HMS Winchelsea 1:48 by Ron Burns

[Ron Burns]

Ok, one more thing down   First layer of wales complete along with black strake. I'm glad I ripped out my first attempt and redid them. Of course they will look better covered with the next layer. Now to make things count and try to do them right. Single layer from here on in!

 

 

 

Edited January 20, 2021 by Ron Burns
Had to show the wreckage!

[Vladimir_Wairoa]

splendidly done Ron, good luck and enjoy upper side. Vlad 

[Ron Burns]

On 1/20/2021 at 1:10 PM, Vladimir_Wairoa said:

splendidly done Ron, good luck and enjoy upper side. Vlad 

My God I wish I could pick up the pace a bit! In the time you plank 1/2 the ship I'm lucky to get a couple strakes installed! I have a 4 pound Chihuahua that thinks it's his responsibility to bother me every time I sit at the desk. Talk about a demanding little bugger! I can literally start counting to 10 and he is there whining to be picked up or fed or walked or played with or just plain bugging me. Don't tell me they don't know what they're doing  I sat down to take a few pics and there 'ol' Eyeball' was...anyways started planking above the wales. This Alaskan cedar shows every mistake! Trying to go slow and careful. For some reason my gun ports are off about 1/8" too high at the bow. Hopefully it will still work and look ok. I think after this one, I will take a step back and build Cheerful in Cherry. Think my eyeballs and ego were much bigger than my store of talent this time around.

[scrubbyj427]

It’s not too late to lower it. Your second one aft looks good. Just add a little filler piece on the top and slightly lower the bottom frame. Will take some minor surgery but it’s possible.

looking good otherwise.

JJ

[Ron Burns]

42 minutes ago, scrubbyj427 said:

It’s not too late to lower it. Your second one aft looks good. Just add a little filler piece on the top and slightly lower the bottom frame. Will take some minor surgery but it’s possible.

looking good otherwise.

JJ

Thanks JJ:) It's actually the third port that is about 1/3 of a plank too low according to the prints. Yes, the 2nd one is also about a billimeter too low. I've gone past the point of repair I think. I need to think about how to fix it without having another wrecking session. I gave up on cyanoacrylate as I made too many messes with no wiggle room and dismantling was next to impossible. This time around I used only Titebond and it is set! On a good note, it was your log that made sense to me and it does allow for tight seams

[Vladimir_Wairoa]

It looks superneat to me Ron, enjoying the progress .  i should have slowed and watch and ask for magic clues you use. I realized that cedar is quite stiff wood which helps in terms of maintainig seams very precise thats good. Cute litte fellow that chihuahua  

[wyz]

Rip it out Ron!  Way more times than not, those who repair even sizeable mistakes are eventually glad they did so.

Tom

[Ron Burns]

I'm really bamboozled. Planking started with the wales as instructed. 5 x 7/32 then 4 x 1/4 now looking at 1 x 3/16. My wales follow the marks on the bulkheads with little to no variance. I've measured the tops of the bulkheads at the bow and it is bang on. The height of the first gunport is bang on. Excuse the mass pic posting I'm just wondering where I messed up or if what I'm experiencing is normal. Tom, If I have to rip this out, I'm gonna see if Winnie can fly and then float in a snow bank! I'm kidding but man, it feels real good in my imagination

s

Edited January 29, 2021 by Ron Burns
Wrong pic sequence

[wyz]

One of the beautiful things about my solid hull building method was its stability.  By suspending the hull above the building board the way I did there was absolutely NO MOVEMENT what-so-ever, and because it never moved I could use a very accurate height gauge to check EVERYTHING for accuracy against the plans.  Right now I'm trying to determine how I can have a stable mounting of the hull to the building board that would be repeatable, something similar to what I had before.  Yes, I still want to use that height gauge.  It allowed for incredibly accurate height measurements.  As long as I read the gauge correctly there was no doubt where I made a mistake.  A very stable hull leads to accurate height measurement repeatability, and this solves and helps to prevent problems, especially when you're trying to align something that affects everything else.  I've always found those initial measurements the most important.

Tom

Edited January 29, 2021 by wyz

[Ron Burns]

Right now I'm wishing I had bought Chuck's bulkhead set (hint hint Tom :)). The other thing is going to be as you said for the next build. A stable support method or building slip. Going to save the pennies and start over perhaps but in the meantime figure out how to save it without ripping it apart again. Maybe if I have to, I will bug Chuck to see if he has a real-life (not contemporary model) paint scheme if I can't get the planking seams to work.

[wyz]

Good luck and best wishes whatever you decide to do.  Would spending money on Chuck's bulkhead set break the bank?  If you can't see where you erred and don't clearly know how to rectify the problem it might be a good time to start anew.  The question is, how far do you want to travel down a road that will probably not take you where you want to go.   Ron, did you cut your bulkheads from Baltic birch plywood or a cheap and softer poplar core plywood?  How did you transfer the shape of the bulkheads from print to wood?  Did you take extreme care in the layout work, cutting them out and sanding them?  If you can honestly say you were very, very careful with the bulkheads you made then I would rip the planking off and try to save this effort.  If you seriously believe the bulkheads are at the heart of the problem I would start anew.  I wonder what our fellow model builders would do if they were in your shoes.  Maybe Chuck can give you meaningful advice.

Tom

[Ron Burns]

11 minutes ago, wyz said:

Good luck and best wishes whatever you decide to do.  Would spending money on Chuck's bulkhead set break the bank?  If you can't see where you erred and don't clearly know how to rectify the problem it might be a good time to start anew.  The question is, how far do you want to travel down a road that will probably not take you where you want to go.   Ron, did you cut your bulkheads from Baltic birch plywood or a cheap and softer poplar core plywood?  How did you transfer the shape of the bulkheads from print to wood?  Did you take extreme care in the layout work, cutting them out and sanding them?  If you can honestly say you were very, very careful with the bulkheads you made then I would rip the planking off and try to save this effort.  If you seriously believe the bulkheads are at the heart of the problem I would start anew.  I wonder what our fellow model builders would do if they were in your shoes.  Maybe Chuck can give you meaningful advice.

Tom

Tom, thank you for your insight! Perhaps I should just step back for a bit and look at it fresh again. The bulkheads were made from Baltic birch. In order to get them cut up here I had to import Chuck's bulkhead prints into Corel Draw. Unfortunately all of the bulkheads had open nodes when this was done so I had to take a bit of time to close them up. This was needed so that the laser would have a proper path to follow. I then created 4 large sheets with all the parts and had them cut up here. I then transferred all the location marks to each bulkhead individually, double and triple checking their locations against Chuck's originals. Somewhere I buggered up!  The shipping alone is substantial from the US on top of your dollar value. Since the cancer hit, Covid and a disabled wife, yeah I need to count pennies  Not a boo-hoo statement, just reality these days for many. 

[wyz]

I hear you Ron.  You certainly do have priorities other than model ship building.  Cancer, Covid 19 and a disabled wife would be my primary concerns too.  I know you enjoy model building a lot and I just want you to be happy.  My comment about breaking the bank was said with the hope you wouldn't let money alone cloud your judgement in the best way to solve this modeling problem if you really felt it was the bulkheads.   Obviously you know where and how to spend your money.  I apologize if that comment came across as flippant.

Tom

[AnobiumPunctatum]

Ron,

 

have you checked the width of the planks? I had by my Triton cross-section years ago a culmulative error and at the end one plank less installed. Perhaps are your planks to small.

I would plank the upper part of the hull with the same technic Chuck describes for the lower part.

Edited January 30, 2021 by AnobiumPunctatum

[Ron Burns]

Tom, please don't apologize as I know whatever you write is meant well and from the heart. Thank you for your suggestions on how to go about managing my kerfuffle. I think Anobium's ( Christian's) Idea might be a great one. I'll stick to the plan and divide up the difference. In my next life I will start smaller

 

Edited January 30, 2021 by Ron Burns
Fixing 2:30am mistakes :)

[Chuck]

I would just user wider strips and call ot the day.  It wont matter much in the grand scheme.  As long as it is consistent.  It would be impossible to tell what went wrong at this pint but it looks like a consistent issue which is great.  Just use wider strips for the last two planks.

[Matt D]

15 hours ago, Ron Burns said:

Right now I'm wishing I had bought Chuck's bulkhead set (hint hint Tom :)).

Ron, I’ve felt the same way for quite a while.  But yours is in a lot better shape than mine.  I think you’ll be able to compensate for any bulkhead related consequences very easily.  One thing that keeps me optimistic about my own is the myriad of places where Chuck’s instructions point out that there will be variations from model to model and he has made allowances for you to adjust parts to mate up to your model.  

[scrubbyj427]

Ron, did you confirm that your bulkheads are right on scale? A lot of people have had issues with drawings being printed slightly out of scale. But I agree with Chuck, just plank a bit wider, it won’t be seen up on that part anyway. 

[Ron Burns]

Thanks Everyone for coming to the rescue of a panicky middle aged man! Everyone's advice and suggestions will go miles towards getting this back on track. My wife claims I have Tourettes Syndrome and is ready to gag me   

4 hours ago, Chuck said:

I would just user wider strips and call ot the day.  It wont matter much in the grand scheme.  As long as it is consistent

That's what I needed to hear! Thank-you Chuck!

 

2 hours ago, Matt D said:

I think you’ll be able to compensate for any bulkhead related consequences very easily

Thanks Matt! Yours is another of the build logs I check consistently. 

 

1 hour ago, scrubbyj427 said:

Ron, did you confirm that your bulkheads are right on scale?

JJ, I did. I even went so far as to overlay the laser cut bulkheads over individual printed copies. I have 2 stacks...one printed on 8.5 x 11 label sheets and one of 20lb copier paper. I swear, I didn't say 'close enough' which is my usual way of being

 

 

[scrubbyj427]

It’s looks good then Ron, keep building. I lost count of all the mistakes I’ve made on my Winnie along the way, maybe I’ll forget most of them someday.

[Vladimir_Wairoa]

Ron If i had to adopt such critical thinking of milimeter here and  there in places where it wont affect anything and will not be visible I would have to grab axe and my winnie would heat the room in fireplace !  i call it third mastering dirty rule of modeling- to charmingly cover imperfections to the point noone ever notice there was any  

[Ron Burns]

Man do I feel like a dummy!!! I measured everything! I printed off every bulkhead in both 300dpi and 600dpi thinking my printer was at fault. I measured the distance from top of the bulkhead to the bottom of the wales, the bottom of the wales to bottom of the keel and compared each measurement to the digital print takeoff and everything was on the money or +- .5 of a millimeter once or twice. And the prize goes to Christian!! After scratching my head, cussing some more and getting yelled at by my wife, I checked my wood pile. My 1/4 inch stuff is about 30 feet x 4.5 inches x 15/64 inches!. After a bevel and a bit of a sand we have just over by a hair 7/32. As you can guess my Tourette's came back with a vengeance and my wife was yelling at me again  

My Winnie is naked again as I took Tom's advice and started over. I just couldn't live with the 'close enough, fake it' thing. Winnie and friends deserve better!

[wyz]

Ron, are you saying the mistake was what was supposed to be 1/4" planks were only 7/32"?  I'm not exactly sure what you are talking about.  I'm sorry you are set back to start planking anew, but it sounds like nothing short of that was going to make you happy.  Going forward I have this gut feeling you will be fastidiously accurate with all measurements of model and material.  I've had some setbacks myself this past week.  When my back started getting worse I went to the hospital and found out my problem wasn't a bad lower back muscle strain but a ruptured disk.  It looks like I will need more bed rest and much stronger pain medication.  The seventieth year of my life is not starting out well. 🥴

Tom

[Ron Burns]

3 hours ago, wyz said:

Ron, are you saying the mistake was what was supposed to be 1/4" planks were only 7/32"?  I'm not exactly sure what you are talking about.  I'm sorry you are set back to start planking anew, but it sounds like nothing short of that was going to make you happy.  Going forward I have this gut feeling you will be fastidiously accurate with all measurements of model and material.  I've had some setbacks myself this past week.  When my back started getting worse I went to the hospital and found out my problem wasn't a bad lower back muscle strain but a ruptured disk.  It looks like I will need more bed rest and much stronger pain medication.  The seventieth year of my life is not starting out well. 🥴

Tom

Hi Tom,

It saddens me to hear that what you thought was a strain is in fact a more serious situation. Getting older truly sucks in terms of body ailments (for lack of better words) and I pray you will start to feel better soon.  This planking thing is just stupid. I neglected to really look at my supply, assuming it was perfect. My 1/4 inch stock is actually 15/64 and after a bevel on the edge it's not too far from 7/32. I have a whole pile of this stuff including about 300 strips already cut. Perhaps I can use it below the wales if I divide off the hull like our esteemed leader teaches. Just ordered the last of Chuck's 1/4 inch stock (Sorry Chuck!) I'll redo the wales again while I wait and experiment cutting black hornbeam 

Edited February 3, 2021 by Ron Burns

[Ron Burns]

Hi everyone,

Just a small post to say I'm not dead in the water...While I was waiting for 1/4 inch stock to arrive, I re-built the wales (again). I'm gonna put a III after my

name representing how many times I need to do things to get them ok! I jumped the gun a bit and did the complete wales including paint. The darn Canuck posties take their sweet time delivering stuff so I had some time. This time around, using true 1/4" stock the strakes kind of worked out. I'm almost satisfied but will keep trying on the opposite side to get it better. After all the radiation and chemo, the pain has settled in now with a will! Doc says the cancer hasn't come back. Damage to nerve endings and swelling etc. has me banging my head against a wall. Whenever I get a pain free minute or 3 I try to do a bit on Winnie. With luck this will let up soon and things will start getting done! First thing I will do when I get over this and back to making money is get a Byrnes saw! I want to toss this piece of crap Asian mini-saw so far! I can cut things well enough with very good results but there is no repeatability. Move the fence and it will take a ton of trial and error and waste to get it back to where it was. Imagine...Allen keys and wing nuts to tighten both ends of a fence! Just shoot me! 

 

Edited March 11, 2021 by Ron Burns

[Jorge Diaz O]

Cheer up, don't win this damn cancer, your model is looking great. And on the micro saws, try the Proxxon, they are the best.

 

[scrubbyj427]

Looking great Ron, nice and crisp! You’re almost to the really fun part!!

[wyz]

Welcome back Ron.  I wondered why you hadn't posted in a while.  It was great news that the cancer hadn't returned!  All MSW stuff pales in comparison to that.  I hope you continue to feel better and better, and get to spend more time in your shop.  From what I can see your model is looking nice..... no, looking great!  In November I bought a Jim Byrnes saw with all the accessories.  My wallet cried OUCH, but it was nevertheless a great purchase.  It's the Rolls-Royce of miniature circular saws.  The look and feel of it cries out precision and attention to detail. Who else sells a micrometer stop, in standard and metric, for their saw?

Tom

[AnobiumPunctatum]

The planking is looking great.

Do not to much work on one side. An old modeller told me that it is better to work symmetrical on both side to avoid torsion of the hull.

[Ron Burns]

On 3/10/2021 at 10:37 PM, Jorge Diaz O said:

Cheer up, don't win this damn cancer, your model is looking great. And on the micro saws, try the Proxxon, they are the best.

 

Jorge, I'm going to beat this thing! The saw is another hurdle soon to be overcome. I was leaning towards the Proxxon FET and if things really pick up, the Byrnes saw. 

12 hours ago, AnobiumPunctatum said:

An old modeller told me that it is better to work symmetrical on both side to avoid torsion of the hull.

It would make me crazy doing it a plank at a time on each side! You think that drying adhesives shrinking would apply that much torsion onto the hull to actually twist it? I would be inclined to perform an experiment one day just for fun to see if it will happen.

 

On 3/11/2021 at 11:55 AM, wyz said:

Welcome back Ron.  I wondered why you hadn't posted in a while

Thanks for the welcome back Tom  That Byrnes saw sure is tempting but I have to wait a bit more. How's your Winnie prep going?

On 3/10/2021 at 11:17 PM, scrubbyj427 said:

You’re almost to the really fun part!!

JJ, I can't wait to flip her onto her back