Capt.Rick

have you seen this color image of Antoine Roux's watercolor? I'd like to find a larger image of this, but so far I have had no luck.  
 

have you seen this color image of Antoine Roux's watercolor? I'd like to find a larger image of this, but so far I have had no luck.  
 

Strange model by Captain Ashley. The gun-port spacing looks too close together, and the space between the aft-most port and the tafferail looks too long. The profile of the hull reminds me of the Model Shipways Kit of the Brigantine Newsboy of 1854.
 
Great post Charlie.

I just didn't want to see you use that as a reference.

I emailed the guy to see what sort of plans/diagrams he used for the illustration.  With any luck he'll be open to sending me more on how he put the illustration together. He's done others including the Niagara, Constitution and Constellation though those did not seem to have the same -er weirdness's. Feel free to extrapolate druxey since pointing out obvious errors will only help in the search for accuracy. 

How so you think? You mean the extra yard arms at the bottom that shouldn't be there? The capstan doesn't look period correct either.

The depiction of the square sails in that lithograph are incorrect.

Last we have the Venice plans by Andrea Salvini which look a bit odd but may very well have accuracy in some of the hull lines. This topic has been discussed before in the forum but would love to get a copy of those as well.

Next we have the model built by Captain Percy Ashley at the Addison Gallery which looks to me like a very close approximation to the lithograph photo shown above if you take into account the placement of the gun ports etc.  Something I'd love to visit I wonder how it was built and if plans survive from the process.  

That's a great resource Don thanks! I think you did a fine job with the Constructo kit, adding some nice customizations and a more accurate color scheme. 

When I was building my model of the Enterprise which was the kit by Constructo (#80822) I came across a couple publications in my research. The first was an article that appeared in the winter 1999 issue of the Journal Of The War Of 1812 by Michael Bosworth. I don't think this paper is in print anymore so if you would like a copy let me know.
 
The second, was an article I found on a website I believe was called The Ancient Mariner, again I don't think this paper is available anymore either.
 
And thirdly, is a book you can download from Google called "The Lucky Little Enterprise" and Her Successors In the United States Navy 1776-1900 by Fredrick Stanhope Hill.  This book is also available through the Internet Archeive https://archive.org/details/luckylittleenter00hilliala.
 
  I have some photos of my build here
 
 
and here
 
http://howefamily.com/zellars_progress_photos/zellars.asp
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Thanks for the sage advice David. I don't believe that's the issue in this particular case, but it's certainly a point well taken. 
 
I'm curious if anyone has ever tried to use the pre-printed planks to aid in the building of wooden models? As far as I can tell, most of these kits don't include individual planks, but the Shipyard Alert kit does, and so does their Le Coureur kit. For the wood ship modeler, these kits seem to be excellent at illustrating the proper shape of hull planking as well as the joggling of deck planks into the margin strakes.
 
Anyway, I'm discovering that card models are not easy, but they are fun. Here are some pics of the model just before I added the keel and glued the bulwarks into place.
 

 

 

 
 
I'm learning that paint really does cover a multitude of sins and works very well on this model!
 
Clare

Well, I broke down and ordered this paper model kit from Shipyard last month. I've been helping Ages of Sail with various things for the past several months and ran across their stock of Shipyard paper model kits and was intrigued by them. I have a very vague memory of paper models as a kid. I think my older sister or an older person I knew must have had a paper model kit or something, because there seems to be something oddly familiar about them.
 
In any case, I ordered the kit from Poland, and it only took about 10 days to arrive. I immediately had to open it up to check it out.
 
HMS Alert is a 12-gun cutter and there's a great volume of the Anatomy of the Ship series on it.
 

 
The model itself is the smaller of the two versions made by Shipyard. The larger one is part of what they call their Laser Cardboard Kit series. That's simply their term for a complete boxed kit that includes laser cut frames, but also all the paints, dowels, paint brush, wood blocks and deadeyes, and turned brass cannons, etc. Some of the kits in the series are also available as part of their Paper Model kit series, but the Laser Cardboard Kit versions are often a larger scale.
 
My kit is just one of their standard Paper Model kits. It's 1:96-scale, whereas the Laser Cardboard Kit version is 1:72 scale, which would have been nice, but a lot more expensive both for the kit and for shipping. Mine cost me about $37 including shipping. You'll pay more for it from U.S. stores since distributors can't sell enough of them to get better pricing, but at least you don't have to convert currency or deal with overseas customer service. Not that any of this has been an issue with my first order.
 
 

 

 

 

 
 
My only experience with Shipyard kits was the HMB Endeavour kit, which is packaged like my Alert kit, but the Endeavour had no laser cut frames. So, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the Alert had a full set of frames, all pre-cut. Of course, I had to try out the kit right away and next thing I knew, I had the hull framing done and I was off to add the hull sheets!
 
 

 

 

 

 

 
 
This is something of a side project for me, and I'll probably work on it the way I worked on the 18th Century English Longboat kit, which was just something I pull out when I need a break from wood ship modeling. So, I didn't plan on doing a build log on it. At least not for now. But, at the moment, I seem to need a lot of breaks, so I'd spend an hour on the Alert pretty regularly.
 
I've been experimenting with glues a little and settled on the contact cement I have for most of the work. It's Pliobond and the stuff reeks, but I've gotten used to it, and it seems to work very well.
 
I'm surprised at how well everything has gone together so far. Of course, I haven't dealt with any of the fine details. Not sure how I'm going to do with all those things. And, I'm a little cautious about rolling my own cannons. But, I'd like to keep from turning it into another wood ship model kit where I just use all the same fittings, buy after market cannons and all. So, we'll see. I'm also a little nervous about how well I can rig a paper model, since I can't use the same "touch" as with a wooden model where my rigging can be fairly tight.
 
So, far, I've managed not to accidentally crush parts, which are amazingly delicate until supporting pieces are glued in place.
 
If I get ambitious, I'll start an actual build log, but I've got enough build logs in progress to keep track of for now.
 
Just wanted to share about the new kit.
 
Clare
 
 
 
 
 

Hi Mitchell,
 
I'm looking forward to your starting up on your Enterprise again. One question – I've seen the Shipyard kit and it doesn't come with pre-cut frames. You're model looks like it has laser cut frames. Did your kit come from GPM by any chance? I see they sell a separate frames and detail parts set for the Shipyard Enterprize kit, as well as ones for some other kits. Just curious if that's what you got?
 
Clare

Next we have the two classic illustrations which offer a very good idea of what she looked like overall. One appears to be before the rebuild and the other after when she was rigged as a brig.

Greetings everyone! Been a bit quiet of late due to the fabulous summer but wanted to start a new post where those interested could gather information on the famous schooner/brig Enterprise.  While no plans of her exist, so much secondary information does that I cant help but feel an accurate model could easily be made of her.  Please feel free to add any docs/info to this thread though I'm trying to avoid the Constructo model which I've come to feel isn't a very accurate depiction of the ship.This is what I've come up with... enjoy
 
 
First below we have the half-hull model that exists in the Naval historical center which I'd love to get measurements of. This would be before her rebuilding and lengthening from 84.5' to 92'. I included some of the article from the Canney Sailing Warships book since it's a pretty interesting read.