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verbal329

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Everything posted by verbal329

  1. ....anyone have them that they could scan and send me? I have a vintage kit I’d like to start, but am missing the instructions. thanks! John
  2. In looking up the terms you present here, I've discovered 'Simple Hull Planking Techniques for Beginners'....I wish I'd seen that before. Still trying to determine what tack to take going forward.
  3. Thanks Keith....I'm going to need to read and re-read this to try and visualize what you're suggesting (plus my boat nomenclature is very weak); I can't decide if I'm happy with the wide keel or not. I'm using title bond II wood glue for just about everything, so I suspect those planks are there to stay...
  4. ..plus here are pics of the treadle lathe and oscillating sander (both are cool, albeit for totally different reasons).
  5. ...so I took both a shop vac and an air compressor to it, and I think it's fine. Next quandary: since my stern and stern-post pieces are too thin compared to the planked-out hull, I'm in the process of fabbing a new, monolithic piece out of African walnut that I picked up at an AZ wood store. An antique treadle lathe (and more importantly, scroll saw attachment) came with our house, so I used that to cut out the rough shape of the piece, using the kit pieces as a template (kind of cool, I thought). I'm now using a grizzly oscillating sander (great tool) to shape the bow curve of the keel to fit the bow shape of the hull. My conundrum, then, is how to blend the 'point' of the planked out bow hull, to the 'flat' of the inner curve of the blow keel. The mismatch should be evident in a picture I'll attach below. Do I try to notch the bow portion of the keel so that it 'fits' over the peaked bow planks? Do I flatten the bow portion of the hull, where currently the planks from each of the two halves (port and starboard) come together at an acute angle? Also, I'm wondering whether I'm going to run into other issues by using a wider-than-provided keel piece...but I guess I'll find out.
  6. So I have a hull sanding dilemma. I started sanding the hull (sapelia planks) with 220 grit last night, and it's nice and smooth. This is good. In process I obviously created a lot of sanding dust, that has crept in to both the large-ish pores in the sapelia planks, as well as the numerous micron-sized gaps between the planks. Should I try to blow this dust out (using canned air, or an air compressor, etc) before I apply tung oil, or should I just go over the hull with a cloth, wiping off the 'top layer' of sanding dust from the sapelia but leaving the dust that's made it's way into the cracks, which might have the double effect of hiding some of the planking gaps, while also suppressing whatever grain features might otherwise be seen in the sapelia. Any thoughts?
  7. Indeed. In addition to simply moving I've renovated a bathroom, the hobby room (where work on this will happen) plus a laundry room. Oh yeah, and child #2 is overdue by three days now...so I suspect life will continue getting in the way. But progress! Timber heads have been added using clothespins as clamps...they were the wimpiest clamps I could find to avoid potentially denting the sapelia. Putting these on was an example of having to work in spite of the kit; the kit inventory sheet said there would be 42 pieces to cut and shape to fit. In fact, there were two long pieces, not 42 short. Okay, no problem....except I realized about a third of the way through that I was cutting off too much material to use as each timberhead blank. It was only by carefully measuring for each timberhead position along the gunwale that I ended up having enough material. Whew!
  8. Sorry for the long hiatus, we bought a new house last year and I don't think we'll ever be moved in the new place. But I now have a dedicated 'hobby room' , as opposed to being relegated to our dank basement and having to take over our dining table. Pictures and progress to come!
  9. I'm inclined to do 1, except the planking is sapelia, and the keel etc walnut....and I liked the idea of the contrasting dark woods. Hmm.
  10. They are the same thickness as the false keel, but I now have inner and out layers of planking on it...which increases the thickness significantly.
  11. So here's a question: the stern, stern-post, and keel are all thinner than the bottom-most portion of the hull....so it will be undersized, or thinner, than the hull stem I attach it to. Is this correct? I feel like most models I see are uniform in thickness, and the transition from the sapelia of the outer planks to the african walnut of the stern and keel is fairly seemless.
  12. The bulwarks were the hardest thing to take on so far, especially since I'm using wood glue and not anything quick-drying. Some pictures below:
  13. Thanks for the compliments on the crayola; all I colored was the inner edge of the stringer. Since this pre-fab plywood, the 'inside' of the plywood was a light blond color, and the top and bottom layers were a darker wood. Especially after adding the tung oil, this was a pretty high contrast difference, and the crayola helps minimize that.
  14. In the AL instructions, I was somewhat surprised when I got started as I saw no reference to applying a finish for a long time - so I was under the impression that the conventional wisdom was to leave it unfinished. It was only after I got further along that I saw a passing reference to 'applying a finish of your choice', or something like that, after several pieces were already assembled - I think this was after the gunwales were mounted on the deck. I had already decided I wanted a finish on it, but not too glossy - again, from cruising around online I found more references to tung oil than anything else, but nothing authoritative.I decided that I'd rather keep going than be paralyzed by indecision on a finish, so I went forward with Minwax Tung Oil Finish (in a yellow metal canister from Ace Hardware), and so far I'm pleased. I tend to apply the finish before gluing things together, because I think it will apply more evenly that way. Gunwales, upper stern, stringers in place; just waiting for the glue to dry before tackling the (scary) outer hull planking. I used a brown Crayola colored pencil on the inside of the pre-fab stringers to darken them up to match the top layer, and I think it turned out okay.
  15. Progress! Thanks to some input from Jared (jarero) on how to plank gunwales, I did start over using a second set. The inner side is planked, I added the coamings, and the stern step. I'm using Titebond II instead of cyanoacrylate (I assume the latter is more typical?), so the process is slowed considerably as I have to wait for things to dry....but I think I'd make a hash of it with anything quick-drying. The stern end of the gunwales are not vertical, as I think they're supposed to be (I didn't consider trying to align them as I glued the whole gunwale in place, so they each have about a 20-30 degree angle to them). They're pretty stiff, and while I could possibly force them upright to meet the upper stern flush along its sides, I'm tempted to leave their angle mostly as is and shave off the upper stern to match...I'll just end up with an upper stern that tapers downward. Not sure if this is sacrilege or not. One other thing that's giving me pause is the pre-fab stringers that line the bottom of the gunwales, where the gunwales meet the deck. Since they're pre-fab plywood, the top/bottom layers are a dark color wood, and the inner portion is a lighter color. This sandwich profile will be visible on the inner-side of the stringer as it runs down the deck, and it seems like it ought to be the same color....except I've already tung oiled it, so I'm guessing stain might be hard to apply. Not sure if I'm over-thinking this piece of it or not, but I'll need to decide one way or the other before gluing it down.
  16. Another picture set illustrating the hull inner planking. Having done I think a halfway passable job here, this is where I'm currently stuck - I don't like the job I've done on the gunwales, and may start over on them.
  17. ...I also deviated from what is perhaps the traditional route by planking the deck before bending and fastening it to the keel/bulkheads. This probably made it more difficult to attach, but I think I installed it successfully using clamps and rubber bands. The first big challenge for me as a beginner was wrapping my head around the idea that the deck was supposed to have two 'opposing' bends to it - upwards in the bow/stern axis, and downwards in the gunwale axis. So I clamped and glued in place for the bow/stern axis, and then made the second, opposing bend using rubber bands wound pretty tightly. Nothing exploded, so I declared success.
  18. Beginner mistake #1: When planking the deck, don't make ALL of the cutouts....I didn't fully appreciate that part of the bulkheads/keel had protruberances that locked in to the pre-fab false deck, and that they weren't intended to extend through the planked deck. Oops. (I added small 'filler' deck planks later.)
  19. Thanks - and I don't mean to hijack Jared's build log, I've started a separate log elsewhere....now as soon as I figure out how to upload pictures in a reply, I'll put them up - but I can't seem to identify the icon to click on. (I saw it for the original post, but not for a 'reply'.) The mistake I've made is that, as you point out, I've (just today) planked and tung oiled the gunwales before shaping them - a momentary lapse of reason I'm afraid. For the inner hull planking, I used a steamer and that worked quite well. Putting the planking on first wasn't a bright idea, though perhaps they would still steam okay, but now that they have the tung oil on them I'm not willing to use our cooking steamer. Hmm. I do actually have a second Swift kit (see my own build log for that tale, once I get it populated with images), so I can always abort these gunwales and use the second set - but they seem to have a slightly different curvature to them.
  20. New to the hobby. I picked up an open-box but unbuilt 'Swift' kit at a local swap meet >10 years ago (when I was in high school) for $5, only to later realize it was missing an essential component (the keel). Later picked up another one (unopened, wisely) on ebay to make up the difference, and >10 years later am finally making progress. Am I making beginner mistakes? You better believe it....but I'm trying to take it slowly and methodically, and hopefully posting here will help keep the right level of momentum going. ....and since I have relied so much so far on build logs on the previous (lost now?) MSW archives, perhaps the better part of valor here is to post mine, for better or worse, and hopefully someone else will find them of value, either as a cautionary tale or for genuine reference.
  21. Thanks - I too am in the process of building the Swift and (had been) relying on the various archived build logs I found on this site. I'm sorry to hear that they may be gone (?), as having finished (I think) the inner layer of planking on the hull, I am struggling with the best method of attaching the gunwales...they don't 'sit' very naturally in shape against the hull, and I'm concerned about the relative 'even-ness' of them with respect to the inner planking (in place) and the outer planking (not yet in place). What I mean: 1) I have glued in place the interior layer of planking on the pre-fab gunwale stock. When I force the gunwale-in-progress to conform to the shape of the hull and 'wrap-around', it is not an easy fit, and it's tough for me to guess how the inner/outer hull planking is intended to meet with it - should the inner layer of hull planking be flush (even) with the outer side of the pre-fab stock, etc. If anyone has a completed Swift build long that includes these intermediate steps, it would be very helpful to have it posted. John
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