CiscoH

wow.

Top notch carving Pete! thanks for posting

Good Day-After-St Patrick's-Day-Afternoon Model Shipworlders. Wife is downstate working, kids are presently quiet, time for an update. I got exactly nothing accomplished on my hull BUT I did a lot of thinking. mikiek- I followed (some) of your advice for the garboard strake. After attaching it I sighted down the hull and trimmed the stem portion some where it raised up, aiming for a mostly straight run. I had read about proportional dividers but I was worried they wouldn't work well on curved surfaces. So I am sticking with paper tick strips; always reliable on a curve and immediately either lost or mixed with 15 other strips so you can't tell which one you were just using. jason- I made the garboard about 1.25-1.5x my regular plank width. I may make the next plank up a little wider than the rest; sometimes what I plan doesn't survive contact with the enemy. Your question about plank butt separation - see long rambling discourse below- is why I haven't added a single plank to my AVS last 2 weeks. So planking and butt separation. I didn't understand any of it and had to do several searches, downloads, and looking in my library of books stacked on my office floor. I also discovered that many ships had hull planking plans which were very helpful. Chuck's Cheerful has one, and I looked over Speedwells since it came as a fold out with one of the books. A couple things emerged from my podering: 1) Although there is crossover, most of the plank butt separation rules seem to be for planking the deck, not the hull. The diagrams imply evenly spaced deck beams with wide spaces in between. Unless you want your deck planking to end in-between beams all your butt joints have to be over one these deck beams. This provides some design constraint. But the hull is almost solid wood; so if you wanted to you could have almost any length plank and have a frame member to attach it to. Presumably to keep enterprising shipwrights from entirely planking ships with 1 foot offcuts, rules existed dictating butt spacing for the hull, determined by strength, available stock, and insurance companies. 2) Whichever hull Butt pattern you are using seems to depend on 2 factors. One is how many butt joints each line of planking can have. I called these Station Lines (what would be the deck beams if you were planking the deck; a lot of diagrams call the longest plank length L and divide it into 4 or 5 sections, each of those sections is what I am calling station lines). The second is Butt Spacing- how many unbroken planks (looking vertically) there are between butt joints on the same frame member. Far as I can tell 3 Butt means 3 unbroken planks, 4 Butt means 4 unbroken planks. I don't know if theres a 5 Butt; I found a 2 Butt plan by Katsumoto which was presumably for the deck not hull. You can designate how long the next plank will be once you figure out the system; one I found worked out to 5-2-4-1-3 for a 4 butt with 5 station lines; I found a 3 butt with 4 station lines that came out as 4-3-1-2. Then looking at Cheerful's planking plan (thank you Chuck) its a pretty simple 3 Butt 1-2-3-4 pattern. Ultimately I decided to try and use his plan. After trying to mark butt joints on my AVS sheer plan I concluded it was too busy a picture and instead constructed my own crude planking plan, similar to Speedwells. In these diagrams all the planks are made about the same width so you can focus on just the butt joints. Like Cheerful's plan I divided my AVS into 8 sections (7 station lines). Cheeful's butt lines correspond with the fore edge of each gunport. The butt lines extended vertically into the gunport planking as well, and I had earlier already arbitrarily made 2 butt joints in my black strake. The front butt joint was perfectly aligned with the fore edge of the AVS's front gunport (luck; I didn't plan it) but the aft joint was too far forward by a small margin. I'm not remaking the black strake at this stage of the game so my station lines at the stern end are not perfectly equal. But I'll take it. Here's version one of my planking plan Measuring at the stem I felt a stealer would help which was easy to copy from Cheerful. Then I got into all sorts of problems with the stern. The original plans for the AVS show 2 stern stealers but after measuring I felt one would work. Originally I placed the foremost portion of the stealer on a butt joint, but this made the next lower plank and the garboard only had 2 full boards between butt joints instead of 3. See the above picture. This bugged me too much to accept and Cheerful doesn't have any stern stealers so i couldn't cheat and copy my way out. Finally I realized that stealers start inbetween station lines and don't line up with the butt joints. So you can ignore them in terms of butt joint placement. I shifted my stern stealer backwards to halfway between station lines; i could also have moved it forward a 1/2 station line (dotted extension line on the below plan). And finally I drew my station lines (dark pencil) onto the AVS' hull. The faint lines are the actual bulwarks. That was a ton of work for no actual planking being done. Now I have a good idea of planking width and butt joint placement and I will never do another model without a planking diagram made up. Next week I hope to present some Actual Planking! thanks for reading Cisco

movin right along Jason! looks great

Good evening fellow shipbuilders! I have been at an impasse for several weeks- paralysis by analysis- over the size and placement of the garboard strake in my second planking. But first I had to divide the hull into 3 planking zones of aprox equal size, as per the plans. I have seen many different iterations of marking the hull; string, pencil, various tapes, or simply winging it. I settled on using a thin strip of bluetape. I cut it as in the following pic, using my fingers as a fence, which if you use the factory outside of the strip as your line works well. The cut side of the strip was too wavy no matter how careful I was. The bluetape sticks pretty well and is easy to see. This was the first time I'd tried fairing a planking line; It was cool how a straight line from the side had a lot of points and bumps looking at it from the stem. In the below pic I am using the top of the tape as my edge, not the bottom. Adjustment was easy; I slid a scalpel blade underneath the tape and gently edged it up or down. It took a few tweaks to look good from all angles; its also pretty easy to overthink it and keep adjusting. After a while I had to force myself to stop fixing it. And then the dreaded garboard strake. According to the Model Shipway's directions the lower belt is divided into 3 planks. The garboard is supposed to be wider than the rest of the hull planks, but then I got confused. Some of what I've read (yellow cover planking booklet by Model Shipways) say the bottom 2 planks are significantly wider than the rest. Somewhere else I read only the garboard is wider. Some sources have the garboard shaped fishlike, the plans make it look the same width the length of the ship, I was getting deluged by too much information. So in the end I made it one long plank, narrowing at the stem so the tip doesn't push upwards, and about 1.25 "standard" planking widths wide the rest of the ship. I want to put in separate planks in each row but figuring out a planking arrangement became too much so I did one long plank. I will probably score horizontal lines to simulate separate planks. In hindsight 2 layers of planking is more of a pain than I thought it'd be. You lose the convenient bulwarks to clamp to, and since I use yellow glue not superglue I had to figure out a clamp strategy. The first layer had filled the convenient keel rabbit, so I tried cutting a new rabbit into the keel/underplanking junction with mixed results. Won't do that again; easier to butt joint the second layer to the keel. As I've done in the past I used brass pins and wedges to keep the garboard tight to the keel. The holes will be covered by the next row. I prebent the garboard by soaking the end and clamping the tip diagonally around a dowel. This formed a nice curve that was mostly trimmed away, but the tip fit perfect. Aggressive clamping to push the tip into the stem in the past led to dents in the wood so this worked a lot better. The second twist about 2/3 back was easier; wet the plank and clamp it in place without glue for the night. And here is the garboard in its final test clamp, no glue yet. Of course once I added glue the clothespins completely changed their character and started slipping off and I couldn't find all the wedges and I decided maybe try this other clamp, but where? did I put it, etc, and it didn't go quite as smooth as I planned, but thats usually what happens. Thats it for tonite. I hope this first plank is the worst and rest go a little easier. thanks for reading and have a great evening cisco

Rick; my longboat is a different kit, confusingly also made by model shipways. its 1:48 scale (i think) and done by Chuck Pasaro. the scroll work is printed on paper that comes with the kit and is simply glued on. Chuck’s directions focus on bending the planks with water and heat, versus spiling like you are doing. the directions are a free download on the modelshipway’s website and are worth reading.

that looks great!

Welcome Ghost029! this was also my first build, although i didnt know about MSW at the time so i didnt make a buildlog. Chuck’s directions are really good which is great because a lot of shipmodel plans are sparse confusing text poorly translated from some other language. mostly follow the supplied directions and you will be good. I recommend looking up Chuck’s monograph on this site for Plank Bending as a supplement to the kit directions. good luck!

thank you Dusan!

Can you show a picture of your scrapers? And maybe a brief note on how you made them?

Good Evening Shipworlders! My almost neighbor Jason (JLong) posting got me motivated to bring my log up to date. Hobby peer pressure, I guess. My main problem to solve this post was how to make the fore end of the quarterdeck railing look to my satisfaction. The plans show the outside and inside bulwark planking just ending with the cut ends of the boards, which I assume is how it was actually done. This shows end grain wood which my obsessive brain was having a lot of trouble with. So I came up with a plan to not show any endgrain that worked very well. More importantly it was pretty easy so a good skill to store away. The below doodle shows what I tried to do. I was drawing as if the viewer was standing above the ship. First i trimmed the outboard and inboard Qdeck planking so they were about a 45 degree angle to the bulwark. Then i made an oversize wedge to fit this space. I found that making a small wedge was almost impossible to fit well, but a big wedge was much easier. I penciled the edges, which i wanted to show, and glued the wedges in place. Once the glue dried I trimmed most of the excess with a chisel, then used a 220 sanding stick to sneak up. Here's the starbaord side before glueup. My camera does an excellent job focusing on whatever I'm not trying to take a pic of, sorry about that. Its a funky piece to clamp; rubber bands worked best for me. the oversize wedge is much clearer here. I even made the grain of the wedge follow the grain of the planking so there's no crossgrain conflict. Totally unnecessary at this scale but satisfying. Once dry I glued on the qrtdeck caprail and trimmed down the edges. And here she is with both caprails on. The port side still needs to be trimmed down. And I included the Veritas miniplane because I have been using it constantly. A great tool. I just wish it had a tighter mouth like its big brothers... Next up is the Taffrail, hopefully not too exciting. Then, planking the lower hull. Way more exciting. Thank you for all who have Liked my log. It really helps knowing others who share this problem are watching, sympathizing, and not being too critical. Have a great night Cisco

ok thats just ridiculous! amazing work Matthias

Tim- planking looks great! the garboard always gives me fits getting it to not curve upwards. And then when i get it fitted its always uneven to its opposite when seen stern-on. you seem to have both these tasks done perfect. and keeping the garboard flush with the keel without a rabbit. mine would have had tiny gaps. i wonder if adding a plug or another bulwark, even if its removed later, at the stem would help provide purchase. thats a compound plank bending area with a lot going on and i would worry it’ll be hard to get good edge to edge planking without more underlying support. i ended up with some translucent bow planking on my 18th century whaleboat after sanding due to unevenness. anyway my two ¢. keep up the great work this is a very interesting project cisco

I would absolutely break those doors due to being unable to resist playing with them repeatedly. a fine job!

rope coils look great! I struggle with them at any scale; yours look very realistic

looks great! i too have back issues and resultantly do all my work standing. a great plan until my knees go.

I'm off work for a few days so I got some shipwork in today. Captain_Hook : I am planning on a natural holly-only model. I might paint some parts black, like the strakes, but for now I want it all-white. I even have been using water based polyurethane as my varnish, which doesn't yellow. Due to holly being a bit weak and floppy I plan to use bleached maple dowels for the bowsprit and main mast. Only 1 ship picture this post. I roughed in all 3 starboard cap rail pieces. The stem rail promised to be the toughest to fit so I glued it in first. The other 2 pieces are fitted but since on the port side there was a bit of adjustment needed I left them fat. Below you can see my fitting process- first a rough outline in yellow paper which I used mainly to plan out the joints. I am unable to wrap my head around mirror images so despite having made 6 previous scarfs I still have to draw each one out. I added the cap rail extensions onto the inner and outer bulwarks either side of the port quarterdeck/poop; they still need some trimming. Here are a few pics of my workarea; I always find it interesting to see other people's workshops. We have lived in this house for 8 years and after a brief discussion with the Admiral it was decided I would like to set up part of the basement as my work area. There was a lot of work done that isn't apparent; I tore down the old drywall covered framing which had no insulation and rotting 2x4's set directly on the concrete slab, added 2" of XPS to the basement block walls before rebuilding the 2x4 framing with a base of pressure treated lumber. This fixed the mold smell. I tossed most of the flickery humming fluorescents the previous owners had put in and replaced them with lots of LED lights. Then I pulled up the carpet over half my work area and replaced it with a big roll of vinyl flooring. Good enough for now. Heres the long shot. the work area shares space with my bike trainer, beer making paraphernalia, and a family heirloom crib my mother gave me which I don't know what to do with. Thats it! Cisco

Jason i dont think you can reliably straighten a warped dowel. it implies the grain is crooked snd evdn if you straightened it out i would assume next big humidity change it would re-warp. probly right after you got your attached righing balaced . i have a herd of dowels i got from michaels, and i’m replacing the ones that came with my AVS with maple,, so feel free to take some this weekend

Managing to sneak in one more update before the new year. Today its all about the cap rails. The kit comes with single piece walnut cap rails, one for each side. I am replacing everything with holly which has its quirks as I'm learning. Its a hard wood that tends towards being both crumbly and liking to split, so trimming with a blade must be done carefully. Personally I prefer the look of several planks versus one unnaturally long unbroken rail. Keeping in mind the planks shouldn't exceed 6" in length, the width of my available holly stock, how much do I want to risk on redo's, etc, I settled on a cap rail with 2 scarf joints. Exactly the same as the waterway but unable to be hidden. I had some practice on the waterway scarfs which was helpful. My main takeaway for before was paper templates didn't work well for me for the curved sections. Each time I found my fitted scarfs led to a curved section that didn't curve quite enough. And when I adjusted (trimmed in tiny increments) the scarfs the section now wouldn't tightly conform to the curved bulkhead. So here I went with using excessively wide stock that I would trim back once it was glued in place. But first I had a complete brainlock and could not figure out how I had made the scarfs. Every drawing I did looked wrong. Then luckily I remembered someone had posted a picture and after some searching and with absolutely no permission I stole this post from PRS in his excellent Cheerful build: That got me back on track and I made the first section of cap rail running from the quarterdeck forward. After making the hooked scarf I traced in onto the second piece. It took some adjusting to get the joints centered on the bulkheads so that when the edges get sanded back they look symmetric. After making all 3 pieces I glued the first section in place, waited until it was dry and then added the middle section, using graphite, holly powder, and yellow glue to outline and fill the scarf joint same as before. Below is the final dry fit. Despite being careful I still had to adjust the second and third pieces a little. Leaving them fat was a lifesaver. I also found it helpful to extend the lines some. It made it easier to sight once the joint was almost home. I took the wood away until the pencil line was just barely visible. Next photo is after all 3 pieces have dried and most of the glue squeeze-out removed. not real pretty. But once I trimmed back the rail to close to final dimensions its much improved. Still more trimming left but you can see the shape emerging and I am happy with my scarfs. Now I have to make the other side symmetric AND reverse the joints. Finally, I declared it a long overdue sharpening day. Got out my waterstones and flattened the backs and honed the Veritas minichisels, which took hardly any time they are so small. Also rehoned the 2 bigger chisels I use most and following Cmm4000's advice I turned one of my razorblades into a scraper and it works great. Thats it for today. Hope everyone has a great New Years! Cisco

Good Evening Model Shipworlders! The holiday Time Suck has hit full force and I haven't gotten much done. Last weekend I attended a social event for my wife's side of the family (they own, of all things, a tugboat company) at the Corinthian Yacht Club in Philadelphia. There were a lot of really cool half hull models: And in the buffet room the 2 below models. They even had partial outer layers of planking; the top one at each end and the bottom one in the middle. No placards identifying the models, unfortunately. I wondered if they were wooden half hull models of metal ships? On my AVS I finished adding the sheer strakes and cut the gunports with an xacto blade, then various sticks with 220 sandpaper stuck on with double sided tape, and squared the corners with needle files. They are not all the same size or width but its close and I don't think its too noticeable. My past measurement sins have come back to haunt me. The upper inner bulwark planking is supposed to be even with the sheer strake. It almost is. After all the sanding and leveling has been done in preparation for the main rail the port planking is pretty even and about the size it supposed to be. The starboard sheer strake ended up a little fat above the first gunport and the corresponding upper bulwark plank a little thin. Again, no one but me will ever notice. Next step is finishing the poop planking (I assume its the poop, since its above the tiny quarterdeck) and making the main rail. I plan to scarf the main rail like I did the waterways. This joint will really show so no excuses. Currently I am working my way through Grant Walker's Rogers Collection Vol 2. Amazing pictures and a little more relatable than Vol 1 for me as these are models I could, in theory, attempt to build some day. I helped out Santa and ordered some presents for myself- and Rob Napier's new book which I have shown amazing self control and will not start until I'm finished the above Roger's book: and finally a picture of me and family. I don't know where all that white in my beard came from. It sure wasn't there last year. Happy Holidays! till next year cisco

Looking good! i solidify my knots with white glue diluted 50/50 with water but this seems to a hotly debated topic. it worked for me on the polyester line that came with the kit even though i had read it might not due to a oil and water type mismatch. to trim lines i used a sharp xacto blade after the glue/water dried. it still left some fuzzies. other posts i saw people using cuticle scissors and castro viejo scissors (sp?).

wow. i guess if youre going to do something do it well. thats an amazing diorama

Good evening Modelers; A shorter update today. I have been filling in the port inner bulwark planking and the outer sheer strake and cutting the gunports. Of course its never that easy... A few posts ago I decided to extend my fashion pieces so they ended further ventrally than the practicum called for. This made the stern look more like the Model Shipways plan but it altered a lot of downstream items. And it brought up an interesting fact pointed out by Allanyed on Cmm400's build; that the line of the deck did not necessarily follow the line of the exterior planking, and often didn't, and as a result the gunports often did not follow the line of the exterior planking either. Which makes sense but i had never thought about it before. The AVS is designed so the gunports do perfectly fit (without notching planks) into the interior and the exterior planking, I assume because its a beginner built and why make life unnecessarily difficult. Unless you, speaking purely hypothetically, make your fashion piece longer and change the position of the wale and consequently everything above it. To fix this problem I did a couple compromise solutions. I made my gunports a little smaller than the plans, which had them at 3 x 1/8" planks (so 3/8") wide and high. Mine are just a little less than 3 planks high, say 2 and 5/6 planks. And for the sternmost gunport I ended up cutting into the spirkiting strake a little. So my gunports are uneven on the bulwark side but fit nicely between the exterior black and sheer strake. In the picture below you can see the notch in the sternward gunport spirkiting strake. Technically this gunport is a little lower than the other 3 but I think once the cannons are in place no one except me and everyone I point it out to will notice. I don't know if I messed up or the kit has shortcomings (I assume it was me) but I also had to add some extra basswood filler planks at the top of the bulwark planking so my sheer strake had enough support. I also got too enthusiastic with my scraper and overthinned my 3/64" thick sheer strake so had to glue another filler strip on the back to pad it out. Luckily the AVS kit comes with some very thin walnut planking which worked great. And speaking of scrapers, in my last post I said I would scrape the exterior planking. Scraping did not work; I ended up using a 220 sanding stick and it went fine. So far no embedded graphite that I can see. Those of you following this build may remember my new Veritas slicing gauge from last post where the factory supplied blade did not work atall. I spent some time changing the single bevel point to a rounded double bevel and it works way way better now. And finally. I bought Vol 1 and 2 of Grant Walker's Roger Collection of Dockyard Models from Dave B and they are great. Lots of closeup shots of insane carvings, some endoscope interior shots, lots of history. Great stuff, highly recommended. And i have Rob Napier's new book on its way. Well time to get ready for Monday. Thanks for reading, have a great night. Cisco

supposed to be in the mail on its way to my house. Mr Napier’s last book was amazing so i have high hopes

FarmerJohn- as i recall when i built the longboat i had tremendous difficulty drilling a hole through the provided strapping as well. The hardware store drill bits are way too big and nowhere near sharp enough. Eventually i ordered really small drill bits sized #71 - #80 although i dont remember which exact one i used. hope that helps. this was my first shipmodel and i really enjoyed building it Cisco