David Lester

Thanks everyone for your input on the placement of the portholes vis-a-vis the rubbing strake. I believe most of you favour placing the portholes so that they just clear the rubbing strake and I think that's the way I will go. I think if I place the rubbing strake over the portholes, it will look like I messed up somewhere along the way, (and since that never happens 😁, why suggest that it did!) Bill, your St. Roch is coming along very nicely. You asked where I found the trim for the hawse holes. They are a BlueJacket fitting. Here's a picture of the fittings I bought from BlueJacket. BlueJacket calls them hawse lips(F0743.) They're in the upper left of the picture. The lower one is how they come and the upper one is after a little squeeze to more closely resemble the real thing. The others are Hawse lips for the anchors (F0451.) Also there is an anchor for the deck (F0506,) the davits(F0071,) these are not quite the right arc, but can be easily bent into the right shape. They are a bit too long, but I can either cut them off or sink them deeper. Chocks for the rail (F0089,) and blocks. The blocks on the real boat are all internally stropped. These ones (7/32" - F0378 and F0403) will work well. I'll paint them. Also, I decided to add a ships wheel (F0291)which I think will be visible through the window. I also added a few things from Cornwall Model Boats. On the real boat there are six gooseneck vents along the waterways, which are not included in the kit. I thought I'd try these ones. I'm not sure that they're quite right. As small as they are, I think they are still a bit overscale. My plan B is to make them from scratch using pieces of 3mm solder that I have kicking around. (It's about 40 years old and dates from the days when I was still suffering from the delusion that I could successfully accomplish my own plumbing repairs.) Even if I don't use those gooseneck vents, there's another reason why I bought them and that was to get the valves that come with them. They aren't needed for the vents, but another detail that can be added is the two or three water spigots. These won't be hard to make from scratch, but the valves would be. These ones should work for that quite well. I also bought a ladder kit as well as a couple of anchors for the side of the hull. I mentioned in an earlier post that although I generally don't like the plastic parts included in the kit, I actually prefer the provided plastic portholes to the provided brass ones. The plastic ones match the real ones quite accurately and since they will be painted they should look just fine. Cornwall offers these, so I bought a few more to replace the brass ones, which I think have too big a rim. I want to show the ends of the deck planking under the cabin, so I cut the sub deck back a bit and put in a support to carry the ends of the planking stubs. I then filled in the mini planks. This way it won't throw the measurements of the cabin out of whack, as the provided pieces don't account for the extra 1/32" or so that would result if I placed them directly over the sub deck. So that's it for now. This simple kit is proving to be even more fun that I expected. Many thanks for checking in. I really appreciate it. David

I am torn! Looking ahead, I discovered this about the portholes in the hull. The rubbing strake runs right over the flanges. What should I do? If I include that detail then I run the risk of looking like I've made an error, but it appears it would be the most accurate. Or do I locate the portholes slightly higher to look a little tidier, but sacrifice some accuracy. Such problems I have! David

A little progress to report - I finished up the planking and painted the gray on the hull. I intend to add all the stanchions to the bulwarks as well as the waterways, both of which are missing from the kit. In order to do that, I broke off (some by accident) all of the bulkhead extensions. I added the first strip of the waterways (1/32" x 1/16") to the subdeck following its contour. Without the bulkhead extensions, I needed something to place the upper hull pieces against. The waterway created a small lip. I glued the upper hull pieces in place. I added the second strip of the the waterways. The bulwarks are planked on the inside, just at the stern and bow of the boat. This detail is omitted from the kit, but I wanted to add it. I have the stern done. There is a hawse opening at the stern of the boat which I wanted to add as well, so I've cut it in, using the hawse trim (from BlueJacket) as a guide. There are none included in the kit, but I'll add them for all five of the hawse openings. The smallest ones from BlueJacket are about the right length, but just a tad too high. A gentle squeeze with a pair of pliers fixed it easily. I added the planking to the upper hull at the bow and the stern. That's everything so far. Please forgive how rough everything looks. I know I still have plenty of sanding and painting ahead of me. Many thanks for the comments and 'likes.' David

Your St. Roch is looking very good. I'm curious about one thing though. When you planked the upper hull at the bow, did you check to see if there was room for the decal with the name of the boat to fit in the recessed part. It looks like you've used the 3mm planking, and to my eye, it looks like there is enough room, but when I tried it I could not create a wide enough gap to accommodate the decal. I ended up using 2mm planks. Looking very nice. David

I've been working on various deck details. Here's how I built the hatch - The hatch on the boat as it is at Vancouver Maritime Museum- The challenge with this kit is determining what size the deck details ought to be. For example, the kit provided hatch is 50 mm long, but on the plan it shows it as 61 mm long. The 360 degree tour that's available online has a measuring tool, which I am finding to be quite accurate. So, the idea is to consider all the different sizes - the kit component, the plans, the 360 degree tour measurement, and the actual model itself. It's a matter of experimenting and determining what will fit and looks about right. Here's the kit provided hatch - It's three pieces of pre-cut plywood stacked and finished off with a plastic top. Quite apart from its incorrect length, it's a bit too high as well. Having determined what size it needed to be. (I can't remember off hand, what those dimensions are) I used 1/16" x 1/8" stock. I built it in the same "finger joint" style of the real one, but that little detail doesn't really show up after it's painted. A thin top brought it up to 10.5 mm which is pretty close to the correct height in scale. I added a canvas cover using sail material from a previous kit - Next up is the cargo scow. Jumping ahead to these details is to give me something to do while coats of filler on the hull dry. David

That's a tricky little bit to build, Steve and you've done a beautiful job. Chris' comment about MS kits is true and that's why I like them so much. Also those Ben Lankford plans are excellent. You're going to have a wonderful rendition of the CWM! David

Hi Bill, To be honest, I had completely missed the tools available on the 360. I expect the measuring tool will be quite helpful. The stanchions are the very first thing I intend to improve upon as well. My plan was to count them on the 360 tour and then eyeball their spacing. But it will be fun to use the measuring tool and see how well they will fit. At a quick look I would say that stock about 3/32" x 3/32" should be about right, but I may have to go to 1/16" square to ensure staying fully within the width of the rail cap its entire length (they can be tricky to install with complete accuracy for their full run.) I think I mentioned that the measurements on the plans are not reliable. For example, the large chest that sits immediately behind the aft mast is shown as being 1 5/16" long in the elevation view and 1" long in the plan view. That's quite a significant difference. Since I am planning to scratch build all of the deck components it will be necessary to take measurements from the model itself. As far as my plans for other improvements, my list so far includes: -the addition of waterways; the kit doesn't include or mention them -the addition of the six gooseneck vents - along the bulwarks towards the stem -the other vents are shown to be made out of 1/16" brass rod bent into shape. I've experimented and it bends quite well and will make convincing pipes, but I have some 0.10" x 0.20" styrene strip and I'm going to apply it to create ridges and more closely resemble the real thing. -there are many items on the deck, most of them appear to be chests. The plans just have you glue pre-cut rectangles together to create boxes. I'm planning to scratch build all the chests with planking and edge trim etc. -many of the chests on the real boat are covered in canvas; I'm planning to use some of my accumulated sail material to do that too. -you'll notice in the 360 tour that the deck planking extends slightly beyond the forward wall of the main cabin. The model has the side planking on on the cabin extend right down to the main deck. I'm planning to correct that tiny detail. -the davits. At first, I thought that the davits were missing from the kit until I realized that the part number referred to the brass rod, which they simply want you to bend into a gentle arc and that's it. Real davits have a bit of a profile; they're not just cylindrical and the same diameter all the way from bottom to top and they need a hole near the top and cleats attached and what not. So I've order some replacement davits. With respect to the rigging, so far as I can see, it's reasonable accurate. It isn't too hard to follow it on the 360 tour and it differs from the kit very slightly. I am going to upgrade the blocks. The blocks on the real boat are all internally stropped, so I've ordered some from BlueJacket. These are really nice and make quite a big difference. (I used them on my Bluenose.)The kit provides only single blocks, but you actually need a combination of single, double and even triple blocks. Now the question of the plastic parts. I have to admit that it really annoys me that they use them at all. I would gladly have paid a little more for the kit to have gotten proper fittings. That being said, I haven't quite decided on everything just yet, and I haven't discounted all of the plastic parts. For example, the kit provides black plastic port holes for use on the hull, and quite lovely brass ones for use on the cabin. However, in my opinion, the black plastic ones are actually superior. They have a very flat flange and even the rivets or bolt heads are shown. Since they are to be painted, these ones will very closely resemble the real thing. On the other hand, the brass ones, intended for the cabin, have a very heavy protruding flange and no bolt heads - not like the real ones at all. On the real boat the port holes on the cabin are the same as the ones on the hull - very flat, or maybe even flush flanges with bolt heads and painted. I've actually ordered more of the plastic ones, as I think once painted, they will be the best option, despite being plastic. I'm planning to use the plastic life boats. They're really pretty bad, but I'm not interested in building wooden ones and to replace them with metal ones isn't that much of an improvement. My compromise is to paint them gray, and make a "canvas" cover out of sail cloth and cover most of them, just like on the real boat. The interiors won't be visible at all and I think I can easily get away with that. This is not the case for everything. The plastic vents (or stacks) on the other hand are really very bad, so I'm going to replace those with brass tubing. I'm also replacing the plastic propeller. The big remaining question for me though is the windlass and the two winches. They're quite simplified from the real thing, and are a combination of plastic and brass parts. I haven't had any luck seeing upgrade components online from any of the suppliers that look enough like the real ones. So that leaves either living with the provided ones or building new ones either from scratch or modifying the kit ones. I don't know yet. This is a little way down the line, so I will grapple with that question when I get to it. Sorry if this seems like a long winded response, Bill, but you did ask!😊 I'm well know for this in the family and can make my wife pass out in seconds when I share this kind of information with her! David

Jeff, on the website for the Vancouver Maritime Museum (www.vanmaritime.com) there is a very good 360 tour. It shows virtually every aspect of the decks and cabin of the boat in great detail. However, it doesn't show the hull. On Youtube there are various videos that different people have made of their visits to the museum. A number of them include good views of the hull. Together, they cover the whole thing really well. David

I'm back with a build log after a bit of an absence. I've had multiple health problems over the past year, which is in part why I didn't do a build log for my HMS Pegasus and why it took me so long to build it, being away from my shop for long periods of time. However, I seem to be in decent shape for the time being (touch wood) and am back at my workbench. In my hiatus I had been pondering what my next project would be when I stumbled across this model on the Billing website, and after a little bit more research I knew I had found it. This one appealed to me for several reasons: -I wanted something simpler than my last few builds had been -this one has almost no rigging! -it's a Canadian boat. I haven't seen any other one available as a model, apart from the Bluenose -it has a remarkable history - it's only the second boat to ever travel through the Northwest Passage and the first to make the trip twice - it's the first do make the voyage in under one year and it's the first to circumnavigate North America - it resides today at the Vancouver Maritime Museum, has been declared a National Historic Site and the great Stan Rogers recorded a song about it. -there are plenty of pictures and videos online to use as a reference -did I mention that it has almost no rigging? When I was in my 20's I built (very badly) a Billing model, but I don't recall if the quality of the kit was good or bad and I had no frame of reference in any case. So this is for all intents and purposes my first Billing kit and I have a mixed reaction to it. So far the good things are: -the laser cutting is very good and the bulkheads and centre keel fit together extremely well. They're as good as I have ever encountered. -there are quite few specialized brass fittings which are really nice and of good quality. -while the model is simplified, there are no glaring errors in its representation of the real boat. However, there are some negatives too: -there are too many poor quality plastic fittings which come on a sprue just like it was a plastic model car kit. -the hull and deck planking material is pretty rough and not very consistent in width. -while I did want a simpler model, there is too much simplification with this one. Built straight out of the box it would look like one of those gift shop ship models. At 1:72 it's large enough for the designer to have incorporated much more detail. -the plans are poorly drawn. The instruction book is all but useless, which is fine - I didn't expect it to be otherwise, but the plans are disappointing. They appear to be a 1:1 representation of the model, but they are very inaccurate. For example for some of the deck components there are discrepancies in size of up to 1/2" between the elevation and plan views. It's impossible to take measurements from the plan. Nevertheless, it's going to be lots of fun adding detail and upgrading many of the fittings. I currently have big orders in at BlueJacket and Cornwall. So far, I have the hull planked, in my usual "suitable for filler and paint" style. I'm a terrible planker, but I never worry about it because filler and paint are my best friends. I've used some planking from my stash, rather than the kit provided planking. I've made two improvements to the stern area. The kit instructions would have you just cut all of the planking off even at the last bulkhead before the stern. Then you add the two stern blocks and sand them even with the finished planking, leaving them unplanked, just to be painted. I chose to install the stern blocks first and plank over them in the usual way, however I found it to be quite a difficult stern to plank. Secondly, the kit provides for no opening to accept the rudder; it's meant to just butt up against the bottom of the hull. The real boat has a framed rectangular opening, so I added that detail. That's where I'm at! David

Hi Tony, My method is similar to John's but I do it with one seizing. I make a figure-of-eight with the line and do a regular seizing in the centre. I slide the seizing along until one of the loops is just a bit bigger than the block, put the block in and snug the seizing up. Then I draw the second loop until it's just a bit bigger than a drill bit that is the same size as I want the loop to be, put the drill bit in the loop and draw the two ends of the line until everything is snug. A dab of glue, cut the two ends off and it's done. David

Try David Grann's newest book "The Wager"- an amazing story about the HMS Wager. Grann's research is impressive and his writing style is accessible. This led me to read his earlier books all of which are equally compelling.

Hi John, Actually, that chain box is on the MS plan. It's on sheet 4, lower left hand corner of the page. These old photos of the Bluenose are great and I am quite impressed with how accurate the MS model seems to be. Yours is looking great! D

As chairman of our local Habitat for Humanity affiliate (Habitat for Humanity Northumberland) I have been following the development of 3d printed houses with great interest. There are a few Habitat projects in Canada and the US already using this technology. The current high cost of building is putting a real strain on Habitat's ability to deliver affordable houses. As time moves on, this could become an attractive alternative. Now, if they could just figure out how to 3d print land, we'd be all set! David

Hello All, I have now finished the Shamrock V. There was really very little rigging on it, and most of it was dependent on the sails, so once they were ready to install, there was not too much left to do. After making my first set of sails, I decided to have a second go and see if I could improve upon my first attempt. I had used the pounce wheel to mark the seam lines, but I wasn't completely happy with the result. Tom Lauria uses a pencil, but I found that the pencil simply looked too much like a pencil line and tended to smear with the slightest touch. So I contacted Tom and he suggested I needed to use a much harder pencil. Off to Staples I went and found a 6H pencil and this did the trick. It didn't smear at all and left a light crisp line. I still had a bit of trouble keeping the silkspan smooth and flat and I do have some wrinkling at the edges, but I know this is as good as I'm going to get it and I can live with it. And here's the finished model. I didn't chronicle the rigging very much as it is as simple and straightforward as can be and the Amati plans are crystal clear in this department. I don't know enough about yachts of this period to know how much of the detailing is accurate. I suspect some of the deck details are overscale, but I decided not to worry about it if that is the case. The only thing I did do was replace the standard issue wooden blocks with cast ones from BlueJacket which I think look so much better. So now that my current commissions are over, it's back to the Agamemnon in earnest. Again, many thanks for looking it and all the nice comments and likes. I really appreciate it. Happy New Year to all! David

Good Morning Everyone, I've made good progress on the sails. Roger, I appreciate your comment, and as a rule I prefer models without sails. However, I think this yacht needs the sails, and it's a good opportunity for me to experiment with them. As I mentioned earlier, I found the kit provided material all but impossible to work with, so I had ordered some silkspan which arrived on Monday and I spent much of Monday and yesterday working on the the sails. I found the silkspan easy to work with and I believe I will have an acceptable result. Following Tom Lauria's method, I painted the silkspan with some acrylic paint. When dry I pressed it flat with an iron. Tom mentioned using something called dry waxed paper. He doesn't mean regular waxed paper, which would leave quite a mess. Instead of dry waxed paper I used parchment paper which we already had and it did the trick. It can withstand quite a bit of heat and it protects the silkspan. The next step was to cut out the sails. I made cardboard templates, but here I had to differ from Tom's approach, as I ruined my first sail. He outlined his sail with a pencil, but when I did that, as soon as I ran glue along the edge for the reinforcing strip, the pencil just smudged and made a mess of the sail. The next time I ran my pounce wheel along the template and this cleanly laid out the sail. I marked the template where the seams go, according to the plans and transferred those marks to the material, but outside the edge of the sail. Then it was a a simple matter of cutting out some reinforcing strips and gluing them along the edges of the sail. When it came to marking the seams, I differed from Tom again. He recommended drawing on pencil lines to show the seams. However when I did this, the line looked too heavy and seemed, to my eye at least, to look too much like a pencil line drawn on the sail. I know that others have tried actually sewing seam lines on, but I wasn't about to get into that and it often looks over scale in any case. So, I turned to the pounce wheel again and marked the seams with it. I'm pretty happy with the result. It shows up just enough, not so much as to be distracting, but still noticeable. I then flipped the material over and applied the reinforcing strips and "seams" to the other side and then cut the sail out. I then ironed the sails again, between two sheets of parchment paper, and I think they're finished. There are four sails on this model - the three small ones which I've done and one large one. Unfortunately, I will have to re-do it as it's marked out with pencil and isn't too clean looking. Fortunately, I ordered enough material. Anyway, that's my first experience using silkspan and I have to say that I found it to be a very nice product to work with. Thanks again for looking it. David

Good Morning, A little more work on my Shamrock to report. I've finished up the deck details and have a good start on the rigging. The rigging on this model is minimal and quite simple to do. Also the instructions are quite clear so not too big a challenge - I've upgraded the blocks to internally stropped ones, from BlueJacket. This is as far as I can go until I add the sails. Most of the running rigging must be added at the same time as the sails. I'm finding the sails to be a very big challenge. The kit provides some material that seems quite suitable to me. It's a very fine synthetic fabric which does not seem to be over scaled (to my eye at least.) But they only give you just barely enough, certainly not enough for a practice round. I followed the instructions in the kit and also followed someone's Youtube series about his build of the Amati Endeavour yacht, which appears to use the same fabric and method. His seemed to turn out beautifully, but it's lot easier watching it being done than doing it! The approach is to coat the fabric with a 50/50 mixture of white glue and water. Cut out narrow strips to represent the reinforcing at the edges and other points and glue them on. Then cut the sail out. I have two problems, which aren't actually well reflected in my pictures below. First it's very difficult to get the sail to lay flat and not wringle. The first one below is by for my best effort and I even think it could pass as acceptable, however the others are not nearly as good. The second problem is that I underestimated how easily this gluey fabric would pick up every last bit of dust and dirt in my shop. As a result the sails, in addition to being wringly, also look pretty dirty. I think it's possible that I could manage to get an acceptable set of sails using this method, but I would need about three times the fabric to allow for do-overs. So, I have ordered some silkspan from BlueJacket and I'm going to have another go at it, this time following Tom Lauria's approach as he outlined in one of his videos. It's quite similar to the first method I tried, but he coats the material in paint instead of glue. I think I've ordered enough to allow at least one do-over. If I can't get a decent job with the silkspan, I'm not sure what I will do, but I remain optimistic! Once I conquer these sails, the build will be virtually finished. Thanks for checking in. David

Hi Dave, Your stern windows look great. I'm glad you were able to bend the stern piece with success. I don't believe it's identical to the one on my Mamoli Rattlesnake, but it's very similar. Mine had to be bent to fit too, but I wasn't quite as successful and broke it. However it wasn't really a problem (it actually made it easy to fit) and I was able to fit it without the repair showing up I know there are many different ways to paint this kind of part, but here's a method that I discovered in a BlueJacket newsletter and I found it worked really well for me. https://myemail.constantcontact.com/News--tips--and-happenings-from-BlueJacket-Shipcrafters--Inc-.html?soid=1105166336677&aid=EmTQZTxYvqc David

I've added most of the deck fittings. First thing was drilling the many holes for the brass bushings and other fittings. It's hard to believe but there are over 70 1mm holes on this deck! Of course, as we all know, the drilling is pretty easy, it's the locating that's the hard part - The rest of the furnishings are minimal and very easy. I had already assembled the various structures - This is not too complex a build. I actually think I spent more time painting the hull than I have on everything else to this point. So next up is the mast and rigging. It doesn't look to be too difficult and the plans and instructions are quite clear. Thanks again for checking in. David

Thanks for the comments, guys. I've learned the hard way how important it is to get the masking tape really well sealed. I have a pick from an old set of picks for Christmas nuts. The rounded smooth back side of the pick is perfect for rubbing the tape down really well. Then before I apply the second colour, I seal the edge of the tape with a couple of coats of paint the same colour as the paint that's under the tape, then if there is any bleeding, it won't show up and it blocks the second colour from bleeding through at all. It took a few coats of paint to cover and I only did one side at a time, so it seemed a long wait to find out if I had sealed the tape well enough or not. That finish is just brushed on, but the paint went on really smoothly and evenly. I hesitate to tell you what kind of paint it is, because it won't seem sophisticated enough, but it's just Americana Satin Acrylic. I think this paint is made for craft projects and folk art and that type of thing, but I was really impressed with how nice it is to work with and how smoothly it went on. It also seems to have a really hard finish. The level of sheen seems just right to me too. Many of the model paints only come in flat or glossy finishes and it's hard to find something in between with a soft sheen. There wasn't a very dark green available, so this is one they call 'Beret Green' which I mixed with some black. David

Good Morning All, So I've been spending quite a bit of time getting the hull painted and it was a bit of a process arriving at a finished hull. The first question was what colour should it be? There just aren't many resources out there. I cannot find any pictures at all of the original yacht. There are pictures of the current Shamrock, but it's a totally different vessel than the 1930's one. The kit includes pictures of two different finished models. In each case the whole hull is green, with a broad white stripe at the waterline In this one the whole hull is a dark green, with a slight bluish cast Here it's a more yellowy green Initially I painted the hull to match the first picture above, the darker green, which I managed to match quite well and for some reason it looked terrible. Then I rediscovered the picture with the lighter green inside the box and thought that it might look better. Before changing it, I decided to do a little more research on line and became quite confused as to what to do. The current version of the Shamrock is a very dark green with a dark contrasting lower hull, with a broad white stripe at the waterline and a narrow stripe (maybe yellow) higher up - I discovered a number of different pictures of models of the Shamrock out there but no two of them were the same - green tops, black bottoms - white tops, green bottoms - green tops, red bottoms - green tops, copper bottoms etc. etc. However, this one I found by model maker John Adela (ageofsail.net) caught my eye - So I consulted with my friend, whose model this is. (I keep forgetting that I'm not getting to keep this one.) He decided that since we don't really know how the original was painted, it was more a matter of choosing the look he liked best and he settled on the colour combination by John Adela. So I stripped my first paint job off the hull and started over and the results this time are much improved - For some reason, this was the hardest waterline to draw. I simply could not secure the model well enough to draw the line in the way I usually do. I usually place the hull upside down and use some cedar shims to make the hull level side to side and to adjust the height at each end. I clamp a pencil to a square and draw the line on. It's worked easily every time - but not for this hull. I had no better luck with the hull right side up either. In the end, I marked the point at the bow and stern where the waterline would terminate and then placed a strip of narrow masking tape on the hull and continually adjusted it until it looked ok to the eye. This took quite a bit of adjusting and readjusting. When I was happy with it, I drew a pencil line along one side of the tape. By this time the masking tape had been man-handled a lot, so I replaced it with a new strip placed along the pencil line. This worked, but I wouldn't want to have to do it this way every time. So next up is touching up the black around the edge of the deck and then finishing the deck details. Thanks for checking in and Happy Thanksgiving to all my US friends! David

You can buy Admiralty Paint red ochre individually at Cornwall Model Boats. ( https://www.cornwallmodelboats.co.uk/acatalog/admiralty_paints_water.html ) Whenever I need something small like that, I just make up an order of staples - masking tape, drill bits, xacto blades etc. until I have a large enough order to justify the shipping cost. David

I've been working in a very disorganized way, turning my attention from the stern to the bow to the hull and back again. Here are a few pictures of what I've been doing. Here I've added the gallery windows and have done some more painting on the hull. I created this elaborate system for organizing and painting the windows, but if I had it to do over again, I'd have just glued them in place unpainted first and then painted them after. Despite my careful application of several coats of white paint, once in place they still needed touch up and I had to file away paint from the corners of the muntins. So I ended up effectively painting them in place anyway, and it was surprising easy to do. Cutting in around the edges was not hard. I think I could have saved myself a lot of wasted effort. It's starting to look like the Agamemnon - Here I'm adding the first of the moldings. I was a bit intimidated at the prospect of working with these brass strips and I contemplated replacing them with Evergreen styrene strips. In the end, I decided against that as they can be very hard to glue neatly and I thought they would be hard to keep in a straight line. As it turned out, the brass is not difficult to work with, is very easy to glue in place and it looks pretty good. Here's the first one painted - Here is the first stage of the bow details - That's all for now. Thanks again for checking in. David

Good Morning, I have not been working on my Agamemnon for a while, but found some time this week, (when I was not raking leaves!) I always find that at certain stages of a build, I become paralyzed and am not sure what to do next. It seems that every time I set out to do one thing, it's dependent on another being done first. I'm at one of those points with Agamemnon. It seems there are any number of ways I could go and I'm not sure what's best - add hull details, add deck details, work on the stern, work on the bow? In any event, before I can work on the hull details, I need to do some more painting, so I've been doing that, but it's fairly slow going. I always find painting the top edge of the wales very hard to do. I haven't started that in the picture below, and depending on how it goes, you may or may not see a picture of it. 😄 Similarly, in order to work on the stern area, I need to have the windows ready. This is a huge job in and of itself. There are 38 of them. Each has to be fitted to a specific location and it's pretty important to keep them organized. These windows are amazing, very detailed and have a good side, where the muntins are slightly recessed from the frames. They fit their locations very well, but nevertheless still need a bit of filing to seat properly. (I think that's partly due to the black paint slightly filling the rabbet where the window sits.) I divided them up into pairs and worked through them a pair at a time. I filed them to fit properly and then placed each pair in a small bag, numbered to correspond to its location. I wanted to paint them all at the same time to avoid going through the multi-step process repeatedly, so I placed strips of masking tape on a scrap piece of wood. Then I numbered where each pair would go and added a piece of double sided scotch tape. Working in pairs, I washed the windows in some acetone and after they dried, placed them on the double sided tape, ensuring they were right side up. They hold really quite well and this way I can get them all painted at the same time, without too much fear of mixing them up. One coat of white on so far. I think two or three coats will do it. So that's where I am so far with Agamemnon. Not a lot to show, but there is a ton of slow going detail to work through. Thanks for checking in. David

I used CA glue. It was either Gorilla Glue or Bob Smith. I have both, but I don't recall which I used in this case. David

I don't know for a fact that they were painted, Allan, but it's my best guess based on the old black and white photos of the Bluenose. In the first picture of my post above, comparing the blocks to the parts that we know were white, such as the rails and then to the boom, which appears to be natural, I think they look white. In any case, rightly or wrongly, painting them white was an easy approach when using cast metal blocks. It's easier to paint a white finish than a natural looking wood finish.😀 On the Bluenose II however, they are definitely natural. Those Syren blocks would look great finished like this. David