shauer

Frank, thank you for taking the time to put together such a well thought-out reply. I will definitely follow your advice on maintaining the correct angles on the second wale plank. I was typing up my response when I saw Glenn's reply which answered my last question that this area will not be directly visible on the final model. Thanks Glenn! Based on this feedback is sounds like I can continue as I am with the exposed end grain of the bottom planks and it will not be visible? Is this correct? Of course the other option is to remove the aft portions of the 2 strakes of bottom planking on each side and possibly the lower planks for the counter and replace all of those while correcting the joint to hide the bottom plank's end grain. I feel this would be necessary only if the results of this correction would be visible. Thanks again for the support, I really appreciate it. Any other opinions on how I should proceed? (keep going as-is, or redo it?) Steve

After sleeping on it and briefly looking at my model this morning, the way the bottom planks meet the lower counter on my model is bugging me more. I will likely rip up those 4 planks and try it again along with doing a better job of fairing the run of the planks into the tuck. Frank - I was looking at your build log which I have been referring to several times. There is a picture of this area at the beginning of page 8 of your build log that shows me what I may need to do. I was attempting to get the bottom surface of the plank even with the very bottom aft corner of the Wales. Doing this makes it impossible for the plank to also be in position to be flush with the bottom of the lower counter. From the picture of your project below, I highlighted what looks like the bottom plank being slightly recessed into the lower counter relative to the Wales. Looks like the bottom aft corner of the Wales is proud of the first plank (green line). Doing this would resolve my problem. Can you confirm this is what you did? Marked image from Frank's build: Steve

Progress was a little slower than I expected this week. I got the two strakes below the Wales completed after wrestling with a drop plank and getting the planks to meet at the lower counter neatly. I didn't achieve the perfect seam I have seen on some projects but I think it will work out alright once the 1/8 inch molding is applied. I also received my order of the next few chapters plus the resin castings. Thanks Chuck! After my first couple attempts at getting the taper correct, I resorted to popping loose the end of the drop plank so that I had some minimal adjustment to get a tight joint both above and below the tapered plank. I struggled with the first strake below the Wales where it joins the lower counter. I could not get a nice neat mitered joint that also lined up neatly with the corner between the lower counter and the lowest plank of the Wales. So I resorted to just letting the hull planks lap the lower counter. I figure I can hide this under the 1/8 inch wide molding that is placed along this seam. Anyone have other thoughts on this? This is only rough sanded, it will clean up a little more with a final finish sand. And of course I just had to get the figurehead placed on the bow to see what it looks like. I'm working today on edge-painting the planks that will be used for the top and bottom strakes of the Wales and will start installing them this week. Steve

Thank you Glenn, I cannot say that I enjoyed planking around the gun ports, but it is very satisfying to be done with that task. I cannot imagine doing three decks of gun ports. Completed the port side above the Wales. And a couple other views. Faired the planking down to 320 grit and then a thin coat of poly. Figure I need another session of sanding with finer grit on both sides before I consider this portion complete. Started with dry fitting the drop planks last night. Used a small amount of water and my hand iron to get the planks to relax into the bulkheads. It looks like only some minor adjustment of the laser cut planks will be needed. Just a little gap between the lower edge of the planks and the first bulkhead. Looking to complete the first two strakes below the Wales this week and start on the Wales and black plank maybe this weekend. Steve

Thank you, Rick. Completed the starboard side planking above the Wales. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. Spent a few hours fairing the planks and applied a light coat of poly to seal the wood for now. Again, not too worried about the lower 5 strakes as these will all have a second layer added Steve

Just a few progress shots of work around the Starboard gun ports. I have the gun ports fully planked around at the bow, I really like the shape and lines of the hull that are becoming apparent as I complete this area. Still have some more sanding to do, but the lower 5 strakes will all be planked over so I'm not worrying much more about those, just the strakes above the Wales. Looks like I'm consistently not sanding the plank edges where the upper plank overhangs the lower, may need to flip the hull over and try again. Finally added the fixed blocks now that I could be sure of where the planks were laying. Started to fit the next plank and messed up the cut for clearing the fixed block so called it a day. And one last shot of the stern. Still need to trim the planks at the transom. Steve

Thank you Frank for the comment and everyone else for the likes. It's been a couple weeks and progress slowed a bit with moving my youngest daughter back home from college and other family obligations. I painted the gun ports and started planking above the Wales on the starboard side. As you would expect, the pace of things has slowed down considerably with the number of pieces that need to be cut and fit. I started out with about 1/3 of my planks around the gun ports being scrapped for one reason or another. I'm improving and only about 1 out of 4 is now junk. Forcing myself to go slow and check the fit twice as often as I think I should has helped. I've also learned that making light cuts with a saw is better than cutting with a knife in many cases where you are cutting close to the edge of a plank to prevent splitting. A couple pictures from earlier this weekend And one from this evening with some additional progress Steve

Update for the past week is that I completed the first layer of the Wales on both sides. I'm pretty satisfied with how they turned out. I started with the port side and made some mistakes especially up by the bow. Starboard side turned out better but not perfect, I'm happy the instructions had me start with the Wales and that they are double-layered to allow me to make some small mistakes that I'll be able to cover up. I started off placing the battens again to double check the line, I also created some gauges out of card stock to represent the total width of all the strakes at various points along the hull so I could see if the run of the battens was even from side to side. Again, I found that using the least number of pins produced a nice smooth run for the batten. I'm following Chuck's method of planking for this model based on the video he did including the way that he deals with shaping the planks for an edge set. I picked up a little hobby iron that's only about 2" x 3" and tried it out on a scrap piece before starting with the lowest strake of the Wales. I used this technique to edge-set the lower strake around the bow and it worked well. The first mistake I made was doing the same thing for the 2nd and 3rd strakes on the port side and over-compensated for the needed curve. This caused some problems in getting these strakes to fit. On the starboard side, I used the lower strake to act as a guide and used a little water and heat from the iron while holding the strake in place on the hull. This seems to work better for less aggressive curves. Port side, the light showing through the strakes at the bow is in fact a very thin spot after sanding. The changes in levels of the strakes is now no more than 1/64 of an inch and I stopped sanding before I completely broke through the strake. I'll likely back up these areas with some scrap on the inboard side and the second layer of the Wales will cover it up. Starboard side turned out a little better. On average, got the stakes about 1/64 inch closer to fair prior to sanding. I'm pleased with where the run of the Wales landed against the lower counter. I over-faired the lower corners of the lowest strake of the counter. Pretty sure this will be covered later on. I'm going to paint the gun ports prior to adding the 5th 7/32 strake (black stake) above the Wales. I'm really loving working with the yellow cedar. All my past experience has been using basswood for planking, the yellow cedar is much easier to work with. It's just a little more durable but still very forgiving. I'm at a stand-still tonight. Some how my paint brushes have moved themselves and I cannot locate them. I'm sure they are in a perfectly obvious place once I find them... Steve

I'll give you a Winchelsea newbie perspective on this. I'm only about 2 months into my Winchelsea build and just started the second chapter. I agree with it being a challenging intermediate project (so far). The most complex wooden ship model I did prior was the Pride of Baltimore II from Model Shipways. I rely a lot on the build logs and have read pretty much all of them at least once prior to starting the project. Before you decide to take the plunge I recommend you read ALL of the build logs, pay close attention to those projects that did not go well along with the successful ones. Try to find a build log from someone with similar experience and skills and see how they did. I think if you have learned and are successful at the techniques required for building an intermediate model then the rest is up to how you personally handle large, multi-year projects, and how comfortable you are with translating descriptions of new skills into practice. Working on Winnie requires a larger workspace that can be dedicated to the project for the duration. I am enjoying the larger scale/size of the model. You will make mistakes and that's where the build logs where problems were encountered have saved me somewhat. I agree with the summary above to get a few more models behind you and then decide. Steve

Planked the lower counter last night. The laser cut planks made this really easy. As usual, still have some fairing to complete. Wanted to see where the lower plank on the counter landed before finishing the fairing in this area. The line for the Wales lands right at the lower corners of this planking. Quick test fit of the frieze for the lower counter to see if I removed too much material. This is just a template made from a printout of the frieze with some clear packing tape used to laminate it. Looks like I'll get it to fit. Now onto replacing the battens to double check the lower line of the Wales especially at the bow and then onto installing them. Steve

All assembly / fabrication for chapter 1 is now complete. Still need to finish fairing the lower hull, especially in the stern. I added the 1/8 x 1/16 inch strip along the top of the quarter deck bulkheads and the hance pieces. To assist me with maintaining the correct shape while fairing the tops of the bulkheads I created some paper templates of the upper portions of the bulkheads to hold up to the model while removing material on the outside of the upper bulkheads. You can see some of the paper templates on the build board. The bollard timbers were an interesting little project. Chuck did a nice job breaking down the process into simple steps. First I faired the stem and forward bulwarks to 5/32 and removed the majority of material from the inboard bulwarks at the bow. I still have a decent amount of fairing to do as you can see. Bollard timbers test fit prior to shaping them, you can see the marks I made to guide the tapering of the forward face. View after tapering front and rear faces. And the completed assembly installed in the model. Didn't take any additional progress shots. Just worked slowly with my set of miniature files to add the features to the timbers. It's amazing how a close-up photo does such a nice job showing all the little imperfections. I put on a coat of poly to seal the wood. I'll be coming back with my files for some minor adjustments at some point to even out the width and spacing of the features. Now time to flip this thing over and clean up the stern prior to moving into chapter 2. Steve

Been a fairly productive weekend. Have nearly completed the Quarter Gallery framing and mostly faired. Completed installing the upper and lower sills. Did some rough fairing of the sills and sanded the stern frames down to the dashed line. Then fabricated the Quarter Gallery framing per the instructions, checking that each piece lined up with the template I created. I used the laser cut planks for the Lower Counter provided in kit2 as a template to get the shape correct when fairing the frames and ensuring I did not over-fair the stern. Picture showing the curve of the transom. Placed the transom piece on the framing to check alignment. Question - how much space should there be between the outer edge of the stern frame and the window opening in the transom piece? I have 1/8 inch on each side. I think this is correct from looking at the drawings but would like to double check if I need to add another 1/32 inch or so? That's it for this weekend. Steve

Thank you for the tips Glenn, I have spent a lot of time trying to learn from the previous builds and it's good to have some items like this pointed out as there is so much information and it's easy to miss a detail. I did see the use of the templates and made the template of the gallery framing, forgot to show it in use. The template is an accurate cut-out from my plans and the angle of the stern is dead on. However the template is between 1/32 and 1/16 inch longer than my framing. The outside frames are fully seated in their slots and the length is controlled by the notch in the stern frame overlapping one of the bulkheads so it must be correct. Right now I'm thinking a little light sanding when fairing the stern and the template will drop right in. You can see that it's just a little bowed right now to fit and just a touch too high. If I take off about 1/32 on the inside of the stern frames, it should be about perfect. Had some fun with the inner 4 frames that when I was adjusting them the window spacers kept on popping out. The whole thing is just a little spring loaded right now, but the window spacers are being held in with no additional clamping force. Steve

Started installing the stern frames. Picked up the angle of the stern from the drawing. It took a little filing and adjusting to get the frames to fully seat into the slots, Here I have all 6 frames dry fit with the window guides held in place with just the force of the frames squeezing them. At this point I realized I made a small error when installing the starboard bulkhead 29 which is a little low. It does not appear to affect the position of the stern frames which are still controlled by the other two forward bulkheads. Checking the angle of the outer two stern frames before gluing them into position. Still need to fine tune the position of the inner 4 frames and get them glued into position. Hoping to get the sills installed this weekend. Steve

Progress made over the past week. I completed the upper sills to the gun ports and added the sides per the instructions. Cutting out the required bulkheads went well using a fine tooth saw and some careful sanding / filing. Only incident was when I wasn't paying attention to where I was resting my hand and snapped off the upper sill around frame 'S'. Just had to glue it back on and all was well. Need to learn to be more careful. Forward gun port side location transferred from plans. Completed fairing the upper portion of the outer hull. Took 2-3 days of working on it for a couple hours and then coming back the next day to see what I missed. I'm pretty happy with the results. Only defects that bug me are a couple areas on each side up at the bow. I over-faired the bulkheads 'W', 'U', and 'S' and there are a few small shallow spots around the joints of the sills. The run of the sills is fair but you can see the shadows around the joints in the pictures below. I think these will plank over just fine, but I can always fill them if that proves to not be the case. Preparing to dive into the stern framing. Placed bulkhead '29' pieces and working on the necessary templates and tick strips. This is one of those things I have not done on my previous models, so the first real new step for me. I'm trying to apply a combination of successful techniques I've seen in other build logs to ensure all angles, distances, and corner positions are correct. That's the plan for this week is to get the frames positioned correctly. One another note, I received my wood package order from the Modeler's Sawmill. Ordering was easy, communication was great, and the quality of the wood is excellent. There's a ship somewhere in this pile of wood... I'm tired just looking at that bag of planking strips in the lower left. Steve