Bluenose by JohnU - Model Shipways - 1:64

[JohnU]

After much debate I decided to go with a natural deck. The plans indicate the Bluenose deck was different finishes at different times. One of the selections was natural varnish. Though my reading indicates decks were never painted or varnished. On the other hand, the pictures available have decks that are clearly painted. I used a 50/50 shellac and alcohol mixture to seal the wood. Then lightly sanded with 400 grit to remove fuzzies.

 

Interestingly, this made the decking pop. Unfortunately my ugly nibs are now visible. Not so much as the simulated caulking though. After sanding some of the pop went away. Next is to apply a mat finish using the airbrush.

[Nirvana]

John, 

My kit didn't even such part.

Had to make it myself. 

[JohnU]

55 minutes ago, Nirvana said:

John, 

My kit didn't even such part.

Had to make it myself. 

Hi Per,

The part is so poor that it was a waste. All the blogs I read make their own. The newer parts are even worse. I bought an older kit off Ebay. It had a windlass counter shaft that was brass rod. The sprocket was badly formed. I requested a replacement part and the shaft was molded instead of brass. It's really too bad. It's a well designed kit and the original parts were decent quality. They made a bad choice in cheapening the parts.

John

 

[Nirvana]

John, 

All "metal" parts in my kit was molded brittania soft metal. Bags showed "Made in China" same applies to the metal parts in the Syren kit of mine.

[bhermann]

It is surprising how much the deck detail pops after finishing.  I think you are being a bit hard on yourself and that your nibbing job looks very nice.  The two sides definitely line up better than mine.

 

Stern hawse pipe?  I don't think I have included that detail.  Like Per, my kit didn't include a part for it.  It may be too late for me.

 

Bob

[JohnU]

1 hour ago, bhermann said:

It is surprising how much the deck detail pops after finishing.  I think you are being a bit hard on yourself and that your nibbing job looks very nice.  The two sides definitely line up better than mine.

 

Stern hawse pipe?  I don't think I have included that detail.  Like Per, my kit didn't include a part for it.  It may be too late for me.

 

Bob

I included one of the metal parts on the penny in my picture for comparison if you want to know what it looks like. It's on sheet 3 of the plans. They call it a "Mooring Chock". The plans don't show the actual pipe though. I think "Mooring Chock" refers to the timbers next to the hole. Several bloggers have talked about the metal part. I didn't know what it was until I read some other blogs.

 

You can see it in pictures of the stern area though it's hard to discern. The part is incorrect to start with, as near as I can tell. There is a large metal plate(not shown on the plans) on the inside of the waist inset into the stanchions near the wheel through which the pipe goes. Much larger than the flange on the supplied part.

 

As near as can be told from the pictures the outside appears a simple pipe sticking out of the waist.

In actuality it was likely shaped like an oval trumpet bell. That would be beyond my current expertise. 

In any case, from viewing distance the stern hawse pipe adds a nice detail. I may grind mine down a bit as they seem to stick out too much.

 

John

 

F.Y.I. There's another of those large plates in the pictures of the bow. I've not seen any blogs that include that detail. Also the plans show "Hawse Blocks" at the bow, pictures of the prototype don't have them. I like the detail and included them on mine. They are certainly at the wrong angle relative to the windlass drum.

 

 

[JohnU]

The deck is Finished! I airbrushed some matte topcoat on. Love that airbrush. The hobby shop guy talked me into trying a new product. Testors Aztek clear matte. I don't have anything to compare with but it did a great job. It went on a bit dry but I think that was due to my airbrushing. I used a soft pad to buff it out. Looks great!

 

I added the inside plates for the "mooring chocks" and touched up the paint'. Here's a picture showing the plate and a hawse pipe.

[JohnU]

Added the tie down rings. Pretty straightforward. Put ring on eyebolt, drill hole, glue in place with CA for good metal bond. Just two gotchas. Be careful not to drill all the way through the stanchions and using CA is tricky. Be careful not to glue the ring to the eye!

[JohnU]

Started the Bowsprit. The shape is compound but not too difficult. The biggest problem is to keep the bottom straight while tapering to the front. Bob has a good technique for doing this on page 2 of his build log:

 

I don't know how to force a text link into this log. It pastes as a quote with a seemingly random picture. Clicking on it goes to the correct page though. Any of you moderators know how to do this?

 

The shoulders were roughed out by chucking into a drill and using a file and sandpaper. Here's the carved and sanded bowsprit:

 

The jib stops were made by cutting a thin strip to the correct size and splitting it down the middle. The notches were made with a file. It was then glued to the surface with a thin coat of white glue. To make the rings on the end I used a suitable piece of brass tube to shave the end and create a good shoulder.

The tube was then cut off on the end using a jewelers saw to form the rings:

 

Here it is with the Gammon, eyes and staple installed;

 

A couple notes of interest. Some people use two rings and at least one used three rings on the end. There are a couple good, high resolution, images of the actual Bluenose bowsprit. One appears to be at the launch and the other as it was being surveyed for sale. The beginning and end of it's career. There are two rings and what appears to be a through bolt for the horizontal stays. The plans say the ring has four lugs but the prototype has two for the vertical lugs and no horizontal lugs.

Also, the bowsprit appears to be painted the same as the hull. The plans say it was a natural oiled finish. Anyone have a comment on this? GenericDave did it the same as the hull and it looks really good. But he also leaves his brass bright. Makes a great contrast.

 

John

 

 

 

 

[Bert Tarrant]

John

I was having difficulty in deciding which Bluenose model to build when I discovered the research on your blog. I hope you don't mind but I used your research to make my decision to purchased The Shipways Model MS2130.

 

Thank You

 

Bert

[JohnU]

Hi Bert, Why would I mind? 😀 The more the merrier. Always glad to help out another modeler. That's why we post all this stuff. I've certainly borrowed ideas and techniques from others on this site. It's about sharing...

John

[Nirvana]

John, 
I decided to go with natural finish on the bowsprit and blackened rings for contrast.

Tried silver soldering the other day, which I have done long time ago. Didn't realize how fun it was, even at this small scale.

[JohnU]

Started the main rail. I've been putting this off as it's a lot of fussing with small pieces with cutting and shaping.

 

As many have found the laser cut piece is too small to fit the stern properly. I decided on the "cut and paste" method where the stern main rail is cut into three pieces and filler strips are put in to cover the gaps. There was still a lot of fussing to get the pieces aligned correctly. In the end I drilled a couple extra holes and inserted pins to hold the side pieces in place for the alignment. These need to be filled later, but some filling is needed for the split gaps anyway.

 

I made a template by tracing the stern rail on the plans and then pre-drilled the holes for the belay pins and eyes.

 

I ran into a problem gluing the tailpiece because my stern was shaped using wood filler. The PVA would not stick to the filler. That meant using epoxy. The first batch I got too much hardener and it set up before I had the piece properly aligned. This was a do-over. I carefully sliced the piece off with an Xacto blade. There was a bit of epoxy on the piece which had to be removed before the next trial. Years ago I had discovered that epoxy breaks down and loses it's adhesion when heated to soldering temperatures. I applied heat to the epoxy and was able to carefully scrape it off. The next round I used too little hardener and it didn't set at all. Third time was the charm! Got a 15 minute set up time.

 

A problem was clamping the tail piece to the stern counter. There is a slight curve to the counter and the piece had to be held down while the epoxy set. All the undersides of the stern are rounded and sloped into a taper. This means that clamps just slide off. Pins don't work because there is only wood filler underneath. I ended up creating a kludge to clamp the wood down;

Edited March 24, 2021 by JohnU
file upload interrupted

[JohnU]

It turned out the width was only slightly off and I could use filler to close the gap rather than splicing in extra wood;

 

You can see the slight gap on each side. The "Fancy" pieces were sanded to the curve seen in the pictures of Bluenose. Below is a picture with the belaying pins and eyes inserted. When painted I think it will look pretty good. Needs some touch up too.

 

I discovered, quite by accident, that if I burnished the black enough the pins became a nice dark brown as real belaying pins might look. I think I will do this will all of them.

 

 

[JohnU]

Worked on the main rail for a few days.  I had not looked forward to this due to my carving skills. It turned out easier than I thought it would be and looks nice when in place. It was tricky getting the overlap of the waist even all round.

 

I ended up using six pieces. One from the bow laser cut piece to approximately the great beam. One from there to just past the belaying pin row and a third from there to the laser cut piece at the stern. Times 2 for port and starboard. I found the splice shape used in the end pieces  worked well and used that for all joints.

 

I started by tracing the rail to make a pattern. All splice points, chainplate slots, eyes and belaying pins were marked on the pattern. 

 

This was cut out and an Elmers glue stick was used to attach the pattern to a suitable board.

 

The rails turned out pretty good.

 

[JohnU]

The finished rail was shown in the previous post. There is a step worth mentioning specifically. Getting the chainplate slots right is a problem. The chainplates are spec'd at .008 inch. Drilling holes that small isn't particularly hard - but slots are a problem. For a good fit with a couple mills clearance is needed. It's difficult using files or a punch. The slots are only .010 inch wide and 2/32 inch long.

 

I used a drill press with an x/y table attached and a .010 drill. After carefully marking the slots the rail was clamp to the x/y table and a series of overlapping holes were drilled along the length of the slot. With a little care aligning the rail on the table the axis of the width of the slot will not deviate significantly as it's a second order effect. Thus after drilling the overlapping holes it was simply necessary to run the length axis of the table in the reverse direction while keeping the drill engaged cleaning out the slot.

 

The slots turned out pretty nice. Here's a shot with chainplate material inserted.

 

[JohnU]

The next step is gluing the rails on. To keep the rail precisely in position while the glue sets. I used pins. The initial alignment was made and pins inserted. The rail was then removed with the pins in place. PVA was applied to the stanchion tops and and the top of the waist. The rail was carefully placed back on with the pins in the same holes. After the glue set and the pins were removed the pin holes were filled with PVA.

 

Each splice joint was individually sanded to fit and backfilled with PVA. Then sanded smooth after the glue set. Here's a photo with the pins and eyes in place. You can see the splice joints.

[JohnU]

Now the Monkey rail. The laser cut middle stern piece was very fragile and had neither the correct width nor curve. It got tossed. Instead I used a plank of the correct size and steam bent it around a soldering iron to get the curve. This was done in two pieces to simplify the fitting. Pins were inserted in the main rail to hold the monkey rail in the correct location during gluing.

 

A particular problem was keeping the chainplate slots free of glue. Some shims were cut and inserted in the slots. This also helped with alignment of the monkey rail which must be flush with the chainplates. Unfortunately I missed with a couple pins. More touchup🤕

 

[JohnU]

Back to metal work now. It's time to finish those rings with lugs for the bowsprit. The rings were made earlier. I needed a lug the same width as the rings. Very tiny. Too small to make them individually. Also there was no brass stock the correct width.

 

My solution was to take a larger piece of stock the correct thickness and mill it to the correct width. So; back to the drill press and x/y table. The first step is to clamp the stock onto the x/y table in rough alignment with the axis of the table. Precision is not needed at this point as I will make a first cut to create a reference long enough to accommodate all the holes and at the right spacing to preserve the web thickness. Plus a few spares.

 

I decided on a .079 width and a .022 inch hole leaving a .022 inch web. Hole diameter + 2x web = hole spacing of .098 inch.

 

After the first cut the mill is raised and moved the width of the strip plus the width of the mill and the other side of the strip cut. NOTE: the strip is still attached at the ends. This keeps it aligned and stable. The mill is then replaced with the .022 drill and the table is moved back half the width of the strip to center the holes. The holes are drilled by moving the table the hole spacing and drilling again. The holes were then enlarged to .035 inch. The strip was cut off by running the mill across the the stock to cut the strip.

 

 

The corners of the end are rounded using a file and cut off with a jewelers saw. Repeat until needed lugs are made. Then clean up the bottoms with the file.

 

Here we are. Rings and lugs ready for soldering:

Edited April 2, 2021 by JohnU
Added picture

[JohnU]

Finishing up the Monkey Rail and Buffalo Rail. The forward end of the top of the monkey rail has a small radius bend with a short leg to the main rail. I experimented with various techniques using heat and steam to get the correct bend. This turned out to be very difficult. In the end, I softened the wood and cut kerfs into the underside to get the required curve. I also left the short leg long and trimmed it after the bend had set in the wood.

The supplied stern piece of the top rail was very close. The curve was correct. I simply split it in the middle. Scarf joints were used to join this to rest of the top rail. Here's a picture after installation with wood filler in the gap:

 

The rail was carefully dry-fitted and the location of the chainplate slots marked. Chainplate slots were cut in the top rail in the same was as the slots in the main rail. Holes for the monkey rail eybolts were drilled at this time. The edges were given a radius before assembly. Here's a picture of the installed monkey rail:

 

Next the buffalo rail was installed. The supplied headpiece was close enough to use with a bit of sanding. It also needed a taper at the bow on it's underside. The extension of the rail was tapered to dimension using a mini-plane. Holes for eyebolts were drilled after installation.

 

[JohnU]

Rails are ready for paint. The deck was masked. The hull was masked from the top of the yellow line down. A coat of grey primer was airbrushed inside and outside of the rails and waist. Initially I had inserted wires in all the pre-drilled holes to insure they would not be filled when the paint was sprayed on. It turned out the wires were unnecessary as the airbrush coats were thin and uniform enough there was not excess paint to fill the holes. It's a wonderful tool!

 

After the primer dried thoroughly the wires were removed and the surface was prepped for the final coat. A light sanding and any areas needing wood filler were touched up. A couple coats of white were sprayed on the inside of the waist and the tops of the rails.

 

When the white had dried the rails and inside of the waist were masked. In the pictures of the prototype the hull paint comes slightly over the edge of the rail. The masking was laid down to create the same effect. The outside of the waist and rails were spayed with the hull black. After the paint dried the masking was removed and areas needing touch-up were taken care of.

 

All the eyebolts and belaying pins were installed now. The belaying pings used PVA glue for installation. Because the eyebolts have tiny surface area and will have lines pulling directly along their axis, I used epoxy for fixing them in their holes for additional holding power.

 

Looking good!

 

[JohnU]

While reviewing the plans, I realized I had not installed the dory buffer blocks along the outside waist. The board the waist was made from turned out to be the correct thickness and width for these blocs. There was a discrepancy noted between the plans and the photos of the prototype. The actual ship had five of these blocks but the plans show six. I opted to go with the actual implementation.

 

Rather than reapply the masking, I opted to carefully hand paint the blocks.

[JohnU]

Back to metalwork. I procured butane fuel for my mini torch and silver solder paste. These lugs are so small they're hard to hold.

 

I experimented with various clamps and cleaned the parts. Everything was arranged on a suitable fire-proof surface.

 

There was a lot of fussing getting everything arranged just right and a tiny bit of solder paste on the lugs. The actual soldering was the easy part. It took just a few seconds heating with the torch then the solder melted and flowed nicely. Surface tension pulled the lugs against the ring. It would be easy to use too much paste or heat too long. Just a wave of the torch over the part and it's done.

 

Both rings had the lugs soldered on and were installed on the bowsprit. The eyes and staple were then glued on with epoxy.

 

Not my best work, but looks nice at viewing distance.

[Nirvana]

John, the metal work will look even better after blackening or being painted.

I had fun doing the metal work, and there's more of it.

[JohnU]

8 hours ago, Nirvana said:

John, the metal work will look even better after blackening or being painted.

I had fun doing the metal work, and there's more of it.

A LOT more of it as I look through the rigging details. What makes it tough is my hands are a lot shakier than they used to be. I need to find a better way to hold the parts while soldering. It's also getting hard to see those darn things.

 

John

[Nirvana]

1 hour ago, JohnU said:

 What makes it tough is my hands are a lot shakier than they used to be.

John

 

So I also noticed with my hands..... it's not the 25 year old steady hands anymore....lol

[JohnU]

When I put the bowsprit into the model I discovered the alignment of front and the square part at the rear was not correct. Note the rotation of the square part when the front is rotated correctly.

 

To fix this I decided to slice the dowel under the fore part of the rail where it won't show.

 

I then drilled a hole in the center of each part and inserted a pin to hold it together. I used epoxy to glue the two halves back together, carefully rotating the two pieces into alignment.

 

This actually was helpful. I was able to paint each half before gluing without worrying about masking. All black for the front piece and all white for the rearward. Once installed you can't tell it wasn't made that way. Per was right about it looking great after painting!

 

Edited April 17, 2021 by JohnU
Picture out of sequence

[bhermann]

Nice save on the bowsprit, John.  It looks very nice installed and painted up!

 

Bob

[JohnU]

Today worked on the Samson Post platform and Bowsprit Bits. Also fabricated and installed the jumbo jib boom traveler block and gammon iron.

[GuntherMT]

Great job splicing the bowsprit together rather than having to completely remake it.