mikiek

Evenin' - I'm still working on gluing the subdeck which is proving to be time consuming so far. I started at the bow because I knew that was going to be the most trouble. I glued frame #1 when I glued the deck to the false keel so I started with #2. Bending the deck outwards to the edge of the frame was not easy. In fact it might be called a struggle. A little unexpected since the deck is not all that thick, but there is some serious camber in the frames. Gluing and pinning did not hold. With that in mind I would ignore the instructions telling you to nail the deck. Fortunately some clamps were big enough to reach so that's what I used. On frame #2 I tried to glue both sides of the deck at the same time as seen in the first image. This really didn't work very well but I was too far into it to do anything else. On frame #3 I focused on one side. Problem here is given the stress the deck was under, I wanted to wait until the glue thoroughly dried (minimum 8-10 hours). At that rate it might be a week to get everything glued. So my impatience lead me to glue one side of frame #4 as well shown in image below. I suspect after #4 the going should get easier and faster. So there is some time to kill between frames so I started looking for other things to do in the meantime. I pulled out all the Britannia ornaments and decide to paint those. As I said before "mediocre" might be a stretch, but I have no intention of bashing any of it. Bashing is not a goal for this build. I did see that the background of most pieces is painted black and the relief parts are painted gold. There are some pretty fine nooks and crannies. So my challenge for the ornaments will be to do a good job hand painting them. Definitely going to need to pull out some reading glasses for that.🙄 I checked my paint brushes and came across a few that had tiny hairs - didn't even know I had them. They should help with painting the details. It rained here today so I was not able to dump the trash & recycle to look for the missing plans. Hope all this isn't in vain. I can plank & deck with no plans but not sure how much beyond that I could go without them. Talk to ya soon...

Hey everyone. The sub deck is secure on the false keel so I have started to glue the deck to the outer edge of the frames. I will post a report on this tomorrow. Mean time - a quite bizarre thing seems to have happened. The instructions have disappeared.😕 Both the booklet with the images and the booklet with the written instructions. Not in the house, not in the garage (my shop). Maybe the strangest thing that has happened to me in over 20 years in this house. Tomorrow I will dump out the trash and recycle bins to see if there is anything there. Unbelievable!

Get on and do it! I did the first step on attaching the sub deck to the frame. I applied glue down the top edge of the false keel - shown here In between the white glue I added a few drops of CA - to hold the deck until the white glue dries. Then I laid the sub deck. As you can see instead of the stupid nails I just used a few pin vises to hold it down. The trick is you need to get the deck situated in the first frame before anything else. After getting that I just ran my finger down the keel and it all kinda slipped into place. The deck won't just fall into place, but forcing the back end into place puts a natural slope into it an the rear 2/3's of the deck just ended up fitting like a glove. In all this exercise, it's the forward 3 frames that may cause problems. Mainly because they are in the middle of the most outrageous sheer (Thanks Phil). Ensuring that those frames are squared and their top surfaces are fared (a little poetry?) is really crucial. Rather than nails I just used a few pin vises to hold the whole deck down. I imagine the pin vises can be used in the upcoming step of fastening the deck to the outer portions of the frames. So for me the biggest takeaway is to seriously fare the top edge of the frame to match the sheer of the false keel. You will not get good contact with the sub deck otherwise. I might have made too big of a deal from all of this but it is planning and dry runs that makes this step work. If you don't get the deck laid right, you will have multiple problems down the line. I REALLY wanted to start gluing the deck to the frames tonite, but I will give the glue a chance to dry every last drop before proceeding. C'ya

"The curvature lengthwise is called sheer. It is lower midships than at the bow and stern. The transverse curvature (crosswise from port to starboard) is called camber. It is higher on the center line and lower at the hull sides. The resulting shape of the deck is a hyperboloid. " Thanks Phil. I hate it when I don't remember stuff like that. Makes me feel old😒 A lot of times when nails are called for I apply spaced dots of CA with a run of white glue in between. The CA can behave like nails and hold until the white glue dries.

Yves - thanks for looking in. Those penciled lines are to give you a guide on where to apply glue. What the instructions didn't say was you need to pencil those lines on both sides on the sub deck. The lines on the other side can be used as a guide on where to drive nails. Gary - welcome. I bought the kit about 10 years ago. I agree with you that working out from the spine is the way to go. Then I can go one frame at a time front to back to finish the process. Using a syringe with a needle, it shouldn't be to hard to get some glue on the frame surface and then drive a few nails. Welcome to both of you!

I am obviously struggling with the application of the false deck. The keel and the frames produce 2 opposing angles for laying the false deck - both a horizontal and vertical bend. The flat piece used for the deck doesn't want to bend in both directions. Am I making too big a deal out of this? Something simpler? I have made multiple dry fittings - putting a few nails thru the deck into the keel. I then try to bend the deck down to the outer edges of the frames. If the nails don't pop out they at least come loose from the keel. I'm considering soaking the deck for a day and then putting a permanent crease in it from bow to midship down the centerline. That might relieve some of the stress and wouldn't require manhandling the deck quite as much. I must say, I am disappointed in the related logs regarding this situation - both at MSW and elsewhere. All suggest "just glue the deck down and start planking". Well IMO it isn't that easy. I'll try to provide some pix showing what I am experiencing. C'ya

If I understand your description and question - plank from the garboard up. Not down to the garboard. Typically, the laying of the garboard will have a direct effect on how all the upper strakes will lay. There are a few MSW posts on how to lay the garboard. The success of that will have an impact on the rest of any hull planking.

One more observation - after manually fitting the false deck to the forward frames, it appears that there will be a need to "fare" the gap in those frames to match the slope of the false keel so the deck will sit firmly on top. Hope that made sense.

Getting started with the hull. It's the typical false keel with a bunch of frame pieces. Nothing really of note there. I won't bore you with hull pix you've seen many times before. That assembly was uneventful. The next step is going to be fixing a false deck to the top of the frames/keel. It gets kinda interesting now. A side view of the keel shows it slopes upwards from midship to the bow. A view from the bow shows a downward slope (I don't remember the term for this) from the keel outwards to what will be the bulwarks. So the false deck is going to have to bend upwards to the bow and also laterally from the keel center to the outer edge. Hmmm.🤨 I had a similar situation with my Enterprise build. In that case the false deck was even thicker than this kit. It was evil. There was no way to clamp the parts so I ended up literally holding the deck to the frames until the glue dried - about 40 minutes. Even then many frames popped from the deck and had to be re-glued. The instructions say lay some glue on the upper frames and keel, lay the deck down and start nailing the deck to the under supports. First off, the nails are the usual brass pin nails, maybe 1/2" in length, and I seriously doubt they are going to hold anything unless I bang in a few hundred. Not happnin'. Kit nails are useless. Even worse there are notches in the false deck that have to sync up to protrusions in the frame pieces. If I start gluing and nailing and then discover that one of the notches doesn't sync with the frame, what then? It seems like I need a couple of extra hands. It gets worse towards the bow as none of those notches are going to sync until the deck is firmly fitted on the keel. Again, how would adjustments be made when half the deck is already glued down midship? I may be entirely missing something, wouldn't be the first time. My first inclination is to take the false deck and slice it up into smaller sections that could be secured easier. The deck is going to have planks on top of it so none of that would show in the final build. Would appreciate any ideas.

Hello MSW! - I'm starting a new adventure building Cazador. The images show this to be an interesting and attractive build. We shall see. I've always liked lateen sails so this fits nicely. The kit also has some ornaments (although only Britannia) and I have never done any of that. Just to be honest, other than maybe some wood swaps, I have no intention of bashing this build too much - reasons explained below. I originally thought this might be a fictitious ship, just built similar to the Xebec of those times, but it looks like it was a real ship. Designed by Spain to combat the Moorish pirates in the Mediterranean. I have moved to this build after giving up on my previous build. That literally dragged out for years and I had barely got past the hull. This was due mainly to the horrendous instructions/plans (or lack off). I just got so frustrated that I didn't even want to work on it anymore. A lot of lost idle time. I feel like I have lost my edge when it comes to modeling so it is time to move on. I need to get my Mojo back 😏. After perusing thru my kits I decided on this one mainly because the plans appear very well put together. I needed a kit that I could concentrate on planking, decking, rigging etc. without having to muddle thru 5th world instructions. Just get back to basics. After reviewing the plans, I think they are prepared in a format that makes sense to me. There is a booklet that has actual photographs in numbered sections. The instructions are in another booklet - well written in good English. There is a matching instruction section for each image in the other booklet. Very easy to follow. Also included was an inventory of all parts & pieces. Another page showed all the precut plywood sheets and each piece is numbered. No confusion. Pretty hard to mix things up! As far as the parts and materials go, I'm not going to bore you with pix of all that. The sticks and strips are of typical kit quality. I may replace some - maybe. I will say the laser cutting for the precut pieces is excellent!👍 Not a single missed or partial cut in any of the plywood sheets. It has been easy to cut all the parts out of the plywood. Maybe the best I have seen. The Britannia ornaments are nothing to write home about - pretty bland. But since my goal for this build is pretty basic, I will probably go with them. So as I stated, my goal is to get my build skills and confidence back again. Just work with the materials the kit provides. I am amazed how that previous build just totally drained me. Three years wasted. But I am ready to get back in the game again. So hop on board if you are interested. There aren't too many logs of this build to see. C'ya soon

Just be careful. Shellac and Varnish can be mentioned in posts but can also be very generic terms. Many types of shellac, many types of varnish. Whatever you think you want to use, always try it on some scraps of the material you ultimately want to cover. Your decision at that point should be easy.

Good idea doing your garboard first. It's critical to get that one mounted correctly. If you you have too much curve in it every strake above it will also take on that curve. Also to make life easier and your entire bow more symetrical, when you shape a strake for one side be sure to make a duplicate right then and there for the other side. That way you only have to figure out shape one time.

Hey Richard - kind of a down the road question, but did you paint your build or leave most of the wood colors? I'm asking after I stumbled across a section of the plan that showed "bumpers" on the side of the hull. The suggested wood was different than the hull wood. I am finding that the contrast between the two is not particularly appealing. If you did paint most of the build, where did you get your ideas from?

Yeah Richard - I kinda had that idea a little later. No one but you and me will know the difference.

Rats Jonas - I didn't realize there was a hatch in the stern deck. That'll be fun trying to cut out now.