Tim Curtis

Working on the spars. I sanded the yards by hand to the plan specifications. I think the main yards might need to be reworked with a bit more tapering on the ends. They are the indicated width on the plans though. I mixed a stain similar to the masts, then tried to present a bit of a weathered effect. I figured a merchant brig would not have the budget for regular painting like a warship, but would still be serviceable.

Adam
 
I suggest you include Master Korabel.
I recently purchased their Phoenix Brigantine kit (I bought the plus version that includes the ships boat, higher quality wood and blocks) for a bit under $200 US.
Its quality is truly excellent, and value for money extraordinary.
 
There are also thirteen very clear online tutorials on youtube for each stage of its build. See an example here: https://youtu.be/c3MmCMmNK2s.
 
For a someone time poor and without lots of experience, its the best kit on the market.
 
Good review of its contents here https://youtu.be/1ITBzejbDbA
Below are some photos...not mine. 
 
Tim
 

 

Adam
 
I suggest you include Master Korabel.
I recently purchased their Phoenix Brigantine kit (I bought the plus version that includes the ships boat, higher quality wood and blocks) for a bit under $200 US.
Its quality is truly excellent, and value for money extraordinary.
 
There are also thirteen very clear online tutorials on youtube for each stage of its build. See an example here: https://youtu.be/c3MmCMmNK2s.
 
For a someone time poor and without lots of experience, its the best kit on the market.
 
Good review of its contents here https://youtu.be/1ITBzejbDbA
Below are some photos...not mine. 
 
Tim
 

 

Adam
 
I suggest you include Master Korabel.
I recently purchased their Phoenix Brigantine kit (I bought the plus version that includes the ships boat, higher quality wood and blocks) for a bit under $200 US.
Its quality is truly excellent, and value for money extraordinary.
 
There are also thirteen very clear online tutorials on youtube for each stage of its build. See an example here: https://youtu.be/c3MmCMmNK2s.
 
For a someone time poor and without lots of experience, its the best kit on the market.
 
Good review of its contents here https://youtu.be/1ITBzejbDbA
Below are some photos...not mine. 
 
Tim
 

 

So, I went with wrought iron. I painted them, then dry fitted each stanchion back in place. They went in without any issues. Last step was the halyard for the ensign. For my first wooden ship model build, I thought this cutter was moderately challenging. I would highly recommend it for a novice like myself.

Jesse,
Looks fantastic. Enjoy watching your build.
Praying for your health mate.
Tim.

A concern is avoiding the rigging of the driver boom fouling the lights. Exactly where the rigging is attached to the hull is far from clear. Actually installing the lights is about the last thing I will do as their attachments are very fragile indeed.   Protruding as they do is an invitation to disaster.  However to get an idea of the best place to attach the boom rigging I have dry-fitted the light supports - shown below.  This entails drilling holes in the decorative surface of the stern - something I was not keen to do.  However needs must ...  (With hindsight I would have drilled the holes before painting and off the model, but there your are.)
 
In the process however, I discovered that it is just possible to drill the appropriate holes without damage to the painted figures.  Obtaining the distance between the holes from the light supports, I used a pair of dividers to search places on the decorative surface where I could drill without damaging the figures. The only places are shown in the unfortunately rather unclear photos.
 
 

 

 

 

Another quick update....I finished putting in the sheer clamps and bilge clamps.  I have done more fairing of the hull, especially the port side, but have a bit more to do.  A couple of the frames have some low spots that I need to shim a bit (e.g. in the first photo, you can see that the second to last frame on the starboard side is not wide enough).  I also have a bit more trimming and tweaking of some of the timber heads.  And I am sure I have a bit more accidentally breaking off and gluing back on some of the timber heads as well.  The carved bow piece is pretty rough....I'll have some repairing and filling to do there.
 
According to my log, I am up to about 63 hours of work on this project.
 

Getting more serious. I made enough room on the bench to have the boat, masts and bowsprit. Ok so it's on the bench. Turning it around to get to the other side is a bear.
 
Was looking the deck over and realized I never built a bellfry. So I put one together real quick. Must have lost the bell so had to make another. Of course now I'm worrying what else did I forget?
 

 

 
 
 
 

Thanks for likes and comments! 
Re manual - haven't really used the text part of it yet, pictures are quite self-sufficient, and the text is written in a very heavy and formal way (like a precise specification), which should be handy in some complicated parts of the build.
 
As expected, very rough and ugly first planking was easily faired  Now it provides a smooth and round foundation for planking.
Daria enjoyed it as well - she liked the transformation of smth rough to smth smooth. That took some efforts though!
 
Sanding:

Scraping:

 
Smooth vs rough:

 
End result: 



 
She ended up complaining that I was sanding myself too much (we were doing it in turns), and insisted that I should not touch it, let her finish without assistance. Hoorray!

 
P.S.: the build is on hold due to summer holidays that Daria will mostly spend with her grandparents, so will be back in September!

Hello,
in the meantime I have finished the cheeks.
Here are some pictures:


 

Been a while since I posted.  Progress has been very slow, mostly due to not finding much time to spend on this kit.  I have finished carving the bow and stern/transom pieces and affixed them to the model.  I put a temporary lengthwise stringer on either side on the outside of the frames, attached to about every third or fourth frame, to keep things somewhat aligned, then began working on the permanent ones on the inside of the frames. 
 
Here is the mostly complete stern piece.  I think I did a bit more carving after this, but it is pretty close here.  Compare to the rough shape supplied in the kit shown above.  I did deviate a bit from the kit here.....I cut a carefully shaped, symmetrical transom piece from 1/16th inch thick basswood and attached that to the bottom of the carved stern piece, rather than trying to get the shape just by carving it.  Can't really see it on this picture though.
 
And here it is attached to the keel and last frame:

 
And finally, this picture shows the keelson (across the bottom of the frames) and the starboard sheer clamp being clamped on.  The sheer clamp is made of two pieces...the lower one was supposed to go all the way to the stern but it was difficult to twist in place and seemed a bit pointless so I ended it on the fourth to last frame.  I still need to do the second piece of the sheer clamp on the port side, then there are two "bilge clamps" to be put in, one on each side, half way between the keelson and the sheer clamp.  Once I have those on, the frame should be more solid and I will likely do a bit more fairing of the outside of the frame, as well as trimming the tops of some of the frames to make sure every thing is level (i.e. some of the tops of the frames stick up slightly from the top edge of the sheer clamp), and the tops of the timberheads are not all perfectly even.  Then it is on to making the deck beams.

Evening all,
I installed the bow filler blocks. I've seen the phrase used in other builds that "the second try is usually better".
Soooooooooooooo true!!!!!!!
Can anyone tell which filler block was first?!?!?! Hahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!
How did I not see that gap at first! Oh well......learning moment.
 
Now I have to decide if I should fill that little gap with wood filler or let it be.
 

 
 
 

 
 
I'll do the final shaping of these when I fair the rest of the ship.
 

 
 
 
Tom E 
 

Sometimes progress feels like running up a sand dune.
 
A couple of days ago I found a small note on the plans which required holes to be drilled horizontally through the tops of the upper masts to take the halliards for the top sails. On the face of it not a problem, that is if you ignore the fact that the holes should be slots and within the slots should be sheaves. So I spent a few days ignoring the problem of forming neat slots at the flexible and fragile ends off the masts. In the end I drilled a row of .030" holes and removed the webs with a x-acto knife. The inside of the slot was then cleaned up with a sacrificial needle file - ground thinner and narrower to get it started in the slot. I kept expecting the mast to fall apart under the cyclic load but my luck held and the job was done. The sheaves are .175" diameter by .050" wide.

 


I rigged the lower main mast backstays - twice!! The pulleys worked - but a little too well. With a mechanical advantage of 8 (less friction) the small upper pulley was put under a load it wasn't designed for and parted with an annoying ping. I repeated the error once more before deciding the rigging didn't really need to be a taught as a guitar string.
 

 
I decided I couldn't do much more rigging without mounting some of the sails so I started the process of sail making. I had a good look round at fabric options but in the end I decided to stick with the devil I know - Amati modern yacht sail cloth. I use the diluted PVA glue stiffening method and stretch the cloth on a frame to apply the liquid. I hold the tension with rubber bands. The cloth expands when wet and contracts as it dries. I find the rubber band tensioning produces a reasonably flat result. I will probably find tomorrow that this time it didn't work.
 


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Working on the spars. I sanded the yards by hand to the plan specifications. I think the main yards might need to be reworked with a bit more tapering on the ends. They are the indicated width on the plans though. I mixed a stain similar to the masts, then tried to present a bit of a weathered effect. I figured a merchant brig would not have the budget for regular painting like a warship, but would still be serviceable.

Well I don't have much to show for the past month. The fore shrouds on the starboard side are complete. These are relatively easy to complete as only the bottom shrouds have ratlines, of which there is only 15 spaced at 15 mm or 19" in real life. Along with ratlines there are two pinrails and three stretcher rails(for lack of better terminology). Another surprise for all the non-lovers of ratlines is only one set of shrouds per side gets ratlines!!! So only the shrouds that are on the opposite side of the spars get ratlines. Gotta luv that.
 

Showing the different pieces for the shrouds.
 



Final picture is showing my set up for taking pictures, needs a white sheet hanging on the wall but I just can't bring myself to putting up a sheet on my dining room wall.
 More updates hopefully sooner than this one was.
Have a Good Night

I've decided to keep my oversized breastwork.  I can't find any figures at 27mm -- and the larger ones I have found would cost so much I'd have to give up my dream of buying a new handplane before the end of the year.  But the happiness of ignorance is that without any truth-telling measure, I have managed to convince myself that the breastwork looks ok.
 
To make my "decision" irreversible, I've gone on with the bannisters and the newel posts.  I started with the posts, since they would allow me to fix the length of the bannisters.  I turned them in much the same fashion as I did for the stanchions, except that I tried to make a ball at the top (as shown on the NMM plans).  My skills at the lathe are not the keenest (it still holds much of the mystery of a new tool), and so I only managed a smashed ball.  I also wanted something of a tenon down on the bottom to hold it solidly in the gangway.  Since I already had a photographic record of the stanchions, I forgot to do one for the posts.  But when I had the second one in the vise to do some fine tuning, I managed to snap off the tenon. You'll see the wound in a bit.
 
For the bannisters I thought it might be nice to add a touch of color by going with cherry.  FFM 2 shows that the bannisters have a gooseneck to cover the distance from the stanchion to the inboard edge of the gangway.  On my Fly this distance measures 3/16"; I cut a piece of cherry stock down to 1/8" thickness, then freehanded the shape of the bannister with the gooseneck and the 1 1/8" length I measured from the stanchion to the placement of the newel post.
 

 

 
And here you can see the wounded newel post.  As a fix, I simply drilled a hole in the bottom and stuck in a pin.  You can also see that at the top ends of the bannisters, I've filed a round notch to fit against the stanchion.  This notch is also angled slightly, since the bannisters will have to drop down a bit.  And at the bottom of the starboard bannister, you can see where I've marked the length.
 
Now, I asked myself if I could possibly join the bannisters to the posts with a mortise and tenon.  They would have to be pretty tiny at this scale, and after snapping off the tenon from that one post, I felt a few butterflies.  But I have had the experience of falling off a horse (too many times), and know the importance of climbing back on (and of having a good chiropractor).  So I said, why not -- if I mess it up, I'll simply start over.
 
So here you can see my work:
 

I cut the tenon with my beloved 1/16" chisel from Lee Valley.  Then I drilled out the mortise and squared the corners a bit with the same chisel.  It took a few tries, and I worried non-stop about snapping off the tenon.  But with some luck . . .
 

Whaddya know, it fit.
 
So here is how it looks in place:
 

 

 
And here is how they both look:
 

 
What follows is the iron strap that extends from the top railing of the breast work down onto the bannister.  I'm not sure how I'll get that done, since every time I fire up the soldering torch I remember that I don't really care for metal work (isn't that why we pay farriers?).  And I keep thinking that in some of the pictures of older models in FFM the strap is made from wood (though somehow I couldn't find them last night, so maybe they're wishful thinking).  Since the strap has a gooseneck as well as the downward curve, I fear metal is probably the better option.  But I feel my feet getting heavy, and my imagination turning to the planksheers and other wooden details.
 
Martin

Hello Johann,
 
I'm just back from London and also the NMM. There I found something you may be interested in
 

 

 
I don't know how the lightning should enter the conductor 
 
Your work is as always extraordinary
 
Regards
Siggi

Shipyard Update
Top Mast Shrouds and Breast Stays:
 
View of how she looks so far.

 
So what has been added since last post ?
 
Checked the rake of all 3 Masts.
The Mizzen is not raked enough by approx. 1 maybe 2 degrees.
Not sure how I got this wrong, as I checked it was right before I glued the collar in at the deck.
And that is where the error crept in, and now too late to rectify.
 
TopMast Shrouds.
Shroud Jig:
My arms and hands got so tired when I fitted the lower shrouds, in-situ, I decided to try "off the boat" using a jig to make the shrouds.
First step was to make all the shrouds with the loop at the top.
Second was to mark the length of the leading shroud of each pair and transfer to the jig.  
Third, I transferred the shroud(pair) to the jig and tied off(do the rope work) the end to the dead-eye.
Some pictures of the Jig below.
 
The front pair from the Port and Starboard sides of the Fore TopMast.

On the left I have some "pegs" in holes that I can move to simulate where the loop is in relation to the dead-eyes below.
On the right I have a sliding plate which moves accordingly with the length of the shrouds.
 
Close up of the dead-eye end.

The small board was not very stable, moving about when I made the first set above.
Upgrade to Jig.
So I attached the small jig board to a large piece of wood, fitted snugly between 2 runners, so it can slide left/right.
I did this so one could get your hand around the dead-eye end.
 
The next pairs of shrouds(stern side) with the shrouds crossed to simulate the rake aft. 

It might not be perfect but at this scale pretty much close enough.
Saved my hands being up in the air for ages trying the knots.
 
View on Fore - Top Mast

 
View on Main - Top Mast

 
Breast Stays:
Either side of the TopMasts are Breast Stays leading down the the channels.
5mm single block on the lower end of 0.45mm rope.
 
Fore TopMast - Breast Stay fall

Just got temp. lines holding the block, so I can take it off when I do the Rattling lines.
Tackle to go on after the Rattlings.
 
And the Main TopMast - Breast Stay fall

Again temp. lines holding the block, so I can take it off when I do the Rattling lines.
 
Next jobs for the shipyard to look at:
- the Fore & Main TopMast Backstay pairs
- Fore & Main Stays(main and preventor) forward.
- then onto the Rattling Lines to all the Shrouds. Can't wait for that little task to start.
 
However, most of the above will have to wait, as the Admiral and I are off on a holiday to Italy. 
Bwon a sera
Arri ved erci
 

Thank You.
 
Once again waiting for paint to dry. In the mean time I did all the rigging I could on the mast and booms prior to stepping which I am hoping will happen tomorrow. I still have not settled on a display stand design I guess I had better get on that I will need it soon.
 
I also have to start thinking about a second build. Any recommendations?

I've now added the cap rails and the the catheads. 
 
The catheads were made and added first because they needed to be in place before the cap rails could be added in the bow. They were made from laminated strips of boxwood to avoid having to make slots (which I find difficult. if not impossible, to make). The sheaves are boxwood disks glued in place. Mounting the catheads required that openings had to be cut in the hull planking. This is never a task that I look forward to for fear of damage, but it went fairly smoothly, using a razor saw for the vertical cuts, a blade for the horizontal, and files to clean it up.
 
The cap rails were made from boxwood strip, except for the bow, which was cut to shape from boxwood sheet, using card templates. All of the rails were painted black before mounting them. The outside edge of the rails still needs to have a molding attached to them. This will be done at a later time as work proceeds on the outer hull.
 
Next up will be work on the stern.
 
Bob

Hello all, friends. Here is a small update, more aimed at the status of my house/workshop moving/mounting status.
 
If you see in the next photos that there is a total mess... is because there is.
 
You can see the newly placed worktables all around the room. Also my stash of built ships are here. Some of these, (well, actually all of them) are in need of some cleaning and repairing work). Those boxes covered with a black plastic trash bags contain La Santa María, La Pinta and La Niña. Plastic Heller's 1/75 version. You may see below the tables a box containing Heller's 1/100 Soleil Royale, which I plan to build now that I have room to work on two projects at a time. A wooden one and a plastic one seem to me a good way to break boredom.
 
Boxes with all kinds of stuff have been piled up in the room that will be my ship building workshop. The chore will be opening them and sorting what's inside, which can be: shipbuilding tools and assorted items, kitchen and tableware and assorted items, pen making tools and assorted items, music and guitar books and assorted items, assorted items
 
Definitive moving day is now very close. Can't wait!!!!
 
 

 

Slow progress. 
Ratlines finished.
Two yards in place but not quite finished.
One set of braces in place. Note that these start at the main shrouds, and return and run through a block attached to the shrouds. This is how she is rigged in the contemporary print I have published above.
Forecourse lifts.
Topsail sheets.
Lettering on the stern. 
Wooden grating around the binnacle.
Main top rope.
 
Small little pieces falling into place. Each one more satisfying than the last.
 
Tim.

Finally the vents. I have to do up the anchor stuff now, chains, stoppers, breaks, anchors, cut some strip to make the anchor run flush with the decks. I've got a few more places to add vents at the base of the Pagoda, but I want to get the railings finished first. 

Love to see any progress on this! 
Tim