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

[vossiewulf]

Thanks Popeye

 

And Rick, the reason I cut the scarf joint while planking the inside of the bulkheads is because I will be doing that joggling of the deck planks. I hope Tony is still listening, he did a pretty fancy job of the planking on his. I've got a good top view of a well-done Cheerful, if nothing else I'll just copy that here.

 

So we left off with the resolution of the Great Gunwale Debate, and BTW Rick haven't heard a peep back from Amati.

 

While we were arguing back and forth with that, I did the port-side rabbet for the second planking. If you remember I did the first primarily with my rotary tool, this time for safety's sake I decided to use edge tools and it was a good reason to use Mikhail's tools. People shouldn't see them as carving tools, more than half the set is straight and skew chisels and I'm sure he would sell a set of just those. All of the straight and skew chisel tools are fabulous micro-joinery tools.

 

First mark it out more carefully than the first one.

 

 

Cutting the top and bottom lines with Mikhail's knife.

 

 

 

Finishing with the same riffler I used before. This one seems specifically designed for model ship planking rabbets.

 

 

All was well on the bow end.

 

 

But as mentioned above, on the stern end the plans don't account for the thickness of the planking they told you to put on the transom, leaving it overhanging the rudder post where the final planking is supposed to end. So either we get a jaggy line or cut a piece of the rudder post out, I did the latter, starting with scoring the line.

 

 

 

And then I used Mikhail's straight and skew chisels to cleanly remove the required wood, and lemme tell ya cocobolo isn't the most carving-friendly wood.

 

 

 

Here I went back to the gunwale/bulkhead planking... what the hell are they? Both? Anyway the inner planking of the deck wall things

 

And Rick, the answer is cut those puppies into as many pieces as possible  Well more accurately, fit and mark as one plank but I rapidly concluded that particularly working with a hard wood like boxwood that I would want to glue short pieces if possible and remove as much waste as possible before applying pieces to the model.

 

 

 

Here is another demonstration of my new tools, cutting a rabbet for inner bulkhead planking into a stem piece that's already installed. 

 

I also want to know why, within ten minutes of sitting down in the shop area, my fingers always look like I've been fighting in Stalingrad for three weeks.

 

 

 

And successfully test-fitting a plank.

 

 

 

As mentioned, for practice I cut a scarf joint in one of the strakes, just eyeballing the first half.

 

 

 

Looks more or less right.

 

 

 

Clamp it and the other half down and mark it with a knife, pencils are way too fat for this.

 

 

 

Cut to the marked line, and theoretically it should be dead on.

 

 

 

 

Overall view of progress.

 

 

 

I am using my scraper to basically level each plank as it's glued on. Or you could wait to the end and try to level four boxwood planks at the same time. Your call

 

 

 

Rick was right, you do get some good ripple removal from the inner planking. But like everything there are limits and I'm still glad I spent time getting them as close as possible to right back when I did the original bending.

 

 

 

And as noted, it doesn't fix everything. This is one pernicious ripple that doesn't want to go away, highlighted in red.

 

 

 

I played around with clamping before glue, and glad I did as it had to be placed in exactly the right place to correct close the gap.

 

 

 

And now we have a completely fair line and no gaps and without any need for sanding or filling to get it that way, that makes me happy.

 

 

 

Obviously I'm leaving the openings somewhat rough until the outer planking goes on and we can finalize them. This is the stern area done, and I can only see one out of four glue lines and the fit with the fashion pieces looks good so overall happy.

 

 

And full view with port side inner planking done. The very top strake ended up with a visible line most of the way, not sure why, it looked as good as the rest dry fitting. But that's maybe a half star reduction, overall I'm pleased with the results, although this is as easy as planking gets. Proof will be in how I do with the bending and twisting of the outer planking.

 

 

 

[John Allen]

Your like a dog with a bone and have that thing called persistence very nice.

[Rick01]

Looking good - that inside line at the bow is a bi**h - I had mini clamps every 5mm or so round that section plus additional clamps every 4 cm or so on down the full length of that run! The joggling pattern won't necessarily match any you see here as I found that it was literally a matter of fitting each plank as an individual item and the curve of your edge plank ended up dictating the correct fit. 

I do love that scarfe joint - beautifully done.

 

Rick

 

[gjdale]

Great work Jay. Those new tools look gorgeous - I'm drooling over my keyboard reading your posts! I've just received a set of Veritas chisels (for larger scale woodwork). They look and feel wonderful - cant wait to start using them.

[vossiewulf]

Thanks for the encouraging words everyone  It's good the get thumbs up from people who know of which they speak.

 

Grant, hopefully you paid the extra to get the PM-V11 chisels? That steel is downright spooky in how long edges last before having to resharpen. I got the PM-V11 iron for the first smoothing plane I bought from them, and all subsequent purchases have been with the PM blade/iron option. It's one of the rare cases where paying the premium for the best is actually a money saver, you sharpen so much less with PM-V11 tools that you make back in time more than every penny spent. But be prepared to understand our ancestor's cries of "wizardry!" when you chop through miles of hard exotic wood and find the edge is still super sharp, a part of your brain will want to put it down and back away and run go summon the village priest.

 

Regardless they're great chisels even going with A2 or O1, and will make tons of nice furniture. Also don't forget it's in the woodworker's handbook that whenever you buy new chisels you have to go hand cut some dovetails with them

 

Also WRT Mikhail's tools, as above unless you're intending to try carving consider getting a reduced set of just the straight and skew chisels from Mikhail, I'd guess maybe $150-$200 for I think 11 tools. All of the skews are single bevel and come in left and right hand versions in three sizes. Send a PM to me when you're ready and I will give you his email address.

 

Rick, you were doing yellow glue right? I'm still using CA. I put glue on an inch or 1.5" length, hand clamp, move on, I always want to be managing the smallest practical joint with the least glue possible at any one time, bad glue lines for me are almost always the result of trying to glue too much at one time. Also there are many butt joints here, several of which are nigh invisible that allowed me to work with shorter lengths presenting simpler glue problems.

 

I in fact wanted to do yellow glue here, but of all my small clamps only the c-clamps provide enough squishing power to get good joints, I am strongly considering making my own small cam clamps for ship work. I have always like cam clamps since I first learned woodworking, a standard 8" version should be able to do ~300lbs and if you're using them every day all day you can get amazingly fast at declamping and reclamping with them. Further, unlike spring clamps, they can apply a range of force from 0 to their max. I think that might be the best solution for this type of clamping, if nothing else before I start another ship I'm going to spend some time on infrastructure like making clamps based on my experience building this ship.

 

[Rick01]

My glue choice is water based PVA - I does take some time to grab but is easy to clean up and if you do make a mistake (not likely with you) quite simple to damp down and remove the offending item. Another plus is that diluted it helps fix knot in rigging plus get rope coils to hang convincingly. With clamps it's pretty individual in your choice, I've a collection varying from standard C clamps, spring , assorted sizes of bulldog clips down to toy clothes pegs and a big selection of assorted sizes of rubber bands! Clamping does become a problem when fitting the final few planks on the hull which is where I find the rubber bands do come in useful - those with lego bricks to vary the pressure work pretty well.

Decking is so much easier!!

 

Rick 

[vossiewulf]

It's of course a double-edged sword issue, like pretty much everything. You get so much more adjust and also abort time- you can recognize a major issue and still easily pull the piece off and clean up both sides. But it also means you have to clamp the hell out of everything and that really gets complicated.

 

What I'm doing is much less complicated and zero need for clamps, but I have to position everything exactly right the first time, even with slow CA they grab almost immediately. But as you see you can get very good glue lines when you use all 10 fingers to clamp a 1.5" length, and the other advantage is it's quick, you can walk your way down a plank in a short time as you only need to hold each section 30 second and then give it another 30 seconds to harden a bit- I finished the other side of the inner bulwark planking, most of the time being spent fiddling fits to be much better than they need to be.

 

So that's done, need to do starboard side rabbet for outer planking then can start the outer planking.

 

In an effort to get Grant treated for rabies due to excessive drooling, here I am cutting the stem rabbet for the starboard side. Rick, I also think this helped me with the planks at the bow, and I'd recommend anyone do it- but obviously do it before the stem is attached to the hull when it would be very easy.

 

 

 

 

It provided a very positive lock for all the inner gunwale planks.

 

 

 

Here it looks like the fashion piece came second, so I score this a win.

 

 

 

And the bow looks nice and clean with the rabbet.

 

 

 

And overall starboard side. Pretty much same as other side, very good glue lines except for the top strake. Which is really annoying as I was really trying to make that better on this side, but it's getting painted so moving on. Just bothered I'm not still sure what happened there.

 

[vossiewulf]

Another concern is that you can see the false deck edges were considerably less right than I thought they were, there are gaps on both sides where the deck dips well below the planking line. This is going to cause problems for getting the waterways right, they currently don't have a good level glue surface. Not sure what I'm going to do about it yet.

[gjdale]

11 hours ago, vossiewulf said:

Grant, hopefully you paid the extra to get the PM-V11 chisels? That steel is downright spooky in how long edges last before having to resharpen. I got the PM-V11 iron for the first smoothing plane I bought from them, and all subsequent purchases have been with the PM blade/iron option. It's one of the rare cases where paying the premium for the best is actually a money saver, you sharpen so much less with PM-V11 tools that you make back in time more than every penny spent. But be prepared to understand our ancestor's cries of "wizardry!" when you chop through miles of hard exotic wood and find the edge is still super sharp, a part of your brain will want to put it down and back away and run go summon the village priest.

 

Regardless they're great chisels even going with A2 or O1, and will make tons of nice furniture. Also don't forget it's in the woodworker's handbook that whenever you buy new chisels you have to go hand cut some dovetails with them

 

 

Yes Jay, went the extra mile and bought the PM-V11 set.  And yes, hand cutting dovetails is on the agenda.....

[tkay11]

Sorry, Grant, but I've only just caught up with your log and seen the issues you raised in post #169, viz:

 

"The things I need to think about that I came away with were:

• Deck furniture issues with the boom pin rail and windlass and position of pretty much everything, the first model showing the companionway forward under the boom and facing aft with different grate/light positions. One question here is the second model showed 3 additional hand-cranked small windlasses, what are those and were they common?
• Topmast forward of the mainmast. 
• Two sets of braces for main and top square sails. Only I don't understand why there are two sets, why not just run them forward to keep them clear of the spanker boom? Seems overly complicated to run them to two places."

The first issue has been answered as the Trial shown in the picture had an experimental drop keel.

 

In relation to the topmast, there was some discussion of it in the Sherbourne build logs by myself, Dirk (Dubz), Kester (Stockholm Tar) and Gregor -- as there was over a lot of other historical details to do with cutters. I made my own choice of putting it fore of the main mast not only because it was placed that way in a number of contemporary models and paintings, but also because it makes a lot of mechanical sense -- seeing that the mainsail rigging and all that weight now comes off the lower and larger mast. It might well be worth going through the logs I have mentioned above because the discussions also cover many of the points of interest you are likely to come across in the Lady Nelson. However often the decisions are personal, as the original NMM plans were either inadequate (e.g. gunport hatches, rigging) or hard to distinguish. In any event those NMM plans did at least point to a number of inaccuracies of the kit (companionway, windlass). And the kit pieces are often too gross for comfort (pumps, tiller, belaying pins, cannon).

 

I'm only a novice (Sherbourne was my first build, and I'm still working on my second) so I'm sure others with greater knowledge will provide better answers. For the rigging, I would strongly recommend Marquardt's Eighteenth Century Rigs and Rigging, which can be obtained quite cheaply. It is a very good companion to Petersson, which is excellent for clarity and general understanding, but has a few errors of its own.

 

I see that, just as for the Sherbourne builders, you've had your share of woes with the gunports. Some people ignore the cutouts in the kit bulwarks and make their own with planking cutouts after first assaying positions and heights with card cutouts of guns on carriages.

 

Tony

[Rick01]

Got internet for a very short while here!! Will try and check in from time to time but no guarantees.

The problem I found with gluing short lengths at a time was that I was liable to crack the plank when lifting it slightly to get the next length glued (and getting it exactly positioned in the first place).

 

Rick

[vossiewulf]

12 hours ago, gjdale said:

Yes Jay, went the extra mile and bought the PM-V11 set.  And yes, hand cutting dovetails is on the agenda.....

 

I forgot the other part of the spookiness, it's noticeably easier to sharpen than A2, at least as easy as O1. So pay attention with the first sharpening to get a feel for the rate of metal removal.

 

Tony thanks. Although it's Jay/Vossie, Grant is just commenting here. I answer fine to Vossie, have had some version of this name for like 26 years now. Ex-wife #2 who I'm still close to calls me that frequently, usually when she thinks I'm misbehaving.

 

I read your discussion and some of the others on the topmast position to know that you could make an argument for either position but that forward seemed to be more common, so that's what I'm going to do.

 

I wish I had known there was something of a consistent problem with gunports. In my case the issue is the kit designers have gunports following gunwale top line sheer not the deck sheer, and that results in guns at either end that can't shoot low and ones in the middle that can't shoot high. Well that's an exaggeration but they do have differing fields of fire.

 

I think the problem is simply that on the real ships the deck sheer followed the top line sheer. This is 1817, but still quite close to the LN generation, similar top lines and gunports, but you can see the deck indicated just above the wales following that same sheer. Or at least I think that's the deck. If you're wondering I fiddled with this quickly to make it a bit clearer.

 

 

 

But a couple more questions while I'm at it -

 

1. Why is LN carvel built, I thought clinker was still standard early 1800?

2. What in the world is the purpose of the upper mini-wale on LN that crosses the gunports? It's broken in 6 places, its contribution to bulwark strength is going to be pretty close to zero.

[vossiewulf]

3 hours ago, Rick01 said:

Got internet for a very short while here!! Will try and check in from time to time but no guarantees.

The problem I found with gluing short lengths at a time was that I was liable to crack the plank when lifting it slightly to get the next length glued (and getting it exactly positioned in the first place).

 

Rick

Have fun Rick! Don't worry, I'll just keep count of what's your fault for not being here

 

[vossiewulf]

I finished the starboard rabbet and am trying to lay out the final planking. As of now, this is the "prime line" that all else will be driven off of, the dividing point being where the planks either end into the rudder post or end overhanging the stern fascia/transom.

 

Please let me know if this doesn't look right for some reason

 

 

[Rick01]

On 3/5/2017 at 1:39 AM, tkay11 said:

the kit pieces are often too gross for comfort (pumps, tiller, belaying pins, cannon).

Add the fact that the the spacing on the pin rails is wrong etc. If you look back at my photos I've rebuilt the tiller and added a horse behind/above to handle the boom and made my own bilge pumps. Once you get to the deck furnishings it really gets fun.

I've just chased all over town to find a free wifi that doesn't tell me this forum isn't a "safe" one so I can try and ensure that you don't start blaming me for any problems that may occur with the final planking which I guessed you'd be starting today. About which - the line you've shown seems to curve up rather steeply to me, with the bow planking it should follow lines nearly parallel  to the wales with a slight curve upwards. So once below the wales each plank will have a slight taper. Hopefully someone else will explain this better.

 

You'll get peace and quiet from me for the next 48 hours as I'm heading bush - 35C + and absolutely no mobile coverage all good as long as no breakdowns!

 

Rick 

[vossiewulf]

LOL Rick I appreciate it immensely but for God's sake go have your vacation and stop worrying about it Thanks on the planking I will try again, but if you see from the front it's just straight. If I make it meet the stem lower, it will have to curve down and that doesn't make much sense to me. Also it's not far above the line I used for the first planking which to me looked too flat. I'll see if I can find a middle ground and then leave it overnight and decide tomorrow.

[vossiewulf]

Ok this is what I have now. It looks correct to me and I think it pretty closely compares with Chuck's Cheerful. The planks on the top of this break would need to drop to close to half their width and that suggests one drop plank, and that is what he has on Cheerful.

 

 

''

 

 

 

Cheerful, best side view I can find.

 

 

[Rick01]

On 3/6/2017 at 7:14 PM, vossiewulf said:

 

LOL Rick I appreciate it immensely but for God's sake go have your vacation and stop worrying about it

 

Hi - I'm still holidaying - but both times I've been on here it's only because I had to contact home about some stuff and thought I'd drop in quickly to see what I may have done wrong! I'm having fun and it looks as if you've got a nice line for a start on the planking.

 

Rick 

 

[vossiewulf]

Good timing, was just about to give a little mini-update, which is I'm in blukhead strips and marking plank ticks etc. and will start actual planking soon, and will be head down for a while so you can holiday yourself and not worry

 

I am once again experimenting and trying multiple things and doing things over, so it's a slow phase again. This time I am using Frog low-tack tape to measure lengths of stations since it is somewhat flexible and sticks but it doesn't stretch. And then I'm doing the actual tick marks with my proportional dividers. I'm then drawing planking lines for some planks by laying pinstriping tape down along the tick marks. And to ensure I have no excuses, I'm drawing those lines after sharpening a .3mm lead

 

The tape along the keel shows what the garboard will do, similar to what I did for first planking. It will curve away from the keel and terminate in the rudder post two planking widths above the keel. That will leave a nice simple shape for the stealers that have to go someplace.

 

One thing that was hard, and I'm still not sure they are perfect, was drawing in these stations and getting them square with the keel. Are there any tricks to this other than create frame templates fit well enough you could use them as rulers? I have no issues drawing straight lines here, the problem is figuring out which direction those straight lines should be pointing.

 

[Rick01]

Overall it looks good - however the garboard plank should run parallel to the false keel for its full length as you can see in Chuck's model. One or two stealers will then slot in a little higher up the stern but before it flares out.

 

I am back from holiday now so I'm allowed to look in and comment! 

 

Rick

[vossiewulf]

Hey Rick, good to see you back  But also hope you had a good time on your trip and all went well.

 

I'm semi-down having another run-in with kidney stones, something I have all too much experience with, they started when I was 30. Was all I could do most of this week to spend some time with my teams at work and make sure they were mostly on track. A team in Bangalore has been added to my group as well which also means daily calls for the next few weeks of some length to talk to the local management team to get a grasp of their tempo and needs and get them integrated into my group. It doesn't help that the nature of what we do means that every single person is moving as fast as humanly possible every day so staying ahead of the curve is a challenge. And I was already on call 24/7, but now with Bangalore I'm double extra on call.

 

Easiest way to explain what we do is to say we're payment system first responders. Something significant goes wrong with the payment systems driving large parts of the world's e-commerce system, we get called. We also do root cause analysis and fixes on all non-crisis production issues and do lots of reporting and analytics for business and sales and senior leadership.

 

Haven't gotten anything done last couple days. Hopefully will be doing a bit better this weekend and make some progress.

[Rick01]

Hi - did have a good relaxing time but it sounds as if you've had it a bit rough between kidney stones and work! Don't push the model if you're not feeling up to it, with planking it's just not worth the risk. I spent 6 months finishing this kit so you're well ahead of things given that I'm retired and could spend a couple of hours a day on it.

 

Rick

[usedtosail]

I feel your pain, Vossie, literally. Haven't had one in a few years, and not looking forward to the next time. Hang in there and it will pass (sorry).

[vossiewulf]

Thanks Tom. I have them every year to 18 months and have been through the ultrasound lithotripsy procedure a dozen times. I've had them on both sides at the same time a few times, including now. At least the ultrasound I had didn't see anything big, I've had them >1cm. Anything that will pass on its own is no big deal to me, when you get the lithotripsy it's like having a pro boxer beat on your kidney for a few rounds and it's a good solid week at least before you can go take a leak without steeling yourself for the pain.

 

And no, none of the recommended dietary changes have made any difference, as my doctor said some people's chemistry is so good at making them that it doesn't matter. Just something I have to live with.

[mtaylor]

I'm not gonna' like that post, Jay.  I had kidney stones once back in my late 20's.  I think there's still fingermarks on the wall of the restroom where I worked.   Miserable.. just miserable.  You have my condolences on these as I wouldn't wish them on my worst enemy... ok... maybe on them but not on the rest of us.  

[vossiewulf]

Well if nothing else we found a post that Mark doesn't like  If this forum has achievements that should be one.

 

One thing I will say is the first few are by far the worst. Also, if you're even slightly prone, you should keep a prescription of Toradol around. It's non-narcotic, primarily an anti-inflammatory, but for whatever reason it works to largely stop the really bad pain at the beginning. 

 

To get us back to vaguely more pleasant subjects, I made another little sanding block for PSA paper specifically for deck sanding and used it to test my ink idea a bit more. Here it is before inking:

 

And I managed in few minute stretches over the last couple days to "paint" it with three coats, leveling between with 1200 grit. It looks quite good and I think it compares reasonably well with dye in terms of color and translucency while providing an actual film finish over the wood; dye needs to be followed up with a clear coat of some kind. It's more translucent than you see here, it's so red it seems to be overwhelming the CCD in the camera.

 

I was also testing Rhino Glue, which claims to be powerful enough to stick a criminal charge to a rich guy and stick anything to anything. It seems at least closely related to CA, but it smells a bit different, and it sets up slower than CA of similar viscosity. I also scored the wood and sanded the brass with 120 grit in several directions before gluing.

 

Unfortunately I don't think I can use the red ink for the inner gunwales, since the fashion pieces and stern fascia would have to be stripped again (!), and the fashion pieces ripped out and replaced with wood since this finish is translucent. But if I were to do this again, this is what I would use to paint all of the gunwale red surfaces, and I'm now experimenting with black ink instead of the black dye I was intending to use, the latter is quite red and that's been bothering me.

 

And a different subject, I found this interesting pics in Brian Lavery's Ship of the Line series, in vol. II. What I find interesting is that if you want to be accurate, the pintle/gudgeon straps would show three different head types for the screws, the nail-things, and the through-bolts. I'll have to see when I get here but I'm tempted to try to machine these.

 

 

 

 

[Rick01]

Hey Vossie remember you're working at 1/64 so unless you've got your nose pretty well on the rudder you'll be pushing up hill to see this fine a detail! However I will agree that the supplied metalwork is not the best and getting the rudder to sit close to the rudder post is not easy without some major rebuilding.

 

Rick

[vossiewulf]

Oh yeah, chances are I won't be able to make three different head types visible , mostly I just thought it was interesting that they used three different kinds of attachment mechanisms. When I said I might machine these, I mean machine a .115" or so groove in solid brass, leaving enough material at the end to properly do the hinges- they clearly weren't thin straps. Then remove material on the strap parts until they're appropriately thin. Just musing mostly, will decide when we actually get there.

[vossiewulf]

Oh BTW Rick I heard you about the garboard. I didn't like it, but I heard it  I guess you're right, it just makes the stealer problem more complex, much easier to fit stealers in that nice vertical spot where you're not also dealing with bending and twisting.

[Rick01]

1 hour ago, vossiewulf said:

makes the stealer problem more complex, much easier to fit stealers in that nice vertical spot where you're not also dealing with bending and twisting.

Shoudn't really - I've checked what I did on this hull (a different build just using the hull) and I only used a single stealer effectively being the 4th plank up from the false keel. Still on the "flat" with minimum twisting involved. It was at this point that my planking started move away from neat parallel lines.

 

Rick