CSS Virginia by cgiacoppo - BlueJacket Shipcrafters - Scale 1:192 - My son Michael's first wooden ship build

[cgiacoppo]

Plans glued to decks to aid shaping of hull.

Section lines marked on hull.

Section line templates created for shaping the hull.

Beginning to shape the stern.

Rough shaping of stern.

 

[Ryland Craze]

Nice to see some youth in this hobby.  You are off to a good start.  One of my favorite ships.

 

Any more progress on this model?

[cgiacoppo]

Thanks Ryland.  We are actually finishing up a waterline model of the Yorktown and will then be returning to Virginia.  I have some updated photos to post and will do so soon.  Thanks for your interest.

 

Chris and Michael

[cgiacoppo]

Notches were cut into the hull allowing insertion of the section line templates.

 

Wood strip applied temporarily in the position of the keel to act as a guide.

 

Shaping the bow one section at a time.  We carved down to the edge of the template and then smoothed out to the previous section line.

 

Shaping the stern.

 

Port side shaping complete and rough sanded.  Wood filler will be used to fill in the remaining trace of the notches prior to fine sanding.

 

On to the starboard side.  Shaping the stern.

[cgiacoppo]

Shaping the bow.

[cgiacoppo]

Final shaping complete and rough sanded.  Wood filler and fine sanding to follow.

[cgiacoppo]

Patched with wood filler and final shaping and sanding of the hull.

 

[cgiacoppo]

Final shaping of the stern.

[cgiacoppo]

Final shaping of the bow with notch for the ram.

[cgiacoppo]

Making the fantail of the aft deck.

 

[cgiacoppo]

Making the stem.

[cgiacoppo]

Installing the stem.

Some building up of the hull with thin wood strips was required to get an appropriate fit.  This will all be covered up when the copper plating is installed.

[cgiacoppo]

Installing the rudder post.

[cgiacoppo]

Attaching the keel.

[cgiacoppo]

A gap between the keel and the hull at the stern will be filled with scrap wood strips and then finished with wood filler.  

[sjanicki]

Looking good! Keep up the great work 

[cgiacoppo]

After another long break Michael is returning to this model.  During the break, he built the frame of the Chuck Passaro English Pinnace that he was given as a gift, and completed a model of USS Laffey DD-459, which took 1st place in the Junior division at the 40th annual NE Joint Clubs Ship Model Conference on April 29th in New London, CT.  New pictures to this build log coming soon.

 

Edited April 30, 2023 by cgiacoppo

[cgiacoppo]

The rudder as depicted on the plans is too small for the area between the fantail and the keel, so we did a bit of math and determined a 12% increase in size would correct the problem.

Edited April 30, 2023 by cgiacoppo

[cgiacoppo]

New template for rudder and rudder post copied at 112%, alongside original.

[cgiacoppo]

The new template fit perfectly and was attached to wood stock with two-sided tape and cut out, filed clean and then the post was separated from the rudder.

[cgiacoppo]

Pintles & gudgeons are not part of the kit.  At 1/16 scale, we'll keep it simple.  Hat tip to jre8655 and his post from 2013 - we will use a similar technique.  Michael drilled holes with a #74 drill and glued in 4 pieces of brass wire.  These will be used to connect the rudder to the post and should be concealed when complete.

 

 

[cgiacoppo]

While Michael worked on the rudder, I used some leftover strips from another kit to straighten the keel and stern post.

Edited May 1, 2023 by cgiacoppo

[cgiacoppo]

Fantail installed.  The chain used to move the rudder is temporarily in place to make sure we could install it with the deck in place.

[sjanicki]

Very good progress!

[cgiacoppo]

Filed grooves into the upper hull to simulate the armor plating.

[cgiacoppo]

Armor plate rub rail attempted with a wooden strip.

[cgiacoppo]

The wooden strip turned out to be too inflexible and difficult to work with so we replaced it with a cardstock strip as suggested by the kit instructions.

[cgiacoppo]

Notice the copper plating along the keel in the previous 2 images.  This is difficult at this scale, requiring a 1/16" strip of copper foil.  The smallest we could find was 3/16" so I am slicing them in half (not easy!).  At this scale, we decided to leave out the nail pattern.  This was a test strip and we were pleased with the result.  We will continue this once further progress on the model is made.

[cgiacoppo]

We cut out a thin piece of wood to serve as the top of the ship, in the hope of getting a sharp edge between the top and the sides.  It has been glued and clamped in place.  
Once the glue dries, we'll remove the clamps and see if any patch work is needed to create a clean, sharp transition from the sides to the top.

[robert952]

I just finished a complete read through of this log. Nice job on the model.

 

Glad to see you have continued to work on this model. 

 

I find the battle between the Virginia and Monitor too be a great study in the evolution of warships. An interesting book (IMHO) is The Monitor Chronicles published by the Mariner's Museum which houses artifacts of the Monitor.  The book uses source material of letters from crew members, newspapers articles, and letters from some of the principle players.

 

Another on the ships and battle is by John V Quarstein: The Battle of the Ironclads. 

 

Keep up  the nice work on the model.