drobinson02199

Chugging away on second planking. There's a lot of it! Regards, David

Interim progress on the second planking. I found that with regular tapering, I was still having to work too hard to get the bow runs flat to the hull, so as shown I've begun some "layered tapering". The stern requires some careful fitting to get the pieces to butt properly against the stern piece. I use a steamer to get the bends right, so I don't have to soak the wood. The walnut looks pretty messy from glue marks, but all of that will sand away, and it will have a nice walnut finish . . . . . just in time to paint all of it or cover it with copper. 😛 Regards, David

Planked the portion of the Middle Gun Deck called for in the manual (the part that is visible from above or outside. I made a sequence goof and put the crossbeams in too early, so had to work around them when doing this planking. I also wish the manual had called for painting the areas black that can be seen through the gunports before the gunport templates went on, vs. after during this planking step. Would have been a whole lot easier. Regards, David

I finished building the stern quarter galleries -- pic attached. Had to make a strategic building decision. The way I think the instructions will go (without looking forward, but looking at pictures of this construction stage) is: Varnish the side pieces Install the "glazing" (plastic windows) Build the galleries Paint the ship, avoiding the plastic Paint the windows off the ship Then install the painted windows But I'm not a huge fan of plastic windows, because they collect dust, and in this case the window panes (looking through the brass) are small. I also didn't trust mounting the windows when the glazing was installed. So I installed the windows now and mounted the sides, and varnished it. I'll skip the plastic windows and when I paint, I can paint across the brass window panes. Regards, David

Stern fascia on. The curved lower part took some doing, because it just doesn't want to bend -- even with soaking. I finally scored the rear side about 12 times (the way a mechanical plank bender works) and that helped achieve the curve. Regards, David

I mentioned in an earlier post that the top gunport pattern extended beyond the leftmost stern-facing bulkhead, and that instead of sanding down the gunport pattern (which would create a misalignment), I planned to shim out the port side bulkheads. The picture below shows that -- the shims are marked with red arrows and I have put asterisks on them. Now when I put the stern template up against the stern, the curve aligns properly on the port side. Regards, David

First planking filled, sanded and varnished. Regards, David

Here's the first planking finished -- rough, unsanded. Pretty straightforward as first plankings go. Lots of tapering (using a planking vise), steaming/bending, and a fair amount of instant-set at critical points. Regards, David

First planking about halfway done. I use medium CA glue and a steamer for the bends. Regards, David

Hi Killickthere: I don't have my manual any more to check, but I just looked at the pictures on the Vanguard site and they are not rigged on the model pictured. But there are eyebolts on each side of the cannon carriages for rigging, which I did install, so you can certainly do it yourself if you have some spare hardware -- and there may be enough spares in the kit to do it. I still have eyebolts left over (they are photo-etched brass). Hope this helps. Regards, David

Finished mounting the gunport templates. Pretty much followed the manual instructions on doing this, and the strips that curve at the bow really do need to be soaked at the bow end for about 2 hours. I first dry-mounted them with pins to get the alignment right, then used a steamer to get a provisional bend in the bow section, and then soaked, remounted, and glued. One end result was misalignment at the stern end. The key alignment point is a specific gunport window with bulkhead 17 (see picture). Everything else lines up with that first step on the first template. What's supposed to happen is that the end flange of the first template should line up with the stern support bulkheads -- and on the starboard side it pretty well did -- but on the port side it was 2 mm too long. When I measured, I found a 2 mm difference in the distance between bulkheads 17 and 18 on the starboard and port sides. That may have resulted from uneven widening of the lower gunport slots. In any event, my first impulse was that the templates should be sanded back, but on reflection I think that the better approach will be to shim out the rear bulkheads to align with the gunport templates, since those were the critical items to align. So that's what I'll do and it should come out fine. Regards, David

Something nice for a model this complex: Caldercraft offers PDFs of the manuals for download free from the Jo Tika website, and they are searchable. What this allows is a way to look in the manual to see where something is called for in the future. A nice aid to make sure I haven't messed up. Examples: I wasn't sure if I had missed the poop deck, as it's shown on plan sheet 1, so I searched for "poop" and found the place in the manual where it's installed -- much further on. I couldn't figure out what the lowest row of cannons rested on once the gunport templates are installed, so I looked up "cannon" and found that they are dummy cannons that are installed through a drilled hole in the barrel strip -- again, much later on. This is going to save a lot of searching through the paper manual when I have these types of questions. Hope this might help others. Regards, David

Well, not so fast on the manual and plan sequence. I looked ahead a bit in the manual and I now see that the sequence for the decks is specific in the manual and not what I had assumed. Fortunately, while I have installed some beams ahead of where they are called for, I can work around them. But I think I need to stop building and read the hull manual front to back to understand what goes when. Regards, David

Added the bow and stern supports (pictured). Also dealt with an interesting construction sequence. The manual has the front false keel installed right away, but not the rear one. I'm not sure why, but it must have something to do with the planking. At the same time, at this stage, the manual suggests drilling the mounting holes. So I fitted and secured the rear false keel with rubber bands and a clamp for alignment, and then aligned and drilled the holes for the pedestal supports as shown. Now I'll put the rear false keel away until it's called for later on. Speaking of the manual, it's tricky, because at the beginning it seems to run in detail along with the plan sheets, but then just after this mounting holes step it skips forward past the installation of the gun deck -- but you have to do that in order to get to the next section the manual deals with. So I've realized that this is a "one eye on the manual and the other one on the plans" kind of kit. Regards, David

I've now added the "barrel strips" that run through slots on the bulkheads above and below the deck. They aren't easy to install, as they are thick and have to negotiate a couple of curves. I soaked the bottom ones for 30 minutes and then used a hammer to knock them in, guiding them into the slot holes. Once you get them into frame #4, it gets easier. The curve on the top ones was less severe and I was able to install them dry, as is. Regards, David