Aussie048

Thanks Alistair and Lawrence,
 
Also thanks to the other folks for the likes.
 
Today I made some progress with the planking, and I also have been repainting the stern fashion pieces.  I sanded them down since I was unhappy with how rough the black paint looked, and then I re-primed with thinned primer, sanded with 320 grit, primed again, sanded with 320 grit, then added a coat of thinned black and sanded once more.  After that I added about 6 or 7 coats of very thin (think - more of a wash than paint) black.  I did this over the last few days of course, and I actually did the first two primer coats before leaving on my trip.  Much happier with the smoothness of the black painted area now, although I still need to fill the gaps around the windows at some point.
 

 
The planking is progressing reasonably well, even if I'm not 100% happy with everything about it, it is after all going to be covered up later.  I really need to get better at trimming the pieces to size, as whichever end I finish with isn't getting trimmed to the right size very well.
 

 
I've got the garboard plank on the other side, but none of the other lower planking there.  Last day of my short little vacation is tomorrow, so maybe I'll finish up the first planking layer.

So as I get farther into the planking, it's becoming obvious that I needed to spend more time on the hull fairing, or rather, I need a better understanding of the plank flow when I'm placing test planks for the fairing, or something.
 
I'm getting quite a dip in the planks on both sides just aft of the bow, and the planks at the stern are nowhere near symmetrical side to side - I'll need a stealer on one side to even them out at some point.
 
Here you can see the dips on both sides where the fairing was done incorrectly.  Luckily this is a double planked project so I'll be able to fill these, but it's a bit of a disappointment to me, as I was hoping that this first planking would have been good enough to be a final planking, as a personal goal.

 
The planking if you only look at the stem area is still pretty nice though!

 
I'm still doing a fair amount of edge-bending to get the planks to come in at the stem, even spiling them to 1/2 a plank width on every plank so far, although it is getting less pronounced on this 3rd one.  The stern would require severe edge bending to get them to stay at full width, so they are getting spiled which is why I'll need a stealer at some point on at least one side, possibly both, on this upper section.

Side trip - and update not about the AVS, but my trip through the forsaken wastelands (also known as Nevada).
 
The gentleman who was divesting himself of his years of shipbuilding is doing so for multiple reasons.  Something over 10 years ago he and his wife moved 500'ish miles to a smaller house, so all of the shipbuilding stuff was packed away.  At about the same time, he took up the new hobby of writing books, and discovered that he apparently had both a taste, and talent for this, as he now has 6 books published, mostly historical biographies it appears.  In retrospect, I should have planned for another day, as the length of the journey left me with very little time to visit, and he was an incredibly nice guy.  Honestly I could have spent the better part of a day looking at the 4 models he had left (the rest having been sold when he moved) on display in his house.
 
On display he had a fully rigged semi-scratch (or heavily kit-bashed) Charles W. Morgan, a very detailed large scale model of one of the whaleboats (other than the color scheme, reminded me very much of the recently completed one here in this very forum), and two admiralty style models - the HMS Druid, and the Confederacy - both of which were from the Lumberyard plans and wood.  All four of these models were simply gorgeous, and I'm the dumbest person around for not taking my camera on the trip to get some pictures.  He began modeling in the early 70's, and the Morgan was his final completed model, in the late 90's.  He had started on the Hannah when he moved. 
 
Everything you see is what I collected and packed back to Arizona, and it was all given for free, no strings attached, although on the pay-it-forward principle, I'll do my best to pass everything along if/when I decide I don't need it.  I'll start this next weekend by taking several of the books that are duplicates of ones I've already purchased, to the new Arizona Shipwrights club meeting, and giving them to whoever wants them.
Onward to the stuff.
 
Books are always good, as well as magazines of course, especially older ones that contain so much wonderful knowledge that was used to create models back before this awesome thing called the internet.

 
A fair assortment of miscellaneous tools, most of which will be useful, and some will replace existing tools as they are higher quality.  Also included in all the little plastic containers are the left over fittings and all kinds of random parts from approximately 12 builds including cannon and carriages, eye-bolts, deadeyes, blocks, rigging, chain plates, etcs.

 
And finally, the partially completed Hannah, as well as all of the wood, plans, and instructions to finish her (in theory).  Also included is all of the left-over wood from his other builds, and I have no idea what is what.  There appear to be enough dowels to build masts and yards for about half a fleet.

 
It was certainly an interesting trip, and I'll get some use out of a lot of this stuff.  From a purely financial perspective I'm not sure the trip made a lot of sense (my car went into the shop the day before I left with an engine warning light, so I had to rent a car), although the total value of everything I have pictured here is certainly higher than the cost of the trip, and I enjoyed meeting an older and very experienced ship builder.  I don't regret making the trip, but it did teach me that as I'm getting older, making crazy long 14+ hour days on the road is something I should not do anymore if I can avoid it.
 
I started my day Thursday when I left my house around 7:45am to do a couple stops before picking up the rental car, which promptly started getting engine warning lights and shutting off the cruise control barely 50 miles out of town.  I swapped the car at the airport in Vegas, which cost me about 90 minutes probably, and checked into a hotel outside of Reno just after Midnight.  Trip home was fairly uneventful, but of course took about the same amount of time, after loading the car and visiting for a while, I left Reno around 10:30, and got home about Midnight.  Returned the rental car yesterday morning, ran some errands, and took a long nap. 
 
Now I need to catch up on laundry and stuff, and then I'll see about starting back in on the AVS.

Slow forward to mooring pipes - outside look. After half a hour sniffing through home, garage and shipyard, and after some experiments, I was not much smarter...what to use ... elypse shape is significant ... the smartest approach I can get is to reply technique I used for portholes ( windows)

And here is first one, three more to go
 










Not bad
 
BTW ... glasses for windows ... is there any sense when inside diameter is aobut 1,5-2 mm ?

As promised, some shots of where I am with the planking. It is a bit rough but overall I think it is coming out OK.
 

 

 
Slowly but surely the openings are being closed.

Just bought the dvd using paypal.
I will eagerly be waiting to see if all the chatter is right 

OK, I'll chime in one more time; Here are the "chapters" on the disk: The Plans, Internal Construction, Hull Construction, Keel Joint, Deck Beams, Gun Ports, Deck Nails, Deck Caulking, Top Deck Construction, Top Deck Planking, Top Deck Varnishing, and Beveling. Granted, some of these chapters or subjects are fairly brief, but total play time is about 3hr 18 min. My disk played thru Gun Ports (about half way through) and acted as if there was no material recorded in the remaining chapters, even though they were listed in the intro.
After following Hornet's suggestion, I have been able to view the remainder of the disc. When copied to a folder on my HD, the files were exactly as described by Hornet, and my video player has had no trouble playing the disk.
Thanks again Hornet.
 
Dave

Hi All
 
Just a quick update .
 
Started to fit the spacers in between the frames.
 
Denis.

Have mark copper lines and cut copper plates

Painted hull

Finished planking hull

Thanks to all of you who suggested using painted paper instead of real brass for the mast reinforcements.....well done! The paper supports might not be the best,,,but when I clean them up, they'll look just fine. Thank you all again! In this picture they still have drying glue,hanging bits  etc

Still owe you the solution of the "What the hell is this":
 
 

 
 
It is simply the wooden lock to avoid the unshipping of the rudder!
 
Here in place ...
 

 
... and as it looks too nice, the whole ensemble :-)
 

 
Cheers, Daniel

And here I go again.
 
Wanted to do something easy for once ...
 
... took some sheet and made the lids for the stern ports ...
 
... rememberd not to do a rabbet on all sides ...
 
... after having done it si cured it with 05 mm x 5 mm Evergreen.
 

 
Was happy mac to finally use some of my etch parts on my own build :-)
 
Made 0,7 mm ringlets ...
 

 
... mounted them on the eyebolts, blackened them, mounted them , painted the lids ...
 

 
... fixed them on the appropriate place and put the lanyards.
 

 
And what can one already see on the picture? Break, Intermezzo, short review
 
Sometimes in spring 2011 (it was April 11., at 14.41 o´clock) I pimped my rudder ...
 

 
... but what has it to do with my actual build?
 
Ok, here we go. Nicely into the groove, I wanted to do the rudder pendants. Realised that the eyebolt to hold them - fixed somehow years ago and now hidden underneath the port lid and therefor inaccessible - and replaced it beside the port on stemwards. Fixed the pendants as seen on the Vic in P., taking care that the sweep of the rudder is not limited by it ...
 

 
... und gleich den fehlenden oberen Beschlag des oberen Fingerlings entdeckt und ergänzt.
 

 
 
One can guess, troubles were already waiting to strike!
 
If one looks close, one can see three things: Why is the pendant dragging the waters? Why is the end of the tiller pointing out that far? And why did me stupid make the rudder blade that high for that now canvas cover can be fixed ?!?
 
Questions over questions ...
 
If you look at the picture before the intermezzo, one can see already the shortened tiller - no easy task as the rudder cant be taken out any more and is only hanging on the fable pintles - and also the rudder blade was shortened by some 5 mm - one can guess also no easy task as the rudder cant be taken out any more and is only hanging on the fable pintles.
 
Both me and the model survived and the pendants were fixed with some freshly repositioned eyebolts as seen on contemporary models and also as described by Lee.
 
The ropes leading to the channels are not the real ones yet - those should have 11 inch (after Steel) as they should hold some things in case of emergency. By the way the same size as the buoy rope!
 

 
So are these enough hints for the question?
 
Cheers, DAniel

In an attempt to address the poor picture quality above,I post a better quality example .Half of the nails fitted in one grating and trimmed flush(although the keen eyed will note I have one to redo as the copper was not inserted properly and dislodged whilst trimming).I have ordered some liver of sulphur gel,but I am sat on the fence as to whether to use it on these fixings.
 
Kind Regards
 
Nigel

I try to finish all the peripheral fittings before the final rigging-battle of the masts and their components

Jigs for the 5mm and 3,5mm deadeyes laynards are ready

Hello,
 
I am working on small details. All fittings are prepared. Some photos:

Grating construction pt2
 
I next glued battens into the notches in the ledges.The height of the battens was oversize as the tops would be milled off.I used aliphatic,with a drop in each joint rather than using dilute PVA,
When set,the top face of the gratings was faced of again with the miller,but still above finished level.Whilst on the mill bench,I trimmed the ends of the battens flush with the end ledges.
 
I have made the decision to carry out representation of all fastenings with copper.This was my original intention at the start and I have decided to stick to it.So now to the grating nailing.I have started drilling two holes at each intersection 0.3mm diameter.Unfortunately this must be done manually with a pin vise.Due to the drill diameter,I was unable to find anything adequately concentric and small enough to hold the drill in the mill or rotary tool.Into the holes I am bonding with CA 0.27mm copper wire.I have made a start in the pics,but you can appreciate it may be a little while before part 3 .The top face still has around 0.4mm of material to be removed so this should eradicate the glue residue.
 
Kind Regards
 
Nigel

Dremel tools - gotta love it!

It was fun and easy to saw some wood pieces, which I added between bulkheads to make the hull stronger, because my forthcoming sanding and correction process.


 
Also added wood glue to bulkheads, yes, just at this point. Earlier, I used just few drops of yellow special glue to hold the bulkheads in place. Then I added the permanent struts and more wood strips to support the whole hull shape. Now it's possible to add as much glue as I want when can be sure the glue won't twist the hull shape when it dries.

Then I have checked the shapes and started correcting the bow. Dremel is very good tool in this.



 
Here we can see the difference. Bow line before, very bumpy:
 


And after:


 
Markku
 

All the bulkheads are glued now. They are not perfect, but after corrections, fileing and sanding I believe it's going to be very good. At least the hull is straight and there are no bigger problems.
 




 
Also my new tools arrived today. They are my first power tools. Here they are:
 

 
Hope they will be very helpful during my build.
 
Markku

I have a pleasure to report that I've glued the false keel and it's very straight and looking good! I compared it to the drawing of plan sheet 2.
 

 
Then i've been fairing the bulkheads. And found out, there still was small errors with bulkheads J, K and L. Glad I checked them many times to find out that. I hope I can get the hull lines to set properly with those bulkheads I've filed and turned to fit better with their symmetry.
 

 
Today I've been glueing the keel pieces. Everything good and no problems.
 

 

 
Because I cutted the rabbet before keel assembly, needed to add little scrap wood piece to hold the stern in right place. Now the middle point sets correctly with the keel.
 

 
Markku

Jason, Mort thank you again for your assistance...
 
That is really what I wanted to do....

Got some more planking done over the last couple of days. It takes me about 2 hours to cut and install 4 planks, which is about the time I have each evening during the week. I have just enough binder clip clamps to install 4 planks.
 

 

 
These screw in clamps really help at the ends where the filler blocks are, especially since this is where the planks are the most curved.
 

 
You can see the start of one of the drop planks at the bow in this photo:
 

 

It's been a while since my last post. I've been busy with my work, but finally i'll have more time to continue my build.

So i've done the stern framing:




And now i'm starting to make the spar deck gunport framing. I've been thinking how to get all the gunports to the right level, and after few attempts i've decided to use the deck level as the main start. Because everything there starts from the deck. I made a little "waterway+planksheer-simulation" which is very easy way to mark the spar deck's lower gunport frame places. Just draw a line there (red mark):


 
After this i've added 2 planks to just for a test that both sides are in the same width and it seems to be in balance.


 
Markku