Six-oared Boat 1763 by Marcus.K. - Falkonet - 1/72 - laser-cut kit - SMALL

[Marcus.K.]

Ahoy there! What´s up, doc?

 

Vacation with my family. My kids all in the age of puperty used to sleep until the first half of MY day is wasted. So I decided to make use of this quiet time and take a kit with me: the Falkonet 6-oared boat.

Its a very nice kit and due to recent experience with a Shipyard Alert with klinkered hull I dared to try this one.

 

My working place was like this:

 Southern France, Atlantik Coast (Biskaya), you could hear the sea crashing into the beaches (a surfer-paradise nothern Biarritz and Capbreton) - a cool breeze even when the sun burned hot.

The start was more tricky than I expected. The plan showed this:

But the part A14R uand A14L was available 2 times each!!??? And my russian is not good enought to understand the text. And even the sketch confused me, since the direction of the milling seems not plausible!?

It was clear: those two filling pieces support the connection of stem post and keel - and also provide gluing surface for the planking in the bow area. But .. why then a step there? .. and why two pairs of them in the set?

 

An Englisch Pool-technician (thanks Willliam!) gave me the hint: use your smartphones google-browser to translate. You can even translate graphics via hte smartphones camera!!! .. and you can "share" and save that picture:

 

Ups.. sorry, now this translation is in German - which fits well for me.. But although its just a google translation its getting clearer than cyrillic russian texts for me.

But still it left me with the question: why in heaven are the two sets of this filling pieces - and even on different thick sheets?

I decided to ignore this question and just start with the thicker ones!

Milled them in shape according to the lines (ignoring the misunderstandable sketch in the plan - et voila!

The filling pieces in place beside the division line of keel and stem post. Aligned so the slot beneth it would not be covered by the step of the filling pieces.

 

Next step is preparing the slade (correct wording?):

These where the first parts I needed to file a a bit so that the tongues fitted into the openings. But in general there is not much rework to be done in this laser cut set. Just sanding the cutting area.. and maybe getting rid of the burned edge if you don´t like the dark appearance (which I did not do).

Then the frames had to be set loosly into the slade. Only the 4 front ones were allowed to glue together to each other so they don´t get lost.

Added the Keel (onto which I already glued the transom and the rear bulkhead) ..

Those two rails had to be added too ..

And the small kit slowly became looking like a boat ...

[BenD]

Hey Marcus

 

I've been building the Falkonet 1/24th four ored yawl. There are no written instructions, just pictures and numbers. If you get confused just look ahead in the instructions and you will see what needs to be done... most of the time. The laser cutting in these kits is really accurate, But at that small size I wonder how good it can be. How are you finding it?

 

Good luck! 

 

 

[Marcus.K.]

Hello Ben, thanks for you comment. Your Viking ship had the same scale - and it´s a beauty! Thanks for watching - and thanks for the thumbs to everone!

 

The kit is fun and I like it a lot. You will see...

 

The very next thing to do is to add the first frame - on in this case better "rib"

They need wetting - a procedure I never did before and I was suprised how soft the wood would become. Really amazing. 

 

Here you can see the first three ribs - I started in the center, since their radius is the widest and bending would not have that much risk. I have to say: Falkonet did a great job with the kit. There are almost double the number of ribs the kit needs. That may give beginners a chance to test and play and destroy some of them. My wetting was a success from the start. I used to work with paper models, in which you can pre-shape a bit flat paper into something 3D with soft pressure. That experience may have been a help. And I learned meanwhile that drying often causes issues if the wood then is shrinking. For example while doing the planking. The shrinking then may lead to "straight" segments between the frames where the wet plank fitted perfect before. In this case there wasn´t such problem since the ribs sits on top of that "construction"-frame.

This photo shows the foremost ribs - and since they sit in an angle vs. the longitudinal direction the ribs are split in half and also have those triangle "flag" at their bottom end - which helps a) to find the correct angle and b) generate a support for the later planking. They "fill" the step on the very first parts - those filling pieces at the bow. Of course it is important to not insert the first of the 2 ribs too deep into that slot, so that the second rib from the other side still has room in that slot in the keel.

The last rib - one piece again - which has to be placed into that framing. Even that kink (is that the correct word?) in the keel slot was simple to generate. The wood did not break there as I expected. So I did not need any of the spare ribs up to now ("spare ribs" - a new meaning for a common word 😁).

 

The result seems to please - at least to my eye

Next step is planking - starting with that beatiful laser-ornamented upper plank - above that side-stabilizing strip you see in the picure above:W

You see on top of that picture the plate with all planks - and the very right one is seperated (3 cuts usually are needed) and glued to the framing. You may see it at its rear end under the rubber band - and in the front forced in place by the clothespin - glued to that filling piece on the stem.

In this picture you see a bit more of the rear end, its ornament and also the other sides plank still in that board.

 

Then flollows that planking process, in which - due to my habit to start from front end (most tricky alignment of the bow end of each plank into that "curve" which - in real ships would be shaped by a rabbit - while the rear end is just longer than the boat and will be cut later on. Also I use to glue first one side - and until the glue is fixed sufficiently I work on the other sides plank. By that the process is faster and I have a symetrical approach ot avoid unsymetrical load and distortion in the hull. All this generates this nice "trilobitic"-like appearance.

 

And at the end, the planking is ready:

The planks I needed wetting only in the bow area and the lower ones also in the rear a bit - for that needed distortion to align with the stern. The midsection did not need wetting. Since this is my very first wooden carvel-planking I had to learn some things (the real purpose of this build!). I did for example miss to press the planks harder together to each other. As a result some of the gaps are really wide and you can even look through. I would not want to be in need of a boat like this - it probably would sink really quick! Another effect I did not work hard enough against is that the planks sometimes do not align good enough with the contour of the frames. That effect is even more obvious due to the fact that I did not sand the lasered (and dark) sides of each plank). So if you look at the next picture you may notice some "clinker-like" steps. A problem which I could work on by sanding the hull and getting the surfaces more uniformly. Although I have to admit: there is one plank which got thin as paper by this process and I was close to have the plank rasped away!

Also you see the rear side - on which I have to shorten the planks.

 

But after filing and sanding the hull is in pretty good shape:

The curve of the planks front is not as bad as it cold be - and I am happy that I had those pre-shaped planks in that kit. I can only imagine how hard it must be to use straight planks to try to fit such a complex shape of a water going vessel. You would not only need to bend over the planks "thickness", but also to bend "upright" .. do you know what I mean? But that is a load for that plank which would make it real hard to avoid breaking I guess. And then you in addition need to shape the front edge of the plank to fit to that stem. Here in that kit everything is prepared and its just a matter of how precise you glue it into position. Almost like a 3D puzzle.

The rear - with cutted and sanded planks.. of course not yet ready.

 

Now the preperation of seperation of hull and the "slide" has to be done - first: cutting the ribs:

The ribs are glued into the keel and at the top edge of the frames in this picture. To be able to move out the slide they need a cut. Also the very first front frames (which had been glued to not get lost) have to be cutted - while all the parallel frames are not glued.

Then a careful seperation must be done.. fore and back, up and down again - to generate more game in the joints and find a smooth way outl.

 

Starting ...

 

A bit of air already ...

And done!

 

The next step is kind of tricky. Since I did - against the instructions adivce (since I did NOT read it in time!!) - I glude the frames not only in keel level but also vs. those fixation stripes, I now have to face the fact that I need to seperate them without damage at those stripes!

 

A tricky surgery....

.. will I succeed?

..... will that russian beauty survive?

 

stay tuned and turn on again next time ...

[sirdrake]

Marcus, how's the russian beauty doing...?

 

Frank 

[Marcus.K.]

On 1/24/2023 at 5:37 PM, sirdrake said:

Marcus, how's the russian beauty doing...?

 

Frank 

Frank, dear Viewers, I have to appologize,

 

life rolled over my in a way ... so many things happeing. The russian beauty progressed of course - but after finsihing the hull it fell in a .. in German we say - "snowwhite sleep".. do you have a comparable expression?

 

What has happened so far:

Removed the frames along the lasered "predetermende breaking points" .. resulting in a nice hull with 1/2 of the framing:

The next step is inserting the wetted and "softened" second half of the ribs:

 

And this is then the result after cutting the ends.

 

 

 

 

[Marcus.K.]

Next are gratings and the "floor" And then the rails.. left and right side:

Followed by the benches (in top you see the frame which helps to position the supporting pillow vs. the keel)

Result:

 

The final Hull - after "paint" with my "blackened" casein glue (I did not have other paint with me in that vacation.

 

Missing now: the oars, the rudder, masts and other details. .. But that was now delayed due to the "snowwhite sleep" up to today..

The russian beauty awaits a prince to kiss her back to life ...

 

Hope you like her appearance .. Its my very first effort with the material "wood" ... but the quality of that kit is good enough to prevent me from getting major issues.

 

If you want to start with wood, these kits would be a very good starter!

Not much tooling, but you begin to learn how to work with wetted planks, etc. . .

[sirdrake]

Glad the prince finally came along to deliver this much needed kiss...😘

 

I have a similar kit lying on my desk as part of the "St. Gabriel" from the same manufacturer. Luckily there's your build log along with a few others here and there, because I certainly would have used glue in many very wrong places...