DaveBaxt

After reading several threads on the above subject, I am still unsure how to proceed. Some modellers are gluing the waterway into position and then joggling the deck planks to fit and using a sharp knife to shape the waterway to suit the planks. Others are not gluing the waterway into position so unsure what would work best. My question is this, can you still start laying planks from the centre of the deck and work outwards or will this cause issues with the thickness of the planks being different thicknesses or will you have the smae problems starting at the waterway and working inwards. Another question I have is regarding the margin plank/waterway itself and is it easier to shape this from several pieces scarfed together rather than trying to bend a plank edgeways. I appreciate there are different scarfing joints for this purpose but if there is a less complicated joint than the hook method or is this applicable to 18th centuary. I have thought about doing this for a while now, but each time I get closer to starting out the the deck planking , I end up just doing the deck planks without an edging plank/waterway.

Good news today. After deciding that I would use maple strips for the decking. I eventually sourced some from no other than Caldercraft and received it this morning. I would like to try and fit a water way and try and scarf the peices together and also fit them by joggling or jiggling what ever it is called. I see from Jason and Davids log they have made a fantastic job and would be pleased if I could do a job as half as good as theirs. For the record this will be my first attempt at this so will need lots of help here guys. Any links to information /step by step would be even better or tips you may have would be fantastic. I have completed gluing some of the parts at the stern counter which wasn,t to clear on the first drawing or drawing number 2 either so thanks to Jason who was kind enough to post a few photos on his log of the stern area emabled me to figure it out. As these sections were only 3mm wide I strengthened them using some small pieces of 5mm box wood I had left over after cutting out the stem. I think Jason mentions this too. I still need to cut out the stern post from boxwood too. I have started filling in the lower sections for and aft with plywood to help with getting nice curves. here are some photos of the work so far. Alot of work to do here and expect a lot of dust here with the balsa wood but hopefully it will be worthwhile. I

Great allround workmanship and fantastic looking shrouds and ratlines. You are almost there.Always nice to see another HMS Bounty. Take a bow!

It was not my idea but another modeller on this forum but happy to pass it along.

Nice work with the card to give the klinger effect and something I might try . Great idea David

Lower Stays completed . I have fitted the Main & Fore lower Stays on top of the Preventer stays as per the Endeavour replica. Also Lees book states that a lot of small ships during this period carried the stays this way too. I think I will now adjust the tension on the lower shrouds before fitting the futtock shrouds and then the upper shrouds can be fitted before the upper stays and back stays are fitted. Here are a few more photos of the work so far. I also need to do a bit of work on the top masts and lower mast heads before the top masts are fitted.

I made a a start on the lower stays and preventer stays.I attempted to make the mouse using fabric sticking plaster over small wood bobbin pieces turned on a lathe.I then blacked these using Indian ink to ensure the pattern remaind I thought these turned out reasonably well but slightly on the large side. I also used thread supplied by Ropes of scale to get the correct size threads for 1:64 scale and sizes were taken from Lees book 'The masting and rigging of english ships of war' Next up will be the top mast and their stays and shrouds. Once these are properly adjusted and the masts are in their correct positions, the long task of fitting their ratlines. Which is something I am not particularly looking forward to. Almost forgot the futtock shrouds so still got a long way to go.

Thank you mark and again thank you for keeping me right. Your input is always appreciated. I would also like to thank David for using his photograph and other modellers who have helped me how to understand the rabbet and bearded line works on this model.What a great forum this has been for me personally.Best regards Dave

Thank you No Idea for you input and welcome aboard. I could be wrong and this is my first effort at contructing a rabbet but I thought that the rabbet would follow the line of the two pieces of wood supplied in the kit which gives additional support for the first planking. This I believe is also the bearded line I used these pieces to mark where the rabbet would go. I still need to work out how much material I need to remove (deadwood area ) and I might have to adjust this somewhat depending upon how the first layer of planks lie..Hopfully it will turn out like this. There was no seperate stern post on this kit so I removed a section of the plywood and need to make one as per AOTS Diana.At the top edge of the rabbet is about 1 mm from where the stern post will be and works out is the thickness of the second planking. Hope I am making sense. Best regards Dave

Good to know so will do some tests . It might even turn out to be the alcohol I mixed with the shellac, who knows! Thanks once again for your early response.

Thank you David I have ordered those pens and see how they react with the shellac. The pens I work with at the moment have been ok with walnut so not sure if it is the wood or the shelac that is causing them to bleed. Just as a matter of interest David, what are you using to seal your wood with?

Finally recieved the Boxwood from Timberline and made the stem/cutwater, using the origonal as a template to ensure the correct size. I also notice even whilst the false keel was sitting tightly in the base and the bottom false deck was in position it was necessary to move the front section of the keel, so that the centre line up with the first bulkhead. photo here of the bulkhead glued ito the correct position which has ensured that the stem lines up properly continued the rabbet onto the stem and stern using parts 20 21 and 22 as guides for the shape of the rabbet. I then used my milling machine to machine a 1 mm slot for the bowsprit gammon lashing and two holes for the bobstays, again using the origonal stem as a template. I then proceeded to glue all the bulkheads and stem and the above stem and stern supports into position . I am now fairly happy that the keel is straight and once the next deck is secured into position then it should be safe to remove the workpiece from the base and frame and I am thinking about what is next. Which is how to drill a 10 mm hole for the bowsprit and to ensure I get the correct angle. The feint lines you can see in one of the photos is the same angle as shown on the AOTS Diana. I have already checked that this clears the figure head.

Jason I am more than happy to hear your comments as two or more heads is better than one. At the moment CMB do not have any maple strips in of any size other than the 1 mm x 100mm sheets hence the comments regards making my own. There are 60 mtrs of 1 x 4 mm tanganyka strips in the kit, so I think that could take me some time to cut into strips and this is something I have never tried so unsure how much wastage on top of that. I might gave CMB a call and see if they intend to get any more maple in the near future or perhaps they are having problems sourcing it too. I already have some walnut in stock but would just need a bit more to do the job, so depending upon CMB replies I might end up going down that route. I do like the sound of using maple as it seems very popular for decking. Thank you once again Jason for your help and patience. Best regards Dave.

The supplied Maple strips for the Deck turns out to be Tanganyka and not maple as listed which I have not used before so thought I would give it a try on the lower deck which will mostly not be seen. This turned out to not be a great success. Firstly I used permanent marker for staining the edges of the tanganyka strips which worked great on Walnut for simulating calking between the planks . I then used 2 parts shelac 1 part alcohol to seal the wood . Unfortunately not only has the ink leached into the grain but I am not sure I like the fleck in the grain of the tanganyka to start with which is totally out of scale too. Here are a couple of photos of the mess. Conclusion. First off get rid of the Tanganyka . Second try and source some 1mm x 4 mm Maple strips. Not so easy when ready made here in the uk. I have never used maple before but looking at samples of local suppliers the grain looks to be too large for 1:64 however a few modellers have used this in the past . Alternatively I could easily source some 1mm thick x 100mm wide sheets and cut them myself on a Proxxon FET saw but I think there could be a lot of waste Then there is the other problem of using either the permenant marker and shellac together or perhaps its the mixing with alcohol. Perhaps I should return to using sand and sealer instead of shellac or try something else to simulate the calking. I am inclined to go back to what has for me been tried and tested and use walnut for the decking which is readily available and always looks good when sand and sealer is used in combination with the permenant marker. I have also used charcoal or pencil lead but do not think it makes as good a job as the marker pen. No doubt I will need to carry out more tests before on the decking before I finally decide which is the best coarse of action.

I have made a start on the rabbet, at least on the keel but not on the stem as I am still waiting for my Boxwood to arrive. I found the rabbet quite difficult and ended up with the rabbet wider than what was required, due to the chisel following the grain and lifting the edges of the plywood keel. Hopefully it won't matter too much when finished. I marked the rabbet using a Veritas marking wheel which I use for marking my masts from square stock. \i found working on walnut easier to cut the rabbet and keep within the markings. I am not sure how far to take the rabbet to the stern post as I will be taking off some off the material for the deadwood area. I will probably leave the stern post off until I have finished both 1st and 2nd planking and cut a straight edge I think.. I have also made a start on rounding of the edges a bit so as to give the first planking more area to glue. Before doing so I blacked the edge with permanent marker so that I wouldn,t remove too much material. I can finalize this better once the bulheads are glued into position

Nice work on those Vanguard kits . Far supperior than Caldercraft. Lokking forward to seeing how they turn out. Regards the paint. Good tip regarding diluting the Admiraltty acrylics. I have just got myself an airbrush system and have already tried diluting the red orche and the differnce is amazing., however no better than what you have produced.

I have just noticed what great paint work that you do Daviid and wonder if you achieve such results using an airbrush or hand painted? Also I like the finish of some of the black as it has a slight sheen to it. Are you using a varnish over the top of the black paint and wonder if you are using a different finish than Caldercrafts own dull black acrylic? Sorry for all the questions on your log but your masts and tops are very impressive. Best regards dave

Excellent Choice Sam. I have been thinking of going down the Vanguard route sometime in the future. There are some great builds on here of the Sphinx and other models by Vanguard. I will look forward to following her when you get started.

Fantastic Looking Endeavour Sam and you are obviously a very comitted working as you will soon be a head of me .At this rate you will soon be thinking of your next project. Any thoughts on what you would like to do?

I would just like to add a side note regarding sourcing boxwood for Stem/cutwater and stern post and as I am also looking for 11mm thick boxwood for the masts I decided to give Timberline a call . They have been kind enough to cut the 5mm thickness from their origonal 6mm stock without any extra costs due to buying from them before. So hope it is ok to add this thank you to my build log. I think I have pretty much all I need now to proceed. I just need to find the time away from the Endeavour rigging which I am finding very time consuming. However I suppose that is what the hobby is all about.

Thank you David for your input. The chisels are made by Kirschen but I only bought 2 of these which are 1.5mm wide there are a few more of these but are sold seperately. The 3 chisel set in a box are made by Veritas which has a very good name. Both types were bought from Axminister tools here in the UK. https://www.axminstertools.com/hand-tools/chisels

Continuing the shrouds with only the Mizzen of the lower shrouds to do. Then onto the lower stays and back stays.

Bought some Tools, mainly chisels for an attempt at cutting a rabbet with variable angles/ shapes. Alaso some practice on walnut sheet and hopefully I got the hang of using these very sharp chisels. I am a little concerned regarding the thickness of the walnut as it is 0.25mm undersize of the 5mm thickness of the false keel plywood and I am wondering if this will cause a problem down the line . Unfortunately I do not have any 5 mm boxwood in stock so thought I would see if Timberline https://shop.exotichardwoods.co.uk/ can supply me with some together with 11mm for the masts as I haven't got any of this either.

Me too!

Thank you Mark and you have made some very good points and worthy of consideration. For the record, I was under the impression that the Caldercraft kit is deemed by a number of modellers as one of the better kits in terms of the accuracy of the rigging but I am not sure if this is true. Caldercraft calls them Breast back stays which Lees states were not fitted on English ships. Running Back stays I believe are something different. It would also be interesting if the AOTS Endeavour has running back stays fitted. Its altogether confusing.