Mike Y

Finished 4 frame blanks and cut 4 frames in total. 
Last blanks were laminated using really strong clamps, that squeeze the glue under blanks like the previous clamps were not able to do.

 
Surprisingly, I cannot find any difference in lamination quality when I look on a cut frames. Thickness and consistency of lamination looks the same. Probably I was overthinking it
What turned out to be more important is an edge joint of a blank pieces - they should fit really tight, my table saw can't give such a clean cut, so on a last few blanks I used a belt sander to make sure that joints are perfectly tight. And that is visible on a frames.
 
However, I will need to trash one frame. It is all due to the ugly grey spots on a frame blank stock. When sanded, they look even uglier. On a right side of a photo - healthy swiss pear, on a left side - smoker's pear
 

 
Seriously, why are they included in the timbering package? What am I expected to do with such wood? It is not suitable for a modelling, I will just trash all the wood with that grey areas, and there are quite a lot of planks with that defect
Or I am being picky? Don't think so, the defects in the wood are striking. 

Thanks for all the help!
Applied much more glue this time, glue was pre-dried (small can left opened for 24hr).
Looks much better, warping is minimal, and I used some extra clamps, stronger ones.
As it turned out, the lamination was ok - no sign of gaps or warping anywhere when the frame is cut.
 
Cut the test frame just to verify the process. It would not be installed on a model, the goal is only to practice.
 

 

 
First question: what is the proper margin, how far should I cut from the lines? If I cut too far away - frames would be either fat, or there would be an enormous amount of sanding later on (and with too much sanding the final shape of a frame would not be close to a proper lines). If I cut too close - frames would be too small after sanding. What is the golden rule of thumb?
 
Here is the side of a frame. Glue layer is slightly visible, but I guess that is expected? Or not? 
 

 
A lot of sanding and scraping to bring the frame down to desired 7.2mm thickness.
Note to readers - avoid using a heavy grits, even if you need to remove a lot. Sanded with 60 grit and got some deep scratches, very hard to remove. Good that it is a test frame, would be quite sad otherwise
 

 
And the end result is:
 

 

When sanded with a fine grits (1200 => 2000), the colour difference between various part of the frame is striking. Not sure what to do with that.. Well, in the end it is not plastic, so it is quite expected from wood to have a different colour naturally
 
Please post any critics, it is very important to get the technology right on a test frames. 
I am posting detailed process pictures hoping that somebody will spot a mistakes and share a good advice before I will produce 40 frames using a wrong technology

Thanks for advices, Mark!
Also will make a sanding jig to make a perfectly tight edge joint of blank pieces, without spending money on a disk sander
So, here it goes - trial and experiment!

Mark, Greg, thanks for comments!
 
But there is one thing I do not understand. If the surface of blanks would be rough when gluing them together - that will increase the gap between the blanks, and will require to apply more glue, which will increase the wood warping.
Or I simply need more clamps and higher pressure to prevent warping.. I'm already pre-drying the glue to reduce the moisture level.
But if two very experienced builders recommend it - I should listen. Will sand the blanks with a low grit to get a rough surface, will see how it behaves.

Thanks Peter, I will try more. Need to find a consistent process giving a perfect result, otherwise too many frames would be ruined later on
 
Will apply more glue and closer to the edge, plus ordered extra and stronger clamps. 5mm plexiglass should hold quite a big pressure!

Two more tries and I think I have a method that will work. I was able to sand some C-boxwood down to 0.35mm with my Byrnes thickness sander. I then trimmed some strips off to use for the lamination. For the second try the wood was laid in a spiral - easiest to do, but I felt the inner bump was to extreme. I don't think I can reliably create a long bevel to get a smooth inner circle. So the third try is a three layer lamination were the seam from each layer is offset. I believe the result is worth the extra effort, especially considering there are less than 30 hoops to make - not much in comparison to framing a ship!
 
In this picture the hoop trials go from left to right: the broken two layer laminated 1st try, the inner bumped (at the top) 2nd try, and the three layer laminated 3rd try. The mold I used for the trials is above the hoops. I don't need to make a separate mold for each hoop as in some cases there are multiple hoops of the same diameter.

 

And then there is only, how many more to do?
I guess it becomes some kind of therapy once you work out a feasible step by step progress for them.
And it is true, the close up photos hides nothing. You can alway step back an arms length an shoot from there 😉 
 
It looks really good Alan, keep it up!

Toward the end on last year, I became acquainted with a boat that Alberto Santos-Dumont built in 1907. The boat - the No 18 hydroplane, was Santos-Dumont's only watercraft; the rest of his many notable creations were aeronautical in nature. He built and flew many balloons and dirigibles, but may be best known for the 14bis - credited to be the first plane to take off under its own power and flown publicly in Paris. For many years, in Europe and in Brazil (his home country) Santos-Dumont was credited as the first to fly an airplane. Santos-Dumont was independently wealthy and thus had the means to pursue his desire to build and fly heavier than air crafts. Most of his creations where constructed in France where his main residence was located for many years. He also liked a challenge, often associated with a bet. The No 18 hydroplane came about due to a bet that asked for the first boat to achieve 100km/hr along a course on the Seine (averaged over two directions). 

 
No plans for the No18 are know to exist; in fact Santos-Dumont destroyed many plans and notes in 1918 after being accused of spying for the Germans. It is most likely that the plans and associated building notes for the No18 were destroyed at that time. Over in the 'Discussions for Ship Plans and Project Research' portion of MSW I have posted more about the boat and my quest for information. Fortunately, with positive encouragement from MSW members and a number of helpful contacts I have been able to collect enough reliable information that I am confident that a quality model of the No18 hydroplane can be created. This is what I aim to do. 
 
Mostly based on published articles and historical photographs, I have been able to draft plans to build a model in the scale 1:16. The model will be just over 24" long, the main hydrofoil gives a width of about 15", and the height will be about 8". The original was 10m long, 6m wide and had a propeller with a 2.1m diameter. Power was provided by an Antoinette V16 engine.

The model will show interior detail of the boat's structure. I have chosen Costello boxwood for the wood structures within the model.
 
To get started / validate my drawings in some manner, I decided to create a mockup of the main pontoon and the two outrigger nacelles.

The shapes look good to me, so now I will be focusing on making the cross-sectional hoops that hold the shape of these three objects. There are 17 hoops to be make for the main pontoon and 5 for each nacelle. I plan on using a lamination method for the hoops - so making some thin strips of wood and a molds for the hoops will be the first tasks. While I'm working on the hoops, I will be thinking about how to make a jig that will keep them in place as the longitudinal stringers are attached to each.
 
 

Next up was the problem of wood stock preparation.
Majority of the interior construction is made out of relatively small lumber, 2-4mm in 1:48 scale.  I could never cut those perfectly on a table saw, they always need a lot of finessing later on, resulting in an uneven strip. The wood sheets I have are 1 or 2 or 3mm thick, so more sanding is needed if you need something in between. The strip preparation was taking too much efforts.
A thickness sander would be ideal, but the only one in a small scale is Byrnes, which is rather a collector item nowadays.
DYI options are not appealing either, and they are still noisy and dusty.
Another alternative is a thickness planing jig. Most of them are too complicated for my task - with knobs and adjustments leading to inaccuracies, so I decided to use spacers. The range of required thicknesses is rather narrow - on of the largest parts (gun deck beam) is just around 4mm thick. 
 
Decided to build the jig out of scrap piece of walnut. Did not want to risk using plywood, the grooves might end up on a wrong layer, resulting in an uneven surface. They are tiny, but need to be smooth. 
 
Cutting precise grooves on a table saw is not so easy, but slow and steady does the job

Router plane helps to clean up the bottom of the groove:

Resulting jig, custom made for the miniature Veritas bench plane:

Spacers are made out of styrene, very good material for that. Easy to get in a variety of thicknesses, affordable, does not warp with moisture, fairly hard (to avoid compressing too much when planing). I have cut a bunch of spacers with a smallest increment of 0.25mm, should be enough for the range of thicknesses I need.

Jig in action:

Quite happy with it! Simple jig, but very effective. And perfectly quiet  
The finish is incredibly smooth out of the box, so I can use the part right away with no further surface cleanup or sanding. If necessary - should not be hard to add a sanding block for the same jig. 
I could easily get down to 1mm thickness, anything lower - and it is better to hold the "tail" of the strip rather than push it into the stop, otherwise it might get wavy.
 

Time for some side projects  
 
Fist I was concerned about the side-to-side alignment inside the hull.
The height measurement gauge is asymmetrical, and flipping it around may introduce some measurement errors. So I wanted to make a pointy thing that can be moved side-by-side on the top gantry. 
There was a question in another log - "what is the mill for" - here is a classic example of a simple part that should be square with a precise and square-profiled recess. Mill is much more consistent and requires less skill than a "well tuned table saw", for example.

For the "pointy bit" I needed something very soft to avoid scratching the part. Basswood from the Model Shipways kit was ideal - I use it a lot as a soft lining for clamps and jigs. 
I wanted to practice milling it in a rotary table instead of using lathe or a rotary tool. Not the best idea, the finish was not smooth at all (though such a soft wood is not making the task easier)

The resulting gadget. When in action - only one clamp is holding the arm in the correct position, while the assembly slides side to side. Should work even with curved beams, by probing the ends of the beam.

In action:

Time for some side projects  
 
Fist I was concerned about the side-to-side alignment inside the hull.
The height measurement gauge is asymmetrical, and flipping it around may introduce some measurement errors. So I wanted to make a pointy thing that can be moved side-by-side on the top gantry. 
There was a question in another log - "what is the mill for" - here is a classic example of a simple part that should be square with a precise and square-profiled recess. Mill is much more consistent and requires less skill than a "well tuned table saw", for example.

For the "pointy bit" I needed something very soft to avoid scratching the part. Basswood from the Model Shipways kit was ideal - I use it a lot as a soft lining for clamps and jigs. 
I wanted to practice milling it in a rotary table instead of using lathe or a rotary tool. Not the best idea, the finish was not smooth at all (though such a soft wood is not making the task easier)

The resulting gadget. When in action - only one clamp is holding the arm in the correct position, while the assembly slides side to side. Should work even with curved beams, by probing the ends of the beam.

In action:

Next up was the problem of wood stock preparation.
Majority of the interior construction is made out of relatively small lumber, 2-4mm in 1:48 scale.  I could never cut those perfectly on a table saw, they always need a lot of finessing later on, resulting in an uneven strip. The wood sheets I have are 1 or 2 or 3mm thick, so more sanding is needed if you need something in between. The strip preparation was taking too much efforts.
A thickness sander would be ideal, but the only one in a small scale is Byrnes, which is rather a collector item nowadays.
DYI options are not appealing either, and they are still noisy and dusty.
Another alternative is a thickness planing jig. Most of them are too complicated for my task - with knobs and adjustments leading to inaccuracies, so I decided to use spacers. The range of required thicknesses is rather narrow - on of the largest parts (gun deck beam) is just around 4mm thick. 
 
Decided to build the jig out of scrap piece of walnut. Did not want to risk using plywood, the grooves might end up on a wrong layer, resulting in an uneven surface. They are tiny, but need to be smooth. 
 
Cutting precise grooves on a table saw is not so easy, but slow and steady does the job

Router plane helps to clean up the bottom of the groove:

Resulting jig, custom made for the miniature Veritas bench plane:

Spacers are made out of styrene, very good material for that. Easy to get in a variety of thicknesses, affordable, does not warp with moisture, fairly hard (to avoid compressing too much when planing). I have cut a bunch of spacers with a smallest increment of 0.25mm, should be enough for the range of thicknesses I need.

Jig in action:

Quite happy with it! Simple jig, but very effective. And perfectly quiet  
The finish is incredibly smooth out of the box, so I can use the part right away with no further surface cleanup or sanding. If necessary - should not be hard to add a sanding block for the same jig. 
I could easily get down to 1mm thickness, anything lower - and it is better to hold the "tail" of the strip rather than push it into the stop, otherwise it might get wavy.
 

Very clever design and use of jigs Mike - great work!

Next up was the problem of wood stock preparation.
Majority of the interior construction is made out of relatively small lumber, 2-4mm in 1:48 scale.  I could never cut those perfectly on a table saw, they always need a lot of finessing later on, resulting in an uneven strip. The wood sheets I have are 1 or 2 or 3mm thick, so more sanding is needed if you need something in between. The strip preparation was taking too much efforts.
A thickness sander would be ideal, but the only one in a small scale is Byrnes, which is rather a collector item nowadays.
DYI options are not appealing either, and they are still noisy and dusty.
Another alternative is a thickness planing jig. Most of them are too complicated for my task - with knobs and adjustments leading to inaccuracies, so I decided to use spacers. The range of required thicknesses is rather narrow - on of the largest parts (gun deck beam) is just around 4mm thick. 
 
Decided to build the jig out of scrap piece of walnut. Did not want to risk using plywood, the grooves might end up on a wrong layer, resulting in an uneven surface. They are tiny, but need to be smooth. 
 
Cutting precise grooves on a table saw is not so easy, but slow and steady does the job

Router plane helps to clean up the bottom of the groove:

Resulting jig, custom made for the miniature Veritas bench plane:

Spacers are made out of styrene, very good material for that. Easy to get in a variety of thicknesses, affordable, does not warp with moisture, fairly hard (to avoid compressing too much when planing). I have cut a bunch of spacers with a smallest increment of 0.25mm, should be enough for the range of thicknesses I need.

Jig in action:

Quite happy with it! Simple jig, but very effective. And perfectly quiet  
The finish is incredibly smooth out of the box, so I can use the part right away with no further surface cleanup or sanding. If necessary - should not be hard to add a sanding block for the same jig. 
I could easily get down to 1mm thickness, anything lower - and it is better to hold the "tail" of the strip rather than push it into the stop, otherwise it might get wavy.
 

Time for some side projects  
 
Fist I was concerned about the side-to-side alignment inside the hull.
The height measurement gauge is asymmetrical, and flipping it around may introduce some measurement errors. So I wanted to make a pointy thing that can be moved side-by-side on the top gantry. 
There was a question in another log - "what is the mill for" - here is a classic example of a simple part that should be square with a precise and square-profiled recess. Mill is much more consistent and requires less skill than a "well tuned table saw", for example.

For the "pointy bit" I needed something very soft to avoid scratching the part. Basswood from the Model Shipways kit was ideal - I use it a lot as a soft lining for clamps and jigs. 
I wanted to practice milling it in a rotary table instead of using lathe or a rotary tool. Not the best idea, the finish was not smooth at all (though such a soft wood is not making the task easier)

The resulting gadget. When in action - only one clamp is holding the arm in the correct position, while the assembly slides side to side. Should work even with curved beams, by probing the ends of the beam.

In action:

Thanks for likes and interest so far.
Something to report before the work week consumes most of the time again.
The covering boards are mainly done bar the rearmost ones. Those are a later headache.
Focus then is to get the perimeter of the deck in place. 
I started with the short king plank to have the center all secured. Then it is a matter of more finicky filing and testing of scarph joints.
They came out not half bad, so I'm happy. First three boards on port side glued in place. I will then shift over to starboard side and attack the acute curve at the rear last.


And the overall shot. Apologies for the fuzzy focus, but it hides the little less than perfect second joint.

Til next time, ta!

Lovely, opposite ends of the spectrum. On one side, the mill with lathe setup and on the other a "simple" shooting board. Excellent!
 
Can't wait to see more progress 😉
 
Keep it up!

Next up was the problem of wood stock preparation.
Majority of the interior construction is made out of relatively small lumber, 2-4mm in 1:48 scale.  I could never cut those perfectly on a table saw, they always need a lot of finessing later on, resulting in an uneven strip. The wood sheets I have are 1 or 2 or 3mm thick, so more sanding is needed if you need something in between. The strip preparation was taking too much efforts.
A thickness sander would be ideal, but the only one in a small scale is Byrnes, which is rather a collector item nowadays.
DYI options are not appealing either, and they are still noisy and dusty.
Another alternative is a thickness planing jig. Most of them are too complicated for my task - with knobs and adjustments leading to inaccuracies, so I decided to use spacers. The range of required thicknesses is rather narrow - on of the largest parts (gun deck beam) is just around 4mm thick. 
 
Decided to build the jig out of scrap piece of walnut. Did not want to risk using plywood, the grooves might end up on a wrong layer, resulting in an uneven surface. They are tiny, but need to be smooth. 
 
Cutting precise grooves on a table saw is not so easy, but slow and steady does the job

Router plane helps to clean up the bottom of the groove:

Resulting jig, custom made for the miniature Veritas bench plane:

Spacers are made out of styrene, very good material for that. Easy to get in a variety of thicknesses, affordable, does not warp with moisture, fairly hard (to avoid compressing too much when planing). I have cut a bunch of spacers with a smallest increment of 0.25mm, should be enough for the range of thicknesses I need.

Jig in action:

Quite happy with it! Simple jig, but very effective. And perfectly quiet  
The finish is incredibly smooth out of the box, so I can use the part right away with no further surface cleanup or sanding. If necessary - should not be hard to add a sanding block for the same jig. 
I could easily get down to 1mm thickness, anything lower - and it is better to hold the "tail" of the strip rather than push it into the stop, otherwise it might get wavy.
 

Time for some side projects  
 
Fist I was concerned about the side-to-side alignment inside the hull.
The height measurement gauge is asymmetrical, and flipping it around may introduce some measurement errors. So I wanted to make a pointy thing that can be moved side-by-side on the top gantry. 
There was a question in another log - "what is the mill for" - here is a classic example of a simple part that should be square with a precise and square-profiled recess. Mill is much more consistent and requires less skill than a "well tuned table saw", for example.

For the "pointy bit" I needed something very soft to avoid scratching the part. Basswood from the Model Shipways kit was ideal - I use it a lot as a soft lining for clamps and jigs. 
I wanted to practice milling it in a rotary table instead of using lathe or a rotary tool. Not the best idea, the finish was not smooth at all (though such a soft wood is not making the task easier)

The resulting gadget. When in action - only one clamp is holding the arm in the correct position, while the assembly slides side to side. Should work even with curved beams, by probing the ends of the beam.

In action:

Hello,
and thank you for all the likes and comments.
And before my green kale gets ready, a small update. Yesterday I finished the 5th strake. This morning I took the ship from the plug, to eliminate the glue remains from the inside. It was't so bad as I first exspected.

Hello,
today I finished the 3. plank. The two parts up the stems are the most complicated parts. That part in the middle is ,at the moment, not so complicated. But this time I tried to bend the plankt before, and it's working. I just wetted the plank a little, fixed it, and then grilled it with my heating pistol. 😉

But also this part I glued on in two parts.


And these are the new planks, only 13 left per side. So, if you hear the next time not so much from me, I'm bussy planking.

Hello,
because I started with my Tiger in Dec 2017, and I should carve there the quarter pices now, to which I'm at the moment not in the mood. And at least I would like to build a ship or model readdy.
 
During the summer I bought the book from Werner Dammann about the Gokstad Ship, because these Viking ships interested me since my youth. To my birthday the book by Vibeke Bishoff about the Oseberg ship came along to that.

 
I started some time befor with the keel and then the plug for planking. Now the first two rows of planks are laid. I build in castello, the planks are 0,5 mm thick.











 

Completed the painting of all 28 x 32 Pdr carriages and the assembly of one.
 
Carriage painting was done with brushes. Three coats of yellow ochre and then spots with black.
Could have used younger, steadier hands for the fine black touch ups... but it look fine from 12" away. The camera hides nothing!
The cannon was spray painted with acrylic flat black some time ago, multiple coats.
I tried highlighting the reinforcing rings and royal cypher with a smokey grey but it made a mess as it is all so tiny.
 
The cap square is card stock blackened with a permanent marker. The one end is curled over itself.
The cap square chain is simply black sewing thread. I tried a finger knitted chain stitch,  which look quite good until set up to the carriage and it was about 3X too large for the scale.
 
The eye bolts and breech ring are made with 0.02" (5mm) copper wire, the proper scale.
The breech rope ID (0.1") is correct but the eye loop (0.06") is larger than it should be as this was the size I was comfortable with.
Eye bolts were twisted over a 14 AWG copper wire (0.06" dia) ... I do not have a 1/16" drill bit to use for this.
The breech ring was coiled over a 7/64th drill bit, multiple wraps and then cut with hobby snips to produce multiple coils at once.
They were soft soldered 60/40 (% tin/lead) solder.
The eye loops and rings were blackened with a permanent marker.
 
I used Weldbond, water based PVA glue to assemble all the parts. It dries crystal clear.
 
The quoin handle was made from a small diameter maple dowel, sanded down while mounted on the drill press and then pulled through a draw plate.
All holes in the carriage were pilot holes and needed to be opened up for the twisted wire eye bolt stubs and quoin handle.
 
Presently, I have all the breech rope rings (54 ea) made and soldered. Going to start on the (189 ea) eye bolts next.
 

Yes, I need to stack different thicknesses, of course trying to reduce the number of spacers (using one 2mm instead of two 1mm, etc). It's a bit similar to the dado stack on a table saw  
Since the depth of the groove is around 4.5mm - you do not need that many spacers to tune to the proper thickness
 

Mike that is genius;  what a great way of achieving your needs - even better you are only producing wood shavings instead of dust 👍