austristan

Love the idea of being able to have an option to plank ourselves. Something very satisfying to me to doing that myself even if it isn’t quite as perfect as the laser engraved pattern.

It's a great model (it was my first) and the support from Blue Jacket staff along the way was really helpful. I still need to post photos of my finished model but happy to chime in to address any questions you have along the way.

Although I haven't done a good job of updating things on here, I've made a lot of progress on this build over the past few months. Now down to getting the coils of rope together, rigging and installing the carronade and installing the life rail. I'll post a bunch of photos when I'm done so that others can use them as reference.

I finished painting the blocks and deadeyes last night. There are a few blocks that get attached to the deck using annealed wire to form pigtails. Is this process as simple as wrapping the wire around the block once and then twisting a number of times at the bottom, cutting it off at the appropriate length and then gluing into the hole? Is there a certain number of twists that is "standard" or do most of the twists get hidden anyway so it doesn't matter? Based on the photos, it looks like the hole for the rope should face fore/aft but please let me know if I'm mistaken on that front. Thanks for the continued likes and for checking in!

Hi Matrim, I'm considering this as my next build (or the Armed Virginia Sloop) so would like to follow along as you put together a model of a ship that I heard a lot about growing up in Australia. As I'm working through my first model, I've already become a student of your repeated concept of continued improvement - that's the fun part of this hobby!

Still have to paint the backsides of all the blocks and deadeyes. Have made some good progress on the stanchions so far. Photo was mid-progress but only have 3 left to make at this stage. They don't get glued in place until almost the end of the process but dry-fitted them to see what it would look like. I've ordered some Brass Black as, based on a number of other build logs, I think the final product will be better than trying to paint these. I wish I had thought about getting some Pewter Black for the blocks and deadeyes before I primed and half-painted them already but will store that away for the next build.

Looking way into the future, I hoping to tackle this model. I really like your attention to detail and making sure you're well set up for subsequent steps so hope you don't mind me joining along as you continue your progress.

Happy new year, everyone! While I wasn't able to make quite as much progress as I was hoping, the Revenue Cutter is still starting to look more like a ship now. I didn't do a good job of taking photos along the way as I got on a good roll but I'll walk through what happened with the photos I have. The first step was trimming the lower deadeyes to match the plans (and not spill over into the copper section of the hull) and assembling the pintles and gudgeons. These were painted black and attached to the hull. I did have an issue with the alignment on the rudder getting all three pintles/gudgeons flush with the angle of the stern post and the pre-drilled hole in the deck. This is likely driven by the decisions I made earlier on but I decided the best course of action was to break the highest one so that the more visible lower two were good to go. I'll try and force the two pieces a little closer together later on but just leaving it as in the photo for now. I also had to trim the length of the tiller prior to installing to fit within the space leading up to the cabin. This is because the hole for the rudder on the plans is situated much further back than what was pre-drilled into the hull and the deck. I then stained and shaped the toe rails with hot water and rather than taping them to the hull, I used the cutout from the deck so that I didn't have to worry about the tape ruining any of the hull painting. It worked really well. I then attached the toe rails to the deck and that went well. I left a gap at the bow to ensure space for the bowsprit. I may have left this a little wider than necessary but once the bulwark piece is added, it probably won't be noticeable. If it keeps bugging me, I've saved the scrap from the stained wood and I could extended it slightly at that time. I've also painted and installed the forward hatches and the carronade track. While one direction fit perfectly within the printed template on the deck, the other direction wasn't perfect. I decided to have the slight discrepancy be on the fore/aft portion instead of the sides as the carronade base may cover it up for those looking at a quicker glance. I'm working through priming and painting all of the blocks and between coats will be starting to create all of the stanchions for the life rail.

Thanks, as always, Derek for the words of encouragement that all is going well! I was able to complete the painting of the hull and the necessary touch-ups over the weekend. Really happy with the straightness of the water line and the crisp line between the copper and black. Since I already decided to paint the inboard side of the transom black (contrary to the instructions but in keeping with the photos in the instructions), I'm going to have the top of the rudder black too, as I think it'll give a nice contrast with the deck and tie in the transom and hull. The rest of this week may see limited work but I'm off all of next week so should be able to make some good progress heading into the new year.

Have now cleaned up the transom to be flush with the hull, added the wales, as well as the channels. Getting the transom wasn't an issue at all (photo is a little off center so the keel looks misaligned but it's all good). Generally speaking, the wales weren't too bad. I did run into some issues right at the bow though. The instructions suggested starting at the bow and working to the stern but it was hard to get a good alignment so I worked the other way. It seems that the shape of my bow wasn't exactly right for the shape of the pre-cut wales so it started putting a lot of stress on the wood to get it to the right shape. The wood ended up snapping in a couple of places but I was happy with how I was able to work it all back together and make it look okay with a bit of sanding (still need to do a little bit more to get the bottom of the plank nice and level but will be an easy fix). When it gets to the toe rails, the instructions specifically mention soaking them in water but there wasn't any suggestion to do that for this step. For any other newbie modelers, I would have two suggestions based on what I've learnt. 1) - get the wales out during the hull shaping process to dry fit them at that stage to make sure the shape, especially around the bow, will work with the pre-cut shape. 2) - if it's going to be a stretch to get everything aligned, then I would suggest soaking the bow end of the wales to make sure you don't end up breaking the plank. The channels went in well although, like Eric W, I used a #55 drill bit instead of the prescribed #67 as a lot of sanding on a very small piece would have been required to get the tab on the channel into the #67 sized hole. Have to do a tiny bit of filling to replace a piece of the existing filling on the bow that stuck to my thumb with the CA but once that's set, I'll be ready to prime the hull for painting! Thanks for stopping in, the likes on the last post and Derek C., for the kind words.

Managed to finish the rest of the hull this weekend. Needed a couple of spots of filler to smooth out a section that was cut too far back on arrival and a couple of missteps on my part. It looks a bit ugly around the filler in a few places because it started separating from the deck as I was dry fitting so used some CA glue to keep it firmly attached and I did some more fine sanding after the photo to get the lines a little smoother than what's shown below. After all the work over the past few weeks, I've managed to accumulate enough sawdust for what looks like enough to build a new hull from scratch (It has since been vacuumed up.) I also had a chance to glue on the deck, stain it, attach the transom and paint it. I think I'll need to do a second coat on the front of the transom but I'm excited to start making this look like more of a ship going from here! Thanks for checking in and the likes!

Thanks for the support, Nic. This was exactly the thought I had. I'm really happy with how smooth and fair it's turned out but if you have any feedback given your experience (I know the second photo's a little blurry so may be hard to give an opinion) I'm all ears for tweaks/improvements as I get started on the other side. I'm already making much quicker process on the right side now that I've figured out a good approach to work across multiple areas at once to get the shape smooth. Having the keel at the right height from the outset is also a big help for round 2.

After being away for all of last week for Thanksgiving, I was able to get back to the cutter last night and finish up the left side of the hull. It's not 100% aligned with all of the templates but I'm happy with the shape I've produced and it was the best I could do to have a perfectly level false keel and follow the template shapes to about 90% accuracy. Any feedback on the results for the left side would be appreciated before I get too far into starting the right side. I also spent a bit of time making the hinges for the cabin above's hatch. Took a bit of work to get them to be be identical given the size and I'll share some photos once they're painted and installed.

Still making gradual progress on the hull but decided to change it up a little bit and knock out the first piece of deck furniture. Parts were very easy to work with and I'm really happy with how it turned out. Cut one of the side moldings a hair short but was able to add a tiny shim to fill the gap and, once painted, couldn't even tell I'd made a mistake.

Had some success last night fixing the mast holes. I had to make a little guide to make sure I got the angle right for the drill. For the front hole, I was able to use a clamp to hold everything in place. For the rear one, I had some trouble using the clamp due to the clearance available with the size of the hull and after figuring out to pre-drill holes for the nails (the guide was a lot bigger to start with) I nailed it to the hull and was able to get a successful drill completed in the right place. I haven't filled the excess parts of the holes in at this point as with dry fitting it with the deck, it seems like they'll probably hold their position well enough. I may get some wood glue to add to the bottom of the hole (making sure it's not so much that it squeezes out onto the deck) to give some extra support. While this wasn't something I was expecting to have to deal with at the outset of this build, it was pretty satisfying to see a good result when all was said and done!