Cathead

Regarding cats, my avatar is getting on in years and has never been overly adventurous. As long as I push in the chair at the model desk, she doesn't try to get up there. Not sure how to exclude a more active cat other than a door. Hope you have fun with this model and manage to keep the paws off.

This is really cool; I love builds that help me learn about the ship itself. And I really appreciate the captioned photos that clearly document your steps. I'm going to try that angled plank end approach, too, seems obvious now that it's pointed out.

This is a really neat project. Being from the American Midwest, I had never heard of this type of kit before. It seems a very intelligent and interesting approach. Can you share any more about how this sort of thing works? In any case, being of partial German heritage and fascinated by this era as a kid, I'm excited to follow along on this.

A good ruler is indeed invaluable. But you can also use any of the multitude of online conversion calculators available. For example, go to http://www.onlineconversion.com/length_common.htm and just enter 6 feet divided by mm, then divide that by 60. Pretty much every computer has a basic calculator you can do that last step on if you don't have a physical one. Or you can use a spreadsheet like Excel, and if you don't have that, you can use the free versions offered by platforms like Google. For every one of my builds, I set up a basic spreadsheet that has a number of common conversions for that model's scale, and a few custom fields that let me enter a given number and have it spit out the corresponding scale measurement. Maybe I should write up something about this with examples as a separate post.

This is a someday build for me as I really like the look of Admiralty models. Your careful build looks great so far. I look forward to your progress.

Pretty much every model has workmanship flaws if you look close. Mine sure as heck do. Part of what I enjoyed so much about this one was your combination of freelanced accuracy; you created something of your own but still a very realistic representation of the type. Your words are kind, too, but I'd say Glenn Grieco was the biggest draw of interest before he had to give up the build log.

That looks very similar to the mast arrangement and sail plan of the Bounty's launch. Technically a different style of boat, but it's your model, and there were almost certainly some unusual prototypical arrangements out there.

Well, this is a wonderful model and I'm so glad you shared it with us. I devoutly hope I can produce such work 50 years from now (yes, I skew the age distribution here).

Thank you for sharing this news. I had been missing his updates on this model, and his presence in general, and now I know why.

Roger and Cog capture my feelings on this. Digital is fine for light linear reading, especially fiction, but I cannot stand trying to work through a technical text of any kind (involving figures, illustrations, or the need to move back and forth in the text) in digital form. Plus I, too, spend a lot of work time on the computer and really don't like the additional eye strain of reading for pleasure on a screen. I have a Kindle, but only use it for reading when traveling. Any book or magazine I care about comes in print. And it's not just age, I'm under 40.

What a lovely achievement! The work is very crisp and manages to look both accurate and artistic. Thank you for sharing it with us.

She is looking absolutely gorgeous! Really hits the sweet spot with crisp work and coloring that is both clean and realistic. Apologies for my long absence from Arabia. A variety of life and work conflicts have been keeping me away from that project.

Bill, I'm glad it was worth pointing out. Always feels awkward to do so, but it seems that most people would prefer the peanut gallery to ask questions and such.

Looks really good. Nice color balance and crisp-looking work. Well done, and thanks for sharing!

Thanks for the early tutorial in overcoming QC issues. I definitely like your marker stick. Keep up the good work!

Looks nice so far. I do have one question: the two gunports in the stern appear to be different widths. Is that intentional, or an optical illusion?

I use either a piece of plywood or foam core board. Both are easy to move around and plans can be taped or clipped to them. I lean the plans against the wall behind my desk or place them on the floor, depending on how I'm using them. I'm very cramped for space and this works fine. If I had more space, I like Kurt's approach.

Those really are glorious. You hit the perfect combination of detail, weathering, and simplicity.

I'm just catching up with you here, and those are some great photos you've shared in the past few posts. I really liked the one laying out all the different blocks: daunting but fascinating. And your explanation of the topmast's shape and fitting was really interesting and educational. Thanks.

I think the unfortunate reality is that this forum has far more questions and topics than everyone can keep up with, especially those with the knowledge to answer every question. Sometimes the person you need is busy; not everyone checks the forum every day or even every week, and it's easy to miss a given question or topic for a little while. There's a real tension between the immediate need of the modeller for an answer, and the delayed response time of other forum members who aren't necessarily on the same schedule. I certainly can't keep up with everything that's happening on here. I'm in central Missouri, a bit north of the river.

Of course, when using such stats, one should also remember that such a large navy was also spread thin across the globe, performing myriad duties in service to Britain's worldwide empire. It's not like most of that huge navy was just sitting off the American seaboard waiting to pick on the little guys. Citing that without context is like comparing the entire US military to the Taliban or ISIS, rather than the actual ratios of forces and capabilities in-theatre.

I think it's hard to do unto others as we'd have them do unto us. It's hard for me not to see Likes as somehow lesser than a written comment, yet my personality really struggles with writing lots of generic "Looks nice" posts if I don't have something specific to say, and so I work hard to remind myself that a Like is a completely legitimate response. Also, sometimes nobody knows the answer to your question. I know I've felt bad about not responding to a question in a build log before, but if I don't feel I can add anything helpful, it doesn't feel right to take up space saying "Beats me". Finally, I struggle to decide where the line between constructive criticism and nitpicking is. We all have different standards for "good enough" and photos can often be very unforgiving, so I don't know how or when to point something that looks wrong to me but the builder might be fine with. I'm also not such a good builder that I'm always comfortable attempting to critique others' work, and I'm sure I'm not alone in that regard. It's a difficult situation to parse. This also goes back to the tension between the two roles of build logs: as a live community experience of a model's progress, and as an archive of the work that was done. In the former role, lots of comments are welcome and even psychologically beneficial. In the latter, lots of comments are a PITA, as anyone reading through a past log has to wade through lots of irrelevant content. The only other online forum I frequent (a baseball site) has the opposite problem: all comments are essentially live-streamed (they aren't numbered and tagged as at MSW), making it really easy and fun to interact with people but nearly impossible to find past content again. Neither approach is perfect.

Hey, Bob, thanks for the nice comments. Sorry for the slow reply but I just returned from vacation. You ask a very good question about the order of standing vs running rigging installation. I, too, had read the same advice as you, but obviously went the other way. I spent a bunch of time thinking through my workflow, particularly as I was adding sails, and I felt that the standing rigging would be in the way of rigging the sails properly. I even set up some "test" rigging to explore this, and kept feeling like the shrouds got in the way. Of course, things ended up getting in the way in my approach as well. So it may or may not have been the right way to do it, but I did very much appreciate being able to tie down all the running rigging on the belaying pins near the mast without having to work around and behind the shrouds. As for the kit, yeah, if you have it already and don't mind the challenge, might as well go for it. Obviously it can be completed into a reasonable finish, and I learned a lot from struggling through it. But I wouldn't purchase it again, there are too many better options.

Great job! I like the mix of precision and used look.

I'll be at a family memorial service near Vicksburg in August, and was hoping to swing by and visit Cairo then if I can find the time. If you still end up needing any additional photos then, I'd be happy to try. Your cylinder timbers look very nice.