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Pictures didn't end up where I thought they would and I can't seem to change them so that will have to do. Hopefully better next time. Me again

The build I started by removing all of the hull bulkheads and profile piece from the laser cut sheet. This was quite easy and I was able to arrange everything onto the profile piece for location purposes. The fit was too tight to allow complete positioning until I hand fitted each piece with a file and sandpaper. Also it was slightly difficult to locate each bulkhead as none of them have numbers or letters but this is only a slight difficulty at best. I then placed the four deck sections in place and was impressed by how they fit and by the use of locating tabs and slots insured the proper alignment of the overall hull. The only problem here was that two of the decks have locating tabs that go into slots in bulkheads and those slots do not allow for the proper camber on the deck. For anyone actually building this kit as the Independence they would have to deal with this before going further. This is how the hull pieces look assembled right out of the box before any alterations. As a side note I cannot help but note that this hull/deck design is virtually identical to the Model Shipways Sultana! If it was based on the Sultana, only in a bigger scale, why not just say so rather than call it the Independence? The slightly raised fore castle and the fact that the Sultana also dates from 1768 makes me wonder if this could be the reason Millar referred to the possibility that Providence also had a raised fore castle? It could be possible, but so far I have not found any other references of Hudson River sloops having this design feature. Hope the pictures are OK and are interesting and informative to others I have never done this part before. Lou (Next: First alterations)

Like Mark I have crossed fingers and hope only for the best.

No stinkin chair for me. I found a recliner back here with an adult beverage on the side table. I'm going to watch this in comfort! Lead on McDuff! Lou

I always wondered about the smoothness of the lower hull. It seems like the ship had to be careened every few months or so and in addition to the cleaning had to get a new coat of tallow and pitch mixture. I am almost certain that this mixture was pretty much just slopped on the hull as thick and quickly as possible and at anywhere close looked full of strokes or possibly even worse. Yours already looks much better. Just a thought Lou

I also think the bare PE would look striking on a ship of this vintage and size. It would make a very nice change from the 'haze gray and underway' look. I also think the rest of the ship would have to be painted with the normal colors to get rid of the plastic look and create the contrast. It is almost as if you are modeling the PE and using the model as the stand. If that makes sense. Lou

When you get to making up the box that contains the tools you use for such fantastic work with PE, just seal it up and ship it to me! I will gladly keep it safe for you! Me again

Wow John! I personally think you are making excellent progress on what is a very unique vessel. You are braver than me with the feathers. One sneeze before the final gluing and it's start over time! It kind of saddened me to see the Nautilus having to make the ultimate sacrifice for your small pieces, not so much the Abalone. I think I would have been cruising the costume jewelry isles of Michael's looking for possibilities! I do think that we may have attended different educational institutions though. When I went to school 1/3rd of 36" was 12" not 10. I think you may just be stuck on the idea that the sail looks too high even at 10". It is your choice though, and it looks like you have enough pictures in you research materiel to go by your feeling rather than some statement made by the author you are referencing. Draw a paper ruler measuring the length of the hull in the picture, call that 36" (+- for perspective), then mark the height of the sail in the same picture, and you should be able to form your own opinion and see it agrees with the author. The more pictures you can do this with the better. Also remember that you are dealing with artists who drew or painted "what they saw" AFTER the fact. I am sure you have taken enough statements to know how peoples memories can alter details even after a very short time, even trained people. Looking forward to some more progress. Lou

Good luck, see you in a few.

Thanks for the look in and likes donrobinson, and it is nice seeing you John. This build is really not much more than modifying a few of the basic framing parts early in the build, most of which hopefully will be done over the next couple of weeks and from then on is just a build of a single masted sloop from the mid to late 1700s. Most people here would call it a beginners model suitable for anyone just starting out in wooden ship model building. Much like the Armed Virginia Sloop kit is considered. Hopefully I will be able to do a decent job of that part of the build and it won't end up looking like junk . When I get to the rigging I will mostly be using the sail/masting/rigging plan from the AVG. Again I will have to make some alterations to match some information from my "research" but the AVG will be the major source just like the Independence was the main source for the hull. I think in reality it would be better to call it a semi kit, not quite kit and not quite scratch. Not a big deal really like I said before. It still ends up a matter of if I have the skill sets required to build a nice model. If I fail at least I get to look at builds by others that do have the abilities! Lou

The wood dust already flew in secret! I have had my shipyard crew busy for days! The build does sound somewhat ambitious because of all the different deck levels involved with the original kit but I still think it is the best kit for this build. Time will tell. The crew had to take the day off today as I was too cheap to pay them time-and-a-half for working Saturday, and tomorrow is a big surprise birthday party for our youngest. Hopefully I can get them back to work buy Monday and I can post a few pictures. Thanks for dropping in, hope your chair was comfortable. Lou

Hi Piet The next step is the scary part! The departure into the unknown. Is there a chance you can try a small amount first to see the results before committing your beautiful model to the process? Or possibly cover the hull in kitchen clear wrap or Petroleum Jelly when you set it into the 'ocean.' That way you can get a second chance if you need it. Crossing my fingers Lou

Depending on the age of your daughter, responsibility level, the value of the bribe, and ultimately her fear of daddy she may be a better choice. A 30 minute drive may be too close though. I have moved across states where it took two days of driving quicker, and was easier than it was to move six blocks! When you move long distance you get a BIG truck................. When you move down the street you do it a few items at a time and it takes WEEKS. If I ever have to move again I will drive to a hotel, have dinner out and show up in a day or two AFTER the movers have done their thing! Either that or sell everything we have and buy all new at the other end! I live in a 120 year old three story six bedroom Victorian house with winding stairs up and a full basement down! A condo would be a walk in the park! Lou

Great to see some more progress, it's obvious you are not being idle. I doubt anyone will be able to see the stringer on the bow after you add all the furniture and rigging latter on. Iff all else fails and it still bothers you enough o bring it up you can always cover it with bucket or coil of rope or something. I still think the size and distance involved is tiny, especially since you are working with a carved hull and were only off by that tiny amount! Keep up the great work. Lou

I sympathize with your moving woes. I have done it a couple of times with models, some made it and some didn't do so well. If the distance is short them I have had the best luck in putting them in the back of the car with pillows or foam for protection and take them by them selves. Longer moves, not so easy! It also helped that almost all my ships were RC so they were a little tougher than your normal shelf kit. I still may be a little while on the Titanic as I think I am a little intimidated by the project and I also just started my sloop Providence build and want to make some progress with it before I branch out to another "Never done that before" build. Plus, like I said I still need some tools before I start working with this PE stuff. Meanwhile I will avidly be following your build and see how it is done before I have to try my pitiful attempt. Get back to work now, I need my next lesson! Me again

Glad to see your work again Scott. I was starting to go into withdrawal! For some reason My "Unread Content" didn't show your last posting until today! I finally ordered and received the PE sheets needed to do the 1/350 Titanic for my Admiral, (It HAS to have lights as well!) and OMG that stuff is SMALL!!!! Your pictures make it look like something you can actually see! After I get over the shock I will probably have get a list of the tools you have found most useful, other than a magnifying optical system that would normally only be used by a Micro-surgeon! Optically challenged Lou

Hi Denis I bet this is one build log that won't fall behind or end up in the unfinished kits! This could be the fastest build log in history! Keep it up I'm expecting great things from you! Lou

Hey hey the gangs all here! Glad you could stop by Mark. Later on you may regret it though when I get into the stuff I don't know much about, (Meaning almost everything!) and have to consult with my Sensei. Better put a lock on the popcorn though, I don't provide much food for my dockyard crew and they might start helping themselves! That will distract them from their work and slow things down! Lou

Glad to see you both. Looks like I will need to find better lighting now as well! Feel free to jump in with suggestions. If you were able to wade through all of the above stuff you will know that this is a VERY subjective build and as such is wide open to interpretation! Right now I am a few days ahead of what I am writing and for the most part it is pretty much in the alteration phase and I feel pretty comfortable with what I am doing. Like I said before I am pretty sure I have voided the kit warranty but I am feeling OK with the new look. I should be able to have a few pictures starting tomorrow. Hopefully they will be OK as that is completely new to me. Maybe They will all turn out fuzzy and I fool everyone that it is the camera not the builder! (That could be good to hide the quality of work as well) Oh by the way, don't forget your hard hats. I can be a little dangerous when I get around tools! Lou By the way Chuck, as you have the plans for the replica Providence you can compare them with this build. I have the book also but my plans are book size and I didn't want to spend the money to blow them up as that is not really the ship I am building. Me again

The model With all the previous information and more in mind I settled on one set of plans that most represented my conclusions but even they didn’t match them all. I also was divided in that I could either alter the plans to suit my image or find a model hull that would provide the same base. I settled on the later method as #1 I already had the kit and #2 it would also provide most or all the required wood and fittings that would be needed in the build anyway. I went through my stash of kits and narrowed it down to two almost perfect matches, The Corel HM sloop Resolution and the Artesania Latina Colonial schooner Independence 1776. Both were of the right draft and beam with slightly longer decks than I needed, especially on the Resolution. To use that model I would have to make a new profile piece at 94% of the original and shorten the transom counter. On the Independence I would need to lower the fore castle to the level of the main deck, lower the main deck to a more proper depth of hold that would also make the bulwarks higher in relation to the deck, and then raise the quarter deck to match the poop deck. In addition to all this I would also have to alter the bow to a slightly more pointed plan shape and add a little more rake to the bow/cutwater area especially from the waterline down. This kit would also need to have almost an inch of the stern counter removed. The rigging of course would also need to be altered from a schooner to a sloop. At first glance it would seem that the Resolution would be the easier conversion, but I cannot help but feel that the Independence after alteration comes closer to the right shape and size. After this initial alteration there will be a number of other items that need to be dealt with, almost all of them somewhat minor in detail but important none the less. (Next The build)

Hi Piet You just made my day. I was beginning to think that I was the only person who could see this post. I didn't think of using the term " Concept build" in my build title, maybe I should have. You are more than welcome to pull up whatever you like, after all it is a pretty empty room, I hope that I can find something better than a stump though! Stumps are no way to treat a guest unless you are sitting in the woods next to a campfire. Hopefully I can keep it interesting, (Or possibly that should be MAKE it interesting) so that I can partly pay you back for all you have provided me with in following your Java build. Lou

Research Now reality set in. In order to at least try and do justice to my concept of the Providence I had to try and uncover whatever information was used by Miller and others in determining the size and looks of the original Providence. It became pretty clear early on that I was neither knowledgeable enough, nor in a position to do what could be major research throughout the colonial states to try to retrieve existing scraps of data or new original material. This made me start looking at research that had already been done, most of it about ninety years ago! After talking to Mr. John Millar I received very little that related to his sources, but quite a bit regarding the compromises on the replica Providence. I was finally able to determine that possibly the only research done on the Providence was done by Charles G. Davis back in the mid to late 20s! This brought up other names like Alfred F. Brownell, George C. Wales, and Hewitt R. Jackson. Also it appears that at least one period painting and possibly a few drawings of Providence and what are considered similar ships have also been used. The painting was done in England by Francis Holman in 1777 even though it is certain that he never actually saw the Providence first hand and was working from descriptions at best. At any rate it became apparent that what I think were plans created by Davis, Brownell, and Wales became the basis for virtually all the current models in collections all over the eastern states. This research was not only considered accurate enough at the time, but a number of years later was at least partly used by Jackson in his research for the replica Lady Washington and later for the sloop Union. He also used research produced by Chapelle and Chapman but his hull lines and many details of his plans clearly show a very strong reliance on Davis’s work. So that brings us around again to Millar who also told me he was the guiding influence behind the replica Lady Washington. I made an attempt at the Mystic Seaport museum, the curators of Davis’s papers, to obtain information on his Providence research if they exist, as well as a copy of his paper on Hudson Bay sloops, but unfortunately the request didn’t even elicit a reply and as I am not in a position to go there in person had to be regarded as a dead end. A number of ships also came to light at this time, all supported by one degree of documentation or another, either in written or pictorial form and could be considered contemporaries or descendants of the Providence. The already mentioned Lady Washington and Union, and the Experiment by name. Jackson states that the Experiment was the basis for Davis’s research and that he produced plans based on that. Again another somewhat closed loop. All of these ships appear to have Hudson River sloop ancestry so I decided to follow the herd so to speak rather than try to reinvent the wheel. At this time almost all I have to go on are some general dimensions, a few pictures of the better models of what is considered to be the Providence, and a couple of contemporary partial descriptions. It appears that everything present today outside of the contemporary information is based on Davis’s work, and therefore very similar. It appears that the general consensus is that the Providence was built in the time period between 1768 and 1774 with most sources using the earlier date. Her statistics were about 75-90 tons with the higher number being preferred as it was common in colonial America to lie about the tonnage of a vessel in order to avoid taxes based on that tonnage. Her length was somewhere in the 60-65’ range on deck and virtually all accounts list 20’ as her beam, and her “depth of hold” about 7’6”- 8’. I personally think the 8’ mark was probably more of a draft measurement as it seems more in line with other known draft measurements for these vessel types and would have made her more able to navigate the waters of the eastern seaboard where she was designed and built. Virtually all accounts state that she was fast, and I take that to mean that she was fast even for vessels of her kind, otherwise why mention it at all. One writer even states that she was copper bottomed, but I do not hold the same opinion. The same holds for an off sided statement by Millar that she could of also had a slightly raised fore castle. He did not expound on his statement and I have also not done much with it at this point other than consider it only slightly possible. More on this later. It is clear that she was built as a trader or merchant ship not as a warship but one has to remember that she was also built by a man who had been involved in the privateers of the French and Indian Wars, was almost surly a smuggler when he felt he could get away with it, and lastly a known slaver. All of these things were better served by fast ships so I personally think her speed was more design than just copper plating. So with that as my guidelines I approached construction methods. (More to follow) Lou

The Continental Sloop Providence 1775: Concept Well I suppose I have procrastinated long enough and it is time for me to actually start doing some building. I have not built a ship model in over twenty years and all of the models I have built before, not counting a lifetime of plastic ships dating from childhood, were RC ships and were pretty much made form plans I found in magazines and using materials scrounged from almost everywhere. One ship was made from fold out plans much like the centerfold in Playboy and the wood started out life as a dog house and was filled in with Styrofoam packing blocks sanded to shape, smoothed out with Spackle and covered with fiberglass. More doghouse for the decks, and old realtor signs for the superstructure And to properly finish it off I found that a section of house drainpipe was perfect for the funnel! Most of my ships were done that way as I didn’t know better, (No internet for me back then) and it was not until I decided to build the USS Oahu that I actually obtained a real set of plans from the Smithsonian. Even then I pretty much used the bread and butter method for building the hull. Just flat boards from the hardware store with all the parts that didn’t look like a China River Gunboat cut away. My building style was a true case of ignorance is bliss in its purest form. Fast forward to the present day. I started looking into period ships as a possibility to re-enter the hobby after my retirement as the body, even after a few surgeries in the last few years is not as comfortable in dragging 36 to 45” or more ships that weigh 35 or more pounds to the pond or lake getting them in and out of the car, lake, and house. They would still be fun to run but all the other stuff, not so much. After locating this forum I was, and kind of still am, a little intimidated by the museum quality of so many of the models presented, and by the precise research that is put into getting them right. I know I can build, but can I build right and when using these methods achieve a presentable model? To compound the issue I feel a little like Harry Potter when he was in Ollivanders getting his first wand and being told that “it’s really the wand that chooses the wizard, of course.” In my case it is the ship that chose me rather than the other way around. I had been looking at scratch and kits for some time and even though there were several that interested me in both categories none of them reached out to me and said “That is THE one.” That is until Old Salt and Chuck Seiler both posted builds for the Continental Sloop Providence. I picked up the book that contained the plans used by Chuck and when I was done reading it I knew that I had been picked. After some more research I became aware that the plans used by John and Chuck were of the replica sloop by John F. Millar and that in her construction a number of things had been changed from the original research to accommodate present day Coast Guard regulations, (Or to avoid them) and in some cases to meet the whims of the people building her. My desire was to build a model that was not constrained by these limitations and fit a little more closely my mental image of what the ship should look like. (More to follow)

I don't think I would like to be the guy in the bow. He is MUCH too close to the sharp end of the shark with nowhere to go! For that matter the other guy is far too close to the "Batter up" end! It looks like a case of "You are going to need a bigger boat" Lou

No problem shipman. For the most part my comments are just that, comments. I am neither a scholar nor a naval expert and as such calling any statements by me a contribution is possibly stretching things somewhat. Having said that, what I was saying about Davis offering the formula for use with out just stating the formula results especially on page 229 was just my way of saying I am being lazy. He did give the results on page 230 for later era ships. All formulas like Davis used would have been the standard for designing a ship and one would think they would be considered the ideal resulting hopefully in a balanced ship that was matched to it's armament. I am sure that exceptions were made to compensate for real life considerations, or local beliefs. Shipbuilding was not just a trade but a skill back then, much like model ship building is to us today. and each master builder very probably had his own idea to a certain extent what was right. Lou