gak1965

Hi Rick. The mast bands are brass strip (1/32 x 1/64) that came with the kit, glued onto the built masts. I don't have bands on the mizzen. I didn't worry much about them not staying on because there is a continuous layer of paint that they are under. The yard bands by contrast are mostly copper tape, using the existing adhesive and then painted over. BTW, I'm pretty sure I had Model Expo send me some extra brass strip of that size, as I didn't have enough for everything (and that was with nothing on the mizzen). They sent me more with no trouble. FWIW, last time I looked K&S metals had stopped selling the really thin brass strip, which is unfortunate. Thank you. When I actually finished it was a bit anticlimactic, but it's been growing on me. Your Cutty Sark is really awesome - I can't even imagine having to tackle sails on this or any other ship bigger than a lobster smack or maybe a skipjack. You've done an amazing job on her. Regards, George

Well, a little progress. Cutting out the bulkheads is proceeding, but I'm at a pause as I have now broken all of my scroll saw blades. New ones en route, so some time to work on the Kearsarge while I wait. Here is what is done. Stacked in the first image, laid out on the next two. they will need a bit of smoothing, but otherwise seem fine. 9 down, 5 to go, and then the center keel. That's when we find out how straight I can cut the slits and how much file/sanding is going to be needed. Thanks for looking in! Regards, George

Absolutely amazing!

Good luck. Hope that you continue on the mend rapidly.

Brief update. I've roughed in the balsa fillers, although not glued them in, because I want to shape them more before they go in. Given the size, I understand why balsa, but when I've made (smaller) filler blocks for other models I've found that the basswood was a lot easier to shape. So a couple of photos. The bow is pretty straightforward. I'll shape a little bit more and then fair them with the tool that comes with the kit. Stern is a bit more complicated: Instinct tells me that the left (forward) side of the stern filler blocks should match the prior bulkhead bulkhead. The photos show them following the faslse keel that terminates well short of the final bulkhead as in the photo below: I'm going to follow the photos, I guess, but it's a bit odd, at least to me. As always, thanks for looking in. Regards, George

Hi Ian, I was going to use the spray glue, but my (probably quite ancient) can was not spraying. I would up using a bit of CA (it was there). Worked a charm. Regards, George

Well, some real progress. First, here are the relevant pieces to make the frame of the ship, in paper, cut out and ready to go. Now, attached to the birch plywood, with some sections (not the same ones - the draftsmen chose ones with some significance to the constructors) from the original plans from the NMM. Next, bulkhead 7 (the widest, flattest) cut out of the big sheet, and ready to go on the scroll saw: And the first two bulkheads (6 and 7) having been cut from the scroll saw and "ready to go". I have plenty of wood and may wind up making one or both of them a second time. I realized a bunch of things about using my saw effectively, particularly where the deck is going to lay, although I can probably fix that issue by sanding it flat and putting in a small piece of 1 mm wood and sanding the curve in, so we shall see. In any case, I'm going to do all of the "solid" bulkheads before attempting the three with cutouts, and the very last thing I'm going to do is the false keel. I figure by that time I'll have developed more of the skills necessary to cut out a solid center keel and false keel. However, seeing as there has been sawdust on this project, I'm changing its status in my signature to 'current build'. As always, thanks for looking in and the likes. Regards, George

Well, I wound up adjusting the upper edge of the false keel to account for the deck camber, and added a small extension at the stem. And all of the bulwark patterns are cut out and ready to mount in the wood. Next step is to cut out the false keel pattern and it's off to making sawdust. I was thinking of mounting them on the plywood using the spray glue that is usually used to mount photos on poster board. Has anyone tried that, is it sturdy enough, or do I need a stronger adhesive? Thanks for looking in! Regards, George

Hi John, I tend not to weigh in on these sorts of questions - there is only one person whose opinion matters a whit, and that is you. I will say a couple of things here though. First, sorry to hear about your health issues. I hope they improve, or at least don't get worse. Second, I'm with Roger here, these things take so long that I can't imagine wasting any time building a model that doesn't interest you. And, FWIW, it seems to me that the Golden Hind will be as fiddly than the Fish, although in a different way. The thing has a lot of sheer, complicated decoration, and lot of unpainted wood. Most of the Fish is painted (and a rather simple scheme at that) and it hides a multitude of sins. The Hind is at a larger scale, but still three masts in about half the length. Something to think about. And there is no question of "letting us down", we are just here to share what we are doing and help each other along. Whatever you decide is the right move, mate. Regards, George

I didn't have a lot of time to work on the ship during the holidays, as my children were visiting. Because of their jobs (one is a reporter and the other works at an inpatient facility for women and girls with eating disorders) they generally need to work some holidays, and this year their schedules wound up conflicting, so they were here sequentially, not in parallel as it were. It was wonderful seeing them, although a shame that they couldn't be here at the same time. Anyway, where we stand. Although it is a little out of order, the frame reveal is completed and mounted. Rather than have some of the frames 'broken' for better visibility, I just decided to leave them all in place. The backing and "ironwork" were soaked in hot water, formed, and then glued in place when dry. The whole thing added below the subdeck, aligned with the bulkheads. The other subdeck has been added. Having read the instructions enough, I think I understand the goal, to provide the necessary shape for the bulwarks, with the pieces over the subdeck being removed once the inner bulwark is in place. It needed a bit of sanding to make the edges match the bulkheads. I've dry fitted the formers for the stem and stern as well, but not yet glued. Again, my read now is that this is going to be removed once fully build the bulwark. I presume that means that I need to be careful about where I actually glue this in place. So, that's current status. Next up is going to be the balsa fillers. As always, thanks for looking in and the likes! Regards, George

Bit of an update. I didn't have a ton of time to work on any of this during the holidays for a variety of reasons, the biggest being that my kids came to visit in sequence rather than parallel as it were. Great seeing them, although it would have been nice for both to be in town at the same time, but those are sometimes the breaks, since they both have jobs that still need doing even when the rest of us are on vacation (one is a reporter, the other works with inpatients with eating disorders). Anyway, where we stand. I got the big plans back from Staples, and it was nice to see the whole thing printed out, even at the reduced 1:72 scale (part of the sections drawings at the same scale above). Here is a close up of the sheer drawing. As you can see, I've superimposed the center and false keel over the sheer diagram. Everything I've outlined here is going to be made from a sheet of 1/4 inch birch ply a bought last week, so the slots are 1/4 inch. They are centered on the station only for station 7, the remainder are centered with the stern facing portion of the slot aligned to the station (1-6), or the forward facing section aligned to the station (8-14). The logic being that they will be faired forward for the 1-6 and aft for 8-14. FWIW, I've decided to include the sternpost. I'll remove the section where the prop sits but keep the core in one large piece. And finally you can see the first of the bulkheads cut out of paper and ready to be applied for cutting. Progress, even if I have 13 more bulkheads to cut before we see sawdust. Regards, George

Looking great. Let the rigging begin!

Well, progress being made. Here she is with the false keel and the port side bulkheads in place. Bulkhead 12 not installed for the reveal. And here with all of the bulkheads and the sub-deck dry fitted. I have one question regarding the installation of the sub-deck. I understand that it fits between the false keel and the bulkhead extensions, and that eventually I'm going to break the bulkhead extensions off. The question is how far out the sub deck is supposed to extend. Does it extend to edge of the slot in the bulkhead extension or out to the bulkhead? I.e. does it look like this: or extend the remaining 1/16 of an inch? If I understand the next steps (well not immediate next steps, but near term), the top of the sheer strake gets aligned with the bottom of the slot (since this is planked upside down it will actually be reversed, but relative to this diagram the description is accurate). Eventually the inner bulwark pieces attach to the top of the bulkheads, a tiny fraction of the extensions that are below the break score, and the edge of the sub deck. Is that right? Any assistance from someone that has built the ship or similar designs would be appreciated. Thanks for looking in! Regards, George

Well, I'm still waiting on the full sized plans from Staples. Hopefully they will be finished soon and we can continue. In the meantime, I've put together the following, which are going to be the start of the patterns of the bulkheads. The big plans have the profile I need for the false keel and the sections so that I know where to cut off the top of the bulkhead so that the waterways will fit properly. Regards, George

I don't think a repair is likely to resolve anything. It won't be yours, and it won't really resolve any of the underlying injury if you know what I mean. Stubbing out the masts seems like a good idea. It's still your work at that point, and that is a perfectly normal model category, suitable for display. And if you later want to repair it, well, you've cleared out the broken pieces and can begin anew. Regards, George

Looking spectacular Vlad! An amazing achievement! Regards, George

To be sure 😀. Right now all the work on Discovery involves turning drawings of one kind into drawings of another kind, and I like the idea of splitting my hobby time into tactile work (Kearsarge) and more intellectual work (Discovery - e.g. where should I put the top of the bulkhead given the need to put in a waterway, have the planksheer come to the right place, etc., etc.). I've often found that I would be in a place during a build where something would need time to dry or set, and that is a great time to do other things. No doubt it will slow both ships, and it may not work at all, but that's okay - I'll adapt as needed. There is another factor here, which is that I need a scroll saw to cut out the pieces for Discovery in an efficient way (My coping saw isn't going to cut it - well it could, but it would take forever). The Admiral and my (adult) children have made it clear that such a purchase prior to Christmas and my birthday, which is shortly after, would yield, ah, extremely negative results in the home department, so even in the best circumstances sawdust on Discovery was going to be waiting until 1Q24. Regards, George

And kick-off. This model is built rather differently than the POB models that Model Shipways sells, in the sense that the 21 bulkheads are in 42 (rather than 21) pieces, one port and one starboard piece, each of which has a tab that fits into either the top or bottom half of a slot on the main keel. It is also different in the sense that it appears that I am going to add the keel after the hull is planked (in prior kits, I'd cut a rabbet into the bottom of the hull, and then added the keel and bulkheads, before planking. Here is everything dry fitted on the port side: and all of the bulkheads cut out and aligned, port and starboard, fore and aft (the sections with the holes are for a reveal). There are also 21 2 x 1/2 x 1/16 strips of wood that I cut out that are going to 'lock' the frames in place. Observations so far. The laser cutting is generally pretty good. I had no trouble with the main false keel, and 3.5 of the four sheets of frames. At one end of one sheet, the cutting hadn't gone as far as it should, and even though I was careful cutting the parts out and used a fresh blade, I wound up with broken tips on two of the frames. They broke by having the two outer layers of ply break off, so I just repaired them by cutting out a section of ply of about the right shape, gluing them to the stub of ply and then trimming it down. It added about 20 minutes of work, but no big deal. One other thing I've noticed is that the tabs on at least some of the bulkheads are a little too long, and they protrude in a way that would prevent the opposite side from attaching securely to the false keel. Again, no big deal, I'll sand them down a little bit before I start attaching them. Regards, George

I'm currently building out the plans and parts for a scratch POB version of RRS Discovery. That is probably at least a month away from making any kind of sawdust, and I wanted to have another project where something other than electrons and paper was created, so I've decided to do the Bluejacket USS Kearsarge. This is my first Bluejacket kit, although I've used many of their parts/supplies in the past. There are other logs, and I won't reiterate what you can find on the Bluejacket website. Suffice it to say that she is a Mohican class steam sloop-of-war, built in 1861 by the Portsmouth Navy Yard in Kittery, ME, and commissioned in January 1862. <aside>If you look up Mohican class on Wikipedia or Google you will initially find the article on the Mohican herself, the Kearsarge and the Oneida (which sank with the loss of 125 in Japan. So far, my far from significant research has turned up 6 of them, two from 1859 (Mohican and Iroquois) and 4 from 1861 (Kearsarge, Oneida, Tuscarora, and Wachusett)</aside> Kearsarge is best known for sinking the Confederate commerce raider CSS Alabama. This particular battle caught the world's (and certainly the art world's) attention. I have read that only the battle between the Monitor and the Merrimack/Viriginia yielded more naval art in this period than the Kearsarge/Alabama fight. I will leave it to the psychologists as to why (larger than life personalities? the appearance of a chivalrous duel? Good artists nearby?), but there is a lot of such art out there. The default one is this one by Manet (image is public domain). It has been pointed out by people with more artistic skill than I that Manet changes the focus to the French ship coming to rescue survivors and that Kearsarge is barely visible. Manet: This is another one by Antonio Jacobsen and shows the Kearsarge nicely, with what appears to be a pretty rational rig. Just one more photo, this one of the ship's officers: I love this photo for what it says about life on board a navy vessel. This was apparently taken after the victory against the Alabama. At this point, this is probably the most famous ship in the Union Navy, Captain Winslow (3rd from left in the front row) is a national hero but you'll see that he is still wearing the old insignia for a Captain (3 3/4-inch stripes), while his junior officers (who presumably are newer at this than he is) are wearing the up to date version using more, narrower stripes (in the 1864 version of the regs, Captain Winslow would wear six stripes in two groups of 3, of the same width as the two LCDRs on his right). Bottom line was that he was on duty and had better things to do than replace his dress coat - not like anyone on the ship was going to be unaware of who he is! So, let's get the initial requirement out of the way. Here is the mandatory photo of the kit on my clean work table (not for long!). As to why this kit, well, it links a couple of areas of my interest. First, it is a Civil War era kit, and I've been fascinated by the history of that period for decades. Second, Kearsarge is, in some ways like Discovery, a transitional ship, powered both by steam and sails, and those transitional vessels have started to attract my interest of late. This project is going to be rather different in many ways from the kits of built recently (three Model Shipways kits, the Pride of Baltimore II, Niagara, and Flying Fish). This is much more 'mixed media' than those in the sense that there are wood parts, Britannia fittings, wood and metal strip, cast resin, styrene, and photo etched brass (a LOT of photo etched brass) so it will no doubt require developing some new skills. I am going to bring some techniques from those other ships though. For example, rather than paint the hull copper or using the individual copper plates, I am going to copper the bottom more or less as I did the Flying Fish using copper tape, and hopefully I'll be able to learn from my myriad mistakes on all the prior models to make this one go smoother. Regards, George

Well, a final entry from me in this log. Here she is in her new home: Regards, George

Well, the first change, thankfully before any sawdust is created. At the end of the day as I started printing out sections of the plans, and given some of the uncertainty around length, I've decided to switch to 1:72. It should still be easier than working in 1:96 as with the Flying Fish while coming in just over 3 feet stem to spanker (the actual length appears to be about 220 feet - exact measure once I print out the plan. However, I now have the exact amount to shrink them by and will hopefully get it done this weekend. @Vladimir_Wairoa helpfully shared the bulkhead count on his wonderful Glory of the Seas which is also at 1:72, given the relative sizes of the two ships I don't think I will need any additional bulkheads than are already on the drawings that I have. He also pointed out that I needed to make sure that they didn't interfere with cutting a mast slot, which I hadn't considered, but which it turns out is not a problem. So here are the stations at 1:72. The ship is about 5.5 inches wide at this scale. I've removed much of the yellow so I can print it more effectively and have a ruler (badly placed) for scale. The false keel will be about 3 to 4 inches tall depending on whether we are talking at the stem or the stern. I think that 1.5 inch slots in the false keel will work for all but the first and last bulkhead. The foc'sle is interesting. At least today it is closed off (unlike say the Flying Fish where it was open at the main deck (if you go to this YouTube video you can see what that access is via doors. Thus, although I was tempted to make it solid, I'm going to need to cut out an opening as you see in the MSW Flying Fish because even though it's closed, the fore stays appear to anchor inside it. And, if it turns out that it was open in Scott's day, I guess it will be a lot easier to have it open from the start rather than trying to open it out. I was thinking of using birch ply for the false keel and the bulkheads. There is a place nearby that sells what appears to be decent 1/4 inch 3 ply American birch in sizes of 24" x 48". I think that two of those should be enough for the bulkheads, and single piece keel and false keel. Finally, on Saturday morning I am going to annual Montgomery County Maryland Urban wood sale: https://montgomeryparks.org/events/montgomery-parks-urban-wood-sale/. They sell wood that comes from trees that the county had to remove from various places. I figure it is a good place to look for something that I can turn into a nice baseboard or perhaps some simple furniture (we need some place to display some items). Anyway they apparently have walnut, cedar, pine, poplar, oak, beech, cherry, cypress, and ash, some kiln, and some air dried. We shall see, I've never been before, but a nice 3/4 inch oak or cherry board in the 3/4 inch to 1 inch range, suitably prepared would work for Discovery and Kearsarge. Regards, George

Welcome. Just remember the essential fact of anything worth doing. The first step in building a great ship model is to... build a less great ship model. Even the most amazing builders you will see did less amazing work while they learned, and that less amazing work is what allowed them to make the amazing work. Plus, only they will realize it is less amazing work - to everyone else it's awesome. Regards, George

Well, next step was to try to validate what scale the plans would be once they were actually printed out. The ones from the NMM are really huge (24917 × 9042 pixels for the sheer drawing, for example). Printed at 300 dpi that would yield a drawing 83 by 30 inches. The nominal scale on the drawings is 1/4 inch = 1 foot or 1:48, so a 200 ft long ship at 1:48 would generate be 50 inches on the plans, that seems consistent for a 3 view diagram with borders. When I print a piece of the plan (what a pain that turned out to be) at 50% scaling, I wound up with a half beam at station 7 (the widest point on the ship) of almost exactly 2 inches, or an 8 inch full beam at 100% diagram scale. At 1:48 that's 32 feet with an extreme beam of 33 feet (I was using the lower view rather than the slices so I don't think it's significant). So, it looks like at 100% it will print to 1:48, and I can get a printer to reduce it to 66.6667% and get 1:64. My original plan, BTW, was to use the length overall to make sure that the scale was good. I know the LBP (172') and I wrote the Discovery Point museum asking about the overall length. Unfortunately, they wrote back to tell me that the overall length (spanker boom to tip of the jibboom) was 284 feet! Accounting for the additional length on deck, that would seem to imply a 90 foot bowsprit/jibboom. That seemed wrong to me (maybe they swapped a digit?). Discovery's bowsprit and jibboom are pretty compact, and it fits comfortably in its slip. I went to Google maps and measured 284 feet from the aft bulwarks and it runs out of the slip, over the pedestrian areas and almost to the A85 road. Anyway, I sent them another note asking if they really meant that long, so we'll see. Don't get me wrong, they have been incredibly helpful, but when your 1:64 project goes from 41 inches to 53 inches, you start to worry! Regards, George

And I seem to recall there is a large aluminum smelting operation in Iceland due to a combination of hydro and geothermal

Good pics of the boat davits as well!