hamilton

Hi Mark: I "liked" your comment, but I'm not sure I "like" it - certainly not the idea of you scrapping 2 years worth of work! That's off the charts harder than what I'm facing here. I'm going to rest on it for a bit....either way I won't be able to return to the build for at least a week, so.... The odd thing is that when I placed the keel over the plan view on the model shipways drawings everything lines up there.....So it's hard to say whether it's the template drawings or the profile drawing that's off....it's most likely to be the templates, given the issues at the stern which aren't just differences between the drawings but result in structural problems with the fitting of the parts as made....after all, the sternpost and rudder themselves match on ALL the MS drawings.... Anyways...I'm going to curl up with a book and forget about it for now..... hamilton

Well I've come upon the first major conundrum of this build.....it took me a while to figure out what was going on, but it turns out that what I thought was a need for minor adjustment of the centre keel at the joint with the sternpost is a major structural problem whose source is a discrepancy in the Model Shipways plans......Here is a digest: Initially, when I was dry fitting the 3/16" plywood pieces, I thought that I was going to have to make adjustments to the aft edge of keel piece 3 to provide a snug fit for the sternpost, which goes on after the hull planking is complete. Initially when the piece was aligned at the bottom of the keel, there was a gap at the upper half which widened to about 1/16"!! Quite a significant discrepancy, which I put down to my novice bandsaw skills. Also the top end of the sternpost, which is rounded over, didn't seem to fit quite right to the keel...This photo shows this gap and the ill fitting top end... You'll also notice the flat angled top of the rudder, out of which the post will project - and you'll note that it isn't aligned with the notch in the centre keel piece....the only reason I noticed this tonight was that I had cut the rabbet joint and was testing its depth at the stern with the sternpost. To my way of thinking, the rudder post should run straight up into the notch. But as this last photo shows, nothing like that is possible given the current state of the parts as made.... Initially I thought I would remake the sternpost so the rudder would align properly, but this next photo shows how much I'd have to trim off in order to achieve that result - not an acceptable strategy..... I then thought I could trim the aft end of the keel to achieve the same effect, but these next photos give you a sense also of how untenable this approach would be.... The odd thing, was that when I checked the parts as made against the template drawings they all seemed to fit ok, with only a bit of sanding required to bring them into line with the templates. I checked the sternpost and keel against the template drawings that I had used to make the parts, and everything seemed to line up, with a bit of shimming and a bit of trimming required as you can see in the following photo, but nothing dramatic. So I decided to test the assembled keel against the profile drawing, which is on a different sheet. When I did this, my jaw dropped. Here is a shot of the stern (you can't see, but the rest of the aft keel piece lines up with the drawing but produces this effect, which suddenly explained why the keel/sternpost joint was so off. Not only that, but the rudder post notch is noticeably aft of where it is my part as cut..... But then I noticed that when I had the keel piece laid on the profile drawing and aligned at the bottom edge through pieces 3 and 2 (aft and centre), this shocking effect was produced at the fore end.... As you see, my whole keel is significantly off from the profile drawing. In a slight state of shock, I checked each part again (though assembled together) against the template drawings and, once again, they matched!!! My conclusion - the only one - is that the template drawings provided by Model Shipways DO NOT correspond to the profile of the ship, but contain significant distortions that I did not catch when I was making my own templates and cutting the parts - I used the template drawing exclusively to test my parts..... So here I am at a crossroads - and a pretty big one. Everything I've made so far fits together fine, with the exception of the sternpost and rudder in relation to the aft keel and notch for the rudder post. But these things can easily be adjusted so everything lines up. The easy route would be to do these fixes and move on, forgetting that from about bulkhead "E" to the bows my hull profile is incorrect....The harder route would be to scrap what I've built (the keel parts anyway, not the bulkheads), take new keel templates from the profile drawing instead of the template drawing, and redo the keel entirely....This would satisfy accuracy and might help cut off further problems down the road....I'm heaving a huge sigh as I write this, primarily because I know I do not have enough 3/16 play to make new keel pieces (had to order through a certain online auctioning site at quite a premium in shipping costs - another online model supply shop had shipping costs that were, in a word, astronomical) and also because this will mean delaying this build until the Spring, when I can reasonably use the bandsaw again to cut the parts....... Anyway, that's my current tale of woe.....Any advice on the easy or hard route would be welcome - knowing that I'm tempted to take the easy one just so I can get on with the build.....Thanks all hamilton

Just catching up on your log - glad you made it through the bad weather! Granado is looking really great! hamilton

Hi Jond: These last posts were very enlightening for me. I've bookmarked this page now so when it comes (in the very far future) to making my deck gear I can emulate (on a smaller scale) your methods. To be honest one of the things that has been giving me "nightmares" (aside from my children becoming teenagers) is the metal work for Bluenose - and particularly the winch gear, etc. But your approach has opened my eyes to some possibilities beyond the suggestions given by Gene Bodnar in the BN practicum - which I was going to follow, but (all respect to Mr Bodnar) I think your way produces nicer results. Thanks again! hamilton

Hi Peter: Wow - your America is coming along really nicely! I'd say the coppering is more than "acceptable" - the rivets are a great detail - and I love the "dockyard" feel you provide in your photos. Really brings the model to life. Also - you live in a remarkable place! I've never been to Switzerland, but hope to in the near future. If you love rain you should try coming out to the Pacific Northwest! We have mountains, too - though not as dramatic as your Alps - and we have, as I say, lots of rain....so if you're ever feeling too dry, this is the place for you. hamilton

Hi Tim: Thanks for your very kind words!! Sorry to see no photos here! Though I'm excited to read that you're going for the sails - did I not read earlier that you were thinking of leaving them off? The sails really do make the model....this model anyway.... I did not use Mamoli's cloth since I found it too stretchy and could not get a straight stitch into it. I went to the local sewing supply shop and with the help of some very nice experts at the store I sourced some raw cotton muslin - thin but tough with a tight weave and not a lot of stretch in it - also more or less the right colour to pass for canvas. It is likely out of scale for the build - certainly the tan upholstery thread I used for stitching is out of scale - but I like the effect, so I won't mind too much....My sail-making process does not net the cleanest results.....Looking forward to seeing what you do hamilton

Looks really great John - beautiful job on the rigging hamilton

Alright - a minor but significant update on Bluenose - I have finally put glue to wood and assembled the keel parts! I had to do a few minor modifications to the joints between keel sections to make sure they fit as snugly as possible - a little sanding here a little shimming there - while also making sure I didn't accidentally mess with the overall dimensions of the parts. Not too tricky, but very finicky.... I also noticed that I made the first of what undoubtedly will be a long list of errors! In my rush to make adjustments to keel and bulkheads to get the bulkheads to sit nice and square, I realised that the shims I added below the slots on the keel actually made the three keel parts sit unevenly when I laid them out on a flat surface for assembly....The centre piece especially needed shimming and sat about .5mm higher on a level surface than the forward keel piece. The aft part didn't need much but it needed a particularly thick shim at bulkhead "O", which not only put the aft end of that bulkhead about .5mm higher than the fwd end, but also put the piece as a whole out of level with the centre piece! My choices were to try to inserts shims around and use a level to try to get things right (insane!) or to remove the shims on one side of the keel pieces. I went for the latter approach. I then salvaged an off-cut piece of plywood from some shelving I made last Spring, which will function first as the flat surface for setting the keel pieces together and later as my building board, once I invest in some paper large enough to make a tracing of the plan view of the deck from the MS drawings...... I used carpenters yellow glue on the joints and separated the keel pieces from the plywood surface with some parchment paper. Once I had scraped the excess glue away on both sides I set the pieces flat against the parchment and placed some storage jars (and one heavy ceramic urn) filled with water atop the part to keep it flat. The urn was added as an afterthought since I noticed the bow rising very slightly (1/64" or so) off the surface....this might require some correcting - which I'll do when I set up the building board.....When this will be I don't know because making keel supports fore and aft will require the use of the bandsaw and the weather forecast shows rain pretty constantly here for the next little while.....in other words, I'll probably spend more time working on Syren than on Bluenose in the near future...... bye for now hamilton

Thanks Jond: Thanks! I imagine that has less to do with any skill I possess and more because I'm working from existing kit plans rather than developing a model from scale drawings - plus the needs of a static versus an RC model makes things simpler and tidier. I don't think I have the patience or skill to go down the path you're following!! We'll see how neat things look when I start carving the rabbet joint...... hamilton

Hi Jond: Finally took a slow stroll through your build log. What an odyssey! I will certainly be following this with great interest as I develop my (much more modest) Bluenose. I'm very curious about how you will tackle the anchor winch and windlass....I too have read through Gene Bodnar's Bluenose practicum and he suggests a way of making these parts that does not involve any metal work.....but I'm not sure of how the results will look.....especially at 3/16 (let alone 1/4) scale..... I also really like your approach to marking out the hatch areas during the deck planking - so simple! Yet I had never thought of it! I will definitely be using that approach on this and all my other builds so I can nest the hatches and yet have nice deck planking too. Thanks for posting this log and I'm excited to see how your build develops! hamilton

Slow progress on Bluenose. The templates I made from the Model Shipways plans were, I think, accurate. But my bandsaw skills need work! The centre part of the keel needed a lot of adjustment - the cut along the top was quite uneven and considering the quarterdeck "step" is there this required some finessing before it was right. The aft keel part was fine - needed a bit of trimming along the aft top edge, but was good other than that. The bulkheads, on the other hand, required quite a bit of adjusting and the addition of shims on the keel below the slots before they would sit square and rest nicely on the keel..... Anyway, as of this evening I've finished rough shaping and marking up the main framework pieces. Rabbet and bearding lines are drawn on the keel parts port and starboard, the centre lines marked on the edges of the keel and on the tops of the bulkheads and rough fairing of the fore and aft bulkheads and inboard bulkhead extensions is finished. My next step will be to make a building board and glue the keel pieces together, add some reinforcements to the seams and then figure out the mounting...this is something that's always turned me around a bit.....but more on this later...for now here are some photos of the keel parts and bulkheads clamped together.....bye for now hamilton

Thanks a lot Tim! Oh to have a wood shop! Or a New Mexico autumn for that matter....I imagine it's drier than the one we're having up here in the pacific northwest..... I'll wait for your return to America - I hope you do get back to her soon - she's a lovely model! Bye for now hamilton

Thank you Mark, Nils and Peter! Peter - there are so many great Syren builds on the go that I'm unsure what mine would add! I will be keeping up with my scratch Bluenose log so you can find me there as an occasional contributor - I'm a kitchen table modeller so when Canadian winter descends I can't really use any of my power tools (haven't even tried to convince the Admiral to let me use the bandsaw in our dining room!)....so the challenge will be to get all the heavy cutting and sanding done before I'm unable to reliably work outside.....and I'll look forward to catching up on your America build! And Tim's (haven't heard from him in a while.....) Anyway thanks again! Bye for now hamilton

Well after over 13 months and over 100 actual work sessions America is now complete! It seems fitting that the last night of work on this model was among the most frustrating. I'm sure we've all experienced times when it occurs to us (too late!) that it probably was not the right time for us to sit down at the bench but we did it anyway....that was me tonight.....In rigging the jib halliard, I pulled its corresponding deck block free, but then in pulling up the eyebolt it was stropped to I ended up pulling free the single block holding the starboard side staysail sheets, and then when I was cutting away the thread with which I'd stropped that block to an eyebolt on the cap rail, I ended up crushing the starboard block for the jib sheet!! I thought I was ten minutes away from completing the model, and then put in another 90 minutes worth of work doing repairs, and then having to redo the jib halliard block on deck twice! Anyway, I think I would have put things to bed when the chaos first happened if I hadn't been so close to the end....all in all, I'm pleased with how the model turned out. There were a lot of (to me) confusing parts of this build and the fact that the kit was missing some key components (thanks again for the replacements Tim!!) and had others that were not the proper size for the jobs they were meant to do made things tricky and sometimes frustrating. I fretted probably more than I needed to over the hull planking since I ended up replacing the hull planking material - but used wood strips dimensioned for imperial measurements when the kit used metric.....But all in all, I had fun building this model and would probably recommend it. Thanks to all for following along and another special thanks to Tim (mojofilter) for the help! I've decided to build Syren next, but will not be keeping a log. I find that when I do I have less time for following my favourite builds here, so I think I'll spend my MSW time admiring other people's work! Here's a photo of the finished model - more in the gallery! Bye for now hamilton

Thanks Bob, Peter and David for the comments and likes! Sails are so tricky....and I have a lot to learn on that front.....but even in the crude form they have here I think they add a lot to the look of a model. Looking forward to finishing this one! It's taken FAR longer than I imagined (working on it for over a year - almost as long as the much more complex Blandford)...... hamilton

Hello there Just a few photos of the progress to date on America - realising I've not updated here in a while....a lot has been accomplished since my last update with photos - finished making the spars and doing the standing rigging, made 3 of the five sails and now rigged them......here are the results. Now to finish stitching the fore staysail and jib and finishing her off! Next post should do it I think..... hamilton

Hi Peter! Yes - I was experimenting with some new approaches, including hand stitching the hems and boltropes, which turned out to be a real bust....I've read through a number of tutorials on scale sail-making, but I feel that none of them are suitably descriptive in terms of the actual process....I am going to eventually order volume for of David Antscherl's The Fully Framed Model, which I understand has a section on sail making.....given the high quality of the descriptions in the rest of that series I've got high hopes for the sail-making parts...... In any case, I have made sails for the America - they are machine stitched (easy enough) and I've simulated the hems with regular machine stitching....I'll post some photos later to show the results....they're not pretty close up, but they work fine to bring the model to life a bit more (as long as people aren't too picky about things....the main issue is the fraying of the sail cloth around the outside hem stitches....it is impossible (for me anyway) to cut the sails from the cloth exactly to the hem line, so there is a bit of fraying - sometimes this results in the hem stitch getting pulled out a bit too....fortunately this has only happened in areas of the model that don't immediately draw the eye....except my eye of course...... hamilton

It's been a while since I updated here, but progress on America continues.....I spent about a week re-learning how to use the sewing machine and make half (or quarter?) decent stitches, then a bit more time messing up and redoing the sail patterns, then still more time stitching the sails, then accidentally cutting the jib sail pattern in half while cutting out the main gaff topsail.....you get the idea......too frustrated to take photos, but I'll have a few of the sails to this point posted a bit later. I've got the mainsail and the main gaff topsail on at this point - from a distance they look great! Up close....it's obvious I need to develop my technique.....or forget about sails - fortunately none of the builds I have from here on (except the Berlin) feature sails, so I can avoid them.... Anyway pictures soon - I imagine I'll be finished this build on the weekend or early next week! Then it's onto something else....not sure what I'll build next...my scratch Bluenose project is on the go but it can't occupy much of my time, so I'll choose another kit to build alongside it....It'll be either Syren or the Corel Bellona but it's been hard for me to make a choice. I know that Bellona will take a long time since I want to build the kit to a high standard of historical accuracy (using the AOS volume, as well as Lees Masting and Rigging). Syren will be "easier" though I'm frightened at the prospect of so many 1/8" and 3/32" blocks!! Anyhoo....that's all for later....in the meantime, happy modelling hamilton

Yes something like that but obviously less modern.....I don't know anything about lateen rigging, so the idea of a counterweight kind of makes sense - but I'm used to seeing ball trucks on the upper end of a top or t'gallant mast, so that's just my guess..... hamilton

They seem pretty exaggerated, but they must be "ball trucks" (though "ball" doesn't really describe them. They would have contained a sheave through which the flag halliards would have been run - for flying standards and pennants off the masts.....I might be wrong though - they look significantly different from the later period ball trucks I've seen..... hamilton

Thanks Allan! I'm flattered you came by! So far the toughest aspect of scratch building is figuring out how much material I'm actually going to need.....I have a suspicion that I'm going to spend a lot of money on wood and other materials that "won't end up getting used" - in quotes because I know they eventually will get used...... Also - starting with the BN feels more like dipping a toe in the lake rather than diving right in......I'm not sure what's on the bottom or exactly how chilly the water is......the MS plans are very detailed and take a lot of the guess work out of things - though developing some drafting skills is something I would truly love to do.....more for the future! Bye for now hamilton

Hi Jond: The trip to Lunenburg is definitely worth it. I grew up just up the road from you in New Brunswick (spent a bit of time in Portland and Bangor as well). Anyway, I wish I had the kind of space you've got for modelling! This will be a really interesting project to see come together. hamilton

Hi Jond: Thanks for stopping in - I took a look in on your build log - that's going to be HUGE! I'll follow with interest for sure....bye for now hamilton

Minor update on Bluenose...... All the 3/16 framework parts are now cut and I've begun to refine them and prepare them for assembly, section by section. Because I can only work on Bluenose for a few hours a week, the progress is relatively slow. I started with the forward keel piece (1), testing it against the plans and marking it up where adjustments needed to be made - a particularly fussy area was the joint with the centre keel piece (2), which needed quite a bit of shimming and trimming for a decent fit. I'll also have to do a bit of work on the fwd joint of keel piece 2 (especially at the top/deck line) to make things fair..... I then needed to mark on the rabbet and bearding lines on both sides of the keel part....technically I should have waited to do this until all the keel parts were assembled so I could be assured of a smooth run of these important lines....but I decided instead to throw caution to the wind! I figure they're just pencil marks so I'll see how things line up and make adjustments later - worst case scenario I'll have to make a template of the full run of the lines and remark them.....not the end of the world. I made templates off the plans and marked the lines from the templates. They look a little rough in these photos but I've cleaned them up since.....Once these lines were on, I drew in lines from the bulkhead slots to the bearding line for purposes of squaring the bulkheads.... The next step was to dry fit the bulkheads. This was a matter of filing out the keel slots on the bulkheads slightly (all were tight) and the bulkhead slots on the keel slightly. Some of the slots needed to be filed down a bit so the reference lines would line up properly and so the tops would be flush on the top of the keel. In seating the bulkheads I noticed a couple whose tops needed to be sanded down a bit further to sit flush. The tops also needed to be filed down for the deck sheer, and then faired slightly (using sanding blocks and files on both the outer edge and the inner edges of the bulkhead extensions). Final fairing will be done later obviously.... I also discovered that I had to recut bulkhead "A" and make significant adjustments to bulkhead "E". This is what I did today. That does it for the forward keel and bulkheads....next week I'll start work on the centre section..... That's all for now. Thanks for stopping by hamilton

Hi Jon I invested in the first volume of TFFM and it describes what you're talking about in great detail (with illustrations and photos to help with visualisation). I have not built a fully framed model, but I can see how this and the other TFFM books would be invaluable in this process, especially for those cutting their teeth on this approach. I will likely buy volume 2 this Christmas and use both for general tips in the construction and outfitting of my Echo cross-section (once I build up the guts to tuck into that project....) hamilton