DB789

I did fill and sand down one more time, added the rudder fittings. These were very small and fiddly, lost at least one in the carpet. I’m really impressed that Chris includes extras of these easy to lose or break parts in the kit. Marked the waterline. Tricky to get both sides the same, lots of drawing and then rubbing out and starting again. Nisha is sitting on a very battered copy of March’s Sailing Trawlers that I sourced on ABE Books from Germany. The price of the March’s books must have skyrocketed since Chris launched this range of models. Booksellers must be wondering why a book no one wanted two years ago is now in so much demand. Hull taped up for painting. Chaos Black goes on really well leaving a nice satin finish and dries very fast (unlike the horrible Plastikote white spray paint I’m using on the rubbing strip and stern trim). Looks like dazzle camouflage from above. Deck fits really well. Treated it with one coat of Danish Oil so far and it looks better than the untreated deck I have on the Fifie. Darker, but somehow the engraved planking is more defined too. The deck needed light sanding at the edges to fit but very little and I think looks great. I’ll glue it tomorrow in case there’s any swelling / shrinkage from the Danish Oil.

Thanks for all the really helpful advice Craigie. Nisha is now in her “red” phase. Other builds suggest that I should fill, sand and prime Nna couple of times, but surely I shouldn’t be seeking a very smooth finish and the planks should be visible. Photos of Pilgrim show that her planking was very visible below the paint. I’m thinking fill and sand only a few obvious cracks, mainly along the rabbet and reprime just the once.

Thanks Craigie, Think I’ll go for option 2. I’m bound to make a mess of option 1!

Thanks Andrew. Looking ahead in the instructions - can anyone point me in the right direction as how to reduce the diameter of the lower mast? I can taper with sandpaper but don’t know how to get a step change in diameter such as this without a lathe which I don’t have. Thanks

Second planking finished, filled and sanded. Still lots of room for improvement at bow and stern, especially if I’m ever to build a bare wood hull. I’ve decided on a fully painted hull with red oxide below the waterline and black above with no bootstrap. The rubbing strake will be white. So I have used white filler wherever needed and have not yet added part #39 to the stern as this will be white too. The bulkhead “ears” have been removed I’m going to paint the inside of the bulwarks black too, but not the timberheads. I’ve roughly masked off where each of these will be - it does not need to be perfect, just enough that I can see where each timberhead goes after painting. Also masked over each of the hatches and holes in the deck and around the tiller shaft. The only wood primer I have is the red oxide primer I’m using for the lower hull so everything will be painted with that before painting with Chaos Black above the waterline. Using spray cans for both. Andrew Johnson - I hope you don’t mind me copying your colour scheme?!

What I did was keep the second plank below the bulwark roughly parallel to the first plank and didn’t twist it to fit at all. Then added the third plank at a near right angle with its end against the stern counter. Then sanded the second plank down to shape. Seems to have worked OK on both sides - there’s a tiny fit of filler which could have been avoided if I’d sanded down the second plank to be roughly in shape before fitting the third plank. I’m a beginner too, on my second build, so this might be technically the wrong approach but provides a relatively easy and aesthetically tidy solution. There’s more photos on my Nisha build log and I’m only slightly ahead of you in my build Glomar.

Work on the Nisha continues… The rabbets and outer stern counter were fitted and clamped. Then outer bulwarks went on fine. As others have noted the holes in the outer bulwarks at the bow don’t line up with the inner bulwark. Should be very easy to fix with a little filing. I’ve second planked the starboard side only so far. The photos show it with preliminary sanding but no filler yet. Second planking went on quite easily. The first three planks went on untapered and then the rest were tapered to approx 50% of width at the bow. I still needed two spacers at the stern. Quite a bit of edge bending was required to cope with the curve where the stern flares out. The rabbets were big enough at bow and stern but not amidships for the keel rabbet. The only real difficulty, as in the first planking was trying to work out how to neatly finish off the planking along the sternpost and in particular how to neatly plank the area where the planks terminating in the stern rabbet meet those terminating against the outer stern counter. It’s quite a sharp corner and not the easiest to plank. So the messiest part of my planking. Port side next plus some additional sanding and filling.

Andy, your Nisha looks really great, I hope my build can look half as good. I see we’re both building/built the same Vanguard fishing boats. Are you going to build more? I’m thinking the Lady Isabella or Saucy Jack next.

Andrew, Thank you very much. I’ll try that on my Nisha too. Dan

Andrew, Your Nisha is looking superb. I really like the contrast you have between the black inner bulwark and the wooden timberheads. I’m not there yet on my Nisha, but please could I ask how you achieved this? If I paint the inner bulwark black then I can’t see the markings that show where to place the timberheads. On post #50 where you are priming the hull it looks like the timber heads are in place before painting. Did you temporarily install timber heads for painting and then replace them later with unpainted versions? Many thanks Dan

Thanks Andrew, I really appreciate the advice. Your Nisha is hugely impressive. I think Nisha is perfect for a second build (starting from being a complete beginner), challenging but manageable and I’m learning the whole time. I wholly recommend her as a kit. I’m clumsy and impatient which is the main reason things get broken! Just with the Fifie she’s big boned enough to take it whereas Nisha isn’t. I need to slow down… I’ve sanded back more than in the photos to make sure the rabbet is big enough. I’ll keep an eye on this, but the first planking is now very thin at bow and stern so I don’t dare go too far.

Thanks for all the encouragement! Made some good progress this week. Firstly the deck was added. Went on pretty easily but had to bend the wood quite a bit, seems very strong. Everything is very well made and fits together so well in these kits. I glued on the broken sternpost and it seems to have held. Sanding it to shape without snapping it again needed a lot of care. The inner counter was soaked and then clamped in place to dry before gluing. Luckily it didn’t split. Then bulwarks added. There aren’t many planks on Nisha but planking her has been a challenge compared to the Fifie. Quite hard to assess where each plank should start and end. Ended up with quite a ragged bow and stern finish to the planks but they leave plenty of room for a rebate for the rabbet. The first planking was sanded down and filled, I really enjoy this as its when the hull fuses into a single entity and feels like a boat for the first time. The hull is smooth and should be a good base for the second layer of planking. I managed to break another sternpost whilst sanding but it didn’t snap off entirely so I injected some glue and quickly added the stern board for additional strength. I clumsily broke the stern counter removing it from the sheet of wood. I glued it back together, left to dry for 24 hours, but as you can see in the photos the glue dissolved when I soaked and then clamped the counter to the model. I’m planning to paint the entire hull so gluing and fixing this should be fine. The keel rabbet was also added. I’m having fun but finding Nisha quite a bit harder to build than the Fifie. The parts are more fragile - necessarily so as she is so much smaller - and I have broken 3 already. I’m really glad that I built the Fifie first as it’s given me the confidence to persevere with Nisha. On my experience so far I’d certainly recommend the Fifie as more suitable for a complete beginner.

Andy, She’s looking amazing. I hope my Nisha can look half as good! Please could I ask what colour dye you used for the sails? I’m looking for a lighter, redder colour for Nisha rather than the near brown I used on the Fifie. Many thanks Dan

Thanks Andy! Your build log and AJohnson’s are a particular inspiration for my build. I think I’m going to follow suit and paint the upper hull black. Not sure about the rail and inner bulwarks yet.

Thanks Wool!

Nisha will be my second build having just completed Vanguard’s Fifie. I’m looking forward to building this little cutter, she’s much smaller than the Fifie. I’m somewhat nervous about the mast and rigging - I found the Fifie’s rigging a challenge and she barely has any. Nisha turned up yesterday morning and was extremely well packed with high quality materials throughout. I won’t cover unboxing as others have already done so very well in their logs. Started work right away. The pieces are immaculately laser cut and the retaining tabs easily cut. Bulkheads first with the first three at bow and stern needing bevelling before fitting. These fit very easily onto the false keel without glue. Followed by the lower deck. Additional supports are then added at bow and stern and between bulkheads 4 and 7 to strengthen the structure. The stern timbers are also added. These are very thin and weak in places and one broke easily with little pressure - shouldn’t be too hard to fix. At this point the whole structure fits together mostly without glue and feels quite loose. Next diluted PVA glue was brushed into the structure and left to dry. Nisha’s skeleton alongside the Fifie below shows how small she will be.

The “Eloise” is now complete. I’ve had a great deal of fun building her and I’m amazed by how well she has turned out as my first ever build - that’s mainly thanks to the excellent kit that Chris produced. I greatly appreciate all the advice and support I have received here and others’ build logs have been an incredibly valuable resource from which I have shamelessly plagiarised. I have inserted steel wire in all four edges of the mizzen sail but I ordered 28 gauge wire and it’s not strong enough to enable me to shape the sail and hold the mizzen yard at the angle it needs to be. I suspect I’ll have to add back the extra length of rigging from the aft end of the mizzen yard to the mizzen mast ring as the current set up is too flimsy.

The Fifie “Eloise” is very nearly ready to head out to her fishing grounds. The only things outstanding now I think are: beeswax on the rigging to reduce the fluff, coils on the end of the sheets and halyards - I’m adding these later as Eke did on his Zulu build, and fixing the angle of the mizzen yard (see below). I’ve been away some of this week and spent the time devouring all of the build logs of Vanguard fishing boats on MSW. What a fantastic resource. As a result I’ve made a few tiny changes, most notably the white tips on the ends of the mast and boom. I’ve also added the hard points that the Fifie would have needed to sail on the port tack. Does anyone know how these luggers did actually tack? How did they get that huge foresail around the mast or did they have to drop it completely before tacking? I couldn’t get the mizzen yard to sit at the correct angle so I have added an extra length of rigging from the aft end of the mizzen yard back to the mast ring on the mizzen mast. I appreciate that this isn’t authentic or how a Fifie would have been rigged so I’m trying to think of an alternative. Options are 1) try and insert some very fine steel wire in the seam of the trailing edge of the mizzen sale or 2) CAing the parrel beads into the right position so the yard sits at the correct angle - could become quite messy though. I have some steel wire on order. The sails came very promptly from Chris, arriving on Monday and are superb quality. I dyed them using Rit Dye colour cocoa brown. I used three pints of very hot but not boiling water, a cup of salt and half a bottle of the liquid dye, stirred for 20mins then rinsed under the cold tap before washing in a bowl of warm water with some detergent. This gave me the dark brown with a hint of red colour I was hoping for. When I fished them out they appeared black and was a little worried that I’d gone too far! The sails were tied to the yards with clove hitches and the knots sealed with CA. Unfortunately one splodge of CA dripped onto the sails. I tried to remove it and gently scrubbed it with an old toothbrush and soaked it in acetone based nail varnish remover but to no avail. I stopped after an hour as progress was limited and I didn’t want to discolour the surrounding area of the sail. It’s disappointing but I can live with it. I may try and colour it with a permanent marker so it blends in more, but it’s not that noticeable so I may leave it too. I had been considering adding reefing points but decided against for fear of getting more messy glue on the sails. I was also going to colour the stitching on the sail with a permanent marker but I like the contrast from the stitching and having some other white on the sail allows the glue spot to blend in a bit. The rigging has plenty of room for improvement but I’m happy with it for a first attempt. In the meantime little Nisha finally turned up despite UPS’s best efforts not to deliver her. Chris despatched her very punctually and she was meant to be delivered a week ago on Friday, I was then away Mon to Thurs and UPS were scheduled to deliver this Friday instead but didn’t. I contacted the UPS depot and was told that both times the “driver didn’t bother delivering all of his packages”. I only live 20-30 miles from Chris and could have walked there and back in the time UPS took to deliver. I’m very excited to start building Nisha. She has come beautifully packaged and with the usual excellent quality of materials and instructions… but that’s a story for another build log.

I’ve got about as far as I can on the “Eloise” until Chris gets some Master Korabel high quality sail sets back in stock. Changes since last time are firstly the masts are shaped and seated. The foremast is now straight having filed the inside of the hole and the bench seat at its base added. What passes for standing rigging on a Fifie has been rigged, although it will need to be loosened so the mast rings can be removed and the yards attached later. So I haven’t tied the lines off properly at the deck and that’s what the loose thread on the deck is. Other blocks have been added to the hull too - my rigging is a bit messy but will improve as I get more experienced at it. Eloise now has a Leith fishing number too and lastly her painted lower hull has been varnished with the matt polyeurethane varnish. The kids smashed one side of the Perspex stand by accident but Chris is very kindly providing me with a replacement, thank you - great customer service! Luckily the Eloise was not on the stand at the time. In the meantime I’ve ordered little Nisha as my second build to start whilst I wait for the sails. I next want to tackle a single masted boat with standing rigging including shrouds, deadeyes, etc. I’ve been so impressed by Chris’s Fifie that I’ll be sticking to Vanguard as a kit maker and I’m planning to work my way through the Vanguard range with a distant goal of eventually building the Sphinx, so my plan is a few fishing boats first, then the Alert and then one of the brigs. But even the best laid plans… I’ll be back to this log as soon as I have the sails.

Happy Easter! Decided that there were too many “Lady Eleanors” out there so have named her the “Eloise” after one of the kids. It means my next build will end up with a boy’s name as the kids are now demanding a boat each… So she’ll be the Eloise out of Leith. I have added nameplates on each side at the bow and her home port on the starboard counter. Nothing on the port counter, haven’t decided whether to leave this empty or add her name again as the Reaper does. I wouldn’t rename a model of a specific historical ship, but there were lots of Fifies so I don’t think renaming can be too big a crime?! The letters are 2mm vinyl from BECC, I’ll add a fishing number between the strakes too but my wife has ‘tidied’ up the 3mm letters, possibly permanently…. The hull is almost complete. I’ve varnished it with Vallejo polyurethane matt varnish which has made the pear wood sides look amazing. Should I varnish the painted areas of the lower hull too? Painting the rudder has proved to be troublesome. It is the only area where the brass rudder fittings are painted with the white Plastikote spray. I tried painting directly on the brass - that didn’t work, I then cleaned and primed with a metal primer then repainted - that didn’t work, the paint wouldn’t stick to the primer. I’ve now painted the metal with the red oxide primer that does stick to the metal and hand painted on some of the white spray, may need a few coats but should solve it. If not I’ll use a white humbrol enamel and accept that the whites do not match exactly. Consequently I haven’t finished the rudder fittings or steering rope yet. Almost all the deck furniture is in place too. Exception is the bench forward (more below). I’ve also added the aft boom which I have shaped by hand. I don’t have a lathe, slow turning drill or a plane or vice for that matter so I will have to do any mast and yard shaping by hand. The boom looks OK to the eye but the callipers tell me its cross section is now oval shaped. This could become a bigger issue for the masts. I thought drilling the 1mm hole through a 2.5mm piece of tapered dowel for the boom would be the tricky part causing splintering, but the walnut wood is very hard and strong, I drilled a 0.5mm hole first and then widened it with a 1mm bit. I have temporarily seated the unshaped masts. The aft mast is fine and I will keep near vertical as I think it looks better in that position and one of the other build logs said that this was a normal position for the aft mast in real fifies. The foremast is a bit wonky and leans to starboard. It was a lot worse which was due to there being a glob of dried PVA stuck at the bottom of the hole where the mast sits (beginner mistake I see!). I’ve now abraded that away as best I can but the mast still doesn’t sit quite straight. As the mast is slightly off centre so is the notch for the bench seat. Fitting the bench seat the starboard side is ever so slightly over the starboard edge and the port side ever so slightly inboard so it’s hard to affix lining up the existing drilled holes as the starboard ones would attach through the walnut rubbing strake and port ones through the bulwark. Sure I can cut the pins short and use glue, but it will bother me being off-centre. I think fixing the mast will fix the bench. I’m thinking of sanding the lower 1-2cm of the mast so it fits straight - would that be the best approach to fix this? Or should I try and shape the hole itself? Thanks again for all the advice and encouragement.

Thanks for all the great advice and encouragement. I do sometimes feel that the Fifie is progressing despite, rather than because of me. So many mistakes (learning points!) but she still looks OK! The quality of the kit is so high that it’s hard to go very wrong. Bootstrap now painted. A few areas on the line need touching up, especially around the rudder hinges which are hard to mask. The line of red follows the waterline of the boat, whereas the top of the white line does not. Still have the white on the rudder to paint. I think it looks OK. To touch up I’m planning to spray a small amount of paint into a cup and then use a brush - is there any reason that won’t work? I’m using Chris’s engraved deck which I think looks really good. That’s now fixed down and weighed down by spice jars to hold it whilst drying. They’re not really heavy enough but have just about done the job. I’m in the middle of fitting the timber heads and hope to have those and the inner bulwark rails fitted tomorrow. Deck fittings going well too with the fish hatch complete now. The steam winch is complete (colours both Humbrol Matt 80 green and 153 red). Also the base of the foremast. May fit the wheel tomorrow too, think I’ll add a rope and holes in the deck for this too. Not far off finishing the hull. Soon the dreaded rigging and masts… not that the Fifie has much in the way of rigging.

Think I’m going with option d (not listed above). Keeping the red waterline and painting on a bootstrap above it. The bootstrap will widen at bow and stern as it should but amidships it will narrow, not following the waterline. There will be less freeboard amidships but it’s the best compromise I can think of. I’ve masked her up ready to paint in the morning. Should look OK, I think. Using different masking tape around the bow and stern rabbet areas as that was where the paint leaked last time. Need to add the plastic sheeting too.

Ok another problem. The red hull paint starts at bow and stern at exactly the same height as on the plans (50mm down from top of the prow and 38mm from top of stern post) but it’s much higher amidships - see photos attached. Joining these points to create a waterline looks correct but is too high. This means that the bootstrap above this is also too high on the hull. The curves of the hull are much flatter higher up so there isn’t the different width of the white line at bow, amidships and stern and I lose the distinctive wide white bootstrap at the bow. Plus the waterline is too high amidships (maybe it has a full load of fish!) I don’t really understand why this has happened - it must be that my hull is a different shape to what it should be (it doesn’t sit flush with the acrylic stand either). My options I think are: a) paint a thin white line of a consistent thickness above the top of the red paint and live without the distinctive bootstrap - probably the easiest option and would still look like a good model to the uninitiated but a little disappointing. b) sand the red paint off and paint the hull red much lower starting at a lower point at bow and stern and keeping to a waterline so the amidships point comes down. I can then lower the bootstrap onto a more curved part of the hull. But it may look odd with an overly thick bootstrap or much too low waterline. Also will I be able to strip back the red paint which has probably been partially absorbed by the planks (no primer or sealer used as the red paint is a primer). Might end up becoming quite messy. c) paint a lower white line joining the current correct bow and stern points but that does not follow the waterline. I’d have to either paint over or sand back some of the red paint too. Would this be noticeably odd too and I’m not sure how I’d do it. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I’m erring towards option a as it’s safest but I’d appreciate the opinions of more experienced builders before committing myself. In the meantime I’ve been making deck fittings and sanding the engraved deck to size (not glued on). The deck didn’t fit exactly which also suggests that I have got the hull shape slightly wrong… well it is my first build so still learning!! Many thanks Dan

Fantastic, thank you very much for the recommendation. It’s ordered on Amazon Prime, I should have it tomorrow.

I know nothing about rigging techniques and reckon that I have a week to ten days work before the hull is complete. I chose the Fifie for a first build partly because the rigging looks much more straightforward than even Vanguard’s other trawlers Nisha and Erycina, and similar to Lady Isabella. Nonetheless I don’t know where to start with rigging her! The instructions which are wonderfully step-by-step for building the hull don’t give any such help on the rigging techniques, although the plans are excellent. Does anyone have any guidance on where to find some very basic / beginner guidance on how to rig a model boat and techniques? Such as how to tie a block on and put the thread through it, how to tie the sails onto the yards, what knots to use and how to tie them, what tools I need for rigging, etc. I have trawled through the MSW forums and found lots of detailed and advanced comments but not a lot to get me started. Likewise some excellent videos on YouTube but mostly about rigging dead eyes, shrouds and ratlines which the Fifie doesn’t have (useful for my next build I hope, but not for this one). Any advice would be hugely appreciated. Many thanks Dan