Craigie65

007 - 1st Planking Continues
With the first plank in place I moved on to adding the next plank. Once I trimmed the both the right and left-hand planks, they were soaked in hot water for approx. 10 minutes and then bent so they followed the shape around the bow. They were then clamped in place to allow the planks to fully dry out.
 
To continue with the planking progress, I then trimmed, soaked and bent the garboard planks.

When the first plank in place I added a stealer at the stern to fill the gap.

006 - Start of the First Planking
Now that I completed the Erycina build I can now turn my attention to completing the Saucy Jack. I have decided that I am in no hurry to complete this build, given the timescale for the release of the Indy kit, which is my next planned build.
 
The Saucy Jack is ready for the first planking layer. Having checked the kit supplied planks, which should be 5mmW by 1mmD I noted that quite a few of the planks were nearer 0.7mmD, and the rest seemed to be around 0.9mmD. Whilst this is not an issue with the first planking, I have decided to use some of my existing stock of planking material which does measure 1mmD.
 
Starting with the first plank I cut an angle and then sanded a camphor to the underside of the plank edge, to match the angle at the stem post, as can be seen in the photo below.

It would be better if the plank was bent to follow the curve around the bow. With the plank laying across the planks I was able to see where the plank bend should begin, as indicated in the photo below.

I marked the start of the plank bend on the reverse side of the plank. The start of the bend mark can be seen on the 10-line on the photo below.

I do have a planking bending tool which, by scoring the underside of the plank, creates the required bend. I have opted to use my heated plank bender tool for this project. The planks are soaked in hot water for a few minutes and then bent with the application of heat to the underside of the plank.

With the bend applied to both the left and right-side top planks they were clamped to the hull to allow time to fully dry out before they are ready to be glued in place. I am more inclined to try and fit the first plank as one continuous plank rather than in two halves.

039 - Outer Jib Sail Refit
Thanks to @James H eagle eye the problem with the outer jib sail was an incorrect fitting. This morning I set about releasing the outer jib sail. With a great deal of patience and careful manoeuvring of the threads used to secure the outer jib sail to the belaying pin and cleats I was able to successfully remove without any damage. I thought I would detail the refit process in this post, which may help other builders.

New thread (0.25mm natural) was then added to the outer jib sail. I did not have to replace the thimble that I had previously secured to the sail.

The sail was the hoisted up the main mast, via the block located on one of the mast rings, as can be seen below.

The other thread was then passed through the hole at the end of the bowsprit.  The outer jib sails alignment is already looking much better.

I then added the two threads to the eyebolts, In the next photo I am in the process of adding the seizing to one of these threads.

With all the rigging in place I took some time to adjust the position of the outer jib sail. As can be seen in the photo below I am using to reverse action tweezers to tension the rigging lines to check everything looks OK.

Keeping the tension of the thread that is fed through the bowsprit, with the reverse action tweezers, the other thread which passed through the main mast block was tied off to a belay pin on the main mast belaying rack. Next the thread that was fed through the hole at the end of the bowsprit was, after being fed through a hole on bulwark, then secured a cleat located on the inner bulwark. The final task was to secure the two threads from the eyebolts to cleats located on the inner bulwarks, via the thimble fitted to the outer jib sail, which is in progress in the next photo.

After around 60 minutes of effort the misaligned outer jib sail had been removed and rerigged and it does look so much better. I am really pleased I redid this task as the end result looks so much better.

Although I have been distracted !!

It’s a difficult one. At this scale would you see the individual planks?  Perhaps not, but at the same time I want people to see that it is planked and not just a preformed hull.  Marco photography is ever the harshest critic. For me your hull is perfect.  You are seriously tempting me to finish mine!

035 - Stays
I have added the top mast shroud and the main mast and main topmast stays. The next task will be to fit and rig the main and mizzen booms and gaff. Once that is done the sails can be added which should be the final task.
 
I have added some photos of the current state of the build.

The next photo shows the main topmast stay as it fed through the two thimbles on the end of the bowsprit.

The next photo shows the termination of the main and main topmast stays at the bow.

The final photo shows the lanyards for the main and topmast shrouds.

034 - Ratlines
Following on from my last post I have now completed adding the ratlines to the mizzen mast and the left-hand side of the main mast. It will not take me long to add the right-hand side main mast ratlines when I next visit the shipyard. Then I will add the stays.
 
Here are a few pictures.

Thanks Dan, that is really kind of you to say so.  I nearly want back to her the other day, but I am not far off finishing HMS Exeter - just those damn photo etched railings to go.  You never know might just get her finished before Christmas.
 
Andrew - I did see your logs. I had a stack of aircraft i tossed when we converted the garage to my office.  I kept but three, one of which is my favourite of all time the Hurricane. A sadly underrated and overlooked beauty.

Very neat

Thanks Dan, that is really kind of you to say so.  I nearly want back to her the other day, but I am not far off finishing HMS Exeter - just those damn photo etched railings to go.  You never know might just get her finished before Christmas.
 
Andrew - I did see your logs. I had a stack of aircraft i tossed when we converted the garage to my office.  I kept but three, one of which is my favourite of all time the Hurricane. A sadly underrated and overlooked beauty.

Hi Glen,
Do the top deadeyes need rotating to me a mirror image of the lower one?

I have paused and returned to plastic.  I am toying with stopping the build admiralty style with no masts - I would only have to add the lower deadeyes. The only thing is, I have the sails and it would seem an expensive waste not to use them!
 

I have paused and returned to plastic.  I am toying with stopping the build admiralty style with no masts - I would only have to add the lower deadeyes. The only thing is, I have the sails and it would seem an expensive waste not to use them!
 

I sure you will move the sail up a bit to get the lower boom on the main.  I think the ring it fits into needs to be glued to the mast.  I found the rigging a bit simplified in places, but I guess the kit is aimed at a novice.  I could have done a bit more research but TBH this kit was purely for fun and I loved every minute of building her.

Very neat

Perfect colour!

029 - Colouring The Sail Set
I have read a few posts regarding adding colour to the sails and it seemed to me to be a bit of a minefield with regards to getting an acceptable colour.
 
I bought some RIT dye power - cocoa brown. I used a large plastic sandwich box and filled it with hot water. I then added a teaspoon of salt and a teaspoon of dye powder and gave it a good stir. I then placed the end of a piece of kitchen roll in the solution and the colour looked Ok. I then went ahead and immersed the sail set and left it to soak for around 5 minutes, occasionally stirring the dye around the sail set.
 
The sail set was then left to dry out on some kitchen roll, and to me eye the colour looks OK. They do look a bit creased.

Using a steam iron, the creases were soon removed. Next up I will add the main and mizzen sails to their respective masts and gaffs.

 

028 Channels and Shrouds
It took next to no time to add the deadeyes to the strops and to then secure them to the hull. I opted to use some of my spare 3mm pear deadeyes for the Erycina. At the moment all the deadeyes are correctly aligned with two holes at the top and one hole centrally at the bottom.

The next build task is to dye and then to add the main sail to the main mast and main gaff and the mizzen sail to the mizzen mast and mizzen gaff. I am unable to do this as the sail set I've ordered has not arrived. I am expecting the sail set to arrive later this week, given the current situation with the UK postal service strikes. Therefore, I decided to start making the shroud lines.
 
Starting with the main shrouds I measured a 40cm length of 0.75mm black thread and then clamped the central point of this thread in my quad hands, as shown in the photo below. I used another quad hand to keep some tension in the thread so I could add the seizing.

I added the seizing with 0.25mm black thread using 12 half-hitch knots, 6 on the bottom and 6 on the top. In the next photo I have added the first bottom half-hitch and I am in the process of adding the first top half-hitch knot.

In the following picture I am in the process of adding the 4th bottom half-hitch knot.

In the next photo I have completed adding the 12 off half-hitch knots. A touch of ca had been applied to the final half-hitch knot and the excess thread has been trimmed.

In the final photo the shroud pair had been passed over the top of the main mast and the seizing has been closed up. This was accomplished by pulling the two shroud lines in opposite directions. This shroud line can now be removed from the main mast and will be put to one side. It can then be added once the main sail has been added to the main mast and main gaff.

I will not be working in the shipyard tomorrow as my wife and I are having a day out in Castleford, visiting my wifes sister, who recently lost her husband.
 

027 - Adding Blocks to Main and Mizzen Mast
There were a number of blocks required to be added to the mizzen and main masts. The work is now complete.
 
The mizzen mast

The main mast items are shown in position but have not been glued in place. These will be secured in place after I have added the shrouds to the main mast.

When adding these blocks to the mast iron work I used the same technique that I used to secure a block to an eye bolt. A length of 0.25mm black thread is wrapped around the block and then seized with 0.1mm black thread. One of the two free ends is trimmed, and the remaining thread end is then fed through the hole on the iron work part and is then clamped to the side of the block. The first picture shows this arrangement with my quad hands set up. I am using some reverse tweezers to hold the ironwork in the correct alignment with the block.

The next photo is a close up that shows the iron work part and block with the thread clamped in place. It is now ready to have the seizing to be added, using 0.1mm black thread.

The completed block and iron work part.

My next task will be adding the deadeyes to the strops and then adding them to the main and mizzen channels.

026 - Adding Blocks Part 3 Main Gaff 
In my previous post I detailed a method of adding a simplified thimble to the bottom of a block which was required for the mizzen gaff. The main gaff requires two such blocks. I decided I should add a proper thimble to the bottom of the main gaff blocks. After checking the rigging thread would pass through the 3mm single block holes I wrapped a length of 0.25mm black thread around the first block and seized it with 0.1mm black thread. The seizing comprised 4 half-hitch knots, 2 on the bottom and two on the top.

I then trimmed one of the free ends. As can be seen in the photo below after the free end was trimmed the seizing was not correctly seated in the slots. This was corrected.

The remaining free end was then clamped to the side of the block to create the thimble loop. It is better to make the loop on the large size at this stage as it will be closed up later on in the process.

Using 0.1mm black thread 4 more half-hitch knots were added, 2 on the bottom and 2 on the top. I then placed a needle in the created thimble and the free thread end was pulled which closed the thimble up around the needle.

The resultant blocks are shown below.

Using 0.25mm natural thread the two blocks were then secured to the main gaff using clove hitch knots. The blocks are free to move along the thread and their position will be set during the rigging process.

I have now added all the blocks to the mizzen and main booms and gaffs.

 

Many thanks, I love my quad hands. I picked up the alternate half hitch seizing method from a post on one of @DelF build logs.

I am looking forward to the Indy being released. Not sure my wife shares that enthusiasm. 😂

You will have this finished in no time.  What is next on you list to build?

I am looking forward to the Indy being released. Not sure my wife shares that enthusiasm. 😂

005 - Adding the bulwark patterns
I am not making too much progress on this build at the moment as I am pressing on with the Erycina build. All I have done to the Saucy jack is to add the two bulwark patterns. I did soak and bend the patterns to shape before gluing in place. I think this was a mistake as I did end up with some unwanted curling of the patterns. Thankfully I was able to correct this. The Saucy Jack is now ready and waiting for the first layer of planking.