catopower

Now for a  bit of my build process.
I'm cutting the skeleton out of this 6mm Plywood purchased from Amazon.

Its listed as 'basswood' plywood, and the outer layers look as good as any basswood I have seen.   Those outer basswood layers are paper thin though,  if that would make any difference for a project.
The product as a whole is as good or better than any plywood I have  ever used.

It measures consistently a hair over 6mm and a hair under 1/4".   I have not been able to get decent dimensioned plywood from sources like Home Depot for some time now.  The last 1/4" plywood I bought from Home depot measured 5.2mm - closer to 3/16 than 1/4.   The Amazon stuff is a fraction of the cost of sanded plywood at Home Depot.

I cut the stem out of 1/4" Cherry that I thickness sanded to match the ~6mm ply.  I built it up out of 5 pieces.

This shows a little form I used to glue and clamp up the Stem to the rabet strip on the backbone.

The backbone is made of three pieces, and this shows how it is easier to hold, sand and shape the stem before the three pieces are glued together.
 

The stem, pretty much finished with a coat of WOP.  I will be applying any number of coats as the build progresses.  I use very thin WOP to get a lot of penetration to seal the wood.

This is the first dry fit of the bulkheads and backbone.  I managed a very tight fit with the slots.  Inserting, then removing the bulkheads proved to be somewhat difficult, as I didn't have much more clearance than the thickness of the laser char.
Any squaring when gluing is almost unnecessary, but I will still be taking that important step.  The center of the deck on the bulkheads is flush with the backbone except for the small difference in slope from front to back.

Close up of fit.

Could have used a little tighter fit to the rabet on the foremost frames, but that will shim up easily.
 

Looking forward from station 12.
 

A piece of cord to show the run of the deck before any fairing has been done.  There will be bow and stern fillers to get a good shape in those areas.  This left me quite satisfied with my drafting efforts.
 

A little contribution to the " Tips & Tricks " department.  I know that Legos are popular as squaring tools, but I recently discovered these little game/puzzle pieces.  I feel they give you a little more to work with than Legos do.

Very inexpensive .  64 Pieces were $10.

Another view of bulkhead  squaring.
Should be following up soon with filler placement and fairing.
 

Hi Chris, your Brig Phoenix is looking great. Too bad the MK kits are pretty well gone at the moment. It would make a nice companion to HMS Wolf, being similar size and the same scale. I have to say, I'm rather enjoying working at 1/72 scale.
 
Jeff,  it's for the new optional "Serve-Writer" attachment. Unfortunately, I'm having trouble getting it to interface with my Mac. Must be a PC-only thing... 😁
 
brunnels, thanks for the nice comments. It requires a lighter touch. But, it's also a lot sturdier than most people think. Still, the whole reason I've been "upgrading" the chainplates is so I don't tear the channels off the model while trying to rig it. I've built two other single-masted paper sailing ship models without any rigging problems. This is the first with two masts. Will I be successful? Stay tuned!

With yesterdays meetings behind me, I'm turning my energies back to HMS Wolf.
 
The new deadeyes are all stropped now, and I'm trying to rig up "faux" chainplates, which I'm expecting I will cover with some kit provided paper parts that LOOK like chainplates, but have no strength to them. 
 
What I'm installing are chainplates that don't look right, but should add strength to support the shrouds.

After these are all done, I'll face them with the kit pieces. And, if that doesn't look right, I may try to come up with something that makes these pieces LOOK like they're bolted to the hull. Not perfect, but at least it's progress!
 
I'll add that the amount of support these provide are pretty limited on this model, as many of the wires can only penetrate into the hull a very short distance, as they'll are above deck level.
 
Getting the length right for these short wire pieces is somewhat painstaking work. Were this wood, I could apply a lot more pressure in forming these links. 

Managed to finish these preliminary chainplates yesterday. Hopefully, this will make the rigging of the shrouds easier, which is coming soon.
 

Meanwhile, I just recieved some of Chuck's 2mm 3D printed blocks to use for the gun tackles. Wow, are these things tiny! I have some of Chuck's original 2mm pear wood blocks, and the size difference is more than I'd expected, at least visually. Wooden blocks on the left, 3D printed on the right.


I measured the wooden blocks and they come out to 2.13mm long, the 3D printed ones are 1.92mm.  So, they really are very close. The 3D printed ones are a little shorter and noticeably narrow, so they SEEM so much tinier. I guess the test will be to see what a gun tackle and train tackle look like, rigged. 
 
This assumes, of course, that I can actually add them to already placed cannons... 🤔
 
 

Any good wood-working glue should qualify as " Best " .
Planking method is just as important as the glue you use. 
If the plank is shaped properly you can get by with relatively short clamping times. Titebond original sets up in about 30 minutes, but still recommends overnight to cure.
The different versions of Titebond have different purposes, but they all glue wood together very well.
Titebond
 
The most trouble you will have is when you have a straight plank that you have forced on a curved surface.  It will have to be clamped for hours.
If you look at these planking videos, you will see how to shape the planks so you do not have to force the planks onto the model.
 
Chuck Passaro's planking Videos - 
 
In the videos, Chuck is using CA.
 
"Best" is relative to experience and personal preference.
I prefer CA ( super glue ) in most situations, just to avoid clamping and having to wait so much to proceed with work.
Working effectively with CA takes some practice to get use to working with.  For planking you need to use a medium or thick formula, not the thin stuff.
 
Here are some more planking technique resources.
 
Planking Downloads and Tutorials and Videos - Model Ship World™

No real progress yet. Been working too much. But, I did manage to try threading those 2mm blocks.
 
Worked out fine using 0.1mm Amati tan rigging line, as well as some of BenD's (RopesOfScale) 0.25mm black cotton line. Of course, in all cases, I had to use a dab of thin CA and trimmed the end to a point to thread it through. Clearly, I didn't wax any line here.
 

Also managed to complete assembly of my Syren Serv-O-Matic. I can start working on the shrouds and stays now!

Hopefully this one won't take 17 years! 😅

Unboxing Part II: Parts and Fittings
 
After all of the paperwork is removed, one sees an intriguing collection of plastic bags and boxes.
 

 
Let's explore! First we have the ship's boat and binnacle mini-kits.
 

 
The pumps and windlass are also separate mini-kits. The other bags contain small billets of wood containing laser-cut parts for things like gun carriages and headworks.
 

 
Then we have a small compartmented box. This will do nicely for storing spinners for trout fishing after the model is built. 😋
 

 
Inside the box we find metal fittings, resin cannon, grating strips, laser-cut cleats, and push-pins to use during planking. Separate bags contain brass nails, brass belaying pins, resin quarter badges, stern lantern parts, and deluxe blocks. The blocks are very nice and definitely a cut (or several cuts) above the usual kit-grade blocks one usually encounters.
 

 
Rigging line. If you have read my cannon yawl log, then you know that the line used in MK kits is, um . . . not good. It neither looks like miniature rope, nor is it easy to work with. This, sadly, is the one thing that detracts from an MK kit. I plan to replace all of the kit line -- yes, all of it -- with after-market rope from a source such as Syren. But that will be quite a ways down the road.
 

 
Several more individually-wrapped items include finely-detailed resin stern ornamentation, dowels for masts and spars (each already cut to the correct length), printed flags, and laser-engraved wooden name plates. Unlike the yawl kit, this kit includes a name plate in English in addition to one in Russian. There are also several small frets of PE brass parts. Some of those parts are the original brass versions of the head decorations that are now provided as laser-cut wooden parts.
 

 
And lastly we have the many sheets of laser-cut parts. I didn't want to unwrap these right away, but I can tell that these parts are up to MK's high standards: great wood, clean cutting, and minimal char. Parts that require fairing have laser-engraved fairing lines to indicate how much wood needs to be removed.
 

 
And that's it. Look for first cuts to start soon, but I do need to start by checking that I have all the necessary stuff on hand for working with wood -- it's been a while since I've worked on the hull structure of a wooden ship.
 
Cheers!

Unboxing Pt. I: Instructions & Plans
 
There's a lot of info on the box lid, both in Russian and in English.
 

 
It probably goes without saying that in the current geopolitical climate, the supply of kits from our friends at Master Korabel (MK) has more or less dried up. I was fortunate enough to snag this one before they disappeared completely.
 
An important item of note on the box lid is this:

 
As you can see, there are two available versions of the kit: the basic MK0401 kit and the deluxe MK0401P version. The deluxe version includes a ship's boat and deluxe blocks. One thing to be mindful of if you are shopping for this kit is that it has been out for some time now, and the contents have evolved over the years. Newer examples provide, among other things, high-quality resin parts in place of some of the older cast metal fittings. Happily for me, I received one of the newer kits.
 
The first impression one gets upon opening the box is that everything is nicely packed.
 

 
The yellow booklet is a set of photo instructions that cover construction of the hull.
 

 

 

 
There are two complete sets of written instructions, one each in Russian and English. These instructions complement the photo instructions and cover the entire build process through masting and rigging.
 

 

 
The instructions also include keys to all of the various wood parts billets . . .
 

 
. . . and 1:1 sail patterns. A suit of pre-sewn sails can be ordered separately, but I will not use them, since they suffer from all of the out-of-scale issues that normally plague such sails. I haven't yet decided whether to add sails or leave the model bare-poled (it looks good either way), but if I go for sails, I will make them myself.
 

 
Several pages of the instructions are devoted to illustrations of the various types of rope work needed to complete the model.
 

 
Separate instructions cover the construction of the upgraded binnacle and windlass.
 

 

 
There are four sheets of masting and rigging diagrams . . .
 

 
. . . as well as four sheets of full-sized plans.
 

 
And lastly there's something that I think is a nice touch -- a spreadsheet that lists all of the various rigging lines along with the blocks they require, the plan sheets they can found on, and the alphanumeric designation used for each.
 

 
In the next post, we'll look at parts and fittings.
 

First planking all done. I have some filling and sanding to do now.
 

It's more advanced than I thought. I didn't realize it came with a keyboard. 😉

I got a Serv-o-Matic for Christmas. Not this past Christmas, mind you -- Christmas of 2023. I intend to put it to use for Phoenix.

Managed to finish these preliminary chainplates yesterday. Hopefully, this will make the rigging of the shrouds easier, which is coming soon.
 

Meanwhile, I just recieved some of Chuck's 2mm 3D printed blocks to use for the gun tackles. Wow, are these things tiny! I have some of Chuck's original 2mm pear wood blocks, and the size difference is more than I'd expected, at least visually. Wooden blocks on the left, 3D printed on the right.


I measured the wooden blocks and they come out to 2.13mm long, the 3D printed ones are 1.92mm.  So, they really are very close. The 3D printed ones are a little shorter and noticeably narrow, so they SEEM so much tinier. I guess the test will be to see what a gun tackle and train tackle look like, rigged. 
 
This assumes, of course, that I can actually add them to already placed cannons... 🤔
 
 

With yesterdays meetings behind me, I'm turning my energies back to HMS Wolf.
 
The new deadeyes are all stropped now, and I'm trying to rig up "faux" chainplates, which I'm expecting I will cover with some kit provided paper parts that LOOK like chainplates, but have no strength to them. 
 
What I'm installing are chainplates that don't look right, but should add strength to support the shrouds.

After these are all done, I'll face them with the kit pieces. And, if that doesn't look right, I may try to come up with something that makes these pieces LOOK like they're bolted to the hull. Not perfect, but at least it's progress!
 
I'll add that the amount of support these provide are pretty limited on this model, as many of the wires can only penetrate into the hull a very short distance, as they'll are above deck level.
 
Getting the length right for these short wire pieces is somewhat painstaking work. Were this wood, I could apply a lot more pressure in forming these links. 

No real progress yet. Been working too much. But, I did manage to try threading those 2mm blocks.
 
Worked out fine using 0.1mm Amati tan rigging line, as well as some of BenD's (RopesOfScale) 0.25mm black cotton line. Of course, in all cases, I had to use a dab of thin CA and trimmed the end to a point to thread it through. Clearly, I didn't wax any line here.
 

Also managed to complete assembly of my Syren Serv-O-Matic. I can start working on the shrouds and stays now!

Managed to finish these preliminary chainplates yesterday. Hopefully, this will make the rigging of the shrouds easier, which is coming soon.
 

Meanwhile, I just recieved some of Chuck's 2mm 3D printed blocks to use for the gun tackles. Wow, are these things tiny! I have some of Chuck's original 2mm pear wood blocks, and the size difference is more than I'd expected, at least visually. Wooden blocks on the left, 3D printed on the right.


I measured the wooden blocks and they come out to 2.13mm long, the 3D printed ones are 1.92mm.  So, they really are very close. The 3D printed ones are a little shorter and noticeably narrow, so they SEEM so much tinier. I guess the test will be to see what a gun tackle and train tackle look like, rigged. 
 
This assumes, of course, that I can actually add them to already placed cannons... 🤔
 
 

No real progress yet. Been working too much. But, I did manage to try threading those 2mm blocks.
 
Worked out fine using 0.1mm Amati tan rigging line, as well as some of BenD's (RopesOfScale) 0.25mm black cotton line. Of course, in all cases, I had to use a dab of thin CA and trimmed the end to a point to thread it through. Clearly, I didn't wax any line here.
 

Also managed to complete assembly of my Syren Serv-O-Matic. I can start working on the shrouds and stays now!

No real progress yet. Been working too much. But, I did manage to try threading those 2mm blocks.
 
Worked out fine using 0.1mm Amati tan rigging line, as well as some of BenD's (RopesOfScale) 0.25mm black cotton line. Of course, in all cases, I had to use a dab of thin CA and trimmed the end to a point to thread it through. Clearly, I didn't wax any line here.
 

Also managed to complete assembly of my Syren Serv-O-Matic. I can start working on the shrouds and stays now!

Managed to finish these preliminary chainplates yesterday. Hopefully, this will make the rigging of the shrouds easier, which is coming soon.
 

Meanwhile, I just recieved some of Chuck's 2mm 3D printed blocks to use for the gun tackles. Wow, are these things tiny! I have some of Chuck's original 2mm pear wood blocks, and the size difference is more than I'd expected, at least visually. Wooden blocks on the left, 3D printed on the right.


I measured the wooden blocks and they come out to 2.13mm long, the 3D printed ones are 1.92mm.  So, they really are very close. The 3D printed ones are a little shorter and noticeably narrow, so they SEEM so much tinier. I guess the test will be to see what a gun tackle and train tackle look like, rigged. 
 
This assumes, of course, that I can actually add them to already placed cannons... 🤔
 
 

With yesterdays meetings behind me, I'm turning my energies back to HMS Wolf.
 
The new deadeyes are all stropped now, and I'm trying to rig up "faux" chainplates, which I'm expecting I will cover with some kit provided paper parts that LOOK like chainplates, but have no strength to them. 
 
What I'm installing are chainplates that don't look right, but should add strength to support the shrouds.

After these are all done, I'll face them with the kit pieces. And, if that doesn't look right, I may try to come up with something that makes these pieces LOOK like they're bolted to the hull. Not perfect, but at least it's progress!
 
I'll add that the amount of support these provide are pretty limited on this model, as many of the wires can only penetrate into the hull a very short distance, as they'll are above deck level.
 
Getting the length right for these short wire pieces is somewhat painstaking work. Were this wood, I could apply a lot more pressure in forming these links. 

Hi Jeff,
 
Vallejo isn't the greatest location, but I think it's better than it was when I first moved to the area in 2000. The museum, however, has been very accommodating, and works out very well for us. 
 
Yesterday, we returned to the museum for the first time in... maybe 7 years(!). It worked out very nicely and they even have a bigger table now, which was great, as it gave us more room to spread out and share our model progress (or lack!). 
 
We're going to try to alternate our meetings between the museum and the Mare Island Brewing Company's Coal Shed taproom, which is a great location for beer and bar food. I think I mentioned before that one of our members has done some model work for one of the owners, so we're appreciated there as well.
 
We were kind of hoping the Park Service would stick to their timetable and move the historic ships from Hyde Street Pier at SF's Fisherman's Wharf, to there, where they're supposed to be docked while the pier is being rebuilt.

No real progress yet. Been working too much. But, I did manage to try threading those 2mm blocks.
 
Worked out fine using 0.1mm Amati tan rigging line, as well as some of BenD's (RopesOfScale) 0.25mm black cotton line. Of course, in all cases, I had to use a dab of thin CA and trimmed the end to a point to thread it through. Clearly, I didn't wax any line here.
 

Also managed to complete assembly of my Syren Serv-O-Matic. I can start working on the shrouds and stays now!

No real progress yet. Been working too much. But, I did manage to try threading those 2mm blocks.
 
Worked out fine using 0.1mm Amati tan rigging line, as well as some of BenD's (RopesOfScale) 0.25mm black cotton line. Of course, in all cases, I had to use a dab of thin CA and trimmed the end to a point to thread it through. Clearly, I didn't wax any line here.
 

Also managed to complete assembly of my Syren Serv-O-Matic. I can start working on the shrouds and stays now!

No real progress yet. Been working too much. But, I did manage to try threading those 2mm blocks.
 
Worked out fine using 0.1mm Amati tan rigging line, as well as some of BenD's (RopesOfScale) 0.25mm black cotton line. Of course, in all cases, I had to use a dab of thin CA and trimmed the end to a point to thread it through. Clearly, I didn't wax any line here.
 

Also managed to complete assembly of my Syren Serv-O-Matic. I can start working on the shrouds and stays now!

No real progress yet. Been working too much. But, I did manage to try threading those 2mm blocks.
 
Worked out fine using 0.1mm Amati tan rigging line, as well as some of BenD's (RopesOfScale) 0.25mm black cotton line. Of course, in all cases, I had to use a dab of thin CA and trimmed the end to a point to thread it through. Clearly, I didn't wax any line here.
 

Also managed to complete assembly of my Syren Serv-O-Matic. I can start working on the shrouds and stays now!