bhermann

Now on the bluenose I have the mainmast almost complete  Looking good so far here are some pic

So now  I have both mainmast and  for mast all callers are no soldered together and all in place there not glued yet here some pic of my work

So here iam again  Working on the mainmast I tapered the top in soldered all the rings my skill really is in  soldering lol cuz I do smd soldering for poeple  Under a microscope not easy

Ok was doing some work to the  Bbow spirit  Doing soldering for the rigging on the nose of the bowspirt so far so good all is going well

So I went ahead and drilled out the chain plates and added the little nails came out looking better on with more of the build

The deck is Finished! I airbrushed some matte topcoat on. Love that airbrush. The hobby shop guy talked me into trying a new product. Testors Aztek clear matte. I don't have anything to compare with but it did a great job. It went on a bit dry but I think that was due to my airbrushing. I used a soft pad to buff it out. Looks great!

 
I added the inside plates for the "mooring chocks" and touched up the paint'. Here's a picture showing the plate and a hawse pipe.

I included one of the metal parts on the penny in my picture for comparison if you want to know what it looks like. It's on sheet 3 of the plans. They call it a "Mooring Chock". The plans don't show the actual pipe though. I think "Mooring Chock" refers to the timbers next to the hole. Several bloggers have talked about the metal part. I didn't know what it was until I read some other blogs.
 
You can see it in pictures of the stern area though it's hard to discern. The part is incorrect to start with, as near as I can tell. There is a large metal plate(not shown on the plans) on the inside of the waist inset into the stanchions near the wheel through which the pipe goes. Much larger than the flange on the supplied part.
 
As near as can be told from the pictures the outside appears a simple pipe sticking out of the waist.
In actuality it was likely shaped like an oval trumpet bell. That would be beyond my current expertise. 

In any case, from viewing distance the stern hawse pipe adds a nice detail. I may grind mine down a bit as they seem to stick out too much.
 
John
 
F.Y.I. There's another of those large plates in the pictures of the bow. I've not seen any blogs that include that detail. Also the plans show "Hawse Blocks" at the bow, pictures of the prototype don't have them. I like the detail and included them on mine. They are certainly at the wrong angle relative to the windlass drum.
 
 

After much debate I decided to go with a natural deck. The plans indicate the Bluenose deck was different finishes at different times. One of the selections was natural varnish. Though my reading indicates decks were never painted or varnished. On the other hand, the pictures available have decks that are clearly painted. I used a 50/50 shellac and alcohol mixture to seal the wood. Then lightly sanded with 400 grit to remove fuzzies.
 
Interestingly, this made the decking pop. Unfortunately my ugly nibs are now visible. Not so much as the simulated caulking though. After sanding some of the pop went away. Next is to apply a mat finish using the airbrush.

The stern hawse pipe is installed. The supplied metal piece was so bad I decided to make my own. The inside flange was made from shim stock and the outside pipe was made from 3/32 brass tubing. Both were blackened.

I thought it best to build the windlass in sections with a 1/8 inch axel through each section. I’m going to post my progress as I proceed.
 
I started off making the windlass drums, also called gypsy heads among other things. Because I had plenty of cherry wood on hand I decided to use it. I first turned down a piece of ½ inch dowel rod to the largest dimension since this piece is slightly tapered.
 

 
Then turned a slight 5 degree taper.
 

 
Once that was done I shaped it with Escapement files and drilled a 1/8 inch hole for the axel.
 

 
Finished pieces before final sanding.
 

 
Next was the rope hawser side of the windlass. This is also tapered at about 5 degrees which I again did on the lathe, slightly tilting the headstock to achieve the taper.
 

 
Then drilled the 1/8 inch hole for the axle.
 

 
Here is the finished rope hawser drum
 

 
I then cut and glued on the horizontal whelps. Instead of fitting small wood pieces between these whelps I decided to cap the right end (looking forward) with a small disk. While this isn’t exactly what the plans call for, I thought it was a nice clean look.
 

 

 
For the whelps on the left end of the drum, I used a scraper to make the proper shape on a 2 inch piece of cherry wood and then cut it to the proper thickness and height.
 

 
It was much easier to use a temporary axle while gluing the whelps in place.
 

 
Here is a picture of the rope hawser drum with the whelps and windlass drum on the temporary axle.
 

 
Moving on

Hi Bob,
Thanks for your comment. I wish the nibbing had come out better. It adds an interesting detail to the model. Perhaps my skills will increase going forward and I'll have nibs worth showing. I figure bad nibbing is worse than no nibbing. On the other hand, if I don't practice I'll never be able to do nice nibbing. Modeling is a journey. The last nibs were better than the first nibs. It didn't turn out awful, but it was irregular enough to spoil the overall look of the model.  By not penciling the nibs I ended up with the suggestion of nibbing which is a compromise.
John

John, I used Minwax Wipe-on Poly to seal the deck about 10 years ago.  It has maintained the wood color since then.  If that is the look you are going for, I can recommend it.
 
Interesting choice on not darkening the edges of the nibbing planks - if I'd been thinking clearly at the time I might have done the same.
 
Bob

John, I used Minwax Wipe-on Poly to seal the deck about 10 years ago.  It has maintained the wood color since then.  If that is the look you are going for, I can recommend it.
 
Interesting choice on not darkening the edges of the nibbing planks - if I'd been thinking clearly at the time I might have done the same.
 
Bob

The deck is now sanded, minor repairs done and ready to apply a finish. The repairs were mostly cleaning and filling noticeable spaces between boards. There were only a few of those. There was one particularly damaged plank in a highly visible spot just in front of the great beam. The solution was to carefully gouge the plank to form a depression and glue a thick veneer onto it. Here's the repair:
 
Used mini-plane to thin a plank to about 1/64" and gouged a grove to remove the bad spot. Forgot to take a picture before applying glue.

 
Note the grove depth is tapered to the level of the deck. The plank is cut a little longer than the end of the taper and glued into grove. It's intentionally a little thicker than the grove depth:

 
After the glue is thoroughly set, the plank is sanded flush with the rest of the deck. Here's the result. Except for a slight mismatch of the grain and color, the repair is invisible:

 
This is my second planking experience. While it's not perfect, it's much improved over the hull planking. I'm getting better at it! Knowing my nibs were not going to be very good, I didn't pencil the nib part of the planks. Thy don't look too bad but I don't want attention drawn to them. Here's how it looks after sanding and before finish is applied:

An overview:

 

Looking good, Per.  I lean toward the blackened pins as well.  Interesting, in my vintage of the kit, the provided pins were the white metal variety, and I just stuck them in the rail as is.  I didn't go back through your entire log to see if the brass pins were supplied or aftermarket, but I did notice a difference in our box art.  Mine is old enough to be labeled "Canadian Fishing Schooner" while yours is "Bluenose".
 
Bob

Per - do you really Moon us???   Nice image.  On the bars, did you consider trying to file slots in the underside of the frame?  I know they would be tiny, but if it could be done, that might provide a little more purchase to hold the bars in place.
 
BTW, I am no expert on the skylight windows - all I did was paint some black squares on the solid white box to simulate windows, pretty cheesy.
 
Bob

Per, if I may.  I suspect John is referring to the tops of the bulkheads that become some of the deck stanchions.  My recollection is that the kit-provided bulkheads were thicker than the stanchion dimension, and that is the reason for thinning the top of the bulkhead above where the decking is laid, to make those tops the same thickness as the stanchions.
 
For my build (many years back) I simply cut off all the bulkhead extensions and installed new stanchions above the deck from end to end.
 
If I'm wrong, John will post a reference to the post he is talking about, and we'll move on from there
 
Bob

Nice to see them all marching into place, Per.  Now what spell did you use to get them to do that? 
 
The finish looks very good too!
 
Bob

Good to see you at it again, Per.  You are coming along nicely.
 
Bob

Very nice, Jim.  Love watching the inner planets and Moon whipping around while the outer planets plod through their orbits.  Nice build of an interesting project!
 
Bob

There's a second model in the series?  They are killing me!
 
Looking forward to seeing the video.
 
Bob

Sweet - I can't wait to see the operating model.  Very nice indeed.
 
Bob

Wow - planets AND asteroids - I like it!
 
Bob

I think I'll avoid the Pluto flap, although I do have an opinion   I love the finish of Mercury!  I didn't realize this sort of thing was available - I may need to look into one of these too!  Thanks for sharing, Jim.  I will be following along with great interest.
 
Bob

The fore deck is now installed. Because of the bulkhead problem the nibbing strakes could not be patterned from the plans. The difference in bulkhead width means the elimination of 1 1/2 planks. I achieved this by eliminating a plank on one side and using a hull plank on the other. The hull plank is the same thickness but slightly wider. I put this plank near the waterway so that it's not noticeable. Because I could not lift the nibbing from the plan, I had to do it plank-by-plank.
 
The extra thick planks under the bowsprit were not a problem. Though they will be when I sand. At six planks from center I added the double wide planks for the windlass. The two planks that butt to the windlass planks don't fall on a bulkhead. To fix this problem I glued scrap wood under the decking to support the next plank ends. That takes me to 8 planks from centerline.

 
Now the hand nibbing begins.🤕 As I've stated before, carving is not my strong suit. The nibbing strakes were cut to length and shaped using the same steam iron method used for the hull planks. This greatly eased the process. I tried two different procedures to see which works best. On the starboard side, I cut the nibbing strake and glued the nibbed plank in place As I went. I found it especially hard to control the shape of the nib and to make the orthogonal cut. All-in-all it was hard to get a consistent shape. For the port side I cut all the planks to approximate length and laid them in place; gluing only the pattern planks up to the nibbed end plank. With the planks laid in place, the nibbing strake was marked from the planks. The planks were set aside and the nibbing strake was carved and installed. The nibbed planks were then cut to fit the nibbing strake. This worked pretty well except my carving wasn't pretty. You can see the support boards for the unsupported ends. The waterway chamfer stands out when the nibbing strake is in place. Nice detail!