'Scientific' Kit. No. 164 - 'Bluenose'

[UrkVisser]

Hi everybody!

I have a really old 'Scientific' Kit No. 164 - 'Bluenose' which I bought back in 1991. From what I've heard this was a popular kit from during the 1950's, 1960's and 1970's but the manufacturer went out of business sometime in the early 1980's.

 

 

No scale is mentioned on the box or in the plans but I always assumed it to be 1:64 scale. However I recently feed various data into the Artificial Intelligence 'GPT-4o mini' and it came up with 1:77 scale.

 

But other people claim 'GPT-4o mini' was wrong about the prototype 'Bluenose' from 1921 and claim the kit must be 1:72 scale. Naturally the original 'Bluenose had a longer LOA due to it's very long Main Sail gaff hanging well aft of the stern.

 

While modern photos of the 'Bluenose II' show this gaff ending before the ship's wheel (no doubt a safety modification). 

 

Can anybody tell me the true scale of this kit?

 

 

 

 

 

 

I've been working on it again after a 32 year pause.

 

 

Thanks! UrkVisser

Edited Thursday at 05:53 PM by UrkVisser

[Kenchington]

I can't tell you the scale of your model but Bill Roué's own typescript specs for the original design say "about" 141 feet LOA. "Yogi" Jensen's plans of Bluenose II say 143 ft. In either case, those are the length of the hull, from stem to taffrail -- nothing to do with spars. You should be able to get a pretty good estimate of scale from that.

 

As to your: "modern photos of the 'Bluenose II' show this gaff ending before the ship's wheel (no doubt a safety modification)" -- I don't think her rig has been reduced. You may be confusing her main gaff, which does not reach the taffrail when lowered and stowed, with her main boom, which projects much further.

 

Trevor

[UrkVisser]

37 minutes ago, Kenchington said:

 

Hi Trevor!

The photos I were referring to are in the thread '1921 Bluenose' by John Ruy. On page 9 he shows a women's charter group aboard the 'Bluenose II' and this boom or gaff looks very short. There's a photo of two women at the wheel and this boom is swung off to the side. But even so appears to be shorter than the one on my model's blueprints.

 

 

(I had cut out white fabric for sail cloth and laid it out on the blueprint for safe keeping.)

 

By the way, my hull measured 40.5 cm from the taffrail to the stem. I measured 61 cm LOA from the tip of the bowsprit to the very end of the long gaf aft. The model also has a width of 8 cm in the middle. So I thought it was 1:77 scale but maybe not.

 

Thanks for your reply, UrkVisser

Edited Thursday at 08:41 PM by UrkVisser

[Kenchington]

That "Plan No. 1" does show a very long boom! Jensen has the main boom of Bluenose II at 80 ft 11 in. I don't seem to have authoritative measurements for the original's spars. What is different about the existing schooner, compared to most "replicas", is that she was built to the same plans and by some of the same men as her predecessor. That doesn't mean that everything was identical but comparing photographs suggests that the rigs were/are very similar.

 

405 mm LOA representing 143 feet suggests a scale of 1:108.

80 mm beam representing 27 feet (which is Jensen's figure) suggests 1:103. 

 

Trevor

[UrkVisser]

Well, the old black & white photos of the original 'Bluenose' seem to show a longer boom aft than what I see on photos of 'Bluenose II'.

 

Also the 'Bluenose II' seems to have a a stern which is more squared off than the original schooner (which also didn't have two screws for propulsion).

 

But the angle of photos can also create certain 'optical illusions' at times.

 

I can't explain the scale problems here. The kit was designed by Walter A. Musciano' (1922 - 2019) who was the Chief Project Designer of the 'Scientific Model Airplane Company in New Jersey. He was also a talented Naval Design Engineer in New York for over 40 years and also author of 24 books. He definitely knew knew what he was doing but this kit will remain a mystery.

 

I can't find any other build logs or technical information about this kit in internet other than the two forum threads I started writing about my experience with it. 

 

According to 'GPT-4o mini' the 'Bluenose 1921 is suppose to have a 12,2 meter (40 ft.) boom whereas this kit has a longer boom.

 

Doing tailoring job on the model's Main Sail and boom would only throw it's appearance out of proportion. Therefore I will leave the kit 'traditional' as it is.

 

Best Regards, UrkVisser

Edited 16 hours ago by UrkVisser

[Kenchington]

1 hour ago, UrkVisser said:

Well, the old black & white photos of the original 'Bluenose' seem to show a longer boom aft than what I see on photos of 'Bluenose II'.

 

Also the 'Bluenose II' seems to have a a stern which is more squared off than the original schooner (which also didn't have two screws for propulsion).

 

Oh, well! Maybe this designer

'W. A. Musciano'  who worked for 'Scientific Models' had an 'artistic eye' for beauty more than for realism!  Or did they fit it with this 27 cm long boom only to pass of a 1:100 model off as 1:72 for a marketing reasons? Haha!

 

According to 'GPT-4o mini' the 'Bluenose 1921 is suppose to have a 12,2 meter (40 ft.) boom whereas the 'II' is suppose to have an 11 meter (36 ft.) boom. But can one really trust this  AI 'robot'???

 

Bye! UrkVisser

Maybe it's in the eye of the beholder. I'm looking at one of MacAskill's images of the original, alongside a shot of the replica as she came down the ways in 1963 and I can't see much difference. But if you can, go with your perception!

 

Still, the original did have a diesel and a screw, not at first but from 1936. They had to take the motor out when she raced in '38 as its weight would have slowed her, not to mention the drag of the screw. Later, when she was sold for freighting, she was fully powered with her rig cut down.

 

There had been a few attempts to put motors in fishing schooners before 1914 but it really only became viable with the advances in marine diesels during the war years. Most of the Gloucester fleet was fitted with motors during the early 1920s. The Lunenburgers delayed longer but few if any unpowered schooners were built there after 1930. Dory fishing out of Nova Scotian ports persisted until 1963 but the schooners were all fully-powered by then, with only riding sails.

[UrkVisser]

Well back to my 'Scientific Kit No. 164 - Bluenose'.

 

Since the hull was made from a 4" x 4" x 24" piece of lumber only 'roughed in' by the factory and then carved into it's proper form by myself; I believe any deficiency in the scale size of the hull was a production consideration in order to choose a standard size of lumber.

 

Also, Walter A. Musciano must have decided on making the LOA and sails in a larger scale due to marketing and sales goals. Of course the first thing people notice when they look at a ship model is it's sails and a certain sized model must have been 'standard' for decorating a home, office or den in the 1950's to the 1970's. This is only my opinion and there is noting in internet about this particular kit as to explaining why. The kit never had the scale marked anywhere which was quite odd.

 

Smooth sailing! ⛵UrkVisser

 

 

Edited 17 hours ago by UrkVisser