bhermann

Well, it’s been quite some time since my last update, but I’m fully recovered from surgery now, Christmas décor is up, lawn is put away for the winter and snow blower is ready to go.
 
As mentioned in my previous post, I've decided not to do the entire masts so I can save some money on the display case. The main and foremast will be cut short allowing me to purchase a much shorter case for the model. I’m really limited for display space.
I now have a good start of both the main mast and foremast.
 
Poplar isn’t the best wood to work with as it fuzzes up a lot like basswood. But at this stage of my experience I wanted to use what I have on hand. I will be moving on to better woods on future models.
 
I started with a ½ inch poplar dowel rod for each, about 5 inches long.

 
I turned these on the lathe.
 

 
I used a shaping tool to get the slight taper on the lower band which will sit on the desk.

 
Then used a cut off tool to make the grove in the upper band

 
Then mounted the piece in the mill to form the tendon which will fit into the block below deck that was installed when building the hull.

 
Here is the main mast (on the left) and the foremast (on the right)

 
For the supports blocks I cut a piece of cherry into a 2 mm X 2 mm square and then used a scraper to make the shape I wanted. The cherry is much easier to work with and will add some detail highlights to the model. My bluenose is quite a mixture of woods, shiny brass and blackened brass, but I've already succumbed to the fact that this build is more of a learning process than anything else. My next build will be more uniform. 

 
Cutting the length of cherry into individual pieces was accomplished by using an X-ACTO blade to mark the cut and then using my jewelers saw to complete the cut. After trying a razor saw and an X-ACTO saw blade, I found the jewelers saw made the cleanest cut.

 
Using Titebond Quick and Thick, I glued the support blocks (corbels?) into place on both the main mast and foremast.

 

 
Still have to do the metal bands as well as the “galvanized metal” on the main mast. But first will finish both masts with amber shellac first.
Moving along…….

Well, it's been 12 days since my last update. I wished I could say that I have made massive progress, but I think I will have to settle for some progress. At this point, all of the mainmast futtock shrouds are in place, and I've rigged (but not anchored the lanyards) of the lower and topmast shrouds and the main forestay (which terminates on the foremast fife rail). As with the fore, I'm going to get all the lines in place and then tighten/anchor from the skysail down. Here are two pics of the main and foremast as things are moving along.
 

 

 
One thing I am thinking about doing before starting the 'fun' of the ratlines is attaching the tackles (I think mostly halyards) that terminate on deck around each of the masts. The six tackles on the mizzen should still be relatively clear since there isn't a fife rail blocking access, but I'm guessing it's not going to get easier to access after the ratlines are in place.
 
Thanks again for looking in and have a Happy Thanksgiving!
 
George K.

Finished up the first belt "D" of planking!  Going to start to plank from the waist down and for belt "A" next.
 

Tim

Hello all! First of all thank you for the encouragement, it is much appreciated. I really enjoy looking at so many of your builds on MSW, without which I suspect several builds would have gone into long term storage rather than move forward. 
 
Well, the standing rigging (minus those pesky ratlines) is now complete for the foremast. Nothing earth shattering here from a technical perspective, basically just lots of tightened lanyards and anchored lines (and a 6 sheer poles). As per a couple of posts back, I did anchor the hull ends of the topgallant-, royal-, and skystays into a hole in the bulwarks after also gluing down their paths in the jibboom and on the dolphin striker. It may be a problem in 50 years (dunno how long these adhesives really last), but I'll be long gone at that point, so...
 
One other thing, which we don't talk about as much as we should I suppose; in the process I (a) broke off one of the figureheads wings, (b) disconnected the bulwark end of both of the bowsprit shrouds (the chains) and (c) caught the tip of the mainmast in my watch band, requiring a minor repair to the base of the mast. <SIGH>. Anyway, nothing that couldn't be fixed with a little CA glue. Completely par for the course.
 
Anyway, here a couple of photos of the ship as it currently stands, some closer views of the foremast and all the bowprit rigging.
 
As always, thanks for looking in!
 
George K
 
Sorry my photos are often not perfect - I tend to work at night so the light can get weird. I have started putting one of the plans over the TV set I have on my worktable so that you can see the lines better.
 

 

 

 

 
 
 

Have to admit, I’m a bit of a neat freak. A place for everything and everything in its place. That, and the cats have a bad habit of knocking any loose bits on the floor and carting them off to parts unknown. 🫤

Progress on rigging the foremast. This photo shows the lines going up the foremast according to the plan order (generally lift pendant, shrouds, forestay, backstays). As I mentioned last time, the only place anything is anchored is on the mast, the lanyards and the line ends are all basically held in place with Tamiya tape (or in some cases, just the tension in the deadeyes.
 
 
In the next photo, I've started to anchor lines, beginning at the fore skystay. The logic here is that I want to pull the top of the foremast forward about 3-5 mm so that it will align properly with the main. To do that I started by clamping the skystay under the jibboom after pulling the mast top forward appropriately. I then put a drop of CA glue into the hole with the stay and let it set.
 

 
This stabilizes the line where I need it to be, and I can tighten and anchor the fore sky backstays so that the mast is properly centered and we have a reasonable amount of tension on the skystay so everything stays neat, as below:
 

 
Next start moving down the mast. so the royal stay has been tightened and a bit of glue to hold it in place. Once it sets, I'll do the royal backstays, do the topgallants. When I get to the topgallants, the order is going to be stay, backstay, shrouds, and the last items to be tightened will be the lower shrouds. At that point, I'm hopeful the the lower forestay won't be sagging, but if it is, I'll just tighten it down.
 
One thing that I have concluded is that I should actually be able to anchor the forestays into holes in the bulwarks, as per the plans. I was worried that the amount of strain would wind up making that a problematic means of anchoring, and thought I might anchor into an eyebolt instead, but it appears that a drop of glue on the jibboom/bowsprit, one on the dolphin striker, and a third one in the bulwarks should be just fine. The only case where that might not work are the two stays that go through the bees, but even there, two glue spots (bees and bulwarks) should be just fine.
 
As always, thanks for looking in!
 
Regards,
George K
 

Well, I have finally had some time in the shipyard so some progress being made. When I left off back in September, I had mounted the lower forestay and the had managed to put the starboard lower fore shrouds in place. I've been working my way up the foremast, adding lines as they appear on the mast. So, since then I've:
Installed the lower shrouds on the port side (the lines were in place, but not the deadeyes or the lanyards). Installed the topmast shrouds (6 total).  Installed the starboard side topmast backstays. Next up will be the port topmast backstays, followed by the fore topmast stays (2 through the bees, one through the jibboom), the topgallant lift pendant, topgallant forestay, topgallant backstays and topgallant shrouds, and then the royal/skysail series (lift pendant, forestay(s), backstays). I think that I'm going to just use a set of jackstay eyebolts for the lift pendant - anything larger will seem out of scale, and I think that the rest of the lines will disguise them fairly well. 
 
None of the lanyards in the below have been anchored yet (well, the lower forestay is fully anchored, but if need be I will reconnect the ends to the knightheads to keep it tight). The idea is once everything is in place to tighten it all up so that the mast is straight and true, and to be able to adjust as need be without replacing a lot of existing work. We'll see if that is realistic. Once I start on the main mast, I will also start putting in the ratlines on the fore. On my Niagara, I found that by doing say, 10 rows a day while working on other things I didn't get completely sick of tying knots and the job got done in about 3-4 weeks.
 
In the interim, here are some photos of the rigging coming along:
 

 

 

 

 
As always, thanks for looking in!
 
Regards,
George K
 
 

Well, back from everything, hopefully back in the shipyard soon. In the interim, here's a palate cleanser. The triathlon I did was the Ironman 70.3 Wilmington, so here are some snaps of the USS North Carolina, BB-55, our first treaty battleship (the race ends just across the Cape Fear River from her and is nicknamed 'From beach to battleship')

Hi Guys,
I wanted to share with you some pics of the display case that I built for my Bluenose.  It turned out to be quite the project.  I converted 2 of the 3 sections for a built-in bookcase in my basement to display my ship models.  I designed it to hold 4 ships.  Purchasing the custom mirrors and glass cost more than it did to start-up this hobby!!  But now I have a dust free environment for her.
 
I'm also throwing in a few pictures of Bluenose II from our vacation to Lunenburg Nova Scotia.  Since it's related to Bluenose, I hope I'm not breaking any rules!!  If someone would like to see something in particular of the ship message me.  I've took a bunch of pictures.  I even know what a "Baggywrinkle" is now!!  I never added any of these and there's a lot of them on Bluenose II.
 
After taking a few months off, I got Rattlesnake "off the shelf" and have started my build.  Will be starting a build log very soon, if you are interested.  This model is very different from the fishing schooner.  Best of luck to all you Bluenose builders out there.  I hope my log is of some benefit to you.
 
Best regards,
Ed
 
BLUENOSE I MODEL DISPLAY CASE

 
SAILING ON BLUENOSE II in LUNENBURG, NS

One quick update before I go into a hiatus of about 3 weeks. My wife and I are going to spend the next 2 weeks in Flagstaff, AZ. It's not a vacation - as we both work (mostly) remotely, and we're going to continue to do so, but we'll have two weekends to hike in Grand Canyon after the crowds have left for the season, and after I get back I am heading down to Wilmington, NC the following weekend for a triathlon. That means that the ship will be back home with no one working on it. So, current status: The shrouds on the foremast and the forestay have been installed:
 

 
I started getting the shrouds ready on the starboard side, attaching the deadeyes using the traditional twisted wire spacer and seizing them in place. The yellow tape just indicates which shroud is which (1,2,3,4,...).
 

 
Finally, two pics of the starboard shrouds with the deadeyes and (black) lanyards.
 

 
The lanyards aren't tied down yet - I want to tighten P/S pairs of shrouds forward to aft, so I need to get the port side set up before I do anything more.
 
Finally, in honor of the ship - tonight's beverage:
 

 
I should be posting again in the third week of October, at which point I will be rapidly coming up on two years working on this project. For some reason I was thinking that I would manage this in two years (that's how long Niagara took), but this is a much more complex project - I expect another 6-12 months to go. 
 
As always, thanks for looking in and for the encouragement. Have a great end of September and early October!
 
Regards,
George K
 
 

Well, I resolved how to manufacture the gin blocks (or whatever they are) used to haul the halliards. My eureka moment was to realize that it didn't matter if the pulley actually turned, the chain would slide along more or less regardless with a little bit of space. So I cut a thin slice out of a 1/8" dowel, and made a small rectangular box out of 1/32" wide brass strip as below:
 

 
I glued the disc inside the brass box, and fabricated a piece with a hanger and two open ends (like a tuning fork):
 

 
That was then glued onto the block to make the completed block:
 

 
The chain runs through the block and can move to be positioned even though the pulley is stationary:

 
So, I made four of them, painted black (the blocks are iron).
 

 
This is one of the completed blocks with chain:
 

 
So, anyways, the foremast now has all of the mast mounted blocks and is firmly mounted and ready to start putting in shrouds and stays. I have a couple of items to install on the main, and will then mount it as well. The gin blocks on the mizzen are smaller, so they still need to be manufactured before I can fully mount the mizzen.
 
As always, thanks for looking in!
 
Regards,
George K
 
 

Well, bowsprit rigged until it is time to mount the forestays (soon!). A couple of pics:
 

 

 
The foremast needs 4 more blocks before it's time to start mounting shrouds. One question I hoped that someone like @rwiederrich might be able to answer is how they handled the halliard blocks on the trestle trees (given that those are 2 of the four). The plans suggest that they weren't standard wooden blocks, but something that frankly looks more like a sheave (or maybe a roller on a desk chair), an iron circle inside of a triangular support. So far, my attempts to fabricate them have failed utterly or just been badly out of scale. I could paint standard blocks black so that they are more like iron, or if anyone has suggestions, I'd love to hear them.
 
Thanks for looking in!
 
George K 

Got the repainting done today. First masked off the area
 

 
Then used the air brush to spray a few coats of flat black paint and 2 coats of matt acrylic finish
 

 
Removed the masking material and was pretty satisfied with the result. No perfect by any means but acceptable
 

 
Since I’m waiting for the new rigging lines I ordered from Ropes of Scale, I decided to start on the main mast. I first cut the doll rod to length and cut the tendon at the base.
 

 
Next will be the cheeks, but these need to be on the port and starboard sides of the mast. In order to install these correctly on the round mast I decided to build 2 jigs to help hold things in place. The first was a block that would hold the tendon securely.
 

 

 

 
Then a second jig is a block that I can slide along the mast. This will assist in supporting the mast, cutting in the cheeks as well as tapering the tip of the mast. Once the block on the right is where I need it, I can clamp both blocks to my work table.
 

 
That’s about it for today. Tomorrow I hope to get the mast notched for the cheeks and get those glued in place.
 
Dave

Well, another milestone reached. I'm still mounting blocks on the masts (but I think I'm almost done with that), so to break up the routine I started rigging the bowsprit. So far, I've only installed the bobstays and the shrouds. The kit surprisingly did not include any hearts (although there was a laser cut sheet that included what I thought were mast hoops that turned out were bullseyes). In any case, I bought some extras from Bluejacket and used them.
 
The kit had a single diameter of chain for everything. When I put the anchors together, I thought that the supplied chain was massively out of scale (too small), so I bought a couple of feet of two larger sizes, the intermediate of which I used to represent the 1 inch chains on the shrouds and bobstays. For the bobstays, I stropped the hearts with 34 gauge black wire and then bent the tail into a hook which I either inserted into a jackstay eyebolt (for the non -chain end) or the chain itself. The lanyards are black seeing as this is standing rigging.
 
Here is a view of the stem and bowsprit.
 

 
Here is a view showing the shrouds.
 

 
The forward attachment of the shrouds is pretty much the same as the bobstays, but the hull end is quite different. The bobstays are basically attached to an eyebolt embedded in a metal strap. By contrast the shrouds are attached as in the photo below (sorry about the image quality).
 
 
 
The mounting strap is 1/64" wide brass, with a split ring attached on one end, and the chain attached to the split ring (anchor chain obviously coming from the hawse pipe). 
 
From the last post, no one had any suggestions, so I wound up mounting the blocks on the forward cross tree - it makes sense from logic and the similar blocks on the mast tops, so, that's how I decided to proceed. 
 
Next step on the bowsprit is to rig the dolphin striker and the associated martingales and bobstays. The kit comes with a Britannia striker, but I think I'm going to scratch build one. It's the correct length but the locations for the stays are all wrong, and it's just a bit clunky. One decision that I will need to make eventually is how to terminate the various stays on the foremast on the hull. The Boston Daily Atlas indicates that the stays were belayed inside the ship on various frames, which is to say under the forecastle which is pretty much inaccessible at this point. Doing this in the way of the real ship would seem to require drilling through both the hull planks and the ceiling planks, feeding the line through both and terminating them somehow inside the ship. Two options come to mind, one of which is to drill holes in the outer hull, feed the line in and glue or to mount to small eyebolts. Neither is perfect, I suspect that I will do the latter as the lesser of two evils. If I had thought further ahead, I might have run the lines before I decked over the forecastle, but we can all be wise in hindsight.
 
As always, thanks for looking in!
 
Regards,
George K.
 
PS - Background movie in the first pic is, of course, The Hunt for Red October. One of several proper choices, I think you will all agree, for ship modeling. 

Been awhile since I’ve posted an update on my build. Life just gets busy sometimes and of course its summer so a week long fishing trip to northern Minnesota was in order as well. But I’m back in the shipyard and making some progress.
 
Collected all the pieces needed for the guy plates. All the necessary parts for all these plates were made before hand.
 

 
Then installed the Bobstay plates with links, Guy plates with staple and shackle and Backrope plates with link and turnbuckles. Got both port and starboard done.
 

 
Lots of paint touchup to do now as I wanted the plates glued directly to the wood and not just the paint. Plan is to mask and use the airbrush but might brush it, still trying to decide on that. Then I think I will be ready to rig the bowsprit but have to order the needed lines as I don’t want to use those that came with the kit.
Dave

Thanks Jonathan its what I wanted in retirement 
 
 
Hi Arthur how's the Bluenose coming along, and yes you are correct this is Mrs Victory have had since 2004 but been working on and off for the last couple of years.
 

 
 
Thanks for you kind comment and the background gives me great viewing for hockey games 😁

 
 
Hi Ben it took me until I was 61 to build the shop how I wanted you saw what I started with.
Thanks for your kind comment regarding the Bluenose its coming along.
 




The lower tables are for my wife, made all mine 40" high it was a lot of fun building the room.
Will need to either buy some rope or make it myself, do have Chucks rope walker but I do see your rope and wow that does look go.
I bought rope from Morope back in 2004 so will look at that first but do want the best when time comes to do rigging on the Bluenose.
 
Do apricate all the comments and also for all who hit the like button thank you.
 
Regards
Richard 
 

Have done a very small update, added the draw handles and made the captains door
 





 
Have been a bit distracted with another ship  
 

 
Until next time
 
Regards
Richard
 
 

https://www.vallejogallery.com/2022/item_mobile.php?page=item_page&id=1316
 
George, 
It's incredible how lofty the masts were on McKay's Clippers! Your doing a marvelous job capturing that. 
Meanwhile, I remembered a beautiful 1998 painting by David Thimgan. It depicts Flying Fish entering San Francisco Bay. 

Well - away from 20th century vessels and back to the 19th. I've completed all three topgallant masts, and assembled them into the fore, main, and mizzen. The doublers are all painted white, with everything else "bright". At some point, I will need to add the gilded balls and (I presume) lightning rods, but I think that can wait until the ship is almost done. A couple of photos. The fore and main in situ as it were:
 

 
 
and all three looking to port, and from the stem:
 

 
And, kind of an odd view looking diagonally forward.
 

 
A couple of observations. First, the fore topgallant mast seems to be raked a bit more than I want - I think the spar itself has a bit of a bend. When I put the forestays on I'll move the tip forward maybe 4-5 mm and it will align with everything else. What I am happy about is that there are no obvious problems with the alignment of the masts port and starboard (see the pic from the stem). Second, this was definitely a learning exercise. Even though the birch dowels I used to make the topgallants were denser and stronger than basswood, at this thickness and length there was no way to use my cutting tools without either (a) the spar just bending away from the tool or (b) snapping in two. Even after this discovery, it took 3 tries to do the first, 2 tries for the second, and fortunately only 1 try for the mizzen topgallant mast. Speed is not your friend - if I used sandpaper that was too rough (say less than 100 grit) to "rough out" the shape, I always wound up having the thinnest part snap (even when I wasn't sanding in that region).
 
Interestingly, what did seem to work well was to start at the narrow end (so that I made clear "ridges" where the diameter changed), using 150 grit and then sanding the other segments to make a spar that had the right proportions (i.e. it had 4 segments with specified length and proportionally smaller diameters) but was still too wide, and then go back with a mix of 150 and 220 grit to eventually obtain the proper diameters. For once, I didn't have to remake all of the mast caps. By gently hand sanding the openings wider I was eventually able to get the diameter of the holes sufficiently large to fit the spars. I did bust one of them, but it was less trouble than I expected to make a new one for some reason. In that case I hand drilled (i.e. I spun a 1/8 inch drill but with my fingers) to get the hold opened in a piece larger than the cap, and then sanded the rest of the opening. 
 
Anyway - next steps are to place the remainder of the mast mounted blocks (there are quite a few) and mount them on the ship. I've seen many people do wonderful work mounting the yards before they fully mount the mast - that hasn't been how I've done it in the past, and so for now the plan is to mount before rigging. One thing that has occurred to me is that I should probably make sure that I've drilled and fitted the path for the boat davits in the mizzen channels before I start putting in the shrouds. Drilling afterwards could be ugly.
 
As always, thanks for looking in!
 
Regards,
George K

Well, back to the topgallant masts. Each of the previous failures taught me something, the most important was probably that I was not going to be able to use anything other than sandpaper to shape the topgallant masts, that the birch dowels at that length/thickness were not going to be successfully shaped with my cutting tools on the lathe. So, 100 grit paper to get the approximate shape, and 220 to finish it off, I managed to make the following (I did use  a pointed cutting tool to square the ends). My goal was to properly capture the stepping of the mast (key to successfully mounting the stays) and I think that i did that:
 

 
Here are two other views, the first sitting next to the diagram (this is for the main - which is what is shown in the diagram. All the penciled in numbers are just my conversion of the sizes of the real masts into mm)
 

 
And the second of the piece before I cut the ends off:
 

 
The Tamia tape on the right side of the picture was just to increase the diameter so that it would fit properly in the collet.  I squared the foot of the mast to fit into the appropriate location in the trestle trees, drilled holes for the halyards, and then expanded the size of the hole in the topmast caps, and then trimmed the topmasts to accept the square hole in the cap, and voila, one (partly finished) mast! A couple of views of the mast below, looking directly aft:
 

 
And looking from the port side, in profile, as it were:
 
 
 

 
And a view from the port side with the mast (precariously balanced, and the topgallant leaning slightly aft because it isn't glued in place) on the ship:
 

 
Although the plans suggest that the whole mast above the tops should be bright (with the exception of a gilded ball on the truck) the Butterfield painting shows the topmast from (and including) the trestletrees to the cap in white, with the foot of the topgallant also white to the point where it passes through the cap. I don't really see the spreaders in the painting, but I assume that they too are white. So, first stain on the mast itself, followed by some white paint, at which point I can call the spars on the mainmast done.
 
Moving forward, I will need to scratch build a cap for the fore mast as I broke one of the two same-sized caps widening the round opening. That's no big deal, I think that all of the caps on the Niagara (and 1/4 of the ones on the Fish) were scratch built because I had a tendency to break them opening out holes. Good practice for the eventual RRS Discovery (1901) scratch build.
 
This feels like something of a milestone. I'll say this much, the ship is going to take an enormous case, particularly vertically. Somehow paintings don't really give you a feeling for how much sail these things must have carried but when you see just how high the masts go versus the length of the ship - that drives it home. 
 
As always, thanks for looking in.
 
Regards,
George K
 
 

Thanks for the demonstration, Eric.  Now there is yet another possibility to consider. I like the construction method that follows actual practice this closely.
 
Bob

No update for a few weeks (vacation), but here are some lovely model ships (and one real boat) from the Reykjavik Maritime Museum.
 

 

 

 

 
No hints as to where I might be 🙂.
 
George K

Happy 4th!
 
An update on construction. The topmasts are all completed and mounted on the tops, the caps are painted and secured and we have three nice and straights masts. Finally all of the spreaders are complete (although they are not current glued to topmasts. Some photos. From the sides:
 


 
From above:
 

 

 
And from forward:
 

 
One quick question to anyone in the know. Regarding the chocks on the spreaders. Are they placed in specific locations to direct the flow of the backstays at a particular location on the spreader, or are they located where the backstays naturally fall and are just there to keep them from slipping?
 
As always, thanks for looking in!
 
George K
 
 
 
 

 

Been awhile since my last update. I was stupid enough to dash out onto the wet patio in flip-flops and found out 71 year old's aren’t supposed to do the splits. Injured my right hamstring and just now getting back to normal.
 
I used the mill to make the links needed for the bowsprit rigging. Sorry I didn’t take more pictures, sometimes I get so involved in the work I forget to take photos. I cut a strip of 1/64th thick brass and used double stick Nitto tape to mount it to a piece of wood. Then used the mill to cut out the centers of each link. Used my rotary tool with a cut off disk to separate the individual links. A quick filing rounded off the outside edges to finish them off.
 

 

 

 
Then it was time to assemble the shackles, turnbuckle and to attach them to the bowsprit. Used small brass bolts for the shackle pins. These close-up photos make things look a bit rough but from normal viewing distance they look pretty good. Just need some paint touchup.
 

 

 
Had to sand off the hull paint to firmly attach the bobstay plates. Here’s a pic of the installed plates with the links. Still need to repaint.
 

 
So it’s onward and upward, have to make the plates and staples for the backrope now.
Dave