Landlubber Mike

Hi Chris, I’ve only put together masts and yards for my Badger build, and haven’t yet for the Pegasus, etc. For the Badger, the instruction manual had you prepare things in pieces. For example, the yards were in three sections, with the round tapered ends pinned to the octagonal middle section. That generally worked fine, but I distinctly recall having issues with a couple of them flexing at the joint particularly when rigging was applied. That was frustrating. For my next builds, to avoid that flexing issue, I’m going to try building them in a single piece on the lathe using square stock. Turn the rounded ends then part off. Just have to take careful measurements.

That framing is incredible. Really nice job with this. I'd venture to say that this must be the most researched model on this site (or in the top five at least). You should release your own kit!

Awesome work Popeye! I think my dad built this many years ago (or a similar subject). Brings back memories of when I was little and watching him put it together.

I’d echo what Jhearl said and say if you are going to go with Sherline, think about the higher column and wider table for more flexibility. When I was looking a while back, it was recommended that I didn’t need the top of the line 3-axis model for ship model purposes. Also check prices on Sherline’s monthly sales and discount campus. Sherline is great with all the accessories that are available, many of which can be used with their lathe. Honestly I haven’t used the mill yet much for model work, but in part it’s because I was less clear about it’s functionality aside from drill press operations. I’ve used the lathe a ton for pen turning this past year and am a lot more proficient with it, which I think can carry forward to the mill. For those looking at the lathe, I would think about moving up to the 17” bed if you have space. The 8” bed quickly gets used up if you are going to start adding drill chucks, etc. For model work 8” is probably sufficient, but if you are planning on other turning projects, for $100 more I would jump to the larger size. I had a very hard time turning pen blanks on my 8”, so ended up selling it and buying a 17”. Now that I’m somewhat proficient with the lathe, I am planning to do masts and spars on it. Sherline recently introduced a live center for ship model work that has a cup at the end, rather than the typical 60 degree point. I haven’t tried it yet but it looks promising.

I purchased the optivisor and got the LED light set for it. Makes working with tiny parts much easier. I ended up actually getting two sets with different magnification levels rather than have to switch out lenses.

Nice work Elijah! Beautiful work indeed. If you don’t mind me asking, what line are you using? It looks very nice even in the macro photos.

Looks fantastic Kevin, nice job!

Those Black Cat add ons are fantastic, wow!

I'm in for this one - looks like really nice upgrades from Very Fire!

Loving Rita - very nice touch!

Just echoing what David said, I would sand it flat and then add the plankshear extension to the hull as a separate piece. Otherwise I think it will be next to impossible to maintain a consistent extension along the hull.

This was the first model I built (you can see my log linked below). I highly recommend it - very well done, great instruction manual, great Caldercraft quality, etc. The only quibble I had is that some of the thin walnut sheets were kinda crumbly in places, maybe that's been fixed, but nothing that filler and paint can't fix. When I was looking at possible first models, I wanted to build something interesting that was more complicated than a weekend-type model, yet not too complicated. The Badger and the Armed Virginia Sloop were great candidates at the time. There are a lot of new kits on the market with improved instructions, building methods, etc., so hopefully folks with knowledge of them can send you additional recommendations. Other than that, if you buy the kit, I would consider building in a different order. For me, I think adding the cannons so early on ended up causing me a lot of grief because I kept busting them off when trying to add the rails and other external hull details. That could just be my building style as I typically build in my lap more than I should.

Those guns look amazing - very nice job!

Very cool subject. Looking forward to following along on this one Clare!

Beautiful work Kevin! Very nicely done. Are you going with the Mogami or Chikuma next?

Looking great! Those cranes really make for an interesting focal point on the model. Did the Yahagi have bands on the smokestacks (for lack of a better word, I forget what they are called)? The Shimakaze did and I’m thinking about how to best add them, especially given that there are 2-3 narrow bands to include. Hard to figure out how to weather, etc. when I also have PE to add to them.

I like moving to a single piece if the Death Star can handle it. Only issue might be that if you are using plywood, finding a piece that long that is perfectly flat might be a challenge. Nice to see you back in the workshop!

Very clever - thanks for sharing that!

Nice clean soldering there - fantastic!

Thank you!

Thanks very much guys. Not sure that I would ever make pens to sell - I think I'd be even harder on myself to make them absolutely perfect. Right now I just enjoy puttering around and trying out new tools, techniques and finishes on them, and then give them out to family and friends. In terms of selling, it seems like there are a ton of people already selling pens. For many, they are mass producing using fairly inexpensive pen kits and blanks. There was one guy on the pen forums who cranks out thousands of pens a year, and had it down to the number of seconds it took per step per pen. I think if I did that it would seem too much like a job, and I probably wouldn't enjoy myself being my boss. I prefer to make them using higher end kits and more interesting blanks. Working with the burl and spalted woods takes a lot longer - you have to be careful because the wood can have cracks, voids, and punky spots that can catch your tools and chip or crack or otherwise ruin the blank. Then there is the finish as well - if there are cracks and voids, you have to fill them to help stabilize the blank and end up with a smooth finish. So, the finishing can take quite a long time. With all the steps involved, and higher priced materials, I would probably end up barely netting minimum wage when all was said and done. 😬

Beautiful work, very nicely done!

I always thought these were sharp looking subjects. Your upgrades are going to make it even better. I'm in for this one! Do you make the decals yourself or do you outsource them? I'm a bit stuck on what to do for decals on my Charles Morgan. Part of the problem is that the stern lettering is white, and white letters require special printers. I'm using ebony so not sure I want to print using white paper with the background surrounding the letters blackened from the ink.

A few months back, @vossiewulf posted pictures of some gorgeous knives he made using blades from Ron Hock, Japanese blades, etc. (haven't seen vossie on here in a while, hope he is ok). I thought I'd give it a shot since I had the tools to add handles, and went ahead and bought a few from Hock. He sells some knives already with handles, but I thought it would be more fun to put my own handles on. I ended up using Sindora burl for these knives (from left to right, two violin knives, a marking knife, and his 1" carving knife). I had purchased a block that I was going to use for pen turning, but decided to split it into four blanks that I used for the scales. For the spacer piece that went alongside the blade in between the two scale halves, I used boxwood. The finish is what I started using when I turn pens - a coat of boiled linseed oil, followed by a few coats of boiled linseed oil/medium CA mixture, followed by a few coats of medium CA. From there, I used micro mesh pads from 1500-15000, then put them on my buffing wheel. Fun little project if you're looking for something different than building models. F Last few months I got sidetracked into a new hobby and started turning pens. I had a lathe so I figured why not try it. Well, like most hobbies, it can suck you in and before I knew it, I ended up upgrading to the larger bed Sherline lathe and bought a few other accessories. I pretty much went from knowing almost nothing about lathes to now being fairly proficient, which should carry forward into model work. It's also been fun learning about different woods, finishes, etc. In ship modeling we try to go for wood with minimal grain. In pen turning, I personally prefer turning wood with lots of character, including burl woods, spalted woods, etc. They tend to be trickier to turn given that they have cracks, voids, punky wood parts, etc., but the natural beauty just can't be beat in my opinion. Here is a batch I recently made using spalted woods from Hawaii: You can also turn acrylic blanks. Lots of interesting bright colors, patterns, etc. I prefer the wood pens, but my daughters like the brightly colored ones, so I what can I do? Here are some I've made from acrylic for my kids: Anyway, just thought I'd share. Sometimes it's nice to take a break and try something different. Frankly, I think delving into these other areas will make me a better modeler because of the techniques and other experiences I have learned which can likely be transferred over to model work.

Very nice! With all those holes in the deck, looks like you have a lot of fun details to add. The crane and platform are very cool items of interest on this ship. What are those raised lines on the hull sides for?