Paul Le Wol

Hi Everyone, thank you very much for your comments and Likes. I have started the rigging process after determining that there would be no sails. Don’t have the wherewithal for making them. Because there will be no sails I am shortening the mast to make it a Nordland boat with just a main sail. This will also save 6 or so inches in height. The yard will be presented in the lowered state. Some of my Nordic rigging terminology may not be correct so bear with me. Four tackle pendants were made and hung from the mast. This is a shot of the drawings. I’m not sure of what kind of knot is being depicted to secure the tackle but there doesn’t look like there’s anything to keep it from slipping. After looking at hundreds of photos and countless hours of videos I’m still no further ahead. So I’m using a truckers hitch. The same went for the main stay. The parrel was made of pear. I just think the wooden ones look neat. The rope attached to the back of the parrel is, I’m assuming used to keep it from jamming on the way up and down. It runs up through a thimble in a sling at the top of the mast. It probably would have looked better if a wooden bull’s eye was used. The storage boxes were moved to the center of the deck and given rope handles. A jig was used to make the various rope coils. Cotton thread was loosely tied around the coil before removing them from the jig. They are placed and gradually shaped using diluted white pva. The Tamiya clear acrylic was leaving white residue so I switched to the pva. The tread is removed or moved as the pva is applied. Usually a small section of each coil is done every day, shaping as needed. The flagpole was mounted and sockets for the oar locks were glued to the rail. I was looking through @killickthere’s amazing Oseberg Viking Ship build log when I saw the stone anchor that he made. I figured that if I was building a real Nordland boat it would have a stone anchor so this model gets one too. Thank you to killickthere for the inspiration. Not far to go now. See you soon.

Ken, congratulations on the completion of your ship. She looks great.

That’s good to know. I bought a dremel chuck last year for my old dremel 380. The threaded shaft on the 380 isn’t long enough to contact the jaws to make them close. The worx would be a nice upgrade for me. Thanks

Hi mtdoramike, thank you for the review. In one of your photos you have a chuck mounted on the device. Is this a dremel chuck or does worx have their own?

Hi Dan, I’ve never tried using a plane for tapering planks but it’s certainly worth trying. A plane is good tool to have handy no matter what.

Hi DB, your Saucy Jack is looking great. When I planked my Cheerful using Chuck’s tutorial I would lay out the taper on the plank using the tick strips and then sand to the line. ( leaving the line) Then it was a matter of laying it up against the previous plank to check the fit. After that came the sanding and checking, sanding and checking. I never got along very well with cutting the planks. Sanding gives you more time to see where you are going and make the tiny adjustments you are inevitably going to have to make.

Hi Mango,welcome to the forum. If you introduce yourself in the New Members section you may be able to get some response from members that have built this model. Since this is a common procedure for most models I’m going to suggest that you could try drilling and pinning a strip of 1.5mm basswood down the center of the false keel leaving .75mm on each side. Then sand to the strip of wood. After you are finished you can remove the wood strip. Some directions will have you do this before installing the bulkheads but your still good

Hey Bob, here are the directions and one of the photos mentioned in them (figure 5). The biggest challenge for me was getting the planks to overlap correctly. They say to overlap them 2mm. If you stray too far from that measurement then you start having issues getting the planks to sit right. That’s why I had to remove the hull from the build board after half of the planking was done. I kind of lost my way and the only way I could get back on track was to flip it over and see what was happening on the inside of the hull. Attaching the ribs before finishing the rest of the planking made it easier for me because I could see where the planks needed to go. I’m sure that if you keep the overlap correct you won’t have the same problem that I had and could leave it on the build board until the planking is completed. I didn’t wet any of the planks to try and shape them. Maybe I should have. Another thing that was a bit confusing was that some of the planks needed their length adjusted. In hindsight I should probably have trimmed a bit off each end but I didn’t. Just trimming one end might have thrown things off a bit because some of these planks have some pretty wild shapes.

Thank you so much Bob. This boat has had its challenging moments but overall it’s been a lot of fun. Now that I think about it all boats have their moments

Thank you Waldemar, you are very kind. I also like this style of working. Paint is not a friend of mine.

Hi Everyone, thank you for the Likes and stopping by. The stand has been painted with five coats of diluted Liquitex Ivory Black acrylic. The hardware used to tighten the vertical pieces to the keel is 8-32. A piece of plastic tube is used to cover the threads of the machine screw and acorn nuts do the tightening. Mounting the boat on the stand seemed like a bit of a milestone so I took a progress picture. Unfortunately the sun went away just before that. The brackets that support the long tiller arm were made from the kit supplied brass strip and blackened. A couple of storage boxes were made for the deck. They are made from AYC strips using white pva. They still need some details like handles added. Eventually they will be glued to the deck. A gang plank has also been positioned. Extensions were glued and pinned to the vertical portion of the rail. The upper part of the chain plates were glued into place with CA. They are supposed to look like bars that have been bent over to form a loop. And lastly the oars were made and painted with Tamiya Hull Red acrylic. You can see that the mast has been stepped. The dowel that came with the kit had a pretty good wow in it so I picked up a new one at the lumberyard. I think it’s poplar. It has kind of a green tinge to it that looks ok to me. Going to start the rigging next. See you soon.

Hi Frank, I totally agree with Jim. My understanding of the laser char is that you do not have to remove it in areas where it can’t be seen unless you need to remove it for fitment. Just keep a vacuum handy to get rid of the dirty stuff. Once you have cleaned it off of the visible areas you could apply some wipe on poly to help keep them from getting dirty again.

Super good looking Chris. My guess is that you ended up with a spare franistan 😀

Hey Everyone, thanks again for your comments and Likes. They are really appreciated. The last two frames in the bow were finished and attached. A couple of single blocks were rigged to eyebolts and mounted. They were PE eyebolts and I have got to say that I didn’t get along with them very well. They seemed way too thin and flimsy. Some 1/8” art tape was used for the steel bumper on the stem. I had some laserboard parts left over from Cheerful’s pintle and gudgeon kit so they were used for the rudder straps. Just made new pintles and gudgeons. Here’s the gudgeons before shaping. The rest of the week was spent working on the stand. The plaque is from Michael’s. It was $12 after using a 30% off code. The 5/16”x 11/16” x 96” clear pine is from Home Depot. It was $16 (! ?). Two 12” pieces were glued to each side of an 18” piece The vertical pieces are 3” and are glued to the center piece at each end of the 12” pieces. Two small blocks are glued on next at each end and end up being 1/2” shorter than the center piece. A 16” piece is glued to each side to cover all of that. A 6-32 screw and nut will tighten the vertical pieces against the keel. The keel will rest on top of the machine screw. Finally a test fit. Forgot to mention that the bottom of the hull was also painted with Tamiya Dark Iron acrylic. I think that the stand will end up being black. See you next week.

Chris, your builds are always so enjoyable to follow! Standing by.

Hi Waldemar, thank you so much for your kind words. I find that more and more I am drawn towards those types of vessels.

Hey Everyone, I hope your week went well. Thanks so much for dropping by and for the Likes. Spent the week adding small bits and pieces starting with the braces that are mounted inboard of the grommets for the clew rigging. Made new ones out of pear. They were mounted and the hole was drilled through the plank. The drill bit was used as a guide to glue the grommet to the outboard side of the plank. A plate for the hawse hole was made from 1/4”x 3/64” strip I picked up a bag of aquarium pebbles at the Petsmart and used them for ballast. Glued them in with E6000 adhesive. The portholes were installed along with knee braces on the front of the cabin wall. The belaying pins were shown in the plans as being flush with the top of the horizontal part of the rail but I decided to bring them up a little higher Then finally I started the chainplates. The plans show them being mounted though a hole in the rail but but mine were faked. The Billings parts ( on the right ) didn’t seem wide enough to drill a mounting hole in them so I used 1/16” brass strip. One end was bent to hook under the sheer strake ( as shown in the plans ) and the upper end was filed to a sharp edge so that it could be pushed up and under the trim strip beneath the rail. Each strip was pushed into place to make a notch in the trim piece then removed and annealed. A hole was drilled and then it was blackened. Eye bolts will be mounted in the rail above each chainplate. A bit of CA was used to secure the nail in the hole. Next comes the rudder and a stand. See you then.

Hi Everyone, hope you all had a great weekend. Thanks very much to everyone for their Likes and Comments. The week was started by revisiting the portholes. Wanted to see what they looked like if they were blackened. It may have been because I didn’t wait long enough before glazing them but the next day the glazing had reacted with the blackener and turned blue around the edges. Going to leave the portholes brass. Continued planking the cabin roof. Should have pre-painted the planks where they overhang the front of the cabin right from the get go but I wasn’t thinking. Sanded for a couple of hours and then applied the first coat of Tamiya Dark Iron to the roof. Also resumed planking the front wall of the cabin. Second coat of paint to the roof and finished planking the wall. Opened up the holes for the portholes and gave the roof a third coat of paint. Moved down to the bow and started shaping the last frame/bollard out of pear. Next will be finishing the bow. Hope you all have a good week.

Dave, I’m glad to see that you have started your Rattlesnake. I shall take a seat, not right at the back, maybe half way to the back.🙂

Congratulations Dave on the completion of your Lady Nelson. You did a beautiful job. I look forward to your next project.

Hey Dave, I agree with Keith. Your coils look good. Looking at the coil in the stern, maybe you could use the same technique that you used for the anchor and lay something in the bottom of the coil to weigh it down and apply shellac or acrylic to keep its shape.

Hi Cisco, thanks very much for your comment. For the half laps I scored the plank with a razor knife and used the knife to cut a notch back to the scored line. Then sanded the plank with that 3/8”x 3/8” block. The block has 220 grit sand paper stuck to it with double sided tape. The rabbets are made pretty well the same way. The plank is scored with the razor knife and then a chisel is used to remove most of the wood. The sanding block is used to clean up the rabbet. I’ve been using the Mirka sandpaper that I picked up at Lee Valley. It hangs in there for quite a while

Hey Everyone, thanks to all of you for your comments and Likes. This week was spent working on the rails. There is a plank that sits on its edge and runs along the outboard side of the rail. Half lap joints were used at both ends. The half lap scarf joint at the forward end should be tapered but this was just easier for mounting and gluing. The jig was made with scrap pieces of 3/64” plywood from the carrier sheet and the plank is 3/32” x 3/16”. ‘The four pieces of plank were glued on at the rate of one per day. The forward port and starboard pieces required tapering and edge bending The symmetry at the bow is a little off. Three thwarts had to be removed so that the belaying pins could be attached to their undersides. I forgot to do that. If you use the Billings parts there are holes burned right through them and they can be installed any time. A few hours were spent sanding the rails and then they were given a coat of w-o-p. Been jumping back and forth between planking the front wall of the cabin and its roof. The three outboard planks of the roof were glued together before mounting because the first two planks run off the roof before they reach the last bulkhead/frame. A rabbet was cut along the bottom underside to lower the profile where the planks overlap. Finger holes were drilled in the deck planks for removal. They look larger than they actually are. My rough estimate puts them at 1.5 - 2 scale inches For a change of pace the portholes were “ glazed “. Saw someone using this product but can’t remember who. Thank you. It works very well. Placed the portholes on plastic wrap (Handiwrap) and put four drops in each one. Can’t really see them well but here they are after curing for 24 hours. Next will be finishing the roof and the front of the cabin.

Jim, it doesn’t get any better than that. Beautiful

Michael, your Sovereign is amazing and the way that you insert text into the pictures makes it so easy to follow along with your thought processes. Very nice.