The Mayflower: My 2015 ‘Fun Build’


Hi to All! Although this ‘build’ and it’s diary could fit into the rules for the 2015 competition, I just want to make sure everybody knows IT’S NOT MY ENTRY!!!

This “Authentic Model Ship Kit” was my surprise Christmas present from my dear Mum and as I mentioned in the ‘2015 New Year Resolutions’ thread, being partially sighted she didn’t realise what she was getting me and was quite disappointed on the morning.
For me however, this is a nice little fun project to come back to in between the planned (and unplanned) projects this year (and who knows, maybe beyond as well!) My intention is to take what many ‘serious’ modellers would regard as a curiously shaped lump of firewood and, without spending anything on it (I think) but just dipping into my ever expanding collection of spares, offcuts and leftovers, turn this authentic model ship into a slightly more authentic model ship. This is not going to be a scale model by any stretch of the imagination but by the end I want to end up with something that looks at least a little like a 15th Century sailing ship to become the little display model Mum wanted for the mantelpiece, (I thought she had an ulterior motive!)
In Photo 1 we have the hull up against the old Victory. The Victory is about 180ft in length (the real one that is!) and I assumed the Mayflower was about 60ft which would have made this ‘model’ the same 1/100 scale (I’m thinking crew figures here!) In actual fact the original Mayflower was somewhere between 80 – 100ft long which would make this one about 1/120 scale. Still, we’ll see how it goes first, I might get away with it!
Photos 2 to 7 show the hull in all her glory. The first major mistake is that the Mayflower only had two levels of deck from the waist to the stern, not three as in this case. However, since this ship is built up out of solid blocks of wood, altering that is far too much like hard work! So three it will remain. Also, the two model Mayflowers I’ve been busy nicking photos of from the web both show solid hull sides in the waist so my first play-around will be to saw out those railings and then to sand down the entire hull from the waterline up before I add in the bulwarks, veneer the hull with some of the Bounty and Victory’s spare second planking and re-plank the decks with Costa Coffee wooden spills (I’m still ‘collecting’ them even though Messines was finished five months ago!)
The last two Photos 7 and 8 show one of the modern reproduction full size Mayflowers. This is the sort of appearance I want to try and achieve (with the lights down dim and a severe squint!)
So wish me luck and I’ll be hoovering up the sawdust before the next instalment, when we can see the ‘bare bones’ so to speak. Before then I've got some serious planning to do (but not for this one!

Happy Modelling to All.

Robin

Hah! That's the one Stevie, I wonder how many others on here have had the same model, there's at least three of us now!
Was yours the one like mine with the pre-glued masts or the bigger version with the separate mast sections?
Sounds like you went even further than I'm planning to go! Mind you, at this era there were lots of ships called Mayflower, mine might end up as one of them!
Still if the old tub brought you on to this forum that's a worthwhile build if ever there was.

I'd love to see your finished pics if you haven't deleted them!


Robin

Many thanks there Alan, This is certainly a lot different from my previous ship building as you'll see below!

Hi Again!

Before moving on to this instalment which is comprised mainly of cutting bits off the already ‘basic’ kit parts, I’d just like to mention how my appreciation for the hard work young Daisy is putting into her Pirate Brig is increasing daily. This is the first time I’ve ever worked on a solid hull construction model and I never realised what hard work they are! I’ve been sanding and filing, then sanding some more, looking for my wood rasping tools (without success) and finally giving up on the filing altogether and chiselling the flaming wood off instead! Personally, plank on frame is a whole lot easier than this! So well done Daisy and keep it up!
OK then. In Photo 1, the first part of the original kit to be removed was the ‘fence’ along the waist area. As you can see from the picture, one side came away cleanly but the other remained stubbornly glued in place and had to be sawn away. Eventually, the waist will be enclosed with a solid wall or bulwark with a new slightly raised deck level.
Now this would have been the main area of work on the overall deck layout, unfortunately (for me) dear Stevie-o (bless his little socks ) mentioned that he had also received this ship from his Mum a couple of years ago and had also gone to work on it including cutting away that unwanted third deck at the stern. Well, couldn’t be ‘aving that now, could I? So off it had to come as seen under way in Photo 2 and completed in Photo 3.
(I forgot to mention that after this, the whole hull was then sanded down to remove the varnish and the 'wales', these will be replaced after the hull has been veneered.)
That left the remaining half of the sawn through deck block to be either removed or shaped into a steeper gradient for the poop deck planks to go on. This was the point where my patience with heavy manual wood removal using files and sanders ran out. As you can see in Photo 4, I eventually found a far quicker technique – I used the Exacto razor saw to cut a series of lines down through the block and then used my set of wood turning chisels in a way they were never intended for – a good smacking with a lightweight hammer to chisel off the offending pieces of block which can be seen in Photo 5 . After a light sanding the poop deck then looked as seen in Photo 6. The stern torpedo tube is actually half of the hole pre-drilled in the stern which took a dowel used in the rigging set up. (I can still remember a 1940’s war time American cartoon about the Pilgrim Fathers with a really funny scene featuring the Mayflower – as the ship sailed past, the bow was full of 15th Century English settlers gazing at the New World, whilst at the stern was a full complement of US sailors in steel helmets manning an anti aircraft gun with ‘Anchors Aweigh’ blaring out!)
It was as this point that I decided that the rudder may as well come in to the upgrade schedule, so off that came too as in Photo 7. I still have to go over the ‘stump’ with the detail sander yet though.
Photo 8 illustrates the poop deck with the first few ‘add ons’ – lollipop stick spacers to incline the future decking planks at the steeper angle. As you can see, the forward one has had the cut out ground away to allow the mizzen mast to go in later. The two diagram additions show the middle deck support to be fitted later and the proposed poop deck bulwarks to be added after the stern ‘plate’ has been cut to size and glued on. Before designing the plate however, the right angled stern had to be cut down into a raked appearance, there is only one step from the hull to the transom on the real ship, not the two found here. I simply drew a pencil line from the first step to the top of the stern and cut the excess wood away with the razor saw again as shown in Photo 9. The new sloped or ‘raked’ stern can be seen in Photo 10.
So that’s it for now. I’ve just won the RAF Emergency Set on Ebay and my set of 2000 red bricks has arrived (I don’t think it’s going to be enough! ) but anyway, I’ll be back with the Mayflower in between the main bouts of modelling, so I’ll see you when I see you on this diary!

Happy Modelling to you All!


Robin