gsdpic

Wow, congratulations on finishing this beautiful, intricate build!  She's a real show stopper.   I very much enjoyed following along.

Looking good!   So I guess Nantucket blue is sort of a blue-gray color...I had to google it.  I think that is a good choice.  As for what to paint, it sounds like you are thinking about a scheme similar to what cathead had in his kit review linked above, except with the blue in place of the green.   I think that scheme looks good, but you can double check the review yourself to see what you think.

I've never tried this, but seems like an airbrush would be perfect for this.  You could attach the silkspan to the frame and then first just put water in the airbrush and spray the silkspan to wet it.  Then after it is dry and shrinks to be tight, use the airbrush with diluted paint to apply the color.

It may depend on how you are holding your phone when taking the picture, assuming it is a phone pic.  It will automatically include rotation data in the picture which in this case is wrong.   It would be helpful to know what you are using to take the pictures and what you are using to create the post (windows pc? mac? creating it right on your phone?)

See the pinned "uploading pictures" thread in the "How to use the MSW forum" category, particularly posts 15 and 16, especially if using a windows pc to create the post.

Nice progress.  I think your stand is a huge improvement over the kit supplied cradle...it is detailed enough to add some interest to the display yet it does not hide the beautiful lines of the hull.

Wow, so many small details on this build.  Really a lot to hold the viewer's interest.  Looks great so far.

Greetings and welcome aboard from a fellow Texas resident.

Looks like you are off to a great start!  I'll follow along....built this kit 6 or 7 years ago.  If you have not seen the thread with the review of this kit by @Cathead you might find it useful.  However, as mentioned in that thread, Bluejacket was possibly going to update the kit so maybe some issues have been fixed.

Edit: Fix the link to point to the top of the review, not the negative comment from another user.

Beautiful!  Really well done, and like all the upgrades you did with the lifeboat and brass railings and new prop, etc. 

Just catching up a bit on this cool project.  A nice mix of mechanical engineering and software.

As for the "if (minsweep <= sweep <= catchend)", I am not an expert on the arduino language but have done C programming for more years (more decades actually) than I care to admit.   That is syntactically valid.   A condition evaluates to either 0 or 1, so in the second comparison, it is using either 0 or 1 instead of sweep, assuming it evaluates left to right.  In other words, it replaces the first "minsweep <= sweep" with either a 0 or a 1, then checks if the 0 or 1 is <= catchend.  So both of the <= have a number on both the left and right side, and no reason for the compiler to complain about syntax.

Ok, sorry for the pedantry....carry on!

I think they heard you......

Beautiful result!  Agree with you about the beauty of the natural wood in several different colors.  It would have been a shame to paint it, so I think you made the right choice there.

Wow, what a cool idea, thanks for creating and sharing!  The execution is great, both the models and the illustrations. 

Looking really nice, and getting close to the end I guess.

As for the white running rigging line supplied by Bluejacket, I just used regular brown fabric dye (Rit brand in the US) to dye the line.  It was a little bit of a pain to have this extra step and then wait for the line to dry, but I thought the results were acceptable.    Hmmm, looking at your model, I realize that my standard for "acceptable" may not be as high as yours.   Oh, I see now it looks like you have some running rigging in place so I guess you've already resolved the issue.

Nicely done.  Looks like you met the planking challenges head on and got a wonderful result!

I'll follow along as well, as I have done several bluejacket kits.   Unless I am missing something, it looks to have a challengingly small number of frames/bulkheads.  And the other build logs you mention do not progress to planking.   Be interesting to see how you meet that challenge and any others that arise.

Allen...welcome to MSW from a former and possibly future Hoosier.

That reworked porch railing looks much better, definitely worth the effort!

You clearly have too much time on your hands!    I'll follow along as well. 

I am confused though....I noticed the front of the box says "Solid Hull Construction for Easy Building!"

Off to a good start.  I don't think I've seen a build log of this blue jacket kit.

Well done! Congrats on a fine looking model!  Enjoyed following along.

Nice!  I missed your log until now but will follow along with interest.  Some time back I was paging through Chapelle's American Small Sailing Craft, looking for something to catch my eye as a potential first scratch build, and the melonseed skiff was one option that I liked and did some research on, though I did not find the Gentry custom boats site.  For me the project is still somewhere off in the future but I will be interested to see yours.  It looks like you are off to a great start.

Thanks everyone for looking in and hitting the like button and commenting, despite the lack of recent progress.   The pic below is a large part of the explanation for why I have not made progress for the last 2 months.  It's a long story, and I am still only claiming to be the "foster dad", but we'll see.   And I swear this is not just a cheap ploy to get more likes.

3 hours ago, Bill Mitchell said:

Gary, I have almost finished building Bluejacket's "Rainbow" and "Endeavour" 1:180 scale model kits.  In doing research on them, I came across your picture showing the models of those two ships that you built.  I would like to add flags and pennants to my models, like you did - I think they add a lot of realistic detail and interest.  I realize it was many years ago, but do you remember what the pennants on your models are?  Thank you, Bill Mitchell 

Thanks.  As you say, it was many years ago.  But I don't remember doing anything extra to get the flags and pennants so I assume they must have come with the kit at that time.  It looks like they are just printed paper on my models...should not be too hard to replicate.  My pennants are just solid red and solid blue with no other design or insignia.

Wow, cool work on the scroll decorations.  I had something similar on the trail boards of my America build and the thought never even crossed my mind to try to make it out of brass rod as you did.  And nice work on the captain's cabin.  Looks like you have a nice large, comfortable work area.