Yabuhebi

Whew! The planking is a bear. The darn map pins only let me do about 3 strakes a side before I have to wait till the glue dries. I did try to taper #11 here, there are a lot of gaps, but as I've read on other builds....wood fill will fix it. Yeah...wood fill will fix it I think creating backing support (solid wood blocking, balsa or pine?) between the bow and bulkhead #1 would have helped visualize and/or shape the planks on the bow. You can see where I did not wet the stern ends of the planks and paid the price. Also the #11 strake on the STBD side is way too short. Wood putty will be my friend. Sadly, WAY too much space between strakes at the bow. That and there is a lot of 'stepping' or clinking or whatever between strakes. However, from this angle, the strakes look passable. These next few pics look pretty good too. Almost like I know what I'm doing! I am NO OLHA BATCHVROV!!!! She makes it look effortless! This morning I decided to take a different tack and tried to start at the keel and work my way back up to the water line. I took measurements of the 'white' or open space remaining. It showed that the middle, longest bulkheads needed 18 uncut strakes (at 6mm each) I took the open space for each bulkhead and divided it by 18. In my mind, this gave me the width needed for that particular bulkhead while keeping full strips on the middle bulkheads. I only did the first 3 strakes but I think it might go ok. I am sure I am going to have issues when I get to the original work! We shall see!

The sheet idea is a serious issue! When I did the Titanic model, I can't tell you how much time I spent on my hands and knees looking for those teeny tiny irreplaceable pieces. I have found missing parts tin my kit too. I only have one of the 12.7mm (1/2) dowels and I am missing walnut sheet #3, which has a lot of the next group of tasks with the galley. There is no way I want to inventory the rest of the small parts right now. I guess I will have to worry about that later. I am sure it is frustrating for Jotika, it seems like there is a huge upswing in demand for this kit, despite the cost and they are struggling to fulfill orders. Most of us imagine these companies have huge warehouses with dozens of employees working under bright lights and foreman pacing the floor. I think in reality, there is probably a hand full of employees juggling internet orders, phone calls and filling boxes with model parts. Has to be hectic. Jotika is sending the part out today, I didn't bother asking for the dowel. Seems silly to try and send a 48" piece of wood through the mail. Our local big box hardware stores sell it for about $3USD. I'm about half way up the bulkheads with the first planking. Having some fitting issues obviously at the bow and stern and some 'clinkering?' of the planks. I spent about 3 hours last night on YouTube watching planking videos, especially so I'm ready for the 2nd planking task.

Hi Graham; Thanks for the tip about setting up display options now. I will most likely just go with a stand where the finished boat just rests on it, rather than create an internal rod type system. Also, you are right about adding fill to the fore and aft bulkheads. I am not doing that and it is evident. The bow planks between bulkheads 2 and 1 are suffering because of a lack of solid backing. There is a bit of stagger in the planks and not as much roundness from #1 to the actual keel stem. My thought as my impatience made me just move forward without it was this...I would have used small soft pine blocks (no balsa around here that I could get quick enough), I would have created a 2 templates, created a series of wedding cake triangles, glued them together, sand them into submission. After hours of doing that, I would have started Or, I could just press on and spend those hours after sanding, filling and sanding into shape. Same time spent, but it soothed my impatience. THANKS! Chris

Ain't that the truth! Thank you!

Thanks Chris!!!

Day one, I received my kit. As there is a back log on this particular model, I was asked if it was ok to send in a plain box to speed up delivery time. I didn't really care about that and she arrived on February 14, 2024. Is there a way to alter or reduce the size of the photos in the post, so that they are not so big? Also....is it better to just attach pictures to my post so that they are down below or post in the message? Remembering that I am gearing this log for new builders with very little experience. RULE # 1: Read the instructions, read a few paragraphs for the next task and then RE-READ what you are about to do. RULE #2: Dry fit everything first, take a brief second and think about what you are doing and then go back to Rule #1 just one more time! I did not do that. As you can seen I glued the stern pieces to the keel and they should be left off until later. After some thought, I decided to just leave them on. Hopefully it won't matter or at the very least, I can fix it with sanding and putty. Once done, I created the little base to set the keel into as I began the process of adding the bulkheads. I just used some scrap wood. One tip: be sure you raise the keep just a bit up or make sure the bracing you are using doesn't interfere with the bulkheads. Mine did and I had to raise it just a bit. I added the bow pieces that help with plank backing. Mistake #2: I had read the instructions, but didn't pay attention to the order of things and got into a jackpot. I started thinking, what have I gotten myself into! I checked the fit of the lower gun deck. It is the beefy deck that I gives solid strength to the model before beginning all of the other tasks. It was fine so I removed it and then added BOTH dummy barrel strips. I had to soak all 4, but didn't do it long enough. In addition, despite some good sanding and filing to make sure the bulkhead slots were clean, the wet barrel strips would bind. After a few moments and some delicate persuasion, they went in. All set. However, when I went to put the lower gun deck in, it just didn't seem to look right. I kept thinking, it looks too high. But I glued it in and stepped away for awhile. I then realized that the lower deck goes UNDER the bottom dummy strip. Sigh, I had to pry the deck off and figure it out. I could not get it to fit under the upper dummy strip and there was no way I was going to risk breaking a bulkhead to remove the strips. So I cut the lower deck down the middle. Slid it into place, glued it and once dry, sanded the seam and added a bit of sawdust and glue to smooth it out. Whew.... The battle scar....we all have them! I then painted the dummy barrel strips. I just used what I have, Tamiya Flat Black. I have ordered a full set of Admiralty Paints, but they may take a bit to arrive in the US. No worries. Next up were the 6 gun port pieces on either side. The biggest issue for me was the use of the provided pins. I bought a cheap (after the fact) brad pin pusher from Amazon and I just can't make the damn thing work. It bends every nail I try to use. EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM! I tried pre-drilling and it was of no use. So I bought a can of map pins and they seem to work. They break a lot, but I think I have a couple of hundred in the can. Not many issues with the first piece (#270). Just some nervousness. I did the next two pieces and while there are some fitting issues along the tops and bottoms, they seem ok. My tip is to fit them dry, mark a line from an already attached piece to the new one you are working on so that they align right, pin nail or whatever from the middle out. First fore, then aft. That way they tend to 'smooth' out and you won't get any buckling. That's what happened to me and I should have know better. Again, a little sanding and putty will fix it...I hope! I am a bit more fortunate than many as I have a bit of a closed off area in my basement where I can work. Not enough room to lay out those crazy blue print plans, but enough to move around with just a minimal of bumping into things. I then beveled the fore and aft bulkheads. I did not do #18 and I should have. I am having issues with broken planks at that junction and shaping AND wetting would have stopped it. You can see the fitting and buckling below. I was able to suck that in a bit with clamps and glue. I began the process of laying the planks as detailed in the instructions. I soaked the ends good and long and decided to use full planks, just cutting off about 10-12 cm of each to fit. As I could not drive the pins into the sides of the bulkhead, I resorted to hammering in the map pins. At first, I was splitting the delicate planks, so I started predrilling the planks. That did the trick. I placed a small (IDK, .5mm?) bit with just about 2-3mm showing and it works great. I would hammer the pins in and the planks would fit fine. I can only do about 3 before the pins get in the way though... For the bow, I just used a good clamp with wood blocking to hold the planks to the bow backing. This way there are no chances of splitting the planks. Again, you can see the buckling. Very bad. But, I was able to mitigate it as much as possible. Here is where I am as of today. 5 rows done and I am very happy with it thus far. There are a couple of areas on the gun ports that I have circled, these need to be drawn in. Also, if you notice the little pencil marks on the planks between 2 planks? Those are the aligning marks I was talking about. They help to ensure I have everything lined up with the ends. Might be better ways, but this works for me. As you can see the planks do not terminate very well on bulkhead #18. I did bevel it going forward. A few of the end broke because of the bend, so be sure to soak this end too.

Hello everyone! Well....after 40 years of work, I retired 2 years ago and have been trying to find things to do. As a teenager, I certainly worked on plastic models, with all their glue stings and poorly fitting parts and horrific paint jobs. I remember getting a small Cutty Sark wooden model, with poor instructions and parts that were only printed to wood sheets. Everything had to be cut out and even the hull was a solid block of wood that had to be shaped and sanded....never came close to finishing. Last year I took on a plastic model, Trumpeter's Titanic. It was a massive undertaking and took just about a year to finish. I had to learn how to handle photo etch, a paint gun, the use of CA glue and manipulating teeny, tiny parts. I took most of last summer off in the build as I own a sailboat in upstate NY, USA and that took priority, but I finished her last November or so. Is she a show room piece? Lol, no, but I am very proud of how she looks. I have fairly good wood working skills and can problem solve a lot of things with wood. I love sailing and have always wanted to buy one of those pre-made wooden ships for my office. The ones that cost about $500-$700 USD. Instead, I decided, why not try to build one!!!! I know this kit is VERY hard and having never even tried to build a wooden model or the subsequent issues and tasks concerning rigging, I just wanted to take a stab at it. So I found a kit in stock in the UK through Arrow Models. I ordered her and within about 2 or 3 weeks it arrived in the USA. Arrow did a great job and while I was a bit nervous working with an overseas company where I could find little feedback, they were tops! Great communication and great customer service. There are a few Caldercraft 1:72 build logs on MSW (I see more now as I've learned the search process here) and a few YouTube video logs that I am using. Perhaps (upon my initial search) not as many as some of the other models and kits. I thought I would add a log that is from a person with absolutely NO experience with this type of kit and certainly a kit that requires a high degree of skill or expertise or as is my hope....just the patience and perseverance to gut it through! I've posted a few Titanic pics in this post, I promise going forward it will be all Victory all the time. I just want to see how the posting process works and I will start adding right away. As of Feb 21, 2024 I am on the first planking task, about 5 planks up. So.....I'll see you at the finish line and thank you! Chris Index to My Build Laying out the Keel Mounting the Keel and adding Bulkheads Installation of Middle Deck Dummy Barrel Strips Gun port Patterns First Planking layer Sanding and finishing First Planking Quarter Galleries Deck Planking of Middle Deck Staining/Finishing Deck Planking Second Planking layer Three books every modeler needs