Ed Ku20

Welcome to the Rattlesnake club Bill. I second and third everything mentioned by the others. I'm certainly not an expert by any means. This is my second POB build. But I really try to detail my build process. I was a corporate trainer in a previous life!! I try to share my mistakes (what not to do) as well as what you ought to do and how I did it. The modelers on this site, especially these Ratt builders, are a great source for information. There are a lot of quirky things with this MS kit and we've all worked our way through each of them, like shimming the keel. Start your own build log, take lots of pics and ask your questions to get feedback. Good luck! Ed

Jim, I'm actually planning to just leave it the way it is. I figure the end of the bow will be hidden under the forecastle deck. I was thinking ahead to when I will need to bend the hull planks around that sharp turn at the transom. Might need to use Dave's technique for applying heat to the wet wood.

Dave, what do you use to heat it? I used hot water to start with. But it had cooled off by the time I used the wood.

Oops! Sorry about that! Yes, I meant to say gun ports. Dave_E, this is for your information. Here's how I handled the waterways, as Jim is talking about. I'm assuming that the deck area will not be visible past the cabin bulkhead wall or at the bow, forward of BHD "A". Here are a few pictures of what I recently completed. Here is the waterway after soaking for a couple of hours in water to soften it up. I clipped it in place overnight and then glued it the next morning. After gluing in place That 1/8" square strip wood was impossible to bend at the point of the bow! I soaked it for 2 hours and could not get that end to budge without possibly breaking. So, I cut it off at A and glued it at the bow so there is someplace to butt deck planks up against. IF I need to plank that far forward. At the cabin wall, I ran the waterway just past BHD "I". I will decide if it looks better to build the cabin wall around the waterway or cut it off flush there. This way I have the option. But, I will not be taking it all the way back through the cabin. Started working on the gun port and oar port frames. I built a jig that I hope helps with this process. I'll let you know how it goes. I still need to build 1 cannon and some temporary deck planking to test the positioning of the portholes. Thanks, Ed

Thanks Jim! I just put in the waterways yesterday. Per your advice, next up will be the waterways then!

Thanks a lot guys! Means a lot coming from all of you. I'm just trying to hold my own in this company of outstanding shipwrights! Hey, I've got some questions or perhaps confirmation about which stripwood to use for planking in various locations. I've tried measuring the width off the blueprint plans, but these do not match any of the wood supplied in the kit. When I look at pictures of Rattlesnakes on this forum some of the planks look wider. Based on the large number of wood strips provided for 3 of the bundles (48, 50 & 50) I'm thinking as follows: 1.) Bulwarks - inboard ceiling & outboard above the wale use WP3603 1/32 x 3/32" 2.) Lower Hull - use WP3622 1/16 x 3/16" 3.) Deck Planks - use WP3620 1/16 x 1/8" Has anyone figured this out? I think I'm going to lay the Wale strake early before installing the gunport frames to provide a visual position for the sheer of the deck. Appreciate any feedback others might have. Thanks! Ed

Step 14: Prepare the Transom Step 15: Prepare the Transom Carving I completed a couple of more steps in my build process with the transom & transom carving. I worked on these simultaneously. First, I sanded the back of the transom to make it thinner before planking with 1/32 x 1/8” stripwood. I got it down to between 9/128 – 5/64”. I didn’t attempt to pre-bend it to wrap around the end of the Counter block. After adding the planks, windows and trim it would no longer bend!! But I used 6 rubber bands to hold it around a large pitcher! After ~24 hours it made a slight bend. The transom seems to be a place where modelers use their creativity. Mine is a blend of multiple ideas I liked from various builders, as well as my own. I used this color scheme: Black Transom; Yellow Ochre for window frames and a nameplate plaque that I made. Carving background & Trim wood is Ultramarine Blue. The scrollwork on the carving is Modelmakers Brass enamel. I use Vallejo acrylic paints everywhere else. After planking the transom, I painted it black. The Transom window frames were removed from Thickset F and the char sanded off. A quick test fit found them to be way too small! So, I cut some 1/32” square stripwood to insert as trim at the front of the window openings. I painted the trim with Yellow Ochre before gluing in place. I also painted the window frames. Cut pieces of plastic packaging to size to fit in the back of the window openings like glass. Used a touch of CA glue to sandwich the undersized window frames between the trim and the “glass”. Painted the back of the windows a Light Gray that I had left over from Bluenose. I decided it was simpler and pleasing, at least to my eye, to make all the windows instead of the dummy in the middle. Meanwhile, I was working on the transom carving. I did a lot of prep work before painting. I washed it in an ultrasonic jewelry bath (I actually do this with all the brittania metal). Then I polished it with the Dremel. I still did not like the overruns of metal all over the piece. So, I used a small carving burr in the Dremel and drilled out most of the excess metal. I think this turned out pretty well. I had planned to do a 2-step with acrylic paint over enamel and a rubbing alcohol wash to expose the scrollwork. I read about others doing it this way. I painted the entire piece with brass enamel. But then I decided to simply paint the blue background with a super fine brush under my magnifying glass/light. This worked quite well. I was able to wipe off any blue that got on the scrollwork with a damp dental swab! For the ship’s name, I really liked the way builder Dziadeczek used a sign board. I cut a 1/8” x 3/32” x 1.5” plank & painted it yellow ochre. I used clear laserjet decal paper w/ black lettering for the ship name. I applied 3 coats of Micro-Sol to help dissolve some of the decal material. I needed to do something with the empty gap below the transom carving. So, I painted a single wider molding strip at the bottom of the transom. Painted it Ultramarine Blue. The name plank was glued between this molding and the windows. This molding covers the space below the carving. Finally, inserted a pair of 1/32” molding strips between the name plank and the transom carving on either side. Used a rubber band to hold the finished piece in place to see what it looks like. I also installed the transom beam across the transom supports. I'm not sure when I’m going to actually attach the transom to the stern. Probably just before planking the bulwarks or when it becomes necessary to continue with the upper hull. Next step is to install the waterway.

Stage B: Upper Hull – Planking & Deck Details Step 12: Knightheads & Timberheads I completed a couple of more steps with my Rattlesnake build by installing the Knightheads & Timberheads. From the plans it looks like these are about the size of a hull plank. I see that some builders use heavier pieces of stripwood to provide more support for the hull planks as they curve around the bow. I decided to follow this plan, but I don’t want to go too crazy. I kind of stumbled onto using the center posts leftover on the thick set for the bulkheads. Standing sideways the 3/32” depth is good with the lasercut Foc’sl railings. I cut 4 of these off and installed them. I used the Dremel with a cutting burr to draw the cut down the filler block at the right depth. Finished with files & sanding sticks to square up the hole. I’m going to wait until I’m ready to install the railing before gluing the pieces in place. I foresee some adjustments being required to line everything up. NOTE: I did not consider the fact that a cannon gunport needs to fit between bulkhead A and the knightheads. Fortunately, I unwittingly left enough room for this! I did use the blueprint plan and some dividers to space them out. I may leave these two gunports closed anyway. Step 13: Install Inboard & Outboard Transom Supports Next up is the Inboard & Outboard transom supports. These are provided as lasercut parts. My inboard supports were too short to reach the end of the counter block. I saw in someone’s Rattlesnake log they had the same issue and used a piece of scrap wood to extend the supports so they would fit. I'm not too shy to "borrow" a good idea! Everything got glued in place with Weldbond. I was afraid that the Outboard Supports just hanging from the edge of BHD M would be a bit flimsy. So, I decided to insert a piece of beveled stripwood on the inside to provide additional support. This also helped me to align the supports along the edge of the counter more easily. The bottom edge was sanded to match the angle of bhd M. I also beveled the top edge as indicated on the plans. Additional sanding was performed to get the transom to fit flush against the counter and the four supports. Also, smoothed the transition from the bottom edge of the supports into the sides of the counter block. I have not seen this anywhere, but I beveled under the notches to allow the transom to fit flush up to it. I’ve already started working on the transom and transom carving. It has been a real challenge to get everything to fit properly!! Thanks to my support team out there, I’m making progress now. Pictures to follow!

Welcome aboard Chuck

Yes! I learned that with my Bluenose. You have to be really careful when looking at the blueprint plans. Some are to scale, some are "pictorial" only and others are double the scale to show detail better. I highlight those notes on my plans so I don't get them confused!!

Thanks Everyone for your replies. Dave, thanks for the additional pics. My transom actually matches the plan drawing pretty closely. I see that your transom carving reaches from the top to the bottom of the laser-cut transom. Mine simply comes up short! There's not enough metal!! Weird. Jim, thanks for your input. I am going to fit it to the top, as you recommended, and deal with the gap at the bottom. Not sure how. I've seen a couple of older builds, like Bill Campbell, where he just left the space blank. If I can carve a decent looking trim piece, I will use it. Otherwise, I may just leave the transom painted at the bottom. Stay tuned!

OK Guys! I have a question for you all. My Transom Carving does not cover the top to bottom length of the laser cut transom. It is too short! With fear and trembling I managed to successfully pull the ends of the carving outward, using my hands, to fit the width of the the transom. I used a sanding stick to trim the edges to fit the carving. But, as I'm looking at the carving laying on the transom it's not tall enough!! Should I fit it at the top?? (Which is what I did when I was stretching it open) Then leave the bottom with just the wood? Or should I position it so it's even with the bottom of the transom and sand off the extra wood that shows at the top? Here are pictures showing these 2 options. I've never heard anyone complain about this fit. Has anyone else run into this? Option 1: Carving postioned at the top with wood showing below Option 2: Carving postioned flush with the bottom and extra wood at the top. Note the window openings are a little cramped like this. I would appreciate any input. Also, my windows are significantly smaller than the holes in the transom. I know this is a common problem. I saw one suggestion that if you are planking the transom, which I plan to do, over lap the hole a bit and set the windows against the planks. I think it would be difficult to get an even overlap of planking around each of these windows! Maybe some 1/32" trim on the outboard edges? What did you guys do? Thanks, Ed

John, your Rattlesnake is coming along beautifully! I did full length planks on my Bluenose. But I did not use the "Belt" method for trimming the planks width-wise. I forced in some stealers at the end. I am going to try to do a full blown planking job on my Ratt. However, I think I will slip in a full length strake every now and then to help align the butted ones better. At the end, a really good sanding & painting job covers a lot of sins however!! I'm following your build now! Thanks, Ed

Hi John, I've read through your build log a while back and took a lot of good information from it. I made notes from you and JPett about the inboard bulkhead fairing. I might not have picked up on that otherwise. Welcome to the party! Glad to have you aboard. Let me know when any other pearls of wisdom come to mind. I will be following your build as well. Looks like you are getting close to completing planking. Looks great! Thanks, Ed

Thanks Dave! Hope you have a great time on your vacation. If you're on the Big island, watch out for molten lava flowing down the road!! Haven't had as much hobby time the past couple of weeks. Busy with family stuff this time of year. But, that's no problem...its not a hobby if you're in a hurry, right? Safe travels, Ed

Step 11: Fairing the Hull I completed Step 11 in my build procedure over the last couple of days. This concludes what I call Stage A: FRAMING the HULL. Step 11 consists of checking over the bulkheads and then fairing (sanding) the BHD edges to get a flat surface for the planks to be glued on. Here are the individual tasks I completed in this step. Step 11: Check every BHD and then Fair the hull a. Bearding Line – make sure it’s deep enough all the way around. Test fit planks including the Garboard strake b. Make sure BHD’s are at the right length and do not run past the bearding line c. Bow & Stern Blocks – sand and add wood filler as needed to get a smooth transition at both ends d. Attach test Battens to see where BHD’s need sanding or shimming e. Shim & sand the Quarterdeck and Forecastle deck so they are aligned under a straightedge f. Do a final sanding (FAIR the hull) by doing the BHD’s & filler blocks all together Here is what the Bearding Line looks like on both sides of the ship. I had to make the cut a little deeper at the keel in a several spots. The Bulkheads looked pretty good here with only a little sanding required I had added another filler block behind BHD A to help make the curve into the bow easier for planking. I put a bunch of wood filler in some gaps there. I sanded everything down. There are still a few holes, but I think there is enough surface that these will not be a problem. I marked the location of the A, B & C planking belts. I attached test battens to see where there were bumps or dips. The bulkheads mostly required shimming in a number of spots. These got sanded smooth along with the BHD’s at the bow & stern where they need to be angled. Example of a shim glued to one of the BHD’s and the faired frame P/S Finally, I added a lot of shims on the quarterdeck and the forecastle deck. I did not attempt to make the height at the tops of these bulkheads equal. I studied & measured the plans and it seems to me that there is a definite slope on both of these decks toward the midship (BHD G). I shimmed and sanded until my straight edge lay flat across all the BHD’s. I hope I haven’t screwed the whole model up, but I had to go with my gut on this one!! Quarterdeck after shimming and sanding. The center bubble on the level shows the slope toward midship. Please give me your comments or suggestions! I’m on to STAGE B: Upper Hull Planking and Deck Details

Hi Dave, good to hear you are doing well health wise. And also glad to see you back at it with your Bluenose. I like the jigs you made to cut the mast tenons and cheeks. Wish I'd thought of that when I was doing mine. Keep up the good work! Ed

Dave, are you using an air brush or regular paint brush? If air, make sure you buy paint made for an air brush. I've had trouble with paint flow otherwise. I did not like the ME paints I got for my Bluenose. I used Vallejo paints, either their Model Air or Model Color paint. Had good results with them. You can buy most of these singly on Amazon. I purchased Model Air "Off White" for the lower hull. I kind of like the "tallow" color look together with the yellow ochre and black above. So, I guess everyone has their own eye for color!!

Hi Dave, I put the boys on a sandpaper diet this afternoon and took a couple of pics of the results. I tried to get a good angle so you can see the profile. Do they look any better? My double-faced tape isn't holding the starboard side too well. I took a lot more wood off, but not sure you can tell from these pics. Also, I identified the wrong build log earlier. The pictures I liked were by Dimitry Markov from Moscow. He had a really nice looking Ratt build going, but his last post was in April of 2021. He took some good pictures! Too bad he didn't continue.

Thanks for the feedback Dave! I thought they looked a little fat too, but don't want to take too much off either. You can't put it back! I was looking at the log by Divarty last night. He has a lot of nice pictures of the planked stern. As long as he's done it well. It looks good to me. Enjoy your time in Hawaii. I'm jealous!

Step 10: Carving the Stern Filler Blocks I found that carving these filler blocks was hard to do!! I traced the initial shape from cutouts off the plans and then used a coping saw/mini-vise to cut off a few chunks of the excess wood. Thank goodness I bought a Dremel! I raised clouds of sawdust with the 60 grit sanding drum getting these pieces into shape. The pictures below show the filler blocks just double-face taped to BHD M. I don’t know how much more sanding I need to do to allow the planks to bend around this curve! I think I’m going to have to soak a plank to see if I can get it to bend without breaking. I’d appreciate any comments/advice from everyone. Do I need to take more wood off?

Step 9: Carving the Counter Block Carving the counter block wasn’t too difficult. I paid attention to what others have written in their logs. Make sure the block is long enough to reach from BHD M to the top of the curve in the sternpost. Be sure to create the slight curve which makes the transom bend slightly around the stern. I started with cutouts from the plans to pencil in the initial shape on the sides and top of the block. I left some extra wood for sanding down to the correct size. I used my mini-vise to hold the piece. I wrapped sandpaper around a couple of different sizes of pvc pipe to get the curved shape across the block. I used a larger one (~1-1/2” OD) for the initial shape. I found that a smaller 1-inch pipe allowed me to get the depth of the curve a little deeper in the middle. I used 80 grit to start and 120 to finish. Carving the angle on the top edge was a little tricky. I’ve done quite a bit more sanding and shaping since these initial pictures were taken. The final shaping will be done when I fair the bulkheads.

Dave, I'm not quite ready for the transom, but when I did a quick test fit with the carving, mine looks just like yours! I read someone's log where they put the metal in boiling water and then bent it open to fit!! I'm not looking forward to this step! My lower right inside edge looks even more gnarly then yours. I don't know how to fix that either. Maybe a metal shaping bitt on the Dremel? I'll be watching with interest to see how you proceed with yours.

Step 7: Cover the Mast Slots Step 8: Carve Bow Fillers, Full size filler for A-B & Add BHD support blocks I just completed Steps 7 & 8 according to my plan. Step 6 was to glue in the bulkheads. I did that previously, but failed to identify it as such with the pictures. First I covered the mast slots before I added the support blocks. You can see the repair I had to do to replace the broken piece in front of the Foremast in the last pic. In order to stiffen the hull frame before I did any Fairing, I inserted support blocks between each BHD. I measured the space between each BHD as precisely as possible using my digital caliper and cut lengths of 3/8" x 1/4" basswood pieces. These were glued in between each BHD. I checked and double checked to make sure the 90 degree angle was maintained on both sides of the keel to avoid creating a banana shaped hull! At this time I also carved the Bow Filler Blocks that sit in front of BHD A. I used copies of the top and side views for these pieces from the plans. I traced these shapes onto the wood blocks provided in the kit. I used a combination of razor saw and coping saw to rough cut the shape and then finished with a 120 grit sanding drum & the Dremel for the final shape. I'm not totally delighted with the results, but I think I will be able to fine tune their shape during fairing. I think I'm going to need a little wood filler too. Afterwards I made a full size block to fit between BHD's A-B to provide more surface area for gluing planks around the bow. These 4 pieces will be glued in before fairing. I plan to use test battens to see where BHD's need to be shimmed or sanded as I'm fairing. The next step, Step 9, is to carve the Counter Block behind BHD M. I'm a little nervous about this step as it seems that a lot of other pieces depend on the shape of the counter to be correct! I'll happily accept any advice from the Rattlesnake seasoned veterans!

Hi Allan - Based on your input, I tapered and rounded off what is identified as the Stem in the Rattlesnake instructions/plans all the way up to the top. This is the area identified as the Bobstay in your drawing. I might shorten the part that sits in front of the figurehead a little bit further to expose more of his upper body. I'm afraid to taper that area all the way down. I think this will affect the bobstay which fits through the hole at the shin of the figure. Here are a couple of new pics. It's hard to get a good shot of the taper head on. I appreciate all of the detail you have provided on this section of the ship. Thanks, Ed