BareHook

Thanks for your encouragement and likes folks.
 
Puttering along with the deck planking now, the custom shaped planks alongside the hatches are pretty slow going, especially since I've had to remake 2 of the 3 along the way, but I think the end results will be worth it, I'm really liking it so far, and this holly is just wonderful to work with, it just blows basswood away, even ignoring the 'looks' part.
 

 
I think I'm going to place the margin planks very soon, instead of waiting until after the deck planks are in, as I've decided to go with hook & scarf planking into the margin, instead of nibbing, as that wasn't prevalent in ship building until 40 or more years after the date of this ship (see discussion on nibbing in the planking sub-forum).  Since hook & scarf deck planks don't require the margin plank to be cut into, I think it will be easier to get a neat mating to it with the deck planks if it's in place first.
Thoughts on that?

Thank you all for the suggestion, tips, and likes!
 
So I decided that the advice to go with the outside border on the grating was the way to do it, so I simply abandoned the measurements from the plans, and winged it (shocking, I know)!
 
Instead of measuring anything, I first cut the pieces and built a new grating.  I had barely enough grating material left to make one long and one short piece after this, so I figured that it had better work out!  I assembled the new grating on some reversed masking tape to hole it together for assembly and gluing.
 

 
After finishing the grating and gluing it together with fast CA, to make the coaming I simply used the grating itself to mark the length of the two 'inside' ends, and cut them.  I then glued them to the grating, and after letting the glue set, I sanded the exposed ends until they were perfectly flat with the grating edge.  I then used the new assembly to measure the wood for the 'outside' pieces of the coaming, and glued them to the grating assembly.
 

 
I then beveled and sanded the entire new assembly, and then checked the measurement on deck.  It was slightly larger than the original galley hatch, so I used a chisel and carefully trimmed back the already glued deck planking, filed the new edge flat with a riffler file, and then trimmed the final bit needed off of the single plank on the other side until it was a snug fit.  I then slapped on a coat of poly, and ta-da!  Here is the new galley hatch sitting in it's future home.
 

 
Mission success!

Like the ratlines, it has been a long time since I last did crowsfeet, but absence did not make the heart grow fonder.  They were as much of a pain as I remembered. Minimizing distortion of the stays while getting the lines taut is the hardest part for me. They are done now, however, and its on to the topmast rigging. BTW, the photos make the rigging line look whiter and brighter than it is. It is Syren tan line and looks very good in reality.
 
Bob
 
 

Very small update, as I haven't done much work on the ship the last couple of weeks, just had a busy schedule and other things going on.
 
For anyone interested I added an 'index' to the first post in this thread, so if for some reason you want to find a specific point in the build, it should be much easier now.
 
I've gotten the main hatch, and the scuttle port completed - I am using cherry for the planking and the kit walnut for the coaming, I think it makes a nice contrast.  The hardware was chemically blackened.
 

I'm finally finished with my AVS!
 
Dave

Thanks so much John for the kind words.
 
The lower ratlines are now completed, as I've done the mizzen. There will still be ratlines to be done on the topmast shrouds, of course, but there is a lot to be done before getting to them. The next items of work include making the topmasts, which I've already started, adding various blocks to the mastheads, and the crowsfeet, which I actually dread more than the ratlines.
 
Bob

Well, I promised "better" on the main ratlines and I hope I've kept that promise. Practice may not make perfect, but it does make better. I've always found that avoiding distortion of the shrouds is the hardest part of doing ratlines, but it gets easier as you get into the rythym. It's a shame that you only get to do these every couple of years or so -- it takes a while to remember what you learned in the previous efforts.   
 
With that overly long introduction, I've now finished the lower main ratlines. Now, on to the mizzen.
 
Bob
 
 

You can also install the hatch planks before beveling, this will add strength and rigidity for the sanding operation.

I've finished the fore lower ratlines. They are OK, but hardly perfect. I need to do better on the main and mizzen.
 
Bob

Hello friends.
Manufacture of ropes for the shrouds of the main mast.
Regards Karl
 
 
 
 
T e i l  5 7

Captain Al,
 
The way I have made square holes in a model is to drill a round hole, then use the tip of a large nail, which is cut in four faces, to press into the round holes, forming a square hole of sorts.

Interesting the Morgan windlass picture. I found another informative link, http://model-ship-plans.com/Clippers/Windlass%20and%20Forecastle%20Arrangement.html, with full description of the topic. On letting go it states:
 
"With the ship at anchor the strain on the cable was taken by the turns on the windlass barrel which was prevented from unwinding by a heavy iron plate ratchet (pawl) from another strong post, which dropped by gravity into an iron cogged rim around the middle of the barrel. Sometimes there were up to three of these pawls of varying lengths above one another. The windlass thus could only operate normally in one direction, bringing the cable aboard and not letting it go. When a ship was coming to anchor an estimate had to be made beforehand of the approximate length of cable required and this was brought up from the cable locker. The end of the cable was led over the top of the windlass barrel from aft with two complete turns and then forward through the hawse pipe and shackled to the anchor ring. The full length of required cable had now to be pulled around the windlass drum and laid along the deck in long loops until the turns around the windlass were at the end of the required length, or as nearly so as could be estimated. When the anchor was let go, the cable along the deck would run out until it was stopped by the turns around the windlass, which were left slack to avoid a sudden shock. Any additional length required had to be eased around the drum by means of long hooks, and additional hooks with two prongs were hooked onto links of the cable and attached to an eyebolt on the centre pawl bitt to help ease the strain on the windlass when riding at anchor"

Almost finished.   Only the anchors left to rig.  I was concerned that my rope coils at the bow were too long, but if I made them shorter, I couldn't get them to bend and lay naturally.  They "stuck out" almost straight from the rail.  I added a shot of a 5'6" sailor standing nearby.  i don't think the scale is terrible.  Any thoughts? I think the riding bit rope coils look OK.
 
I read about a technique using shrink wrap tubing on models for straps, bands etc.  I tried it on my anchors and it worked great.  Just cut to the right width, slide the resulting rings onto  the anchor stock in their proper positions and head in a 300 degree oven for about 3 minutes,  The tubing comes in various sizes and is cheap.  Another great use would be the iron reinforcement rings on the mast.  
 
I'll post finished shots when the anchors are rigged.
 
Dave
 
BTW:  Anyone have a good technique for getting rid of the "fuzzies", especially on the tan rigging?  Dilute white glue?

Hi,
I googled a few pictures from the net.
 
Tadeusz

Thanks to everyone for the kind comments and encouragement, and for all the likes.
--
 
I'm done with the sweep ports.  Not because I'm particularly happy with how they came out, but because I kept trying to make them better and was at the point where I think I was starting to make things worse, rather than better.  So I reached the 'good enough this time' point and called it done.
 
A few of them came out pretty good, but there are a number that under the stare of the optivisor or macro lens, make me..  unhappy.  Oh well.
 
Close up of a pair of decent ones, before touch-up painting.

 
And some generic shots of both sides.

 
Now I get to start on what I hope is fun and interesting, building the deck furniture so that I can plank the deck!

I think I may have a new criteria for kit buying.  Does it have odd shaped sweep ports (i.e. not square)?  If yes, run away!
 
The entire time I'm working on these I'm deathly afraid of slipping and making a mistake that will wreck hours or days of work.  I'm halfway home, and managed to get them ok looking, if not great, but also managed to mess up all three colors of paint so more touch-up will be coming down the road.  Shocker!
 
Will finish up the starboard side ports tomorrow.  Here are the port side sweep ports, obviously not painted yet.
 

 
I did these by first transferring the center point for each port by making a direct tracing of the plans, and just taping that tracing to the bulkhead and using a sharp point punch to mark.  I did this while the bulkheads were masked, inside and out with masking tape for doing the black paint touch-up.
 
I then made a small brass jig with the center and end holes in it, and then positioning the jig over the center punch marks and drilling the three holes with a 3/64" drill (actually 1.2mm, but that's only 0.01mm off).  I then came back and drilled the center hole with a 3/32" drill.  I connected the holes with a small X-acto saw while it was still masked.
 
After finishing the touch-up work on the black paint, I removed all the masking, and enlarged the connecting line between the holes with a #10 X-acto blade, working very slowly and shaving a tiny bit off at a time, doing first the outside, then the inside, and then working to open up the middle to connect them evenly.
 
The port farthest aft is pretty lopsided, but the rest came out decent.
 

Thanks Ken,
 
The video was kind of fun, but I don't think I'll do more of that, as stopping to get the photo between every little step is sort of annoying, and the result really isn't as cool as I was hoping for since even though I had the tripod location marked on the floor, and the hull location taped off on the bench, there was still quite a bit of movement between shots.  I'm sure that could be adjusted in post by careful cropping, but I'm not a post-processing guru by any stretch, and the time and effort to learn how to do that wasn't something I was willing to do for this.
 
As far a spiling, I guess it depends on how you define that word.  The planks aren't truly spiled, in the sense that they are not individually cut from wider stock in a curved shape like true spiling.  I used the kit .030 supplied planks strips.  I'll see if I can describe my system.
 
First, the hull was done in 4 'bands' which are approximately 4 planks wide at the widest point (not counting the stern).  After masking off the band with tape, I used card stock (manila folders) cut into narrow strips and used the cards to transfer tick-marks from a planking fan to give myself a bunch of reference points for the plank widths needed at various spots along the hull.
 
Here is a zoomed in image which corresponds to the first image in the video showing part of the middle section of the final band marked off.

 
You can see the tick marks that I've transferred to the first layer of planking.  You can also see some lines marked 1 through 4, which are where I planned the locations for the butt-ends to fall for this band.  I plotted them on this band because I shifted them from the previous band so that they would not end up with the same issue I had on the other side where I had a pair of rows where the butts were in the same spot.
 
Except for the stem and stern planks, I use pre-cut 4" plank lengths that I cut in a little jig I made up.  As I got towards the end I ran out of pre-cut pieces, and would just cut another 4" plank length as I went.  Starting with the 4" x 3/16" plank piece, I would lay it on the hull and mark both ends with the nearest tick-mark to get the required taper.  I then trimmed the plank using a straight edge and razor knife and laid it back onto the hull to see how it fit.  If it was reasonably close I would then bevel the trimmed edge to fit up tight against the existing planks using a sanding block with 320 grit sandpaper.  I would sand as needed until the plank edge matched up with all the tick marks along the edge, and then glue it in place.
 
In the middle I had a few planks that needed to be wider somewhere in the middle than on the ends.  For those I marked the wide spot, and then marked the tick marks at each end.  I would trim with the razor knife from the tick mark to the edge of the plank at the middle mark, from both ends, giving me a plank that was wider in the middle at the mark, and then repeat the beveling/sanding process until it fit nicely to the existing planks, and matched up with the tick marks fairly close.
 
Hopefully that's understandable.  I didn't really photo-document that process very well, since it's mostly lifted from planking tutorials here, or practicums like Bob Hunts that give various methods of doing this.  I think my personal system is something of a hybrid between all the stuff I've read, but it seemed to mostly work out fairly well for me.
 
Yesterday I sanded down the final planking until I was reasonably happy with the final finish, and applied a coat of wipe-on poly and let it dry for about 6 hours.  I then buffed that and applied a 2nd coat to let it dry overnight.  This morning I buffed that coat, and after looking at the new photo's, I'll need to re-sand with a very fine paper to remove the light scratches left from using the wrong buffing material, and refinish, but that can be done down the road.
 
For now, here is what it looks like with the 2 coats of poly and a buffing (or scratching in some photos!).

 
As you can see, I failed at the symmetry at the stern, which I'm not terribly happy about, but the rest looks pretty good to me, and I am not going to cover it with paint as I really like the way the different colors of walnut came out.  I'm also happy that I mis-read an instruction and used 4" planks instead of 5", as even though they are fairly short in scale (16'), I think they make the hull look quite nice.  I also used a 4-butt shift pattern for the planking, which came out quite well except for the aforementioned mistake when I laid the garboard strake at the wrong shift point.
 
I've now got it all re-masked for touching up the black paint, and am about to start working on marking the locations for the sweep ports, and making a jig for drilling them.
 

Work on the head and the bowsprit rigging is now complete. Probably the most significant aspect of this work is the figurehead. As those who have followed this log will remember, I had reached a point of desperation at doing it. In a gesture that demonstrates both the wonderful nature of this site and his own incredible generosity, Janos offered to carve the figurehead for me from boxwood. The result is fantastic, and something that I could never hope to duplicate on my own. My gratitude is boundless. I must add that Sam Cassano, despite his illness, sent me a resin cast figurehead that he had done previously. Although it won't appear on the ship, I am thinking of ways to finish and mount it in the finished display case as a tribute to Sam's efforts on this model.
 
After mounting the figurehead, I completed the head by adding the boomkins and the iron railings and stanchions which had previously been made and fitted, but not installed. The railings and stanchions were made from wire. The boomkins were rigged with their shrouds after they were installed. I also added the eyebolts necessary to do rigging in this area.
 
Finally,I did the bobstays and the bowsprit shrouds.
 
Next up will be catharpins, futtock shrouds and (ugh!   ) ratlines.
 
Bob

In a strange turn of events, I actually worked on the AVS for a few hours today, and got stuff done!
 
Started working on the lower band of planking on the starboard side, got the garboard strake plus the next one in...

 
And worked on the final band of planking on the port side...

 
Last plank on the port side!

 
And the final plank glued in place...

 
And then cleaned it up with a damp cloth for a few photo's.

 
I made a number of mistakes on the planking, and I'm sure the eagle eyed amongst you can spot at least a couple of them, but outside of the ship-building community, I doubt anyone will notice, and the overall effect is quite nice, and I think it will really look nice after some final sanding and coating with poly.
 
Tomorrow I'm off to the track to play with my new car, so the other side probably won't get touched until Monday, but hopefully I can finish up the planking and get a coat of poly on it by next weekend, then I can finally move on to other stuff (and re-mask and paint the black that I damaged while planking before I covered it with tape).
 
Cheers!

Finished with Belt C on the current wall side (starboard) and half-way through on the port side. (After a lifetime of sailing, I'm suddenly getting confused about port/starboard because I'm always looking at the boat upside down.)

There've been a couple little blips here and there, like the strake I cracked while gluing it in – which I opted to keep and sand rather than recreate. But none of these have been of any major consequence since I plan to paint the bottom.

I'm a little concerned the unfinished space at the bow will be just a little narrow for all six strakes of Belt B. But I'm confident enough in my improving woodworking that, if need be, I can just go with five strakes at the bow and sneak in a stealer as needed. It may not be necessary; I still have more room for Belt B than I did at this point on my first layer.

It looks best from arm's length.

Instead of battens or thread, as suggested in some of the literature, I've been drawing guidelines directly on the first layer of planking. In the photo below, the black line marks the extent of Belt C when I get in the last layer on the port side.

I'm far enough along just now that I can look forward to being able to work on some aspect of the boat other than planking the hull.
Let's see, another 30 hours or so for Belt B, then perhaps 15 hours for above the black strake, and then I have no idea how long for the ceiling planks.
That should take me into March I think, when I begin worrying about the deck. 
 
I've been informally tracking my time after each build session on the inside cover of the manual, making a hash mark for each hour spent. I've rounded up and down and missed recording some, but since I don't have anyone to bill for this time it's certainly accurate enough.
I began 10 days shy of a year ago, and have recorded 133 hours of productive build time (I don't count time spent on the forum, or reading over the plans, or drinking bourbon and just staring at stuff).

 
At this time next year, I should be just about ready to begin building the ways. 

Nearing the end.  Only two yards to rig and the anchors to finish!  The stern shot is the only one with the rudder fitted. 
 
Dave

Went and looked at various furniture Friday, and they definitely have some stuff that I'll probably use.  Big issue is transport, the shelf unit I'd like won't fit in my car!  I'll have to bug a friend and borrow a truck one of these days when I'm ready to grab some of it.
 
Oh look - a ship building update!
 
I finished the lower band of planking on the port side of the AVS.

 
I'm pretty annoyed at that last stealer.  When I placed it the fitment was absolutely perfect, and the piece would just barely fit into the spot for it, yet after letting it dry and removing the clamp..  there is a big ol' gap there (not terribly apparent in 'life', but the macro shot sure shows it up ugly as can be).

 
Ah well..  I'll do some sanding/white glue fill and hopefully it will cover it up pretty well.

Looking really good, remember all planking appear rough looking initially, but when you sand it and add finish it really brings it to life.
 
BTW, don't forget to do the bottom band with the garboard strake, you don't want to leave that till last... much easier to do the final fitting of planks in the middle band.
 
Ken

Less done than I would have liked in the last couple days, but finished the 2nd band of planking tonight.
 
The pictures make the bow look more out of symmetry than the stern, but when measured the bow is actually within 1mm of even, and the stern is off by about 2x that much.  I think it will blend in with how narrow the planks are where they bend over the transom, but I'll try to get it adjusted across the next few planks.
 

And the weeks have slipped by!
 
Next came the mast.  Quite a complicated piece.  Well, pieces, really, as there are top and lower masts.  And plenty to screw up!
 
I shaped the lower mast reasonably easily - even though I kept forgetting which way it went (forrard or stern, not top or bottom!).
 
Here is the bottom of the lower mast, with its various bits and pieces:
 

 
 
And the top, with trestle trees etc.  I had to reposition the trees - again I was glad I used PVA glue:
 

 
 
The topmast caused some difficulties.  I missed the bit about leaving a bead at the top, so glued one on after.  In retrospect, that's actually a good option.  Glued, unshaped:
 

 
 
Rounded:
 

 
 
The bottom of the top mast, after squaring:
 

 
 
Then it's time to join the two. 
 

 
In the above photo you can see little "fids", painted black, supposedly resting on the trestle trees.  The instructions say to make a hole through the top mast for a single fid.  WHY????
 
Far easier to make 2 dummy fids, and glue them either side of the topmast.
 
Finally, I think I'm getting the hang of this! 
 
Cheers,
 
Brett