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cdrusn89

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Everything posted by cdrusn89

  1. cdrusn89
    Spent some more time on Deck Furniture while waiting for plumbers and electricians to hook up my new standby generator. No more worrying about power outages in storms (hurricanes or severe thunderstorms, both have been known to happen here in Central Florida). Got both fife rails and the pump completed. Ordered a brass bell from Billings Boat, kit one is Britannia metal so will work on the the ship's bell next. No scroll saw yet, UPS guy is late. So here are the three pieces that I got finished. I used rubber cement to attach a copy of the drawing to my build board, then drilled the posts on the fife rails for metal pins and drilled holes in the build board (through the plan) to hold the fife rail posts. Fashioned the connecting rails (and added some support pieces to help provide some more area for the glue to work) and then glued everything together. I will transfer the plan pieces to the deck and use the holes to locate the holes for the fife rails. Probably will not mount any of the deck furniture until after all the guns are mounted and the masts, yards, etc. are ready for mounting.
  2. cdrusn89
    Jim/Darrell - thanks, found a Delta on Facebook Marketplace. Will have it tomorrow. Haven't decided whether to buy the stand (is does not come with one). Will put it on my "power tool" bench for now.
  3. cdrusn89
    Sounds like a good excuse to by a jig or scroll saw - I will check with HQ and see what the art of the possible might be. Have any suggestions on a particular jig/scroll saw to get?
  4. cdrusn89
    Darrel, Thanks. I just got another slug of cedar from Syren so I plan on building the rest of the deck furniture to match the deck. Not sure about the main rail yet. Have to decide painted (per instructions) or "bright" and if bright kit wood or cedar. At the moment I am leaning to bright cedar but need to see what additional wood and effort (like recreating the kit pieces in cedar) that would require.
  5. cdrusn89
    Finished the deck planking sanding and after running a test of both the Model Master Acrylic flat and flat Wipe-on-Poly I decided to use the WoP although it was virtually impossible to tell the difference on my test sample. Three coats of WoP with #400 sanding between the first and second and #600 between the second and third. Am thinking about a fourth coat (I have some #800 sandpaper). The planking is Alaskan Yellow Cedar that I got from Syren. I bought it in two batches of 50 pieces each. The first batch did about two thirds of the deck and looking at the views from forward and aft you can see that the second batch was considerably lighter than the first. Another lesson learned - if the wood is from different lots, mix them up (or alternate) before you use them. Now to mask everything off to prepare for putting the finish paint on the hull
  6. cdrusn89
    Tom, At the deck level this arrangement is only slightly different from the plans. The somewhat larger companionway is further aft and what was the Capt's skylight takes its place aft of the capstan. The real difference is the removal of the "structures" above the coamings for the Capt's and salon skylights to make way for sailors to operate the capstan. It would also allow more room to work the guns at the gun ports near the capstan.
  7. cdrusn89
    Tom,
  8. cdrusn89
    Tom,
  9. cdrusn89
    Deck planking is completed. The end joints seem more prominent than I would like. I have been working them one by one with a small blade and 180 sandpaper to try and make them less obvious but so far it has been slow going. I also put the deck furniture in place (more or less) to get and idea of where I do NOT have to worry too much about how the deck looks. This is the different deck furniture configuration that I referred to earlier. It makes better sense to me but, the capstan will be much more prominent so I will have to make an effort to add as much detail as my limited skills will allow. I have not decided what to use to finish the deck. I do not plan to stain it as I prefer the light color of the yellow cedar. The two candidates I have available are Model Master Acrylic clear flat and Wipe-on-Poly flat. I am doing a comparison on some spare deck planks but am open to other suggestions. Anyone have any?
  10. cdrusn89
    Two lessons learned from the first half deck planking. At the stern it is useful to add some additional support between the horn timbers, especially on the outboard side. As you get further outboard there is essentially no support for the of the deck planks between the horn timbers. I had to use the CA to glue the plank to the end piece before gluing the rest of the plank down. As you get closer to the edge this gets more and more difficult so for the port side I added supports between the horn timbers to hold up the extreme aft end of the deck planks. The second problem occurs as you approach the last two or three rows of planks on the outboard side. When the nibbling strake/deck plank joint (which can get pretty long out here) happens between bulkheads it was hard for me to keep the ends aligned vertically. So I added supports under the nibbling strake which are glued to the bulkheads and nibbling strake with thin CA. Hopefully this will make the port side an easier job than the starboard was.
  11. cdrusn89
    It took all day (except for time out to watch one baseball game) but I got half the deck planked. I am using Alaskan Yellow Cedar in 1/16 X 3/32 X 14" which I got from Syren Ship Model. It is half the price of boxwood (from Syren) and ships quickly. Given that it comes in 14" lengths I decided to follow the same joint pattern as on the hull planking. As it turns out using short (four or five bulkheads) lengths means I have enough fingers to pull the pieces into place. I apply the glue (yellow carpenters on edges, medium CA on bulkheads) and press the measured and cut piece in place, hold for 10-20 seconds to let the CA set up then move on to the next piece. I used a carpenters pencil to darken one side of each piece to simulate the caulk. I have tried other methods but this works out better for me. It still makes a mess and leads to considerable clean-up sanding. I decided to forgo the curved, tapered pieces and kept all the planks parallel to the centerline. I did use a nibbling strake and it came out reasonably well. I will include more detailed pictures when I have the deck planking completed and cleaned up some.
  12. cdrusn89
    While working on the re-planking of the port side bulwark I noticed that it was difficult to get the planking to follow the hull lines, a problem I did not have the first time because I used a 1/64" plywood "carrier" that was soaked and shaped to the lines (more or less) before the planking was applied. This time I decided to forego the carrier and use the 1/32" bulwark planking directly on the bulwark stanchions. The stbd side came out with a noticeable depression between bulkheads A and B. I used Bondo filler to correct this but thought I should pay closer attention on the port side and see if there was some was to avoid more red hands and red dust all over. What I found was that after the first two rows (starting from the plank sheer) the planking wants to take the straight line between Bulkheads A and B rather than follow the curve. My solution was to fit in two additional "stanchions" (3/32" X 1/16") between A and B. They were glued to the inside of the first two rows of planking (which follow the hull curve pretty well) at the bottom and to the top rail. I had to trim them at the top to make sure I had at least the 1/32" clearance needed so the hull planking is at least flush with the top rail. The picture below shows the two extra stanchions after several more rows of planking have been added. It looks much better than the stbd side did at this point. Another lesson learned.
  13. cdrusn89
    With the gratings done I focused on the companion way which as I indicated above will be located where the plans show the Captain's Skylight. After two tries at getting the coaming correct I gave up and opted for a solid base made from 3/32" boxwood sheet. The actual companionway structure used the 3/64" strip wood supplied for the sides, front and back and 1/32' strips for the tops. I decided to simplify the paint scheme and substituted the yellow used on the bulwarks for the buff called for on the plans. I have not decided yet on the treatment of the main rail, I may leave that "bright" but if it is painted it will be bulwark yellow.
  14. cdrusn89
    On my previous kit (B. J. Latham) I built and installed the deck coamings and planked the deck around them. I found that somewhat tedious and generally not worth the extra effort. The camber in the Niagara deck is quite mild and should not present any difficulties with laying the deck furniture directly on top of the deck. After looking at the plans and the Syren gratings that I had I figured out that the 3/32" thick gratings should just fit inside a 3/32" coaming making internal ledges and such unnecessary. I used my disk sander and a home made jig to get the small pieces very close to the disk and put the required 45 on the end of 3/32 x 3/32 boxwood. I used the grating, which were already cut to the required size as the template. After the gratings were glued up I used a sanding stick to add the taper on the outside of each coaming. After two coats of paint on the coamings and a coat of clear, flat on the gratings here is what they look like. Making me want to get on with planking the deck so I can see how they look where they belong.
  15. cdrusn89
    Speaking of the gratings and such. I have decided to try and build the model closer to what the 1813 version "might" have looked like. It seems pretty clear to me that the capstan is close to useless in the current configuration with the skylight and companionway so close fore and aft that you could not get past them and still be pushing on the capstan bars. And the capstan was used for more than raising and lowering the anchor(s). Since no one knows what the original configuration really was I have decided to substitute a grating for the Salon Skylight and Captain's Skylight and interchange the locations of the Captain's Skylight (now a grating) and the companionway. This will put gratings fore and aft of the capstan and make it much more usable IMHO.
  16. cdrusn89
    With the hull (in theory) ready for the finish paint I decided to keep the hull in the "primer" state while I work on some other things. I have to re-plank the forward bulwarks as I did not extend the planking under the bowsprit and see no elegant way to fix that without redoing the planking. I have not decide how to paint these sections (brush or spray). Will have to figure that out when the planking is done. While waiting for the primer to dry I started on the gratings. I tried using the grating material supplied with the kit but could not keep the pieces lined up satisfactorily. I had some Syren Ship Model gratings, which I have had good success with in the past so I decided to use them. I also decided to fabricate the gratings before the coamings. IMHO it is easier to build a correctly sized coaming when you already have what will fit inside it. Also, the grating do not come in infinitely variable sizes. Here is a shot of the hull (all the masking tape is gone now) with the first planks on the port fwd bulwark and the gratings for the various hatches.
  17. cdrusn89
    I did some more filling and sanding on the hull and finished with another coat of primer and 600 sandpaper than what I hope is the final coat of primer. There are still spots where you can see the individual planks but I have never gotten a plank on bulkhead hull to a completely smooth (looked like a fiberglass sailboat hull) so did not expect to get to that level this time. Here is what the hull looks like now.
  18. cdrusn89
    So, I put Bondo 907 automotive filler on the hull (probably a little, maybe a lot thicker than necessary) and then proceeded to sand, first with 120, then with 220 using mostly the sanding sticks I made from tongue depressors. Generated so much red dust that I decided to use my air brushing face mask to keep from inhaling all the red particles containing probably more bad things than I care to know. Anyway below are pictures of the before and after. Need to go over the hull again looking for areas that need more filler but it looks pretty good a first glance. Will at least go over with 320 sanding sticks before priming. FYI, the pictures after sanding were taken shortly after wiping the hull down with a rag soaked in paint thinner so the wood is darker than it would be when dry.
  19. cdrusn89
    Thanks Jim. Back from weekend of watching losing baseball. Hope to get hull planking completed and first coat of filler applied today.
  20. cdrusn89
    Completed planking on port side and have bands A, B and C done on Stbd. Have not had to use anything but water to soak a few planks so far. Taking the weekend off to watch some Red Socks baseball in person in St. Petersburg. Will finish the stbd side when we get back and then the real full - filling and sanding.
  21. cdrusn89
    I completed planking belts A and B but not without some drama. I accepted the plan's version of the belt locations as they looked pretty good when I laid them on the hull but I made a major error when actually laying them out for band A. I neglected to use the hull planking layout drawing instead relying on the profile drawing (won't make that mistake again!). The result was that the portion of Band A around bulkheads O, P and Q was much narrow than it should have been. I caught the error when laying out Band B and had to make the band B planks in the area wider than the would otherwise have been and added on stealer on each side. Anyway, I believe I have everything correct now for Bands C and D - where the "real work" begins. So far I have used planks of 1/16", 3/32" and 1/8" widths (some basswood, some boxwood - which accounts for the varying wood colors) depending on the maximum width of each particular plank. I did follow the instructions for laying out the plank seams although my experience is that for a painted hull these are pretty much invisible. Here is a close-up of the stern area where I "corrected" the error in the Band A layout and two overall shots of the hull as it stands now. Blue tape is protecting the completed bulwarks from damage - hopefully. Am going to Colorado for a wedding so there will be no progress for 5 days or so.
  22. cdrusn89
    As I was preparing to start the hull planking I decided this would be a good time to do the counter planking and Fashion piece so I would have a firm location for the aft end of the hull planking. The instructions and plans only indicate using 1/32" thick planks so I used more of the 3/32 X 1/32 planks from the bulwarks and a piece of 1/16 X 3/32 at the forward end beveled to match the 1/32 counter planks. For the fashion piece(s) I used 1/8 x 1/8 along the quarter stanchions and counter and 1/16 x 3/32 to blend into the similar sized piece at the forward end of the counter. I will clean this up when finished with the hull planking and final paint the transom and counter when doing the flat black painting on the hull.
  23. cdrusn89
    Finally all the modules are done and installed on the hull. Some minor touch-up where clamps or other tools left marks but that will only take a few minutes and a dab or two of paint. Now it is on to the hull or deck planking, probably hull as I have not decided what wood to use for the deck planking. I have enough of both boxwood and Alaskan cedar in the 1/16 X 3/32 size. I am leaning toward the cedar since it is a bit lighter than the boxwood and I think would provide more contrast to the dark green and red interior. Anyone have any thoughts, cautions as I have not worked with cedar before?
  24. cdrusn89
    Spent most of the day pre-outfitting the starboard bulwark modules and installing some on the port side. Below are the stab side modules showing the ceiling planking side (only four have a bulwark planking side) and the port side modules that have not already been installed. Next is to complete the rip out on the starboard side and then get the modules installed. Also have been working the stern and transom areasand there is a quick shot of each.
  25. cdrusn89
    The offending sections on the port side have been removed and the new bulwark/ceiling planking sections are dry fit. Have to touch up the sheer-plank and waterway paint and then will install these and the other ceiling planking sections. Working on pre-outfitting the stbd side sections while waiting for paint to dry.

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