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chris watton

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Everything posted by chris watton

  1. Cheers! Stock for the new boats is very low (34 foot launch sold out) until the new sets of photo etched brass arrives, hopefully in the next week or two. Two more are almost ready, both 32 footers, a barge and pinnace, around 151mm long. Again, thanks to James Hatch.
  2. I 'think' the black is the general lines and the red is internal/fittings. Some plans also have green, which usually indicates further changes to future classes of the same vessel.
  3. I have no idea what TFFM is? For the Sphinx designs, I have copies of the original Admiralty plans (lines and decks). To fill in the gaps, I have used the Marshall paintings and the Pandora book, as this book even has a picture of Sphinx in it, mentioning the classes were very much alike, albeit Pandora being a 24 gun ship. Regarding the etched plank lines, as I mentioned, a lot of the Sphinx is painted, wales are black (so the lines will be very subtle), upper sides are blue with frieze work (if you want to add it), and inner bulwarks and a lot of fittings will be red. The parts are etched on one side only, so you do have a choice to use the unetched side - or just use planking strip. This is what I like about wooden ship models, you can do almost anything you like with it.
  4. The wale planking (along with a lot more info) I got from AOTS Pandora, a contemporary of Sphinx albeit slightly larger. The main wale will be painted, with only faint lines shown, so won't look as fussy.
  5. Hi Spyglass I don't know what to tell you, other than I am so used to it I hardly think about the process. I do one plank per side; that is, I lay the plank to see where it needs tapering, mark the spot, wet a little and cut, usually I taper to around half the plank width. No point trying to be too technical and it would never work planking with just a Stanley Knife, steel rule and rusty old plyers to help bending. Although using the Tanganyika, I can just manipulate the required curves with my fingers, as it's much more pliable than pear. Once those planks are glued in place (left and right sides), I start the process again until complete. Worked on wales today, and tried a few ways of offering these in the kit. In the end, my first hunch won the day, but not before I messed up the port side by (stupidly) gluing the three part wale in place. I decided to lay it as if I was a novice, with no bevelling to take into account the curves of the hull, as I know some will do this. The result wasn't pretty. A one piece wale however, is as fool proof as I can make it, and hugged the hull a lot better than I thought it would - so the single piece wale will be the kit version. Also attached is a photo of a 4 piece wale (not tried, as I know I didn't like it - get it wrong when gluing, and it would look awful). The starboard one piece wale is just pinned in place.
  6. That Tanganyika was much easier to use, but a lot of the planks have this mottled effect in them, making it look like those 'mottled' paint schemes I see on WW2 German aircraft in the North African theatre... One thing I must stress, it is very important to mask off the finished engraved upper hull before sanding...
  7. Have decided to wait for this instead: Pen and Sword Books: Historic Ship Models of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries - Hardback (pen-and-sword.co.uk)
  8. OK, I never meant to plank the whole Sphinx hull, as this model will be thrown away once all the info I need has been taken from it. But couldn't help myself. this is a very quick planking job (a day), using scrap 1x4 Tanganyika instead of wasting the pear on a disposable hull - no filling, just a quick sand so I have a smooth (ish) surface for checking all parts that are to be fixed to it. I am happy with the hull lines, nice shape to plank, too.
  9. Well, I did ask them if I could buy three of their books, and arrange a UPS pick up myself to collect the books. Frustratingly, this is the reply: 'No, sorry. I talked with Bob, and he said that the warehouse can only handle US mail. I'm very sorry, but we can't help you on the shipping charges.' Not sure why, to be absolutely honest. Oh well, I did ask, and I am not paying for postal service that's seemingly broken right now. ( I wanted the Rogers Collection of Ship Models at the US Naval Academy The Third Rates, Volume II and the 2 Speedwell volumes)
  10. I would very much like 'Rogers Collection of Ship Models at the US Naval Academy' I may contact them and ask if I could use my shipping courier to pick it up and ship to me, rather than using standard post..
  11. Yeah, I have never seen that before. I bought my Le Superb in 1992 from Model Dockyard, and this was laser cut, one of the first, I think, and very nice (for the time) and excellent manual.
  12. Do not worry, Clark, you said/did absolutely nothing wrong! I also hope you can rely on me, as I am always investing in new designs and products. It seems I have very healthy sales outside the EU anyway. Once I have a larger update (still in the 'Doldrums Stage' with Sphinx), I shall start a new topic. But for now, I am still plodding on with Sphinx, designs are around 90% there (I really do agonise over many parts as to the best way to design them, having the end user in mind when doing so..), and once done, the final prototype parts will be sent to Jim for the final building and manual shots. And as Jim does that, I then concentrate on drawing the plans (although mast and yard drawings are already done, needed to to get the correct dimensions for laser and PE mast and yard fittings, tops, trestle/cross-trees etc.) So, I best crack on....
  13. Thank you very much! Jim has done a superb job in putting them together. And to think, a year ago he hadn't touched any wooden kit for years! They do, they are my US distributors.
  14. I bought the plans from NMM and scaled the lines to the correct size to get profiles. I certainly wasn't going to change them. Full size, the 28 foot equates to 8534.4mm Divide this by 64 and you get 133.35mm. This is more or less the keel length of my 64th scale 28 foot cutter. Not sure where you're getting the 140mm from. I am still shipping to EU countries, seems to be a lot of scare mongering right now.
  15. Just received a pic of the samples I asked to have made for the boat beam 'U' shaped brackets. These were initially problematic for me, as I intended to produce them in PE, but the issue was that they stand proud of the gangway by about 1.5mm. I figured the best way to do these is a one piece casting, to ensure they all maintain the correct height. Development continues...
  16. Absolutely superb, and a perfect display for her. Just goes to show that a wooden vessel's hull is a beautiful thing to behold, no matter what era, or millennium! Love it!
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