Landlubber Mike

Very nice Dave! Beautiful work, I love your use of different woods. A big inspiration as I try to take a similar approach on my builds. Looking forward to following your next projects.

I finished the bulwark planking, though I left the very tops open for the thin strips of above the forecastle and quarterdeck. I think the redheart is a really nice touch. It won't stay this red, but over time will fade to a more orange-brown color which I think will be a nice effect against some of the other colors in the build. It's a nice wood to work with, though it can be a little crumbly and has a little of a burning rubber odor when working on it with tools (it doesn't bother me at all, but given that some people mention it, it must bother them). To tie everything together, in addition to the bulwark planking and red strip on the upper hull, I will likely use redheart for the bitts and possibly capstan. I'm also planning on integrating it into the stern as well as the quarterbadges as a bit of a decorative touch. I didn't bother with different thickness woods for the spirketting and waterway or with any focus on the widths of the planks for the non-waist areas, as those areas will be covered by the forecastle and quarterdeck. In case you could see a little of the bulwarks, through the gunport or otherwise, I figured I might as well use the redheart for consistency instead of stains or paints. Not sure what I want to tackle next. I'm mostly a lap modeler, so I'm thinking of doing the upper hull rails and certain other elements now, including possibly the stern and quarterbadges, and at some point I'll also need to treenail the deck. I want to delay adding the cannons as long as possible given my propensity for popping them off my Badger, but I'm also hoping to delay the coppering as long as I can as well. My guess is that I'll do most of the outer hull details, copper the hull, then switch back to the main deck to add the deck items and guns.

Turning out to be a real beauty Nick. Very nice job!

Looks great Joe, I'm in for the ride. Did you make a decision on your Morgan yet?

Beautiful work!

Hey Ron, your Morgan is coming out really nicely! Hope you don't mind that I've been following your log. It's given me a lot of inspiration as I think about how I will go about doing things on my Morgan. It's definitely a different type of build, isn't it? Dealing with the plank sheer and the various frames and supports and rails, it's a little more complicated than the typical kit that is out there. Everything is fine on my end, I've just been a little busy, and have been getting in some work on my Pegasus when I can find some time. Part of the delay on the Morgan was that I have been trying to figure out how to approach the color scheme. I was originally going to go with pear stained black for the black areas, boxwood for the ochre, and was hoping to do holly for the white areas. Then I thought about trying African blackwood for the black areas, and took the suggestion from Dave (DocBlake) to look at yellowheart. Well, I was thankfully able to source enough holly from Jeff's Hobbymill close-out, and to boot he had extra yellowheart left over so he milled me what I think I needed. The African blackwood was tough to source though, and after 2 months of emailing and calling various suppliers, I got very disappointed. Then MWB suggested a supplier of wood for inlays who works with ebony and was able to cut for me sheets and strips in the sizes I needed. Hooray! So after a lot of time, I've settled on ebony for the black areas, yellowheart for the ochre, and holly for the white areas. The deck will likely be maple stained with General Finishes Antique Oak to give it that grayish look, and the waterway will likely be pear stained a dark brown. If I can pull it off, it should be a pretty unique build. We'll see if I can pull it off though. I prefer the look of natural woods, or stained woods in lieu of using paints. I was fortunate enough to find a ship in the Morgan with three main colors that I can replicate directly with wood. There's a lot of planning that I'll need to go through, which I've started. For example, the plank sheer may end up being comprised of all three woods - yellowheart for the interior of the ship, ebony for the exterior, and a strip for holly on top of the ebony for the white stripe. A bit complicated, but should be fun. Now that I have the wood, I can get back to work. Thank for looking in! Good luck with your Morgan!

Really nice work Don, congratulations on a wonderful build! Those MariStella kits really work themselves into nice models. But your skills in bringing it to life, along with your added touches, really make for a nice model. Nice property too - must be really relaxing sitting on the mower in that beautiful part of the world. Do you get a lot of snow and cold and long winters? Perfect modeling weather

Hey Chris, There is a good discussion on BE's build log on the cannons, as well as Martin's and Alistair's Fly logs. The guns are too large and out of scale. I went with the same barrels that BE used for his Pegasus that he describes here (I bought mine from Cornwallmodelboats): http://modelshipworld.com/index.php/topic/332-hms-pegasus-by-blue-ensign-victory-models-enhancing-the-kit-a-build-log-of-sorts/?p=4136 http://modelshipworld.com/index.php/topic/332-hms-pegasus-by-blue-ensign-victory-models-enhancing-the-kit-a-build-log-of-sorts/?p=354782

Awesome, I'm in for the ride if you'll have me!

TFFM 4 is a great resource - I used it extensively for the rigging and sails on my Badger. The authors did lots of research using Steel and other resources which makes it very handy. It was recently expanded to include a chapter on how to make sails. For those that bought earlier editions, Seawatch Books offers a pamphlet covering that chapter.

I went through the same process when thinking about which to buy. Regarding the ships themselves, they are very similar, both have gorgeous, detailed plans from the NMM that are available for purchase, and since they are essentially the same ship, you can use the TFFM books to tweak your build. In terms of the kits themselves, I liked the fact that the Pegasus had all the upgrades in one box. The Fly upgrade kit was a bit hard to find when I was looking. I think the Fly base kit uses cast metal carriages, which was a turn-off to me, but I'd note that you might want to consider replacing the Pegasus guns anyway given that they are out of scale. As for the ply pieces, SpyGlass is right that they are pretty crumbly and not very good quality in the Pegasus kit (I haven't seen the Fly kit to compare). That didn't bother me as much as I'm replacing much of the visible wood anyway. In the end, I went with the Pegasus as I liked the figurehead and stern and quarter gallery decorations a little better. It's been a really fun project, not just to build, but also to build alongside my Swan class brothers and sisters As for the practicum, I have it and would strongly recommend staying away from it. I wish I had thought to ask for my money back. I bought it while working on my first kit, the Badger, and it did help me in certain places to see how various items fit together. Otherwise, it is terribly written, the work done is rushed and sloppy (half the pages have some acknowledgement of a mistake that was made, like reversing the PE decorations, etc.), and many of the pages show a different model than the Pegasus! Plus, no rigging or other instructions which would have been very helpful.

You sorta have to guess a bit where the wales end up at the stem - look at the head-on picture in the plans which might help. Using the temporary batten to mark the run of the wales works nicely. I wouldn't use it as a template to run the actual planking against. It didn't really work out all that well for me. Instead, I would think about running tape, etc., then marking the line of the wale. One thing I did was rather than do the full second planking and add a 1mm strip for the wale was to use a 2mm strip for the wale directly on top of the first planking. It made for a cleaner look I think rather than seeing partial planks above and below it. If you don't have 2mm strips, you could always laminate two 1mm strips together.

From the TFFM series, the wale sorta flattens out at the stem and doesn't continue the upward sweep. On my Pegasus, I found that this naturally happened given the curves at the stem so I didn't need any special bending or shaping. If I remember correctly, this started happening halfway between the first gunport and the stem. It's very slight though. Here is why my log starts with the wale in case you're interested: http://modelshipworld.com/index.php/topic/7267-hms-pegasus-by-landlubber-mike-amativictory-models-scale-164/?p=329358

Really nice work Frank. I like both colors, but would lean towards the fruit wood too. With the green, the ship might start looking too busy and have a kaleidoscope look.

Looks great Mark. Nice that the planks are a constant width, makes things easier

I would highly recommend people giving Matt at Inlay Banding a look if you are looking for ebony, holly, or other woods: http://inlaybanding.com Matt was really great to work with, and did a custom order for me to exact specifications. He was even able to get ebony sheets down to as little as 0.7mm. Matt most does work for inlays and veneers, but I think he would make a great resource for ebony and other exotics (along with ebony, he does holly, maple, boxwood, satinwood, maple and others). Now that Jeff is retired, I would highly recommend Matt is you are looking for ebony or other woods.

After months of searching for a supplier of African Blackwood, I gave up and went with ebony. Thanks to MWB's recommendation, I was able to source ebony sheets and strips to ship model specifications from Matt at Inlay Banding: http://inlaybanding.com Matt was really great to work with, and did a custom order for me to exact specifications. He was even able to get ebony sheets down to as little as 0.7mm. Matt most does work for inlays and veneers, but I think he would make a great resource for ebony and other exotics (along with ebony, he does holly, maple, boxwood, satinwood, maple and others). Now that Jeff is retired, I would highly recommend Matt is you are looking for ebony or other woods.

That's looking really sharp Dave. Very nice job!

Looks good. Just sand down the high spots, and layer on the filler in the low spots, and you'll have a solid foundation for the second planking.

Take a look at my Pegasus if you'd like to see what a maple deck looks like. I like maple a lot - it's a very hard wood, works and finishes very nicely. Some people prefer holly for decks because it is whiter and without grain, while maple (at least the maple I have - which I think is hard maple) has amber waves through it.

Really nice work Dave. Your work with the different woods is brilliant. Not too shabby on the metal working too - very nice job!

Very nice Igor! Are those blocks wood? Just our of curiosity, how will you step the masts into the hull? It doesn't look like you are using a hinge - are you using a string from the bottom of the mast through the bottom of the hull? I'm wondering because I'm doing a similar ship in an upright bottle, but still trying to figure out how to step the masts as I would prefer to avoid using a hinge.

Sorry, I should have said that if you see yourself doing multiple models in your lifetime, then the Byrnes saw is a good option. Most of the planking I've worked with is 1mm in thickness, so I can't see spending $130 for a machine that can't rip planks of that thickness. That being said, if you're going to be one model and done with the hobby, then that's a lot to pay for cutting some planking. I don't think you need to only use if for scratch building either. I've used mine extensively, and I'm bashing kits at the moment.

All great suggestions here. If you are looking for one book to buy to get you started, I would second Frank Mastini's book. It's very basic but gives a really good overview of model ship building. From there, zu Mondfeld and the Lennarth Petersson book (for rigging) can take you through your first build. If you have the money (and the time to read them), buy the other books that were mentioned. Each has good nuggets of info. I would highly recommend looking on Amazon for used books, as well as Abebooks.com and eBay. A lot of these books can be bought for very little money. Some of the more rare and highly sought after books can go in the hundreds, but the vast majority of the books mentioned here are not in that category (the Frolich book is one that is pretty pricey).

Buy the Byrnes table saw. I mill stock as thin as 1.0mm without any issues all the time. Anything thinner than 0.7mm will go under the fence, so for sheets that thin, you can simply add a piece of wood to the fence to make it zero clearance.