Jaager

Gaetan,
 
My evaluation of your list:
Not good choices, because of obvious and out of scale grain and pores   - 
Ash - all three
Hickory
Oak - both      editorial comment: is really awful  in how it looks in scale - hits you between the eyes.
 
For framing
Not good choices, because it is soft,  blunt (not crisp) edges,  fibers roll  - 
Aspen - both     ed.  a trash wood put in service for economic reasons
Basswood
Maple, soft/ especially silver
Poplar, balsam   ed.  a trash wood put in service for economic reasons
Sycamore, American  -  "lacewood"  I hate it.  When I started with this I bought a large supply because of what Underhill wrote about Sycamore.  Turns out - what the English know as Sycamore is actually a Maple that is a bit softer than Hard Maple, but close enough.  The North American Sycamore ( Platanus occidentalis  ) is different - it is similar to Black Cherry in hardness and looks close enough to Hard Maple in color to be difficult to isolate.  The fibers roll, it fuzzes when sanded or cut, it stinks when cut.  It has flecks in the grain - the "lace".
 
From what is left.
Elm, white  - I do not know
Elm, rock  -  I think I have some.  I bought what I thought was Black Cherry from a picker who got it in an estate sale.
                    it is very hard, not as unobtrusive in grain as I would wish, but acceptable.  Dulls blades.  Color is similar to aged Black Cherry
 
Elm, red  -   got a "deal" for a couple of planks from a cabinet maker in Lexington, turns out - he shed it because it was too cupped  to plane to a reasonable thickness.  I do not need it in a 4 or 8 foot length, so I salvaged more processing shorter lengths.  I advise giving cupped boards a pass if you can.  The wood is similar to Black Cherry in hardness.  Too much grain.
 
Sassafras   - way too much grain - got some with the Red Elm -  the way the grain presents, I think it will make an interesting base board, especially if dyed blue or green - it looks like ocean waves.
 
Beech,  American  -  similar to Hard Maple  except for a grain peculiarity - visible but not obvious "dashes"
Beech,  European  -  similar to Hard Maple - just a bit darker
Birch,  Yellow  -   similar to Hard Maple
 
Yellow Poplar   -  Tulip Poplar  ( Liriodendron tulipifera )  soft, easy to work, sharp edges, no visible pores,  can get really large boards  not expensive -  the problem is the color - it is streaky - nice yellow to green  to  a color that reminds me of a treated pier piling.   If you can select  out the yellow, it is great.
 
Black Cherry  -   Excellent - hard enough - has grain, but it is not obtrusive -  it will oxidize to a darker color over time - similar to steamed Pear.   it is softer than Pear  I harvested some Sweet Cherry - the wood is near identical in grain and hardness, but the color is yellow green.   Black Cherry has small inedible  fruit,  but Black Cherry syrup - pharmacy compounding - is made from the bark.  If you want darker but beautiful frames, this wood is the champion.  What you get from a lumber yard now will be light pink - color development takes time.
 
Hard Maple  -  (sugar)   about twice as hard as Black Cherry.  The closest in a commercial domestic wood to Buxus.  Not near as hard, but hard enough.  Color is similar to Buxus, but more blonde than yellow.
                       The Maple that I buy is plane cut.   I like two inch unplanned.  I slice off frame thickness boards for my thickness sander from this.  Maple has peculiar grain characteristics.  The plane cut surface has the normal faint oval pattern.  A slice perpendicular to this can yield a variety of faint patterns.  From the desired scale parallel layers, to flame, to tiger striped  -  it all depends on the distance from the pith.
The flame and tiger on the face of a frame timber is certainly not scale, but it is not bluntly obvious.  I think it adds interest.  Hard Maple is strong, holds a crisp edge,  is hard enough to keep your from getting into trouble when doing aggressive shaping. 
 
I think both Hard Maple and Black Cherry will serve your purposes excellently.  I can get either for less than $10 bf - maybe half that for Cherry, but  I sense that there is a covert inflation in play - from my increase in food costs.   I mill my own wood and I find rough, unplanned stock provides more wood - even if it does not sit against a saw fence as sweetly as planned stock.  If you like it, buy more than you think you will need.   I remember getting already dark red, clear Black Cherry from Homer Gregory Mill for $1 bf way back when.  Both the quality and cost are long gone. 

hardwood, if you use a softwood like cedar, you will get a fuzzier model. If you look a softwood to the microscope, there will be much more fuzziness than a hardwood.
 
this is why it is a personal choice
 
not desirable oil and glue are no friends
 
 
I would consider the properties of this wood like a softwood.
As I said, your personal choice will be the final judge, and if you choose a soft wood, you will succeed but you would get much better results  with a fruitwood.

What I would do is:
Check each mould against the pattern on the plans.
If they match, see if these patterns are presented as a true Body Plan.  Is there something wrong there?
If there is no true Body Plan. scan the patterns,
[adjust the scale distortion of the scan, a factor with every scanner, how much is unique to each machine, but for any single machine, it is internally consistent.]
Align the layers to make a Body Plan and check the shape.
 
Bluenose was a greyhound, a thoroughbred.  Fine, sleek lines with no hollows in her run.  But then, no ship had hollows.
Once you determine which moulds are incorrect - are some too fat or others too lean? - fix that.  Thin built up layers of hardwood veneer used as scabs if it is lean.
 
Looking at these moulds and POB moulds in general, and how much support surface is present and how unforgiving it is,  I still echo the plea of Lt. Orr "You really ought to fly with me."

I suspect that that at the time there was money, rank, and prestige involved with the classifications.  Time makes that irrelevant.  For our purposes, I think "lumper" is by far the more useful course.
 
My focus is on hulls.  One particular vessel that I have spent time on is Porpoise II 1836.  It was one of two vessels that completed the U.S. Ex. Ex.
 It was originally rigged as a brigantine, and converted to brig while on the mission.  But regardless of the rig, when I look at the lines, it positively screams that it was designed to be a schooner.   There are many hulls that say "I am a schooner" no matter how the sticks are arranged.

This may be something that I have assembled in my own imagination when mentally organizing all this.
I am wondering about something in post #1.
The square sails:
I have been thinking that if the yard at the foot of sail #10 only supported the lower corners of the topsail it would be a topsail schooner.
If there was a sail hanging from it and it was on the foremast, then it was a brigantine.
If both masts had a sail #9 then it would be a brig.
If either mast had a main course, then there would either need to be a Spencer mast for the gaff boom or there would be no upper boom or it would float and in either of the latter cases no mast rings? 
If the main yards had a sail, it could not be lowered to the deck with boom parrels  and rings in the way.  Or the booms lowered first?
But then, I am trying to remember if I have ever seen a main yard lowered to the deck? 
 
Or maybe, if a lower boom is present on all fore and aft sails, it is a schooner?  If the fore mast had no lower boom, it is not a schooner?
 
And a non sequitur = it seems to me that the Antebellum USN took any and every opportunity to re-rig a schooner over to being a brig.  I wonder why?
And merchantmen seemed to do the exact opposite?

This is a bit of data that does not seem to rate being written down, back in the day.
 
One solid number is from the Warren and Falmouth contract in HASN.  The decks were to be Southern Yellow Pine and 40 feet long by 10" max wide.
This is not just any sort of Pine.  It is now near extinct and certainly nowhere near the size then. It was hard enough to turn nails.  I suspect that it was a species with a short term availability resource that steam powered saws getting to GA and SC made practical.  So 40' for decking = the outside upper limit and probably a lot shorter for most other times and other places.
 
For hull planking,  I use 20-25 feet for length.  That seems to be a sort of consensus here.  I can provide no reference and I did not originate it.
Now, if the choice is a short section near the bow or stern ..or middle to complete a strake, or fudge the length and go a bit longer, I vote cheat on the length.

My news sources are too awash with domestic news to feature this,  but has the UK pretty much finally  cut the painter and is floating alone as a market? 
I see an opportunity for UK members form a co-op here to see if a single mass purchase of Sea Watch books and Byrnes machines would reduce shipping costs. This is an idea fraught with danger for the one advancing the money.  There tends to be some who start with enthusiasm but back out when money comes due.  Up front money first is probably the safer way.  An ideal situation would be if one of you had more money than sense, and became an authorized wholesaler/ distributor. "Depending on the kindness of strangers" is a really bad idea for a wholesaler when determining how much to order.  This sort of comes down to -how badly does a bunch you want this?  It only will cost time to explore it.

My news sources are too awash with domestic news to feature this,  but has the UK pretty much finally  cut the painter and is floating alone as a market? 
I see an opportunity for UK members form a co-op here to see if a single mass purchase of Sea Watch books and Byrnes machines would reduce shipping costs. This is an idea fraught with danger for the one advancing the money.  There tends to be some who start with enthusiasm but back out when money comes due.  Up front money first is probably the safer way.  An ideal situation would be if one of you had more money than sense, and became an authorized wholesaler/ distributor. "Depending on the kindness of strangers" is a really bad idea for a wholesaler when determining how much to order.  This sort of comes down to -how badly does a bunch you want this?  It only will cost time to explore it.

This is a bit of data that does not seem to rate being written down, back in the day.
 
One solid number is from the Warren and Falmouth contract in HASN.  The decks were to be Southern Yellow Pine and 40 feet long by 10" max wide.
This is not just any sort of Pine.  It is now near extinct and certainly nowhere near the size then. It was hard enough to turn nails.  I suspect that it was a species with a short term availability resource that steam powered saws getting to GA and SC made practical.  So 40' for decking = the outside upper limit and probably a lot shorter for most other times and other places.
 
For hull planking,  I use 20-25 feet for length.  That seems to be a sort of consensus here.  I can provide no reference and I did not originate it.
Now, if the choice is a short section near the bow or stern ..or middle to complete a strake, or fudge the length and go a bit longer, I vote cheat on the length.

Well, a stain is actually a semi transparent paint. 
A USN corvette from a little later was described as having a "pearl" for bulwarks and deck structures.  In my limited perception of color pallet: off white.
Mineral pigments are possibilities.  ochres, sienna, umber. for interior colors.
Read up on scale effect as far as how pure and intense the pigment should be.
Having brass and the species of wood that is supplied with mass market kits as a base, your degrees of freedom are a bit limited. Mostly paint is your choice.  As far as a stain, something intended to make lousy looking wood (in it natural state) look more attractive and appear to be of better quality than it really is, I would be worried that its binder is developed for wood alone.  It may not adhere to brass for long.  The brass would need to be oil free (really clean) in any case and probably needs significant "tooth".   Doing that sort of manipulation to what is essentially foil will require care.
 
If you have an ambition to paint with wood, and  desire quality, the choices are scratch or the products of the small boutique kit companies featured here.
 

Clear, quick set, absolutely no shear stress or prise struss -  cellulose nitrate adhesive - Duco here-  maybe Ambroid in some places?
 
I would not use it to assemble a model, but it is quick and dirty to fit a round toothpick into a piece of stiff packing foam to use as a custom size PVA spreader, applicator.

A big gold star for using a realistic butt pattern.
Another gold star for not doing trunnel simulations - especially not waaaay over size trunnels that visually poke you in the eye.
 
Doing some extrapolation from sparse facts:
The wood surfaces exposed to the elements were probably painted, so the species that made up the door would not matter.
I think that the captain was afforded a budget.  It covered incidentals like paint.  He got to take home what was left over.  I suspect this is what was meant by a captain having to pay for the paint.  The exterior color would probably include: what was popular or the current fad, what cost the least but had a reasonable time between needing a new coat, what the captain preferred, what the captain's boss preferred if he was a ...jerk or AH, what would last in reserve in the hold for several years.
Interior:  no LED lighting.  too many burning oil lamps in space that is moving constantly in 3 dimensions and is easy to ignite is not a good idea, so a color that sucks up light would be a bad choice.  I think that white wash would fill the bill of being low cost, easy to apply and help make it brighter.  In scale it would be a tad translucent.

A big gold star for using a realistic butt pattern.
Another gold star for not doing trunnel simulations - especially not waaaay over size trunnels that visually poke you in the eye.
 
Doing some extrapolation from sparse facts:
The wood surfaces exposed to the elements were probably painted, so the species that made up the door would not matter.
I think that the captain was afforded a budget.  It covered incidentals like paint.  He got to take home what was left over.  I suspect this is what was meant by a captain having to pay for the paint.  The exterior color would probably include: what was popular or the current fad, what cost the least but had a reasonable time between needing a new coat, what the captain preferred, what the captain's boss preferred if he was a ...jerk or AH, what would last in reserve in the hold for several years.
Interior:  no LED lighting.  too many burning oil lamps in space that is moving constantly in 3 dimensions and is easy to ignite is not a good idea, so a color that sucks up light would be a bad choice.  I think that white wash would fill the bill of being low cost, easy to apply and help make it brighter.  In scale it would be a tad translucent.

A big gold star for using a realistic butt pattern.
Another gold star for not doing trunnel simulations - especially not waaaay over size trunnels that visually poke you in the eye.
 
Doing some extrapolation from sparse facts:
The wood surfaces exposed to the elements were probably painted, so the species that made up the door would not matter.
I think that the captain was afforded a budget.  It covered incidentals like paint.  He got to take home what was left over.  I suspect this is what was meant by a captain having to pay for the paint.  The exterior color would probably include: what was popular or the current fad, what cost the least but had a reasonable time between needing a new coat, what the captain preferred, what the captain's boss preferred if he was a ...jerk or AH, what would last in reserve in the hold for several years.
Interior:  no LED lighting.  too many burning oil lamps in space that is moving constantly in 3 dimensions and is easy to ignite is not a good idea, so a color that sucks up light would be a bad choice.  I think that white wash would fill the bill of being low cost, easy to apply and help make it brighter.  In scale it would be a tad translucent.

Black bar at top of each post,  three dots far right just before the post number - right click on them.

I have just skimmed this log.  I am going with the thought that you are still trying to do this using Basswood and or plywood, since I did not see different information.  You are making this much more difficult and unrewarding by using a species (Basswood) that is no joy to work and lacks the characteristics that you need.  Plywood makes for a stable base for a tool or a baseboard on which to assemble a hull.  It is just ugly as an actual part of a hull, and no fun to work either.
If I am correct about the species of wood,  it is fighting you and makes for a serious handicap from the start.  It does not need to be this difficult.
I see no location for you, so I have no clue as to the species of suitable wood near to you.  Using an appropriate species makes the job easier and the right wood is a joy to shape and assemble.
A frustrating factor is that it is becoming increasingly difficult for those who are not their own sawmill to obtain the proper wood species.
 

I understand,  but for a couple of pieces of Aluminum angle - ~ 1/4" x 1/4"  all that is needed is a hacksaw to size it and a 3/8" or 1/2" power drill  and a bit that fits the size bolts that seem right.
If you explore the tool section of this site and stumble across the threads discussing the merits and usefulness of a lathe for the wood part of model ship building,  I am pretty sure that a 1/2" power drill securely mounted in a frame that holds it horizontal will work well enough to shape any spars.  So keep that to mind - read the site postings - if you have to decide on a power drill purchase.  As far as a lathe, unless you know from experience that you really need one, then it is very likely that it you do not need it.  It will be a very expensive door stop.

To stir a bit of controversy into this pot:
 
Tanganica does not show up in the Wood Database - not a good sign - a Google comes up with Anigre - This is probably a close approximation of its color.  I would proceed with the concept that Tanganica is an umbrella name for several similar species and the exact species depends on what the wood cutters dropped off on that day.  It might be more open grain than is desired.
 
African Walnut is not really a Walnut.  It has a similar range of color, so the name is for marketing, and not forestry or botany.
It is sort of a Mahogany so the pore and grain structure could be better.  Even Black Walnut, as beautiful as it is, has a troublesome open pore structure. Anything other than Juglans nigra that is called Walnut, is actually a poser.
 
Mayflower is very late 16th or early 17th century.  It is a merchantman.  Any scantlings are difficult to find.  Any models are based on plans that are pure conjecture.  The properties of wood are the same over the entire  time of wooden hull vessels.  The goal would be to use planking that is thick enough to sustain the size hull of the vessel but no thicker.  With this in mind, using tables of scantlings from a much later time and looking up the acceptable planking thickness vs vessel size would a yield a realistic result as far as minimum plank thickness.  If the vessel did not sink soon after launch, it sort of had to be close.  Even with official planking dimensions there were two very different planking thickness ranges.  If a Softwood was used (~Pine) it would be an inch or two thicker than if a Hardwood (~Oak) was used.  This is a complete PITA for us.
 
If there were real plans and they were inside the planking, 
If two layer POB was in play,
The sum of the thicknesses of the two layers should be equal to the actual planking thickness.
If the POB moulds are scratch lofted, the planking thickness can be subtracted at the beginning and any thickness can be used.
With Mayflower, the actual hull size is a guess anyway, so most any thickness of veneer should do.  But just not so thick as to eatup too much of the depth of the keel. 
 
One option for you would be to pay a visit to a local WoodCraft store and examine their available veneer.  You might could break lucky and find a local Pa&Paw woodworkers store with a wide selection of veneers, but in the world that MBA's have left us (i.e short term profit is the whole of it) I doubt it is likely. 
 
Because of scale considerations, most species used for veneer are a poor choice.  Generally woodworkers want "interesting looking" veneer.  We want the exact opposite.  Open or closed pore does not matter to them.  It does matter to us.   This limits the number of appropriate veneer species.  Southeast US, the likely choices that meet our needs are Beech, Birch, Hard Maple, Black Cherry, Holly.  Checking the WoodCraft company locations, it seems that Hat Lanta is where your nearest store is.  The advantages of this are, seeing what is available before purchase, relatively low cost, easy to get more.  A wide sheet is fine.  The planks are easily and economically spilled.  A quality steel ruler, an exquisitely  sharp knife (violin makers knife) will free the planks from the sheet. Power tools are not needed. 
 
I viewed something here recently that near horrified me.  There are POB kits that have the wale(s) mounted as an extra layer of the same planking as the second layer.  This for vessels of a time when wales stood proud above the planking.  The wale(s) should be their own complete unit. They should be thicker ( twice or more) and go directly on the base layer. They should go on first.  The second outside plank strake should be the garboard.  The garboard needs to be pretty much spilled from a piece of wood that is twice the width of the widest regular planking - to get it to lay properly.  This defines the space where the rest of the planking lays.  It makes it possible to get the proper runs of strakes.
 

There is one additional option to paint.  The wale can be treated with a dye before it is bonded.
Some species accept a dye better than others.
Black is unambiguous.  It is easy to replicate.  A dye color that is a mixture of two or more primary colors may be difficult to match if the first batch is not enough.
An aniline dye - two versions:
water base - 
deep penetration - a clear (super blonde) coat of shellac over it and the wood looks as though it was naturally black.  The first exposure to water will raise the grain.  Coat the finished wood with 10% white PVA in water.  Sand and/or scrape the raised grain after the treatment is thoroughly dry.  Coat all surfaces with dye.  Repeat after this has dried if it is not black enough. 
Keep this in mind:  unless it is a toy that you are building, a 1:50 to 1:100 reduction of the structure also reduces the intensity of color.  Scale effect should also show a bit of shade effect - a hint of translucency.
alcohol base -
less penetration, not as pure a color, no grain is raised.  It dries more quickly.
 
On PBS I learned an old time blackening technique:
Dissolve a steel wool pad in 1 qt vinegar.
Treat the wood with a coat of tannic acid, let dry ( reduction of any raised grain after this may save the just water step ). 
Coat with the dissolved iron solution.  A deep and intense black is supposed to be the result.
 
I wonder about about the old wives tale aspect of the usefulness of Hornbeam.  If the straight from the tree billets can be seasoned, I do not see why it would then need to be "stabilized". 

I was penny wise and pound foolish in doing a Craig's list purchase.
A picker was disposing his estate sale load of 50+ y/o attic or barn loft stored hardwood.
Most of the Maple was a disaster - part had deep checking and fungal rot (firewood)- one was Ambrosia - no use to me
What was supposed to Black Cherry - was significantly harder than Maple and very dense (about twice as heavy as Hard Maple) - the red is bit more red - the grain is a bit open.  It looks like Elm in its grain pattern.  I bought some surplus stock ( too twisted to machine plane) from a KY cabinet maker just to see how his species would fit.  The Sassafras is terrible - the grain looks like ocean waves - the Elm (red) is too soft and open.  But the grain pattern is close to that of the harder (cherry) Elm - I am tentatively  identifying  it as Rock Elm.  I have not found any other source of it for comparison.  Extinct due to Dutch Elm disease?  At any rate, I would not go out of my way to obtain any more.

There is one additional option to paint.  The wale can be treated with a dye before it is bonded.
Some species accept a dye better than others.
Black is unambiguous.  It is easy to replicate.  A dye color that is a mixture of two or more primary colors may be difficult to match if the first batch is not enough.
An aniline dye - two versions:
water base - 
deep penetration - a clear (super blonde) coat of shellac over it and the wood looks as though it was naturally black.  The first exposure to water will raise the grain.  Coat the finished wood with 10% white PVA in water.  Sand and/or scrape the raised grain after the treatment is thoroughly dry.  Coat all surfaces with dye.  Repeat after this has dried if it is not black enough. 
Keep this in mind:  unless it is a toy that you are building, a 1:50 to 1:100 reduction of the structure also reduces the intensity of color.  Scale effect should also show a bit of shade effect - a hint of translucency.
alcohol base -
less penetration, not as pure a color, no grain is raised.  It dries more quickly.
 
On PBS I learned an old time blackening technique:
Dissolve a steel wool pad in 1 qt vinegar.
Treat the wood with a coat of tannic acid, let dry ( reduction of any raised grain after this may save the just water step ). 
Coat with the dissolved iron solution.  A deep and intense black is supposed to be the result.
 
I wonder about about the old wives tale aspect of the usefulness of Hornbeam.  If the straight from the tree billets can be seasoned, I do not see why it would then need to be "stabilized". 

There is one additional option to paint.  The wale can be treated with a dye before it is bonded.
Some species accept a dye better than others.
Black is unambiguous.  It is easy to replicate.  A dye color that is a mixture of two or more primary colors may be difficult to match if the first batch is not enough.
An aniline dye - two versions:
water base - 
deep penetration - a clear (super blonde) coat of shellac over it and the wood looks as though it was naturally black.  The first exposure to water will raise the grain.  Coat the finished wood with 10% white PVA in water.  Sand and/or scrape the raised grain after the treatment is thoroughly dry.  Coat all surfaces with dye.  Repeat after this has dried if it is not black enough. 
Keep this in mind:  unless it is a toy that you are building, a 1:50 to 1:100 reduction of the structure also reduces the intensity of color.  Scale effect should also show a bit of shade effect - a hint of translucency.
alcohol base -
less penetration, not as pure a color, no grain is raised.  It dries more quickly.
 
On PBS I learned an old time blackening technique:
Dissolve a steel wool pad in 1 qt vinegar.
Treat the wood with a coat of tannic acid, let dry ( reduction of any raised grain after this may save the just water step ). 
Coat with the dissolved iron solution.  A deep and intense black is supposed to be the result.
 
I wonder about about the old wives tale aspect of the usefulness of Hornbeam.  If the straight from the tree billets can be seasoned, I do not see why it would then need to be "stabilized". 

Some random thoughts:
 
I am guessing that something is done to turn this wood black. A quick Google does not produce an answer.
 
Get a supply of inexpensive hard hardwood.  White Oak, Hard Maple, to practice on. Get more practice than you think you need.
Black Hornbeam is too rare over here to waste.
The Oak output will be mostly worthless for ship modeling.  The Maple will very useful.
But maybe buy a framing 2x4, cross cut it into 35 cm sections for initial practice.
 
A 9" benchtop bandsaw has a very limited choice of blades.  What you have to use will probably have teeth with a significant set.
The slices will have a rough and scared surface.  This is where a thickness sander function is difficult to substitute for.
A drum in a shop size drill press can do it with a lot of manipulation.
These saws are not engineered for resawning thick billets of dense hardwood.  Blade tracking has minimal control.  The blades are narrow.  Because of the work that it is doing, the blade may wander no matter what you do. Getting something useful from a wedge shaped slice - with  the degree of wedge being different along the length?  It is difficult and the waste often exceeds 50%.
 
In an ideal world, you would find someone nearby with a big boy bandsaw,  who will do this for you.  He would have a Wood Slicer resaw blade - slight set and narrow blade thickness, or Resaw King carbide, or Lenox bimetal.  Your stock is small enough that the risk of it breaking a blade that runs from $50 to $200 is pretty low.  With the right sort of bribe, you may have a way to get modeling stock of proper domestic wood, at a reasonable cost and near limitless availability.
 
It is difficult to find the sweet spot for the thickness of the bandsaw slices.  How much additional thickness is needed to remove the blade scars from both faces and get a 220 grit perfect face on both sides with the desired final thickness?
 
As for the slice orientation, you must back calculate. What do you want the outside face of the wale to look like?
If the resaw stock slice is the thickness of the wale, and the 4" tablesaw slice is the vertical width, then the look of the face of the slice will be what the wale shows.
Your stock looks to be quarter sawn.  A slice parallel to the grain may show as a single color with zero figure.
A slice perpendicular to the grain will show two colors and probably some figure.
With Maple, a resaw of a large plane cut plank can be different from slice to slice.  The end grain will be a series of concentric rings. A slice across this can hit these rings from 45 degrees or more to horizontal and back to 45 degrees.   The look can go from clear to flame, to fleck.  Each is different.  With quarter sawn, it will be something, but each one will be pretty much the same.

I've heard of PSME for decades. They supposedly have "the mother of all catalogs" for all things related to modeling. That said, they've got a single page website and no online catalog. Their website doesn't even mention their catalog. Like most, I expect, I've never felt like paying $12 for a mail order catalog. I can't for the life of me understand why a mail order company wouldn't at least have an online catalog in this day and age. It seems like a self-destructive business model! 

Some random thoughts:
 
I am guessing that something is done to turn this wood black. A quick Google does not produce an answer.
 
Get a supply of inexpensive hard hardwood.  White Oak, Hard Maple, to practice on. Get more practice than you think you need.
Black Hornbeam is too rare over here to waste.
The Oak output will be mostly worthless for ship modeling.  The Maple will very useful.
But maybe buy a framing 2x4, cross cut it into 35 cm sections for initial practice.
 
A 9" benchtop bandsaw has a very limited choice of blades.  What you have to use will probably have teeth with a significant set.
The slices will have a rough and scared surface.  This is where a thickness sander function is difficult to substitute for.
A drum in a shop size drill press can do it with a lot of manipulation.
These saws are not engineered for resawning thick billets of dense hardwood.  Blade tracking has minimal control.  The blades are narrow.  Because of the work that it is doing, the blade may wander no matter what you do. Getting something useful from a wedge shaped slice - with  the degree of wedge being different along the length?  It is difficult and the waste often exceeds 50%.
 
In an ideal world, you would find someone nearby with a big boy bandsaw,  who will do this for you.  He would have a Wood Slicer resaw blade - slight set and narrow blade thickness, or Resaw King carbide, or Lenox bimetal.  Your stock is small enough that the risk of it breaking a blade that runs from $50 to $200 is pretty low.  With the right sort of bribe, you may have a way to get modeling stock of proper domestic wood, at a reasonable cost and near limitless availability.
 
It is difficult to find the sweet spot for the thickness of the bandsaw slices.  How much additional thickness is needed to remove the blade scars from both faces and get a 220 grit perfect face on both sides with the desired final thickness?
 
As for the slice orientation, you must back calculate. What do you want the outside face of the wale to look like?
If the resaw stock slice is the thickness of the wale, and the 4" tablesaw slice is the vertical width, then the look of the face of the slice will be what the wale shows.
Your stock looks to be quarter sawn.  A slice parallel to the grain may show as a single color with zero figure.
A slice perpendicular to the grain will show two colors and probably some figure.
With Maple, a resaw of a large plane cut plank can be different from slice to slice.  The end grain will be a series of concentric rings. A slice across this can hit these rings from 45 degrees or more to horizontal and back to 45 degrees.   The look can go from clear to flame, to fleck.  Each is different.  With quarter sawn, it will be something, but each one will be pretty much the same.