Jaager

I think that Desmond describes a different species of wooden ships. The 1850s were the end of a long era of guild style shipwrights. It seems like there is a wall not too much later. The main stream changed to composite and then iron and steel. The generation to generation chain of passing of knowledge about wooden ship building was probably broken - except for minor and independent yards. The old lofting methods replaced with a translation of iron and steel lofting over to wood. The lofting of every frame was a new practice - taken from metal methods - metal is not open to variation on the fly. The all bends with intervening spaces equal to the bends in width was new. I would not trust Desmond to be relevant to any ship built before 1900 or so.

from American-Built Packets and Freighters of the 1850s Wm Crothers MacFarland & Co. 2013

For a water rinse, if your supply is hard water, it may be wise to use distilled water.

Would a clamping jig on a sliding table and a gang of slitting blades to make a dado be an easier solution?

I had an extra deep basement dug in July during a drought. It was stopped when limestone shale was hit in one corner. In the Bluegrass region of KY, the underlying rock is an an ancient sea floor and just as flat. It is a giant swimming pool. Turns out that for six months of the year, the water table was well above the floor of my basement. I became quite experienced with sump pumps, pipe flow volumes. It seems that constant pumping generates favored flow channels. The more you pump the more likely is ground water going to flow towards the pump. Larger volume pumps, larger diameter discharge pipes - where to place the outlet? a viscous cycle! Then there is the problem of electric power interruption during storms that are recharging the ground water. A generator. A normal home generator has a gas tank with limited time. An ice storm that crushed a lot of KY and had long transmission lines in Alabama snapped off like a row of dominoes and drawing off the repair crews from KY is going to require more time than you have gas for. I feel your nightmare. I do not miss living it. A wish for a basement decision do-over is something that I will take to my grave.

Here is a link for some supplementary information about skipjack construction: https://modelexpo-online.com/assets/images/documents/MS2032-Willie_L_Bennett-Instructions-web.pdf

It was a long while ago, but I a photo of an open sided assembly line decorator model production in Vietnam. The think the formula is: a country with a skilled, but under utilized work force, willing to work for much less than their skills are worth because their economy is temporarily stuck on a sandbar. When the economy recovers or has its initial bloom, this sort of operation probably has to reappear in the next country with the proper factors. There used to be something named Starving Artists - a large room with a lot of people, each behind their own easel, all copying a master painting projected at the front of the room. I imagine something similar for mass produced decorator models. I do not imagine someone just looking to earn enough for their next hit could be a satisfactory worker. Your two have something extra - the designer had an eye for elegant design, the lines have artistic curves. The wood is not pallet quality crap. It looks like Acer, or Beech or Birch. They are not actually ship models as we would define them here. They are simulacrum of ship models. Tasteful background decoration.

As for the request in the title of this post: rather than use something that is a cartoon and out of scale do a site search = silkspan low cost - it used to come in three weights - it or similar products might be available with those options from dealers catering to fabric covered flying aircraft builders. Those dealers may even have the heating irons with a curved surface and a power control knob which would be about the ideal tool for bending wood.

Underhill probably had the most influence on me. It is not just about scratch building. Beyond the hull fabrication, - the framing, what it has can be used to improve the various components that come with kits, too. When you build the various parts of a ship from raw materials, instead of using the kit supplied parts, you are well on your way to becoming a scratch builder. The final step makes you independent - except for obtaining suitable plans. There are a finite number of them, but more than enough for several lifetimes. That our subject is finite instead of open ended makes it approachable.

If you have a scroll saw, a bandsaw, or a hand frat saw, and a disk sander a near infinite variety of sanding block shapes and sizes can be freed from a cork yoga block. They are sorta large and cost ~$20. The sanding media can be attached using rubber cement or even with staples.

Actually, that is my view of the progression too. I think you have misread me. I see kits as the gateway. When I started, it was everyone for himself - find your own way. Early 1970's. There were hobby shops with owners who could help some with suggestions about subject choices. I sought no help, so I started with the Scientific kit for Sea Witch. A clipper is a very poor choice for a first kit. But the Scientific kits were not kits of serious models. They were decorator models. Simplistic in their components, and mostly impressionism when completed. I did not realize that at the time. Follow on was Eagle/Arrowsic topsail schooner - a rewarding build - augmenting it lead me into scratch. The Shipwright Series of kits is a very gentle introduction that does not cost all that much. It does not take long to get a finished product that provides positive feedback. Unless you have a professional background in fine woodworking or a youth or family involved in it, starting with scratch is a long shot proposition. A factor here, and one that I did not predict, is that a significant proportion of the members, probably a high percentage - see kits as an end in themselves. Their imaginations stop there. I can see why this is so, given the very high attrition rate with scratch and the strong current fad of including internal structures that are hidden with a fully planked and decked model. There is also a shared collegial aspect with the kit-centric community. Scratch builders tend to be cantankerous, independent, and more than a bit eccentric. There is probably a Masters if not a Doctorate in Psychology buried in defining the personality differences in these two groups.

Antonio, If you find yourself becoming a bit overwhelmed and frustrated, a broader perspective may help cement your interest in exploring all this. This is strictly my biased and outside observation, but I have a poor opinion of the old Mamoli kits. You are swimming with an anchor hanging from your neck, given the quality that you are working against. (the Mamoli name is under new management and is a subunit of a larger concern now I believe.) If wood and sail is to be your area of focus: It may give you a more realistic expectation if you ignore anything from plastic kit modeling except the painting skills. Those specific skills might put you ahead, since may of us view painting as a chore and afterthought. Often, any painting is done with wood. A firm grounding in our specific modeling skills can get you past frustration and perceived barriers. Consider starting from scratch. The Model Expo - Model Shipways -Shipwright series looks to be a low cost and rewarding path into all this. When I consider the possibility of a new scratch build, I check the build logs to see if anyone else has selected the ship. What I see is a casualty rate that makes what my Virginian forebears experienced with Pickett's Charge look like a walk in the park. I do not know about kits, but my guess is that it is also a heavy casualty rate.😉

Thank you Allan, I am not sure that I will get to masting on any model. I am in a loop. My compulsion seems to be to have the availability of timber patterns not be a limiting factor for any ship that I might care to model. For decades, lofting timber patterns this huge wall blocking me, because existing POF methods are so onerous and time consuming. It was six months of really awful plotting of points and worse, trying to connect every 3 dots with a smooth curve that matches the curves on either side. My joy at finding a way to do this in a way that is both quick and accurate, has me doing it over and over. If I focus, I can start with NMM plans for a 100 gun ship and have patterns printed out and ready for wood in 10-14 days. Lesser rates are even quicker to do. A schooner is maybe 4 days. It is safe and comfortable. I think I can breakout. It is a matter of finding the discipline. I find some resonance with the posts about a compulsion to have a closet full of kits. I have boxes of envelopes of patterns for about 150 ships now. A heck of a lot less expensive than kits, but the paper is about $4.00 for a large ship. My new Epson Eco printer has removed the significant ink cost with my old Brother printer.

I will give it a closer look when the temp is a bit lower and I can concentrate. On my electronic board at present is HMS Alcide 74 1779 - it is a bit beyond my arbitrary time scale and as I have HMS Albion 1763 already in the can, it is essentially a repeat, but I like the quality of the plan. With a bit of reading, I learned that Alcide is another name for Hercules. My past experience had me seeing it as an agent that was out to kill "Al's".

No. I am essaying RN ships - mostly 50 gun and above - from 1719 to 1775. The problem is where to cut the top timbers. Many of the Body plans - and I use only the Body plan to define the timber patterns - continue to the top of the highest rail. My top timbers are a solid wall. I COULD use the appropriate members to support the highest rail at the quarterdeck and forecastle. I will not because I do not wish to chisel square holes in the main rail. I am wondering how the actual ships were constructed to support the highest decorative rails at the forecastle and quarterdeck? I have the same questions about monkey rails on clippers? Where did they stop the top timbers? My interest continues to 1860 in general, but my current focus is earlier - when the ships were elegant - not purely functional artillery platforms. Unicorn is post 1815 - besides - I already lofted a Leda class to get HMS Shannon. One exercise is to explore all of the classes of true 74's starting with L' Monarque up to 1775. with the exception of the Bellona class - which is too crowded for me. Monarque/HMS Monarch will be a challenge. The officer who took off the lines of that capture only drew the absolute minimum number of stations. The work to get the timber patterns will be less, but the frame sections will be very fat - too fat actually. I will probably subdivide by replicating stations and then have a lot more shaping of the joined sections.

Paper? I did a Google search just now for barrel making plans and a lot came up.

It comes down to your objective in building your model. If your goal is to produce a model that is as historically accurate as is reasonable, forgo any embossing or dimpling of the copper plates. Way more nails were used than any punch tool will produce. The nails were hammered flush. They are difficult to see even on the existing 1:1 reproductions or the few survivors whose currently done copper plates are a joke when compared to the practice of 200 years ago. A model would have to be larger than 1:48 for visual evidence of how the plates were attached to be valid. Any plates made of actual copper will be over scale thickness on 1:48 or smaller. Think painted paper instead.

There was a time when I had approximate dates for this: First - the wales stood proud above the planking Second - there was a transition from the bottom planking to the bottom of the main wale, but a ledge at the top Third - there was a transition at the top as well as the bottom. There was a wale -but it was not visible. The cross section was a mid waist bulge. The 17th century featured an insane number of wales - one for every full gun deck. By the mid 18th century, the Georgian I II early III liners were reduced to two wales. Or so it appears to me. I forget what the single raised strakes of carved moulding are named. digression or expansion : The waist has a heavy rail that sits on top of the top timbers. At the forecastle this rail jogs up. There is often an additional decorative rail above it. Are the stanchions that hold up this rail extensions of the actual top timbers? Or is the main rail left intact and various carpenters devises used to seat the short stanchions? The same aft? If the main rail is cut thru, its function of keeping out water from the timber end grain is impaired. If the top timbers are continued all the way to the decorative rail, the shape is set. The Station lines usually end at the bottom of the highest decorative rail. The fitting of a main rail with a series of square holes that each has to be precise is more work than it is worth for a model- seems to me.

PVA is polyvinyl acetate. Ac is an organic chemistry abbreviation for acetate. Changing Ac to AC is probably advertising hype. I see five types of PVA: pH neutral (pH7) bookbinders - good for cotton or linen rigging white - dries clear yellow - wood workers - dries amber - is acidic Titebond II - yellow - water resistant - dries amber - is more acidic Titebond III - brown - water proof - dries brown - is a lot more acidic white or yellow is probably sufficient Titebond II if you are compulsive Titebond III if the model is to be aquatic - otherwise probably not worth the negatives I doubt that there are that many companies that synthesize the base chemicals so most name brands are probably different names on containers of the same stuff.

Then there was the diet pills that contained live tape worm segments. Well, they did work.

Go to the RMG site. enter ZAZ1357 You will see that your ? is the top of the main wale. The red lines are internal structures - if 3 red lines are tracking close together they are bottom of deck at side - bottom of deck at midline - top of deck at midline - often there are cross sections of beams. When I loft frames, I only locate the bottom of the wales and other raised decorative strakes. It would not matter where I drew the top. The width of the wales that I apply will determine the top. Drawing it is wishful thinking.

I have not checked any references so these are open targets for those with more data. I think that some of the rules are: maximum single plank width - 10" with maybe 12" for exceptions like the garboard minimum single plank width - no less than 50% of the max. Large ships can survive with 10" planks - small ships probably want ~6" A gore of 6 to at most 10 strakes is about right. At the stem rabbet and sternpost rabbet the run should be near horizontal The overall run should be sweet. It is about juggling all of these factors

As a gauge for how relentless this accumulation can be, do you have a serious shop vac pulling in the sawdust whenever the saw is running?

It is the circular stern that I am placing at the 1860 +/- and dismissing as being outside my focus era. I also kinda put circular in the merchant ship bucket. From the beginning, I have found the thought of iron and steel hulls, iron masts and yards , chain and steel cable rigging to be too intimidating to model.

I do not know how to write this so that it comes across in the way that I intend it. I mean this as one way to look at it. It may well be incorrect. But it is a vulnerable flank if you disagree I do not place much value in using the survivors from 1765 1799 1800-on as sources of information for how these vessels looked when launched. Especially "officers country" in the stern. They were "improved" - remodeled - rebuilt - about every 20 years. This was done by sequential generations who were hostile to the past and ashamed of and embarrassed by older practices. They were aggressively "modern" in their outlook. A new "modern" every 20 years at a time of profound tech change. Then, when GB or the US became wealthy enough to have surplus to preserve some of the past - it was done by strong personalities who were more driven by preconceived visions in their imaginations than what was left of actual past documentation. For the most part absolutist historians have been left with hodgepodge monsters too substantially altered to rescue back to their original iterations. They are probably more valuable remaining as what they are. But what that is - is far from representing their as launched versions. Zealous PR people tend to exaggerate if not outright lie about what they are selling. Almost everything in your examples are post 1860. I have to draw a line for the sake of my sanity. It is still far to broad, but 1860 is a hard limit for me.