Tigersteve

Finishing up the platforms with the ringbolts for the scuttle lids.  I also made a quick mock-up today of the fire hearth.  Unlike the Seawatch books I am deviating from the traditional stove.   I have built a lot of traditional iron stoves in my time.   Based on the original drafts and on the draft for the similar sloop Fly I am going with a brick fire hearth.   The contemporary draft is shown in the photos below.  You can clearly see the bricked up hearth.  I think it is a much more interesting fixture and its something I have never modelled before.  You guys can go either way...its up to you.  But I will only be making a mini kit for the fire hearth for the model.  This was actually very typical for sloops of this time period and I found a great deal of source info for these.
 
All of the brickwork is lasercut cedar.  The hood parts are thin boxwood sheet with laserboard hinges.   I will of course have to make another because I didnt take step by step photos.   I used a really easy and neat technique to weather those bricks.  I will detail that when the time comes.
 
The fire hearth isnt permanently added yet.   I will however glue the base onto the platform at this time.
 

It's been a couple of weeks since my last post.  I'm taking my time planking the deck.  Like everything on this build, it's more complicated and challenging than I had initially thought it would be.  Haha.  I've managed to get eight more rows of planks down since my last post.  I only did a rough sanding, which is why it still looks a bit crude.  I'll do a final sanding once the entire deck is planked.  Even though I have tick marks on the deck and the planks drawn in, it still takes some effort to get the planks a uniform width, and the run of each plank to flow smoothly when viewed down the length of the hull.   At any rate, for a first deck planking job, I'm happy with the results so far. 
 
Erik
 

Before I can begin placing the beams for the lower platforms,  I must make a height gauge first.   There are many ways to do this and a system will be very important to have moving forward on this project.   Greg describes one method in his books on Speedwell.   I have decided to go another way.  I prefer to make a depth gauge of sorts.  
 
Here is a photo...you folks can of course select any method you prefer.  I am fond of this one and such a gauge can be made with readily available scrap strips...Note how the pointer is a separate it to be slipped onto the lower shaft.   It is basically a very large T-square.   I used 3/32" thick strips but they are fairly wide so they wont bend or flex.  The center of the "T" is thinner at about 1/16" thick.

The pointer is meant to be slid onto the center shaft of the "T".  Everything is squared up and at perfect right angles.   Nice and neat.

Basically take the measurements from the plans to find the depth of any beams etc.   Like the forward platform beams.   The underside of the "T" is set flush with the sheer on the plan.   Then I mark the top of the platform beam on the center shaft...without the pointer on it.   Just a pencil tick mark.
 

Then the pionter is added to the shaft and lined up with the tick mark.  The pointer must fit nice and snug so it doesnt shift around.  Its a very tight fit on purpose.  Then the depth gauge can be brought to the model as shown.   Repeat on both sides for each beam end.  I am marking the height for the tops of the beams.  Find where that beam should be and mark its height on the model.  Repeat this process for every lower platform beam end.  Then connect the marks to find the proper height for the platform.   Basically repeat this on both sides.  Hope that makes sense.
 

I am basically trusting that my sheer on the model is correct and even on both sides.   I am confident...
 
But if your sheer is off you have bigger problems anyway.  No matter what method you choose there will be issues.   This is just one method that can be used.  I did this for all the lower platform beams which are 3/16" x 3/16" cedar.  That is except for the most forward platform which has 1/4" x 3/16 beams just under the stove.  Check you plans carefully.  The beams have no roundup and are just cut from strip stock.   They are carefully measured and shaped to fit snug.  Placement is important here.
 

In fact the placement of the first 1/4" x 3/16 beam of the forward-most platform is very important.   It is exactly 5/16" away from the beam aft of it on the lowest platform.   So a small jig was laser cut to help find its location.  This will be provided.   It sits on the lower platform beams which went in first.   It has laser etched marks to help you place that first beam in position correctly at the right height and the right distance from the lower platform beam.
 

Once all seven of the forward platform beams were in place I tested my placement with the a cutout of the plans.  Everything is level and the plans fits pretty darned good.

Next up is to add the a bulkhead and some additional framing on these platforms before I plank them.
 
Hope this makes sense...
 
Chuck
 
 
 
 
 
 

Hi, oki, its bean some wile since i worked on the syren, maby i will finished it in 2024? 😉
am trying to get all of the bits and peaces glued on and make up all the masts etc so i can 
startthe rigging , so i have some hope this year😉
 
svein.e.
 

I thought drawing in the tick marks and drawing the placement of the hook scarph joints wouldn't take too long.  Well, after about 12 hours over the last week, I'm finally happy with the way everything looks on the deck, and I'm ready to proceed with the deck planking.  Getting the drawn-in planking to look and flow the way I wanted it took so many adjustments and needed to be redone so many times I actually had to go out and buy more erasers!  The last redo was actually after these photos were taken.  I moved the rear of the aft scarph joints back a bit after viewing the photos, in order to have the taper of the outer 4 planks better match the inner 6 planks aft of the skylight.  I also tweaked a couple of other areas after viewing these photos.  Since I've never planked a deck before, my goal was to spend as much time as necessary to get the planking drawn in on the deck.  Sort of the planking version of adding training wheels to a kids bike, or having bumpers in the gutters when kids bowl at a bowling alley.  I'm trying to minimize my chances of screwing the deck planking up since it will be a very visible part of the build.  The saying, proper planning prevents poor performance, comes to mind.  One note when looking at the photos - since the plank lines were drawn in straight lines between the tick marks, it doesn't flow as smoothly visually as the actual curved planks will.
 
Erik

Congrats!
Steve

Congrats!
Steve

Congrats!
Steve

Happy New Year to everyone!  I hope that 2024 brings all of you good fortune.
 
I have finished the longboat.  The rigging was a little nerve racking to get done at this size, especially since this is the first model that I have rigged.  I kept knocking the boat around while trying to get all of the lines rigged with some resemblance of tension on them.  Luckily I didn't break anything.  Anyways, here are the pictures of the completed model.  Now to build the display case shelf for her and to shift my attention mostly to my USF Confederacy build.

Here's my latest progress.  I have the five center deck planks installed.  These were straight forward since they're not edge bent or tapered, but they took time none the less.  As always, the process is going slow and test fitting, then sanding a bit, then test fitting, then sanding a bit, and repeating over and over again until a tight fit is achieved.  I'm looking forward to planking the rest of the deck . . . but I'm also looking forward to having all the planking finished and behind me!  I did a first sanding after getting these planks down.  So if they look rough, that's why.  I'll do the final sanding when the planking is finished.
 
Erik

Keep up the momentum. It’s looking great Erik. 
Steve

I was digging through my giant ship modeling tub and found some .012 tan rigging rope that I must have bought years ago from Model Shipways.  After some debate, I decided to take a few steps back and removed all off the kit supplied tan string on the rigging and replaced it with the Model Shipways rope.  Took a few hours to do, but I am very happy with the result.  The model looks a lot better now.  Only thing left to do is to remake the rope coils and add them back to the model.  Then I can proceed forward with rigging the backstays and bowsprit.
This photo below shows the difference of the kit supplied string and the Model Shipways rope.

Keep up the momentum. It’s looking great Erik. 
Steve

Keep up the momentum. It’s looking great Erik. 
Steve

Thanks for all the 'likes" folks.  I spent the last week building the companionway, so I'm now finished with the deck fittings that will be placed along the center line before planking the deck.  For the companionway I used pencil to darken the board seams.  I also slightly beveled the edges of where the companionway lid and doors are hinged.  I applied several layers of much thinned red paint that allowed the board seams to show through.  After painting was complete, I used a pin wash made of black oil paint thinned with Turpenoid that I applied to the hinged joints in the lid and doors, as well as around the bottom and side edges of the doors.  Annnnnnd  . . . . you can't really see any of all that effort in the photos.  Super frustrating!  I must've taken 30 photos of the finished companionway, with different background colors, and lighting and lighting angles, trying to show the board seams showing through the semi-opaque red paint.  What you see is the best I could come up with.  The funny thing is the board seams are so pronounced when viewing in person that I had seriously considered painting one more coat of red over the whole thing, particularly on the lid (which you don't see any seams at all in these photos).  And I was worried the black wash was too pronounced.  None of which you can see in the photos.  Can you tell I'm still annoyed?  Haha.
 
At any rate, the next step is gluing all these deck fitting on to the deck.  Some other Cheerful build logs have good advice on getting these aligned correctly.  After that, it's on to deck planking.
 
Erik

Had about an hour or so to work on the longboat today, so I cut out and installed the frieze.  I sprayed the paper with the frieze on it with an acrylic sealer that I had in the garage.  Then I cut them out and glued them onto the longboat with ModPog glue.  Once that was done, I installed the rail under the frieze.  Once the glue was dry, I painted the rail white and then touched up any of the other painted areas as needed.

Framing (final pieces)
I have finally finished all of the framing. About nine months to do them all including about 160 milled scarph joints. It certainly feels like a milestone. Though mostly done, I still need to do some minor cleanup fairing, especially where the cants transition into the deadwood.

FYI: Here is the fit that I was shooting for when adding the last frame, #29.

Mike

I was hoping for a little more progress this week. The problem was that I started nit picking.
 
One of the things that I've been wanting to do from the beginning was to avoid any color matching with paint for areas that might not have turned out as expected. Typically that would be something like an open butt joint or where two different wood types join together thus changing the uniformity of the look.
 
Looking at this closeup photo from my previous post, it's not hard to see that the AYC quarter panel is a lighter color than the end grain of the wing transom which is made from boxwood.

 
The lower section of the quarter panel for the most part is covered by planking. However, some of the lighter AYC color will be seen after the planking is completed. Knowing that, I decided to remove some of the AYC from the quarter piece and replace it with boxwood. Actually, it was quite easy to do and I was able to complete the work in less than an hour. See photo below.
 
Fashion piece
The fashion piece was cut from 5/32" sheet. The tricky part was getting a nice flow into the bearding line and a good joint along the deadwood and wing transom. I ended up having to make two of these in order to get the one I liked. I left the top of the fashion piece standing proud. Also, I left some of the paper template attached which could be used as a sanding template. I recommend doing this rather than trying to get a perfect fit everywhere. It's hard to explain as to why, just that it's easier to fit the piece and fair the top into the wing transom afterwards. If I end up back into nit picking mode, I might do a bit more work at the bearding line transition.
 
Also, note that the boxwood filler is in and mostly faired.

Mike
 
 

As always, thanks for the 'likes'.  Those always help keep me motivated.  Over the last week I've been working on the gratings.  The small ventilation scuttle grating towards the stern was straight forward and quick.  The other two larger gratings have taken some time.  Chuck's grating mini-kits make the gratings themselves easy to reproduce.  The coamings though were a bit finicky.  There are several surfaces to pay close attention to in each lap joint to get a tight fit.  As always, taking my time was what was needed.  Chuck's instructions for making a right-angle jig out of 3/64" thick sheet (the thickness of the deck planking) was brilliant.  It sure made rounding off the corners of the coaming easy while leaving the 90 corners at deck plank level looking crisp and 3/64" thick.  I darkened the lap joints and the joint between the coaming and grating with a pencil.  I'm still working on the larger coaming.  And though you can't tell from the photos, all three gratings have the camber that results from using the Syren min-kit.  The last photo has the gratings just set in place on the deck for the sake of the photo.
 
Erik

Well, a final entry from me in this log. Here she is in her new home:
 

 

 
Regards,
George

With the holiday thrown in, my time to work on the Cheerful over the last week has been a bit limited.  I did make some progress though.  I'm part way through fabricating the margin planks.  The 5 short planks across the stern were a bigger pain to get correct than I expected.  I wound up scrapping 7 by the time I was satisfied with the 5 good ones you see here.  The port side margin planks were slow going as well.  I first made a 1/4" wide paper template in order to get the inner bulwarks shape correct as well as the location and basic shape of the scarph joints.  I made a card stock mock-up of a scarph joint from Chuck's plans that I used to transfer the shape of the joint onto the margin planks after they were formed.  As of now, I have all three port side margin planks complete, I just need to glue them together and attach them to the model.
 
I added a photo of the tools I used to fabricate the margin planks.  This photo actually shows about 90% of the entirety of the tools I've used to build my Cheerful.  Not pictured are more files, sand paper, more emery boards, and some clothes pins and clamps.  This project is very much a manual and low tech process for me!
 
Erik

It's been awhile since I posted anything but I have continued this build. I've completed the thwarts.

Looks really sharp Erik. I’ve found WOP on painted surfaces does not work for me. Too shiny. Not much help, I know. Looking forward to how you proceed w the model and the finishing. 
Steve

Looks really sharp Erik. I’ve found WOP on painted surfaces does not work for me. Too shiny. Not much help, I know. Looking forward to how you proceed w the model and the finishing. 
Steve

Looks really sharp Erik. I’ve found WOP on painted surfaces does not work for me. Too shiny. Not much help, I know. Looking forward to how you proceed w the model and the finishing. 
Steve