Bluenose by James78 - Model Shipways

[James78]

Hi guys. I put a post up a few months ago looking for advice on what my first model ship should be. After doing some research and coming across Lauck street shipyard and chatting to Bob Hunt, I decided to go with the bluenose. Reason for this is after chatting with Bob and him explaining about his practicums, I couldn't pass up this opportunity as I failed at building a ship years ago and didn't want to go through that again! I bought his beginners course which is fantastic. I've a long way to go yet, but his instructions and photos are so much easier to follow than the kits instructions, which I think are so damn hard for any beginner to comprehend. Model expo do say "previous experience helpful" or something like that. To me, that's an understatement. If it wasn't for bobs course, I don't think I could even attempt to do it. I'm sure there are people here who have built it just by the kits instructions and fair play to you, but me being a first timer, I find them very hard to understand. I did build 2 other kits from expo, the Constoga Wagon which was a lovely build and the Wright Flyer which was very challenging, but lovely when finished. Anyway, I'll put up photos of my progress so far. I did make a mistake with the planking. I didn't taper the planks at the bow which meant my planks bowed alot in the middle and the gap at the bow closed alot quicker the the middle and stern which meant me closing the gap with bits and pieces of wood. I showed Bob and he explained about the tapering and advised me to take the planks off and redo it, because there was an unnatural bend in the planks and even though the hull was being painted, he said over time the planks might lift off the bulkheads due to the forse they were under. So I reordered more planks from expo, which I was delighted with them for sending me them and I replanked the hull. Well most of it. You'll see the difference in the colour of the planks where I redone them. I was able to run all the planks the full length of the hull. I have a build log in bobs site but it's for paying customers only. So I said I'd post here as well and see what others think. Here's my progress so far. Sry for the long text. My photos didn't come up in order as I posted them so apologies for that. Not sure if I can put them in order. If I can, can someone please advise. Thanks. 

[Papa]

Nice planking and decking.

[David Lester]

Hi James,

You're doing a great job! I too am a Bob Hunt alumnus and to be honest, I could never have grasped the process of building these models without him. I started with his Armed Virginia Sloop practicum and moved directly into the USS Consitution. After that I found I didn't need them any longer, as I was able to work on my own. Most of my models have been MS and I believe that you can basically throw the instruction book away. (Chuck Passaro's excepted.) Everything you need is on the plans, but they are absolutely dense with information and it takes a bit of experience to learn how to decipher them.

 

You're off to a great start and it looks to me like you've have a fine Bluenose when you're done.

David

[Yorky]

I'll be starting my first build, a Model Shipways Bluenose in a few weeks, so I'll be following your build closely. Looks really nice so far, thanks for posting.

[James78]

Thanks guys. Yorky you should look up lauck street shipyard and have a chat to Bob through email. Seen as it's your first time too, I'd strongly advise you to maybe buy his practicum. They're well worth the money. By all means do it by yourself either, but he does simplify things so much better which makes it alot easier to do. Don't know why manufacturers can't just give simple instructions and drawings instead of plans full to the neck with small sketches on top of one another! Maybe I'll understand more when I've one build under my belt. Here's a few of the aft deck I'm currently working on. It's a bit tougher with all the tapering involved. 

 

Edited May 27, 2019 by James78

[James78]

Aft deck completed. Alot tougher than the foredeck. That nibbing is so frustrating at times! 

[DBorgens]

James,

Looks good and you did a nice job on the deck. I used Bob’s practicum through most of the deck furniture. I thought his masting and rigging were a bit weak. I used logs in this forum, asked questions and got great help.

 

Dave B

[James78]

6 hours ago, DBorgens said:

James,

Looks good and you did a nice job on the deck. I used Bob’s practicum through most of the deck furniture. I thought his masting and rigging were a bit weak. I used logs in this forum, asked questions and got great help.

 

Dave B

Thank you. Just a question on the hull prep for painting. Did you use wipeon poly to seal the hull or something else? I can't get it here in Ireland. And what did u use on the decking? Thanks again. 

[DBorgens]

Wipe on poly on both. On the hull, I applied it before the putty.

 

Dave B

[James78]

Hi guys. A few more pics of the build. I'm not one for explaining what I'm doing in each picture but any questions, I'll answer. Still some work to do on the stern. Think there's a slight curve in, so I'll either leave it or sand it a bit to create a curve, but overall so far, I'm happy with it. 

[James78]

Hi guys. Just a couple of photos of the deck after a couple of coats of poly and sanding. Great shine off it in the light. Was on holidays the last week so hopefully get stuck back into it this week. 

[Tector]

Great work so far; I think your work on your deck in particular is lovely. There is a curve to the stern, it's rounded on the top (or at least that's how I have interpreted the plans).

 

And I would broadly agree with others who have expressed that the real instructions in a MS kit are the plans-- the main exception being Chuck Passaro's tutorial in the longboat kit, which was very rich with information (and which I kept).

[James78]

4 hours ago, Tector said:

Great work so far; I think your work on your deck in particular is lovely. There is a curve to the stern, it's rounded on the top (or at least that's how I have interpreted the plans).

 

And I would broadly agree with others who have expressed that the real instructions in a MS kit are the plans-- the main exception being Chuck Passaro's tutorial in the longboat kit, which was very rich with information (and which I kept).

Thanks Tector. Yeah I added a slight curve after. I just find the instructions for a beginner to be very hard to understand. Without the practicum, there's no way I could have done it so far. Maybe once I get my first build out of the way, I'll understand it better. 

[Tector]

They can certainly be overwhelming. I didn't go down the route of the practicum, but rather followed the same broad process as the 18th Century Longboat kit I did before, but informed heavily by the various sheets of the plans.

 

What I have found is that quite a bit of cross referencing becomes necessary when you get to the finer points of the necessary hardware that has to be attached to the masts in particular. The various sheets of the plans are inconsistent on this score and it really takes some digging to get it right. I did not fully appreciate this until I started my editing pass and found that I have some fixing to do.

[James78]

Few more progress pics. Painting the false timbers and waterways was straight forward. Adding the caprail at the stern was grand but the two small bits of wood under it didn't fit properly so I had to redo some of that piece of wood as you can see in the pictures. The rest of the rails were fine. Just need to sand the stern a bit before I start painting the hull. 

[bhermann]

Nice start on your Bluenose, J.  You did a really nice job on the hull and deck planking.

 

I also started with the Hunt Practicum, as Bluenose is my first wood build as well.  Like DBorgens, I followed the Hunt practicum at the start, but stopped around the time of the deck furniture.  I also thought some of his instruction on painting the upper hull and rails didn't match the plans well, so followed the plans instead.  There was also the matter of the scuppers, which I did differently than he called for.

 

In any case, it will be fun to watch your progress, things are looking fine thus far!

 

Bob

[James78]

Thanks Bob. I appreciate that. Just a couple of questions on what u said. What's different on the plans to the practicum on the painting and deck furniture as I'll be doing those next. I'll look at the plans myself but I just find them so hard to understand from what I've read so far. And on the scuppers... Bob didn't do them himself. I tried to do them but the holes never looked the same if u get me. Very hard to get them all even. I even tried making them bigger but when drilling from the inside out, some of the filler kept breaking off and make them look even worse so I just filled them in and painted the bulwarks white as u can see. What wat did u do them? 

[bhermann]

J - I took a look back at my restarted log.  I detailed the scupper work here:

 

As far as the colors go, my recollection is that the practicum had a lot of areas on the rail painted white where the plans called for them to be black, and vice-versa.  I apologize but I haven't looked at the practicum, nor the plans for deck painting schemes for a few years.  What I recall is that the practicum called for a number of rail tops to be black, and the outer side white, but the plans called for white tops and black outer sides.  The plan information and scheme looked more real-world to me.  Who knows, she may have been painted both ways at different points in her career!

 

Bob

[James78]

Hi guys. Took a few weeks off from doing the ship. I'm now onto painting the hull but I'm a bit confused as to how to mark the water line where the white strip is. Can anyone who built the model give me some tips on painting the hull please. Thanks. 

[James78]

Some progress pics after painting the hull. Never painted a surface with 3 different colours so that was a bit challenging. Turned out nice though. I just drilled the scuppers. Too hard to make the proper shape so I'll leave as is.