genericDave

Making progress...
 
I've made and installed the jumbo jib sail, fore sail, and main sail.  Each one is getting easier.  The jumbo jib sail took 4 tries, the fore sail took 3 tries, and the main sail just took one try.  Getting my hands on a 'real' sewing machine really helped.
 
Previously I installed and rigged the booms and gaffs, but didn't use any glue when securing the rigging.  This let me make paper templates based on the actual placement of the booms and gaffs on my build.  Once the sails were made, I de-rigged the booms and gaffs and removed them from the ship.  The sails were laced on, and everything was re-installed.
 
I'm actually enjoying working on the sails quite a bit.  As I've been working through installing the sails, the various bits of rigging are starting to finally 'click' for me.  I'm finally starting to really understand what each line does instead of just running lines according to the plans.
 
Three sails down, five more to go!

I haven't used a sanding sealer, but I pretty much always use a lacquer based primer on everything I'm going paint, but I think it depends on the effect you're looking for.  I use acrylic paints (water based), and find that without a primer, the paint tends to raise the wood grain a bit.  So, things that are painted without primer look very 'wood-y' and show their grain.  When use primer (and sand after the primer dries), I get a much smoother finish (often showing no wood grain).  I like that really smooth look so I always use primer.
 
The primer I use is Tamiya Liquid Surface Primer (grey), and it goes on very thin.  So thin that it won't fill any holes, and any defects in the wood still show up.  Since it is lacquer based it is a bit of a pain to clean up (can't be cleaned with water), but the results I get are worth it.
 
I used it on the hull of my Phantom and Bluenose builds, but I think it really comes down to personal preference.

While there's been little time to really dive in and work on the ship over the last couple of months, I was able to get some work done.  
 
After several passes of sanding, filling, and repeating, I finally got the hull painted.  I decided to go with just white below the wales as this seems to match what was done on the Rogers model.  (As opposed to using a different shade below the waterline.). I would have liked to use a slightly antiqued white, but wasn't able to find paint I liked, so I went with a basic flat white.  My paint mixing skills are non-existent.  After I get the rest of the planking done (the decks, stern, and bulwarks), I'll do another coat or two of paint followed by a clear coat.
 

With the hull painted, I shifted my attention to the deck.  Given the various issues with gun port sizing that other modelers have run into, I'm planning to plank the main deck before framing the gun ports.  This will allow me to place a gun on the deck to better size/position the ports.
 
I started by installing the covering board, which went pretty quickly.
 

The hatch coamings were next.  For these, I milled the pieces to create the 'lip', then cut them to size.
 

Also, over the last 3 months, I've been periodically playing around with building a gun carriage.  I wanted to have one assembled to help with framing the gun ports, and working on that was a nice side project when I didn't feel like sanding or painting the hull.
 
I discovered right away that the laser cut carriages provided with the kit are pretty bad.  They are the wrong size (they don't match the plans), and would turn out too big.  Being laser cut, they would need a good deal of sanding to remove the laser char, and I have zero faith that I can sand such small pieces accurately.  Finally, the 'trucks' formed by the laser cut base are incredibly fragile (I broke 2 just removing the piece from the laser cut board) and they don't seem well suited to being rounded off to form axels.
 
So, I decided to make my own carriages from scratch.
 
I did a bunch of reading, looked at a lot of other carriages, and came up with a simplified design.  It isn't perfectly historically accurate, but I think it comes close enough to look more-or-less correct on the model.
 
I followed the process shown here: 
The pieces were milled from Swiss pear.  All told, I went through about 8-10 variations of size and shape until I finally ended up with pieces that were the right size.  This was the most precise/complicated thing I've done on my mill to date, and it was actually a lot of fun.
 
I milled the sides, the front trucks, and the rear trucks separately.  For each one, I made them using 4" wide pieces of wood, then 'sliced' them to the right thickness.  This let me create a lot of identical pieces at once.
 

The front truck was given a curve to allow the cannon barrel to move, and the rear truck was given a small notch to aid in placing the quoin.  The width of the trucks was precisely matched to the slots in the bottom of the sides.  

After the pieces were glued together, the 'axels' were filed to make them round.  I'm using the wheels from the kit since I couldn't find any better, so I matched the diameter of the axels to those wheels.
 
The entire thing was painted, and the various eyebolts were installed.
 
My prototype isn't pretty, but this one is just for gun port placement.  The actual carriages I'll use on the model have all their pieces cut, but won't be assembled until I'm ready to install them.  At that point I'll spend more time with getting the finish just right.

I dropped a barrel in my test carriage and set it on some fake decking.  Compared to the plans, this one is much more accurately sized.

Now that I've got the cannons figured out and set aside, I'm going to start planning out how to plank the deck.  I had wanted to plank the deck after doing the bulwarks, but I'm not confident I can correctly position the gun ports unless I can set my test cannon at each position.  This means that I'll have to carefully mask off the deck when I'm working on the bulwarks to avoid marking it up or getting paint on it.

So, since my puppy ate my planking, I thought I'd look into replacing some of the kit wood with better materials.  Since it can take a month or two to get a wood order delivered, I thought I better figure this out before moving on.
 
I read through a bunch of threads and articles in the database, and chose a few woods to start with.  Earlier this year I ordered some samples of several woods, so I used those and built up a little test model.
 
My focus here was on a couple things:
Can I actually cut usable planks from boards with my table saw? Will the higher quality woods produce better results? Can I create a color scheme that I'm happy with? My test build was done in about 4 hours (including cutting all the planks), so it isn't  necessarily the best planking job   I started by taking scans of the plans and making some templates of bulkheads 7-9 (which are fairly straight and don't require bending planks).  I cut those out on my scroll saw.  I made all the planks and assembled and painted everything.
 
I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, and I think this is what I'm going to with.  
The lower hull planking is boxwood, to give the lower hull a lighter look that's seen on most Fair American builds.   The wood was left natural aside from some wipe-on poly.  My hope is to leave the lower hull unpainted on the actual build. The wales and 'black strake' are swiss pear.  Even though I painted it here, I've read that many people have had great results replicating an ebony look by dying swiss pear with leather dye, which is why I'm working with swiss pear for these.  My order of leather dye won't be here for a week, so just painted these parts for the test.  For the test, I primed them with a lacquer based primer and airbrushed them black. The outboard bulwarks are swiss pear.  I don't really care for the yellow painted look the plans call for, and I've seen a few builds that used a different shade of wood for the bulwarks to give them some distinction from the rest of the hull.  I left it natural, with a final coat of poly. The cap rail was made from boxwood, primered and airbrushed.
The inboard bulwarks, cover board, and waterway are boxwood.  Since these are going to be painted red, the actual material doesn't matter that much as long as it has good sanding/finishing quality.  I just used some 'Insignia Red' paint left over from my Bluenose build for the test.  I'm planning to find a red that is a little more muted for the actual build. The deck is also made from swiss pear.  I like that the shade of the wood here matches the outboard bulwarks...I don't want too many different colors/textures.
This was my first experience actually working with anything other than basswood.  I'm really shocked at how much of a difference the wood makes.  I told my wife that all my ship builds just got a lot more expensive   The boxwood and swiss pear feel more solid.  They cut easily, but have crisper lines.  I find it way easier to sand and finish the wood while keeping straight clean lines.
 
I'm going to stare at this over the weekend, and if I still like it on Monday, I'm ordering a bunch of wood!

Lower Masts
 
Moving on to the upper portion of the lower masts....
 
I added the band for the futtock shrouds on the main mast.  I simplified it a bit because my 4 attempts to do it "correctly" failed miserably.  After several hours, I decided to simplify it to just a band with some wire.
 

Trestle Trees and Spreaders
 
Next I moved on to the mastheads/trestle trees/etc.  I've spent a good amount of time over the last few weeks drawing these in 3D (first in SketchUp, then as a way to learn TurboCad), so I had a pretty good understanding of their construction.  Despite that, I managed to build them without the cross blocks.   Oh well...
 


I built out the trestle trees and spreaders for both masts, then painted them white.

With the basic assembly complete, I moved on to all the metal work.  I started with the iron gates that hold the heel of the top masts in place.  I made these from brass strips, but soldered on some brass rod to simulate the connection points (which I imagine to be very similar to how the two parts of a door hinge are pinned together).
 

Next up were the clips at the ends of the long spreaders.  These were also made from brass strip, with a couple holes drilled in each side to simulate bolts.  As I've done in other places, brass rod will be glued into the holes to form the actual bolts.
 

The spreader bars were made from brass wire.  I didn't bother trying to simulate the bolts on these...I just crunched the wire in a pair of pliers to flatten out the ends and glued them on.
 

Moving on...the main mast has a couple 'shackles' that attach to the trestle trees, where the quarter lifts connect. I made these from brass strip, bent into a 'U' shape.  I drilled holes for simulating bolts, and used my mill to make the strips a little more narrow where the quarter lifts will attach.
 


Various eye bolts were installed per the plans.  I ended up using eyebolts in place of the fairleads dictated by the plans.  I wasn't confident that I could model anything remotely resembling a fairlead at this scale (at least nothing that would look better than an eyebolt).
 
That pretty much completed the trestle trees, so I moved on to the bands.
 
Mast Bands
 
I made all the bands in one sitting, each one sized to exactly where it needed to go.
 

Holes were drilled in each band using my little drill press (I'm getting really good at drilling precise holes in brass).  The bands were then installed on the masts.  No glue was necessary since the bands fit nice and snug.  
 

I drilled through the holes into the masts, and glued in the assorted eyebolts.  Gluing those eyebolts in place should give me the little extra bit of stability.  
 
Spring Stay Bail
 
The spring stay bail was added, made from some brass strip and eye bolts.
 

 
All that's left on the masts is the mast caps.  But I'll take a short break (this post is getting long), then I'll post again with the mast caps!
 

Gregory,
 
I wish I knew   We've got a 5 month old baby that is eating up all of my free time.  I've got the gun carriages made, and I know how I'm going to mill the window frames for the transom (just haven't actually sat down and done the work).  I'm currently stalled on getting the bulwarks planked, and have been for months.  I'm not using the kit's material, so I need to cut strips for the planking.  Can't run the Byrnes saw when the kiddo is home, so I haven't been able to make the strips for planking.  But after seeing Toni Levine's presentation at this year's NRG conference in New Bedford, I'm considering using her approach for the planks (which is also what she covers in the NRG's Half Hull Planking Project).  This was one of many things I picked up at this year's conference.  I've always cut strips, then bent and trimmed them to try and get something close to an accurate shape.   The planking project's approach doesn't require cutting a bunch of strips, and instead creates accurate planks from sheet stock with a knife blade.  That's quiet and can be done while the baby is sleeping  
 

I'm currently procrastinating on my Model Shipways Fair American build.  After finishing my last build, I strongly considered the Syren but went with the Fair American just to be 'different'.  
 
I've built a few Model Shipways kits, and I hate to say it, but their Fair American kit isn't quite up to par with their other kits.  I think it is just the age of the kit and the revisions that have been made over the years.  The plans are mix-matched and less 'clean' than other kits, and the instructions are kind of limited.  I've run into numerous issues with the castings and some issues with the plans just being 'off.'  I had to mill my own parts for gun carriages (the kit parts weren't usable and didn't match the plans), had to rework the size of the gun ports (plans were a little off), and currently I'm scratch building all the window frames for the transom because the provided castings are horribly malformed.
 
Overall, I think the Fair American is great if you want to "make it up as you go", scratch building some parts, etc.  It is a great subject that gives you a lot of room to be creative (being a model-of-a-model, you can add your own interpretation), but the kit itself needs some work.
 
If you're looking for a complete, ready-to-go kit with great plans and instructions, I'd recommend the Syren.  Even though it is a more advanced build, I think it would be easier overall since you won't have to solve the problems with the Fair American kit and there are a LOT more resources here on MSW to refer to for the Syren.

Gregory,
 
I wish I knew   We've got a 5 month old baby that is eating up all of my free time.  I've got the gun carriages made, and I know how I'm going to mill the window frames for the transom (just haven't actually sat down and done the work).  I'm currently stalled on getting the bulwarks planked, and have been for months.  I'm not using the kit's material, so I need to cut strips for the planking.  Can't run the Byrnes saw when the kiddo is home, so I haven't been able to make the strips for planking.  But after seeing Toni Levine's presentation at this year's NRG conference in New Bedford, I'm considering using her approach for the planks (which is also what she covers in the NRG's Half Hull Planking Project).  This was one of many things I picked up at this year's conference.  I've always cut strips, then bent and trimmed them to try and get something close to an accurate shape.   The planking project's approach doesn't require cutting a bunch of strips, and instead creates accurate planks from sheet stock with a knife blade.  That's quiet and can be done while the baby is sleeping  
 

Gregory,
 
I wish I knew   We've got a 5 month old baby that is eating up all of my free time.  I've got the gun carriages made, and I know how I'm going to mill the window frames for the transom (just haven't actually sat down and done the work).  I'm currently stalled on getting the bulwarks planked, and have been for months.  I'm not using the kit's material, so I need to cut strips for the planking.  Can't run the Byrnes saw when the kiddo is home, so I haven't been able to make the strips for planking.  But after seeing Toni Levine's presentation at this year's NRG conference in New Bedford, I'm considering using her approach for the planks (which is also what she covers in the NRG's Half Hull Planking Project).  This was one of many things I picked up at this year's conference.  I've always cut strips, then bent and trimmed them to try and get something close to an accurate shape.   The planking project's approach doesn't require cutting a bunch of strips, and instead creates accurate planks from sheet stock with a knife blade.  That's quiet and can be done while the baby is sleeping  
 

I'm currently procrastinating on my Model Shipways Fair American build.  After finishing my last build, I strongly considered the Syren but went with the Fair American just to be 'different'.  
 
I've built a few Model Shipways kits, and I hate to say it, but their Fair American kit isn't quite up to par with their other kits.  I think it is just the age of the kit and the revisions that have been made over the years.  The plans are mix-matched and less 'clean' than other kits, and the instructions are kind of limited.  I've run into numerous issues with the castings and some issues with the plans just being 'off.'  I had to mill my own parts for gun carriages (the kit parts weren't usable and didn't match the plans), had to rework the size of the gun ports (plans were a little off), and currently I'm scratch building all the window frames for the transom because the provided castings are horribly malformed.
 
Overall, I think the Fair American is great if you want to "make it up as you go", scratch building some parts, etc.  It is a great subject that gives you a lot of room to be creative (being a model-of-a-model, you can add your own interpretation), but the kit itself needs some work.
 
If you're looking for a complete, ready-to-go kit with great plans and instructions, I'd recommend the Syren.  Even though it is a more advanced build, I think it would be easier overall since you won't have to solve the problems with the Fair American kit and there are a LOT more resources here on MSW to refer to for the Syren.

Gregory,
 
I wish I knew   We've got a 5 month old baby that is eating up all of my free time.  I've got the gun carriages made, and I know how I'm going to mill the window frames for the transom (just haven't actually sat down and done the work).  I'm currently stalled on getting the bulwarks planked, and have been for months.  I'm not using the kit's material, so I need to cut strips for the planking.  Can't run the Byrnes saw when the kiddo is home, so I haven't been able to make the strips for planking.  But after seeing Toni Levine's presentation at this year's NRG conference in New Bedford, I'm considering using her approach for the planks (which is also what she covers in the NRG's Half Hull Planking Project).  This was one of many things I picked up at this year's conference.  I've always cut strips, then bent and trimmed them to try and get something close to an accurate shape.   The planking project's approach doesn't require cutting a bunch of strips, and instead creates accurate planks from sheet stock with a knife blade.  That's quiet and can be done while the baby is sleeping  
 

Gregory,
 
I wish I knew   We've got a 5 month old baby that is eating up all of my free time.  I've got the gun carriages made, and I know how I'm going to mill the window frames for the transom (just haven't actually sat down and done the work).  I'm currently stalled on getting the bulwarks planked, and have been for months.  I'm not using the kit's material, so I need to cut strips for the planking.  Can't run the Byrnes saw when the kiddo is home, so I haven't been able to make the strips for planking.  But after seeing Toni Levine's presentation at this year's NRG conference in New Bedford, I'm considering using her approach for the planks (which is also what she covers in the NRG's Half Hull Planking Project).  This was one of many things I picked up at this year's conference.  I've always cut strips, then bent and trimmed them to try and get something close to an accurate shape.   The planking project's approach doesn't require cutting a bunch of strips, and instead creates accurate planks from sheet stock with a knife blade.  That's quiet and can be done while the baby is sleeping  
 

I'm currently procrastinating on my Model Shipways Fair American build.  After finishing my last build, I strongly considered the Syren but went with the Fair American just to be 'different'.  
 
I've built a few Model Shipways kits, and I hate to say it, but their Fair American kit isn't quite up to par with their other kits.  I think it is just the age of the kit and the revisions that have been made over the years.  The plans are mix-matched and less 'clean' than other kits, and the instructions are kind of limited.  I've run into numerous issues with the castings and some issues with the plans just being 'off.'  I had to mill my own parts for gun carriages (the kit parts weren't usable and didn't match the plans), had to rework the size of the gun ports (plans were a little off), and currently I'm scratch building all the window frames for the transom because the provided castings are horribly malformed.
 
Overall, I think the Fair American is great if you want to "make it up as you go", scratch building some parts, etc.  It is a great subject that gives you a lot of room to be creative (being a model-of-a-model, you can add your own interpretation), but the kit itself needs some work.
 
If you're looking for a complete, ready-to-go kit with great plans and instructions, I'd recommend the Syren.  Even though it is a more advanced build, I think it would be easier overall since you won't have to solve the problems with the Fair American kit and there are a LOT more resources here on MSW to refer to for the Syren.

I'm currently procrastinating on my Model Shipways Fair American build.  After finishing my last build, I strongly considered the Syren but went with the Fair American just to be 'different'.  
 
I've built a few Model Shipways kits, and I hate to say it, but their Fair American kit isn't quite up to par with their other kits.  I think it is just the age of the kit and the revisions that have been made over the years.  The plans are mix-matched and less 'clean' than other kits, and the instructions are kind of limited.  I've run into numerous issues with the castings and some issues with the plans just being 'off.'  I had to mill my own parts for gun carriages (the kit parts weren't usable and didn't match the plans), had to rework the size of the gun ports (plans were a little off), and currently I'm scratch building all the window frames for the transom because the provided castings are horribly malformed.
 
Overall, I think the Fair American is great if you want to "make it up as you go", scratch building some parts, etc.  It is a great subject that gives you a lot of room to be creative (being a model-of-a-model, you can add your own interpretation), but the kit itself needs some work.
 
If you're looking for a complete, ready-to-go kit with great plans and instructions, I'd recommend the Syren.  Even though it is a more advanced build, I think it would be easier overall since you won't have to solve the problems with the Fair American kit and there are a LOT more resources here on MSW to refer to for the Syren.

I'm currently procrastinating on my Model Shipways Fair American build.  After finishing my last build, I strongly considered the Syren but went with the Fair American just to be 'different'.  
 
I've built a few Model Shipways kits, and I hate to say it, but their Fair American kit isn't quite up to par with their other kits.  I think it is just the age of the kit and the revisions that have been made over the years.  The plans are mix-matched and less 'clean' than other kits, and the instructions are kind of limited.  I've run into numerous issues with the castings and some issues with the plans just being 'off.'  I had to mill my own parts for gun carriages (the kit parts weren't usable and didn't match the plans), had to rework the size of the gun ports (plans were a little off), and currently I'm scratch building all the window frames for the transom because the provided castings are horribly malformed.
 
Overall, I think the Fair American is great if you want to "make it up as you go", scratch building some parts, etc.  It is a great subject that gives you a lot of room to be creative (being a model-of-a-model, you can add your own interpretation), but the kit itself needs some work.
 
If you're looking for a complete, ready-to-go kit with great plans and instructions, I'd recommend the Syren.  Even though it is a more advanced build, I think it would be easier overall since you won't have to solve the problems with the Fair American kit and there are a LOT more resources here on MSW to refer to for the Syren.

Finished!
 
After 645 days, I've got the Bluenose mounted and moved to its final home on the bookshelf.  After almost two years of *always* having something that needed to be done on the ship, it is a weird feeling to be finished.  Fortunately that feeling won't last as I started prepping the next build this morning.
 

The Phantom is finished and mounted, which just about brings this build to an end.  I'll engrave the brass plates this weekend (my wife has a computer controlled engraver for her jewelry business).  Still need to pick up some small brass screws too.
 
Overall I'm very happy with how it turned out, being my first ship build.  Going in, I was concerned about rigging, but I found that part to be a lot of fun, and it went really quickly (it helped that the Phantom has a pretty simple rigging plan).  I was pretty frustrated halfway through the process, but once I pushed through and got to rigging, it really turned the project around for me.
 
Took about 6 months (including a 2 month break), spending most weekends and an hour or so on most weeknights.  I certainly learned a LOT - not only technique, but also ways to improve my overall process and workflow.
 
I'll start applying those learnings tomorrow morning when I dive into the next build - the MS 1:64 Bluenose I've had sitting in its box since the fall.
 

 

Finished!
 
After 645 days, I've got the Bluenose mounted and moved to its final home on the bookshelf.  After almost two years of *always* having something that needed to be done on the ship, it is a weird feeling to be finished.  Fortunately that feeling won't last as I started prepping the next build this morning.
 

Didn’t quite finish by the end of 2017, but came close. (A new puppy in the house ate up some time!) The final sail was installed and all the rigging is finished (including flag halliards and dory tackles). 
 
Still to do:
- go over all the rigging and tighten as needed, trim excess line. 
- rope coils
- flags
- final pass to fix anything I’m not happy with
- mount to display board
 

 
 
 

Fnkershner, there's two sails still to be attached in that last photo - the stay sail and the fore top mast sail.  I'm not seeing a fisher man sail on the plans...only those two remain.  The stay sail is pretty big, and runs between the two masts...might be what you're referring to.   The fore top sail also sits between the two masts, and runs from the fore gaff to the fore mast (and uses those remaining mast hoops).  
 
Since my last post, I have rigged the stay sail.  The halliard for that was just...weird.  The plans offered two different versions of that halliard.  One was more complex, with multiple blocks and hooks that could be switched from side-to-side.  The simpler version just used a line with hooks on either end run through a block.  I opted to go with the simpler version.
 
Here's the ship with the stay sail rigged (the only sail still missing is the fore top sail)...
 

Unfortunately the last sail (fore top sail) will have to wait until after Christmas.  It is ready to go, but I'm about to be pulled way for family stuff so I don't want to start rigging it if I can't get it all done.  
 
I'm sure I'm going to be thinking about finishing this build over the holiday.  My wife told me that last night she woke up in the middle of the night and I was standing at the window in our bedroom holding the rod that opens/closes the blinds.  She asked what I was doing, and apparently I told her I could use the rod on my ship.  I have no memory of that...but it seems I'm now so focused on finishing this build that I'm sleepwalking to find parts for the boat.
 

So close...
 
The jib sail, main top sail, and balloon jib sail have been installed.  I've got the stay sail and fore top sail made - just need to rig them and install them.  I tried to convince my wife to let me skip the trip to see the family over Christmas so I could finish up, but she wasn't having it.  
 
Assuming all goes well, I think I can have this finished in the next week.  Aside from installing the sails, I've got a few misc. things to rig (flag halliards, dory tackles, etc.), and I need to go through and tighten some rigging, trim extra lines, add rope coils, etc.
 

I'll also need to make the display board and mount the ship.  I've got some brass pedestals, and I did the holes in the keel for mounting about a year ago.  In preparation for mounting, I swung by my wife's jewelry shop yesterday and we engraved the name plaques for the board.  I've had a bunch of blank brass plaques for a couple years (I got them to use on my Phantom build, but never got around to engraving them).  My wife has an industrial computer controlled engraver for her business, so we finally sat down and engraved the plates for both the Bluenose and my Phantom.  We saved all the configs on the engraving machine so we can easily remake these in a few months if I realized something is misspelled  
 
The end is in sight...just trying not to rush.  But I do think I can realistically be done before the end of the year.  
 
Then onto the next one (box is already open and I've already scanned in the plans and started getting organized...)

Making progress...
 
I've made and installed the jumbo jib sail, fore sail, and main sail.  Each one is getting easier.  The jumbo jib sail took 4 tries, the fore sail took 3 tries, and the main sail just took one try.  Getting my hands on a 'real' sewing machine really helped.
 
Previously I installed and rigged the booms and gaffs, but didn't use any glue when securing the rigging.  This let me make paper templates based on the actual placement of the booms and gaffs on my build.  Once the sails were made, I de-rigged the booms and gaffs and removed them from the ship.  The sails were laced on, and everything was re-installed.
 
I'm actually enjoying working on the sails quite a bit.  As I've been working through installing the sails, the various bits of rigging are starting to finally 'click' for me.  I'm finally starting to really understand what each line does instead of just running lines according to the plans.
 
Three sails down, five more to go!

While there's been little time to really dive in and work on the ship over the last couple of months, I was able to get some work done.  
 
After several passes of sanding, filling, and repeating, I finally got the hull painted.  I decided to go with just white below the wales as this seems to match what was done on the Rogers model.  (As opposed to using a different shade below the waterline.). I would have liked to use a slightly antiqued white, but wasn't able to find paint I liked, so I went with a basic flat white.  My paint mixing skills are non-existent.  After I get the rest of the planking done (the decks, stern, and bulwarks), I'll do another coat or two of paint followed by a clear coat.
 

With the hull painted, I shifted my attention to the deck.  Given the various issues with gun port sizing that other modelers have run into, I'm planning to plank the main deck before framing the gun ports.  This will allow me to place a gun on the deck to better size/position the ports.
 
I started by installing the covering board, which went pretty quickly.
 

The hatch coamings were next.  For these, I milled the pieces to create the 'lip', then cut them to size.
 

Also, over the last 3 months, I've been periodically playing around with building a gun carriage.  I wanted to have one assembled to help with framing the gun ports, and working on that was a nice side project when I didn't feel like sanding or painting the hull.
 
I discovered right away that the laser cut carriages provided with the kit are pretty bad.  They are the wrong size (they don't match the plans), and would turn out too big.  Being laser cut, they would need a good deal of sanding to remove the laser char, and I have zero faith that I can sand such small pieces accurately.  Finally, the 'trucks' formed by the laser cut base are incredibly fragile (I broke 2 just removing the piece from the laser cut board) and they don't seem well suited to being rounded off to form axels.
 
So, I decided to make my own carriages from scratch.
 
I did a bunch of reading, looked at a lot of other carriages, and came up with a simplified design.  It isn't perfectly historically accurate, but I think it comes close enough to look more-or-less correct on the model.
 
I followed the process shown here: 
The pieces were milled from Swiss pear.  All told, I went through about 8-10 variations of size and shape until I finally ended up with pieces that were the right size.  This was the most precise/complicated thing I've done on my mill to date, and it was actually a lot of fun.
 
I milled the sides, the front trucks, and the rear trucks separately.  For each one, I made them using 4" wide pieces of wood, then 'sliced' them to the right thickness.  This let me create a lot of identical pieces at once.
 

The front truck was given a curve to allow the cannon barrel to move, and the rear truck was given a small notch to aid in placing the quoin.  The width of the trucks was precisely matched to the slots in the bottom of the sides.  

After the pieces were glued together, the 'axels' were filed to make them round.  I'm using the wheels from the kit since I couldn't find any better, so I matched the diameter of the axels to those wheels.
 
The entire thing was painted, and the various eyebolts were installed.
 
My prototype isn't pretty, but this one is just for gun port placement.  The actual carriages I'll use on the model have all their pieces cut, but won't be assembled until I'm ready to install them.  At that point I'll spend more time with getting the finish just right.

I dropped a barrel in my test carriage and set it on some fake decking.  Compared to the plans, this one is much more accurately sized.

Now that I've got the cannons figured out and set aside, I'm going to start planning out how to plank the deck.  I had wanted to plank the deck after doing the bulwarks, but I'm not confident I can correctly position the gun ports unless I can set my test cannon at each position.  This means that I'll have to carefully mask off the deck when I'm working on the bulwarks to avoid marking it up or getting paint on it.

I procrastinated on planking for several months.  When I was initially looking at other Fair American builds, I really liked how the planking turned out on @KenW's build and thought his model looked great with the planking left natural.  I know that my planking skills won't allow me to leave the hull unpainted, but I wanted to get as close as possible.
 
So, I found myself fearful to start planking.  My previous build, the Bluenose, had very simple lines and didn't require any sharp bends, tapering of planks, drop planks or stealers.  I knew I'd encounter all that here, and just couldn't bring myself to pull the trigger and start the planking.
 
While attending the NRG conference in October, I got a lot of encouragement and advice.  I returned from that trip highly motivated, and jumped right into planking.  I realized that the worst case was that I ended up needing to use wood filler and paint the hull, which is actually correct for this model anyway.
 
I started by dividing the lower hull into 4 bands.  I did this by laying tape onto the edge of ever bulkhead and trimming it to fit the keel and wales.  After the tape was removed, I used proportional dividers to divide it into fourths, then put the tape back on the bulkheads and transferred the markings to the bulkheads.  I used some thin wood strips pinned into the bulkheads to create the bands.  (At least until those strips got in the way and I removed them and relied on markings on the bulkheads.)
 

 
I started with the garboard strake, which I mistakenly didn't make wide enough.  Oh well...a small detail that a casual observer won't notice.  I planked that band, then moved to the band next to wales, then worked my way towards the center.
 

 
The planks were cut from 3/16" boxwood sheets, so each plank was 3/16" wide.  Several months ago my puppy ate the planking material supplied with the kit, so when I replaced it I went with boxwood.  It is overkill if I paint the hull, but I felt that boxwood would hold the edge better than basswood when I needed to taper or bevel planks.
 
I'm not a skill level yet where I worry too much about being perfectly historically accurate, so I kind of faked the length of individual planks.  I find working with shorter planks easier than trying to fit one long plank, but I didn't want to mess with trying to add blocks to support plank joints that didn't land on a bulkhead.  So I went with planks of varying lengths that were close to scale length, but adjusted to the nearest bulkhead.  I did *try* to follow the rules for where planks should end so I didn't end up with joints too close to each other.
 
I found that dealing the sharp curve at the stern was difficult.  My planking there ended up being a mess.  At that point, I realized I would have to paint the hull since I'd need to use some filler, which removed some of the pressure to get everything perfect
 
Almost all the planks were tapered.  I didn't end up using any steelers, but I probably should have used one on each side.  I did use a couple drop planks at the bow on each side.  That was probably because of errors determining the plank widths for each band.  Once I started on the final band, I realized the planks at the bow would be way too thin.
 

 
Once planking was finished, it was very rough.  Fortunately since I had cut my own planks, I made them a little thicker than necessary to give me some extra material for sanding everything down.
 
Like I did with my Bluenose, I started the 'cleanup' by applying VERY generous amount of wood filler...basically covering the entire hull.  After that cured, I spent several days sanding it all back off so that the only filler left was between planks or on things that were very uneven.  I spent the next week slowly sanding those problem spots until most of the remaining filler was gone.
 

In the end, the hull is pretty even.  A non-modeler (like my wife), might say even say it looks good.  There are still a few spots where the filler is visible, but those spots are smooth to the touch so I don't want to sand much further.
 

I still need to sand a little more around the rabbet, but I'm holding off on that until I'm almost done filling/sanding/etc.  I don't want to risk over-sanding that and damaging the keel.

 
At this point, the process for the lower hull should be similar to my Bluenose.  Since I'm going to paint, the goal is to get the hull smooth.  I'll do another pass with wood filler to get any remaining gaps between planks (MUCH less than the first round...just hitting the problem spots), then I'll sand that down, followed by a series of sanding passes with 200 and 400 grit paper.  After that, I'll primer the hull and sand again.  At that point, there will likely be a few flaws that are visible and I'll tackle each of those individually.  Hopefully after that I can do a light first coat of paint on the hull.  I'm going to hold off on the final coat until I get further along in the build.

It has been a while, and I've only had a chance to tackle a few things.  None of it took very long, but my schedule has had me going a few weeks at a time without touching the ship.
 
The waterway was installed.  This was the first piece that I made from boxwood instead of the kit's basswood.  I cut the strips from some boards and sanded them to create the angle shown in the plans.  I didn't bother running them all way to the last bulkhead since that area will be covered with the cabin.

I also tackled the black strake and the wales.  These were also cut from boards instead of using the kit's basswood.  For these, I went with Swiss pear, because I had seen a mention in a thread somewhere that Swiss pear looks really good when you use black leather dye on it instead of paint.  My tests looked great, so I decided to proceed with pear for the strake and wales.
 
I found the Swiss pear difficult to bend, even with water and heat.  The bow requires a very tight curve and it took several tries to get the pear to bend that way.  Since these are black, I probably should have used boxwood instead.  Oh well.  It worked out, just took more work than it should have.
 



I plan to tackle the lower hull planking next.  It will likely be a long process since I'll be cutting the planks from boxwood myself.  I'm going to try to do a 'correct' job with the planking, so I'm planning to do a bunch of reading before I start.