jpalmer1970

Congratulations - you have a great model there. I look forward to watching your future builds.

Great work!

11 hours ago, hof00 said:

If you haven't already seen the PD videos, here's one for a cold winters' viewing....🙂

Pen Duick - Les Tonnerres de Brest et Temps Fête sur Douarnenez 2012 - Bing video

Thanks for the comments Harry - coamings is indeed the word I wasn't able to think of. To be honest I haven't really looked at the deck fittings yet so I yet to see how closely I stick to the instructions or not. Thanks also for the video - amazing how much it is able to heel over, even just for what appears to be a leisurely cruise around the harbour!

Planking the deck of the Pen Duick continues…..

I have found that the key to making the cuts for the joggles is just to go very very slowly taking a small piece out at a time until you have removed the right amount of material. So far the mahogany king plank has been nice and co-operative with no wayward splits or shards breaking off. I did manage to scratch a couple of the planks near the bow with the point of the scalpel but I believe this will be able to be rectified when time comes to sand/scrape the deck once it has all been planked.

There is one thing that I am now doing differently compared to when I began. Initially I was marking the entire edge of each plank with the pencil to simulate the caulking prior to it being glued and fixed to the deck. However, it soon became apparent that this method led to a few dirty graphite fingerprints on the nice deck and so I quicky changed to only adding the pencil marks to the edges of the planks after they had been glued to the deck – ie immediately before the next plank was just about to be stuck down. Running a pencil along the edge of each plank just gives a very thin pencil line right on the top edge of the plank which is ideal for the appearance of the caulking. There is then far less graphite to smudge and make a mess with, especially if I have been a bit too enthusiastic with the amount of glue used.

So far I have only very roughly cut out the six deck slots near the stern into which the cockpit deck beams (not quite sure what those parts are actually called?) are fixed. I think it will be easier to get these to the required dimensions when that part of the cockpit framing is being installed.

A few more sessions should hopefully see the deck completed. 

I started on the deck planking this week. I began with a quick trial of the 2mm wide planks with the caulking effect using a dark pencil. I put together a little bunch of planks and gave them a quick coating with some wipe on poly. I think the pencil mark comes through enough to be effective and is how I am going to proceed. The black paper would be overkill I think as it would be too thick at this scale - it is basically thin card and I couldn't find anywhere selling thin paper, or even tissue paper in small enough quantities.

One side of some of the planks is a little darker than the other and so I'll make sure I sort them to try to get as consistent a colour as possible. A few also need a bit of a sand to tidy up the sides slightly.

I also had to work out the butt shift pattern in the deck planking. Using the picture of the deck i included earlier in the log I was able to work out the pattern and replicate it in a small drawing to use as a planking guide.

I think this is a 4 butt shift pattern (?) but it doesn't seem to be the usual one where the butt joints of adjacent planks move up (or down) the deck by one length each time. It was also difficult to see exactly how long the individuals planks are on the real deck so I had to estimate this somewhat. I decided on a length of of 4.5cm between butt shifts giving a full plank length of 22.5cm or about 21ft at full scale.

One of the key things to get right with a deck like this is making sure everything is a symmetrical as possible on each side of the deck. I am using a small length of tape to mark where the perpendicular cuts need to be made in the king plank to form the front of the joggles - by making sure this is square and the same distance from the bow along each side of the hull I should be able to keep things as square as possible.

So far I have installed three planks on each side of the deck - a small army of clamps helping with this immensely!

I'm interested to follow your progress on this - it is on my list of 'maybe the next build' ......

It all comes together nicely at this stage and starts looking like a 'proper' ship. You have a great model there - well done!

You may already be aware of this video but there is a great animation of the assembly of this model here.

Hello and welcome!

8 hours ago, Reggiemon said:

I found a good video of joggling deck planks on a full size sail boat.

Boatbuilder Ken ‘Joggling’ the teak into the king plank

This full size, modern construction, helped me visualize what I needed to do on my model.

Cheers,

Reg

Thanks for this Reg, it is an interesting video to watch and he clearly explains the steps needed. Hopefully I can make it look that easy at a much smaller scale! I have been watching Leo from Sampson Boat Co. build/restore his yacht for the last few years - the videos are on youtube here and it is fascinating to see the work involved in making a full size ship.

13 hours ago, Thukydides said:

where did you get this drill press? How accurate do you find it to be? i am always on the lookout for small tools as i don’t have the space for many of the toys that are usually recommended by people.

Hi Thukydides, the drill and press came from Amazon. You can see the details here. It wasn't cheap but I was lucky enough to get it as a Christmas present 😀 There are two different drill options and either can come with or without the press stand. I really like it because the rpm is so slow - only 550rpm compared to my Dremel lite of 5,000 rpm +. I find it much easier to drill accurate holes with the slower speed drill, which can be used either in the press or by hand. The drill is USB chargeable and the set comes with 10 drill bits from 0.5mm to 2.3mm. The shank size is 2.35mm (or 3/32") so it is easy to buy further bits if necessary but I haven't had any problems with the kit supplied ones so far. The footprint of the press stand is pretty small, only 10cm x 9cm so it is ideal for us in our small workspaces, and I think it is unlikely I would ever need to use it with anything too large to adequately fit in the stand 👍

On 6/3/2023 at 8:23 PM, hof00 said:

Hi Chap,

Coming along very nicely indeed!!

I did drill a hole so that the Tiller/Rudder works. The method I employed started with a small drill bit working up. (You don't need to go through the entire thickness as subsequent bits will follow the small hole.)

Anyway, as you stated, this is not really necessary. 🙂

 

You are indeed lucky to have a more "Supple" King Plank.

 

Happy Joggling!!

 

Cheers....HOF.

 

 

 

Thanks Harry - it is good to know it is possible. I was thinking that my small drill bits won't be long enough to go through the whole length of material but as you say I only need to start off with a small hole a centimetre or two deep to set the angle for the larger, longer drill bits to follow. I'll revisit this before I start hull planking and decide how to proceed from there.

I bought the Proxxon lathe for my Alert build as well - it certainly makes mast and spar shaping much easier. 

Looking forward to seeing your future Vanguard builds!

After a little more sanding of the frames and keel I think I have got as far as I can with the fairing until I start on the planking of the hull. The kit instructions actually indicate the next step in the build is to move on and start the deck planking rather than undertaking the hull planking now and so I have decided to follow this process. The deck planking is a pretty simple affair according to the instructions, just 3mm planks butting up to the three forward hatch frames and the king plank and then the frame of the cockpit hatch is set atop the deck planks. The real Pen Duick deck planking is of course a slightly more intricate affair - all four hatch frames are level with the deck planking and the much thinner deck planks are all joggled into the king plank and the hatch frames. It is my intention to copy the real deck planking as much as possible.

I began by installing the 10mm wide mahogany king plank and making the frames for the four deck hatches. The hatch frames are 5mm wide mahogany. What seems like a fairly simple task actually took quite a while to execute well. Getting all the frames and the king plank to sit square, equal and parallel where required, and symmetrical along the centre line took a fair amount of fettling, and in one or two cases removing and re-doing! The deck isn't particularly wide, even at its widest point, so being even a fraction of a millimetre off in the placement any of the frames makes things look off - and with only 2mm wide deck planks to be used being a millimetre out to one side will mean that the planking would certainly not look even.

One of the sections of the the king planks needs a 6mm diameter hole cutting for the mast - I used my mini drill press to cut this hole starting with a 1mm drill bit and working up in sizes until I was able to fit a semi-circular file into the hole. I didn't want to use large and large drill bits up to 6mm as I feared the mahogany might be too brittle. With the file i was then able to enlarge the hole to the 6mm size required - I think it came out nicely in the end.

There is also a slanted 3mm hole for the rudder arm which needs to be drilled through the deck, false keel and keel stiffeners. I am really not sure how to accomplish this as getting the angle right is going to be very tricky and I'm not sure I have long enough drill bits in small enough sizes and so I am wondering whether to cheat and just have a false piece coming out of the deck to the tiller and not have it connected to the rudder at all. The model will be put in a display case so no-one is going to be using the tiller to see if the rudder actually works 😃 For the time being  I have simply drilled a 2mm hole squarely in the section of the king plank where the slanted 3mm hole is situated so that later on in the build I have a marker for the correct location.

After installing the king plank and frame hatches and the thicker stern piece I then set about adding a margin plank on each side of the deck from some 3mm mahogany. This needs to be joggled into the king plank near the bow and my mini Veritas chisels were ideal for this job. I think I have been fortunate with the 10mm piece of mahogany included in the kit as the king plank as this seems to be far less brittle than the other pieces of supplied mahogany. Therefore it was fairly easy to cut the required joggles using the chisels and a new #11 blade. Hopefully the rest of the joggles will be equally as easy - there are going to be a lot of them to do!

I had to experiment a little on the best way to support the model at this stage. The Amati keel clamp which I had been using prior to the fairing work simply wasn't suitable anymore given the bottom of the keel is now an angled section, and after looking at various options, including building a suitable sized cradle, I eventually hit on the solution of using two adjustable workbench vices with soft rubber jaw covers to hold the model. The model can be held securely with one vice in the centre but working at either of the extreme ends of the model did make things a bit tippy - using both vices got around this problem. Whoever said you always need more vices, clamps, grips and other means of holding things was certainly right!

Hello and welcome!

Fantastic work. Congratulations!!

7 hours ago, Thukydides said:

I was mostly looking for any contemporary examples of the painting style (with high resolution photos) people could point me towards to try

I know this isn't contemporary at all but can you use some of the images from the Vanguard online manuals as a template to form a basis for your own version of the design. There are images in the Alert manual of course but I am also thinking of the ones in the Duchess of Kingston manual as the design there is a bit more intricate?

I was able to spend a good few hours working on the fairing of the frames and the keel yesterday. I had already completed a significant part of the failing of the starboard side of the ship last weekend and another hour's work saw that side completed - at least until the port side had been faired to match.

These two images hopefully show just how much of the keel stiffeners needs removing in order to get the required shape for the keel. 

I had done most of the work on the starboard side with just 120 grit sandpaper and the soft sanding blocks but for the port side I decided to use my dremel lite to work away the bulk of the keel stiffeners. This certainly made short work of the plywood stiffeners and only a few minutes use had them to the stage where I could undertake the proper shaping with the sandpaper and sanding blocks. I estimate that 10 minutes work with the dremel was equivalent to well over an hour's work with soft sanding blocks. I was very wary of getting too close with the sanding band on the dremel so stopped well short of where the shape needed to be  - but it certainly sped up the whole process. More work with the soft sanders allowed me to shape the port side so that it matched the already shaped starboard side. There was then a little more sanding work to do just to make sure the keel line was straight and equal. I also used a 5mm lime wood plank to check the run of the frames and did my best to have everything equal and smooth. I found that bulkhead 7 seems a little narrow on both sides so I adjusted the angles on bulkheads 6 and 8 slightly to get a better run with the plank. I think I have got to the stage where the fairing is 95% complete now - there are just a few points, like the stern and the very top area of a couple of frames that need some very minor finessing. 

The completed cannon on the carriage looks really good. Thanks also for the latest piece of painting advice - it is a bit of a dark art if you haven't had much experience in that field before.

Hi,

Thanks for the comments. Yes I am tending to the idea of sticking with the pencil, though I might try to use a darker one than a standard HB though. The idea about sanding sealer is a good one which should certainly help if a marker is used. I plan to apply wop on the deck so I will use some of that on my next trial run with the 2mm planks to see how much of a difference that makes to the caulking lines.

Whilst waiting to get an opportunity to work outside to continue with the fairing of the frames I spent some time considering the planking of the deck. On my previous build of HM Cutter Alert I simulated the caulking between the deck planks using a pencil along the side and end of the plank. I wanted to see how different methods of doing this compared so I put together a little trial of four different caulking alternatives. 

The caulking in the planking in the top left was done using a pencil as per Alert, the bottom left option used the same method but with a black marker rather than a pencil. For the top right trial piece I cut thin strips of black paper the same height as the planks (1mm) and glued these to the sides of the planks prior to putting the planks together. Finally with the bottom right section I again used black paper but cut this oversize and then trimmed it down to the plank height after the planking had been completed.

It was obvious from the outset that there was going to be a problem with the black marker at the ends of the planks where the grain was open – there was some very obvious bleeding of the ink that took place there which doesn’t look good. Of the two black paper trials it was also apparent that cutting the strips to the exact size of the plank height prior to gluing made for a neater appearance compared to trimming the paper down to size afterwards. The black paper certainly gives a more definite appearance of caulking than the pencil mark, at least at this scale – the planks I used for the trial were pieces of 5mm wide limewood. However, I am planning on using much narrower planks on the deck of the model and it is possible that the black paper would become a little too overwhelming at that scale so I have yet to decide on whether to use pencil or paper when I get to that stage. I will repeat this trial with the deck planks of the actual size I will be using later on I think. 

The deck planking provided with the kit comprises 3mm wide ramin. As I mentioned in a previous post even at 3mm wide the deck planks are very oversized compared to the planking of the real Pen Duick deck and I want to scale these down to give a more realistic appearance to the model. At the widest point of the deck the kit plans show thirteen 3mm wide planks are needed on one side of the centre line. Photos of the actual Pen Duick show that there are about forty planks in that same space so planks of 1mm wide would be much more representational for the model. I think working with such narrow planks would make the job of joggling them into the king plank a lot trickier so I decided to compromise on 2mm wide planks. 

I decided the easiest way to cut down the deck planking from 3mm to 2mm was with a #11 blade and with the plank clamped to my cutting mat and a metal straight edge as a guide for the cut. I experimented with three or four planks and found that it was very difficult to for me to get a consistently straight cut along the whole plank length. I also tried the same setup with some limewood planks and found that they cut much more easily and consistently so I think there must be some difference in the wood density or grain which makes the ramin more difficult to cut in this manner. Unfortunately, I don’t think I have enough of the kit supplied ramin to cover the whole deck with 2mm planks given the percentage of wastage I am going to encounter in the resizing process. If I could guarantee that all the planks could be cut down to size correctly then I should be ok but I don’t think that is going to happen. Given that the deck planking is suck a key feature of the model I decided not to risk bodging it with the resized ramin and so I have ordered some 2mm wide limewood to use instead.

That looks fantastic !

I managed to find a little time this weekend to make a start on the fairing of the frames. There is an awful lot of material that needs removing from the keel stiffeners and an hour’s work with 120 grit paper and the soft sanding blocks only took off the worst of the excess on the starboard side of the hull – it is going to be quite a lengthy process to get the whole hull faired properly. Many of the frames really only need a minimal shaping but getting a v shaped edge to the keel is going to be a longer process due to the thickness of the various stiffeners. I am considering breaking out the Dremel to take off the bulk of the material but I am always wary of power tools when sanding frames etc as it is too easy to take off too much. On the plus side my new respirator mask is a comfy fit – I think I’m going to get a fair bit of use out of it in the coming weekends!

18 hours ago, hof00 said:

I guess if you reduce the thickness of the Decking Planks, you'll need to check if your kit provides enough stock.

Have you looked at obtaining 2.0mm wide planks?

I think there will still be enough of the kit supplied deck planking if I cut them down to 2mm wide but I will do the maths and work that out for sure before I start anything. I can buy some 1x2mm limewood strips which is an option if I am unable to consistently reduce the kit planks. I do have a Proxxon table saw that I want to get better at using so this is an opportunity for me to learn some of the techniques of making planks with that.

5 hours ago, hof00 said:

 

Fairing the Bulkheads took me quite a while primarily due to the "Doublers."

Take your time and try not to take anything off the False Deck!! 🙂

 

Decking you'll find interesting I am sure, just have a think about the steps necessary and the sequence.

Are you planning to "Joggle" the Deck planks?

 

 

Thanks HOF. Yes, i have put some tape on the edge of the deck in an effort to protect it from any wayward swipes during sanding. There is a lot of wood to remove from the keel pieces but the plan is to take it slow and steady and not muck it up! I also plan to joggle the deck planks into the king plank. I am toying with the idea of reducing the deck planks from 3mm to 2mm wide so that it will look a little more like the deck of the real ship but we'll have to see whether I can do that consistently to all of the planks, as it will be very obvious if some of the planks are wider than others.