Mike Y

Would strongly recommend to make a cardboard mockup - of your biggest midship frame (with keel included) and the gantry itself, with a mock height gauge. It is the best way to feel the dimensions and see if you would be able to transfer dimensions to the hull from your bluprints. Was too lazy to build a cardboard mockup when designing a display case, used CAD instead. Payed for it dearly, the proportions were a bit off and it ended up too big in real life. With the gantry / buildboard a cardboard mockup should be really easy to make!

I do scratch build in an apartment. Never had a big scroll saw, but a benchtop bandsaw (Proxxon MBS in my case) is not too bad. It has a bit of a high-pitched noise that does not travel too far (tested with neighbours), and I also put a rubber mat under all machines to reduce the noise distribution through vibration. You can buy these mats for washing machines and like. So unless your apartment walls are made out of paper (which might happen) - it should not be a thing preventing you from scratch building! Also the actual cut time is miniscule, you spend way more time preparing, marking up, gluing, sanding, etc, than the actual "cutting pieces from wood" time. Would be happy to help you with any other "tools in an apartment" problems, there are some photos in my build log that might help It is absolutely doable! And you don't need too much space, my modelling corner is 120cm wide.

Few lessons learned: 1) Flattening the surface with a plane is quite tricky, since you bump into some cross piece with a risk of a chipping. Next time - make carlings the right height from the start (with just a tiny bit of margin for sanding) 2) Used mill to make notches for ledges - it is not worth it. The positioning is overly complicated, and the notches are quite shallow, so even a 1mm mill does not go deep enough, resulting in a semi-circular notch that is too narrow. In the end a manual markup and chiseling worked much better. The final step is my favourite - a little bit of sanding magic. This time I tried fine grits of mesh sanding pads - they are amazing! Before/after sanding. Isn't it awesome? There is a method to hide all imperfections like they were never there. Like a make-up for parts The whole asymmetrical layout idea is a bit questionable in the narrow area, but I still think it's the best option for asymmetrically planked model, and the offset would be much smaller once you leave the "bottom of the hold" part with a very steep planking angle. Looks like a render, isn't it? I tried to use a different kind of pear for carlings and ledges, but the contrast is too subtle, will try a more contrasting wood next time!

Sidenote: what a pity that Proxxon pretty much stopped any development of new tools. The only tool they have released in the last 5 years is the Tungsten electrode sharpener attachment to their rotary tools, as well as some battery-powered versions of the classical rotaries. The "machine" part of their offering has not been updated for at least 6 years Just venting, sorry for the pointless comment

Good call on redoing the frames! The first version was painting yourself into a corner with very little meat on the frames, would be very hard to fair (especially with the simulated bolts). And keep in mind that with Hahn method the alignment of top parts of the frames is also important. Looks so much better now, well done!

Hmm, yes, I thought the joke is obvious, sincere apologies if it was not... It is really incredibly clean and precise, a completely different level and something to strive for!

You are likely experimenting with us and some of these "photos" are actually 3D renders. The colour scheme is very similar to the Swan 3D model

Looking crisp! Steady progress, no drama.

Thanks John! I think I got the idea, will experiment Congrats on the anniversary!

Very nicely done! Can't believe it is your first POF and you started with the stern section, probably the most challenging part of the hull

When using it for strip thicknessing - how are you holding the strip? Especially to make sure it does not spin... Of course you can cut an oversized long strip, but it does not sound very efficient.. Trying to wrap my head around it before buying

Very neat! Beautiful parts, like the subtle wood colour contrast

Next up was fitting the platform into the hull. Hahn jig makes a very nice stand for dust-free sanding and fitting, would come in handy When fitted into the hull - the platform looks quite off-center due to the one-sided planking. Carlings would be centered around the keel line, making them shifted from the platform center. Looks strange when taking a straight up photo, but it should be better once more layers are done, so it is viewed at an angle. I think it is a better alternative than adding spacers on the non-planked side or shaving off some meat from the knees on the planked side. The offset would get smaller the higher up you go, this platform is the deepest structure in the hold where the ceiling planking has a significant angle. Cutting notches for carlings was a blast! An incredible set of carving chisels came in handy, this is not even the smallest size! The smallest Veritas chisel for comparison. Incredible feeling when a piece perfectly fits into these notches when dry, nice and tight! Video 2024-07-29 22 01 07.mov

Was postponing the next big phase of the build - platforms & decks. It should be a very enjoyable part, one of the main reasons to start the fully framed model in a first place. But the learning curve is steep, primarily the planning part. Previously I relied on Hahn drawings to locate the parts, and the rest was rather repetitive. Now I need to sail uncharted waters - Hahn only provides locations of top deck beams and that's about it. So I relied on TFFM to understand the inner workings - these books are worth their weight in gold, I am immensely grateful to authors for simplifying a lot of research in an easy to understand form. And, of course, old Admiralty drawings from May 1778 done by George White. So I spent some evenings trying to wrap my head around and map the location and dimensions of the aft platform. Brain went into an overthinking mode and too many decisions should have been done too late in the evening. "What should I take as a reference point vertically? What about the horizontal reference? How to ensure a fair line? What method to pick to compensate for a lack of planking on one side? How to avoid a cumulative measurement error creep?" Finally the markup was done And a transparent template was born Transfer paper allows to copy the shape easily to cut off the wood patterns, but of course it leads to a creeping inaccuracy. Shaping 12 symmetrical parts that form 6 knees was not easy, but at least it did not require any thinking - just a pure relaxing process of small wood parts fabrication. Was missing a nano-sized flush trim router to make an exact mirror copy of each part Ideal usecase for CNC! Though where is the fun in that... Even forgot to take any pictures, the only one is the final edge polishing. The final assembly was tricky. I was planning to fine tune the knee angles, but trying to assemble a trapezoid when all its sides are sliding around is a very annoying process. If only I could somehow clamp all these pieces 🙄 Oh, wait, the past me thought about this and made some clamps. Six years ago. 😳 How very nice of me! Time to dust them off and use them first time for their intended purpose! They worked excellently, providing a gentle clamping force to get all pieces under control. Still took a while to fine tune the angles (adjusting one angle immediately affects the rest, what a mess). Here is the assembled platform, just need to fit it to the hull, add carlings and ledges and sand everything nice and smooth. Before adding ledges one is supposed to make sure they do not interfere with the lower deck pillars, but it's too much effort for now (requiting to mark the locations of all lower deck beams), creating a risk for another half-a-year modelling block. Will sort that out afterwards, moving the beams a little bit and even notching some ledges into the pillars. After all, the ship I am modelling is not famous for the build quality. The whole story around it smells "Friday night shift, shoddy engineering", so a few internal structural members overlapping each other are rather on brand Glad it would be hidden deep in the hold, a practice piece that still gets to be on the model Also I saw a number of build logs using pins to dry fit in place, but that implies drilling a tiny hole in the part. Do you just leave a hole there? Or plug the hole with glue and sawdust and do one more round of sanding before the final glue-up? Would be very happy to hear advices, suggestions and ideas to improve that process. I made it work, but surely it can be made easier and faster (and, frankly, more accurate).

If you are short on space - then yes, absolutely: https://www.proxxon.com/en/micromot/27110.php It is the smallest mill available in a reasonable price range (excluding aliexpress drill-mill junk combos), which is both good and bad. The working area is quite small, but enough for shipmodeling needs. It is hard to upgrade and attempts to machine anything harder than brass on that mill are rather questionable. But it is a great way to start and is fairly cheap in comparison. Make sure to get the "precision vice PM40", the cutters and basic workholding clamps should be already included. If you have a workshop - then your choice is much wider, there are a lot of medium sized "mini mills", but all of them are too big and heavy to be casually pulled up on your work table, they require a more permanent position in your shop. Proxxon, on the other hand, takes less space than some smoothie blenders in the kitchen

Thanks Rik, so glad that you find it useful! For the mill - the basics are very intuitive, no book or youtube guide required if you work with wood on our level. Feeds and speeds pretty much do not matter for the small wood pieces that we work with, common sense is enough (keep the fingers away from the cutter, do not try to cut 2cm deep in one go, listen for the sound that the cutter makes and slow down if it sounds rough). The cost of a mistake is also relatively low, worst case scenario you break a cutter, so do not start with a thin and delicate right away. 3mm cutter is an optimal all-round cutter in my opinion. Imagine you have a drill that not only cuts down, but can also work sideways. The key feature is that you are not doing it freehand, but by fixing your part to the mill table and precisely moving it in all three directions using wheels, with everything being perpendicular or parallel. As long as you are cutting straight lines - mill would give you the best quality and precision comparing to files and chisels (unless you are a true master of these tools). And a fantastic feeling of being able to carefully maneuver it with a 0.01mm precision without being a surgeon. It even removes a need for measurements in simple setups - the wheels are marked to indicate a travel distance. Say I want to cut a scarph joint 1mm deep and 4mm in each direction. Mount the part on a proper angle, move the cutter to the starting point, set axis to zero - and now you can just plunge the cutter 1mm down and move to the side by 4mm minus the cutter width. If the operation is simple enough to visualise the operations in your head - the markup and measurements are not even necessary, the mill can do it for you. Further milling skills are mostly about metals, eliminating backlash, feeds and speeds, different kinds of cutters, precision, finishing passes, reference surfaces - all of that is an overkill for the basic wood milling in our hobby. What is useful is a lot of clever ways to mount the part, especially the part that is asymmetrical and hard to clamp or put in a vice.

Really like you wood colour pallette, contrasting ladders and ebony pieces on the deck (ebony hatches look especially awesome!). Will "borrow" a few ideas

Sanding would never leave a perfectly flat surface, no matter how straight your hand is. Milling is the best, but if using handtools only or if mating curved pieces - then shave off the curved center area with a blade or a knife. If one really want to make the joint disappear - you can scrape the middle with a curved tool, creating a tiny ”shallow zone” 😊 Good luck with these!

Very neat! Thanks for showing your milling setups, that is extremely useful and I am curiously examining every photo 😊

Your build looks beautiful and with clear quality standard! Used a disk sander to shape frames, so it was never an issue since the disk always pushes the part down. The concave parts are sanded on the edge of the disk, slow and careful. When you got close to a line - then I guess you can smoothen it on a spindle sander. You don’t need to get too close, better leave some ”meat” for the fairing once the frames are in place.

Would recommend to look into decent household vaccuums with some "silent" keywords in the name. I have a Bosch ProSilence (this one or similar https://www.bosch-home.com/ne/en/mkt-product/vacuum-cleaners/canister-vacuum-cleaners-bagged/BGLS42230), very quiet on lower speeds (that are more than sufficient), has a HEPA filter and does not take too much space. It even handles power planing well enough, so unless you do a full scale woodworking - it is more than adequate for the hobby needs. I have it for many years and it shows no sign of issues with wood dust. It is so quiet that I run it at night when modelling in a living room while the family is sleeping in adjacent rooms. Just placing the hose close to the object that I'm sanding - a steady flow of air easily gets all the fine airborne particles, while the heavy ones just drop on the table, posing no risk to your lungs. No visible wood dust floats in the air, which makes it reassuring that the finer dust is sucked into the vac. No sound boxes required. And they are not terribly expensive either (around 200 USD I guess). Not sure why everyone assumes you need a shop vac for our hobby, we are not grinding concrete and not sanding wood panels for hours every day. Despite a small-ish size, it takes a very long time to fill the vaccuum bag when woodworking, and the bags are cheap. Zero issues with clogging, leaking or anything. More than enough power when connecting to our tools.

Not only it has incredible details, but it definitely has a charm and very well designed! Can easily imagine it as a movie set A pleasure to look at!

Now it's time to build magazines and all sorts of decks and beams. For that phase an accurate depth gauge is essential, so I've let my brain overthink yet another tool The requirements are: 1) Soft plastic or wood to avoid scratching the model 2) Nice looking and pleasure to use, that tool would be in active service for at least a decade. 3) Ideally it should have a thumbwheel or a knob for fine adjustment. I have a cheap plastic vernier calliper that satisfies the first requirement, but it does not have an knob / thumbwheel. Could not find any plastic callipers with a knob, unfortunately. The plastic ones are already rare enough, let alone with a wheel adjuster. Then I spotted a Lego set with a container loader ("reach stacker", to be more precise) that has a worm gear and tried to make an abomination out of it. It is surprisingly challenging to build a compact functional tool out of random lego parts, a whole puzzle of its own. Respect to people who do it on a regular basis! It kind of works, but the play and precision is not good enough for my needs. So I gave up on the wheel adjuster requirement and went back to the simple "calliper on a gantry" setup. It was a nice warmup to recover some skills that I've lost over years of inactivity. This time I even got help from my little helper! She enjoyed cranking the mill The resulting design has two parts - sliding gantry (no t-tracks, it is stable enough on its own) and a "calliper holder" that slides sideways on the gantry to allow the gantry keep contact with both sides of the baseboard. The bottom edge of the caliper is trimmed to a flatter profile to avoid hitting the keelson. Both ends of the calliper can be used for a markup to allow for a comfortable pencil positioning. The setup relies on three clamps to fix everything in position. These plastic clamps are a bit of an eyesore, maybe I will sidetrack again to build a nicer ones

New build from Tiziano! You don’t see that every day 😊 Quite excited!

Hi Michel, No, your model is quite awesome! You should really start the log and post more. There is always some other log that looks better, that is not an excuse And we all are masters of finding flaws in our models, so it's never perfect... Have you built yours out of the Lumberyard "timbering package" or entirely from scratch (plans only)? Haven't seen any Lumberyard based build logs, frankly... Would be very interesting to see! The scrolls under your quarter gallery look laser cut, so that's why I thought about a package