This Poop deck is taking a bit more work than I expected. There are a lot of details that need to be right.
Making the Gun Ports while making the Bollards and Caprails.
Just discovered that Weldwood Contact Cement works great for this work.
I kind of got carried away with the Planking and attaching the Wales along the Gun Deck.
Anyway… I’m stopping long enough to make this Post.
I got the first set of Wales done on the Starboard and I started working my way up the Gun Ports with the 1mm x 3mm Tanganyika Lathes.
The first Strip of 3mm Tanganyika Lathes, I trimmed about 1mm off of it using my Miniature Table Saw so that I would fit under the Gun Ports evenly while being above the 3mm Walnut Lathe underneath it.
I screwed up and used the wrong Lathes for the Bollards along the after Bollards. I used 1.5mm Lathes instead of the 1mm ones.
I was just going over everything with my 320 Grit Sandpaper and feeling for any irregularities to smooth down.
One thing that I’ve found over the years is that you shouldn’t be overly enthusiastic about sanding. You can easily over sand… Which is what happened on the Port side Forecastle Bollard, in which I sanded to thin paper!!!… Ugh Ugh and more Ugh!!!
So, what I had to do was to add another piece of Planking over it and Clamp it down in order to repair it…
I then Puttied and sanded it down to where it looks like this…
Looks pretty good.
Then, I’ve gone through and sanded the entire Hull until smooth… Repairing little bits here and there.
I’ve often found that you need to take your time and really wait and feel around to make sure everything is right…
This was a hard lesson I learned recently with the distancing of the Gun Ports.
Well, the only thing I can do is to keep going. I was even thinking to myself that perhaps this little mistake will make me even bolder and more adventurous.
Perhaps it will?!!!… Who knows? 🤔🤭🤣
I’m beginning the Bollards on the Main Deck. It does break up in the middle between Bulkheads 5 and 9.
I kind of forgot about not gluing the Bollard Supports that come up the sides as guides. These are always meant to come off before Planking the Deck.
Next time I’m going to work on installing the gun ports that is on the Gun deck.
This necessitates measuring because I need to make some supports that is going to support the Gunports along the decks.
I’ve been thinking about these Gunports a lot lately while I finish up the Cannons. I ended up finding four more Gun carriages to make on another Laser Cut Strip.
Anyway, I’ve been experimenting around with different types of braces and I think that cutting these 5 mm x 5 mm Basswood stock I had l laying around is going to do the trick. I figure if I run out of that stock I have some to 2mm x 5mm I can use as well.
The big problem I’ve been having is cutting this miter cut of 20°. Each brace is about 20 mm long with a 20 degree angle cut. Well, not all that big of a deal it’s just I ended up experimenting around with different pieces but that’s just normal.
I decided to begin at the Stern and work my way forward because the last Gunport sort of leans against one of the last bulkhead frames. So I’ll just use that as a baseline to measure the rest of the Gunports off of.
There’s another dilemma that I’m facing as well. It’s because the upper bulwark where the gun deck is has a bit of a concave curve to it. So now I’m going to have to install these braces without the gun ports and to sand them down to the same concave nature as the rest of the bulkheads.
I’m I’m riding all this right now while I’m out walking my dog so that’s why there’s no pictures. 🤣😲🤭
I’m starting on the Bulwarks. The Bulwarks are the side of the ship that comes above the deck.
I kind of feel like I messed up in installing the first Plank so now I’m going to have to compensate for it with some corrections.
I first bent this first Plank in with soaked plank wood 1.5mm x 5mm.
Now I taped off the guides going along the Gunwale so that the glue doesn’t stick to the Bulwark because I’ll be removing these guides once the Bulwark are up.
So… I’m kind of dreading the next step actually. What happened was the I didn’t come up and over with the initial Plank on to the Forecastle Deck. Now I have to do a funky fix… Which really wouldn’t be visible anyway. It’s just I wish u would’ve gotten it right the first time. Oh well. Live and learn. It just seems a bit Amateurish.
But hey… I never claimed to be an expert anyway! 🤭🤣😲