Landlubber Mike

Hey Hamilton, looking great. I have the Amati Hannah in a bottle as well that I've been working on in parallel to my Badger build. It's a bit tricky to work at that scale to say the least I'm just about done with mine, but decided to make things even more difficult by adding water to the bottle. It's a fun little kit though.

Thanks very much Greg and David, that's very helpful. Greg, that book is one my buy list - I have the first two volumes and really like them. Thank you!

Hey Robert, thanks very much. I did change my MSW handle - I thought this was a little more distinctive.

Wow Ian, incredible! Like I said before, it deserves its own showcase!

Hi everyone, I've been thinking about upgrading to the Sherline lathe from the Proxxon DB250. The base model comes with a bed that is 8" between centers. Is this long enough for mast making? The Proxxon enables you to slide the mast through a hole in the system opposite the tailstock (not sure exactly what you call it), so you can work with longer pieces, you just have to flip them around. Is that the case with the Sherline as well, or is it just better to go with the longer bed that is 17" between centers? Thanks!

Hi everyone, I am researching adding furled sails to my Badger build, and am trying to figure out how to add the jib and flying jib sails. I found a copy of the sail plan for the Badger online, which if I remember correctly, is taken from the Chapman book: Flying jib: From the sail plan, it looks like the flying jib is attached to a separate stay that runs from the fore topmast to the jib-boom. This is a little different from what is in the Lennarth Petersson book where the flying jib stay runs from the fore royal mast to the jib-boom - then again, the Badger doesn't have royal masts. So, I guess the question I have is should I run a flying jib stay from the fore topmast to the jib-boom like in the plans above? If so, would the flying jib stay be of about the same caliper as the fore topmast and fore topgallant stays? Jib: The sail plan has the jib attached to what looks like the fore topmast stay. The kit's plans only show a fore topmast stay, and no fore topmast preventer stay. On a brig like the Badger, would the jib sail be attached directly to the fore topmast stay? Or would the jib be attached to a separate jib stay? The Lennarth Petersson book is not too helpful here in that it shows the jib stay running from the fore topmast to a point midway or so along the jib-boom, but the Badger is a smaller vessel and the sail plan above indicates that the jib is attached to a stay runningfrom the fore topmast to the end of the bowspirit. It looks like I'll also have to figure out how to create travelers for the two sails as well (thanks Frank for the tip!). Hopefully this wasn't too confusing. Thanks very much in advance!

Thanks very much Aldo, really appreciate it. Nice work on the Triton I've been researching how to do the furled sails, and have some confusion on how to approach the jib and flying jib sails. It looks like I'll need to add jib stays and travelers. Didn't realize it would all be so complicated, but I think I'm too stubborn at this point to drop the furled sail idea (especially after all the research I've been putting in). I asked for some help at the post below in case anyone has any ideas: http://modelshipworld.com/index.php?/topic/3761-adding-jib-and-flying-jib-sails-to-badger/ Thanks!

Very nice work Mobbsie. I like the fact that on this kit you can plank the small ships, rather than paint the plastic shells. Looks much better in my opinion

Excellent work Chris - matches up nicely with the boxwood.

Gorgeous work Len - very nice!

Thanks John! I'm keeping an eye on your Morgan build which is coming out fantastic, as that will be the next ship I work on (probably work on it as a parallel build with the Corel Unicorn). I'm actually considering avoiding paint completely on the build, and using ebony for the hull and some light colored wood (maybe holly) for the masts and spars. I'm also considering adding sails to it as well. At the rate it has been taking me to finish the Badger, it will probably be a 15 year process for the Morgan

Thanks Ian - I couldn't be more pleased the way the color came out. Didn't realize that acrylic paints would act more like a wash on clay than actual paint. Jason, I appreciate the kind words but if anyone does any copying, I'll be shamelessly copying from your Snake build - very crisp detailed work. B.E., thanks for the compliment - it means a lot coming from you. I'll be curious to see which approach you take, as I'm sure I'll be able to learn for my second build. Frank, so sorry to hear about your eye. I hope everything gets better. For the size of the buoys, I just guessed from looking at pictures of other builds that I saved from online, as well as from the Monfeld "Historic Ship Models" book (which is fast becoming one of my favorite resources). Based on the other pictures, I tried to approximate the buoys as a little less than half the length of the stock of the anchor. I think they are about 15mm in length - any smaller and it would have been close to impossible for me to do the harness. I originally made two other pairs, but visually they looked a bit too big. I'm attaching an article I found online on how to build anchors, which had a section on anchor buoys. I pretty much followed his approach, except that (1) I used black clay as the medium for the buoy, and (2) in doing the harness bands, rather than building the band and slipping it on while using rubber bands, I just took a piece of thread and knotted it as I went around the buoy. I wasn't sure of the scale that the author was working in, but I used 0.5mm black thread for the harness and I think the buoy came out to around 15mm in length, aside from the rings at the top and bottom. Anchors.pdf

Nice work on the gun rigging and catheads! Stropping and running the small blocks on the cannons was probably the most frustrating part of my build - was a relief to be able to jump from 2mm blocks to 3mm blocks for the rest of the build

Well I had a little time the last few days, so thought I would ease back into the build by building the anchor buoys. Let's just say they took me probably four or five times longer than I thought they would I have to clean them up a bit, but here they are. I was fairly pleased for the first attempt at making them. To build the buoy, most people I see use wooden dowels. I started down that road, but ended up switching the black sculpey clay. I used that clay earlier on the build for the mouse stays - it's easy to mold, quick to bake in your oven, and comes in various colors. I was able to make a bunch of different sizes until I got to the size that I thought worked best, and it was much quicker than working with dowels by hand or on my lathe. Once baked, I painted them with brown acrylic. The acrylic ended up acting more like a wash than a paint on the clay, which ended up giving it the look I was hoping for (not solid, but sorta worn and weathered) without using different shades of brown and black as I first thought I would end up having to do. The buoy harness (if that is what it is called) was probably the biggest pain for me. There are eight ropes running along the length, and two rope bands that go around the width. The bands only are knotted at the four ropes that start from the opposite end of the buoy, and lay over the other four that start at the end closest to the hoop (hope that makes sense) I started by first making a "spider" with two lengths of rope that crossed each other with one of them making the harness loop at the top. Glued the spider to the top, and the first half portion of the "legs" down the length of the buoy. Then I repeated with the other side. That was fairly easy, but figuring out the bands was tricky. I tried doing pre-made bands to slide onto the buoy, but they never looked right. I ended up taking the approach of cutting a length of thread, and tying each of the four knots one by one working around the diameter of the buoy. Once the knots were done and dabbed with diluted PVA, I cut the extra lengths, and glued the legs and the bands onto the buoy. That part took me a few hours to figure out how to do, but they came out ok I think. Next up - furled sails (finally).

Wow Ian, this is incredible work. Please tell me that this will be visible on your build If not, it deserves it's own special display case!

Wow, beautiful Mobbsie. I love your work!

Really gorgeous work Rod! Very impressive! I love your case too. Just out of curiosity, did you cut the plexiglass yourself, or did you have it cut professionally? I'm trying to figure out what to do with my case, and weight is making me lean with plexiglass. I bought a case from Model Expo for my Badger, but I have to source the glass. Thanks!

Gorgeous work! I really like your display case - where did you get it? I plan to start my Unicorn at the end of the year. I need another couple of months to finish my Badger. Will be nice to work alongside you and Ian.

Hey Daniel, your Mercury is looking great. I'm just about done working on the Amati Hannah SIB, which is difficult given the scale but thankfully is mostly all photo-etched parts - the fact that you scratched built this ship is really impressive. Really nice work. Are you going to put it in a bottle with water? I'm using fake water from Vallejo, which has been even more difficult than I imagined given the shape of the bottle and narrow bottle opening.

Hey Chris, hope you and the twins are doing well Your build is looking fantastic as always. I bought the Le Gros Ventre book/plans off of eBay this summer for a good deal. Looks like a fun build. I probably need another couple of models under my belt before progressing to it, but that's on my list too.

Very nice Frank!

Thanks very much for all the birthday wishes. Thanks also John, AVS and Bigcreekdad for the comments on the build. I'm about to turn back to and wrap up the Badger after a fairly long hiatus with the birth of my twin girls. They are starting to sleep the night (or at least most of it), so I should be able to get back to the shipyard. In the meantime, I've been finishing up the Amati Hannah ship in a bottle kit that I started alongside the Badger. Hoping to get that wrapped up this month, but adding the "sea" to the bottle has been tricky.

Hi Ian, Most importantly, I wanted to extend my condolences for the loss of your faithful companion Tom. Your stove is magnificent. Really top notch work. Mike

Hi Mark, so sorry to hear about your dog. They are like any other close family member in my book. Nice job on the repair - I am really enjoying your build and learning a lot.

I fight my Admiral about that orientation all the time! Really nice work Mobbsie!