18 ft Cutter by - Dr PR - Vanguard Models - 1:64

[Dr PR]

I have trimmed or removed some of the MDF bulkheads. A couple were shaped to look like ribs. This may seem rather anal since they will be hidden under the floor boards. But you can see the ribs through the cracks in the floorboards if you look at the right angle. After the seats and other parts are attached you won't be able to see much of them!

 

I coated the inside of the hull with a clear acrylic sealer in preparation for painting.

 

The forward deck grating has been trimmed to fit between the ribs. The edges of the center floorboards piece were beveled so it sits flat between the ribs.

 

The small aft grating has been glued in place. It was a bit too wide fore to aft, probably because the space was a bit narrower due to the angles of the bulkhead and transom after gluing.

 

I am procrastinating on gluing the deck pieces into place until after the inside of the hull has been painted.

 

 

I jumped ahead in the instructions looking for things that can be done before painting the boat. The instructions say to use a couple of spare planks to make the wales. What spare planks? Fortunately there is a suitable narrow strip in the 1 mm pear sheet that was between the planks and seat support/ribs.

 

The wales were bent in place on the hull using the plank bending tool. Then they were glued in place. Here I went over to the dark side and used a drop of CA gel to attach the front end of the wale to the stem. After this set I used Titebond glue to attach the rest of the strip to the hull. The Titebond takes about a minute to set up enough to hold the strips in place, and this gives time to position them.

 

The top of the wales were positioned even with the bottom of the top planking strip.

 

 

 

I decided to add a cap rail to the top of the planking and ribs. This isn't mentioned in the instructions, but desalgu added them when he built this kit for his Dutchess of Kingston build. Instead of cutting rowlock positions into the top plank he added thole pins to the cap rails. However May's Boats of Men-of-War says cutters had an additional plank above what was normal for other boats to increase the freeboard, and rowlock openings were cut into this plank so the oars would not ride too high and make rowing more difficult.

 

Two extra seat support strips were used to make the cap rails. I made a bending fixture with some pins driven into a piece of scrap wood. These pieces were bent flat across the wide dimension. Again, they were wetted and shaped with the plank bending tool several times until they held their shape.

 

 

 

Rowlock openings will be cut through the cap rail and the top plank - cutter style. Here is a photo showing the cap rails and wales after gluing in place. The aft ends will be trimmed after the glue has set.

 

Edited Thursday at 05:33 AM by Dr PR

[DocRob]

A very interesting thread, Phil and a fine build as well. I built one of these Vanguard cutters as a boat for my Duchess of Kingston, which was my first serious wooden ship build. It was delicate for a beginner like me, time consuming, but somehow entertaining and a nice challenge. I haven´t dug that deep into realistic planking and was very happy, how my little bugger came out. For my Sphinx build, I ordered PE replacements, as there are three boats to build and that would be too repetitive for me. 



Cheers Rob

[Billpitts]

 I found drawings and scantlings and a step by step log on building a plug, framing, planking and where to find scantlings so will give a scratch build a go.

Thanks for all your input.

Bill

 

[Dr PR]

Installation of the deck panels was next.

 

 

Neither the front or rear grating pieces fit down to the MDF bulkhead parts, but were "floating" in the air, suspended by points that touched the hull planking.

 

I added three thin support blocks for the front grating and one for the rear piece. The gratings will rest on these supports.

 

The foremost of the front blocks and the block at the rear serve dual purposes. In addition to supporting the gratings they also provide wood for eyebolts to "screw" into. The boat will hang from the boat tackle on the stern davits, and hooks on the lower blocks will engage these eye bolts.

 

 

 

Here are photos of the deck plates in place. Arrows in the right hand photo mark the fore and aft eyebolts for the boat tackle.

 

 

 

The seats were next. The front three presented no problems. In order for the middle seat's mast support to be positioned over the mast foot in the photo etch deck planks I had to notch the ends a bit on both sides to fit around ribs. Then I spaced the fore and aft thwarts about the same distance from the center piece. The forward seat also had to be notched to fit around ribs.

 

The large aft seat was a pain in the posterior! I mentioned earlier that the thin seat at the front broke along the grain while I was removing laser char. It broke twice more while I was trying to notch the piece to fit over the ribs. This piece was also too narrow at the aft end to fit properly into the hull when resting on the seat support strips.

 

I decided to make a new part from 0.03125 inch (1/32 inch, 0.8 mm) thick plywood. I made a paper template to fit the shape of the hull interior and used this to cut the shape from the plywood. Then it was just a matter of repeated shaping and test fitting until I got a part that fit correctly into the hull, resting on the seat support strips. Then the center part was cut out. This 0.8 mm plywood piece is thinner than the 1 mm kit part, but is MUCH stronger. It flexes without breaking. Maybe it is too flexible, so I glued a cross piece under the front seat to stiffen it a bit. This support fits between the seat support strips that run along the inside of the hull.

 

 

The majority of the plans in May's Boats of Men-of War have a seat across the back of the boat. I put this in the new rear seat piece. However, I will have to cut out a notch for the boat tackle hook to pass through to engage the eye bolt in the boat. Most of the plans also included the relief at the rear sides of the forward transverse seat, like the part in the kit. I assume this was to make room for the legs of the rower. I will probably carve these into the part before installing it.

 

 

I used shellac to seal the wood in the seats. I thought I would leave them like that for a bit of variety. But the unpainted plywood stands out like a sore thumb so I will paint the seats the same brown as the boat interior after they are glued in place.

 

You can also see a recurring problem I have had with the photoetch brass deck pieces. The acrylic paint I am using does not adhere well to the brass (it was not etched prior to painting). Just touching the parts will cause the paint to lift off. But after the seats and other gear are in place the brass parts will be protected.

 

Note: You could avoid most of the problems I had with the rear seat piece by just gluing it into the hull as it came from the 1 mm pear wood sheet. Then the ribs could have been fashioned to fit into place tightly against the top of the seat. This would avoid all the handling necessary for cutting the rib notches that increases the probability of the wood breaking along the grain. If you paint the seats you wouldn't need to remove the laser char.

Edited 5 hours ago by Dr PR