I have had an interest in Dunkirk Little Ships since assisting a very good friend to move his from Cookham nr Maidenhead down the Thames through the City of London to Sheerness and out into the North Sea and up to Lowestoft and into Oulton. The trip which took several days is one of the most memorable of my life.
When looking for a new project and with 1/24 plans available for Bluebird of Chelsea which is also a Dunkirk Little Ship I decided to attempt this as my next build.
She was built in the early 1930`s for Malcolm Campbell the holder of many speed records on land and water and was 52ft long 11ft 4in beam 4ft 6in draught and displacement of 23.4 tons, powered by twin Perkins diesels.
She was restored after a busy life including sterling work off the Dunkirk beaches during the WW11.
If I can do the model justice she should be an absolute beauty to build.
I have made a start in the usual way by cutting the frames and starting the old favourite plank on frame.
Lots to do but the right time to get started.
Regards ChrisG

Apart from getting over a boring virus this week hasten to add not covid I have been progressing with the planking, the photo shows some not overly pretty work but it will look better soon, I notice in the background of the photo a tin of P38 which will almost certainly help me to achieve a smooth hull for painting.
I spent a happy couple of hours yesterday online shopping for brass portholes, stanchions and other pretty bits which I will hopefully have delivered before U.K. post goes the way of most other things currently, down the proverbial pan.
The important thing is I am engrossed in something I love doing and at the best time of the year to be doing it.
Regards ChrisG

The planking is done but needs lots of

caulking

sanding and general tidying up I think I may apply some sanding sealer before sanding as the wood I have used seems very coarse grained and soft so this process would no doubt harden it up, either that or a couple of coats of GRP resin, to be decided.
Meanwhile Santa came early on Tuesday and bought me lots of lovely brass bits from Cornwall so I have decided to check these out and have started with props, shafts and making brass skegs and sorting this lot out. I also had delivered an HA boat stand which I am in the process of building. I like these and used one on the previous build.
I am really enjoying this build loads to think about and plan, I continue to be hesitant about the superstructure and particularly the wheelhouse and how much to reveal of

down below

hopefully it will all work out well and in proportion.
Regards ChrisG

I am tired of rubbing down and filling and finally called a halt to it and gave the model a coat of sanding sealer. Then fitted the prop shafts and rudder shafts then a little more filling and sanding before a coat of sealer/undercoat which always shows the missed bad bits.
I get a little peeved these days having to find paints that do not have unfortunate reactions with other paints, I like Humbrol finish and have used that for years since building railway engines but most outlets only seem to sell preperation paints of the water based variety, and that stuff in my opinion is a travesty. I did find something fit for purpose in the garage goodness knows how old it is.
I bit the bullet this week and started cutting panels out of 2mm ply as templates for the wheelhouse and other topside accommodation to make sure that they all look right before cutting out of mahogany. I think it will take much time and a lot of patience before this will be anywhere near finished, I am no cabinet maker!
Regards ChrisG

I have

bit the bullet

and glued the ply fore deck onto the hull I just hope that I do not need access later, I always find this a difficult decision but one that has to be made if progress is to happen. My next task is to plank the deck, I was hoping to use teak to match the real thing but the cost even though the model is small is a bit above my budget.
I have some appropriate coloured planks in stock but they are about 6mm wide and I will have to trim them to the required 4mm. Not sure how I will do this but am going to try jamming the belt sander upside down in the workmate and carefully sand each plank to size.
I am sorry but I am going to close, problems either with this website, my laptop or user error, probably the latter.
I hope to continue later.
Regards ChrisG

Managed to get into my garage and decided to reduce the thickness of the strips for the foredeck, liked Roy`s suggestion with the jig based on two steel rules which worked well but as I have a lot to do it was a bit of a faff.
So belt sander clamped in the workmate and having carefully marked each plank at 4mm proceeded to reduce the planks width. First few took time but the more I did the quicker and easier the job became ending up with the required 30 that I was happy with.
The only downside is that I have no fingerprints left on three fingers on my left hand😁
I intend to use a black felt marker to blacken all edges giving a scale caulking look when sanded.
Regards ChrisG

Managed to get a bit done this week, you know how it is,

shall we get some Christmas bits before the shops get busy

? don't know where everyone gets their money from I thought we were in times of austerity.
Anyway I went ahead with planking the fore deck and yes blackening the edges of each plank seems to give the desired effect hope it doesn't spoil itself when varnished. I have also started to make some of the hatches etc but am still hesitating when it comes to building the wheelhouse, serious case of

chicken

🤣🤣🤣 I think a large scotch and throwing caution to the wind might help.
If anyone UK based is interested I put a small order on Cornwall Model Boats for some bits Sunday 27th pm and received the package Tuesday 29th a.m. that is Cornwall to Nottingham, I think that is excellent service by both the supplier and their carrier.
Regards ChrisG

Santa and his little helpers has gone back to wherever for another year so time to start some serious modelling.
He did bring me some new tools that I needed to assist in making fiddly fittings and I have started by trying to construct some deck vents of the opening type. I have used 1mm brass rod for the vent protectors and hope that my newly acquired chrome pen will successfully change their appearance, never used one before and was only aware of them from an article on MBW.
Watch this space regards ChrisG

I now have the rudder problem sorted and in the process have acquired a back copy of Marine Modelling Int. which shows a build blog of a magnificent 1/12th model of Bluebird of Chelsea in fact 2 of them. This has come at a very good time as I was getting annoyed at my lack of progress since the start of the year and this has given me the encouragement to get stuck in.
As I was getting nowhere with the wheelhouse, it is so critical to the build and complicated that I decided to build the rear cabin hoping that it would help in getting the correct

look

and in perspective. The plans are great but I find that often ones eye is essential.
Anyway it is built and I am quite please with it, still need a finishing tidy and varnish.
A little tip, whilst pottering around and looking for a job I looked around the workroom for some dowel for the mast and 2 flag poles fore and aft. I chanced upon several small paintbrushes that had seen better days all turned from hardwood and the diameter I needed, I cut them off to length discarded the bristle bit rubbed them down and have ended up with freebie tapered mast and two flag poles.
Regards ChrisG

I now know why builders prefer 1/12 to 1/24 scale B O C
models to build. I have spent 2 days attempting to build the rear and two sides of the wheelhouse and have destroyed no end of mahogany sheet of both 1mm and 1.5mm sizes.
You name a method and I think I have tried it. I now propose to overlay hand cut 1mm strips of mahogany on top of the already cut but extremely delicate mahogany panels. I then wonder how I am going to fix the plastic windows with the sandwich, judiciously applied araldite as super glue will not do the job.
I am not sure if I am writing this for help or sympathy or just to relieve my frustration, I have even tried carefully drilling holes in the aperture corners and using a craft saw with 0.3mm blade to join the dots, several broken blades later and I gave that up.
Anyway, been out for lunch eldest daughters treat and refreshed will have yet another stab at it.
If at first you screw it up then try, try, try again. 😠😠😠
Regards ChrisG