JacquesCousteau

While I usually go for more or less realistic paint schemes, I wanted to use this build to experiment with some other finishes. I decided to apply linseed oil to the capstan step and deck framework. It significantly darkened the wood and really brought out the grain on the cherry, especially. I think it looks quite nice. It will take a long time to cure, though, which is part of why I went ahead and applied the finish now. Next, I began work on the hatch. I plan on making the coaming out of walnut to provide a color contrast--it should really pop with the oil. I just so happened to have a scrap chunk of 1/4‐inch walnut that was just the right size to make the four sides of the coaming. Lacking a table saw, I used the razor saw to cut it into strips, and then used the mini hand plane to zero in on the correct width while smoothing the sides and squaring the pieces. It's a very slow process, but interesting enough. The walnut planes beautifully, except for around a knot in the wood. While the instructions recommend making the coaming first and then the grating, I decided to make the grating first, so that if it was very slightly off but otherwise acceptable, I could adjust the coaming dimensions to fit. I decided to make it out of basswood so the color would contrast. The ledges are supposed to be 3 inches deep, so I used 3/32‐inch basswood for them, and 1/32‐inch for the battens. Working out the width of the ledges and battens (which are the same) was tricky. The grating is supposed to be 33 inches square, or, at my scale, 1-1/32‐inch square. I initially screwed things up because the text of the instructions says to divide this into 15 equal parts, but if you look at the plans and count, it's actually 13: 7 ledges/battens and 6 spaces in between. Even after realizing the mistake, there were a few times I still erroneously divided by 15, not 13. Getting it right, the ledges and battens should be .079 inches wide (which, as it turns out, is about 2mm, but I didn't think to convert to mm until later). The battens were easy enough to make--just a long strip to be cut to size lengthwise--but the ledges were tricky. Following the instructions, I cut them a bit long, tack glued them together in a "sandwich," and marked out the cutout locations with a knife, measuring as best as I could with a ruler. My first try looked pretty uneven (below), so I flipped the sandwich over and tried again on the other side. For the second attempt, rather than try to consistently measure a tiny fraction of an inch, I used a batten to mark the widths. There was still some unevenness, but I decided to go ahead, hoping to either fill any gaps with sawdust and glue, or to just use this attempt as practice. I used the razor saw to cut, and marked which areas needed to be removed. I then cut out the marked areas with an x-acto blade. As can be seen below, in which the ledges are still over-long, there were some very uneven parts. It was now time to glue up the grating. Around this time, I realized my grating, by trying to follow the batten width, had ended up about 1/16‐inch short. I decided to keep things square and so shortened the other dimension. Gluing up was pretty straightforward: after getting the edges, I used the batten to space out the ledges, moving inward from the sides. However, when I got toward the middle, I realized that I had miscalculated: I only had space for six, not seven ledges! Given that this was a test piece, I decided to just finish it anyway. As can be seen, the resulting grating is pretty uneven. So, I'm clearly going to have to make a new grating. What have I learned, and what caused this to turn out so poorly? It seems that there were two reasons why I could only fit six ledges where seven were supposed to go. First, rechecking the dimensions of the parts with digital calipers, I realized that, while the batten was pretty close to the correct size (1.95mm instead of 2mm), the ledges were 2.25mm wide, meaning that six of them took up 1.5mm (nearly 1/16‐inch) more space than they should have. Compounding that error, I had shortened the grating to keep it square without paying attention to how this woud impact its layout. So, above all, I realized that I need to be more precise in measuring. With so many repeating parts, any small error compounds quickly and throws everything off. I'll need to make frequent use of the digital calipers to ensure that everything is the right size. Hopefully grating no. 2 turns out better!

I've finally gotten the garboard on. This ended up being a more complex process than I initially thought it would be. Looking at the kit designed garboard, I couldn't shake the feeling that, while it would work perfectly for a caravel-planked hull, it didn't quite have the right lines for lapstrake planking. It was a little wide in parts, had some bulges, and nosedived a bit toward the bow--which, besides giving a slightly awkward run, also made it very difficult to properly twist the plank there as it narrowed so much that there was almost no leverage. I also found that the thinned plank looked a little too thin next to the keel. So, I reshaped the plank quite a bit, narrowing it and removing bulges to get a nice, smooth line. Once I was satisfied with the run, I marked its edge on the bulkheads and marked out a slightly higher forrward tip. I then transferred the markings to semi-opaque Tamiya masking tape, so as to cut a new garboard. I decided to thin these planks to 1mm instead of.79mm. I also decided to make the garboard in two parts so as to better handle the sharp twists. Below, the aft garboards are drying in place. They still need some final shaping along the upper edge, but given the pronounced twist, it's easier to leave them slightly wide for now, and shape them to the line once they've had the twist added. While working on the garboard, I also painted the interior of where the wells will be located. I'm considering leaving one well partially opened, and thought it would be easiest to paint everything I could now before the hull is closed up (although of course I'll still need to paint the inside of the planking). This isn't an original idea, @Desertanimal did the same on his kitbash (and it looked great) so I'm copying him on this. Here we can see the full garboard strake. I think it has a nice smooth run that should provide a good basis for the other planks, without going too high at the stem. (As can be seen, the centerboard has gotten a bit banged up, and was briefly stuck in the raised position due to excess glue. The paint needs some touch-up.) Now that the garboard is on, I need to line out the remaining planking.

Very nice work, especially on a challenging, small-scale kit!

I'm not sure what you mean by "taboo," but you might get some ideas by looking at naval cutters, which are around the same size. Checking very briefly, at least one of the models in this thread has a small boat stored on deck: I would guess that merchant ships' boats were less standardized than naval ones, but some of the smaller naval boats perhaps would have been similar enough. If you search for merchant ships' boats, or look at models of small merchant vessels, that might give you some ideas as well. You also might get more responses if you edit the title of your post to better reflect your question: "Merchant ship's boats" or something like that.

Nice start! I'm looking forward to following your build, and am especially curious to see how the bent cant frames turn out--I'm in the middle of building this same model in 1:32 scale and the cant frames have given me some trouble.

Beautiful work! I really like the natural wood tones mixed with paint highlights, it looks really sharp!

Very nice work! Will you be showing the barge build in this log, or a separate one?

Minor update. I scribed the plank lines on the step, ran a thin pencil down them, and erased, leaving just the scribe line slightly highlighted. As for the bolt holes, I found that the full-size 3/4-inch diameter bolts would correspond to about 0.59mm at scale (at these tiny dimensions and odd fractions, I find metric much easier to work with). I have .51mm brass rod, which is close enough. I drilled the holes after tack-gluing the step in place. It looks much less boring now.

Nice work, the deck looks a lot more even-colored now!

Thanks! I just wish I didn't cause so many problems for myself that needed solving.... I've now made the capstan step. I used 3/16‐inch thick cherry for the upper three pieces, as I don't have any alder in the right thickness and didn't want to plane down to the right thickness from 1/4‐inch thick pieces. Cherry is much harder than alder, so I used a razor saw for all cuts. For the lengthwise cuts, I scribed the cut line first (slightly oversize) to give the saw purchase, and planed smooth to the measurement afterward. After gluing together, the ends weren't quite straight--one part had been cut with a coping saw at the end, which I struggle to get fully straight. So, I made up a sort of simple shooting board (e.g., I put some scrap under the piece and placed the plane on its side) and planed across the grain to smooth things out, then finished it with sanding. The lower piece of the central board was made of alder scrap, slightly overthick (it needed to be 1/8-inch thick and was 1/64-inch over) and planed to the proper thickness. As it's on the underside, the color difference with the cherry doesn't matter. Testing showed it fit the space well. Before gluing the upper and lower parts together, I drilled a pilot hole through both pieces. I don’t have a drill press and don't have a good record of drilling perfectly vertical with my pin vise. So, on each piece, I marked the center on both sides, and drilled from both sides. It didn't turn out quite perfect, but close enough. I was then able to use a needle through the hole to align the parts and to glue the upper and lower parts together in place, so as to make sure the step was square on the framework. This is a different order than that given in the instructions, wherein the lower part is supposed to be glued to the upper step board before gluing on the side step boards, but it seemed to work out all right. The hole for the capstan barrel will be drilled out later. I then rounded the edges a bit. In hindsight, I wish I had colored the edges of the cherry boards before gluing the step together, as it isn't all that visible that the step is made from separate boards instead of a single piece. I may carefully scribe the plank lines a bit. I haven't yet drilled the bolt holes, which will add a lot of visual interest to the piece, for two reasons. First, I still need to figure out what material I'll use for bolts, and from that, what diameter the holes need to be--ideally I'll be able to follow the plan dimensions, but if I don't have anything in the right thickness, I may need to just go with something close enough. Second, there's a discrepancy in the plans as to where the bolts should be located. One sheet shows the outer bokts as 10 inches from the edges, and the inner ones as 6 inches inboard from the plank seam. The other sheet shows the outer bolts as 8 inches from the edge, and the inner ones as 5.25 inches from the plank seam. Both sheets are labeled as sheet 13. The first sheet has a note that it was modified on 8/4/21 "because of change in P/N 12." Part 12 is the outer capstan step parts, the dimensions of which were apparently changed at some point (I think this is discussed in Cathead's build log), but I'm not sure why the plans don't include only the updated version (they don't include the original dimensions for the outer capstan steps, just the updated ones). In any case, I think that 8 inches from the outer edge looks better and places the bolt in the middle of the plank, as shown in photos, so I think that's what I'll do. Finally, as this model is built of several subassemblies that are joined together only at the end, I'm considering adding a finish to the deck framework now. I'm thinking about using either linseed oil (which I have but which is very slow drying) or shellac (which I'm hoping to get this coming week). Below, you can see the color difference between unfinished alder (the deck framework) and with linseed oil (the scrap wood), although I think the scrap alder was a bit darker than the deck beam alder to begin with. I know that adding oil now would impede strong glue joints later, but it seems like few of the glue joints between subassemblies will be under much pressure, and in most cases I could add pins to better hold parts to the deck beams. Something to consider, although I want to see how the shellac looks (if I can get any).

Thanks for the heads-up! I actually had the same thought when I saw the photo. Checking with a batten shows that things line up fairly well--cant frame C is a little in at points, but not by much, and fairing the frames on either side should bring everything in line. At least, that's the hope. I'm more worried about the stern, as there's quite a turn the planking will have to take around part of the aftmost cant frame. That said, I can take a good bit of material off the frames as I cut them oversize.

I began the actual construction by cutting practice mortise joints in scrap. I decided to use the fake mortises as given in the intermediate instructions, because I don't have a chisel small enough to fit in the notches to cut the actual joints. Next up, shaping the carling ends. This was straightforward enough with a sharp X-acto knife, which I used instead of a razor small due to the small size of the 1:32 scale parts and the ease with which alder can be cut. Unfortunately, I forgot about my plan to hide the gouged edge on the bottom. Fortunately, I realized that I can hide it under the hatch coaming later. Cutting the joints into the beams was exacting, slow work, but I was mostly pretty happy with how they turned out. I followed the measurements from the plans from the tip of the beams to the inner edge of the carlings, then used the carlings to measure out the other side of the notch. I then jerry-rigged a jig to hold everything square for gluing. At this point, I realized that I had made a catastrophic error. (Sharp-eyed viewers may have already spotted it.) The fore hatch carlings are much too close together. I realized that, when I was marking, I had held the carlings on the wrong side of the first marking. The actual model should look like the plan view below, with the fore carlings barely smaller than the aft ones. So, what to do? The thought of remaking the beams through yet another slow hand "milling" process was not very appealing, not to mention that I'm loathe to consign any good modeling or jewelry-box wood (all of which I have carted around on flights in my luggage) to the scrap pile. So, I decided to try to salvage the beams. New notches could be cut on the other side. Meanwhile, I filled the incorrect notches with scrap alder, which I then cut and sanded to size. The color difference is notable, but given that these notches will be on the bottom, and most of them will be inboard of the hatch/grating, I don't think they'll be very noticeable. And if they are, it will be a good reminder to measure twice and cut once. I then cut out new notches. As can be seen, one was miscut a little wide. Thankfully, it will be on the inboard side and will be covered by the captsan step. Overall, I don't think these notches turned out quite as nice as the first ones. Possibly it's because I cut the first ones at the end of the day while I was very awake, while I cut the new ones in the morning while sipping coffee and waking up--there's probably a good lesson in there about not planning on doing finnicky work when you're not fully awake. In any case, I was able to fill the largest gap with a thin slice of wood, and the smaller ones with a glue/sawdust mixture. Despite the many, many errors I've committed so far, I think it's turning out all right.

Although I have a lot of other builds going at the moment, I decided to start this new one for a few reasons. I've noticed that I could stand to improve the quality of woodworking in my other projects, and this project is intended to help build skills in joinery and some techniques that are a bit different from what I've done before. I'm looking to get better at precision woodworking for some jewelry boxes I'd like to make as gifts, as well as for more complex model builds I have planned for the future. I also wanted to experiment with different finishes. The NRG Capstan looks like a well-designed and fun build, and there are several useful preexisting build logs (one by designer Toni Levine) I can turn to if anything is confusing. I can pretty readily scale it to use stocks of wood that I already have, which is important because getting finely milled lumber here is hard and I don't have the tools or experience to mill my own. The project also is intended to use some power tools, like a mini table saw, that I don't have, so I'll be trying to use hand tools for everything. I've rescaled the project to 1:32, which matches my other scratch builds. This means that my version will be rather smaller than the practicum plans, which are for 1:16. The small size will certainly pose a challenge, especially for the grating, but I'm looking forward to it. (As will be seen, I have also made a lot of mistakes from the start, so do not expect this model to be the work of art that the other captsan builds are.) First things first: the deck beams and carlings. At 1:32 scale, the beams are 1/4 x 5/16 inches. I have a sheet of 1/4-inch thick alder. I've liked working with alder so far because it's easy to cut with hand tools, but holds edges well and doesn't fuzz up with sanding like basswood does. My options to cut a 5/16‐inch strip by hand were to use a coping saw or to make repeated passes with a sharp knife. Alder is pretty soft, so I opted for the later. I marked out where to cut, going 1/32‐inch oversize to leave room for straightening and smoothing later, and used a razor saw to cut the end. Using a straight edge, I traced out the cut several times until there was enough of a cut to guide the knife without a straight edge. I did the same on the other side, and went slowly, slightly deepening the cut with each pass on each side. This went on for a while. I think the 1/4-inch wood is about at the upper limit of what can be cut this way. Eventually the blade was in deep enough, and the cut lines were defined enough, that the knife wedged the strip off of the sheet. Of course, this left a messy edge, although straighter than I've gotten by using a coping saw for this sort of cut. I then used my mini-plane to smooth the cut edge. The main challenge here is making sure that the plane is held straight and isn't beveling the edge. Using scrap wood as a stop really helps with planing. From there it's just a matter of zeroing in on the required measurement. I did a couple more passes after the photo below. Finally, I used my razor saw and the miter box with a stop to cut the beams to length. I used the same methods on the carlings (4.5 inches thick), although here I was able to use much thinner, easier-to-cut alder, scraps from making the frames on my bateau build. I actually made these before I cut the beams, and didn't leave enough margin, taking a slight gouge out of one edge that I decided I could cover up by making it the bottom (which gets slightly rounded anyway). With all the parts of the deck structure "milled" to size, I was ready for the next steps.

Thanks, all! @tkay11, I knew one of those dimensions had to be molded and one sided, but I wasn't sure which, so thank you very much for clarifying! I decided to go ahead with fairing. If the frame needs to be redone in the end, there's no harm in trying to fair it into shape first. I tend to fair pretty slowly over the course of days if not weeks, both because it's tedious work, and because taking my time makes me less likely to take too much off and more likely to really get things right instead of deciding that it's close enough. I noticed that the hull was quite flexible, so I added a bunch of supports across the top. They're as haphazard and ugly as the supports between frames, but thanks to the power of triangles, the hull is now pretty resistant to flexing and twisting.

Amazing work! It's incredible how realistic it looks at such a tiny scale.

I can't speak to what would make more money (from what I understand, model making is quite a tricky endeavor to make profitable). But as for paint vs natural finish, it's really a matter of style. Most workboats would have been painted or otherwise at least partially covered with some sort of material, like tar, as a protective measure. So if your goal is to make an accurate representation of what one of these vessels looked like, paint would be necessary. But modelers frequently avoid straight realism for something more stylized--think, for instance, of the many models out there with exposed framing. Highlighting the natural colors of the wood is a stylistic choice that can be quite nice. All of which is to say, painting isn't just to cover mistakes, but whether to paint or not is a stylistic decision for you to make based on what you're going for.

Thanks, Waldemar, for the suggestion! I started writing my earlier post before you posted this, so I didn't see it until now. That would definitely work for the external side of the frame, but that's the part that's been giving me the least trouble. The cant frame is so close to the stem that its alignment with the rabbet is pretty easy to eyeball. The joint with the stem is the part that's really been giving me trouble. Although I suppose a series of battens along the exterior would reduce the amount of play in test-fitting the joint. I'll keep this in mind if I decide to redo those cant frames. I'd like to have them in place before planking as otherwise there's very little gluing surface at the stem.

That's a very intriguing suggestion, thanks! I think I would have to pre-shape the notch to some degree before fitting it to the stem, as there would be a lot of excess material distorting things if I just squished an unnotched frame against the stem. I haven't seen such clay but haven't been looking, I'll have to keep an eye out next time I'm in an art supply store. I ended up removing the starboard cant frame and cutting a replacement one from some scrap with a knife. Shaping it was a slow process, trying to adjust everything so it would fit better than the first one. I realized that the line of the cut across the outer face (which should join the stem) needed to be a curved line that, when the piece was positioned as it would be on the model, would appear straight when viewed from ahead (as can be kind of seen below). After a lot of slow, careful shaping and fitting, I ended up with a piece that looks very slightly better than the original. I think I can live with it, it more or less matches the port cant frame at least (minus some chipping that occurred). If the cant frames are tricky but ultimately maybe liveable, I've found another issue that may require a frame replacement, but I'm curious what others think. Running a batten along the hull, I'm generally very happy with how fair things are at this point. Without any external fairing, things are lining up pretty well (although the stern will be quite a pain in the neck to plank), much more so than on the plank and bulkhead models I've made so far. There's one part, though, that's not fair. As can be seen below, frame 8 seems to stick out quite a bit around the turn of the bilge, enough so that a 1/32‐inch/0.8mm strip can be slid between the batten and the frame to the right of it. There's a similar, though less extreme, problem on the other side of the frame. Would this be considered a big enough deviation from fair that I should try to remake the frame? It may be possible to just redo the floor, perhaps adding a tiny bit more height where it meets the keel so as to raise the turn of the bilge by a hair, and keep the original futtocks. (Although if so, I wish I had noticed this before I pinned the floor in place!) If I don't replace it, I think I would have to remove about 1/32 of an inch from the exterior of the hull here, and sand down the interior of the other frames by a similar amount to fair the interior. Looking at the monograph, I found the following about frame dimensions on page 41: "La membrure est compossée d'allonges ayant 88 [mm] d'épaisseur sur le tour et 122 de largeur sur le droit." Which google translates as: "The frame is made up of extensions having a thickness of 88 [mm] on the circumference and a width of 122 on the right." So I think the 122 is referring to the dimension of the frames from fore face to aft face, the frames are supposed to be 88mm thick (from exterior to interior side), at full scale, which translates to 2.75mm at 1/32‐scale. This comports with the frame drawings. My frames, including frame 8, are about 3.75-4mm thick right now depending on where they're measured. This suggests I could theoretically remove the 0.8mm or so needed to fair the exterior without dropping below the thickness given in the plans. So, replace or fair it out? If the former, I'd have to be careful to slightly adjust the floor from the drawings in order to not repeat the issue. If the latter, it does sound like a lot of sanding, but I suppose I need to do a lot of sanding anyway given that I cut the frames a bit wide of the plans. Any suggestions are welcome!

Very easy to do!

Thanks, Bryan, your shallop build looks great! For the most part, going the POF scratch-build route has been a lot of fun. Cutting out all the frames was more tedious than difficult, and I don't think it's beyond the skill of anyone with a bit of experience and lots of patience. The cant frames have really been by far the most challenging part of this, though, and here the problem is at least in part just due to a lack of clear info in the plan set about what to do. Something like David Antscherl's Hayling Hoy monograph seems from the build logs I've seen to have clearer directions (although it's also a much more complex vessel). That said, I have yet to fair and plank this hull, and it's entirely possible that I'll find that I screwed up in a major way on the frames due to a lack of precision somewhere.

Very nice work! On the sheet, is it just temporarily double-looped through the blocks, or is it supposed to use double blocks?

Thanks for the suggestion, that would probably be the easiest way to get things. Yeah, hats off to anyone who can conceptualize these complex shapes intuitively (or through long experience). I suppose I could simplify it by not running the frames over the back of the stem and just cutting them at the right angle to butt-joint against the sides of the stem.

Thanks, @wefalck. I'll have to check out the watchmaking/repair shop here again. They seemed to have some interesting stuff. Unfortunately like many small shops here, their setup was not very amenable to browsing--I got the impression that you have to already know what to ask for when you go. I may have to redo some parts. Cant frames A turned out more challenging than I thought (I'll spare everyone my now-habitual complaining about the plans). Due to their position right alongside the keel, it was hard to test fit them until they were already shaped. Shaping them took a while, as they needed very long notches, curved to match the stem curve. I then glued them in position. Unfortunately, there ended up being quite a gap where they meet the stem. The starboard side is especially bad, the port side better but still not great. The aftmost part of the joint with the stem is also off, with the tips floating a bit above it. Apparently I added too much of a curve to the notch (after initially being unable to properly fit it because there wasn't enough of a curve). I'm debating whether or not to remake these frames, or at least the starboard one. Part of the problem is that I'm having a really hard time conceptualizing what the notch should even look like. I think that, at a certain point, it should be something like the drawing below showing a cross section of the frame piece, but the exact position would need to change along the length of the piece to match the angle of the frame-stem joint and the curve of the stem. I'm also not sure if the angle of the notch relative to the frame piece is really close to correct. So, on one hand, it would be better to have better-fitting frames here. On the other hand, I'm not at all confident in my ability to do a better job, given that I can't really figure out what shape the notch should be, and the jig makes it difficult to trial fit until you're already fairly close (but you also need the jig to trial fit in the first place). It's also worth noting that the second frame piece I made, not the first, is the one that turned out worse. I'm also not sure when I'll get the chance to go to the carpentry workshop again and would be able to cut new pieces--things are so busy with work that I really haven't been able to go, and have only been able to spend an hour here or there on modeling at home. Anyways, if anyone has any suggestions about the frame, I'd be happy to hear them!

Fantastic job, very precise work!

Thanks, Paul! I've found the time to make a bit more progress on this build. First, the keelson. This is just a long strip of wood, slightly tapered at both extremes. I'm making mine slightly longer than given on the plans to better cover the messy joints of cant frames C. Each end was also angled on the underside to better fit against the frames there. After a good bit of fairing, it fits smoothly across the frames, except for at frame 2 near the bow. I'm not sure if I cut the floor too thin here or what, but the keelson can't really be bent to fit onto this frame. I'm going to continue fairing frame 1, which I think is still too thick--the keelson is supposed to sweep up a bit at the ends, but maybe not quite this much--but I may have to add a support piece here. Second, cant frames B. As I've mentioned many, many times, the plans don't show the bottom ends of these. I had to trial-and-error my way into fitting them against the stem. One challenge is that the frames need to be on the aft side of the rabbet, but the frames are thicker than the relatively narrow ledge of the stem behind the rabbet. Checking photo logs of this model, I found that other builders have shaped these frames to fit onto the back of the stem--e.g., ending the frame in a notched joint rather than just a straight cut. I did one side first, constantly checking for fit and adjusting. It was a tricky cut to get right! By the time I had it right, the frame was a lot shorter than shown on the plans, as can be seen below (the parts were cut overlength, but the ends given by the plans are marked in pencil). Eventually I got both cut to shape. And I glued them in place. The joint with the stem didn't turn out quite perfect, but it should be stable enough and will be covered by the foredeck. Finally, I decided to pin the frames to the keel with a bit of copper wire and super glue, in order to strengthen the small butt joint there. It was tricky to push the wire all the way down into the holes because it easily bent and it was hard to get a grip to push it down, although it got easier once I started bending the wire at 90 degrees just above the length of the pin so that I could push down on the bend instead. Once all the pins were in, I was able to file them flush. I finally got to use the riffler file set I bought a while ago for this. Here's the current state of the build: Next, I need to add the last frames, cant frames A (which are basically hawse timbers or knightheads on either side of the stem). Given the highly acute angle where they meet the stem, these will be another challenge to shape.