HMSV Beagle - OcCre - 1/60

[SallysDad]

Well as a Beagle, I hope she had a good "bark." 

Ans I hope you have a small Snoopi to keep her company. 

 

.... so sorry, I couldn't resist such a dad-joke.

[Faraway]

And you say that’s the first time you’ve done that joint ?

I’m impressed, very professional. I don’t think I’d have known where to start.

👍👍👍👍👍

Jon

[SallysDad]

This is a fantastic build, Bertie. 

I am enjoying seeing and reading your adventures here.

The ship looks great.

[Bertie McBoatface]

1 hour ago, SallysDad said:

Well as a Beagle, I hope she had a good "bark." 

And I hope you have a small Snoopy to keep her company. 

 

.... so sorry, I couldn't resist such a dad-joke.

 

I too am a Dad with a reputation for rubbish jokes. However, I acknowledge your pre-eminence and mastery of the genre. 😆

 

57 minutes ago, SallysDad said:

This is a fantastic build, Bertie. 

I am enjoying seeing and reading your adventures here.

The ship looks great.

 

I'm very pleased that you are enjoying it. Thanks for letting me know. 🙂

[Bertie McBoatface]

1 hour ago, Faraway said:

I don’t think I’d have known where to start.

 

 

It's a funny thing Jon but nor did I. That's why I've been putting it off for so long. It did come out well and I wonder whether it was beginner's luck. I hope not, obviously. I think it's down to allocating the time to practice on some valueless scraps of wood so there was no pressure to get it right. I didn't expect to get it right first time and indeed, I didn't. I was lucky to come close enough to see how to do it better next time.

 

The heart now says just go for it on the boat but the head says I should do a second practice joint, incorporating my 'improvements' to see if that's what they are. I wonder which will win.

 

One final thought. I filed the long sides of the joint to fit them but I never touched the short sides with an abrasive; they fitted straight off the saw and the 'chopper'. That's the 'proper' way to make a joint according to my old woodwork master so maybe I should saw the long sides too?

 

And a final final thought. From now on I'll manually file my planks to fit rather than using the sanding disc. Power tools have their place in this hobby but not in hull construction. They are just too good at doing things fast and I notice that I never make mistakes so quickly as when I plug something into the mains.

[Faraway]

7 minutes ago, Bertie McBoatface said:

The heart now says just go for it on the boat but the head says I should do a second practice joint,

Definitely practice, practice and more practice.

Jon

[Bertie McBoatface]

Just now, Faraway said:

Definitely practice, practice and more practice.

Jon

 

I'll tell you later...

[ColonelKrypton]

1 hour ago, Bertie McBoatface said:

And a final final thought. From now on I'll manually file my planks to fit rather than using the sanding disc. Power tools have their place in this hobby but not in hull construction. They are just too good at doing things fast and I notice that I never make mistakes so quickly as when I plug something into the mains.

 

Perhaps a small plane or a good small square sanding block and by small I don't mean tiny - I have selection handy that at made form 1"x2" lumber, most about 4" long and couple about 6". Might be a better choice than a file.

 

One of the reasons I don't often often use sanding drums in a rotary tool is just as you state - they can take too much off in all the wrong places in the blink of an eye and make mistakes faster than I can say "Oh crap!" 

 

Your practice test piece for making stealers does look really nice.

 

cheers, Graham

 

[Bertie McBoatface]

1 hour ago, ColonelKrypton said:

Perhaps a small plane or a good small square sanding block

 

I've used both and for such small stock I find a file the easiest for control of the cutting angles, Sandpaper even on a block, tends to round over for me and planes are great until they dig in to a piece of curly grain and rip the whole thing in two. It depends on the wood and the situation of course. Don't stop making suggestions, Graham. I really value them even when I disagree.

 

2 hours ago, Faraway said:

Definitely practice, practice and more practice.

Jon

 

I did practice. But only twice.

 

 

Sawing the long side of the joint is less efficient than filing it.

 

 

Removing the insides of the outer planks...

 

 

...had some value in that the outsides of the outer planks maintained their straightness which might be important on the actual hull.

 

I also reduced the length of the long side of the cut out on this test from 8cm to 5cm. This made the joining angle too sharp for shipbuilding but produced a good direction arrow. 

 

 

The third test involved reducing the width of the centre plank before making the joint.

 

 

So this is where the shipwright says, "We are getting close to half width here, better make it a stealer." Of course in 1/1 scale HE can chop out a recess in the plank above even after it's 'nailed' to the frames.

 

 

I was a bit bored by this time so test three is rushed but I think it showed that reducing the outsides of the centre plank and the inner sides of the outer planks together makes a nice steal. I won't take as much from the centre plank as in the test though - I'd like all three planks in the area of the joint to have the same width. Just because.

 

Now, I'm all practiced and ready to go I'm going to pack away and read a book for the rest of the evening. I'll let the jolly old subconscious work on the angles while I rest. In the morning either I'll be an ace, or I'll have forgotten the whole thing.

 

Three hours at the bench today with only two planks mounted but lots learned.

 

Total time now 83.25

[steve5]

your wood skills look pretty natural to me bertie , really nice work .

[Bertie McBoatface]

50 minutes ago, steve5 said:

your wood skills look pretty natural to me bertie , really nice work .

Thanks Steve.
 

Looking at the second and third attempts, I do think the first one had a helpful portion of beginner’s luck. 😀 

[Bertie McBoatface]

I knew sleeping on the problem was a good idea. I went to bed with the daft idea that I'd have to fit all three planks to the hull at once, with consequent clamping difficulties. That was because of the way I'd been practicing assembling the joint off the ship. When I woke up I knew that I could glue them in place one at a time, just like all of the other ones. If I'd tried it last night when I was tired and hard of understanding...

 

[Bertie McBoatface]

Home improvements.

 

 

I took the doors off my desk/bench cupboards after a year of constantly being bothered by them getting in the way. Tess, my SWMBO dog doesn't seem to mind. 😉 (Smug single bloke smile)

[Bertie McBoatface]

I had a go at preparing the stealers this morning. I thought I'd do both sides at once as they are supposed to be symmetrical. How difficult could it be to cut, bend and glue down six planks in a session? Hahahahahahahahaha I was so innocent then!

 

I'll walk you through the photos at the double.

 

 

Marking is vital. It's very easy to glue them on the wrong side upside down and inside out. I also mark the hull to match so that I will perhaps notice any screw-ups.

 

 

Sure enough, there I go measuring the starboard plank against the port hull. That was not deliberate and as it was only for the photo shoot it didn't matter, but I had to laugh when I just noticed the error.

 

The photo was supposed to show you that I'd cut the stealer to lie over a frame so that It would be strong when it was done, just like the real ones.

 

 

This is how I do the marking out. I use two planks underneath to stop the upper one from falling off. I line up the midships arrows - roughly is good enough, there will be some fore and aft adjustment later on. The pointy plank END  points to the edge and seven cms back the EDGE of the pointy plank crosses the edge of the one I'm marking.

 

 

As I took this pic, I realised that I hadn't tapered the pointy plank. So I started over. That's why I work in pencil.

 

 

I filed a taper on the pointy stealer, reducing it to 2/3 of its original width over about 7cms.

 

 

As you can see.

 

 

When the flanking planking was remarked (top plank) I was happy to note that the blue line is about 2/3 of the red line. This should mean that the three planks will all be 3.3 mm wide at the join, or 2/3 of a plank width.

 

The bottom plank is the first, mistaken marking and you see that the cut out would have been HALf a plank width if I hadn't caught the mistake. An error of 0.83mm would have ruined the symmetry and been very upsetting. 😉

 

 

This is my jewellers' piercing saw. It's just a smaller version of a coping saw.

 

 

The blades are very fine, cut on the pull stroke and can turn on the spot. They are so sharp that you can saw quite a way into your finger before it even starts to hurt. Then it hurts like a paper cut!

 

 

Remembering the practice last night, I sawed the short side of the triangle because filing it just did not work for me.

 

 

I sawed out some of the waste to keep my file away from that sawn side, then I filed away the rest of the waste, coming to the drawn line in stages, testing the fit every three or four strokes.

 

 

Like this. There a couple of feet of plank sticking out from that small vice and I had to be VERY CAREFUL not to catch it with a sleeve. 

 

 

Things don't always fit first time. This is ok as I can recut, and shift the planks fore and aft to compensate - once. After that I'd have to start again as the long side would increasingly be the wrong shape. I have many planks but limited patience.

 

 

Ping it! That's good enough for a first attempt.

 

 

This is how I file. One hans on the handle and one on the tip. I use the top of the vice as a guide to keep me level, though I'm actually trying to put a couple of degrees of bevel in as well, to adjust for the curve of the hull. I brush the sawdust away. Yesterday I blew it up into the air and then inhaled it. That's not a great idea apparently to judge from the state of my nose this morning.

 

 

And there we go. Not glued, just clamped for the photo. Only one side prepared. Not yet bent, not yet cut to length. Not yet glued onto the hull. Time elapsed? I thought it had been 20 minutes but when I checked the clock, I'd started at eight and it was five past nine. An hour and five minutes had slipped away unnoticed. Everything about boats takes twice as long as I expect.

 

[SafetyDad]

This is very helpful indeed Bertie - your 'take the reader by the hand and show them how you do it' approach is very informative.

 

Thanks for being so open with your working methods. I've read the posts from a little while back with your disclaimers about not being an expert. Nevertheless, I'm finding following your work helps me to understand how these stealers are created.

 

SD

[Bertie McBoatface]

13 minutes ago, SafetyDad said:

This is very helpful indeed Bertie - your 'take the reader by the hand and show them how you do it' approach is very informative.

 

Thanks for being so open with your working methods. I've read the posts from a little while back with your disclaimers about not being an expert. Nevertheless, I'm finding following your work helps me to understand how these stealers are created.

 

SD

Perhaps being one page further on in the textbook makes for useful tuition if not expert status. 🙂

[Bertie McBoatface]

1 hour ago, SafetyDad said:

understand how these stealers are created.

 

You'd better wait until I actually create one on the boat first. 😆

[Bertie McBoatface]

I'm leaving the port side until I've done the starboard one satisfactorily. I might have made fatal errors that I haven't discovered yet so there's no point making them twice.

 

I've fitted the first plank of the trio about five minutes ago and now I'll have to wait for the glue to dry before continuing. I expect to get all three on by the end of the day and I'll post pictures then. Wish me luck!

[Ray S]

Good luck Bertie!

 

Thanks again for your 'how-to' guide and the very clear pictures. I just hope it goes well for you now.

 

Ray

[Bertie McBoatface]

I am really tired and this update won't be Pullitzer prize material. I'll be pleased if half of it makes sense. 

 

Geometry on a curved surface, especially one that is convex AND concave, is difficult. The practice that I did on the flat surface of my desk was helpful but didn't fully prepare me for the bevelling problems which were exaggerated by the thickness of the planks. It didn't go as well as I'd hoped, BUT it didn't go as badly as I'd feared either. Let's have a look.

 

 

Even before I started fitting the planks, I realised that there was some snaking developing at the stern because I'd been concentrating on the bows so much that I'd forgotten to slim the planks down above that number 14 on the keel where the hull shape is at its narrowest before widening out again at the stern. So from now on I have to give that end a bit of loving too. Sigh.

 

 

The chopped up plank, now narrowed at the back as well as the front, was just waiting its chance to snap on me so it was very important to wait until the bending iron was really hot, otherwise I knew I'd tend to use too much force before the wood had softened. As I come lower down the hull sides there's less bending to do and it soon took the shape I wanted.

 

That plank went home easily. I expected no difference because the complicated stuff was on its lower edge. The middle of the three planks went on with little in the way of preparation but the fit at the joint was awful. I chiseled away at it as much as I dared and ended up with this.

 

 

Not only were the first two planks a poor fit but the third one wouldn't locate at all. It didn't make sense. the top and middle ones had a gap and I thought that should make the joint with the lowest one tight at the three-plank point, but the tightness was in front of it. (I'm probably not describing this very well, sorry.)

 

The pencil markings were my guide for shaving off some wood until it would tighten up.

 

 

This shows part of the problem, uncomplicated by joints. The convex frames cause a gap at the top of the edge to edge joints. 

 

 

They are gaps that will get smaller with the heavy sanding that I will be doing to the whole hull. The convex areas of the frames will have hidden gaps which will appear and then enlarge as I sand the wood down. This is as far as my understanding and experience goes at the moment. My lack of bevelling has caused problems. How it all works out when the planks are cut and joined on a convex surface and then bent and twisted, is beyond me. And as I said, the thicker the wood, the bigger the effects.

 

Now, both of these 'gaps' will actually be full of glue topped up with filler, so once the paint's on, I'll be laughing as far as the Beagle goes. My next one really needs to be a lot better built though. It's considerably more expensive for one thing and many times bigger than a 10-gun brig. (Think 74 guns.) I was momentarily downcast but wait, this is a training ship for me so the exaggerated difficulties of the 2mm planks are A Good Thing. If I can tame these, the sub-millimeter planking on the next one will be easy.

 

 

So that train wreck of a stealer is just the opening move in the game. This hull has two sides. Tomorrow I'll be doing it all again - better!

 

After that I'll be doing it again, again, and then one more time, because one stealer hasn't been enough. I have to lose another strake a little further down on both sides. During the course of the next three days, I hope to find out how to make bevelled and curved joints properly.

 

I'll catch you on the flip side!

 

[Courageous]

Good bit of woodworking homework with the 3 into 2...nice. Keep up the good work.

 

Stuart

[SafetyDad]

Yes, please keep going. 

 

SD

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

These bluff bows do seem exceptionally difficult (I tried the Bounty) and I can't seen how they were done in practise without at least a little edge setting. I strongly suspect that in practise the planks were a lot narrower which will aide this.

 

Yes, at the turn of the bilge (and everywhere else) at least one edge of each plank would have been bevelled in full-size. I practise, the shipwrights would bevel them all to look like your "gaps that will sand out" diagram such that water pressure drives the caulking deeper into the wedge rather than simply blows it out an opening gap into the hull.

 

I too think you should keep going. A slurry of either CA glue and baking soda, or epoxy with microballoons could be pasted inside your hull in these problem areas giving you a good strong filler to support each plank as you sand them down and potentially open out the glue joints if that's what you're worried about. Epoxy is less likely to burn you... As you say, copper sheathing will hide it all anyway later.

 

I too think you should keep going. Not only are you learning a lot here, but your thread is teaching plenty others too I'd bet. 

[Ray S]

13 minutes ago, Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies said:

too think you should keep going. Not only are you learning a lot here, but your thread is teaching plenty others too I'd bet. 

 

You win with that one Jamie!

 

Bertie, the explanation made sense to me, and it adds to the store of 'things to look out for' when my time arrives.

 

Ray

[Bertie McBoatface]

1 hour ago, Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies said:

In practise, the shipwrights would bevel them all to look like your "gaps that will sand out" diagram such that water pressure drives the caulking deeper into the wedge rather than simply blows it out an opening gap into the hull.

 

That makes sense, though I'd expect a bevel for that purpose not to go all the way through to the frames. 

 

You mention reinforcing the joint from the rear. I've never bothered to write about it but it has been my practice right from the start, though not with anything fancy, just spare glue. The wood glue that I use goes off so fast that I squeeze out a 'plankload' into a milk bottle top*, before applying it to both sides of the joint. I pin or clamp the plank in place and if there's any glue left in the little pot (always) I use it to back up the joint as you describe. Mostly it's to avoid wasting the glue as the thin glue line between the wood components is far stronger than big lumps of the stuff inside.

 

The OcCre planks scale out to about a foot wide, which I think is reasonable but they are a scale FIVE INCHES THICK. It's no wonder that the bevelling is causing me a little trouble. Remember though, OcCre didn't intend them to be used the way I have chosen to do it. If I'd used their system I'd be rigging the royals by now, but I wouldn't be having this training experience. If I can make reasonable bevelled mitre joints in 5" timbers, then the 2" planks which you get with most ship kits will be a doddle. This is playing slow softball in order to learn how to hit a fast baseball.

 

 

 

* I fasten the bottle top to the bench with blu tac so that it stays put when I poke a glue brush into it. I also angle it so that the glue pools at one side instead of spreading out and setting even faster.