Aussie048

Here's all the channels installed.

Here's all the channels installed.

A new day and for me an re-do day.....
 
I have change the crow's feet and I hope this is what the meaning is......
If not......DON"T TELL ME !!!!!!!!!       ( joke, please tell me if it is not right )
 

This is how I'm mounting the channels. First I set two pins in each channel with some Crazy Glue since the channels are softer than the Sapele hull. Without the Crazy Glue the will only drive deeper into the channel instead of driving into the hull. Then I locate the places I want to set the pins into the hull by marking with pencil the latitude and longitude of each hole  so that the holes for the chainplates all line up. Then I drill a .5mm hole in each of the marked spots. Then I drive a small nail into each hole to widen it enough to take the pin snuggly. Then I remove the nails, erase the pencil marks and glue on the channels.

Update april 18
 
Cutting 68mm planks

 
First batch of deck blanks for testing. 

 
A little sanding to planks sides

 
False gun decks installed, glued and nailed

 

 

 
Test run of planking. I know this doesn't look good. I am using leftover planks from other previous builds to test different methods of caulking. Two black smears in the middle is where bowsprit and fore mast holes are located. No wood from the kit has been used yet in this step. This area will be covered by an upper deck, so it will be almost invisible. The area to the right, which starts looking better, is the area that will be seen after the decks are done. Sanding and finishing will make this look better.

Thanks Sjors!
 
Evening all
 
I decided to take the plunge and line the hull off according to Chuck Passaro's excellent tutorial. I didnt' want to use the wood supplied by Corel as I found it too light so decided to carry on with using walnut. I bought some 5mm wide planks and some 100mm wide sheets for the curved sections. All fine and well until I got both and realised the two didnt seem to be the same wood...   or more specifically the 5mm strips did not look like walnut
 
So ordered some more from a different source and got the same stuff... double . Given that my finances were (are... ) not illimited I decided to cut the 5mm planks from the 100mm sheets. Downside to that is that it takes a loooooong time to do the second planking. Hopefully it will be worth it.
 
First step was to break the hull down into sections:


and finally

 
And so the second planking of the hull started. As a picture is worth a thousand words...




and finally again

 
And that brings me up to date. I'm not going to be posting updates quickly from now on since I only have time to do one planking strip a week on average and I have about 35 strips left . I do like doing planking but I have to admit I'll be glad when it's over
 
I'll try and post some photos when I complete a section.
 
Thanks for looking
 
Nick

Finally where I left off after much spiling. I replaced the original mahogany with basswood and limewood. I originally was going to double plank it. After all the work that went into it it seems like a shame to cover it up so I might first try staining to match the mahogany.
 





 
 
 

Not a very exciting update today,however my experiment has been a success.I have been debating about caulking techniques and despite using a pencil for longer than I care to mention,it never looks as good as the black paper route.However after watching Dr Mike's dvd explaining that black paper prevents proper glue bond strength,himself using cheap white paper and dying it black,I wanted to find an alternative with a bit less faff Having to visit town today for other reasons  I did stumble upon black tissue paper.I thought this would still allow proper penetration of the glue,but would it be easy to work with?I adopted worse case scenario for the test and cut some planks roughly(not even changing to a fine blade )on the table saw.Smearing one edge of these with alaphatic and placing them on the tissue edge on.Having left to dry for a hour(would really leave overnight in practice) and then cutting the tissue with a new scalpel blade close on the underside and a little above the face side,separated the planks.These were then glued to a sheet of ply.Two hours later this was scraped and sanded back.Again I would leave overnight but I was being deliberately rough for the trial.Anyway complete success.No issue with the tissue paper wanting to drag out of the joints as it was fully impregnated with glue and razor sharp black(not greyish you get with the pencil) lines.The only imperfections are from the rough edges of the planks.In reality these would be smooth .I wanted to crack this dilemma as this technique will be used on the whole build which includes the scarph joints in the keel and the hull planking so strength is important.A couple of pics but the difference between this and pencil isn't truly conveyed with my iphone camera.
 
Kind Regards
 
Nigel

Warped and inappropriate sounds a lot  like my sense of Humour .
 
 
Hi all its been a while since I last posted Hatchette are 7 weeks behind with deliveries
 
here is a picture of where I am now

Next the rudder wheel assembly. Drilled holes for pinning together. Saw that there wasn't much surface area to join so it would be easy for the stanchions to break off. Thought I would try countersinking the holes underneath so I could use small brass nails for added strength. This worked fine & it all held together much stronger. Glued down to deck & attached tiller, drum & wheel. Completed assembly with blocks & line.

Hi All
First of all my wife will kill me if she knows I am sending the photos with out cleaning my work area up .
So I am sorry about that.
 
I have glued the main mast in and I think it is OK.
 
Done the crows feet etc.
 
Popeye I still think the main mast yard sail should have more sail on it ( sorry ).
 
Denis.
 
 

Wales:
 
The run of the planks is determined by the mainwales, so as first step the position of the wales needs to be marked on the hull. I have made a template for each of the bulkhead positions onto which I have indicated the heigth positions of the wales which I have then transferred to the hull:
 

 
At first I have put on the upper main wale. The main wales are not only bent in two directions but are also twisted considerably over the lengths of the hull. A further difficulty is that the upper und lower surface are (at least with English ships) always horizontal, while the outer and inner surface have of course the angle according to their position on the hull surface.
The following picture shows the approximate cross section of the upper wale at different frame positions:
 

 
I made the wales from strips of pear with approx. 4 x 4.5 mm (final thickness is 3mm instead of the 4,5 mm). After bending these to the required shape the inner surface was sanded to the required angle to achieve the correct fit to the hull surface.
The upper and lower surface were stained black before the wale was glued to the hull, the outer surface will be stained later when the wale has been sanded to the correct thickness.
 
The upper wale is glued on but not yet treenailed:
 

 

 
The plank between the main wales is on:
 

 

 
Lower main wale added, wales and the plank between the wales have been treenailed, approx. 550 treenails for these three strakes:
 

 

 

 
Klaus
 

Toptimbers:

Since the inner side of the bulwarks will not be planked, I need to add toptimbers between the ones already treenailed to the bulkheads. Since these are quite thin (approx. 2.5 x 2.5 mm or 1/10") there is always the danger of breaking some of them when working on the hull. To avoid this I have glued pieces of Obeche between them as stiffener, which will be cut out again later:
 

 

 
All toptimbers are glued in, the next step is to make the keel, stem and sternson before planking can be started.
 
Keel, stem and sternson, knee of the head:
 

 

 

 
The rabbet in the keel and stem has been cut manually by means of a Stanley knife:
 

 

 

 
 
Keel, stem (with knee of the head) and sternson are glued onto the model:
 

 

 
The hull is now ready for planking
 
 
Klaus

Planking of stern:
 
Planking of the model starts with the stern for the simple reason that the planking of the ships side overlaps the planking of the square tuck and the stern.
 
Since the bulkhead of the tuck is made from ply I put in a frame of pear wood for the port of the tiller and below this a fake transom (also pear)
 

 

 
The tuck is planked except a 4 mm  strip in the center into which the sternson will be glued later:
 

 
The lower part of the stern consists of 2 frames made from several strips (A and B in following drawing) which were planked on the outside (D) after glueing them together. The window openings in the inner part (A) into which I have glued window panes (clear plastic - green in the drawing) are a little bit bigger then these in the outer part (B).
C shows A and B glued together viewed from the inside.
D shows the completet assembly from the outer (aft) side
 
The window grids are made from thin gray thread which is glued into notched in the backside of B.
A section through the upper part of the window opening is shown on the left hand side of the drawing. The ply wood behing the windows has been stained black and is not visible any more throughthe windows, the cabin looks dark.
 

 
The next 2 pictures show the finished stern:
 

 

 
Klaus

Thanks for the compliment E&T.
 
Up to now she does not really look like a ship but rather ugly.
 
 
(Dummy) knight for the fore yard tie:
The knight for the fore yard tie is located under the forecastle deck and will not be visible on the finished model. The only thing which will be visible is the upper part of the halyard rigged between the knight and the ramshead block and it would be impossible to rig this halyard later on. To overcome this I made a square hole and a dummy knight which fits into it.
 

 

 

 

 
The dummy knight (with the halyard rigged to a ramshead block)


will be glued into this hole later before the forecastle deck will be closed.
 
 
Preparation for planking and fairing the hull:

I prefer to plank in one layer of the correct thickness rather than making the double planking as it is done with the majority of PoB models.
In my opinion the best way to get a perfect bevelling is to glue in fillers between all bulkheads and sand them to the required shape. This ensures that the bevelling is correct at each height at each bulkhead. For the fillers I use Obeche, except for the fillers at the bow which I make in layers in following 2 steps:

At first I make the bow filler on one side only by cementing  6 layers of 5mm  maple wood temporyrily togehter (rubber cement). These are then sanded to the required shape. By taking the layers apart I get templates for the other side, this makes it quite easy the get the bow fillers symmetrically.
 

 

 

 

 
The fillers at the port side are glued in and sanded to the required shape:
 

 

 

 
and with the starboard side also done she begins to resemble a ship:
 

 

 
 
 
Klaus

The centerboard does not include the keel, stem and sternpost, these parts will be made from pear and glued on later.
 
It seems it is impossible today to purchase a bit of ply which is absolutely straigtht, my centerboard was also slightly bent.
To rectify this I clamped the centerboard to a flat board onto which I had marked the centerline and the bulkhead positions and so forced it to be straight. Between the bulkheads I glued rectangular stiffeners with the result that the centerboard could not bend back and remained absolutely straight.
 

 

 

 
after all bulkheads and stiffeners were glued in I had a straight and very rigid framing:
 

 

 

 

 
Since the toptimbers and parts of the frames through gun ports will be visible later on I have inserted pieces of pear in the respective positions. The stiffeners in areas behind gunports have been stained black.
 

 

 

 
View of the stern assembly:


 

 
The helm port is framed with pear and a false transom (also pear) has been glued onto the tuck piece:
 

 

 
 
Klaus

Hello Everyone...Since reporting my progress the last time I have managed to forge ahead despite a couple of tragedies to my Victory.  It's absolutely exremely easy to become careless when in this stage of the build.  There are so many "sticks' protruding from the hull in every angle immaginable and I was the victim of these flying 'things."  To begin with, as I was working some of the stays I heard the dreadful "snap" sound and almost cried like a baby when I discovered that somehow my carelessness caused the tip of my main mast to break.  The dowel was laying over about 4 or 5 inches from the top with what looked like hundreds of pieces of black, waxed spaghetti attached to it in a tangled mess.  A couple of arms of the top mast platform apparently broke too.  I walked out of the room, poured a triple scotch, and figured I couldn't do any worse drunk trying to make this type of difficult repair.  When  I previously broke off one of the boomkins a few days before I was very upset but what happened to the main mast looked like a total disaster.  I drank about half the scotch and quickly gave the situation a real look-see before I might get high.  I tried turning the broken tip in several directons and couldn't believe my eyes when making one adjustment all the threads looked as if they were line up correctly again.  I placed the broken tip back in place and the tension from all the lines acted liked a big clamp and held the piece in place.  I gingerly removed the tip once more, placed some CA on the mast stub and set the tip back in place once more.  I made sure it was straight and then finished my scotch and said a prayer.  When I figured the cement was set I checked it out from all angles and seeing that it appeared plumb, I coated the broken area with epoxy cement and as of this writing everything is fine once again.  So i finally continued my progress.
 
Once I finish the Bowsprit shrouds and the bobstays, I will be ready to begin the running rigging.
 
Here are some photos of my progress.
 
Thanks for listening,
 
Jerry

A note from the dry dock.....The stays are going well...The fore mast stay and the fore mast preventer stay are now rigged and the snaking.  is finished.. I used the conventional method of overhand knots and it seems to have worked out.  I'm happy because I believe I won't need to worry about stay collars any more.  Have a great day everyone.
Jerry

Hello again....I was conccerned about keeping the zig-zag snaking tight as it is difficult to keep the main stay and its preventor from changing the distance relative to each other.  This will cause slack.  I taped the two stays to the foremast as I was tying the zig-zag and here's a picture of the results.  Jerry

A bit more from the dry dock.....Since the main stay and the preventer stay are now rigged the next chore will be the snaking of the two together.  The kit recommends a marling knot or an overhand knot to zig-zags the thread.  I though that I might try and use a needle and stitch this zig-zag  and when i tried it. it looked terrible so I pulled the thread out bent on using the knot method.  This will come during the next session.  My one concern is how do you keep the spread between the two stays and build taught zig-zag lines?  Also, with such lttle space between the two stays how will it look?  Well, boys and girls, we'll find out tomorrow.  Have a nice evening everyone..........Jerry

I had been away for a while and had moved, Just Getting things back to normal, and trying to find all the boatbuilding stuff . Keel # 2 did get finished before the move, and my sis was very happy. I hope to have things up and running soon  here are the results

Since I have completed my kit build log, I still have Keel # 2 wich is going to my sis (for Christmas) I will have it complete in the next few days got most of the cockpit and Cabin work complete and have started the masting . Here are the results

Thanks for the kind comments and likes! Keith, I'm building her as when she was in harbor. I´ve finished the gunports. I'll wait with the messageports until later on. So finally I'm done with the gunports:
 
 

 

 

 
 

Thanks Keith.
Eventually it will look nice with a red waterline and a thin gold line on black background. Right now it doesn't. Need to figure out how to achieve that ultra glossy finish. All clues are welcome.
 
Regarding the deck, also a bit disappointed. I do have quite a few gaps. Maybe I'll try out some filler?
 
It would also be good if I somehow managed to remove the two center planks and sand down to make room for four planks. The reason being that the joins are not so exact.

So I admit to being thoroughly overwhelmed with the rigging and masting, Im just trying to break everything down into manageable tasks.  I started with the topmast deadeyes this morning and after 8 hours of work (interrupted by the need to play plumber and fix the non draining bathroom sink) I have 10 of my deadeyes set up.  It took me quite a while to figure out how to seize the line correctly.  The admiral pitched in and helped me make a couple of them as well.  You really do need 3 or 4 hands to do this.