Santa Maria by JohnWW - Artesania Latina - 1:65 - First "Real" Model

[JohnWW]

Well kids, the journey has started. This my first "real" ship. My first was just a small boat to get a feel for things. 

I learned that near enough is not good enough, it has to be exactly right, and if it's exactly right, then that's near enough.

The first thing I noticed when opening the box was a distinct lack of instructions. I suppose they can't include precise instructions because of the many different way of doing things. I'm sure I'll be relying heavily on the very knowledgeable members of this forum.

Firstly, I dry fitted the bulkheads to the keel. There were a few that were too low so I had to build them up a bit. There were a couple that were too high and needed to be sanded back a poofteenth, but it has to be right.

Today I glued in the first bulkhead, squared it up with aluminium angles. Looks good so far.

I have a question regarding strengthening the bulkheads. I read here that a member had trouble when he put blocks in to strengthen everything he pulled the keel out of alignment. Another member had a problem with the blocks when he was planking. Presumably the blocks got in the way of the planking clamps.

Is it necessary to strengthen the bulkheads? They are only 3mm thick.

Thanks everyone, I'm really looking forward to this.

[Knocklouder]

Good luck on your journey, 

Bob  M.

[JohnWW]

Thanks Bob, looking forward to it.

John

[vossiewulf]

John, if you put no blocks or other connectors between the bulkheads, those bulkheads will  be free to vibrate independently when you're trying to fair them with sanding blocks/files and that process will not go easily. Even small blocks that lock the bulkheads together will help you fair the hull more cleanly.

[JohnWW]

Thanks vossiewulf. That's something I hadn't thought of. 

[JohnWW]

Bulkheads installed. Everything is squared and levelled. Now, as vossiewulf suggested, going to measure the bulkheads to fit blocks to brace up a bit.

[JohnWW]

Next report. Things are moving along quite nicely, albeit slowly. I took vossiewulf's advice and blocked the hull between the bulkheads, and I placed them back a bit from the edge to make room for clamps when planking. If I hadn't put these blocks in, as vossiewulf suggested, the bulkhead would have twanged like banjo strings when I was fairing, well, he didn't quite say that, but that's what he meant. Now there's just a mellow hum like a cello. 🙂

I've planked the deck, if that's how you put it, and it went well. 

Very happy with the way things are going at the moment although I haven't reached any of the challenging bits yet.

[JohnWW]

Good afternoon everyone. Well, the time has come to start planking. I've done a few extra little things so far like planking the deck but now ready to plank the hull. I decided to go with Mark's (No Idea) method to line off every strake. His work is a testimony to the excellence of this method. Will take longer but the end result should be better, and I stress should.

Before I get too far into this I have a few questions and observations to make. The first thing I did was measure each bulkhead and record that on a sheet I drew up. I then transferred that measurement to a tick strip. Let's say for the sake of this exercise it was bulkhead 7 and it measured 65mm. By the way, the planks a 5mm wide. I then divided 65 by 5 and came up with 13, clever things these calculators. I then took the tick strip to the planking fan and lined it with the 13th row. I then marked the tick strip with those 13 divisions and took it back to bulkhead 7 and transferred the tick marks on the strip to the bulkhead. Now, is this the correct way to do this? The reason I ask is because when I started to put the strings ( used string in lieu of tape, and I have enough tape to wrap up Sydney Harbour Bridge, because the tape kept falling off) it all looked uniform no tapering anywhere, except at the bow. According to AL's instructions, read diagrams, there is no tapering. Even at the bow the plank virtuall runs staight across that the gap fill with shorter planks, still no tapering. I put the first plank on before I did any of this because the edge on the deck didn't look right so I put on the plank and took all my measurements from there. It was my first attempt at edge bending and I am happy with the result. So is it possible that this model, AL's Santa Maria, requires no tapering of planks at all because of the shape of the hull? I think I'll just continue on this way. But will someone please confirm my use of tick strips and fan. Because this is a double planked model, I think I'll plank the other side of the ship as per AL's diagrams and see what the difference looks like at the end. 

Thanks everyone, I look forward to your advice and opinions.

John

[JohnWW]

Sorry, forgot the pics.