Dutchman

Thanks for the liks everyone 😄
Am keeping on running, 
 
A have know faring the inner bulwarks and some planking at the stern, I will wait with the rest planks so I can make the hole
for the rudder.
I do have also the 7 last planks on portside to finish 
To faring the inner hull I used  3 pises of tools , easy peasy 😊
Svein.erik 

Yep - a teacher - astrophysics during the school year and researcher during the summer months. It's good work, and allows for some interesting off-time hobbies.
Been working the planks up to the port openings. I have some images here to show how I am handling the cutting of the notches into the planks. I am using a small saw to notch the planks first, to the depth of the needed notch, then I use a #11 blade to remove most of the wood, then a small file to finish it off. It looks pretty good. It was a trial and error type thing at first, with a couple of horribly failed attempts. I am sure there are better methods, but this one is working for me thus far ;-)  The colorful clamps were a bargain at the Dollar Store... they are poorly made, but do just right for this work.
~john
 
 

Flying jib boom installed. I added a rear support since I didn't think the partially drilled hole at the base would be enough to handle all the stresses and strains of rigging

Slightly modified flying jib boom dry fitted

Figure on the capstan: Already did, this log page 6. I know what you meant saying "a large figure"... but yes as you see there is one that can still turn the huge capstan 😉
 
Yes there are a lot of errors in the instructions ( be carefull of the mast parts lengths, more than a few are given wrong in the instructions). But still I trust there procedures...   believe me they are well studied and correct given. Anyway, I think your idea its challenging... I would also go for it. So good luck and please keep me informed, its good to know.
 

Hi there. This is my first post on this forum so apologies for any missteps...
 
From what I can see this is an Occre/Artesania Latina kit and it seems to be sort of a generic build as I haven't been able to locate any references to a ship that existed under this name. This is my second kit, the first one being a Mantua kit that was a disaster and I abandoned. I've never done any sort of woodworking or model work so this is all pretty new to me.
 
I bought this kit back in December 2017 and have been working on it with small breaks since then. At the time of posting this I have already finished most of this structure.
 
Regarding this kit:
 
Good points:
- Ideal beginner's kit that is not too hard but provides enough of a challenge.
 
Bad points:
- Illustrated instruction booklet is terrible. It's 8 pages of inconsistent, vague and saturated colour images that in some instances cause confusion. 
- There is inconsistency with the parts illustrated and in some cases the measurements of small parts which is very frustrating
 
In my endeavour to experiment and develop my skills a bit, I tried to weather the deck but I fumbled and ended up blotching the deck with black ink. I had to resort to sanding it to remove most of the stains but with limited success.
 
In addition I decided to replace the metal launch boat provided with my own scratch build. On to the anchors next.
 
Some pictures attached.
 
 
 
 

Hi again.
 
Ready for the rigging now after completing the anchors. The kit provided metal pieces to be painted brown to simulate wooden stocks. Had a go at it but they were awful in my opinion:

so I used some spare wood to make my own:

The instructions specified using 3mm diameter rings for the anchor but even if I could manage to fit two loops and the anchor head in there - which is a big ask - it would look naff so I bought some 4mm faded gold rings from a jewelry craft shop and used those instead. I also finished tying up the launch boat at the stern:

Finally, I wanted to upgrade the deck furniture a bit so I made cannon balls out of those beads you find in the sink plug chains and arranged them in trays around the deck.

So, that's the structure pretty much done...on to finish up the standing rigging:

I will give Artesania Latina credit at this point: the instructions for the rigging are well laid out with scale diagrams for each section including some annotations to guide you on specific techniques for rigging the string.

Bowsprit is now completed minus the rigging which comes later.
 
The instructions ask you to use a two pieces of string connected by a 3mm diameter ring to make up the bobstay. However the picture on the cover of the booklet clearly shows a gold chain being used  and I didn't like the look of so much string being used in that area so I elected to use a chain instead. I used part of a cheap chain necklace painted Vallejo "oily steel" mixed with black acrylic:

Also, not sure about the cap, the instructions do specify to paint it black but I decided to dye it a dark walnut colour for now. I'll check out the forum for tips but any guidance on that is much appreciated.

Haven't posted in a while but plenty of progress has been made since my last post and, most importantly, a lot has been learned. I've completed a sort of first draft of the bowsprit rigging as shown below.


I say "first draft" because I'm sure that after I hook this up with the foremast that the rigging is going  to lose some tension and it's going sag. So I'll wait till that happens and replace everything. It'll work out better that way I think and I can replace the martingale that I intended to paint with some brass material I just got hold of.
 
I've also managed to complete most of the foremast. I got the mast ready and carefully placed it in the ship ensuring it was inclined slightly back:

I then had a first try at placing the shrouds and though it went well I decided to redo it as a) the waxed thread I decided to use didn't look very good and b) I had used the jig incorrectly leading to the lanyards being placed too high up.

In the end I managed to build up my skill set a little bit and got the shrouds and ratlines completed sooner than I thought (that's not a real parrot in the background by the way...)

I decided to avoid securing the shroud lines at the top of the mast all near the centre of the mast as that would lead to a huge mass of knots all jumbled up together. The end result after securing the ratlines is that the shrouds separate a little near the top but this doesn't look too bad in my opinion:

There is still some fluff on the thread which I aim to wipe down with some beeswax soon.
 
As of now, I have completed two of the yards with the topmost yard remaining:

I must say that though I dreaded getting started with the rigging it really brings the model to life in a way I couldn't foresee - especially as I haven't seen many model ships of this type in real life. Even at such a small scale you can really appreciate the sophistication and effectiveness of this type of naval engineering. In short, I'm really enjoying this part of the process.
 

Le pilote et le timonier sont á bord de l'Hermione. 

I'm continuing to detail the bowsprit. I'm making some modifications since I am building "The Argus" not "Syren"

You lucky you! So you are a teacher as well! And therefore a collegue of mine. My, my, we sure have a lot in common then. I still have 7 weeks to go before summerholiday. Just barely surviving  
 
Off topic?
 
Right, well, your build is coming along fine. I'm enjoying it very much! Sail on!

The two lower parts of what the english instructions refer to as "chainplates". Was thinking about trying to make this as one piece, leaving bottom side untwisted during blackening, twisting after joining to upper part, then drilling the hole in the hull last to line up.
 

Some free time has evolved into my schedule - namely, school is over! 3 X Huzzah!
I've been working on the upper planking with the boxwood, and it is moving along nicely.
Made a "wall of planks" to use as a test for the total height above the wales, and it looks to be just about spot on. So far, so good.
Using PVA, and going slowly to allow things to set overnight.  Some pics of the process.....
 
 
 
 

I've glued the jib boom to the bowsprit. The bowsprit still remains dry fitted

Before continuing with the remaining hammock nettings I wanted to make sure I had a good handle on the hammocks themselves. Building an acceptable representation of a hammock at the Syren scale of 1:64 turned out to be a real challenge. One of the major problems was that all the fabrics I could think of did not scale well at 1:64. The fabric texture was always far too coarse. So after some experimentation I settled for the process documented in images 1 – 4.
First I cut a ‘kernel’ of 19mm length for the hammock from a 0.063” Syren rope. Both ends of the kernel were hardened with CA glue. The kernel serves two purposes: It helps to reproducibly determine the length of the hammock, and it prevents the hammock from ‘collapsing’ and flattening out when it is folded back to its final U-shape. The kernel was glued to the top end of a 30mm x 30mm eggshell colored Polyester fabric piece. I chose Polyester because of its super fine texture (which unfortunately was still too coarse to be used for the hammocks) and its high flexibility. This piece of fabric was roughly cut to the width of the kernel, wrapped around the kernel, the roll secured with CA glue, and both ends of the roll cut back precisely to the CA hardened kernel ends (img 1). To diminish the fabric texture I glued this roll to the top of a 30mm x 40mm (width x length) piece of very thin silkspan, wrapped the silkspan around the fabric roll, and secured both ends with 2 metal clips (img 2). These metal clips were then mounted in 2 vices and the hammock roll thoroughly soaked with water. Contrary to regular paper silkspan can be nicely processed when wet and it turns pretty translucent, which again allows to see the fabric roll and with that to have a reproducible measure for the length of the final hammock (img 3). The hammock was then formed by tying 7 double overhand knots (2 at the ends and five at equidistant intervals) using an eggshell colored 100wt silk thread, securing the ends of the roll with CA, cutting them to their final shape, folding the finished hammock in the middle to it its U-shape, and gluing both halves together with CA (img 4). Img 5 shows all the material needed to build enough hammocks to fill the first rack. Once all hammocks for one rack were made they needed to be arranged in the rack for the best overall impression. At that point the silkspan surface still showed a lot of individual fibers, which gave an undesirable ‘hairy’ impression. To change this into a smooth surface and to fix the whole arrangement in place all hammocks received a final treatment with a thin solution of white glue. The result is shown in images 6 – 10. 
  
Thomas
 

Image 1
 

Image 2
 

Image 3
 

Image 4
 

Image 5
 

Image 6
 

Image 7
 

Image 8
 

Image 9
 

Image 10
 
 

Shrouds and more rigging... but still too slow due to lack of expirience. In a more than a few cases I may do and redo a stage that isnt good enough at the first assemply. Am sure that my second project of such a ship will go quicker and have a finer result.

Hi all!
 
Just a small update of my hull planking.  Its taking a while because of life stuff,  but its coming along.   Im realizing what I should have done on the upper planking which would have helped curve the lower planking more correctly.   Also,  I am using Chuck's technique of putting clear tape over the plank of the previous row and using a pencile to draw the correct line to then transfer to the next plank.   I'm slowly getting better at it. I can already tell that my next hull planking will be much better than this. 
 

The pic above shows the curving of the planks.  This was really tough to get the right curve but very rewarding. 
 



 
Thanks!!
Jeff
 

Patrick: no worries!  I am doing well to remember my name on most days ;-)
All:  Yep I have TONS of binder clips.... best thing ever for frame clamping, as long as there is a bulkhead in place to attach the clamp to. Their price is right.
~john

Thanks for the liks 
but Huston, I have a problem😲
I think I did some wrong with the planking, its Seems to me it going to get to narrow 
there is 7 planks to fitt in there (about 2mm at the stem)
So do I take all the basswood strip off ore just leave it?
 
Svein.erik

Darn! Wish I'd known earlier. I 've used the binder clips for the bulwarks. And that worked well. I thought clips to be a bit clumsy for planking (must be me..) and the screws looked cool. Oh well, I'll find out the hard way, I guess

Hey Joe...you should try fiddling with a plank bender.  You can get quick and permanent curvature by wetting the wood and rolling the wet plank along the curved heated element with pressure. When I was planking the Nelson (before life and the Sultana distracted me) I was getting good at using my cheapie bender. My shipmates from my club made me examine its use and they are pretty cheap. Just another option for you.
 
looking good!

I am using a little peg stand that I built for a plank bender. The pegs align with the curve at the bow, and have some adjustment. Works well enough, but not as precise. The clamps are there to hold the plank onto the bulkheads long enough for the wood glue to set. I will be looking into additional plank bending methods (heat, etc) when the planks get to be needing bi-directional curvature, as it does towards the stern. I have a surface mount solder station that might just blow hot enough air, so I will be giving that a try some time soon on some scrap.
~john

Have you considered the binder clip clamps?  I like them much better than those screw in clamps. If anyone wants screw in clamps let me know. I used them once and immediately switched to the binder clips. The price is right to! My employer at the time was kind enough to donate to the cause.

between music sessions I ordered those planking clamps you use. Might come in handy when I start building this ship. In the meantime I eagerly follow your build. Steady as she goes!