Robin Lous

Sunday we had dinner guests, so we had to cook and entertain...

It was an enjoyable evening, but it limited my shipyard time. 
 
Yesterday and today I spend my time planking the stern...

A time consuming, but rewarding task. The horizontal planks are slightly curved, top section 45 degrees, bottom section 60 degrees.
And my second modification...the gun ports.
The manual and plan show 8 mm x 8 mm ports...glued on top of the planking.
The replica ship has rectangular gun ports there. I made the outside measurements 9 mm x 11 mm.
The lids will be 8 mm x 10 mm...flush with the planking and a small gap of 0,5 mm all around, so you can see they're there!
I'll also make the "rope holes" next to the gun ports from a 4 mm drilled open ebony dowel. Rounded edges.
 
The shipyard received new supplies today!

A wooden ship's boat to replace the unsuitable (and likely frowned upon) resin ship's boat I already have. The gratings and a supply of walnut.
 
Still busy with the stern...it's a painstaking job to work around the gun ports, but I did that to myself. 
Edit: Finished manual step #2

I now continue with the gun ports and the cabin wall.
 
More soon, slow but steady!
 
Robin 

Sunday we had dinner guests, so we had to cook and entertain...

It was an enjoyable evening, but it limited my shipyard time. 
 
Yesterday and today I spend my time planking the stern...

A time consuming, but rewarding task. The horizontal planks are slightly curved, top section 45 degrees, bottom section 60 degrees.
And my second modification...the gun ports.
The manual and plan show 8 mm x 8 mm ports...glued on top of the planking.
The replica ship has rectangular gun ports there. I made the outside measurements 9 mm x 11 mm.
The lids will be 8 mm x 10 mm...flush with the planking and a small gap of 0,5 mm all around, so you can see they're there!
I'll also make the "rope holes" next to the gun ports from a 4 mm drilled open ebony dowel. Rounded edges.
 
The shipyard received new supplies today!

A wooden ship's boat to replace the unsuitable (and likely frowned upon) resin ship's boat I already have. The gratings and a supply of walnut.
 
Still busy with the stern...it's a painstaking job to work around the gun ports, but I did that to myself. 
Edit: Finished manual step #2

I now continue with the gun ports and the cabin wall.
 
More soon, slow but steady!
 
Robin 

Sunday we had dinner guests, so we had to cook and entertain...

It was an enjoyable evening, but it limited my shipyard time. 
 
Yesterday and today I spend my time planking the stern...

A time consuming, but rewarding task. The horizontal planks are slightly curved, top section 45 degrees, bottom section 60 degrees.
And my second modification...the gun ports.
The manual and plan show 8 mm x 8 mm ports...glued on top of the planking.
The replica ship has rectangular gun ports there. I made the outside measurements 9 mm x 11 mm.
The lids will be 8 mm x 10 mm...flush with the planking and a small gap of 0,5 mm all around, so you can see they're there!
I'll also make the "rope holes" next to the gun ports from a 4 mm drilled open ebony dowel. Rounded edges.
 
The shipyard received new supplies today!

A wooden ship's boat to replace the unsuitable (and likely frowned upon) resin ship's boat I already have. The gratings and a supply of walnut.
 
Still busy with the stern...it's a painstaking job to work around the gun ports, but I did that to myself. 
Edit: Finished manual step #2

I now continue with the gun ports and the cabin wall.
 
More soon, slow but steady!
 
Robin 

The extra details are worth the effort...seemingly simple things (we know better) like a ladder or a railing. 
So many amazing details to look at...and what's yet to come...the BIG picture.  
Great show!
 
Robin  
 

Sunday we had dinner guests, so we had to cook and entertain...

It was an enjoyable evening, but it limited my shipyard time. 
 
Yesterday and today I spend my time planking the stern...

A time consuming, but rewarding task. The horizontal planks are slightly curved, top section 45 degrees, bottom section 60 degrees.
And my second modification...the gun ports.
The manual and plan show 8 mm x 8 mm ports...glued on top of the planking.
The replica ship has rectangular gun ports there. I made the outside measurements 9 mm x 11 mm.
The lids will be 8 mm x 10 mm...flush with the planking and a small gap of 0,5 mm all around, so you can see they're there!
I'll also make the "rope holes" next to the gun ports from a 4 mm drilled open ebony dowel. Rounded edges.
 
The shipyard received new supplies today!

A wooden ship's boat to replace the unsuitable (and likely frowned upon) resin ship's boat I already have. The gratings and a supply of walnut.
 
Still busy with the stern...it's a painstaking job to work around the gun ports, but I did that to myself. 
Edit: Finished manual step #2

I now continue with the gun ports and the cabin wall.
 
More soon, slow but steady!
 
Robin 

Hi Kier,
 
Thanks for taking an interest in my build. The finish that I use is my personal preference, one that I have arrived at after trial and error. I always use a sanding sealer on every piece of finished wood, it soaks in, toughens the surface a little, it seals the grain, gives better edge definition and after a light sand you don't get those fine fibres that give a slightly rough surface finish. It's the poly varnish that gives the surface texture that you want, matt, satin or gloss. I find that I only need one coat of varnish rather than at least two if I don't use sealer and I think that it's absolutely needed if you are going to paint and want a smooth finish. If you are going to use stain then you must put it on prior to sealing as after it won't penetrate the wood.
 
I use a cellulous type of sealer as it dries very quickly and is ready to sand in about 8-10 minutes.
 
I hope that this is a help and answers your question.
 
Ken

Many thanks to Al, Nils, Derek, and Mike for your interest and comments. 
Mast and spars.
I have not gone into further research regarding the mast dimensions, I will fine tune it by eye.
I divided the length from the thwart to the shoulder into quarters for the purpose of taper. From the plan 4mm at thwart, 3.6mm (1stQ) 3.5mm (2ndQ) 3.1mm (3rd Q) 2.5mm (Shoulder)
From the shoulder to mast cap; 2.2mm 2mm at centre, 1.8mm at truck.
A card gauge is used to monitor progress at the Quarters.

2236
The tapering was done on the Proxxon wood lathe.
 
Making of the Bowsprit, Gaff and Boom are fairly straightforward.

2237
The Gaff jaws were fashioned from some Boxwood sheet,  and it should be noted that the Boom is tapered each end from the centre where it thickens slightly.
Boom Iron
Always seeking the easy route I initially followed the kit instruction for making this; c.a. the ends and twist the extension to the horizontal before drilling the  hole for the Boom Gooseneck.

2238
This didn't work for me the c.a. failed to hold following the twist, so I reverted to silver soldering which achieved the objective.

2241

2246

2250
Trial fitting of the Boom iron.
The mast dowel takes some distress during the iron fitting process. Would have been better to use Boxwood for the spars I think.

2254
The completed iron set.
 
Mast colouring.
The problem with using the provided dowel is that getting a good finish using just varnish is tricky. Patchiness, uneven coverage, and strange over-scale grain patterns show thro'.
I found that sealing the dowel with matt varnish was necessary to seal the surface before applying my tinted varnish mix.
Several coats later with light in-between fine paper rub downs and I get the look I'm after.
So here's the completed masting set.

4297
The varnished parts were of a satin finish, and to complete they were coated with matt varnish.
 
B.E.
 

yes....those two factors will cause yellowing.   decals are like a fine cigar   
 
yes Greg.......that is my first choice.   I've seen other colors done,  and to me, they make them look toyish or fake.   I think a good color would be flat black with a bit of silver mixed in.....reflective shine factor.  not sure if I'm gonna go that far,  but so far my choice will be flat black.  
 
I ended up printing up some more letter and number insignias,  since I found that all I had were too large.   the bonder must need at least a day to become totally dry,  cuz it played hell in putting them on the 'choppers......kept wanting to transfer to the blotter...grrrrrrrr.   I also wanted to add a red ring around the tail section.
    that didn't work out too well,  so I just painted a ring around them.   I painted the wheels too,  while I was at it.

while I was looking through my decals,  I found one that would serve well as a clock face on the flight deck.

not a good picture........and then the tedious task of adding the rest of the decals to the 'choppers

next will be to paint the windows and intakes.......then finish off the rotors.   still weighing my options for the deck repairs.
 
thanks for the kind comments and looking in   

More blocks added and also the running rigging on the fore and main masts is 99% completed. 

I agree, the blue looks real fine. Not near as bright as I first thought it was going to be, good stuff.

Here we are on October 21st having completed planking the hull, having made the rest of the gun ports and having applied a first coat of mat varnish. I also used the sanding dust - which I kept in a bag - to fill up the nail holes and other mistakes I had made. Mixing the dust with some varnish makes for a nice filler that matches the wood well.
 
The hull is far from finished in it's current state. Some more sanding is needed. I am aiming for a smooth surface with no more than 0.1mm irregularities. Scaling up 0.1mm by 90 gives 9mm which would be plenty much and unacceptable for a real ship - I think.

Completed one side of the first blue band tonight. It sure feels good to be making forward progress again!

Clever idea to paint the strip before you put them in place.
I might copy that in the near(ish) future.
And it's good to hear you're feeling better.
 
Robin 

I was wondering about that also.
Maybe it's like this: a line is a rope running from A to B. The rope is the tool, a line has a function.
I'm probably completely wrong though. 

Here is some more progress in planking from October 10th. By the time I reached this point I had read up planking techniques and started tapering the planks as they reached the bow.
 
One think I wanted to show in this picture is the fact that the planks are being laterally bent as they reach the stern. Probably not the right thing to do but as I mounted the first first planks in the wale and followed the instructions, that plank had to be bent in that way. From there on I just followed the flow. 
 
What do you think about this pattern?

What's the difference between rope and line?

Here is a picture from the stern planked with thin (0.6mm) planks. Put in place to set. Trimming and planking done only when glue is fully set. Best to do it on the next day.

The first picture I have here is of the stern deck fully planked. Didn't know about staggering the deck planks or even cutting them to shorter pieces. There was a reference in the instructions but I chose to ignore it. After all, it was much simpler with long planks, right?

Made some good progress yesterday on the stern thanks to the feedback from Nic. While the template didn't fit perfectly at the keel, when I checked against the sternpost, it was a tighter fit. As you can see, got a little bit of putty in there too to fix a gap that I think I created myself with poor follow through on the initial stern sanding.
 

 
I got all the keel markings done and am ready to start shaping the rest of the during the week.

Second deck completed, mounted, and first coat of varnish just applied.
 
Regards,
David

Don, I really...really...very much...like this build.
 
It's not a ship of the line...a more humble vessel...and so it's perhaps sailing under the radar (that makes sense?), but, boy oh boy...it's a beauty!
 
May I ask? what type of varnish did you use? semi-gloss? It looks wonderful.
 
Robin      

More work on the main deck today, I decided against ageing the planks - instead I just sanded them to blend them together, then after blowing of any dust, I mixed up some flat top coat  diluted about 40% and applied a few coats.
I think this is ok for the deck.
 
OC.

Here's part 2/2

here's the second part

More weathering. Do the life rafts look ok to anyone? I'm thinking about repainting them.