Landlubber Mike

Thanks Mark, that's all really helpful. Appreciate it!

Could you laminate the stem and keel? I have a problem with my La Renommee where Euromodel uses different woods for the stem and keel. The keel looks a bit lighter Since my stem has come off once already, I’ve been thinking about scratching the stem, stern post and rudder, and laminating the keel with the same kind of wood. Otherwise, I could even try laminating keel with walnut from the kit, but not sure I have enough. Did you have that issue with the Royal William? One question too if you don’t mind on the cherry veneer. You said it was tough to cut - any tips? Were you using a table saw or hand cutting the strips? I went to Woodcraft a few days ago to find a lighter wood for my Renommee’s upper hull planking and found some cherry veneer in a lighter shade than typically seen (bought some normal cherry veneer as well). I notice that the veneers they sell tend to be so thin they have a curl like they were thick paper. Anyway, just wondering if you figured out and easy way of working with it. Thanks!

Looks great to me! Nice job!

While I’m thinking about it, do you guys mount your mills and lathe? If so, what do you use? Thick plywood? Some other material?

Wow, thanks very much for all the responses! I really appreciate it, and they give me a lot to think about, so thank you all! If others have any thoughts, I’d very much welcome them as well. Thanks!

Thanks Mark. I’m slowly learning. I agree about the French ships - your Licorne is certainly a great example of the beauty of that class of ships!

Thank you very much! I hope to get a similar effect on my Charles Morgan. Really appreciate it!

I currently own the base Sherline mill (5000) and the 8" lathe with the upgraded hand wheels (4530). I bought both used on eBay, and have slowly accumulated a bunch of the accessories that would likely be needed for ship modeling. I saw that Sherline is offering the digital readout accessories (DRO) on sale this month, so was going to buy one for each (they would share the readout box). But, I realized that my mill is in inches while the lathe is in metric. I was hoping it wouldn't matter w'ith the DRO, but the screws, etc. are all calibrated so I'd still have to work in inches on the mill and in metric on the lathe. Since I pretty much only like to work in metric these days, I'm thinking of selling the mill and buying a new one that is metric. I'm thinking of going with the 5410, which has a slightly wider Y axis (5" versus 3") and a few other upgrades. In trying to work all this out, I was considering other alternatives: 1. Upgrade to 8-directional (2000) mill? The next model up that has 8 directional milling (the 2000 I believe) is nice, but probably overkill I think for what I would use it for. Anyone think the 2000 is worth it? I have the tilting and rotating tables, so to the extent I needed to mill at angles, I could change the angle of the working piece, rather than the mill. I'm sure there are various scenarios where one is better than the other, but I don't have enough experience to know for sure. 2. Instead, buy a new lathe with the vertical milling column? Is anyone using the vertical milling column setup? I understand that the "milling base" would be a little smaller than the base of the standalone mills, but is that a problem for modeling ships? Putting aside the hassle of having to sell both my mill and lathe, having one unit versus two would save some space in my workshop. It seems like Sherline has done a nice job of making it fairly easy to switch from milling to lathe work without much issue. I just don't know how much functionality one loses by combining the two machines. 3. Upgrade to 17" lathe? Another thing I could think about doing is upgrading to a longer bed lathe. I think I posted this before, but if I recall correctly, folks (including DVM) suggested the 8" was more than sufficient, and if I needed to mill longer pieces, planing those pieces would work better than having to try and support the longer thin piece on the lathe. Not to mention, the 17" lathe is almost a foot longer than the 8". Thanks in advance for any thoughts. If anyone is looking for a Sherline 5000 mill, feel free to PM me. I'd prefer to sell it to someone here than to have to list it on eBay.

Just caught up with your build log Mark. Really nice job! I love the colors. Cannons are looking great too, what did you use to blacken them?

Really beautiful work! I like how your copper plating came out. Can I ask what you used to achieve that effect?

Hi Ferit, thanks for looking in. Interesting, the picture does seem to show a gap or indent, but when I look at the model, it looks perfectly straight/in line with the general curvature of the hull. My guess is that it's an artifact from my iPhone picture. I was doing my best to take a picture over the top of the model without capturing my toes in the picture. Ian Major pointed out my feet on one of my other logs a while back, and I've been self conscious ever since!

Yeah I’m in the same boat. Very hard to find!

First planking is slowly coming along. I have seven or so strakes glued from the keel, and decided to switch and start from the gun deck down. This is what Pete recommended in his helpful Euromodel notes, and was the approach Keith Julier took in his Period Ship Handbook 2 (which has a chapter on the kit). This is my first time working on a multi-deck level warship. To help ensure that I had a smooth guiding line for the gun ports, I decided to run the top of a planking strake along the top line of the gun deck template. When checking for symmetry, however, I noticed that in some areas, the outer edge of the gun deck template between the bulkheads was at a different height from one side to the other. I think what happened was that with all the dry fitting, the two pieces of the template ended up having a slight bend to them, and although generally symmetrical where they were glued at the bulkheads, the outer edge of the templates between the bulkheads ended up differently. I was a bit worried about this, as not only would I have asymmetry, but the cannons would be all over the place in terms of height it I cut the gun ports out along the proper line. So, what I ended up doing was gluing spacer blocks between the templates and the bulkhead bracer blocks that I had installed before. In some cases I used the blocks to raise the edge of the templates, in some to lower, and in some to help change the the sweep. A real pain, but I'm glad I took the step. Now, the gun deck has a smooth sweep from stem to stern, and is symmetrical on both sides. I was thinking about selling this kit and moving directly to scratch building, but I'm glad I decided to stick with it. Not only is it a beautiful model, but I've been learning a lot along the way. Maybe some of these things matter less with scratch building (like the bowsprit housing and my recent gun deck alignment adventure), but I think the general lessons learned, especially how to think ahead, will come in handy. The Euromodel kit is great too in that it gives plenty of optionality to detail the kit as much as you'd like, so I'm sure that will help if I should happen to want to scratch build in the future.

Thanks for everyone that offered thoughts on what to do with the last bulkhead. I ended up adding two planking strips to it, then fairing the bulkhead back to the original line on the aft side. Seems to have worked very well - I now have a firm, wider surface to glue the end of the planks to, while having a nice smooth transition to the stern.

I was just telling someone the other day who was building miniature display tables that he needed to look at Byrnes' tools. I went to Jim's site to copy the link, and happened to see the sled on his website - I plan on placing an order this week! His tools are incredible and well worth it if you can swing the price.

Looking great Peter. This is going to be a fantastic model!

Those look great. I've just been taking balsa blocks, and using rubber cement to attach sandpaper to them. Yours put mine to shame

Danny thanks very much for that. Was good to see that is the case! https://www.sherlinedirect.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=product.display&Product_ID=1520&CFID=143721392&CFTOKEN=15985857

Thanks Bill - I've been meaning to get one but have been waiting to see it go on special. Forgot to check this month, so thank you! Good to know that you can use the display for both the mill and the lathe. Saves a bunch of change.

Simon thank you - appreciate the kind words! Thanks for that link on the Russian forum. I came across it on Pontos’ log, but probably should look at it more often. Mark, thanks for posting the plans. I think the Euromodel LAR is a different ship from the one in the Ancre plans, and my guess is that the ship is a Swedish ship, and not a French one. Apparently there’s been research out there suggesting that Admiral Paris made a mistake in copying over the Chapman plans and calling it the LAR.

Thanks Pete! I’ll take a look at things tonight and see what the lines end up looking like. Glad to hear you’re almost fully up and running!

Magnificent planking Mark! I bet the planking will take a while, but the results will be well worth it if you take your time. How thin is the veneer? Interesting looking at the stern of this ship. Her stern is kinda close to my La Renommee which you commented on earlier today, though a more pronounced square tuck stern. The tear drop at the bottom is quite nice.

Thanks to both Marks! Marktiedens, I believe the two decorative cast metal pieces the bottom of the counter. Not sure if I will use them or try scratching my own. That's going to be a tough thing to scratch since I think the area has a slight curve, and the decorative piece is fairly thick. Will have to see about that. Mtaylor, thanks for posting your Licorne. It's good to see how the planking flows. The LAR is a bit different in that the stern is a square tuck stern, whereas the Licorne is a round tuck. The terms seem a bit reversed, but essentially the counter on the LAR is rounded at the bottom, whereas the Licorne is squared off. Still good to see how the timbers flow though (and always good to see your gorgeous model), thank you!

Hi Mark, your post came in as I was writing the one above. I think you're right if you take a look at my pictures. I see Hubac just wrote in too, and seems to be of a similar opinion. I did reach out to Pete, but he didn't have the benefit of my pictures. Hopefully he sees the pictures and advises on what he did on his LAR. Thanks Hubac! That was what I was thinking as well. The angle would be very steep indeed, which is why I think adding material and fairing back to the lower edge of the aft side of the bulkhead makes the most sense. Appreciate too what you said about planking the counter first, and then adding the side planking. I think what I'll do is complete the first planking, then plank the counter, and finish up with the second planking.

Hi Hubac, thanks for looking in. It's always harder to describe, but maybe this picture helps: If you look at the circled area, you can see that the last bulkhead is not faired, with barely any area to glue the plank to. To fair it will change the orientation of the planking considerably to a sharper upward angle. I'll also likely have to fair the bulkhead or two immediately preceding it to ensure a continuous curve. Fairing the last bulkhead will also change the shape of the lower part of the counter shown in yellow below: My guess is that highlighted area will flatten out a bit. But maybe that's ok? Looking again at the plans, seems like the same area is a bit flatter than what the lower part of the bulkhead is shaped like from the picture above: Does that all make sense? I guess I'm just trying to figure out whether to fair the bottom edge of that bulkhead - which will provide better support for the planking yet change the shape of the bottom edge of the bulkhead/counter -- or not fair it, but find some way of adding a better planking surface (for example, adding a thick strip to the bottom of the bulkhead and then fairing it to the aft line of the original bulkhead. Sorry for the confusing question. Hope this makes sense.