Bluenose by rvchima - Amati - 1:100

[GGibson]

The bowsprit blocks do look better, Rod!  And, yes... a ton of clove hitches!  Great job!

 

Getting the flying backstays on the ship will help solidify the main mast, as well.  Your Bluenose is looking awesome.

[rvchima]

Thank you everyone for all the compliments. After looking at several of the Model Shipways builds on MSW I am realizing that Amati left off a lot of details on this model. It still looks nice, but I do wish that I had gone with the Model Shipways kit.

 

Question

I am about ready to add sails. I suspect that the gaffs and booms should all be pinned to their respective masts. Is that right, or can I actually rig them in place?

[GGibson]

Do as much of the gaff & boom rigging and block preparation as you can off ship.  When it got to that point, I used my tall "helping hand" alligator clip holder apparatus to hold the gaffs in place while doing the final rigging and securing the gaff to the mast with parrel beads.

 

I decided not to do sails on my Bluenose, so I wish you the best with the sail installations! 

[rvchima]

18 hours ago, GGibson said:

Do as much of the gaff & boom rigging and block preparation as you can off ship.

Gregg,

I've read that elsewhere but never really thought about it until you mentioned it. It suddenly makes a lot of sense. I can attach the booms, gaffs, and blocks to the sails off the ship, and then drop them in place. Thanks for the advice.

[rvchima]

Paper Sails

Yesterday I scanned and printed all my sail patterns. It took a little origami to fit each sail in my 8.5 x 11 printer, and I had to print the main sail in two pieces.

Today I washed and ironed the cotton fabric that came with the kit, then laid out the sails on it. Two sides of the fabric unravels - that's the weft. The warp goes in the other direction. The seam lines on the sails follow the warp, and I laid out the sails that way. It probably doesn't matter.

After reading Gregg's advice above I decided to test fit the paper sails. I'm really glad that I did because

1. Now I know where the sails go.

2. The foremast boom is too long.

3. The foremast staysail pattern is too big.

After a couple of quick modifications I'll be ready to start cutting cloth.

Edited August 16 by rvchima

[Kenchington]

1 hour ago, rvchima said:

The seam lines on the sails follow the warp, and I laid out the sails that way. It probably doesn't matter.

I agree: I probably won't matter.

 

But a sail that has to stand up to the wind needs its free edges (i.e. ones not supported by a spar or stay) aligned to either warp or weft. (Otherwise the bias stretch would ruin the shape.) As you have them printed on paper, the two jibs are "mitre cut", with the warp aligned to both foot and leech. (Or should be, though the one labelled just "jib" has one part with cloths aligned to the luff: Bad mistake by the kit manufacturer!)  Each jib has a mitre seam from clew to luff, where the two directions of the cloths meet. You might want to try replicating that by making each jib of two triangles of cloth, then joining them along the mitre seam.

 

Or not. As you say, it probably won't matter.

 

 

Trevor

Edited August 16 by Kenchington

[rvchima]

Trevor,

Thank you so much for your comments about the alignment of the fabric on a sail. I know more about weaving than I do about sailing, so I really appreciate the help.  As soon as I read

15 hours ago, Kenchington said:

But a sail that has to stand up to the wind needs its free edges (i.e. ones not supported by a spar or stay) aligned to either warp or weft.

it made immediate sense. And good catch that the upper part of the "jib" sail has the cloth aligned incorrectly.

15 hours ago, Kenchington said:

the one labelled just "jib" has one part with cloths aligned to the luff: Bad mistake by the kit manufacturer!

I am trying to be polite to Amati, but I am not too impressed with this kit.

I will experiment with the mitre joint on the two jib sails. I'm mot sure if I can sew it at this small scale but I will see what I can do.

[rvchima]

Every Project Deserves a New Tool - Or Does It?

I was ready to start sewing sails, so I collected all my tools and materials from my basement workshop and carried everything to my wife's sewing room three flights up in the attic. We have an old Viking-Husqvarna sewing machine that we inherited from my mother-in-law 40 years ago. It used to do fancy stitches using various cams. The cam mechanism jammed years ago but it still did beautiful straight and zig-zag stitches, until earlier this summer when it started to smoke. We took it to a local repair shop where the repairman cleaned it and assured us that it was accumulated dust that was smoking. 

 

I set up to sew my mainsail but when I went to wind a bobbin, the bobbin shaft disappeared inside the case. I spent all day disassembling the machine and managed to fix the bobbin shaft. I sewed two seams before the whole machine jammed up. I gave up and ordered a new Brother computerized sewing machine from Amazon. It cost less than what I paid the repairman for the other machine. It doesn't fit inside our old sewing machine cabinet but I think I can make it fit.

45+ year-old Viking-Husqvarna machine.

New Brother computerized machine. After a little practice on some scraps I stitched my mainsail.

At first the sail matched my plan almost exactly. But after stitching all the scale seams between the individual pieces of fabric, the sail was much shorter than the pattern. (The purple stitch lines are supposed to disappear automatically after a few days.)

After stitching a zig-zaged reefing band the sail was also narrower than before. My wife said "Yeah, sewing can take up a lot of fabric."

 

By the way, I really like the computerized Brother machine. My only complaint is that there are a few settings that are made by shutting the machine off, holding a button down, and then turning the machine back on. But when you turn the machine off it resets the stitch pattern, width, and length back to the default. It's easy to get confused and end up with the wrong stitch. That never happened with the mechanical machine.

 

I don't know if I can use the sail or not. I'll have to try it on the ship and see how it looks. Amati was very stingy with their sail cloth and I don't have enough scraps to try over. Fabric is not so easy to find around here since JoAnn Fabrics went out of business. If I can find something appropriate, I could try sewing the fake seams on an extra large piece first, then cutting the sail slightly oversized and hemming the edges to fit the plan.

 

In a private conversation David Lester sent me information about making sails out of silkspan, a strong tissue that I used years ago for covering model airplanes. The seams can be drawn on it with pencil and the hems can be glued down. Maybe I should have listened to him in the first place.

 

 

[Snug Harbor Johnny]

  I inherited a similar old Husqvarna, and it is HEAVY ... being made of a lot of Swedish steel.  Once lubed and adjusted for timing, it sews pretty good - although the buttonhole routine is still a little wonky. 

[rvchima]

Well, That's Not Going to Work

After all the sewing, my cloth mainsail is too far out of shape. I think I will try making sails out of silkspan, as described in this YouTube video by Tom Lauria. I actually have plenty of silkspan left over from my model airplane days.

Making Sails for Ship Models from Silkspan, Parts 1 & 2

 

Edited August 24 by rvchima

[Snug Harbor Johnny]

  I've seen builds where the sail material is sewn first on an oversized piece, pressed, and THEN cut to a pattern allowing for an edge folded over.  I think real (lightweight) cloth sewn with the lightest thread your machine will sew looks better than silkspan ... well, it does look like some kind of paper - and the strip lines have to be pencilled on.

 

  Craft stores sell a light blue 'sort-of' marker that quilter use, and after sewing - a damp cloth dabbed on whatever of the blue is showing causes the color to disappear forever.  So cloth for sails can be pre marked lightly with parallel lines, sewn with tiny stitches, then dabbed.   'Just a thought.

[David Lester]

That's too bad, Rod, after all that work. I would certainly give the silkspan option a try, especially if you have some. I've only made sails on one occasion. I followed Tom Lauria's method and I was reasonable happy with the result. I think you might be too. 

David

 

[bhermann]

I'm sorry the cloth sails aren't working out for you.  I'll be watching with great curiosity to see if the silkspan turns out to be a better option for you.

 

Bob

[rvchima]

Much Better!

I built a new mainsail from silkspan using Tom Lauria's technique linked above. Tom does not seem to post on MSW but a quick search on Lauria turned up 6 pages of mentions, mostly about making sails or rope hanks.

 

I had plenty of silkspan from previous model airplane projects. It is strong and does not disintegrate in water - that's why it's also used to make teabags. It is available in three thicknesses from Sig Manufacturing.

Tom said his was .0015" thick. Mine is .003" thick - I suspect it's Sig's medium-weight material. My only concern is that silkspan can become brittle and yellow over the years. However, the first step of Tom's process is to coat the silkspan liberally with artists' acrylic paint, and that should help protect the material. 

 

I chose an off-white paint called Titan Buff. I think it resembles muslin. I painted two sheets about 18" x 24" and used almost half a tube of paint! The silkspan really soaks it up. The paint goes right through the material, so when the front is done the back is too.

I marked the sails with a hard, dark pencil and attached hem reinforcements with diluted Elmer's glue. Tom recommends using a travel iron to seal the strips down, with a sheet of dry wax paper between the sail and the iron. Dry wax paper is NOT the wax paper you have in your kitchen. It is also called deli paper and has the wax embedded in the fibers so it doesn't come off on your sandwich or your sail. Even better, we had some parchment paper which is silicon-based and used for baking in a hot oven. I only needed a 6" strip.

 

I don't have a travel iron - I don't think I've ever ironed clothes while traveling. I do have a covering iron used to attach iron-on covering to larger model airplanes. I set it to 250 degrees and it worked perfectly.

The mainsail took a few hours to make and I am pretty happy with it. I still have to stitch it to the boom and gaff, and attach the sail to the rings on the mast. That looks tricky.

 

[rvchima]

Bluenose II, Saga of the Great Fishing Schooner by L. B. Jensen

I finally bought a good reference book for the Bluenose, at least Bluenose 2.0. The cover is deceptive - the book measures 11" x 14". It is entirely hand drawn and lettered, and is filled with excellent detailed drawings of the ship. Now I can see what details I've already got wrong.

So what's wrong with this picture?

If you guessed that the seams between fabric pieces on the jib and jib topsails are much wider than those on the mainsail you are correct. I copied all the seam patterns directly from the plans and never noticed the discrepancy until now. The seams on the mainsail are spaced 1 cm apart, or 39" at full scale - very reasonable for 1920s fabric. The seams on the jib and jib topsails are 13 mm apart, or 51" at full scale - way too big.  Would anyone ever notice? Probably not but I'll have to redraw them anyway. Note: you cannot erase pencil marks on silkspan.

 

[GGibson]

The L.B. Jenson book was a great resource for me during my Bluenose build. 👍🏆

[rvchima]

On 9/7/2025 at 3:55 PM, GGibson said:

The L.B. Jenson book was a great resource for me during my Bluenose build. 👍🏆

Jenson's book is showing me so many things the Amati kit omitted that it's making everything a lot harder at the moment.

No upper shrouds or ratlines. No upper mast backstays. No halyards. Incomplete rigging for the booms. No boom lifts.

I added the upper shrouds and ratlines, which was difficult because of other lines in the way. But I can't decide what else to add and what to just give up on.

[rvchima]

Sails Redrawn and Reefing Lines Added

I redrew the sails that had incorrect cloth seams, and added reefing lines to the fore and main sails. I made the reefing lines by clamping 1/2" wide stainless rulers to each side of the sail, then stitched some cotton thread side-to-side through the sail and around the rulers. I dabbed some thinned white glue on each hole, then carefully cut the bottom of each stitch with a new blade before the glue dried. I barely had time to clean the glue off my rulers.

 

I then stitched the boom and gaff to the mainsail. I really wanted to attach the mainsail, but as noted in the previous post, there are a lot more things to attach to it first.

I plan to attach the main boom lifts, and they are padded with baggy wrinkles (BWs) to prevent the sail from chafing against the lines. There are lots of questions on MSW about how to make BWs, but not a lot of answers.

 

I tried making some by cutting the edge roping off a rag that we had. It was surprisingly hard to thread a needle through the pieces - you may notice some blood on one or two. I wasn't sure if I liked them so I tried a technique recommended by PopJack. Basically he tied some line with a running stitch while including some wool fiber. I used a crochet hook and omitted the wool, but ended up with a similar result.

 

The photo shows the rag with some edging removed, a line with edging used as BWs, and a line with crocheted  BWs. The BWs are all loose on the lines and can be re-positioned, trimmed, and glued later. I think I like the rag BWs best.

[Kenchington]

On 9/7/2025 at 4:55 PM, GGibson said:

The L.B. Jenson book was a great resource for me

It's the definitive source for Bluenose II and as close as we will get to the original schooner for things like hull shape and spar dimensions. Deck arrangements may be another matter, so worth checking MacAskill's photographs taken in the 1920s. 

 

"Yogi" Jensen's book was first published as a large-format, limited-edition folio at a price that (to me, as a student at the time) seemed astronomical. Fortunately, Nimbus' down-sized edition is very affordable, though my now-old eyes need a magnifier for some of the detail!

 

Trevor

[rvchima]

Better Baggy Wrinkles (BBWs?)

The answer was in front of me all along in the rag that I tried to use.  Instead of using the roping from the edge I cut strips of the rag itself along the stitch lines. They are nice and fuzzy, the width is perfect, they don't unravel, and they are easily stitched along the lines.

 

Many years ago we had a young Amish woman who cleaned for us. She gave us a huge stack of these rags, and as I recall she bought them in the automotive department at Walmart. Thank you Ada.

 

[David Lester]

Congratulations on finding a solution for the baggy wrinkle problem. I have spent a lot of time looking for an easy and effective approach.

 

I did try baggy wrinkles once, on my Pride of Baltimore. I used pieces of beige tapestry wool. I cut the yarn to length, then thread it onto the line and fluffed it up a bit.The result was ok, but just ok. We have some of those cloths you referred to kicking around too, so I'll be sure to give this approach a try next time.

 

Your Bluenose is looking great. The Tom Lauria method of sail making works really well. I have a question for you though. How did you attach the reef lines? It doesn't look like you knotted them. Did you simply pass them through the hole and fix them with a bit of glue? Is it hard to get them to lie flat? It doesn't look like you've glued them to the sail for their full length, but I'm having a hard time imagining them being well behaved and just lying in place.

 

You're doing a beautiful job on this model.

 

David

[rvchima]

Hi David,

For the reef lines:

Punch the holes in the sail first with a fine needle.

Attach 1/2" steel rulers to each side of the sail with a spring clamp.

Starting near the clamp, sew the thread around a ruler, through the sail, then repeat on the other side. At this point the threads will be too loose to cut the bottoms without glue.

Put a drop of dilute Elmer's glue, maybe 40% water,  on each hole with a fine brush. Flip the sail and glue the other side. By now the glue is already getting tacky.

Lay the sail on the bench, hold the tops of the threads to the ruler with a finger, and cut the bottoms with with a sharp razor.

Lift the ruler out when the bottoms are all cut.

Straighten the threads while the glue is still tacky enough to hold them in place.

Flip the sail over, do the other side, and trim any long threads to length.

 

I experimented a lot on scraps to get this to work.

[Snug Harbor Johnny]

Baggy-wrinkle :  The effect of sun and salt spray on your face.

[rvchima]

Mainsail Complete - 110 days, 211 hours

I'm trying to include some of the details that Amati left out of this kit. I am using Jenson's book as my main reference. His drawings show details of the rigging but aren't always clear where lines are belayed. I'm pretty much stuck to using belaying pins that are already installed and don't look like they will be needed later.

 

The scale is small enough that I've had to cheat a little. I've used single blocks on many lines that should go through double blocks. Going to need some really strong sailors.

 

Here' the ship with the mainsail installed. In the next photo I've highlighted in red everything that is not included in the Amati kit. Quite a lot actually.

And two detail shots.

Edited Monday at 08:04 PM by rvchima

[rvchima]

Rigging Question

Jensen's book shows foretopmast and maintopmast backstays, which of course are not shown on the Amati plans. Jensen mentions different locations for securing these backstays when they are or are not setup. When would they be used? They would seriously limit the motion of the fore and main booms. Is that important, or do the booms not have to move that much? I'll admit to complete ignorance on this question.

[Kenchington]

The weather running backstays are set up and the lee ones slacked away.

 

Small boats usually manage without them and modern, high aspect-ratio bermudan mainsails can fit underneath a standing backstay led from the masthead to the stern, so no running backstays needed. But with older bermudan sails and any gaff rig, on anything bigger than a small boat, you get to set up and slack away the running backstays whenever you gybe. Depending on the geometry, it might be possible to keep the lee running backstays taut when close hauled but, aboard Bluenose, I suspect that they had to be set up and slacked away on every tack too.

 

Lots to do to keep the crew busy and out of trouble!

 

Trevor

Edited yesterday at 01:52 AM by Kenchington

[Dr PR]

The weather (windward or upwind side) backstays are tightened to take the strain on the mast.

 

The lee (downwind side) backstays are slackened, and the tackle is moved, to allow the boom to swing outboard.

 

As Trevor said, when the boat gybes (changes course so the wind comes from another side) and tacks while running into the wind (changing course so the wind is coming from ahead on another side on the bow) the running backstays have to be adjusted to support the masts from the windward side. It keeps the crew busy when course changes are frequent.