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Brigantine Matthew Turner 2017 by Mike Hunt - Modellers Shipyard - 1:48 scale


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Hi and welcome to my second build, the brigantine “Matthew Turner” from Modellers Shipyard.

 

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I have not yet completed my first build but wanted some variety and experience building a next-level-up model, as it were.

 

A little history about the Matthew Turner: (Taken from Modellers Shipyard website)

 

Launched at Sausalito, California in April 2017 the brigantine Matthew Turner is the largest wooden sailing ship to be built in the San Francisco Bay area in more than 100 years. Built of Douglas Fir and Oregon white oak. The Matthew Turner has a length of 132 feet (40m), a beam of 25feet (7.6m) and a displacement of 175 tons (160 tones)

 

The ship pays homage to the ships namesake, Matthew Turner (June 17, 1825 - February 10, 1909) was an American sea captain, shipbuilder and designer. He constructed 228 vessels, of which 154 were built in the Matthew Turner shipyard in Benicia, California. He built more sailing vessels than any other single shipbuilder in America and can be considered the "grandaddy" of big time wooden shipbuilding in the US Pacific coast.
 

The main inspiration behind building the Matthew Turner was the Turner designed brigantine Galilee, launched in 1891. Galilee spent much of her career as a packet, making swift passages back and forth between San Francisco and South Sea ports. She ended her days on the Sausalito mudflats - Galilee Harbour is named for her - but her stern is preserved at Fort Mason and her stem at Benicia.

This model of Matthew Turner is expertly designed with a keel and bulkhead construction. A unique feature of this kit is that it has fairing laser score lines on the bulkheads to make the fairing accurate and symmetrical. All laser cutting is clean and crisp and all parts and fittings are of the highest quality. The English building instructions provide highly detailed step-by-step descriptions supported by colour photos of the model being built. The model is single layer planked.
 

 

 

Why did I choose this model? Several reasons:

It's a very handsome ship

I have a penchant for sail training ships 

It was from the same manufacturer as the brig Perseverance which I am currently building and I am very happy with the quality of that model.

It is a next-level-up (Lv3) which I felt I needed to undertake before immersing myself in the Gorch Fock (Lv4).

The support from Modellers Shipyard was/is excellent on my current build.

The availability of the 4 DVD set of instructional videos is a huge bonus for this novice builder

Because this ship is so new, there is an endless supply of photos, videos and all sorts of reference material available all over the NET

It was on sale, yesssssssss :-) 

 

 

 

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Cant say I like the laser etched deck planking, I rather enjoyed doing my own planking.

 

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Notice the fairing lines laser cut into some of the bulkheads. I don't know that it is a particularly unique feature as I seem to recall having read about them previously.

 

 

 

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I have noticed that some of the smaller parts like blocks, pulleys and deadeyes are of a much higher quality than say those supplied with the OcCre Gorch Fock.

 

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So that's the kit and I hope to be setting sail with it in the coming week     :10_1_10: 

 

For anyone interested in the real deal, here is an excellent starting point from Call of the Sea 

Current builds: Colonial Brig Perseverance,   Brigantine Matthew Turner,  Gorch Fock

               

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Very nice! We have a member here whose grandfather was aboard Galilee during her magnetic surveying days (link here). Being a native of Northern California, I have a soft spot for West Coast merchant sail, especially those vessels involved in the lumbering trade.

Chris Coyle
Greer, South Carolina

When you have to shoot, shoot. Don't talk.
- Tuco

Current builds: Brigantine Phoenix, Hawker Hurricane

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16 minutes ago, ccoyle said:

Very nice! We have a member here whose grandfather was aboard Galilee during her magnetic surveying days (link here). Being a native of Northern California, I have a soft spot for West Coast merchant sail, especially those vessels involved in the lumbering trade.

 

Yes indeed, I have already been all over that build and when I grow up I want to be a scratch builder just like CDR

Current builds: Colonial Brig Perseverance,   Brigantine Matthew Turner,  Gorch Fock

               

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7 minutes ago, Mike Hunt said:

Yes indeed, I have already been all over that build and when I grow up I want to be a scratch builder just like CDR

Heh. Now if I could actually get to building the model, that would be an accomplishment!

 

Looking forward to seeing how this comes together, Mike.

 

Terry

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14/08/21  Removed all bulkheads and false keel and sanded clean

15/08/21  Dry fitted all bulkheads to false keel also glued BH's 1 - 5

16/08/21  Glued BH's 6 - 11

17/08/21  Finished gluing bulkheads. Shaped bow and stern blocks. Glued on under-deck supports.

18/08/21  sanded and cleaned deck edges

 

 

HTD:  10

 

 

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Off and running.

 

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A few more in place

 

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All in

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All BH's nice and square

 

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Bow and stern blocks shaped and ready to be glued in place

 

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Under deck frame supports in place

 

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Just a dry fit of the deck.

 

Well what a hugely exciting start, for me, on this beautiful boat.

 

I was blown away with the quality of the bulkheads and false keel compared to my other build, the Perseverance, which was from the same manufacturer. With this kit every single bulkhead was a perfect fit and none required reducing or building up. The lines seemed to be very true indeed. The BH's were such a perfect fit that the were all square requiring no assistance. None the less I still used a couple of pieces of square aluminium box section and clamped each BH in turn. Very very happy with end result. It's all the more interesting having the other build from the same manufacturer for comparison.

 

You may notice that there is a very slight curve in the false keel which I believe will disappear after the deck is attached. I did a trial fit of the deck and it fitted beautifully. Those under deck supports have gaps in them helping the alignment to the bulkheads to be more accurate.

 

I decided not to use my new HZ building slip as I am keeping it for the Gorch Fock build not to mention the fact that it is rather large and unwieldly. I will start throwing BH's into that model shortly.

 

You will notice in the photos above that the forward and aft BH's have score lines to help with fairing. The manual suggests that these BH's are faired before being glued in place. Well this just didn't feel right to me, despite my lack of experience I opted to glue them in place first and I will still use those helpful lines as a reference when I start fairing. I hope I haven't jinxed myself going out on my own like that so early on.

 

The other "going-it-alone" decision I have made is to plank the deck. As clever and helpful as the plank etching might be, I simply just don't like it and have ordered forty odd strips of .6mm  x 4mm Silver ash which has a beautiful grain and awesome finish when varnished, see some of the pics in my Perseverance build. Anyway, I am not expecting their arrival for another few days so build on hold till then. I am hoping that this extra .6mm isn't going to be detrimental to the rest of the build.

Current builds: Colonial Brig Perseverance,   Brigantine Matthew Turner,  Gorch Fock

               

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  • 2 weeks later...

30/08/21  Silver Ash arrived so started cutting planks 

31/08/21  -  02/09/21  Deck planking

 

 

 

HTD:  15

 

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Jig for cutting planks

 

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Planks ready to go

 

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Deck planking commences

 

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Planking continues

 

 

OK, so not a lot of progress here since last installment.  As I think I mentioned in an earlier post this kit comes with a deck that has laser etched planking which did not appeal to me. Perhaps a way to keep costs down. So I ordered some Silver Ash to plank it myself. As there were no instructions on deck planking I decided to cut them to 150mm lengths and stagger them at 50mm intervals. On my other build I used 100mm lengths also staggered at 50mm. I think it will look ok and not out of scale, as they are both similar size it will be interesting to see the difference side by side.

 

On the Perseverance I used contact cement for the deck planking which can be unforgiving if one is not precise when laying the planks but the end result is close to perfect in my opinion. The contact cement method, for me anyway was much slower and laborious as I only prepared one plank at a time where the experts prepare six or more at a time. And so this time about I decided to use PVA.

 

Much much easier to work with BUT!!! when wiping excess glue with a damp cloth you also smear the graphite from the edges which does not look particularly attractive. I am hoping that on completion I will scrape down the deck instead of sanding and that this will reduce the contaminated graphite.   

 

Looking forward to completing the decking and then  onto the fairing process I think

 

Current builds: Colonial Brig Perseverance,   Brigantine Matthew Turner,  Gorch Fock

               

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  • 1 month later...

01/09/21 -  02/10/21 Continued deck planking

06/10/21  Glued deck in place

07/10/21  Faired the hull

08/10/21  Glued bow and stern blocks in place

09/10/21  Continued sanding and shaping bow and stern blocks. Shaped transom and transom strengthener and glued together.

10/10/21  Glued transom in place, sanded deck and applied first coat of varnish

11/10/21  -  13/10/21  More sanding and varnishing

16/10/21  Fitted top temporary planks on P & S and glued 3 planks below temp plank on both sides.

17/10/21  Fitted 3 spacers midship and another temp plank below spacers to define planking section on P & S

21/10/21  Sanded back deck and applied faux nails in deck planking and gave a fresh coat of varnish

22/10/21  Another light sanding of deck and another coat of varnish.

23/10/21  Final varnish

 

HTD:  30

 

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Deck planking continues

 

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Planking complete and glued in place

 

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Fairing the hull

 

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Bow blocks faired

 

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First temporary planks in place

 

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First plank glued in place with the help of planking clamps

 

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First three planks glued in place along with three temporary spacers and a temporary plank to define that planking section.

 

Some exciting progress on this build for me. For some reason I really enjoy and relish the challenge of planking.

 

So as mentioned earlier this kit was supplied with planks etched into the deck, I don't know why they couldn't have etched in butt joints and nail points. To be honest, even if they did I would have still preferred to plank it as I would any other deck. Anyway, the planking went without hitch and the only mistake I made was not gluing the deck onto the hull before commencing the planking. You see I wasn't able to get the deck to hold firm with clamps and weights alone and I had to use pins which of course leave pin holes. Mixed some sanding dust with PVA and filled same. With lots of sanding and several coats of varnish I think I might just have gotten away with it.

 

With the deck finished I started to fair thje hull. Now these bulkheads came with laser etched fairing lines and it was suggested in the manual to fair these prior to installation but I chose to install first and fair later. I found it very easy to fair and I still found the fairing lines helpful as a guide. Overall the procedure was relatively easy  for me.

 

On to the planking and the first temporary plank was a doddle to install as one might expect. The next plank down I decided to try out the new planking clamps I got from Modelers Shipyard. Well the concept is great I think but in their current iteration, useless. Too fiddley and because the thumbscrew is nylon coated it shreds your fingers to bits, absolutely not worth the pain. If the thumb screw was bigger and had a more finger friendly surface then they might be the ducks nuts.  

 

So the spacers and temp plank are installed to define the next planking section which will see me take three planks down to two in that space. Only used wedges and fillers on the Perseverance so looking forward to this new challenge which I should be starting in the coming week/s

Current builds: Colonial Brig Perseverance,   Brigantine Matthew Turner,  Gorch Fock

               

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