At last, the day arrived! The weather this morning for the Buxton area looked to be ideal with 10mph winds forecast.

I don't have access to a Transit van or similar 😊 so the boat has to be transported in bits and assembled at the lake side. It is a bit of a squeeze to fit it all into the car.

The large, yellow sided case keeps the mast and sails safe during transit. It is a simple pair of wooden frames hinged together and covered with twinwall plastic sheeting which I just happened to have in the shed. Also in the car is a folding stand for use at the side of the lake, and a launch cradle made from copper pipe.

At he lakeside, assembly involves fitting the keel, rudder, mast and sails. It takes around 15 minutes to complete - possibly less in future with a bit of practice.

Once launched, she was away ⛵👍. The wind was a lot less than forecast, maybe 5mph with some gusts. She did struggle a bit on such a gentle breeze. When it did blow, she was fast and responsive, outrunning the video chase boat on occasions.

She is named 'Ellen' after my grandmother. Oh, and the helmsman? The designer, Gary Webb (bearospaceindustries.com) has started a bit of tradition of having a bear as helmsman 😀

Unlike traditional Pilot Cutters, this plan calls for the model to be fitted with a fin and weighted lead keel.

I left this part of the build to the end for two reasons. I needed to know the weight of the model before the keel could be cast, and I didn't like the idea of messing about with 4+kgs of molten lead😮.

The plans give a target weight for the completed model of 8.2kgs (18lbs) including a keel weighing 4.5kgs. With all the extra details I've added to the hull it has turned out heavier than the design weight (No surprise there then 😉) so to keep the total weight of the model on target, the keel weight needed to be reduced to 4kgs. To compensate for the lighter keel, I decided to extend the fin length by 50mm.

The fin is made from 3mm aluminium sheet. This was cut out using a jigsaw fitted with a metal cutting blade. The large hole at the top of the fin reduces the weight a little, and provides a convenient hand hold. The three holes at the bottom are to provide a key for the lead keel.

A wooden mold was made from scrap timber and the fin clamped in place. 4.5kgs of lead was melted and poured in - very carefully! Once cooled, the mold was removed and the keel was then shaped using a 'surform' tool bringing the completed weight of the keel down to 4ks.

Thin balsa sheet was glued to both sides of the fin with contact adhesive and then sanded to give a streamlined cross section to the fin. The completed fin slides into the keel box below the hull and is held in place with two steel cross pins fitted through one of the deck hatches.

The completed assembly was finished with two part epoxy, glass cloth, and several coats of navy blue paint from a rattle can.

There is a rudder servo and two winches to control the sails.

The sheet to control the main sail is routed from one of the winches through a fairlead in the deck just behind the mast. It then passes through two blocks attached to the boom and terminates on a traveller just abaft the main cabin.

The three fore sails each have two sheets attached. One sheet from each sail runs down the port side of the deck, through a fairlead in the deck and is then tied off on a loop driven by the second winch. The three remaining sheets from these sails are routed in the same way, but along the starboard side of the deck. These are tied off on the other side of the loop below deck. Running this winch from one end to the other tacks the foresails by pulling the sheets in on one side and letting them out on the other.

The plans suggest that the fore sail winch is controlled from a rotary knob on the transmitter so that the sails can be tacked. I have put together a custom electronic mixer that has two operating states. In one state, it allows direct control of the winch from a rotary knob on the transmitter as suggested in the plans. In the other operating state, the fore sheet winch is controlled in tandem with the main sheet winch from the same stick on the transmitter. A switched channel on the Tx reverses and offsets the signal to the winch thus tacking the fore sails at the flick of a switch! It will be interesting to see if this works as intended.

The electronics is installed in two wooden boxes which slide into runners below the deck. The construction and mounting of these was shown earlier in this blog. I've used magnetic reed switches to turn the power on/off as in my other models. This allows the power to be turned on and off using a magnet above the deck and avoids the need to find somewhere to hide a toggle switch.

After a week of threading, knotting, whipping and a bit of cursing I've managed to rig all the sails.

The rigging cord is 1mm diameter, 12 strand braided 'Dynema'. This is very strong, and doesn't stretch. The loops at the ends of the lines are glued with CA and then whipped with cotton thread which is also secured with CA. I hope this will be sufficiently secure. The pins in the shackles and blocks are screwed in and then seized with a fine stainless wire so that they will not come apart on the lake.

Instead of tying off the downhauls on the belaying pins on the Fife rail I have chosen to loop them round the belaying pins and use a bowsie to tension the lines. This is to speed up rigging of the sails at the lake side. The last photo shows one of the bowsies, disguised as a block. Thanks to 'hammer' for this suggestion.

Having made all the bits and pieces needed for the rigging, it's time to replace the temporary blue string with something more appropriate.

I read somewhere that plastic coated fishing trace line can be used for the shrouds that support the mast. Photos 1 and 2 show the shrouds and bowsprit stays I made using this trace line. It just didn't look right, so I replaced these with twisted nylon cord which I think looks much better.

The lower end of each shroud is formed into a loop which fits round a deadeye. The lanyards which connect the pairs of deadeyes together are elastic cord which ensures that the shrouds are kept taught. Each lower deadeye is attached to the chainplate using an 'R' clip which makes it relatively easy to de-rig the shrouds and remove the mast.

A forestay runs from the mast to the stem where it is also attached using an 'R' clip.

The bowsprit rigging comprises a chain bobstay fitted between the stem and the cranse iron at the end of the bowsprit together with two stays, one fitted on either side. The chain was made in the same way as described for the anchor chain in an earlier post. A pair of blocks form a tackle which allows the chain to be tensioned.

The lateral stays are made from the same nylon cord as used for the mast shrouds. Each stay has a tackle to tension it.

Time to make the sails! This is my first attempt at making cotton sails.

Full sized paper templates were made using the sail dimensions provided on the plan. These were used to mark out the outline of each sail on an old polycotton sheet by drawing round the templates onto the sheet with a pencil. For each sail, care was taken to ensure that the warp of the cloth was aligned with the leech of the sail. A 12mm wide strip of hardboard was then used as a guide to draw an additional line around each sail providing a 12mm hem allowance. The sails were cut from the sheet, together with triangular reinforcing pieces for each corner on each sail.

My wife was volunteered to machine sew the hems and reinforcing pieces 😉❤️. The sails were then returned to me for the rest of the sewing🙄. A bolt rope was hand sewn around each sail. The rope is sewn along each edge of the sail, except the leech. It is sewn onto the Port side of the sail. I don't know why it should be on the Port side, but I understand is the convention. Can anyone enlighten me as to why?

Grommets were formed at the corners of each sail by sewing in a copper ring.

The hand sewing for each sail took 4-5 hours 😮

Once completed, each sail was fitted to the Cutter using temporary rigging. This was to ensure that the sails were the right size and shape. At this point, the main sail had to be remade as, despite it being cut out to the right size and shape using the paper template, it had somehow 'grown' to a size which meant it just didn't fit once finished 😭 The second attempt fits OK.

Finally lines were drawn onto the sails to represent the seams that would be present on full sized sails and the sails were stained using tea and waterproofed using a mix of beeswax and linseed oil. The last photo shows the 'before and after' effect of the staining and waterproofing.

On full sized Cutters, the luff of the mainsail is often held to the mast with wooden hoops (Photo 1). These hoops are made from steamed elm, ash or oak. I had some ash veneer available so decided to use this to laminate the hoops.

A wooden mandrel was turned to the required inner diameter of the hoops - approximately 20mm for the 16mm diameter mast. A strip of ash veneer was then dampened and wound round the mandrel and left to dry. Once dry, it was removed, coated with glue, rewound onto the mandrel, taped into position and left to dry again.

Removing the completed wooden tube from the mandrel was difficult despite having wound the glued veneer over a layer of paper to prevent it sticking to the mandrel. In the end, I had to drill out the centre of the mandrel to get the tube off.

The wooden tube was then cut to form 6 hoops. Brass pins were added primarily for visual effect, but also to ensure that the laminations will not come apart.

Attaching the blocks and other rigging to the hull requires a number of shackles. These were made from 3mm dia brass rod. Lengths of rod were turned on the lathe to reduce the center section to 1.7 mm. These pieces were then annealed and forged to flatten the ends. This annealing and forging process was repeated until the ends were the same 1.7mm thickness as the center section.

The forged pieces were then annealed again and then bent around a steel rod to form a 'U' shape. Once the forming was complete the shackles were cleaned up with files and emery paper. The two flattened ends were then drilled for the cross pin. One end was drilled with a 1.6mm clearance hole and the other end was drilled and tapped 12BA.

The cross pins were turned from the same 3mm dia brass bar. One end is threaded 12BA and the other end is filed flat and cross drilled for a securing wire to prevent the pin becoming loose.

I needed to make quite a few of these, so have been making them in my 'spare time' over recent weeks. 😀

(The blue cord in some of the photos is temporary and not what will be used for the rigging)

It turns out I needed 23 blocks in total with several different designs. Looking at them collected together, they certainly look 'hand made' 🤣.

The blocks with beckets and those with swivel jaws needed threaded pins to fit. These were turned from 3mm dia brass rod and threaded 12BA. I chose 12 BA simply because it was the smallest size tap and die I had available. Inherited in a box of taps from my Dad although I can't imagine why he had such a small tap as he didn't build anything in small sizes 😂🤣

Next I need to make some shackles to fit the blocks and the rigging.

Quite a few blocks are needed for the rigging. I'm not sure on the exact number yet but it is something like 20. After several trial attempts I settled on a method for making them which is repeatable and manageable in terms of the time and fiddling that it takes.

The blocks are made from hardwood (Cherry) and fitted with brass sheeves. Lengths of wood were cut to a 6x2mm cross section. Some of the lengths are then grooved using a jig on the table saw. The grooves are 3mm wide by 0.5mm deep.

To form the wooden blocks, a simple jig was made to hold four short pieces of Cherry in position while they are glued using CA. The top and bottom pieces in the jig are grooved and are positioned with the groove facing towards the centre of the block. The cross pieces are not grooved. Once the glue has set, the block is transferred to a second jig and drilled with three 1mm holes. The block is then trimmed and sanded to an oval shape.

The sheeves are turned from 6mm brass bar to a finished size of 5.5mm dia by 2mm thick. They are grooved around the circumference. A strip of brass 3mm x 0.5mm is bent into a U shape to be used to reinforce the block.

Once all the parts are ready, the block is assembled by first sliding the brass U into the channels formed through the wooden block by the grooved side pieces. Using the holes already drilled through the block as guides, holes are then drilled through the brass strip. The two outer holes are drilled 1mm for reinforcing pins, the central hole is drilled 1.5mm for the sheeve axle. The pins and axle are then fitted through these holes (threading the sheeve onto the axle as it is inserted), and glued into position with CA. Finally the pins are filed flush with the wooden block.

Using the same method, several variations have been made to suit different applications on the Cutter.

Six completed, only another 14+ to make 🤔