John Gummersall

Back to the build.... Not much physical progress as several hours have been spent studying the instructions and diagrams. I really want to make sure I fully understand what is going on. Trying to avoid making a decision now that I will regret later in the build. As mentioned earlier, the instructions and diagrams leave a lot to the imagination,,, especially if you are a "newbie" like myself. It seems that every time I go over them I see something I did not realize before.

Turangi, No good deed does go unpunished... I ended up breaking a 3rd bulkhead.... and then two more (of my previously glued bulkheads) broke again when they fell off the table on to the cement floor. On the plus side, they broke in a new location - not where they were previously CA glued. So the good point in all this, is that a drop of CA glue is the answer and these bulkheads are easily re-glued together. With my fat fingers I am sure I have some more bulkhead breakage in my future.

Moving on to the "adjustments" that must be made (or at least known at this time) do to the fact of the 1/32 increase in the height of the planking. For the main decking bulkheads #4 and #12 must be moved forward/backwards 1/32 each to account for their increased height. This is a easy adjustment - I have marked them on the following two pictures. This will move bulkheads #4 and #12 forward/backwards so the floor will fit in. Next dry fit the main floor decking. Neither flooring or bulkheads are glued at this time. Below are all the parts that I wanted to plank with the 1/32 basswood. All have been trimmed and ready for staining. As mentioned earlier, warping is an issue. After adding on each plank they were put under heavy weight until I was sure the glue was completely dry. As mentioned in the instructions and several other build logs,,,,, the bulkheads are extremely delicate at this point. Even knowing this and trying to be careful, I managed to break two of them. However a dab of CA glue and "all is forgiven". Both bulkheads are very strong due to CA glue- at least that the break point anyway.. Blow show dry fit on the decking and seating areas. I attempted to highlight the areas ( up until this point) that I have had to alter due to the 1/32 height increase do to the planking. Parts in red showed bulkheads #4 and #12 moved foreword/backwards (discussed above). Parts in green and orange show where trimming was required do to bulkhead #12 moved back. Part in blue shows bulkhead #16 moved back due to increased planking. One area I did not want to adjust was the 1/32 height increase in the floor. Technically the floor is 1/32 higher and this can been seen up close of you look where each bulkhead come through the floor. To me a minor detail and will mostly be covered up by the coal bins later on. I am sure a true purest would deal with this issue, but not at my skill level... One more thing to note,,,, Look at my "ghetto version" of a keel holder (black clamp at the stern). This works great for now, but it will be a different story when I have to turn over the model for the planking. Someday I may break down and buy an official keel holder - but for now this is what is have...

Decision made,,,my wife (shall we say) "advised" me at to the correct way to go. I will be doing the planking of the bow section. Below shows the bow section and the first row of aplanking round the border. It does not match the bow section exactly at the tip, but I think (close enough) and will not be noticeable when all the planking is in place/ From there it is just a matter of filling in the planks. It takes some time an patience. Start with the middle strip and work your way to the outside. Cut a plank close to the final shape, sand, and dry fit..... Repeat over and over again until the plank fits snug. Glue it in and go on to the next plank Below is my final result. Still needs trimming, sanding, stain etc, but overall not too bad for a "newbie" modeler like my self

Next trimmed down the bow filler planks. Demel tool makes short work of this task. Only real guess work is how much to trim. Pieces come pre-marked as to where to trim, but not real sure how thin to make the leading edge. It all depends on how much indentation you want on the cut water of planking. Not shown here, but the bow and stern bulkheads were also trimmed. Same story as with the bow filler planks - pre-markings on the bow and stern bulkheads show where and how much to trim off. I am sure there will be some fine tuning when I get to gluing them to the keel, but this is a good start on the bulkhead trimming. Made an executive decision and decided to trim the bow fillers to where the planking will be about flush with the back of the cutwater. Looking at the picture below, I am not sure I will stick with this decision.. Maybe the planking should be indented some where it meets the cutwater. Bow pieces are not glued in yet, so I have some time to re-think this decision. We will see what "calls my name" when I get back to the ship. Next I followed that age old philosophy that says "why do something easy when you can make it hard".... As other have done, I decided to plank the various seats, flooring, and decks verses just drawing lines on the them to simulate planking. Included with this decision will be all the (shall we say) "fun" that goes with customizing some the pieces due to the increased length/width of the parts. To make it a little easier I am using 1/32" x 1/4" planking so the increased length/width should be a little easier to deal with. In addition the pre-drawn deck lines on the stern and bow sections are 1/4" wide. Very easy to get that planking correct - just cover the pre-drawn deck lines. In the below picture, all the parts, except the main flooring have been planked. I am holding off on planking the main flooring until I can more verify the length. Due to bulkheads #4 and #12 being planked, the length between them will be 1/16 or 3/32 shorter. It will be easier to trim the main flooring without the addition planking on top. Will probably have this same issue between bulkheads #12 and #16, but this have already been planked,,, so I will just have to deal with it. This is going to be (shall we say) "fun" One thing others have come across is warping when planking is applied. The decks/floors are only 1/16 thick. When gluing 1/32 planking on top of it, as the glue dries, they tend to warp. If fact, even before I finished planking each piece they already started to warp. Below is my attempt to keep the warping down during the drying process. Basically wrapped the pieces in wax paper and stacked them between weights. Even so, if you look at the picture above, there is still some warping in a few of the pieces. Hopefully they will easily be able to straighten out when they are glued into the ship. Below shows the stern piece planked and the bow piece not yet planked. When planking the bow piece the complex part is dealing with the border around the bow piece. You have to make a border piece and then trim planking to fit inside the border. The stern piece does not have border. Others have noticed this difference and custom fit a border on the stern piece to match the border around the bow piece. I have to admit, that looks really neat......but,,,,and here is where the purest are going throw up their hands and run out of the room..... Rather than make a border on the bow piece and custom fit planking in the border, or make a border on both the bow and stern piece to make them match,,,, I think I will go a third way and make the bow piece match the stern piece - that is, not have a border on the bow piece. Just make it look like the stern piece... Again,,, having just written that,,, I think I may give this some more thought,,,,Starting to 2nd guess my decision... Like with the bow filler parts, we will see what "calls my name" when I get back to the ship.

Turangi, Glad to have to follow along... Thanks Before going on, be sure to test out the 1/8'' propeller shaft is able to slide through the Keel. If not, trim the canal until it will fit. Then remove it for now Below shows the cutwater after trimming. Looking at the diagrams, I trimmed off about 25% on each side to the leading width is about 1/2 of the full width.

Ryland, glad to have you aboard....i have been looking forward to the Picket for some time. Here we go... First the box contents. I know others include it, but I always like to see it in a log. To me viewing other logs is how I determine what ship to build, and it frustrates me when I am looking for a new build and I have to look at several logs (that do not have the contents) to see the contents. First thing I did was label the wood strips... There are several very small strips that are so similar it is really hard to determine the difference. I figured it would be easier later on when trying to locate individual strips. Not so easy to determine the difference between 1/32 x 3/16 and 1/32 x 1/8. It took quite a while to determine each size but I am glad I did it. Below is the result... Lets start the build. Assembling the edges of the false keep is pretty straight forward. With some glue and clamps (never have enough clamps) goes together pretty fast From here things get a little confusing... In theory the Picket is for a beginner/intermediate builder. From what I have seen looking over the plans, that is probably true. Nothing seems overly complex. But you have to be an expert model builder to interpret the plans and diagrams. I have a feeling the writer of the instructions had built so many Picket models, he/she could build then in his sleep. Thus it seams many of the steps are lacking clarification - like everyone should just know how to build this model. However, If you go back and forth between the instructions and the diagrams ( a number of times), you will eventually figure it out, but to me the instructions "leave something to be desired". First is the Cutwater.... As others have done, the best way to get this right is to cut out the cutwater from the plans and glue it to the bow. From there it is pretty easy to trim the cutwater at the bow of the boat not real clear, but i have marked in blue the actual part of the cutwater to trim. Note the trimming extends into the 2nd bow piece. I trimmed down about 25% on both sides of the bow. On to the stern piece. The six (three on each side) support pieces (marked in blue below) applied to the stern assembly are pretty straight forward. These pieces support the slot for the propeller shaft later on. After they dry, remove the small pieces that temporarily supported the propeller shaft. Next part is to add the four (two on each side) stern pieces - marked in red below. It is a little confusing the exact location of these pieces - especially (as you see in the pictures) the parts do not really fit. Note the gap on each piece. About all I can say on this is the fact that I believe these pieces are correctly located based on other logs.

Just starting up the USN Picket Boat build... I just completed the J Class (1:80 scale) racing yacht and anxious to get started on the Picket. I am by no means an expert builder and from what I can tell the instructions for the Picket are sketchy at best, but with the excellent logs I have been reading on other Picket builds, I think I should be OK. Famous last words,,, One word of warning,,,,, this will be a painfully slow log to follow. I know most people hate slow logs. I am not a full time modeler so I only get to work on it when I have some spare time. While I plan to complete the Picket, it will not be at a very fast pace. We will see how it goes.

In the below diagram, it shows the shroud rigging going from the block directly down to a cleat on the deck. That to me seemed a little strange as most boats I have been on lines go parallel on the deck to a cleat. Lines to a cleat do not go directly up to a block. In the diagram, the line goes from the block on the shroud to the deck block, back to the shroud block and then directly down to the cleat on the deck. A little hard to see on the picture below, but I changed the line to go from the deck block up to the shroud block, down to the deck block and then on to a cleat. To me that seemed better... Also of note, I did not put the 2nd block/tackle to the back shroud. For some reason it with the small scale a boat, I felt it would look a little "stringy" if I added the 2nd block/tackle between the 1st and 3rd block/tackle... Not sure that was a good decision, but that is how it ended up. Rather than have line just go to each cleat and then just stop or lay on the deck, I added some coiled rope to each cleat. Especially since I do not plan to add the sails, to me it looks more like a ship at mooring with the lines coiled. At this point I am going to "call it"... This ship is ready for it final home in the case. Below are some final pictures of the completed build and a short video. From here I am moving on the the USN Picket. Kit just arrived the other day and I am anxious to get started on it. Finished_Video_1.mp4

Julie Mo Thanks for your comments... Prior to my building the 1:80 J Class I looked at your build of the 1:35 J Class boat. You are a true craftsman in every sense of the word. The detail and customization you put into your ship was outstanding. A true masterpiece. I got the feeling you were building a real J Class boat - not just a model. Anyone wanting to build either J Class boat (1:80 or 1:35) has to look at your log. What a beautiful ship. Thanks for sharing your build and the detail you put into your log.

Turangi I am somewhat new to modeling and just starting the Picket....I would like to thank you for taking the time to explain the cutwater trimming. The instructions in that area (and a lot of other areas) are about as"clear as mud"... You brought a lot of clarification to the cutwater mystery.

Jeff5115... Thanks for the comments..... Not sure I intended this to be an instruction manual as I am by far no expert builder, but I did want to point some of my mistakes (pain) I had along the way. Other ship logs I have read over the years only some of the steps that lead to a fantastic final product. They do not show some of the "pain" endured during the build. To me that is not very helpful. I much prefer reading logs where the mistakes are listed and the solutions. I know I learn much more from the folks that make mistakes are are brave enough to expose them. Good luck on your completion of "The King"...

Kevin101 I just saw you note from june..... ugh... sorry I never got back to you.... You probably have already chosen your glue, if you want my opinion I use Gorilla Wood glue and CA glue on all my models. There are a lot of folks that would cringe at Gorilla Wood glue as they say it expands when drying. I starting using Gorilla Wood glue with my first model (before I realized what others were saying about it). I have not had a issue with it and on my 3rd bottle. Most modelers seem to prefer Titbond Wood Glue. I suppose my next bottle will have to be Titebond just to see if I can tell the difference. The other glue that comes in very handy is CA glue. There are three types of CA glue (thick, medium, and thin). I use the thick CA on parts that have to stick together relatively fast. All the railings on the King were done with thick CA glue as it would take forever using the slow drying wood glue. I really like the "thick" CA (it is not really that thick) as has a long bottle life and does not seem to dry out. I have fully used every bottle of thick CA glue. Best part about the think CA glue is that it is easy to work with. Thick enough to stick on then end of a toothpick. On rare occasions I have used the thin CA glue. It is much harder to use than the thick (as it runs all over the place), and it tends to dry out. Using thin CA glue you are constantly clogging the glue tip. The one use for the thin CA that I have found is when you have a couple parts that have a very thin seam that you want to bind together. Just pour a drop on the seam, and it will seep into the seams and lock them tight. A few hints on both CA glue and Wood Glue.... use as little as possible. A little goes a long way. If you use too much it smears onto the wood, it seems even if you wipe it off right away, some glue remains on the wood. No problem if you are going to paint the wood, but if you are going to stain the wood, the part of the wood will not stain evenly. In regards to CA glue, if the tip of the glue does get clogged, Acetone nullifies CA glue. Soak the glue tip in some Acetone overnight and in the morning, it will be completely clear. Good as new. Anyway, as I have mentioned earlier in the log I am by no means an expert builder.... So take what I say with a grain of salt.... but I wanted to at least give you my thoughts.

Next up is starting the shrouds. I started on the two main port/starboard shrouds. Attached each shroud to a turnbuckle on each side of the hull. Then strung the shroud up the mast. Below is a shot of the shroud attached to my "makeshift" turnbuckle. At the top of the mast I would temporarily run the shroud through the ring and clamp it. That way the tension on the shroud can be adjusted on each side to make sure the mast is straight. Once happy with the mast angle, put a tab of CA glue on the shroud (at the ring) to hold it. When that dries you can permanently tie it off. Not sure that is how an experienced builder would do it, but with my novice skills, that seemed to work for me. To make stringing the shrouds easier, before stringing each shroud, coat the last inch of the shroud with CA glue. When that dries, it will be stiff and much easier to string through the mast rings. Once tied off, the stiff part of the shroud can be cut off.

Prior to the rigging I decided the Rigging shrouds really should have turnbuckles. Just tying the shrouds to a ring on the deck did not seem to have the right look. I looked around for some pre-made turnbuckles, but the smallest ones I could find were 15mm - and about $6.00 (us). UGH. 15mm (in 1/80 scale) would be equivalent to about a 5 foot turnbuckle. A little large. I decided to go the cheap route and make what some would call a turnbuckle.... I can at least pretend... Taking some 1/16 inch tubing I cut it about 8mm long (still huge in 1/80 scale), that was the smallest my hands could deal with - and inserted two rings in to each end. I think I will need six turnbuckles to hold he main rigging. Below is the final result. The idea is the makeshift turnbuckles will be attached to the ring in the deck and the shrouds will tie to the turnbuckle. Not a working turnbuckle by any means, but I think the look will be OK on the hull. If not I can always go with just tying the shrouds to the deck as the plan call for. We will see what it looks like when I get to that point.

Deck Fittings complete, The blocks inserted directly into the sleeves turns out pretty good. Looks a little more to scale to me. When adding the deck fittings, I strongly suggest putting in the hand rails before you put in the cleats and brass winches. Putting in the winches before the had rails main issue is with the winch at the bow. If that is glued in before the brass forward brass rails, it will be challenging getting the forward brass rail strung. In addition, with the brass rails installed, makes it much easier to locate the brass winches and cleats. Anyway,,, that is my novice opinion on the topic. If you notice, there is no main (coffee grinder) winch or the correct steering wheel post. Either I lost them at this point or they were not included in the kit. In any event, I never really understood in the plans why the binnacle (that includes the compass) was not closer to the steering wheel. To me, In the plans it is located way too far forward to be seen by the skipper. Since I was missing the steering wheel post I used the binnacle (that includes the compass) as the steering wheel post. That way skipper can actually see the compass. Do not have any red or green paint on hand to paint the binnacle steel balls, but I can add those two minor details later on when I have the paint on hand. Tomorrow plan to step the mast and add the rigging....

Blocks have been inserted into the sleeves. Instructions call to insert an eyelet into the sleeve and then tie the block to the eyelet. I did one that way and did not like the look of it. With the block tied to the eyelet the block seemed to sit too high on the deck. Instead I glued the block into the eyelet. That way the block will sit more or less on the deck and not stick up so high. I do not know if later on this decision will come back to haunt me, but for now anyway, I liked this look better. The hole in the block was re-drilled with a 9mm bit. That seemed to be a good size to where the rigging would easily be inserted.

Grand-kids visited us last week and I was tied up all week doing all sorts of grandparent/grand-kid activities. About all I was able to do on the build was to put together the 20 blocks that require a "tail". I decided to use very thin wire to make up the tail. It is much easier to string than with the included tan thread, and I think it might even look better. Basically held the block in a tweezers and the tweezers in a vise. From there just wrap the block and start turning the ends of the wire. After a few blocks the process gets a little old, and after 20 blocks the process gets really old, but in the end they turned out OK. When I get ready insert these into the hull, I will cut them to length. Have not done it yet, but I will probably drill the hole in the block a little larger. Maybe a .8mm drill bit. That will defiantly take all the "sport" out of the rigging process.

Dave, Actually, I do not have a 2mm drill. My metric drills go from .4mm up to 1.5mm. For the 2mm holes for the skylights I have a bunch of miscellaneous bits that came with the drill I ordered on Ebay. I show it below, but see my long on "King of The Mississippi" for my comments on the drill and extra bits. If you do not have an electric drill, you need to get this one. It holds bits as small as my .4mm bits and much larger bits than you would need for a model. It takes all the (shall we say) "sport" out of drilling accurate holes. I especially like the variable speed control. Anyway, as you can see in the picture, in included was a bag of assorted bits. None of them are labeled, so unless you have a calibrator, there is no way to tell what size they are. I tested a few on a spare piece of wood and found one that drilled a perfect hole for the 2mm skylights. Thanks for your comments on the "2 mm holes for the capstans are not needed". I did realize that and did not drill those holes.... but I do appreciate you comment. Always good to have a 2nd set of eyes. On another topic.... believe it or not I am considering not painting the white water line. I am too that point in the build and either need to make a decision one way or the other. My reason for not painting the white water line comes from the idea that the entire hull is natural wood. In the real boat world that is not normal. A real natural wood boat would have some sort of anti-fouling paint below the waterline. So since is not realistic anyway, I am wondering if a white water line in the middle of the hull (that is natural on both sides of the white water line) would look strange to where the entire hull natural would look better. On the other side of that coin,,,, I wonder if the entire hull (without white water line) would look strange too... I will talk to the "Commodore" (my wife) and get the "correct" answer. 🙂

Just completed adding the gold bars the various windows in the deck structures. As Cornhusker1956 pointed out above, it is really hard to add the acetate windows. Not so much as they are very small, but they have to be cut really accurate to only barely overlap the wood frames - Maybe even have to have them be able to be inserted into with windows. Pictures in the manual seem to indicate you just cut them with a somewhat easy overlap in the windows. But as Cornhusker1956 found out, any overlap at all, the windows get in the way of the parts fitting together. See his comments above. Anyway, I just added the gold bars and skipped the acetate windows. Unless you are are very skilled modeler (and I am not) and you can cut the acetate to fit inside the widows, I would save yourself a lot of time and frustration, and skip the acetate windows. I think in the end you will be happier with the result. I know I am. But that is just my opinion. If you are up to the challenge - go for it. Below are the results. The structures at this point are only sitting on the deck and have not been glued. I also have not added to cushions in the cabin entryway. Probably best to do that after I have glued in the cabin structure. Otherwise if they are not exactly in place, the cabin entryway may not lay flush to the deck. If you look close, you can tell the acetate windows are not there, but in the end, no one will notice. I am really glad I did not go through the frustrations of trying to get with windows in those tiny structures.

David, After giving it some thought, I am going to skip the acetate windows. Since there are the gold bar across all the windows, and because the windows are so small, I am not sure the acetate windows would really show up if they were there or not. Besides, I am sure I would just make a mess of the acetate windows trying to glue them into such tiny spots. The gold bars themselves will he hard enough to make them look neat on the structures. As such I just assembled all the deck structures and painted them a light brown (mahogany like). They look pretty good as they are. Once I have attached the gold bars, I will include a picture. One thing I will say,,,, a big help would be to have two small tweezers to assemble these structures. The parts are really small and big hands just do not do the job. As for the metal grates, I have dealt with them on my last model. You are right, they to have a tendency to fly off to parts unknown when you cut them out. I have lost a few of them in the past. Amazing how they just disappear into the unknown.... John

While trying to figure out what stain to use on the deck I decided to look into the deck cabin structures. One note here, the instructions call to stain and assemble each structure. Later on they say to insert the windows. No way you can put the windows in with the cabin structures with them assembled. You need to stain/paint each piece, put in the windows, and then assemble each structure. Below shows the structure pieces after an initial coat of black paint. Instructions called for mahogany paint, but for some reason I felt black would be better. Naturally, after the first coat of black, not sure I like black. So I guess the 2nd coat will be in a brown (mahogany like) color. I am not looking forward to assembling the structures. You can not really tell from the below picture, but these structures are really small. And with my big hands, they are going to be (shall we say) "interesting" to assemble. As for the deck stain, I ended up with Golden Pecan. I wanted a very light stain to more show up the contrast in the wood. The holes have been drilled in the appropriate locations waiting for the eyelets to be inserted next

David, Take a look at the Amati videoson building the Endeavour. You will find them searching on YouTube under "amati america's cup endeavour". There you will see partx 1 though 19. They show a master building of the Endeavour. Parts 4-10 show the first and second planking. But be sure to look at all 19 videos, they do give some helpful hints. Not sure I follow every thing the say, but they are very helpful as to how someone else has build the Endeavour. They have been and still are very useful to me as I go along

David I had not been to Ages of Sail before, but after you mentioned it I took a look and they have a fantastic selection of wood. In addition they seem to have a good selection of models to build and reasonable prices. I will defiantly give them a second look next time I am in the market for wood or model. As for the second planking, pardon my ignorance, but I am not sure what you mean by "ridge line". Take a peak earlier in my log where I talk about the 2nd planking. I think the main thing that allowed me to get a smooth second planking was the application of the "filla-in-a-bag" I talked about. That was the first time I used it, but I will defiantly use it again. It is a power you mix to the consistency of tooth paste. I covered the entire hull over the first planking. Before it dries you can get it very smooth by just wetting your hands an rubbing over the wet mix on hull. In my case I was so happy with the smoothness of the wet hand rubbing I probably stopped before it was completely smooth. To me it was smooth, but in reality I could have smoothed it more. In any event it sands very easily, but smoothing it more would have saved some sanding. Anyway, after the application of the "filla-in-a-bag", wet smoothing it out, and sanding, the hull was as smooth as glass. Putting on the very thin second planking was very easy. With a little pressure, the thin plans just seemed to blend together. As for the “filler wedges” I too was pretty scared as this was the first hull I have built the required them. My previous build (King of the Mississippi) did not require them, but looking a back I probably should have used one or two “filler wedges” on that one too. As I mentioned in my log, I ended up with way more “filler wedges” than most people, but I just could not get the planks to lay down without them. But with the smooth hull, the second planking seams really blending well together. You have to look really close to see any seams at all. One thing I will say about “filler wedges” (from my initial experience after having done way too many of them) is that they look much harder than they are. They do take patience and very delicate sanding on a sanding block. One thing I did was to only put a “filler wedge" on one end of the plank. The other end was usually cut off at the end of the boat. There is no way I could have successfully put a “filler wedge" on both ends of a plank. As for the painting the brass on the boom and mast, I too was at a quandary as to "paint or no paint". I have been around sail boats most my life and I have never see painted fitting on a mask or boom. But I am new to this modeling, and looking at what most folks have done - they painted them. So I followed like a herd of sheep and painted them. Since then I have see other J Class builds that did not paint them and they look great. If you are on the fence as to "paint or no paint", I would suggest do not paint them, as I kind of wish I had not painted them, but you make the call. Same issue with the cleats on the hull.... I have not gotten to that point in the build, yet but I know it is coming... Again, when was the last time you have seen a painted cleat on a boat. Most boats I know have shiny stainless steal cleats. Not sure what to do with the cleats... same issue .... "paint or no paint" - ugh

David I really like what you did with the full length planks. They look great. The wood you have used on the middle strip and along the sides - is that stained mahogany or some other wood? Maybe it is just the photos, but it looks darker than the mahogany supplied.