BareHook

I've completed the swivel posts, catheads, timberheads and channels. I'll add the slots and facing on the channels when I do the chainplates and deadeyes. Next I'm going to get a coat of minwax waterbase satin on all the wood and that should really bring out more color in the hull. I'll wait to coat the deck until after mounting the deck furniture to have a better adhesive bond to the bare wood of the deck.
 
Ken

My modeling empire is rapidly consuming a larger and larger share of our home.  In order to placate the Admiral, I named the AVS after her.  I also added a nameplate that includes her Virginia home port.  Her name is Elizabeth, but that wouldn't fit on the transom along with Norfolk!
 
Dave

Finally got the cannons rigged.  Placed the bowsprit and it's hardware today.  Ready to start rigging!
 
Dave

Currently building an AVS.  Here is my progress so far.  The cannons are just sitting on the deck.  I'm working on the rigging right now.  I even added a skylight to the cabin roof!
 
Dave

Thanks all.  Was a pretty good weekend, even though I had to work about 9 hours today on a Sunday.
 
I finished the replacement spirketing plank, and it came out pretty good, and I think I got the scupper shaping even better on this one, so all's well that ends well.

 
I got sidetracked (shocking, I know) and played with the holly planking sample again.  I drilled out one of the lines of tree nail locations to .031" and made some bamboo tree nails and placed them.
 
I'm glad I tried this, but they stand out way too much, so I won't be using them on this deck.  For a darker deck, like boxwood, these might work ok, but I'm not sure I like the dark 'spots' they seem to have, so I'll try using some regular wood of some kind next.

 
Next up was gun port sills.  When I got to the point of doing this, I realized that at some point in the build I've managed to screw up, probably way back at the deck fairing, as the spirketing plank is not at an even height along all the gunports.  In one case it's very far off and I'm not really sure what I'm going to do about it.  The starboard side wasn't nearly as bad as the port, so I started on the sills there.  I decided that I could use the sills themselves to 'fix' the problem with the spirketing plank not matching up to the gunports correctly, by installing the sills to the outside of the outer planking instead of just installing them between the outer planks and the spirketing plank like you are supposed to.
I began by taking a 1/8" x 3/32" piece of basswood and cutting it to the proper width for each gunport, and then using small files, shaping the piece into an "L" shape to fit into the gap between the two layers of planking while also extending outside of the outer layer of planking.

 
Once placed, the sill is both too high, extending above the spirketing plank, and too wide, extending outside of the outer plank layer.

 
I then filed/sanded the outside down to match the outside planking layer, so that it's the right width, but still too high.

 
Then, I filed the sill down to match the top of the spirketing plank, leaving it fit to the port, and making the top of the spirketing plank even with the outside planking.

 
Did this for all 4 ports on the starboard side.

 
As none of the ports on the starboard side are terribly out of alignment with the top of the spirketing plank, this worked out quite well, but the port side is worse, so I'm going to have to think about what is going to happen on that side to even things out.  One port in particular is low (or the plank is high) by 1/2 the height of the spirketing plank (so about 1/16").  I may be able to lower the spirketing plank a little bit by sanding it down to take up part of this discrepancy, and sort of blend it in well enough that it won't be noticed later.
 

Looks great, yes beware the magnified photo, but 99% of people enjoying your creation will be using the naked eye, I had to force myself to "move-on" at times when the fine details were killing me.

Looks great, yes beware the magnified photo, but 99% of people enjoying your creation will be using the naked eye, I had to force myself to "move-on" at times when the fine details were killing me.

Hey Brian
I tend to think the treenails are perfect. Treenails in the deck were not end grain exposed, dowels, but plugged with a cross-grain cut plug with the grain of the plug lined up with the decking grain, so that the treenail plugs nearly disappear on an actual ships deck.
 
Check out this thread
http://modelshipworld.com/index.php/topic/740-methods-for-making-treenails/page-2

and a real treenail plugged deck


Geoff Matson also shows this side view of the plugs from the USS Conny, nice piece of history

 
Your fitting of the waterways is beautifully done. And your deck sample looks excellent. it looks to have a pretty nice 4 plank shift and lines up pretty good for eyeballing it.
 
I love those quiet moments while wet wood or glue is drying and I have the time to think about everything I've done.
I believe it was Mark Taylor that once said he slowly bent the curvature by slowly adding water a few drips at a time, then waited for the wood to relax. He'd then wet the next section. Small clamping stress, water and time achieved and almost impossible bend. He said it took HOURS over days IIRC. It made me change my whole philosophy in building and slow WAY down. Wood and its ability to be shaped is a mystifying thing and every wood has it's own personally.
 
So what do you think of Holly. Its a great planking and carving wood. It's so velvety and the grain is so much harder then basswood and doesn't round or fuzz like basswood or breakout during carving. It also makes a quite striking deck. The tissue paper looks good. Myself I've only used pencil on the long boat, but would like to use paper and thread at some point to simulate caulking.
 
Brian your AVS is slowly becoming a beauty. Nice symmetry on the wales at the stem BTW. I knew this would be a fun watch. WAY better then TV, I guess as I no longer have it, as life is just more interesting.

A little bit of progress.  Moving quite slowly at the moment between work and some car trouble I just haven't spent much time working on the ship.
 
I got the second wale on, and only after editing the pictures to post here did I see the gap I left at the stem.  Close up photo's are the harshest critic.  I used a batch resizer for this group of photo's, so hopefully they come out at least reasonably close to the previous photo's for quality.

 
Next is the spirketing plank, which includes the scuppers that were discussed here over the last week.  I've decided to just build them in per the plans and not worry about the water sloshing around on the deck for the non-existant tiny sailor-men.  Given the type of ship, chances are fairly high that if it was taking enough water over the bulwarks to need the scuppers, it would be heeled over pretty good and the water would drain over the waterway anyhow.
 
I started by fitting the wood to the top of the waterway, and getting it cut to size and sanded properly (rounded the inside edge, and put a slight bevel on the bulwark side for fitment, as well as getting the angle against the stem right).  I clamped it down with a whole bunch of clamps after soaking it, and then continued to use an eye-dropper to add water in the areas that had the most severe bend, and then left it overnight.  The next day while it was still in place, made marks in the center of each section where a scupper needed to go, and then removed the plank from the model and used a compass to mark the height of the scuppers, and marked 1/16" on either side of my center marks to define the basic location of each scupper.  I was pretty worried about trying to trim these little guys out with a razor knife, as they are really tiny and I am not that great with depth control when using a knife - I tend to overdo it.
 
Luckily, as I was playing with different tools I discovered that I had a small square file that was exactly 1/8" wide to the outside of the cutting edges.  Bam, solution!  I cut the basic rectangle to depth with the square file while the plank was clamped in a vise, and then used the smallest round file I have to shape the scuppers.

 
Pretty happy with how they came out.  Next of course, I had to get the thing back in place and glued.  I used regular PVA from a syringe to get the glue along the back and edges of the plank without getting any into the areas of the scuppers, and then clamped the crud out of it again and left it to dry.

 
After it dried, I removed the clamps, and it's pretty decent.  I would have liked to have it fit perfectly against the waterway, but there is a small gap there.  It snugs up against the bulwark extensions nicely though.

 
I am now doing the same thing for the other side.  I've got the plank cut to size, and it's currently soaked and clamped in place.  I'll keep it wet for a bit longer until I head to bed.

 
While I was waiting for things to dry (either water or glue) I also embarked on a bit of a planking experiment to try out two things:
1 - caulking with the method outlined in a thread by Nigel (found here: http://modelshipworld.com/index.php?/topic/7445-plank-caulking-using-tissue-paper-tutorial-by-nigel-brook/) using tissue paper.
2 - Tree nails.
 
I made a huge mess with the tissue paper and glue, but the results were surprisingly good given my first try, and how much of a mess I made.  Note that as can be seen in the photo, I didn't measure anything for this experiment, so the butt's don't really line up very well.

 
Tree nails on the other hand, were a bit of a failure.  I drilled 0.024" holes, which are about 1.15" in scale, and then tried to draw bamboo to the correct size, and failed badly at the hole 3 sizes above what I needed to get them down to.  I don't know if the draw plate is bad, or if that's just the smallest I can get with the materials I have.  The draw plate is from the Reno trip and I have no idea of it's source - the size that failed is the size he was using for his final size on the Hannah model, so maybe it's just worn out?  I may get another plate (Byrns?) or try it with another material later. 
 
Since the actual tree nails failed, I fell back to the method that Alistair (I think) said he used, and tried my wood filler putty.  It worked, but I'm not happy with how well it fades into the holly deck.

 
I think I'll use larger holes than these, even though they are already slightly over scale, and then try to get real tree nails to work down to the size I need, or use a darker filler of some kind, or possibly go with the mono-filament line that's been mentioned by other builders here.  Either way, I do plan to tree nail the deck, and while I don't want them to be obnoxious, I do want them to be visible when looking at the deck from a couple feet.
 
Until next time, cheers! 
 
 
 
 
 
 

MARBLES.  Use cheap easily obtained marbles to keep air out of the can.  As the liquid is used up drop marbles into the can to keep the fluid right up to the top of the can.  As to ease of use I would suggest a smaller container like the plastic or glass jars sold for airbrush use - they come with caps.  Dispense a small amount into the small jar and add marbles to the big can.  I use a cheap soft plastic pipette to transfer liquids out of bigger containers into smaller containers - no need to worry about the marbles pouring out.
Kurt

I've now completed and mounted the main lower mast. The procedure was identical to what I showed for the fore mast , with the exception that there are no blocks hung from the top or seized to the masthead and there is a deadeye seized to the lower part of the mast for the mizzen stay.
 
I'm now working on the lower mizzen mast.
 
Bob

I've completed the Bulwarks and Cap Rails, please don't look too close at the scroll work! I don't know how some of you do that fine carving, but simple scrolls came out pretty rough for me  . I installed the rudder, pintle/gudgeons and loose fit the tiller, Bow Sprit and Masts. The pintle/gudgeons each were made from a single brass strip that was slit cut at each end and bent in opposite directions and am happy with how they turned out. I tried blackening the swivels and pintle/gidgeons, but it just doesn't seem to stick well, so its flat black enamel for me.
 
I'm now working on the catheads, timberheads, swivel posts and channels, then I'll put a coat of satin finish on all the exposed wood and its on to the deck furniture.
 
Ken
 
P.S. I finally got a new phone and I think the camera takes much better pictures

I added the cap rails and upper deck rail frames, so now I can complete the planking. I created a small separate nose rail peice at the bow that allowed me to have the knight heads as solid frames down through the deck. I just need to trim the tops and shape them.
 
I have a bit of scroll work to carve, I plan to try it on walnut and see how it goes. There is also a black arch on the transom that is a thin plank over the transom planking, but at this scale, I think painted card stock will work for that.
 
I hope to have the hull complete and finished soon, then I can start to focus on the deck furniture and fittings.
 
Ken

I've loose fitted the rudder, pintiles and gudgeons. After blackening the brass, they wil be bonded in place. I came up with an easy way to create the rudder hardware, I cut a strip of brass the combined width for pintle and gudgeon and slit it down the middle with a dremel cutoff blade, leaving a center section the width of the rudder solid and bent the strips opposite around the rudder and hull to form the assembly. The rudder is stained to match the walnut hull after it is finished, so appears darker at this time.
 
I've completed the upper planking to the main caprail and am pretty happy with the results in planking to the frames.
 
Next is the main caprails which are fabbed and painted (no pic).On many models of the Hannah, the next plank above the cap rail is of a lighter wood, then a false rail with scroll work, I may keep the plank walnut as the rest, since all the cap/false rails will be black.

I've completed the Bulwarks and Cap Rails, please don't look too close at the scroll work! I don't know how some of you do that fine carving, but simple scrolls came out pretty rough for me  . I installed the rudder, pintle/gudgeons and loose fit the tiller, Bow Sprit and Masts. The pintle/gudgeons each were made from a single brass strip that was slit cut at each end and bent in opposite directions and am happy with how they turned out. I tried blackening the swivels and pintle/gidgeons, but it just doesn't seem to stick well, so its flat black enamel for me.
 
I'm now working on the catheads, timberheads, swivel posts and channels, then I'll put a coat of satin finish on all the exposed wood and its on to the deck furniture.
 
Ken
 
P.S. I finally got a new phone and I think the camera takes much better pictures

The only problem I find with using better wood is that it ruins me for building with kit supplied wood in the future and I feel the need to upgrade at least the finishing wood.

Hi. Thanks to all for the kind comments and likes.
 
Next stage of construction:
Main- mast complete with yardarms and rigging.
 
Total height  the model of the keel to mast top: 1489 mm  =  58.622 inches
the width of the Main-yard :  657 mm  =  25.826 inches.
 
Karl 
 
 
T e i l   5 4

So putting off the scupper issue at least until tomorrow, today I filled and sanded.  And sanded, and filled.  And sanded. 
 
I am reasonably happy with the finish of the first layer, no big dips or swells, and only a few places where the filler is left to fill minor low spots.  So I went to place the first wale.
The kit provides some walnut strips for the wale, but the walnut provided in this size (1/16 x 3/16) is the most terrible wood.  All the other walnut in the kit is fine, but the 6 pieces of 1/16 x 3/16 is a completely different color (very light) from the other walnut, and it's terribly brittle and splinters badly.  I soaked a piece, and even with lots of water and heat, the edges would splinter terribly, and even after sanding it, I couldn't get the edges to clean up at all.
 
So, I dipped into the Reno wood, and since the color of the wale doesn't matter (since it's going to be black), I found some really nice 1/16 x 3/16 boxwood strips, and cut one of them to size.  The boxwood is actually harder to do the actual bend as it's a harder wood, but using water and heat, it does it just fine, but most importantly, it does it without any splintering at all, and maintains a beautiful surface.  So I sanded the piece of boxwood and shaped it. I then decided to try yet another experiment that I saw somewhere on the forums in the last couple of months, and made it black before placing it, by the simple expedient of using a black sharpie permanent marker.  It looks as good as the painted fashion pieces, was silly fast, and the black ink actually penetrates the wood.  After I get the black strake on later, I'll seal it with some clear matte acrylic.
 
So not much progress for pictures, as other than filling and sanding, all I did today was place the wale on the starboard side.

Just a couple of views of the bowsprit and jibboom.  Once again I started following the practicum, without thinking ahead!
 
The suggestion is to square off the deck end of the bowsprit, then worry about tapering it.  This is wrong, if, like me, you fasten the dowel in a drill to sand it down.  Taper it first then cut the deck end.
 
Ditto, of course, for any other items such as the mast and jibboom.
 
 

 
 

 
 
The red thing at the tip of the jibboom is just the head of a pin, put in to help me orient things while gluing.
 
At this stage these are not sealed, and I am still unsure what I will paint.
 
Cheers,
 
Brett

Next step - the slipway.
 
There is nothing useful in the included plans/instructions for this.  Yet another fault.  As I've said, I'm using Bob Hunt's practicum, so I followed his instructions.
 
I haven't got progress photos, as it's pretty straightforward.  One tip, ignore the suggestion to paint/stain the timber before assembling.  It seems obvious in hindsight that the glue sticks better to unsealed timber.
 
Here we are after adding the supports for the boat:
 
 

 
 

 
 
And after more staining and tidying:
 
 

 
 

 
 
Next came the channels and chain plates.
 
Another hint for those who come behind - don't waste time hunting for pre-cast chain plates in your kit.  They ain't there!  You have to bend them from brass wire.
 
This is where it helps to have the right pliers for the job!  Even with my years of wire-bending, I could not get them perfect:
 
 

 
 

 
 

 
 
So, here's the AVS sitting on its slipway, as I get into the bowsprit and jibboom:
 
 

 
 

 
 

 
 
Model ship building seems to be taking up less of my time these days.  Too much to do, now that I'm retired!
 
Cheers,
 
Brett

Looking good, you'll probably find the second layer much easier to work with, the thin walnut is much easier to bend, just make sure it has dried out before bonding it. also when you sand the final veneer of walnut, be careful not to sand through it, its easy to do.

Lower mast construction continues. The fore mast and it's top are now complete and installed. The work included adding the blocks for the spritsail and spritsail topsail yard braces. These are hung below the top and held in place by pegs on the deck of the top. These will be the only blocks that I will attach to the tops, since I do not intend to rig buntlines, leech lines, reef tackles etc.and won't show the blocks for them.
 
After gluing the top to the mast, I added the bolsters, the jeer sling cleats and the lead blocks for the main topmast stay and preventer stay. Lastly, I permanently mounted the mast.
 
Work now continues on the main mast and top.
 
Bob

Brian,
Those blocks bring to mind another fix for the AVS kit, the blocks specified for the cannon rigging are too large and should be downsized to 1/8 to be in scale. This is something that came up in many build logs from MSW1.0 so I figure is worth repeating here.
 
Ken

I've been working on the fore lower mast. This involved shaping the mast and mast head, making and adding the bibbs and cheeks, adding the bands to the mast and head ( black painted paper), making and adding the front fish (notched to fit over the bands), adding the wooldings, making and adding cleats and making and adding the mast coat. I also made some cleats for the jeers to be added to the mast head after the top is attached. The top is still awaiting blocks to be attached, as is the mast head. The mast has not been permanently set yet.
 
Bob

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.