Armed Launch by Richard44 - FINISHED - Panart - 1:16

[Richard44]

Hi,

This is a build log of Panart’s 1/16 scale, Armed Pinnace, though as I commenced this model quite a number of years ago, the log actually starts from where I finished back then.

If I’d known then what I know now about model ship/boat building, I would have approached the build of this kit somewhat differently. I would have planked the hull using scale lengths, for instance. Also I would have thought ahead about the colour scheme and painted/stained various parts before assembling.

I’d finished the basic triple-planked hull construction and done a reasonable amount of work on the interior. I was however not happy with the wood supplied for the outer planking as I thought the grain was too obvious for my liking. The instructions say that this wood is walnut, but it looks as if it might be beech with a very pronounced flecked grain. I did use this for the hull below the waterline as this is to be painted and the grain won’t be a problem. Above the waterline I used walnut strips which I had available. The two different types of wood can be clearly seen in the photos.

Several drop planks can be seen at the bow in the photo below.

Other build logs mention a problem with the foredeck being undersized, but I cannot remember if I had that particular problem, though the appearance of the deck as I’ve built it, does not quite match the drawing on the plan. This may affect the installation of the gun slide, so we’ll see.

As well as the hull planking, I’d finished installing the ribs, the stringers, the decks, planking at the stern and bow and fashioned and glued in place the bow hatch. The instructions actually say to fit the cap rail (that goes on top of the planking and the ribs) before putting the ribs in place, but this would have been extremely awkward as the ribs would have had to butt up against both the deck and the cap rail. Very fiddly indeed. Instead the ribs were installed and easily trimmed at the top ready for the cap rail at a later date.

Then the next thing to do was to reacquaint myself with the plans and the instructions, the latter not being the greatest.

The infill blocks between the ribs at deck level were installed and the decorative nails at the rib/stringer junctions were pushed home after drilling pilot holes. The supplied nails were shortened as they were not meant to penetrate all the way through the planking. The stern hatch cover was made and glued in place.

The shuttering was then made. This was actually the very last of the instructions, which doesn’t make sense as these need to be fitted before the interior of the boat, including the cannon carriage and slide, is completed. I also didn’t follow the instructions anyway, but simply fitted and glued the transverse planks directly to the deck. The cutouts from the deck that I should have used, gluing the planks to these before putting the shutter in place, had gone missing anyway.

The shutters completely installed but not yet sanded.

The anti-slip strips were cut to size and glued onto the shutters. A strip of wood was taped to the shutters to allow the strips to be aligned.

The partly assembled gratings, which will cover the four remaining holes in the deck, are also visible in the above photo. These will be the subject of the next post.

Cheers.
Richard

[Neddie2]

Hi Richard44, that looks superb, and I can see similarities with my open whaler Panart design - a question which you've clearly well solved, is how do you fix the first layer of planking to the bulkheads in such a way that the bulkheads can be removed later? other than glueing, I can't see how the planks can be fitted firmly enough, but then how to release later on? any recommendations very welcome before I head off in the wrong direction!

[ASAT]

Neddie, the answer is you don’t glue the first layer to the bulkheads as I and Richard 44 explained to you in Mobbsie’s thread, I guess you could use a PVA type glue and dissolve it later with IPA (seems messy and un needed) but the instructions, plans etc, show pretty clearly that you use the bulkheads as a form, you put something on the outer edge of the bulkheads so the glued planks won’t stick to them and edge glue the planks to each other except at the bottom where you can glue to the bulkheads up to the deck line. You then break the bulkheads at the cut line (deck line)  and proceed with decking and finishing the inner planking. Your best bet is to bend the planks to fit the curve of the hull and to fit the plank you are going to glue it to. Edge gluing  and pre bending to fit really will follow the form and after three layers you have a pretty strong hull.....

[Neddie2]

Superb, thank you! (I was a bit enthusiastic about the duplicate message on Mobbsie's thread too, so sorry hadn't seen that at the time).  That's a great help, and I've got a route forward again...  

[ASAT]

Yeah, your whaler is a lot like the launch, the bulkheads fore and aft you do get to glue to, and that also helps set the planks  . Just be careful with glue mess on the inside of the first layer....

[Richard44]

7 hours ago, Neddie2 said:

Superb, thank you! (I was a bit enthusiastic about the duplicate message on Mobbsie's thread too, so sorry hadn't seen that at the time).  That's a great help, and I've got a route forward again...  

Neddie, it's been a long time since I glued up the pinnace hull, but I'm reasonably sure I would have used a strip of masking tape across the plank (the first layer) and wrapped over the top of the bulkhead to hold the edge-glued plank in place while the glue dried. If you try and fit a plank, without glue, you'll see what I mean. And not the high quality model-type masking tape either, just the cheaper paper stuff.

 

And as Lou (ASAT) said, be careful of getting glue on the inside of the planks - it's a bugger to get off later.

 

Cheers

Richard

Edited April 21, 2020 by Richard44

[Richard44]

Next job was making and installing the gratings. As with the shutters, these should have been assembled on the cutouts from the deck, but as I no longer had them, Plan B was started. Paper templates of each opening were made and the frames of 2x2 timber were sized and glued to the templates. The two larger openings were subdivided into four, the two smaller ones into three. The gratings themselves were assembled from the pre-cut material, keeping in mind other builder's comments that Panart only provided barely enough material. And yes, I did run out and had to use some gratings left over from some other kit. Fortunately, these gratings were very close in size to the Panart material. Once all the individual gratings were made, they were glued to the paper template, which was dyed black before doing so. I then stained the gratings before fixing them in place in the deck openings.

Cheers

Richard

 

 

[Richard44]

Thanks for all the "Likes".

 

Along each side of the hull is a rubbing strake, which needs to be formed from 3.5x5 wood, and edge-bent to conform to the shape of the hull. The locations of the strakes were marked on the hull, and a flexible rule was used to transfer the required curve to cardboard.

 

The flexible rule laid on the hull, the tape is only holding it in place for the photo.

 

 

The timber strips were soaked in hot water for about 20 minutes then bent using finger pressure only and using the curve on the cardboard as a guide. The two strakes formed but not glued in place.

 

 

Masking tape was sufficient to hold the strakes in place while the glue dried.

 

The next job was fashioning the two small gun supports. These run upwards from the rear deck, are flush against the side of the hull and are notched to go over the stringers and the cap rail. There are two rear benches which are themselves notched to allow fitting over the gun support (and the ribs). The benches are then glued onto the stringer and fitted flush against the hull. If the instructions were to be followed in the order given, you would have installed the benches first, then puzzled about how you were going to fit the gun supports behind them. Clearly the supports must be fitted first.

 

A cardboard template was made to ease the fashioning of the supports. As the supports fit flush against the hull, the necessary curve for this was obtained by placing the flexible rule against the outside of the hull, then transferring this shape to a piece of cardboard. Some trial and error gave the locations of the required notches. The template was then used to copy the shape to the wood.

 

The flexible rule bent around the hull.

 

 

The rule and the cardboard template.

 

 

The two gun supports and the benches shaped and ready for final finishing and fitting.

 

Cheers.

 

Edited April 26, 2020 by Richard44

[Richard44]

Hi,

There has been a bit of a break in modelling, but back to it now.

The instructions would have you make the cap rail (gunnel) by cutting part of the supplied 3.5x10 timber into short trapezoidal sections, then gluing these back together in such a fashion as to give the necessary curve towards the bow. This seemed rather complex, and as edge bending the timber was never going to work, the outline of the hull was traced onto some sheet wood and the various sections cut out.

Two of the cap rail sections stained and ready for fitting. The stain used was India Ink, which worked very well, though as it is water-based, the grain was raised slightly and a very light sanding was required before a second coat was applied.
 

The two rubbing strakes high on the hull were stained and pre-bent before gluing in place. A mix of PVA plus a few drops of CA were used. Tape was sufficient to hold the strakes in place while the glue dried.

 

The complete cap rail stained and in place. The foredeck and transom have been painted red.

 

The outside of the hull was then painted. As the wood used for the planking on the lower part of the hull was quite coarse grained, putty was used to fill the grain before an undercoat was sprayed on (from a rattle can).

 

The completed paint job. A clear satin finish is yet to be done.

 

The decorations on the stern were picked out in gold, though the colour is not especially apparent in the photo.

Cheers

Richard

[ErnieL]

Lovely work!

[Richard44]

Thanks for the comment Ernie, and the likes.

 

The frame of the gun slide being assembled with the partly completed gun carriage in the background.

A trial fit of thwart number three, the gun slide and the mast step, with the handle of a craft knife being used to locate the hole that has to be drilled in the step. The dowel supplied for the mast is 12mm and the lower end has to be reduced to 10mm to fit through the thwart and into the step. I have not yet done this so the knife handle was used as a proxy.

The nearly complete gun carriage and slide with their blackened cannon. The formed mast step and a few small parts are also visible. The two blocks with the brass straps at the front of the carriage are to locate the bowsprit, if fitted. It isn't fitted there on the model, but held in brackets on the side of the boat (visible in the photo above). There are actually two bowsprits, one slightly smaller than the other, and they are held one on each side.

A dry fit of the first three thwarts and the gun slide. As others have reported, there is a gap between the slide and the first two thwarts which increases towards the bow. As I mentioned in my first post, the foredeck as made does not agree with the diagram in the plan nor the photo on the box lid - it is quite a bit higher. And so the front of the slide where it rests on the foredeck is higher than it should be and as a result the slide is lifted off the first two thwarts. It seems the model has been partly redesigned but not everything was checked. The slide was modified so that it now sits on all three thwarts and on the foredeck. 

 

The slide before modification, with the block of wood showing the size of the gap.

The slide after modification - a tapered strip of wood glued to the bottom of the slide.

The stern bench seats and the swivel gun supports installed.

Cheers

Richard

[vaddoc]

Hi Richard, very nice work, the boat is coming out fine. How did you apply the ink to the wood? It seems to have taken up the colour evenly, I like how it looks.

[Richard44]

21 hours ago, vaddoc said:

Hi Richard, very nice work, the boat is coming out fine. How did you apply the ink to the wood? It seems to have taken up the colour evenly, I like how it looks.

Hi,

The ink was simply brushed on. It is water-based so there is a tendency for the grain to be raised slightly. However, being water-based means that the wood is not sealed, as with paint, but just stained, so that all your normal glues will work as usual.  The following photo shows the thole blocks glued using PVA to the already stained cap rail. I should add that I don't know how well the ink would cover any preexisting colour, especially paint or oil-based stain.

 

Cheers

Richard

 

[Richard44]

There are six thwarts to assemble, with Number 3 having the mast step underneath and a 10mm hole in the centre to allow for the mast. The supporting elbows for the thwarts were made by using a Dremel with a drum sander attached and mounted on the Dremel router table, with the wood strip pushed against the sander until it hit the stop. The latter was a small strip of wood clamped to the right hand side of the router's fence. The shaped piece was then parted from its strip and cleaned up. I  made two extras just in case, and sure enough, one dropped from my fingers, fell straight through the gap between the planks of the outside deck into the leaf mould underneath. Gone forever. And yes, in looking at the photo, I now realise that I should have fed the strip through in the other direction and used the adjustable wedge as the stop. Ah well, it worked.

 

The thwarts are supported underneath by columns, the top of these being turned and supplied, while the bottom part was made from 6x6 stock. The two parts were glued together (CA gel was used) with a brass pin inserted into both for strengthening..

 

The columns being assembled.

 

The mast step with its supports and thwarts with their columns and elbows ready for fixing.

The thwarts fixed in place. The columns were first glued to the underside of the thwarts using a small blob of 5 minute epoxy. CA gel was tried but didn’t hold as well as I wanted. I've assumed that in the actual boat, the thwarts were fastened to the top of the columns by means of an iron spike driven through the thwart. I've used a short piece of blackened brass wire to simulate these The columns were then glued to the stringer on each side of the boat, PVA was used, and another small blob of epoxy was used on the bottom of the column to fix it to the bottom of the boat. The elbows were sanded to fit snugly against the side and glued using PVA. Shortened, blackened nails were pushed into pre-drilled holes in the elbows. The two fairleads at the bow and the thole blocks are also in place.

 

There is quite a bit of loose debris in the bottom of the boat which needs to be cleaned out.

 

Cheers

Richard

 

[ASAT]

Very nice Richard, I built this model except I went the other way and didn’t use any paint. I had to re-make a lot of the kit parts in various colored woods but that’s how I build anyway.... I really like your approach to the shutters, very clean work..

Lou

[Barnes]

Nice work Richard, and it's the season for Uggs here in Sydney.

[Richard44]

Firstly, I have changed the heading of this log from “Armed Pinnace” to “Armed Launch”. When I bought this kit about 20 years ago, I was given a review of the kit that had been published in, I believe, Model Boats and the author, Keith Julier, referred to the boat as a pinnace. I now realise that the boat is more correctly called a launch.

 

Thanks for the likes and the comments, Lou and Barnes.

 

On with the build. A short update.

 

The photo shows the gun slide and carriage almost complete and ready for fitting. The rudder has been painted and the hinges are ready to put in place. The tiller had not been made at this time, but was later cut and shaped from a suitable piece of wood, rather than trying to bend a piece of 3.5x5 as suggested in the instructions.

 

 

The making of the oars was tackled next. The photo shows the various parts for the oars, a partly completed one and a finished one (though not yet stained or coated with a satin finish). Cutting the slot in the central dowel looked as if it was going to be a real problem, as I don’t have access to a mill which would have done the job very easily. The plan suggests filing the slot which would have been an exercise in frustration. So, I mounted two Dremel cutoff wheels on the one mandrel, set up the Dremel on its stand and with the aid of a simple jig, basically ground the slots. The photo shows the apparatus. I anticipated lots of smoke, so this job was not done inside otherwise the smoke alarms would have been triggered. The slots were later cleaned up with a file.

 

 

 

The gunslide has now been glued in place and the rudder fitted. The boat has been given one coat of a satin polyurethane finish.

 

 

 

 

 

That's all for the moment. Cheers.

[Richard44]

The next step was to finish the gun carriage and install it. A trial was done outside the boat, and a problem became immediately apparent. When assembled, the muzzle of the cannon pointed downwards to such a degree that removing the quoin was insufficient to get the muzzle to at least the horizontal. The carriage was built as per the instructions, and as all but two pieces were pre-cut, there was very little room for error, and the two pieces I had to make were fashioned from blocks already sized. A measurement made on the carriage as built was found to be 5mm greater than the same measurement on the cross-section on the plan. And this discrepancy was certainly sufficient to raise the quoin high enough to depress the cannon’s muzzle. I puzzled over this for a while, then decided to change the way the quoin was mounted.

 

The cannon on its carriage as initially built.

 

 

The carriage as modified.

 

 

The carriage with its cannon, mounted on the gun slide.

 

 

As part of the on-board equipment there are two water containers and three tubs, all of which have to be made by gluing staves to pairs of ply discs. The top and bottom discs are of different diameters. The tricky part of this is that all but one are open topped, so the staves cannot be glued to the top disc as this has to be removed once all the staves are in place. The instructions suggest waxing the edge of the upper disc so that glue does not adhere. Instead I wrapped the disc in cling film. The staves were tapered appropriately, glued to the bottom disc and edge glued to each other. Gel CA was used for this and with a setting time of 60 seconds there was plenty of time to position the stave and more than enough to get at least one finger in just the right place to glue it to the stave. All five have two bands of reinforcing rope wound around them, while the two water containers have rope handles.

 

One tub, it contains the anchor rope, has both discs in place so this was easier than the others. The photos shows the beginning of this tub, and although it’s not apparent in the photos, I was actually building it upside down. How I did this I don’t know as the diagram on the plan is perfectly clear. Ah well. I realised this the following day, swore, pulled off all the staves, cleaned up the two discs and redid it.

 

 

 

The beginning of a water container, showing the top disc wrapped in cling film and several staves in place.

 

 

The tub for the anchor rope on the left, a partly completed water container in the middle and a finished water container on the right (it still needs the handle).

 

 

There are various accessories for the cannon to be made - a swab, a scoop, a rod for ramming the charge home and what looks like a corkscrew that is used to clean fragments of rag out of the barrel. The scoop is formed from a section of brass tube, the “corkscrew” from twisted brass wire and the ram from a piece of dowel. The instructions suggest you make the swab by gluing small pieces of white cloth to the rod (the handle) to get the desired thickness, then trim this to get it looking cylindrical and finish by rotating this against sandpaper to get a fluffy surface. I decided to shortcut all this by gluing an unused felt polishing pad that came with my Dremel to the rod, then holding this against the Dremel’s drum sander to reduce its diameter. Quick and easy. Smaller versions of the swab and ram were made for the two swivel guns.

 

The completed cannon and swivel gun accessories. A Dremel felt pad is on the right, and one of these was used to make the swab next to it. Another pad, cut down, was used to make the swabs for the swivel guns.

 

 

Cheers.

[bruce d]

Excellent work, Richard, I will join the audience if you don't mind.

[Richard44]

Thanks for the likes, and the comment Bruce.

 

To continue with the tubs, water containers and barrels.

 

One tub contains the anchor rope. The stock for the anchor was made from scratch as I did not like the supplied plywood one. The hoops on the stock are dyed paper strips. Another tub contains what are meant to represent the gunpowder-filled cloth bags that are the cartridges for the guns. The instructions say to make these cartridges by cutting dowels into appropriate lengths, paint these white and pile them in the tub. I thought that these would look exactly like pieces of white painted dowels so I looked for an alternative. I found hair bands that were of exactly the size needed, although they needed to be given a coat of poly to prevent instant fraying when cut. When cut to size and piled in the tub, they look quite reasonable. The third tub contains pieces of rag that are used as wads to keep the charge in the gun barrel.

 

Two barrels were in the kit. They are well made but do not show any detail so two were scratch built. The first attempt was not successful, so a better approach was adopted. I used the dimensions of the supplied barrels as a guide and calculated the circumference of the barrel at the top/bottom and middle. The circumference of the latter was almost exactly that needed to fit 18 staves each 4mm wide. I decided that this would look better than the 15 staves of 5mm that I used in my first attempt. The diameter at the middle was then back calculated using the needed circumference of 72mm. Fortuitously the diameters at top and bottom were such that the 18 staves would fit if tapered to 3.5mm. I then made three disks that were joined by a length of dowel and one stave was shaped and carefully glued to these. Tick marks were made on each disk using that stave as a reference point. This then allowed all other staves to be shaped to match the tick marks so that cumulative errors did not creep in (one of the problems with the first attempt). The staves were pre-bent before fitting using a plank bender.

 

 

The first attempt at making a barrel on the right, the second attempt on the left.

 

 

The scratch barrels on the left compared to the ones from the kit.

 

 

The finished tubs, barrels and water containers.

 

 

Cheers.

[Richard44]

Thanks for all the likes.

 

The rigging. This shouldn't be too complicated, afterall, we only have one cannon, one mast, one yard, one sail, two shrouds, and no stays or ratlines. Firstly some comments about the material supplied in the kit but these comments apply to the kit I bought about 20 years ago. The kit is still available today and the contents may well have changed. The cord supplied for the rigging consists of one light coloured hank of reasonable diameter, one spool of thin, light coloured cord and one spool of thin, black cord (see below).

 

 

The larger diameter cord is supposed to be used for the cannon breech rope, the anchor rope, the sail bolt rope, and, although not specifically stated in the instructions, also for the shrouds (and perhaps for the mast and yard wooldings) after you dye it dark brown (or black). The thin light cord is for all the running rigging, the cannon tackle, the tiller tackle, the shroud lanyards and other lashings. The thin black cord is apparently for the wooldings around the mast and yard, and for those around the tubs etc. Only three sizes of cord for a wide variety of needs. Panart (now Mantua) seems to have fairly closely believed the philosophy of "one size fits all".

 

Also included were two sizes of blocks - 10mm (16 of these) and 7mm (4). The 7mm blocks are for the tiller tackle and seem to be of appropriate size, as do the 10mm blocks for the shrouds. Other 10mm blocks though, are for the gun tackle and appear way over scale, so 7mm blocks were substituted. All blocks were more or less sanded to get rid of the sharp edges, thus making them far more rounded and realistic.

 

I had a sufficient supply of various sized cord left over from previous builds to be able to substitute for the supplied cords where I thought it necessary. For example, the photo shows the cannon with the supplied breech rope (top) and my substitute (bottom). And in the photo is the supplied ring bolt (far too light in my opinion) for the breech rope and the more substantial one I made.

 

 

The cannon rigged.

 

 

 

 

The rudder, tiller and tackle.

 

 

All the running rigging, other than the halyards, was simply led through ring bolts, one at the masthead and others on the cap rail. This did not seem to me to be good practice as the ropes would wear rather quickly, so single blocks were seized to the ring bolts and the rigging run through these.

 

The masthead contains two sheave wheels over which the twin halyards for the yard are run. Also visible are the two shrouds that the instructions suggest are simply seized around the mast. I could easily see these slipping down the mast, so two cleats (one of which is visible) were fixed in place to prevent this from happening.

 

 

The shrouds and the gun and tiller tackles are all attached to ring bolts by hooks. These were made from brass wire and blackened.

 

The sail was made and bent to the yard. Like others, the material in the kit was insufficient for the size of the sail, so some unbleached calico was bought and substituted.

 

To get a reasonable looking drape to the flag, a boltrope was glued to its leading edge, then the flag was hung at a suitable angle. It was folded and the folds held by small clips which also weighed it down. The flag was then sprayed with poly and left to dry. A halyard was run through the top of the staff and then the flag tied to this. The halyard was tied off to a cleat which I added at the base.

 

The eagle-eyed amongst you have probably spotted that there are no cannon balls anywhere on board. This is because Pannart didn't supply any in the kit. I have some on order, but who knows when they will arrive.

 

So, the boat is finished, and here it is.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The boat was fun to build. Not especially challenging, except for the poor instructions. At times there was much head scratching as I tried to match the instructions with the plans and with my thoughts about what had to be done next. All came good in the end though. Probably not a kit for a beginner, unless Panart/Mantua have improved the instructions.

 

A short break then onto the next build - Pegasus by Victory.

 

And finally, just for laughs, a view of my extremely cluttered work area just before a much needed tidy up. 😊

 

 

Cheers.

 

 

[Kevin]

what a lovey build

[Moab]

Fantastic. Your boat looks beautiful and ready to fight...Moab

[Richard44]

On 8/18/2020 at 2:04 AM, Moab said:

Fantastic. Your boat looks beautiful and ready to fight...Moab

Thanks Moab.

 Cheers

[ccoyle]

I missed the end of this one. Fantastic model, Richard -- very neat work and love the colors!

[whitejamest]

Really exquisite work!

[Richard44]

Thanks everyone for the likes and the comments.

 

Cheers

[GrandpaPhil]

Congratulations!  Nicely done!

[Richard44]

Thanks Phil.

 

Cheers

[David Baker]

Hi, I'm in the process of hull triple planking on this Panart Launch, having (like so many of us) picked up the model where I left off some 30 years ago.  On the outer planking layer, I've run into an interesting question.  Unlike the two inner plank layers, which I'd given little thought to so long ago, it occurred to me as a large scale woodworker in addition to modeler that it would be difficult bordering on inconceivable that these planks would have consisted of a single piece ranging the entire length of the vessel (let alone planking on a very large ship such as a first rate ship of the line, ec.).  However, my research has not uncovered any reference or best practice regarding what a typical, manageable board length would be for planking that is also considerate of where its anchor points need to fall in order to secure it to hull framing for strength.  Any thoughts on this?  Thanks!