bhermann

Thank you, Gil, for rebuilding this log. Your build is truly a treasure and to have lost it would have been a blow to our hobby. I guess none of us should be surprised by what we read in Johns post, it is nice to have some of the details filled in. My first recollection of your work was when you were working on Victorys gunport lids. There was a side by side photograph of the model and the real ship. I was amazed at the time that it was impossible to tell from the photo which was which, The level of precision and detail in the build is inspirational and I will continue to follow your work closely. BTW, I have lifted your splicing technique - it gave me a heads that there was actually a way to do rigging work that looked authentic and was accurate. I will continue to follow along here as you approach the completion of a very fine piece of work. Withe great appreciation and respect, Bob

The next thing is the linkage for the block that will be rigged to the throat halliard. I built the first one by adding the parts in place on the gaff. It was a pain to get the shackle installed through the links, so for the second one I assembled all the parts off the gaff, then installed the completed assembly. First there are a couple of links to make. The complete assembly is eye-link-shackle-link-eye. After that the eyes are glued to the gaff jaws. And finally a shot with the block installed. The parrell beads are beads I picked up at Michaels Craft store. Bob

Next up is the gaff jaws. These parts are provided in the wood billets for the kit. The first thing needed is to shape the jaws as they have a curve at the end. Since the supplied wood is a bit thicker than what is required it is a matter of drawing the profile on the side and sanding away the excess. Profile lines drawn on the jaw. One jaw has been sanded - the other has its profile drawn. The pieces are laid out on the plan for positioning. Then they are glued and clamped Then holes are drilled for the "bolts" and the rough ends are filed off. A hole is drilled through for the clapper and the clapper is installed. The wire will be trimmed and filed to finish up the job. Bob

The last chock pair is a little different. And much simpler - one on each side. Here are the blanks, the first chock clamped in place, and the finished product. I used the following jig to set up the bridles and blocks for the peak halliard rigging. It was another chance to use Gil's splicing technique - that is starting to come together, although there is still a struggle to keep the splices from bunching up. The first bridle in the jig: And the final result: You can see a band at the end of the gaff. I still haven't tied the block to it for the topsail sheet The bridles were done in June 2012. Bob

The next topic I'll cover is gaffs and booms. To give a feel for my somewhat erratic process, I started on these in November 2011 and was tying some blocks on a couple of days ago. In the meanwhile I have also spent time on masts and lots of bands. In short, doing an abbreviated log like this allows me to mask some of my scattered order of things. As I mentioned in an earlier post, all gaffs and booms (and the bowsprit) have one straight edge and the opposite side is tapered on both ends. It was important for me to keep track of that straight edge so bands, chocks, etc could be properly placed on the spar. I found a way to do this that was pretty simple and worked well for me. I taped the spar to a piece of paper and ran the edge of a pencil along one side. The resulting line marked the straight side quite well for me. Once the straight side was established, I could taper the opposite side based on the plans. I won't show this again as I covered it ina previous entry (and I didn't take a lot of repetitive photos of the process ). Working on the main gaff, there are a bunch of stop chocks that need to be installed to keep the bridles and blocks for the peak halliard from sliding down the gaff to the mast. I first tried to cut individual pieces and attach them to the gaff. I was unhappy with the result as the pieces were difficult to clamp and impossible for me to get lined up nicely. I thought about it and came up with the "chocks on a stick" idea. I marked a piece of stripwood with the location of the chocks and the carved some of the excess wood away. Here are the two sets in different states of carving. I them placed glue on the strip only where the chocks would remain, positioned the first strip and clamped it in palce with my favorite clamping tool. After gluing it looked like this: I then carved away the excess wood and was left with oversized chocks (you'll note that on is missing here, I was able to glue a single one in place more easily than a whole lot of them). I then followed the same process for the second set. Finally all the chocks were shaped using a file and a rasp and this was the result. Note: Russ suggested that I could have glued the chocks to the gaff with the individual pieces facing in and then just cut off the strip. That's why he is Master and I am just Grasshopper! Bob

Favorite hand tool? There are just too many choices. Hemostats, and optivisor are a couple that others have listed and that are right up there with me. I recently picked up cross-locking tweezers and it falls in the 'how did I live without this' category. My reason for buying them was to hold bands for soldering. They apply enough pressure to hold the edges together without collapsing the band when it gets heated. I quickly started using them to replace conventional tweezers for holding small parts. The number of incidents where that small part flies out of the tweezers and into space has been reduced significantly, leaving me more time to model and less time crawling around the floor looking for deadeyes! Bob

cb - thanks for taking the time to put some detail into this. As you say, getting the base correct will go a long way toward producing a good finished product. Emma is on my list of potential future build (if I ever feel up to a POF challenge. I will be following along with great interest. Bob

chouser - the old log will not be back in it's original form... in case you haven't heard, check out this link for details: http://modelshipworld.com/index.php?/topic/187-all-the-content-on-the-site-was-lost-we-need-to-start-from-scratch/ I did not keep a copy of the log and am trying to recreate as much of the build detail as I can, trying to focus on what I recall as being milestone moments or technical items of interest. If you have specific questions about something feel free to ask and I'll do my best to provide my thoughts on them. Are you building a Bluenose too? If so, I highly recommend starting a log of your own. It's a great way to get feedback and to motivate yourself to keep going. The gang here at MSW is very helpful and encouraging. Bob

Hi, Floyd. I will be watching this build we great interest. ALs Harvey is one of the dismal failures from my sordid past. Picked up as an impulse buy at Mystic Seaport, I managed to get the keel and bulkheads installed and the false deck attached. I them proceeded to first plank the hull with the material meant for the deck planking. I didn't know anything about wood at the time and the kit instructions read something like "the wood for first planking is so flexible you can tie it knots" so I grabbed the most flexible stuff in the box. I will watch your build and live vicariously through your reporting. Have fun, and use the ramin wood in the correct place Bob

Glad to have you stop by Alfons, I'll have to drop over and see what you are up to. There will be more updates concerning masts and other spars in the next day or two. Bob

For the symmetrical tapers I use a similar sanding technique (because I didn't trust myself to keep from removing too much material if I tried the "chuck the dowel in the drill" method I have read about. First I lay the spar on the plan and mark corresponding points on the mast and the plan. The I use the caliper to measure the width of the mast at one of the points and to transfer the width mechanically to the dowel. This spar has had several locations marked and transferred. Then into the vice for removing excess material as I did for the asymmetrical tapers. I do this in 4 different planes to form a square section which is then sanded round to finish up. And here is the result. The top of the mast will be shaped later to form the ball that belongs there. After shaping, staining and painting (and a bunch of other work) this is what they look like. Bob

JP - I'm glad to be of service - it is one of my "big 3" reasons for doing a log. Thanks for stopping by, Elia. I find that I am rediscovering things as I look back through the old photos. Dave - yeah, those sails are scaring the crap out of me. I have two different piles of cloth in the corner of the room waiting their turn... it's coming soon. I look forward to seeing your success story... And now a word on tapering spars. Bluenose has two different types of tapering going on... the traditional symmetrical, taper to a point type that is done on the topmasts, and an asymmetric, one side stays straight while the other narrows that is used on the lower masts, the gaffs, booms, and bowsprit. I am going to start with the second type. I am showing the mainmast, but I used the same process for all of these. First I lay the dowel on the plan and mark the final width at the end of the dowel and the spot on the dowel where the taper starts. Then I put the dowel into the vice with the section to be removed rising above the jaws. Once that is positioned, I sand everything off that is above the jaws until I am left with a flat side that gets wider at the end of the dowel. After this is done I carefully sand the flattened section until it is round all the way up the dowel again, taking care not to remove any material from the side that has no taper. The finished product for the main and foremasts looks like this: The masts just have a taper at one end. The other spars are tapered at both end (so they have a bowed profile when viewed from the side). This is done by applying the same technique on both ends, one after the other. Bob

Dave - Unfortunately only the photos survived - I am making up the posts as I go. Gerty - trying to do my part to keep up the site Now that the chainplates and shackles are made, it's time to install them on the ship. I borrowed the tools from Davids Sharpie Schooner log (has anyone seen David?). A pin vise and a pushing tool made from the brass strip material and filed to a point. First pushing through a test piece. Then it's time to make a jig. A piece of wood is marked with the locations where the chainplates go through the rail and holes are drilled along the line. Then the push tool is used to open them up and one of the plates is test fitted through it. The template is taped to the rail and holes are drilled through the rail, being careful to make sure the drill exits the bottom of the rail on the outside of the hull. The pointed tool is pushed carefully through followed by the chainplates then they are carefully bent to roughly match the hull contour. Next the plates are glued to the hull, the "bolts" (wire) are glued in, then they are trimmed and filed. The deadeyes and shackles are then glued in, and a coat of paint over all. And all deadeyes and chainplates are installed.

When I stain a soft wood - or any wood that I expect to be rather blotchy - I use a pre-stain wood conditioner and then stain. When I get to the point in my log reconstruction where I show the masts, you'll be able to see my results. I'm not sure if this is quite on-topic, but it seems like it might be headed that way. Bob

It's interesting to think about this. I consider the Internet to be the "Wild West" - when I put something out there, I lose control of it and what happens to it from there, so I don't put out things that I don't want the whole world to know about. I like the idea of license statement up front, but I suspect there would be no enforcement (nor would I expect any) so it would have more symbolic value than any practical purpose. Bob

Let's start by drilling holes in the ends of the chainplates for the "bolts". Then checking the fit of the deadeyes The ends of the chainplates are rolled over a drill bit - #73, I think. Then the end is soldered closed. Here are a mess of chainplates. Time to make some shackles for the deadeyes. First the jig to make sure all shackles are the same size. Put it into the third hand and solder the loops And here after straightening. Into the roundnose pliers for bending And wrapped around the deadeye. Next will be attaching the chainplates to the ship. Bob

My next topic will be the deadeyes. To research this I took a trip to Mystic and studied the L. A. Dunton, an American fishing schooner from the same era as Bluenose. I didn't set the chainplates on Bluenose flush with the hull. If I had it to do over again, I would make that attempt by adding material inside the hull while planking. Months after I did the chainplates, I saw the note on the plans that described the chainplates as being flush with the hull! I did OK with the shackles and shackle pins, and getting the chainplates through the top rail, but not setting them flush was a definite miss. Bob

Next up - bowsprit continuation. First shot shows the two bobstays complete, I cleaned up the ends by trimming them closer and gluing the loose ends to the line after this picture was taken. The guys were rigged in the same fashion. I used strands of speaker wire to simulate the footropes. Painted black and roughly shaped. Attached the footropes - Oh look, I cut the upper guy! Starting the stirrups - and my first experience with clove hitches. All the stirrups tied on. I used this "jig" to mark where to drill the holes for the jib stops. A couple of jib stops being placed and given a "natural" hanging look. The completed bowsprit rig. Bob

Hi, Rob - it's good to see you over here in our new home. I'm looking forward to your build moving forward. I don't consider it cutting corners with metal work. I suspect that paper bands are much better in scale than the brass strips I am using - I just get a little anal from time to time that metal parts should be modeled in metal - but not always. For example I am not using wire for the rigging, although I suspect Bluenose actually used wire. About the log, as I look back at the photos I have saved, I see that I really start to go all over the place with a little of this, some of that, then back to the first section, or something entirely different. Rather than recreate my order in detail, I am going to try to post things in a more logical fashion than I actually build them. In the real world at the moment I am adding hooks to blocks and attaching them to the gaffs with mousing. In the log recreation, I am going to list the rest of the bowsprit work next. First, the upper bobstay. I used the method Gil Middleton described in his Victory log to form splices. By using a blunt needle to probe the three strands in the rope, the end can be fed through the rope without splitting it. Then the thread end is passed through two more times to complete the splice, A spot of dilute PVA on the splice and let it dry. First shot is with the untrimmed ends still in place. The lower end is spliced and glued, the upper end has not been snugged up yet. The inner bobstay after trimming. The I moved on to the lower bobstay. These pictures show the flow a little better. The first shot shows the lower end spliced, glued and clamped while the glue dries. The next shot shows the upper end spliced and glued. The loose end of the rope is fed back through the lower eye and weighted with the hemostat while the glue dries on the upper end. If you look closely you will also see that I accidentally cut the inner bobstay. Ouch! I still don't have this splicing thing down yet. I'm hoping it will get better as I do more of it. Bob

Dave - thanks for the tip on drilling the deadeyes. I think you should do the same thing with the seizings that you do with the lanyards. If you leave the lanyards natural, leave the seizing natural too. I have to laugh about your ADD comment. I am getting to the point in my log recreation where I either have to follow the order I did things in, or put the rest of the steps in some sort of logical order. We do tend to get all over the place from time to time Bob

Thanks, Dave. I misread the post about size to be referring to the cathead, not the anchor. I need to be more careful. Bob

Hi Dave - I do have something that resembles a cathead in my bag - along with a couple of anchors, navigation lights, and what I think are a couple of bitts. At least it has the correct angle bent into it. About the size compared to the plan detail - most of the plan details are drawn 2x normal size so the actual piece should be smaller than the detail. In any case, I'd say you found the cathead - or at least one of them Bob

Dave - I think you found it. When I get near the kit again - probably Monday - I'll take a look to verify. There is definitely no bilge pump handle. I haven't done anything with the cat yet, but I was thinking I'd probably wind up scratching it. That chain link size looks pretty good to me... maybe a touch on the large size but pretty close. Bob

Hi Jamie. It's good to see you back. I think your approach will work fine and I am looking forward to you getting back under way. Bob

Wayne - Emma Berry looks like an interesting subject, one that I have been eyeing off and on for the past couple of years. I think it was Maurys who had an great build log on the old MSW. You may want to PM him if he doesn't chime in here for his opinion of the kit. As Adam says, those Model Expo sales seem to run in cycles so if you miss it this time, it should come around again. Bob