Chuck

That is looking excellent Ben.

She really does look nice. Well done.

Absolutely beautiful. It was such a pleasure to follow your progress on this one. Such a nice model you have built there!!!

Nope...that is entirely wrong for Winnie...no sweep ports or extra wide wales. Please disregard that for Winchelsea. Yes the Southhampton has sweeps and was very different. It even had the old beakhead bulkhead at the bow. There are some beautiful drafts of that class available. But sadly no contemporary models. Check out the width of the wales. Chuck

That looks pretty darned good. Well done and worth the time and effort.

That looks so good. Superb. That is the perfect image to start off my day. Thank You for that.

Its looking very good....

Excellent work...it is a pleasure to watch your progress. The tiller is correct as far as the height shown on the plan. So you should absolutely stick with what is shown on those. The mast coat looks perfect.... Chuck

Thank you Greg

I really dont know......good question. Chuck

Thank You guys. I am going to try and get more frames done this weekend. But it will be slow going from this point forward. This is as boring and repetitive as making cannon carriages. But it has to be done. Chuck

Very nice...that rail was a challenge. But it was also a lot of fun to build. Chuck

The "SHORT SQUARE FRAMES"..... Basically these are built the same way as the taller square frames. They just dont extend all the way to the "jig" top that helps position the tall frames. These are the frames that fall where a gun port or sweep port are located. The "short frame" 2a is shown below. It does have a cross beam of sorts. This is used to help stabilize it and give it the correct shape. Notice how it is glued onto the bottom of little square protrusions on the inboard side of the frame. All of the short frames will have this cross piece. It will be removed after we plank the exterior of the hull much later in the project. You can build these as shown just like the other frames. Just make sure the stepped futtocks appear on the correct side of the frame when you glue them onto the keel. NOTE the blocks for the sweep port labelled 2a. These are made by gluing two laser cut layers together. Glue them together so the etched reference letters face each other. Dont glue these onto the frames yet. Just keep them ready to go once you glue the short frame onto the keel first. Dont forget to finalize the chocks by shaving off half of it....and when you glue them onto the keel make sure the "step" is facing the correct way....either fore or aft based on the plans. If you recall, we installed a bunch of the tall frames earlier. This left a bunch of open spots where the shorter frames will be installed. In this photo you can see a coupe of short frames I completed on the forward side so far. One has a sweep port and another has the lower gun port sill. There is another short frame which has been glued into position. It is frame 2a shown earlier. It was glued into the final spot I had ready for it between the two tall frames. Sitting on the top of the model you can see the two sweep port pieces which I will add next. I have already dry fit them in position. I had to sand a little off both sides to make it fit really nice without spreading the two frames apart on either side of it. You will notice some pencil lines that I drew on both sides of the sweep port blanks. While they were being test fit, I traced the shape of the frames on both sides of it so I have a reference. It makes sense to remove your test fitting of these and sand them close to those lines now before you glue them in position. It will save a lot of sanding when it comes time to fair the hull later. You dont have to get it perfect but try and chisel or sand these close to there finished shapes. You can see my pre shaped sweep port block for the starboard side. Once sanded...I glued them in position permanently. Be careful to check your framing plan. Make sure you have these oriented correctly and dont flip them. You want your sweep ports in the correct position after all. Use the provided templates to make sure all of the gun ports and sweep ports are in the correct position..at the correct height and spaced properly. These templates will be provided on the plans. This in combination with other means of measurement will really help ensure that your ports all end up where they are supposed to. The top of the template aligns with the sheer. The bottom of the template actually aligns with the top edge of the wales. The heights are most important for the ports and dont go nuts if your openings are a 1/64" to the left or right. It will all work out in the end. You can always fix slight issues before you start planking if you have to do some shifting. But I highly recommend that you use this template from the start of your framing to check the port positions as you progress. If you do this before you glue the actual sweep port fillers into position permanently (and the gun port sills), you can adjust them at that time to ensure the opening are in the correct spots. Then after you get them to match the template, glue them in permanently. Using the template is really the key to successfully and easily taking the guess-work out of positioning the ports. NOTE: With any POF project there is a lot going on and a lot of parts. It is inevitable that some frames may not end up where you want them exactly. Thats OK and certainly it happened to me. You may get a slight bend in your frame etc. Your wood thickness might be a little over or under with your frames. Maybe a frame isnt perfectly perpendicular to the keel after it settles once glued in. Creep can be an issue after 20 frames etc. But regardless of where you frames end up you can easily manipulate the sweep port fillers and sills using the templates to get them exactly where you want them. As you can see the framing looks perfect to the naked eye but I can assure you they are not...the template is your salvation!!! The photo below shows all of the square frames complete with a template I used to ensure all of the ports are positioned correctly. I did use my steel squares to line all of this stuff up as well. I used the square as a height gauge to make sure the sweep port was the correct height off of the build board. I have yet to do the port side and this will be done soon. This is where the model stands at the moment. Things will slow down now as I try and repeat this process until all of the square frames have been completed. There are over 40 square frames. Resist the urge to incrementally fair the hull until you have quite a few frames glued into position. In fact it is best to wait until they are all in position but I do realize it is hard to resist. I have lightly sanded the exterior a bit but I am careful not to over do it. I dont want to screw up the correct shape for the hull which is tough to see with only a few frames on the keel like this. When there is a lower gun port sill instead of a sweep port block, they are handled in the exact same way. They come in two layers as well....follow the same procedure.

Its on the list.

I didnt have any plans to make those for the Winnie. Strictly speaking in terms of following a typical contemporary model. No rope and no anchors or rigged guns etc. But yes all of that can be added to make each of your own models unique. Except for a possibly ships barge this project is completed. As an homage to those contemporary models....like this one. Chuck

That is awful news but I am so happy you had a full recovery. I am looking forward to you making more progress. Stay well!!!

Absolutely beautiful....lovely little model.

Rest in Peace Bob... I am saddened to announce that Bob passed away on November 10th. Bob was a wonderful model builder and a good friend. He will missed. https://www.freep.com/obituaries/det118856 Chuck

Quite a feeling when you get that done....really nice work. It was a huge task. Chuck

3D printed probably but ultimately cast in tanish color resin like I did for the Winnie. I am not sure these will be able to be carved on a CNC. The details and the design has such small details even at 3/8" scale. Chuck

Getting closer on the transom...

That looks so good. Chapter twelve in cherry is also now available Rusty.

Lovely work so far....Now back to the project

Patience...but no seriously. If the wood is thick, say 3/32"and above, I scrape the char first with a straight razor. Its quick and painless. I dont remove it all by any means this way. Then I switch to sandpaper. But not just any sandpaper. The grit is super important. I mainly use 320 grit. The motion or technique is important and I just cant describe it. I may have to film it some day. But at a minimum I probably use more sandpaper than most. Yes sandpaper can be expensive. But the real trick is switching to a clean piece often. The moment you see the sandpaper get brown and compacted with char you need to switch. Otherwise you are just rubbing dirty wood with dirty sandpaper and pushing the char into the grain. Thats the issue with most people. So after a few passes, I slap the sandpaper on the edge of the table to remove as much dirty char dust as possible. The moment it stops becoming reasonably clean it gets tossed. The edges clean up pretty quickly this way. But sometimes with such large pieces like the keel and the frame components it will just take a lot of time no matter how you look at it. For thinner or more delicate pieces I will use 400 grit...no scraping. It just all comes off for me. I dont know why it is a problem for some. I really do think its in the technique. I sand with a light touch. Not a lot of pressure as that just rubs/pushes the char and dirt into the wood. For small areas like corners a very sharp blade....I just slice it away in the corners. Very thin almost tissue paper thin slices. Thats pretty much it. It does suck removing a lot of char from many pieces and it does take time. But I do spend that amount of time on every piece. If I dont want to take the time then its impossible to get it all off. It wont get removed quickly but it will eventually get done. I think the technique of a light touch and clean sandpaper is the trick. On the end grain however I find it just easier to slice it off if its in an area that will be seen. Usually after scraping if its a thick board. Its too easy to push the char into the end grain when using sandpaper. I am talking razor thin tissue paper thickness of a slice removed. Once shaved then I just use some clean 320 grit to even it out. Now I dont build other manufactures kits any longer...but on all of my laser cut pieces there is enough meat on them so a micro layer of char can be removed or sliced away without causing the part to not fit anymore. Sadly, other kit makers dont do this and if you actually removed the char from parts they end up too small. That is a problem I dont know how to solve. But on my kits its the opposite...you have an issue if you dont remove the char...The parts will be slightly oversized. So in order for my kits to fit together as intended, people must remove it...no choice but to take the time to do it.

Your not kidding....So much rope...LOL. But work continues on other aspects of the project. None of these are finished yet. Lots of work still to be done on them...