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Modelshipworld - Advancing Ship Modeling through Research
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Nautical Research Guild
237 South Lincoln Street
Westmont IL, 60559-1917
If you enjoy building ship models that are historically accurate as well as beautiful, then The Nautical Research Guild (NRG) is just right for you.
The Guild is a non-profit educational organization whose mission is to “Advance Ship Modeling Through Research”. We provide support to our members in their efforts to raise the quality of their model ships.
The Nautical Research Guild has published our world-renowned quarterly magazine, The Nautical Research Journal, since 1955. The pages of the Journal are full of articles by accomplished ship modelers who show you how they create those exquisite details on their models, and by maritime historians who show you the correct details to build. The Journal is available in both print and digital editions. Go to the NRG web site (www.thenrg.org) to download a complimentary digital copy of the Journal. The NRG also publishes plan sets, books and compilations of back issues of the Journal and the former Ships in Scale and Model Ship Builder magazines.
19th century U S Ship-of-the-Line Rigging Plans
in Masting, rigging and sails
Posted
Don't know if anyone is still paying attn. to the thread, but came across it and thought I'd take a shot...
I'm also looking for Crothers' USS Columbus (1820) plans. I have been using the rigging page to restore an old model of HMS Vanguard (1835), 78/80 gun two-decker. I have a set, but the project has been on-hold for a decade plus, and the plans (which I got directly from Crothers in the 80's) have faded terribly and are now hard to read. I fully recognize the different US vs English rigging practices, as well as the 15 year difference in timing, but I find having everything on one (large) page helpful in initially sorting things out; I then consult my "library", mostly Lees' Masting and Rigging, to get it right.
So, if anyone has a source, wld appreciate hearing about it. I've tried Taubman's, but get no response
Interestingly, the reason I have the plans, in the first place, is that I had an experience much like Frank's. Around 1985, I was at an antique furniture auction at Sotheby's in NYC - and stuck in a corner was a ball of attic dust catalogued as "European ship model". I blew off some of the dust and saw a jumble of a model that looked like it had fallen upside-down, then put away in an open cardboard box in the attic for 50+ yrs. But it looked like the "Constitution" w/ an extra deck (ie, two gun decks and a continuous spar deck). It certainly looked very American to me; and, wiping away more dust, I found "North Carolina" painted on the transom. Not very European. Bought it, I think, for ~$100 (no reserve, no other bidders).
The model is quite old, guessing somewhere around the turn of the last century; solid hull beneath the lower gun deck; 1/8" scale. What was strange was the absence of a raised poop (per Chapelle's plans); different hatch/ladderways configuration; and several non-nautical looking structures on the spar deck: a large "clipper ship-looking" deck house and what looks like a "sentry box". In consultation w/ the head of the Smithsonian's ship model dept (forget his name, but he was very interested and helpful), we hypothesized that the model was perhaps built by a former crew member from memory (the measurements are a bit off) and reflecting her last days as a recvng ship in NY harbor; thus, the strange deck configuration.
I rebuilt it to an as launched configuration. She is not a fine model - and I did not repaint her - so she is a bit dingy (although that is prbly realistic). I always wanted a ship of the line, but now realize that they are unrealistic models for most residences. The case dimensions for my NC (and I sized the case to the bare minimum) are 44x13x32". That's a lot of furniture. My Vanguard is 3/16", so I know that it will never go into the house; just need to finish it.