Fernando E

After a coupIe of coats of oak stain and one of wipe on poly on the hatch planks, I placed the locking bars on the forward hatch and added the hold down loops for them. Instead of drilling two holes for each loop, I cheated a bit and only drilling one hole on the outside of the bar for each loop. I then cut the inside of the loop shorter and placed the long end in the hole. This worked great and was much easier than trying to get both ends of the loop into two holes. After all the loops were added, I slid the loop for the lock through the hold down loop in the deck and glued the lock body to the lock loop.

I did not like the look of the plywood cleats supplied with the kit, as I want to leave them natural not painted. I used some 1/4" square basswood and the mill to rough out new cleat blanks, then sanded them to final shape. The top cleat in this image is the supplied blank, the middle is what mine looked like after milling (this is one of the two shorter cleats), and the bottom one is after final sanding.

I then added the 2mm brass pin to each one and gave them two coats of oak stain. I will give them a coat of wipe on poly when they dry.

 

A small update but I am pretty happy with these padlocks. Took me a few hours but it was really fun using the mill for what it is intended. I made these by cutting four 1/8" strips into some 1/16" brass angle using my band saw. I then put the angle into the mill vise so the flat surface was pointing up. I then used a small mill bit to make a 1/16" slot in each piece and a slightly larger drill but to make a hole at one end of the slot. These only go about half way through the brass strip. I then used the band saw to cut each strip off the angle and picked the best two. I used a disk sander to round the two corners at the end of the slot. I then cut off the excess and filed the square end flat, then used the mill to drill two small holes in the flat end for a wire loop. I still need to clean these up and blacken them. The padlock loops won't be glued into the padlock bodies until the locking bars are in place and I can slide the padlock loop around the locking loop in the deck.

As the hull is coming closer to finish I have to work on all very small remaining details. This time Just Iron work. 
Traveller (it is so small that my poor camera couldn't catch any more details) 

Some more eyelets for sanding rigging. With the thimble for bobstay and 2 on each side for bowsprit shrouds. 


 

I was away at my son's for the weekend but had a lot of time today in the shop. I gave the planks on the hatches a second coat of oak stain and will give them a coat of wipe on poly when they dry.

I assembled the locking straps and bars for the two hatches but will wait until the planks are finished before installing them. All those loops in the cup need to be placed around those bars which is going to be quite sporting, I think.

Here is where I am with the wheelhouse. I have finished painting it and have added the planks on the roof after I took this picture. You can see the finished sliding cover at the top of the previous picture. I need to add the door to the aft side before I put the cover on, and also put pieces of clear acetate in the windows and port holes.

And this is the hatch frame and cover for the opening into the sail room. I used the mill to add a rabbet to a strip of wood then cut pieces to make the frame. I have since painted the frame all green. There are ladders that go inside this frame and the wheelhouse which I will make next.

I should have more to show tomorrow.
 

Adding more details. Second channel is in place. 
I have decided to blackend brass belaying pins, it goes better with other deck details. 

I am not sure how old this update is from their webpage, but i didnt see it last time i visited. 
 
Looks like exciting news!
 
*Latest News*
Recent developments:
Regular visitors here will be aware that there have been few updates made to our site for some time. Our recent program of expansion has put severe demands on our time but we have been able to benefit from the recent economic downturn and, while many businesses have downscaled, we have successfully taken advantage of various opportunities, investing in and expanding our business through the introduction of new products and adding to our range of distributed product lines.

The weak pound has also resulted in a surge of overseas orders for our own manufactured kits such as Nelsons Navy, Heritage Series and Caldercraft and it has been a constant struggle to increase our output to meet demand. In fact, the past 18-24 months has seen the greatest rate of expansion of the business since we began over 20 years ago!

We have invested in more manufacturing equipment and taken on new staff and, as a result, we are slowly getting ahead of things again. Regular customers will be pleased to know that we are now preparing releases for some of the new kits that have been held back recently.

We are also hoping to get back to more regular updating of our website as we have literally hundreds of new products to add. In the mean time, our current pricelist is available to download in PDF format from the 'Downloads' section of the website.

Both hatches are now planked and have a first coat of oak stain. Yesterday I made the hardware that locks the hatches closed. This consists of straps that go over the hatch planks with loops at the ends that a bar slides through. The bar has a loop on the end that slips over a loop in the deck and is locked with a padlock. There are also loops in the deck to hold the bars down. The kit supplied copper strip to make the straps, which I started with. I measured the lengths, made the loops by wrapping the copper strip around the bar material, and soldered the loops closed. The copper got very soft, though, so when cleaning up the solder the straps bent all out of shape and two actually broke. So I used some brass strip that I had and remade them, and these came out much better. I also used a drill bit that was larger then the bar material to make the loops which helped with the finished loops. To shape the ends of the bars for the locking loops, I used the mill to cut a flat on one end of each bar, then drilled a hole in the flat again using the mill. I rounded the end with a file and added the locking loops, which I made by wrapping brass wire around two nails. The next step was to bend the bars to fit around the end of the hatch. I had no problem getting the bend at the right place, but there are only two ways the bend could go and the first two I bent 90 degrees off, so the locking loops did not lie flat to the deck. Of course there was no extra material for the bars, so I improvised. I cut off the flat end, used a razor saw to make a slot in the new bar end, and doubled over some thin brass strip, leaving one side longer. I slipped this side into the slot then soldered the strip in place as well as soldering the seams on each side. I then drilled the hole and rounded the end of the strip. Problem solved and the other two bars I made sure to bend the right way so no extra work was needed on them, except to cut all the bars to length. Here are some of the pieces drying after blackening. I already made and blackened the hold down loops and I am starting to work on the padlocks. The two long hold down loops are for the locking loops on the bars. I needed to make these longer than the regular hold down loops so the padlocks will fit.

Right channel with chain plates and deadeyes. Temporary mast with thread tied to the shrouds height to check the direction of the chain plates and also the inclination of the deadeyes. 

Looking beautiful Tom. That green is perfect!
 
Cheers.........Fernando 

Little progress. Resting from the Guns. Outer bulwark steps. 

Thank you Fernando and those that hit the like button. Adding planks over those hatch openings is the next step. I first thought that I could add each plank individually since I had a shelve on each side for them, but I didn't want to glue them down as I went because I knew they would not exactly fill the opening and I would have to make adjustments to their widths. But his proved to be too fiddely as they planks kept falling down into the openings. Since I had already glued the supplied supports into the openings to make shelves for the planks to rest on, I made more supports using the openings in the laser cut sheet as a template so that I could glue the planks to these supports before adding the whole assembly to the opening. This worked very well and looking back on the plans is how I should have used the supplied supports in the first place. I used a gluing jig I made years ago to keep the planks aligned along one edge as I glued them to the supports. I cut the planks on the Byrnes saw using the cross cut sled which gave me very precise planks.

I started planking from the middle of the supports but left off the two end planks. I glued this assembly into the opening, then adjusted the width of the two end planks to fill the remaining space and notched them with a round file. I glued these in to finish each opening.
I am now using the same procedure for the three openings on the large hatch. I plan to stain these hatch planks to match the decking.

Hello! First time poster, and relatively new to modeling. 
 
I've tried my hand at a few kits before. Mamoli's HMS Bounty was my first attempt, but that got lost when I moved, and I found myself a fair bit over my head in any event. So, I'm scaling back and trying something a bit simpler. In the next week or so, I hope to start a build log for the Model Shipways 18th Century Longboat. I'm hoping I can develop skills there for use on larger models. Wish me luck, and glad to be here!
 
~CE

Hello from Germany! 
 
I want to say hello everybody - I am 39 years old coming from Southern Germany near Stuttgart. 

I am  doing scale modeling since I am a young boy, I am married and doing scale modeling as a hobby besides my job, family, friends, our house and - soon - our little 3rd family member coming soon. 
 
Another hobby is my website (www.world-in-scale.de). I am doing all kind of scale models in nearly all scales (Civil trucks and construction vehicles in 1:35, airplanes in 1:32, military in 1:35 and lot of ships mainly in 1:350 and 1:200). Now I am starting my first wooden ships - (I love the old American paddle steamers so I have 3 wooden ship models on my stash which I want to build next ..... 
 
So I hope that I could learn a lot from you all ... and please excuse any mistakes in the wooden ships - I never did that before :) 
 
Cheers
 
Michael
 

Not much to show. I'm working on the Guns. One line is ready. 

To make the frames for the hatch coamings, I needed to bend the wood to the curve of the coaming pieces. Luckily I found that the curve of the brush cleaner I have is about the same curve as I needed, so I soaked a piece of wood for the trim and clamped it to the outside of the cleaner. I then used a heat gun to gently heat the wood to dry it.

When it was dry I took off the clamps and this is what I had.

I cut section from the curved wood and they were an exact fit to the coamings. I cut the individual pieces, painted them green, then glued them to the top of the hatch coamings after doing some final trimming. I still need to touch up the green paint on the ends that I trimmed.


The next step is to cut and attach the planks that go inside the frames. There is also some brass parts that need to be made that lock the planks down, which I have started to make.

Gidday Richard and another warm welcome from the Land Downunder.
I agree wholeheartedly with your view on the level of skill on display here.
The site is amazing not only in modelling skills but also in technical knowledge.
I wish you all the best in your endeavours.
Mark.

Welcome from berkshire

Iv'e now placed all of the deck furniture, anchors etc on the model and have made a start on the masts. This will be my first double masted ship so should be interesting! Here she is without the masts.
 

The only piece left of the deck furniture I have left off is the binnacle (see below) which doesn't really inspire me. I was going to either leave it off altogether or  paint it black(!).  It looks too clunky and just not right. I don't know if this type of binnacle is representative of the early 19th century ships so will need to do some more research. Any suggestions from those more in the know would be greatly appreciated.

I'm off for a "long holiday" so won't be back at the shipyard till mid October but will keep looking in from time to time.
 
Cheers.............Fernando

Thanks a lot @Gregory, will try that! 
 
Did I say that binnacle house was small? Here is the first gun assembled. The square on the pad is 1cm. Even it is very small it is very very detailed. My plan was to fully rig it with tackles (not included in the kit). Not sure if it will be possible but will try what I can do! 

I have received those testing blocks with hooks Just for this purpose. I think it could work. Blocks are only 2mm. Will see. 

 
 

Thanks Popeye and the likes too. That is the same green I used on the Constitution bulwarks. I had mixed up a bunch and had a lot left over.
 
I made the ties that go between the bulwark supports and glued them to the supports, then drilled holes through them into the supports and pushed in cut off brass nails. I then painted the nail heads the same green as the supports.

Here is the latest wheelhouse version. This is the second one I have made. The sides of the first one were a little too short to fit the opening. This one is a bit longer so it fits nicely. You can see the supports I sanded to fit in the corners which make it quite strong now. You can also see the frames in the windows. I will be placing some thin acetate in the windows from inside so they won't be open holes. I will do that with the round windows on the sides too.

There are a lot of deck fittings to be made which is going to be fun and keep me busy for a while.

Well, the 'Meteor' finally has a stern!  The major elements of the transom framing are now in place so she's looking like a ship at last.  Still some detail pieces to fit around the transom and then some final fairing up and sanding of the exterior before I give her a bit of planking to firm up the whole structure.
 
It will be a little while until my next update as I won't be in at the museum for the next three weeks.
 
John
 

A huge apology for the very long delay in posting some pics on my second attempt on this build.
 
I have been working on her for a few months (on and off....in between work,travel and grandson minding commitments) but time goes by quickly and despite my best efforts have not had an opportunity to upload some progress shots....so here goes. I finished the second layer of planking and despite some re-planking some parts I was happy with the end result. Work on the model so far has been relatively straight forward. The build plans are very easy to read and the photos are excellent. Parts have, generally, been easy to install with some minor sanding or adjustments on some of the smaller parts.
 
I've been fitting some of the deck furniture and will be moving on to the masts and rigging in the next few days. Hopefully I will be giving a lot more detail and more regular updates as I progress to the next stage of the build.. 
 
That's it for now....apologies for the lack of detail but I thought that I should update where I'm at before going further on the build.
 
Cheers...............Fernando T

A huge apology for the very long delay in posting some pics on my second attempt on this build.
 
I have been working on her for a few months (on and off....in between work,travel and grandson minding commitments) but time goes by quickly and despite my best efforts have not had an opportunity to upload some progress shots....so here goes. I finished the second layer of planking and despite some re-planking some parts I was happy with the end result. Work on the model so far has been relatively straight forward. The build plans are very easy to read and the photos are excellent. Parts have, generally, been easy to install with some minor sanding or adjustments on some of the smaller parts.
 
I've been fitting some of the deck furniture and will be moving on to the masts and rigging in the next few days. Hopefully I will be giving a lot more detail and more regular updates as I progress to the next stage of the build.. 
 
That's it for now....apologies for the lack of detail but I thought that I should update where I'm at before going further on the build.
 
Cheers...............Fernando T

Hope i am doing all this correct, it is my first build log.  First time i worked on a wooden ship sites like this did not exist. This will not be a fast build, my wife will be having back surgery and the grandkids have just moved closer, so please bear with me. I do plan on getting the grandkids a model for them to work on as well, fingers crossed on that one.
I have just finished with the dry fit and have now glued bulkhead frames to the keel.
Hope you guys like what you see as I move along. I am very much looking forward to seeing my progress as well.

 
Doug

A huge apology for the very long delay in posting some pics on my second attempt on this build.
 
I have been working on her for a few months (on and off....in between work,travel and grandson minding commitments) but time goes by quickly and despite my best efforts have not had an opportunity to upload some progress shots....so here goes. I finished the second layer of planking and despite some re-planking some parts I was happy with the end result. Work on the model so far has been relatively straight forward. The build plans are very easy to read and the photos are excellent. Parts have, generally, been easy to install with some minor sanding or adjustments on some of the smaller parts.
 
I've been fitting some of the deck furniture and will be moving on to the masts and rigging in the next few days. Hopefully I will be giving a lot more detail and more regular updates as I progress to the next stage of the build.. 
 
That's it for now....apologies for the lack of detail but I thought that I should update where I'm at before going further on the build.
 
Cheers...............Fernando T