Mike Y

Hello,

thanks for the kind words.

Here is a small update:

Mike,
 
A couple of things I've found... you really don't want a mirror finish for making the blanks.  The 240 is about as fine a paper as I would go using wood glue.  With the warping I had, I ended up having to redo 2 frames out of 60 because of it once I figured out what was happening.  In my case, fresh bottle of glue.. a bit too damp.   Left it open for about a day, mixed it up well, and it was ok. 
 
The wood blank strip wood...  I had to resize the width on my original order using the table saw.  One side was just too raw to use and it was too wide.  It will need thicknessing before you cut and make the blanks.  As I recall, my wood was 1/32" too thick so I ended up (after thicknessing) with 1/4" wide frames instead of 3/16". (I ordered a timbering kit knowing that the wood needed adjustment since there wasn't a timbering kiit for my plans.) However, the thickness varied over the length of the strip....  Perhaps sanding after glue up might not be a bad idea afterall.  Same for the sheet wood... thickeness varied, etc.
 
Hmm.. Consistent color is an issue. But on framing that's visible, I'm not sure how much of an issue it is as some of us like variable colors to show the join lines.   I almost wish I was leaving my in frame..  I guess it depends on the builder.
 
I will agree though that Hobbymill will spoil you.  

Brian, it is 55cm (21.6in). Good size if you do not have a workshop.

 
Grant, yes, I believe that mutual respect to hobbies of each other is a mandatory condition to achieve a harmony at home

Yes, I bought a compact vacuum cleaner to remove the sawdust quickly. Hope it will help

Modelling is temporarily on pause - was busy buying and moving into a new apartment. Now busy renovating it
Used modelling tools to make a balcony, does it count?

 
Next on a list - make a modelling table, so I can start my build!

Speaking of a fully framed models - a friend of mine visited an interesting project today - 1:1 reconstruction of Poltava, 1712 ship, partially designed by Russian tsar, Peter I, who studied shipbuilding in Holland. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_ship_of_the_line_Poltava_(1712)
The site is located in St.Petersburg, Russia.
Pretty interesting to see, looks very close to that build logs, and nearly-round shape of the hull make it look like Triton
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally finished most of the renovation works in the apartment, and here is my modelling corner!

All the tools are in a large drawer, only most popular ones are stored in the table itself.
The band saw is hidden under the table, it would be rarely used.
The drawing is a Cromwell plan from NMM, but it is purely for decoration - Hahn plans are much more detailed.
 
Since my wife occupied another corner for her knitting stuff, it is a time to rename the "living room" into a "hobby room". But hey, isn't hobby a big part of our life?

(Yep, I know that furniture is quite not in same style, will slowly fix that over time)
 
 
So now I can finally start cutting the frame blanks! Finally! Time to make a first bucket of sawdust

Finally finished most of the renovation works in the apartment, and here is my modelling corner!

All the tools are in a large drawer, only most popular ones are stored in the table itself.
The band saw is hidden under the table, it would be rarely used.
The drawing is a Cromwell plan from NMM, but it is purely for decoration - Hahn plans are much more detailed.
 
Since my wife occupied another corner for her knitting stuff, it is a time to rename the "living room" into a "hobby room". But hey, isn't hobby a big part of our life?

(Yep, I know that furniture is quite not in same style, will slowly fix that over time)
 
 
So now I can finally start cutting the frame blanks! Finally! Time to make a first bucket of sawdust

Divarty, congratulations with a decision to redo the planking, I thnk that model is perfectly suitable for it.
Have you considered a boxwood package from Hobbymill? A bit more expensive, but worth every penny. Planking with boxwood is such a pleasure comparing to basswood. I planked two models - Pinnace with bass, and Longboat with box - the difference is very big, boxwood planking is easier, more stable, etc.
And just a mere fact that after initial sanding basswood planks from the kit are like twice thinner than boxwood ones from hobbymill. It means a lot!
You can compare the photos in my logs (see links in the signature). Longboat planked with box is not sanded yet, and already looks much better than basswood after sanding!
 
But beware: when you will try a booxwood package for longboat, you will never go back to inferior wood, and will end up paying quite a lot for a good one!

I have been looking at the instructions and photos that were supplied with the kit and crawling through all the build logs and I am unhappy with my end result compared to all the other builds.  I'm not sure if I put too many planks on (12) or if it was all a matter of not tapering the first couple that I put on but the end result of my planking just doesn't look right.  I think I may strip off everything I have and try it again. 
 
The other builds have more consistent size across the planks where each plank is very very close to the same size at the bow of the ship, in addition they come in "flatter" where as mine seem to arc upwards.
 
If I redo it (leaning heavily towards yes on this) I will need new wood as I don't have enough left, what recommendations do folks have on getting new strips?  Is there a vendor that has a wood replacement or upgrade kit specifically for the longboat or would I just go to hobbymill and get a stack of new strips?
 
I have ordered additional wood from model expo and will strip off what I have and clean up the glue while I wait for the new materials to arrive.  I will also continue to pour over the instructions and the other build logs to see where I went astray.

Thanks Skerry  
 
Today I finished up planking on one side of the boat and came to some conclusions.
 
1. The four planks that I placed (2 above the garboard and the 2 at the sheer) should have been trimmed down from a full 3mm width to something slightly under that.  This would have allowed the other planks to have less taper.  
2.  My tapering ability is non existent
3. Once you get down to just a plank or two left you don't have any place left to clamp so use something that dries faster than standard wood glue, or be prepared to just sit for a long time holding planks in place
4. The last plank was by far the most fiddly.
 
Here are the pics of the finished side.  After looking at everyone else's log and seeing the job that Chuck Passaro did I decided that a real boat should be ugly and uneven in appearance and should have gaps where it can leak and keep the sailors busy bailing it out.
 





 
I'm hoping some of my lessons learned will help me on the other side and I can do a cleaner job, I can always make this the wall side or as someone else on the forum said get a 5x5x5 foot case to put this little guy into so you can only view it from a distance.
 
 
 
 
 

I have decided that edge bending is something that I do not enjoy  I finally came up with a jig that seems to work by tracing the garboard strake curve onto a slightly thicker piece of wood, I then carved the curve out and glued it to my working board.  I'm then able to wet a plank, clamp it down (using another piece of scrap to protect it) and slowly curve it using a pushpin and some more scrap to hold it in place.  
 


 
I use a heat gun to dry it then rewet it, bend it a little more heat gun it again, finally wetting it, bending it to the final position and letting it air dry naturally, I do get a little spring back but with some careful sanding of the inner curve and then attaching it first to the keel and clamping it tightly I am able to bend the rest of the plank into the proper posistion and fix it to the bulkheads with glue.
 
So after today I have both garboard strakes in place and the first plank above it on one side with the next plank drying in the edge bending jig.
 




 
The plank edge above the garboard strake is slightly higher then the garboard stake edge but I think I can fix that when it comes time to sand down the hull. That step is only about 9 months out and thankfully gaps can be filled on this lower section and it will be covered over with paint.
 
 
 
 
 
 

Thanks Chuck your log was really helpful in sorting out how to get all three dimensions to line up correctly, I don't have any power tools (like a table saw) that would allow me to cut a groove into a base board for the keel so instead of removing material from my base board to make the keel holding slot I went additive with two pieces of wood sandwiching a smaller piece all glued to the base board.
 
I used another small sheet of wood, measured lines out and mounted it to two small L brackets.  This allowed me to pull it tight to the bulkhead and make sure the bulkhead was squared in all directions, the lines allowed me to check the side to side level.
 
Having to redo the bulkheads a couple of times was actually beneficial, I realized before I put it together for the last time I hadn't stained the bulkheads or the keel so I took care of that prior to putting everything together.
 
Jig and first bulkheads

 
From the bow with all bulkheads set
 

 
From the stern with all the bulkheads set
 

 
Hopefully what I have is close enough tolerance wise, I'm not sure how much tighter I could get it.

With the platforms completed, the risers were next.  I used two spacers to make sure the distance between the cap rail and risers was correct.  The miniature clamps were a big help, although they did have a nasty habit of popping off, if I bumped them!

Not having the frieze strips glued in place also paid off here, since there was a good chance that they would have gotten damaged.  Never the less, I still managed to nick the red paint job on the cap rail in a few places.


After scribing and pre-bending the strips, I decided to put the simulated nail heads in before the risers were mounted.  The last photo shows the port riser and the front face of the storage locker in place.
 
BobF

My finished Longboat, a very rewarding and humbling experience.
 
A big thank you to everyone for all your support over the past eight months. You have kept me going when I was seriously in doubt. I know that this wonderful group of people here on MSW will help me to move forward and I look forward to sharing thoughts and ideas with other members in the future.
 
Now, if I could only decide on what to build next?
 

 

 

 
 
 

Thank you, druxey, michael, remco, mils, doris and john. Your comments are well appreciated. Work in my "other life" continues to pull me away from the shop, and so progress is all too slow....
 
Here I am beginning work on the forecastle and quarterdeck clamps, and the stringer in the waist. I always wondered what the clamp did at the fore end of the forecastle, where the sides pull out to form a drop for the anchor. It is a wicked twist from an inward to outward angle as the clamp continues from the waist to the future beakhead bulkhead.
 
I also found that I needed to refine the inner surface where the clamp will lie, now I know its location. You can see some recent filing in this area, which removed the patina that accumulates when my wood is left alone for a long time. That surface probably last saw some sandpaper or a file five years ago or more...
 
Best wishes,
 
Mark
 
 

Thanks all for the kind comments.
 
Alan,I use a pin vise to drill the holes, my dremel is much to aggressive for this type of drilling and the smaller drills do not fit in my other micro motor. Next to that I feel much more comfortable to do this precise work by hand, a powertool will not give the feedback a pin vice does.
 
Ed, Mark, I draw the castello up to the .018 hole, getting at the smaller sizes you really need to be careful not to break the wood. I use 24" strips to get a better yield from the work involved drawing one strip.
 
I also made a minor improvement to my Ed's style clamps as the treaded holes started to wear out pretty quickly in my case. I added square holes and inserted little nuts for strength.
 

 
Remco

Used Lego blocks for small models (like Pinnace and Longboat), they are amazing - square, perfectly aligned, and very flexible to adjust for different parts of the hull.
For example - http://modelshipworld.com/index.php/topic/6801-18th-century-longboat-by-mike-y-model-shipways-148/page-2#entry201485

Here's the platform cut to the required shape.  The port and starboard sides were beveled to a sharp edge on the underside.  I wanted to get as clean a fit as possible.  If you look closely, you can see a rectangular box marked on the middle plank.  This area will be removed, which is the reason that strip of wood on the underside of the platform did not go completely across.

It was quite common for these boats to be used to assist the parent ship in retrieving it's anchor.  This was done using a windlass like the one featured in the kit, and a davit that hung over the stern.  The next illustration was taken from The Arming and Fitting of English Ships of War 1600 - 1815 by Brian Lavery, and illustrates how this davit was positioned.  Note the notch in the bottom of the davit that fits over a pin located below the platform.

I made a mock-up of the davit, and placed it in position to see if the location was feasible.

It appeared to be reasonable, so the area was cut out, and a blackened brass pin, set in two blocks, was glued in the proper location.

At this point, I cut back the forward end of the platform, and installed a thin strip of wood, which I feel gives the assembly a more finished look.


Like the forward platform and floor boards, I used black paint brush bristles to simulate the nail heads.
 
BobF

Progress has been made!  I can almost guarantee that someone who has done this before will look at it and tell me the progress is flawed but progress none the less!
 
The pictures make it look fairly poorly but in person it's not as horrible.  I do see a lot of places where my connections aren't quite precise and where a plank is too high or has a gap but at this point I'm running with it.
 




 
The method I'm using to figure plank width was to measure the open space left on the bulkhead and divide by the number of planks I had left (I had 7 more to place) I used this instead of the tick strip method.
 

 
 

Bill, model railroading is of course more popular that building model ships. But there are other adaptations of adding light to models.
 
I happen to have built two model windmills and added some LEDs to the inside afterwards. Here is one of them.
The tiny lights are available on line. Just search for 'nano LEDs' and you probably will end up with the company that supplies them. You can use two batteries to give you 3 volts, or use an adaptor that can be bought from the same company.
Right now I am making a Christmas star for an outdoor tree and it will have several of those little guys. But that is just another idea.
Adding them to the interior of model ships would be great.
 
BTW the web site is http://www.modeltrainsoftware.com/nano-smd-leds.html 
and if you want to have the light blink on and off that can be included for a few more pennies.
 
 

Like the forward platform, I wanted to use a spacer of some sort to support the template at the correct height inside the hull.  This one turned out to be a little more involved, but it wasn't difficult to make.

A rough form of the template was laid on top of the spacer, and small pieces of card stock were glued in place to get the final shape.


The planks for the platform were joined together by cutting shallow grooves in the bottom of each plank, and gluing thin strips in the grooves.  Even though still quite thin, the assembly was fairly rigid.

I'll explain in my next post why I didn't run that middle strip all the way across.

The last photo shows the shape of the template transfered to the platform, which is ready for shaping.
 
BobF
 

Grant
Yes I did a search first, in fact this was the reason for joining the forum, Having joined I have been in awe at some of the detail and skill in the build logs, I was pleased with my Victory until I saw the incredible detail some of you guys put in.
Randy
yes it is a bit early but the wiring and lamps would need to go in before planking, the wires would need to thread between the bulkheads to critical areas to illuminate the cabins and through chosen gun ports, so I would need the bits fairly early. Glimpses of light coming up the stairs would be great as well. In a room with lighting levels suitable for television, or drinking wine with friends, the effect of flickering oil lamps inside the boat would be brilliant. My ceiling is 15 feet high so I could hang the boat from the ceiling just above head height, but the dust problem negates that idea. 
 
Incidentally my family name is Slade and when young my father passed on that we are descended from Sir Thomas Slade the architect of Victory and Agamemnon, so I feel a responsibility to have examples of these ships in the house, and the idea of internal illumination just puts the icing on the cake. 

It's been a month since I posted anything, but it's been an eventful month.  The rudder has been giving me fits, but I finally finished it off.
 
Sanding the rudder to its final shape is straightforward.  Nothing much to that.  Once that was done, I decided to paint it.  Had a little trouble with that because the paint bled under the tape.  Tried to fix that.  The fix didn't work very well.  Continued anyway...
 
I needed to make the pintels and gudgeons.  I started by bending the brass strip over a piece of scrap wood the same thickness as the rudder.  Better to mess this up, I thought, than the actual rudder.
 

 
Then I tried to glue the 28 gauge wire into the bent piece of brass to finish the pintel.  I tried CA glue.  No go. The thing just fell right out.  No problem, I thought.  I'll solder it in.
 
I found my 1983 vintage 20W soldering iron -- the one with the completely corroded tip -- my old Radio Shack resin-core solder and went at it.  The result:  disaster.  Big glob of solder and a cold solder joint.  Kurt Van Dahm set me straight.  I needed to upgrade my soldering rig.  I bought a new soldering iron from Radio Shack.  (Probably should have ordered a Weller from Amazon, but I didn't want to wait for it.)  I got some acid flux and 50/50 Lead/Tin solder from Ace Hardware.  That's what's needed for soldering brass.
 
I used my Helping Hands as a jig to hold the wire and the piece of brass strip.
 

 
The results were great.
 

 
I blackened the pintels using Birchwood Casey Brass Black.  I really like the finish you get with the Birchwood Casey, but I've found getting a really tenacious finish takes a lot of iterations.  And even when I go through that effort, if I have to work with the piece much, it does seem to rub off.  That's what happened with the pintels.  I didn't get them exactly in the right place the first time, so some of the finish rubbed off on the rudder itself.
 
By now, the rudder was starting to look really rough:  bad paint, stains from the pintels.  It was junk.  I made another one, figuring I could learn from my mistakes.
 

 
The second time around, I was much more careful about masking the paint job.  And I made sure not to leave behind any residue from the Birchwood Casey.  I also touched the brass up with paint, which won't rub off.  The results, I thought, were really good.
 
I applied the first coat of Watco's Danish Wood Oil.  No problems.  I applied the friezes using white glue.  Simple enough.  I carved the tiller from a piece of 1/16" x 1/16" stock.  That took a while, but turned out pretty well.  To attach the tiller to the rudder, I drilled a small hole in the end of the tiller and, using CA glue, stuck a piece of wire in the end.  Then I drilled a small hole in the tiller head and, again with the CA glue, tacked the tiller into place.
 
Installing the eyebolt in the transom was, again, simple enough.  The lower gudgeon was a little trickier because 1) it has a compound curve that you need to bend into place and 2) it has to line up with the pintel on the rudder in a straight line.  I actually thought that alignment was going to be harder than it was, but it went into place the first time.
 
This is a small piece, but there's a lot involved in it:  ten pieces and ten different materials (basswood, brass strip, brass wire, paper, white glue, CA glue, solder, paint, Birchwood Casey, Watco's) ... oh, and a month's work.
 
 
 
 
Dan