shipmodel

Amalio - 
 
Let me join with all your other fans to say what a wonderful woodworker you are.
I am frequently inspired when looking at your precision and perseverence.
Many of my models, even the museum pieces, are done in 12 months or less
While yours is still in the dockyard after more than 12 years.
 
My hat is definitely off to you, sir.
 
Dan

Completion: Equipment of the main yard
With the fixing of the studding sail booms to the main yard, another small milestone was reached: The main yard is finished with all equipment elements and prepared for mounting on the model, which will be done later.

 

In the next step I will equip the fore yard with the takele elements. I will certainly make faster progress with this, since I have already prepared some equipment parts and many clarifications of execution details have also already been made.

To be continued ...
 

There are still distress washes to apply and some touch-up to do, but things are progressing.
 
The upper stern balcony is finally rounding into form:



The balcony rail completes my circumference around the ship with a band of ultra-marine.  Maybe I will get to fixing this part in-place tonight.
 
There is still quite a lot of work to do with the head and the head grating, itself, but it is all finally coming together.  Yesterday, I made a new pair of seats-of-ease, which are sized according to the space available to them, and reflect the imperfect geometry of my custom head structures:


I have subsequently drilled the waste holes in these, but I wanted to tweak their fit to the model before I did so.  Here they are in their places:


Here is the forward grating terminus in-place and re-touched:

Can anyone spot my homage to modern seamanship and navigation, from starboard:

to port:

It’s a little subtle on this side, but don’t overthink it 😉
 
My greatest satisfaction rests in the fact that I created enough space below the headrails to craft reasonable headrail supports:


As I often say, this is all something of an imperfect approximation, but it is a significant upgrade over the stock kit.
 
As a bonus, John Ott has put together a highly informative info-graphic on the statuary and colors of the stern:

As always, thank you for your interest, your comments and likes, and for stopping by.
 
More to follow!

[The following is in response to an observation by John Ott, on the other forum.  John pointed out that my problem with centering the French coat of arms has more to do with the fact that the leaves are asymmetrical from the port side to starboard.  This was a key insight for me, and one that I hadn’t picked up on.]
_____

You are right on-time with that observation, John! Nice to see you here, BTW.

Last night, I was measuring once again, and the center pilaster is only a 1/64” to port, which is visually insignificant, so your observation is right-on. I will do as you suggest, and pare down the laurel leaves on the port side.

I’ve been making the moulding that defines the lower boundary of the big carving. On Berain’s drawing the shadows indicate an architectural moulding of some significant weight:

I experimented with making a coved profile scraper from a hacksaw blade, however, the arched center section of the moulding would be difficult to scrape if the scraper tracked along both outside edges of the moulding stock; there’d be a lot of chatter in the profile. Instead, I tried to make a scraper that would only track along the bottom edge of the moulding, cutting the low shoulder and coved profile only. This wasn’t working well, either, on my straight stock.

I decided the best course was to carve the moulding by hand with a gouge:

I first blacked the main face and small shoulder side with a Sharpie. I then scribed two razor reference lines, so that I’d know what the boundaries of the coved profile should be.

I started with the straight stock:

After carving the cove, I used a round file to smooth out any irregularities in the surface. Lastly, I used a sanding stick to round over the top profile.

Feeling confident now, I applied the same procedure to the coved section of moulding:

I cut a test miter just to see how the two profiles mated. It’ll require a little finessing of the profiles, at the final fitting, but this is not a big deal.

I spent a little time this morning perfecting the fit of the tafferal plate. This enabled me to position the arched moulding which, as it turns out, had to shift a solid 1/32” to port so that it centered perfectly over the 3rd and 5th pilaster. This helped my coat of arms situation a little bit:

Now, with John’s insight in-mind, I can file down the port side a little bit and then add a little material to the starboard leaves. These adjustments should bring me pretty darn near to center. Once that is corrected, I can inlet the coat of arms into the arched moulding.

Thank you, John Ott!

Happy Sunday everyone.  Its beautiful here in Middletown Delaware. 
 
Dan I got to say hi briefly at the meeting.  You were neck deep in management stress at the time.  Hopefully I'll get to talk to you more next year.
 
Not much progress this week, too many other spring responsibilities.  I am slowly (very slowly) working my way towards finishing the upper planking belt.  There are 6 rows in this belt and I managed to mess up the 5th by not paying attention.  I put in the front plank no problems and left it a little overlong so I could trim it back later.  And then I waited a few days and forgot I hadn't trimmed it yet and measured the next plank.  So once the original plank was trimmed back my second plank was too short.  And it was one with the stern bend so it wasn't amenable to being skootched forward a bit to make it fit.

So I had to make an entire new plank, which was ok just annoying.  Luckily I could use the short plank for the next row, it fit the transom bend fine.
 
Then I re-marked the hull with new tick strips.  Most of my previous marks had become off a little bit.  And i realized I missed a butt joint in my last strake; it should have been next to my index finger in the above picture.  I'll add it later with a simple incised line highlighted with pencil.

One more strake in this belt.  At the bottom of the above pic you can see the plank I cut too short and my new tick strips; in the below pic I have shortened it to the correct length, fitted it, and clamped it in place with my usual wedges and Dewalt setup.  No gaps!  I hope.

Thats it for today.  I noticed that the planks in my lower belt are a bit wider than the ones in my upper belt, something to ponder for the port side. 
 
Stay tuned for next week's mistakes!  
 
Cisco
 

Hi Cisco - 
 
Glad you enjoyed the conference.  The New York Shipcraft Guild had a wonderful time bringing it to all our friends and fellow modelers.
I hope you took away some inspiration from all the excellent models on display.
I'll look forward to seeing you at next year's conference when I will not be the host and will have some time to chat.
 
See you there.
 
Dan

Hi Cisco - 
 
Glad you enjoyed the conference.  The New York Shipcraft Guild had a wonderful time bringing it to all our friends and fellow modelers.
I hope you took away some inspiration from all the excellent models on display.
I'll look forward to seeing you at next year's conference when I will not be the host and will have some time to chat.
 
See you there.
 
Dan

Hi Cisco - 
 
Glad you enjoyed the conference.  The New York Shipcraft Guild had a wonderful time bringing it to all our friends and fellow modelers.
I hope you took away some inspiration from all the excellent models on display.
I'll look forward to seeing you at next year's conference when I will not be the host and will have some time to chat.
 
See you there.
 
Dan

Hi again to all my friends here and, as always, mucho thanks for the likes and comments.
 
Yes, Keith, this will be a quick build log for several reasons.  Mostly this is because it is a retrospective of the construction rather than a day by day series of small progress reports.  I have detailed many of my techniques in earlier build logs, so there was little need to go over them again.  At least that was what I told myself as Covid malaise set in and I found myself not willing to stop to memorialize small personal gains amid larger world problems.  It just seemed a bit trivial.  Thankfully I certainly did not suffer any of the serious health issues or losses that so many have, like Doris in Czechoslovakia. 
 
Fortunately, I have climbed out of my depressive hole, and am working steadily again.  I have to credit my family and friends with most of the recovery, but model building made a significant contribution as well.  There is just something satisfying about looking at a well-crafted object at the end of the day and knowing that it only exists because of my hands, my head and my heart.  Long may it be so.
 
So, without further maudlin ramblings, here is the completion and launching of the SS James B. Colgate in its plaster sea. 
 
When the last installment ended the sea was mostly finished, although I looked at it every day and kept toning down the size and location of the whitecaps which I thought were still too bold and glaring.
 

 
Meanwhile I turned to finishing the ship.  After the hull was shaped the hatches were permanently installed.  Along the sides of the hull several reinforcing stringers were added according to the plans and photos.  These were made of half-round strip set over flat strips with rounded ends.  Fittings that would ultimately be painted, such as bollards and the bases for the railing stanchions, were attached to the hull.  Then the deck houses were removed and the hull was sprayed the deep red used by the Pittsburgh Steamship Company at the time.   Some, like bollard uprights and the anchor guides, were subsequently painted grey for contrast.  Then the deck houses, like this one at the bow, were built up and detailed before being secured to the hull
 

 
Most of the details are pretty simple and common.  Bollards, fairleads, winch heads and the capstan are Bluejacket castings.  The railing and ladder are photoetched brass from Gold Medal Models.  The nameboard is printed on my computer.  I’ll go over some of the others where they appear in later photos.  The one unusual fitting is the anchor.  McDougall, the designer of the whalebacks, also designed it as a better alternative for use on the boats.  It consisted of a heavy triangular frame with a shackle at the peak and a pivoting tongue in the middle of the base that would dig into the seabed of the Lakes. 
 

 
As can be seen on the model it lies much flatter on the hull than a conventional anchor and could be easily secured to the stanchion bases.  I made it out of two strips of thick brass bent to shape and soldered at the peak and at the base where a separate brass tongue was fitted.  I did not make any effort to have it pivot since this is a static model.  After blackening it was fitted with a ring and fine chain.
 

 
At the stern the deck house is much more complex.  The lower level has the two larger oval support structures with a smaller round support at the stern.  The forward two were made by sheathing oval wood plugs with styrene sheet.  Portholes were drilled and filled with small brass grommets from dollhouse electronics systems.  After painting handrails of iron wire were laid on with tiny supports inserted just underneath and clipped off close.  The upper works began as a solid wood block, as usual, but this was sheathed in wood veneer rather than plastic.  The window and door areas were left uncovered with the windows simply painted black and the doorways filled with printed 4-panel door appliques.  Upper railings and life rings are photoetched brass.  The angled stairway is a photoetched ladder with added side pieces cut from railing sections, secured with cyano and painted black.
 

 
At the forward end of the upper deck is the bridge which rises another half deck height.  It was built hollow with clear plastic windows on the front and back faces of the top.  Through these you can see the ship’s wheel that was installed and which no one, except in these photographs, will ever see.  The cowl ventilators are modified castings that sit on the top of cylinders that act as both structural supports for the decks and as ventilation ducts leading to the interior of the hull.  I took a bit of artistic license and simply drew on the paneling in pencil, relying on trompe l’oeil and the tiny scale to fool the eye.
 

 
The roof of the deck house is dominated by the large silver and black funnel.  It is built up over a plastic sheathed dowel, leaving a 1/8” rim at the top.  Reinforcing rings and a half-round lip at the top are made from plastic strip.  All of the plastic products are from Evergreen Scale Models, an invaluable resource when building steel hull modern ships.  The funnel is detailed with a steam whistle and pipe on the front face, and a steam release pipe on the aft face.  It is guyed by four wires running from small eyebolts on the upper reinforcing ring to brass tube turnbuckles on deck.  The Charley Noble galley stack has a cone shaped rain guard and a kink near the deck.  This last is either to get the stack around the funnel guy wire or as a trap for condensation, of maybe both.  It appears in the photos so it appears on the model.  A pair of liquid tanks, one for water one for fuel perhaps, bracket the funnel.  A pair of lifeboats with their davits and lifting tackles are tied down on cradles.  Eight small cast cowl vents and a pair of cylindrical exhausts run along the edges of the busy space.  At the aft end is a vertical pole, not for a flag, but for a lantern which would be fitted into the triangular shelf shown near the railing which could be hoisted to the top of the pole when visibility was limited.
 

 
At the stern the rear name plate was printed to match the one seen in contemporary photographs.  It shows up as a slightly different shade in this photo, but that is an artifact of the flash, and under normal light it is much less noticeable.  The railing on the hull could not be photoetched since the lines had to come to a point at the bow and stern.  I made the stanchion bases from 1/16” plastic rod and the uprights from 0.02” brass rod.  These dimensions are about twice what they should be, but when I made them to scale they almost disappeared, so I fudged the figures a bit.  The horizontal wires are 0.05” polished line.  Again, slightly too large, but they match the photoetched railings and do not draw the eye when the model is viewed without magnification.  The lines are tied under light tension to small eyebolts at bow and stern, then attached to the uprights with thin PVA glue painted on with a small brush.
 

 
Until now the ship has been simply placed in the opening left for it in the plaster sea.  Now it was secured with a pair of screws through the base plate and plaster carefully fed into the gap between it and the sea and shaped to a dynamic wake.
 

 
At the bow the wave was built up in several layers to match the wide froth thrown up by the blunt pignose bow.  The final layer is stippled with a stiff coarse brush.  Little wisps of white paint were dry brushed along the hull in the direction of travel.  This was all blended into the sea with more layers of tinted gloss medium.
 

 
Along the flanks of the ship wave crests rose up the side to the level of the railing and left subdued whitecaps on and under the water.  Here you can also see the minimal weathering applied to the model.  A thin wash of dark brown left spots and streaks on the hatch covers.  A similar wash discolors streaks that drip from the railing bases.  Wet patches of clear gloss finish glint on the hull.
 

 
At the stern the wake from the two propellers moving slowly was stippled onto and into the surface of the sea.  The sunlight reflects yellow on the water.  Looking carefully you can see where I have, at random locations, bent the metal railings to show a bit of hard usage over time.
 

 
The final detail was the burgee of the Pittsburgh Steamship Company.  An image was located on line, dropped into PhotoShop, sized to the model and had the color saturation slightly reduced to mimic the effects of distance and haze.  The image was skewed down a bit to take into account the way gravity affects wind-driven cloth.  The image was printed onto acid-free tissue paper which had been sealed with clear finish before printing.  This prevents bleeding into the paper fibers and gives a clean edge to the colored areas.  After fixing the colors with more clear finish the flag was cut free, attached to a halyard and tied to the flagpole.  A few curls with the back of a small paintbrush handle and it was done.
 

 
The model is now complete and chugs realistically, I think, though a choppy but fairly calm sea.
 

 
As part of the commission I built a display case from 2” x ¾” cherry, mitered at the corners and fitted around a ¾” plywood baseplate.  A UV-resistant plastic case was sourced from a local plastic shop.  It fits into a slot between the case and the base and is secured from accidental lifting with two small brass screws on the short ends.  A bit of air movement is provided by small holes drilled up through the bottom of the baseplate and into the gap under the plastic case.
 

 
The model now resides in the MMA museum in the Great Lakes area.  Once we are all vaccinated and this pandemic is behind us, I hope you can find the time to visit this small but interesting maritime museum.
 
Next, for something completely different, I will detail a repair and restoration of an antique bone and ivory POW model from the late 1700s that I am working on now.  This will be more of a blow-by-blow exposition since the techniques and materials require some inventiveness to match the unusual nature of the model.
 
Until then,
 
Stay safe and well, and get those shots.
 
Dan
 

Back to the masts:
 
The fore topmast is shaped--  

 
The main topmast will be identical--

 
I have made a few more pairs of carronade tackle blocks.  I'm more than half done now, and getting a little better/faster at it, but I still don't enjoy it!
 
Ron

Thanks again for all the encouragement!
 
*****************************************
 
Rails continued …
 
I have installed the rails around the deck-house on the starboard-side too. This time a picture with a coin for size reference.
 
In the meantime, a forum colleague made the suggestion to braid the wires instead of double-twisting them. I think I had tried this earlier on, but the copper-wires were too soft and broke to easily. I’ll give it a try again with the Konstantan wire and will report. They used chain on this boat for a lot of things, where today one would find wire-rope instead.

Mast and rigging
As noted above, my intention was to work ‘inside-out’ when installing the rails, so as not to damage already installed parts. I now realised that I should have installed also the mast and its stays first, before the deckhouse rails. So, it was high time to do it now, before going on with more rails.

The pictorial evidence is rather scarce for the early form of the mast. In fact, there is only the very first photograph that shows SMS WESPE being fitted out. All other photographs show later forms, when the mast had acquired a top-mast and a fixed signalling yard. When this was installed is not known. Perhaps around the time of the first minor refit, when the boat-racks were installed, or when she got the conning tower with the search-light on top, as shown by the only other photograph with the black/white/yellow livery (as per 1878 regulations).
 
The mast had been turned a while ago from a steel rod and fitted with belaying pins. Not sure, whether I showed already pictures of this. 

It seems that there were double stays leading forward to the front of the boiler-casing, but there are no pictures that show how they were fastened and the drawings are silent on this detail. So, I assumed that there must have been ring-bolts rivetted to the casing. In fact, I should have installed this before painting and installing the casing, but did not have sufficient foresight. Hence, they had to be ‘retro-fitted’ now. Then there is a pair of shrouds on each side – quite a few for a simple pole mast. These shrouds seem to have been made fast on eye-bolts between the rail-stanchions on the deck-house, for which there is a vague indication on the drawings. Again, there is no evidence for how they were set tight. I gather it must have been some hearts with lanyards between them.
 
I assume that the stays and shrouds were wire-rope. On some later picture it vaguely looks, as if these ropes had been served all over. To imitate such ropes, I have collected over the years electronic copper wires and stranded wires and are spun with silk (as used in high-frequency coils). I choose a 0.15 mm wire for the purpose here. The silk in my case was green, so it had to be given a light coat of black paint first.

Before the shrouds and the stay could go on, the signal halyard blocks had to be installed. I assumed that these were stropped double-blocks, but this is purely conjectural, based on the number of belaying pins. For the signal halyards I used some of my treasured nylon-thread as used in the old days for mending ladies’ stockings – a tightly spun two-ply thread that does seem to be out of production now (better than the fly-tying threads). The lay still was not tight enough, so I twisted it a bit more and stabilised the twist with a light touch of varnish.
 
At that time a steamer should have carried a steamer-light at the mast at night, but the available photographs are not are not clear enough to be sure that it would have been hoisted from a halyard in front of the mast. I just installed the halyard without attempting to model any additional arrangements, such as guiding ropes. The lithograph from the early 1880s also shows a crane for light just in front of the casemate, but it is not visible on the photographs.

Making working hearts for the stays would have been asking a bit too much, so I simplified the arrangements and just provided seized eyes at the end of the standing rigging and roved the lanyards through them and directly through the eyebolts. I gather this is good enough at this small scale. It was difficult enough to install all this without destroying other things already put into place.
 
 
To be continued ....

Thank you guys.
Before installing the yards on the mast, it was necessary to make the belaying pins.

Keith - 
 
I'll be following along for the sheer joy of watching you work and following along your thoughts.
This will be tremendously entertaining and informative, as always.
Thanks for sharing the journey.
 
As for the hailing port - to my eye the name is incised into the transom.
If the hailing port is unknown at this point, or can be changed later, it would make more sense to paint it on just before launching.  Yes?
 
Dan

Keith - 
 
I'll be following along for the sheer joy of watching you work and following along your thoughts.
This will be tremendously entertaining and informative, as always.
Thanks for sharing the journey.
 
As for the hailing port - to my eye the name is incised into the transom.
If the hailing port is unknown at this point, or can be changed later, it would make more sense to paint it on just before launching.  Yes?
 
Dan

Keith - 
 
I'll be following along for the sheer joy of watching you work and following along your thoughts.
This will be tremendously entertaining and informative, as always.
Thanks for sharing the journey.
 
As for the hailing port - to my eye the name is incised into the transom.
If the hailing port is unknown at this point, or can be changed later, it would make more sense to paint it on just before launching.  Yes?
 
Dan

Thanks for the positive feedback Ron, and for getting me to page 4.  I'm not anywhere near your level but its something to aim for.
 
Good Morning fellow shipbuilders.  This week I have 5 almost identical pictures which I promise I won't do again.  It was an instructive week though.
 
First off I finished my lower belt and was feeling pretty good.  I stayed very close to all my pre-penciled tick-strip widths and managed the stern stealer without gaps. 

The planks are slightly different thicknesses due to me hand-slicing from various pieces of stock and haven't been sanded yet so your eye picks up on the penciled overhangs, making them look like gaps.  No gaps so far.
 
Life was good until I realized my 3 butt shift planking pattern was, looking at my model in the above pic, a 2 butt shift.  Looking at my planking plan, which I kept right next to the model so I wouldn't screw it up, I realized I screwed it up.  The butt joints of the topmost plank on the plan was correct, but not on my model.
 
Leave it be or deconstruction?  After a day to feel sorry for myself I decided to pull it.
 
After cutting a new butt-joint in the proper place (this meant luckily I wouldn't have to re-do the stem section) I got my denatured alcohol and a qtip and selectively painted the middle of the offending plank.  I was worried the alcohol would be a mass destruction event and all the surrounding planks would release which thankfully didn't seem to happen.  I did have a little trouble with the edge joint which came a way ragged in some areas and had to be smoothed with a file. 

I was worried about making this middle plank which has to be the exact correct length.  In the past I seemed to trim them a little too long, or more often they fit perfect until I put glue on, then the planks seemed to magically get longer.  So I aimed for a tight fit, sneaking up by filing a tiny bit off at the butt ends at a time.  I also couldn't perfectly smooth the few ragged areas where the planks edge-glued together so had to file the mirror shape into the new plank's edges at 2 areas. 
 
The stern end of the new plank had a curve and a twist in the same section which I did first by edge bending with a travel iron, then twisting with a blowdrier.   Somehow this worked; in the past the blowdrier usually let me add a twist but straightened out any previous bends.  Guess the planking gods were feeling merciful.

Wedges are as always my friend.  There are a lot of holes because I couldn't find the underlying bulwarks right away.  Pins in planks only are too wobbly.

And here it is after drying, butt joints in the correct place.  The replacement plank was a little thicker than the plank below it so there is a shadow line enhanced by my overhead lighting.   Not a gap or bulge.  Cause I ainte redoing this.

Now have to pack up the family and off to breakfast with my parents.  Next I start the upper belt, as per Dan's recommendation. 
 
Anyone coming to the 40th annual show in CT I will see you there.  Jason (JLong) and I are carpooling up the night before. 
 
Have a happy Sunday and thanks for reading and leaving positive comments and politely overlooking the dumb stuff I've done.
 
Cisco
 
 
 

Hi Sbaker - 
 
1710, the year that QAR was built, is a little late for a spritsail mast.  R.C. Anderson says that they were pretty well phased out by then, especially in smaller ships which did not need the leverage of a forward sail to tack through the eye of the wind.  Budriot does not show one in his plans of Le Mercure, so I did not put one on.  That said, there was a great deal of variation in the rig of ships in this somewhat transitional period, even among ships of the same size built by the same nation.
 
If you are building your own QAR model, make your best choice and stick with it.
 
Best of success.
 
Dan
 

Hi Sbaker - 
 
1710, the year that QAR was built, is a little late for a spritsail mast.  R.C. Anderson says that they were pretty well phased out by then, especially in smaller ships which did not need the leverage of a forward sail to tack through the eye of the wind.  Budriot does not show one in his plans of Le Mercure, so I did not put one on.  That said, there was a great deal of variation in the rig of ships in this somewhat transitional period, even among ships of the same size built by the same nation.
 
If you are building your own QAR model, make your best choice and stick with it.
 
Best of success.
 
Dan
 

Hi Sbaker - 
 
1710, the year that QAR was built, is a little late for a spritsail mast.  R.C. Anderson says that they were pretty well phased out by then, especially in smaller ships which did not need the leverage of a forward sail to tack through the eye of the wind.  Budriot does not show one in his plans of Le Mercure, so I did not put one on.  That said, there was a great deal of variation in the rig of ships in this somewhat transitional period, even among ships of the same size built by the same nation.
 
If you are building your own QAR model, make your best choice and stick with it.
 
Best of success.
 
Dan
 

Good Evening fellow builders!  The more I go to work the more I like model shipbuilding. 
 
And I'm hoping this update may push my log through to page 4.  When you're almost to the end of the page it takes a while to scroll down.
 
Aliluke- I went over your log many times before choosing to do my AVS.  Your version is beautiful!  As I recall you lost the text in the Great Crash of '13 and re-posted pics to MSW Take 2.  I built Model Shipway's 18th century longboat and thought the blocks and rope the kit provided were ok, once I filed the edges of the blocks round instead of leaving them square.  For this endevour I hope to push it up a notch and get aftermarket rope from Chuck or Ropes of Scale.  Or better yet make my own!  I took an Admiralty course with Greg, Chuck, and Dave last year on ropemaking.  Have to at least try... but thats going to be future Cisco's problem.   Ditto for the blocks.
 
Dan I appreciate you checking in on my progress.  I messaged you a while ago about using bone and you were very helpful; I am still planning on using some bone in this build for the deck furniture.  Thats another learning curve to struggle through; I'm not up to trying bone planking yet.  Thank you for your planking pic tutorial- as you suggested I am planning on doing the bottom belt first, then the top, then fill in the middle.  I agree it might be easier to put in stealers to shift planking to follow a straight line, versus my plan of shifting planking to make the stealers fit.   For now I'm following my current drawing, but based on how that goes I may alter the other side.
By the way that last plank you made that fits over the stealer, in your last picture- that is impressive Sir.  Fitting a straight plank on 2 sides without big gaps gives me fits, nevermind one with a dogleg.
 
And this weeks progress- 3 whole rows of planking and hardly any pondering.
 
I still like my wedges to push planks snug.  The pins that came with the kit are handy as stops for the wedges, as long as they are pushed through planking into a bulwark.  Otherwise they bend sideways and the wedges pop out which is frustrating.  And so far the DeWalt clamps reach.  These planks I have been starting out with wider stock and shaving them down to a little fat, then bending with both a travel iron and a hairdryer, then final fitting on the bottom edge with files, then bring to final width with my Veritas MiniPlane. 

I realize the above pic looks like big gaps at the stern but thats ok.  One of those planks is a stealer which isn't glued in, on the other most of it will be trimmed off.

In the above pic the plank above the stealer was hard to clamp.  None of the wedges wanted to stay put and kept popping off, I think because the plank had a twist that wasn't perfectly bent, so when I clamped one end it levered the other end just enough.  You can see my pins but only 1 wedge (under the dewalt clamp).  Still, it eventually worked.
 
Here's the current state with 3 of the 4 rows of planks put in the bottom belt.  The final layer of this belt will come up to the top of the blue tape.  So far it looks like the plan I came up with last post, and my but joints are where I wanted/drew them.

Thats all the planking excitement for this week. 
 
I got 2 books last month (I have to strictly ration myself otherwise the house would be full of books and no room for people).  Building the Wooden Fighting Ship is pretty good, lots of pictures, I learned a lot.  Naval Warfare is also good, although most of the book is really about the advent of steam power and the transition from wooden to metal hulls.   So the cover is a bit deceiving.

 
 
Ok my wife's cats are galloping through my office, knocking over stacks of books and manacing my Legos so its time to go shoo them out.  Until next time have a great evening!
 
Cisco

I am less than a week away from our trip to Paris, and then the North East Joint Clubs Meeting is shortly around the corner, once I return.  My objective, before the show, was to get the head fully together and re-touched, as well as the upper balcony level.  Well, I’m not going to cross that threshold before April 29th.
 
There were a number of competing priorities, throughout March, and I just couldn’t find the time I needed to make that happen.  I say all of this in the event that even one of you had hoped to see the model in New London.  I’ve decided not to bring it because these areas at the bow and stern will remain too un-finished looking for display.
 
These also happen to be particularly challenging areas of the model to bring together.  I am satisfied enough with the balcony bulwark parts that I made:

Fitting the end pieces to the model required some tricky cutting-in to the outside window pilasters.  You can see that the sill moulding for the window tier extends fully to the ship’s sides:

The rebate has to accommodate both the end piece and the 1/16” caprail that I have yet to make:



It’s a slow and winding business that necessitates painting in stages.  One thing that was a little surprising to me is that the fore and aft depth of my middle and upper balconies is significantly more shallow than the stock kit:

Thinking about my process, I realized that I had made a design decision, earlier, when I was figuring out the middle balcony; I realized there would be limits to the degree to which I could bend the posture of the Four Seasons figures, so that they could stretch from the now “false” lower balcony to support the projection of the middle balcony.  By necessity, then, the middle balcony determined the depth of the upper balcony.  Proportionally, I am not displeased by the more shallow depth.
 
One failed experiment had to do with the bow angels that seat just behind the headrails.  I used a combination of C/A and liquid plastic cement to secure the headrails.  Before glue, though, I had dry-clamped each headrail in-place for several days, in order to better induce the shapes and relieve unwanted stress on the subsequent glue joint.
 
Now, bear in-mind that I am fully aware these headrails should be flat.  The design of the kit figurehead, in combination with my widening of the bow, does not allow for any reasonable projection of the aft escutcheon of each headrail.  The gap you see on Frolich’s model, below, would have been more than double on mine:

photo, courtesy of Marc Yeu
 
With such a distracting projection away from the forecastle bulwarks, these escutcheons would have looked like jug ears.  In consideration of that, I decided it was better to perpetuate the in-accuracy of the stock headrails, which are also rounded to seat up close to the hull.
 
In an attempt to distribute any remaining stresses across a broader glue surface, I thought I could literally pin those escutcheon ears down with the bow angel carvings:

Unfortunately, one must drill for these pins at the precise depth and angle.  This proved quite difficult to do with the headrails already in-place, and the result of my attempt was that the carving did not lay flat against the ship’s side.  Forcing it to do so would have, in fact, introduced additional lever strain on the headrail glue joint.  Consequently, I ground the pins away, filled the holes and simply glued the bow angels in-place.  I’ll post pictures of all of that once the re-touching is complete.
 
The other surprising thing to me was just how much shimming was necessary for the other remaining headrail supports, now that both headrails were fixed in-place.  In hindsight, it would have been much wiser to pattern these supports after the headrails had been installed.  Instead, I had attempted to dry-fit them one side at a time.  Using this approach, though, I could only eyeball the centerline, and only poorly at that!  Just look at all the plastic I’ve added back to these parts:

Finally, though, I can do the necessary touch-ups and glue these in-place.
 
One part that could only be made once the headrails were installed was the forward terminus of the headrail grating.  In the stock kit, Heller provides a mostly flat headrail grating, the forward end of which rests on a small ledge just behind the figurehead.
 
As an upgrade, I want to create a new headrail grating that is both cambered, athwartships, and that follows the upward sweeping arc of the headrails.  This is a tricky piece to make and fit.
 
I seem to have lost the picture of the cardboard template I had made to start this part, but I transferred that pattern to a piece of 1/16” styrene.  In my first attempt, I tried to muscle a bend into the part, but it snapped.  On the second attempt, I used an open candle flame to soften the plastic so that I could easily induce this curve:

There was some melty distortion, at the edges, that was removed during the fitting and shaping process.  As I had with the pattern, I temporarily CA’d a handle to the part for ease of fitting in this tight area.  Once I had a perfect fit, I glued a piece of 1/8” square stock to the forward end so that I could shape a neat bullnose that transitions into the knee of the head:

You can also see the thinner stock that I glued to the aft end, on the under side, to create a ledge for the grating slats.  To finish off the piece, I filed a gentle camber into the top surface of the part, which is now ready for paint and installation:


And so, it is a lot of fiddling around to make this imperfect geometry coalesce into something that looks purposeful and a reasonable facsimile of a ship’s head structure.
 
If I were starting this whole project all over again, one thing I would definitely do would be to fabricate a continuation of the middle battery planking past the beakhead bulkhead, in a downward tapering arc towards the stem.  By the time I realized this was actually a feature of French practice, it was too late to incorporate the detail.
 
Thank you for the likes, comments and for looking-in.  When I next return, later in May, I will have some nice finished pictures of the head.  Until then, be well!

Hi Cisco - 
 
I'm really enjoying reading your build log.  I applaud all your work climbing up the learning curve of hull planking.  Making a complete planking diagram is something I never attempted, and yours is quite well done.  As you said, you now have a much better understanding of plank widths and butt spacing.
 
However, since this is your first shot at complicated planking, I think you may have set up a more difficult task for yourself than necessary.
I hope you don't mind if I offer some practical advice from 35 years of doing this.
 
The problem, based on my experience, is that your stealer at the stern and the drop plank (stealer) at the bow come too early in the process.  A stealer doesn't just compensate for the curve of the hull, it allows the model shipwright to adjust the run of the planks to straighten them out as the hull closes up.  Your planking plan has the drop plank being the first plank that you install under the wale.  Whether this is the first plank or the last that you put on, it is going to be hard to adjust easily to get a nice look.
 
I find it easiest to plank up from the garboard and down from the wale alternately.  Here is a hull that I did a while ago.  It has a similar shape to the hull of the AVS that you are doing. At the bow the planking strake runs the full length of the hull, but the planks are tapered to about 2/3 of the standard plank width when they reach the  stem rabbet.  After each plank is installed the edge is eyeballed and straightened, if necessary, with a sharp edged file.  It is also shaped to match its partner on the opposite side.
 
This photo is after 5 planks up and down. The remaining space is covered with lengths of translucent tape and the final plank shapes are drawn on, much as you have done on the solid hull.
1
The tape is transferred to planking wood and the shapes are cut out and fitted.  
2
At the stern the process is similar, but the planks up from the garboard are flared to fill the wider space at the sternpost.
3
As the hull closes up the remaining space becomes evident.  Tape is used again to draw in the final plank shapes.
4
Until the final plank can be cut, fitted and installed.
5
As I said, this is based on my experiences.  There are several other building methods that work equally well.  If mine is not to your liking, you can find excellent examples in many of the build logs on this site.
 
Whatever you do, best of success. 
 
Dan
   
 
 

Thanks Dan, and thanks for looking in.
 
With the tops basically formed, I set about making the cross trees and trestle trees.  After the complexity of the tops, they were pretty straightforward.  The main and fore set do need to be slightly different, as the dimensions of the fore mast are very slightly less than the main mast.  Here the main mast trestle and cross trees are temporarily assembled.  There will need to be some adjustments to the length of the pieces--
 
The main top assembly was then checked on the main mast to make sure the trestle tree spacing fit the mast.  The mast top was measured before the notches were cut into the cross trees--


 
The foretop assembly will be checked as well.  You may notice that I worked on the top cleats.  The break of the slope is better when the cleats leave the rim.
 
I am working backwards from the tops, to the trestle/cross trees, to the mast.  The bibs will be made and shaped soon.  All is still in progress.  The shroud futtock plate holes need to be mortised into the tops, as well as some other rigging preparations.  Bolsters need to be added to the trestle trees, and refinements need to be made to the masthead above the top.  
 
On most ships there is a railing on the aft end of the top.  I am omitting it, based on the US Brig Jefferson model by Glenn Greico, which is a similar Great Lakes ship from the same time period.  
 
Ron

Ron - 
 
Really nicely done and fitted.
I applaud your striving for perfection, even where no one but you will ever notice.
 
Be well
 
Dan

Ron - 
 
Really nicely done and fitted.
I applaud your striving for perfection, even where no one but you will ever notice.
 
Be well
 
Dan