CiscoH

great job on the windows! i completely agree they make a huge difference. i’m working on the AVS and i always felt the kit supplied windows look very thick and unnatural. based on your posts it seems it wont be trivial to do my scratch versions and i’m now prepared for many re-dos. and i have to order some mica sheets

So on to attaching the first plank. Like basically everyone I found out my fairing of the bulkheads wasn't as great as I thought. Not shown in these pics but I had to slip a tiny piece of wood into a gap between the first bulkhead and the plank. You can see my clamping method which worked pretty well, especially as I had spent so much time trying to bend the strip to be very close to my penciled lines on the bulkheads. Due to Timidity I attached 5 bulkheads at a time, allowed them to dry, and then evaluated my technique. I also found out that if you are using heat to make the plank bendy you can dry it out so much that even a little bend can break it (See below pic on about 6th bulkead). But the break glued back fine. I used a piece of my second planking (Holly) as a wedge in rabbit joint at the top of the stem to make sure there will be enough space down the road. The aft end of the plank is very exciting- it curves upwards and inwards, and the final 1 cm also twists to follow the transom edges. Before gluing the last few inches I wetted the strip and twisted the end while using the travel iron. Couldn't take a picture I don't have enough hands but it worked really well. I also wetted the outside of the plank as I attached it in the hopes it would swell a little and curve inwards, and not break like it did amidships. And thats the state of the union. Have a great night, thanks for reading, Cisco

This update has been long delayed because I wanted to triumphantly post after easily putting on my first plank, Chuck makes it look so easy. Getting the plank bent so I was happy with it took a LOT longer than I planned. So 2 posts follow. First I cut and filed square the slots for the knightheads and timberheads. This is a sort of deviation from Mr Hunt's practicum; he shows cutting a stopped notch for each head; like some of the other AVS logs I cut the notch all the way through which seemed much easier to cut and should provide more glue surface. Its hard to get the notch perfectly flat though, the heads tended to rock a little but after gluing seemed solid enough. I chose to shape them after gluing. A small wedge made the starboard timberhead more secure. Sorry the first pic is a little out of focus. After filing down the Heads so they seemed to follow the deck sweep it was on to shaping the first plank. I rewatched Chuck's planking tutorials, made myself some planking holdey pieces, got out my travel iron and went to work. Below is my Bending Station Mark I. I bent the strip and fixed it with the shown clamps, wetted the basswood strip with a small amount of water wiped on with my finger, then used my warmed up travel iron to run along the strip until the water was evaporated. In the Practicum you mark the deck line on the outside of the bulkhead extensions, then add 2 more marks, one 1/8" above and another 1/8" below this mark. Then you mark the planking strip down the middle, and align this mark with the deck line. I reversed the mark on the planking strip it should have been facing inwards, but no biggie. The strip bends dorsally just aft of the main deck and is supposed to end with its lower edge on the joint between the wing transom and the filling piece. This is a pretty hefty upwards bend. I ended up replacing the rounded piece of wood I bent the plank around on the Bending Station (basswood in the above pics) with a bigger and more gently rounded piece of walnut in the below pics. I kept getting too sharp of a bend, then I had the bend it the exact opposite direction an inch aft, and my strip was looking very wavy. I had figured on a learning curve and this one strip took my free time over 2 weeks. I was aiming to have a strip, per Chuck's directions, that would stay in place with only finger pressure and not have to be super clamped into submission. more soon, thanks for reading, Cisco

I am currently building Model Shipways Armed Virginia Sloop and I got Bob Hunt's practicum. So far it has been very helpful, in part because the supplied kit directions are so 1970's. I think many people (including me) use his practicum's for their first model. As i have not tried to contact Mr Hunt can't comment on his responses.

Hey Overworked724- your build is amazing. The scratched galleries especially. A word of caution- we use sharpies a lot at work and my experience is the black ones fade considerably (not exposed to any sunlight just LED lights) in a few years. I don't know if its the same with the red ones but it might be something to paint instead.

Thats a lot of progress for 1 post Jason. What did you use to accent the joints in your deck planking?

I use shellac almost exclusively on my woodworking projects. While I think it looks best after 0000 steel wool you can also use any of the synthetic abrasive pads, like the scotchbrite green or blue sponges, if leaving metal bits is a concern. But its probably not an issue unless you have a coarse wood that can catch strands, or possibly if you use a water-based polyurethane as a top layer.

Thanks Gregory. I was aware of the post, although I'd forgotten who'd posted it. GuntherMT's AVS is one of my inspirations. Although his work is so clean its a bit depressing...

I am way overdue an update, although it doesn't look like I did much. First off I had to fair the bulkheads and it seemed like every other one needed shimming. I kept laying a batten longwise and comparing, trying for a smooth rounded "bulge" as opposed to the accordian-like ripple I started with. I had to finally stop fairing before I sanded away the entire model. Next up was the framing for the stern transom. Oddly enough in the practicum Mr Hunt did taper the 2 innermost stern frames; luckily this was noticed and addressed by enough MSW buildlogs that I remembered. I made a spacer the size of the window frames and used it to keep the stern frames the same distance apart. After adding the stern frames I the upper wing transoms and the lower filler blocks, along with whatever the blocks of wood on the sides of the transom are called. Then I carved and sanded the transom/counter area so it was round from the side view, and flushed the side transom blocks trying to keep a nice sweep by laying my batten along the sides. Finally I added the window header and sills. Something about the parallelogram windows placed on an upward curve has always looked off to me. The windows supplied by the kit are slightly different; the inside ones seem to have more of a tilt than the outside ones. I am going to try and scratch my windows as the kit ones look chunky to me, and I'm sure there will be some adjustment in placement, but that is Future Cisco's problem. And thats it for tonight! May your holidays be full of comforting family drama and no real drama. Cisco

Thank you again Matthias. I have always wanted to work with bone or ivory, your post was a great help.

Thank you for documenting your process Matthias. It was different than what I was imagining and very educational. 2 questions: 1) In the first picture what did you cut the ivory keys into 1,5mm strips with? The tablesaw? or possibly a bandsaw? 2) What glue did you use? thanks again, cisco

That looks great!

Is the second picture of a cowbarn? that you remodeled into the first picture of your present shop? Wow thats quite an overhaul (complete teardown and replace sounds like) if so. My wife and I are planning some remodeling of our house and my #1 want is a room with natural light for shipbuilding and woodworking. Presently I am allotted half the basement; and my half shares with the HVAC. In return I said she could have the rest of the house to do whatever she wants with, but its not a strong bargaining position as she already Has the rest of the house.

One thing I didn't anticipate is how long, or more importantly how much energy, it takes to type and upload pics. Competes for my "reading of other people's updates" time. Here's this week's slow progress; first off I shamelessly copied someone else's great idea, and I'm sorry I can't remember who it was, of making curved sanding sticks for leveling the dorsal bulkheads. I glued some thin strips of walnut i had laying about not being productive, then attached 150 grit sandpaper with double sided tape. I found out that you tend to use just the last 2 inches of sandpaper so it has to be changed pretty often, but worked well. I made another thinner and more curved sanding stick to get closer to the bulkhead extensions. I then was faced with a quandary- how do you make sure the tops of the bulkheads are level? I don't have an exterior frame built yet to hold the ship at 90 degrees to a base so what to use as a reference surface? So I tried drawing lines 90 degrees to the keel with my square; it was awkward but worked. Kinda. Then I glued in the beam supports for the tiny quarterdeck referencing it level from lines I'd drawn above it. Then i added the quarterdeck, which seems big enough for maybe 1 person at a time. Once that was dry I leveled the main deck with aforementioned curved sanding sticks. I quickly gave up trying to make sure everything was 90 degrees to the keel; it was just too hard to compare both sides of each bulkhead. So instead I used the short end of my LeeValley square, measuring across 4 bulwarks at time to level them, adding strips of wood where things were low and sanding high spots. You don't initially appreciate how much more challenging having the deck shaped like a banana with each end up, in addition to the bulwark's downward camber towards the rails, makes this whole process. Well now I sure appreciate it. But finally I got it as level as it was easly gonna get and glued on the maindeck. Which is presently drying. Next up is sanding the bulkhead edges for planking. Per the practicum this should take 15 minutes a side. I am skeptical its gonna be that easy. Thanks for reading, off to enjoy a deserved adult beverage. Cisco

Matthias (hope I got your name right)- could you comment/show pics of the tools you used to make the ivory partition doors and panels? And what glue you are using? Beautiful stuff, I am hungry for more information, thanks Cisco

Really really great planking job. As a complete and utter novice I appreciate you showing every step, and a retrospective on what you would have done different is very helpful. please keep up the detailed posts

Thanks Mr Guy. I am contemplating borrowing my wife's digital camera and a tripod to take some real pictures, instead of my convenient but aged iphone 6. At the speed you seem to be building I assume you'll be done with Pickle and Confederacy and busy rigging your AVS by the time I get to second planking.

3rd update! I managed to add my SuperCool avatar picture and downloaded Adobe Photo Express (its free and so far intuitive) to edit my photos. Searching MSW the sideways pictures problem shows up a lot and is possibly due to large file sizes so I decreased the bytes or pixels or whatever and heres hoping they stay upright. If you didn't guess I don't like computers and they don't like me. But a necessary evil. I finished gluing in the bulkheads with yellow glue which seems to get everywhere but is very solid. Per the Hunt Practicum next step is to add the very thin aft/poop subdeck. First I leveled the top of the bulkheads by filing them flat; one I had to glue a strip from the subdeck "sprue" as it was too low. Next I had to attach the subdeck to the curved surface of the bulkheads. The practicum has you push tiny pins through the top of the subdeck into the bulkheads, then pull them out once the glue dries. I tried a different approach- overbend the subdeck and hold it in place with rubber bands. So first step is bending the subdeck. When I built the Model Shipways LongBoat I spent so much time bending the planks by soaking them in warm water for a while, then rubber banding them to cans or glasses to impart a curve, and leaving them overnight to dry. They would usually end up curved like I wanted but took forever to dry, and whenever I clamped them no matter how dry they seemed they were always still a bit wet and would dent. Then they eventually dried out and shrank and left a gap. So I decided to try the Chuck technique of minimal water used mainly as a heat transfer device and let heat melt the lignins. The thin subdeck is very flexible so bending it is easy. After spritzing both sides with a small amount of water spread evenly with my finger I used some string to tie the subdeck bent around a coffee cup. Then I attached my blowdrier to the workbench (actually my woodworking sharpening station) with spring clamps, turned it on Low Heat and dried the water off. After the top part was dry I took off the strings and the back was still wet so I dried it by just holding in bent in my hand. As long as the heat isn't directly hitting your fingers its not bad and took about 10-20 seconds each side. And presto, dried with a nice curve. And I didn't have to leave it overnight. While this was a very thin piece of wood compared to some of the planking strips I hope this is a prelude on how much easier this method is. Now that the subdeck was bent (overbent on purpose) I did a test run with rubber bands and that seemed to hold it in place pretty well so I forgoed using the tiny nails. Once fitted in place there were some tiny lift-ups that I added pencils to direct downward force and it all seemed to work pretty well. And finally here are 3 pics of my finished MS LongBoat. Lighting in the basement is from the ceiling so it shadows the lower parts of the hull, another thing to work on. I felt that many model ship bases were too short, running from the stern to the prow, with the bowsprit sticking out waiting to be caught on something, so I made my base extra big. Maybe too big in hindsight it may overwhelm the model some. Thanks for reading. Have a great night, Cisco

Thank you for the welcome guys I appreciate it. Next step was re-making the keel and stem out of holly. I have a big piece of holly i'd been saving for years but it turns out it wasn't harvested correctly and has a fine spattering of black mildew? spots forming. And I've dragged that piece of wood through 2 moves hoping to use it someday. I couldn't find anyone selling already thicknessed Holly for ship building so I followed advice on this forum and ordered 2 billets from Gilmer Wood Company. It wasn't cheap (I'm not complaining I could read the prices clearly) but their website says the wood is harvested in the winter and immediately kiln dried so it doesn't get the staining my old board had. Billets showed up in a week, snowy white beautiful, ends properly sealed, looked great. I jointed the smaller piece and cut off a strip with my bandsaw, then used my lunchbox planer with a planer sled to bring the 2 strips down to almost the same thickness as the walnut pieces that came with the kit. I don't have a mini sander so had to improvise with a jig: Sorry I still am having problems with MSW's uploaded images spontaneously rotating themselves and I haven't figured out how to undo it. If anyone has some advice i'd appreciate it. Anyway I planed the strip of holly down until it was the same thickness as the walnut stem and keel, traced the outlines of the kit's walnut pieces and cut them out as close as possible to the lines with a jeweler's saw. Then sanded them down to the penciled lines. for this 220 grit sandpaper attached to some thin strips of scrap wood with double sided tape worked the best for me. After tracing the bearding line onto both sides of the false keel and using a tiny compass to mark the ventral side of the false keel i constructed the rabbit as per the practicum. That done I had to decide which glue to use. I finally tried Titebond II because I had in stock; hopefully the joint at the stem is tight enough you can't see any yellow. I didn't attache the stern post yet as I figured it would be sanded into oblivion fitting all the planking on. And finally I started gluing the bulkheads in one at a time, making sure they were square. Not being one to buck tradition I used lego's where needed. And thats where I am tonight. Thanks for looking in. Cisco

Alright its time to stop watching other people's builds and contribute something. This is my second model ship and I am following in what seems to me to be the Traditional Pathway. I started with Model Shipway's/Chuck's 18th Century longboat which took a LOT longer than I had planned but turned out ok; I will post a few pics soon. Bending the planking was challenging. Now I am starting on the AVS. I also purchased Robert Hunt's practicum and have been following its directions somewhat. Chuck's Cheerful directions are also very helpful. First the obligatory picture of the box I read a comment a while ago on this forum where it was stated that dark woods made the ships look like Old Furniture. And I completely agree. So I am trying to make the second layer of planking on my AVS in Holly. The first layer of basswood will be good practice in planking. First step was removing the laser char on the center keel. I tried using a fence attached to my hand plane which made sure it was square. But I found it somewhat awkward. Also I couldn't get the picture to not be turned sideways, sorry I'll keep working on that.