Muscongus Bay Lobster Smack - Kitbashed from Model Shipways

[JacquesCousteau]

Most of my models have used basswood, with some exceptions. My Bateau de Lanvéoc is in alder, my NRG Capstan build is an experimental piece trying out a lot of different woods (alder, cherry, walnut, manzanillo, xochicuahuitl, and basswood), and my Trajinera was in balsa.

My experience has been that modeling wood, and indeed dimensioned lumber in sizes useful for modeling, is hard to get here. There's a craft supply chain here that is the only place I've found that carries basswood, but only in 1/16-inch thick sheets; they have more variety of balsa, hence why I used it on the trajinera. Most of my modeling wood has been brought from the US in my suitcase.

Interestingly, while Mexico City is not a good location to buy wood (almost nothing but pine, and nicer woods are very expensive), once you leave the city you can find a lot more, although it's very area-dependent as it's usually local stuff. That said, most of what I've found has been more useful for my other woodworking projects than for modeling. Xochicuahuitl (Spanish Elm) is beautiful but grainy, fairly week, and splits very easily. Manzanillo seems ok, although the grain is a little prominent, but may have some issues with toxicity. Parota is beautiful but has really prominent grain. Spanish Cedar and mahogany are very nice but, again, grain is a bit prominent. So, although I want experiment in some upcoming builds, I will probably be sticking more to basswood, alder, and cherry.

Of the woods I've used, I found balsa too soft and crumbly to be very useful. Alder is pretty nice to work with, so far, although maybe it's a little on the soft side. Cherry seems pretty nice, from what I've seen.

But basswood is probably going to be what I use most going forward. It's extremely easy to work, including just with an exacto knife, the grain is very even, and it takes paint well. I also think the pale even color can be quite nice. It has some disadvantages. Some can be dealt with easily--painting it tends to raise the grain, but you can just sand a little more between coats to smooth it out. Others are more serious: it's not great for carving tiny detailed pieces, and because it's not very strong, I'd be worried about it breaking if used for the frames in a framed model. But I think it's a great option for a lot of uses.

 

[JacquesCousteau]

A little more progress. First, I added the boom rest to the mast. It looks too thick compared to the photos I have seen, so I split it in half and sanded it smaller once on the mast. It was located high enough that the boom can clear the chimney.



Next up, I began working out cleat locations. The cleat just above the rudder was pretty well-attested to in photos. As I will be using a single gaff halyard arrangement and no downhaul on the jib, I will not need the cleat on the bowsprit. The cleats on the mast will be located below the boom rest, rather than above it as given in the kit design, although I think I see both ways of handling it in photos (definitely below, possibly above). I saw a mix of photos showing cleats on the interior or exterior of the sides of the coamings. I was going to place mine on the exterior, but then I realized that 1) with the trim I added, there isn't much space, and 2) this would awkwardly interfere with the oarlock pads. So, I think I will be placing them inside after all, although following examples, I will be drilling a hole in the coaming for the jib sheet to run into.

This then brings me to the question of cleat sizes. In the past, I have made my own cleats. However, a long while ago during the Crafty Sailor going-out-of-business sale, I picked up some Falconet cleats in 5, 7.5, and 9mm sizes. They look pretty nice, although there's a lot of laser char to remove.



My initial thoughts were that the 7.5mm cleats were too tiny, and I would use the 9mm, but in some locations the 9mm look a bit bulky. I looked in Chapelle's Boatbuilding and American Fishing Schooners, but didn't find much beyond an admonition to not use excessively small cleats. Then I thought about how, in many build logs of kit builds, the kit cleats didn't look out of scale to me (if they were, I don't think it was by much). The kit cleats are 10mm long, which, scaling down to 1:32, corresponds to the 7.5mm. So I think I'll be mainly using those.


The one spot I may go with the larger cleat is for the mainsheet. I think the larger cleat looks a bit better there, and the mainsheet would have greater forces acting upon it and would need to be adjusted a fair bit (more than the halyards), so maybe a larger cleat there would make sense?