ccoyle

THE ROYAL NAVY 1793-1800: BIRTH OF A SUPERPOWER Mark Jessop Pen and Sword, 2018 16 cm x 24 cm format, 158 pages 17 B&W illustrations, 10 maps SRP £19.99 I'm going to be honest -- I really wanted to like this book. Truly, I did. After all, what's not to like about the Royal Navy at the turn of the 19th century? The Royal Navy of Nelson at the height of his career, epic sea battles, etc., etc. And at times, this book is actually pretty good. I learned some interesting stuff, especially about the economics of maintaining Britain's fleet and the run-up to the Battle of the Nile. But, let's backtrack a little. First, let's start with the structure of the narrative. It's broken into eight chapters, and each chapter is built around the contemporary point of view of a historical character, e.g. a schoolmaster, a merchant, a petty officer, etc. Each of the eight chapters deals with a particular facet of the Royal Navy's history. For example, one chapter deals with the epic costs of Britain's defense of her maritime interests. There's a lot of data on rising shipbuilding costs, total annual expenditures year-over-year, info on seaman's wages, and the like -- pretty good stuff, actually. Another chapter focuses on the need for England to maintain the freedom of her sea lanes. One chapter focuses on naval activities in the Mediterranean, another solely on events in the Caribbean. Individually, some of these chapters are good reading. But the book fell flat for me on several fronts. First, I didn't care for the historical perspective provided by the contemporary characters. They just didn't add anything for me. I think this was an attempt by the author to do something a little different from other historical narratives, but I didn't find it particularly effective. Second, since the book's subtitle is "Birth of a Superpower," one would think that the birth of the Royal Navy as a superpower would be a unifying theme. But I didn't find the book to be a unified, cohesive narrative. Instead, it was a lot of bits and parts, some better than others. This feeling of lack of unity was exacerbated by the narrative having no linear timeline -- there was a lot of skipping around from early bits to later bits, to bits in between, and back again. Not my cup of tea. Lastly, the individual theaters of action were treated separately, i.e. English Channel in one chapter, Mediterranean in another, Caribbean in another. An upshot of this method of treatment is that it's difficult to see how each theater worked in concert with the others to contribute to the overall "rise" of the RN. Lastly, to conclude this review, I have to wonder aloud about the particular time interval selected by the author as the bookends for any RN rise to superpower status. It seems to me that anyone covering events up to 1800 would have done well to toss in events up to 1805 too, i.e. Trafalgar. If the Nile in 1798 made the point of England's naval superiority over France, wasn't Trafalgar the final exclamation point on that statement? Just asking. So, in summary -- good book in spots, a little lacking when taken as a whole. Still, at only GBP 19.99, it won't break the bank if you decide to add this one to your collection. CDC Thanks to Pen & Sword Books for providing this review copy. To order, see link in title above.

Hmmm -- pretty low-tech set-up. I might be able to pull off something like that.

Looks like what we might call a scribing tool, or perhaps part of one.

Halinski -- not for the faint of heart.

All eight writers in my pod at work have variable-height work stations. Interestingly, only one writer works primarily standing, and he almost never lowers his desk. The other seven of us prefer sitting and almost never raise our desks. Go figure.

That's because it is easily sourced and relatively inexpensive.

Isn't this akin to loving one of your children more than another? 🤔

The Fly kit was designed earlier and does not include some details that were incorporated into the Pegasus kit. There is an upgrade kit available for Fly that makes it roughly equivalent in detail.

Whatever kind you opt for, I recommend one that has the lenses in some kind of shroud, like the one Kurt linked to. I tried one that has the lenses sorta just dangling out there (like this one), and I found the un-magnified stuff in my peripheral vision very distracting. Plus, the interchangeable snap-in lenses were acrylic, and one of them broke almost immediately. I went back to a $3 visor from Harbor Freight -- works for me, but I bet the Donegal Optical set is pretty nice, too.

She looks great, Joe!

Hi, Paul. At first glance this appears to be a home decor model, but it is not possible to tell with certainly based on just two photos. Can you post any additional photos of the model? An overall shot of the hull ans some close-ups would be good.

I love all the little scratch-built bits and the clever techniques for making them -- I would never have thought of those.

I did wonder about that possibility.

Your stash includes at least one kit that I built way back in the 70s -- the Tamiya 1/35th scale Matilda Mk III.

Rest easy. Make sure to take full advantage of any pampering that may be available!

Bom dia! (That's pretty much all the Portuguese I know.) Smart of you to start with a small project. I think most of us who bring some kind of modeling background to our first efforts at wooden ships would agree that ships still present their own unique set of challenges. BTW, congratulations to Brazil on their Copa America victory -- I watched almost all the games, including the final. Cheers!

She tends to check in intermittently.

Love me some fish & chips -- the U.S. deep south version with catfish and hushpuppies is pretty good, too. Have fun on your trip!

Very nice, work, Joergen! Brian Criner, whose name you might recognize from his work appearing in various forums and magazines, is the fellow who got me back into modeling after an 18-year hiatus. I didn't go back to plastic, though, because I knew there would be a steep learning curve to approach anything like Brian's models. I chose wooden ships instead. Later I got into card modeling as well, in fact I did the Halinski version of the exact same Polikarpov I-16 as you show here. To date it is still the only Halinski kit I have managed to complete. I enjoy seeing the detailed plastic kits and aftermarket parts that are available today and what talented builders like yourself are capable of doing with them. Cheers!

Can you remove the coating with fine sandpaper or steel wool?

But she still looks great!

I don't know what a "B&Q" is, but if it's anything like a Lowe's or Home Depot, then yes, that's the place. I can't really recommend one brand of sealer over another -- perhaps some of our more knowledgeable woodworkers have some advice on this.

Fill does wonders, if you plan to paint later. Consider using sanding sealer to fill in the wood grain as well.

I continue to marvel at how fast you can put these together -- quite the opposite of how my own builds typically go (lack of dogged persistence in my case). It sheds light on how you were able to rapidly expand the line-ups at JoTiKa and Amati.

Good start, Bob. It's good to see another example of this model being built and putting Clay's practicum back in the spotlight. I have changed the title to use the more appropriate term "semi-kit", which implies that many (or in this case, most) of the usual kit elements are not included. "Mini-kit" sounds more indicative of size, e.g. Mini-Mamoli, which this obviously isn't. Cheers!