Dutchman

I'm starting the bowsprit. This is a rough fit before tapering etc

Tapering the bowsprit with my home made lathe

I glued the bowsprit cap on since I finally got the angle right. The bowsprit is just dry fitted untill I build the whole thing up.

Dry fitting the jib boom

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!

Started planking this week. The key learning moment this time around was in trying to figure out how to get the boxwood shaped just right. The best I could get was to soak it for 6 hours, then shape it into a board with pre-placed pegs for the correct bow shape... and leave overnight to dry. The wood is pretty brittle, so small sharp curves are a no-no. Lessons learned!  So, the first plank has been set on both starboard and port sides. They may be incorrectly placed, but they are symmetrically aligned! ;-)  I can be happy with that! 
~john
 

Well, I managed to get through the carronade rigging without any major drama. I had to re-do the rope coils a few times before I was happy(ish) with them (used quite bit of rope in the process). And of course a hook occasionally decided to part with a block while tensioning and had to be re-glued.
Some photo's.....
 
Just a note, The photo's came in back to front. (I didn't disassemble the rigging...) 
 

Main mast fife rail installed.
I hate to complain, but the wood that comes with this kit is terrible. It splits, cracks, and just plain difficult to work with. I have substituted my own wood in many instances. This fife rail is an example.

I've built the bowsprit bit ( inboard support for the base of the bowsprit.) Now I have to clean it up, stain it, then pin and glue it to the deck

Yards prepaired... and standing rigging started since more than a few days. Fist time making a 18th century rigging. Complicated compared with my ancient model builds of the   3rd and 4th cent. bc and even the my viking ship build (9th cent. ac).
BUT LOTS OF FAN! Reading books and working again my rusted engineers mind 😡.

Hi  again and thanks for the liks 
the summer is here So I have work to do outside the shipyard (yust to keep my wife happy😉)
But I did finish the 2 belts with boxvood and its time to get over to use basswood 
am over the critical point at the stern, 
The black paint wil have castello boxvood, I my have overdue this but Wats fun in that 😆
 
Svein.erik 

I'm finally back. I've been dealing with the "Big C" since February and there was no time or energy to focus on my build. It feels good to focus on something other than medical stuff.
 

Thank you for pointing this out!  I would not have fitted that decorative metal piece at this time. 
 
I broke out those metal parts and test fitted them to the sides of the ship:
According to the instructions,  they should fit here.  If this is wrong, please tell me!!! Haha!  Currently, both metal pieces fit flush against the hull.
 
I also made my first half-stealer!
 

 
I realized that i didnt give the bottom plank enough height. Boo. But, this is my first attempt and the fit of the stealer to the bottom plank is quite snug.  So I am happy about that part.  This section will be smoothed out with wood filler anyway and painted so you won't be able to tell (I hope!).
 
 
I am now reading the three planking guides on the site:
 
Lining Off your hull for planking
 
Planking Primer
 
Plankingprojectbeginners
 
Lastly,  I have to say,  the supplied basswood for the hull planks are not of very good quality.   All the pieces have terrible edges that etch into the plank and makie it impossible to get a good fit.

This piece I took out at random, has scores in it that,  if sanded smooth, would make the plank way too thin.  I will have to fill them in with wood filler.  Also,  with this example,  both the top and bottom edges have many scratches as I hope you can see. With these scratches,  there will  gaps between planks that I will have to fill with wood filler too.  Also, this is the good side of the plank! The other side of this plank has worse edges. Lastly,  there is only one layer of planks.   I know that this kit wants me to paint the entire hull and to use wood filler to smooth out everything, but its taking me a LONG time just to prep the plank to place on the hull.
 
I want to practice making the hull correctly by following the guides and not have any planks end in a point, but the supplied wood is just making more work for me. 
 
Jeff
 
 
 

Well, I’ve gone and changed my mind again. Many more to come. (I’m glad you don’t have to watch how long it takes me to choose the next brand of tea at the shops, unlike my long-suffering wife.)
 
I’ll plank the deck in a 3-shift pattern rather than a 4-shift, as per Danny’s advice. As a result, I’ve erased the 25mm butt-lines and redrawn 33.3mm butt-lines on the false deck. (4-shift = 100mm plank in quarter length, 3-shift = 100mm plank in one-third lengths.) 
 
I’ve also decided that I won’t fit continuous planking between hatches, etc. No logic involved, just a personal preference after looking at lots of other builds on this wonderful site.
 
I’ve reduced the width of the main hatch by fitting a planking strip each side. 
 
I’m shortening the quarterdeck hole size by fitting a support beam at the rear to fit two planks lengthways. 
 
I’m using a sharpie permanant marker on one side and front face of each deck plank to act as caulking. I can’t find my regular chisel-point pen, so I used a normal bullet-point pen. I don’t like it, so I’ll buy a new one tomorrow. 
 
All of this makes for a rather messy deck at the moment. But I’m on my way! It’ll come good, don’t you worry about that.

All,
Still here!  ;-)  I was waiting on some boxwood to continue on with the build The next step is the start of planking. Got the stern framing completed and the ports all painted red. The wood has arrived, so onto the next part!  It's coming along. Some images below.
 
~john
 
 
 
 
 

Thanks for all the likes 😊
am still planking my way down to the keel on portside and starboard 
I have about 3 more planks before I go over to the basswood strips 
so I can paint the hole stern post black using boxvood 
 
Svein.erik 

Thank you for your comment Jim!
 
After reading over 3 planking  guides here on the forums, I realized I have a lot to learn and experiment with to get the planking correct.  Here is a small update to my planking

 
That bottom plank took me 30 minutes to get into the correct shape.  This row of planks will be the last of the upper planking.  So I will be using the guides to help me plank the hull below the wales.
 
Jeff

Just a small update.
 
I have completed one side of planking that I will consider the top hull planking.  The bottom two rows are smaller height wise to correct 2 things:
1) the hull planks at the bow on both sides of the ship do not match up (pic below)
2) following the planking instructions, I felt that the top rows of planks had too much of an upward bend towards the stern and needed to be slightly corrected for the bottom planking.
 

If you look closely, the planks do not match up correctly until the last row.
 
 

 
I cheated a little with the last row plank at the stern.   This piece was a little wider than the other planks but fit well.  This was to help correct the too much of an upward curve from the previous planks.
 
I have started the other side. Once that is done,  I will follow thw guides at this site to complete the bottom hull planking. 
 
Thanks!
 
Jeff

First off, I have glued the keel together since it came in 2 pieces.

 
The oveall false keel is straight, exept the tops between the frames are bent.  I was able to get around that though.
 
This is where I decided to do the instructions out of order.  I glued on the stem at this point instead way later at step 12.
 

 
I then planked the second deck and glued it onto the ship. 

 
The first hull plank!  The red thing in the back is my electric kettle which the steam really helps to bend the wood easily.


 
next, I marked out and cut the gunports. 

 
I then glued on the stern transom and the hull planks underneath.  I had an issue glueing the stern transom on.  I thought I had bent it enough, so I glued and clamped it and left for work. When I came back home, it looked like this.

So I removed the glue and put that non glued side under the steam for a minute.  I then re glued that side and this is the outcome.

 
MUCH BETTER! It made me feel a lot better after I was able to fix it.

 
Finally, I have skipped yet another step and glued on the rest of the stern.
I am now suppose to plank the rest of the hull.  I am reading through the hull planking guides here, and they are very useful! I will be referencing to them a lot during this process.   I am not that happy with how the instructions want me to plank the hull.  Adding a lot of plank strips that end in a point.  I want to get better at planking,  so I will be following the guides and go slow so I can see my mistakes and learn from them.
 
 
Jeff

I started work on the hammock nettings. I changed the boarding panels so that the wooden rail could be attached to the back of the panels and not to the side. I also added a little ornamentation to the panels (img 1). I used the hammock cranes from the kit, thinned them down and mounted the whole arrangement as described by Chuck in the kit instructions (imgs 2 and 3). The netting itself was framed with a rope on 2 sides to give it a clear delineation against the wooden rail and the boarding panel side (img 4). Framing only 2 sides allows for easy fine adjustment of the final width and length of the netting when mounting it on the hammock cranes. The ‘unframed’ sides are then attached via black 100wt silk thread and CA glue to the rope which spans from the boarding panel to the last hammock crane. The last hammock crane is also used to attach the ‘unframed’ end of the netting. Images 5 – 10 show different states of the process.
 
Thomas
 

Image 1
 

Image 2
 

Image 3
 

Image 4
 

Image 5
 

Image 6
 

Image 7
 

Image 8
 

Image 9
 
 

Image 10

Thanks Jesse, Doug and all the likes.
Just a small update after finishing the rigging of the first carronade (only 15 to go....sigh). I now fully understand the feedback by some of this stage being a tad bit tedious. I tried to mix it up and start on some deck fittings but I am terrible with multitasking (the admiral nods very enthusiastic in agreement...), so I gave that up and will keep concentrating on the guns until they are done (or until I am done and have gone crazy....).
I don't get it how some modelers can even work on multiple ships at the same time.
Here are a few photo's.

Masting almost done... and now the challenge of  standing and running rigging.

Some more photo's. I wasn't happy with the location and look of the inboard hawse holes so I added some guides to give them a more 'even' impression. I decided to paint them red. Looking at other logs, maybe keeping them the same colour as the deck may have been a better choice. Shaping these using a scalpel only was a bit of a challenge but fun to do. I don't think they ended up too bad (you can be honest if they do, to deconstruct and re making them is still an option...).
I also added the 2 12 pounder long guns and the bumpkins and started in earnest with making the blocks and hooks for the gun tackles. To avoid going crazy (the sort of crazy where you have long conversations with your dogs and ask them to help you look for blocks), I'll probably mix this up by making a start with some deck fittings as well.
Peter

Finally some sunshine to take a few pictures. Have made some progress during the rainy, cloudy and cold past few weeks.  
 
While working on the stern I broke the bond on one of the net railing fence pieces. Removed the fence entirely thinking it would be best to clean off a little of the glue before reattaching. Once removed decided I like the look better without these fences so removed them all. Then decided I preferred a very clean top rail and took off all the bits as well.
 

Masting goes on...