hamilton

Planking looks really nice Andy! Too bad about being away from the bench, but I guess the bacon needs to be brought home, eh? Have fun! hamilton

Exquisite as usual Bob! hamilton

Looking good Peter - the stand looks very nice - I just used the one that came with the kit....yours is much nicer hamilton

Good choice! hamilton

Hi Peter: Actually once the deadeyes/chainplates were attached to the hull there was no issue. But one modification I made to the chainplates (not sure if you did this) was to snip off the mounting pegs on the back side of the chainplates and just glue them directly to the hull with a small amount of epoxy. I was a little nervous that they wouldn't hold, but in the end they were fine and there was no snapping or breaking of these small parts....thankfully! The Syren is moving slowly! It's a really busy time at work, so not much modelling getting done at all. I did have to cut a new bulkhead because one of the ones provided in the kit had a great big gap running along the edge, weakening it considerably. Fortunately, I have a decentl supply of 3/16" maple ply lying around from my Bluenose scratch build that I could easily cut a new one. I've now gotten to the point of assembling the basic framework and rough fairing the hull. When I'm able to get back to it, I'll be starting on the gunport framing.....I might post a casual log once my plate clears at work.....perhaps over the Christmas holidays.....in the meantime, I'll just enjoy your build and others on this forum! hamilton

Looks really beautiful John - you should be proud! I love the choice to show the forward port side whaleboat being launched - a classy touch! On the the next? And what will that be? hamilton

Hi Peter: Looking good - I found those deadeye strops to be way too soft! I ended up breaking one and improvised a repair by using a modified gudgeon leftover from my HMS Blandford....it's on the non-display side of the model so it's not too offensive. You obviously were more careful with yours than I was! hamilton

Hi Chris: Are you following the planking expansion that ME provides as a plan sheet with this kit? So far your planking looks good, but when I was reading about your woes earlier on, I wondered if you were following their scheme or spiling the planks on your own.... Where the plank edges are exposed, you should use a scalpel blade (#10 x-acto) to "take the edge off" and then sand liberally to get a nice smooth hull. Keep on going my friend!! hamilton

Looks really beautiful Jond! hamilton

Hi Chris: Per's right - there is little space between the bulkheads! But I think you'll find that this makes fairing and planking quite a bit easier. I built this kit a couple of years ago and it still stands out as one of my very favourite builds - lots of fun and at a large scale that allows for some interesting detailing. Looking forward to seeing yours come together and happy to answer any questions you might have as you go through the build (if I can remember!) hamilton

Nice to see you back here Andy! The first planking on Diana also looks great - it'll be even better once that nice boxwood goes on! Looking forward to seeing where you take this one hamilton

Hi Peter: I found the scuppers to be very tough too...I ended up drilling them out very slowly starting with micro drills that were quite small and very gradually opening them up from both sides and using jewelers files to square them up. Another trick I learned was to clamp a piece of scrap hardwood on the opposite side of the drill to prevent the wood from flaring out when the drill went through...mine still did not turn out perfect...it's a very tricky business...but I still think your America is coming along very nicely.... hamilton

Thanks Tim - welcome aboard! Hope you're a patient man! I have no dry-cleaning bag to put BN under, but at present, I have no keel, and no time or ability to cut a new one at the moment.....could be a long time before I strike this build up again....I have to do all my cutting outside and we're in the rainy season up here....waiting for a dry spell to make new keel pieces, and then onwards.... The good news is that I just got a wood shipment for this project and can proceed with some speed once the framework issues get sorted out....bye for now! hamilton

Looking great Jond! hamilton

Thanks Jond - I imagine that a lot more work goes into people's models than often makes the log - I can think of a few notable exceptions here. I hope that my error can be of help to anyone going down this path in the future.... hamilton

I guess you have to be a bit grumpy to balance out the food, wine and scenery..... hamilton

Thanks very much Grant and Mark - fortunately there's a small hardware store just a block from my house! While the 5 minutes it will take to walk there won't cut too much into the time required for this fix, it will count for something! What's that saying? Measure once cut twice....? Wait, that doesn't sound right, does it.... hamilton

Well I spent a bit of time this morning trouble-shooting and confirmed that there is both distortion on the plans (between the template sheet and the sheet showing the profile) and some bad cutting and shaping on my part - particularly the centre keel piece, though also the aft joint on the forward piece, where it attaches to the centre . The aft piece - which is where I initially noticed the problem - is actually fine - the drawings all line up and the part is cut with only very tiny discrepancies, easily solved with a sanding block and thin shims. To begin with I made new templates from the profile drawing, which is where I noticed the issue with my keel as built. I then tested each of the new templates against both my keel and the template drawings. There was decent alignment between the new templates and the template drawings, except for the centre portion where there was some distortion - though I didn't think it was enough to produce the misalignment I had. When placed against my keel, though, the issue became apparent. Here are some photos that clearly show the problems in the forward and centre keel pieces.... I think you can easily see where my mistakes are!!! They're very obvious! Hard to say where they came in - likely as I was making adjustments to the joints, though the discrepancies between the template and my part are really pretty "universal"....more care in the cutting process is clearly in order.... You can also see that the aft piece is fine as made.....this is the piece with the new templates from the profile drawing, which match the template drawings on the MS plans.... The good news is that I have enough 3/16" ply to cut 3 new parts - and of course it seems that I really only need to cut 2 new parts.....Anyway, I think I will go with the "hard route" described above and cut two new keel pieces - centre and forward. I'll de-bond the existing pieces and try to salvage the aft piece, knowing that I can cut another if necessary. The bad news is that I likely won't be able to get moving on this till we have a decent string of dry weather, which in the pacific northwest is unlikely to happen before the new year. Usually we get some warm dry weather in January, and if that's the case I'll haul out the bandsaw and cut the new pieces then....until then (or later!) I'm afraid this log will be on hiatus.....sigh....at least I have the Syren to work on! And I think I've learned a valuable lesson about using plans as references for scratch building - if you've got two reference points check them both!! hamilton

Thanks Brian - I am dealing with 3/16" ply, so I think I'll avoid soaking....in the other thread SpyGlass suggested steaming....I'm going to give that a shot a see what happens....Since at least one of the parts in question isn't cut properly it's hardly a loss..... hamilton

Thanks Brian but won't this distort the wood? hamilton

Thanks Grant! I know this is probably the best way forward....I'm hoping I can scrape together enough of the material that I don't have to buy more - there's no local supplier of ply at this thickness, and ordering online tends to get expensive with the shipping costs.... In any case I woke up this morning with a fresh eye and double-checked things. I think the problem may be cumulative error in the joints. I took the assembled keel and aligned it with the profile drawing section by section. It seemed that each individual section lined up as far as I could tell, but that when each of them lined up the others were off....Not sure how each piece could fit but all together could be out of whack unless the problem was in the joints..... Regardless of the source of the error, it's hard to ignore it. I'm hoping i can salvage one of the keel pieces (preferrable the aft one, which was the most difficult to cut, but I'm not sure how to de-bond PVA so I can safely separate the parts....if there is a way at all....I'll post a query elsewhere on the forum but if someone has advice to post here I'd welcome it! hamilton

Hi Mark: I "liked" your comment, but I'm not sure I "like" it - certainly not the idea of you scrapping 2 years worth of work! That's off the charts harder than what I'm facing here. I'm going to rest on it for a bit....either way I won't be able to return to the build for at least a week, so.... The odd thing is that when I placed the keel over the plan view on the model shipways drawings everything lines up there.....So it's hard to say whether it's the template drawings or the profile drawing that's off....it's most likely to be the templates, given the issues at the stern which aren't just differences between the drawings but result in structural problems with the fitting of the parts as made....after all, the sternpost and rudder themselves match on ALL the MS drawings.... Anyways...I'm going to curl up with a book and forget about it for now..... hamilton

Well I've come upon the first major conundrum of this build.....it took me a while to figure out what was going on, but it turns out that what I thought was a need for minor adjustment of the centre keel at the joint with the sternpost is a major structural problem whose source is a discrepancy in the Model Shipways plans......Here is a digest: Initially, when I was dry fitting the 3/16" plywood pieces, I thought that I was going to have to make adjustments to the aft edge of keel piece 3 to provide a snug fit for the sternpost, which goes on after the hull planking is complete. Initially when the piece was aligned at the bottom of the keel, there was a gap at the upper half which widened to about 1/16"!! Quite a significant discrepancy, which I put down to my novice bandsaw skills. Also the top end of the sternpost, which is rounded over, didn't seem to fit quite right to the keel...This photo shows this gap and the ill fitting top end... You'll also notice the flat angled top of the rudder, out of which the post will project - and you'll note that it isn't aligned with the notch in the centre keel piece....the only reason I noticed this tonight was that I had cut the rabbet joint and was testing its depth at the stern with the sternpost. To my way of thinking, the rudder post should run straight up into the notch. But as this last photo shows, nothing like that is possible given the current state of the parts as made.... Initially I thought I would remake the sternpost so the rudder would align properly, but this next photo shows how much I'd have to trim off in order to achieve that result - not an acceptable strategy..... I then thought I could trim the aft end of the keel to achieve the same effect, but these next photos give you a sense also of how untenable this approach would be.... The odd thing, was that when I checked the parts as made against the template drawings they all seemed to fit ok, with only a bit of sanding required to bring them into line with the templates. I checked the sternpost and keel against the template drawings that I had used to make the parts, and everything seemed to line up, with a bit of shimming and a bit of trimming required as you can see in the following photo, but nothing dramatic. So I decided to test the assembled keel against the profile drawing, which is on a different sheet. When I did this, my jaw dropped. Here is a shot of the stern (you can't see, but the rest of the aft keel piece lines up with the drawing but produces this effect, which suddenly explained why the keel/sternpost joint was so off. Not only that, but the rudder post notch is noticeably aft of where it is my part as cut..... But then I noticed that when I had the keel piece laid on the profile drawing and aligned at the bottom edge through pieces 3 and 2 (aft and centre), this shocking effect was produced at the fore end.... As you see, my whole keel is significantly off from the profile drawing. In a slight state of shock, I checked each part again (though assembled together) against the template drawings and, once again, they matched!!! My conclusion - the only one - is that the template drawings provided by Model Shipways DO NOT correspond to the profile of the ship, but contain significant distortions that I did not catch when I was making my own templates and cutting the parts - I used the template drawing exclusively to test my parts..... So here I am at a crossroads - and a pretty big one. Everything I've made so far fits together fine, with the exception of the sternpost and rudder in relation to the aft keel and notch for the rudder post. But these things can easily be adjusted so everything lines up. The easy route would be to do these fixes and move on, forgetting that from about bulkhead "E" to the bows my hull profile is incorrect....The harder route would be to scrap what I've built (the keel parts anyway, not the bulkheads), take new keel templates from the profile drawing instead of the template drawing, and redo the keel entirely....This would satisfy accuracy and might help cut off further problems down the road....I'm heaving a huge sigh as I write this, primarily because I know I do not have enough 3/16 play to make new keel pieces (had to order through a certain online auctioning site at quite a premium in shipping costs - another online model supply shop had shipping costs that were, in a word, astronomical) and also because this will mean delaying this build until the Spring, when I can reasonably use the bandsaw again to cut the parts....... Anyway, that's my current tale of woe.....Any advice on the easy or hard route would be welcome - knowing that I'm tempted to take the easy one just so I can get on with the build.....Thanks all hamilton

Just catching up on your log - glad you made it through the bad weather! Granado is looking really great! hamilton

Hi Jond: These last posts were very enlightening for me. I've bookmarked this page now so when it comes (in the very far future) to making my deck gear I can emulate (on a smaller scale) your methods. To be honest one of the things that has been giving me "nightmares" (aside from my children becoming teenagers) is the metal work for Bluenose - and particularly the winch gear, etc. But your approach has opened my eyes to some possibilities beyond the suggestions given by Gene Bodnar in the BN practicum - which I was going to follow, but (all respect to Mr Bodnar) I think your way produces nicer results. Thanks again! hamilton