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The actual assembly guide started simply enough with step A for the support stand. The part numbering system however, didn’t seem to follow any particular order. Step A, as shown below, started with part number 240 joined to part number 17 which was from an entirely different billet. So I had to do a lot of searching for the correct parts for each step. At least the instructions were well illustrated with contrasting colors showing the parts involved in each step, and the finished assembly shown in white. They included exploded views of subset steps like A1 shown above. Certain parts with a gilded finish were called out with a T added to it. For instance, Part T7 in step A1 above was the first use of one of those designations. Wherever the supplied double-faced tape was required this symbol shown below was shown nearby. As the instructions continued on to step B, the diagram for the assembly of the frames on the keel. The previous A1 subset shown in gray, was brought forward and its new placement was shown below. Just below that diagram, the lower deck part is shown in pink and shows its alignment below that with the framed up keel in white. The first instance of folding a part came up now and was shown as an unlabeled subset. Careful bending was required for this interior stair assembly, because the core of the part could easily separate from the vinyl facing. Lastly, the placement on the deck of the stairs and twelve of the cast black plastic canons was shown to complete step B. Here are a few photos of the state of construction at this point. Step C followed with the alignment of the main deck on the previous frame and several subsets, including the main cabin entrance wall, the next deck above that with its pair of stairs, the curved balcony railing, and the ships wheel. Here is the ship below with the subsets from step C added to the ship and a portion of step D. Step D was actually more of a continuation of C than a separate step. The subset C1 was brought forward and combined with the upper cabin walls and attached to the main deck. The upper cabin walls, the Poop deck above that with its railing, a fife rail that passed through an additional upper rear deck, and various other fittings to go with it were all assembled and added. Step D continued with a pair of curved stairs with subsets D1 and D2. Those stairs were quite a handful themselves, between bending in the curve, inserting the seven treads, and anchoring the ends to the two decks without twisting them out of shape. They are shown below after their installation and the status of the build at the completion of step D. To be continued.

She was thought to be a three masted frigate of approximately 200 tons, that measured 103 feet long with a beam of 24.6 feet. Originally operated as a slave ship operated by René Montaudin, a leading slave trader of Nantes, until it was sold in 1713 in Peru. She was briefly operated by the French Navy in November 1716, but was sold by them for commerce five months later in France as a slaver once again. Then in November 1717 she was captured by Edward Teach (AKA Blackbeard the pirate) near the island of Saint Vincent in the West Indies. After Blackbeard and his small fleet of pirates sold her cargo of slaves at Martinique, he gave her the name of Queen Anne’s Revenge. He made her into his flagship and added more heavy cannons. (For a total somewhere between 30 and 40.) He continued to operate her and his small fleet for less than a year in the Atlantic Ocean between the west coast of Africa and the Caribbean, attacking and capturing numerous British, Dutch, and Portuguese prizes. Then in May 1718 while attempting to blockade Charleston harbor in North Carolina, his flagship ran aground while entering Beaufort Inlet. Despite efforts to kedge her loose by one of his smaller ships, the sloop Adventure, he decided to disband his small flotilla, transfer supplies to the smaller ship and make his escape. Several of his crew members were stranded on a nearby island, who were later rescued by Captain Stede Bonnet. He ended up surrendering shortly after that and accepted a King’s pardon for himself and his remaining crewmen from Governor Charles Eden at Bath North Carolina. However, he soon resumed his career as a pirate and in November 1718 he was killed in combat. On November 21, 1996 a shipwreck was located by Intersal Inc., that laid in 28 feet of water about one mile offshore of Fort Macon State Park, Atlantic Beach, North Carolina. They believed it to be the remains of Queen Anne’s Revenge. After much research and recovery of artifacts from the wreck, the National Geographic Society finally confirmed on August 29, 2011 that it was indeed that ship. During the interim while they were still trying to confirm its identity, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2004. The site is now owned by the State of North Carolina and located South of Beaufort Inlet. As somewhat of a side note to this ships history, the Sunset, a replica of Queen Anne’s Revenge, was used in numerous roles in the Pirates Of the Caribbean films.

I previously posted a review of this model kit back on January 4 th of this year. I took numerous photos of it during the process and have decided to post this build log for it. First, I'll give you a bit of its history and details of the actual ship. While there are no confirmed records of the date and place of construction it is generally assumed to be around 1710 since there are no records of its activities prior to that date. She was a three masted frigate of approximately 200 tons, that measured 103 feet long with a beam of 24.6 feet. Originally operated as a slave ship operated by René Montaudin, a leading slave trader of Nantes, until it was sold in 1713 in Peru. She was briefly operated by the French Navy in November 1716, but was sold by them for commerce five months later in France as a slaver once again. Then in November 1717 she was captured by Edward Teach (AKA Blackbeard the pirate) near the island of Saint Vincent in the West Indies.

Perhaps I can provide some personal insight on this concept Gregory. See my build log for the whaling bark Wanderer in the Kit build logs for subjects built from 1851 – 1900. The 1/87 scale plastic model kit is made by Aurora and I am heavily modifying the kit, by replacing most of the plastic parts with wood, including the ships deck.

I would use a strip of double sided tape to hold it in place. Others here use a temporary adhesive followed by a release agent. I'm sure there are probably other methods that are covered in the shop notes area of our forum.

I could suggest another possible option here Ron. Before I throw out old appliances or tools, I always disassemble them and salvage anything useful, especially if they can be used for models. If you have a small old electric motor driven tool that you no longer use, you could use some of that fine copper wire that's wrapped around the armature. The smaller the motor, the finer the wire. If it's disguised as rope and it needs to be draped, it can easily maintain the curve and there is no fuzz to deal with.

That is probably true, but it just makes your results just that much more remarkable! My paternal grandfather was also very good at carving by hand back in the depression with his own handmade tools. I was always impressed by how he could create such beautiful sculptures and furniture from the most basic tools and scraps of lumber that he could get a hold of. I think that's who I inherited my urge to recycle rather than replace from.

That's a very remarkable improvement on such a small detail!

Looking at the box art photo, they appear to do just that. On the actual ship I'd be willing to bet that the rubbing strake was trimmed back where they overlap. Otherwise, replacing the portholes would be next to impossible.

One begs to ask the question Ian, just how heavy is this beast going to get when its fully loaded? Looks like you might need to get pumped up at the gym first to launch and recover it. 💪🏋️‍♂️

Boris, that's a very impressive amount of fine detail for such a small scale!

Welcome John, hope to see some of your work here soon.

Having recently reviewed the scratch build log of Phantom 1868 by victory78 – New York pilot boat, I was intrigued by how much more can be shown at his larger 1:50 scale version. Most notable to me was the differences between the plans provided by the Model Shipways kit and his version. While I have no way of determining which version is correct, I suspect that since his version seems to include a lot more details that don’t appear at all in my kit plans, I’ll go with his version. One example of this was that the waterway and the margin plank on the foredeck are indicated as separate features on his, as opposed to the kits’ version of just a single plank. I’m not sure, but perhaps the kits’ smaller scale led to them to just simplify it. Another notable feature that his version added, that seemed like it would have been a logical thing to see on a ship like this, was the reinforced deck doublings in the areas around the mast holes and bitts. It seemed so logical in fact, that I decided to include them to my version, especially since they seemed to be an easy feature to add. Since my bowsprit was not yet permanently attached, it was pulled out first to allow adding the doubled deck for the winch bitts. I made up these three somewhat simplified versions of the doubled decking area add-ons as shown below. You can see that I even included a version of his contrasting body wood for the winch bits, but was unable, at my scale, to make them separate pieces. So I just compromised, and was able to combine the two into one. He also made body wood for all of the deck projections, but once again, with the difficulty of working at my much smaller scale, I decided to skip the remaining projection trim. (I think that if I had known about them earlier in my build, I might have included them, but that’s water under the bridge now.) After completing the doubler decking sections and test fitting the winch bitt with the bowsprit reinserted, I discovered to my dismay that the bitts had been placed too far back from the bow and the extra thickness of the decking had also lowered the angle of the bowsprit! Once again it was back to doing some more damage control. So the pointed bow end of the doubling deck and the heel end of the bowsprit were both shortened, and the bottom cross beam of the bitts was filed down until the proper angle was restored. Whew! But wait for it… when test fitting the fife rails, I also discovered as you can see below that the spindles included with the kit were 0.16mm too tall and caused the rails to be tilted! It seemed like if I found one thing that needed correcting, something else also had to be changed. Comparing my wood bitts to the metal fitting that came with the kit, they were a match size wise. Which only left two possibilities. One, the spindles provided were too tall, or the fife rail fittings were too short. At least the error was apparently not mine. But, since the metal spindles couldn’t be shortened, I had to add 0.16mm to the bottom of the posts. Since I was never quite satisfied with the previous fife rail posts anyway, I wasn’t all that bummed out about it. Unfortunately, while taking my glued up fife rail fittings apart I broke one of the plastic rails, which would have been the hardest part to reproduce. Luckily it only broke into two pieces, so all it needed was to be glued back together. So I ripped down a couple more 3/32” x 3/32” maple strips as shown here and cut the notches for the fife rails as I did originally. Rather than filing a peg at the bottom of the posts again, I decided to add that missing 0.16mm to the bottom and to cut them off at 10mm and drill a hole into the bottom for a 10mm long 0.62mm brass nail with the head filed off. Which left about 6mm exposed to go into the deck. Since all of my light buff deck house paint from Model Shipways came out of the jar the consistency of a hockey puck, I ended up grinding it down and added enough water to get it somewhat usable again. The first time around I had made the mistake, of gluing the fife rails together prior to painting and as a result, the assembled fitting was very hard to sand between coats and the resulting finish was rather poor. So this time I painted all of the components before assembly to make them easier to sand between coats. Of course my paint was so watered down now, that I had to use six coats with light sanding between. I did manage, however to get a much smoother finish this time. While I had been careful to avoid getting paint into the notches, I forgot that the wood might still swell a bit from so many coats of watered down paint. So, another test fit was done, and sure enough, the notches had to be lightly filed for easier assembly. Now all I need to do is add the half cleats and reassemble the fife rail fittings for later installation on the deck. My next posting will cover making the navigation lights and the portable anchor davit.

Well, I gave up trying to salvage that first attempt to make the davit since trying to anneal the 1.15mm wire at this point would only melt the solder that was already holding the flats on the end. So, after receiving my new functioning torch, I came up with a different method that would work with my limited tools and skill working with metal. This is a rough sketch of my idea of how remake the end of the davit. It solved the multiple problems of drilling that hole, fattening the sides of the wire, and adding the flats on the end at the same time. After annealing some 1.15mm wire and 1.7mm wide 0.075mm thick strip of brass, the wire was bent into shape and the brass strip was folded in half over some 1.15mm wire. The next step was to clamp and solder the strip to the end of the wire as shown being sure to use enough solder to fill the gaps on the top and bottom between them. A scrap of 1.15mm maple was slipped into the gap between the sheet for support and maintain the alignment between them and a 0.50mm hole was drilled through for an eye bolt. Then the folded over end portion on the right of the strip shown in green was cut off and filed into its finish shape. While the newly fattened portion of the wire on the left was clamped in my vice, the top and bottom areas of the strip and solder in green were filed off flat to the surface of the wire. Now that there was a wider surface to work with, it was clamped in the vice, a heavy needle was used as a center punch, and that pesky 0.50mm hole that created such a problem before was finally drilled for the other eye bolt. The final step was to just file away the remaining brass sides shown in green into their rounded shape. Making a pair of eye-bolts from some 0.50mm brass wire, which were cut to the proper length to leave just enough exposed to glue a very short portion of some hollow thin wall brass pipe to serve as the nuts. Thanks to all of your suggestions guys. Apparently those drill bits I used actually were sharp, the annealing process really did make quite a difference! Here is a photo of the assembly as it stands now with its brace added.

Well, my new torch arrived and I must say that I was pleasantly surprised. It was securely packaged and arrived just 4 days after I placed the order. In addition to the torch itself, there were some very well illustrated how-to instructions and a plastic bag with three plastic accessory fittings to aid in the filling and/or emptying of the butane gas. The instructions are written with the inexperienced user (like me) in mind, pointing out all of the features of the torch and how to use them. Having only used a soldering iron previously, I appreciated that even things that more experienced users wouldn’t even think twice about, were things that were explained here. This seems to be a very solidly built and rather stylish looking tool. It has a very stable chromed copper base, so concerns about tipping over are minimal. The metal gas tank has a built-in leak-proof inflation valve under the base that’s covered with a black diamond cut surface which makes it very easy for me to grip and stays cool to the touch. The business end has a long-angled and heat-resistant ceramic nozzle that helps to keep your hands safely away from the flame. It doesn’t come with butane gas (due to shipping restrictions), but it comes with those plastic fittings to allow filling from most commercially available butane gas bottles. Refilling the torch fully (8-11g) only took me about 10 seconds or so. The chrome plated copper piezo press ignition button made it easy for me to ignite a continuous flame and allowed me to use it one-handed. A flame mode regulator control, located just behind the nozzle, allows switching between 2 flame modes of either a tiny blue or a large yellow flame to control the heat. The manufacturer says that it can reach a maximum temperature up to 2,372oF (2372oC), but I’ll have to take their word for that as I have no way to measure that. There is also a fuel flow regulator dial on the side of the torch that allowed me to make additional flame adjustments. An additional safety feature is a cover that snaps over the fuel flow regulator dial which prevents the ignition button from being inadvertently depressed. It also came with a 2-year warranty. At this point I have experimented with it a little bit annealing some brass and soldering a few things and it does seem to be as good as advertised.

Well, I did bite the bullet and ordered the RAVS-2001 torch from Amazon for about $23 with free shipping and it arrived just 4 days later. I will probably write up a review of it later, but since it actually works as advertised, I’ll be too busy in my shop making a new davit. 👍

In my younger days, in addition to the few plastic models listed below in my past builds that I ended up selling, I also built numerous models of movie monsters, cars, military vehicles, rockets, and ships that met their demise through various means in the years since. There were a few of them that were the most memorable. One military vehicle that really stands out in my memory was the U.S. Army's M60 AVLB (Armored Vertical-Launched Bridge. It was an M60 Patton tank chassis with a hydraulic folding scissors bridge mounted in place of the turret. Developed in 1963, some of those are still in service around the world. Then there was the 1/123 scale Revell model of the Polaris submarine from back in the 60’s that had one side of it cut away to reveal its interior details, and the 1962 Atlantis 1/110 scale model of the Atlas rocket complete with its launch pad and the Mercury capsule shown here. One model that I sought, but was never able to get hold of was this 1/35 Tamiya model of the US M16 Halftrack pictured here. It was a M3 half-track fitted with a quad mounted 50-caliber Browning automatic heavy machine gun. My primary reason was that my father was a crew member of one of these going through France and Germany during WWII.

Opps, looks like this should have been put in its own kit review rather than added onto the American Revenue Cutter listing. Can anyone correct my error by putting it into its own review with the heading: Queen Anne’s Revenge (Blackbeard’s ship)? Sorry Jeff.

As my interest in jigsaw puzzles and ship modeling is well know by my friends and family, I was presented at X-Mas with this 3D model kit of Queen Anne’s Revenge (Blackbeard’s ship) by my wife's nephew and family. It’s more or less, a combination of my two interests in one box weighing in at a substantial 3 lb. 7 oz. While it is certainly not an accurately detailed rendition of the vessel, it will be my first entry into card models and I look forward to it’s assembly, which judging by the 23 page illustrated step by step instruction manual, (in 7 languages no less) should not be too difficult to complete. There are a total of 391 pieces including the display stand. The vast majority is printed on 15 sheets of 11” x 16.5” pre-punched sheets of 1mm card stock printed in color, but the sails are on 3 sheets of textured paper and there are 22 plastic canons, a small sheet of double sided tape, a card hole puncher, and small sheet of prefinished Mylar to represent stained glass on the rear of the ship. Although glue is not required for construction, obviously if you would like to keep it for display you might like to use some. No tools are required, other than the hole puncher that is included with the kit. It claims to be rated as a 6 in complexity, but not sure if that is out of 10 or what. I tend to believe that according to its estimated construction time of 4 hours it can’t be all that complicated. This kit is designed and manufactured by CubicFun Toys Industrial Co. Ltd out of Guangdong, China and is referred to as an anniversary edition, but I’m not sure if the company has produced an earlier model or if it refers to something else. While there is no indication of scale, the completed size of the model is listed at 29.1” X 10” X 24.4” (or 74cm X 25.6cm X 62cm). As this was a gift, I have no clue about its cost or if it’s a pirated copy of some other company’s product, but from what I can see, it is well produced and nicely packaged. While the model is admittedly more toy like, it is not pretending to be anything other than a 3D puzzle. Overall, I think that it seems to be a good introduction to card models especially for modeling fans that are inexperienced or just want to get their feet wet, so to speak.

I’ve been trying to use a small torch for both soldering joints and/or annealing metal. This is the unit below that I’ve bought which burns butane. Unfortunately, it was a little awkward trying to operate with one hand and maintain a continuous flame. First off, a tiny safety lock situated just below the blue trigger button on the right needs to be clicked down before igniting the torch and it was difficult to get at unless you have a long thumbnail. (A small straight edge screwdriver works better for me.) Next, the trigger button needs to be pushed in to ignite the flame, but at the same time you also have to depress and push the chrome lever forward on the side to engage the continuous flame feature. By the time the ignition trigger is released to engage that feature the flame goes out! I’ve even tried it with two hands, but after a dozen more tries the flame went out every time. To add to the frustration, now it doesn’t want to ignite at all. At first I thought it had run out of butane, but after refilling it and depressing the trigger several times, I can hear and smell the release of gas, but there is no longer any ignition at all. At this point it appears that I’ve just wasted about $35 for a defective torch. So I find myself a little leery of ordering another one of the same model. Despite my experience, supposedly 1298 customer reviews gave it 4.5 out of 5 rating and read as follows: Customers like the value, quality and size of the torch. They mention that it's great for the price, an excellent little butane torch and that it makes an awesome cigar lighter. They are also satisfied with size, and ease of use. However, some customers have reported issues with hardness. They say that it doesn't light on the first shot and that the igniter doesn' t work anymore. So, apparently I’m one of those 0.5 out of 5 customers. I guess my question would be whether anyone else here has found a similar product that actually works as advertised. Right now I’m considering the RAVS-2001 model # RBT018 which seems to be a nice one, but then I’ve been fooled before. I'm trying to use it to remake that anchor davit since my drill still refused to make that hole and annealing the wire at this point would melt the solder that is already holding the flats on the end of the davit. If all else fails I may just fake the eye bolt and glue or solder a split ring on the bottom side.

While not a drill bit, the Admiral ordered these ceramic bladed box cutters on line for me. At first I was a little skeptical, but I gave them a try and was pleasantly surprised. I found them easier to grip than a standard cutter and it really cut through heavy cardboard quite easily. Not to mention the fact that despite its sharpness, it was much more durable than I expected and safer to handle. So...I wonder if ceramic bits would have similar properties.

While I did manage, with a heavy needle, to make a center mark and start drilling the hole in the wire with a bit in a machinist’s pin vice, it was very slow going. At first, I was actually making some progress, but after 10-12 minutes or so, the result was a hole less than ¼ of the way through and a broken bit. I took out another drill bit, but this time I left the bit extended just 5mm to reduce the amount of flex and used this battery powered General drill that has low RPMs but high torque. It was easier to maintain a steady alignment with the hole than it was with the pin vice especially since drilling metal usually takes quite a while. However the primary problem I encountered was the fact that the bits appeared to be quite dull. This was evident when I tried to drill a hole for several minutes through a flat piece of brass that barely made a scratch. With the larger sized bits it’s easy to see if they truly are sharp, but unless viewing through a microscope, these tiny bits would be difficult to confirm that they really are. While I have several tiny HSS bit sets from various sources including the original V.F. Rogers Drill Bit Set with the domed cover, I can’t seem to get any better results with any of them. Has anyone here had any better luck with ceramic bit sets or the 1/8” shank bits with the plastic size collars on them? At this point I would be willing to pay a bit more to get better results.

Looking for suggestions about best way to drill a hole through a 1.15mm brass wire for a 0.50mm wire eyebolt as shown below. Also, that 1.15mm wire needs to be widened to about 1.70mm where the hole is.

That's true of so much of modeling. Don't experiment with stuff like that on the finish product until you know exactly how it will work or if it even will work! Unfortunately, in some cases once it's done, like it or not, you're stuck with it!

The plans provided with my 1:96 scale Phantom from my Model Shipways kit that were apparently taken from H. I. Chapelle don't indicate any of the details that you show on your rendition of the ship. Perhaps they were just simplified for the kit, but it makes it hard to add those details to my version. Did the plans that you are going by actually show these details or do you have another source for them? They seem logical for other similar ships and I would like to remodify my version to include them if possible. On my plans the waterway and the margin planks are shown as one, their were no details shown for the hull counter at the stern, and the cockpit isn't recessed. The book you refer to is apparently only available in an E-book form, but I'm more of an old school hands on researcher that prefers an actual book, so I am still searching for a source for one of them and the blueprints that you are using. Bye the way, your photo images of your log are very well done. I look forward to seeing more.