As mentioned last time, the next step was to carve the hull. This may sound all good and fun and all; except when you literally do not possess one single inkling of a clue, not one iota of experience, not even a microscopic idea of where to begin. I have done many things over my lifetime, all kinds of odd and end skills picked up - carving is most assuredly not one of them.
"So if you don't carve, why a wooden ship?" you may be asking. Well, that is a good question. There are two facets to the answer. The first being that when choosing a boat, the common consensus is that a solid hull boat (where the hull is a already pre shaped you just need to finish it up) was much more "beginner" than a plank on bulkhead or plank on frame; where you have a skeleton and you bend and place each plank individually on the ship. The other being that I guess I really just underestimated how much carving there would be.
Oddly enough, once I started getting into this and checking out forums and other blogs - it would appear the whole notion of one type being more beginner than the other; is horse hockey (+10 if you know the pop culture reference). It is a matter of preference, as was found out by people doing huge elaborate plank on frame models who adamantly state they would never dare try a solid hull - and vice versa.
So - It would appear I am now learning wood carving.
I did what any enterprising novice would do, I picked up my #11 blade and started at the wood. I managed to get the keel carved down to the right thickness, the stem and stern as well; pretty easy that was no worries at all.
Then came the cap-rail; 1/8" down and 1/32" deep - you really don't know how small 1/32" is until you are trying to hack at wood with an X-Acto blade.
Butt, I went at it and it started out okay - control was the hardest thing to get down because the blade really did just want to sink right into the wood. However, with a bit of cursing and few moments of my wife reminding me to "calm down" I got through it.
Most importantly I learned that I was definitely missing something to this whole carving thing, like say - carving tools! Imagine that, tools made to do exactly what I needed them to do. I have since picked up some carving tools so the next boat will have the benefit of proper tools.
I will get a chance to try them out since I have failed to get the deck carved out correctly. I am hoping the actual carving tools will work better and give me the control I need to get the angles and what not I am looking for.
The hull is shaping up not to badly, trying to allow myself the mistakes of a novice as long as I learn from them, which is hard because I want this to be a showroom piece and anything less is hard to swallow - but that too is being tempered with little reminders from my wife who shares the joy and pain of this project by sitting behind me in the room =)
It is coming along though, slow and steady as she goes.
Next Up: Keel, Stem and Sternpost
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