campbewj

Glad to see some new followers. I hope to get to your builds this week to see what I can learn. I've started the planking around the gun ports. With the smaller planks and more straightforward alignment and little shaping of the planks, it seemed like that would be an easier place to start. So far so good.... Some things I've learned along the way. As this is my first planking effort, there is a lot to learn. - Its great to be doing work that makes is really look like a ship - the first few planks were pretty straightforward - Once I got to the gun ports, I debated cutting planks for each opening vs running the plank through the opening and cutting out the port once the glue was dry. There are some benefits for both. Running them through make aligning the next plank much easier. Where I cut individually and stopped at each gun port, there was a lot more work on the next strake. I've been running them through and you can see in the pics that I still have some to cut out. - Getting the right amount of glue is key. Too much and your wiping, and scraping and sanding to get rid of the excess. To little and the planks will pop off when you are cutting or sanding around the gun ports. When cutting use a really sharp knife and be very patient. - redoing work is a pain. I had to pull a plank or two after it was on the model and getting all the glue off and ready for the next one is a lot more work than double checking the original one. - The Micro-mark stand was the most effective Christmas present I can remember. I can't imagine how I would hold the model for this work without it, Highly recommend it. - I'm looking forward to the sanding and cleaning up the work. It's really hard to tell how this will turn out. I've been very careful to minimize gaps between boards but there is more variation in the thickness of the planks than I expected. With the basswood being very thin, I hope I don't sand through anything trying to make of for this. Interested in comments where you might see me going down a path that might cause issues. thanks Bill

welcome all new followers, glad to have you on board. I went looking for your build (Pond) and haven't found it. My searching the site skills still need work but I'd be interested to follow your build. I'm trying to find others builds that are following me as well. I've now attached the wale board and sectioned off section A,B and C so I think I'm ready to start actual planking. Making use of my new Christmas present now holding the ship frame. I've also made a significant investment in binder clips to get setup for this. Other than the wale, none of the others are attached. I've measured, twice, and I think I have these sections correct. I've marked the locations and I'm about to pull off the boards and remark the center of each board for the true start/end to each section. Then it will be marking the location for each board. Hope you all have a great New Year.

Steve, thanks for joining in, you may be the only one so far... Over the weekend I was able to complete the framing for the gunports. I've been struggling to align the bow and finally bent some wood to see how things might line up. Helped a lot to get comfortable I had things aligned correctly. So I'm thinking for about the 5th time I'm done fairing. Eventually I will be right about that. I put together a jig to bend to the shape of hull. At first glance it seems to work. I used a standard Iron and sprayed the wood a couple of time, "ironed" the piece top and bottom a couple of time and clamped it into the jig. There are some less then perfect portions but I expect I will get better at this over time.

Since my last post, I have been working on the framing for the gun ports. For the most part is has been pretty straightforward. The biggest challenge for me has been deciding if the horizontal framing should be horizontal or aligned to the curve of the deck. Using one of the guns and some throwaway wood for temporary planking I was able to determine the correct height. For most of the middle ports the difference between horizontal and aligned to the deck is trivial, it becomes more apparent at the bow. I went with horizontal, we'll see later on if there are any regrets. I've also used heavier stripwood, than what was called for and have tried to have it set out just a bit so sanding will align to the curvature of the ship and not leave a gap in the planking. I've done about 1/2 the ports and will continue working my way to the stern. I measured and cut the horizontal pieces individually as I worked across the boat. I pre cut the verticals so they would all be the same size.

some pictures that get me caught up to today. At this point I have a couple areas I'm working on; 1) I'm still working on the transom. Looking at the other builds, I'm trying to do some finishing work on this. I'm a bit stuck on the lettering. reading other builds it seems like MS word and some decal work is in order. Any other ideas on lettering? 2) Waterways and covering boards - You can see the waterway on the 2nd pic, still working on the covering boards. I'm thinking the covering boards in the Bow may wait until I get a bit further. I can't seem to see how this will align with planking particularly where the knighthead and timberhead are located. I suspect I have some rework to do in that area. In one of the pics I have the two pieces laid across and there isn't a great fit. I'm also not understanding why the instructions move ahead with the rails at this time. It just screams out to be something that will be broken as I move forward. I'm thinking of leaving this undone for a bit and working on the gunport framing

Adding a pic from a month or so back

After lurking on the site for a few months taking advantage of all the great information, I'm jumping in. As I've been working on the model for a couple of months, I have a bit of catching up to do. This is my second build since getting back into modelling. I built many, mostly plastic models of ships, planes, tanks back in my younger days. Jumped into wood ship models about 2 years ago. Based on the advice on this site I started with the Model Shipways Phantom. With that under my belt I've started the Rattlesnake. I still consider myself very much a beginner. Most days I wish I had instructions like the Revel plastic models from my past. I guess that's part of the hobby and what makes a community like this so valuable. so here goes....