CiscoH

Derek i know others have already said it but that boxwood hull and masting looks stunning. Beautiful job!

Happy Saturday everyone! It got cold here last week, in the 40s during the day, below freezing at night. And a week ago it was in the 60s. Kids are behaving, wife is listening to a book on tape, time for an update. Thinking about what people post, for me, a complete novice, the best content is a detailed "how I did this." The more detail the better. Thats what I've been focusing on showing in my buildlog. I also like hand tools. Along those lines today's post was influenced by the excellent DVD Fundamentals of Inlay by Steve Latta, through Lie Nielsen Toolworks. Mr Latta demos how he creates stringing in whatever sizes he wants with mostly hand tools and i found it very relevant to creating planking if one doesn't have a mini tablesaw or thickness sander. Presently I am putting on the inner bulwark planking above the spirkiting plank. To create these planks, which are supposed to be 1/8" wide and 2/64" thick I first cut some strips from the holly stock on my bandsaw about 3/64" thick. I then brought it down to thickness with a scraper held a little sideways to bridge any waviness from the bandsaw blade. Then I had to cut the strip into pieces 1/8" wide which I did on my newly constructed cutting board, copied directly from Steve Latta's video. Its very basic; a 3/4" MDF board nailed a piece of scrap wood in a T shape. The top of the T sticks up about 1/16" to provide a lip to push the stock against. To cut the stock I had been using my Stanley marking gauge with a nail as a cutter filed into a half round blade. Recently I purchased a Lee Valley cutter which is a beautiful brass and metal tool. It comes with a triangular blade already sharpened. It looks impressive and weighty and made me feel more like a pro. I tried both. Short story shorter the Lee Valley blade mostly tore out the holly so I have to sharpen it and probably make it more of a round vs its present diamond shape. Ironic a sharpened nail in a piece of wood works the best. Below I am cutting the stock. Usually I use my left hand to push the stock against the fence but in this shot my left hand was holding the camera. Taking several light passes works best. And here's a bigger pic of the cutting board To square the edges of the strips I tried various jigs and upside down handplanes. Eventually I decided the easiest way was to bend the strips some while sanding, which kept them at a right angle. Then cut the strips to length, relieve the back edges with a 200 sanding stick, rub pencil along the bottom edge, and glue them in place. I am still using white (possibly yellow, it doesnt say) Gorilla Glue. Regular clothes pins work well in this area for clamping. And here she is now, finishing the 3rd layer of bulwarks planking on the starboard side. And here she is at present. Next up is the upper bulwark plank that will form the top of the gunports. Next I plan to scrape the bulwarks even (I met Toni Levine at a class this year and she said with Holly sanding is a great way to spread graphite dust that can't be removed). And thats it for now. Thanks for reading; Cisco

Tom- I'm facing a similar issue with the windows in my AVS. The kit supplied window frames are very heavy and i was planning to scratch build mine. How are you making your stiles and rails? It looks to me like you have full-height stiles and are placing short horizontal mullions in between (hope i got those terms right). thanks Cisco

Man that looks beautiful great job Werner

Good Evening fellow MSWers; I finally got a new iphone when the gps stopped working on my old one. The pictures to me seem sharper but I'm struggling with the technology, especially Live Photos which I find creepy. Also, my computer doesn't like downloading these new photo/short video clip files. Technology! Last time I had installed the wales, whose placement determines where everything else goes. So the last 2 weeks has been working on adding the black strake and spirkiting planks, both of which have scuppers cut into them. I quickly decided not to make the scuppers connect through the upper bulwarks; I figured there was no way I would successful line them up and cut connecting holes without scratching up the waterway and wale. The scuppers took a few test tries to get right. The scupper "hole" is a rectangle with rounded edges and you can't form them with square files. So first I wet the stock and bent the sternward end by soaking in water for a few minutes and letting it dry clamped to a round glass. Once I had this plank trimmed to correct length I marked out where each scupper would go, made each one 1/8" wide, eyeballed the height then marked each one using a compass. I then cut out a triangle of wood from the center with my chisel and filed to the pencil marks with a round Vallorbe 140mm file. These files were recommended in a thread a while ago and are worth every penny- they cut beautifully and are very precise. Sorry the above picture isn't perfectly in focus. Right after I said this new camera took better photos... The finished spirkiting plank looked as thus: The plank was fairly flexible but I still had to do a combination of clamping to the bulkheads and wedges to push it flush with the waterway. I did both spirkiting planks (it was hard to get a perfect joint where the 2 planks met at an angle in the point of the bow). Then on to the black strake, which was surprisingly a lot harder. I first made a single long plank, bow to stern, filed out the requisite scuppers, did a dry run clamping, and sweated over the ends. Since the front of the strake fits into the very shallow bow rabbit and the stern end has to be filed to match the fashion piece curve you have very little leeway getting the length wrong. I thought I had it fitted perfect. Actually, I think I did have it fitted perfect. Then I added glue to the back of the strake and clamped it in place starting from the bow --> sternward. And found the stern end of the strake was now too long. I frantically tried to file the end of the strake a little shorter before it dried, but then I worried I hadn't seated the bow end into the rabbit enough. So I removed the whole plank to do over, scraped off the glue, and when I re-fit it - it was now too short. My guess is the water in the glue was enough to swell the wood and make it temporarily longer. Robert Hunt's AVS practicum recommends adding this strake in sections; per his directions most planking would be a scale 4" to 6" in length. So I followed that advice and split the black strake into 3 pieces. Way better to work with! I made each joint a 45 degree scarf, not that it can be really seen, and edged with pencil for caulking. And I managed to re-use my original plank for 2/3 of it. Front Middle and Stern. This was try #3 but I'm happy with the fashion piece junction. Presently the middle starboard section is drying. I noticed an issue - my last gunport was made to low. The bottom of the gunport should be level with the top of the spirkiting strake; as you can see in this picture the red file handle, which is ontop of the spirkiting plank, shows I messed up measuring somewhere. I'll have to add some planking above the gunport too so it can be shifted upwards. And thats it for tonight. Thanks for reading Cisco

That looked insanely complicated. Great job!

Really great job Abelson looks like a ton of painting. do the instructions recommend installing all the rings in the bulwark planking before finishing the deck planking? it seems like it would be much easier the way you did it, especially trying to drill out the holes below the gunports cisco

Update time! I spent the afternoon watching my son (age 7) playing his second ever football game, which was right after his second ever football practice. He had little idea of what was going on, along with the other kids seemed to do the opposite of what the coach said, and all had a great time. Then I left him at a friend's house for a sleepover, wife and daughter are napping upstairs, and I am gifted with that rare thing called "free time." Sluicemaster; I meant to practice my hooked scarfs on some scrap but the ones I did for real turned out well enough. I also seem to do really well on the first ones, almost as good on the second, and then the third try I'm either out of karma or overconfident. So I never ended up doing any trial runs. In terms of the practicum (LaukStreetShipyard.com) I have found it very useful as another source of information- the entire thing is 150? pages long. But it also has added some confusion, see below, and I haven't followed all of his advice. He spent 2+ pages talking about how the bullwark planking didn't measure correctly on the plans, which it is pretty clearly because the kit supplied waterway is much thicker than the plans say it is. So you either adjust the other planking widths (what he did in the practicum and what I will end up doing because I didn't understand all this until After I put in my waterway and I ainte fixing it) or measure twice and thin the waterway before installation. I didn't think it was too big a deal but it got him pretty fired up. As Captain-Hook mentioned above, I also have Dr Feldman's "Modeling an AVS" which the kit is directly based on. An enthusiastic read and one of the written sources that got me into this hobby. And the AVS is a good beginner choice due to all the build logs here; Captain-Hook's is one I have referenced many times. So on to this week's "progress" The practicum gets very confusing at the stern. I followed the directions as close as I was able but still must have messed up somewhere. My curved fashion pieces seem too short compared to the sheet plans that came with the AVS and Dr Feldman's pictures (in black and white and a little grainy so hard to see tiny details well). The wales are supposed to end with the top flush with the fashion piece and the bottom even with the bottom of the counter. Below is the wale even with the counter: A pretty big gap. So I chiseled off my old fashion pieces and remade them longer. Below i have just glued the first one in place. Here is a stern shot with the new fashion piece, to port, old fashion piece to starboard. There is a gap as the hull curves downwards but I will cover that space with the remaining counter planking; Dr Feldman does a similar thing. In hindsight I should have made the inside of the fashion piece curve to match the hull but I'm not remaking them for a 3rd time. Next I cut out my wales from holly stock, same as I did in earlier posts (smooth one edge of the billet with my handplane, bandsaw off a piece, bring it to 1/8" thick with my blockplane, then cut off strips with a steel straightedge and an xacto). Very labour intensive. I'm not sure how well that will work with the really thin holly strips for hull planking but thats a future problem. One nice thing about holly is it bends even easier than basswood. I soaked the 1/8" strip in water for 10 minutes then bent it around a glass and left it overnight. Worked perfect. I was concerned about clamping the wale without having it slip about so I put in the kit brass nails along its top border as seen below. This way when clamping, which pulls the strip upwards, the nails would keep the wale in place. Hopefully without denting it. I also cleaned any glue buildup out of the bow rabbit and thinned the last inch of the wale so it fit the rabbit snug. Then I did a trial run figuring out clamps (I need more of the dewalts). I also am really glad I didn't fill in the stern windows (on purpose) so they could be used as clamp purchases; very vital here to clamp the final inward curve of the wale. And that yellow porcupine is currently drying in the basement. I felt that the fashion pieces were too fat so I managed to trim the top edge in place (I cannot believe that worked); if you look closely above you can see the ghost border. Next up is the port wale, then the inside and outside scuppers. Hope you all had a calm, enjoyable weekend. Thanks for reading. Cisco

Night and day difference between the kit supplied and your scratched carronade carriages. in my opinion absolutely worth it great job

Rainy Sunday morning, wife and dogs all asleep, kids and loaner kid playing board games, perfect time for an update. Jason I have no idea whats going to happen with the cap rails. My hope is once its planked on the inside it'll be fat enough to just glue, but maybe I'll pin it as well. Future Cisco's problem. Sam/SRC I completely agree. For me point of this hobby is to do as much as I can myself with hand tools. But i have to admit its fun seeing what other people are doing with computer aided technology even if I don't want to. The printed cannons have looked pretty interesting... So on to my AVS. This week is a more detailed description of making the port side waterway. In theory it should have gone smoother after practicing on the starboard side. In theory. Here goes: First, after making the straight section of the waterway and forming the first hook scarf, I created a card model of the front section from a cut up yellow folder. Miraculously I managed to keep the scarf orientation the mirror image of the port side. After some adjustments to the scarfs I traced the card onto my 1/8" thick holly stock. The I cut the traced portion out with a hand jigsaw. Sorry this pic is a little blurry. The camera didn't know what to focus on. Then smoothing out the curve to the penciled line with a spokeshave. After fitting the new part I traced the first scarf and chiseled the majority of the waste (holly is very crumbly so you can get away with a lot) then used files as before to sneak up onto the lines. Once I had a reasonable fit I did the same for the final bow waterway piece. After sanding all the pieces I ended up with the following. I left the pieces a little fat for final fitting. The picture makes the scarf joints look tight but holding them up to the light there were definite gaps. You file one side to tighten the fit and it makes the opposite side open up some so it was a definite Walk Away situation before you oversanded. Next I made the gap filler- holly dust mixed with pencil graphite; then mixed with white glue. And here is the waterway after glue-up. The gap filler beads over the joint and has to be gently chiseled and not sanded; otherwise the graphite stains the holly grey. After some chiseling I got to the below stage: I then traced both edges of the miter with my compass and cut to the lines using my spokeshaves and some sandpaper wrapped around a dowel for the very curvey areas, then glued the waterway in place same as last post. I want to keep the holly as white as possible so I used water based polyurethane as a finish. This area seemed like it would be hard to get into the corners in the future without creating glops of finish so I took care of that now. I found a qtip with a piece of cut off t-shirt rubber banded on worked great as a applicator (I hate cleaning brushes) and I used another piece of clean t-shirt to wipe it down right afterwards; my version of wipe on poly. Seemed to work great. I have soft white LEDs above my bench which makes the holly look yellower than it would in daylight. And thats it for this week. I haven't printed out the next chapter of the practicum yet but I think its second planking. Stay dry Cisco

looks really good! the stain takes it up a notch too nice job

Dave it seems you're moving pretty darn fast to me. Any pics of how you're clamping/bending the hull planking, and what are you using to represent caulking lines? pencil or paint? and what are you gluing with? thanks, Cisco

An update! Hope everyone is enjoying the fall weather, if your located on my latitude. I've done a lot since my last post. First, I visited the house of another MSW member, Jason Long (JLong), who lives 20 minutes north of me in Delaware. I got to see his Fair America, which is much further along than my AVS. A great time was had discussing all things shippy and I hope to have him down to my place in the near future. Second, a few weeks ago I attended my first Admiralty Workshop hosted by Greg Herbert and Dave Antscherl with special guest host Chuck and it was a lot of fun. We all made rope with Chuck, then learned how to splice and tie and wrap and seize. My ancient iphone can't take clear pictures of work this tiny so when I finally upgrade I'll try and post some of it. At the end we spent an afternoon getting a tour of the Naval Academy museum in Annapolis by Grant Walker (hope I got his name right, on the right in the below pic). I don't know how but Barry Rudd, the gentleman in the blue shirt behind Grant, seems to be in every picture of this event. I sat next to him in the workshop and he was a very nice guy, and clearly a regular at these events. The museum recently acquired a collection of miniature model ship that have to be seen to be believed. Very tiny and protected by glass cases so ham-fisted people like me can't pet them. The one below is plank on frame and about 2 inches long. Crazy. We also toured the main museum area and got a behind-the-scenes history of various models. I personally find the cases and stands as interesting as the ships themselves. But on to my AVS. Since last post I sanded, mostly, the first planking smooth. I hadn't installed the waterway earlier as the practicum directed because I was worried the bulkhead extensions would be too fragile when clamping the hull. So time to rectify that and thin the extensions. I used a chisel, then an xacto, and finally some sandpaper. The bulkheads curve upwards and the grain likes to runnout so it took a while. Once that was done I went about replacing the kit supplied waterways (walnut) with holly. Initially pretty easy, just trace. Since my billet of holly was pretty narrow I had to make my waterway in 3 pieces scarfed together. To make it more exciting the scarfs are on the curved section, and the kit supplied waterway didn't precisely fit my AVS; my prow was more rounded, so I had to do some finagling. Below is the 3 pieces before being glued together. I followed Cheerful's directions for forming the scarfs. Drawing on and cutting out the first half of the joint wasn't too bad, but it was a bear making the mating joint. I ended up overlaying the first joint and tracing it onto a lower piece of wood with a very sharp pencil, then using my chisel first for rough removal, then files to sneak up to the pencil lines. I still had some tiny joint gaps which I filled with a mixture of white glue, holly dust, and graphite (rubbing the pencil point on sandpaper then dumping the results onto the holly dust and mixing all 3 together). This worked better than I planned. It seemed to fill the gaps and made the joint more visible. After gluing the pieces up and using spokeshaves, a thick dowel wrapped in sandpaper, and the flat of my chisel as a scraper I got my final version. To glue the waterway in had 1 final challenge- the deck isn't flat. After struggling with clamping I came up with the following- I placed clamps along the bulkheads a bit less than 1/8" above the waterway. Then I cut the provided 1/8" thick walnut waterway, which I didn;t need anymore anyway, into a series of short wedges and used these between the flat clampheads and the waterway to push it flush with the deck. And thats it for today. Now I have to make the other side. thanks for reading, Cisco

src/Sam- sorry about the long delay responding. I can't easly find where I said LunchBox plane, but usually that means a 12" tabletop planer that you plug in, mine is a Dewalt I got at Home Depot years ago that still runs great. But for finish stuff you need hand tools; I've had several 2 Cherries chisels for a long time and we get along very well. As long as I don't forget to sharpen then.

Mustafa- looks great! where are the cannons from? and is that beech you are using for the carriages?

Michele- any pictures of the carving process? thx Cisco

alright Greg I have it from a reliable source youve done more work. Pics please; esp close ups of the stern where i’m trying to figure out how far down the fashion pieces go. Great planking job by the way- did you use pencil for caulking on the holly deck?

Paul you are a speedy builder! can u do some sideshots of your binder clamps? they look like they work better the ones i’ve been Mcgyvering. also what glue are you using for the planking?

Are you using heat (small travel iron or a hairdryer) while bending? you can get away with a lot more stretching than with water alone. having said that i think youd have to join several sections to make it look realistic and i like your bending jig

Tarjack- its been years- any progress to report?

First, thank you guys for comments and likes. Keeps me going knowing someone is reading these posts. Jason, who lives pretty close, I hope to get to hang out soon. Mikiek I am contemplating your method of yellow/superglue for second planking. Dan/Shipmodel thank you for your responses and advice. I am hoping to incorporate some bone details in this model, maybe a binnacle to start. Baby steps... In my last post I mentioned I was trying to power through finishing first planking. I had a hit a bit of a rut trying to make everything perfect and it was time to move on. So now I have officially finished first planking even if I resorted to wide planks. I had left the counter planking unfinished so I could roll the stern planking upwards, trim the ends flush, and then insert the final 2 counter planks. I thought that might be a better plan than trying to cut each stern plank individually. I don't know how some people get such perfect straight intersections! Below I used a compass to trace a pencil line parallel to the bottom counter. I found it easiest to cut by hand along the pencil line with an xacto, going very shallow and deepening it repeatedly. Then I used a 1/4" chisel to pare the waste away working down from the top. Slow n steady. I eventually cleared all the waste wood on the left side. I found it easier to glue two narrower strips vs one wide one because the space I am filling is concave. Below is both sides excavated, glued, and filled. Of course it'll all be covered by the second planking but I think the stern plank/counter intersection looks tight which is what I was aiming for. Next is sanding and more sanding and then some sanding to smooth it all out. In other news I managed a late entry into this year's Admiralty Workshops (someone cancelled and I was on the wait list) so I will learn how to make rope with Chuck. At my usual glacial building pace odds are I will forget everything by the time I get to rigging but if I keep good notes maybe some of it will stick. And at the end we get a tour with the curator of the Naval Academy Museum; that is just freaking cool! well goodnight all and thanks for reading Cisco

Ted- great series of posts! i really like your documenting how you built your fixtures. very helpful to the rest of us keep it going! thx cisco

Looking good to me! keep the posts coming flutlo6180

Looking really good Fred. Cheerful is my next planned project, assuming finishing the AVS doesn’t do me in. I will follow with interest and thanks for posting