bdgiantman2

As I continue to slowly make progress with my building jig top-piece, I have a survey for those of you more experienced model builders than me. Like ChadB on here, I am planning to make my model with the winged transom pieces in the stern as most real ships styled back then. Using the plans by RobnBill (Bill Edgin), the deck transom is 3/16" thick and he shows no other wing transoms in his plans. Should I use the same thickness for the rest of the transom wings or go more with the same thickness of the other hull ribs, which measure 3/8" thick double-layered? Thanks so much for the input in advance. Brian D.

Mighty fine looking ship so far, buddy. Keep up the progress on her. Brian D.

Micro-marks has blades available, a little smaller than the 4in diameter you are looking for, but I have had good success with this company and they have reputable products. https://www.micromark.com/mini-powertool/power-tools-accessories/saw-blades-cut-off-wheels/table-chop-saw-blades Brian D

Beautiful job done on that model ship, sir. Very nice detail and looks very well put together and accurate. You deserve to be proud of her outcome. Brian D.

My first model ship was the Muscongus Bay Lobster Smack. Looking over the pictures and instructions and pieces, its almost exactly identical in a large amount to the kit by Midwest, which is what I built. Midwest has made better instructions with good illustrations, and most of the pieces all came on laser-etched basswood and Balsa boards. Keep up the good work on this kit. Brian D.

Hello everyone, just a small update. I think that I have better straighten out the deadwood for Brig Eagle after triple-clamped it to a spare piece I have of half-inch ply. I will have to keep it clamped down for a while longer, but I think it looks better. Will have to provide a picture of this later. I am continuing to slow make progress on the building board for this project. After carefully cutting by handsaws a section of desired size, I proceeded to glue a spare copy of the top-view of all frames onto both top piece and bottom piece of the build jig. A while back someone in the condo complex I live in was throwing away a piece of wood that was 1.5x1.5x72 inches that I helped myself to use for this project. I carefully cut pieces off to the right height needed and then sliced in half using hand saw and bandsaw. Having a bandsaw can be super helpful but also have quirks. Today I started to carefully cut out the middle sections of the upper board of building jig only to have the blade twist and slide right off the wheels. Also bought a jigsaw from Home Depot which helped some as an alternative but still cuts too rough in comparison to bandsaw.

I have been fascinated about the A-10 for a while now, a very unique aircraft. Am working on two builds of the two-seater night and all-weather versions of this aircraft in two different scales.

Greg and Druxey, thank you for providing more details about this. I did not realize that the dales were removeable, but agree that they would be a tripping hazard in a already confined space. Brian D.

Mike, your model continues to be an amazement to follow and you give great teaching. Great work on here and keep it up. I have one question involving the chain pumps. Looking at the book Cross-Section Man-of-War, the book shows wooden chutes (apparently named dales) that would transport water from the pumps out the side of the ship. However, these chutes (dales) would be extremely close to some cannons. Neither you nor Mr. Passaro have shown these thus far. Would these be accurate? Brian D.

Hi Yves. This has been a fun project to follow and you have been doing a great job of printing and building this ship. I hope the corvette blows up that U-boat! lol. Brian

I am envious of how clean and precise your work always is, especially your keels and the deadwood. You, sir, are worthy of the title Maestro 🙇‍♂️

Nicely made Brodie stove. Wish I could get a copy of this design. Great job on this model ship. Brian

There he goes, off and running

Mark, buddy, I will be following you on this one. I enjoy following your builds on here. From another blog on here it seems a well made kit. Brian

For those of you who may be curious, you can see clearly in this picture how bad the curve is in the deadwood frames. I really thought that using the clamps was going to straighten these out, but the clamps made zero difference. When I was gluing the pieces together, I was able to place clamps on the bottom two pieces of the deadwood; but the upper two pieces, being diagonal, I wasn't able to use the clamps on. I fear that I am going to have to re-make the upper two pieces if not the entire deadwood. Brian

My project is the same scale as the other blogs of this ship, 1:48 scale.

Thanks for the reply, your Eagle build is coming along. Yeah, I agree it is easy to get distracted with those Winnie blogs, some of those models are coming out amazing.

Alrighty, my friends. I finally have gotten most of the keel cut out. I seriously envy those of you reading this who have those fancy milling machines Finally was able to get the safety key needed to operate my bandsaw, was able to get replacements through Amazon.com. Then carefully cut the strips needed with a jury-rigged rip-fence, followed by the painstakingly slow process of cutting and sanding the groves for the hull ribs. The deadwood is the only part glued together right now. It seems to cave a bit, the deadwood that is. When holding it up vertically it shows better despite holding the deadwood with tight clamps to a piece of plywood that my plans are draped over. Those of you who I know have sharp eyes will notice some color changes in the deadwood. Found out had some gaps in the deadwood, so stuffed those gaps with glue and basswood sawdust from a Ziplock bag I have. It works though, looks a lot smoother. I still need to make the appropriate grooves into the deadwood for the half-frames in the stern, and am needing to cut the stem pieces themselves out still. Thank you so much for the thumbs-up on here and for following. Brian

I personally wonder though how much of that carried wood would be for repairing the ship at sea vs for using as cooking material.

I think they would carry small amounts of coal to first start a fire in the galley stoves, but one of the things it seems they would do was burning the boards from barrels that had been taken apart upon being emptied. Now I admit that I have no clue how often the stoves were allowed to burn out during a voyage other than weather related or even if put out at night.

Experienced friends, I have attached the first two planks of the Longboat model. It is looking right so far I think (keeping fingers crossed it stays this way for me🤞), but always open to input from those who have done this kit. Even though the instructions don't do this, I removed the middle of two of the frames of the boat so that I could place clamps and hold the the top plank easier which I didn't need to do for the plank nearest the keel. Brian

Jorge, your Winnie model looks great, and very nice job with the cannon bays. Also you did a great job with all of the additional frames to show every frame of the real ship. Your gray and white cat is my favorite of your fuzzy helpers. Cheers! Brian

Hello my friends. So not a whole lot has improved with this model. As I was attempting to make the keel using Yellow Alaskan Cedar from Mr. Passaro, I quickly stumbled upon issues. The cedar was getting grain fuzz similar to that of basswood. Doing some research, I finally found one solution in buying a bitt for one of those milling machines instead of the regular Dremel bitts. That helped a little, but not much. So I reached out to Mr. Passaro by e-mail on here and he was kindly suggesting trying Boxwood. Turns out he has a vendor through the Syren site. Joe was helpful as could be and very prompt about mailing merchandise. I am very happy with the products that I received from him. But then came the next problem. Taking some time off from work to clear my head out, I was going to start cutting my new Boxwood when I found out that the safety key to operate my bandsaw is missing. Going to have to make another trip to the Home Depot and look for a new safety key. In the mean time, I had bought a plank of Yellow Alaskan Cedar from a wood dealer in Denver and have started for the time being the extremely slow process of cutting pieces off manually with a hand saw. Also in the meantime, I have decided to start building my two ships boats. One is the longboat kit by Mr. Passaro supplied through Model-Expo, and the other is a kit made by Model-Expo of a little four and a quarter inch model boat I will be using as the Captain's launch. In my readings about the history of the Brig Eagle by Dr. Crisman, the brig had one boat for sure as half of the crew often would row to shore for sleeping on shore. Books of other ships from the same time period indicate that the captain's boat was strictly for the use of the captain, so I am making my model with two boats.

I really like the blue paint on the bow myself, a nice contrast to the black paint of the wales. And it makes the figurehead really stand out in sharply too. Nicely done model.

Thank you for your reply. I have enclosed a picture you shared of the object asking about, it definitely looks like was made using a laser. Looked up T-tracks on Amazon as you suggested and couldn't find anything like these. Assuming that you did make these, how much would you charge to order some?