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Julie Mo

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  1. Julie Mo
    How's that saying go, Bob? If it was easy we'd get our kids to do it. Stan, thank you for your kind words. I've always been a perfectionist but it wasn't until I retired that I learned the value of patience. Once I adopted patience, everything else became easier.
  2. Julie Mo
    Jaager and Hornet, I'm not sure I agree with you on the finish. I have seen some gorgeous gloss-finished wood sailboat hulls
  3. Julie Mo
    Hi Buck, I started on flakes. I have amber, blonde and super blonde flakes and use those when I need a certain color tone. I found spraying it a bit of a pain. It clogged up the sprayer and was a bear to clean out of the cup completely. I've done very little French polishing but I am considering honing my skills and seeing if I want to do it on the hull. Mahogany is fairly porous and French polishing would work well filling those voids.
  4. Julie Mo
    I haven't been able to spend much time on the model lately but the time I did spend gave me pause. As expected, the planking became even more difficult as I laid the next 4-5 planks. I inserted two (2) spiles at the bottom of the keel (blue lines in photo below). Before I went any further, I decided it best I start drawing lines to see where all of this is going. I started by drawing parallel lines from the rail to the waterline (RTW). I want that area to remain at the same angle. The long lines follow the RTW angle and follow the plank when it is flush to the hull. The mid-point lines run parallel to the RTW angle. There is almost a full plank width void after plank #4 and again at plank #12. The first four (4) lines at the bottom of the keel run parallel to the last plank I laid. The rest run parallel to the RTW angle. After plank #8, there is about a 1/3 plank void and about 1/2 plank void after #12. But there is no room to fit in plank #16. As I reach the rudder, the planks are running almost parallel to the forward edge of the rudder. I probably need to make that exactly parallel. This is a bit more challenging than expected but I like it.
  5. Julie Mo
    Thank you, Roger! How interesting. I am so happy you chimed in. I learned a lot.
  6. Julie Mo
    Per, I have seen this on cold molded hulls. If you think about it, the planking is running with the wake created by the hull - slicing the water on contact and moving it aft. This is one of those cold molded hulls that gave me the idea. You can see the final planking runs the same as on my model
  7. Julie Mo
    You make a great point, Kurt. Rip blades always have less teeth than comparably sized crosscut blades because they need to remove waste that is parallel to the grain. The waste tends to be longer than crosscut waste so the gap between teeth needs to be greater. THAT is most likely the cause of the binding I've been experiencing.
  8. Julie Mo
    I use the this.
  9. Julie Mo
    Thanks, Bob. Last night I was visualizing the finish and started wondering how it would look if I dyed the bottom dark and the top light. Any bleed off from the dye could be covered with the waterline stripe. I haven't yet begun to experiment with dye tones on the hull though. When I was doing kitchen cabinets in the previous house, I mixed so many formulas, I became somewhat of a dye alchemist. When you get it right, it can be gorgeous. The hull is such a prominent part of the model it seems to me it HAS to look good or the entire model will look bad.
  10. Julie Mo
    Thank you, Keith. Tapering that spile to such a fine point took some time but I didn't want to have something like a drop plank or stealer in there. I was afraid it would be too obvious. I have also become aware of the need to keep the angle of the planking as close to the same throughout the hull as possible. Had I not been taking my time, I probably would have missed this. I didn't even see it until I looked at the pictures I took above. Another benefit of taking that first build slow.
  11. Julie Mo
    Thank you for taking the time to create that pictorial. Obviously the Byrnes is well suited for cutting modeling woods. It is, however, a substantial investment. Maybe if we weren't remodeling the house, I would consider the purchase but for now I will have to improvise. The veneer in your photo looks very flat. I managed to flatten the veneer I have in hopes of that making a difference. It didn't. I had no idea those blades had a 5/8" arbor. But their outside diameter may not be enough to use on a full size tablesaw. I have played with a lot of different methods but none seem to resolve the binding problem. The fence sits tight against the zero-clearance insert (I had to trim the fence to compensate for the slight sag in the insert), so that's not the problem. I am considering making up a wooden riving knife and gluing it into the insert. The flexibility of the veneer makes it too easy to bend, unlike more substantially sized lumber where all you have to do is keep the wood against the infeed side of the fence to ensure straightness.
  12. Julie Mo
    Spile added and planking proceeds I'll have to watch the diagonals to keep it looking the same along the entire hull, as it looks like spiles are unavoidable.
  13. Julie Mo
    I tried an aluminum ruler with an X-acto knife but it had a tendency to follow the grain. If I pressed the blade too hard against the ruler, it would start shaving off the aluminum. I tried a veneer saw but it was too time consuming. I also tried a veneer cutter but it couldn't cut perfectly straight edges without taking several passes. For full size projects, if I want parallel and straight, I go to the table saw. I can never get results as good with a bandsaw. Some woodworkers got rid of their tablesaws and use bandsaws exclusively and swear they can cut edges just as good with the bandsaw as with the tablesaw but I have never found that to be true. I think you can pull off cutting planking on a full size tablesaw as long as you have a perfectly flat, zero clearance insert, a perfectly straight fence that sits flush to the table and parallel to the blade, and a rip blade with a very thin kerf. The last one on that list, though, is a tough find.
  14. Julie Mo
    Bob, I love it! Thanks for sharing. My eyes are watering from laughing. The crazy things we do... Tonight I had a few moments to spend with my baby. I guess I laid maybe 10 more rows of planks. But as I laid another plank, I saw the clinker effect becoming more pronounced. All of the cold molding hulls I have seen are modern day designs, fin keel and all. I really wonder if a wood plank could make the twists and turns I am demanding on this build. Probably not. I laid a plank and let it follow its natural tendency. When I look at it from different points of view, it just doesn't look right. If I filled in the void with a tapered plank, I'm not so sure it would work visually. I'll have to think about this some more...
  15. Julie Mo
    Last night I decided to put the hide glue's ability to "unglue" by applying heat and water to see if I could pull up some of the planks toward the bow. I thought it would be easy. HA! That glue didn't want to let go at all. I took a wet paper towel and let it sit on the planks for about 5 minutes. Nada. So I took a hair dryer and set it on high and put it about an inch from the drenched planks. A little of the glue on the edges softened up. I continued applying the heat but the remaining glue just didn't let go. And this was only on the first plank. I managed to remove that plank after a lot of work but neither the moisture nor the heat worked. Since removing the planks was purely for aesthetic reasons, no sense putting in all that work for so little results. I plan on applying dye because I don't like the orange look so the dye should soften the color differences.
  16. Julie Mo
    Grant, I went to check the fence alignment. I never bothered to check it because, unlike my big table saw, the fence is fixed. I found it was back tapered .010" from the blade. I also found the zero clearance insert I made for that blade had a dip in it. I have a block of oak over the blade to keep the veneer down so I couldn't see it. But when I removed the oak block I found it. We'll have to see how the fixes worked. Michael, if the corrections I made don't work, I will give your method a try. As long as the sacrificial piece holds onto the veneer, it should work. Thanks guys!
  17. Julie Mo
    Thanks, Jay. I was just curious if a specialized TS like the Byrnes could eliminate the binding problems I'm having. I noticed the blade on your TS looks like a small version of a standard size TS blade, with teeth wider than the body of the blade. I think where I may be having binding problems is with the blade I'm using on a jobsite TS. The blade has a kerf of .023" and so does the outer inch or so of the blade body. There is no kerf "overhang", if you will. I have a block holding the veneer down but it still binds.
  18. Julie Mo
    Is that the Little Model Builder that could speaking? "I know I can. I know I can. I know I can..."
  19. Julie Mo
    Thanks, Bob. I needed to hear that. Sometimes I can be blind to my own work so outside input is always appreciated, good and bad. I am considering removing the planking toward the bow. The other planks look so good, they make the rest look blah. I'll have time to consider that because the house is nagging me again. But it was sure fun playing hooky.
  20. Julie Mo
    If I may ask, how does this TS cut veneer that is not flat?
  21. Julie Mo
    After yesterday's bone-rattling experience, it was good to give myself a break and hole up in the workshop. I didn't get to spend much time but I did manage to lay a few more rows. mineral spirits applied I'm a little upset with myself for not mixing up the planks at the beginning. Once I started doing that, the wood grain really started to show through. This shot told me I was on the right track with the diagonals. I was a bit worried how it would look as it reached midship.
  22. Julie Mo
    That brass strengthening strip really makes a big difference on your rudder, Keith. Very nice touch! Your metal work is amazing!
  23. Julie Mo
    That beast has a tiller!?!?!
  24. Julie Mo
    Thanks, Mike. I can see how the solid bulkheads would help deal with the forces at work when planking. It looks like a great solution when you can cover the plywood. If the frames on the lifeboat/tender were 1-1/2" thick full scale, I would need planks 0.043" thick for the model. And something tells me that even 1-1/2" frames are too large.
  25. Julie Mo
    Hi Keith, I understand what you said. I have yet to find a perfect solution to bending wood. But what David proposed is steaming wood, however that is achieved. That is the age-old process of making wood bend. The idea is to heat the lignens in the wood to the point they release their bond with the wood fibers, or so that is how I understand the process to be. I'm just trying to take what I know and make it work. _________________________________________________________________________________________ It's funny, even though I had reached the point I needed a break from the planking frenzy, before I retired for the night, I had to jump right back in. I had taken the hot hide glue and put it in a sealed container and placed it in the refrigerator. When I pulled it out this evening, it was a solid gel, pliable but not adhesive. I took a small portion and placed it in the already heated glue pot. And I returned to planking... All total I laid 46 rows of planks today. Not bad, I guess...

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