Jond

Thank you Keith for your greeting and I offer them to you as well. My daughter made up the remaining sails while here, so now I need to get them on. A little wiggling is needed for the jumbo, but hopefully all the others should be OK. There are so many other things happening , the productivity in the shipyard is a bit low. I did set the main, but all those lines that need to be made up are still in production. I hope to get it done and a posting before the new year. I am running low on parts too, and may need to add to my crew. cheers and Happy Holidays

John I can not wait to see the real thing again with those stairs. Just amazing. I also want to learn more about the battery and tiny lights you have shown a few times, I am thinking about that photo you took here but later with the roof on with inside light coming down the stairs.....it will be fun to see. Merry Christmas

Thank you Phil and others for your likes. 16a Just a quick update as we get to the Christmas Holiday. Also it is snowing and we are in a perfect White Christmas on the Maine coast this year Another milestone was reached as the first sail is now on. But more important was the show up of the main crew. 1 here we see the foresail bent and sheeted. I usually engage the boom tackle, so the sail stays in position. In this case we will have starboard tack. One note is my stash of blocks. I try to use Bluejacket blocs on my Maine Schooners, and I am running short of some sizes. The example here is the throat halyards. When I get further along and know what I need, I will order and reinstall those two smaller blocks. That effort will raise the throat just enough to straighten out the luff, and all will be in order. 2-4. The main crew arrived. The first view is the whole crew; 16 figures in the box. They offer many different poses, so I ticked off this bunch and hit buy...simple. I ordered them from Etsy and in the second photo, look at the shipping label…wow they came from Ukraine! I am pleased to support them in this way, as tiny as it is. The third view is one figure as they come. The detail is incredible. In a race they had maybe 24 on board. Many wore street cloths, smoked cigars etc. Maybe as I go back online looking for Norwegians for my Gjoa build, I’ll find a few more. Merry Christmas

Phil Nearly 10 years ago I made my second visit to Lunenberg to sail on Bluenose II. The day before our sail, they were rained out and I got to spend a good hour or more on deck with the crew taking a million photos and asking lots of questions. I also bought a copy of the book sharing all the detail of her design. On one of the pages [copy below] there is a description of rigging that sail, the four corners do the following • Peak halyard is continuous line that goes through a snatch block either port or starboard rail depending on the tack • Throat halyard goes to pin rail • The sheet leads down to aftermost dead eye…..I believe that means another deck snatch block to make it easier to handle, and again it would be either rail based on tack • The tack is the most interesting and not possible to model. There is a hook that is lashed to the tack and secured to either of the foresail halyards. It is meant to slide up or down the foresail halyard and thus to flatten the staysail at mid point. The tack itself is belayed at the outer rails, again port or starboard. In my studies I have found many similarities between The Bluenose information and new England Gloucester fishing schooners. There are a few differences as well. I will likely follow this wonderful detail as we all know outside of the Howard Chappell Fishing schooner book, there is little other information. If there is more out there, I would love to read it even it comes too late for my work. Thanks for pointing our this issue. Merry Christmas too Jon

thank you Druxey. I have used similar setups making masts with Sitka spruce up to almost 3 feet. However masts or other spars over about 15 inches only come up from time to time and I somehow get through the challenge. A more worrisome issue is the Norwegian rigging come straight at me.....Thanks to Harvey I just got a rigging book written by a Swede that looks like a whole new rabbit hole to descend. We'll see how that goes. cheers

Dear Cathead My father in law was a navy officer below decks running the boat [ Destroyer] during WWII. After he came home he spent several years working in Schenectady, NY where they build Railroad engines and this anvil ended up in his shop. I don't know its history other than it was one of his favorite possessions. I am sure it has a hidden story that would be fun to know. cheers

9 working on the deck furniture. I am working away through the deck furnishings. 1. I counted ten main deck stationary items including the skylights, and here 8 of them are almost ready to glue down. 2 ,3,4. these three views show my experimental approach to make then main windless out of paper, a tiny wood dowel and plastic gears sanded down to size. The two deck brackets holding the shaft coming forward from the engine room. I switched to brass. 5 I am using the old thread trick to try to simulate iron rods for the forward skylight. I used pins on the aft cabin skylight. We’ll see if It works here. 6 here I have blackened the windless parts. the paint helps the paper become more solid looking. I found that black magic marker is better than paint however on both the paper [ second coating] and dowels. It does not thicken the dowel. I also used it on the brass clips. All is still loose here though I did make and glue down the engine room topside /skylight. I have no information, so I am following Harvey for what I assume is the engine cooling water return across the deck to be sure is stays above the water. I’ll talk more about the windless when I figure it and the two chains out. It is tiny at this scale. 7-9. here I show my rube Goldberg method of using my midi lathe to sand down to shape a mast that is longer than it. The railroad rail anvil is a family heirloom. I then stepped the rough mast just to take a look. It is shown to be absolutely plum in the drawings, so here we go. The last closer view shows the pumps going in and the bow sprit in place. There is still much to do here, and I am unsure of the mechanics of the rest of the deck workings. I a using the drawing section which is reasonable, and I will do my best but remain unsure as the photos are not complete and the system is not like our new England set up. It is fun to learn though Cheers

8 complete rails and plan deck work Thank you everyone for your likes. It helps keep the fire burning. This is a partial update to record completion of the cap rails and this phase…. “ the hull” . It’s kind of like topping out of a building. I suppose i could get a miniature Xmas tree and set it on the rail. I had a nice glass of Single malt and now we move on... 1,2,3 these images show the completion of the cap rails. It was pretty straight forward, as I used the rest of the milled poplar and cut out three sections for each side. Next up will be to complete the deck furniture but first I need to plan it out. I think there are three parts. First all the stationary stuff, Then the mechanical stuff then all the rigging stuff that is best to get on deck or the rails early. 4 I scaled the 1950 Model Shipway deck plan using TurboCad then cut it out to lay on deck. I then used light pencil lines to mark where things will go. I then will be using this plan and the long cross section to get dimensions. 5,6,7 these views show the progression of making up blocks to represent the stationary element. Some of these I will trim down build back up with cladding. 8-9 are just further along as the cap rail is now all painted and the 10 stationary deck pieces are laid out with some early shaping. I see in the photo I have a few more of the iron brackets to add in as supports for the shelves too. I need to get them done before setting any deck stuff. None of this first phase includes the mechanical equipment. That is a tough phase to follow as I quickly leave my comfort zone trying to make chains to actually fit on wheels etc. I am thinking about it though as I look for material. All for now.

15 reset the top masts with missing rigging, as sails go through early production. 1 this view shows me carrying on from the last update, I have added the missing foremast bands and blocks for the foresail and the hoops for the fore topsail. She is back together there at least. 2 shows the main top mast disassembled for the same treatment 3-4 these views show us all back together. Going forward, I have reached the time when I need to set the stage as to how I would like to display this model. Surely as she was racing. 5-7 show three views of her that influence the intent. One option I have considered is to show the historical event where she lost her top formast in the first elimination race against henry Ford. I have researched that incident and learned that the mast did not fail but came unstepped. They rerigged it on the fly to to set horizontal but loosing both he top ails and the fisherman sail they had to retire. I will not try to do that but simply refer to the story of her closeness to glory. 8-10 these views show the production line of sails and spars. 11 this view shows an interesting option. I included the three racing photos also to document that no anchors were present while these guys raced. Thus, I may lash one to the deck, but will not hang one over the side. a final question will be how many crew do I need......I am not sure the typical collection of 4 or 5 will be enough. cheers

John Your sequence or getting the running rigging all in place and tied down before ratlines really comes through with these images great job! jon

Thank you for the recommended sources. I down loaded the Norwegian article and just ran through it. lots of great images to go over more closely. i have those model shipway plans as that is my basis. hopefully my pins are in the right places! I ordered the book too. As I have said before, I will have an incredible library one of these days. becoming very complete. cheers Jon

Wow what a great study on the rigging . I will be following every post as I am totally out of my comfort zone with Norwegian rigging. Great work and I look forward to your progress Cheers jon

John thanks for reminding me of all those coils to make near the end. they are just like ratlines. got to do it though 🥴 cheers

Julie thanks for dropping by. nice connection to reuse of good old material. I am sure there are many old LL Bean boots around cheers

Gjoa 7. Complete rudder and bulwark "shelf" This week I have been able to get a few things done. I am about the middle of this stage and planning for the next one. 1-4. these four view show getting replacement drill bits, so I can complete the last pintel, and the laying out of the tiller by scaling a drawing. I have a few sheets of pear wood that are great for this type of detail work. The third and forth view show installation and the trimmed-out transom. I keep learning the hard way how critical it is to stabilize things like brass strips when drilling tiny holes. I have broken many drill bits. 5 this view is a group of new poplar strips I milled to use for both the bulwark shelf and cap rails. 6-9 show the progress of the shelf 10-11. these views show all the belaying pins are in and the steel rod shelf supports are going in. I am thinking to keep the brass pins brass. I know they should be darker but I like the look. Next up will include the cap rails. And planning for deck furnishings