AnobiumPunctatum

The stern castle of the "Kogge von Kampen" is based on a shipwreck which was found in Kamen Netherlands. It's showing an older type of a stern castle. I am quite shure, that the rest of the kit is based on "Kogge von Bremen"
The cog "Wütender Hund" shows in my opinion the classic cog also with a stem castle. It's a generic cog model. Most historical pictures are showing the stem castle. There is always a discussion, of the Bremen cog was finished before they got lost, because she don't has this.

Chuck, I had the same idea. The Hanse Kogge is a really good model of the cog wihch was excavated in Bremen. I think it's the best model of this shiptype you will find in the market. I own a book from the museum in Bremerhaven which contains all drawings they made during the excavation. The model matchs this drawings quite well.

Hi Clare,
 
thanks for your explanation.
 
 
Hmm, perhaps it's a goed idea to use colors which work with different dilutions. I have some Airbrush colors which work with alcohol and some oilcolors, I can try. WIth the actual crisis I have enough time at home to test.

Hi Clare,
 
I will follow your log with great interest. I have both cogs of shipyard in my stash and will start this weekend with the cog "Wütender Hund" ("Mad dog"). YOur log will be a fantastic help. Can you give little bit more information about painting the model. The hints in the description of shipyard are not really informative
 
Regards Christian

Unfortunately Goodwin's Alert volume has a number of issues, this being another that I hadn't picked up on before. As far as I know, the rove is what tightens up the connection as the nail point is hammered back over it. There is a leverage effect. Perhaps a search of clench construction online might - um - clinch the issue for you!

Here is a link to an article Roger wrote. There are hi-resolution photos and I'm betting you're not going to like what you see. But it's a beautiful model.
https://www.craftsmanshipmuseum.com/BuildingAlert.pdf
He also published articles in the NRJ regarding planking and coppering: “Clenched-lap Planking Over a Framed Hull,” Nautical Research Journal, Vol. 44, No. 4; and “Coppering a Clenched-lap Hull”, Nautical Research Journal, Vol. 45, No. 1.

Thanks for the article, Greg.  He obviously did not follow Goodwin's drawing.  
 
Happily, I only had four rows completed.  They are gone now.  I used so little CA to apply them that with some sanding, no glue marks have been left behind.  

I had a conversation with N. Roger some years ago around the time he was rigging Alert. He pointed out to me the inaccuracies and inconsistencies in Goodwin's book. Part of the issue, in his opinion, was that several artists had been involved in the illustration work. As an example, he said that the angle of the stern post is different in different drawings! I checked and, sure enough, this is so. The angle on pages 52, 58 and 84 is demonstrably greater than on pages 46, 56, 66 and 78.
 
I rest my case, m'lud.

Wonderfuk pictures of a beautyful model, Ben

Wonderfuk pictures of a beautyful model, Ben

Wonderfuk pictures of a beautyful model, Ben

Thanks Everyone,
 
Work on the upper deck aft framing is almost complete and I just have to tie it in with the Wing Transom now.
Then there are the five trickier mid sections to complete the upper deck.

@KrisWood if you haven't seen this, check it out: https://my.matterport.com/show/?m=x4xgpD8hUBj
 
The Oslo Museum of Cultural history has a 360 degree walk around of the Osberg ship exhibition space (Looks like the pictures were taken while they were scanning it a few years back). The pictures are very high resolution and you can see a lot of detail.

Hi Tony,
 
a really wonderful buildlog and a beautyful model. It was a pleasure to read through your log. The fashion piece is really tricky. It took me also a litttle time and some hints from druxey, until I understand how it works.

Hi Tony,
 
a really wonderful buildlog and a beautyful model. It was a pleasure to read through your log. The fashion piece is really tricky. It took me also a litttle time and some hints from druxey, until I understand how it works.

Hi Tony,
 
a really wonderful buildlog and a beautyful model. It was a pleasure to read through your log. The fashion piece is really tricky. It took me also a litttle time and some hints from druxey, until I understand how it works.

The fashion pieces are next.  As mentioned in a previous post, I did not realize that the model would require them.  I did not see any indication for them on the plan and the museum model was built without them.  Having been shown the error of my reasoning...  My construction technique would have been different.  At a minimum, I would have made the aft bulhead double to allow for the cutback of the hull planking. 
 
The fashion piece is very difficult to fabricate because of the compound curves.  Bending the wood with heat (both dry and wet) was unsuccessful.  They were carved from a solid blank of pear.  I drew the fore edge of the fashion piece onto the hull planking and using a chisel, removed the aft end of the planks.  As alluded to above, the width of the fashion piece was limited by the need to provide support for the hull planking. In the pictures, you can see the amount of planking which was removed on the starboard side.  Also visible are pencil lines indicating the hull frames and the #77 holes for the bolts.


The transom planking was removed and new planks were installed after the fashion piece was in place.

After I was satisfied with the appearance, I made the one for the port side.  This entire process took approximately 20 hours.  The final tapering of the hull planks into the fashion pieces will be done along the the final hull sanding after all the bolt holes have been drilled.

Roger, that is why I was hoping the adhesive-backed copper would have worked out.  And it did until I applied the finish.  
 
As I mentioned yesterday, I have finished the hull planking.  It still needs final sanding; that will occur after I have all the holes for the bolts drilled.  The wale become rather the worse for wear over the last several months so I sanded it down and applied a veneer of holly.  It will be painted with black artist acrylics after I have finished installing the bolts to prevent any further damage.  I will also be replacing the decorative strip for the same reason.  The pencil line at the stern represents the future location of the fashion piece, my next project.






I have drawn up the locations of the bolts and secured it to the building board.  These rows will be transferred to the hull and then the drilling will commence.

 
 
 
 

Planking has commenced.  Thanks to everyone who responded to my request for more information on clinker planking.  Before any planking could be cut, the planking belts needed to be laid out.  This was done with chart tape.  The lowest rows of tape represent the garboard and broad strakes.

The garboard was made up of four planks.  It feathers into the sternpost and keel at the deadwood and ends on the stem just above the boxing joint.  On the upper part of all the planks is a rabbet to accommodate the overlapping plank.  After some experimentation and based on the diagram from Goodwin's book on Alert, I decided to make the rabbet approximately one-third the width of the plank and at a 10 degree angle.  The prototype had a narrower rabbet but this gave me a wider gluing surface.  The rabbet was formed on the mill and cut to a depth of 2/3 the thickness of the plank at the widest part.  The broad strake was made up of three planks.  At the stern and stem posts the clinkering gradually tapers to a smooth surface.

The overlap of the planks is easily seen in the next pictures.  The easiest place to see the planking rabbet is on the broad strake at frame "H".


These pictures illustrate the tapering of the garboard and broad strakes into the keel and stern post, and each other.

 

Having learned my sequencing lesson, I decided to make the rudder while I would still have access to the area under where the platform will be built.  The shape of the rudder was taken off the plans except that it was shortened to just below the platform planking.
 
The rudder is made from three pieces: the main piece, the blade and the backing piece.  The plans did not show a sole piece.  The main and backing pieces were made with a simplified table joint and black paper was used to represent the felt between the two pieces.  The width of the main piece mirrored the width of the sternpost; the blade tapered to 3" aft.  The joints were initially all cut with a chisel but after making a mess of two blade blanks, I made the blade cuts on the mill.


The backing piece with its felt were added and the mortises for the pintles were made.  A line was drawn on the fore end of the rudder, through the back of the pintle mortises; this is the bearding line.  The for end of the rudder was then tapered from the bearding line to the midline of the fore rudder.  This allowed the rudder to rotate freely with minimal gap between it and the sternpost.  Finally, a coat of finish was applied.


An egg-shaped opening was made in the counter to accommodate the rudder head through its arc of rotation.  I have also replaced some of the planks on the stern, eliminating the previous gap next to the sternpost.
 


 

Time to direct attention to the counter and transom.  Swallow has a square stern.  The model shows these planks installed on the bias.  I used pear for these planks as that is what the hull will be planked with.  I left them long to allow for notching for the hull's clinker planking.  The counter and the transom are planked with costello.  Each plank is cut to shape, not edge bent.  In the third picture the length of the counter is best appreciated.  The transom will have a decorative treatment applied later.  It looks different because I chose not to apply a finish to it.  The gap between the transom and counter will be covered with a decorative molding.  The gap between the sternpost and the stern planking will need to be addressed.



This takes me to the sternpost.  As I was planking the stern it suddenly occurred to me that I had not installed the sternpost.  This is 13" wide at the top, tapering to 10" at the keel.  The aft edge is rounded over and the rebates for the gudgeons are cut in.  Since I did not want to remove the aft segment of keel, this was incredibly difficult to maneuver into place.  To my horror, the keel was 1/4" too short.  My only option was to remove the aft section of the keel and two sections of keelson and replace it with a longer piece.  I had not been pleased with the appearance of that section of the keel so this problem was a blessing in disguise.  The photo shows the old and new sections for comparison.




The shim under the keelson is to keep the ship level in the building board as there is a curve in the bow fore and aft.  The color difference will decrease after another coat of finish is applied.  The bulwarks are still a little high to prevent damage prior to installing the cap rail.  My biggest hope is that all of the serious problems are behind me!

It has been a long time since posting any real progress.  Sorry, but I would rather be in the garden than in a work room.
                                       
Over the last few months I have found myself replacing most of the inner and outer planking and a portion of the deck.  After the outer and inner bulwark planking was finished I realized that the bottom of the oar ports should run in the same line as the bottom of the gun ports.  As you can see from the following picture, they did not.  So the planking was removed where necessary and the oar ports were framed in the proper location, as seen in the second picture.  The paint on the decorative strip looks the worse for wear but this will be touched up towards the end of the build.
 

I had originally made the thicker part of the inner bulwark planking one row.  Further research told me that this should be made two rows wide and therefore, after the inner bulwark planking was rebuilt after repositioning the oar ports, it was necessary to remove it all again to replace the lower row with two rows of planking.  

At this point I decided to construct the beams for the aft platform.  I discovered that I had misinterpreted the plans.  The model shows an aft platform with the tiller coming out from under the platform.  The plans, in retrospect, do not show a platform at all and the fore end of the tiller is shown to be almost four feet above the deck.  The lines which I thought represented the fore and top of the platform were in fact a decorative molding line and a station line.  I will simply say that when I discovered this situation I walked out of the work room and poured myself a stiff drink (maybe two).  I had to decide between the model and the plans.  So far, whenever there has been a conflict, I have gone with the plans.  This time I decided to use the model as my guide.  I had planked the deck "knowing" that the platform would extend almost to the last gun port.  In examining the model, the platform only extends to a few feet aft of the gun port.  Therefore it was necessary to remove and replace all of the decking aft of the capstan platform to compensate for the too-short deck.  (Back to that bottle, I'm afraid.)  I installed two beams to support the platform planking and planked the transom bulwark.  I was very lucky to match the color of the old and new decking.  The first picture shows the end of the planking initially.  The others are after the deck was elongated.  The notch on the bottom of the front beam is for the sweep of the tiller.

I have finished planking the inner bulwarks.  The lower two rows (spirketting) are 3" thick and the three upper rows (quickwork) are 2" thick.  Referring to TFFM, the Swan class spirketting was installed top and butt.  As Swallow was a purchased ship and not necessarily made to RN establishments, I chose simple butt planking instead.  The port openings still need a little work in these photos.  At this point I am torn between finishing the bulwarks with a clear matte finish or paint them.  The model from the RMG shows a clear finish except on the transom, which is red.  However, it also shows gold leaf on the outer edge of the channels!  If I decide to paint the bulwarks, I will not bother with treenails.
 
I will be taking a week off for some real life issues; this will give me time to think about the options.  

Just a quick update.  The deck has been trunneled and sanded.  The trunnels were made from bamboo obtained from barbecue skewers.  They were drawn down to #75 drill bit (0.21") or 1" in full size.  Bamboo was selected because of its subtle effect with the holly decking.  I would have preferred a slightly smaller trunnel, #76 or #77, but my bamboo was too brittle to draw that thin.  And with COVID-19, I simply was not in the mood to shop for another package.  I would be hard pressed to call that an "essential" purchase.  Trunnels are secured to the beams and the ledges.  I went back to the plan and marked the beam locations on the deck.  Then I drew in the presumed locations of the ledges, typically two ledges between each beam.  The picture shows the deck with the trunnels drawn in and dimpled with a fine awl (aft), with the holes bored (between the ladder way and the main hatch), trunnels inserted but not sanded (starboard bow) and finally, sanded down (port side between the two hatches).  The effect is subtle but will be a little more prominent once a finish has been applied.  I still have not decided whether to simply apply a sanding sealer which will help maintain the white color or tung oil which will yellow the planking.  
I use a needle holder to grasp the trunnel as I insert it.  I do not use any glue.  There is a tight friction fit and the finish will secure them.  The inner bulwark planking is next.

The next step was to plank the upper hull with costello boxwood.  This was straight forward and required minimal tapering of planks.  At this point I made my final decision regarding the frieze above the gun ports.  I decided to model the plan and not the model.  The rail will form the top of the gunports but I have not trimmed the excess bulkhead material yet to prevent damage to the planking.



After finish sanding the planking, the paint on the wale was touched up.  There is still a little more to do but this will wait until after the lower hull is planked.


As you can see in the pictures above, the deck beams are now installed.  They are a combination of plywood where they will not be seen and boxwood where they support the hatch and ladderway coamings.  Carlings were placed between the beams that support the hatches.  The stove has been temporarily removed.

All of the coamings are made of swiss pear.  The large coamings are 4 1/2" wide at the beam and taper to 4" at the top.  They are 13" tall.  The curve of the deck was sanded into top and bottom of the athwartship faces of the coamings.  The small coamings for the stove chimney, steam pipe and light are 3 1/2" wide and 8" tall.



The capstan base abuts the ladderway.  It is parallel to the waterline.  The difference in angle can be seen in the next picture.  A skylight will be located behind the capstan.  I painted the bulkhead and spine black where it will be installed.