CiscoH

Good evening MSW I won one of Chuck's Battle Station kits at the Joint Clubs Conference so I'm taking a short break from my Armed Virginia Sloop. I justify taking on a second project with the excuse that this kit will be a great way to practice rigging a cannon, which I have never done. The kit includes Syren rope and blocks, and at the Conference Chuck gave a presentation on how exactly he likes to seize his rope. With this knowledge still fresh in my mind I felt I better use it before it was forgotten. So here I go Here's the kit unwrapped on my bed; there's a lot of parts in the little box. Directions are downloaded from Syren's website. I read through the directions, unpacked all the parts, and re-read the directions. The wood is all AYC I think, which I haven't worked with before, my previous experience is with basswood (blah) and holly. AYC seems to be a good compromise wood; midway between basswood and holly in hardness, very minimal grain pattern, and it looks great under polyurethane. I glued the two base panels together at right angles, creating a 2-ply plywood of sorts. The thicker piece had warped a little but I left them clamped under a block of wood overnight and it came out flat. Then I used water-based polyurethane (because thats what I have for my AVS) on both sides of the panel. I plan to paint the top black somewhere down the road and the urethane provides a good base. Next was gluing in the frames. Mine fit fine without any sanding and I checked each piece for square as I went. The slots are deep and the frames didn't require much adjustment and stayed put, and each frame is labeled. Frame 5 (pictured below) is narrower and will only fit in 1 slot so its harder to screw up placement. After gluing in the 5 frames I waited an hour then sanded the backside of the frames flat and added the back panel Once it dried I sanded it flush with the frame edges. And finally I added the blocking. The Ultimation Hand Sander I got 2 Conferences ago worked great for removing small amounts of wood without rounding the edges. I glued the blocking in place and clamped (gently) across the top. And thats where I am tonight. thanks for reading Cisco

Mine wasnt perfectly regular either, although I was following Lauk Street's directions which may differ from the kit directions. None of my ship's dimensions match right vs left, anywhere, sometimes by a couple mms, so during final deck planking I had to make some planks a little wider or narrower each side to make up this difference. It is not noticeable so you have a lot of leeway. I'm sure my hull's outside planking dimensions were also different R vs L side. It all works out in the end

great series of explanations

Thank you very much Tim! I appreciate the kind words. It may be longer than a year though... Some Conference pics. It was raining hard when we got there and I managed to step into the river flowing through the parking lot so wet feet for a while. Heres a pic of this case which I really liked; and I notice I accidentally caught Dave and Greg talking in the background. They gave the lecture after lunch about their current project, a 1:48 behemoth frigate? thats so big there are concerns it may not fit through Greg's doorways when he's done rigging her. Along with some other attendees I worked on them both to restart the Admiralty Workshops and its sounding hopeful. If either of them are reading this I still vote for a short cross- section of a ship. They did Echo years ago which I have downloaded but maybe a different ship, same idea. There were 30 minute mini-talk/demos running all morning; every one I attended was worthwhile. I will always be a more traditional-minded builder but it was interesting learning about printers. Maybe when I am deciding on which cannons to use. Dan Pariser's talk on building an Admiralty style hull was fascinating and in my opinion his was the best model there. Here's a side-on pic. If i remember correctly shes a sister ship to Fubbs, but named after another of the king's mistresses, of which he apparently had a veritable fleet of. I found another mini AVS in 1:100 scale which was very well done. I liked the case too. Most cases are made in dark wood, not sure why unless its tradition. Heres a great 1:96 admiralty style ship in a light coloured case which I also liked a lot. Notice the large cutout venting in the case bottom. And finally the raffle. I have never bought tickets for a raffle before. But. The prizes were a tablesaw, which I was sorta interested in (although I hear Byrnes is making saws again), and several of Chuck's new limited edition Speedwell Battle Station kits, which is what I really wanted. One of my tickets was the first called so I got my Chuck kit, the next guy got the saw, and then I got called again so my modeling buddy Jason got a kit too. Heres the kit unpacked. An amazing amount of stuff in it, all Syren quality wood, rope, blocks, and a flawless cannon. And a sailor and his cat. It seems to me this would be a high demand kit - high quality but small so not the commitment of the other bigger kits he carries. And it has well thought out directions, especially for rigging the cannon, which is essential in my book. And after this triumph we drove back to Delaware and I got to loathe 95S and the George Washington bridge all over again. Have a great weekend folks Cisco

Page 8! At my rate of building speed thats remarkable. Slow and steady. First up progress on the AVS. My shipmodel friend Jason and I drove the 4 hours to Connecticut on Friday night for the 42nd Annual Joint Clubs show. Nothing in the world compares to the joy of 95N narrowing down into the George Washington bridge. We almost ran out of things to talk about. Anyway I wanted to display her at the Conference if I could get the main cabin planking finished so I had a Deadline. After dividing the front of the cabin into aprox 1/8" wide divisions I got 20? I think planks. After gluing the the most starboard and then the central planks into position I made another 9 planks and glued them in 3 at a time. The top of the cabin curves upwards so if you put too much pressure on the planks they would suddenly flip outwards. Inventive clamping became necessary. Once starboard was done I did the same for port. The penciled on triangles helped keep track of the planks order. Its not as apparent as I had hoped but the planks narrow as they get towards the center. Looks a little rough in this picture and it was 2 days to go. I scraped and sanded (180, then 220) the planks down close to level. Next up was cutting the planks flush and inserting a curved molding over the cabin doors. I traced the rounded profile I wanted and assumed there would be some springback so made my jig a little more curved. Holly , even thick stuff, bends well with some heat and a touch of water. I was thinking about complicated laminations but turned out to not be necessary. I trimmed it to fit, had to bend it again a little more in 1 location and unbend it in another. The molding fit into a rabbit that was irregular and wasn't a good "bed" so I used epoxy instead of yellow glue. Its easy to get epoxy everywhere you don't want it so (like dripping over/into the doors) but I got lucky in this go around. Final sanding was in the hotel the morning of the Conference and then she was good to go. I think up next is making more deck fixtures and cleats and bollards. Also some pumps so my AVS doesn't sink. And on the horizon is Cannons! I took some pics at the Conference which I will post next. thanks for reading Cisco

I removed all the rubber bands and go-sticks and got a better photo this morning. The raised panels have a bit of a rustic look but I'll take it and moving on to the roof decking. Happy Sunday all Cisco

Well its been over a month. Vacation and work took their toll. I'm trying to bring my AVS up to the Joint Clubs conference as an "in progress" so now its crunch time. While anything beyond deck furniture won't happen in time; I don't want any basswood showing. Next up is planking the cabin entryway. Below is the kit door picture. I tossed around how I could make the doors more aggravating to build- maybe a window in the top of each one? maybe double raised panels? After looking at my drawings I eventually decided a single raised panel looked better than any of my other wacky ideas. The door frames were simple butt joints, highlighted with pencil. If I had more time the half-lap joints I used for the companionway coaming would have been sturdier to work with. But they turned out ok and were very solid once glued onto the basswood underlayment. For anyone who noticed I deliberately made the door frames inset so they would stand out. In reality this would have made the doors only open 90 degrees and been a pain to traverse but in this built artistic license overcomes functionality. Next I test-fitted my raised panels. The panels were challenging due to the flat reveal around the raised portion. It took a few tries. I scribed around the edges for a rabbit (shown below), then scribed further back for the borders of the raised portion of the panel. Tricky work although you are essentially cutting to a line. I don't know how I functioned before discovering my fine drafting compass. After planking the sides and middle of the cabin entryway I made the small base trim piece. Its fragile; I first made a "pretty close" version out of basswood (top piece), then a second try with holly. Once I got the bottom scribed as closely as possible I used the above compass to trace the width I wanted and cut it out. Then I attempted not to throw the base molding out (it looked exactly like cutoff scrap). Then I glued the top part of the door frame in, final fit my raised panels and glued them in. I forgot to say I pre-finished the door frames and panels, and pre-drilled for the handle and hinges before the frames were glued on; much easier to do that stuff on the bench. The handle and hinges were added with a touch of epoxy, then I used the below scheme of go-sticks and rubber bands to keep the basemolding in place while its glue dried. Sorry I now realize that pic is a little out of focus. Well thats progress as of now. This week I will be making the narrow planking to cover the roof of the cabin. And if all goes well I'll bring her to the conference for laudits and critique. thanks for reading Cisco

Simply Beautiful lines Siggi.

nice smooth curve of your bulwarks. looks very good. be aware that black Sharpies fade to a dull grey in about a year. i stopped using them as interplank tarring; paint, coloured paper, or pencil are usually coulourfast

Great discussion Mike. i like your last picture - it made me wonder which hand you took it with

Well OCD (and a gentle shove from BE, thank you Sir) won out. I redid the quarterdeck. Here's the finished version of Quarterdeck #1. The starboard side is too uneven to leave be. I marked the offending planks. I ended up taking the center plank as well. I had purposefully made it wedge shaped so each side could fan out and I think I made the fore end too fat. Next some alcohol applied with a q-tip and gentle chiseling. The strips came out fine; at this point I am depressingly skillful at errant plank removal. I made some new planks (and did a better job getting them equal with the Inlay Thicknesser), redrew my planking lines, and then fitted all but the center plank. Last time I glued in the planks one at a time which seemed logical, but once its glued in you are committed. THIS TIME I placed all the planks in place, before glue, and thinned some of them until they looked more equal. It took several adjustments; a little extra width really shows up I guess because the planks are so short. Here are the new planks glued in place. Not so pretty. This round seemed to level really fast, to the point that the new planks were noticeably thicker when viewed from in front. I had to deliberately sand them thinner to make the edge even. And here is after 1 coat of poylurethane. To me the lines are much straighter; ironically I don't notice the lines really now, whereas the last effort the crookedness really stood out. Alright I'm glad I fixed that. Looks much better now. Ok, on to the cabin facade and doors. thanks for reading cisco

very nice as always Kortes

Good Tuesday evening all In today's post I am planking the quarterdeck; all 2 feet of it. I wanted a fan-shaped pattern of decking which as you'll see didn't work out as well as I'd hoped. I also wanted to try out my Veritas Inlay Thicknesser. When I lay in the main deck my wood pieces started out a lot of different thicknesses. I used my mini-plane to roughly make them the same, but as I ran short of acceptable planks I used a few that were significantly thinner. It was much harder to bring the surrounding thicker planks down to the level of the thin ones and led to some unevenness of the deck which you can't really see but can feel if you run your fingers across it. So how to get planking that was the same thickness without the tedium of hand planing or scraping each piece and measuring every 2 inches with a caliper? (and no for now I am not buying any powered devices. I want to learn to do it by hand first). I had bought the Inlay thicknesser a while ago but it had to be sharpened which was Work so I had put it off. No longer! The instructions have you make all the planks all the exact same width, except the 2 side ones trapezoid to fit the last uneven space to the hull bulwarks. My eye was always drawn to these edge planks as looking uneven so I tried a fan pattern. (The Fore part of the quarterdeck is slightly wider across than the Aft portion.) First I broke out my tick strips and measured the front and back of the tiny quarterdeck. Then I drew in lines for each plank. This looked slightly wonky to my eye but I figured I could adjust the lines some as I put in each plank to make them look more regular. A lesson here - if the plan is off and you accurately build to the plan then the build will be off too. I should have redrawn some of those lines. Now to make even thickness planking. I quickly discovered the Inlay thicknesser couldn't remove much wood at a time. It worked best when you shave the stock to Almost Thin Enough with the miniplane, then use the scraper to bring it to final thickness. The planks weren't perfectly the same thickness but they were a lot closer than before. I added all the planking one at a time and used a pencil to indicate caulking and yellow glue, same as before. Here it is before sanding and evening the edge: And here I have sanded it flat (180 -> 220 grit), leveled the edge, and removed some glue squeezeout that formed underneath the overhang (which was a pain to get at), and applied 1 coat of water polyurethane. I put all the oddly-shaped sanding blocks I used onto the deck so i remember them in the future. It looks ... ok. My fan shape didn't "fan" very well. I like the port side but I may replace some the middle starboard planks with better shaped ones. The wheel assembly goes directly on this deck so it will probably hide things but I'll have to see what my OCD does overnight. Your eye really picks out Not Parallel lines. Well once thats resolved next up is the entrance facade to the cabin. I'm thinking flat paneled doors are boring; maybe doors with lower raised panels and upper windows? thats it for tonight, thanks for reading, Cisco

I assume the cannons are fully rigged?

Glad youre back Kortes! Lovely work