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I will try to stay positive with this post. Wish me luck. 😜 I decided it was time to attempt my first ever fiberglass job. The result looks like I've never done fiberglass before. Things started off well enough. I got the fillets between panels 1 and 2 done quickly and without much difficulty. (The spreader bar in the image is temporary.) Spreading out the fiberglass cloth was a bit more of a challenge, but I got that done, too. So then it was time to add the resin ... and that's where the wheels fell off. Despite my best efforts to get the cloth as smooth as possible, once the resin went on every slightest imperfection in the cloth turned into a wet, sticky wrinkle. It was a nightmare trying to get the resin spread quickly and all the tiny wrinkles ironed out. Time turned out to be my enemy, as once again the working time for the resin proved to be too short. I didn't take a picture of this step, as I was very unhappy with the process and result and have decided to postpone photographing it until after the resin hardens and I can better assess what the true damage is. Hopefully it will not be as bad as I fear and Mr. Sander and me will be able to put things right. Hopefully.

That is a ginormous Tic-Tac! 😉

You are nearing the finish! As for where to belay the yard lift, you have some leeway as to where to do that. If there is a pin rail at the base of the mast, I suspect that's where it would go, probably via a block seized to the deck.

These old wooden runabouts are things of beauty. Good luck on your project!

Beautiful model, Bill! I'm looking hard for the horrendous block-stropping and over-gluing, but darned if I can see any. Cheers!

I'm very pleased to see another Soclaine kit being featured here, since we rarely see them. True that Soclaine are not on the cutting edge of kit design, but they offer some interesting subjects, and Recouvrance is a beautiful ship. I wish you well on this project!

Just be forewarned that lots of masts and cannon also involves a lot of tedious and repetitive tasks, which is not everyone's cup of tea. Say, for example, you build a frigate with 24 guns on its upper deck. That's 24 barrels and 24 carriages to assemble. If you rig the guns, then that's 6 blocks per gun (144 total) plus 3 ropes per gun to attach and coil down on deck (72 total). A basic carriage usually has 12 wooden parts and roughly 13 metal parts, 25 per gun, meaning 600 total for 24 guns. All together, that's 840 parts just for the deck guns alone. Still undaunted? Then I will second the advice about Vanguard Models. Take care!

I liked it when my kids were 2, 4, and 8 -- when asked, I would state their ages as 2 to the first, two squared, and two cubed!

Weathered decks on working ships tend to look pretty bland and worn. Star of India in San Diego just got a new deck in 2017, and the contrast between the old deck and the new deck is interesting.

That is a beefy looking hull structure! And I like that it's not a gigantic model -- the scale produces a manageable model.

Welcome, Rachel. Depending on where you are in SoCal, you may be able to attend meetings for one or the other of two very good local modeling clubs (if and when they get back to meeting face-to-face). One is the Ship Modelers Association, which meets in Fullerton (link), and the other is the San Diego Ship Modelers Guild (link) -- both great groups where you can get additional advice and coaching. Enjoy your stay here!

Love it! What's next?

My condolences, Doris. Your tribute to your husband is a very touching gesture, and your model is, as always, spectacular. Kind regards.

Brian, that is a very interesting story. Please feel free to post your pictures in this thread, as they are relevant to anyone building or thinking of building this model. Cheers!

Yep. 😉

Eh, squeezed some more work in. All louvered panels done and a dry fit of the two fuselage sections. The machine guns are 95% hidden.

I proposed to my wife at the original Panda Inn in Pasadena. That was right around the time the owners started up their first Express location. Have yet to see a "Gasthaus Express" or similar.

That strip should be sufficiently bendy that soaking it and clamping it to the fascia until dry should do the trick. An inexpensive upgrade would be to replace the square stock (which is a simplified kit element) with beaded strip. Some modelers make their own with a homemade scraper, but you can also buy double-beaded basswood strip from BlueJacket. I used this on HMS Fly to good effect.

Work continues. Next comes the forward fuselage. The fit of these parts has been exemplary. The only hiccup was the most forward section, and the difficulty was caused by my not getting the joiner strip properly positioned on the adjacent internal bulkhead. The fix was not difficult. The recesses for the gun channels are cut out after the skins are attached, and the channels are formed from separate parts; got these done decently, too -- they're not easy. Along the bottom of the forward fuselage are four louvered panels. One option for these is to simply glue the printed louvers onto the fuselage skins. The kit is designed, though, so that the louvers can be "opened" -- there are even two black cylinders incorporated into the internal fuselage structure to present a properly inky interior. As designed, there are panels to be cut out (one is visible in these shots) and replaced by the louvered parts. This seemed to me to be too ticklish a detail to pull off, so I settled on a third option. I painted the cut-out panels black and opened up the louvers before gluing their panel over the painted space. The glued panel required quite a bit of touch-up afterward, but I think the finished result is worth the effort. On the next panel, I'm going to try gluing the panel down first before opening up the louvers. Until next time! Which might be a while, because my vacation is officially ending, and it's back to work tomorrow. Bleah! 😜

You did a fine job!

Rear fuselage complete. As usual, close-up photos show all the warts more clearly than can be discerned by the unaided eye at normal viewing distances. I had to do a little "tummy tuck" along the bottom of the fuselage, and there were some gaps between the side panels and upper fuselage. I got these filled in and touched up as best I could. Overall, I'm happy at this point.

Welcome, Stuart. As far as I know, there is a kit for only one of the Renowns (your list does not include the battlecruiser of 1916 or the 1895 pre-Dreadnought). Euromodel makes a kit of the 1747 Renown, which was originally built and launched in France in 1744 (see kit listing here). The others would have to be scratch-built. All of these are ship-rigged vessels with a lot of guns -- each will be a considerable challenge to build, supposing that you can find the plan resources you would need. My advice would be to start with a simpler model representing a vessel from the same time period, perhaps a cutter, schooner, or brig. There's a pretty fair slate of kits available for such subjects, and one of them would serve as a good introduction to modeling in wood. Cheers!

Welcome aboard, Ruud! Planking is a scary first-time task for just about everyone, but it is doable, and there is plenty of guidance here. The flattie is an excellent and nearly fool-proof starter kit. Someone with your modeling background may enjoy adding some extra details to the basic kit. If you like working boats, you might be interested in some of the kits from MarisStella; they have a number of Mediterranean workboats in their line. Cheers!

Cutters are great first models. There are plenty of finished build logs for this and other cutter kits (e.g. Sherbourne, Alert); be sure to look to those to see how other modelers have accomplished the various tasks that constitute a build. Cheers!

There is no exact answer to this question, since it depends in part on what a modeler's preferred planking technique is. In any case, though, pins are not meant to be permanent, but only to hold the plank in place while the glue sets. Brass nails can do the job and are inexpensive (you can buy them from Model Expo, as one possible source, and some modelers like to use the nail push tool shown on the same page), but there are other ways to do the job. I use regular ol' bulletin board push pins (the kind with the plastic head), a tack hammer, and pre-drilled pilot holes. Some modelers prefer to use no pins at all and instead use planking clamps. Try one method and see if it suits you.