Tigersteve

I’m in. 
Steve

I’m in. 
Steve

Evening,
I cant believe it's almost two months since I last updated.
Although summer time fun has been hindering my build, I have been building!
 
I have finally finished the hammock stanchions. 
 

 
Harder in my head, but not easy either.
You have to be creative to get them to curve with the main rail. 
My "spine" holding the stanchions is holding very well, and mostly covered by the hammock material.
 

 
Beside the rudder, which is next, the superstructure is basically done.
It's time to really start putting some rope, masts, and yards on this ship!!!! Weave it all together!
Never did I ever think I'd get this far. But, I've said that many times so far already 
 

 
I've already started weaving in the rope connecting the stanchions.
Not using anything special here, need very small diameter line and the bulk stuff should serve here well. 
 

 
I had to place her in precarious angles to have two free hands.
My eyes constantly checking the Bowsprit area. Don't want to hear that dreaded wood cracking sound.
 

 
I've been thinking about a more permanent base.
Below, I have a chunk of basswood from Michaels, bought probably on some random trip thinking I may use it somewhere. 
Maybe give it a good sanding then stain it. I'm thinking a stain a bit darker than the main deck.
 
Not absolutely sold on this method right now.
I have time to chew on it. 
 

 
Stay safe
 
Tom E
 
 
 
 

Finished the Fore Deck today. No real problems except some adjustments due to my midline issues.
Re-adjusted the building board clamps to allow access to the beakhead which is next.
 

Starting my 3rd model!  I know I'll have LOTS of questions for the forum about this one, but I'm excited to begin!  First step, check out the kit contents and do a complete inventory.  So far, so good!

 

Well, I turned them around and managed to install the chains. I will put the rear stays in place tonight so it is not swinging around. Will have to sort out the stations and rails on the Liverpool House next.
 
I have made canvas covers for the two life boats. Might be a little oversize but I have not tied them down yet.
 
Simon

Almost ship-shape! The floor hasn't been this clean in years! The lost of material has led to a slight improvement in organization and I was able to add another work table (as seen to the left) although I'm still working through how best to arrange the power tools. Thanks to everyone for their kind support!

Post Seventeen
Bulwarks and Margin planks.
 
For the Margin planks I am using 4.5mm wide Boxwood strip.
Nothing too severe in edge bending requirements, and I use the etched deck as a template to form the curve.

0355(2)
Using the water/heat edge bending treatment, there is no need to pre-cut the margin.
 
The Spirketting is handed Port and Starboard, fore and rear; it is nicely etched with Top and Butt planking, and I added a slight bevel to the top where it meets the quickwork planking above.
 
Strictly speaking a waterway should be fitted before the  spirketting into which the scuppers are fitted.
Unless the spirketting is reduced in width to allow the fitment of a waterway,(not a good idea) the waterway would need to fit on the deck in front of it, which would cover some of the Top and Butt planking, altho’ only to the extent of around 1mm.
 
Without this fitting the scupper holes drilled in the margin plank make no sense and are probably best not drawn attention to.
On a practical level very little of this will be seen on a model fully built to the kit specification so not really an issue.
 
The deck clamps are fitted above the quickworks, again laser cut parts.
A bit of a puzzlement here, the blurb indicates that the top edge should be slightly higher than the adjacent bulwark.
There are a series of pre-drilled holes in both the spirketting and deck clamp pieces above the gunports, which would suggest are to be aligned. These are described as being for gunport tackle eyebolts, presumably for muzzle lashing when the guns are run-in and stowed.
However, if they are aligned the deck clamp pieces encroach on the top of the gunports.

0356(2)

0359(2)
Plan 11 does show the forward deck clamp strip positioned between 0.6mm and <1mm above the ports, the aft sectioned following the top line of the ports.

0364
Along the bottom of the deck clamp strips are a series of notches. These are for the support brackets for the Gangboards. (many steps ahead) They need to be carefully positioned to neither encroach on gunport or tackle eyebolt slots either side.

0366
The aft deck clamp strips are less complicated only need to ensure that the gallery doorway slot is nicely positioned. A slight trimming of the forward end to meet the fore part is required to fit.
 
I fitted the deck clamp strips without concern for aligning the drilled holes, my main objective to avoid fouling either the gunports or side tackle drill holes.

0370
Internal planking of the bulwarks now completed.

0382
The fairly easy run of the Margin planks can be seen in this shot.

0371
The ‘false’ scarph joint is marked with a scalpel and lined with a pencil.

0376
Before I progress further I will think about adding the waterway because my eye expects to see it and I doubt very much will be seen of the fine top and butt beneath even a light coat of paint.
 
B.E.
22/09/21
 
 
 

Post Fifteen
The routine stages
Once the false deck is in place the next stage is to add the vertical gunport frames.
 
I like this idea of Chris’s, together with the longitudinal frames the ports are formed in a manner that reflects a traditional way of making them.

0315(2)
I found that some of the frames benefitted from a pass with the sanding stick to fit smoothly into the notches; they are quite delicate at the extremes and some of the tips broke off.

0311
The filler pieces at the bow and stern were bevelled. No need to sand these, a scalpel blade cuts thro’ the mdf like butter, and no sanding dust.
 
Sanding the internal framing is a pain, I always find that removing char seems to take forever.

0318
I start with P80 grade paper to get the rough off and then proceed to finer stuff. The char on the inner faces of the bulkhead tabs was particularly stubborn to remove.

0320
That done, the inner bulwark patterns fitted beautifully; I did  apply pva to the faces of the framing to ensure a strong bond, rather than rely on the diluted glue to the rear approach.

0322
The bulkhead extensions designed to take hull support jigs seem very weak All but two of them have supporting splints and I can’t quite get my head around how they would have any effect on preventing hull spread.
 
The Quarterdeck beam spacing patterns are fitted before the rear bulwarks.

0323
Delicate items these that require gentle handling. I found that the aftermost slot above the stern frames required easing to allow fitting.

0327
Before I glued them into place, I fitted some dummy deck beams to check the athwartships line-up. With a mostly open deck I didn’t want anything looking askew.

0329
The rear panels took a little fettlin’ to fit beneath the beam spacers, together with a little more tweaking of the internal framing.

0334
At the rear panel you can see the first modification to the Quarter gallery; the doors have been removed.
How this will all tie in with modifications to the Quarter gallery fitting to come, I haven’t worked out as yet.

0333
The final action on this part is to sand the pattern gunport openings flush to the framing. For this I make up size specific sanding sticks with P240 paper.

0336
Moving on…
 
 
B.E
 
20/09/21
 

Well, I am glad to say that I have finally finished up the ratlines. 
 

 
I have also reworked the connection for both the gaff and spanker.  These need to be stained and varnished and the upper chain installed but I am happy with the metalwork now.
 
Next biggest job that  ends to be broken up is making the sails.
 
Lots of part started jobs to finish off.
 
Need to work out where all the deck rings will go to secure rigging. 
 
Need to calculate just how many rigging blocks I am going to need and how many I have. I also need to take stock of what I am doing with belaying pins and whether I can use the ones I just bought.
 
I would really like to be able finish before the Christmas decorations go up and that's about 2 months (and a bit) so should be doable.
 
Simon

I just finished the skylight and started to work on the companionway.  Again, I figure this would be easier to build if I started with a solid piece of wood.  I found some scraps and glued them together to get the desired width I needed.
 

 
Once completed I will still have to fabricate the Hoisting Engine Box and the Clutch Cover Box.  I think after that things will get a little tricky with the Jumbo Boom Crutch and Hoisting Machinery Support and the Windlass.  The Britannia fittings that come in the kit aren't the best but I'll have to work with them.  I did order some Pewter Black from Blue Jacket Shipcrafters.  It does a good job at blackening the Britannia fittings.
 
Once I finish up with the deck furniture and gear I will then paint everything.  I haven't decided on colours or how much I will paint.  I'm not too interested in staying true to the original Bluenose colours and colour detail.  That would mean more detail than I care to get into.  I will hopefully find a compromise that will still be appealing to look at and will be somewhat close to original.
 
Meeting with Alan and taking into consideration what Bob mentioned above, I've ordered some silkspan and will experiment with it over the next few months to see if I can produce decent looking sails.  If not, I'll revert back to the material that came with the kit.  As far as the heavier material I bought recently, perhaps I can make a shop apron or something similar from it.  It's definitely too heavy to be used as sails.
 
As you can now see, things have progressed nicely the last little while.  She's starting to take shape. 
 


 
 
 

So I want to show you how I eventually figured out the correct height and position of the stool piece.
After advice from Chuck I read and reread page 112 of David Antscherl’s Comet book where he discusses this exact thing although he calls it the berthing piece.
1st - I took the height of the upper counter where it meets the lower corner of the transom.
2nd - I transferred that height to the hull side, you can see the mark is LOWER than the transom which is correct.
3rd - I used a straight edge to follow the sheer of the hull and marked a line that shows where this bottom edge will be.
4th - I used the paper templates to mark the angle and heights of the other needed reference points inc it’s upper face level and the top of the QG ( or bottom of roof )
5th - Sanding and fitting the piece being mindful that it’s upper face should follow the roundup of the transom.
If anybody sees where I made a mistake here please let me know before I go any further.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

These Small patience testers were All hand made. Files knife sandpaper, and drill. 
Needed to assembly manufacture..:D 
Moved fwd today. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Hello,
here it goes on after a small creative break:
In the meantime I have made the ropes for the main topmast preventer stay (Ø 0.63 mm) and mizzen topmast preventer stay (Ø 0.50 mm). 
In principle, these are attached as shown in the following sketch.

Source: Internet unknown

This method of attachment was described in the monograph by J. Boudriot. I hope that I have interpreted it correctly.
Accordingly, the collars were prepared with thimbles. At the corresponding places the stays are served.

 

 


Shortly I will show how they are then mounted on the model.
 

QG templates lining up.
 

QG dummy windows installed and boxwood transom cap pieces installed.

I spent part of the day working on a platform with which to set the Bluenose on.  I will use it for the rest of the build but may elect to build something more suitable for the finished model.  If I do decide to keep it, it will need a lot more finish work.
 

And the twelve smaller ones as well. They are covered with 1,5 x 0.8 mm and 2,0 x 0.8 mm cherry stripes as substitute for the supplied laser-cut parts. The applied WOP still has to dry.
 

 
For a size comparison there is also a picture with a larger box and another with a 1-cent coin.
 

 

 
After finishing these side projects I can now continue to work on the hull.
 
Stay tuned and save.
 
Andreas
 
 

My replacement cherry
wood has finally arrived, now I can start planking the inside.
 

 
But before I do that I will replace the supplied lasercut box covers with stripewood as they don’t fit the boxes. For the bigger boxes I use 3mm x 0.8 mm and 2mm x 0.8mm cherry stripes. Finishing just one of them needs 24 pieces and I have 4 bigger ones and 12 smaller ones left to do … ahhwww, why do all these side projects have to be so time-consuming? Well, here is a picture of the finished one with WOP just applied. 
 

 
Stay save, 
 
Andreas
 

Hello and many thanks for your likes and comments,
 
today I finished the drawing for the upper frieze. I do not know if I should do it this way. I painted all the flags and shields in there original colours. The rest I would paint like the lower frieze in that ocker tone. (?) At some ships you could see it done this way. That would ad a little more colour to the frieze.
 

I'll try to explain this one again 🥸
In 2013, we were paying our host to backup for us, but they didn't even have the secondary drive fitted, let alone back things up.
 
Our current system does have a drive fitted and I have personally scheduled all backups. These are created every other day so the most we will ever lose is a day or so. No more need to back up this log than any other on MSW 😉
 
Ok....back to the log.

Well, bit of a long overdue update.
 
I've been super busy at work, spending time outside over the summer, then I had Covid. So even though I've worked on the model a fair amount I haven't posted anything in quite awhile. Here we go.
 
I've completed nearly all of the rigging on the Latham. One thing I wanted to touch on first was the baggywrinkle. I puzzled long and hard over how to make this neatly and in scale. I am a fly fisherman/fly tier and it eventually hit me to use peacock herl, which is used for certain fly bodies. I used my serving machine to wrap it around the rigging line, and then subsequently painted with tan paint. Really happy with the way it came out. I'll have more updates over the coming days. 
 
 

Prior to installing the boat on the display base, strips of brown felt were glued for a custom fit. Three days of rigging the buckets with handles and rope coils using Syren ULTRA scale rope completed the model. I did my best to tie sheet bend knots, although that detail is difficult to notice at this scale. This was an enjoyable project and I learned a lot. Thank you David for designing this kit and keeping an eye on the build. Ryland Craze and Mike Stuntflyer, our exchanges on paint strategies and finishes was invaluable. I hope the rest of you will continue to follow as I get back to the Mayflower- Model Shipways.
Steve

Thank you guys for the nice comments. Mike, back to building the Mayflower. 
Steve

So sorry to hear. Best wishes. 
Steve