gsdpic

Well, before planking I need to work on the transom. The kit supplies a 3/16th laser cut piece of basswood for the transom, plus a laser cut 1/16th piece of mahogany. The instructions also say that the transom could just be planked and in fact that is what they show. Finally, the plan sheet also shows that the transom could be rounded some after planking. However that seems dubious if you use the 1/16th piece of mahogany. I also noticed that the laser cut deck was a bit long and would hang over the transom a bit. I threw all that info into the mental blender and came up with a plan. First, I added some vertical pieces of scrap wood to the base transom piece. I also started fairing the large base piece. I scraped, planed, and sanded those down so that I could apply the mahogany piece and end up with a rounded transom. I think it will fit better but I have a lot of work to do to get it the correct shape with the correct fairing for the planking.

Good work and thanks for the info/explanation. Between your build and docrob's cobra build, I alternately look forward to and dread starting on my MFH Eagle Gurney-Weslake.

I now have the main structure of the sloop complete. As mentioned above, I removed those extra bits of strip wood and glued in the remaining frames with the cockpit floor. From there, I started working on the deck, which was a bit of a puzzle. First, the deck seemed to be a bit long, and the front of the laser cut pieces came to a point which did not make sense based on where (I think) the front of the deck should be. First, I glued the two halves of the sub deck together, adding a bit of extra wood underneath to help hold things together and provide more gluing surface. I then cut off the tip of the subdeck to meet up with the stem, though the subdeck still seems a bit longer than needed. Then I considered how best to hold the subdeck on the frames while gluing. The subdeck needs to bend a bit in two directions so I needed some way to clamp it in place. Since the subdeck will be planked, I decided to drill some holes in both the subdeck and the bulkheads and then I'd tie the subdeck down. I also added some extra strip wood to help locate the bulkheads on the underside of the deck, as seen in the first two pictures. Then I drilled holes near the tops of the bulkheads and put some pieces of old scrap rigging line through those holes. Finally, I put some glue on the tops of the bulkheads, put the subdeck in place, tied off the rigging line to hold things in place, then pushed some basswood wedges into the string loops to make things tighter. I will let that all dry, then go back and add more glue to the bulkheads, both where they meet the keel and where they meet the subdeck. Then I think I will be ready for planking.

Looking good! The frames and stringers all look very stout. You mentioned the basswood sheets…do the instructions just have it single planked? That would seem a little questionable for an RC boat. The one Dumas mahogany speed boat I built long ago was double planked with balsa and mahogany.

I've run into my first bit of issues, though nothing serious. Several of the frames/bulkheads are open across the top, and the instructions suggest putting a temporary strip wood across that top opening, like this Furthermore, they suggest a strip of wood across the top of the keel assembly from stem to stern. It is not entirely clear where this was to be attached but I believe the photos in the instructions show it attached as I have done below. However, this does not make a lot of sense because the tops of the frames, or the tops of the attached strip wood do not really line up with that line across the top of the keel assembly. For now I have removed the strip of wood across the very last (left most in the picture) frame. The forward three frames I have attached with just a tiny dot of wood glue. The shown cockpit floor is just put in place to help keep the third and fifth frame aligned. My plan is to remove the strip of wood across the top of the keel assembly and the top of frame 2. I will then glue in frame 4 and the cockpit floor, again using just a small amount of glue. Then I will place the laser cut deck pieces on top of the frames and, I hope, get everything aligned, assuming the small amount of glue used provides some flexibility. Once it is aligned I will add more glue to the connections between the frames and the keel to make sure it is all solid.

Thanks for taking a look or hitting the like button. I've now completed the keel assembly and the prep of the frames by adding supports for the cockpit floor. The keel assembly was a bit interesting....there are four main pieces of 3/16ths thick basswood and then you laminate on 4 pieces of 1/16th bass wood on each side, so 12 total pieces. The odd thing is that 10 of those 12 pieces are laser cut but the remaining two are left for you to cut out of a simple basswood sheet. The shape is not in any way complex, so not a big deal, it just seemed an odd choice. Next is to start attaching the frames/bulkheads to the keel and then the deck and cockpit floor to tie everything together. I feel like it might also be wise to make a decision about eventual mounting and drill some holes through the keel if needed.

Looks like you are meeting the challenges so far. Thanks for documenting what you've run in to and how you've approached the issues. I expect to have some similar challenges with my friendship sloop. And yes, I also suspect that both these kits may be from the original Laughing Whale. At they very least, both are rather old designs with too few bulkheads. The number of and spacing of the bulkheads/frames on the friendship sloop is similar.

Thanks @JacquesCousteau for the link. I've looked through many of those pictures and picked out a few that had interesting details. I've now completed my prior project and cleaned up my work area and made the most basic of starts on this build. I've organized the strip wood (still waiting on the replacements for the stuff that was missing but the post office says it will be delivered any day now). I've also cut the bulkheads and keel pieces out of the laser cut sheets and sanded off much of the laser char.

Thanks all for the likes and comments during this build. I have now finished this build and taken a few final photos away from the workbench. I was quite impressed with this kit. Sometimes the Revell kits can be a bit hit-or-miss depending on the history of the kit but this one was well detailed and everything fit together very well. I had virtually no problems getting stuff to fit together. Also, as noted earlier, the decals were high quality too. I was also pleased with the paint from scalefinishes.com. Of course it is not perfect, there are still some flaws here and there in the paint, but overall I am pleased.

I found that Revell kit to be a very good kit. Everything fit well together and it seemed well detailed. Though I am a little surprised you did not find a kit that already had a whale tail.

Thanks all for the likes and comments. Glad I am not the only one who clutters my work space. Getting very close now. One unusual thing about this kit is that the windows are put on from the outside at the end of the build. Usually the go on from the inside before putting the interior into the body. I still have to paint some black edges around the windows, which is always a little nerve wracking, and then just have a few other small accessories like wipers, mirrors, door handles, etc and I'll be done.

Thanks all for stopping by, for hitting the like button, and for the patience. After a bit of a not entirely planned break, I've resumed work on this build. I've mostly been doing additional detailing of the body. In the picture you can see that I have clear coated it and also painted some of the black details. I've also been adding a few more small decals here and there. Most of what I have left are adding the clear parts, some of which need to be painted with clear red or clear orange. But I really don't have far to go. And yes as I build, I have the bad habit of allowing the work area to get more and more cluttered, shrinking the space I have to do work.

Well when I opened this build log I thought I was just a few days away from completing that Porsche build. But I guess by starting this log I was just asking for life to get in the way. I still think I'll get started soon. And I heard back from Bluejacket that they are sending the missing strip wood.

Are you asking about the gaps between planks (as I believe Mark thought you were) or asking about the small gap at the edge of the subdeck? For the latter, is there any wider strip wood in the kit that could be used to make the edge planks just a little wider than the others in order to fully cover the subdeck? Or if you look ahead in the instructions, is the exact width of that subdeck critical? Maybe you could just shave off that little bit of extra subdeck to meet the planking. But, I am not familiar with the kit and do not know which deck on the boat this is, so that might cause big problems down the line if that deck must be the exact width of the provided subdeck.

@Louie da fly I was just reading those instructions earlier today. For some reason, in the kit section, you need to navigate down into one of the date ranges and the instructions will be a pinned post in each section. For example.... https://modelshipworld.com/topic/24710-before-you-post-your-build-log-please-read-this-starting-and-naming-your-build-log/

Hi all and welcome to my build log for the Bluejacket Friendship Sloop. Bluejacket has two similar kits in different scales; I am building the larger 1/12th scale (aka 1" = 1'). Over the last several years, since I completed my America build, I have been hanging out in the non-ship builds section of the forum, mostly building plastic cars. But I decided it was time to get back to things made out of wood that float, though I will not be starting immediately as I am finishing up the latest car project. I guess I do not yet have specific plans for this kit and probably should do more research on any possible enhancements that I wish to make. I will say though that generally I am more concerned about making something attractive than I am about making it perfectly realistic. My initial thought is to paint the top sides white or possibly off white/ivory and the bottom either dark green or dark red. I may replace deck planking with nicer wood and leave it bright or stained and varnished. I was a bit surprised that I have not found a finished build log of this kit. There are about a half dozen logs (both this kit and the smaller 1/2" = 1' kit) that were started, but none that I saw made it to completion. Several of them were started toward the end of the pandemic and noted that it was a first build. I guess as we got a bit back to normal, people lost interest in their new hobby. Most of those builds even got past the planking stage which I expect to be the most difficult part of this build, though perhaps there are some other demons lurking that I am not aware of at this time. Below are pictures of the box and one showing some of the contents. I did an inventory last night and discovered that the kit was missing some of the strip wood. I've sent an email to Bluejacket about that. The missing wood is for the deck so will not hinder me getting started. According to the sticker on the bottom of the box, the kit was packed up just a few days before Christmas....I guess someone was a bit distracted. Otherwise the contents of the kit seem to be of good quality, as I have come to expect from Bluejacket.

Just one more quick picture showing the engine with the remaining bits attached.

I need to stop following @CDW and @DocRob, all this temptation. I just caved in and ordered the Eagle-Gurney-Weslake direct off of the MFH web site. I've had my eye on it a while but kept resisting the temptation. Hope my experience with them is as good as yours. Ok, sorry for the tangent....

Thanks all for the likes. I've continued working, doing chassis/suspension bits. The chassis is painted with the body (enamel) paint but I really have not noticed significant difference in dry/cure time. I did also discover one body part that I failed to paint the first time around, so I painted that part and did a little touch up painting on some parts of the main body that were a bit thin. Below is a photo of the underside with the engine and most suspension bits in place, then two from above showing the engine in the engine bay, one with the interior dropped into place. There are a few more detail parts to be added to the engine. After that it is on to detailing the body. I'll likely put a couple coats of gloss clear on first, then paint some of the body details.

That's a good question. I have seen on the spotmodel.com web site indications of MFH kits to be released soon but as you noted, there does not appear to be such info on the MFH web site. The particular example I am thinking of is the McLaren F1 GTR '95 LeMans winner. Apparently MFH released it originally in 2020 but it still just shows as "out of stock" on their web site, but spotmodel.com indicates that it will be rereleased and available again soon.

Thanks all for looking in and hitting the like button. Yesterday I received the primer and paint from scalefinishes.com and I primed those body and chassis parts that are body color. Then today I applied several coats of the body color....I did two light coats and two medium coats. The primer was ok...I think I like splash paints primer better....this stuff I managed to get some rough surfaces that I had to sand down a bit and respray. I think I maybe had the pressure too high even though I was in the recommended range. The paint I liked better. The metallic flakes seem to be very fine (less noticeable in real life than in the picture). As with any metallic, it is a bit tricky to get an even finish but I think I mostly succeeded. Even though I got the gloss enamel, it is not quite as glossy as I expected, perhaps due in part to the metallic nature of the paint. So, I might do a coat of X-22 down the line. Anyway, here's a picture of the painted body. Trying to not touch it for several days or a week. I don't think I'll be quite so careful with the chassis parts that are also painted in body color, so that I can resume building the chassis and suspension bits.

Thanks all for the likes and comments. I've now finished the interior, pictures below. The color was about a 2:1 mix of Tamiya XF-93 Light Brown and XF-3 Yellow. I think the iPhone photos crank up the saturation a bit...in real life it does not look quite so bright orange. It is hard to tell in the photos but I actually used the above mix for the carpet areas and then added a touch more of the brown to paint the leather areas plus I also applied a semi-gloss clear coat to just the leather areas, to try to differentiate the two surfaces a bit. The speakers in back and the instruments are all decals, they even have a tiny decal for the shift patter on the shifter. The decals seem very well printed but quite fragile....even the weaker decal setting solution appears to cause some issues sometimes. Still waiting on the paint for the body...USPS tracking says Monday. Not much more I can do other than perhaps paint some of the other suspension bits, brake disks, wheels, etc.

Thanks, that was a decal supplied by the kit.

Yes, this body style was introduced in 1974 with a 2.7 liter engine. Every few years they bumped up the displacement a bit until the 3.2 in 1984. Thanks to the all for the comments and likes and interest in this build. I've built most of the engine, through step 4.5. There are a few more bits to add to the top and exhaust and axles to add to the bottom but that comes after the engine is mounted in the chassis. And, I need the body paint before I can do that. I'll likely skip ahead to work on the interior while I wait for the paint to be delivered and then wait for it to cure. The intake and transmission both look a bit more grainy in these pictures than they do in real life. Part of the problem is that my Tamiya XF-16 Flat Aluminum paint is a bit old and getting thick and clumpy.

This is pretty much the car I will be trying to duplicate: https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1986-porsche-911-carrera-15/ There will be some minor differences. Mine will have.... - showroom new condition - center of wheels will be black like the box art, not completely polished - European spec lights and bumpers (the kit provides both European and US spec)