CiscoH

Good early afternoon all. Its spring here in Delware, everything is growing, it won't stop raining, time for an update. I finished the rudder. After all my trials trying to blacken the brass strips I ended up painting. Abbadon black, which covers very well. Paint definitely obscures some detail but I'm going to live with it. After all that work drilling holes, and as I suspected would happen, its hard to see the bolt heads. I do think my stern/rudder gap is satisfyingly small, the rudder does swing side to side, and I will take it as a win and Finally Move On. There will be a touch-up painting later on but for now I removed the rudder and stored it in a hopefully-safe-but-not-so-safe-that-I-can't-find-it-later location. I had planned to build the ship's base and brackets next but hadn't been able to work up much enthusiasm. So instead I built a work/storage cradle, a much simpler task. It holds the ship quite securely (we have "hey lets knock this over" cats who don't respect anything or anyone) and I don't know why I didn't make one before. Next up per the Lauk Street Practicum is making the oar ports. These are a nice feature that reminds you of the smaller size of this model and I like the diagonal placement. Each port is located about 1/4" from a gunport. I cut out a strip of cardboard, drew a 45 degree triangle and cut out a strip the correct length of the port. Push the template up against the sheer strake and draw the line. For the port side I flipped the template over. Easy. Then drill holes- smaller ones at each end and a bigger one in the middle. I clamped a piece of backing wood to the inner bulwarks while drilling to minimize tearout, which mostly worked. The small bits go right through the backing wood no problem so watch your fingers; I poked myself twice by holding too close to where I was drilling. Then I used a combination of my smallest Veritas chisel, a new scalpel blade, my smallest round file, and cloth backed sandpaper I cut into very thin strips to further refine the holes. Of some concern is the condition of the deck railing, which has been covered with blue tape for months. It has some dents and some tape adhesive "grunge" to be dealt with. I do NOT want to remake these so It'll be very light coats of alcohol to dissolve the glue residue followed by gentle water and my trusty mini-iron (usually used for plank bending) to see if I can swell out the dents. I said it before; I should have waited to put the deck railings on. Or at the very least not sanded them down to finished width until I was done handling the hull so much. Next time... I did pop a short, not well attached, piece of inner bulwark planking out while drilling, which I am gluing back into position below. And thats where my AVS stands today. And finally, reading material. I have been going 1 chapter a night for a while in Grant Walker's new book; it is amazing. Heavily researched, lots of great close-up shots of the exterior and endoscopic shots of the interiors as well. Can't recommend it enough. And he talks about an upcoming 4th volume... Ok thats it, have a peaceful evening. thanks for reading cisco

Man thats beautiful!

Ron it was great to finally meet the person behind such a sweet build! Your Oneida is even more impressive in person. cisco (john)

gorgeous work Matthias

i really like your detailed descriptions! keep it up she looks better and better

got mine today. its huge and packed to the gills with pics and info. well worth the wait

i planned out the planking on my ship (armed virginia sloop) exactly the same way Mugje- split the hull into symmetric bands with blue tape strips and sighted from the side and especially from behind and in front until the curves looked smooth. for me the hardest part to plank was the sternpost/counter junction area; all the planks went from wide amidships to skinny at the quarterdeck area into a wider trapezoidal shape at the stern. while at the same time curving upwards. lot harder than it looked before i started. i used mostly Chucks mini iron bending method. your planking is looking great

i agree the tissue paper looks good. very defined and distinct

thats a nice paintjob

Good Wednesday evening everyone. Today's progress report is trying to finish the rudder. Still. Last report I had shaped and drilled holes in the pintles and gudgeons, then balckened them. Next step was attachment. I used 5 minute epoxy which it turns out is very messy. I should have lined my parts with tape; that stuff gets everywhere including your fingers. Below I am gluing on the rudder pintles. I did the top and bottom first to make fitting easier. Same for the hull; it is not easy getting the brass pre-shaped so it fits well but not too snug or it snowplows all the epoxy out of the rabbits. I had to do some gentle scraping of the surrounding hull after everything dried to get the shiny epoxy off areas it managed to migrate to. It was a Christmas Miracle! The rudder could be slid into place with only a little adjusting on the first try. I was honestly shocked. The top pintle has a small gap that we are going to live with. No way I am redoing the rudder at this point. My blackening was starting to wear off from all my handling. It too liked to get everywhere. see previous statement - I should have taped around my hinges. Next up was adding the nails/bolts/whatever you call them. I had given up trying to modify the brass nails I had from the kit and some smaller ones from my 18th Century Longboat kit. They were simply too big. So, once again using the hapless kit supplied walnut rudder, I tried the simpler method of inserting short lengths of 24g brass wire, dipped in epxoy, into each hole. Once dried they were very solid and amenable to filing them down. In the pic below the wire is drying in the holly rudder and I haven't filed it yet. And this time I used plenty of blue tape to mask the parts. The epoxy dried shiny but I plan to paint the boltheads and touch up any bare areas with black paint. And finally here is the sternpost with its epoxied porcupine-like bolts drying. And I have started making paper templates for my stands. thats it for tonight. Once the epoxy has dried, at least 24 hrs, I will flatten all the bolts down and paint. thanks for reading cisco

better and better! amazing job

do you know if Mr Tarjack is still building model ships? if its the same person he hasnt updated his royal caroline bone ship in several years

thats a great pump Mustafa

that is beautiful

on my first ship i simply painted the brass black, which worked fine but felt like cheating. on my current build i spent a lot of time using various blackening chemicals which seem to wear off quickly with any manipulation. i think i may go back to paint. have you had a similar experience?

Thanks Thukydides. I am trying to get over this brasswork hump which I feel has slowed my enthusiasm and progress more than I'd like. Probably because the pintles and gudgeons have taken way more work than I planned. This weekend I spent a couple hours fine-tuning. All the pieces fit mostly, but lots of slightly lengthening or widening mortises, slightly shortening and rounding off the ends of the strapwork, and chiseling holes to allow the rudder to be seated with the smallest gap possible. Heres where I started; to me the gap was too wide and the top pintle a little too high. Not much I can do about the high pintle at this point but I can work on the gap. I also noticed all my handling and fitting of straps was getting the holly dirty. After this final futzing I washed the brass in isopropyl alcohol for 20 minutes, then moved them with stainless steel tweezers to a aprox 1:8 brass black to water for 15 minutes. Here they are drying, about 99% coverage. 1 spot on a gudgeon that will need paint. I haven't handled them yet to make sure the blackening sticks but I am optimistic. And finally I started with the hull's finish coat. After sanding off any marks on the sternpost from fitting the brasswork I applied the first coat of Polycrylic (water based polyurethane that doesn't yellow) with a qtip, the immediately wiped it down with a old cotton t-shirt. Most of the finish comes off so its a thin coat, but the tshirt smooths quite nicely. I'm guessing I'll do 3 or 4 coats. I have to test some of my discarded blackened brasswork to see if it looks ok covered with this finish; if not I'll put hinges in after finishing. Here's the hull after its first coat. It looks almost identical to before I finished it, which is the point. thats it for me. Monday is fast approaching and its off to mentally prepare with some hot chocolate and a book before bed. thanks for reading cisco

what/how did you make the pump strapping? each one looks like a perfectly formed octogon

i like the shape of the tombstone cutaways. very elegant

very nice!

The picture of the sail with the needle stuck through right over your thumbnail looks like some sort of torture. otherwise impressive post. hope the rest of your earings turn out as well

Great evening fellow hobbyists. Time has not been my friend the last few weeks; work picked up and we took a week off for a Disney cruise, before the kids got too old to appreciate it. So this will be a short post, instead of my usual exhaustive run-on. Last update I had silver soldered my pintles and gudgeons. I deliberately left the strapping too long so they could be trimmed to length to fit the shallow mortises on the hull and the rudder. As per my last update I found for me the easiest way to drill bolts holes was first cutting mortises into a scrap piece of wood to hold the hinges steady, dimple each spot with an awl, then drill with a Dremel. This worked well for the shorter hinges. I found on the above hinge, because the strap was so long it was very flexible, especially at the unsupported end. The second the drill bit went through the strap it would climb the bit and break it. That learning curve cost me my 74, 73, and 72 carbide bits. So I jury-rigged the below extra clamp (a tiny strip of wood held down with half a clothes pin) that worked to keep the strap in place. I found I could widen the smaller holes with a regular wire drill bit so all are now 74 holes. And here they are friction-fit on the stern. Next up is flattening out the waves in the strapping, blackening, and installation with some clear epoxy. Afterwards I will put in the bolts. I have a feeling trying to hang the rudder and lining up those tiny pins will be challenging. I am thinking of trimming off the middle pintle pin to make life easier. But thats next weeks problem. thanks for reading Cisco

I cant help with the counter as i havent built this ship but on my AVS model i had to sand a lot and add strips to shim out the bulwarks, just like youve been doing. the sweep up to the stern in your last picture is supposed to be sanded diagonally, a mirror image to the prow. Probly you know that. i wonder if this design would have benefited from having an extra frame along the deck midline. then the bulwarks could have been “D” shaped instead of their S shape which always looked unstable to me. but regardless great job i am following with interest; this ship is on my to do list

nice 3D effect on the tassels

i really like your simple jigs Ron. you read about my struggles with my gudgeons; i am excited to see how you tackle drilling that many holes

super clean build Erik. and assuming you didnt find a larger than life pencil that tugboat is ridiculous.