Mike Y

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!

Hello friends,
completed Upper-Deck  equipped, including Longboat half as a cross section model.
Regards Karl      
 
 
 
T e i l  4 9

Joe, too early to say! So far I like everything in it, apart from a requirement to screw the saw to some wooden base to make it more stable.
I really like the blade guide with three ball bearings, you can pull it down very close to the material, to have no flex in the blade.
It's pretty quiet and no vibration - that is why I preferred band saw to the scroll saw.
 
But to have a better view need to try it in action. Will post some review after a first bucket of sawdust

Now, Before we go on to the stealer lets dive a little deeper into the magic of the dividers. It would seem that the dividers weakness is also their strength.
As pic 20 shows the problem is that the two pointers of the dividers messures a straigt line between them...duh !!
The hull of a ship is pretty much never a straight line (well those stealthy things are to a sertain degree but thats another story)
this meens that there will be a inbuilt fault in my messurements represented by the curve of the hull. The more planks I use between the battenlines the more apparent this fault will be.
 
Pic 21 shows in an exaggerated way how the dividers, divide a straight line however I´m implementing the messurement to a curved surface.....Problem?
 
THE MAGIC HAPPENS
 
Pic 23: The work around, after I have glued the first plank represented by the grey area on the upper left in the picture. I reset the dividers to 4 representing the four planks left to do. Now the instrument will devide the area left between the first plank layed and the battenline into four equal parts showing the need of tapering at each Point messured.  
 
Pic 24: The greyed areas show the planks, The straight line by the number 5-2 represent the line between the pointers of the dividers and you can clearly see how theres a problem by nr5, however the problem is compensated when the dividers are reset in correspondance to the plank I´m working on 5-1 and as I´m closing in on nr 2 the problem is all but gone.
 
And thats the magic of the dividers. Only remember to set them correctly.
 
Now on to that stealer. 

The stealer was tapered from the start where it needs to be 2,5mm (half of its original width) to the Point where the natural flow of the plank below has a distance of 5mm to the plank layed above not counting the stealer to be of cource.
 
After tapering the stealer was glued to the ship.
 
The dividers are then set to 4, representing the four planks still to go in this run.
 
Messurements and tapering are done in the same manner although the dividers are set to 4 and some tapering has to be done to accomodate the stealer. At the same point (or there about) as the stealer reaches 5mm the plank below should reach 5mm. To much tapering kind of eats away on the effect of the stealer although that can be adjusted later if it happens.

Still some sanding, filling and final touches needs to be done

A Word on cutting. My kit is old meaning dry wood that splinters ieasily and much care has to be taken not to have a bladerunner ( yep fan of the Movie too) with the grain of the planks.
 
I use a steel ruler as a supportbast for the plank, a small one above to mark the cutting line and last a wood block to hold the plank in place so that it does not move with the blade.
Many lite strokes with the blade is the trick. Never ever try to cut through the plank in one go, it will be a mess, I assure you.
 
And the last one...well that would be me wearing all the binocular aid I need to make a decent job on planking.
 
I hope this will be of use to some of you, comments, questions, ideas and opinions are of cource wellcome.
 
Best regards
Erik

Pic 15-17 shows the plank fit to the ship and pinned. I prefere to use pins if I can as they enable me to start on the next plank immediately without any clamps getting in the way. Note that this ship will be filled and paited so the pinholes will disappear. If I´m working on a model displaying the natural wood I would use a different way to secure the planks
 
 

Stage one is to decide how may strakes I want to use in one go, in this case I chose 5 strakes, holding the m up midship and drawing a line along the lowest one I get a battenline where 5 strakes will fit midships....... So far so good.......
 
I then place a strake along this line and letting it run naturally along the hull fore and aft, drawing a line above I  get a natural flow of the strake which is what I´m looking for, I want to put a minimum of stress to the plank when glued to the ship as this helps to keep the keel straight and aids to the overall strength of the hull.
 
More to come ( I´ll be going on for a while

It is second build, first one was a similar model - English Pinnace
This time I will make it slower, no rush. And will try to avoid all mistakes done on Pinnace
 
I will use kit details for frames and keel, and boxwood for everything else.
No paint, no stain, only natural wood colour. No friesers, and no paintings on a transom also. Instead, it would be planked and treenailed.
Sorry for skipping the decorations, I just prefer the simple design.
 
For a start - traditional photos of every longboat builder - parts sanded from laser char, keel and falsekeel, simple building jig to hold it straight.
 

 

 

 
First pinnace mistake avoided - bevel on a false keel is smaller, different angle, to gently handle a plank on an angle specified by frames. Sounds obvious, but on a pinnace I made a bevel with a wrong angle, and there was a small gap between garboard plank and keel.
 
First impression - it is sooooooo small! Very nice scale, it is big enough to make it with a good precision (I hope), but fits into a palm. Should be very cute when done

Joe, too early to say! So far I like everything in it, apart from a requirement to screw the saw to some wooden base to make it more stable.
I really like the blade guide with three ball bearings, you can pull it down very close to the material, to have no flex in the blade.
It's pretty quiet and no vibration - that is why I preferred band saw to the scroll saw.
 
But to have a better view need to try it in action. Will post some review after a first bucket of sawdust

Got a new toy today! Would be used for the next project
Frankly, I thought this micro band saw is smaller. It is a 8kg thing that occupies half of the table! But the quality is really good, so far I'm pretty happy. Let's see how it will manage a sawdust generation on a large scale.
 

Got a new toy today! Would be used for the next project
Frankly, I thought this micro band saw is smaller. It is a 8kg thing that occupies half of the table! But the quality is really good, so far I'm pretty happy. Let's see how it will manage a sawdust generation on a large scale.
 

Got a new toy today! Would be used for the next project
Frankly, I thought this micro band saw is smaller. It is a 8kg thing that occupies half of the table! But the quality is really good, so far I'm pretty happy. Let's see how it will manage a sawdust generation on a large scale.
 

Got a new toy today! Would be used for the next project
Frankly, I thought this micro band saw is smaller. It is a 8kg thing that occupies half of the table! But the quality is really good, so far I'm pretty happy. Let's see how it will manage a sawdust generation on a large scale.
 

Got a new toy today! Would be used for the next project
Frankly, I thought this micro band saw is smaller. It is a 8kg thing that occupies half of the table! But the quality is really good, so far I'm pretty happy. Let's see how it will manage a sawdust generation on a large scale.
 

Well, I've made a little bit of progress.
 
Got the thwarts installed.  
 
Here's the hull after the first coat of poly.  
 
It's not as "glossy" as in the images, but I'm gonna use a little steel wool, when it's finally completely dry.
I've noticed that putting enamel (testors) over the stain (minwax) extends the dry time from hours to days.  Is that common?
 
Maybe I should be using acrylics?

Thanks for the likes and compliments.
Piet I will take an order from you, but be aware I will do the assembly on site only
 
So I have a new apprentice in the shop, 9 weeks old Pebbles is taking a real intrest in ship building. She's already very skilled in making small parts disappear, I think that is a sign of a great shipwright in the making 
 

 
 
In the background you can see progress of planking above the wale. They will be sanded before I add the sheer strake.
 
Remco

Mike, you are right, probably I'm just overcomplicating it Anyway, I have a wale planks coming soon, and I will do them in a bit weird way instead of gluing the friezes!

Floyd, unfortunately I do not have lots of pictures, all of them are in that log, but there are some on page 4 and 5 of this log.
I clamp rear ends of first planks together, with a strong plastic clamp (see page 4), that helps to keep the bend. When plank is drying, it keeps that bend perfectly.
Also take a look on a grain direction, plank is twisted easier in one direction than another.
 
At the bow, I fix the end of the plank with another clamp, that is attached to the stem and pressing plank to the false keel:

Floyd - Yeah, I tried the acetone, didn't clean it enough.  My process was - draw the brass thru some 400 sand paper a couple times on the flat surface, then soak in acetone for 10 minutes, rinse, soak in vinegar for 10 minutes, rinse, soak in Novacan Black for about 10 min, rinse, pat dry.
 
I figured the acetone would remove finger oils left after sanding/handling.
 
However, I used a 10 to 1 ratio for the Novacan Black.  Maybe not strong enough because I noticed that it rubbed off in a couple small spots.
 
Actually, just read the instructions (gotta learn to do that first) and it says to use it straight from the bottle - so that's probably the problem.

Mike,
 
Page 4 of Chucks manual explains how to bend planks 90 degrees so they fit against the false keel. There are 3 after the garboard plank that need this type of bending. He also explains about beveling the edges where necessary to get a tight fit between the planks. I don't know if your using boxwood makes this impossible to do. With basswood it's quite easy. If it would be helpful for you to see photos of the process, I would be happy to post a few. Mike

Yep, Pops, I share your confusion. Spent some time fitting next planks and trying to find what is wrong. So far nothing is wrong, or I lack experience to spot the problem. Whats good with that build - it is just 12 strakes, so if I made a mistake indeed - not a big problem, have enough spare planks and PVA-based glue, which is easily dissolved with water.
It is a great planking training platform indeed! And much easier then pinnace - bulkheads are much wider.
 
Anyway, installed the gardboard plank. The curvature is quite smooth, it should help to reduce edge bending.

Hm, maybe you can go further, add two servos and a stick, to tilt the model? Stick could be embedded into display case, it will control the servos and tilt / rotate the model, so viewer can look from various angles?
All electronic for that is quite cheap (I bet on something close to $30-$40), but will require enough space inside the display case, so model could move there without problems.
Of course, viewer can just move the head to get another angle, but it's boring and not fun!
 
P.S.: sorry for a crazy idea, but since you are going that way, adjusting the display case so viewer will have a better overview of hull internals...