Getting Jiggy!

Between thinking up terrible puns for blog post titles I've been making a jig to hold the ship while I'm working on the deck initially and then doing the hull planking.

I shamelessly stole the design from James' blog linked in a previous post. It is a very simple design, but does just what I need it to do and was very simple to construct for someone as inexperienced as me!

I took a trip to local hardware shop recently and picked up some very cheap cuts of wood and a hacksaw! I also went a bit mad buying clamps of varying sizes, which I am sure will come up more and more in future blogs!

First up I had a quick look at James' design, took some measurements of the keel and drew up a very rough plan of what I needed. It is simply four blocks of wood attached to a chipboard sheet which allows the keel to slot in the middle. I measured the widest part of the keel (where the strengtheners are) and this gave me the required distance between the two sets of blocks. I then measured the distance between the two closest bulkheads which gave me the distance that the two blocks in each set needed to be apart. The plan looks like this:



I transfered these marking with the exact measurements directly onto the chipboard sheet so that I would have a guide when sticking the blocks on:



I then measured and cut the blocks of wood using the following setup:



I wasn't too concerned about how clean or straight the cuts were as I don't think the jig needs to be too precise. As long as it keeps the ship steady then I will be happy.

Once I had the four pieces I simply glued then onto the plywood sheet using standard wood glue and am now waiting for the glue to dry:



I did make a pretty big mistake when buying the wood. The jig as it stands now will be fine for fitting the deck etc, but the blocks are not high enough to hold the keel while I am hull planking. I'm going to be a bit slack in solving this problem I'm afraid, I think I will just cut another 4 blocks and glue them directly on top of the others! This won't be as sturdy as I'd like but I think for the job it needs to do it will be OK. Of course if it turns out to be a disaster I will probably look to build another one.

As I'm sure you can see my basic woodworking skills are pretty poor and my tool kit is only juststarting to grow. I'm sure this jig could have been made much better, but for now I am happy with something very rough and ready as I know I will only be using it up until the point that I finish the hull planking.

Slow progress as usual as I am still waiting for the next installment of parts, but hopefully once they arrive I will have plenty to be getting on with. In the meantime I continuing to work on the plastic cutty sark model and having fun with shrouds so I may post some pictures of that if I get the chance.

Happy sailing!

Jonny.

Dry fitting the first 5 bulkheads

I've now checked the first 5 buikheads as I described in the previous post. As I expected they are all as close to perfect as I could ever have hoped! Given how well this has gone, I'm not sure that I will check the rest of the bulkheads. It will depend on time I think, and how much work needs to be done with the next installment of parts.
I've had a go at dry fitting the first 5 bulkheads that I have. I had to do a bit of work with a file to get the slot on bulkhead 19 wide enough as it didn't intially fit, but this was the only work I had to do. I've removed the clamps from the keel and left the first 5 bulkheads fitted. Now just to wait for the next parts to come through!

Technique 1 - Checking the cut of bulkheads

Just a quick update to today to show how I am going to go about checking the cut of the bulkheads to see if I have to do any preliminary work on them. I found this idea in a book I mentioned in a previous post; "Model Ship Building: From Stem to Stern" by Milton Roth.
I'm not sure how necessary this step is with a kit of this quality, but as I am waiting for further installments I am not losing any time anyway. Doing it is also in line with my ground rules in that I am not losing anything by doing it, but moving foward with mis cut pieces could prove disastrous.
On to business. The first step is to take a sharp pencil and trace around the bulkhead:
I then carefully measure the centre line of the bulkhead by taking two measurements across the width of the bulkheads, halving these measurements, marking 2 points and drawing a line through these two points.

The traced shape is then carefully cut out.

By folding the piece of paper in half along the centre line I can then check is the edges line up. If the piece was not symetrical (i.e. mis cut) the edges would not line up correctly and I would be able to mark on this tracing where material needed to be removed to even them up.

As you can see the first bulkhead I checked was pretty near to perfect so it got my mildy ironic seal of approval.

It is worth remembering that there is plenty of room for human error in this process, so a certain amount of error could be tolerated. For example, the thickness of the pencil leads to slightly incorrect tracing. My cutting skills are not up to much and certainly my method for marking the centre line has a lot of potential for error. However I think that it will be sufficient to highlight any major errors in the cut and so I won't be trying to make adjustments down to fractions of millimetres.

I am also going to have a go at dry fitting the first few bulkheads that I have in case they need any adjusments to fit into the false keel. I will probably post again once I have checked and fitted the 5 bulkheads that I currently have.

Keep on trucking!

Jonny.

Stage 1 - False Keel Construction

FALSE KEEL CONSTRUCTION

So, at 5:00pm GMT on Friday 12th February construction started! There was a small ceremony to celebrate the occasion, but attendance was thin. Just me, a cat and a rabbit. I think the rabbit enjoyed it at least, I think nibbling my slipper was his way of saying "good luck."

Ahem. Enough of that.

So, the first step was to cut the four pieces out of the plywood sheets. Cutting out the keel parts was a bit trickier than I'd anticipated, but only because I was petrified of doing anything wrong! Once I had built up the courage to put a bit of weight behind the knife the pieces came out a dream. I gave them all a good sand where they had been cut, checking the evenness by running my fingers along the edges from time to time.

The next step was to glue the two keel pieces together and add the strengtheners. I gave some thought to the best order to do this in and which clamps to use to make it as easy as possible to keep them all square and flush. One concern was that if I used clamps underneath the keel when I left it to dry there would be some tension because the bottom of the keel wouldn't lie completely flat. I suppose ideally 1 large clamp could be used which sat on the top and spread down the length of the part to be glued. I had quick look at James' log and noticed that he had used small clamps underneath and didn't seem to have any problems so I went for it!

The following pictures show the order in which I glued and clamped the pieces:

First I glued one half of one of the keel strengtheners to the bow section of the keel:

I then glued and slotted in the stern section of the keel and clamped this:

After leaving this to dry for a short time I carefully removed the clamps and glued the second strengthener directly on, being careful to line it up so that it was flush at the top and bottom, and didn't overlap into the bulkhead slots on either side. I then reattached the clamps, making sure the smaller, thinned ones were on the bottom:

Here is a close up of the join and the clamps used.

Finally I glued and slotted in the main mast stay in the correct slot. The fit wasn't 100% snug so I did have to be careful that the stay was perpendicular to the false keel. I used the corner of my steel ruler to check that is was at right angles to the keel.

I have now left the glue to dry overnight and will have to wait until the next installment arrives to do anything more with the model itself. However, there is a lot of research and checking I need to do in the meantime! Here is the finished first section of the instructions:

NEXT STEPS

My first next step, as mentioned in the previous post, will be to check the cut of the bulkheads that I currently have and correct any imperfections. Looking at the quality of the pieces so far suggests that there won't be much work that needs doing! Other then imperfections caused by my clumsy cutting when taking them out the plywood sheet.

I also want to do some research (most likely with the help of model ship world) into whether I should be doing some work on the false keel at this stage to make the planking of the hull easier. I have begun to read the excellent guide to hull planking here. It suggests that I should be doing some shaping the keel at this stage and also mentions created a "rabbet." I won't go into any detail here, but will find out if I need to be doing it, and if I do some of this work I will include details in a future post. Having looked at James' log of this model again he does do some work with the keel, but not at this stage, and he does not include a rabbet. However, his method of planking seems to differ from that suggested in the above link. I will report back with my findings!

I think it's time to sign off get on with some research. Happy sailing!

First Parts

First Parts

So my first parts for the HMS Surprise have arrived and I ready to begin my voyage!

For the benefit of anyone who is reading and wondering whether to buy the kit in installments I will try to keep a log of what parts I am receiving when I am receiving them so that people can get an idea of what buying the ship in installments entails. I opted for the 28 monthly installments.

I also intend to try to explain everyhing that I am learning as I go, with nothing considered too simplistic. Any explanations I give will no doubt be something that I had to find out myself and didn't already know. I hope my explanations aren't too inaccurate but please let me know if I am giving out any false information!

I first received an Email wth the full parts lists, the cut sheets (more on these later), the editorial to the instruction manual, an intesting article about early navigation and of course the first instructional steps of the build.

Of course all of these were meaningless until I had the parts and these duly arrived. In the first installment I reeived the following items:


As you can see there are 2 sheets of plywood with various shapes seemingly drawn on. Just to set the tone of this entire blog I'll share my first thought process. I receieved the parts early in the morning before work and had a quick look at them without removing them from the plastic wrap. I then spent the entire day wondering how I was going to cut the parts out seeing as I don't own a jigsaw and the only knife I have had straight blades. It wasn't until I opened the parts when I got home that I realised that they are laser cut and can be removed easily with a craft knife to cut the small threads that keep them in the piece of wood. You see, I told you this blog would be "warts and all."

Anyway, with these pieces in hand I could start to look at the cut sheets and the parts lists. The cut sheet show the very same pieces that I had received, but with each part numbered so that I could check them against the parts list to see what each part was. This first installments contains:

1. Vertical Keel (Bow- the front of the ship)
2. Vertical Keel (Stern -the back of the ship)
3. Central Joint strengtheners in vertical keel
4. Mainmast stay

These 4 parts are acutually the only ones I need to complete the first stage of the construction. Once together these pieces will form the core centre of the ship.

6. First winding frame (1 of 2)
7. Second winding frames (2 of 2)
8. Third winding frames (2 of 2)
9. Fourth winding frames (2 of 2)
10 - 25. Frames (5 of 11)
26. Central stern collars
27. Stern strengthener collars

Of these parts the only ones that I understand the use of are the frames. Slightly confusingly the "frames" should really be called "bulkheads." This ship is what is known as a "Plank on bulkhead" model. This refers to how the hull (The main body of the ship) is constructed. Simpler kits would have a solid hull, so very little work would need to be done on the hull itself. Plank on bulkhead models, on the other hand, use a technique of building a skeleton of the hull and laying planks over it. A genuine "plank on frame" model is built in the same way that the original ship would have been built, and are most often seen with scratch built models. To avoid confusion throughout this blog I will talk about bulkheads, and any reference in the model instructions to frames should really be bulkheads.
To cut a long story short then, my first parts contain the first few frames to build this hull skeleton. I currently have no idea what a stern collar or stern strengther collar is, nor a winding frame. Time for some research I think. While I'm on it I am not 100% I know what a mainmast stay is. I presume that it is used for stability when attaching the main mast, but again some research is needed.

Next Steps

So the first instructions tell me to carefully cut out the parts from the plywood sheets and then sand the edges. I then need to construct the keel by attaching the 2 keel parts and the strengtheners to support the join. I can also install the mainmast stay.

One thing that I need to purchase is a good selection of clamps. I keep reading that "you can never have enough clamps" so I intend to get myself a good selection. I currently have some small C clamps but need some larger ones. They look like this:

I also want to get some clamps of the following variety:

In particular I will need a good clamp to hold the keel parts together when I glue them.

Something else that I am intending to do was gleaned from the very useful book "Model Ship Building From Stem to Stern" by Milton Roth. He advised using a tracing technique to check the cut of the frames (bulkheads) and make any adjusments needed now before fitting them to the keel. I will be doing this and will post the steps to do this as I complete them.

I will post again to show the keel construction and the method for checking the cut of the bulkheads.

Jonny.

Intoduction

WELCOME

Hello and welcome to my blog!

This is very much a blog of "firsts" featuring a nice internal consistency in that it is also my first attempt at blogging. While this is specifically going to be used as build log for a model of the HMS Surprise (more on that later!) my main intention in starting it was to try to capture the feel of the first stumbling steps into the exciting world of model ship building. I have essentially no experience of any aspect of the hobby; I have no experience or knowledge of ships or ship building, I have no experience of model ship building and I even have very little experience of wood work or modelling of any kind. To someone like me it can be a very daunting experience taking the plunge into modelling. Any idle web search brings up a wealth of endless kits, complex plans, countless tools not to mention the baffling converstions about caulking methods, rabbet joints, cant frames etc using a vocabularly so rich in unknown terms that entire sentences are rendered meaningless. What I hope that this blog will provide is a comfort to others in a similar position. I don't intend to hold anything back; no thought will be too naive, no question too stupid and no mistake ignored. It will truly be "warts and all."

What I hope to prove to myself as much as to anyone reading is that with enough enthusiasm, patience and time anyone can create something that they can be genuinelly proud of.

THE BEGINNINGS

I supppose I should say a little about myself just to set the scene. My name is Jonny and I live in the UK town of Bristol (home of Brunel's SS Great Britain.) I'm 25 years old and work in a secondary school as a data analyst. Besides modelling ships I have various other hobbies including playing the piano and oboe, playing rugby, juggling and computer gaming.

Right, with the formalities out of the way lets get onto how I began my journey into model ship building. Unfortunately I have no inspiring tale of a great ancestor sailing on the Victory or even inheriting an old model ship. It was very much a spur of the moment decision! My girlfriend Marie is a keen scrapbooker and I have always loved being around her while she works. One day an idea just popped into my head that it would be interesting to take up a hobby that would allow us to work across the table from each other and model ship building seemed like something that I would be interested in. It really was no more than that.

And so we come to the first questions. What do I do now? I know I want to have a go at model ship building but how do I even start doing that? I had a quick search online and found a local model shop and thought my best bet was to go in and just have a look around. They had a fair selection of plastic model ships and a handful of wooden kits from various manufacturers. I had no idea where to start. Should I get a plastic or wooden model? What difficulty level should I go for with no relative reference on acutally how difficult these kit were? For some reason I had the idea that plastic models were "easier" and wondered if I should do a plastic model first before moving on the wooden ships. Eventually I plucked up the courage to ask one of the shop assistants for some advice to a complete novice. Straight away he cleared up the plastic vs wood debate. He suggested that there was no link or "step up" from plastic to wood. If I wanted to model in wood I should get a wooden kit. He suggested a relatively cheap mamoli model of the HMS victory. I took his word as good and made the purchase with no knowledge of the contents of this kit. Of course I had no tools or equipment so asked him what basic things I would need to start. I left the shop with just the kit and a pot of white glue! Marie had a spare craft knife that I knew I could use so I was armed with a knife, some glue and a cardboard box with a picture of a the HMS Victory on it. Here we go!

I could go into detail on my first faltering steps building this model, but I think that might be for abother blog! Surfice to say I quickly realised that some new tools were in order so took a trip to a bigger hobby shop and came back with the following odds and ends:

New craft knife
Cutting mat
Steel Ruler
Small tap hammer
Small hand drill and a set of the tiniest drill bits I've ever seen!
Sanding block
Small pair of pliers
A selection of paints
A wooden keel clamp
Airfix plastic model of the Cutty Sark.

Yes, you read that last one right. After deciding to stick with wooden modelling I was overcome with and impultion to buy this kit as it was being offered at such a low price! I am currently still working on this kit and am not too far off completing it. It has been a very rewarding experience in that it is giving me a very basic knowledge of the various steps involved in building a full ship. Particularly I hope that it will be a good chance to get an early look at rigging on a model which I am not commiting a huge amount of my time to and hence don't mind making big mistakes on!

My early experience with both these ships confirmed my feeling that wooden ship modelling was something that I could see investing a lot myself into and so already I was looking around for a bigger challenge.

Surprise, Surprise!

That challenge showed itself a lot sooner than I had imagined it would. Another idle search brought up a website of a company offering model ships in installments. So a kit that would normally cost in the region of £500 could be purchased over 28 months. I was immediately attracted to the dramatic picture of the HMS Surprise on their front page made from a kit by Artesania Latina (AL). There were many thngs to consider first. Would the kit be too hard for me? Would I have the space for it (the finished model is over a metre/4 feet long)? In the end I decided that it was perfect opportunity for me. By getting the parts in installments I was giving myself the time to properly apply myself to each step, and gradually increase my skill and tool set as I built it. I placed my order and eagerly waited for my first parts to arrive.

And so this bring us up to date. I have the first parts of the Surprise and am almost ready to begin building. Future posts will concern themselves solely with the build of this model, but as this model is acting as my introduction to model building the posts will contain all my thoughts, mistake and developments that I go through. At this stage I decided to set myself some ground rules that I hope will make the building experience the best that it can be and hopefully allow me to produce the best work that I can. They are as follows:

1. I will never make any assumptions. If I have a doubt about anything I will research it first and ask lots of questions.

2. Before doing anything new I will practice it first away from the model including dry fitting parts to be glued.

3. I will try not to let myself think that something is "good enough" or that I can fix something later (without a clear plan of how to fix it later). I won't be afraid to strip something down and start again if I am not 100% happy.

4. I will never rush my work. I will not concern myself with a need to "finish." I will be happy to not touch the model for weeks on end if I am researching techniques or waiting to buy necessary tools.

and most importantly...

5. I will enjoy my work! If I feel like I am working for the sake of finishing something and not enjoying it I will take some time away and return when I feel ready.

For anyone who has read this far I applaud you for your longevity but I hope you may have got something out of it! I look forward to making future posts and most of all look forward to hearing others views and advice.

Useful Links

A bit of housekeeping, there are a couple of websites that I will most be likely be using quite a lot during this build that I thought I should provide the links here

Model Space - This is the site which I purchased the HMS Surprise kit who have been extremely helpful with my order and offer kits at very reasonable prices

Model Ship World Forum - A fantastic looking community of model ship builders who have already made an impression on my and inspired me to start this blog and build log. I will most likely start a mirror build log as a thread on this site in the near future.

HMS Surprise build log - a build log of the very same kit which was posted a while ago on the model ship world form. This acted as a real inspiration to buy the kit and it is a real shame that he never finished it. I may well steal an idea or two from his build log. He also has a very detailed photo log here

Happy modelling everyone!