Richard44

Thanks to all those who haved "liked" this log, and also to those who have just dropped by. The next job was to install the deck. Firstly, the bulkhead extensions had to be removed and the stubs sanded flat with the sub-deck. The actual deck was then carefully dry-fitted, with only slight sanding required to get it to sit correctly. Two short lengths of dowel placed in the masts' locations and extending through the lower deck, were used to ensure the deck lined up correctly. The deck has two sections to be removed, if wanted, so that the beams and lower deck would be visible. The instructions say to make a pencil mark on the beams where the limits of the deck are, so that glue would not be applied onto the parts of the beams where these are to be exposed. While I had the deck dry-fitted, I replaced the two cutout sections with short pieces of double-sided tape on their bottoms so that they remained in place as I lifted the deck in preparation for gluing. I now knew exactly where I should apply the glue. Glue was applied and the deck replaced. There was a minor problem though, keeping the deck in contact with the sub-deck while the glue was drying (i was using PVA) - I do not have any suitable modelling clamps nor suitable weights to do this, so the laundry was raided. The inner bulwarks and the two stern counters were affixed after the deck had dried. The bulwarks were painted first, then glued in place. I didn't find it necessary to soak the forward sections of the bulwarks, and only a slight sanding, mainly the forward edge, was required. The rear sections also needed just a slight sanding. The counters went into place easily enough, but there was a distinct gap between the bottom edge of the lower counter and the deck, as it is designed to tuck under the edge of the deck. I glued two narrow strips of 0.8mm pear in place to reduce the visible effect of this gap. The two narrow strips of pear between the counter and the deck. The next job will be the two cabins at the stern. Cheers

My kit finally arrived (including laser-cut parts and a clear canopy), and I had a chance today to have a good look at it. Chris has given a description of the kit so I'm not going to repeat that. There are plenty of English instructions which need to be read rather carefully, referring to the six sheets (five colour, one B&W) of parts plus the two laser-cut sheets and the construction diagrams, as required. Many of the card parts need laminating onto the laser-cut sheets and in the photo below, the topmost sheet shows some part numbers highlighted, these are those that need laminating. Many of the parts have a thin black border but no indication as to whether the cut to release the part should be inside the line, along the line or outside it - I'm going with cutting along the line. Not much done yet, the build will be slow as I'm building Harpy as well. The first photo simply shows the five coloured sheets of parts (sorry about the colour balance). The second shows some of the parts for the two cockpits and the first of the fuselage sections. One thing to notice is that an opening has to be cut in the fuselage section if the pilot's cockpit is to be shown, and the front and rear cuts for this to be done are actually slightly curved, not straight. Cheers

Just back from a holiday, so only a short update. The rudder has been finished, the batten above the coppering added, as have the depth markers and the horseshoes and fishplates. The batten is a 1mm strip cut from 0.8mm pear fret (pear is hard on knife blades 🤨). The depth markers were painted black and glued using gel CA - spacing was eyeballed. The horseshoes and fishplates were painted with a different, darker, copper paint than the plating simply to make them stand out slightly. Gel CA was used to glue them in place. The rudder is in place for the photos but not fixed. Cheers

First, thank you to all who have stopped by, reacted or made comments. It is all much appreciated. The coppering is complete. A slow job, but I think worth it in the end. Gluing the card strips to the hull was done with common PVA, grab time was short leaving little chance of repositioning. Also too much glue, it being water-based, would result in the card becoming soggy and impossible to move. A few individual plates had to be cutout and replaced. Some minor touch up with paint was required. A narrow batten will be glued immediately above the copper plates. Cheers

Yeh, me too. Been there, done that, put the model aside for a while, then returned ro it later. My first wooden ship model was the AL Endeavour. Back before the Internet, so no help at all. Second planking was turning into a total disaster, so I let it be for a while, then took a deep breath and ripped it all off. Started again.

I'll try for the wheels down. I can always use the photo copied pages for a second go 😁. Wheels though, not easy to make realistic looking ones 😬.

Nicely done Glenn. Richard

So, on to coppering. My kit came with the copper tape, not the copper plates, and as I have never used tape before, a learning curve will be inevitable. I first gave the hull a coat of poly so as to give the adhesive-backed tape a good smooth surface to adhere to. As the instructions advised, separating the copper from the backing can be tricky, if curling and creasing of the former is to be avoided. With care I managed to get two full runs of continuous copper plates, one against the keel and the other along the garboard strake. I wasn't happy with the result as there was some creasing of the copper, and it being so thin, it showed up every imperfection on the hull. I made a couple of attempts with single plates, but these weren't especially good. What to do - persevere and hope with practice that the results would improve, but this of course would mean keeping the poor results in place or removing these and starting again. After playing around with further attempts on scrap wood, I decided that I was unlikely to get a satisfactory result by using the copper tape. So, I removed the two runs I had done, cleaned the hull where these had adhered and decided to use a method I had used on my Bellona build. This involved painting several sheets of paper with copper paint, stripping the paper so as to give continuous runs of plates and then gluing these on the hull. Once the paint was dry, I marked the short edges of the sheets with tick marks 6mm apart (the width of the supplied tape) and marked the long edges with tick marks 18mm apart (the suggested length of the plates). The sheets were scored across the sheet every 18mm. I used a rotary cutter and pressed lightly, The sheets were then cut every 6mm to give strips scored every 18mm. To avoid any appearance of white paper edges, those were coloured with a felt-tipped pen. The prepared strips are shown in the photo below. Coppering of the hull then commenced, starting at the bottom of the stern post and working forwards and upwards. Where possible, continuous strips were used, reverting to single plates when necessary. And before anybody asks the bleedingly obvious question - why didn't I just cut the paper into scored strips then paint them once glued to the hull, it would have been much quicker - I have no idea why I didn't think of it.🥴 🥴. Cheers

A big decision Glenn , and well done. I may be making a similar decision myself soon.

OK, I've been away on a holiday for the past four weeks, so very little has been done since the last post. I decided to do what others have done and put a frame around the stern square tuck, though I did it in a different way to the other builds. Those formed the frame then infilled it with new planks over the existing kit-supplied stern piece with the frame thus being flush with the new planks. I thought of a simpler method - though in reality it probably wasn't. The photo shows the four pieces for the frame. These were cut from 0.6mm pear fret. One of the curved pieces had to be redone as dry fitting showed it to be somewhat off. The pieces were then very carefully sanded so that the inside edges came to a knife-edge. That is, they finished with a triangular cross section. They were dry fitted, then glued in place. From a normal viewing distance it is very difficult to see that the frame is actually sitting on top of the planks. Cheers

OK you two, now you've got me involved as well 😁😁😖. Just ordered the kit plus canopy plus laser cut pieces. I may be slow as I'm part way through building Harpy. Cheers.

After a break, slow progress with the second planking. The following three photos show the beginning with several strakes in place. A wider strip cut from pear fret was used as the garbord strake, and planking continued upwards from this and downwards from the wales. The usual methods of planking were used, tick marks, tapering and edge bending. I had already fixed two drop planks in place at the bow, then needed two stealers ar the stern. I didn't make much of an attempt to colour match the planks as most will be covered by copper. Some of the supplied pear planks were unusable full length due to ragged edges. Finally, the planking was completed. The hull was hand sanded, finishing with 320 grit. The hull in the following photos was wiped with a damp cloth for the photos. The hull still needs a little attention before coppering takes place. I am happy enough with the way the planking turned out. Cheers

Thanks for your detailed build log Glenn. Your descriptions of the problems and possible solutions will be very handy when I reach that stage in my build. Cheers.

Wow, the speed of your progress is amazing. I'm only up to the second planking and I've not done much of that. Well done.

Thanks Maurice.

After a short break, I'm now about to start the second planking. The wales were first coloured black, using an artist's felt-tipped pen. This is a dye, not paint, so is only good on bare wood. Mostly I intend to run uninterrupted planks from bow to stern, but where the strakes are above the waterline, I will use scale-length planks. I will take the length of these from the size of the individual planks that make up the wales, as these would have certainly ended on a frame which would not necessarily coincide with the model's bulkheads. Other Harpy builds have simply edge-bent the planks at the bow, but I decided to use a drop plank in each of the first two pairs of strakes, ie four strakes midships reduced to two at the stem. The first strake under the wale was run from the stern and stopped short (after tapering) at about bulkhead one. The next strake ( number 2) would be the one that has the actual drop plank, so to get this in the correct position it was run from the stern to about bulkhead three. The third strake was then run full length thus leaving a gap between the wale and strake three, which would be filled with the short drop plank. This process was repeated to fit the second drop plank. Making the actual drop planks took quite some time with much trimming and dry-fitting. One of the four needed two attempts as the first ended up about 2mm short. These planks were cut from spare pear fret, using a template to get the rough shape. The template was formed by laying a length of masking tape over the gap and running a pen along the edges. Sorry guys, this sounds complicated and I forgot to take photos which would have helped. There is a clearer description with photos in B.E.’s Harpy build log (Post 21). Two of the four drop planks. The hull ready for the rest of the second planking. Cheers

Yes, I found that too.

You're powering ahead - looking good.

A short post to explain what I did for the wales. Following B.E.’s example, I decide to fix the wales in place before doing the second planking. However, I did not do what B.E. did, which was to install two strakes below the bulwark pattern, then glue the wales ontop, finally trimming the lower strake so that it did not protrude below the wale. Then on to the second planking proper. Instead, I taped the wales in position, then ran a pencil below the wales to mark their lower edge, then I glued a single strake along this line as shown in this photo. The wales were then glued in place, the top along the etched line on the bulwark pattern, the bottom sitting neatly along the installed strake. The dark line above the wales is a shadow, not paint. Cheers

Thanks for all the likes and to those who have dropped by. Following the planking, the veneer facings on the stem, keel and rudder post were added. There is a definite gap between the end of the planks at the stem and the veneer. This will act as a very useful rabbet when the second planking is done as the ends of those planks will slot neatly into it. Next up, the outer bulwark patterns. These were soaked for a short period, then clamped to the hull and allowed to dry - helped along by a heat gun. The two patterns after drying and some of the gunport jigs that will be used to ensure correct alignment. A problem arose when I dry-fitted the bulwarks. Jigs 6,8, and 10 were used and slotted in easily to the outer bulwark pattern and the inner ply gunport pattern. But the bulwarks are too long. At the stern this was expected as the instructions mention this. However, they are also too long at the bow, and this photo shows the misalignment of the inner and outer sets of hawse holes. Trimming of 1.5mm from the front of the patterns fixed this. The bulwarks were then glued in place, still using the three gunport jigs to ensure correct alignment. The port one has been done and that on the starboard side has been glued up and clamped to the hull. Pins were used along the lower edge and later removed. Next up will be the second planking, but before I start this I need to decide on how the wales are to be added. The instructions call for the planking to be completed, then glue the wales on top. As B.E. has pointed out, this will result in a visual difference between the run of the wales and the run of the planks, though the difference would not be great. I am tempted to follow B.E.’s solution and put down a run or two of planks, trimmed appropriately, with the wales fixed on top, then the planking commencing below, butting up neatly against the wales. I also need to decide whether to use scale length planks above the waterline, below won't matter as this will be coppered. Cheers

Post deleted - should have read ECK's post more closely 🤒.

I too will have a think about it.

Planking of the first layer is complete. It took a while and I'm happy with the way it has turned out, although it's not quite the standard necessary for a single layer. I fitted the planks in pairs on each side, one strake at the top and one at the bottom, then re-measured the gap and adjusted the next plank widths to suit. As I didn't properly line the hull, I soon found that more drop planks would be required towards the bow than should have been necessary. Instead of correct drop planks I simply tapered the planks to fit. One stealer was needed at the stern. (Just as an aside, the limewood strips I have are slightly wider than 5mm - four of these side by side actually measure 21mm rather than 20mm, not much but it's cumulative.) The hull was sanded, firstly with 80 grit, then 120, and lastly a light going over with 180. Cheers

Just a short note today. Planking has started. I did the garboard strake first as this can be quite tricky, then added a second strake next to it. Two strakes under the ply gunport pattern completed the work for the time being. Next I will plank down and up. The distance, amidships, between the already installed planks, is equal to 14 of the supplied limewood strips. These will certainly have to be tapered towards the bow, but first inspection suggests a stealer may be required at the stern. I do know that real planks do not taper to a point, but as this is the first layer, I have taken the easy way and used pointy planks instead of making drop planks. Cheers

First off, thanks for all the likes and views, much appreciated. The fronts of the ply gunport patterns were soaked in warm water for a few minutes then the patterns were clamped in place on the hull. They were left to dry, helped by a heat gun, then glued into place, being careful not to get glue on the bulkhead tags, which will be removed soon. I had a problem though. The instructions call for the pattern front ends (ie the tabs) to be hooked into the prow. The photo shows the slot in the prow and the tab on one of the patterns. (You can also see a slight break in the top of the prow above the slot - my fault, pushed too hard.) The slot in the prow though is not large enough to take both tabs, so I sanded the tabs until both fitted. There was a side effect though - the hole through which the bowsprit comes is now much reduced and I needed to enlarge it. Cheers