Sloop Speedwell 1752 by baribeaujm (Jean-Marc) - Syren Ship Model Company - 1:32 Scale - POF Sloop

[baribeaujm]

Hello all,

 

I recently started this project and will be reporting on my progress in this blog.  Stay tuned. 

 

Jean-Marc

[baribeaujm]

CHAPTER 1

 

Here we go.  I started ship modeling about 15 years ago.  I completed all Chuck's projects plus a few others (including Model Shipways Syren). I recently completed the Winchelsea and posted a few pictures on the gallery. Except for Chucks Medway, all my projects had been POBs.  I was therefore quite excited when the Speedwell kit was released. This offers me a great opportunity to work for the first time on a POF kit without having to scratch my own frames. Except for ripping planks on my Byrnes saw (yes I am among the lucky ones), I essentially work with hand tools.  In this blog I will report on my progress. All the Speedwell builders are well experienced, and I am hoping you guys can provide advices when I have questions or encounter difficulties.  Thanks in advance. (This will also free Chuck from answering my numerous emails). On occasion, I hope I can contribute some ideas and tips to those who will undertake this project. 

 

Parts for Chapter 1 are shown below.  Contrary to others, my kit survived posting very well.  Only one small part (5F) in the top center board seems to be missing.  It is easy to scratch build, so no big deal.

Assembling the stem is straightforward. Tweaking the edges as suggested improves the fit.  I had to tweak a few more edges than those indicated to get the tightest fit. 

Positioning the stem (long curved part to which the rabbet is glued) on the rest of the stem assembly can be tricky. It is important to follow the plan closely to avoid problems when making the boxing joint at the keel and to ensure a tight fit between the apron and the rabbet.  I think I glued mine a hair too low and had to make adjustments (to be discussed below).  Note that I postponed the gluing of the thinner knee of the head for the time being. To prevent knocking it off, it will be glued on only when the whole stem/keel/stern assembly is completed. 

[Freebird]

Looks good Jean-Marc!

 

Should be starting my build this weekend.

 

Best Regards .... Rick

[baribeaujm]

The Keel Assembly

 

The main challenge here is to make a tight fit at the boxing joint between the keel and stem. I had to shorten the curved stem just a touch to get a good fit. The rest of the keel assembly is a matter of gluing the various sections in the right order and on the right side. Very little tweaking of the edges is needed.  While I was waiting for my kit, I built a set of simplified "Ed Tosti" clamps.  I find these work better than commercial clamps to apply even and adjustable pressure to the parts being glued. They are kind of fun to make too.

Lower Apron and Angled Wedges

 

Here I encountered my first difficulty.  The stepped lower apron is attached to a sacrificial piece of wood (handle). This makes it easier to glue the wedges one by one.  Without the handle, the lower apron would certainly break during this operation.  I found that even with the handle, the lower apron remains quite fragile. If you force the wedge in position, you can slightly modify the curvature of the apron or even break it loose from its handle. This happened to me and resulted in a poor fit of the lower apron to the keel assembly as shown below.

I was able to correct this by gluing a sliver of wood between the apron and the keel as shown here.

 

This gap may also have been the result of the stem being glued a hair too low (less than 1/32th). Anyway, I am glad that I took the time to correct this. 

[dvm27]

Great repair Jean-Mark! One of the things I learned on my first plank on frame model was that my skills would improve dramatically as the build progressed. It is important not to "settle" for anything less than perfect early in the build or you will surely regret it later on. I also found that using 3X magnification loupes while working (regrettably 5-7x now 🙁) greatly improved the finished result. If you are happy with the work at 3x magnification you will surely be happy with the naked eye.

[baribeaujm]

Thanks Greg. I tried magnification loupes and they don't work well with me.  I suffer from strong myopia and presbyopia. My myopia is such that my far point (distance at which a far object is in focus) is actually closer than my near point (distance at which a close object is in focus). I found that the best way to work is to not wear any glasses and keep the object I am working on at the far point distance (about 12-15cm). Then the object is in perfect focus. The price to pay is a total lack of depth of field, which becomes a problem  when aligning/gluing larger elements. 

 

 

 

[baribeaujm]

Lower/Upper Apron

 

The pre-cut curved rabbet is a nice feature which avoid the headache of bending and adjusting a straight strip and gluing it to the stem. I had to tweak the curvature at the stem to get a tight fit between the lower and upper apron.  I found it tricky to  optimize the seam on both sides at once. A lot of back and forth was required here.  The final result is shown below. 

 

The Rising Wood

 

Before gluing the rising wood sections, I realized that the strip supplied for the rabbet was a touch thicker than the curved section.  I fixed this easily using my Varitas mini-plane. The rising wood then went on with no particular issues. Care should be taken to insure that the position of the rising wood is not shifted with respect to the plan. For this I used a plan that I had printed at my local printer. 

 

The Deadwood

 

I followed the instructions with no particular issues here. Gluing the angled wedges is easier than at the bow.  The completed assembly is shown below. 

 

 

[baribeaujm]

Thank you all for the likes.

 

Stern Post

 

While most of the keel parts were glued on a flat surface, this proved problematic for the stern post.  With the rising wood protruding and the stem taper, the assembly is no longer flat and it is difficult to proceed the same way. To keep the stern post perfectly vertical, centered and aligned to the stem, I rather used squares to keep the whole assembly vertical and aligned. See photo.

 

 

I applied a couple thin coats of WOP on the completed assembly.  I show  close-ups of the stern and stem below (note the knee of the head finally glued on).  

 

 

After application of WOP the wood got a bit darker than expected.  Does WOP have a limited shelf time when opened? In the past I have used nitrocellulose sealer.  This is great stuff. It does not change the wood color, gives a nice satin finish and dries almost instantly (70% of the content is VOC!). It is however a pretty nasty chemical and it is hard to find (banned in North-America?). I got mine from the UK many years ago but nowadays suppliers will not ship this abroad.  I find WOP a good alternative.

 

Building Board

 

This has been covered by others and I essentially followed their foot steps.  The MDF boards I could find in hardware stores were not flat. I resorted to a melamine board and glued my plan with repositionable spray glue.   It is now time to work on the frames. Stay tuned. 

 

 

 

[baribeaujm]

Frame Preparation

 

The next step is removing of the char on the frame parts. The layer of char on those parts is quite thick and cleaning them up requires a fair bit of work.  The photo below shows the tools and equipment I used for this task. Char from the hull (concave) side of the frame can be removed using sand paper.  First using standard woodworking 400 grit sand paper and then finishing with waterproof automotive 400-600 abrasive paper.  I find the later works very well. Since it is black, every sanding stroke is clearly seen so it is easy to move your part around to clean areas at every stroke (sanding over a dirty section of the sand paper just imbed the char within the wood fibers).  Once the sand paper sheet is saturated with char, it can easily be cleaned by soaking in water, dried and reused.  For the  inside of the frames (convex regions) I first used Lee Valley's mini scrappers. Most of the char can be remove this way.  A clean surface is achieved with further sanding with sanding sticks of diamond needle files. I use a crepe block to frequently clean the sticks and files from accumulated char.  Otherwise the char removed is simply moved around.  With the same idea in mind, it is a good idea to keep your working area clean by frequent wiping/vacuuming.  All this is done wearing a N95 mask (a must) and optional nitrile gloves. 

Frame preparation is a slow process.  It took me about three weeks to complete the square frames.  By the end, I could complete one frame in about one hour.  

Once the char removed, I also sanded the frame sides to remove any residual char. An example of a completed frame (10f) is shown here.   Note the misplaced notch in one of the parts (lower right hand corner) for this particular frame.  This is the only part that shows such anomaly.  Hard to understand how this could happen in the production process. If others see the same it could indicate a mistake in the drawing file used with the laser cutter. 

 

The next step is the frame assembly. At this point I am wondering whether or not WOP should be applied to the sides prior to assembly?  It is not clear to me how the frame sides can be finished once assembled (how to deal with the various steps when scrubbing with a steel wool) or installed on the keel (limited access).  I welcome suggestions. I am also trying to devise a method to keep joints as tight as possible and minimize skewedness of assembled frames.  The photo below shows all the frame parts s in individual ziplock bags ready for assembly. 

 

 

 

Edited May 17 by baribeaujm

[Chuck]

Very nice....that will certainly make framing easier and quicker.

[Rustyj]

For me I will apply a coat of wipe on poly prior to assembling them on the keel. Excellent work on those frames. 

[baribeaujm]

Frame Assembly

 

I can finally report on the frame assembly.  I worked slowly, trying to adjust the various parts of a frame as best as possible. I found getting nice clean scarf joints on fore and aft sides of the frame not that easy. The method I used was to work on a glass plate on top of a mirror as shown below.

 

 

This allowed me to check the fit on both sides simultaneously and make tiny necessary adjustments.  In general I achieved fairly good results, doing my best to minimize gaps at the joints. 

 

Cross Piece Jigs

 

The next step was to glue the cross piece jigs on each tall frame.  You want to have the jig perfectly perpendicular to the frame so that once assembled together the jig pieces are nice and flat. Just eye balling here is probably not good enough. To get those jig pieces square, I stuck them on a flat board with double side tape and used a set of squares to position the frame perpendicular to it.  The photo below shows my setup.  There are certainly clever ways to do this, but that approach worked for me. 

 

As for the short frames, the handle bar was glued on with the frame put on a graph paper to check for and correct any asymmetry. The photo below shows some of the completed frames.  As with any repetitive task, I found my technique improved as I was making more frames. I would recommend to not begin frame construction with the very critical midship frames Aa, Af, etc. Any inaccuracies on those will affect the adjustment and alignment of frames as one proceeds from midship to bow and stern. 

 

 

Mounting the Frames

 

Here I followed Chuck's instruction.  Getting the first frame nice and square is critical.  As suggested, I used a set of squares for this.  I clamped a tall square on both side of the board to center the frame.  Squares were used to insure the frame was perpendicular to both the working board and the keel. 

 

Like others, I found the frame was a touch inside the breadth max line (about 3/64).  Adding frames was fairly straightforward, but as I proceeded, fine adjustments were needed to correct small misalignments due to frame construction and jig installation.  The photo below shows the first seven frames mounted and sweep ports installed.  To keep the sheer line nice and not jagged I had to glue on a piece of plank to keep the jig pieces aligned. This is likely the result of small skewness in some of the frames. This clamping of the jig  induces a small amount of stress to the frames, but hopefully this will not be consequential once the hull is planked.  I used the provided template to adjust the sweep port positions.  Very little adjustments were needed. Just keep the the top of sweep port filler aligned with the sheer line.  Incidentally, the sweep port pieces add a lot of rigidity to the whole assembly. I would not attempt any fairing without those in place. 

I dry mounted a few more frames as shown in the photo below.  I am a bit surprised on how some of the frames (4f and 5f) seem to not follow the general inboard hull profile  (they fit the outboard profile nicely).   Is this the way it should be? 

 

 

 

 

 

[Chuck]

Beautiful progress.  Nicely done.   It a very tidy and precise build.

 

Chuck

[JeffT]

The mirror is a great idea

[Seventynet]

Jean-Marc,

 

Some really innovative solutions. Nicely done. I wonder with that mirror sandwich whether you could get a light in there too. I’m using a light table and it is helpful but as you recognized you can’t see the back side. Perhaps some kind of portable light wand would suffice.

 

Ian

[Rustyj]

Very nice workmanship Jean-Marc. 

[baribeaujm]

Mounting the Frames and Fairing

 

I finally completed the square frame installation.  Once you got the hang of it, I progressed fairly quickly. Here is one side view:

I found it important to check verticality whenever a frame was added. Some frames were slightly off, possibly because of minor misalignments when frame parts were assembled. The seven-piece frames on each side of the gun ports are the most susceptible to this.  A few remarks: I opted to sand the frame sides and apply WoP. This represents a lot of work and it is arguable that this is needed at all. The gun port template is very useful to position the sweep ports and sills. However, it works best if the upper section of the hull is faired. As indicated in the instructions it is important to shape the sweep ports so they nicely follow the fairing. I also partially faired the inside as I progressed. I decided to treenail the frames prior to installation. It is easier to get the distances and angles uniform.  

 

The following images show starboard and port views after fairing. For the most part I used Vallejo flexi sanders of various grits (see photo below). I found these work very well. Contrary to emery sticks those flexi sanders do not gum up and last forever. 

 

 

There is some residual fairing to do, but only after the cant frames are installed.  It this time to start Chapter 2!

 

 

[Chuck]

That looks wonderful…super

clean.

[Stuntflyer]

Looking really nice!

[Rustyj]

She's looking really good!

[baribeaujm]

The Fore Cant Frames

 

Work continues on the Speedwell. Preparing the cant frame is a long process. Lots of char to remove, joints to adjust, tree nailing to do, etc. I found the cant frame jig work very well. Once the jig is positioned properly, adding frames one after the other is relatively straightforward.  As  suggested in the instructions, I first installed the first three fore cant frames  and then switched to frame 11 and worked my way towards the bow. Some tweaking was needed at the lower joint between the frames and the lower apron, suggesting my apron wedges were not perfectly vertical. 

The above photo shows the starboard cant frames after some preliminary fairing.   I tried to keep the bottom joint as clean as possible with minimum gaps. 

 

The Bow Timbers

 

I shaped the bow timbers as instructed. I found that my bevel lines were systematically lower than the edge of the forward cant frame. This was probably because I had some initial fairing done on the frame. Anyhow the assembling went smoothly. No particular issues here.  

 

The above images show views of the bow timbers after assembly and fairing. There is a bit more fairing required near the keel and at the sheer. It is quite tricky to get the hull profile right where the frames have an inward curve (concave). I will address this later.  

 

 

 

Edited October 18 by baribeaujm

[Rustyj]

Looking very nice. 

[sfotinos]

Outstanding work!