Kevin Kenny

Does anyone have a digital copy of the frames for the Swan on file? Mine has disappeared and Greg does not seem to have a copy.

I am well aware of that, but its what i have to work with.

I have found some gold dry transfer sheets on Ebay which will arrive here costing about $25. It will not be the right colour but ill take a look at it. Its better that $200 from a professional service. It is the correct font

Love your wheel

Based on the description on how the boat was build the off center planks will be fine.

What a creative project.

Moving along great Henry. I just got new glasses so am back on the model. So nice to see detail again

As we have all learnt ship modeling is a journey in which we are all very proud .

I have this set and use them often particularly when carving. Lee Valley what can i say.

This is the best workshop i have ever seen, both at a personal land at a professional level. I am so envious.

Really looks great Henry.

I would love to see photos of your shop.

Completing the molding on the starboards side

She is really coming along nicely Henry. I am now putting on the channels, getting back into the model

Ok enough carving its back to the model of the Thorn. My last piece was my attempt at carving a rose which came out ok. I had to use the Turbo Carver to get the deep thin slots between the petals and between the leaves. Not sure how this could be done with a gouge as the odds are the leaf would break. It was easy to do with the Turbo Carver. I also used a much thicker blank to be able to get the depth in the piece. The main challenge was deciding on the layering of the carving. I had to cut the leaves first and take those to the finial depth, then the next level and so on. When the basic shape was decided on i used the same techniques we learned in Annapolis to carve the finishes using the gouges. Clean up was done with sandpaper and the Foredom using some round diamond bitts. You will have noticed that i have been carving large pieces much bigger that will be needed to put on a 1/4” scale model but i felt that this was what i needed to do to understand how to develop the carving techniques. Also i used a number of different woods of which Mahogany was the easiest to carve. The Coffee wood, Juniper and Acoma with its tighter grain gave a much superior finish and allowed greater detail but was harder to work and required sharpening the gouges on a more regular basis. In total i have carved 37 pieces and can see how my basic skill level has improved. But its time to move on and get back to building my model. I will continue to carve from time to time but found that the workbench was incompatible with model making and carving at the same time. I was constantly having to sharpen the gouges. On a finial note i think i have burned out the bearing in the Turbo Carver for the second time, so that been sent off to service. Thank goodness for the use of my power tools. It makes me appreciate the work of the old masters even more when one realizes that they did not have access to modern tools.

Wow congratulations Henry

Bob Emser has a wonderful video on making Blocks

John here is an interesting video on getting 1/4 sawn cuts on a band saw. It is a very interesting jig.

There are lots of the, on YouTube. that why i never did one. Here is one that explains an easy aapproach

Hi John you need to find someone with a large table saw or a large band saw. Either will do. You need to prepare two flat sides on the saw and then it is easy to cut into planks. You can also use a large hand plane to flatten one side and then if you need make a jig to flatten the vertical side of the log. Any good carpenter shop would be only to happy to cut this for you. My experience is that when they find out what you re using it for that they may even cut it for free. Woodworkers and shop owners or operators are a wonderful fraternity . I usually cut them to 1/2” -3/4” thickness so i can cut them thinner on my Proxxon table saw. The Proxxon work bench tools are too small to do this work.