Palamos by djford - FINISHED - OcCre - 1:45 - first build

[djford]

This is my first ever model ship kit. I've recently taken a deep-dive into the hobby, and after doing a bit of research on this forum (and reading through many, many ship builds) I decided to reign in my enthusiasm a little bit and go for a 'beginner' ship. I'm interested in doing some more complex things later down the line, and I'd like to try my hand at some ships in bottles, but this will do as an introduction. This is also my first real foray into a forum like this, so wish me luck!

 

So! The Palamos is a 1:45 kit based on traditional Spanish fishing boats. It's possible to paint it, but I do like the walnut finish they show in the stock photo, so I'm tempted to leave it as is, with the natural wood colours. 

Lovely. 

 

Here's my first steps. 

 

I cut out the various bulkheads and keel. There was very little filing and sanding required, and the parts fit together perfectly without needing adjustment. A huge difference from plastic.

Note my improvised stand using clothes pegs to hold the ship upright whilst the glue dried. I think I got these about as square as possible, though even this felt somewhat fiddly. 

 

Whilst this dried, I started work on the deck. OcCre suggest laying the planks out and drawing in joins with a pencil. I thought that would look a bit naff, so elected to diverge from the instructions and cut the planks to 110mm lengths. There's not much of this wood provided, considering it's also used to plank the hull, so I tried to be as conservative as possible with the planks. 

In order to keep everything aligned, I drew alternating lines in red and black pencil, 55mm apart. I didn't really have a reference for where this planking should start, so I just eyeballed it - I think it will look fine.

I also took the time to coat the edges of each plank in pencil graphite to simulate caulking - I've seen this done in a number of build posts here, and it makes a surprising difference!

I cut out the battens for the bow and stern and labelled them all - glad I did as I nearly stuck them to the wrong ends! Also pictured is the deck before trimming. 

And here's the deck attached...

and the battens ready for filing down.

And that's a wrap on this session. I'll get the keel thinned down and the bulwarks added on as soon as I find some more time to work on this - thoroughly enjoyable thus far. Looking forward to learning more about the hobby!

 

Doug

 

Edited August 19 by djford
finished!

[JacquesCousteau]

Great start! I'm looking forward to following this build.

[yvesvidal]

Great model, rarely seen on this forum. You are off to a good start.

 

Yves

Edited July 23 by yvesvidal

[SiriusVoyager]

Welcome to MSW.  This was my fourth build and it is a pretty good one for a beginner.  Getting the Bulwarks on is a beast so be prepared for some frustration there.  I was as conservative as I could be with the supplied wooden strips and I had a reasonable number left over, so don't worry too much about that. It looks like you are off to a good start.

[djford]

On 7/23/2024 at 12:21 AM, SiriusVoyager said:

Welcome to MSW.  This was my fourth build and it is a pretty good one for a beginner.  Getting the Bulwarks on is a beast so be prepared for some frustration there.  I was as conservative as I could be with the supplied wooden strips and I had a reasonable number left over, so don't worry too much about that. It looks like you are off to a good start.

 

Thanks Eric! Yeah, I saw your build log before buying the kit, so thanks for the detailed walk through - very helpful. 

[djford]

Thanks for the encouragement guys!

 

Here's a quick update of the last couple sessions. I roughly sanded down the keel, bow and stern with a dremel. Writing this now, I know I didn't take enough off in the first pass, but that's okay - all a learning process.

 

And now, on to the dreaded bulwarks. I planked these as directed in the instructions, and began the bending process. In hindsight, I should have used CA glue for the planks here (instructions recommend contact cement, but I used wood glue) as I had some warpage here.

Nothing major though, and some careful cuts with a scalpel blade have settled the most egregious bends in the planks down enough that I'm happy with it. 

Now, on to actually attaching the bulwarks. Oh man. Whoever designed this kit was a sadist. The first one took me a good half hour of struggling, bending, struggling more, bending more...

And this is by no means perfect. Oh well - at least it's attached. On to the second one.

And there we go. I made liberal use of drawing pins for this, and found them far more effective than the tiny little brass pins provided in the kit. 

My bending skills require some work, however. For the life of me I couldn't get the bulwarks to meet perfectly at the stern, and I couldn't work out a way of clamping them so that they wouldn't slowly pull apart before the glue had time to dry. So, enter my slightly janky solution: I superglued some printer paper over the join as a brace. Not pretty, not very traditional, but it's going to be covered with planking later anyway, so who's to know?

And with that done, I glued in the uprights and the battens for each end of the deck. I had to file the stern one down a little to make it fit against my slightly-too-pointed bulwarks, but I think it looks okay. 

 

And there we go! On to planking next (I've actually already made a start at time of writing), so my next update will hopefully be the first planking layer complete. Stay tuned!

 

 

[djford]

And here's the update!

 

The OcCre instructions tell you to start planking in the middle of the hull. Every piece of advice and tutorial I've seen tells you to start at the gunwales, so that's what I did. I applied two layers at the gunwales and two at the keel before thinking about tapering:

 

 

To bend these, I held them over the spout of a kettle - it seemed to work reasonably well. The tapering plan I put together seemed to work reasonably well, though I'd definitely got the measurements a little bit off, as I ended up with a few gaps. Here it is halfway done:

Again I found drawing pins a great help in keeping everything aligned. 

I used thin offcuts to fill the more egregious gaps, but overall, as a first-ever planking job I think I did pretty well.

 

Definitely should have thinned the bow down more, but this is all going to be covered anyway, so I think I'll get away with it.

Here it is after some major sanding:

Not perfect by any means, but she looks like a boat now. I actually did a little more sanding after this photo was taken. Note the stern is significantly more thinned down now - I should have apparently had the planks meet each other past the false keel, as the actual keel sits a little further out than expected. I think this will be fine once the next layer of planking is on, but it's a little irritating, and wasn't clear at all in the instructions. The hull is a very strange shape at the stern, and the lack of a transom made bending, shaping and sanding very onerous.

 

Here it is on the stand:

I'm very pleased with how the bow came out. Time will tell whether my shaping of the stern will look good. 

In OcCre's instructions, they suggest planking and then adding on the keel afterwards. From reading another build log by SiriusVoyager, he recommends putting the keel on first. That's what I've done, and that's the last of this update:

As you can see, there's a few little gaps around the keel, but it's on now and I'm relatively sure I'll be able to fill those, either with shims of scrap or with the next layer of planking. Time will tell - I'm pleased with the progress thus far, despite some frustration with the weird-shaped hull. On to the next step!

 

 

 

[JacquesCousteau]

Congratulations on completing a very difficult task!

[SiriusVoyager]

Nice work on your first planking. You will definitely want the hull as smooth as possible so that the second layer of planking fits on nice and flat. Using some wood filler and sanding it down again will help with that. 
 

The gaps between the hull and the keel are exactly why I say to lay the keel first. You can use the second layer of planking to cover up those gaps. Had the second layer of planking be placed first, that wouldn’t have been possible.  Again, a little wood filler in those gaps can provide a bit of structure for the second layer of planking. A small rabbet along the keel, especially on the bow and stern will help hold those second planks in place.  

[djford]

On 7/26/2024 at 5:13 PM, JacquesCousteau said:

Congratulations on completing a very difficult task!

Thanks very much! It was quite zen once I got into the flow of it 🙏

[djford]

On 7/26/2024 at 9:48 PM, SiriusVoyager said:

Nice work on your first planking. You will definitely want the hull as smooth as possible so that the second layer of planking fits on nice and flat. Using some wood filler and sanding it down again will help with that. 
 

The gaps between the hull and the keel are exactly why I say to lay the keel first. You can use the second layer of planking to cover up those gaps. Had the second layer of planking be placed first, that wouldn’t have been possible.  Again, a little wood filler in those gaps can provide a bit of structure for the second layer of planking. A small rabbet along the keel, especially on the bow and stern will help hold those second planks in place.  

Thanks Eric. Yeah, I added a bunch of filler and sanded even more after this. By no means perfect but I'm quite pleased considering it's my first attempt!

 

Putting the keel on first was a huge help, so glad I saw it in your build log first. Not sure it'd have come out at all as nicely without that change. 

Cheers!

[djford]

Time for a new update!

 

I've gotten the second layer of planking done, and I'm proud of it.

 

Here's some in-progress shots of that process, starting at the gunwales:

As you can see, I also used some offcuts from the planking process to start on the fanned planks round the gunwales at the stern.

With three full-width planks at the gunwales, I also added two full-width by the keel:

And then I promptly forgot to take any photos in between this and finishing the side:

As you can see if you zoom in enough, my tapering plan worked out just fine until right at the end - I guess that's where it normally would fail. I ended up using just one gap-filling plank - everything else was tapered from 5mm to 2.5mm at the bow, then finished at the stern with stealers. A couple tiny gaps visible here, but they're barely noticeable in person.

 

I used this layout on the other side:

This was a very quick process, and I ended up doing most of the side in-between meetings at work. You can see a few raised points where the extremely thin veneer has twisted up away from the hull a little. I remedied this later with applications of superglue slid into the gaps on a bit of scrap wood. Again, I ended up with one thin gap-filler plank (the third away from the keel on both sides) but overall I would say this was an extremely satisfying task. Very pleased with myself.

 

Here the boat is with the final planks applied to the gunwales, and a light coat of Danish oil :

And here she is from a photo today, with the framing applied to the gunwales and the railings put on. I used a heavy application of Dark Oak Briwax to darken the plywood of the railings.

Because my gunwales weren't put on exactly as OcCre decreed, I had some trouble getting them to fit properly, snapped one, and ended up filling a gap at the stern with some scrap ply. Not a fun experience, but worth it in the end as I think it's transformed the look of the piece. Also note the nice brass eyelets - push fit without any need for glue - at the bow. Really brings the boat together.

 

I'm super happy with the progress I've made here. On to the superstructure now - I've actually already made a start on this, but I'll put that in the next update. I will say, getting tiny holes into tiny brass strip has been one of the more frustrating parts of this so far. Any tips on that very welcome.

 

Cheers for following along!

 

[djford]

Hello! 

 

I've not given up on this, but I did go away for a week, so I'm just popping back on to update some small progress. 

I've started putting together the various bits of superstructure:

 

OcCre's instructions on these bits are pretty terrible, so it's been a bit of a slow, frustrating process.

Still, progress is continuing. I think the next update will be the last one.

Stay tuned!

[djford]

Final update! 

 

Here's the cabin:

The instructions call for some little pieces of wood to blinker the two lights on top, but honestly I didn't think they looked very good, and I didn't really want to fiddle about with them. This photo was also taken before I glued on the large white barrel thing to the rear roof. 

 

Here is a cool photo of all the completed superstructure. I didn't take many photos of this part of the build as I was mostly doing it in between meetings. Lots of little 10-minute work periods, but it went pretty quickly. To taper the mast, I stuck the provided dowel rod in the chuck of a power drill, locked the drill in a vice and held some sandpaper against the dowel as I span it. My poor man's lathe worked excellently, and I'm very pleased with the result. 

Also note the two cross-pieces on the trawling blades. Paddles? Nets? Not sure what they're actually called. Anyway, I had an absolute mare putting these things together. The brass that frames them was too thick to just punch through, and resisted all kinds of tools - the final solution was a dremel with a tiny drill bit wrapped in some painter's tape so that it was thick enough for the chuck to bite. Miserable experience and by far the least pleasant part of the build in general. 

 

Here those paddles are attached:

I didn't bother putting the brass cross-pieces on the top face of these. I like how the Sapele wood looks and honestly I was so fed up of the brass once I'd framed these that I just couldn't face it. I don't think that's a detriment to the final piece, and as this isn't a model of a 'real' ship then I think that's fine. 

 

Rigging the ship was next, and mostly went well. I created a rudimentary jig to make the rope ladders on each side - a wood screw through a piece of cardboard and the printout of the ship provided:

This worked really well, and the two ladders didn't take me too long at all once I'd gotten into the flow of it.

Here's the first one attached:

As you can see, I'd already done the various bits of rigging round the boom and mast by this point. Sorry, got completely into the flow state and didn't take a single picture of the process. The one slightly frustrating part of this was the block on the underside of the boom - only one of the provided blocks had two holes, so I had to drill a second one into that miniscule piece of wood. From the diagram provided, the boom was only lashed in place on one side, but on my model that just let it swing loosely. The solution was the second hole, which lets me lash it to both sides of the hull. I think that looks fine, but do let me know if it's not kosher. 

 

Additionally, note the central cabin entrance thing - per instructions, this actually belongs in front of the main cabin. That would leave about 5mm of room to actually enter the doorway there, so I switched it with the hatch you can see at the front in the photo above. I think that's a much better look, both practically and aesthetically. 

 

And, drum roll please; final photos:

 

I'm super pleased with this. There are some gaps, and some bits don't fit properly, and parts are wonky or poorly finished or a bit slapped together.

 

But it's mine, I made it, and I had a blast doing it. Definitely hooked. I've ordered my next kit already. 

 

Thanks for following along!

 

 

[SiriusVoyager]

Great job on the Palamos!  I think you should be pretty happy with the result.  As far as the brass around the paddles at the stern, did you anneal it prior to drilling?  I did break quite a few drill bits trying to get through those strips, even with the brass annealed. 

[JacquesCousteau]

Congratulations! The completed model really looks great, you did an excellent job on it (tricky parts and all).

[ccoyle]

Nice work! Congratulations!

[Snug Harbor Johnny]

A very nice build !

[king derelict]

Super job. The wood finish is really nice 

alan

[djford]

On 8/20/2024 at 12:58 AM, SiriusVoyager said:

Great job on the Palamos!  I think you should be pretty happy with the result.  As far as the brass around the paddles at the stern, did you anneal it prior to drilling?  I did break quite a few drill bits trying to get through those strips, even with the brass annealed. 

Thanks Eric, much appreciated, and another huge thanks for your build log - it was a massive help at points. 

 

No, I didn't anneal the brass - I considered that, and wonder if it'd make bending it a bit better too, but I just persevered with my Dremel. Only broke one bit, but it was such a time-consuming process - more eroding than drilling through the metal. 

[SiriusVoyager]

49 minutes ago, djford said:

…No, I didn't anneal the brass - I considered that, and wonder if it'd make bending it a bit better too, but I just persevered with my Dremel. Only broke one bit, but it was such a time-consuming process - more eroding than drilling through the metal. 

I got a small blowtorch from Walmart for about $25.  It is well worth the investment if you plan on building more. 

[Knocklouder]

Awesome work,  congratulations   

    Bob M.