Phantom by SkiBee - Model Shipways - 1:96 Scale - New York Pilot Boat

[SkiBee]

I sanded the bulkheads more, got them pretty even, somewhere between 1/32 and 3/64 inch.  I would have liked to get them thinner but didn’t want to break them and I got tired of sanding.  I did sand down the stanchions wood a little thinner.

Now to the deck, I still might have more of a hump in the middle than I should but it seems like the wood is really hard compared to the outer sides of the deck.  I made a copy of the drawing and cut out the deck little larger, so I could fit it to the actual model by trimming it down.  Then transferred it to the scribed deck material.  Started cutting out the aft deck a little larger than required and sanded the edges down until it fit with a minor gap.

 

[lraymo]

Wow! Looks great!

[SkiBee]

Thanks for the positive comments, they do help. 

Cut the fwd deck out of the stock and sanded the edges until it fit fairly well.  I’m going to stain them with a weathered gray stain before gluing them in.

Started on the scuppers, first I covered the outside of the hull with a piece of sensitive painters’ tape to help prevent lifting the edges where I drilled, to prevent accidental scratching with the tools and to help mark the location of the scuppers on the outside.  I followed the instructions on measuring down from the top of the hull down to the deck and then marking the outside and drilling holes as close to each other as possible.  But then I used the drill bit like a file to connect the holes and then cleaned the slot out with a small file and sanding strip.  They might be a little two big, top to bottom, but I didn't have a smaller file.  I did get a little to close to the step edge on fwd port side, this led to a small split in the wood from the scupper to the step edge.  I used a little white glue to fix the split.  I plan on sanding my deck pieces edges a little more to simulate a water way, that is why my scuppers are as close to the wood block deck.  I plan to touch up the outside of the hull once I drill the other holes, also I will then paint the bulwarks prior to gluing the deck in to prevent getting paint on the deck.

 

 

[victory78]

On my LS PHANTOM I planked the decks outside the hull and then glued them in place. It's easier to do.

[SkiBee]

Drilled the holes on the side of the boat and for the hawse pipe and glue on the lid.  I then installed the bulwark stanchions.  You can see that I installed the stanchions prior to gluing in the deck and water way, the reason is that I am building it with a depressed waterway to collect and channel the deck water, by sanding the sides of the deck to fit inside the stanchions.  This might not be accurate, but I wanted to see how it looked.  I also cut out the bowsprit notch.
I’m going to try and make the cap rail out of the supplied wood strips; we’ll see how that looks.

 

 

[lraymo]

SkiBee, its looking really good.  I'm totally intimidated about what comes next after coppering... thinning the Bulwarks, and then seeing all the other work you've done so far!  I will be coming back to your pages alot!

[SkiBee]

Glued the deck down with rubber cement, I’ll see how that works.  I had read about some glues causing ripples in the wood.  Probably should have used more of a wood contact cement, but I wanted some ability to do last second adjustments to the deck alignment. I did not have a square piece of wood to use as the step, so I used a strip and sanded it to match the deck height, not to good on the Port side, but from the side and top it looks good.

Started to bend the wood strips for the cap rail.  The curve on the aft end is too much of a 90 deg for me to bend.  I have a piece of wood that was from one of my previous builds that I’m going to try and cut out the aft end of the cap rail and then butt the ends of the strips to it.  Also, I’m going to stain the cap rail a Light Oak (Minwax). 

 

I think it looks good, except that the grain does not flow in the same direction that the strips do, but I have a lot of clean up and touch up on the green step and the black hull.

[BrianK]

Catchin' up on several of your posts SkiBee. It is looking great. Absolutely love the thin sides. Will be doing that to my bulwarks too. That deck is ready for masts. I will be curious how you go about it. Thinking about drilling those holes scares me a wee bit.

 

BrianK

[lraymo]

Wow, looking good!  Love the Cap Rail.  What size strips are you using?

[gulfmedic1]

great job, Im about to get back to this kit and start working on it.

[gulfmedic1]

On 9/10/2021 at 1:46 PM, SkiBee said:

First, I checked the hull to the templates #5 thru #9 on both sides.  It appears that I need to reduce the thickness of the aft part of the keel all the way down for the sternpost to fit and deepen the curve in the hull.

I used a chisel blade, #18, to reduce the thickness of the keel all the way down the aft end and just taking off a very small vertical notch along the keel from station #5 to #9.  Then I used a curved x-acto #22 blade deepen the curve between the hull vertical and horizontal, as well as reduce the horizontal part of the hull from station #9 thru #7.  Then I used some 80 grit sandpaper to smooth the areas and checked them against the templates.  I had to do this about 4 times so I would not reduce to much at one time.

The fwd part of the hull just needed to be reduced a small amount to match the templates #1 thru #5, so I just used 80 grit sandpaper to reduce and smooth the hull transitions.  My final hull did not match all of the templates exactly, but I think it was good enough.  I was more concerned about getting a smooth hull with acceptable transitions.  You can see that some of the gouge areas and the aft part where the keel and sternpost will be glued will require some wood filler, but that is why the sell it.

You can see a faint line where I will carve the step at the top of the hull, I also drew a line on the top of the bulwark 1/32 in from the outside to act as guides for cutting out the step.  I also had to curve it up at the aft since the aft end of the fantail is only about 5/32 thick. I used a #22 curved blade to score along the line on the hull then I used the #18 chisel blade to take thin cuts down to the score line a couple of times.

When I was done carving the step on the port side, I noticed that I ended up with 1/16 th deep step.  I don’t think this will cause to much of a problem downstream, maybe with the way the cap rail fits.

question when you sanded down from Station 5 to 9 how did you ensure the gaps between the stations faired through. Thats the issue Im finding also did you have any issues with station 9 or 8 getting the template to match up?

[gulfmedic1]

On 9/13/2021 at 5:11 PM, SkiBee said:

Finished the top step all around the boat, the depth looks even all the way around, about 1/16 in.  There are a few dips in the step, maybe a little putty will smooth them out, I do believe in putty.

Built the bow stem per the instructions, reduced it down with a jeweler saw, knife, file and sand paper.  I did break the stem/keel piece at the joint, and then glued it back together, you can see some discontinuity at the joint at the curve.  Also, you can see a gap at the top of the stem, I got to the point that I could not reduce the stem’s curve to allow a perfect fit due to lack of material.  Will moisten it and use rubber bands to bend it to fit, and if that does not work, more putty.

The main part of the keel when on ok, along with the stern post.  You can see in the picture below that I have to fill in the aft part of the hull to match the keel and stern post, more putty.

Which wood filler do you use

[SkiBee]

Like a lot of you, this past year had a lot of challenges and things that took up all my time.  But thankfully things are calming down and I’m back to working on the Phantom.

Installed the eye bolts and then filed down the cleats.  The cleats that came with the kit looked oversized for their location and the scale of the ship, to me they would look better if they were 1/8 inch or less.  So, I tried to file them down more to scale.  I drilled pilot holes for the post on the end of the cleat, but I did drill through the hull a couple of times, so will have to do repair work later.  Also, made the fairleads out of the thick wire and glued them on a thin piece of wood rather than manila folder material.

Drilled the holes for the masts, started off with a small pilot hole then worked up to 11/32 in bit.  I used a piece of cardboard to get the fore-aft angle on the mast, the angle was from the drawing.

Started to drill/cut/file the holes in the cap rail for the chain plates.  Since my cap rail barely hung over the edge, the hole came out about halfway down the step.  In hindsight, I wish I would have seen what the chain plates look like on the outside of the cap rail.  Started to make the chain plates but I’m going to order some carbide bits, even with annealing the brass I break regular steel bits and it takes forever.  I might try using my Dremel after I buy a chuck that will hold a micro drill bit.

Finished the chain plates since I received the new carbide bits and they did work much better, I did break one due to putting to much side pressure on it.  What I really need is a good pair of small tip jewelers needle nose pilers to make things like the bend in the chain plates.  I’m going to take a day or two to repaint the hull and the green strip since they are quite scratched up.

[SkiBee]

On 8/31/2022 at 9:49 AM, gulfmedic1 said:

question when you sanded down from Station 5 to 9 how did you ensure the gaps between the stations faired through. Thats the issue Im finding also did you have any issues with station 9 or 8 getting the template to match up?

@gulfmedic1 Doc, yes I did, but I finally went with the imperfections once the hull was smooth and looked ok.  My hull is also not symmetric when you look at it from the aft, but I'll display it, so you see the side.  I'm the only one that will notice the imperfections in the hull.

On 9/4/2022 at 4:25 PM, gulfmedic1 said:

Which wood filler do you use

I used some Elmers wood filler; it stains ok when not a large area.

Hope all is well with you and yours, the old Doc

[SkiBee]

Had to take a couple of months off again for other things.  I repainted the black and green on the hull to cover up all the marks and scratches, looks better.
I’m not going to follow the sequence of the instructions but build/install the deck wooden structures like the wheelhouse, companionways and skylight, plus the centerline hardware like traveler, cockpit, stove pipe and such next.  In other wards install deck hardware from centerline out, to avoid breaking off the belaying pins and eyebolts.

For the traveler, I used the thick gage wire that came with the kit.  I made the top of the traveler out of a thin strip of wood instead of brass for the ease.  Then I spray painted the traveler and the eye bolts flat black.  It was difficult to work with the very small single block.  At first, I was going to use thin wire to affix the block to the eyebolt, but I went with thread in the kit.  I supper glued the thread to the top of the eyebolt and then down the side of the block.  I tied it to the eyebolt before gluing in the eyebolt and the traveler.  Then the tied the single block to the eyebolt that goes in front of the traveler.

[SkiBee]

I cut the out the wood for the companionways, wheel house and skylight, a fair amount of sanding off the tip of my fingers getting the roofs curved.  Then I painted them an off white (cream). To build the skylight, I glued two pieces together then  I painted the windows gloss black before adding the white window trim, which was left over 1/16 inch square strip painted white.  I wish I had used a 1/8 inch strip on the bottom.

I tried using pieces of manila folders for the roofs but I didn’t like the looks when they were done, so I used some of the left-over decking.  It might not be to scale but I liked the looks better.  I wetted the wood and then formed them on the roofs, using rubber bands to hold them.  I did stain them with a mixture of Minwax weathered oak and light oak.  I placed the on the deck and it looks like I have a space issue, in that giving enough room for the stove pipe, fife rail and the cockpit coaming, I need to back off a minute and determine how I’m going to solve this.

[SkiBee]

I laid some double-sided tape on the deck and placed everything on the deck including the fife rail so that I could determine the best way to fit everything on the deck. Reduced the gap between the fife rail and skylight, as well as the gap between the aft companionway and the skylight where the stove pipe goes.  But I still had a miss fit with t cockpit coaming.  I considered many options to fit the coaming and settled on letting the coaming interface with the companionway a little further down the side of the companionway.  But I still had to cut off the end of the coaming so it would fit correctly.
In hindsight if I had checked the layout with the pieces before finishing them, I would have shortened the companionway and skylight.  I also forgot to trace the outline of the coaming to make the seat out of wood or manila folder, so I'm just going to paint it a wood brown.

[SkiBee]

Well, another life got in the way of building.  I glued the remaining fwd companionway to the deck.  Now on to the chain plates.  It was difficult to cut the holes into the railing but I only messed up one, but I need to move on.  Not the happiest with them, if I was to do it over I would have the rail hang over the hull a little more.

[SkiBee]

It's been a year since I've done any work on the Phantom.  I tried to get back into it but just can't get interested, so I decided to take a sidestep and start the Armed Virginia Sloop by Model Shipways.  So follow me at a new build site for the AVS.  I will come back and finish this ship since I do like its lines.  My best Jim