David Lester

Hi All,
I'm working away on the Mayflower. I've pretty much finished up the hull. I've added the moldings and completed the bow section.


The bow section is a bit tricky to get started. It would have helped if I had three hands. It's one of those situations where you can't glue one piece on until another is in place and you can't glue that one in place until the other one is in place. Nevertheless once the positions of the side pieces are established and they're tentatively glued in place, it becomes easier and easier and in the end (as the manual suggests) the whole structure is surprisingly robust.



I've also finished up the deadeye/chainplate assemblies and attached them to the channels. They aren't actually glued to the hull yet, just positioned there for the picture. I've used wire to help secure them to the hull.
 
I have left the chainplates all about one or two links long and will adjust and attache them later when I establish their correct location by the angles of the shrouds.
 



So, I now have a number of details to add to the deck, as well as some paint touch ups and then I will be ready to add the masts.
 
Thanks for looking in.
 
David

Dave, looking way good! Those chains turned out great! 👍😀

Hi All,
I'm working away on the Mayflower. I've pretty much finished up the hull. I've added the moldings and completed the bow section.


The bow section is a bit tricky to get started. It would have helped if I had three hands. It's one of those situations where you can't glue one piece on until another is in place and you can't glue that one in place until the other one is in place. Nevertheless once the positions of the side pieces are established and they're tentatively glued in place, it becomes easier and easier and in the end (as the manual suggests) the whole structure is surprisingly robust.



I've also finished up the deadeye/chainplate assemblies and attached them to the channels. They aren't actually glued to the hull yet, just positioned there for the picture. I've used wire to help secure them to the hull.
 
I have left the chainplates all about one or two links long and will adjust and attache them later when I establish their correct location by the angles of the shrouds.
 



So, I now have a number of details to add to the deck, as well as some paint touch ups and then I will be ready to add the masts.
 
Thanks for looking in.
 
David

Hi All,
I'm working away on the Mayflower. I've pretty much finished up the hull. I've added the moldings and completed the bow section.


The bow section is a bit tricky to get started. It would have helped if I had three hands. It's one of those situations where you can't glue one piece on until another is in place and you can't glue that one in place until the other one is in place. Nevertheless once the positions of the side pieces are established and they're tentatively glued in place, it becomes easier and easier and in the end (as the manual suggests) the whole structure is surprisingly robust.



I've also finished up the deadeye/chainplate assemblies and attached them to the channels. They aren't actually glued to the hull yet, just positioned there for the picture. I've used wire to help secure them to the hull.
 
I have left the chainplates all about one or two links long and will adjust and attache them later when I establish their correct location by the angles of the shrouds.
 



So, I now have a number of details to add to the deck, as well as some paint touch ups and then I will be ready to add the masts.
 
Thanks for looking in.
 
David

Hi All,
I'm working away on the Mayflower. I've pretty much finished up the hull. I've added the moldings and completed the bow section.


The bow section is a bit tricky to get started. It would have helped if I had three hands. It's one of those situations where you can't glue one piece on until another is in place and you can't glue that one in place until the other one is in place. Nevertheless once the positions of the side pieces are established and they're tentatively glued in place, it becomes easier and easier and in the end (as the manual suggests) the whole structure is surprisingly robust.



I've also finished up the deadeye/chainplate assemblies and attached them to the channels. They aren't actually glued to the hull yet, just positioned there for the picture. I've used wire to help secure them to the hull.
 
I have left the chainplates all about one or two links long and will adjust and attache them later when I establish their correct location by the angles of the shrouds.
 



So, I now have a number of details to add to the deck, as well as some paint touch ups and then I will be ready to add the masts.
 
Thanks for looking in.
 
David

First, thank you guys for comments and likes.  Keeps me going knowing someone is reading these posts.
 
Jason, who lives pretty close, I hope to get to hang out soon.
 
Mikiek I am contemplating your method of yellow/superglue for second planking. 
 
Dan/Shipmodel thank you for your responses and advice.  I am hoping to incorporate some bone details in this model, maybe a binnacle to start.  Baby steps...
 
In my last post I mentioned I was trying to power through finishing first planking.  I had a hit a bit of a rut trying to make everything perfect and it was time to move on.  So now I have officially finished first planking even if I resorted to wide planks.

I had left the counter planking unfinished so I could roll the stern planking upwards, trim the ends flush, and then insert the final 2 counter planks.  I thought that might be a better plan than trying to cut each stern plank individually.  I don't know how some people get such perfect straight intersections!
 
Below I used a compass to trace a pencil line parallel to the bottom counter.  I found it easiest to cut by hand along the pencil line with an xacto, going very shallow and deepening it repeatedly.  Then I used a 1/4" chisel to pare the waste away working down from the top.  Slow n steady.

I eventually cleared all the waste wood on the left side.

I found it easier to glue two narrower strips vs one wide one because the space I am filling is concave.  Below is both sides excavated, glued, and filled.

Of course it'll all be covered by the second planking but I think the stern plank/counter intersection looks tight which is what I was aiming for.
 
Next is sanding and more sanding and then some sanding to smooth it all out. 
 
In other news I managed a late entry into this year's Admiralty Workshops (someone cancelled and I was on the wait list) so I will learn how to make rope with Chuck.  At my usual glacial building pace odds are I will forget everything by the time I get to rigging but if I keep good notes maybe some of it will stick.  And at the end we get a tour with the curator of the Naval Academy Museum; that is just freaking cool!
 
well goodnight all and thanks for reading
 
Cisco
 
 
 

Moving on to the next step in the manual, I worked on installing the waterways over the weekend.  Had to make a journey (40 miles) to the nearest hobby store to get 3/32 x 3/32 strips.  The kit was short 2 of 4 (which was the only thing missing) and I had thought at the time that I might be able to make due with only two, so I didn't bother to have MSW replace them.  Well, that was before I made the error of using them for the waterway planks that fit between the stanchions. Supposed to be 3/32 x 1/8.  I had the right size pulled out of the box and set aside, I just grabbed the wrong one and went to town.  Measure twice, cut once!!
 
To begin with, I added scrap "shelves" for the end of the planks that butt up against the bulkheads.  I probably could have held the planks in place long enough for the glue to set but, I had seen this done for other builds and thought it would be much more sturdy.
 

After removing all the wrong size planks, I cut the 3/32 x 1/8 stock to fit in between the stanchions, test fit and adjusted to make sure everything was lined up, and then secured with a drop of thin CA at each end.  I cut and installed the second plank row of the waterway next.  Rather than just use one long plank, I cut the plank into sections.  The bulkheads are about 8' OC based on the scale of 3/16" = 1', so this means 8 or 16 foot planks.  I figured this was reasonable, and without adding something in-between the bulk heads to support the joints, there really was no other option.  I used wood glue along the edge, at the joints and where the planks sat on bulkheads to secure these.
 
                                      Wrong Size                                                     Correct size with second waterway plank installed

I finished up the fore deck waterway by installing the 3rd plank row in similar fashion and beveled so the inside edge was 1/16" to sit flush with the rest of the decking to be installed later.  I offset the joints so that I didn't have any side-by-side.

Next, I installed the quarter deck waterway between the stanchions.  

That's it for now.  Although out of sequence based on the manual, I plan to add the nibbing strakes next .
 
Tim

Other than some blocks and cleats mounted to the davits, the hurricane  house is complete. 


 
Now I will work my way forward with the other deck pieces. That gaping blank space on the stern is just screaming for the sculpted eagle. 😱. Maybe give it a shot after the deck stuff. 😁
 
Tom

As I mentioned earlier, the stern section broke off while working on the stern block.  I marked up the blocks and got them cut down a bit prior to gluing to the stern.  I had completed the rough shape of most of one side and "snap".  While I would not have purposely broken or cut the piece off, it certainly made it easier to work on.  
I finished the shaping of the stern blocks and then added the quarter and transom frame pieces. I made several attempts to get the side "steep tumble home" pieces cut out and shaped.  I really had to think through the process to cut and shape the complex curves and angles from a square block but, finally got the two pieces to what I think is the right shape and both sides pretty closely matched.
 

After completing, I reattached the stern section to the keel.  I added reinforcement braces and then installed the horn timbers.


Last think before moving on to the waterways, I drilled and cut out mast blocks to slide into the slots in the keel.

Hoping to get started on the waterways this weekend.
 
Tim

Since we are in the middle of hurricane season, I thought it best to get the hurricane house house constructed. Without a roof it isn’t going to be much help but the weatherman said it would be calm the next few days. Should get the roof in by then. 😜😁
 
Tom

After I had all of the rabbets cut in, I glued reinforcement pieces over the keel joints at the keyways.  I waited until the rabbets were cut in to keep the keel laying flat on the workbench while I carved and sanded the rabbets.
 

 
 Next up, the bulkheads.  I cut out all of the bulkheads and then marked each with reference lines and bevel lines from the plans.  I then took the time to shape each one to the planned taper with a Dremel and sanding drum attachment.  This is definitely easier than trying to sand the bevels once attached to the keel and, as you can sand them individually without having to constantly handle and work around the full assembly. 

I test fitted the bulkheads to the keel.  I sanded all of the bulkhead and keel slots to remove the laser char on the mating surfaces.  Some of the bulkheads were fairly tight or did not want to fit at all without extra sanding of either the bulkhead slot, the keel slot or both.  Once I had everything fitting nicely, I began to glue the bulkheads in.  
 
The Fair-a-Frame was good to hold the keel and keep it aligned, but the bulkhead jig was of no use for this model.  It is designed to align the bulkheads at a right angle and perpendicular to the bottom of the keel, but none of the bulkheads on the Bluenose are aligned at right angles to the flat part of the keel.  I used the extended slot lines I transferred from the plans to make sure the bulkheads were seated properly and then used Lego bricks and clamps to hold everything square while the glue dried.  I worked from front to back, gluing every second bulkhead in, to allow space for the Lego and clamps and then came back and glued in the rest. (I forgot to take pictures of this step )
 
Once all the glue had dried I added support pieces between the bulkheads on each side.  



You will probably notice that the stern bulkhead is missing in the pictures.  I took these after I had started working on shaping the stern blocks.  I had reinforced the fragile section of the keel with a couple of scrap pieces, sandwiching the keel with a clamp.  It worked well...until it didn't and I broke the stern section off.  Honestly, it was actually MUCH easier to work with one it was detached.  
 
Most of the bulkheads lined up really well with the bearding line, with very little carving or sanding.  There were a few toward the stern that required some extra attention.

I glued in pieces to fill the gaps and then sanded to align to the bearding line.

 

Have done a very small update, added the draw handles and made the captains door
 





 
Have been a bit distracted with another ship  
 

 
Until next time
 
Regards
Richard
 
 

Getting started on the build.  I suspect my assistant will be by my side, either sitting on the box, the manual or the plans throughout the build!

After checking through all of the parts (nothing missing) I got started on laying out the keel. I laid out all of the reference lines.  All of the pieces were straight but, I had to add several spacers at the joints to keep the reference line matched up and make sure everything was solid.

Once I had the three pieces together, I laid out all of the rabbet, bearding and bulkhead lines.  I then started to carve all of the rabbets.  This was one of the tasks that I feared the most.  I did get some practice on the NRG half hull, but that was only one side and it was a relatively simple cut.  With the varying widths and only 1/16 inch to spare at the deepest portion of the rabbet, I was concerned with cutting too deep.  I took my time and I have to say it was actually a very enjoyable process.  


 
 

Good Morning Everyone,
I've been hopping all over the place, working away at various bits and pieces.
 
I finished planking the hull and had quite a bit of trouble getting a satisfactory finish on that basswood planking. What I have is far from perfect, but I think it will be acceptable. I'm banking on most of its flaws being hidden once all the details are added. I've attached the wales and started in on the decorative painting. I know it's looking rough at this point -




I also started in on some of the spars. There aren't too many of them for this vessel and they are all pretty straightforward. In addition to the wooldings on the lower masts, the instructions call for "wood hoops" around the masts; immediately above and below the wooldings. It suggested using strips cut from a manila file folder. I tried that and a couple of other types of paper as well, but I just couldn't get them painted to blend in with the mast. They always looked too distracting, so I have opted to omit them.
 
I'm not exactly sure what the correct method of attaching the wooldings is, but I chose to seize them to the mast, just as you would when seizing a line. It works really well and gives a very tidy result, even at the points where the line enters and exits the seizing. A small dab of glue at each point is all it takes to hold them in place -
 



The decorative moldings proved to be more time consuming than I would have guessed. There are several different ones - natural colour, white, red, green/white and red/white.
 
For the green/white and red/white ones, I painted them all white first, then added masking tape and painted the green and red portions. While this worked really well, it was pretty tiresome and in retrospect, I'm not sure that it wouldn't have been faster and perhaps with as good a result to have painted the red and green bits by eye and without the masking tape -




I've been working on the gun port lids, although I won't add them to the hull until almost the very end. My initial though was to show them closed which you can see in one of the photos above. However, my thinking changed for a couple of reasons. I'm building this model specifically for someone and I think it likely that they will find the model to be more interesting if the gun ports are open and secondly, as the flaws in my hull finish became apparent, I decided that the gun port details would be one more thing to attract the eye and help distract from the hull finish. I don't know if there is any validity to this line of reasoning, but I'm hoping there is -
 
I'm using a single piece of fine wire to secure each one to the hull, with a hole drilled between the two layers of the lid. the metal straps are ones I found in my stash of supplies.
The one in the picture is just in place temporarily to see if it works and it seems to work just fine. I'll add some glue as well when I'm ready to actually install them.
 



Most of the deck details are now in place - the railings, which were straightforward to build as well as the capstan, the pumps, the knights, ladders and hatches. This kit has some very poorly cast parts, including the capstan and the knights, so I made those from wood. I forgot to take a picture of the capstan before I installed it, but you can get a glimpse of it in one of the photos below.
 
The knights have sheaves in them. You would think that it would be very easy to drill two rows of three sheave holes in straight lines and evenly spaced, wouldn't you? I don't have a drill press or mill and I'm working in basswood, so it proved to be very difficult for me to do. My oddball solution was to take a triple block from my supplies and build the knight around it. It looks a lot better than my other poor attempts.
 
There are no pumps included in the kit at all, so these had to be scratch built. The instructions suggest taking a 3/16" dowel and flattening it so that it has eight sides. Again, without a mill, this is pretty hard to do free hand, so I opted to start with a smaller dowel, (1/8" I think it was) and apply strips to it. This also allowed me to more easily create the large depression in the top, by extending the strips above the top of the dowel. It would have been almost impossible for me to drill a large diameter hole in the top of the dowel without a drill press. The bracket holding the handle is 1/16" thick, and I found it impossible to cut a groove in it to hold a 1/32" handle, so I pawed through my supplies and found a billet of material thinner than 1/32" and I found it not too hard to cut a groove to accept this thinner material. (I sometimes wonder why I hang on to so many old billets, but it's surprising how often they come in handy.)
 



 
So that's where I'm at so far. Next up is applying the moldings to the hull and painting the decorative mayflower on the stern. The kit includes a cast piece, but I don't think I'm going to use it, but rather paint the decorations directly onto the stern.
 
This is not exactly on topic, but I thought I'd share it anyway. I tend to keep a very messy workspace and I've come to accept the fact that that will never change. However, I do find it annoying when I accumulate a number of various pieces of wood strips which I have retrieved from my storage area. Before I know it I have a variety of sizes all mixed up with my tools and I can't tell what I've got. I sometimes find myself heading back to my storage for a new 2' piece to cut a small bit off of, when I actually have plenty of small bits all mixed up with other sizes and my various tools.
 
So, in an effort to help with this problem, I'm trying this idea. I bought some mailing tubes and cut them in half lengthwise to make troughs and then joined them together with masking tape. It's probably a bit too soon to tell how well this will really work, but so far it's promising. To the left in the picture below is my usual utter chaos. but at least I can see at a glance what wood I currently have out.

 
Thanks again for checking it.
David
 
 
 
 

I've been working on various aspects of this build, in no particular logical order. This morning I turned my attention to the kevels.
 
There are eight kevels on this ship and I don't really care for the cast kit-supplied ones, so I set out to make some wooden ones. Here's how I approached it.
 

I could see that there are two ways to do this. One would be to create two holes or slots in the cross member at the right angle and then slide the uprights through. Since I don't have a mill or a drill press and I'm working with basswood, I knew that would be an exercise in frustration, so I decided to try a second method, which is to laminate the cross member on the uprights.
 
I drew some lines establishing the dimensions on a piece of paper and covered them with double-sided tape.
 

I placed the first upright in position and trimmed the bottom of it along the pencil line -
 

I then added the second upright and the three pieces of the cross member. There's no glue at this point; only the tape is holding everything in place.
These pieces are all 1/32" x 1/16".
 

I then glued a piece across the cross member (1/16" x 1/16")
 

Peeling the assembly off of the tape. It's quite rigid by this point.
 

Then I added a second piece across the back of the cross member -
 

After some trimming and sanding. There may be some more sanding yet to do. I'm not sure if the cross member is still a bit too thick.
 

 
I think this method is going to work. Once they are all completely covered with rope coils, they should look just fine.😁
 
Thanks for checking in, much appreciated.
 
David
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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
 
 

Good Morning Everyone,
I've been hopping all over the place, working away at various bits and pieces.
 
I finished planking the hull and had quite a bit of trouble getting a satisfactory finish on that basswood planking. What I have is far from perfect, but I think it will be acceptable. I'm banking on most of its flaws being hidden once all the details are added. I've attached the wales and started in on the decorative painting. I know it's looking rough at this point -




I also started in on some of the spars. There aren't too many of them for this vessel and they are all pretty straightforward. In addition to the wooldings on the lower masts, the instructions call for "wood hoops" around the masts; immediately above and below the wooldings. It suggested using strips cut from a manila file folder. I tried that and a couple of other types of paper as well, but I just couldn't get them painted to blend in with the mast. They always looked too distracting, so I have opted to omit them.
 
I'm not exactly sure what the correct method of attaching the wooldings is, but I chose to seize them to the mast, just as you would when seizing a line. It works really well and gives a very tidy result, even at the points where the line enters and exits the seizing. A small dab of glue at each point is all it takes to hold them in place -
 



The decorative moldings proved to be more time consuming than I would have guessed. There are several different ones - natural colour, white, red, green/white and red/white.
 
For the green/white and red/white ones, I painted them all white first, then added masking tape and painted the green and red portions. While this worked really well, it was pretty tiresome and in retrospect, I'm not sure that it wouldn't have been faster and perhaps with as good a result to have painted the red and green bits by eye and without the masking tape -




I've been working on the gun port lids, although I won't add them to the hull until almost the very end. My initial though was to show them closed which you can see in one of the photos above. However, my thinking changed for a couple of reasons. I'm building this model specifically for someone and I think it likely that they will find the model to be more interesting if the gun ports are open and secondly, as the flaws in my hull finish became apparent, I decided that the gun port details would be one more thing to attract the eye and help distract from the hull finish. I don't know if there is any validity to this line of reasoning, but I'm hoping there is -
 
I'm using a single piece of fine wire to secure each one to the hull, with a hole drilled between the two layers of the lid. the metal straps are ones I found in my stash of supplies.
The one in the picture is just in place temporarily to see if it works and it seems to work just fine. I'll add some glue as well when I'm ready to actually install them.
 



Most of the deck details are now in place - the railings, which were straightforward to build as well as the capstan, the pumps, the knights, ladders and hatches. This kit has some very poorly cast parts, including the capstan and the knights, so I made those from wood. I forgot to take a picture of the capstan before I installed it, but you can get a glimpse of it in one of the photos below.
 
The knights have sheaves in them. You would think that it would be very easy to drill two rows of three sheave holes in straight lines and evenly spaced, wouldn't you? I don't have a drill press or mill and I'm working in basswood, so it proved to be very difficult for me to do. My oddball solution was to take a triple block from my supplies and build the knight around it. It looks a lot better than my other poor attempts.
 
There are no pumps included in the kit at all, so these had to be scratch built. The instructions suggest taking a 3/16" dowel and flattening it so that it has eight sides. Again, without a mill, this is pretty hard to do free hand, so I opted to start with a smaller dowel, (1/8" I think it was) and apply strips to it. This also allowed me to more easily create the large depression in the top, by extending the strips above the top of the dowel. It would have been almost impossible for me to drill a large diameter hole in the top of the dowel without a drill press. The bracket holding the handle is 1/16" thick, and I found it impossible to cut a groove in it to hold a 1/32" handle, so I pawed through my supplies and found a billet of material thinner than 1/32" and I found it not too hard to cut a groove to accept this thinner material. (I sometimes wonder why I hang on to so many old billets, but it's surprising how often they come in handy.)
 



 
So that's where I'm at so far. Next up is applying the moldings to the hull and painting the decorative mayflower on the stern. The kit includes a cast piece, but I don't think I'm going to use it, but rather paint the decorations directly onto the stern.
 
This is not exactly on topic, but I thought I'd share it anyway. I tend to keep a very messy workspace and I've come to accept the fact that that will never change. However, I do find it annoying when I accumulate a number of various pieces of wood strips which I have retrieved from my storage area. Before I know it I have a variety of sizes all mixed up with my tools and I can't tell what I've got. I sometimes find myself heading back to my storage for a new 2' piece to cut a small bit off of, when I actually have plenty of small bits all mixed up with other sizes and my various tools.
 
So, in an effort to help with this problem, I'm trying this idea. I bought some mailing tubes and cut them in half lengthwise to make troughs and then joined them together with masking tape. It's probably a bit too soon to tell how well this will really work, but so far it's promising. To the left in the picture below is my usual utter chaos. but at least I can see at a glance what wood I currently have out.

 
Thanks again for checking it.
David
 
 
 
 

David, those pumps look great as does the decorative molding.

Good Morning Everyone,
I've been hopping all over the place, working away at various bits and pieces.
 
I finished planking the hull and had quite a bit of trouble getting a satisfactory finish on that basswood planking. What I have is far from perfect, but I think it will be acceptable. I'm banking on most of its flaws being hidden once all the details are added. I've attached the wales and started in on the decorative painting. I know it's looking rough at this point -




I also started in on some of the spars. There aren't too many of them for this vessel and they are all pretty straightforward. In addition to the wooldings on the lower masts, the instructions call for "wood hoops" around the masts; immediately above and below the wooldings. It suggested using strips cut from a manila file folder. I tried that and a couple of other types of paper as well, but I just couldn't get them painted to blend in with the mast. They always looked too distracting, so I have opted to omit them.
 
I'm not exactly sure what the correct method of attaching the wooldings is, but I chose to seize them to the mast, just as you would when seizing a line. It works really well and gives a very tidy result, even at the points where the line enters and exits the seizing. A small dab of glue at each point is all it takes to hold them in place -
 



The decorative moldings proved to be more time consuming than I would have guessed. There are several different ones - natural colour, white, red, green/white and red/white.
 
For the green/white and red/white ones, I painted them all white first, then added masking tape and painted the green and red portions. While this worked really well, it was pretty tiresome and in retrospect, I'm not sure that it wouldn't have been faster and perhaps with as good a result to have painted the red and green bits by eye and without the masking tape -




I've been working on the gun port lids, although I won't add them to the hull until almost the very end. My initial though was to show them closed which you can see in one of the photos above. However, my thinking changed for a couple of reasons. I'm building this model specifically for someone and I think it likely that they will find the model to be more interesting if the gun ports are open and secondly, as the flaws in my hull finish became apparent, I decided that the gun port details would be one more thing to attract the eye and help distract from the hull finish. I don't know if there is any validity to this line of reasoning, but I'm hoping there is -
 
I'm using a single piece of fine wire to secure each one to the hull, with a hole drilled between the two layers of the lid. the metal straps are ones I found in my stash of supplies.
The one in the picture is just in place temporarily to see if it works and it seems to work just fine. I'll add some glue as well when I'm ready to actually install them.
 



Most of the deck details are now in place - the railings, which were straightforward to build as well as the capstan, the pumps, the knights, ladders and hatches. This kit has some very poorly cast parts, including the capstan and the knights, so I made those from wood. I forgot to take a picture of the capstan before I installed it, but you can get a glimpse of it in one of the photos below.
 
The knights have sheaves in them. You would think that it would be very easy to drill two rows of three sheave holes in straight lines and evenly spaced, wouldn't you? I don't have a drill press or mill and I'm working in basswood, so it proved to be very difficult for me to do. My oddball solution was to take a triple block from my supplies and build the knight around it. It looks a lot better than my other poor attempts.
 
There are no pumps included in the kit at all, so these had to be scratch built. The instructions suggest taking a 3/16" dowel and flattening it so that it has eight sides. Again, without a mill, this is pretty hard to do free hand, so I opted to start with a smaller dowel, (1/8" I think it was) and apply strips to it. This also allowed me to more easily create the large depression in the top, by extending the strips above the top of the dowel. It would have been almost impossible for me to drill a large diameter hole in the top of the dowel without a drill press. The bracket holding the handle is 1/16" thick, and I found it impossible to cut a groove in it to hold a 1/32" handle, so I pawed through my supplies and found a billet of material thinner than 1/32" and I found it not too hard to cut a groove to accept this thinner material. (I sometimes wonder why I hang on to so many old billets, but it's surprising how often they come in handy.)
 



 
So that's where I'm at so far. Next up is applying the moldings to the hull and painting the decorative mayflower on the stern. The kit includes a cast piece, but I don't think I'm going to use it, but rather paint the decorations directly onto the stern.
 
This is not exactly on topic, but I thought I'd share it anyway. I tend to keep a very messy workspace and I've come to accept the fact that that will never change. However, I do find it annoying when I accumulate a number of various pieces of wood strips which I have retrieved from my storage area. Before I know it I have a variety of sizes all mixed up with my tools and I can't tell what I've got. I sometimes find myself heading back to my storage for a new 2' piece to cut a small bit off of, when I actually have plenty of small bits all mixed up with other sizes and my various tools.
 
So, in an effort to help with this problem, I'm trying this idea. I bought some mailing tubes and cut them in half lengthwise to make troughs and then joined them together with masking tape. It's probably a bit too soon to tell how well this will really work, but so far it's promising. To the left in the picture below is my usual utter chaos. but at least I can see at a glance what wood I currently have out.

 
Thanks again for checking it.
David
 
 
 
 

Good Morning Everyone,
I've been hopping all over the place, working away at various bits and pieces.
 
I finished planking the hull and had quite a bit of trouble getting a satisfactory finish on that basswood planking. What I have is far from perfect, but I think it will be acceptable. I'm banking on most of its flaws being hidden once all the details are added. I've attached the wales and started in on the decorative painting. I know it's looking rough at this point -




I also started in on some of the spars. There aren't too many of them for this vessel and they are all pretty straightforward. In addition to the wooldings on the lower masts, the instructions call for "wood hoops" around the masts; immediately above and below the wooldings. It suggested using strips cut from a manila file folder. I tried that and a couple of other types of paper as well, but I just couldn't get them painted to blend in with the mast. They always looked too distracting, so I have opted to omit them.
 
I'm not exactly sure what the correct method of attaching the wooldings is, but I chose to seize them to the mast, just as you would when seizing a line. It works really well and gives a very tidy result, even at the points where the line enters and exits the seizing. A small dab of glue at each point is all it takes to hold them in place -
 



The decorative moldings proved to be more time consuming than I would have guessed. There are several different ones - natural colour, white, red, green/white and red/white.
 
For the green/white and red/white ones, I painted them all white first, then added masking tape and painted the green and red portions. While this worked really well, it was pretty tiresome and in retrospect, I'm not sure that it wouldn't have been faster and perhaps with as good a result to have painted the red and green bits by eye and without the masking tape -




I've been working on the gun port lids, although I won't add them to the hull until almost the very end. My initial though was to show them closed which you can see in one of the photos above. However, my thinking changed for a couple of reasons. I'm building this model specifically for someone and I think it likely that they will find the model to be more interesting if the gun ports are open and secondly, as the flaws in my hull finish became apparent, I decided that the gun port details would be one more thing to attract the eye and help distract from the hull finish. I don't know if there is any validity to this line of reasoning, but I'm hoping there is -
 
I'm using a single piece of fine wire to secure each one to the hull, with a hole drilled between the two layers of the lid. the metal straps are ones I found in my stash of supplies.
The one in the picture is just in place temporarily to see if it works and it seems to work just fine. I'll add some glue as well when I'm ready to actually install them.
 



Most of the deck details are now in place - the railings, which were straightforward to build as well as the capstan, the pumps, the knights, ladders and hatches. This kit has some very poorly cast parts, including the capstan and the knights, so I made those from wood. I forgot to take a picture of the capstan before I installed it, but you can get a glimpse of it in one of the photos below.
 
The knights have sheaves in them. You would think that it would be very easy to drill two rows of three sheave holes in straight lines and evenly spaced, wouldn't you? I don't have a drill press or mill and I'm working in basswood, so it proved to be very difficult for me to do. My oddball solution was to take a triple block from my supplies and build the knight around it. It looks a lot better than my other poor attempts.
 
There are no pumps included in the kit at all, so these had to be scratch built. The instructions suggest taking a 3/16" dowel and flattening it so that it has eight sides. Again, without a mill, this is pretty hard to do free hand, so I opted to start with a smaller dowel, (1/8" I think it was) and apply strips to it. This also allowed me to more easily create the large depression in the top, by extending the strips above the top of the dowel. It would have been almost impossible for me to drill a large diameter hole in the top of the dowel without a drill press. The bracket holding the handle is 1/16" thick, and I found it impossible to cut a groove in it to hold a 1/32" handle, so I pawed through my supplies and found a billet of material thinner than 1/32" and I found it not too hard to cut a groove to accept this thinner material. (I sometimes wonder why I hang on to so many old billets, but it's surprising how often they come in handy.)
 



 
So that's where I'm at so far. Next up is applying the moldings to the hull and painting the decorative mayflower on the stern. The kit includes a cast piece, but I don't think I'm going to use it, but rather paint the decorations directly onto the stern.
 
This is not exactly on topic, but I thought I'd share it anyway. I tend to keep a very messy workspace and I've come to accept the fact that that will never change. However, I do find it annoying when I accumulate a number of various pieces of wood strips which I have retrieved from my storage area. Before I know it I have a variety of sizes all mixed up with my tools and I can't tell what I've got. I sometimes find myself heading back to my storage for a new 2' piece to cut a small bit off of, when I actually have plenty of small bits all mixed up with other sizes and my various tools.
 
So, in an effort to help with this problem, I'm trying this idea. I bought some mailing tubes and cut them in half lengthwise to make troughs and then joined them together with masking tape. It's probably a bit too soon to tell how well this will really work, but so far it's promising. To the left in the picture below is my usual utter chaos. but at least I can see at a glance what wood I currently have out.

 
Thanks again for checking it.
David
 
 
 
 

Lots of dedicated work there Dave, really nice work! Think how hard it must have been for some poor sap to have to paint those decorative moldings. 😳 

Good Morning Everyone,
I've been hopping all over the place, working away at various bits and pieces.
 
I finished planking the hull and had quite a bit of trouble getting a satisfactory finish on that basswood planking. What I have is far from perfect, but I think it will be acceptable. I'm banking on most of its flaws being hidden once all the details are added. I've attached the wales and started in on the decorative painting. I know it's looking rough at this point -




I also started in on some of the spars. There aren't too many of them for this vessel and they are all pretty straightforward. In addition to the wooldings on the lower masts, the instructions call for "wood hoops" around the masts; immediately above and below the wooldings. It suggested using strips cut from a manila file folder. I tried that and a couple of other types of paper as well, but I just couldn't get them painted to blend in with the mast. They always looked too distracting, so I have opted to omit them.
 
I'm not exactly sure what the correct method of attaching the wooldings is, but I chose to seize them to the mast, just as you would when seizing a line. It works really well and gives a very tidy result, even at the points where the line enters and exits the seizing. A small dab of glue at each point is all it takes to hold them in place -
 



The decorative moldings proved to be more time consuming than I would have guessed. There are several different ones - natural colour, white, red, green/white and red/white.
 
For the green/white and red/white ones, I painted them all white first, then added masking tape and painted the green and red portions. While this worked really well, it was pretty tiresome and in retrospect, I'm not sure that it wouldn't have been faster and perhaps with as good a result to have painted the red and green bits by eye and without the masking tape -




I've been working on the gun port lids, although I won't add them to the hull until almost the very end. My initial though was to show them closed which you can see in one of the photos above. However, my thinking changed for a couple of reasons. I'm building this model specifically for someone and I think it likely that they will find the model to be more interesting if the gun ports are open and secondly, as the flaws in my hull finish became apparent, I decided that the gun port details would be one more thing to attract the eye and help distract from the hull finish. I don't know if there is any validity to this line of reasoning, but I'm hoping there is -
 
I'm using a single piece of fine wire to secure each one to the hull, with a hole drilled between the two layers of the lid. the metal straps are ones I found in my stash of supplies.
The one in the picture is just in place temporarily to see if it works and it seems to work just fine. I'll add some glue as well when I'm ready to actually install them.
 



Most of the deck details are now in place - the railings, which were straightforward to build as well as the capstan, the pumps, the knights, ladders and hatches. This kit has some very poorly cast parts, including the capstan and the knights, so I made those from wood. I forgot to take a picture of the capstan before I installed it, but you can get a glimpse of it in one of the photos below.
 
The knights have sheaves in them. You would think that it would be very easy to drill two rows of three sheave holes in straight lines and evenly spaced, wouldn't you? I don't have a drill press or mill and I'm working in basswood, so it proved to be very difficult for me to do. My oddball solution was to take a triple block from my supplies and build the knight around it. It looks a lot better than my other poor attempts.
 
There are no pumps included in the kit at all, so these had to be scratch built. The instructions suggest taking a 3/16" dowel and flattening it so that it has eight sides. Again, without a mill, this is pretty hard to do free hand, so I opted to start with a smaller dowel, (1/8" I think it was) and apply strips to it. This also allowed me to more easily create the large depression in the top, by extending the strips above the top of the dowel. It would have been almost impossible for me to drill a large diameter hole in the top of the dowel without a drill press. The bracket holding the handle is 1/16" thick, and I found it impossible to cut a groove in it to hold a 1/32" handle, so I pawed through my supplies and found a billet of material thinner than 1/32" and I found it not too hard to cut a groove to accept this thinner material. (I sometimes wonder why I hang on to so many old billets, but it's surprising how often they come in handy.)
 



 
So that's where I'm at so far. Next up is applying the moldings to the hull and painting the decorative mayflower on the stern. The kit includes a cast piece, but I don't think I'm going to use it, but rather paint the decorations directly onto the stern.
 
This is not exactly on topic, but I thought I'd share it anyway. I tend to keep a very messy workspace and I've come to accept the fact that that will never change. However, I do find it annoying when I accumulate a number of various pieces of wood strips which I have retrieved from my storage area. Before I know it I have a variety of sizes all mixed up with my tools and I can't tell what I've got. I sometimes find myself heading back to my storage for a new 2' piece to cut a small bit off of, when I actually have plenty of small bits all mixed up with other sizes and my various tools.
 
So, in an effort to help with this problem, I'm trying this idea. I bought some mailing tubes and cut them in half lengthwise to make troughs and then joined them together with masking tape. It's probably a bit too soon to tell how well this will really work, but so far it's promising. To the left in the picture below is my usual utter chaos. but at least I can see at a glance what wood I currently have out.

 
Thanks again for checking it.
David
 
 
 
 

Good Morning Everyone,
I've been hopping all over the place, working away at various bits and pieces.
 
I finished planking the hull and had quite a bit of trouble getting a satisfactory finish on that basswood planking. What I have is far from perfect, but I think it will be acceptable. I'm banking on most of its flaws being hidden once all the details are added. I've attached the wales and started in on the decorative painting. I know it's looking rough at this point -




I also started in on some of the spars. There aren't too many of them for this vessel and they are all pretty straightforward. In addition to the wooldings on the lower masts, the instructions call for "wood hoops" around the masts; immediately above and below the wooldings. It suggested using strips cut from a manila file folder. I tried that and a couple of other types of paper as well, but I just couldn't get them painted to blend in with the mast. They always looked too distracting, so I have opted to omit them.
 
I'm not exactly sure what the correct method of attaching the wooldings is, but I chose to seize them to the mast, just as you would when seizing a line. It works really well and gives a very tidy result, even at the points where the line enters and exits the seizing. A small dab of glue at each point is all it takes to hold them in place -
 



The decorative moldings proved to be more time consuming than I would have guessed. There are several different ones - natural colour, white, red, green/white and red/white.
 
For the green/white and red/white ones, I painted them all white first, then added masking tape and painted the green and red portions. While this worked really well, it was pretty tiresome and in retrospect, I'm not sure that it wouldn't have been faster and perhaps with as good a result to have painted the red and green bits by eye and without the masking tape -




I've been working on the gun port lids, although I won't add them to the hull until almost the very end. My initial though was to show them closed which you can see in one of the photos above. However, my thinking changed for a couple of reasons. I'm building this model specifically for someone and I think it likely that they will find the model to be more interesting if the gun ports are open and secondly, as the flaws in my hull finish became apparent, I decided that the gun port details would be one more thing to attract the eye and help distract from the hull finish. I don't know if there is any validity to this line of reasoning, but I'm hoping there is -
 
I'm using a single piece of fine wire to secure each one to the hull, with a hole drilled between the two layers of the lid. the metal straps are ones I found in my stash of supplies.
The one in the picture is just in place temporarily to see if it works and it seems to work just fine. I'll add some glue as well when I'm ready to actually install them.
 



Most of the deck details are now in place - the railings, which were straightforward to build as well as the capstan, the pumps, the knights, ladders and hatches. This kit has some very poorly cast parts, including the capstan and the knights, so I made those from wood. I forgot to take a picture of the capstan before I installed it, but you can get a glimpse of it in one of the photos below.
 
The knights have sheaves in them. You would think that it would be very easy to drill two rows of three sheave holes in straight lines and evenly spaced, wouldn't you? I don't have a drill press or mill and I'm working in basswood, so it proved to be very difficult for me to do. My oddball solution was to take a triple block from my supplies and build the knight around it. It looks a lot better than my other poor attempts.
 
There are no pumps included in the kit at all, so these had to be scratch built. The instructions suggest taking a 3/16" dowel and flattening it so that it has eight sides. Again, without a mill, this is pretty hard to do free hand, so I opted to start with a smaller dowel, (1/8" I think it was) and apply strips to it. This also allowed me to more easily create the large depression in the top, by extending the strips above the top of the dowel. It would have been almost impossible for me to drill a large diameter hole in the top of the dowel without a drill press. The bracket holding the handle is 1/16" thick, and I found it impossible to cut a groove in it to hold a 1/32" handle, so I pawed through my supplies and found a billet of material thinner than 1/32" and I found it not too hard to cut a groove to accept this thinner material. (I sometimes wonder why I hang on to so many old billets, but it's surprising how often they come in handy.)
 



 
So that's where I'm at so far. Next up is applying the moldings to the hull and painting the decorative mayflower on the stern. The kit includes a cast piece, but I don't think I'm going to use it, but rather paint the decorations directly onto the stern.
 
This is not exactly on topic, but I thought I'd share it anyway. I tend to keep a very messy workspace and I've come to accept the fact that that will never change. However, I do find it annoying when I accumulate a number of various pieces of wood strips which I have retrieved from my storage area. Before I know it I have a variety of sizes all mixed up with my tools and I can't tell what I've got. I sometimes find myself heading back to my storage for a new 2' piece to cut a small bit off of, when I actually have plenty of small bits all mixed up with other sizes and my various tools.
 
So, in an effort to help with this problem, I'm trying this idea. I bought some mailing tubes and cut them in half lengthwise to make troughs and then joined them together with masking tape. It's probably a bit too soon to tell how well this will really work, but so far it's promising. To the left in the picture below is my usual utter chaos. but at least I can see at a glance what wood I currently have out.

 
Thanks again for checking it.
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

After years of dust and battle damage she was put up in dry dock; cleaned layers of dust and battle damage repaired due to young growing girls. Then a brass plague added, new base to index a custom built glass case she now resides for years to come completely protected. The granddaughters now truly appreciate the work involved in building models having grown up watching me build various model subjects. In fact the younger one now builds Star Wars spaceships with LEGO blocks that are quite intricate.
Fair winds and following seas in her new home!