augie

I can imagine your initial disappointment Wes.  Thank heavens you moved away for a time.  I think we all like to dive right in and get it resolved ASAP.  Looks as if you've got it solved.

Call to General Quarters.  Clear the decks for action !!!!!
 
What a pleasant surprise.  You've decided to model my favorite ship in my favorite scale.  And from scratch.  FANTASTIC.
 
I wish you every success.  You've developed the skills you need to pull this off and I'll be following at every step along the way.
 
Good sailing, Wes.  And .........  THANKS!

Nigel brings up an excellent point.  Let your wood equilibrate to the same conditions in your home as it will 'see' when it's used and ultimately displayed.  If you have climate control in your home, all the better.  I store my wood flat and away from constant direct light.
 
As an aside, as our projects tend to run over several years, flatten your plans and let them also equilibrate to ambient conditions.  You may be surprised at how much they can shrink (or expand) over time.  
 
If you're building a kit, open the box and let the wood 'breathe' and the plans sit for a week or so before you get going.

Nice work on both sets of details.  Love the fry pan, mate !

I started on the bowsprit and you will need to forgive me but I keep forgetting to recharge my phone so I don’t have many pictures of how I made it.  Making the parts for this mast is straight forward and were made pretty much per the instructions.  The hardest part for me was the fairlead.  I’d like to know if anyone who’s made this model was able to use the kit supplied piece. I ruined all three pieces trying to drill the six holes in them.  The size of the holes you need are almost as wide as the piece itself!  Anyway I finally decided to make my own.  The only scrap hard wood I had was some African pear so I tried that.  It didn’t come out too bad, just the color of the wood doesn’t match the rest.
 
 


 
Here’s the completed bowsprit.
 

 
 
The only two, well three, things I did differently than the kit were the fairlead, which I made myself, the saddle for the spritsail and the iron bands.  For the spritsail yard sling saddle I didn’t like making it out of paper as instructed in the manual and I believe they were usually made of lead so I decided to use a piece of brass painted to look like lead.  For the iron bands on the aft end of the mast I made some brass bands that were blackened instead of using the pinstripe tape provided.
 

That is some incredible work, John.  I like the sliding panels for the windows.  Nice touch.

The 'Pritt' advances.  The deckhouses have now received a couple of coats of 'Polly' and are pretty much complete except for some black card inserts behind the windows to keep the dirt and bugs out.  You might notice that there are no door handles - this is because the 'doors' were simply timber slides that fitted into grooves on each side of the opening.  I have now also fabricated the chain plates (two types) and they are now ready for soldering and finishing once I've made the deadeye straps.  I originally thought that the mizzen shrouds were secured by lanyards, but closer inspection of the available photos reveals that they also have deadeyes.  The chain plates with holes in to tops are for the running stays amidships and the main topmast shroud (which is secured by a lanyard).
 
John
 

 

 

 

 

Popeye never ceases to amaze.  We should see quite a number of additions to our 'Completed Ship Gallery' next year  

The beakhead and foredeck have been completed.
 
The planking is 1/8 x 1/16 basswood.  The finish applied was Minwax Pre-stain followed by Minwax 'Natural' stain.  Rather then go with the usual WOP, I chose this time to go with a coat of flat acrylic brush on (Testors).  Here is the inboard side of the beakhead.  It will most likely be ultimately painted red to match the bulwarks:
 

 
Here is the forward view of the beakhead and deck:
 

 
You may notice that the deck has been treenailed.  I use Chuck's method of simulated treenails.  Holes are drilled with a #72 drill, lightly sanded, cleaned with the sharp point of an awl (gently) and then filled with this wood colored filler:
 

 
After the filler dries it is lightly sanded and then undergoes the finishing process.  The simulated caulking on the deck is made with a #2B pencil applied to only one side of the plank.  I prefer the caulking to appear light.  The finished treenails are barely visible impacting more on 'texture' then standing out in color. 
 
Overall, I like the appearance of these elements and they shall contrast slightly with the hull and deck planking
 
Will now be moving on to setting the gun port sills and lintels.  First I want to make up a mock cannon so there are no surprises down the road.  Chuck suggested this on Syren ---- it worked.  So I'll use it here.
 
Have a few days of 'winterizing' to do so no updates for a bit.  Everyone in the Northern Hemisphere stay warm  
 
 
 
 

Hi Denis,
 
If your trying to do what I think your trying to do then I wish you every luck mate.
 
As a suggestion could you make up some windows and sandwich the mesh in between, or would that make the windows foggy ?, I don't know because I've never used this stuff before.
 
Another way could possibly be to make up your window solution and when it's nearly set lay the mesh over the top.
 
I do hope you achieve the look your after mate, just have to keep trying as I'm sure there's a solution to this problem.
 
Good Luck
 
mobbsie

Them's some mighty nice doors you have there. Any chance you can come by my house, I'm in need of an upgrade.
 
-Bug

Outstanding Dave! Great to celebrate the good people in this world.

Thanks Joe, I really appreciate the comments. 
  I've contemplated many times investing in some of the power necessities  - particularly a lathe and a drill press.  There's definitely a trade off with using the basic tools. I don't get the same uniformity that I otherwise wood, and that I see a lot of.  But at the same time, I also feel like I get a distinctive "hand crafted" look that ultimately appeals to me.  So what was at first a limitation based on space / economics, etc, became a style that I now rather enjoy. 
 
Thanks again for checking out the log!
 
- Bug

How about filling in the oversized holes with something like JB Weld and then drilling a proper one?  You might then want to paint each stanchion.

That's a really awesome stern light.

Nice work on both sets of details.  Love the fry pan, mate !

How about filling in the oversized holes with something like JB Weld and then drilling a proper one?  You might then want to paint each stanchion.

Sorry Steve, I did forget...it has been much too long! But I figured out a fix. the problem was not the concept of the marker, it was the fact my build board is wide, but not wide enough to run the base of my marker on top of the build board. This meant my pencil was sticking out about 5 inches from my holder and I couldn't get it to remain in the correct horizontal position even using an entire roll of duct tape. So I found a 1/4" thick piece of wood, screwed it to the top of my wood block at the proper height, then laid my pencil on top and attached it to my 1/4" piece to hold it firmly at the proper height. Worked like a dream! 

She's really sparkliing now, Bob.  Nicely done.

She's really sparkliing now, Bob.  Nicely done.

She's really sparkliing now, Bob.  Nicely done.

She's really sparkliing now, Bob.  Nicely done.

Work on the deck planking is now well underway. I have completed the center and port side portions. After seeing how 
Chuck did the curved and tapered planking, I knew that I had to give that a try. I had considerable fear that it would be very difficult and turn out badly. To my surprise, it turned out to be much easier than I had feared.
 
My deck planking is holly, using 3/16" and 1/4" strips from Crown. The center portion is done, as is Chuck's, with straight pieces between the deck items (hatches, companionway etc.). The procedure for the curved planks was as follows: take a long strip and edge bend it (the holly bends quite easily); after bending, taper the strip to meet the dimensions that I had measured out at various points using tick strips; when the strip was bent and tapered, cut it into planks to meet the butt joint pattern; use a pencil to imitate the causing on one side and end of each plank; glue the individual planks into position.
 
Like Chuck, I used two hooked scarfs at the bow and three at the stern. These were made using the wider strips.
 
After completing this area of the planking, I chose, for two reasons, to to do the tree nailing on it before going on to do the starboard side. I like to break up the tree nailing, and I was eager to see what finished planking would look like. I chose to use a golden oak filler, that was lighter in color than the filler that I had used on the boxwood outer hull planking. After tree nailing, I applied Wipe-on Poly as a sealer and finish. I'm generally pleased with the result.
 
Now it's on to the starboard side.
 
Bob

Just a super job on the boat, Sal.
 
Bob

Don, George, Ken, Dirk, John, Joe, and Thomas thank you all so much for the kind words, it's really appreciated.  I had some reservations in the beginning if I could do justice to this little boat but I enjoyed building it and I'm happy with the way it turned out.
 
Thanks for all the likes too.