Paul Le Wol

Thank you so much Bob. This boat has had its challenging moments but overall it’s been a lot of fun. Now that I think about it all boats have their moments

Thank you Waldemar, you are very kind. I also like this style of working. Paint is not a friend of mine.

Hi Everyone, thank you for the Likes and stopping by. The stand has been painted with five coats of diluted Liquitex Ivory Black acrylic. The hardware used to tighten the vertical pieces to the keel is 8-32. A piece of plastic tube is used to cover the threads of the machine screw and acorn nuts do the tightening. Mounting the boat on the stand seemed like a bit of a milestone so I took a progress picture. Unfortunately the sun went away just before that. The brackets that support the long tiller arm were made from the kit supplied brass strip and blackened. A couple of storage boxes were made for the deck. They are made from AYC strips using white pva. They still need some details like handles added. Eventually they will be glued to the deck. A gang plank has also been positioned. Extensions were glued and pinned to the vertical portion of the rail. The upper part of the chain plates were glued into place with CA. They are supposed to look like bars that have been bent over to form a loop. And lastly the oars were made and painted with Tamiya Hull Red acrylic. You can see that the mast has been stepped. The dowel that came with the kit had a pretty good wow in it so I picked up a new one at the lumberyard. I think it’s poplar. It has kind of a green tinge to it that looks ok to me. Going to start the rigging next. See you soon.

Hi Frank, I totally agree with Jim. My understanding of the laser char is that you do not have to remove it in areas where it can’t be seen unless you need to remove it for fitment. Just keep a vacuum handy to get rid of the dirty stuff. Once you have cleaned it off of the visible areas you could apply some wipe on poly to help keep them from getting dirty again.

Super good looking Chris. My guess is that you ended up with a spare franistan 😀

Hey Everyone, thanks again for your comments and Likes. They are really appreciated. The last two frames in the bow were finished and attached. A couple of single blocks were rigged to eyebolts and mounted. They were PE eyebolts and I have got to say that I didn’t get along with them very well. They seemed way too thin and flimsy. Some 1/8” art tape was used for the steel bumper on the stem. I had some laserboard parts left over from Cheerful’s pintle and gudgeon kit so they were used for the rudder straps. Just made new pintles and gudgeons. Here’s the gudgeons before shaping. The rest of the week was spent working on the stand. The plaque is from Michael’s. It was $12 after using a 30% off code. The 5/16”x 11/16” x 96” clear pine is from Home Depot. It was $16 (! ?). Two 12” pieces were glued to each side of an 18” piece The vertical pieces are 3” and are glued to the center piece at each end of the 12” pieces. Two small blocks are glued on next at each end and end up being 1/2” shorter than the center piece. A 16” piece is glued to each side to cover all of that. A 6-32 screw and nut will tighten the vertical pieces against the keel. The keel will rest on top of the machine screw. Finally a test fit. Forgot to mention that the bottom of the hull was also painted with Tamiya Dark Iron acrylic. I think that the stand will end up being black. See you next week.

Chris, your builds are always so enjoyable to follow! Standing by.

Hi Waldemar, thank you so much for your kind words. I find that more and more I am drawn towards those types of vessels.

Hey Everyone, I hope your week went well. Thanks so much for dropping by and for the Likes. Spent the week adding small bits and pieces starting with the braces that are mounted inboard of the grommets for the clew rigging. Made new ones out of pear. They were mounted and the hole was drilled through the plank. The drill bit was used as a guide to glue the grommet to the outboard side of the plank. A plate for the hawse hole was made from 1/4”x 3/64” strip I picked up a bag of aquarium pebbles at the Petsmart and used them for ballast. Glued them in with E6000 adhesive. The portholes were installed along with knee braces on the front of the cabin wall. The belaying pins were shown in the plans as being flush with the top of the horizontal part of the rail but I decided to bring them up a little higher Then finally I started the chainplates. The plans show them being mounted though a hole in the rail but but mine were faked. The Billings parts ( on the right ) didn’t seem wide enough to drill a mounting hole in them so I used 1/16” brass strip. One end was bent to hook under the sheer strake ( as shown in the plans ) and the upper end was filed to a sharp edge so that it could be pushed up and under the trim strip beneath the rail. Each strip was pushed into place to make a notch in the trim piece then removed and annealed. A hole was drilled and then it was blackened. Eye bolts will be mounted in the rail above each chainplate. A bit of CA was used to secure the nail in the hole. Next comes the rudder and a stand. See you then.

Hi Everyone, hope you all had a great weekend. Thanks very much to everyone for their Likes and Comments. The week was started by revisiting the portholes. Wanted to see what they looked like if they were blackened. It may have been because I didn’t wait long enough before glazing them but the next day the glazing had reacted with the blackener and turned blue around the edges. Going to leave the portholes brass. Continued planking the cabin roof. Should have pre-painted the planks where they overhang the front of the cabin right from the get go but I wasn’t thinking. Sanded for a couple of hours and then applied the first coat of Tamiya Dark Iron to the roof. Also resumed planking the front wall of the cabin. Second coat of paint to the roof and finished planking the wall. Opened up the holes for the portholes and gave the roof a third coat of paint. Moved down to the bow and started shaping the last frame/bollard out of pear. Next will be finishing the bow. Hope you all have a good week.

Dave, I’m glad to see that you have started your Rattlesnake. I shall take a seat, not right at the back, maybe half way to the back.🙂

Congratulations Dave on the completion of your Lady Nelson. You did a beautiful job. I look forward to your next project.

Hey Dave, I agree with Keith. Your coils look good. Looking at the coil in the stern, maybe you could use the same technique that you used for the anchor and lay something in the bottom of the coil to weigh it down and apply shellac or acrylic to keep its shape.

Hi Cisco, thanks very much for your comment. For the half laps I scored the plank with a razor knife and used the knife to cut a notch back to the scored line. Then sanded the plank with that 3/8”x 3/8” block. The block has 220 grit sand paper stuck to it with double sided tape. The rabbets are made pretty well the same way. The plank is scored with the razor knife and then a chisel is used to remove most of the wood. The sanding block is used to clean up the rabbet. I’ve been using the Mirka sandpaper that I picked up at Lee Valley. It hangs in there for quite a while

Hey Everyone, thanks to all of you for your comments and Likes. This week was spent working on the rails. There is a plank that sits on its edge and runs along the outboard side of the rail. Half lap joints were used at both ends. The half lap scarf joint at the forward end should be tapered but this was just easier for mounting and gluing. The jig was made with scrap pieces of 3/64” plywood from the carrier sheet and the plank is 3/32” x 3/16”. ‘The four pieces of plank were glued on at the rate of one per day. The forward port and starboard pieces required tapering and edge bending The symmetry at the bow is a little off. Three thwarts had to be removed so that the belaying pins could be attached to their undersides. I forgot to do that. If you use the Billings parts there are holes burned right through them and they can be installed any time. A few hours were spent sanding the rails and then they were given a coat of w-o-p. Been jumping back and forth between planking the front wall of the cabin and its roof. The three outboard planks of the roof were glued together before mounting because the first two planks run off the roof before they reach the last bulkhead/frame. A rabbet was cut along the bottom underside to lower the profile where the planks overlap. Finger holes were drilled in the deck planks for removal. They look larger than they actually are. My rough estimate puts them at 1.5 - 2 scale inches For a change of pace the portholes were “ glazed “. Saw someone using this product but can’t remember who. Thank you. It works very well. Placed the portholes on plastic wrap (Handiwrap) and put four drops in each one. Can’t really see them well but here they are after curing for 24 hours. Next will be finishing the roof and the front of the cabin.

Jim, it doesn’t get any better than that. Beautiful

Michael, your Sovereign is amazing and the way that you insert text into the pictures makes it so easy to follow along with your thought processes. Very nice.

Hi robert952, I’m using an iPad so this may not apply to everyone. Go to gallery. At the top of the page there are three pictures. Kit built models, scratch built models and contemporary models. Click the one you want to look at. You can then sort them a number of ways. Most recent, most popular etc. I get 52 pages of models in the kit built section

Hey Glen, it’s just a really good meal. The kind you get at one of your famous catfish diners

Hi Ian,, I know people that do/did that in Niagara Falls NY and Buffalo. Another benefit other than saving money is that you always get to have a great scoff at one of their excellent eateries. 😀

Hi Nils, thank you so much. This scale of boat is a lot easier to work on for me. But at 28” x 28” they do take up a lot of room.

Hi Cisco, thank you very much. Billings has this kit listed in their “ Experienced “ category but I think that if someone took their time with getting the planking right it would be a good project for anyone. I have a couple of wonky spots in the hull but overall it came out fairly straight. At 1/20 scale you sure don’t have to worry about tiny parts.

Hello Everyone, there is a bit more progress to show. Thanks to all of you for your comments and Likes. A template of the fore most frame was made so as to figure out where the rails would end. The kit supplied rails where marked, cut and test fitted to the hull. Once they where close they where used as templates to make new rails out of 3/32” AYS. The port and starboard rails from the stern to midship were glued with pva and clamped. They were made extra wide because I thought it would be easier to trim them later than try to make them more accurately. The remainder of the rails up to the last frame before the stem were moistened, heated, clamped to the spaghetti pot and left overnight. There is a piece of trim that runs under the rail from stem to stern. I used a piece of 1/16”x 1/8” AYS. It had to be shaped at the stern and edge bent at the stem. CA was used at each end and pva was used in between. While all this was going on and glue was drying I started on the doors and trim for the front of the cabin. I had some 1/4” x#18 brass escutcheon pins laying around so they became the doorknobs. Now there’s just a whole bunch of planing and sanding to get the rails to the proper width. After that there is another piece of wood that runs along the top of the rail on its inboard edge

Thank you GrandpaPhil. There has been a lot of models finished lately and I join you in congratulating everyone.👍

Hi Glomar, I’ve used dry transfer lettering on a couple of boats with good success. I think it was Letraset. Probably all depends on if it comes in the font and size you need.