Fifie by Ken_2 – FINISHED - Amati/Victory Models – 1:32 - Scottish Motor Fishing Vessel

[Ken_2]

The Fifie is a design of sailing boats that was a traditional fishing vessel used by Scottish fishermen from the 1850’s until well into the 1900’s.  Their vertical stem and stern, long straight keel and wide beam made the Fifies very stable in the water.  In the 1900’s many were converted to motorized craft.

As and aside, this model will be the longest boat on my shelf when I am finished (at 27.5” long by 18.5” tall and 9.1” wide).  As I progress in my boat building hobby, I am beginning to wonder where I will put all the boats I have built, and plan to build.  I would like to know if you people are displaying all of your boats?  I’m thinking my early creations will end up in a box in a closet, and my latest will be placed - . . . I don’t know where! . . . since I am running out of shelf space.  The previous models are collecting dust, and I would like to continue building for many more years.  I guess I will have to either buy enclosures or learn to build them.  Still, the question stands - as to where I put them.   Since the Fifie is larger than my previous boats, I need to determine my storage/display strategy very soon.  I would like to know what all of you are doing with your boats! 

Back to the subject:  the Kit itself looks like a quality set of components and instructions (so far).

[Ken_2]

The keel came in 2 pieces that are to be glued together via clamps and dowels.  I sure appreciate reviewing the other build logs of this kit, as they help guide me.  For my heavy sanding, I use my spray booth enclosure built in my garage.  This setup exhausts air outside through a window and includes a filter in the booth.  I also used a personal N95 mask and gloves.  Most of my dust was created in beveling the fore and aft bulkheads along with sanding the worst of the laser char off the surfaces that will be glued.  I will do a more thorough sanding job on surfaces with laser char that will show after assembly, such as the cradle, so that paint or varnish will not be affected by a rough charred surface (looks nicer).

[Ken_2]

Next, I dry-fit as many pieces as I could to see if there are any problems before I start gluing.  And I found several.  Dried wood glue cause several of the frames to not fit and fit crooked, and one of my clamps (part 19) was aligned slightly aft by 1 mm causing ½ of the deck (Part 32c) to not align with the other half, (32d).  I disassembled and sanded several times.  In previous boat builds I have had trouble with slightly skewed frames causing extra work with planking and deck work.  So, one of my lessons learned is to be very careful in the early stage assembly.  I’m sure I’ve missed something, which can be fixed later, but I’d rather build it “square”.

[Ken_2]

I glued all the frames onto the keel, and then dry fit the decks to keep the frames aligned while the deck glue dried.  While waiting, I started shaping the spacers.  I sanded them and dry fit them until they looked like they would align with the future planks and glued all the spacers on.  I then glued the lower decks, and dry fit the upper deck while they dried.  Installation of the upper deck caused me some trouble.  It must be pushed down to mate with the sheer line of the frames.  The MDF decking was stiffer than I am used to and required more strong and larger clamps than I have, to hold the deck down while the glue dried.  So, I nailed the upper deck to the frames and beams (many nails missing the beams below).  The nail pusher required a lot of force due to the thickness of the MDF, so I had to move the boat from my keel clamper and on to the desk for support.

[Ken_2]

With the decks and spacers installed, I used a short plank along each of the surfaces to check the fit.  The kit provided extremely long planks and the manual shows how to use them.  The scale of these long planks is not realistic (63 ft long when scaled up 1:32) but they are OK to use since these are the underlayment for the top planking, and these longer planks will not show.  I have elected to make my first layer of planks like the typical length of wood found in the day.  I cut these longer planks shorter so that they would scale up to 2 x 10’s between 14’ to 29’ long, depending on the kit frame spacing.  It also seemed simple enough to narrow these planks fore and aft so there should be no need for stealers drop planks or pointy planks.  I also decided to carve a rabbet on the stem and keel to make the planks transition smoothly as they end at the keel.  Another dry fit of planks after the rabbet was cut required another round of fairing of the frames and spacers.  I am also finding I need a third fairing of the spacers as I install each plank.

[Ken_2]

The planking is going OK.  I must install more short planks rather than fewer long planks, but these shorter planks are easier to shape (i.e. bend, narrow and fit with the adjacent plank).  It is good practice for me, since this is how full-sized wooden boats are built and I think this practice will make my future models look better (especially those kits which only have one layer of planking).  I have never tried this before, and I am finding all kinds of little things I never thought of, so there are some gaps and re-work that do not look the best.  Good thing this is an underlayment.

 

I chose a 4-row shift pattern for the planking, as discussed in the instruction manual for the NRG Half Hull planking kit, found in the NRG Store.  It took a while to figure out the spacing scheme (e.g. Butts on adjacent rows must be at least 5 feet apart, and others rules to prevent weak spots in a real hull).  Finishing this first set of planks will be a task!  I have 4 rows on each side complete – only 21 more underlayment rows to go, then the final layer (jeepers).  I think it will be a while before I post again (or I go crazy)  :-).

[Dsmith20639]

Nice idea adding the rabbets. The manual lacked that sort of detail and I wondered about the transition myself, but let it go and just followed the manual. Did you size the rabbits to fit both layers of planking or only the first layer. Nice job so far.

 

Don

[Ken_2]

That’s a good question, Don.  I’d not thought that far ahead!  So, I mocked it up, and thankfully it seems to fit.  Since the top of the underlaying planks are near the top of the real keel, there is an edge where the false keel sticks up above the 1st layer of planks.  This edge seems like it will mate well with the top layer.  There is variation in fit, where the bottom layer planks meet the false keel, so I will try to manage that fit in future plank installment.  And sandpaper or filing should provide a good finial fit!  Whew!  I’m glad I looked – Thanks – Ken

[Ken_2]

I have finished my first planking layer.  I started by using planks that scale up on a real boat to be 15’ to ~30’, along with a 4 shift butt scheme, and carefully fitting them together with minimal gaps.  After about 10 planks on top, and 4 planks on the bottom, it became clear this was going to take too long, especially since this first layer will not show.  So, I finished using as long a plank that would edge bend gracefully, and an assorted set of shorter planks where needed.  This still took a long time, but it was a shorter effort.  It seems like my hope of filling and sanding will result in a smooth enough surface for the 2^nd layer.

 

As you can see below, I am not quite finished smoothing the Port side, and have not started sanding the Starboard side.  I will finish both sides, and then start the 2^nd layer, using planks that scale up to 15’ to ~30’ as well as using a 4 shift butt scheme, and carefully fit them together, hopefully with minimal gaps.

 

? What I am not sure about is how smooth the first layer should be.  I will sand the obvious remaining large discontinuities.  But many areas may be ready.  They are smooth fore and aft, but I can feel an occasional slight ripple as I drag my fingers from the keel to the bulkhead.  I laid a couple of the walnut planks on these areas, and it looks like they will cover/hide any slight irregularities. 

 

Does anyone have experience with what is "smooth enough", and what will make the 2^nd layer look bad?

[Dsmith20639]

Ken,

 

I made my first layer as smooth as possible to the point where I could barely feel any ripples when running my fingers across the planks and used a filler to fill any voids. The second layer went on smoothly but there were still some tiny voids (cracks between planks) on the second layer that needed filler due to my skills in lining up the planks. I have begun painting (primer) my hull and the paint makes any errors in smoothness even more visible. I am not concerned as these were not modern fiberglass boats with extremely smooth hulls but working boats with wooden hulls (in my case you can distinguish each plank run if you look closely enough), so I am not expecting perfection. That said I believe some of the ripples I could feel on the first layer were transferred to the second layer. I would suggest you try to get the first layer as smooth as possible. Within reason. I will post a photo of my Fifie on my build log tomorrow. I wish I had kept track of how many hours I spent sanding and at what grits of sandpaper so I could answer your question, but I know it was several hours spread over several days or weeks. You get tired, think you've finished, and then rub your fingers over the hull and realize you could still do more.

 

Don

[Ken_2]

Thanks to Dsmith, I spent some additional time sanding and filling the first layer of planks.  I am sure the 2^nd layer of planks looks better because of this extra care. 

 

I am using Excel to plan my plank width along with the 4-rowshift pattern for the butt joints.  As a reminder, I would like to have my planks run fore and aft with no drop planks nor pointy ended planks.  Since the distance along the frames from the top to the keel is greatest at the beam and least at the bow, the ends will need to be narrowed to maintain planks that run fore and aft.

 

The Excel picture shows I use 6.3 mm for my plank width.  I measured the distance consumed by 4 rows of installed planks and divided by 4 to get 6.3 mm.  This includes any gaps, Glue, and curvature.  The individual planks vary between 6.2 and 6.25 mm.  I plan to paint the boat just like the box, with the top rows of planks to be natural wood, followed by a white strip, followed by a red bottom paint.  Thus, I selected the lightest colors of mahogany from among my pile for the first rows.  I have tried to figure out where the white strip will be relative to planks, but this location seems illusive to me.  My boat is several mm shorter than the 1:1 drawing depicts.  I will remeasure again, and I can deal with this variation, but the location of the white paint allows me to loosen up my tolerance for gaps and compensate with a little filler (less rework for me).  In addition, the paint is where I will start to transition to the narrower planks.  I played with the excel file to see how many full-size planks I can put on top, before the follow-on planks in the middle become too narrow and are so narrow, they look funny.  Another option is to use drop planks, but that is not my plan.  My current plan allows the top 9 planks to be wide, and the “middle planks” to be 3.8 mm at the bow and stern.  I am hoping 3.8 mm is not too narrow (3.8 mm = 60% of 6.2) so it should be fine.  I remeasure the remaining space to be planked every few planks to replan my widths.

 

To explain the file:  The grey cells are the planks currently installed, (rows 28-23 and rows 1-3).  My next task is to install custom sized planks (rows 22-4) shown as white on the excel.  Rows 22,21, and 20 are uniformly narrowed by 1 mm each, hopefully making the transition to the more narrow planks less obvious.  The remaining white cells are to be narrowed - differently at each frame, using the widths shown in row 13.  Any gaps from my imperfect sanding for these truly customized planks will be painted.  Paint will hide a little filler, and planks many will be on the underside of the hull, which is less visible.   Thus, after my next 3 rows, I will need to know exactly where the paint starts!.

As for the currently installed planks, I used Titebond II wood glue for a few planks, but for the first time, I am using medium thick CA glue (which dries slower) and I’ve had some good success.  I’ve had to remove a few sections of planks due to gaps etc. but overall, it is much easier than pins, nails, paperclips etc.  I’m impressed.  The pictures below show signs of this glue since I have not done much sanding.  After completing the planking, I will do a thorough sanding job before painting.

[gmctaggart]

Looks like a neat project. Nice work so far and I am looking forward to how this progresses.

Sincerely,

Gord

[Dsmith20639]

Looks great!

[Ken_2]

My goal was to keep the top layer of walnut planks as close to each other as possible.  I have achieved much better results than previous builds.  I took my time, figured out things I was doing wrong, and corrected my planking process.  There were close to 300 planks that make up the 106 strakes for both layers, so there was plenty of time to practice.

I can summarize my improved planking process as a 3-stage trimming process.  The 1st stage is a rough trim.  I used my digital calipers and I marked each plank with the desired widths and drew a line close to the desired width of the plank.  Using my Exacto blade, I cut away parts of the plank that required significant sanding.  The 2^nd stage of trimming utilized a small orbital sander which was used like a planer to sand away the remaining parts of the plank, measuring 4 or 5 positions between frames and being very careful to not sand past the desired width (sanding too much results in a dreaded gap).  Thus, there was a lot of “sand – measure - repeat”.  The 3^rd stage consisted of spot hand sanding.  Once the plank was sized, it was put in the final position.  Then 2 things could be determined.  First, I looked for gaps caused by high spots.  These were hand sanded out.  Gaps caused by low spots (too much sanding) often resulted in a redo (start over).  Second, I looked to see if an “edge bend” of the plank was needed to fit the curvature of the hull.  All of this resulted in a much tighter fit. Once all of this was completed, I put a small bevel on the back top of the plank to help it fit better with the abutting plank.

[Ken_2]

There was, however, another cause of gaps that I could not quite figure out for the longest time.  Towards the end of planking the second layer I begin to understand the cause and solution.  I will address this issue better in future boats.  This problem occurs where the curvature of this hull causes the plank to twist, close to 45 degrees in this boat.  The bow and stern planks are almost straight up and down, whereas at the middle of the beam of the boat - the planks twist towards being parallel to the water.  Couple this twist with the sharp narrowing at the bow and stern and the narrowing of the planks, as well as “edge bending” makes trimming the planks in these specific locations difficult to mate adjacent planks.  It is at these places where my gaps are most pronounced (see picture below with the red circles).  The saving grace is that these small gaps are below the water line, which will be painted.  Thus, I can use filler which I hope will hide any effects.

And lastly, one plank on each side required a width wider that the provided planks.  I worked hard and kept my trimmed widths under control.  I finally realized I would have to cut a walnut sheet to make a plank > 7mm in width.  And when I went to the stores in my area to get the wood (walnut, mahogany, or whatever) there was no stock anywhere!  Amazon had something, but the color on the screen was too different from what I wanted, and the delivery time was too long.  So, I used the Bass wood I have, which was of a similar thickness, but softer and white.  It looks kind of funky in the pictures below, but it will be painted.

[Dsmith20639]

Are you still working on this? It was looking pretty good at the last post.

[Ken_2]

Yes Don:  I became distracted for longer than I expected, but I am back at it!  I am about to post again.  🙂

 

I see you have progressed much further in my absence.  Your boat looks very good.  I will study what you have accomplished. 

Thanks

Ken

Edited September 15, 2023 by Ken_2
clarity

[Ken_2]

I am back working on my boat (finally).  I took a brief time off in April, which turned out to be much longer than I planned.  I had a few house items to be fixed, then took time to split a few cords of wood.  The weather turned warm, and I started hiking longer and steeper hikes.  My family welcomed another grandchild who was born in July.  All good things!  Then I sprained my knee hiking in late July. I started PT a few weeks later which further delayed my start.

I finally resumed work on the Fifie early September.  It took a while to setup my workspace and figure out where I left off.

The first thing I noticed was that there were ridges between many of the planks.  So, I spent time sanding the hull smoother, starting with 100 grit sandpaper, and working down to 220.  I cleaned the wood with tack cloth, a wet cloth, and finally some mineral spirts.  I filled gaps where necessary.  I was surprised that the planks lost so much of their color due to sanding.  I don’t understand this!!  Were they originally colored with a dark finish?  As an experiment, I sprayed on some clear lacquer on one side of the boat, which brought out some of the wood grain color.  I sanded it off and finished sanding the hull with a 400 grit sandpaper, which hopefully will make the grain color even look better.

[Ken_2]

My next task is to lay the rub strips.  In order to place these, I need to know there the white painted hull strips will be located.  It took me some time to figure out the drawing shows that the stern keel sits lower in the water than the bow part of the keel (offset from the water line).  Since the bottom of the hull white line represents the water line, it is not parallel to the keel.  I used a laser level to mark the stern’s tilt from the waterline and transferred this offset to the bottom of the hull white line.  

[Ken_2]

I placed some Tamiya “tape for curves” marking where the hull water line will be.  I then placed some tape representing the top of the hull white line.  I estimated this location “by eye”.  But since this white line would be used to set the location of the 3 rub strips, and the shape would likely not be repeatable from port to starboard, I decided I needed a better method for rub strip location.

I placed the 1:1 drawing face down on my light table and taped a thick brown wrapping paper along the bottom straight edge.  I then flipped the drawing over and used a tack pin to poke holes along the top curved edge through the drawing onto the wrapping paper.  These punctures denote the of top of the white line.  I removed the brown wrapping paper and cut along the holes.  This gave me a template for the hull white line which I could use on each side of the boat.  I taped the template onto the boat and marked where the top of the template was on the hull.  This gave me a reference where I wanted the bottom rub strip to be added to hull.  The location of the rub strips and their curvature is not perfect, but it is a lot better than my earlier “by eye” estimate.  I am hoping this will look okay after painting the bottom of the hull red and adding the white line.  I often lose confidence that my planning is correct, expecially when some steps cannot be undone.  I have learned that whatever the outcome - it all looks good.  And if some stuff is wrong, typically I am the only one who notices.  And further, where there are mistakes – oh well … they provide me with another lesson learned.

Next, I will sand the whole hull one more time with 400 grit, specifically looking for blemishes from the rub strip installation.  Then I start the hull painting process.

[Ken_2]

I laid white Tamiya “curve tape” along the water line.  I pressed this tape tightly onto the boat, especially along the outside edge, so no paint would seep under the edge.  Then I laid wide Tamyia yellow tape on this white tape and pressed it down tight as well.  The yellow tape cannot follow the curve of the boat, since it is so stiff, so I used several lengths, relying on the “curve tape” to define the waterline.  Then I laid blue painters’ tape on the yellow tape.  Painters tape is cheaper but does not seal as well as the Tamyia tape.  I figured the blue tape was far enough away from the airbrush that there would be very little overspray, and it was used just as insurance to catch any overspray.  However, there was more overspray than I thought and there were a few spots where paint went below the blue tape and got onto the boat.  I’ll sand it off.

[Ken_2]

I then used my airbrush and painted the hull Red.  I was having trouble getting a red coat that uniformly covered the hull.  There was originally a lot of bare wood color variation that was showing through.  I think I thinned the paint too much.  In any event, I used a spray can of gray sealer for an undercoat, followed by 2 more coats of paint.  That worked and now it looks nice.  The enamel paint was labeled red, but come to find out, if it does not say matte, the paint is gloss, which is not my preference.  Thus, I added two more light coats of Testors dullcote Lacquer.  After the paint dried, I removed the tape.  I found where some of the spray went under the blue tape.  I expect this was due to the fact that painting took several days to allow for drying and recoating, and the blue tape just let go over time due to stress in some of the tight corners.  Nothing that can’t be sanded.  But from now on I will use good tape over newspaper to cover large areas which are not to be painted, such as covering the red hull while painting the white strip.

[Ken_2]

Google states that the boot strip is usually positioned a few inches above the waterline as an aesthetic touch and defines the separation between anti-fouling paint (below) and the topside paint (above).  I found the distance from the bottom rub strake to the top of the boot stripe using the drawing.  I added 2 mm to this measurement and placed a pencil mark on the hull.  I then laid the white curve tape along the top of the boot stripe and carefully pressed the white tape down along the hull so no paint would seep under the tape.  I then used my laser level and bubble level to “square up” the hull.  That is, no starboard nor port list, and the stern was 20 mm lower than the bow.  I raised the laser level to mark the bottom of the boot stripe and placed pencil marks on the hull 2 mm inside the laser line.  I took the boat off the stand and carefully placed the curve tape along the bottom of the boot strip and pressed the tape down to stop paint seepage.  All of this was done for both sides.  Both the top and bottom pencil marks are inside the painted areas.  I placed the yellow tape on half of the white tape and above and carefully masked the remaining boat.  Then I sprayed 3 coats of white paint.

[Ken_2]

Planking the deck seems a bit easier than the hull.  The deck consists of ~ 200 individual planks and is very repetitive like the hull planking, but the contours and planking shaping are straight forward – i.e. cut to length.  The one wrinkle was trying to find straight lines on the sub deck.  The deck is like a saddle.  The stern and bow are higher than mid-ships.  And port and starboard edges are lower than mid-ships as well.  I had to pry off and re-glue several of the trim pieces around the hatch holes to gain a square alignment.  Other than the initial alignment - it is cut and paste.

[Ken_2]

Like some other people, I have run out of 1mm x 1mm walnut planks used to simulate caulking.  The picture below shows how close I was before I ran out of wood.  The one skinny piece is the last of the caulking wood.  I ordered more wood from another source which will get here in a week or so.  In the interim, I have started working on the deck equipment.

I cut out the parts for the skylights, sanded the char and tabs off each piece.  Then stained them and sealed them with polyurethane.  I used a black cherry on one skylight and a dark walnut on the other.  Previously, I had purchased these mini-corner clamps just for this boat, hoping they would make it easier to keep my “dog-houses” square.  It was hard to keep these small parts in the clamp while I adjusted the clamps to the correct size, and slightly difficult to remove the wood to apply glue and put them back in the clamp for drying.  I’m not sure if these clamps will improve my quality of work, but the finished skylights do seem square after all that work.  I guess time will tell if I like these.

[Ken_2]

Next I started on the super structure.  I used squares to hold the first 2 pieces together, then the next 2 pieces, and finally the assembly.  I fit the partial assembly in the deck and found the superstructure was a bit too large.   A little sanding on the superstructure and then on the deck itself was required.  Nothing more than a half of a mm, except in the middle where the perpendicular plank overshot the hole. I stained all the parts, glued them together.  A little more sanding, and a little more staining was required, but now it fits.  Next, I will seal this super structure.  After that, I worked on the companion ways.  And finally, my new wood arrived, and I finished the deck.

[David W]

The boat is really starting to look great👍

"I have run out of 1mm x 1mm walnut planks used to simulate caulking."

 

Instead of using the 1x1mm wood, you could use a fairly heavy black or brown thread

 

Those skylights and hatch covers can be a royal pain where you sit, especially if you have too many thumbs on each hand. If you haven't started on the pilot house, you have another 'treat' coming. While you are further along then my Fifie endeavor, I've jumped ahead while glue was drying and have put the pilot house together. I extended the roof by 1/16" - 3/32" each side since it just didn't look right as Amati supplied it and looking at photos of real boats of the same design

[Ken_2]

The next task is to plank the inner bulkhead and trim the side rail.  The provided planks were not as long as the boat and required 2 planks for each side.  The 2nd bulkhead plank requires the width to be trimmed.  The bow on my boat required most of the 2^nd plank to be trimmed away.  I started sizing and trimming this top plank using a pencil to mark what has to be trimming.  I used an X-Acto blade to remove any areas that were large.  Then I used a Dremel, an X-Acto as a chisel, a mini-plane, and sandpaper to get the side rail smooth.  As well, the bow and stern caps did not fit, so I cut my own from some left-over cherry wood. 

[Ken_2]

Next, I cut and placed the timbers.  There were many timbers, each at a different height.  I created a 12 mm spacer to mark distance between the timbers and cut each one to the correct height.  80 timbers later I am ready for the next task.

[Diver]

39 minutes ago, Ken_2 said:

Next, I cut and placed the timbers.  There were many timbers, each at a different height.  I created a 12 mm spacer to mark distance between the timbers and cut each one to the correct height.  80 timbers later I am ready for the next task.

I  am enjoying your build of this kit.  I wanted to do either this kit or the Sanson tug from AL, my supplier had the tug so that what I got.  When it is done the Fifie will be next