CDR_Ret

Well, your being unmarried is likely a tremendous advantage in your pursuit of the ship modeling hobby!  
 
You should read this thread, which is full of good advice about choosing first-effort novice level wooden boat kits. Fortunately, you have wisely already realized that it is better to "start small" than to attempt to build an expensive "four-decker" Eighteenth Century square-rigged "ship of the line."
There is a much better option for attacking the sometimes steep wooden ship modeling hobby "learning curve." The Model Shipways company has a very highly regarded three-model series of progressively more challenging models for novice builders which are specifically designed for the purpose.  As I think most experienced modelers would advise, anyone who is not familiar with model ship kit building would do well to start by building these three Model Shipways Shipwright Three Kit Combo Series. See: https://modelexpo-online.com/Model-Shipways-Shipwright-3-Kit-Combo-Series_p_5465.html (These kits can also be purchased separately, should one not wish to commit to building all three.) Building these three relatively inexpensive boat models in order will provide, through excellent instruction manuals written by a leading world-class modeler, a solid foundation in the skills and techniques required to move on to more challenging kits. I don't want to scare you off, but building plastic model kits is nothing like building wooden ship model kits. They each require quite distinct skill sets. You are wise to begin at the beginning.
 
There are several "build logs" of these entry-level kits posted on this forum. These will give you a detailed presentation of the actual building tasks involved in assembling the kits. Here are the manufacturer's YouTube video presentations of these three kits:
 
 
 
 
 
 
Good Luck! And remember, you can always rely on somebody answering any questions you have along the way by simply posting your question on this forum.  

Hello all, 
 
Pleased to be here! I'm new to this forum, not entirely new to (ship) modelling. As far as ship building is concerned, I am particularly interested in paper civilian ships and wooden sailing vessels. I'm currently building Amati's galleon Revenge.
 
Cheers,
Marco

Viriato.
 
Eu sugiro usar o translate.yandex.com tradutor português / inglês. Isso parece fazer um trabalho muito preciso.
(I suggest using the translate.yandex.com Portuguese/English translator. That seems to do a really accurate job.)
 
Terry

Viriato.
 
Eu sugiro usar o translate.yandex.com tradutor português / inglês. Isso parece fazer um trabalho muito preciso.
(I suggest using the translate.yandex.com Portuguese/English translator. That seems to do a really accurate job.)
 
Terry

Try reading it via the link on a mobile phone. Worked fine for me.
 
Sad outcome.

Try reading it via the link on a mobile phone. Worked fine for me.
 
Sad outcome.

Cześć!
Greetings from my shipyard in Warsaw suburbs. I don't have long history with ship modeling, just one finished during lockdown (Amati Albion), bat with models in general almost all my life (36). So many hours spent on this formu looking for information to make my next built as good and detailed as I am able to. And soon i hope to share results of my work. For now some pictures of my first ship from her better days (before hit by books  )
 

Hi again all.  I have been slowly working on the booms since my last update as you can see in the attached photo.  I have still to add the parrel ropes and a couple of blocks for the guys, as well as leather the inside of the jaws.  The spiderbands and end band are made from thin wall brass with the eyes and ears soldered in, then blackened (as shown in an earlier post).  The Jaw bands are black paper card as I need them to conform with the ovoid shape of the jaws and indentations - the thin brass I intended using just would not hold shape properly and gluing them was getting messy. 
 
About 3 remakes later.... see the result (acceptable I think).   it took a few tries to find a wood that matched the wood I used for the spar proper.  The spar is Kaurie, and the furniture Ballarat Pear - the Kaurie kept splitting when trying to use it for the finer detail.   I am also still not that happy with the cleats but they are so fiddly to make, and I do not want to use small plastic ones as they will be difficult to paint (to match).  I have not put pulleys in the slots of the reefing combs yet; still thinking on how I will do that (to keep them looking realistic).   for some reason (camera perspective I think) the jaws look shorter and wider than they actually are.

I am now trying to figure out how to make the mast partner wedges/collar.  This will be done on the lathe and textured to look like canvas (the individual wedges do not need to be scribed as they will be covered).  The problem I am now trying to solve is how to keep the collar horizontal (to fit closely to the deck), with the mast holes at rakes of 5, 10 and 15 degrees for the fore, main and mizen masts respectively.  My current plan, which I hope will work, is use some oversize stock (in diameter), drill out the core to the mast diameter, then turn the outer dimension to size.  My plan is then to put this in a jig of some sort (still being thought on) to allow me to cut/slice it off at the mast rake angle.  Hopefully this will result in a collar that is close fitting at the deck, accepts the mast at the correct angle and will retain a uniform size all around the mast.  
 
cheers
 
Pat

Hello everybody.
I am Jörg from beautiful Herdecke, which is in the middle of Germany.
My nickname is Jölle, I am 55 years old and a firefighter by profession.
Since I have been tattooing on the side for 30 years, the name madtatt arose, which I use in all sorts of model building forums.
When I was twelve I built my first model with my father. It was a small warship. Apparently ship model building stuck with me after that.
I came to this forum via the German site modellmarine and have been reading as a guest here in the forum for quite some time.
The model building quality of many of the ships here is enormous and has fascinated me, so I would now like to become a part of it.

At the end of last year, after almost two and a half years of construction, I completed a large project, the battleship Bismarck, in 1:200 and I would like to present it to you in a short construction report in fast motion.

I look forward to a lively exchange of ideas.
 
Greets Jölle.

Its taken me a while to write in. My name is George and I've been following MSW for close to a year and became a member in June. 
 
My interest in boats comes from growng up and spending most of my life in Southern Maryland. I love wooden work boats and my family has a long maritime history there, specifically on the Potomac River.
 
I always wanted to build a ship model but never had the time. I retired last year and decided now is as good a time as any.
After looking at different kit options I decided on the Model Shipways Willie Bennett. I chose this because I have a pretty good working knowledge of the Chesapeake Bay skipjack. I spent years researching as well as crewing aboard them. I also liked the idea of building it from the keel up. After digging around the internet I found Griphos' Willie Bennett build log and started building in October. 
 
I am amazed at the amount of knowledge collected here and the willingness of the members to share, no matter the skill level of the builder. It's an incredible resource for anybody interested in the craft. I've documented the process and may create a build log at some point. In the meantime, I'm really enjoying the project and being a member of this group. 
 
Here's a shot of my progress so far.
 

 

All Done!
 
The last few bits to install were the:
main deck railings anchors (with chain from the laser-cut detail set -- I bought some chain from Hobby Lobby, but even the smallest I could fine was too large) chain stopper (not included in the kit, but shown on a diagram; it's pretty tiny -- if I didn't tell you about it, you'd be unlikely to notice it) jackstaff flags. A tip for draping paper flags: they are much easier to fold if one scrapes most of the paper fibers from the back before gluing them.
 
Speaking of glue, I have come up with what I'm calling Coyle's Law of Gluing: "The amount of time it takes for glue to set between two parts is inversely proportional to the amount of time it takes to align the two parts correctly after applying the glue." I have found this law to apply regardless of the type of glue used. And along with Coyle's Law goes Corollary #1: "If a part must be glued at two ends, one end will bond perfectly on the first try, while the other end will take four to six attempts to get it to stick."
 
Enjoy the pictures!
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 
 
 
 
 

MANY members will attest to the three vessel series designed by MSW member and author David Antscherl from Model Shipways being a great way to start into our hobby.  While they are simpler than more advanced kits they are not dumbed down and many of us wish these had been around when we started decades ago.  
Allan
 

Thank you. I'm glad you're interested. They say that if you tie an Italian's hands, he can't talk. Roughly the same thing would happen to me if I limited the number of words I could use to communicate my thoughts. I know for a fact that I am not a Spartan, and there I would have been executed long ago for being verbose. It's my curse 😌. 
And about English language skills, your praise should be forwarded urgently to the people who are trying to improve translators. It's a full credit to them. I, unfortunately, know English no further than "I love you", "to be or not to be" or "I'll be back". Just don't let anyone in on this secret. Please. 🙂

@Martes - Hard to see from one screenshot, but if you were to look really close at the texture, I even went so far as to try to mimic a thin layer of bronze/copper atop a wood carving. I do believe the gilding - likely bronze due to copper shortages in the Americas during the revolution - to be historically accurate. The 'patina' material refers to the oxidation of these metals and occurs faster on thin layers. To accomplish this in 3d, I mixed the normal maps of the wood grain smoothly with that of the bronze sculpture material at about a 30-70 percent ratio. I then sharply painted the corrosion (patina) to the cervices (I tried using geometry nodes to calculate where the actual cervices are procedurally, but that proved to be serious overkill). The albedo/diffuse maps only mix the bronze and patina materials, understandably.
 
As to the question of budget, yes there were funding issues during Confederacy's construction - lots of them! Yet Confederacy was built to impress; to be the unofficial 'flagship' of the American Navy at the time, and ironically, historical letters of correspondence will show that money was in fact wasted on her external beauty while neglecting important things like copper sheathing or even, you know, cannons.  
 
SCREENSHOT REFERENCE KEY:
 
1. Wood grain normal/bump map visible
2. Bronze normal/bump map visible (Note the chipping and denting effects)
3. Hand-painted patina effect. As an added bit of realism, the patina mapping also controls the metallic shader (Bronze is a ferrous metal, whereas rust and other environmental corrosions diminish these light-based properties)
 

 
 
 

Hello everyone.  My name’s Ian and I’m a 59 years old ex teacher.  I’ve recently retired and I’m about to embark on my first wooden ship kit, Occre’s HMS Terror.  I’ve built plastic kits since the world was young but I’m very excited to finally have the time to learn how to build something a little more challenging.   I’ve always been curious about sailing ships but was very lucky to be able to do a tour of duty at Ascension Island whilst in the RAF and it was on exploring the Victorian RN infrastructure and diving the wreck of HMS Maeander that my interest in the 19th Century Royal Navy grew.  My long term goal is to build a scratch model of HMS Maeander.  

I thought I should add some photos to also help explain how I go about the process.
The first shows the tools I use for the metal forming part, which include a pair of pliers with serrated grip jaws, a couple of needle files, a small 0.5mm spade bit used in my mill (next photo), a jewellers type metal block (can't remember the name) but it allows me to hold tubes of various shapes at 90, 45 and 30 degrees and cut off small pieces to width, and the JB Tools grab handle making tool.

 
The second shows the set-up with the band on the wood mandrel in the rotary indexing attachment for the Sherline mill.

 
The last shows the band, which has now been drilled to indexed angles at 020, 100, 160, 200, 260 and 330 degrees, being held in my alligator jaws in a soldering station I have cobbled together (still being improved).

 
cheers
 
Pat
 
 

There are multiple tutorial videos out there, personally I have found the AutoDesk F360 to be the best.
Books tend to outdate rather quickly, due to software updates.
Unfortunately, Lars left Autodesk to pursue another life.

All done! I'd tell you what all the extra added doohickeys are, but I don't know what they are myself -- I just followed the reference photo. As a matter of curiosity, there are, of course, multiple variants of the Twin Wasp. I didn't find any sources that could tell me which variant(s) was(were) used in the dash-four, so if you know, don't tell me now, cuz it's too late! 😅
 

Old, but always good- C. S. Forerster Hornblower series.  I especially enjoy the mental gymnastics involved with figuring out his detailed ship handling situations.  I have not read Patrick O’Brian’s books so cannot offer a comparison.
 
Roger

Okay, I finally committed to attempting some of these fittings.  Attached is a trial piece (blackened) which was sized for the mainsail boom, and the actual spider band for the topping lifts and sheet blocks of the foresail boom. With the test/trial band you might notice the ear loops are different sizes where I experimented with what looked best/more correct - I also got a little too aggressive with the filing (removal of the solder etc).  I still have some clean-up to do on the loops of the actual piece to try ad polish out some of the 'jaw marks' as I had to forcefully manipulate the ends into their receiver holes before soldering them.
 
The booms have been made and the jaws fitted to them, but I am still determining the best material to use, and the easiest way to form the reefing combs before finalising the booms.  Still ahead are the boom hoops for the jaws, and the hoop at the very end of the boom.
 
Slow progress but getting there.
 
cheers
 
Pat

You guys should work up a tutorial for developing laser patterns for things like cabin and roof planking, skylights, and other fine details.
 
You might even start a small business of doing bespoke laser cutting jobs to pay for your hobby!
 
Terry

Terry,
My tutorials would be more of a " what not to do " when developing laser patterns..    My experience has been real hit and miss before there was much expertise available.
 
I enjoy making the stuff I do, and my tools and workflow have improved, but I don't want to compete with the pros. The logistics are a bit challenging, and it needs to remain fun for me.
 
I am always open to helping a fellow MSW member with a 1-off project if my skills and their needs can find a common ground.
Gregory

You guys should work up a tutorial for developing laser patterns for things like cabin and roof planking, skylights, and other fine details.
 
You might even start a small business of doing bespoke laser cutting jobs to pay for your hobby!
 
Terry

Excellent essay by Bob Cleek. However, I find rottenstone is a finer abrasive than any pumice. One gets a lovely velvet sheen when using it on a felt pad with a little water.

Hi folks, sorry I have gone a little quiet again in this log but I have been doing a little further research to allow me to complete the booms.  I had to determine what the odd conformal shapes were on the booms near the outer end.  This also led me to determining I had positioned the spiderbands at the wrong point.  I had believed they were positioned at the GD (given diameter) when in fact they were further out in Victoria - this has led to me having to remake the spiderbands     I have still to do the new ones, but practice makes perfect they say. 
 
I am also trying to determine how to make the reefing combs (those conformal fittings I referred to earlier) - see the attached.  At 1:72 these are only 1.5mm deep so a little fiddly to make - still thinking on the 'how' for now.  These were used to rig the reefing pendants.  One end was led through the hole opposite it associated sheave and stoppered with a knot, the pendant was then rove through it associated reefing cringle and down through the sheave.  The tail was then worked with a reefing tackle as required when reefing the fore-and-aft sail.
 
The attached is my CAD drawing of the outer end of the main boom.  It shows the combs and the spiderband, and the outer sheave.  There is also an iron band on the very end/tip of the boom.
 
cheers
 
Pat