Pyro Schooner

That Pyro kit is extremely old; it was, in fact, one of the very first plastic sailing ship kits, originating back in the early fifties.  I think it was copied virtually intact from a wood kit by the now-long-defunct Marine Models, Inc.  (Pyro was known in those days among wood ship model companies as "Pirate Plastics.")  But I really like it.  It's simple, but the basic shapes and proportions are right.  It's high on my list (a short one) of kits I recommend to newcomers in the hobby.

Ronnberg is one of the foremost authorities on American fishing schooners.  I think the book you've got is in fact the instruction manual for a wood kit from either Model Shipways or Bluejacket.  He's done several.  The one that would be most relevant for anybody working on a Gertrude L. Thebaud is the one from the Model Shipways Benjamin W. Latham or Elsie.  I have a horrible feeling that the one you have may be the book that comes with the Bluejacket Smuggler.  That one's about fifty years too early.  There's quite a bit of difference.

The other classic source on the subject is The American Fishing Schooners, by the dean of the history of American naval architecture, Howard I. Chapelle.  It's a big, fat, hardbound book loaded with plans, detail sketches, and photographs.  New copies are kind of expensive, but I suspect you could find a used copy at a very reasonable price on the web.  Chapelle spent years prowling the docks of New England seaports making sketches and taking pictures.  I suspect there's more than enough information in that book to build the sort of model you have in mind.

Take everything you see on modern replica vessels with a huge grain of salt.  I don't know which particular ships you had the opportunity to visit; they vary tremendously in accuracy.  The Bluenose II, for instance, looks just about like the original Bluenose from even a short distance, but fishing schooner buffs have no trouble finding anachronisms in her rigging and deck furniture.  (Part of that problem, it should be said, originates in modern Coast Guard safety regulations.  The Thebaud couldn't pass a safety inspection today.)  And when it comes to such things as the appearance and color of rope and sailcloth - forget it.  Modern replicas almost invariably use synthetics, which look a lot different from what would be found on board a schooner of the 1920s or 1930s (like the Thebaud).

There's one other source you've gotta consult - if you haven't already.  By whatever means necessary, get hold of a DVD or VHS copy of the movie "Captains Courageous" - the old original, with Spencer Tracy, Lionel Barrymore, and Freddie Bartholomew.  It contains some of the most spectacular maritime footage ever filmed - all of it having to do with Gloucester fishing schooners of the 1930s.  It's more than worth the trouble to sit through 90 minutes of melodrama (most of it only passingly similar to the original Kipling book) in order to watch the race between two of those wonderful ships near the end.

Hope this helps a little.  Good luck.  You picked a fine kit to break into sailing ship modeling.

In additon to Chapelle's 'American fishing Schooners', other valuable references available on the net (check ADDALL.COM) are:

'American Fishermen', Albert Cook Church, 1940, W.W. Norton & co. - hundreds of b/w photos - a 'must have' for the schooner buff

'Fast and Able', Life Stories of Great Gloucester Fishing Vessels'. Gordon w. Thomas, 1968 - vessel photos with life histories

'Bluenose II, Saga of the Great Fishing Schooners', L.B. Jensen, 1994, Nimbus Publishing - wonderful detail and vessel drawings

...and Professor Tilley is right, you have to get a copy of 'Captains Courageous'

Mr Tilley and schoonerbumm-

   Thanks for the comments and suggestions.  I have started to track down some of the references you suggested.  I saw 'Captains Courageous' a long time ago, I'll have to see if I can find it again.  Here is where I am starting from:

This was assembled many years ago so the glue is very brittle.  I have managed to pop most of it apart to repaint.  I hope no one minds if I post some in-progress photos occasionally. 

Thanks again,

Phil

There's nothing wrong with that model that I can see.  At first glance my eyebrows went up a little when I saw the silver-painted deck fittings, but they may be correct.  We're talking about a vessel of the 1920s or 1930s here; by that time aluminum paint probably was in pretty common use as a protective coat for such things.

Depending on how much time (and money) you want to put into the project, you might want to consider using some aftermarket parts.  Bluejacket ( www.bluejacketinc.com ) makes some nice deadeyes, blocks, etc. that would look a good bit more authentic than the ones in the kit.  A fishing schooner is a great subject for learning how to rig deadeyes and lanyards - and there are few enough of them to keep the price of the parts down.  On the other hand, Pyro was a little ahead of the competition (i.e., Revell and Aurora) in those days when it came to realistic rigging.  The "deadeye combo units" that came with the kit are, to my eye at least, considerably better looking than the blobs in the early Revell kits.

I'd forgotten about Pyro's approach to stands.  Simple but effective.  To my eye it really shows off the beautiful lines of the hull, and is in character with the rough-and-ready nature of a fishing schooner.

Please do post some more pictures as she progresses.  It's already obvious that this is going to be a mighty handsome model.

I had a chance to spend some time aboard the "Highlander Sea", while she was in chicago for "Tall Ships Chicago". She sails out of Port Huron, Mi. Having studied Chapelle's "the American Fishing Schooner" at length, I was pleasantly surprised to see all the fittings on Highlander Sea, were documented in the Chapelle book.

  I have to agree, your Pyro is an excellent learner kit. Good luck with it, and yes please, post some pictures.

Pete

Hey-

   Just wanted to say thanks again for the list of references on Goucester schooners.  I bought several of them used, although I am still waiting for Chapelle's book to be delivered.  Very cool stories and photos of these ships.  Some of the photos of these ships racing at better than 14 knots with the lee rail in the water are just awesome! 

Anyway, I have been busy repainting the deck and hull.  I have decided to replace the fittings from Pyro with new parts, so I have started to fill in the huge holes in the gaffs, booms and masts for the Pyro fittings.  Here is my progress on masts, etc

I'm fairly pleased by how it looks so far. I still have some more detail painting and parts to add before I glue the deck down and finish painting the hull.  I'll probably also do some light weathering on the cabins, they look very white at the moment.  I'm pretty impressed by this kit,  for it's age, it looks and fits fine.   Any comments or advice are welcome. 

Phil 

Everything's looking fine so far.  What a handsome ship!  That long, overhanging bow is a thing of great beauty.  Looks like the ship is about to leap off the table.

About the only suggestion I can offer is that you might want to give some thought to the hull bottom color.  On my monitor (which is subject to lighting, e-mail idiosycrasies, and heaven knows what else) it looks mighty bright.  There are all sorts of variations on the theme of red anti-fouling paint, but most of them seem to be on the dark, dull side.  (In fact that original green, which I gather you stripped off, wasn't necessarily incorrect.  Quite a few ships of that period seem to have been painted with a green anti-fouling paint.)

This is going to be a fine model.  I look forward to seeing some more pictures of it. 

Here are some updated pics of my schooner project.  Just about finished the deck and hull.  I  have a few more deck fittings, then on to the masts. 

Comments and suggestions welcome.

Phil

Looks mighty good from here.  The red on the bottom looks much darker in these shots; maybe lighting was the culprit earlier. 

The only suggestion I can offer is really an observation about an option that's open to you.  Fishing schooners are, by definition, some of the filthiest, smelliest ships ever to sail the seas.  If you have any interest in weathering techniques, this model would be a good place to try them out.

On the other hand, the Thebaud spent a good bit of her time racing, and I suspect she got pretty thoroughly cleaned up for that purpose.  If you want to leave her in her current pristine condition, you certainly have plenty of justification - and it would be a shame to dirty up such a handsome hull.  It reminds me of a newly-painted airliner getting ready to take off.

This is going to be a fine model.  Please do keep us posted on its progress.

Hey, I have been working on painting and detailing the masts, booms and gaffs for my schooner, and in trying to think ahead, a question occured.  I added boom saddles to the masts, when I thought about mast hoops.  How (or when) should I work on the mast hoops?  I plan to model the sails furled, but I'm not too sure if I should have already put the hoops on the masts, or if I should attach them to the sails and then work them on to the masts.  Any advice would be appreciated.

I think one difference I have noted with this ship model (my first) as compared to the aircraft/helos and car models that I have built, is that it seems like you have to think more than just a couple steps ahead when building a rigged ship. 

Thanks,

Phil 

Well...the ideal time to install the mast hoops is while one end of the mast is available to slip them over.  But all is not lost.  It doesn't really matter a great deal.

On my little model of the pilot schooner Phantom which is on the same scale (1/96) and has similar rigging ( http://gallery.drydockmodels.com/phantom ), I made the mast hoops out of paper.  I sliced up a heavy yellow/brown paper envelope into narrow strips, cut the strips to the proper length, bent them to shape around a  mandrel (actually a paint brush handle), and glued the ends together with drops of white glue.  I gave each band a touch of wood stain.  That process would be a little more messy on an assembled mast, but not too difficult.

The Phantom and Thebaud have generally similar rigs, with one big difference.  The Thebaud has booms and hoisting gaff rig on both fore and main.  (The Phantom has no boom on the foremast.)  So both the fore and main gaffs of the Thebaud get lowered as the sail is furled.

The sails come quite a bit later.  We had a good discussion of how to make furled sails in the Forum; it's in the thread headed "Real cloth sails?"  When you get closer to that point on the model, do another post and I'll find that thread and move it to p. 1. 

Whatever method you use to make the sails, you'll need to punch a series of holes in the hoist edge and lash the mast bands to the holes with fine thread.  My suggestion is to get all the standing rigging in place before you start fussing with the sails.  This is a fairly big model with relatively straightforward rigging; you shouldn't have much trouble finding room for fingers and tweezers at crucial moments, as you would on a square-rigged vessel.

Looks mighty nice so far.  Hang in there.

In the photo I don't see any belaying pins in the fiferails.  I don't remember how Pyro handled that feature.  If the pins are simply omitted, you may want to consider buying some aftermarket ones and installing them.  Otherwise you'll run short of belaying points.

  Very impressive recovery job you are doing !  That is going to be a beautiful ship, for sure.

            greg

You were one jump ahead of me!  I think you'll like the Bluejacket stuff.  It isn't cheap, but the improvement is definitely worth it.

I'm a big believer in plastic kits, but styrene just isn't an appropriate material for some parts.  Even the most beautifully molded 1/96 plastic belaying pin is likely to break when the strain of the line comes on it.  I always suggest replacing kit belaying pins with brass ones. 

The same goes for blocks and deadeyes.  Styrene has to be injection-molded in rigid molds.  A rigid mold can't produce a casting with holes through it and a groove around it - and a block or deadeye requires both.  The plastic kit manufacturers have tried various dodges around that problem over the years, but they have yet to come up with anything that can approach a wood or cast metal block or deadeye in realism - or ease of working.

Bluejacket blocks and deadeyes require some cleaning up, and obviously need to be painted or otherwise colored.  That "Pewter Black" stuff that Bluejacket sells is good for blackening blocks and deadeyes.  Just be sure to give them a shot of flat finish spray; otherwise the blackener tends to rub off.  For brown blocks I usually start with a thin coat of Floquil metal primer, followed by a coat of the same kind of paint (usually acrylic in my case) that I'm using on the rest of the model.  I find it convenient to pin the blocks down on a piece of balsa wood (the only example of that loathsome substance to be found in my house) while I'm painting them. 

Good luck.

Latest update on the Thebaud.   I have the masts installed, and spent the last week adding the deadeyes and chainplates.  I bought replacement metal fittings from Bluejacket, and I think they look pretty good.  I used some strips of brass to scratchbuild some metal fittings (not sure of my terminology here) for the backstay, springstay and jibstay.  I think I am pretty near ready to start the rigging, but before I do that I think I will work on some kind of base for it, although I haven't decided what to do yet.  Probably spend the weekend pondering it.  Since this is my first ship, I bought a set of plans from Taubmann for the ship, which have been very helpful and I think will be worth the expense once I start on the rigging.  Here are a couple pictures.

As always, comments and suggestions are welcome.    This may be OT, but I found on eBay this really neat postcard of the Thebaud.  Postmarked 1934.  I find it a little amusing that the card is labelled "Fishing Schooner Gertrude L. Thebaud, Gloucester, Mass."   If this was illustrated from a photo, it doesn't look to me like the Thebaud was going fishing at the time.  Not only do I not see any dories, but look how many people are on board.  Looks more like a cruise!  But the card looks nice on the wall in my shop.

Phil

Looking good.  The Bluejacket fittings look fine.

Acquiring those plans was a wise move.  I'm not familiar with any drawings of this particular ship, but a good set of plans is a near-essential tool for any really successful ship model.

For what little it's worth, in my personal opinion the stand that was in a couple of your earlier pictures looked great.  I don't say that about many of the mountings that come in plastic kits, but that one in particular - at least to my eye - has a certain bold simplicity that's completely in character with the rest of the ship.  If you were to give it a coat of gloss or semi-gloss black paint and screw it down (maybe with a couple of round-headed brass screws) to a nice, varnished wood baseboard, or (preferably) the bottom of a display case, you'd have a mighty handsome finished product.

You've probably figured out by now that if you are going to mount a plastic ship model on something other than the kit-provided stand, the time to figure out the mounting system is in the beginning - while you still have access to the inside of the hull.  At that point it's easy to install a chunk of wood, or a pair of nuts, to receive mounting screw or bolts.  But it's a bit late for that now.

Please keep the pictures coming.  This is a lovely model.

OK, here's what I put together for a base for Thebaud.  I took Mr. Tilley's advice and just used the kit stand on a wood base.  I didn't like the aft keel resting on the base board so I built a small support for it to match the one forward.  I tried to keep it simple, and I'm pretty happy with the results.

I have also started rigging by adding the bobstays.  Wow, that's a whole new set of skills.  My hat's off to you folks who build ships with several orders of magnitude more rigging than the Thebaud.  I had some minor confusion about the bowsprit end.  The plans I have (by H.W Potter, 1942) show it rigged with bullseyes.  In Chapelle's book is an illustration of the bowsprit rigging of the 1920's and 30's showing turnbuckles.  Since I bought the turnbuckles before I bought the plans, I went ahead and used them.  I'm also not too sure how to rig a bullseye. 

Comment and suggestion welcome.

Phil

Looks mighty good from here.  A crucial element in designing a base for a ship model is to keep the waterline level.  It looks like you did.  I gather that, in order to add the support under the stern, you had to slide the forward support aft a bit.  To my eye it's almost - but not quite - too far aft.  If it were shoved any further aft the model would look like it was about to fall on its face.  But as it is, it looks like it's getting ready to launch itself forward.  Very nice.

I'm inclined to agree that turnbuckles are more likely than bullseyes for this period - especially if Chapelle says so.  For future reference, though, there's no trick to rigging bullseyes.  A bullseye is, in essence, a deadeye with one hole instead of three.  Run a fine line between the two bullseyes four or five times and you've got it.

OK, here are some updated pics.  Progress has been a little slow lately.  I finished the shrouds on the main mast and have started to tie the ratlines.  The plans I have for Thebaud and some photos show the ratlines only run between the center pair of  shrouds. 

This being the first time I have rigged anything, I have a couple observations and a question.  I'm not sure I rigged the shrouds tight enough, even though they look OK.  The first pair wanted to pull the mast over, so I compromised between tighter shrouds and a bent mast.  The Pyro plastic is a little soft, maybe due to age.  Perhaps a Lindberg reissue would be a little stiffer.  When I do the forward mast I might rig a temporary shroud on the other side to hold it upright when I rig the first pair of shrouds.  Any tips?  Next comment is that I found when tieing ratlines, you need to be careful not to pull the shrouds out of line.  Maybe tighter shrouds would help keep this from happening, although I think just stepping back and looking at the shouds before gluing the ratlines would help also.

The question is, how far up the shrouds do the ratlines go?  The plans I have aren't too clear on this, and of course eventually the shouds meet. 

This model was mentioned in another thread as a good beginner sailing ship kit, I would have to agree.  It's a fun project, even though there are plenty of minors flaws in the kit and in my execution.  IMO, it's a great looking ship.

Phil

Looks great.  As you've probably discovered, the trickiest part of the rigging process (for me at least) is getting the deadeyes the same distance apart, without varying the tension on the shrouds too much - or bending the masts out of line.

That ratline arrangement, with only one row per mast per side, is fairly typical of ships with relatively small crews.  Under normal circumstances only one or two men would be going aloft at one time, so there was no need for more ratlines.

It's tough to tell from drawings and photos just how far up the ratlines go.  Logically, the highest one needs to be high enough that a man with his foot on it can reach up with his arm, grab one of the crosstrees, and haul himself up.  The two shrouds may be so close together at that point that they're almost touching, but the sailor can jam his foot between them if there's a ratline for him to stand on.

To my eye the thread sizes look just about right.  It's important that there be a noticeable difference in diameter between the shrouds and the ratlines.  A shroud has to withstand the pressur exerted by the wind on those enormous sails.  A ratline just has to support the weight of one man.)  The more different diameters, the better.  That's a key to making the model realistic.

Thanks.  Here's where I am at the moment.  I finished the rigging on the mainmast and have started in on the foremast.  Quick question.  There's lots of sheer in the bow, so as far as I understand, the upper deadeyes are rigged parallel with the sheer (which is what I did), the sheer pole is mounted parallel the the upper row of deadeyes, but are the ratlines tied parallel to the waterline?  That would make sense to me but the plans I have are not conclusive. 

Thanks,

Phil

Looks fine so far.  You got the foremast deadeyes aligned right - i.e., parallel to the rail.  The question of just how the ratlines should be lined up is an interesting one.  You're right:  from photos and drawings it's hard to tell how it was done in real life.  Frankly, when I run into that problem I generally start out by rigging the lowest ratlines parallel to the sheer pole and varying the spacing just a tiny bit over the next few, so the fifth or sixth ratline is horizontal.  That may or may not be exactly authentic, but nobody's ever questioned me about it - I suspect because nobody's ever noticed.

I hope lots of Forum members are watching this thread.  It provides proof of what a relative newcomer can do with a basically sound kit representing a relatively small ship with a relatively simple rig (in this case a two-masted schooner) on a relatively large scale.  It doesn't take a huge, expensive kit with lots of rigging to make a handsome model - and if you do decide to tackle a more complicated subject later, this one will prove to be an excellent investment in money, time, and experience.

Looking at photos (#51 is the clearest) from Albert Cook Church's 1940 photo anthology "American Fishermen", the ratlines are parallel to the running  sidelight boxes  mounted on the forestays, which are mounted parallel to the waterline.  L.B. Jensen's plans and illustrations for "Bluenose II" also show the sidelights and ratlines parallel to the waterline. Some of Jensen's illustrations (of other schooners) show the shear pole and upper deadeyes parallel with the waterline and with the trapazoid between the gunwale and the upper deadeyes.

Looking at photos of the Sultana replica, the sidelights are parallel to the waterline and the ratlines and deadeyes/shear pole are parallel to the sheer. But Sultana's sheer is not as extreme as the fisherman's.

So do whatever looks good to you. To my eye, I would make the ratlines parallel to the sidelights (if you are installing them - Church's photos show racing fishermen without them, but if you are modeling a working boat it probably should have them). Without sidelights, parallel to the deadeyes might be more appealing.    

Great looking model by the way... I have one in the kit cellar, you've got me thinking that it's probably aged well enough now to build.

OK, here are the pictures.  As always, comments and suggestions are welcome.  Thanks for looking.

Phil