Greg M

Great job Frank. She's looking good. Where did you get the table and figure? It's a nice addition.

The detail on the QG's is really impressive. The advances in this hobby over the last 10 years have been pretty amazing. Is the molding over the top laser cut cedar? It must be incredibly thin and fragile.

Thanks JJ. Now that the plywood is almost completely covered, it feels like I finally have cleared the trough of despair. The spirketting and the planks above the gunports were installed and the most obvious gaps puttied. It’s already a huge improvement. I used 3/128” plqnks for the second layer of spirketting. The thinnest I’ve been able to consistently mill wood with a slitting blade is 1/32”, but I found using the metal sanding block that came with the Sand-It tool, double sided tape and a hard surface were all I needed to get uniform planks. The Sand-It tool is rubbish, but the sanding block has a little bit of a recess for the sandpaper and taping a few 1/32” planks down to my workbench and sanding until there was no wobble on the block gave a consistent 3/128” plank. I also spent some time making sure the waist was consistently narrower than a 5/16" plank. I measured for the panels and planked up to the point where they will meet so I won’t have to worry about errant brushstrokes once I start painting. I cleaned up and painted the gunports then applied a coat of Vallejo Model Color Flat Red to the bulwarks. I looked for any seams that were still visible at all and puttied those, then sanded with 220 grit. After applying a 2nd coat of paint, I gave a light sanding with 320 grit sandpaper to knock down any raised grain, then applied a 3rd topcoat of paint followed with a coat of WOP. I’m glad I applied the WOP now and not after the panels were in place as there was a bit of paint transfer that would have made a mess on the panels. Onward to the panels.

Really nice work with the scrapers and being able to get the profile right. It seems a lot more intimidating at first than it turns out to be.

She looks wonderful.

Thanks a lot Frank. Appreciate the encouragement.

So many amazing little details that really make this pop. Looking forward to Chapter 3.

Thank You everyone for the likes. I debated whether to take pictures at all until the bulwarks were planked and painted as I knew the work in progress on this is going to be messy. Aircraft plywood is definitely off my list of modelling materials as fairing the bulwarks to the degree needed is next to impossible . At least at the stern and bow there was enough access to use a Dremel , but the waist below the gunports required a mix of hand sanding and chiseling making it very difficult to get a clean run. For the spirketting, I installed the 1/4” top piece first in short segments (typically 2 gunports long). After that, I installed the lower piece with 3/16” except at the ends where 7/32” worked well. There were also areas where I need to shim the frames as I had undercut them so much. There’s a lot of gaps in the first layer, but my goal is just to set up for the second layer. Once I finished the first layer of spirketting, I tackled the port side first and started planking from the stern and working my way forward. Due my fairing difficulties, I measured for the caprail at the waist and need to be extra careful to make it too chunky. The plank under the clamp from just aft of the fixed block forward is 1/32” thick and the fixed black has a 1/64” shim under it. This creates a little ledge and will make it easier to get a thinner plank for the 2nd layer. I test fit the panels to make sure they would fit ok. I worked my way around and finished up on the Starboard side and didn't have any difficulties. The port bow was straightforward. The area between the forward most gunport and bollards needed extra care, but I went slowly and kept test fitting the clamp and measuring until everything lined up properly. The thinner plank under the clamp really shows. The starboard side was tough getting the clamp to perfectly line up at the bowsprit; ugly planking and all. I found fully painting the bollards black helped with eyeball math. I had a moment where I thought I really made a mess of it when I noticed that I hadn’t glued the bollards in securely enough. Before getting too far on the starboard side there was enough spring left in the clamp to have pushed them forward a bit. Carefully cutting the clamp and plank below it was enough to relieve the pressure and allow me to glue it back up in the proper position. I brought the Winnie outside to clean the bulwarks up. A pen sander with 120 grit took care of a rough fairing of the bulwarks. I sanded all the high points off the spirketting and smoothed out the planking between the gunports. I didn’t touch the clamp or plank below it other than where it will be covered by the panelling. A better shot of the light touch above and below the gunports and the heavy touch between the gunports. My next step is going to be to clean up and paint the gunports and the bulwarks between them. There are a few gunports that need some filler and they all need a couple coats of paint. I also want to take a trip to Chapter 7 and test fit the deck beams now. I glued the starboard clamps with small dots at each frame, so I can pop them off still and make adjustments if need be. I did some tests for level with a few planks at different points and I’m sure they’ll be fine, but if I wait until I get to Chapter 7, I’m sure they’ll have magically moved.

Looking really nice. Your planking looks awesome.

I had plenty of off cuts leftover from planking that just needing a trim so installing the subdecks went extremely quickly. The supports between the bulkheads all needed to be trimmed about 1/16” so instead of making a best guess how much to trim at each end, I decided to fit the decks at the same time as the companionways. First order of business was to find the centerline. I centered a pin as close to the bow and the sternpost as possible. I then put a small loop in a piece of string and put it over the bow pin. I made a much larger loop in the other end of the string and put it over the pin at the stern. Finally, cutting the hole for the rudder helped here as I fed the end of the stern loop through it and then applied tension to it. This gave me a nice line where the string was centered on the pin rather than wrapping around one side of it. I used the machinist square to mark the center point every few frames and the ruler to connect these marks. I have a straight line down the center that I could key the deck pieces off. I made my final adjustments to the false deck and then installed the 2 pieces at the bow. I found the false decks was shifting a little bit when I was trying to take measurements for the beams and installing those pieces ensured there was no movement and it made tweaking the beams easy. The forward companionway went extremely smoothly. I cleaned out the mortises and taped the beams together before cutting and everything was square up and centered on the first try. I then faired it and installed the center decking (which I forgot to take a picture and this is the final test fitting of the deck before fairing and glueing it down). I repeated this process with the stern companionway. This one had a small issue with the aft most beam and required some tweaking to the starboard mortis to get it to seat properly. The photo is before tweaking and really just involved scraping the mortis a little more. After adjusting the aft beam and making sure everything was square, I then faired it and installed the final deck pieces. The aft companionway is about 1/64" off center, but everything else looks fine. I assembled the coamings and the aft one requires just a very small adjustment. I’m not going to touch the opening where the grating will sit. I’m looking forward to getting the inside of the bulwarks planked as I really struggled with fairing the inside of the frames and twice got so frustrated that I quit for long periods of time. The inside of the bulwarks are a bit of a mess and there’s going to be some additional fairing especially under the gunports, so for the first layer of spirketting, I think I’m going to focus on small sections under the gunports of just a couple frames at a time.

Looking really good Frank.

Those carvings are fantastic and including the scraper is genius.

Thanks guys. Definitely don't want to take too long a break this time around. I started Chapter 3 on May 12, 2021, so I'm thinking taking today and tomorrow off.

Chapter 3 is now officially in the books. There were definitely a few moments when finishing up the transom that I thought I was about to ruin it or I had messed up real bad. There are also some mistakes I wish I could take back and details I wish I had done a better job on, but it still feels like a bit of an accomplishment getting through the chapter. Without further ado; I painted up the transom with a mix of 1 part Vallejo Flat Blue to 2 parts Vallejo Blue Green. I also took the time when I painted the gunports red to paint the the inside of the transom that gets done in Chapter 7. The molding installed without too much difficulty. Cleaning it up was pretty time consuming, but so much easier than trying to scrape and bend it myself. I’m also pretty impressed with how well gel stain works on the resin. I was pretty skeptical, but the overall results are pretty amazing. I’ve painted up a fair number of resin miniatures and have had my share of paint adherence issues even when primed. Not needing to prime or paint and seal is pretty awesome. The only downside is you can’t use green stuff or any filler to fix mistake. Green stuff would have been helpful with the scrollwork in the cove due to the seam, but that’s the only piece that would have benefitted from traditional paint and primer. I also used this opportunity to drill a 1/16” hole for the lantern in the casting between the gunports. At least I won’t have to worry about marring the carving in the final step of the build. Between the resin dust, stain fumes and fine sanding, I picked up a portable ventilation system and the attached magnetic work lamp. It’s working great with all the sanding and char removal in this chapter; plus resin dust is no joke. The work lamp really improved my spot lighting situation and helped find all the little strands of q-tip that got stuck in the carvings when I was removing the excess stain. I started by installing the drop and qgallery figures. I will need to do some cleanup on the edges of the transom above the figure on both sides, but there’s no rush for this. Port side I tacked up the wreaths and the center carving and removed them after installing the cove. It’s a lot easier to remove any excess glue and touch up the paint without the moldings in place. A thin batten under the cove helped ensure the placement of the rest of the molding. I discovered this after installing the starboard side and having to go back and rip out and replace the port side molding. The rest of the molding is in place. I couldn’t figure out a good way to notch the sitting carvings and get them to lie flat, so I opted to carefully carve out the cove. I must have made a mistake with my cove and it was too thick overall. It’s not ideal, but it looks fine once the rest of the carvings are in place. I still need to thin out the trident. Carvings are all installed. Getting close to the end. And we’ve come to the end. I am a bit confused by the 2 carvings on the pillars as they seem taller and sit higher than the ones in the prototype. Regardless, I’m happy with the way it came out. I think I’m going to take a couple days off before attacking Chapter 4.

Thanks Ronald and Steve. Chapter 3 is fascinating, because there have been so many firsts and so many challenges that make you think outside of the box. It's an amazing confidence builder and I think I finally had that moment of realization a week or so ago that the build is going to turn out alright. I hope the details I posted might help you avoid a few of the challenges I had along the way .