schooner

It does come with planking, albeit a bit on the small size (.02 X 3/32) because of the scale and yes I would like to plank it, ideally the whole hull, including the inside of the bulwarks, but if that is too ambitious I'll just do the wales on up.

David - Glad to have you following along. I may need your advice when it comes to planking. That is an impressive list of completed models, I'm sure a solid hull build would be easy for you. Kevin - that is an incredible build of your St Nectan trawler! If I were crazy enough to try something at that scale I would have to go for something 8-10 ft long so I could sleep in it after my wife threw it, and me, out of house. I finished up the preliminary stuff that has to be done prior to making sawdust. The half hull lines have been cut out and pasted to cardboard, as have templates to shape the bow and stern and an overall template from the side view on the plans. There are some discrepancies between the bow/stern templates and the overall template, enough that to get them to fit at their specified station lines I would have to remove a lot of wood in some areas and add it in others. I decided to go with the overall plan and just use the bow & stern templates to guide shaping but not length on the model. The station lines, waterline, and caprail locations have been marked on the hull, as has the centerline (always more guesswork than technique for me but It looks OK). I'm going to have to build up the stern area with Bondo in order to get the proper shape and then it will be time to break out the electric sander and get to work. Note from further along in the build: As you shape the hull DO NOT sand the top of the bulwarks - after thinning my bulwarks I did a lot of measuring for the placement of the gunports and found that the height of the bulwarks, with the exception of the last 2-3 inches back aft, is spot on for their final height above the gun deck so my advice is to leave the tops alone at this point.

Kit Contents Upon opening the box the first thing that jumps out is the hull. It looks to be about 90-95% pre-carved which is great because hull-shaping is my least fun part of a build. The hull is carved down to the gun deck which leaves the option of leaving some planking off on the main deck to give a view of the gunlock - not sure yet if I will take that option. The hull can be planked or just painted - I'll try to plank it although it has been at least 10 years since I've planked a model - at least this one is small. There is a ton of strip wood, dowel and scribed decking. When I inventoried the kit I took the time to bundle together the various sizes of strip wood and label them - worth your while since some of them are very close is size and are very difficult to tell apart by eye. There is a nice PE fret which, thank God, includes a stern piece with all of the cabin window included - trying to build square windows that line up properly is beyond my talents. There is a lot of britannia metal fittings to include guns, deck furniture, blocks, deadeyes, cleats and lots of other stuff. A package of cordage and netting is included. The 57 page instruction book is full of photos and diagrams, and it includes tips on HOW to do things, including a good discussion on how to shape the hull. This is something not always found in advanced kits. Bluejacket rates this kit as "Advanced", 9 of 9 on their skill level rating, requiring "prior experience with more complex kits." This kit would not be a good first model for anyone, but if you have several kits under your belt, particularly involving planking and complex rigging then you could probably handle this one even if you have not tried a solid hull kit before but it would be best to call Bluejacket and talk to them about it. There are 2 sheets of plans including a rigging plan. Last but not least there is a set of flags and the quarterdeck cloths.

I'm going to be building a model of the Continental Navy Frigate ALFRED using Bluejacket's solid hull kit. The ALFRED was one of the first ships commissioned into the Continental Navy in 1775. Converted from a new merchant ship she was John Paul Jones' first ship. I picked this kit because I've never done a 3-masted ship model before, and as much as I would love to build a clipper ship I simply don't have room for it, or to be more precise, as far as my wife is concerned there is not enough room in our house for both me and a large cased sailing ship model. Bluejacket's ALFRED meets my needs perfectly because the completed model is only about 18 inches long and 13 inches high but is fully detailed and it will fit on one of my bookcase shelves. I need to point out that this kit is NOT a good choice for a first build. BlueJacket uses a 1-9 scale to rate the complexity of their kits and this one gets a solid "9". Before choosing this kit you should have experience working with a solid hull kit and also with sailing ship rigging - this one has as much as a clipper ship kit but on a hull that is only about 1/3 as long so the rigging it will be an adventure. If you think you might like this one I encourage to call BlueJacket and talk to them - they are very helpful and can assist you in your decision. My next post will show the kit's contents.

Great job!!! It has been a real pleasure (and a trip down memory lane) to watch this come together. The model is awesome, as is the base and case.

Jim, I drilled holes in the keel before glueing it in place, put the rod thru the keel so about 1/4 inch was projecting thru the top of the keel, put some pencil lead on the end of the rod pieces and pressed the keel into position, drilled into the hull at the pencil marks (more than 1/4") and then glued the keel in place -pressing the rod pieces into their holes. I could have drilled the holes thru the keel, glued it in place, drilled into the hull and then pressed the rods thru the keel and hull but I wanted to put as little pressure on the keel as possible. Holes/rod were about 1/16".

Simply amazing .....

Mike, An interesting fact about the ship SS Robert E. Peary is that of the more than 2700 Liberty Ships built she held the record for the shortest building time - 4 days, 15 hours from keel laying to launching! Of course it was a publicity stunt with a lot of prefabrication work and unlimited manpower but still that is an amazing accomplishment. I suspect that record has never been broken for any large ship built since. Below is a link to a 1-hour wartime movie about the shipyard where the Peary was built. If you advance it to the 9 minute 20 sec mark it will show the construction and launching of the Peary. Pretty impressive. Here's the link: (Link doesn't work - see next posting below - that one does)

Thanks Nic! My next one from y'all (as we say down here in NC) will probably be the ALFRED.

Lobster Pots and Done! The kit provides a mini-kit for 3 lobster pots, with strip wood, nylon mesh and line included. I stained the strip wood before assembly the glue wouldn’t prevent the stain from penetrating. I had some black florist’s mesh on hand so I used that in lieu of the kit’s white mesh and I substituted some larger line I had on hand. The pots went together without a problem - the floats are scratched from plastic. The name letters are stick-on vinyl lettering for my granddaughter’s name. The home port lettering are dry transfers from the kit So with the addition of the pots this build is done. The “Pros” for this kit as I see them are: As advertised, this is a good kit for a first time solid hull build, there is enough shaping to learn how to do it but it is not too complicated Size - This kit will easily fit on a bookshelf Details - just enough and the ones provided are not too delicate to stand up to dusting so this model really does not need to be cased. This build is 99.9% out of the box, the only scratch details I added were the lobster pot floats and the protective stripping on the hull under the pot davit (a lot of boats have them and I thought it would make it look a little more “lobster-boaty”) No “Cons” as far as I am concerned. Altogether an easy and enjoyable build.

Thanks Chuck! A compliment from Dear Leader is greatly appreciated.

Detailing Now that the painting is done things are moving along pretty quickly. Some of the interior details include the engine cover, instrument panel, engine controls etc. The instructions call for mounting the compass and engine controls on the dash after the windows are installed but it is pretty cramped up there under the roof so I put them in earlier so I could reach thru the window openings to position them. The gages are just a photo from the internet downsized and covered with acetate. When I inventoried the kit upon receiving it I noted that there was sheet plastic for the window - I just assumed it was acetate but it is actually 1/16 inch plexiglass which looks a lot more realistic. It is cut to shape using the window cutouts saved for that purpose. The plexiglass can be cut with a saw to rough shape and then sanding to its final dimensions. They do not have to fit perfectly because the joints will be covered with mahogany strips.

Taner, you have an interesting build going on here. I have never seen bulkheads like the ones in this kit - should make a very nice model. Keep up the good work.

Nice work Keith, it's a pleasure to see this come along. WRT one of your earlier posts regarding the cannon, I'm pretty sure that was a boat howitzer, small enough that it could be hoisted into a boat and carried ashore with a landing party and then moved around on land by hand. If you have every watched a Navy football game on television, they have one that they fire after every touchdown. They are solid brass and look good - as does your model. Keep up the good work.

Painting It’s been a while since my last post but it is not because I have not been doing much - it is just that painting this thing is a slooooow process. The kit provides most of the needed colors (the primer supplied is white, not gray, so the cockpit deck was painted with my own primer). The brand provided for all of the colors is True North Precision Enamels, a brand I was not familiar with. For anyone who builds this kit my best advice for painting is if you are good with a airbrush (I’m not) use it. If you brush on the paint as I did make sure to thin it and be patient. It takes about 5 coats to cover white primer and the first 3 look really bad with lots of bleed thru and brush marks. Coats 4 and 5 look a lot better. The paint is also relatively slow to dry so doing 5 coats of each color explains why this took me so long. The white boot topping is kit-supplied pin striping tape. I followed the painting sequence in the instructions and they seemed the most logical way to go about the painting. I did deviate from the kit instructions in the following areas: There are 2 colors of green supplied, both are supposed to be mixed with white or each other to match the colors on the real-world RED BARON. Since I am not building the RED BARON but a generic lobster boat I did not bother mixing the paints - if you do your greens will look different from mine. I used gloss Krylon red enamel spray paint on the hull because I wanted some gloss as some relief from all the rest of the flat paint. That may not be “realistic” but I like the look and since the model will not be cased it will be easier to dust. The instructions recommended using the pin stripe tape to mark the waterline for painting. I did not use it for that, preferring some Tamiya masking tape I had on hand. Next up will be the lettering and then the addition of the details which should go pretty quickly.

Should be a great build, looking forward to following along.

Looks to be a great looking build

Nice looking Pigs and Otters!