grsjax

I have full set of plans I got from the Smithsonian when I was building the Philadelphia. I got the plans because I wanted to detail the build including full sails, rigging, and the fascine protective barriers made from wood bundles. These plans were apparently used to construct the reproduction.
I came across them while I was cleaning up my stash.
 
I am willing to gift these for the price of a mailing tube and postage to anyone who is interested in a detailed build of this model. They were not cheap! PM me if interested.
Here is what mine looks like using these plans:
 

Modelers Central is coming out with a James Caird model kit in 2022.  Details (although not many) can be found at https://www.modelerscentral.com/modeling-hub/james-caird/.  Looks like a good, realistic representation of the Caird, with a cutaway hull to show ballast, crates, supplies, etc., in the crowded boat.
 
james
Maine

I've been working out the formulas for the Gutermann E thread and I have some pictures to show. I purchased the color card and bought every color that I thought would look like rope. I like this thread quite a lot. It's easy to work with, has zero fuzz, low shine, and is very strong. It's also a quarter the cost of cotton thread and I don't have to treat it with book-binders PVA. This should make my synthetic line of rope more affordable. 
 
On the left we have pale beige. In the middle we have tan which is very close to my cotton tan color. On the right we have a golden brown, I think it's close to manila hemp. The tan I'll get into production for sure. The other two however need some testing onboard some models before I go any further.

For the standing rigging colors we have the usual suspects. Black on the left. Very dark brown in the middle. Dark brown on the right, It's actually a little darker than what is in the photo as I turned the brightness up a bit. I like them all to be honest and will probably have them all available on my store.

Here is a 2.4mm cable I made with the tan color. Very crisp detail with no fuzz!

I'm going to put the dark brown and tan into production and I hope to have them online by early next month. I'm also going to look into other types of thread for the lighter colors. Amann Serafil I hope has some good options but the color card still need's to arrive. 
 
Thanks for looking in! 
 

After Bligh and his crew arrived in Batavia from Coupang onboard their schooner "Resource" both the schooner and the launch were sold on October 10 to raise cash.

Picked up a cheap Oral-B 500 toothbrush on ebay and made an oscillating detail sander from it.  Pulled the bristles out of the head and glued a small piece of sandpaper on it.  Tried it out on the hull of a model I am working on and it worked great.  Produces a nice smooth surface.  I am not going to trying using coarse sandpaper with it as I think it would be to aggressive.  The head oscillates at a high rate.

I am actually sometimes wondering, whether kits do not make the task of building too daunting.
 
If well designed, everything should fall into its place, but you really have to be able to follow the ideas of the designers in addition to understand the ship itself. That's a double task.

Check the sponsors listed on the right side of the home page of this site.  Some good sources there.

Check the sponsors listed on the right side of the home page of this site.  Some good sources there.

Check the sponsors listed on the right side of the home page of this site.  Some good sources there.

Check the sponsors listed on the right side of the home page of this site.  Some good sources there.

A pointed bow is easier to plank.  You might want to take a look at Model Shipways "Willie L. Bennet" Skipjack kit.  A good introduction to building models of sailing vessels.  Great instructions.  Here is a link to a build log. 
 

A pointed bow is easier to plank.  You might want to take a look at Model Shipways "Willie L. Bennet" Skipjack kit.  A good introduction to building models of sailing vessels.  Great instructions.  Here is a link to a build log. 
 

I use a 3 drawer wooden art supply organizer.  Just the right size for xacto knife handles and blades.  Available in 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 10 drawer versions.  Take the time to apply wax to the drawer runners to ensure smooth operation.
https://www.displays2go.com/P-22078/Art-Supply-Organizer-3-Beechwood-Drawers
 
Also available from Amazon and Jerry's Artarama .
 

Another good series are the Richard Delancy novels by C. Northcote Parkinson.  His other books are great reads as well.

The only thing I ever read about him that might be controversial is that some of his reconstructions of design details were considered very speculative.

Several somewhat unconnected thoughts:
 
There is no American maritime history researcher that even comes close to Chapelle.  He spearheaded the documentation of local American Sailing craft large and small.  He realized and followed up on the fact that the Royal Navy had in its archives dozens of drawings for captured American sailing ships.  He was an excellent draftsman and produced hundreds of drawings.  Even with his interpretations and reconstructions models built from these drawings are more accurate than 90% of those built from mass market European POB kits. And, regarding USF Constellation he was 100% right!
 
I would not consider him to have been uneducated.  While he was not a graduate of one of the “Big Three” Naval Architecture Programs (MIT, University of Michigan or Webb Institute) and might not have been qualified to design the SS United States, I believe that he had completed the Westlawn Correspondence Naval Architecture Course.  His writings indicate clearly that he understood sailing vessel design; a subject not taught at the University of Michigan when I was a student there in the1960’s.  Sailing yacht design was considered to be an art, not a science.
 
Any Naval Architect will tell you that the basis for any ship design, full size or model is an accurate set of hull lines.  Chapelle’s drawings were based on old drawings or half models, so he often had to correct for distortion in his source materials.  Furthermore, no two Naval Architects will produce exactly the same lines drawing from the same input data. This happens because of “fairing.”  In plotting curves, there will always be points that don’t line up or don’t match in all three dimensions.  The drafter must, therefore, adjust his drawing to produce a fair surface and no two drafters will do this the same way 100% of the time.  How many different “original” lines drawings exist for the Yacht America and which on reflects the actual vessel.
 
L. Francis Herreshoff was not particularly well educated in the traditional sense.  He was Dyslexic and his father, MIT educated Nathaniel Herreshoff, sent him to a local Agricultural School with the idea that he would manage a farm that the family owned.  Instead of completing the program he effectively ran away from home and got a job as a draftsman with W. Starling Burgess. He learned yacht design on the job.  In fact Nathaniel Herreshoff was not a Naval Architect.  His degree from MIT was in mechanical engineering. Olin Stevens also was not a University educated Naval Architect and has written that late in his career had trouble understanding the new CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics ).  
 
Roger
 
 

While Howard I. Chapelle wrote in an era when his position as an academic author and employee of the Smithsonian was accorded the respect it deserved, he was nonetheless quite controversial in some matters. 
 
The controversy for which he is most famous had to do with his correct assessment that the USS Constellation of 1797 and the USS Constellation of 1854 were entirely distinct ships, a dispute which festered for some time between Boston, with USS Constitution and Baltimore with USS Constellation, which promoters argued was one and the same with the 1797 frigate which had actually been broken up in 1853, the USS Constellation of 1854, built a year later, being the original Constellation's replacement.
 
Chapelle's drawings have been criticized for inaccuracies and a penchant for his substituting information when such was lacking. Given the nature of the work he was doing, and particularly the work of others he was directing during the WPA Historic American Merchant Marine Survey, these being out of work architects, engineers, and draftsmen who were not always conversant with naval architecture and marine engineering, those inaccuracies are understandable and not "controversial." Nobody disputes them.
 
Chapelle's writing style may seem pedantic, "harshly judgmental, and/or "arrogant," to today's reader, but at the risk of being accused of the same (as has happened before ) Chapelle's prose style was entirely appropriate in its time. It is only fairly recently that an ethic of "political correctness" has our diluted our academic literary style, resulting in what one might call the "Little League Syndrome" where "everybody wins a prize," and God help anybody who's heard to say that the losing team lost because they played poorly! What today's readers would consider arrogance in dismissing the work of a predecessor with the comment that they "were not educated" was taken as an authoritative assessment by Chapelle at the time of its writing. Chapelle wasn't alone in his forthrightness and candor. Most commentators of the time were similarly unrestrained in their criticism when they found cause to express it. L.F. Herreshoff was famous for his curmudgeonly, and often quire humorous, prose on the subject of yachts and yachting. In Chapelle's day, the uneducated would never have disputed the pronouncements of the educated, affording them the respect due their degrees, but not so today when "everybody has a right to their own opinion" and the internet provides a platform for hucksters and snake oil salesmen to peddle their wares to the gullible and most feel socially constrained to stand mute when confronted with stupidity.
 
You can get a good sense of Chapelle's "straight from the shoulder" style from his articles Ship Models That Should be Built (Nautical Research Guild - Article - Ship Models that Ought to be Built (thenrg.org) and Ship Models That Should Not be Built, (Nautical Research Guild - Article - Ship Models that Should Not be Built (thenrg.org) which are available in the forum's "Articles Database" (under "More" in the top of the page menu.) Just imagine what sort of reception you'd get in this forum if you expressed Chapelle's opinion that:
 
"There are enough Flying Clouds, Constitutions, racing fishermen, and imaginary galleons God knows, and there is surely some type of boat or vessel that will interest a modeler that has not yet been modeled. But, if you are not interested in accurate models and desire to build stuff of a level of truthfulness of a Hollywood movie "Pirate Ship" or "Spanish Galleon" forget I brought the matter up."
 
 They'd scratch your eyes out for sure. 

The only thing I ever read about him that might be controversial is that some of his reconstructions of design details were considered very speculative.

The only thing I ever read about him that might be controversial is that some of his reconstructions of design details were considered very speculative.

Ron, Could it be John Earl's website: http://www.modelboatyard.com/stropping.html

Another good series are the Richard Delancy novels by C. Northcote Parkinson.  His other books are great reads as well.

Hi to all!
If you want a slightly bigger sander that works like charm for models you can make it using Philips sneaker cleaner or an old Philips shoe polisher. These items can be very easily converted to a custom sander. I have one made with the shoe polisher, I made a custom part and a mold, then I made copies of the part with resin. In this way you can have many replaceable heads with different sandpaper grits.

Picked up a cheap Oral-B 500 toothbrush on ebay and made an oscillating detail sander from it.  Pulled the bristles out of the head and glued a small piece of sandpaper on it.  Tried it out on the hull of a model I am working on and it worked great.  Produces a nice smooth surface.  I am not going to trying using coarse sandpaper with it as I think it would be to aggressive.  The head oscillates at a high rate.

I really like this one.  The 3 jaw chuck is really useful for a wide range of sizes without changing collets 
like a lot of traditional pin vise'..
36 Pieces Vise Hand Drill for Jewelry Making Set
 

 
If you get something like this, be aware those burrs at the top are brittle and break easily, but it is
easy to get replacements.
 
 

Picked up a cheap Oral-B 500 toothbrush on ebay and made an oscillating detail sander from it.  Pulled the bristles out of the head and glued a small piece of sandpaper on it.  Tried it out on the hull of a model I am working on and it worked great.  Produces a nice smooth surface.  I am not going to trying using coarse sandpaper with it as I think it would be to aggressive.  The head oscillates at a high rate.