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One more try with the trailboards I could not resist. I made another pair of trailboards, my last I swear. I made them a little thinner, with the outer edge thinner, and made them less of a semi-circle and a little more of a Nike "swoosh" shape, for lack of a better term. They look better in real life...this is definitely a case of the close up photography not being my friend.

Back to the Trailboards Progress has been very slow of late. I took a little hiatus for another project, and otherwise have been quite busy. Some time in the last week or 10 days was the 2 year anniversary of starting on this project. I resumed working on the trail boards. Not sure why but I have some obsession about not using the cast parts even though they look decent and even though the painting of the cast eagle worked out well. So I went through a couple more iterations of doing some carving and painting. I think I have some now that I'll use, though who knows I might look at them next week and decide I can do better. 1. Here is the blank that I started with (Pear wood). I used a paper pattern that I fit over the model rather than the exact shape of the cast parts. I think my hawse pipe was a little farther aft than intended so my trail board is a little longer. 2. I started with a cut around the inside edge, to form a lip around the trailboard. 3. I then used various chisels to remove some wood from the inner section to form the lip, and sanded that down. I then used a v-shaped gouge to create a main "stem". 4. And then I used a small rounded gouge to create "leaves" along the stem. And then repeated the process for the other side. 5. Here is an alternate design I did earlier, with some more simple scroll work instead of the stem/leaves. You can see one of those broke during production. 6. And here they are painted black and gold. I'll likely use the ones on the left. Seems no one is sure of the actual original design but they seem to be a little closer to most (but not all) of the contemporary paintings. I do wish that the lip around the outer edge was a bit thinner, and for these I was carving the design into the wood, where my previous attempt carved away the background so that the design stood out instead of being indented into the wood. Doing the latter is more difficult especially if trying to leave a lip around the outer edge. You can see on the "alternate" design, I attempted to glue a very thin strip of wood around the outside to form the lip but that presented its own problems. Sounds like I am convincing myself to try again. I did pretty much all of this carving by hand, though I also experimented some using a rotary tool.

Thanks for the thorough explanation of how you did the cap rail....progress on my America has stalled until just recently, but the cap rail is one of the things I will be doing in the near future and this post helps.

Good start. I'll follow along as well. One of the first wooden kits I built was one of the Dumas Chris Craft speed boats.

I believe that you go to the very first post of your build log and click "Edit" at the bottom of the post and it will let you edit the title.

It is a pleasure to see all the thought and research and experimentation you are putting into this fascinating build. Seems like not too much more to do now...anxious to see the final pictures.

Welcome to MSW from Central Texas. Very nice railroad model/diorama. As for the ship building, remember it is not a competition. We are here to enjoy and share the hobby, learn a few things, develop our skills, pass the time, and in some cases use swear words. It's all good....

Always exciting to start a new project and it looks like you are getting off to a good start. I've built several bluejacket kits including the swampscott dory but have not built this one. If you have not seen it, Mr BlueJacket did a build log of this kit:

The Eagle has Landed....or been painted I am still out here, working a bit on the America now and then. Doing a lot of little steps like shaping the gaffs and booms and putting on cleats, etc. and also some stuff on the deck and hull, like putting on eyebolts and cleats. I've also been doing some experiments regarding mast hoops and ships boats. But none of that stuff is too interesting to show or in the case of the experiments, not successful enough But I also worked on painting the eagle that is on the transom. The Bluejacket kit provides the eagle in cast brittania. It actually looked fairly good and fairly accurate, so I have been working on painting it. I cleaned and primed the metal, then painted it mostly with Tamiya acrylics, though for some colors I used some testor's enamel. Basically, I used whatever I had laying around from other projects. After it dries for a day or two I'll probably shoot it with some of the clear spray acrylic I used elsewhere to even out the finish. Below is a picture of my painted eagle, and also a picture of the real eagle, taken from the book "The Low Black Schooner".

There is one brief build log here for that kit, if you have not seen it. It might help you decide if it is something of interest to you.

Kevin....the case makes a great finishing touch.. And thanks for the extra effort of making the videos. I found them useful to see how you did various tasks. I need to use this as inspiration to finish my America, which has languished a bit during the last few busy months.

I'm still out here, very, very slowly making progress. I've been shaping the masts, gaffs, and booms. Oddly, the kit did not include a dowel for the jib boom, so I picked one up at the local hobby shop. I also sent an email to bluejacket suggesting they correct that. Below shows the current state of things....the two masts, the top section of the main mast, the fore and main gaffs, and the main boom. I am still working on shaping and sanding the main boom. On the two gaffs, I probably have some more work to do on the end of the gaff that is closest to the mast but I am waiting to do that when I make the jaws. The only remaining one is the jib boom mentioned above. I also need to add a variety of cleats and such to these, then they will be painted white for the most part, though sections of the masts are left natural, which I will likely stain to darken them just a bit. I see now in the picture the main mast appears to not be completely straight...maybe it is just an illusion.

I saw the picture of this beauty that you posted on the "snapshot" thread. Really elegant looking little boat. I watched the assembly video on their website, looks like an interesting build. I definitely like the way you finished out the interior with stain better than what they ended up with in the video. And I happen to have an almost perfect empty bookshelf for it.....hmm, really tempting to try this one myself.

Kevin, Congrats on finishing the scratch-built boat. She's a real beauty. Regarding that forward hatch/companionway: The bluejacket kit deck plan has a note about it. It says "While some paintings show a companionway forward of the capstan, others show a hatch. Quite likely a removable booby hatch -- which appears like a usual companionway -- was fitted over hatch coamings.". For what it is worth, the bluejacket kit does not show the forward curved hatch at all. These plans have "Copyright 1983 Arthur C. Montgomery, USA". I hope this info is useful to you.