Bluenose by hamilton - 1:64 p.o.b. - from MS plans

[hamilton]

Thanks Mark and Grant - I'll check out both of these sources for a start - the metalwork is a very long way off, so I guess I've got lots of time to experiment and practice

hamilton

[hamilton]

OK - so after humming and hawing over how to source my 3/16" ply in a way that wouldn't break the bank, I finally found some. And though it cost more than I would really have liked to pay, at least I have it on hand and can begin, once the disc sander arrives, to start this project in earnest. Hopefully my next update will feature some photos...

hamilton

[RepetCanuck]

Thanks Mark and Russ

 

Great suggestions! I guess I can always test the scanned/photocopied patterns against the plans (which, from my experience, are also likely to be "off" a bit, since they themselves are copies!) and check for distortion. At the same time, there is something meditative about doing things by hand. Since I'm really in an experimental/tool-learning phase I feel like I can try both approaches and see what happens.....I have a lot of scrap wood lying around to use for testing, so I'm really just messing around before getting serious about making the parts that will frame the model.....hopefully there will be some time this weekend for finishing the 3/16 patterns and doing some test cutting on the crappy maple ply I have....

hamilton

 

Hamilton, As a Nova Scotian living in Costa Rica I have just started a POF 1/4" to 1" "scratchy" model. So far the most useful tool has been a Dremel scroll saw which, with some practice, can be highly accurate. It's a very large project at just over 3 feet long, but the beauty of living here is that I can work outdoors every day without a shirt! Got the plans through Micahel Eisner whose father drew them from Smith and Rhuland specs. It's early days yet, not quite finished the jigs and lofting, but enjoying.

 

Peter

[RepetCanuck]

Thanks Russ, Alan and Frank:

 

Yes, going slow is definitely in the cards! I think the band saw will work fine for the purpose I'm putting it to, but I can't expect that the parts I cut using it will be fully dimensioned....as I mentioned before, I can see the value of a disc/belt sander already - though I never considered a jigsaw for fine trimming of the parts......I still have to invest in a smaller blade and I'll see what kind of effect that has as well - I just invested in a bit more ply to do more experimenting - hopefully I'll have a bit of time this weekend to give it a whirl....

hamilton

You may find the Dremel scroll saw the most accurate with its tiny blades.

 

Peter

[hamilton]

Thanks for the tips Peter - Dremel doesn't seem to make their scroll saw any longer - they just have a hand held "moto saw", which has a clamp so it can work as a stationary table-top device. I haven't seen any dremel scroll saws on sale at any of the usual online places.....I'm going to try to source some thin band saw blades, but so far have been absorbed in finishing my Mamoli America and, of course, other commitments! I hope to get the keel and bulkheads cut before it gets too rainy up here........thanks again for the comments!

hamilton

[Nirvana]

Question not related to the Bluenose but the dremel scroll saw.

One local second hand store has the old one

at 80 dollars plus tax. Should I pick it up?

For the Bluenose build, I like it it very much.

One step plus one and then it will be more than two..... ​

Edited August 15, 2016 by Nirvana

[mojofilter]

Hi Hamilton - Just found this this morning!  I had no idea you were doing a scratch-build along with America!  So another one I'll be watching.  Judging by your work on America, this will be another fine craft from the Hamilton Shipyards.

 

- Tim

[hamilton]

Hi Per:

 

I'm not sure if you're offering to pick this up for me? If so, thank you, but I have to decline! I don't really have any room for it, though it would be a nice addition to the collection.....

 

Tim - thanks for dropping by! Yes, this one is currently still in development - I was hoping to commence this month, but it doesn't look like I will....America will have to be finished first.....and even then, I'm heading into another academic year and my modelling progress will slow altogether....I plan on teasing out the Bluenose in tandem with other kit builds.....Syren is next up on the docket, though I may take September to focus more on Bluenose and dive into Syren later in the Fall.....much depends on feeling out what kind of year it's going to be - the last two have been really nutty, and though I'm hoping this one's calm, it's already shaping up to be very busy........

 

bye for now

hamilton

[mtaylor]

Hamilton,

 

If you have a scroll saw, SawBird has some very thin blades as does Olson. 

[RepetCanuck]

Thanks for the tips Peter - Dremel doesn't seem to make their scroll saw any longer - they just have a hand held "moto saw", which has a clamp so it can work as a stationary table-top device. I haven't seen any dremel scroll saws on sale at any of the usual online places.....I'm going to try to source some thin band saw blades, but so far have been absorbed in finishing my Mamoli America and, of course, other commitments! I hope to get the keel and bulkheads cut before it gets too rainy up here........thanks again for the comments!

hamilton

Hamilton,

 

The moto saw is what I was referring to and I bought it 10 days ago. It clamps to a table or workbench and works very well. It can be used as a hand held, but I use it as a traditional scroll saw. The only problem I have had with band saws is that the longer blades break easily when cutting curves. 

 

Peter

[hamilton]

Hi Peter:

 

I almost bought the dremel moto saw, but the one thing that held me back was that to do angle cuts you had to hold it like a coping saw.....I preferred to have something with a tilting table for angle cuts.....the band saw works well, though I have nt had extensive use of it - seems to cut curves nicely, though the 1/4" wide blade does not do tight curves, which is why I'm trying to find a thinner blade - 1/8", which I heard was available, but have never actually seen....

 

At some point, this will turn into an actual build log, I promise!

hamilton

[Mahuna]

Highland Woodworking is a good source for bandsaw blades.  

 

http://www.highlandwoodworking.com/1814tpibandsawblades.aspx

[hamilton]

Thanks a lot Frank! This is exactly what I've been looking for!! Much appreciated!

hamilton

[hamilton]

OK - it's time to turn this into an official build log by documenting the beginning of the build....these photos may look familiar - in fact they're almost identical to photos posted earlier of my tests...the difference is that this is the real deal....

 

I remade patterns for the keel pieces, bulkheads, sternpost and rudder and arranged these on 4 3/16" birch ply billets. I then dragged out the bandsaw and managed to get through 2.5 of the billets before my wife came home with the kids and I had to pack up.....I also took my disc/belt sander for a test drive cleaning up the parts after cutting - I already see the great utility of this tool! One issue is that because of the depth of the gap between the belt sander and the frame I can't use the belt sander to clean up all the bulkhead slots....I'll take a file to these later....in the meantime, I'm quite pleased - I've only really botched one part so far (bulkhead "M", which I'll have to redo) - with a bit of finessing, I think the framework will come together just fine....

 

Anyway here are a couple of photos - it'll probably be back to the America during the coming week (making sails, and finishing the rigging), but while the weather's nice, I'd like to get as much into the Bluenose as possible - once the framework's done, I'll be able to move the build inside for planking, etc....

 

bye for now

hamilton

 

 

[hamilton]

Minor update on Bluenose......

 

All the 3/16 framework parts are now cut and I've begun to refine them and prepare them for assembly, section by section. Because I can only work on Bluenose for a few hours a week, the progress is relatively slow. I started with the forward keel piece (1), testing it against the plans and marking it up where adjustments needed to be made - a particularly fussy area was the joint with the centre keel piece (2), which needed quite a bit of shimming and trimming for a decent fit. I'll also have to do a bit of work on the fwd joint of keel piece 2 (especially at the top/deck line) to make things fair.....

 

 

 

I then needed to mark on the rabbet and bearding lines on both sides of the keel part....technically I should have waited to do this until all the keel parts were assembled so I could be assured of a smooth run of these important lines....but I decided instead to throw caution to the wind! I figure they're just pencil marks so I'll see how things line up and make adjustments later - worst case scenario I'll have to make a template of the full run of the lines and remark them.....not the end of the world. I made templates off the plans and marked the lines from the templates. They look a little rough in these photos but I've cleaned them up since.....Once these lines were on, I drew in lines from the bulkhead slots to the bearding line for purposes of squaring the bulkheads....

 

 

 

The next step was to dry fit the bulkheads. This was a matter of filing out the keel slots on the bulkheads slightly (all were tight) and the bulkhead slots on the keel slightly. Some of the slots needed to be filed down a bit so the reference lines would line up properly and so the tops would be flush on the top of the keel. In seating the bulkheads I noticed a couple whose tops needed to be sanded down a bit further to sit flush. The tops also needed to be filed down for the deck sheer, and then faired slightly (using sanding blocks and files on both the outer edge and the inner edges of the bulkhead extensions). Final fairing will be done later obviously....

 

 

 

 

 

I also discovered that I had to recut bulkhead "A" and make significant adjustments to bulkhead "E". This is what I did today. That does it for the forward keel and bulkheads....next week I'll start work on the centre section.....

 

 

 

 

That's all for now. Thanks for stopping by

hamilton

[Jond]

Hamilton

I look forward to following along. I am scratch building Bluenose as well but at a large scale 1:24 for possible RC sailing.

 

Cheers

[hamilton]

Hi Jond:

 

Thanks for stopping in - I took a look in on your build log - that's going to be HUGE! I'll follow with interest for sure....bye for now

hamilton

[allanyed]

Hamilton,

 

Any scratched fishing schooner build and I am there.   Love those vessels and watching you delve into the dark side is a treat.  Keep up the great work.

 

Allan

[hamilton]

Thanks Allan! I'm flattered you came by! So far the toughest aspect of scratch building is figuring out how much material I'm actually going to need.....I have a suspicion that I'm going to spend a lot of money on wood and other materials that "won't end up getting used" - in quotes because I know they eventually will get used......

 

Also - starting with the BN feels more like dipping a toe in the lake rather than diving right in......I'm not sure what's on the bottom or exactly how chilly the water is......the MS plans are very detailed and take a lot of the guess work out of things - though developing some drafting skills is something I would truly love to do.....more for the future!

 

Bye for now

hamilton

[hamilton]

Slow progress on Bluenose.

 

The templates I made from the Model Shipways plans were, I think, accurate. But my bandsaw skills need work! The centre part of the keel needed a lot of adjustment - the cut along the top was quite uneven and considering the quarterdeck "step" is there this required some finessing before it was right. The aft keel part was fine - needed a bit of trimming along the aft top edge, but was good other than that. The bulkheads, on the other hand, required quite a bit of adjusting and the addition of shims on the keel below the slots before they would sit square and rest nicely on the keel.....

 

Anyway, as of this evening I've finished rough shaping and marking up the main framework pieces. Rabbet and bearding lines are drawn on the keel parts port and starboard, the centre lines marked on the edges of the keel and on the tops of the bulkheads and rough fairing of the fore and aft bulkheads and inboard bulkhead extensions is finished. My next step will be to make a building board and glue the keel pieces together, add some reinforcements to the seams and then figure out the mounting...this is something that's always turned me around a bit.....but more on this later...for now here are some photos of the keel parts and bulkheads clamped together.....bye for now

hamilton

 

 

 

 

[Jond]

Hamilton nice clean work. my inside frames and thngs never look that good

 

cheers 

[hamilton]

Thanks Jond:

 

Thanks! I imagine that has less to do with any skill I possess and more because I'm working from existing kit plans rather than developing a model from scale drawings - plus the needs of a static versus an RC model makes things simpler and tidier. I don't think I have the patience or skill to go down the path you're following!! We'll see how neat things look when I start carving the rabbet joint......

hamilton

[hamilton]

Alright - a minor but significant update on Bluenose - I have finally put glue to wood and assembled the keel parts! I had to do a few minor modifications to the joints between keel sections to make sure they fit as snugly as possible - a little sanding here a little shimming there - while also making sure I didn't accidentally mess with the overall dimensions of the parts. Not too tricky, but very finicky....

 

I also noticed that I made the first of what undoubtedly will be a long list of errors! In my rush to make adjustments to keel and bulkheads to get the bulkheads to sit nice and square, I realised that the shims I added below the slots on the keel actually made the three keel parts sit unevenly when I laid them out on a flat surface for assembly....The centre piece especially needed shimming and sat about .5mm higher on a level surface than the forward keel piece. The aft part didn't need much but it needed a particularly thick shim at bulkhead "O", which not only put the aft end of that bulkhead about .5mm higher than the fwd end, but also put the piece as a whole out of level with the centre piece!

 

My choices were to try to inserts shims around and use a level to try to get things right (insane!) or to remove the shims on one side of the keel pieces. I went for the latter approach. I then salvaged an off-cut piece of plywood from some shelving I made last Spring, which will function first as the flat surface for setting the keel pieces together and later as my building board, once I invest in some paper large enough to make a tracing of the plan view of the deck from the MS drawings......

 

I used carpenters yellow glue on the joints and separated the keel pieces from the plywood surface with some parchment paper. Once I had scraped the excess glue away on both sides I set the pieces flat against the parchment and placed some storage jars (and one heavy ceramic urn) filled with water atop the part to keep it flat. The urn was added as an afterthought since I noticed the bow rising very slightly (1/64" or so) off the surface....this might require some correcting - which I'll do when I set up the building board.....When this will be I don't know because making keel supports fore and aft will require the use of the bandsaw and the weather forecast shows rain pretty constantly here for the next little while.....in other words, I'll probably spend more time working on Syren than on Bluenose in the near future......

 

bye for now

hamilton

 

 

[hamilton]

Well I've come upon the first major conundrum of this build.....it took me a while to figure out what was going on, but it turns out that what I thought was a need for minor adjustment of the centre keel at the joint with the sternpost is a major structural problem whose source is a discrepancy in the Model Shipways plans......Here is a digest:

 

Initially, when I was dry fitting the 3/16" plywood pieces, I thought that I was going to have to make adjustments to the aft edge of keel piece 3 to provide a snug fit for the sternpost, which goes on after the hull planking is complete. Initially when the piece was aligned at the bottom of the keel, there was a gap at the upper half which widened to about 1/16"!! Quite a significant discrepancy, which I put down to my novice bandsaw skills. Also the top end of the sternpost, which is rounded over, didn't seem to fit quite right to the keel...This photo shows this gap and the ill fitting top end...

 

 

You'll also notice the flat angled top of the rudder, out of which the post will project - and you'll note that it isn't aligned with the notch in the centre keel piece....the only reason I noticed this tonight was that I had cut the rabbet joint and was testing its depth at the stern with the sternpost. To my way of thinking, the rudder post should run straight up into the notch. But as this last photo shows, nothing like that is possible given the current state of the parts as made....

 

Initially I thought I would remake the sternpost so the rudder would align properly, but this next photo shows how much I'd have to trim off in order to achieve that result - not an acceptable strategy.....

 

 

I then thought I could trim the aft end of the keel to achieve the same effect, but these next photos give you a sense also of how untenable this approach would be....

 

 

 

The odd thing, was that when I checked the parts as made against the template drawings they all seemed to fit ok, with only a bit of sanding required to bring them into line with the templates. I checked the sternpost and keel against the template drawings that I had used to make the parts, and everything seemed to line up, with a bit of shimming and a bit of trimming required as you can see in the following photo, but nothing dramatic.

 

 

So I decided to test the assembled keel against the profile drawing, which is on a different sheet. When I did this, my jaw dropped. Here is a shot of the stern (you can't see, but the rest of the aft keel piece lines up with the drawing but produces this effect, which suddenly explained why the keel/sternpost joint was so off. Not only that, but the rudder post notch is noticeably aft of where it is my part as cut.....

 

 

But then I noticed that when I had the keel piece laid on the profile drawing and aligned at the bottom edge through pieces 3 and 2 (aft and centre), this shocking effect was produced at the fore end....

 

 

As you see, my whole keel is significantly off from the profile drawing. In a slight state of shock, I checked each part again (though assembled together) against the template drawings and, once again, they matched!!! My conclusion - the only one - is that the template drawings provided by Model Shipways DO NOT correspond to the profile of the ship, but contain significant distortions that I did not catch when I was making my own templates and cutting the parts - I used the template drawing exclusively to test my parts.....

 

So here I am at a crossroads - and a pretty big one. Everything I've made so far fits together fine, with the exception of the sternpost and rudder in relation to the aft keel and notch for the rudder post. But these things can easily be adjusted so everything lines up. The easy route would be to do these fixes and move on, forgetting that from about bulkhead "E" to the bows my hull profile is incorrect....The harder route would be to scrap what I've built (the keel parts anyway, not the bulkheads), take new keel templates from the profile drawing instead of the template drawing, and redo the keel entirely....This would satisfy accuracy and might help cut off further problems down the road....I'm heaving a huge sigh as I write this, primarily because I know I do not have enough 3/16 play to make new keel pieces (had to order through a certain online auctioning site at quite a premium in shipping costs - another online model supply shop had shipping costs that were, in a word, astronomical) and also because this will mean delaying this build until the Spring, when I can reasonably use the bandsaw again to cut the parts.......

 

Anyway, that's my current tale of woe.....Any advice on the easy or hard route would be welcome - knowing that I'm tempted to take the easy one just so I can get on with the build.....Thanks all

hamilton

[mtaylor]

That's a tough decision, Hamilton.  The question really boils down to: "What can you live with?  Will you look back and regret not redoing the keel?".   I don't evey this decision as it's a tough one.    Been there, done that and ended up with 2 years work hitting the scrapbox.  

[hamilton]

Hi Mark:

 

I "liked" your comment, but I'm not sure I "like" it - certainly not the idea of you scrapping 2 years worth of work! That's off the charts harder than what I'm facing here. I'm going to rest on it for a bit....either way I won't be able to return to the build for at least a week, so....

 

The odd thing is that when I placed the keel over the plan view on the model shipways drawings everything lines up there.....So it's hard to say whether it's the template drawings or the profile drawing that's off....it's most likely to be the templates, given the issues at the stern which aren't just differences between the drawings but result in structural problems with the fitting of the parts as made....after all, the sternpost and rudder themselves match on ALL the MS drawings....

 

Anyways...I'm going to curl up with a book and forget about it for now.....

hamilton

[mtaylor]

I'm guessing the templates as I've heard that on several of the MS models...  

[gjdale]

Tough break Hamilton. For what it's worth, I'd go with the harder option of re-doing the keel. If you don't, it's going to bug you forever. A little extra cost, and a little extra time now, vs regret at leisure for a very long time. Good luck with whichever option you choose.

[hamilton]

Thanks Grant! I know this is probably the best way forward....I'm hoping I can scrape together enough of the material that I don't have to buy more - there's no local supplier of ply at this thickness, and ordering online tends to get expensive with the shipping costs....

 

In any case I woke up this morning with a fresh eye and double-checked things. I think the problem may be cumulative error in the joints. I took the assembled keel and aligned it with the profile drawing section by section. It seemed that each individual section lined up as far as I could tell, but that when each of them lined up the others were off....Not sure how each piece could fit but all together could be out of whack unless the problem was in the joints.....

 

Regardless of the source of the error, it's hard to ignore it. I'm hoping i can salvage one of the keel pieces (preferrable the aft one, which was the most difficult to cut, but I'm not sure how to de-bond PVA so I can safely separate the parts....if there is a way at all....I'll post a query elsewhere on the forum but if someone has advice to post here I'd welcome it!

hamilton

[GuntherMT]

Regular PVA should de-bond simply by soaking in water.