SkerryAmp

Thanks Russ!
 
 
Thank you sir!  Welcome and hopefully I don't make TOO many mistakes.

Thank you much!  Amazing how much I have missed this stuff... whew!
 
 
 
Thanks!  Great to be back in the mix!
 
 
Looks great Tripp - although there is a lot of pop corn and band aids all over - not sure if I should be ascared or now =)
 
 
 
LOL - thank goodness I didn't fall asleep sanding - that would be some mega repairs indeed!!    Had a fantastic holiday and hoping to fend off the leisure time thieves a little better this year.
 
 
Thank you very much! Look forward to getting back to it.  Will be circling around to it soon !

Thank you Denis - I did indeed.  And looking forward to a solid productive year!

Thank you!  I will be back to the Mayflower once I get an idea of how to fix my issues.   I am slowly coming to the realization I may have to take some parts off and rebuild  and well - that terrifies me! LOL
 
 
I do like the white back ground - I am not sure where it went so for now people get to see my messy desk.
 
As for ratlines - EEEEK!   Trying to scare me off already! =)

Thank you sir - that is the plan!

Alrighty then, let's see what we have going on now - whew.
 
When last we left the Santa Maria I had just finished up the second layer of planking.  I then moved onto some trim, the waterways, timber heads,  and started the hull details. So onward we go.
 
The first thing I want to say is that the next bit of work was made a thousand times easier with the help of a few things.
 
I pulled out my NorthWest Short Line Chopper - boy do I love this little gadget, made cutting some of the thicker walnut pieces a breeze.  If you don't have one and/or something similar I cannot recommend this enough - it is fantastic!
 

 
Being my first time working with walnut I was surprised at how fragile it is.  Splinters VERY easy, cracks etc.  So, aside from the normal clean up of gaps and spaces I found this product to be very helpful.  Walnut colored Plastic Wood.  It dries much lighter than the walnut wood, however a quick wipe of a diluted walnut stain (very diluted 10:1 natural:walnut) it actually blended quite nicely.
 

 
Finally - a LIFE saver.  I have never had a good knack for bending wood.  There were a couple of waterways as well as the outside hull parts that, being thicker wood, did not want to bend nicely.  Doing some digging I found some articles as well as a supporting comments from a couple of MSW member posts regarding a curling iron.  So - gave it a try... and WOWIE,  I was able to bend so much easier than I ever did in the past, including an edge bend on the walnut waterways.   SO HAPPY!
 

 
So - with that little intro out of the way, here is where we have come....
 
First thing I tackled was trimming out the poop deck and the rear stair entry way.  This was pretty straightforward, made easy with the chopper. Cut to length, angle where necessary and glue into place.  My joints still need a LOT of work - as you can see. SO there will be some cleanup/sanding required on the poop deck.
 

 
 
Next was to lay in the waterways.  As I mentioned above they did NOT want to bend into place.  So, this is where i gave the curling iron a shot and again - wow.  A little patience and gentle nudging (after learning how to use the little clamp thingy as leverage) and it bent just fine - quickly even.
 

 
Next up was popping in the timberheads. Again, used the chopper to get some nice clean cuts and once installed sanded/trimmed the top flush with the hull.  Once the upper rail is on I think that will look quite good! At this point I also installed the mast hole base and marked off where I am going to have to drill later (that still makes me nervous).
 

 
 
Lastly I started working the outer hull details.  Again, the curling iron came in VERY handy to help bend these guys both at the bow and along the edge to help seat them nicely.
 
As you can see I only got so far as installing them, I still need to clean them up - sand them out, fill and finish.  That will be the next step!


 
 
Well, that is it for this update!  As always - comments, suggestions are welcome and encouraged.

I have a long way to go with growing my skills but at least I am seeing improvements in some areas as I move along - which is encouraging!
 
Until later -  Enjoy and Happy Modeling!
 
 
 

Thank you much!  Amazing how much I have missed this stuff... whew!
 
 
 
Thanks!  Great to be back in the mix!
 
 
Looks great Tripp - although there is a lot of pop corn and band aids all over - not sure if I should be ascared or now =)
 
 
 
LOL - thank goodness I didn't fall asleep sanding - that would be some mega repairs indeed!!    Had a fantastic holiday and hoping to fend off the leisure time thieves a little better this year.
 
 
Thank you very much! Look forward to getting back to it.  Will be circling around to it soon !

Hi Adam,
Glad you're back at the table, I'll be following your log with interest as I'm working on the HL as well, nice work so far
J

what.......crap!   I thought you fell asleep sanding............      life does have it's way of robbing leisure time......there's either a lot of it,  or none at all.  the only thing I can suggest,  is when you see it.........GO FOR IT!!!  
 
I'll have to check out your Santa Maria for any new updates.   hope you had a great Holiday..

Indeed, welcome back. Hopefully we kept things tidy enough while you were out (Mark brought his shop vac in to clean just last year...).

Welcome back Adam. Great to see you found your way home.

It's great to see you back, Adam.  As for your seat at the table.. it's been waiting for you.

good to see your back Adam.......hope you had a happy holidays

Looking good Adam..... rat lines are right around the corner!    

The Styrofoam board make s a nice background, huh?
 
Good to see you back at work mate.
 
Happy new year!

Glad to see you back! There aren't enough Mayflower logs to follow. I have this kit on my shelf for my third build. Look forward to your progress.
Steve

have a productive 2017 Adam........glad to see you've returned  

(Returning Preamble)

Whew.  Hey all.
 
I am not sure what protocol or etiquette is for continuing a build log after a very long hiatus.  I feel the need to explain my absence though, so whether necessary or not here goes.
 
It has been one heck of a year.  Shortly before my last updates here I was beginning to venture into a new career as well as getting involved in Muay Thai Kickboxing.  The first, for security the second for health reasons.   That, very quickly, became my life for the last year.   If the admiral and I were not going to the gym or sparring I was dug deep into code projects and work related things.  It pretty much consumed my world and thus my time.  Combine that with a bit of frustration and a disheartening event with the mayflower and well - a building hiatus ensued.

My career seems to be going well at the moment (hopefully I did not just jinx myself) and I have evened out on the learning curve. The Kickboxing has hit a nice groove with a nice schedule that we have fallen into.  This has, luckily for me, freed up some time and let me return to my other loves - writing, playing guitar and building these wonderful wooden vessels.

I popped back on shortly before Christmas to get caught up.  Am amazed, as always, at the progress of several projects and all the new ventures I saw.  As I searched for updates on some of you guys I sadly came across the news of Augie.  That took me back a bit - so sorry to hear that (even though I am late to the news).

Well, after re-evaluating my process and goals with building ships I am getting back to it.  I sort of have a very high bar set for myself which did lend itself to frustrations with my various builds.  I have decided to put that to the side.  After all, I am far from an expert - heck barely out of novice really - so my ships will be as good as I can do them with the skills i have.  Each ship will get better and my skills will grow - and that will do just fine =)

So - if there my seat at the table is still around here some place - I think I will get back to building =)

Good to see you all again!
(Since I have many build logs going, this will be CnP'd to the my first post across all of them - sorry for the repetition).
 
 
As for the Willie Bennett - it is still in the rotation but at the moment my focus is on the Santa Maria.  So - will return to this one in a bit, but at the moment going to focus a bit more - for a while; we will see how well I can do

Again, glad to see you all again - missed ya'll quite a bit and am glad to be able to return and look forward to a nice solid year of modeling!
 
Enjoy!

Love it Popeye - the way you attack these ships is awesome.   Errant breaks, repairs etc always send me into bout of frustration - I think I need to figure out how to look at it like you - an opportunity!
 
Nice going so far, as always my friend - this  should be a good one 'specially once it has been popeyed! =)

EJ what a fantastic start to what looks to be a monster of a kit.  Looking forward to this progress as I am always in awe of some of the sizes of these ships.  I will stick to my smaller ones but gladly live vicariously through those of you who take on the monsters! =)

Love it Popeye - the way you attack these ships is awesome.   Errant breaks, repairs etc always send me into bout of frustration - I think I need to figure out how to look at it like you - an opportunity!
 
Nice going so far, as always my friend - this  should be a good one 'specially once it has been popeyed! =)

EJ what a fantastic start to what looks to be a monster of a kit.  Looking forward to this progress as I am always in awe of some of the sizes of these ships.  I will stick to my smaller ones but gladly live vicariously through those of you who take on the monsters! =)

Love it Popeye - the way you attack these ships is awesome.   Errant breaks, repairs etc always send me into bout of frustration - I think I need to figure out how to look at it like you - an opportunity!
 
Nice going so far, as always my friend - this  should be a good one 'specially once it has been popeyed! =)

EJ what a fantastic start to what looks to be a monster of a kit.  Looking forward to this progress as I am always in awe of some of the sizes of these ships.  I will stick to my smaller ones but gladly live vicariously through those of you who take on the monsters! =)

Spent a little more time in the ship yard today and decided that it was time to start laying out the planking guidelines now that I know where my lower decks will be. As this is a double planked hull I know that I have room for errors in my planking but, I always try to do it right as this gets me extra practice. I will explain how I plank my hulls for anyone who is either still learning or looking for a new idea. As with most things, this isn't a right or wrong it is just my method to get the results I am looking for. This will allow you to have your planks laid down with uniform widths in a complete strake running the length of the hull with no drop planks or stealers.
 
So, to get started I established the lowest wale and marked it across all the bulkheads giving me a space to measure for planking between the keel and the wale. Next I measured the space along each bulkhead and wrote that dimension down on the wale at the intersection of the bulkhead. Repeat at each bulkhead. Next I measured the width of the planks that will be used. They are 6mm wide. I start with the widest dimension that I measured along the bulkheads. This was 155mm. I divided that number by 6mm and came up with 25.8 or 26 strakes. 155mm divided by the 26 strakes gives me a width of each plank at the widest point of 5.9mm or 6mm. Always round up as the sanding for tapers will eliminate that .1mm. Since this is my widest point, no plank will exceed that width. Once I know my plank widths I take a flexible tailor's tape measure and make tick marks down the length of the bulkhead from keel to wale line to establish guidelines for my planks. I am now in the process of repeating this step at every bulkhead on both sides of the ship. From here on out in both directions the planks will narrow. As you can see in the picture the spacing is shrinking, the number of planks stay the same and the plank widths decrease as the space shrinks. 
 
I will add more pictures as this continues. Let me know if there is something that should be shown as I can easily leave something out that I take for granted that someone may need.

Well, I did it. I pulled the stern apart and cut away all the filler on the aft bulkhead so that it would more closely resemble actual framing. I realized to do the cabins the way I want to there was no way it could remain as designed. In fact, a lot of the aft portion of the ship may be getting redesigned as the decks and the cabin windows are not lining up properly. I am still trying to determine if the error is just in the supplied layout for the windows or if it is in the structure itself. I hope it turns out to be in the window layout as I am scrapping that one anyway to make my own. The reason for this is that the supplied layout is for a 5 window configuration and I am going to go with the 6 window configuration as seen in the below picture. While I do not know for certain which is correct, I like the look of the 6 window and the balcony layouts as well as the quarter galleys make the most sense to me this way. After viewing a lot of pictures of models built both ways as well as the various prints of her stern, I think I have settled on this.  
 
Ok, now to figure out how to build it.... Good thing there are a couple of holiday weekends ahead of me!