Dr PR

Part of the problem with the white pot metal (pewter?) fittings used on older models came from the cases they were mounted in. Some of the woods or finishes gave off acetic acid fumes. The cases were air tight, so the acid fumes built up and turned the metals (zinc, lead and tin) into metal acetate salt powders. The moral of the story is to use acid free materials and ventilate the cases.

I don't know about the period of your ship, but in modern times the anchor chain is washed with a fire hose as it comes up out of the water and then painted as it is being hauled in. It goes into the chain locker with wet paint. The part on deck dries with a shine.

Bill, I have seen larger clinker built kits that had laser cut bulkheads and planks. with the notched bulkheads and tapered planks these assembled easily since all the guesswork had already been done by the kit designer. I haven't seen a small small boat kit but there might be one out there. If you find one let us know! I am still obsessing over how the deck pieces will fit into the hull with ribs. The small aft grating (right hand photo below, aft arrow) is supposed to fit between bulkhead C14 and the transom. But as the picture shows it just falls into the space at an angle. Looking through Boats of Men-of War I see a few boats did have this double bulkhead-transom arrangement. The after bulkhead seems to have served as a seat back. Some boats had the open space between the bulkhead and transom and some had it decked over. I will either glue a small strip to the back of bulkhead C14 to support the front edge of the grating or just plank over the opening. Working in that tight space may be challenging. I did reposition some of the ribs to get more even spacing, and I faired the forward ribs so they fit into the hull at a better angle. The center deck section fits nicely into the hull with ribs, but is curved down a bit in the center. The larger aft grating sits on top of the ribs, and just fortuitously happens to snug in behind two of the ribs that hold it in place. The bow grating is a problem! As you can see in the left hand photo above it wants to ride back on the ribs quite a distance from the bow where it is supposed to fit. In the right hand photo I have placed a bit of scrap 2 mm MDF under the grating and it sits closer to the bow. Photos in the instructions (below) seem to show the forward ribs trimmed back to allow the front grating to sit lower and more forward. I may do this if I can't figure out how to cut slits in the ribs to allow the grating to slip forward into place. The next step in the instructions is to install the seat support strips. It says to mount them about 3 mm below the top of the hull planking. I clamped the strips into the hull and bent them to shape with the planking iron. After the glue set for the seat support strips I test fitted the seat parts in the hull. I will need to adjust the seat positions after the floor pieces are installed. The center seat with the mast support should be positioned above the mast foot detail in the deck planking photo etch part. The after seat piece won't fit into the hull with the ribs installed. I knew this would happen after reading the instructions. I will cut notches for the ribs in the sides of the seats so the part will fit down onto the seat support strips. The large after seat part is made from 1 mm pear wood, and the narrow seat at the front runs across the grain. While I was removing laser char this part broke along the grain. I have glued some scrap strips on the bottom over the break. Cutting the notches for the ribs will be tricky. Plywood would have been a lot stronger. I have plenty of thin plywood so maybe I will just make another part.

Dowmer, Bill's post about clinker built cutters was good, and Craig's answer was correct - for British boats of the 1700s and later 1800s. And everyone should be happy that Vanguard also has clinker built cutters - with 3D printed hulls. https://vanguardmodels.co.uk/products/18-cutter Think about it a minute - do you really want to try to build a 3 inch (74 mm) long clinker built hull with 1.5 mm wooden planks? Even though my carvel built boat came out OK, I screwed up the plank tapering. On a large model hull a fraction of a mm difference in plank width doesn't create a problem. But when the planks are only 1.1 mm wide to start with, any errors accumulate fast!

Craig, I certainly am not an authority on small boats or cutters, but I do have W. E. May's The Boats of Men-of-War, Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, Maryland, 1999. It is mainly (entirely?) focused on British boats. It says early 1700s cutters were initially clinker built because they were made at Deal for the admiralty, and that was the tradition at Deal (pages 32, 34 and 66). Eventually any type of boat that was clinker built was called "cutter built," including boats of different types significantly different from the small cutters. But later boats were commissioned at other boat yards, and the naval yards used carvel construction (page 34). In some cases the location where the boat was to be used determined the type of construction. For use in the English Channel boats were built clinker style, but for foreign service the same type of boat was built carvel style (page 40). Some cutters were carvel built (page 66). Clinker built boats were lighter than carvel built, but they required more expensive metal hardware. By the early 1800s clinker built boats were out of favor because they were thought to be less durable and harder to repair. All boats to be used in foreign service were to be carvel built. In the early 1800s cutters were ordered to be carvel built, and cutters so built were sometimes called "jollyboats" (page 67). These were heavier than clinker built boats, and were out of favor by the mid 1800s. And so on ... All of this is just about British Royal Navy boats. In fact, small boats actually were being built elsewhere, for other uses than the Royal Navy! Really! This is why I am writing this. It really twists my tail when someone suggests all "xx" from everywhere throughout all of history were built/done in a single way. My response is to say "prove it!" My experience has been that no two ships/boats of the same type were ever built the same way in different shipyards. But I cannot prove it never happened. Cutters were clinker or carvel built, depending on when, where and who was building them. I am building this boat for a hypothetical American topsail schooner of about 1815, made somewhere on the US east coast, by some boatyard. Who knows how those boat builders made small boats?

Valeriy, You are a brave (but very experienced) man to twist the blades after they have been soldered to the hub! But I have seen your posts in other builds so I have no doubt they will turn out excellent!

Bill, Lapped planks (clinker or lapstrake construction) were (are) very common on small boats - and even some pretty large fishing vessels and such. I think it is just the preference of the builder or the local tradition that decides how the hulls would be planked. However, for this kit you would have to find new wood for the planking. The planks that are supplied are only enough to fill the distance from the shoulder on the bulkheads to the keel, placed edge to edge with no overlap (carvel construction). You certainly could use the kit bulkheads as the framework for lapstrake planking. The supplied 1.1 mm wide planks are too narrow (in my opinion) for lapstrake planking. You would probably want something like 1.5 to 1.6 mm wide planks, and about 0.5 mm thick.

Welcome aboard Mark!

Very nice gun tackles on the carronades!

Mark, I thought that saying was "Je später der Abend, desto schöner die Fräuline"

The next step in the instructions is to install the ribs inside the hull. These are laser cut 1.1 mm wide strips of the 0.6 mm thick pearwood. After reading the full instructions I realized that the floor parts will interact with the ribs. There are four photoetch brass pieces for the floors. The center floor should fit between the MDF bulkheads as shown in the left photo above. I had to shave a bit off the bulkheads (arrows) for the deck to fit between them. The photo on the right shows where the two end floors should fit at the bow and stern. These pieces do not rest on the MDF bulkhead parts, but are suspended at the sides from the planking. They probably will need some supports. The arrows on the picture at the right also show where I will install ring bolts for the boat tackle hanging from the schooner's stern davits. They will be glued into the MDF bulkhead pieces. This will require modifying the photoetch deck pieces. I think the ribs will need to be trimmed all along the edges of the floor pieces for everything to fit together. But at this point I don't know how this will be done. So I just proceeded with installing the ribs and will deal with the interferences and fits later. I wet the strips with water and used the plank bending/quilting iron to shape them to fit inside the hull. They were glued in place with Titebond glue. There was just enough of the rib strips to complete the job. I think the intent of the design was to extend the ribs down only enough for the lower ends to be hidden under the deck planks. As you can see, I extended the ribs down to the keel, and there almost wasn't enough of the strips. I had some trouble getting the strips to fit into the hull at the proper angles. The problem stems from the ribs not being faired (shaped) to the angle of the hull planking. The strips try to fit flush with the plank surfaces, and that causes them to angle inward, especially at the bow. Fortunately the Titebond glue will loosen when water is added to the joint. Of course you have to be careful here because the planks are also being held together with the glue! The decking will hide the lower ends of the ribs, but there still is some reworking needed to get better angles for these ribs. After I see how the deck parts fit I think I will use the motor tool to remove more of the MDF bulkhead material under the decking so it doesn't show between the deck planks. I also know that the after seat piece will have to be notched to fit over the ribs.

Murphy must be on vacation! I removed the bulkheads without a problem! Bulkhead C14 had a very narrow slot burned in to allow the top part with the tabs to be removed after planking was done. I used a piece of a jeweler's saw blade chucked into a small pin vise to make cuts on both sides. I deliberately broke the top of the arch before sawing so I could remove each side individually. This is the only bulkhead that will remain in the boat. I used a small "keyhole" saw blade in a handle to cut away the part of the bulkheads above the center opening. The instructions show using side cutter pliers to chop through the MDF, but I thought that would create side forces pushing outward. The saw cut through without doing that. A small cutter/saw in my motor tool was used to make a cut where the bulkhead side piece meets the bottom piece. I wanted to leave all of the bulkhead bottom part to serve as a support for the photo etch floorboard piece. This probably wasn't necessary and wasn't included in the instructions. I was just making sure ... I used pliers to twist the bulkhead pieces away from the planking. The instructions say to do this and it works as promised! The bulkhead piece was twisted gently to break the glue bond with the planks. The twisting also finished breaking the bit of MDF remaining at the cut between the side and bottom of the bulkhead. I was worried that twisting the bulkheads like this would damage the planking. This was not a problem! Here is the hull after the bulkheads were removed. It is pretty solid and holds its shape. There was glue residue and some bits of MDF remaining on the inside of the planking. I used a variety of scrapers to remove this material. Then I put a small flexible sanding disk in the motor tool and ran it at the slowest speed. There isn't much wood in the thin planks and high speed might eat through quickly. As it was the motor stalled if I pressed too hard and it took some time to clean up the interior. But it looks pretty good now! I did encounter a small problem. I tried fitting the rudder onto the transom. The rudder piece has a tab that should fit into a rectangular hole near the bottom of the transom. But when I tried to fit the tab into the hole the handle of the rudder hit the top of the transom and bulkhead C14 (the one immediately forward of the transom). It was a slight interference and filing/sanding the tops of the transom and bulkhead eliminated the interference.

1. If you will be using a hand held pin vise DO NOT get carbide bits. They are very brittle and break with the slightest twist. These are for use in milling machines, drill presses and PC board fabrication machines. High speed steel bits are good for pin vises. Most of the bits I have seen with thick shafts and narrow cutting ends are carbide and are designed for automatic drilling machines. 2. Whatever you get, be sure it will hold the smallest bits (#80, 0.0135 inch, 0.34 mm). I have two of the types with removable collets and they will not hold the tiny bits. I bought a set of four pin vises with the "collet" as part of the body. The smallest closes down to virtually zero diameter and holds the smallest drill bits tightly. The handle is a simple knurled cylindrical shaft that can be chucked into a drill press. The handle is hollow, and allows long bits, wires, needles, whatever, to be held by the pin vise. I don't recall where I got them, but the set wasn't very expensive. Almost certainly made in China. 3. These things are useful for holding anything small. In addition to drill bits I have used them to hold needles, pieces of wire with hooks in the end to help with rigging, and short pieces of jeweler's saw blades. Here is a photo of the smallest pin vise holding a piece of a jeweler's saw. I needed to make a cut with a very narrow kerf. Having multiple pin vises means you can use one to hold the thing you are working on and another to hold the tool you are using. Or you can have multiple sizes of drill bits ready to use without changing collets. 4. The only drawback I have found with the hollow tube handle pin vises is that they do not have a finger rest on the end of the handle - just the end of the hollow tube. This is a bit uncomfortable when using a finger to press the tool as you are turning it to drill holes. I have thought about making one - perhaps adapting the rotating finger rest from one of my other pin vises that has multiple collets. Bit this hasn't been a big problem.

Whatever you do, test it first on a scrap piece of cloth!

I made a mistake in something I said in the previous post. Actually, I have not seen all the boats that were ever built, nor have I studied all the many ways builders built boats. So I don't know that real boats were not planked as in the model. But I do know the ship model community dogma holds that every plank be tapered perfectly, stealers should always be made the "right" way. There isn't much allowance for the fact that no two vessels were ever built the same way. I have finished shaping the planking on the hull. I used a file to take down the higher spots and remove any glue smears. Then I sanded with 150 grit followed by 320 grit. This was followed by a rub down with #0000 steel wool. The planking follows the curvature of the bulkheads nicely. The next step will be one of those "high pucker factor evolutions." The instructions say to remove the bulkheads from the planked hull. The bulkheads are made of MDF and that material is very soft and flakes easily. So I anticipate no problems breaking the bulkheads into pieces and removing most of them. But they are glued to the planks. I used glue sparingly where the planks fit against the bulkheads, and spread glue on the plank edges so they would be glued together. For extra measure, after the planks were in place I spread more glue along the seams on the inside of the planking. But still, with planks only 0.6 mm (0.024 inch) thick, the potential for disaster is evident. Wish me luck! Before sanding the hull I applied a layer of acrylic sealer. While this was drying I jumped ahead in the instructions and assembled the rudder. It has a central 0.6 mm wooden piece and two flanking photo etch brass parts with nice detail. I used CA gel to attach the metal parts to the wooden center as recommended in the instructions. The straps were bent at right angles to the rudder to fit the transom. The lower straps will need to be bent back along the planking after the rudder is glued on. If you look at the photos of the stern and transom above you can imagine how the rudder will fit on the boat.

A while back someone (don't remember who know) posted pictures of metal anchors from an old model kit that had started crumbling into dust. I hate it when that happens! If your anchors survived the toxic and corrosive bluing process they will probably stay intact for quite a while. But maybe you should handle them with gloves. Gun bluing contains some pretty nasty heavy metals.

Shipman, The boat will be painted inside and out. You are correct - this planking isn't the way real boats were built. In fact this is one of my complaints about some of the ship kits being sold today, with instructions to slap the planks on without tapering and just chop them off at an angle where the lower planks curve up to meet the horizontal upper planks. I measured the gap between the garboard strake and the top plank, and then tapered the remaining nine planks with the intention of having equal width ends both fore and aft. But as I explained I didn't actually taper the first few of these planks enough, and that didn't leave room for the remainder to have equal tapers. That was my mistake. However, these planks are only 0.6 mm thick and have normal wood grain. And as the end tapered narrower and narrower they were much more prone to bending and breaking. I guess I just was reluctant to push my luck and didn't taper them enough. I did break one of the 22 planks while shaping the taper. I considered hooking those next-to-last two planks, with the last plank shaped to fit between them. But if you follow the rest of the construction you will see that all but the bottom of the bulkheads will be removed and fake ribs will be added. So when I was finishing the planking I didn't know where the ribs would be to place the planking joint. I was FAR more concerned to get the planks bent so they fit tight to the bulkheads. With only 0.6 mm of wood there isn't much to be sanded away to smooth the hull if an edge stood proud over a neighboring plank. Sanding a hole through the planks would be a far greater problem that the pointed planks! With the experience I have gained from this build if I built another of these kits I think I probably could taper all of the planks correctly. But if the thing is going to be painted, why bother? **** I guess I should explain my "philosophy" for model building. No matter how hard we try and how much time we spend we can never achieve totally accurate parts at modelling scales. For example, many people serve the threads we use for ropes in order to create the appearance of a served rope. But how many modelers actually worm and parcel the rope before winding the service? And when people make their own "ropes" how many actually start by creating the smaller yarns, then winding them into intermediate threads of scale width, using alternate cable and shroud lays, before winding these into the scale ropes? When I build a model the main purpose is to learn how the real things were made, and the second purpose is to make a scale replica that represents the appearance of the real thing. Some people want to try to replicate the entire structure of a ship, making each scale part and carefully piecing them together, even though little of it will be visible in the finished model. I have tried this, and it brings satisfaction to the modeler that is has been done successfully. But there is still a limit to what can be done at scale. Look at my USS Oklahoma City CLG-5 CAD model for an example. It was done at 1:1 scale, and contains just about every detail visible on the outer surface of the ship down to 3/16 inch (0.1875 inch or 4.76 mm) diameter rivet heads. Probably half of the 220,000+ pieces are fasteners. How would you make a 3/16 inch diameter rivet head at 1:100 scale? They would be 0.001875 inch (0.047 mm) diameter, and you would have to place thousands of them. I started modelling the actual frames and internal structure and realized it would be millions of pieces. It took 14 years just to model the exterior - I wouldn't live long enough to model the entire interior! So we have to accept limits to the accuracy of our models that are imposed by the scales we work at. Where you place those limits is up to you. In this case I just want to get the damned thing finished with an acceptable appearance (to me) and move on!

I have been finishing the hull planking. Here is an example of a plank that has been shaped to the hull by bending with the planking/quilting tool. The front and back were clamped in place on the hull. The straight plank didn't want to fit in place. But after it was wetted and heated several times it bent into shape with all the necessary curves and twists. Then when it was glued into place no clamps were needed. I have used this technique here and on the MSI hull, and it is far better than trying to bend the planks off hull on a jig. That may curve the plank, but it won't give it all the necessary twists. The hull itself is the best "jig." This is the hull with all but the last two planks in place. And I do mean last two planks - there are no spares! However, if you break a plank and need another you could make one from the excess wood on the 0.60 mm pear sheet. I shaped the planks two at a time, tapering both ends. The planking came out fairly symmetrical on both sides. However, as you can see here, I didn't taper the first few planks quite enough. By the time I got to the last three per side it was clear that I wouldn't be able to run all three to the bow and stern. I shaped the two planks on the side of the opening that you see in the photo to fill the gaps at the bow and stern, and fashioned a short pointed piece to fill the gap. The last plank finally fit into place. If you look closely at the Vanguard kit instructions this is how they finished the planking - with the short pointed piece. I certainly am not disappointed with the planking job. This is pretty thin wood and I worried about breaking the planks as I trimmed, filed and sanded them into shape. They fit the shape of the hull tightly and after sanding and painting it should look really nice. One interesting thing about the laser cut planks is that they have a trapezoidal cross section instead of rectangular. This is because the laser burns a narrow "V" cut. Consequently, the planks are somewhat tapered for fitting around the curved bulkheads. Still, I did file away some of the char on the inside of the plank edges to get a tighter fit. I put the narrowest side on the inside against the bulkheads. When I came to the last (pointed) planks, on one side the plank dropped between the neighboring planks without trimming at the middle widest part. On the other side I did have to file away some of the char to get the plank to fit between the other planks. All in all, up to this point the kit has gone together without much trouble.

BCD, It sounds like you may be talking about thimbles - they have a single hole through the piece and a groove around the edge for a line to attach. I bought some 2.5 mm "single hole deadeyes" from Ages of Sail (AM4280/25), 20 per package. Here is a photo of one of these in the sling for the yard.

First, that little bit of short plank would never have been noticed by anyone else if you had never mentioned it. Your "repair" came out very nice. Don't let it nag at you. There are more important things to "worry" about! Second, you can bend just about anything that is flexible over the bulkheads to see how the fairing is coming along. A thin strip of plastic will work as well as a plank - cut a strip out of plastic packaging or some other scrap. It just needs to be thick enough to be a bit "springy." Even heavy cardboard will do. If you rub a pencil over the edge of the bulkheads you can see the results of sanding. Be sure you do not sand away the pencil from the "high" edge of the bulkhead. You don't want to take away too much wood or you will end up with a "dent" or low spot in the planking. Although it is nice to get a wide flat surface for planks to glue to, you really don't need the entire width of the bulkhead. So leave the little bit of the pencil mark on the high edge to reassure yourself that you haven't sanded too much. When you bend the test strip over the bulkheads is should fit "naturally" against every bulkhead. Play around with it and you will see what I mean. If the edge of a bulkhead is too low you can always glue a scrap piece of planking to the edge and repeat the fairing. Put extra time and effort into getting the bulkheads faired so the test strip fits with a nice smooth curve. After you start planking it is too late to get it right!

Mark, Bad news! Rest up, sit back, relax and enjoy spring. It's gin and tonic time, and you only need one hand for that! Tendons can do strange things. About 15 years back I was tucking a cover between pillows in the couch when there was an audible "snap" and a finger in my left hand stopped working. The tendon broke and I couldn't control the outer two digits. I could feel the broken ends beneath the skin. Bummer! I looked in my medical books and several on-line medical school hand medicine sites and they all said the same thing - splint it and wait. I bent some sheet brass to make a frame for a splint and wrapped it in gauze. I taped it to the finger and changed the bandage every day. A couple weeks later the finger started working again! The broken ends of the tendon grew back together. It is still working as good as new - except for a slight lump under the skin where the ends grew together. So give your hand some rest and it will recover. And then get back to the Lynx! We all would like to see it finished!

I am working on the ship's boat. It is a Vanguard Models 1:64 scale 18 foot cutter. At 1:48 it will be a 14 foot cutter. It is just the right size to hang from the stern davits. Rather than post the process in this thread where many people won't see it I am posting the build in a separate thread: https://modelshipworld.com/topic/38319-18-ft-cutter-by-dr-pr-vanguard-models-164/?do=findComment&comment=1095898

Planking is continuing. I am tapering the planks to try to get fairly uniform widths at the bow and stern. So far it has been pretty easy. If the wood seems to be especially dark at some places it is because I am using my planking tool to shape the planks in place on the hull. The tool is hot enough to scorch the wood, but this will sand off when I do the final finishing. I wet the planks with water and then heat them with the tool. They bend and twist to the exact shape of the hull. Then when I glue them in place I don't need to clamp them except at the very bow and stern to hold them while the glue sets. After the glue has set I reheat the planks to melt and reflow the Titebond glue. It hardens again when the planks cool. It is this process, when the planks have not been wetted with water, that the planks get scorched.

I have only used water to clean brushes with the acrylic "hobby" paints that I use. I have been doing this for years and there is no paint build up on the bristles. Of course, I never allow the paint to dry on the brushes. I wash them immediately after painting. But as Wefalck says, there are different types of acrylic paints, and some may need a solvent other than water.

Mark, Apparently it was common practice to nipper the parts of the lanyard together - see Lever page 9 Fig. 76. He says a round turn might be taken over the lanyard between every cross turn. This could give the appearance of a seizing around the parts of the lanyard. Nippering and alternate round turns would be pretty complicated at small scales, so just a series of round turns (like seizing) could be used. This was early 1800s American practice. I don't know if it was common elsewhere and at other times. Petersson (Rigging Period Fore-and-aft Craft, pages 23, 82, 85, 90) shows examples of the end of heart and eye lanyards being wound around the bulk of the lanyards a few turns between hearts/eyes with the ends of the lanyards secured to one strand of the lanyard with a seizing. These things would occasionally need to be tightened, and winding the end of the lanyard around the parts between the hearts/eyes provides a place to stow the extra length of the lanyard.