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

[GuntherMT]

Thank you for the feedback gentlemen.

 

Russ - I've got the sub-deck almost completely flattened out now, and the patch, as you say, shouldn't be a big deal to get in decently.  On the window angle - as can be seen in the detail 2J, and in the photo from Barehook, the frames have an angle built into them.  They could be placed as shown by Barehook, or angled as shown by the plans (or something in between).  Since the angle to the center frames is established by beveling the edge that contacts the window frame, I'm fairly certain I could do this by simply trimming with an X-acto blade, or just sanding, as the angle doesn't matter beyond the depth of the window frame since there is nothing else that connects to this frame behind the window.

 

Barehook - thank you for the picture.  I went through every build log, and every completed AVS on the site, and good clean shots of the stern when completed, and details of how each person built them out, are surprisingly rare.  Yours looks good, but I'm still leaning towards trying to get mine closer to detail 2J in the plans if I can swing it.

 

Jim L, and Cap'n Magee, thanks for stopping by and commenting!

[BareHook]

Found another pic that shows the stern framing. Plans call for the window bottoms to be parallel, I ended up with the sides parallel and vertically offset to form an arch. I discovered my misinterpretation of the plans too late and was happy with the look anyway.

Edited October 3, 2014 by BareHook

[GuntherMT]

It does look fine the way you built it Barehook, thanks for the photos.

 

Random mid-day non-update update.

 

Sample planks comparing wood from the kit vs. some I got from Ebay.

 

 

As is labeled in the photo, Cherry, Sapele, Black Walnut, and the kit supplied .020 thickness Walnut.  Taken with a flash.

 

Planks were cut to length, not beveled, then rough sanded, lightly sanded with 240 grit, wiped with a damp cloth, and then when dry given a single rubbed in coat of wipe-on satin poly.

[HIPEXEC]

Sapele is a bitch to bend and shape!

[GuntherMT]

Good to know Rich, although I have no real plan for any of this wood right now, I just got a bunch of different kinds to see how they looked, figuring I can use them for deck furniture and other bits and pieces for future projects. 

[lamarvalley]

I concur with Rich, sapele is a unforgiving bender although a good soak and heat will do it as long as the curve is not too extreme. Sapele is a form of mahogany and the grain is somewhat coarse and prone to snap suddenly. It's always a downer to be at the last tiny bit and about to breathe a sigh of relief for a great bend when a unsatisfying snap occurs. 

The walnuts from the kit looks darker and more evenly grained than the black walnut and that stuff should smoothly bend if needed… again with moisture and heat. Walnut also finishes so nice. 

Cherry is a fun wood too and the more the heartwood is exposed to light the darker it gets until it has a nice rich natural brown. Natural cherry is gorgeous when aged and clear coated.

 

But at this point it doesn't  matter what you do with it cause it's always a necessity and a pleasure to have excess wood… always.

Edited October 3, 2014 by lamarvalley

[Perls]

Hi Brian,

 

While I don't have experience with planking, I tend to agree with Randy and prefer the walnut supplied by the kit. But, cherry is, and will likely always be my favorite wood. It will soon develop a rich color which will deepen over time.

 

By the way, if you didn't point out the issue with the windows, I would have never known. Everything else is great and I'm learning a lot.

 

Best,

Steve

Edited October 4, 2014 by Perls

[GuntherMT]

Thanks Randy and Steve.

 

As I mentioned, I don't really have a specific use for these planks in mind, I just had a few minutes while taking a break from work (working from home today), so chopped up a plank of each to make those little sample pieces so I could see what they each looked like.  The Sapele is certainly harder to cut than the others (I was just straight-chopping the planks with a razor blade), but I think it's got an interesting look and might be useful for making deck houses, hatch covers, or flat transom planking, etc. on some project in the future.

 

Of those four, I do agree that the kit walnut is very nice, and since it's much thinner than the others would certainly be easier to use for hull planking!

 

I also did a small deck-planking sample earlier in the log where I used maple, and it was pretty nice for that, but I've also got 30 each Boxwood and Holly planks coming in mid November from Jeff at HobbyMill.

[GuntherMT]

I think it looks good, and thanks for posting it.  I mostly wanted to see a good shot of the finished stern to give me a better idea of whether my idea for the stern treatment/colors on mine might look good or not.  Hopefully I'll know sometime in the next month!

 

I've rebuilt the stern on mine to the point where I have all the frames on, but I never could get them to align properly, so I'm just going to trim and shim as needed after the glue has dried in order to make them how I want in the end.  Hopefully!

 

Right now the line I've drawn requires shimming the bottom of both #1 frames, shimming the bottom of one of the #3 frames, and trimming the bottom of the other one, and using the #2 frame bottoms as my level point for both sides, as they are very close to exactly equal to each other as far as bottom height on the bulkhead R.

 

The far aft angle for both frames #3 seems shallow compared to the other 4 frames, is the transom somewhat compound curved as it nears the outboard edges (i.e. the vertical angle changes along with the slight horizontal curve from the keel to the outboard edge)?

[GuntherMT]

Alistair,

 

Here is a terrible paint drawing to try to better describe what I'm talking about.

 

 

The angles and distances relative to each other is exaggerated here for clarity.

 

Frame #1 and the keel extend the farthest to the rear.  Frame #2 is almost identical in angle to frame #1, but does not extend quite as far to the rear.  Frame #3 has a much shallower angle, and doesn't extend as far to the rear as frame #2.

[aliluke]

I'm not sure about your issues. I sanded back these extension parts to get a flow across the stern - a curve from side to side. This is not very apparent. My advice is to just work it to your satisfaction.

[GuntherMT]

Fair enough.  Sort of figured that's what I'd need to do, but it just looks..  odd.

[GuntherMT]

Stern work continues.  I put a bit of wood in to patch the poop deck where I tore it up, it's not pretty, but since it will be completely covered up by planking, no biggy.

 

 

I angled the two #1 frames next to the keel with a #11 X-acto without removing them from the ship.  The picture makes it look like they are curved for some reason, but they really aren't.  Went ahead and attached the other frames using the windows for each slot as a guide as I went.

 

 

I then used a small square to establish a flat line against bulkhead R so that I knew what I needed to adjust on the bottom of each frame.  Both #1 frames were shimmed, the #3 frame with the arrow was trimmed a bit, and the 2 frame on that side was used as my 'reference' point for the line because the #3 frame on the other side matched it for height, so the #2 frame on the other side was trimmed slightly.

 

 

After that was done, I added the counter and stern filler (roughly shaped first).  Added the port and starboard fillers as well.

 

 

Moved on to placing the window frames, starting with the bottom frame.  As I got to the center I determined that to keep the frame at the same height as the outer two frames 'corner', I needed to shim both of the #1 frames.  I used 3/64 basswood, bent it using water and heat, then trimmed it, glued in place, and then final trimmed it up after the glue was set.

 

 

After all four frames were in, I test fit the windows and made some adjustments to get them aligned right (or so I thought) before moving to the upper frames.  I then sanded down all the fillers and counter to finish out the stern.

 

 

Once that was complete, I put all the windows back in for a test fit, and the macro camera shot tells the tale..

 

 

...somehow they are no longer aligned the way they were in the previous picture.  Both of the outer windows appear to be higher than they should be, although the angle looks good I think.  I decided to take pictures from some different angles after this to see if the camera angle was causing the difference between the two tests.

 

 

So now I think I'm going to lower the outer two windows slightly.  I think I can do this by simply shaving a tiny bit off of the bottom frames, and then adding thin shims to the top.  The starboard upper frame needs a shim anyway, or simply replaced, as it somehow didn't come out right.

 

[russ]

I agree that the outer windows need to come down or the inner windows need to come up.

 

Russ

[GuntherMT]

So I went with Russ and moved the middle windows up a bit, but the port outer window was still out of alignment and I couldn't really figure out how it wasn't like the other side, until I really started looking at all angles, and realized that I had managed to sand back the port side of the transom farther than the starboard.  So, I shimmed out the entire outer left transom quarter around the window frame, then took another run at it.

 

After much shimming, tearing out, trimming, re-shimming, etc.  I think it's going to stay like it is right now.

 

 

I'm not sure I can get it any better without screwing up something else, so I'm just going to finish it off in this position by adding a bit of shim above the inner-port window, and some very slight trimming around the outer port window to hold it in the current position, as it's a bit loose now.

[russ]

That looks pretty good.

 

I would suggest leaving it for a day or so and then come back and look at it with fresh eyes and see what you think. If you like it then, all well and fine. If not, well it is your call. You are the one who must be pleased with it.

 

Russ

[aliluke]

Brian - It is difficult little piece - go for it. It looks fine to me.

 

I'll delete my two pictures of my AVS stern from your log as I think your log should be clean of other photos. Might re-post them in my own log.

[GuntherMT]

Thanks Russ, and I'm done for tonight, so it will be waiting for tomorrow in any case!

 

Alistair, thanks for posting those for me, they and Barehooks photo's were very useful to me both in working on the stern, and for mentally getting a picture of how it might look with my ideas for the stern treatment.  Hopefully it won't be too terribly long before I'll find out if my idea is any good.

[GuntherMT]

Slow progress continues as I move on from the stern today, and begin work on the timberheads and knightsheads.  I cut out the rabbets for them to glue into, and shaped the knightsheads, but the timberheads require a wider piece of wood than the kit provides because of the odd parallelogram shape, so I doubled up the wood and glued them together.  After getting them shaped to fit, but not 'thinned' down, I decided that there was no way that these would not get broken off by my ham fists, so I drilled them for pins before placing them into their final resting places (hopefully).

 

 

At this point all of the bulkwark extensions need to be faired on the inside, but given how thin they need to be made, they are sure to be quite fragile and break, so a 1/4" wide plank is placed to bridge the sub-deck line.  Before placing that plank, the timberheads and knightsheads are faired into the outside hull shap.  Then another 1/8" plank is placed above the 1/4" plank, and now even if the fairing process of the extensions is done terribly (which I did manage on a couple of them), they won't go anywhere or break off, as they are secured by the outer planking.  Also, before the planking can begin, the stem needs to have the rabbet extended through it, as the outer planks set into it above where the false keel is.

 

 

After the bulkhead extensions were faired on the inside (no pictures, as they don't really seem like something that would show up well in photos, or be very interesting, so I didn't take any), then comes the waterways.  These pieces are laser cut walnut, and mine were quite badly laser burned and double cut for about half the length, so they are probably slightly narrow, and were a massive pain to clean up.  The outside edge needs to be beveled to fit up against the bulwark extensions snugly, and I did this with a hard sanding block without too much difficulty.  The inside top needs to be beveled as well, 1/16" in from the top edge, down to where the deck planking will meet it on the inside edge (3/64" planking).  I used a compass to mark the 1/16" line along the top, and then used a piece of 3/64 basswood planking with a fine .05 mechanical pencil to mark the inside edge.

 

I beveled the inside edge using a scalpel type X-acto blade.  After about 30 minutes I decided I really don't like the waterways.    After a bit over an hour I finished the port side, and now my hand hurts (from holding the blade - I somehow managed not to slice part of my anatomy off doing this), so the starboard one gets to wait for tomorrow.

 

 

Alistair and some others may recognize that my sequence of construction is following the Bob Hunt practicum (mostly, I'm deviating here and there), which I did decide to get and use for this build.  Not sure if I mentioned that before.

 

 

[russ]

The hull is shaping up very nicely so far. Good work on the bulwark framing.

 

Russ

[GuntherMT]

Thanks Russ,

 

So I seem to be making a habit of doing stuff wrong and then having to fix it.  This one was annoying, but not damaging at least - after my update I was staring at the plans again, specifically the planking cross section, and it dawned on me that the 1/16" measurement for the bevel on the top of the waterway is measured from the outside edge, leaving the bevel running from the spirketing plank to the deck plank with no 'flat' visible on the waterway at all.  I had measured from the inside edge, meaning that I was leaving a flat area between the spirketing plank, and the beginning of the bevel.

 

 

So, another hour or so later, I've completely re-beveled that port waterway to a new mark, 1/16" from the bulwark edge.

 

Time for bed now before I find something else wrong!   

Edited October 6, 2014 by GuntherMT

[aliluke]

Yep time for bed! I think you are whacking yourself around the head too much. More annoying things are coming - sleep on them and no one will notice...I sanded right through the deck at one stage and then had to rip it up and replace that section. Why? Because a huge moth landed in my just painted varnish! I was so annoyed I sanded the thing right through to the ply. Shoud have slept on it!!

 

Your work is looking really good. Way better than mine at the same stage. Rock on and roll with the punches - she'll sort herself out, believe me.

[lamarvalley]

I think your sloop is coming along nicely and I couldn't agree with Alistar more...

 

...More annoying things are coming…. more IS certainly coming but that is kind of the fun of it… challenges and pitfalls and eventual (hopefully) learnings eh?.

If every piece was perfect and it went together like a kit from NASA  what fun would that be? That would be as much a challenge as putting gas in a lawn mower… boring! 

 

Keep moving forward, I at least am having fun from this seat.

[GuntherMT]

So took last night off as I worked late and was tired, so didn't feel like I should tackle the other waterway shaping.

 

Tonight I shaped the second waterway, and then placed both waterways on the sub deck.  In the process of trying to hold one of them tight while the glue took a set (really have no idea how I would get a clamp on these, so I used CVA with CA at the points that didn't want to stay down on the deck) I managed to break my first bulkhead extension.  It didn't break all the way off, and broke right at the top edge of the waterway, so I was able to just inject some CVA between the extension and the outer planking and hold it there for a couple minutes to repair it.

 

 

I then placed the first of the transom planks using an oversized plank so that it could be trimmed down after.

 

 

And then I completed the transom planking down to the bottom of the wale.

 

 

While trimming the transom planks, I managed to break another bulkhead extension.  This one is on the quarterdeck, so no real way to repair it right now.  I'm just going to try to be very careful and not finish breaking it (like the other, it's cracked, not broken completely off) before I get the upper planking in so I can glue it to the outer planking.

 

I trimmed the basswood planks I had previously placed a little bit short of the transom planking, as the plans show that I need to add a short 'false plank' section out of walnut at the stern end of those planks as the basswood will show from the stern.  I am not going to try to place those walnut pieces right now, but will wait until I can see what is actually exposed and how best to do it.

[aliluke]

Looking really sharp to me Brian. You are in total control as far as I can see. Remember to drill the upper counter for the rudder - easier done earlier than later.

 

So many makers of this kit talk about snapping the bulkhead extensions - it was never an issue for me...I'm now thanking luck for that.

[GuntherMT]

Alistair, I have nothing to blame but my own ham fisted handling of the ship for breaking the extensions.  While holding the hull to work on the stern (or the waterways the first time) I simply applied too much pressure with my holding hand instead of keeping the holding pressure to my fingers that were not against the extensions.

 

Thanks for the likes and following along everyone,

[radrick21]

Hi.  You have a fascinating build there Brian. It'll make a really cool display for sure.  I'd like to offer you an interesting trick that might relate to your aft windows battle ( or anything where balance or alignment is sought).  A friend of mine is a sculptor, and he said that he pauses frequently to look at the piece in a large mirror.  Makes everything amiss reveal itself.  I used this method a lot back when I was oil painting and it saved me a lot of time!  I'll do that on my Willie when I get far enough for it to be useful.  Thanks a lot for your interest in my virgin build BTW!

[DocBlake]

I had the same problem with some bulkheads not approaching the bearding line.  The best solution is to add shims to the lower part of the bulkhead to bring it to the bearding line.  Shimming the deck is tricky.  Using shims on the lower part of the bulkhead is relatively easy and the fairing process takes care of any irregularities.

 

Dave

Edited October 9, 2014 by DocBlake

[GuntherMT]

Rick, thanks for that tip, I will have to remember it for the future.

 

Dave, that's exactly what I did - I shimmed almost every bulkhead at the bottom after getting the tops aligned to the keel.  I think I detailed that in the log, and it worked out nicely.  When fairing, I simply faired the bulkheads down until the highest bulkheads were showing original bulkhead material instead of shim to get the final fairing level to something near the original bulkheads size (i.e. to prevent the bulkheads from being too 'fat').

 

Currently I'm still working on the stern, and having some difficulty getting things to line up to where I'm happy with them, but plodding along, so nothing really new to report today.  Getting close to one of our periodic releases at work (software update release) so less time to tinker with the ship (I'm actually taking a short break from work at home right now, then will get back to it tonight).  Still expect to finish up the stern in the next couple of days, hopefully with nothing planned on Saturday I can muddle through it and have something to post for an update.

 

Thanks all,

[themadchemist]

WOW.

I can't stress enough the importance of hyper linking your build logs in your sig's. This is how I found this one, from a post Brian made in another log. It seems using email notice has limited my time looking at the build log pages and simply causing me to miss the new ones. I wonder how many others this happens to.....

HOLY COW.
With my addled brain I completely missed your AVS's start. 6 Pages NICE! 

Oh BTW, did I say...WOW.

I remember a Brian from a few months ago plowing through a Carmen build like a bull in a china shop. What a change. 
Your still the ADHD/OCD speed builder of the Carmen era, but you've came miles since her build.
Did I say WOW, just wanted to get that in......

Oh, BTW, now do you see the difference between Chucks blocks and the MS ones. Night and day, just like the rope. If your talking rope walk, its over... you've committed to this hobby, but then that really become obvious as I read on.....

I started this log 4 or 5 hours ago and thought at each instance, hum...that's innovative... like the cross sawing of the bulkhead braces, isn't it funny how we forget that glue takes up space, especially when we push tolerances insanely close to ZERO.

But then your bulkhead shimming,
BRAVO on exactly nailing it. not to mention the deck, that work was so elegantly undertaken. I knew at that point someone had been doing their MSW homework.

Then comes the transom windows. All I can say is the transom windows is one part of a ship that annoys the heck out of me if not done nicely. Your changes are exactly what I'd have done.

On the last picture with windows, the gaps (which create dark spots) trick the eye, its an illusion. I clicked that last stern shot full screen and used the old carpenters trick "the eye and a straight edge". Leaning back and using a 1 foot steel rule I used the straight edge to focus only on the window edges, both top and bottom and they are perfectly symmetrical.

Your catching the over-fairing over the port stern side, which was causing the problem, shows a keen eye for detail,
I wondered about if that might be it, as if you notice the starboard frame 3 in the picture, it still has char darkening. Indicating less fairing. Again, a pushing tolerance to zero issue. NICE CATCH. That is some fine building, my friend.

Its good to see how quickly your grasping the intricacies and embracing the importance of framing and fairing. I don't feel a builder can ever move past a certain level (the 1st, of many) until this one important fact is grasped.
You've also crossed the second important milestone, (level 2, so to speak) you've lost the fear of deconstructing hours of work to make something right for YOU. The doing it for YOU is another milestone (level 3), but you had that on Carmen, your goal always was to build her fast and from the box.
Isn't it fun how this hobby evolves a life of its own. and level 3 sometime comes before level 1, as it should but so often doesn't.

You've got a great future in building, I see scratch builder written all over this bashing. Won't it be great to look at the Carmen next to AVS and see how much you have learned. It is that nature of this hobby that drew me in so deeply and the great voices of our MSW community that made it all so much more interesting. Its some times easy to get almost as involved in other builders work as in our own. After all, it is a great research endeavor and part of the 'homework'.

I'll also comment on your photography and attention to detailing build procedure. Its a lot of work, but worth it IMHO. It definitely makes your log much more useful then just completed pictures. GREAT JOB!

I think I remember saying WOW, but if I did not

WOW

this is going to be a great adventure to watch unfold.

Edited October 10, 2014 by themadchemist