Pyro/Lindberg Nantucket lightship build

[Shotlocker]

Greetings,

Way back in the mists of time, when I was eight-years-old, I built the Pyro kit of the Nantucket and, despite it spending a northern Ohio winter at the

bottom of my friend's swimming pool, most of it survived and I managed to keep it for all these years meaning, someday, to somehow rebuild it.

Recently I acquired the Lindberg reissue of the kit and decided to combine the two models. The Pyro hull, with its raised letters, was in excellent shape

so I repainted and used it. The hull at the time was molded in red plastic, pre-assembled, and painted black below the waterline; the rest of the parts

were molded in tan plastic. Lindberg's kit, on the other hand, is all white plastic and I estimate that about half of the time spent building this model was

spent on removing the flash and mold lines. I also replaced the flimsy spars with square brass tubing, machined a small brass bell for the front of the

pilot house, turned a brass piece to replace the vent on the aft deck house, and replaced the unusable blocks for the ship's boats with handmade wooden

ones (used beads for the small boat). One last item was to remove the overly thick flags from their staffs with the aim to add some more realistic ones

when I find some. I've added photos of the original plans and those currently offered with the kit just to show the differences between then and now.

 

All in all, it was fun project to get myself back into the shipyard after a spring/summer/fall of work in and around the house. Now,

back to the Chebec....

 

Cheers!

 

[Ian_Grant]

Nice looking little ship. How long is it?

 

If I am to continue in this hobby I need to decrease the size of the models for display usage.

[Rcboater Bill]

The Lindberg kit is 1/95 scale, and about 18 inches long.  I built one a few years ago, as an RC conversion.   I can release the anchor line and get under way by RC.

 

[Literalman]

Looks good! I like lightships. I've seen a few and imagined I would have enjoyed serving on one.

[Shotlocker]

I dunno, Literalman, from what I've read about duty on board those ships, it wasn't so great, especially during long periods of

inclement weather with that foghorn bellowing 24/7 plus being anchored in one spot for weeks/months at a time. The sailors

actually started a cottage industry, tho', by passing the time making baskets to sell.