HM Cutter Sherbourne 1763 by Pinenuts - Vanguard Models - 1/64

[Pinenuts]

So my kit for Sherbourne arrived day before yesterday, I drove 22 hours home from Ontario that day after picking up some new family pets, slept 4-5 hours and set up my work area.

 

 

Got a fair chunk of the bulkheads and the skeleton formed. Filed away the bulkheads to the laser mark, and promptly installed them all facing the same direction. After checking a few other build logs here, at least I'm not the only one. Oh well, a few extra minutes with a file.

 

Next up was the thin plywood deck, and it wasn't to bad, but it did require a lot of dry fitting, removing and adjusting the notches with my file. Probably 7-8 test fits before I was happy with it. 

 

 

 

Then the stern frames, yeah so the 2 inner frames went nice and easy, one of the outers fought me tooth and nail. Took a lot of filing to get it to go...and it broke on the last fitting while pressing it into place. It did sit in nicely however, so I just gave it a dab of medium CA and it's good as new! Until I swing my overly large mitt into one a few minutes later and also break it off. More CA it is!

 

After that I got into the stern counter and inner stern transom. These appeared to fit okay at first glance, I beveled the edge transom and thought it would sit down nicely, seemed to be sitting nicely. It did not sit nicely. Also the parts didn't really line up with each other and it looked weird. I went looking through others build logs here and found that they actually need to be filed/sanded flush, so I went back and did that. Also fixed up the gap with a bit of wood filler and I'm pretty happy with how it's looking now. Clamped all that and left it for a day. 

Came back at it this evening and it's time to form the hull. I've never built a model before, but I have watched modelkit world do this, so in I went with a sand block and some 180 grit. I've got it fairly smooth and nice I thought, but then went back and looked at his video again and he's definitely taken more off than I have in a few places, so I will probably give it another pass with the sanding block before I call it good.

 

Next time, more sanding, maybe even test fit a plank or two!

[Ronald-V]

Wish you all the fun with this little beauty! Good start already  

[Pinenuts]

Not a whole lot of progress over the last couple days. A lot of small steps then waiting 12-24 hours for glue to fully cure.

 

I got the keel and prow installed which was a nice and painless process.

 

Then it was time to start working on the...I have no idea the term for these parts. At any rate these were a lot more challenging than the keel. The engraved lines on them don't line up well with my bullworks, but they were lining up very well with my transom and stern counter, and the height against my false deck was also working very well. The manual does mention it's not a big deal if they don't match the bullworks perfectly so I'm thinking it's okay. Do have a tiny gap for about an inch on the same spot on both sides where it turns sharply. I actually give these a bit of a bend with some steam hoping to get rid of it but it just wouldn't go away. In the end I judged it not overly a big deal. There is going to be another deck put over it, and it's a very small gap. Wood filler and some careful file work if it bugs me enough.

 

This evening is definitely time to begin the first planking.

[Thukydides]

You have made a good start. Take it slow and careful with the faring. The bow looks like it could do with a bit more sanding. You essentially want only a thin line of the char on the one edge of each bulkhead. If you still see black all over then you have not taken enough off. Make sure you are careful not to sand the keel now that you have it on the model.

 

One trick is to take some of the thin strips and hold them against the line of the hull at various angles. They should lie flat against the bulkheads in a smooth curve. If there are any air gaps it probably means you took too much off or the bulkheads on either side don't have enough taken off.

 

Good luck.

Edited 17 hours ago by Thukydides

[Pinenuts]

37 minutes ago, Thukydides said:

You have made a good start. Take it slow and careful with the faring. The bow looks like it could do with a bit more sanding. You essentially want only a thin line of the char on the one edge of each bulkhead. If you still see black all over then you have not taken enough off. Make sure you are careful not to sand the keel now that you have it on the model.

 

One trick is to take some of the thin strips and hold them against the line of the hull at various angles. They should lie flat against the bulkheads in a smooth curve. If there are any air gaps it probably means you took too much off or the bulkheads on either side don't have enough taken off.

 

Good luck.

 

Advice taken and appreciated. Ran a plank over those spots and you're absolutely right there was still a gap. Took a long and wide file to them carefully to avoid keel damage after noting my sand block was a bit wide and took them down quite a bit more. Plank seems to be running much nicer now! Appreciate the advice!

[Pinenuts]

Got a start on first planking as well today. The benefits of being on vacation for the week, plenty of time to build! 

 

Fitting up the first plank here, and some things I am discovering; Smooth operation of a pin pusher is absolutely 100% a skill that must be learned. I dropped about 4:1 on this first plank. Also it did not sit dead on perfect, a fact I didn't realize until I got the next plank on.

 

Another thing that I was not 'getting' was the steel ruler and craft knife tapering. I found the planks were moving around under the ruler no matter how hard I pressed down on the ruler. In the end I decided to just sand them. Honestly I think I prefer sanding them to a taper anyways. Gives me nice fine control of the process the whole way through.

 

You can see in that final picture the first plank has a weird notch/kink to it by the bow. It looks super bad here, but isn't quite that nasty looking in real life. I think it's within the realm of sand & fill before second planking. Other than that I am pretty pleased with results so far. Some odds and ends and things I will change next time, but for a first ever model I think it's going quite nicely so far!