Ed Ku20

Originally posted April 14, 2021 2 Hatches The next step was building the 2 hatches, one each for the fore deck and quarter deck. These were pretty straightforward to build. Here are the construction steps I used. 1. Measure and cut the outside frames according to the plans. Use lap joints w/ short ends at the fore & aft. 2. Measure and cut the inside ledge to hold the lids. I also inserted a center brace to provide added strength and another place for gluing/holding the lids. 3. Start gluing the sides together. Make sure they are perfectly square using one of my jigs. 4. Cut in the small cove around the outside of the frame using my new 1/32” ball tip stylus to impress the wood. You can see this tool in one of the pictures below. 5. I wanted to make the lids according to the plans, in two halves using individual planks. I measured and cut really thin boards to frame the planks and also the planks themselves. After constructing the lids I dry fitted them and rubbed the hatch on a sheet of sand paper to make sure they were flush with the outer frames. 6. Paint the outside frames white and the lids with the dark walnut stain. I started using sanding sealer whenever I stain to help even out the color. The basswood planks seem to vary a lot in the amount of stain they will absorb. 7. Sand the bottoms to fit the curvature of the deck. I used the same technique as with the cabin. 8. Seal them with Minwax satin wipe on poly. 9. Add the eye bolts and rings according to the plans.

Originally posted April13, 2021 Main Cabin Next I built the Main Cabin that goes on the quarter deck. This involved multiple pieces to be built. The most difficult part for me was the skylight. Here are the steps I used. 1. Make a copy of the cabin from the plans, as seen from above and attach to a pin board for the assembly. 2. Make the 4 corner posts from square stock and attach the decorative corner pieces to them. The corner pieces need to be cut short to allow space for the molding under the roof. Stain these Dark Walnut before gluing to the 4 posts. It took me a couple of attempts to get this to turn out to my satisfaction. Here are the steps: a. I glued a 1/8 x1/8 square piece of strip wood to a ¼ x 1/8” piece. Then I double face taped it to a long scrap of triangle shaped block for sanding. b. I cut a long strip of sand paper and pulled it back and forth across the top corner of the piece until it was nicely rounded. I cut it into 4 lengths about ¼” each after sanding. 3. Cut and glue 1/8" square inside framework to the posts according to the shape of the cabin right on the plans. Also add interior frames: Two deck level beams for the companionway and two more running perpendicular at the height of the roof frames were created and glued. (See the picture of the underside of the cabin to see how the inside framework was attached to the corner posts.) 4. Cut and attach the companionway walls using 1/16” stock. Stain these walls with Drk Walnut. 5. Cut, paint white and attach the cabin walls using 1/16” stock. Fit these between the decorative corners. 6. I made the side molding that sits above the side walls & under the roof from 3/32” square strip stock. The piece ended up being 1/16” tall x 3/32” out from the wall. I used a jig to hold the length of the wood down while I rounded off the outside edge. The jig was used to keep the bottom edge flat (the edge that faced the roof overhang). 7. At this point check the “camber” of the cabin sitting on the deck. I cut a piece of 120 grit sandpaper that was larger than the cabin and held it down in position on the deck. Then pull the cabin fore and aft until it sits on the deck without rocking from side to side. 8. Drill the portholes in each side wall. Port near the doors; Starboard near forward corner. 9. Next plank the roof around the companionway walls. I liked and so made the outside perimeter wider then the rest of the roof planks. Built this first then filled inside with 1/16" hull planks. 10. I ended up making the cabin doors with a stylus impressed rectangle around the door handles. I made brass door handles from tiny finishing nails painted w/ brass. Made the doors from one piece of wood and carved a shallow line down the middle. I painted the inside of the line black w/ a tiny brush to simulate the gap between the doors. 11. Make the companionway hatch roof from 1 piece of 1/16” thick sheet. I soaked it in water and rubber banded it around a coffee mug to get the proper curve. Painted white. 12. Build the Skylight. Used an interior block of scrap wood to get the right dimensions and glued the sides to it. I used very thin straight pins for the bars and a piece of plastic packaging for the windows. There was a lot of trial and error building this piece. 13. Made the vent pipe from 3/32” brass pipe like others have. Cut on a 45 degree angle and soldered together to form a 90. Drilled a hole with my drill press through a small piece of brass strip to make the pipe holder. I cut the strip across the center of the hole to form a cradle for the bottom of the pipe to rest on. This end was cut off the rest of the strip and soldered to the pipe after filing to shape. Painted it with black enamel. A 3/32" hole was cut in the roof and the assembly was glued in place. 14. Built the Compass Box from 1/16” sheet stock attached to a short solid base. Front and back were cut & double-face taped together and sanded to shape. Cut short pieces of decking boards that were cut in half length-wise to make the top cover. I made them longer than required and sanded them down flush with the box after glue set. Wish I had left a little overhang with it around the front and back sides. Painted white. 15. Although I'm building Bluenose as a fishing boat (not racing boat), I didn’t add the bait cutting boards on top of the cabin. I thought they would hide too much of the roof perimeter that I like! 16. Inserted brass "port lights" into the port holes.

Originally posted April 13, 2021 Wheelbox For the past month and a half I've been working on the structures on the deck. I will provide a few posts to cover this. I didn't start taking construction stage pictures until I was half way through this step. Will provide some construction details, but I only have finished pictures of the steering wheel box and the main cabin. For these deck structures, I decided I wanted to stay close to the "burnt umber" color in the plans, but I prefer the richer look of (Minwax) dark walnut stain as opposed to the burnt umber paint they recommend. I started with the wheel box since it is small. For each of these structures, I photocopied the plans and used the cutouts from these over carbon paper to transfer the shape and size to 1/16" basswood sheet wood for the side walls. I used my thin saw with it's miter box to cut out the basswood pieces. For the wheel box I cut some scrap wood to use as a filler block to provide a base to glue the sides to. For the inset on the sides I first covered them with masking tape then overlaid the photocopy of the plan to the side and cut around the triangular shaped groove with a #11 blade. I removed the tape from around the inset area and then painted everything that needed to be white. Then I removed the masking from the inset and re-taped with yellow Tamiya tape to cover the white part. The inset was stained with dark walnut. This turned out pretty well I think! The roof was cut from a single piece of 1/16th" basswood adjusted to provide the proper overhang on the sides. The edges were rounded off by sanding. For the coamings, I used really thin pieces of deck wood leftover from cutting the aft quarter deck tapering. Coaming size was 3/64 x 9/128“ when I finished sanding. I mitered the ends and rounded off the outside corners. A couple of coats of Minwax satin wipe-on poly completed the wheel box. I painted the kit provided Britannia ship's wheel with Testor's black and brass enamel paint. A 3/64" bit in my pin vise was used to make the hole in the box.

Originally posted Mar. 26, 2021 Decals for Scrollwork n February I added the ships nameplates, the bow scroll work, added the rudder and coated the entire lower hull with 2 coats of Minwax rub-on satin finish polyurethane. The ship building community uses a variety of methods for doing the nameplates and scrollwork. The coolest scrollwork I've seen was done be Suburban Ship Modeler. Dave used his 3D printer to create an amazing replica. I don't have one of those and I didn't think I could convince my wife we needed one, so I decided to try making these with Decal paper made for an inkjet printer. I made the Bluenose nameplates and the scroll work using Microsoft Paint 3D in combination with Powerpoint to create something I could print on the decal paper. The greatest challenges were making the artwork small enough to fit in their positions on the ship and getting the thick decal paper to run through my inkjet printer. It took several iterations before I got it right. I also made a mistake by buying clear decal paper. This was a bad choice because the yellow ink was barely visible against the black hull. I scrapped this first effort and purchased white backed decals. I also had to redo the 3D artwork so that it had yellow print on a black background. This whole process took longer than I expected. Next was the rudder. I wanted to make a working rudder similar to what Dave did on his Suburban Ship Modeler website. Making the pintles and gudgeons was my first effort at hobby scale soldering. I really like the way the brass "nails" look against the black pintles & gudgeons. Dave goes into great detail on how to build this. I'm real happy with the way mine turned out and the rudder even turns! The last step to completing the hull construction was applying the polyurethane.

Originally posted Mar. 26, 2021 Railings I spent the month of January working on the railings. I used the general process from the blog of CPDDET. I purchased a pack of 1/16 x 3 x 24" basswood sheets and traced the shape of the hull directly onto one of these sheets in order to make the rail in 1 piece. I traced both sides separately to account for differences between the port and starboard sides. But, before that I had to attach the bow and stern pieces to provide the ends. The laser cut piece provided for the bow fit perfectly. However, the stern was not even close!! I see this is a pretty common problem for most builders of Bluenose. It took me 4 tries to measure, trace, cut and finesse a piece of basswood sheet into something that approximated the shape of the stern! And this still didn't fit right because the tail of my ship is not exactly perpendicular to the rest of the hull! In order to get it to fit, I ended up cutting my beautifully carved piece into 3 sections, gluing them on separately and then filling and sanding the gaps in between until I ended up with something I thought was acceptable. I know my stern is more squared off then the sleek curves that the real ship has, but that's just how mine turned out! I blame it on forming the stern block entirely by hand. Maybe next ship I will have to invest in a Dremel. Actually, creating the main rails as one piece in between the bow and stern went pretty smoothly. I used the technique of placing a dot of CA glue on every 3rd or 4th stanchion and gluing the rest with PVA. I had a lot of trouble keeping the rail in position so that it had the perfect 1/32 inch outboard overlap and the inboard side flush with the stanchions. I used rubber bands to hold it, but these caused the outboard edge to slide in a bit as the glue set. I think this will cause me to have to make a concession on the deadeyes. There is not enough overlap in one spot to run the deadeye through the railing and end up outside the hull. So, I plan to use the black cardboard trick to make the chain plates. I think I can make that look pretty good. Next up was the Buffalo rail and Monkey Rails. These steps went smoothly and I'm happy with the way they turned out. I was really worried about cutting the hole for the bowsprit. I did this before building the railings. As I mentioned in a previous post, I wasn't sure how you guys do this, but nobody offered any advice! So I stepped out in faith... I started with a moderately sized pin vice bit and then moved to a large one. Then I gradually made the hole larger using files. I cut a piece of dowel from the kit, as provided for the bowsprit. At this time, I did not widen the hole completely. I intend to wait until I have the bowsprit sanded down to the correct shape and size. I don't want to end up with a bigger hole then I require!

Originally posted Mar. 25, 2021 Painting the hull & Staining the decks Around mid December, I completed painting the hull and staining the deck. I used my new Paasche Talon airbrush with Vallejo Air paints that I purchased after scrapping the Model Expo paints. Unfortunately, the post office lost my return shipment, so I was not able to get the refund promised! Oh well, there has been a lot to learn with this hobby! I struggled a lot trying to find the best color matches. For anyone who is going through the same struggle, here is what I used to produce the results in these pictures. Basic colors are Black 71.057, White 71.001, Light Gray 71.050. I really liked the way that Red 70.926 turned out below the waterline. For the Yellow stripe I went with Light Yellow 70.949. The hull was also primered and puttied multiple times before painting. I found the Tamiya putty to work better then the Elmer's wood putty on the hull. Wood putty left little dimples that I could not sand off. In fact sanding just hardened them. Another struggle was trying to find really narrow masking tape for the waterline and especially for the yellow stripe on the cove. Everything I saw seemed too wide and heavy. I ended up using this tape I found on Amazon and it worked great. "JINBING Mix 6Rolls High Temperature Vinyl Fine Line Fineline Masking Tape Automotive Car Auto Paint 1mm 1.5mm 2mm 2.5mm 3mm 4mm". After airbrushing and curing the water line and waist line, I masked them with 3 mm and 1.5 mm tape respectively. Then I airbrushed the red below and black above the waterline. Afterward the tape came off cleanly with a few minor exceptions. I also had trouble where the tape went around the keel at the bow. I got some leakage under the tape. These areas had to be touched up by hand later. The final step at this stage was to stain the deck with 2 coats of Minwax Cherry.

Originally posted Oct. 29, 2020 Deck Planking I completed planking the deck today. This took most of the month of October. I found the nibbing to be the most difficult task. Inserting the final plank on each side was also a challenge. But, I think it turned out pretty well for my first time. The next major step will be painting the hull. I plan on using an airbrush that I purchased for this build. Except for doing the waterway, I've never airbrushed before. I had difficulty with lots of goobers in the paint. I've since repainted them several times with a regular brush. I bought some Vallejo Air paint for the hull painting. You guys seem to think it's pretty easy and smoother than brushing, so, I'm going to do it too.

Originally posted on Oct. 1, 2020 Since my last post, I removed all of the bulkhead stanchions and smoothed down the waterway with some heavy sanding. I was not happy with the way it looked after building it last month. I think it looks much better now. I glued in all the stanchions using CA glue. I followed the process I found on the build log from CPDDET. Thanks Dave, your procedure worked great! I cut the scuppers and attached these bulwark planks including the waist plank. While these were exposed, I painted the waterway light grey and the inner bulwarks white. I also planked the transom, inside and out. These are photos from this point taken today. The next step is planking the deck. I am following the process from Suburban Ship Modeler. He inserted butt joints using a staggered pattern across the bulkheads of 1,3,5,2,4. Although more difficult, I think this looks a little more realistic then running planks the full length of the deck. There is a tutorial on this process here: http://modelshipworldforum.com/resources/Framing_and_Planking/Deck_PlankingIIbuttshifts.pdf

Originally posted on Sept. 6, 2020 Well, I reached a major milestone this week! I completed the planking of the hull. I don't think it turned out too bad for my first time. Here are a couple of pictures of the completed hull before sanding. Next up I will start to work on the sanding and filling of the cracks and gaps. I don't expect to need too much wood filler, but will see how it goes. I will post more pics when I'm done. Do you recommend applying some sanding sealer after sanding is done?

This post was first submitted on August 26, 2020 Planking the Hull The pictures I posted yesterday were taken at the end of July. Since then I've completed the waterway and am in the process of planking the hull. Here are the most current pictures of the progress on the model. Planking is going well. These pictures are before any sanding or filling, so I think I will get it looking pretty good afterward that. I plan on painting the hull as recommended. So I will be able to hide any flaws. I am not satisfied with the waterway. When I complete the hull planking I plan to cleanup the waterway. I would like to remove the bulkhead stanchions and sand down the entire waterway and then install fake stanchions. The spacing between the bulkhead stanchions is uneven, although the bulkheads are all at perfect 90 degree angles with the keel. So, not sure where I went wrong there. (See the last picture of waterway in this post) But, I've read some comments warning not to remove the b/h stanchions until after installing the upper bulwarks. But, it would be much easier to do the cleanup if they are removed first. Then I can use a temporary plank to align all the stanchions. Or maybe leave a few of them for supports to install the bulwark? Has anyone else done this successfully?

PLEASE NOTE THE FOLLOWING OK! So, after the initial couple of posts on my build log for Bluenose I did something wrong and all of my further postings were done as "Profile Status Updates" (found under Ed Ku20) AND were not attached to this build Topic as intended. I am going to try to correct this problem by copying those updates over to this topic and once done I will delete the other misplaced postings. I don't know if there is an easier way to merge/copy them over, but I'm guessing not. I will insert the original posting date to help keep them straight. I will begin with the post that came after the above.