catopower

Accomplished a fair amount on the stern area. Keel pretty much completed. Just need to get some wood filler and I can move ahead on that. Then some final sanding of the hull. I shaped the stern using an Exacto #10 general purpose carving blade. After getting used to how to angle it correctly so as not to dig in to deeply, it could be used as a plane. I was able to shave off very fine layers of wood and had great control over how much stock was coming off. I have learned from previous sanding mistakes how easy it is to get into trouble. Starting to move along. Thanks.

Hello,
Continued working on hull shaping. Most of the hull now conforming to templates. Still needs fine sanding. Trying to eliminate as much of the future bodywork as possible. The supplied blank had numerous dings and dents, but the hull is gradually coming together. Spent today cutting the notch for the rudder post. I am placing one picture which shows the assembly of the keel plus stem. If anyone who has built the model or one similar could advise if it is not unusual for the forward part of the keel and stem area to require so much body work? Thanks.

If the hull is of basswood (it probably is), dents can often be relieved by brushing water on the area. It re-expands the wood fibers. Looks like your shaping is going well.

Hello,
My name is Bruce Howe. Greetings from soon to be weather unpleasant Massachusetts. I am a new member and am building Mary Taylor in honor of my brother- in law Bob Allen. I have some modeling experience but have been absent for a few years now. I have long admired this kit and hope to do it justice. My other experience with Bluejacket kits include Atlantic (I will post some pictures in the appropriate forum), Pauline, and Endeavor. I have already found many helpful hints in this forum. Looking forward to completing Mary Taylor. Thanks.

It's hard to define "best" as each manufacturer has their own ideas.  I suggest doing a search in the kit build area for logs on the model.   It'll give you a better idea of what each kit is like.

I'm a little late to the discussion, but I am just starting to rig the Pavel Nikitin Santa Maria, and in my first few cuts of his 0.45mm beige rope, the strands are unraveling on me as they are cut.  Not happy about that.  I previously used his thicker 1.3mm black rope and it was ok.
 
So, looks like I might be relying on my supply of Syren and Ropes of Scale inventories, as I have used them in the past with great success.

When I made the Pavel Nikitin "JOHN SMITH SHALLOP", I replaced the line with after market line.  Two GREAT sources are SYREN SHIPMODEL COMPANY and ROPES OF SCALE.  Both are MSW sponsors.
 
ROS offers synthetic and cotton line while SYREN only has synthetic.  Both are good.
 
 
 

It's interesting to note another deviation from the Mamoli plans – there are no sheet blocks attached to that large topsail spreader yard. The sheet blocks are attached directly to the sail, and they "ride up" the braces. Means no need to have belaying points for the topsail sheets, and no sheet block slung under the spreader yard either.
 
I've also noted there is no place to belay the vangs. The Utrecht reconstruction looks to have small pin rails on the bulwarks, near the tackles. Saw that on a photo somewhere, but don't see it now.

It's interesting to note another deviation from the Mamoli plans – there are no sheet blocks attached to that large topsail spreader yard. The sheet blocks are attached directly to the sail, and they "ride up" the braces. Means no need to have belaying points for the topsail sheets, and no sheet block slung under the spreader yard either.
 
I've also noted there is no place to belay the vangs. The Utrecht reconstruction looks to have small pin rails on the bulwarks, near the tackles. Saw that on a photo somewhere, but don't see it now.

It's interesting to note another deviation from the Mamoli plans – there are no sheet blocks attached to that large topsail spreader yard. The sheet blocks are attached directly to the sail, and they "ride up" the braces. Means no need to have belaying points for the topsail sheets, and no sheet block slung under the spreader yard either.
 
I've also noted there is no place to belay the vangs. The Utrecht reconstruction looks to have small pin rails on the bulwarks, near the tackles. Saw that on a photo somewhere, but don't see it now.

Miffed... don't.
This is an old model with original rigging and sails.

 

Patrick, thanks for pointing out the bonnet and reefing on the Utrecht.
 
Also, about the seizing or lack thereof. No seizing certainly makes my work easier!

Gregory, I wouldn't kick yourself about the reef points on your model. Certainly not due to presence of brails, which served a different purpose than reef points.
 
In fact, there's a passage in Brian Lavery's book Royal Yachts Under Sail, that mentions the later yacht Fubbs, stating "Fubbs was old-fashioned in 1719 in using a "bonnet", an extra strips of canvas fitted under a sail to increase the area, in this case of the jib.  But, she also carried the means to reef the mainsail."
 
So, if we are to believe Lavery's work, there would be evidence of both bonnets and reefs on small ships of the era, as pointed out by Patrick in the photos of the Utrecht reconstruction. (Thanks Patrick!)

Hi Gregory, those are the brails, and they should be correct. In fact, its been my plan to show the mainsail "brailed up" like in this image.
 
The painting, however, does show the line of what appears to the lacing of a bonnet. I'm reposting your image with a blue arrow pointing to the feature.
 

 
The following painting by De Man shows something similar, again, I point to with a blue arrow.

So, if that's not a bonnet lacing, I don't know what it is. Just a reinforcement seam of some kind?
 
 

Thank you Druxey. I would gladly make the sails without reef points or bonnets!
 
Any thoughts about the serving of the shrouds or stays?

I'm jumping ahead now and working on the sails. At this scale, I'm going to stick with my practice of making cloth sails. I've made many sails from cloth, but still experimenting a little here and there to get the technique to work just the way I'd like.
 


 
 
However, the issue here is the make up of the main sail. If you look at the sail pattern, the mainsail shows a row of reefing points. My last Charles Yacht model had a bonnet. Not sure what is correct, but thought I'd put this question out here.
 
The Royal Museums Greenwich website shows a model of the Mary with reefing points in the main and stay sails, no reef bands, and a row of holes in the sails. One for each reef point?
 

Of course, I could just stick with the Mamoli instructions and add these reef points to the main sail, which I might just do, since It's simpler than lacing a bonnet anyway. Just wondering what might be correct?
 
Also, since I'm more accustomed to later period ships, and mostly larger ones, if the forward most shroud and mainstay should be served? Also the eyes of the shrouds around the masthead? Of course, kit instructions never tell you to do this, even if it was actual practice. Here, I'm not so sure about.
 
Seems to me that since there isn't much to chafe against, the foremost shroud would not be served. But, at the mast head? And the main stay? 
 
Again, since this is mostly a continuation of the original builder's model, I'm sure he would not have done any serving, so just going by the kit instructions is a safe route. But, I'd like to better understand this.
 
 
 

Thanks Patrick, I appreciate the nice comments.
 
I had a bit of a slowdown over the past week, but I think I should be on a more regular ship modeling schedule again.
 
Here's the most recent progress I made on the Yacht Mary. The lee boards were already made, but there was no pivot for it, so I drilled them out, as well as the hull, to fit a small length of dowel.
 

Also assembled the anchors and cleaned up the anchor stocks. I used black thread to wrap the stocks. I think I need better lighting, because I had a hard time seeing that the wrapping wasn't particularly straight. But, I did manage to wrap the rings on the anchors without too much problem, and then added the anchor cables.
 

When I first received the model, it had the hull ladders still intact. But, in the process of going to another ship modeler and then back to me, the ladders got broken. So, I had to remove them completely and rebuild them. I'm not really happy with the new ladders, because of the way they had to curve slightly under the hull. I'm not sure if that's because of the way the hull was built, or if perhaps they're not supposed to actually be flush with the hull as these will be. 
 
I suppose they should be straighter, but on this model, they would end up flaring out from the hull at the ladder bottoms, which would seem stranger to me. 

I didn't do much to the guns and carriages, except to paint them. They carriages were initially natural wood color, and the barrels were painted black, but were chipped. So, I painted the carriages and barrels, and then took a length of line, and threaded them through the carriages for breechings. Note that this is the style of Dutch gun carriages, but the Mary was Dutch built, so this should be correct.
 
Not sure at this point if I'm going to add gun tackle and train tackle.

Finally, I added the remainder of the decorative piece at the stern. It was a bit of a challenge to fit these parts, and the work left some notable gaps. But, I think it looks okay.

I'm starting to work on cleaning up the already made spars, and fashioning flag staffs. I've also decided to use Chuck's ULTRA rigging line and 3D printed blocks and deadeyes on this one.
 

Patrick, thanks for pointing out the bonnet and reefing on the Utrecht.
 
Also, about the seizing or lack thereof. No seizing certainly makes my work easier!

Gregory, I wouldn't kick yourself about the reef points on your model. Certainly not due to presence of brails, which served a different purpose than reef points.
 
In fact, there's a passage in Brian Lavery's book Royal Yachts Under Sail, that mentions the later yacht Fubbs, stating "Fubbs was old-fashioned in 1719 in using a "bonnet", an extra strips of canvas fitted under a sail to increase the area, in this case of the jib.  But, she also carried the means to reef the mainsail."
 
So, if we are to believe Lavery's work, there would be evidence of both bonnets and reefs on small ships of the era, as pointed out by Patrick in the photos of the Utrecht reconstruction. (Thanks Patrick!)

That is exactly why I decided to ask help from professionals. I'll keep you posted Eberhard.
 
You are entitled to. Many artists covered his songs. But 'nobody sings Dylan like Dylan' (except perhaps the artist who played him in the movie: Timothee Chalamet, who even did the singing in this biopic himself). The movie 'A complete unknown' stirred a lot of feelings in me I had forgotten about. Even though I have Dylan's complete work (I think its 64 albums by now). I am an addict.

The model Patrick quotes has a contemporary hull but modern rigging. The latter has some oddities such as the small spreaders at the peak of the headsails.

Hi Gregory, those are the brails, and they should be correct. In fact, its been my plan to show the mainsail "brailed up" like in this image.
 
The painting, however, does show the line of what appears to the lacing of a bonnet. I'm reposting your image with a blue arrow pointing to the feature.
 

 
The following painting by De Man shows something similar, again, I point to with a blue arrow.

So, if that's not a bonnet lacing, I don't know what it is. Just a reinforcement seam of some kind?
 
 

Hi Gregory, those are the brails, and they should be correct. In fact, its been my plan to show the mainsail "brailed up" like in this image.
 
The painting, however, does show the line of what appears to the lacing of a bonnet. I'm reposting your image with a blue arrow pointing to the feature.
 

 
The following painting by De Man shows something similar, again, I point to with a blue arrow.

So, if that's not a bonnet lacing, I don't know what it is. Just a reinforcement seam of some kind?
 
 

Thank you. I will try that. However, I disagree somewhat with your Apple observation. The first pictures I posted on the build thread were from my previous iPhone and there was no issue loading and posting.
Below are two images which would not load from my other PC. This PC has Google loaded as the browser, I think the other has MS Edge. However, I previously had no problems uploading my first pictures. 

It has been a very long time since my last update.  I have been busy, though, on the model as well as a couple of unrelated projects.   Late last year I finished the galley.   You'll see that I left the door ajar - there's not much in there to see: I couldn't decide what the cookpot ought to look like or exactly where to locate it, and so it will probably remain as it is now unless I have an inspiration which I can lower in from overhead.  The hinges and door handle are from Syren.
Next, I worked on the knightsheads for the upper deck. 
 
And then I started on the cannon, which is where the majority of my modeling time has been spent over the past three months.   I made ringbolts for the bulkhead fittings, and hooks for the gun tackles.   I'm using hooks not so much because it's prototype practice (I don't know if it is), but because the space for rigging is fiendishly tight and I thought I could probably do a better job if most of the rigging work was off the model.  Hooks help make that possible.   It was a worthwhile decision for practice making things like rings and hooks:  there's no commercial source I know of for either that meets the size requirements here.     The first picture below is one I downloaded of a cannon that's at the site of the Batavia reproduction ship in the Netherlands.  I used it as a guide for how the various bits of ironwork ought to look.   
 
I won't go into the lengthy efforts learning how to seize the blocks with the hooks, rings, beckets and things.   Anyway, once I finished the block preparations,  I did the rigging on a gun station mock-up that gave me plenty of access to see that lines ran as they ought and nothing looked tangled. 
I didn't have a magic solution for moving the rigged assembly over to the model, but having run all the lines first did make it easier to get the tackles in their intended places on the model.   The hooks and ringbolts worked out just fine and I don't think I could have done the job as neatly (though it's still far from perfect) if I'd tried to do it all in situ.
I used the 4mm kit blocks,  but with everything rigged up they look oversized to my eye.   However, I'm not tempted to go back and try 3mm now; just something to think about for next time.