Stuntflyer

Looking very nice! I was wondering what those seats would look like. Dirk - With all the customer work I'm surprised that Chuck has managed to complete as much as he has. Mike

Looking really good Ken. . I'm looking forward to seeing it a one of our meetings. Mike

The margin planks are done. . The only way that I could get the four sections of planks located between the stern frames at the same angle was to add shims onto the false deck. You can see where I placed them between the stern frames on the port side. The shims taper across the deck from 1/64" to less than 1/32". Without them the two sections on the port side would have dropped too much. Prior to installing these four pieces I could see where the false deck was slightly lower on the port side near the counter. The scarph joints were made with a #11 blade and some needle files. I went slowly, spending time trying to get a close fit. I also had to figure out the proper length of each section so the joints would center between the gun ports. The three long sections on each side were joined, sanded and given a coat of W-O-P off the ship prior to placing them into the hull. I decided to soften the inside edge of the caprail. It's a small thing but it does make the overall appearance better, I think. I'm also refining the paint work around the fashion pieces as you can see. I'm not in any hurry to finish painting around the caprail since other parts have to be installed on top, which would only require more sanding and painting.

Mike, It's always good to have tools. I can hardly see the joint on that scarph. Is there enough room in there for glue? I'm doing a few myself by hand right now. I'm jealous!

Nicely done Erik. Seeing yours makes me want to redo the rigging on mine using Chuck's rope. It must be nice seeing it all start to come together. Mike

Hey Mike, Thank you for the compliment. Speaking of which, I admire your taking on such an advanced project as Oliver Cromwell. I could not imagine myself doing anything like that at this point with my limited experience.

Wow!!! What nice compliments from all of you and thanks for all the "Likes" as well. I must say that Cheerful has not been an easy task. Being fairly new to the hobby, I need some guidance on figuring out how to do it right and Chuck, your support is highly appreciated. Even so, there are times when something doesn't look or fit right and it means that I have to do it again. I used to get frustrated but now I just accept the re-do's as being part of the hobby. Honestly though I am getting a wee bit better on knowing when to say "good enough". Again, thank you all for your kind and inspiring comments. This hobby is a lot of fun! Mike

I've been hard at work completing a number of tasks and thought that it would be better to post after all of them were completed. Here are a few notes that might be of interest to others who are building Cheerful. Before installing the false deck, the four stern frames were thinned down gradually, 1/16" at the top to 1/8" at the bottom. The 2nd layer of bulwark planking is slightly rounded at its top outside edge where it sits directly below the gun port sills. The Caprail's fancy molding was added after painting its bottom edge black. It was glued to the caprail using medium CA from the top. Consequently, there was no CA seepage below its bottom edge. The width of the Caprail, which includes its fancy molding, is slightly under 5/32". After shaping the boarding ladder steps I installed the top one to the hull before starting on the remaining fancy molding. This was easier for me than to try and cut out the space for the top ladder after the molding was glued to the hull. All of the remaining fancy moldings were then added to the hull including the small “ear” at the stem. The moldings are quite thin being under 1/32". I could see that the 1/32" Hawse Plates would stand proud of the molding, which I didn't like, so I made them from .025 sheet. On the transom, the port lids are stationary with simulated hinge straps using Chuck's Laser Board kit. There are tiny holes in the hinges that are filled with glue during application which aid in holding the hinges in place. They are stiff, easy to paint and easy to install. Highly recommended. Missing are the four hinges on the top of each strap. I am still trying to decide how I want to make them. Some prep work was necessary before painting the bulwark planking. Using soft 4-6 lb balsa (left over from the airplane building days) I fitted plugs into each gun port to protect them from any overspray. They are only 1/8" thick and were easy to shape and fit into the ports. Then the entire hull including the false deck was masked off. The paint was applied using the Paasche air brush. W&N Galeria Acrylic paint, when properly thinned, does not clog this airbrush. I also noticed that cleaning the airbrush between coats was not necessary. Seven coats were applied. I laid down some 3M fine line tape inside the hull along the bottom edge of the caprail. Using a black .020 Micron Archival pen, I scribed a line against the tapes edge to establish the bottom of the caprail. Now it was a simple matter of painting from the line up to the top of the caprail.

Erik, I used the kit supplied wire to make the Chainplates for my Longboat. After sanding the wire to remove the outside finish I was able to solder the wire. After some cleanup, I sprayed the wire with Krylon primer and painted with model expo paint. No problem with adhesion. Mike

I can and have come to expect nothing less from you, Remco. Fantastic! Mike

Beautiful work Thomas!

Thomas, I haven't been on MSW for a long time and have yet to catch up with all the nice builds here. I have seen what can be done with a lot of skill and creative thinking to bring these kit builds to a higher level. Along with yourself, Dirk and Augie, to name a few, it's a pleasure to see the results of your hard work. Mike

Looking really nice Erik! Mike

Looking really good Bob! The way I see it, Chuck will just have to finish the project sooner just to keep you going. You can sleep now, you're miles ahead of me. Mike

Erik, Thanks for the tip. I will look into it. Mike

Except for the two door handles that are missing, the Companion is done. They will go on when I get some wire with the right gauge thickness, 30 or smaller. I only have a 35mm lens so photos of these small objects are not really a good representation since I have to crop the image. This of course decreases sharpness. I can see where a macro lens might come in handy here. Anyway, you should be able to get the general idea of what it looks like. Now it's back to the hull.

Erik, Be careful when you make the sheaves. On mine, also basswood, the area around them was very thin and weakened the mast considerably. Mike

I was able to finish the Skylight today. I applied some semi-gloss varnish to the windows which helped them look a bit more authentic and shows up nicely fairly close up.

Hi Maury, I would say that around 4-5 coats, not too dry, gives the right coverage. Mike

While working on the hull planking, I managed to get a few of the deck fittings completed. The gratings were made completely from scratch. Inspired by Chuck's kit tutorial, I was able to come up with a method to complete them.The Windlass was made from the kit. After the gratings were cut on the table saw, I edge bent them to the approximate camber. After bending back each grating slightly to the exact camber, 1/32" tabs were glued to the bottom of each grating for support. Similar to the one from the kit, the gratings were then placed in a jig I made on the table saw. The grating strips were inserted into the jig. Two temporary grating strips were inserted, one at each end, to keep the gratings parallel to one another. After making sure that everything was square, I glued .045 x .045 flat strips to the grating strips to complete the grating. I made this jig for establishing the roundup once the grating and coaming were combined. I had a lot of fun making the Windlass. Again, I decided to spray paint the colors. This photo shows the setup for spray painting. The completed Windlass

Hi Brian, You've done a great job on the ship. I especially like the rigging work you have done. Must be nice working with quality rigging line. Mike

Looking really nice Bob! Do you ever sleep? Mike

Before final sanding the hull, I decided that it would be a good time to paint the counter. My experience with brush painting the color "red" has not been great. I decided to try my Paasche air brush. The paint used is W&N Crimson with some Burnt Umber mixed in. I have read somewhere here on MSW that acrylic paints can clog an airbrush. With that in mind, I thinned the paint to a slow drip and gave it a try. As a result, the airbrush never clogged and the paint flowed very smoothly. Since the fashion pieces are going to be black it wasn't necessary to tape off that area exactly. I'm thinking that it would be a good idea to wait until the cap rail and other pieces are in place around the fashion pieces before I paint with black. While the paint was left to dry thoroughly, I started work on the stern post. It turned out that the area that the stern post is glued to was slightly off 90°, maybe by a 1/2°. This made getting a close fit on both sides a little tricky and I had to work for a few hours before I was satisfied with the fit. Once glued, I finished sanding the hull planking. The only other thing I wanted to do was to paint the red on the stern post. That was sprayed as well.

Thanks guys for the kind words and all the "likes". Chuck has designed a superb first time scratch build along with a monograph on how to build it. Even though there could be multiple ways of doing things, I admit that sometimes my methods have been wrong. One of my goals is to find better ways for getting the work done correctly on the first try, if possible, and avoid the re-do's. I think the learning process is one of the things that makes the hobby so interesting and at times challenging. Mike

I'm finally finished planking the outer hull. I don't know if all Cutters are difficult to plank, especially aft, but this one surely was. Even though the bulkheads are spaced close together, the planks seemed to flatten slightly between some of them. I suppose that this is normal but it did require some additional sanding in order to get the right shape. I'm wondering if inserting spacers between the bulkheads before fairing the hull might have prevented this. Anyway, so much for my nitpicking! I'm still doing a bit of sanding here and there but I'm getting close to the end. I will apply some Wipe-on Poly to the hull after the Stern Post is attached.