Scottish Guy

Tell me, I have tons of LEGO in the house as well, was thinking (dreaming) of building Stormwind (World of Warcraft) of LEGO, but I realised that this might need 200 times more LEGO as I own right now... but still tons of LEGO here and won´t sell it, even if the prices are increasing (I´m a bit of a vintage collector with old Commodore C64s, Amiga and Atari computers, cameras from 1872 till nowadays and such stuff - my wife gave up to kill me lol)... Micha

Now then you have to tell me the brand because mine don´t have an RFID built in ^^ Gladly building a boat doesn´t just take a week or it could become an expensive thingy ^^

May I ask where you found the plans / patterns for the boat? I tried to find something about it, except the funny small notation on Google and Wikipedia I can´t really find anything about that ship. Tried to find it in a register of all built ships around that year but still nothing. Sounds like a really good story for a scaled diarama (maybe not that small but a bit bigger ^^ Micha

And most the times the ones we ran out of stock ^^

These broken drill bits can be a pain, wish they would find something that would solve this issue. I try most times to use my Dremel Workstation to do really small drills. Unfortunately not always possible... Micha

The wheel on top is running in a bearing and cna even be exchanged to change the force onto the flat top or ball on the bottom part. The size of the wheel somehow specifies the curve diameter you try to archive (that is why I stated you need training and experience - to know which wheel used for what archivement). It might be a one time job and even for USD 200.00 I´m pretty sure the size of even the benchtop English Wheels is not worth it. The storage of the device is quiet space intense. Also even USD 200.00 for a one time job is quiet expensive. If you doubt you can do it with a ball / flat top anvil then try to find a metal worker near you that might do the job for some small money (we have here a garage that has done a bigger job for me for GBP 20.00 to the coffee jar). I personally would advise to try first the anvil / hammer method, this is for small parts the way to go though, except you do such jobs every week and maybe even in bigger scales. If you would work on parts bigger than 2ft (60 cm) then the benchtop device would be advised because that can become quiet hard to handle manually by using en anvil and hammer and holding the part to work on all at the same time, but as long as the benchtop devise is not pneumatic powered it also needs some talent to work it with only two hands. The English Wheel we had during apprenticeship was a pneumatic machine, so you have a foot switch to start the hammering, which gives you both hands to handle the part. Micha

Like the way to prepare for the build Micha

That´s the way to go my friend Greetings from the North (East Coast) to the East Coast

Same here in good old Scotland ^^ but what are you doing with the Branston Pickles? Hopefully eating Micha

I use a mini bench clamp vice and put my dowel / mast in there (to have it nicely fixed and not rolling when sanding) and then use a file or sanding block (often on blocks to keep a steady height). Then I turn the dowel / mast by 90 degress and go on with the same procedure. The benchtop clamp vice was (years ago) a tenner... so not breaking the bank but a nice helper for sure. Micha

That should also work well Frank. Micha

Tbh, I did this in the past (don´t build plastic models anymore even if there are still some Star Trek models unbuild in my shelf) but it works fine when the gap is not more than 1-2 mm (pls don´t ask me about inch ), then some good superglue will do the job. If the gap is up to 3-4 mm I used plastic cut offs (the little stuff that comes of when clipping of edges and cleaning the cut outs) or I used some cling foil to strengthen the glue. But be aware that it can become a pain in the butt to sand the glue off, it often ruins your soft files (the nailing fails for women) and also your normal files, so you have to clean them after the use. You can find plastic sheets of 1 mm on Amazon or use the punch pockets from Amazon which come in different thickness (here 30 microns) but I know you get them also in 50-80 microns (more expensive). Micha

When you check out the link to the book it states "C.S.S. Alabama" on the book. I think the guy that sells / sold it just misspelled it in the description. There is no reference or detail found about a C.M.S. Alabama, only about the C.S.S. Alabama. Funnily even to see in the auction itself I don´t even know any reference about American ships with the CMS. AT this time there were only three prefixes known USS - United States Ship (for commissioned ships of the "United States") CSS - Confederate States Ship (for commissioned ships of the Confederate States / Southern States) MCS - Military Sealift Command (civilian manned ship "in service" and not in "commission") That´s all I could find and please, I´m not a historian or American, so this statemaents are made in the belief that all might be historical correct but it is not my onw knowledge but what information I found online. Micha

Welcome to MSW @Diddlysquat, hope you find the answers you are looking for and learn the tricks of the trade you still need or want. Micha

When I chose this one, they only charge EUR 9.00 for shipping (which I doubt when I enter a UK address) and there is no customs fee included yet. But I´m considering it since form the US they don´t send it to me or with double the price of the book (also customs fees not included yet).

Indeed it is available in the US but still not available for me lol It seems sometimes a bit odd that in a "global" world there are still restrictions, despite the cost of postage and customs, to send items around the world. I found this many times with US items but since Brexit more and more often also with European items. I also collect model cars / diecast models (especially Ford CVN in various police versions) but nowadays (since the 2000s most US shops don´t send them over anymore - before that they often sent them even for really low prices but postage took up to 6 weeks). So far about "global" world, we are growing closer...

I know and I like to remember the old times (not only because of shipping costs - a lot of things have been more nice in the past but that is another topic) but I agree, since everything is via air freight the costs increased dramatically. I agree again, another bad thing that happened is Brexit which makes for us now the prices for items from Europe as well expensive since we are no longer part of the EU. On top there is the tax and customs fees. That might be indeed a possibility I have to sound out since a German friend of mine is visiting me in July, he has to travel via France, but maybe the book is even available in Germany and he could just bring it over

I know of the difference, unfortunately the search in the UK Amazon doesn´t bring up any results for the name of the author "Bernard Frohlich" nor under the name "Bernard Fröhlich". When I put in the name of the book I only get the result that it "currently is unavailable".

Hi @Bob Cleek, you see me a bit confused. I only can see the quote of my own posting but not your comment?

Unfortunately no version of the book available in the UK. All I found are in the USA and the postage is ridiculous high, some are more than the book itself, so useless. I don´t pay USD 37.00 and then another USD 50.00 to get it to the UK and when the seller forgets about tax papers and custom papers I pay another load on top of that (had this experience with something from Germany where I paid almost three times the price of the item itself) No version available here in the UK, not on Amazon nor on eBay

Unfortunately "currently not available" here in the UK but the expected price of GBP 99 I think is also a bit... overpriced. I always thought there is a pricebinding to books, at least in Europe it should be...

Hi Todd, then we are somehow on the same route. For my scratch model I only would use fiberglass because the origin is made of fiberglass and I want it as authentic as possible and I maybe will do more than one copy of it (depending on the outcome - how accurate and authentic the model becomes). Micha

I get where you are going, but do you not think this is wasted time and material? I can smoothen wood the same way as I could do fibreglass, just with a lot less work and effort. Especially when using putty which would be the same as using putty in the first place with the wood? Micha

Hi @p40warhawk1, welcome to MSW and I hope this will be a great source for you to step ahead in your building. As for fibreglass using for a hull I would advise not to use ot over wood. In general it is possible but requires some work and a lot of time. If you really want a fibreglass hull because of the smooth surface I would suggest to take Allan´s description, the process would be like with a real sail yacht, making a plug, mold for the hull and then build the hull by layering the fibreglass like a real hull would be build. Fabricating fibreglass hulls is quiet an intense process, timewise and workwise. A lot of materials is required, an aired space and some really nasty materials and chemicals. Also a lot of steps when not experienced a lot of mistakes could sneak in which could ruin your plug, your mold or both. I´m in the same shoes as you since i plan to copy a current luxury sail yacht as a model, I intend to create exactly the same what Allan described. The only difference is, I might use this method to create more than only one model, therefore the financial and work effort is worth it. Also I have experience with this process (even in a bigger scale - a real sailboat 24 ft and 38 ft) and it is hard work and will also be hard work in the smaller scale. For getting the surface smooth of your wooden hall I would suggest planking and sanding or putty and sanding till you get the results you want to archive. Micha

Great work and nice fleet. I love the display with the wavy plastic sheets Micha