HMS Fly by drobinson02199 - FINISHED - Victory Models - Scale 1:64 - with upgrade kit

[drobinson02199]

First planking done with one rough sanding pass.  Now wood filler and sand, sand, sand.

 

Regards,

David

[vossy]

This looks really good Dave. I will be rapt if I can ever get my Bounty to this stage!

 

Chris

 

[DocBlake]

That looks great.  A good base for the second planking!

[drobinson02199]

Wood filler and sanding applied to first planking,  plus a coat of varnish.  Now ready for second planking.

 

Regards,

David

[vossy]

Looking good Dave, how come the coat of varnish?

 

Chris

 

[drobinson02199]

Chris:

 

The wood filler is easily damaged if left "naked" on the hull, and varnish seals it in.  Varnish also gives me a surface that grips the second layer just a bit more slowly, so I have time to align things.  But the sealing of the filler is the main reason.

 

Regards,

David

[drobinson02199]

This is my edge bending setup for the second layer.  I got this from a video that I found somewhere in MSW, that was done by an expert modeler at one of the MSW shows.  He used a hair dryer only -- I use steam and then a hair dryer.

1. Plank clamped on my worktable with the center clamp imparting a bend (it's just up against the side of the plank -- not gripping it).  This pic also shows my steamer and hair dryer.  The routine is clamp, steam, increase the bend once the wood is wet, steam again, then hair dryer for 30 seconds per section.
2. Close up of bend.
3. The plank after two bending passes.
4. The plank on the boat before gluing -- note that it bends away from the planks above it.
5. The plank now glued.  Note that it's flat to the hull, with not very much edge showing on the plank above -- easily sanded.

I also find that the steamer really works well on this walnut to soften it for bending.  See the stern bend here, which is a 90 degree twist.  The steamer only takes 5-10 seconds to soften the wood.

 

Regards,

David

[Landlubber Mike]

Looking good!  

[DocBlake]

Looks good.  Remember, the bow is appreciably narrower than the hull amidships.  You need to start tapering the planks a bit at the bow.

[drobinson02199]

Thanks, Dave.  I'm keeping an eye on that.  Overall at the bow, I'm going to use the same planking plan I did for the Revenge, in which about 1/3 of the way down I stop the edge bending and start terminating the planks according to their natural run, so that the next plank will end flush with and against the plank above, about 6 or so inches from the bow.  Then the next plank terminates the same way but closer to the bow, and so forth.  Once I reach the bow I start running down the keel at the front.  All of those planks will be tapered as I reach the bow, and I start measuring the amount of taper so it will work out (hopefully!!). 

 

I'll also start tapering the edge bent planks after the next couple are laid.  I'm trying to follow the same proportions I used on the Revenge, where it worked out really well.  

 

Regards,

David

[DocBlake]

Yup.  It's a combination of tapering and edge bending.  I use a clothes iron to bend my planks.  I've tried Chuck Passaro's method with a hair dryer, but it just doesn't work for me.  Maybe I'm too impatient!

 

If I remember planking my Independence, I started tapering the planks at the bow after I had 2 or 3 strakes in place.

[drobinson02199]

Dave:

 

Right -- Chuck Passaro was the one.  For what it's worth, using a steamer and then a hair dryer works well for me, and I don't need as much hair dryer time as he was using (I'm impatient too   ).  This steamer I'm using now is reasonably new, and it puts out a lot of steam.

 

Regards,

David

[Landlubber Mike]

The one thing I learned the hard way is that while it seems like you can get away with tapering closer to the stem, you really should be starting your tapers much further back as Spyglass suggests.  If you start tapers too close to the stem, you will get that clink effect as you are bending your planks laterally against their width.  Even a slight bending will cause it.  You won't notice it at first, but after about three or four planks you realize you have a problem.

 

I spiled the upper hull planking on my Pegasus.  It was really a worthwhile exercise to set up the hull in planking bands and run calculations along each bulkhead.  It gives you a good idea of where along the hull, and how much, the planking narrows (it's not consistent across all sections).  The stern area for example tends to be wider than the middle section of the hull - but, in some cases, there is a slight narrowing of the hull about 3/4 of the way back.  So, you run into a situation where if you are using long planking strips, you taper at the stem, no taper in the middle of the hull, start a taper just beyond the middle of the hull, and then run the full plank to the stem (with stealers).  Conceptually I got the bigger concept, but it wasn't until I went through the exercise that I really understood how the curves of the hull really come into play.

[drobinson02199]

Mike:

 

When I built the Grand Banks Heritage 46 it had laser cut planks, and I noticed that narrow-wide-narrow plank shape.

 

Here's the way I did it on the Revenge, and the approach I'm planning to use here.  I did taper, but I changed the planking pattern partway down (working top to bottom), and it's that first changed plank that I was referring to when I said 6 inches back.

 

Regards,

David

[drobinson02199]

Mike:

 

When I built the Grand Banks Heritage 46 it had laser cut planks, and I noticed that narrow-wide-narrow plank shape.

 

Here's the way I did it on the Revenge, and the approach I'm planning to use here.  I did taper, but I changed the planking pattern partway down (working top to bottom), and it's that first changed plank that I was referring to when I said 6 inches back.

 

Regards,

David

Edited April 13, 2018 by drobinson02199

[vossy]

Hi Dave, the planking on the Revenge looks super! However I detect a bit of fixing required to the forward gunport hatch. Anyway, I don't know if you are on facebook or not, but I follow the Amati page on there and on it they have a really good build log of the HMS Fly (same Amati version as yours), if you are interested. 

 

https://www.facebook.com/hmsfly/?hc_ref=ARQQSYW8yRjvno0miJ6CdiOyco_Ka0UQ250A0KGlMe6SpAOI4IZIhAiGIlJ4XJsc76U

 

They also have many good tips and tricks related to modelling in general.

 

Cheers

 

Chris

 

[Landlubber Mike]

David, that's gorgeous planking!  You should be giving us advice!

[drobinson02199]

Chris:

 

Thanks so much for that Facebook reference.  It's a very detailed log, and will help me a lot when I'm trying to figure out something that isn't clear in the drawings.  

 

Regards,

David

[drobinson02199]

Thanks, Spyglass.

 

I realize that it's a deviation from "real practice", but I think my models are probably full of deviations.  I've never been able to motivate myself to go from "looks good" to "historically accurate".  

 

Regards,

David

[drobinson02199]

I've finished the second planking and given it a first coat of varnish, which is still drying in the pics below.  A few comments:

• There's no way I'm going to paint this hull -- I love natural wood and this wood is particularly beautiful, as I've seen in other Fly build logs.

• The bow view shows how I sorted out the bow planking -- and thanks to a number of you who provided suggestions and comments on this.

• You may see some varnish drip on the stern counter -- I will deal with that in later varnish coats.

One thing that may not show is something I discovered while sanding.  I used an Amati plank bender -- the kind that uses a blade to crimp lateral compressions into the back of a plank.  What happened in two small areas of the bow is that while sanding, the edges of those compressions came through.  The blade must not put an even cut into the back of the plank.  It's not a big deal -- could almost pass for coloration in the wood -- and won't be that noticeable.  It for sure isn't correctable.

 

In the future on the second planking, I'll use steam only -- which was very effective and could have been used to accomplish everything I did with the plank bender.

 

Oh, well -- live and learn.

 

Regards,

David

 

[drobinson02199]

Brian:

 

I had picked up on the light/dark planking wood from looking at some other Fly build logs, and I actually like the look of the mixed wood on the hull, which I don't intend to paint.  So before I started the second layer, I separated the planking walnut into dark and light, and then alternated them in patterns of light/dark/light and light-light/dark-dark/light-light.  I left all light wood in the area where the black wale will go so that there is some space between that and any surrounding dark planks.

 

I can understand how some might not like this look -- but I liked it in earlier logs and thought I'd use it.

 

Regards,

David

[donrobinson]

You are working at warp speed!! Looking very nice David

[drobinson02199]

Have now put the main wale on.  I pre-shaped and pre-painted each plank before mounting, and then added a second coat of black on the surface after mounting.  These pics are after a second coat of varnish.  More of that to come.

 

With the wale on to provide contrast and separation, the multi-color planks look as I had planned for them to.

 

I studied the drawings and a number of Fly build logs, and Amati's pics, to figure out both the vertical placement of the wale, and how it terminates at the stern.  The drawings vary at the stern from all of the build pics I saw, and from Amati's pics.  So I took out the stern decoration to see how it will fit, and realized that until I get to doing the stern decoration, I won't really know where exactly to end the top two wale planks, in order to achieve a clean join with the decoration.  So as shown in the second picture, I've left those planks slightly extended for later trimming and fixing when I get to that point.  I used the vertical placement at the stern that I saw in the pictures, and that best seemed to fit where that decoration will end.

 

Regards,

David

[vossy]

Hey Dave,  no way would I be painting over that planking job either. It looks fantastic! Love the way you alternated the different colours of the wood. They contrast so well against the stark black wales.. You are working very fast on her too.

 

Cheers

 

Chris

 

[Landlubber Mike]

I'll echo Chris, that came out very nicely.  Do not paint it   I like the effect you achieved with the alternating colors of the planks.  Very striking!

[drobinson02199]

Here's what my cannons will look like.  The upgrade kit supplies wood parts for carriages (second picture), but I think the detail on the cast metal carriages is more interesting, so that's what I'm using.  I think they call it an upgrade because it permits installation of more complex cannon rigging, which I'm not going to do.

 

Regards,

David

 

[vossy]

Hey Dave, with these metal carriages can you still mount eyelets to fully rig them to the ship. Also, did/have you painted it the red color in the picture?

 

Cheers

 

Chris

 

[Jim Rogers]

Beautiful work!

[drobinson02199]

Chris:

 

Yes, I painted the carriage the red color with brown wheels.  Also had to paint the cannons black.

 

Here's a snip from the Amati photos of the Fly showing how they have rigged them, which is the way I'm going to do it.  If you go in for more elaborate rigging, then you'd build the wood carriages so that eyelets can be installed.

 

Regards,

David

[drobinson02199]

Spyglass -- Thanks for the log references.  I really love your cannon rigging, but it runs beyond my level of ambition or patience -- particularly the metal drilling, which is always a daunting prospect for me.  When I built the Mount Washington, there was metal drilling called for and I couldn't get it to happen, so I bailed out with CA glue (fortunately, I wasn't building a running model).

 

Regards,

David