Blue Shadow -- 209 hours -- US$ 110 -- Advanced

The Blue Shadow is a 1778 American Navy Brig with 12 guns. The model is from Mamoli kit MV22 and build to a scale of 1:64; height 69.5 cm, length 55 cm, width 34.5 cm. Originally estimated at 300 hours.

Pictures

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Plans, Drawings, Sketches (inches)

Mamoli kit MV22. It should be noted that the drawings and instructions do not always match the supplied materials. For example, according to the plans the stands for the lifeboat are plywood, but supplied are two nicely casted stands.

Materials List (inches)

Mamoli kit MV22 comes complete with all fittings. It should be noted that most stock is barely enough, so don't waste anything. The 2mm and 3mm round stock for the yards was definitely not enough. 107 belaying pins are required, while only 75 were supplied. I ran out of the 0.25mm (thinnest) thread halfway drawing 6 and had to buy additional thread. The kit is also short of two 5x1 blocks and one 4x1 block.

A separate kit MV2203 with pre-sawn sails is available too.

Required Tools

• Power tools -- Dremel drill.
• Hand tools -- sharp knifes, scroll saw, small files, various tweezers, lots of patience

Construction

It looks like a very long project, but in the summer I do only yard work and in the winter I also do other woodworking projects. A true gauge is the number of accumulated hours. Now that I am retired progress will be better.

• 21-Jan-2004; 209 hours -- Boat completed. Display case will be done at a later date.
• 6-Jan-2004; 193 hours -- Yards, boom and peak rigged to the masts.
• 2-Jan-2004; 187 hours -- Rigging both masts completed.
• 13-Dec-2003; 178 hours -- Rigging main mast completed.
• 23-Nov-2003; 166 hours -- Masts and jib-boom/bowsprit assembled and all mounted on hull. Spray varnished everything.
• 17-Nov-2003; 157 hours -- Yards assembled, and belaying pins, blocks and dead-eyes mounted on hull.
• 3-Nov-2003; 128 hours -- All deck fittings done.
• 7-May-2002; 84 hours -- Deck completed.
• 30-Mar-2002; 61 hours -- Hull completed.
• 26-Feb-2001; 0 hours -- Begin of hull construction.

Some critical notes about the kit

• No instructions on how to put the pump and lifeboat together. The chain plates that connects the shrouds of the masts to the hull are composed of three pieces rather than one piece as per the drawing. Not a real big deal, but experience does help figuring all this out. More specifically, study all instructions and drawings, and have a very good look at the picture(s) on the box as well.
• There is nothing in the instructions or on the drawings how to keep the boom (boma, 497) up at the proper height along the main mast. I solved this by tying a 0.25 mm rope between the boom (boma, 497) and the peak (picco, 482) as close to the gaffs (forks) as possible.
• The loops (rings, eyes) under the pulley-blocks 513 and 531 as per figure 7 on drawing 5 were not made when adding the pulley-blocks to the yards (drawing 3). I solved this by beginning with a knot on post 68B and 62C instead.
• It is handier to tie the lines 508, 517, 526 and 535 to the yards first before tieing 507, 516, 525 and 534.
• Belaying pin bank #79 (drawing A) must have 8 belaying pins instead of the 7 indicated to provide space for belaying pin 609 (drawing 6). I was too far into the construction to do anything about it and all I could do was to tie two lines to one belaying pin.
• The loops (rings, eyes) under the pulley-blocks 675 as per figure 4 on drawing 7 were not made when adding the pulley-blocks to the bowsprit 463 (drawing 3 and figure 2).

Some final tips. Make sure that the masts are absolutely vertical and that the yards are perfectly horizontal. Check the yard(s) each time you attach threads to it, because once they are not horizontal you will have a hell of a time to level them again later. Trust me I got bitten at the end.

References

Have also a look at other model building web sites.