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 yesterday at 02:51 PM 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!

[Thukydides]

Just a small suggestion. Take a look at the planking tutorial under modeling techniques at the top of the page. It looks to me like you are not edge bending the bow enough. They shouldn't twist off the hull like that, but should lay flat.

 

I also describe the process in my alert log.

[Pinenuts]

So I was definitely unaware of edge bending for planks. I've been following on with modelkit stuff's youtube series on the Sherbourne and he doesn't mention or do any edge bending during his planking. 

[Desertanimal]

I think planking the hull is a real stumbling block for many new builders. 
You will improve with practice. Do as much research as you can looking at other logs to get a handle on the planking, as well as the tutorials Thuky has directed you to.  It’s an important part of the build. 
Looking good! Keep it up! 
Chris

[palmerit]

I like the Modelkit Stuff series on the Sherbourne but he is intentionally keeping things basic and not doing anything different from the manual. He’s not doing edge bending by choice. Without edge bending you’ll get some clinkering of the planks. Thankfully the planks are thick enough that sanding and filler can fix it. The pear for the second planking is thinner. My planking of Sherbourne was absolute garbage. Check out my log to see what it should not look like. Thankfully it’s painted since most of what’s directly under the paint is wood filler.
 

Try to do some edge bending and things will lay nicely (at least nicer), it’ll make things easier later, and be good practice for a later model that demands edge bending. 

[palmerit]

15 hours ago, Pinenuts said:

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.

Make sure your knife blade is new. I buy scalpel blade by the 100 and replace them every day or two when I'm doing a bunch of modeling. I’ll intentionally just replace if I just know in need a sharp blade. 
 

Especially when cutting with the grain of the wood, do multiple shallow passes with the very sharp blade. If I try to do one or two passes with a lot of pressure from the blade, the blade will tend to follow the grain of the wood and the wood will pop out from under the ruler. A thicker heavier stiffer metal ruler also helps. 

Edited 3 hours ago by palmerit

[hollowneck]

Another planking tip, one I use: drill a tiny "starter" hole for the planking pins, this helps minimize the effort to seat the temporary pins. This is a lot more work but well worth the effort IMHO.

You'll end up bending many fewer pins as well as fewer expletives!

 

In some areas of the planking where the tension wants to push the plank from the bulkhead I also drive the pin(s) flush. This helps insure there is better contact while the glue dries. HOWEVER - I have a pin pulling plier tool that can grip the flush heads of the pins to extract them. The tip of this tool will make a slight indentation in the wood surface around the pin's head, but so what? This only works for the first planking where small impressions from this extraction process will be covered. The small marks around the holes will also be filled-in once the filling and sanding work commences.

[Pinenuts]

Alright so, I watched some videos suggested by some very helpful folks here, checked some suggested build logs, and modified my techniques a bit. Started soaking the planks, putting a bit of a bend on the edge, and the results I think speak volumes! The first four planks below were just me putting a little bend in with the steam from the kettle, the 5th and 6th planks were soaked, shaped, and edge bent before being installed. They aren't 100% perfect, but I think they are sitting light years better than the other 4. Even just clicking them into place was much, much easier. They just sat where I wanted them without needing to really put any tension on them. This is definitely the way! Thank you all and keep any more advice rolling it's a huge help!

 

 

Edit: Also a LOT easier to cut the planks with a knife and rule after they were soaked. Huge thanks for the tips on cutting the taper!

 

Edited 54 minutes ago by Pinenuts