Landlubber Mike

Happy New Year to all my friends here on MSW! Hope it is a happy, healthy and prosperous 2014 for you all!

Hi Mark, happy new year to you and your family. Your Licorne is looking fantastic. I actually thought about using ebony for my next build, but I'm glad that I read about your travails (as well as others) with that wood. Dyed/stained pear will likely be my approach. Sure looks nice on your Licorne though

Hi John, very nice work! She (or is it technically a "he"?) is really coming along very very nicely. Just out of curiosity, did the kit come up with the lettering or did you have to add it yourself? It came out great.

Absolutely incredible. I can't even come up with words to describe how beautiful your model is.

Hi again Ferit, Sorry, I should have been more clear - I was referring to the fact that the Euromodel kit has almost an identical demon-looking face around one of the sheeves in the side of the hull. But yes, the lines on the Berlin and the Friedrich Wilhelm zu Pferde seem very similar The Euromodel kit is really incredible. The quality of the wood and other pieces are really top notch - especially the cast metal pieces, which are very very well done unlike other kits that I've seen. The plans are fantastic, but there aren't many instructions. It's definitely a kit for people with more experience, so I will start it after I finish my Badger and get another kit or two under my belt. By the way, I am happy to hear that you will be adding sails to your Berlin. I agree with you that these are sailing ships, so to not include sails on the model seems incomplete. I've been very happy with the look of the furled sails on my Badger (will post photos on my log soon).

Hi Ferit, I'm a little late responding to this, but I came across a very similar figure (both in form and location) in the Euromodel Friedrich Wilhelm zu Pferde kit that I just picked up (which is a very similar 17th century German frigate). Pretty creepy looking isn't it?

Thanks very much Ferit, I really appreciate the kind thoughts. Are you thinking of adding sails (furled or otherwise) to your Berlin? By the way, your Berlin is really coming along nicely. I've been following your log for a while and really am impressed by your work. I was able to get my hands on the Euromodel Friedrich Wilhelm zu Pferde kit, which is a very similar 17th century German frigate. I'll be referring to your work all the time once I start on the kit

Nice work! The color scheme is working out very nicely!

Hi ZyXuz and John. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year/Winter Solstice to you and your families as well, thank you! I had a few hours to add some more of the running rigging. I think I spent 70% of the time making forward progress, and the remaining 30% of the time fixing things I broke - blocks inexplicably separating from their lines, I knocked into the bowspirit and the spiritsail braces and fore topgallant shrouds came undone, etc. But, I did manage to get the fore course and topsail yards up I'm really glad that I decided not to install the backstays per the kit instructions. I don't know how I would have been able to get at the rigging in the interior of the ship, particularly attaching the deck cleats. i'm also glad that I installed the ship boats early on (the kit instructions have that as the last thing to install). It seems to me to be a little better to work from the inside of the ship out, and from front to back. The kit, on the other hand, has you install the yards, then attach all the lifts and buntlines, then the clew lines and sheets, and then the braces. I was going to do all the braces at the end, but the fore topsail and fore topgallant braces are belayed to deck cleats right near the galley, and I think they would be extremely difficult to fit at the end once everything else is up.

Thanks Dan!

I have the Friedrich Wilhelm zu Pferde kit. The plans and materials are all top notch. Even the cast metal parts, of which there are a ton, are all fantastic.

Nice work Peter - did you decide to go with sails on this build? Happy holidays to you and your family!

Hi Overdale, thanks very much for the tip! That seems like a good simple fix. Just out of curiosity, do you need to match the base of the stain (water or oil) to the type of paint you use?

Hi Ian, happy holidays and 2014 to you and your family! I'm looking forward to joining the Unicorn gang next year. I was thinking/hoping that I would finish the Badger by the end of the year, but that's looking quite iffy at this point. Now that I've run a few lines and have a better handle on things, I think I can wrap it up next month. We'll see. In the meantime, I've been giving a lot of thought to the modifications to and colors for the build. I think I'm going to plank the hull in pear, and I've bought samples of a variety of stains, dyes and paints to test out. Should be a lot of fun, particularly working alongside you and Zyxux!

Thanks very much Frankie. When running the lines last night, I had a feeling that nothing should run outside the shrouds for the reason you say. I'll have to look into fairleads, as these might be a good way to guide the lines in the right direction.

Thanks very much for the tips guys, I really appreciate it!

Hi folks, I'm working on the fore course buntlines for my Badger, and am trying to figure out how they run from the blocks under the tops to the fore shroud pinrail. Do they run inside the shrouds? Outside the shrouds? Can they start outside the shrouds and then cross through the shrouds so that they belay on the pinrail inside the shrouds? For the Badger, it looks like I can get the inner buntlines to run inside the shrouds at all times with no problem. The outer buntlines, however, seem to only be able start outside the shrouds, so I'm wondering if it is proper to run them through the shrouds at the right point. I've been looking at pictures, but can't seem to make out this detail. Thanks so much in advance.

Thanks very much Mark, that's very helpful. Do you mind me asking where you sourced it?

Looking great John! Impressive that you can work at that scale without driving yourself crazy

For a quick update (no pictures at the moment), I've been working through the running rigging, and have the bowspirit rigging all in place. I have the fore course and fore topsail yards up, with the lines pre-installed. I thought that it might be easier to work from the bow of the ship to the stern, and pre-install as much of the rigging as possible. I also delayed fully fitting the fore mast backstays so that my sausage fingers would have a little more room to maneuver on the foremast running rigging. Let's just say I'm going cross-eyed trying to keep track of the spaghetti of lines hanging off the fore mast right now. The kit's instructions have you install each of the yards, then add the lifts and buntlines, then the sheets and clew lines, and then finish with the braces. I thought it might be easier to complete the rigging per yard as each yard is installed (minus the braces on the fore and main masts, which I will just do at the end all at once), and work my way up the masts and from bow to fore mast to main mast. Not sure which way is better, but I almost feel that minus the tangle of lines, it ultimately is easier to do it my way. We'll see what happens. For those building the kit (and probably others), the kit tells you to pre-install the blocks on the masts and the yards, without forewarning you that some of the blocks need to have the standing end of the running rigging attached to them. I had to remove and re-install the lift blocks for the fore and main yards and for the spiritsail yard, which was annoying. I had to do the same for some of the blocks on the bowspirit as well. Overall, it's amazing how much line even a small brig like the Badger was fitted with. I love the look as more and more line is attached, but I can see why many choose to just do admiralty type models

Thanks very much John and Kester. Kester, I appreciate the kind words. I still have the spanker to put together, which is going to be a bit of a challenge given its shape and the fact that it's lashed to both the mast and the gaff. I had one of those "ah ha!" moments in the shower a couple of weeks ago (where I tend to do my best thinking), so I think I might have come up with a potential solution. Frank, thanks so much for the kind wishes! Best wishes to you and your family this holiday season and new year. I wish the same to all my other friends here on MSW!

Hi folks, I was wondering if anyone has found any decent alternatives to using white paint. I'm about to start on the Charles Morgan, and have been thinking about avoiding paints to the extent possible. In particular I'm trying to avoid using white paint, as even a "dull white" to me looks a bit too garish. The masts and some detail areas of the Charles Morgan are white. I thought holly could be a good option, but after talking to Jeff at Hobbymill, it sounds like it's hard to find stock that would work. Any other options? I've seen pickling stains and whitewash stains on the market, as well as bleaching techniques for wood. Just curious if anyone has figured out a good solution to avoiding white paint. Thanks!

Gorgeous work Andy - very impressive indeed. Nice to see that there are others with similar addictions to mine (ship building and bonsai).

Try Cornwall Model Boats - I bought extra parts for my Unicorn and was very happy with the customer service. http://www.cornwallmodelboats.co.uk/acatalog/corel_fttings.html

Hi Jason, On my Badger, I ended up gluing the masts in. I figured it was one less variable for me to have to control. It was nice having firmly established masts so that I could run the standing rigging with taut lines right off the bat, rather than constantly fiddling and checking to make sure that the mast hadn't moved a bit, needing more tension on the other side, etc. That being said, gluing the masts gave me a lot of anxiety, as you really only have one shot to get them right Now that I have a better understanding of how the various standing rigging works, I might consider not gluing them in on my next build. I've been attaching the spars to the masts the past week or so, and I haven't been able to firmly glue them in place. I am using pins and glue, but there still is a bit of flex in the spar. It's actually working out well, as I've been able to add the running rigging lines and use the lines for tiny adjustments to get the spars to the correct orientation. I imagine that it would be a similar process with similar benefits with the masts, so I can see why many prefer not to glue the masts in.