Cathead

Glenn, no need to be rude. Certainly the clarification that the original poster is asking about a mostly hidden sub-deck changes the context slightly, since slight errors will be less noticeable and it might well be worth doing it more efficiently. Nothing wrong with the poster trying it and reporting back. This should be a place where we welcome questions, not mock people, even if we don't agree with them. Far too easy to turn people away from the hobby or community that way.

Mark, I think the original poster was referring to decking, not hull planking.

Like Allen, I'm not clear why you're having difficulty getting glue onto the entire plank? Also, from my experience I'd much rather fit individual pieces in place than try to make a whole assembly fit into place. It's much easier to correct mistakes as you go than all at once at the end. A full-taped-deck approach might work for something simple, but would seem very difficult for a complex vessel with hatchways and other details the planks have to fit around. Seems that you'd spend more time measuring and recreating the work than just doing it once in the first place. And I'd be concerned about even the slightest slippage of planks from the tape, which would leave unsightly gaps or otherwise have things out of place. But if you try it with success, let us know!

Three points: (1) My understanding is that the Ontario kit is brand-new, which naturally raises its price because the designer and manufacturer have yet to reap any benefits from sales or economy of scale. For example, setting up the casting of any metal parts costs money up front but once manufacturing is flowing it gets ever cheaper to reproduce those castings. Eventually the price will come down as the initial investment is paid off. Also, I believe that kit used a bunch of fairly new/innovative 3D design techniques to produce some of the trickier parts, which raises the potential quality of the kit but also its price, compared with an older kit using poorly cast metal and/or just providing you with raw materials to make the part yourself (think detailed windows). Finally, if it's made in Europe, it's probably especially expensive to ship over to the US right now given how messed up shipping and supply chains are. (2) As others have said, use sensible buying practices. I just looked, and this kit is currently marked down to $699 from $969 on Model Expo. So you just "saved" ~$270 by looking again. (3) A touchy point for me is people complaining about the price of kits (this is not aimed at the original poster here, but a more general comment). Designing and producing kits is a very time- and labor-intensive process, and kit-makers are businesses that have to earn a living. Cheap kits are generally cheap for a reason; either they're low-quality or they've been around long enough that their makers have long since recouped initial costs (and this often means their quality and design is out of date, as is the case for some Model Shipways kits). Or in a few cases they're pseudo-kits that expect you to do a lot more scratch work than the average kit, thus keeping costs down (e.g., Syren). There's no inherent "right" to afford whatever model kit you want. We aren't all made of money (I certainly watch my budget) but a good life lesson is that sometimes we can't afford things we want, or need to make hard choices to get things we want. Personally, even $1000 works out to a pretty good return on investment for something that would take the average people a couple years to build; that's ~$50-$100 a month, the price of cable TV and with far less toxic effects no matter what glue you use! EDIT: Meant to add, for anyone interested in the Ontario, check out the book Legend of the Lake, which tells her story in good detail with extensive drawings, along with images of the wreck and the story of its discovery.

Looks fantastic! How are you going to display the model?

Really cool! Love the multi-part display; I have a somewhat similar thing with a few Model Shipways naval cannons and my scaled-down NRG capstan. Really adds visual interest to present things like that together. And yours are all so crisp and eye-catching.

Looks great, and matches my experience with it being a good product.

Just a thought, many users are on slow internet connections. With my rural American internet, posts with lots of large photo files load slowly and awkwardly, and can really undercut the user experience. I suspect the same is true in many countries. Unless you're trying to show very clear detail, users might consider keeping basic photos relatively small (in terms of file size) to increase the site's accessibility for all users.

I'm sad for your loss, and have a sense of your situation, as my recently deceased father-in-law left a large library of obscure historical, scientific, and literary works that mostly have no direct value or interest in our region. I'm interested in many of them, but don't have time to read them all at this stage of life, so working out how to rehome them is a challenge. If you want to keep it local, consider searching out model-building clubs in the area (I have to think the London region has quite a few of these, much less the UK) and enlisting their interest and/or help in finding homes for the books. British members responding here can likely direct you to various options. The library idea is interesting, though restrictive in a different way since it limits the books' availability primarily to those who use that particular library. Some libraries also struggle with space issues, and a stack of relatively obscure books may or may not be in their best interest depending on their user profiles. But it can't hurt to ask around at different libraries to see if they're interested. You could also try to work with an independent bookseller. Although it's clear you're not interested in profiting from the books, given your mention of donations, providing a potentially valuable set of works to a small business is a worthwhile gesture in this age of mega-corporations, and it would help the books find global readers who really want them. Many independent bookstores now make a significant amount of their living selling books online, regardless of their physical setting, and that's a prime way for people to find relatively obscure works. And they have the infrastructure to make those books known to interested buyers. Best wishes for working through this challenge.

Willkommen an Model Ship World. Meine Frau hat noch Familie in Baden-Württemberg, und wir haben beide in der Schüle Deutch gelernt. English is the default here, but I can't help greeting German members, I so rarely get a chance to use the language here in the American Midwest.

Glad you checked out the planking tutorials and looking forward to seeing your skills progress! You'll end up with something you're happy to display.

You're not kidding, you're rattling right along. She's starting to show some personality.

That looks so good!

Lynn, it's in their print catalog (which you can download from their site) but you're right that I can't find it on the website listings, either. Odd. Interested to hear what you find out.

Planking's always a challenging part but also potentially really rewarding. Good luck!

Nice start!

Bingo, there's your problem! By the way, both brass and pewter solutions look the same (clear blue), at the ones I use do. You can't tell them apart that way, the core point is that they're chemical-alteration solutions rather than paints, so neither will look anything like the intended outcome (unlike paint). Here's a product that claims to handle both brass and pewter in a single bottle, though I've never used it. Any such product is nasty and should be handled with care. My stuff came from BlueJacket and I'm pleased with it: PN0051 (Pewter & Brittania) and PN0052 (Brass & copper).

Lynn, a few trouble-shooting questions and potential advice on your cleats. Forgive any implied condescension if any of these are obvious to you, they aren't necessarily so from here. (1) Are you sure those parts are brass rather than pewter? In the photo they look silvery, which implies pewter. Brass would be yellow and shiny. If they're pewter, you need a different blackening solution. (2) The blackening solution I use (though a different brand) is indeed bluish, like windshield wiper fluid. It isn't like paint, it generates a chemical reaction with the metal that actually turns the outer surface black (rather than applying a layer of black over the metal, as paint does). This is why you need a different solution for pewter than brass, the chemistry isn't the same. (3) Any part that's intended for blackening needs to be cleaned well, as residual oils from manufacturing and even skin oils from being handled will block the chemical process (again, it's not adding a layer like paint, it's actually altering the part's physical surface). I do this in a small dish of warm, soapy water, using tweezers and an old toothbrush to avoid skin contact. I then rinse each part in another small dish of warm water, then set them out to air-dry on a smooth towel. (4) I find that blackening works best when the parts are submerged in the solution and it's given time to work. Swabbing them may not give sufficient time or contact for the alteration process to work. I fill a very small container with a bit of blackener (you can often dilute it) and place the parts in there to soak, occasionally stirring them around to ensure full contact. You can see the change happen over a course of minutes; once they look black enough, take them back out and let them dry on another absorbent surface. (5) I find that sometimes blackening doesn't always fully take, leaving a few patches of color that flake off or never altered in the first place, possibly due to poor pre-cleaning. In such cases I apply a thin layer of black paint anyway; the blackening acts as a sort of base layer that holds the paint and ensures no hint of shiny metal peeks through the paint. This lets you use less paint than you might otherwise need, so the part stays closer to its original shape and surface. You can also use paint or ink markers to touch up any gaps, again minimizing the layering added to the part. Hope some or all of this is relevant to figuring out your problem.

Try searching in 1:64 scale, a far more common scale for broader modeling. It's also S scale in model railroading, which although not as popular as others, still means things are made for that scale. I did a quick Google search for "1:64 dog" and found various results. I doubt the size difference will be significantly noticeable, especially for dogs.

We've all had those days. So frustrating.

If you'd like to expand beyond Euro-American horizons, I'd personally suggest the Museo Marítimo Nacional in Valparaíso, Chile, which has a broad collection of maritime models relevant to historic and modern Chilean history. Overall, if you're looking for private models, a good place to start would be to browse the galleries and scratchbuild threads here at MSW as there's some obscure and fascinating stuff in there.

Looking at that sketch reminded me of the stern of the steamboat Arabia. This was a Western River sidewheel steamboat built in 1856, a very different context than yours, but the geometry is somewhat similar. The Arabia's stern was recovered and is now on display at a museum in Kansas City, where I took a bunch of photographs of it (both exterior and interior) while planning a scratchbuilt model of her. If you're having trouble conceptualizing the stern of your vessel, perhaps it'd be helpful to look at these photos, since so few real-life examples of these hulls remain? I wrote a whole thread on researching that model, here's the relevant post where I share all the stern photos, and below is one just for an example (I don't want to spam your thread with lots of these):

You independently invented a very common solution to that problem, I too have a similar setup. If you search through MSW you’ll find various threads on wood storage with all sorts of creative solutions.

Cool idea, count me in.

Thanks and you're welcome. I actually finished the Arabia in 2020, you can read the build log at the link in my signature and there's an album of completed images here. Be sure to check out Brian's current project, too, he's got a beautiful Cairo going (see link in his signature).