Glen McGuire

Lashing the yard arms to the yards and adding footropes.  I don't think the footropes turned out all that great but I could not figure out a good way to hang them.  Any suggestions?

Now it was on to the masts, yards, and yard arms - and another rude awakening.  Guess what, everything needs to be tapered to a point and of course nothing in the kit is tapered.  So I did what I'm guessing many of you have done, which was turn my electric drill into a mini-lathe.  After practicing on a bunch of dummy dowel rods, it actually worked quite well.  

@Keith Black Thanks for the tips on the thread.  I read something that recommended rubbing beeswax on all the rigging lines which is why I got the waxed thread, but what you say makes a lot of sense.   I will definitely check out the Gutermann products for my next build.  This is the kind of info I was hoping to get by posting this build log.  I'll be posting my rigging work later tonight or tomorrow so hopefully you can look at it and comment on anything you see I could have done better.

@Bob Cleek  Thank you for the detailed comments.  I definitely agree about the dirty little secret!  It was quite an eye opener when I finally realized how much more there was to this model than just following instructions and gluing things together.  And believe me, despite the countless frustrations along the way, I have not been turned away from the hobby.  Quite the opposite in fact.  The necessity of having to be creative both artistically and mechanically makes this so much more fun than I had ever imagined going in. 

I'd be interested to know what you consider good quality models.  I bought a couple of kits for my next efforts at this (Amati Hannah ship in a bottle for something weird to try and Artesia Latina USS Constellation). 

Regarding the copper plating, I should have not labeled my picture as complete.  I did in fact cover the keel and everything below the waterline.  Afterwards, I coated it with polyurethane to seal it.  Not sure how that will turn out long term color-wise.  Thank you for the comments about the cannonball and prop colors.  Lesson learned.  Same with the casting seams.  Dang!  I was so smug about getting the thing to spin that I totally missed that.  And OMG - your idea about an electric motor to drive the prop!  Seriously?  Now I truly understand what you mean about going over to the dark side!      

I discovered this incredible site just as I was finishing an 8-month long ordeal with by first ever build - Mamoli's CSS Alabama.  I finished her off in January and am finally getting around to posting an after-the-fact build log.  Hopefully it will be of some interest since I could not find a build log anywhere of this particular kit.  Check it out if you have time (1851 - 1900 forum) and by all means tell me what I could have done better.   I cannot tell you how badly I wish I'd found y'all before I got started, as the collection of talent in this community is ridiculous.  Regardless, I'm here now and thrilled to be a part of this group!      

Deck fully outfitted.  I may have gone overboard with all the cannonballs but I wanted my ship to be ready for a rematch with the Kearsarge.

By now I was beginning to figure out that there were a lot of things the kit did not include and it was up to the builder (and builder's skill level) to decide how crazy to get with the detail, historical accuracy, etc.  I didn't take on anything too tough but continued to add some minor customization like the hinges on the gun port doors in the first pic.  That said, I was pretty incredulous that the Mamoli kit did NOT include cannon balls.  WTH!  How can you have all those cannons without ammo.  So I measured the inside diameter of the cannons and ordered some ball bearings that would just barely fit inside.  Then I built some trays along the centerline of the deck to hold all the cannonballs.  I also added the little white hammock rolls inside the bulwark railing after seeing those in various pictures.
  

Now to start outfitting the ship with all the cool stuff.  After so many weeks of planking and plating I was really looking forward to this part.  Below are the life boats and the 100lb and 86lb Blakley pivot guns that were mounted fore and aft on the deck center.  Carving out the little paddles was a challenge but fun. 

@mtaylor "Kit Basher" - LOL!!  There were many times I was on the verge of bashing the kit and anything else within reach, but I'm not sure that's the kind of bashing you are talking about!  Didn't realize there was a new member area.  I will check that out.  Thanks for the tip!

Copper plating finished (except for the keel which I plated much later).  Another 3 weeks of my life gone!

Next step was applying the copper plates to the hull below the upper second planking.  The kit came with a long roll of 1/8" wide copper tape.  I looked at a lot of pictures of other models with copper plating to get an idea of what to do here.  I didn't really like a lot of what I saw so I came up with something that was probably not historically accurate but I liked the look.  I cut the strips of tape into pieces that were 15mm long.  Then I dimpled 2 rivets into each end.  I wanted the copper to stand out vs seeing a million rivets all over the place.

@Bob Cleek Thank you for the tip on the planking tutorials as well as the the dry heat bending technique.  That sounds soooo much easier than what I was doing.  I will absolutely explore that for my next try at this.  Interesting comment about the quality of the materials in the kit.  I thought the Mamoli parts were ok quality-wise, but I didn't really have anything to compare them to (sure wish I'd discovered this site earlier!!).  There were definitely a few things that were flat out missing from the kit and had to be made from scratch.  Not sure if all kits are that way or not.  One thing I did not like was thread they included for the standing rigging.  I ended up getting some pre-waxed, black thread that I thought worked better.  Obviously that was much later in the build process and I was starting to figure some things out.

At this point I decided to take a break from the body of the ship and work on some smaller things.  The kit just called for gluing the rudder in place but I saw some other model ships with really cool strap hinges where the rudder could actually move back and forth.  So I created some hinges out of the excess photo-etched framework around the chain plates.  For the skylight glass, I used 4 layers of wax paper to give it an opaque, smoked-glass look.   

Next step was the deck.  I borrowed a tip from somewhere to use a carpenter pencil and rub it over the edge of each deck plank to give it a dark accent between the strips to simulate caulking.  I thought it worked quite well.  However, as you can see, as I glued the planks on the 1-piece deckboard, the whole thing began to bow upwards.  So when I went to glue the whole thing onto the boat, I needed some weight to hold it in place hence the assortment of every small, heavy thing I could find in my garage.  

The second layer of planking was applied to the upper half of the hull starting slightly above the water line using darker wood.  The color does not matter since it is painted black later.  It was quite a chore for me to get all the pieces fitted smoothly (sort of) around the stern.  I really struggled with the angles and curves and transitions.  Copper plates go below the second planking layer down to the keel.

First layer of planking done and sanded.  It went ok but was incredibly tedious taking a couple of weeks of repetitive work.  There are probably better ways to bend/mold the planks.  I soaked them in warm water, clamped them in place, let them dry, then glued 'em up.  Rinse, repeat, rinse repeat...  I also used some wood filler to cover some of my bad technique since it would be covered later with another layer of planking as well as copper plates.

@gsdpic Thanks for the welcome note!  Your comment is actually one of the reasons I wanted to post this build - I found several logs of the plastic Revell Alabama but none of the Mamoli wood kit.  Figured someone might benefit from my experience even though I'm a rookie.  Regarding the planking and bulkheads, yes the distance was a challenge.  But being new to this, I assumed they were all like that.  You will see in some later pictures that it is double planked just above the water line and copper plated below.  So I figured I didn't have to be perfect with the base layer of planking (thank goodness!).  

Planking steps.  Whoever came up with the idea of using binder clips to hold the planks in place is a genius!  Not sure if I really planked it correctly though.  I started at the water line and went up.  Then from the keel up.  The gap got smaller and smaller and I ended up having to get creative with how to hold those last few planks in place.  Rubber bands and pieces of clothes pins.

Then things started to get interesting.  The shackle for the prop needed a frame with a routed groove so it could slide up and down.  No part in the kit for that, so I used spare wood pieces from the framework to carve it out.  The kit instructions said to just glue the prop in place but I thought the prop should be able to spin.  So I drilled out the middle between the 2 blades, added the little pipe you can see to the right of the prop, and then inserted a tiny finishing nail as an axle.  It spins when you thump it!  And now I was starting to get an idea of what I had gotten myself into.

Easiest part of the build - gluing the frames on the keel.  I figured I'd be done with everything in a couple of weeks at this point.

Unfortunately I did not discover this fantastic community until I was almost finished with my CSS Alabama build (wow, there's some incredible talent out here).  I am done now with my build but thought I'd post my pictures and comments from the 8 months of harrowing work.  This was my first attempt at a wooden ship model. 

Not sure why I thought I could do this since the only other models I've ever attempted were Revell plastic car models when I was a kid 50 years ago.  But how hard could it be, right?  It's just a kit, right?  All you gotta do is follow the instructions and glue the parts together, right?  Right, noob (as my son would say). 

Even though I'm done now, I would appreciate any comments/tips/advice on what I could have done better as I'll be doing another one of these things soon.