The Ship Model Forum

Thanks Dan and Dave. It's fun, but a learning cure, to be sure. I'm doing the individual planks on the bottom of the hull mainly as practice. I could have done a full length of the hull strip with the plank ends scribed in on this flat surface, but that won't work on the hull sides at the fore and aft curves, so I'm making my mistakes now on the bottom where most people will never see them.

Dan, yes, I'm using the Tamiya liquid cement. You have to be careful because if you put it on too wet it will indeed squeeze out of the seams and destroy the effect, but that can be cleaned up by sanding and running a scriber along the seam. What I normally do is paint the hull surface with the Tamiya, let it set and tack up for 2 or 3 seconds, then press the plank into place. That makes a nice neat seam, no seepage, and it sets up fast.

I've got kind of bored with this phase, though, and want it done, so over the past two evenings I've nearly completed the planking on this part and am ready to start on the hull sides and casemate.

Devin,

I love the Civil War era and I'm really enjoying this build. Good work!

Just a suggestion regarding planking and glue... The "accepted" way of laying the planks would be to set a plank in place, dry, and then touch the edge (or drag along a long edge) with a brush dipped in the solvent. Capillary action will pull just the necessary amount under the plank and pretty much eliminate the possibility of oozing up between planks. The most common mistake with solvents is using too much. Having said this, if you've worked out a method that you're happy with, stick with it!

Looking forward to more.

Regards,
Bob

Bob,

Thanks. Sometimes I do it the way you suggest, especially if it's the first plank in a run and getting the position of it is especially important. The Tamiya glue is so thin that sometimes it will see UP through the seams doing it this way, though!

-Devin

It doesn't look like much progress, but it's a major milestone as far as I'm concerned: I have finished planking the bottom of the hull! I'm happy with it, so I'll be using this process for the rest of the ship. A couple of quick photos of the bow and stern sections here.



These are before-and-after shots of a sort: on one side of the hull the planking is still sticking out before being trimmed. On the other side I've trimmed them and sanded flush with a very firm sanding block and metal files; you can't have any flex in the sanding medium in this area.



I've finally decided on the method for building the casemate. I'm starting with a sheet of .040" styrene, cut to the shape of the deck and as long as the base of the casemate. I'll cut this out, and then cut out the majority of the interior of this sheet as well. The idea is to have a thin sheet all of the way around, sort of like a footer for the wall in a house, to build the side timbers upon. This might be a little backwards and odd way to go about this, but right now it makes sense to me.

An embarrassing long time since an update, but work, vacation, writing, blah blah blah...

This is a single shot of the beginning of the gun deck and casemate construction. I've decided that I want the casemate to be a separate assembly for ease of interior detailing. This is the start of it: the "floor" of the gun deck is taped to the hull, the forward and aft ends of it are where the casemate will meet the deck. (note, this is a different piece than I had in the previous post, I had to cut it again, got a little overzealous the first time!) I have it taped in place for final shaping, and I drilled four holes and have inserted wire to help hold it in place, and also to key the assembly so that I can line it up exactly as construction progresses. The other sheet in the foreground is the top of the casemate, or the hurricane deck. The next step is to take the casemate bottom and the hurricane deck, both of 1mm styrene, and sandwich a sheet of pink insulation foam between them, then start sanding to shape. We'll see how this goes...

Nice to see you back at it.

Tell me about it. This consulting gig I've been on for the past 14 months is over a week from tomorrow. That gives me most of November and December off to work on some novel edits and move forward with this build.

Picking up from the gun deck decking photo above. Here it is being glued to a sheet of ordinary pink insulation sheet foam. I got lucky (again) and the sheet foam's thickness of 1" turned out to be the exact height I needed between the casemate floor and roof. I used white glue for this step as the foam will be coming out and I want that process to be as easy as possible.



Once that was done I flipped the assembly over, centered and aligned the sheet styrene for the top of the casemate, and glued that to the foam using white glue as well.



When the whole sandwich dried, then I shaped it. I started with a coarse rasp file, switched to a fine one, then did the final sanding with 150 grit sandpaper in a sanding block. The rasp made quick work of the foam, almost too quick at times. The foam sands and shapes very well, though.



All of the rough sanding done, most of the fine work as well. There are some gaps that I will fill with spackle before I sheet over the foam with more styrene for the casemate sides. Here's an overall shot; besides the pink color it's starting to look like a gunboat.



Here's a view of the stern, showing how well the foam blends to the curves. There's a little more work to be done to get it all lined up and right, but it's darn close.



I've also started thinking about what I'm going to put in the interior of this thing. Here's the five styrene tubes that will make up the boiler assembly.

Hello Devin,

Any progress on this build???? Last update looked nice!

Nothing as of yet. I've had some writing deadlines lately, so most of my free time has gone to that. I also got a little bit burned out on the tedious sanding aspects of this project, so I am building a couple of quick projects so I can see some results, get something finished, and then I'll be back to this within a few more weeks.

Hello Devin,

the "few more weeks" are over! Any updates yet?

brgds,
Roel

Roel,

Unfortunately, no. I've been embroiled in a sci-fi build for a client, and just too little time. My consulting work has been extremely busy this year, and the whole "getting married" thing took more time than we anticipated.

I hope to have the commission build done this month, next month at the latest. I've pulled Carondelet and USS Essex down to the "to do" pile, so I'll get back to her shortly.

Thanks for asking!

-Devin

Hi Devin,

well at least I guess it's good news! Lots of work, married etc. could be worse
Hope to see some progress though. I never really heard or knew about such ships before you introduced me to them with your build. That's probably why I remembered!

Hello Devin
your build is fantastic
nice to see
please more updates as possible