MEDDO

You've gotten some really great advice on here.  A couple of other things I would add that just came to mind:
 
1.  The one thing I liked about the Sherline is that their mills are very nice and the great thing is that the accessories are generally interchangeable between the lathe and mill (which leads to some cost savings).  If you think you might be in the market for a mill, it might make sense to get the same manufacturer so that you can share accessories.  For example, if you want a digital readout box, you can share the same box between the mill and the lathe which will save you some money.
 
2.  I think someone may have mentioned this, but think about whether you want to work in metric or imperial.  At least with Sherline, you can't share a DRO box between two different standards.  I made the mistake years ago of buying a used imperial mill and metric lathe off eBay.  When I went to buy a DRO package a year later, I had to convert at least one of them to the other standard which would require an expensive threadscrew and wheel upgrade that was like half the cost of a new machine.  Since I wanted to switch to metric, I just went ahead and sold the mill and bought a new one (slightly bigger, with wider table, taller column, and hi-speed wheels) and added the DRO package.  Then I got into pen turning, and realized the 8" lathe wasn't going to allow me to turn longer pieces because the chucks were taking up too much room.  So, I sold that one and upgraded to the longer bed lathe.  Later on I decided to start turning larger diameter wood projects, but was limited by the height of the lathe so ended up getting the riser block set.  
 
I say all this so you can learn from my mistakes   Also to show you that the Sherline are very versatile with all the accessories.  It might be hard to forecast exactly what you will need for the next decade plus when deciding on packages as your interests may change (mine certainly have), but buying a package of accessories will certainly save you money.  If I remember correctly, the "A" package pretty much should be considered at a minimum as it includes a chuck which is fairly expensive if you buy separately.
 
3.  Glad Roger mentioned the lathe with milling column option.  Depending on how often you will be using a mill or lathe, that might be a very good option to go with.  I've barely used my mill thus far, but have used the lathe a lot on turning projects (non-ship model projects).  If I had to start all over again, I'd strongly consider that option to save on cost and bench space.  Start with the lathe, and then if you want to get into milling operations, consider whether you can live with the milling column attachment (which from what I've read is a pretty quick adjustment to the lathe) -- or if switching between milling and lathe work will be a pain, get a stand-alone mill.  My problem was I started with the mill, then upgraded the mill for the DRO.  
 
4.  Safety is definitely a must for the lathe.  Not only eye protection, but be very careful of clothes, hair, etc. getting caught.  My first lathe was the Proxxon DB250 mini lathe.  I was turning a mast for my first ship, and finishing it with steel wool.  Well, I got the steel wool too close to the spinning headstock and it pulled the wool into it.  Thankfully, I immediately let go but it taught me a good lesson.  My hair is short, but I always wear short sleeves and avoid using cloth or anything similar around the lathe.  When I cover the lathe bed, I use paper towels instead.  I also make sure that my family knows not to disturb me when I have my power tools running as a small lapse in concentration can be disastrous.
 
Also, make sure that chucks are installed tightly.  For some reason I had a chuck come off the spindle spinning at 2000+ RPM.  Thankfully it didn't fly off, but just sort of spun off the headstock and dropped onto the bench.  When it hit the floor, it was still spinning like a top.  Was a good learning experience for me to continually check that things like jaw chucks - which are screwed onto the head or tail stock and are not secured by a drawbolt - remain tightly screwed on during the turning process.
 
Learning by watching videos online is fine, but I have to say, you see people on YouTube doing really stupid, unsafe things.  Whenever I watch those videos, I already try to read the comments as people will point out if the person was doing something not in a safe manner.  

If only the rest of the world valued holly as much as we model builders do, I would be the richest man in Babylon! And I haven't even finished cutting up what I have...

Completing the square tuck is the final step of building the ships skeleton. I was glad to learn the plan template as I cut it out from a sheet of 1/32 cedar fit with just a few adjustments. So far everything is standing up to being where it;s supposed to be.

The next step is planking the wales by first marking where then go. I started with the reference lines and then smoothed out the curve until it looked right.  I found that if something looked wavy I could just remove the nail at that point having placed ones to either side of it. Definitely don’t want a nail in every frame to allow it to flow. I took my time until I felt good about it then did the other side.
 
I love it when a plan comes together. Having done all that, I thought lets just check the distance between each port and the wales agains the plans. I used my millimeter ruler and I wasn’t just close, I was right on the distance - on both sides.  How the hell did that happen.  I have to attribute it to the design, I don’t think I’m near that good.

After painting the gun ports I started on the wales. I’ve never done a single planked ship before, really hoping I can get the planking tight enough so it doesn’t look like a sieve. I sort of wish the wood was long enough to have a single run for this lower layer of the wales, but I might as well get used to running short planks. I’ll be doing a lot of that from here on in. It took several hours to get one side done.
 
The small 1/16rh piece marks the lower edge of the ports and the distance to plank between that and the wales. I came pretty close to the goal of leaving a 1/64th rabbit above the piece - I never really thought about how small 1/64th is.  I used a piece of my batten, coincidently 1/64th thick as a bit of a tool to measure.
 
I’ve lightly sanded the stem and keel. I’ll put on another coat of wipe on poly later, no need at this point. I'm starting to think of posting smaller photos, these high quality large photos show too much 😕
 
Almost every step something I haven’t done before, it’s an adventure. Hoping it looks like it’s suppose to look…

My wife and I are keen opera fans and although there is no live opera at the moment, the Metropolitan Opera in New York is streaming a different opera every day including some performances from the 60's and 70's starring performers like Big Lucy Pavarotti and the legendary black American soprano Leontyne Price.   The effect on my ship modelling can be seen in the attached photo!
 

John

I'm calling this done.   Sometimes you get to a point where you're afraid of going just too far, and messing up what you've done to that point.
 
The beak never really materialized, there's no feather texture on the neck and body, and the wing feathers could be better (well, everything could be better), but I'm happy with this, and I'm going to stop before I slip and make an irretrievable mistake--

 
Isopropyl alcohol is repeatedly swabbed over and around the eagle to loosen it--

 
And after a while, the eagle is released--

 
This afternoon, from my porch, I surprisingly saw this guy (or gal) hanging out in a tree across the street--

 
It stayed put long enough for me to run inside, grab my camera and move a little closer for a couple of shots--

 
Now, that's what the beak should look like!   Still, I took it as an good omen that I was done.
 
Ron 
 
 

Definitely great progress here.  I only hope I can do as well when I start up my Cheerful 

Definitely great progress here.  I only hope I can do as well when I start up my Cheerful 

Definitely great progress here.  I only hope I can do as well when I start up my Cheerful 

Short log for a lot of work. As noted by @Chuck instructions and multiple Cheerful logs this part, seemingly simple, takes a lot of “fiddling” as my English friends say. I’ll be honest and say while I finished with 2 sills and 2 lintels, more than 4 were used in the making of this stern.

Cutting out the stern pattern from a copy of the plans is the first step to get a feel and mark where they go. But that in itself isn’t enough.

I modified my port shaper for these smaller ports, its a great jig to both get the size right, keep the port squared, and with the help of various levels to get the sill parallel with the waterline (matching to another level not shown here setting at midship positioned bow to stern). And for those taking notes, the level was straight when I wasn't posing it for photos. 

Definitely an opportunity to demonstrate patience and taking the time to get it right. I almost settled at one point with one slightly off but quickly said no I’m not doing that.
 
Though still a bit more fairing to do, including the top of the frames, but that comes later.  In the end I got there, a little smarter than when I started.

Thank you for the replies. This model definitely got me going again, @Chuck's Cheerful is a challenge. I'm also first in line for @Chris Watten's upcoming HM Flirt and already have HM Speedy on my shelf.  I'm good to go for a long while now.

Those look really nice especially if you were able to whip em up over the weekend.  Properly scaled figures always add life to a static model and really help with visualizing the scale of the project

Those of you who have the Calendar of Wooden Boats by Benjamin Mendlowitz may have noticed that June 2020's cover girl is...the Mary Day!

Thanks Jorge and thanks for all the like too!
 
I've glued the transom in place and the filler pieces have been placed on top of the transom to cover the two layers. They are 1/64" thick!  
 

 
I've also placed the quarter galleries window.
 

 
 
The starboard side framing has started. The two pieces have been temporally placed with rubber cement as I check them out before permanently gluing them in.
 
  

Thanks for the reply, I’ve never had this happen in all my previous models. It was traumatic. 
 
The fairing took three days, both times, with this single planked ship It’s critical to have a smooth run plus the ports sills also have to be be faired to the hull. 
 
The marking jig is nothing but a piece of board with pencil lead glued/taped to the end.  I ran the board along the hull frames to mark the run of the planks onto the stern frames to establish the starting point for fairing them. It was Rusty’s clever way to mark this line. 

I too am building Cheerful. As I rate myself higher than a "newbie", but by no  means a professional, there is so much to learn and do that is relatively intracate on this model it bears proceeding with a good deal of respect even though it is a kit of a higher level with quality components. I am detailing out the deck fittings at this point. It might be of use to you to know that the decking I found harder than the hull planking. I think one of its characteristics is that there is no denying its quality assessment as it stares at you. Also beware the widlass is tricky. About 60 parts of small dimensions where tolerance build up becomes a large factor. The good news is that once you reach this level of the build it gets even more satisfying.
Joe

Not wasting anytime I moved on to the stern. Every stern on every model has been an adventure for me. I’m not trying not to over- optimize and going very slowly. Chucks instructions are easy and clear. Well, the words are easy and clear, but the work isn’t simple and nothing like any kit I’ve ever done - can you say scratch build…

Chuck provides a set of stern frames as part of the starter kit wonderfully and precisely cut in boxwood. The fun part of these is that apparently boxwood likes a suntan, the laser char though light in color was not at all easy to remove, especially as I’m trying hard not to take too much off. My approach was to skin each frame by frame (not taking to much) before they are installed on the ship. So sand and sand and sand I did for each of the 12 stern frames.

From the one on the right to the one on the left I finally got them all done with the skin gone from my forefinger.

Then its gluing Z and its three ZZ friends to port and starboard, most of these will be faired off but you have to start off right to get it right.

Next its creating my version of Rusty’s pencil lead marking jig to identify the line to fair. That’s the easy part. Next is the semi-panicked step of grinding it down to near that line with my Dremel tool with sanding drums. Go slow Glenn..don’t go to near the line Glenn...don’t drop it Glenn…

After managing not to do any of those things its back to sanding to shape up the combined four Z and ZZ frames making up the outer stern (it is not done yet in the photo).

After adding the interior X and Y frames I finally reach a new point of the build. From here on I really want to just do everything once if that’s ok.
 
Next up stern ports and the start of the square tuck. I finally get to see what one of those are. So far I know it starts with a triangle so ….

If you are going to consider making sails I suggest you get Volume IV of The Fully Framed Model by David Antscherl.  While the model in the book is at 1:48 scale, it will still have some very good pieces of information for you.   That said, at the scale you are talking about, I totally agree with Chris.  My opinion is that sails that are going to be out of scale will ruin the model and it will be difficult at best to make sails that are to scale at 1:96.   If you look at photos of contemporary models at NMM, Preble Hall, and others museums, there are a lot of fully rigged models, but few if any with sails.  These models were built by the best of the best but they did not add sails and do not look anything like a raft.  (See an example below)    Why they didn't add sails I have no idea, but it may be that they agreed with statements above about scale and hiding rigging.
 
I have used high thread count (1000 or 1200 TPI) bedding material for sails on a few 1:48 scale schooner models, but only because the buyers required that the model had sails.  The rigging on the schooners was sparse compared to a ship like the Cutty Sark, so the sails looked good in the end and did not really hide the rigging too much.  Keep in mind these are not cheap materials.   Silk Span is probably a better way to go than cloth so as to keep it closer to scale.     Allan
 
 

Carving the decorations has become one of my favorite aspects of ship modeling.
 
Nice start to the eagle!

And after another hour, good progress..... Probably 13 hours of work so far.
 

Working VERY slowly on the eagle.  At this rate it will take me a good week to finish it.
 
As I've worked, I've discovered details I missed at first (one important one being the talon gripping the shield), and I've sanded down the surface of my carving to be able to recapture those details.  My model image is very low resolution, and if I look at it too enlarged, the details (like the talon) blur too much to be apparent.  I have to look at it small, to see more! 
 
The outline is basically there now, and I am working on developing the basic relief areas--
 



 
I am realizing that the beak is critical to this piece, and I am holding off on its definition.  It's what will distinguish this from being an eagle, seagull, donkey, or an aardvark.
 
Ron

Thanks, Martin.
 
I am using a small piece of Castello Boxwood, temporarily glued to a hunk of wood.   Here is a photo with some scale context--

 
The eagle itself will be 13/16ths of an inch across.  
 
My birthday was last month, and I treated myself to a very nice set of micro carving tools.  It was that or the Byrnes saw, and these won (and they were less expensive).  I feel a bit foolish, as they are for folks way beyond my talent level, but the carving is something I want to get better at.
 
Here is my model for the eagle--

 
Ron

Here you can see the ham fists in action...I used the binder clips as suggested by Chuck, but neglected to reinforce the last 2 bulkheads and now have repairs to do.
 

All,
 
This is the start of my very first building log.
 
My name is Shawn and I reside in Lincoln NE.  I don't know if you call it building, but have been trying this hobby for probably 20yrs.  The problems I run into are I seem to have 2 left thumbs and ham fists.  The second has been I take the approach of it's good enough, even though I know I can do better.  With this build I'm going to try the I know I can do better approach.  We shall see.  I use my modeling time as relaxation and therefore enjoy a few adult beverages, so that probably also contributes to my sloppyness.
 
Currently I'm in the fairing stage, I will get some pics once there is something interesting to show.
 
For now here are some obligitory pics.

Shawn
 

Thank you guys for all likes and very nice comments🙂.
To archjofo: why that modesty, your work on La Creole is amazing.
To JpR62: the moldings are done with milling maschine.
I continue with planking the outer parts of the hull.