HMS Bounty by Captain Al - FINISHED - Artesania Latina - Scale 1:48

[Captain Al]

Thanks for your kind words Dan.  Its comforting to know when one is making the best of bad situations.  Overall I'm pleased with the results of each of my "fixes."  I hope I can continue making them work and I hope they remain in places that are not going to be seen.  I will later post some pictures and explanations of the work I had to do to repair a stairway.

 

Continuing the thoughts you just raised re planking the main deck after its put on.  I agree.  The instructions even note that and even though I am deviating now from the instructions from time to time (getting pretty bold I'd say) this is not going to be one of them.  But I don't fully understand your reasoning for not planking before installing.  You mention the bulwarks being in the way, but I didn't think they'd be built til well after the planking's done and sanded and varnished.  Then you note the numerous cutouts being "all over the place" with gaps in many places if you plank beforehand.  I don't understand this well.  It raises to my mind the question of whether to plank around cutouts or plank over them and somehow mark where they are and cut through the planking to expose them.  We had this discussion on Mike or Capt. Fisher's build log and some say to plank over the holes.  I think I prefer to plank around the holes (and particularly I'm referring to big holes for grates and hatches and companionways).  I think I can cut my planks square enough and to precise lengths that it will be pretty clean.  And I intend to put moldings or coamings around every hole in the deck anyway.  Now in the case of the numerous and small cutouts in the false main deck, I don't know really what to do about planking over them or around them.  And then your reference to them in the context of sanding down the planking makes me wonder if I'm not missing another something.

 

Thanks again Dan.

[Captain Al]

God why did you give me a brain? I've been told I think too much and worry too much. Both are obviously true. Anyway, it is what it is. So here's a follow up question regarding planking the main deck. One of the reasons for planking after its is installed I would think is that since the main deck has an arch, forcing that arch would break open the joints between each plank and create gaps. Planking after the arch is in place means the planks can sit tight against each other. But because there is this angle between them, slight as it might be, the planks won't sit perfectly flush to one another. So the question is: should each plank be beveled slightly to fit its neighbor? Or is the angle so slight that sanding will bring down the surface and they'll disappear?

[Mike Dowling]

I don't believe that you can be serious about bevelling 0.6mm Planks!

[Captain Al]

You know me Mike. Of course I'm serious. Its kind of like asking an obese person if they want a cherry on top of their hot fudge sundae.

[Mike Dowling]

Oh I just love it!!!

[fifthace]

What's the news sailor? Any progress...

[Captain Al]

Plenty of progress. Plenty of obstacles overcome (hopefully). And I'm sure plenty more to come.

 

My last post concerned my preparation for putting on the main deck. My problem was that my frame tips were out of whack. Some too high, some too low. I decided to ignore the specs/plans and just work to create the contour for the deck in the easiest and safest way. I really didn't want to take a saw to any frames (remember, these are ribs, not bulwarks)or do much rough filing and sanding. As it turned out I was able to shim up all the low frames, a little here a little more there and produce the sloping I wanted. For shims I just cut already measured thickness wood and laminated one or two together and made the heights of these frame tips what I needed. For each tip that was raised in this way I also had to put in a shim on the notch that would hold the beam.

 

Then I decided to deviate a bit from the sequence of steps the instructions gave and install the stairways below deck before putting on the deck. I had finally found where the fifth step would go and this was both good news and bad. Good that I knew where it went, bad that the stringer for that fifth set of stairs had been destroyed getting it out of its template. So I had to rebuild the stringer. That was actually fun and in the end not disappointing. I used my Dremel scroll saw to cut the stringer's notches. I wasn't completely accurate, a couple steps came out pretty cockeyed but sanding them down made them almost look level. I need to find a better way to apply CA glue....I just dripped it directly from the squeeze bottle and obviously way too much comes out. I've been researching applicators and will try the sewing needle with the end snipped off next. Also maybe a sewing basting pin that has a little round ball at the end. Anyway, the pics show my work. And I still don't know how to insert pictures between paragraphs, so they are all at the end of this post I guess.

 

Getting that broken stairway in place and making it stay was another trip. Since my Bounty doesn't have planking over the bilge there was nothing to glue to at the bottom. Its supposed to just hang there, resting on the keel and propped up against the lower deck. Not much glue surface. So I added a little cross piece at the head of the stairs between the stringers, enabling me to glue across an inch or so instead of just the two little stringer tips. With the repair work I'd done to these stairs, they weren't precisely parallel stringers I guess and so they sat askew on the keel. I killed two birds with one stone by filing a little notch in the keel into which the left hand stringer fit, leveling the stairs and making the install more secure.

 

The other stairs from the lower deck down to the holding platform was a piece of cake cause it wasn't broken to begin with and cause it had a deck to sit on. So easy that I decided to embellish it and the lower stairs with the same type of railings that I made for the previous stairs installed a few years (it seems) ago.

 

With that I'm going to end this post and start a new one.

[Captain Al]

There was now nothing left to do but glue on the beams and then the deck. All I wanted was a way to make sure I could hold the deck securely down onto the beams. I had decided not to use pins except if absolutely necessary. Weights and clamps were my choice. But no matter how many weights I used there was always a frame tip that wouldn't hold tight. I realized that it was cause the actual point of pressure was not on the tip. Clamps would have been better at the edges but I couldn't figure out how to make a clamp or pair two clamps up and get them to hold the deck to the frame. I think there is a whole art to clamping, and I don't know it yet. And I didn't want to take the time to go out and buy more specialized clamps, so I improvised. The best way to describe what I did is visually, so take a look at the pics. In the end, this afternoon I finally glued down the deck. There is a lot of fairing of frames to do (some frame tips are actually sticking out beyond the deck) and to my horror the masts don't run down now through three decks. They did when the main deck was only sitting dry on the beams, but now, glued down they don't. I think its cause when I tested them last, I hadn't done the shimming of the frames. That little bit of difference has made the sweep of the deck just different enough that the holes on the top/main deck are now a millionth of a mm out of alignment. I'm praying that I only need to ream out the hole a wee bit and it will line up.

 

I have to laugh whenever I see how the weights are being used. But it is sure an effective way to get equal pressure across the whole of the deck, and apply that pressure right up to the edge.

 

Tomorrow morning we'll see how tight the deck really sits.

[Mike Dowling]

_{All that weight says something for the strength of your model!! Well done for all your fixes and I do hope your deck dries OK.}

[Capt.Fisher]

Nice looking railing Al!

Yet, isn't is a little bit out of scale? 

From what I see it would be about 1-1.5 feet high in real life... Or am I wrong?

[Captain Al]

I suppose it is mathematically. The posts are 10mm which would be 480mm which would be about 19 inches or, like you say 1.5 feet. However, I think visually it is about right. I couldn't really get behind it when I used longer and thicker diameter posts. Somehow that looked out of scale the other way. Maybe the stairs themselves aren't in good scale? I will be keeping my eye out in the future for any railings I add to the companionways off the main deck. But I would imagine that those are provided in the kit.

[Captain Al]

Its been a bit over a week since my last update.  At that time I was waiting to see how well the deck glued down.  Well it was superb.  Not a spongy spot anywhere and solid as a rock.

 

My next chore was supposed to be planking the deck but I decided to wait on that until I had faired most of the frames.  I anticipated a lot of heavy work with a sander and just wanted to get it done before doing some nice work.  No rhyme or reason, just felt like it.  So I moved on to the frames.  The real issue turned out to be that the keel is slightly warped.  I think I noted this early on but didn't know how it would affect the build.  Now I see that even the slightest warp will throw the frames way out of line.  For a couple months I'd been thinking the frames themselves were badly laser cut.  My apologies to A.L.  Frames are probably OK, but being attached to a warped keel (whose fault was that?) made some stick out and some seem indented so to speak.  So seeing as it was impossible to correct the keel at this point, my only option was to add material to the edge of some frames and sand down others.  I've spent the whole week doing this with pretty good success given the severity of the problem.  The pictures below will shed light on what I was up against.  The silver lining was that I discovered the utility of my Skil detail sander.  Its the perfect tool (I think) for radical sanding that needs to be done with a delicate hand.

 

Forgot to note the worst of it.  With the main deck on the masts would not slide down into the mast steps.  They were OK with just the first two levels of deck but this last one wouldn't work.  I had to take use two remedies.  First I opened up the holes in the main deck a bit to give the mast some room to move into alignment.  But I couldn't ream them out too much or I'd have a huge gap to fill later.  So the second approach was to whittle down the base of each mast until it went into the step.  Ultimately I got all three to go in and stand straight.  Later on I realized I might have been able to unglue the mast steps from the underside and move them a mm or two up or down the keel.  Might have saved a lot of work.

 

[Captain Al]

Now for a look at some of the worst offending frames and the tool I used to reduce their size.  These were the easy ones.  The tough job was the "indented" ones.  I found that the coffee stirrers at Starbucks were the perfect size in both length and width to use as veneer.  And on most of them the thickness of about 1.75 mm was just right as well.  In a couple cases I had to veneer the veneer with two sticks totally over 3 mm thickness to bring the frame into the right curvature.  These sticks are quite bendable after 24 hours in water.  I replicated the shape of the frames for drying jigs.  After a day on those they glued on quite nicely to the frames.  I used only 2 frames to represent all the 15; two were enough to get the basic shapes of all with the sticks flexibility making up for any slight differences between say frame 8 and 10 or 36 and 33 (using A.L.s part numbers).

[Captain Al]

And finally, I achieved the modest success whereby I think I can proceed to line the hull respectably.  First couple pictures show the warped keel which caused all of this.

 

In the coming days I will move on to planking the deck and building out the transom.  Then I'll be ready to take on the hull planking -- I think.

[fifthace]

My apologies to A.L.  Frames are probably OK, but being attached to a warped keel (whose fault was that?) made some stick out and some seem indented so to speak.

No-ones fault. Just the nature of ply. The larger, or longer a single piece is, the more likely it is to warp. It's an unfortunate scenario that is generally unavoidable. Of course there are corrective measures but these can take days sometimes weeks.

 

That's why I much prefer multi-part keels, less likely to occur as the parts are shorter, although it still happens. Don't worry too much, I don't think I have built and planked a keel/frame set yet where at least one frame was out of line, and to be honest once you get to the other end of the build unless it is a massive kink, only you will notice it.

 

If it is any comfort, my Santa Maria had a warped keel right at the stern between the last frame and the end, worse still it was twisted on two axis! I was lucky as it was minor and I was able to pull it straight by way of the false deck.

 

Doing a great job so far

Edited May 3, 2014 by fifthace

[Mike Dowling]

It's a really good fix Al, I admire your tenacity and ingenuity. You are going to be so pleased when you get your planks on and find it all hidden from view!

 

[AntonyUK]

Hi Al.

Many many issues with the kit BUT fixed and looking real good.

Well done you for your perseverance and coping with issues that would make other beginners give up ..

And are getting help from the wonderful people on this forum.

 

Still watching.

 

Regards Antony.

[Captain Al]

The last six months have not been wasted.  Just haven't had time I guess to update this log.  So I will skip all the gory details of how I've managed to get to where I am today and just post some pictures.  All I'll say is thanks to Mike D. for his almost daily support and advice without whom this would not be possible.  Mike says I'm an anorak.  In the context I have taken that as a compliment.

[Keith_W]

Very nice Al. Just a word of warning - on the unplanked side, I recommend that you extend the planking from the main deck further down by one plank. The channels for the deadeyes and the strops attach there. Study your plans carefully. As you can see from my build (picture below) the channels attach to the 3rd plank. Yours only goes down 2 planks.

 

 

(edit) also for your reference here is Dan Vadas' build. Notice that his channels attach to the 3rd plank also: http://modelshipworld.com/index.php/gallery/image/1782-starboard/

Edited November 21, 2014 by KeithW

[Mike Dowling]

Really valuable point there Keith, easily missed I think but very difficult without the extra plank.

 

Of course 'anorak' is a compliment after all, they keep you prepared for all weathers !!!

[Captain Al]

Keith, thanks for pointing that out.  I must have looked at your's and Dan's pictures a hundred times over the past couple months and didn't really focus on that.  My kit pictures are either wrong or deceiving cause I've had it in mind from the start that there should be 2 basswood planks coming down from deck level.  Regardless, I'm at a good point today to add a plank (or two?) so that'll be my plan.  Thanks again.  I've noticed on Danny's build that he's added several planks down lower, to which he's attached some rigging gear.  Did you do that as well?  I should go look at several logs and see how different they are.  I'm pretty sure Mike didn't add these but his was a different kit with slightly different planking.  Thanks again.  I'll post again soon. 

[Dan Vadas]

Hi Al,

 

Yep, I also added a couple of extra planks to the Wales that the kit didn't have. No other way of fitting the Chains properly. I don't know why they didn't do that with the kit in the first place.

 

Check out THIS PIC from the Gallery.

 

  Danny

[Captain Al]

Thanks for clarifying that for me Dan.  I was pretty sure that's what you did but the only picture I saw of it wasn't a side view of the whole ship.  So can I assume you added these extra wales under each of the channels?  Did you make them span the full length of the hull or are they broken and span only the frames under the channels?

[Dan Vadas]

Hi Al,

 

So can I assume you added these extra wales under each of the channels?

 

 

Correct.

 

Did you make them span the full length of the hull or are they broken and span only the frames under the channels?

 

 

They only run long enough to pick up the lower ends of the chains. I've done a similar thing on my Vulture, but this time I ran the planks the full length of the hull on the unplanked starboard side. See THIS POST.

 

  Danny

[Captain Al]

A big thank you again Danny.  I'm seeing the whole thing clearly now.  I'll have no problem adding these wales.  Today I added the 3rd basswood plank below deck level on which the channels will sit.  I might add one more plank below that.  The interesting thing about the wales is that the aft portion (of the open side) is already on and, following A.L.'s picture, I cut it off at frame 38 (second to last frame aft).  Now that I'm positioning the channels and seeing where the chains will attach to I can see that these wales should have extended one more frame.  There is not enough wale to attach the forward most chain.  So I need to extend these by 40 mm.  The picture shows a mock-up of where this aft channel will go.

[cristikc]

I like Dany is working, and also i take ideas from his work

Very nice to thank's again to Dany

[Captain Al]

Moving right along.  Some photos of where my Bounty stands after a year's work.  Some of the deck ornaments above and below are not yet glued in place.  I'll be completing all the deck stuff and adding a few more pieces down below before I start on building masts.  So enjoy and comment away.

[Mike Dowling]

Well about time too ! Been waiting for an update for months !!

Despite your trials and tribulations you have done an amazing job thus far ! Be proud of yourself and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

[Captain Al]

Thanks Mike. And your encouragement has helped a ton.

[Captain Al]

Time for a brief update.  3 attached photos showing my almost completed deck ornaments (equipment).  The cannon are not yet glued in place cause I'm thinking it will be easier to rig the restraining lines and blocks when I can still hold the cannon in hand.  I wonder if anyone can shed light on how these lines run.  I can't find any pictures large enough to really tell the story.  I hope I don't just have to guess at it.