shauer

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

Thanks Chuck, and thank you to everyone else liking and following. Didn't get as far as I had hoped this week, real life has a habit of doing that sometimes. Still made pretty good progress on the sills and will hopefully have the gun port frames wrapped up this week. Here is where the project is right now. Completed about 3/4 of the sills and have been doing a first-pass at fairing them as I go along. Using the spacers per the instructions has been working out very well. No table saw so I just found a combination of scrap strips that matched the dimension needed. To begin fairing the inboard surfaces of the sills, I made up a curved and tapered sanding block that I can slide along another strip placed on the bulkheads. That's it for now. I should have the remainder of the upper sills done in the next day or two, and then I expect the gun port sides to take a few days to get them fitting well. Steve

Here's on update on the first stage of the gun port framing. Spent a few hours comparing the run of the batten on port vs. starboard and got the two sides as equal as possible. I got the best results (smoothest run) by using the least number of pins possible and allowing the batten to do the work. In most cases it wanted to follow the marks on the bulkheads in a fair curve. The image above shows the largest mismatch I have with the mark on the second to last bulkhead. Not sure where this came from. Working on adding the port sills. I've found that small spring clips make good temporary supports for the sills. I can take my time getting the height exactly where I want it and then rely on the clips to control the position when gluing. Looks like I have at least a week of work remaining to complete the gun port framing. Steve

Thanks everyone for the likes and comments, they are appreciated. Spent the past couple days completing what I consider the first pass at fairing the hull. I think I have most of the hull to within about 1/32 inch of where it needs to be. I've left the aft a little less finished until I add the stern frames. One thing I'm realizing taking all these pictures is that I just spotted a few areas on the bottom of the hull that are not symmetrical port to starboard. I'll address these areas after the stern and quarter galleries are framed. I just placed the battens for the gun port sills, tomorrow I'll spend some time taking measurements and adjusting port & starboard before marking for the gunport frames. I can make out the subtle S-curve but also see where I need to make a few adjustments. The width of the laser-marked line is about all the adjustment range I need but this activity is better saved for a new day. Steve

Some progress shots from the starting of the fairing at the bow. This is still a first pass on the top half only of the bow bulkheads. All work is being done with a sanding stick working slowly to blend edges of the bulkheads. Being careful to preserve the char on the larger side of the bulkhead. I'm struggling a little with getting the shape right on the bow filler pieces, establishing the correct curve of the bow. I would normally cut out templates from a plan view of the hull, but a full plan view is not included in the drawings. I decided to try making use of the two views provided on sheet 3 of the plans that provides the bow curve at two different points. I created a template of each view that I'm using as a guide for establishing the general curve of the bow between bulkhead W and the bow assembly. At this point, I still have some material to remove from the bow fillers to get the curve correct. Then just a few more pictures of getting ready to rough-out the fairing of the lower portions of the bulkheads. Chuck was right, this hull is a beast! But I'm enjoying the larger scale of the model. Lots of sanding... Steve

Thank you all, I'm having a great time so far on the project! Matt, I agree with the timing of my project. One of several items that was appealing to me getting back into the hobby after such a long time away was the "maturity" of the project. That I had a lot of reference material and help, as well as any enhancements that have been made. Earlier in the week I added the bolts to the keel assembly. Used a combination of my calipers and a steel ruler to keep the bolt patterns straight. Then set up my build board on a piece of MDF shelving. Bulkheads were all dry fit and the only sanding/filing I did was to remove any taper or high spots within the slots. This included filing down any high spots at the ends of the notches to ensure the bulkheads would fully seat flush. Gluing up the bulkheads after performing a full dry fit went easy enough. Most of the laser cut bulkheads went in perfectly square with no further clamping required, but I did check every one. All bulkheads end nicely at the rabbet line as they are supposed to. The tolerances on the laser cut parts is impressive. Added the bow fillers and I think I'm ready to start having fun with the first of what I'm sure will be a few rounds of fairing before moving on to framing the ports. I see a lot of sawdust in my future this week. Steve

Thank you for sharing. I learn the most from posts such as this. One more item to add to my list of things to watch out for when I get to chapter 2. Steve

Made some progress this past week. Have the stem knee assembly completed and installed as well as the keel. Setting up my build board now in preparation for dry fitting the bulkheads. Still need to add the bolts to the keel, going to practice on some scrap before taking on that task. Right now I have a light coat of satin wipe on poly applied to seal the wood and protect it a little. Getting the stem knee assembly to fit the curve at the bow of the bulkhead former fought me a little. Ended chasing a gap of about 1/32 around the curve. Ended up splitting the difference between thinning the rabbet strip a little and adjusting the inner curve of the stem assembly. Still have a little fine tuning on the rabbet around the bow before I'm happy with it. Looking forward to transitioning from a 2-dimensional project into 3-dimensions. Forgive the bad color balance on some of these, cell phone camera... Steve

Thanks everyone for the warm welcome and the follows. Past couple of evenings I started shaping the taper at the bobstay piece, bringing it down to just over the 1/8 inch width called out. Does anyone have a picture showing the shape of this taper? I have not purchased the printed figurehead yet and would like to get this taper close to correct before gluing the assembly onto the model. See my partially completed taper below, how much further do I need to go? Also have the bulkhead formers glued up and just dry fitted the rabbet strip which I'll glue tonight. Steve

Hello everyone! Starting my build log. Ordered the laser cut bulkheads, chapters 1&2 and they arrived yesterday. Already started making sawdust. I'm getting back into wooden ship building after 25 years and Winchelsea will be my introduction back into the hobby. I've been lurking for several months, reading a lot of build logs and selected Winchelsea for a lot of the same reasons that Chuck gave as his reasons to create this project. I was looking for something in a larger scale that 1:64 and with design elements that I had not dealt with before and a Frigate seemed to be the logical choice. I was seriously considering Speedwell, but the more I thought about it, the more my rational brain told me that starting with a POB model that is already a completed project that does not require rigging is a much better way to begin again. Jumping right in, spent the day building up the stem and knee assembly. Picture below is a rough sanding following the glue up. I still need to taper the assembly and add the gammon knee. Very little adjustment was needed when fitting the pieces and i used a jeweler's file (needle file) as I find them more precise than sandpaper. Worked carefully and slowly until I could not see any light through the seams. I also prepped the false keel pieces, tapered the false keel to the bearding line, and dry fit. I'll fine tune the taper once I add the rabbet strip. I was impressed that for such a long assembly the three pieces locked together with no wobble and dead straight as measured at the bottom of the false keel. Steve

Hi Everyone, I've been lurking for the past 4 months or so and decided I should introduce myself. I'm getting back into the hobby after a 25+ year hiatus while raising two daughters. I started building plastic kits around the age of 6 and by my teens was interested primarily in Tamiya 1/35 scale military kits. In my mid 20s I discovered wooden ship models after picking up a current issue of Seaways Ships In Scale at my local hobby shop. I built a few kits from Midwest and Model Shipways. That is until my workshop was turned into a play room for my daughters. My last project was the Pride of Baltimore II from Model Shipways. Since then I've done some occasional kits and projects but no other ships. I'm getting my shop put back together, hunting down where I "stored" old tools, and refreshing my knowledge by spending time on this site. Current plan is to start with the HMS Winchelsea, should be starting a build log soon. If that is going well I'm really interested taking on the Speedwell (both from Syren). Steve