Muscongus Bay Lobster Smack (Model Shipways 1:24) [COMPLETED BUILD]

[JohnR]

20210611
Started work on the Muscongus Bay Lobster Smack (Model Shipways 1:24) 2 weeks ago. Work schedule kept me from the model the past few days and so I’m just now doing the first post on the build.
So far things are going well (translation: so far I’ve only broken two thin parts that needed to be glued back together). A bit of sanding required a couple of times when things don’t exactly line up properly but I’ve come to expect that – dry fit, sand, dry fit again, glue, sand. Slowly things are taking shape.
More sanding in the works as the frames need fairing before building continues.
It’ll be a couple of weeks before I post again as summer is upon us and it’s time to take a bit of vacation.

 

[Uwek]

Many Thanks for starting your log before your vacation - so we are looking forward to see your further progress in some weeks.
Enjoy your holiday

 

[Toolman]

Looking forward to your build. Good luck

 

[donfarr]

HAVE THIS ONE TOO, LOOKING FORWARD TO YOUR BUILOD. GOD BLESS STAY SAFE YOU AND YOURS DON

 

[JohnR]

20210707

Back working on the lobster smack. Keel, stem & stern pieces are installed/sanded and the frames faired. The smack is now ready to be planked.

I have the center board rigged to move up & down. I wasn’t satisfied with my work on the first lifting mechanism (it kept working out of the center board’s liftin hole) so I made a new one that stays hooked on.

Other than the frames most of the wood on the kit is pretty thin (1/32-in [0.8 mm]) & easy to break so going slowly but steadily is the current mantra.

 

[JohnR]

20210719

Slowly making progress. Frames completed and faired. Garboard and first two strakes formed and glued down. Soaking, drying on the frames and gluing each strake is time consuming (not much I can do on the boat while a pair of strakes is drying). I decided to sand & caulk the joints as I go rather than waiting until the hull is completed.

Slowly, ever so slowly, I’m making progress.

 

[Uwek]

20210611
Started work on the Muscongus Bay Lobster Smack (Model Shipways 1:24) 2 weeks ago. Work schedule kept me from the model the past few days and so I’m just now doing the first post on the build.
So far things are going well (translation: so far I’ve only broken two thin parts that needed to be glued back together). A bit of sanding required a couple of times when things don’t exactly line up properly but I’ve come to expect that – dry fit, sand, dry fit again, glue, sand. Slowly things are taking shape.
More sanding in the works as the frames need fairing before building continues.
It’ll be a couple of weeks before I post again as summer is upon us and it’s time to take a bit of vacation.

Hallo @JohnR
we wish you all the BEST and a HAPPY BIRTHDAY

 

[Jimsky]

Happy Birthday, John!

 

[JohnR]

20210807

This is the first posting in a couple of weeks; was unable to work on the ship for a bit due to work commitments. I’m getting close to having the hull planked. One more strake on each side and then the shear planks and the tedious job of hull planking will be completed. There is still be plenty of sanding, and a little bit of filling, to be done before I can say the hull is complete. The pics show some of the intermediate planking up to where I am as of this evening.

Should be able to put more time into the ship during the upcoming week.

 

[JohnR]

20210812

The hull is complete! As you can see from the pictures of the shear plank, there were some gaps between that plank and the one below it. I chose to have the gaps between the planks instead of between the top of the shear plank and the deck; easier to do the necessary fill work with the wood filler I used.

I decided not to use a blade to finish off the plank ends in the area of the transom or to trim the shear plank even with the deck (where it protruded above the deck). Instead about an hour of sanding took care of those areas. I may do just a bit more sanding where the planks join the transom to blend everything together.

Now the work on and above the deck starts. Looking forward to doing something other than soaking and bending hull planks.

 

[JohnR]

20210822

Completed installation of the toe rails and side bumper strips; cut drains in the toe rails either side of the cockpit. Formed and installed the coaming around the cockpit and the cabin sides. Added glazing (cellophane over gray cardstock) to the cabin windows. Installed the wet well covers (on the deck forward of the cockpit, bulkhead and hatch cover, beakhead, samson post, and cabin roof with sliding hatch and guides. Painted the cockpit (in & out), cabin sides, cabin roof, deck forward of the cockpit, bulkhead, hatch covers and samson post. Assembled and installed the rudder (earlier than called for in the instructions but, since I decided not to make it a moveable part, easier to do now). Assembled the display stand (which is also the work stand when work on the mast, sail and rigging begins). Primed the hull and have put on the first coat of paint below the waterline.

Will continue painting during the week and then start work on the mast, sail and rigging.

 

[JohnR]

20210829

Painted the hull; added some eyebolts around the cabin and on the stem; added the traveler with its block; added the tiller; and added the trailboards. Decided to just paint the trailboards instead of trying to glue on the paper appliques that came with the kit. Instead of painting the block and the tiller, I dyed them with liquid brown shoe polish so they keep a wood look.

This coming week I’ll start on the bowsprit with the goal of finishing that, the mast and the gaff before the weekend. Hoping to be able to rig the smack over the weekend. Will just have to see how it goes.

 

[JohnR]

20210905

A lot of little things completed this past week. Fittings painted & installed on the upper hull; mast and spars shaped & fittings attached; bowsprit shaped, installed and fittings attached; blocks shaped, stropped and stained; mainsail and jib almost ready (still need to drill the holes for the lashings and hanks). One minor surprise yesterday evening when I opend the box and took out the last remaining parts – the lines for the rigging. Looked and looked at what was supplied and finally pulled out my micrometer to make sure that what I was seeing was, in fact, the case. The rigging lines supplied were the wrong diameter for the fittings and did not match what the plans called for. The plans call for 0.4 mm and 0.7 mm lines; the kit was supplied with 1 mm and 2 mm lines. The part numbers matched what was on the parts list but the supplied lines did not match the descriptions. No real problem as I have plenty of rigging line left over from other projects.

I have tomorrow off from work so rigging will start in the morning. Hope to have it completed before shutting down for the night. Looking forward to completing the work and posting photos of the finished ship.

 

[Kurt Konrath]

Great work on this small boat. I think I have a kit of same style boat from different company, but not as detailed as yours.

Keep up the good work and we shall all soon see the ship ready for the water!

 

[JohnR]

20210906

Ship is completed! Took almost 8 hours to complete the rigging but the finished product looks nice (patting myself on the back there). Besides the wrong size rigging lines that were supplied a couple of minor issues developed along the way to the finish line.

• After attaching all of the blocks (nothing in the directions or on the plans stating, explicitly, where they go; the few photos in the directions and the photo of the finished ship were all that were available for help – the location of most made logical sense), while I was lacing the mainsail to the boom I noticed that the block just above where the gaff joins the mast was missing. After a moment of panic, I moved everything (storage boxes, tool holders, etc.) out of the way, swept the floor and got down on my hands and knees to check under furniture too heavy to move. No joy…and no spare available. Had to manufacture a substitute out of a scrap piece of basswood stock. It came out OK but the basswood takes the stain (liquid brown shoe polish) different then the supplied blocks did. Still, hard to tell the difference without a close inspection.
• The eye of the metal turnbuckle installed on the top of the bowsprit end snapped off while threading the rigging through it. Not a major catastrophe; drilled a replacement hole in the body of the turnbuckle and kept on rigging.

I to try doing things that fall under ‘optional’ in the directions; sometimes they are simple details and other times they are a bit of a challenge. The metal hanks on the jib are in the first category; just ook some patience to get them through the holes drilled in the jib and then closed around the forestay (managed to drop one on the floor but the kit had a spare so no issue finishing). The parral trucks on the lines holding the gaff and boom to the mast were in the later category – with the challenge being finding something that didn’t look grossly out of scale. I managed to find some 1 mm metal crimp beads in an arts & crafts store that seemed to be what was needed. I painted them black, threaded them on and think are working out just fine.

Towards the end the directions said to belay the jib sheet line to a cleat on the mast that already had a line belayed to it. Not wanting to belay one line on top of another, I belayed the jib sheet to the Samson post. I should have read ahead one step as the directions said to belay the topping lift (the last line installed) to the Samson post. Dug around in the spares box to see if there was a cleat hanging out; again, no joy…but aha! There was a 90° bent pin left over from an earlier model that looked promising. I drilled the forward bottom of the mast, glued in the pin and belayed off the topping lift.

The extra rope coils are a bit so-so. I installed them as I made them so the latter ones are a lot neater than the first ones.

I’ve not completed all 3 of David Antscherl’s model – the dory, the Norwegian pram and this one. Model Expo does not have the next one mentioned at the end of the Lobster Smack’s instructions (a longboat) but figuring the 18th century longboat model Model Expo will test my mettle, I purchased it (a few months ago when I bought the Lobster Smack). I’ll start the longboat in a couple of weeks when I return from some work travel.

 

[donfarr]

WELL DONE GREAT MODEL LOVE THESE SMALL BOATS, NOW LET US SEE HOW MANY MORE VICTORYS, OR OTHER RARE SUBJECTS WE CAN GET LOL LOL LOL. GOD BLESS STAY SAFE ALL DON

 

[Uwek]

Congratulations for finishing this nice and interesting model

 

[Duncan]

Just purchased the Lobster Smack I am almost finished with the Lowell Grand Banks Dory. I thought I would skip the Pram. I noticed with the Dory there were a number of places where the instructions were not clear. I think this just developed skills needed to make things work. I was happy to find your build. You did a find job. Your comments help me to realize that the instructions are a good guideline but the builder needs to use common sense to make things work. Thanks for your post I will be referring to it as I build the Lobster Smack.

 

[Namabiiru]

That's a beauty, John. I'm glad you had fun with this successful build. I picked up the same kit from my local hobby shop earlier this year and was so excited to get started on it. But when I started to assemble the bulkheads I discovered that they had been printed on the wrong thickness of planks so nothing fit the way it was intended. I reached out to model shipways to let them know there was a problem and the only reply I got was "I have no record of your purchase" and then radio silence. With no way to verify I had the basic hull shape correct, there was no way the planking was going to turn out correctly so everything went back in the box and it's now in a dark corner of the closet. I seem to be the only one having problems with Model Shipways' products and customer service.

 

[donfarr]

HI TRY CONTACTING BLUEBEARD ON THIS SITE HE MAY BE ABLE TO HELP, HOPE THIS HELPS, THE REASON YOU DID NOT GET A REPLY FROM M/S WAS YOU DID NOT PURCHASE IT FROM THEM SO THEY HAVE NO RECORD TRY ALSO TO JOHN GARCIA AT MS, HOPE THIS HELPS. GOD BLESS STAY SAFE YOU AND YOURS DON