grsjax

I saw the build logs for the Woody Joe kits and they are great kits. However they represent a small selection of small water craft from one area. I would like to see some from other areas. Korea, Vietnam, China, India, Arabia, all have interesting ships that you rarely if ever see models of.

JohnE has a good point about Euro ships but an even bigger lack in the market are Asian ships. The ships of Asia were amazing pieces of technology. Some were as long as 400 feet and they sailed long distances. Be nice to see some of the Chinese, Japanese, Indian and other Asian ships represented in the market.

Small to medium size work boats and merchant vessels. Preferably POF. something that has not been done to death already. Fishing boats from anywhere, small sail and steam merchantmen that worked the small ports rather than the big ocean freighters like clippers and downeasters. The work a day steam boats that far out numbered the big show boats. Better plans and documentation, better quality wood, cast fittings that are well made, no plastic unless there is no other way to do the job, models of boats that were real or at least conform to what a real boat of the type and time would look like.

Depends on the ship and type of gun. Guns may have been made of iron or brass (actually bronze) and a ship might have both kinds aboard. However it was common practice to paint guns black to make maintenance easier. Bronze guns are a bear to keep shiny in a marine environment and unprotected iron will rust quickly. I am sure there were captains that insisted on keeping all that bronze nice and shiny but most would take a practical approach and keep them painted.

Depends, the same manufacture may put out kits of several models that range from excellent to poor. I would suggest that you narrow your discussion of what you looking for to a specific ship type, mode of construction and scale. That will reduce the number of factors that have to be considered. Another factor is cost, do you want the best low cost kit or the best kit money can buy? There is a world of difference between the best, highest quality model of HMS Victory and the best, highest quality Banks Dory.

Try using copper foil. Blacken it and glue to the head of the post.

Since no one else has answered I will take a shot at it. Swivel guns were mounted on stout posts bolted to the frame of the ship. I believe they were at least 6x6 inchs and has a metal cap on the top to mount the gun. The cap was there to prevent the post from splitting from the stress of the recoil.

Rifflers are just curved files. Real jewelers files are much better quality than the ones you find in hobby stores and websites. The thin edge file you describe is a feather file.

1x7, 1x19 and 7x7 strand wire rope in sizes down to .008" diameter is available from fishing gear suppliers. Great stuff for making wire rigging and other things require wire rope. Here is a link to one place that sells it. There are others including Amazon. http://www.afwhiseas.com/Micro-Uncoated-Stainless-Steel-Trace-Wire-Bright-s/2022.htm http://www.afwhiseas.com/Micro-Uncoated-Stainless-Trace-Wire-1-x-19-Bright-s/2227.htm

I believe you are correct but the models seem to be available. Ebay always seems to have a lot of them listed.

The Midwest apprentice series are good kits to start with. The Skiff is the simplest but provides a good introduction to basic modeling skills. A little more complex but still straight forward is the Hampton Flattie or the Chesapeake Crabbing Skiff.

A battle cruiser is a battleship with less armor. The idea is that it could outrun anything it couldn't fight and beat anything it couldn't outrun. Jutland sort of ended this idea although it stuck around until WWII. An armored cruiser is just that, a cruiser with more armor. Originally there were light cruisers, protected cruisers and armored cruisers. Light cruisers were essentially large destroyers used for scouting and screening the fleet. Protected cruisers were heavier but did not have much armor, the protection was from placing the coal bunkers and water tanks around the machinery and other vulnerable spaces. The armored cruisers were armed much like the protected cruisers but had heavier armor. Protected cruisers were used like big gunboats, show the flag missions, isolated postings with limited possibility of encountering a heavily armed enemy and as flag ships for detached squadrons. Armored cruisers worked with the fleet. This is just a quick view of a subject that is really pretty complex. The history of warship design from the 1870s up to WWII has many examples of ships that do not fall into any defined catagory but are lumped in with catch all groups like "protected cruiser". An interesting thing is the last of the battle cruisers were the USS Alaska and USS Guam. The were designed as flag ships for fast carrier squadrons and combined fleets. They were launched in1944. The Navy called them large cruisers but their designation was CB (battle cruiser) and they match the original idea of what a battle cruiser was. Both were laid up in 1947 and scraped in 1960.

Koa is a beautiful strongly figured wood that is mostly brown. However the color can vary between light brown to deep red/brown. Cypress and mahogany are probably to coarse grained to give the right look at a smaller scale. You might want to consider a finer grained wood and use a dilute mahogany stain to get the color right. the harder types of basswood or poplar might be good choices or possibly birch. Another way would be to use koa (it is available mail order from Kamuela Woods in Waimea, Hawaii). The grain would still be to coarse but the use of the original wood would look really cool.

My personal experience is that using a sanding sealer prevents the grain from lifting during sanding resulting in a better surface. I haven't any problems with the finish as a result but I generally use a water based sealer with water based finishes.

"But not one single photo from "the doctor", this is, what I still miss for the build. Regards Gerhard" Couldn't find any drawings or "the doctor" but there are several good pictures of these engines on the web. They appear to be relatively simple single cylinder walking beam engines.

There is a publication put out by the National Park Service that details the salvage and reconstruction of the Cairo. It includes several sheets of detailed plans. It was published in March 1981. I found a copy on the net but can't find the link at the moment. A google search for "Cairo historic reconstruction report" should turn it up. Hope this helps.

If you can get a hollow ground planer blade for your table saw you can cut very thin planks with it. Finish on the planks should be usable with little or no sanding.

Ran across a model kit manufacture that I hadn't seen before. Turk Model has some interesting looking kits. Anyone had any experience with these kits?

Have you considered using a small plane? Make a cradle that will hold the strip with the edge to be planed facing up. Use a very sharp blade and make small cuts until you have the surface you want.

Anyone have any experiance with this company? Ran across a solid hull model of the Schooner Bluenose by this company and wondered if it is a good kit or something I should pass up?

A problem with using a fret saw is putting to much pressure on the blade when sawing. I try to let the blade do the work with as little extra pressure as I can get away with.

The original double hull canoes were carved from huge Koa wood logs. I believe the Hokule'a was actually built using plywood and fiberglass. However to build an authentic Hawaiian canoe the hulls should be carved. That said if you are going to paint the hulls it would be simpler to build using frames and strips and no one would know the difference.

I was having problems with sawdust build up on the wheels of my 14" bandsaw. I looked around for a add on wheel brush to solve the problem but the ones offered by various outlets just didn't seem adequate. A Google search brought up this article. http://lumberjocks.com/projects/19465 Great idea to use an old toothbrush as a wheel brush. Cheap and easy, my favorite two words.

Depends on what you think is difficult. A small scale three masted ship may not cause as much difficulty as a large scale open boat with a wealth of detailed structure and fittings. Take a look at Model Shipway's whaleboat kit and compare it to Amati's 1:177 (think that is the right scale) HMS Bounty as an example. The larger the scale the more detail is needed. Of course for a whaleboat and Bounty built at the same scale the latter is going to be more complicated. All in the eye of the builder.

Picked up a Delta replacement spring for $9.50. Took about 5 min to swap out the old one. Cheap and easy fix.