JacquesCousteau

While traveling, I brought along the second test sail to try out. Unlike the first one, it's made of tissue paper instead of a coffee filter, and has reinforcement strips glued around the edge and panel lines drawn on (I didn't bother getting them fully even, as this is just a test). After wetting it and furling it (flattening one half to mimic how it will look resting on top of the rancho), I have to say that I think I like the look of the coffee filter better. In too many places, this sail took on sharp creases that don't look so much like fabric. Maybe I didn't soak it enough, but I did run it under the sink which seems like it should have been enough. The reinforcement strips are also nearly invisible and started peeling off in a couple places. So, for the final version, I think I will 1) make it out of a big coffee filter, and 2) not bother with panel lines or reinforcement strips (although it will get bolt ropes). This is taking some time, but I'm looking forward to having a result I like.

Also, if anyone has any suggestions about how to best ensure that bulkheads are even and square on the backbone, I'd love to hear them.

A bit more prep work on the lancha's skeleton. As mentioned above, the backbone was a bit oversized, so I trimmed off the excess on the front and bottom. I also extended the space for the transom. Later, I marked off the space for the rabbet (not pictured). There were a few places where I had cut too close to the line and the bulkheads needed to be built out a bit. In a couple places where it was more of a gouge, I added a bit of wood filler. For other spots, I built up multiple layers using thin scrap strips from planing. After the photo below, this was then sanded smooth. I was worried about imprecisions in cutting the slots, so I started thinking up ways to check before gluing how things are lining up. I hit upon the idea of loosely placing a 1/8x1/32-inch batten along the sheer line, clamped in only a few locations, as a way of doing a preliminary check for fairness. In general, the results were reassuring in that nothing seems to be disastrously off. A few bulkheads will need to be adjusted, especially number 6, which is notably short on one side creating a dip, and number 8, which is sitting a little high, and the bulkheads haven't been properly squared yet to the backbone. But other than those, the battens produced a more or less fair line. I was even able to use them to confirm that the transom, which I was worried I had cut too low, sits at the proper height. Next up, I'll be adjusting the fit (especially for bulkheads 6 and 8). I'm also going to add a 1/8‐inch-square strip along the bow so that the planking there can smoothly run into the rabbet. This will also substantially strengthen the projecting bow of the backbone, which is extremely flimsy due to crossgrain.

Welcome, and very nice job on the hull!

Incredible job!

Very nice job so far!

When I tried to custom order 1/32‐inch thick sheets earlier this year, Ocooch told me that the thinnest they could do was 3/64-inch.

Thanks! That would make sense, and if I remember correctly a lot of Spanish fishing boats had something like this. But, as far as I can tell they didn't do this on Canoas. Every photo I've seen is pretty clear that the only lines running down from near the top of the mast are the backstays and the halyard. Some photos also show the yard hanging quite a ways off the mast, suggesting a rather loose parrel. I'll have to think about it more. In any case, I'll be away from the build for a bit. I'm visiting my in-laws for Day of the Dead, and will be trying my hardest to eat my weight in tamales, mole, and pan de muerto over the next several days.

Very interesting, informative responses to a worthwhile question. I recently wrote a little about this in the first post in my Lancha Chilota build log (link in signature), but to expand a bit, there are several things that motivate me in this hobby. I've liked making things since I was a kid, when I built dozens of plastic airplane models and then tiny whittled models of age-of-sail warships. I stopped when I went to college, but picked it up again recently, at a point in my life when I suddenly had more free time (there is a light at the end of the thesis tunnel) and also began to explore other hobbies. While I'm currently taking a carpentry class and quite enjoying it, part of what I like about modeling boats is that I can do it at my desk without needing a full wood shop. I find wood to be a wonderful medium to work with. It's a lot of fun to shape, especially to get a complex curve out of straight strips. I also find the work relaxing and almost meditative in how you end up focusing on one tiny thing at a time. It's a challenge, and it's fun to try out new methods and to see how your craftsmanship imporoves. In this way, it's like other hobbies, such as painting or dancing. Modeling also provides a very different way of engaging with history than I'm used to. When not making tiny boats, I'm an academic historian (at least until humanities and social sciences programs are fully defunded...) who works mostly with the methods and perspectives of social history. For me, scratchbuilding a model, especially of a "traditional" workboat, provides an in to start thinking about a lot of historical questions. How a boat type developed can say a lot about the spread of ideas and technologies, as well as about changing economies. The way that people built boats, the physical work done on them, and the question of ownership can tell us a lot about how people related to their means of making a living. (Not for nothing, many of the works of history I've most enjoyed reading, like Peter Winn's Weavers of Revolution, are deeply grounded in their understanding of how the nitty-gritty details of work shape broader social and political developments). And the way that boats can get taken up as cultural symbols can tell us something about the development of national and regional identities. So, modeling a workboat can help me to understand how people lived, worked, and understood some of the broader transformations of the past centuries. There are limits to what model building can tell, of course--it's most directly about working out technical issues, and can't in itself fully answer these broader questions. But it can get me started thinking about them. And there's no rule that I can't sidetrack my own build logs with long digressions along these lines. I've enjoyed not just the build, but the research and writing posts as another mode of thinking about history. That said, why boats and not, say, trains or cars? I don't think it has anything to do with my parents, as nobody in my family is particularly nautical (or has been into models, for that matter). Ultimately I think it comes down to personal aesthetics. Something about a wooden boat--maybe the curved hull, maybe the organized chaos of the rigging--appeals to me in a way that other objects don't. And I think it appeals to a certain buried romanticism in me, to see in a boat a sort of freedom (even if, historically, they generally meant anything but that). So, modeling allows me to combine my historical interests with the act of creating and building something that I find aesthetically appealing. Good luck with the thesis!

I checked on the plans how far apart the frames are supposed to be, and used scrap wood to make a small piece of the same width. After getting the first frame in place, I just placed the spacer to make sure each subsequent frame was even.

Good fix from the ammonia problem! When I was making the Peapod, which has the same construction method, I found it useful to use a spacer block to help keep the frames even.

A bit more progress. Now that the fishing equipment is in place, I attached the mast and finally glued the rancho in place. The mast isn't glued, but (besides being firmly held to the mast step with a wooden peg) is firmly lashed to the crossbeam with 0.7mm rope. After knotting it, I was able to slowly tug on lines to move the knot under the crossbeam and mostly out of sight. I also added the halyard with 0.7mm rope, using a knot as this seems like it would be easiest to remove, and placed the backstay. Neither is tied into position yet, but I wanted to see what things would look like. I've also started on the parrel, which is proving to be very tricky. On the Cargo Canoa, based on some very blurry photos, I made the parrel as basically a single line with a loop at each end, one to fit around the mast and one to fit around the yard. I've now found clearer photos that possibly show a very different parrel, as seen below: Source: https://memoricamexico.gob.mx/swb/memorica/Cedula?oId=vvts2osBVs6S4R6nk8il I see two ways of interpreting this. One, based on the way the parrel lines come closer to each other as they approach the yard, is that my original idea was basically right, but the parrel loop around the mast is simply quite wide. The other possibility I see is that the parrel is a single line with a loop at each end, but each loop goes around the yard, with the "body" of the parrel passing around the mast. Both options comport with other photos that show the parrel only loops around the mast once. It's also worth noting that the parrel is not very tight to the mast. At the moment, I'm torn about the best way to approach the parrel, both in terms of which option given above makes the most sense and in terms of which knots to use. As both options involve at least one loop around the yard, I initially began with a simplified splice in 0.6mm rope. But, I began to wonder whether a simple knot would make more sense. From what I've seen in photos, the yards were regularly removed from the mast, and this would be much easier to do with a knot than with a spliced and served loop (the latter of which would require the long yard to be awkwardly slid out of the loop). So, I started redoing the parrel with knots. I began with a clove hitch, but this seems very bulky, especially if there will be a second parrel loop around the yard. So, if anyone has any suggestions about how to handle the parrel, I'm all ears.

Congratulations on a great build! This was an interesting topic to model, and it's been a fascinating journey to follow along.

Thanks! I was able to do that with the ropes tying the oars to the oarlocks, but I had a hard time getting enough pressure into the bottom of the hull around the crossbeams and other parts and so went with glue for some ropes.

Thanks, I'll definitely give that a try! Thanks! I've also glued the fishing equipment into place, pretty much where I originally positioned it. I just moved one of the nets a bit forward so it would be more visible. This has been a straightforward process. The trickiest part has been that some ropes and other parts needed to be glued down so they weren't sticking up unrealistically. One particular challenge was that the chinchorro net's floats couldn't really be pressed down any further and appeared to be floating a bit, as can be seen (not very well, admittedly) below, just next to the mast step: So, I looped up some scrap rope and rolled up some scrap netting to add under it, so it looks more like the floats are just on top of a wadded-up net. I'm still deciding whether to do the rope and the net (first picture), or just the rope (second): In any case, this is the longest I've had the rancho off since I added the rudder, oars, anchor, and other parts, and I don't think it looks half bad. Still definitely going to keep the rancho, though!

A bit of slow, halting progress on at least some parts of the build. Some people have made quite nice sails from tissue paper, so I thought I'd give it a try, as it's very cheap (I picked up several sheets for a few cents). I felt that my first test sail had been a little too cream-colored, so I tried to make it a bit more gray. A tiny drop of black paint goes a long way! I felt the color was a little dark, but I continued anyway as I could at least use it to test the tissue paper. As can be seen below, it seemed very smooth on the tile, but removing it from the tile (which required a bit of water) left it very wrinkled. I decided against adding separate panels or drawing on the panel lines, because I think they will be entirely invisible in the furled sail. I did, though, decide to try adding the reinforcing strips around the edges. Unfortunately, it was quite difficult to add these, or more accurately, to remove the sail once they were added. The attempt led to several rips and tears, and the reinforcements came off in several places. I realized that part of the issue is that the tile backing needs to be thoroughly cleaned after each use. Things stick too well if there's any residue. Having learned that lesson, I decided to keep using the gray sail as a test, while making a new sail in a better color with greater care: I'll see how this goes. I have to say that the tissue paper is much flimsier than the coffee filter (which is an obvious point I suppose).

Very cool, I missed most of your Bellona build so I'm looking forward to following along with this one. I quite like the look of Mediterranean vessels, and this seems like a fascinating kit.

Very nice job!

Fantastic job, I really like how you personalized the model. Your additions really paid off, it looks sharp. The whole flotilla looks great too.

Good question! I've mainly just used basswood strips, 1/32-inch thick, cut from sheets or scrap, but I've also used 1/16‐inch thick strips as well. Usually I go with something fairly thin, maybe 1/8-3/16-inch wide, and at least 5 inches long or longer. I've also used coffee stir sticks, some of which are 1/32-inch thick birch. In general you just want the batten to be thin enough to flex around the curves. I broke a few battens trying to fair the bow of my half-hull, perhaps soaking them would have helped but in hindsight it was a sign that a bit more fairing was needed.

Thanks! At the moment, I'm finishing up a Mexican fishing/cargo lake boat, the Canoa de Rancho, and I just started a build of a Chilean coasting sloop, the Lancha Chilota. I'm hoping to build some more small oar-powered vessels soon, as well.

Thanks, I'm looking forward to seeing how you build it with the sail!

Thank you all for your helpful comments! One tricky aspect of the plans is that they don't say or show anything about the planking thickness or the rabbet (they also don't include a lines plan, just drawings of each bulkhead). They do say that the bulwark should be made of a 2x8mm strip at 1:20 scale, which is a bit under 1/16 of an inch thick at 1:32 scale, but it's not clear if the planking should be the same thickness. So, taking advantage of this build being a generic type model rather than representing a specific vessel, I will plan on adjusting the rabbet for a single layer of 1/32-inch thick planking. This may lead to slightly differently proportions than those given on the plans, but the finished hull should still be a good representation of the type. In any case, I've been using a curved sanding block to finalize the shape of the bulkheads. As I go, I'm marking out a center line on each and using a small square to measure on each side. So far, the frames have been very symmetrical. I've also marked where I'll need to trim back the bow of the backbone to fit the stem.

I didn't see your post until I had already written mine, but I think that we're saying the same thing. My one suggestion is that, instead of adding wood filler to build the corner of Frame H back up, it might be easier to shape some scrap basswood. Very nice job of problem solving!

I think the counter is the most complex part of this model, and it doesn't help that the instructions are not very clear. I found it helpful to look at images of completed builds to try to reconstruct what the counter looked like. My sense is that the instruction to not sand the aft edge of frame H until the counter is added later in the build is a little bit of a simplification, because it's impossible to fair the hull without touching H, especially for the complex curves of the tuck stern. I think the main point is that the counter will form a horizontal line across rhe back of frame H, and the outermost edge (where the wale intersects) needs to not be sanded down. But I think it's ok to sand frame H closer to the sternpost in order to fair the stern curves. It might be useful to draw a line to mark where the counter will be placed, in order to not sand past it. Come to think of it, I don't really remember why the counter is supposed to be added later.