The Sailor

To ship all items are ready. Now it remains to collect it into a finished model. I guess to finish the job before Christmas. Then he will make the sail masts and rigging.

Little by little she looks like a ship.
 

 

 

 
 

This is my first build ever, which I've been working on for a looooooooooooooong time now. I've had so much trouble building this thing, and I'm not 100% satisfied with it, but I think its turned out pretty well so far.
 
I've finished basically everything now other than putting the sails up. I lost a bunch of pictures I had of the progress of the build, so I don't have nearly as many pictures as most people here. Since my older pics aren't great I'm only posting pics of where the build is at now. I won't finish any more for a while since I'm going away to school tomorrow. Hopefully I can get something done around xmas.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here are a couple of shots of the completed belfry....you'll notice the knees installed in the second shot....
 

 

 
And finally, here's a shot of the stanchions for the rail around the aft companionway hatch on the main deck - self-explanatory....
 

 
Thanks for coming by!
hamilton

Finally finished with one side with the fenders, painted the ends in black.
It was not easy handling the thin rope, but the tweezer did the trick.
 
Børge

Alec, My own fault for bringing the work into the lounge to rather than building alone like a hermit in the garage.
 
Anyway, the taffrail was soaked and bent to shape. The kit suggests 4mm walnut but I thinned it down to about 3mm for aesthetics. The lower profile rail was also added from some leftover strip from the capping rails rather than using the brass in the kit. The rail was fattened up by laminating to a 3mm-ish thick piece of walnut. The tape on the stern windows protect them from fogging by the CA glue needed to fix this hard to bend piece quickly. This needed some sanding along the underside and edges with these painted over.

 
Finished result with taffrail painted and decorative rails added. Some of the carvings need a touch up and The side figures will be left until the rest of the hull fittings are finished as they will take a battering when I grapple with the headrails etc. I'm still a fan of holding the Granado between the knees for work on bow and stern.

Norman - although I found them to be the devil to assemble and paint, I'm glad I tried.  Next ship I'd like to do a few more cannons which I enjoyed making up quite a bit more.
 
 
Stergios - the deck blocks were the first thing I glued, sliding beds were then attached to these (with supplied painted brass wire and CA glue).
 
Little bit of progress on carronades, prob won't post more until I've made some progress on slide tackles.  Planking under capstan is made from walnut strips rather than the ply part supplied.  Mizzen pinrails still need a fair amount of tidying up and not fixed.  Not much deck space left at the stern!
 

Hello Børge, I like all the attention to detail. Your Dragon looks fantastic!

No way! After all the work my Pickle sails with two boats.
 
I‘ve made a little modification on the fore yard stirrups. They are not made from brass wire but the same black thread I used for the footropes.
 

 

 

 
The gammoning and the lower mast shrouds (fore mast) are rigged.
 

 

 

Look at that overhang! It could almost double as a harpoon! The sea is calm and yet the deck is awash.

Hi Richard
 
Lovely yacht, i love theese ships. They have beautiful lines.
Will peak in for your progress
 
Børge

Richard,
 
I do not want to take over your Build Log, but this is a picture of the finished result
 

 
Yves

Richard, I'm pulling up a chair for your build as well! I also have the Amati kit but won't be starting it for awhile--you're spot on that it's a lovely kit!
 
Jay

Richard,
 
this is a breath of fresh air! Finally, some changes from the period Ships. I will be following with great interest your Build Log. Please make sure you take a lot of pictures and that you have a small ladder to take care of the rigging....
 
Thank you for doing this kit.
 
Yves

Richard,
 
I believe I'll pull up a chair and watch your build.  I did a half hull of her about a month ago.  I must say she is a beautiful craft, I look forward to watching your build.        
 
Cheers,
Tim

Hello,
today a huge box came in. When the rigging of my Pickle is done I‘ll start with the America‘s Cup yacht Endeavour.
 
The 1/35 scale kit includes laser cutted parts for the deck, keel and frames, limewood and mahogany planking material, brass and wooden fittings, photo etched brass details, cloth, plans, instructions in three languages (Italian, French and English).
 
Endeavour is a 130-foot (40 m) J-class yacht built for the 1934 America's Cup by Camper and Nicholson in Gosport, Portsmouth Harbour, England. She was built for Sir Thomas Sopwith who used his aviation design expertise to ensure the yacht was the most advanced of its day with a steel hull and mast. She was launched in 1934 and won many races in her first season including against the J's Velsheda and Shamrock V. She failed in her America's Cup challenge against the American defender Rainbow but came closer to lifting the cup than any other until Australia II succeeded in 1983.
(Wikipedia)
 
 
The box

 
Frames and keel


 
Metal parts

 
Wooden strips for planking and the material for the mast

 
The deck and the wooden fittings



 
The building plans

 
The Amati kit is really impressive. The wooden parts are of good quality, only the sails are not sewn. Anyway, I can‘t wait laying the keel.

A little bit of info on the technique I'm using on the breech rope, I'm using the Victory carronade photo below as reference.  
 
1)  One end of the breech rope is knotted to eyebolt and seized (I believe a 'half-hitch').  1.0mm Amati line was used for breech rope (purchased separately) and 0.1mm Caldercraft line was used for the seizing.  Used the Amati line because the supplied 1.0mm line just did not look good (flat and loosely wound).  The seizing looks a bit overscale in the photos but I'm happy with how it looks in person.  Dilute PVA was used to secure before trimming.
2) Threaded the unfinished end through the various ring bolts.
3) Used a spare bed as a jig and drilled holes in same place as on the ship to get correct length at 'fully recoiled' position.  Note why I had spares' below.
4) Knoted and seized the unfinished end and its ready for installation.  Photos below show ends both finished and untrimmed
 
The height of the elevation screws has also been reduced as these seemed to be too high as supplied.  This needed to be done after installation as screw thread gets ruined.
 
Other side note for those considering the aftermarket CC carronades.  I encountered some problems with the screw thread not being drilled correctly which resulted in a stripped elevation screw.  Only solution was to buy replacement barrels/screws.  Next problem was the supplied barrels were missing the screws, so had to buy yet another replacement as it was pretty hard to determine who was at fault. (These were purchased through Cornwall Model boats as there is no US supplier which means high shipping costs for trivial items)
 

Hello Jason, that looks fantastic. I also like the hooks.

Little by little she looks like a ship.
 

 

 

 
 

Thanks for stopping by, Nils.
Well, Pickle is my first wooden ship after many many years. I think it's better builing her out of the box without sails.
 
Hamilton, thank you very much for the nice comment.

Impressive looking boats Richard, I left the larger one off my build because I couldn't for the life of me see how they could manhandle it on and off of Pickle between the rigging.
 
they look good insitu tho'
 
B.E.

CaptCraig, Ferit, Mort, Sjors and BE - thanks gents for the continuing support.
 
Some slow but steady progress, finally getting a chance to try the various different things that I've thinking about for the last month or more:
 
Have one carronade attached with breech rope.  Unfortunately my seized knot ended up looking more like a baguette than a knot after all the manhandling, hopefully this will get a little easier with practice.  I'll probably play with this some more to get final placement so it looks natural.
 
Made up a couple of hooks and attached to a double and single 3mm block to see how this would look.  Hooks are made from the small 0.3mm brass etch eyebolts bent to shape.  Once rigged, managed to get one of the crew to test things out - thumbs up.  Pretty happy with the way my first carronade is shaping up.
 
I'm probably going to frap the tackle falls around the blocks as per current practice on HMS Victory rather than cheese them on the deck - no Admirals inspection for me...
 
As always, suggestions welcome.
 

The galley stack was quite straightforward. I constructed it out of a single 3mm x 3mm strip of lime, shaped according to the drawings in Goodwin and painted black. I drilled and filed out a hole for the actual funnel, but it's barely noticeable...I cut and stained a 6mm x .5mm piece of lime for the base and wrapped some pinstripe tape around it to simulate an iron band that Goodwin shows just below the outlet. Here it is.
 

 
I was a little worried about the pumps but they ended up not being too difficult to make. I used 2mm x 2mm lime, with a section filed out at the end for the pump bracket, and 3mm x .5mm lime (shaped) for the handle. Here is a shot of some of these parts beside the kit-supplied metal part.
 

 
I used a 4mm dowel for the pump barrel. I drilled a hole in the side for the spout, which I made from a piece of brass rod. I drilled another hole in the top and painted the interior black to simulate a well. A bit of pin stripe tape wrapped around the top simulates an iron band, and a small piece of wire set in the well and propping up the handle completed the assembly. Here is a comparison with the Corel part....
 

 
....and here are mine installed on deck....
 

 

 
hamilton

Feels like a long time since I've made a post.  With a bit of focused effort all 16 carronades are ready for final assembly (last cannon is getting close), I'm taking maybe a rather convoluted approach but hoping it will work OK.  The pedestals are all attached to the deck, but I'm leaving the slides unattached for now so I can rig the breaching ropes off the ship.  It also give me a chance to align the elevations individually using the small elevation screws before attaching the turning handles.  I'm not sure of the correct elevation for these, but think it would make most practical sense to have a small gap at the top of the gunport as I've tried to achieve.
 
I'll leave off the deck fittings until everything is rigged to hopefully make this task as easy as possible.  Think I'm finally homing in on the approach to the rigging which I suspect will be the next never-ending task, but hope not.
 

 
 
 
 

Thanks Popeye.   Now here’s the rest of it.
 
I did not like this boat when I started it but the more I built the more it grew on me.  I titled it the Malabar Jr.  but I modified it so much that it is no longer a Malabar Jr. it’s just a yawl, Y’all.
 
First the profile.

 
And a bow shot.

 
The foredeck

 

 
And the cockpit.

 
Bob