Fubarelf

Slow going on any ship building this summer. Lot's of other things keeping me busy and out of the shipyard, but have made some progress on the Dutchman. Finished up the railings, the stern balconies and several other details on the main deck. . All of the masts have been completed. Just temporarily fitted for now, as I think it will be much easier to add the spars off the ship. Will start with the bowsprit and see how it goes. Have a few finishing touches left on my Bluenose and hope to have both finished soon, so I can get started on one of several other ships I have in waiting. Tim

Congratulations! You've built a beautiful model to add to your very impressive collection! Tim

Thank you! I pulled everything out of the shipyard, reorganized and added some book cases. Had the models-in-progress stashed away in a spare bedroom to keep the cats away while the shipyard was out of commission. All done now and looking forward to finishing the Bluenose. Tim

Thank you, Gregg! Was a lot of steps to create the sails (and redo some), tie all the blocks, run all of the rigging lines (and redo some!). Very satisfying though once the work is done. . Still have to go back and finish the boats, deal with the anchors and a few other minor details, but I think I can see the finish line. Tim

Sails and rigging looks great, John! Love the authentic stitching around the eye at the top corner of the main sail. Tim

Getting closer to completion, but it has been slow going. Summer, work on the house and the yard, and other various obligations have not left much time for working on the Bluenose. Finished the Stay Sail and Jumbo Jib, only two more sales to go!! I used rings for the hanks on the Jumbo Jib. I had originally used silver rings I had in my supply, but felt like they looked too big once on the sail and I could not blacken them. I ordered smaller brass rings from Model Expo, blackened them and attached to the sail. When I went to start rigging the sail, I realized that I had sewn the hem around the edge of the sail on the wrong side . It was backward from all the other sails on the ship, so I remade the sail. I also had managed to get a stain on the original sail, so this solved that problem as well. Just realized I never added the parrels to the main gaff...Always more to do... Tim

Looking great Gregg!

Sails look great, John! I’m working on the jib sails now. Was planning to use some split rings I bought locally for attachment of the sails to the stays, but they were stainless and couldn’t be blackened. Waiting on some brass rings from Model Expo. Tim

Thank you, Nirvana! I considered that, but really like the look of the bluenose in full sail. It is a lot of rigging, but I am enjoying the process and learning a ton to apply to future builds. Tim

Continuing on with the sail rigging...Fore sail and fore top sail next, starting from the bottom with the fore sail. There are a lot of blocks and a fair amount of rigging required for the peak and throat halliards. Need to pay close attention to the rigging plan on sheet 6 to make sure all the lines run to the correct pins. I attached the fore boom and loosely rigged the sheet and topping lift so that they could be tightened up as needed once the sail was rigged and attached. Once the boom was in place I added all of the ties for the mast hoops to the fore sail and lashed the top of the sail to the fore gaff. I thought I had taken pictures of the completed peak halliard before I added the fore top sail but, did not have any when I went to edit the pics for posting. Once I had the gaff rigged, I lashed the bottom of the sail to the boom and then snugged all of the lines up. The fore top sail was next. I learned from the main top sail to attach all of the clew line fairleads and blocks, the rigging line and block and the mast hoop ties BEFORE attaching the sail to the mast. So much easier to work with the sail off of the ship, duh! Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures of this interim step and only have a photo of the sail fully rigged. Once again, very important to study the rigging plan, check and double check all the lines to make sure they are all routed appropriately and tied off to the correct pin prior to any permanant attachment. I finished off all of the tie offs with rope coils. While I was looking things over, I noticed that my main top sail and fore top sail were rigged on opposite sides of their associated peak halliards. What I discovered is that I had placed the main top sail on the wrong side. Both sails are set to the port side, but the bottom corner of the main top sail and tack line goes over the main gaff to the starboard side. This is noted on the plans. On to the stay sail...4 more to go! Tim

Continued progress on the Dutchman. Completed painting the hull and then painted and attached her figures on the cannon ports. I used small "jewels" for the eyes where they fit and painted yellow eyes for the others. Wanted them to stand out against the black hull. Next, mounted the cannon to the main deck and rigged. I added weathering to the bottom of the hull to simulate algae and salt, and mixed some course sand Ito the paint in an attempt to simulate barnacles. Not perfect but I think they look pretty good at this scale. It took several sessions to build all of the fife rails, bits, belaying pin rails, anchors, figurehead and other details. Once I had them all finished and painted I installed everything on the ship. Finally, I added the deadeyes blocks to the chain plate channels. Rather than wrapping wire around the deadeyes and twisting to form the chain plates, I wrapped the wire and soldered. Thought this was cleaner look and it made for a better fit in the channel. That's it for now. Tim

Thank you, Bill!

Thank you, Gregg. The blocks on either side of the fire rail are for the main throat and peak halliards. They support the main gaff. Detail is on plan 6. Tim

Finished creating the rest of the sails! I redid the jib sail because I stretched it too tight while sewing and had a bow in the long side. Learned from this and allowed the sewing machine to just pull the material through. The rest of the sails went pretty quickly once I had the routine down. I have learned the hard way to really study the plans BEFORE starting to rig a sail. I rigged the main topsail next and started by tying the sail to the mast hoops in the same fashion as the main sail. I ran thread through the edge of the sail, evenly spaced for the 13 mast hoops, and then tied to each of the hoops starting from the top down. Here is where the "study the plans" part comes in... Did not catch that the was a clew line on this sail until after I had all of the mast hoops tied on. I did not want to redo that, so I figured out how I was going to add the clew line and did that with the sail on the mast. I looked at the build by Suburban Ship Modeler for reference, but the way he attached fairleads to the sail was just not working for me. I did use the brass tubing as he had but I tied on by running thread through the cut piece of tubing and the sail and then tied one more time around the tubing to secure it. I added a single, 1/8 block at the mid and bottom points and then threaded the line through. Will be ding this off ship for the fore topsail. With the clew line, there are four line that have to be rigged and the tied off at belaying pins. Two to the starboard rail, one to the port rail and one to the port side of the fife rail. I finished them all off with coils tied to the belaying pin. Finished sail. Tim

On to the sails! I started with the main sail, since I have the main boom rigged and can't really go any further without the sail. I started by tracing the main sail from the plans. I added "wings" (don't know the technical term) arrant the edges of the sail which will be folded over to create the hem around the perimeter of the sail and drew in the reefing strips and the seems that were on the plans. I pinned the tracing to the sail fabric and cut it out with a cutting wheel. Next I folded and ironed the wings and pinned the hem for sewing. I did not get any pictures of the sewing process. I used a zigzag stitch for the hem. Next I ran straight stitches along the length of the sail for the panel lines and then used a high zigzag in two lines across the sail for the reefing strips. I finished up by tying the reefing rope on both sides of the sail along the reefing strip. It's been a long time since taking Home Ec. in high school, but it sure did come in handy on this project. Once the silk was complete I lashed it tot he user gaff and the main beam and the finished up the rigging. One down, 7 more to go!! Tim