Armed Virginia Sloop by CiscoH - Model Shipways - 1:48

[shipmodel]

Hi Cisco - 

 

Very nice planking.  Excellent symmetry.

Good choice on the cradle carvings too.  Looking forward to seeing how they come out.

 

Happy Holidays to you and yours as well.

 

Dan

[Chuck]

That is looking very good indeed.  Well done planking.   That will be a fine looking model.

 

Chuck

[CiscoH]

Good Thursday evening folks

 

Thank you Dan and Chuck for the encouragement

 

To celebrate the end of planking I decided to clean up my bench and sharpen everything pointy.  Always feels good to organize.

And now sanding the hull.  I started in the basement workshop with all my various odd shaped sanding sticks and dowels.  All the unequal thickness planking I had installed came back to haunt me; 220 grit was going to take months.  And after a few minutes, unsurprisingly, I was generating way too much dust to stay indoors. 

 

This is what I started with:

I changed my sandpapers to 100 grit and went outside.  Way better as the breeze took the dust downwind and raking sunlight made it much easier to see progress.

 

Here I am almost finished with 100 grit port side.

And here is where I am now; both sides mostly finished to 100 grit.  I have been trying to smooth out any waviness so further grits are getting rid of coarse scratches only and not shaping.  The sun washes out contrast but it looks a darn sight better than where I started.

And now more sanding.  And after that even more.

 

Have a great evening all

 

cisco

 

[RossR]

As always, your work is impressive.  I always look forward to your updates.   

[CiscoH]

Good Sunday morning

 

The last week was spent working on the stern planking - counter transition.  High stress!  I only added 4 pieces of wood, 5 if you count the sternpost, but a very visible joint I wanted to get right.  My goal was No Gaps and no excuses.

 

I had run the stern planking long.  Usually I find it easier to trim an overlong group of planks back to a common line, versus trying to get each separate plank to end perfectly. 

I scribed the line with a compass, freehand cut along this line with a scalpel, and then trimmed to the scalpel cut with one of the Lee Valley chisels.

If you look at the bottom of the left counter plank you can see a split that ended up falling off.  This made the space underneath it into a trapezoid- wider at one end.  I figured it wouldn't be noticeable and filled the space with planks the same width.

After sanding the joint space where the split had been looked wide and it kept bugging me.  So I decided to dig out the plank.  I am usually happy when I decide to fix stuff, instead of leaving it good enuff.   Except when I make it worse.  This plank came out pretty easy so all good.

I attempted to sand it a little straighter and put in a new plank which I feel fit better.  Then I glued on the stem.  There was some joint space so I used a mix of finely sanded holly dust, graphite from the pencil I use to simulate joints, and yellow glue.  It filled the gaps well.

I blue taped around the stem which worked well to minimize squeezeout.  At this point there is a lot less wood remaining to sand out mistakes.

 And here is the result.  It needs some more 220 sanding but overall I'm happy.

And a side shot highlighting the sternpost/planking junction.  The holly dust/graphite/glue filled the gaps and made them look even.

 

Next up is final 220 sanding and a few coats of water based polyurethane.  I think the rudder follows but I haven't read the next chapter yet.

 

If I don't post before then, Merry Christmas to those of you celebrate it

 

cisco

[Gregory]

That looks really good!

 

Is the wood bass?

[Thukydides]

Great work

[aliluke]

Fantastic - looks like it is made of bone.

[shipmodel]

Nice repair.  Your skills are improving steadily.

Congratulations.

 

Dan

[robert952]

Nice looking lines!  Great job on that 90 degree bend on the planks.  

[CiscoH]

Thank you guys for all the likes and good feedback!

 

Gregory the wood is Holly.  My aim is to make a white "bone-like" ship.  As Aliluke says. 

 

But in my rush to move on to the next step, finally, I flew too high and messed up.  I was sanding juuuuust a little more...

 

and sanded through the stern planking.  Its the dark smudge midway up the stern planking right where it inserts onto the sternpost.

I couldn't leave it this way so I attempted some fixes.  First, I tried painting it.  Holly is white, so maybe I could hide it with white/yellow paint.  Here I put a first layer of primer on and it looked awful. 

I also worried that even if I could get a good match the holly would yellow over time and make the paint more obvious.

 

My buddy Jason (JLong) who was over last weekend wondered about a covering patch made of white glue and holly sawdust, but based on how bad the paint looked I didn't think this would work either.

 

Next I tried cutting a semi-circular patch with one of my chisels.  I couldn't get a tight fit and gave that up too.

Then I tried a butt-joint repair on a scrap of holly.  Thats the slightly "V" shaped piece of wood above the semicircular patch above.  I found a butt joint was still visible but a mitered butt joint became almost invisible (below).

So maybe a save.  I cut out the sanded-through section.  Notice this forms a wedge/trapezoid shape, not a nice rectangle.  You can't easily tell but the top portion and to a lesser extent the bottom of the trapezoid piece is curved, not straight.

I made my patch but couldn't get a tight it on all 4 sides.  Make one side fit and it changed the other 3 sides.  I especially couldn't form a tight butt/miter so the patch stood out.  Which is exactly what I didn't want.

So. 

 

Nothing for it but tear out the entire plank.  The plank above it was also pretty thin, and I figured I'd sand through it while leveling the replacement plank, so it went too.

Above pic I had removed the 2 old planks and roughly shaped the replacements.  These were slowly sanded down until they fit as best I was able.

 

Then I glued first the top plank, then after it dried final fitted the lower plank and glued it in.  Here they are after the clamps came off.  The blue tape is to minimize glue squeezeout.

And here they are after sanding.

I need to make the repaired sternpost/plank junction a slight amount wider so it matches better, but otherwise I call that good enough.

 

So a long entry to get exactly back to where I started

 

have a great Week between Christmas and New Years.   Don't oversand like I did

 

Cisco

Edited December 27, 2023 by CiscoH

[RossR]

I am impressed with your repair and that you had the patience to pull it off.  Your craftsmanship is very impressive.  How think was the wood on your second layer of planking?  

 

 

[hamilton]

Nice work on the repair Cisco!

hamilton

[robert952]

I just posted this same observation in another log...modelers always figure a solution the problems that arise. 

 

Agree with Ross and Hamilton, nice looking repair job.  

[Javelin]

Work of a true perfectionist. Great results. I am impressed by you attention to the hull planking and your patience in achieving its perfection. 

[javajohn]

100% agreement with @Javelin! That's a truly impressive - and inspiring - repair; It shows me that with perseverance and determination we can all fix those seemingly impossible-to-fix problems. 

[CiscoH]

Good afternoon all.  Its 40 degrees, overcast, and finally not raining.  A good day to stay inside.

 

The last week has been spent practicing placing the pintles and gudgeons.  And researching soldering, a daunting subject with almost too much information and opinions.  When I build Chuck's 18th century longboat the soldering went poorly, to say the least.  By the end I was melting the brass, and the few intact pieces I didn't melt stubbornly refused to stay stuck together.   Epoxy saved saved my bacon then, but now it is time to revisit and maybe conquer my fear of soldering.

 

The practicum has you do all the pintles and gudgeons much further along; after the deck planking and furniture is finished.  I don't think I can roll the hull around like I want to at that point, so I decided to do it now instead.  I will replace the stock walnut rudder with a multi-plank holly rudder.  But in the meantime the walnut rudder makes a great practice piece.  I read somewhere that the pintles and gudgeons are supposed to be recessed flush into the hull.  I felt they would be more secure regardless.

 

I used my small square to draw a 90 degree line across the rudder, then used the brass strip that came with the kit to mark the width.  I cut the lines with my scalpel freehand.

Then I used a combination of my Veritas and Micromark minichisels to clean out the waste.  Worked very well.  It was easy to go too deep; I wanted the brass strip to be flush, not below the surface level.

That wasn't too bad.  Next up was drilling the bolt holes in the pintle.  I don't have a mill (yet) so I did it by hand  First I dimpled the holes with an awl, then used my dremel set for slow speed and a carbide drill bit to make the holes.  (In the past I found it impossible to drill brass with normal hardware store bits; these are from Drill Bit City and work amazingly.)  The brass strip has to be securely clamped otherwise it likes to move.  I needed both hands to control the dremel (both elbows on the workbench for stability and a light touch).

I was practicing here, but I plan to put a bolt hole in the center of each of the planks that make up the rudder.

And then I was out of excuses and it was time to confront soldering.  I read a lot on MSW.  And re-read the pertinent sections of David Antscherl's FFM.  I boiled my plan down to the following-

 

1) brass.  No silver or copper.

2) silver solder.  many people seemed to feel "regular" soldering is plenty strong enough so I might revisit this.  But the few successful solderings I had in the past pulled apart pretty easily and I don't know if it was poor technique or simple limitations of low temperature solder.

3) so I was set on silver soldering (even more confusing because many low temp solders have silver in them.  I meant the higher temp silver solder).  A post by Greg Herbert from a while ago here on MSW extolled the virtues of Eurotools silver solder paste with flux mixed in, so i ordered some.  I got soft and medium.

4) a lot of what I read said technique and preparation were critical.  I sanded my brass with 320 sandpaper, and after sanding washed all parts in isopropyl alcohol.  From here forward I only handled the pieces with stainless steel, no fingers. 

5) also from what I read silver solder doesn't fill gaps so whatever you're soldering has to touch.  The force of my torch blew some of my previous attempts off the bench, never to be found again.  So the pieces have to be both touching and securely held in place.

6) And finally, I did it outside in the garage.  It made an unholy stink last time.

 

In my previous attempts I used a pen-type torch.  Watching Utube videos made me think a upright torch would be easier to work with so I got one.  It was much easier.

 

My first attempt was to make the gudgeon.  The kit comes with some brass wire but no tubing, so I bough some brass tube 1/16 x 0.014.  After cutting off a tiny piece of the tubing I quickly realized it was a major pain to hold the pieces still.  The only way I could get the tubing to stay in place was by threading the brass wire through the tube and wrapping the brass gudgeon strip around the tube.  I deliberately didn't sand or wash the wire with isopropanol so it wouldn't stick.

 

My ceramic tile for soldering is still in the mail so I used some bricks instead.  Awkward but they worked.

 

Then a dab of solder paste.  It comes with short needle-like screw on cap which look like you can squirt small amounts of the solder but its way too thick.  I ended up using the needle cap as a spoon to deposit the solder.   Below is my setup.

Its hard to see the actual gudgeon its so small.

 

Try #1:  I made sure everything was secure and heated in small circles AROUND the part, not directly on it like I did last time.  After a bit the brass shifted and I was hopeful.

 

But no, the force of the torch had moved it.  Nothing was stuck together and the silver solder paste was still present.  I went and got my granny glasses to see better. 

 

Try #2: I re-washed the parts in isopropanol and re positioned them.  New silver solder paste on top, just a dab.  Heated it in little circles around the piece.  It did nothing for a bit, then suddenly the solder paste liquified and the pieces seemed to pull together.  This seemed more promising.

Success!  sort of.  Even though I didn't sand or wash the brass wire it still was soldered solid to everything else.  In the future I may try soldering the brass strips to the whole brass tubing, then cut the tubing flush.  My previous soldering I am sure the tubing would have broken free but this joint seems very solid.

 

But still, not too bad.  My fear of soldering has lessened.  I need to figure out methods of holding the tiny pieces in position but thats doable.

 

Up next is blackening.  In my previous attempts the blacking came off with the slightest touch so I ended up painting the brass. 

 

But thats enough for this week.  Thanks for reading

 

Cisco

 

Edited January 7 by CiscoH

[RossR]

What are you doing to prep the material before you blacken it?  I have had good luck with a long soak in alcohol (I usually leave it in overnght) then a 20 minute soak in white vinegar after a rinse in distilled water I put it into the Brass Black solution.  Then another rinse in distilled water.  Sometimes the finish isn't very smooth, but you can buff it with a soft cloth.

 

 

Also, how do you like your Veritas chisels?  I just puchased them a week or so ago.

 

[aliluke]

Yeah, I'm going to have get into soldering. Some reluctance but it is skill you need in this ship building fun. I'm curious about how you are going to reconcile the walnut rudder to the holly planking?

Edited January 9 by aliluke

[CiscoH]

A brief update - no picture sorry - the brass wire did not solder itself to the gudgeon - I had to twist it some but eventually worked the brass strip and firmly soldered/attached brass tube off the wire.  It was a very solid; a beautiful gudgeon.

 

RossR I haven't started the blackening process yet but I will keep in mind your advice.   It seems that cleaning is critical to all these chemical/solder reactions.

and a few posts ago you asked how thick the final holly layer was- between 1/16" and 1/8", which usually would be plenty for light sanding.  But in this case I was essentially doing final shaping of the hull and sanded through.  

 

the veritas chisels work really well and i use the 2 smaller ones all the time.  they have to be sharp though.

 

Aliluke- I am using the walnut rudder as a practice piece only.  The final rudder will be constructed of holly.

Edited January 10 by CiscoH

[shipmodel]

Hi Cisco - 

 

Nice work.  Your skills and attention to details are well on their way up the learning curve.

Looking forward to watching further progress.

 

As for soldering, I have found that for the tiny parts that we work with a torch is just too powerful, as you found out.

A mini soldering iron, like those for the electronics industry and hobby market, works well.

I also like using a resistance soldering iron that has no flame or heat (it is sometimes marketed as Cold Heat).  It is a bit trickier to use, but the lack of open heat more than makes up for it.

 

Best wishes for continued success in your project.

 

Dan

[hamilton]

Nice detailing on the rudder! 

hamilton

[CiscoH]

Good late Tuesday evening everyone.  Way overdue for an update.  I have been working on the rudder. 

 

First off I changed my workbench.  I always stand to work, mostly from habit.  And when you are trying to do microwork your neck gets cricky.  So I had the genius idea to raise a portion of my bench by clamping on a I-shaped extension which I normally use to hold carvings.  Worked great, and I taped some paper on as a clean work surface.

 

And as you can see I got my ceramic stone with little metal pegs; way better than the bricks I was using. 

I tried silver soldering in the house tonight and no appreciable smoke or flames.  So in moderation it seems ok to work indoors.  Also the garage is in the 30s at present.

 

Last time I made a test gudgeon which went pretty well.  This time I made a test pintle.  Here is my setup.  Putting the ceramic brick onto a real brick provided more than adequate heat isolation; nothing caught fire.

I've lived in fear of soldering for ages and it seems to be laughably simple.  Sand the parts with 200 grit, soak briefly in 99% isopropyl alcohol, handle with tweezers afterwards, make sure the metal parts to be soldered are touching, apply a dab of silver solder/flux paste, heat in little circles around the part being soldered, and after 3-5 seconds the paste melts and voila! its stuck together.   This was my second successful attempt, of 2 attempts. 

 

Here is my pintle threaded onto the gudgeon held in place with finger power on the kit's rudder.  I have to deepen the mortises the pintles sit in; they are too shallow and the pintle protrudes too much.

But the hinge works freely.  A small step forward.

 

Here's the kit rudder held against the hull to check space between the sternpost and the rudder.  Too wide at present.

 

And here's my holly rudder (the bottom part isn't trimmed flush yet), which I think looks pretty good.  Like the rest of my build I used pencil to accentuate the individual planks. 

 

The kit plans show the rudder made of 4 large planks and a thinner backing plank, which is what I did.  Later I checked Dr Feldman's book and saw he made his rudder from 7 planks (!).  I think he drew or scribed them but regardless too fiddly for my tastes; I'm sticking with what I've built.

Thats where I'm at.  Desperately trying not to screw up anything where I have to remake then entire rudder so taking it slow.

 

2 other notes.  One, I bought the Micromark fine chisels for the carving class I went to.  The gouges were, sorry, utter crap, but I had been using the chisels and liked them.  Not anymore.  The steel is really soft so the ends bend too easily.  When I tried to resharpen them they formed a long thin burr that flopped about and refused to come off.   Too expensive to throw out but basically useless.  I do really like the length and shape of the handles though.

Second, in my mad pursuit of soldering excellence, I purchased the below book on the recommendation of a post on this site.  Its a mixed bag- the author has made some amazing models of insane complexity from sheet and tube brass; beautiful eye candy.  But 99% of the book is showing step by step advanced construction; it assumes you already know how to solder.  So if you are looking for an intro book this isn't it.

Thats it for tonight.  Next up is brass blackening, a subject that seems to be as controversial and full of competing advice as soldering.  I can no longer remember what system I used for my little 18th century whaleboat but all my results had spots and flakiness.  I ended up using black paint which worked fine but I want to push the envelope.  Dangerous chemicals here I come.

 

thanks for reading;

 

Cisco

 

 

[CiscoH]

Good evening all.  Its been a while.  I spent a lot of time fighting with my pintles and gudgeons, mostly finding out how not to do it.  My goal was to make a reasonable group of hinges, made of brass, fully chemically blackened (not painted like last time), with a minimal gap between sternpost and rudder, and with evenly spaced and in-scale bolts.  

 

See the below cartoon.  The pintle was straightforward; bend the brass strip in a gentle curve and silver solder a piece of brass wire in place, then trim.  Worked well the first, second, and third times.  Also backened perfectly. 

 

The gudgeons, however, fought me every step of the way. 

 

I originally went for option #2, bending the brass strip around the outside of the brass tubing and silver soldering it in place.  But (see last post) this led to too much of a gap between the stern post and rudder.  It was also very challenging to make correctly spaced bends to fit around the sternpost.  I ended up fatiguing the brass strip bending and rebending until unsurprisingly one side broke off.  I decided this was not working well and looked for better options.

 After some MSW scrolling I decided what I really wanted was something like option #1, with a triangular "head."  I pre-bent the brass strip and silver soldered the tube on, just like in #3 above, without trouble.  You have to be careful the tube is centered on the strip, and not crooked, but overall not too hard.   I went with silver solder because the bond is so strong, but silver solder doesn't fill gaps.

 

Figuring How Hard Could it Be, I tried to fill in the space between the tubing and brass strip with lower temp solder, in effect changing #3 into #4 above.

 

I cleaned the gudgeon in isopropyl alcohol, wiped on flux, then touched a 40 watt soldering iron to one side of the hinge while touching the strip of solder to the opposite side.  This was challenging; the solder wanted to go anywhere except where I wanted, and as I had to do each "corner" separately I tended to melt my previous efforts.  But eventually I got a test piece with good blobs of filling solder which I filed down until it was the triangular shape I wanted.  So a lot of work but getting there.  That piece is in the far right of the picture below.  On this piece I also practiced drilling some bolt holes and made some improbably small bolts.

 

Then I tried blackening and things went downhill.  Below you can see my test pieces.  The one of the left is my original effort with one broken wing (#2 in my cartoon) and only silver solder.  It blackened perfectly.  The 3 pieces on the right all have low temp solder (either Tix or StayBrite) on top of a silver soldered joint.  Anything I touched with the low temp solders wouldn't blacken; often even in areas on the brass strip that I didn't directly solder.  For blacking I used Blacken-it for the first test, and Greg's (DVM27) sparex/Jax black procedure for another.  Neither worked; the soft solder turned a flakey grey and the black that did form could be easily rubbed off.

This had been a lot of work leading to a dead end and it took me some time to get my enthusiasm back. 

 

To change gears I decided to find the best way to drill the bolt holes.   I don't have a milling machine so it was all by hand.  Before I used my dremel, which went quickly but the bits liked to skate, leading to unevenly spaced holes.  So I tried it manually.  I got an awl and dimpled the brass strip, then used a 75 carbide drill bit chucked into a wooden handle.  It quickly became apparent this wouldn't work; I got nicely spaced holes but broke 3 bits for 4 holes.  The slightest lateral pressure and the bit would snap.  The Dremel, I think, rotates fast enough that its harder to bend and break the bits. 

 

Below I tried dimpling the brass strip and drilling with a "normal" wire drill bit.  But the bits were worse to keep centered, went dull after 1 - 2 holes, and then refused to cut.  No go.

 

Eventually I went back to dimpling with the awl, then drilling with the dremel while periodically dipping the tip of the carbide bits in some 3-in-1 oil, which made them cut much better.  The holes were not perfectly spaced but probably good enough.  I suspect you won't be able to see the bolts (matt black bolt heads on a matt black strip; basically invisible).

 

So now, having spent weeks chasing my tail, I finally have a plan.  I am making the gudgeons simple, #3 in my above cartoon, just brass strip with a tube.  These reliably blacken, are very strong, and don't stick out too far. 

 

My next trial run with the top hinge.  In this case I drilled all the bolt holes before soldering, but for the other 2 hinges I plan to drill the holes afterwards. 

This top hinge wet well (bottom right below) and so I spent tonight making the other 2 sets.  First I bent the brass strip to the correct dimensions, testing in situ on the rudder and the stern.  Its very easy to make them too big or small. 

Then silver soldered the pins and tubing.

Next is drilling all the bolt holes.  Then gluing the hinges in place with epoxy, afterwards adding the bolts.  I bet anyone who made it this far in this post is done with pintles and gudgeons; I know I'm ready to move on.

 

Have a great evening, thanks for reading.

 

Cisco

 

 

 

Edited March 5 by CiscoH

[JLong]

Really nice work. Don't discount all the valuable learnings you've made along the way.

These are really challenging to get right - I admire the fact that you've made it able to swivel - really impressive.

[CiscoH]

thanks Jason.  I forgot to include your idea of making the gudgeons from a single piece of brass; i think on a larger scale that would be more doable.

[rlb]

Keep at it Cisco, that last batch looks good!

Ron

[Theodosius]

Planking with the caulking looks fabulous! 🙂 

[CiscoH]

Great evening fellow hobbyists.  Time has not been my friend the last few weeks; work picked up and we took a week off for a Disney cruise, before the kids got too old to appreciate it.  So this will be a short post, instead of my usual exhaustive run-on.

 

Last update I had silver soldered my pintles and gudgeons.   I deliberately left the strapping too long so they could be trimmed to length to fit the shallow mortises on the hull and the rudder.  As per my last update I found for me the easiest way to drill bolts holes was first cutting mortises into a scrap piece of wood to hold the hinges steady, dimple each spot with an awl, then drill with a Dremel.  

This worked well for the shorter hinges.  I found on the above hinge, because the strap was so long it was very flexible, especially at the unsupported end.  The second the drill bit went through the strap it would climb the bit and break it.  That learning curve cost me my 74, 73, and 72 carbide bits.  So I jury-rigged the below extra clamp (a tiny strip of wood held down with half a clothes pin) that worked to keep the strap in place.

I found I could widen the smaller holes with a regular wire drill bit so all are now 74 holes.

 

And here they are friction-fit on the stern.

Next up is flattening out the waves in the strapping, blackening, and installation with some clear epoxy.  Afterwards I will put in the bolts.  I have a feeling trying to hang the rudder and lining up those tiny pins will be challenging.  I am thinking of trimming off the middle pintle pin to make life easier.

 

But thats next weeks problem.

 

thanks for reading

 

Cisco

[Thukydides]

Great job! Your persistence and patience with this is paying off.