Lynx 1812 by SaltyScot - Manuta-Panart - 1:62 - building as Mosquidobit

[SaltyScot]

2 hours ago, Kenchington said:

What would we do without our spouses! Great that you could so swiftly correct the trouble.

 

But it is good to know that the kit manufacturer was not that badly out with one bulkhead. That would have shaken my confidence in all kits.

 

Trevor

 

They do have their uses in the shipyard after all  I hope she doesn't read that, I will be in trouble if she does......... Joking aside, it is always good to get a fresh set of eyes on something like that. I am just glad she dropped in when she did. Good woman  

[SaltyScot]

3 hours ago, Dr PR said:

This is why I recommend pausing and measuring everything before starting the planking - or installing the deck. After the planks are on it is too late to correct mistakes.

 

Point taken and lesson learned, Phil. I dry fitted those top strakes to get a feel for the symmetry throughout the day today and I have been finely sanding bulkheads here and there to get it right. Before any glue goes on I will be double and triple checking that everything is sitting correctly.

[SaltyScot]

After checking everything was lined up correctly I did a dry fit of the top strakes. The symmetry looks OK. I am going to leave this as is for now because the sails for my Endeavour build are done. I will finish her up, it has been too long since she's had some work done on her. Once she is complete, I will return to the Lynx.

 

[Dr PR]

Waiting anxiously for more schooner progress!

[SaltyScot]

13 hours ago, Dr PR said:

Waiting anxiously for more schooner progress!

 

That is nice to hear, Phil. I am just finishing up the sails on the Endeavour build and getting her on the shelf. My week so far has been occupied with swapping out our front door for a new one and finishing off patching and painting after we removed some walls between two rooms here at home. I should be back on the schooner by the weekend, sir.

[SaltyScot]

Hi Folks, here is my latest update on the current build. As a side note, the sale of my mother-in-law's house is eating up a lot of our time right now, despite being ready to go on the market we always seem to have stuff still to do, hence my absence here and there (sometimes unexpectedly). 

 

I decided to remake the rudder out of solid wood. I didn't really trust the brittle plywood to accept the nails I will be putting into it later on when the rudder gets mounted. I made it out of a nice piece of acacia wood that I had left over from a butcher block counter top we installed a few months ago:

 

 

 

 

I started work on the sheer strakes too. The tricky thing with this build is that the bulkhead "tips" will be cut off flush with the deck once the planking is complete. Because of this, I didn't want to glue the sheer strakes in place right away. I planned on putting the first 4 rows on and securing them with nails then, once the planks got below deck level, I would start gluing them on. The strakes above would be removed and then glued down onto the fixed ones below deck level, if that makes any sense. It was really the only way I know how to get them secure and in the right place:

 

 

 

The plank bending iron worked like a charm. I used it to shape the end of the first glued plank so that it would fit nicely in the rabbet:

 

 

I had to add temporary bracers across the first two bulkheads because (as I mentioned earlier) the plywood is not of the best quality and they were suffering when I knocked the support nails in, despite me holding them:

 

 

I hope to make more progress tomorrow  

 

[SaltyScot]

Today was not a particularly productive day in the shipyard, for several reasons. It started off as one of those days where everything I tried to do went wrong. I put up with that for about an hour and then deiced to step away. My plan had been to modify the bow because the kit seems to have an error, the beakhead appears to be too short. When I compare the run of the bow planking on the model and the images in the plans, there seems to be a big difference between the two in the length of the beakhead that protrudes away from the bow. Because I have the enlarged Mosquidobit images from Chapelle's book here, I could see that I needed to make some adjustments. Things didn't run all that smoothly this morning and, after stepping away and then taking everything outside to my wood shop (it was 72F here today [that's 20C for you European folk]), things didn't improve. I decided to take an adult beverage down to our dock and enjoy the sunshine. After that, funnily enough, my mind appeared clearer and I had a decent game plan. Things did move in the right direction somewhat (I took no pictures sadly), and tomorrow is a new day! I shall report back with some updates and images of my progress then.

[Dr PR]

There are days when nothing seems to go right. But it is amazing how a bit of sunshine can make things right again.

[Jolly Jo]

At least it sounds like a happy ending. It is quite hard to step away when one is determined to finish something or make progress of some kind. Especially getting one's mind off the subject afterwards...

Have a great new day! I'm looking forward to seeing how you progress.

[SaltyScot]

7 hours ago, Dr PR said:

But it is amazing how a bit of sunshine can make things right again.

 

Yes, Phil, sunshine and that nice breeze coming off the water were very relaxing. Food for the soul let me tell you.

[SaltyScot]

2 hours ago, Jolly Jo said:

It is quite hard to step away when one is determined to finish something or make progress of some kind.

 

That is true, Jo, but in instances like that, the harder one tries to get it right, the more seems to go wrong. Stepping away and taking the mind off it is a good alternative (that way the model doesn't end up flying across the room or ending up in the trash 🤣🤣🤣)

[SaltyScot]

I enjoyed my time in the wood shop/shipyard today. I still have to tackle the beakhead issue (unless it is something I am over reacting about) but more about that in a bit.

 

I fitted the garboard strakes this afternoon using @Dr PR's method explained here (thank you, Phil). Using the small flat iron plank bender certainly helped things along very nicely:

 

 

 

Now, onto my issue with the beakhead. The plans clearly show the beakhead protruding nicely out a ways from the point of the bow:

 

 

 

The problem I am having is that the way the false keel was made, the point of the bow sits way too far forward for there to be any significant gap from that point to the tip of the beakhead. Here is an image showing the initial hull fairing. Note the distance from the tip of the false keel (there may be a correct term for it but I am not aware of it), and the tip of the beakhead:

 

 

Once the planking is on and following those faired pieces at the bow, there is no way to achieve the gap shown in later images in the plans. Here is what it looks like on my build at this time:

 

 

And here the plans from Chapelle's book:

 

 

So, tell me, am I making a big fuss about nothing or do I have to extend the beakhead somewhat? I would hate for the bowsprit to not have enough to sit on.

 

All that being said, I like the way the hull is shaping up, she certainly has nice lines:

 

 

I also removed all the tabs from the bulkheads and did a dry fit of the sub deck just to see how I was doing. It went quite well:

 

 

Tomorrow I hope to finish the first planking and get her sanded down. I did apply some filler here and there on the sheer strakes to strengthen them up a little after I removed the bulkhead tabs. I will trim all that up once she is fully planked.

 

 

[Kenchington]

3 hours ago, SaltyScot said:

The problem I am having is that the way the false keel was made, the point of the bow sits way too far forward for there to be any significant gap from that point to the tip of the beakhead.

Mark,

 

It's a bit difficult figuring out what is going on without a side view of your model. The top view shows your "beakhead" (which the builder of the prototype probably called a "gammon knee" -- in full-size construction, it was a knee-shaped piece, bolted to the forward face of the stem), so I think it is there and probably as prominent in side view as would be expected. So I think that the problem is that the planks that form the bulwarks (starboard and port) meet too far forward.

 

Your illustrations show the internal framework of the model with three pieces projecting towards the stem (labelled "12" and "21" in one image). I suspect that you have to bevel those until the bulwark planks meet on the centreline of the centre framework piece (#12) and in contact with that piece. It looks like you currently have a gap there, with parts #21 (one per side) not bevelled enough. That may be wrong. I'm only trying to interpret your images. But that's what it looks like from here.

 

While I am writing:

3 hours ago, SaltyScot said:

the false keel (there may be a correct term for it but I am not aware of it)

I'm new to the world of wood models of wood ships, but the community seems to have developed a terminology all of its own that does not always line up with the terms used by the men who built the full-size prototypes. As I am reasonably well versed in the latter, I can get very confused by some postings on MSW! But that doesn't mean that the model-builder's terminology is wrong, just different.

 

In full-size (wooden) shipbuilding, a "false keel" is a sacrificial piece put onto the bottom of the keel to protect the primary structural timber from wear, tear and worms. That's not what you meant in your post, of course. The "keel" is the longitudinal piece at the bottom of the whole structure (usually straight and made from one tree whenever possible -- though it never was in a large ship). That may or may not be replicated in a kit. There is, of course, no equivalent in full-size ships to the centreline, backbone structure typical of plank-on-bulkhead models (which would obstruct use of the internal space of the vessel). There is no term for something that doesn't exist.

 

I think that what you were referring to was that centreline backbone. I've seen it called the "keel" or "false keel", here on MSW, both of which confuse me (though I'm leaning to cope!). Maybe there is some other term that a significant proportion of model-builders use. If not, this forum would be the best place to forge some agreement on what it should be called!

 

Trevor

 

 

[SaltyScot]

1 hour ago, Kenchington said:

It looks like you currently have a gap there, with parts #21 (one per side) not bevelled enough.

 

Hmmm, that is slightly annoying if that is the case. My issue with that is, if I had faired those parts you mentioned any more than I already had, the strake from the forward bulkhead would have had a weird angle coming off that bulkhead and onto those pieces. Perhaps the whole forward section of the hull should have been faired a little more...... Well, the matter is moot now, unless I rip off all the planks and start over. That being said, while I was fighting with that splitting plywood yesterday, I very seriously considered actually starting again and making the bulkheads and keel (or whatever it's called) out of a decent piece of wood, so basically scratch building them using the plans. Food for thought.

[Dr PR]

I agree with Trevor that you probably should have a bit more curvature in the planking at the bow. That would bring the point where they join a bit farther back. In your post #63 it looks like you didn't cut back the side pieces #21 at the bow far enough.

 

Also, It looks like the hull sides are a bit too vertical at the top - in other words the planks should slope outwards more. This would cause the line of intersection of the planks (the stem) to angle back and intersect the gammoning knee a bit farther back.

 

You could cut the planking back from the bow and reshape the filler to add some of curvature to the planking, and increase the outward "V" flare a bit. Or you can just live with it. No one else will notice on the finished model.

The real problem will be finding a place for the gammoning ropes if the knee doesn't protrude far enough forward from the stem.

 

I had that problem on my Albatross build. My solution was surgery on the bow to extend the gammoning knee.

 

https://modelshipworld.com/topic/19611-albatros-by-dr-pr-mantua-scale-148-revenue-cutter-kitbash-about-1815/?do=findComment&comment=912575

 

One Lynx plan shows the gammoning ropes running under the knee and over the bowsprit, rather than the ropes running through an opening in the knee. However the Lynx model in the Smithsonian doesn't appear to have gammoning. Chapelle doesn't show gammoning in his drawings of Lynx or Musquidobit, although he does show this in drawings of other vessels. I have seen instances of where the gammoning was positioned inside the bulwarks at the bow.

 

Unless you have drawings showing the the British added gammoning around the bowsprit and knee I think you can leave it off. And that means you don't need a long knee. In fact, some vessels had no knee at all, with the stem rising straight up to the bowsprit.

 

The modern Lynx reproduction has a much larger decorated gammoning knee, but I can't see any gammoning in the photos I have.

 

Murphy often gives us additional opportunities to practice our modelling skills.

 

[SaltyScot]

4 hours ago, Dr PR said:

Murphy often gives us additional opportunities to practice our modelling skills.

 

Well put, Phil. I have decided to run with it. this is a lesson learned and one that I am sure to be aware of in future builds. I am a little frustrated with myself for not getting that fairing right but am not going to lose any sleep over it.

[SaltyScot]

The planking is coming along nicely, I have made good progress on the one side. I was perhaps a little ambitious when I said I would finish this in one afternoon  , I am taking my time and enjoying every minute of it:

 

 

 

I added a stealer strake to get me back on line while I was working up the hull. I should have done that on the one above it (towards the sheer strakes, the hull is upside down right now), because there is a gap. That strake will be coming off again:

 

 

I also steam bent a nice piece of walnut that I will be using as a false keel and up to the beakhead (you made me think of this @Kenchington when you described just what a false keel is). It will cover the nasty plywood that currently runs along the keel and keeps separating:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited 29 minutes ago by SaltyScot
Image removed

[Keith Black]

 Coming along nicely, Mark.