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USN Picket Boat #1 by GuntherMT - Model Shipways - scale 1:24


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Looking good Brian.  The extra work you put into your builds pays off.  I am about 75% of the way through my build of the same kit but I am doing mine "straight-from-the-box".  This is a well designed kit and so far I have not run into any problems at all.  

Mike Shanks

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Brian,

 

I have been copying portions of my plans and cutting out templates to use to make parts to replace the kit supplied plywood for my Niagara, and NEVER thought of checking to make sure that the scale was altered. Thanks for the heads up. I have also cut out sections of the actual plans and have found that I have to make sure that the images are in true 1/64 scale, as some are NOT.

 

Superb work on the cockpit deck!

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Mini-update with almost no progress!

 

My margin plank on the stern decking failed miserably.  I made a paper pattern by tracing the outside of the deck, and then using a compass to run the inside edge and determine the centerline and split.  The two outside edge pieces came out great, but somehow the curve on the center piece is wrong.  My guess is that the paper didn't get laid down onto the wood properly when it was glued, since it's just notebook paper.  So now I'm going to re-do it using card-stock and see if that works better since it is much stiffer obviously, and should be much more resistant to being changed when glued to the wood.

 

post-14925-0-10154000-1467527453_thumb.jpgpost-14925-0-06022600-1467527454_thumb.jpgpost-14925-0-64324000-1467527454_thumb.jpg

 

Stern margin planking, round 2!

 

Made new patterns, this time out of card stock (manila folder) so that it would not deform when gluing it to the wood.

 

post-14925-0-51851000-1467527455_thumb.jpg

 

After cutting the wood out, test fit with the patterns still on the wood, and it's much better, the curve is pretty spot on, just need to make the joints fit tight.

 

 

post-14925-0-78600100-1467527456_thumb.jpg

 

I glued the center curve into place, and then adjusted the joints on the side pieces to fit well, and then glued them in place and clamped.

 

 

post-14925-0-50276100-1467527457_thumb.jpg

 

 

I can live with this.

 

 

post-14925-0-09231200-1467527458_thumb.jpg

 

Now I can add the planks.

 

I've found that all of the decks that I planked have developed a massive amount of warp, I'm guessing due to the stress as the glue dried between the layers, so now all of the completed pieces are beneath a big stack of heavy wood and steel weights to hopefully straighten them out.

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Great progress, you say you can live with it, personally i would be extremely proud of such a great result :) :)

 

Brian,

 

One thing about scanners.. they don't do exactly 100%.   Some stupidity about counterfeiting money..   :D  :D   So... either buy a small ruler or make a small ruler on some paper and scan it with your plans/patterns.  I pull the drawing into CorelDraw and adjust that the ruler is correct size, then print.  Or... you just  copy/print from the scanner/printer (assuming it's an all in one device) and adjust the size as you print.

 

Your foredeck came out great in spite of the problems.

 

This is an excellent idea and i for one will be using it ;)

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Nice work Brian.  I've started to use card stock for lots of templates and such - much better than paper.  I found that I can feed 80 pound through my inkjet printer with no problems.  

 

I'm surprised at the decks warping.  Next time you come over bring a piece of decking so I can see what you're dealing with.

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On another forum that I post this on (not a modeling forum, just a modeling thread) I was asked about fitting the ends of the planks on my bow decking to the margin plank, so I made a mini-tutorial on how I do that, so sharing it here as well in case someone might learn something from it (or tell me I'm making it way too hard on myself, who knows!).

 

-----------------

 

Here is that step-by-step thing on plank fitting that I promised last week and then didn't actually get to do until this morning.  The plank in question isn't a very good example since it's a very slight angle/curve at this location, the the process doesn't change at all, just the angle and length of the joint.
 
Step 1 - Place a piece of planking so that the end against the existing plank is right at the point it needs to be, and mark the opposite edge where it crosses over the margin plank.  At this point I also mark the other end of the plank for length, leaving about 1/8" or so (better too much than too little) extra to allow for the shortening of this plank as I work the end.
 
post-14925-0-25344900-1467573488_thumb.jpg
 
Step 2 - Using a small mitre-box I trim the piece to length.  I sort of failed on the camera angle here, but you can get the idea.
 
post-14925-0-15013400-1467573489_thumb.jpg
 
Step 3 - Also a failed camera angle.  Using a steel straight edge, I use a #11 blade to trim the end of the plank based on the mark I made on the edge to the point that was against the existing plank.  This leaves me with a slightly long plank with an angled end.
 
post-14925-0-76191000-1467573489_thumb.jpg
 
Step 4 - Place this cut piece into position and look at how it fits.  As can be seen here, I made the angle a bit too sharp, so the plank it tight where it's against the existing plank (where the blade is pointing) but leaves a gap as you get to the opposite edge.  This tells me that I am going to sand down the point of the angle, trying to curve it slightly to the opposite end where no sanding will be done.
 
post-14925-0-33532800-1467573490_thumb.jpg
 
Step 5 - Sanding.  I just do this by hand, using a 220 grit sandpaper, and kind of wing it based on how the fit was.
 
post-14925-0-91232200-1467573490_thumb.jpg
 
Step 6 - Dry fit again, and see what corrections need to be made. In this case you can see that I over-sanded the 'point', but there is still a gap at the opposite edge (red arrows) so now it needs to be sanded in the center where it's now tightly fitting (black arrow).  I just repeat this process until the fitment is good enough to make me happy.
 
post-14925-0-50198100-1467573491_thumb.jpg
 
Step 7 - Final dry fit.  To my eyes this looked really good.  The camera close up reveals that I could have done a bit more sanding as there is still a slight oversanding at the 'point' of the angle, but it's not really something that will be visible to the eye, especially after final finishing.
 
post-14925-0-04653400-1467573492_thumb.jpg
 
Step 8'ish - Not pictured - the center plank that was previously placed already has been coated with lead from a #4B artists pencil to simulate caulking in the finished deck.  The new plank now gets the same treatment, but only on the end where it meets the margin plank, and the outside where the next plank will be laid.  Coating both sides of a joint makes it too heavy for my taste.  Before adding the lead, the entire side of the plank gets a very slight bevel sanded into it with 220 grit sandpaper so that the deck surface of the planks mate very closely together.  The end where it will join with the margin plank was sanded with a bevel when I was shaping it.
 
Step 9 - Plank is glued in place and clamped.  Glue (yellow wood glue) is placed on the plank itself in a very thin layer using a flat end of a plank to smooth is and remove all excess.  The same thing is done on the deck surface where it will be glued.
 
post-14925-0-58553700-1467573492_thumb.jpg
 
Step 10 - Remove clamps and see how it came out.
 
post-14925-0-23133400-1467573493_thumb.jpg
 
The darkness of the joint along the margin plank will be reduced to something similar to what you see on the margin plank joints after sanding, and then hopefully be about the same as the bow planking came out once it's finished and wipe on poly is added.
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Finished the stern deck planking.  Sanded and cleaned up:

post-14925-0-73101000-1467585994_thumb.jpg

 

Added coat of wipe on poly:

post-14925-0-79973800-1467585995_thumb.jpg

 

Pretty happy with how the decking is coming out.  Have a couple of benches and the bulkheads left to do before I can finally start assembling stuff.

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  • 1 month later...
  • 2 months later...

Well, it would be if I had anything to update other than work and life in general keeping me out of the hobby room (although I did use the room for some non-ship related projects for the house).

 

I'll get back to it one of these days for sure, but no promises on timing, since I don't know myself.

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  • 5 months later...

I'm working on a small 'get back into the shop' project right now, but holding off on posting it for a bit since then I would have 3 partial build logs instead of just two.  Once I have something interesting to show I'll start a log which should be fairly short as I think I can finish this in a couple of months if I can find some reasonable chunks of time to work on it.

 

So no, I'm not dead. :)

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  • 2 weeks later...

So when this project got set to the side some time ago, there was really only one piece of planking that still needed to be done - the cockpit bench seating which comes in two pieces.

 

For some reason today I decided to finish this rather than work on my new little side project or other stuff I need to get done around here.  To begin I added a brace in the form of a piece of basswood planking and joined the two sides together so that I could plank it as a single piece.  Then I just started working on it and here's the pattern I ended up using.

 

PB_057_CockpitSeatPlanking.thumb.jpg.2e3e32d6b48bd6f14377b35355c8d687.jpg

 

I should take another picture, managed to get this out of focus a bit.  The thin strip around the inside edge was added to cover up the transition from basswood to the pear planking from the edge, I sanded it round, which doesn't really show up in the picture.

 

So here are most of the planked pieces at this point.

 

PB_058_PlankingBits.thumb.jpg.92e2a957199456879fd0cf4b9685cf06.jpg

 

Next step is to find the instructions and figure out where I was on the assembly and see what comes next I suppose.  It should prove interesting as I progress to see how difficult I've made this kit for myself by increasing the thickness of so many parts with 1/32 planking.

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21 minutes ago, Roger Pellett said:

Does anyone who has built this Model or is otherwise interested in the subject understand why the kit manufacturer chose the to show this boat with a round stern?  Existing contemporaneous drawings show these craft with square sterns.

 

Roger

 

Good question Roger, but I have no idea what the answer is.  Even contemporary drawings of the actual event show a square stern, not just drawings of this type of craft.

 

h42220.jpg.dc5320f3db94f1ddcde32bc5b7a8a997.jpg

 

I'm not personally ready to try to design and scratch build a square stern onto the model, so mine will be built as the kit depicts it, even though that's apparently a fairly large inaccuracy.

 

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Roger:

You are right about the square stern shown in the contemporary drawings.  The only thing I can think of is that the research done for the documentary film by the History Channel might have shown some indication of the rounded stern.  It is indicated as a source of information used in the kit's design.  I don't remember if the boat used in the documentary had a square or rounded stern. 

One thing in the documentary film that was wrong was they showed the hull painted white - strictly so that the boat would be visible in the film.  Had it been painted flat black as the data I read before building the model indicated, the film would have been able to have been shot with the lens cap on and seen as much had they used black paint.

Kurt

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