Vanity by M.R.Field - scale 1:16 - RADIO - Victorian Racing Cutter

[M.R.Field]

Colin, what a wonderful think to read!  That'll be the two of us then!  I have almost given up trying to find "our" kind of vessels.  I'd love the time to do a series of coastal fishing types in 1/4" scale.  And perhaps a series of vintage mahogany speed and record boats in maybe 1/24th scale.  I don't have any space for more 1/12th working models, alas!

But thanks for the response.  There I was planking away and a huge black cloud came over and suggested I and the yacht might suddenly get very wet!  So I had to hurriedly put it on the slot car track, rather than under it as normal as I had just slapped two tall clamps on it holding rather slow epoxy glued carlins in.  To think I was racing on that track only a week ago, now I can hardly see it!

I am hoping to finish Vanity this time around as not much is happening anywhere else!

 

Cheers,

Martin

[Colin B]

I have always loved working boats Martin, and the leisure craft that were based on them. I'm currently trying my hand at a 1/2" scale Colchester smack based on the non scale plans in the Chatham Directory of Inshore Craft.  Sort-of-scale frames generally completed but I'm puzzling over how the stern goes together.  I also built a Harwich Bawley to 1/4" scale quite a few years ago from non-scale drawings in the science museum - the tree nails are massively oversized but I didn't know any better at the time, but everything is scratch built apart from the chain! Sailing Drifters and Sailing Trawlers by Edgar J March are both really good sources of fishing boat lines and details.   

[M.R.Field]

Oh they're nice, Colin. Loads of character. I love the dust on the finished model. We'll have to get you cracking with perspex! Make a case to protect it.

Have you read CK 123, by Anthony Frost. It's a good read and may (I lost my copy) have pictures of the stern as he restored her.  I have the 2 volumes of Edgar March's Inshore Craft of Gt. Britain and Ireland, which are full of great drawings.  Harold Underhill's Plank on Frame Models also has a lot of constructional stuff in it.  But the back end is always a pain. I had trouble with Vanity on that score and because it's a working model I had to just wing it based only on the drawings. I had to use Clara for Vanity as no lines exist, but Clara is very close in size and style and nobody can tell the difference anyway since nobody does this kind of model!

I want, next, to do a Norfolk wherry, being a Norfolk resident and having holidayed up here since I was a kid.  And, as ever for me, it's different.  I once bought two GRP wherries about 3 feet long, but they were Albions, so were carvel built, not the normal clinker, so I flogged them off. I still don't know who made them.

But it looks like I'll be making this one in 1/8th thick ash. I have ash left over from a vintage car body frame restoration.  My only experience of steaming was  34 foot long planks of 10"x2" oak for our old wooden canal boat!  5 hours in a steam chest and 7 seconds to fit and bend it before it goes rigid!

For now, my back has cried enough!  It'll be a sit down job tomorrow.

 

Thanks for your interest and photos.

 

Cheers,

Martin

[M.R.Field]

Colin, here's a link to the book:-https://www.amazon.co.uk/Boadicea-CK-123-Story-Fishing/dp/1906510156

You can read the introduction on that site too. Believe me, for 6 quid, you'll not regret it.

 

Martin

[druxey]

That book looks interesting and well written. I think I'll bite! Thanks for bringing it to our attantion, Martin.

[Colin B]

 

I have the book Martin but she has a transom so no real help.  I will wing it as you did.  I'm just over the border in north Cambridgeshire so East Anglian craft are of great interest to me too. I also have the Underhill books and my first model, made while I was at UEA many years ago, was of Leon subsequently semi-destroyed by one of my daughters swinging a cushion! Lots of dust on her too!

[Colin B]

Oh and you do vintage cars too! I have restored a 1929 Singer Junior and I'm doing a 1930 Singer Light Six at the moment - both pretty wrecked barn finds when I got them  My other one is a 1937 Singer Nine coupe which needed a complete mechanical rebuild but was otherwise lovely! 

[M.R.Field]

Colin, that Leon looks beautifully made. It is a pretty ship.  Definitely deserves a refit!  Underhill's books and his plans have been with me for years (I used his plans for a large model of the Zulu "Muirneag"). I've had "Black Sailed Traders" since my late teens when it came up at a Library sale, so, with "Wherries and Waterways" I have those covered.  I also had all the early Model Shipwright magazines when they were hardbacks. Not so keen once they went paperback.  John Leather's "Clinker Boatbuilding" is an essential for wherry building too.  I get a wonderful sense of "somewhere else" when I read boat books.  "Boadicea CK123" was just such a book.  Druxey, I'm so glad you're getting it.  Colin I forgot Boadicea had a transom.  But I think the stern of Leon may be similar to the smack?

 

I have restored Austin 7s in the past and worked on others, but I bought some well seasoned ash to do the frame of the Cambridge Sports body for my A7 Special, but the landlady wanted me to be rid of the caravan I used for storage, so I had to sell it all off.  So now I have a box of body bashing tools and an English wheel and nothing to use them on. My son has a 1951 Triumph Renown, for which I made new aluminium A pillars, using the information in an English DVD on body work without fancy tools. Best £25 I ever spent!

 

Once this plague has gone we should meet up as where I live has been variously Norfolk and then North Cambridgeshire according to politicians' whims, so we can't be far apart. (PM coming).

 

Cheers,

Martin

[Colin B]

There is a very good narrative of the rebuilding of Boadicea including lines in Vintage Boats by John Lewis published in 1975. 

[M.R.Field]

Oh I was not aware of that, Colin.  I'll have to look out for that one.

 

Martin

[M.R.Field]

Here's today's progress.  I have just  three planks per side left to lay, so tomorrow should see it done, then the BIG sanding session.

Martin

[Colin B]

She is looking lovely Martin!

[M.R.Field]

Thanks, Colin. Better pics. tomorrow, I hope, after the big sanding session.

 

Martin

[M.R.Field]

Finished deck planking today, then, after lunch, had a grand sanding session with the triangular orbital. That takes a surprising amount off, but you must be careful. Taped up all holes to stop dust ingress to the hull insides. Wiped with cellulose thinners, 2 coats of cellulose sanding sealer, sanded thoroughly and then heavily waxed with 3M's wax. Good stuff that is used on all narrowboat paintwork (which is why I still have some). Well pleased with this. Timber heads and bulwarks next.

 

Martin

[M.R.Field]

Had a go at redoing the tiller and its connection to the rudder assembly. This effectively a combination of what I made a few weeks ago, forgetting that I'd already made one ages ago. Because I'd made a different rudder assembly I made a new system for attachment of the tiller and today, combined the older, better tiller to the newer attachment. It all fits and looks good too.

 

Martin

[egkb]

Hi Martin .. Yup, those Plank On Edge boats are beautiful, and that tiller is a crackin' job .. I  Love what you are doing here.

 

Cheers

 

Eamonn

[M.R.Field]

Thanks, Eamonn. Good to know there's more than one other watching!

 

Cheers,

Martin

[Jim Lad]

Martin, I don't understand how I've missed your log all this time!  Such a beautiful boat you're building. We have a small Victorian era racing yacht at our National Maritime Museum here in Sydney.  She was restored by New Zealand (where she was built) and presented to Australia as a bicentennial gift.

 

There is a bit of information about her on the museum's web site.

 

John

[M.R.Field]

John,

thanks for the kind words.

 

I am a huge fan of older yachts and workboats. I used to live on Vanity, so that was an obvious choice for me really.

You probably missed it because I have been so busy with other stuff with no connection to model boats.

 

Cheers,

Martin

[M.R.Field]

Got the timber heads on and started the long (glue has to set) process of fitting the bulwarks. Got the upswept and tapered after planks cut to shape and glued on. Once the upper plank is on the port side, it will be drilled and treenailed for extra strength.

 

I will have to tax my new saw with the task of thinning the cap rails as they're being made from the same mahogany as the hull and are too thick.

Keen eyes will note I didn't take the model out to photograph it this time as I'm not working on it today, so you'll see the slot car track it's sitting on. Poor old track. It's far too often a bench rather than a continuous track!  But I thought you'd all prefer some shots without the Black Cat in the background!"

 

Martin

[druxey]

Nice deck you ended up with, Martin. Looking good all round.

[M.R.Field]

Thanks, Druxey. Being so busy I can only do it when it's a weekend of decent weather.

 

Martin

[M.R.Field]

Today I got some treenails in to maximise strength in the bulwarks. Once tother side is done I can trim them off with a new scalpel blade and then cut the capping rails to shape and thin down . They are to be made from the same mahogany as the hull, but all I have left are overly thick strips, so once shaped they can be sawn thinner.

 

Cheers,

Martin

[M.R.Field]

Isn't this weather wonderful?  OK, still not allowed to fly when we want (I will NOT plead for a two hour block with the man who thinks he runs the club!), but it does allow me to get on with Vanity in the little bit of shade my shed affords me.  Bulwarks on and treenailed and the first capping rails going on, having been band sawed from the same mahogany that I used for the hull, suitably filed to section.  Once set they too are treenailed with mahogany pulled through a drawplate to size.

 

Martin

[KeithAug]

Martin - she does have elegant lines and quite a narrow beam - obviously built for speed.

[M.R.Field]

Thanks, Keith,

yes she is a lovely slender lady, which may make her tender in light winds, but she'll stand a blow. I've just been too busy lately to do any more on her, but she will be finished.

 

Martin

[michael mott]

Hi Martin the hull is looking rather sharp no pun intended. There was an article in Wooden boat quite a few years ago now that featured the development of the yachts of the era that your model is taken, I think that Vanity was one of the most extreme of the narrow yachts. I am wishing in may ways that I had not begun my own cutter at 1/8th scale your 1/16th scale seems so much more manageable regarding the space required for working on.

I look forward to the rest of the build.

 

Michael

[M.R.Field]

I think she was indeed, one of the slenderest ones. Certainly a successful boat whilst the class rules lasted which was sadly not very long. She was classed as a C class cutter. She went to America and beat the then America's Cup winner on the same course in a friendly, so she was a fast boat. Such a shame she has ended up in Bristol, unloved and falling apart.  I hope my model will due her memory some justice.

I'm just so damned busy and the weekend weather has not been friendly. I can only do my stuff at the weekend, amongst all the domestic chores that must be done.

 

Martin

[Jonny 007]

Hi Martin,

Just found your build log and have read through from the beginning. What a beautiful boat you are building!

I love that it will be radio controlled too.

I’ll be following along and enjoying the progress.

So glad this popped up and makes me what to learn a bit more about racing cutters. They look like beautiful ships.

[M.R.Field]

Jonny, thanks for your comments.  It's a very odd thing...I haven't had any new comments for weeks and then there's three in one day and a message!  And usually Sunday on the 'net is very quiet.

I find the best of the racing yachts to be the most beautiful of craft, if a little narrow in style.  I have an excellent book called Traditions and memories of American Yachting, which has photos and lines of many nations' yachts.

I think the racers can make a good foil to all the pilot cutters that are made, although they're lovely vessels too.

 

Martin