get rid of the heavy steps from frame to frame. Then I switched to 150 grit and then to 120 grit. Remember when you are doing this NOT to reduce the fairing cap. Its inevitable that you may hit it from time to time and you may remove the laser char but try and keep the width of the sheer as consistent as you can. The fairing cap helps you do this. Here is a picture after finishing up the inboard fairing. Now I can return to the outboard planking with a much cleaner hull. Although I am compelled to add the keelson first just to make the inboard area even cleaner. Its nice NOT to have to look at all that unkempt framing and laser char. It cleaned up rather well dont you think?

I agree. Here you can see my long sanding stick. Its about an inch wife and 15” long. It has 120 grit sandpaper. I will create a smooth sheer line with it that marches the top of the template. Then i will add the fairing cap. Pictures of that to follow…

So after the 3 strakes of the wales were completed, I started working my way towards the sheer. There are five more 7/32" wide strakes above the wales. So far I have added two of them. I wouldn't normally post an update for simply two strakes of progress. But in this case its good to point out a few things. First, with five strakes now on both sides I think the hull is sufficiently solid to remove all of the cross jigs along the top of the model. But I could very well have just kept going. But above this last strake is where you have to start notching the planking around the port opening and sweep ports. So I thought this was as good a time as any to remove those jigs. In addition, I would note that on many ships the planking above the wales is pretty straight forward. There is no real tapering of the strakes at the bow or stern. So you can more or less just use planking strips all the same width (in this case 7/32" wide). But for Speedwell, these five 7/32" wide strakes do in fact taper at the bow. At least they should if you want the end up with a proper run of your sheer. As you can see below. These five 7/32" wide strakes will taper from about the forward sweep port and get narrower as they hit the stem. So there are many ways you can do this planking. You could literally pasted this template onto a 3/64" thick sheet of Cedar and cut your planks out. They would be the exact shape you need. And yes I could simply laser cut them for you but it is unlikely that the cedar I use for these would match in color with the cedar you use for the remainder of the planking. So folks will have to cut their own. You could also transfer the lines from this smaller template of which a PDF copy will be available...to your hull frames. This would give you the tick marks for your individual strakes and you would proceed to plank just we did on the Winnie or any other model. There are so many ways to do this. You guys can pick your own. As this project is considered an advanced one, I wont repeat myself and do a blow by blow on how to properly plank a hull. Here is my hull with those two additional planks above the wales. I used a 4H pencil to simulate caulking. Remember that the strakes for the wales have no taper at the bow. Those are straight 7/32" wide strips. BUT, the next five strakes above the wales do taper at the bow as discussed. So if the hull is not sufficiently strong at this point so I can remove the cross jigs then something is seriously wrong. These five strakes are very carefully glued to each frame. So everything should and will stay intact after we remove them. To start this process...The first thing I did was remove all the tape along the top of the jigs holding them together. Easy-peasy. Then I just used a pair of nippers....flush cutters, to snip the strips on the cant frame jigs first. This will allow you to actually remove the whole jig after you cut those strips on both sides. I see lots of inboard fairing in my near future!!! Then I repeat this process at the stern for those cant frames. But the very aft jig should just come right out. Then just repeat the process to remove the aft cant frame jig. So far so good. Next I started tackling the extensions for all of those cant frames. For this I prefer to use my home-madesaw. Its basically just a scroll saw blade in an Xacto knife handle. Its has fine teeth but is somewhat wide to prevent bending while in use. I just cut myself a short length of blad to insert into the handle. Start carefully cutting the extensions. As you can see below...I am sawing them off one at a time. But I am not sawing along the sheer too closely. I am cutting in the center of the notches cut from the top-timbers. I want some wiggle room when I finally establish the proper sheer. With those removed for all of the cant frames we are almost done. Now we must tackle the jigs for the square frames. I am just using the very same scroll saw blade to cut the top timber extension on the port side. Then I do the same to the top timber extension on the starboard side and the cross jig for that square frame will be freed. When all of the cross jigs are removed, you will be ready to establish a proper sheer. To do this we need to use our trusty templates once again. Place them back on the model. Line up the bottom edge of the template with the top edge of the wales. This will give you a nice idea where the sheer of the model should be. With the template on the model I am going to use various sanding sticks to bring down the top timbers so they are flush with the top of the template. In a few cases the sheer may fall higher or lower than those notches on your frames. This is fine as long as you match the template. We will be adding a fairing cap to the top of those frames in the next step. I have lots of inboard fairing to do!!! But I will wait to start that until after the outboard side is completely planked…for extra strength for the hull. bow planking strakes template.pdf