mikiek

The plastic on the deck is new to me, to prevent paint on bare wood.....

Shoulda looked at the pic closer. I thought it had something to do with the plastic on the deck. Something new and revolutionary guaranteed to change our hobby for generations to come.

Shoulda looked at the pic closer. I thought it had something to do with the plastic on the deck. Something new and revolutionary guaranteed to change our hobby for generations to come.

Shoulda looked at the pic closer. I thought it had something to do with the plastic on the deck. Something new and revolutionary guaranteed to change our hobby for generations to come.

Getting preped for hull planking. I have laid the garboards (well almost) and they seem to have come out OK. It's been a while since I worked with walnut sticks and I forgot they don't like bending & twisting very well. Yeah I know to soak them but they still but up a fight.
 
As I mentioned earlier there is no rabbet in this design so placement of the garboard leaves a little guesswork at both ends of the hull. So I glued a stick to the easy frames in the middle first. Got them situated and let the glue dry overnight before I started wrestling at the bow & stern. Next evening I did the rest. Here's what I got:
 

 

 

Like I said these sticks aren't bending well. This one cracked while I was heat bending it. I tried to beef it up with some thin CA but it broke as soon as I tried to twist it at the stern. I hope this replacement piece will hold

Next up was marking the plank bands. It's not really stated in the plans to do this but it's what I know. The challenge was to come up with the number of bands for the available space. Trying to figure with the actual measurements wasn't working out. Looks like a case for the dividers! I've preached about them before but never for this step in the process. While trying the actual calculations, 4 bands came the closest to working out so that's what I am going with. To get that marked on the frames here's what I did.
 
Measure the surface length of a frame. I use a piece of string but paper or tape can work too.
 

 
Set the dividers to 4 (4 bands)
 

 
Lay the string flat and spread the long end of the dividers across the determined length.
 

 
The short end now has that measurement evenly divided by 4 so that's the width of the band on that frame. Place the short end on the frame up against the garboard and walk it to the other end of the frame making a mark at each step.
 

 

 

And there you have it. As the measurement will be different, do this for each frame. The cool thing about this I don't really care what the actual measurements are. I just know I have some length and I need to divide it by 4 and transfer that result (whatever it is) to the frame. In my Niagara build I show how to actually use the dividers to shape each individual plank to fit within it's band. This method is almost fool proof.
 

Per - what are the water levelers you mentioned?

Thanks Don - it appears that the bow is a somewhat narrower than midship. I think the strakes at the bow will be pretty narrow so that should make it easier to get them trimmed uniformly.
 
I'm in the middle of laying the garboards now. I glued the sticks to the easy frames last night - waiting for the glue to dry. Tonight I will do the bow & stern. For the rest of the planking I am planning on working with 3-4 plank bands. The proportional dividers should make an easy task of that.
 
I can already see that I "over-faired" some of the frames. I didn't take too much away, but the angle on some of the bow frames I made too sharp. I'll have to see if I need to add some shims to correct this, but I'll do that strake by strake.  I've always said don't kill yourself on the first fairing. Wait and do it when you lay each strake.  Guess I wasn't listening to myself
 
 

I took a step back and reviewed my lines........ and no way I am to use them.
My setup was too simple and inaccurate.
I had heard about using laser for the purpose and after a lot of tweaking with the setup bench I was ready.
And after this I am to get my own laser as this worked out so fine.
To get this correctly I used a mdf board normally used for shelving and added the pedestals as I had marked out on plan and boat.
This setup would ensure proper waterline.
Next was to secure her and align it all with water levelers.
Once I had this done, aligning the laser was the next step.
Once that was done, lights on and I had a perfect waterline. Using a regular pencil I marked it off.

For some reason of which I can't recall I had narrow masking tape from the auto painting, best part it had the perfect width for the waterline.
Applying it and then masking of the top area of the hull I will paint the lighter colored hull part.
I learned this long time ago always paint the lighter colors first then the darker.
What is extremely important before painting is to use a round edge tool to have the tape having a proper contact with the surface.

Happy with this I started experimenting to get a proper anti-fouling red tone.
I didn't like the one recommended from MS, so I gave my Vallejo paint a shot.
Turned out really nice.
 
 
 

Once you get going with the planking Mike you will be fine, it may seem strange at first but it really does work. The three MarisStella hulls I have planked so far have all been like this and I have been happy with the results. 
A couple of things to keep in mind are:
Be precise with the angles you cut at the bow
Leave the planks a little long at the stern, not so long that they are past the stern post and snag on something then break off 
If you need to bend a plank a little over bending is better than underbending
And the one I still have problems with is to resist the urge to trim the planks at the bow and stern until planking is completed. It really does not matter if they are a little long or short as long as they are all equal and you have a nice uniform line of planks

I'm with you on the filler Tom. Our builds are not supposed to be finished like a show car.
 
If you do have to fill:
 
1. Over paint is fine. Good luck if you plan on staining. It takes stain differently than wood.
 
2. Just put it where you need it. Not over the whole bulwark.
 
3. A trick I learned. Using Elmers Purple wood filler (probably others too) you can thin it out with some water. Not runny, more like molasses. Then you can apply it with a paint brush. For me it was easier to get it into the cracks and you can spread it very thin. Of course practice a little first.

Evening....
Hope all is well with everyone and your Holidays are coming on nicely.
 
Derek, Mike......appreciate the comments, thanks!
Also appreciate all the "likes"......thank you MSW!
 
We had our first good snowfall!!!!!
About 12 inches fell last Tuesday. I'm one of those nut balls that loves winter. There's something about a good storm, or blizzard for that fact, that just gets me going!!!!!!
I even like shoveling. A few hot adult beverages help!
 
I was born in the Northeast and I'll probably die in the Northeast. I NEED 4 seasons.
 
Is there any Ice Fishing at all in Florida? And no, not fishing for the ice in your drinks!
Answer me "yes" and I'll move there when I retire. 
 
Anywho........
 
I have been in the shipyard, but not the quickest pace. 
I started planking the outboard gunports. 
Simple enough. But, with the rail where it is, it does send some things into recovery mode. 
The very top plank under the rail is a 3/64 "stringer" that will line the very top of each gunport. This matches the two 3/64 strips that line the bottom of every gunport.
Every plank in-between is 1/32.
 
The below are the first I've ever done. 
Ehhhhh........I got a lot to learn!
With both outboard and inboard needing planks, I'll have ample opportune!
 

 
Having never done anything like this before, I decided to just keep it to 4 or 5 segments so I can learn a little bit. 
They were rough to say the least.
It should clean up with wood filler and sanding. 
 

 
 
 

 
I had so many different sized gaps. I didn't know if wood filler or shaped planks would work best. 
 
In the end, I have adopted a "shaped" plank instead of filler mentality. Just looks better.
Although, I still use both methods when needed, I lean towards using planks instead of filler.
 
Wood filler puts this "opaque-ness" over the wood I do not like. 
Will this screw with the paint job later on?
 

 
My sweep and gunport areas line up well. 
Some wonky-ness to the flow, but not bad for my first big ship.
 

 
On the pic below, 2nd sweep from the stern.
There is a tiny little gap just under the top plank. 
I have hit that thing twice with filler and it keeps opening up.
I wonder If I have old filler?  The other areas seem to be holding up.
 

 
 
Merry Christmas!
Tom E 
 

Tom I use Titebond for Trim & Moulding.  It gets tacky and sets a little quicker and it doesn't run even on a vertical surface or upside down.
 
Regarding dividers, yes you can do the entire hull with them. As a matter of fact if you're planning on using them you probably should use them from the start. Get your bands from the hull planking plan and mark the frames. Use only the drawing that shows a half view from the bow and a half view from the stern. The other views distort the distances between bands.
 
I always recommend getting some with thin metal points rather than the thick plastic points. There's some things you can do with the metal points that you can't with thicker points. They need to be able to stick into a plank easily.

Considering it was July when I last posted I feel I owe you guys some explanation. Trajta has been on the shelf after my meager start. I had a lot going on at that time both in regards to builds and personal life. Frankly I was totally exhausted to the point where it was affecting me physically and mentally. I was easily frustrated with a short fuse and given all the questions I was coming up with regarding this build - questions I should have known the answer to - I put the kit away. I had made a commitment to finish Niagara - rigging was all that was left. Something I really don't like to do - more frustration.
 
So here we are now, mid December. Things have improved somewhat, while I am still trying to recover from the exhaustion, I at least now know what was causing most of my problems. The knowledge alone has helped me a great deal. Niagara is finished, I just finished a model restoration and I am ready to take on Trajta once again.
 
In our last episode, I was attempting to add some planking to an inner frame(s). Trajta has a large opening in the deck that exposes the hold and the planking is to dress this up a bit. I've got about half of that completed, but decided to move on to getting frames on the keel. The Marisstella design here is interesting. The notches used to fit frames to keel are fairly shallow compared to a lot of kits. However this is offset by the use of some large dowels that are inserted thru pre drilled holes in the frames. When glued in place the frames are very sturdy and come fairly close to being parallel to each other and perpendicular to the keel.
 
Gluing the frames was uneventful except for being sure which direction the frames planked earlier were facing. The opening I mentioned earlier has a frame in it at the moment but it is lightly glued and has no dowels running thru it. It will be removed down the road.
 
I did some fairing after that, it didn't take too much. Was about to lay the first plank when I realized there was no rabbet. I reviewed the plans and instructions and saw no indication of one. As it turns out this build doesn't use a rabbet. Planks just butt up the the stem and stern post. The garboard is just  supposed to be glued where the frames meet the keel. That's going to be interesting. Given this, I am breaking down and making filler blocks. I not a big fan of blocks but it looks like the planks are going to need some help bending to the bow & stern and without a rabbet to hold them in place it looks like they are needed.
 
So that's about where I am right now. Finishing up the blocks (bow & stern) and getting ready to lay some sticks. Here's a few shots.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

Thanks for checking in Doug. Welcome back. I'll do my best to keep her there this time.

Evening,
Hope all is well with everyone.  Quiet Friday night after a great dinner at a local seafood restaurant called Weathervanes. 
Folks from New England might know who they are. There's only about 6 of these left, and only in Maine, New Hampshire, and possibly Massachusetts. 
I'm lucky, there's one 20 minutes from me. As a kid and as an adult. it's still a treat to go!
Great fish, lobster, and some of the best onion rings I know of, and I am not a skinny man! I like food.
 
Quite possibly to stuffed to build, so with a hot cup of tea on the couch, this log needs an update.
 
I kept building some carronades.
They seem pretty much straight forward. 
I'm only going to build about 2 at a time, as it's a side project as I plank the gunports. 
 
 

 
Another reason to only build 2 at a time. I only have so many things to hold the bits and pieces. 
There's 13 individual pieces to 1 carronade. Times 16 carronades, that's 208 pieces, sanded, formed, bent, painted, then eventually
glued in place. 
And that's if my math is correct! I feel like I'm not counting something.
 
Slow and steady will win this race. I try to focus on each individual piece. 
Even slowly, it eventually gets done. 
 

 
 
 
I cleaned up the cannons with some sandpaper and gave them a good wash and dry. 
 
The Admiral called it the "ole fluff and buff"!!!!
We both near passed out from laughing!
Just one of those things where the timing was perfect but ya had to be there.
 
I primed the cannons with the primer from the Niagara paint kit from ME.
Looks like a good base.
These will dry for a while before they get some color. 
 

 
 
When I did work over this past work week, it was mostly cutting 1/32 square strips to frame the gunports and sweeps.
The sweep strips were somewhat easy. Those I could pre measure a few then glue.
Following advice, I'm still measuring pretty much each one individually. 
 
The gunport frames were one at a time.
No two were exactly alike.
I kinda liked it. It gave me better control of my wood stock with less waste.  
 

 
 
Once those where installed, I experimented with a 3/64 stringer underneath the main rail.
Under this one strip will be all 1/32 strips down to the two battens I installed earlier. 
 
Mike, I've seen you use a Proportional Divider for planks. After reading your build again, the light finally turned on in my head as to how valuable they are.
They look like they could be used from just under the rail all the way to the keel......top to bottom!
Especially when planking with those twists.
I'm in the process of getting one from Micro-Mark.
 
I think it will look good after a good sanding.
 
 

 
 
I'm adding this last photo purely for poops and giggles. 
 
I was starting to fill in the frames around the sweeps and gunports, as you can see in the background, looked to my right and saw that I had every single type of glue I own out and ready.
Probably all were used by this time as well!
 
So I cleaned them up and lined them up for a "family" photo.
Wonder If I can use this as a Christmas card this year!?!?!?!?!?!   
 
My Brother-in-Law would get it! He's a builder. 
 
Even the Admiral just pointed out the fact, as I'm wring this, that I even got the moose in the picture as well.
I wasn't even trying to get him in the pic, never saw him! 
 
Frickin thing moves!!!!!
 
I originally took the pic to show what I use for building and see what others use.
Are there better brands? I've had nothing but great results with all of the below products.
The only thing I'm missing is the white wood glue. That's for the next Home Depot trip.
 
 

 
Tom E
 

I'm calling this one finished. Pix posted below, but go back to the start of this thread and take a look how it started out so you can see before and after.
 
Restoration is an interesting endeavor. I did my best to keep as much as possible of the original build. That was by far the hardest part of this build. So much I wanted to add or change. The most radical thing I did was change the running rigging from black to tan. Not too big of a sacrilege I hope. 
 
Here she is - Hispaniola (II)
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
I posted what I think are some strange but interesting circumstances regarding this effort here.

Addressed the cannon carriage issue with a 2 step modification.
 
 I removed the trucks from the carriage and sanded down the bottom of the carriages.  That bought me about 1mm.

Secondly I sanded the axles have a flat surface for mounting onto the carriage.  That got me another mm.

Those were enough to let the gun deck cannons sit nicely.

Went on to permanently glue the decks (up to the gun deck) and am now rigging the cannons on that deck. (fiddly job!)5



 
 
 
 

Considering it was July when I last posted I feel I owe you guys some explanation. Trajta has been on the shelf after my meager start. I had a lot going on at that time both in regards to builds and personal life. Frankly I was totally exhausted to the point where it was affecting me physically and mentally. I was easily frustrated with a short fuse and given all the questions I was coming up with regarding this build - questions I should have known the answer to - I put the kit away. I had made a commitment to finish Niagara - rigging was all that was left. Something I really don't like to do - more frustration.
 
So here we are now, mid December. Things have improved somewhat, while I am still trying to recover from the exhaustion, I at least now know what was causing most of my problems. The knowledge alone has helped me a great deal. Niagara is finished, I just finished a model restoration and I am ready to take on Trajta once again.
 
In our last episode, I was attempting to add some planking to an inner frame(s). Trajta has a large opening in the deck that exposes the hold and the planking is to dress this up a bit. I've got about half of that completed, but decided to move on to getting frames on the keel. The Marisstella design here is interesting. The notches used to fit frames to keel are fairly shallow compared to a lot of kits. However this is offset by the use of some large dowels that are inserted thru pre drilled holes in the frames. When glued in place the frames are very sturdy and come fairly close to being parallel to each other and perpendicular to the keel.
 
Gluing the frames was uneventful except for being sure which direction the frames planked earlier were facing. The opening I mentioned earlier has a frame in it at the moment but it is lightly glued and has no dowels running thru it. It will be removed down the road.
 
I did some fairing after that, it didn't take too much. Was about to lay the first plank when I realized there was no rabbet. I reviewed the plans and instructions and saw no indication of one. As it turns out this build doesn't use a rabbet. Planks just butt up the the stem and stern post. The garboard is just  supposed to be glued where the frames meet the keel. That's going to be interesting. Given this, I am breaking down and making filler blocks. I not a big fan of blocks but it looks like the planks are going to need some help bending to the bow & stern and without a rabbet to hold them in place it looks like they are needed.
 
So that's about where I am right now. Finishing up the blocks (bow & stern) and getting ready to lay some sticks. Here's a few shots.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

Considering it was July when I last posted I feel I owe you guys some explanation. Trajta has been on the shelf after my meager start. I had a lot going on at that time both in regards to builds and personal life. Frankly I was totally exhausted to the point where it was affecting me physically and mentally. I was easily frustrated with a short fuse and given all the questions I was coming up with regarding this build - questions I should have known the answer to - I put the kit away. I had made a commitment to finish Niagara - rigging was all that was left. Something I really don't like to do - more frustration.
 
So here we are now, mid December. Things have improved somewhat, while I am still trying to recover from the exhaustion, I at least now know what was causing most of my problems. The knowledge alone has helped me a great deal. Niagara is finished, I just finished a model restoration and I am ready to take on Trajta once again.
 
In our last episode, I was attempting to add some planking to an inner frame(s). Trajta has a large opening in the deck that exposes the hold and the planking is to dress this up a bit. I've got about half of that completed, but decided to move on to getting frames on the keel. The Marisstella design here is interesting. The notches used to fit frames to keel are fairly shallow compared to a lot of kits. However this is offset by the use of some large dowels that are inserted thru pre drilled holes in the frames. When glued in place the frames are very sturdy and come fairly close to being parallel to each other and perpendicular to the keel.
 
Gluing the frames was uneventful except for being sure which direction the frames planked earlier were facing. The opening I mentioned earlier has a frame in it at the moment but it is lightly glued and has no dowels running thru it. It will be removed down the road.
 
I did some fairing after that, it didn't take too much. Was about to lay the first plank when I realized there was no rabbet. I reviewed the plans and instructions and saw no indication of one. As it turns out this build doesn't use a rabbet. Planks just butt up the the stem and stern post. The garboard is just  supposed to be glued where the frames meet the keel. That's going to be interesting. Given this, I am breaking down and making filler blocks. I not a big fan of blocks but it looks like the planks are going to need some help bending to the bow & stern and without a rabbet to hold them in place it looks like they are needed.
 
So that's about where I am right now. Finishing up the blocks (bow & stern) and getting ready to lay some sticks. Here's a few shots.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

I'm calling this one finished. Pix posted below, but go back to the start of this thread and take a look how it started out so you can see before and after.
 
Restoration is an interesting endeavor. I did my best to keep as much as possible of the original build. That was by far the hardest part of this build. So much I wanted to add or change. The most radical thing I did was change the running rigging from black to tan. Not too big of a sacrilege I hope. 
 
Here she is - Hispaniola (II)
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
I posted what I think are some strange but interesting circumstances regarding this effort here.

Hey Don - Thank you. I'm a little nervous about the sails. All of us here know sails are never spotlessly clean so I did my best to dirty them up. Not sure how the owner is going to take that.   He did say do what you want.
 
This was a good short project. It's back to Trajta now.

I'm calling this one finished. Pix posted below, but go back to the start of this thread and take a look how it started out so you can see before and after.
 
Restoration is an interesting endeavor. I did my best to keep as much as possible of the original build. That was by far the hardest part of this build. So much I wanted to add or change. The most radical thing I did was change the running rigging from black to tan. Not too big of a sacrilege I hope. 
 
Here she is - Hispaniola (II)
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
I posted what I think are some strange but interesting circumstances regarding this effort here.

Now we're talking   I finished up the last square sail last night and after letting everything dry I put the sail assembly together this evening. Keep in mind this rigging is there just to give the impression of ropes hanging & laying about. It is not an accurate representation. For instance the sail assembly is made by taking the top gallant sail (which is lashed to the t'gallant yard) and tying the clews to the top yard. The top yard has the top sail lashed to it and the clews tied to the course yard. Which of course has the course sail lashed to it. So you can pick up the t'gallant yard and you'll be picking up all 3 sails with their yards. And DANG IT I forgot to take a pic of that.
 
Anyway the t'gallant yard fastens to the top of the mast and basically that hangs the entire assembly. There are some braces to be added.
 
The jibs have wire in the hems that extend out from the corners 7-8 inches. The wires are used to fasten the sails to the mast and deck. They are bent a bit to give the sails some shape. I've said it before, this is a very cool technique to use to put some action into the sails. Wires were also used in the square sails and again I like the shape you can add.
 
I think I have dirtied up the sails enough although not evenly from bow to stern. Oddly you can barely see it in the pix. They were dyed with walnut crystals. The I darkened the mixture and splattered that on the sails. I also got a lot of the fabric glue smeared on the material and that darkened just a tad when it dried. I guess overall it will do.
 
So tomorrow it'll be the braces, some touch up painting and finally made up my mind to paint the hull. Trying to mix a matching green was no easy feat.
 
Here's how she sits tonite:
 

 

 

 
 

Well I've been working this restore almost every night but haven't had much to show. I'm trying to finish up this weekend (doubt if I'll make it) and some things are coming together.
 
Like the main, I took everything off the fore mast pretty much in 1 piece. Got the mast cleaned up and the fore deck as well. The fore has been stepped and now I can start working with the stays & shrouds while I'm doing to the sails. My idea for connecting shrouds to channels worked out pretty well and the shrouds with ratlines fastened up pretty easy. As per my goal I was able to keep the original shrouds & rats. The backstays were tougher since there was not enough rope to reconnect - I did realize this when I originally cut them. So I ended up using a bullseye to fasten the stays to the rope coming up from the channel. Yup, I deviated from the original on this but there were few options.
 

 

 
I did the mizzen? for the fore mast. Still working on the square sails.
 

 

 
My biggest screw up so far is the hems for the sails are not all on the same side. 
 
She's coming along. Maybe the hardest thing is going to be repainting the name on the transom. I've tried twice already and have painted over my attempt both times. Who woulda thunk that would be so difficult?

Hey Bob - thanks for looking in. That turned out to be my #1 goal. What I call a restoration rather than a refit.
 
I will admit it was real tempting to tear down to the deck and build her again. New ropes, better hardware, you know the drill. But this is a kit that was probably purchased in the 30's. Adding all the contemporary parts wouldn't do it justice.