Greg M

I spent quite a bit of time just thinking of the best way to install the shrouds at this scale. The deadeyes are very fiddly to work with and I was especially afraid of spending a fair bit of time hunting for them under the table. After a bit of trial and error I found a way that turned out to work very well. First, I cut the lanyards and set them through the first hole on both matching deadeyes. Then, I put the deadeye to be set in an alligator clip on a helping hand and used my calipers to measure 3/8" from the bottom of the deadeye to the caprail as per the plans. By looking at the fall of the lanyards I was able to set the deadeye directly over the deadeye attached to the chainplate. When everything measured properly, I used another alligator clip to hold the shroud while I seized it with a piece of thread. Only a couple of the shrouds required some fine adjustment I worked my way through the shrouds alternating sides. I decided not to fully trim the seized shroud until after I finished reeving all the lanyards. One trick I learned during this process was to use the camera on my phone at full zoom and look at my screen while rigging instead of the ship. It made awkward angles so much easier as I could reposition the camera instead of having to reposition the deadeye. Even for straight shots like below, completely removes any eye fatigue. This happened twice, but it was a piece of cake to just re-seize it. If I had trimmed it up earlier, probably would have had to redo the whole shroud. Shrouds are set and the pinrails on the foremast shrouds have been installed and lines cleaned up. Backstays are next, followed by the boom.

Moving on to the stays, I always try to remember if its better to run a line and clean it up afterwards or to run everything and clean up all at once. I'm definitely leaning towards the one line at a time camp in the future. Ran into some issues here and managed to jam a needle threader trying to fish the fore stay through the bowsprit. Ended up dislodging the winch bitt and the bobstay knot was weak and separated. The replacement Syren rope is wonderful stuff, but I'm still working through the best way to prepare, tighten and glue it. Very different to work with than synthetics, but I'll get there. The stays cleaned up nicely. I've since cleaned up that little extra bit on the bobstay by the stretching screw that I missed in the photo. The triatic and main topmast stay gave me a fair bit of trouble tensioning; but I got there in the end once I remembered that the shrouds and backstays will add a little bit of tension. All the lines cleaned up. The main topmast stay still has a little bit of sag, but I'll be able to smooth that out with the backstays. Shrouds are next

For the mainmasts, creating the boom rest turned out to be one of the more interesting experiences trying to find the right material. My first attempt was to use some alaskan yellow cedar, but the grain is just too brittle at that scale and size. It separated into multiple pieces as soon as I put it on the mast as can be seen. I lost all my old wood scraps of closed grain wood and couldn't find any styrene sheets. To the recycling bin, where it turns out beer rings are about 1/32" thick and a nice bendy plastic that cuts easilly. The yellow cedar makes great chocks. Mast assembled, painted and stained. I really enjoy working with wire and one thing I enjoy about this project is the amount of wire work. Both masts glued in and installed...oops, forgot to seize a single block on each the topmasts. Tying those on at this stage was definitely the most nervous I've been in a while; just afraid I was going to snap one in half. Then I forgot to drill out the holes on one of them, so getting that drilled out was a hold my breath moment, but all good. Closeup of the bases. and from the top with the blocks installed. It's not very visible but I used CA glue to create the ball truck on the main top mast. Stays are up next, however before I get to those I'm going to go over the rigging plans and install any eyebolts in the deck that I missed.

I didn't think a trip to the liquor store on Friday would have produced so many valuable building materials for this stage of the build. 3 materials in fact. 2 here and the 3rd will come into play for the boom rest. I was struggling a bit coming up with a good material for the iron bands on the foremast. Manila envelope didn't stick well. Copper tape was too thin and fiddly. Brass was too thick. Opening a bottle of wine with a foil cutter gave me an idea. I cut the foil off around the neck and flattened it out. This stuff is fantastic and I was able to cut very thin strips without any problem; it will also take a drill bit without deforming like copper tape. It glues up nicely, takes paint and cuts cleanly with sidecutters for length. I wish I had discovered this earlier on for parts where I had to use small bits of manila or copper tape to represent iron straps or bands. You can see one band installed between the stained and white part of the mast and an even thinner strap that I cut in the lower left. Definitely something I'll hold onto for use in the future. The topmast, bands, eyebolts, span iron, and blocks installed. Looking at the plans, I noticed that none of the blocks are stropped and all are attached by chains or metal fittings. I opted to use twisted/bent 28 gauge wire for attaching the blocks to the mast rather than attaching to eyebolts. The span iron Is just hooked in and moves freely as does the block attached to it for now. Everything painted up nicely. When it came time to make the mast hoops, my mind went right to a paper grocery bag glued and rolled around a dowel and then sliced. This worked awesome the last time I did it, but the brown paper grocery bags I have are much too heavy weight at this scale. Enter the liquor store once more; The brown paper bags made for a wine bottle are practically tissue paper. Perfect for this purpose and the hardest problem was keeping them from sticking to the dowel and wrinkling. Foremast has been glued into place. No warpage or off angle, so really pleased and feel like I'm starting to hit my stride. Onward to the main mast.

I opted to build the 3 stretching screws out of wire and cover the turnings in CA glue, then paint black. Very happy with how they came out. They're just one of those neat little details. I also replaced all the blocks and rigging line from Syren. That transition period from building to masting/rigging is one of my favorite parts, when some tools get put away and a whole new set gets pulled out. I absolutely love mast-making and rigging. View from above. I got a little nervous when I saw this picture and thought the bowsprit was off angle, but it's not; I'm just a terrible cameraman. Finished building the launching ways and securing the ship to its base. Onward to the foremast.

Thanks Rusty/Chuck. I've been working my way all too fast through my Phantom build as I try to brush the rust off and am really eager to get going on the Winnie. One of the reasons I got into this hobby in the first place was that I'm an extremely impatient person by nature and it forces you to slow down, accept mistakes and/or go back to the drawing board. I'm entering the rigging phase, so I can start thinking about the Winnie. I've been acquiring everything I'll need for the foreseeable future, so am (hopefully) set for about the next year from a materials standpoint. Been playing a bit with Alaskan Yellow Cedar to get an idea of how it's going to be to work with and really like this wood quite a bit. The only negative I've seen with it is that it does get a bit "hairy" on crosscuts, but even acrylic medium stiffens it up enough to clean up with a knife or sandpaper. It's so much more versatile than basswood for around the same price and I happen to like the smell of it, so there's a bonus. I've been able to budget for a scrollsaw and table saw to take on this project; a scrollsaw and plywood were cheaper than ordering the bulkheads pre-cut so a bit of a no brainer. The WEN 3921 scrollsaw appears to be well reviewed if you are mainly using outside cuts, so even though Amazon is a bit on the slow side these days, it did show up last week. Only took about 10 minutes to adjust and get it ready to go today. 12 sheets of 1/4" plywood and all bulkheads printed out. My biggest concern is having not used a scrollsaw in nearly 15 years and the last thing I want to do is jump in and make a mess of it. I discovered a folder I had with printouts of the bulkheads for Clay Feldmans Lexington. As it's so much smaller, I'm hoping only a sheet or two of plywood will be needed to work out the kinks. It will be a great learning tool to get comfortable with the scroll saw. By this time next week I'm hoping to have looked through everyones build logs here and start showing progress of my own.

I plowed forth with cleaning up the extra fife rail, adding some scrap wood and fitting the appropriate tenon on the bowsprit. Dimensionally, everything lined up. Some 24 gauge wire, a little bit of manila envelope and some small deadeyes where I filled in the holes, sanded them flat and filed the grooves larger to make a passing representation of the bitt. Definitely wouldn't pass muster at 1:64 or larger scale, but it works pretty well at 1:96. Using boxwood deadeyes, I couldn't get a clean center punch for the winch handles; the bit kept wanting to wander, so I decided to leave them off. Painted and installed, it fits in well. I'm happy. Before I did anything else, I shaped the basic form for the gammoning strap from a piece of brass and then the bowsprit, drilled the sheaves and added the cap/eyebolts. Then cut the jackstays from some leftover alaskan yellow cedar I used for the caprail. I figured it would handle the gaskets much better than trying to use basswood. The gaskets were deceptively difficult. The first 6 I put in took about 15 minutes, then the other 6 about an hour. A glue joint separated the jackstay from the bowsprit and I had to walk away and tell myself that it was a good thing I used the cedar and not basswood or I probably would have split the wood and been that much worse off. I stained the bowsprit and painted the exposed iron black. View from inboard showing the painted bowsprit and cleats that were added. Now it's a matter of rigging the bowsprit, then I think I'll mount it to the display board before moving on to the foremast.

Extremely productive past day. Navigation lights in process. Followed the practicum and went right for the large paper clips and they were perfect for the posts. I didn't glue the navigation lamps in place and just slotted them in. I figure if there going to be any item that I'm going to inadvertently damage, those are the ones. Fore deck bollards and ventilation pipe is in place as well. I bent some 4 pieces of brass into clamps and installed them on the rails around the navigation lamp posts and the anchor davit. The unused starboard one is visible on the rail to the left of the cleat. Touched up all the paint scrapes and exposed brass. Everything lines up and I'm happy. I've taken every other picture from the other side up to this point, so one last shot with all the deck furniture in place. I cleaned up and started modifying the extra fife rail to see if I can construct a passable winch bitt. The replacement part should hopefully arrive in the next few days and I can compare the two to see which one to install. In the mean time, onward to the bowsprit.

Continuing my way forward, stove pipe and cover were installed. I carefully drilled out the holes for the masts followed by cutting out and installing the mast coats. I realized at this point that my skill in cutting out shapes from manila envelopes is never going to be masterclass and why am I not using one of my wife's crafting cutting machines. The fife rails and pumps went in without a hitch. I've been using Reaper Brush On Primer for the metal, which is amazing for metal miniatures. It works extremely well on the metal model shipways uses and I haven't had any chipping or flaking even with the occasional metal tweezer handling. I cut a boxwood 5mm cleat in half and installed a half on each fife rail per the plans. I knew the skylight was going to have to be paired down. In hindsight, I should have built all the furniture before installing any of it. The skylight is much more square than the plans after shaving that 1/8" off it. After being installed, I lost a window on the sides, but it looks nice to my eyes. It doesn't show up well in this picture, but I brushed a coat of Vallejo gloss varnish over the black, so there's a little bit of reflection. The fore deck companionway is under construction. Finished and installed. I'm much happier with the fore companionway than the aft. I had forgotten when you construct the same thing twice in serial, the second one invariably comes out better. In the future, I'll remember to construct a dummy copy to work out the construction kinks. I've been leaving the mast and bowsprit stubs on the model, just to get used to working around the masts and being more careful with my movements. Just a few more deck fittings to install over the next couple nights. Hopefully, the missing winch bitt will arrive by the end of the week, but I will take a crack at constructing it if it doesn't.

Construction of the deck furniture has been progressing very well. Per the practicum, I started with the traveller and worked my way foreward. then progressed to the wheelhouse. I ended up using some of the thin leftover deck sheet (reversed) for the top of the traveller and it worked out pretty well. So far, so good. I decided to wait until the companionway was done before gluing anything down and happy I did. You can see in this picture, the rim around the cockpit coaming created too much clearance for the wheel. From this direction, the base of the companionway creates a bad fit. Cutting off a 1/16 inch from each side of the base allows everything to slot in perfectly. Shaving the rim in front of the wheelhouse allowed it to match up perfectly. Colors I'm using on the model are Vallejo Model Color Ivory for white, Vallejo Model Color Chocolate Brown for the dark brown, and Vallejo Model Color Black or Vallejo Polyurethane primer Black depending on the need. For the Wheel, I used Vallejo Model Color Dark Sand followed by a coat of Army Painter Soft Tone and then black for the rings. Glued everything down along with the wheel and bollards. The oversized grating I had on hand. I started to lay out the skylight, stove pipe and (not in picture) fife rail. From here, I'm going to move to finish up the stove pipe, then the mast coverings and fife rails, before moving to the skylight. The waterways are a bit wider than they should have been, which pushed the traveller further forward than it should have been, so I lost about an 1/8" between the traveller and mast. It's going to be a tight fit and I'd rather shave an 1/8" off the skylight if it comes to that. During my inventory of the metal parts, it appears I was sent 3 fife rails, but no winch bitt, so hopefully they'll be able to send me that fairly quickly.

Thanks Jeff. Happy to take additional shots or share what went wrong in different areas and how I would have addressed them differently if I were to go back in time. I've been working my way through the deck furniture and will be posting progress shots most likely tomorrow. Now that it's mostly in scratch build land, it's that stage where something I think will take 10 minutes ends up taking 4 hours and 4 attempts and something I think is going to take an hour takes 5 minutes.

I took a step back and made sure to install all the bowsprit fittings and make sure the cutout for the bowsprit was right. Per the practicum, I used little bits of copper tape to represent the iron bands securing the eyebolts Once painted, you can't really see them, but it's a nice little bit of detail I wouldn't have thought of looking at the plans. Now that everything under the caprail has been installed, I can turn my attention to the launching ways. Launching ways are under construction. Funny, but I found using the buttock lines on the plans made it really easy to make sure everything was squared up. The instructions are little bit hinky as they say to create 4 supports using 1, 2, 3 and 5 pieces of 1/8x1/8 square, then space them evenly. The 5 piece is necessary in order to get the appropriate angle for the waterline, but it would have been easier to add a 4 piece support into the mix. I ended up notching the 5 piece and one piece and then had to lightly shim the 2 and 3. I happened to find a 12 inch piece of old pine sitting in the garage that had mellowed and wondered how it would work as a base. It came out pretty good and blends in well with the launching ways. You can't see it in this picture, but I reinforced where the pins attach on the launching ways. The boards parallel to the keel aren't attached yet, nor is it attached to the base. Regardless, I'm extremely happy with how stable the model is now even in the absence of bilge supports. I'll probably add some temporary battens across the supports so I don't accidentally collapse one. Most importantly, I don't have to handle the copper directly anymore. I can now spend the next week or so getting the deck furniture in place. I feel like today I finally had that moment where I can see how it will look when complete.

Splashrail and fairleads are installed and on to the chain plates. Chainplates are measured to plan. I knew the copper rose a bit high. From the plans the aft most chainplate should just touch the waterline, but it looks fine once painted. I haven't used tweezers to tie in over 10 years, but the muscle memory comes back pretty quickly. Order of operations was to thread the rope through the hole in the caprail, loop the chainplate and pull it up, attach them and then tie off the deadeyes. Next time I'll change the order of operations a little bit and seize the deadeyes and drop that through the hole, tie them off to the chainplate and then nail them in at the appropriate angle. Painted up and ready to go Final step before starting on the deck furniture was to install the belaying pins and eyebolts in the caprail. I'm gong to change tack a bit, build the launching ways and mount the ship before moving on. I've had a lot of fun on this build so far. I've made a ton of mistakes so far and some I've fixed and some I've decided to leave. Invariably every mistake I've made and chosen to leave comes back to bite me 4 or 5 steps down the road, but it's been a great (re)learning experience so far and it's been a lot of fun.

One more pic. I painted the caprail brown as well as finishing up the hawse holes.

Before proceeding any further, decided to drill some pilot holes for the masts. Calculated the angle as 7 degrees for the foremast and 9 degrees for the main. Pulled the chop saw and drill press out to create some 3/32" templates for the mast rake. A lot less stressful using a pin vise than trying to set the ship up on the drill press. I'll square off the holes to create a tenon a little later in the build. Needle file masts to pass the visual check on the rake. Stanchions are installed. Created eyebolts from 28 gauge wire and bought some 5mm boxwood cleats than I rounded, thinned, painted black and pinned. Learned the important of twisting my own eyebolts and pinning everything that is going to be rigged the first time one broke free halfway through rigging. Picked up a sheet of 1/32" Alaskan Cedar from Syren which was wonderful to cut out the caprail. Haven't used this wood before and wanted to see how it worked. Much, much better than basswood for carving. Not the greatest sanding wood, but it carves so much nicer than basswood. I drilled pilot holes for the chainplates from the underside at this point to get an idea how much I could thin the caprail. The angle of this picture makes the caprail at the bow appear much wider than it is. It's a bit oversized, but I knew that coming in by not thinning the bulwarks super thin. Regardless, happy with the result. Also installed the rudder, but forgot to take pictures. Onward to the chainplates, mounting her and then the deck starts to get cluttered.

I have never glued down a decking sheet before and will probably never do it again. I struggled to figure out a good way to glue this so it would be flat in every dimension before falling back to the ever trusty 6 inch steel ruler. It came out pretty nice though once "caulked", even if not correctly planked. I'm sure It will look nice once all the deck furniture is in place. I used a manila envelope for the waterways. Glueing them down now created a bit of stress when I went to cut in the scuppers. I think it's the first time I ever used a compass in the reverse direction, but it worked to cut a nice scribed line through the paint for the scuppers/.. This picture is a bit of a funky angle, but I. was able to successfully get all the scuppers cut in without damaging the deck or hull. As a side note, I discovered using my the rubber coated bench vise has been fantastic for keeping the copper tight against the keel when it starts to pull up from handling. I think I've made it past the most stressful parts of the hull now that the carving is finished.

Thanks for the thumbs up ccoyle and VTHokiEE. The last couple of nights have been very productive. Now that the copper is done, time to turn to the top. There's a lot of wood to thin out. In the future, I would definitely clean this up a bit before coppering. I lifted a couple of copper plates (especially around the keel) and a lot more handling than I wanted, but no harm in the end. The biggest struggle with this hull has been the glue line between the two pieces. The basswood is slightly different densities, so carving has required extra concentration working between the two sides; compound that with going across the grain at the stern, but the bulwarks survived. whew. I'm pleased with the results. No damage. I didn't take quite thin it out as much as I probably should have, but I'll adjust when it's time for the caprail. Cut out some templates for decking, so tomorrow will be deck and waterways.

I'm very excited about joining this project and realize I'm a bit of a Johnny come lately here, but will do my best to catch up without rushing. Ordered up the plans today, which have already shipped and should arrive Wednesday. Ordered 12 sheets of 1/4"x12x24 Plywood which should arrive on Thursday. Bought plenty of extra plywood and ordered 3 copies of the false keel, so plenty of room for mistakes. The last major task for this week is to find a nice scroll saw. I had a cheap variable speed years ago that slowly ramped up the speed to max the longer it was used, so I never got very good with it. Time to hit the reset button. I'm going to use this as an opportunity to start milling my own strips as well, but will hold off on that for a little bit. It's probably going to take a couple weeks before I really get going as I work through my current build, so targeting late September for having the bulkheads assembled and faired.

I bought a Phantom kit quite a few years ago; the parts sheet is dated 2004. Just getting back into the hobby after quite a few years away, I figured it would be a pretty quick build to brush the rust off and Chuck’s practicum takes away a lot of the guess-work/analyses paralysis. I didn’t start taking pictures until yesterday when I started coppering the hull, but I’ll start taking them more frequently going forward. This is where I was when I decided to start the log yesterday. I had a roll of 3/16" copper that I bought many years ago that was cut into 1/2" lengths. Perhaps a little oversized, but I overlapped and didn't want to lose motivation so early into the project. My first attempt ever at coppering; all of my previous models have been painted below the waterline. One of the biggest problems I have always struggled with is asymmetric waterlines. I realized after 4 rows of copper that if I progressively applied the copper, I could see any asymmetry immediately as it developed and correct. A weekend well spent of applying several hundred very small pieces of copper to a piece of wood. The copper is about an 1/8" high between stations 6-8, but I'm fighting the urge to shave it or redo the copper. My hope is by this time next week to have the deck, waterways, scuppers, rudder, etc installed. Just have to wait to see what the week brings.

Thank You all for the warm welcome back. It's nice to see the amount of names I recognize. Great idea on the pictures of the Phantom. I'm still early enough (halfway through coppering the hull) that not too much progress hasn't been captured. I'll start a build log tomorrow.

Hello everyone. I was a pretty active member on the old MSW about 10-12 years ago, during my younger single days, but somewhere in getting married and kids I drifted away from the hobby. I had been working towards learning the skills of a true POF with my last build being The Lively. During the current lockdown and the boredom that comes with it, I had the sudden urge a couple weeks ago to try something new (again) and pulled out my old tools and kits and have started in on the Model Shipways Phantom figuring it would take a little bit for the skills to come back, it's not too daunting. A quick google search every time I was trying to remember a technique kept taking me here, so joining NRG and this forum was a no brainer. Looking forward to taking the time to see everything I've missed and continuing to learn. I keep finding myself being drawn to The Winchelsea group build, so already starting to think that may be where I head to next.