US Brig Niagara by xken - FINISHED - Model Shipways - Scale 1/64

[GLakie]

I see a nice tight fitting planking job Ken. Only we will know the stealers are there, and after sanding and paint, she'll look fine.

 

Cheers

[xken]

The hull planking was completely sanded using various grits of sandpaper to the point of looking and feeling great. Next I primed the hull using Krylon Gray primer to reveal all the gaps needing to be filled with glazing putty. I use the automotive glazing putty because of its softness in sanding to that of the wood density and it is fine enough to even fill sanding scratches.

Here are bow and stern pictures of final sanding before priming.

 

Here are the joint lines that show up once primed.

 

Then I glazed the entire hull working one side first and then the second. Next I went back over the first just touching up any joints that the glaze shrank into. The glazing putty does shrink a little when drying. I use as little as possible just to fill the joints. 

 

Next will be the sanding off of the glaze once set. Some joint lines may still be visible and that will be fine since plank joint are visible on the real ship.

 

Ken

 

 

[xken]

The glazed hull was sanded down, keep in mind that 95% of the glaze will be sanded off. Once sanded and any joints that needed glazing were filled and sanded. Here are pictures of the sanded hull. The planking joint lines have "ghosted" on the finished surface. I will leave them so that when painted they will still show and kind of replicate the finished real hull. The ghosted lines are hard to photograph, but is looking close some can be seen.

 

 

If I sanded the hull again at this point I could end up with a very smooth surface finish. On sanding the hull curves always sand diagonally in both directions across the curved surfaces rather than fore and aft. This diagonal sanding reduces the chance of having flat areas on the finished surface. 

 

Next I rebuilt the transom area now having the planking butts to work with. First I added a thin strip the finish the ends of the butts. I then made a pattern to match the opposite side and added the needed filler section to match. I then sanded the hull to match and define the joint line of the hull and transom.

 

 

Next the new transom will be primed. Then the hole for the tiller will be drilled. 

 

Ken

[GLakie]

Nice job on the hull Ken! She's going to look great all painted. Were you going with the to two-tone green on her?

 

Cheers

[xken]

George, thank you for your comments. The plan calls for black from the gunports down to a boot topping line which is light green then a dark green below the light green line. So I will do it that way. I am debating whether to paint it now or wait until more work is done on it to avoid any damage during building. It is much easier to repair a primed finish than a painted one. This build has taught me a great deal in building the hull and I am in a much better position to take on the USS Constitution.

 

Thanks again!

 

Ken

[GLakie]

The plans' paint scheme will look great Ken. I was just curious.

[xken]

George, yes I think it will look great. Here are pictures of the hull clamped into the modified base of the Fair -a-frame. With this setup I can scribe the lines for the colors. I also just set in the deck which I will keep removable for a while.

 

 

Next I will work on the top rail and decide what to do on the deck elements.

 

Ken

[gjdale]

Sweet! That hull looks great Ken. Nice job!

[xken]

Grant, Thank you for your kind compliment. I am going to paint the hull the colors next since I have devised the holder for it.

 

Ken

[xken]

They say the necessity is the mother of invention. To that end I setup my panavise to hold a mechanical pencil to mark the top edge of the accent stripe and it worked perfectly. One thing to make sure is to mark a reference mark down from the gunports on each side and hold the hull steady while marking. Also have a slight upward angle to clear the aft section of the hull.

 

The top section of the hull was masked off at the bottom of the gun ports to protect what was already painted yellow and red. Sorry no picture.

Only one pencil line is needed since I am using 1/4" masking tape to define the finished stripe. The tape was applied very carefully to the top side of the reference pencil line. Once the tape was in place a couple of light coats of satin clear was applied to seal the masking tape edges and if any bleeding occurs it will be clear. The bottom half of the hull was masked off and the section from the line to the gunports was painted black and allowed to completely dry. Sorry no picture again.

 

Once the satin black was set the masking was removed from the bottom; then the black edge was masked off with the upper black area being protected. This exposed the bottom half of the hull and the tape edge was sprayed clear to seal the edge and then sprayed light green. Let dry completely.

 

The 1/8" tape was then applied very carefully to match the black edge. Once the 1/8" was completed a 1/4" was applied to seal the bottom edge of the 1/8" tape. Then clear was then added to seal the edge.

 

Here is a closeup to show the tapes applied.

Once the clear was completely dry (if clear is not completely set some crazing may occur) the dark green was sprayed.

 

Once the dark green was dry enough to handle the masking tapes were removed except for the masking at the bottom of the gun ports; this will be needed for the overall clear spray. The reason for the clear being applied is to have as little or no color bleeding under the tape. 

Here is a close up of the end result. Nice clean crisp edges.

 

Once all paints are completely set an overall satin clear coat will be applied. If any touch ups are needed do carefully with a brush before applying the clear coat. 

 

 

Now to work on the tiller while the paint sets.

 

Ken

[GLakie]

Nice job painting the hull Ken! She looks great!

[kurtvd19]

Ken:

Really looking good. 

Kurt

[xken]

Kurt, George, thank you; I am starting to get a handle on ship building. Hopefully I can share some of the techniques I have learned over the years.

 

Ken

[gjdale]

Nice paint job Ken. The use of clear to seal the edge of the tape to prevent bleeding is a great tip too.

[xken]

Here it is with all the masking off of it. 

 

Grant, yes that use of clear coats goes way back to my car painting days. I did custom paint jobs on cars and motorcycles for extra money.

Looking through some of the builds here I saw a few bleeding edges so I thought I would share.

 

Ken

[GLakie]

Outstanding paint job Ken! Now the real fun begins? 

 

Cheers

[Canute]

Beautiful paint job, Ken.

[Don Quixote]

Paint me jealous!

[xken]

I moved on to the rudder and decided that I should make it movable; so here is a sequence showing how I built the hinges.

First I formed the rudder side of the hinge by bending 1/16" strip over a 1/16" tube and used the spring tension in the bent strips to hold them in place while being soldered.

Then the tube was cut and filed to the the edge of the strip and slipped onto a 1/32" rod to become the pin.

Here are the finished rudder side of the hinge. The pins will allow the rudder to also be removable.

 

Next I fabricated the stern side using a couple of jack-stays soldered onto a 1/16" tube and cut to form the female side of the hinge.

The female side of the hinge were inserted into holes drilled in the stern. The stems were trimmed to 3/8" length. Care must be taken to locate the holes on center to have all the hinge pins line up. The rudder must move freely. Here is the test fit.

Next I cut the straps for the stern side and drilled location holes for the bolt heads. I then mixed carpenters glue and water thick enough to hold a round shape when added to the holes using a sharpened toothpick.

It requires several applications of glue drops until a round head is formed. The glue shrinks into the hole for a firm grip to the metal. This shows the straps and rudder finished ready for paint.

This shows the painted rudder hinges.

Here the hinges are in place and painted. The rudder moves freely and is removable for more work to be completed at the tiller end.

 

Ken

[GLakie]

Nice job on the rudder Ken! Thanks for sharing your methods with us! 

 

Cheers

[gjdale]

Neat! I love your innovative thinking Ken.

[xken]

Here is the working tiller test fit and it works perfectly. It will be removed and clear coated. The hole in the transom deck had to be moved slightly to the rear due to the hinges on the rudder once finally fitted I will close up the hole on the rudder shaft. The wire brace was soldered to the metal ring on the shaft top and bent to index into the hole on the tiller.

 

Here I have added the main rail once the chock rails were added at the bow. I assembled as a separate part for painting purposes to achieve a smooth even finish.

 

As George said now the real fun starts! Here are the mooring chocks set into the stern windows. These were carved form a single pieces of wood stock then primed and painted before being added.

Looking through the left window and below the tiller in the picture above can be seen the coaming of the lazaret hatch.

 

I am starting at the stern and will move forward down the deck building the needed structures. While building these I will study the bowsprit and masts prior to building them.

 

Ken

 

 

 

[GLakie]

She's looking fine Ken! Nice job!

[xken]

George, continuing on with the fun here are the start of the deck structures as I move forward. I have not yet built the wood grating and am building the coaming frames first. The first one is under the tiller.

I built the structures as to the best I could with the plans and instructions and I built the center one with a sliding door which I think is correct. 

In building the structures with the bars I drilled the holes down through the bottom edge but only to the first section which allowed adjusting the bars to their correct position on the top section using fine needle nose pliers and pressing into place. This was a better option than trying to drill both and in the picture you can see a couple of errant bars due to drill misalignment that were corrected with needle nose pliers in final fitting.

 

Here are the three built up structures with bars in place, but still needing a little cleanup tweaking in a couple of places. I find that closeup photos show things my tried old eyes cannot see while building. To build the curved roof rather than individual planking; I cut a rectangle slightly over sized, measured and marked where the planking widths were and carefully cut half way through the thickness. Then carefully cracked the cuts to curve and set on the structure and held in place adding CA to the cracked joints.(do not glue fingers to the roof) Once the CA set I turned the roof upside down and added a layer of CA evenly across the entire surface and let set. Once set I centered the roof on the structure and carefully trimmed down to proper size and glued in place.

 

Here they are just set roughly in place on the deck with the capstan set into the mast hole since the dowel hole has not yet been drilled for it. The sliding roof section can be seen, but can anyone tell me if there should be an opening and which side would it be on; bow  side or stern side? I know there has to be stairs leading below on one of them. 

 

Now to finish the capstan and move one up the deck.

Ken

 

[GLakie]

They turned out great Ken.  Nice!  Not sure about the opening, but since she's still out there, or at least the replica, maybe there's some pictures of her on the net. 

[kurtvd19]

Ken:

Nice job.  Go with the stern side for the doorway.  It was usually closed off with three or more horizontal planks that slide down in tracks on both sides to make a covering and when the sliding hatch is pulled aft the structure is sealed up against the weather.  The doorway is aft for keeping out the water that would hit it from heavy weather over the bow - heavy seas over the stern happens but not as much as over the bow. 

Photo is of a smaller craft but the hatch and doorway is done the same.  This one uses 3 crosswise planks to seal off the doorway.  You can see the tracks. 

That's not me inside but the owner - the WI Maritime Museum hired me to build a model of this neat little boat in 1/12 scale.  Have been out in it in Green Bay under the original Egyptian cotton sails - built in 1935 in Manitowoc, WI by Burger.  They only bring out the original sails for boat shows, etc.

Kurt

[xken]

Kurt,

 Thanks for the picture! I suspected it was to the rear for the vary reason you stated. Some things just make common sense. Thanks for the confirmation. Will have to go back later and do some surgery to add this detail.

Thanks again!

Ken 

[stevebrock]

Ken, these preparation and painting tips are the best I have ever seen. Thanks for taking the time to post. I will use as well.

[xken]

Steve, thank you for your comment and glad to hear you enjoy the posts.

 

Finished up the capstan and located the deck and moved onto the bilge pump. Here are pictures of it on the deck; also a close-up of it. The trickiest part was the band around the posts.

 

 

 

Next the aft fife rail.

 

Ken

[GLakie]

Your deck structures look great in place on the deck Ken.