Yorky

On 4/21/2021 at 9:52 PM, JohnU said:

I must say that Cornwall Model Boats is amazing.

They have great customer service too, I can't recommend them enough.

The Bluenose is such a beautiful ship, and you've done her proud! Thank you for sharing your work and progress. She looks lovely.

Looking good, must feel very satisfying finally getting some colour onto the hull!

If you look on page 1 of Retire Guy's build, towards the middle of the page you can see that he makes his main rail early in the build. Since you have to make the main rail anyway, it's no extra work really. He then temporarily pins it to the existing bulkhead head stanchions, and as the main rail is painted white later on the pin holes can be filled and won't be seen.

He then cuts his fake stanchions to shape (use  jig to get the same heights for fore and another jig for aft stanchions). Remember the hull curves so you'll need to shape your stanchions individually to follow the curve of the hull.

He then removes the main rail, cuts away the bulkhead stanchions and fits fake stanchions in their place. He does not specifically show this, but you can see this from the photos and the high standard of the build.

I did not use this method on my build, but instead used temporary bulwarks. It worked but I think the method described above is superior and I will definitely try it on the next build.

What wonderful detail and clean lines. Very impressive and it gives us newbies something to aim for.

May I ask your method for serving the lines?

Oh by the way, I would recommend you think about simply cutting off the bulwark stanchions. When you add in the fake stanchions there is a huge difference in their appearance between the fake stanchions and the bulwarks and they just don't match. "Retired Guy" as he had a rather ingenious method of temporarily fitting the main rails, then shaping and fitting the fake stanchions, then removing the bulwark stanchions and fitting fake ones.

I'll try and post a link to his diary. His build is rather amazing!

Hi W4LKR, my Bluenose build is my first model build in 40 years. I have very, very little experience in working with my hands as I worked in hospital administration all my life. I found finding answers lots of my basic, rather dumb questions difficult to find since most forums, guides and videos assume some basic knowledge. Reading guides on, say, planking, made the build even more intimidating and there seemed to be an overwhelming plethora of technical, and often contradictory or confusing advice.

I do intend on releasing a build diary but have terrible social anxiety and so have been putting it off. I was hoping to offer some advice on the mistakes and pitfalls I encountered.

i understand ABSOLUTELY how you feel intimidated by the process. Heck, cutting the rabbet took me days of dithering, worry and procrastination. If you have ANY questions please feel free to ask and I will answer as best as I can.

I have found this build challenging. It's been a steep learning curve. I've made rather a lot of basic mistakes. However, there are a few things that have helped me immensely:

a)  I decided that I will NOT rush this project, nor get frustrated and impatient. I expected that things will go wrong and if they did I would put them right and learn from the process. It's been difficult at times to do this, and I honestly wanted to burn the boat when the hull painting went disastrously wrong, but I stuck with it and it's been worth it.

b) Take a break if you're getting frustrated. Even as long as a few days or more.

c) Don't be afraid of starting again on a particular part of the build if you are not happy. Today I scrapped the same thing I was attempting to make 5 times.

d) Gary Brinker has posted a great build diary of his Bluenose build on YouTube. It's very detailed and answered lots of my dumb questions and really felt like I had someone was holding my hand. I REALLY recommend that you watch them.

Sorry, I tend to waffle on so I'll cut it short here. But do try to square up the keel and bulkheads, they are like the foundations to your house and if they are off the whole house will be out of kilter and have structural problems. 

It's looking very nice. I love the warm colour of the deck! Good job on the cabin - it looks very clean.

Your model looks so nice; you must be very proud of it. Your advice about treating every piece as its own project, walking away, and re-doing parts you're not happy with is absolutely spot on.

Thank you for sharing your build and words.

Nice start to the Bluenose. I've just about finished the hull on my Bluenose, and ran into similar problems on my build.

1) Try to add strengthening blocks on the keel joints, especially at the back where it is really weak and susceptible to breaking off.

2) Add batons between each bulkhead to help strengthen the model and add rigidity. Make sure you don't push the bulkheads out of square from the keel.

3) Try to use the blocks and batons to pull your keel back to square. If you just can't get the keel straight I would consider removing the bulkheads etc and straighten it out. Otherwise you're going to have problems later on.

4) Use calipers to measure and sort all of your wood stock, bundle them together and mark their measurements on a tag. You should find that there is a LOT of extra wood included that is not in the inventory list. I was pleasantly surprised at Model Shipways generosity and never felt like I was close to running out of wood. You can shim the bulkheads safely using wood supplied, but read below.

5) Make sure the bulkheads that might need shimming near the rabbet line are actually all sitting flush at the top. You might be able to extend the slot on the bulkhead or keel so it will sit lower. If it's glued in already you should be able to work the bulkhead free if you do it carefully. I had to do the on one to correct a similar error that you have.

6) I made my keel strengthening blocks too big too. A small rasp file to remove large amounts of wood is very useful.

I'm about a year into my build (I'm building rather slowly) and the Bluenose is my first build. If I can offer any advice it would be patience. You're going to need a lot of it. If things are not right, if you're not happy with a certain stage of the build don't be afraid to rip it out and do it again. You'll always do a better job the second or third time around. There's no rush.

So try and fix your keel warp; it might take some work but it will be worth it and you're not storing up problems in the future.

Nice start, look forward to seeing your progress.

I think you've done a really nice job here, looks very neat with nice attention to detail. Also interesting and informative read. The nameplates and stern lettering look great. Thank you for posting, looking forward to reading more!

I'll be starting my first build, a Model Shipways Bluenose in a few weeks, so I'll be following your build closely. Looks really nice so far, thanks for posting.