First time Wooden Ship model - 1:64 HM Granado

Joined
Jul 8, 2018
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149
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Location
Ottawa, Canada
Hi everyone,
For the past few weeks, I've been busy scanning, then enlarging and tracing in Corel Draw parts to be hopefully turned into the HM Granado. I have based the model so far on the 1:96 Shipyard kit using the bulkheads and a few other parts that I could readily envision being useful. As you guys probably know, Shipyard kits are printed on cardstock and the bulkheads are printed on plain thick bond paper meant to be laminated to board and then cut out. My idea was to enlarge everything to 1:64 and send the parts off to be laser cut as I don't have a shop nor a scroll saw. Lasers happily work with vector files so I traced all the parts from 600 dpi scans and blew them up to 150% in Corel Draw. The parts came back yesterday with the bulkheads on 3mm Baltic birch and all the others on 1.5mm cherry. I was a happy guy so please excuse my snap happiness with the camera when the bulkheads came together with just a little bit of sanding. Of course there will be more sanding to take down edges etc but it won't be long before the glue comes out! I also picked up a few sheets of basswood to create the decks and a few other structural pieces. Anyways..sorry for droning on. I trust I will hear from you should I get this all 'arsey versey'!

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Great project of an interesting ship - Once I built the HMS Granado from Jotika / Caldercraft, also in scale 1:64........."some" years ago already
I will follow your log with big interest and will sit in the first row :cool:
 
Wes, Joe, Thanks for joining the fun :) Some days I feel like I could hide my own Easter Eggs so I'm counting on everyone to keep me going in a straight line! Joe, the sky's the limit! I'm sure you already know that with a laser in your shop.
Granado is coming along slowly but it's going forward. The gluing of the bulkheads was pretty straightforward and before I get the deck pieces mounted I thought it would be a great time to put some wood into the mortar pits. Holes were cut to accommodate a turntable and a spindle but have yet to figure out how far I want to go with it. I have a couple of discs cut from cherry to fill the hole and I can make a spindle from some brass kicking around. AotS has quite a few drawings and it looks like the mortar sled fit over the spindle and basically sat flush to the support beams/planking. Must have used a ton of slush to get that beast to turn without grinding a hole!

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Not much to report on tonight...printed out the main deck and transferred it over to some 1/16 basswood. Sucked that the sheet I had was only 4 inches wide so had to add on about 3/4 of an inch in width. A little bit of sanding to shape it correctly after I get the rest of the decking complete and we'll be onto some more interesting stuff

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Not much to report on tonight...printed out the main deck and transferred it over to some 1/16 basswood. Sucked that the sheet I had was only 4 inches wide so had to add on about 3/4 of an inch in width. A little bit of sanding to shape it correctly after I get the rest of the decking complete and we'll be onto some more interesting stuff
Mate. in the future when your decking material is not quite wide enough, place the seam down the centre line. Use the factory edge for the mating edge and it will line up perfectly.
 
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Wes, thank you for the advice! I will in future follow it. My original thinking was to try to keep the mortar pits 'splice free' as the basswood is pretty flimsy at 1.5mm. After thinking about what you said, the splice point would probably be much stronger than the virgin wood! I did manage to mate 2 factory edges as I had cut the board in half lengthwise and stole that extra 10mm (after sanding) from the edge.

Dave, welcome aboard :)
 
Wes, thank you for the advice! I will in future follow it. My original thinking was to try to keep the mortar pits 'splice free' as the basswood is pretty flimsy at 1.5mm. After thinking about what you said, the splice point would probably be much stronger than the virgin wood! I did manage to mate 2 factory edges as I had cut the board in half lengthwise and stole that extra 10mm (after sanding) from the edge.

Dave, welcome aboard :)
Yes, the glue does add some strength. but if you need more then mark out where the bulkheads are located and add an extra 5mm wide furring strip on the bottom side across the joint.
 
Pluggin' away ever sooooo slowly...
Hi guys, started my decking. About 4 years ago just before my wife had her aneurysm, I had bought two huge tubes of cherry veneer strips from Lee Valley Tools. I'm guessing probably 200 or more in each 24 inch mailing tube both 1/8 and 3/16 inch. I've recently looked at their site and I don't see it any longer which is a shame because it is the best deal I have ever come across. Anyways, I started the decking using the 3/16 strips cut to length, sanded and glued down with Weldbond. I'm going to hunt down some sheet veneer to finish off the outside deck perimeter 'Plank Joggle' and then perhaps we can get onto the hull. Again I apologize for the slow pace. If it was up to me I could sit at the desk all day :)

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Hi everyone, just another small update..decking is as far as I will take it until a little later on. I want to get some wood on the hull and then get back to it again. I want to place an order for some fittings, hinges etc and then I'll get the doors on the small opening in that curved bulkhead. The red needs to be changed too :) After thinking about it I scrapped the red and rebuilt the bulkhead. Tonight we start on the first planking of the hull. I have some basswood
that I will cut up into strips and see how it goes...
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Hi all :)
Welcome to the shoemaker's shipyard! Another slow motion installment to this saga showing the beginnings of my attempts to cover up the hull. The Shipyard card method uses a heavy paper under-layer to get the basic shape followed by heavier card to finalize the hull. I've used the first layer as a template printed at 1.5x and traced onto 1/32 basswood sheet. I've used this template to get the gun ports in the right place and will be winging it from here on in with basswood 'planks' until we get the shape correct. Tools are limited to hobby knives, needle files and sand paper thus far but we'll keep on punching!

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Welcome back to another episode of 'How Not to Do things' :) I can't rightly recall the post but one of our members asked what we truly enjoyed or hated when modeling a ship. I couldn't respond at the time as I had never fully built a wooden ship. Now I can truly say I hate the first planking! I'm sure with experience the chore will become less chore-like. I have learned first hand the meaning of 'Fairing a hull' properly beforehand!
Welll...here we go. Third times a charm 'they' say. I hated that curved bulkhead I had done twice already and ripped it out. The internal planking below the gunwales was added to 1/32 thick parts cut with the original template for cutting gun ports. I used cherry again painted with acrylic. The original false keel and stern post was discarded as they were warped to no end. Perhaps I should have left them attached to the main sheet until I needed them. I cut new ones from 3 x pieces of 1mm card laminated together and impregnated with cyanoacrylate. 2nd planking has started from the wales up! I find this finishing stuff truly enjoyable. A bit more filing on the gun ports and we can get on with matching up the other side.
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Planking for me is the worst part of any build Brother You did a great job on that especially for a first time It looks really good. Fairing is extremely important doesn't matter how good you can plank a ship if its not faired its not gonna look good and most importantly its not gonna hold together well especially over time. Your doing fantastic work you have skills Brother.
 
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