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A happy New Years to all. Thanks to one of your fellow modelers I have reopened the shipyard after many years. I was a member of Model Shipwrights and this previous site many years ago. Currently working on the Confederacy from Model Shipways. The talent I have seen on the current build logs is inspiring and daunting at the same time! 
 
I retired 2 years ago so now have the time to indulge in my hobbies of leatherwork, woodwork, 1/32 scale WWI aircraft and now sailing ships. That is when I am not taking care of horses and fishing. How did I ever find time for making a living. My past ship builds are the Royal Louis and Royal Caroline. I have forgotten the makers of these two kits. Also a scratch built Gunboat Philadelphia. 
 
Im looking forward to learning from this group and participating. All the best,
 
Mark “Bossman”

And here I thought it was my doing.  I tried to undo it, but when I saved my correction it reappeared.  I just had my computer upgraded to windows 10 (and discovered a host of new emojis) so I thought I had pressed a special key or something.

We need to have our tech guys turn off the 'numeral 8 - end parenthesis' emoji keystroke combo.

John,
 
Your wife would seem to have a wonderful sense of humor!
 
Mine claims no mechanical ability and just gets on my case to fix things.  The upside of this is that she stays out of my workshop.
 
Roger

Wife always misplaces my tools was looking for a screwdriver I needed, was aggravated had looked all over house. I tracked her down and accused her of not putting my tools back and advised I was tired of searching for tools she misplaced. She stated laughing and said fool have you looked in your hand.
What's so sad about this its a true story, gave her one more excuse to put me in a home.

Trying to find your glasses when they're on your head comes to mind.

My problem isn't putting them away or remembering where I put them away, it's setting them down on the workbench for a moment while working and not being able to remember where in all the "work in progress" cluttter only moments later!
 

OK. A jeweller's drawplate will 'squeeze' metal that has been annealed as you draw it through a parallel hole. The total mass (or weight) of metal being drawn stays constant; it simply changes shape. Byrnes' drawplate, specifically designed to remove mass, shaves off wood on each pass through the plate. The holes are tapered in such a way that the 'small 'side acts as a kind of cutting edge as you pull stock through from that side. A jeweler's drawplate will remove mass, but the hole is 'blunt', adding friction and causing material failure more frequently because of the greater traction force required to pull it through.

The drawplates that jewellers use are for pulling metal wire by compression/extrusion. The Byrnes plate is specifically for shaving down wood. They are not interchangeable.

For anyone interested in reading them in order, here is a list.
Destroyermen Series by Taylor Anderson
 1) Into the Storm Jun-2008
 2) Crusade Oct-2008
 3) Maelstrom Feb-2009
 4) Distant Thunders Jun-2010
 5) Rising Tides Feb-2011
 6) Firestorm Oct-2011   
 7) Iron Gray Sea Jul-2012
😎 Storm Surge Jul-2013
 9) Deadly Shores May-2014
10) Straits of Hell May-2015        
11) Blood in the Water Jun-2016
12) Devil's Due Jun-2017
13) River of Bones Jul-2018          
14) Pass of Fire Jun-2019              
15) Winds of Wrath Jun-2020

I'm glad to see that others here have discovered The Destroyermen series.  I made mention of the series back in November on the posting of the 1:96 USS Peary DD-226 by rcweir.  His model is just the type of ship depicted in the series.  Along with the four stack vintage WWI destroyer Taylor starts out with, there are also included many other vehicles of war developed in the story including wooden sailing warships, ironclads, WWI and WWII aircraft, aircraft carriers, dirigibles and submarines.  I am currently reading volume 10 Straits Of Hell and am still wondering just how far the story can go before the technology will go on before it catches up with our current state of warfare.  Every volume introduces something new and as I said in the model posting, I can hardly put them down once I start. 

For anyone interested in reading them in order, here is a list.
Destroyermen Series by Taylor Anderson
 1) Into the Storm Jun-2008
 2) Crusade Oct-2008
 3) Maelstrom Feb-2009
 4) Distant Thunders Jun-2010
 5) Rising Tides Feb-2011
 6) Firestorm Oct-2011   
 7) Iron Gray Sea Jul-2012
😎 Storm Surge Jul-2013
 9) Deadly Shores May-2014
10) Straits of Hell May-2015        
11) Blood in the Water Jun-2016
12) Devil's Due Jun-2017
13) River of Bones Jul-2018          
14) Pass of Fire Jun-2019              
15) Winds of Wrath Jun-2020

I'm glad to see that others here have discovered The Destroyermen series.  I made mention of the series back in November on the posting of the 1:96 USS Peary DD-226 by rcweir.  His model is just the type of ship depicted in the series.  Along with the four stack vintage WWI destroyer Taylor starts out with, there are also included many other vehicles of war developed in the story including wooden sailing warships, ironclads, WWI and WWII aircraft, aircraft carriers, dirigibles and submarines.  I am currently reading volume 10 Straits Of Hell and am still wondering just how far the story can go before the technology will go on before it catches up with our current state of warfare.  Every volume introduces something new and as I said in the model posting, I can hardly put them down once I start. 

I'm glad to see that others here have discovered The Destroyermen series.  I made mention of the series back in November on the posting of the 1:96 USS Peary DD-226 by rcweir.  His model is just the type of ship depicted in the series.  Along with the four stack vintage WWI destroyer Taylor starts out with, there are also included many other vehicles of war developed in the story including wooden sailing warships, ironclads, WWI and WWII aircraft, aircraft carriers, dirigibles and submarines.  I am currently reading volume 10 Straits Of Hell and am still wondering just how far the story can go before the technology will go on before it catches up with our current state of warfare.  Every volume introduces something new and as I said in the model posting, I can hardly put them down once I start. 

Hello,
 
I did a few plastic aircraft models and failed two wooden ships as a teenager. Now I'm almost 30, and I decided to take seriously on an hobby to clear off my mind during my doctoral studies. I played around with matches (glue-free) and built a few Ugears models in the last year and found the love for working with wood again

However those models are getting a bit simple for me, so I decided to give it a try to ships again. I love models (or in general, artworks) with lots of details, and this seems the best option. Fingers crossed, the third time will be the good one! Thanks to @ccoyle's hints I cooled down my enthusiasm and started with something simple: Occre's Albatros! I see lots of videos/logs about it and I'm looking forward to draw from the experience of the seniors on this forum! If I win over my shyness I may even start a build log myself... let's see. I'll soon start the planking, let's hope everything goes well!
 
Thanks to everyone keeping this wonderful community running, see you around!
Matt

Thanks for the review, Chris. I have been looking for a new "page turner" to get immersed in and this sounds like it might be just the ticket.
 
I just ordered the first in the series and I'll let you know how it turns out.
 
Bob
 

The Destroyermen (Series) by Taylor Anderson
ACE Books
 
Okay, doing things a little bit different here -- this review isn't for a particular book, but rather for a series of books. I think you might like this series if you:
 
a.) like naval warfare fiction
b.) are a fan of alternative history, and
c.) don't care that everyone knows that you aren't reading Pulitzer-worthy material.
 
WARNING: SPOILER ALERT! (Just a few.)
 
The Destroyermen is the name of the series that began back in 2008 with Into the Storm and now numbers 14 installments and counting. In that first book, Anderson introduced us to the crew of the fictional USS Walker, a WWI-vintage four-stacker that gets caught up in the early events of WWII in the Southwest Pacific. During the Battle of the Java Sea, Walker attempts to evade the Japanese by heading into an unusual squall. Afterwards she finds herself on an alternative Earth. The key word there is alternative, i.e. this other Earth ain't like the one the boys left behind. The biggest surprise is that the alternative Earth's indigenous "peoples" aren't exactly people. The America sailors, led by Lt. Matthew Reddy, find that humans are not the only sentient life forms on this other Earth (it's alternative history, after all), and that some of the other combatants in the series have, um, "unusual dining habits". Some of these creatures will eventually become close friends and allies of the destroyermen, and some will serve as particularly dangerous adversaries. Along the way, Reddy and his men will discover that their new home is populated by many other surprising and unexpected characters.
 
Anderson is a great storyteller, and does a fine job of vivifying his fictional world, including the setting, the cast of characters, and the of course the alternative history leading up to the events described in the series. The list of dramatis personae gets longer with each volume, despite the inevitable combat losses, thanks to the increasing number and complexity of plot strands. It can be a little difficult to remember just who is who as you read from one volume to the next. Fortunately, each book includes a list of characters, descriptions of the current military hardware in use, and orders of battle. Some of the characters we first meet are tantamount to Star Trek "red shirts", if you catch my meaning, but others remain central to the narrative, and it's easy to get attached to them. Don't get too attached, though, because just like Patrick O'Brian, Anderson doesn't hesitate to off a beloved character here and there.
 
Speaking of Patrick O'Brian, no one will ever mistake Anderson's work for that of the Aubrey & Maturin author. The Destroyermen will never be held up in any English lit class as an example of the highest form of prose. The dialogue, in particular is often long-winded, since it is used as a device for filling in relevant plot details. But where Anderson excels is in describing the action, complete with all of the little technical nuances that we fans of naval fiction appreciate. Anderson also keeps the story line moving forward at a brisk pace and in an engaging manner, such that each book winds up being one of those page-turning, "just one more chapter" types that gets devoured in just a few days -- or less. Take that, O'Brian! (BTW, I love the Aubrey/Maturin series.) What the reader will enjoy is seeing how Walker's crew uses their wits, ingenuity, and antiquated destroyer technology to face down and overcome an endless variety of novel and seemingly insurmountable challenges posed by the hostile new world that the men find themselves in. It's also fun to see them first adapt to this new world and eventually grow to appreciate it.
 
I just picked up the 14th book in the series, Pass of Fire, and I'm pretty certain that I will have read it through in just a couple of days. I'm fairly certain that this book will find Matthew Reddy and the ever-expanding forces at his command facing down some enormous threat, and it will conclude with a satisfying resolution of the current dilemma, but leave me hanging with the hint that a greater dilemma awaits in the next installment. This is a high compliment to Anderson's abilities -- that his alternative Earth and its multitude of characters haven't yet grown stale after over a dozen books, and that readers are still eagerly anticipating more exploits by The Destroyermen.
 
So, if you are looking for some light reading to kill time in between bouts of serious nautical research, if you enjoy some likeable characters and a good yarn, even if it isn't written in early 19th-century English, try The Destroyermen. You might find alternative history as enjoyable as real history!

Thank you for your kind words and all the "likes", dear friends. 
The cannons are finally placed inside the model; all are movable and able to adjust in height. Now the Royal Katherine looks much more like a warship.
 


Have a Happy New Year 2020 and plenty of health, love and joy.
 

A happy and Prosperous new year to you and your family Doris, and thank you for the update on your superb model of the Royal Katherine, it is always a pleasure to see hw you solve and approach the details in your work.
 
michael

Hello Jan, 
yes, there is visible only front part of these cannons so I have decided not to make unnecessary details on their aft side. Some of them I even had to shorten because there are reinforcement and stiffeners inside the hull.
On the other hand, the cannons on upper decks will be made in great detail, because everything will be well visible.

Thank you dear friends for your comments and "likes". 
I am pleased you enjoy my work.
Now I am finishing the cannons for lower and middle deck. It remains to make 32 smaller cannons for the upper and quarter deck but 18 of them will be fully detailed with rigging. I have given a detailed tutorial to this thread some time ago if you are interested in "how to do".
I have to admit that I am totally bored of such monotonous work.... Oh yes, I told to myself in past - "I will never build a three decker again"... Well, and I couldn't resist it again....😃
 


 
 
 
 

Hello all,
 
I just became a member after a few weeks of reading and browsing this great site. I'm a novice model ship builder from Sweden who recently decide to try this fascinating hobby. In a way I have been drawn to ships and ship models since I was a kid. I think that it was a trip to the Viking ship museum in Roskilde Denmark and the paper model I bought and built after that that sparked the interest. But I never continued then. I did some plastic models and some model air planes in my early teens, but that is more or less the extent of my modelling experience.
 
I plan to take it slow, not overreaching my still non-existing skills. I started by ordering a kit (Billing Boats Will Everard). But due to shipping problems just before Christmas it has not arrived yet. I also read some build logs here on the site and learned that it is not necessarily a "beginner model" after all, despite Billings labeling. So I went and bought a BlueJacket Swampscott Dory from a local hobby store. That kit seem to be more in line with my skills and should not take to long (hopefully) to finish.
 
Cheers
/Tobias
 
PS. My "pen name" is Swedish for bow line and the picture is of a sail from a medieval long ship with the bow line set.
 
 
 
 

Hello,
before I attach the ratlines, I have to install the rope ladders in the bulwark area. There are two ladders per mast, one on the starboard side and the other on the port side.
Here is a photo excerpt of the Parisian model of  La Créole: 

Quelle: Musée de la Marine Paris – La Crèole


The design on the Parisian model is probably not entirely based on the original, as the following photos from this era show.

Therefore I believe that the rung goes through the rope and secured with a rope binding, as can be seen in the following picture.

Who can give me more information about this?

Thetis Down: The Slow Death of a Submarine
 
Tony Booth
Barnsley, UK: Pen and Sword Maritime, 2008
15.4 x 23.3 cm format, paperback, 220 pages
36 B&W illustrations, appendix, bibliography, index
MSRP £14.99
ISBN: 978 1 52676 660 1
 

One aspect of being enthusiastic about history in general and naval history in particular is that there exists a seemingly endless list of people and events of whom one has never previously heard. With apologies to our UK members, the accidental sinking of HMS Thetis in 1939 was for me one such subject. It's difficult to review a book like Thetis Down without giving away too many plot spoilers, but I will try. The essentials of the incident are these: HMS Thetis was a T-Class submarine launched in the spring of 1939. On 1 June she departed Liverpool for her diving trials with 103 souls aboard; 99 of them would not return alive. It remains to this day the worst submarine disaster in Royal Navy history. Interesting side note: Thetis actually sank twice, in the latter instance with all hands -- but I'll leave it to you to read the hows and whys of that for yourselves.
 
Thetis Down is a narrative by parts. Roughly the first 40% of the book chronicles the events of the sinking and the various attempts made to rescue the crew. Those attempts took the better part of two days. Thanks to the fact that Thetis sank in relatively shallow water, four people were able to evacuate her via an escape chamber. Why only four? Of course, you'll need to read the book to find that out. Because those four escaped, and more particularly because of who those four were, we are given a fair amount of information regarding events inside the boat on that fateful day. It's a very moving story, especially because 103 is nearly double the normal complement of a T-Class boat. Why were so many people aboard? Again -- read the book to find out! This much I will divulge -- when the contributing factors of the accident are divulged, it really says something striking about just how technologically and mentally demanding the task of operating a submarine is, and how terribly unforgiving the slightest neglect of any aspect of that operation can be.
 
The rest of the book is about evenly split between an account of salvaging the boat and a description of the various tribunals and legal proceedings that followed. Tony Booth does an excellent job both of researching these events and elucidating them in his book. I only wish that my personal interest in the scope of these latter subjects was equal to his effort in setting them to paper. For me, the high point of the book is naturally the drama of the sinking and attempted rescue. That portion of the book is a real page turner. The salvage I also found fairly interesting because of its particularly macabre nature. The legal wranglings though? Meh -- not so much. That's not Mr. Booth's fault by any means -- it's just that I'm not a fan of courtroom dealings, regardless of how pertinent they might be to the subject.  Other folks may find this portion absorbing.
 
It's not hard to see how the sinking of Thetis might not loom large in the memory of those of us on this side of the pond. After all, it was a British boat, and events on the world's stage a mere three months later made the loss of a single submarine pale in significance. Interestingly, though, Thetis played a part in those later events, both in action at sea and in changes to submarine design and operation put into effect as a result of scrutinizing her tragic accident. But I won't divulge too much about those -- if you are a fan of all things "silent service," I can definitely recommend this as a book to add to your library. Lastly, the story of HMS Thetis may not be entirely over -- Booth informs the reader that there still exist to this day sealed records related to the accident. So perhaps at some future date Mr. Booth will need to issue a revised and updated edition of his work. Stay tuned!
 
CDC