bhermann

That's some nice looking work, Dave. I like the figure and think he adds interests. is he trimming the peak halliard? Bob

Next I attached the rudder and the bobstay plates. To simulate the bolts for this I simply drilled holes through the brass strips and into the wood, then glued brass wire into the holes, cut it off, and filed it down. The upper plate has its wire inserted and trimmed, the bottom plate is in progress. A view from the bow with the links that will anchor the bobstays. BTW a coat of paint goes over the work after everything is set up. A couple of more turnbuckles ready to go. Bob

After adding all these lugs and bands, I had to make up some turnbuckles to attach to them. It all starts with this jig to help make them a consistent size. The band is soldered closed, filed narrower, and holes are drilled in both ends. Eyes are then soldered into either end after being cut to length. Here is a turnbuckle attached to its staple. Bob

Hi Floyd - hopefully this will be useful to folks, and they won't have to wade through all those posts to see information they can use. Next up was the bowsprit - and my introduction to silver soldering. Russ's tutorial on the subject was my starting point, and Russ was willing to answer all the questions I had along the way. First pic - drilling holes in a band for the lugs that will go there. Then a "pin" is filed into the end of a brass strip to be inserted into the hole. The completed pin is then placed into the hole ready for applying a dab of solder paste Here is a band with some of it's lugs filed and with holes drilled for their attachments - cound be a turnbuckle or a shackle. One band with one lug attached test fit on the Bowsprit. Bob

Next up was adding various eye-bolts, fair-leads, blocks, belaying pins and rings along the rails and stanchions. If I had it to do again, I would have done this before adding all the deck furniture. Here are a few representative photos: You'll note that the eyes were originally black. After looking at photos of the real thing, I changed them to white. Bob

Thanks for providing this, Danny. I'm sure it will help a lot of folks. In step 3, in the dialog box that pops up, it is possible to select multiple pictures for uploading in one pass, either a list of sequential files by clicking the first file in the list, them pressing the Shift key while clicking on the last file in the list, or by holding the Ctrl button and clicking on individual files in the list. I don't know what the limit is, I have done as many as 6 in one pass. This is one more advancement of the new MSW over the old, and I like it a lot! Bob

One other tip I received was about using paper to repair broken wood parts. Several of the "experts" told me about this possibility. While trying to fit one of the cast stanchions onto the main fiferail, I snapped the rail right at the pre-drilled hole for the stanchion. I glued the two pieces back together, then glued a piece of paper onto the top and another to the bottom of the assembly. Then reattached the stanchion and here is the assembly being trial fitted on deck. After painting the whole thing white, the paper became invisible and it is impossible to see in the finished product. There is a photo in my previous post that shows how it finished up. Bob

Thanks, Russ and Jim, for stopping by and for your kind words. The decal issue appears to be fairly common - I have been able to help out a few people with it based on my experience. Next thing up was building deck furniture. I started at the bow and worked my way back. I think things got better as I went. If I had it to do over again, I would have a more uniform approach to the various assemblies - it was a learn as you go sort of thing. One of the things I learned is that a hair blowdryer can be used to loosen PVA. Here are the first and second attempts to attach the fore skylight. What can I say, I counted the wrong number of planks from the CL when I did the first attempt I got a great tip from Jim Lad on building the grate the helmsman stands on to steer the ship. On Bluenose there are no crossing slats, just parallel ones. Here is the raw material for the job. 1/64" pieces cut longer than the final product. Take all pieces and glue spacers between the end. Then cut one end off and glue a piece across the top. Cut the other end and glue a cross-piece there. The piece installed beside the wheelbox. Overall shots of the Foredeck, the Quarterdeck, and end-to-end.

Next up "logically" would be the nameboards. I printed up some decals by scanning the detail from the plan, changing the color from black to yellow in MS Paint, then printing them on clear inkjet decal paper. The only problem is that when the decal gets applied to the black background, the yellow disappeared completely. Try #2 - thanks to advice from Floyd - was to reprint the decal with a black background and apply that onto a piece of wood that is painted white. Here is the final result glued in place. Bob

I am going to go out of order for the next two entries. If I approached this build in a logical manner, this would have been next. However I spent time over the next couple of years fretting over these details before I was ready to move on. Here is the process for adding the scrollwork at the bow - an abbreviated version as I don't seem to have a lot of photos. I scanned the section of the plan that showed the detail. I taped a piece of white trasfer paper to the back the design and then attached both pieces to the hull in the correct place. I then traced over the drawing to transfer the white marking to the hull. Then the tracing was removed and I used a yellow artists marker to draw the design by hand on the hull. Bob

Now on to painting the hull. First step is to prime the whole thing and draw on the waterline. My waterline marker did not work very well. Those heavy Cisco study guides did a terrible job of holding the pencil steady. (I've seen tips since that talk about poking a pencil through both sides of a styrofoam cup - I imagine that would work much better.) Then mask the top side of the waterline using my favorite tape - Tamiya tape. Then paint the red - it took about six light coats, sanding between coats and using a brush. Then mask the bottom the hull, overlapping the white a little to provide the stripe at the waterline. I painted the top side of the hull black, although I have since read that "midnight blue" might be more accurate. After taking a closer look at the last photo and staring at the hull for a couple of days I decided that the waterline dropped at the bow and needed to be fixed so... I sanded the bow area of the waterline back some, them masked to put in the white stripe (the tape higher up on the hull is for the yellow stripe that is at the level of the cove). and the white is painted. Following that, the black was masked and painted, then the red. By the way, the yellow stripe for the cove took about 10 coats to cover over the black. Since then I have received advice to put a coat or two of grey primer down first to reduce the number of coats needed overall. The next photo is out of sequence but shows the yellow stripe. Bob

Next up - a section of the cap rail is shaped and added. The piece to be used for this section. First I shaped the scarphs to match either end. Then I pinned the piece to the rail to trace the curve of the hull on it. Here is the piece with the line drawn of it. I cut off some excess and sand down to the line and check fit. Then the outside curve is copied to the inside edge and the inside curve is formed. I simply used a pencil, controlling the spacing by hand. Finally after all the rails are done, here is the final result. Bob

Elia - it's kind of fun to revisit your work on this ship. I love the lines on Arethusa and your excellent clean work on her. Looking forward to the rest of catching up! Bob

I am going to start with adding the scuppers. At the time I remember being thrilled by figuring out any way to do this at all. I hope it may help someone down the line. I recall that the hull planks were 3/16". I found that using a 1/8" plank allowed the foredeck and quarterdeck scuppers to be cut from either side of a single plank. I then added a 1/16 plank above to complete the job. I was able to do this as my plan was to paint the hull. It would probably look strange on a natural wood hull. First thing to do is mark the 1/8" plank with the location of the stanchions. On Bluenose scuppers were located on both side of the stanchions. Refer to the plans for where they start and end. Lay the plank on the plan and mark the edge. Next tape the port and starboard planks together and transfer the marks to the other plank. I used a small file to cut out the scuppers, then attached the plank to the ones below them. Then lay the 1/16" plank above the "scupper plank" to close off the holes on the quarterdeck. Finally the rest of the stanchions can be installed using the scupper locations and the markings as a guide. This was done in April 2008. Bob

Hi Kip - it's good to see that you haven't forgotten about "Old Blue". I look forward to the time you pull her back out of the closet and onto the workbench! Bob

Russ - good to see you back onboard. I am just catching up after being away for the weekend. Your work continues to be something to aspire to and to enjoy. Bob

Good to see you back at it Dave. I can't remember, did you run a boltrope arout the sails for tlacing the mast hoops? Bob

It's good to see so many of my old friends getting back on board here at MSW. I haven't figured out exactly what I am going to do for history yet, but I'll start by sharing a link that has been very useful to me in researching many of the details I have included in my build: http://www.gov.ns.ca/nsarm/virtual/bluenose/default.asp?Language=English Some of the photos at this site have been very helpful for my process. I started the build in September 2007, and the log started the following August, with the first photo I had taken in March 2008. Thanks, Bob

Welcome back everyone! I will get this restarted in a couple of days when I am back in town. In the meantime please PM me if you have a copy of any part of my log from before. The name change is due to my fat fingers when trying to register. Thanks to Chucks fine work, I was able to retrieve my old name! Now I can move forward without getting confused about who I am! There are three main goals in doing a build log for me. 1) it helps keep me motivated from time to time when the doldrums strike. 2) It is a great place to bounce ideas off people and get some great advice. I may not always go that way, but I consider everything very carefully even when I don't follow it. 3) It is my hope that sharing my issues and pitfalls may help someone else along the way. So here goes: Bluenose log 2.0 Thanks, Bob