Bluenose by JohnU - Model Shipways - 1:64

[JohnU]

Quick Note; I incorrectly reversed the counter shaft gear spacing. Here's a corrected drawing:

Edited February 25, 2023 by JohnU
Correction

[JohnU]

The machinery is mounted. The dimensions on the drawing were pretty close. The boom crutch needed a little adjustment. There's a certain amount of fudging due to the crudeness of the parts. To make the parts sturdy I put locating holes in the supports and deck, then placed pins in them. I had previously left the bottoms of the windlass, boom crutch and counter gear supports unpainted. PVA was used to cement them in place. Some touch-up was needed after handling them extensively while positioning.

 

Because the machinery is non-operating, I was able to simplify installing the chain. Normally a chain has a master link inserted to tie it together. At this scale that would be very difficult. As it happened the chain broke again during installation. Luckily, it broke at exactly the right length. That saved another chain repair. To tie the ends, they were placed as they would lie on the sprocket and glued in place. the sprocket was then rotated so the glued ends were out of sight. I put a little CA on the other sprocket just make it more robust. The chain droops very realistically. Just like the photos.

 

There is still the guard on the gears, the quadrants and the windlass pawls to install. I may also paint the chain side plates. The real chain would not have been shiny like the roller chain. That will also make the chain a little sturdier. Then it's back to cabinet making.

 

[Hsae]

Looking sharp, John! Well done! 👍 

 

Hermann

[JohnU]

Although it's not on the plans, photos show a guard for the windlass gear and it's counter gear. In the early days of machinery there was not a lot of thought given to safety. It may be the ship was built without the guard and it was added later after a mishap. That was added to the model along with the quadrants and simulated shackles. The side plates of the chain were also painted with flat black. The original pawl for the windlass was missing. I'm waiting for that part from Model Shipways.

The jumbo jib horse and formast/mainmast eyebolts were added at this time.

The machinery is cruder than I would like. That's a limitation of the castings. Plus I would have to invest heavily in machine tools to make better ones. Or, as discussed previously, print the parts. While not perfect, the machinery adds pleasing detail to the model at viewing distance.

 

[GGibson]

Looks really sharp, John! Well done, sir! 

[JohnU]

2 hours ago, GGibson said:

Looks really sharp, John! Well done, sir! 

Thanks Gregg! Your comments are appreciated.

[JohnU]

The forward companionway was next. The photos of the original ship were used for construction and the plans scaled for size. A small block was cut to size and squared off using my X-Y table and drill press technique. Note: a harder wood such as boxwood or pine is much easier to get a precise cut.

Next a line was drawn on the side of the block for the slope of the top. A second line was drawn 2mm parallel with the first. The block was clamped in the vise along the second line. This allowed the mill to cut all the way to the edge of the block. The waste part was then milled off.

The front half of the box was hollowed out, then the box was rotated to make the slope perpendicular. The back half was then hollowed out with the mill.

Because the bottom of the box was cut out, a black paper was glued to the bottom of the box using the same technique as the skylight.

To make the rounded cover I sliced a small piece from an appropriate size of dowel. In this case an old closet rod was just right.

The back of the interior and inside bottom was painted flat black, the top burnt umber to match the skylight and the rest white.

The coaming was added and painted to match the other coamings. I didn't quite like the way it looked with the opening. I added one of the boards that close of the hatch when it's not in use. That, of course, would not be the way it was actually used but looks much better.

[JohnU]

The engine box is a more complicated structure. It's really two boxes and has a number of details. Once again, to simplify construction, I started with a solid block. The block was cut to rough size and sanded to finished size using a disc sander. The layout for cuts to make the smaller box was marked.

A mill was used to remove the waste material. A mill was also used to cut the slots for the clutch lever and drive shaft. The slots were then squared off with a fine square file.

A thin piece of wood from some of the dory scrap was used for the top of the motor box and drive shaft box. A scalpel was used to score lines in the boxes to simulate separate boxes, top door and removable side panel.

The boxes were painted and a blackened brass flat installed. The usual process; sand, shellac, fine sand, primer, sand, airbrush finish color. Brass Black was used to blacken the clutch lever. The lever was sharpened on one end and inserted into the slot using a pin-pusher.

The motor box is far forward where there is significant slope to the deck. This means the box must be on a level platform. To determine the correct slope a bubble level was used to first level the ship. The level was then placed on top of the motor box and shims added to bring it level. The necessary thickness could then be measured from the shim stack.

Temporary coamings were added to provide a spacing reference for the finished coaming.  The correct thickness shim was added to the aft end of the box.

Coaming pieces were then glued around the bottom using the temporary guides. After the glue set a line was marked and a scalpel used to trim the slope into the coaming.

While waiting for the glue to dry, some thin brass strip was used to make the hinges. These things are really, really tiny and hard to hold while filing to shape. A small hemostat seemed to work best. Finicky work. Lost one of the hinges twice. A tiny dab of PVA was applied where each hinge goes and the hinges cemented in place. Magnifier and tweezer work here.

Next the coaming was masked off and trim color applied. After the paint dried the motor box, chain box, companion way, skylight and galley stack were cemented to the deck using PVA. My anchor chain arrived a couple days ago. I blackened the chain with Brass Black and added it  to the ship to get the full effect.

 

 

Edited March 14, 2023 by JohnU

[GGibson]

Nice work, John.  Your deck is really looking sharp!  Hope to be able to duplicate that when I get to this point on my Bluenose.  

[gmctaggart]

Your project looks really good. All the great detail is really helping to bring everything together. I will follow your project with interest.

Sincerely,

Gord

[JohnU]

Thanks for the nice comments. It's been a long time getting to this point. Almost done with the deck fittings!

[JohnU]

23 hours ago, GGibson said:

Nice work, John.  Your deck is really looking sharp!  Hope to be able to duplicate that when I get to this point on my Bluenose.  

 

23 hours ago, gmctaggart said:

Your project looks really good. All the great detail is really helping to bring everything together. I will follow your project with interest.

Sincerely,

Gord

Thanks for the nice comments. It's been a long time getting to this point. Almost done with the deck fittings!

[JohnU]

While looking for some tools I need, I saw this chain. It may be a better match for the original drive chain of the Bluenose. Mine is already fixed in place and I don't want to tear it up again. Anyway, for those of you who are looking here's the URL: https://www.micromark.com/Tamiya-Ladder-Chain-Sprocket-Set

[Twokidsnosleep]

This is an excellent build👍🏻

Following  along 😎

[JohnU]

I've been busy for a couple weeks, Dr. appointments, volunteering with AARP taxaide, projects my wife wanted and some other R&R. Got back to the Bluenose this week. I decided to do something different for a while. I've been thinking about all those dories. They will add a lot to the model even though they'll be a pain.

 

They're interesting historically as well. In the 20s, fishing schooners sailed to the Grand Banks and put out small boats(dories) with two or three man crews who fished from them, returning to the schooner with their catch. Thus the dories add a touch of realism as well as detail to Bluenose. Late Edit; This type of fishing is well described in a classic book "Captains Courageous". Check it out.

 

I built the jig per the instructions. This is a Model Shipways specific item. I don't know how other kits do the dories. If you have another kit brand, I'd like to hear how your kit handles them.

 

The assembly jig is included with the laser cut parts. The dory parts are also laser cut, but from much thinner and more flexible wood. It also appears to be a different type of wood. Somewhat harder and stronger than basswood. The instructions, as usual, are brief, consisting of one diagram and three paragraphs on page 24 of the manual. The details on Sheet 4 of the plans are more helpful. Be aware that the drawings of different parts are at different scales and not marked as to the scale.

 

The layout of the jig is not obvious from looking at it. Pay particular attention to the drawing of the jig with a dory shown in the 3-D drawing on sheet 4. The bow of the dory is the curved end not the straight end. Here's what it should look like:

I did add some spacers and reinforcements. Particularly in the middle where I used a pin to hold the dory bottom in place. This is made of thin basswod and repeated pinning will quickly destroy it. Also, while sufficiently strong for the job, the provided basswood hooks for clamping are easily broken.

 

The wood used for the dories is very tough and springy. There's a lot of pressure required to hold the dory sides against the jig. I found through experimentation that only the two middle clamps were needed. In fact, if all the clamps were used the sides of the dory would not fit together properly. Because of the springy sides a temporary cross brace is need to hold the shape when the dory is removed from the jig.

 

This springy action presents a serious problem. The thin material of the inner frames will collapse when the brace is removed - and it must be removed to stack the dories. I'd like to hear from anyone who has solved this problem and how they did it.

 

TIP: if doing this again I would steam and pre-bend the sides like the hull planks of the ship.

 

Getting the transom aligned is a bit fussy. I used a clamp at the bow to put enough pressure to close the top. PVA was used as the gluing medium. I spread a thin bead using a hypodermic filled with PVA and a medium needle(big enough to really hurt if stuck with). After the PVA set, I removed the dory and applied another bead to the outside for strength. The beads were thin enough they dried completely flat and are essentially invisible. Don't forget the brace!

Technique established. Mass production!

There's still quite a bit of work on these. The frames and transoms and rail caps. lifting ropes and their reinforcements. Accessories; oars, seats, etc. And, of course, paint.

 

 

 

 

Edited April 2, 2023 by JohnU
Added historical note

[JohnU]

The deck cradles are simple but need carefully shaped chocks. My first idea was this:

I laid it out on some scrap and cut out a sample piece. This didn't work out very well.

I realized I needed a compound angle for the inside of the chock. To get better dimensions I drew outlines on one of the dories and took my measurements from that.

This time the fit was very good. Only a little sanding and adjustment was needed.

The end that attaches to the main beam has little blocks to locate it. These would be fussy to glue in place individually. Slots were cut in a piece of board which was marked with the correct dimensions. After the glue set I trimmed them to size.

Then it was shellac, sand and paint. A dark grey was used(Model Expo Cannon Black). This was close to the appearance in photos of the prototype. Though it's hard to tell about color in B/W photos.

Edited April 3, 2023 by JohnU
Remove extra photo

[CPDDET]

Looks great and good technique!

[JohnU]

After looking into what other people have done for the dory frames, I didn't find anything satisfactory. I really only need one sturdy frame. The others can be made from basswod. Only the middle frame has any real force on it. I also took into consideration that only the top two dories need all the frames. They nest so tightly that no inside detail can be seen on the lower ones.

 

After considering various materials I settled on steel. Hardwood will break along grain lines when made so thin. I didn't have any suitable thickness of brass bar in my shop. There will be a lot of waste in cutting these out and brass is expensive. Copper is too soft and would bend. Same for plastic. What I did have in my shop were some large steel washers. They were nickle plated and too shiny to mark with a pencil. I didn't have any machinists blueing around so I used Birchwood Casey Brass Black. That way I could scribe an accurate layout on them.

After layout I used a bench disc sander to grind the sides to the layout lines.

TIP: Use pliers or vise-grips. They get HOT!

The sander was fast and did a great job of getting straight lines with a nice finish(240 Grit). Obviously this won't work for the inside cuts. The blanks were clamped in a machinists vise along each straight side in turn. The vise was aligned with the direction of travel of the X/Y table. This simplified cutting straight lines on the inside. First, a drill was used to remove bulk material. Then an end mill was used to create a nice finish for the inside edges.

The ends were left attached during the drill/mill process to facilitate clamping while working the metal. A jewelers saw was used to cut the finished frame from the blank.

Trial fit is good!

A tick strip was used to transfer the frame location from the plan to the dory. Epoxy(for strength) was applied to the frame which was then clamped into the dory. The cross brace is removed at this point to allow the sides of the dory to conform to the frame.  Much work but the results were excellent.

[JohnU]

On 4/2/2023 at 6:25 PM, CPDDET said:

Looks great and good technique!

I took a look at your Bluenose today. I really like the machine work and rigging. Looks sharp!

John

[gmctaggart]

Smart to use washers. Nice work.

Gord 

[JohnU]

Time to put the frames into the rest of the dories!

I chose to use .5 mm strip for the gunwales. This makes the total thickness 1 mm which is the thickness scaled from the plans. Looking at the photos of the original this seems correct.

I did depart from the plan by making the height of the gunwale 3 mm as the scale  size would have been .5 mm and very difficult to work. Actually looks pretty nice.

Because the interior of the lower boats in the stack will not be visible, I'm only doing the center frame (for structural support) and the gunwales. Only the top two boats will be fully constructed. Making the frames was very difficult. Of the eight frames, there wasn't one that didn't break in some way. Trying to cut 1 mm basswood requires a delicate touch. The real scale frames would be .5 mm thick.

TIP: use boxwood or some other sturdy material.

Eventually all the frames were installed, trimmed and glued in place. Along with all the seats, cleats and braces. Again, for practicality, the frames are a bit larger than scale.

Now the usual painting procedure. Sand, primer, fill, sand and top coat. I painted the exterior medium gray as that's what seems likely in the photos and the interior light grey for contrast and to bring out the detail.

I drilled the holes for the lifting ropes and experimented with installing them. Due to the small scale the rope does not lay naturally. I'll have to do a little research on how to get a natural effect. Suggestions are very welcome. Finished top dories:

After looking at the photos of prototype I noticed the ropes on the dories are quite stiff and stand up on their own. That means the ropes on my dories DO look accurate. I went ahead and added the lifting ropes to all the dories.

Here they are in their cradles on the ship. I chose not to glue them down at this point as that would make rigging more difficult. I'll put them on permanently after rigging. I did drill the tie-down holes at this time.

It felt good to complete some bit of the project.

 

Edited April 10, 2023 by JohnU
Added pictures

[JohnU]

Oars. Who would think such a simple object would be so time consuming. The problem is they're so tiny. The shaft is 0.9 mm(scaled from the plan) and the handle on the end is only half to three-quarter of that. I looked around at hobby supplies online for oars. While there were plenty of options none were quite right for Bluenose dories. Had to make my own.

 

My vision isn't what it used to be and I'm shakier now. I broke a few of these, especially the handles, during construction. I decided to make the oars as two pieces. The shaft and blade separately.

 

First blanks for the blades were cut from 1.5 mm stock lumber. These were clamped in the drill press and a 5 mm deep x 1 mm hole drilled centered on the end. This is tricky because the hole must be centered and drilled perpendicular to both sides of the piece. If the hole is angled the oar shaft will be at an angle.

I used the smallest toothpick I could find. This makes a sturdy shaft as toothpicks are hardwood. Because I don't have a horizontal lath I created a vertical one using a small piece of brass with a .75 mm hole clamped in the vise for a support. The hole was carefully centered under the spindle of the drill press. Using moderate speed and a strip of 220 grit sandpaper the toothpick was reduced to .9 mm diameter. Broke a couple before I got the pressure right.

A gauge was used to mark the shaft for length and for the handle on the end. It looks like this when it comes out of the chuck.

Note the gauge and marks for cutting. After cutting to length, the shaft was reinserted into the chuck upside down. An Exacto knife was used to carve the handle while it spun in the drill press. This was touchy work. The piece is now so thin that only extremely light pressure can be used. A firm hand is needed.

Next the two pieces are mated using PVA. The bond is about as strong as the wood itself.

Ready to sand the blade shape into the block. I used a small sanding block and lots of patience. Delicate work. Notice I broke one of the handles. Fortunately I had made a couple extra.

After that, the oars were shellacked, given their final shape and sanded. Painting very light objects with an airbrush is tricky. The air stream simply blows small objects away at even very light air pressures. I opted to use a thin strip of double-sided tape to hold them down. This meant painting one side at a time and waiting for it to dry before painting the other side.

Here's the final result. Not sure the handles were worth the trouble. You really don't see them at viewing distance after painting;

Edited April 21, 2023 by JohnU
rearranged photos

[CPDDET]

Nice work! At this scale things can be a real challenge. 

[JohnU]

My last post was April 2023. It's been a long time. Last spring a series of unfortunate incidents started which has kept me from shipbuilding for some time. In the spring I discovered a upper story deck had been leaking under the siding of my house and caused rot which led to carpenter ants. There was basically a very tall toothpick holding up the corner of my kitchen. Anyway, that took me well into summer and I  was playing catch-up until late fall. I'm now back to ship building!😃

 

For some time I've been growing more frustrated as I try to make accurate parts. Particularly metal ones. The old drill press isn't cutting (no pun intended) it anymore. I spent the first half of winter setting up and learning to use a "micro" lathe. That adventure is not directly part of Bluenose construction as it's the obtaining of a tool to work on Bluenose. I found a (relatively) inexpensive solution. For those who are interested you can find a post under the "Modeling Tools and Workshop Equipment" Blog: https://modelshipworld.com/topic/35937-inexpensive-mill-and-lathe/#comment-1026013

Onwards!

Edited January 31 by JohnU

[JohnU]

Next up; The anchor and ancillary equipment. The construction of the anchor itself is aided by the provision of a couple molded parts that only needed some cleanup. The drawing of the anchor in the plans is to scale. These are quite large anchors. I was surprised by the size of the cross piece. There's quite a lot of information on the anchor and it's utilization. However, there are no pictures of the original ship with the anchors secured on the ship or rigging diagrams for it. There is a nice drawing of the cathead, which is not the same scale as the rest of the drawing, but the scale is not noted.

 

To finish the anchor I simply used a large toothpick shaped per the drawing and inserted into the anchor. This is held in place by seizing cord wrapped on either side of the anchor. The second anchor is not rigged but lays on the deck for display. Paint is simply flat black.

[JohnU]

The cathead is an interesting piece. It also turned out to be difficult to construct. My initial approach was to use a brass screw and cut it down to size with a mill in the drill press. Then drill the holes. I simulated the sheave by drilling two holes and partially milling the slot. A straight pin sized hole was drilled in the end. This was then soldered to the pin with silver solder and shaped appropriately with files and sandpaper. The initial cathead turned out not to bad but was not accurately sized. Note the supplied part next to the pieces. I could not manage to repeat the process for the other cathead. I made several attempts but could not repeat the first attempt. The brass screws are made from quite hard material and are difficult to work.

This frustration fed my resolve to find a real machine tool solution. I'll describe the machine tool process in the next post.

Edited January 31 by JohnU

[GGibson]

Hi John, good to see you back!  I have used your build log to-date as a resource for some of my own Bluenose work.  Nice to see you back at it! 

[JohnU]

Interestingly, the increased precision machine tools provide requires more thought up front. The plan is to take a brass rod or rectangle(rectangles are hard to find in really small sizes) and cut it to the dimensions needed. Here are the dimensions scaled from the plans:

The largest dimension is 1.75 mm. A little trigonometry gives us the smallest rod that 1.75 mm will fit inside as 2.48 mm(~3/32"):

The first step is to cut the rod to a rectangle of the largest dimension:

At this time the holes were drilled in the wide end. A partial slot was cut to simulate a sheave. The mill made this easy as incremental small steps can be accurately cut to approximate a round object in the slot. The piece was then centered in a 4-jaw chuck on the lathe and the round part of the shaft cut from the bar:

After the final dimension was achieved the shaft was polished. It was then reversed and clamped in the 3 jaw chuck. The rough shape of the sheave end was cut and then finished with a file and sandpaper. The part was bent with wire bending pliers and blacked with Caseys:

There was no information on the plans about rigging the anchor. The only information on the was the location of the rigging eyes and belay pin. In researching this I found the "Suburban Ship Modeler". This is a really nice blog with excellent photography. Here's his blog about Bluenose anchor rigging. Be sure to check it out; https://suburbanshipmodeler.com/2017/04/09/anchors/

This is a diagram from that blog:

Adding the various attachments was next. The through link was made with .5 mm brass wire. Two of the brass eyebolts supplied with the kit made the eye and hook. The closest chain to scale I could find was 42 link/inch copper from Model Shipways. This presented a problem as the link inner diameter would not fit over the .5 mm brass wire. I used .3 mm wire to make a connecting link. Though difficult to form and thread through the link, it works. The sheave axle bolt was a short piece of .5 mm wire cut slightly long and crushed in place with flat jaw pliers:

Some closeups of the installed cathead and anchor:

[JohnU]

12 hours ago, GGibson said:

Hi John, good to see you back!  I have used your build log to-date as a resource for some of my own Bluenose work.  Nice to see you back at it! 

It's great to get back to Bluenose. I'm happy you were able to benefit. I've certainly borrowed from other modelers and like to pass it on.

[JohnU]

There is an interesting feature on the deck in original photos of Bluenose. There are six large drums in two rows of three sitting on sheathing with equipment storage cabinets. These are not shown on the Model Shipways plans. They add a lot of detail though. Presumably they are for salt or brine storage. Has anyone found these in other reference material? Fortunately, there is a figure standing nearby in one of the photos and the cabin is nearby. This allowed a guesstimate of their size.

Some more details in another photo:

These have hoops like barrels but appear more like drums in not having much taper. They are held in place by iron bands attached to skids that are integral with the cabinets. There are large hinged doors in the top of the cabinets. Each of the six drums has a small hatch on the top. One picture has what looks like a bung showing. The others are obscured by equipment. In the background is a steel drum tied to the cabin.

 

After measurements of the model and plans and using the figure in the picture as a guide, I arrived at the following dimensions(in mm):

I found some ready-made barrels that looked nice. I was able to mask them and get a nice wooden barrel look.

However I was not satisfied. The barrels had much more taper than the drums and were too large to fit the scale reasonably. So I bit-the-bullet and started on the process of making my own.

 

After experimenting I determined the best way to make the drums was to use my lathe and cut down a wooden rod. This also meant I could make all six drums in one pass. I turned the rod down to the drum hoop size and then cut a little deeper to get to the actual drum diameter. I used a razor saw to cut a thin groove between pairs to simulate two drums. Then cut a deeper-wider grove where the pairs separate.

The drum pairs were then chucked in the lathe and the end lip cut. This was a bit of a problem as I had to hold the drum by one of the pair firmly enough to cut on the lathe. The chuck would mark the drum that was being held. My(imperfect) solution was to use padding and tape around the drum in the chuck. They turned out pretty nice though.

The drums were shellacked and sanded smooth. A wood strip of suitable size was sanded to a curve on one side that matched the curve of the drum. This was cut into the hatches for the drums. After gluing the hatches, a small hole was drilled on the ends on the opposite side from the hatch and a small brad inserted to simulate a bung.