tlevine

While completing Hannah I decided to start thinking about my next project.  I thought I would mast Hannah but after completing the fore lower mast it became obvious that this was too tall for my pre-existing display cabinets.  (I have all my ships in a large glass and mahogany cabinet rather than in individual
cases.  This arrangement is not air tight but takes up much less space. 

I decided to try my hand at a Swan class, a 16 gun sixth rate sloop.  There are several advantages to this selection:  the research has already been done, plans are available, the ship is not too large and (most importantly) there are four volumes of wisdom from David Antscherl and Greg Herbert.  I already own David’s Mylar plan and CD.  The next decision was which one of the ships to select.  There are kits for Fly and Pegasus.  Some of the ships had too few
plans available from the National Maritime Museum (NMM).  Therefore I selected Atalanta.  Atalanta was a Greek huntress and wrestler.  The most notable
story about her was that she agreed to marry the man who could outrun her in a race; but if she won, the suitor was killed. So much for mythology!

Atalanta did not have much of a career.  She was launched on August 12, 1775 from Sheerness dockyard.  She was involved in one action on May 28,
1781 and was captured by the American ship Alliance off the coast of Nova Scotia.  She was recaptured by the British off Cape Cod a few weeks later and was eventually sold and broken up in 1802.

I sent away for plans from the National Maritime Museum and ordered my wood from Jeff at HobbyMill.  I will be using Costello boxwood and possibly some other hardwoods for accents.  The wood is gorgeous.  Jeff has developed a wood package for a Swan build which will eliminate hours of “fun” at the thickness sander.  (Ask for an extra sheet of wood (scale 6") for the hanging and lodging knees unless you want to thickness down one of the thicker sheets.)

I do not have a lot of spare time but I am hopeful that I can complete the model within five years.  It will not be masted.  I have not decided about hull and deck planking.  I figure that I have a few years before I need to worry about these decisions!

Toni

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Author:  dvm27

Terrific choice, Toni.  For those unfamiliar with Atalanta there is a lovely model of her in the NMM built in the Georgian
style.  It may be viewed at:  http://www.nmm.ac.uk/collections/explire/object.cfm?ID=SLR0340&picture=2#content

Greg

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July 24, 2011.  The first thing to address was the building board.  This was made with ¾ inch MDF and given a couple of coats of Kilz.  After sanding it smooth, the centerline and the fore and aft dimension lines were drawn in and scribed.  A copy of the plan was glued to the building board.  The mirror image was obtained by copying the Mylar from the reverse.  I used Elmer’s poster glue as it allows for removal of the plan without damaging the building board if I decide I don’t like having the plan on the board.  The hull dimensions will be roughly 25 x 7 inches.
 

Now to begin making some sawdust!  The keel pieces were cut on the Preac and the scarf joints were made with chisels.  I have never used chisels before and am still getting the hang of them.  The key is sharpness of the tool.  In TFFM it is recommended to make cuts on a flat piece of hardwood.  I am using an old acrylic cutting board from the kitchen which has been sanded dead flat and is knife friendly.

Joints below waterline are lined with tarred flannel.  I used black paper which I already had for another purpose.  I tested it first in a mock-up to make sure the color did not bleed with either the glue or the finish.  I plan on using Watco’s Danish Wood Oil, which gives an almost dead-flat finish.

Toni

Here it goes!  I have decided to edit the original build log to make it more readable.  I am eliminating all of the attaboy posts and keeping all of the comments and additional information posts.  All of the pictures will be posted.  There are also some places where the retrospectoscope has shown me a better way of doing things, etc.  These portions will all be posted in italics.  Once I get the entire log up, I will (finally) develop an index.

Good to be back, Remco.  Thanks for the compliment, Dave.  Dave (Midnight) had saved a copy of my build log and was gracious enough to reformat it and send it to me today.  I will start working on rebuilding the log tomorrow.  Thank you again, Dave.

Christian, I am hoping to get at least some of the log from midnight.  Believe me, I am thrilled not to have to reconstruct the whole thing.  And a fond welcome back to you, Druxey.  Michael, the photo with the dog is a little misleading.  I was surprised how small it  looked compared with her.  The size of the building board is 12" x 30".

It is a fun build.  Nice break from something as complex as Atalanta.  Everything I used to build this (other than the thickness sander) fits in the kit box.

Joe, Ryland, Grant and Mark thanks for your support.  I will probably post an executive summary of the log to date.  Hope to get to it later in the week.

The sheer rail was installed.  The key to this is making it very oversized and then trimming it with a No. 11 blade and sandpaper.  I also drilled two holes in the keel for insertion of brass rod for mounting.  The frieze was applied with dilute yellow glue.  When I start painting I will improve the appearance of the freize by the stem. 

I am going to take a break from this build to return to Atalanta. 

Toni

The hull planking has been completed.  The center of the bulkheads were removed and the ribs were thinned out.

Toni

The hull planking has been completed.

The next photos show the hull after nine rows of strakes were installed.  As you can see, the stem snapped off.  I decided to leave it that way until the hull was completed. 

Toni

Chuck suggested twelve strakes of hull planking.  All of the planks were spiled.  I used the tick-strip method of spiling.  A strip of card was placed along the edge of each bulkhead.  That card was then divided into eleven segments.  Because the gargoard strake is a special case, I fit that strake by eye.  Rather than a single run of planking (as suggested in the kit) I used planks that were approx. twelve feet long.  One long and one butt edge was rubbed with pencil to hightlight the run of planking.  The key to a good run of planking is the garboard strake.  As shown in the instructions, the fore end of the garboard strake ends at bulkhead "F".

Toni

This is my build of Chuck's (Modelshipway's) kit of the longboat.  I am building this as part of the Chicago TriClub group build.  The Chicago TriClub is comprised of the three Chicago groups: Midwest Model Shipwrights, Northshore Deadeyes and Nautical Research and Ship Model Society of Chicago.  I plan on painting the model based on the prototype.  Although I had originally planned on building out-of-the-box, I personally found the basswood strips too soft and fuzzy and so all the planking is castillo boxwood.  I have plenty on hand from my Atalanta build. 

Two of our club presidents designed a building jig to help with installation of the bulkheads.  This is simply some plywood with two wood strips separated by the width of the keel.  There is a block with the stem width routed in to it anteriorly.  This keeps the keel from flexing as the bulkheads are installed.  Because this is a laser-cut kit, there is some char which needs to be sanded off.  Also all of the cut surfaces must be sanded to that they are exactly perpendicular to the basswood sheet.  Otherwise the keel scarf will not be correct and the bulkheads will not slip into their slots easily.

Once all of the bulkheads were installed, I glued in spacers between the scrap portions of the bulkheads to prevent the hull from flexing once it was removed from the jig.  Finally, the hull was faired.

Toni

I have not decided what I am going to do to reconstruct the build log.  Like most of us, I did not save any of the text accompanying the photos.  Over the next few days I will figure out my next step.

But now there is a new beginning so I will post some pictures of the progress so far.  They are not the best pictures (I have to rely on ambient lighting) but I wanted to get the build log restarted.  When Sadie heard about the disaster she insisted on getting back on line!

Toni

Remco, it was fun to scroll through the photos without sifting through the replies.  Your craftsmanship continues to inspire me.

Toni