Gabek

Back at it?
Well, my poor Triton has been sitting idle for almost a year and collecting sawdust from my other addictive hobby - pen-turning. (A dark abyss, but rewarding for the fast results). A victim of this new passtime and the bathroom renovation from hell at my cottage, the deck clamps that I started laying out last January have not been touched in months. I did get a new Proxxon saw blade which I hope will fix my frustrations ripping planks.
 
So, here is the status on the deck clamps:
 
Using The Anatomy of a Ship: HMS Diana I planned out the anchor stock design and realized that, because of the angled cuts, it would be easy to make these run crooked. The lines on this paper are exactly the width I need for the clamps so I am able to lay out the planks nice and parallel, keeping them in place with pins as I go.

Beautiful work, Tony! In the back of my mind I was contemplating a cutaway on my Triton, and seeing yours has convinced me!
Looking forward to seeing more on your build...
Clear skies,
Gabe

Beautiful work, Tony! In the back of my mind I was contemplating a cutaway on my Triton, and seeing yours has convinced me!
Looking forward to seeing more on your build...
Clear skies,
Gabe

Thanks, Gabe. The main motivation (apart from developing skills in making plank-on-frame models) was really to learn for myself and give anyone who's interested some understanding of how these ships were built. Almost nobody in my circle of acquaintances has much idea that there's even a hobby devoted to this kind of thing, let alone full builds, so they're quite intrigued, and, as I had guessed, simply cannot see the blunders that are glaringly obvious to my own eye -- and that's exactly as it should be.
 
Tony

Beautiful work, Tony! In the back of my mind I was contemplating a cutaway on my Triton, and seeing yours has convinced me!
Looking forward to seeing more on your build...
Clear skies,
Gabe

The fore bit caused me a problem (AL calls it the knight's heads). They seem to be the main anchor point for the bowsprit. If so then how does it work? Glue? Hardly sea worthy. All I could find on securing a bowsprit was to gammon it with a lash. Perhaps this is all that is required. But on the Swift, there is no place to lash. I drilled a hole in the stem post and lashed the bowsprit anyway. That is, what little lashing I could actually do.
 
The bowsprit heel seemed a better place to lash and the fore bit was perfect for it so I bound the bowsprit there as well. 
 
This is where I really needed some advice! I will still gladly listen to anyone who will comment.

I am new to the forum and to ship building. Well sorta new. I began the Swift in 1999. Life and work conspired and the Swift went into storage after the bulkheads and main deck planking were completed. I recently dusted off the box and started again.
 
I have the rigging left to do. I made a ton of mistakes. So far I have been alone to sort the probems out. But at this point I'm not sure about things. So I Googled them. And that lead me here to your forums and build logs. They are a Godsend of information.
 
I've just mounted the main and fore sails to their respective masts. Next I'd like to mount the Jib on its halyard and stay (correct terminology?). I am studying the plans to understand exactly where each line goes. My plans don't have much detail. For instance I found that the flag and throat halyards have to feed through little holes drilled into the masts. NOWHERE are these holes indicated on my plans. I only found out about them by looking at pics in Gabe K.'s build log. Great log BTW!!!
 
When I worked the hull I got my first big surprise: As I know more than one Swift builder has discovered, the bow profile you get, does not match the required stem post contour. A little wood putty? Not hardly. Way too big a gap to span safely. I used little blocks cut from a spare bass wood plank and glued them into a random mosaic pattern to build out to the needed profile. You can just see the little squares in two of the hull photos. That did the trick. 
 
My first big thrill came with planking the deck. I included 2 photos of the planking. I was inspired by "Historic Ship Models" by Wolfram zu Mondfeild and "Ship Modeling from Stem to Stern" by Milton Roth. I don't know if a Virginia Pilot ever had a deck like mine, but the books made it seem plausible, I like it, and at ths point its here to stay. Even so I would appreciate any feedback on the deck and it appropriateness. So if this is an error, I will know better next time.
 
Next surprise was due to a big mistake I made in the bulwark planking. I did not check to see if I had enough plancking to do the bulwarks. As a consequence of using a complex planking pattern on the main deck, I ran short of planks to do the the outer bulwarks. BUMMER. I contacted AL for more. The wood was cheap. The shipping was not. I conserved the few remaining original planks to randomly intersperse with the new ones. The new blanks are much lighter and have a much tighter grain than the 16 yr old originals. Going down it looked horrible but on completon is hardly noticeable. 
 
When I had to get the replacment wood from AL, I ordered twice the wood that I needed "just in case." Good thing as the shipment got mangled during transit ruining a third or more of each plank. But the extra wood covered the loss.
 
Note the hull pic with some bulwark planking done, you can see the the hull is waiting for new wood.  BTW this has the best veiw of the mosaic used to fill in the bow.
 
Another consequence was spare time while waiting for new wood. So I decicded to build the deck houses. I planked the houses with the narrow sepalia (mahogany like) strips. When the new wood came in I switched back to hull planking, where I finished the upper bulwarks straight way and dived into the 2nd hull planking proper.
 
Here I made a big mistake, for the lower hull I continued to use the narrow sepalia planking that I'd started with on the deckhouses. The wide sepalia planking was the correct stuff to use. Needless to say I ran out of the narrow planks. Too far in to it to back out, I devised a jig that let me cut the wide planks into narrow ones. This allowed me to finish the hull.
 
A comment about mistakes like this: They make you feel really stupid, but sometimes they workout. The narrow planks fit around the hulls compound curves much better than the wide planks ever could have. Plus it just looks better and probably is closer to scale. Checkout the finished hull pic. The Sapalia (mahogany look alike) really shines and is just gorgeous. Lesson: Take your victories where you can.
 
Also note the mix between old and new Mukali (bass wood like) in the upper bulwark. Not too bad given the disaster it could have been.

Thanks to various comments (notably Dirk's -- thank you Dirk!), I decided to experiment a bit with oils. I decided in the end to make up my own Danish oil, seeing that I already had the ingredients. I followed the advice given by Bob Flexner at http://www.popularwoodworking.com/techniques/finishing/oil-finishes-their-history-and-use The recommended dosage to start with is one-third of each, so that’s what I mixed.
 

 
I liked the results, so that’s what I’ll stick with for the rest of the build.
 
I planked just over half the gun deck, along with the lower strakes of the gun deck walls. I then oiled the inside of the lower walls and the two decks -- leaving the outside of the frames and the wall planking above the gun deck.
 

 

 
I need to finish the planking of the gun deck walls, sand down the fore and aft section faces, and then I’ll be working on installing the eyebolts for the cannon and making up the gangway brackets.
 
Tony

COAMINGS AND GRATING
 
The joints were made as usual with the Proxxon saw. To cut the angles (63 degrees) I first inscribed the top edges by 1.73mm using dividers with the measurement derived from the TurboCAD programme.
 

 

 
This then allowed me to use the saw at an angle which has a nicely accurate indicator in degrees. I edged the coaming towards the saw until it cut right at the line.
 

 
By the way: if you do this, WATCH OUT FOR YOUR FINGERS AS YOU MAY FORGET THE EDGE OF THE SAW COULD BE CLOSER TO THEM THAN YOU THINK! I was wary of this, but thought I’d better mention it in case others might not have thought about it.
 
Having made the coamings, I could now install the grating I made earlier. I now realised that the long edges could not be the same width as the grating battens if they were to fit into the coaming I had made. I reckon I must have made a very slight error in cutting the strips, but thought that I might well make the same kind of error again so I went with the grating as made.
 

 
You might well note that I've not curved the top of the grating to match the deck camber. My decision was the lazy one -- I followed the plans! As for the base of the coamings, where curvature would come into play, again I was lazy -- the tiny cracks at their base sides will be covered by the planking.
 
One small point to watch out for is that if you stick too closely to the plan measurements it is vital to check these against the actual measurements you achieve on the model. In my case the forward hatch I made came out 0.5mm less wide than on the plans, but as this was not going to affect anything except the width of the ladder, I kept the hatch I made.
 
LADDER
 
I debated a while as to how to make the ladder. Essentially the choice was between table saw, hand saw and mill. I decided the easiest would be to use the modified Proxxon drill stand that I made for the Sherbourne. You can see the design at http://modelshipworld.com/index.php/topic/4539-how-to-modify-proxxon-mb-140-drill-stand-to-act-as-mill/?p=130660.
 
I made a very slight modification to that modification by adding a locking nut below the screw adjuster. This was because I found that vibration during milling made the screw gradually move upwards. You can see this further modification in the following pictures:
 

 

 
The next question was how best to hold the ladder rails in place while milling. I made a paper template and glued that to a rectangle of fibreboard using water-based glue (Pritt stick).
 
After fiddling around clamping the rails to the template I decided to experiment and see if gluing the rail to the template would allow a sufficiently strong bond for milling. I used PVA to do this and it worked very well indeed – allowing me to remove the rail easily after milling with full-strength isopropanol, and allowing me to remove the paper templates from the fibreboard and the rails with a damp sponge.
 
An additional benefit of this way of clamping is that it allows an uncluttered view of the rails whilst milling.
 

 
I could then proceed by clamping the board to the micro compound table.
 

 
To make the rails equal in height and at the correct angles, I bound them together with a couple of spots of PVA, then used the disc sander for the angles. I was really thankful that the Proxxon sander’s degree marker was accurate!
 

 
I then made a simple jig for placing the steps. I again used the idea of gluing a template to the fibreboard base, then gluing battens to the template. To keep the rails apart while fitting the steps I made two temporary and removable battens from old plywood.
 

 

 
PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER
 
This allowed me to assemble the coamings, grating and ladder.
 

 

 
I can see from the results that I should really spend time sanding to achieve the glassy kind of finish that others have done, but for the moment I’m just pleased that I can make and put together all these pieces!
 
Next I’ll do some planking.
 
Tony

As usual, I continue to enjoy your log and the way you approach the build. It is very interesting how different model building can be from real ship building.
 
I came across the restoration of the Pilgrim Brixham sailing trawler, a Cutter-rigged ketch, at
 
http://pilgrimofbrixham.co.uk/history/
 
In the video of the build on that page it is quite clear that there's a contrast between the visible imperfections on the internal fittings, and the eventual smoothness of the external and visible finish.
 
Also, on the deck and hull planking, I really can't see the treenails in the still photos.
 
Of course, this is a modern restoration, but it made me think about the conventions of the modelling we do.
 
I suppose this is by way of saying that your build is still great even though you worry about the small imperfections such as gaps that have to be filled or colour mismatches fixed. In real life gaps were filled and paint did a great job.
 
Tony

Thanks for the reply, Christian, and everyone for the likes. Good to be back at the dry dock!
 
I found a small error in my layout of the deck clamps. While I was carefully reproducing what was in my main reference, AOTS: HMS Diana, I forgot that I was building the HMS Triton! When I was dry-fitting the planks it soon became obvious that there was a problem: the butt ends were hanging between frames! So, I had to rework the measurements and cut several new planks that now go from centre-to-centre on the frames. Good news was that I could still use parts of the first planks.

 
Cutting the planks accurately was 'interesting'. After carefully marking out the shape I used a CMK resin blade.

 
I glued up the pieces and clamped them into place. After a few hours I checked them out. I had to fix up a small mistake on one end...a small gap that still doesn't look perfect but I will try to fill it once the glue dries thoroughly. I don't normally say this, but it is something that will not likely be seen by anyone! (Shhhh...it will be our secret!

Thanks for the reply, Christian, and everyone for the likes. Good to be back at the dry dock!
 
I found a small error in my layout of the deck clamps. While I was carefully reproducing what was in my main reference, AOTS: HMS Diana, I forgot that I was building the HMS Triton! When I was dry-fitting the planks it soon became obvious that there was a problem: the butt ends were hanging between frames! So, I had to rework the measurements and cut several new planks that now go from centre-to-centre on the frames. Good news was that I could still use parts of the first planks.

 
Cutting the planks accurately was 'interesting'. After carefully marking out the shape I used a CMK resin blade.

 
I glued up the pieces and clamped them into place. After a few hours I checked them out. I had to fix up a small mistake on one end...a small gap that still doesn't look perfect but I will try to fill it once the glue dries thoroughly. I don't normally say this, but it is something that will not likely be seen by anyone! (Shhhh...it will be our secret!

Thanks for the reply, Christian, and everyone for the likes. Good to be back at the dry dock!
 
I found a small error in my layout of the deck clamps. While I was carefully reproducing what was in my main reference, AOTS: HMS Diana, I forgot that I was building the HMS Triton! When I was dry-fitting the planks it soon became obvious that there was a problem: the butt ends were hanging between frames! So, I had to rework the measurements and cut several new planks that now go from centre-to-centre on the frames. Good news was that I could still use parts of the first planks.

 
Cutting the planks accurately was 'interesting'. After carefully marking out the shape I used a CMK resin blade.

 
I glued up the pieces and clamped them into place. After a few hours I checked them out. I had to fix up a small mistake on one end...a small gap that still doesn't look perfect but I will try to fill it once the glue dries thoroughly. I don't normally say this, but it is something that will not likely be seen by anyone! (Shhhh...it will be our secret!

Thanks for the reply, Christian, and everyone for the likes. Good to be back at the dry dock!
 
I found a small error in my layout of the deck clamps. While I was carefully reproducing what was in my main reference, AOTS: HMS Diana, I forgot that I was building the HMS Triton! When I was dry-fitting the planks it soon became obvious that there was a problem: the butt ends were hanging between frames! So, I had to rework the measurements and cut several new planks that now go from centre-to-centre on the frames. Good news was that I could still use parts of the first planks.

 
Cutting the planks accurately was 'interesting'. After carefully marking out the shape I used a CMK resin blade.

 
I glued up the pieces and clamped them into place. After a few hours I checked them out. I had to fix up a small mistake on one end...a small gap that still doesn't look perfect but I will try to fill it once the glue dries thoroughly. I don't normally say this, but it is something that will not likely be seen by anyone! (Shhhh...it will be our secret!

Back at it?
Well, my poor Triton has been sitting idle for almost a year and collecting sawdust from my other addictive hobby - pen-turning. (A dark abyss, but rewarding for the fast results). A victim of this new passtime and the bathroom renovation from hell at my cottage, the deck clamps that I started laying out last January have not been touched in months. I did get a new Proxxon saw blade which I hope will fix my frustrations ripping planks.
 
So, here is the status on the deck clamps:
 
Using The Anatomy of a Ship: HMS Diana I planned out the anchor stock design and realized that, because of the angled cuts, it would be easy to make these run crooked. The lines on this paper are exactly the width I need for the clamps so I am able to lay out the planks nice and parallel, keeping them in place with pins as I go.

Back at it?
Well, my poor Triton has been sitting idle for almost a year and collecting sawdust from my other addictive hobby - pen-turning. (A dark abyss, but rewarding for the fast results). A victim of this new passtime and the bathroom renovation from hell at my cottage, the deck clamps that I started laying out last January have not been touched in months. I did get a new Proxxon saw blade which I hope will fix my frustrations ripping planks.
 
So, here is the status on the deck clamps:
 
Using The Anatomy of a Ship: HMS Diana I planned out the anchor stock design and realized that, because of the angled cuts, it would be easy to make these run crooked. The lines on this paper are exactly the width I need for the clamps so I am able to lay out the planks nice and parallel, keeping them in place with pins as I go.

Back at it?
Well, my poor Triton has been sitting idle for almost a year and collecting sawdust from my other addictive hobby - pen-turning. (A dark abyss, but rewarding for the fast results). A victim of this new passtime and the bathroom renovation from hell at my cottage, the deck clamps that I started laying out last January have not been touched in months. I did get a new Proxxon saw blade which I hope will fix my frustrations ripping planks.
 
So, here is the status on the deck clamps:
 
Using The Anatomy of a Ship: HMS Diana I planned out the anchor stock design and realized that, because of the angled cuts, it would be easy to make these run crooked. The lines on this paper are exactly the width I need for the clamps so I am able to lay out the planks nice and parallel, keeping them in place with pins as I go.

Thanks, Jan!
As to your question...this model is 10.5 cm across the beam, 8.5 cm from keel to the top of the rail and just over 6 cm fore and aft.
(That's 4.5" x 3.25" x 2.5" for the metric-challenged!)
 
This is one concentrated headache generator!
 
LOL,
Gabe

March 2014
 
My main motivation for starting this project was to learn the craft of scratch-building - and the online format with so many build logs and supportive modellers makes this an ideal educational environment. I also wanted to develop my skills on some of the power tools I now own, some of them thanks to my friend Clarence who was an avid woodworker but downscaled his workshop when he and his wife decided to sell their home and move into a senior's condo. His scroll saw has basically been collecting dust in my home except for the one scary time I used it to cut the rail cap on my first build, the Swift. I had no clue how to properly work it, so this project was going to be my scroll saw course.
 
As I looked over the plans for the Triton it started to dawn on me what a challenge1/96 might be. The size of the parts for the frames would make things 'interesting' in the Chinese curse way. The futtocks would have to be cut from 3/32 stock. This was my first scratch build so I still wanted to try assembling frames, but making 9 of them at this scale was beginning to worry me. So, I came up with a compromise that I could live with...but I'm not sure what you folks might think. I plan on building the outermost frame pairs (4 and D) accordingly, but the inner frames I'm going to cut as single pieces. This way I get some experience building up frames, the model will look more authentic (outwardly at least) and I won't go nuts.
 
After some research and a look through my supply of wood, I decided to go with birch for the inner, one-piece frame pairs. To get my 1" stock down to 3/16" it needed to be resawn and then planed...and I didn't have the equipment to get this done. However, we have a wood shop in the school where I teach and the woods teacher was happy to help me out. So, after classes on a Friday afternoon he coached and helped me make the stock I needed. (Thanks, Michael!). Later that evening I printed out the frame plans and glued them to the birch with spray adhesive.
 

 
The next day I used the band saw to roughly cut apart the frames. I grabbed #4 and took it to the scroll saw for the moment of truth. I set up a fine-toothed blade, dialed in a fast speed and nervously pushed the wood into the teeth. Well, I suppose it was an ok job...but it took a bit more reading, a great YouTube video and a few more frames before I could really say I had the hang of cutting a controlled line!
 
 
My goal was to use the scroll saw to get to about a millimetre of the line on the plan and then take the frame to my little belt sander to get the wood to the line. But, the frames at this scale were just so thin that I became very nervous about snapping them while getting them to size. So, I decided to cut and sand to the inside line before even cutting the outside to give at least some support to the wood as I worked on it. I chose to do the inside first because it was harder to work with at the sander.
 
 
The belt sander was terrifying to use...it could remove material so fast that it took a very light touch and a lot of concentration not to grind a frame down too far. There were many heart-stopping moments, and one mistake that will need a bit of a fix. To smooth out the lines left by the sander I made a couple of sanding blocks that fit the inner and outer curves of the frames using a product called Sand-to-Shape. I had picked these up at the sale table at our Lee Valley.
 
 
Eventually I had the hang of things and I was able to complete a frame in about 30 minutes.
 
I soon realized that my one-piece frame pairs had a weakness. The upper futtocks ran with the grain of the wood, but the grain went across the first and floor futtocks. So, in addition to being very thin I had to be careful not to stress the lower parts of the frames too much. Sure enough, while cutting frame 3 on the scroll saw the blade caught the wood and it snapped. The worst part was that it happened while cutting the outside line...AFTER I had already spent the time and energy to cut and sand the inside of the frame. Ah well.
 

Back at it?
Well, my poor Triton has been sitting idle for almost a year and collecting sawdust from my other addictive hobby - pen-turning. (A dark abyss, but rewarding for the fast results). A victim of this new passtime and the bathroom renovation from hell at my cottage, the deck clamps that I started laying out last January have not been touched in months. I did get a new Proxxon saw blade which I hope will fix my frustrations ripping planks.
 
So, here is the status on the deck clamps:
 
Using The Anatomy of a Ship: HMS Diana I planned out the anchor stock design and realized that, because of the angled cuts, it would be easy to make these run crooked. The lines on this paper are exactly the width I need for the clamps so I am able to lay out the planks nice and parallel, keeping them in place with pins as I go.

Back at it?
Well, my poor Triton has been sitting idle for almost a year and collecting sawdust from my other addictive hobby - pen-turning. (A dark abyss, but rewarding for the fast results). A victim of this new passtime and the bathroom renovation from hell at my cottage, the deck clamps that I started laying out last January have not been touched in months. I did get a new Proxxon saw blade which I hope will fix my frustrations ripping planks.
 
So, here is the status on the deck clamps:
 
Using The Anatomy of a Ship: HMS Diana I planned out the anchor stock design and realized that, because of the angled cuts, it would be easy to make these run crooked. The lines on this paper are exactly the width I need for the clamps so I am able to lay out the planks nice and parallel, keeping them in place with pins as I go.

Nice to see you back in the Triton shipyard

Back at it?
Well, my poor Triton has been sitting idle for almost a year and collecting sawdust from my other addictive hobby - pen-turning. (A dark abyss, but rewarding for the fast results). A victim of this new passtime and the bathroom renovation from hell at my cottage, the deck clamps that I started laying out last January have not been touched in months. I did get a new Proxxon saw blade which I hope will fix my frustrations ripping planks.
 
So, here is the status on the deck clamps:
 
Using The Anatomy of a Ship: HMS Diana I planned out the anchor stock design and realized that, because of the angled cuts, it would be easy to make these run crooked. The lines on this paper are exactly the width I need for the clamps so I am able to lay out the planks nice and parallel, keeping them in place with pins as I go.

Just now received Ed Tostis' book. Looks like the book I'm currently reading about HMS Valkyrie will have to go on hold for a few nights.
 
Dupree

Thank you.
Only few details for today - chesstrees and fenders.