Tim Curtis

A quick snapshot of where I am to date. My progress will be slow as I am still finishing my Scottish Maid, for which I have a separate build log.

Here are some photos of the longboat. About 90mm long at 1:72. Its pretty teensy. But a good little kit with most of the wood being pear. Sadly the keel and prow are in very crumbly ply which is hard to work with, and has a poor finish.
Stained the wales, rail and top plank with permanent marker to get some tidy colour, without the difficulty of painting at this little scale.

Welcome to my build log for the Master Korabel phoenix.

I  chose this kit for a number of reasons.
1. It is a high quality kit:
It makes use of some good quality wood including pear. Many of the detailed parts are of the highest quality, I note partic the blocks, the yawl/longboat included in the "plus" kit, the gratings, cannons, the many PE brass parts. See below for more info. The "shortcuts": the deck is provided as one sheet, with the planking and treenailing scribed in by laser. The result is a HUGE timesaver, and produces much better results than anything I could do at 1:72. All planking is also laser cut veneer hardwood, with planks already cut to the proper length, curvature and width etc (even the longboat). Again a huge timesaver. There are also about 20 very helpful online tutorials taking you through every step of the build on youtube. Here is the first one, which also is a wonderful intro to the contents of the kit.  
 
Finally the kit is very good value. I got the "plus" version which includes the longboat, higher quality blocks and wood for about $250 AUD. Online from a Russian supplier on ebay. This is about $200. For a time poor church minister, working six days a week, with three kids with a small craft desk in his study...this seemed to be a great value kit, that I will have a fighting chance of completing within 12 months or so.  

WIP on the kitchen ...
 
Regards
Valter

A quick snapshot of where I am to date. My progress will be slow as I am still finishing my Scottish Maid, for which I have a separate build log.

A quick snapshot of where I am to date. My progress will be slow as I am still finishing my Scottish Maid, for which I have a separate build log.

A quick snapshot of where I am to date. My progress will be slow as I am still finishing my Scottish Maid, for which I have a separate build log.

Welcome to my build log for the Master Korabel phoenix.

I  chose this kit for a number of reasons.
1. It is a high quality kit:
It makes use of some good quality wood including pear. Many of the detailed parts are of the highest quality, I note partic the blocks, the yawl/longboat included in the "plus" kit, the gratings, cannons, the many PE brass parts. See below for more info. The "shortcuts": the deck is provided as one sheet, with the planking and treenailing scribed in by laser. The result is a HUGE timesaver, and produces much better results than anything I could do at 1:72. All planking is also laser cut veneer hardwood, with planks already cut to the proper length, curvature and width etc (even the longboat). Again a huge timesaver. There are also about 20 very helpful online tutorials taking you through every step of the build on youtube. Here is the first one, which also is a wonderful intro to the contents of the kit.  
 
Finally the kit is very good value. I got the "plus" version which includes the longboat, higher quality blocks and wood for about $250 AUD. Online from a Russian supplier on ebay. This is about $200. For a time poor church minister, working six days a week, with three kids with a small craft desk in his study...this seemed to be a great value kit, that I will have a fighting chance of completing within 12 months or so.  

Here is a photo of the windlass. It comes as a neat little kit of its own. I have stained the posts with permanent marker, which is quick and tidy. 

Welcome to my build log for the Master Korabel phoenix.

I  chose this kit for a number of reasons.
1. It is a high quality kit:
It makes use of some good quality wood including pear. Many of the detailed parts are of the highest quality, I note partic the blocks, the yawl/longboat included in the "plus" kit, the gratings, cannons, the many PE brass parts. See below for more info. The "shortcuts": the deck is provided as one sheet, with the planking and treenailing scribed in by laser. The result is a HUGE timesaver, and produces much better results than anything I could do at 1:72. All planking is also laser cut veneer hardwood, with planks already cut to the proper length, curvature and width etc (even the longboat). Again a huge timesaver. There are also about 20 very helpful online tutorials taking you through every step of the build on youtube. Here is the first one, which also is a wonderful intro to the contents of the kit.  
 
Finally the kit is very good value. I got the "plus" version which includes the longboat, higher quality blocks and wood for about $250 AUD. Online from a Russian supplier on ebay. This is about $200. For a time poor church minister, working six days a week, with three kids with a small craft desk in his study...this seemed to be a great value kit, that I will have a fighting chance of completing within 12 months or so.  

I started this project in January 2017 and worked on it steadily for about three months but have not worked on it since. This is my first model of any kind. In retrospect, it was probably a bit advanced for a first model. I thought my experience as a fairly advanced woodworker and having engraved scrimshaw for several years gave me some of the skills (and most of the tools) I would need. The one thing that kept me going was the Bluejacket helpline that is manned by a very experienced modeler. In fact, Charlie has built models not only for himself but under contract to Bluejacket for those individuals that are willing to pay a great deal of money for a model. He has built the Smuggler more than once.
The hull and major structures have been completed and painted. Next, I plan to finish everything except for the masts and rigging. I have also nearly completed two dories and a seine boat.
The woodworking tools that I have found most useful are a Lie-Nielsen small brass block plane and some very sharp chisels.
This is a solid hull construction. I thought that was a good place to start for a first model. I made templates by getting several photocopies and using spray adhesive to mount them on separate pieces of 1/16” plywood. Each was cut out with a coping saw and finished with sandpaper and a curved sanding block to get just up to the line. The fore-aft templates were reinforced to make sure they remained straight.
Once I got the hull shaped as perfectly as possible using the templates to confirm the shape I made a major deviation from the kit plans based on a recommendation from Charlie. The machine-shaped hull has the bulwarks and transom incorporated. Rather than trying to chisel the inside of the bulwarks and transom to get to the proper thickness and attempting to sand the decks to shape, I cut everything off at the level of each deck.
At this point, I was able to sand the decks exactly to the shape I wanted as everything was open. I installed the scribed decking supplied in the kit on the foredeck as the original Smuggler has straight planking. However, rather than taking the same approach on the main deck, I purchased wood strips so that I could install curved decking in the same way it was on Smuggler. I then installed the waterboards and built up the bulwarks and transom using 1/16” v 1/16” strips. This method allows one to get accurate wall thickness and real scuppers.

Looks like nice wood.  Here is a link to some information about its characteristics.  http://www.wood-database.com/tasmanian-myrtle/

Looks and sounds like a good wood, even used for boat building . I would certainly give it a try

Friends,
 
Any thoughts about using Tasmanian Myrtle (Nothofagus Cunninghamii), partic for deck and hull planking? 
It is quite cheaply available on ebay in 0.6mm veneer sheets, sent direct from Tasmania.
http://stores.ebay.com.au/TopVeneer?_trksid=p2047675.l2563

It seems to be a dense, fine-grained wood, with quite pale pink colour. 
Anyone have any wisdom or experience on this matter?
 
Tim

Jung develops milling equipments, he says: -" Dad! Let me try!"  Earlier it was afraid of this machine, and lathe, and boring mastered much earlier! That's my boy!

Heronguy,
Love this kit, and thoroughly enjoying your posts.
You seem to be able to keep build logs for about 5 kits on the go at once.
Amazing. 
Anyway this seems to be a partic beautiful kit....keep posting.
 
Tim

Thank you all for the words of encouragement. We had Abby for about 12 or 13 years. I'm gonna miss her a lot.
 
Worked on the deadeye strops. likns, preventer links, etc. that are involved with the chain plates. Made the standard jig using different size nails and pins. Did the way the instructions showed. I would rather solder the joints but I am not set up soldering much so i had to settle for dabbing each spot with CA glue and hope it holds well enough. Got them all in the channel slots and got the molding over the ends. It is all still in a rough state. Still need to sabd paint, and touch up the glued spots on the links with gun metal enamel paint.
 
Sorry for the out of focus pictures. My camera was dropped a few years back and the screen is mostly black now so you cant tell how the picture is focused or centered until you put the card in the computer to look at.
 
Jesse

Sorry to hear this Jesse. Rest well.
 

Playing around with the blocks and bowsprit metal work.  The lower of the hooked blocks has Chuck's very thin strapping and looks better.  The hook needs some shaping.  All the blocks need a bit more sanding.
 

Maury

Victory is finally finished and resting in her display case. I do still have a little tidying up to do, but don’t tell anyone, they’ll never notice. A couple of photos follow.
 
 

Sorry to hear this Jesse. Rest well.
 

Heronguy,
Love this kit, and thoroughly enjoying your posts.
You seem to be able to keep build logs for about 5 kits on the go at once.
Amazing. 
Anyway this seems to be a partic beautiful kit....keep posting.
 
Tim

Melbourne is great.
Currently just over 100 degrees. A little on the warm side.
Keep posting....this is one of my favourite build logs!
T

Sorry to hear this Jesse. Rest well.
 

Sorry to hear this Jesse. Rest well.