Erik W

I finished up the aft platforms...
 
They were both planked with the scuttle lids being finished as described earlier.   But then two upright timbers were cut to length (3/16 x 3/16) and placed on both sides of the open hatchway.  This gives it more support so you can Carefully cut away the beam between them.  It will look like the pic below when done.

Then you can make the short ladder that goes in that opening between platforms.   This is typical and laser cut for you.  The only difference is that this ladder is tilted or skewed sideways.   Its an interesting detail.   The reason for this will become clear when we start building out all of the cabins.  There is a small square with the angle you will need for this ladder on the plans.  See below.

This is what it looks like in position. Brutal close-ups...
 

Then I figured it would be fun to build and install the shot lockers.
 
All pieces are laser cut. The sides were glued on top of the back piece first.  They were placed at right angles neatly.  
 

Then the front is added...which is shorter and has laser etched plank details.
 

Next comes the top piece.  This was laser cut a bit wider than needed for wiggle room.   It was glued on top and then the back side was sanded flush where the top hung over the edge.  The lids were also prepared.  It is one piece with some laser etched details.  Basically you have to bevel the top and bottom edges.  Quite a bit as you can see.
 

Here the lid piece was added. It has etched reference marks for the hinges.  The hinges are laser board and added the same way we did them for the fire hearth. The top and bottom halves of the hinge are separate pieces.   They are glued on first.  Then to finish them up a small length of 24 gauge black wire was used to simulate the hinge pins between them.
 
 
And finally added to the model...you may have to adjust the height of the shot locker AS you are building it.  It all depends on whether or not you placed the height of the aft platform differently.   Maybe you placed the platform lower and thus your shot locker may have to be shorter.   Measure twice and cut once sort of thing...its so important to get the platform heights correct.  But if you didnt, thats OK...just do some problem solving and with some adjustments you will be just fine.  I would even go as far to suggest that you test the back piece in position before you assemble the shot locker.  Then you will know if its too tall or short and you can adjust accordingly.
 

 
 
 

I finally finished the first set of sidewall decorations:
 





 

Continued progress on chapter 10. 

The deck furniture is just roughly sitting there, still more work to do on wheel plus the final outer row of planking to add. Mini-me dropped by, I like that he provides scale to see just how big this ship was in reality. 

Thanks for all the likes and nice words everyone!  Rick, the things that didn't turn out the way I would have liked are just small things.   Once a little time passes I know from experience I won't even remember what those little nits were!
 
Erik

Pop the champagne, I'm finished with the deck planking!  While a challenging and rewarding experience, I'm happy to be finished with planking.  Like everything else with this build, planking the deck didn't quite go as planned, even with the tick marks and planks drawn out beforehand.  And as you other perfectionists out there can sympathize with, there are a bunch of things that didn't turn out the way I would have liked.  That said, I'm happy with the results, and the quality of the deck planking is in line with the rest of the build.  Which is all I can really ask for as someone being new to this wooden ship building thing.
 
After thoroughly cleaning my hobby area of sawdust, which is also my home office, I'm happy to be moving on to less dusty parts of the build!  I plan on starting Chuck's mini-kit of the windlass this weekend.
 
Erik

Pop the champagne, I'm finished with the deck planking!  While a challenging and rewarding experience, I'm happy to be finished with planking.  Like everything else with this build, planking the deck didn't quite go as planned, even with the tick marks and planks drawn out beforehand.  And as you other perfectionists out there can sympathize with, there are a bunch of things that didn't turn out the way I would have liked.  That said, I'm happy with the results, and the quality of the deck planking is in line with the rest of the build.  Which is all I can really ask for as someone being new to this wooden ship building thing.
 
After thoroughly cleaning my hobby area of sawdust, which is also my home office, I'm happy to be moving on to less dusty parts of the build!  I plan on starting Chuck's mini-kit of the windlass this weekend.
 
Erik

Thanks for the likes and the encouraging comments.  I finished more of the deck planking this week.  I did my first scarph joints on the deck.  The remaining planking will be more time consuming since it involves cutting the planks out of wood sheet.  One note on planking color.  Since I have 2 different batches of 3/16" wide wood for the main planking I used, which are both different from 7/32" wide planking I used, which is different again from the wood sheet, I decided to deliberately mix up the planks of different shades from the beginning.  The plank color would vary anyway, and this kept it varied throughout the deck, rather than having bands of different shades as I transitioned from the planking stock to sheet stock.  The photos were taken after a quick first sanding.
 
Erik
 

It looks incredible.

Looks perfect!  Can’t imagine what might not have turned out as you’d liked.  😁

Exceptional, crisp and so clean.
Did you use Ai for this....🙂

Your work is fantastic.  Look great.
 

That looks pretty darned good to my eye.   Its an exceptional build.    
 
Chuck

Beautiful Erik, just beautiful and inspiring!
 
Best Regards …. Rick

Pop the champagne, I'm finished with the deck planking!  While a challenging and rewarding experience, I'm happy to be finished with planking.  Like everything else with this build, planking the deck didn't quite go as planned, even with the tick marks and planks drawn out beforehand.  And as you other perfectionists out there can sympathize with, there are a bunch of things that didn't turn out the way I would have liked.  That said, I'm happy with the results, and the quality of the deck planking is in line with the rest of the build.  Which is all I can really ask for as someone being new to this wooden ship building thing.
 
After thoroughly cleaning my hobby area of sawdust, which is also my home office, I'm happy to be moving on to less dusty parts of the build!  I plan on starting Chuck's mini-kit of the windlass this weekend.
 
Erik

Pop the champagne, I'm finished with the deck planking!  While a challenging and rewarding experience, I'm happy to be finished with planking.  Like everything else with this build, planking the deck didn't quite go as planned, even with the tick marks and planks drawn out beforehand.  And as you other perfectionists out there can sympathize with, there are a bunch of things that didn't turn out the way I would have liked.  That said, I'm happy with the results, and the quality of the deck planking is in line with the rest of the build.  Which is all I can really ask for as someone being new to this wooden ship building thing.
 
After thoroughly cleaning my hobby area of sawdust, which is also my home office, I'm happy to be moving on to less dusty parts of the build!  I plan on starting Chuck's mini-kit of the windlass this weekend.
 
Erik

Pop the champagne, I'm finished with the deck planking!  While a challenging and rewarding experience, I'm happy to be finished with planking.  Like everything else with this build, planking the deck didn't quite go as planned, even with the tick marks and planks drawn out beforehand.  And as you other perfectionists out there can sympathize with, there are a bunch of things that didn't turn out the way I would have liked.  That said, I'm happy with the results, and the quality of the deck planking is in line with the rest of the build.  Which is all I can really ask for as someone being new to this wooden ship building thing.
 
After thoroughly cleaning my hobby area of sawdust, which is also my home office, I'm happy to be moving on to less dusty parts of the build!  I plan on starting Chuck's mini-kit of the windlass this weekend.
 
Erik

Pop the champagne, I'm finished with the deck planking!  While a challenging and rewarding experience, I'm happy to be finished with planking.  Like everything else with this build, planking the deck didn't quite go as planned, even with the tick marks and planks drawn out beforehand.  And as you other perfectionists out there can sympathize with, there are a bunch of things that didn't turn out the way I would have liked.  That said, I'm happy with the results, and the quality of the deck planking is in line with the rest of the build.  Which is all I can really ask for as someone being new to this wooden ship building thing.
 
After thoroughly cleaning my hobby area of sawdust, which is also my home office, I'm happy to be moving on to less dusty parts of the build!  I plan on starting Chuck's mini-kit of the windlass this weekend.
 
Erik

Pop the champagne, I'm finished with the deck planking!  While a challenging and rewarding experience, I'm happy to be finished with planking.  Like everything else with this build, planking the deck didn't quite go as planned, even with the tick marks and planks drawn out beforehand.  And as you other perfectionists out there can sympathize with, there are a bunch of things that didn't turn out the way I would have liked.  That said, I'm happy with the results, and the quality of the deck planking is in line with the rest of the build.  Which is all I can really ask for as someone being new to this wooden ship building thing.
 
After thoroughly cleaning my hobby area of sawdust, which is also my home office, I'm happy to be moving on to less dusty parts of the build!  I plan on starting Chuck's mini-kit of the windlass this weekend.
 
Erik

I feel like I reached a bit of a milestone on my build today, so I have included a ton of photos in celebration! While being a perfectionist, things frequently don't turn out quite as well as I'd like, but I'm happy with the build so far.  And it's turning out pretty well considering it's my first major wooden ship build, after my Model Shipways longboat project many years ago.  Though there is still quite a ways to go on the project, with the exterior painting complete, there is a certain finished look now.  I really like the lines of the Cheerful.  I spent the week painting the cap rail, repainting the wales, and spending much time doing the final sanding of the hull and tweaking the finish (after viewing these photos, I cleaned up where the black paint meets the wood in the stern area).  Now on to Chapter 7 of Chuck's monograph, and adding the deck fittings, and planking the deck.
 
I have a couple of questions for you folks.  I used Wipe-On Poly back on my longboat build.  Applying it to the hull, and then applying any paint to those areas that needed it afterwards.  On my Cheerful, I applied WOP above the wales way back when those were planked, but have since sanded it off as I cleaned up that planking in preparation to add the fancy molding.  I never applied WOP anywhere else on the model.  Now, as you can see, the hull has painted areas amongst the bare wood.  I'm thinking I might not apply WOP at all.  The hull has made it nearly 7 years with temperature and humidity fluctuations without any noticeable signs of aging.  My questions then are, is it really necessary to apply some kind of protective coating to the wood?  Has anyone here not applied WOP, or similar finish to their build?  And if you did apply WOP to a model with areas that you already painted, how did you go about applying the WOP (apply it carefully around the painted sections, apply it to the painted areas also, etc)?  Thanks!
 
Erik

Druxey, Thanks for the kind words.  One thing I like about the manual low-tech approach, being relatively new to the hobby, is it has helped me really understand the strengths and weaknesses of the boxwood I'm working with, and what it can and can't do.  There really is something special about working with wood, as compared to styrene, plastic, resin, etc.  It's hard to put into words, but there's an added level of enjoyment that working with the wood provides.
 
Erik

Pop the champagne, I'm finished with the deck planking!  While a challenging and rewarding experience, I'm happy to be finished with planking.  Like everything else with this build, planking the deck didn't quite go as planned, even with the tick marks and planks drawn out beforehand.  And as you other perfectionists out there can sympathize with, there are a bunch of things that didn't turn out the way I would have liked.  That said, I'm happy with the results, and the quality of the deck planking is in line with the rest of the build.  Which is all I can really ask for as someone being new to this wooden ship building thing.
 
After thoroughly cleaning my hobby area of sawdust, which is also my home office, I'm happy to be moving on to less dusty parts of the build!  I plan on starting Chuck's mini-kit of the windlass this weekend.
 
Erik

Pop the champagne, I'm finished with the deck planking!  While a challenging and rewarding experience, I'm happy to be finished with planking.  Like everything else with this build, planking the deck didn't quite go as planned, even with the tick marks and planks drawn out beforehand.  And as you other perfectionists out there can sympathize with, there are a bunch of things that didn't turn out the way I would have liked.  That said, I'm happy with the results, and the quality of the deck planking is in line with the rest of the build.  Which is all I can really ask for as someone being new to this wooden ship building thing.
 
After thoroughly cleaning my hobby area of sawdust, which is also my home office, I'm happy to be moving on to less dusty parts of the build!  I plan on starting Chuck's mini-kit of the windlass this weekend.
 
Erik

Pop the champagne, I'm finished with the deck planking!  While a challenging and rewarding experience, I'm happy to be finished with planking.  Like everything else with this build, planking the deck didn't quite go as planned, even with the tick marks and planks drawn out beforehand.  And as you other perfectionists out there can sympathize with, there are a bunch of things that didn't turn out the way I would have liked.  That said, I'm happy with the results, and the quality of the deck planking is in line with the rest of the build.  Which is all I can really ask for as someone being new to this wooden ship building thing.
 
After thoroughly cleaning my hobby area of sawdust, which is also my home office, I'm happy to be moving on to less dusty parts of the build!  I plan on starting Chuck's mini-kit of the windlass this weekend.
 
Erik

I glued on all the bulkheads and filler blocks.  These went in easily.  The notches on both the bulkheads and the false keel are nice and deep, so aside from making sure the bulkheads are 90 degrees to the false keel using a square, the assembly is a no brainer.  I included a shot of my recently finished longboat with the Cheerful hull to show the size comparison.  I have to say, when I built the longboat, I thought it was big, compared to the 1/160 model railroad stuff I've spent most of my life working on, but the Cheerful is positively HUGE!  Haha!  I guess it's all relative . . . 
 

 

 

 

 

 
Erik

This week has been spent getting the keel put together and glued on straight and true.  The laser cut keel parts fit together well, with minimal cleanup.  I followed the instructions for the tree nails, using a pencil to darken the hole and then using Natural color Elmer's Wood Filler.  The tree nails look faint in the photos, but are more visible in person.  Once everything was glued together I sanded the keel smooth with 220, 320, and then 400 grit sandpaper and rubbed in Wipe-on-Poly (satin) for about 30 seconds, then immediately wiped it off.  I'm enjoying this Castello boxwood!  I like working with a small grain hardwood.  It's refreshing after the fuzzy basswood I'm used to. 
 

 

 

 
Erik