USS Perry by sjanicki - FINISHED - BlueJacket Shipcrafters - Scale 1/96

[sjanicki]

For my next model ship I chose the BlueJacket USS Perry - a brig that was heralded as “the fasted ship in the navy” when it was launched.  I chose this model to continue building my skills, in general ship construction as well as copper plating and more complex rigging.

 

The kids has a machine carved basswood hull, an extensive laser cut wood kit, many cast fittings, a rigging kit, and quite a few photo etched parts as well. I also ordered the optional paint kit, photo CD, and copper plates.

 

The kit comes in a heavy cardboard box with a color label with a description of the ship.

After copper plating the Revenue Cutter I am excited to try my hand again with my additional learnings.

The kit contains a number of well done cast fittings.

With the Revenue Cutter only having three different sizes of rigging this is certainly a step up!

The color instruction manual is very detailed with many great illustrations to complement the photos on the photo CD.  The book begins with a nice photo of the completed ship.

 

Super looking forward to diving into this model! 

 

Also, I believe this is the first build log of this particular model so I would really appreciate peoples input and comments as I move along.

 

[ccoyle]

3 hours ago, sjanicki said:

Also, I believe this is the first build log of this particular model

We should award some kind of badge for such an achievement.

[J11]

Look forward to updates on this build. Excellent kit choice!  

[sjanicki]

2 hours ago, ccoyle said:

We should award some kind of badge for such an achievement.

@ccoyle actually I agree! I found being able to reference other people’s build logs of the same ship to be hugely helpful.

 

@Jonathan11 Thank you! I am excited for it

[RickyGene]

Looking forward to your build.  I am a fan of Bluejacket and there is one thing I do get hung up on that keeps me from buying certain kits of theirs's.

The kits are well made, albeit sometimes the machined hull is not the best.  But overall their kits are nice and with close attention to detail, one can turn out a head turner.  But back to what I was inferring to was as you said, I purchased, extra.  I can see buying the paint kits outside of the kit, not what they sell now, their older paint was just outstanding stuff, not this water paint everyone seems to hawk now!  But the copper plates!  I feel if the vessel was copper plated and one pays the price these kits cost, I should not have too purchase separately a item that is a part of that ship.  Please do not take me wrong, I am well aware I have the option to buy or not, but if a kit is sold as the representation of that vessel, then one should have what is needed to do so when purchased.  Hope you enjoy and will watch your thread.

Rick

[sjanicki]

@RickyGene I do agree that their kits are sometimes expensive, but at least in my experience, the customer service has more than made up for the cost. 

I officially started the build tonight. Pretty much all I accomplished was to cut out the hull templates and assemble the hull cradle but “a journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step” as they say. 

Also, opened up the laser cut parts and I was very impressed! 

[sjanicki]

Made a little progress tonight in marking the hull template locations as well as some rough shaping work 

Here are some before and after photos of removing the carving lugs from the hull. It’s amazing how fast a rotary tool removes wood. 

Still in the rough shaping phase but moving along 

[sjanicki]

Sorry for being offline for a bit. Back at it making progress! Lots of hull carving and a coat of primer. More work at the bow is required to get the shape just right. 
 

[sjanicki]

So in trying to shape the bow properly I over sanded the port side and am now working to build the shape back with putty. 

The power tools are great until you go too far 😱
 

Hopefully I should get the shape right soon. 

[sjanicki]

Slow but steady repairing my mistake on the bow. Adding putty and then sanding to shape repetitively until it looks right. Getting close! 

Its hard to tell in this picture but the rest of the hull is looking great! 
 

After I paint it and apply the copper plating hopefully nobody will be able to see my mistake 

Edited February 25, 2020 by sjanicki

[MrBlueJacket]

Old modeling phrase:

 

"Putty and paint.....

Makes it look like what it ain't"

[sjanicki]

2 hours ago, MrBlueJacket said:

Old modeling phrase:

 

"Putty and paint.....

Makes it look like what it ain't"

Totally agree @MrBlueJacket! Hopefully I'll be back on track soon.  Definitely learned a bit about being too aggressive with the power tools though...

[sjanicki]

Changed up the putty color to better see my progress as I sand. It’s nearly there! One more sanding and another coat of primer should do it. 
 

 

After this ordeal I have such insane respect for modelers who build ship hulls with the bare wood showing. It will take a tremendously long time before my skills are at that level 

[sjanicki]

Making slow but steady progress! 
 

The hull shape is looking much better and I have carved out the spots for the bulwarks to be installed. 

 

Stain the decks in anticipation of installing them with the bulwarks. 

 

Hopefully I’ll make some more progress this weekend! So far the build has been a ton of fun and continues to push my skill level 

[MrBlueJacket]

Notice how the deck furniture placement is rastered into the deck - saves a lot of measuring!

[sjanicki]

15 minutes ago, MrBlueJacket said:

Notice how the deck furniture placement is rastered into the deck - saves a lot of measuring!

Yes! There are a number of such touches on the kit that can really help in the precision of the final product (especially for a novice like me). 
 

[sjanicki]

Made some great progress this weekend on the Perry!

Glued the decks in place after the stain dried.

I sanded and primed the inner gunwales before glueing them together (probably not needed at this point but I thought it would be easier to sand post prime before they were mounted).

After glueing the inner and outer gunwales together I boiled them in hot water to make bending them to shape easier. 

After gluing them in place and bending them to shape the inner and outer gunwales delaminates towards the front. Notice the towards the bow in the upper picture. Some glue and clamps fixed this. 

Next I added putty along the seem between the gunwales and the main hull. Once this dries I'll sand it smooth. 

Probably my inexperience, but once installed there was a .25” gap between the back of the inner gunwale and the front of the rear bulkhead. I cut a small piece and glued it in place to fill this gap. Some primer, putty, and sandpaper will make it look like it didn’t happen. 
 

Proud of this weekend’s progress! 

 

 

Edited April 6, 2020 by sjanicki

[MrBlueJacket]

"Putty and paint,

Makes it look like what it ain't"

[sjanicki]

Just now, MrBlueJacket said:

"Putty and paint,

Makes it look like what it ain't"

I know! I am so incredibly impressed by modelers who build their ships with the bare wood exposed - they don't have the options of using putty like this.  Hopefully I'll get there! 

[sjanicki]

A little more progress tonight with sanding and adding putty to the hull. Slow but steady! 

[sjanicki]

Mounted the transom last night and more putty. I switched colors of putty to more easily see where I need to remove material. 

[mtaylor]

On 4/6/2020 at 8:40 AM, sjanicki said:

I know! I am so incredibly impressed by modelers who build their ships with the bare wood exposed - they don't have the options of using putty like this.  Hopefully I'll get there! 

You'll get there, I'm sure.

[steamschooner]

are you sure it's the USS Perry you are building and not the USS Putty?🤪 sorry couldn't help myself. Looks like a good job so far.

[sjanicki]

12 hours ago, mtaylor said:

You'll get there, I'm sure.

Thank you @mtaylor!

 

12 hours ago, steamschooner said:

are you sure it's the USS Perry you are building and not the USS Putty?🤪 sorry couldn't help myself. Looks like a good job so far.

@steamschooner my thoughts exactly! And thank you! 

 

I did make a little more progress last night on shaping the hull as well as mounting the keel. Going to prime the hull next to get an even color so I will know what/if more shaping is required.

 

Thanks for all the likes guys!

 

[sjanicki]

Spent the weekend sanding and priming the hull a number of times to get it looking correct. A bit more work but it’s looking good! 

[sjanicki]

Added what I hope will be the last bit of filler on the ship. There was a very small wave in the hull that you could see with certain lighting that I wanted to fix. 

Going to sand and prime again tonight and hopefully move on to installing the railing etc to paint the hull. 

 

[sjanicki]

Added the waterways last night and primed them. Getting ready to paint the hull! 

[Keith S]

I haven't followed a solid-hull build before (I'm new here). This is very interesting. I'm impressed by how smooth and fair your hull looks in that last photo. I think building in 1/96 scale must be very challenging. I'm building one in 1/75 scale and it's hard enough-every little blob of glue or accidental gouge from the hobby-knife looks monstrous. I'll enjoy watching this build. I'm impressed with the deck and inner bulwarks- that's a nice touch on this kit.

 

[sjanicki]

@Keith S thanks for the compliments! The smaller scale is definitely a learning experience for me as well. 
 

Airbrushed around the gun-ports and inner bulwarks white. Difficult to see with the white primer but it looks fairly good. 

Next up is to mask the insides of the gunwales and along the gun ports to pain the rest of the hull black. 

[sjanicki]

I just realized a mistake in the plans/instructions so heads up for anyone else making this model. The forecastle waterways should be installed at the same time as the main waterways. These are “LPY1G” on the lasercut sheet. There is not mention of them on the plans or the instructions (that I have seen). Anyways, was looking through the pictures of the completed model and noticed my mistake. This will require some additional painting/priming but shouldn’t be a big issue. Of further note, the instructions make no note of having to lengthen the inner bulwarks over the top of the forecastle and rear deck so a few filler pieces need to be scratch built. 

The cutouts for the forecastle waterways. 

The scratch built inner bulwark extensions being glued in. See the forecastle waterways glued down.