Sciabecco Francese by HakeZou - FINISHED - Sergal (Mantua) - 1:49

[HakeZou]

Finally saved up enough to order my fourth kit! After three reasonably successful builds of beginner kits by Artesania Latina, I'm stepping up to an advanced beginner kit from Sergal (a brand made by Mantua Models). The kit seems to be sold under both its Italian and English titles, respectively, Sciabecco francese and French Xebec. While xebecs were used by other countries' navies earlier, the French didn't adopt them until relatively late in the reign of Louis XV, in the 1750s and 1760s. The French navy continued to use them through the Napoleonic wars, though they were mostly phased out at that point. (Apparently some worked coast guard duty into the 1840s.)

 

Here's the traditional unboxing photo. Four bundles of 500mm planks and dowels, three sheets of laser-cut parts, a sheet of pennants, lots of hardware, the assembly instructions booklet, and some rather generously sized schematics. Although the assembly instructions are pretty limited, they also include a section on planking the hull that is very detailed and well illustrated. I don't have much perspective, but the wood doesn't seem to be of the same quality as the Artesania Latina kits that I did. That might be just the perception of an amateur talking, or maybe it's just that the wood was less well sanded at the factory. The 5mm plywood is definitely sturdy though! The biggest concern for me so far is that the keel, false deck, and decks have curves to them. Right now, I have the keel and false deck resting under damp paper towels and some heavy weights. Hopefully they'll be straighter tomorrow.

 

 

Today I began dry fitting the keel and bulwarks. I've learned a lot from my prior kits and so am doing better this time. The bulwarks fit well to the keel, straight out of the box. I sanded the laser char off one of them, but then it fit so loosely that it rocked back and forth in its slot on the keel. Now I'm only sanding off the char as needed to improve how the false deck and decks fit. Although the bulwarks fit well, the slots weren't deep enough. The photo shows bulwarks #5–10. You'll note that #9 and 10 (the two furthest away) are sticking up above the keel by about 2 or 3mm, which is about how high they all sat. When I took the photo, I noticed that #6 and 7 were still up a bit too high, too, so I gave them a bit more love.  

 

 

At this point, the bulwarks that support the false deck (#3–10) are fitted. The false deck slides into its space well, except that its slight curve prevents it from resting flat. Next step is to dry fit the main deck (which needs some filing in order to fit onto the bulwarks) and then to work on the foredeck and the bulwarks (#1–3) that support it.

[SkerryAmp]

Great start - nice and straight - interested to see this play out.  Looks like I have the first seat - yay for me!   Guess that means I am responsible for the beer and popcorn!

Carry on good sir!

[BobG]

I'll be following your build, HakeZou. I love the sleek lines of these xebecs. 

[HakeZou]

Hi Bob and Adam, thanks for the interest! My skills are getting better, but I still feel like a beginner in a lot of ways. Thanks in advance for any tips you might find helpful to share!

 

The keel and false deck straightened up somewhat since last night. They're at least straight enough that they line up well when everything's assembled. The camera angle in the overhead shot added a curve that isn't really there.

 

I spent some time tonight dry fitting the decks. I was surprised that they came pre-lined...not sure if that's common? The instructions indicate that the deck will be planked, so I guess they're just there for reference.

 

All three decks had some significant issues with inaccurate cuts. On the main deck, 8 of the 14 slots were not cut deeply enough in toward the middle and 2 of them were cut too deeply; the lines came in handy here, since they made it much easier to measure the cuts that I needed to make. The fore- and aftdecks, on the other hand, had slots that were either too far forward or too far backward. In the overhead picture, you'll note that the original slots for bulwark #3 were too far forward; in the aftdeck the slots for bulwark #8 were too far back and those for #9 too far forward. The slots for bulwarks #9 and 10 were cut a little too deeply, too, so there's a little bit of play right now. Other than that, everything's fitting snuggly, but not tightly.

 

 

 

[BobG]

11 hours ago, HakeZou said:

All three decks had some significant issues with inaccurate cuts.

You've done a nice job of correcting these deck problems.

 

Unfortunately, errors in the kit supplied materials are all too common especially with the kits from some of the long established model ship companies. Errors instructions and plans are also commonplace. It's too bad that these companies do not correct or upgrade their kits after these errors have become widely known for a very long time. It's great to see, however, that some of the newer model kit companies like Syren and Vanguard are setting new standards for excellence in kits currently.

[HakeZou]

Thanks for the compliment, Bob! Last night, I was admiring your work on the Pen Duick, which looks fantastic!

 

I thought I was all set to glue the bulwarks into place, when I happened to look at the aftdeck from a different angle. I have some serious sanding left to do back there! The photo is looking at the aftdeck and bulwarks #8–12. Right now, there's solid contact only on bulwarks #9 and #12 and some contact on #8. But the deck is floating a couple millimeters above bulwarks #10 and 11! I think that everything is seated deeply enough into the slots on the keel, so I just need to shape the tops. 

 

 

[HakeZou]

I've made a little more progress this weekend. After much sanding and adjusting, I finally got out the glue bottle. The bulwarks are now firmly attached, as is the main deck. The main deck needed eight shims of various thickness (.5–2mm) in order to be securely attached to the bulwarks. The next two challenges were dealing with the longerons/stern piece and working out a sequence for proceeding.

 

First, the longerons and stern piece. Even in the diagrams, the longerons don't look like they are attached to flat surfaces—but sanding down those surfaces that far would cause alignment problems with the aftdeck. So, I've done it more or less like the diagrams. It was really tricky to figure out the alignment, though. The pieces are basically L-shaped, with the 90º angle hooking over bulwark #11. They then extend backward over bulwark #12 and the stern piece attaches to the end. (A note for others who might build this kit: it's only apparent in one of the diagrams, but the bottom corners of the stern piece need to be cut off to fit the ends of the longerons. This also helps immensely with alignment.) I ended up using a couple rubber bands to keep them in place while the glue dries. The short planks will ultimately be added to extend the bulwarks vertically, to be a base for side planking. Until the longerons are set, though, they're just stuck in there to help with alignment. Alignment of the longerons was really tricky, since they really like to shift around laterally, and every photo I took made that alignment look worse than it actually is...I never found the right camera angle, I guess. Here's a shot that doesn't look too bad.

 

 

Notice how the sternpiece is really floating out there? It's lined up with the angle at which the ends of the longerons are cut. Until the side planking goes in, there isn't much support for it, but without it being there, there's no way to line up the longerons!

 

Second, the sequence for proceeding. At this point, the sequence issue also came up in the Italian build logs that I read. The assembly instructions call for bulwarks/longerons, decks, hull/side planking, then deck planking. However, the fore- and aft-decks cover up significant portions of the main deck, making the deck planking problematic. So, I'm going to do the middle 15 deck planks and all of the planks between bulwarks #8 and 9, then I'll attach the other two decks and get started on the hull planking. To wrap up for tonight, a couple shots of where things stand (with an unfortunate overhead camera angle that makes it look more crooked than it actually is!). The ship is already pretty long compared to my previous kits—17 inches/43cm—but is really starting to take on the xebec shape.

 

[HakeZou]

Plugged away at the xebec again this evening. Nothing much to show off, but I've finished the initial planking of the main deck (the middle 15 planks and those in the space between bulwarks #8 and 9). I was about to glue on the foredeck, when I realized I should first check the fit of the foremast. That mast sits at an angle and runs through both the foredeck and the maindeck. Once the foredeck is attached, there will no longer be any access to the hole in the maindeck, so that hole needs to be addressed first. In order to do that, I need to fabricate the bottom part of the foremast (which means sanding down the dowel and lining the bottom with walnut planks). 

 

Seems straightforward enough, right? Well, one thing led to another and now I'm feeling really intimidated. I knew this kit was a step up from my previous three—those were all beginner kits and this is advertised as advanced beginner. Before I started, I read through the steps and looked through the diagrams...but now I'm starting to realize just how big of a step up this ship will be, with lots of parts for me to fabricate. For some of those steps, I will need to pick up some new tools (though just today I inherited a bunch of tools from my father-in-law, so maybe that box will have what I need?). In addition to the fact that I'll be fabricating a lot of parts, I'm concerned that there are no measurements for 67 pieces of wood in those parts, so no way to budget any of the materials except for the ø4, ø5, and ø6 dowels and 2x6 limewood. I know those measurements will become more clear as things start to come together, but I hope I don't run out of materials since my stash of leftover wood from the previous kits is pretty limited! 

 

To calm myself and face the feeling of intimidation, I've now gone through the drawings very carefully and built a spreadsheet listing all the parts. I've also color-coded the diagrams, so it's easier to see what materials are needed in each step. Probably should have done this sooner, I suppose, but I had been planning to build the spreadsheet once I'd finished the hull and began turning my attention to the various features on the exterior and the deck.

 

For those who might do this kit: be aware that the parts list is not organized by the parts, but rather by material. That list indicates the material and dimensions (for example, three 500mm ø4 dowels, sixty 1x3x500mm planks of limewood, etc.). The uses and dimensions for those materials are mostly indicated in the plans, but not the assembly instructions. While the parts list and assembly instructions are multilingual, the diagrams are only in Italian. Since this is completely different than my previous kits, I have no idea how common this approach is.

[HakeZou]

Feeling a little more settled with this project now. Still intimidated by how much fabrication there will be later on, but I'm keeping focused on going one step at a time. I've now attached the fore- and aftdecks. These shots show some of the reasons that considering sequencing is so important in this kit. In the overhead shot, the fore- and aftdecks both overlap the main deck by a significant amount. The next photo is a lower-angle shot that looks at the main deck planking that extends for a bit more than 2 inches under the foredeck. The third photo is a low-angle shot looking toward the stern. There, the main deck planking extends about an inch or so under the aftdeck, though much of that (10 planks worth) is between the walls formed by bulwarks #8 and 9. The remaining deck planks will be added once I've planked the hull and trimmed the posts off of the bulwarks. Forgive the sawdust...I took these photos at a time when I couldn't run the shop vac to clean up!

 

 

I've also been sanding down the bulwarks in preparation for planking the hull. The lines feel very smooth! In the second photo, the two wedges closest to the front come with the kit. I've actually turned them 90º from what is indicated in the directions. This way, a little more of the stempost shows, as seems to be the case in many photos I've seen of xebec models. With sanding, everything flows smoothly from the stempost, over those wedges, to the first couple of bulwarks. I added the wedges between bulwarks #1 and 2—the gap between them is 5mm, so I just cut a couple of pieces of the 5mm plywood sheet from which the bulwarks were cut. Given the amount of rounding on the prow, I thought is was necessary to have just a bit more surface area for attaching the planks. In person, the apparent gap in the portside wedge is not as worrisome as it might look here. There's plenty of surface area to work with.

 

[BobG]

Lots of excellent and fast progress, HakeZou!

 

On 9/4/2020 at 8:24 AM, HakeZou said:

Thanks for the compliment, Bob! Last night, I was admiring your work on the Pen Duick, which looks fantastic!

Thanks very much and thanks for taking a look. I've stumbled along at times but I am determined to finish this build.

[HakeZou]

I've started planking the hull, which I find to be one of those hurry-up-and-wait kind of processes. I soak two planks at a time in hot water, then clip them into place. Once they've dried fully, I glue them into place. And once that's dried, repeat. I end up doing one plank on each side per day. So, there are now three on each side! That process has gone just okay. Since this is my first ship with a double-planked hull, I tried using nails to keep the first plank in place, as I've seen many others do. My technique for that is...not great. After breaking two planks I gave up on that and went back to just clipping them into place. Right now the planks I have in are looking okay, and they generally get better as you go further astern. There are some gaps that I thought I had managed to avoid, and when I took this close-up photo of the starboard bow, I noticed that the boards weren't laying as uniformly flat as I thought they were. Thank goodness for sanding and wood filler, I guess! 

 

 

Since the hull planking is such a slow process, I've started looking ahead to see what I can do about with all of the pieces that I'll need to fabricate. I've started with several items that I'm doing for the first time and I think they're turning out okay. I'll have plenty more opportunities to practice those with this ship! First up is the rudder well and its cover. The last couple inches of the parapet are a significant puzzle to me right now. Since the base of the rudder well cover is a pre-cut piece, I'm working outward from that. The cover is planked with deck planks (.5x3 limewood), then a lip is added on three sides with the same planks. I'm trying to follow the paint scheme for the French navy in the era of Louis XV (when xebecs were first introduced to that navy), so fixtures like this are all going to be painted in red ochre. On top of the cover are two guides for the sternsprit. In the photo its sitting on the frame of the rudder well; I cut those three pieces out of 2x8 limewood the sanded them, so they are lined up under the cover while the glue dries. Once that's set, I can start to measure out the frame for this section, in preparation for adding grating in one part and dowels in the other. From here on out, the pictures are extreme close-ups at the limit of what my phone can do...apologies for the poor quality of them. This is the largest piece in this set of photos and its only about 21x25mm. I'll have to track down my daughter's iPhone telephoto lens at some point, so I can get some better shots as work progresses. 

 

  

 

In addition to the sternmost part of the parapet, both hatch covers are made of grating. None of my previous kits had any of that, so this shot of the aft hatch cover is my first effort. I sanded the 45º angles in the corners of the frame to match the plans; this was also different than my previous kits and required a great deal of patience to get everything to fit. Overall, could definitely be better. Once the glue dries, I'm hoping that sanding will help even things out more. Then some red ochre paint.

 

 

All of my previous kits were fishing boats, so this also represents my first time building cannon. Before cutting out gun ports, I wanted to make sure I had one cannon built to use as a guide. The carriage consists of three pre-cut pieces that fit together like a glove. The cannons arrive in brass...a couple with tarnish that will need to be cleaned up. The axle is also pre-cut, though it's really snug as it slides through the pre-drilled hole in the cannon. That much goes together pretty easily. The brackets and pins? Uff da. It's a similar challenge to putting nails in the brackets on a rudder...but with much less surface area to catch dropped pins. Since my smallest drill bit is 1mm and the sides of the carriage are also about 1mm, I decided to drive in pilot holes with pins. After gluing the bracket in place over the pilot holes, I used a toothpick to dab in a small drop of glue. I cut the head off of a pin with as little of the post as possible, then used the tip of my Exacto knife to maneuver each pinhead into its pilot hole. Of course, I painted before assembly: red ochre for the carriage, bulwark gun red for the barrel, and iron black for the cannon. For a first attempt, I'm pretty pleased. Only eleven more to go!

 

[BobG]

Even though the first planking won't be visible in the finished model, it is a great opportunity to learn planking skills so that you feel more confident and are able to do a better job on your second planking. The following post by gbarlow is excellent and well worth the time to read it carefully:

 

 

 

[HakeZou]

On 9/12/2020 at 1:18 PM, BobG said:

Even though the first planking won't be visible in the finished model, it is a great opportunity to learn planking skills so that you feel more confident and are able to do a better job on your second planking. The following post by gbarlow is excellent and well worth the time to read it carefully:

Thanks for sharing that, Bob, and thanks to glbarlow for the beautifully illustrated guide!

 

I think the bow is the key spot where I need some more practice. After that first plank, the others have gone on better, though there's a bit of an unintended clinkering effect that will have to be smoothed out and a slight imbalance that I'll be paying attention to as soon as I reach the ones that are tapered. Although I definitely need to keep building my skills, I can definitely see improvement compared to my first ship, the Bon Retour, which had a single-planked hull and which needed a lot of help from woodfiller to smooth out the hull. However, once I get past the curves of the bow, everything's looking good to me.

 

 

 

[HakeZou]

Slow and steady progress on the hull over the past week and a half, but tonight I glued in the last two planks of the first layer. I've done a bit of sanding, but have a ways to go to smooth everything out. I'm mostly satisfied with the work I've done, though I would hardly call it perfect. The bow still has a bit of a clinker effect that I'm hoping I can sand down. The stern hasn't been sanded or cleaned up at all yet, so it still looks a bit raggedy where I trimmed the planks. The planks between the maximum curve and keel amidships have some gaps that I've filled with PVA glue and sawdust (not clearly visible in the photos).

 

I also built a slip for the boat to sit in while I work on it. The kit provides a 6x6x500 piece of limewood for just this purpose. After cutting it in half, I attached the two pieces to a random piece of 3/4"x2" that I had sitting around from another project. 

 

Next steps: I've trimmed the tops of the bulwark frames from the main deck and so need to finish planking it. Then I'll plank the sides of the parapet and add deck planking to the fore- and aft-decks. 

 

Photos are a full shot from the starboard side, then three details of stern, midship, and bow. Finally, two shots from straight ahead and straight behind.

 

[HakeZou]

Finished planking the main deck tonight. As I mentioned above, this was done in two stages, since significant portions of the main deck are inaccessible once the fore- and aftdecks are installed. Because of that, I'd taken care of the middle part, the easy part since everything ran straight from bulwark #1 to bulwark #9. The edges, however, posed more of a challenge due to the overhang of the fore- and aftdecks and the curvature on the sides. Using a technique I picked up while working on the Bon Retour, I used a paper stencil to get the fit as tight as I could. (For reference, see Invictaag's Bon Retour build log on BrexitModeller; I planked the Bon Retour's deck before installing the bulwarks, so this my first time using this technique.) The photos don't capture all of the steps, but they should give you a good idea.

 

First, I used the plywood sheet to trace the open section of the main deck. I used a little bit of painter's tape to keep the plywood from sliding around. In order to get the straight vertical lines, I measured at each bulwark the gap between the sides and the planks that I'd already laid; then I just used a ruler to connect the dots. After cutting out the stencil, I checked it against the deck to make sure everything was still lined up well. (I didn't start taking photos until I was sure this was going to work, so the first stencil is already cut out in these two photos).

 

             

 

Next, I trimmed four planks to a size that would generously accommodate the curve. After securing the planks to each other and the stencil using painter's tape, I trimmed off the excess. Then I laid the whole block in to check the fit, fine-tuning the trimming as necessary. The first photo here is stencil side up before trimming the excess; the second has the planks up after trimming (but before fine-tuning...that curve in the second photo isn't smooth yet!).

 

           

 

And two shots at the end, one overhead and one close-up of the port side (the side that looks better...). There's still sanding to do once the glue dries, but I'm pleased with how the deck is looking so far!

 

           

[HakeZou]

Almost a week since I last posted! It's been a busy one, though I've managed to squeeze in some work on the xebec. The first big task from last week was to lay down the first layer of planks on the parapet's exterior. There's still some trimming to do on the front ends of those, but since they follow a staircase, I'm going to wait on that until I have a better idea of how the staircase fits. However, the ship's true profile is really starting to emerge! Next step on that front will be to map out and cut the gunports. (Note: I had an issue of poor construction with my slip, so I need to remake that.)

 

A note for others who might make this kit: The diagrams indicate that you should attach the transom when you affix the bulwarks and longerons. I did, though a bit of guesswork was involved. However, with only minimal points of contact, it fell off. This is why you will notice it in my post from September 6, but then it disappeared until this post. Based on my experience, I recommend using the stern to align the longerons when you attach those, but not to worry about gluing it at that point. Instead, glue it into place at this stage, when you can rely on the side planks for extra support and for positioning it at the correct angle.

 

 

Most of my work in the last week has been devoted to the three decks, which are all in slightly different stages. There are two coats of stain on the main deck, though I need to sand that down and try to get it more even. (The camera angles may introduce some curvature, but the lighting also make the stain look better than it actually is.) I've opted for an oak stain to contrast with the walnut that will line the bulwarks and hull. The foredeck has been planked and sanded (though the photo revealed one spot that needs to be filed down a bit better); I'll be staining that later this week. This evening I finished planking the aftdeck; plenty of trimming/filing and sanding to do there once the glue dries.

 

 

     

[HakeZou]

This time a month has passed since my last update! But what a month, highlighted by purchasing and moving in to our new house! I still have a lot of boxes to unpack in my office space, but I did get to the point last night of being able to pull out some of my tools and do some work on the xebec. So, a quick update on what I've done over the last few weeks:

• I cleaned up the fore- and aft-decks, then stained them.
• I lined the façade of the parapet and the interior of the bulwarks with walnut planks. Some really fussy work there! I ended up making paper stencils of the two sides of the façade, then trimmed the planks to match and maneuvered them into place. The interior lining of bulwarks needed a significant amount of careful trimming to follow the curve of the main deck and to fit around the fore- and aft-decks. The slope of the aft-deck is also different than the slope of the planks in the lining, so it was a bit of work to get those to fit snugly.
• I started laying the second layer of planks on the hull. This didn't go as smoothly as it probably should have...I ended up applying three to each side and then removing them. The second attempt has gone much better. While I realize that I should have finished the whole hull first, there were a few things that I wanted to make sure were done before everything went into boxes for the move. So, I've also done the outer layer of the parapet and cut out the gunports. (Gunports haven't been filed yet, so they look a little funky.)
• Last night, I cleaned up the tops of the bulwarks and cut the angles between the different levels of the bulwarks. Note the difference in profile from the photos in the last post to this one—a much sharper look! I also began cleaning up the interior planking on the stern transom; still some work to do on that, though it's starting to take shape.

Next step is to sand down the excess planking around the stern transom and the longerons. Then, once a few more boxes are unpacked, I'll be able to resume work on the hull. 

 

The photos are an overhead shot on my worktable, then front and side shots on the shelf where it will ultimately be displayed. Then, just for fun, a shot of the top shelves of my bookcases, where my completed ship models are awaiting this one! 

 

 

[HakeZou]

It's been a stressful week and I find working on ships is a fantastic stress-buster...so lots of progress happening here! The big excitement was laying the last plank on the hull! It's certainly not perfect and still needs to be sanded down, but it already looks a lot better than the first layer. My skills definitely improved as I went along. The photos are of the starboard side and a shot from below.  I still need to plank the stern, but this was the big landmark for me.

 

 

I have also painted the interior bulwarks and stern transom in red ochre. I'm trying to paint this in the style of the xebecs that were used in the French navy in the 1750s. Jean Boudriot seems to be the expert on this. While I haven't managed to get my hands on his work yet, I have found some helpful summaries on various discussion boards. Roland Portanier's MA thesis, "The Lost Art of Naval Decoration in 18th Century French Canada," has also been immensely helpful, thanks to a great footnote summary (p. 44, fn 137) and reproductions of two figures from Boudriot's Le vaisseau de 74 canons (pp. 121–122). Not a great photo, but you get the idea at least.

 

 

Finally, I've mostly finished up the cannon. The carriages are assembled—no wheels here—and everything is painted (red ochre for the carriages, matte black for the barrels, and red for the bores. When I made a test cannon a while back, I discovered that it was essential to get some drill bits smaller then 1mm. Those will be arriving on my doorstep tomorrow, so this weekend I'll get the brass hardware attached to the rest of them.

 

 

Next steps: sand the hull, plank the stern, and figure out how to successfully assemble everything that goes between the end of the aft-deck and the stern transom. (I took a stab at that one evening this week...it did not go well...) 

[HakeZou]

I was able to put in some good time on the xebec over the last few days. I planked the stern, then sanded the hull. I've also been plugging away at the cannon, installing the brass brackets and rivets. This has been a really tedious task and I can't help but think there must be a better way of doing it. Essentially, I glue the barrel into place, checking the angle against the gunport. Then I glue the bracket into place. A day or so later, I drill out holes for the rivets. Somehow, I always manage to detach the brackets in that process. I'm using an .8mm drill bit, since my .6mm bit is too small for the pins and my 1mm bit is too big for the holes in the bracket. Once the holes are drilled, I clean up the dried glue from the previous day, dab in a little bit of fresh glue and replace the brackets. Then I snip off the tops some pins and work them into the holes using the tip of my Exacto knife (the dull side, not the blade). That last step always seems to take a lot of tries before I get the pin to slide into place. The level of concentration needed is enough that I can usually do one or two before needing a break (though that would probably be better if I had one of those stand mounted magnifying glasses!). I can't imagine how some of you get through this step on more heavily armed warships! As you can see in the photo, seven down, five to go (one of which has a wonky brackets that need to be straightened!).

 

 

I'm still holding off on the section between the aft-deck and the stern transom, though I think I've come up with a plan for it. In the meantime, I'm working on some of the trim for the hull. As you can see in the photo on the cover of the box, there are six horizontal pieces of trim and several vertical pieces. Some of the horizontal ones are basically extensions of the gunwales. For my own reference, I've numbered the horizontal pieces. All of them are 2x2mm limewood, except for #5, which is 2x3. Piece #5 sits on top of piece #6 and curves laterally along the side of the ship.

 

 

I decided to start by fitting pieces #5 and 6. When my usual strategy of soaking wood in hot water wasn't sufficient to bend #5, I knew I needed to try something different. Since the kit comes with more 2x2 limewood than 2x3, I figured I ought to experiment on #6 first. After a lot of research on MSW, I convinced my daughter to loan me her curling iron. It took a little bit of experimenting—and only one piece of broken wood!—but I managed to get the hang of it. I had read plenty of advice to not do it all in one go, so ended up curving it in three stages. For the first two, I periodically dipped the wood in water and applied the curling iron with just enough pressure to get some curve. (The first two photos, with the curling iron, show the progress after each of these stages.) After two rounds of that, I was able to secure the to pieces to the hull and, with a bit more encouragement from the curling iron, I achieved an almost perfect fit. Tomorrow, I'll come back and clean things up, then get started on bending the 2x3 pieces.

 

5

[HakeZou]

A wild couple of weeks here—including a broken sewer line and a temporary move out of my usual basement work/hobby space—so I have only made slow progress. Three updates to share in this post. First, I've finished installing the hardware on the cannon. I just need to apply some finish and then they are, well, finished. Second, I've finished shaping the trim pieces for the hull and so moved into painting. My plan is to try to keep things a little neater by painting the trim pieces and gunwales first, then attaching them. I haven't gotten to those pieces yet, but have painted the hull. I started by laying painters tape down in all the place on which the trim pieces will be glued.

 

 

 

In order to determine the spacing for the trim pieces on the side of the aft deck, I took the brass decorations out of their plastic bag. Ugh. What a disappointment! There are 18 crown pieces that are supposed to line the top row, 2 window frames that are supposed to go on the stern, and a figurehead for the ram. Given how poorly shaped the crowns and window pieces are, I will not be using them. I haven't decided yet on the figurehead...it looks okay from each side, but the two sides are far from symmetrical. I'll make a final decision on that once I get to work on the ram.

 

 

I still need to touch up the paint job a bit, but I'm mostly pleased with how it's looking. I also aligned the pedestals and base that I purchased, so I can mount the ship on there soon. The base and pedestals are by Amati. Since there aren't any good photos of Amati's pedestals online, it may be helpful to note that these are the 23mm wooden pedestals. The base is MDF, but the pedestals are a nice solid wood...I don't know enough to say which kind of wood. With lots of patience, I used a file to carve a slot for the keel.

 

 

Next steps: touch up the paint job on the hull, paint and attach the trim and gunwales, and stain the display stand.

[HakeZou]

Feeling really great this morning! I had been pretty frustrated with my attempts to bend the 2x3 pieces that make up the gunwales for the foredeck. According to the plans, this piece is supposed to be continuous and curve laterally. Well, after breaking a couple planks, I gave up on that. Midships and back, the 3mm side will be on top. But around the foredeck, the 2mm side will be up (I'm thinking of it as 3x2 instead of 2x3, height-by-width). I'll sand everything down so the two pieces transition smoothly.

 

So, Thursday evening, I decided to make a jig. Since I'm still new in the hobby, I have very little spare wood stored up. However, I did have a short piece of pine wood laying around in my office (leftover from building a stand for our automatic fish feeder). So, I flipped the xebec upside down and traced the shape of the gunwales from the stempost to the point were they will angle up to the aftdeck. Then, I drove in some nails along the line, making sure to have plenty of them where the curve is the greatest. Nothing fancy, but I thought it would get the job done.

 

 

Having decided to make the forward and midships gunwales out of separate pieces, I focused on the forward part of the jig and plank. I soaked it a little and used a curling iron to give it a little bit of a bend, then began working the plank in. There are 13 nails on the jig, so first I stood the plank against nails #1 (by stempost) and #13. Then, I added a pushpin just forward of nail #13. Then another pushpin just forward of nail #8. From there, I gently bent the plank until it fit snugly against each successive nail going forward, adding pushpins one at a time. Here's a shot of the forward bend with all of the pushpins in place.

 

 

 

I left the plank to sit in the jig for a while...I guess 12 to 14 hours? I didn't really time it accurately. At that point. I trimmed off the little bit hanging off by nail #1. Since I laid the pinewood flush against the stempost when I traced the line, the edge of this board gives me the angle at which I need to cut to fit the gunwale to the stempost. Here's the final bend, with the plank resting on my recently stained display stand.

 

 

And a rough fitting in its final location. I haven't cut the forward bend off yet, since I want to lay the midships gunwales first in order to make sure I handle the transition from 3x2 to 2x3 accurately. 

 

[BobG]

Very nice work on that tricky bending of the gunwales!

[HakeZou]

Thanks, Bob! Given that I'm still building up my shipbuilding resources, I haven't had many opportunities to make jigs. So I'm really pleased with how well this one worked out! The idea for my jig came after watching a lot of Leo Goolden's videos about rebuilding and restoring the Tally Ho. Goolden's craftsmanship is inspirational and I've learned a lot about boatbuilding from watching his videos. 

 

Hope you're doing better now!

[HakeZou]

Almost three months ago, I started looking ahead to the work on the rudder well. I made some progress on it, but nothing I'd consider significant. My goal was to build the rudder well assembly into a single unit that could be just dropped into place on the longerons. Once I realized that I would need to put that assembly in place before attaching the gunwales, I decided to finish the rudder well assembly in between coats of paint on the trim pieces. There are a lot of photos here covering most of the steps that I've taken over the last several days.

 

Back in September, I originally measured, cut, and glued the four outer frame pieces. I had also put together the rudder housing, but wasn't quite ready to tackle the rest of the assembly. I started working on this again by attaching the crosspiece. The challenge in locating this was that the front of the rudder housing needs to be aligned with the front edge of the front piece, while the back wall of the rudder housing sits on the crosspiece. Given the various angles involved, I wasn't confident in my geometry and so worked out the placement by trial and error. Once I finally felt confident I had it in the right place, I made some cuts. Inspired by Leo Goolden's Tally Ho videos, I decided to try an overlapping joint. It was a bit tricky, but I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out and I wish I'd done the same at the corners of the outer frame pieces. The photos are an overhead shot of the frame with the crosspiece (the back piece of the frame fell off...which ended up being a good thing) and a side shot featuring the overlapping joint (indicated by the red arrow).

 

 

Next up was assembling the grating for the rear part of the assembly. The kit comes with lots of grating pieces. After measuring it out, I needed 2 long strips and 20 short ones. Since each grating piece has ten slots, I had to overlap the 2 long strips—the top long strip in the photo is two pieces with 10 slots each, the bottom is three pieces with 5, 10, and 5 slots. 

 

 

Next up, I sand down the grating to fit into the frame. Here's where it was good that the rear piece of the outer frame had fallen off! In the first photo, you can see the assembly sitting in its final place on the rudder well. In the second, I sanded the fourth side and reattached the rear piece. Now that the grating was in, there were more surfaces for glue, so that piece is much more firmly in place and won't fall off again.

 

 

Next up, I needed to cut, fit, and place ten 2mm dowels into the front part of the outer frame. Five of these dowels are placed on either side of the rudder housing, at 1mm spacing. This was another tricky spot for me. I first tried to place marks on the front and centerpieces, but it made me a bit crosseyed. So, I switched tactics and made a template. The portion of the template shaded grey represents the rudder housing, while the red portions are the dowels. After preparing the template, I taped it onto the bottom of the assembly.

 

 

Next, I cut and fit the dowels. My assortment of tools is still very basic...I found myself longing for a table saw! But, after making a model out of a 2x2 plank, I managed to cut the dowels using my Exacto knife. Not a quick process, I got the job done. Using the template, I aligned the dowels. I did an okay job, but perfect alignment at 1mm was a bit beyond my skills. These photos show the assembly with the dowels in place, then dropped into place in the rudder well.

 

 

The next step was to attach the rudder housing that I'd made back in September. The walls are made out of 2x8 limewood. I've added a 2x2 piece as a brace to keep the spacing right in front. (Not to worry, that chip in the second photo will be completely hidden.)

 

 

Now, a few close-ups of the finished (but unpainted) rudder well assembly with the cover on the rudder housing, first by itself, then dropped into place (but not glued yet). The cover is on to help ensure that the walls keep the correct shape. Except for the cover, the assembly will be painted dull black. Once the rudder and tiller are in place, I'll add a dividing wall between the aftdeck and this assembly. 

 

 

 

And finally, a few shots of the full ship, showing my progress so far. Just for fun, I placed the cannon and forward hatch cover, though these aren't yet glued into place.

 

[HakeZou]

A short update after the very long one that precedes this. I'm continuing to work on the exterior trim of the hull. As I posted a while back, there are six horizontal pieces of trim. I just took the clips off of piece #4 and am pretty pleased about how it turned out. This one poses a different challenge than the others, since it is aligned with the gun ports. I had two options, as far as I could tell. Either attach a single 2x2 batten and trim out the bits crossing the gun ports or measure each segment and cut the batten to measure. Because I'm painting each trim piece before attaching it, I opted for the latter. I had already attached the bow segment (seg. A), since I bent that into shape a week or two ago. But segments B through G went on pretty well. Segment G (the sternmost piece) has just a slight twist to it, so I had to hold that one in place for quite awhile before the PVA glue set. Photos are of the starboard side, with the close-up aligned with gunport #3.

 

 

Especially in the close-up, you'll notice the unpainted spot where the topside of trim piece #6 meets the hull. Well, the hull's unpainted there...I got ahead of myself on trim piece #6 and had to sand off some paint after the first coat. Sometime very soon I'm going to have to solve the problem of trim piece #5. All of the other trim pieces are 2x2 battens, but #5 is 2x3. It forms a ledge that sits directly on top of trim piece #6. It also abuts the brass supports for the ram. The problem is that I need to figure out how best to cut a piece of 2x3 brass. Once its cut, I'll need to shape the two halves, so I know exactly where piece #5 ends.

• For those following, I'd appreciate any recommendations on cutting and shaping 2mm-thick brass. The only brass strips I've worked with before were .5mm thick and so easily handled with my wire snips and just as easily shaped with my fingers or the butt-end of my Exacto knife.

Finally, I also took a little time to start working on interior trim. Some of the interior trim needs to fit into the gunwales, so I figured I might as well do some now, starting with the entry to the cabin. I lined each jamb with two pieces of 1x3 limewood. The plans call for 2x2 pieces along the base of the bulkhead. I didn't like the squared-off look there, so I rounded the exposed edge and ends. I need to go back with a little touch-up paint, but will wait to do that until I've installed the head jamb. 

 

[HakeZou]

I've been continuing to work on preparing trim pieces—"only" 24 more pieces of trim left to attach! I've also been working on shaping the rail caps (a term I just learned...I've been incorrectly calling them gunwales in previous posts). That has been a frustrating process. The two longest pieces, which are amidships, are 2x3 limewood that need to be edge set with a gentle curve. I've tried bending them twice, but so far they just spring right back into their original straight shape. Tonight I soaked them in hot water, then pinned them into the after part of the jig I wrote about on December 6. I'll leave them like that for a couple days and see if it gets me the curve I need. 

 

 

I've also painted and installed the rudder well assembly. These extreme close-ups and my ring light really emphasize the imperfection of my paint job...though the top of the housing is intentionally unpainted, so the cover can eventually be glued on there. It looks better in person, though there's clearly a lot of room for my painting skills to improve. The light-colored bit toward the right side looks like unpainted wood, but is actually a bit of excess glue that I couldn't reach to wipe it away. Once it dries, I'll use my Exacto knife to clean that up. Apart from that, I'm pleased. The photos are two shots of the counterstern from above, one with the rudder well cover and one without; then one from below.

 

 

Finally, in between coats of paint on trim pieces, I've been working on the anchors. Curiously, the plans call for fabricating the anchor stocks out of 4x4 walnut, even though the plywood sheets in the kit include two pre-shaped anchor stocks. To preserve my wood supplies, I went ahead and used the plywood pieces. The first three photos were taken after shaping the first stock. In the overhead shot, you'll notice that I didn't have to do much in the horizontal dimension; I sanded down the ends so they were less pointy, but otherwise that was good. In the side shot, you can see that most of the work was focused on the vertical dimension. The center portion is to be 4mm tall, while the ends taper down to 2mm; when I took the photo, I hadn't quite finished with the center section. Finally, the high angle shot gives a little better perspective on the overall shaping.

 

 

The pre-drilled holes are perfectly sized to fit onto the shank. The shanks and flukes come as a single die-cast metal piece, finished in black. There were a couple nubs from the casting process that had to be filed off, but overall, they're made much better than the brass decorations that I'm ignoring. Two shots of the anchors with stocks attached, then with the paint drying on the stocks. Once the paint is dry, I'll put on some finish, then attach the rings. After that, I'll set them aside until I've finished with the hull trim and rail caps. 

 

 

[HakeZou]

Once again, I decided to work ahead a bit while waiting for coats of paint to dry. This time, I focused on the aft hatch cover. After doing the grating for the midships hatch cover and the rudder well assembly, I approached this with a lot of confidence. Of course, this is not to say it went perfectly, though I'm very pleased with how it ended up.

 

I began by assembling the grating...which took more tries than it should have to cut pieces the right length. After gluing and then sanding, I was ready to attach the frame. I was still feeling ambitious, so decided to do lap joints at the corners. After cutting the four frame pieces, I measured and trimmed off the corners. Next, I numbered each joint, so I could file them down to fit (first photo). This step went pretty well...except for one spot in which I must have been a little overzealous with the file. However, I made a shim out of .6mm-thick limewood and it was the perfect thickness (second photo, with the shim in the upper left).

 

 

Finally, it was time to sand and clean everything up. When I took the first of these photos, I noticed that I had a bit of excess glue in one corner and the shim wasn't as perfectly lined up as I thought. Thankfully, using the tip of my Exacto knife and a straight pin, I could clean those up. The second and third photos show the lap joints, with the shim indicated in the third. I still feel like a novice in a lot of ways, but feel pretty good about how these turned out! At the very least, they turned out much better than the 45 degree joints on the midships hatch cover. (I'm eyeing a pair of miter shears as a possible solution to help me cut angles more accurately and consistently.)

 

 

One nice thing about this kit is that the quantity of grating stock is far more generous than the rest of the wood stock. I still have this much left, even after making two hatch covers and the rudder well assembly—and ruining more than a few pieces along the way!

 

 

As for the next step, it will finally be time to attach the trim pieces I've been working on! In the morning, I'll finish painting the piece that goes on the after edge of the foredeck. Once that dries, I can attach the pieces laid out here (from left to right): the three pieces for the lower transom, three horizontal pieces for each side of the superstructure, the midships rail caps, and the rail pieces for the bow. In addition, there are two small pieces that are not pictured that will finish the trim on the forward edge of the aftdeck (you might be able to make out the three pieces that run athwartships there; the remaining two run diagonally to connect those three).

 

  

[HakeZou]

As planned, this morning I finished painting the last piece of trim for this stage of working on the hull. This evening, I started attaching them. I've been picturing the "bumblebee" design for a while, but it's nice to see it starting to come out! There's still a fair amount of clean-up work to do, but that will be work for another day.

 

First, a couple overview shots after attaching most pieces shown at the end of my last post. Regarding the note in the second photo: while installing the port bow rail, I accidentally put too much pressure on trim piece #6, dislodging one section of it. I'm not overly worried...trim piece #5 abuts that piece and so I can realign it then and give it more support. 

 

 

From above, you can see 10 of the pieces that I installed yesterday evening and today: the two bow rails, the after edge of the foredeck, the midship rail caps, and the five pieces that line the forward edge of the aftdeck.

 

 

While there's still quite a bit of trim work to do on the upper transom, the sides are nearly done. This last photo is a detail shot with annotations of the pieces that remain (not including the rail caps). I was about to attach the horizontal trim piece #1 when I realized I would need to do some lap joints with the vertical pieces. The swivel gun will have lap joints, too, but since it's mounted on a piece of 4x4 walnut and the trim pieces are 2x2, that won't be a problem.

 

 

[HakeZou]

Over the last couple days, I've been sanding down the pieces of trim that I mentioned in the last two posts. Smoothing out the joint where trim piece #3 connects to the midship rail caps, smoothing out the joints where side trim pieces connect with transom trim pieces, and removing the excess at the ends. As a result, there's plenty of touch-up painting to do, but otherwise I'm satisfied with that work for now.

 

This evening, I launched into the next phase of trim work . For now, this just consists of measuring and cutting pieces. The photo shows all of the pieces for this phase. At the top are the two planks for trim piece #5; they're wet because I was soaking them in hopes I could straighten them out enough for the job (the one on top is out of shape, since it was one of the pieces that I unsuccessfully tried to shape for the midships and bow rails). Those two planks will abut the head rails, the brass pieces in the upper right-hand corner. The next tier down are the eight remaining pieces of the rail caps. In the lower left-hand corner are trim pieces #1 (the long ones painted black), the vertical trim pieces (2x2 limewood), and the brackets for the swivel guns (4x4 walnut). In the lower right-hand corner are the trim pieces for the upper transom. There will be a third phase of trim work that will focus on the edges of the upper transom, but I'm not yet ready to tackle that problem.

 

 

The two head rails have concerned me for a while. In my previous kits, I've worked with .6mm-thick brass strips, which were easy enough to cut and shape with the low-tech hand tools that I have available. However, since the brass strip in this kit is 2mm thick, I wasn't sure my tools would be sufficient. Thankfully, I was wrong...though the job would have been easier with power tools. The photo shows the rails and the key tools I used. After marking the center point with my Exacto knife, I used my sturdier wire cutters. After filing the ends to smooth them out a bit (probably still need to do more of that), I used the flat part of my needlenose pliers to bend 5mm on the end that will attach to the head. Essentially, I held the brass strip firmly with the pliers, then bent it by hand at the edge of the pliers. Once the forward end was bent correctly, I used a dry erase marker to indicate where the brass strips made contact with the hull. Then, I again used the needlenose pliers to shape the brass to follow the hull's curve (in the photo, the rail on the left is turned on its side to show the curve). Finally, I needed to drill rivet holes. A drill press would have made very quick work of this...unfortunately, I don't have one. But with patience and a brand new 1mm bit, I got the job done with my pin vise drill! I just wish I had managed to keep the holes centered a little more consistently!

 

 

 

Next step: sanding and shaping the various trim pieces, paying particular attention to preparing lap joints where needed.

[HakeZou]

Well, as they say, one thing leads to another... I finished painting the two horizontal trim pieces #5 and was ready to think about attaching them. But since they abut the head rails, I needed to make sure I knew exactly where that joint would be. But since I couldn't seem to get the head rails to stay in place during a dry fit, I needed to attach them. But before I could attach them, I needed to work out the plan for the crosspieces on the head. But before I could do that, I needed to be sure I knew how they would fit with the bowsprit.

 

All this to say, I spent Christmas morning, prior to our pandemic-imposed family video conference/Christmas celebration, making a bowsprit and working my way backward through the steps in the first paragraph. This bowsprits a bit different than the bowsprits on my other kits, which were just simple tapered spars. This one has a square bottom and a bulb on the end, with a slight taper from 4mm to 3mm. The square bottom was good practice for the masts, since I had to build it out of 2x6x10 pieces attached to a 4mm dowel. Needless to say, I had a lot of sanding to do! I rounded the top of the bulb and seem to have a couple choices, since different photos of the kit show different things. Either, I'll paint the bulb with a gold/brass paint (I'm using Admiralty paints from Caldercraft) or I'll apply a ring of brass strip left over from a previous kit. Not sure yet, but I'm going to wait on that decision for awhile.

 

 

 

One thing that became clear is a typo in the plans. The widest cross piece in the head assembly (I think this would be the gammon piece?) is indicated as being made from two pieces of 2x3 limewood, with the bottom one recessed into the head and with a square hole cut to fit the bottom of the bowsprit. But I just don't see how that will be possible, unless I sand the square bottom pieces down to nothing.. My plan is to use 2x3 for the bottom half and 2x6 for the top...I think I'll have enough of the 2x6 planks to do that, at least!

 

As for the placement of the crosspieces...that was a little tricky to figure out. The front three pieces will be 2x2 limewood, recessed into the head. I ended up using a very thin plank to measure the length of the head, which turned out to be 2/3 the size of the detail picture in the drawings. After some more measurements and a little math, I decided to mark them out with 5mm gaps. After drawing them on the thin plank, I transferred them on to the head and cut them out. You can see them in the next photo, after I had painted and attached the head rails. The second photo here is a shot of the port head rail clipped in place as the glue dries. Both headrails have rivets made of pins. 

 

 

For me, the headrails are the first big symptom of a problem that I thought I had fixed. When I first started, the plywood sheet with the keel/stem post/stern post was significantly curved. I thought I had remedied that, but as I soon as I dry fit the headrails for the first time, I discovered that they will not and cannot be symmetrical on my ship. There is still a slight curve, so slight that I hadn't noticed it so clearly until now, but significant enough that the two headrails fit a little differently from each other. (Note: The head fades a bit to port, but not as much as it appears to in the overhead shot above; the camera angle and crooked clothespin are exaggerating it there.)

 

Regardless, with the head rails attached, I glued the starboard trim piece #5 into place. Since this sits directly on top of the 2x2 plank that comprises trim piece #6, clamping was an interesting challenge. You can see my solution in this photo (the clip on the head rails was removed shortly after the photo; the glue was dry, so it isn't needed anymore). I'll add the port piece tomorrow and once I do that, I will finally feel ready to mount the ship on the stand!