Shamrock V by David Lester - FINISHED - Amati - 1:80 - J Class Yacht

[David Lester]

Hello Again,

Well, I certainly didn't expect to be building a J Class yacht until yesterday when a friend called and asked if I'd build his Shamrock V for him. He has had the kit collecting dust on a shelf for many years and doesn't anticipate ever getting to it, so asked me if I'd build it for him.

 

I have learned that Amati makes a range of America's Cup yacht kits, but the Shamrock V is one that has been discontinued.

 

Since yesterday I have been poring over the kit. It will prove to be a relatively simple build, but appears to be a high quality kit. The fittings are excellent and the instructions and plans are very clear and easy to understand. (I do have a question about the rigging, but I'll ask that in a separate post under the right topic.)

 

This kit has a pre-cast hull ( a type of resin, I guess) which will cut down on the amount of work needed considerably.

 

I have never added sails to a model before, but I think this is one model that definitely needs them, so I'll be reading through everything I can find on making sails. The fabric provided in the kit is very fine and I don't think it will need to be replaced.

 

Here are a couple of shots of the kit:

So, an unexpected change of pace.

 

David

[David Lester]

I started in last night and am beginning to get a feel for this kit.

 

I noticed that the included stand needed quite a bit of tweaking to fit the hull correctly. I decided to tend to this first, rather than later after things are attached to the deck and the hull is painted.

 

Both the model and the stand are very light in eight and it proved to be helpful to drill a small hole in the bottom of the keel and place a pin between the stand and the keel.

 

The first item in the instructions is the rudder, which is made from some kind of plywood with a fairly coarse grain on the outer layer. The rudder needed to be tapered. A little more fine sanding and maybe even filling will probably be required. I'm going to leave that until I get one coat of paint on first, to better see what is needed.

 

 

I could not imagine this rudder adhering well to the resin hull with some pinning -

 

Next was the sub deck which just gets glued directly to the hull. There's a hole in the hull for the mast to sit in, so it was just a matter of putting the mast in place through the sub deck to line them up.

 

The sub deck fits the hull beautifully. It was just ever so slightly oversized so that it could be sanded to perfectly match the profile of the hull.

 

Centre line drawn and ready to begin the planking.

The planking on this one is different than I've seen before. It's 2mm x 2mm basswood (or lime) and the planks are supposed to curve following the curve of the hull, not run straight. Because of this it's going to be necessary to work from the outside in, rather than from the centre line out.

 

 

We'll see how that goes.

 

David

[yvesvidal]

It looks like your friend will have his finished model, in a short time. Great beginnings so far...

 

Yves

[David Lester]

I've added the deck planking, and it's a bit different than that of other models I've done.

 

The planking is square - it's 2x2 mm. The first step is two strips laid down each side of a centre line. Then the outermost plank and it's simply laid flush with the hull. From here it's a matter of laying the planks working toward the centre.

 

The planks were easy to install and they take the curve of the hull without any soaking or pre-bending. On one side of the centre line, the planks went out even and the last one fit in width perfectly. On the other side of the centre line, the last gap was just a bit too big and I finished it off by adding a last 3/64" plank from my stash. It went very quickly as the hull is only just over 17" long, so there really wasn't much area to cover.

 

Quite a bit of sanding was required. There was a lot of variation in the thickness of the planks, but with 2mm to work with, there wasn't much fear of sanding right through. This was a very easy deck to sand - it's flat and there are no sides of the hull to interfere. In fact I used an electric palm sander.

 

I applied one coat of shellac to seal the wood before adding the filler at the point where the hull meets the deck.

 

I have applied the first coat of wood filler ( or stucco, as the Italian instructions call it.) I think it will likely take at least one more coat before it's ready to paint.

 

So that's my progress so far. With a pre-made hull, it really doesn't take very long to get to this point.

 

Once the filling is done, then I think it's time to paint the hull

 

Thanks for looking in, comments and likes.

David

[David Lester]

Good Morning,

I've been focusing on two things over the past few days -

 

First, I've been working on the upper edge of the hull. As I mentioned before, the sub deck is glued directly onto the hull and then the deck planking on top of that. It's necessary to get a smooth upper edge to the hull which is supposed to meet crisply with the deck.

 

I had filled the edge with some filler, but before working any further on that, I added the black painted border that goes around the deck -

Then I sanded, refilled and painted the top of the hull -

 

It's not hard to do, but it takes quite a few coats to get it smooth. It will appear to be prefect in one light, then as soon as I adjust the light, I can suddenly see all kinds of imperfections. I applied one quick coat of green to the top and this seems to make it easier to find the tiny imperfections. It's all but finished now, just some very minor touch-ups needed.

The other thing I've been working on is a stand. I thought I would use the one provided in the kit, but it's really pretty flimsy, doesn't really fit the hull very well (despite my efforts to modify it) and it isn't very attractive.

 

I was at a loss as to what a suitable stand for this yacht might look like, but then I found something that I thought was suitable in forum member Ekis's build log for his Endeavour J Class. I though it was quite handsome, so I set out to try to do something similar.

 

In the end I came up with something that is a little less sophisticated than his and perhaps not quite as beautiful, but it's simpler and I think it does the job quite acceptably.

 

It was a bit challenging without a plan to work from, so I just took a trial and error approach. There seemed to be too many variables and no fixed starting point. So I just started in and quickly learned that all I should expect from my prototype was that it would have suitable overall measurements and not to worry about how it looked. I basically just slapped the bracing etc on.  Once I had an established model to work from, ie its height, width and length, I then built a new one, this time paying attention to how it looked. I used some 3/16" square stock from my stash.

 

It's not perfect, but I kinda like it and it's a definite improvement over the little kit supplied one.

 

Thanks again,

David

 

[Dave_E]

Just pulled up my chair! 👍😀

[BobG]

I love these magnificent, racing sailboats, David. They have such elegant lines. I'll be following along on your build. Good luck!

[David Lester]

Thanks guys.

Bob - they are beautiful. I've never built a model like this before, but I'm finding it quite interesting as I've been reading a little bit about the America's Cup yachts from this period. It's hard to find photos of them though. The Shamrock is still in existence (or at least another one called Shamrock) but it's so dissimilar that pictures of it are not of any use.

 

While the Amati kit seems to be of decent quality, I'm pretty sure it's a very simplified, stripped down version of the real thing. While it appears to be accurate as far as it goes, I suspect that there is much detail omitted. It's fun nevertheless.

David

[James G]

Just started following. Looking great so far David!

[gsdpic]

Nice progress.  I think your stand is a huge improvement over the kit supplied cradle...it is detailed enough to add some interest to the display yet it does not hide the beautiful lines of the hull.

[David Lester]

Good Morning All,

 

So I've been spending quite a bit of time getting the hull painted and it was a bit of a process arriving at a finished hull.

 

The first question was what colour should it be? There just aren't many resources out there. I cannot find any pictures at all of the original yacht. There are pictures of the current Shamrock, but it's a totally different vessel than the 1930's one.

 

The kit includes pictures of two different finished models. In each case the whole hull is green, with a broad white stripe at the waterline

 

In this one the whole hull is a dark green, with a slight bluish cast

Here it's a more yellowy green

Initially I painted the hull to match the first picture above, the darker green, which I managed to match quite well and for some reason it looked terrible. Then I rediscovered the picture with the lighter green inside the box and thought that it might look better. Before changing it, I decided to do a little more research on line and became quite confused as to what to do.

 

The current version of the Shamrock is a very dark green with a dark contrasting lower hull, with a broad white stripe at the waterline and a narrow stripe (maybe yellow) higher up -

I discovered a number of different pictures of models of the Shamrock out there but no two of them were the same - green tops, black bottoms - white tops, green bottoms - green tops, red bottoms - green tops, copper bottoms etc. etc.

 

However, this one I found by model maker John Adela (ageofsail.net) caught my eye -

So I consulted with my friend, whose model this is. (I keep forgetting that I'm not getting to keep this one.) He decided that since we don't really know how the original was painted, it was more a matter of choosing the look he liked best and he settled on the colour combination by John Adela.

 

So I stripped my first paint job off the hull and started over and the results this time are much improved -

 

For some reason, this was the hardest waterline to draw. I simply could not secure the model well enough to draw the line in the way I usually do. I usually place the hull upside down and use some cedar shims to make the hull level side to side and to adjust the height at each end. I clamp a pencil to a square and draw the line on. It's worked easily every time - but not for this hull. I had no better luck with the hull right side up either.

 

In the end, I marked the point at the bow and stern where the waterline would terminate and then placed a strip of narrow masking tape on the hull and continually adjusted it until it looked ok to the eye. This took quite a bit of adjusting and readjusting. When I was happy with it, I drew a pencil line along one side of the tape. By this time the masking tape had been man-handled a lot, so I replaced it with a new strip placed along the pencil line. This worked, but I wouldn't want to have to do it this way every time.

 

So next up is touching up the black around the edge of the deck and then finishing the deck details.

 

Thanks for checking in and Happy Thanksgiving to all my US friends!

 

David

 

 

 

 

Edited November 24, 2022 by David Lester

[James G]

The paint job looks beautiful David!

[Knocklouder]

Morning Dave, I was just going to send you a message about how to do a water line and there you go answering it, lol 😀 

 Are you sure you can give this one away  its a great looking model,great stand!! 

[Dave_E]

Hi Dave,

 

That hull looks beautiful! 👍 Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours! 😀

[BobG]

Stunning paint job!

[David Lester]

Thanks for the comments, guys.

 I've learned the hard way how important it is to get the masking tape really well sealed. I have a pick from an old set of picks for Christmas nuts. The rounded smooth back side of the pick is perfect for rubbing the tape down really well. Then before I apply the second colour, I seal the edge of the tape with a couple of coats of paint the same colour as the paint that's under the tape, then if there is any bleeding, it won't show up and it blocks the second colour from bleeding through at all.

 

It took a few coats of paint to cover and I only did one side at a time, so it seemed a long wait to find out if I had sealed the tape well enough or not. 

 

That finish is just brushed on, but the paint went on really smoothly and evenly. I hesitate to tell  you what kind of paint it is, because it won't seem sophisticated enough, but it's just Americana Satin Acrylic. I think this paint is made for craft projects and folk art and that type of thing, but I was really impressed with how nice it is to work with and how smoothly it went on. It also seems to have a really hard finish. The level of sheen seems just right to me too. Many of the model paints only come in flat or glossy finishes and it's hard to find something in between with a soft sheen. There wasn't a very dark green available, so this is one they call 'Beret Green' which I mixed with some black.

 

David

[BobG]

In that photo of the Shamrock in the dry dock, it looks like the hull is a super high gloss, mirror like finish. I guess that these racing sailboats would want that so there would be the least amount of friction possible.

[Dave_E]

1 hour ago, BobG said:

In that photo of the Shamrock in the dry dock, it looks like the hull is a super high gloss, mirror like finish. I guess that these racing sailboats would want that so there would be the least amount of friction possible.

They do indeed! I have personally watched sailors at the marina hand waxing their J boats before weekly race day. 

[David Lester]

I've added most of the deck fittings.

 

First thing was drilling the many holes for the brass bushings and other fittings. It's hard to believe but there are over 70 1mm holes on this deck! Of course, as we all know, the drilling is pretty easy, it's the locating that's the hard part -

 

The rest of the furnishings are minimal and very easy. I had already assembled the various structures -

 

This is not too complex a build. I actually think I spent more time painting the hull than I have on everything else to this point. So next up is the mast and rigging. It doesn't look to be too difficult and the plans and instructions are quite clear.

Thanks again for checking in.

 

David

 

 

 

[David Lester]

Good Morning,

A little more work on my Shamrock to report. I've finished up the deck details and have a good start on the rigging. The rigging on this model is minimal and quite simple to do. Also the instructions are quite clear so not too big a challenge -

 

I've upgraded the blocks to internally stropped ones, from BlueJacket.

 

This is as far as I can go until I add the sails. Most of the running rigging must be added at the same time as the sails.

 

I'm finding the sails to be a very big challenge. The kit provides some material that seems quite suitable to me. It's a very fine synthetic fabric which does not seem to be over scaled (to my eye at least.) But they only give you just barely enough, certainly not enough for a practice round. I followed the instructions in the kit and also followed someone's Youtube series about his build of the Amati Endeavour yacht, which appears to use the same fabric and method. His seemed to turn out beautifully, but it's lot easier watching it being done than doing it!

 

The approach is to coat the fabric with a 50/50 mixture of white glue and water. Cut out narrow strips to represent the reinforcing at the edges and other points and glue them on. Then cut the sail out. I have two problems, which aren't actually well reflected in my pictures below. First it's very difficult to get the sail to lay flat and not wringle. The first one below is by for my best effort and I even think it could pass as acceptable, however the others are not nearly as good. The second problem is that I underestimated how easily this gluey fabric would pick up every last bit of dust and dirt in my shop. As a result the sails, in addition to being wringly, also look pretty dirty.

 

I think it's possible that I could manage to get an acceptable set of sails using this method, but I would need about three times the fabric to allow for do-overs.

 

So, I have ordered some silkspan from BlueJacket and I'm going to have another go at it, this time following Tom Lauria's approach as he outlined in one of his videos. It's quite similar to the first method I tried, but he coats the material in paint instead of glue. I think I've ordered enough to allow at least one do-over. If I can't get a decent job with the silkspan, I'm not sure what I will do, but I remain optimistic!

 

Once I conquer these sails, the build will be virtually finished.

 

Thanks for checking in.

David

 

[James G]

It’s coming along very nicely David! I’ve no doubt you’ll get there with the sails.

[Roger Pellett]

Unless your friend especially wants sails, I would leave them off.  You have produced an elegant model that looks like it could be displayed in the model room of the New York Yacht Cub or the Royal Yacht Squadron.  Sails can only detract from the classic appearance that you have achieved.

 

Roger

[David Lester]

Good Morning Everyone,

I've made good progress on the sails.

Roger, I appreciate your comment, and as a rule I prefer models without sails. However, I think this yacht needs the sails, and it's a good opportunity for me to experiment with them.

 

As I mentioned earlier, I found the kit provided material all but impossible to work with, so I had ordered some silkspan which arrived on Monday and I spent much of Monday and yesterday working on the the sails. I found the silkspan easy to work with and I believe I will have an acceptable result.

 

Following Tom Lauria's method, I painted the silkspan with some acrylic paint. When dry I pressed it flat with an iron. Tom mentioned using something called dry waxed paper. He doesn't mean regular waxed paper, which would leave quite a mess. Instead of dry waxed paper I used parchment paper which we already had and it did the trick. It can withstand quite a bit of heat and it protects the silkspan.

 

The next step was to cut out the sails. I made cardboard templates, but here I had to differ from Tom's approach, as I ruined my first sail. He outlined his sail with a pencil, but when I did that, as soon as I ran glue along the edge for the reinforcing strip, the pencil just smudged and made a mess of the sail. The next time I ran my pounce wheel along the template and this cleanly laid out the sail.

I marked the template where the seams go, according to the plans and transferred those marks to the material, but outside the edge of the sail.

 

Then it was a a simple matter of cutting out some reinforcing strips and gluing them along the edges of the sail.

 

When it came to marking the seams, I differed from Tom again. He recommended drawing on pencil lines to show the seams. However when I did this, the line looked too heavy and seemed, to my eye at least, to look too much like a pencil line drawn on the sail. I know that others have tried actually sewing seam lines on, but I wasn't about to get into that and it often looks over scale in any case.

 

So, I turned to the pounce wheel again and marked the seams with it. I'm pretty happy with the result. It shows up just enough, not so much as to be distracting, but still noticeable.

 

I then flipped the material over and applied the reinforcing strips and "seams" to the other side and then cut the sail out.

 

I then ironed the sails again, between two sheets of parchment paper, and I think they're finished.

 

There are four sails on this model - the three small ones which I've done and one large one. Unfortunately, I will have to re-do it as it's marked out with pencil and isn't too clean looking. Fortunately, I ordered enough material.

 

 

Anyway, that's my first experience using silkspan and I have to say that I found it to be a very nice product to work with.

 

Thanks again for looking it.

 

David

 

Edited December 21, 2022 by David Lester

[David Lester]

Hello All,

I have now finished the Shamrock V. There was really very little rigging on it, and most of it was dependent on the sails, so once they were ready to install, there was not too much left to do.

 

After making my first set of sails, I decided to have a second go and see if I could improve upon my first attempt. I had used the pounce wheel to mark the seam lines, but I wasn't completely happy with the result. Tom Lauria uses a pencil, but I found that the pencil simply looked too much like a pencil line and tended to smear with the slightest touch. So I contacted Tom and he suggested I needed to use a much harder pencil.

 

Off to Staples I went and found a 6H pencil and this did the trick. It didn't smear at all and left a light crisp line. I still had a bit of trouble keeping the silkspan smooth and flat and I do have some wrinkling at the edges, but I know this is as good as I'm going to get it and I can live with it.

 

And here's the finished model. I didn't chronicle the rigging very much as it is as simple and straightforward as can be and the Amati plans are crystal clear in this department.

 

I don't know enough about yachts of this period to know how much of the detailing is accurate. I suspect some of the deck details are overscale, but I decided not to worry about it if that is the case. The only thing I did do was replace the standard issue wooden blocks with cast ones from BlueJacket which I think look so much better.

 

So now that my current commissions are over, it's back to the Agamemnon in earnest.

Again, many thanks for looking it and all the nice comments and likes. I really appreciate it.

 

Happy New Year to all!

David

 

 

[ccoyle]

A very nice result, David!

[Dave_E]

Really nice Dave! Sails are excellent!👍😀 What’s on the horizon?

[James G]

Another beautiful build David! I’m sure your friend will be over the moon with it. Thanks for sharing and look forward to seeing your next project.

 

Best,

Jim

[BobG]

Fantastic model, David! The sleek lines of the famous, racing sailboats are just so beautiful. This is truly a wonderful model. Great job!

[GGibson]

Great work, David! She looks fantastic! 

[Steve Anderson]

Really nicely done Dave. Very informative.

 

I have a 40 year old J Class fiberglass hull on one of my work tables. 36" LOA, 1:43 scale. Given to me a few weeks ago by my best friend. He just discovered he had it a couple of months ago. While we all think we have too much stuff, he has two cargo containers on his property for the overflow.