Sultana - Colonial Schooner, 1767 - by MS, Scale 1:64 [COMPLETED BUILD]

Continued work on head timbers, tiny pieces; i should stop complaining about tiny pieces, should get used to them on Sultana by now...

Anyhow, head timbers were build from .5mm think and 2mm wide scrap piece of boxwood. I even used my new scraper and made them to look like moldings, not sure if it is necessary but someone might noticed that detail if is close enough to the ship...

Again, combination of Chuck' practicum suggestions, along side with other builders' log and little help from a plan, managed to get them all installed. I decided to do painting later, once they are mounted. It appears to be easier task to do painting later than to hold these in hand while painting. On top of that i had to add some more glue to make stronger bond between head timbers and rails...


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Here is first head timber in place; the piece was cut a bit over-sized once glue was dried. This leaves some room for final shaping with sandpaper.

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Then i completed cheek knees building process by making last two parts...

The shape was made with scraper,

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..short bath in water...

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.. and shaping to follow the ship curve...

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Mounted and cut to size...

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Still need to do a bit more wood filler exercise to fill small gaps between them...

Then i decided to make a head a bit more "complete". Not sure if it is historically correct but it will make the head piece looks better.

The empty space between two head rails will be filled up with wood putty and shaped. I used small piece of toothpick to fill bigger gap and rest of it was completed with wood filler.


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So, now model wait for a day so wood filler dries out, than shaping and a nice coat of black paint will be applied. The protective coat of varnish will be done as well on all newly build parts..


Then i decided to work on a ship's boat...
 
I will use kit provided boat. It appears to be nicely done so no need to do it from scratch. And i don't have Sultana' ship boat plans to follow.

First i marked all parts on the laser cut sheet following markings provided with a kit plan. Kit includes boat building plan but i might deviate from it just because i follow Chuck' practicum. I don't think it is wrong to follow kit instruction, the end result will be similar but practicum provides more details and pictures. And someone already did a well appreciated hard work on researching so why reinventing the wheels.. 1536515478624.gif


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Started by gluing all six lifts together.


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Then started to carve the hull. First marked the shape on the stern...

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.. and with different sizes of sanding paper, files and carving knives managed to get decent shape. At some point started to worry that this small boat will ended up in box-like shape just because there is no much wood to carve. But at the end was not that bad.


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Once satisfied with boat shape i glued boat keel. The original keel that comes with laser kit sheet snapped on me so i had to make another one tracing empty spaces on the sheet where keel used to be. The sheet has plenty of extra wood that can be used for this and other purposes.. Definitely will save it for later.. The center line was marked on the ship again, since the first marking i did was removed during hull shaping process.


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A small amount of wood filler was applied between keel and hull to make a hull more visually appealing..

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More sanding will be done next to get final hull shape and continue with inside of the boat..

Happy modeling..
 
Nice work shaping that tiny thing I build a lot of tiny boats using the stacked wood method I use very thin sheets of veneer for it so it looks like planking when shaped and sanded down I stuff those tiny ships in bottles. this method is much easier then hand carving from a block of wood, but I still use that method for certain builds.
 
Nice work shaping that tiny thing I build a lot of tiny boats using the stacked wood method I use very thin sheets of veneer for it so it looks like planking when shaped and sanded down I stuff those tiny ships in bottles. this method is much easier then hand carving from a block of wood, but I still use that method for certain builds.


Thanks Joe..

Would you be able to share your method of building small boats?
 
Eventually I will. I'm trying to get the Black Pearl Built then I have a ship in a bottle Project to do for a friend so once I start that I'll create a build log for it. there is a lot involved in putting a ship in a bottle. I have done it both ways by constructing everything outside of the bottle laying the mast and sails down and then pulling the masts and sails in place with carefully placed rigging line. and I have build an entire ship through the neck of a bottle one piece at a time. that requires specially home made tools. I will dig those out for the build I'll do after the Pearl is complete. some were easy to make and some were not, but I'll do my best to explain how I made the tools as best my memory can its been about 7 years since I made those and used them. I've been more focused on larger ship builds.

When I do stacked wood boats its the same process you used to make the life boat except I use wood veneer instead of the thick wood used on your life boat. I basically draw up a pattern on card stock for each veneer section with each one a little smaller then the last as I near the Keel and then again as I near the rails. so the widest part of the hull is the first veneer sheet I start with. most of the ships I build in bottles have been cutter hull type ships.
 
Eventually I will. I'm trying to get the Black Pearl Built then I have a ship in a bottle Project to do for a friend so once I start that I'll create a build log for it. there is a lot involved in putting a ship in a bottle. I have done it both ways by constructing everything outside of the bottle laying the mast and sails down and then pulling the masts and sails in place with carefully placed rigging line. and I have build an entire ship through the neck of a bottle one piece at a time. that requires specially home made tools. I will dig those out for the build I'll do after the Pearl is complete. some were easy to make and some were not, but I'll do my best to explain how I made the tools as best my memory can its been about 7 years since I made those and used them. I've been more focused on larger ship builds.

When I do stacked wood boats its the same process you used to make the life boat except I use wood veneer instead of the thick wood used on your life boat. I basically draw up a pattern on card stock for each veneer section with each one a little smaller then the last as I near the Keel and then again as I near the rails. so the widest part of the hull is the first veneer sheet I start with. most of the ships I build in bottles have been cutter hull type ships.

Thanks Joe, looking forward to your build log...

Cheers..
 
Finished up head rail area, sanded, cleaned and painted in flat black. Next will do protective varnish layer...

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I am actually very glad that this part was completed; the small scale of this ship part made it somehow difficult to get it right (well there is still room for improvement) and decent amount of wood filler was used to cover some imperfections during building process.


After this, work on ship boat continued with carving inside of the boat using different carving knives and a round file positioning it in such a way that top of the file was facing down, inside of the boat and with left-right movement was able to file most of interior o the boat. I had to apply a bit of wood filler which will be sanded to the final shape.


The layers are very tiny and not much wood available for carving and sanding. Sanded outside of the hull and also applied some wood filler for final sanding...


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Happy modeling..
 
A bit of a work done on ship boat; sanded inside and outside. I did not like inside part; too much wood filler was visible so i decided to run a layer of planking on the inside. Not sure if this is historically correct but at the end will look much better than with filler. Planks i used are included in the kit and most likely they were meant for deck planking.

I cut proper length and the width was 5 planks. Dropped into water bath for few minutes and dried with towel. Still wet i glued it to boat interior. Then i cut excess that was raising above the boat.



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The frames were cut and glued along side of the boat.

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Finished it for today and could not resist not to test it on the ship...

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The light was very bright and color is off; no white color inside..


Happy modeling.
 
Continue with boat work.

Added floor bottom made out of .5mm planks. Was very difficult to make them symmetric on both sides of imaginary middle line... 5 boards were cut and sanded to the correct size and shape, small space between planks were left as well.



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Then a added a raiser that is glued across the frames.

The seats are added next and this part of building process was kind of interesting. First i made seats a bit oversized...


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So not being able to find correct size, i ended up with some older way of doing stuff.

First i turned the boat upside down and traced the shape into piece of transparent paper. Then accommodating dimensions of boat interior since seat will be mounted on raisers, i draw another two lines representing position of the raiser.

After that i marked all sits and cut them. The seats in stern area were glued to the transparent paper. The idea was to glue them all to the paper and cut all in one piece and glue to the boat. This way i don't have to deal with 4 small pieces separately...


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So the end result is like this..

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And a bit of sanding with different sand paper sizes..


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.. and have it ready for painting in white. For this i will try to mimic Chuck's color schema...


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It would probably take few layers of tinned white Tamiya acrylic color...


Happy modeling.
 
Another layer of white paint applied to the ship boat; small boat that takes me more time to clean the brush than to run a layer of paint

Waiting for paint to dry i decided to continue following Chuck' practicum by building a channels (and moldings) for deadeyes.

First i marked channels with numbers on the spare copy of plan. BTW i usually make few extra copies of plan so i can cut, trace, leave a paint mark on it without damaging the original plan. Original plan is actually on the wall in whole size...

The channels will be made out of 5mm x 1.5mm basswood, shaped to follow the ship shape. On the outer side of each channel i will mount a beaded molding so total size of both pieces should be kept in mind - not to extend the size that is on the plan.

Once channels are cut in size and measured against ship, using a AL scraper, i cut small molding profile on each end of channels. This will match the shape of the molding once glued to the channel.

Beaded molding is scraped from basswood, same width as channels, in one long piece that was cut to the size of each individual channel.

I carved a little notches on the outside edge of each channel; these notches will be used to hold four deadeyes. The correct size/depth of notches was accomplished by small needle file that is square in shape. Next task will be to paint channels in black and glue to the ship..

New AL scraper in use and square needle file used for notches.

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All four channels and moldings ready for painting..

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Happy modeling.
 
Work on channels continued today. It might be a bit of an overkill but i have decided to put a two small nails in the back of the channels; this should provide an extra strength to keep channels on the ship, safely mounted. Not sure if this is needed but these small items can be broken very easily and then it will be too late.

So i marked a hole with a small needle, then with 0.6 bits drilled two pilot holes. I used sewing pin for a dowel, inserted in one hole, cut to appr 2mm length, inserted to another hole and cut to the length. Then i lean it on the ship allowing pin to leave a mark on the ship planking.

Then using the same drill bit size, i drilled a hole in the plank. Run a layer of a glue and mount channels.... Since i marked them all with numbers (1-4) and black color, for some reason covered the pencil mark :), i let them dry on correct numbers...

The final front molding will be glued after deadeyes are installed..



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Then i started to work on poop rails.

First, i made a cap for a rails, out of a basswood, 0.6mm thick. The shape was traced from the top of the bulwark. The edges were sanded with sandpaper to make them rounded.


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After completing the cap for the rail, i started building the rail stanchions. 2mm x 2mm basswood was used. I measured all 7 stanchions for each side, from the plan. They are different in size, getting shorter towards the stern and they do have a slight taper on them.

These stanchions are delicate pieces and some reinforcement has to be in place.. Back to trusty sewing pins...


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... which will be placed to the bottom of each stanchion. Pilot hole squeezed in with a needle and hole drilled with a 0.6mm bit...


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Stanchion positions were traced from the plan to a piece of transparent paper and a mark was made on bulwarks with a small pin. The pilot hole was drilled for stanchion dowels (or pins)..


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After drilling stanchions are mounted, from the mid ship towards the stern making sure they stay straight on bulwark. I did a test run first to make sure all of these will be sitting correctly; after that i glue stanchions permanently..


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Both sides completed...

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Then i put a rail on them; some sanding is needed to have cap rail sitting flash on stanchions.

I was contemplating using pins for rails as well but decided to follow Chuck's suggestion that super glue will be enough to keep rails to the stanchions..


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After that i glued channels on the ship as well..

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All done...

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Next is a layer of black color...



Happy modeling..
 
Another layer of white color applied to ship boat and a layer of black color applied to poop rails. The layer of varnish have to be added to the recently painted parts including poop rails..


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This little ship becomes to look very interesting i must admit...

Next, the deadeyes are on the building menu, swivel guns stocks along the quarter deck rail and quarter badges... The badges will be very interesting; have not done any parts like this so have not decided to go either with wood or with sculpey..


Happy modeling..
 
Swivel guns stocks were my small project for today. WEll small project, 8 pieces, 2 hrs total...

I already made few of these before but did not pay attention to the length so new bunch is made...

Made from 3.5mm x 3.5mm basswood, milled on my mini table saw. They have made in the same way as two stocks at the bow, except they were longer. Unfortunately i made 8 of them but i need two more so tomorrow will continue building them and mounting to the ship.

The length of the stocks were taken from the plan, cut to size, shaped, two outside edges were carved a bit to give more details. To simulating a iron band strip, i used electric tape cut to the size and wrapped around the top of stocks. I used tiny drip of a glue to fasten the tape to the stocks.

The small hole was drilled on the top that will be accepting swivel guns.

To mount them to the ship i have to decide either to notch the molding or stocks so they can fit on the ship...


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Cut to shape and two outside edge slightly carved for more details..



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Small hole was drilled on each one and filled with wood filer to simulate wooden pins...



Iron band simulated....



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And short bath in stain...



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Happy modeling..
 
Swivel gun stock installation have been completed. I made a small notch on the stocks rather than cutting the molding so the stocks can fit as close as possible to the ship hull.

Glue them into position. The last two stocks, closest to the stern will be done after i complete the quarter badges..


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and a testing...



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Happy modeling.
 
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