Salty Sea Dog

All of your contributions are positive! Congratulations! That's like 2 new jobs in 2 weeks isn't it?

Haha -that's what I'm doing too! Your ship is looking GREAT!!

Congratulations on the new house! You'll have to post some pics of the new workshop when you get settled. Wishing you a smooth and trouble-free move. P.S. - the build looks great!

Hi Pete! This looks like a fun build. Nice work too! I'm pulling up a chair to follow this one.

Hi Michael, Your Wasa is looking fantastic! I agree with Joachim that it looks wonderful without the red color and once you put a finish on the wood, the contrast of the darker wood should pop even more. If the lack of red is bugging you though, you might consider putting a finish on all the areas that should not be red to seal them and then use a water based stain like Trans Tint to color the areas you would want red. You should be able to wipe off any wayward water based stain that gets on your painted or sealed areas. Of course I would practice on scrap a bunch of times before ever touching such a beautiful ship to see how just finish alone looks on the contrasting woods vs finish and stains. Either way you go, your Wasa is absolutely stunning!

Hi Anja! I'm heading out of town tomorrow morning and I do not know if I'll be able to borrow a computer before Monday, so I wanted to tell you that I'm sending positive thoughts your way and my best wishes for your next interview!!

Hi Jared - The boat is "dry" in the picture but not fully cured. Shellac dries very quickly but takes a few days to harden enough not to scratch easily. Hi JPett - It sounds as if your deck is a more porous wood than the hull. The pumice pounce bag can really help filling pores. I'm sending you a pm.

Hi Keith - That was the matte look in the dry run photos. I had actually done that using a soft damp paper towel (Viva brand!), 2F pumice and a light touch. It's sort of like wet sanding. A bit more luster could be acheived by following up with 4F pumice. No alcohol was used or consumed! .....yet Just popped back over from your Swift thread. The Gilmour house boat would be a very cool build!

8c) French polishing finish coats continued: Hello again! Since the last post I used pumice to go for the matte finish look but decided what the heck, I'll do the full French polish and show some of the steps needed to do that. In order to get into the nooks and crannies along the keel better, a smaller pad was needed. This was made with a piece of muslin and chopped up sweat socks. The photos were taken doing a dry run so I wouldn't get shellac on the camera, but during the 'wet' run, shellac and alcohol were added before folding it up. On a new pad, I like to soak the socks with equal amounts of shellac and alcohol to sort of 'prime the pump'. Excess shellac can be blotted off on a sheet of clean paper atop newspaper or just quickly spread it over a large area of the project. Baby oil is used to keep the pad from sticking. For a pointy narrow pad to fit into corners, the muslin is folded in triangles and then folded inwards like a paper airplane. The 'tail' is twisted which puffs up the pad a bit and makes a smooth wrinkle-free contact patch (the tail was untwisting itself when I let go to take the picture). All the loose threads in the pictures were picked off the cloth and the edges were cleaned up a little before actually using this pad. Pads can be stored in airtight jars with a drizzle of alcohol and can be reused for quite a long time. When the face of the pad begins to get rough, replace it. Next to the jar is what's known as a pounce bag. It is a cloth 'bag' containing fine 4F pumice. The muslin weave only lets very fine pumice through. If you need to fill pores (or in my case a small gap at a plank seam -see the last photo in part 8b, post#48 ), the ponce bag can be tapped against the area and padded over with circular motions to work the pumice into the gaps. The pumice is invisible in the shellac. So here's the boat after 1 more padding session. This shiny look is starting to grow on me!

The rubbing strakes really add a nice touch! They compliment the unique shape of the hull so well. Nice job!!

Wow! That looks really cool! Nice job.

Very nice! The details look great! The queen inspector is a cutie too.

Oooh, Aaah! Absolutely beautiful!!

Yea!! You've started up the Zeeshouw again! I'm pulling up a chair for this one. Love those little Dutch boats!

Good luck with the build!

Wow! This is looking really cool! The inset door detail is very nice!

Hi Randy! Nice job of planking! I like the look of the shorter planks too.

Keith- I think the eBay auction is for up to 5 fingerboards that he has available with each one selling for $24. You could send the seller a message and ask if you could buy the one on the left. I'm sure that would be no problem. That looks like the life there with a nice hammock and the dogs! I was enjoying the indoor version of that tonight, although the dogs need a bath! Augie- I grew up in Colorado Springs and met my wife while camping in the mountains by a stream!

Hi Sarah! I love the look of contrasting wood too! Best wishes with this new build. I'm worried that you and Keith are gonna force me into adding one of these kits to my ship locker!

Thanks for stopping by and the nice comments! I'm glad to hear the shellac tips were useful. My wife and I lived in the DFW area (Allen) for 16 years before moving to Kansas 11-1/2 years ago. I'm still having withdrawl symptoms from lack of good Tex-Mex food and on-tap Shiner Bock!

If you have a Woodcraft or Rockler store near you, they would have cocobolo lumber and hobby wood. You can actually buy it online, but you don't have the ability to pick your pieces. I have had good luck getting some wood off of eBay, and you would be able to see the pieces. Cocobolo can range from orange to almost purple, but I really am drawn to the deep red with black grain streaks like this: (this pic was showing a jig in the making hobby wood thread) Here's a current eBay listing for some fingerboard blanks: http://www.ebay.com/itm/COCOBOLO-LUMBER-QUARTERSAWN-BASS-FRET-FINGER-BOARD-/271175563660?_trksid=p5197.m1992&_trkparms=aid%3D111000%26algo%3DREC.CURRENT%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D14%26meid%3D6477313459868969044%26pid%3D100015%26prg%3D1006%26rk%3D1%26sd%3D271175563660%26 You would need a way to mill this down to planking, but what finer excuse could you have for getting a Byrnes saw!

Dang Bob! Why did you have to go and plant an idea like that in my head? Now my imagination has fallen down a rabbit hole and I'm having some Popeye sort of thoughts! From what I have read, there was a lot of competition between whaleboat crews and speed was a factor to be able to "dart" a whale and claim it for a boat's crew. I think many of the successful crews earned bonuses. It makes sense that the speedier you could make a whaleboat, the more advantage the crew would have. Herreshoff was the king of beautiful and fast racing yachts. If he had made a fast whaleboat.... It would need a super smooth and slick finish. It would need a taller mast and bigger sail and therefore a bigger centerboard. But it couldn't really stop there. Nope, the normal thwart seats would have to be replaced with the mechanical sliding seats out of a rowing shell and only the the most finely crafted harpoons and accessories would be used. So the shiny brass colored Liam Neeson looking hatchet would have been correct! I'm getting dizzy. I need to sit down with a little white dog in my lap and think peaceful thoughts about mountain streams. Get ye behind me crazy thoughts!

Hello Russ, Michael, Sarah, Augie and Keith! Thanks for the interest and kind words -much appreciated! Keith, the orange shellac flakes won't be as de-waxed as a super-blonde shellac but will impart a nice warmth. The waxes and other stuff give shellac its colors with garnet shellac typically being the darkest. Here's a pic with a piece of cellophane with a drop of garnet on the "77" and a drop of blonde on the "66". The jars behind them show what they look like at a 2lb cut. The glob to the left of the "77" is varnish. Belen makes the best stuff, so the pumice is good. I prefer their super-blonde shellac when I can find it, but there should be no problems with the orange shellac you are looking at. Spray lacquer would be the easiest (and safest) choice for your canoe, but if you are up to a new challenge, French polishing is fun. The inside will not be able to be polished of course. If you have any trouble with the exterior, you can always pumice it off until it's almost gone and then wipe it down with alcohol to remove it. Augie, I might continue and finish the full gloss French polish just to show how to do it. There is a final step called "spiriting off" that is basically an alcohol wipe that makes the finish look like glass that I could demonstrate. I can always take pumice to it afterwards to make it a matte finish. It would kind of be like taking sandpaper to a new car though... I just think the full gloss might look a bit too much overkill, although there are so many structural and material inacuracies in this boat anyway, that it is just for looks. Not too many walnut and cocobolo whaleboats were ever made!

8b) French polishing the finish coats: All the subsequent finish coats will be added by French polishing with a pad while wearing disposable gloves. I use a piece of linen cloth with shredded pieces of an old sweat sock inside for a pad. A little shellac and a few drops of alcohol are dribbled on the shredded socks and then it's wrapped up in the linen cloth. I use a straw with my finger over the end to dribble some shellac (about 6 drops) in the pad and an eyedropper for the alcohol (about 3-4 drops). A little baby oil is dribbled on the face of the linen pad to prevent it from sticking (about 3 drops). Just rub away in little circles and figure 8s and keep moving. If the pad sticks, add a little more baby oil. You can work an area for a little while because of the oil. Re-charge the pad with shellac, alcohol and oil every now and then. It doesn't take much. The finish starts looking pretty good rather quickly. This picture is after one 5 minute padding session. Oooh - shiny! These 2 pictures are after the 2nd padding session and this may be enough build to start the final pumice rub out for the matte look I'm planning. If this were a yacht or a canoe, I would keep going about 2 or 3 more padding sessions to try for a deeper guitar-like finish. Although the finish is dry enough to carefully handle in 5 minutes, I'll let this sit for about 4 days to really harden before I rub it out. I'll double check that the cocobolo has enough build first and pad once more tomorrow if needed. Update: The site was down for the transfer to the new server before I could add these latest posts and I've decided to do a 3rd padding session to get a deeper finish on the cocobolo. I'm being tempted to go for the full-out yacht finish, but think that might be a distraction on a whaleboat. I would be interested to know what others think.

8a) Sealing the deal: Hello again! Here's an update on the latest progress. The lemon oil that was applied to the hull had dried and it was time to seal it. I really would have preferred the look of just leaving it oiled and rubbing a coat of wax on it and calling it good. I had actually done that years ago to this boat before it was set aside, but the splits in the planking occurred after that, so I figured I really needed to put a more protective finish on it this time. I like using freshly made shellac from flakes, and since that is not that common of a finish these days, I thought I would give a brief Shellac 101 for anyone that's interested. I'm not an expert at it, but I've gotten pretty good results when I've worked on really old vintage guitars with shellac finishes. It's kind of fun to use and you don't have to worry about toxic issues. I think that M&Ms use a shellac coating so they melt in your mouth instead of your hand and alcohol, well it melts in your mouth too! Don't drink any of the de-natured stuff! I know of a classical guitar maker that swears that using an Everclear type of alcohol is the best for French polishing because it does not contain the chemicals added to de-natured alcohol that make it un-drinkable and therefore provides a clearer finish! The first shellac sealer coat was applied to the interior and exterior with a brush using what's called a 2lb cut of freshly mixed blonde shellac (2lbs of shellac flakes by weight mixed to 1 gallon of alcohol). I mix up the same ratio in a much smaller 2oz weight of shellac flakes to 1 cup (8 fl oz) of alcohol. A 2nd sealer coat was brushed on the exterior of the hull to try to fill the pores a little better. When brushing a 2nd coat of shellac you need to move quickly because the new coat will melt the previous one and your brush can stick if you brush repeatedly in the same spot. The 2nd coat had enough build and friction to show brush marks, but it adds some nice depth to the wood. To smooth out the brush marks in shellac, I like using pumice. Sandpaper can gum up too easily at this point. I put small piles of #2 (coarse) and #4 (fine) pumice on a piece of paper and pick up a little bit with a small moist piece of soft paper towel (Viva is my favorite). The paper towel can be worked into corners easily. Rinse out the paper towel every so often. It does not take much time and very little pressure to get great results. Wipe off the residue with a clean paper towel. Use a soft bristle toothbrush or nylon paint brush to clean residue out of crevices. NOTE: do not breath in pumice dust-I've heard that it will be in your lungs forever. While getting the sealer coat leveled, it is really easy to expose wood if the finish is too thin in spots or you use too much pressure. No biggie, that will disappear with the next coat. A matte look like in this photo is what I intend to end up with except I want to leave a gloss finish on the cocobolo wales.