GGibson

Nice work, John! Not too tedious, huh? 🤣

The Fiebings dye method that both Druxey & Greg mentioned sounded really good.... until Greg's warning about the splatters. Even if it happened in the shipyard, the Mrs would probably have me removed! <shrug> I know Chuck is simply promoting his quality product and does not mean for this to get into a MS bashing thread, but there IS a quality difference. Keep up the great work, Chuck! EDIT: Made the picture bigger so you can see the details better.

Got my package yesterday, Chuck! Thanks! 🏆😁

Back from a HOT Florida visiting two of our granddaughters... ok, and their parents, as well... and jumping back to the shipyard to continue my Bluenose journey! Placed an order for some items needed, and while I am waiting, I decided to knock out some of the eyebolt, ringbolt and belaying pin placements around the rails and bulwarks while the deck was empty and those are easier to place. The supply of eyebolts and rings in the kit were nice, shiny brass, which I thought would look sharp around the deck, so went with the brass. The belaying pins provided, though, needed to be painted brass in order to match and look nice along the rails. I wanted to prepare and paint as many of the pins as I needed as effectively as I could, so I took a spare wood strip and drilled the necessary 1/16" holes to hold all of the belaying pins while I painted them. To match the brass eyebolts and ringbolts, I used DecoArt Extreme Sheen Vintage Brass Metallic Paint, and the process worked pretty well. I drilled the holes in the appropriate locations along the rails, and also drilled holes for the eyebolts using a pin vise with a #71 micro drill bit. Wheel Box Still waiting on that other item, so let's begin working on some of the deck structures! Seems like, in reviewing other build logs, everyone starts with the wheel box, so I will, too! I measured each of the four wall sides from the plans, and using an available 1/16" thick basswood sheet, I cut out each of the sides using an X-acto blade. Once cut, I sanded the port and starboard sides together so they matched, and started fitting all of them together so they made a nice box, and glued them using some PVA glue. I placed some spare pieces of 1/8" square rail on the inside corners to make them even more solid. For the base, I glued together a 3/8" x 3/64" strip and a 1/4" x 3/64" strip, in order to make the base slightly wider than the box width, and cut to the proper depth, again slightly longer than the depth of the box. I rounded the top edges of the completed base, then, so it appeared to mimick a cove baseboard moulding. Pretty small. but I think the effect was there! For the wheel box roof top, I glued together two (2) 3/8" x 3/64" and placed a 3/32" sq strip on each side to simulate an overhang. Once these were glued and set, I sanded each side, though, a lot in order to narrow the roof top to a nice fitting size. For the wheel box sides, I used a compass with a sharp point (same as I used to score the inside edges of the main rails when I cut them by hand) in order to create the grooves in the side panels. That worked out pretty well. Once all the pieces (the box, the roof and the base) all dry-fit properly and looked good, it was time to paint/stain. So, I needed to decide if I was going to stain or paint many of the deck structures. The plans call for using a Burnt Umber color paint, but many other modelers have been staining instead. This is, then, an appropriate time to analyze and decide what I am going to do for various parts, such as the deck floor itself, the deck structures, masts, and blocks and deadeyes. I had several stain variations on my shelf, so I tested them all on a spare piece of basswood, both with and without a pre-stain. Red Oak, Cherry, Golden Oak, Early American and Red Mahogany. My chart below may be hard to read and see the color variations clearly, but I decided to stain the deck at the appropriate time with Cherry. The deck structures, like the Wheel Box I am currently working on, will be a slightly darker color, using the Red Mahogany stain. I will use pre-stain on all of these. The masts will be stained with Cherry and the blocks and deadeyes will be dipped in a Golden Oak stain. The Burnt Umber paint is sampled on the small board under the chart. Very similar to the Red Mahogany stain, but I'll stick with the stain applications. The staining and painting progressed well, and once all pieces were completed, it was time to glue them all up! The kit-provided steering wheel was in good shape, nothing broken or bent. I dipped the Britannia casting in a bath of white distilled vinegar for about 10 minutes to clean it. After it dried, I gave it a coat of white primer, followed by the DecoArt Extreme Sheen Vintage Brass Metallic Paint on the spokes and Liquitex Basics Acrylic Mars Black paint on the circle. Once the paint dried, i drilled a hole in the front of the wheel box using the pin vise and a #55 micro drill bit, dabbed a little CA glue on the pin on the back side of the wheel, inserted, and... done. All in all, came out looking pretty decent. Had to set it on the deck to just see how it looked. But it is now going in a safe place until it is time to permanently install! Still needing to work on completing the rudder assembly with the pintles and gudgeons. Got a new tool for the shipyard, a Proxxon Micro Bench Drill Press, which I should be able to use right away with this rudder assembly. I've got a large Delta 8" drill press out on the workbench in the garage, but thought this Proxxon would be best for these small pieces. Ehhh, we will see! Also, need to decide how I want to mount this Bluenose, as I discussed in my previous update. Appreciate any advice/suggestions, and I always am thankful for the comments, criticisms, and likes. I learn so much from others! Thanks!

Nice work, Ted! You are absolutely correct... a sewing machine is a demonic device! Ever since I started my Bluenose, I've been torn on whether to include full sails, furled sails, or no sails at all. Think you've convinced me, mine will probably be naked! <shrug>

Eric - Great job on the decking. From a rough beginning to a nice sanded finish! I'm enjoying following your progress. And a great story regarding your canoe journeys down the Might Mo (and Amtrak and the Katy Trail)! Some thirty years ago +/-, we biked with our young children for about 10 of those Katy Trail miles (20 back and forth) just outside Kansas City. Always said we'd like to do more of the trail, but we got older! Great that you and Mrs Cathead are enjoying it all!

Wow! I am one of the lucky ones! Placed my order on Thursday. And, received a shipment notice on Friday! Great product followed up with great customer service! Thanks, Chuck!

Will start making up my shopping list!! 👍

Thanks, Tim! Yeah, sounds like that's happening to many of us. It's just one of the many ways Model Shipways finds to keep us... amused! Monkey Rail - Part 2 With the kit-provided monkey board laser cut piece in shambles, it was time to pull out my MicroMark plank bending iron that I purchased some 16+ years ago when I first got this Bluenose as a gift. Hope it still works!! Actually, this all worked out much easier than I had anticipated. I wetted down a couple of the 3/32" x 3/64" wood strips, used the supplied wooden curved jig that came with the iron, and gave each strip a nice curve. I pinned the strips onto a handy solder board until the wood dried and stayed pretty much in the right shape. Using the shape of my Bluenose stern curve and the provided stern monkey rail piece (that did NOT break on removal!), I cut each strip to shape. The monkey board was then glued on top of the main rail in its proper position, using PVA glue with the occasional spot of CA glue to help hold a bit faster as I worked down each side main rail. I should maybe mention that I used a small piece of scrap 3/64" wood to guide as a "spacer" from the outside edge of the main rail, marking lightly with a pencil so I could place the monkey board at that mark all the way down the main rail to the great beam. That guide worked well for me. Next, worked on placing the monkey rail on top of the monkey board. First, glued the kit-provided laser piece for the stern. Had to spread it just slightly to match my stern curve vs. what the plans provided. But, it did not break! Then the side monkey rails, placing them on top of the monkey boards so that the inside edge was even with the monkey board underneath, and the outside edge was even with the outside edge of the main rail. Sanded, filled, sanded, primed, sanded and painted. Did a bit more touch-up painting on all of the white, and... calling it good... for now. I think the next thing on the to-do list will probably be the pintles and gudgeons, as that will finish the hull construction items. I worked on prepping the rudder a week or so ago. Still need to do the scroll work and nameplates, as well. Once that is all done, from other build logs I have read, it may be time to seal the hull (or not) with some type of clear seal. I'll gather opinions on that when the time comes. Also, I have been thinking about how to mount this Bluenose, as once the deck structure construction starts, it will be difficult to do whatever I decide. One decision I am 90% sure of is regarding sails. I don't think I will be putting sails on this. I have even thought about doing some furled sails, but haven't seen too much discussion on the board about that, so not confident in tackling that project. I have seen a few displays of ships (not necessarily Bluenose) mounted on Launching Ways, as if they were under construction, or just completed and not yet launched. But, from what I understand of that, many ships are launched even before all of the masting and rigging is completed, with all of that done by the shipbuilders after the ship was in the water. Ehhh... I can't get too historically accurate, can I? Builder's prerogative?!? I do like the launching ways mounting option, however. Thoughts and opinions are, of course, appreciated, and my advance apologies if I have not explained some things accurately. But, first things first. I'm taking a week off to visit my Florida grandchildren. Priorities!!

Great start, Commodore! I'd love to follow your progress on this. The Sailing Pram was a fun build for me. And great use already of the rubber bands and clips. Have plenty of both on hand! I remember using almost all my clips at times, and plenty of rubber bands! Sometimes I even used clips ON the rubber bands to make them even tighter! Ha! Carry on!

A few updates on progress... albeit baby steps... Main Rail Was concerned about how I was going to lay the main rails on both sides of the ship, and account for the wider areas where the belaying pins are. Thought it was best to do this from full basswood sheets, cutting them to fit where needed. So, I procured several 8"x12"x1/16" sheets. Placing a sheet on the ship in position, I drew the outline of the hull on the underside for the curve. I decided to create these side rails in two pieces per side, having them meet just on the fore deck side of the center great beam. After marking the outside edges in this process, I cut these out using my Dewalt scroll saw, then shaped and sanded to match the hull/waist curve. Once I had the outside curve shaped, I used two compasses, one measured to the standard rail width and one measured to the wider width for the belaying pin locations, to score/mark the inside edges. The sharp points of the compass really helped give me a nice line to use as a guide for the #10 X-acto knife. Pretty slow and tedious, but seemed to work out well. My scarf joints at the stern and bow pieces weren't perfect, but worked pretty well after some sanding, filling and painting. Overall, I was satisfied with how the main rail construction came out. Before sanding/filling After sanding/filling Buffalo Rail Next up is the buffalo rail. The laser cut piece provided in the kit came out fine and, after some sanding to clear the char, it looked like it would sit atop the mail rail ok. However, when placing the side rail next to the bow piece, there was a bit of a size difference that required some more sanding and shaping. Once that was done, though, and it was primed, sanded and painted, it looked nice. Pretty straight-forward with a small adjustment, but another easy completion. Small victories! Monkey Rail Well, so much for small victories... The kit has two laser cut pieces for the monkey rail construction that are both placed at the stern. The monkey rail piece and the narrower monkey board piece that the monkey rail sits on. Both pieces are 3/32" x 3/64", but one sits wider side horizontal (monkey rail) and one sits wider side vertical (monkey board). There's probably a better way to explain this, sorry. Anyways... the monkey rail laser cut piece came out fine. However, when attempting to take the thin monkey board piece out of the laser cut sheet, it snapped into pieces. Well crap! Looks like in reading some other build logs, this happened with others, as well, so I guess I joined the club. Now I will have to recreate the curved monkey board that is at the stern. Time to pull out the plank bending iron! Uggghhh... This may have to wait a week until I return from a trip. I was THIS close to having the hull components done! Ha!

Looks good, Major! Probably a big timesaver working on both port and starboard rails simultaneously! I just finished my main rails (will post an update to my log soon), but didn't trust that both sides were the same, so... lots of individual slicing, trimming and sanding. You are doing quite well! 👍

Cathead 2.0 looks really nice. Love the pictures you took of the Bluenose II for historical perspective. Thanks for sharing!

Nice work, Major! Looking sharp. And you were able to salvage the bulkhead stanchions! Like several before me, I chopped mine off and did fake stanchions the whole way. Nice job, sir!

Nice work, hamilton! And, yes, ratlines aren't that bad... tedious, but a bit fun, and rewarding when you are done and they look sharp! But, I agree, some type of background noise, whether a podcast or music of your favorite genre, is highly suggested! Can't wait to get to this point on mine. Carry on, sir!

Very nice build, Roger! As others have stated, the Lobster Smack was a good ship for planking! Keep us updated on what you decide. Always fun to watch others' build logs.

Started looking at what I needed to do for nice main rails along the sides, and decided I needed to get some larger/wider basswood sheets in order to adequately account for the curve of the hull. Those sheets are arriving tomorrow (Tuesday), so until then, I thought I would work on one or two other things. I chose working on getting the rudder ready. First up was, of course, to sand all of the rudder sides, removing the char and tapering the rudder from top to bottom and from front to back. Out of the box, the rudder measured 4.77mm thick. Beginning with 100 grit sandpaper and working down to 220 grit sandpaper, I sanded the outside edge to less than 3mm tapered, with about 2.5mm thickness at the bottom. Seemed to look a LOT better. In genericDave's (Suburban Ship Modeler's) build log, he suggested putting a small cup or divot into the rudder where the dowel stock piece will sit, in order for the rudder to sit properly once the pintles & gudgeons are placed on the rudder and attached to the hull. I have a really cool little carving bit as a Dremel attachment (#191), which worked really well in shaping that area! Sweet! Using about 15-20mm of the 5/32" dowel for the rudder stock, and shaping/tapering it, I glued it to the rudder. Needed to make sure that the stock piece would fit in the hole,, and I did need to open it a bit more (using that Dremel #191 carving bit again!) until the rudder test-fit perfectly. (And, yeah, that close-up of the underside confirmed that I need to touch up the hull painting before that's done and ready to seal.) Time to paint it! After priming the entire rudder piece, used the same Winsor & Newton Galeria Acrylic Red Ochre paint as the hull. Painted and sanded a few times (up to 400 grit) until it looked ok. I painted the rudder stock piece black, using the same Liquitex Basics Acrylic Mars Black as on the hull. It all looks good. Pretty simple... but I needed simple for a change, albeit briefly. This will be set aside until time to attach the pintles & gudgeons. Tomorrow it's back to working on the main rails... then the buffalo rails, monkey rails, etc, etc. Whew!

Lot of curves on that backside, I remember! Excellent work, Major!

While I am waiting on the nameplate and scroll painting/printing assistance from the granddaughter, I thought I would begin working on the rails, beginning with the bow and stern main rails. When I was working on the stern planking, I was a bit concerned with the height of the stern/transom and how much I would need to reduce the size of the "legs" of the shelf holding the boom sheet buffer that fits underneath the stern mail rail. As it turns out, it needed to be cut down quite a bit (over several attempts) in order to adequately fit. All in all, however, I think it came out ok. For the boom sheet buffer castings, I dipped them in some acetone for a minute to clean them up, then after drying, I painted them black using the same Liquitex Basics Acrylic Mars Black I used for the hull, but painted the ring at the top a brass color using a simple DecoArt acrylic metallic paint. Drilled two holes in the shelf, glued all the pieces together, and placed against the back of the deck against the transom. I'm thinking the "zoom-in" using my iPhone makes the white paint on the transom look a bit rugged. Honestly, with the naked eye of the casual observer and with the stern main rail above it, it doesn't look quite as rugged (I hope!). Then I fit and attached the bow main rail and the stern main rail in their appropriate spots. Others have commented on how poorly these pieces fit and many have remade these pieces completely from scratch. For the stern main rail, after positioning in just the right spot, I was able to glue just the rear part of the main rail to the transom. Then after that fully dried and set, I carefully "spread" each of the two side rails to where they each fit well against the inside edge of the stanchions, where the rails will continue along the side. Not quite as happy with the bow main rail and how it fit, but should come out ok once we get the bowspirit slid underneath and clean that area up a bit with touchup. Will now work on the side rails. As I think others have done, my initial plan is to work on these rails in sections, using wider pieces where the belay pins will be located, and narrower pieces that simply cover the stanchions. Carry on!

Nice, John! I am horrible at soldering. Can you do 34 of 'em? <shrug> 😉

In that case, I've donated $101, just to test... Yay, it worked! Please continue doing an awesome job, MSW staff!

Thanks for the heads-up, Chuck! Will begin creating my list of blocks needed for my Bluenose replacements from what was in the kit. Enjoy your beach vacay!

Ahhh, yes. I have the Keel Klamper! Has worked pretty well for me when needed! I also have this foam thing that my Bluenose is currently sitting in. I like it because of its short height. With the Keel Klamper, the ship sits higher than I like for some things, especially when working on the deck. Your planking will work itself out. Sanding will do wonders and, once painted, the casual observer won't know how many planks you placed...

So far, your planking looks superb, Major! What kind of vise are you getting? Will definitely make the job easier, though.

It all looks really good, Tim! May need to look into that MicroMark resistance soldering unit, as my soldering attempts on previous builds was... not hot! <shrug> Your bowspirit looks nice, too. Have been working on the top rails and determining how to fit the bowspirit on my Bluenose, as well, while I wait on the nameplate and scroll work completion. Keep on forward!