rameyke

Ha! Sal was partially correct about the first row of planks above the wale. I could not tell by the pictures, but as I was pulling the planking off, I noticed that the first piece of planking above the wale at the bow was in fact 5/32 x 1/16 on both sides. The rest of the row was the correct size. I must have grabbed the wrong width wood when I was bending those pieces. Well, my first attempt at planking has been pulled. After cleaning up the old glue and doing a little work on the rabbet, I am happy to say that i reinstalled the upper wale. I have a nice clean run. No lateral bends and it meets up at the keel in the bow very nicely. Augie, your advice on redoing the planks and pre-trimming the piece that meets the bow was used and appreciated. Sal, thank you for the diagram. Sanding the back of the corner where the plank hits the rabbet worked out nicely. Tonight I will start planking above the wale again. I realized that the upper wale would be covered by another layer, so I went ahead and used the kit basswood for this piece. Just in case I needed to tear it off again Much nicer run of the plank. No lateral bend like last time.

Hi Sal, I did use the batten and i think after I made my markings, I still created the bad bend in my board. I think I tried too hard to make it match my mark, but missed one. It was a little low, then I corrected at the next bulkhead. Looking at the diagram you attached, I did not sand off the inside edge where it meets the rabbet. Augie pointed this out as well. My first plank is 5/32 and the second row is 1/8. i think the shadow in the image along with the bad placement makes it look like they are the same size. Thanks you all for the advice. I am sure I will be asking for more.

I like that idea for making the waterways. I will have to remember that.

Hi John. I am pretty new at this hobby too. This is my second build. I have to say that Chuck's instructions are top notch with this kit. When I near completion, I plan to purchase the USF Confederacy which is another of Chuck's kits availble from Model Expo. There are a number of Syren Builds on here; Augie, Dubz and DrWatson are a few of my favorites. There are others, and I dont want to offend those builders. I keep going back to their buids to get inspiration and check to check my work As you can see from my build, I started a couple years ago, then life got in the way. I am back at it and hope to be able to stick to it this time. I just keep feeling like I am making mistakes. Especially now that I am starting to plank.. It is such a gorgeous ship, I want to be able to do the kit justice. That is one reason I am posting my log. It will hopefully keep me honest and not take shortcuts. Ken

So i got a little too excited to lay my first planks, and I am having a bit of trouble at the bow. I guess I need to carve out the rabbet a little more. I can not seem to get a nice joint where the planks meet the keel. Also the port side seems to have a severe bend in my upper wale. I did not notice it until after I started my 3rd row of planks on that side and I could not seem to get a clean curve. I am not sure how i ended up bending it there. Seems like my starboard side is a little better, but I am not completely happy with it. So before I go any further, I am going to remove those planks and clean it up. Anyone have any hints on getting the planks to butt against the rabbet a little better? I am pre-bending the strips. May be I just need to cut the rabbet a little deeper. Bow is so ugly right now. I guess I need to make my angle on the plank a little better and cut the rabbet deeper so the ends will stop popping out. A little better on the starboard side, but still not happy with it. Also you can see the difference between the wale that I prebent using the frames and the first row that I used a jar. I think the first row bend is a little better as it was bent a bit more than I had to, and seemed to hold in the rabbet a little more. It also had a nicer curve in it. The run on the wale on my starboard side seems ok. Still going to redo it since I dont like the bow. Port side, showing the strange bend at about bulkhead 8. You can clearly see how it affected the first row of planks. I do have to compliment Crown Timberyard again on the quality of the boxwood he shipped. It is very easy to work with, and looks great. The only issue with it is me.... A newby trying to work with it. Any hints or suggestions would be appreciated. I have been looking at other build logs, but you all seemed to be able to get past this part so cleanly.

It has taken me a little while to get through all the pages of this build. But once again Augie, you inspire me to build more. I am really enjoying watching this build now that I am caught up.

For anyone that is using acrylics, Vallejo makes a really good primer available in white, black and grey. It goes on smooth and provides a nice texture for the paint to stick to. I utilize it on all my miniatures and plastic models. I use Vallejo and Badger Minitair paints exclusively. The nice thing is they are great in airbrushes and when I break out my brushes. The Valejo liquid metals that JPett mentions above work fine on this primer too. From my mini painting hobby, those liquid metals are the bee's knees. Great coverage, and the metal flakes are very fine and produce a superior finish. Note: You MUST thin with rubbing alcohol. Adding any water based thinner to these will create a big mess. But the finish of these makes the extra work worth it. Also you can use them on acrylic surfaces without damaging the underlying paint.

I just received my first order of boxwood from Jason at Crown Timberyards. Let me thank Jason for the fast turnaround on my order. It arrived just in time. I am almost done sanding and shaping the stern and am hoping to start laying down some planking on the upper bulwarks. At the time, i bought all that Jason had in the sizes I need. Jason, if you are reading this. Thanks, and I will be ordering more wood very soon. I gotta say, this stuff is nice! The strips are super smooth and not a bit of fuz on them. I am glad I read others experience and recommendations of boxwood for my Syren.

Well, the Admiral was visiting family in Michigan this past weekend, so I got to spend some quality time with my Syren. I made a nice pile of dust from sanding... Oh the sanding... And more sanding... Did I mention I did alot of sanding? Finally got all the gun ports installed and the bullwarks sanded. Here are some pictures. As usual, please let me know if I am on the right track, or if I need to sand some more, or you see anything I have done incorrectly. Thanks Ken Not sure if I need to sand more on the bow. Yes.. I like to watch movies while I build.

Spent the evening sanding the starboard side of my gun ports. I now have a really nice pile of sawdust building up. I am not quite done sanding the outboard side of them yet. Here are a couple close up shots of the outboard side of my gun ports after a little sanding. The aft end has not been sanded yet. I am realizing that I probably should have framed in the rest before I started sanding. Section still unsanded. On another note, I just ordered a bunch of 1/16x5/32 and 1/16x1/8 boxwood strips from Crown Timberyard. I will make sure to let you all know how it looks when it comes in. As always, any feedback (good or bad) is welcome Ken

Well, I finally got a little progress made. I was able to spend some time this weekend making dust and got the gunport sills installed. Note to self. Must read a little more carefully. I first installed all the sills on one side and then went back to read the next step. That is when I noticed that in the well written manual, Chuck said that the 3/16th by 1/4 sills should be installed so that the 1/4 side makes up the top of the sill. I installed it the opposite way. Luckily I had used wood glue and was able to disolve the bonds using a little rubbing alcohol as I had read in this forum. 1st sill installed. You will notice that it is installed wrong side up. I figured this out later and had to remove one entire row of these. All Sills and tops installed. I havent yet finished the framing of the gunports. Next step. Another view of the sills. I created a little block on a handle that was the size of the gunports according to the plan. I used this to make sure I put the tops of the gun ports at the right height. While framing in the sides of the gun ports, I used a caliper to measure from the inside edge of one gunport to the inside edge of the adjacent port to make sure the spacing is correct. Hopefully I did this correctly. I will post a picture of the gun port framing later today. Any comments and / or critique is welcome. If you spot something screwy, please say so. I dont want to get too far in. Thanks for looking. Ken

Thanks Augie and Chuck. Luckily i have plenty of work to do framing the gun ports before I get to the point of needing any planking wood. Here's a picture of my most recent "wood working" project. We just installed about 250 square feet of handscraped solid acacia hardwood flooring.

So back in May 2013, I was working on this build pretty regularly. Then the riding season started up and I spent most of my time training. Then raft / kayak season was in full swing and by build took a back seat... Then an entire year went by (not sure where it went). I spent some time on other hobbies that I enjoy such as model airplanes and painting wargame miniatures. But a couple weeks ago, I pulled out the syren and started sanding again. She's still in the same state. My bulkheads are installed and the filler blocks are there. I have created a ton of dust sanding and trying to get the bulkheads faired up so I can start framing. Anyways, it is good to be back and building my Syren. I do have a question though. I want to do some upgrades, and I noticed that hobbymillworks is no longer accepting orders. I want to upgrade the following Plank wood, Wood for the deck, Hooks, blocks, deadeyes, carondales and the 24 pounders. I see that Chuck has Syren Ship Model Company, which looks like he is supplying some awesome upgrades. Is there a good place to get the upgraded wood? From what I have read in Dubz and Augie's and other build logs, it seems that Pear or Boxwood would be best. Any other recommendations? Thanks to all of you.

Very cool. Another Syren. I will pull up a chair and watch. You are a few steps ahead of me, so i plan to cheat off your work

Last night I got around to planking the partial deck that will be under the companionway. When I built my Swift, I did not know about simulating caulking. I used the pencil method on this piece, and I am so happy with the appearance. At first, I could not figure out how it would actually show up, since the pencil is just on the edge of each plank. But once I sanded it and stained it, I think it came out awesome. Such a simple thing and it adds so much.