Bluenose by rvchima - FINISHED - Amati - 1:100

[rvchima]

Trevor,

 

Thank you so much for your help with this question. It seems like I can't go wrong no matter where I position the staysail.

 

I am not a sailor but I do enjoy making models of beautiful ships. I usually rely on a kit with good plans and instructions to get the details right. This is not one of those kits, so your help is greatly appreciated.

[Kenchington]

I thought it might help to point you to some of MacAskill's photos of the original Bluenose but a quick Google search led me to something better: Colourized video of her racing Thebaud in 1938, brought to you courtesy of Nova Scotian taxpayers:

 

https://archives.novascotia.ca/macaskill/films/#bluenose

 

Besides the video, if you click on the "Virtual Exhibit" button on that page and then search for "Bluenose", you will get a whole mess of still images, including some with details on deck gear. For a more-direct route to those, you could try:

 

https://archives.novascotia.ca/bluenose/archives/?ID=208

 

Trevor

[rvchima]

Trevor,

That video is amazing. I really enjoyed it at about 30 seconds when the crew is just enjoying the ride, and then suddenly everyone jumps up to grab a line! Very exciting.

[rvchima]

Attaching Sails

I pre-punched the edges of my sails every centimeter. I attached them with a stitch that loops around the boom or stay and then moves up the sail to the next hole. 

I made attachment rings by wrapping brass wire around a brass rod in a tight spiral, and then cutting off individual rings. But the wire supplied by Amati was 1 mm in diameter and the rings looked like fat little donuts. I re-made them with 0.5 mm wire. I tried to stitch rings to the corners of my first staysail, but the attachment failed as soon as I put some tension on it.

After that I just folded the vertex of the triangle through a ring and glued it down. That worked well for sharp corners. For blunt corners I bent a short piece of wire and glued it in place with some silkspan over it. Both methods work well.

 

[rvchima]

More Problems with the Fisherman's Staysail

A few days ago I wondered whether the fisherman's staysail should be on the windward or leeward side of the foresail & gaff topsail combination. 

It seems that both locations were used, so I opted to rig mine on the windward side as shown in Jensen's book. That looked good,

until I turned the model around and saw that the staysail completely hid all intricate rigging on the fore gaff.

And so, deconstruction.

It only took about 1.5 hours to re-rig the staysail on the leeward side of the foresail, etc.

and now all the rigging on the fore gaff is visible again.

So the location of that sail turned out to be a question of model aesthetics rather than proper sailing.

 

 

 

[Kenchington]

In the video, there is a brief shot of both schooners with their fisherman's staysails as you have yours -- though full of wind and with the sheets eased off. That was "proper sailing" with the wind on the beam.

 

And I love your rings at the corners of your sails! Not sure that they are "right" for 1920 but they look so very much like the fittings on the sails of a large racing yacht circa 2000. (Maybe not like circa 2025 racing sails but you are not trying to portray those.)

 

Trevor

[rvchima]

Bluenose Finished - 121 days, 253 hours

I finished my model yesterday and have my bench cleaned off. I would especially like to thank Trevor (Kenchington), David Lester, Ggibson, and several other contributors who helped me with so many questions on this model.

 

Full disclosure

I omitted a lot of rigging on the sails. I tried to include all the hallyards and tacks, but omitted many of the clew lines and sheets. They are all omitted on Amati's plans so I don't know where they go and I don't have anything to belay them too anyway.

 

Kit Review, Amati Bluenose, 1:100 scale

Back on June 18, I posted 

"What's in the Box - Seems like not much for €106.99"

 

The kit included:

Plenty of wood planking.

Two spools of rigging, all tan, and all way too thick.

Some brass wire for rings, way too thick.

Two historically incorrect Canadian flags.

Some unusable cloth for sails.

Some wooden single blocks at about 2x scale, but not nearly enough.

 

The kit did not include:

Usable rigging line.

Double blocks.

Eye bolts.

Belaying pins.

A decent stand.

 

Plans & Instructions

The three full-sized plans are somewhat helpful, but the instructions are terrible. The last two steps basically say "Build the masts and sails," and "Attach the standing and running rigging."

 

The instructions do not show any of the upper shrouds or ratlines.

 

The plans show an image of the deck with dots where belaying pins should be. They do not correspond to anything I've seen anywhere else. The rails on the model all seemed too close to the deck. That made it very difficult to belay lines. The rails also seem to be too narrow. When I tried to drill to add my own belaying pins I often ended up drilling to the outside of the hull.

 

There are no eyebolts on the rails or deck, but Jensen's book and the MS kit has many lines tied off to such points.

 

The instructions show a drawing of each sail with a number on each corner.  The numbers correspond to a deck plan with numbers on the rails where, I guess, you're somehow supposed to tie the line from the sail. But many of the connections just don't make sense - they cross to the wrong side of the ship or go way too far aft. Many thanks to Jensen's book and to my followers for helping me get some of this right.

 

Final Comments and Photos

I chose the Amati kit because it is small, and I am running out room for model ships in my house. The model was very frustrating because of the poor parts and terrible plans. I pre-rigged all the masts, booms, and gaffs according to the plans, and ended up re-rigging almost everything, usually in place, to get the rigging somewhat correct. I still know that so much of the rigging is incorrect, but just couldn't fix any more at this point.

 

Anyway, my model looks pretty good if you don't know enough to spot the errors. Unfortunately I do, but I won't tell anyone.

 

Rod

 

 

Here's what I go through for my 7 followers. I took some early photos, and then the sun peeked out from behind the trees. I did get a nice image of the shadow.

 

 

 

Edited Sunday at 10:12 PM by rvchima

[Knocklouder]

Nicely done,  Congratulations  

Bob  M.

[GGibson]

Great work, Rod!  She looks beautiful! Congratulations!  🏆

 

So... what's next? 🤷‍♂️😊

[Kenchington]

Nice outcome from a small-scale, inadequate kit. Well done!

 

Trevor

[JacquesCousteau]

Very nice work, especially on a challenging, small-scale kit!

[ccoyle]

That looks great, Rod! Congratulations!

[Ronald-V]

Really nice result! Congratulations  

[GrandpaPhil]

Congratulations!  Very nicely done!

[Snug Harbor Johnny]

Kudos, mate !  A great job in a challenging scale ! 

  253 hours over 121 days is a respectable pace.  My side project was started the weekend before this past New Year's, and I logged 60 hours of actual work (in one month) before I set it aside to do the Admiral's list of jobs - as well as being 'stuck' on how to proceed.  So the elapsed time since starting is over 9 months, but the work log has only 60 hours (I'm not counting the couple hundred hours spent thinking about it and looking it over from time to time).  I'm guessing my work log hours should be about on par with yours in the end - whenever that might be.   Fair sailing !       Johnny

Edited 17 hours ago by Snug Harbor Johnny

[bhermann]

Nicely done, Rod, and so well documented.  You've made a silk purse out of a sow's ear - congratulations on a fine job!

 

Bob

[rvchima]

Thank you to everyone for all the kind words! I hope that my posts might help someone else considering this kit.

[king derelict]

That’s great work. You have built a beautiful ship. I especially like the sails which always seem to be a difficult thing to make realistic on a model. The rigging compliments them being so neat. Congratulations.

 log was great too

alan