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Your hands may seem too big , but you obviously have a fine touch!

I recently ordered Rigging Period Fore-And-Aft Craft by Lennarth Petersson.  I picked it up from Amazon in the paperback edition for about $24.00.  I would highly recommend this book, especially for anyone new to ship modeling that may be confused by the multitude of rigging lines.

It’s 111 pages long with about 200 diagrams that clearly show you where each separate item of both standing and running rigging lines are fitted, led, and belayed.  The book is divided into three 18^th century ship types.  The first one is an English 18 gun naval cutter similar to the Expedition.  The second section is a French 8 gun 3 masted lugger similar to the Le Coureur.  The last section deals with a 2 masted American schooner similar to the Experiment.

The book clearly illustrates the details of the connections of the various lines including their attachment points and tackle arrangements.  I found it to be well worth the investment.  As a matter of fact I plan on getting a copy of his previous book Rigging Period Ship Models.

    Welcome to MSW from an old WI cheese head.  My two cents would be to go with something simple but not too small a scale.  My first wooden ship was the Challenge, an A.J. Fisher kit at 1/8" scale great lakes schooner.  That was an enjoyable build, but the scale was a real hard one to deal with for a first attempt.  I built it for a former Coast Guardsman so I had motivation to plow ahead with it anyway.  I had previous experience with 1/8" scale plastic ships but a lot of the small parts in those kits (especially in the rigging), were actually out of scale and easier to handle.

    Perhaps the Dancing Feather by the same company would be a better choice as the scale is a bit bigger at 3/16" scale.  The rigging is a lot simpler than a square rigged ship, something that a first time builder can find to be quite frustrating.  Check out their new website at www.ajfisher.com.

Nice job!  I especially liked the coppering job and the rudder mounting.  In the future I plan on building a 3/16" scale version of the Phantom and will try ordering some of those plates by Amanti as they should look quite good on my build also.

I have bought and used the model shipways paint and have to agree with Brian that it is very inconsistent.  I have several jars of their paint that were never opened before and yet when opened the paint appeared to be a shrunken hockey puck!  Some of them were more the consistency of paste, and even with prolonged mixing and thinning with water, required much sanding to eliminate the coarseness of the finish.  I don't know if somewhere in shipping they were frozen or what.  On the other hand. some of the others that I was able to use seemed to work just fine.  So my opinion is to search for another brand or hope you get lucky.

Dave

I guess that Ships in Scale would be my suggestion also. I have been getting their mag since 2000 and have been quite happy with it.  As a matter of fact I also decided to order the digital copies of the previous years and the digital copies of that Model Ship Builder mag that quit publishing awhile ago.  I only have a few copies of that one, but liked what I saw.

    Welcome to the club Bulwark.  I think I know what you mean about tornado alley.  While stationed at Ft. Sill, OK when in the Army in 72, I was in 4 tornados in just my first 2 months there! 

    Concerning your upcoming build of AL’s Bluenose II,  try to get your hands on Ships-In-Scale magazine issues JUL/AUG 03 thru MAY/JUN 04.  It’s a six part practicum by John Earl that has many useful suggestions

I have a question concerning how the ships pilot on the Phantom got transfered to the ship he was to pilot into port if the Phantom didn't have any boats on board to transfer him with?  According to most of what I have read, most pilot boats, like the Mary Taylor for instance, carried at least one ship boat to make the transfer. The Mary Taylor was close to the same size as the Phantom and built around the same era.  Did they transfer the pilot directly from the deck of the Phantom to the other ship?  I was under the impression that pulling two larger ships close together, especially in rough weather, was a bit dangerous.  Did they have some other way to get the pilot on the other ship that I am not aware of like some type of transfer rigging similar to what they used by the Navy during WWII?  Maybe the ship he was to pilot sent out a boat of their own to pick him up,

I have the same saw, and as I learned from my father, I made my own zero clearance inserts from wood.  They are not difficult to make and are much cheaper than buying from Micro-Mark.  I have used them many times and have had none of your problems with the plastic inserts.

Dave