St. Roch by David Lester - FINISHED - Billing Boats - 1:72

[petervisser]

Congratulations on a very fine model. She looks great!

Peter

[SiriusVoyager]

Very nicely done.  I think I want to try this one in the future and will definitely be coming back to this log.

[Lecrenb]

On 2/9/2024 at 8:49 PM, David Lester said:

 

I'm back with a build log after a bit of an absence. I've had multiple health problems over the past year, which is in part why I didn't do a build log for my HMS Pegasus and why it took me so long to build it, being away from my shop for long periods of time. However, I seem to be in decent shape for the time being (touch wood) and am back at my workbench.

 

In my hiatus I had been pondering what my next project would be when I stumbled across this model on the Billing website, and after a little bit more research I knew I had found it.

 

This one appealed to me for several reasons:

-I wanted something simpler than my last few builds had been

-this one has almost no rigging!

-it's a Canadian boat. I haven't seen any other one available as a model, apart from the Bluenose

-it has a remarkable history - it's only the second boat to ever travel through the Northwest Passage and the first to make the trip twice - it's the first do make the voyage in under one year and it's the first to circumnavigate North America - it resides today at the Vancouver Maritime Museum, has been declared a National Historic Site and the great Stan Rogers recorded a song about it.

-there are plenty of pictures and videos online to use as a reference

-did I mention that it has almost no rigging?

 

When I was in my 20's I built (very badly) a Billing model, but I don't recall if the quality of the kit was good or bad and I had no frame of reference in any case. So this is for all intents and purposes my first Billing kit and I have a mixed reaction to it.

 

So far the good things are:

-the laser cutting is very good and the bulkheads and centre keel fit together extremely well. They're as good as I have ever encountered.

-there are quite few specialized brass fittings which are really nice and of good quality.

-while the model is simplified, there are no glaring errors in its representation of the real boat.

 

However, there are some negatives too:

-there are too many poor quality plastic fittings which come on a sprue just like it was a plastic model car kit.

-the hull and deck planking material is pretty rough and not very consistent in width.

-while I did want a simpler model, there is too much simplification with this one. Built straight out of the box it would look like one of those gift shop ship models. At 1:72 it's large enough for the designer to have incorporated much more detail.

-the plans are poorly drawn. The instruction book is all but useless, which is fine - I didn't expect it to be otherwise, but the plans are disappointing. They appear to be a 1:1 representation of the model, but they are very inaccurate. For example for some of the deck components there are discrepancies in size of up to 1/2" between the elevation and plan views. It's impossible to take measurements from the plan.

 

Nevertheless, it's going to be lots of fun adding detail and upgrading many of the fittings. I currently have big orders in at BlueJacket and Cornwall.

 

So far, I have the hull planked, in my usual "suitable for filler and paint" style. I'm a terrible planker, but I never worry about it because filler and paint are my best friends. I've used some planking from my stash, rather than the kit provided planking.

 

 

I've made two improvements to the stern area. The kit instructions would have you just cut all of the planking off even at the last bulkhead before the stern. Then you add the two stern blocks and sand them even with the finished planking, leaving them unplanked, just to be painted. I chose to install the stern blocks first and plank over them in the usual way, however I found it to be quite a difficult stern to plank.

 

Secondly, the kit provides for no opening to accept the rudder; it's meant to just butt up against the bottom of the hull. The real boat has a framed rectangular opening, so I added that detail.

 

 

 

That's where I'm at!

 

David

 

 

 

I am also back at my workbench after a long hiatus, and am updating my St. Roch build log. Kudos to you for adding the rudder well, as it is a defining feature of St. Roch, and obviously one that BB did not include. In case you are unaware, the well allowed the rudder to be raised up onto the deck so it would be clear of damaging ice... also the reason a spare rudder was carried!

Enjoy and regards,

Bruce

[Lecrenb]

On 3/6/2024 at 8:02 AM, David Lester said:

So, here are some pictures of my progress.

 

I wanted to replicate the steel cladding on the hull and wasn't sure how to do it. I ordered some thin foil, but unfortunately when it arrived, it was much too heavy to manipulate, so a thought occurred to me, and here is the result:

I used masking tape. The beauty of it is, it will stretch in more than one direction. I don't know what the longevity of it will be, but to be honest I don't care. I'm old and realistically, how long does anyone need this thing to last?

 

I represented the nails, or rivets, or whatever they should be called, with a mechanical pencil with no lead in it. It was the ideal tool to make the round indentations. They don't show up too much from a normal viewing distance, but just enough.

 

First, I built up the raised area

 

Then tapered it.

 

Then I applied the masking tape, trying to duplicate the actual pattern, and used multiple layers to get the effect needed.

 

Next up was the deck house. This was actually a bit trickier to position correctly than I anticipated. I planked each of the four walls first and after a quite a bit of swearing, got everything more or less square and secure.

The plastic port holes are going to look just fine. They need another coat of paint, of course, and I still have a bit of "corner work" to do.

 

The roof had me concerned for a moment, It's a one-piece sheet of thin plywood, which is intended to be planked. My concern was how to treat the edges. On the real boat, there is a nice overhang on all sides, which is finished with a bullnose. There was no real overhang with the provided roof and I wasn't sure how to treat the edges, so I decided to discard the plywood roof and thin planking, in favour of using heavier 1/16" x 3/32" planks for the centre area and 1/'16" x 1/4" planks for a frame. It was easy to give the 1/16" stock a nice looking bullnose.

 

First I added some framework.

 

The I rounded over the outside edge of the edge pieces.

I handled the centre section, where the pilot house sits, separately.

Then I filled in the rest and it's ready to be painted and have the crazy complicated collection of things added on top.

 

Many thanks for checking in!

David

 

 

Again, kudos to you for adding a representation of the steel plating at the bow, as well as the other details that you have picked up on! st. Roch's wooden fastenings were galvanized nails clenched over galvanized washers, so simulating nail heads on your steel would be a realistic way to model this. 

Regards,

Bruce

 

[Lecrenb]

On 4/21/2024 at 4:33 PM, David Lester said:

Hello All,

 

I believe I have finished! One of the attractions for me with this model was the limited amount of rigging, but it still caught me by surprise how quickly it wrapped up.

 

There isn't too much to discuss about it either. It's very straightforward. From the 360 tour on the website, I was able to sort out a couple of details that aren't evident in the plans.

 

So that's it for my St. Roch. This was quite a fun small build, not too challenging. The most fun was sourcing and making improvements on some of the poor quality fittings included in the kit.

 

Thanks again for checking in. Much appreciated.

David

 

 

Congratulations, I think your model turned out very well, and your enhancements and details have corrected many kit faults and elevated it to a high standard!

Regards,

Bruce