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David Steele, as famous as his works are, is not (never was, as best can be determined) a shipbuilder nor naval architect, but rather an extremely well connected (within the Admiralty) book publisher. One of life's great mysteries remains - who actually wrote his Naval Architecture? A contemporary source, which is more authoritative only because the author was both a shipbuilder and a naval architect, is Fincham, J. 1825. An Introductory Outline of the Practice of Ship-Building, &c. &c. Directions for the Repairs of Ships. Portsea England. Sold by W. Woodward. http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/009723747(note there is also an 1821 edition available: Fincham, J. 1821. An Introductory Outline of the Practice of Ship-Building, &c. &c. William Woodward, https://books.google.com/books?id=pKZWAAAAcAAJ ) From his 1825 edition, I have extracted the following (sorry, but I have not yet been able to obtain all the figures, but I keep trying!) HALF-PORT (Page 200): shifting shutters fixed in the stops of those ports, which have no hanging lids. Those to the quarter-deck and forecastle ports are in general in one, and made of two thicknesses of slit deals, and to the ports for the long guns have holes in them for the gun to run out; and those to the upper deck, In two parts called buckler half-ports; for long guns, the lower part is to the center of the gun, when run out and levelled, as they have a hole in them that fits close round the guns ; and to carronades, to the underside of the gun, if not too low, that they may be fixed over them. The lower piece of these half-ports is of fir, and in one piece, to fill up the stops; with a rabbet taken out of its upper edge, to receive the upper part, and with two strengthening bolts driven up and down through it. This piece is in general hung with hinges at the lower part, and kept in its place by sliding bolts. The upper part is made commonly of whole and slit deal, the whole deal up and down, and the slit deal, to cross it, fore and aft. PORT (Page 224): the holes or embrasures in the sides of ships of war, for pointing the guns through, on the different decks or batteries. The ports are formed on the sides by the timbers of the frame*, and on the upper and lower parts by pieces lying after the sheer, called port sills (Fig. 12 and 15); they are distinguished by the upper (m) and lower (n) port sills; the upper is tailed into the timber, and the lower billed. * The timbers that form the sides of the ports are called port timbers, and in general have an excess of siding over the other timbers. PORT HOOKS (Page 225): iron hooks for fixing the port hinge upon, and upon which the port-lid revolves. One arm of the hook is driven through the side, at a proper height above the port, and is clenched on the inside. PORT LIDS (Page 225): lids or shutters fixed to the middle and gun decks of ships of the line. They are made of fir, in two thicknesses; the inner thickness is called the lining, and is placed with the range of fibre up and down, and of about 2 inches in thickness, with its inner part bedding or faying close to the back stops. The outer thickness, called the outside stuff, lies fore and aft, so as to cross the lining, and is of a substance sufficient to be well with the outer part of the outside planking, at the thinnest part. The lining is fastened to the outside stuff by nails, about 2 1/2 inches apart. These lids are hung with two hinges, which have in their lower end one shackle in each, outside, for the port ropes, and one in each, inside, for the port fastening. These shackles in general forelock. The hinges are fastened, in addition to the shackles, which form part of the fastening, with one saucer-headed bolt, as close up to the upper part as to be just below the upper stop, which is driven on the inside and forelocked on the out; and one or two saucer-headed bolts in each breadth of outside stuff is driven from the outside, and clenched upon the lining. In the port lid is cut a scuttle, to be opened for air when (he lid is shut in; and one illuminator is fixed in the lid, to give light, when the badness of the weather compels the scuttle to be shut in. The port lids are made to fit very close to the back stops, but to come out and shut in easy. After the ports are eased in, which is not done, for the last time, till all the guns and stores are on board, the back stops are lined over with fearnaught or kersey; and likewise the back stops of the scuttle. PORT STOPS (Page 226): are the ends and edges of the planks left round the ports, from 1 1/2 to 2 ¼ inches from the sides of the timbers and upper and lower parts of the sills, to receive the port lids and the half-ports.

Those are 3 wonderful gifts - please share your opinion on the book in the book review section after you get a chance to look through it (I am interested in whether I should add it to my collection).

Not slow at all, sir! You are moving along quite nicely. Congratulations on your baby brother! Getting that pesky bow to fit drove me crazy as well (I have a log here somewhere for the Phantom, renamed the Elsa - building it with my 9 year old grand daughter). As I recall, I overcame that gap by making my keel piece a mite thicker. Carry on, you are doing well!

Sounds like a couple of well thought out gifts!

Nice when the kids give the old guy an appropriate gift! Looking good, Denis!

What a wonderful Christmas present! The Phantom is a nice kit and fun build - will look forward to following your log!

Looks great!

Sweet! Interesting approach to the paddle wheels - are you leaving solid or going to try for the spoked look?

Julie - you are off to a good start, but a couple of corrections. The first body plan - the lines are station lines which, in most cases align with a frame but not all frames are shown. The curved horizontal lines in your next query are somewhat arbitrary lines. They are waterlines decided by the draftsman representing fixed intervals up from the baseline (they are straight horizontal lines in the sheer plan). They show the shape of the hull at that level. The curved lines in the final plan do not show planking, but rather hull shape at a fixed distance out from the centerline (imagine slices from bow to stern). Again, the size of each slice was somewhat arbitrary, though fixed on a given plan. Confused yet?

That would be very cool! Are you going to scratch build the deck-house structures so there is room for battery and motor?

Coming along very nicely! She builds into a pretty model, and you are definitely making her pretty.

Greetings, Jack - just came across your build. She is coming along nicely - you are doing well overcoming challenges the kit maker created! That first planking looks nice. I'll just lean against the bar over here and watch the next installment.

Finally got a second to try and catch up on some logs - looks nice, Denis!

Good thread here, jazzchip. Thanks for asking your question! Like you, I had no familiarity with working with wood when I started. I also did not find MSW and MSB until some time after I started. I share the frustrations of many over poorly written instructions. One model has been kept on a dark dusty shelf for nearly 3 years, partly built, because the instructions are so poor. A shame, really, because it is a subject I really want to buils! For me, devining from a set of line drawings what I should do next (let alone how to build the next piece) is akin to asking someone to bake pompadour pudding from a picture (ask nicely and I'll send you the recipe). It is not intuitive to everyone.

I have a vague recollection of Rees mentioning and showing Waldo (though he called it something else) in his Cyclopaedia. Alas, I am packing ti move and my hard copy is somewhere in a box.

Beautiful work, Tony. A piece to be proud of!!!

Beautiful!!

Hmmm...I think that would be a net loss, Sal - it is an old, unfinished, low ceiling dirt floor basement (brick foundation circa 1900). The garage is, indeed, heated - and with about half of it available for the shop, should be plenty of room! Just means I still need to clean snow off the pickup this winter.

What time frame? Practices (and international agreements) have changed over the years.

Wonderful subject - sorry to be late!

Thannks, Augie. The 3 boys have claimed the 3rd floor for their "man cave", so I have negotiated 1/2 of the garage from the Admiral inn exchange for a new stove and refrigerator. Wonder what I'd get if I sweetened the pot with more yarn......

Well, we close on the new house tomorrow. Then the moving and some remodelling (mostly paint and such) begins! View from the street Site plan - only the house and the garage remain, the others have been torn down. The new ship yard will be located in the right bay of the garage (for now, at least!)

As you may know, the long awaited Volume I is now available for order. HOWEVER - due to circumstances beyond the control of Bob & Cathy at Seawatch Books, our good (?) friend Murphy has intervened. See below for a posting from their website http://www.seawatchbooks.com/NewsForthcomingBooks.htm Thanks, Bob & Cathy, for posting this info - rest assured that at I will continue to support you via book acquisition as you work through this very terrible event! DISASTER ALERT The truck carrying the entire printing of our new title "The Rogers Collection" overturned in Oklahoma on its way to our distribution center in Kansas City. The entire shipment of close to 1000 books was destroyed. (The copies involve any that were ordered at the NRG Conference and needed to be shipped including any that have been ordered online since 11/1.) We have confirmed this awful event today with a visual inspection of the shipment. We have contacted the printer in Dallas, Texas and they will immediately begin working on reprinting the book. We hope to have new books in 2 weeks. Please continue to order, and we will fulfill the orders in the order received as soon as the books arrive at the distribution center. We are ever so sorry for the delay. We will keep you informed here as to the progress of the reprint. (We are still trying to figure out what we did to Murphy!!) If you want or need more information, please email us or call us. 541-997-4439. Bob and Cathy Disaster Update Our printer is responding to our disaster by ordering more of our special paper and all of the case making supplies, and so we will be back on press by Monday for a reprint. Concurrently, they will begin making the hard cover cases, jackets and end papers. The result will be that we will have replacement books no later than Thanksgiving and possibly sooner. These are actions above and beyond normal business for a printer, and a case of bubbly will be heading to Dallas when the smoke clears. Oh, and of course, the insurance companies and lawyers will be having a party too. So, help keep SeaWatchBooks afloat as we limp into harbor. Continue to place your orders with the confidence that we have the situation back in hand.

In general, the deck and the waterlines were parallel to each other. They may or may not be parallel to the keel. I believe that the rake was reference to the waterline/deck when there was a difference. This can be verified by measuring the rake angle on the plans in reference to each location. In the actual vessel, the masts (with possible exception of the mizzen) were stepped on the keelson, then passed through each deck. In a model, depending upon the type you are building, they may only be mounted through the upper deck onto a bulkhead (POB style), but if a full POF model they could be mounted to the keeelson.

Of course, the reason that PPE has evolved is because it is not a natural motion to carve away, there is an apparent lack of fine control percieved in that motion and, thus, we instinctively do it the other way. I have been lucky thus far, but will be investing in gloves for myself and my 8 year old grand daughter apprentice, who happens to have a form of haemophilia.