JacquesCousteau

There's no build progress to report, as I've been focused on other things lately. But, as I mentioned in another post, I picked up some local hardwoods while traveling in Veracruz, mostly for other carpentry projects but with an eye to seeing if anything would be useful for modeling. I think I can use at least one type, maybe two, in this build, which would be a nice touch. As can be seen above, there are two main woods I was able to get (besides some cedar offcuts). The dark, heavily figured wood is Xochicuahuitl, which as far as I can tell is a kind of laurel. I was able to get some 1/4-inch planks, as well as some offcut strips. The grain pattern is probably too prominent for a lot of modeling tasks, but it does look quite nice. Today, as an experiment I sanded and cut a bit of one of the offcut strips. I found that, after dealing with the stringiness left on the edges from when it was sawed off, it sanded and cut pretty well, although there is some tearout if you try to cut against the grain. There's a good bit of color variation, too, but it's possible to choose lengths with a consistent color. It seems relatively soft, as far as woods go--certainly softer than walnut, maybe something similar to alder? It can be dented a bit with my thumbnail. I think the Xochicuahuitl strips will work well for making the capstan bars. I was hoping to make these of a dark wood to complement the coaming. The other wood was described to me as Manzanillo. It's a harder, yellowish wood with a fairly even grain (and some graying from moisture, which isn't a surprise given how humid and rainy Veracruz is). I have over a dozen small boards, 1/4 to 3/8-in thick. The big question was how workable this wood would be. As I mentioned elsewhere, after ordering it, I found that Manzanillo is also referred to as Manchineel, or "the tree of death." The sap is extremely poisonous, causing severe blisters on contact and reportedly being traditionally used to poison arrows, and the smoke can cause blindness (temporary but very painful for several days). As you can imagine, this was pretty disconcerting to read. The carpenter I was buying the wood from was surprised to hear this and said he'd never had any problems with it, showing furniture he had made with it, and I read that proper drying in the sun cures the sap and prevents ill effects, making the wood useable. Nonetheless, I was a little concerned about whether I'd be able to use the Manzanillo. After test-sanding some today outdoors, I can say that it should be quite useable. I did seem to detect a slight peppery odor when sanding, so I think I'll stick to sanding the Manzanillo outdoors with a mask (which I should probably be doing for all sanding anyway...), but despite coming into contact with the dust, I had no ill effects. Either the wood was properly dried and is indeed fully useable after doing so, or it's a different wood with the same, possibly local, name. In any case, it sanded and seems to hold an edge very well. With the more yellowish color, I'm thinking that this might be a good choice for the capstan itself. It should stand out a bit from the rest of the model and be close in color to the grating. The one potential hurdle is that I'll have to do a good bit of planing on all pieces, as my thinnest board is about 1/4‐in thick and I'll need to take it down to about half that for most parts of the barrel. I also will probably make the chocks and cap from a different wood--maybe basswood, maybe cherry or alder--to avoid having to plane down to thicknesses of 1/16‐in and 1/64-in, respectively. That's the plan, at least. Hopefully I'll be able to try it out once I'm back in Mexico City.

Looking forward to following along with this build! I'm very curious to see what you do to make it a working boat rather than a yacht.

Congratulations, great work! You've added a lot of personality to the kit.

Very nice work personalizing the tiller! As to your point about accuracy to a specific ship vs. accuracy to a generic type, I have to admit that I prefer the latter style. Figuring out the range of possibilities and choosing which option I want to depict and why seems more fun than trying to pin everything down to exactly how it was, at least at the moment. Who knows, though, maybe after a few more builds I'll change my mind.

Nice work! The pedestals definitely look better than the stand that came in the kit--it's a beautiful hull, so why cover it up? I personally would drill a small hole for a brass rod or something to stabilize the pedestal, but I don't know how difficult that will be with the mast already in place. My understanding is that it's not a huge model, so maybe just glue will be fine?

Congratulations, what a great build! Excellent eye for detail on the drying sand and the barge floating low. It's been very fun to follow along, and a good reminder of just how much detail you can fit at even a tiny scale.

Tricky though it may be, it looks like you're doing a good job of it! I think I used wedges made from scrap, rubber bands, and bobby pins to hold things in place toward the end. Same! I suppose books of modeling techniques were also more useful for beginners then, but they can only do so much. Without this forum, I certainly would have a much harder time, and I doubt I would have started in the first place.

Nice work! I also built my peapod model while I had other builds going. All those thin planks are pretty tedious to add, although I suppose using superglue might make it faster? I also remember finding it a bit tricky to avoid a clinkering effect going around the turn of the bilge.

Very nicely done!

Thanks, all! I've now finished the first band of planking. This has, as always, been a slow process--tracing templates on tape, cutting out the plank, adjusting to fit, soaking it and letting it dry in shape, fine-tuning, and gluing--but an enjoyable one. Although I've fit four planks where the kit design has three, the required plank overlap means that my planks have often been about the same width or slightly wider than the kit-designed planks. I've been able to use some segments of kit-designed planks where they match what I need, but I had to cut a lot of them myself. Overall, lapstrake planking has been an interesting experience with its own challenges. I've had a tricky time getting good tape templates for the planks, as the tape isn't running flat from upper to lower edge of the plank shape, but runs along the bulkhead, abruptly shifts up onto the lower plank, and continues to where I've marked the lower edge. It's also been difficult to properly shape the planks for smooth runs. With carvel planking, you can use clamps to push the plank against the lower strake, which can allow you to do a bit if minor edge-bending if necessary. With lapstrake planking, you can't really do that, and have to judge that the plank is placed well and will have a smooth run. As a result, I've often had to adjust the joints between planks afterward with sandpaper. The top edge of the planks are often a bit uneven or off at the joint between planks in each strake, as seen below, where there's a sort of divot in the run of the strake. Thankfully this is easy to cover with the next strake, just making sure to measure the plank's location from the lower edge of the previous plank plank rather than from the upper edge. In any case, today I finished the final plank in the lower band, reaching to the top of the sternpost. From this point on, I think the planks should be easier to bend into shape, as they'll have a lot less twist. Before continuing, I'll need to re-line out the remaining bands and planks. My lower band ended a tiny bit short of the mark amidships, but it's nothing that can't be corrected by slightly adjusting the width of the remaining planks.

Nice work! I never would have thought of using that material a base, but it looks great, and from a distance gives the impression of a gray sea.

@wefalck, you're right that the planking runs are easier with a slight rise at the ends. The plans show fairly limited rise, but definitely some: Although I didn't find any photos of the type, drawings in the monograph show a bit more than given by the plans. Maybe it's artistic license, but definitely suggestive. In any case, angling the plank (in this case some scrap) a bit leads to a much better run across the frames.

I think that's the trickiest part, I'm still developing an eye for planking and hull shapes and this particular hull form is a bit tricky for me to visualize. It would be an interesting experience to add the cant frames later, either fitting it to the planking or to a run of battens, but I don't think I'll be able to get the sharp bend shown on the plans without a frame in place. I think that I'll try measuring the dimensions of some of the waterlines and comparing them with some of the same points on the model hull to see how well the current frame position matches the plans.

Nice work! I hadn't noticed this build before, it's a very interesting subject.

By this point, I think I'm nearly done with fairing... the port side, that is. It's taken a while, but at this point battens seem to run smoothly all along the hull. The main exception is at the stern, where the required bend is so sharp that I can't run battens without them cracking. I had to soak a piece of thin basswood for the photo below, which suggests I have some fine-tuning to do. It's a ridiculously sharp turn, but looking at the plan drawings of the hull lines and the planking runs at the stern, I think it's supposed to be like that? Part of me almost wants to detach the sternmost cant frames and re-glue them slightly higher on the deadwood, but 1) I don't think that would make that much of a difference, and 2) they're already positioned higher than they're supposed to be according to what I can understand from the plans. Trimming a bit off the bottom where they join the deadwood might provide a slightly easier run into the sternpost, but I think this is just a tricky stern to plank regardless.