ChadB

17. Finishing the Hold Planking, Cutting Limber Boards, and Cutting out Gunport Sills and Lintels
 
. I finished up the hold planking with one side fully planked and the other just thick stuff as to show off frames. All the planking was pretty straightforward, but I was a little worried about making sure my treenails were in nice straight lines. It's one of those things I've tried to do to the best of my ability since mediocre results would stick out like a sore thumb. 
I started with this little jig which was a small piece of scrap with a block on either end that will let it fit over all the frames and stay in place. I marked on the scrap the positions of each treenail so it could be marked  on the frames.  *Sorry about the photos. I'm actually a little embarassed to be showing them because of the horrible white balance. My kitchen table has been my headquarters over the winter and the lighting overhead is the new  energy-saving flourescents      Once I had marks across each frame, I connected the dots..      Once the lines were drawn, I drew perpendicular lines to make sure they would be even across the frames also, which left me with small crosses at the points that needed drilling..      I started drilling the holes using a pinvise but it took forever, so I switched over to my small rechargeable Dremel which worked well. I went through and used a pn to start a hole so the drill had somewhere to start. All treenails were done with cherry and I used a 1mm hole for the thick stuff and a 1/2 mm hole for all the rest..      Once that was done I wanted to finish up my limberboards. I had opened a thread a while back in the general discussion about it and came to the conclusion that they would be 3 feet long with openings on either side to pry them out. So scaled down gave me 3/4 inch long sections with half circles drilled out on each end. I already had the long continuous limberboard shaped, so it was just a matter of cutting and drilling. I started by cutting the lengths, then setting up this little jig to make sure the half circles lined up. Two boards were put in and lined up so the drill bit would fall directly between the two. Any small adjustments were made  with a file..      Overall a simple task once thought out. I will glue in place eventually and there will be small pieces to cover the ends. I don't know if they were actually staggered like this, but I really like the look.     And then just last night I finally built up the courage to cut out the slots for the gunport sills and lintels. I don't know why this scared me so much, but it ended up being incredibly easy. I think it was actually seeing Grant,s method of cutting out the slots in the floors on Dokondr's build log that really made it easy- thanks Grant! Everything was already marked, so I just used a jeweler's saw to make a few horizontal cuts and break out the pieces with an exacto knife.        So that's it so far. Next up I believe I'll finally tackle the wales! -Chad

16. Adding the Thick Stuff
 
So things have been quite easy now because of the time put in to fair the hull and make sure all the lines were transferred correctly. I decided to go ahead and do all the thick stuff first and fill in the rest once that was all in place. It was real nice to work with something other than boxwood and apple (cherry), too. 
I started by soaking the cut planks for about 20 minutes and then giving them a little bend by clamping both sides over a board with some foam in the middle. The foam keeps it from getting marked up and gives it just enough of a bend to sit a little more naturally against the frames..      Then I gave one side a bit of a beveled edge using a sanding block so that way the other plank touching it would fit nicely. I also sanded the back (the side sitting on the frames) to a bit of a rounded edge so it conformed to the frames. I finished off the front side with some 400 grit sandpaper on the felt block (which is quickly becoming one of my favorite tools) and clamped it down.      The limber strake was alot easier to make than I thought it was going to be. I just set the fence of the tablesaw as close to the blade as possible and raised the blade to just the height of the groove where the limber board site. The limber board was hand made and just took some trial and error to get the right angles. -Chad  The "finished product"..             

15. Making a Story Pole and Transferring Lines.
 
So I decided the next step should be transferring lines to the inside and outside of the hull. It took me a few days to remember reading in one of Russ's older posts about using something called a "Story Pole". It's a vertical "pole" that has all the heights of different spots on the hull. Once the idea kind of came together it seemed like a great idea for making sure everything was going to be even and uniform on both sides. I started by using some scrap from the frame setting jig I used as a base, since I was going to use that jig to hold the model in place while transferring lines. Then I used various drawings to transfer heights to a scrap piece of apple left over from the keel. Put together and squared up to make sure it was exactly vertical, this was the finished product.. 
 

 

 
Next I used some more scrap to make a couple "arms" to beable to get the height right up against the frame to mark it.. 
 

 
Then I made sure the model was secured in the jig and centered the same way I used to mount the frames. This way nothing was wobbling or uneven..
 

 
Transferring lines was then real easy. Move the story pole up to the frame and tick of the height. I just started from the bottom and worked my way around the hull. Once a height was sufficiently marked, I just  moved on to the next height up (unlike in the photo that was taken post-transfer  )      Once I had enough marks, it was just a matter of "connecting the dots". I double checked the height by measuring from a fixed point- say the top of keel- to the mark and then checked the measurement on both the opposite side and opposite end to make sure nothing is going to be either crooked or slanted!      I'll probably cover the lines with a bit of wipe on poly or some other finish just to make sure the lines don't get rubbed off along the way, but the final product should be good enough to finally start adding some meat  to these bones! -Chad    

14a. More Fairing (More Blech.)
 
I just finished the fairing of the hull and I can honestly say I won't miss it. I think the whole process took me quite a while because I really only worked in 10-30 min spurts because 1.) it's an incredibly monotonous and tedious process and 2.) any longer than that and I go from the "quality work" mindset to the "good enough" mindset. After I finished the rough fairing with 100 grit sandpaper I took it all the way down to 600 grit in the places that would be visible. I found that since the finer sandpaper doesn't last very long it didn't work on wooden sanding blocks very well. I took a trip over to the local woodworking store and found a felt pad (about 5 bucks) which worked like a charm. It was just flexible enough to get around the inside and evenly sand the outside..      The "finished" product..       

14. Fairing (Blech.)
 
So far in my short ship modeling career, I think fairing a hull (well) is right up there with planking a hull as one of the tougher things to do. I now know why it's tough to get good advice on how to do it well, since it's just about impossible (as far as I can see, anyway) to explain how to do it well. I just had to jump in and feel it out along the way.  I started with the frames not being roughly faired so that the fore and aft sides of the frame were even, which in hindsight was a mistake since it would have been easier off the keel, but really just adds extra time to the fairing process...      I turned out to be a real pain to sand those areas down, so I decided to start on the floor, since it was flat and would let start getting a feel for what kind of tools were going to work. The first thing I had to do though was determine where the flat part of the floor ended and started curving up, since - once again- nothing was faired first. I did this by taking a copy of the Cross Section Frames drawing and drawing a "centerline" down the middle perpendicular to the frames. Then I took each of the Frame Assembly drawings and measured the length of the floor, copied it onto the "centerline" of my other drawing, and connected the sides with a french curve. Finally I just pasted it to a scrap piece of matte board and cut it out, giving me this...      The floor was pretty easy since it was flat- I found a standard card cabinet scraper worked best. I guess before I go any further I'll mention the tools I found worked best. First and foremost- a $10 pack of 3 cabinet scrapers was a fantastic investment. Of course, with cabinet scrapers they will have to be sharpened- so I also had to pick up a $10 burnishing tool and a waterstone (about $25). Sharpening them is almost an art in itself, as I've gotten sharpening the card scrapers down but the curved ones have taken a little more practice. I looked at about every link on sharpening cabinet scrapers that google brought up, but everyone has their own way of doing it so I just went at it until I found something that worked for me. Other than the scrapers I used a flat ruler sized piece of scrap wood and 4 sanding blocks with 100 grit sandpaper on them. I found the sanding blocks are used the most. All are pretty much just small rectangles with one side curved over that I cut out real quick on the scroll saw. One of them is just a little over the width of a frame, and the others are about a frame and a half thickness. The thicker ones I find usefull for sanding across multiple frames without getting "caught up" between frames, while the thinner one is good for just working on a single frame.      So after the floor, I started on the inside since I thought this would be the harder part (it is) and on the side that would eventually be fully planked. I figured it was best to get a feel for things on the side that would be a little more forgiving since it will all be covered anyway. This is where I can't really explain what went on since it just has to be "experienced". I imagine it like trying to describe to someone how to sculpt- kind of tough to do I would think. I just started rough and kept refining it little by little. This was when I noticed a problem on the horizon- one of the frames seemed out of place at "the turn of the bilge" (thanks Lee). I  thought about it and finally decided one night to break the frame loose and reset it to try to align it. Once it was broken free with an exacto knife I had no clue what to do- that's how I ended up with this gem  ...     ..first I aligned the turn of the bilge area by laying a scrap piece of wood along the frames and wrapping thread around the frame and the scrap, and behind the free frame, which kind of cinched everything into place. Then I used a couple more pieces of scrap to align the tops. Once everything was glued into place, the frames aligned much nicer. After that was done and I had the inside roughly faired, I started from the floors and just started cleaning it all up by working my way up with a scrap pushed down along the inside to see what needed to be cleaned up.      So now I have about 3/4 of the cross section faired with only one of the outsides to go (once I got a hande on the inside, the outside is pretty easy). Although I don't think I'll be able to leave a whole side open as  planned since I still have a few spots that aren't totally faired because I STILL left the frames thin  , a decent section near the bilge will be, which is OK with me. The only disturbing thing I've noticed is separation on some of my futtocks..      I was pretty careful not to have anything like this when I built my frames, so I think it could be from either the little bit of bending that went into setting a few frames on the keel or the cold snap we had a few weeks back when the cross section sat in the garage (since moved inside). There's only a couple spots like this, so I may try filling it with some wood glue/sawdust mix and see what the results are. -Chad    

13. Setting frames
 
Well, I finally finished mounting all the frames to the keel last night and included spacers in between the frames. I turned out to be a little harder than I originally thought it was going to be- but the finished product 
came out real well. Here's how I did it...  First using the jig I previously built, I'd put the frame in the correct position on the keel buy pushing the slide right up to lines on the drawings. The first couple frames I would then glue in place and treenail after, but I found that whle drilling the hole in the frame for the treenail, it would vibrate the frame free. This could have either been that I was using the drill press to drill the hole or that the keel had already been finished with tung oil. So after roughing up the top of the keel, I decided to dry mount the frame and drill the treenail hole freehand using my little battery operated Dremel..      ..I drilled the treenail holes on the floor side since I was terrified that drilling on the other side would cause the frame to split. Once that was done, it was glued and set on the keel with the treenail inserted. Using the cross spall built earlier, I was able to center the frame by matching up centerlines..      Once the frame was set and dried, I ripped a few pieces of scrap that would be used as spacers between frames. There are only two distances between frames- 1/4 inch and 1/8 inch. The next frame was mounted as desribed earlier and the spacer was sanded until it fit snugly between the frames at the keel.      I had drawn a line on the vertical part of the jig where the lower part of the spacer would go. Now I was able to trace the shape where the spacer would be fitted. Since the distance between frames at the keel was measured, the spacers would keep the top of the frames the same distance apart.      Trying to hold the wood straight and in place while trying to trace the shape turned out to not work well, so here's how I tackled it..      After the spacers were cut out on the scroll saw, I had two pieces that wouldn't leave a whole lot of extra to sand later      To set them was easy. I smeared each side with glue, lined them up on the jig, and clamped the frames to keep them tight..      I just repeated for all the frames, and now have them all mounted. The first thing I noticed was how solid everything seems. This will be good for the next step of sanding the hull, which I'm totally terrified of doing.  Onward! -Chad       

10a. A Good Conversation on Aligning the Frames Correctly
 
A very interesting and useful looking jig. How do you ensure that the frames are not skewed to one side? Are you going to set up a grid on the vertical board to ensure that the frames are even about the central axis, or do you have another method of controlling this? 
John -------------------------   John- That's the question that I wrestled with yesterday afternoon and woke up this morning at 530 thinking about. I put a centerline down the middle- which can be seen in the last photo- just to start with. I may try something along the lines of Lee's Le Fleuron build where he has used a string pulled tight down the centerline and spacers across the top of the frames marked in the middle. I can't remember which other build log (sometimes they all just meld together in my head after a while) had a grid also, which is another good idea- unless the grid is off a little. Hopefully I'll have an idea ready to go by tonight.   -Chad   -------------------------   The other builder who uses the wide open string method is an exceptional one, Gary Bishop with his outstanding Alfred build.  Let me give you some hints for this jig, these are not all important here for the x-section, but for a full build they are a must.  Glue something across the back of the angle pieces. Right now they are very good, but after a few times sliding this back/ forth, the jig will start to loosen up a little. Hard to notice until you have a few bad frames  set.  Use some wax on the outer edges of the keel clamping pieces- nothing worse then having this start to bind a little when you have glue on the pieces and need to move a little more quickly.  A string and cross spalls at the top of the frames guarantee the frame is set exactly correct. Glue the cross spall across the top timbers of the frame, lay the frame over the plans and when all lines are covered by the frame, and the keel notch is right on- mark the cross spall.  When setting up the frame, just line up the string and the mark and you know for sure that nothing is wrong and the true shape of the hull can be sanded too- you are not starting out with any dips or places that are too small for the envelope of the frame before you even begin fairing.  Keep up the great work, I love logs like this!  -Lee      

10. Jig making for Setting Frames
 
 Today I was able to put together a jig for aligning and attaching the frames to the keel. This is a pretty vital step so I've been going through various building logs and coming up with ideas of how I was going to do this. Everything kind of came together this morning and here's what I came up with... 
  I started with two half inch thick by five and a half inch wide billets of poplar from Lowes which cost a total of 6 bucks. The first step was cutting a base that would be long enough to hold the keel and have plenty of extra working room- this one was about 1ft long. Next was something to hold the keel in place on the board. I ripped 2 pieces to run the length of the base with a height of a quarter inch, so as not to interfere with the rabbet. One of them was then glued to the base like so..      Next, I took a print of the 'cross section frames' and cut out a section that shows all frames and the keel. This was then cut into two, making sure to cut exactly perpendicular to the frames. I then attached one side of the drawing with 3M spray mount to the base like shown, using a square to make sure the frames will be perpendicular..      Next the other side of the drawing was attached in the same way to the other side. Two things to watch is make sure you have fore and aft facing the same direction on each side and that both sides are aligned correctly. This is what it looks like at this point..      I then put the keel up against the 'rail' and glued the other 'rail' in place (over the frame drawing). The keel fits snugly in place and has no extra movement. With the keel in the correct position, I then glued small stoppers made of scrap on each end to keep the keel from sliding out of place. You can see these in the last few photos..      Next was the vertical board that will align the frames. My goal was to have it contact as much of the frame as possible. I cut a notch in the bottom just wide enough to straddle the 'rails' and just high enough to clear  the keel..      Next came probably the most crucial part- creating the pieces that will keep that board on the correct axis when mounting the frames. After they were cut, I checked and checked and checked again that they were an exact 90 degree angle. The shape is totally arbitrary- it's the angle that counts.      Finally the assembly. Pretty simple from here, but still easy to screw up. I attached the 90 degree pieces to the board tight in against the 'rails' so there isn't any play side to side. It's also imperative to make sure the board lines up exactly against the frame drawing edge and is at an exact 90 degrees up and down.     And that's it. The final product..      

 
A long time ago I bought the fair- a-frame from Model Expo. I think I paid something like 40 bucks for it and what a piece of junk it was. This cost me 6 bucks and is essentially the same thing just alot more accurate and sturdier. Hopefully someone will see this (or the others throughout various build logs) and be saved the frustration of trying to use that god-awful thing.  So next up is the step that probably scares me the most- actually using this. I see attaching frames as the 'no-turning-back point'. I just always have this feeling that I'l get everything attached and remember some vital step that I missed, so I think I'll spend tomorrow making sure I have everything that needs to be done squared away. -Chad

8. Treenail Holes
 
I've gotten all the frames fitted for the keel and keelson now and am starting to work on treenailing. One of the little things that I wanted to make sure I did was have the treenails evenly spaced and not just 'eyeball' it. Just one of those things that can look crummy if done wrong, and I really have no desire to mess it up and cut anymore frames! So I wanted to come up with a template of some kind to correctly drill my treenail holes. This is what I came up with for the floors
  pretty straight forward... It's just a cutout from the plans with the holes measured out...      The template for the heels of the futtocks took a little more brainstorming. I ended up with the following template. It's just a piece of rigid plastic I cut from the packaging of a pack of batteries. I just scribed a straight line down the middle and poked 2 holes an even amount from each side of the scribe. The scribe was placed on the joint on the frames and a mark left where I was to drill...      Overall I was happy with the results....      For the actual treenails, I was planning on using my old faithful bamboo skewers pulled through a drawplate (the Byrnes drawplate is the way to go..), but after alot of tests on old frames with different finishes and and even trying to soak the bamboo in stain, I'm just not liking the look. I ripped some boxwood (lord knows I have TONS of scrap to work with...) and tried a few trials and it looks real nice- very subtle but you know it's there. So now I'm going to attempt boxwood treenails, which won't be easy but it's the look I want so I'll suffer.  Anyway- this is what I have so far. I've also gone ahead and finished my keel (apple), keelson (apple) and false keel (indian laurel) with tung oil. -Chad         

7. Dry Fitting Frames
 
So I now have all the frames cut and together, but they are still rough. I decided I'm going to fair down the frames all together once they are mounted on the keel like it would be done on a full framed model just for a little practice. I don't see this being a problem once the frames are treenailed down and the keelson is in place. I think I will also put spacers in above the wales since both sides will be planked wales up, which will add a little sturdiness. 
  I'm now doing a final fit of all the frames to the keel and cutting the notch for the keelson. I had cut it very roughly- and in hindsight probably could have cut a little tighter- so there's alot of sand a little and check, sand a little and check... . Luckily this can all be done in the house and not in the garage where it's getting a little chilly.  Here's where I'm at..   
 

 
these are the tools I've been using for the keelson. The large file was an impulse buy at Harbor Freight for a dollar that has come in very handy for this. It seems big but for some reason is easier to use.. 
 

 
..So once this is done, I'll be treenailing the frames, finishing the keel and keelson with tung oil, then treenailing the frames to the keel. Onward! -Chad

Hi Chad,
 
It's great to see a refresh of this build and it's great to see you back.  

14a. More Fairing (More Blech.)
 
I just finished the fairing of the hull and I can honestly say I won't miss it. I think the whole process took me quite a while because I really only worked in 10-30 min spurts because 1.) it's an incredibly monotonous and tedious process and 2.) any longer than that and I go from the "quality work" mindset to the "good enough" mindset. After I finished the rough fairing with 100 grit sandpaper I took it all the way down to 600 grit in the places that would be visible. I found that since the finer sandpaper doesn't last very long it didn't work on wooden sanding blocks very well. I took a trip over to the local woodworking store and found a felt pad (about 5 bucks) which worked like a charm. It was just flexible enough to get around the inside and evenly sand the outside..      The "finished" product..       

12. Updating the Jig
 
Just a quick update- I decided that there really isn't a reason to actually use a string, since the centerline on my jig would do the trick. I understand why it would be used on a full model since there's not as much room to work with a jig like this one because of the stem and stern getting in the way. So to make my centerline accurate I had to extend the board up like this.. 
 

13. Setting frames
 
Well, I finally finished mounting all the frames to the keel last night and included spacers in between the frames. I turned out to be a little harder than I originally thought it was going to be- but the finished product 
came out real well. Here's how I did it...  First using the jig I previously built, I'd put the frame in the correct position on the keel buy pushing the slide right up to lines on the drawings. The first couple frames I would then glue in place and treenail after, but I found that whle drilling the hole in the frame for the treenail, it would vibrate the frame free. This could have either been that I was using the drill press to drill the hole or that the keel had already been finished with tung oil. So after roughing up the top of the keel, I decided to dry mount the frame and drill the treenail hole freehand using my little battery operated Dremel..      ..I drilled the treenail holes on the floor side since I was terrified that drilling on the other side would cause the frame to split. Once that was done, it was glued and set on the keel with the treenail inserted. Using the cross spall built earlier, I was able to center the frame by matching up centerlines..      Once the frame was set and dried, I ripped a few pieces of scrap that would be used as spacers between frames. There are only two distances between frames- 1/4 inch and 1/8 inch. The next frame was mounted as desribed earlier and the spacer was sanded until it fit snugly between the frames at the keel.      I had drawn a line on the vertical part of the jig where the lower part of the spacer would go. Now I was able to trace the shape where the spacer would be fitted. Since the distance between frames at the keel was measured, the spacers would keep the top of the frames the same distance apart.      Trying to hold the wood straight and in place while trying to trace the shape turned out to not work well, so here's how I tackled it..      After the spacers were cut out on the scroll saw, I had two pieces that wouldn't leave a whole lot of extra to sand later      To set them was easy. I smeared each side with glue, lined them up on the jig, and clamped the frames to keep them tight..      I just repeated for all the frames, and now have them all mounted. The first thing I noticed was how solid everything seems. This will be good for the next step of sanding the hull, which I'm totally terrified of doing.  Onward! -Chad       

14. Fairing (Blech.)
 
So far in my short ship modeling career, I think fairing a hull (well) is right up there with planking a hull as one of the tougher things to do. I now know why it's tough to get good advice on how to do it well, since it's just about impossible (as far as I can see, anyway) to explain how to do it well. I just had to jump in and feel it out along the way.  I started with the frames not being roughly faired so that the fore and aft sides of the frame were even, which in hindsight was a mistake since it would have been easier off the keel, but really just adds extra time to the fairing process...      I turned out to be a real pain to sand those areas down, so I decided to start on the floor, since it was flat and would let start getting a feel for what kind of tools were going to work. The first thing I had to do though was determine where the flat part of the floor ended and started curving up, since - once again- nothing was faired first. I did this by taking a copy of the Cross Section Frames drawing and drawing a "centerline" down the middle perpendicular to the frames. Then I took each of the Frame Assembly drawings and measured the length of the floor, copied it onto the "centerline" of my other drawing, and connected the sides with a french curve. Finally I just pasted it to a scrap piece of matte board and cut it out, giving me this...      The floor was pretty easy since it was flat- I found a standard card cabinet scraper worked best. I guess before I go any further I'll mention the tools I found worked best. First and foremost- a $10 pack of 3 cabinet scrapers was a fantastic investment. Of course, with cabinet scrapers they will have to be sharpened- so I also had to pick up a $10 burnishing tool and a waterstone (about $25). Sharpening them is almost an art in itself, as I've gotten sharpening the card scrapers down but the curved ones have taken a little more practice. I looked at about every link on sharpening cabinet scrapers that google brought up, but everyone has their own way of doing it so I just went at it until I found something that worked for me. Other than the scrapers I used a flat ruler sized piece of scrap wood and 4 sanding blocks with 100 grit sandpaper on them. I found the sanding blocks are used the most. All are pretty much just small rectangles with one side curved over that I cut out real quick on the scroll saw. One of them is just a little over the width of a frame, and the others are about a frame and a half thickness. The thicker ones I find usefull for sanding across multiple frames without getting "caught up" between frames, while the thinner one is good for just working on a single frame.      So after the floor, I started on the inside since I thought this would be the harder part (it is) and on the side that would eventually be fully planked. I figured it was best to get a feel for things on the side that would be a little more forgiving since it will all be covered anyway. This is where I can't really explain what went on since it just has to be "experienced". I imagine it like trying to describe to someone how to sculpt- kind of tough to do I would think. I just started rough and kept refining it little by little. This was when I noticed a problem on the horizon- one of the frames seemed out of place at "the turn of the bilge" (thanks Lee). I  thought about it and finally decided one night to break the frame loose and reset it to try to align it. Once it was broken free with an exacto knife I had no clue what to do- that's how I ended up with this gem  ...     ..first I aligned the turn of the bilge area by laying a scrap piece of wood along the frames and wrapping thread around the frame and the scrap, and behind the free frame, which kind of cinched everything into place. Then I used a couple more pieces of scrap to align the tops. Once everything was glued into place, the frames aligned much nicer. After that was done and I had the inside roughly faired, I started from the floors and just started cleaning it all up by working my way up with a scrap pushed down along the inside to see what needed to be cleaned up.      So now I have about 3/4 of the cross section faired with only one of the outsides to go (once I got a hande on the inside, the outside is pretty easy). Although I don't think I'll be able to leave a whole side open as  planned since I still have a few spots that aren't totally faired because I STILL left the frames thin  , a decent section near the bilge will be, which is OK with me. The only disturbing thing I've noticed is separation on some of my futtocks..      I was pretty careful not to have anything like this when I built my frames, so I think it could be from either the little bit of bending that went into setting a few frames on the keel or the cold snap we had a few weeks back when the cross section sat in the garage (since moved inside). There's only a couple spots like this, so I may try filling it with some wood glue/sawdust mix and see what the results are. -Chad    

Haha! Don't worry about it- I fully expect this to confuse a few people! 
 
-Chad

Nice job- looking good! I love the look of oiled wood!   -Chad

14a. More Fairing (More Blech.)
 
I just finished the fairing of the hull and I can honestly say I won't miss it. I think the whole process took me quite a while because I really only worked in 10-30 min spurts because 1.) it's an incredibly monotonous and tedious process and 2.) any longer than that and I go from the "quality work" mindset to the "good enough" mindset. After I finished the rough fairing with 100 grit sandpaper I took it all the way down to 600 grit in the places that would be visible. I found that since the finer sandpaper doesn't last very long it didn't work on wooden sanding blocks very well. I took a trip over to the local woodworking store and found a felt pad (about 5 bucks) which worked like a charm. It was just flexible enough to get around the inside and evenly sand the outside..      The "finished" product..       

14. Fairing (Blech.)
 
So far in my short ship modeling career, I think fairing a hull (well) is right up there with planking a hull as one of the tougher things to do. I now know why it's tough to get good advice on how to do it well, since it's just about impossible (as far as I can see, anyway) to explain how to do it well. I just had to jump in and feel it out along the way.  I started with the frames not being roughly faired so that the fore and aft sides of the frame were even, which in hindsight was a mistake since it would have been easier off the keel, but really just adds extra time to the fairing process...      I turned out to be a real pain to sand those areas down, so I decided to start on the floor, since it was flat and would let start getting a feel for what kind of tools were going to work. The first thing I had to do though was determine where the flat part of the floor ended and started curving up, since - once again- nothing was faired first. I did this by taking a copy of the Cross Section Frames drawing and drawing a "centerline" down the middle perpendicular to the frames. Then I took each of the Frame Assembly drawings and measured the length of the floor, copied it onto the "centerline" of my other drawing, and connected the sides with a french curve. Finally I just pasted it to a scrap piece of matte board and cut it out, giving me this...      The floor was pretty easy since it was flat- I found a standard card cabinet scraper worked best. I guess before I go any further I'll mention the tools I found worked best. First and foremost- a $10 pack of 3 cabinet scrapers was a fantastic investment. Of course, with cabinet scrapers they will have to be sharpened- so I also had to pick up a $10 burnishing tool and a waterstone (about $25). Sharpening them is almost an art in itself, as I've gotten sharpening the card scrapers down but the curved ones have taken a little more practice. I looked at about every link on sharpening cabinet scrapers that google brought up, but everyone has their own way of doing it so I just went at it until I found something that worked for me. Other than the scrapers I used a flat ruler sized piece of scrap wood and 4 sanding blocks with 100 grit sandpaper on them. I found the sanding blocks are used the most. All are pretty much just small rectangles with one side curved over that I cut out real quick on the scroll saw. One of them is just a little over the width of a frame, and the others are about a frame and a half thickness. The thicker ones I find usefull for sanding across multiple frames without getting "caught up" between frames, while the thinner one is good for just working on a single frame.      So after the floor, I started on the inside since I thought this would be the harder part (it is) and on the side that would eventually be fully planked. I figured it was best to get a feel for things on the side that would be a little more forgiving since it will all be covered anyway. This is where I can't really explain what went on since it just has to be "experienced". I imagine it like trying to describe to someone how to sculpt- kind of tough to do I would think. I just started rough and kept refining it little by little. This was when I noticed a problem on the horizon- one of the frames seemed out of place at "the turn of the bilge" (thanks Lee). I  thought about it and finally decided one night to break the frame loose and reset it to try to align it. Once it was broken free with an exacto knife I had no clue what to do- that's how I ended up with this gem  ...     ..first I aligned the turn of the bilge area by laying a scrap piece of wood along the frames and wrapping thread around the frame and the scrap, and behind the free frame, which kind of cinched everything into place. Then I used a couple more pieces of scrap to align the tops. Once everything was glued into place, the frames aligned much nicer. After that was done and I had the inside roughly faired, I started from the floors and just started cleaning it all up by working my way up with a scrap pushed down along the inside to see what needed to be cleaned up.      So now I have about 3/4 of the cross section faired with only one of the outsides to go (once I got a hande on the inside, the outside is pretty easy). Although I don't think I'll be able to leave a whole side open as  planned since I still have a few spots that aren't totally faired because I STILL left the frames thin  , a decent section near the bilge will be, which is OK with me. The only disturbing thing I've noticed is separation on some of my futtocks..      I was pretty careful not to have anything like this when I built my frames, so I think it could be from either the little bit of bending that went into setting a few frames on the keel or the cold snap we had a few weeks back when the cross section sat in the garage (since moved inside). There's only a couple spots like this, so I may try filling it with some wood glue/sawdust mix and see what the results are. -Chad    

13. Setting frames
 
Well, I finally finished mounting all the frames to the keel last night and included spacers in between the frames. I turned out to be a little harder than I originally thought it was going to be- but the finished product 
came out real well. Here's how I did it...  First using the jig I previously built, I'd put the frame in the correct position on the keel buy pushing the slide right up to lines on the drawings. The first couple frames I would then glue in place and treenail after, but I found that whle drilling the hole in the frame for the treenail, it would vibrate the frame free. This could have either been that I was using the drill press to drill the hole or that the keel had already been finished with tung oil. So after roughing up the top of the keel, I decided to dry mount the frame and drill the treenail hole freehand using my little battery operated Dremel..      ..I drilled the treenail holes on the floor side since I was terrified that drilling on the other side would cause the frame to split. Once that was done, it was glued and set on the keel with the treenail inserted. Using the cross spall built earlier, I was able to center the frame by matching up centerlines..      Once the frame was set and dried, I ripped a few pieces of scrap that would be used as spacers between frames. There are only two distances between frames- 1/4 inch and 1/8 inch. The next frame was mounted as desribed earlier and the spacer was sanded until it fit snugly between the frames at the keel.      I had drawn a line on the vertical part of the jig where the lower part of the spacer would go. Now I was able to trace the shape where the spacer would be fitted. Since the distance between frames at the keel was measured, the spacers would keep the top of the frames the same distance apart.      Trying to hold the wood straight and in place while trying to trace the shape turned out to not work well, so here's how I tackled it..      After the spacers were cut out on the scroll saw, I had two pieces that wouldn't leave a whole lot of extra to sand later      To set them was easy. I smeared each side with glue, lined them up on the jig, and clamped the frames to keep them tight..      I just repeated for all the frames, and now have them all mounted. The first thing I noticed was how solid everything seems. This will be good for the next step of sanding the hull, which I'm totally terrified of doing.  Onward! -Chad       

12. Updating the Jig
 
Just a quick update- I decided that there really isn't a reason to actually use a string, since the centerline on my jig would do the trick. I understand why it would be used on a full model since there's not as much room to work with a jig like this one because of the stem and stern getting in the way. So to make my centerline accurate I had to extend the board up like this.. 
 

11. Cross Spalls
 
Thanks for the tips Lee and thanks to everyone else again for the kind words. 
I decided to go Lee and Gary's route of a tight string down the centerline and cross spalls across the tops of the frames. I was kind of freaked out about glueing anything to the tops of frames, even though that whole area will be covered. Something about having to separate it at some point and the possibility of a frame breaking scares me a little- So I came up with something removeable that still does the job of centering the frame and keeping it in place.  I was lucky enough to have a few sheets of extra boxwood left over from my frames, thanks to Jeff at Hobbymill. I don't think I could say it enough that he provides the best quality milled wood around and has answered MANY questions I've thrown his direction about different types of wood. So back on subject- I ripped nine 5mmx5mm strips that were all long enough to cross the top of the widest frame (200mm or 8 inches would be a good length.      The next step was to take one of the spalls and lay it along the 'Top of Frame Line' mark on the frame assembly drawing and mark the inside of the frame. I then sanded down to this line on my disc sander and checked and resanded until both sides were where they needed to be..        So you'd think that would be good enough, right? But no- I'm a man, and it's in our genetics to over-engineer anything we make, especially something trivial like this. So I still had some of the small strips of boxwood left from making treenails (the stips that would eventually be cut down to toothpick size) and I glued one on each side along the top of the spall like so..      OK- so even though I joked about doing this- there was a reason behind it. I had a couple frames that that were a tiny bit too wide at the top for whatever reason. Nothing real bad, but enough that it seemed like it could be an annoyance down the line. So to fix that, I took some small square scraps and glued them to the outside of the strip affixed across the top of the spall. If the frame was a bit wide, I made sure that this little square was glued in snug against the frame to keep it in place.      Once everything was dry, I went back and just double checked that all the frames were fitted correctly and added the centerline on the top using the centerline mark on the frame assembly drawing. So now I have a frame that can be aligned correctly and ready to be mounted.       

Haha! Don't worry about it- I fully expect this to confuse a few people! 
 
-Chad

10a. A Good Conversation on Aligning the Frames Correctly
 
A very interesting and useful looking jig. How do you ensure that the frames are not skewed to one side? Are you going to set up a grid on the vertical board to ensure that the frames are even about the central axis, or do you have another method of controlling this? 
John -------------------------   John- That's the question that I wrestled with yesterday afternoon and woke up this morning at 530 thinking about. I put a centerline down the middle- which can be seen in the last photo- just to start with. I may try something along the lines of Lee's Le Fleuron build where he has used a string pulled tight down the centerline and spacers across the top of the frames marked in the middle. I can't remember which other build log (sometimes they all just meld together in my head after a while) had a grid also, which is another good idea- unless the grid is off a little. Hopefully I'll have an idea ready to go by tonight.   -Chad   -------------------------   The other builder who uses the wide open string method is an exceptional one, Gary Bishop with his outstanding Alfred build.  Let me give you some hints for this jig, these are not all important here for the x-section, but for a full build they are a must.  Glue something across the back of the angle pieces. Right now they are very good, but after a few times sliding this back/ forth, the jig will start to loosen up a little. Hard to notice until you have a few bad frames  set.  Use some wax on the outer edges of the keel clamping pieces- nothing worse then having this start to bind a little when you have glue on the pieces and need to move a little more quickly.  A string and cross spalls at the top of the frames guarantee the frame is set exactly correct. Glue the cross spall across the top timbers of the frame, lay the frame over the plans and when all lines are covered by the frame, and the keel notch is right on- mark the cross spall.  When setting up the frame, just line up the string and the mark and you know for sure that nothing is wrong and the true shape of the hull can be sanded too- you are not starting out with any dips or places that are too small for the envelope of the frame before you even begin fairing.  Keep up the great work, I love logs like this!  -Lee      

Tony- I love this idea! I'm still using that damn spray on adhesive on my current build but I think that comes to an end now! I stil have the needlenose pliers I used for the cross section build and they are nearly impossible to open because they are so gunked up at this point. Thanks for the pointer!
 
-Chad