Model ship build

[Ian down london way]

Not sure if this is really in scope of 'woodwork', but I'm taking a break from a ridiculously complicated round expanding table, and doing a model ship.

Also ridiculously complicated, but in a different way.

Is it worth doing it as a WIP here? Anyone interested?

The model is an all wood HMS bounty, from Occre. Cost about £300.

half of the metal bits, to give a sense of contents:

 

[AleDr]

I'd like to see a wip. Quite fancy making a model ship but don't know what I'd do with it when finished. Don't think the wife would be keen on having it on display!

 

[sunnybob]

Why not make a complete wooden boat, rather than just assemble a kit?

Plans are easily available for many types.

I helped my dad make this one over 50 years ago;

Its a metre long, with mahogany planking underneath the paint. Fully operational radio control which I fitted 10 years ago.

Much more satisfying than a kit.

 

[MikeG.]

£300!!!! Bloody hell..... For that sort of money I'd want the cannons to actually work.

Yeah, I guess you'd better post your in-progress photos. I hope you've a decent camera as getting small stuff in focus and well lit isn't at all easy.

 

[Harbo]

Well at least it’s wood unlike the Lego Bugatti kit at £300 too!

Rod

 

[Ian down london way]

OK. And so the journey begins.

I'm cheating a little, as I'm already about 1 month in (evenings - I still have to work for a living, although only a year to go!).

I should say I've no affiliation with the model manufacturer, or any shops, so I'm free to be critical / complementary as i see fit.

So, the kit is a very comprehensive one. You can find a number of people on youtube who show themselves unboxing one of these kits, so I won't replay all the gory details, but feel free to have a peek - its not me : Unboxing the kit (someone else's video).

When I bought this, I splashed out for a package of glues / paints / varnish / stains. Not sure how essential that was or how cost effective, but it was certainly time effective. I'd have probably had to drive to my 'local' model shop, which about 30 minutes away, to it saved me an hour time. I also bought a rig making helper, but more on that when I eventually get around to the rigging - hopefully this year !

The one thing I didn't splash out on, was something like £35 to hold the boat ribs when they are first assembled, and to hold the boat whilst you work on that. I thought I could knock something out myself.

So, the first stage is about assembling ribs, which are laser cut out of ply.

All the ply was laser cut well, with only very small attachment points. I'm using a combination of modelling knives and blades I've used in the past, some scalpel blades, and I also bought a "precision knife set" from Lidl (Powerfix). I have to say that the lidl set were not great. Handles are fine but the blades snap way too easily - they are either significantly thinner or made of a more brittle metal than the knives I've had for years. But basically, I've lost confidence in them. So I'm using the older set.

There are 3 sets of instructions. One is the rigging (put that aside till the winter!), one are written instructions and a set of complementary pictures to which the written instructions refer. There is also a set of written instructions in Spanish - which actually was more complete than the English. In particular, the English instructions had only a partial set of diagrams of the laser cut sheets, saying which piece was which numbered piece - but the Spanish ones were complete. Strange. I don't know how that happened, but I guess their quality control / printers didn't understand English enough to notice that the English set wasn't quite right at the last few pages. Still the actual instructions are fine, and what's more - they are decent English - not badly translated.

I'll break the post here, and start the WIP for real next post.

 

[Ian down london way]

So this is the kind of laser cut sheets included in the kit. Not sure how many, maybe 10 or so. conveniently, the pieces you use are mostly on the same sheets, so you are not having to hunt around too much to find the next.

So, the first thing is the backbone of the boat, to which much be attached the ribs. The backbone is actually in three parts (the whole boat, when complete is around 1m in length). They are joined and side panels are glued across the joints.

The keel (and the ribs) all need to be stained - something which came with the paint / glue set. Makes them look more hardwoody (is that a word?).

The attaching of the ribs is highlighted in the instructions that they must be vertical. This is where the £35 jig would have been useful, but to my mind, something to hold the assembled keel, plus some square blocks of wood - would be enough. Which it was.

So, the ribs slot over the keel and with some careful white gluing, are as right as I can get them.

Well, that was pretty satisfying. its all rather flimsy, and I'm very conscious that it needs careful handling at this stage.

That will do for now. more as long as people are looking

 

[MikeG.]

A metre long! Wow............from the photo I'd imagined it about a foot long.

 

[Stanleymonkey]

Haven't seen one of those kits before.

This should be interesting to see how it develops.

 

[F Flinstone]

Have being building boats for many years, mainly just from plans, started this year with a fiberglass hull of KM Bismarck, and now in the process of turning it into a Gentleman's steam yacht circa 1890, shes 2200mm long and called "Morpheus" after the wife all the superstructure is in wood and designed by myself, there is a good UK model boat forum if anyone is interested, "Model Boat Mayhem" FF

 

[Ian down london way]

Strengthening

Next up, a few bits of the laser cut ply are added to give it some more strength. Stain and glue - pretty trivial. Also some horizontal sections at the read (aft?) of the boat.

Lowest desk - partial

Next is to start putting together the lowest section of decking. They will fit on top of sticky-outy-bits on the ribs, but for now, they are to be stained (not sure why), and then lined with 0.1x0.5cm strips of light wood which is to look like deck planking when its done.

Made a simple jig for helping cut the planks the same length (65mm), and tried the technique they recommend which is to use a contact adhesive on the ply and the strips, let dry then apply - working from the center line (the deck is in two almost symmetrical parts) out to the edge. As well as staining the ply dark, the instructions call for the strips to have their edges made dark. The recommendation is to hold a block of them, and then rub a pencil along the edges of the block. Seems to work, although quite messy, and there is a risk that the pencil graphite goes onto your fingers, and can then transfer onto the planking - not a good look.

So, some definite experience learnt on this.

1) Thick contact adhesive (non-drip) may not have been the best choice. It was quite tricky to apply thinly, especially on the back of the wooden planking strips
2) It dries, as advertised, in 10 minutes or so, but you can't leave it over night before trying to assemble it.
3) Even though it appears to have stuck fast, they can come loose (but maybe that is uneven glue spreading)
4) Very unforgiving if you need to move it a little - well, it is a contact adhesive, so no surprise.
5) Not nice on the fingers (I quite like pulling dried white glue of me - am I weird?)
6) The strips aren't completely uniform width! a 0.25mm difference becomes apparent when laying this stuff. So sometimes you need to not use a particular strip to extend one line of planks, if it was a wider plank, or you get unpleasantly wide gaps.
7) When two pieces look almost symmetrical - take care you don't plank the wrong side of the ply (damn-it!!!)

So, aft and forward, port and starboard (and two undersides !!!) later, plus some nail markings (using pencil) and some clear varnish, results in this:

I'm rather pleased with them. They actually look rather cool.

Next will be the start of the internals - a couple of bulkheads with doors.
To be continued...

 

[Ian down london way]

Bottom Deck

There are two main parts to completing the bottom deck of the boat. There are some internal bulkheads that need making (2 of) and lining the bottom of the boat, on the inside. Later on, the outside of the boat is planked up - two layers, but this is on the inside of the ribs.

The soft wood here is relatively thick - 4x4mm, and is just cut to length and glued.

The bulkheads are made of three sections of ply with some tabs to both connect them to each other, and a couple of tabs to locate them onto the flat deck pieces. They are first planked with 0.5x5mm strips (same as the deck), with some door surrounds glued into place. the vertical planking doesn't have nail marked in pensil. They are only planked on one side, as you won't be able to see the far side, as the whole boat's inside is only viewable from one side.

The doors are glued into place, decorated, and the top and bottom of the bulkheads are finished off with dark 0.5x5mm strips.

The left and right sides of the forward decks are then glued onto the ledges on the ribs, which fit into slots on the decks. The need to ensure the ribs are at right angles to the keel starts becoming apparent. Conversely, where they aren't, the slots in the deck provides a means of realigning them if needed.

Once they are in place, the bulkheads can be glued into place, and the edges of the forward (but not aft, curiously) desk is edged. Looks rather nice. Also some pre-made wooden forms are glued onto the deck around a mast hole.

One more area is fitted in this bottom section, called the Bilges. I guess in the real boat, its for accessing the space where the ribs are.
Its made from 3 sections of play, glued together, then planked, and some vertical supports. Also an outer storage space, on the right.
Anyway, here it is getting glued into place.

The bottom deck is finished by fitting in cross members which stretch from rib to rib. This will support the next deck.
So, the mistakes start here. It looks like I used hard Sapelli / sapele wood, instead of staining soft wood. Oh dear. I'm going to run out of the hard wood later, that's for sure.
So maybe the 30 minute each way drive to that model shop will be necessary after all.

So, Bottom deck done.

 

[MikeG.]

Brilliant. Really enjoying this.

Could you please put something of known size in a photo now and then to give us an idea of size. Ta.

 

[Tasky]

I really wish I had the patience for something like this, but I nearly smashed everything and everyone within a 10-yard radius when trying to assemble a small plastic Airfix of a Harrier a few years back. I still pineappled it up royally and didn't even get around to painting it.
How people manage to find this stuff relaxing is utterly beyond me!

 

[Ian down london way]

Next Deck

So the start of the next deck up starts off in a similar way to one end of the bottom decks.

The forward part of the deck is shown as being partially planked, using the thin 5mm wide veneer cut into 65mm length strips, glued down and then pencil dotted to make it look like nail holes.

This time, I thought as i was running low on stain, I'd not bother to stain the ply deck bottoms before planking (after all, my planking was quite tight so you'd not see the stain anyway.

Some lessons learnt:
1. if you don't stain the bottom, then when you look up into the model, the ceiling will be very light, rather than dark wood. I'm re-selling this as a deliberate ploy to ensure its lighter and you can see more (cough cough).
2. This approach of planking all of one end, and then working across really does not work. You end of with diverging spread of planks, and then forever having gaps to try to fill in. Better would be to plank the middle and work outwards, all the way along.

Anyway, once the next few deck ply sections are glued down onto the horizontal supporting members that are themselves glued to the ribs, then the planking is extended all the way along, and the holes are opened up - they will become covered by gratings later.

After that the forward area is covered by the same planking as a bulkhead. This has a door added (which goes no where), but looks rather attractive.

Now comes a series of gratings.

Fortunately these are made from some pre-formed hard wood 'building blocks', that interlock to make the grids.

The first one I made, I tried to mount them as a grid and glue them at each point of intersection. The edges are then trimmed down to the size needed, e.g. 13x8
However, because you then put a collar of hardwood around it, like a frame, and then a further shaped collar, I realized it was pretty pointless gluing every touching point - and all the later ones, I just applied a dab of white glue around the outside points of contact.

Anyway, this is the first one I made:

The read wall above the deck is lined like the front (no pic - sorry).

A couple of shaped pieces glued around the mast holes and a couple of step ladders later together with lining the holes holding the ladder (sorry, I didn't take pics of the step ladders, but there are more later, so I'll take some then), and deck 2 is done.

(so why is it, when one clicks on a picture here, sometimes it opens large, but rotated?)

 

[Ian down london way]

Deck 3

At least I think its deck three.

Anyway, there are a cluster of cabins on deck three, so they need to be constructed. The walls are initially ply, out of the laser cut, and a number of surfaces, inside and out, need to be lined with the 0.5x5mm strips, to look like planking. Also topped and tiled with dark wood edging, and door frames lined too.

I found quite a nice technique to hold the edges of the door frames in place:

I quite like playing the engineer - problem solving.
By the way, as requested, the pink cutting mat is showing inches there, so you can see the scale.

Anyway, once complete, they look rather neat.

They get fitted upon the second deck, aft. Maybe captains quarters? I don't know. The floor supports for the third deck are then put in place, and it was here that I ran out of that 4x4mm hardwood, and reverted to staining softwood.

The next layer of laser cut ply decking is then glued into place, and the long job of planking that full layer is done. This time, learning my lesson, I constructed it like a spear head, with the central point extending upon the center line, and progressively widening behind the point. This seems to have resulted in a more even lay of the decking.

To finish off the deck, a series of gratings are made, and framed. Also a new ladder is inserted.

I started being a bit more canny about limiting waste, although I don't think its necessary - but I get a certain satisfaction with avoiding waste.

(for scale, the cutting mat is now showing cm, and the steel rule in the foreground is 15 cm - 6 inch in old money.

This has now caught up with where I am at the moment. So posts will now be in real-time, so slower than the last week or so.

 

[AES]

Really enjoying this build Ian, thanks. I've used bulldog "clamps" quite a lot in aeromodelling in the past, but never, ever, thought of using them "back to front" as spreaders. Very neat trick. Why didn't you tell me about 5 years ago when I gave it up (before I got to the point where ever time I looked up into the sky and lost the horizon view for longer than about half a minute I fell over)????

 

[Ian down london way]

Now its getting tricky

The next stage looks simple, but is definitely starting to get tricky.

All those laser cut ribs need to start to be made boat-shaped, in order to be ready to support the first layer of planking.

So, its all about hand sanding.

The pictures in the handbook show gentle curves that need to be achieved, so that when the planks are later applied, they will rest against the ribs nicely. Of course a curve like that needs to really be achieved in 3 dimensions, so you need to know in which direction the planks are going to lay across the ribs - and its not always at right angles to the edge of the ply.

That's a bit confusing, I know, but I hope it will be clearer later on when you see (and indeed when I attempt) to lay the first few planks - exposing the interesting shapes that will need to be filled in later.

So, here is the simple pic they show in the instructions:

And this is the nightmare yet to come, which this smoothing is trying to make 'easy'. Heck !!!!

OK, so, stick to the plan - don't get put off, one step at a time.

Here is what the stern looks like (from somewhat below) when I have smoothed half of it.

Although the written instructions talk about sanding blocks and files, I have to say that I found the most useful tool are wide nail files. I bought some from boots which are 2cm across. And slightly flexible, but quite abrasive. They have been really useful (coupled with some thinner ones), earlier for opening out the holes on the deck, but now, for sanding a curve on the ply.

I commissioned SWMBO / CIC (you guess) to buy some more from £-land, and they are all working rather well. Not quite as nice as the boots ones but probably about 1/4 the price.

Anyway, all smoothed now, but the proof will be in the smooth planking later - cross fingers.

Next, and rather incongruously, is a stove !

Hum, surprising. But its a larger internal item, and I guess it needs to be put into place before the planking is applied.

Made from a box of 6 laser cut ply sections (and visible in the pic of the plans above), its glued together and then they ask for it to be filled and sanded, as its going to be painted black. Its clad in 3x2mm soft wood to make a frame, with some legs. On top are glued my first metal bits and its all painted black. I found some paint I had used to paint some kids building blocks (which considering my daughters are now 21 and 24, means that pains is probably 20 years old). A little thick but seems ok. And really good coverage. The end job is not ideal, as the paint was too thick ! I probably could have either sanded it down (tricky given the shape) or thinned it down before use. Yes, that would have been sensible. Oh well.

Here it is, quite small (cms marked on the cutting mat). The last pics aren't good, as it doesn't show up very well - its soooo black.

The plans give the stove some character by having nice shiny rivets around it. This is done by using some small brass (?) nails that are supplied with the kit. I decided to drill holes for them, as I really didn't fancy splitting the soft wood. Smallest drill I had came with a cheap 'dremel' knock off I had bought ages ago. The drill was gutless, but the accessories are ok. I tried using my dremel (with a variable chuck - so much more effective than fixed size collets), but I had difficulty getting it accurate, even when marking with a pointy thing. fortunately one of my pillar drills has a chuck which closes right down:

This also allowed me to drill all but the last 3 mm of the holes I needed, so I could knock the nails in just the last little bit.

Nice Job !

Until I realized that the nails on the other faces then couldn't have their holes drilled without hitting the first ones. Doh !

So, remove the outer 4 nails on each corner of the longer face, snip them short, glue them into the holes (no grip otherwise), and then I can drill and put the nails in the other faces.

Take 2: Nice Job !

And here it is (with a ruler for scale) in place on the second deck.

Phew - bed time !

 

[Ian down london way]

Before the planking, comes the bulwarks.

And no, I wasn't swearing.

These are the sides that come up from the deck. There are front ones and side ones.

The front ones are the first challenge. Two sections of laser cut thin ply which need to be bent so they can wrap around the front.

I foolishly attempted to bend and glue them into place. This really isn't easy, as unless you can clamp them really well, they do spring open somewhat. In my case, I could clamp the sides, but clamping them at the front was a real challenge.

Huge amounts of fiddling, and I found that using white glue just wasn't hacking it. So for the first time on the model, I resorted to superglue.

Mistake.

End result is I've a gap at the front, and beads of messy glue along the edge of the desk around the bow. Not a pretty site.

Reading ahead (unlike me) I see that I will be lining the inside of the bulwarks with strips of softwood (5x2mm) and really that is going to have to go down to the deck, so I've no choice but to try to remove the excess super glue. On the up side, it should camouflage the gap at the front - I hope.

First attempted to use the tip of knives - broke a scalpel blade - which put the wind up me a bit. Tried stronger modeling knife blades, cutting into the superglue, or levering it away from the side / bottom. still not great.

So, I decide to try to grind it away. I have a decently powered dremel (purchased after having progressively upgraded from cheap Chinese units with lots of bits and bobs in nice cases, but a rubbish power module). I also have a variable chuck for the dremel - so much better than fixed size ferrels.

So, I've never bought a comprehensive set of bits and bobs for the dremel itself, but using the variable chuck and thought I'd try out the cheaper unit's little grinding accessories.

So using that, it was amazingly easy to run along the joint between the bulwarks (love that word) and the deck, to clean out the excess (at least I hope its excess) super glue, so I'm ready to move onto lining it on the inside.

I thought about it a little more this time, and although the instructions said to soak the lining soft wood (the 5x2mm stuff), I know its tricky to white glue wet wood, so this time, I just let the wet wood 'set' in the curve, without gluing.

I do love my little brass bar clamps. So dinky!

Then the next day, although the wood sprung open somewhat, the pressure needed to bend it to the right curve was much much less - making it way easier to fit whilst dry. Gluing it against the ply was then much easier, and against each other too.

Mind you, you can't have too many clamps.

The rear of the boat has side bulwarks - much easier.

Next - the planking starts!

 

[Gerry]

Reading this I was going to comment that I am surprised you are not using Cyano (superglue)
You need some thin Cyano and some kicker/activator, Get these from a model shop not Poundland. It looks like you have used a medium consistency there as you should not get any build up.
Ply has a slightly waxy coating so before gluing give it a light sand. Simply dry fit and put a tiny drop of glue on the join. It will wick in and along the joint a surprisingly long way. A little spray of kicker/activator will give an instant grab.
Just about all of my model aeroplanes are built using Cyano and they are subjected to much more physical abuse that this ship will ever receive.
I would suggest you try some aliphatic adhesive also. This is similar to PVA but it wicks in to joints, grabs quick and sands.
You have the right idea about preforming the wood when wet but over bend it around a slightly smaller former as it will spring back.
Adding some bleach to the water makes it even easier to bend.

Gerry