JacquesCousteau

Thank you, @Knocklouder, @Oboship, @robert952, @Jorge Acevedo, and others for the kind comments and likes! No build progress just yet, but I am quite happy to report that the model survived the move to Mexico City. Given that space was at a premium--hard to pack everything accumulated over a decade of living somewhere into a few suitcases!--I trimmed the build board, leaving just enough to protect the hull. The interior was then stuffed with cloth placemats, and the hull was well-wrapped with layers of bubble wrap and cloth napkins. I especially built up some layers just ahead of the quarterdeck, as it seemed to be the point most likely to break. In hindsight, it probably would have been sturdier to add an extra layer of cardboard to further protect the hull, but the model survived the move intact in a hardshell suitcase, with a blanket stuffed around it (and other fragile items) to further cushion it. I have to say, the hull is much easier to pack than a fully rigged model. Given that I likely have more moves in my future, but would very much liks to build some rigged sailing vessels, I'm considering seeing if there's any way to build them such that the mast and rigging can be removed relatively painlessly for packing. In any case, I'm now considering how to make the display board. We have a nice miniature Tecuani mask that came magnetically attached to a black backboard with wood trim. I'm thinking that something similar might look good for the half hull. The hull might disappear against a wood-colored background, so I think a black background will focus attention on the hull, but the trim is a nice touch, and a magnet mounting so the hull can be removed would probably make things easier to pack. But we'll see.

Very well done, congratulations!

Very ambitious, I'm looking forward to following along! This sounds like a great way to contribute to the educational mission.

Looks great! The stringers really highlight the lines of the hull. I forget if you may have said this earlier, but will you be leaving some of the planking off the finished build to show off the framing?

Congratulations on a job well done!

The model looks great, looking forward to seeing more about how you built it!

Very cool! I recognize the top plan as from Chapelle, where do the other plans come from?

Looks like you've done a great job, including overcoming some obstacles in the build.

Congratulations! The completed model really looks great, you did an excellent job on it (tricky parts and all).

It should appear if you click the magnifying glass symbol, which I circled in the screenshot below.

Excellent job! I particularly like the coloration on the floor planking, the tinted wipe-on poly really effectively gives it a slightly weathered look.

Very well done, quite the inventive display!

Thanks! I've officially completed the hull! I'll still be finishing the hull and making the display board, so I'll hold off for now on marking this log as "finished," though. Adding the quarterdeck planking was pretty straightforward. While the instructions say that it should have three strakes, that seemed to lead to relatively wide planks, so I followed the lead of a number of other build logs and went with four instead. As can be seen, I left the ends of the planks long so I could properly size them afterward. I used a razor saw to cut off the ends. Planking the transom was pretty straightforward. The instructions say something about it being curved, but mine ended up pretty straight. I probably over-sanded the top of the transom way back at the start of the build, which would be a problem if I were trying to replicate a specific vessel, but it greatly simplified finishing the transom. Adding the rail to the quarterdeck and transom, as well as the stern trim, was very straightforward. I should note that I added a small support beam at the front of the quarterdeck planking. After the photo below, I added a shim on the front end so that I had more surface area to glue the rail piece that covers the front of the quarterdeck. One last part to add! As can be seen, I pre-curved the piece of stern trim before painting it. After I glued it in place and trimmed, I just had a little sanding and painting to do, and with that, the hull was complete! Overall, I'm pretty happy with how this turned out. There are a few things that I could definitely improve. This lighting really highlights how some of the hull planking ended up a little uneven, for instance. That said, this was my first curved hull to plank, and I generally like how it turned out. I'll write a more complete reflection on the kit later, but I feel it successfully taught me vital skills and has given me the confidence to tackle more complex models than the flat-bottomed vessels I've mostly been building so far. Next up, I'll be trimming the building board closer in size to the hull, wrapping everything in bubble wrap, boxing it, and moving with it back to Mexico City. Once there in September, I'll be applying some sort of oil or wipe-on poly to the hull, and mounting it to some sort of display board.

Nice job, the captsan looks much better and well done with the brass!

Thanks! I'll definitely test with the tape before marking anything out. In any case, I was able to shape the aft wale. Clamping it to dry to the curve was tricky and I had to get creative with a rubber band at the aft end. I then painted the wale, sanding it smooth between layers of paint. Test fit below: Clamping the foreward end in place was simple enough, but the aft end was tricky. The lower layer of the wale hadn't been quite long enough, so I had ended up needing to fill a slight hollow there. I used a dab of super glue at the end, which unfortunately slightly marred the finish of the hull but I think I was able to lightly sand it out. The photo also shows the counter planking. As can be seen, I mis-judged the widths so they're a bit uneven, although I don't think it will be very noticeable once the stern trim is in place. Next, I made and painted the rail. I did not glue it together off-model as I was worried about getting the angle slightly wrong. Instead, I glued the main piece in place first, then the fore end. Once again, clamping was necessary to hold everything in place, although due to a lack of places to put the clamps at the bow, I just held it in place by hand until the glue set. Despite a few setbacks, I'm very happy with how this is turning out:

Incredibly, it happened again (although not as much of a gouge) when I pulled the tape off the new aft wale! I'm trying to think of what could be causing this and I'm very confused. Is this just because it's been hot and humid in Chicago lately? If that's the cause, then I don't think I'll be able to finish until after I move to (drier, cooler) Mexico City. If anyone has seen this before or has an idea of what's causing it, I'd love to hear.

One step forward, one step back. First, I marked out the size and shape of the rail, going a little wider than suggested in the instructions. Next, I glued on the strip marking the quarterdeck. I also placed tape to again mark out the aft wale. I decided that it would be easiest to get a good scarf joint if one end was pinned down, instead of having both parts of the wale free-floating, so I glued the fore part of the wale in place. I have to say, the black wale against the natural wood looks very sharp. Once it dried, I placed the tape over the end to mark the scarf. Unfortunately, the stringiness that I noted above in some of the hull planking caused a serious problem. Although I'm using Tamiya masking tape, which is supposed to be not very sticky, it pulled a couple "strings" in the wood out with it, leaving very noticeable gouges in the hull! This is definitely a bit frustrating. I'm not sure why this is happening, this seems very unusual. I was able to somewhat smooth it by sanding, at least, but I'm concerned about accidentally pulling out more "strings" from the hull.

Very nicely done! You may want to consider sanding the frame head iron down a little so it's thinner to be more in scale. On my build, I used an index card to make the irons.

Thanks! Next up, I made a 1/16x1/32-inch strip and painted it black to serve as the quarterdeck trim. This was very basic to do, so I didn't think to take photos. I haven't installed it yet, though, as I wanted to fully smooth the hull first. This was a bit challenging, given basswood's propensity to form a fuzzy surface. Part of my solution was to brush on watered-down white glue on the interior, which stuck the planks to each other between the frames and allowed for much more even sanding. Following Toni Levine's suggestion in her build log, I went up to 1500 grit, wet-sanding the hull with the finest grits. The results were mixed. On one hand, it did indeed get the hull quite smooth, which is nice. On the other hand, one of the basswood sheets was grainier than the others, and in several spots the sanding pulled up a "string" in the wood, leaving a small gouge. This can be seen in the photos below: I'm not sure why this piece of basswood looks so different from the others and sands so differently. I do not think I will be sanding the hull any further, as I don't want to cause any further gouges, and the 1/32‐inch planking is quite thin. I also began work on the wale, drawing a simple scarf joint onbthe first layer. Cutting the scarf was tricky and required some shaping to get a nice joint. However, when I finally got the pieces shown below to match up (note: they aren't glued, just resting on the curved hull, hence why they look off), I found that the aft wale section was now too short. So, I'll be remaking the aft wale piece and leaving it long, so that shaping the scarf doesn't leave it too short.

The final plank is on! I was very careful with trimming it down after cutting it oversize. First I focused on getting the lower edge right, repeatedly sanding parts down where necessary--you can see the markings on the tape of where I had earlier needed to remove material. Once the bottom edge seemed to smoothly match the lower plank, I began removing material from the upper edge. Once it was close, I removed the tape (which can partially block the view of the edges) for the final shaping. At this point, it's a little too large still. A lot of sawdust later and it was juuuuust about ready. At this point it mostly filled the space, just a few points still needed to be taken down a bit. And with that, it fits into place and was glued down. Then the hull was lightly sanded. With that, I think I'm in the home stretch. I've seen people refer to the last plank as the "whiskey plank," so I decided to celebrate it (plus some very welcome news at my job) with a sazerac.

Continuing progress. By now I just have the "whiskey plank" left to do, then the quarterdeck, counter and transom, and trim/rail. With the tight spaces as I got closer to the wale, I started "making" clamps by clamping two 1/8x1/16 inch basswood pieces (scrap from the Peapod model) around a 1/8‐thick core. Overall I'm pleased with how the hull is coming along. I'm glad that I reshaped the lines of the planking belts back when I started, as the last strake looks to be pretty smooth and more or less consistent in width. The unevenness at the counter will fortunately be covered by the counter planking. As can be seen, despite sanding there's still some unevenness on the hull planking, as well. Some of this I don't think I can really get rid of. The flat spot at the tip of the stealer, for instance, is due to the support that was added there, which was necessary to seat the stealer but which threw off the hull fairing there. In other places, the planking is uneven because I've only been gluing at the frames, so the planks sometimes just bend inward when I sand instead of staying even with the other planks. I will be running some watered-down white glue along the interior seams, and hopefully this will help. Clamping the last strake was more difficult than clamping the second-to-last. I think pushpins would be a good option here for at least the ends of the planks--not pushing them through the plank, but placing them just to the side into the frame. However, I didn't have any. In part, I was able to clamp a long piece of scrap extending from the top of the planking down past the rail and to fit scrap wedges in there. However, this was a bit haphazard, didn't work very well, and bent in part of the already-planked hull where I was clamping, as my clamps weren't large enough to clamp on the frames. Fortunately I was able to wet the wood and place shims between the planking and the frame support to push the planking back into shape. I forgot to take photos, but here's a reconstruction: Note: if you clamp like this, make sure to add supports to better protect the upper planking! I did earlier in the build when planking above the wale, but forgot about it this time. Another photo of the process. I'm finding this final strake to be the trickiest planks to shape. I've had to remake each at least once. With earlier planks, if the plank didn't 100% match the markings of the upper edge, it wasn't necessarily a problem because I could just shape the bottom edge of the next strake to match it. Here, though, the gap between the strake below and the wale above needs to be precisely filled. For example, I thought I was all set to place the final plank. But as can be seen in the photo below of the dry-fit plank, there are some small gaps along the bottom edge (marked by the poorly-drawn pointers). So, it's back to the drawing board to remake the final plank. Here's how the hull looks so far:

Congratulations on a job well done!

I was able to make more progress today, this time on something that's been concerning me for a while--blackening metal parts. Thanks to the advice contained on this forum, I was able to get results I'm actually pretty happy with, from a process I'd never done before that had been giving me anxiety. As mentioned in some earlier posts, I needed to find some way of dealing with several metal parts. The numerous parts of the rudder hinges, of course, but also I had bought a chain and a grapnel anchor. I won't be able to take the birchwood casey brass blackening solution when I move in a month, so I decided it was now or never. I also decided to blacken some Billings-brand turnbuckles that I bought for another project (the build log of which will have to wait until after the move). This would also be a bit of an experiment in blackening different types of metal. The rudder hinges and turnbuckles are brass, the chain copper, and the anchor some kind of white metal. Following the advice contained in a number of build logs and other posts, I first set out to thoroughly clean all parts. (No photos of the cleaning, unfortunately.) The hinges, especially, were looking pretty grimy after having been repeatedly heated, reshaped, and handled bare-handed. I dunked all parts in a mix of distilled water and dish soap and gave them a good scrub with steel wool while holding them with a hemostat. This was a bit tricky as most of the parts are quite small--well, not that small compared with what some of you work with--and the steel wool tended to snag. In the future, I would like to try with a metal bristled brush instead. I then rinsed the parts off in distilled water. At this point, the rudder hinges looked notably better than before, but still not as shiny as the turnbuckles. I should note that I was wearing rubber gloves for all of this. The next step in cleaning was to give all the parts a soak for 10 minutes or so in isopropyl alcohol. While acetone seems to be usually recommended, I don't have any and didn't want to buy extra stuff before my move, and I had read some things saying isopropyl alcohol can work too. I then placed all the parts on a paper towel to air dry. Next up was the blackening itself. I set up on my balcony so that I would have good ventilation, and I used a small glass jar (previously full of curry paste, but well cleaned) to hold tye blackening solution. I had read that the blackening solution works best with a long soak in a mixture of around 6:1 water:blackening solution. However, as I don't have medicine droppers and was pouring directly from the containers, I accidentally ended up with something closer to 3:1 or 2:1. I considered diluting with more distilled water, but decided against it, given that you're supposed to only add acids to water and never water to acids. I dropped in one of the turnbuckles. It was amazing to see how quickly it turned black, and I fished it out with the hemostats after about 10 seconds (clearly my solution was not as distilled as it should have been), dunked it in an old yogurt tub of distilled water, and put it on a paper towel to dry. Below, my first blackened metal piece, left, and a little plastic container holding the parts to be blackened, right. I continued, giving all the parts a soak of 10-20 seconds. Below, I just had a single turnbuckle to go. The rudder hinges and chain seemed to blacken pretty well, as well, as can be seen below. The anchor, in contrast, did not blacken at all, even with a fairly long soak (in fact, it's sitting in the solution in the photo below). I had read that white metal didn't necessarily blacken, so I wasn't totally surprised. Interestingly, as can be seen, the color of the solution seemed to darken, especially after the copper chain (which blackened well). This does make me wonder whether a fresh solution would have blackened the anchor. All the blackened parts were, as can be seen above, very dark black in color, but this was actually a fine powder that needed to be removed (selenium, if I remember correctly, which is toxic--the gloves stayed on all through this process). I used another paper towel to buff all the parts. Given how small they were, and how tricky it was to have fine motor control with the gloves, I ended up just rubbing them between two paper towels flat on the table. (I then sealed the paper towels in a plastic bag to throw out, as a precaution.) As can be seen, the parts except for the anchor turned out a sort of gunmetal gray, which I think is quite nice. Looking more closely, I can see a few issues to improve upon in the future. The interior of the holes in the turnbuckles didn't consistently blacken because they usually trapped air bubbles when I dunked them in the solution, and even agitating them didn't always get the bubbles out. This shouldn't be too visible, though, once rope is tied to the turnbuckles. There's also some unevenness in coloration, due either to my having cleaned the parts poorly or to my solution being too strong and not being able to do a long, slow soak. That said, this issue isn't really visible unless you look at the parts from very close up (for size, the turnbuckles are 11/16 of an inch in length). So, while there are things I could do better, overall I'm pleased with how these parts turned out. I will definitely feel more confident next time I blacken metal parts (whenever that may be). I should note, too, that my hemostats--which I thought were stainless steel--also ended up a bit discolored from this process. For now, I'm going to think if I have any other metal parts to blacken. I'll let the blackening solution dry out, and then will carefully through out the residue. Also, I tried to superglue the anchor pieces together as a prelude to painting, but the glue didn't stick at all. Clearly I'll need a different glue, but that can wait until after the move.

Not much that's new, just continuing with planking. I've finished the band above the wale, and have started the second-to-last strake in the last band below it. Clamping has been difficult due to the narrow space. And here's where it currently is: Close-up photography really brings out all the errors at the bow: In any case, I'm hoping to finish in the next couple of weeks.

Congratulations on completing a very difficult task!