HM Cutter Cheerful 1806 by glbarlow - FINISHED - 1:48

[glbarlow]

53 minutes ago, DelF said:

low down on the starboard stern

Thanks Derek. I appreciate the kind words.  I'm kinda happy with how its turning out. I like how the planks are a bit varying in color that stands out in that photo, it helps bring out the butt joints and that it isn't a single long run of planks. 

 

[Rustyj]

Wonderful job Glenn. You've shown how determination and perseverance can produce an outstanding model!

[glbarlow]

4 hours ago, DelF said:

set of Veritas miniature chisels

I love these tools, they are extremely well made. I use them a lot and for a lot more than a chisel’s typical use. I’m going to have to sort out how to sharpen them soon

[glbarlow]

18 minutes ago, Rustyj said:

determination and perseverance

Thanks Rusty. 

[bartley]

14 minutes ago, glbarlow said:

I love these tools, they are extremely well made. I use them a lot and for a lot more than a chisels typical use. I’m going to have to sort out how to sharpen them soon

 

Glenn,

 

Veritas do make a sharpening guide especially made for their micro chisels.  I also have their mini block plane and spoke shave.  They are all excellent tools and have all the characteristics of their full sized tools. I use am a hand tools person .  Jim's saw is the only specialised power tool I own.

 

John

[DelF]

Glenn, I have the Veritas guide John mentions. Like all Veritas products it is well made, but with very narrow chisels I find it can be difficult to get the blade to sit absolutely square, and with a single roller it can be difficult to avoid the blade rocking as you move it up and down the sharpening surface.

 

The best guide I've found for these blades is the No.1 Honing Guide from Richard Kell. Richard is a one-man-band based in Northumberland, although his products are available through US retailers. Here it is on my sharpening station (I couldn't resist including my collection of Veritas tools !):

 

 

The key feature is that the blade is clamped between two rollers and so is held dead square. I've got the 1/8" chisel in it, but it will take up to 1". Because there are two rollers it doesn't rock, and because you can mount a blade under the two steel guide rods as well as over them, it can handle very short blades which otherwise wouldn't project far enough from the guide to get the correct honing angle. I've found it for sale on this US site, but if you look on Richard's own site under <links> you will find others. I ordered mine direct from Richard which may be another possibility if it is out of stock at your retailers.

 

A couple of other points. You'll see from the photo that I've abandoned traditional sharpening stones in favour of sandpaper. Stones inevitably wear and need to be reground or replaced. So does sandpaper, but it is considerably cheaper and, when glued to 1/4" plate glass it stays dead flat. Plus, it is easier (and cheaper) to have a wide range of grits to suit your needs.

 

Another point - and I apologise if this is teaching granny to suck eggs - but when you say you haven't sharpened your chisels yet it occurred to me that you might not realise that chisel and plane blades bought straight from the manufacturer are not best suited for immediate use. They need a degree of preparation, sometimes called initialisation - even Veritas tools! This takes a bit of work on the sharpening station but once done it becomes quick and easy to hone your blades back to perfect sharpness. Paul Sellers does the best videos I know on woodworking - here's his explanation of initialising new chisels. Interestingly, Paul is using three sharpening stones in this three year old video - he now uses sandpaper. 

 

If you decide to set up a sharpening station like this you'll find you will be much more inclined to keep all your blades in tiptop condition, and you'll be surprised just how much difference truly sharp tools will make. They will slice through wood with minimum effort, and will make woods like box a joy to work with. Remember the difference you found when you switched to Vallorbe Swiss files? You'll find a comparable difference between tools straight out of the box and properly sharpened tools.

 

Sorry to hog your log.

 

Derek

 

 

[glbarlow]

6 hours ago, DelF said:

you might not realise

The things I don’t know...thanks Derek. So what are the grits of your sandpaper row? So you put honing fluid on sandpaper?

 

That guy has a lot of chisels and planes on his shelves, now I feel like I’ve neglected my tools. For the record I have a number of high end knives, and they are all kept sharp. I’m not a complete poser. 

[DelF]

1 hour ago, glbarlow said:

So what are the grits of your sandpaper row? So you put honing fluid on sandpaper?

They range from 180 through 400, 600, 1,200, 1,800 to 8,000. I've got finer ones but I rarely go beyond 1,800. Btw, I read somewhere that European and American grit sizes are different, but I checked that these figures I've quoted are American. I use the honing fluid on the sandpaper but it's not necessary so long as you have some form of lubrication. From memory, I think Paul Seller uses automotive glass cleaner in a spray bottle.

 

1 hour ago, glbarlow said:

I’m not a complete poser. 

Mmmm. I've seen your 1:48 version....

 

Derek

[glbarlow]

10 minutes ago, DelF said:

Mmmm. I've seen your 1:48 version....

That is kinda what I wear everyday - the valet is always furious. 

[bartley]

On 9/28/2020 at 1:59 AM, glbarlow said:

I moved to the cap rails next knowing I’d be doing a bit of sanding (and hacking up my nice bulwark paint job). I guess I could have cut out the bow section from 1/16 sheet with a #11 blade, but it was a good excuse to purchase a scroll saw. I cut out a template of the bow by tracing its outline on card stock and transferring that to the wood, along with a line 5/32 inside that one. Though a tool I’ve never used, me and the scroll saw made short work of cutting out the bow pieces, I then sanded the rail flush both inside and outside the ship

 Glenn,

 

I will be interested to hear you you go long term with your scroll saw.  I used to own one but it was a cheap model.  It was OK down to about 1/8 but below that I found it pretty aggressive and difficult to control.  This was partly because the lowest speed was quite fast but also because I could not buy fine enough blades to meet the three teeth rule. Maybe I should have persisted but I felt that I could do better with my jeweler's saw (see here) and so I sold it.  I have since seen a demonstration at my local woodworking store of a parallel arm scroll saw.  It was very smooth had a slowest speed of about 50 strokes per minute.  If I bought another I would buy one of these even though they are more expensive.

 

So I would be interested in your comments.

 

John

[glbarlow]

1 hour ago, bartley said:

be interested in your comments

I don’t really know yet, it isn’t something I’ll use often and it’s a moderately priced unit.  It does have variable speed, does both pin and painless blades, has a light and a blower. Those are about all The features I was looking for. I have a jewelers saw which was quite handy reducing the stern frames as I described here in my log.  The scroll saw was quite smooth cutting out the bow portion of the cap rail.  I don’t think it will be a big part of my modeling, I’m fine with my hand tools, but it will be handy when I need it.

[Blue Ensign]

Fine work Glenn, your planking is a joy to behold. I was so grateful to Chuck for creating the makings to allow us to produce such a great model.

Love your ‘mini me’ figure, I’m sure I would recognise you were our paths to ever cross.😉

 

B.E.

[glbarlow]

7 hours ago, Blue Ensign said:

grateful to Chuck

Thanks BE, your Cheerful  log is one I frequently visit for ‘how-to’ as I move to the next step.  So much about Chuck’s design just works right, it’s made my dive into semi-scratch building so much more fun. 
 

The mini-me is kinda fun, plus I like it for the sense of scale. 

[bartley]

On 9/30/2020 at 2:10 PM, glbarlow said:

I don’t really know yet, it isn’t something I’ll use often and it’s a moderately priced unit.  It does have variable speed, does both pin and painless blades, has a light and a blower. Those are about all The features I was looking for. I have a jewelers saw which was quite handy reducing the stern frames as I described here in my log.  The scroll saw was quite smooth cutting out the bow portion of the cap rail.  I don’t think it will be a big part of my modeling, I’m fine with my hand tools, but it will be handy when I need it.

 

 

Yes, Glenn it would not be a major tool for me either as there are other ways.  My saw was a Wen and cost me about A$200.  For comparison a parallel arm scroll saw would cost around A$1000 out here.  They seem to do a great job but hard to justify unless I was cutting my own bulkheads for example.

 

John

[glbarlow]

I elected to take what I thought was a short diversion, and at the same time had a larger diversion thrust upon me. The large one was a long undetected leak in our dishwasher drain resulted in a six week demolition and reconstruction of our kitchen. Not fun, lots of contractors, noise and dust to deal with every day and not much ship time at all. But enough of that.

 

 

What I though was going to be a short diversion while all the above was going on, was completing the stern port lids. I used Chuck’s hinge mini-kit with the instructions printed from his website. It all seems pretty straight forward, but as our British friends say there is a lot of fiddling to get all the tiny pieces to come together.

 

 

First I glued three strips of planking together, long enough to cut more than two lids. I measured, cut, and gently sanded to get those planks to fit flush to the opening (the WOP will bring out the seams as its done on the rest of the planking, they show up faint here).

 

 

Once that was done I measured, cut and glued and painted red a smaller set of planks to to fit within the interior of the port (the difference of the 1/64th rabbit), shown here inboard with a photo also designed to display the most possible dust particles (I cut the bowsprit hole earlier today, more on that later).

 

I created the lid lift ring by wrapping 24 gauge black anodized wire around the right size drill bit and with a little snipping, shaping, and bending, pulled it through the lid. So far, easy and fun.

 

The fiddling comes not in following the instructions to paint, mount and install the hinge plates or cutting 1mm lengths of tiny brass tubing for the hinges along with very short pieces of 28 gauge wire, it’s getting it all fitted together and mounted. Nothing difficult in concept, just working with tiny pieces and tiny holes. Between dealing with contractors in the kitchen I managed to get it done over a longer period than I had anticipated. Anyway…patience tested and passed.

 

Every stern on every model I’ve build has been an adventure. It seems on many kits it’s an afterthought, just that thing at the end of the ship. At least in my case it was always an adventure in adapting and overcoming little challenges to get everything to fit and call it a stern.

 

 

 

None of that’s true with @Chuck Cheerful. It is a well guided process from the initial base, to adding the counter, completing the planking as it rises up then finishing it off with a fun to make square tuck. Then there’s the fit of the transom to the counter and the addition of rail and moulding strips. There’s my choice to follow Chuck with a RED painted counter with me adding black to the fashion pieces either side meeting the transom rail and the contrast of my choice of a natural stern post, and of course those fiddlely port lids. It all works, it looks like a stern should look in my humble opinion. I’m kind of pleased with the final finished stern of my Cheerful (still one more coat of WOP to go). I hope you like it and decide to build one of your own.

 

The contractors are gone, now I’ll do the port side moulding.

[Edwardkenway]

Unfortunate luck with the drain in your kitchen, life just keeps butting in doesn't it!

She's looking extremely smart Glenn, excellent work on the ports!

 

 

[glbarlow]

The kitchen was a pain, but we did use the opportunity to update it so at least there is the one upside. I thought about adapting some of the Clear Alder used in our cabinets in the model, but its way to hard and too much grain for ship building, but it would have been funny to do.

[Blue Ensign]

You're right to be pleased with the stern Glenn, you've made a fine job of it. 👍

 

B.E.

[DelF]

Fine work Glenn. Sorry to hear about the kitchen problem - thought you'd been a bit quiet recently.

 

Derek

[glbarlow]

Thanks BE and Derek, I appreciate your comments! 

 

I was only able to enjoy ship building in short increments over the last several weeks. Water is a tough thing to deal with when it doesn't go where it's supposed to go. 

[MEDDO]

The stern looks great very symmetrical 

[garthog]

Sorry to hear about your drain problem - we’re remodeling our master bath so I feel your pain.  The stern looks great - I’m curious as to how you work on such small pieces as I have trouble even seeing, much less holding some parts that are very small.

 

dana

[glbarlow]

On 10/14/2020 at 12:02 AM, MEDDO said:

very symmetrical

Thanks, that I think is a tribute to the extra time spent on fairing at the very beginning

 

On 10/14/2020 at 8:07 AM, garthog said:

how you work on such small pieces

I wish I had a good answer other than good tweezers, 2.0 yellow tinted (improves contrast) reading glasses, and two bright Daylight lights on the bench. I fiddled and fumbled about dropping and losing little wire hinges and 1mm brass tubing quite a bit. I like how it turned out, but glad it’s done. 

[glbarlow]

I don't mean to fail to mention this: I appreciate all the likes as well as the comments. Thank you for taking a look.

[glbarlow]

After 5 months of work I’ve completed my Cheerful’s hull. I thought I’d pause a minute and share a few photos (sitting temporarily on its future base) before moving on to the deck.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’ve written in this log about the many things I’ve learned from this semi-scratch build, so many things I’d never done before. I have many more such challenges ahead, I’m looking forward to what's next.  Thank you for all the likes, follows, and comments, I appreciate them all. The fun continues.

[Edwardkenway]

Bravo Glenn, definitely a hull to be proud of!! Excellent work 😁👍

[VTHokiEE]

Congratulations! Beautiful hull and really nice photography to show her off! 

[Chuck]

Nicely done indeed!!! 😀

 

Your

photos show how nice the cedar looks with the poly on it.  A very nice color and a crisp and clean hull.

 

chuck

[Ryland Craze]

Your Cheerful hull is a work of art.  Congratulations on getting to this part of the build.

[Blue Ensign]

👏 👏 👏👏

 

Very well done Glenn, she looks beautiful.

 

 

B.E.