Louie da fly

Hi, Dom. Did you ever finish the Royal Caroline? It was looking very good.

Hi RDL, Are you still out there? I only just came across this log and it looks really good. Then . . . nothing. Did you ever finish the model?

I've reached a bit of a breakthrough regarding the oarsmen. The major problem I've been up against is that neither the oarsmen nor the spacing of the benches and tholes are terribly consistent. The first because they were all hand-carved. The second because when I was first building the hull I didn't realise how important it would be later in the build to have all the frames at exactly the same spacing, and I've had to make adjustments around this initial error. Because of this, each oarsman has had to be dealt with separately - I haven't been able mass-produce a "standard" oarsman - and the same applies to the placement of their arms. A tiny variation in placement can have a huge effect on the relationship between the oar handle and the oarsman's hands. I can only mass-produce arms up to a certain point - I have to leave quite a bit of each arm unfinished till I can adjust it to the individual oarsman. This has been bugging me for quite a long time - how to get some stable reference point so I can put the hands in exactly the right places for each oarsman. Well, I've finally worked out a strategy. First I glue the oar in place on the gunwale so the blade is level with those of the lower oars (i.e. at "water level") and the oar is at the same position in the "sweep" as the lower oars - (so if you look down from above, all the oars are at the same angle with respect to the hull). That's our first reference point. Then put a spot of glue on the oarsman's "sit-upon", to temporarily fix him to his bench. That's our second reference point. Drill a hole through the top of the arm, which is then temporarily glued to the shoulder and the hole continued into the body. A bamboo pin fixes them together, then the arm (after breaking the glue bond) is swivelled till the hand is in place on the handle of the oar. Then bit by bit I carve the hand so it has a hollow to take the handle, and then shape it until it is as much like a human hand as I can make it. Then I can glue the arm onto the body permanently, and repeat the process for the other arm. After the first two figures (which was the experimental stage) I was able to improve the process. On the second figure I discovered the swivel hole in the arm was in the wrong place - the hand reached past the oar handle. I had to drill a second hole to get the swivel in the right place. So from now on I'll be lining up the arm against the shoulder first, to check that everything fits properly before I drill the hole. Finally, when everything's lined up and glued together, I go back and trim everything to shape. I put wood filler in the gaps between arm and shoulder and smooth it off when it's set. That way I don't have to spend forever trying to get the interface between the arm and the shoulder perfect - I can just bodge it a bit. Once it's painted no-one but me will know the difference (oh, except you guys, of course). Oh, and on the subject of arms, this is included for those Australians of a certain age who still remember the Aunty Jack Show on tv .

That's looking very good, Dave. A nice crisp job of planking, which will look even better with the poly. It really transforms the look of the boat.

Very attractive Jo. Paint creeping past the tape is always a bugbear - you're certainly not alone. And it shouldn't be all that much trouble to touch up.

Hi Binho, Good to see you back at work. Coffee table? By the way, I was just looking again at the previous page. That is a seriously beautiful hull!

Hi Lemmydog and welcome. Aircraft carriers are completely outside my experience so I can't help with that, but what in particular attracted you to the Ameer and Emperor? Maybe following that line of reasonig could find you a model kit you'd like to build.

That's good to hear. I hope evrything's ok for you and yours.

That's looking very good, Rodolfo. I particularly liked your scarph joint for the last wale, making use of a broken piece of wood that would otherwise have been wasted.

Sorry to hear about you getting sick; glad to hear everything's good again and you're back onto the model. Looking forward to seeing your photos. Galleys are fascinating vessels (though I sometimes regret having taken one on myself). If you ever get the chance to get hold of a book called "Age of the Galley" I'd highly recommend it.

Hi, Nic and welcome. Even if you haven't yet got back to working on it, you might like to start a build log anyway, with "retrospective" photos of your Constitution so far. Always nice to see pics of people's work.

Welcome, Bill! Good to see you've started your build log - I'm looking forward to following it. You're off to a good start (and you've already started to "kit-bash" to take the model to a higher level than the kit provides - kudos for that!) I've never built anything that complex in plastic - the only 20th century ships I ever made were Airfix kits of the ships that took part in the battle of the River Plate - Graf Spee, Exeter, Achilles and Ajax - but they were even smaller scale than yours (1:600) and that was a very long time ago. So I'm not able to give any advice, but you're probably right in going for 1:350 next, and looking at the build logs for these ships to see which ones are better to build. As far as wooden models go, that question gets asked a lot and if you look at the threads on New Member Introductions you'll see a lot of good advice regarding what's a good "beginner's" model. Just don't do HMS Victory or Vasa as your first build!

It's a difficult decision, and one most modellers come up against (including me). Do I change the thing I did in good faith but now know better, involving all kinds of work and hassle, and possibly not a perfect result, or do I leave it as it is and put it down to experience, knowing it might sneer at me every time I look at it for the rest of eternity? You have to decide what's right for you. I've taken both those courses on different aspects of the same model at different times. But also remember that whichever course you take now, umpteen years from now you'll still look back on your first attempts and think "Wow! I've really come a long way!" Which is only right. Learn from mistakes and do better with every new build you do - but in my view the important thing is to enjoy the ride. This is a hobby, after all.

Interesting hull shape, too. So different from the normal run of models you see.

This is a project after my own heart. It will take quite a bit of judgment to keep as close as possible to the client's brief (repaired but still looking aged) while replacing missing parts. Are you planning to "age" the new parts or leave them new-looking to show what's been replaced? And how about the cleaning? I expect even once cleaned the ship will retain much of its patina, but I'd say that would also be a judgment call. I'll be following with great interest.

Hi Robin, Haven't heard from you in a while. How's it all going?

Hi Paul, Just touching base to see how it's all going. I hope you're well on the mend by now. Stay safe, and I hope you can get back into modelling soon. Best wishes,

Hi David, Just revisiting after quite a while - I'd lost sight of this build. Did you get any further with it?

Hi mkmossop, I just came across this log after a reorganisation in the MSW site. That's a very cool Santa Maria. Did you ever finish it? If so, any chance of some photos?

Hi D_Mc, I've just been going through some old build logs and I came across yours, which I'd never seen before. Did you continue with this? For a first build it's very impressive. It would be great to see it finished.

Hi André, Haven't heard from you for quite a while. Are you still modelling? It'd be great to see your Santa Maria all completed - it was looking very good at last report.

G'day, Eddie. Haven't heard from you since 2017. Are you still out there? Any progress on your carrack since your last post?

Hi, Ships88. How's it all going? Do you think there's a chance of doing any more on your trireme? I was very much enjoying following your build log, but I can understand if other issues take priority. Best wishes,

The ringbolts are complete and painted black: And I've put them in position: And here are the cleats under way. The only problem is that as far as I've been able to discover there are absolutely no cleats in the archaeological record for Byzantine vessels, so how lines were belayed is a bit of a mystery. It seems likely to me that the simple cleat I've made would be of a type that would suggest itself to anybody wanting to tie down a rope, and in the absence of any better evidence I'm going with these. And I'm committed now - they're glued on with CA. Holes for the pins that will locate the cleats into the sides of the ship. The holes were made before shaping the cleats, to minimise the risk of splitting (some of them did anyway). And separated out into individual cleats: Brass sequin pin inserted in the hole . . . and cut to length. And cleats in place: I put them on an angle because of the limited space - either vertical or horizontal there just wasn't enough room to get a rope around the "horns". Had I thought ahead better, I wouldn't have put that railing on before the ringbolts and cleats. It made my job almost impossible - in fact I had to bore the holes for the cleat pins by hand, with an awl. And I've been making arms for the oarsmen. At the current state of things there are a total of 96 needed. On reflection, I've realised that this makes me an arms manufacturer . . .

There certainly would. Looking forward to seeing your log. As it's a kit of a ship from the 20th century, go to Build logs for Ship Model Kits - by era - launch date and from there to 1901 - Present Day and then to Before you post your build log please read this - Starting and naming your build log. Follow the instructions, add appropriate tags so your log can be found easily (How to use and create TAGS ) and as it's your first build on MSW, include a tag to say so (members are extra helpful to new people). And you're on your way! Have fun with it.