Thukydides

24 minutes ago, Blue Ensign said:

Great start to the deck planking. 👍

 I can't quite tell from the photos did you check the angles for the boom crutches atop the counter timbers?

 

B.E

 

Not sure what you mean exactly by check the angles.

It is up to you, but I don't think you will be able to get a good result with that as a base, the gaps and warping is too much to fix with filler and sanding. If it was me I would take off the planking and order some more limewood strips to start the first planking over.

If you are unwilling to do that you could try just removing those first two planks (which are the most problematic) and try to replace them. Not sure how well that would work...

On 1/1/2022 at 1:41 AM, Dave_E said:

Got 2 more planks on today… figured out I had to bend the wood the other way at the bow. If I better the 3rd plank yet some more, I’ll be happy. Every one is a challenge to get it as correct as possible. 

That first plank doesn't look like it is sitting right. If I was you I would remove the planks, check your fairing again and then try again. Problems with the first few planks have a way of multiplying your issues the further down the hull you get.

I say this as someone who had to rip off the first planks and start over myself :).

Edit: what @allanyed said

5 hours ago, jpalmer1970 said:

Hi Thukydides,

 

Great painting! I planked the inner bulwarks and painted them before installing my margin planks. The bulwarks may need a bit of a paint touch up when the deck is finally finished but that will hopefully be easier than painting the whole lot later. I am also considering adding a line of spirketting too if I can source some suitable wood.

 

 

So did you leave a gap at the bottom of your bulwarks to slide the margin plank into or did you just butt the margin plank up against the bulwarks?

Also how did you handle the planking of the inner bulwarks, are you able to share a picture of them?

Log #17: The Margin Planks

My break was a bit longer than planned due to the other projects taking longer than I expected (I ended up painting a figure for a competition so was at it for over a month), other responsibilities and then finally Christmas.

But now back to the Alert.

I have been struggling with how to plank the inner hull, as there are not many good angles of this in the build logs I have been reading or the instructions. I want to avoid any planks ending in a point so I guess I need to taper them. Any suggestions here would be appreciated.

In the meantime I decided to defer the question while I worked on the margin planks. To make them I used a piece of boxwood sheet I had and used the template of the false deck to mark the outer edge of the curve. I then used a compass to mark an equal distance from that edge.

I then cut them out using a coping saw. This was much harder in practice than I had anticipated. Because of the significant bend needed at the bow, part of the margin planks end up with cross grain. I ended up breaking them by mistake twice, though fortunately I was able to get two useable ones.

I did also try bending a straight boxwood plank after I broke the first two, but the necessary bend at the bow was two extreme for me to manage even using my wife’s clothes steamer.

I am of two minds whether I should glue them in place before planking the inner hull. On the one hand being able to remove them would make the painting easier, but on the other hand the fit will probably be better if I glue them in place first. Any suggestions here would be welcome.

Fantastic work. I have enjoyed following along as you built this. Congratulations.

That looks fantastic BE. Your hard work has really paid off.

It is looking really good. Great job.

Congrats on completing your build. It looks great!!!

5 hours ago, tomebe said:

Just finished and got up to date on your build log. Just a fantastic build of HMS alert, which I've started as well. Thukeydides thanks so much for sharing all this great info with us. So useful for a newbie like myself.

Tom

I am glad you are enjoying it. You should also start a build log :).

If you have an airbrush you could also paint them first black and then spray from above with a dark grey. This will simulate the light falling on them and will make the recesses stand out more. You can replicate this effect using a brush by painting black first and then dry brushing with the dark grey.

2 hours ago, druxey said:

Yes, it's always good to test anything new on scrap material first! Unless, of course, you like living dangerously....

Or doing them all over again 😃...

I really like this one. It looks like it will be a great introductory kit.

Why are you applying wop/paint to the stand? Is it to make it more durable?

Log #16: Building the Transom Part III

In this final log on the construction of the transom I worked on the side counter timbers and the tafferal.

The tafferal was one of those things that in theory seemed simple, but in practice gave me tonnes of trouble. After carefully filing the vertical transom beams to the correct height and angle, I glued part 53 on top of them. However, I could not get this to stay in place properly and I spent a whole evening trying to attach it properly. In the end I managed to use clips and wood glue to get it in place. It remained pretty fragile at first, but once I got the side counter timbers in place it became much more stable.

For the side counter timbers I used the ones (part 75) provided by the kit as a template. I needed to make them thicker to ensure that they covered the sides of my now thicker transom. To do this I started by placing them on a thicker piece of pearwood planking I had (same stuff I used for the wales) and marked out the shape. I then roughly cut out the shape and clamped and glued the pieces together.

After they had dried I carefully trimmed them down using a combination of craft knife, file and sandpaper until all the excess from the added piece was removed. This left me with what will look like one solid piece once I paint them. You may notice that I left the added bits a little longer than the original piece. The reason for this will become clearer in later pictures, but it was to ensure that I had enough material to properly cover up the entire side of the transom.

They were then glued to the sides of the transom and further minor adjustments using files and sandpaper were done to ensure the fit.

I then used part 76 to form the remainder of the side counter timbers. This was a finicky time consuming task involving significant heat and moisture to get the correct bend. I also had to constantly check and remove more material from the end of the wales to ensure everything lined up.

I ended up with some significant charring (due to the iron) on these pieces, but since they will be painted black  I am not too worried.

I also didn’t have quite enough length on the pieces running along the side of the transom so I used a tiny bit of sawdust and wood glue to fill the small indent right by the counter. You can see where I did this in the picture below. It looks like there is a gap, but really it is filled in with my homemade filler.

And with that the transom is pretty much complete and is much stronger than it was after part one.

I may take a bit of a break from the ship for a little as I have some other hobby projects that I want to get back to. When I do return to the project I will begin work on the inner bulworks and the deck.
 

Personally I like it as is and so my suggestion would be to not paint white. But I am sure it will look really nice either way.

7 minutes ago, Blue Ensign said:

I found it easier with these to fit the stern post edge first and trim the other end to fit the plank butt.

I found the same for planking the alert. What I ended up doing in the end was for each strake I first planked the bow, then the stern, then finally did the one in the middle as it made my life much easier.

It looks pretty good for a build you "messed up" 😃. I know it is frustrating to not achieve the standards you wanted, but I think it turned out pretty good in the end.

4 hours ago, chris watton said:

I think another one or two small kits, then a very big development, from the sublime to ridiculous....

Are you still planning on doing a larger brig before you do the big one?

@jpalmer1970 yes the transom is a tricky part and unfortunately there are not a lot of pictures of that area in the manual (mostly diagrams). And if you bring it up too high you leave to much of a gap between it and the counter which is hard to cover up with the counter rail. I assume that my problem originated from earlier in the build when I was less aware of the potential implications of my mistakes.

Despite my rebuild I still made the gun ports too low and had to add thin pieces on the bottom of them to raise them. If you look closely at the first picture on the previous post you can see it. Though the fact you didn't notice gives me some comfort...

Log #15: Building the Transom Part II

Thanks @ccoyle and @CiscoH for the encouragement and everyone else for the likes.

I am continuing my departure from the instructions to finish up the transom. Though it is not in some senses ideal to be doing this now, the structure of it could have implications for the planking of the inside of the bulwarks and so I decided that I needed to make some decisions about what it will look like.

As a minor note, I used titebond and clamps for all my work on this post with the exception of the last plank on the counter. Much of my recent work I had been using CA, but I wanted to allow myself time to adjust the position of the various pieces and the speed of CA was not necessary.

The process began with finishing the planking of the counter.

Then I added the counter rail. I used part 51 just as it was intended for this purpose. I also at this point added the tuck rails.

This is the point where I ran into some issues. The Goodwin book appears (at least to my eye) to be inconsistent with regards to the transom. The thickness of it and the dimensions do not seem to line up depending on the angle I am looking at. After many attempts to try and reconcile the various angles I gave up and decided to go with a combination of my best guess and what the kit displayed the inner bulwarks as.

From the various angles it appeared that there was a beam running along the transom framing the gun ports so I constructed this out of some pearwood stock using the lower transom rail as a template. The look I am going for is that the transom frame is planked on the outside, but is exposed on the inside. This is somewhat similar to the kit arrangement, I am just adding some horizontal beams as well.

Then I used pieces 54 and 55 to make the vertical beams. These just needed to be shortened a bit to ensure they lined up right. In addition, I made two more beams for the outer edges of the counter frame out of the gap between the two copies of part 56. This was just the right size, but had one issue. The grain ran perpendicular to the pieces which made them significantly weaker. Since the side counter timbers would run along side these and provide structural support, I did not judge this to be a significant problem. However as you will see later, I did end up snapping one of them off when I attached the railing.

For the transom beam, I just used part 52 cut into sections to fit between the vertical beams. This is what it looked like when I was finished.

I considered stopping at this point to make the painting easier, but I was concerned that the whole transom area was not strong enough. In addition, constructing the side counter without having the transom finished might prove difficult. So in the end I decided that given that I have a lot more confidence in my painting skills than my woodworking ones, I would err on the side of making the construction easier.

To add a railing on top of the transom I took a leftover piece of 3mm pear strip and edge bent it to give the required shape. Then holding it against the beams I carefully marked where the holes needed to go. Then I used a pin vice to drill holes and my craft knife to carefully shape these to the correct size.

Since the vertical beams are at an angle, I needed to bend the rail into a “U” shape to get it onto the transom. This is the point where I broke one of the outside beams. I then glued and clamped the rail in place and re-attached the beam.

In the interests of keeping this post relatively short, I will defer the work on the side counter timbers and the tafferal to part III.
 

3 hours ago, chris watton said:

Have said before, I would love to have full colour printed box tops for all kits, but as my products are relatively low volume, the prices in the UK for printed boxes is comical, adding about 25-30% of the overall kit cost!

Speaking personally though the boxes do look nice, I would much rather the kits were cheaper than they had a fancy box. At the end of the day when the kit is build, the box will just end up in the garbage. That being said I can understand your dilemma wanting every part of the product you make to look like it is made with care.

Looks awesome Glenn. Your work really inspires me to push mine to the next level. I hope some day I will be able to produce somthing of this quality.

Looks awesome, you are making me want to try the wop method. If you were painting the hull white below the water line would you do the wop first over the whole thing or would you do the paint then wop over the paint?

Did you prime before painting? I ask because in the plastic model world you always need to prime first or the paint will come off over time. Not sure if this is true on wood.

If you are looking for the absolute best acrylic metallics then that would be Vallejo metal colour. They are just lovely. If you are willing to use alcohol based paint then you could also look into  Vallejo liquid gold. It is a bit more of a pain to use, but looks really nice, and there are a whole bunch of shades of gold to pick from.