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

[GrandpaPhil]

Thin pieces of card, painted black, make excellent rudder gudgeons.

[cgiacoppo]

Thank you Robert Chenoweth and Phil for your tips.

 

Well, we didn't like the way the last the last adjustment looked so we removed it.  Unfortunately, I was a little over-vigorous with the sander and it distorted the top of the hull.  My fault.

I repaired it with some wood strips.  The hope is this will mostly be hidden when we paint.

 

Next we decided to plank the top of the hull using a thinner piece of pre-scribed veneer.  I purchased such a piece but decided the plank lines were too close to each other.  So we flipped it over, marked new plank lines with a pencil to simulate caulking, and then scored those lines with the back of a putty knife.

 

We taped a copy of the plan over it to get the shape and cut it out.  We sanded the back to make the veneer as thin as possible.

Set on the model before final sanding.

 

Edited June 1, 2024 by cgiacoppo

[cgiacoppo]

Once the decking was shaped to fit the top of the hull, we needed a margin plank.  We photocopied the decking and used two-sided tape to attach strips of veneer to the edges of the copy so we could cut it out without damaging the planking.

 

[cgiacoppo]

Margin planks were then glued to the edges of the planking sheet.

 

[cgiacoppo]

Setting aside the deck planking, we next attached the pilot turret.  This is a metal piece so we used 2-part epoxy.

The lookout ports on the turret were very slight indentations, so we drilled them out a bit to make them more realistic.

[cgiacoppo]

We now turned our attention to the holes where the rudder chains emerge from the hull.  We previously used cardstock to create the armor plate rub rail and decided to create semi-circular openings out of the same card stock to give the holes a nice finished look.

[cgiacoppo]

It was difficult to get the chain back through the hole.  I ended up tying a piece of thread to the chain and then the other end of the thread to a piece of thin wire that I was able to push through.  Once the end of the wire emerged with the thread, I used the thread to pull the chain through.

 

[sjanicki]

Your work on this looks really good - I am excited to see the results!