SkerryAmp

Hey Adam,
 
   Just catching up on some builds after a long hiatus. Looking forward to see your progress on the SM when it rolls through your rotation.
 
- Bug 

Minor update... planking is ongoing but I needed a break.  So back to the longboat.
 
Reworking again... 5th time I think, the form for making the longboat.  1st was the hand carved plug... tossed it.  2nd was the bulkheads like Chuck uses and BE did so well at 1:64...  broke the bulkheads.  3rd was the same using thicker bulkheads, still broke off the framing bits.   4th was a plug that used the laser to cut out... Something hiccupped and it came out 1" too long.  I'm still not sure what happened...  So.. number 5... in all it's glory.  Exact size and I'm happy.   Now to put it together and start adding stuff like frames and keel. 
 

Mark, you could also use a Macaroni chisel (yes, there is such a chisel and it's not made from semolina ).  Pfeil makes them down to 4 mm in width. Some other brands may go as small as 2 mm. It has a square shape and cuts on three sides. Looks like picture below.  Would be far easier than trying to program the laser.  BTW I have two of these chisels.

 
 
Looks great as is tho. Nice job.

Minor update for the ship... a big one for me.
 
Planking continues.  No pics yet.  But while waiting for glue to try, etc. I've been busy working on carvings... or trying to anyway.  Also made minor progress on the longboat and a few drawings for parts needing to be cut out.
 
So.. the carvings.  The picture shows the first one I've attempted..  well actually it was the 4th attempt and hopefully, I can live with it.  The first two carvings I'll need are the name cartouche on the stern and Arms of France above the stern windows.  Mulling it over, I went for the "easy one".    I soaked them in isopropyl for about 12 hours and that removed most of the char.
 
I ended up doing bas-relief style on it after several failures of trying to carve the letters such that they stand proud.  Not going to happen in my lifetime. So I ended up removing the char as I carved out about 1/2mm deep leaving the lip and lettering (as one area not the individual letters) standing proud.  A touch of well-thinned brown paint (used a needle for this) and what I wanted highlighted is now about as good as it will get.  It actually looks better in real-life as most of us don't have eyes with macro mode.  
 
Onwards...... 

 

Thank you for the comments and likes.   It is shall we say, interesting, doing a French ship when all you've ever looked into was the American and English vessels. 
 
 
 
Steve,
I picked that up from here on MSW and also from a couple of books.  Keeps one honest in the planking. 
 
 
 
Hi Patrick,
I mentioned way back here;  http://modelshipworld.com/index.php/topic/5339-licorne-by-mtaylor-pof-316-french-frigate-hahn-version-20/?p=331918 when I started cutting parts for the longboat.  I started one early on using a plug while waiting for the wood for the framing but that bit is in the fireplace. It just wasn't working for me.  I made some basic mistakes in the plug... 

Thanks for the likes and comments.   Short update time.
 
I've laid 12 stakes of the 8" wide planks...  15 to go.   Looks rough but I'm seeing light so what appears to be gaps is just mismatch in thickness and shadows... I hope.
 
From the re-lining off I just finished a strake ago, I won't need a stealer at the stern.  Looking at the French ship monographs I have, a short, wide plank can be added such that the strake is continuous.  I've added one and probably won't need any more. From the dead flat, the strakes run from 8" to almost 4" and then back to 8" at the sternpost. 
 
On the bow side, the planks run from 8" at the dead flat and then eventually taper to 4".  However, at least one drop plank is needed which will be put in in my next two strakes.  I'm trying hard to keep scale on this even though it looks strange due to the scale (to my eye at least). 
 
First two pics show her in all her unsanded, rough looking planking.
 
The third pic is my side project, the longboat.  I needed a way to do this so thought, fiddled, thought, and then came up with a plan I think will work.  I'm using a variation of Chuck's method.  I did have to re-do this once already as for scale, the frames should be 2" (1/32") wide, but I kept breaking them and then realized there wasn't enough meat to hold the planks securely. So, I doubled the width of the frame.  We'll see where this leads.... hopefully not the scrap bin.
 
All in all, I'm pretty pleased.  There's some things I need to think about for the next ship, like is scale planking better or worse than eye-appeal cause these planks are relatively tiny compared to the planks I've used in the past.
 
Enough over-thinking for now... pressing on.
 

Inner wall of the back wall done and some of the internal cabinetry......

Thanks, Brian.  Here's a final shot after fixing the port side also.  The port side wasn't nearly as bad as the starboard.  Next up is finishing the fairing of the transoms and installing the wales.  When that's done the framing is complete and I'll begin work on the lower deck.

I tackled the transom problem today.  Because of problems with the lofting of the after cant frames, the frames did not line up with the transom. The last 4 frames tended to curve inward, like the bow, rather than flow straight to the transom.  The only solution was to cut each of the final frames and "bend" then outward to meet the planking which is already in place.  The frames were then  glued to the planking, and when the glue is completely dry, I'll fair the inside of the hull where the "surgery" took place prior to planking the inner bulwarks.  It was REALLY difficult to chuck a cutoff wheel into my Dremel and cut the frames off after all the work that went into building them!  Fortunately, I'm planking both sides of the model down to the wales, inboard and outboard, so the "fix" will not show.
 
The first photo shows the problem, the second shows the cuts and the third shows the frames straightened out and glued to the planking. 
 
Now on to the port side!

The keelson is glued to the frame floors using Weldbond.  The black bands are nylon electrical cable ties acting as clamps to hold the keelson to the assembly while the glue dries.

Scuppers and sweep ports cut into the port side.  The scuppers are bigger than they should be because when drilling the pilot hole to cut out one of them, the drill came out too high on the plank above the black strake.  All the scuppers had to be bigger to compensate.  Still, I think it looks OK.  It's just one of those things that the builder notices, but no one else usually does on the finished model

Thanks for looking in, Hamilton.
 
Don:  Purpleheart is a very brittle wood and hard to work with.  The grain is strong so you have to be very careful cutting with an X-Acto blade.  I'm glad I only had 2 strakes to contend with.  I did have a lot of practice on my MS AVS because I used bloodwood to plank the inboard bulwarks.  Very similar characteristics.
 
I bent the wood using a steam iron.  it worked pretty well, but took awhile.  After gluing the strakes in place, I cut the upper edge of the gun ports into the purpleheart.  Here's a photo.

I've added the shear strake and completed framing the gun ports.  After the glue is cured I will cut away the shear strake to the top of the port frame to define the upper edge of the gun port.  On the old MS model of the Armed Virginia Sloop, many builders painted the shear strake to add a little decoration.  I decided to make mine out of purpleheart and not paint it.

I added the black strake and three boxwood strakes above it.  The practicum calls for adding a 4th strake and then framing in the gun ports.  The ports are then opened up by drilling holes at the corners, and connecting the holes with an X-Acto knife.  The better way is to cut the ports BEFORE adding the 4th strake!  I used a razor saw and cut down using the hull frames as a guide.  The bottom of the port is formed by using a #10  X-Acto to define the line and then sawing through the half frame that needs to be removed with a #13 blade.  A file cleans up the edges.  As you can see they are crisp and straight.  Once the last strake is added to the top off the port, the top edge is defined again with an X-Acto.  Please excuse the planking.  It hasn't been sanded so the grit, glue stains and unevenness show up well.  It WILL look better when done!

I've been trimming the little tabs that were used to stabilize the frames when they were glued to the rising wood and deadwood.  There are three left to do!  You can see from the photo how each frame flows smoothly into the rabbet.  My next task is the final hull sanding and attaching the counter and transom.

Sorry I lost track of your Mayflower build Adam. Beautiful job.
Dave

Adam, your Mayflower is looking great.

Very sharp looking boat, you are doing a great job. I'm at about the same stage with my Mayflower and am looking forward to seeing your rigging being done

Well,  I have managed to stall the port and starboard planking by working on the stern =)  
 
I did the first planking on the counter and was actually pleased with the result.   Up until now the only real "planking" experience I have was with the Whitehall tender (which was a nightmare and am sure left mental scars) so entering into this stage is a bit nerve-wracking.
 
The counter was filled and sanded and ready to take the next layer!!
 

 
I used an archival ink pen to do the caulking on the 2cnd planks.   I had seen this as a suggestion some time ago and gave it a shot and it works great!!  No bleeding into the fibers of the wood and a nice solid black.  Worked great!!  The type of pen that I got also has a brush style in addition to the pen and marker style tips.
 
With the caulking done the planks went up!!
 

 

 
Starting to feel kind of good about this whole process.   I do realize it is not perfect by any means, but a heck of a lot better than I expected!!
 
I then went at the port lids.  3 planks would not fit in full and if I started even with the top of one lid I would have a sliver at the bottom.  So I overlapped the first plank such that half the board would be on the port lid, which then left a partial plank, full plank, partial plank pattern which worked out pretty well.  I then trimmed them up square and let them dry and cleaned up the counter a little bit.
 

 
 
To finish off this process I went through and finished planking the transom.  To cut the patterns in the diagonal plank around the port lids I used I used a piece of scotch tape and traced the outline of what the plank would do then transferred it to the plank itself and cut it out.  Worked pretty well!!    Doing this I laid down the final planks, gave a little sanding and that step of the planking was complete!!
 
You may notice I did not do the caulking in this section.  This was a conscious choice since I knew i was going to be painting this area I opted to skip that part.
 

 
I sat back and thought - heh cool, this is coming along but something just isn't right....
 
Oh yeah... Forgot the tiller...
 

 
NOW we are cooking with gas!!!
 
 
Well, so far this has been pretty fun.  It is nice to learn new techniques and new things in general, however am still nervous about the rest of the planking but will be giving that a shot today.    I also need to clean up this current work a little, especially around the port lids as well as add in treenails before I stain it.
 
All in all I think it came out okay.
 
 
Thank you for stopping in, as always comments critiques and suggestions are welcome - until later!!
 
Enjoy what you do and do what you Enjoy!!!
 
-Adam

Augie, ever so humble - from where I sit you certainly deserve the praise - that is such an incredibly looking model.  The detail, cleanliness and tightness is really coming together to make work of awesomeness (yes that is a word, I say so).
 
Carry on - loving it!!!

Just a small update - we have deadeyes and chains all ready and waiting for their shrouds at which point I will anchor the chains into position, right now they are just kind of dangling a bit - however a bit of other rigging work before we get to the actual shrouds, but the eyes and chains came out pretty well.  Let me tell ya though, them channels were ooooooh so fragile - snapped 2 off while reforming the grooves to take the chains.
 
All ended well though!!
 

 
 
Thanks as always for stopping in,  more to come shortly!
 
(The masts are in place and drying overnight, then MORE RIGGING! )

Thank you sir!  It was indeed just a scratch - have had and am sure will have worse - I am a klutz after all!!!

Just a small update - we have deadeyes and chains all ready and waiting for their shrouds at which point I will anchor the chains into position, right now they are just kind of dangling a bit - however a bit of other rigging work before we get to the actual shrouds, but the eyes and chains came out pretty well.  Let me tell ya though, them channels were ooooooh so fragile - snapped 2 off while reforming the grooves to take the chains.
 
All ended well though!!
 

 
 
Thanks as always for stopping in,  more to come shortly!
 
(The masts are in place and drying overnight, then MORE RIGGING! )

Just a small update - we have deadeyes and chains all ready and waiting for their shrouds at which point I will anchor the chains into position, right now they are just kind of dangling a bit - however a bit of other rigging work before we get to the actual shrouds, but the eyes and chains came out pretty well.  Let me tell ya though, them channels were ooooooh so fragile - snapped 2 off while reforming the grooves to take the chains.
 
All ended well though!!
 

 
 
Thanks as always for stopping in,  more to come shortly!
 
(The masts are in place and drying overnight, then MORE RIGGING! )

Just a small update - we have deadeyes and chains all ready and waiting for their shrouds at which point I will anchor the chains into position, right now they are just kind of dangling a bit - however a bit of other rigging work before we get to the actual shrouds, but the eyes and chains came out pretty well.  Let me tell ya though, them channels were ooooooh so fragile - snapped 2 off while reforming the grooves to take the chains.
 
All ended well though!!
 

 
 
Thanks as always for stopping in,  more to come shortly!
 
(The masts are in place and drying overnight, then MORE RIGGING! )