EJ_L

That is why I position a lot of my pictures so at least part of my bar is in the background. Always have a something to refresh my crew with after a long day at the ship yard and maybe a splash or two for the foreman when no one is looking... Excellent work! You sure are packing a lot of nice details into a small ship. I'm enjoying every update!

Great idea using those paper punch outs as shingles. Looks very time consuming placing them one by one but that is what makes a great model! You may have to do some mixing to get the right shade as most of the ready made copper paints I have are all on the bright side.

She sure is looking good! Really like her colors. Just rain here but unfortunately I am at work which means no ship yard time till tonight. At least I can still use my lunch time to read up on all the fine builds going on out there!

I've got two lathes already! A full size and and a mini but unfortunately until we move to the new house, hopefully next month, my shop is shut down as it is now a storage unit. lol As for Christmas and new tools, I am really wanting a Byrnes table saw. I have a very nice full size saw for my regular wood working but I really want a mini that I can use to mill more of my own lumber with closer tolerances and a lot less waste than what I can do now.

I have had that happen, I think it is just a bad habit I need to break of waiting till after it breaks to fix it instead of being proactive. Robin, we all learn from each other and sometimes the new guy can say or ask something that gives even the most experienced (which I am not) a chance to learn a new way or see something in a different light. That is why questions and comments are vital to the continued growth of this hobby.

Excellent! Your bireme has been very educational to watch come together and I am looking forward to watching those triremes come together for the same reason.

I usually just glue them however, I have in the past gone in with actual pins that I drilled into the bottom of the posts and into the decks. In all reality, to actually pin them is the better course of action. The more I'm typing this the more I'm thinking about changing them to actually pinned and not just glued for the additional strength. Easier to do now than later when I usually have to fix stuff.

On the paper clips, all I do is remove the handles off of one clip then insert one of those handles into the jaws of another so that it lays flat on the base of the jaw. This allows the rounded head to stick out of the jaws to the side. Now when I clamp them to the frame, the clips have a ledge that can be place on top of the plank to provide downward pressure. If you are still unsure I can post a pictire tonight when I get home. I have not used water to close up nail holes myself. It sounds good other than I wonder what happens when the wood dries out. Doest it open back up? That may be worth testing for future knowledge. Small amounts of wood filler can also be used to fill in the holes. The thing to keep in mind with fillers is what kind of finish are you planning? A painted or coppered hull hides things very well and therefore the type and amount of filler is less important. A stained or just varnished hull allows the natural wood colors to come through however, using a minimum of filler and one that matches the wood color is a must so that it isn't as noticable. Both are great choices as ships usually were painted to help protect the wood as well as display a countries colors. Using natural wood coloring takes a bit more planning as you have to think about how different woods look with each other and it is less forgiving but when cleaned up and varnished provides a unique beauty in itself. Personnaly I like natural wood but I have done both and again, no right or wrong to this. It is all the builders preference but ot is something to think about to know what your options are for planking mistakes and repairs.

In response to nailing I will first ask are you single or double planking the hull? The reason this matters is for the final appearance of the wood. When you use nails to secure the planks you are left with holes in your planks that then need to be filled. On a double planked hull, the first layer gets covered up so no problems with nail holes. On a single and on the second planking of a double, you do not want to drive nails through the boards as then you are left with oversized nail holes. Options to prevent this are many so I will tell you what I do. Again, look through build logs at various other methods also and decide what works best for you. What I use are modified paper clamps that will clamp onto the frames and hold down the plank to the frame. (See build log for pictures) When extra pressure is needed I will sometimes drive a nail above the plank so that it puts downward pressure on the edge of the plank not in the plank itself. I also use a mixture of glues. I will lay a thin bit of wood glue and use CA glue provide a fast, hard bond while the wood glue sets up. This also helps eliminate the need to nail the boards down as I only need a temporary hold for just a few minutes. Now to answer your question about nailing without a nailer, one methos that I use is first predrill the hole for the nail as this helps to prevent the wood from splitting. To actually place the nail I will use either tweezers or needle nose pliers to hold the nail and then use a finish or jewelers hammer to actually drive the nail. Hope this helps!

Thanks Bill! Much appreciated. Been a productive day today between cooking and ship building. House smells delicious and the bits have been built and installed. Still have a few odds and ends to add but I have also begun to plan and build the bowsprit. This will also be my first challenge with the round platforms that the ships of this era had. I will be relying heavily on Michael's (md1400cs) work on his Wasa build as the platforms on it are the same design used on la Couronne. Now for the entertainment! Enjoy the pictures!

Don't ever worry about asking to many questions. We all had them at the start of our building and we found our answers by asking too. As with most answers on here there is rarely one way only to do things. On a real ship a strake would not be a single piece of wood running the entire length of the ship. You would not find trees big enough nor straight enough to do that. So all strakes were made up of smaller planks. Now, in model building, you have the advantege of having wood stips long enough to run each strake in a single piece. This is an acceptable way to plank a hull and many people will do this and then simple cut the individual planks into the wood later. Some advantages to this method is that the planking gets done faster and it is easier to bend a long board than a short board. Personally, I prefer to cut my boards into the individual planks and assemble them that way. An advantage to this is I only have to fit a small piece at a time and if something screws up I only have to remove a couple smaller boards. Measuring is more crucial though as you need accurate guidelines to make sure you stay on track and in alignment. As to dry fitting all the strakes in place before gluing, that is a good idea if you can make it work. Due to the curvature of the hull, I am not sure they would stay in proper place long enough or without a lot of frustration. However, just because I do not know does not mean it can't be done! Your hull is much smaller than the one I am building and so you may be able to get them to stay easier as you have far less strakes than I. If you have marked out on the edges of your frames each strake and they are the same number of strakes on each frame and you follow your marks when installing, you will be fine. Just take your time and make sure each piece fits properly before gluing.

We all work at different speeds. It may be slow but wow!!! Incredible work and workmanship. When you look at all the details, big and small, and high quality of your work and finish it is easy to see why it takes so long to build. In any event, even if it takes another 4 years, you will have one outstanding model and we are all going to enjoy seeing you put her together.

One thing I will highly suggest doing before you plank would be to add filler blocks to the bow and stern areas. With the curvature of the hull in those areas the fillers will help you by giving more places to anchor planks to. Check out the start of almost any build log, mine included and you will see them for reference. As for letting the planking run long, my question is, does your kit provide a stem, keel and stern pieces to attach to the false keel? If so then yes, leaving them long to trim back later is a good idea as you can easily cut and sand them to allow the stem and stern pieces to go into place. If not, then You will need to cut a rabbit into the false keel to allow the planks to tuck into the wood and you will need to cut them to fit. As to the numbering and order of planking, this is all personal preference. After I have my layout and know where my lowermost wale will be, I flip her over and plank from the keel upward. I have found that this allows me more forgiveness in hiding mistakes as I can always adjust as I go up and hide things easier under the wales than if I go down as there is no forgiveness at the keel. Again, this is personal preference only. As to deck alignment, yes, planks would typically be aligned with the deck. This is often used if a person chooses to plank from top down to the keel as the deck provides a good reference point. Also this allow for one full plank to lay under the gun ports and form a base point in measuring those openings. See how your layout looks with your planking. More than likely it will work out the way it is supposed to if you measure right. I would concentrate more on making sure all your planks are going to lay right and and run without having to add stealers and drop planks at this point. How the planks align to the deck is far less of an issue especially on your first build.

I agree with Michael on taking the opportunity to learn the skill. The more practice you take the easier and quicker it becomes. One of the reasons I like double planked hulls. I try to build both layers as if they were the finish layer so that hopefully one day I can just single plank my hulls like they should be. I'm not that good yet. Always give your planking your best and that will also aid in making a nice smooth finish for you copper which if something becomes a whoops can cover right up. Something else to keep in mind with coppering is that glues do not always want to stick to wood fillers, plaster, sheet rock mud or many types of smoothing agents that are used when compared to raw wood. Having your hull with as minimal of filler on it is definitely a worth while goal to help out later. In any event, I know you will make a great looking ship!

Thanks for the advice. I'm not sure about 1:60 off hand. If you know what the actual size is I use an app on my phone for conversions. It is free by Woodland Scenics called Model Scaler. As it is made for model railroading it comes set up with all the common model railroad scales but it has a spot to enter and save custom scales. I have all the ones that I am currently using in there. It is great for scaleing both up and down and will convert between imperial and metric units. I know that for my 1:100 I need them no bigger than 3mm (1/8") diameter and no more than 1.5mm (1/16") thick for a single. Honestly, a little smaller than that would really be better as in some cases that would be very tight to fit in the openings. My next build at 1:77 gives a little more room fortunately but they will still be small.

Thanks Bob and Don for you input. That has been what I was leaning towards so I'm thinking that will be where it goes. Had a night of learning on the bits last night. Made great progress on the posts but the belaying pins have been a nightmare. The ones supplied in the kit look great but are a bit oversized. Not horribly but enough that they have been causing alignment and spacing issues. After many split pieces of wood and restarts I think I now have a workable solution. Unfortunately I probably won't get to find out till tomorrow as today is going to be yet another busy day of packing up the house to get ready for the move. I'm glad I only have two of these to make. I do have a few pin rails to build though. Oh well, all part of the fun! On a side note, does anyone know a good source for the small pulleys that can be used inside of sheave holes and blocks? Right now I am carving them into the posts of the bits and they don't look too bad and honestly won't be seen once the rigging is in place but, I wouldn't mind putting something better in and especially on the next build which is a larger scale and will be more noticeable.

Looks like you have found a method that works good for you and are off to a good start! My word of caution to you would be to remember that your space will narrow at the bow and often at the stern as well. Make sure you are tapering your planks in those areas so they will all fit otherwise as you continue you will run out of space and will end up with short planks and planks that end in funny spots. Looking forward to your updates as your ship is shaping up nicely!

Clamps of various types are often needed to help pull everything together. I would recommend looking through the planking section under building tips. There are many good threads there to read and links to some videos as well. Fairing the frames is a crucial first step. To do that you will lay a plank across the edges of the frames. The plank should lay flat and flush with no gaps between the plank and the frame. Where the gaps exists, sand the high sides until the plank lays completely on the frame. You also may want to practice bending the wood supplied. All wood bends a little differently so a practice piece is recommended so you can get familiar with it. Learning to lay out your planking so you get the strakes correct in both number and widths is another thing to learn. To do this you need to first determine the width of the planks you are going to use. Once you have the width of the plank you need to measure the most center frame from keel to the wales. The center frame is the bigges frame and so it sets the maximum number of planks. That dimension divided by the width of the plank will give you the number of strakes needed. Now measure each frame in the same manner. As you get closer to the bow and stern the dimemsions will get smaller. Take the dimension of each frame and divide that by the number of strakes that you established earlier. This will give you the width of each strake at each frame. Again, the strakes should get narrower at the bow and stern. I know this is a lot to take in and framing is one of the most complicated parts of building. Again, read through some of the tutorials and check out some build logs for help. Practice and take your time and it will come together.

I have to hand it you making all those oars Robin. I need to make four for my launch and I've been putting them off. Then again, I'm currently carving bits and sheave holes in 1:100 scale so I guess we all enjoy torture in some form.

Alright! I see you are off and running with your build. I've got my drink in hand with plenty more to share. I'll pull up a chair and follow along. Your kit looks like it has nice clean parts in it so hopefully that holds true. I will offer a few words of caution at the start. With those frames, make sure they get installed square to the false keel. This is very important as if they are not then your hull could build out of shape. Double check them with a square and don't rely on laser cut pieces to be accurate. Also take you time and fair the frames properly so that all your planking will lay flat and true. This is not a race so those extra hours that you take now will pay off in a huge way later. I know that excitement of wanting to build quickly and I can tell you first hand about the pain that comes from rushing. My current build suffers from not taking a few extra steps in that my false keel was warped. I made effort to straighten it up but I reached "good enough" earlier than I should have so I could move on and now the bow of my ship is slightly twisted. I have had to make a lot of adjustments ever since to make it look good. Lesson, do it right from the start. I'm looking forward to watching you move along in your build!

Don, Robin, Frank, thank you all for the compliments and thank you to everyone for the likes and just stopping in to take a look. Got the catheads installed last night. Still trying to figure out where the cleat to tie off the rigging will go. Plans do not even show the catheads let alone the rigging or tie off points for the anchors. I know how the rigging will run and how to do that after searching through other plans and build logs but I'm still not certain on the placement of the cleat. I have seen many different places, the deck, back of cathead beam and even a few that have it tied off to a belaying pin on the rail. I'm currently leaning towards a cleat on the back of the cathead beam but I am open to suggestions. I also installed the kevals, which you can see a pair of in the picture. I almost forgot about them until I was looking at the picture to upload. I will take a better one of them later. Meanwhile, enjoy the picture!

Great work Elijah! I will second the comment to replace the ships wheel with a custom built one. It would be a fun project for you to do and it sounds like you have a great club to help you out. Plus you can always fall back on the cast one if you need to. I always like having the scale figures to put on models. Adds a bit of life to them and the reference points that they provide make putting into perspective the size of these vessels easier. I typically prefer my sailors to have clothes though...

Lots of great detail pieces! Those doors and windows are excellent and I like your fix to the oversize holes. Paint and weathering is well done also.

There are many decent video tutorials on YouTube. Are you looking for something specific? Typically you will find them sorted out by a certain thing. Planking, rigging, canons, paint, stain etc.. What I will do is use the search bar and type in something like "planking a model ship" or "rigging a model ship" and that will bring up a long list of good videos. I would recommend watching several of them as everyone has a different technique and you may find one that you understand and like better than others.

Hi Don! Found your log this morning and I must say that you are making a nice little skiff. Great work so far, I'll be looking forward to seeing more as she progresses.