San Juan by SighingDutchman (Seb) - OcCre - 1:70 - felucca

[SighingDutchman]

I bought this kit during the OcCre Christmas sale for the whopping amount of €45, less than half the usual price, and it was going to be my first build. But since OcCre does not deliver in the UK, I had it delivered at friends in the Netherlands and was planning to pick it up during the Christmas holidays. However, my Christmas trip to the Netherlands did not happen, and I bought two other kits in the UK (Midwest's dinghy and AL's Bounty jolly boat) and those became my first builds instead. I was recently able to finally pick up the OcCre San Juan kit, but am already working on a different kit (Vanguard's Sherbourne) and have kind of lost interest in the San Juan. However, I have now arrived at the (for me) somewhat daunting 'planking phase' in the Sherbourne build, and I have been thinking of experimenting with a few new techniques. Since I don't want to ruin the Sherbourne, I have decided to try these planking techniques on the OcCre San Juan instead; it was a cheap purchase and I had more or less decided not to build it at all earlier, so there is no great loss if the planking experiments are a  failure. Nevertheless, I will try and build the San Juan to the best of my abilities; if I am doing it anyway, I may just as well try to do it well. I worked on the kit for the past two days and am no ready to start faring the bulkheads, followed by first planking. Today, I will report on my experiences with this kit up to that point.

 

I thought it might be useful to start my build log of this kit aimed at the novice ship modeller with a little comparison to two other beginner kits which I have worked on, and which have price points which are not too far apart, namely Artesania Latina's Bounty jolly boat and Vanguard's HM armed cutter Sherbourne. I hope this is allowed in a 'build log'; if not, I am happy to remove this comparison. But I felt it might be useful for other beginners out there, who are in the process of deciding on their first or second kit. The comparison:

• Vanguard clearly wins in terms of quality and quantity of materials provided but, for their price, the AL and OcCre kits are not bad
• OcCre is by far the worst of the three in terms of instructions, which is an important differentiation point in kits aimed at absolute beginners. Both AL and Vanguard offer very detailed instruction booklets, illustrating every single step with lots of text and photos. OcCre's kit is much more traditional: two pages of minimal instruction texts and a small, separate booklets with some photos. OcCres instructions are clear and to the point, but they provide limited guidance to someone who has never built a model boat before. As an aside, even though AL's instructions are very good, Vanguard's are even better.
• Vanguard is also the clear winner in terms of hull construction. Here, OcCre is particularly weak, as I will discuss.
• AL and OcCre's kits come with sails (of reasonable quality). Vanguard's does not.
• In terms of historical accuracy, Vanguard's kit is excellent, as expected. AL's kits is problematic in describing the jolly boat as Captain Bligh's vessel but as a model of a contemporary ship's boat, it is not terrible, I think. I believe that there are more serious problems with OcCre's kit, as I will discuss.
• I think that a beginner's kit ideally offers double plank-on-bulkhead construction. Both Vanguard's and OcCre's do, but AL's has only single planking, which makes getting a good result non-trivial for a beginner; I had to resort to painting the whole hull to hide my first-planking errors.
• In terms of pre-cut and pre-scored elements, Vanguard's kit is, again, the clear winner, making it considerably easier (and quicker) for a beginner to get a great result. OcCre's and AL's kits are more traditional, requiring more part constructions from basic elements. Not a problem in itself, of course.

 

Overall conclusion: none of these kits is bad, but Vanguard's is the clear winner of this comparison, even though it is, admittedly, also the most expensive. OcCre's kit is, in my opinion, clearly the worst of the three. That said, I am still enjoying the build and at the €45 I paid for it, the kit is a bargain.

 

Onto the actual build. As usual, the process starts with gluing the bulkheads into the false keel. The fit is quite loose, and there is a lot of potential 'wiggle' in the bulkheads, up to 20 degrees or so either way. To ensure that they are aligned at a 90 degree angle to the false keel, I decided to install square pieces of balsa wood (see picture below).

 

All the deck planking - and there is a lot of it in this kit - is made with 5mm wide, 0.6mm thick limewood. At a scale of 1:70, that translates to a width of about 35cm (14 inches) which is, I believe, probably twice as wide as actual deck planking on a ship from this period (early nineteenth century). So, not particularly accurate, but since I don't have any other stock, I nevertheless used the strips provided. The instructions say to glue the strips full length onto the (several) decks and to suggest more realistic plank length by marking the strips with a pencil at appropriate points, and to suggest tree nails with that same pencil. Rather than do that, I cut the strips to an appropriate length and glued the now much shorter pieces onto the decks. To suggest caulking, I darkened the strips on one side and one end with a pencil. I decided not to make any tree nail marks as I suspect they would not have been visible at this scale (but am happy to be corrected on that).

 

The instructions also say to plank the main deck before glueing it onto the false keel and bulkheads. I was worried, however, that that would make it difficult to sufficiently bend the deck to the curvature of the hull assembly and therefore opted to soak the deck first, then let it dry in place overnight, then glue it in place and only then glue the deck strips in place. After attaching the deck planks to the main deck and all other surfaces that require them, we get the picture below.

 

At this stage, it becomes clear that the kit has some peculiarities / defects. First of all, the main deck did not properly fit the positions of the bulkheads, despite my best efforts to keep everything perfectly square. Not a major problem, as the attachment points between deck and bulkhead are hidden underneath the deck planking but had I followed the kit instructions and planked the deck before attaching it, I would have had a problem here. More problematic was that the holes in the main deck for fitting the support for the higher deck were too far forward. This left me with a gap in the deck planking, which I then had to fill, resulting in a visible repair.

 

Secondly, the main deck has two openings looking down into the hull. These are present in the ply deck and, the instructions say, need to be cut out of again after the deck has been planked. The picture below shows them from above. The kit has two sets of grates, and one would think that those should be positioned over the holes, mimicking a peek into the hull. However, instead, the holes are covered by two closed constructions, so are entirely pointless - as is visible in the second picture below. The grates are positioned straight onto the deck, which is clearly visible through them; I plan to paint black underneath, to at least suggest an opening into the hold. The grates are too small to fit over the current holes, so that is not an option. Also, the small grate at the far back is positioned over a very shallow part of the ship (only about a foot or so deep, on the 'real' ship), and would have served no conceivable function. Everything points to a mistake in the design.

 

Thirdly, the mizzen mast is positioned in this same, very shallow aft section and, therefore, has no support at its base at all. The pictures below show both main and mizzen mast inserted into the hull construction. Compare the depth of the main mast support with the total lack of it on the mizzen mast. I find it hard to believe that a mast would ever be positioned in such a shallow part of a ship, as even moderately strong winds would immediately endanger the structural integrity of both the mast and the aft section itself. I will have to decide what to do about this when the time comes to install the mast, but I think the current design is unrealistic. Again, I am happy to be corrected. The fact that a grating and a mast are positioned over/into this extremely shallow aft section also makes we wonder if the kit design originally had a much deeper section here. I have tried to find pictures of fellucas online, and could not find a ship with a similar protruding, thin aft deck. I don't know the historical basis (plans, pictures, descriptions?) for OcCre's design.

 

Fourthly, and relatedly, I am not entirely convinced of the historical reality of the San Juan. I cannot find any information on the ship anywhere, except as referring to this kit. The kit description gives quite a grand history for this little coastal ship, claiming it was the first ship to revisit Spain's former American colonies after the (several) war(s) of independence when 'merchant marine ships all but disappeared from the peninsula, leaving only small coastal sailing boats behind to re-establish the routes to the Antilles.'  I have been unable to verify this story and find it somewhat hard to believe that there were no more suitable vessels available for the Atlantic trade, either in Spain itself or through the charter of foreign vessels. The San Juan, if it resembled the kit design, hardly seems suitable for travel outside the Mediterranean sea - the traditional area of operation of feluccas. But, of course, I may be completely wrong here.

 

Despite these misgivings, I will continue to work on this build, and hope to start the actual 'planking exercises' shortly.

 

 

[SighingDutchman]

Performed a 'planking experiment' yesterday on this kit, and am reporting on the results today. A quick bit of background: I am a relative novice and I suck at planking. I just can't get those things to lay flat on the bulkheads. As an illustration, this was the sorry result of my planking job on AL's Bounty Jolly Boat.

 

A result I found so embarassing that I did not even include it in my build log but, instead, only showed the boat after liberally applying filler and extensive sanding. And I did my best on the Jolly Boat, and took my time. I soaked planks for hours, prebent them using an electric plank bender, narrowed their width towards the stern, tried several types of glues, let planks dry clamped in place before glueing, etcetera. It took me ages as well. So, to avoid a similar disaster on this build and on my HM Sherbourne build, I put some thought into ways of making planking easier for myself. So what is it that makes it difficult (at least for me) to have planks follow the natural flow of the hull? To do so, a plank must bend in one or, most often, several directions, as illustrated in this little diagram I made (note: the terminology used for the different bending directions may be incorrect/uncommon - am happy to change them to more commonly used terms, if someone can tell me what they are).

Of these, I have the greatest difficulty with edge bending, but the other types of bending are difficult enough too. The fact that most planks require several of these types of bending simultaneously further complicates things for me. However, I thought, it should be possible to reduce most of these difficulties simply by using narrower planks. If the planks are narrow enough, edge bending becomes much easier, the amount of twist require will be much reduced, and squeeze bending will be eliminated altogether. Side bending does not necessarily become easier, but that is the easies form of bending anyway. So, instead of using the 5mm wide planks provided by OcCre, I purchased a bunch of 1.5x1.5mm strips (total costs around £15) and used those instead. Here we are several (narrow) planks in. All planks were glued to the bulkheads and to the previous plank using medium viscosity superglue (30s drying time). They were not pre-bent before glueing, nor narrowed towards the stern or bow, nor clamped.

 

At this stage, I did notice that some side-prebending was necessary at the bow, so I started doing so. After going down to about eighty percent of the hull, I started planking from the false keel upwards. As is to be expected, I ended up with a small gap (the length of the bulkheads was not an perfect multiple of 1.5mm), which I filled with a plank that I cut to more or less the correct shape. I needed one tiny filler piece at the stern as well. At about the midpoint of the bulkheads, I ran some of the planks only partially towards the bow, to create a bit of space but, in hindsight, I am not sure that that was actually necessary. The end result, before sanding and applying any wood filler, was this:

 

I then lightly sanded the bow, applied a thin layer of light oak woodfiller, and sanded again, more aggressively this time, resulting in this:

 

 

I am quite happy with this result; I think it will be a solid basis for either painting or a second planking layer. On this build, I am going to go for the latter, and am going to cut the planks for this from veneer, rather than use the sapelli planks supplied by OcCre, as I don't like the colour (too dark, I think) and I want to run a second experiment on this new layer of planking, namely shaping the planks by cutting them to the right shape from larger stock (namely, a large piece of veneer).

 

My conclusions on this first-planking-layer experiment: for me, using these tin strips was much easier and led to much better result. I did [a] not require any complex pre-bending (just some very quick side bending at bow), [b] did not require soaking planks (and them having to let them dry before they can be glued), [c] required very little narrowing of planks (and even that was not really necessary, I think in hindsight), [d] because the strips are so narrow and so bendy, pre-planning or measuring is also not (strictly) necessary and I just 'went ahead' without it, and [e] it was very quick, because I could use superglue on the whole job; the planking of this one side of the ship took me four hours, with another hour or so added later for sanding/filling/more sanding. So, the whole hull will take me ten hours. So, even though there are many more planks to attach when using these narrow 1.5mm strips, I found that the overall time required was much less than if I had used normal width planks (5mm).

 

Of course, this method is only suitable if the hull is to receive a second layer of planking (as in this build) or is to be entirely painted (like in my HS Sherbourne build). But for novice, incompetent modelers like myself, it was a big help to get a good first-layer planking job, and I plan to employ it on future builds as well.

 

I would be interested in the critique of more experienced builders who happen to come accross this post. Am I cheating by planking like this? Am I missing or ignoring any obvious disadvantages of using these narrow planks? Have I re-invented the wheel?

 

 

[chris watton]

I should mention the sails, or lack of them in my kits.

 

I was given the details of the same sail maker that the Spanish companies use, and I had samples arrive which were passable - not a patch on the high-quality Russian sets, but much cheaper. I then forked out a large amount of money for 100 sets each for my existing smaller kits. The quality was too much of a contrast with the overall kit contents, so I then decided to give them away, and once they're gone, I am more than happy to not supply sail sets that are of such low quality that they could compromise the integrity of the overall kit. They may be fine for others to use, but I have decided to pass.

Edited April 29 by chris watton

[SighingDutchman]

I agree, Chris. The OcCre sails are passable enough for the OcCre San Juan, but they would be a terrible quality match with the Vanguard kits. I used them on AL's Jolly Boat, my first kit, but I am not using them on this OcCre kit, because they are just not very nice (passable is not good enough anymore for me). And I would never think of using sails of this quality on your HS Sherbourne, which I am building in parallel to this one.

[Ronald-V]

I understand your reasoning to use the San Juan as a "practice ship". Personally I would lose my interest if I found the subject that i'm building would not be interesting to me.

But if you can set that aside...then it's handy that you have practice hulls  

I used the first layer of the hull for practice...it's time consuming for something you never see again, but you learn a ton of it. And that brings me to the point of your use of very narrow plank...I must say, it looks kinda cool and nice, not that that's important, but you miss in this way a learning possibility how to deal with the actual size of planks. How they behave, what kind of bends are nessecary for this particular hull. A first layer is quite handy for...gaining that knowledge.

But nothing wrong how you did it, you can still get it right with the second layer. It took me 3 hulls before I began to understand the process. Some understand it right away the first time/hull. Most important thing is that you have fun doing it, and don't be to harsh on yourself. Even if the planking isn't perfect the first/second/third time...in the end result it looks most of the time still beautiful and you won't even notice it  

[DonSangria]

I find the narrow planks an interesting idea.

 

In my limited experiance the wood of which the planks are made of play a great part to how easily they can be shaped. The first layer of my Beagle from Occre was of 5x2mm rather splintering planks and rather difficult. I find the 5x1mm planks of my current build (Sphinx from Vanguard) much easier to shape and bend. So the quality of the planks matter.

[SighingDutchman]

Thanks Mugje. I take your point about the ‘missed learning opportunity’. And I will, at some stage, revert to the ‘normal’ way of planking. But I was quite discouraged by my first planking job on the Jolly Boat, and this way of planking is helping me overcome that. Also, admittedly, I just like coming up with alternative ways to do things, so this fits right into that ‘behavioural pattern’ 😀

[SighingDutchman]

Yes, DonSangria, that is a good point. The AL supplied planks and the OcCre ones on this build were/are also 5x2 mm, and rather splintery. So that may be one of the reasons for my lack of success using them.

[Ronald-V]

3 minutes ago, SighingDutchman said:

Thanks Mugje. I take your point about the ‘missed learning opportunity’. And I will, at some stage, revert to the ‘normal’ way of planking. But I was quite discouraged by my first planking job on the Jolly Boat, and this way of planking is helping me overcome that. Also, admittedly, I just like coming up with alternative ways to do things, so this fits right into that ‘behavioural pattern’ 😀

Gaining confidence by doing it in a different way is also great and you always learn something from it!