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Bomb Ketch Salamandre 1:48

Edit: Amazon can find your mobile home, but they can't find my static home???
Paul,

I feel your pain. Amazon does pretty good when we are on the road.

The US Postal Service sometimes leaves me scratching my head.

Below is the movement of a recent USPS package (I live in Loveland):
12 Feb – Dept Hartford, CT
13 Feb – Springfield, MA
14 Feb – Aurora, CO
14 Feb – Denver, CO
15 Feb – LOVELAND, CO***** (close but no cigar)
17 Feb – Seattle, WA????? (huh)
18 Feb – Portland, OR
19 Feb – Denver, CO
Delivered on 21 Feb
 
8-days of snow melt. Temps in the 60's. No new snow, so we switched to biking/hiking the beautiful mountains around Breckenridge and playing pickleball.

Two pics show some small progress on the stern structure (dry fit only):
20260326_121401.jpg 20260326_121516.jpg

Playing in the Mountains instead of working in the shipyard.

1. Red arrow shows shipyard location for the month of March (Tiger Run RV Park, Breckenridge)
shipyard.jpg
2. 6-mile hike (there was 2 feet of snow here a week ago)!
hike.jpg
3. 30-mile bike ride (1,260ft elevation gain to 9860ft):
bike ride.jpg

Off to give the pickleball courts a workout!!
 
Shipyard relocated from Breckenridge to the Loveland basement.

PO Brutis blackened the mortars. At 200lbs, he is getting a workout test fitting them!

Mortars and rack will be set aside until the hull cutouts are made, so the rack doesn't get in the way of the saw blade.
20260401_105121.jpg

Next. Aligning and glueing the stern structure.
 
Olivier/Paul,

The wood is ebony. I ordered a box of ebony pen blanks and milled them to 1/2 thickness of the wales. Testing proved I could NOT steam/bend full thickness.

I did the same thing on my scratch build of Serapis but used an African Hardwood I picked up in a souk, while in Kenya. It was a dark brown, vice the black of ebony. Maybe Panga Panga or Wenge

We'll see how the second layer turns out. I'll be experimenting on the scarph joints for the second layer
 
Hey Brad - its not to early to start thinking about how you will approach your planking. The tuck on these ships is especially difficult - I am currently in this battle. Using ebony or in my case black hornbeam makes it more challenging.

Many French models mimic the waterline by planking ebony or hornbeam to the waterline which means you will need to figure out a way to bend it or carve it to meet the extreme curve on the tuck. Also you will be faced with creating the straight black line between pear and ebony at the waterline.

I decided on my model to plank pear right below the wales - its more of a classic approach. Also it makes the tuck easier to plank with pear vs ebony or hornbeam. Its still difficult and I am using layers but is much more approachable in my opinion.

Good luck which ever route your choose,
Chris
 
Chirs,

Paul has had me thinking about this for the last few months. Below is the plan.

Cut away frames below the wales, similar to this build by Alexandru Gurau.
1776095298877.png

The flush wall-mounted backlighting is driving me to:

1. Plank and finish ALL hull details above the wales.

2. Leave both sides un-planked below the wales, so the backlighting has the best effect (like my HMS Serapis below).

Serapis backlight.jpg

The red oval is where La Salamandre will sit. It will replace the knife, displayed with Lapis Lazuli found at Bin Ladens villa in Tarnak Farms, AF, back in 2001. Tumbling the rough stones with the grandkids was a great month-long project!

shelf picture.jpgBin Laden lapis lazuli 2001.jpg

Sorry for subjecting everyone to my "thinking out-loud" ROTF !
 
5-day update.

1. Stern planks were steamed and bent to the appropriate curve, using the below jig and a heat gun to speed up drying time.
20260414_094335.jpg20260414_094428.jpg

2. The stern planking was completed.

Treenails are .021-inch brass wire which equates to 1.01 bolts. The stern planking is the relatively small at " 8.5 x 2.5" thick so the treenails had to be small. The center frame and two outer ones will be completely covered by carved decorations (so they got no nails).
20260417_122239 (1).jpg20260417_122521.jpg

3. The cannon ports were laid out and the first two were completed.
20260416_152037.jpg20260416_152234.jpg20260417_131612.jpg

A note about sequencing. The wales slightly intersect the last two cannon ports. I was goig to continue the wales to the stern when I realized this.

IMO, the ports must be completed before the wales cross them!
 
Olivier/Paul,

The wood is ebony. I ordered a box of ebony pen blanks and milled them to 1/2 thickness of the wales. Testing proved I could NOT steam/bend full thickness.

I did the same thing on my scratch build of Serapis but used an African Hardwood I picked up in a souk, while in Kenya. It was a dark brown, vice the black of ebony. Maybe Panga Panga or Wenge

We'll see how the second layer turns out. I'll be experimenting on the scarph joints for the second layer
I can just imagine how hard the real full thickness was to bend on original ships?
 
Looks great Brad - agreed you don't want to have to cut thru a wale (especially an ebony one) to install a port !
 
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