Rattlesnake by Jon219 - Model Shipways - 1:64 - First Build

[Jon219]

Planking the Hull

 

Well I've made about every mistake that could be made while planking.  I decided to focus on two sets of instructions "Simple Hull Planking Techniques for Beginners" and the instructions that came with the model.  The model instructions said to start at the top and Simple Hull Planking said to start at the Garboard Strake and I decided to do that since it just make more sense to me.  The instructions are great, I just didn't put everything together until I had started planking and saw how things worked. 

 

My first, and probably biggest, mistake came when I put the temporary battens on and marked off the hull.  Even though the lines looked good (to me) my positioning of these made the belts too narrow in places, especially at the bow, and too wide in places, especially on the lower belt at the stern.  Many of my subsequent problems arose from this as it caused many too wide and too narrow planks.  This meant that I ended up having to use some stealers and many of the planks vary way too much in thickness as I tried to adjust on the fly as I planked up the hull.

 

I also seemed to run the Garboard Strake too far forward even though I'd read that was an easy mistake to make which pushed subsequent planks up too high and had to work to constantly adjust against that.

 

I decided since I was painting that I would just plow ahead and use this as a learning experience and see if I could get everything to work.  For the most part everything works, although I do have one spot that's a bit low and if it were a real ship it would look like a drunken shipbuilder made it.

 

Sanding and wood filler are helping it look decent and I think with paint it will be passable.  I understand much more now and think the next time I try this the experience will help the result by much better. 

 

I'm working up the sides now, working around the gunports and oarports and finding the thinner, smaller planks quite difficult to work with.  They're so fragile and easily moved out of position, but I'm getting there.

[russ]

So far it looks pretty good. So long as you are having fun, all is well.

 

Russ

[JSGerson]

Excellent! I think you did much better than I did on our first builds. It looks nice and clean.

[JPett]

Ahoy Jon

 

Really enjoying your log

 

I am with Russ, She looks great. I am not sure I agree with you painting over it, but you are the captain. I love the way you handled the stern with that stealer. 

[jwvolz]

That planking looks quite good for a first effort Jon. Nice job. 

[jastrząb]

With planking like this you won't need the second layer and you save time - lots of time

Beautiful.

Regards,

Paweł

[dgbot]

Nice job for a first try.  And since you are going to paint if the hull is smooth no one will notice.  And you will remember the experience and apply what you have learned on your next one.

David B

[Jon219]

Stern planking, Transom and Fashion Piece

 

I'm working my way up the hull planking around the oar and gun ports and as I got near the top things didn't quite make sense to me.  The plans and the picture both seem to indicate that the planking stays tight against the side support piece all the way till it hits the transom, and that the transom just sticks out flat.  I kept looking as that just didn't seem right to me, it made the windows in the transom a little outside of the hull and makes the window look very fake and the room behind it impossible.  The drawing in the book "American Sailing Ships" is quite different from the plans and the transom seems to protrude only very slightly, if any from the hull.

 

 

So I decided I'd do what looked better to me and I had the planking tight against the hull all the way to the last bulkhead (N) and then curved the wood out to the edges of the transom.

 

 

That created a gap between the planking and the edge of the transom at the top by the edge supports but I want to cover that with the fashion piece but the included fashion piece isn't big enough or the right shape to do that.  Since I hate the way the included metal fashion piece looks anyway, I've decided that I'm going to make my own fashion piece but I didn't really have any idea how to do that.  I'd like to make something that will fit the new shape and be slightly bigger than the transom to give a little bit of that edge look.  Shaping it and getting it to fit seems no problem but how to do the carvings?  I don't really think I could ever carve that so I've decided to see if I can use the existing metal casting as mold and them make copies of the carvings on it to glue on the one I'm making. For a quick test I found some modeling clay and pressed it into the metal fashion piece.

 

 

I then filled the two molds, one with wood filler and one with wood glue to see how it would work.  The glue one didn't ever really dry so that didn't work but the made from the wood filler seems to work.  Picture shows a couple of the test pieces I cut out and the transom that just looks like junk to me.

 

 

I think this concept will work but the wood filler is a bit grainy and pretty brittle so I'm going to see if I can find something that's designed specifically for molding and see how that works.  This will be an ongoing project and I need to finish planking the other side before I can really fit and attach the fashion piece.  I think I'll also try to remove the paint off the metal fashion piece to give me a sharper cast and more detail on the castings.

 

I also decided to plank the inside of the transom since the flat piece of wood didn't really look right and I'm wondering why the kit doesn't call for planking the back of the transom as well, I can't imagine that it wasn't planked in reality and the flat wood looks out of place among all the planking.  Even sanded it seems like the texture of the planking will show through the paint.  If the windows weren't so tightly attached I'd think about pulling them off and planking the transom and then re-installing them, I may even try it anyway.

 

Trying to figure out how to make a new fashion piece and replace the one in the kit is actually pretty enjoyable, it let me get a little bit creative as I tried to figure out how to make a replacement.  I'm pretty confident I can create something that will look better than the one in the kit, that thing is just awful.

 

[JPett]

Ahoy Jon

 

See looks beautiful,

 

Here are some links you might find useful.  

 

http://carvingbook.weebly.com/

 

http://modelshipworld.com/index.php/topic/1356-sovereign-of-the-seas-by-bill-short-sergal-1637-scale-178-port-side-as-built-starboard-side-as-presented-to-king-charles-i-for-approval/?p=25964

 

As for the stern there was a discussion on this in my log which was lost in the 02/13 crash. It seems that many privateers may have resorted to some trickery such as enlarging the transom so that another ship may think twice about engaging. The false window also supports this.  It was agree that ME may have exaggerated this a little too much on their model. The Hahn plans show a slightly less enhanced version. I often wondered how this extension would effect the ship. With the ship heeled over in high seas this extension would either be quickly removed or cause the ship to bear off every-time a wave passed. Either way I like what you have done. 

 

http://www.dlumberyard.com/Plans/rattlesnake.pdf

Edited August 22, 2014 by JPett

[Jon219]

Wow that's some amazing carving!  It seems like that's an amazing skill all on it's own.  Something I'll have to think about since I do enjoy the intricate work but might be a bit much to chew off while learning on my first model.

[JSGerson]

 

 

That created a gap between the planking and the edge of the transom at the top by the edge supports ...

As near as I could determine, the "gap" is suppose to be there.  You can see from my build the space between the ornamental carved arch and the transom. This is what I have seen in all the models I have looked at. It just makes the stern look bigger and it appears on a lot of other period ships. Be that as it may, this is your interpretation ship. Since there are no physical remains of the actual ship left, your vision of what it might look like is as good as anyone else.. 

 

BTW I like your idea of using the kit supplied arch as a template to make the carvings. This was my first attempt at carving so the results were more impressionistic than a true representative of the actual art work. From a slight distance it seems to work.

[Jon219]

JS, your carving looks great to me.  That's interesting about the gap, I didn't realize that.  Need to ponder how that will affect what I'm planning.

 

I also see that the back of your transom is planked, I realize that we have different kits of the same ship but I just decided to see if I can do that on my ship.  It looks so much better that way.

[JSGerson]

I purchased the MS plans as well as Harold Hahn's plans, and of course I have the Mamoli plans. Each one shows certain details better (or different) than the others. I also downloaded the MS instructions. You never have too much information (unless it's all contradictory). The MS plans show the gap very clearly but does not depict the planking of the transom. Think about how the shipwrights of the day would have made the stern. They didn't have large sheets of plywood so they had to have planked it.

 

I'm following a Practicum by Robert Hunt (LauckStreetShipyard.com). He provides a detailed set of instructions to either build the kit straight out of the box or kitbash it. Although the Practicum is based on the Mamoli kit, he claims it should work for the MS kit as well. Now the Practicum is not perfect and even less so beginning in the last chapter before the rigging starts, but I couldn't have done what I did with out it. The Mamoli instructions are printed directly on the plans in multiple languages and are hard to read especially with my eyesight. So I read the books, look at other people logs, ask questions, and learn from my mistakes...and I have made a lot of them.

 

Your model is showing off your great skills. I have yet to see two models of Rattlesnake that look the same. So who is to say which one is right?

[dgbot]

Many years ago I new a guy who went to Greenwich and looked up the plans.  He was asked which ones did he want. 

David B

[scott larkins]

Jon,

 

All seems to be moving along great.  What I find really great about this process is that we all have basically the same model and plans yet I have not seen a single one of us make the exact same ship.  Whether that be woods used, paint schemes, a little flair of woood work here or there, etc. etc..  It truley is great to see how we all put our own little flair into each of our constructions.  You seem to be coming along really well with what you have.

 

Yeah, I had a few "insert curse word" moments with the planking to and had to remove two planks to get things right and I'm sure if a real model maker were to look under my hull paint job he would shake his head in disbelief, but I learned what worked and what didn't and how to plan better for my next build.  As long as you are happy with your ship, having fun, learning and so forth, it is time and money well spent.  I think everyone here would agree with me if they haven't already said it.  Keep plugging along, looking forward to more.

[Jon219]

Redoing The Transom

 

After seeing the excellent work by JSGerson on the back of his transom with the planking I decided that I couldn't leave the back of the transom as a flat piece of wood.  Looking back at them now my windows looked terrible, the framing around them was way too large which made the whole thing look artficial.  So I tore off the windows, trimmed the frames to a more reasonable width and then glued them back on the transom.  This also allowed me to place the windows more evenly across the transom as the cutouts were not positioned very well, one of them was much close to the edge than the other.  I just knew I would plank over any spots in the transom where the cutout showed.

 

That allowed me to go from this:

 

 

To This:

 

 

I like the planked transom much better.  The window frames need to be repainted and I'm still working on the fashion piece.

 

Here's a couple more shots of the stern and transom.

 

Detail of the counter with the curve in the transom and curve in the counter coming together.

 

 

Top view showing planking the inside of the transom and how the exterior planking follows the transom.

 

 

And a side view of the planking and transom.

 

 

I have a couple places where it doesn't look like sanding will smooth everything out and I'll need to use some wood filler but all in all, it's been a very enjoyable process so far and my first milestone will be when I have a completed hull blank.  I'm calling it a blank because it won't have any of the molding or other pieces that attach to the hull, but all planking except the decks will be done.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[JPett]

Ahoy Jon 

 

Yea I think its safe to say "your hooked" 

 

It really looks much better, Congratz  Sometimes it pays to put the shipyard in reverse. 

 

 

[JSGerson]

If I do say so myself, much better!

[scott larkins]

Looks really good.

[Jon219]

Benchmark 1  (Hull)

 

There's not a lot more to see but I've been working on finishing up the hull planking and the inside walls (instructions call them ceilings, which confused me, so much terminology to learn).  I've sanded and done some filling to get things as smooth as I can.  I've been looking to this point as a kind of benchmark and I've also spent a lot of time looking at the instructions and pondering my next steps.

 

 

There's still some roughness in places but I don't think I can sand some of those out without running out of wood.  Certainly a case of I wish I knew then what I know now, but that seems to be the way I learn.  I don't really mind a bit of rough in the finished product, I'm sure there were places on real ships where a bit of variance showed.  I do think I want the lines of the planking to show even after painting but I'm not sure if they will, that seems like a function of the paint and how I apply it, but I'll see if I can get that effect.

 

I feel like I should paint the hull now, before I put in the deck planking.  I want to use a varnish or stain on the deck planks that preserves the look of the natural wood and I'm afraid that if I get paint on that, even if I remove it that it will leave enough residue to throw off the look.  I'm going to start with a primer on the parts that are ready to paint now and then sand some more to see how paint will hold up as I handle the ship working on the rest.  

 

Been reading through a lot of the other Rattlesnake builds and looking at pictures of period ships to get ideas on the paint scheme and I think I know what I want to do.  If it works out I'll have a picture and comments, if not, well, back to the drawing board.

[JPett]

Ahoy Jon

 

Congratz 

 

It really looks great. 

 

Don't worry too much about the ruff spots. We all have them and I agree they add to the build. As much as we try to achieve perfection I find it sterile and lacking personality. They also seem to blend in after a while. Trust me, pay them no mind. 

 

As for painting I have had very good results coloring the wood. I use water based paints and thin them so they soak into the wood and dye the wood verses painting which covers the wood. Then I protect it with a coat of poly. It has it drawbacks. You can not dye two colors next to each other and get a nice line. I do dye and then paint. Each has it merits and your the captain so do what pleases you. Just be sure to test whatever you choose on something other then your kit. I make sure I can repeat whatever I try at least twice before I do it for real. 

 

Looking forward to seeing your lady all dolled up and strutting her stuff. 

[Jon219]

Hull Painting

 

I will start this off with the first product I've found that I feel I need to recommend, Tamiya Masking Tape.  Found this in my local Hobby Lobby and decided to give it a try on the hull paint since I wanted stripes.  I found this product to be flexible enough to go around slight curves and imperfections and it gave me a perfect line.  It came off easily and didn't leave any residue.  This was really obvious compared to the other product I decided to use which was graphic line tape.  The reason I decided to use this was that it was exactly the right width for the lines I wanted to create on the ship so I decided to paint the yellow for the lines in a broad line across and then cover it up with the graphic tape and remove it to create the lines.  While this worked well in testing it didn't work as well on the ship, I believe this was due to it being on the ship longer and using more paint than I did on my test.  I still worked but I had places where it pulled up the original paint as I was removing it and the lines were't always as clean as what I got using the Tamiya Tape.  Here's a picture of the Tamiya Tape and the dispenser, I was not able to decipher the Japanese instructions so I just took it out of the dispenser and cut off what I needed.

 

 

My inspiration for the color scheme came from this picture of the Lady Washington.

 

 

The picture below doesn't really show the colors correctly, especially the blue, it's more of a uniform blue, but couldn't seem to find a color correction that matched the colors.  I took an ivory paint for the hull and added a couple drops of the yellow-orange paint to get it a little more off white.

 

I've got some touch up to do, I may try to use the Tamiya Tape to clean up the lines and the orange color is a bit splotchy but I think this is all fixable with some work.  All the hand rails will need to be painted the light yellow color as well but I"m leaving them for now as I have some more work to do on them to get them right.

 

 

 

 

 

[mog]

Jon,

Your build is coming along very nice, , working thru problems and learning new techniques is what the hobby is all about, but the main goal is to enjoy the  experience,  I have said  more than once you build for the builder, for most of us a build will  never be perfect, but do it your way, overcoming the unknown is a great feeling. I have been working on my Rattlesnake for several years, the enjoyment never fades, most of the RS builds on the site are unique in their own way , I don’t like to cover up the wood so I stay away from paint, as much as possible, I try to make all my own parts, not a fan of the kit supplied metal ones, Ok sometimes my scratch built parts  are not 100% like the drawings , but it’s all learning,  In my log Rattlesnake by MOG  you will see I have went down my own path looking for a natural old school feel.  Your planking looks really good, small flaws are part of the planking process, I made allot of errors  but sanding and  filler helped me get over it. And I like to double hull so I buy very thin ,5mm strips for a second planking , I found  double hulling  not only covers some small flaws but gives a good look. On the ships long boat I spent three weeks getting the right shape and look, The site has helped me over many problem areas, some great builders JPett, Scott larkins and JSGerson to name a few are first class builders  seek there help you will not go wrong.  Again  it’s your build do it your way , take your time and you’re your will end up with something you will look at with pride for many years.  look forward to seeing your progress,

MOG

[scott larkins]

The paint job came out really nice.  This is what I've been saying about the Rattlesnake for some time now.  We have a lot of people building it but I don't think I've ever seen two paint jobs ever done the same way.  Or in some cases, simply different woods instead of paint.  That's what is so cool about this ship.  Looking forward to additional progress.

[Jon219]

Working on Hull Detailing and First Decking

 

I've been working on finishing the outside hull details and started some decking.  After all the experimentation I did trying to find a way to make a better fashion piece I ended up using the supplied piece.  I think one of my misconceptions about the kit was that the metal pieces were good to go as is.  So I filed stretched and worked the fashion piece till it was at least passable.  I don't think there's a way to make a better piece short of getting into carving a new one myself and I wasn't ready to tackle that yet (next time).

 

One thing I'm completely lost on is how to shape the molding strip that goes down the side of the hull. The plans show it at curving up from the edges to a point in the center.  Short of a teeny tiny router (which I don't have) I just can't think of a way to produce that curve consistently alone the length of the molding.  Still not sure what I'm going to do for that.

 

 

I've added the molding and the fashion piece extensions. The fashion piece extensions I made are quite a bit different than the plans but it seemed like the best way to go.  I've also added some of the gunport covers and I've decided I'll close the back two and front one.  Made a couple fake cannons for the open gunport that will be in the officers quarters.

 

 

Then I started with the first deck.  Started in the center and used a black art marker to color the edges for the tar effect.  As it got where the planks needed to be curved to start matching the curve of the hull I took the two pieces on each side and sanded the curve of them together trying to keep them as symmetrical as possible. 

 

 

 

I did run out of the stock to make the grating covers so I sent Model Shipways an email asking if I could get more and offering to pay for it, and a couple days later it just showed up in the mail.  Great customer service and much appreciated.

 

At this point I'm preparing to do the fore and aft decks and start working on all the deck details.  Everything here seems very interconnected and I'm trying to make sure I do things in the right order so I won't have to undo anything to get to something I missed. Most of the pre-cast deck pieces look OK except the capstain and I think I'll need to build one for it to look decent. 

[JSGerson]

Nice paint job!

[scott larkins]

Nice work so far.  Yeah, I ran out of grating too but purchased some more because I figured I was going to need the extra when I build my Niagara after the Rattlesnake.   The only other wood I had to purchase was for the ribbing for the life boat.  That brick color red works really well with the other paints.

[Jon219]

Poopdeck Bulkhead

 

Nothing in the instructions I've found says when to add the poopdeck bulkhead.  The only thing I could find on it was the picture in the plans but as I looked it seemed that it needed to be added before the poopdeck decking planks.  First thing I tried was to cut an approximate shape out of paper and then transfer that to wood and then sand into shape.  It fit OK, but it didn't fit as well as I'd like it to when I realized that I had the cutout leftover from the bulkhead where it would be going.  It's the same size and shape with the exception of the deck and side planking, so I sanded that down and it fit really well.  

 

After trying and failing to paint the designs on the piece I decided to make all the designs out of wood and paint them before applying. Was going so well that I decided to make the hinges and door handles out of wood as well.  Even the thinnest wood seemed too thick so had to sand all the pieces thinner.  I found that the best way to paint and sand tiny pieces was to stick them to scotch tape and work with them on the scotch tape.  Just had to be careful when taking them off the scotch tape not to break them, especially the door handles.

 

 

 

 

[scott larkins]

Nice.  Are those door handles I see?

[Jon219]

Decking / First Cannon

 

I've finished the decking on the poop deck (I think that's right, so many new terms).  I'm still struggling with getting the curves to match the hull curves as it gets away from the center and near the hull.  This lead to some improvising closer to the stern and I'm going to focus on getting better at that technique as I do the fore deck.

 

 

Before starting the decking I felt I needed to go ahead and add the section of the bowsprit that glues under the decking.  I cut the notch in the end for the cap so I wouldn't have to do that with it glued to the ship, stained it and attached it.  I also put in two dummy cannons in the second gunports and added the gunport covers.

 

As I started decking the fore deck I realized that I had two cannons that would be under the decking and really hard to install after finishing the decking so went to work on those two cannons.  Looking at the way the ropes and tackle for the cannons was pictured in the instructions and plans I realized I had to decide how much of that I wanted to include.  Counting up hardware I realized there were not enough blocks and eyes in the kit to rig all the cannons so I decided to order more pieces and proceed with the full set.

 

 

To attach the blocks to the cannon I tied a black thread around the block and then finished the knot with a tiny spot of super glue, I added a tiny spot of super glue on the other end of the block too for good measure.  I then drilled a very tiny hole in the sides and back of the cannon and inserted the end of the thread into the hole with a spot of super glue on it.  It seems pretty strong that way but time will tell.  I also put eyes in the side of the cannon to guide the breech lines.  Put all the blocks and thread together and then put the cannon on the deck, got it in place, glued it down and then went back and tightened the ropes and trimmed everything up.

 

Now I've realized that I haven't put a finish on the deck and I have that cannon down on it, but I think I'll just work around this one cannon but now I need to decide how to finish the deck.  I really like the look of the wood just as it is, but leaving it unfinished seems like it might cause problems down the road.  I will find something that will give it a matte finish and hopefully not darken the wood up too much.