Le Coureur 1776 by captain_hook - CAF - Scale 1:48

[Vladimir_Wairoa]

So great build. 

[captain_hook]

Thank you very much, Dfell and Vladimir_Wairoa for the nice comments - very much appreciated.

[captain_hook]

As there were plenty of other things to do before Christmas I didn‘t quite find the time for modeling - but I will return to my build in a few days and start the planking then. Here in Germany there was some snow falling down last week but now it is just raining all day. But I heard a lot in the News about a heavy blizzard running through the USA and I hope all of you living there are ok and able to stay save until it is gone. 

 

Seems like Santa Clause has also visited my workshop and left a little Christmas tree there. I wish everyone on MSW a happy Christmas and - if you have any - a nice holiday. See you all here next year again ..

 

 

Edited December 24, 2022 by captain_hook

[James G]

Thank you and Merry Christmas to you! I’m located in West Michigan on the shore of Lake Michigan. The blizzard 🥶 is here!!! 30 knot NW winds, lots of lake-effect snow and 8 degrees. Perfect model ship building weather. Cheers 🍻 

[captain_hook]

Today I have started planking the outside with the first two planking rows on the starboard side. This is pretty much testing my patience and perseverance. No. 25 consists of four parts and no. 24 of three parts. No parts is fitting exactly from the start as they are longer and wider as needed. So you’re able to make custom adjustments but this takes a very large amount of time. As the cnc-milled rabbit is only about .5 mm deep you have to taper / flatten all parts of no. 25 to fit into that rabbit too. Took about 3 hours to finish one row and there are 23 more rows to go … I caught myself thinking about starting another project several times and this might be the final task to decide if I will continue building this model next year or just switch to a more suitable project like the Cheerful which has been waiting for me in the shelf for about 3 years now.

 

As the cherry stripes are slightly rotated around their own axis from center to bow and center to stern to fit the hull several clamps are needed to fix them in position until the glue has cured. 
 

 

Another problem is that the plans do not show exactly where the overlap of the clinker-planking begins for each row - so it’s about 3 cm at the bow and 5 cm at the stern for no. 24.

 

So that’s it all for this year, have to help my wife preparing the New-Year-Party. Stay tuned .. and happy new year!

 

Andreas 

 

[yvesvidal]

Don't give up Andreas. You are doing great with this difficult model.

 

Yves

[Beckmann]

Did you think about pre-bending the planks? That helps a lot. If you do so, and use Ponal-express glue, you sometimes don't need any clamps at all anymore. 

[Chuck]

Before you do give up…you might consider just sanding all of those little steps down smooth and planking without them.  It may prove to be easier.  Or almost remove them all but leave just a faint visible reminder of each strake to help you keep the planking run on track.  
 

Then just plank it clinker style on smooth frames.  
 

you may not end up with the same amount of planks but its the easier solution. 
 

just sand the top edge of each finished row of planking down flush to the frames and overlap the next row.  Make the ends going i nto the rabbets not clinker…slowly even those out.

[mtaylor]

Andreas,

I find hull planking very tedious and slow going so you're not  alone on this.  Many of us feel lucky to get one or strakes done a day.  I do think Chuck has a good solution.   Give it some thought and 

[captain_hook]

Thank you guys for the support. I don't want to give up but this task will definitely slow me down quite a bit and I have to move on carefully as I don't have much scrap wood for spare parts left. Precut-planking sucks!

@Beckmann Yes, I use a heat-gun for pre-bending the planks. But clamping them helps a lot to fix them in the right position until the glue has dried. 

@Chuck Thank you. I will keep that solution in mind if I fail to use the precut-planking properly. 

@mtaylor Yes, you're right - per aspera ad astra.