Brucealanevans

Fascines (ad hoc additional protection for the crew) done and tied in place. A big step which took 3 days of work. When all was said and done I used the 1/32 square strips without rounding each one (of 160) off with a drawplate. The difference in appearance was minimal and I had just enough strips (each fascine contains 40) so breakage would have been problematic. Aged them with Micro Mark "Weather-It".
Tomorrow the top battens for the canopy frame go on.

Fascines (ad hoc additional protection for the crew) done and tied in place. A big step which took 3 days of work. When all was said and done I used the 1/32 square strips without rounding each one (of 160) off with a drawplate. The difference in appearance was minimal and I had just enough strips (each fascine contains 40) so breakage would have been problematic. Aged them with Micro Mark "Weather-It".
Tomorrow the top battens for the canopy frame go on.

I have finished all the deck detail now. Playing with placement - will fasten things down tomorrow and start on the fascines.
Making powder bags and hollowing out a third party barrel to accept them was the most tedious part of this.
I did use some third party boxwood buckets, but had to thin them down from the inside to get the thickness to some approximation of scale.
Turns out a black sharpie works great on the elevated "hoops" of commercial barrels, after "aging" them with a vinegar soak which removed the shiny finish. I wish the barrels were slightly bigger as they are a bit too small for quarter and half barrels at this scale, but just acceptable.

Put up the canopy frames and the racks for gunnery equipment for the swivels and the 9 pounders. The former rack was indicated on the Smithsonian plans but not the kit plans.
Making the gunnery equipment took as long as making and installing the canopy frames, but with the racks staring me in the face I went ahead with that equipment and installed them in the racks. I also put (not yet glued) a rammer/sponge and ladle/worm in the foredeck for the 12 pounder while I was in that production mode.
I have some detail (mainly chests, buckets, and barrels) to add to the deck that will be under the battens/rolled canopty/sweep rack and sweeps so will do that before moving on to the battens over the canopy frames. I think I will want to install the fascines prior to that as well to facilitate their lashings to the frames without obstruction.
All of the significant construction is now done - I can see the end in sight. Making the fascines will, however, be a real PITA. 160 1/32 x 1/32 strips await rounding with a drawplate and cutting, gathering, and binding into the fascines, several of which will need to be bent into curves prior to installation. Thankfully these are all specified well in the Smithsonian plans as well as how they are fastened.
 
I have humbly added a "kit bash" tag to this build log given the addition of sails and detailing.

Fore Rails up and anchors rigged with hawser, stop rope, lashing pendant and fish line.
The stop rope should have been larger diameter but I was out of .025 and was impatient. Bad model builder!

Thanks John, I appreciate that. One of the bits of fun working in this scale is the ability to push the envelope with detailing.
Downside: those Smithsonian plans were expensive, but I could not have done much of this without them and their wealth of detail. Not enough detail in the two books about the Philadelphia I got.

Back from a great Mediterranean cruise on the worlds largest ship with sails.
Back in the shipyard today -
Finished the stove. Bricks made with sculpy formed in the sheet the kit "bricks" of basswood were in. Modeling paste for mortar. Set up a charcoal fire in the stove. Suitably sloppy brick work!
Also added the pintels to the rudder.

Prior to staining the exterior, I've been working on placing the nails for the exterior planking. These were iron and clearly visible, as on the modern reconstruction.
Drilled all the holes with a pin vise, slightly widening the entrance with a sharp awl.
Placed short pieces of black mono-filament held with the needle nose pliers (tweezers don't work due to twisting or "snapping away" of the line piece) illustrated after dipping the end in a drop of CA. Then cut each nearly flush with the flush cutter illustrated. The second picture shows a row of holes, a row filled with the mono-filament pieces, and a row after clipping.
After some sanding with the grain of the planks the look is pretty good (last picture). They will be somewhat less prominent after staining of the exterior.

Finished the exterior planking and gave it a first sanding. Next is the ceiling interior planking.
Here are some photos of current status, placed on the unfinished stand.

Fascines (ad hoc additional protection for the crew) done and tied in place. A big step which took 3 days of work. When all was said and done I used the 1/32 square strips without rounding each one (of 160) off with a drawplate. The difference in appearance was minimal and I had just enough strips (each fascine contains 40) so breakage would have been problematic. Aged them with Micro Mark "Weather-It".
Tomorrow the top battens for the canopy frame go on.

Fascines (ad hoc additional protection for the crew) done and tied in place. A big step which took 3 days of work. When all was said and done I used the 1/32 square strips without rounding each one (of 160) off with a drawplate. The difference in appearance was minimal and I had just enough strips (each fascine contains 40) so breakage would have been problematic. Aged them with Micro Mark "Weather-It".
Tomorrow the top battens for the canopy frame go on.

Fascines (ad hoc additional protection for the crew) done and tied in place. A big step which took 3 days of work. When all was said and done I used the 1/32 square strips without rounding each one (of 160) off with a drawplate. The difference in appearance was minimal and I had just enough strips (each fascine contains 40) so breakage would have been problematic. Aged them with Micro Mark "Weather-It".
Tomorrow the top battens for the canopy frame go on.

I have finished all the deck detail now. Playing with placement - will fasten things down tomorrow and start on the fascines.
Making powder bags and hollowing out a third party barrel to accept them was the most tedious part of this.
I did use some third party boxwood buckets, but had to thin them down from the inside to get the thickness to some approximation of scale.
Turns out a black sharpie works great on the elevated "hoops" of commercial barrels, after "aging" them with a vinegar soak which removed the shiny finish. I wish the barrels were slightly bigger as they are a bit too small for quarter and half barrels at this scale, but just acceptable.

I have finished all the deck detail now. Playing with placement - will fasten things down tomorrow and start on the fascines.
Making powder bags and hollowing out a third party barrel to accept them was the most tedious part of this.
I did use some third party boxwood buckets, but had to thin them down from the inside to get the thickness to some approximation of scale.
Turns out a black sharpie works great on the elevated "hoops" of commercial barrels, after "aging" them with a vinegar soak which removed the shiny finish. I wish the barrels were slightly bigger as they are a bit too small for quarter and half barrels at this scale, but just acceptable.

Rigged and stepped the mainmast. It will have a boom at the bottom, but as this attaches only through toggles in the lower cringles and both the boom and its rigging protrude from the side a considerable distance likely to make the work to come difficult, I will be adding that last.
 

Added "nails" for the ceiling and decks with mono-filament line dipped in a touch of CA, inserted into pre-drilled holes, then clipped with a flush-cutter.
Stained the interior. To get the used-up look sanded the central "traffic" areas after the first coat of Minwax stain dried and applied another light coat.
Put in the knees and coaming with nails and bolts simulated. For the bolts cut out small circles with a punch from a card colored with magic marker, punched a small hole in the center with an awl, and slipped over a protruding piece of mono-filament line, glued down, and clipped the protruding line.
 
Now on the the repetitive job of nails for the exterior planking.

Finished the ceiling planking. Had a look at the Smithsonian plans which arrived afterwards, tho, and the interior planking was wider than the 1/4" (6 scale inches) the kit uses. Oh well.
Put the decks in - I cut the deck pieces into individual planks as I didn't like the scribed planking which ended up really highlighting the midline join between the port and starboard pieces. The cuts "lost" enough of the total width that I had to add a small piece to either side to make up the difference. Suggested by the Ships in Scale series. Also some fiddling due to the "drift" of the false keel amidships (see posts above).
All in all tho I'm pleased with how it looks at the moment.
Before I stain the interior I'm going to simulate the decking nails (they were iron nails, not trenails) with holes/black mono-filament line. Since I want to give those a light sanding I have to do it before I put the stain on.
I reinforced the place where the hausepipe hole goes through the exterior planking since those planks were not edge-glued. That's visible between the exterior planks and the ceiling near the bow in the pictures.
The arms chests are just placed on the deck in these pictures. I'll not glue those or the knees in until I've done the staining. I'll stain those pieces individually prior to gluing them in.
Having a lot of fun with the Smithsonian plans (I'd better since getting them was a real splurge) - a real wealth of detail for fitting this boat out.
Interestingly, also shows fascines - bundles of small diameter wood - hanging above the bulwarks to give sailors some additional protection. I'll have to decide if I'm going to include those.
 

Finished the exterior planking and gave it a first sanding. Next is the ceiling interior planking.
Here are some photos of current status, placed on the unfinished stand.

I thought I'd share the procedure that seems to work for me for spiling planks for this build, where the planks, due to the scale and the construction of the boat, are quite wide.
I fit a template made from card stock to the upper plank and then mark the laser tick for the bottom of the new plank at each bulkhead on the template. After drawing a smooth line with the help of ships curves through those points, I cut out the template and double check its fit.
I tape the template over an appropriate width plank and trace the edges, then cut outside the line with a knife and smoothly sand down until the line is just obliterated.
I'm soaking the plank and giving it the approximate curve passing it over the plank bender pictured so that it follows the curve of the boat quite closely, then clamp and let it dry. Once dry, some final fitting and sanding, knock off the upper inner edge with a sanding stick, and apply #2 pencil to one edge for the visible caulk. At that point the plank follows the ship and bulkheads quite closely so the clamping is mainly to make sure it's firmly against the plank above throughout its run.
Looks like I can do one strake (3 planks) each morning, and take a bit of time in the afternoon when its good and dry to glue it in place and clamp it so that I'm ready for another the next day.
At this rate (4 strakes each side below the wale) I should have the outside planked in a week or two.

Put up the canopy frames and the racks for gunnery equipment for the swivels and the 9 pounders. The former rack was indicated on the Smithsonian plans but not the kit plans.
Making the gunnery equipment took as long as making and installing the canopy frames, but with the racks staring me in the face I went ahead with that equipment and installed them in the racks. I also put (not yet glued) a rammer/sponge and ladle/worm in the foredeck for the 12 pounder while I was in that production mode.
I have some detail (mainly chests, buckets, and barrels) to add to the deck that will be under the battens/rolled canopty/sweep rack and sweeps so will do that before moving on to the battens over the canopy frames. I think I will want to install the fascines prior to that as well to facilitate their lashings to the frames without obstruction.
All of the significant construction is now done - I can see the end in sight. Making the fascines will, however, be a real PITA. 160 1/32 x 1/32 strips await rounding with a drawplate and cutting, gathering, and binding into the fascines, several of which will need to be bent into curves prior to installation. Thankfully these are all specified well in the Smithsonian plans as well as how they are fastened.
 
I have humbly added a "kit bash" tag to this build log given the addition of sails and detailing.

Put up the canopy frames and the racks for gunnery equipment for the swivels and the 9 pounders. The former rack was indicated on the Smithsonian plans but not the kit plans.
Making the gunnery equipment took as long as making and installing the canopy frames, but with the racks staring me in the face I went ahead with that equipment and installed them in the racks. I also put (not yet glued) a rammer/sponge and ladle/worm in the foredeck for the 12 pounder while I was in that production mode.
I have some detail (mainly chests, buckets, and barrels) to add to the deck that will be under the battens/rolled canopty/sweep rack and sweeps so will do that before moving on to the battens over the canopy frames. I think I will want to install the fascines prior to that as well to facilitate their lashings to the frames without obstruction.
All of the significant construction is now done - I can see the end in sight. Making the fascines will, however, be a real PITA. 160 1/32 x 1/32 strips await rounding with a drawplate and cutting, gathering, and binding into the fascines, several of which will need to be bent into curves prior to installation. Thankfully these are all specified well in the Smithsonian plans as well as how they are fastened.
 
I have humbly added a "kit bash" tag to this build log given the addition of sails and detailing.

Fore Rails up and anchors rigged with hawser, stop rope, lashing pendant and fish line.
The stop rope should have been larger diameter but I was out of .025 and was impatient. Bad model builder!

Elijah
thick CA will work well, but it takes a while to set. Hold it in place for a minute or more, then carefully let go. After a minute more nudge it if it has moved and hold carefully a bit more. Once it’s in place don’t touch it for an hour. Don’t ask how I know. It fils gaps.  Don’t put them on until you’ve stained the hull. That’s what I used for that piece, as well as gluing the ends on the cannons. For those make sure you have the barrels vertical so gravity doesn’t upset things. 
Medium CA doesn’t work near as well. 
Epoxy will also work if you already have that. 
 

There is a flashing piece in the brass bits that goes on the outside to simulate the flared and turned edge of the original lead pipe. 

Elijah
thick CA will work well, but it takes a while to set. Hold it in place for a minute or more, then carefully let go. After a minute more nudge it if it has moved and hold carefully a bit more. Once it’s in place don’t touch it for an hour. Don’t ask how I know. It fils gaps.  Don’t put them on until you’ve stained the hull. That’s what I used for that piece, as well as gluing the ends on the cannons. For those make sure you have the barrels vertical so gravity doesn’t upset things. 
Medium CA doesn’t work near as well. 
Epoxy will also work if you already have that.