hamilton

Yes Yves! I've looked in on your CAF build - it is intense!! I got myself the CAF Granado (part 1) as a Christmas present - inspired by your Bellona. But since that kit seemed well out of my reach (and I already had Corel's kit on the shelf)....I'm sticking with this "little cousin". Thanks for stopping by! hamilton

Hello all This is becoming a terrible habit, but I've decided to take another break from Bluenose and venture onto another build - one that has been sitting on the shelf for a very long time and that I've been thinking about since I got this kit (I think back in 2012) - Corel's Bellona. I have to give fellow MSW members Chief Williams and Harlequin acknowledgement as inspirations and for providing impulse to begin this build - and this log! I've always thought it strange that there weren't more builds of this kit on MSW, and I hope that this log can serve some purpose for the community. The history of Bellona is well known, and I'm not going to rehash it here. But my plan for the build is to represent the model (as per the kit) at her 1780 refit. As reference I'm using Brian Lavery's Anatomy of the Ship HMS Bellona - though his drawings cover both the pre- and post-refit and are sometimes confusing in terms of what is being depicted. This is most obvious with the rigging, which I've used James Lees' Masting and Rigging of English Ships of War to determine. A few years ago I started plotting out the build by making a detailed (some might say insane) parts list and rigging and belaying tables to supplement the information supplied on the Corel plans and to plan out approaches to the various elements. This is my usual way of working through a complex build and allows me to think through the construction of each element and to engage in intensive study of the plans and source material. Hope it pays off! In any case, in terms of build progress at the moment, I've nearly finished putting the framework together. But because I have a young family and a demanding day job (at least one that's very demanding for ten months of the year), I am only able to work on the model for a few hours each week, which makes for slow progress. So I'll be posting weekly updates here to cover stages of the build up to where I am now. In the meantime - here's the box and the centre keel. Build updates will start next week. In the meantime - enjoy your modelling! hamilton

Of course! Water! Never a doubt! Looks like we're at about the same stage in the build - I've glued up the frames and main deck on the keel (except the stern frames, which I've assembled but which need some tweaking). One thing I've been considering is adding main deck coamings and planking prior to installing the poop deck and f'csl - though the kit plans show the full assembly of the hull framework complete prior to planking the main deck, but I feel like the poop deck and quarterdeck would make this more tricky than. it needs to be...just a thought! In preparation for this option, I marked out the areas of the hatches/capstan platform/ mast partners, and painted them black to add depth beneath the hatch gratings. I'll probably build up the coamings and plank around them if I can find time on the weekend.... In any case, looking forward to more updates - at the risk of annoying the admins (since I have already one languishing build log here already) I may end up starting one here for Bellona too! Take care - hope the heat doesn't get too bad down there hamilton

Looks like a neat fix. I actually just started working on this kit, too - at the stage where I've installed most of the bulkheads (barring 15 and the stern framing). And I also made a gigantic spreadsheet - a parts list, rigging tables, belaying info, etc. I find this an incredibly useful exercise in complex builds like this, as time consuming as it is - a great way to prepare and map out the build in a more intentional way. I decided against carving a rabbet joint into the centre keel after doing a test on a small section in mid-ships - the material is too cheap! The veneer just crumbles and flakes and the interior material is so soft and spongey that it seems impossible to get a clean line. I'm not going to be keeping a log - my full time work limits my modelling time, and I have a semi-active log for another build on the go here, but I'll follow you here and hopefully be of some help if you hit any snags along the way! hamilton

She's really coming along Harlequin! Great work hamilton

I received this book as a gift from my wife's business partner several years ago - it's coverage is very broad and the illustrations are clear (and often very beautiful), though I'm not sure it could be used as more than secondary reference for model building - admittedly this may be a result of my own limitations as a modeller! hamilton

Some very fine joinery on a standard-setting build! Love following your work Mike hamilton

An exciting start - I just ordered this kit, but probably won't be starting it for a while. Will be nice to watch your work here in the meanwhile! hamilton

Just ordered session 1 of this kit.....lots on the shelf, but happy to add this to the pile! hamilton

That is a cool device - at first I thought it was a drill balanced on a set of miniature parallel bars. In any case your Unicorn is shaping up nicely! hamilton

Great work! Looking through your log brought back some very fond memories of building this kit many years ago - one of the most fun kits I think I've encountered. Hope you're enjoying it! hamilton

Hello Tim: Thanks for coming bye - great to hear from you! And great also to hear you're coming back to the shipyard - I took a long hiatus too - at least from regular modelling and active participation here (though constantly a "lurker" in 90s internet parlance). I hope that, if you get going on CS that you'll start a build log here - I'm meditating on what to do when Bluenose is done (even though at my current slow pace this won't be for some time) and I think it will either be the Corel Bellona or the Model Shipways Flying Fish. If it ends up being the latter maybe we'll be building in parallel once again! Still very thankful for the extra parts you sent for my America and hope to be able to return the favour one day! Bye for now hamilton

Looking good! hamilton

Looks great, despite product quality! It's been a while since I made a Corel kit (the last was Greyhound, you'll recall!), but Bellona is up next and I well remember how ginger you need to be with things like the chain plates and other metal parts - sometimes they're just unrefined looking, sometimes, they're just so fragile that they break while they're still in the little containers they come in! Anyways, poor parts in good hands still produce fine results, as your Unicorn shows! hamilton

I have the Corel Bellona kit, but this one looks incredible - and HUGE! Yikes! Looking forward to watching her come together here hamilton

Nice work so far! Glad that Harbour Freight made good on the scroll saw!! hamilton

Incredible work Bob, as usual! hamilton

Looks great! Very clean planking job so far hamilton

Hello there: Work on Bluenose has slowed as I've had to reduce my modelling hours to Saturday mornings - October-December is a very busy time at work and home so I'm feeling like a very dull boy indeed with all work and no play.... In spite of this I've managed over the last couple of weeks to plank the main deck. The joggling of the deck planks adds a significant amount of time to the process, and I'm not sure about the results - from a distance they're adequate and (judging by the photos below) my camera lens is extremely forgiving. But like everything in modelling it's about practice and getting a better feel for things with each attempt. And once all the deck furniture and fittings are added later things will blend in. The quarterdeck planking is not laid parallel to the centre line like the main deck planking - it curves more or less in line with the tapering of the deck towards the stern. This will no doubt take longer even than the main deck, but I won't have a chance to start on this until next weekend, unless by some chance I can carve out some modelling time tomorrow. In any case, slow and steady..... Enjoy hamilton

looking back through your log, I wish I had stumbled on it earlier, as I might have been able to provide some assistance with the odd stern bulkheads. on my Greyhound kit, bulkheads 9 and 10 were WAY off - I had to add 3/16" x 1/32" to the edges of those bulkheads. I used a test batten across all the bulkheads to gauge how thick these extra shimming strips needed to be and to gauge the area of the bulkhead edge they had to cover. It was a very time consuming and frustrating process as i recall....anyway, this is definitely a manufacturer issue! And a big stumbling block for the modeller...despite many criticisms of them that can be found on this forum, I actually quite like Corel kits and have made a few - this one, though, had some problems! hamilton

look how it improves with elbow grease!! The planking looks great! - Nice solid foundation for the next layer. Keep on! hamilton

Looking through your build log is giving me flashbacks! This was initially a frustrating kit to work with for me, but ended up being very enjoyable and one of the models I'm proudest of. I also agree completely with Harlequin (with whom I've exchanged notes on this model and who was a great help to me when I was working on it). Each model is a learning experience and each time you can apply what you learned from the last one and improve. It's difficult when (as is almost always the case with my builds) things don't look exactly as pristine and clean and perfect as they do on the box or in more experienced modeller's hands. If you enjoy the process, then you will enjoy watching the results improve as you go. And to the list of things Harlequin mentions above - knife marks, scratches I'll add - the modeller's own blood, which I've spilled on every model I've ever built! hamilton

Looks really nice! Your planking is so clean! At first I thought the twisted wood strips were some kind of cat's cradle automaton - which would be pretty cool to see if you can work one up once you're done this! Have fun!! Wish I could build like that! I'll keep practicing! hamilton

Thanks Mark - I'm contemplating redoing the cabin as it is a little off plumb and the skylight looks like a half-baked cake to me...not in any rush to complete this build, so probably worthwhile to try a re-do while version 1 is still not fixed to the model.....we'll see....bye for now! hamilton

Another quick update on Bluenose. At this point, I've completed the cabin, adding binnacle, skylight and stove pipe - the latter made from some old dowelling I had lying around. I had thought to integrate the cabin, hatches and skylight/companionway into the deck planking, but in the end, I decided only to do this with the hatches and fit the other deck superstructures on top of the deck planking - planking around the cabin aft would have been pretty tricky given that the planking does not run parallel to the centre line on the quarterdeck, which the forward companionway and skylight are so small and close together, that (again) the finickiness of the planking was a deterrent. So I put together the hatches, fixed them loosely to the deck to begin the planking process and will fit them permanently once the deck planking has been finished fore and aft of them (this is to ensure that the planking runs evenly around them. I still have not found a good replace for the now unavailable blacken-it product, with which I always had decent results. With the product I'm using now I feel like parts either don't really blacken at all (likely there is a lacquer or some other coating on the brass that needs to be chemically removed first) or they get really flakey, indicating a very loose chemical bond.....I've read through a couple of threads on blackening and will try some experiments with different ideas/products I've read about here....but I miss blacken-it! So simple..... Anyways, After getting the hatches together I began on the main deck planking. The photos below show only the two centre strips but at this point I've laid down eight strakes of deck planking, which pushes the planks to the outside edges of the hatches. Now the hatches can be more permanently fixed and the deck planking will continue with the winch pads up in the bows, the nibbing strake run agains the waterways and the remainder of the forward deck planking. It looks a little rough (some bleeding of the simulated caulking seams through the action of the CA...Sanding has minimised this effect and the volume of forward deck features will likely make a lot of the little blemishes fade into the background as building continues.... Enjoy!