Lining the hull, part 1

The first few hull liners (dark wood, below the gunwales) are on.

Last bit of work for 2013: I put a few liners on the hull. They look pretty good, and they came together for the sharp curve at the stern much better than I ever anticipated.

Still, they whole thing will be a bit touchy. While the underlying planks' outer faces don't completely touch (rather, they abut on their inner faces, where they touch the interior frames), the outer lining needs to be contiguous, spanning the gaps between the planks' outer faces and connecting smoothly with each other. Fortunately, the renin is pretty flexible -- but, "sealing up" every gap and ensuring smooth connections will require some significant spot work with the glue plus, I expect, some small custom-trimmed shims and patches near areas of extreme curvature.

Follow the line of pins up, and keep an eye on the shadow cast by the
gunwales onto the liners: the shadowless area between the gunport and
pins is a bulge cause by me insufficiently filing down the pinheads.
Which kind of makes me a ... pinhead?

Also stumbled into another small issue: in a few spots, I didn't quite file down the pin heads enough; consequently, there are a couple of small but perceptible bulges in the lining. Not sure how exactly I'll rectify this for what's in place, but I'm banking now on just being able to gloss it over with how I place the running strakes. For future work, I'll figure it out either between doing more filing (which is difficult in at least one direction, what with the liners now blocking on direction of movement) or carving a little channel on the back side to accommodate the bulge.

I cracked open a new container of glue for all this, and I'm annoyed that it doesn't have the near-instantaneous adhesion I got from my first bottle. It's also a bit messy, a result from me cutting open the nose slightly, but sufficiently, too low. I'll probably go looking for a more adroit, faster-acting cyanoacrylate glue before continuing work.

In the meantime: Merry Christmas!

Lining the gunwales, part 2

That went pretty well. I used a tiny drill near each of the four corners of each gunport, and used those as reference to generally cut out the port. Used my trusty file to clean the edges. Cutting along the tops of the gunwales went pretty smoothly, too. The thick gunwales and the inner and outer linings are all pretty consistently ending at the same point. There are a few pieces where the lining on one side or the other dips too low by fractions of millimeters, but it's not enough to be perceptible unless you're up close and looking. And, ultimately, the rubbing strakes (think "bumpers" on a speedboat) will cap the gunwales, making the slight excess nicks even harder to catch.

There was one small mishap, where the knife didn't cut but rather levered out a piece of the outer lining. Fortunately, I remembered my first aid: cleaned out the wound, cut a patch, and applied. I haven't yet glued it in, but the pictures are below.

I also trimmed some of the lining from the bottom of the stern panel; the stern lining ends at the same level as the gunwales. This way, the darker hull lining will all terminate at the same height. It's a small enough adjustment that it's kind of a moot point: a rubbing strake will cover this interface. Still, though, it's good to know they'll look clean underneath, too.

Injured

Cleaned

Patched. Before gluing, I'll file it down a bit
more and will try to better meld the bottom
left of the patch with the broader lining.

Lining the gunwales, part 1

Close up: the exterior lining must be trimmed down to follow the
contours and details of the gunwales.

With the dog walked and my wife painting a friend's condo, this afternoon was opportune to work on Albatros. I did a round of sanding the hull, but stopped when I decided that really I just need to lay out the lining and do some dry test-fits. That'll probably happen this week or in January.

Today, though, I hit step 33 of the directions sheet: line the gunwales. This got off to a delayed start when I realized I had dried glue thoroughly stopping up the nozzle and no spares. Plan B: use a toothpick. This worked pretty well, especially when the toothpick was used as a slender roller to completely but thinly coat a small piece (look at the tiny sliver at top left in the picture below for an example).

The gunwales are all completely lined, but the lining needs to be trimmed down to fit their contours. Additionally, I need to cut out the gunports. Cutting the gunports was delicate but not difficult when I did the interior lining, but this will take a few adjustments. I'm kicking myself a bit, really: although I remembered to do it for the interior lining, I completely forgot today to put a bit of glue on both sides of each gunport to make the subsequent cutting easier. Good thing I have plenty of toothpicks.

On the near side: a bunch of lining, prettying up the exterior look.
On the far side, the contours to which both sides must be trimmed.

Déjà vu

Step one: glue the lining, and hope
that it's all straight up and down.

With the hull planking and most of the filing done, it's time to return to planking, this time the exterior faces. The first stop is the stern, the interior face of which I lined two months ago. The next step will be the bulwarks. Unlike when I lined the interior, the bulwarks now are in their fixed, curved position; we'll see how much extra bending and twisting goes into getting them to lay straight. This will also be good practice for lining the more complicated contours of the lower hull.

I am going to return to smoothing out the hull. The metal file did a handy job getting rid of the pinheads and smoothing a few things. However, it's a big metal stick; it stank at getting into some of the concave curves. Will go in for a sanding, line the gunwales, and then get to work lining the hull.

Step two: trim and sand down. That little nibs/bumps
at the top-left and -right will be sanded/trimmed more
thoroughly once some dark flashing gets set down on
that top edge.

Planked!

According to my wife: "Now it can float."
(Previously: "It looks like a shipwreck.")

Albatros' hull is completely planked. It took much longer than I planned, thanks to about 10% procrastination and 90% other real-world distractions like family visits and a new dog. Somewhere in there, too, a jaunt to the Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose to see Star Wars: Where Science Meets Imagination. It was awe-inspiring to round a corner into the darkened convention hall and come face-to-face with a five-foot model of Wedge Antilles' Red 3 X-wing from the first Star Wars film. I was blown away by the detail that went into that model and into the similarly-sized Millennium Falcon. And I was completely chagrined by the Star Destroyer model from the first film: much of the hull detailing was simply yet intricately drawn on, much like the deck planks on Albatros. For The Empire Strikes Back, the placard said, Industrial Light & Magic had a much bigger budget to make more detailed models. I bet. Alas, they had no models on display of the A-wing, my favorite ship from the franchise: a Fantasy Flight miniature might be in the background of a few pictures on this blog.

Albatros right now is not without its kinks: as you can see at right, there are a few oddball perturbations in the hull. They'll be filed down (possibly as soon as I post this). You can see on the right, too, some signs of where a few of the planks had to be trimmed down to gel with the others. This was a lot smoother and easier than I expected. There are a handful of outrageous planks to fit oddball gabs toward the stern. But, they work! I realize, belatedly, that another anxiety I had about planking the hull was just running out of planks and nails. That, fortunately, didn't come remotely true: there are 15 full-length planks and dozens of nails that are just surplus now.

Busted nails from just one night's worth of planking

Once the filing is done, I think everything else that happens will be outward-facing, i.e. no more boards that'll be concealed behind a convenient deck plate, flashing, or layer of hull lining. How things go from there will determine, among other things, just how much lighting the final thing gets when my wife and I find a place to put it on display.

Planking persists, gets a bit more complicated

Planking the frames continues. I've fully taken the plunge and hope to have the hull frame planked by the end of the weekend: after all, I need to keep myself busy while my wife is out of town.

As you can see from the photo, the pieces toward the bow at times are getting carved narrower. There is more surface area amidships than at either the bow or the stern; to accommodate this, the planks sometimes narrow or won't even reach the bow and/or stern at all.

One challenge is to ensure that the planks that get cut short nevertheless terminate close to a frame. Take a gander at the second plank down in the picture at right -- it's the one that doesn't entirely extend to the bow. What you can't see in the picture is that, being so close to the bow, there's pretty serious hull curvature forward of where the last pin is. To deal with this, I applied a pretty generous serving of glue to keep that tapered end in place. Still wet from its pliance-restoring soak, the plank quickly adhered firmly. From there, I worked backward to secure the other pins. I need to be mindful of providing that last physical anchor -- the pin -- as close as possible to each plank's ends.

Work continues

The gap at the bottom (really, the top) aside, the notion is to alternate,
from-left and from-right, where the overlapping piece is. From what I've
gathered at some model-making fora, this is as viable a way to bring the
planks together at the bow as slicing them at an angle and bringing them
in for an exact fit. We'll see how it goes.

I've hammered home just a few more planks since my last post; pictures at right. Much of the time otherwise spent planking the frames has been taken up by my new puppy. Go figure.

I am discerning, just from these few planks, some shaving/trimming tricks for next time. The top-most planks, for example, are on a piece of sharp curvature on the underlying frames; giving the plank a more trapezoidal cross-section would give it a tighter fit against its neighbors.

There are some rough ends at the bow (see picture at right) and stern. Once the frame is totally planked, the entire thing will be filed down. That will eliminate some of the rough ends, plus the pin heads.

Soaking the planks in water for a few hours really does bring out the
wood's malleability. These planks are hewing to the appropriate curves
as necessary.

A few new tools have arrived: debonder in case of gluing accidents, plus some goo to assist with the water-based decals that'll be part of my next model. I did also order a proportional divider, but the pressure clamp to keep the arms in place is insufficiently snug; it's going back to the seller.

Nailing it. Slowly.

Soaking test bed. The cookie sheet is the only
container, short of the tub, that these planks fit in.

I started planking the hull.

Finally.

Part of the delay comes from doing research on how to arrange these planks. As you can see at right, the planks are long, straight pieces of wood. If I were building a model shoebox, this phase would be completed by now; however, the hull is plenty curved. Although these pieces of wood will eventually be covered by an outer lining, this plank arrangement is important practice for figuring out how to do that outer lining well.

I couldn't find any close-up pictures of someone else's Albatros build at this phase. However, I found enough pictures of other ships, plus some tips from a few books, to get started.

The first nail. You can see on the stern board my
off-center marks from my initial stab at lining it.

It all went pretty well. The wood needed only a few hours to soak to get pliant. I'd used a casserole dish for the bulwarks, but that doesn't cut it for the hull planks; I turned to a cookie sheet instead. I did two planks, mirrors for each other on either side of the hull. This is very soft wood, and at this point I can't imagine it distorting the overall ship while drying out -- but, still, I'm keeping both sides of the ship in sync.

One essential absent tool: a proportional divider to ensure that a plank's relative position on one side of the keel matches its partner's. I improvised with hash marks on Post-It notes, but I'm hoping to borrow, for this week at least, a divider from a colleague at work.

The nails -- really just beefed up pins -- drove through the planks pretty easily, i.e. with just finger power. I bought a tiny hammer a few weeks ago to drive them through the frames and support chocks at the bow and stern. A bit of glue as backup, with special attention with adhesive and pins at the bow.

The planks are just a little longer than the longest stretch along the hull. In the third picture, you can see some of that overbite on one of the planks; before driving in the last few pins, I trimmed the other plank . . . about 2mm too short. Not a tremendous flaw, considering that the bow will be covered both by the outer lining and then the false keel.

Two down, more than two to go

For the next plank-on-frame model, I should probably sand down the frames to better match the curvature of the hull planks sitting on top of them. You can see the big gap between planks and frame, especially toward the bow and stern, in the picture at right. I don't think this hurts the model per se, but this kind of spacing discrepancy affects how sound it is. I've noticed -- and created, through combinations of inexperience and inattentiveness -- a few tiny gaps and alignment discrepancies that I may be the only person to notice. But, I notice. I think the ship will still turn out looking good, but it'll be nice for the next one to look and be even better.

Addendum: a proportional divider is in the mail, and in the meantime I've borrowed one from a colleague. Let the planking continue!

All the trimmings

Fortunately, you can't tell the two bent pieces don't quite intersect under
the bow deck. Note the two slightly off-sync holes drilled yesterday.

What was going to be just a few minutes' work tonight turned into a few hours adding important cosmetic pieces to the ship. In addition to the stern board and a bow deck (two pieces I prepped last weekend), I also installed African walnut waterways on the main deck and quarter deck. (I previously referred to this as the poop deck, but the instructions use the term quarter deck -- and, I'll yield to them.)

The walnut adds a few nice touches. For one, aesthetically, it's nice to have a different hue to give the ship more texture and color. Additionally, these pieces go at the intersection points between different pieces, and they cover up those tiny gaps that really throw off the sense of solidity and scale.

The pieces on the main deck soaked for about an hour to become pliant. Alas, I cut them a little too short; they don't quite stretch the full length of the deck. However, they come about a quarter-inch of connecting at the bow, and the bow deck handily covers that small gap. The quarterdeck pieces were pretty easy, although the two parallel runners required some attentive sanding to get a good fit. The back piece also soaked for a while and needed sanding on just about every face to wedge in. Frankly, I'm not satisfied with the sternmost quarterdeck piece: it doesn't quite sit flush on the deck (which you can see in the picture at right), and the combination of its small size, sanding five of its six faces, and slippery wetness were very frustrating.

My wife said yesterday that Albatros is "starting to look like a boat," and that's certainly true from the deck. However, she's also quick to point out that it'd still sink pretty quickly: no hull, after all. Well, planking the hull is the next step. I'm feeling more confident about it now, having had success with the bulwarks and today's bits of walnut. There's still some plotting and scaling to do, so it might be awhile until I start with the hands-on.

Some of the decals for my next model

Planning further ahead: a few weeks ago, I bought my next model kit. It's about as far from Albatros as possible: it's plastic, a much smaller model (~5 inches) of a much larger vessel, and far removed from Albatros in time and space. Today, I ordered several Testors Model Master paints for the kit. The painting is optional, but I'd like to go back to basics and do right something I skimped when I was a kid -- and, in fact, this is a different iteration of a model I poorly built several times as a youth. It's decal-heavy, and that's something I used to struggle with, too. Might as well see whether I can do both or either right.

Another reason for this difference in the next kit is the expense of doing the wooden ships: easily $75 minimum for a kit, and often twice that or more. Before jumping into my next wooden ship, I need to make sure I get the best one for me and my wallet, and that includes even making sure there's a good spot for it at home. The little plastic fellow, less than $20 (the paint came out more expensive than the kit), will be a nice stopgap while I figure out my next big project -- or perhaps just a side trip in case Albatros drags and I need a distraction. But, even though I'm coming up on a month with Albatros, I'm not feeling even the slightest hint of ennui. I said it before, but always with a hint of wishful thinking behind it, and now I'm saying it with certitude: this was a great, thoughtful gift; I love it.

All wet

Bulwarks attached

The bulwarks are bent and attached. Huzzah!

Bending involves heat and/or water. Some woods -- like the thin renin lining the decks -- don't need any special treatment except for major twists and turns. Some thin woods soak for while -- 20 minutes up to several hours -- and then are fixed in place in a jig or on the ship with pins/clamps until they dry. And a few approaches involve heat. Heating the wood permanently changes its structure, which offers the advantage of it not trying to pull back to its original state.

I tried three methods for bending. The first was to wrap the bulwarks in wet paper towels and microwave them. This didn't do squat. Cross that off the list, at least this time.

Next, I let them soak in a casserole dish for a couple of hours. This definitely got them a bit pliant, but the time was insufficient to get to where I needed them to be. Furthermore, I don't have a jig or other mechanism to keep them in shape while they dry (and, even if they had bent far enough, I was disinclined to let them dry in place).

So, then to turn to the electric plank bender. It worked pretty well. The process was simple: take wet wood, place it in molding block, press down with the bender, and the slight bend in the wood eventually becomes permanent. Very important to keep the wood damp; there are a few spots where I didn't that are now slightly burned.

The hull and bulwarks meet; the plank bender is in the
background in its cradle.

My concern about the different woods warping against each other was justified. Fortunately, a little extra glue -- and the renin's own sponginess -- made this easy to address. In the the photo at right, you can discern some of the warps; all of these were flattened out with some glue and the wood drying overnight. In the background, you can see the plank bender resting on its cradle.

One little bonus: I jumped ahead a few steps and drilled two small holes through which the anchor lines will eventually run. The pin vice and drill bit were surprisingly adept. I suppose the wood isn't all that tough (the thicker wood in this model is plywood), and definitely the weight of the pin vice itself does most of the pushing (kind of like the heft behind a safety razor). I needed a 2mm hole but the largest bit is only 1mm, and I didn't feel like getting out a drill bit from my kit outside -- so, I did the finishing touches with a small, round file.

Drilling holes for the anchor lines

Sunday bonus

Decided to line two more items: the little triangle will go at the bow, parallel to the deck, capping the bulwarks where they connect. The bigger piece goes at the stern, perpendicular to the deck, bridging the back end of the bulwarks.

Curve appeal

Albatros hasn't developed too much the last couple of weeks. This is partly due to ongoing research about some upcoming hull-laying decisions, and also to other real-world distractions. But, last weekend and today, I did some more work.

Compare with the previous post after initial sanding

Last weekend, I sanded down the blocks at the bow. It took awhile to confirm the extent to which they needed to be reduced: the written directions are vague, the photos too small, and online information nonexistent or slow. But, going back to the papers in the box, I found what I needed: a full-size cross-section schematic. There's still some finer detailing to do, plus some more sanding at the rear, but the heavy work is coming to a close.

Today, I started work on one of the bulwarks, i.e. the sides of the boat that extends above the deck. The bulwarks will be the first pieces I bend (I've decided, this time, to start with an overnight soak to make them malleable, at least the first one). Before that happens, though, the inside of both bulwarks need to be lined with renin.

The bulwarks are, for now, flat, but their tops and bottoms are rounded in anticipation of their hull-hugging final curve. The renin, though, is straight; just laying it flat, as I had the deck, would in the end lead to the planks running not-parallel to the ship's long axis. Fortunately, as I mentioned before, the renin is flexible; starting a dollop of glue at the top-left side, I laid a line of renin, gluing and gently bending along the way. It all went pretty well. The very top of the bulwark at the back near the poop deck was the most curved and the renin almost balked -- but, it didn't, and now I have a sense of the material's limits. The pictures below may better illustrate all this.

The straight piece of renin and gridded cutting mat contrast the bulwark's
curves, illustrating the issue at hand. (Yes, the bulwark itself slightly lifts off
the mat -- an artifact, I think, from some test-bending against the hull.)

Lined, but not yet trimmed

Lined, cut, and trimmed

Looks nice, having such parallel lines and proportions, even at such scale

After this, it's time to bend the bulwarks to follow the hull. My plan is to soak them overnight (or throughout the workday -- I'll need to check on this), and then do the bending the next day/that evening. Although I've been told across several media that the glue won't dissolve, I won't believe that until I try it. I'm also anxious about the bulwark and the renin expanding and contracting when wet/drying at different rates, and whether anything will warp. Again, I've read and been told that it'll all wind up fine, but, again, I'll believe it once I have my own first-hand experience.

Sandman interlude

Sanding isn't complete, but we're getting there

The last thing I did Sunday before bed was sit with a sanding block and rub away at the bow and stern, which a couple of days before I'd shored up with the kit's reinforcing blocks. These blocks help maintain spacing between the fore- and sternmost frames, and they'll also be a convenient spot for the (real; not-penciled-in) nails that hold the planks in place.

I'm nervous about planking the hull, i.e. taking long, sturdier pieces of wood (called strakes) and creating the curved, lower shell of the ship. There are two approaches I'm considering:

• Soak the planks in water overnight, making them pliant; line up on frames and nail home.
• The "electric plank bender," or converted soldering iron: dampen part of a plank, apply high heat, bend slightly, and repeat until plank is bent in right shape. A template/mold to assist with bending came with the tool.

I'd like to get to the latter, but I'm leaning toward the former for now: it seems more forgiving, less frantic, and potentially kinder to my desk and fingers. (Concern about kindness to the desk tells me, yes, one day it will be nice to have a work bench I can knick, burn, and spill paint on.)

There'll be a bit of a test run with some upper deck work, i.e. attaching the gunwales: there's enough give to follow the slight curvature at the stern, but I'll need to bend them to follow the sharper curvature of the bow.

What's a schooner, anyway?

Replica of the schooner America
By Greg Bishop via Flickr (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Seriously: what is it?

It's a ship that has at least two masts, with the foremast being as tall as or shorter than the rear. In the 18th and 19th centuries, two-masted schooners were fast, good for privateering and interdiction, coastguarding and running blockades. The schooner America in 1851 won the race that became the eponymous America's Cup. Schooners have also been used more nefariously: for example, the slave ship La Amistad was a schooner. The Dutch developed the first schooners, but they really found cachet with the Americans.

There are a few schooners puttering around today. The Alma plies San Francisco Bay, as does The Bay Lady. This weekend, my wife and I spotted a replica of the aforementioned America on a sightseeing trip along the waterfront.

Sources:

• Alma at San Francisco Maritime (26 August)
• America's Cup at Wikipedia (23 August)
• The Bay Lady at Rendezvous Charters (26 August)
• Occre Albatros Schooner at Cornwall Model Boats (23 & 26 August)
• Schooner at Wikipedia (23 August)
• Why a schooner? at Schooner Jakatan (23 August)

Sticky knifeplay, plus 55 nails go in perfectly straight

Ship-building all-stars; not pictured:
a metal ruler
From Crocodile Dundee,
Glennz Tees, Thor and Paper Mate 

Albatros took steps toward ship-ish-ness yesterday: planking the main and poop decks, and attaching the former to the keel. This was a continuation of the work mentioned before, plus a matter of trimming excess wood, then drawing on the wood. It was not especially taxing, but it did require the precision that draws me to this sort of project.

It all went pretty well. I set one plank close to the center line slightly askew toward the stern, and the glue set firmly before I noticed. Made a few trims laying its neighbors to straighten things out, and that helped some -- but, really, just penciling in the faux plank separations made all the difference. (My initial understanding was correct: pencil marks go in both length- and width-wise; the actual plank separations are barely perceptible.) The drawn-in nails, thank goodness, all went in straight.

There were, alas, some glue mishaps. Nothing catastrophic, but damn, this stuff gets very serious very quickly. One sliver of plank separated from the boat on my fingertip; to an onlooker, it might've looked like I had a huge splinter.

Last night was a lesson in glue control -- a notion that pretty thoroughly escaped me during my earlier model-building days. That, or glue has moved way up the technology tree in the last 20 years. The main deck is a sturdy piece of wood, maybe half a centimeter thick, and the keel has the slightest curve; the deck resisted some of the fitting. However, a few drops of glue and some brief clamping was enough to keep it in place.

Anyhow, it's starting to look sharp. The main deck is attached to the keel, but there's a frame that needs sanding before I can comfortably attach the poop deck; that'll probably be my work some time in the next couple of days.

Can you find the rusty nail? More pictures at tumblr.

Mister Ed vs. Secretariat

The glue trials, EZ Instant Glue that came with the kit vs. some Model Master glue from Hobby Town, are over. I initially had a few paragraphs outlining conditions and observations, but skipping to the end: I'm going with the EZ and am keeping the other for potential future projects.

With a selection made, I sliced a strand of remin and glued the boards to the forward bulkhead below the poop deck. Just for good measure, I also secured the first couple of main deck planks. Full-length remin is not always straight, but it's also pliant enough -- and the glue quick-grabbing enough -- to overcome that.

The first deck plank is in place

I didn't get a good look at everything this morning, but my shadowed glimpse didn't reveal any shifted pieces/glue expansion or clouded-over excess. Assuming all's well, tonight I'll trim the excess remin from the poop deck bulkhead (i.e. the stuff jutting above the bulkhead and below where the planked main deck comes in). I'll also probably plank the poop deck itself.

I'm holding off, though, on completely planking the main deck. That's because the subsequent step calls for joining the main deck with the keel, and my test fits haven't been stellar. At a minimum, I need to file some of the grooves in the deck, and that needs to happen before it's planked.

The least interesting constellation

Skipping two steps tonight (more on this later, once I figure out the glue thing), I accelerated at breakneck speed to #4: draw a line that divides the upper deck in half. After brief flashbacks of vivisecting angles in Ms. Koven's geometry class, I set to.

A ridiculous ruler's ridiculous cross-section

I wrote earlier about lacking a decent ruler. What I have instead is a contraption that offers marks in 11 distinct units, including 16th-inch, three-eighths-inch, three-inch, and quarter-furlong. Somewhere among its marks hides a lesson in positional (i.e. numerical base) systems. When it lived in my classroom, students expressed a combination of confusion and mockery that I possessed such a weird implement.

Despite quirks and my frustrations, it was sufficient today. The marks aren't close enough to measure with tight precision any span save the absolute narrowest at the bow. And while Ms. Koven was reminding me that two accurate points even very close together are sufficient to define a line, I was wary of drift at the stern by the slightest alignment error at the bow. Roughly speaking, being just 1mm askew two inches from the bow would yield a ~6mm error at the stern.

Fortunately, there were several spots along the deck where the three-thirty-seconds-of-an-inch marks lined up with the deck's sloping outline. After taking a few measures and connecting the dots I got ... something that just looked slightly off-center. Fortunately, a second go-round on the other side felt and looked better. Measuring done!

Division accomplished

And why do all this? Starting with either side of this dividing line and working my way out, I'll lay down slender ramin to resemble deck planks. The ramin pieces are 0.6mm thick and 5mm wide. I posted earlier that the deck planking appearance comes solely from penciling things in, and that's not entirely accurate: the plank look along the long axis comes from the actual physical distinction between the pieces; along the short axis, though, I'll draw in the separations (and the nails). I imagine a more advanced builder would also cut the ramin into shorter pieces for real, distinct planks -- but, I'm not there yet.

About that kit

For anyone curious, here's what I'm working with -- and what I still need:

One of the files, with the rest of the toolkit behind

The Albatros kit was built by Ocio Creativo (OcCre) but bought, in a package with supporting gear, from Nature Coast Hobby Shop. As I mentioned, this shop included a few essentials to assist with building the kit:

• A "Deluxe Hobby and Craft Toolkit" that includes
• Medium- and light-duty knife handles with over a dozen various blades and four gouges
• A pin vise with six drills and an awl
• A sanding block and wedge
• A flush cutter
• A miter box with razor saw & blade
• Tweezers
• Two files (including the one I fell in love with last night)
• A pack of five paint brushes, primer, and four paints (brown, satin, black, and brass)
• Two monographs:
• "How to Build First-Rate Model Ships From Kits" by Ben Lankford (1999)
• "Planking the Built-Up Ship Model" by Jim Roberts (1987)
• An "electric plank bender," which looks to me basically like a soldering iron with a weird head, and a bending block/template
• Glue

I was initially surprised by the books' age, but that reaction quickly evaporated: as Lankford points out in 1999, ship model-making hadn't changed much in fundamentals in decades, and I doubt there's been a revolutionary swell in the 14 years since. On the feedback and research fronts, that might be different: sites like modelshipbuilder.com's forums are a tremendous resource for support, and the broader internet has troves of records and whatnot to help check the accuracy of models. (As an interesting aside, Amazon.com's links to those two books list them way more expensive than the Nature Coast entries -- I wonder how well Amazon and its vendors address such niche texts.)

Anyhow: a pretty thorough kit. Now, here's what I still need to do this well and comfortably:

• More glue: I need to research this a bit further, but the kit directions suggest using different glues for different tasks. The kit comes with EZ instant bond glue, but OcCre's directions recommend at times alternatively using white/carpenter's glue (for major wood/wood action) or cobbler's glue. I've never heard of cobbler's glue, so that's something to figure out. (Addendum: Wikipedia says "white glue" and "carpenter's glue" are different. Swell.)
• More light: The kitchen light is overhead, and the lamp to my left has a dark shade that just isn't meant to cast a lot of bright light broadly. 
• Better vision: I wear glasses for myopia. However, it was easier to focus on e.g. not cutting off my fingers last night when I took off the glasses. But then I had to plop them back on to peer at directions. And so on. To try to address this and the need for better light (and anticipating a need to peer closely at tiny blocks for rigging), my wife last night ordered me a magnifying desk lamp. I'll let you know how it goes.
• A great ruler, preferably metal, with imperial and metric units. For this ship, at least, the deck planking and nails are recreated with some precise pencil drawing. And I can imagine a dozen other uses for such an instrument; I'm surprised one wasn't included in the kit.

What the finished product should look like

From Ocio Creativo; more images available there

Building the schooner Albatros

A couple of hours ago, I started building a model of the schooner Albatros. I've started this blog to document and reflect on the process. Additionally, I enjoy writing and this is a nice way to do that, too.

This is my first foray into model ship building, and the first model -- other than a few LEGO kits -- I've built in at least 15 years. Even then, my previous model-building was with basic plastic-only kits, and my adolescent impatience meant skipped steps, shortcuts, and only accidental success. Hopefully, 33-year-old me will be more deliberative, especially around the bits requiring a knife.

My girlfriend bought me this kit for Christmas. While watching Battlestar Galactica, I mentioned to her my desire to build a wooden ship like William Adama does. She scoured the interwebs and found a package that seemed well-suited to the beginner: a straightforward kit with good directions, a pair of monographs about model ship-building, and a beginner's supply of paint and tools. I know: great girlfriend! Fortunately for me, she became my wife a few months later.

My work surface

A tight apartment and limited surface area precluded beginning the model right away. However, things have changed around a bit, and the final piece for building this model came just a few days ago: a wide desktop from Pottery Barn provides enough room to work and to keep other ancillary desktop items nearby. (And, because it's Pottery Barn, there's also plenty of cardboard to protect against knife-nicks -- we'll deal with paint later.) Let the novice shipwrighting begin!

Tonight's initial construction began with about an hour of reading the directions and reviewing the photo sheet. The directions are translated (well) from Spanish, and very clear diagrams and color photos accompany every step. I felt confident starting.

Step 1: cut the wooden pieces free. Okay, no problem. There are four flats of wood, with the pieces laser-cut out save for one or two nubbins connecting them to the frame (see picture below). Let me get my knife...

Ugh, is this thing sharp enough? I have nice kitchen knives that sleepily slice through the most stout resistance; not getting instant satisfaction in a cutting endeavor was new to me. Let me try a bigger knife...

Ugh, no: this isn't going to work for some of the tight spots, and it's not going any faster. The issue wasn't the blade's sharpness, but rather that the blade was being pinched between the frame and the piece, and not having enough space to comfortably move against the connecting nubbin. Okay, back to the small guy.

Cutting pieces

Small knife was the right choice. What I found worked was scoring both sides of the frame, and then giving a twist or just tilting back. With some more space between the piece and the frame, my knife could maneuver, either to cut back-and-forth or to simply act as a pry.

After about the second piece, I realized all these interior frames looked pretty similar; I did a quick consult with the piece inventory to very tinily write the part number on each wooden piece. After about the ninth, I realized all of these would be hidden inside the final product, and adjusted my numbering size accordingly.

Step two: insert the interior bulkheads into slots in the keel. The directions said something about test-fitting them and sanding as necessary, but 13-year-old me took charge and started putting them together. Then pushing them together. Then squeezing very hard for another smidge. Thirteen-year-old me is an idiot and lucky he didn't break anything.

Really, though, lesson learned: a few of these pieces did not want to go as far down as they should, sticking a few disastrous millimeters too high. I fretted about breaking the model just 90 minutes after starting, and how frustrated both my wife and I would be.

But, a few things went my way. For the aft ends, I whipped out a tiny file to do things right, and things went right! Pretty smooth movement and good fits. I think the first of my self-discovered ship-building rules is, If you're using force, you're doing it wrong. This might've been in one of the two monographs, but I read them a few months ago and some of the salient details might've escaped me.

The first 13 pieces

The other thing that happened is, over the span of about 30 minutes, I found that previously stubborn pieces began to slide a bit more freely. It was still a struggle, but eventually they all wound up as far down as they should have. I am curious as to whether being cut free from those sheets did anything to give the wood breathing room, or whether changes in ambient temperature had an impact (think hardwood flooring installation, and letting the slabs sit in their destination room overnight). I'll have to look it up.

After a couple of hours, I can comfortably say I have the beginnings of my first ship. Piece 1 (keel), 2-10 (bulkheads), 11 (some kind of subfloor-ish looking piece at the stern), and two 12s (some kind of boot/support for the masts, I think), all came together pretty smoothly. It's starting to look like a ship!