mrshanks

Here is the Dumas 1954 Chris Craft Commander Express 36" model kit that I received. My first impressions were the size of the box was quite larger than I expected and weighs close to 15 pounds. It has the typical woods. I didn't get too much into it since this will be stored away until I finish my current Montane's build. But one thing I did take note of was the fittings weren't crome or shiny, but looked like either lead or pot metal fittings and will need some type of finishing on them. But here are a few pics as to what it looks like at this point.
 
This will be my first attempt at R/C building. I had thought about building this for my grand baby and son in law, but I think it might be a bit to large for them, so I might decide to sell it once completed to re-coop what I have invested in it. I'm mainly building it just to get a change from cannons and rigging and to try my hand at something else.
 
 
mike

I finished the stem and beakhead;  working on the stern deadwood.  When that's done I'll glue the keel together and start work on the frames.

Hello Everyone...
This morning I have been working on the preparation of the shroud lines..I usually seize these lines at the point where they make contact when wrapped around the mast.  Therefore as I begin the rigging of the Bluenose I thought I would include some pictures of my method of seizing these lines.  Some modelers will seize the two lines together as they bend around the mast as a method of binding them to the mast. I prefer seizing them, as the real ships did, to prevent chafing where they make contact with the mast and then securing them to the mast with two or three square knots.  Here is an idea of the sequence:
 
The shroud line is prepared in the seizing machine with a clip locating the center of the shroud line.

 
The seizing thread is half-hitched to the shroud line and a dab of CA cement is applied.

 
After the seizing process is completed the thread is tied and glued to the shroud line

 
The excess thread is snipped away

 
The shroud lines are placed around the main mast waiting to be tied in place.

 
I have also installed all of the deadeyes in place on the channels.  The chainplates will be added once the shrouds are fully rigged.
 


 
I wish everyone a great day
Jerry

Thanks, Don.
 
In addition to the excellent practicum that comes with the kit, I'll be using Dr. Clayton Feldman's book and Mike Lonnecker's article in the NRJ as resources.  I'm planning on fitting out the interior of the ship as Mike did.  Here's a link to his article:  http://www.thenrg.org/resources/59-3%20NRJ%20%20Building%20Fair%20American%201789.pdf
 
I started work on the keel.  The keel, stem, deadwood and framing are all in cherry.
 
In order to create a consistent rabbet in the keel, it is built up of 6 separate parts.  After gluing them all up I cleaned up the notches where the frames will sit with a #11 X-Acto blade and sanded the part.  There was some distortion of the parts as I added each seperate piece.  They are quite thin.  This led to the keel curving a bit and causing heartburn!  By the time all 6 pieces were added, though, and the keel dried overnight it was straight as an arrow when I took the clamps off.  Next I'll add the stem and the beakhead

This will be a good one to watch

Welcome aboard, Grant!
 
Mike:  How's your new workshop coming along?  Any chance we'll see a build log from you any time soon?    Thanks for stopping by!

This will be the build log for my second Lauck Street Shipyard kit, "Fair American".  As with my AVS "Patrick Henry" I plan to substitute some of the kit's wood.  My kit is #116 and I purchased it about 2 years ago.  It does contain a wood package from Hobby mill with an ebony wales kit as well as Swiss pear and holly planking stock.  I'll also find a way to use boxwood.  This kit will be more practice before I go on two my two big goals:  The Lauck Street Shipyards "Kingfisher" and a scratch-built "Hannah" in 1/24 scale.
 
The first step is to unpack, and then start work on the keel.

You did get a lot done, Elijah.  Looks good!

Nice job! What is that rope on the boom for?

Hi Everybody..
Today was an interesting day since some of the work required a lot of patience because of the dealing with very small diameters.  I finished the main and fore masts so I started and finished the bowsprit and the fore gaff.  I intend to put a coat of satin varnish on the raw wood of the Masts, gaffs and booms to preserve their natural look.  The bowsprit is mounted in the hull and has been coated.  Dealing with drilling at the 1/8" end of the fore gaff had me in fits for awhile but I calmed down and did the deed.  So here are a few more pictures and it's off to a bottle of beer.
Have a happy evening everyone..
Jerry

Hello again! Yesterday I had a sick day, so I got the whole day to build! You won't believe how much progress you can make when you have the whole day to work! I built the fairleads, splash rails, chain plates and deadeyes, belaying pins with rails, and some more eyebolts! The splash rails were fairly simple. I took them off of the plans and painted them. The fairleads were made from Manila folder and wire. The chain plates took the most time. I cut brass strips to the correct lengths, bent and shaped the hooks, drilled the holes, and cleaned them over a candle flame. The hole drilling was a bit more involving, as I broke the drill bit that was the correct diameter . I just used the next size down and drove a pin through each individual hole, widening it to the right dimensions. I painted them, and painted the pins that hold them on the hull. The deadeyes are held on by a thin black line that's kookier on the hook of the chain plate, threaded through the cap rail, and tightened around the deadeye. The line is held in place with ca. The belaying pins were painted at the head first, then glued in to the cap rail. After they were in the cap rail, they were painted on the lower half. The paint is only on the visible side, so it shouldn't rub off during rigging. None of these items were made completely perfectly, but I chose some of the more appealing photos . Though it isn't perfect, I am still happy with it. Plus, there isn't much I can change now, so why worry about it? Anyway, here are the pictures.
 




 


 
I forgot. I also drilled the mast holes and have nearly finished the launching ways. Until next time!

I very much like your use of wood hues in lieu of paint. I plan to do something similar on a section of my next build. My own tastes prefer natural wood over paint, even though not historically accurate

After installing the upper wales I planked the upper hull with yellow heart and added the lower wales.  They are rosewood and measure 1.5mm X 5mm.  Given the bluff bow, there was no way to easily bend the lower wales so I built them up using 2 layers of stock 0.75mm in thickness.  The wales actually curve under at the counter.  I'm still trying to figure our how to install fashion pieces!  Hull planking below the lower wale will be holly. The photo is of Fair American planked in holly below the wale.

Hi Mike..
Thank you for your nice words about the dory.  I'm having my daily fit today as I try and figure out how to make the bottom of the masts square so that they fit into the rectangular holes in the deck.  (Time passes........)  Okay I cut the masts a little smaller than they're supposed to be so that if necessary I can rotate them if they are not perfectly square when raised into the deck.  Nobody will get to see the ugly job since they'll be below the deck anyway.  I hope you had a nice weekend and that you have a good week ahead.
Best,
Jerry

Great job, Don!  She is coming together nicely.  Nice recovery on the wale, by the way!

Good morning all, it's been some time now and I don't really have much to show for it. I'm really not sure how my time has been used as of late but production is very slow in the shipyard, hopefully this will change as the weather cools off.
 Since last time I have finished the planking, added the scupper plank upper wale and the rubbing strake
 

 
Here I have marked and measured the scupper openings then cut them out using a 2 mm bit on my mill. As  you can see I just made up a little table for the mill added a fence then just cut the openings free hand. This is so much easier cutting in the scuppers off the ship, good design by MarisStella
 

 
Clamping and the end result
 

 
Shaping the top . 
 
]
 
Building up the bow
 

 
 Here the bow is being shaped and the final planks for the upper wale installed. It was at this point I ran into a little snag.....the upper wale plank was supposed to be .5 mm thick and I installed 1.5 mm thick pieces   . I was thankful that I used not only ca but also weldbond to glue these pieces on so no one method would get the pieces off without major damage . Next option was to sand off 1mm of the strake so, when I finally found my happy face, the sanding begun using a dremel. I suppose I was smiling so much I could not see that I sanded right through it in one spot thus requiring me to glue another piece on in this spot and do some more sanding......by hand.
 The good part of all of this is I live in the country with no neighbours close by to hear my "sounds of joy" and my dog has finally returned home. The pictures show the plank before sanding
 Next step is painting the rubbing strake and upper wale and the space in between them(not sure of the name for this area) I have begun this I will have some updates hopefully soon.
 
 Take Care and Thanks for stopping by

I just noticed there are no pictures of the rubbing strake installed so here are some pictures, the painting has just begun with four coats of grey so far and three coats of the blueish black.
 

 
 The paint is just cheap acrylic paint from Michaels, the grey is steel grey and the blue/black is a mixture of midnight blue and black. These are the brushes I used, also from Michaels. I didn't bother to mask as I am not very good at that so there are a couple of little touch ups to be done. The grey still needs a couple of coats and the blue will probably need another 4 or 5 coats

Hello Everyone..
Today I worked on the mainmast with mixed results.  As hard as I tried when I attached the top mast tp the mainmast I didn't get it perfectly straight.  Unfortunately I didn't notice it until after the glue set.  I believe I can straighten it out when I get to the rigging.  (I hope so.)
So here are some additional photos of today's work, etc.
Many thanks for looking in at my log and I promise I'm going to do better.  LOL
Best,
Jerry

Hello everybody..
 
I decided to stray from Bob Hunt's practicum when it came to building the dory.  The kit provides some laser cut pieces with which to construct a jig to use building the ship's boat.  The actual pieces to make the dory with are 1/64"  "crapwood" but I decided to give it a try.  The practicum found the jig difficult to use and Bob's idea was to make the dory by gluing the bottom of the boat to the side and then glue the transom to what you have already made and keep going that way.  I found that ridiculous.  Trying to hold a 1/64" piece of veneer in order to glue it to another one of that thickness was impossible...at least for me.  So I decided to try the kit's method and I built the jig. 
 
Actually, I found the jig to work well and actually made a dory.  It was interesting working with 1/64" x 1/32" strip wood to make the dory's floor grating but by the time one who builds this kit gets this far, one is used to working with such small dimensional strip wood.  I used a lot of this stripping even to make the yellow gunwales.  All in all, the experience was good because it was a new one and the more new experiences the better model building becomes.  So here are some pictures of the dory and also after it was lashed to its skid on the deck.

So is Olive Oil.....
Thanks, Popeye.
Jerry
 
P.S.  here are a few more pictures...
 
 

Hello everybody...
Another day and some more details.  The shipyard closed just in time to have the eye bolts and rings, the catheads and the belaying pins placed in their racks which were also added today.  A lot was done but there's still a lot more minutia to finish before the masting can begin.  I anticipate that the masts and boom will be part of next week's assignment.  So without further BS here are the photos which were taken right before the gates to the shipyard were closed for the night.
Best,
Jerry

Hello Everybody..
It's been a few days since I have reported my progress with this interesting kit, Bluenose.  When I last reported what was going on I was beginning to build the wheel box which I completely screwed up and build upside down.  I thought about making revisions in order to use what I spent a few hours on but eventually decided to make a new one. There were a few other smaller pieces (bits, boom crutch, "unidentified object") which I finished and then it was time to make the monkey rails.  This part of the build took a lot of time because painting the rails was difficult.  Now there are several other "deck details" which need to be completed such as eye bolts and rings and the ship's boats before the masts and booms are made.  In the meantime here are some pictures of the deck as it is at this time.
Best to all,
Jerry

I got to thinking that before adding and rigging the carronades in place I would rather pre-do a lot of the deck work while they are out of the way. I can just picture damaging some of them trying to work on other stuff all over the deck. I figured I'd make everything, get holes drilled, etc. but not glue anything down until after the carronades are in place. 
 
First thing is the mast holes. Made a paper template to get the right angle from the plans. Used that to make a crude wooden drill guide. Dilled the mast holes very slowly first by digging out a smaller hole with cutting tools then using drills working up in size and checking the angles frequently as I go. This will get it very close but also give me a little wiggle room later on when the masts are installed. Each mast hole had a separate guide built but I only took shots of one to show the process. Now I will move on to the gratings, and other deck fittings.
 
I know, how can I work around such clutter?!?!    Don't know how I do it myself. Every time I clean it all up it ends up right back like this again. It just works for me. Part of my problem is a severe lack of space but I think it would still be like this no matter how much space I had.
 
Jesse
 

Good point, Bill.  Whenever I drill holes, I start with a small bit (1/16") and gradually enlarge the hole with successively larger bits.  Your tip about reversing rotation of the drill bit for the final couple of passes really works, also!  I've used the technique on model ships as well as full sized furniture and it produces clean, crisp holes with no tear-out at the edges.

Looking great. The only advice I would give when drilling the holes is once you do think you have everything aligned, drill the first hole with a very small drill bit. Then you can stick a small nail into it and check your angles both directions. Then you can gradually increase the size of your drill bits until you have the correct size for your mast.
 
Lastly, for the final bits, try reversing the drill bit (if your drill will do that) and drill the final enlargement that way. It keeps the drill bit from catching the wood grain and ripping things out around the edges. This advice was from another builder here, but I did not note who it was. I use it all the time.