David Lester

Hello Everyone,
I've been feeling a bit embarrassed about my build log for some time now which I've allowed to become virtually non-existant. I became very lazy about taking photographs and making updates, and then the more time that passed the less inclined I become to update. Nevertheless, I finished my Constitution in April, so if I upload photos of it now, I hope you'll forgive me for the huge gap in the middle. I pretty much had the hull and its details finished when I last checked in, so it's primarily the masts and rigging that I haven't reported on.
The rigging end of things went quite well generally. Making the masts and yards was very enjoyable and not particularly difficult. I didn't find the rigging too difficult either, but at times the shear volume of it and its finicky nature were a bit daunting. It was very frustrating to stop for lunch (and a quick fix of CNN) only to return to my shop and discover that I had tied a whole set of lines on the wrong side of something. I'm sorry to report that this happened to me more than a few times. However, every time it did happen, I tore it out and redid it. I am certain that there are many errors in my rigging, but at least I can say that none that were apparent to me went unaddressed. 
This was my second build and I couldn't have enjoyed it more. It was the model I wanted to do from the outset, but I chose to build the AVS first as a practice piece and I'm glad I did. I didn't find the Constitution to be especially difficult (although it had plenty of challenges), it's really more a matter of the volume of the work it requires that might be overwhelming as a first kit.
I used Bob Hunt's practicums for both the AVS and the Constitution. The one for the AVS is excellent and as a complete novice, I don't believe I could have worked my way through the model without it. For the Constitution, the first half of the practicum is also excellent and I found it an invaluable resource. However, when it came to the rigging, it was quite a different matter. This part of the course is so full of errors and omissions and with a confusing approach that in many ways it hindered rather than helped. I did buy the Lennarth Petersen Rigging Period Ship Models and it was a very helpful resource.
 
I know for a fact that my family is glad this project is done. They seem to take great delight in teasing me about how much I tend to talk about it and at what great length. At Christmas, my sister-in-law innocently asked "how's the model coming along?" at which point my son jumped in with "Oh my god, whatever you do, don't ask - do not engage - do not make eye contact - do not show fear!" But their respite is to be short lived as I have now started on the Rattlesnake.
 
Here are some pictures of my completed Constitution.
 
 

Happy Memorial Day all.  Here in Delaware it is, once again, raining.  A good excuse to plunge into my next project - the main deck hatch coaming. 
 
I haven't built anything like this before.  My Robert Hunt practicum shows 2 ways to make it- the default is with butt joints and looks straightforward.  Those with a bit more confidence could do mitered joints.  Hmmm...
 
But then I happened on a picture in Grant Walker's Volume 3 and it all went to heck.

Mitered half-lapped joints?   sweet.  The George Stockwell coamings above are lower, whereas the one I'm attempting to make are tall and tapering but I thought I could figure it out. 
 
Right from the outset I was having trouble visualizing what the joint pieces would look like.  My cartoons mostly confused me even more and looking at them now I realize I initially added an extra butt joint.  Even with revisions I was still not clearly visualizing the joints and especially how to make them.

The coaming is supposed to stick up 1/4" above the deck, and my deck planking will be 3/64" thick, so my wood stock will be 1/4" + 3/64" = whatever that adds up to.  I wanted some of the butt joint to be visible above the decking so I decided to extend it 7/64" high and start the taper a 64th above.  This was a lot of thinking and measuring with calipers and math.
 
Below is my first test pieces, made from the kit's limewood.  These were not measured and only served to help me visualize the shape of the joints.  I glued various pieces of stock wood together; there wasn't an exact match in the kit.  I also have the hand powered Ultimation Sander (which works very well) and I used it to make the 45 degree miters on the short pieces (left) below.  It can't be used for the long pieces (right) below as the butt joint part of the coaming stick out.

The practicum and the pictures in Grant Walker's book both show the endgrain of the butt joint being oriented fore-aft so thats what I did as well.
 
Miters are challenging at any scale; I needed to cheat, so I made some jigs.  The sections in David Anscherl's and Greg Herbert's various book about making lites was very helpful.  I am still making test pieces here and I didn't take pictures of every step but I will do a better job with the actual holly stock.
 
Below I glued 2 pieces of rectangular wood to my board and put 2 pieces of thin strip below the test stock to raise it up so exactly 7/64" stuck up out of the jig.  Some walnut wedges kept it from shifting.  I had used my smallest square and a scalpel previously to incise the edges of the butt joint; then I used the edge of my chisel held flat on the jig to incise a fine line on both sides which defined the rest of the butt joint.  Then I gradually chiseled out the waste.  This made a very square and flat joint.

As before these test pieces are made up of several glued up smaller pieces.
 
Below you can see my miter jig.  I clamped the long piece of coaming to the jig and holding a flat chisel against the jig used it to cut the miters.  I didn't take pics of this process but I will next time.
 

and here's another pic of the joint

All good so far.  I glued it together with yellow glue mixed with a little graphite, same as I have previously done on my scarf joints. 

And finally I drew some lines with my compass marking out the taper and first chiseled then refined the coaming's taper with sanding sticks.  The camera kept insisting my fingers were more interesting than the wood joint I was holding, sorry about that.
 

 
And there is my ever first mitered butt joint.  Next up is preparing my holly stock and doing it for real.
 
Thanks for reading
 
Cisco
 

I'm not sure if I mentioned it in my build log or not, but I left the bottom piece off and using a fine hand saw, I cut the whole thing in two, running the saw stem to stern through the centre. It made it much easier to sand the interior and it glued back together perfectly. I can't take credit for the method however; I read it on another build log, but I can't really recall which one.
David

Jib Downhauls…

Just in, Amati Rope for the downhaul rigging. 


Threading down haul through hanks. 

Tying down haul off to Jumbo Jib. 

Jumbo Jib down haul belayed to starboard bitt. 

Jib Downhaul belayed to pin #2

Balloon Jib belayed to pin #1. 

Jib Downhauls complete with rope coils. 
 
Cheers 🍻 

Hello All,
 
I believe I have finished! One of the attractions for me with this model was the limited amount of rigging, but it still caught me by surprise how quickly it wrapped up.
 
There isn't too much to discuss about it either. It's very straightforward. From the 360 tour on the website, I was able to sort out a couple of details that aren't evident in the plans.
 
So that's it for my St. Roch. This was quite a fun small build, not too challenging. The most fun was sourcing and making improvements on some of the poor quality fittings included in the kit.
 
Thanks again for checking in. Much appreciated.
David

 

 

Good Morning,
A short update, but what appears to be a lot of progress. Really just a few minutes of gluing the components on the decks and it almost looks like the model is done.
 
What I found the most challenging so far has been the railings. The ones running along the rail are easy, but the ones on the roofs of the deck house and wheel house were much more difficult. In my naivete I thought I could use one piece of brass rod for each run of the railing, bending it in the appropriate places and feeding it through the stanchions. After about an hour I was about as bent out of shape as the brass rod! In the end, and after restraining myself from throwing the whole thing across the room, I used individual pieces, gluing them between the stanchions.

There's a small platform on the starboard side of the hull. On the real boat, the stanchions are very thin and end in an "eye" through which the chain passes. I experimented with a small piece of dowel, drilling a small hole in the end for an eyebolt. This worked ok, but looked far too heavy. The stanchions need to be no bigger than the 1/32" brass rod to look right and there was no way I could drill into the end of that, so I flattened a small bit of the rod at the end with a hammer and drilled through that. Not 100% accurate, but I think it works ok.
 


 

Just a couple more small details to attend to -the axe and fire hose and some paint touch-up, and then it's time to start working on the shrouds.
 
Many thanks for checking in.
 
David

Thanks for noticing the detail Phil. I appreciate your comments. There certainly is a lot of detail. 🧐 I know I’m not getting it all perfect, but she is looking good. 😊 
 
More interesting still is the crew coordination it takes to work the rigging to hoist the sails then sail the vessel. It was certainly fascinating to watch the Bluenose II crew on our short cruise on her last summer. It helps to understand how this stuff works. 
 
Cheers 🍻 
 



 
 

Jib, Balloon Jib and Jumbo Jib…
 
Balloon Jib


Balloon Jib Sheet belayed through snatch block to pin #41 Starboard side. 

Balloon Jib Halyard belayed pin #14 starboard side. 

Balloon Jib Sheet belayed (slack) through snatch block to pin #41 port. 
 
Jumbo Jib

Preparing Jumbo Jib Halyard Pendant Block. 

Jumbo Jib Halyard Tackle tied off to itself. 

Jumbo Jib Halyard Tackle installed starboard side. 

Jumbo Jib Halyard Blocks aloft…

Jumbo Jib Halyard belayed to Pin #13 port. 
 

Jumbo Jib Sheet Tackle belayed to Pin #5 on the Fore Mast Pin Rail. 

Prepared Topping Lift Tackle for Jumbo Jib Boom. 

Topping Lift installed…


Toping Lift belayed to pin #6 Fore Mast Pin Rail. 

With the exception of downhauls, The Jib Rigging is complete. 
 
Cheers 🍻 
 

Almost all of the standing rigging has been added to the masts to include:
upper shrouds & ratlines lower shrouds backstays forestays and their mouses (mice?)  
I’ll hold off adding the topgallant stays until later in the build because it would be very easy to snag one an break off a delicate topgallant mast
 
The brass rods that are sitting near the top of the topgallant mast are just placeholders - they keep me from accidentally covering up the topgallant yard sheaves.
 

 
Needing to take break from all the thread and tweezers I worked on a few minor items such as adding the stern lantern and ensign staff
 

 
Fabricating the anchors
 

 
Painting the gunport lids
 

 
Next up will adding the yards to the foremast

Very nicely done.  I think I want to try this one in the future and will definitely be coming back to this log.

Hello All,
 
I believe I have finished! One of the attractions for me with this model was the limited amount of rigging, but it still caught me by surprise how quickly it wrapped up.
 
There isn't too much to discuss about it either. It's very straightforward. From the 360 tour on the website, I was able to sort out a couple of details that aren't evident in the plans.
 
So that's it for my St. Roch. This was quite a fun small build, not too challenging. The most fun was sourcing and making improvements on some of the poor quality fittings included in the kit.
 
Thanks again for checking in. Much appreciated.
David

 

 

Hello All,
 
I believe I have finished! One of the attractions for me with this model was the limited amount of rigging, but it still caught me by surprise how quickly it wrapped up.
 
There isn't too much to discuss about it either. It's very straightforward. From the 360 tour on the website, I was able to sort out a couple of details that aren't evident in the plans.
 
So that's it for my St. Roch. This was quite a fun small build, not too challenging. The most fun was sourcing and making improvements on some of the poor quality fittings included in the kit.
 
Thanks again for checking in. Much appreciated.
David

 

 

Congratulations on a very fine model. She looks great!
Peter

Hello All,
 
I believe I have finished! One of the attractions for me with this model was the limited amount of rigging, but it still caught me by surprise how quickly it wrapped up.
 
There isn't too much to discuss about it either. It's very straightforward. From the 360 tour on the website, I was able to sort out a couple of details that aren't evident in the plans.
 
So that's it for my St. Roch. This was quite a fun small build, not too challenging. The most fun was sourcing and making improvements on some of the poor quality fittings included in the kit.
 
Thanks again for checking in. Much appreciated.
David

 

 

Thank you everyone for all the kind comments and likes!
Now I just have to find a place to put it; my collection is getting out of hand.
Thanks again,
David

Brief update for this morning -
Bill, if you use the 360 tour and go to the extreme forward starboard side of the roof of the deck house, you can just get a glimpse of the rod arrangement running along the roof. It appears to be a complicated set-up and pretty hard, if not impossible to model accurately at this scale, at least without a better reference. So I'm just representing it with a simple single rod.
I'm not going to add sails. I tend to prefer my models without them, but this model would be an ideal one to show furled ones on. Have you seen Tom Lauria's youtube video on making furled sails from silkspan? It's quite good.
 
I've been working on the lifeboats. I don't like the fact that they're plastic, yet at the same time, I don't really like the idea of building new ones either and I can't seem to locate cast ones that are quite right. So my solution is to use the plastic ones and show them with their canvas covers.
 
I use some sail material from another kit. I was hoping to leave them unpainted, but did paint them in the end, because they looks just a bit too dirty by the time I finished.
 
I first thought I could make each one from one piece of cloth, but soon realized that wouldn't work. The real ones, of course, are constructed out of several pieces, taking the shape into consideration. So, my solution was to use three pieces for each boat like this:
 


I simple glued the side pieces on first. I used white glue which holds quite well. I didn't want to use CA in case I had to remove the piece and start over. I don't think the plastic boat would stand up to the acetone. (It may not have stood up to alcohol any better, had I needed to start over, but I thought the odds were better.) As it turned out, I didn't need to start over.
 
This seems to work fairly well and with so little of the boat showing, it's hard to tell what it's made of.
 
Next, I'm going to attack the windlass.
 
Thanks for checking in.
David
 
 

Good Morning,
A short update, but what appears to be a lot of progress. Really just a few minutes of gluing the components on the decks and it almost looks like the model is done.
 
What I found the most challenging so far has been the railings. The ones running along the rail are easy, but the ones on the roofs of the deck house and wheel house were much more difficult. In my naivete I thought I could use one piece of brass rod for each run of the railing, bending it in the appropriate places and feeding it through the stanchions. After about an hour I was about as bent out of shape as the brass rod! In the end, and after restraining myself from throwing the whole thing across the room, I used individual pieces, gluing them between the stanchions.

There's a small platform on the starboard side of the hull. On the real boat, the stanchions are very thin and end in an "eye" through which the chain passes. I experimented with a small piece of dowel, drilling a small hole in the end for an eyebolt. This worked ok, but looked far too heavy. The stanchions need to be no bigger than the 1/32" brass rod to look right and there was no way I could drill into the end of that, so I flattened a small bit of the rod at the end with a hammer and drilled through that. Not 100% accurate, but I think it works ok.
 


 

Just a couple more small details to attend to -the axe and fire hose and some paint touch-up, and then it's time to start working on the shrouds.
 
Many thanks for checking in.
 
David

Hello All,
 
I believe I have finished! One of the attractions for me with this model was the limited amount of rigging, but it still caught me by surprise how quickly it wrapped up.
 
There isn't too much to discuss about it either. It's very straightforward. From the 360 tour on the website, I was able to sort out a couple of details that aren't evident in the plans.
 
So that's it for my St. Roch. This was quite a fun small build, not too challenging. The most fun was sourcing and making improvements on some of the poor quality fittings included in the kit.
 
Thanks again for checking in. Much appreciated.
David

 

 

Hello All,
 
I believe I have finished! One of the attractions for me with this model was the limited amount of rigging, but it still caught me by surprise how quickly it wrapped up.
 
There isn't too much to discuss about it either. It's very straightforward. From the 360 tour on the website, I was able to sort out a couple of details that aren't evident in the plans.
 
So that's it for my St. Roch. This was quite a fun small build, not too challenging. The most fun was sourcing and making improvements on some of the poor quality fittings included in the kit.
 
Thanks again for checking in. Much appreciated.
David

 

 

Good Morning,
Well, I think it's about time to quite adding things to this boat - those decks and roofs are pretty much full!
 

I've added many details that are not included in the kit, and I need to stop because I'm just about out of room.






It's been fun improving what is really a very basic kit. While the kit omits many of the details, at least it was reasonably accurate so far as it went and I couldn't detect any really glaring errors in what was included. I did have a bit of trouble fitting some things in, due to scale, but I think it's ok overall.
 
Here's how I made the fire hose. I started with a piece of sail fabric from another kit and painted it with watered down white glue to prevent fraying. I cut a strip 3/16" wide and then folded it in half lengthwise and glued it. This resulted in a 3/32" wide strip with one rounded over edge. I simply rolled it up and secured it with some glue. That was the easy part.
 
I had a bit of trouble with the wooden frame that holds the hose. I tried to make the frame separately and then just slip the coiled hose into place. This wouldn't work for me as I couldn't get the tiny pieces of wood to stay together, especially with the odd angles at which they meet. Then I had another one of my 3 am epiphanies and realized I was going about it the wrong way. The answer was to glue the individual pieces of the frame directly to the coil, one by one. This was very easy to do and the result is much better than my failed earlier attempts.


So that's the hull and all of its details done. Now it's on to the masts and rigging. With many models this is often only about the half way point, but this one has so little rigging, that it won't be long before I'm looking for a new project.
 
I've started the shrouds. The shrouds on the real boat have serving in a contrasting colour, so that was a fun detail to add.
 

That's all for now.
Many thanks for checking in.
David

Good Morning,
A short update, but what appears to be a lot of progress. Really just a few minutes of gluing the components on the decks and it almost looks like the model is done.
 
What I found the most challenging so far has been the railings. The ones running along the rail are easy, but the ones on the roofs of the deck house and wheel house were much more difficult. In my naivete I thought I could use one piece of brass rod for each run of the railing, bending it in the appropriate places and feeding it through the stanchions. After about an hour I was about as bent out of shape as the brass rod! In the end, and after restraining myself from throwing the whole thing across the room, I used individual pieces, gluing them between the stanchions.

There's a small platform on the starboard side of the hull. On the real boat, the stanchions are very thin and end in an "eye" through which the chain passes. I experimented with a small piece of dowel, drilling a small hole in the end for an eyebolt. This worked ok, but looked far too heavy. The stanchions need to be no bigger than the 1/32" brass rod to look right and there was no way I could drill into the end of that, so I flattened a small bit of the rod at the end with a hammer and drilled through that. Not 100% accurate, but I think it works ok.
 


 

Just a couple more small details to attend to -the axe and fire hose and some paint touch-up, and then it's time to start working on the shrouds.
 
Many thanks for checking in.
 
David

Good Morning,
I have most of the bits and pieces ready to be added to the deck. Getting the size correct on these has been a bit of a challenge. The plans cannot be trusted. The drawings differ between the plan view and elevation view by as much as 10mm on some things!
 
There is a measuring tool on the 360 tour on-line that works very well, but it's difficult to get every measurement needed and not always easy to get the same measurement twice. So it's been a matter of trial and error and discovering what fits and looks about right to the eye.
 

I enhanced the kit provided windlass a little bit, relying on the on-line pictures and working only with the limited supplies and tools that I have.
 


I'm not sure that it's completely correct, but it looks complicated enough to be believable 😁
 
Thanks for looking it and I hope everyone has a great Easter weekend.
David
 

Brief update for this morning -
Bill, if you use the 360 tour and go to the extreme forward starboard side of the roof of the deck house, you can just get a glimpse of the rod arrangement running along the roof. It appears to be a complicated set-up and pretty hard, if not impossible to model accurately at this scale, at least without a better reference. So I'm just representing it with a simple single rod.
I'm not going to add sails. I tend to prefer my models without them, but this model would be an ideal one to show furled ones on. Have you seen Tom Lauria's youtube video on making furled sails from silkspan? It's quite good.
 
I've been working on the lifeboats. I don't like the fact that they're plastic, yet at the same time, I don't really like the idea of building new ones either and I can't seem to locate cast ones that are quite right. So my solution is to use the plastic ones and show them with their canvas covers.
 
I use some sail material from another kit. I was hoping to leave them unpainted, but did paint them in the end, because they looks just a bit too dirty by the time I finished.
 
I first thought I could make each one from one piece of cloth, but soon realized that wouldn't work. The real ones, of course, are constructed out of several pieces, taking the shape into consideration. So, my solution was to use three pieces for each boat like this:
 


I simple glued the side pieces on first. I used white glue which holds quite well. I didn't want to use CA in case I had to remove the piece and start over. I don't think the plastic boat would stand up to the acetone. (It may not have stood up to alcohol any better, had I needed to start over, but I thought the odds were better.) As it turned out, I didn't need to start over.
 
This seems to work fairly well and with so little of the boat showing, it's hard to tell what it's made of.
 
Next, I'm going to attack the windlass.
 
Thanks for checking in.
David
 
 

I've been trying to figure out the complicated steering arrangements on this boat. The kit provides some, but not all of the parts that are required and absolutely no mention of any of it in the plans or instructions. However, I've managed to decipher enough of it from the on-line 360 tour to make an acceptable representation of it.
 
It seems really odd to me that considering that this boat spent most of its life in the Arctic, exposed to snow and ice that so much of this gear would be external, rather than internal.
 
It appears to me that either cable or chain (which is encased and not visible) connects the wheel to rods that in turn connect to chain that runs down the aft side of the deck house, then runs aft along the deck to the rudder which is located beneath a deck fitting; a table or bench (not sure what it should be called.)
 





Now I'm mulling over how to handle the two winches and windlass. The ones provided in the kit are over-simplified and mostly plastic. The winches shouldn't be too hard to re-imagine, but the windlass is a complex piece and will be more difficult. At least, too difficult for my evening brain; more suited to my morning brain. All I'm good for by this time of night is a detective series on BritBox! (my favourite is Vera)
David 
 
 
 
 

Good Morning,
 
Bill, those models look great. Just saw your post now; we've been away for a couple of days.
 
A Saturday morning update -
 
Lately I seem to have the attention span of a gerbil and have been working on all kinds of different things.
 
First, the four vent pipes:
 
They're made out of 1.5mm brass rod, bent into shape. I wanted to indicate the joints. First I tried some Evergreen styrene strips, .01" x .02" but it was much too large to be in scale. Then I tried some rigging thread. By trial and error I discovered that both .5 mm and .25 mm lines were too heavy. I settled on ordinary sewing thread and it seems about right.

 


Next, I was concerned that the supplied piece of dowel was not going to be quite right for the funnel. Taking measurements from the on-line 360 tour, I discovered that at 16mm diameter it was spot one. It was just a matter of flattening the sides to about 12mm. Finishing the funnel is probably next in my peripatetic approach to the details.
 


 
The biggest challenge for me has been the four metal ladders. The ones provided are brass and are not bad quality, but don't look anything like the actual ones on the boat. It took me several attempts, but I have come up with something that I think is acceptable and are a pretty close approximation of the real ones.
 
The three that mount on the deck house have curved tops, flat sides and round rungs. So I used some 1/64" x 1/16" brass strips for the sides. I made a small saw kerf at about the place where I wanted it to bend, and then just bent it using two pairs of pliers. It buckled a little, so using my best blacksmithing skills, I just hammered it flat. It's not very elegant, but once painted gray, it's going to work just fine. The rungs are .5mm wire.
 
I'm really bad at soldering, but I discovered that one of the secrets is to hold the parts very firmly. I made two parallel grooves in a piece of wood. Once I had the holes drilled and the wire rungs inserted, I just placed the sides in the two grooves and gave the whole thing a tap with a hammer to seat it. This worked really well, and it wasn't too difficult to solder each rung in place.
 
The ends of the rungs are snipped off and they've had some cleanup ready for paint. I think these will work, and besides, it's the best I can do, and once I know I've reached that point, I can live with it.
 
The fourth ladder that mounts to the wheelhouse doesn't have a curved top and I'll cut it to length when I get to that point.
 

 
The final item for today is the railing that extends out from the wheelhouse on both sides. These pieces were easy to make and I added the detail to the back side to match that of the real boat.
 

So that's it for now.
Again, many thanks for checking in, likes etc.
David