Chauncey&Phoebe

I'm also building the MS whaleboat. Altho' I normally do only scratch building I thought this would be an interesting change. Also, I had no interest in learning the art of photoetching the 2000 or so fastenings and other brass fittings that are needed to build as Ronnberg describes in his book "To Build a Whaleboat." Like Ronnberg, I will only apply a coat of clear varnish rather than painting; this means all the copper fastenings will be visible and must be present if the model is to be accurate.. However, only 100 photoetched nails were included with the kit. I assumed this was an error, but on calling MS I was told that this was all that was provided as few people construct the model as Ronnberg did; i.e. with 2000 nails and a varnish finish. The price of additional etched nails was $10.00 per hundred., or about $190.00 to complete the model. This was of course out of the question. How to produce the fastenings without etching was my problem. I obtained a spool of 20 gauge soft copper wire (.032" dia.). I then used a nail clipper to incise notches every 1/64 inch or so. (This was to give the glue a solid hold on each nail.) The process was speeded up by folding the wire so that three lenghts were notched with each squeeze of the clipper. To put the nails in place I pre-drilled each nail hole with a .036 inch bit. I inserted a lenght of my notched wire in a pin vise, used a silk pin to press glue into about six holes at a time and the;n inserted the wire and clipped the end with the nail clipper. The nails provided by MS, are quite well done and would produce the appearence of square cut nails in the finished model. But in e xamining the Mystic Seaport book on whaleboat construction it's clear that, whether square cut or round nails were used in the Mystic produced full sized boat, the appearance after being clinched was not visibly different than if round nails were used. Thus, the appearance of my model is very satisfactory. Even tho the MS supplied laser cut wood parts are remarkably accurate,having found that I would have to put that much time into the model I decided to turn it into a scratchbuild model by making all the wood parts from pearwood (to represent cedar) , holly )for oak), and bass (for pine). I'm also fabricating the metal tools. I hope this is a help to those of you who wish to use Ronnberg's construction method but cannot afford to purchase a full supply of nails. With or without the all the nails the MS kit is an excellent one and produces a beautiful model. Ronnberg's book describing construction is, of course, his usual superb clarity..