cdrusn89

Bruce, I decided to build the guns and ship's boats before starting the hull so you can see what and how I handled the gun carriage blocks here: Also Bossman has some detail, on how to make the small hooks if you decide to go that route. If you have any specific questions I will be happy to provide what I can. Gary

While rereading the instructions for completing the exterior bulwark planking I noticed that I completed the sweep port doors incorrectly. The instructions say to use a single piece of 1/4" X 1/16" to fashion the door. I pieced together two 1/8 X 1/16 pieces of the hull planking to make the sweep port doors. It will be awhile (until I get the rest of the bulwarks planked) until I get a good idea of how this looks. Hopefully I did a good enough job matching the seam lines so it does not actually draw attention to the sweep port doors. I am not sure they should be a focal point on the hull. Anyway except for one sweep port door I have the port side completed to the same point at the starboard. Ten rows of planking 5 of 1/8" and 5 of 5/32". Plan is to "keep going" to get the lower wales and bulwarks completed alternating from side to side following Bossman's example.

Sweep port covers on stbd side completed. Working the post side planking around the sweep ports and upper wales planking. Will work the gun port planking after both sides are complete to upper wales.

Thanks Bossman. That is certainly my hope. Did you alternate sides or do one to the top of the bulwarks and then the other?

After what seemed like "forever" I got the five rows of 1/8" X 1/16" and three rows of 5/32" X 1/16" planking above the black strake installed. These enclose the sweep ports and my use of "place holders" for the sweep port openings seems to have been successful although I noticed more variation is the size of the ports than I would have liked. For the port side I am considering (at least) trying to simulate the port openings with a shape blade cut to the desired 7/32" size (ballast port will be done as on the stbd side). I did get the port lid for the after most port installed. Unfortunately I will have top wait until the planks are sanded and WoP allied to see how things "really" look. I got more glue mon the planks than I should have but am hoping that will disappear with sanding and since I am not planning on using any stain on the Swiss pear that there will be "no harm". Hope springs eternal. Anyway here is the stbd side with the first sweep port cover installed and the glue smears and difference in planking color for all to see. The mark on the sweep door is an arrow pointing up. I had to keep track of how the cover fit in the port to avoid going crazy. Next step is to get the sweep port covers all installed and then move to the port side and apply the lessons learned.

For the top and black strakes I used the kit provided basswood since they will be covered by additional strakes which will be Swiss pear. Once they were installed the instructions call for installation of five additional strakes of 1/8 X 1/16 material. So I decided to do one side rather than alternating from side to side in order to see how things were going to work out. To get the outlines for the sweep ports I used a 7/32 X 7/32 block to draw the box. After the first two rows were installed I started to run in to notching out for the sweep ports so I decided to replicate these blocks and use them to help define the sweep ports. I made one for each sweep port on the stbd side and pinned them to the hull where the markings showed they would be. For the ports aft of the ballast port the bottom of the sweep port came very close to hitting the top of the second strake so I went ahead and adjusted them so the bottom is at the top of the second strake. I do not think this involved moving any one port more than 1/32" of an inch but we will have to wait a bit to see how this looks. Forward of the ballast port the sweep port bottom is just above the top of the second strake except for the two most forward where the bottom moves back down again until at the most forward sweep port it is just at the top of the second strake. I am guessing my sheer line and the prototype model's are not in exactly the same place. I decided to try and cut all the planking that fits around the sweep ports before gluing any of them in place. The sweep ports kind of mess up the joint staggering of the planking but I will have to reestablish that once the planking clears the sweep ports. I decided to use a three step stagger for the planking (the first planking row goes from the stem to bulkhead E, the second row goes from the stem to Bulkhead D and the third from the stem to bulkhead F and then every three bulkheads until the stern where a two bulkhead run is used from 8 to ZZ). I decided to use the three step because going with a four stagger would mean going from the stem to bulkhead C which is almost 7 inches or about 37 feet at scale. The above all assumes that planking joints will occur only at the model bulkheads. The plans (sheet one) show a different stagger planking schema but have plank joints mostly NOT on the bulkheads so I decided to ignore it. Here is what the hull looks like with all of the first four rows above the black strake in place (but only the bottom two rows are glued). Unlike the prototype I have to taper the planks at the bow to make everything fit - another difference in my sheer line. The blue tape is holding the planks in place where they want to fall off every time I touch something. The plan going forward is to start at the stern and glue the planks in place after removing the sweep port block and rechecking (and adjusting) the port shape and corners.

I added the treenails to the lower counter. I did not add them as close together as the hull drawings shows - just on the stern frames that were part of the kit. I do not know if the stern framing is a close approximation of the actual framing or just an analog for the kit but used it to locate the treenails nonetheless. Here is a picture after I filled the holes. By the way I took a "gob" of the Minwax "Golden Oak (910)" in a small mixing cup and added three drops of paint thinner, mixed it up and used a flat Xacto blade that I had ground down to be just less than the 1/8" width of a plank to apply it to the treenails. The paint thinner made the putty less viscous (or is it more viscous? I forget which way that goes) anyway it made it easier to get the putty into the small holes. The narrow "spatula" made it easier to NOT get putty in the crack between planks - which is hard to get out. Here is the counter after I sanded the putty down and wiped it with paint thinner. After the thinner evaporates the wood will look like it does in the photo above until I get some WoP on which may wait until I get the upper planking completed. Having decided to wait on further efforts on the counter I returned the model to the vertical and added the Top Strake on both sides. Here is the stbd side - the 2 X 4 is the "strongback" that I use when I invert the hull on the build board. Since it is not in the way (yet) I will leave it on for now.

After some struggle I got the lower counter planked and the port doors in place. After a a 220 sanding and a wipe down with thinner here is what it looks like. I am on the fence about the treenails. Given the location it is unlikely anyone would even notice if I put them in - so maybe this is a good place to "experiment" to see if they actually add to the appearance. I am going to add them but think I am going to be more judicious when applying the filler. When I created the test strips I noticed that there were times where the filler got to places where it was difficult to remove. Plus if I do it now I can put apply the Wipe-on-Poly now and hopefully provide some level of protection through the rest of the planking.

I am still fussing around with the lower counter. Having some difficulty getting the first piece attached satisfactorily and in the correct location. While waiting for glue to dry I built a plank bending jig using half of a short piece of 4" plastic sewer pipe. Here are a bunch of pieces on the jig drying. I can get about a dozen pieces at a time and by varying where the clamping bar is located can adjust the amount of curve. We will see how it works shortly - assuming I can get the lower counter straightened out.

With the start of planking imminent it is time to decide what material to use. As I have a good deal of Swiss Pear that I have acquired from the Rare Woods folks in Maine I have decided to use this, at least for the wales and exterior of the bulwarks. I put a "test strip" together (and included some holly which I am considering for the planking below the wales) and used four different MinWax fillers to see what looked the best for the treenails. Here is what the six strips look like after the treenails and one coat of Wipe-on-Poly. The four putties are (from the left on the left set of planks) Natural Pine, Early American, Maple and Golden Oak. The Pear on the right does not have any treenails but does have the plank edges (both edges) darkened with a carpenters pencil. The two sample of holly (with and without the simulated caulk) have treenails with Elmer's wood filler, Deluxe Materials Model Lite White filler and the MinWax Natural Pine (from left to right) I am going to use the Swiss Pear for the wales and above with the Oak filler. The wood is a good bit lighter than it looks in the photos. Here is a closer look at the three Swiss Pear side I am going to do a more extensive test on the holly and add boxwood and yellow cedar as candidates for the lower planking. Although I will probably not need it until doing the lower planking I put together a jig for tapering and otherwise "adjusting" the planks. I glued two 1" X 16" boards 1/8" apart to hold a plank (figuring there will no spieling of the 5/32" planks) while marking the width at the bulkhead stations which are marked on the base board. I took the bulkhead locations from the batten used to locate the sheer line rather than the plans. There is probably very little difference except at the bow where the curved distance on the real hull is significantly more than shown on the 2-D plans. I set the jig on edge to make taking a picture easier and here it is:

To plank the lower counter the instructions suggest mounting the model upside down. With my cobbled together mounting system this turned out to not be as easy as I might have liked. I cut a spare piece of 2 X 4 long enough to span all three masts. I put this on the deck and noted that the main mast area had a space 6-7mm tall while the two ends were on the deck. I marked the areas that needed to be removed to get the 2 X 4 to sit flush on the deck (more or less) and used the belt sander to remove the material. I drilled access holes in the 2 X 4 and pilot holes for #8 X 2" wood screws and secured the 2 X 4 to the deck after locating and drilling pilot holes in the bulkhead former (or reinforcing pieces). Here is the hull mounted upside down so we are almost ready to plank the lower counter. All I need to do now is make the Swiss Pear planks and decided if/how to simulate the treenails.

With the sheaves done it is time to address the "wales and above planking". The first step (according to the instructions) is planking the lower counter but before I start that I decided to establish the sheer line (per instructions). Here are the two sides with the batten in the final position, although I did not do much adjustment. The only place where I think things went off was at bulkhead G where my batten and the mark on the bulkhead were off by about 3mm on each side (batten was below the reference mark). Looking at the pictures of the prototype (bow on view) my battens seem to be in the right location. I was unable to determine (from the plans) where the wales planks should meet the stem. The framing plan does not show the wales and sheet one has so much other detail at the bow that I can't find a common reference point to measure from (or to for that matter). Anyway, here is the model with the batten in place.

I finished fabing the other three sheaves and got the outboard halves mounted on the outer side of the bulwarks per the plans. I checked the instructions and NOW it is time to plank the hull above the wales. So here are the three sheaves on the port side. Now to carefully read the section on planking and review the Chuck Passaro videos from the Winchelsea

Thanks WalrusGuy. I have the Syren "on the shelf" here but am steering clear of square riggers (in fact most all rigging) for awhile yet. My fingers were "plumb tuckered out" from rigging Niagara.

Thanks Bossman. I am trying to decide whether or not to try and darken the "slot" with a pencil (I think paint would be too dark) or some of the "weathering" powder they sell for use on model railroads. I can probably wait until the bulwark is planked and see what they look like then.

I clearly jumped the gun on painting the gun ports. The next step (in the instructions if I had bothered to look ahead one page) was to install the sheaves and the supporting structure which requires more hull fairing, right next to the gun ports I just painted. At least it was only the first coat so it was not a total debacle. However, before I can install the sheaves (three sets on each side) I need to decide if I want the sheaves to be in basswood or some other wood. I still "think" I am going to plank the bulwarks (at least the outside - still thinking about the inside (ceiling?) ) with Swiss Pear. Unless I want the sheaves to "stand out" I need to fabricate them from Swiss Pear. So that is what I spent the morning (before football) doing. I had a piece of 3/16 X 5/16 Swiss pear that would allow me to get two sheaves from a single length. Sheaves that are guaranteed to match up since the holes were drilled on each one at the same time. So I laid out a sheave on the Swiss pear - as you can see from the picture below my first attempt did not work out. I used a #65 drill for the end holes - it seemed about the size of the slots in the laser cut piece. I found that unless the drill bit is gripped in the chuck with just enough bit exposed to drill through the wood that the bit tends to wander and is in a slightly different place on the back side. I am sure we have all experienced this with small diameter bits - I was just a little shocked that it happened with a #65. Anyway, once I got the sheave laid out and the holes drilled I used a small, sharp circular needle file to create the groove that represents the actual sheave. I also used this file to create the "curve" as the sheave "disappears" inside the "case". I did this on both sides of the piece of stock. Here you can see one side with the laser cut piece for comparison. After laying out and "carving" the other two sheaves I cut the billet in half, sanded each piece down to 1/16" thick and separated and sanded the sheaves to the required dimensions. Here are the pieces for the starboard side along with the laser cut equivalents. Now I just need to "do it all again" for the port side.

Completed the starboard side gun port first coat painting - moving to the port side preparation then will get both sides, first coat on port, second omn starboard. One "issue" at the bridle port, the bottom of the bulkhead extension (that was cut out) extends well inboard of the sill (see last picture). In addition, the portion of the bulkhead extension above the sill is considerably thicker than appears to be necessary. The bulkhead "thinning" is not supposed to be done until after the outboard bulkhead planking is completed, presumably when the bulkheads have the maximum support. It seems there will be a good deal of material (plywood in this case) that needs to be removed. power tools (Dremel drum sander comes to mind) may be necessary.

I got all the sweep ports (and ballast port) on the stbd side done then decided to get this side "finished" for painting before working on the port side. One thing I noticed which building the gun ports is that in the two places where a bulkhead extension has to be removed the bottom of the gun port is now really in three pieces, the sill on each side of the cut off (and trimmed) bulkhead extension. Although this area will not be all that visible (at least at the bridle port) I thought it might be worth the effort to "patch" in a thin piece to cover the bottom of the bridle port and the quarter deck port at bulkhead 6. I thinned down a spare piece of cedar to a bit less than 1/64" and tried to get the port opening flat and enough thinner so that the additional, piece will not look horribly out of line with the other ports - although I suspect this will have more to do with how the planking job goes. It is hard (for me) to envision how the outside of the hull is going to look without even a little planking to guide my imagination. Anyway here is what the bridle port looks like with the new piece installed but not yet trimmed. This is the quarterdeck port also before trimming. In addition to these "additions" I have decided to try to seal the area around and inside of the ports so the paint will have a better surface to grip and (maybe) the paint job will look more like what is shown in the instructions. For starters I cut down some of my 220 grit sanding "sticks" so that they are the same width (and others the same height) as the gun ports. Here I am cleaning up the area inside the gun ports. Next I applied a sanding sealer. And here is what one of the ports looks like with the sealer applied. The discoloration on the top right of the port is where I added a piece of 1/32" basswood to bring the port side out to meet the lintel. I did this on several of the ports where I did not get the port side proud of the lintel. Hopefully the sealer and paint will make this "disappear" or at least be less noticeable with the port lid in place. It seems I might have gotten a little carried away with the clean-up sanding. Maybe another place for an insert. Next step (I think) is to sand again, this time with 400 grit (and maybe another coat of sealer/400 grit) and then paint - Badger Windjammer Red - same as the gun carriages.

So clearly in the above pictures I had neglected to outline the sweep ports. I thought I would try a somewhat different approach to that described in the instructions. I cut out a piece of Swiss Pear 3/32" thick the size of the sweep port (7/16" square as best I could measure) and drilled a #75 hole as near to the center as I could manage and inserted a #75 pin. I cut out the template as described in the instructions and taped it to the side over the sweep port area. Then using a steel ruler and sharp pencil I drew an "X" across the corners of the opening and used an awl mark where the lines crossed. Sorry about the picture being upside down. Apparently if you take it with the lens toward the bottom of the camera (iPhone 11 Pro) is takes it like this and rotating the photo in the iMac "Photos" program does not change the orientation. The I used my trusty cordless screw driver to drill a #75 hole in the awl mark. Then insert the pin with the block into the hole and align it with the "flow" of the sweep port wood, now tap the pin with a small hammer to hold it. Trace around the block and pull the pin out. Now repeat for each sweep port. I did the ballast port "the old fashioned way - per the instructions. We will see how things turn out when it comes to planking this area which seems to be somewhere in the far future.

Bruce, I finally solved the display problem (at least for now) with two display cabinets. They were almost cheap compared to buying BlueJackets display cases for every model. Now I need to figure out what to do with the three "orphan" cases now taking up space in my workshop. I have the Model Shipway's Emma Berry and US Brig Syren on the shelf but if Confederacy works out "okay" I may try Chuck's Winchelsea next. I have a spot in the display case for another Admiralty sized model.

Subject to a final, final inspection I believe I am probably ready to start the hull planking. At least that is the next chapter in the instruction manual. So "in honor" of this accomplishment I broke out the "big" camera (Canon EOS 60D) and shot a dozen or so pictures to document what the model looked like at this point in case that might be useful to someone in the future. Before I get to the pictures a word on the hance pieces. As indicated in the instructions each hance piece is made up, of two laser cut pieces 3/16" thick. That is about twice as thick as required since they sit on top of the 3/16" wide "rail" that runs across the tops of the bulkhead extensions along the spar deck. Using nearly doubly wide pieces is (IMHO) provides for the slight angle where the hance pieces meet the fore and quarter decks. I should have reduced the thickness of the combined hance pieces before gluing them. It took a considerable amount of sanding (all manual) to get the hance pieces to match up with the surrounding structure all the while trying to not break something. Although the model is considerably stronger than previously I still had to use one hand to sand and one to support whatever was being sanded. Here is one of the hance pieces after "thinning" and you can see there is not much left of the second half. And there was some taken off the inboard side as well. Here are the rest of the photos.

I have been so involved getting all the various pieces as correct as seems possible (for me) that I have neglected to get many pictures. So here is the port side with all the gun port pieces in place, the sweep port backings in place (but not yet sanded flush) and the hance pieces clamped in place while the glue sets. There will be plenty of sanding once the stbd side is in a similar condition. To help with the sanding of the sweep ports I used a colored pencil to mark the bulkheads. I had already sanded off the laser char in the previous rounds of fairing and was afraid I might get carried away so hopefully the red will tell me when I have the sweep ports even the rest of the hull "pieces". The two shims under the rail where the hance pieces are is to hold the railing up while hance pieces are clamped in place. Don't ask how I know that I would need them.

Bruce, You took the words from my mouth. I am just getting to the gun and sweep ports (no planking yet) and am finding it much more difficult than I anticipated keeping everything spaced according to the drawings.

Thanks Bossman. I have just gotten the templates cut out and need to get the stbd quarterdeck lintel installed and faired before I deal with the gun port sides. A spacer/template for the gun port sides would certainly make sense. I'll see what I can come up with.

Continuing with the port sills and lintels. Gun deck is complete and sills for the quarterdeck are in place. I noticed that the bulkhead extensions on two of the bulkheads (6 and 7) did not seem to align correctly with those on either side. Not sure what happened (maybe the gun deck sills and lintels forced them out of position somehow). So before I glued the quarterdeck sills in place I adjusted the extension protectors to try and get them closer to the correct position (as best I can tell). Hopefully when the quarterdeck sills and lintels are in place they will be "good enough". Upper rail on quarterdeck is next. Then the "real" fun - the templates to locate the port sides and dealing with 70 something little pieces that have to be "perfectly vertical" per the instructions.