David Lester

Hello All, I little progress to report. I've been working on a couple of things - the window frames on the skylights and the trim on the hatches as well as the masts and yards. As I mentioned the window frames and hatch trim were made of card stock which I decided to replace with thin wood, but I'm trying to keep the appearance as close to the original as possible. I made the window frames using a technique I learned in one of my Lauck St. practicums, which involves laminating the frames from two layers and using double sided tape. With the guide lines drawn on a piece of paper and then overlaid with the tape, lay the first layer on top of the tape. Then glue the second layer on top, but overlapping the joints. When the glue is dry, lift it from the tape, sand and paint. It works really very well. I used .5mm stock for each layer. I didn't have any stock narrow enough, so I trimmed some down. I glued two pieces of scrap, the same thickness as the width I needed, to a piece of wood, with a gap between the two just wide enough to accept the .5mm stock. I then pared it down and sanded it flush with the two guide pieces. Because I was fortunate to have received a package of replacement parts for this model, I also replaced the grating in the hatches. For this kit the grating is a thin sheet of wood about .5mm thick with the square holes punched through. Each hatch is a solid block of wood about 1/8" thick. The top is painted black and the piece of the hatch veneer glued on top. Maybe not as good as a built-up style hatch that is more commonly found in kits, but the scale looks pretty good and I'm not sure if you could make something quite this small using the more conventional means. While I'm planning on repainting the bulwarks red, I think I'll leave the sides of the skylights alone as they have thin lines painted on them to simulate boards and I don't think I could redo them as well as these have been done. I also did a little clean up on the masts and yards. Despite all the damage to the rigging, the only broken piece was the jibboom, which I couldn't glue together in a satisfactory way, so I recreated it from scratch. The main mast had come apart at the trestle trees, but was not broken and needed to be fully disassembled and re-glued. And a couple of the saddles had come free of the gaffs, and needed to be re-glued, but that was it, so they're now all ready to go. David narrowing the stock making the window frames

Hello, Thanks for likes everyone. Mike, the rigging line that came in the parts package looks like thread in a couple of different thicknesses. I don't think I'l going to use it though as it's likely about as old as the model is. I've ordered some Amati line from Cornwall Model Boats. Also Mike, I know the whole history of the model. It was built my my friend's father back when we were both kids. I used to visit their house frequently and was always very interested in his models. He died several years ago. I hadn't been in much contact with my friend for quite a few years, as he has been working in Europe and the Middle East. He retired and returned to Ontario this fall. When we got caught up I was surprised and pleased that he still had two of his dad's old models. One was the Rattlesnake, which is in pristine condition (and he's keeping) and the other was this one which is in poor condition. He has given this one to me to keep. With the help of others on this forum, I learned that it's a Marine Model Co. product. I'm very pleased to have it. Don, the deck on this model is especially interesting. It appears that the planking has been painted or drawn on and it's a bit of a mystery to me because it's done so skillfully, while the rest of the painting on the model is pretty poorly done at best. I also don't understand why there is some red discolouration on the deck where each cannon sits; I'm not concerned as it won't show up when they're back in place. By the way, as it turns out I am actually using .5 mm stock for the replacement window frames. I just said a fractional number so not to confuse our American friends (just kidding.) While on this subject, I got a digital read-out caliper from Lee Valley for Christmas and I don't know how I got along without it. It converts from mm to decimal inches to fractional inches. I hope all those on the east coast are surviving this current storm. It's wintery enough here in southern Ontario, but nothing like you're getting from what I understand. Stay safe and warm. David

I believe that the builder used the kit-supplied line. Fellow forum member Bill (OCN30BCO) was kind enough to send me the plans for this kit along with a package of fittings etc for it. Among that package were a few spools of rigging in two colours - black and white, so I surmise that the builder of this model used his kit-supplied line in two colours - black and a shade of tan. It looks to me like he coloured the white. It had all become so dirty, that they both looked grayish. David

Hello Everyone and Happy New Year! Over the past couple of days, I've begun my restoration of this old model. At the outset I didn't know how much, if any, of the rigging could be saved, but after some time with it I decided to cut it all out and start over. Where the spars are broken, it had become hopelessly tangled. As well many of the knots were letting go and the lines felt very brittle, so I spent the better part of a day of examining it and making copious notes before I cut it all out. Next on the list was a thorough cleaning of the deck and hull. It was coated in decades of dust. In the process, some additional damage occurred, but in many ways, I'm better off having it all happen now as it's easier to repair then it would be later. The type of thing I'm talking about here is fife rails coming loose and the edging on the hatches and the roof on the skylight coming off. These were made with cardstock, so I'll replace them with some 1/32" wood. I salvaged all of the blocks, deadeyes etc. by soaking them in some rubbing alcohol and releasing them from the lines. I've taken stock of the repairs that have to be made - the main one is the chunk that's broken out of the port side bulwarks, some missing railing, missing cathead, broken jibboom, broken tressle trees on the main mast, fife rails, hatch trim and skylight roof, as well as return the cannons. When I received the model, over half the cannons were missing. However, over Christmas, I saw the friend who gave me the model and he had found them, so I have the full compliment. I'm particularly fond of the deck on this model, so I am going to give it a coat of polyurethane to protect if from the likely possibility of paint, glue and/or coffee being spilled on it. I had hoped at the outset that I would only be doing very minor touch ups, but the closer I look, the more I realize I will need to do. I think I will have to repaint virtually the whole model. For example, take a look at the photo of the yard below. I just can't return it with the white tip looking like that. That's a combination of a sloppy glue job plus 60 years of dust and cigarette smoke. David the major damage is this break. Thankfully, the piece is not missing the skylight roofs and hatch trim are made of cardstock example of how it needs to be cleaned up soaking the blocks etc. loose the rigging stripped off - no turning back now the deck is almost clean now, notice how the cardstock pieces did not survive the cleaning

I was surprised to discover how easily yards can be made from wooden dowels with only an xacto knife and a #10 or #22 blade. Start with a dowel that is the same diameter (or a little bit bigger) as the thickest part of the yard. Mark the major transition points and centre point etc with a pencil and when necessary make shallow cuts around the dowel at those points. Then taper the dowel by simply scraping it repeatedly, pulling the knife towards you and rotating the dowel as you go. If you have to reduce the diameter significantly at the very end of the yard, make your shallow cut around the perimeter, then make short cuts coming in from the end towards the centre. Follow up with some sanding. While you won't get results that are as perfect as turning in a lathe would produce, you'll be surprised to discover what good results you can actually achieve. You will get a perfectly acceptable result. I am no expert craftsman and got very nice looking yards right off the bat using this method. And considering that a length of dowel won't break the bank, you can afford to have several practice runs if need be. I'm give this a try if I were you. Hope that's of some help. David

Hi Dave, Yeah, it's just the display stand that came with the kit and I painted it black. It's a bit unsophisticated, but it holds the model surprisingly securely. The model is not attached; it's just sitting there. I used it throughout most of the build and it presented me with no problems. I kept thinking I would glue it or otherwise affix it at a later time in case I needed the model to be free for some reason, but never actually did it. (I decided not to use the kit supplied sign with its inappropriate western style lettering that would look at home at the OK Corral.) On my Constitution, I drilled the keel and implanted some posts - always wanted to be a dentist - which sat inside cherry standards on the stand, but I had a terrible time getting it to sit securely. I kept getting the slots in the cherry standards that the keel sat in too tight or too loose. On the other hand, this simple little stand was very easy and actually works quite well. David

Thank you everyone for comments and "likes." And Zappto, I agree that the Rattlesnake has beautiful lines; it's a vary lean looking ship and was probably a fast one too. Thanks again, David

Hi All, I finished my Rattlesnake model yesterday and here are a couple of photos. The rigging went very smoothly without too many red-dos. (Don, you may notice that I changed the pendants for the braces from natural to black.) This is not a very large model, but boy does it ever have a lot of rigging. The little coils that hang on the belaying pins always drive me crazy. They need a drop of glue on the back to hold them, but if you get a bit too much, it bleeds through to the front and looks terrible. Because they don't have the heft that the real lines do, they need a fair bit of fiddling with to hang half decently. Most of my do-overs involved these. I'm taking a break now until the holidays are over, and I'm not sure which of my two projects I'll start on next in the new year. Either my Prince de Neufchatel or my Virginia Privateer restoration - I'm not sure yet. I hope everyone has a safe and happy holiday season! David

Thanks very much. I was pretty sure aft was correct. Thanks for the confirmation. David

I'm nearing the end of my Rattlesnake rigging and have a question. I'm attaching the braces to the topgallant yard on the main mast. Each brace passes through a block attached to the mizzen topmast stay, then down through the mizzen mast top and terminates on one of the mizzen shrouds. My question is this - the line must run past the mizzen topsail yard. What side of the yard should it be on - fore or aft? The run looks more natural if it passes on the fore side of the yard, but that feels counterintuitive to me as it seems that it would be in the way of the mizzen topsail. On the other hand, the line doesn't run as naturally on the aft side of the yard and looks awkward. I've positioned the blocks on the stay as far up and aft as possible. The instructions, although detailed, don't address this and while Petersson shows the complete run of the line, he shows it in isolation without including the yard in the picture, so that doesn't help either. I've tried looking at photos in various build logs, but I've found it hard to find a photo that clearly shows what I am looking for. I know this is a pretty fundamental question to be asking at this point, but here it is nevertheless. Any input will be much appreciated. Thanks, David

Hi Geoff, Your Constitution is looking great. Your experience with the rigging so far is exactly the same as mine was. I relied on Petersson's book to a large extent and found Bob Hunt really dropped the ball on the rigging stage of his practicum. It misses many points and actually steers you wrong in a couple of places. There is a lot of knot tying on the ratlines, but don't sweat them. You'll get into a rhythm and it will become almost a zen experience and quite enjoyable. The hardest part for me was keeping the outermost shrouds straight and not bowing in. I read somewhere (too late of course) that one technique is to tie every fourth ratline first, then go back and fill in the others. I'm not sure if it works or not, but I'm going to give it a try next time. If your rigging as half as good as your work so far, you'll have a great model. David

Hi Derek, I've always had a hard time finding brass blackening solution in Canada. I haven't found a single supplier that has it. I have used gun bluing (from Canadian Tire) with some success, but I also used blackening solutions from Blue Jacket in Maine and the shipping charges didn't break the bank. They have several different ones available including one that works on Britannia metal. David

Hi Dave, The Prince de Neufchatel is a discontinued kit. I'm not sure why, I think it's a particularly beautiful ship. I found this kit on ebay. I do have the instructions for the launching ways. I'm not sure how your model compares in size to this one, so you might have to adapt slightly. It seems to me that the key measurement is getting the best slope for the particular model. They suggest a 3/4" rise over a 24" length for this model; it might be different for yours. But I imagine it would be pretty easy to eyeball it. I'll pm the instructions to you. David

Hi Dave, I really like launching ways to display a model and am always on the look out for designs myself. There seem to be mostly ugly ones out there and for my money I think it's hard to beat the design with the the Armed Virginia Sloop and I mean the one in the photograph, not the one described in the instructions - oddly enough they aren't the same. Bob gives very good instructions on building the photographed version in his practicum. There is a launching ways with my Prince de Neufchatel as well. It's different from the AVS, but I think it's an attractive option too. The instructions for it are a bit sketchy, but at least they match the pictures. I'm planning on using this design for this model. The stock for the AVS was 1/4" and the stock for this one is 3/16". The pictures below aren't very clear, but I think sufficient to get the idea. David

Hi Don, That's a very beautiful hull. Is a barque a little like a clipper? Looks like it might be, probably the rigging would be the main difference? I like the look of your gluing technique; I think I'll try it on my next one. David

Good Morning, Hi Don, thank you for your comments, I am not offended in the least, in fact I welcome your observation as it triggers for me a conversation that I probably should have had before now. For me, in my limited experience, rigging falls into three categories, not two. The standing rigging, primarily stays and shrouds, and it clearly should be black. The running rigging such as halliards, sheets, lanyards etc which clearly should be natural. But I also find a third category and that's all the rigging that I'm not quite sure if it's standing or running and whether or not it should be black or natural. The kinds of things that fall into this category for me tend to be: the line used to seize blocks to eyebolts, the lanyards on deadeyes - usually it's natural but sometimes it's black like on the Constitution, ratlines - again I've seen both colours - usually black, but it's natural the Victory, footropes, and of course these pendants to which the braces attach. I think there are other things that have made me wonder too, but I can't just bring them to mind off the top of my head. I'm still relatively new to this and have not quite weaned myself off of Bob Hunt's practicums (I'm close, but not quite all the way - there's still hope for me yet) and I have noticed a fair bit of inconsistency in them. For example on the AVS, he shows the use of black line for the footropes, the deadeye lanyards and the pendants for the braces, which is how I modeled it. However, for the Rattlesnake, he shows natural line for all of those things, included those pendants. The kit's instructions don't indicate one way or the other, so again, I just modeled it as per the practicum. In both the AVS and Rattlesnake practicums he shows some blocks seized with black line and some with natural line and I'm not sure why he's done it that way or if one is more correct than the other, and I'm guilty of some inconsistency myself in this department. Again, thanks for your input, Don and I would certainly welcome others' thoughts as well. Thanks, David

Good Morning Everyone, Some more progress to report. I've finished the standing rigging and am working my way from bow to stern on the running rigging. This will be a pretty boring report as everything is going smoothly without areal problems and I haven't even been called upon to come up with a fix or work-around for anything! The Mamoli rigging plans are quite good and easy to follow, but one complaint I do have and it's the same complaint I have with the Petersson book is this. They show the starting and ending points of a certain line, but not always the route it takes between the points. And they tend to show each line in isolation, so it's not always clear which lines should pass in front of others etc. So to a degree, I'm just using my best judgement and choosing the straightest most direct route where the line doesn't have to rub against anything along the way and trying to avoid lines crossing one another. David

Thanks for the input everyone. David

Gregory - that line looks beautiful to me, and it appears to be about 1mm in diameter. How many strands of sewing thread is that and what do you do make smaller lines? Thanks, David

I too have been thinking about a ropewalk and when the time comes will probably buy the MS one or perhaps Chuck's when it is available. However..... I can't quite grasp several things about the process. So, working on the premise that there is no such thing as a stupid question, I would like to ask the following: I have read as many posts as I can find and I cannot quite understand what type of thread to work with or how to control the sizes of the lines. It seems that garden variety sewing thread is one option, but how does one obtain a wide variety of sizes in the the finished product. Our local sewing store sells one thread - Gutermann 50. So if I make a three-strand line from it, that will give me one size of line, and presumably the smallest line I can made. Then if I twist three of those together that will give me a second size of line and then three of those will give me a third size line. Is that it? Can I easily obtain more than those three sizes? I also see that some people use DMC cordonnet and perl threads, which I believe are crochet threads. But crochet threads already come a wide variety of sizes, why not just buy a variety of sizes and use them directly? Sorry if these questions seem lame, but any input would be welcome. Many thanks, David

Hello All, I quick update. I've been making slow but sure progress on the rigging. It's all going very smoothly, which of course means little to talk about in my update. I had one minor setback. I mounted the fore mast and attached its standing rigging and then proceeded to mount the main mast. It was only at this point I noticed that the fore mast was tilting to starboard. It was a result of the two holes (main deck and forecastle not lining up 100%.) It didn't really show up at all until the main mast was in place and then it seemed to really show up. I slept on it for a day and then decided to free the fore mast of all its standing rigging, remount it and re-rig it. As a result I decided to put the mizzen mast in place before proceeding further to make sure all were true to each other. In the second picture you can see some of the numerous split ring arrangements in the rigging. Taking the advice of some forum members, I started soldering them and it is really the only way to go; otherwise the lines just keep finding the gap. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it isn't too hard to do and it takes just the tiniest sliver of solder to close the gap. I'll touch them up later with a small dab of flat black paint (as well as the edges of the mast top.) So that's it for today. Thanks again for comments and likes. David

Beautiful! David

Hi Dave, I'm really looking forward to working on this project. Its history means quite a bit to me. It was made by the father of one of my best friends and he used to show and explain his many ship models to me when I visited their house as a kid. It's really what got me interested in the first place, although the bug lay dormant in me for many years. My friend tells me that this particular model was his dad's first model and he remembered that it "came in a box" whereas all of his subsequent models were scratch built. This one has to be over 50 years old. I think it's important to limit repairs to only those necessary and not make gratuitous changes or "improvements" which will detract from the integrity of the model. The challenge will be to identify the fine line separating the two and stay on the right side of it. Again, thanks all for input and advice. David

Thanks for all the input everyone. Russ, I think that your suggestion that this is an American topsail schooner is dead-on. I've since searched American topsail schooners and all the pictures I could find, especially of the specific rigging, confirm it. Your suggestion about Marine Model Co and AJ Fisher. was also quite helpful. I now believe that what I have is Marine Model's 'Virginia Privateer' kit #1083. There's very little information about Marine Models out there, but I did find where someone is offering on ebay a partially built vintage Virginia privateer and it is almost certainly the same model as I have. So, I'm very happy to now be armed with this information and know that I will be able to find the resources I need to restore the rigging more-or-less correctly. Thanks again, David

Hi Don, Very beautiful job on this interesting model! David