Desertanimal

That is an excellent idea that I completely missed out on! The funniest part is I have a desk like that in my office! That will definitely be added to the room. That makes a lot of sense as assembly, light woodworking table. Chris

So time to learn to serve! I decided I’d set up the machine and try it. It worked really well, not a surprise. I served up what could be a pendant if it’s usable. After playing around I watched a video and learned I should have done it left to right, while I did it right to left. The mast is together but not secured in the deck. I needed to come up with a plan to serve the shrouds on the ship. I again tried with the same pendant. I looks ok to me. We’ll revisit those later. I next wanted to make a band with the rings on the tip of the bowsprit. I used some brass tubing that happed to be a perfect fit and some photo etch eye bolts. I also made the bracket for the bowsprit from scratch. I can never get over how brutal close up photos are! Now I was faced with a dilemma. I didn’t add any sheeves to the catheads and I am pretty sure I want one of the anchors hanging as in other build logs. So I simply decided to get going on them. Mask the rest of the ship and see what happens. I drilled them and then used a scroll saw blade held in my fingers. I pretty much used that to shape the slots and then used a strip of 220 sandpaper to clean them up. I used some round plastic stock and after drilling I sliced off several discs until I got 4 I could work with. Squared them up but sanding under my fingertip. I inserted them and pinned them in place. Then some Vallejo flat black paint. I am pretty happy how these turned out. I will find out how they work when I get to the anchors. So that’s it for now. A lot more serving in my future! Chris

Those are some great points. Thanks! The room also abuts the garage so I will probably be based on that wall. That will allow me to put dust collection and run air for the airbrush from outside the room. I am really liking the idea you guys have brought up about mobile tables. 👍 Chris

Great job. Congratulations. Chris

Thanks for the ideas! How large are the various tables?

Good point! Basically 10 feet by 12 feet. It’s a bedroom in the house so no heavy machines.

So I’m going to be able to build a personal shipyard from the ground up. So I’d like some opinions on what you would do. Here’s the scenario, East wall has a window two other walls clear. I don’t generally work in the mornings so sun coming in the window isn’t a big concern. However, I’m thinking about backlighting while working on a model being a problem. I’ve got nice windows that are supposed to stop UV and such but who knows. I could also put the worktop on either of the other walls. What do you think? While I have always liked the idea (maybe the look also) of a countertop sort of work top with lower cabinets to either side of me. However lately I’m thinking of a peninsula work area so that I can get around to other sides if needed. Then when sitting at this desktop, that would put tool storage 90 degrees to my right in some sort of cabinets, maybe upper and lower kitchen cabinet style. I don’t know if that is optimal though. I like to have current tools I’m using laid out in front of me. I suppose that doesn’t really prevent that. Just sort of spitballing now, if you couldn’t tell. Lol I’m pretty sure I’d like drawers or doors in the cabinets instead of open shelves. This would be to keep dust off of things. Flooring- Wood, light color, not too much color variation. No seams to swallow tiny parts. Any ideas you’ve got to add? What sort of things do you wish your shipyard had? Thanks for reading if you made it this far! Chris

Congratulations on her completion! She’s a beauty for sure. Chris

OK it’s time to make some more fiddly things. I made a stove chimney, it turned out shorter than I had wanted but I kept it. I later painted it. Then I started on the topgallant staff. First I marked it off then I just started sanding to the lines. That made it square. In the photos it looks like I turned the step at the top after squaring, but I did that before hand in a drill. And then I painstakingly squared the hole in this piece so it was an excellent fit. (Does anyone see what’s coming?) Then I realized that’s not where it goes…. It looks fine after painting and such. I need to keep closer watch on these things. This is my first ship with a real mast and it has got me scratching my head a lot. I completed the trestle trees and cut out the flat areas for the cheeks and even tree nailed them in with some toothpicks. You can’t really see the treenails after painting, I wish they showed up better. Any tips on that? **Note to future builders. Don’t put this all together until after you have done the shrouds. I shaped all the yards with a variable speed drill and some sandpaper. After marking them out from the plans I would make some notes on various dimensions along the length, then I would roughly followed that. I would grab my calipers and sit on the porch and make sawdust. Thank goodness for Arizona weather. I would start with 100 grit and get the rough taper then 180 would shape it quite closely and 220 to fine tune the taper. I have to say it was pretty simple to get a nice taper on them. Easier than expected so that’s always nice. I thought I had a genius idea for mast rings once while perusing the hardware store. These small rocket engines seemed to have about a 10mm id turns out the end is kind of crushed to the clean part of the tube was too large. I did use the paper and CA and make some rings from that. I sliced some rings off then used rubber cement to glue them to the board and then sanded it face down until they were about 2.5mm thick. I then painted them but later remove it and sanded the outside flatter than I originally had it. These photos show most of the progession. Now a couple of glamor shots of how she was sitting at that point. Now has the swivel guns, stanchions (sp?) and the tiller. The tiller was epoxied and pinned. That is such a long moment arm with so little surface area, I was concerned about that joint ever giving up. Thank you for stopping by. Next up I start some prepping for the rigging. We’re pretty close to real time now as the rigging has really slowed me down. Chris

Wow congratulations!!

It looks to me like the rope is too large. Pretty sure i used .2mm rope. Rope adds a lot of bulk fast. 2 mm blocks are probably about as small as you want to try to work with. Chris

Thank you all for visiting and welcome back! Now it’s time to start the cannon tackles. If I am ever using incorrect terminology on any item. Please kindly correct me. First I rigged up the mock up in order to measure the distance between the hooks. I don’t have all the fancy books that many others have so I just have to use their information. So I weigh the instructions and build logs together, plus what I think looks pleasing. From the mock up I made a marking jig, it is asymmetrical to make way for the racks of cannonballs. I just had to mention terminology so the the name for those would fly out of my head… *Hint drill these holes wayyy before to permanently glue the deck furniture down. Just saying. (Especially the ladders) Drilling the racks is probably way easier before they are installed also….just a thought. I started to rig up the tackles on a jig to hold it still. The shorter one is for the shorter tackles. And the coils. I used watered down matt varnish on the rope after using CA to get it in place. And here we are in place. I used medium CA to hold things down. Later it will get sprayed with Vajello acrylic matt varnish to get rid of any shiny spots. Thanks for looking! In the next post are the boom, gaff and spars. And I scratch build some mast rings! Well, I try…. a few times. Chris

Didn’t realize it was so much larger. I’ve seen other build logs and it never clicked that they can get more detail on them. Chris

Thank you Daniel. I appreciate it. Thanks Jacques! I don’t know if you’re planning on rigging the tackles also, but I’ll be posting my process on them today or tmro. Of course it’s pretty much the same as Thukydides and Blue Ensign. Keep at it! Chris

Thank you all for the likes and such! So now we’re working on some more details, first up is the rudder and the pintals/gudgeons. I cut them out sanded any rough edges and blackened them. Attached with epoxy. Next I wanted to try to make some ladders as Blue Ensign did. Lined up some basswood after making some guesses at the angle and went to town with a #11 blade. I think they turned out ok. One thing I did experience that I had to fix later was the different color they turned out because of the lighter base wood. Now on to cannon production. I was both looking forward and dreading these because I was worried about the tediousness of it all. It was actually fine. I airbrushed the cannon flat black and then dry brushed them with a couple colors of gray. Thanks Thukydides for the idea! I decided I would be fully rigging them so I drilled and installed the appropriate rings and eyes. I guess this picture is missing a couple. I made a mock up as I’ve seen done on here to facilitate the rigging. These seizings are really large. I don’t think this was the final design, but it’s the picture I’ve got handy. For the main breech rope I think I went with 100 mm length. All the rope is from Ropes of Scale. After getting the length decided I went into production. Here you can see the much smaller seizings. It’s really interesting to see how the later ones look so much better than the first few. Let’s just say a few at the beginning of the batch got recycled. Here is what it ended up looking like before the tackle. Even though I was only using three strand rope I decided I would spit the rope over the cascabel because it’s really difficult to see there is only one strand below. In the absence of available hooks, decided to make my own. Since I was worried they would not be small enough and be too long overall I decided to insert the hooks into the blocks and wrap the base with thread to make the seizing. First I drilled all the blocks on one end then inserted a wire to ensure I didn’t fill the cross holes with glue. Glued the hook with CA. These are 3mm blocks. I did these in two batches, the first batch I didn’t blacken first. That was a mistake. But I learned. **BTW** Chuck @ Syren now has 3d printed hooks available again! I got some but they will have to be for the next one… I think it was on Blue Ensign’s build log where he mentioned to try to keep them under 6mm overall. This is what I ended up with. I’ll leave it there for now. Let me know any thoughts you have. Next up are the cannon tackles. Chris

The little hinges are just pieces of brass tubing that I filed a little notch into for some visual interest. I later gave them a blackening treatment. A fixed them with a tiny dab of epoxy. Thanks for checking in! Chris

I was able to grab my copy before they went out of stock again! HAHAHAHA Thank you Mary for all you do! Chris

Congratulations on her completion! She is beautiful. You’ve done a wonderful job! That’s a very impressive display case! Chris

OK it’s time we get some details worked on. I worked on the catheads, they took a little shaping so that they were sitting flat and square. I painted and added the PE to them. I opted not to cut sheaves into them. A price I’m currently paying and deciding if I want to add them at this stage. I most likely will, but we’ll get to that when the log catches up. I decided it was time to install the cannon ball racks. I decided I would paint them red. I copied a little jig I saw here in order to keep them at a consistent height of 3mm above the deck. I worked on the rails and pinned them like the instructions said. I don’t remember seeing too many details about this part. Here are the results. At this point I did not check that the shrouds would interfere with the gun ports. I read that I should have done that, but it was after the fact. I located them purely based on the instruction book. Later on I did check them for interference and I was happy there was none. I took a little artistic license with the other deck fittings. I don’t know if the one is supposed to be a hatch, but mine is. I also made an additional one as I saw in the other builds mentioned. I blackened the hinges later. I made pumps from scratch and used the PE from the kit. I added shrink tubing for the bands. The metal parts were quite enjoyable to make. The pins holding them together are peened. The winch was fun to make, several pieces that need to fit together nicely. I had a good time getting these together then adding the PE iron bands to it. (As B.E. did, I have since added nails (?) going down into the deck. I think those were a good addition that you will see in later photos.) I will leave you there for now. I hope you enjoy the photos. More to come! Chris

Thanks for the likes and stuff! Here I was getting excited because it was time to add some paint. I like to paint. 🙂 I next cut out for the cannon. Marked and painted the waterline. Cap rails painted and attached. Now we start to get into the fiddly bits. Those tiny blocks between the rails were fun to sand and shape. Had to make sure to keep them in the correct locations too as they are different. Here’s the completed rail and transom. I’ll leave it there for now. Next are the catheads, and starting to make some deck fittings. Thank you for following along! Chris

The amount of glue to use is certainly a learned skill. You need enough to attach the part but limit squeeze out so that clean up is easy or not necessary. Don’t sweat it, you’ll get a feel for it as you do more. Way until you start using different glues, the amount you need to use will change, hahaha. Looking good, keep at it! Chris

So now I’m on to the second layer of planks. Again I went through soooo many build logs to try to get a handle on what to do. This step really had me nervous. Someone directed me to an older PDF on planking that was a big help in illustrating things for me. I definitely learn best visually. Anyway after filling and sanding the first layer a couple of times, not sure why I have no pictures of those steps, I’ve got what I hope is a smooth well shaped hull. Getting the bend around the bow is certainly a challenge. I didn’t have much breakage but I did a few. Not so much from forcing the wood onto the boat but trying to rush the tight bend with the water and the iron then bending it over too quickly. After much thought I did use CA for the glueing. I made a tiny glue applicator by heating a needle and cutting off half the eye to form a fork to pick up glue. I used that and the tiny glue applicator tips also. I was very judicious in the amount of glue to use as I did not want to deal the mess of squeeze out. I made a hard effort to get the plank bent to fit before it was on the boat. That way the glue is not fighting the wood, just holding it in place. I experienced about the same amount of differences in the planks as other’s have mentioned, some being a little thinner and such. I would consider it well in tolerable levels and I never felt I was going to be short. I made a poor man’s keel clamp. It’s mdf with a 1mm rabbet in each side then I glued in some screws and added wing nuts to the other side. Works great. When it was time to turn it over I used rubber cement and glued it to an almond milk container, yes I washed it out. Now that I think about it a full one would have been way more stable but I think I would have had to fess up when I heard “What happened to the almond milk?!!!” From the other room. I had some issues with a weird angle showing up near the bow as seen in the second photo. Below is after it’s been fixed. Is this OK? Is there something better I could have done? Planking complete. I’ll tell you what, that was a relief. There were plenty of times I was sweating hope it was going to look good in the end. I know filler can hide a lot but I was really trying to get tight joints. Here she is pre sanding. The pattern of the planks is off somewhere and the two sides don’t match on 1 row I think. I’m good with it though. Warts and all, she’s mine. (Not sure why the lighting in a few shots had the wood so light colored. Actually it’s the colors in the above photos.) Sanded and ready for some next steps! I was quite happy with the planking. I’m glad they all tucked into the rabbet nicely and my joints were ok to me. I’d love any feedback as I’d like to improve my skills all the time. Thank you for checking in! Next she starts to get some color. Chris

Kind of along the line that Jacques said. The smack is very good preparation for other larger ships. The pram in my opinion is excellent for absolute beginners, after the dory. However, if you have some experience in this area “jumping” ahead to the smack is not a problem. Personally I enjoyed it quite a bit more than the pram. Of course there are other manufacturers to confuse you further. 😉

This is my fourth build after completing the Dory, Pram and Lobster Smack. I’ve been looking forward to this build for a while. In real time I actually started the build on November 28th 2024. I’ve been worried about starting a log as it’s just one more thing to keep up on. Now that I have a head start I think it’s safe and I can keep it updated. Most of my build is based on build logs by @Thukydides and @Blue Ensign. I am very appreciative of the work they shared in their very detailed logs. There were many others also and I will call you out when I use a particular technique I learned. The beginning is pretty straightforward and has been covered very well before now so I will kind of speed through this part. The kit is very well made and went together very nicely. I did make up some little slotted blocks to hold her upright. There has been plenty of discussion about these parts not lining up on some build logs. I’ll be honest, they had me little concerned. Mine lined up fine. False deck going on. Now the fun really begins. Time to plank. I had decided early on that I was going to attempt this build at as high a level as possible. With that in mind and being new to planking a boat this size I had planned on the first planking to be a trial run for the second layer. I referred to many logs about planking both the Alert and others. I used @Chuck’s method of plank bending with water heat and a jig to make the lateral bends. I bought a little quilting iron with a tiny little foot. I saw someone on here use it. It is great. So here I go… ** One tip I will share regarding the little iron. I bought a timed outlet on amazon for about $12 and plug the iron into that. It has multiple settings for hours to be on. I usually set it for 2 hours, after that time it shuts off. So later I’m not wondering if I turned off the iron. I put a small piece of the pear planking in the rabbet to make sure I would have room to tuck that layer into the rabbet nice and cleanly. You can see I had to put a little skinny plank in there. By this point I’m just going by the seat of my pants. Best laid plans and all… I’m definitely going to need some filler, but overall I am quite happy with this layer. I couldn’t have done it without all the great logs and information about bending planks out there. That will about do for now. Next up, second layer planking! Chris

It’s not really that old. Maybe several months. I’ve been woodworking for many years. I’ve got older glue. Haha Titebond lists the dry film color as translucent yellow. My original glue dish looked the same (same bottle of glue when new) after some time. I’m thinking maybe because it’s so thick on the dish…? No freezing conditions here, although it’s listed as stable in freeze thaw conditions. I find that quite interesting. I don’t know how many times I would let it freeze and keep using it. 🤣 I appreciate all the responses!! Anyway, I’ve replaced it today with original Titebond. First thing I did was squeeze a big blob into my dish so I can see what it looks like tomorrow. Original Titebond is an aliphilatic resin emulsion. II is PVA. 🤷 we’ll see how it does. I’m sure it will be fine, it’s wood glue. Just learning about some of the minutiae. I’d still like to try Super Phatic but can’t seem to find a source besides Amazon and it’s $20 for 50 ml. 😱 Thanks Chris