Salty Sea Dog

4) Re-purposing some tools for model ship building
 
Thought I'd show some tools and techniques that I found useful that may interest some of you.
 
To thickness sand the rosewood and cocobolo strips, I used a homenmade fence clamped to an oscillating spindle sander table. The spindle turns counter-clockwise and I feed the strips from right to left with the rotation. It's easier to work with the rotation and there's less chance of breakage on thin pieces (unless you let go and they go flying!!  ). Press the outfeed side against the fence to prevent dips in the sanded surface. It's best to sand longer pieces and cut them to length later as there may be a bit of snipe at the ends. To use this type of setup, you initially set the fence so there is just a hint of resistance when trying to slide the workpiece past the spindle with the machine off. After power sanding a few passes, loosen the clamp slightly on the infeed side and gently tap the fence forward a hair, re-clamp and sand again. Repeat until you acheive the thickness you want.
 

 

 

 
The straight wale and gunwale strips had to be bent sideways and curved edgeways too. That could have been tricky with hardwoods like rosewood and cocobolo, but it was soooo easy with a guitar side bending iron. I wish I had this bad boy when I was bending the planks. These irons can be clamped either vertically or horizontally which leaves you with both hands free to work the wood. Wet the wood before bending. The eliptical shape of the iron allows a bunch of different radius choices. These irons are probably a bit too expensive for casual use, but it makes the bending job easy and allows a lot of precision. If you do a lot of ship building, the cost might make more sense. Like many tools, it takes a little practice to get good with it. It's mostly getting used to moving the wood and feeling when the wood is ready to bend. That's a pretty thick piece of mahogany in the picture behind the bender, and behind that, purpleheart and maple. That's a purpleheart guitar side clamped in the form in back (another project underway that divides up my time!).
 

 
There are several places that offer bending irons, but I like the accessory bands this company offers. The bands seem to help when bending edgeways.
http://www.lmii.com/CartTwo/thirdproducts.asp?NameProdHeader=Professional+Bending+Iron

There were a few posts recently on how to form the brass rudder hinge straps around the pins. Here's how I went about it. There's probably better ways to do it, but this is cheap. I took a pair of inexpensive end cutters and ground the sharp tips to flat faces so they would be able to grip without cutting. I originally used them to pull bone saddles out of the tight slots in acoustic guitar bridges. It turns out they work pretty well for the rudder hinges too. They easily squeezed the brass straps tightly around the pins so I could solder them.
 

 

 

Hi Crackers!

Thank you for the nice words. I am working on the details now and will post those pretty soon. In the meantime, here's a sneak preview. By the way, does anyone know where the boat's hatchet was typically stored in a whaleboat? I've been looking through the "To Build A Whaleboat" book at the photos and construction details but did not find one. I imagine that it should be up front to sever the harpoon line in case things got scary.
 

Greetings Buck,
 
I built this ship a few years back, and it is one of my favorites. Mamoli makes a fine product. The keel on this model is veneered with thin walnut, so you can do pretty much what you want. I agree that the drawings are a little funky as to how the keel joints are represented. I have book entitled "The Pepper Wreck - A Portuguese Indiaman at the Mouth of the Tagus River". This book is about a spice ship circa 1600 that went down in the Tagus River which runs through Lisbon, Portugal. Portions of the ship were recovered between 1997 and 2000, including keel sections. According to diagrams in the book, the keel had horizontal scarves in it such as you would expect to see on later ships. The lengths between scarves on this particular ship ranged between 160 and 190 cm. 
 
It should be pointed out that Portugal was recognized as the world's first super power owing to its trade with India, Japan, China, and colonization of Brazil and parts of Africa. They pretty much pioneered blue water sailing and ship building, and wrote the book on navigation.
 
wq3296

Hi Buck,
just found your build log today and I look forward to you build of this interesting ship, just love this era!

Buck, the basic shape of the hull of this kit is ok. I like the round tuck stern. Does it have a transom timber below the rudder port?  However, the sterncastle is way overbuilt.It would probably drag the carrack down by the stern. The rigging is rather wrong and represents a nineteenth century idea of mediaeval rigging and masting.  I would recommend bashing the kit. However, as it is it is still a nice decorative model. Happy to help where I can.
 
Perhaps the model could be modified along these lines?

 
It is rather like the Kraeck of Master  W A which is a well regarded contemporary illustration of a carrack
 

 
Dick

Well I am making one step forward and two steps back lately.  I have been putting off gluing frames to the keel for fear that I had forgotten something to be done before adding frames.  I got several of the forward frames cut and sanded with their proper bevel.  This was an interesting point when I got the bevel sanded in I could really see the shape of the bow,  Mary Rose in not a bluff bowed ship, she really has quite a fine entrance.
 

 
Finally yesterday I got up the nerve to begin gluing frames on, got the first 6 glued and and discovered I had made a mistake in height location for either the first three or the last three.  Anyway wound up tearing them all off and will have to re-make them.  If you happened to notice a blue glow in the sky last night that wasn't the northern lights, it was the glow from all the bad language that accompanied tearing the frames off. 
 

 

 
All my previous models have been small workboats so Mary Rose is a new challenge to me.  I hope I am going about framing the forecastle correctly.  Any one have any suggestions?

ok, all the damage from before has been repaired and I am pretty much back to where I was a week ago.  Rather than start gluing the forward frames on again though I am going to get the stern pre-fit just in case something else goes wrong. 
 

 
 
 
Today I received my first order from Fredericus Max that I put in for figures and I am delighted with them!  The cast metal figures are very good but the resin chess player figures I ordered just blew me away,  They are a bit hard for me to photograph with my cheapo camera, the pics on Fredericus Max website are much better but I couldn't resist posting one.
 

 
Web site for Fredericus Max: http://www.fredericus-rex.de/Valdemar-Miniaturen/?XTCsid=cdascfi2hv8a40r4nubmr3o9t1
 

Working on the keel stem & sternpost the shortcuts begin right off.
 
Quoting from Peter Marsden's book Mary Rose Your Noblest Shippe : "The cross section of the keel varies throughout it's length.  It's midship portion has an uneven hexagonal shape whereas fore and aft of this it becomes deeper and narrower with rebates for stealer planks cut into the upper part of it's sides".
 
hmmmmm.... ok, at the bow and stern it is rectangular as you move amidships it becomes hexagonal in shape that changes over the length of the keel.   Well,  Chidoken did it for his cross section.
 
I thought about it overnight.  Not whether I would try it, but if I should switch to something easier.  That made my eyes go crossed just reading the description.  I knew I didn't want to try that.
By the next morning I decided that as I am modeling the whole ship the keel shape isn't going to be that noticeable a detail for the amount of effort it was going to require and I made the keel assembly as would on any other model.
 

 
Next up are the frames.
 
Although there is a great deal of information on Mary Rose there are still many questions.  After reading through the information I had I am still not entirely sure of the framing arrangement.  So rather then display the framing by leaving one side unplanked I will just have viewing ports on one side to enable the interior to be seen and leave off strips of ceiling
so that the framing is an interesting bit of detail behind the ceiling planks. 
 
OK, to get started with the framing.
The plans showed the frames to be fairly evenly sided and spaced.
 

 
But on drawing on page 105 of Mary Rose Your Noblest Shippe show something far different.  I will use this drawing as the basis for my frames sided dimensions and location,  of course forward and aft of the diagram will just be a guess.
 

 
Mary Rose's framing was unique for a vessel of her time.  An article I found online gave a good explanation of this.
The Structures of Atlantic Shipbuilding in the 16th Century, by Brad Lowen:
"In the case of the Mary Rose, the concept of tying each frame timber to a specific element in the frames design had become impracticable because the arcs were too long for the available timber supply.  In particular, long enough first futtocks could not be found to cover the bilge arc, the futtock arc and overlap with the clamps at the first deck.  The solution adopted by the builders was in some ways a precursor to the double-sawn frame.  Instead of overlapping the the floor timber and the first futtock, these pieces were laid end-to-end, and a second timber laid between the frames in order to reinforce the area of the end-to-end joint".
 
This illustration from Marsden's book shows this and the hexagonal keel.
 

 
So far I have sawn and sanded several of the midship frames and most of the frame blanks for the rest of the hull, haven't begun to glue any on yet though.
 

 

 
 
 

This will be my first attempt at a build log, hope it comes out looking ok.
Mary Rose has been on my have to model list for a long time but recently Chidokan, on the forum, and I have talked each other into tackling this project.  Chidokan will be building a very accurate cross section, mine will be a whole hull model with short cuts for ease of modeling.
 
I will be using the plans set by David Meagher that I have enlarged to 1:72 scale.  What I have in mind is to build one side completely planked but leave the other side partially planked with some view holes cut into the side to see the interior.  I would like to include lighting and a crew as well.  As for the exterior finish, I love the painting on the cover of "Mary Rose, Your Nobelest Shippe".  If I can make decent sails, then, yeah those too. This is without doubt the most ambitious model I have ever tackled.  Prior to this I have my models have been mostly small workboats.
 

 
While looking on the internet for crew figures I stumbled across this site:
http://www.valdemarminiatures.com/default.asp?Site=Info&page=49
They have the best figures I have ever seen and will be perfect for the Mary Rose, just being able to use these figures will be a treat.  They are a bit on the pricey side though and I will wait to order them till I am sure that I can pull this build off.
 

 
 
The Plans:

 
 

 

 

 

 
 
My research material:
 

 

 
Also an article I downloaded from the internet with some very useful information on framing Mary Rose:  The structures of tAtlantic shipbuilding the the 16th century.  by Brad Loewen
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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.

7) The Return of Making some little stuff:
 
Hello again! This thread is in need of some pictures. I had asked Mario aka Cap'n Rat Fink how he got the color on the hinges of his HMS Bounty Launch and he said that he had used a flat black acrylic paint from Walmart. So I got some and tested it on some scrap brass. I also found some Birchwood Casey Perma Blue that I forgot I had and tried some of it too. I fooled around, and under the guidance of Bosun Rat Fink, worked out a mix of the two (shown later). The sample on the left is the Perma Blue.
 

 

 
At the risk of too much info, here's a series of pics on making the boat's hatchet. The handle started out as a 3mm x 3mm strip and I marked off some shoulder cuts to match the width of the blade. The initial curves were then made in the remainder of the handle length and a shallow tenon was formed for the blade. The blade was folded around the handle and soldered and filed to sharpen it. The handle was finished with shellac. I really liked how it looked but the shiny brass was a bit wrong for a whaleboat hatchet head. Kinda looked like one of those fancy Liam Neeson hand planes! The Bosun Rat Fink custom finish blend was applied to the brass to complete it. Although this is just a minor part of the build, it was a lot of fun and felt like a model in itself.
 

 

 

 

 

 
After looking at some of the Lagoda photos in the "To Make a Whaleboat" book, I decided to try wrapping the oarlocks with sewing thread. I really am all thumbs, and my thumbs and fingers seem to be getting wider with age and it's messing with my dexterity. At this rate, I think I will be able to flip pancakes with my thumbs in 2 more years! After wrapping the oarlocks, I de-fuzzed the thread with a soldering iron. The camera shows some tiny fuzz that I missed. Oh well...
 

 

6) Making some little stuff:
 
Because I had some left over cocobolo, it was used for the oar blades instead of the kit provided walnut. The instructions say to paint the blades white and add black stripes but I didn't want to risk being arrested by the wood police for vandalizing nice wood! White stripes were used on the dark cocobolo instead. I practiced masking off and painting the white stripes on scrap wood, but it was looking pretty sad. I ended up using 1/32" Pactra pin striping tape. The tape looked too thick after applying it so I figured a thick finish like varnish would help blend it into the surface. I used some varnish that I had, and thinned it down 50% with naptha (naptha thins varnish and shortens the long dry time too). A little dust still managed to settle in the finish so the oars were wet sanded with soapy water, cleaned and recoated. It took 3 coats to get a build that subdued the thickness of the tape. On the last coat, I thinned the varnish another 50% further with naptha to really speed up the dry time and get a very thin smooth coat. No dust this time! The oar handles were fun to whittle! Heck, all this stuff is fun!
 

 

 
The line tubs in the kit were short pieces of dowel hollowed out a little on one side. I mixed up some concentrated water based stain to get them to look like dark barrel wood. I got it a little too dark so I dipped them in clean water and dabbed them with a brush to lighten the stain. WARNING! DON"T DO THAT!! The barrels got swollen and burst open like blooming flowers! I was bummed out and called it a night. The next morning, the barrels had dried and had almost closed up. Having nothing to loose, I decided to really try to dry them out in the microwave. That actually worked!  Some water-thin super glue was "painted" on the inside of the barrels to try to keep the cracks closed. The brass bands were then soldered around the barrels and the solder joints were cleaned up with sandpaper.
 

 

 
A few days later the weather changed and the humidity went up causing the line tubs to swell a little. The bands popped open at the solder joint. Aarghhh! I resoldered them to fit the new plus size barrels and decided to varnish the barrels inside and out to try to keep their sizes stable. So far, so good!. The brass bands for the barrels were 2mm wide which looked too wide. I lapped them down on some self-stick 220 grit sandpaper using an eraser to grip them. I decided 1.5mm looked OK. I was worried that if the bands got too narrow, it might not take much humidity to make the solder joints pop again. I'm holding off with the rope coils in the barrels for now to make sure that the bands will be OK.
 

 
A collection of little stuff:
 

 

 

5) Prepping the hull for finish
 
The gaps and splits in the walnut planking that had occurred over the years due to dryness and wood shrinkage (shown in the earlier photos) were repaired with sawdust and thinned white glue and sanded. The triangular garboard fillers at the ends of the keel were stained for a better color match.
 

 

 
Then the fun part. Lemon oil was applied to all the bare wood. Instant magic! I just love the look of oiled wood. The main thing was to NOT use an oil with wax or silicone in it as that could interfere with my plans for a shellac top coat.
 

 
The exterior was rubbed down with a few applications of oil and the interior was oiled using a brush. The previously shellacked floorboards and seats were unaffected and any stray oil was wiped off of them.
 

 

 

 
This will need to sit for a few days before I apply a thinned out shellac wash coat to seal it.

Hi Crackers!

Thank you for the nice words. I am working on the details now and will post those pretty soon. In the meantime, here's a sneak preview. By the way, does anyone know where the boat's hatchet was typically stored in a whaleboat? I've been looking through the "To Build A Whaleboat" book at the photos and construction details but did not find one. I imagine that it should be up front to sever the harpoon line in case things got scary.
 

Yesterday started like this:


After shoveling a spot for our little white dogs with low ground clearance to do their thing, I decided it was the perfect day to
gather up info to start a build log. I had the day off anyway.

My wife gave me this kit for Christmas back in 1986 after I casually left a Model Expo catalog laying open in her chair with a note saying 'I'd really like this for Christmas'. I got a good start on it back then, but life got in the way and it sat until about a year ago. Back in 1986, Model Expo used to sell this kit for $24.95, and although the kit is no longer made, they show up on eBay for about $25 every now and then. This boat is inflation proof! Here are the box pictures, which I beleive by build log law, must be shown about now:







This kit is designed to be double-planked with wide pre-shaped limewood first layer planking and "walnut" veneer second layer planking (my kit's 2nd layer strips were a dark red-brown wood with giant pores like oak end grain). The instructions said that if you prefer, you could buy some 1.5mm x 5mm walnut strips instead. Of course the nice pictures of this boat on the box and in the catalog showed it as single planked with good walnut. I thought it would look wierd in an open boat if the backside of the planks didn't match the outside, so I ordered some walnut planking from Model Expo. Besides looking better, I figured that it would be twice as easy to build this way since it would only be one layer! My logic could have been wrong about that...

So here is where I am in the build now. The hull is about ready to receive a finish and the detail parts made. I've taken pictures with the boat sitting on a really nice maple board because anything would look better than it really is while sitting on it!





I'll add posts to try to discuss some of the challenges and little triumphs I encountered along the way until I get caught up to the current build activity. I am to slow as Popeye is to fast, so if I can stay ahead of my posts in real life, I hopefuly will be able to avoid long delays between posts. Starting this log should also put a fire under my ...

3) Work done during the last year
 
So my little whaleboat sat around for a bunch of years and I would look at it every now and then. I wasn't ever satisfied with the fit of the keel between the stern and the prow. The kit supplied keel is fit with a butt joint at each end and it was just a tiny bit too short. Not too bad, but just enough of a loose fit to nag at me when I looked at it. It taunted and mocked me! I had been working on another project and had a scrap piece of mahogany that was a nice color match to make a new keel, so I cut/chopped/chiseled/filed the old one out and made a new one using half-lap joints at each end. I figured that would look more boat-like but mostly it was just fun to play with a little saw and a chisel.
 

 

 
I got such a kick out of fixing the keel that I kept going. I liked the look of the really dark wood wales and gunwales (cap rails?) used in the photo on the box lid. I had a left over Brazillian Rosewood binding strip from a guitar repair job and decided to use it for the gunwales. FYI - Per the CITES treaty, Brazillian Rosewood is banned for sale in the USA unless it is certified as pre-ban or salvaged from old stumps like these strips were. I had been lucky enough to locate 3 binding strips for the repair job (a 1927 Martin OO-18 if you're into guitars) and one strip was a spare. It was a special piece of wood to me and I thought it would be cool to use it in my boat. I used a dark scrap of cocobolo for the wales since it looks similar. The centerboard case, thwart seats, mast hinge and the rest of the top of the boat was also built at this time. The kit supplied mast hinge was huge and had to be cut down.
 

 

 
I had the most fun making the rudder. The kit showed using a clunky looking folded piece of brass to attach the tiller and it just seemed wrong to me. I cut a little bridle joint and double pinned it instead. The hinge pins were soldered in place as were the cross pins through the straps and rudder.
 

 

 

 
(edited to correct typo of Martin guitar model to a OO-18 instead of D-18, still a very cool guitar!)

Thank you Steven, Cristiano and Vivian! I have worn out the like button reading through Woodrat's build log - thanks for the reference. All the pictures you posted there Steven are a lot of help too. Thanks for the hints on internet searching Cristiano - I had just been using "carrack" and was getting limited results. Vivian - It is you I need to thank (or blame!!  ) for getting me excited about building the carrack next after posting your caravel build log. Thanks!

Best idea I have found after breaking several
 
Please excuse the photo of my example on your build log, but it was only intended as a quick way of explaning
 
Regards,
 
Michael

I have tried with good success so far. I did not cut all the way through the base but about half of it. Then, using flat pliers I have twisted it. The base was now weakened in the right spot and broke just under the feet of the figures. I then removed the last bit with cutting pliers.

A cut-off wheel in a Dremel might work well.

Hello,
 
I started working on the lower masts. 
 
After cutting them to the correct lengths, I squared up the top ends. Then I extended the sides down, where I will be gluing the housings for the sheaves.

 
Now, I notched slots for the sheaves on both sides.


 
Squared up the very top for the caps.

 
I'm not sure what you call these, but I made the housings for the sheaves to go into. The ones for the lower mainmast and mizzen mast are set at a 15 deg angle and the foremast at 3 deg. (this will set the angle of the lower crosstrees)

 
Pieces glued to the masts

 
Foremast notched

 
The 3 lower masts with the dowels tapered and ready for the sheaves.


 
Side view of the angles for each mast

 
Now I will be working on the final sanding and touch-up. Then staining of the masts followed by the installation of the sheaves and woolings (bands) on the masts.
 
Thanks,
 
Frank
 

Center keel and Keel-Stem assembly
 
The construction of the center keel is different from I have seen in previous kits. The center keel is made of 2 parts, but each part is made of two similar laser cut pieces, each 1/8 inch thick. So the first task is to glue together each part to form the two half keel parts ¼ inch thick.  Needless to say, great care must be taken to ensure that the two pieces are perfectly aligned and flat during the drying process. I used 3/16 pieces of scrapwood (the thickness of the bulkheads) to ensure the slots are aligned perfectly:
Then I let the two parts dry comfortably resting under a gentle 10 lbs of weight.

 
I then assembled and glued the two halves of the center keel, ensuring the waterline aligns perfectly with the plan. After assembly, I cut the rabbet per the rabbet line using mostly a mini planner.
I then assembled the parts of the keel stem and rudder (also each made of two 1/8 inch laser cut parts) and glued the keel/stem assembly, again using a lot of weight to ensure everything is flat.
Finally I drilled a few holes in the stem and glued-in 1/8 dowels along the stem to ensure integrity of the whole keel and stem.
The instructions says to taper the stem and sternpost  before glueing but I prefer to do it after the whole assembly is completed:

Here is a closeup pic of the rabbet and dowel at bulkhead A, also showing the tapering of the stem:

Next, I will start working on shaping the bulkheads for dry fitting before glueing the bulkheads.
Till next time…
Stephan

As a past victim of Murphy and "crap happens"... welcome to the club.  We're a vast club and meet everyday on MSW.