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Matt D

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Everything posted by Matt D

  1. Matt D
    Hi Mark. You have a sharp eye. I have had that happen on almost every strake starting at about the third one going down from the top. The compound curve causes it to want to pucker up just slightly. There's very little stretch in these planks, unlike the first layer. So on each spot where that happened, I used a paint brush to push extra glue under the popped out section and then taped it down good and tight to dry. This photo must have been before I glued that one down, because it's tight and secure now. Thanks for your attention to detail and for pointing it out.
  2. Matt D
    Thank, Wallace and Nikbud. I didn’t come up with that idea on my own - I learned it from your logs (and others).
  3. Matt D
    I’m working on the second layer planking. I’m using PVA brushed on with a dampened paint brush. Then I tape it with blue painters tape until it dries. It’s a slow process, but it’s very forgiving: I can make adjustments if I don’t like how it goes on. I was thinking about CA to make it faster, but I don'twant it to dry fast in the wrong position.
  4. Matt D
    Wow, Peter! Your model looks amazing! I’m following this and really like your work.
  5. Matt D
    I had to travel for work last week and wasn’t able to work on my model for a few days. Before I left, I added the bulwarks. Today, I installed the upper stern piece and added some wood filler to smooth out the hull before planking the second layer. After getting that done, I made wooden bitts to use instead of the metal ones that came in the kit. They came out pretty good after a few tries.
  6. Matt D
    Sardonicmeow, Wallace, nikbud: thank you very much for your answers. I will confidently sand away this evening.
  7. Matt D
    I’m finished with laying the first layer of Hull planking and working carefully on preparing for the next few steps. I still have more sanding to do and then some filling. I’m looking at the bulwarks and the transom/upper stern. The instructions are not very clear on how the upper stern and deck beam mate up. The deck beam piece flares out and is slightly wider than the back of the deck and the upper stern. I think I need to sand it to the same width. It also interferes with the bulwarks, so something has to go. Since unsanding is hard, can any previous Virginia builders tell me what I should do to get a good result?
  8. Matt D
    I’m not quite done with the barrels. I started by making stave joints with a pencil. I tried backing them up by cutting into them with an exacto knife, but I couldn’t really get much effect, so I left them like you see the lines. Then I stained them with Minwax Gunstock stain. I was planning on using golden oak, but really liked the gunstock color when I was at the store. I also found some 6mm wide Tamiya masking tape, which looked really skinny when I bought it, but is actually closer to a mile wide when compared to the masking needed for the barrels. But it cuts nicely with an exacto knife with a straight edge. Masking was tedious because of the shape of the barrel. I used black acrylic paint with a fine brush. After it dried, I pealed the tape only to find that half the bands were too narrow. So I had to tape them up again and paint some more. I still wasn’t happy, so I tried filling in with a sharpie marker and that’s when I learned that I should have skipped the tape and paint and just used a sharpie. I still have a little more touching up, but I have to be in the right place mentally so I don’t mess them up with an errant mark.
  9. Matt D
    Here’s a picture of my work as of this morning. I hope to get some time to work on it some more this evening.
  10. Matt D
    Thanks, Stevinne. I have that book and I’ve read most of it. But I had mostly been going by the AL instructions and many build logs. I had not connected the dots on figuring out the plank tapers early on, but now see some really good examples in other Virginia build logs. I’m not stripping off the upper section, but I did pull off the three stakes at the keel. Looking more carefully at other people’s first layer, I didn’t think what I had would mate up well with the keel extension. I then faired the bulkheads as advised. Then I went a little further and did a little bit of sanding on the remaining planks. I think they look pretty good, but I didn’t take any photos yet. Constructo Enterprise is one I’d like to build some day.
  11. Matt D
    I decided to strip off the bottom three planks on each side because that seems like the area I have the biggest problem. I’m sanding that some more and then I’ll work my way down from the top the way that Robert Vaglio did in his build. Thanks for giving me your honest opinions. It won’t be any fun if it turns out like crap. Oh look: I’ve made it to page two!
  12. Matt D
    Mark, thank you for pointing that out. I thought I had faired it enough with the work I did at the bow. I didn’t go over each bulkhead with a block and instead sanded through all of the laser burning. I thought that would suffice, but I still have a lot to learn. I’m not going back and I think it will be ok because I have a decent contour now. If I had it to do over, I would have blocked the bow and stern to give me more wood to glue to in those areas.
  13. Matt D
    Thanks for that tip, Nikbud. I’m still going slow and steady on the first layer planking. I lost my modeling time to taxes yesterday. Somehow, I don’t enjoy that as much as ship building. Here are a couple of shots of my progress today. I’m hoping to get one more piece on each side later today. Then I might get the last two on tomorrow.
  14. Matt D
    I’m still progressing on the first layer of planking. I have four strakes per side to go. I’m also working on the caronnade rigging. I think I’m going to need a needle threader to get the line through the tiny holes in the blocks.
  15. Matt D
    Thanks for the line info, Martyn and Peter. I checked and found that my favorite local hobby shop has the correct AL lines for this kit. So I won’t worry too much about running out.
  16. Matt D
    I’m taking it one strake per day with neatly cut tapers and getting them a lot tighter. So I started working on the blocks for the cannon and I don’t like the thin wire in the instructions. Instead, I’m using the 0.25mm brown line to tie the blocks to the eyes. My method is to tie a two half hitches knot and back it up with a drop of CA. But I was wondering if I’m likely to run out of that line. Is the amount of line provided with the kit generous or do I need to use it sparingly?
  17. Matt D
    I spent a little more time reviewing other Virginia builds for planking and decided I needed to back up a little bit and taper mine at the bow. You can see in the photo from my last post that there wasn't any tapering at all. I thought that would be OK because it was looking a lot like the pictures in the instructions. But I changed my mind when I started looking at the quality of other people's builds. The thought I kept having is that you can't build a good house on a bad foundation. It was painful pulling off the glue joints where I needed to cut the tapers. The first cracking sounds made me question my judgement, but I think this is the right thing to do if I want my model to come out good enough to display. From here, I'm going to spend a lot more time shaping the planks the rest of the way.
  18. Matt D
    Thank you for pointing that out to me. I was able to pop them free where the clinkering was and glue them down better.
  19. Matt D
    Thanks, Stevinne. I’m glad to have found this forum to share with.
  20. Matt D
    Thanks. Like everyone else, I'm critical of my own work and see all the mistakes. But on the whole, I think it will look pretty good once it's finished and installed on the deck. I did bend the kit piece. I did exactly what Wallace did - soaked it in hot water for half an hour and then rubber-banded it to my glue bottle overnight. I worked like a champ, but I was prepared for a hard time based on your log. If I recall correctly, yours had the grain running across the bend - or at least the majority of layers in the plywood. Mine (and presumably Wallace's) were in the correct direction to bend pretty easily. That might be pure conjecture, but it's the best I can figure.
  21. Matt D
    Thanks, Wallace! Everything I know about deck planking, I learned in the build logs. Otherwise I would surely have followed the directions and planked in full length strips. I sanded mine because I’m not really sure how scraping is better. I used a mechanical pencil to simulate the caulking. I’m pretty happy with how it looks right now.
  22. Matt D
    While I was waiting for planks to dry, I worked on some of the deck furniture. I wasn’t very happy with the instructions on the cargo hatch. They seem to indicate that the inside needs a ledge on all four sides. That makes the cut precision very demanding on an item that is forever enclosed. So instead, I only made ledges on the ends where they are needed to hold the covers up. For those building this kit who haven’t built the hatch yet, the width on the hatch is dictated by the side strips, which are called out to be 27mm. The covers are each 9mm stock. That makes for a tight fit - especially if your cut is a little shy of 27mm. If I had to do it over, I’d aim for a solid 27.5 or 28mm. I had to sand the covers to take a tiny bit off. There are a lot of cross-cuts to make in this model. Since this is my first, I’m still coming up with methods. I think this one is worth sharing: I built a cross-cut sled for my scroll saw. It works great.
  23. Matt D
    Over the weekend, I made some progress on the hull planking. I started out using the nails in the kit, but I couldn’t get the depth right consistently. I’d either not get them in far enough and they’d pop back out, or I’d drive them all the way in, where I can’t cut the heads off easily. So I decided to try some tee pins pushed in by hand. Those along with some binder clips are working well.
  24. Matt D
    Wallace, Peter, and Nikbud, I’ve read all of your Virginia build logs. They were instrumental in my choice of this model for my first ship. I know I will do a better job because of what I’ve learned from you and a few others on this site. It made my day that you guys checked in on my log.
  25. Matt D
    Hi, fellow model makers. My name is Matt and this is my first wooden ship build. I picked this model based mainly on research done on this site. It has all of the elements I wanted to get to build - such as: Double plank on bulkhead Finished mahogany hull Two masts Nice looking rigging I started about a week ago. Here are photos of my progress before the weekend.

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