US Brig Syren by WalrusGuy - FINISHED - Model Shipways - Scale 1:64 - Second wooden ship build

[NovaStorm]

Really nice looks dead on with the redo    Have you got some blocks you can cut to put under your blocking on each side. That will really stiffen up everything and prevent you cracking the keel while planking above the wales. I also took ruffly a one foot piece of 2X4 ran a strip the the thickness of the keel down the center of it, so I could slide it into the slot on the board put a cloth on top and flip the ship upside down onto it if I wanted. Easy to switch back and forth. Here is a pic nothing fancy but make sure the 2x4 is think enough the ship stem and transom are sitting high enough off the table. Forgive me if you already have a solution. Cheers ~

Edited April 18, 2020 by NovaStorm

[WalrusGuy]

4 hours ago, NovaStorm said:

Really nice looks dead on with the redo    Have you got some blocks you can cut to put under your blocking on each side. That will really stiffen up everything and prevent you cracking the keel while planking above the wales. I also took ruffly a one foot piece of 2X4 ran a strip the the thickness of the keel down the center of it, so I could slide it into the slot on the board put a cloth on top and flip the ship upside down onto it if I wanted. Easy to switch back and forth. Here is a pic nothing fancy but make sure the 2x4 is think enough the ship stem and transom are sitting high enough off the table. Forgive me if you already have a solution. Cheers ~

 

Thanks for the tip! I'll scout around to see if I have anything similar, if not I'll see if a book or something does the job.

[Voyageur]

Looks great! I’m impressed with your attention to detail. You were right to redo the starboard if only to ease your mind! I’m looking forward to your next bit of work.

[WalrusGuy]

Thanks so much Voyageur! 

 

A little bit of progress today. Started working on some notches for the ports. Did a tonne of practice on scrap wood before attempting the real thing. Here's how they turned out. Some strips are slightly thinner/thicker than others. So this will likely be sorted out when it's all sanded.

 

The notches are extremely tricky to carve out due to the wood cracking/splitting because of the direction of its grain. Thus, progress will be very slow.

 

[Overworked724]

On 4/17/2020 at 9:18 PM, WalrusGuy said:

 

But when looking a lower angle, the plank in the starboard side looks every so slightly lower than the port side plank as shown below. Maybe I am nitpicking about this but really not sure if this would affect the planking above the upper wale.

 

I am now confused on whether I should fix this or leave it and see how the planking progresses. I should note, the distances from the top of each gun port lintel to the plank on both sides were measured and were consistent in both sides with differences less than 1 mm. So it is probably just the natural curvature of the wood causing the discrepancy. Any advice on how I should proceed with this is very much welcomed!

 

It is statements like these that make me realize that I am one of the majority on this forum....we are, but our nature and love of this hobby...nitpicking perfectionists!  😂

[NovaStorm]

Those are looking real good. Way better than mine I had a %^^%% of a time doing the gun ports.

[Voyageur]

17 hours ago, WalrusGuy said:

 

Did a tonne of practice on scrap wood before attempting the real thing. Here's how they turned out. Some strips are slightly thinner/thicker than others.

 

Well you are ahead of me. when I do a ton of practice, it is only 907kg. 😂

[WalrusGuy]

18 hours ago, Overworked724 said:

It is statements like these that make me realize that I am one of the majority on this forum....we are, but our nature and love of this hobby...nitpicking perfectionists!  😂

Hahaha everything needs to be triple checked before proceeding 😄 

 

11 hours ago, NovaStorm said:

Those are looking real good. Way better than mine I had a %^^%% of a time doing the gun ports.

Thanks Robin! Don't know what you mean, your gun ports look fantastic! I hope the rest of my gun ports follow suit to the one I posted. Lots of precision required for this part. 

 

2 hours ago, Voyageur said:

Well you are ahead of me. when I do a ton of practice, it is only 907kg. 😂

I'm glad I chose the larger unit 😂 

[Retired guy]

Nice progress on your planking 👍

 

Regards

Richard

[WalrusGuy]

Thanks Richard!

 

Had some final exams so I did not work on the ship as often, which explains the lack of posts for the past few days. But I'm finally done so can get back to building!

Carving out the notches were very difficult (due to the wood splitting as mentioned in my previous post), so I tried using needle files instead. I used the triangular file to make the corners sharp, and the square and flat one for the sweep and canon ports, respectively. 

I managed to complete the majority of tricky planking at the bow:

For the planking I used used different strips of wood for each layer of planking to make it look more realistic due to the slight color variation of each strip.

 

[Voyageur]

Very nice! Looks like you got through the tricky part just fine.

[WalrusGuy]

Thanks Voyageur! Was really nervous about that part but it didn't turn out bad!

I finished planking the strips above the upper wale without much trouble:

I'll next be sanding the strips then working on the stern.

[Retired guy]

Looks great 👍 the shape is very nice 

 

Regards 

Richard

[WalrusGuy]

21 minutes ago, Retired guy said:

Looks great 👍 the shape is very nice 

 

Regards 

Richard

Many thanks Richard! 

[WalrusGuy]

Finished planking the stern. Was not completely happy with results...

 

First problem (very minor): planking below the transform. Since my port sills were lower than that shown in the manual, I could not fit 6 1/8 in planks, and instead went for 4 1/8 in planks and one 5/32 in plank. This should not be much of an issue since I will paint it black.

The transform's edge was curved as shown here so had to sand it flat.

Second problem: when sanding the ports on the transform. I sanded both of the ports 1 mm lower and thus had to shift the entire transform a notch up. This caused a gap as shown here:

This gap was soon filled with filler.

 

Third problem: not shown in the image was the canon port lintel was sanded at a wrong angle which caused it to look very deep when looking at it from below (or from above when the ship was flipped over) . So had to use filler again to make it flat. Here is how it looks right now:

I definitely learnt from my mistakes and should have worked through it slower. I think a part of it was getting the transform to sit right when taking measurements for the ports (the transform was very wobbly due to the slight roundness of the stern). 

 

Edited April 28, 2020 by WalrusGuy

[NovaStorm]

You are coming right along, I think the 5/32 plank was to be curved on the top edge to fit the curve on the port cover piece. Not sure tho as I did mine differently because I planked the transom.

[svein erik]

20 minutes ago, NovaStorm said:

You are coming right along, I think the 5/32 plank was to be curved on the top edge to fit the curve on the port cover piece. Not sure tho as I did mine differently because I planked the transom.

yes you are right, the stern planks need to be curved to fit😊

 

svein erik

[Retired guy]

Can't help on how it should look, but to let you know we all make mistakes that's the beauti of making these ships 👍

 

Regards

Richard

[WalrusGuy]

2 hours ago, NovaStorm said:

You are coming right along, I think the 5/32 plank was to be curved on the top edge to fit the curve on the port cover piece. Not sure tho as I did mine differently because I planked the transom.

 

1 hour ago, svein erik said:

yes you are right, the stern planks need to be curved to fit😊

 

svein erik

Ohh that makes sense. Should've reread the instructions. Hopefully this doesn't bring any issues as I progress the build. 
 
In hindsight I should've also planked it. Would've avoided all these mistakes haha 😅. 

 

29 minutes ago, Retired guy said:

Can't help on how it should look, but to let you know we all make mistakes that's the beauti of making these ships 👍

 

Regards

Richard

So true Richard. I'm treating this as a learning experience for future builds. 

[WalrusGuy]

Started working on planking of the hull.

 

The two planks at the keel have been soaked and clamped so that they retain their shape once they are dried.

Having a bit of trouble planking at the stern because of the steep curves. Very tricky to hold the planks in this part of the hull to wait for the glue to dry.

Edited April 29, 2020 by WalrusGuy

[NovaStorm]

Yea you gotta get creative with your clamping on the stern area. You need a C type clamp or something like this HERE which is what I used with a rubber eraser between the clamp and plank. The eraser conforms to the bend, protects and holds the wood firmly. When the time comes to start the first garboard plank off the keel rabbet, be sure and follow the instructions carefully and do not start it to far forward, or you will be in for a very hard planking job going forward. Take your time it will pay off   

[Justin P.]

This is looking really great.   Moving along indeed!

[WalrusGuy]

14 hours ago, NovaStorm said:

Yea you gotta get creative with your clamping on the stern area. You need a C type clamp or something like this HERE which is what I used with a rubber eraser between the clamp and plank. The eraser conforms to the bend, protects and holds the wood firmly. When the time comes to start the first garboard plank off the keel rabbet, be sure and follow the instructions carefully and do not start it to far forward, or you will be in for a very hard planking job going forward. Take your time it will pay off   

Thanks for the tip Robin! Since I don't have a C clamp, I used the following setup where erasers are at the top and scrap blocks of wood are at the bottom. Seems so work well so far!

9 hours ago, Justin P. said:

This is looking really great.   Moving along indeed!

Thanks Justin!

Edited April 29, 2020 by WalrusGuy

[NovaStorm]

Now your talking that is really looking like a great way to clamp it. I will remember how you've accomplished it for the next time I am in need of a workable solution. Thanks for sharing, it looks as good as it gets to me

[Justin P.]

7 minutes ago, NovaStorm said:

Now your talking that is really looking like a great way to clamp

Yes, that eraser setup is very clever.  Definitely going to borrow it.

[WalrusGuy]

Made some more progress on the planking. The garboard plank was shaped and installed:

Here is how she looks right now. It will be fun and equally as challenging to plank the rest of the hull since I have not tried tapering the planks before.

I am planning to make a sample test planking rig to practice different ways to simulate treenails (mainly filler vs toothpicks), and practice painting the sheer strake and wales using masking tape to separate areas of wood and paint.

[WalrusGuy]

Planking is going well. I am however not very satisfied of how the planking turned out at the stern. Thankfully this will be painted black, so applying filler will hide the gaps. Also had to use some pins at stern location to hold the planks in place since the clamp method stated above did not work too well in these areas due to the very steep curves. Overall I'm enjoying the planking process.

 

Edited May 2, 2020 by WalrusGuy

[Retired guy]

Planking is coming along great you, have got over the hard part 👍

 

Regards

Richard

[WalrusGuy]

On 5/2/2020 at 4:29 PM, Retired guy said:

Planking is coming along great you, have got over the hard part 👍

 

Regards

Richard

Thanks Richard. The stern was definitely the toughest spot since it was hard to get the planks to curve. I found the planking at bow surprisingly easier with little to no struggle.

Edited May 5, 2020 by WalrusGuy

[WalrusGuy]

The planking is finally finished. It was very enjoyable. I consider this as the first major milestone.

 

One thing I learnt is that I should have measured the gap at the bow after every 4 strips or so to taper the other planks to correct for creep. I did not do this and therefore needed to thinly tapered some strip. This will all be hidden under copper plates but for next time I have learnt the correct technique.

 

Here are some progress photos (pardon the messy pinning situation at the stern, all the gaps were fixed with filler and a lot of sanding):

 

Applying filler at the stern and sanded:

 

Photos of the completed planking:

 

 

Also, I got gifted this kit which I will start working on soon alongside the Syren! Still deciding if I should carry out a build log for it or not.

 

 

Edited May 5, 2020 by WalrusGuy