homer

I'm not a big fan of the use of basswood for the keel and bulkheads.  There is too much flex to the skeletal structure of the hull, and plywood, or better yet, MDF would be preferable.  To ensure that the keel and bulkheads stayed square, I inserted scrap pieces of plywood in between the bulkheads which not only keeps everything square, but also makes the skeleton very rigid.  I highly recommend taking this extra step.  It's too bad more kits didn't use the dowel approach used by MarisStella's kits - the dowels seems to be a very precise and easy method to ensure everything stays in alignment.
 
As I mentioned earlier, I decided to take a completely "paint with wood" approach, and will be using ebony for the black areas, holly for the white, and yellowheart for the ochre (I might have to use paint on the tryworks, but I'm exploring alternatives there).  I was originally going to go with African Blackwood for the black areas, but I couldn't find a supplier for thin milled wood stock and didn't want to buy a bandsaw.  On recommendation of MWB, I was able to source ebony from www.inlaybanding.com in the sizes I needed.
 
I replaced the portion of the stem above the waterline with an ebony piece.  It was a shame to remove half of the stem that I cut out in pear, but I want the "black" color to be consistent throughout the build.  This was my first time working with ebony, and it really wasn't that bad.  I used my scroll saw to cut the stem piece, and touched it up using my Byrnes disc sander for the outside curves and my Dremel in the workstation as a poor man's spindle sander for the inside curves.  The stem tapers, so I used a sanding block to accomplish that.  I was very careful and used a dust mask and constantly vacuumed up any dust (which I should probably do with all woods).  All in all, I didn't find it all that hard to work with.  Bending it might be a different story, but aside from being careful with the dust and the fact that it is a very dense wood so sanding by hand was a little more of a workout, I had fun working with it.  When sanded with fine grade sandpaper, it takes on a beautiful, almost glass like finish. 
 
The stem came out pretty nicely - I think using ebony for the full build will make for a very unique model:
 

 

 
 
Ebony against the white holly I received from Jeff is very striking.  I was thinking about using yellowheart for the ochre areas, and possibly maple (stained a light grey to match the actual ship) for the deck.  I knew holly had very little grain, but ebony almost looks painted.  So, I'm wondering how using yellowheart, which has a lot of grain and some figure, will look against the ebony and holly.  I might switch it to boxwood, but am curious if anyone has any thoughts on the look of grainy versus non-grainy woods together.
 
Thanks for looking in!
 

While taking a break from my Pegasus (burnout from planking) and the La Renommee (thinking about color scheme), I turned back to the Morgan and made a little progress.  First up was creating the counter block, which took quite a long time.  It's a complicated piece that is not rectangular in the sense of having 90 degree corners.  Instead, the top of the block needs to account for the deck camber, the sides need to taper inward on a slight angle, and the aft side is rounded with an offset section for the name board.  I know folks (including me) complain about kits using gunport strips, but the benefit of the gunport strips is incredibly helpful in pre-determining the counter and tuck of the planks into it.
 
The stern/counter area can ruin an otherwise nice model if not done correctly, so I always have a bit of angst when working on this section of the model.  After a few hours or work though, I'm pretty happy with the final product.  I'll need to do a little touch up when it's attached to the hull, and I can work out any other issues with filler and the first planking.  The one area in particular that I need to figure out is the bottom corners on the aft side.  The plans show a rounding, but I think I'll understand better after running some test planks to that section along with the fashion pieces.  
 
Anywhere, here are the pictures of where I ended up in case other builders have questions on how the counter block should be constructed :
 

 

 

Bruce, you won't believe what I did this Saturday. Probably should not have been working on the ship because my focus wasn't there. I was putting on the lanyard to the mizzen top gallant backstay and the holes in the deadeye attached to the stay needed to be cleaned out or made a tad bit larger. Not thinking I grabbed my Dremel with a slightly larger bit and held the deadeye in my left hand and attempted to run the drill bit through one of the holes. Bad Idea!
 
Somehow the deadeye got lose, started spinning around the bit and before I could turn off the Dremel, had wound up the entire backstay and my only saving grace was that the backstay snapped where it was attached to the mizzen top mast! It could have pulled the whole thing and snapped the mast in half. That would have been a terrible set back. I was so thankful that only the stay rope snapped! Yikes.  Ron

Bruce, you won't believe what I did this Saturday. Probably should not have been working on the ship because my focus wasn't there. I was putting on the lanyard to the mizzen top gallant backstay and the holes in the deadeye attached to the stay needed to be cleaned out or made a tad bit larger. Not thinking I grabbed my Dremel with a slightly larger bit and held the deadeye in my left hand and attempted to run the drill bit through one of the holes. Bad Idea!
 
Somehow the deadeye got lose, started spinning around the bit and before I could turn off the Dremel, had wound up the entire backstay and my only saving grace was that the backstay snapped where it was attached to the mizzen top mast! It could have pulled the whole thing and snapped the mast in half. That would have been a terrible set back. I was so thankful that only the stay rope snapped! Yikes.  Ron

Homer
Me too!
Just finished running rigging on my Morgan's mizzenmast. Would go faster and look better if I'd stop snapping things when working elsewhere. Klutz.
Thinking ahead to next build which I'll likely start while working on the 7 (!) whaleboats when I finish the standing rigging. To do shelf will unfortunately likely outlive me or my dexterity.
I think Granado although also plan Echo cross section to try my hand at a smaller scratch frame project. Confederacy still muttering to me from the shelf. I Just gave away a previously purchased Victory since once I started building my own models I tired of telling people "I didn't build that one". Unfortunately I had already bought a display for the Morgan so now I have a large unoccupied case. That's the biggest argument for the fully masted Granado over the Confederacy. Must stop buying models for a while.
The admiral just smiles.

Thanks Mike! I too actually like the look of natural wood rather than painting. I'm still new at this and the Morgan is the first ship that I've built that has a "lot" of painted wood, or should I say all! I'm not very good at the painting and there's nothing worse than seeing paint build up on poorly sanded parts (of which I do have!). The staining powders are also something new to me. I'm beginning to get anxious about finishing the Morgan and starting with another ship. I have many in dry dock, probably more than I'll be abel to build in my lifetime. I think I might build Chuck's Syren next. I really like the look of the ship and he is perhaps one of the most talented builder / designers I've seen. 
 
I can't wait to see your Morgan pics!!!! Take care. Ron 

Hi Mates,
 
A little more work on the mizzen lower platform. Self-explanatory so keeping text to a minimum.  As always thanks for the likes.
 
Michael
 

 
 

Thanks Mike! I too actually like the look of natural wood rather than painting. I'm still new at this and the Morgan is the first ship that I've built that has a "lot" of painted wood, or should I say all! I'm not very good at the painting and there's nothing worse than seeing paint build up on poorly sanded parts (of which I do have!). The staining powders are also something new to me. I'm beginning to get anxious about finishing the Morgan and starting with another ship. I have many in dry dock, probably more than I'll be abel to build in my lifetime. I think I might build Chuck's Syren next. I really like the look of the ship and he is perhaps one of the most talented builder / designers I've seen. 
 
I can't wait to see your Morgan pics!!!! Take care. Ron 

Thanks Mike! I too actually like the look of natural wood rather than painting. I'm still new at this and the Morgan is the first ship that I've built that has a "lot" of painted wood, or should I say all! I'm not very good at the painting and there's nothing worse than seeing paint build up on poorly sanded parts (of which I do have!). The staining powders are also something new to me. I'm beginning to get anxious about finishing the Morgan and starting with another ship. I have many in dry dock, probably more than I'll be abel to build in my lifetime. I think I might build Chuck's Syren next. I really like the look of the ship and he is perhaps one of the most talented builder / designers I've seen. 
 
I can't wait to see your Morgan pics!!!! Take care. Ron 

HI Mike, I just happened upon your build. I can't wait to see how the stains have worked for you. I'm still learning and the Morgan has been the most challenging build for me. I regret not installing mounting nuts so that I could mount the ship with pedestals. I will on my next build!
 
Hope everything is okay. It's been since Feb. since your last update. I'll have to check your build to see if you have been working more on the Victory. Best regards. Ron 

HI Mike, I just happened upon your build. I can't wait to see how the stains have worked for you. I'm still learning and the Morgan has been the most challenging build for me. I regret not installing mounting nuts so that I could mount the ship with pedestals. I will on my next build!
 
Hope everything is okay. It's been since Feb. since your last update. I'll have to check your build to see if you have been working more on the Victory. Best regards. Ron 

HI Mike, I just happened upon your build. I can't wait to see how the stains have worked for you. I'm still learning and the Morgan has been the most challenging build for me. I regret not installing mounting nuts so that I could mount the ship with pedestals. I will on my next build!
 
Hope everything is okay. It's been since Feb. since your last update. I'll have to check your build to see if you have been working more on the Victory. Best regards. Ron 

HI Mike, I just happened upon your build. I can't wait to see how the stains have worked for you. I'm still learning and the Morgan has been the most challenging build for me. I regret not installing mounting nuts so that I could mount the ship with pedestals. I will on my next build!
 
Hope everything is okay. It's been since Feb. since your last update. I'll have to check your build to see if you have been working more on the Victory. Best regards. Ron 

Well it's official -- finally got the Badger in a case.  It's interesting how having a model in a case really gives the model more of an aura.  Either that, or maybe the glass just helps obscure all the imperfections?  
 
The display case is from Model Expo (wait for them to go on sale).  The glass is acrylic/plexiglass.  I tried to save some money and cut the plexiglass panels myself, but I had problems with the plexiglass breaking cleanly, and the last straw was when a piece broke and gave me a nasty cut on my hand.  So, I decided to find someone else to cut the panels for me, and ended up going with Dulles Glass and Mirror (www.dullesglassandmirror.com).  Their website was very easy to use to place an online order for custom cut glass, and the package was sent quickly and was well packaged.  I highly recommend them.
 
A bit sad that the book is finally closed on this model, but it was a fun journey, in particular since I met a lot of friends through MSW, and now I'm looking forward to starting my next build(s).  Thanks again for all the help and advice and support over the years.
 

 

Work and family has been limiting my time in the shipyard, but I made some progress over the last few weeks.  I started the bulwark planking, and managed to get the waist area completed.  Need a little sanding here and there particularly to help define spirketting from the quickstuff, and to touch up the gun ports and sweep ports.
 

 
 
I did the spirketting as a single piece at about 1.25mm thickness, and the quickwork as three rows of planks at about 0.8mm in thickness.  It's a little simplified from the bulwark planking in TFFM, which includes a scarpf joint somewhere in there, along with top and butt planks I believe.  Given how much of this area is going to be covered up with the cannons, etc., it didn't seem all that worth it to torture myself - I feel like I went though enough on the outer hull planking 
 
The wood I'm using is redheart.  It can be crumbly at times, but for planking, it works really nicely.  Over time it will mellow a bit to a more orange-brown, which I think will be a nice effect along with the other colors in the build.  You can see a bit of this color change in the bulkhead uprights which I replaced a year or two with redheart.  The only thing to watch out for is that the end grain turns almost black if you use an oil finish - i found that using varnish preserves the color much better.  I'll also be using redheart for the gun carriages, bitts, and likely the capstan, as well as a part of the stern decorative area.  I already used it for the upper stripe on the outer upper hull.  In some ways this "painting with wood" idea has been a pain, but I'm really happy with how things are coming together.
 
Thanks for looking in!

Made a little more progress on my Morgan this week in adding the bulkheads.  I found I had to open them up a bit to seat them into the center keel, but nothing too major.  The nice thing about the kit is that the plans use a reference line on both the center keel and the bulkheads so that you can make sure that everything is lined up properly.  I found that the center tops of the bulkheads ended up just under the top of the center keel, which gives some wood as a margin so that the deck planking ends up smooth.  Another nice feature was that the plans give the bevel for each bulkhead.  I was a little conservative and didn't sand the bevel completely, but in checking out the planking runs, they actually looked like they were pretty spot on.
 

 
 
The first bulkhead ended up being slightly off square, which is why you see a bit of scrap basswood that I put in between the first and second bulkhead on the starboard side to push it back into alignment.
 
I have to say that I'm not a big fan of the use of basswood for the skeleton of the hull.  The Caldercraft plywood and the Amati MDF were much better in my opinion.  Like other Morgan builders, I snapped off some of the thinner extensions at the top of the center keel     Not a big deal in the long-run, but just an annoyance.  The bulkheads themselves split here and there (especially near the extensions) too.  The bulkheads also seemed to have a bit of flex to them that I did not find with the Caldercraft and Amati kits.  I'm considering whether to install additional bracing blocks like the one I used above between each bulkhead to keep them all square.  This was not an issue in my Badger and Pegasus kits due to using stronger materials.

Just came back from a week at Disney with the kids, but had made a little progress on my Morgan before I left.  First up was to house some nuts into the center keel for the mounting pedestals.  I epoxied a couple of nuts for #6-32 machine screws about 3/4" (18mm) up into the center keel:
 

 
 
I ended up cannibalizing the nuts from my Unicorn/Lyme build - the epoxy really held the nuts in place without needing any other support for the nuts.  I originally bought 2" machine screws, but forgot that the screws had to not only go through the model and the pedestals, but also any mounting base.  Thankfully I was able to find some 3" screws which hopefully should be long enough.
 
The kit's instructions had what I thought was a helpful tip to install dowels or rods to pin/support the keel and stem into the center keel.  I never did this on my prior builds, but I figured a little extra support never hurts - particularly since this kit uses basswood for the framing pieces.  I ended up going with brass rod.  I forget the diameter, but I think it was around 1.8mm or so.  At that diameter the rod is pretty sturdy, yet small enough not to disturb the rabbet joint.  Pretty easy to do:  drill a hole, stuff a little epoxy into the hole, then hammer the brass rod into the hole.  Even more fun in that I finally got to use the ball peen hammer that I got as a bonus from my first order with Micromark years ago when starting my first build.   I installed four support rods:  three along the keel (one near the stern and one through each joint between the keel/stem pieces) and one at the fore end of the stem just below the copper line).
 

It looks like my last uploads were of the deck housings and shelter cover. I've constructed the foremast, main mast and mizzen but have only completed, painted and installed the lower first sections. Hopefully I took some build pics of these. I take a lot of pics and then have to name them and change them from 1-2 meg to something around 500 to 700K so they are easy to upload into the NRG site. 
 
Of note, the metal spider bands were a bit loose on the Foremast and Main Mast. I added / glued very thin shims and then sanded them down so they aren't too noticeable. At John's recommendation I used a business card tried down and painted for the futtock band. I took tin snips and cut the truss iron piece from a piece of tin. Then installed and painted it. Before I go any further I'll see if I can find / post some pics of this work.
 
I just found a few pics and guess what... I forgot to install the cheeks on the Main Mast! Guess I know what the next thing I'll be doing. Ron 

Hello Popeye..
Charlene is a stubborn woman; that's why she made Admiral.  LOL.. I have no idea if she plans to do a log.  I believe she's skeptical but who knows?  I did fair the bulkheads a little bit where it was needed.  Most of the center section didn't really require it.  I have now completed the planking from the gunnels down and will soon start planking from the keel up.  This planking will require some tapering at times but after all the models I have done I think it'll be a piece of cake.  I'm following Bob Hunt's practicum for this build.  I haven;t even opened the kit's instruction manual as the practicum suggests to avoid the plans and kit directions unless specifically called out.  Here's another picture as to where I'm at right now.  Have a great day.
Jerry

If I recall, before I started building the Shelter / Boat Bearer, I placed the Upper and Lower Channels being careful to place a slightly wider lower channel that while in line with the upper channel, has off set holes for the angle of the channel plates. 
 
Apparently, I still have to learn how to place pics so they are in order once uploaded. They seem to want to go into their own order. Maybe there's a way to edit the order???

I haven't had a lot of time to dedicate to the Morgan build lately so she's moving along slowly. I had to hold off building the bow sprit because of the lack of building space and my ability to break things during the build. You know, two steps forward...one step back! I'll upload some pics of the last work I've done on her. I should have swept or vacuumed the deck of build debris before taking the pics. But it's been a long time since I uploaded so maybe looking at the pics will help others.
 
 

Pics of the anchor

Pics of the anchor

I haven't had a lot of time to dedicate to the Morgan build lately so she's moving along slowly. I had to hold off building the bow sprit because of the lack of building space and my ability to break things during the build. You know, two steps forward...one step back! I'll upload some pics of the last work I've done on her. I should have swept or vacuumed the deck of build debris before taking the pics. But it's been a long time since I uploaded so maybe looking at the pics will help others.
 
 

I haven't had a lot of time to dedicate to the Morgan build lately so she's moving along slowly. I had to hold off building the bow sprit because of the lack of building space and my ability to break things during the build. You know, two steps forward...one step back! I'll upload some pics of the last work I've done on her. I should have swept or vacuumed the deck of build debris before taking the pics. But it's been a long time since I uploaded so maybe looking at the pics will help others.