bhermann

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!

Thanks Mark, Wally, Joe and Dave for your kind remarks and all for the likes.
 
Dave the clamp was not made by me, but by Eclipse N0 10, made in Sheffield England. got quite a few tools from my Gran who was a jeweller 
 

 

 
Also have this hand clamp as well from her use both of these a lot
 

 
Regards
Richard
 
 
 

Hi Eric, bit late with the reply but thanks for looking in and your kind comment do apricate it.
 
So have done a little more to her but not so much in making but redoing, it started with the lower chain plates, which I had made from the brass strips .016" thick supplied with the kit found this out once I removed them, thought I had used some .010" brass sheet.
 

 

 
So now I remade them out of .005" solder small tube to the ends then made a jig to drill the mounting holes and now have the lower chain plates more to scale.
 

 

 
 

 

 
Then was not to happy with the black paint job so sanded that down and as per Robin letting me know that I had not painted the sides right I masked the hull up to include black up the sides of the main rail and Monkey rail, board and buffalo rail.
 

 

 
Put some semi gloss on
 
 
 
Next up was to remake the eye bolts for the deadeye strops which I had made from wire and did not look to good, tried by making out of thicker wire and then soldering a small tube to the ends, but this did not work to well when I went to bend them to go around deadeye 🤔
So decided to use .016" brass flat bar worked out where I needed the holes, drill them first then filed to shape then bent to shape, came out way better than my first try.
 

 

 

 
Casey blacked all parts and will use a small bolt and nut 
 

 

 
Well not much to show these past few months have to figure what I am going to do with the scroll around the hawse holes then paint the cove, then the name plates.
 
Thanks again for all who have looked in and commenting on my on going build.
 
Regards
Richard 
 

Learning curves, learning curves, learning curves have really slowed me down, that along with what seems like constant snow clearing. Using the grinder in the garage in close to or below zero temps hasn’t been much fun either. LOL
 
First was assembling the new mill, reading all instructions and playing with scrap material and mill attachments until I became somewhat comfortable with it.
 
Second was learning to use a grinder to sharpen and /or make lathe tools. My right hand lath tool needed sharpening and I totally destroyed it attempting to do this. I did have a backup right hand tool but decided to take a ¼ inch high speed steel blank and make my own. Yes, I could just have purchased new tools but my lathe and mill mentor, Retired Guy, said sooner or later I would need to learn the necessary grinder skills if I ever wanted to make my own custom lathe tools. And, as I have been telling myself lately, if not now, when? So I read the tool making instructions that came with the Sherline product and used the backup right hand tool as a template. Success! I was able to make my own right hand tool that worked beautifully. Besides, the cost of blanks is about half of premade tools.
 

 
Third was learning how to make my own gearwheels using the gear cutting tool holder I purchased with the new mill. There were several failures and for a time I thought I was going to run out of brass rod before the job was finished. But persistence, slowing down and being as being precise as possible paid off. 
 
Also a big help was a video I got from the Midwest Model Shipwrights video library. On this video, Doc Williams explained how he built the windlass for his Charles W Morgan, part of which was making gear wheels.
 
This is what I got with the kit for the counter shaft assembly.

 
My first thought was to cut the gearwheels off, clean them up with escapement files, and drill a 1/32 hole for a new shaft. But that didn’t work as well as I liked so I took a deep breath and made my own gearwheels.
 
Starting with a piece of ¼ inch brass stock, I loaded it into the lathe and turned it down to same diameter as the white metal gearwheel. That’s my self-made right hand cutting tool in the pic.
 

 
Then I loaded the piece on the mill. On the right side of the picture is a 4 jaw chuck, mounted on a rotary table which is mounted on a right angle attachment. The rotary table allows a circle to be divided into 3600 parts. I just divided the diameter of each gear by the number of needed teeth, 8 for the small gear and 12 for the large gear. Then, using the handle on the rotary table, I rotated the piece the necessary amount for each cut. The cutting tool I used is actually made for cutting threads. The reason there are 2 cutting tools mounted in the gear cutting holding tool is because the tools are 1/8th inch vs the standard ¼ inch the holder is made for. Sherline advised me that when using 1/8th inch tools to mount 2 of them to make up the 1/8th inch difference. I cut the teeth .150 inches deep.
 

 
This is a picture of what the large gear looks like after finishing in the mill.
 

 
Then put the piece back into the lathe and drilled a 1/32 hole for the shaft.
 

 
The rear cutoff tool made easy work of cutting the gear to the proper thickness.
 

 
Here is the finished large gear

 
And the finished small gear
 

 
Bothe gears next to the white metal gears that came with the kit.
 

 
I was, thankfully, able to salvage the stands. My skills are nowhere near ready to make these. I didn’t have any 1/32 brass rod but I did have some 1/32 copper wire (unknown gauge) so used that for the axel shaft. Here is the piece assembled.
 


While this assembly probably should have been entirely black, I have previously left lots of brass pieces unpainted. So I went half way and blackened the frames only. I’m always conflicted about blackening the brass pieces. Kind of like painting over beautiful woodwork. 
 

 
Next up is the windlass. This is the piece that came with the kit, which isn’t very pretty. The cuts in the center for the pawl are hardly visible. So I’m going to attempt to build  my own windlass.
 

 
 Looks like more learning curves in my future. But if not now, when?

John, interesting about your bulkhead situation and the deckplanking.
I didn't encounter that problem.
I am back working on my Bluenose.
Getting close to the rigging process. 

The quarterdeck is installed. On the Bluenose it's really more like a halfdeck, but I digress. This went pretty well using more or less standard technique. Much the same as the hull planks.
 
There was a problem that I'm not sure what the source of is. The Model Shipways hull has come out with the widest bulkhead two positions aft of the great beam where the quarterdeck begins. This makes the deck planks come out differently than the plans which show the widest bulkhead to be at the bulkhead H (Great beam).
Width H: 4.363"
             I: 4.424"
             J: 4.394"
            K: 4.272"
As you can see I and J are both wider than H. I did not realize this until I started laying deck planks. The plans show the same width for H and I with J slightly smaller.  This problem could have been avoided by swapping bulkheads to I-J-H order. Too late now. I had assumed the bulkheads were laid out in the correct order on the cutouts. Silly me.
 
If you take I to be the correct bulkhead for the H position the decking planks are correct as shown on the plans.
The plans show 24 planks from the center line at H along the great beam. 17 tapered planks and 7 nibbed planks(+ nibbing strake). That would exactly fit on bulkhead I. To fit them on H a plank must be dropped from the tapered group which would come out wrong for the aft end of the ship. Below is a trial fit that shows the problem:

 
Given the actual discrepancy is less than a plank width, I decided on spiling for the last plank to compensate.
 
Next some thought was given to plank size and pattern. A great discussion of buttshift patterns is found in the articles database on MSW. The most pleasing patterns use a five shift such as 13524. For a reasonable length plank such as scale 28', deck beams would need to be installed between the bulkheads at appropriate intervals. To use the existing bulkheads for the butts  at 28' a 3 shift pattern is required. I decided to go with 132, but on reflection😄, that's the same as 123 but in the opposite direction. It doesn't look as good as 13524 but with the deck furniture It should be fine and it's a lot less work.
 
I took the nibbing strakes directly from the plan. They were precut and sanded before installation. Planks were laid starting at the centerline and working outward. The taper was started at bulkhead K. The amount of taper was determined by measuring between the nibbing strakes at the stern and dividing by the number of tapered planks. This turned out accurate with little or no fudging. After the tapered planks were installed the nibbed planks were installed up to the last one. Which was spiled to fill the last gap. Here's the last plank going in!

 
Don't forget to mark the mast hole!! I did this with the first two planks while I could still see the actual hole.
 
At this point I could not resist putting in the masts to see how she looked! It's starting to look like a real ship.

 
 
 
 

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

Engine  room hatch, ready for final clean-up