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| Amati Kit America's Cup 1930 Enterprise | ||
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Moderators: Winston, aew, bikepunk
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| bmsamson |
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 Registered Member #5105 Joined: Wed Jan 17 2018, 08:18amPosts: 5 | So some background. I'm a sailor, and have seen my share of models in marina bars and always had in mind to try and build one. No real interest in square riggers, so when I started hunting for a project I was drawn to the AC yachts. I'd not built any boats before; as a kid (40+ years ago) I'd built my share of plastic models and even a few frame-up planes, but figured I should start easy with a solid hull, thus the Amati. Came across the Enterprise kit at a flea market for a great price, so I took the leap. Rather than post what you can easily see elsewhere, here's a link to Zoltan's thread and his excellent photos of the kit as it comes: www.modelshipbuilder.com/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?26674 With the instructions being largely in Italian, the abbreviated English version supplied tells what to do not how, most of the time, so where I think it might be useful I'll give some of my 'how' and hope it helps. Where I am now, deck underlayment is down, planking is down, hull is primed.Pretty straightforward so far. A couple of things Fit on the deck underlayment wasn't great. Where over, no big deal, some 100-grit sandpaper took it down to match the hull. More problematic was where it was under. Since it's supposed to be painted on the outer edge, though, not too bad - just used joint compound to hide the seam and fill where necessary. Once the primer went on, looked fine. Mast and forward holes in the decking. As instructed, I did precut the center strips to match the holes in the underlayment, but when it came time to lay the strips on either side, didn't want to mess with cutting them to shape. Rather, I glued them down whole, did a little work shaping the holes with file and knife (once the glue was dry) then finished shaping with a drill bit that I just twisted by hand, lest I remove too much material with unsteady hand on a power drill. (If I still had a hand drill I'd have used that, but wasn't about to go buy one just for two holes. Next time I see one in a flea market, I'll pick it up, though). Speaking of glue dry on the deck, I think they recommend krazy-glue or 2-part epoxy, but I just used carpenters wood glue. Dries quick (esp if you spread on the strips with your finger and let it get tacky before placing), cleans with water, and still has some give, which is better than instant. Speaking of decking, I didn't worry about precision cutting of the strips at the stern; left them a little long when I glued them down, then when it was all done I inverted the hull, trimmed roughly with xacto blade then sanded to match the hull. Works for me. Before priming, I just covered the decking with house-painting masking tape (several strips of 2"). Again, just covered with overlap, inverted the hull and trimmed to fit. No primer on deck, so it worked fine. I'll do it again when I paint the hull. I know they want the outer edge painted white, but I'm going to do that by hand rather than mess with trying to mask and spray that bit. Mast needed to be tapered to fit the hole in the bilge. Just sanded with 100-grit till it fit in. Hole placement on the deck was a little off and I didn't like the rake of the mast, so when I drilled the hole after decking I filed a bit oval to correct. On a real boat we'd have something covering; I haven't decided yet whether I'm going to fashion a ring of wood or use something else more approximating caulking. I've dummied up the former, just don't know whether I like it enough to go with it. Speaking of caulking, I'd read how some folks run a pencil along the edge of each deck plank to give the sense of caulking between deck strips, but didn't think it worth the time and effort. Admittedly my boats have been more modern than 1930, but they've had clean seams between deck planks and I like the look of mine without. Personal preference I suppose. That's it for now. This I know was the easy part, more as I get deeper in in the coming weeks. | ||
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| aew |
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aew   Registered Member #1929 Joined: Wed Nov 30 2011, 03:05pmPosts: 2582 | Sounds like a good start. How about some pictures? | ||
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| bmsamson |
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| Registered Member #5105 Joined: Wed Jan 17 2018, 08:18amPosts: 5 | Pix will come when I figure that out. Hull painting was the latest step, again as expected the scale of things made it quite challenging, and I'm not very happy with the results. Doesn't look bad from a distance, but up close all the issues are magnified. First problem was just marking the waterline. I tried making a marker as I'd seen several places, a dowel in a solid wood base, clothespin to hold the pencil. Couldn't get anything close to a clean line. Unorthodox perhaps, but instead I came up with a solution that worked pretty well, I think. First took measurements from the drawing and transferred to the boat showing where the line crossed the centerline fore and aft and amidships. Then took the midships measurement and stacked a pile of coasters so a pencil laid on top would be at the correct height; laid the model deck down and spun the boat to mark the line, checking to be sure that I hit the marks I'd already placed. Problem solved. Painting was no piece of cake either. The tape I used works fine on a wall, but doesnt adhere hard enough to leave a hard edge on the paint, so there are some issues there. Plan is to touch up with a brush, but who knows how that will do. Also, just as when painting a wall, gloss paint really accentuates any imperfections in the underlying surface. The issues I had with the subfloor/hull connection look even worse now. I don't think there's going to be much that I can do about those, but for next time I now know I'm going to have to be a whole lot more careful with the surface prep. That's it for now. Clearly, this is not going to come out perfect, but I'm still having fun.    | ||
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| aew |
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| aew Registered Member #1929 Joined: Wed Nov 30 2011, 03:05pmPosts: 2582 | Nothing that a touch of wood filler won't fix. Or you could use a mixture of sawdust and PVA. | ||
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| bmsamson |
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| Registered Member #5105 Joined: Wed Jan 17 2018, 08:18amPosts: 5 | Well, it's been a long time that this has been sitting on a shelf; I guess I've been sailing too much to play with it instead of a real boat on the ocean. (How many others here are sailors who like this as an off-season related activity? not that I really have an off season in southern California, but still I'm sailing less these days) Back at it this weekend and tackled the deckhouse etc and drilling of the holes in the deck for the handrail. I don't have much fine motor dexterity and have fat fingers so the wooden bits were a real pain and don't look nearly as good as they should, but for a first try I'll live with it. As for the holes, not nearly as bad as I thought. I'd considered using a dremel but wound up using a little hand tool (foreground in the photo) which worked fine. I was concerned about the ones near the edge because the hull is close and I wasn't sure if the fittings would fully insert, but it worked out ok. To place, I used a compass to find the distance of the rails from the edge (on the full scale plan) and transferred those lines to the deck by extending the pointer of the compass so it would extend below the deck and run along the hull, the pencil point just followed the curve. I then measured the distance of the last ones from the bow and the distance (2cm, I think it was) between and marked along the curve and used that. Getting all those little pieces in the holes was time consuming but not too bad once i broke out my smallest needle nose pliers (tweezers just didn't hold well enough for me). The rails are just in for fit right now, I'll trim more before I'm done. Right now I'm thinking I don't need to glue them all as the directions say, probably just tack the ends and let it go at that. Still haven't applied any finish to the deck/woodwork, but will do once I have the rest of the holes drilled and fittings installed; I figure a clear poly won't hurt anything and will help hold all the little bits in place. Dreading the mast/boom work to come, but hopefully it'll wind up easier than I'm thinking. (been so long since I was here I forget how I uploaded photos, so that'll have to come later. cheers all. [ Edited Mon Dec 03 2018, 09:25pm ] | ||
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