HMY Fubbs Stern Section 1720's

[MystRacing]

It’s been a while since I did an update but I have been moving along in the build. There has just been a lot of work that isn’t real photogenic. It took me a lot of work to figure out the color scheme I wanted on the outside of the ship. While the multicolor wood of the ship looks really nice on the prototype. I decided I wanted to tone down the number of different colors on the outside. Combine that with the cherry frames, instead of the maple like the prototype, and I decided to go with a generally darker wood color scheme on the outside.

I did get the lower counter area planked and finished.

After finally coming to a decision on colors, I decided I no longer liked the idea of having the rudder made from cherry. It seems kind of odd to have cherry framing with a walnut stern post and a cherry rudder. I could have just used the cherry sternpost I made but I do like the darker keel look. I decided instead to go ahead and make myself a walnut rudder. Mike S sent me the basic line work and I used my 3018 to make a new rudder. As you can see this is about as big a part as I can make.

And here it is put together with blackened glue. This was just rough sanded on the sides. There is a lot of shaping still needed before we’ll be ready for metal work.

That was all done before this last weekend, it just didn’t seem like it warranted an update.

This is basically the point where everyone else disappeared for a while and started working on the Parquetry Floor. I know this is pretty shocking but I decided I’m not going to use it. It is a striking feature of the prototype that I think looks awesome. However, I want my build to be different than the rest, and being as I wanted to have the lower forward deck with the stairs, and the partition in the main cabin, both of those mess up the layout of the Parquetry Floor. So, I went in a different direction.

In order for the lower deck, and guest quarters deck to work I had to go into design mode. It’s really easy when making significant modifications to change something that causes a bunch of later problems. The first item I realized would be a problem is the layout of the pillars below the great cabin and how they go through or interface with the new lower deck. This also brought up the mast step location and where the end of the great cabin deck should be. I decided the only way to get these correct is to assemble the subdeck portion of the great cabin with its beams.

I glued the clamps on for the great cabin and cut the beams to fit. In this first photo with the WTF Dude you can see there isn’t a lot of room down here.

In this pic you can see the beams I used cut to length. The kit included one more beam for the back of the deck that I didn’t use.

In order to construct a wall between the quarterdeck / guest room deck and the great cabin there needs to be a gap between the frames for the various decks. In order to achieve this, I had to cut the great cabin deck shorter. Being as it’s so far back, it’ll never be seen I decided to cut the back of the deck instead of the front. I had to cut 14mm off the deck to get it slid back to the proper location for my design. Fortunately, my framing is a little wide so I didn’t have to do much trimming on the sides of the deck.

I decided at this point to get the clamps for the various decks in place. The main reason is to make sure the differences between the decks was working out approximately correct. The ceiling heights are really import on all the decks because they are low by design. While it might not be unreasonable for a crew member to crouch down on the lower deck, that obviously won’t work for the King or his guests. In the great cabin and guest quarters, depending on the depth of the ceiling beams it’s slightly less than 6 feet based on the plan.

When I was preparing to locate the clamps for the quarterdeck I dropped and broke the bulkhead break for the main door. Fortunately, I had already decided to move the door and dome to the port side of the ship, so I was going to have to make a new one anyway. Mike had already sent me the line work so I could mirror the bulkhead. Here is the broken bulkhead being used to set the quarterdeck height. I forgot to take a photo, but I also sanded the top of the frames to match the design and form a nice smooth top at design level.

Qdeck pic

Here is the completed quarterdeck framing with the great cabin deck in place.

Qdeck 2

At this point I was able to use the in place great cabin deck to locate the mast step. Then install the mast step and limber board covers. I also double checked the clamp location for the guest deck framing and installed them.

Next, I cut the great cabin deck and added some framing by where it was cut. This is for the stairs going down from the guest quarters to the lower deck. These stairs ought to be fun to build. It’s kind of a spiral staircase along the frames. There will be an enclosure in this corner of the great cabin to provide headroom for the stairs. The great cabin clamp was left in place to support the wall that will be constructed in this location. A pillar will also be added at the now unsupported end of the beam.

In this photo you can see a piece of paper in the 1/8” gap between the front of the great cabin beam and the back of the quarterdeck and guest quarters clamp. This is where the wall will be. You can also see a portion of the sanded frame tops.

As a check, I printed a template of the wall and had been using it all along to make sure it was going to work before hacking the floor up etc. In the photo below I have the quarter deck framing setting where the guest quarter framing will be, just to show basically how it’ll look. I have the Fusion 360 models for the wall, stairs, door and quarter deck framing ready to go just have to machine the parts now. The left side will remain open so people can look back into the lower area. I’m planning on placing the included barrels and crates etc on the lower deck.

At this point I got to thinking about what I could do during the week. I still work full time but typically have a few hours in the evening I can do modeling. However, it’s dark out early now and I don’t do major sawdust creating work in the garage. So I switched gears and milled some wood for future use. There’s Cherry, Bloodwood, Red Heart, and African Blackwood here. I need the bloodwood for plans I have with the Fubbs. The others I might use and might not. I just figured I had the band saw and thickness sander out so the mess was already made, might as well do some extra. None of this has any finish on it. I am doing a test on the Red Heart with UV inhibitor to see how long I can keep it this color.

After that I worked on constructing the lower deck. I didn’t get real fancy with it being as it isn’t going to be really visible once everything is done. I decided to use an N-scale train trick where you just build enough to trick the viewer into feeling like it’s the way it should be. If you put a few multicolored blocks inside a building it isn’t a nice interior, but to someone looking at the layout it registers as an interior in their mind. People will notice that the empty space feels a little wrong. They typically won’t notice the minor details like what is actually in a building or wood joints back in a forest of pieces. It’s noticeable when looking at a photo like this, but after it’s enclosed with the walls pillars knees etc., I don’t expect it’ll be noticeable.

One thing I am on the fence on is whether or not to plank the rest of the deck on the left or leave it as is. Seems to go with the half planked, half wall, open upper deck theme this way. With the guest deck framing, pillars in the center, some hanging knees etc I think this will look good.

These decks are all just sitting in place none of them are glued in. My plan is to finish these parts off of the model as much as possible. Concerned about damaging the inside working on the outside or the other way around. Hopefully, I can get most of the inner assemblies ready to go, then do the outer planking before putting it all together. That might be a real challenge with the stairs and pillars etc. but that’s my plan so far.

 

[DocBlake]

Good work, Jodie! I love the personal touches you’re bringing to the build. I can’t wait to see how others approach this!

 

[MystRacing]

Thanks Dave went into overdrive on the personal touches this last weekend.

Another one of those weekends where it seems like I put a lot of time in, but not much changed on the model. Eventually I'll get to put it all together though.

I often get kind of tired of hand sanding and cutting little wood pieces because it is so time consuming. Instead, I decided to make these with my 3018. Some of them I of course couldn’t reasonably make by hand. I drew up some extra knees for under the main deck just to make it a little busier underneath. I also made a new mirrored version of the bulkhead break so the entry will be on the port side like the 1724 model. Also, parts and beams for the guest cabin floor and the stairs to the lower deck.

The guest cabin floor is a little beefier than I intended it to look but I’m still happy with it. Here it is in place.

I glued the pie pieces I made for the spiral staircase together and here is a photo of them. Not anything real fancy but being as it’s mostly going to be hidden, I’m happy with it.

I took a piece of the 1/16” African Blackwood I had milled and glued it to a 1/16” piece of cherry. I drew up a decorative swag on the door. Then I milled it to produce the door for the back of the guest cabin going down to the lower deck. I milled this with a 1/32 radius tapered end mill. I should probably have done another pass with the 1/64” but thought it looked pretty nice this way. There is not finish on this it’s just bare wood. You can also see it is milled a little deeper than necessary, I wanted to be sure it made it back to the cherry.

Here is the door roughly where it will be when assembled. You can see the short ceiling height here WTF Dude is too tall for these quarters

I had also been thinking about how I wanted to handle the window opening in the great cabin. I mentioned when I put the Clamp for the poop deck on that the clamp just barely cleared the top of the window. My solution is to frame the top of the window down to make room for a window frame on the inside. I milled the parts below from walnut because it was readily available. I made them 1/2” thick, which is more than needed, but the odd shape on the outside needed to be able to make fit.

Here it is glued in place. How’s that for a lazy dude's way to frame a window.

The Dremel tool made quick work of the excess wood.

On the inside I extended the inner window frame 1/16” to match the thickness of the panel to be placed in the cabin.

I drew a decorative frame in Fusion and then milled it for the inside of the window. I used 4 different tools on this eventually working down to a 1/64” (0.4mm) tapered ball mill. This was cut from cherry. I went back and forth on what to make it from. I still haven’t decided exactly what the walls of the main cabin are going to look like, but there is a good chance I’ll just paint these gold, but we’ll see in time. The sides and top and bottom of the frame are 5mm.

Here’s a pic of a frame clamped in place. This is a test piece I made from Walnut. Partly to test the walnut, it actually carved better than I thought it would. Also, to test the mills, the top and right were done with the 1/64” tapered ball mill, and the bottom and left were done with a 1/32” tapered ball mill.

You might ask why not just always use the 1.64”. Well it took about 5 minutes to mill the two sides with the 1/32 inch and about 21 minutes to do the sides with the 1/64” inch Total time to make the 2 cherry frames for the finished version with the 1/64 mill was about 2 hours and 10 minutes.

Not much has changed on the actual model, but the parts are getting ready. The last Item I need to get to the finishing the lower deck area is milling the wall pieces for the back of the guest cabin. Still going back and forth over the design. Right now I'm leaning toward continuing with a blackwood cherry color scheme for the walls and then doing more bloodwood inside the main cabin.

 

[shota70]

Thanks Dave went into overdrive on the personal touches this last weekend.

Another one of those weekends where it seems like I put a lot of time in, but not much changed on the model. Eventually I'll get to put it all together though.

I often get kind of tired of hand sanding and cutting little wood pieces because it is so time consuming. Instead, I decided to make these with my 3018. Some of them I of course couldn’t reasonably make by hand. I drew up some extra knees for under the main deck just to make it a little busier underneath. I also made a new mirrored version of the bulkhead break so the entry will be on the port side like the 1724 model. Also, parts and beams for the guest cabin floor and the stairs to the lower deck.

The guest cabin floor is a little beefier than I intended it to look but I’m still happy with it. Here it is in place.

I glued the pie pieces I made for the spiral staircase together and here is a photo of them. Not anything real fancy but being as it’s mostly going to be hidden, I’m happy with it.

I took a piece of the 1/16” African Blackwood I had milled and glued it to a 1/16” piece of cherry. I drew up a decorative swag on the door. Then I milled it to produce the door for the back of the guest cabin going down to the lower deck. I milled this with a 1/32 radius tapered end mill. I should probably have done another pass with the 1/64” but thought it looked pretty nice this way. There is not finish on this it’s just bare wood. You can also see it is milled a little deeper than necessary, I wanted to be sure it made it back to the cherry.

Here is the door roughly where it will be when assembled. You can see the short ceiling height here WTF Dude is too tall for these quarters

I had also been thinking about how I wanted to handle the window opening in the great cabin. I mentioned when I put the Clamp for the poop deck on that the clamp just barely cleared the top of the window. My solution is to frame the top of the window down to make room for a window frame on the inside. I milled the parts below from walnut because it was readily available. I made them 1/2” thick, which is more than needed, but the odd shape on the outside needed to be able to make fit.

Here it is glued in place. How’s that for a lazy dude's way to frame a window.

The Dremel tool made quick work of the excess wood.

On the inside I extended the inner window frame 1/16” to match the thickness of the panel to be placed in the cabin.

I drew a decorative frame in Fusion and then milled it for the inside of the window. I used 4 different tools on this eventually working down to a 1/64” (0.4mm) tapered ball mill. This was cut from cherry. I went back and forth on what to make it from. I still haven’t decided exactly what the walls of the main cabin are going to look like, but there is a good chance I’ll just paint these gold, but we’ll see in time. The sides and top and bottom of the frame are 5mm.

Here’s a pic of a frame clamped in place. This is a test piece I made from Walnut. Partly to test the walnut, it actually carved better than I thought it would. Also, to test the mills, the top and right were done with the 1/64” tapered ball mill, and the bottom and left were done with a 1/32” tapered ball mill.

You might ask why not just always use the 1.64”. Well it took about 5 minutes to mill the two sides with the 1/32 inch and about 21 minutes to do the sides with the 1/64” inch Total time to make the 2 cherry frames for the finished version with the 1/64 mill was about 2 hours and 10 minutes.

Not much has changed on the actual model, but the parts are getting ready. The last Item I need to get to the finishing the lower deck area is milling the wall pieces for the back of the guest cabin. Still going back and forth over the design. Right now I'm leaning toward continuing with a blackwood cherry color scheme for the walls and then doing more bloodwood inside the main cabin.

amazing work, Bravo

 

[MystRacing]

I took a little diversion and painted up the 3D Printed cargo that Mike made, and one wood barrel. Then looked at it for a while and tried to decide which looked more realistic in the scale world. The plastic painted to look like wood or the wood. I’ll just leave that up to each person to decide for on their own.

I made a partial floor for the guest quarters by planking one side with basswood then used a strip of premade inlay for the diamond pattern edge and strip around the outside. Then I used a piece of lace wood to simulate a painted canvas rug area. I just thought the lace wood had an interesting texture and the admiral liked it.

I created walls for the partition between the Guest and Main cabin by machining a 1/8” thick piece of bloodwood. The half wall on the left was necessary because the floor of the main cabin is at the level of the bottom of this half wall. The black medallions were machined similar to the scrollwork on the door and then painted black. None of the interior parts are glued in or finished at this point.

The red panels may seem an odd choice if you look at the prototype, but this is one of those cases where we left things up to the builder. The reason I went with red here is because I’m going to go with the same red for the upper planking behind the carvings. I think they will tie together and the panels not look odd. The reason I’m going with red is a combination of a contemporary painting showing the ship as being red, and the fact that I just like red.

At this point I decided I really couldn’t move forward with much more on the interior until I have the larger parts of the outside like the planking done. There are a lot of detail parts like columns and hanging knees to add to the lower deck but don’t want to try and assemble all of that and then throw it around putting the planks on.

The next Item I tackled was the outer counter planking. I cut an odd shaped oval for the rudder to go through. This should give the rudder plenty of room to move. I also shaped the rudder and just realized I never took a photo of the shaped up rudder. Here is the counter planking.

It’s been three weeks since I posted anything and the reason for that is I had a lot of trouble with the planking. The pictures above are all stuff that was done a couple weeks back. I attached the lowest plank and the two planks for the wales and there were large gaps at the back between the side of the counter and the inside end of the side planks. I got frustrated and don’t have photos, but ended up failing twice. The first time I just glued them on got frustrated and pulled them off. The second time I tried using gel CA and bending and forcing the 1/8” thick planks into place. That was a colossal mistake, the thickness of the planks and unevenness of the side of the hull just made it impossible. After about an hour I drew on my years of modeling wisdom and decided it was time to put it up and do something else for a while. I actually put it up on top of a shelf, cleaned up all my modeling stuff and put it all away, and left it for a little over a week.

On Saturday, after playing around with some resistance soldering, I decided to go with something of a nuclear option and got out the detail sander with the coarsest sandpaper I had for it, and ground away on the sides until the planks would lay down flat near the back. So finally on the third try I managed to produce what I feel is an acceptable planking job on the lower outside.

Moving on, one big and screamingly obvious difference between this and the normal Fubbs model is the Single black wale along the side. Every modern model of the Fubbs I have seen has the Herbie the love bug racing stripe with a 2 dark wales with a light center plank. However, the contemporary model in the NMM just has a single dark wale.

I'm glad I figured out a solution to the planking gap and it's good to be back on this model, once the upper planks are in place the interior should move along at a decent pace.

 

[DocBlake]

“Every modern model of the Fubbs I have seen has the Herbie the love bug racing stripe with a 2 dark wales with a light center plank. However, the contemporary model in the NMM just has a single dark wale.”

Your model, your choice LOL!

 

[MystRacing]

I haven't updated here in a long time obviously. Partly because I haven't been working on this project much. The cold weather causes me to lose my enthusiasm for creating sawdust because I have to do it outside for the most part. I also decided to take a break and build some plastic models. Holidays etc. At any rate I'm back to working on this more. I have been working on it on and off the last few months.

The next thing I did after what was previously posted above was plank the upper hull and paint it red. As I mentioned in the last post I prefer red and the Fubbs is depicted as being red in at least one of the contemporary paintings. So that was the next step.

This photo shows the tie in to the red panels in the guest quarters.

The next thing I did was add some more knees to the lower deck for visual interest and place the vertical pillars in the center. The pillars in the center are still loose and I've made quite a few more parts but haven't actually glued it all together.

Here's a photo down lower with the great cabin deck in place. I'm happy with the appearance as it looks like there is something there but I'm not covering up too much work with the half wall etc.

I may have mentioned this before but I decided to partition the great cabin into 2 pieces like the contemporary model. Just to be different I decided to go with a different floor design in the front portion. In order to keep going with the red theme of the bloodwood front wall I decided to go with a red and black checkerboard floor. This is done with Red Heart and African Blackwood. I know the red heart will fade over time, but I have a piece of this that was sitting on a shelf for a year and is still almost this red.

Here is the front portion of the floor. Not finished or sanded flat yet.

Next I planked the inner counter so I could mate the great cabin floor up against it. My floor actually had to be cut back so the guest cabin wall would line up forward of it.

I then finished the rear portion of the floor with the kit included wood and pattern.

Here you can see all of the parts up to this point. Nothing is glued in above the knees on the bottom level, just trying to get everything fit in place before finishing and final assembly.

This is what will be visible on the lower level.

And here you can see the stair well in the front by the new dome location.

Here's kind of an overall photo of it.

And that gets us up to this last weekend. My mission for the weekend was to come up with something for a partition wall that was fit for royalty. After thinking about it for a while I decided a carving in a paneled wall would look neat. And after a bit decided doing a lion for the king seemed like a good idea to me. So here it is. I sculpted this in Mudbox drew the wall in Fusion 360 and milled it on my upgraded 3018 machine.

Being as I had some extra time to work on this, I also drew up milled and fit a cover for the stairwell.

And that brings everything up to date. I'm planning on continuing to get the parts for the cabins worked out. There will be an eclosure for the mast and rudder, and of course paneling etc.

 

[Heinrich]

This is beautiful work, Jodie - there is just so much to love about your build. I really admire your desire to create a model that is your own and which differs in key areas from the rest of the interpretations. This is almost as good as building an entirely different model. I think your red chequerboard floor looks amazing and ties in really well with all the red accents. I can't wait to see what you will come up with next.

 

[Uwek]

Clean and accurate work - very good result

 

[Canoe21]

Hello Jodie, Great work you have did on your HMY Fubbs you sure are a master in your model ship building skills among all of the many great hobbies that you have touched.
I thank you very much for your very detailed descriptions here on your SOS build log, it has helped me a good deal in my very enjoyable build of the HMY Fubbs. It is enjoyable to watch just how many ways that you have to add your own personals little touches here and there, Thanks again this is very much appreciated.
Regards Lawrence

 

[aew]

Nice work Jodie.
Definitely a different 'Way To Go'!

 

[MystRacing]

Thanks for the likes and comments. I finally got back to work and made some progress on the Fubbs. First I had to go back and clean up and do the final finish on the lower deck. Almost everything below the main cabin floor is finished and glued in now. Just need to add side walls and a door knob and hinges in the guest cabin area and everything will be finished below.

I sanded and finished the great cabin floor, then trimmed and cut the paneling for the sides of the rear cabin and did the same for the partition wall. I also added an enclosure around the mast. I milled a door and installed it so it would be something other than just a flat door. The sides around the window will have the frames I showed a while back to cover the rough trim job.

I decided to paint the lion gold to match the rest of the eventual carvings, and decided the blackwood milled door would work here. I was going to use that door below but decided to do a bloodwood door for below to match the wall. I also milled the port wall panel so it'll match the partition wall and now need to trim it and mill a matching style panel for the starboard side.

You can kind of see the bloodwood door through the quarterdeck framing below. I just took these pictures with my phone and didn't get one of the lower deck. The partition wall isn't glued in yet, so I will still have good access to the rear cabin to finish the bench and windows etc.

 

[MystRacing]

I decided it's time to do an update on my progress. I've done quite a bit of work since last posting but the pictures all start to look the same, so I decided to wait a bit to do an update. I Painted the inside of the window frames black to kind of merge it all together with the different types of wood I thought it was looking a little busy. I also built and added the rear seat and an enclosure for the rudder post. Finished around the rear windows and painted and installed the window frames.

After I finished installing the rar sections I added finished and added the side wall panels, I also added the doorknob along the way.

And here is the starboard side with a lower cabinet section.

I built and finished the poop deck beam sections as well. The beam sections and mast are just dry fit. I also planked the sides of the guest cabin area with Redheart.

Here's a picture with the windowed bulkhead break in place, dry fit. I also stuck a channel in place and the milled and painted trin strip I made on the side.

Here's a better view of what the trim strips look like. I also milled some decorative pillars from bloodwood for between the windows.

And, finally here is a better view from the front showing the door and planking on the guest quarters deck.

I'm hoping to get everything except the carvings and windows done in the next month.

 

[aew]

That's a lot of progress since I last looked!

 

[Bryian]

Love your work, and the red paint looks great.

 

[Vfordyce]

Thanks for the great details in your log. When I start my Fubbs, I’ll be looking at yours and others to help me stay on track. I feel privileged to have received one of these rare kits. You, Mike, and Clare from Weasel Works have encouraged me in my progress as a modeler from the beginning. I hope to start a log before the end of the year.