Overworked724

Ok...interesting use of duct tape on the sanding sticks! 👍🏽 That’s a keeper idea for future!

Nice job so far on the ship’s boat! 👍🏽Really clean!

The brass lettering came with the kit. Got the ultra thin birch plywood from Hobby Lobby. The boxwood trim I made myself as I am trying to get away from basswood. 😆

My first was the Sultana. The detailed practicum was invaluable...but this forum was priceless. See my build log in the links below. But remember to have fun!!! Welcome!

Working on transom cap rail. Before I start painting, wanted to figure out how I’ll mount the name plate. Decided for a simple option. Cut some really thin 0.4mm birch plywood into a strip slightly wider then the brass letter height. Paint it black. Then mounted the letters on the plywood strip. I’ll mount the top trim piece, then the name plate section, followed by the final trim piece. Although the center section is bowed outward somewhat in the pic below, the letters will not sit proud beyond the width of the boxwood trim pieces. It should look something like below... Nice thing here...once the transom is painted, mounting the trim pieces and wood strip with the name will be infinitely easier than trying to stick those tiny letters directly on the transom. 👍🏽

Not gone....just distracted by my Syren!

Uh Oh....I see a slight scratch on the 3rd board starboard of the main mast hole! I think you might need redo the entire deck! (kidding) Remind me again - is your deck made of pear or boxwood? And did you prestain it? It looks fantastic!

Exactly! I still go back and forth between my building board and keel clamp...its good to have options.

Love my keel clamp. I actually attached it to a rectangular base of 3/4" plywood. It's as solid as a rock...and I can move the entire assembly with ship attached with confidence rather than leave it clamped on the edge of the desk. Great investment.

I truly hope they give you some great pics of it standing in it's final resting place!

Howdy, Bill. Actually, my ports aren’t perfect squares 😣. I installed my lintels in the manner of a plank, following the sweep of the ship bow to stern. When I installed the uprights to form the ports, it obviously yielded a slight trapezoid effects in the bow and stern. However, it’s a small imperfection I’ll learn from!👍🏽 See my blog. Like others, I focused on simply taking out the meat of the lintels/sills and installing the sections to form the ports. After that, I faired the exterior and interior evenly (as best I could). For the exterior, my primary weapon for fairing the bulkheads evenly was a paint stirrer with 180grit sand paper glued to it....it worked quickly and was long enough to give even coverage. I think you make have over faired (rounded) your stanchions. You might be able to rebuild them by using additional uprights where you can right next to them to create kind of a support stanchion....this would give you a surface which your planks would sit on...or you could add some shims to the overfaired parts and sand down. It looks like you may have used a dremel or a rounded sanding stick or dowel. I’d try using a flat surface to keep the run of you exterior flat and even. Hope that helps.

Looking good! Nice job on your planking!

Wow! She turned out nice. Hey...stain away! I'm sure it was worth it to see a nice planking job completed and clean. Nice work!

Dave, I’ve got nothing on you. Your work shows both patience and skill. Not sure I could repeat what you are doing to the same effect. Bloody nice work!

I feel your pain! 😳 I’m still coughing up sawdust. 😜

Really clean work, Dave. Your brass and metal work really sparkle!

Well...I couldn't help myself. Had to continue on with my train of thought on the elevations screws and elevation handle of the carronades to see if my idea worked and it did. Took an 18G dispensing needle and made a 'tree nail' corer like I did before. Put it in my drill press (with the drill OFF) and pressed out some larger gauge wooden tree nails. The cedar wood is pretty nice for this...the nails come out very clean! After cutting the bottom off the wooden nails stack and poking them out, I found the hole for the elevation screw on the 3D printed cannon was slightly small. So I opened them up a bit wider with a #64 drill bit and they slide in perfectly with a small bit of 'wiggle'. Used my little 90 degree cross drill jig to make a hole of the side of the wooden dowel I'll use for the elevation screw. In this case, the wooden dowel size was a #64 drill bit, and the cross hole which will hold the wire simulating the elevation handle is a #77 bit. Drill my hole in the dowel... And then slid in a little chunk of 0.4mm black wire as a handle...seized it in with a tiny spot of CA and added to each end of the handle. I think it's worth noting that the 3D printed carronade with sled did not have any detail related to an elevation handle on the elevation screw. So...I'm going to call this a win...and move on!

And now for something fun but ridiculous. I finished my interior bulkhead sanding (at least as best I can possibly do...) but took a slight detour back to the carronades. I was wrestling with how I would create the elevation screw handle on the carronade elevation screws. This would be a piece of wire inserted into the elevation screw (wooden dowel/toothpick/whatever). The probelm - these things are fricking TINY! I'm not handy, nor a carpenter, nor a miniature modeler...so this was a bit outside my realm. It occurred to me I can make the reproducible cedar trunnels/nails of exact width...so why not figure a simple way to drill a hole in the tiny dowel. My solution. Use a small scrap piece of cherry wood (hard wood) as a drilling guide. Make some #80 holes at 90 degree angles to each other so the holes intersect. The smaller holes can be widened easier with larger drill bits as needed. I made a #72 and #80 drill bit size cross angle...and inserted my larger cedar nails (made to fit a #75 drill bit hole). Inserted the cedar trunnel into the guide hole (marked #72) - and then drilled by hand into the guide hole marked '80' with my rotary tool fit with a #80 drill bit. And it worked like a charm...the trunnels don't move, and can be easily drilled at 90 degrees for easy insertion of the wire 'handle'. And just for scale...these things are ridiculous tiny!! Just a fun aside! It's probably been done by others on the forums, but it was a nice problem to solve on my own and see it work!

Got 2 of those suckers. I absolutely love mine. You might want to ensure you have a good collet collection. The rotary I use accepts the Dremel collets so it makes it easy to adapt.

Excellent work on the paint scheme!

Pristine work! Wonderful build!!!

Thanks, Smotyka! Much appreciated. Although, I can only claim responsibility for googling what options are out there, if my efforts help others than it's time well spent! That's the goal of this forum!! 😃

Howdy, Red. I can't say for sure what @WalrusGuy used. But as for me, in my build log I show the rotary tool I use which allows a closer approach to tight areas. I used a simple Dremel drum sander (big drum as well as narrow) to 'rough' crop the sills but still allowed them to be proud (wider) than the stanchions. Since you need to add the 1/4" sections to make your gun a sweep ports, the sanding regime never seems to stop. But I used a drum sander on my rotary for the exterior as you mention. Than hand sanded with finer grits for finishing up the exterior with sanding sticks/pads/etc. (I made a bunch of sanding implements for hand sanding). The interior I rough sanded with the dremel and folded section of 120 grit rotary sanding paper with the self adhesive back. I describe this is my blog as well. I'm finishing up the interior bulkhead sanding as I write this and I'll show some pics on what I used in a future post. It's such a bothersome chore...I bet folks simply don't like writing about it! 😃

A bit of progress and a bit of a disappointment. Before I painted the transom interior (red) or exterior (black below trim pieces) I wanted to drill out the rudder hole. It’s a bit of a dicey activity for my way of thinking as you have no “redos”. I can say I did a decent job of drilling out the rudder hole without causing damage...but...I can see the rudder hole is a bit offset by about 2mm when viewed from the bow...but it is centered between the stern gun ports, meaning the port side transom extends out a bit wider than the starboard. There’s no fixing the error...just going to build around it and hope the visual noise of rigging and fixtures overwhelms the assymetry. Sigh....

Just a bit more surgery on the 3D carronades. Before I put them off to the side, I wanted to check the fit of the hole on the top for the breech lines. Glad I did...they needed to be opened a bit to accept the 0.025” rope. So reamed them all out with a #66 drill bit. Did the same for the elevation screw holes...they might need additional widening but there is plenty of meat left for that if needed. Was thinking about how to make the elevation screws and think I already know how to approach them...I will use a same approach I used for the cedar trunnels but with a slightly larger gauge needle. Then I’ll have consistency across all the carronades, and there may be (?) enough meat to drill a hole for the screw handles (wire). We shall see... Moving on to inner bulwarks...again.