ChadB

Very nice start so far! Although I don't think it will fix the problem entirely, when you are aligning your pieces move the first futtocks so the red line from the centerline joint is right over the centerline on your frame drawing. Looking at the photo on the right above you should nudge that futtock down a bit. Lined up right there it looks like you'll have a bit of extra space where you sit on the keel if you sand back to the lip, and the keelson side will be a bit wide also. Reposition that and give it a go. I suspect that might be the problem with the third futtock and the difference just keeps multiplying. Or I'm just looney and your photos are playing with me eyes 😜. Chad EDIT: Much better with a visual... put the blue lines on the red lines and i think that will fix your issue!

Congrats mate! Your rigging looks great- I'll need to tuck away your tips for that inevitable day when I rig something again! Chad

Hey Afonso, A quick look at the Occre vs Dusek and the first thing is the scale is different. Occre is 1/90 while the Dusek is 1/72, so the Dusek kit will be bigger and hence a bit more expensive. Also from the videos it looks to me like the Dusek kit has higher quality wood, laser cut parts, and smaller bits like cannons and blocks. I've actually never looked into Dusek kits until now but they look pretty nice. What would an expert say? "Expert" can be a slippery term just like "historically accurate." An expert in galleons would probably say "yup, that's pretty much what a galleon looks like" and an expert in model ship building would say "yup, that's the Occre kit alright." Here's my advice on that subject and one many around here would probably say the same. Build for yourself because most people won't give a rip about your finished model. Here's what will happen when you finish it and have it proudly displayed... your friends and family will come over, see it, look at it for a few minutes, then say "Wow- I'd never have the patience to do that!" and then move on to something else.😀If you happen to know a galleon expert, then I'll let someone else chime in on how that may go.😉 What I'm trying to get to is use the build to become your own expert! It sounds like you've already read and studied quite a bit about the time and already know a bit about the ships- use that info to change your kit (people call it kitbashing) along the way to make it more accurate! I 100% guarantee that this will make the experience way more enjoyable and fulfilling. Pick up a kit (or continue on your Occre kit), a book or two that have some basic info on ship building (my first books were Wolfram Zu Mondfeld's 'Historic Model Ships' and Milton Roth's 'Ship Modeling from Stem to Stern') and change a couple little things along the way to make it more historically accurate. This is going to make you love your model more AND poking through books like the ones I mentioned will probably open you up to other ships from different nationalities and times that you may want to explore a bit more. Your friends and family still won't care that your guns are rigged or your deck is planked according to 16th century shipbuilding conventions but you'll know and be all the happier for it! There's a ton of small companies out there that sell more accurate gun barrels, rigging line, and better wood strips for not much money. Model shipbuilding is similar to EU4- sure, it's a fun game vanilla and you could play it that way your entire life, but adding mods and learning a bit along the way will make it that much more enjoyable! Chad Chad

Ok, I'll wade in since you explicitly asked for the harsh truth! 😉 In your first post you said these two things... The first problem I see is that the Golden Hind essentially IS a beginner's kit. Screwing up on a beginner's kit is what happens when you start out. Like anything else you build skills through your first couple kits and get better and better over time. I cringe looking at my first kit builds and hope to do the same in ten years looking at my current scratch builds. It's the way any hobby works and model shipbuilding is no different. You can read every book there is about planking a hull but you just have to do it to get good at it. The good news is you can totally create a kickass galleon while skipping beginner kits, but there's going to be tons of screwups along the way that will be probably just as bad as the ones you faced in your Golden Hind. Are you prepared to put in the time and money rebuilding stuff and rebuying wood? You have to have the desire and patience to make it through those rough times. The next troubling point is this... 16th and 17th century aren't my area of expertise, but I'm pretty sure most shipbuilding at that time was done through a shipbuilder's experience and not necessarily plans. Most kits of ships from this time period are based off simple length and breadth dimensions that were written down somewhere and the rest filled in using information gathered over time on carracks and galleons. I think you would need to specify a bit more what your baseline for "historically accurate" is... that term means WAAAY different things to different people in model ship building. There are VERY few models that don't contain a certain percentage of conjecture, and the farther you go back timewise the higher that percentage becomes. If you find that the selection of kits available do not meet that baseline, then you are venturing into scratchbuilding and you would want to start with Jaager's post (and learn what those words mean) and start digging into those sources. So that's MY harsh truth for you. I won't tell you you can't do it because I'd love more than anything for you to prove to me and everyone here you can, but I will truthfully say that you have set many self-imposed obstacles for yourself that are going to make your chances of successfully building your model very small. It's a wonderful hobby but it takes an incredible amount of patience and time to get to the bar you are setting for yourself, but the good news is this is the place to help you reach that bar! My advice would be to keep your money in your pocket right now and explore some build logs here- find ones for kits you are interested in, read through them to see what the pitfalls are, and what people did differently to make them better. That is going to help you make a much better decision than any advice you will get in this post (including mine!😉). Good luck and I truly hope to see a build log in your future! Chad

Well done! Everything looks great!

Just catching up... everything looks to be coming along nicely! I think you did a great job on your treenails, and the gun deck and gun carriages look good! You can totally make your own gun barrels if you'd like if you have a lathe! I made my own, but just like everything else it took some practice and I ended up with six or seven before I had four I liked. There's definitely no shame in buying some, though- Chuck's barrels (and every other product of his) are about as high quality you can get if you are looking for a vendor. Keep up the great work!! Chad

I admire you fast builders! 😉 My two cents on treenails... if done right they really add to a model. If done wrong it looks like a tiny, drunk shipwright got loose and had a good time. If you consider this model practice (which personally I think the Triton cross section should be about learning and trying new things) then I would say go for it since if you are having a good time and move on to a full ship you'll most likely end up doing it anyway and you'll have the experience. Two keys (in my personal opinion) if you do it.... whether you use bamboo or hardwood, stay in or close to scale. If you go too big you may regret it as it will make things look a bit clownish. Second, make sure they are in straight lines (tiny, drunk shipwrights!). Draw out the straight lines across the planking in pencil with a straightedge or draw straight lines on tape, put down the tape, and drill through it along the lines. Yeah, it adds some time to the process but it just makes for better results. The other option is to take a bit of scrap planking and mock up a small piece of deck and try out treenailing and see what you think before jumping in with both feet. I am constantly amazed by some of the French modelers around here and over on the French forums who mock up entire gunports just to try everything out. Whatever you decide- it's going great so far! Hope you've had some rainless days to start bringing in the money! Chad

Beautiful work so far! I really like your way of displaying cutaways in the planking! Chad

Your hatch looks grate! (BA-DA-CHING!). Looking at the oiled coamings vs the deck you are working on I think you made the right choice with the oil. I personally don't thing walnut looks very good when left natural and needs something to make it pop. Everything looks nice and clean- good work so far! Chad

Well, that makes sense then... definitely not laying bricks in the rain! The final knees look great- it's almost always worth the little bit of time to retry something if you are not happy with the final product. Now you get to do it all over again on the gun deck- fun times! Chad

Same time- yes, same builders- no. The Linnet was British and not built under such a time crunch so the practices were probably a bit difference. I'm still assuming that this type of step was a somewhat standard construction.... if you find information otherwise don't tell me or I'll be forced to rip them out and redo them!! Chad

Beautiful work Patrick! I am extremely jealous of your work space... did you have those windows to make the enclosure installed yourself? I feel like here in the US no landlord or HOA would allow that! Chad

I missed your comment the first time around! The first time I read it I saw "Just incredible what they did without paper towels, isn't it?" 😂 But, yes- it is!

Thanks Jon. I think the research is just as fun at times as the actual building, but there is times when you find yourself so deep in the rabbithole and no closer to an answer that you just need to make a decision!

Work has been progressing a little faster (compared to MY normal building speed!) now that the kids are back in school. I ended up adding a bunch more berth deck beams and completed the planking. I had a tough time finding the balance between how much to plank and how much to leave open for viewing of the keelson/frames/beams. I'm not 100% happy with the decision I came up with but the draft of the Eagle is so small that once the main deck beams, carlings, and planking is in the viewing is going to be pretty limited anyway. The middle open spot is for viewing the keelson and the opening near the aft mast step is where the well will be. The small hole aft is where the capstan will seat. I spent more time than I like to admit researching the mast steps. The steps were missing from the wreck and the bolt patterns were the only clues that were left as to what it looked like. The pattern didn't match up with that of a standard English mast step, so a bit of digging brought me to the wreck of the brig Linnet, another ship built on Lake Champlain. The Linnet's step was still partially in place and the patterns were identical, so it was what I went with. I am by no means an expert when it comes to ship construction so for me to say this would be a standard setup of the time is a stretch, but it at least lets me sleep at night! We do know that the step would be very simple based on build time so this fit the bill. Since most gluing is done below decks I've finished with danish oil and a coat of minwax floor paste to give it a bit of a glow. Chad

Knees are a pain in the butt... I swear i made twenty of them trying to get the angles right. Out of curiosity- what do you do that allows you to not work when it is raining? Over here in the Pacific Northwest I feel like I'd only get in a good 100 days of work a year if that was the case! Chad

Yeah, try some on a scrap and see what you think. I used tung oil on my cross section and am using Danish oil (very similar to teak oil) on my Eagle now. A good way to get a "preview" of what it would look like is to get some mineral spirits and and wipe some on the wood. I've found the color change is similar to what i get with oil, except the mineral spirits evaporate fully in an hour or so and goes back to the original color. If that is a path you go down, just make sure any major gluing you are doing is done (for instance, the ceiling planking in the hold is complete and there's nothing much left in there so you could put a finish on there- but you still need to put the knees in between decks and you wouldn't get as good adhesion). Just my two cents... Chad

You are a fast worker! Good work though- it's coming along nicely. Are you going to put a finish on the planking? I think the darker wood would really pop with some oil. -Chad

First frame looks good! As long as all your drawings are to the same scale I don't see it mattering all that much. Chad

Fantastic joinery! You are doing an amazing job!!

A little late to the party but absolutely beautiful work!!! Could i get some more details on your finish? What type of sealer and transparent paint? Thank you! Chad

Mark, most likely the Eagle did have a birth deck (or so that's what Dr.Crisman says in his thesis) but with the shallow draft I imagine it was fairly cramped and may have been mostly for officer's quarters. I know Bill did a good job in his log (link in first post) of laying out his take on what it may have looked like, but I plan on keeping it to the shot locker and Brodie Stove. On that point- the Eagle also had a stove which was most likely the one taken out of the Alert. Brian, the Eagle was indeed built in 19 days- Adam Brown had the keel scarphed together on July 23rd and she slid into the water Aug 11th. The Brown brothers were incredible builders- Noah built the Niagara, Lawrence, a couple gunboats and a schooner on Lake Erie during the first half of 1813, then went back to New York where him and his brother knocked out the Peacock in the second half of the year. After that Noah went to Lake Champlain and knocked out the Saratoga and six galleys (he only needed to build five but built an extra one for the hell of it) in by the end of April of 1814- LESS THAN TWO MONTHS. Then... THEN(!!)... while he was there him and Macdonough found a partially completed steamboat on the stocks, bought it, and turned it into the Ticonderoga by MAY 12TH!! Noah then headed back to NY where he probably planned to sleep for a week straight. Meanwhile, Macdonough found out the British had a bunch of frames shipped to the lake to add to their fleet, so he immediately starts bugging the Navy Secretary for another ship. The secretary turned him down but Madison overruled, so the Browns were to build ANOTHER ship on Lake Champlain. This time little brother Adam headed up (I'm assuming Noah just looked at him and said "your turn") to the lake and actually beat the letter informing Mcdonough that the Browns were to build him another ship. He had arrived July 18th, laid the keel on the 23rd, the Eagle (actually named the Surprise at that point) slid into the lake on August 11th, and the Battle of Plattsburgh Bay kicked off a month later on Sept 11th. The war of 1812 would probably have had a very different outcome if it wasn't for those two! Chad

Looks fantastic Johann! Your entire build is something to aspire to! Chad

Over the last few weeks I've worked on finishing the interior of the hull. It's been oiled with Danish oil and the clamp and keel riveted as per the Eagle book. Tonight I finished installing the berthing deck beams, which will still need some kind of fastener on the end. The entire berthing deck was missing from the wreck so it is entirely conjectural. I decided to make the beams closer in the area of where the stove will go, thinking there may be additional support in that area. Chad

Thanks! I've definitely been lurking but with kids I've found that I can either spend my precious little time reading forums or actually building, and it's very easy to fall down the rabbit hole of build logs and next thing you know two hours is gone. Yes, I do find it a bit humorous that I'm essentially building a fine art piece of a subject where the frames were found to still have bark on them. I guess that could go for the entire world of model ship building... nearly all models are a glamorization of the real thing. It's kind of a fun subject to think about! Chad