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SiriusVoyager

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Everything posted by SiriusVoyager

  1. SiriusVoyager
    Thanks! Being mostly straight helped, but I definitely feel better about it than my previous builds.
  2. SiriusVoyager
    I continued adding more strakes to the frame. I came to another point where the width needed to be adjusted to keep everything straight. I simply held a strake as strait as I could and marked where the overlap was. I used a straight edge to trim a line between those two points. It's not exact, but it shouldn't be since the previous strake didn't have an angle at the overlap point. Sanded down the high points and fine tuned to fit. Nice and flush again. The bulwark is tricky because there is supposed to be a curve in it. The instructions say to draw a curved line connecting the frames, but I don't really see any easy way to do this well, other than free handing. Since I couldn't come up with a better way I drew a rough line, trimmed and sanded into the best shape I could. First layer of planking trimmed and sanded.
  3. SiriusVoyager
    I would say either buy a wood stain that you like or you can use thinned acrylic paint as a poor man’s stain. If you have burnt umber as a color that is a good place to start. You can mix colors as needed and find recipes online for different color mixtures. Once you get the color you like add equal parts water (or acrylic paint thinner depending on the paint) to the paint then treat it like any other stain. Apply it with a brush, let sit for 5-20 seconds, then wipe off with a paper towel. The longer you let it sit, the darker it will be. Make sure to test it on scrap first to ensure that you like how it looks.
  4. SiriusVoyager
    Nice work so far. The paddle wheel looks really good!
  5. SiriusVoyager
    That is a nice looking little model. Good detail on the deck. As far as the wood covering, is your goal to darken the mast?
  6. SiriusVoyager
    I think one of the biggest issues I have found as a beginner is making sure that anything that is supposed to be at a right angle, is actually at a right angle. It is very hard to eyeball it. Having a couple of perfectly square blocks that can be clamped to one or more sides will be helpful. I use Legos since I have them readily available.
  7. SiriusVoyager
    The keel looks much better now that it is square. Planking started. It is pretty straight forward being a cross section. I narrowed one plank (so far) to keep everything aligned. Beveling the edges is a bit tricky with the thin strips of wood. I found it easiest to only bevel one edge. Beveling may not be needed along the sides of the hull.
  8. SiriusVoyager
    I notice a lot of those clamps here. I have some as well. They work pretty well. Another good option for soft clamping is clothes pins. You can get more than you need at Walmart for less than $3. You just have to be careful with glue since they are wood. The pram is looking good
  9. SiriusVoyager
    Great work! It almost makes me want to go for a trip on it. Almost...
  10. SiriusVoyager
    It looks great! The gallery looks great too.
  11. SiriusVoyager
    The next step in the instructions is to lay the first layer of planking. It calls for leaving a gap of 4mm to place the keel later. I have played that game before with the Palamos and didn't like it. No matter how hard I would try to leave the exact width of 4mm, something wouldn't be quite right and I wouldn't like the fit. I cannot see a good reason not to simply place the keel first so that is what I did. The length of the wood for the keel was 150mm so it had to be cut to 120mm first. A razor saw with a miter box was great for this. Here is the keel (first attempt) on the frame. The keel didn't sit on straight. I doubt it would have been noticeable in the end, but I didn't like it. Fortunately I noticed it before it fully dried, so with a little bit of IPA and a hobby knife I was able to get a pretty clean removal without a lot of fuss. Second attempt with some Lego (I don't like that the plural of Lego is Lego) to help keep it square. While the keel was drying I prepared most of the strips needed for the first level of planking. A very rough measurement shows about 18mm along the longest frame which means 36 strips per side. I cut each strip about 123mm to have a little overhang to prevent accidentally cutting any too short. I only cut 60 in case I need to make any adjustments towards the end.
  12. SiriusVoyager
    Weather deck is completed. Planking the hull next.
  13. SiriusVoyager
    Wecome to MSW! This looks like an interesting little build.
  14. SiriusVoyager
    You could paint the sails black. It would probably be the most unique pram sails on the forums
  15. SiriusVoyager
    Stanchions made and placed in the same way as above. I tried by best to get them as aligned and vertical as possible. I may have to try again on bottom right. They are wedged in there pretty well so it may be a difficult task. I don't think anyone would notice unless they were specifically looking to see if they are aligned. The next sub deck didn't want to fit as nicely as the other two decks. I had to make a little extra room for the sub deck to fit around a couple of the frames and it lined up ok. It is a bit off at the mast opening, but that will be covered by the deck planks. The frames being a bit warped (from the first post) required me to hold everything together by hand to make sure the frames were aligned and tight to the deck. Time for more deck planks.
  16. SiriusVoyager
    I can understand why the instructions say to draw on the caulking for a casual builder. Cutting and laying the individual planks do take some time, but I feel like it is worth it. First gun deck planking finished, prior to finishing. Sanded and varnished with shellac Beams for the weather deck being installed.
  17. SiriusVoyager
    That is a great looking Dory you got there! Can't wait to see the start of the Pram.
  18. SiriusVoyager
    After making the first two stanchions by hand I decided there must be an easier way. I don't have a lathe but I do have a new dremel. The small dowel fit perfectly. I put a block with 60 grit sand paper in a vise and let it rip. It worked pretty well, I just had to be careful about leaving enough of the original dowel so that it held straight in the collet. One Stanchion was slightly too short so I added a shim that won't be visible. I forgot to take a photo of the stanchions in place. I used shellac to varnish them. At this point I took a bit of a break to decide what to do next. I had seen some build logs where people decided to make some of the crates and bundles prior to adding the next deck. I had thought about doing this as it seemed like a good idea for obvious reasons. Looking through the instructions I can sort of see why the manufacturer put the decks in first, though I can't really articulate why. I decided to continue on with the decks. A little bit of sanding to make sure the edges of the seam were flush and the sub decking is installed. I had seen on some build logs that people had problems with the sub decks not fitting properly on the cross beams. Some of them were pretty significant, in a way that the deck was dramatically sloped. Fortunately mine was minor enough that it is basically a none issue. This side looks fine. This side has a little gap on the middle two frames. I am not sure what to do about the cross beams. The plywood shows itself too well and doesn't look right to me. I may stain it to hide the layers. I definitely prefer the straigt basswood sheets used the Modelshipways kits over plywood used by AL and Occre. I started laying the planks for the second deck. This time I made sure to use the 1324 pattern. Tick marks are added to mark where to cut out for the mast.
  19. SiriusVoyager
    I understand exactly what you are talking about because I have wondered the same thing on a different model. For me it made it very difficult get those last strips in because they had to be sized just right. I suspect that the instructions do it that way because it allows full width planks to be placed for most of the length of the hull, while the center planks can be cut to fit without a lot of prior planning. The next time I plank a hull I will be using the techniques found Here rather than following the instructions.
  20. SiriusVoyager
    Nice job making the transom work backwards. It looks like your pram is on its way to turning out quite nicely.
  21. SiriusVoyager
    I had previously thought that the hull would be planked on the inside, but looking at the instructions, it is only above the main deck that is planked on the inside. I cleaned up some of the char markings in areas that would be visible. The deck also has been varnished with a few thin coats of shellac. The cross beams installed as well as two of the stanchions shaped and installed.
  22. SiriusVoyager
    First level deck planking completed. My intention was to do a 1324 pattern, but after about 6 rows I realized I was doing a 1234 pattern. I decided that it would be more trouble than it was worth to change it since it won't be easily seen when two more levels are added. For caulking I first attempted to use pencil lead on multiple strips being held together. That didn't really work very well because most of the strips didn't get any pencil lead on them. I then decided to try black paint. That didn't work well either because the paint spread too much. I went with the more time consuming method of running a pencil along each individual edge. The remnants of which can be seen on the marked up scrap wood. I gave it a once over with sand paper, but everything always looks worse once you look at it in a photo so I will go over it again prior to varnishing.
  23. SiriusVoyager
    The next step is to plank the deck. The instructions call for laying all of the planks and then drawing on the caulking. I decided to cut the planking and do a 1324 pattern. The deck is just over 11mm across and the strips are 4 mm wide which means I will need 7 of each size to get started. The instructions call for each plank to be 50mm, so I will use that length. That means the lengths for the four starting planks will be 12.5mm, 37.5mm, 25mm and 50mm. Upon measuring the strips to cut the 50mm planks, I found that each of the "300mm" strips are closer to 299mm. Of course I found this out after I cut the smaller planks. I hate wasting material unnecessarily. I also found that no matter how carefully I measured and cut, all of my planks vary in length by about a mm. I suppose in theory, if I place them randomly it should all average out and not be noticeable.
  24. SiriusVoyager
    Props to you for jumping right in! I wish I could have had the patience for this when I was a kid. Don't let it get you too frustrated and keep finding creative ways to get things done. As far as your mom and the iron, it may be worth asking. Ironing wood should be no different than ironing cotton as far as the iron goes.
  25. SiriusVoyager
    This will be my 5th ship/boat model. I wanted to keep things fairly simple and focus on improving model building skill. This model isn't based on any specific ship and is supposed to be representative of a 17th century Spanish Galleon. I know from some other build logs that there are historical inaccuracies. I am not sure how much I will focus on that as my intent is to focus on technique. I may make some changes inspired by some of the other build logs I have seen here. My first impression opening the box was that everything looked very clean and well packaged. I am not very thrilled about not having paper instructions and plans. I downloaded the instructions to my phone and will have to use my computer if I need to look at the high res images on the CD (that is actually nice having those). Getting started, some of the outer layer of plywood broke off while cutting out the four frames. I also found that two of the frames were bent, one sort of significantly. I was able to flatten them out using some water and an iron while giving it a bit of bend in the opposite direction. I started attaching the frames to the false keel. I probably should have started with the inner frames, but it was fine. The outer frames weren't supported on the outer edges by the false keel so care was needed to make sure that they were straight and square. Middle two frames sub deck sheets fit perfectly

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