Prince de Neufchatel by Coyote_6 – Constructo – 1/58 scale - American privateer

[Chuck Seiler]

Square away that rudder mate!  

🤣

[Coyote_6]

Whew!  The holidays.  Am I right?

 

So here we are 4 months later with remarkably little to show for the time.  But to @Chuck Seiler I can attest I have indeed got the rudder and tiller squared away.  (At least mostly anyway!)

 

Starting the new year correctly at the shipyard with a safety brief, the assembled staff paid keen attention.

 

 

 

Here is the rudder installation completed.

 

The devil being in the details, we have:

 

The pinned "Wood lock" is installed with a removable pin.   The Wood Lock prevents the rudder from unshipping (falling off).

 

And of course if it did unship, the Rudder Pendants (brass chains) keep the rudder close to the to ship to facilitate repairs.

 

 

And of course the tiller yoke.  If you remove the pin, the tiller yoke can slide out of the rudder head.

 

 

From the external bumpers up and the whole deck/bulkheads/rails have 3 coats of wipe on satin polyurethane clear coat.  When cured,  we will be ready to start some rudimentary rigging (tiller rigging and guns to start).

 

 

 

Thanks for looking in, and wishing everyone  great new year!

 

Steve

[Chuck Seiler]

Is that going to be ready in time for The Fair?

[Coyote_6]

@Chuck Seiler  I think we can safely assume that she will not be ready by summer.   Most folks would say we're half done when the cannon, anchors and deck fittings are all rigged.

 

I hope to move aloft in the next couple months, I hope to build three ship's boats, and I haven't made any decisions on sails at this point.  So still a long way to go I'm afraid.

 

But she should be impressive to work on in the booth by summer!

 

Steve

Edited January 12 by Coyote_6

[Chuck Seiler]

I dunno, the new Guildmeister is pretty adamant about having entries.

[Chuck Seiler]

1 hour ago, Coyote_6 said:

But she should be impressive to work on in the booth by summer!

Good luck dragging a fully masted model thru the Fair. 

[Coyote_6]

More clear satin poly?  Yes please.

 

 

Two coats down, one more to go.  Then the entire ship herself will be done.  (Spars and yards will come later.)

Edited January 16 by Coyote_6

[Coyote_6]

Preparing to begin rigging on the deck (still).

 

Final touches to the hull, filled plank  gaps that were bugging me with Watco Poly.

 

 

 

 

And waiting for cure.  Always one coat away! 

 

 

The mail came...

 

and a new project along the critical path is in work.   The Serv-o-matic cherry is a pretty wood...

 

And the Serv-o-matic is ready for poly.  Always just 1 coat away.

 

[Dr PR]

This is developing into a very pretty model!

[Coyote_6]

@Dr PR Thanks Phil!  I keep getting hung up on little things but that's the learning part.  The hull is drying with a satin poly coat right now, but I did like the glossy look too.  Sooo many options.   I gotta say your Albatros is setting the bar pretty high - I am just trying to catch up with her!

[Coyote_6]

Let's celebrate today, February 1st 2025, as the day the Prince got her first permanent lines installed.  Two figure 8 stopper knots and a dab of CA on the working ends as whipping.

 

Welcome aboard the rigging portion of this build.

 

 

Edited February 1 by Coyote_6

[Coyote_6]

So before we go too far, can I get a critique on my rigging process from some of you experienced builders out there?  Any input or recommendations appreciated.  Looking for convincing appearance and longevity.

 

Here's what I am doing:

 

For line, Syren's poly cotton blend rope...

 

For seizings, nylon or polyester fly tying thread...

 

To bind the seizing for longevity, Elmer's school glue straight from the bottle (a thin white PVA?).  A little drop top and bottom that soaks into the seizing...

 

And this is what we get - the "blocks" are held in place by the seizing tension and then the line tension when rigged tight.  You can see the Elmer's film on the seizings next to the blocks.

 

1.  Is the above process going to be reasonably successful going forward?  

 

2.  Are the materials chosen generally sound?

 

One particular complication is "weaving" an eye in the end of a line.  See the light colored line below (the dark line is seized with fly tying thread and Elmer's):

 

Trying to replicate a weaved eye as in Ashley...

 

I unravel ~1/8th inch and bind it back to the bitter end to form the loop was not able to get this to stick with Elmer's - only Superglue would work.  So I am using superglue (CA) for unseized eyes and a dab on the end of a line to "whip" against unraveling.

 

3.  So am I good here with the CA, or should I be doing woven eyes differently?  

 

4. PVA over CA, or are these equivalent?  I know this falls a bit into lore and opinion but I appreciate all insights!

 

 

Anything I should be doing differently?  Any advice at all on getting a good healthy start?

 

Thank you all in advance - I know you guys will get me on the right track.

(The boarding stairs were too easy! 😜)

 

 

 

 

Edited February 2 by Coyote_6

[Dr PR]

Steve,

 

What you are planning looks good to me. There are a couple of things I have done differently:

 

1. How springy is the fly tying line? I used a fine silk thread to seize lines. When it gets wet it is totally limp and doesn't try to unwind.

 

2. I used the white glue (Elmer's) to glue the ropes around the blocks. You want the glue to soak into the ropes. I dilute it 1:1 with water. However, the diluted glue does not make a really strong connection with the ropes.

 

One other thing I did was make a "tumbler" and rounded off the edges of the blocks to get a more realistic look.

 

https://modelshipworld.com/topic/19611-albatros-by-dr-pr-mantua-scale-148-revenue-cutter-kitbash-about-1815/?do=findComment&comment=981060

Edited February 2 by Dr PR

[Coyote_6]

  @Dr PR Thanks Phil.  I will have to mix up some 50/50 as I go in rigging.

 

Sourcing materials is so hard on amazon.  Without seeing the material it's hard to know if it's gonna be what I need.  I would like to try the silk thread, I'll have to see if it comes in a size 70.  I've bought 4 or 5 different spools so far but the fly tying has worked the best.

 

An open question then - do most people glue the lines to the blocks?

[Coyote_6]

Tiller damper rigging completed.

 

 

Edited February 2 by Coyote_6

[schooner]

I agree with Phil about gluing the stropping lines around the blocks. If you don’t some of your blocks may “roll out” under tension, probably in the worst locations for trying to fix them. You don’t need much glue, just a little on each side if the block.

 

Rounding off the edges of the blocks will make them look more realistic. The blocks from Syren look great but the Model expo blocks can be improved with a tumbler or by filing down the edges (tedious but not too bad if you do them as you need them.)

 

Edited February 14 by schooner

[Coyote_6]

Trying to work out the guns.  Painting the rest to match the prototype.

 

Fit check after bulkhead rings installed.  (I will be making a lot of hooks I see!)

 

[Coyote_6]

Full complement of 12 pound carronades.  Painted, polished and ready for rigging.

 

The train tackles will have hooks, so in theory hook, hook, tighten, tighten and wrap and done in 1:1 fashion.  We'll see how it goes in reality.

 

Decided to bring her out in the sun to see how these look.

 

 

 

 

[SaltyScot]

This is a beautiful build. I am getting close to finishing my current build and will be doing the 1812 Lynx Baltimore Clipper next. Although they are not too much alike, I will follow along here just for inspiration sir. I don't know if I missed it reading through your blog, but it appears in your first image of post #138 that the masts have different rake angles? Now I am a newbie and don't want to start nit-picking but from all the images I have seen of these schooners the rake was the same for both masts (I am referring to the images in Chapelle's book). Please feel free to grill me if I am wrong here, I deserve it if I am  

[Coyote_6]

@SaltyScot  Hi Mark! Thanks for the kind words.

 

You are on the mark, at least from what I have seen, that the masts should have the same rake.  I think a lot of the issue stems from the fisheye effect of my phone camera.  If you step back and shoot (and then crop the photo) you see the "masts" are much more uniform in angle:

 

 

The "masts" in the pics are just the raw stock pieces (as is the bowsprit) - after I shape them properly they will be shimmed, and between the shimming and the rigging I hope to get the mast angles proper.

 

The Lynx is a beauty - I have used the modern one's photos to sort out several questions on the Prince.  That should be fun - I'll keep an eye out for your build log if you do one!

 

Edited 14 hours ago by Coyote_6

[SaltyScot]

2 minutes ago, Coyote_6 said:

That should be fun - I'll keep an eye out for your build log if you do one!

 

Oh I will be doing one sir  

[Dr PR]

I have to disagree about the rake of the masts on Baltimore Clippers. I examined plans and drawings for 17 Baltimore clippers and found the mast rakes to be:

 

Fore mast - 11.5 degrees average, with a range of 7-16 degrees

Main mast - 13.75 degree average, with a range of 8-22 degrees

 

I don't recall seeing any that had the same rake for fore and main masts.

 

[Coyote_6]

@Dr PR  Leave it to The Godfather of Schooner Rigging to keep us honest!   One more thing to research on the Prince - someday I will learn not to trust the Constructo plans for "anything".   Ironically my next model will probably be Constructo's Enterprise 1799 so alas...

 

Thanks Phil for the heads up!  Any idea why it is that they are not equivalent?  

 

I'm gonna see if I can find what the Prince should be.  As if the bowsprit angle craziness wasn't bad enough!

 

 

[Dr PR]

Howard Chapelle has drawings of the Prince in The History of American Sailing Ships (p147) and The Search for Speed Under Sail (p230). The latter book has drawings showing many details of the Prince's rigging.

 

The fore mast rake was about 12 degrees from the horizontal (waterline) and the main mast rake was about 13.5 degrees.

 

There was some sheer to the deck so the angle from the deck for the fore mast is about 10 degrees and 13 degrees for the main mast.

 

The rake of the masts caused points on the masts higher up to be farther aft. The general rule for rigging was that lines originating higher up were belayed aft of those origination lower down on the masts. The rake of the masts resulted in less "crowding" of the lines as they came down to pin rails on the bulwarks. The lines from higher up came down aft of the mast and caused less interference with the rotation of yards lower down on the mast.

[Coyote_6]

Ok - that didn't take me too long.  I inherited the following Smithsonian document:

 

Sure enough!  Fore mast rake - 7" every 3' 0".  Main mast rake - 7.5" every 3' 0".

 

Now we know!

 

 

[Coyote_6]

@Dr PR  Thanks Phil.  I am very glad to have you around on this build.  Always new things to learn.

[SaltyScot]

6 hours ago, Dr PR said:

Howard Chapelle has drawings of the Prince in The History of American Sailing Ships (p147) and The Search for Speed Under Sail (p230). The latter book has drawings showing many details of the Prince's rigging.

 

The fore mast rake was about 12 degrees from the horizontal (waterline) and the main mast rake was about 13.5 degrees.

 

There was some sheer to the deck so the angle from the deck for the fore mast is about 10 degrees and 13 degrees for the main mast.

 

The rake of the masts caused points on the masts higher up to be farther aft. The general rule for rigging was that lines originating higher up were belayed aft of those origination lower down on the masts. The rake of the masts resulted in less "crowding" of the lines as they came down to pin rails on the bulwarks. The lines from higher up came down aft of the mast and caused less interference with the rotation of yards lower down on the mast.

 

This is excellent information, thank you so very much for clarifying that point, Phil. You are a wealth of knowledge, sir, and your input and experience are truly appreciated. Now I can ensure that the rake on the Lynx masts is correct!

[SaltyScot]

6 hours ago, Coyote_6 said:

@Dr PR  Thanks Phil.  I am very glad to have you around on this build.  Always new things to learn.

 

I second that!