Chuck

which blade did you end up getting for general ripping of boxwood? Did you get .030 kerf blade? That is the one I use mostly and you can hardly tell it apart from the Thurston equivellant.

Thank You!!! That is very kind of you to say.

Nice planking Ryland....only 4 more to go!!! Very precise joints. Its so nice to see so many clean well crafted longboats. Yours is an excellent example. Chuck

For an example.....check out this Victory model which is in a beautiful case with table. If we as ship model builders tried to just buy this case and table for something we built it would cost more than what the model was sold for at auction. This model of Victory with additional cross section...... all cased up sold for just $400. It is a typical kit model nicely made with sails. Probably a Mamoli kit maybe. https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/24092/lot/392/ I do not mean to discourage you, developing a reputation and a following takes time. For example, I was offered $12,000 for my Cheerful not long ago. I didnt sell it however because its something that needs to be used as part of my business. I also sold one of my 1/4" pinnace models and 1/4" longboat models to a collector not long ago. They sold for about $3900 as a pair...all cased up. Not a huge sum but I made several others that I have decided to keep and how many of these can you have laying around. For the past 15 years I have just been giving my models away as I complete them....but my wife and kids want to keep a few of them now. The few models that I have sold were to people who came to me and specifically wanted to buy my model or have me build one for them. This is a very different situation and one I am grateful for. My guess is because I dont have much of a name as a frequent seller of models outside of the few who already know me, if I tried to sell one at a gallery or auction, I would get about $500 as well. Not enough to cover the cost of the case and materials. Unless you get someone who seeks you out personally and realizes the value of of your time and expertise and level of craftsmanship, selling them is hard. It takes work and a lot of time and help to get recognized as a ship model artist that commands decent money for their models. Chuck

It is just like trying to sell your paintings if you are an fine artist. Unless you have a track record of sales no matter what the quality of the art which shows some provenance, and you have a name and some following and notoriety in the industry, your art wont sell for that much. This takes years to develop and usually that means selling through galleries and auction houses. You will sell them at very low prices at first and then if your lucky.....you will gain a reputation and name for yourself and command higher prices. Its hard work to do this of course. I have seen good, master quality ship models sell for $30,000 and up...... and I have seen equally good work sell for $100's of dollars. Mostly because the builder doesnt have the name or reputation that commands higher prices. Its just the way things work. A gallery or good nautical reseller will do whatever they can to inflate your name and reputation so it does get more well known......in order to hopefully raise the asking price to match the quality of craftsmanship. If your work is less than master quality which should be left to others to judge in the industry, then most likely the model will be considered "furniture grade display" like the hundreds of models sold on Ebay and elsewhere. If you google any nautical auctions from various houses that sold models you will see some outstanding work with final sales prices in the hundreds. Some maybe around $1500 - $2000. Most if not all of them are not kits or kit-like. So without a photo it would be very hard to say. But I wish you the very best of luck. These can command a few hundred dollars and maybe a bit more as a decorative item at best. Its a tough racket to break into.

Really nicely done.....very clean work and your care in craftsmanship really shows. The joints are nice and tight .......excellent work.

That looks great. Keep up the fine work and I look forward to seeing more.

Yes that is common practice. You are absolutely correct. Just to let you know, we (myself included) have opened up dialogue with many of the Chinese manufacturers. Rather than just beat the drum and continue to lock horns with these folks, we are reaching out and trying to encourage the development of new and original works. I would even go as far as to say, that I personally am trying to bridge the gaps between us and work together with some of these guys to encourage new and original designs like this kit. AND to start fresh with new brands in order to highlight the new original stuff is a great start. I know some of these designers first hand and I will tell you that they would rather design stuff that is exciting and fresh and "original" . When I speak with them it is like talking to any kit designer in the west and we have much in common. I am very excited about this kit in particular and even more so with the other new designs in the pipeline from the handful of designers and brands I am trying to work with. Please welcome Trident as one of the more ambitious and hopefully gracious MFGs from China who is actually working hard ...but change is hard.....and I am going to encourage them as much as I can to continue along this path. I will end with one final thought...I abhor the theft of intellectual property and designs and always will. I will do everything I can to bring that practice to an end. Encouraging and developing relationships with designers all over the world will be a positive step in that direction. Promoting these original projects is an important part of that.

I dont know.......I havent used it for very long. Time will tell!!! But I am being very careful to pick wood for planking that is very close in color.

Thanks guys... Interesting about the Alaskan cedar is that like other woods, there are plenty of color variations within a batch of lumber. It was fairly easy for me to select the darker/more tan cedar I used for the wales which incidentally is a near perfect match for boxwood. You would of course need a huge amount in your wood pile to select the tone you wanted. I could have very easily selected that same color I used for the wales for the entire model. But I wanted to use the more traditional and more plentiful lighter and warmer tone which is what most will see when they get this. Chuck

I have finished planking the starboard side up to the sheer. I will start on the port side this weekend. As you can see now, the wales and black strake are much darker than the wood above it. That was done on purpose so I could easily identify the wales when I add the second layer. Having said that, the Alaskan Yellow cedar is really nice stuff for working this large. I like the color and its easy to work with. This is the largest model ship I have seen made from Yellow cedar. This will be a great test of how versatile and useful it is for ship modeling. Chuck

No I dont sell the wood or have any of that material. Its pretty impossible to import other than by commisioning the cnc carvings. Damn near impossible to import raw wood from China.

As good as your first version looked, this one is even better. It really looks clean and well crafted.

Neither...They are some weird Asian Boxwood. Its what they use to make all of the little carved sculptures you can buy on the web. It has no grain pattern at all and carves like butter. But it is more yellow than Castello or even European box.

Yes they are the milling marks from the monster bandsaw I use to mill sheets from those larger bricks of wood. But you dont see any on the wide sheet I milled. What you do see on the smaller 2" wide sheet is the grain pattern.......so when you rip the strips from this smaller sheet the "important" side of each strip wont have them.

Leopard did a great job showing what I was describing......and no.....edge bending is fine either way. But the face of your strip is smooth and grain-free on your model.

thanks guys....Rusty, I am just waiting til I finish planking a bit more. Its been a long time since I had to cut around so many gun ports. The Starboard side is a third of the way complete. You can see the five strakes of the wales and black strake which are darker. This first layer was done this way on purpose so I could make sure that I put the second and final layers on the right strakes. Also....the black strake can be left bright and unfinished or painted black along with the wales. In this case the wales on the Winnie are so wide I think it would look a bit much. So I will NOT be painting the black strake. I am using other contemporary models like the Amazon as inspiration for this. See below. Imagine if you can if the black strake was also painted black on the model below. It would be too wide and look over-bearing. Dont forget to click on those pics of Amazon.....they are quite large and quite a treat to see this magnificent model up close. I have these handy as inspiration while working on my model. Oh I also made this mock up of the other carvings to display at joint clubs. I know its not the best picture....but I thought I would post what all of the other carvings will look like. These dont have any finish on them.

As I am about to start planking above the wales, I wanted to spend a moment talking about milling planks. Specifically Alaskan Yellow cedar but this is true for most woods. I will be offering a cherry version of this project and this is also true of cherry wood. Like everyone else, I cut my sheets from larger billets of wood. Below you can see one of the these "bricks" of yellow cedar lumber. It is a 2 x 6 that has been cut to 15" long segments. In that same photo you can see a very large 1/4" sheet that was cut from the side of the brick. It is pristine with no visible grain and the surface quality is beautiful which is what you want in a sheet of wood. On top of that 5 1/2" wide sheet is a 2" wide smaller sheet literally cut from the same brick shown. It was cut from the top of the brick instead. Notice the ugly grain pattern that is quite evident and if you were to get this sheet you would not be a happy camper.....BUT When I rip planking strips from a 1/4" thick sheet of wood, I dont want to use that wider sheet. The useable visible face of each plank would have the ugly side showing when you used it on your model. You would absolutely see the grain and it would probably not bend the same way......so I actually use the two inch wide boards to cut all of my planking strips from. I keep a steady supply on hand and even use wipe on poly on a portion of the "good" edge that will become the planking you see on the hull. This makes it easier to pick wood that is the same color so all of the planks will match on your hull. See the photo below which shows a portion of my 2" wide planking stock ready for milling. Whenever I cut the planking strips for a Cheerful package they are cut from these 2" wide pieces rather than the really wide sheets. Its the proper way to rip planking strips. I know that most people do the math in their head and figure they will get many more strips from the wide sheet....BUT...it will have a really noticeable negative impact on a well-planked hull. I will soon add a category in my store to allow folks to buy these 2" sheets rather than get the really nice wider sheets when they need planking strips. Most may be surprised and disappointed when they get the narrower boards until of coarse they start ripping strips from them which will be pristine and beautiful as you can see below. I can get 20 strips 3/64" thick from each of these with a blade that has a .30 kerf....I hope this was helpful and insightful to those of you who might not be familiar with this or may be thinking of getting a Byrnes saw to mill your own planking strips. I will call these " Planking Stock for milling planking strips" in my online store. Almost forgot....here is what that snow white resin figurehead looks like once I applied some color to it. I used three colors of weathering powder only. There is no paint on this. The color matches the wood very closely and I will be detailing how you can achieve this result later on... Now its time to start planking.

looks good to my eye. You are miving right along.

That is probably the trickiest part of the build. Well done.!!!!

Thank You very much....

The port openings were painted red in preparation for planking up to the sheer. Then I added the fixed blocks. The outer shells are laser cut and etched for convenience. You could round off the sheave and then glue them into position. I used a pencil to darken the sheave. There are three per side. The extra ones on the sheet are actually for the inboard side after I fair inboard. These will be glued on the other side before planking as well. To help register them properly, I drilled the holes on either side of the sheaves straight through. It will make it easy to match the inboard shell up to its mate. But you must be careful to drill through the bulwarks straight ......not angle it as you go. That would mean a misalignment for sure. One other note......I received the test cast for the figurehead today in resin. It is just white so it may be hard to see the details but it is a really good cast. It matches the original exactly and is in two pieces just like the wood version. You can hopefully see the comparison so now everyone will have a choice between the more expensive cnc wood carvings and the resin versions....which are still not very cheap. The original wood carving below... Chuck

Nice restart Jeff. Before you know it you will be right back where you were. Just keep it away from small children this time!!! 2nd time is a charm. Chuck

thanks fellas, next I will be painting the port linings red and adding the fixed blocks along the hull. Then i will continue planking up to the sheer. Chuck

The lower counter was planked with laser cut strakes. One thing I noticed on other projects is that some folks find it tricky to bend or cut these strakes to the proper curve. This is very important because it determines the shape of the upper counter and thus the quarter gallery etc....and it just compounds from there. So these strakes are laser cut. I started with the top of the counter and worked my way lower where the final pieces were placed on either side of the stern post. This will be covered over with a frieze but I added simulated caulking anyway. I wanted to test how much would be used elsewhere. Running a pencil along one edge of the joint was perfect. The wales were stated and this is another crucial moment. The run of this first plank will determine a lot. The etched marks and references I made after running the batten were used to line up the bottom of the first strake. I added this first strake with the hull upside down using 7/32" x 3/64" strips of cedar. I still made adjustments after I finished the strake to try and get a smooth run. I dont care about using a pencil to simulate tared seams on these. This is just the first layer. I used the plans to determine where the butt joints fall (4 butt shift). I added this lower wale strake on both sides before working my up to complete them. All four strakes for the wales are 7/32" wide. Then it was just a matter of adding three more strakes above that one. Note how there is no caulking but each strake was carefully added so the seams were nice and tight. I did have to pre bend the lower two strakes of the wales at the bow edgewise. This was done as an alternative to spiling the curved shape needed at the bow. Its the only way you will get the planks to lay flat against the bulkhead edges. I used a hold-down jig in the center as the pivot point which has a slight curve to it. Then I clamp the plank on either side after bending it as needed. Note the scrap wood pieces used to help prevent the soft cedar from denting. As usual I uses a hair dryer on the hottest setting to heat up the strip and then let it cool down before removing it. The curve you need is very slight. No need to over bend these yet. The first layer of wales on the starboard side are completed...all four strakes. Now to complete the other side. Chuck