Ed Ku20

Thanks John! I enjoy doing it.

Thanks Dave! The ship's longboat is such a prominent feature on the deck of the Rattlesnake, I wanted to do it justice. This little kit didn't cost much and it looks much better than the one that comes with the ship. It was a small project however! It took me 60 calendar days and 120 hours to build. I think it was worth the effort.

Building the Ship’s Longboat (Part 4) Next up was the fitting of the Bow Platform. I found a suitable piece of flat 1” x 1/32” thick basswood and sanded it to fit in between the railings. A support was required at the stem to lift it up flush with the railings. I added another ringbolt to the bow platform and applied a coat of wipe-on poly to protect and seal the wood. It’s really starting to take shape now! RUDDER & TILLER – The rudder comes as a laser cut piece. I sanded it to create a taper away from the hull. There are a few different configurations for making the tiller. I decided to make it with a hole in the end that fits over the top extension on the rudder. This was sanded into shape from a piece of stripwood as shown below. I decided to fake the pintles and gudgeons using some more of the blackened auto detailing tape I used on the anchor stocks. A pair of holes were drilled into the sternpost and the forward edge of the rudder. Steel pins were inserted to mount the rudder. OARS & OARLOCKS – I made 6 oars (plus 1 extra in case I broke one). I used 1/16” x 3/32” stripwood that was cut into 3-1/2” long pieces. The paddle end was marked off at 7/8” long. Initially I clamped all of them together and sanded the handle end down to 1/16” square as one piece. Then hand sanded them individually the rest of the way. They were stain with the standard Golden Oak and then treated with wipe-on-poly. The oarlocks were made using the dark annealed steel wire inserted into holes drilled in the top rails. All oars clamped down for initial sanding In the pic below, the first oar is the spare. This shows what they looked like after the initial sanding. Th other 6 are ready for staining. In the 2nd pic they are drying after the polyurethane was applied The rudder is glued by a pair of steel pins to the boat Here is how the finished Ship’s Longboat looks temporarily mounted on the Rattlesnake. I won’t lash it down permanently until I have to, sometime during the masting & rigging process. Let me know what you think about this Ship’s Longboat project! I’m happy with the way it turned out. After a few miscellaneous things to finish up, I will begin making the masts and then the rigging. As I mentioned, I will be using the Lauck Street Shipyard Masting & Rigging practicum that I purchased what seems like a long time ago!! Thanks everyone, Ed

Building the Ship’s Longboat (Part 3) Now that the ship’s longboat is planked and painted the next steps are focused inside the boat. The first step is to add two more ribs between each of the four ribs used for planking. These eight ribs are attached on the port & starboard sides separately, on either side of the keel. As with the original 4 ribs I laminated a pair of 1/32” x 3/32” pieces of stripwood together to avoid splitting and cracking the wood when bending it to fit the curvature of the hull. Here are some pictures of these steps. Since the pieces are only half as long now, I simply dropped a pair at a time into a jar of water to soak for 5 – 10 minutes I held the pair together and gently bent them with my fingers. They were placed on the marks I made between the original ribs and clamped in place for at least an hour to dry fit them for final gluing. Once dry, I glued the pair together with Gorilla PVA glue and clamped them until set. Then they were re-positioned in the hull with glue applied and clamped in place until set. Once I got rolling, I found I was able to work on them two at a time. BULKHEAD VENEER -- I mentioned earlier that the bow bulkhead was too small to fill the required space between the hull planking. In between waiting for ribs to dry, I measured, cut, sanded and fit pieces of some old 1/32” x 3/8” stripwood (leftover from Bluenose) to add a veneer of wood on the bow. This was needed to fill the gaps at the bow. I also veneered the transom to achieve the same look (although this one is less visible). I cut some fake slits to make it look like narrower planking was used. They were stained with Minwax Golden Oak. They won’t be glued in place until the interior is painted. Here is the boat after the ribs were all attached The interior was first primed. Then I applied two coats of Vallejo Beige acrylic paint #70.917. After painting, I glued the veneers to the bow and transom. Next, I installed floor boards and the seat support planks. These parts were all stained with Golden Oak. Three single seats or Thwarts were installed as well. The Rattlesnake blueprint shows 4 seats, but the instructions for this small boat kit only had 3. According to the plans, at the stern there is a “U” shaped set of seats. However, there are no pictures or drawings. I cut out three pieces and stained them. I added some tabs to help secure the side seats. The stern seats were glued in place. I decided to add a mast block. I glued it to the floor boards under the forward thwart with a half-circle cut-out for the mast. A couple of ringbolts were added to the center floorboard. TOP RAILS – The next step was to make and install the top rails. This turned out to be one of the more challenging steps in the making of this small boat! The instructions call for 1/32” x ¼” stripwood from the kit. Due to the curvature of the hull, the rails must be cut into 3 sections joined together by scarf joints. I started out by turning the boat upside down on some card stock to trace an outline of the top of the hull. I used this as a starting point for cutting the pieces. I made them larger than required. Then a lot of sanding and test fitting was used to get them right. A 1/32” overhang is required on the outboard edge. And the inboard side needed to be wide enough to cover the tops of the ribs. All of this was rather tedious work. Here are some pics. Not perfect, but acceptable. The card stock templates and resulting stripwood rails are ready for gluing to the port side The starboard side after painting the underside with black acrylic. The tops were painted after installation. The starboard top rails and stern rail after gluing in place I do like the way the blue accent stripe turned out between the two black strips! Next is the view from the top with the railing completely installed I’m going to split this post right here and finish it in Part 4….

Building the Ship’s Longboat (Part 2) The next step is planking the hull. This is easier than planking the larger ship primarily because you are using 1/32” x 3/32” basswood. The thinner wood is a little easier to bend. Most of the bending is needed at the bow. It has a bit of a bullnose like the Rattlesnake. I started out by soaking the planks and then used a small curling iron to bend the forward end. This resulted in some splitting of the wood at the first rib. So, I ended up just bending the wet wood with my fingers. After soaking, I laid the plank in its position and clamped it in place until it dried out. This only took about an hour or so with the 1/32” thickness. After that it was stiff and ready to glue. I used PVA Gorilla glue. But, the first step is to plank the transom. This is also done with the 1/32” x 3/32” basswood. However, as other builders have noted, there is a gap at the top of the transom bulkhead. I fixed this by adding a 1/16” x 3/32” board at the top of the transom bulkhead. This filled the space up to the notch in the keel. You can see this addition at the wide part of the transom in the picture below. Then I cut and glued planks over the transom bulkhead The next step is adding the “Sheer Line” boards. These are 1/16” square boards that sit directly under the top rail. It took repeated sessions of soaking and bending to get this pair to bend around the bow. It sits on top of the tabs for the rib forming jig. Here is a picture of it with the WeldBond glue drying. After it was set, I painted it with the same Ultramarine Blue acrylic that I used on the accent stripe on the ship’s hull. Now the planking of the hull begins. The instructions say to lay the strake next up from the sheer line first. Then the garboard strake along the keel is next. I used a 1/32” x 1/8” piece for this. I felt that the wider board covered the space over the 1/16” square boards that were installed next to the keel and then reached the ribs more smoothly. Then I attached the strake next to the garboard. After that I worked up from the sheer line the rest of the way. Below is the first strake next to the sheer line getting installed Laying the last plank on the port side. I accidently snapped that one in half with the back of my hand! I decided that it might be easier to insert this last one in two steps. It was almost like a stealer at the bow. It had to sanded to fit. Below, adding the last couple of strakes on the starboard side Hull planking completed. This picture was taken before any trimming and sanding. After trimming the overlapping planks at the stern and sanding everything smooth, I applied a coat of primer to seal the wood. After studying several builds of small ship’s boats on this website, I decided on a color scheme. I painted the sheer line blue to match the large ship’s bulwarks. The rest of the outer hull will be painted the same ivory/off-white that I used on the ship. To keep the look similar to the Rattlesnake I plan to sandwich the ultramarine blue between black railings and a black trim board under the sheer line board. I painted the hull with several coats of the off-white while it was still in the jig. Between coats more sanding and a little wood filler was used to fix-up the rougher spots! Then I cut the hull out of the jig. I used an Exacto knife and razor saw where the ribs enter the gluing slots just below the sheer line. The top edge is sanded flush with the top of the sheer board. In the process I snapped off the extension of the keel at the stern! I was warned about this, but it happened anyway! The wood grain runs fore to aft in this spot on the keel, so it’s not very strong. I’ll glue it back on later. I cut a couple of 1/64” x 3/64” pieces of stripwood and painted them black. These were glued right up against the blue sheer line. Here is a pic with the trim board added. View of the finished shell of the hull from the bottom at this point in the construction A coat of satin wipe-on poly is applied to protect the paint before I start working on the interior of the boat I will post my progress on the boat’s interior in Part 3. Thanks for looking in! Ed

Building the Ship’s Longboat (Part 1) I read about everyone’s struggles to make the kit provided “bread & butter” style ship’s boat. Early on in my research for building the Rattlesnake, I came across the build log by JSGerson. He purchased a Model Shipways kit for a “Typical Ship’s Boat” that is a Plank-on-Frame construction (aka POF). There are several sizes. I bought the MS0108 at 4-3/4” long. This is the same one that Jon Gerson built for his Rattlesnake. I would like to thank and credit him for posting his log for building this small kit! If I had to build it just from the MS plans, it would have been much harder. I created my own summary of steps from a compilation of various sources, as I am building this kit right now. The kit itself is pretty simple. One sheet of laser cut parts, some stripwood and a sheet of wood for creating a jig to plank the hull. Unfortunately, the photos on the instructions are of such poor quality they are of little to no help. But for $8.99, it’s hard to complain! So, let’s get started. Here is the kit after I took it out of the bag. Ignore the # in the top corner. I bought MS0108 later when I decided MS0107 was too small. All the instructions are the same! 1. ASSEMBLING THE KEEL · Remove the laser cut parts and clean off the laser char. I used Weld Bond to glue the Transom & Bow bulkheads to the Keel. · Draw a centerline from top to bottom on each rib forming jig piece. Use this for aligning on the base board. · Measure & cut 1/16” square stripwood on both sides of the keel. Cut the pieces so you are leaving a space at each of the notches in the keel. The strips must be flush with the inside edge of the keel. · The strips at the bow need to be pre-curved to follow the shape of the bow. After looking at pictures, I decided to error on the side of leaving a generous amount of keel at the bow stem, i.e. I installed the strip further away from the edge of the stem. o Use a strip of cardstock to get the length. Soak the wood and bend to the initial shape with the curling iron. Taking a tip from Mr. Gerson, I found a pre-cut piece of scrap wood with the right curve and pinned the wet strip against it until it dried. Glue the pieces to both sides at the bow. Pre-shaping the 1/16” square stripwood for the stem 2. THE MAIN RIBS USING THE RIB FORMING JIG · I again used cardboard stock to measure the length of stripwood required for the rib to go around the jig. · Everyone has trouble bending the 1/16” square stripwood around the jig. Mr. Gerson said he should have laminated thinner pieces together. Also, the tabs at the slots easily break off if you try to force the wood. I used stick pins to hold the jig down on a cork board over wax paper to protect it from the glue. The tabs were braced with short straight pins. I used the 3/32 x 1/32” stock stripwood provided in this kit to make the ribs. The gaps in the keel are exactly 3/32” wide. Using two strips for each rib forming jig, one was laminated over the other to provide the 1/16” thick ribs. Here are two pics of the first rib glued at the tabbed slot. A 1/16” gap is required at the top of the jig. A 1/16" square piece of wood did the job. Rib #1 was really trying to buckle in the top left corner and needed some extra tough discipline! (Pic #2) · After soaking and bending with a curling iron, I glued the 1st layer only at the ends of the “rib” to the rib former jig slots. This is the only place they are allowed to be glued! The 1/32” thick wood was easier to bend and I had no trouble with breakage. However, it was difficult to get a smooth curve without the wood buckling. It’s a very tight bend for such a short piece of wood! You have to be patient (not my strongest gift!) and use multiple sessions of soaking in water and using the curling iron. Here is one of the ribs after soaking and bending it in the curling iron. If I went too fast the wood split! · Once the glue dries, the next 1/32” layer can be glued over the first one. I learned that the outside layer needs to be considerably longer than the first (a good 5/32”). Once it’s preformed, test fit it and allow it to dry. It requires several pins and shims to hold it in place. After drying, apply a thin layer of Gorilla Glue inside the 2nd layer of stripwood. Do not get any glue on the rib former. Re-pin the wood in position until the glue dries. The two 1/32” thick pieces are now laminated together for rib #3 Finally, the keel assembly and the ribs in their jigs are completed. Each rib will be cut from the jig after planking. 3. MAKING THE HULL BUILDING JIG · A 3” x 6” x 3/16” baseboard is provided in the kit to support the hull during planking. · Start with the baseboard and draw the centerline and crosslines according to the instructions. The instructions are not very clear about the position of the crosslines. They say they are about 1" apart. It seemed to me that their placement is very critical to aligning the ribs with the slots in the keel. I spent a lot of time getting them aligned after I completed the next step. · Cut the provided 1/8” stripwood into 8 equal pieces (about 2” each). These are glued to the bottom of the rib jigs for support. I clamped them with clothespins. I found that the clothespins caused the outside edges of the 1/8” strips to angle downward. However, only after removing the clamps some hours later! I recovered from this by touching the bottom up on the disc sander to flatten and even out the surface. The 1/8” square strips are glued to the bottom of the rib forming jigs Test aligning one of the rib assemblies on the hull building jig · Glue the above assemblies precisely to the baseboard on the centerline and crosslines. Mr. Gerson also glued a couple of 1/8” strips to the baseboard to hold the keel in place at the bow & stern. This seemed like a good idea to me. I just used some scrap wood. Gluing everything down on the hull building jig base At this point, the hull frame is ready for planking. Once I finish the planking, I will provide Part 2! Hope this is helpful to anyone that is considering how to do the ship’s longboat for their Rattlesnake. Thanks for looking in! Ed

The Anchors As I started to work on the kit supplied Britannia metal anchor shank and flukes, I noticed that one of the shanks had a serious crack near the flukes’ end. I sent a request to Model Expo for a replacement around mid-December. I requested an update last week and they said they are waiting for production to make some new ones. So, in the meanwhile, I made both stocks and completed the assembly of the one good anchor. When the replacement arrives, it won’t take much to paint and assemble it. I cleaned up the metal on the good anchor and painted it with Testors flat black enamel. I took measurements from the plans but the actual kit anchor is a little smaller. So, I made the stock a little smaller too. A single piece of stripwood was cut to size. The real anchor is made from 2-pieces that are bolted and strapped together. After shaping the stocks, I made a shallow cut around the longitudinal center to simulate two pieces of wood fastened together. Minwax Dark Walnut stain was applied. I carefully cut the center hole for the end of the shank to get a snug fit. Here is a pic at this stage. I drilled holes in the sides of the wooden stock and inserted pieces of annealed steel wire to simulate bolts. I read about a number of methods for making the four bands around the stocks. I bought some car detailing tape in various super-small millimeter widths for my Bluenose build. The 1.0 MM size seemed just right. My only concern was the tape is blue and the bands are black. I tried covering the tape with permanent black marker. The tape is really smooth and shiny, so I wasn’t sure if it would hold the marker ink. Fortunately, it worked very well! I’m happy with the results. I think I will use this method on the mast bands later. The blue tape and steel wire along with the one assembled anchor The metal shank ring is made from black annealed steel wire with a ¼” O.D. A couple of final pics after applying a couple of coats of wipe-on poly. I started working on the ship’s longboat. After reading the complaints and seeing the kit boat, I decided to buy the Model Expo kit for the “Typical Ship’s Boat”. This is like building a whole separate model! I will share my progress with my next post. Happy New Year! Ed

Hi Tim, Congratulations on the completion of your Bluenose. Excellent craftsmanship. I can't believe that was your first model ship! I especially like your rigging work and the sails. I used the kit supplied sail cloth. Your sails look professionally done! Display it with pride! Best regards, Ed

Head Rails (Part 2) I just completed construction of the “head rails”. That’s the term I’m using to include all of the stuff at the ship’s stem. In “Part 1” I completed 5 steps. Part 2 consists of the steps listed below starting with #6. I started with the Cross Timbers. These turned out to be extremely difficult to make well (as did pretty much everything here). I redid several of them multiple times. Each one needs to be custom fit for its position. There are multiple angles to sand and fit. The disk sander I picked up at Menard’s recently made this work a lot easier! I’m a little disappointed with some of the results, but I hope my mistakes are not too noticeable. Here are the construction steps I followed. 6. Cross Timbers – there are supposed to be five per side. Because of size restrictions on my stem, I decided to only install 4. Some of this is dictated by the need to leave the hole in the stem for the gammoning rope clear. I found that the kit supplied 1/16” thick by ½” wide stripwood was stronger than my store bought 1/16” sheetwood. I cut them from this. Each one has to be custom fit. They run vertically. Four of them start at the inside of the Main Head Rail and curve “in” and “down” to the Upper Wale Cheek Rails. There is a fifth piece that runs from the top of the hawse board to the main head rail. The Middle Rail runs horizontally on the outboard side of the cross timbers from the hawse board to near the top of the stem. As with the rails in part 1, I started by making a cardboard cutout of the shape for each one. This was done by trial & error since there is nothing in the plans to trace from. The drawings they do show are incomplete. I transferred this shape to the 1/16” stripwood, cut it out and used the disk sander & Dremel drum sander to finish it. Where the timber sits underneath the grating it has to be shorter and more curved. Sorry, I don’t have very many pics of this step. The first batch of cross timbers ready for painting and gluing I completed the slats and the last cross timbers at the same time to make sure everything would fit. Here are the last pair of cross timbers and one of the end slats after painting. 7. The "Seats of Ease” – There are two toilet seats glued to a base with holes in it. They have a triangular shape. The base is fit between the slat grating and the hull. I’ve seen build logs showing a three-sided bottom with a seat glued on top. I decided to make mine by cutting a triangular shaped corner from a 3/32” thick piece of stripwood. I drilled a hole in the center of each one to make it look like a toilet! The hole extends through the base. Cardboard cutout to get the fit for the base and slat gratings The “Seats of Ease” are glued to the base. A slot is cutout to fit around the base for the bowsprit The assembly after painting and gluing in place. Note the unpainted crossbeam for the slats 8. Slat Gratings in front of the “Seats of Ease” -- A 1/16” square cross beam is set at 90-degrees to the Head Rails. The area between the beam and the base board is filled with a grating that is split down the middle to accommodate the gammoning rope. I made the grating slats with 1/32” x 1/16” stripwood. Each slat must be fitted individually. Way back at the beginning of my Rattlesnake build I broke off the stem. (See my post #88) I was able to get it back together with advice from some of you! But there is a barely noticeable listing to port in the stem. This reared its ugly head when installing the slats. The port side is shorter than starboard. Therefore, the port side is 1 slat short compared to starboard! Oops! Don’t errors with printing postage stamps, coins or baseball cards make them more valuable? Oh well, too late now!! The 2 center slats are installed with the gap in the middle for the gammoning rope One more slat left to install 9. Middle Rail – runs horizontally on the outboard side of the cross timbers. I made another cardboard cutout to check the size and fit. Once satisfied, I cut them out using 1/16” sheetwood. There needs to be an upward curve as it nears the end of the stem. Some sanding was needed to get the forward end to bend inward. After applying a coat of satin poly, I took pics from all sides of the finished Head Rails. I logged 80 hours and 40+ calendar days on this step. I’m glad to have it completed!! I hope you like the final result. I have a question for all you Rattlesnake builders. The blueprint plans show hand rails that seem to run from end to end on the main head rail. Did you install these? What materials are used? How is it attached to the rails? Here’s wishing everyone a Very Merry Christmas! Thanks, Ed

Thanks for looking in Al. Appreciate your interest and kind words.

Hi John, Great to hear that you're back! Hope the move went great and the new shipyard is spacious! Thanks for your kind words. I am really enjoying my Rattlesnake build. It's been challenging. I'm taking it slow and focusing on one step at a time. So far, so good. Can't wait to see your future progress.

Head Rails (Part 1) It seems that pretty much everyone agrees that making the Head Rails is one of the most difficult steps on the Rattlesnake. There isn’t a lot of detailed explanation in the build logs for this topic. Jon Gerson’s log is about the best explanation and has lots of pictures. Gregory gave me a link for the head rails on HMS Winchelsea. It helped to see a similar design. Due to the multiple steps and lengthy process, I’m going to split this topic into several posts. Here is how I did it and what I learned. The Upper Wale Cheeks, Upper Stem Rails, Lower Wale Cheeks & Lower Stem Rails make a curve on two planes. Therefore, they have to be made as 4 separate pieces. I discovered that, even though I made the stem from the kit provided laser cut wood, the dimensions of this area on my ship are smaller than the plan. I had trouble making the fox carving small enough to fit into the space between the stem rails. I had to do some extra sanding to make it fit. Everyone’s ship is a little different! I made each of the 4 pieces below with the same method. Use tracing paper to get the shape off the plans. Transfer that to some cardboard stock. Test fit the cardboard shape on the ship and adjust as needed. Transfer the cardboard outline to a piece of sheetwood. Cut it out using a jewelers saw. Use a sanding drum with the Dremel and my newest purchase, a benchtop disk sander to achieve the final shape. (This sander saves a lot of time!) I ended up using 3/32” thick sheetwood for most of the parts. The 1/16” was too flimsy and the pieces easily broke where the grain went vertical. I only used this for the lower stem rails. I needed something smaller in this space. 1. Upper Wale Cheeks – Started with this. Made from 3/32” sheetwood. These are wide horizontal pieces that sit below the anchor hawse holes. It makes a curve from the hull into the bow stem. 2. Upper Stem Rails – The next piece that extends from the forward edge of the cheek up to the tip of the stem. These pieces need to blend together. Use 1/8” sheetwood. These have a curled scroll at the top. 3. Lower Wale Cheeks – are parallel to, but below the upper cheeks. 4. Lower Stem Rails – a curved piece that flows from the lower cheek and runs along the lower edge of the stem up to the feet of the figurehead. Made this from 1/16” sheetwood. All of the above pieces have a molding cut into their edge/face. I made a groove to match the work I have created on other hull pieces. This time I started by using a ball tip stylus to make an impression in the wood. This impression was deepened with Artesania scrappers, files and sandpaper. Everything was test fit on the ship. I inserted a dowel the diameter of the future bowsprit, and also the figurehead for test fitting. Minor adjustments were necessary with the figurehead. All the pieces were painted with the same yellow ochre as on the hull. Cutting the Head Rail from 3/32” sheetwood Carving the molding cut and some of the tools I used One of many test fits! Note the blue cardboard template for the lower stem rail Painting the port side pieces with yellow ochre 5. Fox Carvings – are positioned on the stem between the upper and lower rails. I used 3/32” sheetwood. They were made using mini-files and sandpaper Transferring the carving from the plans to the sheetwood The 4th & 5th iterations of the Fox carving. Not the most artistic pieces, but not too bad for me! The Indian Figurehead after painting. I applied a coating of spray lacquer for protection Views of the stem after gluing in place This seemed like a good stopping point. I’m finishing up the head rail now. I will post some more soon. Let me know if you have any questions or comments. Thanks, Ed

Thanks for the link to Chuck's Winnie. I wish that Model Shipways' plans had better drawings of the head rail pieces. Something I could cut out to use for a template. It may take several attempts to get an acceptable result. Looking at Chuck's model makes me feel like a real 3rd rate hack!!! Thank You Gregory!

Deadeyes & Chain Plates On my Bluenose build I faked the chain plates by using black card stock strips. This build, I’m upping my game a bit to the steel wire model option suggested in the instruction manual. I decided not to go with the soldered 3-piece chain plate option. I think these look pretty good. There are 28 deadeyes/chain plates that need to be installed. It gets a little tedious, but I got a good technique going. I took the following pics to show the process I used. The first step was to mark the position of the nails at the bottom of each chain plate. I assembled three of them at a time since 8 of the channels require three deadeyes each. Here are the parts required for each one. I purchased the brass nails from Model Expo. These worked well, except I had to cut them down when inserting along the open gun deck. They would have come right thru the inboard bulwark! I used round-nosed pliers to bend a loop in the wire and inserted a deadeye The wire was twisted around the deadeye and the excess snipped off. Make sure the single hole faces down The assembled piece is slipped into the hole in the channel. The challenge is to make the loop in the bottom end of wire in the precise spot where the mark is located. A pilot hole is made at the spot and the nail inserted part way in. The wire is tightened around the nail. I apply a drop of thick CA glue and push the nail the rest of the way in. Here are the completed deadeyes and chain plates on the port side for the main & mizzen masts And here is the same side fore mast Full view of the deadeyes and chain plates on the starboard side Birds eye view of my Rattlesnake at the current stage of the build I also completed the assembly of the two open gun port lids. As promised, here are a couple of pics. They have not been glued in permanently yet. I will wait until the hull assembly steps are complete. I also need to add a coat of wipe-on-poly on the yellow ochre section of the upper hull. I’ve been waiting until all the wood parts are glued so I can still use PVA. My next step is the Head Rails. I am still trying to wrap my mind around how this is supposed to work! I’m studying other build logs and making my plan of attack on this difficult looking task. Thanks for looking in on my Rattlesnake! Ed

Gun Port Lids I made a decision way back when I was planking the hull that I was not going to cut out the gun ports on the quarterdeck or in the front of the bow. A closed gun port lid would hide the fact that there was no cannon behind it. I needed 10-gun port lids. Two of them would be open for the 2nd pair from the stem. I made the gun port lids using the wood sandwich technique I came across by “GTM of Copenhagen” on our site. In hindsight, this probably was not necessary because after I painted the lids, the seams between the planks were not very visible. This would work better on an unpainted model. Maybe on a future model! I made the closed lids 3/64” thick. The open ones are 1/16” thick with the interior side painted red. There are 2 lids per side at the bow and 3 each along the quarterdeck. Total of 10 required. I will air brush the outside of the lids with the same yellow ochre as the hull. I ordered two packs of 10 Mantua Brass Gun Port Hinges from Model Expo (MAN37360). These are 0.3 x 2 x 10 MM in size. The pack come with 10 hinge/hasps, 10 short brass rod and 20 brass eyebolts. The rod is supposed to go in the hole at the top of the hasp and the eyebolts go on either side to make a working hinge. I do not plan to make a working hinge, so I skipped the eyebolts for the rods. Construction Steps 1. Use a 1/16” x ½” piece of stripwood (#3624). Use the mini-plane to shave this down to 3/8” 2. Cut a long strip of cardboard stock with a 1/128” thickness to match the 3/8” width of the stripwood. This is supposed to simulate caulking. I used yellow because I wanted the lids to match the hull. This worked so well, you can't even tell I put in all this effort!! 3. Apply PVA glue alternating 5 layers of wood with 4 layers of card stock. I ended up with a 3/8” square. That’s not what I was expecting, but it will work! (I expected it to be less than 3/8” tall) 4. Use the mini-chop saw to cut off 10 slices 5. Air brush the lids yellow ochre to match the hull. Hand brush two lids with same red as inside bulwarks 6. Blacken the 20 brass hinges/hasps and rods. The brass rods did not blacken very well. I also did not like the look of a short rod in each pair of hinges on the lid. I decided to use a steel wire brad type nail of 5/128” diameter for a perfect fit in the hole for the hinge. I cut them to a length with wire cutters so they could span across the 2 hinges. I thought this looked better and was easier to keep squared up on the lid. 7. Use CA glue to attach the steel brad in the hinges to simulate a working hinge. Allow a bit to overhang on the outside of each hinge. Here are the parts ready to assemble. Then a completed lid. 8. Glue the hinges to the lids using CA. The completed set of gun port lids 9. I took 10 eyebolts from the kit to use for the rope that pulls the lid open. Blackened them. 10. Drill a pilot hole for the eyebolts on the lower edge of each lid. Glue them in place 11. I used Weldbond to glue the lids to the hull. I had to gently bend a few of them so they formed to the curve of the hull. 12. Tie a length of thread to the eyebolt 13. Drill a hole above the lid to pass the thread through the hull for raising the gunport lids. Use a drop of glue to hold these in place And finally here are the completed gun port lids! I am not going to attach the open gun port lids until I am done with the hull. I’ve read several build logs where these got knocked off with the handling of the ship. Hopefully the closed lids will be safe! Now that I have the gun port lids in place, my next step is to install the deadeyes into the channels and nail the chainplates underneath them into the hull. Thanks, Ed