Jaager

Cutting down to the top of the deck beam level and using veneer for the bulwarks - getting a uniform plank thickness is easier. It also allows for an easier way to do the removable opening. It is also helpful if the upper works planking is simulated using extra thin veneer from the copper to the rail. Consider this also, if you copper, and the material that has been supplied has simulated nails, replace it with flat stock. To avoid the new penny look, age it. A flame treatment works, but to get a dependable bond - the glue side needs to have the oxide layer that the flame produced = removed. There are chemical aging agents.

Kurt, This is suggesting a course that I do not take - too compulsive - too much a pack rat = Wait until you get to the point in a build where a specific cut is needed and get that size. Unless one of our more widely ranging members points to a superior vendor, I default to Wood Carvers Supply.

This has drifted a bit. For where this is now, I add the following: at minimum a 1/3 HP TEFC motor with a final sanding drum rotation of 1700 rpm If more than a few passes are contemplated per session, as much air circulation around the motor as can be had.

For the Unimat SL, which has a relatively short bed for masts, a denken experiment that uses the steady rest holding a ball bearing race - the OD just fitting the steady rest opening and ID in various sizes - close to the spar diameter - cardboard to fix and brace the wood. The end over end to shape the other end.

Black Cherry is useful for most everything. The color would be a bit eccentric for spars and deck planking. But frames timbers, beams, hull planking, bits, a lot of antebellum merchantmen seemed to have clear finish Spanish Mahogany for hatch coming and similar trim and when oxidized - time - Black Cherry is an excellent miniature replication. If you have Sweet Cherry, the color is a lot less red, but the grain is about the same. Now milling from logs is a different thing. To reduce checking and splits during the drying process, it is imperative that the cut ends and branch cuts be sealed. The last thing I used for this is left over latex enamel paint and used paper towels to glob on a thick coat. Anything liquid, which when dry blocks water. 3 inch logs on a 9" band saw - too thick - both for clearance and motor power. Find a local wood workers club and team up with someone with a larger band saw. Buy your own blade to fit his saw. Get a bimetal blade - initial cost is higher - all steel blades dull quickly and break when pushed when dull. You need two perpendicular cuts. A log wants to roll. A 1/2" thick board - edge against the fence - riding on the table - Use right angle framing braces and long #10 or so screws to fix the log to this 1/2" carrier. After the first cut, the cut face goes on the board - After the second cut, the carrier is no longer needed. I do 1:60 scale POF - 2 inch thick billets are working well foe me now. At least 2 years drying time for this.

It is my experience that there is not much on a ship model that requires a lathe. Most of that (spars) can be accomplished using an electric drill in a shop made clamp. The one part that would be difficult to fake - turning up 100 cannon - a lathe and pattern duplicator helps here. The one function that requires a lathe is turning metal to fabricate your own tools. A machinists lathe is essentially a tool to make tools. A mill is a bit more useful, but it too is a machine to make tools. It can act as an expensive drill press and allow you to bull thru wood with milling cut - not wise, probably messy. You can also avoid the expense and get a jewelers generic drill press and a Chinese XY table all for less than $200. The bearings are not designed for lateral stress, but with wood, sharp cutters and light cuts... Right now, we have the great good luck in the presence of Jim Byrnes. The tool functions that you would find practically useful in a multi tool, he provides as single purpose machines that are about a hundred times better. It you are still determined - visit Little Machine Shop for bench top mills and lathes

I have a Unimat SL - It is now relegated to just the lathe function. I burned out a motor using it as a table saw. Everything but the lathe is better done by a single purpose machine. This even though it is a precise and well made unit. Unimat I is neither precise nor well made. It is a toy. Buy it and feel the sentiment behind the message yelled at generations of army recruits: you'll be sorrrreeee.

Kevin, No matter how much jest is involved, unless you have access to a mansion sized building, either realization is a bit overwhelming. The Cutty Sark would be easier, but larger. At 1:48 a masted model is for all intents 6 feet long and about that tall. The Saint-Philippe is about 6 inches shorter. I have lofted Philippe at 1:120 and played with the framing. The hull is about the size of a brig: USS Porpoise at 1:60. Having second thoughts about doing a miniature, I looked at redoing the timbers at 1:60 using Navy Board style framing. I hit breaks real fast when it demonstrated that the mid ship floor timber is too large to be had from a 2 inch wide piece of stock. And the mid ship floor is the straightest, least carnivorous floor. A POF at 1:36 ---- a Baby Huey that needs lots and lots of lumber to frame. Framing at 1:48 would put a serious hurt on a 50 bf lumber stock. If you were just married when you started these two, you would possibly be paying for your kid's college when you finished. The Saint-Philippe is a late 17th century first rate with magnificent excess in its decoration. It could easily stand as a magnificent magnum opus for any modeler.

Is Briar available as solid blocks or billets? Apart from the grain pattern, it might make for hardy blocks. Did the wood handle like it would work for that?

If the bend in the thick dimension proves difficult - wood does not readily comply to doing that - start with a wider plank and spill it to the up curve. Spill = spoil = waste a lot of wood cutting an "S" shape. That is how it was really done - mostly. The database here has planking tutorials the explain all this.

The material that binds wood fibers - lignin - is not water soluble. It is soluble in anhydrous ammonia, an explosive and dangerous industrial agent. It is not soluble in household (5%) or 20% ammonia. These just damage the planking. Heat will loosen lignin and allow for more bending. Water on the surface of the wood - when contacted by a dry heat source - becomes steam and penetrates the wood with more efficiency than just dry heat alone. A microwave and wet paper towel wrapping, or direct steam will work. Soaking in hot water works - but sort of reverses the original seasoning process a bit. Ideal is to let the bent wood dry in its future conformation. If you dry in an over bent conformation, try to keep that at a slight amount.

About the hull - the basic method - explained in Deane's Doctrine - involves the heavy use of arcs. Because pieces of circles make up the cross sections and transitions between them to try to get a reasonable run along the hull make up the waterlines, there is a basic sameness in the shape below the main wale. If you can get lines for a ship about the same age and size, they can be scale adjusted to the beam, depth, and length to your ship. The result would likely be "close enough for government work".

Zero information re: the actual models,, but there are two books Prisoner-of-war ship models, 1775-1825 Hardcover – 1973 by Ewart C Freeston Prisoner of War: Bone Ship Models - Treasures from the Age of Napoleonic Wars Paperback – June 1, 2016 by Manfred Stein

Pardon the broken record on this, The logo does not look familiar, so this may not be the kit. There was a kit for HMS Prince where the historical keel length was used for length of the whole model keel. At the time of HMS Prince the given keel length was "touch" - which is a bit shorter. It made the open main deck a bit crowded and the overall hull a bit squat looking. A repair would be easy = patch in a additional length at the join and duplicate the dead flat mould.

The Index for NRJ vol.25 1979 has a reprint of data from Secretary's Monthly Letter #6 July 1948 Specifications for oar of various boats of theUSN for the year 1900 there is a diagram and a table. There are 15 data points for each oar and 10 different oars. I trust that it is a part of CD 1 It may produce an anacronism for an earlier time, but at least the oar would be a real oar.

They are permanent blocks fixed into the bulwarks. Old Ben just did not detail the sheave in fig. B-5. He is showing you that the top is flush with the bottom of the rail. I think at least one is for a main sail sheet. If you do not add sails, there may not be a line that uses them on your model. With the attention this causes, I am thinking about the physics and that in this instance, the force on the sail is partially transferred to a more substantial part of the bulwark than a pin rail.

A common way to become overwhelmed and bail on this whole endeavor is to start with too advanced a project. I am very old school, so grain of salt and all that: You might take a look at MS Phantom -- Solid hull - it has beautiful lines. A down size is that it is 1:96. That is the inflection point for entry into the miniature. That is where the physical limitations of wood enter into a simulation of components instead of replication. For a first model, that is not really a factor to worry about. You could also use a really thin veneer and try planking above the copper.

Scantlings of Royal Navy Ships should provide the dimensions for most everything. 50 gun 1719 is one of the entries. Although frigates were just evolving, I am thinking that a 50 would not offer much more fire power than 44 gun frigate, yet with the extra deck - be slower, and more cumbersome. It might be a better home for an admiral, but that is a self serving reason to build a 50 or 60.

I made a machine using NRG plans - in the '70's ? The platten was Hard Maple - The square stock was glued to a 1/2 cold rolled steel rod and the turned by a professional woodworker. I did not and do not have a full size lathe. At the time, the only media that I knew of was the 11x9 hardware store sheets, so I had the platten sized to take that = 11 inches long and 9 inches circumference. I used Weldwood contact cement. It was/ still is a bear to change. Mineral spirits and naptha denature it, but the paper backed media -- awful to remove. I have since discovered cloth backed sanding media - it is much better. Do over = I would keep the diameter the same - I would make the platten 12" I would allow for 2 inch thick stock. My imagination sees a thick platten as producing a better surface. Why 12" ? Klingspor makes long rolls of open coat Al oxide in 3" and 4" widths. With 12 inches, I could have 4 inches of 80 grit, 4 inches of 120 grit, and 4 inches of 220 grit. A rubber platten is almost certain to be out of round. Commercial sleeves - vampires on your wallet. A soft platten - Velcro = heartache. I am pretty sure that if you use cloth backed and coat both the media and the platten with rubber cement - it should hold. It has a thinner/solvent and it is a magnitude easier than contact cement to use - easier application - a no contest for removal.. You will need to buy it in quarts. A dust hood is vital. I made one. It is an open box with a 2.5" shop vac connection on the top. I made it by Titebond III gluing 3 layers of Amazon box cardboard together and using that for the 4 sides and top. It is good quality cardboard and with two layers of PVC - it is strong and light weight. The inside corners have 1/4" x 1/4" Pine sticks and also at the top to take the screws for the shop vac hose socket. Covered the outside with duct tape. Keeping it in place and having no weight/ force from the vac hose is the most difficult chore. Jim Byrnes unit is 6" - friction clamp - easy to change -- Klingspor 3" two pieces

Quick and dirty: Woodcraft lists an outlet in Phoenix They have Walnut veneer. Can be cut with steel straight edge and a sharp knife. There are hardwood stores in Phoenix - if you have the tools to handle dimensional stock. Walnut can be a beautiful wood for furniture or gun stocks. It is relatively hard, tight, holds an edge. It has one bothersome characteristic - it has open pores. Not the best look when scaled down. A tight grained closed pore species can be used and made to match Walnut by using an aqueous or alcohol aniline dye of the desired color. Not a stain - which is a surface semi transparent paint - a peritrating dye.

I know your sentiment . I am facing the same thing. At 1:60 - a two or three decker absorbs a lot more wood than I had imagined for the framing. At larger scales the superior characteristics of true Boxwood are not really necessary. Less expensive and replaceable domestic species will suffice. At 1:96 or smaller, the Boxwood would really shine and your supply would go a long way -- ( but the amount lost to kerf and chips becomes a larger fraction ). But miniature is a whole nuther thing.

Thanks. Good to know that the subject of my complaint is valid and was noticed. The bad part is that the basic hull can stand for Hebe and more than a few more French 18's and HMS Leda and a large number of RN sisters, including HMS Shannon and two that are still with us. A second supplement with the correct lines and all the variations in the derivatives may find a market. But it might give birth to kits and any scratch versions would no longer be unique. Since L'Egyptienne looks to be correct for what I need, I look forward to exploring her.

Gerard, Does this include a classic Body Plan with lines inside the planking? My complaint with the early work of your former associates regarding La Venus is that that Body Plan is outside planking.

Look in a fabric store or at skeeter netting or look for used woman's hats from the 40's and 50's or old style hair nets.

Roger, Are you positive your supply is Buxus simpervirens? There are other Buxus species. The stuff from Turkey and the logs from the New England supplier are a different species. Brittle is not something I would attribute to Buxus simperverins- although as far as bending, no way it comes close to Holly - a champ or Pear. With it being so scarce, I would not sacrifice it to a component that needed bending anyway. I have a supply from a supplier on the Baltimore harbor in 1972 and a couple of small pieces from an ornamental plant. The latter has much tighter grain. Way back when, the free size was called Bermuda Box. As I said before, someone should plant a wood lot of the tree size variety/cultivar so that their great grandchildren would have a supply.