bhermann

While I'm on the machinery track I decided to work on mounting the windlass and gear train. The sprocket that came with the chain set is the right size for the counter shaft sprocket. Much better than the supplied part. The axle hole was too large though. I filled it with epoxy and drilled it to the correct size. Once painted it will look great.
 
There's some head scratching to be done getting the position correct. After scaling the drawing details and doing some calculations I came up with the following:

To check these dimensions I set the parts up on my bench and used double sided tape to hold them in place. Unfortunately the chain broke and I'll have to go back to chain repair before mounting on the ship. Here's what it looks like:

Hi Hermann,
 
That would require a 3-D printer. While they are quite inexpensive now and a wide range of programs are available, that would take away part of the fun and interest of building ship models. After all, why not say "3-D print the entire ship"? One could get super accuracy and detail with little effort.
 
But where is the challenge? Where is the skill? The sense of accomplishment? The creativity that comes from solving problems? That's like watching sports instead of playing sports.
 
I've certainly been tempted. It would be so much easier to get to a high level of detail. There would also be less satisfaction and enjoyment. I don't build models to simply produce. I build for the joy it brings me.
 
I spent two days figuring out the best way to build the skylight and building then painting it. When it was finished I was full of joy and rushed upstairs to show it to my wife whose reaction was, shall we say, underwhelmed. But she understood my joy and shared in my delight. I could have designed and printed that part in great detail in a couple hours but the enjoyment would have been proportionally less.
 
John

The skylight shown on the plans is, again, much different than the one in photos of the ship. I like the one in the photos. The one on the plans would more likely be found on a passenger ship than a working boat. Much to fancy. The one in the photos is easier to make. It also has the has a hinged lid. That will add more interesting detail to the model. Here's the one in the photo;

It's not clear what type of air vent is on the side. Could be a shutter or angled vents. Or even a round hole that simply doesn't show well in the photo. I decided to go with a round port as shown on the plans. Inconsistent I know. Builders choice!
 
A solid block was again used. Two pieces of scrap were glued together to get the height. Then the block was cut and sanded to size.
Because there will be an open top, it was necessary to cut out the interior partly as it will show. The drill press with a milling tool was used to hollow out the block. I didn't cut all the way through to retain strength.

The box was then shellacked, sanded and primed. Because all four sides and the top are being painted, holding the piece while airbrushing was a problem. The pieces are so small and light they blow away when hit with the airbrush. This was solved by using double sided tape to hold the work piece on some scrap that I could then hold with my hand while painting. This had the further advantage that I could turn it to the optimum angle for painting. The inside bottom was painted flat black. Then masked while the white was sprayed.

The top was made from scrap of the appropriate thickness. In the photo the top is a different color than the bottom. Given the trim color seems to be burnt umber, I used that for the top. Makes a nice contrast. 

While the paint dried I cut some small pieces of 3mm brass tubing for the airports and blackened it.

Next the coaming was glued to the bottom. I didn't bother with mitering as that detail would not be visible. I glued the coaming strip to opposite sides and trimed. then glued coaming to the remaining sides. After the glue dried it was masked, sanded and the dark gray color applied. Again the tape on a stick method was used for paint application.

A small brass wire was used for the prop holding the top open. The top was epoxied on for strength. The top is open just enough you can see the light from the airport. Here's the result...

Started today working on the fore gaff.  The kit comes with laser cut jaws.  I used the material originally supplied to assemble the dories as shims to center the jaw on the gaff.  Once assembled, I set this aside to let the glue dry.
 

 
I wanted to finish the bowsprit, or at least paint it and install it so I could eventually install the traveler block.   I originally installed the two strips of wood on either side of the center line of the bowsprit but was unhappy with how it turned out so I removed them and tried again.  In removing them, I did a little damage but I think I cleaned it up OK.  I contemplated scrapping and starting over again but decided it wasn't necessary.
 

 
While studying the drawings I discovered that I had yet to install the deadeyes on the ship's rails.  So I wrapped them in the 0.014" dia wire.  It was a little fiddly but went pretty well non the less.
 

 
I had some issues drilling holes and installing them properly.  I purchased a set of micro drill bits off Amazon and found "a deal".  However, they weren't the best quality and they broke pretty quickly.  So I started drilling with the correct size, broke it, switched to another size, broke it, etc. etc.  Also, because I hadn't installed the main rail and monkey rail with the accuracy required, I couldn't install the deadeyes in the proper locations on the external edge.  As such, I'm not sure if I will add the metal straps below the deadeyes.  It won't align properly and think it would look worse instead of adding more realism to the finished model.
 

 
 

Thanks for the feedback! Maybe the thinking was "outside the box", but the patience not so much. As my lost fingerprint testifies.
 
To answer your questions;
 
The steersman would have been facing forward both to see where the ship was headed and to view the compass which is on the roof of the deckhouse. Also there is usually a telltale at the top of the mainmast for wind speed and direction. If he were to stand forward of the wheelbox it would be awkward to reach behind to grasp the wheel.
The only convenient spot to work the wheel and see the compass would be behind the wheel or to the side of it.
 
Other photos where the deck around the wheelbox is visible do not have a grate. There would have been no point in other places anyway. These ships were about practicality first and foremost. Any decoration would be secondary. Remember, Bluenose was designed as a work boat.
 
An interesting observation is how the steering mechanism worked. If you look at the steering mechanism on sheet 4 of the Model Shipways plans you will see that it's a double screw drive with the leverage on the wheel side. A screw drive prevents rudder feedback from moving the wheel, while the wheel can easily move the rudder. This means that in open water the steersman could leave his post and help with other operations. Barring changes in wind or currents the ship would stay on course. It also means operating the wheel does not require great strength.
 
RetiredGuy did a wonderful job of producing a working scale steering mechanism. Check out his Bluenose.
 
John

There is a grate by the ships wheel for the steersman. I suppose this is to keep their feet dry when water is sloshing across the deck. The one in photos has what looks like 2 or 3 inch square holes.

The plans do not show much detail. Rather than try to create such small square holes I opted to buy some grate material. The smallest I could find was 1mm. This is bigger than scale but at least the holes will be square. My first thought was to have the notches interlock as the prototype probably did. This did not give a good appearance and would be too thick. A better effect is made by placing them side by side.

The strips are laser cut and there is an angle to the shape so that one side of the strip is thinner than the other. That can be seen in the photo above.
The thicker side was chosen as the detail will disappear at viewing distance with the thin side.
These were tricky to glue together. They are so light and tiny they tend to stick to anything that touches them. I experimented with a number methods. I got the best result by using double-sided tape to hold them in place while gluing. Cyno was used as I could use a pin to drop tiny amounts of glue on the joints. As usual it was pretty messy. The problem is to get it all in place before the cyno set.

Unfortunately, after all pieces were in place I touched it before the cyno had quite set. I then had a perfectly nice grate attached to the end of my index finger.
The physical stress of getting it off my finger would be too much for this fragile assembly. I glued a paper to the bottom of the grate with PVA. After that set, I went to work with alcohol and a scalpel. The paper gave it enough strength to get it off my finger with no damage to the grate and little to my finger.
I then glued the end pieces on and trimmed them to size. The next step was to gently scrape the paper off and clean out the holes.

The grate looks nice, though the holes are a little big.

 

Taking a brief break from tying ratlines and starting to make some the yards. Trying an experiment to see if this is easier than the way I made the yards on the Niagara. I start by marking the dowels that will become the yards, indicating the end of the yard, the iron band on the yardarm, and three lines at the center that defines the center itself and the iron bands that the trusses are attached to. I also marked the location of the holes that I need for the jackstay eyebolts.
 

 
I then went in and drilled all the jackstay eyebolt holes using my drill press (Santa was very good to me this year)
 

 
From there it was off to my mini-lathe to turn the yards. Of the first three, I think that the fore and main turned out fine (bottom and middle in the picture, but I'm going to bin the mizzen which is just a mess. It was half the diameter of the main and needed a gentler hand, I suspect.
 

 
A couple of things I learned. One is that I should have drilled the jackstay eyebolt holes larger, they often gotten filled in the process of turning the yard, to the point where I could barely or couldn't find them. I still think that drilling first is the right idea, I just need to actually make the hole a little bigger so it will survive the sanding. The other thing is that I really need to be careful about putting pressure on the yard with the sandpaper. One reason I'm binning the mizzen is that the narrow point between the yardarm and the unmodified wood snapped just as I was finishing up, and it was because I put too much pressure on. I still think that cutting the yardarms first is the correct move (it gives me a nice template to work against, but care is required.
 
Thanks for looking in,
George K
 

Added the mooring chocks and anchor pads. Airbrushed the mooring chocks flat black and the anchor pads the dark grey coaming trim color. Scraped the paint from a small area under the pads and chocks to increase adhesion. As these small exposed pieces tend to get knocked off epoxy was used for strength.

For the Galley stack I like the "Dreadnought head" supplied with the kit. The Britannia metal part was not a bad casting, but there were no holes in the pipes. My first thought was to use a milling tool to cut the holes.

This did not work out well. It was difficult to clamp the part at the correct angle. More importantly, the Britannia metal did not mill well. It tends to smear and the tool was prone to wander off axis when I started getting deeper into the metal. I decided to cut the pipes off and epoxy brass tubing onto the part. To get the correct fit the pipe molding was first sawed in half with a jewelers saw. A round file was used to cut the rest of the way and create a proper shape to hold the tubing.

The brass tubing was epoxied in place. Then repeat for the other side.

After some cleaning and polishing the part was primed and painted flat black. A small base was constructed with a hole drilled in the center as show on the plan. Looked pretty good in the end. With real holes!

I have finished the aft deck!!  The nibbing strakes went much better this time around vs the fore deck.  Still some opportunities, but much less modification needed to make everything fall into place.  
 
Work in process...

Finished decks...



Still some final sanding to do and touch up paint on the waterways.  Moving on to building all of the rest of the deck furniture.  
 
Tim

To make the hatches, I again used solid blocks. Double sided tape was used to fasten two pieces of scrap together. The bottom block protects the X-Y table from damage when cutting through the finish piece. A milling tool was used to cut out shapes to size. A slight over size was left to allow for sanding. The corners of the blocks were rounded as shown on the plans using sand paper.

The blocks were sanded smooth, coated with shellac and sanded again to get a nice finish.

The airbrush was used to put on a primer coat. The backside of an Xacto knife was used to score the blocks, simulating coaming and covers. In retrospect this didn't work well for cross-grain scores. It would have been better to use the knife side first to cut the grain, then score the block. The results were pretty good and acceptable at viewing distance. Next dark grey was sprayed on the coamings. After the paint thoroughly dried Tamiya masking tape was used to protect the coaming and the hatch cover color was sprayed.

After that, holes were drilled for the tie-down rings as shown on the plans. The result looks good.

Once again the supplied plans do not agree with photos. The actual hatch looked quite different and there are no tie-down rings. However, the hatches on the plans are more visually interesting. Of course the ship may have been originally built like the plans and later additions and modifications to the hatches made.

Today I finished up the main mast.
 
For the chafing piece for the boom jaws, I had a piece of brass tubing that I cut to length and slid on the mast.  
 

 
I installed the 4 chocks, cutting pieces out of 1/16" x 1/8" basswood.  I also made sure I installed the mast hoops first.  I found that the quantity of mast hoops I had didn't total the same quantity that shows on the drawing.  Not sure what to do, I simply divided the total quantity by 2 and used half on the main mast and will put the other half on the foremast.  Hopefully I can make it work from there.
 

 
The drawing shows a white band at the bottom of the mast called a Canvas Mast Coat.  I had some spare fabric and cut a strip to suit and glued it on.
 

 
I still haven't permanently installed the main mast.  Probably won't until all the masts, booms etc are done.
 

 
I think I will work on the bowsprit or the fore boom and gaff before tackling the foremast.

Well, it turns out that once you get started, the ratlines go faster than you originally thought. I was hoping for 3 weeks on the rest of the port side, and finished in 2, so, not too bad. Some photos of the ship overall and separate masts, although, I find it doesn't look all that different with and without the ratlines, at least at a macro level.
 

 

 

 

 
I'm about to make the first of the yards, seeing as I should only be few weeks away from finishing the ratlines. Step 1 was just to build out a table with the actual dimensions of the yards, the yardarms, and the diameter at center and iron bands and their corresponding scale size. I pulled the values off the plans, but they are also in the article from the Boston Daily Atlas that Lars Bruzelius transcribed (http://www.bruzelius.info/Nautica/News/BDA/BDA(1851-11-04).html). For me, given that there are 15, all different yards, this is way easier than doing the calculations one at a time from the plans. I will note that in the section marked 'Scale (in) - frac', I selected the nearest measurement that I could realistically build to.
 

 
A couple of observations/questions. First, the plans suggest that all of the spars used 3/4 inch iron rod as a jackstay. Was it common to use the same size jackstay on all the yards? I mean the mizzen skysail was only 6.5" at the center and 4.25" at that iron band that demarcates the beginning of the yardarm, that seems, I dunno, kind of overbuilt for the size of the spar. Given the physical properties of the materials, an iron jackstay with a spar attached if you will.
 
Second, the kit has a really weird set of Britannia fittings. There are 4 (nominally 3), identically sized "upper yard trusses" and that is it. Given that there are 9 yards secured with trusses, and six yards that use (hopefully correct term here) truss cranes to attach the yard to the halyards, so, I'd need 15 of these, not 4 or 3. Given that they are all different sizes, and the kit has 1/32 thick brass, I guess I'll just scratch build them (although I see that bluejacket has 3 sizes of trusses - so if the scratch ones are a disaster, I can default back to those).
 
Third, was the use of a deadeye on a shroud or backstay as a truck for fairleads a McKay thing? Usually I see this as a board attached across multiple shrouds. Just curious - another one of those repeat tasks, a bit of a nuisance (I think I need 34 of them total). 
 
Finally, the instructions say to leave out the course clew and reefing tackle if you aren't going to install sails. Is that common? When I rigged the Niagara the instructions suggested (and I followed) including the clew and reefing tackle, and attaching the clew garnet to the reefing tackle. Was this just the difference between 1813 and 1851 or just two ways that one can handle the situation? Above the course, I need the clew to have something to attach the sail end of the sheet so they will be there - it just feels a little asymmetrical, but if they were really removed I'll probably leave them off.
 
As always, thanks for looking in!
 
Regards,
George K.
 

The mainsheet horse was made from flat brass strip and blackened. Epoxy was used to cement it in place as there will be some strain on it.

Tie down loops were installed on the cabin.

The fife rail and forward boom buffer were installed.

The britania metal bilge pumps were so-so. A lot of filing, sanding and paint took them to "just" acceptable. They are at least consistent with the level of detail of the rest of the model. I decided to make and attach the pump handles because the pumps just look like odd black lumps without the handles. I realize that on the actual ship these would have been stowed unless needed. It adds an interesting detail to the model. The hinge ears for the handles were barely there and mostly solid. A jewelers saw was used to open them up. I didn't have thin enough material for the handles. Two strips of walnut veneer were glued together to get the correct thickness and then split and shaped to make the handles.

After painting with flat sealer the handles were epoxied to to the pumps which were painted flat black to match the other ironwork. The supplied metal pieces have a small button on the bottom. An appropriate hole was drilled in the deck and PVA was used to cement them in place. They actually turned out pretty nice. Of course I'll probably break them a couple times while rigging😄.

The quarter bits will have a some strain on them. They were mounted by drilling a hole in the bottom and cementing a short length of pin in them. This was glued into matching holes in the deck.

Time to assemble the parts! Portholes went in, companionway cover, compass cover, skylight and pipe. I then did a quick spray of the metal parts with clear, flat paint to protect them and dull the finish a bit. This turned out to be a problem for the blackened pipe. The port holes were OK. The pipe had some sort of reaction between the blackening (Brass Black) and the finish. Small problem though. Just had to sand the pipe and re-blacken.
 
I used cyno for fastening the portholes and insert a pin in the pipe which was PVA'd into a locating hole drilled in the decking. The companionway cover, skylight and compass cover were simply glued on with PVA. The ships wheel was pressed into it's hole on the steering gear cover. The porthole windows(which came with the portholes) were pressed into place. Parts are ready for mounting on the model!

I'm not really pleased with the way the cabin turned out. As I mentioned earlier I built it according to the supplied plans and didn't consult the historical photos before I built it. The original "as built" cabin is different in height and shape and trim. In fact, it would have been simpler to build. I'll see how this one looks on the model and think about it for awhile.

The ships wheel supplied in Britania metal was, surprisingly, a pretty good casting. This was an older kit. I understand from blogs the newer ones have worse metal parts. There was just one handle that was bit small. I'll position that at the bottom where it's not so noticeable. There was the usual fileing to remove mold seams but it cleaned up nicely. Even the shaft was not bad. I then used a light buff paint for the handles. These were a little bright so I went over them with some Tamaiya Smoke paint that is a very light grey and transparent. This dulled them just right and shifted the tint to more of an aged wood appearance. The photo below is before the Smoke was applied. Flat black matches the rest of the iron work on Bluenose.

Next was the accent paint on the steering gear box. This was an exercise in masking. I've been having some trouble getting the tape to adhere properly. I've had to do quite a bit of touch up from paint that leaks under the tape. Usually I have good results from taping. Perhaps my tape is getting old. In the end it turned out nice.

I sealed everything with shellac as many recommend. Then sanded and filled as needed. This does a great job of getting rid of the fuzzies. Then it's time to get the painting tools set up. I find that with an airbrush and using acrylic paints there is little over spray or odor. I used a cardboard box as a makeshift spray booth. I just throw it out and get another when it gets too gunky. There's no fan or filter but the airbrush uses minimal paint and little over spray. Primer went pretty well. It only took a couple rounds of filling-sanding-paint. However, I mixed the last of my flat white incorrectly and will have to visit the hobby shop before continuing. I need some other things anyway and I like to browse there.

In the end, I decided to do simple bars for the skylight. After assembly I painted the interior flat black. To conceal the decking under the skylight I found a piece of black cardboard which, of course would be too thick under the skylight. To fix this I simply peeled the thin paper layer from the cardboard and glued that to the bottom of the skylight. Next the windows were masked preparatory to airbrushing.
While trial fitting the cabin I noticed it would not lie flat along the axis of the ship when put in it's normal position. Testing with a ruler showed a slight dip in the decking at about the middle of the cabin. To fix this I pried the coaming from the cabin sides and installed a wider coaming in it's place. I then sanded a curve in the bottom of the coaming to get a good fit in the bowed area.
It's now time to tackle the steering gear housing. I approached this with some trepidation as there are odd angles involved. The plans show a complicated cabin top with coving and and a flat roof. Given my experience with the cabin, I first checked photos of the prototype. I found two from different eras. They were the same except for the paint scheme. The housing in the plans was quite different. The prototype had a companionway like cover. That actually makes a lot of sense as it would be necessary to access the steering gear frequently for service. There's also a dark colored box behind housing in the later photo that continues the slope of the top. That's not on the plans at all. I'm guessing it was some kind of toolbox. The earlier photo doesn't have the box. I believe I will go with the earlier photo for the construction and the later photo for the paint. The color will add interesting detail to the model

After debating how to construct the steering box, I decided it would be best to follow the same procedure as the cabin. I started with a piece of 3/4 inch plywood veneered on three sides. This was cut to height and squared off. I did test cuts on scrap to find the proper angle(F.Y.I 25 degrees) and cut the slope into the bottom of the housing. The housing is basically a solid rectangle with the bottom cut at an angle. To make the cutout for the wheel I simply cut the veneer appropriately. To create the hole for the wheel shaft I used the waste block from the angle cut secured with double-sided tape. this allows the block to be clamped square. That produced a nice square hole for the wheel shaft. The top was made from a plank of the correct thickness and sanded to the required shape.

The deck fittings made so far were placed on the deck for a test fitting prior to filling, sealing, finish sanding and paint.

 
 
 

Well, just shy of two weeks since the last update, and progress has been made, even if it is slow. As I mentioned I am in the delightful stage known as tying ratlines, and these are simple overhand knots using pretty vanilla black cotton sewing thread. So, I've completed the port side mizzen mast (lower, topmast, and topgallant shrouds), and the lower shrouds on the port side main mast. First, the mizzen:
 

 
And the lower main:
 

 
For the main, I tied as per the plans, across 5 of the 6th shrouds, except every sixth line at which point I went across all 6 shrouds. A few photos of multiple masts with with (where relevant) the templates for the next batch of shrouds. You will note that I clamped the lower shrouds to keep them from spreading, but didn't do this anywhere else, principally because the topmast shrouds aren't in a line; if I had clamped them it would have stretched the shrouds in a way I didn't want to happen.
 

 

 
Finally,  here is a shot of (most) of the ship as it stands today. 
 

 
I'm hoping about 3 weeks to get the port side finished, and another 5 (ish) to do the starboard side. My recollection is that I got a lot faster toward the end of Niagara so, we'll see. It would be nice to finish this chore before the end of March, but that seems to be the schedule. My intention was to work on the yards once I made progress on the ratlines, and I think that this constitutes 'progress', so, hopefully some pics of yards when the next update comes along.
 
Thanks for looking in!
 
George K.

Fore deck planking is complete.  I started by planking down the center, which was all uniform width planks.   I took this out to the point where the wider planks sit for the windlass.  Per the plans, I used 4 planks of 3/32 planking under the bowsprit, from where the windlass will sit to the point of the bow.
 

I cut out the nibbing strake from the plans, used a glue stick to attach to a plank and tried to carefully cut them out.
 

Installed both.

I had to make some minor adjustments to the nibbing strake toward the back of the foredeck to get everything to line up and fit nicely.

Finished up with a first sanding before moving on to the aft deck.

 
Tim
 
 
 
 

A quick update on my Bluenose progress... I have completed the hull planking!  There are certainly some gaps and undulations in the planking, but all-in-all I seem fairly pleased with how it came out.  Will now work diligently on sanding, filling, sanding, filling... starting at 80 grit sandpaper and working my way up in grits to where the hull is as smooth as I can get it.
 
     
 
        
 
As you can see from the pictures, I still need to trim and clean up the planking at the stern/transom area.  And then, after I'm done sanding the hull, I'll go "topside" and finish the transom framing, knightheads, hawse timbers, fake stanchions, etc, etc, etc.  
 
Appreciate the follows, likes, comments and critiques!  

Worked on the skylight and stove pipe today. The skylight is a finicky delicate piece. It took some experimentation to come up with a method. Using a solid block would not work as space is needed behind the windows to look right and accommodate the bars. I came up with this solution.
Note the t-bar across the top. That's to get the height correct for the window thickness.
To ensure matching openings I used double sided tape to hold the windows down and laid them out together.

Fastening the bars to the window is problematic. I didn't want to use epoxy because the heat generated in cutting the wire would degrade the epoxy. There's not a lot of room under the window.
The pipe was cut from brass tubing. Note the wall thickness of the tubing was larger than scale so I counter drilled the end to approximate the scale wall thickness. The two pieces were silver soldered together using a ceramic pin jig.
The jig worked much better than trying to use clamps.
Almost all the pieces are done. Just have to get the windows figured out.
 
 

For a change of pace to something simple, I did the mysterious "unknown object". For lack of a lath I chucked a piece of dowel in my drill. This works OK on small, uncomplicated pieces but is awkward as I have to hold the drill trigger and my cutting tool at the same time. First the end was rounded with a sanding block. A hooked scalpel cut a grove to represent the lid.
I finished by cutting the piece off with a fine tooth saw. This looks the best so far! 
 
It's always fascinating to me how tiny these objects are and how much detail can be put into them.  The compass housing is 6mm x 12mm x 8mm with a 1mm lip on each side. The "unknown object" is made from a 7/16" dowel. They are both smaller than a penny!

It's been quite a while so I thought I would offer a brief update on the progress of my Bluenose.  I can say that progress has been very slow however I have not abandoned the project nor do I plan to.  I keep getting sidetracked but always seem to gravitate back to the shop, and I can say that my interest in ships and ship history hasn't diminished.  I have projects in mind that I would like to do in the future but am determined to finish the ones I have started and abandoned.  I have 3 other ships in the drydock that I would like to finish first before I tackle anything new.
 
At one point I thought about finishing the Bluenose without the sails but quickly decided that the sails are one of the recognizing features of the Bluenose.  I was fortunate enough to have a friend give me his patterns for the sails so should make that task a little easier.  
 
I have pretty much finished the deck complete with the 8 dories normally carried when she was used as a fishing vessel.  I've yet to lash them down.  The main mast is almost complete.  It's not permanently mounted yet but it's close.  I plan to start on the foremast shortly.  As previously reported, the dories and the crates/barrels are 3D printed.  Although not authentic, I think the crates/barrels add a little to the deck.  


 

 
 
I will still add to this build log as I progress.  I hope that I will post more often in the future and hopefully have the Bluenose complete in a timely manner.