Landlubber Mike

Very cool! Nice of you to donate it too. Is the model going to come in a little over 5 feet in length?

For some woods, and depending on the size you need to bend, it doesn't seem like you need boiling water. Most of the time I just run hot water from the tap. Usually, by the time I get the piece situated, the water is room temperature. I boiled water for my first build's planks, but haven't noticed a difference just going with warm water on my current builds. If you were bending tricky woods like ebony, you probably do need heat. One thing to remember is that the wood may expand a little when soaked. So, if you glue it right away when wet, by the time it dries, it might shrink leading to gaps. I've been a little more conservative these days in soaking, pinning and letting the piece dry overnight before gluing just to be on the safe side.

I just did this last night in using a long shallow cooking tray to bend some extra long pear - I'll keep your secret if you keep mine

Wow, that's beautiful Jason. Very clean look, and love the color of the coppering! I was re-reading your issue on the stern lights. I would think about doing them from scratch, as I think you are going to be annoyed going with the kit parts. The stern is really where a lot of the character of these ships comes out (at least in my opinion), and I think many a model suffers when things are slightly off there. Plus, your model is coming along so nicely, no sense in settling at this point. If you don't have a table saw, maybe try either by hand or getting a friend to help? I could always try cutting/milling some pieces if you want. I was planning on scratching the quarter galleries and stern on my Pegasus, including the lights in holly, so depending on how that goes, I could similarly cut some pieces for you if you want to go that route.

Great decisions Chris. If I had the space you had, I would do something similar. The workstation desk in particular is going to be nice with its depth. I think you'll like the Fein and JET system. The Fein is a bit of a pain when it comes to attaching to the Byrnes dust ports, but I think there is a thread here where I came up with a solution (essentially involved pairing two adaptors, which I include on each of my tools so that I just have to move the vac hose from tool to tool). A bit of an added expense, but pretty easy. Think about getting the dust deputy cyclone system. It works very well. Another pain to attach to the Fein, but use some gaffer tape and you'll be fine.

Looking good Jase. I was going to suggest sanding down the stern area of the keel down to 1mm as well, given that you need to run two layers of 1mm planking to the stern post. Sounds like you already got it figured out

Beautiful Russ! Very nice job!

Hey Rob, I'd also say you should go for it! I think the most important thing is that you find a subject your heart is into, given that these are very long term projects. I saw the Morgan in person a few years ago, and knew it was a ship I had to build. I just started the Morgan, and it certainly is a little more complicated than many of the model kits that are out there. But, the good news is that there are a lot more Morgan build logs going here than there used to be - so, you have a treasure trove of resources. Just take your time on it, study the plans, ask questions. For me, building these ships is more about the journey, and not the destination anyway.

Hey Don, I've been away from MSW for a while, but logged on this morning to catch up with your build and had a nice treat in seeing your build and ship's wheel. I plan to order three from you in the future if you don't mind for my current builds Really nice work!

Hey Chris, looks like you have a nice room for the new workshop. Mine is in the furnace room in my basement, so I first hung some inexpensive fluorescents over my benches. The nice thing about the furnace room is that it is not finished, so I could very easily run power lines and hang the lights and air filtration system (discussed below) from the ceiling joists. I have the Jim power tool set, and for dust collection, I use a Fein II shop vac and an overhead air filter system from Jet that I bought from Woodcraft on sale. Kurt has a good point about air circulation though - the Jet is supposed to circulate the air in the room a few times over, but having extra circulation is probably a good idea. For the shop vac, I recently added a Dust Deputy cyclone system. It's amazing how much dust gets dropped into it (i'd say 99%) which saves on shop vac bags and reduces the strain on the shop vac which should hopefully make it last longer. Having a window for natural light is really nice, and something I wish I had. One thing to consider though is that if you use woods that change color dramatically with UV (bloodwood, redheart, purpleheart, etc.), you have to be a little careful.

Daniel, I meant to comment on your sloop, very nice! Really well done. Do you mind me asking how you did the mast (hinge method or otherwise), and which point you fixed the stays (bowsprit? stern? Mast?) since you used an upright bottle? I'm still working on my Great Lakes schooner, which will also be in an upright bottle. Haven't figured out yet how to do the mast and rigging, which will be a little tricky since it is really long and tall (which makes me think to not use a hinge for the masts) and has shrouds/ratlines (which I will probably tie off after inserting into the bottle). Any tips would be greatly appreciated. Feel free to respond by PM if you don't want me cluttering up your log with a discussion of a different build. Thanks so much!

Really nice work Mark. The personal touches really make for a nice build.

Good luck with the move EJ!

Beautiful work Doug. Agree with BE, the colors you are using are working very nicely together.

Beautiful work J.P. Lot of character and artistry in your model. You're setting the bar very high for us other LAR builders

His books are excellent. I would highly recommend his more recent book, where he displays some more refined techniques, and where the pictures are in very high quality color: https://www.amazon.com/Building-Miniature-Navy-Board-Model/dp/1848321864/ref=la_B001JP2ALM_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1479145996&sr=1-3 I have to say, I always thought that I would jump to 1:48 scale or bigger on my future scratch builds. After reading his books and seeing his work, I'm rethinking that. It's astounding the level of detail that he is able to create at the 1:200 scale or thereabouts, at less cost for materials, and less space in the workshop and home.

Beautiful work Martin, very nice detail!

Ebony is very flexible at 0.5-0.7mm thickness.

Hey guys, sorry, been busy and haven't been on MSW much recently. Sorry to have missed your posts. USS Frolick, thanks for the warning. I started using ebony on my Charles Morgan, and have been very careful to the point of using dust masks, vacuuming constantly, dust collector running, etc. Frankly, I should be as careful milling any kind of wood, but you certainly should be careful working with exotics. Getting ebony milled to exact specifications is really going to help minimize the sawdust too as I won't have to use my thickness sander much. It's a really beautiful wood though, and just having the stem done in ebony so far encourages me that using it will make for a very unique build. http://modelshipworld.com/index.php/topic/12593-charles-w-morgan-by-landlubber-mike-model-shipways-new-bedford-whaling-bark-scale-164/?p=444511 SpyGlass, I'm using General Finishes products on my Pegasus. Here you can see the tests I ran using GF black stain and GF ebony dye stain: http://modelshipworld.com/index.php/topic/7267-hms-pegasus-by-landlubber-mike-amativictory-models-scale-164/?p=227035 For my Pegasus, I went with GF black stain on the wales. It went on very smooth and evenly, and although it's a bit tough to tell from the pictures, unlike using paints, it went on thin and kept the definition between the planks. The GF ebony dye stain is a bit different in that it seems to go on thinner. I was worried about using different woods and having different "blacks" on the model, so went with the GF black stain which seemed to produce a more uniform color. http://modelshipworld.com/index.php/topic/7267-hms-pegasus-by-landlubber-mike-amativictory-models-scale-164/?p=378715 As a word of caution, you hear that people have used Fieblings shoe leather dye on pear. The effects look great initially, but I've heard from multiple sources that it starts wearing off over time. I've had no such issues with the GF stains.

Another masterpiece. Well done Igor! Thanks for sharing!

I think the Byrnes saw fence has a clearance gap of approximately just under 0.7mm. It was a pain to cut 0.5mm planks for my Pegasus because the wood would slide right under the fence. Using the Grr-Ripper helped, but I think Don's approach, or alternatively, gluing a strip along the bottom of the fence like Dan Vadas did would be better approaches.

Wow, amazing work Igor! You certainly are a master and an inspiration to other ship-in-bottle builders. Thank you for sharing your techniques! Can I ask about the wave caps? When you first put the acrylic gel on the sea, it looked very white but in the final image, it looks like the wave cap color mellowed very nicely. Did you have to do anything to achieve that? Or did the acrylic gel become clear on its own?

Looking beautiful EJ. I'd be so nervous having that spiritsail topmast up - I can't tell you how many times my elbows, etc. knocked the bowsprit of my Badger and messed up all the bow rigging.

Hey Bill, I've been using redheart on my Pegasus build, and really have enjoyed working with it. It can be a bit crumbly at times, but unless you're doing detailed carving, it hasn't been an issue for me at least when it comes to using it for planking or creating deck structures like the bitts: http://modelshipworld.com/index.php/topic/7267-hms-pegasus-by-landlubber-mike-amativictory-models-scale-164/?p=441236 I haven't worked with bloodwood, but I heard that it can be splintery, and the UV aging effects are much more dramatic. Redheart will age to an orangy-brown color, while bloodwood will turn a very dark brown almost bordering on black.

Nice Bill. Dave (Doc Blake) has been using yellowheart on some of this builds to real nice effect. I'm considering using it on my Charles Morgan build to represent the ochre areas.