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.