Blue Pilot

She is looking great! You are making great progress.

Thank you for your kind words. I understand about the time issue. My current build has not seen much love as I have been busy with life, work, and other hobbies. It is one reason I have tried to avoid starting another kit. I just ordered some books mentioned in your llog for research and will be looking for new ideas. Its interesting I had planned to change the colors, not sure I love the green and your log lets me see how what what I thought of looks on the model. Love your color choices. I do hate to be a copy cat! Though, I confess, I am already thinking of stealing...I mean copying much of your ideas. I do plan to plank the deck with nice wood. I want to add some fishing gear, barrels, and sails. Its a nice scale to add detail. I will keep an eye in here too. Cheers!

Coming to your log late but I wanted to say reading through it has been a pleasure. I have been considering building this model for a long time. I am becoming more and more enthralled with these fishing schooners and their history by the many great schooner models here on MSW. your work has really inspired me and was the final push I needed to buy this kit. You have set the bar very high for those of us following in your wake sir! Thanks for sharing your build.

You might like the Bluejacket Ensign skill builder series. They have seven ships in this series. My first ship was the Yankee Yero but the Optimist Dinghy to me looks like a great project for the two of you. It will even come with her own tools, brushes, and paint in one box. Great job sharing your passion with her! Here is a link. You can see the other options under the entry level tab. What ever you choose it will be great. http://www.bluejacketinc.com/kits/optimist.htm

Thanks for the idea jbbondy. I have a piece of Swiss Pear I am testing with wipe on poloy now. Any specific finish you would suggest

Its been a busy year so not much progress on my POB. I am of late making some small progress. I had decided to make mine look like the real,ship at port. Which would include props, radar, and sails furled, as if she was getting ready to sail. However, I am considering changing direction and rigging her with full sails. I have no history with this and the thought is intimidating me! So I am interested in bouncing the idea around here. The reason I am thinking about this is my Mother commented she would like a model fully rigged for her home We have had a tough year as she has cancer. The good news is she is doing well and I am finally starting to think we are almost through the storm. I showed her pictures of other models and I am considering a scratch built or kit of the MS Bluenose or BJ Smuggler. I think a twin boomed schooner would be a fine model fully rigged. Of course this would mean parking the poor old POB II which progress is already slow on. So I got thinking maybe just keep going and add sails to the Pride. Its a beautiful ship with all sails set. I am just wondering if one of the other options would be more achievable. I see a lot of Bluenose models with sails. Any way just spit balling ideas here if you got an opinion I would welcome your thoughts.

Looking very nice!

You are right about the knees. I will be making new ones from box wood as only the two outboard get paint. I will simply take a little off the bottom and top then. Had not thought much about the lights. I had planed on just using the supplied lights but to be honest I have not thought mush about it.

I had originally painted the plankshear red thinking this would make things easier. Instead it has caused me no end of trouble while sanding by getting into the wood planking. The Castillo Boxwood I received from Crown Timberyard was thicker than the plankshear supplied in the kit, so I had to sand things down quite a bit to fair things up which is where all the trouble began and I ended up sanding it off anyway . Live and learn. The planking was fairly easy following the outline given to me by jcoby. Thank you sir once again for sharing your ideas. Once I got my head wrapped around it and got the first few rows completed it was fairly straight forward. The only difficulties were my hull was not quite equal on both sides of the center line so I had to finagle plank widths a bit as I previously mentioned and the last plank really takes some doing. After several failed attempts I made a template on card stock then traced that onto some thicker wood I ripped a tad wider than the plank. Then I rough sanded this down with my Dremel tool mounted vertically in the work station then finished it by hand. While it’s not perfect, I have learned a lot and pushed myself to try something new and more challenging then my last build. I am very pleased with the results! I have a couple gaps I need to still fill with white glue and sand to try and hide the flaws. Is that the best course of action? However, for the moment I think its time for a nice cold Scottish Ale, sit back, relax and admire my work. Cheers!

this is great work! I am enjoying your progress. This model will show what a grand ship she was. I love all the attention to details you are putting into it.

When I use a glue like you mention If I want to keep it neet I put it on some wax paper I keep by my work station then use a tooth pick to spread a little bit on. I also have a just damp rag or paper towel and wipe of any excess if needed. It also sands or scrapes off easy. If I use something like super glue I use one with a medium viscosity and use tips to get just a little. Generally less glue is needed then you think. It does not take much. Hope this helps.

Thank you for the detailed post and thoughts on these two kits. Your photos are great!

I was wondering if anyone has any thoughts, experience with Bluejacket ship crafters model the Atlantic. http://www.bluejacketinc.com/kits/atlantic.htm n a search of this forum I only came across one reference, a single build log from another manufacturer in reference to this majestic ship. In a quick search of the internet I found she has a very interesting history and would make a beautiful model. I would like to hear your thoughts. For more clarification I am also looking at MS Bluenose which has a lot of build logs and I even have Robert Hunts Practicum I believe laying around some ware. I want to build either ship with a full set of sails. Either model I feel is well within my skill level however, rigging a ship with sails will be a new challenge for me. Both have similar sail plans other then 3 verses 2 mast, so I don’t think one will be much more challenging than the other but that is just a hunch. Thanks!

Looking Good. I will enjoy following along with your build. Its nice to take a look at a plastic build.

I went back and forth for a long time on how to do my deck. In the end I decided to not follow the practicum. I am primarily relying on jcoby’s build http://modelshipworld.com/index.php/topic/1025-pride-of-baltimore-ii-by-jcoby-model-shipways-scale-164/ and Russ’s Biloxi Schooner http://modelshipworld.com/index.php/topic/274-biloxi-schooner-by-russ-148-scale-pob/build logs for guidance and of course the plans. I have also decided to go with Castillo Boxwood. I am making the planks generally 4 bulkheads long which equates to planks 23' - 30' long and using a three but shift. When you look at those two Gentlemen’s logs they both do beautiful work! Unfortunately, I fear I am a poor apprentice. I am also milling my own planks and I never realized how much there is to learn when trying to mill your own planks. I have ended up with varying widths and a lot of scrap. Next time I will rip all the planks at once. Thankfully the different widths have come in handy as my deck is less than perfect. I have been discovering a multitude of errors that had eluded me previously. Some are from the kit parts, wood and plans being off a tad, others are just my own mistakes. Finding fixes to these problems is equal parts fun and frustrating. That said I am learning a lot and trying new things and pushing myself to us the plans more and the practicum less. I am also adding as many details as I can. I am making a bit of a ham fisted job as this photo shows she looks like a bit of a sows ear at the moment . Once fully sanded, finished, and covered with deck furniture I think things will look ok.

Nice job so far, she looks great!

looking forward to watching this build. Thanks for starting a log.

Update: I have made small progress on the ship but big progress in making up my mind on final design considerations. Another problem with the kit plank shear partly the fault of the kit and partly me sanding it too much when I planked the hull is it ends up flush toward the stern with the sides of the ship. I glued some bass wood strips on to the plank shear sides then trimmed and sanded it down. Some of this will be trimmed later to fit the trim piece at the stern but it should be flush with that trim piece. I also attached the filler pieces for the hawse pipes at the bow. These fit between the plank shear and the whale plank. This could get missed if you don’t study the plans closely, so I did it now. I have also been adding some putty here and there and prepping the hull for painting. It has been sealed here with one coat of wipe on Polly, two more to go. As I mentioned previously I have been playing with a variety of stains and oil finishes on the Patauk, Castillo Boxwood, and the Bass wood in the kit. This has been an education in itself. Not as fun as working on the model but very enlightening! That Patauk really changes drastically depending on the oil and finish. While it is extremely beautiful it comes out either to red or to orange for my taste so I have decided on yet another change. I have found two stains I like for the mahogany not sure which I want to use just yet. One is on the golden side and the other more brown. The boxwood really does take the stain much better than the basswood. When I get closer to that point I will have to decide. I have also decided to use Castillo Boxwood for the spars, deck, and some of the deck furniture. I have received some beautiful sheets from Crown Timberyard. I have also finally broke down and purchased a Byrne’s saw. I am now struggling to learn how to mill my own strips which is proving to be very challenging too. I may not be making much progress but I am sure learning a lot and having a lot of fun! Cheers!

From those pictures those models actually look like they were quite well made and fine ships once. The craftsmanship of the hulls looks good. Once cleaned and rigged I think they will be very nice. That said looks like a fun challange to tackle.

Very nice work!

Very nice craftsmanship!

That's the way I did my first ship the AVS first layer and it looked much the same as yours. I then tried my best to plank correctly on the second layer which came out better but not perfect, meaning more wood filler. After painting it looked fine. On my current build It is single layer planked but will be painted. I really pushed myself to do it according to proper planking rules. It came out good but not perfect, again paint will save me. The point I am making is the great thing about this hobby to me is learning and improving your skills as you go. Each model has something to teach us and our first I think arguably will teach us the most. It is about the constant pursuit of perfection. I think you have done a great job for your first ship. Keep up the good work..

is looking beautiful!

Pride of Baltimore Photo Archive: For many of us trying to achieve as accurate a replica of an actual ship present or past is the goal we strive to achieve. However, many of the fine details and accurate historical information on so many ships has been lost over time or just hard to find. These are just some of the troubles we all strive to overcome in this hobby. That said some ships come to mind like the Pride of Baltimore II that can still be seen and visited today. It is my hope that this will serve as a living archive of the ship, "Pride of Baltimore II". A resource for all of us. I hope you will also share your photos of this ship. This will be a work in progress for me as I have a lot of photos and they all have to be resized, saved, and then uploaded. There is a link attached to the title above. Enjoy!

Very nice log and build.