RossR

Great job. your ship looks great.

After staining and finishing the laser cut pieces for the bow, I was not happy with the look of the edges. The middle layer of the plywood ended up almost black. I had recently acquired a scroll saw from my father, so I decided to attempt to cut replacements out of piece of 3/32 basswood. I am pretty happy with the outcome. I need to go back to the drawing board on figuring out a stain that will match the Sapelli.

Great start to your rigging. Really like the sling and the use of the thimbles.

Is it possible your drill bit is dull or damaged at the tip?

I have the cathead installed. I still need to add a touch of black paint to represent the sheaves. I am pretty happy with how this turned out.

One more challenge with the bow section is related to finishing the material provided with the kit. Most of the trim is Sapelli. For the bow a laser cut piece of plywood (looks like birch) is provided to accommodate the curve on the bow. finishing these pieces to look like Sapelli is a challenge. I originally tried to match the bare Sapelli. A mix of Provincial and Gunstock stain came pretty close. however, when Sapelli is finished with Shellac it takes on a darker rich color. Covering the stained plywood with shellac didn’t produce the same dark rich color. I bought some Red Mahogany stain but is wasn’t quite right. I then applied the Provincial stain first, then added a coat of the Red Mahogany, and after a couple coats of shellac it was pretty close. I think it will take 4, maybe 5 coats of shellac to get the richness, but this should work.

I finished the trim on the rear part of the ship, and I am pretty happy with how that turned out. next, I am giving a light sanding and one final coat of shellac to the deck. I put a few marks into the deck finish while sanding and filing the trim features, so hoping a light sanding and another coat will help. Next is the trim around the gun ports on the bow. I am calling these gun ports, but the kit does not have guns for this section of the ship. This part of the build will also include fabricating and installing the cathead. The instructions from Occre have you cut the top part of the bulwark above the cathead out and then attach the fully fabricated cat head on the ship (see picture below). Since all of the planking is on and finished, I don't want to cut that away. I have been making a few dry runs at assembling the cathead in place without cutting away the planking. The other odd thing about the cathead is the pictures in the instructs appear tohave the cathead angling forward at about 30 degrees, but the plans clearly show a forty five degree angle. I will go with the 45 degree angle on mine. Since very little of the piece that extends out from the hull is supported by the hull, I am going to add a pin to help secure it to the larger piece.

Making progress on the trim on the bulwarks and around the gun ports. The first step was lining the gun ports. 1mm x 6 mm sapelli strips were used for this. Next step was the cap above the section with no bulwark and the top of bulwark on the back half of the the ship. These were made out of 2mm x 8mm sapelli strips. Both have a slight bend. The bend was slight enough that I could manually bend the strip the required amount, but with the 2 x 8 strip the force of the strip to snap back to straight was pretty great. I considered manually bending the strip and using CA to glue them into place, but I have read that CA does not hold good against shear forces. I considered PVA which holds better against shear forces, but I couldn't think of a good way to clamp the pieces into place. My solution was to pre-bend the pieces and then glue with CA. for the slight bend in the mid-ship pieces where there is no bulwark, I clamped it against the straight piece of wood after soaking for 30 minutes with a small shim used to create the curve. For the piece above the bulwark on the rear portion of the ship, I clamped the piece to the bulwark after soaking to create the curve needed. I used scrap wood to protect the ship and the piece being bent from the clamps. The next step was to fabricate curves that connect the different levels of the bulwarks. I used several small pieces that were beveled to fit together and then used a small file to create the curve. The lower curve needs a little more sanding and then two more coats of coats of shellac on all of it. One of the reasons I chose this kit was because of features like this that require me to improve my skills working with the wood. Overall I am pretty happy with how these curves are turning out. I need to still create the two on the other side of the ship and then two more near the bow.

Very nice work on your planking. Impressive for an experienced modeler. Really impressive for a first time modeler. Looking forward to the rest of your build.

I think the lines a tied off on the rail without pins. If you zoom in on some of the pics posted on April 14th on the build log linked below you can see how they were tied off. https://modelshipworld.com/topic/30785-hmb-endeavour-by-robert-taylor-finished-occre-154/#comment-980256

Thanks for the feedback and info on the shelf life of shellac. I love that you can mix small batches and always have a fresh supply to work with.

I use this brand. A small cam is more than enough for one hull. There is a brush attached the the cap. They sell a bigger can also, but no built in brush. Not sure where you are located, but it can be purchased at Home Depot or Menards in the US. Probably most hardware stores also.

I assume the material is the 0.6mm planking. For that material I would use contact cement. I would worry that the edges of the material might curl up before PVA set. I am not sure if Occre has instruction videos for your model, but if the don’t find the ones for the HMS Beagle for a demonstration on how to use it. I have used it a couple times and had no issues with it being messy. my build log for the Frigate Dianna has photos of the process used on the deck planks.

Are you using contact cement on a second layer of planks or on the first layer. I use contact cement on the second layer, it works great when there is a large surface area that is being stuck together. If it is the first layer, I am not sure it will work as well as on a second layer.

I have the the wales painted black and applied 3 coats of shellac to the unpainted surfaces on the hull. Next up is lining the gun ports on the upper decks. This will require an slight edge bend on a 2mm x8mm piece of Sapalli for the top of rail.

I used it on Sapelli. I haven't tried it on Walnut, but is think it would work well. go slow and take just a little wood off at a time.

I used these shapers for a part on my Occre Frigate Diana and the worked great. They are designed for metric sized planks, so if you have non-metric planks you may want to order some wood also.

The US Navy also maintains a forest of white oak in Indiana specifically for use in maintaining the USS Constitution.

Love the use of the plank for spacing.

Today I added what the instructions called the rubbing strakes. They are made up of a piece of 1mm x 4mm sapelli and a 2mm x 2mm piece of sapelli. The 2 x 2 piece has to be shaped on one side to give it a round profile. I purchases the tool below from Artesania Latina. There are several notches that can be used to carve different profiles into various sizes of wood strips. I used the half round notch to shape the 2 x 2 piece. It was a little tricky gluing the half round piece onto the 1 x 4 piece without getting glue on some spots that were unintended. I will need to clean up a few spots before it gets is shellac finish.

I installed the wales this week. The material supplied by the Occre was African Walnut (I will have more to say about that later in the post). To put the bend in these planks at the bow, I used a two step process suggested in a forum titles "Bending African Walnut". I need to achieve an approximate 90 degree bend with a 2 inch radius. The wood is stiffer than the lime wood used for the first layer of planking so I was a little nervous about bending that much. I soaked the planks in hot water for about 1/2 hour then clamped them on to a form to create a 4 inch radius. The next day I soaked it again and was able to easily clamp them onto the smaller form to create the 90 degree bend with the 2 inch radius. I maybe could have successfully created the bend in one step if I used heat, but I am still new to modeling and have struggled using heat. I think I need to be more patient. There are 4 planks per side, and the second plank is cut into segments to create 12 small openings per side. I assume these openings are for potentially using oars to move the ship if conditions warrant, but I am not positive. I still have a little more sanding to do and the wales will be trimmed at the stern to accommodate the cast pieces that make up the base for the gallery lights. Eventually the wales will be painted black. Regarding the African Walnut supplied by Occre. I posted on the "Bending African Walnut" topic a couple weeks ago that I had "success" with the two step process. Then about two days ago the post started getting some replies. For a reason I don't understand most of the replies were negative towards the African Walnut wood. Some were constructive suggesting alternatives, but some were not constructive and were critical of Occre for supplying this material suggesting that it was a cost cutting measure. I suspect that the African Walnut was the most expensive wood in the kit. I found it to be of very high quality. The wood bent successfully using a two step process and it was not at all fuzzy as one of the posters suggested. I think the criticism of Occre was unwarranted and uninformed. I think the wood was chosen for the wales because it holds a very crisp corner and that was the look that the creator wanted when they designed the model. I am saying all of this because I don't want other modelers to be afraid of any kit that uses this wood. I would be delighted to use more of this species in my models.

Thanks for the info, I really appreciate your comments and suggestions. In the end the walnut worked well. I only posted so others would have an effective technique to bend that species of wood. I actually think it is a really nice wood, just a little more difficult to bend. No need to use something else. Again, thanks for commenting. I really appreciate that you share your experience and knowledge with the rest of us.

Looks like you have a great base for the second layer. I just finished the second layer on my Frigate Diana. I had a little trouble with some of the sapelli splitting when I trimmed it at the bow and stern. Be sure to have a sharp blade in your knife.

I didn't find the wood fuzzy at all, and while it might not be AYC or boxwood, I am not sure I would call it crap. In the end, using the two step method I was successful in bending it as intended. I will get some pictures of my results posted soon on my build log. Regarding the economics of the wood chosen by kit manufacturers, I probably would have been priced out of the model ship hobby if AYC, Boxwood or other higher quality woods were used in most kits. I hope to work with these woods some day, but this is my second build and my skills are still developing. Something less expensive is appropriate for me right now.

This material is supplied for the wales only. There are a total of 8 pcs that are used for the wales. I am not entirely sure why this material was supplied with the kit for this purpose, especially since it gets painted black, but using the technique mentioned above I was successful in bending the pieces. It is possible that they provided this material because it creates a nice crisp corner when cut compared to the limewood that is provided for many other parts of the ship. The second plank from the top is cut into segments leaving small gaps in the plank. I assume these are for oars if needed due lack of wind. I also needed to add a slight twist near the stern. I soaked the plank before gluing and had no difficulty adding the twist. I have one side attached and need to get the other side attached. The picture below is from the instructions showing the small gaps in the second plank. I also reached out to Occre, and they said using heat from an iron or low heat from a heat gun is a technique that will also work. One nice thing about Occre is they are more than willing to provide replacement parts free of charge if you break something. The only downside is it take about 3 weeks to get them from Spain. I think I get too impatient when using heat to bend wood, something I need to get better at. I also work at a desk with a Formica top, so I worry about damaging it with heat.