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Model Shipways FAIR AMERICAN 14 GUN Privateer 1:48 SCALE

I cut new bow/stern/bottom keel pieces from swiss pear. 1.jpg

Marked the sanding lines on front/side of bow piece.
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Bow piece is sanded down to marks.
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Like everone else, the bottom/stern keel pieces were too short.
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cut new pieces...
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Made the new stern piece about 1/4" about 5-6mm too long. The top of the piece can be sanded down later if needed when putting the stearn together. Would rather it be too long than too short and I don't know exactly where the stearn pieces will fit together. 8.jpg

Cut the hole in the bow piece for the bowsprit lashing. The hole on the drawings was so tiny. I made it a little larger.
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Then glued it all together. Believe it's ready for the bulkheads now.
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Don't know how this image got in there again. Tried deleting it. It won't delete!!
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I sat the keel in a jig to keep it vertical and straight. Then slid bulkhead #1 in place. It was nowhere near vertical. Looked at the plans. The bow is 20mm higher than the stern. I don't see that measurement anywhere on the drawing. I measured from a horizontal line on the drawings. Guess I check what others did. I can easily raise the bow in the jig to make the bulkheads vertical.
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I've temporarily remove my statement this post as I may have been wrong about what I said about another site. Will come back it I find out it was true and will repost.

I just wrote Mary on the NRG site and asked. She said the entire website is down right now.
 
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lakedaisy said:
I said I used swiss pear for the keel. That's not right. I used boxwood.

Funny thing happened. I was just BANNED on MODEL SHIP WORLD. I know they have SPIES on SOS that scurry back to their leader to report wrong doing by someone on another website. I was banned about 2 years ago but got reinstated as it was a misunderstanding. I have no idea what I did here to get banned there, but evidently i did something the ship rats didn't like.
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I know exactly what it was I did, on facebook!
 
I'm gluing to bulkheads in place. #13-#16 are now cut pretty deep to make way for the cabin. I already broke the 'ears' bulwark stantions?? off of bulkhead #7. I made new pieces and guled them back. I cut some pieces with the grain running vertically to strengthen the 'ears' on #13-#16.
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My first attempt at cutting a window on CNC. Needs a LOT of work!!
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I glued some small braces between the bulkheads to straighten the curved ones and to overall stregenthen them.
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Next I roughed out the bow fillers. Need to sand them to shape.
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And I drew a image of the stern and cut a rough facsimile with CNC. It will need to be sized to correct size and then I plan on cutting details into the wood. Hopefully, windows, ships name, maybe some scroll designs.
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I'm enjoying your blog on the Fair American. It's a great kit and will build up to be a beautiful model. However a word of caution, chech the scale on the sheets of drawings. Some of the old kits were not printed accurately and did not scale directly. The printer feduced the drawings to match the size paper he had. I believe the error has since been corrected and Model Expo has always treated people fairly but don't scale directly off of the plans without checking and using a proportional divider.
Best wishes!!!
Bruce
 
Rob,
LOVE the tapering of the knee of the head both fore and aft and going down to match the keel. Nice to see this done as it is so often ignored by nearly all the kit designers. Did vessels like Fair American also have the stern post tapered similar to how it was done on British ships?
Allan
 
Hi Bruce and Allan. There's nothing on the plans or instructions about tapering the stern Allan. So I didn't do anything there.

Bruce, I've read about some differences/problems with the kit as it is a 'remodeled' kit from a solid piece hull kit. Thanks for the reminder. I don't know if my measurements are good enough to make a difference! :). It's still a nice kit. There are some beautiful build logs. I had links to about 10 on ModelShipWorld which are now gone.

There a several references to plan #6 for detailed drawings. I don't know which is #6 as only #1,2 and 4 are numbered. There are 3 sheets with no number. And I don't see the 'detailed' drawings. I wrote to ModelExpo today asking if they can ID the sheets without numbers, though it's not really that important.
 
Okay. I need the advice of some knowledgeable person/peope. Something isn't right and if you couid advise what to do...

I cut a template so I could get the curve at the bow to sand the bow filler wood to the correct curve at the very top. I endd up cutting the template for quite a few bulkheads. Does this sound correct? I assumed the hull planking follows the curve of the handrail. 1.jpg
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Next I laid the template over the bulkheads. I put the tip of the template in the rabbet at the bow and aligned the other end to the last bulkhead the template reached.
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Most of the bulkheads don't come close to the edge of the template. They are off about between 2-4mm on port side and 1-2mm on starboard side.
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I really would appreciate advice. Should I bring out the bulkheads to match the curve of the handrail (again I assumed the hull planking curve is the same as the handrail)? Or just fair the bulkheads as they are and adjust the curve of the handrail? thank you.
 
lakedaisy said:
I assumed the hull planking follows the curve of the handrail.
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Sorry, I'm not 100% sure what you are looking for. The template looks like it matches the curve of the deck plan rather than the hull planking. If you are looking for the curve of the hull planking, you need to mark out the breadths as the planks taper from the dead flat going forward and some widen going aft while others get narrower aft as you go higher. In short, the sheer of the hull planking and wales generally follow the sheer of the rails. Keep in mind the gun ports do not normally follow the same sheer, but rather follow the sheer of the appropriate deck which is different than the sheer of the hull planking. Caveat,,,,,,, FA may be different than other ships, but I would be surprised. Study some planking expansion drawings on the RMG Collections website and you will see the shapes of the planks. They are not straight strips, but thankfully straight sticks can be shaped. https://www.rmg.co.uk/collections/search/planking expansion plans Videos have been posted here at SOS that explain how to size and shape the hull planks very clearly. There was a great article on planking on the NRG website, but I think it went away with the disappearance of MSW.

Allan
 
Thank you or your response Allan. I think you are referring to the width of the planks as you attach them to the hull (lining off the hull). If that is your reference then I know how to do this.

What I was referring to... The hand rail usually extends slightly over the side of the ship. And it follows the curve of the hull that it (the hand rail) sits on. What I was asking is... the outboard edge of the bulkheads (the handrail sits on) doesn't come close to matching the curve of the handrail.

Is that any clearer?
 
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