EJ_L

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.

Almost any ship in 1:48 scale will be huge. Personally I am a fan of huge ships as they provide a great opportunity to really make some outstanding details. As Mike said though, think ahead about the space requirements both to build her and then to display her. The ship size is big to begin with but a display case will ad several inches more to all of your dimensions. Fortunately, the long build time gives you plenty of time to figure out what to do. Good Luck!

Wow! That is truly impressive! Seeing her out in the sunlight really enhances all the fine work you are doing. I hope that table is on wheels to help you move her around or do you have help? How heavy is she?

After what was a very slow build week last week, Sunday proved to be very fruitful with a nice 8 hour build. So what did that time give me? Port side channels and deadeyes. Starboard side are all prepped and ready and should get installed later this week.

Robin, your ship is looking fantastic! There may be flaws but the good quality and craftsmanship you are showing far outdo any flaws. I had to do a double take on your first picture as I thought your ship was flying! I'm no history major but I was fairly certain that the ancient Greeks, nor the modern ones for that matter learned to make a ship fly. Maybe I'm more tired after today than I thought.

I too get the stray dog hairs on my work. Found one glued to a port lid the other night. Must have gotten right in there when I was installing and I overlooked it. I don't mind those as much as when I see one of mine and I start feeling feeling for that receding hairline that runs in my family. As too the hatch covers, I would think that they would be rather heavy duty in order to both stay as water tight as possible and not to easily come unseated in rough seas. I could easily see two people having to lift them up and out of the way. Large rings would be a benefit here so that a sailor could get both hands into the ring to lift it. Either way, hatch looks great!

Nice work on your planking Don. She is starting to show her shape now and it is looking good. That is one of the nice advantages of paint and copper plating the hull is that you don't have to worry as much about smaller imperfections or double planking. Just sand smooth to the right shape and cover. It is still a lot of work but it looks like you are handling it well.

That hatch is excellent. I may have to give that blackening agent a try.

Nice work! I love all the little details you have been including. They make for a much more incredible ship and like you said, the nice thing about modeling in 3D is that you are not trapped by physics in your build. You can add, remove and place anything, anywhere at anytime. I don't think you can post videos directly here but if you upload them to YouTube, you can link them to your posts that way. I have seen many posts done that way.