yvesvidal

Hi Everyone, I hope you are all well. Thank you very much for the Comments and Likes. The bulkheads at the fore and aft ends of the main deck have been sided with 1/32" horizontal edge glued strips of 5/64" AYC. The sliding doors were glued to the siding and then everything was painted with Vallejo Model Air White Grey (71.119). 
 

 
 

 
 

 
 

 
 

 
The chafing planks were finished to the forward end.
 

 
The bulwark planking was done next. There is a stanchion in there so there was a lot of measuring and cutting
 

 
 

 
 

 
 

 
 

 
 

 
 

 
These areas had to be completed before the Main Deck House could be installed. The bulwarks were airbrushed and except for a few attachment points  she is ready for the deck house and the sub deck.
 

 
 

 
Hope to see you soon!

I just finished planking the stern. Here is before applying the wide planks:

 
The short, wide planks added to the stern:

 
I will be able to start sanding. I want to stain the hull to accentuate the variations in the planks.
 
-- Michael

I finished up the small planking. The instructions said 13 rows, but mine didn't quite cover the bottom of the bow:

 
  I added a 14th row, so under the bow they would make a better transition to the flat bottom:

 
  Here's the wide bottom planks. I used them full length, since they won't show. On the sides, I used shorter strips, and staggered the joints, to be more realistic. On the bottom, I did stagger the stern-ward ends.
  [I have filled the narrow gap on the left. I am currently finishing the wide planks on the curved stern. Almost done.]

 
-- Michael

Mike --
  Thanks.
  The instruction booklet is only 12 pages, and 6 pages just deal with the hull. A lot of pictures of that process, and good directions.

 
  Six pages for everything else. Doesn't sound like enough, but I haven't got there yet. Small type, so it probably says more than it looks like.
  There are 5 large sheets of well-labeled/detailed plans, so, they should be easy to follow, just from the illustrations and notations for the parts.

Started the rudder work today. Before freeing the rudder from the wood sheet that it was laser cut into, I tapered the rudder fore to aft by nearly 1/16" each side. Actually I milled the taper by securing the rudder blank to my mill with a 1/16" plate lifting the fore side of the blank - this way I tapered off ~ 1/16 by the aft edge of the rudder. The blank was flipper over and a 1/8" plate was used to lift the blank - this way I could mill a taper that reduced the aft edge on this side also by 1/16".

Next the rudder was freed from the blank and additional shaping / fitting was done. The fore edge is now rounded off a bit (may round it a little more), and the rudder post is a cylinder as it meets the hull. Minor height adjustments needed to be made for the rudder to fit close to the stern post. Soon the top will be painted black and the rest coppered.

Just a comment about the instructions associated with the rudder installation. I hope I haven't missed something (I search for rudder in the PDF of the instructions for rudder several times); but there only seems to be one picture / paragraph dedicated to this part of the build:

From the picture, I can see that the fore edge of the rudder has been rounded, and it also looks like the rudder has been tapered. My concern is that, I can't find any text in the instructions (nor an illustration in the plans) that speaks to shaping of the rudder. There should be some instruction / notes in the instructions given that this is a 'beginners kit'.
 
Going back to the picture, the rudder attachment method is clever and should make for a nice mount. I'm definitely going to try out the included photo-etched parts here. The gudgeons are combined and spaced on a single piece of brass; however the three pintles are separate pieces. There are three holes in the gudgeon piece that need to align with holes in the pintles in order for the described pinning to work. It would have been nice, if the instructions had included a few words on how to get the photo-etched parts lined up so the pinning went as expected.

Finished coppering the hull and now have extra respect for those modelers that copper huge warships!
 
Still need to contour the rudder before doing a little more plating.

Several more frame pairs added, moving at a good pace now I’m in the groove.
 

 

Finished installing the eyebolts, cleats, and pin rails along the inner bulwarks.
 

 
I'm skipping around a bit compared to the construction sequence provided in the instructions. The rudder was supposed to be the next assembly, but I have no intention of hanging that until I'm ready to mount the hull to its pedestal (which I don't have yet). Rudders just beg to be knocked loose if they're hung too early.

I continued a little on the bridge house.
The skylight, the flaps and the closures painted, glued the window frames and cut out the openings for the doors at the bridge house.
 

 

Combings fitted to the inside of the deck openings.  In the manual, it says that this is for positioning the structures, and also to keep water out.  But there isn't enough wood in the kit to finish the job!  Since I don't care about water, I shorted two sides on the stern as you can see.
 
Drilled all of the portholes and the mooring port openings, as well as the hawse holes in the bow for the anchors -- the latter have external fittings as shown.
 
Regards,
David

Stem, Stern, and Keel Construction
I began by gluing the two keel strips to the stem and stern post assemblies.

Once the glue had fully dried, I added the additional pieces to both the stern and stem. I believe these form the rabbet for the planking.  A quick note: the instructional diagram show two small parts (#31) meant to be attached to the top of the stem. I may have missed them—old eyes—but I couldn’t find these parts on any of the sheets. So, I simply fabricated them using leftover material from the sheet the other parts came from.


Now that the keel is laid, I decided to do some preliminary planning for the propeller shaft and motor layout. The stuffing tube is 8 mm in diameter and approximately 9 inches long, though it can be cut to any length as needed.
Initially, I was planning to shorten the shaft to about 5 inches, which would position the motor just above the #6 bulkhead. This configuration is shown in the first photo below. The black marks on the tape indicate the top edge of the bulkheads at the ship’s centerline.
However, I’m now considering using the full 9-inch shaft without cutting it. In that case, the motor would sit above the #8 bulkhead, as shown in the second photo. The only concern I have with the longer shaft is the potential for increased vibration.
 
I’d appreciate any advice or suggestions on which setup might be better—especially in terms of stability, performance, and vibration.  Or if there's another option I should consider.  Thanks and thanks for the likes.


 

And immediately, I have the next nerve-wracking construction phase ahead of me.
But I was particularly looking forward to this part. I’m starting to incorporate a miniature marvel of 3D printing technology into my model.
The 50-foot steam pinnace. https://forums.kitmaker.net/images/emoji/google/star_struck.png?v=14
But first, I have to get it into the cradles and onto the struts.
I made a jig for that.
 

 
One each for the starboard and port sides. The stripes aren’t exactly evenly spaced on the two sides, and I have to take that into account.
 

 
I now glue the cradles onto the gauge and can then align and change them easily without damaging the now quite delicate Mikasa.
 
  For example, the distance to the access to the higher deck is important, as the pinnace’s rudder extends quite far out. And toward the bow, I have to pay attention to the funnel rigging.     I have the same problem with the cradles as I did with the cutter amidships.
They don’t fit where they were originally printed. And besides, only three were planned. But the pinnace rests on four struts, so I need one more cradle. It’s nice that four boats will be hanging from the davits at the stern later, so I can repurpose the cradles.
Then I took out the profiles and adjusted them. It’s better.     And so the first pinnace could be placed in its cradles and placed on the deck for testing. You can see a faulty print in the hull. This has already been claimed, and I’m getting a new one.
In front of the boat, you can see a thin round rod. This is supposed to simulate the funnel rigging. You really have to think of everything. At least you should try to, so you don’t end up on your backside in the next step. https://forums.kitmaker.net/images/emoji/google/worried.png?v=14
 

Mark,
  Thank you very much!
 
Half of the turrets are fully assembled with railings, handles and ladders now:

The shaping of those railings is tricky.
 
They still need painted and sealed.

I had planned to build something else on my return to this corner of the forum but it turns out I am short of PE bits and now I think I want to try and find some resin parts too. So this is hopefully a relatively quick build for the interregnum.
Trumpeter calls her HMS Huron but my initial reading suggests she should really be a HMCS ship being part of the Canadian Navy. And so she is referenced in my books.

The camouflage scheme on the box art drew me to this one, curiously the painting guide has something different 

Ive also seen a Sovereign Hobbies illustration showing a four grey shade scheme.  My book British and Commonwealth Warship Camouflage offers another variation based mostly on Western Approaches green. This one is quite unusual and might be the final pick.
 The box is misleadingly large, inside the hull is not exactly filling the box.

This is not going to use up a lot of shelf space.

I’m going to try to build this up and paint in pieces to avoid some horrendous masking, we’ll see how that goes.
Thanks for looking in.
alan
 

Today I achieved some very important and daunting steps, but firs things first.
I finished the front section with all the parts added for the axle, brakes, steering and suspension. Some were a bit fiddly, but in all, the fit was great with that delicate section. It´s also quite robust. The axle screws are loose by design and therefore hanging on the pic.





Next was the daunting part, the closing of the main body. There are so many intersecting parts, that even test fitting is a time and nerve consuming affair. Finally I got it done and everything fitted with a tiny bit of tweaking here and there. The floor pan and body are hold together with eight screws.





Finally, I test fitted the engine section to the body and luckily everything fit as well.



Cheers Rob

After all the body work, now it´s all about subassemblies and not to damage the polished body with scratches or CA fingerprints.

The polished tub went finally onto the floor pan and got screwed there permanently. I further added some details like the pedals.



The rear of the tub received the gas tank with all the needed attachments.



Then I finished the front suspension sans the steering. Most delicate were some turned pins and the intersecting tubes, which hold the nose in place later. There was a need for absolute precision, to prevent gaps from the monocoque to the nose part.



Cheers Rob

Crazy...crazy....It is time to call the White Coats.... !!!
 
I have been thinking about the railing of the rear quarter deck. If the planking was done in a curved and harmonious way with stealers and all the necessary stuff, the shape of the planking would follow the curvature of the railing. That is a view of the mind and it does not happen too often.
 
So, after postponing this stage for a while, I decided today to jump into it and go "Crazy".
 
The first thing to do is glue that nice strip (not included in the kit) that is supposed to delineate the hull from the railing. That is done after many dry runs and positioning of the freezes and ornaments. The rear of the hull is painted with that rare greenish blueish color described in the Monograph and that was in fashion at that era, in the French harbors. The strip is then positioned, secured and glued with liquid CA (1-3 seconds), carefully dropped from the top. The glue runs gently following the strip, without leaking underneath. I have used that technique with the HMS Bellona and the strips are still holding fine.
 

 

 
Another final checking that all the ornaments are fitting between the two strips..... And then we go crazy..... Using my Dremel with a cutting disk, I am butchering all the planking and framing above the top strip: 
 

 
You have to be super careful and hold your Dremel with two hands to prevent an irrecoverable slippage of the cutting disk....
 

 
This is it. Now, we have to sand to bring everything to the level of the top strip.
 

 
From that point, I will install a flat rail that will be my base for building the decorative railing comprised of freezes and other CNC carved parts. The original ship (and the kit) uses the frames as holders for the railing. My model will not have that. I think I can live with its absence.
 

 

 
A little bit of painting, to make things more elegant: 
 

 

 
I kind of like that deep cobalt blue/green. Below is the other side, which has not been butchered yet. You can clearly see that the planking would never align with the elegant curves of the stern.
 

 

 
To make your mouth water and as an appetizer of what to come (it will be a while...), here is what it will look like: 
 

 
The White Coats have arrived and I must go....
 
Yves

Great kit and beautiful trawler. I will be following your build log. My brother has the kit but never started it.
 
Yves

It's time that I update this thread and carry on where I left off some time ago. Currently the project is in a bit of a holding pattern, while still on the books it had to take a back seat to my logging truck rebuild, work and a few other things requiring my time; not a lot has happened in the last 14 months. However prior to this hiatus the project did see its first water test, one which turned out much better than anticipated.
 
To carry on from my last post work was done to mount the motor and steering gear inside the hull:
 

 

 

 

 
With this done, the next step for was to do a bit of experimenting. A concern was the adhesion of body filler, styrene plastic and fibreglass and it's differing rates of expansion when subjected to extreme temperature swings. As luck would have it, we were expecting to see -45C in the coming weeks so a few test rigs were made. These rigs had a defined profile, one that I could compare to a go / no-go gauge and mimicked my hull construction. One was lined with fibreglass mat and body filler applied over this and the other smoothed with filler and then covered with fibreglass mat. Once the fibreglass and body filler were cured and sanded these two rigs were toss out into a snowbank to freeze. After a week they were brought into the house, twisted, dropped and kicked and then placed near the toasty warm wood stove. With a temperature swings of about 70 degrees no distortion or separation was noted; both good news for my logging truck and the tug.
 
Here are the rigs after their torture in the cold, they aren't pretty:
 

 

 

 
I am not too sure which route to go for glassing the hill. With body filler over the glass sanding is a breeze, however body filler will absorb water over time and any scratches in the paint system may allow this to occur. With glass over body filler sanding will be a bit more tedious but the hull less susceptible to damage. In regards to strength, I believe both to be roughly the same strength, what are your thoughts?

Coppering proceeds smoothly.

Further progress made. I'm ready to copper the hull. 

Do it!
 
Here's my 1:96 Phantom (2007) - safe, but not cased, on a shelf for now:

The copper was not treated in any way; it is a bit darker now but still surprisingly shiny.
 
Waterline is a little more wavy then my current iteration! I see that I used the copper tape right off the spool so the plates are 1/4" high and I did not have a separate belt for the aft portion of the hull - apparently I did not follow the Chuck Passaro Phantom Practicum very well.
 
I still remember struggling with adding hooks to the very small blocks amongst other challenges. That kit was really was on the small side for a first build and I am glad that the larger 1:48 scale model is now available. 
 

Thanks @Danstream & @Landlubber Mike for your kind comments and for the likes everyone.
 
After another session with masking tape, I have applied the faded ID stripes, looks black and a cream yellow in the photos , but in daylight they are more charcoal and a pale yellow.  The photo on post #5 you could say the stripes were white/black like "D-Day" ones; and Airfix's instructions say they "might" have been white, but comparing them to the white square on the leading edge of the wing (inner section with the number "86" on it) I have convinced myself they are faded yellow.  Anyway committed now! 😁
 
Getting close to gloss varnish and decal time! - thanks for looking in.

Stern seat and thwart now finished and installed.  Now time to drill some tiny screw holes in the 1/16” wide patinaed brass rubbing strip for the stems/keel.
 

 

 

Thanks to the community for prior build logs which helped me complete my hardest build to date.   It was hard.  It took way longer than I expected and it came out much better than I hoped.   The kit was very high quality with good instructions.   I wish the instructions had a link to this website which would have made things easier for me. I can see that this communities has a huge amount of experience and it shows!  Thanks for the help.  Here are some photos of the build.  By the way, I wish I had a Herreshoff 12 1/2 myself.  There is a nice size fleet near me on Shelter Island.   Personally I have a Rhodes designed Wood Pussy.  It sails great on the salt ponds near me but is lacking the size needed to be on the Peconic and is missing seats like the Herreshoff has.
 
Thanks,

Rob