Justin P.

Where can I find more info about the contest? I may give it a shot 🙂 I really hope you consider submitting, yours is so great and the photography so good! https://thenrg.org/contests

Congratulations! I hope you decide to enter her in the upcoming photo contest!

Sweet! So glad to see you getting right back to it! And glad to be the first to take a seat at the table. Looking forward to this.

Planking is definitely the major hill to climb when first starting out. I would get really worked up over it and did cause me to abandon some very early projects. What I learned is to use the right kind of glue (PVA) so you can back-track if needed more easily and to not let perfection get in the way of progress. The nice thing about kits like Syren is that the hull is partially painted and then coppered, which means you can be a little more forgiving of mistakes as they will be more hidden. Things like filler and sanding can make what looks to be terrible planking job much more acceptable to the eye. Obviously it is important to TRY and do it correctly as best you can (so you will get better), but I would not to agonize over details as you go. There is always a way to correct a problem, and we are all here to help out when you need it. Ive always felt that my best and most useful tool is MSW.

For a while there was a build log or post by @JerseyCity Frankie that many people referenced showing how he achieved this. It appears to be gone now. His were really good... If I remember correctly he used paper mache to create convex molds and then would set his sail material over the mold using some kind of finish (maybe Varnish or Shellac?) to get the sail material to hold its shape. I don't remember exactly how he did it, but it provided a great result. You might also try a search of the Forum, there are a few good threads on the subject:

Looks wonderful, especially the contrasting colors and finish.

I figured this might be the case, the difference in these plans is negligible so wondered if there was some other reason. Thanks.

Thanks Kurt, I can understand the thinking here. I was really more curious about the choice to depict different parts in different scales in the plan sheets, and if there is a reason for this, or if its more an arbitrary choice. For anyone working with the same brain disadvantage as I am, I found that printing the plans at 100% on regular 81/2 x 11 paper gave a precise representation of 1:16 components. I then went back and printed the 1:1 plans separately at 75% and the resulting print was scaled to 1:16 accurately. Ive gone through and checked my printed sheets against my manual calculations and everything checks out. Of course its important to know your printer before relying on this for precise representation so double check everything against manual calculations for dimensions running in both directions. I know this stuff is probably automatic to most of you, but when numbers and language don't match my brain starts misfiring. For instance, 3/4 scale being represented as 1:16 but needing to be printed at 100% gets a bit confusing to me 😀. I feel like I can read all day about it and still not fully understand... thankfully my 7 year old gets it (and printers).

Great idea with the mounts. I hope your recovery goes smoothly, and glad you were able to get in and get the problem sorted out. I know some folks who have been put on long waits with everything happening in the hospitals.

Apologies if this question is better answered or more appropriate elsewhere... Ive never been completely confident in my understanding of scale, rescaling and plans use. Ive read through the instructions and have spent quite a lot of time looking through the plans. Im currently looking at converting some of the real dimensions on my plans and wondered why the majority of the relevant sheets are drawn to 1:16, while a couple other crucial components are drawn 1:1? The reason I ask is that in order to print, I need to separate the file into parts in order to print everything in one scale. If I were to try and rescale the 1:1 sheets to 1:16 in printing (so that all the required sheets for building are of the same scale), where would I go for good instruction on this? I suppose Im used to a certain way of building, where I can rely on a plan to act as a sort of template. If the intent is that I work out a way to construct the part by converting the dimensions alone, Im sure I could manage. It just seems easier to me to have drawn everything in a single scale, making rescaling less complicated. This is not a criticism at all of how these plans were produced, Im just curious about the scaling decisions - and then where I can go to learn how to rescale them accurately. Thanks in advance, really looking forward to build!

Fantastic News! Thank you Chuck as you no doubt played some role in cultivating this new resource for the good of us all!

Signed up, and subscribed to the podcast. Sounds very good.

Progress continues... I decided to build the lower deck in-situ as I could anticipate trouble in trying to be certain all my notches and fittings aligned well. Of course I encountered a wholly different set of complicated steps that Ive noted for the future build out of the gun-deck. There are definitely parts of the layout that I feel would have been much easier and more accurate had I made the notches off-model, as well there are some that almost certainly are more accurate having been on done in place. As a result, many are done to the plans, while other notches were imitated in favor of less accurate flush joints. Im committed to thinking this through a bit more next time... a commitment I seem to make a a lot in ship modeling ;). I also rather stupidly overlooked the need to notch out for the gallows prior to fitting the aft ledge and carlings, despite reminding myself many times! So I still need to work out a way to get that done without wrecking everything. For the carlings, I used a razor saw which became a favorite tool and a small chisel. This process worked well until I got into areas where even my razor saw was too large (hence areas that should have been notched ahead of time). Otherwise, the process was basically as pictured below. Once I got the deck built out I had to add the hanging knees, which I more or less improvised on. The plans provide a template for the gun deck knee's which aren't anywhere near the right shape to be used in the hold area. So I sort of winged it... They may be changed... for now Im happy with them.

I use white PVA wood glue for the reasons stated above. I generally try to make a 1:1 ratio and then dilute with water which can help with the "too dry" to use issue.

Again, great photography and a really superb model. Approaching these end-days must be a nice feeling for a complex project like Syren. I wish I had more to say that hasn't been said already - it really is great piece of work.

Good to hear! Welcome back! Looking forward to some new posts. Fairing isn't my favorite process either... sometimes perfection is the enemy of progress.

Just got my Capstan download off the NRG store, WOW! Everything looks really great, and well produced. Thank you to everyone involved.

Just about everyone has done this at one time or another, some of us more than once... its like a right of passage.

This looks great, can’t wait to dive in on Monday!

Indeed. So far as I can tell, the transom matches the primary source for Bounty's launch drawings that I have seen. Curious why Model Shipways version of the Bounty Launch omits this design element. My only thought is that one design is the "launch" and the other the "longboat," with various sources using the terms interchangeably.

Looking fantastic! You are inspiring me to carry-on with mine!

I agree with pretty much everyone. I bought one years ago, then promptly sold it to another MSW member as it really wasn't as useful for what I was trying to do at the time and it became an expensive paperweight. Then I got another MF70 in the last year as a gift, and now I use it all the time. Probably when I don't need to, and likely more often than not incorrectly. However, it is a joy to use and can make very nice precision parts in harder woods as demonstrated above. I can't comment on value, at one point it was too expensive for me to have laying around and now that I haven't paid for it, I love it...

I did some work on this as well some time ago. I ended up contacting the Center for Wooden Boats who run a full size "replica" of Peter Pugets launch. They told me at the time that there were no definitive resources available for the actual design of the Discovery's boats and instead used lines taken from plans available for HMS Bounty's launch and then modified the look and fitting out based on contemporary accounts by Puget and Vancouver. https://www.cwb.org/program-boats/discovery

This is more or less what I would expect. Im thinking through some options to do a bit of a hybrid... maybe there is a way to temporarily fix items as I go? So that I can do a bit of both.

Thanks Matt! Though in the spirit of full transparency, they "look" tighter than they are. An old trick I learned was that some gaps can be made less obvious if you cut your PVA with about 1:1 glue to fine sawdust of the wood you are joining. So I ran a piece of scrap maple through a thickness sander and collected the dust, mixed that into a very thick slurry and applied liberally in the joints before clamping the pieces together. the end result comes out looking much better than my skills could otherwise achieve :).