Jason

Thank you to all who checked out round 2 of the Crown Timberyard closing sale! There are a few items left including: Large Maple Block (bright white wood and straight clear grain) perfect for strips or masts Large Mahogany Block Large Holly Block (bright white little to no visible grain on half the block Decorative Big Leaf Maple Veneer Sheets (set of two) Two sets of beautiful quarter sawn cherry sheets at 50" long. These sheets have the approximate color of pear and straight grain for their entire length. Great for extra long strips. Additionally, we have updated the website to include a partial stock of the 10/4 boxwood billets. Some of you have reached out to buy some of these already, and if you have, those billets are already reserved and not listed for sale. If anyone is interested in buying the lot, what is listed on the website is a little less than half of what is still available. Price is $24.50 / board foot plus shipping. If you live in the mid Atlantic, or eastern midwest region I would consider an arrangement to drive the stock to you. Thanks again, and I hope you check out what is left at www.crowntimberyard.com

The store is open again with new stock. Please check it out! Crowntimberyard.com Boxwood billets will be added later today. The price is $24.50 / board foot plus shipping. Have a great day everyone.

Hi Everyone, Latest news on the Crown Timberyard closing sale. The web store is currently sold out of everything, a huge thank you to all who purchased what we had. For those of you who have been messaging and emailing me to ask if there is more, the answer is yes! On Monday 7/1/2019 the website will be restocked with more boxwood sheets, walnut sheets, and blocks of boxwood, pear, holly, mahogany, walnut, and maple. Additionally, I am going to make the 10/4 boxwood billets available via the website. I have sold about a third of what I have, but I want to unload the rest. This is probably the lowest price you will get in the near future for castello boxwood, as I am selling it at the wholesale rate that I bought it for. Much lower than what is currently being talked about in other areas of the forum. One stick might be a lifetime supply depending on the scale and speed at which you model. So come check it out. Please feel free to message me or email me if you have any questions! Best, Jason

Hi Everyone, Thank you so very much for the really generous support of the closing sale. I was really surprised when I got home from work and saw how quickly everything went. Julia was adding blocks throughout the day, but as some of you said they went fast! I have a few updates as follows: 1: The Boxwood Billets: I did not intend to put these directly on the site. I have had several people reach out to me including one who would like to buy the lot. I will be contacting everyone who has expressed interest and work out the fairest deal, with a good mind toward shipping. It isn't easy to ship these things. 2: Boxwood Supplier: I have always used the same people who supplied Jeff at Hobby Mill USA before me, Gilmer Wood in Oregon. https://www.gilmerwood.com/ 3: Is there more coming: Yes, but not like what was offered today. I have a few sets of special sheets including some beautiful quarter sawn cherry, and some extra wide boxwood. I also have a couple of really nice California Big Leaf Maple sheets that when finished look like rippling water. They make a great display base for models. See my pinnace in the competed builds section to see what it looks like finished. I also have a lot more blocks in my shop, but I wasn't sure how they were going to sell. My intent is to put up the sheets tonight or tomorrow, and get the blocks next weekend. This week at work is absolutely crazy, and the volume of orders that we had today is going to take up every bit of free time between work and kid for the next couple of days. Again, thank you so much! I hope to get back to modeling someday soon and interact with you all more than I have on here in the last few years. And maybe I'll even share some stories about what it is like to be a supplier to the hobby. Some interesting tales those are! Below is a picture of the big leaf maple sheets, they are the ones in the front that look like rippling water. Best, Jason

Store is up.

Update: 8:00am 6/24: It appears that the host server for the Crown Timberyard website is down. I will try to pull it up and open the store throughout the day. There is always something...

Hi Everyone, The store is reopening on the morning of 6/24 with all of our current sheet and strip material (assorted) plus a few other items for sale. Most of the lumber (boxwood and pear) will be added throughout the day. Thanks a lot and I hope that everybody gets a chance to stock up on a bunch of wood. Jason

Bribery... 😁 He's a good kid, but most dads would say that. Here is just a peek at what is coming on Monday. Excuse the poor photography. The 10/4 boxwood lumber will be offered at the special wholesale price that I purchased it. Also, I found one last Boxwood deck upgrade for the MSW Syren that was hanging out in the corner of my office. It will be for sale too. There are a lot more item, especially small lumber available. I am weeding out anything that has any significant defects so all the small lumber will be premium stuff.

Thanks everyone, I really appreciate it! I will be posting pictures of some of the wood to be sold next week over the weekend. All sales will be through the website. Emails are welcome, just please know that an immediate response may not be possible. Julia will be handling the orders as they come, and our son will be packaging them. The pictures below are the whole crew.

Hi, This is Jason from Crown Timberyard. After 4 years of offering fine milled hardwoods to the model ship builder, musical instrument maker, woodworker, miniature artist, and hobbyist around the globe, it is time to close the virtual doors. In the last few years, my family has grown from 2 kids to 4, my career has gone from senior engineer to director of operations, and my volunteer commitments have grown. It has come to the point where if I am in the shop, I am not with the kids as they grow up. As I am sure many of you know, that time doesn't last and doesn't come back. Since I can no longer offer the kind of service that I wish to provide and keep my commitments, it is time to close. On Monday morning, June 24th 2019, the store will be reopening to sell off what we have left. All items sold will be discounted and bundled. No custom orders, or regular mill work will be accepted. The sale will include the following items: Packages of mixed strips Packages of mixed sheets Packages of Castello Boxwood sheets Packages of Swiss Pear sheets Packages of Walnut Sheets Packages of Holly sheets Packages of special large dimension sheets A once used (never for milling product) Byrnes Thickness Sander Small lumber including Boxwood, Swiss Pear, Cherry, Holly and More All packages are mixed dimensions and are great for stocking up on some great wood for cheap. No substitutions will be offered, and all sales will be final on a first come first serve basis. Shipping will be billed separately for each order due to the size and weight of all of these items. All items are in stock and will be shipped once shipping has been arranged. We also have a sizable stock of Castello Boxwood lumber that could be sold as a lot, or as individual billets. The lumber is 10/4 billets between 5 and 6.5 feet long and 4 to 7 inches wide. Approximately 100 -150 board feet are available. Serious inquiries only. We greatly appreciate all of the support that our customers have shown us over the past few years. You have all been great! I hope to return to the hobby by actually building some models and sharing the hobby with my kids. Best, Jason (Crown Timberyard)

Hello Kevin, These videos are amazing! I have only watched the first one and the last one so far, but as an indication of the whole, excellent work! Your videos are a fantastic resource for other model builders. I look forward to watching the rest.

That is an excellently executed deck!

Hi John, Hard Maple would be a good choice, and compliment the other North American hardwoods that you are using. Fresh off of the saw, Maple is very white in comparison to most hardwoods. It is also inexpensive, and easy to obtain. The picture contains, from the bottom, Walnut, Cherry, Maple, Castello Boxwood, Holly. That will give you a good idea for contrast sake.

Great planking job!

It was a great conference. I enjoyed meeting many of you, and seeing your work. The day at Mystic Seaport was fantastic. The highlight for me was tucked away in a small building way on the corner of the Seaport campus. On loan from the Royal Museums Greenwich, are John Harrison's famous chronometers. H1, H2, and H3 are replicas in this display, but the original H4 is in there. Also contained in this building were Harrison's first clock, a beautiful tall case clock, original items from Sir Isaac Newton, The earliest known portrait of Galileo, an original chronometer from the first and second voyages of Capt. James Cook, and the Bounty's original chronometer. It was an outstanding collection and display, with excellent interactive displays from the RMG. The only bad thing about it was the fact that photography in that building was strictly forbidden!

WOW! Amazing work. I am really glad to have found your build log. The finish that you give the completed parts is absolutely beautiful! It brings out the natural beauty of the wood perfectly.

Hi Greg, Looks great as always. I am having trouble finding those aftermarket armament pieces. Would you consider writing a post where you make a table of all of the aftermarket parts that you used, and provide a link to find them? Thanks!

Looking really good Greg. I can see my Varyag from where I am typing this, and your build log is really inspiring me to jump into it. But alas, it is not to be right now. You did inspire me to purchase some PE from North Star and Eduard though... The Master Models' mast set is up next. Those masts are truly an improvement over what comes in the kit, from what I can see here in your build log. Keep up the great work!

Hi Sal, Your Syren is looking really good! The cannonades are great. I always like to see when other people use Lego blocks to square things up. My kids often see a couple of their blocks on my work table .

Hi Max, As might be expected, I buy quite a bit of these woods. The price you quote for holly is very reasonable. There are other exotic wood suppliers here in the states that are asking up to $140 per BF for a really white, rough board. This is before it is ever processed down into smaller pieces. The sizes that you are looking at, I would definitely not begin processing with my Byrnes equipment. Even though the saw is technically designed to handle 15/16" materiel, the 3" slitting blades will not do that. I usually use full size equipment for anything of around 3/8" and greater. A band saw would really be a gateway tool for processing down larger boards to scale thicknesses. Also, I find that when cutting planks, more accurate results can be had if you use a sheet that is milled to your desired plank thickness. Then you cut the desired width. Of course you need to pay attention to how the grain in the wood runs. Oh, and I find it much easier for my hands, which are not small, to work with pieces that are 2" wide on the Byrnes saw. I often use much larger pieces of stock, but 2" is by far, for me, the most comfortable to work with on the Byrnes Table saw.

WOW! It's been a long time since I have posted any of my own work! So, like the post above says, a lot has happened in the last year around here. We moved, had a child, started a business, and bought a house among other things. Working on models has been a thing that I very much want to do, but the time to do it is very limited. However, I have started to get the shipyard chugging along just a little bit. In the Syren camp, after looking at my model on the shelf for a couple of months I decided I needed to go backwards before I could go forwards. There were a couple of things that were really starting to bother me about the model as it stood. One, the height of the bulwarks in the bow was not a smooth symmetrical curve. The port side was higher than starboard, and it had an awkward run to it. Off it went! While I was at that, I decided that since I have all of this great wood in my shop, it would be a shame not to use some of it in my own work. The perfect place to start was the deck. I didn't really have anything against the deck, but why not replace it with some holly? After that work was done, I pulled the Britannia metal decoration off of the transom, and re-hung it in the correct attitude. Next I was on to making gun port lids, which are now made from Castello boxwood. The holly that I used for the deck is what I call second grade holly, which has grey streaks running through it. I find that when it is cut and mixed up on a deck, it looks to my eye like a deck that has been in use for a few years. You still get gleams of white, but there are stains and dark areas too. I like the overall effect. I have yet to redo the tree nails. This work was done a few months ago. Since then I have been working on some other small projects that increase my skill in small areas. I hope to return to this model by the end of the year, but only time will tell.

Hi Paul, I really enjoy catching up on our build. I can almost imagine being on board the real vessel from looking at the last picture.

Your build is looking good J. I was reading the earlier part of your log about the paints. I too use Vallejo, and really like them. However, if you ever did want to try the Polyscale or Floquil paints, Hobby Express in Cranberry Twp. still has a pretty good stock of them.

Hi Don, I have this whole series, and I highly recommend it. Each page is packed with illustrations, with each one given the museum reference number in the caption. It is very easy to use these books as a base for further research into a topic. Each book, which discusses a particular time frame, is further divided into short vignettes of individual actions, campaigns, and theaters of action. I could go on, but if you are interested in the history and equipment of the RN from the American War for Independence through the end of the Napoleonic wars, you really could not go wrong purchasing any or all of these books.

Excellent planking!