Chuck

Ben….that looks so nice. I really beautiful planking job. Folks who are not building the winnie should know that this hull is so much bigger than it appears in photos. That is quite a achievement on a hull that size.

Oh my that is awful. We came out ok with just a minor roof leak. But that lioks awful. I hope you guys are doing ok. chuck

Beautiful progress!!!

That looks really good. Its nice to see a cheerful in the darker woods. It looks great. You did a nice tidy job of the square tuck!!!!

There is no scientific method for the garboard. At least not for me. This is where your eye and subjectivity comes into play. Once a hull is lined off with tape or string you can view the model from various angles to check the placement of the garboard. chances are you will know right away if your garboard is wrong because you wouldnt be able to run your tape or string without noticing a problem. Look at Bens Winnie hull all lined off with string. He tweaked them so many times to get to this which is how he found the proper placement and shape for the garboard. The issue is that most folks dont take the time to do this with tape or string. But look at what this method gives you. A perfect roadmap for planking.

Thank You.....

Nope… We will add the margin planks next but then we will need to make the coamings for the hatches. Then it will finally be a good time to plank. Chuck

Here are some timely images of the rail and how complex it will be. This is why proper planning is important with the placement of those square holes in the cap rail. There are three levels of the rail including the caprail. Most models for kits wouldnt attempt a rail like this...at least I havent seen one. So we need to go slow and double check all positions. This is very important because of the placemnt of the swivel stocks....qdeck cannon....channels etc. The second rail or middle rail is narrower and the very top rail is super thin. Its actually the same thickness as the timberheads. We wont be adding the rail yet because it will be delicate and get in the way when we are fitting out the qdeck fittings. But the caprail placement is important now so it wont haunt you later. We wont be adding the railing until chapter ten. Chuck and our interpretation below...

The aft end of the last section needs to be bevelled to match the angled backward slope of the transom. You want a nice tight fit with the capraul against the transom.

Continuing on with the caprail.... The next stretches of the caprail are the drifts above the hances working our way aft. The first piece is the one you see painted black. All of these pieces pieces were painted black off the model. Make sure you orient this piece the correct way. There is a laser etched arrow on the bottom of each piece which points forward. This is crucial because there are notches cut out of the cap to accept the timberheads. The rail along the quarter deck is quite detailed. These are always a challenge to build and have look good. So I am using this system to locate the timberheads and uprights. So do not adjust the length of this piece or your timberheads and uprights wont line up later. Just sand it smooth and round of the outboard edge. Keep the length exactly as is. Once that piece is glued in position so the inboard edge is flush with the bulwarks, you can assemble the rounded front edge. This curved piece (C1) is laser cut for you and is 5/32" wide. You want a really wide piece to start because these are tricky. So glue two of them together side by side to make a really wide curved cap. You can see the laser cut sheet sitting on the deck frames. I am test fitting the curved part of the cap against the first length I added. Carefully mark the proper with on the bottom of this piece and sand it to fit the width of the cap rail. You want it the exact same width as the piece it is attached to so it looks like one continuous board. You can round off the outboard edge and glue it in position. If you look really hard at the picture you can see the two halves glued together. The angles are trickier than you might thing and you will thank me for providing these two halves making a wide piece. It enables you to get the proper skewed shape you will need. You will see what I mean about slightly skewed or angled when you try and fit it before marking it for the proper width. Glue it in position and do your best to completely hide the seem between the two pieces. Apply wood filler if needed and sand it smooth. Then paint touch up the paint. Once again this complex curved piece was painted black ahead of time but after sanding and filling to hide the seam some paint touch up will be needed. You can see the results in the next picture. You might also see that I was testing how the fancy rail would work and go together on the port side. You can see some timberheads and a rail being tested. It worked out pretty good. Anyway...back to the caprail. We will continue working our way aft. Another curved section is made up of two halves....laser cut pieces (C2). Same as before. Dont sand the aft edge too much. A really long piece of caprail will be placed against this curved section as you can see in the photo above. If you alter the length of the curved piece it will change the location of all of those small square holes for the timberheads. You might have a little wiggle room...but not much. You will want the qdeck cannons to appear between the gundeck cannons below them. Check the plans for the locations of all timberheads and uprights and you will see what I mean. This long length doesnt go all the way to the transom. It stops short about an 1" or 2" of the transom. You will be shaping another short length to finish off the cap rail along the quarter deck. Make sure you hide the seams nicely and take your time with this. That last small length needs to be beveled which is why I made it a separate section. This way we can control where all of the square holes for the timberheads where be located. It makes a big difference tp see the model with a black painted cap rail. Below you can see I finished the cap rail along the qdeck bulwarks. I only have the bow to do in order to complete this step of adding the cap rail. Any questions. Did I explain the steps clearly enough? Let me know if you have any questions.

It looks good. The moldings are a bit heavy but I have seen much much worse. The beauty of those is you can remove those easy enough at any time. So just keep trying. You will be able to make great molding with a bit of practice.

Fantastic Ryland. Really exceptional and it shows how much care you took with the build. Chuck

Nicely done!

Not all ports were used. You will always have extra ports. Resist the urge to fill them all up if you want to keep it accurate.

The issue with this technique for making blocks is all the char. You cant throw them in a block tumbler to clean it all off. That would destroy the shape of them. This is quicker than how I make my regular blocks and the shape is more consistent. But once you over tumble them to remove the char they look awful. Even if made from boxwood. So this is a great technique however for those who want to stain their blocks and even ebonize them. Then you dont have to tumble them at all. Those fancy Ebony blocks you see for sale are so expensive. But you can have some just as nice if you dip these sticks in Ebony stain or black ink and let them dry. They polish up beautifully.

Kind of...but its a bit hard to explain. The thickness also changes. Like I said its pretty advanced. It would take a few pages to explain and only those with laser cutters would know what I was talking about. The blocks are 3/16" wide and 5/32" wide. Single blocks are the same 3/16" width but only about 3/32" thick. So its more elaborate than just flipping and registering. Lots of jigs but once set up you can bang out a ton of them quickly.

Yes CNC and 3d printing has its advantages. But laser cutting at an advanced level can produce some excellent results with some creativity. Below is an experiment of mine I would like to eventually translate to cnc. But as you can see you can achieve shapes and details with a laser cutter that most wouldnt have guessed. The double blocks below were entirely laser cut. In fact these are laser cut using just Yellow Cedar. The color is all the laser char. A quick dip in Ebony stain and you have some really nice blocks. The laser cutting was done all four sides. Pushing the limits of the machine. Four of these little sticks took about 7 minutes or less of actual laser cutting. Thats not bad for 24 pretty acceptable double blocks. i would like to apply this same technique to the Hobby CNC machines out there and see if they cross over.

No metal. Metal photo-etch stoves do exist aftermarket from other folks but using wood is so much easier and is actually how most stoves on contemporary models were built. I will say this, most cant believe its not metal when they see it in person. Thats the beauty and wonder of model making.

Decided to spend the rainy day working on the Winnie. This starts Chapter 9. Happily, this is the chapter where we will cover up all remaining traces of the sub structure and bulkheads. It will hopefully start looking much cleaner very soon. To begin, the bulwarks along the qdeck were planked at last. There are two laser cut pieces to make this easier. They are 3/64" thick. I added the aft section on both sides first. You should shape it for a perfect fit first. I made it a tad higher just in case there is some variation model to model. You also have to notch it over the margin plank along the transom. Then make life easier for yourself and paint these pieces while its off the model. Then glue them in position. Repeat the process with the forward half of the qdeck bulwarks. You can see the forward section for the port side laying on deck. That will be added next before moving on to the fcastle. Dont mind the dust. I should have given it a blast of "air in a can" to clean it up before taking the pictures. Sorry about that. For the fcastle bulwarks there is no need for laser cutting. Just use a 7/32" wide strip cut to length and pre-bent. I suppose a 1/4" wide strip would work to and just cut it down to fit. I pre-bent the strip (3/64" thick) and then clamped it in position. Then I traced the proper height and trimmed it to fit perfectly in one length. But before doing so I added one short length against the bollard timber at the bow. This is a flat piece painted red before gluing it in position. Then you can use this to help position the long strip for the facstle bulwarks. I also pre- bent this long piece and once a perfect fit I pre-painted this as well. Made for a nice clean edge against the deck beams although it wont matter because we will be adding the margin planks at some point soon. It already looks so much nicer that I dont have to look at the bulkeads any more. But lets keep going. Time to add the caprail. This will cover all the messy layers and finally close up all the framing so I no longer have to look at it. So far I have only added the caprail along the waist. A 5/16" x 3/64" strip was used. I rounded off the outboard edge on top and bottom. This edge will look nice this way above the fancy molding. Then I painted it black while off the model including the inboard and outboard edges. In fact those were most important. When glued in position the inboard edge is flush against the bulwarks with no overhang. The outboard edge should have much of an overhang but look nice being directly above the bright unpainted fancy molding. Here is an over picture of the model.....I will now add the caprail working my way aft first. Then I will do the fcastle. These pieces will be laser cut. The bulwarks are widest in the waist at 5/16”…give or take. If you have a need for a wider caprail that would be problematic. There is nothing worse than an oversized and thick bulwarks. It just means you didnt fair them down thin enough early in the project. The bulwarks and caprail are slightly narrower along the drifts and qdeck and the fcastle. These next pieces will be laser cut so the width of your bulwarks will matter. These pieces will have cut-outs for the timberheads.

That looks great

Very nice!!

Just make sure you even up the tops of those fillers so the transom has a continuous cap which you will have to add later. Chuck

Looks spot=on to my eye. Great job.

Beautiful work…..just lovely.

That rope looks excellent. Nicely done. You seem to have the knack for it.