glbarlow

Thank you Herman for the kind words. I still shiver when I recall the first frame crashing to the floor.

As shown in my log I had three different sized hatches as I took from the plans. For reasons I don’t recall and make no sense I reversed the aft most hatch and the companionway. I’m sure what ever makes you happy with the deck furniture works. The hatch covers are a good time to experiment with basic scratch building. The walnut strip in my kit was so brittle I couldn’t get anything decent. So I used some boxwood I had and made lap joints, more realistic than 45 degree mitre joints. But again, be successful and have fun on your first model, it’s a learning experience to build on. I didn’t make any changes to my gun angles, I’d definitely wait until the final deck to even consider it. As you get there I’ll note I had to scratch built the bits, I couldn’t ‘get the bowsprit to fit otherwise. FYI, I successfully obtained my college degree, and I had to work at this using other electives, without taking a single math course😂😅🤣 I’m quite proud of that, but never told my kids so maybe not that proud.

Your fairing indeed has paid off. It feels good to get those first planks on, you’re off to a great start!

Thank you Bob for your kind comments, I very much appreciate them!

I have ebony wales on my Fair American. I’m sure you know to be very careful with the toxic extremely fine dust it creates. Wearing a mask the whole time I sanded them smooth in the traditional way, 200 down to 400 grit, I also put a coat of WOP over it as the last step careful not to leave any excess. Finally, I thoroughly vacuumed and cleaned my work area. I was amazed at the smooth, almost black glass finish when I was done, it’s really very pretty. But that was my one and only experience with ebony

Thanks for the kind words, I doubt my Cheerful even ranks in the top 5 but i have had a good time building it. I thought about the plaque but then decided it’s when I started not when I finished…plus I can’t get it off the stand:-) I don’t put my models in glass cases. One wall of my office all book shelves, it will go on one of those shelves and every six months or so will be taken down, lightly dusted turned to face the other direction as i do the others and put back on the shelf. Leslie says if the Winnie meets standards we can put it on the credenza in the family room, but that’s likely 3 years away so who knows…

Each tick strip for each bulkhead will be different, but incrementally smaller or larger. Before about lining the hull I’d physically hold planks at the waist to see how many it took to cover the ship there with a full size plank, say 5mm and that it took 15 planks, so that’s 75mm to cover at the widest/tallest point. Then I’d measure at the bow with a strip of paper from top to bottom, say it was 25mm. You know you need 15 planks to fit in that space so 25/16=1.7. Starting at the widest bulkhead each 5mm plank has to be tapered to 1.7m at the distance of the bow. This is what lining the hull is doing, only more precisely. Truth is for a hull as small as LN, the middle, stern, and bow are all you need to line. I’d reread the .pdf. Validate your correctly using the planking fan, and cross check your work doing what I described above. At some point you’re going to say, ”how did I miss that” after you figure it out. Do Not Quit, MSWhas a secret squad that will find you 😂🤣😅

I’m not sure what else to offer beyond what I’ve said and carefully reading Chucks lining the hull .pdf tutorial. I don’t mean to be flippant, but clearly you’re doing it wrong. The marks are based on the tallest to the shortest with only a smooth transition from one to the next. Maybe John’s table will help.

Create a tick strip to match the longest/largest bulkhead, likely the center most one. Measure it, Divide that length by the width of one plank (different for first and second planking). It should match a whole number or close to it. If it’s an odd number make your upper belt one more than lower belt. It’s likely not to an exact full number, you can make that up later two-three up from keel where it won’t be seen. The first belt line should start at that full number of planks (if that’s 6 planks of 5mm planks that’s 30mm down). The point of the planking fan is what the width of the planks all the other bulkheads will be, they will not be whole numbers and at the bow a 5 mm plank may be only 2.5mm (or some number). Since you’re work isn’t likely to be precise you need to recheck the numbers every 2-3 planks and adjust. Bottom line a single plank must run from bow to stern. There must be the same number of planks at the bow as there are at the waist, just more narrow.

First divide into two bands. The length of the first tick strip is the length of the bulkhead in the top band and the second of the bottom band. The width of the ticks is set by the planking fan set by the number of planks in each band. In other words the plank will taper. Chuck has a .pdf on lining the hull. It’s hard to understand without following that .pdf. Two maybe thee planks might be full width, after that you’ll have to taper the planks. It takes practice to get it right.

I guess I have, but not before fall. I may have to enlarge my work area😂

Thanks Derek, very kind of you to say so being a master yourself. Many of my newly learned skill came as a result of your help, thank you. Next up are the final photos then recovering my ship room, no small task. We’re off to Montana later this month so probably the next project will be later this summer. I’ve neglected my photography since the pandemic, I haven’t posted to my Facebook business page in over a year, so that needs attention. And of course time with the grandkids before school starts. My next project is Flirt followed by Winchelsea, with Sphinx in there somewhere, that should cover the next three to four years.

I’m happy to hear you’re finding the log useful. I enjoy writing it and have spent quite a lot of time doing it. I appreciate your taking the time to comment.

I like your choice of red, Cheerful is go RED or go home and you’ve gone RED! Nice work on some tricky steps. They don’t look like much but I know how hard they are to get right. Every step done right now pays dividends later. Your fairing looks really good.

Be sure to soak them in acetone before blackening and don’t touch them in between. There are lots of discussions here on methods about blackening.

You made short work of the square tuck. Very nice job!

I do spin about the room with my rolling chair to serve rope, bend planks or operate machinery so it is kind of handy that way😂 The floor is nailed of course, I hadn’t thought about tree nailing it though, something to consider. My wife might have to weigh in on that one 🤣😆

I haven’t needed to do anything additional to the weathering, I haven’t used Dullcoat anywhere on my model. I’ve used it before, it’s a good product.

I have elected not to include a flag or the optional anchor buoys (though I did make one up) mostly because I want the focus to remain on the wood. So I have the stanchions and anchors left to complete my model. Stanchions There are four stanchions, two for each of the boarding ladders. They are a small but visible detail, one I enjoyed making and another example of what I’ve learned during my build. It was back to the lathe starting with a 3/64 square strip of boxwood. I started with the tail stock but quickly discarded it - I didn’t need it for the spars I didn’t need it now. I used only files to create these. I kept it simple given I had to make four that looked alike. I couldn’t quite get my iPhone to focus on the stanchion, so the image is a bit fuzzy. On the left side you can see a few practice runs for the impact of various files. I found my #2 barrette and #2 triangular the most help in shaping after I’d rounded the stock first with a larger #0 barrette file. Both the lathe and these high quality files (I had lots of cheap ones) joined my workshop during this build, great modeling tools they are. I’ve improved with the lathe, it took only seven attempts to get four I liked. I didn’t get all exact matches, more like two of a kind for one side and two for the other. I started by thinking I’d make a nice tenon at the base but decided it might not be strong enough and/or be too large a hole to drill in the cap rail so I opted to pin them with cut off brass nails (I have hundreds of these). I made the little practice board for testing a clean fit to the cap rail and a visual check to be sure I had two that looked good together, with all the rigging there isn't a lot of room along the cap rail to work. The stanchions are ‘metal’ so that meant back to my process (or to be more precise the process I learned from Chuck’s monograph) for getting wood to look like metal. First my Admiralty Iron Works Black paint then to Doc O’Brien’s weathering powders and my soft brush set. The set comes with twelve different powders, I’ve only used Rusty Brown throughout my build, first on the carronade barrels and then applied to every “metal” piece since including parts of the windlass and winch and actual metal pieces for the deadeye strops and stay belays. I got the powders from MicroMart, if you’re interested in weathering your work I highly recommend this brush set I also got from there. I used 4 brushes in sequence for anything I weather. The first small one to apply (oops, just noticed the small one is missing from this photo), the flat round one to remove excess, and the third and fourth to burnish/polish it in. I don’t really see the affect until the last brush is used, feather light, to bring out the ‘metal’ luster. It is my goal for there to be no evidence of the powder remaining once I’m done brushing, other than on my hands and everything around me. I drilled holes into the cap rail and added the stanchions to both sides. I’d been happier if I’d drilled these back when the cap rail was installed but it worked out, no damage. The stanchions should have a hole through the ball on top with a rope run through down to the bottom boarding step on either side. For cosmetic reasons I elected not to add either, the ship is at sea, the rope isn’t needed. On a side note I am no longer worried about mini-me’s ability to climb aboard or exit the ship, he’ll be fine now. Anchors The anchors begin with another excellent mini-kit from Syren Ship Model Company, multiple times during my build I’ve enjoyed assembling these kits from Chuck’s website. While in theory each could have been scratch built, I’m equally sure there is no way I’d want to attempt that or obtain anything like these lasered pieces of art. Chuck does throw a light curve by leaving the winch to be completely scratch built, so I did do that. It is also an opportunity to meld four pieces of wood into a single “iron” anchor. Here are the how they all come together before they later turn into realistic anchors. Having sanded the edges in the appropriate places, glued it all together, and filled the (very small) gaps with filler, it’s through the ‘metaling’ steps of Iron Works Black paint and Rusty Brown weathering powder. The stocks require the notch to be improved to fit the anchor, but not too improved - there should be a gap in the center third to allow the wood to breath (not that I’ll be dropping it in any water). That requires some careful work to deepen the notch but not too deep. There is some adage about measure twice cut once, I go more for the measure what you measured and then measure it again, then decide if you measured it right. After a lot of sanding to shape these stocks, including a taper from middle to end viewed from the top,, I was going to use black filament for the bolts, but decided I started with the pencil and wood filler method back with the keel, might as well finish with it. I made sure to account for where the “iron bands” would go using the plans, once again measuring my measurements. Here the holes are drilled with a #70 bit. With the bolts added I simulated the iron bands with black masking tape cut into 2mm strips. I used this black tape in multiple places on Cheerful for the first time having used black card on previous models, I’ve also tried shrink wrap plastic tubing. For me the black masking tape is a much better option to apply, and in my opinion a better look when its finished, especially after the coat of WOP I added to the stocks. The pudenning took some patience to slowly wrap .008 dark brown line around the ring and add a shorter second layer on top of that in three places. More exciting was getting the completed ring to fit into the holes of the relatively fragile anchor without breaking anything. So while I could have bought third party metal anchors with pre-made stocks, the Syren mini-kit allowed me a near scratch build opportunity to create my own “metal” anchors. I have to say while they may look it, these weren’t simple to complete. It took me a couple of days, much longer than I would have guessed when I started with the assembly, shaping, weathering, bolting, etc.. Nonetheless it was very rewarding to have the end product, a fun last last item to build. I chose a bit of a different path in rigging the anchors to the ship. I had decided months ago not to cut holes into the main hatch and run hawsers, my anchors would be in a stored mode. It’s the first time I’ve done that on a model, I just liked the cleaner look for Cheerful. For that same reason I didn’t add coils to the ratlines or the optional buoys. Fortunately there is a perfectly placed cleat on the bulwark to tie off the rope. On my ship the hawsers and anchor buoy are brought up from below deck as we enter the harbor by my able crew. I started this build log with a photo of my then nice and neat work area. It is anything but nice and neat now, it will take me a couple of days to put it back together again. As it got close to the end I just quit putting stuff away, there are scraps of wood and rope everywhere and there are a couple of cabinets I’m afraid to open at the moment. I’ve spent a lot of hours here this past thirteen months (excuse the distortion from using my iPhone’s wide angle setting). Today my four year old grandson saw the boat sitting there and once again asked "when can I play with it?" With that my anchors are secured and my build is complete. I will post final photos of my HM Cheerful to close out the log once we return from an extended July 4th weekend at our lake house. A quick thank you to all my British friends for the holiday we are about to celebrate for the 245th time, with regrets to King George. Thank you for all the comments and the likes, they are genuinely appreciated. Thank you for taking the time to stop by.

Thank you both for the comments, they are really appreciated. Still one build post to go before the final photos.

Thank you, I appreciate the comments. I’m going to take a photo of the workshop now to include with my final post, clean doesn’t apply now. I let it go as I was closing in on the finish line. I’m really glad the log is helpful, that’s been my intent all along.

The mini kits and excellent design really helped, I’ve learned so much. Glad my log helps.

Thanks. It is bittersweet for sure.

I’m done. Post to follow in a few days on stancions and anchors, plus another after i take final photos. Meantime, mini-me takes a look around

Just be sure your blocking doesn’t prevent you from centering the mast including it’s rake. I didn’t add anything because I know from experience I want a bit of play when it comes time to step the mast. You should consider painting those carriages red. They will stand out unpainted. But it’s your model. First hand experience is the best teacher.