David Lester

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!

Hi All,
 
I think I can call the skeleton complete. I have to agree with the other comments about the bulkheads being flimsy (bass wood), so I did what others have done and stiffened them up making sure the keel was straight. I’m also glad I did not precut or shape any of the bulkheads for planking. You can really tell the difference just handling it. 
 

Waterways completed…

I have chosen to use Amber Shellac over  top a Cherry Stain for the decking. I think it gives that natural oil finish the plans call for. 
 
Cheers 🍻 

Quarter Deck Waterways etc…

Installed bracing below deck…

Installing waterways…

Finished out Transom Framing…

Hawse Timbers placed…
 
Cheers 🍻

Great Beam…

Three laser cut pieces fit together like a puzzle. 😆


GreatBeam completed, now working on shaping the bulkheads extensions into stanchions.  

stanchions completed, on to fairing out the bulkheads. 

Installing my first waterways. 

Need some filling to fair out the planking. 



 

Finishing waterways…



Finished waterways and added mobbing planks. 

Fore Deck waterways completed. Now it’s on to the Quarter Deck. 
 
 Cheers 🍻 

Summertime progress is slow but happening. I managed to get the hull mounted to a stand which will be painted black after I finish putting in the deck pieces.  Also got the anchor deck secured in place. 
 


Sure makes it a bit easier having the real boat only an hour away. Using the videos and pics I took the last few times I was there to verify the more “difficult to understand” parts of the drawings. 👍
Tom

The rigging work on the exterior of the hull is complete.  The first two photos show the deadeyes mounted - the brass pins have since been painted.
 


Mounting the side steps was rather hair-raising.  I again used the Tamiya tape  as spacers.  Fortunately I had 3mm tape which was the correct spacing for the steps.
 

Here they are complete.  I would not care to do it again.

 

Your transom is looking good, John. I've built this kit twice now and while it's generally not a difficult build, that transom is tricky. It looks to me that you're in good shape. Once it's done, the worst is over! This is an easy and enjoyable hull to plank.
 
One little problem that does lie ahead of you though, and which you may have already discovered from other build logs, is the provided stern rail piece - it just doesn't fit. One option is to scrap it altogether and scratch build a new one, but I ended up just cutting it into three pieces - a centre piece at the stern and two side pieces and then adding a couple of filler pieces to widen it and change its profile slightly which made it fit. This worked quite well.
 
David

That looks lovely.  Its starting to come together.

I have done all the preliminary work in installing the shrouds. Here is my method getting the rigging for the deadeyes at the right angle.  Fortunately I had a piece of dowel the same diameter as the main and foremasts.  The following two pictures shows the dowel inserted in the main mast position and a length of thread attached at the same height of the main top.
 

The thread is led down taught, through the hole for the deadeye assembly.

The angle is then marked on masking tape.


The white tape, above is to provide spacing for the holes to be drilled near the bottom of the wale.  Pin holes may be seen which are guides for the drill bit.
 

Above is a lonely deadeye dry-fitted.

Thanks for the kind comment Burt.
 
Have doing bits and pieces, not necessarily in the 'right' order while waiting such boring things as paint drying.  I have finished the bowsprit and the various masts.


 

 
The masts shown below are dry-fitted.  The next step will be permanently fitting the deck furniture, all of which have been prepared.
 

 


 
 

Hi Rookie
i did the lettering using Microsoft Word. I used white font on a black fill. Can also do the same using Excel. I played around with different fonts and spacing till I got what I needed then just printed it on standard 20# copier paper. Cut it out with a scalpel and glued it to the hull. Luckily on this boat the background is black so it was easy to match.
 
I did find that you need to use a color laser printer. An inkjet will bleed into the paper a bit which becomes a problem when working with tiny fonts. The gold color letters on the bow bulwarks isre only a 4 size font, the stern letters are 6. 
 
Tom

At last I finally have an identity!

 
Just make a couple of stars and what I am sure will be countless attempts at the eagle carving and the stern will be pretty much complete. 😁
 
Tom