themadchemist

Hello Bob Some very excellent work on this little build. I've found the small boats a very interesting topic as I develop in this hobby. Your planking illustrations are simply magnificent and really help those learning the techniques. I love some of your innovations, such as using evergreen as a sanding shim on the cap rail, or the paint bristle nailing. Thanks for the efforts of your sharing, as this build log is truly an asset to MSW's fountain of knowledge.

Wow, I just flipped back a page and checked, sure enough no mast blocks. That would have been nice to add, but its all part of the learning process. Hindsight on this build will be fore-sight on the next. If you build 20 ships, I'm sure you'll still be learning new things. The dowels/masts should bottom out on the notch in the center bulkhead and probably contact the sides of the notch too. I used epoxy to get a strong bond, I'd go with a shorter curing epoxy like 1 hour. In the past I have used 24 hour epoxy and it takes too long to set, which gives more time for the mast to shift. CA would set way too fast I would think. The key will be getting them well centered and clamped while they dry. Even with that small of a contact area I think the epoxy will hold it. Plus the shrouds of the rigging will also work as a stay and exert force into the keel. Not that the shrouds will be tight, but they will be snugged down. It's interesting to see the 2 shrouded masts with ratlines. Most of the American Pilots/schooners don't have the ratlines unless they have 3 shrouds per mast. I do like the fore and aft gaff rigs, especially with the triple foresail, jib and flying jib, like your Carmen. I've used the sawdust and glue and always had good luck with it. Its a better color match and doesn't seem to harden as hard a some of the putty that I've tried. I'm sure the effort will pay off and help fix the color issues. Remember that you will always be your own worst critic and things that scream at you, others won't notice. Besides the only real rule too this hobby as I can recall is "your the Captain" and you MUST have FUN

...and don't miss Dee Dee's Coquillier and MBLS builds. That Coquillier was an interesting planking job, with such a unique shaped hull. Dee Dee's builds are also known for having some pretty interesting research and photo's. I'd put a link but they are in the above sig. Now, Dee Dee's is one Swift I can't wait to see built, at first I was disappointed the Coquillier was next, but seeing it, I now know why it was picked.

Your not alone Chuck, there is nothing like getting the plank perfectly placed, then finding your finger is not so perfectly placed... Then while you pull your finger loose the plank breaks loose, starting the whole process over . After this happening with my petersboro canoe build several times I decided to go with PVA on the next build. and Jaxboat, I think the PVA studies are going on.... the results should be back in about 100 - 200 years By then it will be too late though. I've never trusted life-time studies. I remember when CD-R's first hit the market and some companies were claiming "tested for a 50 year lifespan". Then 5 years later they wouldn't read due to oxidation issues. Time is the only true test. ...which strangely hide glue seems to have passed, based on contemporary models dating back to that time range.

Hello Brian, Beautiful little boat, I'm surprised there aren't more of these. It reminds me of a cross between the Swift and Scottish Maid. For a first build your doing beautifully. Have you considered second planking her. It would cover your problems and give you the experience of plank narrowing and working with the thin second planking material. Although the thin second planking is actually sometimes harder to work with as edge sanding 0.8mm stock can be interesting at best. Whatever you chose, I'm sure it will be right. You seem to have a knack for this and you mention several times about missing time while building. When you become so immersed that you look up and its 4 AM, and you think, "where did that last 4 hours go"...well lets just say I don't think Carmen is just a "to see if I like the hobby anymore build". For one with so little experience, your doing a beautiful job. Oh and on finishes, I love tung oil...but that's me. I think I'll follow along as this looks to be an interesting build of an interesting vessel.

I used a planking fan and marked frames even on the dinky holly and ebony longboat I build. It really helps to gauge your plank narrowing. I don't think I'd plank without marks.

Just a word on whether you've started or are restarting - practice counts as having started..., so does the grog.... That's why its called a HOBBY

Hey John Russ is right. This kit kind of has a backwards way of having you kind of force the look, as there is no keel, stem or rabbet. Looking at your first picture closer I see that passed the 2nd bulkhead, your keel/center-bulkhead hasn't been shaped/tapered to a point. Notice on mine the garboards touch each other down until about bulkhead 5, which is about where the garboard twist happens. I did this by sanding/fairing the center line. This will also move the garboards up and make them meet the stem farther back. Again, I'm only pointing out where yours differs from mine. I'm not saying your wrong, just pointing out what worked for me. By the way 2 control syringes are in the post, so hopefully they will arrive Tuesday. Isn't all this fun. I remember asking Russ a lot of questions about this stage and back then I didn't understand how much this kit is NOT how the planks hit the keel/stem in a real build. I'll celebrate 2 years in this hobby in Nov and I still am amazed at how far I've come and by how much farther I still have to go.

The issues with the way your doing it, from what I can see is that the bow is crowding very quickly. That's not a problem if you are planning to drop planks. Its really a philosophical thing. Meaning it's your choice. I found the second lower plank the hardest to fit. I ended up taking a file to the garboards edge and sanding the edge so that it came to a point on the center making sure the plank line remained straight. I then forced a pretty hefty lateral bend in the second plank up. Here's the amount of edge bend in #2, it doesn't look like much but its enough. here it is glued, notice it stops at the first bulkhead here's the pair glued up. Notice, here I have the first 3 lower planks and have only advanced up the stem about as far as you are with just the second plank. That's just to illustrate how I did it, not to say that is the "right" or the only way. Remember, my goal was to plank with no dropped planks, which forced me to really conserve bow spacing. I actually did 1 dropped plank per side on the second planking for the experience of it.

I'm with Druxey, don't use CA and there isn't a problem. As a chemist, acetone is the universal organic solvent, finger nail polish remover is a very dilute version of that., but it has its issues too. Like Andy, I typically use a bit of sand paper or a rasp or file. This helps prepare your fingers for safe cracking also They do sell a CA de-bonder also but I don't know how well it would works, as I switched to PVA early on in building.

Looking Good John and this "WILL" turn out to be more fun then you thought. Just a few thoughts You will find as you work your way down the planking, that the bending will take less time then the shaping involved in the narrowing of the planks and the beveling of the edges so the planks sit flush against each other. It you have access to a syringe, they make great and fast glue applicators and its easy to blunt the tip with a file, by filing a notch and breaking off the tip. I say this as I would suggest running a bead of PVA between plank edges so the planks are attached to each other as well as the frames. If you can't find access to a syringe.... Tammy works in an OR and has access to unused left overs they pitch. The 10ml control syringes with finger loops are nice and when capped the glue keep indefinitely like in a bottle. Just send a PM if needed. Congrat's on the first plank, now prepare for a nice twist on that garboard Also, are you planning to use a planking fan to mark the plank thicknesses on the bulkhead's. IIRC I did that after getting the top and garboards on. I found this invaluable for shaping and narrowing each plank. Taking the extra time to do the first planking well, I discovered that 2nd planking really just is more work. My San Francisco kit, which is one of the ones that comes with double planking... after the second planking I purchased wood to single plank it and save the hassle of planking twice. The newer kit comes single planked and I've seen some beautiful planking jobs (Randy's come to mind - AKA lamarvalley)

Oh one other after-thought. The stem top is the bowsprits support and I used a round diamond file to notch a groove in its top for the bowsprit to lay before glue up. Its much easier to do this before gluing as the boats not in the way. Relooking at the wood combination, with the keel change... I really like the contrasting colours. I was also thinking about your comment of how this effects down the road. The only issue I see is the rudder which you will need to make from the Walnut to match. Also tapering the keel stem and stern post will let the rudder be thinner. Thinning the stem and stern post will be the 2 pieces seen most readily and tapering them should make the thick keel unnoticeable. You could probably thin the keel less or not at all even. That way it fits pedestals which aren't typically tapered, unless you make a custom mounting. This may be a good time also to consider that topic, how you plan to mount and display her.

You've just got to love a treadle lathe, why now that's high tech compared to a spring pole lathe though... BTW have you seen Buck's whale boat build where he makes his drum sander into a thickness sander by using a fence. Nice toys. ...and nice fret work. On the thickness of the keel, it does look a bit chubby (but not bad), but I wonder if you tapered it a bit to the outer edge if that would help make it look or appear slimmer. By slimming that outer edge it could fool the eye into seeing a thinner keel/stem. The bearding line - where the plank hits the keel/stem, That should look as thought the planks fit into a rabbet cut into the keel. I achieved this by fitting the keel/stem before second planking. I also sanded a flat interface for the keel/stem to sit flush against. Since your second planking is in place already, I'm not sure how best to progress. If you try shaping the inner edge of the keel/stem to fit the hull, that is going to be a big chore. Maybe not so much at the stern where its flat, but at the stem where the hull peaks. I would probably attempt flatting the hull to match the stem/keel (more so at the stem, which shows up in that last picture from above) the issue I see with that is sanding to the correct width without going too wide in spots, which would make the first planking show though along the bearding line. I would focus on the matching of the stem, because it interface more planks (at their bow ends) - where the keel interacts mainly with just the garboard plank. By focusing on fitting the stem you may have the area around the stem/keel scarf joint where the hull sands too wide where the keel interfaces. which could mean removing the garboard second planking and fitting new strakes. This I noticed happed on my build when I flattened the keel to hull interface. To make the scarf joint fit correctly and have the keel lay flat I had to remove a lot of the 1st planking's garboard toward the stem end of the keel interface. I sanded flat, then put the keel on it centered and marked it with a pencil. I then scraped down outside of the lines to make the smooth bearding line between hull and keel. Here is a picture of the sanded and pencil marked area in that region on my build. Hopefully the wider keel will help in this situation. I not sure if you could follow all that, sometime my ramblings make sense to me, but are hard to put into words. On being nervous about maybe having to remove nice 2nd planking.. I also found I had an asymmetry in the ramin striping of my DSotM build and had to remove and redo some second planking and found it came off relatively easily, assuming you glued with PVA, just by a good brushing down with hot water. Since its so thin the glue softens easily and can be scraped off with a chisel or exacto. Hopefully you have 2 stripes of the second planking left for that type of fix, that is if you even need to replace the garboards. Oh, one last comment, On the African Walnut... IIRC Ferit's Berlin is planked with it and I love it's softer and lighter cocoa colour compared with American (Black) walnut and Peruvian, which is even darker. The African Walnut also seems to have a tighter grain. Anyway, That is a nice piece of wood. BTW I'm not familiar with AZ, do they sell online? I'm always looking for wood sources. Oh and the treadle really Rock and Rolls... Literally I can't wait to se how you approach this task, It the tough stuff that makes this hobby fun for me.

The 1/2 gallon jars are about 10" - 12" tall, taller then a Qt. I thought about building a PVC device but the jar was handy as we do a lot of canning. I can't help you with the hair problems, sorry I'm in the same boat.

I use a 1/2 gallon mason jar for soaking, country people have country ways. I think pretty much any type of soaking will work except for ebony. I found it takes boiling and immediate clamping in a forming jig to shape it. Boy was that an experience. Nice deck colour, not to dark and with some nice character. I love that sometimes wood has so much variation in its color when finished. Even just tung oil seems to bring out the grain variation and colouring.

Wolf, Hum, I figured the tape would stick more where glued to the wood, I guess the tape doesn't stick as well. plus gratings are so fragile anyway...

Thanks for the masking tape idea. When making gratings by hand I glued the stock together and found soaking the pieces wasn't quite effort to get the pieces separated without break nearly half of them. Of course there is the issue with removing the glued tape, but it would make separation easier and I image the tape scrapes off easily. Nice work on the bits and pieces, its all those little things that eat up the time, at least for me. They add so much to the finished detail though, plus its just plain fun.

Your asking the wrong builder this question as I used no butt joints and striped my planking using Ramin and Cherry. I didn't nail either.... but then I'm a rule breaker This may help though, I finally decided to stripe the deck because it made me feel good. Ultimately you are the captain of your build and after weighing all the different approaches, go with your gut and don't let anyone tell you it's wrong. It may not be historically correct or mechanically correct but if it suits you, that is what matters most of all. Let your build show the personality of you the builder. The easiest thing to be in the world is you. The most difficult thing to be is what other people want you to be. Don't let them put you in that position. ---Leo Buscaglia

I never said "go for it"... I said push the envelope....watch it bend.... I've found when the admiral becomes that envelope, it bends much less easily.... and sometimes if you push that envelope to hard, you may be the one to bend... Oh, the things we do for Love

You would have to go and mention another book I'll need. and to your question of "do I really need to do that on this boat?" I would ask this, do you "need" to even build this boat at all? which the answer, if your like me, is definitely YES...... oh those decisions... they are what keeps holding me back. I say, push the envelope - watch it bend now I must resist the urge to purchase another literary resource ...which is leading to a shelving shortage problem ...oh the trials We endure

I agree, Nice work John...and I think with the compound curvature of the deck that the newer kit may be harder to place, as the opening for below deck would seem to make the deck want to deform more. The gluing of the deck was the only place I resorted to CA glue due to issues with getting it to stay down. I also had asymmetry issues so I guess that is par for the course.

... and I might add that I credit everything I knew about planking, before I began my Swift, came from Russ's guidance. I had previously built a canoe using CA where I basically forced the planks to conform, then super-glued them in place. Not so pleasing. With the Swift I gave up the CA glue for good and chose the slower path. For me there's nothing like spending hours measuring, marking, planing and narrowing, beveling, shaping and finish sanding on just one plank so that it fits exactly like a 3D jigsaw puzzle piece. Clamping the wet planks typically required more force then the clamp up for gluing, when the plank is ready to be fit, it shouldn't require much force to hold it in place for gluing. I found my little harbor freight plane great for planning the edges of the planks for narrowing, pseudo-spiling and beveling. Russ helped me understand concepts like how and why to spile. Which actually requires wider stock from which to cut the plank, but with a kit this is accomplished somewhat with edge bending, hence pseudo-spiling. Like I said I started with the goal of complete full strakes and had to scrap a few that I was over zealous with, but I think you can judge the quality of a builder by the size of their scrap bin(s). I attribute much on my success in achieving my goals in planking to Russ's patience in guiding a newbie with many questions. His help is one of the things that drew me to the community of MSW and caused me to see the real world value of being part of such a community. Having mentors, makes starting out less daunting and a whole lot more fun. Its always important to remember that this hobby is a long slow process of learning with few shortcuts. Years are required to acquire certain abilities but I'm constantly amazed by what I never thought I could do. I'm also very new to this hobby (2 years in Nov) and have decades ahead of me to completely understand everything I'd like to. My study of the gaff rig and the pilot boat in general has become an aside in and of its self. I just found an nice used copy of Leathers text Gaff Rig to add to the ever expanding library of ever more details to absorb. Cunliffes 2 vol set is also very informative with many illustrations and photos. I lucked into both on ebay for $35. as far as the Planking, try stepping back to thinking about plank (not plural). One strake at a time.

I think everyone is hesitant on planking at first. As I've read through many build logs, there seems to be 2 schools of thought on a double planked build. Some do a quick job of it and let filler fix the imperfections. The other school planks the first planking as if it were the only one. When I started I choice to use this build to master the techniques of getting a tight single plank. I also wanted the strakes to run full length, with no dropped planks, this required measuring and marking the planking with a planking fan and many hours and narrowing/spiling, beveling and shaping planks. I took it one plank at a time and never pushed to get more done then I could do with in a given day. I'm not sure if I ever attached more then 2 planks a day and never more then one per side. This allowed everything to cure and shrink before proceeding. If you find tedious tasks relaxing as I do, then I'm sure you'll enjoy planking once started. I find I miss planking when working on other things. Its one of the reasons I stalled the DSotM last December, to build the longboat with holly and to get a planking fix. I find the more I plank, the better I get and the more I enjoy doing it. But I too was very hesitant at first. Remember hesitance in ship building can get you the time needed to acquire knowledge, if you don't feel you have a correct understanding of something - hesitate, then check MSW, build logs, ask questions... until the misunderstanding fades and then things seem to go smoother. Russ's signature is absolutely true - hurrying takes the fun from the hobby

I agree with Russ, I know I had spring back really bad but it didn't matter as it held enough shape and like Russ said a good clamping with bands will hold it when drying. Things are starting to get to the fun stage.

Hi John, I would consider the first 4 or 5 bulkheads kind of flush with the keel (but actually 2 and 3 are more at the same level). It is just that the 4 and 5 are shaped with more curvature and when the keel if filed down around the 5th bulkhead with the peak the flow from the keel onto the bulkhead becomes a smooth transition. Kind of how the bulkheads aft of 5 are flush with the keel as they curve into its plane, they are just not flush with the "top" of the keel (which is actually the bottom). One of the key objectives of fairing, is to make all surfaces the planking will lay across smooth and to create symmetry. A good practice when fairing is to hold planking across the areas as you fair them and let your eyeball gauge what gives a smooth and symmetrical shape. If there isn't symmetry you can build up the lower or sand/file down the higher to make them even. You can use either your eyeball to gauge this or pull the measurement from the plans. I typically eyeball most everything though. If it were a scratch built POF I'd probably measure though. I have found for me at least that much of this hobby is going with your gut. I spent a lot of time on fairing and still ended up with a bit of a bulge in one side. If it was doing it over I would have checked side to side horizontal widths at points where battens would typically be done. I now understand much better why battens are helpful in fairing a frame. I found on several bulkheads I had to edge glue planking to build up certain areas of the bulkheads. Hopefully the newer kit is better, but sometimes fixing the issues that pop up are when you learn the most and when it become the most fun.