bluenose2

One trick I used on my Connie was to drill a small hole in the end of the mast and glue in the snipped off end of a needle. I had to do this on the Connie because the blocks I had glued into the hull still allowed for a bit of slop. The small needle point was enough to keep the foot in place while the rigging was put in place.

You could always use a simple plumb bob suspended from the mast to keep it square while stepping and setting the rigging.

Hi.
Have you looked at cornwall model boats. They have a brand called Quarycraft.
http://www.cornwallmodelboats.co.uk/acatalog/quaycraft-boats-rn96.html
http://www.cornwallmodelboats.co.uk/acatalog/quaycraft-boats-196.html
they are ready made but they do have a fare about of detail.
Most are resin cast.
 
Regards Antony.

Have a look at the home page for MSW.. lower right hand side.  See if any of the sponsors sell them.  

Hello Les here. I have been through the same rodeo. After some web searches on this subject. Here are some of the sites I have come up with. maritime models.uk, naturecoast.com, bluejacketinc.com, castyouranchorhobby.com. Or just type in on your web browser wooden model ship boats.

Hello Les here. I have been through the same rodeo. After some web searches on this subject. Here are some of the sites I have come up with. maritime models.uk, naturecoast.com, bluejacketinc.com, castyouranchorhobby.com. Or just type in on your web browser wooden model ship boats.

I usually do just that - lower masts starting from forward and then work aft and up, however don't make this an invariable rule. Study your rigging very carefully before you start as there may be peculiarities on your particular ship that necessitate a variation to the norm.
 
John

I'm not happy with the 1:93 scale ships boats in my kit.  Does anyone have a suggestion where I can find either kit based or already made ships boats in 1:93 scale?
 

Depending on the look I want, traditional rough or modern display.  If for display, I use several very thin coats of water based white paint as a primer and sand paper with elbow grease.
 

Some of the hobby primers, such as Tamiya, go on pretty thin. They are formulated with finer pigments, to keep them lighter. And it comes in rattle cans, too. Here in the US we also have Scalecoat, which is solvent based. It comes in rattle cans, too. It's a finely pigmented lacquer base. You'd have to find a local shop catering to model railroaders for Scalecoat. Many shops don't stock it, since mostly the hard core prototype modelers use it. I like it because the final colors dry to a gloss. Very helpful for decaling.

Hello Les here. A question. Are you able to spray the hull with an air brush or rattle can? If so this is the way to go. Simply pick a flat lacquer rattle can of Varathane or you could use a solvent based clear coat. Be aware that solvent based paints take 12 hours to fully dry where lacquer is ready in about 2. So same day workability. Blow two light coats on and give a light sand between coats. Your now ready for any paint. What I have found out with brushed on primers is they lay down too thick and your forced to sand out the finish to make it smooth before paint. If you are going to paint a hull with colours it is best to use an airbrush so you can tint the primer to a close final coat colour.

Hello Les here. A question. Are you able to spray the hull with an air brush or rattle can? If so this is the way to go. Simply pick a flat lacquer rattle can of Varathane or you could use a solvent based clear coat. Be aware that solvent based paints take 12 hours to fully dry where lacquer is ready in about 2. So same day workability. Blow two light coats on and give a light sand between coats. Your now ready for any paint. What I have found out with brushed on primers is they lay down too thick and your forced to sand out the finish to make it smooth before paint. If you are going to paint a hull with colours it is best to use an airbrush so you can tint the primer to a close final coat colour.

It really depends on the period and the type of guns. There are three main materials for guns, namely bronze, cast iron and steel. I gather, we are talking here about either bronze or cast-iron guns. The surface treatment was intended to stop or reduce weathering and degradation of the guns exposed to the weather.
 
To my knowledge, bronze guns were not given a specific surface treatment. With time bronze develops a brownish patina that reduces further degradation. However, as bronze sculptures, one can also create articial patinas by rubbing the material with sulfur compounds or vinegar-based concoctions. This can change the colour from a deep green to a sort of metallic black.
 
Cast-iron rusts easily and needs to be protected. This was done by either (black) paint or by creating a passivating patina. In the latter case the guns were repeatedly rubbed down with vinegar. The resulting rust, mixed with iron-acetates, was solidified after drying the guns carefully by rubbing them with lineseed-oil. Effectively, this process created in situ  an iron-oxyhydroxide-based paint of a deep brown colour. Some navies also used black or (rarer) dark green oil-paint. One would need to establish this for a particular prototype and period.
 
We have become used to certain types of surface treatments on models and their guns. Very often, these may be aesthetically pleasing, but are certainly not 'realistic'. While a painted gun certainly would not have a metallic appearance (except for the muzzle), a surface treatment on the model that suggests 'metal' might enhance their appearance. In the case of black guns, I would spray-paint these in a semi-gloss and then rub ridges, rims etc. lightly with a very soft pencil; this then can spread and blended in using one's finger or cotton-sticks. Such a treatment gives a certain 'plasticity' to the gun. Not sure about a procedure for bronze guns, as I never had this issue.

That's too bad that poplar isn't available in Canada. I'm no fan of aspen. I got some by mistake once when I was buying poplar and didn't like it at all.

Some photographic detail ……..
 
Driving past the old work place the other day I decided to drop in to catch up with colleagues and pick up a few more of my own bits and pieces – tools etc.  Sitting at the back of a shelf in a workshop cupboard was a jar of the vinegar/ rusty iron ‘brew’ so I thought I’d produce a test piece to show the effect of the ebonising stain on wood.
 

The vinegar and rusty iron mix ready for use.
 
The oak sample was divided into three, the first left natural, the third area was pre-soaked with cold tea to increase the tannin content, and once this had dried the second and third areas were both coated with the ebonising fluid. Initially nothing seems to be happening but over the next hour or so the effect became more pronounced.
Once the wood had dried half the sample was coated with matt varnish which further enhances the effect.
 

 
 
As oak is not often an ideal wood for modelling purposes, this is what happened when the fluid was applied to a walnut off-cut from my Caldercraft Victory. As walnut has a lower tannin content than oak pre-soaking in tea is beneficial.
 

 
 
I hope this is of some interest, any task that begins with brewing tea has a lot going for it, almost as good as a cold beer once a task is completed!
 
Cheers,
 
Graham.

Hello Les here. Heres my two cents worth. Sorry Canada doesn't have pennies any more. So one tooney. I used to watch a PBS show called the Furniture Guys. Great stuff and very comedic. They used to make their own wood dyes by soaking chains, and any other piece of metallic junk they could find in water and anything else they could come up with. Interesting as entertainment but a waste of time in my opinion. Go to any good paint store and they will have a great selection of water based stains. Just apply and finish. Controllable and predictable. No alchemy required.

I find a slide on top of the saw table works well for strips.  Clamp the wood to be cut to the slide and you can cut thin strips without a fence and without endangering your fingers.  Added a picture of a nicely made table saw slide.

Maybe a bone-straight, grade A select 2 by 4.  The grain might defeat you though.  It isn't apparent, but the grain is coarse enough to drag your tools off course, and it will allow an edged tool like a plane or scraper to work in one direction and not the other.  Get two planks glued down adjacent that the grain runs in the opposite direction and it might be interesting.

Maple is indeed excellent, nice and light in color, but it doesn't sand or scrape down as fast as a softer wood.  Surprise, surprise.  Rock, hard, sugar, all the same tree.
You might look for birch, it's kind of halfway between the normal kit supplied stuff and a really hard wood like maple.  They make a lot of furniture out of it, so it must be pretty durable.
Look out for the source; if the wood is sourced in China, it'll be a different wood than something of the same name here.  It might be just as good, but be careful on mail order or otherwise not being able to put hands on it.
If it can be a little darker, you might seek out old rulers or other drawing/draughting supplies.  They can be made from boxwood, and if you have the capacity to mill your own stock might be a source

Les,
It would be a bit small but not much.  The catch here is that many times the kit manufacturers use parts that are out of scale due to cost so you'll probably be closer than most of the kit items.  I'd say go for it.

Another way would be find a small pin (sewing type).  Drill a hole in the bottom of the mast and put in the non-sharp edge of the pin (cut it down to length but not the point).  You woudn't need much of the pin sticking out of the pin to poke it gently into the keel/false keel.  CA it in place.  This would work if there's only one deck.  If there's two decks, then a bit of clue on mast to secure it to the decks would work.

John, Les (in Canada) is probably only going to find poplar in the 'Quaking Aspen' variety, 'populus tremuloides', (although there is also a 'Canadensis' hybrid of 'black poplar').  This is a softer whitish hardwood with unobtrusive grain, used for many wood products, furniture, pulp for paper, toothpicks, chopsticks, match boxes, snowboards and electric guitars among others.  The green tinged 'Poplar' is a higher quality wood and is from an unrelated genus.  'Tremuloides' is a boreal forest tree so northern and colder climates.  It turns Rocky Mountain hillsides a bright yellow in the fall.

I second the suggestion on poplar. It's not hard to find pieces without any green. It's very easy to work with and is harder than ordinary building pine. It has a fine grain and machines well. It's inexpensive and is readily available in 3/4" thick boards, which makes it easy to turn into ship modeling lumber. In some of the large lumber stores, you can also find boards in 1/4" and 1/2" thicknesses that are typically 3"x24" and often they are very white and almost grain free. I've used poplar on several models and like it a lot. At the moment, I'm using it to plank the outside of a deckhouse and the planks are 3mm wide and less than 1mm thick.
 
Cheers -
John

Hello Les here. I made a boo boo on my current build. I followed kit instructions for the build, got ahead of my self and didn't put any bracing below deck for the masts. ?%X#*. Now I may have a big problem. Any ideas on how to secure the masts below deck? Thnx Les.

Hello jbshan. Les back. Gotcha on the grain issue. As a carpenter I know full well that damp 2x4's will warp when they dry out. When building I always try to pick the ones that are lighter than the rest.