Friendship Sloop by gsdpic - BlueJacket Shipcrafters - 1:12

[gsdpic]

Hi all and welcome to my build log for the Bluejacket Friendship Sloop.  Bluejacket has two similar kits in different scales; I am building the larger 1/12th scale (aka 1" = 1').

 

Over the last several years, since I completed my America build, I have been hanging out in the non-ship builds section of the forum, mostly building plastic cars.   But I decided it was time to get back to things made out of wood that float, though I will not be starting immediately as I am finishing up the latest car project.

 

I guess I do not yet have specific plans for this kit and probably should do more research on any possible enhancements that I wish to make.  I will say though that generally I am more concerned about making something attractive than I am about making it perfectly realistic.  My initial thought is to paint the top sides white or possibly off white/ivory and the bottom either dark green or dark red.  I may replace deck planking with nicer wood and leave it bright or stained and varnished.

 

I was a bit surprised that I have not found a finished build log of this kit.  There are about a half dozen logs (both this kit and the smaller 1/2" = 1' kit) that were started, but none that I saw made it to completion.   Several of them were started toward the end of the pandemic and noted that it was a first build.  I guess as we got a bit back to normal, people lost interest in their new hobby.  Most of those builds even got past the planking stage which I expect to be the most difficult part of this build, though perhaps there are some other demons lurking that I am not aware of at this time.

 

Below are pictures of the box and one showing some of the contents.  I did an inventory last night and discovered that the kit was missing some of the strip wood.  I've sent an email to Bluejacket about that.  The missing wood is for the deck so will not hinder me getting started.  According to the sticker on the bottom of the box, the kit was packed up just a few days before Christmas....I guess someone was a bit distracted.  Otherwise the contents of the kit seem to be of good quality, as I have come to expect from Bluejacket.

 

 

 

Edited January 23 by ccoyle
corrected log title

[gsdpic]

Well when I opened this build log I thought I was just a few days away from completing that Porsche build.  But I guess by starting this log I was just asking for life to get in the way.  I still think I'll get started soon.   And I heard back from Bluejacket that they are sending the missing strip wood.

 

[JacquesCousteau]

Looking forward to following this build! Depending on how you'd like to make it, there are a lot of options to personalize this as a fishing boat or as a yacht. Either way, I've had some luck in finding old photos of Friendship Sloops via the Penobscot Maritime Museum's digital collections, although the search function is a bit unwieldy. See here, for instance, for photos tagged as Friendship Sloops:

https://penobscotmarinemuseum.historyit.com/search-interfaces/search/digital-collection/0/1/1/1?rq[0]=8639&ip=1

 

[gsdpic]

Thanks @JacquesCousteau for the link.  I've looked through many of those pictures and picked out a few that had interesting details.

 

I've now completed my prior project and cleaned up my work area and made the most basic of starts on this build.   I've organized the strip wood (still waiting on the replacements for the stuff that was missing but the post office says it will be delivered any day now).  I've also cut the bulkheads and keel pieces out of the laser cut sheets and sanded off much of the laser char.

 

[gsdpic]

Thanks for taking a look or hitting the like button.

 

I've now completed the keel assembly and the prep of the frames by adding supports for the cockpit floor.   The keel assembly was a bit interesting....there are four main pieces of 3/16ths thick basswood and then you laminate on 4 pieces of 1/16th bass wood on each side, so 12 total pieces.  The odd thing is that 10 of those 12 pieces are laser cut but the remaining two are left for you to cut out of a simple basswood sheet.  The shape is not in any way complex, so not a big deal, it just seemed an odd choice.

 

Next is to start attaching the frames/bulkheads to the keel and then the deck and cockpit floor to tie everything together.   I feel like it might also be wise

to make a decision about eventual mounting and drill some holes through the keel if needed.

 

[gsdpic]

I've run into my first bit of issues, though nothing serious.   Several of the frames/bulkheads are open across the top, and the instructions suggest putting a temporary strip wood across that top opening, like this

 

 

Furthermore, they suggest a strip of wood across the top of the keel assembly from stem to stern.  It is not entirely clear where this was to be attached but I believe the photos in the instructions show it attached as I have done below.   However, this does not make a lot of sense because the tops of the frames, or the tops of the attached strip wood do not really line up with that line across the top of the keel assembly.  For now I have removed the strip of wood across the very last (left most in the picture) frame.  The forward three frames I have attached with just a tiny dot of wood glue.  The shown cockpit floor is just put in place to help keep the third and fifth frame aligned. 

 

My plan is to remove the strip of wood across the top of the keel assembly and the top of frame 2.  I will then glue in frame 4 and the cockpit floor, again using just a small amount of glue.  Then I will place the laser cut deck pieces on top of the frames and, I hope, get everything aligned, assuming the small amount of glue used provides some flexibility.  Once it is aligned I will add more glue to the connections between the frames and the keel to make sure it is all solid.

 

[gsdpic]

I now have the main structure of the sloop complete.   As mentioned above, I removed those extra bits of strip wood and glued in the remaining frames with the cockpit floor.   From there, I started working on the deck, which was a bit of a puzzle.   First, the deck seemed to be a bit long, and the front of the laser cut pieces came to a point which did not make sense based on where (I think) the front of the deck should be.  

 

First, I glued the two halves of the sub deck together, adding a bit of extra wood underneath to help hold things together and provide more gluing surface.  I then cut off the tip of the subdeck to meet up with the stem, though the subdeck still seems a bit longer than needed.  Then I considered how best to hold the subdeck on the frames while gluing.  The subdeck needs to bend a bit in two directions so I needed some way to clamp it in place.  Since the subdeck will be planked, I decided to drill some holes in both the subdeck and the bulkheads and then I'd tie the subdeck down.  I also added some extra strip wood to help locate the bulkheads on the underside of the deck, as seen in the first two pictures.

 

Then I drilled holes near the tops of the bulkheads and put some pieces of old scrap rigging line through those holes.

 

Finally, I put some glue on the tops of the bulkheads, put the subdeck in place, tied off the rigging line to hold things in place, then pushed some basswood wedges into the string loops to make things tighter. 

 

 

I will let that all dry, then go back and add more glue to the bulkheads, both where they meet the keel and where they meet the subdeck.  Then I think I will be ready for planking.

 

 

[gsdpic]

Well, before planking I need to work on the transom.  The kit supplies a 3/16th laser cut piece of basswood for the transom, plus a laser cut 1/16th piece of mahogany.  The instructions also say that the transom could just be planked and in fact that is what they show.  Finally, the plan sheet also shows that the transom could be rounded some after planking.  However that seems dubious if you use the 1/16th piece of mahogany.  I also noticed that the laser cut deck was a bit long and would hang over the transom a bit.

 

I threw all that info into the mental blender and came up with a plan.  First, I added some vertical pieces of scrap wood to the base transom piece.  I also started fairing the large base piece.

I scraped, planed, and sanded those down so that I could apply the mahogany piece and end up with a rounded transom.

 

 

 

I think it will fit better but I have a lot of work to do to get it the correct shape with the correct fairing for the planking.

 

[gsdpic]

Thanks for the likes or just looking in.

 

I've been working on shaping the transom.  It is much better now but still far from perfect.  However, it is not entirely clear what "perfect" would look like.  I will probably go with what I have now, do the planking and then perhaps do a trim piece around the transom edge to hide any plank edges, etc.  I am thinking I will leave this transom piece unpainted, just treated with varnish or tung oil, so I am hoping for a relatively neat finish.

 

 

[gsdpic]

I did not glue on the transom yet, but I have started some planking.  The kit includes two laser cut planks per side for just above the keel.   I've put on the first of those on the starboard side, which goes from the stern post about half or two thirds of the way to the front.  It was a small challenge to get it to fit nicely and to shape it in a pretty good twist.  The next plank above it will be even more of a challenge to do, I think.

 

[gsdpic]

They sometimes say to treat each plank as its own little project and that is definitely the case for the first few planks on this model.  I put on the port side triangular plank, and then did the starboard side second plank which was also laser cut.   I am not quite sure of the terminology here....I am aware of the term "garboard plank" but not sure how it applies in this case with that triangular plank mostly over the deadwood, followed by a plank that maybe fits the term garboard plank better even though it is the second plank up in the stern.

 

The plank is tricky as the bottom edge needs to be adjusted to fit tightly but the plank also needs to twist from near vertical at the stem and stern to 45 degrees or so in the middle.   I first attempted doing some paper or card templates to get the bottom shape but it was impossible to do without getting some distortion.  I also tried just holding the plank up and marking it but that was unwieldy.  I ended up actually cutting the plank in two pieces to make it easier, with the cut being at the second bulkhead.  I added scrap wood to the bulkhead to give more gluing surface.

 

Also at the fourth bulkhead the plank is about 5/8ths inch wide but needs to fit into a concave curve in the bulkhead.  To help that, I scored the inside of the plank.  Unfortunately one of those was a bit deep and the plank ended up cracking there.  With all that, I managed to fit the plank and glue them in.  On both pieces, I glued and clamped one end of the plank, let that dry, then glued and clamped the other end.  In the end, it all came out ok especially considering the hull will be painted.

 

Here's the plank cut in two.  I ended up shaving off some of the bottom of the plank in the area of bulkhead three (left edge of this picture) and also in the curve on the right side of this picture.  I also angled the bottom of the plank for a better fit in the mid section.

The scoring on the inside of the plank to facilitate the longitudinal curve:

The scrap wood added to bulkhead 2 to give more gluing surface:

 

The two plank pieces glued and clamped.  I had previously glued/clamped the ends of the plank around bulkhead 2.  Here I am gluing the opposite ends of the two pieces.

And after the glue has set.  Yea, far from perfect but as I said, it will all be painted so I can hide some of the seams.

 

I promise I won't keep posting for every single plank.

[JacquesCousteau]

Looks like a tricky hull to plank!

[Glen McGuire]

Just found your log, Gary, and I'm on board.  Looks like you are off to a nice start!

[gsdpic]

3 hours ago, JacquesCousteau said:

Looks like a tricky hull to plank!

Yea these older kits with the bare minimum number of bulkheads can be tricky.  Hope I can do it justice. 

 

2 hours ago, Glen McGuire said:

Just found your log, Gary, and I'm on board.  Looks like you are off to a nice start!

Welcome aboard Glen