Elijah

Main Rail
 
The main rail is complete!  
 
I ended up using some sheets of 1/16" basswood and tracing the curve of the hull onto the sheet.  I used those lines to draw out the shape of the rails, then cut it out so I had one long piece that ran the length of the ship.  I added in the joint to match the stern piece that was previously installed, then worked my way forward.  
 

 
Since I was using a single piece to make the rail, creating the scarf joints for the individual sections was easy - I just cut the sections apart in the shape of each joint.  I also added in the wider 'ledges' that will hold belaying pins, based on the plans.
 

 
Each side was done separately, just in case the curve was slightly different.
 
Once all six sections were cut, they got sanded down, primered, and painted.  Once they were glued in place, I used a metal file to make sure the joints were even.  I used a little wood putty to clean up the joints and fill any gaps, then did a final coat of paint.
 

 

 
On the color...the plans call for white on the main rail.  My research indicates the rails were almost certainly white (although a couple old b&w photos might show that the rail was black at some point...or those could just be misleading angles).  So I know that white would be more 'historically accurate'.  But, I've seen a lot of models that use black for the main rail, and I really like the look.  So I went with black.  At least it was a conscious choice
 
 

Thanks Jerry!

Hello Dave,
I'm so glad that i got to see your log tonight.  You are doing such a nice job.  I particularly like the idea that you improvise when you need to. This kit as you darn well know leaves a lot to be desired but you look to have it under control and your workmanship is terrific.  It's good to have another build to learn from.
Take care,
Jerry

Grant - you're right - it was hard to get the waterline nice and straight using my original approach.  What ended up working was using some thin pin striping tape to mask the waterline, then paint the black and red.  I tried the more complex approach originally because I was worried about putting white over black, but I should have just kept it simple.  Doing it the hard way is why it took me 2 months to finish painting the hull!
 
Mike - thanks!  I'm finally happy with the paint job, and ready to get this thing moving again!
 
John - thanks!  I've seen other mentions of problems with the rail lining up.  If I were smart, I would have test-fit those pieces before I finished building the transom to make sure I had the shape right, but oh well  
 
I'm not sure about sails.  One of the things that led me to pick the Bluenose for my second build (aside from being POB and the ability to paint the hull and hide my first attempt at hull planking) was the option to add sails.  I went into the build fully intending to do the sails.  However, the instructions don't cover it in much detail, and the practicum I have doesn't add sails.  So, I'm going to hold off until I get the rigging started before I make the final decision.  I want to...but it may be a little too much for my second build.  I think the Bluenose looks good either way!

That's looking really sharp Dave.  Very nice job!

I am always interested in those who paint the upper hull colour followed by the lower (or vice versa) and then mask and paint the boot topping. Wherever I try that, the result looks all wobbly. Now, I paint the hull black and mask off the boot topping with thin tape. You can get that tape in any place that caters to r/c cars - they use it for striping.
 
HTH

Mooring Chocks and Bow/Stern Main Rail
 
I'm finally done painting and touching up.  I finished the bulk of hull painting a few weeks ago, but my waterline wasn't clean enough.  I did a pass at touching it up by hand, but wasn't happy with the results.  I ended up sourcing some 1/16" tape, re-masked the entire hull, and re-sprayed both the red and black.  This finally gave me an even, clean-edged waterline.
 
Finally I can stop masking and painting the hull, and get back to work.
 
A while back, I got some great help on understanding the mooring chocks.  I decided that I didn't like the cast metal pieces provided by the kit.  They were so small that they lacked detail and didn't clean up well.  The kit pieces were basically a tube that runs through the bulwark, with a 'plate' that is visible outside the hull.  I decided to only simulate the plate, since the tube/pipe wouldn't really be visible.  I measured and cut some small plates from brass, and added holes to simulate the pipe going through the hull.
 

 
I mounted these on both the outside and inside of the bulwarks, and painted them to match the hull.  (Shown here after the cap rails were started...more on that in a bit...).  The black one on the outside of the hull is barely visible in this photo, but these were not supposed to stand out on the ship, so I'm OK with these kind of 'disappearing'.
 

 
I also started work on the main rail.  This turned out to require some extra work!  The kit provides laser cut pieces for the bow and stern.  I cut those out, and did a test fit.  Turns out they don't fit my hull.  The bow piece wasn't far off, and could be made to work, but the stern piece just doesn't fit at all.  I tried sliding it forward and backward, but no luck.  It looks like my stern is a little wider than it should have been, so the provided piece doesn't fit.
 

 
So, I transferred the actual dimensions of the ship to paper, including stanchion locations, etc. I scanned this into the computer.  I also scanned in the applicable parts of the plans so I could get the actual shape of these pieces in the computer at the same scale.  Using the digital versions, I verified that the pieces had the same problems (in order to verify that my ship dimensions got imported correctly).
 
Next I re-drew the pieces to match my hull shape correctly.  I was careful to make sure the width of the rail was the same once it got out over the bulwarks.  The image below shows the original pieces (red) compared to my custom pieces (grey).
 

 
I printed out the templates for my modified pieces, cut them out, and verified the fit.  They looked good, so I fixed the templates to some 1/16" basswood sheets and cut out the new pieces.  
 
My custom pieces (top) compared to the kit provided pieces (bottom):
 

 
These were then sanded, primered, painted, and glued in place.
 

 

 
I've also started in on the rest of the rail, but I'll post that separately once I get it completed.  It is Labor Day weekend, so I've got some extra time to spend in the shop (when I'm not distracted by the start of college football).
 

Dave,
 
The deck color in the photo is pretty spot-on.  (While waiting for paint to dry, I invested in a new camera since I've been taking hundreds of photos during the build.  I finally got my head around correcting white balance to get colors right!)
 
I did the deck in Minwax Cherry.  It is darker, and redder than I originally planned.  It was a last-minute change I made after seeing some other Bluenose build photos online.  I was originally going to go with a 'natural' stain that just slightly darkens the natural color of the deck planking, but after doing a test I wasn't happy with it.

Dave,
Just caught up with your painting. Very nice and sharp in the photos. Of course, we examine our builds and find the tiniest imperfections.
Love the color of your deck? Is the photo color true?
 
Dave B

Thanks Elia!

Dave,
 
Very nicely done! That is one smart paint job.
 
Elia

Paint Complete and Deck Staining
 
After weeks of masking, painting, waiting, sanding, and repeating, my Bluenose is painted!  It was very, very satisfying to remove the multiple layers of masking tape that I had piled on over the last month.
 

 
There was a good deal of touching-up required, especially on the waterways and bulwarks.  Those had been airbrushed early in the process, but there was some bleeding, so I touched those up by hand.
 
I still need to do some final touch ups on the yellow and white stripes on the outer hull, but I decided to ahead and get the deck stained first.  I went with a darker shade than originally planned on (kind of a last minute decision), but I'm really happy with how the deck turned out.
 

 
Hopefully I'll get those stripes on the hull cleaned up this week.  
 
I'm still debating if I should go ahead and get some poly on the deck now, or wait until later.  
 
The entire hull was airbrushed, and I decided on the specific colors after doing some tests on a large piece of basswood.
 
For black, I used Model Master's Flat Black (I know that 'midnight blue' is more historically accurate, but I didn't think I would be able to get a good shade of that).  The red portion of the hull was Model Master's Insignia Red (probably not the 'right' shade of red, but it was the one I liked the most).  For white (both on the stripe and on the bulwarks) I used Humbrol Flat White.  The yellow stripe was Model Master's Insignia Red (which wasn't my plan, I was going to use Humbrol Trainer Yellow, but grabbed the wrong bottle without realizing it).  The grey was Model Master's Light Grey.
 
After I get things cleaned up with the stripes, I still need to put some kind of clear coat on top, but I'm not sure what I'll use yet.
 
I'm excited to get things moving again!  
 

 
 

Painting...
 
After a month of painting, I'm getting close.
 
I finished the red on the lower hull last week.  Since I need to mask that off, I wanted to give it a good amount of time to fully cure so I don't damage the paint when I put tape on it.
 
After several coats of red, it started to look pretty good.
 

 
Once the tape came off, I was able to see the contrast between the white and red for the first time, and I'm pretty happy with it.  There are a few spots that need to be cleaned up manually with a brush, but I'm going to hold off until I get all the paint on, then do a pass to touch things up.
 

 
This morning I started in with the black.  I've masked off the red and the yellow stripe.  The first pass of black will paint between the white stripe and the yellow stripe.  Once this is done, I'll remove the masking above the yellow line, re-mask the yellow line, then paint the black between the yellow and the tops of the bulwarks.
 
I forget how quickly black goes on compared to other colors...even after two coats it is starting to look pretty good.
 

 
I probably have another week to go on painting.  My progress is slow on this because I can only get time to airbrush on the weekends, and I need time for paint to dry between coats.  This means I can typically only get a few coats in on a Saturday, and a few more on a Sunday.  Really looking forward to being done with this so I can get back to work!

Painting...
 
Nothing to see here, just painting.  It's been two weeks of painting, waiting, sanding, filling, waiting, sanding, painting, waiting...
 

 
The entire hull got primered with multiple coats (grey), alternated with tons of sanding and some additional filling.  Then I painted the waterways a light grey.  Those got masked off, and I painted the bulwarks and waterline with white.  I've also painted the yellow stripe.
 
Everything has been airbrushed, mostly because I'm horrible with a normal brush.
 
Just waiting for everything to fully cure so I'm comfortable putting tape over the white waterline area to mask off the lower hull for red paint.  This part always goes slow because I have to do airbrushing in the garage, so I have to coordinate with the wife to have both cars moved out.
 
Hopefully I'll be done within the next week.  Once all the paint is on I'll get some photos up and list out which paints/colors I used.
 
 

Hull Details and Primer
 
Well, after a flurry of work, I'm running into one of my least favorite parts of a build...waiting for paint to dry.
 
This week I focused on a few remaining details that needed to be resolved before I could paint the hull.  
 
I was focused on figuring out the mooring chocks this week, which was complicated by my complete lack of knowledge about actual ships.  (Never been on one, or even seen one in person.)  With the help of the board, I got my head around the kit's plans, and went to work installing the kit's cast metal mooring chocks.  They turned out awful.  
 
I think the pieces were just too small to work well as cast pieces.  So I ripped them out and tried a different approach.  Based on some research, it seems like these would have been some metal pieces to allow mooring lines to pass through without damaging the hull.  At 1:64 scale, the inside of the mooring chocks isn't really visible, so I focused on what would be visible on the surfaces of the ship.  I ended up fashioning some 'faceplates' out of brass.  They are about the right size, and they have holes punched through them.  The punch I used gave a nice, smooth, rounded edge that looks like it goes into a tube.  I trimmed away some wood on the hull so these will sit flush with the bulwarks, then set them aside.  I'll install them after the hull is painted.
 
I also drilled out the hawse pipe holes, and drilled holes in the keel for mounting on the pedestals when I'm done.  (I didn't do that on my last ship, and had to flip the thing over after it was fully rigged to drill holes - learned my lesson).
 
So, it is on to painting.
 
I'll be airbrushing the hull.  I am horrible at painting with a normal brush, but airbrushing seems to give me a consistently good finish.  I'll start by applying a couple coats of primer to everything I need to paint (hull, bulwarks, waterways).  In between primer coats I'll be sanding and filling as necessary to get things smoothed out.  Once I've got everything primed, I'll start applying the actual colors.
 
So it begins...after a few hours of masking off the deck (and the tops of the bulwarks and stanchions), I'm off to the garage to start spraying on primer.
 
The next week will be slow.  Spray on a coat, wait a day, sand/fill, spray on a coat, wait a day...
 

 
 

Thanks Elijah
I use Krick brass blackener on my brass work.
I tried Birchwood Casey blackener but with no success. Having said that it may well have been the nasty brass I tried it on as some are better quality.

Thanks EJ, now I have something else new to learn...posting to you tube

Homer
Me too!
Just finished running rigging on my Morgan's mizzenmast. Would go faster and look better if I'd stop snapping things when working elsewhere. Klutz.
Thinking ahead to next build which I'll likely start while working on the 7 (!) whaleboats when I finish the standing rigging. To do shelf will unfortunately likely outlive me or my dexterity.
I think Granado although also plan Echo cross section to try my hand at a smaller scratch frame project. Confederacy still muttering to me from the shelf. I Just gave away a previously purchased Victory since once I started building my own models I tired of telling people "I didn't build that one". Unfortunately I had already bought a display for the Morgan so now I have a large unoccupied case. That's the biggest argument for the fully masted Granado over the Confederacy. Must stop buying models for a while.
The admiral just smiles.

Thanks Mike! I too actually like the look of natural wood rather than painting. I'm still new at this and the Morgan is the first ship that I've built that has a "lot" of painted wood, or should I say all! I'm not very good at the painting and there's nothing worse than seeing paint build up on poorly sanded parts (of which I do have!). The staining powders are also something new to me. I'm beginning to get anxious about finishing the Morgan and starting with another ship. I have many in dry dock, probably more than I'll be abel to build in my lifetime. I think I might build Chuck's Syren next. I really like the look of the ship and he is perhaps one of the most talented builder / designers I've seen. 
 
I can't wait to see your Morgan pics!!!! Take care. Ron 

Nice job with that hatch! What do you use to blacken the parts?

The manual said to construct the main hatch in place in the deck but i thought it was easier to do it on my workspace
Underneath view shows the ridge that fits in the hole on the deck

 
Main hatch finished with blackened eye bolts an rings fitted

 
Main hatch in place in the deck

 
 

Thanks John

Thanks Don
When i saw it that was my first thought too, with a few expletives in there

Good choice with the ladder Bob, I wonder why they would suggest that, makes no sense

Thanks Frank
It won't even be seen once the hull is planked, except the very top of it in the hatchway, but i decided if it's going to be there it's going to be a whole ladder not half a ladder and a block of waste wood