jpalmer1970

Looking very good!

I spent a while practising with the v gouges on some scraps of wood seeing if I could make an acceptable rabbet. Obviously one of the key points is making sure the gouges are super sharp and whilst I had bought the sharpening block with the gouges I don't think I have yet mastered the best way to get them really sharp. I found that if I used the miniature Veritas marking gauge to score the line where I wanted the centre of the rabbet to be it certainly made things easier when using the gouge, as the score line was just significant enough to help stop the gouge from wandering off the straight line. I also spent a while reading volume 1 of TTFM to see how the rabbet was tackled there. David seemed to assemble all of the keel pieces and install the rising wood and deadwood before tackling the cutting of the rabbet with gouges. In contrast Stuntflyer in his excellent build log for the Hayling Hoy cut his rabbet before attaching the rising wood and deadwood and he used a scraper cut to size from a hacksaw blade. Presumably it would be difficult to use a scraper if the rising wood and deadwoods were already fixed in place, hence the difference in approach. As this was my fist time trying to cut the rabbet I wasn't confident that everything would go well enough for me to risk fixing the rising wood and deadwoods to the keel first as that might require a lot so re-dos if things went very wrong with the rabbet. I did want to use the gouges though so I decided to not fix the rising wood and deadwoods in place and attempt to cut a small rabbet on the rear two keel pieces - the idea being that if it went well I could then fix everything else in place and then finish cutting the rabbet to the required depth later. As I haven't yet joined the centre keel section to the foremost keel section this meant I could just concentrate on making a nice straight rabbet on these parts, making sure not to take it too far aft and also bearing in mind the changing shape of the rabbet as it approaches aft. I marked out the width of the rabbet on the keel and used the marking gauge to score a centre line of the cut. I worked slowly and carefully and was pretty pleased with how things turned out initially - I got a nice straight cut along the centre portion of the keel on each side. However, things started to go wrong after that point when I started trying a little too hard to make the cut deeper and also trying to navigate the twist in the profile of the cut at the aft end of the rabbet. A combination of a dulled gouge, over confidence and a ham fisted operator resulted is me making a bit of hash of thing and my rabbet line went off track and quite literally gouged into the top portion of the keel leaving it looking rather unsightly. I also found it difficult to make the turn of profile of the rabbet match on each side of the keel - I hadn't really marked those sections out very well and so that was not really unexpected. The result of all of that is that today I cut some new pieces of 12" stock to remake the rear two sections of the keel. The scarph joints have been cut and once the rear of the new keel is tapered in width I can start again on another rabbet and hopefully do better next time. Learning from my mistakes I have also cut another spare two keel sections, just in case another re-do is required, and also some other 12" stock with which I can use to further practise cutting the rabbet. I will also spend some time to see if I can make a scraper as per Stuntflyer's build log to see how that technique compares with using the gouges. I thought I might struggle at this point, so at least I have the satisfaction of knowing I was right about that 😀 At least I only messed up the easily replaceable bits so I am glad I didn't dive in with trying to cut the rabbet on the stem!

Hello and welcome!

ModelShipBuilder seem to be selling Hahn's plans but I not sure if they come with digital copies of the frames etc. https://www.modelshipbuilder.com/hahnplans.html

Congratulations. It has been great watching you work through this build.

Recent work on the build has focussed on the rising wood. I had previously cut a length of 15" wide stock for this. At its deepest it only needs to be 6" thick but the centre section of the rising wood is considerably thinner than the two ends. I decided it was easiest to cut out the notches for the frames whilst it was one consistent thickness of 6" and then thin down the centre section as required later on. Firstly I marked out the various station lines on the rising wood and then divided these areas into the relevant number of portions for the frames and the separator gaps between them. I'm not sure what the actual terms for these are but that is what i will use! The notches for the frames are 12" wide and the separators between them are 9" wide. A depth of 1.5" needed to be removed where each frame sits. Similarly 1.5" deep sections of wood are also required to be removed from the both sides of the rising wood where the frames sit. I began by cutting the notches for where the frames sit on the top side of the rising wood. I used to mill to do this and then tidied up the edges using the miniature chisels. I was then able to use the edges of the cut lines as a guide to mark out the areas on the sides of the rising wood where the vertical cuts needed to be made. These were then also cut with the mill and tidied up a little with the chisels. I now had the basic shape of the rising wood in place but there was also the question of the taper of the piece from thinner in the middle to deeper at each end. As mentioned previously the rising wood is 6" deep at the first frame separator at each end but at the centre section it is only 4.5" deep. The first three frame separator sections at each end are all the same height and then the next four are 5.25" deep. The next four (which gets us to the middle one) are 4.5" deep. This order is then reversed as you progress toward the aft end of the rising wood. I decided it was easiest to use the mill to gradually shave off the required amount in each area. This of course meant that in the centre when I removed the 1.5" from the frame separator gaps they were in fact sitting flush with the notches for the frames. These notches therefore needed remilling so that they were 1.5" below the tops of the frame separators again. Similarly where I had reduced some of the frame separators to 5.25" deep, the frame notches between them also needed a little remilling so that the notches were again 1.5" below the top of the separator. That all sounds far harder to say and type than it was in actual practice so hopefully the picture explain the process a little more clearly! Here is the rising wood viewed from the side where you can clearly see the difference in thickness between the two ends and the centre portion. And here is the rising wood viewed from above. It does all line up with the plan - I think the position of the lens in the phone camera makes the notches towards the two ends look like they are not in line. The rising wood is a little over length at each end at this stage but will be trimmed to the correct length when I am ready to glue it to the keel. I'l also go over it again with a chisel where required to make sure all the cuts are sharp and square. The next step in the build isn't one that I am particularly looking forward to - cutting the rabbet in the keel and stem. I haven't done this before and so I intend to get a good amount of practise first on some offcuts of wood as I really don't want to mess up the keel and stem pieces! I purchased a v gouge kit to use for this job so hopefully it will work well. Any tips and advice on cutting the rabbet will be very gratefully received!

Thank Mike! That would be great.

I'd also be keen to purchase Vol II, either as a reprint or a digital copy. If that isn't possible, is there any way of getting the digital files from the CD and plans at least?

Good luck with this build. I look forward to following your progress.

Congratulations! An excellent model and an excellent build log. You should be very proud of your achievement! 👍👍

Hello and welcome!

Hello and welcome!

Looks great. The use of the tin foil 'template' is an ingenious way of getting the ensign to the desired shape!

I set about milling the steps in the fore deadwood. A depth of 1.5" needs to be removed from each side of the piece and I removed most of the required area on each side using the mill. I set the depth of the mill bit so that it was flush with the face of the deadwood and then I shimmed the deadwood up by the required amount so that I knew exactly how deep the cut was going to be. I found it was easier to judge the correct depth of cut this way rather than trying to set the mill bit to the correct depth. As you can see I left an area at the rear of the piece simply so that when I turned it over to mill the other side it was able to lay it flat and square on the mill table. These areas will be removed using a chisel when I come to fit the fore deadwood to the keel in due course. After milling out the bulk of the area I then tidied the corners of the steps up using some small chisels. There are in fact 6 steps in all on the fore deadwood and so I still have further steps to cut towards the rear of the piece. However, the steps toward the rear are extremely small and as I mentioned previously I found out that is easy to damage them when trying to fit and refit all the various pieces of the keel etc together. I will therefore wait until the piece is ready to be permanently affixed to the keel before I cut them and finalise that part of the work. At the moment the deadwood is also a little over length and needs trimming to size - this will also be done before the final steps are cut. Here is how the stemson and the fore deadwood fit against the stem at present.

No. Seawatch Books sell the plans separately as a supplement to the series - they are available from their website for $45.

Welcome to MSW!

Excellent work as always. The rigging has certainly come together very well. I think the issue of the pennant and signal flags will have to be a personal choice - is there a danger of overdoing it with the signal flags perhaps? I would perhaps go for the simpler, cleaner look myself. I will be interested to see how you eventually go with displaying the model. Do you have plans for a base and case etc?

Thanks Mike. I have a a bit like the one you mention so I will experiment with it and see how I get on.

Thanks Ian. I must admit I hadn't considered using the mill to cut the scarph joints. So far I have been using the scroll saw and then chisels to make them. I can certainly see how the mill could aid with accuracy. I will have to see if I have any suitable bits - I'm not sure if the ones I have will easily cut to the depth needed for some of these thicker pieces.

Many thanks for organising this Mike.

Many thanks Tony! I think there are quite a few Aussies on the forum. The Triumph is my other hobby - a good weekend is a mix of riding and model making!

Work has continued on the stemson and the fore deadwood, and especially on trying to get a good scarph joint connecting them. I cut a couple of practise joints on some scrap wood and found a technique that seemed to work for me - basically it involved having a piece that is a little over length, making the joint a fraction further down the wood than is actually required and getting a good fit there, and then shaving off the excess so that the joint ends up where it needs to be. In effect that breaks the process into two parts - getting a good joint and then getting it where it should be, rather than trying to get a good joint in the right place on the first go. Again, I roughly cut out the required shapes of each piece from 15" stock and sanded in the curves to match the stem and keel. Once the scarph joint was finished I was then able to move onto trimming off the excess wood. I cut out templates for the stemson and fore deadwood and glued these to my pieces and then cut off the excess wood so that they were just slightly larger than needed. Some sanding on the spindle sander evened out the transition into the curve and brought the dimensions down to just a hair over size. Final sanding of the inside curves where the two pieces meet will happen when I am ready to install them - at the moment the stemson sits just proud of the fore deadwood. The deadwood was then temporarily pinned in place on the keel to help with marking out the areas that need milling to produce the stepping line. 1.5" needs to come off each side to reduce the width of the centre section from 15" to 12". Hopefully the milling will go without any problems! I won't cut out the lowest steps towards the rear of the deadwood just yet as I have found that they can be so very fragile when still working on shaping and finishing the piece - so they will be the last things I do with it before installation.

Count me in for vol 2 Mike. (I'm already on your list) Jeremy

Thanks Greg, that is helpful. One of the great points about this hobby is that there are often several different methods which can be used to achieve the same ends, and it is a question of working out which one works best for you. It is a steep learning curve moving from kits to scratch building and discovering these different methods or processes and experimenting with them is proving to be very interesting.

Yes, that is correct. It is much easier to position the two pieces on the box and note where the high and low points of the join are than holding the two pieces together up towards the window etc.