David Lester

Thanks for the input guys! I'll do some more checking out on-line with your comments in mind. I notice that the bowsprit is square - is that an indication of anything? I cleaned some of the dust from the deck and took a good look at it. It isn't planked; it's a solid surface and he's very nicely painted or drawn the caulking lines on. I think it's going to look great. There are no ratlines - do you thing that's intentional, or simply unfinished? Thanks again, David

Hi All, In my Rattlesnake Revisited post I referred to a model that I was given on the weekend that is in a sorry state of repair. I don't know what ship this is, or even if it's a specific ship or just a generic representation. This model would be about 50-60 years old and appears to me to be scratch built. It has a sold hull. My limited knowledge would suggest to me that it's a brigantine and perhaps an American privateer, but I may be wrong. It has either 14 guns or 16 if you count the two stern ports. Does anyone have any thoughts on what this might be. Some pictures below, dust and all. Many thanks in advance for any input.

Thanks Mark, That sounds quite plausible to me. David

Good Morning All, My first exposure to model ships came when I was a kid, maybe 10 years old. My best friend's father built them and I was mesmerized by them whenever I went to his house. They lived in a large old mansion with a fireplace in every room and a ship model on every mantelpiece. His dad knew I was interested in models (plastic cars and planes,) so he would show me his work space and tools and supplies. I know he told me the names of all of the ships he had modeled, but I didn't remember any of them except one - the Rattlesnake - because what kid could forget an intriguing ship's name like that. Decades later when I started modeling ships myself, I decided I had to build the Rattlesnake as a kind of tribute, which I am currently doing. This past weekend I had the opportunity to re-connect with my old friend who has just returned to Canada after many years of living and working abroad. He had retrieved his belongings out of storage, set up his new house and when I visited, I could hardly believe my eyes. He still has his long-deceased dad's Rattlesnake (and one other model which I'll talk about in a separate post.) I always imagined all the models to be long gone, but apparently all of them have survived; his siblings have the others. Here are some pictures of it. The quality of the pictures isn't very good, as the room was quite dark, I only had my cell phone with me and I had trouble with glare on the glass case, but I think you can see it well enough. The last time I saw this model was over 50 years ago. I was pretty excited to see it again. I know he built many of his models from scratch but I'm not sure about this one. Many of the details are very similar to my Mamoli version. While his stern painting isn’t as fine as it might be, the rest of the workmanship looks pretty good to me, especially the rigging. I was interested in the flag he placed on it, which I believe to be the British White Ensign or St. George's Ensign. I understand that the Rattlesnake was an American privateer, was captured by the British and introduced into their fleet as the Cormorant. It seems a bit odd to me that he's showing it with a British flag and still bearing the name Rattlesnake. I don't know enough about naval history to know how these things transpired. That ensign would never have been flown by an American ship, would it? Was it the practice for an opposing navy to immediately raise their flag on a captured ship? Is this a legitimate way to have modeled this ship? or was he just taking artistic license? I'm kind of curious about that. I'm also curious about the blue colour of the bulwarks. I have never seen them painted blue before. Again, is there some legitimacy to this or is it more likely that he just happened to have some blue paint kicking around? Does anyone have any thoughts? Anyway, that's my Rattlesnake story. My friend gave me the other model that he had. Unlike the Rattlesnake, this one is in very poor condition and he's hoping I can restore it and it's mine to keep! Neither of us knows what ship it is. I'll post pictures of it separately to try to get some input from some of you, but I'd like to do a little research on my own first, to see if I can narrow it down a bit. In any case I'm pretty pleased to own it regardless of what it is or what condition it's in. David

Good Morning, I've made some more progress on the rigging. The standing rigging is finished on the bowsprit and foremast (except for ratlines) as well as some running rigging on the bowsprit. I'm using the line that came with the kit for the running rigging. It seems to be quite decent. It's a nice khaki colour and is good to work with. No black line came with the kit - they suggested colouring the khaki line black - but instead I used black line left over from my Constitution build, which is from Blue Jacket if I remember correctly. The kit supplied deadeyes are of acceptable quality, but the blocks are not, (in fact, so bad as to be laughable) so I've replaced them something a little better. Everything is moving along with in a straightforward way with no issues to report. David

Hello Everyone, I've been making some progress on the rigging stage. I've build the three masts and as well as the bowsprit and have attached much of the rigging to them. I've been working on rigging the yards, but by way of taking a break from that, I mounted the bowsprit and began attaching what rigging I could that doesn't depend on the foremast and its stays being in place. (Still a few loose ends to tie down yet as you can see.) The instructions with the Mamoli kit are especially good with respect to the rigging and I'm really enjoying working with them alone and not referring to my practicum at all. While I found the practicums to be very helpful for my earlier builds, I'm now finding it more fun to tackle this stage on my own. I had earlier expressed some frustration working with those little split rings and the line always tending to find the gap and come free. I had thought that soldering something this small might not be practical, but several of you indicated that that's the way to go. This afternoon I experimented and had great success! They are not too difficult to solder at all and it certainly solves the problem. David

Thanks for all the suggestions everyone, and so quickly! I've ordered a pair of those "jumpring pliers" from Fire Mountain that you suggested Kurt. I have ordered copper foil from them in the past and was going to need more for my next project anyway, so killed two birds with one stone and ordered both. So, now we'll see how I make out with the soldering. Thanks again, David

I'm looking ahead on my rigging plans for my Rattlesnake and notice quite a few instances where lines are attached to small brass rings. In the past, I've always had a difficult time with these rings. It seems that no matter how hard I try to close the ring, the line always manages to find the gap and the ring comes free. Is soldering an option for these small rings when there's a line running through it? Are there specialty pliers that will crimp them tighter than ordinary pliers? What do others do keep these pesky things in their place? Thanks, David

Thanks guys! Doug - I've basically copied the colour scheme of the MS version of the kit which shows black and pale yellow. I have used model paints for everything except the yellow, which, to be honest, is just some left over house paint I had kicking around. My favourite model paint is Model Master but I have to drive to Whitby to find it (about 45 minute drive from home.) I tend to stock up on the basic colours (black, flat black, red, white etc.) when I'm there, but then improvise for everything else, such as I did for the yellow. David

Hello All, Well I'm back from by UK trip and have had some time to work on my Rattlesnake. I've been focusing on the boat. I've had to do a fair bit of improvising here. It's a cast metal one that comes with the kit and I think it's just a generic boat as it bears little resemblance to the one in the plans and in any case the plans are a bit vague on its details. I have Bob Hunt's practicum and while he gives a lot of detail on finishing the boat, the one he starts with is a nice wooden one which I assume must have shipped with this kit at one time. Finishing this metal one like he did the wooden one didn't seem all that practical to me. So I relied mostly on the photo of the MS version of the kit and have copied it as much as possible with the results that you can see below. I didn't make oars for the boats on my Constitution, but decided to give it a go here. I used the Don Robinson method and it worked beautifully - just stick the end of a dowel in a vice and squeeze. Follow it up with a little clean-up and you have a pretty credible looking oar. Thanks for that tip Don! With that little project finished, I started in on the masts and have finished the fore mast. Everything was very straightforward here without need for much comment. I don't anticipate any issues as as I work my way through the rest of the masts and yards. After a very cool and wet summer, we are now having the most glorious weather you can imagine. Temperatures have been in the high 20's with blue skies! David

Hi Derek, I spend a lot of time re-doing things too. My rule of thumb is if I know I can do a better job, then I re-do it, and when I know it's the best I can do, even though it might not be perfect, then I live with it . When I do less than my best, it's almost always because of impatience. Your Bluenose is looking very nice, and I'm sure you'll be able to get a satisfactory job on the frames even if it means doing only one or two at a time. A standing-height bench is the best in my opinion. I have a high bench as well as a high stool and I alternate between standing and sitting. Hours seem to pass like minutes! David

Hi Dave, Your model is looking absolutely beautiful. David

Good Morning, A brief update this morning. I've pretty much finished adding all the deck details. The last thing was the gun port covers. I chose to show half of them closed liked the MS version photograph. I ran into a small problem though. I carefully made the covers by adding planking to the base piece for each one. Then I carefully fit each one to its opening and sanded them flush. As it turns out, I fitted them too well and and sanded them too flush, so that it was virtually impossible to distinguish them from the rest of the hull. When I painted them, it looked as though I had simply painted them on. It would have been better if I'd fitted them more loosely and maybe let them sit proud a little bit. I didn't feel like cutting them all out, so I made new thin ones from .5 mm stock and glued them to the surface. Probably not as good as properly fitted ones, but certainly better than what I had and I've decoded they're going to be acceptable. So next will be the channels, railings and rudder. I'll be absent for a couple of weeks though, as we're off to Scotland and England. A visit to Portsmouth is on the agenda and I'll a little worried as it was a visit to Boston that got me fired up about the Constitution. I'm not sure that I'm ready to tackle the Victory, but I'm afraid its impact on me might be beyond my control! David

That's too bad! Very easy to do though. I snapped a mast off my Constitution by swinging my light around when it wasn't high enough to clear. In any case almost anything can be repaired. Naked modelling? I'd be VERY careful with that. I have a tendency to drop my xacto knife a lot. David

Hi Doug, I think I'd just have a go at it by hand with some sandpaper and round the corner over by eye. I think you'll get a good result. That's what I did for the bolsters on the mast tops on my Constitution and it wasn't hard to get a satisfactory result. Admittedly, each one wasn't very long, but even along the length of the waterway I think you'll be able to do it without too much trouble. David

Thanks for the suggestions Jon and Dave! I have since install the bits on the deck and that's essentially what I did, but there were only two to worry about. Lining up the seven in the railing would have been a bit harder. I didn't substitute a very short piece of brass rod for the positioning, David, but I think that's a great idea for increased control. David

After much trial and error, I finally wrestled these railings to the ground. The mistake I made was trying to build the railing off the model and then install it. As soon as I built the railing on the model my problems disappeared. I was trying to glue the top ends of the balusters against the underside of the top rail and was having plenty of problems keeping them straight and properly spaced and then how was I going to install it. Butt joints at the rail and against the deck didn't seem secure enough to me given that rigging is belayed to these rails (and remembering the issues I had with the rails on my Constitution.) But if I anchored the balusters to the deck with pieces of brass rod, I wasn't sure of my ability to line up and drill seven holes all in the right place. So - my solution was this - the instructions call for 1.5 mm wood for the top rail. Instead I used a 1 mm strip and then attached a 1x1 mm strip along each length of the underside. This created a channel for the baluster to fit into, automatically lining them up and giving considerably more gluing surface. I then installed the two end balusters on the deck, drilling them and anchoring them with a piece of brass rod. Then I cut the remaining five balusters to length and with the top rail installed on the two end balusters I could slide the interior ones into place and locate them by eye. They're glued as well, but it's really the end two that provide the integrity for the structure. I'm pretty sure this will hold the belayed rigging without popping loose. Now on to the railing around the bow, which I'll approach in a similar fashion. David

Decking looks great! David

I'm turning my attention to the head rails. I have the Bob Hunt practicum for this model which features a lot of kit bashing. I'm not really doing any kit bashing, but I have to make an exception with the head and cheek rails. The kit comes with cast metal ones which look ridiculous and in addition don't even fit (picture below.) Bob's kit bashing involves working with the Hahn plans which have a significantly different looking stem than that which comes with the kit, so the rails that he outlines don't quite fit the basic model either. So, I'm improvising them and the picture shows my progress so far. They're more or less similar to the ones Bob describes. Since I'm just working with basswood, carving a profile into the face of them is not practical, so I'm using some styrene strips to create a profile. I know it looks rough now, but with a little more sanding and once painted, they shouldn't be too bad. Once these are finished, I'll return my attention to the deck details which I'm taking a break from. I'm having trouble coming up with a satisfactory way to attach the railing tops to the balusters in a secure fashion (they have to withstand a bit of pressure as rigging is belayed to them.) I've tried a few ideas, but am still having trouble spacing them evenly and attaching them securely. So I've been "sleeping on it" and will return to that problem shortly. David

Hi Mike, You might want a back-up plan for the lettering. While I know some have had good luck with the Woodland Scenics lettering, I found it very frustrating to use. It's quite difficult to position each letter precisely where you want it, and even though I thought Id' rubbed each letter properly, in some cases when I lifted the sheet little bits of while lifted off with it, ruining not only that letter, but in fact the whole word to that point. I had good results using Microsoft Word. To get white lettering on black background, I just created a one-cell table and made the background black and the lettering white. I experimented quite a bit to get the font and spacing that suited. This was for my Constitution. I think this will work well for your Morgan too. I wouldn't worry too much about the black matching, with that white strip above the lettering, it should be enough to make any slight difference not noticeable. While this is ok for white lettering, I'm not quite as sure how well it will work for your gold lettering. Metallic colours are harder to duplicate than white, but with a bit of experimenting you might be able to find one that works well enough. I hope your Woodland Scenics option works for you, but if not, I wouldn't dismiss this alternative as a way to go. (ps I really like this model and it's on my shortlist for the future) David

Thanks Dave, Tumblehome is a new nautical term for me, so I had to check it out and I've added it to my vocabulary. You're certainly right about the extreme tumblehome on the Rattlesnake. Now I know why that false deck was so hard to install. David

Hi Doug, I was thinking some more about Alan's suggestion of sanding the dark areas and restaining the light areas and it reminding me of having toured the Gibbard Furniture facility in Napanee many years ago when they were still in business. They were makers of furniture of the highest quality and they were especially famous for their incredible finishes. According to the person conducting the tour, this spot sanding process was the secret to their impeccable uniform finishes. I think they used fine steel wool, and as I recall they referred to the process as "hand zipping." It might work for you. David

Hi Doug, Your planking looks nice, but I agree that the stain is not quite so successful. Are you using basswood for the planking? It always seems to be the most reluctant to take a stain evenly. I have always found finishing to be the hardest part of woodworking and it's not really much easier for models either. I had a similar situation on the deck of my Constitution (basswood) and finally solved the problem by thinning paint until it was very thin and and then painting it on and wiping it off. It worked very much like a stain, but with just a bit more pigment, so it covered more consistently, but still gave the appearance of stain rather than paint. I also recall that I masked off the rest of the model and went at the deck with paint stripper in an effort to get it as "bleached" as possible before applying the thinned paint. I experimented with colour first, mixing various browns and yellows etc. It might be worth a try playing around on some test wood to see if if this might be a possible solution. I also go through the port-starboard display debate with every model and every time I decide I have to make a switch, my standard by necessity seems to drop just a little. In the end the only really acceptable way to view my models is head-on only (and from about 25 feet away.) David

Good Morning All, Thanks for your comments and likes everyone, and zappto I agree, it was a beautiful ship, with a very long and lean look. A little progress to report - I have started work on the deck details. The stanchions for the forward rail are done, but not installed yet. Then I proceeded to the railing on the quarterdeck and realized that its height depends upon the height of the stanchion on the small platform in front of the quarterdeck, and that stanchion's height depends upon the placement of the platform so I needed to install it first. This of course led me to realize that I needed to install the cannon that sits under the platform on each side before the platform goes in, otherwise I'd never accomplish the rigging. So I set out to assemble the cannons. For some reason, there is no provision in this kit for the rigging of the cannons, (perhaps because they rest under a platform that runs the length of the main deck? - I don't know.) In any event, I've rigged all the ones that are on the main deck, with blocks left over from my Constitution and have installed four of them, and the small platforms that extend from the quarterdeck. One thing I hate doing is making the little hooks that are supposed to be used to attach the blocks to the eyebolts. I can never get them small enough, they always look terrible and they always come unhooked, so this time, I just seized the blocks to the eyebolts. It works for me, and the cannons will be only partially visible in any case. You can see my start at the details for the deck. For the gratings, I tried something that seems to work quite well. I assembled the grating to the approximate size and then I glued it to a piece of heavy black paper. This gave it considerable stability and will work well on this kit, because the gratings just get glued to the deck; there is no actual opening below them, so the black paper will be effective. I just have to remember when installing them "black side down, David" So that's pretty much it for now. David

Good Morning All, Well, I've finally finished painting the hull. This took quite a bit more time than I anticipated. My problem was the line at the top of the wales where the black meets the yellow. The lower line where the black meets the white was easy to tape and achieve a decent result, but not so easy at the top of the wales. The wales is thicker than the planking above it, with a ledge. I wanted the top of the ledge to be black, not yellow, but taping to the 90 degree transition was very hard to do. I must have made four or five attempts and no matter how carefully I thought I was taping, I always ended up with an unacceptable result. It occurred to me that if i could tape flat on the yellow, just a fraction of an inch above the transition point it would be easier to get a clean tape line and perhaps it wouldn't be noticeable to the eye that the line was just barely higher than the top of the wales. So I ran a slightly dull pencil along the top of the wales and it placed a parallel line on the yellow, above the wales barely 1/16 of an inch or so. I taped to this line and it worked like a charm. The eye cannot easily detect what I have done and the result, while not perfect, is acceptable. We're off to a family reunion this weekend. You know what they say - "Family isn't a word, it's a sentence!" If I survive, I'll be back with more updates. David