gsdpic

More Deck Planking Thanks for the looks and likes. I've continued the deck planking, and have now completed the aft section of the deck. I have not been nibbing my planks...I think these planks are probably wider than scale and to properly nib I think I would have needed wider waterways. Even though I pre-finished the planks, I ended up sanding parts of them down. So I applied another coat of the tung oil finish before taking the pictures. I may apply another coat or two once I have the entire deck planked. Enough boring words, here are two pictures: Oops, I feel the need to add a few more boring words.....You can see that I planked right over the hole for the main mast, though I did mark its location. I also went with a 3-way shift on the deck plank butts. So I had three lengths of planks next to the grub beam....1 2/3 inches, 3 1/3rd inches, and 5 inches.

Back in the Saddle So, after a bit of a break, I have resumed working on my America. I have started the deck planking. As noted earlier, I bought some cherry strip wood for the deck planking, just to give the deck a bit of a nicer, richer color. I started from the center, which means doing a bunch of short planks between the various bits of deck furniture. Once I get away from the deck furniture, I plan to use 5 inch long pieces, which works out to deck planks that are 20 feet long. I'll stagger the butts of course though have not decided on a pattern just yet. I have 7 planks done from the aft side of the forward hatch all the way to the stern. I have more work to do around the cockpit, and some very short planks between the forward hatch and the skylight, and then it will likely move a bit faster. Oh, I pre-finished the deck planks, using the same tung oil finish that I used on the deck furniture. I'll likely still go back and do one more coat after all the planks are installed, but I still think it was a useful thing to finish these planks before putting them on. Here are two pictures of what I have completed.

Very neat and tidy work. Interesting arrangement with the deadeyes inboard of the bullwarks. I have not seen that before but I am far from any kind of expert. The build logs (like yours) of these Maristella kits have me very interested in possibly trying one myself for my next project.

I'll follow along as well. I've completed 2 Bluejacket kits and am working on a third. I have looked at this one as a possible next project. As for being slow....I am up to about 200 hours on my America (I quit tracking around 175) but that has taken me about 20 months.

Thanks...yea, that is probably true, even though at scale is it barely more than an inch wide. I should have made the trim flush with the top of the bench. By the same token, the inside of the cap rail probably should have been flush on the inside so the back of the bench was smooth.

Time for a Break I got the finish applied to the cockpit, so I got out the "real" camera and took a little more care with some photos, to show the current state of this project. At this point, I need to clean up the shipyard a bit. Other obligations for the next few weeks will probably keep me away, so I'll likely not be able to work on the deck planking until Oct 1 or so. Here are the pictures:

Cockpit First, thanks for the looks and likes and thanks Tim for the comment. I did clean up around the hinges despite what you said, and the "knob" darkened on its own without me doing anything else to it. I am now done with the cockpit, and this time I managed to take pictures along the way. Here's what I did, with pictures of each step to follow. 1. Cut some small pieces of mahogany the same height as the stanchions and glued them around the inside of the cockpit to support the seat. 2. Painted and installed 10 stanchions. The kit supplied 12 but I thought 10 looked like enough and wanted a couple spares in case I lost or broke one. The supplied stanchions are britannia metal. I primed them, then dug up some old brown paint to paint them, then brushed on some tamiya acrylic "clear red" to give them a little more reddish brown look. After all that, they are almost invisible once the seat is installed. 3. Installed a seat base. This was cut in three sections and shaped to fit into the cockpit. Drilled holes for the pins at the top of the stanchions. Also installed a little trim strip around the outer edge of the seat. 4. Painted the seat base black. 5. Cut and glued on a bunch of slats on the seat. Once dry, sanded the inner edge to the edge of the seat base then installed a trim strip around the inner edge of the seat and sanded everything a bit again. 6. Finished trimming the seat. Glued on the cap rail around the top of the cockpit (made from three sections of mahogany), then glued in the companionway and the tiller. Next I'll stain and finish these new parts of the cockpit and glue on the other deck furniture.

Kevin, nice little ship's boat. What are your plans for it? The bluejacket kit does not have any provision for boats, though the plans indicate that they were likely removed for racing, could be hung outboard from removable davits midships, or lashed to the deck midships. I've messed around with trying to make a couple little boats, thinking I may put one or two on the deck or hung from davits, but have not decided yet. Oh, and by the way, the main model is looking fantastic with those sails.

I have now completed the cockpit's companionway/hatch. I have also made the cap rail for the cockpit but have not installed it yet as I figured it may get in the way when putting the seat in. I am still trying to decide the best way to do the seat. The instructions just say "make the seat of mahogany" without any other hints. I applied stain to the cockpit area and companionway to match the other deck bits...you can see some of the cockpit wall the stain absorption was affected by glue. The seat should hide at least some of that. Anyway, here are a couple pictures of the companionway. Seems for some reason the blackening did not have much affect on one of the door knobs. Might have to try that again. I might also try to clean up the wood around the hinges...it seems the blackening of the hinges also darkened the nearby wood.

I have made some progress on the cockpit but more to do. The kit came with a (kind of cheesy) strip of plywood to bend around the cockpit as the vertical wall. It was a half inch wide and I think my cockpit is deeper than it is supposed to be, so it was not wide enough. I used that as my excuse to pitch it. Instead, I cut a bunch of lengths of 1/16th x 1/4 mahogany and stood them on end (sanding down one edge a bit for better fit) and placed them around the cockpit. The kit also provided some laser cut grating for the cockpit floor, which I used. I've started to build the companionway, but have more work to do on it. I have not started on the seat and I'll also put some sort of cap rail around the top of that cockpit wall. The kit includes a dozen or so britannia metal stanchions to use to hold the seat up, which I will probably use (after painting a reddish brown). I've also not applied any finish to these bits....the color of the cockpit sides is pretty good, but the mahogany I am using for the companionway is a bit pale and yellowish, as I mentioned before, so will likely stain it a bit. Below are pictures of the three things I described above. I am getting anxious to wrap up this part of the project and work on planking the deck.

Interesting comments about the coppering. I can see both sides, and having done it once I feel like I could do better next time, if there was a next time. I think I'll avoid the issue by building only small work boats that never had copper on the originals. As for my build, the copper was already getting darker and a bit more even color. I was liking the way it looked and decided to apply a few coats of satin clear, and I think it looks even better now. So I am actually getting happier with the way it turned out. I've also done the rudder, and glued it on, and started work on the cockpit. I've cut the floor of the cockpit and also carved the tiller from a piece of mahogany. In the picture below it is just stuck into the rudder, not glued yet. My rudder post did not really line up with the cockpit the way it should, only about half of it intersects the cockpit floor. But this will be hidden under the bench so is not a big deal. Here's a picture of the tiller and one of the coated hull with the rudder in place.

Thanks @Kevin Kennyand Robert/ @Fright for the comments. Kevin, even before your comment I was reviewing your video on the work you did on the cockpit. I'll likely use that as inspiration and try to emulate at least some of what you did. We'll see how it goes. Before that, I started working on the rudder and ran into the same issue you mentioned, where the rudder did not fit. I should've learned the lesson and done the rudder much earlier. Instead, like you, I had to remove some of the copper and shave down the stern post to get it to fit. I'll likely not do "real" gudgeons and pintles. The ones supplied in the kit would be tough to fit over the copper. I'll just put some fake metal bands on the rudder and stern and then glue the rudder in place.

I bought something similar from Amazon, though a different brand (Kraftex). I ended up not using it. The copper is quite thin, like heavy duty foil, and I was concerned about the durability of the adhesive. But I've seen a number of build logs here using it or something similar and no one that I have seen had issues with it falling off. I ended up buying a roll of 36 gauge copper...it was thicker but still cutable with scissors. I cut strips and did something similar to what was described in the article, along with some aging using liver of sulphur. Here's the stuff I bought: https://www.amazon.com/St-Louis-Crafts-Copper-Inches/dp/B00S3TYN1M/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1534389581&sr=8-2&keywords=36+gauge+copper+roll I used a household/craft glue with it, so who knows, maybe my copper will fall off sooner than if I had used the tape. I was somewhat happy with the results....I'd give it about a 6.5 out of 10. See my America build log for more details and pictures. Note this was 1/48th scale. If working in something like 1/96th, that might make this method more difficult and might make the thinner foil more appropriate.

Main Hatch/Companionway Thanks for the comment Russ, and to others for the likes and looks. This week's progress was completion of the main hatch/companionway. Sorry, I did not take any pictures during the process...nothing special, just cut pieces out of 1/16th or 1/32nd mahogany sheets, glue'em together, stain and finish. The kit supplied two small brass nails to use as door knobs, I used some of the copper tape to create hinges, then blackened both. I also put some blackened copper on the rails for the hatch to slide back on. Next up is the aft hatch and cockpit and rudder.

Aft Skylight My relatively glacial build pace continues, hindered by a short but unexpected trip last weekend. But I have now completed the aft skylight and just started a bit on the forward companionway. I maybe cheated a little bit on the aft skylight. There are corner posts that were supposed to fit into the corners of one of the rectangular openings crafted into the deck beams. However, I noticed on my model that particular opening was a little bit off center. So I built the skylight off of the deck and will glue it on centered on the deck instead of centered on the rectangular opening. Since I plan to fully plank the deck, the difference will not been seen (I believe). The skylight was made out of mahogany supplied in the kit. The sheets of 1/16th inch thick mahogany were rather pale and yellowish so I used some minwax mahogany stain to make its color more similar to the forward skylight and capstan. I'll be doing the same for the two companionway/hatches and the cockpit. When completed I also rubbed on a bit of the tung oil finish that have. The collection of parts I made to build the skylight: The the skylight with the window bars installed. I used a #75 bit and a pin vise to very carefully drill down from the top of the skylight then inserted chunks of wire provided by the kit: The completed skylight: The skylight placed into its position on the deck. After I do the deck planking, I will put a small trim strip around the base of the skylight to hide any gaps between the decking and the skylight.

Capstan 2.0 Or maybe it is 3.0. As noted above, I attempted to build a capstan in place of the metal piece supplied in the kit. I used some of the Mahogany from the kit (and a bit of scrap basswood, just for the central post). I built one but had some issues with the whelps. I maybe could have salvaged it but decided to start over. Below is a picture of my capstan and the metal one from the kit. The wood one is actually only a tiny bit taller....it just appears so much taller because the hole it is stuck in is not deep enough. I have not applied any finish to the wood one. I'd probably try to do a little more clean up sanding and filing then apply the tung oil finish that I used on the skylight and on the baseboard. Any comments or suggestions would be welcome. Should I put some chocks between the whelps, maybe one third or half way up, to make it look a little stronger? Any other suggestions?

Thanks all for the looks and likes, and thanks Kevin for the comment. After I made that post last night, I reviewed the part of your video on making the capstan. This kit supplies a cast metal part but I'll try to make my own from scrap wood, using some ideas from your video.

Forward Skylight Man, things look so much worse when you take a close up photo of them, at least for some of us. Part of the problem is that I blew out the reds and did not bother to retake the pictures, so parts of the wood look yellow in these pictures.

Hull Complete After a bit of a break for a brief vacation, I resumed the coppering, and have now completed the other side of the hull. I also applied a finish to the baseboard. Below are a few pictures....this time of both sides of the boat. And of course in looking at the pictures, I see I need to apply more of the finish to the end of the baseboard. Otherwise I am fairly happy with how this came out. I perhaps wish it was a bit more smooth and consistent, but I don't think it will draw to much attention to itself, which is what I wanted. Next up is to work on the deck furniture. The layout of the deck of the bluejacket kit is a little different from the Mamoli kit. This kit has no forward hatch, but has a hatch/companionway midships where the Mamoli kit just had grating. I'll probably work on the deck furniture from simplest one to most complex....in other words, the two skylights first and the cockpit last. I still need to do the rudder as well....I guess that will be done with the cockpit. I've probably also reached the point where the build logs for the other America kit builds become more relevant, more useful, and provide ideas for details to add. Here are the pictures of the completed coppering. I stuck in the bowsprit, and placed a dowel on the deck to simulate the boom. For now the hull is just balanced on the base board and not mounted.

Coppering the Hull So on my America, I wanted to try some real copper of some sort on the hull. But I wanted a fairly subtle "old penny" look. I did not want the bright and shiny new copper look and did not want the zillion overscale nail head look either. I first acquired some copper tape. That seemed like a possibility, but the tape was very thin and delicate, and the words "tape" and "durable" aren't exactly best buddies. I was afraid the tape would start peeling off before I even completed the rigging, given my pace of construction. I then went off to Amazon to see what I could find. I first bought a couple of 6 inch by 12 inch sheets of 28 gauge copper. This seemed promising, but it was a bit thick to work with. There's probably some tool that would easily make many nice, straight cuts in this copper but whatever that tool is, I don't have it. So, it was back to Amazon. I found there a 12 inch by 5 foot roll of 36 gauge copper. The description explicitly stated that it could be cut with scissors. So I ordered a roll of that stuff, and it turned out to be just about perfect. It was more substantial than the foil but still easy to cut, as promised. While on Amazon I also investigated methods for aging the copper and came across something called "liver of sulfur". So I bought a jar of that too. A few experiments gave me decent results, similar to what I was looking for. And while the copper could be cut with scissors, it was tedious so I got a guillotine style paper cutter. I decided on making my copper plates 3/8ths inch but 7/8ths inch (1.5 feet by 3.5 feet at scale). So with that it was off to the production line. This first photo shows the copper roll and the paper cutter. I had to be concerned about fingerprints as they affected the aging solution. So I wore latex gloves while handling the copper. The fingerprints you see are just from the powder on the gloves. I cut a piece that was 5 1/4th inch wide. That would give me 6 copper plates at 7/8ths inch each. I built the jig below and then scribed a dent into the copper to indicate the edges between the plates. Yes, that is an ordinary pizza cutter that I used to scribe the plates. It was dull enough to give a nice dent in the copper without cutting it. And here is the piece of copper with the plate widths scribed onto it. Then it was back to the cutter to cut the scribed copper into strips that were 3/8ths inches wide. And here is the aging process. The left container has the liver of sulfur solution. I just used room temperature water instead of hot water and used a more dilute solution than suggested by the instructions. Even so, it only took 20 or 30 seconds for the copper to darken. After that, I moved the strips to the middle container which had water and baking soda (as suggested by the instructions) to neutralize the liver of sulfur and stop the reaction. The third container had just plain water to rinse off the strips. And yes, the "liver of sulfur" smelled just about the way you'd expect of anything that has "sulfur" in the name. And here is the container of almost finished aged copper strips. After they dried, I did polish them with an automotive paint polish. In some cases the coloration was a bit too dark and too gray for my liking. Using the polish and even some very fine sandpaper brought back more of the copper color. One last step was to press the strips in this little jig I made, to try to give the copper strips a little more shape, and to turn the edges down. This only sort of worked. In most cases, the shape was mostly lost as I installed the strips on to the hull. For the most part, I installed the plates in these strips of 6, though in some cases I cut the strips shorter. The end result can be seen in my prior post. I have not decided yet if I am just going to leave the copper as is, with the potential for it to naturally darken some more, or if I may spray it with a coat of clear gloss or clear satin. I'll probably finish the starboard side, then spray some of the left over copper to see how I like the look of it with the clear coat on it. For the most part I am very pleased with the look of it as it is now. I wish it was maybe a little darker and a little more consistent in color but overall it is close to what I was shooting for.

Been a while since I have posted out here, though I am still plugging away at the America. I often find only a few minutes here and there to work on it, a bit more on the weekends. Since the last post I have painted the inside of the bulwarks white, painted the hull black and given it a coat of satin clear. I've cut and installed the bitts, and also shaped the bowsprit. And I have started coppering the hull after doing a number of experiments. You'll note the photos below just show the port side; the starboard side does not yet have any copper on it. Regarding the copper, I'll make a separate post about how I did that, as I came up with my own method that might be of interest to others. Here are a few pictures:

Thanks Kevin, Tim, and Per for the comments and thanks to others for the likes and looks. The transom was a bit tricky, though it helped a great deal to start with a cardboard template and only cut the wood when I had a good fit with the template.

After completing the planking, I took a couple weeks off. Over the last two weeks or so I have done the following: 1. Sanded the hull. And sanded it some more. And some more. I think I am pretty much done though if I look at it again I am sure I'll find some other not quite smooth spot to sand. 2. Worked on the transom. My transom piece is a bit larger and squarer than called for in the plans, due to the couple of planks that I probably should have carried farther aft than I did. But I think it looks fine and no one will really notice, especially once I paint the hull. 3. Did the "waist plank". That is what the plans called it, though I have not heard that term before. This is the top plank, above the level of the deck. It is only 1/32nd inch instead of 1/16th, so it is indented slightly from the other planks. And of course aft, the timberheads notch in from the edge of the hull causing the waist plank to indent even more. I created each of these in two pieces, leaving a seem amidship. But that was easier than trying to deal with one long piece the length of the hull. The kit provides strip wood that is 1/2 inch wide. I tacked that to the hull with a couple dots of CA, then drew a line on the inside of the plank at the top of the hull, then cut along that line to get a nice fit above the cap rail. Overall I am relatively pleased with how things have come out. I am not quite to the skill level of building a hull like this and leaving it a natural finish; I am still depending on paint to cover a few things. But I am getting closer. Speaking of paint, that is probably the next step, to paint the outside of the hull black and to paint the inside above deck parts white. I probably should have painted the inboard side of the waist planks before installing them but a bit late for that now. After the painting, I need to figure out the coppering of the lower hull. I have some things I hope to try in that regard. Enough words, on to the pictures. The hull here is just press fit onto the pedestals and balanced on the unfinished base board.

Yay, I have now finished the planking and the treenails above the water line, which is all I plan to do. I am investigating ways to put copper on the bottom and am planning some tests for the finish above the water line. I have also started sanding down the hull on the port side, causing the treenails there to almost disappear. Overall I am pleased with the planking. It is far from perfect, and I am not ready for a model left in natural wood state, but it is workable. I continue to be a bit concerned about the transom. Those top two or three planks should have hung out farther I think. I'll probably need to do some patching there and that will likely prove difficult.

Just as another data point....the 1/48th scale yacht America from Bluejacket supplies 3/64th inch basswood dowels to use as treenails for the hull planking. 3/64th = 0.047, which would be 2 1/4th inches scaled up. I did not do any research to verify, though I assumed that is larger than scale, but probably the smallest diameter basswood dowel that is practical to make and use.