HMS Pickle by WalrusGuy - Caldercraft - 1:64 - experimental build

[WalrusGuy]

While I slowly progress with my Confederacy build, I decided to make a start with the HMS Pickle. I chose to build this small model as it will serve as a nice break from the big Confed ship. 

 

I plan to use Alaskan Yellow Cedar for the Pickle, so this will make it somewhat of a scratch build. I will not be copper plating and will only paint some areas of the ship (depending on how my planking goes!). @michael mott was very kind and generous to provide me with the wood and also took the time to mill the strips for me using his table saw. Not to mention all the invaluable modelling tips he provided which I will share as I progress through this build.

 

I labelled this as an 'experimental build' since it is my first time scratch building a lot of the items, and also will try to experiment by not strictly following the manual and the provided plans. From what I have read on other logs, the plans are not accurate and are instead based on Pickle's sister ship. Also, I could not find accurate plans of the schooner on the National Maritime Museum. Based on this, I will predominantly use Chuck's practicum on the Cheerful and also Dubz's Sherbourne and Dali's Cutter Alert as guides to for this experimental build. I may also purchase the following books as I progress with this build:

• "The Colonial schooner" by Harold Hahn
• "Rigging fore-and-aft Craft" by Lennarth Petersson 
• "The cutter Alert" by  Peter Goodwin

 

I also plan to frame the gun ports (as Chuck did for his Cheerful) instead of using the provided laser cut sheet. This way, I can have a single layer of planks across the hull and bulwarks. 

 

As always, any comments, tips, and guidance will be greatly appreciated! 😁

 

So now to the build! I made a small start to the ship where I first cut out out the stem piece from a sheet of the cedar. The small second stem piece in the tracing in the figure below was cut out from a different section of the sheet so a different wood grain can be seen.

I used HB pencil between the joints (on one side of the joint only) to simulate the caulking:

I then planed down the surfaces using a jig that Michael generously made for me (which I have shown later in the post). This made the surface incredibly smooth (much smoother and nicer than what sandpaper would have accomplished). I also marked the location of the bobstay which I will drill when drilling out the holes for the treenails.

The first keel piece was then marked and cut out:

Now for the planing jig! Instead of using a thickness sander, I used a planer and this jig Michael built for me:

The thickness of the wood can be controlled using different widths of white plastic railing, and can be further finetuned by inserting strips of paper beneath the wood. I am fascinated by how accurately I can achieve different thickness of wood using this jig. And each piece is almost as smooth as glass! 

 

Next, I will be tapering the bulkhead former, treenailing the stem and keel pieces, and then gluing the whole assembly together.

[michael mott]

Thanks for the kind words and it looks like you have made a great start.

 

Michael

[Chuck]

Nice start.   Great plan to dump that hull sheet.  You wont get a true hull shape with it.  Carefully planking a single layer will give you much better results.

[Justin P.]

Nice!   That plane jig looks great, is that the Veritas?   I love that plane, I use it all the time.   Ive never tried a jig though, now my mind is racing!   Ill follow along if you dont mind.

[WalrusGuy]

4 hours ago, Chuck said:

Nice start.   Great plan to dump that hull sheet.  You wont get a true hull shape with it.  Carefully planking a single layer will give you much better results.

Thanks Chuck! I hope it goes smoothly. I'll be using your Cheerful practicum a lot for this project.

 

3 hours ago, Justin P. said:

Nice!   That plane jig looks great, is that the Veritas?   I love that plane, I use it all the time.   Ive never tried a jig though, now my mind is racing!   Ill follow along if you dont mind.

Thank you Justin. Yes it is! It's the low angle plane from Lee Valley. I also bought his smaller brother 😁

[Justin P.]

2 hours ago, WalrusGuy said:

I also bought his smaller brother 

Thats actually the only one I have, I also have the small shoulder plane...   I use them a lot.   Great tools even if small.  

[WalrusGuy]

1 hour ago, Justin P. said:

small shoulder plane

I'll add that to my tools wishlist 😀

[WalrusGuy]

I finished treenailing (using drawn bamboo through a drawplate) and gluing the keel/stem onto the bulkhead former. Before gluing these in, I prebent and glued a strip of pine on the former as this will help in tucking in the planking onto the stem. I also created a small rabbet onto the stem to serve the same purpose. I then applied tung oil onto the keel and stem. I may try using wipe-on poly for the planking and decking for a bit of contrast, but let's see how it goes as I progress through with the build. So far I am liking how the wood looks with the oil.

 

Here are some pics showing this:

And here are some pictures with the bulkheads dry-fitted:

I'll next start gluing in the bulkheads, begin decking the lower deck area, then will start framing the gun ports

Edited October 20, 2021 by WalrusGuy

[JohnLea]

Are there any tricks in sharpening the Veritas mini tools?

[Justin P.]

3 hours ago, JohnLea said:

Are there any tricks in sharpening the Veritas mini tools?

It’s Veritas, you’ll need to use it a LOT before it needs sharpening.  Strop a lot though….
 

  I’ve had mine almost two years, I’m real careful with it and it’s still extremely sharp.   Having good blade etiquette goes a long way….  The bed of mine never goes on the table.   Always goes back in the case when I’m done.  
 

Otherwise, I think you just approach like you would any plane blade.   

[JohnLea]

13 hours ago, Justin P. said:

Otherwise, I think you just approach like you would any plane blade.   

I think I would have trouble in holding the small blades.

[WalrusGuy]

25 minutes ago, JohnLea said:

I think I would have trouble in holding the small blades.

They also sell a mini honing guide to help with holding them at the correct angle:

[EricWilliamMarshall]

On 10/20/2021 at 9:38 PM, Justin P. said:

Are there any tricks in sharpening the Veritas mini tools?

You can buy a jig from Lee Valley: https://www.leevalley.com/en-us/shop/tools/hand-tools/miniature-tools/110480-veritas-miniature-honing-guide?item=05P8520 or use any clamp can be used to hold the blade - you can make one out of wood with a screw to tighten. You also can just use a pair of vise-grips if in a pinch (a bit of cardboard will protect the blade from scratches if preferred). 

Edited October 27, 2021 by EricWilliamMarshall

[WalrusGuy]

Lots of progress since my last post! I glued in all the bulkheads and finished framing all the gun ports and uprights. I had to modify some of the kit's parts for me to accommodate the framing (incl. the stern and bow areas as shown here):

For the stern gun port uprights, I used some scrap wood and glued to the bottom piece:

I forgot to take a picture of them glued (since I messed up their placement a few times and had to unglue), but here is where they are installed:

Next, I used a batten to locate the gun port sills:

Then, the sills were glued in and the upright locations were marked. This was done by transferring the locations from the laser cut sheet onto a paper then to the hull:

 

Then, I glued in the uprights. Scrap pieces of wood were glued on the sides of the upright to provide some more support. Not the prettiest thing but it works 😉

Next I will begin decking the lower deck and paint the gun ports

Edited October 27, 2021 by WalrusGuy

[desalgu]

This is really looking nice, beautiful work as always!  You're making great progress, and I like the tree nails on the keel.

 

I guess I'm a little confused about what was inaccurate about the hull plans.  Is it just the plans that aren't right, but the bulkheads are shaped correctly?   Or did you have to modify shape of some of the bulkheads to get the "right" contours?

[flyer]

Hi Walrus

Pickle is my favourite build. But I never really liked the look of the 'out of the box' builds. The sources of the kit's planes seemed doubtful to me and I took an RMG plan of an Adonis class schooner as main reference. The result still pleases me very much and has a prominent place in my house.

Regards

Peter

[WalrusGuy]

15 hours ago, desalgu said:

This is really looking nice, beautiful work as always!  You're making great progress, and I like the tree nails on the keel.

 

I guess I'm a little confused about what was inaccurate about the hull plans.  Is it just the plans that aren't right, but the bulkheads are shaped correctly?   Or did you have to modify shape of some of the bulkheads to get the "right" contours?

Thank you for your kind words, David!

 

I read some of the logs here and found there were some issues with the plans, some of which were pointed out in @flyer's build log.

For example, I saw that he modified the bow and stern areas. 

 

I don't plan on going for something fully accurate since I could not find plans of the Pickle on RMG website. Instead, I have opted for more freedom in the build process and will be following some of the build logs here and the practicum for Chuck's Cheerful build. Just hoping it goes nice and smooth 😅

 

I also want to carefully single plank the hull as it will be nice practice for the future. 

 

And from going through the plans I realized some of the rigging is simplified for a kit. So I'll study some rigging guidelines for schooners and will follow that instead. 

 

12 hours ago, flyer said:

Hi Walrus

 

Pickle is my favourite build. But I never really liked the look of the 'out of the box' builds. The sources of the kit's planes seemed doubtful to me and I took an RMG plan of an Adonis class schooner as main reference. The result still pleases me very much and has a prominent place in my house.

 

Regards

 

Peter

 

Hi Peter,

I read through your log when I was researching on this ship and was deciding if I wanted to follow your footsteps. But I did not feel very confident in making the big changes as I may get stuck in the process. I'll still be following your log for your nice ideas. Your ship with the sails looks amazing btw! 🙂

Edited October 28, 2021 by WalrusGuy

[WalrusGuy]

Very little progress since I mainly wanted to finish up treenailing the Confederacy 😉

 

I painted the gun ports red, and marked the upper locations of the wale.

I will now start planking the wale and around the gun ports. I will start with the lower deck later since I am excited about the planking 😁

Edited November 7, 2021 by WalrusGuy

[WalrusGuy]

I finished planking the first layer of the wales and black strake. I also had to fix a small discrepancy in the starboard last gunport sill. It was placed 1mm higher than the opposite side, so I filed it down and painted it again.

 

BTW, next time I will remember to put masking tape on the keel and stem, I keep accidentally scratching it with sandpaper!!!

 

Here, I overbent the wood to account for spring-back:

Edited November 10, 2021 by WalrusGuy

[WalrusGuy]

I finished planking above the wales. I was not too sure on how to go about the last plank, so I just used a thin piece to fit the bulwarks.

 

Edited December 20, 2021 by WalrusGuy

[WalrusGuy]

I am taking a small break from Confederacy, so thought this would be a nice time to catch up on Pickle.

 

The lower deck area is now planked after painting the surrounding bulkheads black. I was not too worried about tolerances with the ends of the planks since a lot of this would be hidden. After sanding, I applied 1 coat of WOP. If I were to do this step again, I would probably have decked the area before gluing the base in place. It would have made it so much easier to sand the planks!

I am deviating from the plans a bit by installing two strakes of main wales as opposed to one. I did this since the bottom wale strake will be inline with the top of the counter (as shown in the circled area). 

Next, I installed the garboard strake and then lined off the hull in preparation for planking:

I used scraps of wood in the middle of some bulkheads to secure planks since the bulkheads are spaced too far apart. Next time I will consider a build with closer spaced bulkheads for an easier time planking.

I was also looking at schooners and cutters from the Royal Museums Greenwich website for some inspiration and ideas. The 1:24 contemporary model of Harriet (1843) caught my attention.  I wish more photos were available showing details of the various parts. The forward side of the model looks so good!

https://www.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/rmgc-object-66775

[WalrusGuy]

I hit a bit of a snag when further planking the Pickle.

 

First, I was not too happy where the butt joints of the lower planking band was located. So I removed it and I am now following the Cheerful monologue to have a similar planking run.

 

Once I deconstructed, I started planking the upper band. I have been using a lot of scrap wood to glue the neighboring planks. 

After reaching halfway, this method was not working. The curve of the planks was hard to achieve since there was little to no surface to glue them on, especially at the bow. Because of this, when sanding it, some planks at the bow became too thin and I sanded right through them:

Here is a photo of the opposite side. I did not face this issue here.

So now I am thinking of deconstructing the planking again, and will use balsa blocks to fill up the space between bulkheads. This way I will treat it as a solid hull model and will hopefully have an easier time planking. 

[the learner]

Great start, looks good! Can't wait to see more of your work 

Guy