Lady Nelson by vossiewulf - Amati/Victory Models - 1:64

[vossiewulf]

Vossiewulf - there is another reason why a few of us don't really like the name on this cutter. There actually was a "Lady Nelson" used in the exploration of Australia but rigged as a brig rather than a cutter see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Lady_Nelson_(1798)wikipedia I know but in this instance basically accurate.

 

Rick

 

Yep, I was aware of that ship too but not that people wanted to defend its honor

[vossiewulf]

I fitted the gunwales first then soaked and bent the transom into the approximate curve needed. Once I was satisfied with it I then started carefully shaving the "legs" until everything went together neatly. By the way the gunwales have a tendency to break at the bow gun ports if you're not super careful when fitting ( not that I'd expect anything other than care going on your build so far).

 

Rick

 

The plankling is really confusing me at the stern in that I can't understand how the kit instructions are supposed to work out correctly. You're supposed to put two layers of planking on each side of the deadwood going into the rudder post, which = 4 x .047" fitting flush with a piece that's .115" wide. Not only would you have to remove the entire deadwood you'd be running planks from one side against planks from the other.

 

My plan, and in the spirit of trying not to solve every problem myself, please tell me if I am smoking crack. is that I will have two bearding lines and two rabbets at that end. The first bearding line is basically what I have now, and I'm going to make the rabbet for the first run to stop as far short of the rudder post as possible and I'm going to fair the first layer into the current false keel surface. Then we'll work from that second bearding line to cut a .040" or so deep second rabbet up against the rudder post.

 

I'm not seeing any major issues on the rest of the hull, except that the width of the keel at the very top of the stem becomes really narrow with two layers of planking eating up the available space. And also the twist that needs to be put in the wales planks are about 70 degrees, which should be interesting.

 

I also need to stop on the planking to remake the top piece of the stem in cocobolo and I'm making it in three parts so it will be much much stronger. Hopefully that will give enough time for you guys to report back on my crack-smoking status.

[vossiewulf]

Forgot to say thanks on the counter explanation, I'll plow ahead then. Also, wow the Amazon Silk browser does not play well with this site, the reply text box even on the full reply UI is one line long and three words wide. Using my tablet from the workshop.

Edited January 29, 2017 by vossiewulf

[Rick01]

Yep, I was aware of that ship too but not that people wanted to defend its honor

We Australians get a little upset at times when our own history gets forgotten. The original release of this ship did in fact claim it was the real "Lady Nelson" - pretty obviously not when you count the masts!!

As to the planking, your idea looks fine, I did go about it a slightly different way in that my second planking was done using .06 thick planking - somewhat easier to manipulate.

 

Rick 

Edited January 29, 2017 by Rick01

[vossiewulf]

We Australians get a little upset at times when our own history gets forgotten. The original release of this ship did in fact claim it was the real "Lady Nelson" - pretty obviously not when you count the masts!!

As to the planking, your idea looks fine, I did go about it a slightly different way in that my second planking was done using .06 thick planking - somewhat easier to manipulate.

 

Rick

 

I understand, same thing happens with Kiwi and Hoser history too, gets overrun by British history.

 

Thanks for the confirmation on the plan. And yeah, another idea is to say screw these thicknesses and redo much thinner, .6mm would be about right. One wildcard is that I haven't received my crown timber order yet that includes boxwood outer planking so I don't know how thick it is.

[Rick01]

" using .06 thick planking" !!! Should have read .6 mm 

 

Rick

[Borborygm]

 

 

I will have two bearding lines and two rabbets at that end.

 

I did a post on this same problem last November. Altduck recommended doing exactly what you are thinking of. I haven't gotten to the point of carving the rebate because I am still fairing the hull (and thanks to you, I'm going back and adding filler blocks as you did). I think your and Altduck's solution will work well and I intend to use it.

 

http://modelshipworld.com/index.php/topic/14706-problem-with-kit-planking-stock-dimensions/

[vossiewulf]

I figured out that it meant .6mm. No idea how, but I did.

 

Anyway that stem piece took way longer than I thought it would, but it's done. And for some reason took lots of photos so you get to see every step.

 

First I said in the previous update that I'd used lots of filler to get a reasonable shape at the stern, but forgot to show what I mean - as you see for me at least, the edges of that bulkhead were completely covered and as I said that bulkhead needs to be at least 1/8" talleer for it to be correctly faired where planks would touch the entire edge.

 

 

And another miscellaneous thing, this stuff is great. Advertised as the product the British Museum uses to preserve its collection. I use it constantly. It's what I use on all my tools, both handles and to preserve the steel and for plane bottoms. I've also used it over wood finishes or as the only finish on wood and I always like the results.

 

Unlike most paste waxes it has no silicone so you can use it in your wood shop without silicone contamination screwing up every finish you do for the rest of your life.

 

 

Ok so the little walnut bit is what we need to replace along with another piece going where the mitre-looking edge is, so I grabbed one of the other cocobolo strips I planed down other day.

 

 

I cut a piece from that strip long enough to make the all of the pieces I need. Here is another reason it's good to have sharp full-sized planes around, they make it trivial and quick to get a perfectly square and straight and clean edge.

 

 

 

First two pieces, marked to get drilled for carbon fiber pins.

 

 

Before I could glue them together though, had to drill the five holes (thanks for pointing that out Rick) holes for the deadeye connected to the forestay. I then took a 90 degree stone-setting bur and beveled the holes as I assume the real ones were, no way they'd run an important standing rigging element over a sharp corner. I just held the bur in my hands, it's a good quality jeweler's bur so it's sharp and just a little pressure and a few spins is enough.

 

 

Now with 500% more holes.

 

 

Glued.

 

 

Unfortunately we have a problem, wood blew out between upper right two holes on this side. Which is annoying since it was drilled with another cocobolo piece backing it. Have to fix it, too obvious.

 

 

Step 1 curl a little shaving up off another piece.

 

 

Cut it off, grab our fine tweezers with the carbon coating that makes them very grippy.

 

 

Use tweezers to place on glue and hold down.

 

 

Sand down, all fixed.

 

 

Here I've made the third piece and am test fitting it with the upper bulkhead strip that has to fit into this piece. You can see I have to trim the inside a bit, groove still not wide enough.

 

 

Once that was fit, put my CF pins in and glued and cleaned up the third piece.

 

 

Now we have to fit this to the ship and the stem ending that is at an angle, marking for the rough cut.

 

 

We have a good fit. The big gap between it and hull is intentional, it was easier to make it this way and glue a piece on than trying to cut a big notch in a cocobolo piece.

 

 

After I added the little extra piece I needed, I flushed it with the other piece on the disc sander.

 

 

Fit looks good now.

 

 

Test fit with bulkhead strip.

 

 

And now glued and cleaned up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Rick01]

I'm going to enjoy watching you make the corresponding 5 holed deadeye when you start rigging the ship.

 

Rick

[vossiewulf]

I'm going to enjoy watching you make the corresponding 5 holed deadeye when you start rigging the ship.

 

Rick

 

The thing about deadeyes is the circle is turned so we get side grain looking at that circle, and I've never tried to turn anything in that orientation, not sure how you keep the pieces from exploding all over in the process of working them down to your circle diameter. Especially as that sounded like haha! You're screwed now you need to make the dreaded 5 HOLE DEADEYE!

[vossiewulf]

BTW, why is that a boom and not a bowsprit, and why would they want to sometimes pull it partway in, which is the reason I've seen cited for it being mounted this way?

[Rick01]

I actually thought that you'd realised that the deadeye would also require a bit of work! Maybe a request to Chuck for a "one off" would be the way to go. As for the boom/bowsprit I'm afraid I can't answer that one, hopefully Druxey or Chuck will see this and be able to answer, I'd also be interested in the reasoning behind it.

 

Rick

[vossiewulf]

I did a post on this same problem last November. Altduck recommended doing exactly what you are thinking of. I haven't gotten to the point of carving the rebate because I am still fairing the hull (and thanks to you, I'm going back and adding filler blocks as you did). I think your and Altduck's solution will work well and I intend to use it.

 

http://modelshipworld.com/index.php/topic/14706-problem-with-kit-planking-stock-dimensions/

I'm sorry I missed this yesterday, thanks for pointing to that. Considering the number of especially new people working on LN, we should put together a list of the oopses/WTFs?

[vossiewulf]

I actually thought that you'd realised that the deadeye would also require a bit of work! Maybe a request to Chuck for a "one off" would be the way to go. As for the boom/bowsprit I'm afraid I can't answer that one, hopefully Druxey or Chuck will see this and be able to answer, I'd also be interested in the reasoning behind it.

 

Rick

I just got a shipment from Chuck, I got one each of most of his rigging sizes and boxwood blocks and deadeyes in (I hope)the right sizes. I'll ask him.

[mtaylor]

Hi Jay,

 

I finally caught up with your log.  I hope you don't mind if I follow along.   Interesting wood choices you've made and you're giving me ideas.... 

[vossiewulf]

Hi Jay,

 

I finally caught up with your log.  I hope you don't mind if I follow along.   Interesting wood choices you've made and you're giving me ideas.... 

 

More the merrier But I've seen your build, the only ideas you're going to get from me are wood choices ;-)

 

So anyway I got to cut a planking rabbet for the first time this evening, and I have one side done and will finish the other tomorrow. Will go much quicker tomorrow; since I'd never done this and as you folks have seen I'm a heavily armed modeler with eleventy zillion tools, I briefly tried a series of options before I settled on what was a very good solution (for me),

 

However first, I've been looking at my Admiral Paints Ensign Red and thinking it's (on scale 0-255) hue is about 3, saturation is 255, value 255. In short about as absurdly bright as modern chemistry can make red paint and it simply is not conceivable to me that that's an accurate color. I posted a question about it over in the paints forum. will see what they say. In the meantime decided to try out their red ochre. Although it's probably too orange, it has a saturation and value much more in line with what I would expect from 18th century ship paints.

 

It's the fashion pieces we're talking about now, I'm about to add the upper bulwark strips that glue to the outer fashion pieces, so from here they just get more inaccessible and I decided I wanted to paint them now. First I hit them with a couple coats of a clear flat sanding sealer and smoothed down all the MDF fuzz.

 

 

Then gave it three thin coats of the Admiral red ochre.

 

 

I just wish the hue was a less orange.

 

Marking rabbet. Notice my stem piece glue line was really not good on this side, not sure how but at least it's straight. Very disappointed with that, may have to fix it.

 

 

 

As noted tried a few tools briefly but closed in on this- a small square end mill in my Nakanishi turning at 40k RPM to rough out and just one riffler file to finish. I'm not sure I would try this with a Dremel, way too bulky and heavy with way more runout and vibration. Also this is a good quality and relatively new end mill, so there's almost no resistance from the wood allowing a very light touch.

 

Only trick here is having the end mill be orthogonal to the end of the frame to cut the right angle and smoothly transition between those angles along the run. I did not come anywhere close to trying to cut it in one pass, this was very light touch slowly working down with lots of shallow passes, I find this rotary tool easy to control but it's a rotary tool which means you still can completely screw up your work in zero seconds flat so slow and careful is the watchword.

 

 

 

This is what the stern looked like after the rotary tool work.

 

 

And this particular riffler file is perfect for this application. I wish I could point you to the set I have but Otto Frei has changed the Gardon-Vallorbe riffler set they carry and the choices are a bit different. My set's made by GV and was about the same expense and I will growl at you if you get close to them.

 

 

 

Still not perfectly straight but well within limits for first planking and I know I can make the second perfectly straight with just a bit more work.

 

 

 

Remember the plan is separate rabbets for each planking layer due to thin keel and thick planking, that's why the rabbet at the stern ends well short of the rudder post.

Edited January 30, 2017 by vossiewulf

[vossiewulf]

Being an optimist I'll assume the silence means the first rabbet looks ok. Got paged for a work crisis not long after I got home and had to get the team back online to deal with that, so I only had about an hour this evening.

 

I marked out and was quickly moving through doing the other side when one of my checks noticed something odd, and lesson for the evening turned out to be that if you're going to use where each bulkhead bottoms out as a reference point you should check that this side matches the other side first. One of six wasn't symmetrical, it was almost 1/32" short. Was odd because I thought I had checked for symmetry repeatedly through the previous processes.

 

 

So will have to be finished tomorrow.

[BANYAN]

Looks good to my eye Jay

 

cheers

 

Pat

[Rick01]

Doesn't matter how well I check my work I always seem to find one little thing that got missed/misaligned! At least it wasn't at a point where nothing could be done.

 

Rick

[vossiewulf]

Thanks Pat. And Rick yes, good point, it could have been worse Hardly tragic anyway, will fix it this evening and hope to get the bulkhead strips installed at least.

[vossiewulf]

Rick is there any reason not to add the stern fascia after adding the upper bulkhead strips? As far as I can see just prevents you from letting deck planking run long and trim later, and I don't see that as a big issue since I plan to add waterways and to toggle in the deck planks. I hate the fashion pieces hanging out in space begging to be broken, adding the fascia would stabilize the inner ones until we add the counter after planking.

[Rick01]

That's the same way I handled it. Bulwarks first soaking them at the prow to ensure that they bend without breaking at the first cannon port (mine did anyway :-( ). They will almost certainly need trimming at the stern to match the angle of the elbows, then as you say fit the stern fascia. This will only need the final planking in due course.

 

Rick

[Rick01]

Just before you do you'll need to decide if you're going to paint the bulwarks and facia or leave plain timber. If the latter then it would be easier to put a veneer planking on the inner face of the facia before fitting.

 

Rick

[vossiewulf]

Thanks again Rick, that's what I'll do then. And yes inner stern faces and bulwarks will be painted, one of the few places I'm sure I'm going to paint. You saw I already painted the fashion pieces with red ochre from Admiralty and come to think of it I need to stop and address that first, since that seems just too orange and would blend in too much with the overall mostly browns this thing is going to be. I want the red to be a point of contrast so I need to mix a red I can live with and repaint the fashion pieces that color. But it will be somewhere between red ochre and the eye-blinding pure Admiraly Ensign Red.

 

So first this evening I finished the rabbet on the port side, I did a bit better this time and I worked it a bit longer in practice for doing the final planking rabbets that need to be dead on.

 

I'm good with this, although I look forward to doing a ship where the keel is correctly left off until after planking as cutting those rabbets will be trivial in comparison to this little bit of micro-surgery.

 

 

 

 

Following your suggestion I soaked the bullwark strips in warm water for about an hour and then test-fitted, no pics as have to move quickly bending drying wood. I found there was a problem I should have anticipated, it wants to bend too much at the gunports where there is much less wood and not enough where there aren't gunports. So I was going to need to clamp both ways, clamping in against the bulkhead stanchions and also clamp out the too-much bends at the gunports.

 

So I decided to make a caul, that would let me do both. So I went and looked at my scrap plywood and couldn't find the 1/2" I wanted but found something better, a warped 1/4" piece. The warp would help it follow the deck sheer of this little ship, and I could just CA glue two pieces together to get my 1/2" piece.

 

 

Traced the pattern. The yellow tape is Frog delicate surface masking tape that works great for taping things on plans, it holds quite well while coming off without doing any damage. And it still works well for masking, at least straight lines.

 

 

Glued pattern trying to use glue only on the waste side, so theoretically the paper mostly just falls off after you're done cutting.

 

 

 

I put in a couple of flats in case I needed heavier clamping.

 

 

Slightly concave and that is perfect for a caul, just clamping the center will generate some clamping pressure across the whole strip.

 

 

This is a final dress rehearsal dry fit. The caul worked well in that I could clamp it fully into the correct line. However, I found I had to move much more quickly than I like to when gluing something very important like this, and even though the top view line is perfect, I wasn't sure wheter it was aligned vertically exactly as I couldn't see the bottom line in some places. 

 

 

So instead of moving ahead with gluing this, I decided to leave it clamped like this overnight to dry and set to this shape. That should mean I can glue it without the caul and just use normal clamps and I won't need to move as quickly.

 

So I know this method will work, but it's more complicated than I think it should be, so with the other one I'm going to try my plank bender. And that will be tomorrow, since I also had to do some other things and didn't have much time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Rick01]

"I'm good with this, although I look forward to doing a ship where the keel is correctly left off until after planking as cutting those rabbets will be trivial in comparison to this little bit of micro-surgery."

I've seen a couple of builds where instructions recommend fitting keel before planking - the builder has ignored this, cut the rabbet, planked first and second layer then cut a groove to take the full keel. Worked very well as long as they had a very steady hand for the last operation.

 

Rick

[vossiewulf]

"I'm good with this, although I look forward to doing a ship where the keel is correctly left off until after planking as cutting those rabbets will be trivial in comparison to this little bit of micro-surgery."

I've seen a couple of builds where instructions recommend fitting keel before planking - the builder has ignored this, cut the rabbet, planked first and second layer then cut a groove to take the full keel. Worked very well as long as they had a very steady hand for the last operation.

 

Rick

 

Hmm would have to see that as I'm not sure why that would take a steadier hand than what was required for what I just did, at least the rotary tool part, and also am thinking there should be a way to make a fence for a rotary tool with a router base to follow.

 

Anyway, thanks for continuing to look in Rick, all the advice and help is appreciated.

[Rick01]

I did have problems with a slight bowing at the gun ports however once I'd started to plank this area the planking did pull it all back into line.

 

Rick

[BANYAN]

I prefer the bending technique you have used over the use of a heat source/plank bender although, sometimes the shape does resile a little and a further over bending may be required to allow for it.  I also find that for thinner pieces I only have to soak for about 20 minutes.

 

Nice progress, the planks should lay along this with very little pressure.

 

cheers

Pat

[vossiewulf]

I did have problems with a slight bowing at the gun ports however once I'd started to plank this area the planking did pull it all back into line.

 

Rick

 

You're braver than me, when I saw the way they were bending I felt like I had to fix that immediately.

 

I prefer the bending technique you have used over the use of a heat source/plank bender although, sometimes the shape does resile a little and a further over bending may be required to allow for it.  I also find that for thinner pieces I only have to soak for about 20 minutes.

 

Nice progress, the planks should lay along this with very little pressure.

 

cheers

Pat

 

I may end up with that also, but remember this is a first build and I'll want to experiment with planking techniques to find the one I prefer. I also already bought a plankling bender so it's going to get used at least once 

 

The only technique I'm sure I don't want to use is those crimping tools, the idea of partially crushing wood on one side to make the other bend the way you want is not something that appeals to me, even if it is effective.

Edited February 2, 2017 by vossiewulf

[vossiewulf]

So I am really happy with what I did last night, just leaving it to dry on the ship. This is what we have this evening:

 

 

 

It had both the sheer and top line curves exactly. The fit on the ship was perfect, and therefore gluing was extremely easy and not rushed at all. 

 

I used yellow glue and clamps only at the bow, this was the only place where clamps were needed to refine the fit, and also would required adjustment hence the yellow glue.

 

We started here with just a tiny amount of glue in the stem, very carefully applied so it wouldn't squeeze to the other side and block the fit of the second strip. I also was very careful ensuring the bulkhead strip only went into the stem piece half way, again so there would be room for the other one, and in fact this was the fiddly part that made me opt for yellow glue here to allow me time to get it just right.

 

 

I then added glue for the first couple bow sections, and clamped up top plus I used some Frog uber mongo grip multi-surface tape to pull down the bottom edges that really didn't want to follow that vertical curve

 

 

The rest of it was glued on with CA with finger clamping, one bulkhead section at a time so again I didn't have to rush and could be careful and make sure I added the right amount of glue where I wanted it for each section - we have to remember the bulkhead stanchions will be removed later so we want minimum glue there, just enough to force it to shape.

 

I was happily gluing my way down when I realized I had gotten so excited about the perfect fit that I'd forgotten that I didn't like my fashion pieces' color and needed to stop, remix something better, and get them painted first.

 

 

First why not make them better, so buzzed over them with wet 2000 grit paper to take them up a notch in smoothness.

 

 

The mix I decided on was 10 to 3, Admiralty Hippy Bus Acid Trip Red (Ensign Red) and Admiralty Red Ochre. As usual with brush painting I thinned the paint quite a bit and added four thin glaze coats until I had the color buildup I wanted. I always end up with a much smoother finish that way

 

 

Then I continued gluing the port bulkhead strip. Happiness is a one-finger glue joint, and the fit is perfect there with the strip overhanding the outer fashion piece by only 1/64" or so.

 

 

Inner glue line looks good.

 

 

Only a teensy bit of glue to clean up on top, and none on the bottom, but it's glued plenty firmly.

 

 

Afterward this is what we have, and I couldn't be happier with it.

 

 

Fit is very good on bottom edge too which worried me plus it's perfect fitting into the stem.

 

 

There are a few ripples, but within easily removable tolerance. However I'm not going to smooth out those ripples now, since most are caused by a bulkhead stanchion pushing out a bit too far so if I remove those ripples now, they'll come back reversed and even harder to remove when the stanchions go away. 

 

I'm thinking of pulling most of the stanchions prior to planking the bulkhead strip, and then I could fully smooth out the ripples before doing that planking so the planks don't inherit said ripples.

 

 

Next was to do the same forming step for the starboard side strip so after soaking it here we go. First although it worked out I wasn't happy with the clamping of those Amati squeeze clamps I used on the other side, or more accurately that they don't maintain the pressure. At first it feels like they're pressing quite hard, but when I was de-clamping that side I found half of them had come loose. So doubt I will be using those except for CA clamping where they don't need to hold long term.

 

So switched to baby C-clamps (reminder: need more baby C-clamps). The first stanchion having a point facing inward wasn't cooperating, so I cut a flat in it.

 

 

 

And here is what I mean about clamping outward, the strip didn't want to follow the right curve going into the stem piece so I'm using this fly-tying hackle plier to clamp it outwards against the caul curve.

 

 

All clamped, C-clamps are clamping inward, all the small clamps outward. I did a better job with this one than other side, there are going to be almost no ripples here.

 

 

Since my stern fascia piece will be painted one side and planked the other I didn't want to use the walnut piece because the open grain would need filling, so I made a replacement out of basswood. Which made me wonder why a Euro kit made in Europe had an entire sheet of pieces that are exactly 1/32" thick, but it made it easier for me.

 

 

I cleaned up the inner part with rotary tool, then filled all those edges with my superfine Perfect Plastic Putty. It's made for plastic modelers and filling small spaces so it's not a good option for giant fills, but it's 1) amazingly smooth, 2) water-based, 3) dries at least as quickly as Famo or Elmer's, and 4) doesn't stick to fingers and spreaders nearly as much as the other two. I'm going to post it over in my tools thread, I think everyone should have this in their tool arsenal.

 

 

 

After the filler dried I sanded everything, and gave it a few coats of clear flat sanding sealer. That needs to dry along with the starboard bulkhead strip, so called it a night.

Edited February 2, 2017 by vossiewulf