AnobiumPunctatum

Very sorry to hear this.
Your log was a great inspiration and helpd me a lot in the last year to find my way. To much perfectionism is also bad, You will never be satisfied with the result of your build. This was/is my biggest problem. Your log helped me to come out of this spiral and I found the fun on building a ship model. Thanks for this.
   

Here is some of my latest work. Haven't quite sanded the inside edge much. Once I pick up my full size plans from the print shop I'll get the joints tight.

Sorry Peter...but we have been taken to the cleaners before.  This is not what the project was created for.  No reason to redraft the plans.  Then the arguments begin about who owns the redrafted plans....it just gets ugly.   Folks seeing the parts take shape and asking you privately to sell them the pieces.   Putting you and the site in an awkward position.  It happens all the time.   We already have other sites distributing the plans to its members after they signed up here for them and the funny thing is they arent continuing the logs here.  Instead they continue them on other european sites along with others who now have the plans.
 
Its just not right and this is an unusual request beyond the scope of what the project was intended for.  The project was started to allow folks to learn how to make the parts by hand using various means.   Not have them laser cut or milled  and the plans redrawn.
 
Sorry,   we mean no ill-will but as others have said.  Simply get a set of plans from the NMM and make something  electronically.  I am actually doing the same as well.  You will learn a lot more about lofting frames and such rather than just copy what is already drafted by someone else.  In addition the plans are only given to folks who have shown they have built the keel and other parts initially.  Just redrawing them doesnt count.  Chris only has two posts on the site and none since attempting to get the plans.  That is also a red flag.  No interest shown in the other logs or other areas of the site or our members.  Look at it from our perspective.   We dont know you at all.
 
 
 
Chuck

Very sorry to hear this.
Your log was a great inspiration and helpd me a lot in the last year to find my way. To much perfectionism is also bad, You will never be satisfied with the result of your build. This was/is my biggest problem. Your log helped me to come out of this spiral and I found the fun on building a ship model. Thanks for this.
   

After the drawing works it was time to make sawdust.
 
First part is the keel, which is a little bit tricky. The keel has a light curvature and the joints are perpendicular to the base line.
I cut some small stripes with my cirular saw, make the joints and glue the parts together. Next I added the parts for the stem.
The picture shows the step on the building board. I use Tamiya Tape to avoid that the keel glues on the paper during the build.

 
The next pictures show the complete assembled backbone for the small vessel,

 
the stem with with the changed layout of the parts,

 
the keel and the rising wood,

 
and the stern post with the after deadwood.

 
The next steps are cutting the rabbet, the keelson and the building board. Then I can start with the frames.
 

Really brilliant, Remco. I love your stove

Well done. It's a really wonderful little model.

Hello everyone,
 
This is my very first model ship build and I am very happy to be posting it on MSW. I'm finding out that model ship builds are quite unique and challenging. You don't have to try it first to know that. Just reading the build logs on MSW is enough. There is a lot to learn for sure. I chose the Longboat because it seemed like a good place to start as a first build. I have read every build log for this boat and I just want to say what a great job everyone has done. I have learned a lot and I would appreciate any help or suggestions that you might have as I move ahead.
 
Using very thin plastic tape which goes around curves easily, I was able to sand away without going past the bearding line. A few strokes after removing the tape finishes the work. I used 1/4" tape but somehow I lost the package. See below for the same product but a different width.
 
         

 
A simple way to line up the bulkheads square to the false keel. The bulkhead tops were aligned by eye after the first one was squared in both directions. I found that using Elmers Carpenters Wood Glue gave me approximately 5 minutes to check things over both ways before the glue started to set. Since it is water based I sanded a tad more clearance between the bulkheads and false keel to allow for swelling.
 

 
I will use this sticky back sandpaper and a "T" sanding block made from 1/8" balsa to fair the hull. I Left the transom off for now.

 
I found that close pins worked fine here without any worry of creating dents.
 

 
Made this template from balsa to mark location of the shear line which turned out to be inaccurate. One strake ended up slightly lower than the other. At the time I went with it anyway.
 

 
Shear strakes in place.

 
Garboard planks installed
 

 
Lesson learned. . .never try and build when you are sick, coughing and medicated. After ten days and 75% of the planking completed I started to realize that the front end was not going to close up properly with the last plank. The first mistake was tapering the garboard plank too abruptly. Not only were all subsequent planks a nightmare to edge bend at such an extreme curve but doing so prevented each plank from going forward enough to fill in the bow area, I think. Also, Chuck pointed out that I tapered the second plank down from the shear line to nearly a point at 1/64" when I should have only removed 1/64" to produce a very slight taper instead. Really dumb as I misread the instructions.
 

 
Frustrated and wanting to kick myself, but not one to give up easily, I carefully removed all the planks as well as the keel and stem. The kit provides an extra set of these. To be honest I didn't know that I would be successful tearing everything down but it all worked out fine. I'm glad I used Elmers Carpenters glue and not CA.
 
Here you can see the new garboard plank with a much more gradual taper. As described in Bob F's log, http://modelshipworld.com/index.php?/topic/1465-18th-century-longboat-by-bobf-ms-148-tri-club/page-2, I transferred a tick mark to each bulkhead.


 
Shear strake and following strake installed. This time I tapered the second strake just a bit as per Chuck's instructions. Shot was taken at and angle giving a distorted few of the other side of the boat.
 

 
Thanks again to Bob F. and Chuck for all your help!
 
Finally! for what seemed like forever, the planking is finished and 95% sanded. Prior to sanding I used these. . http://www.woodcraft.com/Product/2020022/19046/Curved-Scraper-Set-of-4.aspx. . which I found very useful. They allow the removal of just the high spots thus saving as much plank thickness as possible. I suggest that anyone doing the Longboat should read Bob F's log. . . http://modelshipworld.com/index.php?/topic/1465-18th-century-longboat-by-bobf-ms-148-tri-club/?hl=%2018th%20%20century%20%20longboat. . . which contains very useful tips and how to's on planking the longboat from both his initial comments as well as his comments from the dialog he and I had on page 8. I did the planking with 11 strakes which worked out well. I had thought that I would have to taper the strakes at the stem to almost 1/16" but that turned out not to be the case. The most I had to reduce each plank by was no more than around .030. I found the last plank on each side to be the most difficult to make since it had to fit between 2 planks. I tried spiling them but the angles and curves made it difficult to do. Perhaps there is an article on MSW on the best way to do this.

John and Elia, thank you for your kind comments.  Thanks for all the Likes as well.  A little more has been accomplished this weekend.  I have applied the finish to the pantry.  Beam set 14 has been installed and beam set 15 is in progess.  The middle carlings are larger to support the capstain partner.  Unlike the carlings for the mast partners, this piece is installed like a regular carling (ie from on top) rather than under the beam.
 
 

 
 

Young America - extreme clipper 1853
Part 38 – Stern Timbering 2
 
After setting the eight stern timbers, chocks were installed between them in scores at the “knuckle” where the timbers change direction upwards.
 

 
This knuckle gradually smoothes out into a curve in the cant frames section.  The assembly has not been sanded at this stage.  Some sanding has been done in the next picture, which shows all of chocks installed.
 

 
With this work complete, the cant framing was continued forward.  The next picture shows the method used for final beveling the frames before setting.
 

 
The first step in this process was to rough shape the frames on the disk and spindle sander.  Fine cut rasps and a #0 cut half round file were used to trim the frames right back to the lines on each face of the patterns on each side.  All this work could be done by hand, but the power tools save time.
 
In the next picture frame 47 has been installed on the starboard side and its port counterpart is being fitted on the port side using a template.
 

 
These templates were very easy to make by creating a view of the three profiles on the CAD worksheet for the cant frame.  They were then printed on heavy presentation paper and cut out with a knife.  This eliminated pasting to heavier stock and cutting on the scroll saw.  That was the method I had used previously.
 
The next picture shows the gluing up of the above frame.
 

 
The stern template and two clamps hold the frame in position.  In the next picture the next frame, #46 is clamped and glued on the starboard side. 
 

 
The next picture shows a closeup of the foot of the frame and the clamping.
 

 
The wet areas on the wood are from washing off the excess glue. 
 
In the next picture a knuckle chock has been installed between frames 48 and 47 on the starboard side and its counterpart is being glued in on the port side.
 

 
And so it goes.
 
 Ed

Oh that feels great ...
 
... after being off for that many weeks - job, holiday, job - now back on the drug ...
 
... back in the shipyard again :-)
 
I already showed the carving ...
 
 
 
... I tried long to finally find the right way to display those tendrils on the supports of the side entry port canopy. Positive carving, modeling with clay - nothing worked.
 
Then the idea to carve it in the negative way ...
 

 
... and have a thin cast and glue it together :-)
 
Here the family juwels:
 

 
Left bottom the old casted parts from the carved styrene carvings of the ones on my model. Left top sculpted with Magic Sculpt - not successful - , then the negativ carvings with a thin cast, below left the first test and right the improved carving with the thin face side sculted with Magic Sculpt and right the final casts and black the final cast with primer :-)
 
From near it looks like this:
 

 
And with some paint it is near what i wanted to achieve ...
 

 
... then the small crown underneath the canopy with its flags ...
 

 
... both parts together ...
 

 
... feels good :-)
 
Now just the new canopy ...
 
Cheers, Daniel

My holidays are over so the progress is much slower than before.
 
I did the keelson before building the frames. So it is in my opinion much easier to adjust it with the fore and after deadwood.

 
Before glueing the keelson on the backbone It take a long time. All frames have to be installed first.
 
Today I worked on my first frame. It took quite long to find my way to build the frame. The result is not perfect, but I think doing the next frames will be much easier and faster. If it's interesting for someone I will do a step by step description from building one of the next frames.

Randall,
 
these differences are quite normal. If you print out the parts on your deskjet, you will see that it makes a difference if you use landscape or portrait format.
They are very small (0.1) and are up to the manufacturing process of the paper. Another source of the porblem is the thikness of the line. If I remember right they are about 0.25mm. If you saw out a part and sand to the correct size, you see normally more than the half of the line.
 
0.25mm in sum are very small but if you glue more than one part together your get very quick a difference of 1 mm and more. I didn't count how many deadwoods I have casted off until I understand how to work with these problems:
 
Try to use allways the same paper and paper direction and sand your parts until the whole line is nearly invisble. And the rest is handcraft - so small differences are totally normal.

My holidays are over so the progress is much slower than before.
 
I did the keelson before building the frames. So it is in my opinion much easier to adjust it with the fore and after deadwood.

 
Before glueing the keelson on the backbone It take a long time. All frames have to be installed first.
 
Today I worked on my first frame. It took quite long to find my way to build the frame. The result is not perfect, but I think doing the next frames will be much easier and faster. If it's interesting for someone I will do a step by step description from building one of the next frames.

My holidays are over so the progress is much slower than before.
 
I did the keelson before building the frames. So it is in my opinion much easier to adjust it with the fore and after deadwood.

 
Before glueing the keelson on the backbone It take a long time. All frames have to be installed first.
 
Today I worked on my first frame. It took quite long to find my way to build the frame. The result is not perfect, but I think doing the next frames will be much easier and faster. If it's interesting for someone I will do a step by step description from building one of the next frames.

My holidays are over so the progress is much slower than before.
 
I did the keelson before building the frames. So it is in my opinion much easier to adjust it with the fore and after deadwood.

 
Before glueing the keelson on the backbone It take a long time. All frames have to be installed first.
 
Today I worked on my first frame. It took quite long to find my way to build the frame. The result is not perfect, but I think doing the next frames will be much easier and faster. If it's interesting for someone I will do a step by step description from building one of the next frames.

After the drawing works it was time to make sawdust.
 
First part is the keel, which is a little bit tricky. The keel has a light curvature and the joints are perpendicular to the base line.
I cut some small stripes with my cirular saw, make the joints and glue the parts together. Next I added the parts for the stem.
The picture shows the step on the building board. I use Tamiya Tape to avoid that the keel glues on the paper during the build.

 
The next pictures show the complete assembled backbone for the small vessel,

 
the stem with with the changed layout of the parts,

 
the keel and the rising wood,

 
and the stern post with the after deadwood.

 
The next steps are cutting the rabbet, the keelson and the building board. Then I can start with the frames.
 

My holidays are over so the progress is much slower than before.
 
I did the keelson before building the frames. So it is in my opinion much easier to adjust it with the fore and after deadwood.

 
Before glueing the keelson on the backbone It take a long time. All frames have to be installed first.
 
Today I worked on my first frame. It took quite long to find my way to build the frame. The result is not perfect, but I think doing the next frames will be much easier and faster. If it's interesting for someone I will do a step by step description from building one of the next frames.

Hello friends.
Fitted deck beams provisionally loose
from the Upper Deck  /  Quarter Deck.
 
Karl
 
 
 
 
T e i l   4 0

My holidays are over so the progress is much slower than before.
 
I did the keelson before building the frames. So it is in my opinion much easier to adjust it with the fore and after deadwood.

 
Before glueing the keelson on the backbone It take a long time. All frames have to be installed first.
 
Today I worked on my first frame. It took quite long to find my way to build the frame. The result is not perfect, but I think doing the next frames will be much easier and faster. If it's interesting for someone I will do a step by step description from building one of the next frames.

I was really suprised that I did not find a build log about the Naval Cutter Alert on MSW 2.0. I know that there exist some pictures of a model on the old MSW
 
The first source for building a model of this small vessel are Peter Goodwins book "The Naval Cutter Alert, 1777", published by PhoenixPublications Inc. 1991 and the two original drawing of her sister Rattlesnake (1776) which you will find on the homepage of the NMM.
There also exist two paintings of Joseph Marshall of the ship, which are exhibited in the Science Museum, London.
I found also an Sheer and Profile drawing of Alert which was published by the NRG.
 
The sheer and profile of the NRG and Goodwin differ from the original drawing. They show the maximum width of the ship not at frame 0. Perhaps my Engish is to bad, but I could not find any reason for this. So I decide to draw my own lines. which were based on Goodwin and the original drawing.

 
The drawing is not finished, because I decided only to draw what I need for my build.
 
Next step was the keel. Goodwin shows for the pass between keel and lower apron a solution which I could not find on any original cutter drawings.

 
For the after deadwood he does not offer any possible solution

 
I decide to follow the original drawing of Cheerful 1806 for the pass between keel and lower apron. The flat joint at the foremost keel part is shown on original drawings of this period (for example on HMS Triton). For the after deadwood I decided to use a bearing line. I am not sure if this is common for ships of this period.
The next picture shows my completed keel drawing:

 
Goodwin uses for his design the common frameing pattern of double and single frames. I am not sure that this design was used for the original ship. For the Swan class sloops only single frames were used. This you will also find on the drawing of Cheerful and other cutters. Also the wide of the frame parts are not clear. In his drawing he uses much smaller futtocks than he descibed in the text part of the book. In his "Construction and Fitting of Sailing Man of War" he gives a third solution.
What now? Alert is a practice model for me to get the experience to continue my HMS Fly build. Marshall shows on his paintings an simplified frameing design, so I decided to use this. Every frame is 8'' width followed by 8'' space. For the port side I like to show the clinker planking.
On my drawing the final design for the last frame and the hawse pieces is missing in the moment.

 
The drawings for every 31frames and 21cant frames are finished.

 
I am not sure in the moment if I will use the original practice with chocks or the simplified method of Harold Hahn for my build.
 
It will be very nice if you have further information about the cutters of this time. I found the Marmaduke Stalkartt on Google-books, but they didn't scan the plates. Perhaps one of the MSW user can help me to confirm my decisions.

Young America - extreme clipper 1853
Part 36 – Aftermost Cant Frames (#48)
 
The last picture in the previous posting showed the two aftermost cant frames being assembled.  The same pin indexing was used as discussed in previous posts.  After assembly the frames were beveled.  The first picture shows the deadwood mating surface on one of the pairs being beveled using the disk sander with the table set at the correct angle.  These angles are printed on each frame pattern from generated measurements on the CAD drawing.  They are very accurate and the disk sander reproduces them fairly effortlessly.
 

 
The next picture shows the joint bevel.
 

 
This picture was taken before the outer bevels or the shape at the bearding line were shaped.  The picture shows vertical lines on the pattern aft face that mark the scores for seating the three angled stern timbers that bolt to that side of this frame.
 
In the next picture the lines scores being cut with a razor saw.
 

 
There is also a horizontal score on the forward face of this frame at the “knuckle” of the of the aft hull shape that occurs roughly at the line of the wale.  Horizontal chocks will be inserted in these scores between frames to support the ends of the planking below the wale at the stern.  Similar chocks will be placed between the vertical timbers that shape the circular stern.  This will be clearer later when those timbers get installed.
 
The next picture shows the port frame in its initial fitting into the aft score on the deadwood – held by pins at future bolt locations. 
 

 
In the last part I showed a picture taken earlier with the two central stern timbers installed.  After about an hour of trying to fit the cant frame neatly against one of those and into the score I decided to install the cant frames first.  So the central stern timbers have been removed in these pictures.
 
The three vertical scores on the aft face can be seen in this picture.  The temporary ribband seen in this picture and its starboard counterpart were becoming increasing obstructive to all this work and were soon cut back and removed.
 
The next picture shows the installed frame pair.
 

 
The horizontal score on the forward face can be seen in this picture.
 
The next picture shows the starboard frame clamped for gluing.  The two central stern timbers are being held up in position in this picture.
 

 
To assist in fitting and installing the eight stern timbers that form the curve of the circular stern, a template was made to help with this.  It is shown in the next picture.
 

 
The plywood template is clamped tightly to the two “clamped squares”.  The height at the center of the stern and on each side at about frame 38 was set using the caliper shown in the picture.  The line slopes down slightly going forward.  The template was also horizontally aligned up from the base drawing using the square shown on the port side.  The template is fit over the two installed cant frames. One central timber is loosely fit into its notch in the template.
 
The next task is to loft, make and install the eight timbers that form the circular stern.
 
 
Ed

...

This is my first attempt at scratch building, having kit-bashed a number of models. I work as a Museum Guide at Plimoth Plantation, which includes Mayflower II. During the off-season, I work in the Marine shop, doing routine yearly maintenance. As such, I have access to the Mayflower as well as her shallop. I will be using plans by William Baker, the original Naval Architect of the Mayflower II in 1955. The scale is 1/24.
 
The vessel was a 33 foot work boat that could be rowed or sailed and was common in the17th century. The Pilgrims cut the vessel into four pieces and stowed them on the orlop deck, where the passengers lived. Upon arrival in Provincetown, the shallop was re-assembled and used to explore the inner arm of Cape Cod, eventually landing in Plimoth.
 
The pics show the plans and a building board. In the background is the almost finished mast.
 
At this point I'm waiting on wood from HobbyMill, due at the end of the month, so, that's all for now!

Thanks for the tip Mark, but it would have to be a VERY small chess set - the Crown is only 4mm high .
 
Pilasters
 
The final pieces of this jigsaw puzzle - the Pilasters. The first pieces I made were the Bases and Capitals. These were cut from a length of molded English Box :
 

 
The Columns were done in similar fashion, from long lengths of molded stock :
 

 
Some pics of the finished assembly ready for a coat of Minwax :
 

 

 

 
  Danny