Erik W

Mike,
Many thanks for the looping plier idea, I have looked them up and seems to be a Very good investment.
Thanks again

I wouldn't worry about them not being uniform, in fact they're probably more historically accurate that way. I'm thinking that in the 18th century they would have been hand forged and would have had slight differences in them. The  way they have turned out is really good IMHO. Well done

I have a pair off pliers that are specifically designed for looping wire. It's probably the most used tool I have in my toolbox besides my Xacto knife. I don't think I could effectively fabricate any of the iron work without them. Anyway they retail for only around $13 US dollars and they're well worth every penny.

Nice work Mike. You do know that you will find your lost deadeyes in the morning now, right?
 
Paul

I miss placed the deadeyes that came with the kit and I've spent way to much time looking for them. them damn gremlins are t it again, Fortunately my Fair American kit had some that are the right size only made off walnut. They'll do, by the time I'm ready to build that Fair American kit I'll have upgraded most of the parts with better stuff than what comes in the kit anyhow.

Per,
 
I admire your desire to scratch-build the lift rings.  It's hard to get wire perfectly round!  I was lazy and just used the pre-formed rings that came with the kit.
 
Erik

Per,
 
I admire your desire to scratch-build the lift rings.  It's hard to get wire perfectly round!  I was lazy and just used the pre-formed rings that came with the kit.
 
Erik

That one's especially for drilling around corners, Per!
 
John

Well, my home made hooks didn't come out uniformed.
Funny though they are all the same length.
Seven hooks and the mast ring.
It was a long time since I did some soldering, but the butan powered soldering pistol it worked out fine.
Think the heat was greater than with an electric.
The ring has been drilled for the boom-hook.

 

coloration superstructures

Looking good keith!!!  
 
One of the guys taped my planking session at my club meeting.  Its freaky to see myself on a video like this.  No laughing.   But It shows how I taper and cut a plank to match my plan from lining out the hull.   I wish the camera was behind me but I hope its still worth posting.
 

 
Chuck

Part two was just some questions and answers.  But I was a little rushed.   Usually we dont have enough time to devote what is needed for the whole presentation.  But here it is anyway.
 
I am not sure if it adds anything more to part one.....but here it is.   Its hard to hear the questions being asked.   Most of the conversation in the middle revolves around someone asking me about a hull with many drop planks and or stealers as described in another authors practicum...just putting them in wherever and whenever.  Hopefully that will make the audio make more sense.
 

The "lift rings" were hard to get round, so I settled with the second best.
Now both of them are in place and not glued to the boat. They are movable.

 

Mast seat in place and both the hoist rings.

Thanks for the "likes" and comments.
 
That magic milestone...  All planked, sanded, and one coat wipe-on poly.  I do have one small area that needs some work as it has a stain.  I don't think it's blood...
 
Lessons learned at this point.. many.    
 
1) I should go a bit wider than the 1/8" width even if it's out of scale.  Just for the eye appeal and the ease of working with the wood.
 
2) Use a "harder" wood, like boxwood.  Pear deforms and dings easily.
 
3) Definitely not pear for gap-filling.   Some areas went black, other areas look good.  Strange stuff.  I played with some scrap and it did the same thing.  Either that or not use the poly and sawdust in the gap filling and live with the glue and sawdust.
 
4) A bit more care in the framing and fairing. I found some areas just weren't proper and had to fiddle with the frames before continuing.
 
Now to attend to the stern... which should be fun area and not as tedious.
 

 

Thanks again for the "likes" and comments. And also for the holiday wishes. 
 
Work is slowly progressing.  It took several days to get my head wrapped around the next steps but they're now underway. 
 
 
 
Indeed Sam.  I'm very fond of saying that also about what we do.  But, it is fun and satisfying.
 
 
"Feeling good, Louis!".  
 
 
Thanks David.  I'm not sure either.  It could be me as I'm clamping while the wood is wet so maybe that's the problem.  

Ended up with the pigmented glue again but without the masking tape (it suddenly struck me that the masking tape would prevent the keel from being straight and introduce tiny diagonals).  I found as long as I left enough width to thickness the end result then all appeared well.
 

 
Here you can see the tidied 'top' of the keel and the not so tidied side. I will be thicknessing the sides to size after the false keel is attached mainly because that will also introduce lots of extra staining.
 
My rather unexciting approach is to squidge a small amount of glue into a tam jar lid and then use a chisel to add a small amount of pigment (the chisel is easy to clean). It is then mixed in with some scrap wood until it gets a disgusting texture (and fairly repulsive smell all things considered).
 

 
This is then smeared onto both sides of the joint before attaching. With glue I find the key points are
 
Have a well jointed surfaces Secure the joint so it does not move whilst gluing though this does not mean excessive force Leave well alone for the entire setting period (in this case 24 hours) If surfaces smooth rough them up a bit (for wood less important due to woods structure) Don't glue multiples at once. This last stops the first two breaking as adding another piece risks subtly adjusting the initial glued piece and this weakening the joint.  
So for this I have used two large clamps to secure a metal straight edge to some scrap but smoothed walnut. This provides two flat surfaces. The keel is then pushed against the ruler and secured with lots of little clamps and then left alone.
 
The above all appeared to work well and the next step is the false keel. I hit a marginally quandary here as all my helper books seemed to disagree with various things
 
The Naiad had a depth that matched Steel but used five false keel pieces where Steel states seven
The Euryalus had a depth that matched my plans but also used five keel pieces
The Swan books depth was not relevant as it was a different class and neither was the count for the same reason.
 
The depth was not a major problem as I always take the plans when Steel or the class Progress book disagree so slightly under 7 inches is what I am looking for plus the Euryalus provides reinforcement that other similar ships also used similar false keel sizes (I wonder if they expected extra leeway in these ships due to the finer hull shape so compensated by a slightly larger false keel). The amount of pieces was more problematic. In the end I decided to follow Steel. Most of the design books state that the False Keel is designed to fall off in pieces to protect the main keel from grounding (and the like). It seems sensible to have more pieces than fewer as otherwise larger sections of the keel could be exposed.
 
It does not really matter of course but that is in the end what I have decided on.
 
Joints for the keel were made on the disc sander which coped easily enough with the challenge and I have just started gluing it on using my many little clamps. For this I am ensuring one side is aligned with the keel and the other can poke out. This is because I will be thicknessing the results so need a flat side to keep everything square.
 

 
 
 

Hi
 
I have been lurking on this forum since just after V2.0 came to life. I really love the ships that come to life on this forum, created by some very skilled and talented people. My hat off to all of you. :) (You know who you are)
 
I believe that I have learned a lot by reading and watching. I did not say anything because I did not believe that I had anything to add.
 
I have been doing a lot of scratch building of RC aircraft over the years and also enjoyed flying them.
But after losing most of the use of my right thumb after a motorcycle accident I could not fly anymore.
 
I have finally decided to take a plunge into the deep water.
 
I have ordered Chuck's laser-cut short kit of the HMS Cheerful and I'm now waiting for it to arrive, should be here early to mid January 2016.
 
 I have already made a mistake
Only after the order was shipped did I see that I could have ordered it in Swiss Pear - Bummer.  (Chuck, I will be contacting you shortly again for the keel and transom parts in pear.)
 
My plan is to build the Cheerful in different woods as I find ships build from contrasting woods to be subtle yet bold. A good example of this is the HMS Vulture by Dan Vadas.
 
I want to build the keel, visible parts of the frames and rails in Swiss Pear. Planking is to be in Castello Boxwood and deck in Holly. Deck furniture will most probable be a mix of pear and boxwood.
 
Well, that is it for now, back to waiting
 
Cheers
 
Deon Engelmann

Looks terrific, Dave. I fit out just one-half of mine and it makes for a very nice display.

Even though it has been 2 years, 9 months, and 29 days since the last post, work didn’t actually stop.  The framing is finished.! One side looks OK to leave uncovered, and the other is begging to be planked (meaning I can’t true some of the frames without either completely disassembling and replacing them, or thinning the others too much).  Planking one side was the original plan, and the bad areas will get covered, so this is OK.
 
Few things of note:
Future builders should be comfortable that the project is doable even if you only have around 90 minutes per week to work on it. It was a fun project to do a little bit at a time. The time limitations were responsible for the problems on one side.  At some point ‘perfect’ became the enemy of ‘good enough’, and I stopped doing redo’s.  It was too disheartening to go long periods of time with no apparent progress. I think I have defined some sort of record for how slow progress on a ship model can go without actually stopping. I plan to fit it out, and hope to have more time to work on it over the holidays.  David and Greg sent me a copy of their instructions, which are super.  The framing was all new to me while most of the rest is similar to things I've done before.
 
Happy holidays!
 
Dave

Sweet...  John.

I like it, I like it! Those French hull forms are so attractive.

Hi All,
Thank you for the kind words and warm welcome.  Very motivating.
 
You may note that in my last post of the gantry, I double laminated the crossmember,  this was to mitigate any twisting, which did happen with my first attempt. 
 
I will be building the Naiad from Swiss Pear, West Indian Boxwood, and Holly, all purchased as billets from Dave at D'Lumberyard.  I really enjoy milling my own stock and allow for a few hundredths of extra thickness for fine tuning and sanding.  The false keel will be ebonized swiss pear. I really dislike working with ebony for a variety of reasons.
 
Below is a photo of my calipers as suggested in Ed's book.  I made these of Babinga.  Next time, I would do without the Shellac and would center the screw and sleeve clamp.
 

 
I have been working on the model for the past few weeks and came across a significant pitfalls that I will share:
Scale of pattern sheets - I printed out the pattern sheets from the disk, but neglected to scale the prints to "full size".  This error was not detected until I built the full stem, and beak!  Oh well, back to the drawing board I went.  While it was only off by a smidge on each part, the cumulative affect was significant.  I then read Ed's log and sure enough, he addresses the issue there.
 
Here are the patterns for the stem, cut out and ready for fitting.
 


 
 
You will note that in this second photo above, I glued up the box joint where the stem meets the keel.  In my first attempt, I got this angle wrong.  I decided to do it earlier than suggested by the practicum so that I could better tie the whole thing together.  This is probably one of the most critical angles/relationships in the ships structure.
 
Below is a close up of the box joint.
 

 

 
More to come.  Thanks again for the warm welcome. Gary
 
 
 
 

Hi All,  I am new to the forum.  I am very active on another forum, but decided to join here after meeting so many wonderful people at the NRG Conference in Mystic this past fall.  While at the confernece, I stumbled upon Ed Tosti's masterpiece, The Naiad Frigate,Vol 1 & 2 from SeaWatch Books.  I bought them and devoured them.  There is so much great information in these books for all levels of modelers. In addition to the books, Ed's log and that of Albert will come in handy as I progress.
 
As for me, I consider myself a new intermediate modeler and welcome all constructive comments. I just finished a kitbashed POB Rattlesnake and am starting the rigging to a POF US Brig Eagle scratch build.  I was not planning to start the Naiad so soon, but here it is...
 
Since I do all of my modeling while standing in the garage, I built the building board at about 42" height.  I plan to use it for more projects after this, so the construction is very solid, using kiln dried pine 1x4 and melamine.  I also put in some trays so my tools wont end up on top (thats the theory...)  It has the T-Tracks as specified in the book.  I opted for a laminated copy of the builidng plan, since my first attempt at a spray adhesive for gluing the plans down didnt look so good.  The laminated plan was less expensive than the glue.  And, I like the results much more. 
 
You will note the gantry and uprights are made from Padauk. I had some laying around so decided to use it.  They are also glued, screwed, and pinned.  I am planning for a long life and a life time of use...
 
The stern and stem holders are made from simple kiln dried pine and are also glued and screwed. I scored the center line to ensure that everything lines up (or so I hope...)
 
I made multiple sets of clamps from Boxwood and 6-32 brass screws and thumb bolts.  These were fun to make and really come in handy.  I like them better than the small colored clips since you can adjust the pressure.  Also shown is my version of the framing jib.  I made a double jig as shown.
 
In my next installment, I will share my work on the stem, knee of the head and keel.  All are coming along nicely.
 
Thank you, Gary 

Thanks for the kind words guys!
 
Brian, the quality of the rigging on your Armed Sloop Virginia was what I aimed for on my longboat, so I'm sure when you tackle your longboat, it'll be gorgeous!
 
Paul, ship-wise I'm leaning heavily towards the Cheerful as a next build.  I'm going out of town for part of January, so can't order anything until I'm sure to be home for delivery. 
 
Erik