FriedClams

Keith, your planking is looking terrific - so tight edge to edge. And a good call on the keel plank. The beautiful form of the hull belies the complexities in planking it. Gary

Thank you Druxey and Keith for your words of encouragement. And thanks to everyone for looking in and hitting the like button. Decking To begin, I make up the deck beams by cutting 1/8” square basswood stock into approximately 4” lengths. Each beam is allowed to soak in ethyl alcohol for about 15 minutes before bending them to match the arc of the CAD printout. For gentle sweeping bends like this, I prefer alcohol simply because it dries so quickly. Only 9 beams total are needed. As soon as the beams are dry, they are cut and sanded to fit, then glued into place. The beams are installed beginning at the point where the hull is the widest and then installed toward the bow and stern. If a beam is inadvertently cut too short, it could still used at the adjacent narrower hull position. Additional stanchions are needed beyond those that are provided by the hull bulkheads; so intermediate stanchions are placed at the aft deck. Acrylic gray is applied to the stanchions and bulwark as a base color. Next, the covering boards are notched around the stanchions and checked for fit – then adjusted and re-checked over and over and … Finally, they are painted off-white acrylic as a base and glued into place. Before the decking can begin, a socket for the mast is made up and installed. A short mast placeholder is inserted. The deck planking used on this model scales to about 3.5” wide by 2” thick, which is in line with what I found to be typical for this boat. The deck boards are placed on a piece of waxed paper and pre-stained with a mixture of India ink and alcohol. They are stained unevenly so the decking has a wide range of light to dark coloration. This is a base only and is applied to accentuate the wood grain and provide depth and visual separation between individual planks. When the decking is complete, it will be sanded and color washed. At the beginning of every modeling project a decision about level of detail must be made. This is often driven by scale. The deck planks are .072” wide and a total of 62 planks make contact with the covering boards, so I decided not to nib them in. This model is not being built to celebrate its beauty - it is a working boat built to depict gritty reality. Or at least that is the goal. If this sounds suspiciously like a justification of laziness posing as a reasonable explanation – you might be right. The king plank is the first to go on and then the planking proceeds to the covering boards. With the aft deck completely planked, it looks like this. After the deck is sanded, a wash of gray gouache is applied. It is thinned down considerably with water. Unlike watercolor, gouache is opaque but can be made translucent. It is also very flat, even dusty looking when applied in this way. And it is very forgiving and can be re-worked. Here is a before and after of the same section of deck. There will be more work done to the deck surface once equipment and hatches are installed and wear patterns established. It’s hard not to look at the top of the stanchions and bulwark, but the weathering and wear to the covering board is the purpose of this photo. The acrylic paint was picked at with a dental tool and ink/alcohol applied. The alcohol bubbled up the paint and the ink stained the wood beneath. Loose paint is then scraped off. Next, an area for the pilothouse is framed in the forward deck. The planking and coloring is applied same as the aft deck. Thanks for taking a look. Gary

Doris, I have read your log from the beginning and I echo the compliments others have already made. Your work in card and paper is wonderful, but it is your modeling in polymer that I find just so very exceptional and elegant. Thank you for sharing your work with us. Gary

Very nice work on this model Jean-Paul. Very cleanly built and a pleasing warm coloration. Keep up the great work. Gary

Such wonderful work Kortes - very nice indeed. Gary

What a beautiful ship you’re building Paul. Excellent craftsmanship. Your Brodie stove came out great. Very nice. Gary

Thanks to all for the hitting the like button - I appreciate it. Keel Correction Whether it’s a scale model or a bathroom re-model, I expect to encounter problems in just about everything I do. For me, finding solutions to the unexpected is part of the fun of model building. But it’s not fun when I cause the problem. There should be a minimum of 6 inches of keel showing below the hull planking – there is only 2. So I added on 5 scale inches to the keel. I also added one scale inch to the stem. This brought the keel back to the proper exposure. Some sanding and some paint will cover the patched-on wood. Here is a before and after: In the next photo, notice how the lowest hull plank swings upward away from the keel as it approaches the sternpost. It should remain parallel with the keel. Sometimes my desire to push ahead causes me to lose focus on the task at hand. I should have either tapered those lowest planks wider as they ran toward the stern or added steelers. Rather than pull the lower 5 planks off each side for a re-do, I opted instead to mitigate the error with a cosmetic alteration. Also, I sanded down the planks that are lying flat against the sternpost to a thinner profile so that they appear rabbeted in with a slight reveal. Thanks, Gary

Congratulations Steve on the completion of your John Cudahy. It came out great and is just dripping with atmosphere and realism. Very nice! Gary

Hi Frank, I've been away from this forum for almost two years. but I remember you starting this model and I remember well your wonderful Dunbrody build. This Kathryn build is also exceptionally well done and a pleasure to read through. You take such extraordinary care in your research, modeling and your log presentation. Thanks for sharing that with us. I wish you a peaceful 2019. Gary

I've been away for a while and sorry I missed your Genesis build. It turned out great just like your other miniature marvels. You sure do pack your models with details and at such small scale. Great stuff Patrick. Gary

Interesting subject Mark - I will be following. Gary

Transom Here are a couple of photos of the transom backing taken after the hull was cut away from the base and before the top three courses of hull planking were put on. The tab that secured it to the building base hasn’t been removed yet. You can see the temporary jig holding the transom backing to the required curvature. Now with the hull planking on but still running past the transom, I am able to remove the temporary jig and apply the three transom boards that will make up the outer surface of the transom. First I cut the boards from the basswood sheet leaving extra material to sand and fit each board. Unlike the transom backing where the wood grain is vertical, these boards are cut so the grain is horizontal. Test fitting these outer boards was rather tedious and fiddly because I couldn’t cut the hull planking flush until the outer transom boards were on. They also had to be pre-bent against the grain to fit the curvature of the transom backing. One at a time they were fitted, held in position with clamps and glued with very thin CA. A few drops of the CA applied to the upper edge of each board were all that was needed to secure them. The watery CA raced down between the two wood surfaces, effectively creating a two-layer plywood. At this point the base tab was removed and the hull planking trimmed and sanded flush. Marking the water line was simple by placing the model back onto the base. The irregularity of the cuts when the boat was separated from the base allowed it to key back into place exactly and perfectly level. There are several problems with the keel, stem and area around the sternpost that need to be corrected. They will be addressed on the next post. Thanks for looking in. Gary

Beautiful work on this Launch Michael. The lantern is wonderful and your engine is true craftsmanship to say the least. Thanks for sharing your work methods, approach and techniques. Gary

She’s coming along beautifully John! An interesting subject, so cleanly crafted. Gary

Hello Keith, I just wanted to stick my head in to say what wonderful progress your making on your schooner. Your process is well thought out and meticulously executed. The log is a pleasure to follow and educational as well. Thanks for sharing this with us. Oh - and yes I am envious of your sophisticated sanding devices that you chose to shamelessly flaunt back on post #136. Gary