dvm27

Home schooling, Ed? for some reason I thought you were Grandpa age. Loss of Crown and Hobby Mill vendors were indeed a great loss for our hobby. With regards to the hull strapping I'm just curious how they would have been secured? Would there be copper rivets with peened ends? The outer ends would have to be counter sunk into the frames for the external planking.

It must give Ed much pleasure to see his work executed at such a level of excellence! Those tanks are spectacular, though ironically they would leak like a sieve at this point. I love the copper finished look. If you blacken them I suspect the rivet holes would vanish.

If you find the gap offensive you could also glue in a tapered spline of the same wood to fill the gap after the glued keel has dried. Leave it slightly proud of the surface and sand flush with yellow glue to blend. Make sure it's an easy slip fit so as not to exert pressure on the other side of the joint.

Actually, Mike, now that I recall I stopped using sanding sealer midway through my Speedwell build based on David's experiences. The 240 finish was enough to give the desired look. All of the plank on frame models in my study have toned down to the same extent whether I used Danish oil, sanding sealer or nothing.

I had the same issues you did but did some experimentation and came up with this (thread): https://modelshipworld.com/topic/21710-blackening-revisited/?tab=comments#comment-651453 My blackening has improved 100% since then.

Think of each futtock (member of a frame) as individual timbers which are connected to the next one by a joint. Each end of the joint (except the toptimber) has a scarph joint. When the ends are joined these two adjacent scarph joints are glued together creating a step in the middle (1/2" or 1"- refer to the framing plan). The void created is filled by a chock. The chock is always the same thickness as the thicker of the two futtock pieces. The process I use is to glue both futtocks and the chock together over a copy of the frame. After it is dry use a chisel to pare the upper part of the chock down to the thinner width of the adjacent futtock. If you have The Fully Framed Model, Volume III the process is clearly depicted on pages 64-65.

Not sure I fully understand your question (photo would help) but the center of each chock, as viewed from the outside, should be a step where the transition occurs.

Nicely done, Ron! Listen to Chuck - he knows his shi...I mean stuff.

Great planking job, Mike. Dilute sanding sealer works great for me with no change in the color. I use the SIG version.

You've managed to incorporate every detail except the branded imprinted lettering on the carriages. A Euro cent must be a lot bigger than our US penny!

Very few people do the prep you do. Mike. That's why your work is so superlative!

Very sorry for your loss, Doris. Your work inspires me and others to do better and I'm sure your husband was very proud of you.

I agree Jaeger. I have every issue of Model Shipwright and feel these were some of the best ship model publications ever. John is sorely missed.

Missed your work, Christian! Look forward to your next project.

Look forward to your publication. Will there be an English version available?

With Sea Watch books no longer selling plans for the Swan class we have decided to provide them as a free download from our website http://admiraltymodels.homestead.com/Plans.html. Feel free to take use this set of plans if building a Swan class ship model in the future. Be aware, however, that the sheet with the sheer, half breadth and body plans need to be printed commercially due to their size. I have had no end of problems getting these plans printed to spec in the past even though there are scales printed on it. Therefore, we are now providing them as a free download with the caveat to check them very carefully after printing. The best advice I can give is to make sure the distance between perpendiculars is 96' 7" (scale) or 24.15" full size. For those who have purchased Mylar plans in the past from us there should be no problems as they were checked and dimensionally stable. But David and I feel that we can no longer charge for plans for which we have no control over the final product. With so many of our Swan books having been sold over the years we didn't want to leave you without any options for producing plans so this is the best we could come up with. Thank you for all your support over the twenty years we have tried to provide the best product possible. We are hopeful that we may be able to conduct a workshop late next year but, like everything else in this strange time, we shall have to wait and see. Stay healthy and best wishes from David and I for a better 2021!

Lovely work Toni. Those fashion pieces came out well and are probably trickier in a clinker planked hull.

I think the lighting gives a nice subtle effect, JJ. Just to be clear, Tom doesn't sell these scrapers as part of his stock. I believe they were custom designed based on your drawing files. But perhaps he should as they seem to cover the gamut of profiles.

Welcome back Alex. Steps look perfect!

Great start, Matrim. I used the Sherline mill for all my scarf joints. The mill vice is actually attached to the angle plate which makes it very easy when cutting the chocked joints. I am a self-taught machinist so the techniques I use may not be the most efficient but they work for me. One thing I noted when I first started using the mill was that some of my joints were slightly narrower on one side. When the piece you were milling is being held solely within the top jaws of the vice it can skew a little when tightened. This problem was eliminated when I put a scrap piece of wood the same width into the bottom of the mill vice.

Well, if you do decide to start over you’re in good company. I abandoned my first effort at about the point where you are and the second version worked out fine. I paid much closer attention to maximum height of breadth and distance between cant top timbers athwartships when gluing them in place.

Building the Wooden Walls by Brian Lavery has a nice chapter entitled "Chatham Dockyard and its Men". As well Building the Wooden Ship by Jean Dodds & James Moore has a chapter on a dockyard of this period. Both deal with the building of a 74 gun ship.

Nice job on those tricky timbers. Don't forget to check out the build logs of Trussben, Dan's Vulture, Toni Levine and others. They all went through the steps you are doing and have detailed build logs.

My deck planking usually requires only light sanding or scraping to blend Kevin. Provided your deck beams are aligned and the planks are uniform thickness there shouldn't be a lot of variation. For edge clamping I use tapered wedges I create for each for each planking run. One end is slightly narrower than the the distance to be filled by planking. The other end is the correct width to bridge the gap. After applying glue on the plank and letting it set in place for a minute I insert the tapered wedges to lock them into the adjacent plank while setting. usually use five or six of these per run. You can reuse them for the next run of planks by reducing their width as required. When the remaining gaps get smaller you can also drive vertical wedged pieces between the planks to force them down (it looks like you are already doing this in the video). Enjoy your vacation. I know nothing about Trinidad and Tobago except that, as a stamp collector, their postal issues were always combined. Is one a nicer vacation spot?

Gorgeous work JJ! Your frieze work appears to be a deeper shade of blue than Chuck's prototype. Did you alter it before printing?