hamilton

Wow Hamilton!...
A lot of progress...
I should have known... a long silent period then a beautiful job...

Looking real good Hamilton, as Sjors would say we want more.  
 
mobbsie

Hi Hamilton, looking good. I never bothered with the tree nails on my Greyhound ( probably because I would not have made a neat job) You are over the real difficulties with this kit now. I am trying to remember other pitfalls you may encounter. Its funny how you soon forget the angst of a particular model once you have completed it. The boat will take a bit of work if you go with the supplied one, but all ships boats are a bit like that. Just be careful with some of the soft metal fittings like the rudder hinges and the shroud chains, they are very fragile. I used the transom supplied and the windows. May replace the windows to something more realistic but it doesn't look too bad on mine. Also if you use the flags  make sure you soak them in water to remove all the starch from them, that way they hang more naturally.  

Alright - the hull is planked and finished and the deck planking has begun....photos follow, but here is a brief digest of the progress
 
1. Second hull planking - in the last episode, I had lined off the hull and laid the second planking in band "A". I needed 2 dropped planks on both sides in the first and third strakes below the waterline. In band "E" (close to the keel) I ended up needing a great number (4 on each side!) of steelers....Clearly my planking skills need work.....I was less concerned about this on this particular build, however, since the hull is finished below the waterline and the actual structural dimensions of the planking would be hidden - I suppose I could have simply said that the planking went perfectly and without a hitch!
 
2. Keel/stem/sternpost planking - the kit calls for 1mm planking to be used here - no way!! It's much too thick. I used .5mm beech supplied for the deck planking instead. A very straightforward process - I planked the stem semi-vertically from the waterline up, and horizontally the rest of the way. Very straightforward.
 
3. Hull finishing - The top of the stem from the lower wale upwards is painted blue. There is a patch of exposed wood between the lower wale and the waterline at both stem and stern. The lower hull is "tallow", though I painted it Titanium White. Marking the waterline was a pain, since the jig I built (a pencil taped at an appropriate location to a block of basswood) was a little unstable. But eventually I got it. I followed advice given by Randy (lamarvalley) and Nigel (NMBROOK) and applied several coats of poly to the unfinished hull. I then stained the upper portion with Golden Oak, waiting for it to thoroughly dry. I then masked the waterline, sanded below and gave it five good coats, sanding between. A final coat of poly to finish.
 
-- One issue I encountered was with masking. In my impatience to finish the hull, I used scotch tape to mask the waterline. My experience using Scotch has been good - a nice clean line. The issue is that because it is transparent it is really hard to see....As a result when I peeled the tape back there were some jags at the waterline. I quickly went out, bought some Tamiya tape, re-masked at those points that needed correction and  using a scalpul blade (and paint where necessary) made the corrections.
 
4. Deck planking - the f'csl planking was very straightforward. As for the quartedeck - Goodwin clearly shows a nibbed margin plank. At first I attempted to replicate this, but my efforts were both unsuccessful and exceedingly frustrating. In the end, I went with this simpler planking scheme. Goodwin shows no butts on either q-deck or f'csl. The main deck is planked in 60mm lengths in a 4-butt shift. This is shown clearly in his book - I determined the plank length using the deck planking calculator in the MSW database - very handy! I've not yet completed the deck planking, but you can see it in process below.
 
5. The stand - I constructed the stand - the parts took a lot of modification, but eventually I got a good fit. The hull is not permanently mounted yet - I won't do this until a bit later in the build.
 
Anyway, that's it - more regular updates will follow now as I move into the next stage of the build. In the immediate future I will be:
 
-- finishing the deck planking - considering trunneling the deck, but with 3mm plank widths I'm not sure I could take it!! What do you guys think?
 
-- adding the rails - the plank sheer between the gunports on the main deck (which extends fwd and aft); the main cap rail (with similar extensions), the f'csl rail & the quarterdeck rail
 
-- adding the quartergalleries (I'm using the kit-supplied ones, but I may have a stab at making new ones from scratch following the simplest of the suggestions in Goodwin
 
-- building the transom - this is going to be a real challenge for me....but hopefully it will turn out ok.
 
Alright - enough talk! Here are the photos
hamilton
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I've seen contemporary 18th century British models and the inner bulwarks are treated in many different ways. I've seen:
 
all red bulwarks and waterway (angled part only),
red bulwarks with unpainted waterway,
red quick work and black spirketting, unpainted waterway,
red bulkwarks with black waterway,
 
amongst other variations! Take your pick. In all cases the flat of the waterway is not painted.

Hamilton:
The waterway is part of the bulwarks so it should be painted.
 
Russ

Crow's nest...
Three walnut strips 1x3 mm rounded by bender then glued together...
There would be four crow's nests in different scales...

Hello Hamilton,
He was Brian (RiverRat) who complimented me on the addition (I thank him again)... Your habituel kindness and that you have mentioned, makes me feel fine and victorious.

Very nice work on a really beautiful ship! I feel like your pics sell this kit much more than the promo shots I've seen from Corel! 
hamilton

A little progress

Adam, I think you got the essence of it correct when you spoke of the question of how much as opposed to what is required for a model.  Planking techniques for a cutter are the same as for a ship-of-the-line, but the SOL has much more to do.  Same thing for masting, rigging, guns, etc.  Some of the skill levels mentioned on kit boxes are questionable, to say the least.  Model Shipways' Kate Cory, for example, is described on the box as an ideal first model.  Excuse me?  Kate Cory is square-rigged, coppered, has a ton of deck furniture, and includes four fiddly little whaleboats.  In my book, that's a challenge for any modeler, much less a beginner.  To me, the main point is, does a kit include enough elements to make success likely, i.e. detailed instructions, low parts count, pre-cut or pre-formed components, minimal tricky elements and such.  Based on those criteria, I have always held Midwest Products kits to be as near fool-proof as beginner's kits can be.  Fortunately, we live in an age where even more complex models can be tackled by beginners thanks to some manufacturers paying more attention to comprehensive instructions, newer design techniques, and of course, access to info at sites such as MSW.  But for anyone considering one of those newer designs, I would still advise along the lines of "less is more", as in "more likely to be completed".
 
Cheers,
Chris

Looking great, Augie - I like the natural wood finish on the spars - a nice choice, which I might imitate myself when I get to the Syren (in about a year's time!)...
hamilton

Hello Ferit:
 
The stern looks excellent! Someone (I'm sorry but I forget who it was) complimented you on the addition of the port lid rigging - looking at your stern, I almost feel that if I gave a little tug to the line, the gun port would open, and I would find a fully rigged canon behind it! Even if it's not really there, the detail you provide certainly provokes the imagination! 
hamilton

The rudder...

Hi Hamilton
I would stain the upper hull first without masking,no matter if you go a bit below the waterline.Allow to dry thoroughly then apply two or three coats of polyurethane over the whole hull.Allow to harden off for 48 hours.Mask above the waterline and rub the bottom down lightly with 320 grit silicon carbide paper.Replace the masking if necessary(I would have used cheap masking tape for the first step as its only to protect from scratching the upper hull and tamiya masking for the second) and then paint the bottom.
Hope this helps
Kind Regards Nigel

Ferit:
 
Please - I'm blushing!! If there is any "incompetence" in your build, you've done an expert's work at covering it up! All I can see is nice, clean and well-detailed craftsmanship!
hamilton

Really nice work Hamilton. I can't wait to see further progress.
 
While reading through your log I had to smile at all the comments about Corel's instructions. Did you forget how bad the AL San Fran instructions are? Step 1 - open box. Step 2 - put hull together. Step 3 - make masts & yards and rig together. Step 4 - congratulations, you are done. I really don't know why good kits must be spoiled with poor instructions.

Hello....
 
Did you ever have one of those days when you probably should never have sat down at the workbench? I had one tonight! 
 
I'd been looking forward all day to starting in on the bulwark planking, though as I mentioned in my last update I thought I might have difficulties here - that is an understatement!!
 
I completed the wales last night and as I mentioned previously, I'd tried to keep a distinctive sweep to the run of the wales without edge bending them beyond recognition. When I was laying on the wales I noticed an error that I'm not sure how I could have avoided making.....The sweep ports are about 3-5 mm too low.....Thus, the wales are too low. The upper wale should meet the same point as the top of the counter at the stern - to make it rest even half way up the counter (and thus not have the wales bending under it) I had to put quite a sweep into it - and thus into the wales overall. This sweep doesn't look too exaggerated in the photos, and it isn't really. But you can see that it puts the run of the wales off from the lower edge of the gunports (they should be not exactly parallel, but very close, judging by Goodwin's book).
 
This would not have been an issue if the sweeps were a little bit higher up the hull....As it is, however, they are not, and it is impossible for me to correct them at this point. 
 
So having the sweeps too low means having the wales to low and having them make a much more dramatic run then they otherwise would (or should). But this also means that the bulwark planking will be especially tricky, and it certainly proved to be so today when I came to it after putting our son to bed....
 
I thought of three possibilities for attacking the job:
 
1. Just lay the bulwark strakes along the same trajectory as the wales - however, this would have resulted in some bizarre edge bending and would have looked very weird.
 
2. Start by laying the strake that runs immediately below the gun ports, so as to define the run of the strakes according to the gentle curve of the bottom edges of the ports. Then plank downwards and spile the last couple of strakes to conform to the sweep of the wales - this is what I SHOULD have done, though not, as it turns out, what I did....though I will be doing this tomorrow
 
3. Spile a short plank to fit against the upper wales and then just fill upwards like filling a bowl with water. This is what I did tonight, with grievous results. After I had laid 4 strakes (and finally got out of the well created by the wales) things looked good at the bow, but at the stern I noticed that the planks were actually tending downward and not sweeping upward as they should be....This was the result of a cumulative error in my spiling of the planks at stern which led to a miscalculation of the length of these lower strakes at that point.....fortunately I just did the starboard side....
 
So, long and short? Seeing how horrible it looked, I ripped the planks off (leaving the starboard side rather scarred) and will smooth it out and start again tomorrow.....Here are a few photos - a couple of the completed double wales (which I'm very happy with) and a couple of the scarred outboard bulwarks....
 
Tired and morose
hamiton
 

 

 

 

 

 

Very nice work on a really beautiful ship! I feel like your pics sell this kit much more than the promo shots I've seen from Corel! 
hamilton

I have been preparing plans for the major surgery. Attached are some photographs with paper cut outs from the plans placed on the model to indicate the proposed new waist shape. I took the detail from Chuck's Winchelsea plans scaled down to 1:75 then slightly foreshortened (Unicorn was a smaller ship). These were altered with real cut and paste involving paper, scissors and glue. Hope Chuck doesn't mind my doing this - don't want to get into his bad books!
 
I post these now to invite any comment or views you may have - other than my insanity which is a given.
 
The cut lines will follow existing planking edges.
 
Two areas of concern.
 
1) From the second photo you will note the main mast will be moved forward by about half its diameter. In its original position and with chain pumps added it would crowd into the new companion way. Currently the leading shrouds would line up with the vertical centre of the mast. The new position would line them up with a tangent across the rear of the mast. I have seen plans with both of these alignments. This would be offset somewhat by a backwards rake of the mast by a few degrees as per the prototype.
 
2) The wider waist could put the plywood deck supports on view. They will need some work.
 
Photo 1 the current waist area.
 

 
Photo 2 shows a cut out from the plan showing the proposed new waist.
 

 
Photo 3 shows how the whole deck area would look with new shape waist. (This photo features my right foot since I stood on one of our chairs to take it.  )
 

 
Any comment or suggestions would be appreciated.
 
In the meantime I need to make some more deck fittings.
 
Ian M.   

Hi Ian
 
Thanks for your greeting.
 
Thought you might like to see a picture of my version of HMS Unicorn. It was built in the 90's I canot remember exactly when and was my 2nd POB model. At the time there was no internet (for me that is) so I was not aware of the general interest in model ships and was also unaware of the amount of research data available. So unlike you and others I did no research and just built the kit as it came.
 
Danny Page
 
 

Hi Ian
 
As requested I am attaching a couple of photographs of the stern area of my Unicorn. Unfortunately I built it so long ago I can't remember exactly what I did (or had in the kit) but I hope these photos will be of some assistance.
 
Danny
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Ferit:
 
Please - I'm blushing!! If there is any "incompetence" in your build, you've done an expert's work at covering it up! All I can see is nice, clean and well-detailed craftsmanship!
hamilton

PS - your kevels are a marked improvement over the metal ones supplied with the kit!
hamilton

Ferit:
 
Please - I'm blushing!! If there is any "incompetence" in your build, you've done an expert's work at covering it up! All I can see is nice, clean and well-detailed craftsmanship!
hamilton