Restoring and finishing De Sperwer (Billing Boats).

[Ponytail]

Recently I purchased an old kit from Billing Boats: a Fries yacht "De Sperwer".
The kit was partly build. The basic keel and formers were acceptable put together. The further parts seem to be there in the box.
A little start was made in planking. Unfortunatly this was badly done, I think...
The plank was cutted and broken. Also little nails were used of which I'm not a fan!
Luckily I could remove it with hardly any damage to the skeleton of the hull.
And with the 'missing' parts in the box I glued the plank into one piece.

And this all brings me to a question.
These old kits have their parts printed on the wood in rather heavy lining. And have to be cutted and sanded in shape.
Is this best to be done on the outside, the middle of the inside of the line?
And the best (only?)way to remove the parts numbers is just sanding? The parts are not mirrored so at one side these printed numbers become visible...

 

[Klompen]

Recently I purchased an old kit from Billing Boats: a Fries yacht "De Sperwer".
The kit was partly build. The basic keel and formers were acceptable put together. The further parts seem to be there in the box.
A little start was made in planking. Unfortunatly this was badly done, I think...
The plank was cutted and broken. Also little nails were used of which I'm not a fan!
Luckily I could remove it with hardly any damage to the skeleton of the hull.
And with the 'missing' parts in the box I glued the plank into one piece.

And this all brings me to a question.
These old kits have their parts printed on the wood in rather heavy lining. And have to be cutted and sanded in shape.
Is this best to be done on the outside, the middle of the inside of the line?
And the best (only?)way to remove the parts numbers is just sanding? The parts are not mirrored so at one side these printed numbers become visible...

View attachment 515850View attachment 515851

I started this kit 50 years ago, with a great lack of experience. I found it last year and built it. The trouble wit the planking is that because of the grain, they will split. The way I got around that is by glueing as bes I could and than, where necessary sand the split piece and glue a pice on the inside of the hull. BTW one has to cut just off the lines. I also used a filler made up of the resulting saw dust mixed with PVA. This can be sanded very smooth. I stained the hull (medium oak stain) with made it look acceptable

 

[Ponytail]

It's been a while since I started this thread....

Which didn't mean I dropped the project. On the contrary I just forgot to make pictures in the beginning!

I did the planking on the hull using the original parts in the kit. Old wood and cracked at some points.
It gave me a hard time: first at the cutting using an electric scroll saw machine. the wood split and broke in no time. Especially at the areas where the grain was not in line with the length.
And the came the bending... Same story.
Decided to glue the strips in bits and pieces and reinforced at places with scrapwood.



A next problem showed up when came forward the strips appear to be to short. Or there was a failure in the hull-skeleton which was made by a previouw owner... This also was solved: filling the gaps with some scrap wood. The picture shows clearly the cracks and filings.



I managed to close the hull.




And now the sanding, filing and filling can begin!
Luckily the wood is soft and reasonably thick. Thus easy to sand. Using the method with PVA and sanding dust the gaps could fairly be closed and the hull became fairly smooth. Many of the cracks and seams became hardly visible. And now praying they will stay away when the hull is painted with blank or light colored varnish. But that's a future concern!