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.