Overworked724

A bit of weekend-rainy day progress. After getting my top row of wales in (using Alaskan cedar), my intention was to focus on the exterior bulkhead planking. Rather than alternating port/starboard in a row by row fashion, I found myself pursued by the Muse of Completion and simply could not stop once I started the port side. Frankly, Since the bulkhead framing is so stable and supported, I'm not sure that the ship will be pulled out of alignment by completely planking only one side of the bulkhead at one time. If I screw up my model, I'll consider it a valuable lesson learned! In the meantime, I was more focused on trying to determine if my seventh row of planks was in jeopardy due to the 'upsweep' I saw when placing the wales in the bow section. Short answer is 'Yes'. I'll get to that... I decided since I had such accurately cut planks, to treat each section between the ports as a separate section...and trust in the Good Lord that my accuracy in cutting my planks was as good as I had hoped. So I started with the initial plank with required the 'sill' cut outs for the ports... Progressed to the easier 'between port' sections.... And found myself cutting out the 'lintels' in the top plank of the ports (6th plank above the wales)...only to see that the bulkhead framing near the bow was a too short for secure placement of the seventh plank...by about 2mm or so...roughly the height of that marginal upsweep I had posted a concern over in my past entry. So, I decided to glue an 'extender' plank in the inside of the 6th plank to offer some gluing surface area before fiddling with the seventh plank. I can easily remove this later if needed...but I've learned surface area is everything when glueing...and I'm still a beginner! I need as much help as I can get... This actually worked very well. The seventh plank slid on with no issue and seems the overall layout seems to be pretty close to the plans. It's also much more sturdy - you can feel it. Sanding the interior won't seem like such a horrendously sensitive task now (but I'll still be very careful). There is some sanding to be done in the bow. The planks tended to relaxed a bit... But luckily my cedar plank strips are slightly wider than 1/18"...by a nanometer or two! The unevenness in the bow will be addressed by sanding very easily, but I'll wait until I've done with the starboard bulkhead planking and placed the other two wale strips before I start mucking about with sanding. There is a LOT of sanding still in my future - and why rush it. One nice thing to note...I am really enjoying working with the cedar wood. This is my first time using a wood other than basswood and I can truly understand now why modelers don't prefer basswood. The cedar has a tighter grain, and leaves a much cleaner cut, and does not get all 'thready'. I've already decided that I prefer the yellowish color. So I'll be a bit different and leave the natural wood color....so I'll stain with Minwax Natural stain and follow it up with tung oil...when I get to that point. I will redo my 'faux' deck using cedar to match the main deck. I'll be using toothpicks for trunnels. Moving on...to the starboard side...and praying that the work and plank alignment will match!!!

If you are checking with a spare piece of planking, and the run of the plank looks OK on the faired piece, you should be OK. Just from looking at it, it looks alright. But you won't really know until you need to bend the strip around the corner and see how it lays. Looking good though!

You did a beautiful job on the redo. Very clean work!!!!

Some very small progress. Took me a while to convince myself the batten to align the upper wale was correct. I checked and rechecked the plans vs Chuck’s practicum. I finally resigned myself to the “every ship is different” motto and stuck in the pins and marked my hull. I’m glad I got some cedar sheets from Chuck’s Syren company a while back. I love the smell, and the planks really do hold an edge. They cut very easily and they are blessedly not as hairy and thready as basswood. Once I got the upper wale in, I Noticed a slight upsweep at the bow. Not sure if it will cause problems, but at least they are symmetrical. Moving on...slowly slowly.

My bad... 😫 I checked as well. No boxwood. Sorry about that. On the bright side, your work in basswood (as crappy as basswood can be) is awesome. 👍🏽

Hmmm. Might be wrong, but I thought stem and stern pieces were boxwood. 🤔 (And I am wrong quite often...so apologies if I gave faulty info!!!)

Hey...just thinking outside the box(wood)...the kit comes with some pieces laser cut in boxwood I believe. If you kept the fragments, I’m sure you could layer them to give you a good foundation for carving. Kind of like the ship’s boat. You could just layer the fragments and cut out the block size you need for carving. 👍🏽

I think it's a completely different skill set. If you take time to learn it, you can't un learn it...and you'll only get better. What a fun challenge!! Besides, do you really want to slap those metal monstrosities on the side of your ship? LOL. Looks great! (Already better than the metal pieces.)

That’s got to be a relief! Getting those on and aligned can be a bear. Very nice result. She looks beautiful!

A bit more progress. Touched up a few of the ports with filler...a couple were pretty rough. Smoothed out OK. Didn't go hog wild with the paint, but I made sure I got full coverage on the exterior and interior walls. I even painted the interior walls of the sweep ports - until I remembered I still had considerable interior wall sanding to do.... Took the plunge and attached the stern framing...I almost didn't want to do it! Once I glued the piece in, and ensured it was square and set, it really sticks out as one of those pieces that's screams, "Hey! Knock me off! I dare you!" As flimsy as it looks, the filler pieces supports it perfectly, and the stern assembly is supported and glued to both it and to the last frame (26). So it's pretty locked in...but it still looks like a hook from the side. So I'll be relieved to get the bulk head planking underway to give to additional support. Here are some baby pics. It looks remarkably like most other Syren builds at this stage. Although the paint shows up as 'red' - it's actually a darker red or vermillion. I wanted something a bit less gaudy, and bright cherry red is my least favorite color. So I added a few drops of 'gunmetal grey' and 'desert yellow' to a 'red' pot of Tamiya paint. It looks pretty close to blood, even though the pics don't reflect it...and I prefer the darker hue. Moving on...

Really crisp work! Beautiful!!

In my efforts to procrastinate for permanently attaching the stern framing, I decided to make a plank bender. Chuck references using screws but I had some 3/16” dowels handy and thought I’d make a mass (7x plank) bender! First I made a little plank soaker using an old tube. Since the planks want to float up, a Dixie cup with a clamp acts as a impromptu weight. My first trial run worked fine...but upon inspection noticed I had cut the dowels a bit short. Ok...so it’s a 6x plank bender. Moving on...

Thanks, Will! It’s slow but steady!

After incredibly serious deliberation assisted by several beers, I’ve decided to use some of the stock of Alaskan cedar to plank the exterior bulkheads. I actually enjoyed cutting my 1/16” sheets into plank strips. The cedar has a pleasant aroma and is a soft and even yellowish cream color. Most importantly...I am SURE of the dimensions of the strips, and used them to create a 7 plank guide per Chuck’s practicum. The strips won’t run the full length of the ship, but that’s ok...I cut 32 15” strips so I have more than enough to plank above the wales. The wales and the rest of the lower planking of the ship will be done in basswood. I also went ahead and tried the golden oak stain on the template and I like how evenly the stain absorbed. Moving on...

Outstanding...another Syren build! Watching with interest!

Awesome! Another Syren build! Will watch with great interest. Love your building board...wow...looks like you need a pilot's license to run it! 😃

I realize I have been saying 'transom' when I actually meant 'stern framing'. Oh well...live and learn new nautical terms! Putzed a bit with the STERN FRAMING today...whittled the sides and counter protrusion so it marries up with my test planking. (I'm going to assume I'm close...but it's a coin flip!). Actually, my dremel and a tongue depressor sanding stick (240 grit) were all the tools I required to make quick work of the trim job. I think I have hit the point where I need to jump into the more difficult and finicky part. With my exterior sanded and ready for planking, I am both nervous and reluctant to permanently attach the stern frame piece to the ship. I also need to determine what wood I choose to commit for the exterior hull planking as well as the deck. Also - whether I want to take the plunge and make an attempt at creating my own hull sheaves (saw some builds where this really made a nice impression)...decisions, decisions... Moving on...

A bit of progress to report. I got the un and sweep ports in. Sanding down the outer bulkheads will be easier of than the inner side, considering the inner bulkheads have that slight 'lean', making sanding a bit more problematic due to the leaning in of the bulkheads. I think I've created 8 different sanding blocks - and about 5-6 different sanding sticks. One thing I want to keep from doing is over sanding. I'm using 160 grit paper and manually taking down the excess after trimming down the meat of the lintels/sills/filler blocks with a Dremel sanding drum. I used a pencil to color in the bulkhead frames which are recessed from the added blocks. Once the pencil marks start fading, I know I've sanded to the bulkhead. (Easy tricks are best when generating so much saw dust!) Outer sanding is pretty much done...and I'm amazed I haven't snapped anything else off! Lines look OK, and the gun ports and sweep ports are symmetrical and spaced appropriately. OK...is it me or is it just fun taking pics of your build? It's almost like I want to show it off before I do something horribly wrong which will take me weeks to correct! But one point of interest...I finally have an excuse to slip on the transom (which was built off the ship as a separate piece). Not time to glue in just yet, but I can at least show how easy it is to slide on...shaping the transom off the ship should be a bit easier (I hope). Moving on...!

Well...made a mistake. Working late in the ship room and sawed off the wrong bulkheads. Don’t know how I did that! No major damage...decided to bolster the section with a piece of 1/8” thick strip wood used for planking. Got most of the sweep ports/gun ports setup...just a ton of sanding and shaping to do. Just for fun, here is a pic of my shipyard which doubles as my work from home office. The admiral ninja-snapped a photo during my recent ship club meeting! 😊 Moving on....

Awesome! She turned out brilliant! Very clean job. That’s toast worthy.

Slow on this part makes all the difference. I think it's one of the more eye catching parts of a copper bottomed ship. You are doing a bang up job so far...very clean!!! Beautiful!!!

Welcome!!!!

I’d love to do this with you and the gang, Chuck. But I Don’t think I have the bandwidth for this and to complete the Syren. Hoping for another scratch build opportunity with you on the forum soon since I’m still developing my skills! 😊

Thanks, Dave. Everyone seems to have a bit of a different approach to making the bolt pattern on the brass plates. I’m glad I did this now though...I could see myself getting hung up and discouraged while my ship sat in the background waiting to be coppered!! 🤣

Well, after being reminded (thanks Dubz) that I had not yet made the third template for the top row of brass plates, I took time today to make it and discovered a couple things. In making my top row template jig, I noticed the 'bolts pattern' in the trial copper plate were a touch "off kilter". I would guess that in drilling the holes in the cherry wood I used for the jig, the tiny drill bit might be following the wood grain and perhaps coming through the other side a bit off center from the top hole. Since the pins in my jigs are not glued (friction holds them in), and since the top and bottom of the wood pin holder are the same (there is no 'handedness' like the Port and Starboard templates), I just reversed the orientation of the wood and pushed the pins through the other side...and voila...straight bolt pattern. See below...the top plate was the original wood/pin orientation, and the bottom pic is reversing the wood and pins so the pins are coming out the face of the side which was 'marked and drilled'. Not certain how else to describe it, but my earlier posts show how I made my templates and they are easy to modify. You can see the bottom plate in the pic shows a marked improvement in the alignment of the 'bolt pattern'. It turned out pretty good! After getting my 'Top Row' jig made, and since I was plunking with my brass plate jigs, I noticed that I accidentally made two Starboard template jigs! Well...this sort of pissed me off. I was lamenting making another jig...However, since I had such success in reversing the pins in the 'Top Row' jig above, I decided to do the same for one of my Starboard template jigs. Reversing the pins simply results in a mirror image...or a Port side jig! The result speaks for itself...I am glad I designed my jigs for easy disassembly without glueing in the pins!! It saved me a lot of frustration after discovering my error!!! TaaaDaaaa! In the end, my trio of jigs work nicely, and give consistent plates...and they look like weird chess pieces. Moving on....back to the gun and sweep ports, and the nail-biting pressure of trying not to snap off the little bits!