hamilton

Hello there:
 
I've now started rigging the main sail - a lot of elements to juggle here! The first step was to lash the sail to the boom and gaff and the clew, toe, throat and peak - the eyelets I added to the mainsail helped here, though I wish I had blackened them first....an oversight (or overeagerness) on my part. Regardless, After trying to rig the throat and peak halliards with the boom and gaff "loose", I added small brass nails to the ends of these parts and drilled holes on the main mast so the spars could be anchored in place to ease the rigging.
 
I also had to undo the tackles on the flying backstays since these were really getting in the way - I'll re-do these once the main sail and main topsail are finished. In any case, at this point I've put in the parrell ropes (but not added parrells or tied them off) and rigged the peak and throat halliards and tackles. There is still a lot to do here - including lacing the sails onto the gaff and boom, the sheets and boom crutch tackles, the topping lift and quarterlifts and the lazy jacks - I installed the flag halliard today, so that's taken care of at least - and of course I'll need to tie on the mast hoops and parrells.....sheesh! Then onto the topsail.....
 
Bye for now and happy modelling
hamilton

Hello there:
 
I've now started rigging the main sail - a lot of elements to juggle here! The first step was to lash the sail to the boom and gaff and the clew, toe, throat and peak - the eyelets I added to the mainsail helped here, though I wish I had blackened them first....an oversight (or overeagerness) on my part. Regardless, After trying to rig the throat and peak halliards with the boom and gaff "loose", I added small brass nails to the ends of these parts and drilled holes on the main mast so the spars could be anchored in place to ease the rigging.
 
I also had to undo the tackles on the flying backstays since these were really getting in the way - I'll re-do these once the main sail and main topsail are finished. In any case, at this point I've put in the parrell ropes (but not added parrells or tied them off) and rigged the peak and throat halliards and tackles. There is still a lot to do here - including lacing the sails onto the gaff and boom, the sheets and boom crutch tackles, the topping lift and quarterlifts and the lazy jacks - I installed the flag halliard today, so that's taken care of at least - and of course I'll need to tie on the mast hoops and parrells.....sheesh! Then onto the topsail.....
 
Bye for now and happy modelling
hamilton

Hi Gregg - go for it! It's "fun" to learn a new skill, though as soon as people start coming to me for drapes I might have to feign ignorance....Fortunately I have a couple of sewing wizzes in my life, so I got some decent tutorials, but unfortunately they were not willing to do this work for me!
hamilton

Managed to get in a couple of hours at the bench today and can report some progress on the sails. I made patterns a little while back for all the sails - you can see these arrayed in the first photo below - and transferred the pattern for the fore sail to some thin fabric I had lying around (nothing like ship modelling if you want to end up with a lot of random stuff just lying around...or maybe that's just life...) for experiments with the sewing machine.
 
After a lot of work wrestling with that demonic device, I finally got into a rhythm where the threads weren't seizing up and doing all kinds of annoying things. Feeling daring, I transferred the patterns for the main sail and main topmast sail to the cloth and started stitching the main sail - just the reef bands and outside "hems" - not sure how generally to refer to these....I forgot how time consuming making sails is!! I imagine I'll be at this for a couple of weeks given the limited time I have these days....Anyways, here are some photos - the sail patterns and some shots of the main sale with a piece of ceramic Swiss cheese for scale comparison.
 
Happy modelling and bye for now
hamilton

Managed to get in a couple of hours at the bench today and can report some progress on the sails. I made patterns a little while back for all the sails - you can see these arrayed in the first photo below - and transferred the pattern for the fore sail to some thin fabric I had lying around (nothing like ship modelling if you want to end up with a lot of random stuff just lying around...or maybe that's just life...) for experiments with the sewing machine.
 
After a lot of work wrestling with that demonic device, I finally got into a rhythm where the threads weren't seizing up and doing all kinds of annoying things. Feeling daring, I transferred the patterns for the main sail and main topmast sail to the cloth and started stitching the main sail - just the reef bands and outside "hems" - not sure how generally to refer to these....I forgot how time consuming making sails is!! I imagine I'll be at this for a couple of weeks given the limited time I have these days....Anyways, here are some photos - the sail patterns and some shots of the main sale with a piece of ceramic Swiss cheese for scale comparison.
 
Happy modelling and bye for now
hamilton

Managed to get in a couple of hours at the bench today and can report some progress on the sails. I made patterns a little while back for all the sails - you can see these arrayed in the first photo below - and transferred the pattern for the fore sail to some thin fabric I had lying around (nothing like ship modelling if you want to end up with a lot of random stuff just lying around...or maybe that's just life...) for experiments with the sewing machine.
 
After a lot of work wrestling with that demonic device, I finally got into a rhythm where the threads weren't seizing up and doing all kinds of annoying things. Feeling daring, I transferred the patterns for the main sail and main topmast sail to the cloth and started stitching the main sail - just the reef bands and outside "hems" - not sure how generally to refer to these....I forgot how time consuming making sails is!! I imagine I'll be at this for a couple of weeks given the limited time I have these days....Anyways, here are some photos - the sail patterns and some shots of the main sale with a piece of ceramic Swiss cheese for scale comparison.
 
Happy modelling and bye for now
hamilton

A small update - no photos, sorry!! I've now finished the standing rigging, including ratlines, and fabricated and outfitted all the spars. I realised as I was doing this that I forgot to make and install the jumbo jib sheet horse in front of the fore mast, so did that quickly, and also forgot until now all about the boom crutches, which I'll need to make as part of the process of adding the sails, spars and standing rigging...not a huge deal. Man there's a lot to hold in your head with this hobby!!
 
I'll be moving onto the sails now, as noted before. I have made sails before (kind of poorly, but satisfactorily enough for my own purposes) but it's been a long time and so I'll need to do some practice. I made templates for all the sails and have a decent quantity of thin cotton fabric in a kind of canvass-y tone, so I'll first do some experiments just reminding myself how to use the sewing machine till I get to the point where I feel confident enough to make the sails. I also invested in some tools to add grommets and eyelets, so I'm hoping this can up my sail modelling game a bit - I'll be doing some trials with those tools as well to see if I can get a hang of the process - if so and if the eyelets look decent and to scale I'll add these at the luff and foot of the main and foresails (1/16") and at the corners for lashings, etc. 
 
Though work is now picking up again for the next couple of months and I won't have a huge amount of time to work on BN, I hope to have her before Christmas. This is exciting as I've not finished a model since I completed the Mamoli America in October, 2016!!! For reference, I had already begun the planning process for Bluenose at that point! 
 
So ultimately, this project - as long as it has taken - has finally brought me bak to ship modelling as an earnest pursuit (rather than an occasional pastime as it has been these past 7 years), which I am very happy about....can't wait to return to Bellona once this one's done! 
 
I'll post an update with some photos once I get into the sail making process. In the meantime happy modelling
hamilton

A small update - no photos, sorry!! I've now finished the standing rigging, including ratlines, and fabricated and outfitted all the spars. I realised as I was doing this that I forgot to make and install the jumbo jib sheet horse in front of the fore mast, so did that quickly, and also forgot until now all about the boom crutches, which I'll need to make as part of the process of adding the sails, spars and standing rigging...not a huge deal. Man there's a lot to hold in your head with this hobby!!
 
I'll be moving onto the sails now, as noted before. I have made sails before (kind of poorly, but satisfactorily enough for my own purposes) but it's been a long time and so I'll need to do some practice. I made templates for all the sails and have a decent quantity of thin cotton fabric in a kind of canvass-y tone, so I'll first do some experiments just reminding myself how to use the sewing machine till I get to the point where I feel confident enough to make the sails. I also invested in some tools to add grommets and eyelets, so I'm hoping this can up my sail modelling game a bit - I'll be doing some trials with those tools as well to see if I can get a hang of the process - if so and if the eyelets look decent and to scale I'll add these at the luff and foot of the main and foresails (1/16") and at the corners for lashings, etc. 
 
Though work is now picking up again for the next couple of months and I won't have a huge amount of time to work on BN, I hope to have her before Christmas. This is exciting as I've not finished a model since I completed the Mamoli America in October, 2016!!! For reference, I had already begun the planning process for Bluenose at that point! 
 
So ultimately, this project - as long as it has taken - has finally brought me bak to ship modelling as an earnest pursuit (rather than an occasional pastime as it has been these past 7 years), which I am very happy about....can't wait to return to Bellona once this one's done! 
 
I'll post an update with some photos once I get into the sail making process. In the meantime happy modelling
hamilton

A small update - no photos, sorry!! I've now finished the standing rigging, including ratlines, and fabricated and outfitted all the spars. I realised as I was doing this that I forgot to make and install the jumbo jib sheet horse in front of the fore mast, so did that quickly, and also forgot until now all about the boom crutches, which I'll need to make as part of the process of adding the sails, spars and standing rigging...not a huge deal. Man there's a lot to hold in your head with this hobby!!
 
I'll be moving onto the sails now, as noted before. I have made sails before (kind of poorly, but satisfactorily enough for my own purposes) but it's been a long time and so I'll need to do some practice. I made templates for all the sails and have a decent quantity of thin cotton fabric in a kind of canvass-y tone, so I'll first do some experiments just reminding myself how to use the sewing machine till I get to the point where I feel confident enough to make the sails. I also invested in some tools to add grommets and eyelets, so I'm hoping this can up my sail modelling game a bit - I'll be doing some trials with those tools as well to see if I can get a hang of the process - if so and if the eyelets look decent and to scale I'll add these at the luff and foot of the main and foresails (1/16") and at the corners for lashings, etc. 
 
Though work is now picking up again for the next couple of months and I won't have a huge amount of time to work on BN, I hope to have her before Christmas. This is exciting as I've not finished a model since I completed the Mamoli America in October, 2016!!! For reference, I had already begun the planning process for Bluenose at that point! 
 
So ultimately, this project - as long as it has taken - has finally brought me bak to ship modelling as an earnest pursuit (rather than an occasional pastime as it has been these past 7 years), which I am very happy about....can't wait to return to Bellona once this one's done! 
 
I'll post an update with some photos once I get into the sail making process. In the meantime happy modelling
hamilton

Very quick update - made some patterns for the mainsail and main topmast sail. Took a tracing from the plans, transferred this to bristol board using carbon paper and then trimmed up the bristol board patterns until the seemed to fit reasonably on the model as-built. It's been a long time since I made sails for any model - and I was never as expert a hand at it as some on the forum. But this weekend, I'm going to haul the sewing machine out and see if my wife will be willing to show me (again) how to thread the damnable thing...I'm sure that a bit of casual experimentation over the weekend will refresh my memory, right? HAHAHA!!
 
I think I'm going to invest in a little eyelet tool so I can add grommets to the sails, but I have to see if I can find something for this purpose - what do other people do/use for this?
 
Bye for now and hope you all have a great weekend
hamilton
 

Very quick update - made some patterns for the mainsail and main topmast sail. Took a tracing from the plans, transferred this to bristol board using carbon paper and then trimmed up the bristol board patterns until the seemed to fit reasonably on the model as-built. It's been a long time since I made sails for any model - and I was never as expert a hand at it as some on the forum. But this weekend, I'm going to haul the sewing machine out and see if my wife will be willing to show me (again) how to thread the damnable thing...I'm sure that a bit of casual experimentation over the weekend will refresh my memory, right? HAHAHA!!
 
I think I'm going to invest in a little eyelet tool so I can add grommets to the sails, but I have to see if I can find something for this purpose - what do other people do/use for this?
 
Bye for now and hope you all have a great weekend
hamilton
 

Well - it's finally time for a real update on the build. I've been working on the standing rigging and this is something I always have trouble documenting because of my poor camera skills and equipment (iPhone).....but now that the standing rigging is almost done (only the fore lower shroud ratlines and fore spreader lift ratlines plus the fore topmast shrouds to complete) I can share the progress.
 
I won't spend too much time with descriptions here other than to say that I did not pay enough attention to the plans and ended up tying the ratlines across all four lower main shrouds instead of the first three with an occasional extension to the fourth.....I know I talked about historical accuracy above as something I'm not too concerned about, but this one sticks in the craw a bit - though I'm sure eventually I'll reconcile myself to it....
 
In any case, I really enjoy the rigging process - probably my favourite part of any build - as it really brings the model to life in such a big way. Even ratlines aren't too bad with a good podcast or audiobook! 
 
Next to give myself a bit of a break, I'm going to fabricate the main boom and gaff and the main sail and main topmast sail and rig those up before moving on to completing standing rigging on the foremast. Enjoy the photos all and bye for now
hamilton
 

Even if it doesn't come out exactly symmetrical, this approach should produce good results - great work so far - very precise and clean looking!
hamilton

The main rail production has commenced. I discovered I can/could make it a bit wider if needed. 2 of 6 parts are made. It’s not laser cut that’s for sure. Copies of the plans and a glue stick is what I came up with to transfer one side, then copy a mirror image. Both sides are the same, and well if not, only one side is in the plans. So one can only assume it’s a mirror image. 
 

Progress is progress. The repair is complete. 
 
I sealed the deck planking with clear satin. Can’t really tell. 
 
I am stalling working on the mail rail. I can’t yet picture it completed so my mind is stuck. 
 
The wood stays fuzzier than I want. I want to solve that, not sure what to do except fuss over every piece with finer sanding paper. 220 was not fine enough. 
 

 

I’m repairing one of them I just noticed. I don’t know how I would have achieved the angles on the bow. The stanchions are at a good angle with the flow of the hull. 
 
The bow flows out, the stern flows in. 


 

 
 

Well - it's finally time for a real update on the build. I've been working on the standing rigging and this is something I always have trouble documenting because of my poor camera skills and equipment (iPhone).....but now that the standing rigging is almost done (only the fore lower shroud ratlines and fore spreader lift ratlines plus the fore topmast shrouds to complete) I can share the progress.
 
I won't spend too much time with descriptions here other than to say that I did not pay enough attention to the plans and ended up tying the ratlines across all four lower main shrouds instead of the first three with an occasional extension to the fourth.....I know I talked about historical accuracy above as something I'm not too concerned about, but this one sticks in the craw a bit - though I'm sure eventually I'll reconcile myself to it....
 
In any case, I really enjoy the rigging process - probably my favourite part of any build - as it really brings the model to life in such a big way. Even ratlines aren't too bad with a good podcast or audiobook! 
 
Next to give myself a bit of a break, I'm going to fabricate the main boom and gaff and the main sail and main topmast sail and rig those up before moving on to completing standing rigging on the foremast. Enjoy the photos all and bye for now
hamilton
 

Looks really good so far! 
hamilton

Hi Hamilton,
 
The Bluenose looks fantastic. You have done a very fine job. Keep up the good work.
 
Nearshore

Nice work, hamilton!  And, yes, ratlines aren't that bad... tedious, but a bit fun, and rewarding when you are done and they look sharp!  But, I agree, some type of background noise, whether a podcast or music of your favorite genre, is highly suggested!  Can't wait to get to this point on mine.  Carry on, sir!

Well - it's finally time for a real update on the build. I've been working on the standing rigging and this is something I always have trouble documenting because of my poor camera skills and equipment (iPhone).....but now that the standing rigging is almost done (only the fore lower shroud ratlines and fore spreader lift ratlines plus the fore topmast shrouds to complete) I can share the progress.
 
I won't spend too much time with descriptions here other than to say that I did not pay enough attention to the plans and ended up tying the ratlines across all four lower main shrouds instead of the first three with an occasional extension to the fourth.....I know I talked about historical accuracy above as something I'm not too concerned about, but this one sticks in the craw a bit - though I'm sure eventually I'll reconcile myself to it....
 
In any case, I really enjoy the rigging process - probably my favourite part of any build - as it really brings the model to life in such a big way. Even ratlines aren't too bad with a good podcast or audiobook! 
 
Next to give myself a bit of a break, I'm going to fabricate the main boom and gaff and the main sail and main topmast sail and rig those up before moving on to completing standing rigging on the foremast. Enjoy the photos all and bye for now
hamilton
 

Well - it's finally time for a real update on the build. I've been working on the standing rigging and this is something I always have trouble documenting because of my poor camera skills and equipment (iPhone).....but now that the standing rigging is almost done (only the fore lower shroud ratlines and fore spreader lift ratlines plus the fore topmast shrouds to complete) I can share the progress.
 
I won't spend too much time with descriptions here other than to say that I did not pay enough attention to the plans and ended up tying the ratlines across all four lower main shrouds instead of the first three with an occasional extension to the fourth.....I know I talked about historical accuracy above as something I'm not too concerned about, but this one sticks in the craw a bit - though I'm sure eventually I'll reconcile myself to it....
 
In any case, I really enjoy the rigging process - probably my favourite part of any build - as it really brings the model to life in such a big way. Even ratlines aren't too bad with a good podcast or audiobook! 
 
Next to give myself a bit of a break, I'm going to fabricate the main boom and gaff and the main sail and main topmast sail and rig those up before moving on to completing standing rigging on the foremast. Enjoy the photos all and bye for now
hamilton
 

Well - it's finally time for a real update on the build. I've been working on the standing rigging and this is something I always have trouble documenting because of my poor camera skills and equipment (iPhone).....but now that the standing rigging is almost done (only the fore lower shroud ratlines and fore spreader lift ratlines plus the fore topmast shrouds to complete) I can share the progress.
 
I won't spend too much time with descriptions here other than to say that I did not pay enough attention to the plans and ended up tying the ratlines across all four lower main shrouds instead of the first three with an occasional extension to the fourth.....I know I talked about historical accuracy above as something I'm not too concerned about, but this one sticks in the craw a bit - though I'm sure eventually I'll reconcile myself to it....
 
In any case, I really enjoy the rigging process - probably my favourite part of any build - as it really brings the model to life in such a big way. Even ratlines aren't too bad with a good podcast or audiobook! 
 
Next to give myself a bit of a break, I'm going to fabricate the main boom and gaff and the main sail and main topmast sail and rig those up before moving on to completing standing rigging on the foremast. Enjoy the photos all and bye for now
hamilton
 

Well - it's finally time for a real update on the build. I've been working on the standing rigging and this is something I always have trouble documenting because of my poor camera skills and equipment (iPhone).....but now that the standing rigging is almost done (only the fore lower shroud ratlines and fore spreader lift ratlines plus the fore topmast shrouds to complete) I can share the progress.
 
I won't spend too much time with descriptions here other than to say that I did not pay enough attention to the plans and ended up tying the ratlines across all four lower main shrouds instead of the first three with an occasional extension to the fourth.....I know I talked about historical accuracy above as something I'm not too concerned about, but this one sticks in the craw a bit - though I'm sure eventually I'll reconcile myself to it....
 
In any case, I really enjoy the rigging process - probably my favourite part of any build - as it really brings the model to life in such a big way. Even ratlines aren't too bad with a good podcast or audiobook! 
 
Next to give myself a bit of a break, I'm going to fabricate the main boom and gaff and the main sail and main topmast sail and rig those up before moving on to completing standing rigging on the foremast. Enjoy the photos all and bye for now
hamilton
 

Thanks a lot Johnny - I agree wholeheartedly - if I could afford it, I would always go with Syren blocks. As it is, I have to save those kinds of expenses for builds where I have more of an eye to accuracy. 
 
The Bluenose is what I consider a kind of "recovery model" - a project that - along with a 1.5" = 1' rowing skiff I built last summer - I'm working on primarily to get back into modelling. When I first got into this hobby in 2009, I built 15 models in succession over an 8 year period. Then I injured my hand back in 2017 and have only worked sporadically on models from that time until the beginning of last summer, when I built the skiff, picked up Bluenose again and started working on HMS Bellona (Corel), which I am going to try to build to at least something of a level of historical accuracy (though there are Bellona and other 74 builds on here that outstrip my capacities in all ways!!!).
 
Like you my questions are the same - what do I want to achieve with this build? Where are my interests going with this or that model - most importantly what is available to me for resources! Bluenose is obviously well documented, but the aim of building it really is to get a modelling rhythm back in my life......
 
Thanks for dropping by!
hamilton