Mike Y

Why scratch?
I always had a high requirements for a wood quality and fitting quality. Unfortunately, even expensive kits were never that close. After getting a first pack of boxwood, I would never go back to any inferior wood. Hence, only scratch. Not that scary though, I do most of the parts from scratch anyway.
It's a pity that kit producers do not offer a wood upgrade. For a serious build, cost is spreading over a number of years, so is it really so important?
Speed of the build is not important, I enjoy the process. As Remco says - "Treat each part as if it is a model on its own, you will finish more models in a day than others do in a lifetime".
 
Why Hahn?
For a weird reason, don't like the realistic framing style, like David Antscherl suggests. First - you don't see anything between frames, and second - uneven spacing and shape of frames make me feel dizzy when I look on them. Physically. I know it sounds weird, but I just can't. So - frames would be spaced evenly, even if it's unrealistic. So what, I'm not adding a rocket engines to my model
Also, Hahn's method for a frame construction looks easier. Yes, the wood usage is higher, but again - why that matters? I will build it for 5 years at least, so paying a bit extra for additional wood is not a problem. And I truly like the design of Hahn's jig!
 
Why Beavers Prize / Oliver Cromwell?
This ship has no honorable history. It was built in 1777 in Philadelphia, started a pretty good career - capturing 7 ships in 3 months after a start - but then was defeated by british HMS Beaver. Was downgraded from 24 cannons to 12, and served remaining time guarding british coast. Died in a hurricane after a number of years, slowly degrading and having a continuous problems with discipline onboard.
But there is something in the lines of that ship that touches me. Look on the model - hull proportions are pretty nice. It's not too high, and not too low, and I was looking for that photos a lot, admiring its beauty:
 

 

Very nice! Will be following along for this. My Halifax was built Hahn style and it seemed to go well with no problems.

Deck is ready, third and final try!
The first deck, pictures in earlier posts, didn't look good because I wasn't careful enough. Gaps between the planks, joins with king plank not perfect etc.
 
The second deck was of walnut wood and looked awful because the wood came from different batches (no pictures) and I threw it away.
 
But now I'm happy - at last.
 
I coated it with sanding filler by the way. 

Seems like forever, but finally I can state the deadeyes are complete.  I am ready to get back to woodchips and away from all this metal work.  Lots of continued lessons learned!!
 
In another milestone the plexiglass case I ordered arrived and it fits!!  The base is not yet built so I lifted the stand up to the targeted height with a wood block.  Still need to focus on the ships wheel and figurehead, but things are falling into place.
 

 
Some family time left this weekend prior to hitting it hard again come Monday.  I actually think it is a tunnel exit ahead and not a train....
 
Stay Building My Friends,
Mark

Thanks for a notice! It is a very good journal, driven by enthusiastic people.

The latest issue of the MSB journal is now available for download at http://www.modelshipbuilder.com/news.php
 
This month's Table of Contents:
 
Tidbits from the Past - Cats on Ships
Model Ships of the Royal Museum Greenwich
Shipwrecks of the World - the Steamship Beaver
To Build a Hatch
HMS General Hunter Proto-type Model—Part 3
Rijksmuseum acquires oldest known engraving of a herring buss
The Book Nook - Ship Models: How to build Them by Charles G. Davis (1925)
Badges: Heraldry of Canadian Naval Ships
Gene’s Nautical Trivia
Editor’s Page
 
Note the following request from the Editor - she would be greatly pleased to have folks contribute articles to the journal.
 
Great News! We will be starting our “One Eyed Willy” contest again in the September issue of MSB Journal. The contest will be run quarterly so we don’t exhaust the goodwill of those kind sponsors who generously donate items for us to use as prizes.
 
Let me again make a request or two—if you enjoy the journal, spread the word among your friends and as always, I welcome any and all ideas, comments or articles. This journal has, and always will, depend on the readers to provide content. Do you have a favorite technique you use? Have you come up with a novel use for an item? Send it in—- if I get enough I can do a regular column on ‘tips and Techniques”, otherwise I can use them to fill in space at the end of articles.
 
Please send your articles or ideas for articles to
Winston@modelshipbuilder.com and put “MSB Article” in the subject line.
 
Until next time,
Ro

Floyd, is that the photo you was looking for? Looking straight on the stern?
 

 

 
P.S.: there is a slightly wrong angle of a triangle thingy between transom and a keel - I know, will fix it

But Pinnace also have a very smooth rear frames, so no drop planks necessary:

 
On Longboat, they are joined on a very difficult angle:

 
But, of course, it could be done properly without any drop planks, I mostly screwed that area
 

Yes I know....that isnt your fault...Take a look at the plans,  It may be hard to tell on the paper plans at the actual scale but the bottoms were flattened during laser cutting.  There is a tight curve there and the tolerances in the ME laser cutting is not tight enough to keep the curve you noticed with the pinnace.  Those sharper points were just cut away.   It happens.  They were able to do so on the pinnace I suspect only because of the larger scale.  Even though a tight curve doesnt exist for the reasons mentioned,   it should be there.   When fairing the bulkheads it should probably be sanded into the frames as much as possible. To mimic the tight curve - transition of frames, use the shape shown on the plans body plan.  Depending on the consistency of their laser cutting it may be more pronounced and absent in some kits more than others.  But the kerf they get while laser cutting is just too large to keep this detail.
 
 
Here are some images of those last three frames as they SHOULD appear and the body plan from the plans enlarged.
 

Gardboard plank continues to the end of the stern.
Here is a close-up of the stern:

 
Please let me know if you want a photo from some different angle, I will make it in the evening. I'm not really sure what kind of photo you are looking for

The plank should terminate at or just before/after the scarph joint if properly lined off.. The same is true more or less for the pinnace.   That is the second photo.  The last two are just general planking shots of teh longboat.
 
Chuck
 

 

 

 

Completed main part of planking. Now the decorative top planks left, they would be a bit special and I will add them after a treenailing and final sanding of the hull.
 
The hull was just rough sanded, final smooth sanding would be done after treenailing. So please pardon that "hairy" look of the wood!
 

 

 

 
Currently experimenting with various treenail sizes. Probably will go forward with single treenail per plank, 0.8-0.9mm in diameter.
 
Half offtopic:
I was walking on one of my favourite islands in Stockholm - so called "Ship Island" (Skeppsholmen). There is a boat building club there:
 

 
They do teach how to build and maintain historical boats.. Some very fine examples are tarred and parked nearby:
 

 

 
One day, when the kids will grow up and I will have plenty of time, I will build such boat just for fun.. Very fine workmanship!

Completed main part of planking. Now the decorative top planks left, they would be a bit special and I will add them after a treenailing and final sanding of the hull.
 
The hull was just rough sanded, final smooth sanding would be done after treenailing. So please pardon that "hairy" look of the wood!
 

 

 

 
Currently experimenting with various treenail sizes. Probably will go forward with single treenail per plank, 0.8-0.9mm in diameter.
 
Half offtopic:
I was walking on one of my favourite islands in Stockholm - so called "Ship Island" (Skeppsholmen). There is a boat building club there:
 

 
They do teach how to build and maintain historical boats.. Some very fine examples are tarred and parked nearby:
 

 

 
One day, when the kids will grow up and I will have plenty of time, I will build such boat just for fun.. Very fine workmanship!

Completed main part of planking. Now the decorative top planks left, they would be a bit special and I will add them after a treenailing and final sanding of the hull.
 
The hull was just rough sanded, final smooth sanding would be done after treenailing. So please pardon that "hairy" look of the wood!
 

 

 

 
Currently experimenting with various treenail sizes. Probably will go forward with single treenail per plank, 0.8-0.9mm in diameter.
 
Half offtopic:
I was walking on one of my favourite islands in Stockholm - so called "Ship Island" (Skeppsholmen). There is a boat building club there:
 

 
They do teach how to build and maintain historical boats.. Some very fine examples are tarred and parked nearby:
 

 

 
One day, when the kids will grow up and I will have plenty of time, I will build such boat just for fun.. Very fine workmanship!

Completed main part of planking. Now the decorative top planks left, they would be a bit special and I will add them after a treenailing and final sanding of the hull.
 
The hull was just rough sanded, final smooth sanding would be done after treenailing. So please pardon that "hairy" look of the wood!
 

 

 

 
Currently experimenting with various treenail sizes. Probably will go forward with single treenail per plank, 0.8-0.9mm in diameter.
 
Half offtopic:
I was walking on one of my favourite islands in Stockholm - so called "Ship Island" (Skeppsholmen). There is a boat building club there:
 

 
They do teach how to build and maintain historical boats.. Some very fine examples are tarred and parked nearby:
 

 

 
One day, when the kids will grow up and I will have plenty of time, I will build such boat just for fun.. Very fine workmanship!

Completed main part of planking. Now the decorative top planks left, they would be a bit special and I will add them after a treenailing and final sanding of the hull.
 
The hull was just rough sanded, final smooth sanding would be done after treenailing. So please pardon that "hairy" look of the wood!
 

 

 

 
Currently experimenting with various treenail sizes. Probably will go forward with single treenail per plank, 0.8-0.9mm in diameter.
 
Half offtopic:
I was walking on one of my favourite islands in Stockholm - so called "Ship Island" (Skeppsholmen). There is a boat building club there:
 

 
They do teach how to build and maintain historical boats.. Some very fine examples are tarred and parked nearby:
 

 

 
One day, when the kids will grow up and I will have plenty of time, I will build such boat just for fun.. Very fine workmanship!

Incredible! What's next? Cross section of a Captain sitting in a cross section of Longboat in a cross section of Le Bonhomme Richard?

Completed main part of planking. Now the decorative top planks left, they would be a bit special and I will add them after a treenailing and final sanding of the hull.
 
The hull was just rough sanded, final smooth sanding would be done after treenailing. So please pardon that "hairy" look of the wood!
 

 

 

 
Currently experimenting with various treenail sizes. Probably will go forward with single treenail per plank, 0.8-0.9mm in diameter.
 
Half offtopic:
I was walking on one of my favourite islands in Stockholm - so called "Ship Island" (Skeppsholmen). There is a boat building club there:
 

 
They do teach how to build and maintain historical boats.. Some very fine examples are tarred and parked nearby:
 

 

 
One day, when the kids will grow up and I will have plenty of time, I will build such boat just for fun.. Very fine workmanship!

Thanks.
 
The sweeps were easier than I thought, but the sheer plank not. A pesky little plank to shape as it widens over the gun ports. And when I glued it in place I noticed that it does not run in a fair line over the first gunport (second port from the bow)  
The last row of planks below it are the source of the problem, so this needs to come off and I'll call for a redo......
 

 
Remco

Way back in 1978 and 1979 I had the privilege of crewing on board an old Portuguese Grand Banks fishing vessel turned sail training ship, the barkentine Gazela Primeiro.  Of all the boats I sailed for pay or pleasure, Gazela is my favorite and my fondest memory.  It was a combination of a sturdy and trust-worthy vessel combined with a crew of wonderful people; that made me feel at home and safer than any other boat I've known.
<= an 18 year old me after morning wash-down on Gazela.
 
A bit of the ship's history is available on My site.
 
I've always dreamt of building a model of Gazela but I could never find her lines.  I spent a lot of time searching, contacting people like the builder of the model in Philadelphia.  Six sheets of plans were drawn up around the time I had sailed her and a profile from that set was included in a book by Allison Saville about the ship.

 
This was printed on a tabloid sized sheet, and while not perfect, was usable, but I still didn't have a body plan.  One contact had built an old Scientific kit of the boat and still had the instruction sheets.  He photo graphed these for me.

 
Another contact who had the plans, sent me a a paper photocopy on a tabloid sized sheet.

 
I scoured the Internet for any images of the boat I could find, especially those of her hauled out of the water.

 
I tried to reconcile what I had to each other to come up with a working set of plans in the 1:36 scale I wanted.  It was very tedious with all the photography and scanning distortions.
I was getting near to something I could use, but wasn't there yet.

 
I eventual found the plans drawn up in the 70's at Mystic Seaport.  They were very expensive, but I set my teeth and ordered them, only to hear they they were restricted in making copies.  They steered me towards the Independence Seaport Museum who apparently hold the originals.
 
These folks are not set up to provide copies of plans.  They offered to digitally photograph the plans for me, or send them out to be digitally scanned.  The cost they estimate for that would be astronomical.  In trying to get across what I'm after, they told me the plans were missing!  Since then they've found two of the six sheets and sent sample photos; they are the same two sheets I show you above.

At this moment, I'm still negotiating with the Museum to get usable copies of Gazela's plans.  If this doesn't work, I'll have to resort to my make-do attempt detailed above.

Mike,
Skeppsholmen is a very nice place to wander around, all the small coffee places and of course the variety of boats and their sizes.
For others who hasn't been to Sweden and Stockholm,   ....  yet, this is certainly a place to visit.
This island was the location for training of naval officers between 1879 and 1941.
 
As for the longboat, very nice Mike!
I have been away from the "shipyard" and have to attach the transom before doing any planking.

Completed main part of planking. Now the decorative top planks left, they would be a bit special and I will add them after a treenailing and final sanding of the hull.
 
The hull was just rough sanded, final smooth sanding would be done after treenailing. So please pardon that "hairy" look of the wood!
 

 

 

 
Currently experimenting with various treenail sizes. Probably will go forward with single treenail per plank, 0.8-0.9mm in diameter.
 
Half offtopic:
I was walking on one of my favourite islands in Stockholm - so called "Ship Island" (Skeppsholmen). There is a boat building club there:
 

 
They do teach how to build and maintain historical boats.. Some very fine examples are tarred and parked nearby:
 

 

 
One day, when the kids will grow up and I will have plenty of time, I will build such boat just for fun.. Very fine workmanship!

Completed main part of planking. Now the decorative top planks left, they would be a bit special and I will add them after a treenailing and final sanding of the hull.
 
The hull was just rough sanded, final smooth sanding would be done after treenailing. So please pardon that "hairy" look of the wood!
 

 

 

 
Currently experimenting with various treenail sizes. Probably will go forward with single treenail per plank, 0.8-0.9mm in diameter.
 
Half offtopic:
I was walking on one of my favourite islands in Stockholm - so called "Ship Island" (Skeppsholmen). There is a boat building club there:
 

 
They do teach how to build and maintain historical boats.. Some very fine examples are tarred and parked nearby:
 

 

 
One day, when the kids will grow up and I will have plenty of time, I will build such boat just for fun.. Very fine workmanship!

David - your idea sounds really good but I wanted to try something I used to do on the airplanes to strengthen glued wing joints. When doing aerobatics with 90 degree pullouts at 60 mph, 10-15g stresses on the airplane are common.
 
1. First step was to glue the mast together with epoxy glue.
 

 
2. Use 1/2oz or 3/4oz fiberglass cloth, I chose 3/4 oz, to strengthen joint. 0.0015 thick.
 

 
3. Attach the cloth to the mast by spraying the cloth with spray adhesive and wrapping the cloth around the mast just once.
 

 
4. Here is a photo of the wrapped and glued cloth. At this point the joint is stronger but still not strong enough.
 

 
5. Apply 4 to 5 thin CA applications lightly sanded between coats. After the first application the mast is super strong without any flex at the joint. The additional applications will fill the weave of the cloth.
 

 
6. Finished mast repair
 

Incredible! What's next? Cross section of a Captain sitting in a cross section of Longboat in a cross section of Le Bonhomme Richard?