vaddoc

For hand held (rotary) tools in sub milimeter sizes, I am using Heller drills or Proxon drills. I have the small Proxon drill press which is wonderful. Small footprint, easy to use, just great. Combined with carbide drill is a great tool, can drill through anything with accuracy. Would be the thing to take to a deserted island, along with my disc sander. Carbide drills cannot be used with hand held drills, they ll break inside your piece and cause issues. Similarly, be careful using black hardened steel drills with hand held drills- they are also fragile although very sharp.
To avoid breaking bits, go for the fastest speed without burning the wood, though some woods respond poorly and will start smoking when drilled.

For hand held (rotary) tools in sub milimeter sizes, I am using Heller drills or Proxon drills. I have the small Proxon drill press which is wonderful. Small footprint, easy to use, just great. Combined with carbide drill is a great tool, can drill through anything with accuracy. Would be the thing to take to a deserted island, along with my disc sander. Carbide drills cannot be used with hand held drills, they ll break inside your piece and cause issues. Similarly, be careful using black hardened steel drills with hand held drills- they are also fragile although very sharp.
To avoid breaking bits, go for the fastest speed without burning the wood, though some woods respond poorly and will start smoking when drilled.

For hand held (rotary) tools in sub milimeter sizes, I am using Heller drills or Proxon drills. I have the small Proxon drill press which is wonderful. Small footprint, easy to use, just great. Combined with carbide drill is a great tool, can drill through anything with accuracy. Would be the thing to take to a deserted island, along with my disc sander. Carbide drills cannot be used with hand held drills, they ll break inside your piece and cause issues. Similarly, be careful using black hardened steel drills with hand held drills- they are also fragile although very sharp.
To avoid breaking bits, go for the fastest speed without burning the wood, though some woods respond poorly and will start smoking when drilled.

Indeed Bob!😁
I was referring to methylated spirits.

It works wonderfully. It is not a primer, it is a sanding sealer. Water based so no toxic fumes. Dries in 10-15 min. Sands beautifully. Leaves smooth sealed wood. I have no need to use anything else.
Usually slap a coat on sanded wood with no real care, wait 15min, slap another coat with or without a quick 400 grit sand, wait another 15 min, then do final 320 or 400 grit or whatever and wood is sealed and smooth. Completely colourless. Job done!

Good advice above, however I personally never liked Shellac or PVA for sealing wood. I ve been using Decoart wood sealer for years. Water based, dries in 10 min. Absolutely wonderful stuff. A bottle will last years and years - shelf life it seems indefinite.
 
Deco Art Americana Multi-Purpose Sealer-8oz, Other, Multicoloured, 236 ml (Pack of 1) : Amazon.co.uk: Home & Kitchen

Indeed Bob!😁
I was referring to methylated spirits.

In the past I ve used a lot of humbrol or automotive primer (not good) but for wooden models is really not needed most of the time. There is no problem with adhesion and to smooth imperfections, a filler is needed. It might be useful if the colour of the underlying surface needs to change dramatically, for a large red surface applying a red or grey primer will reduce the number of coats needed. But since you can add 4 coats in an hour with acrylics, maybe not worth the cost and trouble. I usually sand away the primer leaving a thin smooth film. Never tried the Valejo primers, I ve been using the Humbrol white and grey spry can primers which I think are good but will not fill in imperfections. 
 
I like using sanding sealer as it seals the wood leaving a very smooth surface so the paint later does not soak into the wood and does not raise the grain. Painting on sealed wood is a better experience than painting raw sanded wood. I very much like the decoart/Americana water based sealer, the large bottle should last a very long time and has a very long self life. Dries in 15 min, sands very nicely. This sealer sits on top of the wood, filling the valleys and essentially levelling the surface. I usually sand the wood to 400 grit, apply a coat, sand smooth with 400 grit and repeat with a second coat. The surface should reflect light afterwards and be smooth  and slippery. No worries, the paint will adhere very nicely.
 
Never tried weathering, on my to do list!
 
Do not dismiss enamels completely, they are wonderful. Low odour mineral spirit will allow you to paint in the house but cleaning the brushes is a pain, it takes a long time to dry so attracts dust and if you leave everything on the table waiting to add another coat in 6 hours, you will inevitably spill the mineral spirit on the table/floor and the admiral will not be impressed and will ban indoor modelling activities. Much easier to use acrylics...

I now only use deco art (americana) multi purpose sealer. Very cheap, very good, dries in 15 min. Better than shellac. No experience with polyurethane!

The sealer will fill the pores, seal and smooth the wood, stopping it from drinking too much paint, also there will be no problems with the water based paints raising the grain. It is a much better experience painting sealed wood.
 
The primer is not to solve adhesion issues which are pretty much non existent with wood, it is to give you a nice uniform colour, close to the colour you d like to use. So for a black hull, I d use  grey primer. The primer will not fill any imperfections in the wood, however you can use a filler under the primer coat as it will not be visible.
 
Thin to a consistence of milk I d say
 
I think a varnish layer will always give some protection. However it needs care as gloss varnish can be very gloss, and matt needs extra stirring and care in application so that the matt medium does not leave streaks. In the past I have used Renaissance wax on wood, which is completely invisible. Nice on brass as well, keeps it shiny for years.
 
Try out these products on scrap wood, not on the model!
 
Best of luck with your hull!
 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/DecoArt-Multi-Purpose-Sealer-DS17-236ml/261972030617?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649
 
Test your paint/finish on scrap and not the model! I use cheap plywood or plywood offcuts to see how various things react. 

Yes, tack cloths are great, I use them as well. The alcohol rub is to remove any residual from the tack cloth, fingers or the mayo sandwich😁. Probably an overkill but painting a large hull is an equally big job, bit of a set back if it fails...

Wefalck, to get good coverage with acrylics you really need a dozen or more coats. Thicker paint does not increase coverage, it just increases the chance of messing things up and reduces the self levelling properties of the paint.
 
Bob, dry to wet means this: If you have a surface to paint, start on one side and paint a bit. Then continue working from the unpainted surface and ending to the previously painted segment so the two blend together. Do not rework the painted surface even if you see brush marks. If you have the right dilution and the right paint, the brush marks will disappear.
 
Have a look at the following pictures. Both boats shown are very large, 1:12 and 1:10 scale.
 
This is gloss blue enamel, only 2 coats, 6h apart I think. Great coverage and depth of colour. No brush marks! The boat is about 50+cm long

 
This is Valejo acrylic, can't remember how many coats but they were many, 15 min part. Brush paint, no brush marks! The planks in this hull are 70+ cm long

This is the same hull with Valejo matt polyurethane varnish on the red and satin on blue. The brush marks are actually the matt medium in the varnish that did not distribute evenly, matt varnishes are very tempermental.

I am actually not good at all at painting. It is the modern paints and brushes that are so good. The Valejo hand brush thinner is very different than the airbrush one and has more stuff in than alcohol and water, it actually congeals. 
No ties with the company, I just like it a lot!

I did not like rattle cans Mark, too expensive, easy to put too heavy coats, needs a lot of masking and makes a mess. Acrylics dry incredibly fast (so they do not trap dust) but their coverage is very poor compared to enamels. I need 12 coats vs 2 for enamels. I always tell myself I ll use enamels and always end up with acrylics. The depth of colour is much greater with enamels. Use the brands' thinners, do not make your own. Valejo hand brush range is fantastic.

Hand brushing is a good alternative, quite satisfying as well!
I have only basic painting skills and do not want to use an airbrush. I have had excellent results with hand brushing using Valejo colours following these rules:
1. Use very good brushes, with appropriate width for the job
2. Thin the paint (should be runny but not like water), avoid heavy coats.
3. For Valejo, use the hand brushing thinner, different and better than the air brush thinner. It congeals if left so must have resin in it (this is what valejo claims so not easily reproduced at home). Get the 60 ml bottle, it is not expensive.
4. Use a bit of retarder.
5. Start from dry and end on wet. Take your time, you can go over the area 2-3 times. Avoid puddles at the edges.
6. Trust the paint! Do not go over again to "correct" or smooth out brush marks. They will disappear. You ll probably need a dozen or more coats either way.
7. Best to seal the wood, I use a water based wood sealer sanded to 400 grit
8. I use plastic pots with caps that seal pretty well and are cheap. The paint stays wet for months.
9. Use only frog tape or Tamiya tape or equivalent. The paint will bleed under ordinary masking tape or electricians tape.
10. Acrylic paint is not tough so needs to be protected with varnish or some topcoat
 
Hopefully these will be of help to some. May not work for all but I was able to paint my 80 cm hull with almost no brush marks.
 
Vaddoc

What a lovely boat Hakan!
Life has kept me away from MSW and my shipyard but I went through your entire log today though - very enjoyable! Lovely scale.
Great news regarding your health, I am so happy for you!
Re: equipment: just get what you want! I d go for the largest disc sander you can afford, if you do not already have one.
 
I am very interested to see how your planking with no spilling will go. Have you done any planning how the planks will run or just plank along? Do you taper the ends at the stem? Also, are you bevelling the edges of the planks? 
 
An advantage of CAD vs 2D is that all frame bevels are defined, inside and out and cut before hand so very little fairing is needed, if any.
 
On another note, I think I have a few hundred (could be thousands - I do not know) treenails about 0.8 mm sitting around. I need to check but if still where I last left them and you could use them I could post over. Save you draw plate time. 
 
Regards
Vaddoc
 

What a lovely boat Hakan!
Life has kept me away from MSW and my shipyard but I went through your entire log today though - very enjoyable! Lovely scale.
Great news regarding your health, I am so happy for you!
Re: equipment: just get what you want! I d go for the largest disc sander you can afford, if you do not already have one.
 
I am very interested to see how your planking with no spilling will go. Have you done any planning how the planks will run or just plank along? Do you taper the ends at the stem? Also, are you bevelling the edges of the planks? 
 
An advantage of CAD vs 2D is that all frame bevels are defined, inside and out and cut before hand so very little fairing is needed, if any.
 
On another note, I think I have a few hundred (could be thousands - I do not know) treenails about 0.8 mm sitting around. I need to check but if still where I last left them and you could use them I could post over. Save you draw plate time. 
 
Regards
Vaddoc
 

@vaddoc, I kind of have missed your updates, but I know how life is and that we have to make priorities for our available time. A sincere thank you for the well wish, it is a tremendous relief for me and my family (all seven of the kids...). Also thx for the encouragement re equipment. I surely will in due time 😉 
 
Yes, I like the boat as well and I have really tried to keep it going through all this hard time. It helped it keeping me sane and out of the depression pit.
 
Over to answer your questions... in the book it is given that the real ship had 23 strakes and the shipwright calculated that they needed be 5" wide at the stem. So, from midships going forward planks are straight, but tapered down to a width of 5 mm. At midships the planks are 8 mm (I think). Going aft, the last plank is spiled. For these first four bands I kind of just went along. Care taken so that planks at the stern came out somewhat equal on both sides, as well as up front.
For the remaining planking I will be more careful and divide the remaining space in bands as per the planking tutorials here on MSW. The stem is easy since it is straight and flat. But the stern needs some careful planning beforehand.
 
Did I bevel the planks then? The answer is yes. As per the book the free side is left square and the mating side is beveled to fit tight to its neighbour. If not done where the hull form bulges in or out sanding will reveal gaps and that I want to avoid. 
Tree-nailing was a bit of a test, but it came out good so I'll stick to doing it. Both the hull, where it will be more or less invisible due to paint but also the deck, where it will be visible (i.e. no paint, just added patina). Sending your leftovers would be very generous of you. Of course you are welcome to do that. 
It might not look like it, but this build is a step in my skill honing for coming projects 😁 Next up will be Speedwell, scratch as well but probably not in 1:48 as in the books, rather 1:32 to match Atlantica in scale, or maybe the other way, down to 1:64 to match even later projects... future will tell.
 
Cheers! 🍻 (it's Friday after all)

What a lovely boat Hakan!
Life has kept me away from MSW and my shipyard but I went through your entire log today though - very enjoyable! Lovely scale.
Great news regarding your health, I am so happy for you!
Re: equipment: just get what you want! I d go for the largest disc sander you can afford, if you do not already have one.
 
I am very interested to see how your planking with no spilling will go. Have you done any planning how the planks will run or just plank along? Do you taper the ends at the stem? Also, are you bevelling the edges of the planks? 
 
An advantage of CAD vs 2D is that all frame bevels are defined, inside and out and cut before hand so very little fairing is needed, if any.
 
On another note, I think I have a few hundred (could be thousands - I do not know) treenails about 0.8 mm sitting around. I need to check but if still where I last left them and you could use them I could post over. Save you draw plate time. 
 
Regards
Vaddoc
 

Yes Keith, a mini talbe saw is definitely on the wish list, along with a stationary disc sander. However sweet they are, the Byrnes machines are out of the question. Way too expensive with postage and customs now. I have my eyes on the Proxxon instead.
In the meantime I have found a 5" blade that fits my full size table saw that has a kerf of 1.3-1.5 mm (can't remember) it's the blade that I cut myself on a year ago. At the other end of my blade stack is beast of 305 mm... excellent for milling purpose.
Instead of a scroll saw I use the band saw with a narrow blade, 6 mm, 0.8 mm thick. It has 4 tpi which is too coarse, and I'm in the market for some 6 tpi blades. I have a really neat one mounted now that is 0.6 mm, but at 10 mm wide only large arcs are possible (like deck beams). 
 

Since I today was under influence of "fumble fingers" I thought I'd better update this space.
Thanks to all that browse by and leave a like or a comment 🙂 
Deck beams it was...
Curvature is given as 180mm "rise". Using the sw it was quite easy to draw a circle that fitted the given parameters. Print out and stick to some scrap pieces.
My take was to manufacture two sanding jigs, one convex (upside of beam) and one concave (under side of beam). 
All beams are 200 wide and the moulded size goes in step from 180, 175 down to 150 mm. Some in-between beams are 140 both measurements.
This scales down to 6,7 wide and 6, 5.8 and 5 mm high (moulded) beams.
Birch is the wood.
The pictures roughly cover the process...
First shape is sanded below. And the sanding moulds can be seen also. 120 grit paper. Quick work since I use a narrow 6 tpi bandsaw blade.

Part a beam off the stock. A narrow guide aids so arcs can be sawn easy both ways.

Next upside-to-be is sanded.

I managed up to three beams of every blank. When all beams were cut and upside sanded, focus turned to under side. Now 80 grit paper due to more needed off.
I quickly abandoned holding the beam with fingers, instead ripped off the sandpaper from the other mould and glued some guide pieces to keep the beam in place. No picture.
Then it was much more comfortable to sand all the 28 pieces. Constant measuring was needed as well.

Here the shipwright inspects. (actually taken before the underside was sanded)

Next fun little project was the aft whatever-it-is-called big piece of timber.

And here it has come some way. Actually version 2... version 1 lies above the pen on the board.

Til next time, cheers!
 

Thanks for likes and comments 🙂 
And as promised, here are the last two pieces of the beam shelf. I didn't get the shape entirely correct on the starboard one, but it will be covered by the deck, so no big deal.
Port side.

and starboard side

There is also a check seen, but since the piece didn't go "crack" when bent in place (steamed first) I let it be.
And an overall shot as well.

That will be all as far as the interior goes. Beam shelf and two stringers.
On the real ship there were a couple of stringers at the turn of the bilge apart from the slats to cover the frames.
Next up will be deck beams. But that is for another day.
 
Cheers!

Thank you Tony and others that have "liked" 🙂 
Work continued... not so much to read here today so I'll just treat the audience with some progress pictures.



And here in the last photo are some cro-moly "treenails" that won't shear anytime soon...

Yup, drill bits. It all went really well until.. Never mind, I'm quite well stocked with drill bits for the moment.
Pax et bonum, friends!
 

Agreed druxey. She was strong though and could separate herself from the disease. 
 
anyhow.. Happy new year to us all!

Let me take a moment to explain what is going on in the above picture...
I have come to realize that, to get a consistent and satisfying result when building from scratch jigs and fixtures are instrumental.
Above the two first parts of the beam shelf are being worked on. The starboard side is glued and fixed and the port side await its turn.
The beam shelf sits ca 160 mm beneath the sheer and the sheer is defined by the top outboard strake. As can be imagined the beam shelf needs to be edge bent as well with some degree of force.
So, the pine boards (cross members) have a 5mm tab glued to them and also some double adhesive tape to make them unwilling to move.
At the stem a stump of correct height is held in place by a large clamp in order to meet up with the front end of the beams.
With this setup it was quite easy to force the beam in place up against the pine tabs.
 
The keen eyed viewer can also see the mast step and supporting beams are glued in place.
After trunnels and some cleaning it looks like below.

A note on the tree nails.
On the original the following bolt dimensions where used:
entire keel structure - 1"/25mm
other places of stress - 3/4"/19mm
planks, beams aso - 5/8"/16mm
For example, hull planks where fastened with 16mm, but I've used 0,8mm (24mm real world dimension).
Mainly for two reasons,
1, drawing bamboo down to 0,8 mm is quite simple. Going the extra mile to get down to 0,53 mm (or 0,5mm to match drill bit size) adds quite some time and effort.
2, I think of it like simulating the bolt head, which of course is at least twice the bolt diameter in size.
3, inside won't be seen and outside will be painted...
 
Then of course there is the discussion of with type of glue to use...
For the hull planks I used medium CA and for the beams PVA. And the reasoning is that the outside will be sanded and painted and I therefore don't need to be bothered of residue. The interior will be hidden and not painted, but I still want it to look nice and PVA washes away easily with water.
 
 

Thank you @Jaager for a serious answer to a silly question. 
I was joking about the balsa as an option. Please don't put me on your s**t-list for not being totally clear about that.
I am well aware of its shortcomings and its uses, which are few. Like you and John say - good for filler on POB builds but that's about it.
 
And yes, I did put myself in the hurt-locker with the frames being a bit oversize. So I knew all along what I had coming to me.
The outside of the hull was faired with power tools. Both my circular orbital sander and my orbital corner sander (sanding pad like a swollen triangle) made a somewhat quick job.
The inside is another matter and I have opted out for using power tools there. It would be far to easy to char areas unintentionally. Hence manual labour instead.
 
On a more philosophical level I try to balance my use of power tools for a couple of reasons.
They are for the most part noisy. (yes I do use hearing protection extensively but I appreciate the silence in my shop)
They produce a lot of dust and spreads it into the atmosphere (yes, I have a shop vac connected as far as possible, but still, it is not feasible at all times to connect a bulky hose)
I like working with my hands and f.ex. a sharp chisel removes wood fast and clean.
 
About sand paper or their alike. I agree there too with you Jaager.
Grit 100-120 is for removal. The rest of the spectrum is more or less to get rid of the scratches from the previous step. 
Of course, smaller things can be sanded to spec using 150-180, or even 240. But in my current case with the frames, even 80 could be an option to start with.
 
Thanks again for comments.