USS Kearsarge by gak1965 - BlueJacket Shipcrafters - 1:96

[gak1965]

I'm currently building out the plans and parts for a scratch POB version of RRS Discovery. That is probably at least a month away from making any kind of sawdust, and I wanted to have another project where something other than electrons and paper was created, so I've decided to do the Bluejacket USS Kearsarge. This is my first Bluejacket kit, although I've used many of their parts/supplies in the past. 

 

There are other logs, and I won't reiterate what you can find on the Bluejacket website. Suffice it to say that she is a Mohican class steam sloop-of-war, built in 1861 by the Portsmouth Navy Yard in Kittery, ME, and commissioned in January 1862. <aside>If you look up Mohican class on Wikipedia or Google you will initially find the article on the Mohican herself, the Kearsarge and the Oneida (which sank with the loss of 125 in Japan. So far, my far from significant research has turned up 6 of them, two from 1859 (Mohican and Iroquois) and 4 from 1861 (Kearsarge, Oneida, Tuscarora, and Wachusett)</aside> Kearsarge is best known for sinking the Confederate commerce raider CSS Alabama. This particular battle caught the world's (and certainly the art world's) attention. I have read that only the battle between the Monitor and the Merrimack/Viriginia yielded more naval art in this period than the Kearsarge/Alabama fight. I will leave it to the psychologists as to why (larger than life personalities? the appearance of a chivalrous duel? Good artists nearby?), but there is a lot of such art out there. The default one is this one by

Manet (image is public domain). It has been pointed out by people with more artistic skill than I that Manet changes the focus to the French ship coming to rescue survivors and that Kearsarge is barely visible.

 

Manet:

 

This is another one by Antonio Jacobsen and shows the Kearsarge nicely, with what appears to be a pretty rational rig.

 

 

Just one more photo, this one of the ship's officers:

 

 

I love this photo for what it says about life on board a navy vessel. This was apparently taken after the victory against the Alabama. At this point, this is probably the most famous ship in the Union Navy, Captain Winslow (3rd from left in the front row) is a national hero but you'll see that he is still wearing the old insignia for a Captain (3 3/4-inch stripes), while his junior officers (who presumably are newer at this than he is) are wearing the up to date version using more, narrower stripes (in the 1864 version of the regs, Captain Winslow would wear six stripes in two groups of 3, of the same width as the two LCDRs on his right). Bottom line was that he was on duty and had better things to do than replace his dress coat - not like anyone on the ship was going to be unaware of who he is!

 

So, let's get the initial requirement out of the way. Here is the mandatory photo of the kit on my clean work table (not for long!).

 

 

As to why this kit, well, it links a couple of areas of my interest. First, it is a Civil War era kit, and I've been fascinated by the history of that period for decades. Second, Kearsarge is, in some ways like Discovery, a transitional ship, powered both by steam and sails, and those transitional vessels have started to attract my interest of late. 

 

This project is going to be rather different in many ways from the kits of built recently (three Model Shipways kits, the Pride of Baltimore II, Niagara, and Flying Fish). This is much more 'mixed media' than those in the sense that there are wood parts, Britannia fittings, wood and metal strip, cast resin, styrene, and photo etched brass (a LOT of photo etched brass) so it will no doubt require developing some new skills. I am going to bring some techniques from those other ships though. For example, rather than paint the hull copper or using the individual copper plates, I am going to copper the bottom more or less as I did the Flying Fish using copper tape, and hopefully I'll be able to learn from my myriad mistakes on all the prior models to make this one go smoother.

 

Regards,

George

 

[gak1965]

And kick-off. 

 

This model is built rather differently than the POB models that Model Shipways sells, in the sense that the 21 bulkheads are in 42 (rather than 21) pieces, one port and one starboard piece, each of which has a tab that fits into either the top or bottom half of a slot on the main keel. It is also different in the sense that it appears that I am going to add the keel after the hull is planked (in prior kits, I'd cut a rabbet into the bottom of the hull, and then added the keel and bulkheads, before planking.

 

Here is everything dry fitted on the port side:

 

 

and all of the bulkheads cut out and aligned, port and starboard, fore and aft (the sections with the holes are for a reveal). There are also 21 2 x 1/2 x 1/16 strips of wood that I cut out that are going to 'lock' the frames in place.

 

 

Observations so far. The laser cutting is generally pretty good. I had no trouble with the main false keel, and 3.5 of the four sheets of frames. At one end of one sheet, the cutting hadn't gone as far as it should, and even though I was careful cutting the parts out and used a fresh blade, I wound up with broken tips on two of the frames. They broke by having the two outer layers of ply break off, so I just repaired them by cutting out a section of ply of about the right shape, gluing them to the stub of ply and then trimming it down. It added about 20 minutes of work, but no big deal.

 

One other thing I've noticed is that the tabs on at least some of the bulkheads are a little too long, and they protrude in a way that would prevent the opposite side from attaching securely to the false keel. Again, no big deal, I'll sand them down a little bit before I start attaching them.

 

Regards,

George

 

 

[Keith Black]

 I look forward to your Kearsarge build, this transitional period in ships absolutely fascinates me. 

[Canute]

I'm in too, George. The American Civil War has been a major historical study for me. I'm more of a Brown Water fan, but Kearsarge was one of the ships I built back in the day.

[Roger Pellett]

I seem to remember seeing this model displayed by Bluejacket at a NRG conference.  The kit builds into a handsome model.  If your RRS Discovery only has to wait a month while you build this model I’d be surprised.  Or maybe you work on the US Navy System:  “ If you can’t get your work done in the 24 hr day,  work nights!”😆

 

Roger

[gak1965]

11 minutes ago, Roger Pellett said:

f your RRS Discovery only has to wait a month while you build this model I’d be surprised.  Or maybe you work on the US Navy System:  “ If you can’t get your work done in the 24 hr day,  work nights!”😆

 

To be sure 😀.

 

Right now all the work on Discovery involves turning drawings of one kind into drawings of another kind, and I like the idea of splitting my hobby time into tactile work (Kearsarge) and more intellectual work (Discovery - e.g. where should I put the top of the bulkhead given the need to put in a waterway, have the planksheer come to the right place, etc., etc.). I've often found that I would be in a place during a build where something would need time to dry or set, and that is a great time to do other things. No doubt it will slow both ships, and it may not work at all, but that's okay - I'll adapt as needed.

 

There is another factor here, which is that I need a scroll saw to cut out the pieces for Discovery in an efficient way (My coping saw isn't going to cut it - well it could, but it would take forever). The Admiral and my (adult) children have made it clear that such a purchase prior to Christmas and my birthday, which is shortly after, would yield, ah, extremely negative results in the home department, so even in the best circumstances sawdust on Discovery was going to be waiting until 1Q24. 

 

Regards,

George

[Azzoun]

Good luck with the build George, I own this kit and will be following with interest.   

[Rick310]

Should be a fun build George,  I’ve seen the completed model at Bluejacket and it’s quite attractive!!

Rick

[gak1965]

Well, progress being made.  Here she is with the false keel and the port side bulkheads in place. Bulkhead 12 not installed for the reveal.

 

 

And here with all of the bulkheads and the sub-deck dry fitted.

 

I have one question regarding the installation of the sub-deck. I understand that it fits between the false keel and the bulkhead extensions, and that eventually I'm going to break the bulkhead extensions off. The question is how far out the sub deck is supposed to extend. Does it extend to edge of the slot in the bulkhead extension or out to the bulkhead? I.e. does it look like this:

 

 

 

or extend the remaining 1/16 of an inch?

 

If I understand the next steps (well not immediate next steps, but near term), the top of the sheer strake gets aligned with the bottom of the slot (since this is planked upside down it will actually be reversed, but relative to this diagram the description is accurate). Eventually the inner bulwark pieces attach to the top of the bulkheads, a tiny fraction of the extensions that are below the break score, and the edge of the sub deck. Is that right? Any assistance from someone that has built the ship or similar designs would be appreciated. 

 

Thanks for looking in!

 

Regards,

George

[Rick310]

George, 

For questions you can always call Nic or Al Ross at Bluejacket.

Nice start to the model.

Rick

[MrBlueJacket]

you will notice that by splitting the false deck and having each side butt against the keel, you are assured of a straight hull.

 

Nic

[SteveA]

Your drawing looks correct, the false deck should extend to the edge of the slot so the bulwark pieces sit flush in the slot.  It took me a while to figure this out as well.

[gak1965]

I didn't have a lot of time to work on the ship during the holidays, as my children were visiting. Because of their jobs (one is a reporter and the other works at an inpatient facility for women and girls with eating disorders) they generally need to work some holidays, and this year their schedules wound up conflicting, so they were here sequentially, not in parallel as it were. It was wonderful seeing them, although a shame that they couldn't be here at the same time.

 

Anyway, where we stand. Although it is a little out of order, the frame reveal is completed and mounted. Rather than have some of the frames 'broken' for better visibility, I just decided to leave them all in place. The backing and "ironwork" were soaked in hot water, formed, and then glued in place when dry. The whole thing added below the subdeck, aligned with the bulkheads.

 

 

The other subdeck has been added. Having read the instructions enough, I think I understand the goal, to provide the necessary shape for the bulwarks, with the pieces over the subdeck being removed once the inner bulwark is in place. It needed a bit of sanding to make the edges match the bulkheads.

 

 

I've dry fitted the formers for the stem and stern as well, but not yet glued. Again, my read now is that this is going to be removed once fully build the bulwark. I presume that means that I need to be careful about where I actually glue this in place.

 

 

 

So, that's current status. Next up is going to be the balsa fillers.

 

As always, thanks for looking in and the likes!

 

Regards,

George

 

 

Edited January 10 by gak1965

[gak1965]

Brief update. I've roughed in the balsa fillers, although not glued them in, because I want to shape them more before they go in. 

 

Given the size, I understand why balsa, but when I've made (smaller) filler blocks for other models I've found that the basswood was a lot easier to shape.

 

So a couple of photos. The bow is pretty straightforward. I'll shape a little bit more and then fair them with the tool that comes with the kit.

 

 

Stern is a bit more complicated:

 

 

Instinct tells me that the left (forward) side of the stern filler blocks should match the prior bulkhead bulkhead. The photos show them following the faslse keel that terminates well short of the final bulkhead as in the photo below:

 

 

I'm going to follow the photos, I guess, but it's a bit odd, at least to me.

 

As always, thanks for looking in.

 

Regards,

George

 

 

 

[Rick310]

Really coming along George.  I’m enjoying following your build just as I did with the Flying Fish!

Rick

[gak1965]

On 1/17/2024 at 9:55 AM, Rick310 said:

Really coming along George.  I’m enjoying following your build just as I did with the Flying Fish!

Rick

Thanks Rick!

 

I'm temporarily stopped in my Discovery build (broke all of my scroll saw blades, more on the way) so I had some time to work on Kearsarge.  Finished the balsa filler blocks, sanded everything down, and installed the 3/8x1/2 inch boxwood fillers, and mounted her on a build board. Looks like she's ready to start planking. So, some photos.

 

Bow:

 

Stern from above and along side:

 

 

And the ship as a whole:

 

 

Build board, BTW, came from a piece of thin oak "driftwood" that had been paneling around a built in Sub-Zero refrigerator that was here when we bought the house. What a piece of junk that thing was. Replacing with another built in would have been such a hassle that we had a contractor remove it and leave us with a nice conventional refrigerator slot. The extra paneling has been slowly but surely been turned into a wide range of components, this from a bit of leftover from something else.

 

Just validating with @MrBlueJacket that the upper end of the sheer plank (well the bottom with the ship upside down) should align with the edge of the ledge that is formed by the notch. That is, if the blue lines in the picture below are the sheer strake they would go where shown, and the laser cut inner bulkhead core would go into the notch.

 

 

As always, thanks for looking in and for the encouragement and likes!

 

Regards,

George

 

 

 

 

[Rick310]

Looks good George!!  I can’t imagine 2  uilds simultaneously. WOW!

Rick

[gak1965]

On 1/26/2024 at 2:41 PM, Rick310 said:

Looks good George!!  I can’t imagine 2  uilds simultaneously. WOW!

 

Thanks Rick. Just means everything will take twice as long...

 

Brief update. Started planking. I wound up replacing some of the kit supplied 1/4 x 1/16 with some 3/16 x 1/16 bass I had in a stash from old kits. It was a lot easier to bend as I was putting the sheer strake in. The sheer strake around the stern involved soaking in boiling water, pre-bending, letting it dry and then tacking in place.

 

I'm going to put 4 strakes in with the 3/16 x 1/16 (the equivalent of three 1/4 x 1/16 strakes) and then switch to the kit supplied wood (the bends shouldn't be as big of an issue at that point, and they are going to be covered with copper plates so the out of scale planks won't bother me. Everything is going to have putty and paint, but I like having a bit of plank texture underneath the paint. So 3 strakes stem to stern on the starboard side, 3 strakes, but not yet to the stern on the port. 

 

 

Thanks for looking in!

 

Regards,

George

[Rick310]

Coming along well!  I like the reveal!!

Rock

[gak1965]

Planking continues. As with my other project, need to keep reminding myself that putty and sandpaper cover a multitude of sins.

 

 

Found another stash of 1/16 x 3/16, so going to keep using them until I run out.

 

Thanks for looking in!

 

George

[MrBlueJacket]

"Putty and paint, makes it look like what it ain't"

[Rick310]

Planking looks great!!

Rick

[gak1965]

On 2/13/2024 at 10:53 AM, Rick310 said:

Planking looks great!!

Rick

Thanks Rick!

 

I'm heading off on a work trip followed by visit to my daughter in Boise, so last update for a couple of weeks. Not a ton to report. Hull planking continues, should be finished by the next update.

 

 

As always, thanks for looking in.

 

Regards,

George

[gak1965]

A brief update. The basic planking is completed. It needs some filler and sanding now, before I move on to the bulwarks.

 

 

 

Thanks for looking in!

Regards,

George

[Rick310]

Coming along nicely!

Rick

[gak1965]

On 3/9/2024 at 9:53 AM, Rick310 said:

Coming along nicely!

Rick

Thanks Rick!

 

So, completed the coarse preparation of the main hull, a bit of putty and some 150 grit sandpaper. It will need more, but I think it's good enough to start putting the inner bulwark pieces in. Once they are planked, I can do a much better job getting the hull ready for paint. The really good news is that I am going to copper the bottom rather than paint it, so any imperfections will be even more hidden. In the photos below (with the frame for the RRS Discovery in the background), I've dry fitted the rudder post, it will come out before the next step. So, starboard side:

 

 

and port side:

 

One observation. I went looking for the relevant pieces for the inner bulwark. The two main pieces were easy to spot. They are LK72(A) and there are two of them. The pieces for the stern are LK72(B) and there are 4. What surprised me was that, on the same sheet, right next to LK72(A) were 4 pieces marked LK27(B), and I couldn't figure out how the heck I was supposed to use them to build the stern. Of course, they were the wrong pieces (I had swapped two digits) and when I saw the actual LK72(B)'s (which are half the thickness and hence on a different sheet), the whole thing made sense. With that said, if BlueJacket ever revises the instructions, they might consider including a diagram or photo of how these pieces work.

 

Thanks for looking in and for the likes!

 

George

 

 

 

 

 

[gak1965]

It's been a while, as I've been working on the Discovery and had some travel in there as well. However, I've built up two of the three layers of the bulwarks and continued the preparation of the hull surface. Here are things as they stand (port and starboard) minus the innermost layer of the bulwarks.

 

 

 

And from above:

 

 

I did a dry fit of the decks and while they will need a bit of trimming, I think I'm in a pretty good place there too:

 

 

In general, I think it looks pretty good, and after some additional sanding and puttying should probably leave me with a good base to copper and paint.

 

I've progressed far enough to start to have some opinions about the kit. First, the good. I can't fault the materials. The wood has been good, the laser cutting sharp and clean, the brass, castings, and resin parts look nice and clean. That said, this is not the way I would have designed the kit. That doesn't make it wrong, but I have found a bunch of the steps in this kit to be really awkward. Compared to having the keel in place from the beginning with a nicely carved rabbet to accept the ends of the planks, I have found this to be very difficult. Similarly, building the bulwark core as a separate piece that you have to glue to a relatively narrow (1/16 x 1/16) "L" shape formed by multiple pieces of wood is much more difficult than forming the bulwark from an extension of the bulkheads, and planking both sides. In addition, you may have noticed that the ship is no longer upside down on the building board - this is because it was virtually impossible to fit the large bulwark core in place with it upside down and glued, and in the process of bullying it in place, I accidentally broke the ship loose. At that point, I said to heck with it, and finished it right side up which I found much easier. FWIW, in common with some of the other build logs I've seen on this ship, it seems to me that the instructions are a bit incomplete. I gather that there is a separate CD with a lot of very helpful build images at additional cost. At the moment, it seems to me that the balance between those that are in the instructions and on the CD is off. This isn't a free kit, and while I absolutely get that this kit is expensive to produce, throwing in some more pictures would probably improve the build experience.

 

And to be fair, it's possible that this design works better when everything is perfect, and I'm far from a perfect builder. It's also true that this just isn't the way I'm used to building, and who knows - I might have felt different if this was my fourth go with this method rather than my first. And I think it's going to eventually build to a really nice looking ship. It definitely deserves the 'Admiral' level, though. If I had tried this three ships back, I probably would have put it aside and moved away from wooden ship building. 

 

As always, thanks for looking in!

 

Regards,

George

 

[Rick310]

George, really nice result!!  Looks great.

keep up the good work. I really enjoy following along!

Rick

[gak1965]

On 4/5/2024 at 7:43 PM, Rick310 said:

George, really nice result!!  Looks great.

keep up the good work. I really enjoy following along!

Rick

 

Thanks Rick. Looking forward to the next update on your Flying Fish. It's going to be the best of the bunch that are on MSW.

 

Regards,

George

Edited April 7 by gak1965

[gak1965]

A very brief update. Visually doesn't look much different, but I've put in the inner bulwark, which is cut from 1/64 inch wood. I wound up kinda not following the directions. It's supposed to be made as 4 pieces; 2 that are about 20 inches long and 1 inch wide (bow to about 5 inches from the stern, and 2 that are about 2 by 8 inches. I wound up using the carrier sheet for the middle bulwark to cut the long pieces, and made the stern section from 4 smaller segments, which I found to be easier, and still made a perfectly fine looking inner bulwark. Some sanding, a little putty and we have the ship as below:

 

 

The instructions say that the bulwarks shold be 7/16 inch tall until about 5 inches from the stem, where thy rise to about 1/2 inch. If you form the bulwarks using the templated materials it too tall at the stern and way too tall at the stem. I wound up cutting almost 1/8 of an inch off the stem and about 1/16 off the stern to make it the correct size.

 

I dry fitted the upper bulwark for the forecastle, and it appears that the curve is slightly off. I am going to cut the upper bulwark piece off just past the foremost deck beam, and fit a similar sized piece of wood to cover the last 1/2 or so. This does mean though, that the precut forecastle deck will not be congruent with upper bulwark (it will be a bit too small at the bow. Depending on some imponderables at this point (for example, how much material gets removed for the opening for the boswprit) I will either buy a piece of scribed decking or just cut a piece to fill the gap from the carrier. I doubt it will be very visible, the question will be how much will it will annoy me.

 

I have also dry fitted the stem pieces. I may put the stem and the external keel in place before it is nominally called for in the instructions. 

 

Otherwise, next steps are to sand, prime, and sand, and then to cut out the gun and sally ports, and to cut out the slots where the channels will be inserted when the main rail is put in place, and the main deck. 

 

As always, thanks for looking in and the encouragement.

 

Regards,

George