Bulwark Templates

With the deck bulkheads mostly all in place, it was time to once again clean up my work area a bit before moving onto the bulwark templates.

 

Basically, the bulwark templates are two laser cut pieces of thin wood which are used to help form the shape of the upper hull.  You may remember I actually used them way back to align the first of the hull planking; now it is time to do some work on them and then attach them permanently to the upper hull.

 

The first step was to plank the sides which will face inward (the outside will be done later).  This was pretty straight-forward as, for the most part, I used full length strips.  After shading the edges, it was just a matter of bending them to match the curve of the template.  The first one on each template took a bit of work to get just right, and after that they all fell into place.

 

As you can see, there were a few strips on each side where I didn't use full strips - these were where I had to do some trimming to allow the strips to fit nicely around the holes in the template.  This was much easier then using a full strip and trying to get all the holes lined up, and the joints will be mostly hidden later below one of the decks I'll be extending; I cut one of the joints at the opposite angle by mistake, but since it will be hidden...

 

 

Once they were both planked, I trimmed the edges a bit and then stained them the same colour as the decking.

 

Once they were both ready, I attached them.  This was tricky as the curve needed to follow the top hull plank I had added earlier, and the shape had to align with the various deck bulkheads. Getting them exactly where I needed them and holding them in place took a bit of work, but it turned out pretty good.

 

Attaching the first side:

The stern attached, complete with windows created the same way I did the other ones, and glued to the inner side of the templates.  To be honest, I forgot to do them... but I was having problems with the template sticking, so was able to add them in later...  I still forgot to paint it black behind them... luckily the bottom windows are over a gap in the hull bulkheads, so it is naturally dark, and the upper don't look too bad...

 Attaching the first side:

 

 

 
 Both sides attached:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After they were attached and the glue had dried (after a day or two), I used wood filler to fill the gaps between the templates and the first of the hull planks and also to smooth out the curve a bit where they met (once attached, the templates were about a millimetre wider then the original planking).  The entire upper section will be covered with a second layer of planking later, so I'm not worried about the amount of wood filler as it will all be sanded smooth and really isn't that much, despite how the pictures look (it's a little wide, but thin).

 

 

 

 

Next up was fixing the bow.  If you recall, the top plank on one side wasn't quite even, so I filled it in with a scrap plank, then added another plank to both sides to bring it up to the level of the bow's deck (the beakhead).

 

Planks added, with a bit of wood filler:

 

 

 Test fitting the beakhead bulkhead (say that 5 times fast...):

Adding the deck to the beakhead:

 

 

After trimming the planks and adding the treenails (I've also stained it, but don't have any pictures of the finished deck):

Deck Bulkheads

With the decking all done, the next thing to do was the bulkheads for the deck.  For the most part, these were pretty straight-forward, but it took about a week and a half to do as I was sick with a cold so wasn't working on it as much.
 
The laser-cut bulkhead for the main deck, with the doorframe highlighted with the archival pen and the 4 pieces cut for the door:

  

The first few planks in place:

  

All of planks glued:

 

Sitting on the deck after trimming the planks (it will be glued after some more details have been added and it is stained):



Three of the other bulkheads, almost ready for staining:

 Treenails added:



 One of the bulkheads has a window, which I added after that bulkhead was all stained.

To create the window, I cut out a small rectangle slightly larger than the window opening from a sheet of acetate.  Then, using very thin white pinstripe tape (maybe 1mm wide?), I created a diamond pattern, which I framed with slightly wider tape.  While doing this, I repeatedly checked it against the actual hole in the bulkhead to make sure the frame and pattern looked good.  Once satisfied, I used some wood glue to attach it to the back of the bulkhead.

 

 

Before attaching the bulkhead to the deck, I painted around and behind the hole where the window would fit black so the window would stand out a bit more.

 The finished bulkhead:

As you probably noticed, I also created hinges for this and all of the other doors.  These were created by taking an index card and cutting it into appropriately sized strips.  I then added little dots of glue to simulate the rivets and then painted all of the strips black after the glue had dried.
 

 All of the hinges attached (I later did some touch-up paint to fix a few areas):

 Gluing the bulkheads to the deck:

With the bulkheads attached, I then went about making the handles.  These were made by taking some brass eye bolts, bending the ends and then painting them black.

 

The final step for the bulkheads was to create the 2 ladders for the forward cubbridge head (the bulkhead against the forecastle).  This was just a matter of cutting out the parts, sanding/staining them (I used Minwax Puritan Pine), then attaching them to the bulkhead (I actually did this before attaching the bulkhead).

The poop deck bulkhead:

 The Great Cabin bulkhead:

At one point, while waiting for the stain to dry, I created and attached the rings for various spots on the deck.  For the rings, I took a length of black chain I had left over from another model and separated a bunch of the links by gently prying them apart.  These were then attached to some more eye bolts.

 Using the Dremel, I re-drilled the 2 holes in the hatch cover (they had been filled by the stain), trimmed the eye bolts so they weren't so long, and then glued them in place.

After gluing the main hatches to the deck, I drilled 4 holes for each (2 per side) then trimmed the eye bolts and glued them in place.  I was careful when gluing them in place to ensure the rings themselves weren't glued to the deck, as I will need to use them much later when I add the ship boat to the deck.

 

 The backside of the forward cubbridge head, with some planking added and stained:

One final shot with all of the bulkheads attached and the ring in place (you may also notice I've attached the stern bulkhead):

Next up is adding the sides to the top part of the ship... I've actually completed that step, but I'm a little behind on this blog so you'll need to wait 'til I get the pictures organized...