Flying Fish by Reuben - Corel

[Reuben]

Hello! Sometime ago i walked into a model shop in Italy and they had beautiful ships I couldn't afford. The shop owner encouraged me to build one. So I bought the flying fish schooner from Corel. Investigating my new project I found some lovely plans, a lot of wood (in plank form) and almost no instructions. I stared at the assembled wood, the beautiful diagrams; holding my little pot of glue, and wept. I am stubborn and have been struggling along, making many, many, many mistakes. I am embarrassed when I see other models on the internet. But for bette or worse I will finish my little ship. And I need heeellp!! I need a shipbuilding guru, a modelling Yoda.....

[Reuben]

So I have spent more than 100 hours making mistakes so far. I have finished, more or less, the hull and rails. Many of the white areas you see is my skin after gluing the model to myself. I have learnt so far that the instructions on this model are quite limited. Paraphrasing they say 'look at the pictures and build ship'. Well I've spent agonising hours looking at the pictures and prayed it would build itself. I've never made a model of anything in my life, unless you count Lego and it is intimidating especially when you see what masterpieces people build.

 

The planking was a nightmare. I didn't know at the time how to bend the wood and didn't understand that I needed to shape anything and learnt by trial and error what glue worked best. I literally started with some cold glue, an old Stanley knife and a file. Now I have a dremmel tool, multiple files and knives and sand paper and a magnifying glass and a glue factory.

 

The shop keeper said it was for a beginner. Perhaps a raft would have been better to start with.... Anyway, onwards!

[Reuben]

So I have spent more than 100 hours making mistakes so far. I have finished, more or less, the hull and rails. Many of the white areas you see is my skin after gluing the model to myself. I have learnt so far that the instructions on this model are quite limited. Paraphrasing they say 'look at the pictures and build ship'. Well I've spent agonising hours looking at the pictures and prayed it would build itself. I've never made a model of anything in my life, unless you count Lego and it is intimidating especially when you see what masterpieces people build.

 

The planking was a nightmare. I didn't know at the time how to bend the wood and didn't understand that I needed to shape anything and learnt by trial and error what glue worked best. I literally started with some cold glue, an old Stanley knife and a file. Now I have a dremmel tool, multiple files and knives and sand paper and a magnifying glass and a glue factory.

 

The shop keeper said it was for a beginner. Perhaps a raft would have been better to start with.... Anyway, onwards!

[Don Jane]

Hi Reuben 

Looks pretty good to me - for a rookie, I think you are doing very well !

Keep up the good work !

Don

[owend]

It looks good so far. Don't worry about skin and flesh glued to the ship, it sands off, and at least from your photo you're separated now. It wasn't normal practice in real shipyards for the builders to attach themselves to their work, but I think most modellers have done so from time to time.

[Reuben]

Thanks both very much. Please don't ask for any high resolution photos.

[schooner]

Looks great Reuben, much more advanced than the introductory kits from Midwest Models that I started on. If you stick with this, without benefit of decent instructions, you will be able to tackle any kit out there. Trust me, when the instructions are good this hobby can even appeal to non-masochists.

keep up the good work.

Edited February 8, 2015 by schooner

[Reuben]

This is me gluing a file to my thumb. Hot water, soap and whiskey saw me through it....

[burgoofj]

Boat looks nice.

 

If you don't leave some of your DNA on your model you aren't doing it right.

[Reuben]

So I have a question and please don't laugh: I am almost ready to start putting some of the prefabricated brass bits on, but should I varnish before doing that or do you also varnish the brass?

[SGraham]

Reuben, your Flying Fish is looking very nice. I think you're going to have a schooner to be proud of. As far as the brass goes, some people like to paint it, and others darken it with Brass Black, a chemical from Birchwood Casey. Do a search on this site on blackening brass. Some members have posted some useful insights into the process. Keep posting photos. I'm interested in this kit and look forward to following your build.

 

Steve

[thibaultron]

Nice work!

Many years ago I was clamping a part to one of my models with super glue. I left it to set over night. The next day I removed the clamp and then grabed it by the bottom pad. The glue had sat all night without setting, but instantly set gluing the pad of my thumb flat on the c clamp base pad. Took and hour and most of my bottle of de-gluer to work my way around the edges repeatedly until it came loose.

[Reuben]

Reuben, your Flying Fish is looking very nice. I think you're going to have a schooner to be proud of. As far as the brass goes, some people like to paint it, and others darken it with Brass Black, a chemical from Birchwood Casey. Do a search on this site on blackening brass. Some members have posted some useful insights into the process. Keep posting photos. I'm interested in this kit and look forward to following your build.

 

Steve

Thanks very much. I will have a look at how to do that. Some parts are already dark and I was wondering if it was by design. My model is rough so I prefer it darker. There's some gold ropes for somewhere I can't work out, as I don't have any colour pictures, and I think I will darken them too.

[Reuben]

Sooooo, if I varnish the deck and stick a cabin on the varnished bit later will it stay stuck? Or do I need to varnish deck and cabin together? I was think the varnish might dissolve or crack or spontaneously combust....

 

Thanks for your patience and help. I really appreciate it.

[Reuben]

A friend of my mine has been providing advice...he makes model aeroplanes. Should I trust him?

[SGraham]

Hi Reuben,

 

I like to put low-gloss tung oil on the pieces and rub them out with #0000 steel wool before I glue them down to the deck. I can't do a clean job of this if I glue stuff down first. I think the deck fittings should stick just fine even if they are both pre-varnished, oiled, shellacked or whatever finish you choose to use. They are not under much of a load. I don't think fire is much of a danger. I'd make sure a joint like a stem-to-keel or sternpost-to-keel was bare wood to bare wood, though, since this area will likely take more stress than your deck furniture. Does this make any sense?

 

On my current build, I carefully traced a line around the deck fittings and cut away the decking there. Then I glued them to the subdecking. See my Shenandoah build log, post #221 if you like. I just thought it looked more realistic that way, and it nicely dealt with the problem of getting the bottom of the deck fittings to fit the camber (curve) of the deck just right.

 

If your airplane building friend makes flying models, he is dealing with loads and stresses in his builds that ship modelers don't have to deal with. But, yes, I'd get all the advice from him that I could.

 

Steve

Edited February 13, 2015 by SGraham

[Reuben]

Hello Steve, thank you very much. That makes a lot of sense and one less thing to worry about. I am presently procrastinating about drilling holes in the deck for the anchors. That seems quite unreversable. Thanks again and best wishes, Reuben

[Ronjja76]

Hi Blakiston!

Love the way your Flying fish looks. You wouldn't have a picture of the stern would you? I'm fighting with the planking and would love to see how Corel's Flying fish looks at the stern.

 

Linda

[Hyposphagma]

hey Blakiston. Your Flying Fish looks great but we want more pictures of it! :-) I am currently building her sister ship the Flying Cloud, but in 1:200 as a kit bash of an old Heller plastic kit. So far I only used the both hull parts and scratched the rest. During my research I found an instruction book of a kit of your ship. If you still need building instructions let me know, I will email it to you then. Regards, Harry

[lseguine]

hello Reuben,

 

Well my friend it looks great to me. I'm just starting to build my flying fish. got the keel laid and the bulkheads in place. then it is time to make mama happy so to the yard work, but it is starting to rain that means back to the shop to play for a while.

Like the others would love to see more pics.

 

Larry in North Bend Or.