Landlubber Mike

Thanks very much guys. As John said, we might have all been happier if we hadn't seen the Chapman drawings I don't mind so much the historical inaccuracies, as this is a more basic kit and Corel has taken a few short cuts to make it easier for newer modelers. But two nights ago was really the breaking point for me when I tried to plan out the stern area and felt like something was wrong. The stem wasn't lining up on one of the plans, the stern wasn't on the other. So I overlaid the plans to see if there was a discrepancy, and that's when I realized the plans are all over the place with gun ports in different positions, etc. I knew that one of the plans was a bit shorter than the other, but I mistakenly assumed that at least the rest of the plans roughly conformed. Problem for me is that I've been using both plans to plot out the ship. So, I think I'm just going to have to use the plans to eyeball things, and build the ship more by feel. Despite all my recent whining, I think I'm finally getting close to figuring out the stern area. I am very likely to go with Chuck's framing approach, building out two (maybe more) stern extensions, with the outer pair shorter than the inner pair to create the curve in the transom. They will sit on bulkhead 16, which is already angled pretty close to Chapman's angle for the transom, and I will drop bulkhead 17 and probably cut off the bit of the keel that runs just aft of bulkhead 16 because it will run right into the middle set of windows. The extensions will serve not only to anchor the transom, but also to define the shape of the stern counter. The outer pair of the stern extensions will serve as the outer edge to run the hull planking to the stern at the quarterdeck area. Without bulkhead 17 and without gunport patterns as in other kits, I've been struggling to find a way to run the hull planking to the transom, which is considerably wider than the width of the ship at the edges of the hull planking. I think framing the stern as Chuck did with the Winchelsea could work very well. Of course, this is all more tricky than it sounds as the wale feeds right into the stern counter, so a lot of planning is going to be needed to get the shape of the extensions just right.

Thanks very much guys, I really appreciate it! Alistair, on the friezes, there are two paths I could take. One would be to use them, but to paint them so that they have a patina look using dry brushing techniques and/or washes. I think the former would be better given that there aren't many, if any, nooks and crannies in the friezes for the wash to settle into. The alternative would be to carve them. I'm not sure if I really want to go that route, as the PE pieces are gorgeous, and it seems like it would be a big waste of the kit. Plus, I'm scratching enough of the Unicorn that it will be nice to just build the kit with as many of the kit components as possible. On the Hunt practicum, it was helpful in a few very select areas with my Badger, but I doubt that I will be relying heavily on it for the Pegasus, if at all. Frankly, I was very disappointed in it. As you say, he does a lot of complaining in it and uses other models for pictures. On top of that, he makes a ton of errors during the course of the build and fesses up to them. Chuck's practicums are much, much better in my opinion.

I've decided to start the Pegasus alongside my Unicorn build. My Unicorn is fast becoming a completely bashed/scratch build which is fine, but I'm working off of plans that are inconsistent with each other and with the kit parts which has been very frustrating. Last night I overlaid the profile view of bulkhead plans onto the profile plans of the completed exterior, and things like the gun ports, stem, etc. are not lining up. So, to avoid being completely exasperated, I think having the second kit to turn to will keep me engaged in the hobby and give me a mental break from the frustrations of the Corel kit. I have no problems with the simplifications that lead to historical inaccuracies, but when the plan sheets don't line up with each other, and don't line up with the kit parts, I have a big issue with the kit. I still plan on working on the Unicorn, and am excited to do so. Right now I'm just having a little trouble figuring out the stern area, so possibly by going through the process with the Pegasus, the stern construction will make more sense to me.

My approach to the build: The Pegasus kit seems to be a very accurate kit. There are some questions about the size of the cannons that have been documented, but overall, it seems to me that one can build a very accurate kit out of the box. For my build, I not only have the full TFFM series, but I also recently ordered the lines and profile plan from the National Maritime Museum (available at the link below). I plan to use those resources to help me add additional details to my build. http://prints.rmg.co...MS_Pegasus_1776 I also have Bob Hunt's practicum for this kit. I bought it a few years ago when I bought this kit from a MSW member, in large part to help me get through my Badger build. I'm not sure how much I'll get out of the practicum at this stage, but it probably does have some decent nuggets that will be helpful. At this initial stage, I plan on doing the following: 1. Avoid the use of paint. Like with my Unicorn, I'm hoping to avoid paint to the extent possible. I probably won't completely "paint with wood" as the kit wood seems to be very good, but I will use some dyes and stains that I bought from General Finishes to add some color to the model (black, red, maybe blue). I need to see how well the kit wood takes the dyes and stains. After working with Jeff's wood however, I might replace some of the kit wood with respect to the outside hull planking, the deck, and the masts. For example, I probably will go with boxwood for the masts and some of the accents and trims. The only paint that I can see using at the moment is paint to provide a burnished look to the decorative items, and maybe the figurehead (though, I might carve my own to get it closer to the NMM plans). Overall, I don't want a brightly colored model. So, in addition to avoiding paints, I might try different washes, stains, dyes, finishes, etc. to come up with a darker, more muted older look to the model like some of the museum replicas and modern masterpieces. Not sure how to do that, so I have a feeling there will be a lot of experimentation. 2. Sails. I liked how the sails came out on my Badger, so I will add sails to this build. I probably will add a mix of furled and unfurled sails. 3. Replacement and scratch details. I'll have to go through the kit in more detail, but it looks like the cannons are a bit oversized so those will likely be replaced. The kit also comes with cast metal small boats - to avoid the use of paint, I might try scratch building them. There are also a lot of other interesting details that you can add to the kit that are outlined in the TFFM series that I might try. Finally, the stern decoration is a bit different on the NMM plans as Blue Ensign points out - not sure what I will do there, but I might end up modifying the stern decorations to more closely conform to the NMM plans. Should be fun! Hope I can keep up with the high bar set by the other Swan class builders

The kit is very high quality all around. It definitely is a big step-up in quality from my Caldercraft Badger. Here are some pictures for those of you that like eye candy: Wood - the keel and bulkheads are on a very solid piece of MDF, with no warp issues. I'm surprised more kit manufacturers don't use MDF, given all the issues people are having with warped keels and the like (such as what I had with my Unicorn). Building materials - nice kit pieces, but in particular, the copper plates are very, very nice. Some questions about the size of the cannons, and the anchors seem a bit too triangular, but otherwise very nice, high quality parts. The photo etch detail pieces are very well done. In some areas, PE pieces are laid on top of each other to create a more three-dimensional decoration. Plans - the plans are very detailed and nicely laid out.

The Pegasus will be my third build that I will work on alongside my current Lyme (based on Corel Unicorn) build The Pegasus is a 14-gun 6th rate sloop, the sixth built of the Swan class. Despite being a gorgeous ship (due to having been built before the Admiralty issued orders to minimize decorations (especially for lesser rates)), her history is not all that colorful. She was launched on December 27, 1776, and in October 1777, was lost in a storm off the coast of Newfoundland. The Pegasus was 301 tons burthen, 96 feet 7 inches (29.4m) in length, with a beam of 26 feet 10 inches (8.2m) and a depth of hold of 12 feet 10 inches (3.91m). She had a crew of 125, carrying 14 six-pounder guns and 16 swivel guns as armament. The kit is at scale 1:64, which works out to a length of 31.5 inches (800mm) and a height of 27 inches (600mm). Links of Interest Keel and Bulkheads: Preparation of Keel Modification of Bulkheads Bulkheads Installed Main Deck: Installing Main Deck (adding supports) Building Hatches Start of Deck Planking Deck Planking, Main Mast Partners, Capstan Step Bitts More Deck Planking, Stern Extensions Main Deck mostly completed Hull: Gunport Patterns Start of First Layer of Hull Planking Stern Counter Wales Second Planking (spiling) Lower Hull Planking Completed Black Stain on Wales and Hull Upper Hull/Waist Blocks Upper Hull completed/stained Main deck planking completed Bulwark Planking

It's disappointing that it's so hard to find flat plywood. I've discovered the my new plywood keel for my Unicorn has a very slight warp of maybe 1-2mm at the end that I need to address. I've been thinking about the bracing approach that you mentioned since it it very slight. Replacing the stem and stern post with boxwood would be very nice. Be careful going down that path, as you might want to build the stem from the individual parts that compose it (close to a dozen) I ended up doing that with my Unicorn, but I wonder how much will be seen once all the headrails are on. Alternatively, I think you can get away with scribing lines onto a single piece for the stem to represent the joints, and maybe define them with pencil. I might end up trying that with my upcoming Pegasus build. Do you have the AOTS book on the Diana? It's pretty good in case you are looking to add details to the build.

That's quite a bit of a warp Jason. Given that it's just at the end, I wonder how successful it will be to soak and flatten - and even then, is it worth the possible future bother and frustration? If you have a scroll saw, I would recommend cutting out a new piece for yourself (or you can cut it out by hand). My Unicorn keel had a warp like that, so I just cut out a new one which wasn't all that difficult to do. The problem will be finding a supply of larger sheets of plywood that aren't warped - I bought some from Micromark, which were all warped (to their credit, they refunded me the purchase price). I then bought a stack of 6 sheets of plywood from Hobbylinc, and I was able to find one from the batch that worked. If possible, I wonder if you can find thin sheets of MDF instead, which is probably much less prone to warping. The Pegasus kit comes with very good quality MDF (no warps, very sturdy and heavy duty), which makes me wonder why other kit manufacturers don't take that approach. Just out of curiosity, what is the Jason's figurehead? I'm thinking about carving my Unicorn's figurehead, so I've been doing a little research on figureheads and carving in general.

Wow, that's really nice of Occre. Thanks for reposting your build log. I had no idea that this model was so big - should be a lot of fun

I bought beading wire in various gauges from Michaels that came in black. The black coloring did have a tendency to scratch off but it was easy to touch up with a little black paint.

Keith, I'm very excited to follow this build. I have the Friedrich Wilhelm which is a very nice kit, but the Royal William seems to be the pinnacle of all kits. Looking forward to following your journey.

Consider yourself fortunate as my 15-month old twins have been sick and, err, somewhat on the cranky side You'll have to let me know if you're down here in the future.

Jason, your Snake looks great and I'm excited to follow your Jason build. Very cool to build a ship with your namesake, and especially one that is gorgeous like that one (I really love the look of the Artois class)

Tim, I'm in the DC area but am supposed to go to a wedding up in CT in the fall. If my family will let me squeeze it in, I'm hoping to make a trip to visit the Morgan, as I have the kit on my shelf. If I can make it, I plan on taking plenty of pictures that I can share with you and others on here that might be interested. Sorry to interrupt your log Gerald. Love your work - your Morgan is setting a very high standard for my future build

I see a lot of people have these benches against the wall with power tools on them, but I found that I needed more depth than what these benches give (I think it's 20") to safely use my Byrnes table saw and thickness sander (depth is ok for things like the disc sander, mill and lathe). What I ended up doing was putting two of these benches back to back, with one side against the wall - essentially, building out a workspace island where I could access the drawers on both tables, and access the machines on each of the tables. On the side against the wall, I attached a power strip to one of the benches, as well as a couple of swing arm lamps. That gave me more useable space than putting the two tables alongside one wall, or building an "L" configuration with the two benches in a corner.

Wow, very nice set up you have there!

Thanks Spyglass. For my Badger, I set up my pedestals very similarly. I think I centered the hull on the baseboard (not including the bowsprit, driver/boom and maybe not the stem too, I forget), and then positioned the pedestals 25-30% from the ends. I agree that you don't want them too far apart or too close together.

Thanks very much Spyglass, this is very helpful. I read through your Pegasus log the other day, which reminded me that I needed to start thinking about the mounting set up. For my Badger, I used the Model Expo brass pedestals. I forget exactly which I bought, but I think it was the 1.25" and 1.75", and then used grinding bits and a cut-off wheel to shape the cut out slot so that the model would sit with the waterline parallel to the building board. If I remember correctly, I cut down the tops of the slots a bit, and shaped out a sloped groove to accommodate the fact that the bottom of the keel was not parallel to the waterline. I'll have to try your felt approach for fine adjustments, that sounds like it would work perfectly. Taking another look at your log and Dan Vadas' logs, it looks like I can just drill the hole, rather than milling out a full slot. I'll have to think about this a little more - though, maybe I'm just over thinking things

Very nice brick platform! It came out fantastic. In the model railroading space, you can buy printed paper that simulates bricks, and they even have styrene brick patterns that you need to paint. Your approach looks much nicer in my opinion.

Really nice work Ben. I have the TFFM series, and while I don't plan on scratching a Swan class in the near future as I have the Pegasus kit, it's a real treat watching you execute the scratch build.

Frank, I was going to say that with the nice results you're getting now, you probably only need to single plank it. Maybe I should try it to save on buying tubs of filler like Augie

Thanks very much guys, I really appreciate it. I need to touch up the joints a bit, but overall, I'm very happy with how the stem came out (better than I expected). Another approach would have been to cut out the stem as one piece, and scribe lines into it to simulate the various components. That probably would have been a lot faster, but you probably have to make sure that your lines are very clean for it to look good. Another thing I need to do in the very near future is to install the pedestal mounting components to the keel. This build I'm going to epoxy nuts inside the keel and run stainless steel bolts through the pedestals and into the nuts like many others on here have done. I had made the mistake with my Badger of waiting until after the ship was double-planked to drill the pilot holes for the wood screws that came with the two pedestals. I forget if I drilled them by hand or not, but the holes must have not been perfectly perpendicular to the keel (or I screwed the screws in at a slight angle) as there is an ever so slight lean to the ship when on the pedestals that I could never fix. By pre-drilling holes now at this stage just working with the keel, and using nuts and bolts rather than wood screws, I should be able to get things much more square. What I'm still working out is whether I should use my mill to drill a hole for the bolts, or instead, to use my mill to mill out a narrow slot in the keel. I'm thinking the latter approach would give me more control and allow me to follow the line of the bolt's path, but I would welcome any thoughts on the best approach.

Looking great Frank. Very tight and neat planking! Is this a single-planked hull or double?

I made some more progress on the stem, building the five remaining pieces (main piece, bobstay piece, chocks, lacing, and the piece holding the main stay collar). I ended up following the general pattern/shape of pieces from one of the stem diagrams in the AOTS Blandford book, with a slight modification to not include a fore foot as part of the gripe. It seems like stems were constructed in all different ways, so I picked an example that seemed a little easier for me to execute given that I'm very new to the power tools I'm using. A few of these took multiple attempts on the scroll saw to get right. Thankfully I got the main piece on the second try as it is pretty complicated. I still have to add the holes for the bobstays and the main stay collar, as well as shape the top of the main piece to conform to the eventual head rails - I figured I would leave a little extra to work with as I finalize what the head rail configuration would look like. I also need to thin down the stem a bit where the figurehead will sit, as well as cut a slot into the figurehead so that it can sit on the stem. Either that, or I need to carve a new figurehead which I'm tempted to at least try You can see that I also decided to glue all the pieces together, but not to the stem/keel at this time as it will be a lot easier for me to shape the stem off the model, and probably to plank it as well. I ended up penciling in one edge of the joints to help better define the joint. In some areas, the joint was probably a bit wider than I would have liked. The trickiest is cutting scarpf joints against curved pieces - not fun! So, I put very diluted PVA into the joint and sanded the stem over the joint so that the sawdust helped fill it. I still need to make a few touch ups, but I'm actually quite pleased with how that all worked, especially as it toned down a bit of the pencil to make for more muted joint lines. So, adding the bowsprit and figurehead, the stem area should look like this: I think this is fairly close to Chapman's plans and other similar vessels, where the figurehead sits up higher and closer to the bowsprit, and sits on and within the stem as opposed to attached to the end of the stem as in the kit instructions. In the pictures below, you can see how the stem on my build differs from the kit stem. Next up is to start working on the bulkheads, and to modify the keel for the new angles to the decks and the scratched stern. Thanks for reading!

Hi Colin, beautiful work. I'm using the McKay AOTS book as a guide for my Unicorn build, and find it incredibly detailed and helpful. I thought that this could be a gorgeous ship to scratch, and I got my confirmation in coming across your build log today