Independence 1775 by DocBlake - Artesania Latina - 5/16" scale.

[S.Coleman]

What a good job on the binnacale. Ship looks great. I almost ordered this kit last weekend. I'll see how you go first. So far so good.

[Elijah]

It looks great Dave! Did you draw the sailor, or did you scale him down and print him?

[DocBlake]

Thanks, guys!

 

Elijah: The sailor is a .jpg I scaled down.  He is about 5'6" tall, in scale...about right for the average man in the late 18th century.

[DocBlake]

Here is a series of photos showing how I approached building the windlass.  I took a piece of boxwood 3/8" square and cut it into an octagon on my table saw.  The piece was cut to 3" in length (about 9'8" in scale).  I measured in about an 1-1/8" from each end, and tapered the boxwood by sanding, maintaining the octagon profile.  I measure and marked the rabbets for the supports and the center gear. They are all about 1/16' deep.  Next, I cut the gear in the center to shape, using a #10 X-Acto blade.  Last, I laid out where the holes for the lever rods would go and drilled 1/16" pilot holes at each location.  I then took a nail that I had previously filed to a square point and tapped it into each hole, converting the round drill holes into square holes.  In the photo, the holes on the left side of the windlass are still round,  Tomorrow the supports!

[Elijah]

Great job! It has turned out well!

[DocBlake]

I'm back at work on "Independence after taking some time to finish my POF Armed Virginia Sloop.

 

I started planking the hull by installing the upper wales.  They are 3mm wide and made of rosewood.  The bulwark planking is 3mm wide Swiss pear, 1/32"  thick.  Below the upper wale will come 3 strakes of yellowheart, each 5mm wide (7-1/2 scale inches).  Then comes a 5mm wide main wale, and the lower hull planking, also 5mm wide.

Edited September 20, 2016 by DocBlake

[KenW]

Glad to see you back at the Independence. 

How did you determine the size of the gun ports?  (Maybe I should re-read your previous postings.)

Thanks.

[Elijah]

Nice to see you're back! I look forward to more progress!

[DocBlake]

Thanks!

 

Ken:  The gun ports are precut into the bulwark formers, as are the scuppers.  That part is one continuous strip of thin plywood.  The gun port scale gave me some second thoughts. because given the kit's nominal 1/35 scale, the bulwark and gun port sills would be very low - possibly to low to actually place a 3 pounder cannon on the main deck.  At the scale I'm building her, (5/16" = 1 foot), The bulwark is a hair under 2 feet high, and the gun port sills are 1foot above the deck.  It turns out these are the same dimensions for the gun ports on the Halifax according to Hahn's plans, so I'm OK!

[KenW]

Thanks.  I'm planning to build this ship in the future. 

So I'll have to re-read you earlier posts at some point.

Can't wait to see your finished product.  Your skills are outstanding.

Cheers.

[DocBlake]

Hey Ken !

 

After the excellent job you've done on your Rattlesnake, your Independence should be awesome!  I will follow that build closely.

[S.Coleman]

Beautiful work on the windlass. I like the idea of making the round holes square. The last layer of planks look great. Good work.

[DocBlake]

After installing the upper wales I planked the upper hull with yellow heart and added the lower wales.  They are rosewood and measure 1.5mm X 5mm.  Given the bluff bow, there was no way to easily bend the lower wales so I built them up using 2 layers of stock 0.75mm in thickness.  The wales actually curve under at the counter.  I'm still trying to figure our how to install fashion pieces!  Hull planking below the lower wale will be holly. The photo is of Fair American planked in holly below the wale.

Edited September 27, 2016 by DocBlake

[mrshanks]

Painting with wood again..  looks great Dave!!!

[stripehunter]

I very much like your use of wood hues in lieu of paint. I plan to do something similar on a section of my next build. My own tastes prefer natural wood over paint, even though not historically accurate

[DocBlake]

This ship has a very odd shaped hull.  I drew lines for three bands of planking.  At the bow, the hull measurement is significantly less than amidships.  This is fairly typical.   Using tapering and edge-bending with heat, I should be able to fit all the planks without any trop planks.  The stern is different.  At the level of the last bulkhead - right where the stern post is, the hull measurement is only slightly (about 1/4") longer than amidships!  But from there to the stern, the hull "flares" quite a bit.  It will take at least one and maybe two stealers to accommodate the widening, but they won't be very long!  We'll see how it goes.

[Landlubber Mike]

Really beautiful work Dave.  Your approach of painting with wood is very inspiring. I love the approach of using holly below the wales - I'm thinking of a similar approach on my La Renommee.

 

How did you like working with yellowheart?  Is it at all splintery or can it be used for small detail parts?  I have some that I'm considering using for the ochre areas on my Morgan per your suggestion

[donrobinson]

Looks real good Dave, I really like the rosewood and surprised it worked out so good given the larger grain it sometimes has. You keep giving me all these good ideas, I think it's about time you gave me some memory so that I can put these to use someday  

[S.Coleman]

You mentioned about an odd shaped hull. The stern looks like it has some major bending up under the transom. Is this where you mean it sort of flares out? To accommodate those extras?

[DocBlake]

Thanks, guys,

 

Mike:  The yellowheart can be a bit splintery, but I think it can work for smaller parts. I think the color is perfect for the Morgan's bulwark planking!

 

Don:  I use East Indian rosewood, and select for pieces that are dark brown to purplish-black in color..  Even lighter pieces will age to a dark, dark brown.  The pores are actually quite small and the grain pattern hardly noticeable if the color isn't terribly variegated.

 

Scott:  Yep!  The planking "fans out" after the final bulkead.  The hull measurement there is significantly smaller than at the absolute stern, hence the need for a couple of stealers.  I have to decide where to put them, but I suspect they'll be in the lowest of the three planking belts.

Edited October 21, 2016 by DocBlake

[Bill Hime]

Dave,

What a beautiful build! love the wood choices as well. Also very clean!!! This is an excellent tutorial

 

 

Bill

[DocBlake]

Thanks, Bill!

 

I completed the first 3 strakes of planking below the wale using holly.  I am planning treeenails, but not at the location of every single frame that would appear on a set of plans.  Too busy looking.  I'll add the treenails to the locations of the bulkheads only.  Stylized, but still giving the effect I'm looking for.

 

The toughest part of the planking is about done.  To this point the upper hull planking, wales, and first three strakes below the wales have had to be applied to the extreme bluff bow - almost semi-circular in plan view.  Below this point, the hull starts to approximate a more conventional bow shape, like the AVS.  To this point the planks at the bow require significant edge-bending  downward to fit flat.  I did that with a clothing iron.  Much less of that coming up, although tapering will be necessary for nearly every strake at the bow.

Edited October 22, 2016 by DocBlake

[KenW]

Great work!  Glad to see you don't 'forget' the Independence.

[donrobinson]

The Holly looks real good Dave. Just out of curiosity, do you edge bend your planks before or after cutting to length? 

[DocBlake]

Thanks, guys.

 

Don:  I first cut the taper and cut the plank to rough length, leaving it a bit long.  Then comes the edge bending, and once the plank fits flat, I trim it to final length.  A little cumbersome, but it works.  My planks are 1/32" thick, so they don't edge-bend on their own very well as they would if they were typical veneer thickness.

[donrobinson]

Thanks for that Dave. I was just wondering as I have always used full length planks, so far, and was just thinking ahead a little( not really much of a point as I won't remember anyway ).

Edited October 23, 2016 by donrobinson

[ASAT]

Dave, this little guy is looking great! I did the same thing with the AL Harvey, just like you mentioned in the first post, it's nice to know that with some nice wood and a Byrnes saw and thickness sander you can turn just about anything into a great model! I had a lot of fun "re building" the deck stuff and upgrading the authenticity and while I am not a real stickler, it was a believable effort of the type. Just like this little schooner is turning out to be.... Amazing combination of wood color, I really like using red heart and holly together, such a great contrast but you are taking it to another level! I admire your tenacity with the yellow heart, I used some of that for a Syren model and I didn't like its brittleness and resistance to bending, tried my patience and lots of re do's, sure does look great as the yellow stripe that is prevalent on so many color schemes though, and once done it sands well and looks great! Couple of questions on your technique, what kind of rosewood are your Wales done in and how do you keep the pencil dust from "dirtying" up the planking when you sand it? I use a graphite pencil on one side of the planks but I have a hard time keeping the planking crisp and clean like yours. Scraping seems to work better but I can't seem to get as level results scraping. Sorry for the long windedness, but she is really looking great.... I will go back and read the entire thread, hope I didn't ask something you already explained.....

 

Lou

[DocBlake]

Thanks for the kind words, Lou!  This is a really fun build, and I love working with the bigger scales.  I, too, used to curse at the gray dust that fouled up holly planking from the pencil or charcoal to simulate caulking.  I have switched to acrylic flat black paint!  I used to gang the planks together with office clips and paint the edges of 5 or 7 planks at once.  Any slop on the face of the plank scrapes off with an X-Acto blade.  I now use an acrylic paint pen.  You can buy them at Michael's or Hobby Lobby.

[DocBlake]

Planking is going slowly, because the 1/32" thick planks are much tougher to fit than the veneer second planking in most kits.  I found cutting veneer thickness planking on the Byrnes saw difficult because when ripping, the veneer would slip under the fence, due to it's thinness.  I will have to figure out a mod so I can use the saw for that purpose.

 

To fit the planks I had two options:  Spiling, or tapering/heat bending.  In think the taper and bend technique is easier, but it is slow!  Here is the most forward plank in the 4th strake below the wale, ready for installation.

[donrobinson]

Hey Dave, for cutting your veneer I have done this before: Set fence to desired width, rip a piece of thin stock( all I had was 1/4" plywood), lower blade(do not move fence) double sided tape the piece you just cut onto the table saw surface tight against fence, raise blade and start your ripping. This blocks that tiny little gap at the bottom of the fence. Another method is to just clamp something to the face of the fence, but I'm not so sure if that can be done with the Byrnes saw.

 You could also use a full size piece of plywood on top of your table, set fence, lower blade attach plywood to table top with double sided tape then with saw on raise blade cutting through plywood.

 Hope this helps