John Gummersall

On to the main set of windows and doors... In this case they are all metal. I choose to only paint the window frames (white) and leave the windows the metal grey. Looking at the windows, it seemed to be more realistic view (to me anyway). Doors are solid red. Doors, Windows and window frames installed On to the dreaded circular stairs.... Looking at various build logs everyone had a lot of (shall we say) "fun" with the circular stairs .... 🙂 Based on the build logs there are several ways to take them on. I choose to follow the logic Adrieke used in his build. It seems to work pretty well for me. Start with the center pole cut to length. Actually I cut it a few mm longer than the desired length. I figured the extra length may come in handy when mounting the stairs into the ship. Since the first five steps are straight, mark the center pole at the height a little higher than the five steps. This is where the first curved step will start. Drill a hole in a block the depth of the five step mark and insert the center pole Cut a few extra pieces of wood from the same wood the that steps were cut from. These pieces will be the same width of each step (since they came from the same wood as the steps). These extra pieces of wood will be used to steady each step (as the glue dries) as each step is added . As each step is added, add another piece of wood to stead the step. Extra pieces of wood Below shows the fifth step being added. Note the five pieces of wood used to steady the step while the glue dries Us CA glue here and you will not have to wait very long to add the next step. Below shows both set of step built. I need to clean up some of the extra glue, but not too bad. Next, the five straight steps and the railings will be added. Hope fully that will not be to much "fun" 🙂

Paddle-wheel complete. By painting the paddles the fit was so tight into the wheels, that no glue was needed. Just pushed them into the wheel slots and done. Again, the use of the two 2x4s to support the paddle-wheel made it very easy. Paddle-wheel mounted in it's final home If you are following along with the actual instructions, you will notice I am not doing things in order. Basically jump back and forth, trying to anticipate issues that may com along in the build. At this point I am putting the engine room doors on the engine room. The instructions call to first put in the door frames and then put in the doors. Problem is, the door opening is only 12mm wide and the doors with frames are 14mm wide. A problem if you put the door frames first. In my case I build the frames around the doors and then made the door opening wider to match the door and frames. Below shows 12mm door opening - too small to fit doors and frames And prebuilt doors and frames. At this point the door handles have not been installed. They will be installed and then the door openings (above) will be widened to fit the doors and frames

Earlier I mentioned I did not like how the stain turned out.... As a result, I made an executive decision and decided to paint the Paddlewheel boat mostly white with some red trim. That seems to be the color of most riverboats I have seen.... I know this goes against all logic and all other buildings of the "King"... but here we go... Below shows the first three rooms painted white. Since some of the doors were already in, I masked them as I plan to have all doors as intended - that being stained. Window frames will be white, windows will be the natural metal color, and the window shutters will be red. One item of note here, the first room at the bow of the boat does not exactly fit into the slots on the deck, but they are close. In fact so close I just forced it in. It is not noticeable as the slot was very close. Later on I though I probably should have just made the slot a little bigger. The larger hole would have been on the inside the room, so no one would notice it. Besides the two rooms are glued to the deck all around, not just where the slots go through the deck. So no need an exact fit on the slot that could be enlarged. Below show how the windows will eventually look when installed. The window frames (white) where dipped in white paint rather than painstakingly trying to paint the frames with a brush. Looks seems pretty good and a whole lot easier. I could have first painted the windows some color and then dipped to paint the frames, but I decided the window with the natural metal finish against the white paint looks pretty good. Not sure I could have come up with a better paint combination, so they will remain the natural metal color. Below is the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th decks. 2nd deck has been stained, but 3rd and 4th deck remain to be stained. Build logic is the same as the first deck. Cut 10mm lengths of wood, mark the deck every 5mm, and stagger every other seam. The plans call for straight planking on the 1st and 4th decks with herringbone design on the 2nd and 3rd deck. I choose to make all four decks straight planking. Again, that is how I have seen most boats. Note on the 2nd deck I did not plank where the rooms will be sitting. Once complete, the room will completely cover up the deck, so I skipped planking deck that would never see the light of day. A couple notes,,, After the 2nd deck is planked, be sure open up the four holes highlighted below. Slots in the base of the room walls fit into these slots. Rooms are connected to the deck via those holes. After planking the 3rd deck, open up almost all of the slots in the deck. However on the 3rd deck (picture below show the bottom of the third deck), do not open up the highlighted slots. Slots in the top of the 2nd deck rooms fit into these slots and will be flush with the decking. If you open these slots, you will see the stubs from the 2nd deck rooms showing in your 3rd deck floor. As me how I know this :-).... I ended up tearing up planing and had to re-plank some of the boards. On to the paddle-wheel. In my case the blades and wheels will be solid red... Only suggestion here is as you add the blades to the wheels, have the shaft supported between two 2x4 blocks. I started out trying to put in the blade but just holding the shaft and wheels in my hands, but the hole in the wheels are a little bigger than the shaft, so it was a little wobbly. Assembling them between two 2x4 blocks made it much easier.

Hull is complete and deck glued. All pretty straight forward. I will say (as others have) the attaching the stempost to the keel is a challenge. The curve is not correct for the hull. In my case I had to cut the stempost and use a piece of the keel to reshape it to match the hull. If you look close you will see the joint in the stempost.. About the best I can do with my limited skill. Also below is the bottom and side views Started working on the boiler room. Only hitch here is the instruction call for the door frames to be 1x3x34 Sapelli. Problem is the wall are 1x4. Best to use the 1x4 Sapelli wood, but if you use the 1x3.. just make sure it line up with the outside of the doors,, and no one will ever notice Engine room is the same story. Use the 1x4 Sapelli. wood for the doors. Below is the stained Engine Room.... I committed a beginners error,,,, I did not test out the stain on a sample piece of wood... I used the same stain I used on other woods so did not think to sample... End result is stain that is way too dark (for my taste) and a little blotchy. Not quite sure what I am going to do about it. One option is to replank the Engine room - and all would be OK,,,, other option would be to go in complete opposite direction and paint the boat white.... Not sure I have seen a real life steamboat that was natural wood color,, most seem to be white... So that is an option I an considering,,,, At that point it was just a matter of using the template over the Sapelli to cut out the arch. It takes some time, but I like the final result. Next on to the WaveCatcher... WaveCatcher is 1.5x5 Sapelli. In order to bend it, I soaked it in water for about 5 min and then used a soldering iron to bend the wood to match the bow of the boat. It was then bent around the bow and "rubber banded" until it was dry Next step call for the rudders. Instructions all to "Make an 8mm deep groove in the rudder shafts and insert the blades" The shafts are made from 5mm Walnut dowl. Cutting an groove 8mm long in a 5mm wide dowl shaft is well beyond the skill I have. Instead, as shown below, I cut the slot in the rudder blade and inserted the shafts into the blade End result is pretty good and a far easier Building of the staterooms are below. Pretty straight forward. Plank the entire stateroom and then cut out the doors and windows

Wherry is in it's final home... Similar to the boats in the picture above it. The rope that came with the model, while is probably to scale, looked a little "thread like". Instead I opted for a candle stick wick. Wick used to make candles. It is braided and looks pretty good. The fish net is an extra strong hair net used by female equestrians with long hair... That too looks pretty good to me as a fish net. Anyway, I really enjoyed this build, but being a novice builder, I did make some mistakes. My main issue was mentioned earlier when I only lined up the plank marks at the bow and stern. I did not think the mark in the middle of the plank mattered. While the exterior of the wherry looks good, some of the planks on the inside are too close or too far from the next plank. Next planked ship I will pay closer attention. Also as mentioned earlier it is not real obvious, to a beginner, the bow and stern of each plank... especially when they are all in water soaking. I would recommend, if you are not sure as to the bow and stern of each plank, to mark the bow and/or stern of each plank,,, just so you do not make the same mistake I made and install them reversed. Have fun,,,, I did,,,

Anna, I just started a build of the King Of The Mississippi. While I am a ways behind your progress it looks like it will be a fun build. Looking forward to your next post John

I am a relatively new modeler and plan to take on the King Of The Mississippi. Main reason I am attempting this is due to the vast number of build logs on MSW. I have studied them all and have been intrigued by some of the ingenuity and customization that has been done by the various shipbuilders. Even the logs have have not been completed were invaluable showing various stages of the builds. Besides that,,,, the King Of The Mississippi just looks like a cool model. The version of "the King" I have is 2017.. Maybe some of the issues that earlier shipbuilders encountered have been corrected by Artesania.... But I guess that is probably too much to wish for,, So here we go... Note the date of 2017 Box contains three shrink wrapped items First part of hull structure is pretty straight forward. Parts fit nicely with only a little sanding to make the bulkheads seat better. The instructions call to glue in the upper stern board to the slanted portion of the false keel. Note below that I did not do that at this time. Turns out the slant in the slanted portion of the false keel does not match the slant in the bulkheads. Thus later on when you install the bulkheads the upper stern board does not match the bulkheads. Others have pointed out this issue and later had to "fiddle" to make the upper stern board match the bulkheads. Instead I decided to glue on the bulkheads and then make the upper stern board match the bulkheads Note the upper stern board not installed. I do not have a good picture, but below shows the bulkheads installed and the upper stern board lined up with the slant in the bulkheads. You have to insert a small piece of wood between the upper stern board and the slanted part of the false keep to take up the space, but this is a much easier way to deal with this issue than gluing in the upper stern board before the bulkheads. Ignore that extra piece of wood glued to the upper stern board... Initially I thought the upper stern board was too long so I cut it down,,,, Mistake on my part.. No big deal as the mistake will not show once the hull has been planked On to planking the hull Lay the first row of planking down the exact center of the hull and let this dry. Make this a straight as possible as it is the base for all the other planks Note the planks are paper thin and very easy to bend,, Should not be a problem bending the wood. No need to pre-heat or steam. Since there is a bend and it does take some time for the wood glue to dry, I choose to lay about 5-6 planks (at a time) in the stern part and later (about 20 min) bend them over and glue them to the hull. I could have used CA glue, but I am the world's worst CA glue'er and usually get it all over the model. However I have since found the the CA gel works great and much more forgiving,,, One note,,,,, There are supposed to be 30 hull planks - 6 mm in width... While there are 30 planks, they are only 5 mm in width. As such there are not enough planks to have full planks on both the bottom and hull sides. Since the hull planking on the bottom will never see the light of day on the completed model, that is where you want to have planks with joints. Basically take some of the planks that extend beyond the bow (picture above) and butt them together to make some of the planking on the bottom of the hull. In my case I ended up with three bottom planks that were made up of several smaller pieces. The pieces butt together very well and you can hardly see the joint. In theory you could do this on the side bulkheads but best to do this with the bottom hull planks that will never be seen. In the end I used 18 planks to cover the bottom and have 12 full planks to cover both side bulkheads Side Planking,,,

Added some paint,,, Inside is off white Seats and topsides are grey View from the top Add the oars Just about done,,, need to add the bow ring and tow line,,,, and then do a little touch up paint,,,,

Plans call for a 1/16" gripe along the bow where the planks meet. To me that looked a little thin so I choose to make the grip out of 1/8" wood. Plans also called for the inside and outside rub rails to be 1/16" bass wood,,,, again to me it looked too thin, so I used 1/8" basswood instead The extra width also (to me) allows for the pin pads (for rowing) to better fit the edge of the boat. The 1/32" x 3/16" stringers were supposed to run only in the middle of the boat... I decided to run them from bow to stern. Again to me they just seemed to look better running the entire length of the boat Below shows the ornamental cleat added to the forward edge of the stern seat The middle two seats were intended to be thin planks. But since the ornamental cleat was added to the forward edge of the stern seat, they just seem to thin. Below show I added a 1/8" strip to the forward and aft edges of the bottom of the two seats. The seats will look better (stronger) when they are placed into the boat. Normally at this time, the seats should be glued into the boat. I have them out at this time for painting,,, Painting comes next,,,,

Planking complete..... Planking went very easy,,,, Probably too easy as I see to have an issue by not really paying attention to what I was doing,,, 🙂 The planks have a very subtle difference (to me anyway) as to which end is the bow and which is the stern. Will all the planks soaking in water as I pulled each out to glue to the jig I have a feeling I glued a few of them reversed,,,, ugh. From the outside (which is all we see as the wherry is being built) all looks good. I matched up the jig markers on the planks and all seemed OK. But when the boat was taken off the jib it is obvious I had reversed a copule of the planks. Planking on the inside has a couple planks overlapped too much and some overlapped less than should be. I might suggest next time to maybe mark each plank as to the bow and stern. It is too easy reverse some of the planks if you are not paying attention. A rookie mistake,,, but then again I am a rookie,,,, This is my first model with planking,,, making mistakes is how we learn.... Hopefully I learned something there and will pay more attention to my next planking model 🙂 Anyway,,,, need to sand the outside and then move on to the inside of the wherry....

Danny, I am sorry, I did read the top of the Build Logs for Kits page titled "Starting and Naming your Build Log"... But looks like I did not read it carefully enough. I now see what I was missing in the build log title. Thanks for putting up with my poor reading of the "Starting and Naming your Build Log" documentation John

Danny, Thanks for the information... I now see it in "Small Craft" section and index. I am sorry, I just assumed my log was going into the Wooden Ships section. Never thought to look in other sections - For the future, when I create a new log, how do I know what section it goes into? Is there some field I missed that would indicate what section the log is created? Thanks for your time - I appreciate it John

Danny, I joined MSW back in early January. At that time I started a log for the Lincolnville Wherry. I see since then the Index has been updated several times, yet my log has not yet shown up in the index. I was just curious if I failed to update some field that is preventing my log from being included when the index is rebuilt? If it is just a question of your time, then no hurry on my part... I totally understand. I just wanted to know if I missed some step in creating my log, Thanks for your time John

Planking going along very well,,, should complete the planking in a few days,,, I am not working at it full time Die Cut planks are perfect.. As the instructions indicate, soak for a few minutes, position the plank at the bow section, and then let the plank go over the stern to be trimmed later. As I noted in earlier posts, I am the world's worse CA "glue'er"... I am not worried about the CA glue marking on the planks as the boat will be primed and painted in the end.

New Stem from BlueJacket showed up 1 week later so I am off to the races,,,, Below is a picture showing the marks on the stem piece I mentioned earlier,,, as you can see, these marking were a whole lot easier when they are marked before they are glued to the stem. The plans call for drilling holes in the Stem, Keel, and Stern sections and pinning these sections to the jib... In the past I have never had very much luck pinning model pieces to a jig... It seem pins usually come loose or fall out,,, I just do not have the knack for it. Instead I used a couple clamps and just clamped the Stem and Stern pieces to the jib. Seem to hold pretty well, but is loose enough to when the planks are glued on, I can wiggle the frame some to insure I do not accidentally clue the planks to the frame. With CA glue being as running as it is, and me being as sloppy,,, Not being able to wiggle the fame some, I am sure I would have glued some of the planks to the jig. Below you see the clamps on the Stem and Stern sections and the first plank glued on.

I have decided to take on the Lincolnville Wherry... Seemed like a good one to start with....being a rank beginner,,,, This is my first build log, so hopefully I will make it informational and interesting for other beginners that would like to build the Wherry... Be sure to read instructions carefully and try to build the entire model in your mind before you begin. Wherry is built from a jig, and instructions start out explaining the jig build process and showing pictures of the completed jig. One issue (if you did not read the instructions first) is that, after the jig is built it mentions that you should mark the Stem, frame J5, and the transom pieces with a pencil where the tops of each planks are to be placed. These marks show the position of the planks before gluing. It would be very difficult to use the sketches and mark the frame J5, and the transom pieces with the jig completed. I suggest marking the frame J5, and the transom pieces before you build the jig Below is the completed jig. You can see it would be very hard to mark the Stem, frame J5, and the transom pieces from the completed jig, Die cut parts for the Jig were very good. Only a little sanding required to make the part fit the jig diagram. Next step is building the Keel and backbone. Ran into my first issue. Note in the next two photos that the stem piece (K1) does not match the plans Note the Stem (K1) piece seems to be about 4 mm short. I called BlueJacket and brought the issue to their attention and they said they would cut a new piece and send it out. I know,,, you more experienced folks probably would have blown right by this and either built an entire new part or added the 4 mm piece at the end, but I wanted to follow the plans and at least bring this to the attention of BlueJacket,,, At this point I am in limbo waiting for the new stem piece to arrive,,, Hopefully it will show up in the next few days,,,, 🙂