USF Confederacy 1778 by WalrusGuy - Model Shipways - 1:64

[WalrusGuy]

I just completed my Syren build, so thought I'd set up a build log for the Confederacy. From what I have seen, this is an exceptional kit and there are amazing builds on this forum, so I hope to do this ship justice. This will be my third ship build. 

 

I plan to use the basswood supplied with the kit, but may upgrade the cannons and the blocks from Chuck. I am also thinking of fully rigging it, but I may change my mind as I progress with the build. I'll be making my own rope for this ship (I have not done this before), so let's see how it goes. 

 

This will be a really long project, and will only have time to work on it for a couple hours a day, so it will be a few years until completion.

 

Anyways, I was inspired by @Justin P. to take an opening box shot of the kit 😄, so here are the pics:

I will be starting this project in a few days. First I need to check the inventory and see if there are any parts missing.

[Justin P.]

Sweet!   So glad to see you getting right back to it! And glad to be the first to take a seat at the table.   Looking forward to this.

[Keithbrad80]

As promised I’ll be following along!

 

Bradley

[Cathead]

Excellent! This will make a nice companion for your Syren. Glad to be in from the beginning. Adding the rigging yourself sounds like a fun extra challenge.

[egkb]

Hey Again Walrus .. Here We Go ..  

 

Eamonn

 

So it wasn't a Schooner or a Sloop LOL

[WalrusGuy]

On 5/29/2021 at 1:02 PM, Justin P. said:

Sweet!   So glad to see you getting right back to it! And glad to be the first to take a seat at the table.   Looking forward to this.

 

On 5/29/2021 at 2:54 PM, Keithbrad80 said:

As promised I’ll be following along!

 

Bradley

 

On 5/30/2021 at 10:19 AM, Cathead said:

Excellent! This will make a nice companion for your Syren. Glad to be in from the beginning. Adding the rigging yourself sounds like a fun extra challenge.

 

On 5/30/2021 at 10:54 AM, egkb said:

Hey Again Walrus .. Here We Go ..  

 

Eamonn

 

So it wasn't a Schooner or a Sloop LOL

 

Thanks all for the comments and for joining in early! 

 

As always, I'm open to any comments, guidance, and tips. I'll also try to answer any questions to the best of my limited knowledge as I progress along. 

 

I did a quick inventory check and everything seems to be good. I can now start working on the model! 

[Pete D]

I think I will be paying attention to this one also

[WalrusGuy]

I finally made a start in the build! 

 

I first glued the the two halves of the bulkhead former. I clamped it as shown to ensure it would be completely flat. 

I used a saw blade to cut out the pieces from the sheets. I found it to be much quicker than using a #11 blade. 

I did the same for the stem pieces:

Next I shaped the rabbet strip. Before gluing the pieces of the stem, I sanded off the laser cut char marks on the edges, and darkened the seams with an HB pencil.

I gave it a quick sand to clean it up a bit:

I still need to taper the stem, finish up with tung oil, and glue in the rabbet strip on the bulkhead former.

[abelson]

Wow! You're already moving along. No rest for the weary.  Good luck. I'll be following.

[desalgu]

I'm following along also, and looking forward to your build log.  You're going to inspire me get started on the Duchess!

[WalrusGuy]

12 hours ago, abelson said:

Wow! You're already moving along. No rest for the weary.  Good luck. I'll be following.

 

9 hours ago, desalgu said:

I'm following along also, and looking forward to your build log.  You're going to inspire me get started on the Duchess!

Welcome aboard Steven and David! I was very eager to start this build ever since I got the kit some time last year... so I jumped right in! 😁

Edited June 6, 2021 by WalrusGuy

[WalrusGuy]

I finished Chapter 1 of the instructions! I used a sanding block to taper the stem. I sanded about 20-30 strokes before I switching to the other side, then repeated and repeated until I got the desired thickness for the figurehead to fit.

The stem did not fit perfectly on the bulkhead former, so I first glued the top part of the stem to the BF, then after the glue set, I glued and clamped the bottom side. I also glued the first part of the keel to provide some extra strength:

Then continued on gluing the other parts of the keel:

Next, to simulate the treenails, I tried using bamboo skewers (my first time trying this technique). I first roughly thinned down the skewer so that it fits the largest hole in the Byrnes drawplate. The drawplate was clamped on a table, then I used pliers to pull the skewer to thin it. I reduced the diameter all the way to 0.020" (#31 on the drawplate). I then dipped the skewer into dilute white glue, and inserted it into a predrilled 0.022" hole:

The final part of the chapter was to add the false keel. I followed the guidelines from TFFM Vol 1 to angle the joints (purpose of this is if the false keel were to break, it is supposed to slip away and not affect the neighboring false keel section). I also used pencil here to simulate the tarred flannel between the keel and false keel.

Once they were all glued in, I applied tung oil:

I just need to apply one more coat of the oil, then will start installing all the bulkheads.

Edited June 6, 2021 by WalrusGuy

[desalgu]

You are really moving along quickly!  I've never used tung oil.  How long does it take to dry?  

[michael mott]

Looks good, I will follow along as well.

 

Michael

[WalrusGuy]

6 hours ago, desalgu said:

You are really moving along quickly!  I've never used tung oil.  How long does it take to dry?  

It takes around 15 minutes for the wood to absorb it, then after a quick wipe, it takes 24 hours to fully dry. I used it for the Syren build, and it makes the wood 'pop' 😁

 

6 hours ago, michael mott said:

Looks good, I will follow along as well.

 

Michael

Thanks Michael! Welcome to this build. This is going to be a very long journey 😄

[WalrusGuy]

I finished installing all the bulkheads and the respective fillers (including the mast fillers). I installed each bulkhead and filler sequentially as shown below:

 

There is a very very slight twist in the bulkhead former (especially towards the stern). It may be nothing to worry about but I'll see whether it is worth fixing it or not: 

Edited June 9, 2021 by WalrusGuy

[WalrusGuy]

I decided to fix the minor warping issue. Didn't want to encounter major problems down the road 😄

 

I measured up the distance between the bulkheads in the center, then cut some leftover basswood from the Syren kit to straighten things up. I am still half way up the hull, but can already see everything straightening out! I am making sure the two pieces of wood are identical to 0.05 mm. It is a bit of a lengthy process since I am doing it all using hand tools (miter box and fine kerf razor saw, and files) 

 

Edited June 9, 2021 by WalrusGuy

[PRS]

Looking good.

[hamilton]

You've made a great start! Your Syren was really well done and I'm looking forward to seeing how it goes with this one. 

hamilton

[WalrusGuy]

18 hours ago, PRS said:

Looking good.

 

18 hours ago, hamilton said:

You've made a great start! Your Syren was really well done and I'm looking forward to seeing how it goes with this one. 

hamilton

Thank you for the kind words, Paul and Hamilton! 🙂

[WalrusGuy]

I finished installing all the filler pieces between the bulkheads, and here is a pic showing it straightened out (there is still about 1 degree of curvature, but I think I can live with that!)

And I forgot to post a pic of the bow pieces. I had to sand the edges of the top BFD piece and G1 piece at an angle to match the angle of the top of the keel so that all the pieces are flush. I also first glued up the G1 piece before the top BFD piece, and clamped them once I set the location while positioning the BFD piece. 

Lastly, I painted the bulkheads corresponding to the open slots black, and planked the bottom areas. I used a HB pencil to simulate caulking between the planks. This time, I only shaded one slide of the planks so that it appears a bit lighter. I applied two coats of tung oil after sanding them smooth.

 

[desalgu]

Great work!  You are really making progress.

 

I'm curious what you think of the bamboo tree nails.  Do they look any different than the "fake" tree nails on Syren that were holes drilled and filled in with wood filler.  The bamboo ones are a lot more work, so curious if you think it's worth it as far as appearance goes.

 

I like the filler pieces you added to keep things square.  The Duchess that I just started uses what I call an egg crate structure which will force everything into alignment, or at least that's the theory.  A lot of balsa airplane kits use this type of structure and it works well.  It avoids the alignment problems you have just gluing bulkhead into center frame.

[WalrusGuy]

5 hours ago, desalgu said:

Great work!  You are really making progress.

 

I'm curious what you think of the bamboo tree nails.  Do they look any different than the "fake" tree nails on Syren that were holes drilled and filled in with wood filler.  The bamboo ones are a lot more work, so curious if you think it's worth it as far as appearance goes.

 

I like the filler pieces you added to keep things square.  The Duchess that I just started uses what I call an egg crate structure which will force everything into alignment, or at least that's the theory.  A lot of balsa airplane kits use this type of structure and it works well.  It avoids the alignment problems you have just gluing bulkhead into center frame.

Thanks! I experimented with filler for the Syren, but it didn't come out too well, so I opted to use toothpicks then. I may have used the wrong filler type, it blended too well with the wood. Toothpicks worked fairly nicely, but I ended up with slightly different treenail sizes. 

 

This time I want to try getting more accurate treenails, so using the bamboo will help. The entire skewer will be drawn to the same diameter, so all the treenails will be the same size. I'll still experiment on some planks later on to see how it will look before finalizing my decision. 

 

Also, I may be the rare few who actually likes the process of treenailing, so I don't mind the extra work of using the bamboo 😄

Edited June 11, 2021 by WalrusGuy

[egkb]

Looking forward to seeing the treenail result.. I'll be adding them to my next build (Sherbourne)

 

Eamonn

 

Nice Deck Work BTW I'll have to get my Tung Oil out again and experiment.. Doubt I'll get your result though 😃

[WalrusGuy]

7 hours ago, egkb said:

Looking forward to seeing the treenail result.. I'll be adding them to my next build (Sherbourne)

 

Eamonn

 

Nice Deck Work BTW I'll have to get my Tung Oil out again and experiment.. Doubt I'll get your result though 😃

Thank you Eamonn! I found with Tung oil, the best results come out when the wood is sanded very smooth before applying it. It gives a very nice finish. I look forward to your Sherbourne build 😁

[WalrusGuy]

I almost done with Chapter 2. I finished fairing the hull and installed the frames in the cutaway section. When fairing, I placed some tissue over the decking areas so they do not become very dusty and dirty.

 

Talking about fairing the hull... it was very difficult to sand, because of how big it is! I had trouble placing it in a stable spot for me to sand nicely, and I found it was best if the ship faced me so I could sand the places at the extreme curvature. I also found that it was easier to fail when I flipped it upside down.

 

 When gluing in the pieces for the cutaway frame, the bottom piece had to be glued away from the backing piece, so I stuck a strip piece of wood to cover the gap:

Then I painted the interior black, then started gluing the frames. The thick frames consisted of two of the smaller ones, which I clamped tightly so that the joint was less visible.

Then, lots of sanding......

After vacuuming, the lines showed up nicely!

 

Here, you can see how much I had to sand the frames down. They ended up about half the initial thickness (maybe even thinner!)

 

I also made sure to install the safety bars, but they kept slipping out. I may need to find a better way to secure them. Anyways, here is an overall photo of the ship:

Next, I will use some dark varnish on sample pieces to see how they turn out. If they look good, I will apply it on the frames to provide some contrast to the surrounding planking. 

 

Once that is finished, I will need to make the base more stable by adding some pieces to support the bulkheads, then will start on the stern framing.

[WalrusGuy]

I decided to go ahead and try out the tung oil on the frames, and got a pleasant surprise!! The frames appeared darker than what they were originally, and also darker than the other places I used tung oil on. I think it is because the surface is actually an edge grain transitioning into an end grain through the curve. I also noticed the oil being soaked in the wood like a sponge! I'll be applying one more coat tomorrow. 

I dry-fitted the stern frame pieces, and noticed a huge gap between the portside and starboard side pieces. After many minutes (maybe even an hour!) of wondering why and measuring everything, I noticed that somehow the starboard piece needed to be angled upwards and not sit flush with bulkhead 8B. So I glued in some rough pieces of wood to achieve the correct angle:

I then glued all the pieces in place. I made a photocopy of the stern plans, and made sure all the pieces were oriented correctly while the glue set.

I'll continue with the stern framing. What I have seen in other logs, many complications may arise when framing the ports in this section, so I'll be sure to take my time and not rush anything.

[cdrusn89]

Looking good - the stern is definitely a challenge.

Edited June 14, 2021 by cdrusn89

[WalrusGuy]

Yes Gary, I'm finding it very challenging, and I'm still at the early stages of the chapter!! 

 

When installing the piece HH, I noticed the starboard side did not fit. The portside part fitted ok. I actually needed to cut of about 5mm for the starboard one. Instead of doing that, I snapped off the starboard AA and BB pieces 😬, and glued in a small sliver of wood to fix this deviation. Here is a pic showing what I mean: 

All the pieces were now identical, the HH piece could fit without cutting a significant portion off, and the rest of the installations were fairly straight forward. When aligning the HH pieces, I spanned a ruler across both beams to make sure they were completely flat.

Next I'll be installing the lintels. I have a feeling more problems may arise..... 

Edited June 15, 2021 by WalrusGuy

[WalrusGuy]

Thanks all for the likes! I installed the lintels. It was fairly straightforward.... but a long process. I went through this part very slowly, measuring 3 times or so before gluing each piece permanently. I measured the distances between the top of the frames to the top of the lintels, and all seem to be symmetric. While the glue set, I placed a toothpick on top and then used the kitchen counter as the background to see if it was completely flat. 

 

Next I will be fairing the exterior and then installing the sills. 

 

Edited June 16, 2021 by WalrusGuy