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.