Tigersteve

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

The entire exterior of both my Cheerful and Winchelsea including the black wales but excluding the friezes have multiple coats of WOP as does unpainted wood on the deck and deck furniture. I don’t include WOP over painted interior areas, the multiple coats of red paint are enough. Just how I do it. 
 

 

I feel like I reached a bit of a milestone on my build today, so I have included a ton of photos in celebration! While being a perfectionist, things frequently don't turn out quite as well as I'd like, but I'm happy with the build so far.  And it's turning out pretty well considering it's my first major wooden ship build, after my Model Shipways longboat project many years ago.  Though there is still quite a ways to go on the project, with the exterior painting complete, there is a certain finished look now.  I really like the lines of the Cheerful.  I spent the week painting the cap rail, repainting the wales, and spending much time doing the final sanding of the hull and tweaking the finish (after viewing these photos, I cleaned up where the black paint meets the wood in the stern area).  Now on to Chapter 7 of Chuck's monograph, and adding the deck fittings, and planking the deck.
 
I have a couple of questions for you folks.  I used Wipe-On Poly back on my longboat build.  Applying it to the hull, and then applying any paint to those areas that needed it afterwards.  On my Cheerful, I applied WOP above the wales way back when those were planked, but have since sanded it off as I cleaned up that planking in preparation to add the fancy molding.  I never applied WOP anywhere else on the model.  Now, as you can see, the hull has painted areas amongst the bare wood.  I'm thinking I might not apply WOP at all.  The hull has made it nearly 7 years with temperature and humidity fluctuations without any noticeable signs of aging.  My questions then are, is it really necessary to apply some kind of protective coating to the wood?  Has anyone here not applied WOP, or similar finish to their build?  And if you did apply WOP to a model with areas that you already painted, how did you go about applying the WOP (apply it carefully around the painted sections, apply it to the painted areas also, etc)?  Thanks!
 
Erik

Finally finished up the stern details today.  At least up to the point I would like to do them for this chapter.
 
First up was to paint the top of the transom before adding the actual carvings.  I didnt have to paint all the way to the upper edge.  I didnt want a painted seam to show afterwards.  I also marked the lower areas so I knew where to stop the painting as well.  You cant tell in the photos but its not black at all.  Its a very muted brown black and even gray.   I didnt want it to be too stark a black.  I also dusted some blue on there as well.  So much for my photo skills, LOL.
 

The two figures (port and starboard) were removed as they wont be added till last in this series of steps.  Then the actual carved transom was glued into position.  Once again this was after some initial cleanup and staining to make it match the wood color.  Old masters gel stain (fruitwood) was used once again.
 

With the transom carving secure it was time to focus on the forward side of the carving.  Basically the thickness of the carved transom is thicker port and starboard.   Where it hangs over on both sides.  There is a little carved detail in the center of this as well which can be seen on the contemporary model.  My solution was to build up this area with two layers.  The first middle layer is laser cut in boxwood.   This layer was cleaned up of it laser char and then shaped a bit with some sandpaper and files.  The edges were rounded off and I just had some fun with it.  You can see my example being held in the clamp.  You guys can do as much as you like with this piece.  Photo is below.  Then the most forward layer will be glued on as well.   This is a resin casting.
 

When gluing them on you must finesse them a bit.  Meaning you may have to trim some of the hull molding etc.  You can fill any cracks or seams with wood filler and generally speaking try to blend them all together.  The photo below shows these two layers on the model.  They were glued to the forward side of the transom.
 

Next up was to add the columns.  This is pretty straight forward.   All of these pieces are laser cut for you.  The tops and bottoms of the columns are 1/16" thick.  They were cleaned of laser char and filed to suit.  Then glued on the transom.  The long fluted columns are thinner but laser cut as well.  The laser char sanded from these and the each column was sanded to length for a tight fit between the tops and bottoms we just added.  This takes a while to do but isnt difficult.  You may also notice some molding at the base of each window.  They are between the columns bases.   These are laser cut too.  Just remove the char and round off the top edge like a quarter round.  Then glue them in.
 

Lastly we can put those two standing figures back where they belong.  But before you do...there are tiny laser cut bases made for them.  These bases or the floor...rock...the ground...whatever you would like to call them need to be shaped.  They are shaped like a little step.  I did this rather than incorporate them into the casting.  Everybody's model is slightly different.  You can customize this base so your figure fits perfect on your model.   See the photo...
Just sand it free of char and file some bumps and grooves into it.  Mine are hardly noticeable in the photo but they are there.  Make it look like a stone or rock base.  Using this keeps the nice run of the molding that wraps around the stern while covering the seams between all those layers we created.   It covers up where the figures will stand while creating the correct angle for the figure to match the transom.  It will be hardly visible.   Shape yours to suit.

Here the figure is glued in place but not until after the tiny base was glued in position first.  You can see the figure stepping on the small rock carved base.  This pretty much finishes up the stern to the point where I want to be in this chapter.  Its for the most part complete except for some very small features we add much much later.  I think it came out rather nice considering this is a kit.   But my goal was of course not to make it look kit-like at all.
 


 


 
The contemporary model...
 

 

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!
 
I'm finally over a bad cold which prevented me from fairing those aft cant frames sooner. With so much wood to remove, I decided to stay with the adhesive backed 80 grit sandpaper until final cleanup. No doubt AYC would have been much easier to deal with than boxwood. Still, no complaints!


Mike

Completed gratings on the third attempt. I ended up orienting them so the top of the battens run port to starboard instead of bow to stern. (Hope that makes sense. It’s hard to explain.) I am shocked the transom is still attached after all the deconstruction. 
 
I deleted the redundant posts on this update as well. How many photos of this grating debacle do we need?
Steve

Thanks for the kind words and likes folks!  This week's progress was getting the fancy molding on the edge of the cap rail.  I used the same method as I did creating the other fancy molding, but once the profile was scraped in I sanded the back side down to reduce the 1/32" thickness so it wouldn't add too much to the overall cap rail width. 
 
My next task was making the stern gun port lids.  Back when I completed the planking on the stern, the gun port interior framing did not line up correctly with the stern planking.  A bit of an irritant, but I knew with the port lids modeled closed, it wouldn't be noticeable when all was said and done.  The top photo below show the misaligned interior port and planking.  The port lids pictured below are the 5th and 6th ones I made.  I wanted to get the exterior planking lined up correctly as well as the lid interior level and lined up correctly also since you can see the individual boards under the slightly opaque covering of red paint (hard to see in these photos).  The port lids are a bit Frankenstein-like, but look correct from both the interior and exterior.
 
The port lid hinges were ordered from Chuck 7 or so years ago (it looks like he has updated those hinge kits since back then).  To simulate the actual hinge I used .030" styrene rod painted black along with the hinge straps.  The rings at the bottoms are made from the .016" wire that came with the port hinges secured with a small loop of .010" brass wire.
 
Erik
 

Congratulations!
Steve

Congrats!
Steve

I was out of town visiting family in Annapolis, Maryland, for a few days this week.  While there, I went to the US Naval Academy Museum.  Not my first visit there, but always a fun outing.  And grabbing lunch downtown afterwards is a must as well.  On the 2nd floor, the museum houses the Rogers Collection of wooden ship dockyard models, as well as newer built models from all eras of naval history on the 1st floor.  If you haven't been to this museum, I highly recommend it.
 
I did manage to make some progress on my Cheerful.  I added the cap rail.  The cap rail is 7 pieces cut out of 1/16" sheet.  One piece for the stern, and 3 for each side.  I have quality digital calipers accurate to .0001" to measure with, so getting the rail to a uniform width was easy enough, it just took some time to sand down.  The cap rail measures in at a bit under 5/32" wide.  I also fashioned the hawse plates out of 1/32" thick sheet.  This was pretty straight forward with first cutting the plan out and then transferring the lines to the wood sheet.  Drilling the hawse holes in the hawse plates and bulwarks was pretty easy as well.  I had an issue with drilling and filing the bowsprit hole though.  While the hole was aligned properly, parallel to the keel and level with the keel, I got a bit carried away with enlarging the diameter up to the final bowsprit diameter.  When I inserted the a 5/16" drill bit shaft to double check the diameter, there was a little slop as it passed through the hawse plate.  I did that thing where I tried to convince myself I could live with it.  I couldn't.  So, I pried it off and fabricated a new one.  This time though I deliberately left the bowsprit hole a smaller diameter than what the bowsprit will be.  I figure it makes the most sense to tweak the hole diameter when I have the bowsprit made, so I can adjust it to the actual diameter.  Live and learn.
 
Erik

I've been moving right along on the aft cant frames. Just like the fore cants, there is a long span between the upper and lower attachments which results in some flexing. To stiffen things up I placed chocks between the frames. This will help greatly to keep the frames from breaking loose while fairing. The chocks were placed in the area between upper wale and the lower planking strake. They will be completely hidden.

Mike

Well, the yard mounted stuns'l booms are done. They are shown as per the plans, which is to say tied to various convenient halyards. Here are a couple of photos of the ship and the booms:
 

 

 

 
In the first photo you can see the boat davits drying after being painted black. I ultimately drilled the hole for the aft davit between the 3rd and 4th shroud as in the Buttersworth painting rather than the plans (between shroud 1 and 2) or the China Trade painting (between the shrouds and backstays). They are drilled on both sides, ready to be mounted once the paint dries.
 
The list:
Stuns'l booms on yards: 12
Stuns'l booms on hull: 2
Davits: 4
      Boat tackle: 4
      Guy wires on davits 2 (maybe)
Gilded balls on mast trucks: 3
Decals: 3
 
Total = 18
 
We will see if I ultimately put the guy wires on the davits. They would need to be run behind the shrouds and backstays and that area is really inaccessible right now. I'll probably try, but there is a limit to how much damage I'm willing to do at this late stage to add two lines. FWIW, for those that are working on the Fish, it might be worth installing these before the course and top braces so that you can access things a little easier.
 
Anyway, the end does appear to be approaching. I'll probably do the davits, then the two hull stuns'l booms, and see if my wife has any beads of the right size to make the gilded balls for the mast trucks. The decals will be the last step. Not sure if I'm going to apply the name directly or whether I'll put it on a very thin piece of black painted wood. It needs to be discreet, there were no head or trailboards. 
 
I have a case that my father bought for the Revell USS Constitution* I made for my parents, but which he dispensed with when they moved into his current apartment. The case was way too tall for the Constitution, and it's too tall for the Fish at the same scale, so I'm going to cut the wooden corner elements shorter and have a glazier cut the glass down to appropriate size, but it's already available.
 
Hopefully I will finish her by the end of this weekend, as November 14 will mark 3 years of work on this project. I'm really looking forward to closing this one out and working on something new. I appreciate everyone who has looked in and helped me along.
 
Regards,
George
 
* PS: There is a bit of a story as to why I gave my parents a Revell USS Constitution. My maternal grandfather (who died in January 1969) built plastic models while he was living with us from 1967-1969. He built two Revell Cutty Sarks (and the Nichimo 1:200 Yamato, the notorious flat bottom Revell USS Midway, etc.) which were displayed in our house. Why two of them - I don't know; I assume he wanted to do better on the second try, although they both looked great to me. He was working on the Constitution when he died. I tried to pick it up when I was about 12 years old, but it was beyond my skills, had been sitting in the house for 8 years and was probably missing pieces, and I ultimately gave it up. In the interim, my brother, sister, and I had pretty much destroyed both of the Cutty Sarks playing with them. When I took up modeling again as an adult, I decided to build the Constitution that my grandfather never finished, and to give it to my parents to replace the ships we destroyed as kids. I think that they appreciated it, particularly my dad, as my maternal grandfather had been so kind to him after his own parents more or less disowned him for marrying my mother. 
 

Thanks...I am really happy with the frieze thus far in the project.  Just a quick update that I have finished the port side molding and friezes which is nice.   That completes chapter 3.   Next up I will start work on the outboard stern details and carvings.  That will fill up chapter 4 so I can start work on the interior in chapter 5.
 
Have a great week guys!!!
 

Thanks for the likes.  My progress this week has been to get the bulwarks painted.  I used Vallejo brand Flat Red 70.957.  I can't recommend Vallejo paints enough for brush painting.  The pigment is extremely fine, and they're easy to apply without any visible brush strokes.  I used a new 3/16" wide flat brush to apply 6 thin coats of paint.  Every handful of strokes I dipped the brush tip into water to thin the paint, and then applied the paint over several seconds with around half a dozen strokes in a given area.  It's important to stop brushing over the area before the paint starts to thicken (thickening causes the brush strokes to be visible).  I didn't worry too much about how well each coat covered the surface knowing that I'd continue to apply more coats until I achieved a solid coverage.  The important thing with each coat is even coverage with no visible brush strokes.
 
Erik

Thank you all who have contacted me.   I have a grand total of 8 people who have reserved the first two chapters of the fully framed kit.   
 
I will laser cut those 8 and another 2 additional to keep on the shelf.  Just in case.   
 
I am buying all of the supplies needed to complete them now and also getting the plans printed and starting to write the monograph chapters.
 
Should be a fun project for those who are taking the plunge.

Over the last week I planked the port side bulwarks.  I spent a few hours today doing the final sanding of both sides of the bulwarks which included thinning the areas of the bulwarks tops that were thicker than the others in preparation for adding the cap rail.  I carefully thinned the 1/32" thick spirketing to a thickness somewhere between 1/32" and 1/64".  I then rounded the edge of the top spirketing plank a bit.  Lastly I softened the edges on the stern frames to reflect the look of Chuck's visible stern frames on his Cheerful build.
 
Erik

There will be a limited run of 10 or 15 POF kits.  I am cutting the first two chapters now which will comprise all of the framing for the first five.  
 
The cost for the first 2 Chapters is $800.  It is comprised of a whole lot of wood sheets.  The estimated total cost for the project fully rigged will be about $2300.
 
To reserve one of these very special limited edition POF version send me a PM to reserve it. Although when time and my wood supply permits, I will keep one or two sets of these first chapters on the shelf.  
 
 
Chuck
 
 

Yes indeed it does Greg
 
And just to clarify...when I say POB it isnt the traditional POB.  I have known for some time that few would ever pay this much money for a quality POF kit.   I have planned for the last year to make sure that I could recoup my initial investment.   I have had a design in POB made and ready to go for a while now.  Just in case.
 
Forget everything you know about previous POB designs.   This version will look identical to the fully framed version.  But it will let you fully detail all of the interior.   It is basically the same kit with less than half the frames.