SkerryAmp

Thanks to John for technique for lettering, which I was worried about.
Done in a black text block in Microsoft Word, then cut out and applied with decoupage glue and coated with 2 thin coats.
 
I "glazed" the stern ports with a product from Micro Mark - a white viscous liquid that can be drawn across small windowed areas and dries clear.
 
I ended up doing the 3 starboard and larboard ports the same way, but without the circular frame.

Fair amount of time to work in the shipyard the last couple of weeks, so I've made further progress on the hull.
 
I did have what can only be described as a disaster trying drill holes to get the angled anchor chain pipes in place. I broke so much of the front end work I actually just cleaned up the shipyard and walked away, not at all sure I would be able to proceed. Had a brainstorm and went back and was able to do an acceptable repair over the next few hours, but I will not be able to actually feed the anchor chain through the chocks. So no anchor chain on deck, and anchors will be in stored position. The more I've thought about this, the better I feel about not having the chains running across the deck.
 
At this point next need to add the sea steps and the pinrails - I think I'll wait with the channels until I have the hull permanently mounted since I'll have to rest it on its side to drill the keel holes for the mounting.
 
Here's the overall look now.

I think I can upload these pictures of the actual skylight

Bruce I found some pictures on my website Gallery, "As She is Now" pages. Here is one showing it empty. The compass was a square box about 18" on all sides with the compass "dome" on top. It sat on the crossmembers inside the skylight. Looking up from the officer's quarters, there are a couple of "racks" (beds) on one side with curtains. Not seen from above. I can't seem to upload that particular picture for you. I took some pictures of my Morgan and you can go to the website to see the ones I referencing. They are down the page under the Len Turner pictures #38 I think (if I counted correctly)Here are acouple of pictures of my model.
John

A bit more time to work the last week than I expected, so I finished laying the deck planking. Still a few raised edges to sand but basically done.
I'm not into treenailing, so I simulated on each plank before gluing by drilling small holes and filling them with slightly contrasting wood filler. I'll not be staining the deck - probably just a matt clear finish.
Now I'm consulting the plans and will be adding features that affect the hull and the inner bulwarks before beginning on the deck structures.

Begun the deck.
Built the deck structure coamings and base for the skylight and decked around them. Removeable so I can stain them and build the deck structures on them and put them in place later.

I've had a week with little IRL work and wife off on several travels, so I had more time than usual to work on the Morgan.
 
Here is the current progress.
Decided to paint at this stage since I prefer to use airbrush and since I plan to leave the deck unfinished (except for matt varnish). I didn't want to struggle with masking the deck off perfectly at  a later stage while painting the interior bulwarks. It takes me a while to work up the courage to do the paint job to a good looking unfinished hull ever since I screwed up my first attempt at staining my New Bedford Whaleboat (MS). After that disaster I put it aside as a bad job until my wife urged me to sand it down and try again, which I did with advice from Chuck about progressively finer sanding and diluting the stains. Turned out OK. The airbrush was great for those interior bulwarks with all the stanchions - I didn't want to face that with a paintbrush and multiple coats. Went with the red hull as per the restoration rather than copper just because I prefer the look.
 
Obviously some things will need to be added (channels, catheads, etc.) but I'd rather touch up later.
 
Now on the the deck.
 
Not really totally happy with the white striping - I find it hard to do exactly enough to stand up to close inspections. Looks good from this distance though! The hardest thing is to balance desire to do best work (if not perfect!) and OCD tendencies, which modeling brings out in me.
 
Working now on the positions of all deck structures that require coamings so I can temporarily install the coamings before beginning the decking.
 
Will post some larger/closer pictures once the deck is in place.
Who knows when that will be?
Looking at these posts, I see that I've been intermittently puttering away on this for 11 months already.
 
This is turning into an expensive model - I've used up my holiday equity on a bunch of new equipment for the shipyard. I don't buy stuff till I need it, but my definition of need is a low bar and requires an understanding wife - which thankfully I have in spades.
 

So I've finally finished the planking and a rough sanding. Some work on filler for cracks, etc. yet to go.

No, I'm going to paint it so I think I'll just go with the single planking.
Speaking of which, here it is with provisional planking bands marked out with artist's tape.
Still adjusting, then will mark the lines on the bulkheads and remove the pins and tape.

Now on to hull planking

Well, it's been awhile.
Had an unfortunate accident in the shipyard (misplaced high velocity elbow) and crunched all the stanchions on one side, along with the rails and planksheer.
 
Put the mess aside for a while until replacement parts and patience returned.
I have now repaired the damage and planked the works above the first wale to give everything more rigidity.
Now ready to start the hull planking bands.
 
It looks OK - some variation in fit. I'm always hoping the next build will be perfect. Not yet.

So I've started on a Charles W Morgan build, although somewhat intimidated by the speed and or quality of the currently documented construction projects for this ship.
This model is a stretch for me, given the amount of scratch building involved and the somewhat cryptic instructions of this older MS kit.
I got interested after building the New Bedford Whaleboat, and added this kit to my "to do" stack. Having finished Picket Boat #1 to my satisfaction, decided to defer the Phildelphia Gunboat and take on a more complicated project.
I'm not retired (yet) and have many professional demands on my time, so I end up working in fits and starts and when I need the "therapy".
I decided to go ahead and build the hull superstructure before planking to allow better access for clamps for the waterway, planksheer, rail and topgallant structure. That's where I am now (pictures below). The rail structure is a bit wavy viewed end on on one side, but overall I'm relatively pleased within the envelope of my skillset. I had a few disasters in terms of inadvertant breakage of thin pieces (mainly the main rail) after installation by a misplaced hand while working on another part, but managed to overcome that adequately. I still have to do some sanding on the main rail as the strip I used was a bit wider than the rail is supposed to be - that is evident in the pictures where the rail meets the laser-cut curved rail piece forwards.
Next I'll plank between the planksheer and the mail rail to reinforce that area, and then likely add the wale and plank between the planksheer and the top of the wale.
Then I'll go on to bands A-D
The build logs and galleries on this and other sites have been a great aid.
 
Bruce

Slow progress on the hawse timbers.  I did finish a building cradle for the model, which will be her home in the shipyard until she'd mounted on the display stand.
 
I was satisfied with the fit of the first hawse timbers in bass wood so I fitted the real maple ones and glued them in place.  I just finished the bass wood mockup for the second timber and fit it in place.  It turned out pretty well.  I feel confident in the technique I'm using to shape these complex timbers to the model, and the practice on the bass wood mockups helps a lot.  Once the third timbers are mounted, the hull will be faired.

I started work on the hawse timbers.  These will be the most difficult part of the framing.  Pictured is a basswood mockup I made.  It's roughly shaped to size.  The real timbers will be hard maple.  It took about 1 hour to fit the mockup.

The inside of the ship was faired, as was the outside down to the jig.  I installed the temporary battens and removed the ship from the jig.   Next up:  Fitting the hawse timbers and fairing the outside.

All of the frames are glued to the rising wood and the deadwood except the last two, P and Q.  I had to remake the two pair of forward cant frames, because I didn't like the way they fit.  They are much better now, and the fairing of the hull will be easier.  I did rum into trouble with frame P, the next to the last one.  Basically the kit pieces made for a  set of frames that tended to "curl in" rather than line up with the upper futtocks of the frames that come before.  The size of the finished frame doesn't leave enough excess wood to fair frame P into the same plane as the frames before.  So I used the beveling template to make a new pair of frames, and beveled them to fit the hull curves at that station.  Cutting out the futtocks and gluing them together is easy...fitting the frame in place without an accurate beveling template is hard.  It took me a couple of hours to fit the new frames, but I like the end result.
 
The first photo shows the old frame P.  It is the first one.  Notice how the upper futtock is rotated inward.  The second and third photos shows the new frame P before beveling. The forward edge of the frame is high compared to the frame in front, and the uppermost  parts need to be shaped.  The last three photos are of the final pair of frames P in position in the jig.  The uppermost part flows more smoothly and the inside and outside surfaces are fair compared with the frame before.  A great improvement.  Once the poly is dry I'll glue this frame in place, fair the upper hull and install temporary ribbands to the frame tops.  The model will be ready to come out of the jig,

I'm ready to do a little more ship modeling now that we're into September.  I completed the frames and treenailed every futtock.  Over 800 treenails on the frames alone!   I used birch toothpicks and a #57 drill for them,  making them a scale 1-1/2" in diameter.  Maybe slightly large, but I like the effect anyway.   Each frame was then trimmed and sanded to fit the jig.  The 8 filler pieces (which define the sweep ports and the scuppers were beveled and sanded to fit between the frames.  You can see the paper templates glued to the most forward filler pieces.  these were used to accurately sand the rather acute bevel needed to fit these parts where the bow curves the most.  The others I did by hand, without using the templates provided.  Next is the glue-up.  Notice the compound angles that have to be formed to fit the forward cant frames

Not a lot going on in the shipyard recently.  The Admiral and I just got back from 5 days up in the Door peninsula of Wisconsin.  There's a nice collection of quaint waterside towns that remind me of New England seaside fishing villages, only these are in the Midwest!  We really enjoyed the little excursion. 
 
All the full frames for the sloop have been beveled and fit in place.  I laid a plank across the framing both inboard and outboard and it looks like there will be very little fairing to be done because of the pre-beveling of the frames before installation.  That's a relief!
 
The only mistake so far:  I installed frame H backwards, with the floor facing forward instead of aft.  The beveling is all correct...I just got a little confused when laying out the bevel pattern. I'm not rebuilding the frame, because I'm neither entering this ship in a contest, nor expecting my build to be examined by an expert in historic naval architecture. 

All my frames are glued up.  The first 8 have been sanded and beveled as needed and are sitting on the keel assembly in the building jig.  My frames are hard maple, the keel assembly is cherry.  Final fairing of the maple by hand is not going to be too easy!
 
Dave

I finally finished the keel.  The first step was to glue the stern deadwood in place.  The rosewood false keel was fitted and glued.  Next I cut the rabbet by adding a bevel to the top of the  keel and the bottom of the rising wood.  Then the rising wood was glued in place and the notches squared. Finally came the stem and the stem deadwood.  Once I finish beveling the frames, it'll be time to start framing the hull.
 
Dave

The rising wood was carefully removed from the billet and all the appropriate frames were fitted to the slots.  The slots were squared up and the keel is ready to be glued up.  I went a little out of sequence here by fitting the frames to the rising wood before beveling them, but I don't think it makes any difference.  The strip of dark wood in the picture is rosewood, which I will use for the false keel

I am playing around with the deadwood assembly for the keel. The deadwood is made up of 4 parts glued together. I plan to blacken the joints between all the parts to simulate caulking, but I also think that some of the component parts of the deadwood can be broken down further than in the kit. For instance, parts SD1 and SD2 were probably each made up of smaller parts on a real ship. I'll simulate this by scoring lines in the parts and darkening the scoring with a pencil to simulate caulking between the parts. Here's a shot from the practicum showing the deadwood, and my proposal to alter it's appearance . What do you think?

I've started gluing up the frames. Frame 0 is amidships. The frame's number increases going forward from there. Frame A is just aft of Frame 0, and the frames proceed alphabetically moving aft from there. Frames 0, 1 2 and 3 are straightforward and require no beveling. The numbered frames forward of these (#4-11) require progressively more beveling as the bow is approached. The same is true for the lettered frames moving aft. The first couple after Frame 0, Frame A and Frame B, require little or no beveling. The remainder (C through Q) are beveled. I finished and glued up the first 4 frames, 0 through 3. I'll also begin gluing up the other frames, as well as constructing the building jig and keel. My frames are maple. The deadwood, rising wood, keel, stem and stern post are all cherry. I'll add a rosewood or ebony false keel. I will also blacken the joints of all the deadwood parts to simulate caulking. I think the contrast in woods will be nice!
 

Thanks, Dan.
 
The first step in the build is to make the frames.  They come attached to the hardwood billets by two tabs.  I found the easiest was to remove them from the billet was to use a Dremel tool and a cutoff wheel.  In the photo, if you look carefully, you can see the burned area on the billet where the parts had been attached.  Each frame is made up of 9 or 10 parts.  The tabs are then cut off of each part, and the parts lightly sanded.  The first layer of parts is stuck to a template of the frame with double sided tape, and the second overlapping "sistered" layer of parts is glued to the first.  The photo gives an idea of scale

Hi Keith!
 
Bob's AVS is not technically out of production, but he won't manufacture a kit unless he has a lot of 8 orders and business has been slow.  He doesn't really advertise.  If you are interested, I believe he has one AVS in stock right now.  As to this Kit:  It's quite a bit different from the MS AVS.  The kit differs from Bob's previous kits in that the frames are beveled before installation, making the fairing of the hull, both inside and out, muck easier. The 3D parts are quite excellent.  The detail is amazing.  You'll have a hard time looking at typical MS, Amati, Corel Britannia metal castings and then using them.  Photo below of the 3-D printed parts.
 
PS:  If you're interested in selling "Halifax", I'll take it off your hands!