catopower

Hey Slog, Your railing looks absolutely beautiful to me. I can't imagine that mine will look nearly as good when I get to it on my V108. Really lovely work! Clare

Thanks for the nice comments Carl, Druxey. Druxey, I'm giving your suggestion a try. When I looked at it last night with my eyes and not through a camera lens, I have to admit (Carl) that it's not very noticeable. Still, I added water, but this wood soaks it up like a sponge and didn't change much. I was reluctant to add any more water as I could see the area that was getting wet was growing too much. Doesn't look like the dye has been affected any. Looking at it today, it hasn't changed much. Seems that the Japanese wood is actually too hard to swell much. It is a very brittle wood unless wet. Both holes are a little smaller, and if I go over the correct hole with the "Tooig" it will probably look better. Unfortunately, the Tooig is easily misplaced, so the repair will have to wait a bit! Pressing on, the next step was to add the planking for the main deck house, or yakata. If you've looked at my other builds, you might have noticed that this is the same word as in Yakata-bune, a pleasure boat of a much later period, with a similar type of deck house. The large Umibune of the Kamakura period has a second small deckhouse at the stern for the pilot. This house is referred to as the tomo-yakata. And for those of you who are enjoying the Japanese terms, don't think for a moment that I have all these things memorized. I'm a student of wasen, or traditional Japanese boats, and I'm having to look this stuff up all the time. I laid down the raised deck for the yakata, and you'll notice that these had to fit precisely between the existing beams, or futabari. These are narrower planks than the ones on the main deck and they run the full width of the boat. To support them, I simply installed ledges along the hull planking, in between the beams, for the planks to rest on. One problem I ran across was what to do about the space under the upper deck. It seemed a little odd to just leave it open, but I had no information on whether these would be closed off or not. This is pretty much an open deck boat. The yakata, houses the passengers, but crew and some cargo would just be sitting out on the deck. If these openings were closed off, it would just be that much harder to store goods under there. The main deck planking might even be left off under this space, so as to allow for more cargo. Unfortunately, there just isn't much information available. I've seen museum models that appear to be done both ways. Above is a photo I posted earlier, but here I am focussing on the aft edge of that upper deck. This is about as good as it gets with most of the information I have. There's another photo of a similar model that looks about the same. There is clearly nothing visibly closing off this space, unless it is well recessed, and I don't see a reason it would be recessed. But then, we come to a larger model that I believe was more recently built. The above model was 1/20-scale. The model below is most likely 1/10-scale. The photo was taken early this year by my friend and fellow ship modeler, Mr. Masami Sekiguchi, who has been a tremendous help to me in my studies. This model, if I'm not mistaken, was in a gallery at Kanagawa University, which has a Japanese Cultural History department. I'd hoped to visit the gallery last year, but didn't have time. It's hard to see in this photo, but the underside of the upper deck, and also the raised deck at the bow, appear to be closed off. Of course, it's also possible that at this scale, the builder decided to do that, in part, so as not to have to speculate on the structure underneath these decks. It's actually one reason I didn't try to build my model at a larger scale: The bigger the scale, the more detail that needs to be included – details that I don't have information on. In any case, here's the completed upper deck. Also note that I've added a beam at the stern. This beam supports the outer rails, the segai, reinforces the hull planking, and serves as a place to secure the rope that will help support the weight of the rudder, or kaji. Later, a lower beam will also be added when I complete the structure at the stern. You'll note that I placed a kind of splash board on the forward edge of the ōtoko, or great beam. This was speculative, and I've actually removed it after looking at the various museum models.

Thank you Mark, Carl. Carl, here you go: Okay, but it may be more a case of being "Shipmodeler-ese!" I didn't have any photos of it, but I used a piece of painters tape to create the line for the mortises, then I just used my mortising tool to make the impressions along the edge of the tape. The biggest problem I encounter is when I hit a hard spot in the wood that pushes aside the "tooth" of the tool. Anyway, the next step was to add the beams, or futabari, and the caprail. Japanese terms vary between regions and probably over time. On other wasen, or Japanese traditional boats, the caprail is called the uwakoberi. By the way, I learned recently that of the log hull, the bow section is called the omotegawara, the main hull section is called the dōgawara and the stern section is called the tomogawara. Kawara is a common term for the bottom of a boat. In the above photo, you can see the bottle of wood dye I've been using. If I didn't dye the wood, the model would have a similar color to that of untreated basswood. In any case, with the beams in place, I then added the outboard rails, which are called segai. On the real ship, these were tied down to the beams, so that's a detail yet to come. One thing that bothered me about some of the museum models I've seen is that the stay for the mast is attached to that beam at the bow. The problem is that I don't see any way that the beam could be securely fastened to the hull. So, I decided to employ a method used in other later boats, which was to tie the beam down to another beam which is mortised into the hull planking. Below is a photo I took of one of the replica Hacchoro boats at the port of Yaizu last Fall. You can see how a beam is tied down. It can be untied and removed when not in use, etc. I took the same idea and applied it to this bow beam on the umibune. The photo above shows the beam tied down into place. I temporarily removed the deck planks here. I also notched them to allow for the passing through of the rope. This would, of course, necessitate the ability to remove the deck planks as needed, but removable deck planks is a common feature of traditional Japanese boats. The only thing is that if that's the case, some of the planks should probably have a finger hole to allow one to more easily pull up the planks. Also, certainly on Edo period boats (400 or more years later), a pattern was commonly cut into the surface of planks like this to make it visually easier to identify which plank goes where. I haven't seen the feature or the finger holes on any of the museum models, so I'm not incorporating them here – the builders probably know something about these that I don't!

Hi Ruben, Have you looked into the Ship Modelers' Association that meets in Fullerton? I don't think they're terribly far from you and there's a lot of great talent there. I recommend making one of their meetings. I maintain a membership with the group, but I live in Northern California, so I've never made one of their meetings. Together with this site, I think you'll get lots of good help and inspiration on on your ship model project. You can find their website at http://shipmodelersassociation.org. Clare

Next step was actually very simple, which was to add the upper planks to the hull. These were notched where necessary for the support beams, called futabari. I created the simulated mortises on the planks and then glued the central plank into place, slightly overlapping the lower plank. On the real ship, I suspect this was actually made up of separate lengths, fastened together end-to-end in some way. As you can see, I had a little trouble with the alignment of the mortises in the upper bow plank. I may try to fix this later.

Hi Druxey, it's easy when you have a Tooig!

Don't know why I kept calling you Mark, maybe because you posted a note to Mark at the end of one of your posts and I wasn't paying attention and thought it was your signature(?). Anyway, yeah, I heard back on my query to Emilio Marletti. I believe he's the president of the company. Apparently the PE sheets for the ME version of the kit were laid out completely differently. It's not that the parts were different, but he has to figure out which parts you mean exactly, so he knows which sheet or sheets you need. Things get re-engineered for efficient production, so it's quite possible hooks are on a sheet that's also used for other kits now. I was trying to figure a way to show him the right parts, but it sounds like you already took care of it. I'm sure he'll figure it out from there.

Before going any further on the deck planking, it was necessary to cut an opening in my false deck for the mast. I haven’t decided if the mast will be mounted in a raised position with a sail flying or if it will be shown lowered as shown in the plan drawing. The mast itself is similar to one from Woody Joe’s Higaki-kaisen kit. I have no way of knowing how accurate this is, but it is based on the drawings and on museum models. Basically, it’s a square cross-section mast that is thick at the base and tapers slightly towards the top. At the very top, it's cut for a pair of sheaves. Again, I have no access to information on the historical use of sheaves or blocks by the Japanese. One gentleman in Japan who was connected with a group that operates a modern replica boat had commented to me that the blocks on the replica (17th century boat) were modern and that the Japanese didn’t use blocks back then. Of course, I could have mis-understood him. Still, it was enough to make me think about the need for some historical information on simple technologies like these. As you can see, I started the deck planking at the same time. Below is the piece for the mast. I cut two slot using the table saw and chiseled out the center. I cut a mast support and the finished shaping the mast to fit it. At the bottom end of the support, I glued a wooden base, notched for a tennon in the end of the mast that would help lock it into place when erected. The support assembly was glued to the bottom of the hull, and planking of the deck was then completed. On a replica of a 17th century fishing boat, the single plank directly in front of the mast was notched to completely cover the opening in the deck. This would be replaced with a second plank, cut to leave an opening for the mast, when stepped.

Great detail, Danny!

Thanks Druxey, it's a... Jool! (sounded better than a Tig)

The completion of the first of the hull planking gave me a little more confidence to press ahead on the model. There is still much that is unknown at this point, but I’m hoping that some of those details will work themselves out over time. I made platforms at each end of the hull, but realized that the stern platform does not extend all the way to the end of the hull planking. It should stop short, forming something of a “well” for the rudder. In addition, there is the matter of the “great beam”. This is a feature that exists on every type of Japanese boat I’ve seen which has a rudder. There are many regional terms for parts of boats, but this one seems to be universally referred to as the Ootoko (Oh-toko). This is generally the heaviest beam on the ship, and it is notched for the rudder post to pass through. Since the rudders on traditional Japanese watercraft didn’t use gudgeons and pintles, this beam provided the leverage needed holding the rudder against waves, and allowing large rudders to act as keels when under sail. I initially made an otoko and mounted it into place, but later realized that it really needed to be notched to better fit the hull planking. Also, because the ootoko appears to be directly over the aft hull section (the carved block), I found it necessary to notch the end of the carved block. I don’t know that this would be correct, but it was necessary for the way I built this model. While working on the ootoko, I also decided to add the centerline beams for the deck. Based on work I’d done on other Japanese traditional boat models, I knew that the beam had to be cut into sections and fastened between the transverse beams. Also, the centerline beams had to have ledges onto which the deck planks would rest. Similarly, I needed to add a ledge around the edge of the hull. These were all made with 1mm thick hinoki. After I laid out these remaining deck beams, I went back and added the first hull planks at each of the ends of the ship. That's when I discovered that I needed to modify the ootoko. In general, I was very happy with the ootoko I originally made, but it just needed to be better, so I made a second one. The second one was longer and notched so that it fit over the first hull planks. Apologies for the blurry photography. Hopefully, you get the idea. Note how the mortises on the hull planks of the stern platform rise up, as they would have to have been nailed to the deck planks here.

The next item to deal with is the main deck. To begin with, I installed beams directly on the hull. These are 2mm square stock hinoki wood. Of course, the real vessel would have a hollowed out hull, but this works out just fine. Most references I could find seem to suggest that beams on Japanese boats are lined up with those above or below them. This makes sense as you want to be able to load cargo without having to deal with beams getting in the way. So, beam placement was easy. With the beams in place, I measured out the spacing for the planks and cut some 1mm thick hinoki strips that I had on hand. They had to be trimmed slightly so that an even number would fit between each beam. In the meantime, I was anxious to get to the hull planking, so I cut some strip stock to fit. As the planks are simple straight pieces, I could use the plans as a direct pattern. The main reason I was anxious to work on the hull planks was to try out a method of simulating the mortises in the wood for the edge-fastening nails. Some time ago, someone gave me a set of stainless steel chisels that I found to be absolutely useless for anything I tried to use them for. Somewhere along the line, I got the idea that I could grind them down to something I could actually use. I decided to buy myself a cheap little bench top grinder, and I made a tool for making mortises in the soft hinoki wood. By pressing the tool lightly into the wood, a rectangular impression could be made. Of course, at this scale, it’s really more of a small slot in the wood. I had originally attempted to grind the “tooth” so that it was centered. That obviously didn’t happen. Then, I realized that I could work this to my advantage. The distance from one edge to the “tooth” was about the spacing I wanted between mortises. So, I used the width of the tool as a visual guide for spacing the mortises. On the real boat, mortises would be cut in the wood and a pilot hole would be made to line up with a similar pilot hole in the edge of the log hull. Then, flat iron nails would be pounded into place. It’s possible that these were made to drive all the way through the log hull, where they might have then bent over and pounded into the wood on the inside of the hull to give them a more secured hold, but I have no evidence of this. In the case of my model, it doesn’t matter, as the inside is not visible, and the presence of the nailing is only represented by the mortises made with the new tool which, by the way, made short work of it.

Hi jct, yeah, Shipyard has changed their online store policies a couple times. Roger at Ages of Sail doesn't want to carry more fittings than he already does, so he hasn't been interested in carrying the paper blocks from Shipyard. Paper ship models are still a niche market in a niche market (ship models) in the US, and Shipyard doesn't really understand why Ages of Sail isn't selling more stuff. I think they may be doing this on purpose to get Ages of Sail to buy more stuff and carry the blocks. But, that's just my theory. All i I know is that when Roger put in an order, he gets maybe $8000 worth of product (retail value) at a time. They probably really like that and so they keep bugging him to order. They even bug me about it now, since I help out Ages of Sail with some things. Long winded way to say, I don't know. Might help if people wrote to Ages of Sail asking them to carry the paper blocks. You can also do what I did and just use wooden blocks. Or, if you really want paper, check Cornwall. I think they started selling some Shipyard stuff.

Mark, I just got a verification from someone who handles Amati's social media that the offices are closed until the beginning of September, though he said someone might be there a few days earlier. So, it might be a while before you can get any help on this. I did send a message to them about the PE sheet. But, it will probably go unread until then.

Hi Mark, Problem may be that a lot of Italian companies close for an extended Summer holiday in July and August. I'll look into it.

Things happen... Congratulations on getting these Mamoli kits out! They were sorely missed.

Daniel, I notice, and spot checked a few of these kit images on your website, that your kits indicate that they have Pre-carved hulls now. Is this an artwork mistake? Or is this a major product shift?

Hi Kurt, Sounds like you've got it pretty well covered. The clinker planking is already laser cut and I doubt that you'll find it difficult at all. I built Shipyard's HMS Alert paper model, which had clinker planks pre-designed in a similar fashion and found it to be quite easy. Much easier, in fact, than carvel-built planking. The Le Cerf monograph is great, I have a copy myself, but it just makes me want to try to scratch build the thing! I love how the deck in the Dusek kit is already laser cut for you in pear wood so that the planks follow the curve of the hull. Not only does it simplify a difficult to build feature, it makes short work of the deck planking too. I suspect that between the laser-cut deck, and laser-cut clinker planking, you will find this to be a very quick build.

Hi Mich, you know Amati's a sponsor of MSW, so you can just click on their banner on the front page and go to "Where we are" under their Contacts tab, that has the phone and email. But, you said you contacted their distributor here and didn't get a positive response, do you mean Ages of Sail? And what wasn't a positive response? I help out Ages of Sail with various things, so I can ask about it. Normally they can order the entire PE set as a special order, but obviously, you just need the missing sheet. The only issue I see might be if the sheets have changed. Usually, things can be special ordered, but it can take a really long time. I'll ask about this.

Hi Kurt, Funny you should mention it. I have the kit right here as I was going to do a little slide show or video of the contents of the kit for Ages of Sail, which carries the kit. I think it's oddly overlooked by the general ship modeling community. The standard kit, like other Dusek kits, uses resin castings for the cannons, and that's the only downside I see to it, as I prefer nicely turned brass. Probably something Chuck sells might work. What I really love about the kit is that it's one of the few non-Viking ship model kits that features clinker built planking. I've been planning on taking some photos and I can post them here for you in the next couple days.

My apologies for lack of intermediate-step photos. I got a bit carried away with progress, so the photos jump ahead a bit as I describe details of the construction process. As I mentioned earlier, I'm using hinoki, Japanese cypress, and the American equivalent of hinoki, Port Orford cedar. Again, I'll just be referring to it all as hinoki as the two woods are so similar in properties, including the scent. Oh, one correction. I was mistaken about the location of Bear Creek Lumber. I got it mixed up with a place called LnL Lumber Outlet in Oregon, which I first contacted. This is the place that's located in the area where Port Orford cedar grows. Bear Creek Lumber is actually in Washington state. I think I got the two places mixed up at the time and ordered my wood from Bear Creek Lumber. Next time I buy Port Orford cedar, I'll maybe do it when I visit my sister up north and detour to the Oregon coast and pick it up in person. Because hinoki is very light in color, I am dyeing the wood using a product called TransTint, which I thin with denatured alcohol. I just mixed a few of the dye colors by eye to get a more aged wood color. The stuff is not cheap at $25 a bottle, but it goes a long way. I bought mine at the local Rockler Woodworking store. Nice this is that this can be applied to the parts before assembly, as it doesn't interfere with glues. The first thing I did after the lower hull was done was paint it using artist's acrylics. This entire portion of the hull will be painted black, and will be the only paint on the model, so it made sense to do it before adding other wood to it. Somewhere along the line, I realized I had created a couple small dents in the soft basswood sheathing of the main hull. A pin prick through the paint layer and a drop of water swelled the wood are of the dent right up and back into shape, so all is well. The next step was to create the trapezoidal platforms at each end of the vessel. Some images of paintings I referenced show similar boats with these planks running horizontally. I ran them lengthwise, thinking the planks might hold up better against any waves hitting them. Also, if the planks ran cross-wise, I would think it might add some awkwardness to the construction of that platform. In this close-up image, the arrows point to the planking I'm referring to. You can see that these run horizontally. However, this is a much smaller boat and I'm sure it was only used on rivers. The next image is from a modern painting, so I don't necessarily take the details for fact. But, it is a useful interpretation. I like in particular how it shows the straw mat sail, which is too unwieldy to actually furl, so it has to be rolled up instead, though I don't know if it would be quite as bulky as depicted here. So, the planks of these platforms must have been fastened down to the bow hull section, presumably by nailing. It would be interesting to learn how this was actually done, as those very end planks in the image above couldn't be fastened into place without the hull planks being there. Or those planks could have been edge fastened together. Or perhaps the platforms were nailed together to those lower hull planks first, and then the whole assembly was put into place. It's all speculation and I doubt we'll ever know for sure. For these platforms, I cut some hinoki sheet into strips 1mm x 12mm wide. For the deck planking, I matched the measurements from the drawing, and will be using 1mm x 8mm planks. These come out to about 16” wide boards in full size. Seems wide, but 12th and 13th century Japan would certainly have the trees for it. Here's the underside of the bow platform on the umibune model. Again, I apologize because I didn't take photos of the platform at the time of construction, so I had to take a late stage photo. The hull paint job will get a touch up later. At this stage, were I to build the model again, I'd probably just run all the planks side-to-side to match the paintings. The planks are pretty well hidden, and even if this arrangement might be stronger (even that assumption is questionable), if the swells were high enough to be hitting this platform with any force, this boat was probably in trouble.

Hello Druxey, I've missed you here. It's good see your familiar avatar – glad you're back!

Some interesting background… For those of you that don’t know, this boat is officially described as a Kamakura period boat, and that was the period from 1185 to 1333. In the West, this was the time of the Crusades, King Richard (Robin Hood), etc. In Japan, the period was marked by the end of the Gempai War of the late Heian (Hey-on) period between the Heike and the Genji (Taira and Minamoto clans). The last battle between these clans was a great sea battle called the Battle of Dan-no-Ura (don-no-ooruh). This is the largest Samurai sea battle in Japan’s history and involved an estimated 1300 ships, though most of these were probably small for what we would call a ship. For more detail on this, I recommend reading the Wikipedia entry. For now, let’s just say that the Genji (Minamoto) eliminated the Heike (Taira), and began the Kamakura period with the establishment of a military government and Japan’s first Shogun. The Kamakura period saw the emergence of the Samurai class, the firm establishment of feudalism, and the rise of Buddhism. It was also during this time that Japan fought off two invasion attempts by the Mongols, with the help of typhoons, which destroyed the invading fleets. This is the origin of the Japanese term “Divine Wind” or Kamikaze. Model Thoughts Up to this point, the model is made from common domestic modeling making woods of basswood and a little balsa. For the rest of the model, I plan to use an aromatic Japanese cypress, called hinoki. However, it’s really hard to get here in the U.S. I have a small supply of hinoki strip woods that I purchased from Japan, which I can use for much of this small model. For larger pieces, it turns out that there is a domestic wood that is almost identical to hinoki called Port Orford cedar. It’s also a bit hard to get, though boards can be purchased from some sources. I bought some from Bear Creek Lumber, which is located in the area where the stuff still grows. The stuff is so similar to hinoki, that it might as well be called hinoki, and that’s what I’ll use for the rest of this build.

Thanks ragove. I'm just following Chris's tutorial, so I imagine that you'd far more useful info on his build as well as Danny's Amatsukaze build. But, it's nice to know some builders find useful info here. Danny, Jan, for this model, I've just been following Chris's blog, so I went and got some card stock from the local copy place, where I could buy it by the 8-1/2 x 11" sheet. I don't remember the weight of the paper, but I measured it and it's about 0.25mm thick. Seems fine for such a small model as the bulkheads are maybe an inch apart. I could see the advantage of heavier card stock on a larger model. Danny, thanks for the advice on GPM. I've actually ordered some card stock from them about a year or so ago when I was working on my HMS Alert kit, and still have a healthy supply. On this model, I've only needed a small amount for the decks and skeleton. That's the other thing that's nice about building a paper model of this small size – a little material goes a long way.

Hi Bob, thanks for the support. I suspect you'll be passing me up and I'll start following YOUR blog soon. Do yourself a favor and record the exact printer settings you used. Later, if you need to reprint a part, it will save a little frustration. I thought I knew what settings I used, but when I reprinted a sheet, the color hues came out differently. I'm sure it was user error and not some printer issue. Danny, thanks for your comments. I figured the PE railings might not match up with the printed spots for the stanchions. I'll definitely be looking at what you did there on the Amatsukaze. Yeah, I probably should have cut separate connector tabs for the aft forecastle bulkhead, but I don't mind learning a little bit the hard way! I think this section may be okay. I just need to drill, paint and mount a support stanchion under the aft end of that forecastle deck. These models are pretty neat. I do like being able to print the parts, as you have a little more control over the print quality, plus an endless supply of replacement/repair parts.