stevenmh

Thanks - I'm looking forward to seeing how the colors of these woods look together. One of the things that has not been clear to me is how deep the rabbet should be - is it just the hint of a slope into the keel and keelson, or does it extend well into the depth of the wood? I decided that it might be easier to deepen the notches in the keelson if I glued the keel and keelson to each other rather than onto the build board. This allowed me to use an x-acto knife, mini-chisel and files to extend the notches. They seem to need to go almost all the way through in order to get the bottom of the ribs to just above the rabbet, but now that the keelson is firmly glued to the keel it seems to work fine. I took a couple of frames out of the sheet and did some dry-fits into the keelson and the rabbet and they went together pretty well. I'll so this with all the frames before the glue comes out again.

Several years ago, at a Northeast Ship Model Conference, I had the chance to ask Chuck Passaro how he learned to do such amazing, and neat, hull planking. He came over and looked at the model I had brought to the conference (the Pride of Baltimore), replied with a "hmmmm" and said it had taken him a while to get it right, until he'd had his Ah-Ha moment (encouraging) and that I should keep working at it and I was sure to have my own ah-ha moment when it would all make sense and click into place (very encouraging). In the intervening years I have had several ah-ha moments, but none of them, I think, quite what Chuck had in mind. So I decided maybe this project would lead me closer to that moment. I decided to make a change to the kit, because as a novice I of course know better... but also because I wanted to get some practice with the kinds of wood I think I will be using as I move on to other models (and maybe one day my own scratch-build. So for the stem, keel, stern post and wales I decided to try using some cherry I have and will use Alaskan Yellow Ceder for the hull planking. I traced the stem and the forward end of the keel onto a piece of cherry, and cut it out and formed it using a scroll saw and sanding drums of various sizes that attach to my drill press. And just to enhance the learning curve I made a lap joint to connect the stem to the keel. The keel was an easy straight cut on the table saw - the kit keel has a curved section at one end to mate with the wider stem, I just included that in the stem I was making so the joint on my model will be slightly further aft that on the plan. As you can tell from the photos my stem needed some work to get both the width and the thickness correct. I finally glued the plan to a piece of foam core - some adhesive did bleed through the plan but the lines are not distorted so I think it is good to go. Once I'm sure the curves on my stem and keel mate properly with the provide keelson and stemson and I have cut out the rabbet my plan is with the rabbet. I did shave off about 1/8" from the aft end of the fore stemson to get the slots to line up with the plan.

Not sure I could get much work done with that view... Hope it all goes smoothly and you enjoy your new space.

I've been anxious to see this project ever since you mentioned you were going to do it at the last Northeast Ship Model Conf. Very glad to see it in the chocks. If you are looking for a relative newbie still looking for his planking "ah-ha moment" to beta-test your work, I humbly volunteer!

Wow. I know "Wow" doesn't quite do it justice, but WOW! Congratulations on a truly amazing project to watch and learn from. Wow.

Thanks for the suggestions. I was hoping to save my hair-pulling til I got to the ratlines…

Progress has been slow but steady - accent on the slow. Deck planking is finished and the holes drilled for the prisms. I blackened them with brass black and test fitted a couple. I'm trying to figure out if I can spray them with Dull-coat or wipe on poly and not worry about the black rubbing off or streaking when wet. In any case I probably won't glue them in until I'm ready to attach all the deck fittings. The bow blocks have been attached and faired once the deck was attached so everything lines up (I hope). Once the filler blocks and bulkheads in the stern were faired I attached the transom pieces and faired those to follow the lines of the bulkheads. I decided planking would probably be easier if I attached the bulwarks so I soaked the forward ends of them and 4 of the first-planking strakes in hot water then clamped them all to a Pirouline cookie can to form the proper(ish) curve. Then I glued and clamped them to the hull. I guess I can't procrastinate any longer lining the hull. My count is it will take 23 strakes, so I will place the tick marks and test with battens doing 3 belts of 8-7-8, I was also looking ahead and say what the model uses for deadeye chains and made a jig with nails 20mm apart to twist the wire around to make the eyes for the chains - not sure this is the best way since I do not have a good history of making things like this exactly the same - especially as there are over 60 of them. How did you all deal with this???

Thanks for the tips. I’m thinking not to try doing the entire run with a single piece. I worked with scale-length planks for my Pride of Baltimore and that worked. I figure my planks should be between 6 and 8 inches (30-40 scale feet).

Thanks for the likes and the comments. I looked through many of the other Terror build logs and found clearway's and his full planking, so I know it is at least possible. I added some scrap wood to the bow as well. (It seems no matter what I do, this picture comes out upside down) The deck has been planked, but before I install it I am going to lay the full-sized deck plan over it and mark and drill the holes for the light prisms and mark the locations of the other deck features. When I dry-fit the deck I suddenly noticed it had a concave pitch running fore and aft, which resulted in one of the fore-aft deck planks popping up mid run - guess I know where one of the butt joints will be going! Once the deck is in place I can mark off the lower end of the bulwarks, plank the counter and start lining off the hull. And find a big pot to soak the planks in...

Thanks for the comments and likes. Planking of the deck continues, and as I get anxious to see it begin to look like a ship I decided to trim the excess lengths of planking at this point. Looks nice. The hull fairing is almost finished as well, and in my rush to see how things will look I decided to dry-fit the stem. Good thing I did as I seem to have gone overboard sanding here. I am attempting to literally bend this piece to my will by wetting and clamping, which I know will be of limited value with plywood, but after just one go seems to have improved the situation somewhat. We'll see how it looks once I free it from the clamps and sand down the high spot. I've been debating how to proceed with the hull planking. The kit is designed for 2 layers of planking, and includes filler blocks for the bow that are wider than the first bulkhead by the thickness of the first layer of planking so you don't have to do the first planking at the bow and will still have an even surface for the second planking. Seems like a wasted learning opportunity to me, since planking, especially a bluff bow like on Terror, is to me one of the hardest and most intimidating aspects of this hobby. But I've been know to bite off more than I can chew. So I'm leaning towards cutting/sanding the filler blocks down so they don't extend past the first bulkhead and trying my luck at tapering/bending/edge-bending the first planking, and if it comes out well skip the 2nd planking entirely. Of course it might be easier if I had some so-called plank-bending tools, but why pay big bucks for something an iron or blow-dryer or soldering iron can do, or even just an xacto knife?

Went to the Northeast Ship Model Conference last weekend and bought 4 small ships boats that I prayed were the same size as the smaller boats needed for this kit - I wanted to replace the metal ones that came with it with wood. Close, but... This was part of a lot the New Jersey club had for sale - there were 4 of them (2 covered canoe shaped ones) in a shipping box labeled "ships boats/Sovereign of the Seas) postmarked in 1964! The purple one my son printed out from a quick design sketch - needs to be sanded and painted. We think he can scale it up to replicate the largest metal one.

Thanks for the suggestions. Not much progress (I blame the brand new 1st grandchild, but truth is I'm a pretty slow worker...), but some. The filler blocks in the bow and stern have been whittled and shaped and the deck planking slowly started. I started using the Byrnes saw to cut the 45 degree angles on the planking, but they are so thin the saw - even with a fine slitting blade - just chews them up, so I'm using a regular x-acto blade saw and miter box.

I bought this kit partly because it was on sale, partly cause it had sails, and mostly to get to practice planking a bluff-bow'd ship - I have done only one other ship that required planking - the Pride of Baltimore - and that has completely different lines and should have been a bit easier, but wasn't really. I also wanted to try kits from different companies (having built a Mamoli and Model Shipways and having Chuck's Medway Longboat in the yard) to see which I liked - my standards at this point are pretty basic - instructions I can understand and blocks I don't need to replace with, well, Chuck's. I knew a little something of the Franklin Expedition (partly from having listened incessantly to the song of that name by Pentangle, partly thanks to the fictionalize show with Jared Harris (what's not to like about Hari Seldon/Anderson Dawes?Capt Crozier??). But as I started doing my own researches the ship began to come to life with a very interesting history of refits and alterations/augmentations. I hope my (budding?) skill level is sufficient to do it justice. The beginning of this log has lagged behind the beginning of the build, and the log may lag a bit again as I finish going through Matthew Bett's blog and some of the other Terror logs on this site, so bare with... Terror out of the box Gluing and squaring the bulkheads - feels more like I'm replicating a medieval torture chamber than the framework of a ship, but it works Starting to fair the bow - the blocks are not called for in the instructions, but given the severe curve at the bows, I figured they couldn't hurt and hopefully would help significantly. I know I could have used some reinforcements on the Pride, especially at the stern. Since this is my first double-planked hull I'm not sure if the first layer of planking will make this superfluous, but I'd rather overbuild now than have a cracked or blistering hull later. Besides, Olha Barchvarov makes this look so easy and straightforward in her videos. At bit of progress with the sanding. Not as easy as Olha made it appear, especially since I'm using pine for the blocks, having failed to find any local balsa (too soft, maybe, for this purpose) or basswood. Did finally find some basswood for the stern. Some of the angle between the bulkheads was shaved off using a scroll saw prior to gluing in place, most of the rest will have to be sanded - I'm not sure even the basswood is soft enough for chisels - may need to invest in a rotary tool

Good to know, thanks. Likely will stick to paint

Thanks to you both - will let you know if I succeed. The Cairo model has photo-etched gun port lids that are glued to the photo-etched armor plates, so I can burnish the backside of the lids and that should not be visible.

The model I'm about to start has some brass photo-etched parts that need to be glued together which I want to color by blackening with Birchwood Casey. My questions are: if I glue them together first with CA will the blackening process eat away the glue? if I blacken them first will gluing no longer work?? do I just worry too much???

Thanks Bob and all the likes. It looked a bit rough there for a while, but finished up nice.

Well, it's been forever since I updated this log - lack of entries does not mean lack of work, as I can report that except for some paint touch-up, rope loops and finishing touches on the base, the Pride is finally finished! - Only took 2 years!??!??? Since this is going on a narrow shelf, I figured out which was the "good" side of the hull and braced the yards hard over. If I do this on another model I will keep the yards square until I lay on all the rigging, then brace them around - it was tough keeping straight which lines should stay in front of the yards and which should go behind. When I rigged the running rigging for the jib and headsails I included the sheets - probably not quite in the right places, but it did make the rigging more interesting. Close up of a block with a hook Final product

There were many other logs I wandered thru - can't recall where I got the idea for the hammocks, but you can try a search. My main inspiration came from U.S.S. Constitution by Tuffarts - Mamoli - Cross-section 1:93 Scale - - Kit build logs for subjects built from 1751 - 1800 - Model Ship World™ He does very nice work as well: USS Constitution Cross Section by AndyMech - FINISHED - Mamoli - Scale 1:93 - - Kit build logs for subjects built from 1751 - 1800 - Model Ship World™ I used plans from one of the refits of the actual ship for the changes to the framing

John - this build involved a lot of kitbashing on my part - I added the deck framing, hammocks and racks in the hold - I also made what I think is a more historically accurate foot for the mast. And I skipped the ballast and the ladders. So my final product does not look all that much like the plans that came with the model.

Finished with the ship's boat - decided to make a cover for it and not try the interior detail. The cover is made from a piece of fine-woven cloth glued to the blank side of a white index card cut to size with a piece of string embedded to model tie-down ropes. This worked pretty well when I made hanging hammocks for the berth deck of my Constitution cross-section and I think came out pretty well on this boat. The cleats on the side of the cradle were home-made - from this angle at least they look serviceable. Now onto rigging the spares, which is usually fun, although I think things will get a bit crowded. Given the placement of some of the blocks hooked into the eyebolts on the deck - especially the fore running backstays, I probably shoulda rigged those before tying down the ship's boat...

Thanks Bob. Spars all painted and stained, now for the blocks and footropes and on to rigging!

Much more work than posting over the past few months. I decided to strip the boat of many of its OSHA/USCG inspired deck features and keep just those that straddled the centerline. I also painted the doubled portions of the masts, between the caps and the tops black, 'cause I like the look. The Admiral likes the way the ship's boat looks with just a coat of poly on it, so it will not be painted, although I will probably cover it with a tarp. Rigging the bowsprit/jib boom has been a challenge - lots of small deadeyes crammed into a very small space. One thing that vexes me is trying to keep the deadeyes - especially those for the mast shrouds - from twisting so that once rigged the upper and lower deadeyes are not always facing the exact same way. Any ideas would be most welcome.

I'm anxiously awaiting the cross-section as well - the scale should hopefully be easier on my aging eyes than the HO-scale Constitution cross-section I did.

Art - did you use the Marikate On and Off Bottom Cleaner alone to blacken the Britannia, or was it in combination with something else?