Armed Virginia Sloop by GuntherMT - FINISHED - Model Shipways - scale 1:48

[GuntherMT]

Thanks to everyone for the kind comments and encouragement, and for all the likes.

--

 

I'm done with the sweep ports.  Not because I'm particularly happy with how they came out, but because I kept trying to make them better and was at the point where I think I was starting to make things worse, rather than better.  So I reached the 'good enough this time' point and called it done.

 

A few of them came out pretty good, but there are a number that under the stare of the optivisor or macro lens, make me..  unhappy.  Oh well.

 

Close up of a pair of decent ones, before touch-up painting.

 

And some generic shots of both sides.

 

Now I get to start on what I hope is fun and interesting, building the deck furniture so that I can plank the deck!

[UpstateNY]

Sweep ports look great to me...your build is looking really good!

[Blue Pilot]

She is coming along nicely! You are at the fun point to me where the model is taking shape and coming alive before your eyes. keep at it, it looks great!

[Jimz66]

Looks great Brian. 

[Beef Wellington]

Very neat work Brian, well done.  Looks to be coming along very nicely.  AVS looks like a very nice kit, will be following to see how you progress.

Edited January 22, 2015 by Beef Wellington

[GuntherMT]

Thank you all for the kind comments and likes.  Helps motivate me to move on when things happen like today.  Today.. I managed a true facepalm while making my very first coaming. 

 

So the coaming frame calls for walnut that is 3/32" thick x 1/4" wide, but the actual walnut in the kit is actually only 1/16" thick, 1/32" too thin.  So I decided I'd improvise, and I cut some matching pieces of 1/4" walnut from the .030" planking and glued it to the 1/16" walnut to make a laminated piece that was almost exactly 3/32" thick.  Worked great, and I moved on to adding the inner 3/64" pieces that the cover planks would rest on later.

 

I put it all together and on my very first try it looked really good.  The next step is to bevel the entire edge of all 4 faces of the coaming to be 1/32" narrower at the top than the bottom.  I focused intently on doing this right, as of course if this goes wrong the entire thing is garbage, so when I finished it, I was really quite happy, as it looked like it came out much closer to perfect than I could possibly have expected for my first try at one of these...

 

Right up until I went to look at how the planking would fit, and realized that I had beveled the edges upside down...

 

 

Oh well, it was a practice run!  That's my story, and I'm sticking to it. 

 

This is why wooden boats take so long to make!

[BareHook]

You can also install the hatch planks before beveling, this will add strength and rigidity for the sanding operation.

[GuntherMT]

Very small update, as I haven't done much work on the ship the last couple of weeks, just had a busy schedule and other things going on.

 

For anyone interested I added an 'index' to the first post in this thread, so if for some reason you want to find a specific point in the build, it should be much easier now.

 

I've gotten the main hatch, and the scuttle port completed - I am using cherry for the planking and the kit walnut for the coaming, I think it makes a nice contrast.  The hardware was chemically blackened.

 

[kiwiron]

Wow you're doing a great job,very nice.

[UpstateNY]

I like the wood contrast with blackened hardware standing out against the lighter cherry.

 

Looking really good and very clean work.

 

Cheers,

 

Nigel.

[Dimitris71]

Nice clean job Brian.

 

Cheers

Dimitris

[GuntherMT]

So I have no idea why I thought I'd be going faster once I got to the deck furniture, because this is all new to me, so I screw up and have to remake lots of parts, but I'm learning, and am reasonably happy with the final results.

 

This morning, after working on this all day yesterday (and having started it by making the base some days ago), I completed the companionway.  Looking at everyone elses build logs, this little structure seemed neat, but nothing all that complicated, but after completing it, I counted, and there are 73 individual parts in this dumb little thing!

 

 

Today I hope to get the final hatch completed, and maybe start on the deck planking, which I've really been looking forward to!

[augie]

You're making really nice progress on her.  But don't start counting ---- it'll drive you nuts when you get to the ratlines  

[russ]

The companionway looks very good. Nice work. Enjoy the process. Each piece of the model is a model in itself so you have made many small models that will eventually be part of a larger model.

 

Russ

[gerty]

Beautiful work ! 

[GuntherMT]

Thanks gents, for the comments and likes.  I made the galley hatch, but it looks.. off.  I'm not sure what it is, the measurements are all good, and it's square according to my square, but it's off to my eye.  I may remake it.

 

In the meantime, I put everything on the deck together just to see it, not glued obviously and not even in exactly the right spots, but just for the visual.

 

 

Need to put a coat of poly on the hatch still, but waiting for the glue to dry since the grating is a bit touchy.  In the meantime, I can start working on figuring out the deck planking.  Woo!  

[russ]

Brian:

The hatch looks good, but if it does not please you, then it is worth a little time and some wood to have another go at it.

 

Russ

[dgbot]

I have found that when I am not pleaded with an item and continue with my build it always comes back to haunt me down the road.

David B

[Mahuna]

Hi Brian

 

I think what might be throwing you off is the open spaces at the borders of the grating.  The hatch gratings were typically removable, so my approach is to have a solid border around all sides.  Since we're meeting in a couple of weeks, why don't you delay glueing the hatch to the deck and bring the hatch and grating with you to the meeting.  You might get some helpful comments on it.  The gratings typically are one of the things that folks seem to pick out when looking at a model, so it pays to take a little extra time to get them pleasing to the eye.

 

Frank

[GuntherMT]

Thanks Frank, it will be a while before it gets glued down, and no real reason I'd need to glue it until the end really if I wanted to leave it loose.  Thanks.

[GuntherMT]

So I figured out what is wrong with the galley hatch.  It isn't the grating, it's the coaming itself - it is ever so slightly out of square, and I'm not sure why.  Measured from 2 corners it's square, but from the other two it's not.  I messed up a tiny bit somewhere, but it's enough that my eyeball catches it as being 'off'.  As a result, the planking won't match up correctly unless I fix it, so the next order of business will be making a new galley hatch tomorrow night.

 

I don't think I can make it with the grating having the outside edges like Frank suggests, as the grating material isn't the right dimension for it (works great across the short side, but doesn't work across the long side).  I would have to go off-size on the plans to make that work, so I'm not sure I'm going to try.  I'll take a fresh look at it tomorrow before I remake it to decide.

 

I can't really explain why, but I really do enjoy doing the deck planking.  It's going well so far, and I'm not going per-plan at all, rather I'm sort of emulating stuff I've seen in various builds here.  We'll see how it works out long term, but I like the first little bit.

 

 

The hatches are not glued, they are just being used to the planking fitment, which is why I need to remake the galley hatch now, because I need it to be right before going any further with the deck planking.

[russ]

I have done this sort of thing before. The piece measures okay, but the eye catches something that is off. That is my brain telling me to get it right.

 

Russ

[aliluke]

Hi Brian

I've been away from the forum and my model for a while. Your work looks superb except for that hatch and grating...I've just ripped out the aft ladder and hatch coaming on my model - destroying them both. The ladder was wonky within a good coaming but they all had to come out. Your grating and the coaming needs to be re-built otherwise they'll annoy you for ever after. A pain it is but we all go through it. Try, as Frank said, to get an edging around the grating. You could also try to combine the grating with the stove flue - a trick I borrowed from an earlier AVS - Pete Jaquith's??? As Russ says you've got to get it right to your eye otherwise it is like an itch that will need endless scratching.

[gerty]

Hi Brian -  I really enjoy the pics of your clean and beautiful work !   Nice job.

[KenW]

Hey Brian.  It is frustrating but as Billy Crystal sort of said, "It's better to look good than to measure good."

(He really said that it is better to look good than to feel good.)

Anyway, we don't have a boss or status reports due or deadlines.  So enjoy the work.

Cheers.

Edited February 17, 2015 by KenW

[GuntherMT]

Thank you all for the suggestion, tips, and likes!

 

So I decided that the advice to go with the outside border on the grating was the way to do it, so I simply abandoned the measurements from the plans, and winged it (shocking, I know)!

 

Instead of measuring anything, I first cut the pieces and built a new grating.  I had barely enough grating material left to make one long and one short piece after this, so I figured that it had better work out!  I assembled the new grating on some reversed masking tape to hole it together for assembly and gluing.

 

 

After finishing the grating and gluing it together with fast CA, to make the coaming I simply used the grating itself to mark the length of the two 'inside' ends, and cut them.  I then glued them to the grating, and after letting the glue set, I sanded the exposed ends until they were perfectly flat with the grating edge.  I then used the new assembly to measure the wood for the 'outside' pieces of the coaming, and glued them to the grating assembly.

 

 

I then beveled and sanded the entire new assembly, and then checked the measurement on deck.  It was slightly larger than the original galley hatch, so I used a chisel and carefully trimmed back the already glued deck planking, filed the new edge flat with a riffler file, and then trimmed the final bit needed off of the single plank on the other side until it was a snug fit.  I then slapped on a coat of poly, and ta-da!  Here is the new galley hatch sitting in it's future home.

 

 

Mission success!

[russ]

The hatch and grating look excellent. Nice work.

 

Russ

[aliluke]

Totally smart moves in all respects! Good stuff and a great result. Now I have to rebuild my ladder and coaming to a similarly good outcome...

[_SalD_]

Nice job Brian, the grating looks a lot nicer with the edges finished off.

[Mahuna]

Great work Brian - looks very nice.

 

Frank