bhermann

Bit of an update.
 
The model is mounted on it's baseboard, which is made from rosewood, with two simple brass rods to hold it in place. Rare event for me to get this done so early, as I'm usually trying to carefully mount a fully rigged model! I also completed a number of deck fittings such as the main and fore hatches, the galley hatch, the wheel box, dory cradle, quarter bitts and a few other little things. It's fun to have to scratch build most all of this as MS only provides wood and plans. 

 

 

 

 

Both sides glued in. Now I just need to figure out what to do about the star at the top. Not perfect but I'm happy.
 

 

Last update I stated that up next was going to be making the Ratchet Quadrants and associated parts which go along with them, so it has taken me awhile to figure out how I was going to make them, so went back to the drawing from LB Jenson and also looked at a picture on the web of a Ratchet Quadrant and this is my take on these.
 
Picture from LB Jenson book (this is to help with my build if not allowed please delete)
 

 
With the gears I had made they were .046" wide so I needed .046" + width for middle part then add .010" for sides which go passed gear teeth. and looking at drawing I assumed they had a ridge in the middle because I see he drew 2 lines, so made body from three pieces of .016 brass sheet, the middle piece I cut out a little bigger to have a ridge, the sides I made from ,010" sheet brass. Once I got the shape I soldered the three pieces of .016" and one of the .010" together then the other .010" side I CA glued so that I could remove later then I made an easy jig so that I could drill holes as per drawing. 
 
 
 

 
Then made a jig so that I could work out heights
 

 

 
Made the shackles and did a some clean up and then put back in jig to work out link
 

 

 
Got the dimension needed then bent and soldered links
 

 

 
After this I un-glued the one side on both pieces so I could solder a piece of .010" round brass so that it would hold to the gear once I install, forgot to mention the three pieces of .016" I ground away so that the pawl would fit. 
 

 

 

 
Next was to make the handle shafts, made from brass machined to fit square rocker then filed to round for the shaft, mounted rocker with some small bolts then made the handle parts.
 

 

 

 
 
 
Reworked the jig so that I could solder the handle parts to the shaft
 

 
And it came out just as I had planed
 

 
Made the small pawls and then Casey Blacken all parts
 

 
Last pic off the whole Windlass still need to make the u-bolt pins
 

 
Kit supplied parts
 

 
Next up to make some pump parts, will be looking at Gary's (FriedClams) blog did see he has made some of these 🤔
 

 
Thanks again to all who comments and all who hit the likes do apricate it 👍
 
Until next time
Regards
Richard 

Thanks for the likes and thanks Grant!
 
I've made a little progress on the trail boards: Here is one side dry fit in place. There's still a bit of cleanup to be done before I call it good but overall I'm happy with how it looks.
 

I've decided not to use the kit part. I tried painting it and just didn't like the result. So, instead I'm cutting out the trail board design.
 
I have one of these and I'm using #3/0 jewelers blades.

I also have this image that I got somewhere (don't remember where). I printed the image onto avery full sized label paper.  I cut it down to size.


I debated on what material to use and settled on .040 thick Evergreen sheet. I tried initially to use a 1/16" basswood sheet but the wood was just to soft and kept breaking.

After muffing it up a couple times I ended up with this. A bit of a tedious task but not too bad and just needs to be cleaned up a bit.

And dry fitted to the model.
 

 

While waiting for supplies,   worked on the wiring  plugs  for the Nav horn, port spotlight bracket. There very small, hard to shape, but I think they will add to the effect, when the cables are connected, also added the mounting brackets for the , cabin  vents and running lights. Test fitted the  reworked 20mm base 

I have finished the steps and the rudder. 
 
The plans for the steps showed a 3-layer type structure but there wasn't any stock in the kit thin enough to make them to scale. So, I ended building them with 2-layers instead.
 
After that I moved on to the rudder. Pretty straight forward work there. I also installed the rudder chains. I made the chain iron from wood and installed two eyebolts. It would have been nice if there had been some rudder hinges in the kit but I made do.

Next step is the trail board carvings at the bow. The kit parts leave a lot to be desired. I guess the intent is that you are to paint the kit parts but that doesn't look to be an easy task. At this point, I need to figure out what to do here. I think the best way to go is to create them from scratch. I'm thinking about trying to cut them out of the stock part but the wood is very fragile. We'll see.
 

Did a try with soft plastic and CA with wood. I am surprised!
It sticks!
I did my trial with the type of soft plastic covering containers from the bakery of your store.
Now here is the question: What type of blue to use?
I am using Vallejo paint, and have several blues.
Guess a sample plate with all the blue has to be done. The blue appears different on clear plastic versus wood. 

Creating the skylights involved a lot of light hand work.
I used my shaver type blade of saw, cut down into the frame work and added the brass strings.

 
I used a tine spot of CA to glue them into place.

 
The strings doesn't look straight in close up, 
 
The Proxxon vise became handy here, once glued I used the vise and pressed all the strings into place.

After hand the brass strings looks over-dimensioned. At least at close up.
From a distance it isn't to bad. 

Bob, thank you for the constructive comment. You certainly have a good point there.
I am going to to try that idea.

Regarding the bars on the skylight window, I tried this out using thin thin brass wire.
The inner opening is 14 mm, so I added 10 wires.
With the macro photo none of the strings are straight, but from 2ft / 36cm I have a hard time to tell.
I will try to straighten them out a little more.
My idea of this setup is:
double sided tape - lay the strings down -  matching about 1.5mm on center.

place the frame down on top

 
add glue  - press all the pieces into place, using a cover plate and lots of weight

Will this turn out okay?
Once it's done -  I will know

More work has progressed during the last couple of days,
this was tricky to work out. 
But I got it finally.




 

Hi Per thanks for looking in and commenting on my build, I do love to highly detail my models and it has taken a few years to get to this stage, and I do agree with you regarding learning from others, have learnt from many 👍
 
 
Welcome to MSW Paul, look around the site and you will see a lot of amazing builds going on and please do not be intimidated by what I or others make, as I said to Per I love to figure out and make detailed pieces.
And thanks very much for your kind comment.
   
 
Totally agree you have to have tools to make parts as I do, but also have the knowledge to work the tools and this comes by practice, practice and more practice and a lot of patience 
 
 
Weathering does bring out the model and have done it on plastic models but have not seen any done on wooden ships 🤔 so will have to experiment on some old parts which I have made before trying on the Bluenose.
 
This is what I did to my 1:24  scratch built Jeep, was worried that I put to much weathering on it but I think it came out not to bad.
 
 
 

 

 
Regards
Richard

Back to my dear Bluenose, working on all deck details.

Jond
 
Thanks for you kind words, we all bring a different set of skills to this hobby and it is fun to see the varied techniques people use.  I am an engineer by trade and have been using 3D modeling software for over 20 years.  I enjoy building the ship on the computer and then seeing the real deal come to shape.
 
I echo everything Allen above has said.  I would consider my adventure with the planner a failed experiement for accurate and repeatable thicknesses of thin wood strips.   The thickness sander is the way to go and I have heard several people speak highly of the Byrnes thickness sander, if you have one on order, good for you.  I ended up buying a real nice table saw with an excellent adjustable fence.  I use a thin veneer blade that makes very clean cuts with minimal waste.  The trick is to take as much time as you need to adjust the table saw and make everything true, but once it is dialed in, the cuts are nearly perfect and highly repeatable.  I then use a 4 inch Dremel table saw to make the final cuts to width.
 
As far as the wood goes, I am probably not the best person to take advice from.  This is my first Plank on Frame (POF) attempt and I did not know how successful I would be so I chose an inexpensive, readily available wood for the framing.  I used white pine available down at my lumber yard.  I searched for quarter sawn planks with small tight grain running vertically when viewed from the end.  I will use sitka spruce for my planking and hard maple for the rails.  I have both of these woods here in the workshop left over from some luthier projects.
 
Thanks for the picture of the clamps and shelves, pretty neat.  You can see alot of the ship structure, the frames with their futtocks, the deck beams and the outer hull planking.  Cool.
 
Below is an update on my progress, I am working on the deck beams.  

 

 

Thanks very much Keith and your build is absolutely exceptionally good as well 👍
Hope it helps you in your build Richard
Thanks Robin did make with a few knocks as I see in the pictures, still thinking of maybe doing a bit of weathering 
Thanks Michael that is very nice of you to say  
Love the metal work as well Joe, but also I do love doing the woodwork isn't it a great hobby
 You are right Richard the kit supplied white metal parts are not up to par which is a shame 
Thanks Mugje 
 
Thanks a lot mate just trying to get it to look right really.
 

 
Again thanks for your comments and to everyone for the likes
 
Regards
Richard
 

For the symmetrical tapers I use a similar sanding technique (because I didn't trust myself to keep from removing too much material if I tried the "chuck the dowel in the drill" method I have read about.
 
First I lay the spar on the plan and mark corresponding points on the mast and the plan.


 
The I use the caliper to measure the width of the mast at one of the points
 

 
and to transfer the width mechanically to the dowel.
 

 
This spar has had several locations marked and transferred.
 

 
Then into the vice for removing excess material as I did for the asymmetrical tapers.  I do this in 4 different planes to form a square section which is then sanded round to finish up.
 

 
And here is the result.  The top of the mast will be shaped later to form the ball that belongs there.
 

 
After shaping, staining and painting (and a bunch of other work) this is what they look like.
 

 
Bob
 

Couple of small updates starting with the guard to go over the windlass gears, does not look much but I suppose it stopped fingers/hands or rope/chain from jamming 🤔
Sheared .003" brass sheet bent to shape and then soldered the top bracket on, was just a little short so soldered a small piece to the bottom, after that drilled four .011" holes so that I could add some .4 mm Philip screws, will blacken it later.  
 

 

 
Next up was the windlass brakes so started with the brake beam used this picture and drawings provided to come up with the shape,  machined the base out of 1/8" sq brass bottom is .014" and sides are .010" then made the beam out of 3/32" sq brass, drill the hole for the mount first then machined the side stiffeners after that I filed to shape, filed ends so that I could fit 1/16" sq tubing these were cut to .098" long and then soldered to each end also cut a piece of tubing and that got soldered to the mounting hole, once this was done I cut the small reinforcement bar at each end were handle will go from 3/32" brass tube and soldered them on and gave it a go clean up.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Made the small brackets for connecting links from .10" brass then made a jig so that I could soldered them on
 

 
Held it down so nothing moves and bingo it worked 
 

 
Will blacken it later, pic with kit supplied part
 

 

 

 
Next up is to make two of these ratchet quadrants then shackles and links
 

 
Thanks everyone for all the comments and likes much appreciated until next time.
 
Regards
Richard  
 
 

Deck furniture looks great Per. Some day we will finish our builds huh? 😉

Work continues on the Bluenose. For everyone's reference, here is a photo of the original that has informed some of my choices in how the model has turned out so far:
 

 
I am not trying to precisely emulate the image, but rather used it as a guide as I continue to work on the model. My intention was to give the model a post-race kind of appearance, with the ship dressed and as a result, I initially chose to run my string of signal flags up the foremast's flag halyard, creating this appearance:
 

 
But to be completely honest, I wasn't happy with how this made the model look as the flags are mostly hidden if viewed from the starboard side of the schooner so I pulled them down and considered my options. In the inspiration image, there does not appear to be much appreciable rhyme or reason to where the crew put signal flags when dressing the ship, so I thought on this for a while before arriving at a different solution...
 

 
...which I am far happier with. The model looks dressed and the flags are visible from port and starboard. I put way too much work into those for them to be hidden away!
 

 
And here's the model as of late last week. I'm currently working on the downhauls and halyards in a few places, and then it's on to shrouds. When those are done, it will be time to mount and display the model... it's hard to believe that the end is this close.

My masts, booms and gaffs are pretty much ready and it looks like I'm into the rigging now.
 
All of the blocks on the Bluenose were internally stropped and it appears from old photos that they were all painted white. This is a detail that I wanted to include. There seem to be two options for internally stropped blocks: one is the wooden ones from Syren and the other is the cast metal ones from BlueJacket. I weighed the pros and cons of each and in the end settled on the BlueJacket ones for two reasons. The first is the Syren ones are not available in the smallest size that is called for on the Bluenose plus they are so exquisite that I didn't think I had the heart to paint them. On the other hand, the BlueJacket ones are available in all the specified sizes and they are intended to be painted, so they seemed the right choice for this project.
 

 
Many of the blocks on the Bluenose were attached with shackles. I have no confidence in my ability to replicate them skillfully enough at this scale, so I have opted to seize the blocks to eyebolts which I know will look better in the end.
 
The bowsprit is installed and rigged, including my fake turnbuckles -
 

 
The foremast is held in place with temporary "stays" while I start in on the lower shrouds

 

 

 
That's it for now.
Thanks,
David
 

Bob, I  don't mind at all.
Yes, that's what I did. It was the stanchions I  did it to. But they were cut of after the planking was done and replaced.

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

After letting the shrouds and lanyards sit overnight, I adjusted the tension where needed and let it sit again for a few days.  Then I checked the tension and alignment of the mizzen against the other mast again. this time I got a better photo.  The caps are lined up, the tops are lined up and the royals and sky are lined up.  I'm sure that they never were on the actual ship.  But I tried to keep the rigging ship shaped     For reference, the only square sails set thus far are on the fore mast.
 

 

 
thanks for  looking!!

With the mizzen stepped.  I checked the alignment of the mizzen mast against the other mast and a pumb bob.  You probably can't see the plumb bob and string well - it has a white string.  I can see if fine in person.  Also, I know the  photo isn't lined up with the center line. sorry.  i took it with my phone instead of my camera.  Looks like I need to go back to using my camera. 
 

 
With the mast lined up, I started the mizzen shrouds.  I'm using forceps to keep tension on the dead eye lanyards.