Two side projects

"Side project" #1, illustrated at right, has kept me occupied of late. Her arrival is imminent!

Honestly, a combination of things I have and haven't decided to do have also hindered progress on the ship. I haven't cleared off a large-enough space to do some next-step work, e.g. soaking, heating, and bending a few strakes that run the length of the ship. Also, some of the false keel pieces and upper deck pieces would really benefit from a good wood stain, and again I don't have/haven't made an appropriate work space to do these. It's a dicey proposition to do this work at my desk: when I started Albatros, I had a laptop that easily moved out of the way. It's now an iMac, which is a pain to move. Appropriating the kitchen table is a dicey proposition, but perhaps a bug will get me to knock out some of these steps in the near future.

I'm feeling pretty frustrated that I've not made much progress on the ship over the last six months. Really, planking and lining the hull was tedious and sapped a lot of my energy for the project.

I think what this enterprise has taught me is that I miss model-building, but the wood-ship avenue (at least plank-on-frame) is not my cup of tea. With baby coming soon and wanting to knock out some kind of building project, I went way back to basics on side project #2:

That's right: plastic, snap-together, and even pre-painted! If you've seen the little Star Trek and Star Wars miniatures in the background shots of Albatros, or just know me for more than 10 minutes, this choice shouldn't come as much of a surprise.

First impression opening the box went from good to amazed: the handful of painted details were sharp, and the mold itself was well-detailed. I was also stunned by the plastic's thickness. This may very well be indicative of the "level 1" nature of the kit (Revel has tiers for model difficulty), this being something of a starter model and meant to serve double-duty as occasional play-thing (note "8+" age range). But I made quite a few snap-together Star Wars Revel models -- in fact, I made a snap-together X-wing -- when I was closer to 8, and their plastic was not nearly as thick, the model not as detailed. Out of the box, this seems a superior product than what I'd assembled in my childhood.

Naturally, I managed to get step 1 wrong: the four wings are really just two pieces that, through a central dowel, rotate around each other to open and close. I swapped left from right for one piece and a few widgets didn't line up correctly. I figured out my mistake not too far into the process. But, geeze.

Assembly went pretty quickly: with a couple of distractions around the home, and distracted to watch a couple of scenes in Star Wars (which naturally was playing on my computer), it all came together in about an hour. One of the engine cowl's paint came scratched up, but no big deal: this would be a great model to weather, and scrapes like that one just add character.

The kit included miniature R2-D2 and Luke Skywalker figures. Artoo is well detailed, although Luke looks jaundiced. The tiny pilot figure, including its posture, reminds me of the die-cast figure that came with an X-wing toy I had as a kid.

The finished project looks and feels pretty good. I made a snap-together Revel X-wing years ago, and the build quality of this one is remarkably superior. Hopefully, in a few years I'll return to this or a similar model kit with aforementioned "side project" #1.

Costa Concordialbatros is upright!

In the background, you'll see not only some small models of the Enterprise
and Excelsior, but some photos of another building project in progress.

Today saw the attachment of the false keel: "false" because it isn't the actual load-bearing foundation for the ship. The false keel could take damage -- e.g. from running ashore -- without immediately endangering the ship's structural integrity.

Added bonus: the display stand has notches for the false keel; the ship now sits upright on the desk.

Conveniently "below the water line," there's still a hefty amount of functional and cosmetic work. I'll need some wood filler to take care of some seams, and the rudder needs to be attached. I'm in particular looking forward to the latter, since it involves working with the brass strips and pins that came with the kit.

I'm not dead yet

With the lining mostly done (just a few narrow patches remain), the next step is attaching the false keel. I'd written before that I planned to carve out a channel from the hull lining at the bow and inset the false keel there.

The beginnings of the channel for the false keel along the bow. Needs a
few small tweaks to provide for a firm fit.

I made some headway at that, but then decided it might just be better to sand down the 4 millimeters I need and rest the keel upon it. Seemed a bit less labor intensive and quicker to be done.

But, after working at that for a bit, I've gone back to the original plan: I'm removing some of the bow planks, and the 4mm-wide false keel at the bow will rest in there. At the bottom of the ship, the keel will sit directly on unlined planks. I'll need to sand a bit at where the curved bow meets that straight bottom pieces, but that's no biggy.

This is a digression from the directions, and maybe not how actual ships were made. But, it'll make (I hope) for a better-looking ship on display. I hope.

Other projects abound: moving (my work space now has a windowed view, and it's in a separate room), work, etc. Summer in California has been nice, as have trips to the Outer Banks and Portland. I hope to pick this up a bit more over the last month; there's much time to make up.

Log-a-rhythms

At the blog I maintain about playing Eve Online, I just posted about character skill training: specifically, about the ever-increasing time to progress the higher up you go. It's roughly a logarithmic scale; the simplest skill takes about a day to train up to the penultimate level, but another three-and-a-half days for the final step. Hmm: more time to wrap things up the closer you get to the goal?

After a few hours Saturday, there is now only one bow-to-stern length that is unlined on Albatros, and the others are small patches. But it'll still another afternoon or two to knock those out. Probably will finalize things this evening and tomorrow or Thursday.

But, I got far enough along this weekend that I test-fitted the (false) keel pieces. The bottom of the ship should be just fine. At the bow and stern, though, I'll need to carve and sand away some of the lining strakes I've so carefully put down. I think, though, this will yield a better-looking ship, since the linings will terminate at the keel pieces such that the keel looks embedded in their structure, rather than just attached on top.

The stern, I know already, will be difficult: I did a poor job planking the hull in those portions, and I whipped out the large knife Saturday to whittle things down. That'll be ongoing. But, that's okay. I ended my Eve post on this same note: there is no deadline.

Not April Fools: Almost done lining, finally

Had a marathon session one afternoon my wife was out of town and got a bunch of the hinky pieces done. There are now maybe three full-length strakes to lay, plus a bunch of smaller filler pieces. I hope to have the lining done this weekend.

Next step will be to smooth out a 4mm-wide channel from prow to stern on which to adhere the keel. Rudder comes after, and that involves my first manipulation of the brass brackets that hold it into place.

Still going!

Some stretches are straight and simple...

Crikey, it's been a while since anything's gone up. I admit, work on the boat has slowed: lining the hull has been the most difficult work so far. About a third of these lining strakes have been pretty straight forward (literally-ish), but the fore and aft tapering coupled with the hull's overall curvature make many of the pieces between the easy ones a real bear. It's a small but palpable victory when one goes down, with glue, knife blades, trimmers, sanders, and lots of test-fitting coming into play. When I carve out time to work on Albatros these days, it's usually only enough time to do one or two strakes at a time.

...while others involve cutting some precise angles and lots of test fits.

Delays aside, though, lining is progressing, maybe 60% done -- a coverage hard to discern in the picture below, since it's mostly curved up the sides of the ship. (The wood above appears darker thanks to a Google+ Photos HDR filter, which helps make the dark separations between lining pieces more visible.) I have a notion, too, of how to plan out the remaining tough spots, i.e. the bow and stern.

And last little update: as I've mentioned before, when I procrastinate working on the boat, I occasionally turn toward video games. I recently found one, Eve Online, that has me hooked. There are some similarities between that game and building this ship -- including, in fact, the notion of building a ship. I've started writing about Eve. One of the nice things about Eve is, at this point, I can set the game to a task and then perch by the monitor, keep an eye on things, and work on the boat; photo evidence below.

On the monitor: my miner harvesting minerals to sell; I'll use these funds
to buy a bigger, better ship to let me undertake more challenging tasks. In
the foreground: Albatros before an afternoon's work.

Lining the hull, part 2

Lining Albatros' hull continued today. The glue was more cooperative, although that might've stemmed from me being more liberal in applying it. I also started putting it on the back of the lining rather than on the hull, where I suspect too much was being absorbed either by the planks or drawn away by capillary action in the gaps between them. Unfortunately, I did have one major snag, literally.

The middle dark lining broke. I trimmed it back, along
with its neighbors, then ran another liner along a
different arc to make things reconnect. You can also
see a gap I'll fill later with some leftover trimmings.

I'd left the linings at the bow longer than they'll ultimately be. The idea was they'd eventually be trimmed and filed down to make room for a few pieces that get piled on top of them; I left the excess figuring it'd be better to trim down once I reach that step. Unfortunately, while reorienting the ship, one of those excess lengths caught my leg and snapped a large chunk of lining off. Damn!

I wasn't very interested in doing a patch similar to the one I'd done for the gunwale. For one thing, the bow is extremely curved, and I'm uncertain about how easily I could manipulate a small sliver to follow the contour. So, instead, I trimmed back the broken lining and an adjacent one, and swooped up another piece of lining to intersect and reach the bow. I'll mirror on the other side, then work up and down from there. (Chances are I'll create another lower "master" line about halfway from the current low point and the keel, just to help keep things looking symmetric.)

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.