Chuck

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

Very nicely done Jim. And Chris that is a lovely design and subject for a kit. It should be a very successful seller. Chuck

I agree Greg. I have always been tempted to do that on my models. Maybe I shall on Speedwell since there are so few guns. and another...with the same red painted treatment.

There are a bunch of contemporary models with guns run out. But they are hard to find. But they are out there. I present Amazon as a great example. This is a model that was built at a high level of detail and craftsmanship. Not all contemporary models are. So this is a superb example to use. one thing I am struck by is how much the guns protrude from the hull. This helps clear them from rigging and such. This detail is almost always understated with kits. The supplied cannon can not be run out as far as they should be. The reason why…because the supplied carriages are designed incorrectly. in addition they are centered but slightly lower in each port as you can see. But keep in mind many of the guns can and should be adjusted because they shifted on their carriages over time. Had the museum done this before taking the photos the may have appeared slightly higher in their ports. Just like with our models…the guns will sometimes shift on the carriage and the entire carriage may shift. So look carefully at this photo to see those which need some care and adjustment.

Great start at raising frames Mike.

I have to plank everything above the wales because that is not historically accurate at all. But yes I did think about also planking one side in its entirety. But I may just push forward with the interior work and not do that. There will be so much other stuff to do and if I fully planked one side I may never get done with this model. Although its going a lot faster than I thought it would. For me anyway as I consider myself a really slow builder/designer.

I finished the first layer for the wales. Basically I added two more strakes below the first that was added. I show this image because its the first that gives you a good indication of what the hull will eventually look like. This is as low as the planking will reach on the hull. Everything you see below the wales is left unplanked and these frames will remain visible. I do love a fully planked hull though. Its my preference actually. But like everyone else, I would be crazy to cover up all of that hard work with the frames. I will add two more strakes now above the wales. They are also 7/32" wide. Then it will be time to remove all of the top jigs. Yippeee!!! Chuck

Thanks Greg....I am hopeful that with 5 strakes carefully glued to each frame it wont be an issue. But that is good advice. Chuck

The first thing that needs to be done in preparation for planking is to paint the port openings. It is much easier to do so now and those familiar with all of my Syren projects will recognize this step. I am using the same Crimson Acrylic red for this model that I use for all of them. One note however, rather than just start painting, this model has many laser cut sweep ports. The insides of the sweep ports have laser char on them. You really cant successfully just paint over that. The red wont cover it and will appear too dark. You dont want to sand it off. That would be bad. It would change the precision shape of those port openings. Instead of sanding, I painted the insides of the sweep ports with a very light tan first. This will cover the char without compromising the shape of the sweep ports. I mixed Titanium White with some brown and yellow Ochre. Once that paint dried I switched to the Crimson. One additional note....The quarter badge opening and window area was painted tan and will NOT be painted red. This will be left tan as the great cabin will remain unpainted. Once the painting was complete I taped the two templates into position on both sides of the model. This is a VERY important step. Just like when using a batten, you must view the hull at all angles. Ensure that the template is even on both sides of the hull. The bottom edge of the templates represent the top edge of the wales. You will be carefully tracing along the bottom edge of each template to mark the location for the first planking strake to be placed on the hull. Make sure the run is good and at equal height at the bow and stern both port and starboard. I forgot to mention that you should cut out all of the sweep ports and gunports from the template before taping it on the hull. In addition, cut out the fixed blocks on the templates too. You will be tracing and marking the exact locations for the fixed blocks and the sweep port covers as well as the bottom edge of the templates. We will be adding the sweep port covers to the hull soon so we can plank around them. The same is true for the fixed block shells. Use a hard lead pencil so it keeps a sharp point longer. Yes the lead will leave a lighter line but it will be more precise. Use a 4H or even a 6H pencil for marking the hull. When you are done tracing these elements and the bottom edge of the templates, remove the them carefully. We will be using them again many times. Cut away any tape that hangs over the edges of the template. Dont try and remove it...the template will tear. Then store the templates safely for later use. Here is what the hull looks like after removing the templates. You can hopefully see my reference line that shows the top edge of the wales. But its hard to see the sweep port lines in the photo. Thats OK. Just know that they are there. You can see the locations of the fixed blocks. We will be adding the first strake which represents the first layer for the top of the wales. This is probably the most crucial of planking steps. So take you time with it. If the run and fit for this first plank is wrong then all of your planking will be wrong. It will be hard to recover from that. The strips are 7/32" x 3/64" Yellow cedar. I have a whole bunch of them ready to go. All have been matched for color. All three strakes for the wales are 7/32" wide. Try really hard to align the top of the strip with your reference line on the hull. Make sure you match the placement port and starboard. I wont rehash how to plank and how to bend the strips. I have done that so many times. Just refer to the tutorials and many logs on this site. Or download the respective chapters for the Cheerful or the Winchelsea. I am using a travel iron and bending and twisting as usual. The first strake or the upper wales have been completed. At least the first layer. I prefer to use two layers. You could however just use a thicker strip and complete the upper and lower strakes in one layer instead. Its up to you. But I personally prefer two layers because I think I can do a much better and cleaner job with the painting and placement. With this upper wale in place...now its time to add two more strakes of the same width and thickness below this one. It sounds easy enough, but remember to get a good tight fit against the strakes already on the hull. I am also using a #2 pencil to shade one edge of each strake to simulate the caulking. Although on the upper and lower wales its not important. Its only the first layer. I would however simulate the caulking on the middle layer of the wales because it is only one layer thick. I a referring to the butt joints only. One last very important note: When gluing these three strakes for the wales onto the hull, make sure you glue the strips to each and every frame. Its the planking that will hold the hull together when we remove the top jigs. So the frames need to be really secure to the planking. Place a drop of glue (your choice of PVA or CA) to each and every frame as you proceed. When we complete two or three strakes above the wales later, thats when we will remove the top jigs and establish the sheer properly. So thats coming up soon. If the planks arent secured to the frames it might be a disaster in the making. But maybe not. I am just a nervous Nelly.