mikiek

I appreciate your comments and glad it worked for you, but I really didn't get any real benefit from that article. I'm not about to get into that level of detail just make a few filler blocks. Looks like I'm back to a plank by plank fastened to frame by frame install.

Anyone able to provide links to posts that have described the build filler block process? I have seen more than a few and there appears to be no consensus on how it should go.

Man I am really struggling with trying the filler blocks. The kit offers a few minor "supports" - one at the bow and two in the deadwood at the stern. I'm still trying to visualize what these pieces might offer. The instructions are very vague. A few lines of how to install them but no details as to why. Obviously, if I go the filler block route, these pieces go in the trash. But honestly, I am disappointed in what I have found on MSW regarding making/shaping filler blocks. Some posts claim making a single block out of a big chunk of wood, others say use scrap and glue together some sort of a block, others are even saying to scavenge home construction sites to retrieve the butt ends of 2x4s (pine) and use that to make fillers. Anybody reading this have any ideas, suggestions or links that help with how to make fillers?

Finishing off the quarterdeck, I stained (Minwax Natural) and finished it with some matte varnish. I have also continued to paint the Britannia ornaments, some done, some in a continuous cycle - paint black, paint gold, paint black........ I'm cycling thru the top few pieces - obviously black will be the next application. I did come across a set of brushes I didn't even remember I had. Great for detailing.

Hey - quarterdeck is now planked. Nothing too odd to report from that exercise. I went with a 4 plank pattern (same as foredeck) but I shortened the plank length from 120mm to 80mm. Why? Because I could 😀 I really like the result of my new faux caulking (see previous post). It shows what needs to be seen, but in a much more subdued way. At this scale (1:60) I'm not planning on trying to mark treenails. Too busy and distracting. I have to say the kit sticks for the deck planking got worse towards the end. Maybe I just got lucky at first. The milling was really bad. The sticks are supposed to be 1mm 3mm. Measuring the same stick would show 4-5 different dimensions from one end to the other. This forced me to do a lot of edge sanding after a strake was laid so the next strake would lay clean with the previous. Also the long edges of the sticks were poorly manicured. No point in complaining anymore, pretty typical of kit wood. I think the next steps are to get the hull ready for planking. The instructions show some minor wood inserts at the bow and stern. I'm not real sure what they may accomplish. I have been considering picking up some balsa blocks to fill the bow and stern frames. Never had to do that before and I'm not sure it is really necessary for this build, but since this is my "learning build" I thought it would be a good time to try that out. Onwards.......

I started planking the quarterdeck last nite. Given that this is a relearning/learning build I decided to experiment with the plank caulking simulation. I used to use a chisel tip Sharpie and outline all four edges of a plank. The long edges of the stick didn't look too bad but the short edges tend to absorb the ink and did not get a clean look. This is especially true of softer wood (read kit wood). I started the planking on this build same as always, but towards the end of decking the foredeck I started only outlining one long edge and one short edge. This looked better but some of the short edges still absorbed some ink. Before starting the quarterdeck, I fooled around with some different combinations of markings. I know a lot of people use pencil lead for darkening so I gave that a try. I didn't care for it on the long edge but it looked pretty good on the short edges. So my new plan for decking and planking is pencil lead on the short edges and Sharpie on one long edge. I'll probably finish out this build like that. See what you think. Top image is the Sharpie on all four sides. Bottom image is my new technique. If you look closely at the top image you can see some of the short edges that have absorbed ink. Just a note - On my very first build I was doing the four sided Sharpie thing and didn't have the bleeding problem. The difference is I subbed out all the kit planking materials with boxwood which is a much harder wood. C'ya next week....

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Evening! - Here's a summary of several days work. Gluing the quarterdeck subdeck to the first frame worked out pretty well and the result looks OK. There was a decision as to whether to glue in succession the second frame then the third or the third and then second. I did several dry runs each way and then took a look at how the unglued frame would be affected. Given the fact that the keel was not straight and that whichever way I went there was going to be some forcing the frames into the deck notches I decide to do them in order. The second frame actually went down pretty easy. What I did notice is that there is a pretty big gap between the end of the deck and the transom. I assume planking will cover that. This pic also shows the uneveness of the frames/keel. The starboard notch not quite making it onto the frame without some force. Time goes by. The second frame glued pretty well but I noticed a couple of things. There's a support on the transom that the deck is supposed to rest on. As you can see there is no contact between the two. Even when I force it down there is not much contact area. This support needs to be faired just like the frames. No mention of this in the instructions. Last frame glued. Final result. This is the camber in the frames I was fighting. It doesn't look like all that much but it did cause some grief. To be sure all the dry runs made this step go a lot smoother. Not just seeing what happens to the frame you are working with, but what happens to the other frames. One other note. Because I was not not totally sure how the frames were going to fit in the deck notches, I cheated and enlarged the notches a fair amount. It will all be covered by decking Thanks for following....

Hey Everyone - As I start gluing the quarterdeck subdeck I think I got lucky. Probably from at least 6 dry runs on the install. On run #1 I could see that the keel was not in line with the foredeck which obviously put all the quarterdeck frames out of line. After a couple more dry runs, I figured if I could get the deck and the first frame (the frame with the facing and cabin door) glued, I could bend the rear of the keel and the other frames would line up with the deck. This exercise and the similar one for the foredeck would be better handled if you could get the Admiral or a Seaman to help hold things. It was incredibly difficult for me to hold and make an image at the same time. Here is what the deck should be glued to. Be aware that those frames need to be faired to provide a decent surface to glue the deck to. The instructions do not mention this. So, after all the dry runs it's time to put the money down. Glue needs to be applied to the frames, the deck needs to be positioned and clamps need to be applied. I got really lucky and nailed that all in the first attempt. Without question, the dry runs made that possible. Obviously I had to use pretty large clamps. Setting the hull down somewhere to let the glue set was not easy. I had to wedge the hull into a drawer and let the clamps hang outside. And finally, I wanted to show the bend in the subdeck to match the camber of the frames. I couldn't get a perfect angle but this might help. It's strange. The deck is plywood but only 2mm thick. But it just doesn't want to bend at all. I want to give this first gluing (white glue) a full 24 hours to cure. Hopefully tomorrow I can get the rest of it done. C'ya

Hello Everyone - I think I am finished with the foredeck and facing. Although I have learned that when you paint/stain/finish early on in your build, you usually end up having to do some touch up down the road. Last post mentioned tack cloth. Here's what I used and is typical of the product. Again it's great for picking up all the grit and grime from a surface before painting. I won't bore you with 10 images of the deck but here I offer proof that it is finished 🙂 I'm seeing my pics are getting worse. I'm using a 15 year old point & shoot. Several of the manual controls no longer work. I'm debating whether to just pull out the big guns (my DSLRs) or look into a new P&S. Anyways, it looks like fastening the quarterdeck subdeck is next on the agenda. I'm not looking forward to this. There is some serious camber in the frames and a dry run did not go well. The subdeck is going to have to bend quite a bit. The same material was not cooperative for the foredeck.

Hey everyone - given the 1"+ overhang of the quarterdeck (once installed), I figured I better do whatever I want on the facing while it was easy to get to. So I painted that, glued the Britannia door and placed a coaming at the facing base. I painted it all. I even decided to go ahead and stain the deck (Minwax Natural). I took some pix but then realized I probably needed to varnish it just to show it finished. So I've done that and will have final images. One thing I did pick up that has been really useful is tack cloth, sometimes known as painters cloth. If you know what I am referring to then skip this. The product is something like a strip of cheesecloth coated with a waxy substance. It is fantastic at pulling up dust, grit, etc. from surfaces after they have been sanded/filed. It just picks up every last bit of everything before you paint/stain. All the big box stores sell it, I sure you could get it on Amazon as well. Highly recommended. It did a great job of cleaning up the deck before staining. Also works great on hull planking.

Thanks for all the replies. I guess what I am wondering is if it is more efficient to buy a couple of big blocks and cut smaller filler pieces or buy smaller pieces. I'm kinda thinking a big block would be better but there might be more waste.

To this point in my career I have never made filler blocks to fit between frames. OK - well maybe back at the transom but as far as side or bow blocks, never. The builds have come out OK so far. I don't think fillers would have made any difference. After some hiatus, I am building Cazador mostly just to get my skills back again. I thought I would have a go at making filler blocks at some of the hull positions and see how that works, if there is really any benefit. The Cazador frames have a fairly large space between them - but typical to most kits I have built so far. The kit offers nothing in the way of filler material. I see a lot of basswood blocks of various sizes for sale online. From 1x1x3 to 2x2x6 to 3x3x10 pieces or some combination. I'm just wondering what makes the most sense. I imagine the smaller pieces would not be useful. But I am stuck between buying some big hunk and cutting pieces to size (probably with a lot of waste) or the medium size pieces. I'm just hoping to be as efficient as possible. There's probably a simple answer to this. Any help would be appreciated...

Hey everyone. First off regarding the stain mentioned in my previous post - I decided not to go with a dark stain on the facing. After looking at the finished images on the kit box cover, there is some serious overhang of the quarterdeck. You can barely see the facing, so no reason to go overboard trying to make it look great. If I did use a dark stain on the facing the Britannia door would have to be painted some contrasting color or you would never see it. Finishing up the facing, I trimmed the edges to get the even with the frame. The instructions make a good note about being sure there is still a notch in the frame for the quarter subdeck to drop into, so I sanded a little extra at the edge of the notch to get some good sharp angles. There is also a gotcha that the instructions don't mention. The frames are 5mm ply. The frame where the facing is glued to has now become 6mm. The notches cut out in the subdeck are 5mm wide. No big deal to scratch an extra mm into the deck notch, but just be aware. I'm also seeing that the last 3 frames are not equally level. The middle frame somehow got off kilter from the other two. I noticed this after attempting a dry fitting of the subdeck. Hard to see I know. I'm trying to figure out how that could happen. The groove in the frame and the groove in the keel were a snug fit, so it's not like there was some slop in that fitting. And rechecking shows the frame is perpendicular to the keel.🤔 A poorly cut frame? Dang, I was bragging on the precuts earlier. The dry fitting also shows it's going to be another fight to get that deck laid over the camber of the frames. At least it's only 3 frames this time. Talk to ya soon....

Following the instructions, I continued on with planking of the quarterdeck face. That's my term - what I see in the instructions and inventory list is many of these surfaces are generically called "linings". For instance, I just finished the foredeck lining. Then the quarterdeck face is called the frame lining (very misleading). I should have done a better job of shaping the bottom of the face planks to match the camber of the deck. I may run a stick across the deck butted up to the facing to clean that up. While the glue is drying on the facing I took a few moments to think ahead about the coloring of my work so far. With almost any wood (white or colored) I almost always go to a natural stain for decking. The go to product is MinWax "Natural". It doesn't have any pigments in but it gives any wood a nice "wet" look. The quarterdeck facing was done with the same Ramen sticks as the deck. I think there needs to be some differentiating tones between the two. I have a Red Chestnut and a Walnut stain on hand so here's what they look like - Red Chestnut on the left. I show the Britannia door painted in flat brown with the two stain samples. No real reason why the door needs to be flat brown. And of course, I couldn't possibly get this far without making a mess on the deck 😕 I think Natural on the deck for sure and Red Chestnut on the facing. Suggestions?

Ye-haw - the deck is planked! I really appreciate everyones suggestions. As I mentioned before, using a Sharpie for "caulking" just doesn't work for me now (at least how I was using it). I used to outline each plank on all four sides. This really doubled the amount of blackning between each plank. I still want to get away from the Sharpie but at least for this build I think I came up with a decent solution. Nothing I thought up but I think I have seen this in other posts. Instead of darkening all four sides of a plank, I just did two sides, a long side and a short side (leaving two sides unmarked). Gluing an unmarked side to a marked side gives a more reasonable rendition of caulking. If you check the port side you will see what I am talking about. Big difference. The other big difference, the port side (done after starboard) has the planking much more aligned, strake after strake. Rather than going with specific measurements (like I did on the starboard side) I ended up just eyeballing the lines on the port side. Guess I can trust my eyeballs.. OK - it ain't gonna' be beautiful, but I will get my mojo back before this build is finished🙂

Decking is getting close to done but I am noticing something. Used to be I liked showing a heavy caulk line between planks. I guess I just liked showing the amount of work that went into laying everyone of those planks. I always used a Sharpie to get a good dark line. Seems like these days I'm not liking that so much. The Sharpie is a bit of overkill. Add to that it can bleed into the planks especially at the ends. Looks kinda sloppy. Sanding doesn't get it all out. It's too late to change for this build but I'm going to be looking for something different going forward. Painting ornaments continues but it seems like a never ending battle. Paint with gold one day and get some gold on the black areas. Paint with black the next day and get some black on the gold.🤨 I hate looking at paint work in images. It always looks so bad. I did get the deck reglued to frame #4 but that has created a problem. I had to really clamp down the deck to make contact with the frame. So much so that the deck has a bow in it at that spot. Not sure what happened. The frame was glued in snug and at a good angle to the keel. Hope this doesn't give me problems down the line. I should finish the deck this evening. Talk to ya soon...

I did finish the starboard deck planking and started to move out from center to portside. I completely missed the fact that the deck at the #4 frame on the port side was totally askew from the frame. This is strange because I noticed this a few posts back and thought I had fixed it. Whatever! Sorry, I should have made some pix to show my response. I have several lab squirt bottles and one is filled with 90% alcohol. This was useful in getting alcohol right where it was needed to soften up the glue between the underside of the subdeck and the frame surface. It took a lot of squirting, scraping, cleaning to get all the previous glue out of the way so I can try to reglue. After several dry runs, I did glue and clamp the deck again. From what I can see, it looks like I was successful. I need to look ahead to see what other items I can be working on while the usual hull processes move forward. The ornament painting is fun but my eyes can only handle 10-15 minutes (under magnification) before they just go nuts. I may consider working on the ship's boat to kill idle time. Thanks to everyone that is looking in. I expect things to get more exciting after the basic stuff (deck, hull) is done. Hang in there!

Peter - I have definitely read your log. Your talent is amazing. Gary - That was one thing I forgot to post. I did find the instruction booklet in the recycle bin. I can only guess they got picked up with some other trash and dumped. It's pretty strange, I don't usually do stuff like that. Planking and painting continues. I should have the starboard side of the deck finished tonite. I can only paint the details on the ornaments for about 10 minutes. I start getting bug eyed after that.🤪

Have begun deck planking. Nothing really unusual except that the dimension of the sticks is all over the place - as mentioned in the previous post. I'm weeding out the sticks with borderline measurements. Should be 1mm x 3mm but I'm seeing a lot of .65mm x 2.85mm and also quite a few 1.15mm x 3.25mm. I hope it's just crappy milling. I have got to say, it is joy to get back to basic operations. Decking is always a chore but given the last kit I was working on, this is a dream. I'm really having a good time even though I have hosed up a few planks on the deck. Will have a few pix soon.

Wooh hooh - forward sub deck is attached. I offer one photo for proof, but I won't bore you with 10 more 🙂 Gonna redo one side of frame #4 as the deck did not get flush with the frame protrusion. Had to soften up the glue with some alcohol and have reglued and reclamped that. For deck planking I am going to go with 120mm planks with 4 plank pattern. The deck has been marked off accordingly. Looks a little crooked here but I think that is just the angle this shot was taken. Looking ahead, I'm reviewing the deck planking instructions. Hmmm, there aren't any. Photo #8 in the instructions shows the subdeck, photo #9 shows the deck planked - as if by magic. On a related note, here is the bunch of sticks that the decking is supposed to come from. Be very careful because as of the inventory list, there are 4 different dimensions of white wood in this bunch. Some obvious, some not. Once I started measuring the sticks I quickly found that the deck sticks which were stated as 1mm x 3mm varied in the range of .65mm x 3.25mm and all ranges in between. Typical but annoying. I'm going to get on a soapbox for a minute. When I was beginning to build I used to take deck sticks or hull sticks and cut them to my preferred length and just drop in a big pile. The idea was when I needed another I just grab one from the pile. Many articles here at MSW claim that's the way to go. BIG problem with that logic. Let's say I lay down one piece (plank) for decking. Now I need another plank to continue the strake, so I grab one from the pile. Given the fact that kit sticks never match up in width, the plank I just grabbed likely doesn't match the width of the plank I just laid. Things can get out of whack in a hurry. These days I tend to work with one stick for as long as I can. Then move to another. So besides the subdeck I am painting the Britannia ornaments. In most cases the pieces have a background and a relief. So I started most pieces by painting the background color (black) on all pieces. Then I am taking my detail brushes and hitting the raised (relief) parts of the piece with gold leaf. Obviously I had to break out my paints, most of which have been sitting on a shelf of my bench for 6-7 years without opening. As you might observe I use Tamiya paints exclusively (no affiliation), mainly because I always liked their jars/tops. Rather than the usual circular cardboard insert in the cap, the Tamiya tops have a shaped plastic insert that IMO does an incredible job of sealing the jars. So far every jar I have opened is unchanged from the first day I opened it 6+ years ago. I'm impressed. Here's a shot of some of the Brit pieces in progress. Will start planking the deck tomorrow. C'ya....

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.