America by gsdpic - FINISHED - BlueJacket Shipcrafters - 1/48 scale

[gsdpic]

Planking

 

So I have started the planking.  I have actually gotten farther than I said in my prior post.  I have done the garboard strakes on both sides, as well as both broad strakes on both sides, so six planks in all.  From here, I think I will do the sheer strakes and that should give a well-defined area that needs to be filled in with planks.  And from here, all the planks start out at 1/4 inch wide.  So once I get the sheer strakes on, I'll measure things again and lay out the planking to try to get consistent taper on the planks.

 

The kit also includes thin dowels to use as treenails.  I think I will use them only above the water line, though I may practice some below the water line.  I plan to try some form of coppering for the bottom of the hull and the top, above the water line, will be painted black, though I may try to do a thin enough coat that the planking and treenails are visible on close inspection.

 

Before the planking, I also carved down the stern block a bit more, so I included some pictures of it.

 

A few observations:

- as usual, I thought the hull was fair "enough" before starting planking, but I am still finding high and low spots as I apply individual planks.  I've been using a chisel to shave down some of the worst high spots before putting the planks on.

- this is the first time I have used the little screw-in planking clamps.  They work well on this model; not sure if they would work as well on a model with 1/8th inch plywood bulkheads.

- the garboard strake was a bit of a bear to figure out, as I think may often be the case.  In hindsight, I wish I tapered the last third of the plank a bit more.  You can see this in the last picture below.  Not a big worry if I cover the lower hull with some sort of copper.

 

 

 

 

[Tim Curtis]

Planking looking great. Are you going to fully plank the model, or leave some frames exposed?

You seem to have got the stern to a good shape as well.

 

 

[gsdpic]

58 minutes ago, Tim Curtis said:

Planking looking great. Are you going to fully plank the model, or leave some frames exposed?

You seem to have got the stern to a good shape as well.

 

 

Thanks.  Still planning on fully planking the model, both hull and deck.  I think I just prefer the finished look.

 

[gsdpic]

Just a quick update on slow progress.   After getting a quick start on the planking, I took most of the rest of February off, and have just recently started working again.   I first installed the cap rail and the rear quarter cap.  That gave me a well-defined area that needs to be filled in with planks.  After measuring and considering my options, I decided I could use 15 planks on each side with no stealers or other tricky stuff.  The planks are a quarter inch wide at the stern, and taper to 0.15 inches or so near the bow  (I measured at every third frame, and have a calculated plank width at each of those frames).  I now have three additional planks done on each side.   I plan to do two more on each side, for a total of five, and I will re-measure things and see if I am still on track.   After that, I will likely transition to planking downward from the cap rail.

 

The first two pictures show the cap rail and rear quarter cap.  The next two show my additional three planks.  Note that the outer edge of the rear quarter cap is only rough cut.  Once I do the planking that butts up below the cap, I'll shave or sand it down to a smooth profile matching the planking.  I see I forgot that I need some touch up painting on the inside of the stern rail after my latest re-shaping effort.

 

[gsdpic]

I managed to put one more plank on each side each of the last two days...I cut the planks, soak them, and clamp them on in the evening, then the next morning I glue them on before heading to work.  So I now have that lower "belt" of 5 planks done, leaving 10 planks on each side yet to do.   I re-measured every third frame from the top of the top plank to the underside of the cap rail, and divided by 10 to get new plank widths.  I am still pretty much on plan, as the widths I need are pretty similar to what I have been using.

 

The area around the stern and transom has been (and continues to be) a bit tricky.  I need quite a bit of edge bend on the planks there, and the lower planks also had to twist.  The third picture below shows a straight plank clamped on to show the amount of bend required.  Those little screw-in plank clamps have been very useful....they do sometimes dent the wood, though putting a couple drops of water on the dent and letting it soak in and dry pretty much takes care of it.

 

Next I think I will start working from the top down.  The top few planks are slightly longer than 24 inches, so will require two pieces each.  There is also a bit of edge bend on those top planks, as the ends are higher than the middle.  Oh, I also said I was going to try to do treenails on the planks above the water line.  I should probably practice that on some of the lower planks before I do it for real.

 

Enough words....pictures:

 

 

[gsdpic]

I have now completed the second "belt" of planks, consisting of the 5 top planks, working down from that cap rail.  And on these planks I have been doing the treenails.

 

There were a few other tricks here.  The top couple of planks needed to be more than 24 inches long, so they were made up from two pieces of wood, with a butt joint somewhere near the middle of the hull.  In hindsight I should have done the same to the third plank down.  I fear I am going to need some patching up around the transom and that has me a bit concerned.

 

Also, a few of the planks sat on very curved sections of the frames.  For those, I hollowed out the back of the plank using a rounded chisel, to help the planks better sit on the frames.

 

As for the treenails....I just glued and clamped the planks as usual.  Then once dry, I came back and drilled a bunch of holes using a #56 bit in the dremel.   Then, using the 3/64th dowel supplied in the kit, I dipped the end of the dowel into some watered down wood glue, then stuck the dowel into the hole, clipped it off with a wire cutters, and then pushed it in a bit further with the back of the wire cutters.  It really was pretty easy and not too time consuming.  Though I am assuming once everything is sanded down, even a thin coat of black paint will pretty much hide all that work.  Note that from about the 8th frame forward the planks were narrow, and so I just put in one treenail.  The remainder of the frames working backwards had to treenails at each frame for about 55-60 treenails per plank.

 

The remaining space on each side will be filled with 5 additional planks.  I'll re-measure the gap to get new widths for the planks.  I'll continue to do treenails as those five planks are also above the water line.

 

Enough words, here are a few pictures:

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 25, 2018 by gsdpic
(Removed duplicate pictures)

[gsdpic]

I took a little hiatus the last two weeks for a brief trip down to San Antonio and for some out of town visitors.   But yesterday and today I completed the planking, but not the treenails, on the starboard side of the hull.  I still have 5 planks to do on the port side of the hull.  After I do those five planks, I'll draw a rough water line and do all the treenails above the water line.  

[Tim Curtis]

Looking just great.

Love the level of detail you are able to achieve at this scale.

[gsdpic]

Thanks all for the looks, likes, and comments.  I am getting anxious to be able to sand down the hull planks.  I've got three more planks to do and about 500 treenails.
 

[gsdpic]

Yay, I have now finished the planking and the treenails above the water line, which is all I plan to do.  I am investigating ways to put copper on the bottom and am planning some tests for the finish above the water line.  

 

I have also started sanding down the hull on the port side, causing the treenails there to almost disappear.  Overall I am pleased with the planking.  It is far from perfect, and I am not ready for a model left in natural wood state, but it is workable.

 

I continue to be a bit concerned about the transom.  Those top two or three planks should have hung out farther I think.  I'll probably need to do some patching there and that will likely prove difficult.

 

 

[gsdpic]

After completing the planking, I took a couple weeks off.  Over the last two weeks or so I have done the following:

1.  Sanded the hull.  And sanded it some more.  And some more.  I think I am pretty much done though if I look at it again I am sure I'll find some other not quite smooth spot to sand.

2. Worked on the transom.  My transom piece is a bit larger and squarer than called for in the plans, due to the couple of planks that I probably should have carried farther aft than I did.  But I think it looks fine and no one will really notice, especially once I paint the hull.

3. Did the "waist plank".  That is what the plans called it, though I have not heard that term before.  This is the top plank, above the level of the deck.  It is only 1/32nd inch instead of 1/16th, so it is indented slightly from the other planks.  And of course aft, the timberheads notch in from the edge of the hull causing the waist plank to indent even more.  I created each of these in two pieces, leaving a seem amidship.  But that was easier than trying to deal with one long piece the length of the hull.   The kit provides strip wood that is 1/2 inch wide.  I tacked that to the hull with a couple dots of CA, then drew a line on the inside of the plank at the top of the hull, then cut along that line to get a nice fit above the cap rail.

 

Overall I am relatively pleased with how things have come out.  I am not quite to the skill level of building a hull like this and leaving it a natural finish; I am still depending on paint to cover a few things.  But I am getting closer.

 

Speaking of paint, that is probably the next step, to paint the outside of the hull black and to paint the inside above deck parts white.  I probably should have painted the inboard side of the waist planks before installing them but a bit late for that now.  After the painting, I need to figure out the coppering of the lower hull.  I have some things I hope to try in that regard.

 

Enough words, on to the pictures.  The hull here is just press fit onto the pedestals and balanced on the unfinished base board.

 

 

[Kevin Kenny]

Well done, she looks beautiful

[Tim Curtis]

I agree. Great job.

Transom looks like a hard job done well.

Tim

[Nirvana]

Being persistent pays off.

Very smooth and beautiful hull.

[gsdpic]

Thanks Kevin, Tim, and Per for the comments and thanks to others for the likes and looks.   The transom was a bit tricky, though it helped a great deal to start with a cardboard template and only cut the wood when I had a good fit with the template.

[gsdpic]

Been a while since I have posted out here, though I am still plugging away at the America.  I often find only a few minutes here and there to work on it, a bit more on the weekends.  Since the last post I have painted the inside of the bulwarks white, painted the hull black and given it a coat of satin clear.  I've cut and installed the bitts, and also shaped the bowsprit.  And I have started coppering the hull after doing a number of experiments.   You'll note the photos below just show the port side;  the starboard side does not yet have any copper on it.  Regarding the copper, I'll make a separate post about how I did that, as I came up with my own method that might be of interest to others.   Here are a few pictures:

 

 

[gsdpic]

Coppering the Hull

 

So on my America, I wanted to try some real copper of some sort on the hull.  But I wanted a fairly subtle "old penny" look.  I did not want the bright and shiny new copper look and did not want the zillion overscale nail head look either.

 

I first acquired some copper tape.  That seemed like a possibility, but the tape was very thin and delicate, and the words "tape" and "durable" aren't exactly best buddies.  I was afraid the tape would start peeling off before I even completed the rigging, given my pace of construction.

 

I then went off to Amazon to see what I could find.  I first bought a couple of 6 inch by 12 inch sheets of 28 gauge copper.  This seemed promising, but it was a bit thick to work with.  There's probably some tool that would easily make many nice, straight cuts in this copper but whatever that tool is, I don't have it.

 

So, it was back to Amazon.  I found there a 12 inch by 5 foot roll of 36 gauge copper.  The description explicitly stated that it could be cut with scissors.  So I ordered a roll of that stuff, and it turned out to be just about perfect.  It was more substantial than the foil but still easy to cut, as promised.

 

While on Amazon I also investigated methods for aging the copper and came across something called "liver of sulfur".  So I bought a jar of that too.   A few experiments gave me decent results, similar to what I was looking for.  And while the copper could be cut with scissors, it was tedious so I got a guillotine style paper cutter.   I decided on making my copper plates 3/8ths inch but 7/8ths inch (1.5 feet by 3.5 feet at scale).   So with that it was off to the production line.

 

This first photo shows the copper roll and the paper cutter.  I had to be concerned about fingerprints as they affected the aging solution.  So I wore latex gloves while handling the copper.  The fingerprints you see are just from the powder on the gloves.

I cut a piece that was 5 1/4th inch wide.  That would give me 6 copper plates at 7/8ths inch each.  I built the jig below and then scribed a dent into the copper to indicate the edges between the plates.  Yes, that is an ordinary pizza cutter that I used to scribe the plates.  It was dull enough to give a nice dent in the copper without cutting it.

 

And here is the piece of copper with the plate widths scribed onto it.

Then it was back to the cutter to cut the scribed copper into strips that were 3/8ths inches wide.

And here is the aging process.  The left container has the liver of sulfur solution.  I just used room temperature water instead of hot water and used a more dilute solution than suggested by the instructions.  Even so, it only took 20 or 30 seconds for the copper to darken.  After that, I moved the strips to the middle container which had water and baking soda (as suggested by the instructions) to neutralize the liver of sulfur and stop the reaction.  The third container had just plain water to rinse off the strips.  And yes, the "liver of sulfur" smelled just about the way you'd expect of anything that has "sulfur" in the name.

 

 

And here is the container of almost finished aged copper strips.  After they dried, I did polish them with an automotive paint polish.  In some cases the coloration was a bit too dark and too gray for my liking.  Using the polish and even some very fine sandpaper brought back more of the copper color.

One last step was to press the strips in this little jig I made, to try to give the copper strips a little more shape, and to turn the edges down.  This only sort of worked.  In most cases, the shape was mostly lost as I installed the strips on to the hull.

For the most part, I installed the plates in these strips of 6, though in some cases I cut the strips shorter.  The end result can be seen in my prior post.

 

I have not decided yet if I am just going to leave the copper as is, with the potential for it to naturally darken some more, or if I may spray it with a coat of clear gloss or clear satin.  I'll probably finish the starboard side, then spray some of the left over copper to see how I like the look of it with the clear coat on it.  For the most part I am very pleased with the look of it as it is now.  I wish it was maybe a little darker and a little more consistent in color but overall it is close to what I was shooting for.

 

 

[gsdpic]

Hull Complete

 

After a bit of a break for a brief vacation, I resumed the coppering, and have now completed the other side of the hull.   I also applied a finish to the baseboard.  Below are a few pictures....this time of both sides of the boat.  And of course in looking at the pictures, I see I need to apply more of the finish to the end of the baseboard.  Otherwise I am fairly happy with how this came out.  I perhaps wish it was a bit more smooth and consistent, but I don't think it will draw to much attention to itself, which is what I wanted.

 

Next up is to work on the deck furniture.  The layout of the deck of the bluejacket kit is a little different from the Mamoli kit.  This kit has no forward hatch, but has a hatch/companionway midships where the Mamoli kit just had grating.  I'll probably work on the deck furniture from simplest one to most complex....in other words, the two skylights first and the cockpit last.  I still need to do the rudder as well....I guess that will be done with the cockpit.

 

I've probably also reached the point where the build logs for the other America kit builds become more relevant, more useful, and provide ideas for details to add.

 

Here are the pictures of the completed coppering.  I stuck in the bowsprit, and placed a dowel on the deck to simulate the boom.  For now the hull is just balanced on the base board and not mounted.

 

[gsdpic]

Forward Skylight

 

Man, things look so much worse when you take a close up photo of them, at least for some of us.    Part of the problem is that I blew out the reds and did not bother to retake the pictures, so parts of the wood look yellow in these pictures.

 

 

 

 

[Kevin Kenny]

Excellent job. You will have fun trying to figuer out the deck furniture. You can follow the parts supplied by the model or do like me and try to figure it out your self. Unfornunately no one knows exactly how the deck was laid out as there are no definative plans. Even the paintings are not not necessarily accurate. Since i was building two models i have two different layouts. Your model looks fantastic.

[gsdpic]

Thanks all for the looks and likes, and thanks Kevin for the comment.  After I made that post last night, I reviewed the part of your video on making the capstan.   This kit supplies a cast metal part but I'll try to make my own from scrap wood, using some ideas from your video.

 

[gsdpic]

Capstan 2.0

 

Or maybe it is 3.0.   As noted above, I attempted to build a capstan in place of the metal piece supplied in the kit.   I used some of the Mahogany from the kit (and a bit of scrap basswood, just for the central post).  I built one but had some issues with the whelps.  I maybe could have salvaged it but decided to start over.  Below is a picture of my capstan and the metal one from the kit.  The wood one is actually only a tiny bit taller....it just appears so much taller because the hole it is stuck in is not deep enough.

 

I have not applied any finish to the wood one.  I'd probably try to do a little more clean up sanding and filing then apply the tung oil finish that I used on the skylight and on the baseboard.

 

Any comments or suggestions would be welcome.  Should I put some chocks between the whelps, maybe one third or half way up, to make it look a little stronger?  Any other suggestions?

 

[gsdpic]

Aft Skylight

 

My relatively glacial build pace continues, hindered by a short but unexpected trip last weekend.  But I have now completed the aft skylight and just started a bit on the forward companionway.  I maybe cheated a little bit on the aft skylight.   There are corner posts that were supposed to fit into the corners of one of the rectangular openings crafted into the deck beams.   However, I noticed on my model that particular opening was a little bit off center.  So I built the skylight off of the deck and will glue it on centered on the deck instead of centered on the rectangular opening.   Since I plan to fully plank the deck, the difference will not been seen (I believe).

 

The skylight was made out of mahogany supplied in the kit.  The sheets of 1/16th inch thick mahogany were rather pale and yellowish so I used some minwax mahogany stain to make its color more similar to the forward skylight and capstan.  I'll be doing the same for the two companionway/hatches and the cockpit.  When completed I also rubbed on a bit of the tung oil finish that have.

 

The collection of parts I made to build the skylight:

 

The the skylight with the window bars installed.  I used a #75 bit and a pin vise to very carefully drill down from the top of the skylight then inserted chunks of wire provided by the kit:

 

The completed skylight:

The skylight placed into its position on the deck.  After I do the deck planking, I will put a small trim strip around the base of the skylight to hide any gaps between the decking and the skylight.

 

[russ]

Gary:

You are building a very nice looking model. The capstan is an improvement on the metal version. The skylights are especially well done. Good work. 

 

Russ

 

 

 

[gsdpic]

Main Hatch/Companionway

 

Thanks for the comment Russ, and to others for the likes and looks.

 

This week's progress was completion of the main hatch/companionway.  Sorry, I did not take any pictures during the process...nothing special, just cut pieces out of 1/16th or 1/32nd mahogany sheets, glue'em together, stain and finish.   The kit supplied two small brass nails to use as door knobs, I used some of the copper tape to create hinges, then blackened both.  I also put some blackened copper on the rails for the hatch to slide back on.

 

Next up is the aft hatch and cockpit and rudder.

 

[Kevin Kenny]

Love the hinghes 

[Fright]

Gary - your detailing is outstanding. Thank you for mentioning your use of copper tape on hinges. The 'light bulb" switch kicked in for me LOL I'll use this for fine detail work instead of cuttings from copper strip. Thanks again!

[gsdpic]

Thanks @Kevin Kennyand Robert/  @Fright  for the comments.

 

Kevin, even before your comment I was reviewing your video on the work you did on the cockpit.  I'll likely use that as inspiration and try to emulate at least some of what you did.  We'll see how it goes.  Before that, I started working on the rudder and ran into the same issue you mentioned, where the rudder did not fit.  I should've learned the lesson and done the rudder much earlier.  Instead, like you, I had to remove some of the copper and shave down the stern post to get it to fit.  I'll likely not do "real" gudgeons and pintles.  The ones supplied in the kit would be tough to fit over the copper.  I'll just put some fake metal bands on the rudder and stern and then glue the rudder in place.

[Kevin Kenny]

Having coppered one ship i most probabely will never cover another one. Its interesting that Greg Herbert does not copper his model so ill follow his lead.

[Nirvana]

Kevin, I didn't copper plated the hull of Constructo America either. I found a good paint resembling copper.