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Hi, Dave - Welcome to MSW. I'm in the Seattle area (Lake Tapps). If that's convenient you're welcome to stop by and see what I have on the workbench, on the bookshelf and in the kit stash. I transitioned from plastic to wooden shipmodeling back in the '60's and have accumulated a sizeable collection of stuff. I'm fully vaccinated and boosted, and comfortable with whatever level of COVID prevention you observe. Send me a private message if you're interested. Bill

Dan - All of the above is excellent advice, but perhaps mostly applicable to larger workpieces. In 1/700 we're talking about, what, roughly .050" at the bottom of a battleship mast and length maybe as long as 2". Less for smaller ships. As an occasional 1/350 modeler, I've had success in tapering brass wire by pinching it in a fold of wet/dry automotive sandpaper of 400 and higher grit and turning it with a variable speed shop drill. If the drill chuck won't close down on your wire, there are microchucks with hexagonal shanks available, or you can hold the wire in a pin vise and place the pin vise in the drill chuck. Light finger pressure and repeated passes will produce a taper reasonably quickly. There's little chance of bending/whipping the this size stock at the rpm available with a shop drill. If you have a high speed rotary tool, such as a Dremel with a chuck, the wire can be placed directly in the chuck and turned. For that approach I'd recommend the v-groove technique discussed by wefalck, using a shallow groove and downward pressure on the sandpaper, to give you more control at the higher speed. Bill

Nice job on smoothing the hull and sanding the bulwarks. The thinner you can get the bulwarks, the happier you'll be when fitting the caprail and stanchions. I've found a sanding drum on a Dremel works well for me. Bill

Most books on building in scales smaller than 1:96 focus on sailing ships and cover making blocks and rigging. I'm not aware of any commercial sources for blocks at these smaller scales (about the size of the proverbial mustard seed or smaller). Many who work in these scales use wire for rigging, which is easily available on line down to 50 AWG (American Wire Gauge), 0.001"/.025mm. The most general reference for small scales I've found is Ships in Miniature by Lloyd McCaffery. Other works on miniature ship building include Shipbuilding in Miniature by Donald McNarry, Period Ship Modelmaking and Modelling Sailing Men-of-War, both by Phillip Reed. All have sections on producing blocks and line although most of the pages cover building the hull and fittings. There don't seem to be any completed build logs for USS Olympia here at MSW, but searching the site does turn up several photo collections in the completed model galleries which might be useful for reference. Another source, although not recently updated, is steelnavy.com which focuses on small scale models of mostly 20th century warships. Bill

That's because it's an older http:// (non-secure) site rather than an https:// (encrypted) site. Most browsers are now not allowing connection without a couple of additional clicks that you really want to go there (e.g. Show details -> visit this website in Safari). The risk is pretty small if you're not providing credit card or other data while on the site. The site is still up, last updated in summer 2020. No mention of post-retirement plans.

The pages, which are htm files, do read fine. I think you’ll find that the search tool doesn’t work, as I did on my Windows 7 laptop. The search tool and index are in an older version of JavaScript which doesn’t seem to be readable by many current browsers. That’s the problem Paul’s addressing. Bill

Bill - The series of articles you remember were part of John Fryant's "On the Water" column. Jan/Feb 2012 - Introduction/Hull/Propulsion Mar/Apr 2012 - Superstructure May/Jun 2012 - Superstructure July/Aug 2012 - Superstructure Sept/Oct 2012 - "No progress" Nov/Dec 2012 - Propulsion Jan/Feb 2014 - First Voyage Bill

I'm currently working a topsail schooner in 1/96 (many fewer sails) and have found including the (unfurled) sails adds significantly to the modeling time (reef points make ratlines look REALLY INTERESTING by comparison). Using furled sails would allow omission of some the sail detail buried in the furl and save some of that time if you've got both Cutty Sark and Victory in the queue. I've used both cloth (men's handkerchiefs) and Silkspan Lite in 1/96 and have gotten better results from Silkspan Lite - the thickness is much closer to scale. Tom Lauria has a helpful video on YouTube for modeling sails with Silkspan, and David Antscherl describes his method in "The Fully Framed Model, Rigging a Sixth Rate Sloop of 1767-1780, Volume 4. If you want to use cloth and are going to furl, I do recommend cutting the height of the sails down by at least 1/3 to avoid excessive bulk on the yards, which advice goes back at least as far as Harold Underhill. All that said, eight of my 11 sailing ship models have included sails, so apparently I'm in favor. Bill

If you're doing the outer planking and want to follow the prototype, you might want to get a copy of "Pride of Baltimore" by Thomas Gillmer, the naval architect who designed both Pride of Baltimore I and Pride of Baltimore II (~$10). It includes a few photographs of POB II under construction. The scantling plan for POB II on p. 165 states the frames were sided at 9". That information and the photographs on pages 178, 184 and 176 suggest that planking amidships was ~9" wide (slightly under 1/8" in 5/32" scale) and tapered down to about 6" (5/64") at the bow and stern. Gillmer co-authored a second book "Sailing with Pride" in 1990 (~$5), which appears to have a number of photographs of POB II underway and might be useful when working deck fittings. Bill

Welcome to Model Ship World. As you no doubt knew before coming on to the site, getting hold of the Leavitt plans for the Lexington isn't easy, but there are a couple more paths to try before falling back on alternative projects. In one of your posts you mention that the plans were published in Popular Mechanics. Actually, it was Mechanix Illustrated. The index for the NRG Journal (available on MSW's sister site) has a citation for Clyde Leavitt and the his plans for the Lexington: Leavitt, Clyde M., author, model builder: model: LEXINGTON plans for LEXINGTON in Mechanix Illustrated, 5:158 If my math is right, Volume 5 of the NRG Journal is from 1960. I don't have the NRG CD's of Volumes 1-40 of the Journal, but perhaps someone here on the forum will look up Volume 5 page 158. If the item gives the issue(s) of Mechanix Illustrated that include the plans AND they're also from 1960, you should be in good shape. www.backissues.com has all the Mechanix Illustrated for 1960 available for about $16 each. 1959 and earlier gets spotty. The Austin Public Library also has Mechanix Illustrated 1960-84 available on microfilm and you may be able to access it from the Seattle area via the inter-library loan system. The plans in the magazine will be reduced to fit their 7 1/2' x 10 1/2" format, but could be enlarged back to the scale you desire to work. I see you've also been inquiring on the ModelShipBuilder site. Back in November 2012, their member jml, John, stated that he had the plans available, but wasn't comfortable providing copies, being uncertain if they were now in the public domain. So you may hear from him if he's still active over there. I'm also here in the Seattle area (Lake Tapps). If some of the alternatives suggested have caught your interest, I have copies of the Parker book and his plans for the Lexington (he developed his own plans, and comments on Davis'), Petraeus' book Modeling the "Irene", and Chapelle's plans for the Lynx. I'd be happy to share any of them with you. If you care to visit, send me a private message and we'll make arrangements. Bill

Very nice work. White lettering is always a problem, speaking as a (mostly) reformed model railroader. From the launch photo at the top of your build log, the depth markings are about 12" high and the name lettering about twice that, or about 1/8" and 1/4" characters on the model. In my experience the alternatives are dry transfers and waterslide decals. "Woodland Scenics Dry Transfer Decals Gothic Numbers White" and "Woodland Scenics Dry Transfer Decals Gothic Letters White" include the characters you need, although you may find the weight of the lines, particularly in the letters, a little heavy compared to the photograph. The problem with dry transfers is alignment when applying them, as they have to be burnished on one by one. But it can be done, sometimes with some scraping off of what was just put on. Dry transfers are available from Amazon, other on line sources and local hobby shops (if you have one). If you haven't used dry transfers before, you'll also need a burnisher. Microscale is the largest manufacturer of waterslide decals for model railroading and puts out a sheet of white Gothic letters and numbers in a variety of sizes on their sheet 95001. They now sell direct on their on line site and from other distributors and retailers. But the alignment and character weight issues are about the same. That leaves custom waterslide decals. ALPS printers are getting harder and harder to find, but you can have the use of one without buying it. Many of the remaining ones are now in use by custom decal shops. Googling "custom decals model railroad" brings up a long list. Pulling a couple from it, Kadee is a major manufacturer in the industry and offers custom decals for about $40 per 8 1/2" x 11" sheet, but seems to have fairly strict requirements for the art files they'll use. Shawmut Car Shops has been around quite a while as a one man shop, is about half the price and seems to be more open on the type of files they'll accept as artwork. Both use ALPS printers. Or try others on the list. I have no connection with any of the sources mentioned. On a custom sheet you could lay out the depth markings on the appropriate angle for the bow, port and starboard, probably a vertical column for the stern, port and starboard, the name for the bow, both sides, and stern and any other markings you might want (Plimsoll marks? boat numbers?) - you can get a lot on an 8 1/2" x 11" sheet - for this and future projects. Bill

Hola, Isidro - Estamos encantados de darle la bienvenida a Model Ship World. Google Translator es suficiente para la mayoria de los mensajes. Hay hablantes nativos de espanol en el foro que pueden ayudar quando sea necessario. (Yo no soy uno de ellos.) Bill

Another consideration you may want to factor in is where the completed model will be displayed. Most homeowners, at least here in the States, tend to prefer warm white to white in their living spaces. Institutions and other public spaces, probably more to the white/blue end. There will be some difference in perceived paint color if mixed/applied under one end of the spectrum and displayed at the other - if you finish your models with paint. Our model railroading cousins frequently come up against this issue when trying to match prototype paint colors. My own preference for brightness level is "the more the better", particularly as I grow older. Full sunlight is on the order of 125,000 lumens per square meter, which I find pretty harsh for prolonged work, but I've never been able to approach that level on my inside work surface even with swing-arm work lights. Bill

Actually, you do. Not much of the "American Neptune" is on line, but the Phillips Library at the Peabody Essex Museum has posted Volumes 1 through 7, here. (Use the "Click here to browse all items in the American Neptune collection." link to get to 1943.) The "American Naval Guns" article is in Volume 3, Number 1, January 1943, pp. 8-18 and Volume 3, Number 2, April, 1943, pp. 148-158. The first article deals primarily with problems of procurement, but includes photographs of a carriage gun and swivel gun recovered from British vessels sunk at Yorktown. The second article lists the proportions of guns and carriages under British (and French) practice and is possibly of more interest to you as it includes diameters and windage allowances. Bill

Ed - I've been following along in silent admiration for quite a while. In reference to your post on Saturday, March 10, Builders In Scale (www.builders-in-scale.com) offers blackened chain in 40 links per inch, which I suspect is as close as you'll get commercially. The 5% difference in size from 42 links per inch would be hard to perceive at 1:72. Bill