Matrim

It is a gorgeous looking model kit...

I must say that it is a true pleasure to follow your work Chris. Really high standards.
 
All of the kits looks beautiful, but will wait for a frigate (my dream is still Bellona),  because I still have a lot of work to do with the brig Mercury.
 
Keep up good work!

It is a gorgeous looking model kit...

I will in time, I can say that it will be quite pretty!
 
Yesterday I had 10 sets of Alert 6 and half pounder cannon barrels arrive, with another 30 sets being cast now. 
 
These will now be offered as an optional extra with the original Alert kit, and will be included in the upcoming second edition Alert kit, which will have a higher price to reflect the high cost of the resin cannon and pearwood laser cut parts and 0.8mm birch ply deck.

It is, and I am glad I insisted on them using one of my files, rather than their own which would bare no real resemblance to what I need the machine for. That is the difference between an 80W laser (top pic) at half the price of the narrower beamed 40W machine (bottom pic).
 
I did forget to add the retention tabs to each part, though, which is why some bits are missing, nothing to keep them in place once cut...

Interesting comparison of quality in cutting!

Yesterday I had a couple of samples of laser cutting from a sample file I gave the company and 1.5mm pearwood I also supplied. I want a certain high spec laser machine, recommended to me by someone who already has one. The company that sells them asked what the machine will be used for. (80% cutting and 20% engraving). He recommended a cheaper version, can you tell which is the cheaper version from the samples (or did they over-egg it as a ruse...). Clearly, the 'Nuclear' option is out of the question, so it seems I will go for my first choice and what was initially recommended to me, which suits perfectly the type of work I want it to do. It will be quite an investment, but I really do feel that I need one, looking forward.
 
As I mentioned, I have ordered a LOT of pearwood sheet from Germany, which should arrive in the next couple of weeks. For my third kit, I am erring on having only one quality option, pearwood laser cut parts and pearwood second planking, with cast resin decoration for figurehead and stern and cannon, and laser engraved deck planking. Also, as I have mentioned, I shall be having 15 Alert kits done by the UK laser company with pearwood laser cut parts, a 0.8mm ply sub deck (kit will still have boxwood deck planking) and cannons in black resin. I shall have one sample kit ready next week, so I can check it over. Price will be £220 with the different materials and resin cannon. Ultimately, I want all kits to have the same quality parts and materials, and it seems that the combination of pearwood laser sheets and pearwood second planking, together with quality castings is what most want (I would too, to be honest).

A great way to get exactly what you want if your expectations are so high, is to buy timber, plans/monograph, and embark on a masterpiece, right down to the last frame and nail. There is no such thing as a perfect kit, be it accuracy or engineering, and that goes for any genre such as plastic, resin, wood etc. 

If a kit manufacturer produced a visually accurate model to every detail then it would cost so much that the query would be 'why spend four thousand pounds on that when you can get close enough with Manufacturer B and pay a tenth of the cost'
 
Some of it is scale and some of it components and some of it is simplifying to make the process of building easier. As a practical example correctly sized belaying pins are not easy (for me) to belay so I will probably make them even more out of scale in future just to make it easier to tie rigging. 
 
 I personally dislike kits with obvious large inaccuracies but these are easily avoidable. Small inaccuracies you can kit-bash yourself if there is a specific problem/problems you dislike and if you dont know of the problem well there is nothing further to do.
 
 

If a kit manufacturer produced a visually accurate model to every detail then it would cost so much that the query would be 'why spend four thousand pounds on that when you can get close enough with Manufacturer B and pay a tenth of the cost'
 
Some of it is scale and some of it components and some of it is simplifying to make the process of building easier. As a practical example correctly sized belaying pins are not easy (for me) to belay so I will probably make them even more out of scale in future just to make it easier to tie rigging. 
 
 I personally dislike kits with obvious large inaccuracies but these are easily avoidable. Small inaccuracies you can kit-bash yourself if there is a specific problem/problems you dislike and if you dont know of the problem well there is nothing further to do.
 
 

Where to start! I could mention specific kits or manufacturers but that's not my question! However, to highlight just a few examples of details, most kits have over-scale belaying pins; most kits of vessels carrying boats show the boats with over-scale scantlings, etc, etc.  What I'm really interested to know is what other members consider are the most accurate, particularly externally (far better to be positive than to be negative by slating one particular kit - I leave that to the reviewers!). I posted the question because a friend asked for a recommendation, but wanted a kit that matched the original as close as possible.

Finished with bulkhead faring. A lot of sanding. I was really quite diligent with this, probably more so than on the previous builds.
Also put the shadowbox and its ribs in - again, a lot of sanding to bring it into line with the bulkheads.
No surprises or issues thus far, but I'm about to start on the stern structure, the like of which I have not previously done.
May not get going on this for a week or two with holiday and other projects. This will be a slow build.

If I wasn't about to start on my scratch of Amphion again then I would be tempted by the Master as well. Better quality wood makes for a better modelling experience and a better resultant kit..usually. 

I love what you are doing here for the ship modelling community as well and I hope it works out well.

This is a great build.. Question - how fiddly was it to work at 1:80? I attempted 1:60 with my last and found that almost too small so am considering 1:48 for the re-start but (even for a frigate) that is much larger. 

If I wasn't about to start on my scratch of Amphion again then I would be tempted by the Master as well. Better quality wood makes for a better modelling experience and a better resultant kit..usually. 

I love what you are doing here for the ship modelling community as well and I hope it works out well.

If I wasn't about to start on my scratch of Amphion again then I would be tempted by the Master as well. Better quality wood makes for a better modelling experience and a better resultant kit..usually. 

I love what you are doing here for the ship modelling community as well and I hope it works out well.

If I wasn't about to start on my scratch of Amphion again then I would be tempted by the Master as well. Better quality wood makes for a better modelling experience and a better resultant kit..usually. 

I love what you are doing here for the ship modelling community as well and I hope it works out well.

Chris
 
I will definitely go for the boxwood version.
 
Derek

I am into the master version!

Right, I had the sample photo etch and laser cut parts from Italy arrive yesterday. I wanted samples because I needed to be sure the production parts for Speedy are all as I want them. There was a problem with one of the PE parts when building the prototype, which has now been fully rectified, so have given the go-ahead for the production PE sets, which should be with me by the end of next week.
 
The laser cut parts I am still not entirely happy with, and have asked them to rectify the problems I highlight or not do any. In the meantime, I have 20 full sets for the special pearwood version of the kit and another 15 sets arriving on Tuesday for the basswood version, all laser cut in the UK. This is the reason I wanted to wait, as I want to make sure I am happy with everything in the kit box.
 
Essentially, I have everything I need apart from the production PE parts, which will be with me next week. (although technically, I do have one full kit set as the sample parts for the PE are great)
 
I know I said end of October/early November, but the Italians took a lot longer than I anticipated, and I did insist on seeing sample parts for me to double check before entering production. 

I posted the pics of Arethusa because I thought they may be of interest to you guys on here. I do plan to develop this, and, as with a lot of future developments, I try and get as much information on each subject wherever and whenever I can. For Arethusa, it was a chance email to the museum that has the model, asking if I could have access to it. I was given a date and time to visit. I figured it would be a shame to keep the pics to myself.
 
I need to start small as the larger subjects cost a lot more to develop, although the smaller ones are not cheap to develop and get into production, not when ordering 100 sets of everything. More so for something like Speedy, which is a .'No holds barred' kit, with so many brass and copper PE sheets, resin cannon etc. If the smaller kits sell, I will be confident enough to move onto the bigger fish, and also invest in a proper laser machine which would give me a lot more freedom.
 
 

Jack: I've just come across your post. What you show on the different framing disposition plans are various ways to either shift or cast frame timbers so that the spacing of toptimbers between the ports is correct. (The shipwright was not allowed to cut into the sides of toptimbers to form the edges of the ports - a strength issue.) There were many methods of doing this in use. Some plans show the spacer blocks that were used where the frame parts were bolted together (your second example). This was done throughout, but was only indicated on one frame pair on the plan.

I have just scanned some text from the book 'The Heavy Frigate' by Robert Gardiner. It was from this I got the info for the whereabouts of the model, and realised it's only 25 miles away from me!
 
ETA - The text states that the model is 48th scale, but it is in fact 1:64th.

Had the Speedy boxes arrive yesterday. Today, no work on Speedy, but a trip to the Bristol Museum, which was a long arranged meeting with the curator of ship models. He very kindly took the contemporary model out of its case in storage, placed it on a sturdy table/stand on castors, and left me to it for however long I wished. I was in heaven!  The scale is 64th, so the same as the kit it will be, although I may not include the berthed up forecastle bulwarks, I am sure these were a slightly later addition..
Arethusa, 1781, 18-pounder 38 gun frigate, one of the very first built for the Royal navy
 
I thought I's share a few of the many pics I took (all straight off the camera with file size reduced, but no colour/contrast correcting)
 
I didn't want to leave it, could have looked at it all afternoon...
 

Hi Matrim,
 
I can't really compare this scale with anything else as this is the first build I've done (I've never even built a ship from a kit before,) but at times it certainly was a bit fiddly ~ especially areas like the stern quarters.
The plans that came with the book were at 1:96 but I felt that was going to be too tight for me and as much as I would have preferred a scale of 1:64 or bigger, display space would have been a problem so I struck a 'mid-way' compromise of 1:80.
As it is, at this scale, it now measures (overall length) 960mm X 760mm (keel to truck).  The case I ordered is 1020mm long by 810mm high.