So, this being only my second wood model kit ever, I didn't have a lot of supplies on hand, and after buying both the kit and the tools I deemed absolutely necessary, I didn't have much left over to buy a commercially available jig to hold the false keel in place and prevent it from warping, so I had to create one of my own.




Here you can see that I've attached 4 corner braces to a peg-board table, The two braces in the rear are fixed, while the two in front are able to slide back and forth to create clamps to hold the keel in place. A side benefit to using this type of brace is that the triangular side of the brace attached to the two arms creates yet another 90 degree angle allowing me to use it to butt up against the individual bulkhead frame to ensure that they are perfectly perpendicular to the keel.



Here you can see the underside of the jig table showing where I cut away the material between two holes to allow the corner braces to slide together with the fixed braces.



And here you can see the jig in action. A pretty quick and dirty jig, but I feel like I got out of it what I needed.

I did some experimenting with deck finishing by taking a bunch of scraps of the deck planking wood and gluing them together into a false "deck". I then attempted to "age" the wood by applying a thin wash of lt brown/grey. Unfortunately, I was not happy with the results so I decided I would just go ahead and paint the deck with a Minwax Polycrylic Clear Coat with a flat satin finish.

Before starting this, I tested the Polycrylic on a small section of a thin mahogany strip, to see if I could get away with not staining the mahogany. This was also unsatisfactory, as I felt it didn't really bring out the rich red of the wood. So, I tested Minwax Cherry Wood Finish on a similarly small strip of the mahogany, and liked the results.



You can also see here that I've attached the bulwarks to the sides of the hull.

Very nicely done looking forward to the next update

Rgd Martyn

Hope you are really enjoying your build - its looking great.

Looks good am sure you'll get used to the planking as you progress, its' not too difficult if you take your time and be patient. Soak the strips well before you try to bend them and ensure you plank the hull evening, ie, when you have completed one strip add the same trip to the other side.... Will be looing out for you next post to see you you've got on with it..... Good luck.....

Regards

Alan

Okay...time to work on the cannons.

First, I had to file down the casting seams. In the image below, you can see one that I've filed down on the left, next to one straight out of the box on the right.



Once I had them all filed down, I needed to prime them. Here you can see that I've mounted each of the cannons to an old sanding sponge using toothpicks, and then sprayed with a cheap can of metal primer I picked up at Walmart.



I then painted each of them with Testor's Gold enamel and glued them down to their mounts. In this picture, you an see me using a dental floss threader to pull the cannon ropes through the holes in the mounts.



Now, I don't know if this was the right or wrong thing to do, but the next three pictures show a technique I thought of after I had done a few of the cannon ropes. I think I remembered seeing something like this before, so I tried it, and I liked the results better than the first few I had tried.

Basically, I threaded a smaller thread along with the rope through the eye-hook, as seen here.



Then I pinched the end of the cannon rope against the main section of the rope on the other side of the eye-hook, and wrapped the smaller thread around the pinched section of rope, like so...



Then, once it was all wrapped up, I used a small dab of glue to secure the thread to the rope, and snipped off the end, like so.



It was pretty fiddly, but I think it looked better than just gluing the pinched ends of the rope to themselves.

I did take some more photos that I won't be sharing at this time. I had finished lacquering the hull and attached all of the metal parts and took photos, but the photos made the lacquer look awful. The problem was, prior to laquering I used a wood putty to seal up gaps and dings in the hull that sanding wasn't able to fix, and the putty didn't match very well. To the naked eye, its not noticeable unless you're looking for it, but in the photos it looked like wood where the finish had worn away in places and had weathered due to exposure.

Its quite disappointing to look at. I supposed I could sand it down and try to sand away more to the exposed putty, but I'm really worried about ruining the model at this point when it looks pretty good to the naked eyes, so I haven't decided what to do about it yet.

Looking good very nicely done

You could sand the filler down abit and touch up with a wash of watered down brown paint and then lacquer over the top

Rgd Martyn

Very nicely done. Your doing such a great job on her.
Chris