Sparkysparks

I'm glad you now have a new material to play with. I shy away from zinc, pot metal, styrene and Celluloid after seeing how poorly they age. I agree with the wood grain problem. If it's the wood you want to show then who cares, but it can look pretty bad when paint is layed down. Having been on a few and worked on one, the worst I saw were white oak pieces trying to unravel. Even sandpaper will yield to the grain after time, temp and humidity changes take their turns.

I've been able to collect wood, dowels and tools over the past month. All from modelers estates. Lots of scrap and lots of good pieces. The air brush is set up but I need to build a paint boot w/ fan and filter. Along with a Lazy Susan or two for bench work and the booth. The whiler only needs a few things before priming and painting the hull. A new rudder and maybe a reshape of the rudder post and wider chain guides. Note. I started working on the Constitution. I'll x-fer the pics here and start a new post for her. The major items on her are to change the stern and forcastle to what they looked like at the turn of the 19th century. realigning and sizing the gun ports. decking over the gun deck and making it flush with the main deck, ala Constitution. The hull lines are too straght on this model but oh well. She will need a new rudder. The rudder post is not correct but I'll look into that when I tear down the stern. Again all this will be moved to a new build post.

OK. What I want to say was celluloid tortoise shell. My brain doesn't kick in at times. Chronic Fatigue. So forgive the incorrect description.

I'm wondering what time period kits and suppliers used this stuff.

So what types of wire and for what application(s) in the rigging are you using it in? What are the alternatives to wire? I seen it used to tie blocks to spars and as back stays. I've also seen it used to tie spars to mast or to hook a gaffs or booms to the mast. To quote every two year old in the world, "Why?" TIA.

I was looking at it and thinking nice job. Then I saw the state if it when you started it. Wow. nice restoration. Most notable is you kept the character of the piece. Yours is definitely a scratch built piece of folk art with eye pleasing hull lines. The rigging is the most difficult part as it requires research and a ton of paintance.

What do you do with a drunken sailor? Ok Here is my little Cluster F that will be in mothballs for awhile. Artesania Latina's USS Constellation. All I can say is WOW and shake my head. Mostly for the company's attempted hybreding of two ships. I know. Not really their fault. We can thank the first private owners of the second Conny and their hatchet job of history. The only thing I could think of doing to this lil train wreak is scrapping it for parts or modding the transom and main deck to be more accurate to the 18th century ship. I see a chain saw in the future of the transom. The hull lines are more Federalist then pre civil war. So no to replicating the one in Baltimore. Here's a few photos. Try picking out the build mistakes. Hint. Their are are so many that you could pin these on a dart board. and find then that way while drunk. lol.

Just for fun. I had the pleasure of hosting this model of the French frigate Hermione back when she made call on the east coast of the U.S. I forgot who built it. I was charged with transporting it to the ship and setting it up for display when it tied up in Philadelphia. The model was auctioned off later that evening during a private dinner on board.

Well thank you sir.

I posted up in Scratch build as "Unknown Whaler." Admin is welcome to change it. Just email me so I can find the bugger.

So here's the start of a nice long and deep project. Unknown Whaling bark. I have to assume that this is not a known ship but the builders idea of what one would look like. The first step I took was photo documenting the ship. Old steel and copper wire was used for the back stays and to tie off the yardarms and pulleys I stripped down all mast and deck fittings, shellac was removed from the deck and the hull was stripped due to orange peeling. The hull was found to be a half *** finishing job with tool marks, too much wood filler or non at all. The last one to paint the hull layed down a very thick coat of oil base paint with no primer. This filled in the gaps and imperfections. My next step is to prep the hull for paint. I still have some design elements to consider. For example the chin plates were slotted and no deadeyes were installed. I noticed that the stays on the mizzen were hitting the deck house and someone had cut groves into the Dh roof to compensate. So the new chain plates will be wider and drilled to allow period chain stays and deadeyes. The gunnels need more frame members added. perceptually in the bow area. Question. Does anyone have a rigging plan for the Wander? The mizzen mast is my focal point for this question. It comes up through the deck house roof and I'm wondering where the halyards are belayed. OK now to dump all pics here.The dump is insurance against computer crash. Note1. I'm trying to stay within the thought of doing no harm to the model. ie allowing its future caretaker to undo what I've done. The new paint will be acrylic. I thought of painting the inner gunnals and mast white but that would kill the charter of the original. The rigging will be completely redone with all the wires removed. Yardarms will get better detailing. Note 2. one of the cool things I noticed is how the deck fittings are attached. The builder used pelted dowels which require no glue. I thought this was brilliant and will use the same when replacing any fittings. Also any leads as to where I can find these? Note 3. How old is this bugger? I'm guessing it was built in the fifties. My only clues are the tops and cross trees. they are made of nitrocellulose. Any thoughts about this are more then welcome. BTW they are almost dust now. So wood will be their replacements. Note 4. Any help on mast rigging plans for pre civil war barks will get you on my Christmas card list. Also input on period fittings. TIA.

Thanks mtaylor. I plan on doing so. The ship has no name. The closest example I can find is the Wander. Both are barks, but then most whalers were. The only item that's accosted with The wanderer is the mizzen mast protruding through the aft deck house. her bow is to streamlined to be a vessel built from the keel up to be a whaler. Hence my belief it is a merchant ship converted to whaling. Any ideas so I can show up in the index and not be given s**t about a false name?

Hello all. hank you for having me here. I've joined here to ask questions and pick brains if needed. To me this a hobby of time and love. Lots of time and love of the art. . My back ground in modeling has been in styrene back in the 60s and 70s . My last ship build was the Revell Conny. These days I still play with plastics while evolving my n scale rail layout. I also have two wooden ship restoration projects that I'm researching before and during the projects. It seems that part never ends. lol. One basket case that I've only looked over is a Artesania Latina USS Constellation. I only got a good lookie see at it yesterday, along with some web search to ID it. This is one of this " I got in over my head builds that I'm investigating weather to save the build or scrap it for parts. The latter being equivalent to take your dog out behind the wood shed to put it down. The second is a Whaler that looks like its from a kit but I've found no hits on the web. It may be an interpretation of a merchant ship converted to the whaling industry. This one is old but seems post war. All the deadeyes and yardarms are wired with steel or tin and the tops and crosstrees are/were made of nitrocellulose, Now tiny crumbly pieces and the wire has become brittle and unworkable. She's now demasted and stripped of hull paint, main deck stripped of its coat of shellac, and all her lil bits bagged and tagged. So i'm in the hull repair and paint prep stage with her. Note 1. The whaler 's hull was stripped of paint due to massive orange peeling. The hull was never filled and sanded correctly,so whoever did the last work on it decided to use the paint as the filler. Anyways I digress. I'll create a project post with Before pics, status and the odd questions. Note 2. I do welcome opinions, directional advise, commits and jears from the two guys in the balcony seats. Expect me to call out some questions regarding, well maybe be everything. lol Thanks for having me here and here's some pics of the whaler. Man I'm glad q-tips are cheap.