David Lester

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

Hi Dave,
I agree with both comments above; a piece of basswood will work just fine for the anchor stocks and I have never used a build board. I glue the bulkheads in one at a time. It's a slow process but works just fine. Then when it's down to planking and sanding, the hull seems to spend as much time on my lap as it does on the bench.
 
I'm looking forward to following your progress. I've built the Mamoli Rattlesnake, which my grandson now has, but I'd like to build it again, this time the MS version. I have a real soft spot for this one. I credit it as the reason I got into building model ships. I've told the story on the forum before, but it was a quite a while ago now. When I was a kid my best friend's dad built model ships and I was mesmerized by them. I've forgotten the names of most of them, but what little kid could forget the name Rattlesnake. My friend still has it. This model would be about 60 years old now. I don't know if it's a kit or from scratch, but the way he handled the stern makes me think this might be a scratch build.



Look at the unusual colour he used for the bulwarks. I believe the MS instructions suggest that the bulwarks should be gray. I guess that's what he was going for, but this is almost a pale blue. Also look at the flag. I don't know much (let's be honest - I know nothing) about flags, but I'm pretty sure this can only be a British ensign. My friend's dad was a real history buff and serious anglophile, so he must have opted to display the model after it was captured by the British. From what I've read, I understand that it was first re-named Cormorant by the British and then later changed the name back to Rattlesnake.
 
Sorry, I hope I haven't hijacked your build log too seriously with this digression.
David

Good Friday to All,
 
It has begun! 😄 Wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. Actually the hardest part was overthinking, looking at the drawings until my eyes hurt and looking at all the build logs to decide where to start. I almost went with the hull planking first, but I remembered how I manhandled the Lady Nelson and thought I’d surly snap the gun port framing over and over. I know it looks a little crude, but when I’m down to the wales, then I’ll break out the sandpaper and clean up the ports. 
 


 

I started in last night and am beginning to get a feel for this kit.
 
I noticed that the included stand needed quite a bit of tweaking to fit the hull correctly. I decided to tend to this first, rather than later after things are attached to the deck and the hull is painted.
 
Both the model and the stand are very light in eight and it proved to be helpful to drill a small hole in the bottom of the keel and place a pin between the stand and the keel.
 


The first item in the instructions is the rudder, which is made from some kind of plywood with a fairly coarse grain on the outer layer. The rudder needed to be tapered. A little more fine sanding and maybe even filling will probably be required. I'm going to leave that until I get one coat of paint on first, to better see what is needed.
 


 
I could not imagine this rudder adhering well to the resin hull with some pinning -
 


Next was the sub deck which just gets glued directly to the hull. There's a hole in the hull for the mast to sit in, so it was just a matter of putting the mast in place through the sub deck to line them up.
 
The sub deck fits the hull beautifully. It was just ever so slightly oversized so that it could be sanded to perfectly match the profile of the hull.
 

Centre line drawn and ready to begin the planking.

The planking on this one is different than I've seen before. It's 2mm x 2mm basswood (or lime) and the planks are supposed to curve following the curve of the hull, not run straight. Because of this it's going to be necessary to work from the outside in, rather than from the centre line out.
 
 
We'll see how that goes.
 
David

Hello Again,
Well, I certainly didn't expect to be building a J Class yacht until yesterday when a friend called and asked if I'd build his Shamrock V for him. He has had the kit collecting dust on a shelf for many years and doesn't anticipate ever getting to it, so asked me if I'd build it for him.
 
I have learned that Amati makes a range of America's Cup yacht kits, but the Shamrock V is one that has been discontinued.
 
Since yesterday I have been poring over the kit. It will prove to be a relatively simple build, but appears to be a high quality kit. The fittings are excellent and the instructions and plans are very clear and easy to understand. (I do have a question about the rigging, but I'll ask that in a separate post under the right topic.)
 
This kit has a pre-cast hull ( a type of resin, I guess) which will cut down on the amount of work needed considerably.
 
I have never added sails to a model before, but I think this is one model that definitely needs them, so I'll be reading through everything I can find on making sails. The fabric provided in the kit is very fine and I don't think it will need to be replaced.
 
Here are a couple of shots of the kit:


So, an unexpected change of pace.
 
David

After a week or so the masts and bowsprit are done. Next rig the masts then make and rig the yards

Good Evening fellow builders!  The more I go to work the more I like model shipbuilding. 
 
And I'm hoping this update may push my log through to page 4.  When you're almost to the end of the page it takes a while to scroll down.
 
Aliluke- I went over your log many times before choosing to do my AVS.  Your version is beautiful!  As I recall you lost the text in the Great Crash of '13 and re-posted pics to MSW Take 2.  I built Model Shipway's 18th century longboat and thought the blocks and rope the kit provided were ok, once I filed the edges of the blocks round instead of leaving them square.  For this endevour I hope to push it up a notch and get aftermarket rope from Chuck or Ropes of Scale.  Or better yet make my own!  I took an Admiralty course with Greg, Chuck, and Dave last year on ropemaking.  Have to at least try... but thats going to be future Cisco's problem.   Ditto for the blocks.
 
Dan I appreciate you checking in on my progress.  I messaged you a while ago about using bone and you were very helpful; I am still planning on using some bone in this build for the deck furniture.  Thats another learning curve to struggle through; I'm not up to trying bone planking yet.  Thank you for your planking pic tutorial- as you suggested I am planning on doing the bottom belt first, then the top, then fill in the middle.  I agree it might be easier to put in stealers to shift planking to follow a straight line, versus my plan of shifting planking to make the stealers fit.   For now I'm following my current drawing, but based on how that goes I may alter the other side.
By the way that last plank you made that fits over the stealer, in your last picture- that is impressive Sir.  Fitting a straight plank on 2 sides without big gaps gives me fits, nevermind one with a dogleg.
 
And this weeks progress- 3 whole rows of planking and hardly any pondering.
 
I still like my wedges to push planks snug.  The pins that came with the kit are handy as stops for the wedges, as long as they are pushed through planking into a bulwark.  Otherwise they bend sideways and the wedges pop out which is frustrating.  And so far the DeWalt clamps reach.  These planks I have been starting out with wider stock and shaving them down to a little fat, then bending with both a travel iron and a hairdryer, then final fitting on the bottom edge with files, then bring to final width with my Veritas MiniPlane. 

I realize the above pic looks like big gaps at the stern but thats ok.  One of those planks is a stealer which isn't glued in, on the other most of it will be trimmed off.

In the above pic the plank above the stealer was hard to clamp.  None of the wedges wanted to stay put and kept popping off, I think because the plank had a twist that wasn't perfectly bent, so when I clamped one end it levered the other end just enough.  You can see my pins but only 1 wedge (under the dewalt clamp).  Still, it eventually worked.
 
Here's the current state with 3 of the 4 rows of planks put in the bottom belt.  The final layer of this belt will come up to the top of the blue tape.  So far it looks like the plan I came up with last post, and my but joints are where I wanted/drew them.

Thats all the planking excitement for this week. 
 
I got 2 books last month (I have to strictly ration myself otherwise the house would be full of books and no room for people).  Building the Wooden Fighting Ship is pretty good, lots of pictures, I learned a lot.  Naval Warfare is also good, although most of the book is really about the advent of steam power and the transition from wooden to metal hulls.   So the cover is a bit deceiving.

 
 
Ok my wife's cats are galloping through my office, knocking over stacks of books and manacing my Legos so its time to go shoo them out.  Until next time have a great evening!
 
Cisco

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

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

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

Good Morning Boys,
 
After I slept on my dilemma, I got up this morning and looked at every build log I could find for the Rattlesnake (I think I have them all bookmarked 😳😄) and found a wide verity of builds regarding the gun port installations. Some go clear to the top of the bulkheads, others slightly lower and some lower yet. All the finished ships look so alike and unless you were eyeballing this particular thing, you wouldn’t know the difference. The drawings… as I think they all are… are wooden ship building hobby drawings… not CAD and such with tolerances like .09 - .1 inch that I’ve been using all my life in the aviation industry. John, you hit it on the nail. By my very best attempt to get the actual model to match the drawing I was 2mm lower than what I am now. I will still be able to get (1) 1/32 X 3/32 plank between the top of the gun port and the cap rail. Half of the completed ships I look at… that’s what they ended up with. 
 
So, all that math aside, it just looks like the carriages might be a tad large. When the model is complete (rigging included) if someone says, “Dave your cannon carriages are out of scale” they get a prize. 😆 John, your completed gun port installation is about a mm below mine. Your cannons will be very high in the gun port. But as Keith mentioned, modify the cannon carriage so the cannon sits lower in it. My cannons are all built, yours are not, go for it. There’s just no getting around the realism and end product of the Syren carriage! Unfortunately the cannon carriages that came with the kit are… atrociously not realistic and look like toys.

I expected to be now concentrating on my Agamemnon, but it seems the ship modelling gods had something else in store for me. I have been asked by someone to build a Mayflower for them.
 
This is not a model that I would have chosen for myself, as I'm not particularly interested in 17th century vessels. My favourites are late 18th century. Nevertheless I'm happy enough to build it for someone else. Keeps me off the streets.
 
There are several Mayflowers available, but I settled on the Model Shipways version, as I tend to like their kits generally and Chuck Passaro designed this one, so it seemed to me to be the best option.
 
I don't tend to complain too much about cast metal parts. Usually I find they can be made to be acceptable with a little filing, paint etc. But I don't think I've ever seen anything as bad as these cast metal crow's nests that came with the kit. In the instructions, it shows wooden components which appear to be quite acceptable and which I assume is how the kit originally shipped. However, I was surprised by what I found which look like something my grandmother would have baked tarts in. These just won't do.
 

Not only do they look horrendous, but I don't know how I would be able to use them. It's difficult to see in the picture, but there is almost no lip or overhang on the upper rim, yet it's necessary to mount deadeyes and futtock shrouds. I just don't see how I could do that. Also, much of this ship has a natural finish, so painting these things to blend in would be almost impossible.
 
So rather than starting at the beginning, I decided to get this problem behind me first and I set out to design and build something that I could live with.
Here is what I have come up with:
 





I simplified them slightly. The plans show 16 brackets of about 1/32" wide. I was having quite a bit of trouble with that, so I reduced the number to 12 and made them 1/16" and I found that worked better for me and still looks ok.
 
The crow's nests on the replica Mayflower II have closed sides, and I believe it was the idea for this model too. However, I'm going to leave them open. I experimented with closing them in and wasn't happy with the look. Also, all of the other kit versions of the Mayflower have open sides, as do many other ships of this period.
 
There isn't a lot of glue surface on the upper ring and there's going to be a bit of tension on it, so I added four pieces of brass rod that run through to the bottom, which should give it a bit more structural integrity. You can see one of them in the picture above, but I don't think they will show up when all the bits and pieces are in place.
 
So, now I can relax, knowing that I have that little problem solved and go back to the beginning.
 
David
 
 

Upper deck planking is complete with the exception of a final sanding and second coat of Poly. Planks were staggered as per the shift pattern in the instructions. I tried to capture the color of the wood as best I could in the photos. I think the Cherry is a nice fit for this project. 
 
I need to make some tweaks to the bulkheads before they are glued in place. 
Steve

Well - this was a lot longer coming than I had hoped or anticipated....but finally I'm ready to post some progress on Bluenose. The deck planking is now complete - it took me a while to work my head around the tapered planking on the quarterdeck, but once in the rhythm of things it went more or less smoothly - not the neatest work, but seeing the framework sealed up is satisfaction enough for me. Now the real fun parts can begin!! 
 
I'm going to re-do the cabin, which I built over a year ago because it turned out a little bit asymmetrical, but before installing it for good I'll add some external hull and interior bulwark details and the caprails. In the meanwhile, enjoy the photos
hamilton

Dear all,
 
Some more  work done on the poop deck and dry fitted the mizzen mast.
 
Best regards
 
Henrik
 

After a week of plating (rudder took an entire afternoon), covered in matte polyurathane, lower hull done . Now I don't have to turn it over any more.  Although not in the instructions, I pinned all the rudder pintles. Also received an email that the Indefatigable kit I ordered is finally on the way. It will be a major temptation to start it but I will likely finish Pegasus first and then relish the time working on Indy.
 
Pre cleaning and polyurathane:
 
Post finish:

 

Dear friends,
Poop deck, planking and some varnish added.
 
Best regards
 
Henrik

Hi All,
 
Thanks Andrew. I’m actually pretty busy being retired. Volunteer facilities worker at my church, in the worship band, president of my home owners association with a wife and house to take care of… and I’m a chess fanatic.
 
However, I am involved with the build on a slower scale. I found a chamfer scraper on Amazon for $12. Also building the cannons. Built a jig for the rigging when the time comes.

 

Thanks again for all the likes and comments.
 
I made the jib a little while ago with all the lower yards, stuns’l booms, mizzen gaffs and some of the spare masts. I will cover these as we go on.

The jib was made to the specification in the AotS as were all other yards and masts. The bowsprit cap was made from scratch because the kit part did not allow for the holes to be changed to the correct angle. It was also too narrow to fit a jack staff.

I used the kit dolphin striker which was glued and pinned to the cap. Before fixing the jib, I added the 'lead' saddle for the spritsail yard which unfortunately doesn't show up well in the photo. This was simply made from a piece of paper (200gsm I think) painted iron grey. The heel lashing is 7 wraps of 0.5mm rope. I wasn’t sure of the order of rigging for the jibboom so followed the order given in Lees, starting with the guy pendants (0.4mm) followed by the horses and the martingale. The horses (0.75mm rope) are knotted with figure-of-eights every 10mm. The horses and pendants are left hanging for the moment. The martingale stay and back stay (0.4mm) are one piece and lead back, via a fall, to the port side of the bowsprit.

 
 
The mizzen topgallant stay is made from 0.4mm rope and leads through a thimble in the main topmast head and finishes with thimbles and lanyard at the main top. According to Lees the royal stay wasn’t introduced until after 1810 so I have left it off. The back stays lead to the stool abaft the mizzen channel, the topgallant to a 2.5mm deadeye and the royal to an eyebolt. I realise that there is some inconsistency here in that there is a royal backstay but no stay. Maybe I should have left both off and I may go back to it later but I quite like it as it is.


The main mast topgallant stay (0.5mm) leads through a 3mm block on the fore topmast head down to the forestay where it is tied off at the collar of the topmast stay lead block. I should have made the strop so that it stood more proud of the mast to improve the run of the topgallant stay but too late now. The royal stay leads through a 3mm block at the fore topmast head and ends in a thimble which is connected by a lanyard to another thimble fixed with a span to the fore topmast cross trees. I realised, too late, that the span should be tied into the inside of the cross trees before fitting the masts, so I have had to tie them to the outside. Back stays run down to the stool abaft the main channel.

The foreamast topgallant stay leads through a 3mm block on the jibboom and runs back to the forestay collar where it is tied of with three seizings,

The royal stay leads to the end of the jibboom where it is tied off. Backstays are set up in a similar manner and lead down to deadeyes on the foreward channel.
 
 
I have looked again at the main and fore topmast shifting backstays and decided to re-rig them in a way more in line with the description in Lees. I’m puzzled when Lees says that the pendants were half as long again as the burton pendants. I interpreted this to mean that they would end high up off the deck which didn’t seem right and wasn’t in line with the drawing in AotS. I have rigged the pendants to come to within 90mm of the deck. The falls are set up as in Lees with a long tackle block hooked to the pendant and a single 3mm block hooked to an eyebolt in the channels.

The main topmast shifting backstay falls are tied off to a belay pin but the foreward shifting backstay, according to the Caldercraft plan, is tied off to a shroud cleat and would lie across the shrouds. This seemed wrong to my eye so I have fitted a deck cleat, not shown on the plans, to tie it off which I think works better.

 
The standing rigging is now complete and means another milestone in the build is reached just over two years from when it began.
 

Thanks for looking in
David

 

Back to The ship. The mast were pretty hard to follow along with the plan. But looking at a few logs, this is what I came up with. Pieces were breaking, and some more parts were missing.  The parts for under the crow's nest were missing  so I made some . I needed 8 they sent me two. Oh well. On we go. I stained the masts with a quick coat of sealer, then assembled them as best as I could. While they were drying I tied  down the life boat. Other then the 3 little bits which is what they are called, the deck is done. I am still Grinning,  it's a fun build. Can't  thank everyone enough for all the help.  
 So this is the ship on the shelf... while I go figure out my next move lol.
 Dead eyes, shrouds, Rat lines oh my lol.  It's incredibly so much fun , ya there's lots of mistakes  but I am Grinning.  The Blacken-it worked really well.  But just like my method,  ruff handling  will chip them. I blackened all then put the rings together. This caused  the black to come off. So I made the parts, dunked them again and glued them on . Now that I know all this, I use it just before I need it. But yes I like blacken-it better then painting them . Ok later all.  Sea you.

Started today working on the fore gaff.  The kit comes with laser cut jaws.  I used the material originally supplied to assemble the dories as shims to center the jaw on the gaff.  Once assembled, I set this aside to let the glue dry.
 

 
I wanted to finish the bowsprit, or at least paint it and install it so I could eventually install the traveler block.   I originally installed the two strips of wood on either side of the center line of the bowsprit but was unhappy with how it turned out so I removed them and tried again.  In removing them, I did a little damage but I think I cleaned it up OK.  I contemplated scrapping and starting over again but decided it wasn't necessary.
 

 
While studying the drawings I discovered that I had yet to install the deadeyes on the ship's rails.  So I wrapped them in the 0.014" dia wire.  It was a little fiddly but went pretty well non the less.
 

 
I had some issues drilling holes and installing them properly.  I purchased a set of micro drill bits off Amazon and found "a deal".  However, they weren't the best quality and they broke pretty quickly.  So I started drilling with the correct size, broke it, switched to another size, broke it, etc. etc.  Also, because I hadn't installed the main rail and monkey rail with the accuracy required, I couldn't install the deadeyes in the proper locations on the external edge.  As such, I'm not sure if I will add the metal straps below the deadeyes.  It won't align properly and think it would look worse instead of adding more realism to the finished model.
 

 
 

Finally got back to modeling. This working for a living is getting old. 😂. I spent some time figuring out how to make some of the hardware and chain and get it to look like it is to scale at 1:96. 
 
I am very happy with the chain. I took copper wire, in this case I used .012”diameter (28 gauge) to experiment with. 
it came out about .027” in diameter and about 28 links per inch. I can buy chain about the same diameter and 40 LPI so I will experiment with 30 and 34 gage wire. The advantage to using my wire is it is stiff and can easily be formed to any curve or kept very straight to look taut. 
I just took a length of wire, folded it in half and placed my homemade hook in the  looped end and twisted the wire. Then I took a common pin and poked it through the twists to slightly separate the wire twists to make something that looks just like a link. The whole process took less than 10 minutes. Here are a couple of blackened test pieces below. 

I also took a stab at making miniature turnbuckles and thimbles. The turnbuckle shown below was made by filing about a third of the way through the side wall of a 1 millimeter diameter brass tube, turning it around and doing the same on the opposite side. This left a tube with slots on opposite sides that sort of simulates the body of a turnbuckle. I then micro-brazed an eye hook on each end to tie a rope or attach a hook to. 

 
The thimbles above were made by collapsing a 1 millimeter brass tube on a forming tool that flares the ends of the straight blank to what you see in the picture above. The inside diameter is .024” and the length is about .035”. They can definitely pass for proper scaled pieces. I also have a set of forming tools to make them with a .039 ID which seemed to big for 1:96 scale. 
 
I did manage to braze up some chain plates and mount some fore channels. Zooming in on the pics I see I need to touch up the white edges in a couple of places.  I will continue onto the main and mizzen channels and plates next as long as the “work thing” does not go back into crazy mode.  


Tom

Thanks to all for the likes.
Fitting of standing rigging continues and is complete to the level of the topmasts except for final trimming of the ends of stays.
The shifting backstays on fore and main masts are described in Lees as being set up from a pendant half as long again as the burton pendant. A long tackle block is hooked into the pendant and single blocked hooked into the channel. My interpretation of the AotS drawing is that they are set up in a similar fashion to the other back stays at the upper end but with a long tackle block seized in the lower end. The falls are a singe block hooked into the channel.
I can see the logic of the Lees version but I decided to go with the AotS which I thought looked better.
 

The fore topmast stays are made from 0.8 and 0.7mm rope and both are served as before. A minor disaster struck as I was partway through serving the first rope when the winding handle of my serving machine broke in half. I repaired it by super-glueing the two halves together and then it was reinforced with a bit of brass sprue which I fixed with epoxy.

The stays are threaded through the bees: the preventer stay to the aft port and stay through the forward starboard ‘sheave’. The stays end in a thimble  connected by a lanyard to a thimble secured to eyebolts at the bow either side of the bowsprit.



The topgallant stays are next which will require me to fit the jibboom
 
David

 

The Last Lap
 
After 18 months of enjoyable modelling and with everything on the Duchess complete, barring the permanent stand, I'm marking her as finished.
 
As with my first Vanguard model, I must give huge thanks to @chris watton for designing and producing such a great kit, and to @James H for his inspirational prototype build log and manual. Thanks also to those early starters whose logs informed and encouraged me - Glenn @glennard2523, Rusty @Rustyj and David @desalgu. Apart from producing my own rope and a very few minor enhancements such as the anchor buoys and glazed windows, I built the Duchess more or less out of the box which I regard as a testament to the quality of the kit and the materials.
 
Here's some final photos:















On to HMS Sphinx!
 
Thanks to everyone for following along, and for all the likes and kind comments.
 
Derek
16 February 2023 
 
 
 

Today I finished up the main mast.
 
For the chafing piece for the boom jaws, I had a piece of brass tubing that I cut to length and slid on the mast.  
 

 
I installed the 4 chocks, cutting pieces out of 1/16" x 1/8" basswood.  I also made sure I installed the mast hoops first.  I found that the quantity of mast hoops I had didn't total the same quantity that shows on the drawing.  Not sure what to do, I simply divided the total quantity by 2 and used half on the main mast and will put the other half on the foremast.  Hopefully I can make it work from there.
 

 
The drawing shows a white band at the bottom of the mast called a Canvas Mast Coat.  I had some spare fabric and cut a strip to suit and glued it on.
 

 
I still haven't permanently installed the main mast.  Probably won't until all the masts, booms etc are done.
 

 
I think I will work on the bowsprit or the fore boom and gaff before tackling the foremast.