yvesvidal

Richard, I do not want to take over your Build Log, but this is a picture of the finished result Yves

Bob, This company used to produce some nice hulls and sell plans as well. I do not know if they may have a similar tug type as what you want to achieve: http://scaleshipyard.com/Catalog%20Pages/auxillaries.html#WHU-A%203 Yves

Big relief!!!! Thank you Jack, for the good news. Yves

Richard, this is a breath of fresh air! Finally, some changes from the period Ships. I will be following with great interest your Build Log. Please make sure you take a lot of pictures and that you have a small ladder to take care of the rigging.... Thank you for doing this kit. Yves

Tony, Beautiful work and great progress on the rigging. I was wondering what motivated you to install cannons on your Mayflower model. Thanks Yves

Great work Jack. And thank you for that beautiful and so useful hot tin can, used to bend plank strips. What a great idea. The ship looks great and will be quite a monster when done. Yves

I don't want to kill your hopes, but after writing a while back, I never got an answer from them. You may be luckier.... I hope it. Yves

Cdogg, Take a look at this thread: http://modelshipworld.com/index.php?/topic/2260-kit-review-mayflower-165-by-constructo/ It may help you a little bit in taking a decision. Yves

Jack, I believe you figured out the best way to plank that complicated bow. The planks will butt against part B, while being glued to all parts C and your intermediate filling. Part A will protrude and will be use used to mount the front pieces of the bow. It will require some serious bending of the planks to make all fit cleanly and tightly. You can put the kettle on the stove... Yves

Jack, I would try to fill up entirely around the C parts on your picture. Yves

Beautiful Jack. What a great kit. Yves

I have many times thought about the same thing and never found a practical and reasonable solution. I am not sure DeAgostini will ship to the USA, but if they did we are talking of more than 30 issues costing each 12-14 Euros. At that rate + shipping, the cross-section will easily cost you more than $400.00. Another option would be to find a modeler in the UK or Italy who is willing to order these for you and ship them to the USA. As you can see, nothing really easy for such a nice kit. It is possible that this cross-section may become one day a kit in itself. However, I suspect that it may take 8 to 10 years before a company decides to distribute it under such form. It seems that this way of distributing kits (on a weekly basis) is a very lucrative business in Europe and I suspect that the rights to certain of the models may last quite a bit. Yves

Folks, there are currently on the French Market some graphic novels depicting the kind of ships the members of this forum enjoy to build. These novels are extremely well drawn and the attention to details is outstanding. The stories are quite often riveting and the reader has a hard time waiting for the next installment of the series. I believe that some of these series have been translated in German but I am not sure about the English language. Even though you may not read French, the drawings themselves are a treat and would justify the purchase of one or many albums. I wanted to introduce you to two artists: 1) Jean-Yves Delitte who is the official artist for the French National Marine Museum and Collections. Jean-Yves produced three series Belem, U-Boat and Black Crow and I have uploaded the front covers of the albums: as well as some pictures to show his talents: Jean-Yves also authored two books about some famous ships: 2) the second artist is Marc Bourgne who has produced a very large quantities of graphic novels and seems recently to dedicate his time and talents to the series Pirates of Baratavia: Here again, the drawings are extremely beautiful and the plots riveting: I encourage you to procure one or a few of these albums and enjoy the adventures of Corsairs, Pirates, British, American and French naval forces as well as romances and intrigues. Yves

San Martin, your model is fabulous. Bravo. Yves

Bob, that little yawl is gorgeous and so precious. It is a marvel and you can be proud of you. I have to admit that I enjoy watching you build this beauty: it is such a refreshing change from all these admiralty and armed (to the teeth) ships of the 18th century. Finally, a nice boat designed for the sole pleasure of sailing and traveling in style to remote destinations. I simply love it. Yves

Absolutely superb!! Yves

Sam, It looks like it was not so poorly done, to start with. I can see the Model Expo projects taking a toll on their expected delivery dates.... LOL!! That should be fun. There is always pleasure in renovating and restoring old stuffs. Yves

It is good to see some progress. I was despairing to ever see a complete Bismark on this forum. Yours looks fantastic. Yves

Very nice Build Jean-Pierre. I like the rudder mechanism and the fact that you planned ahead for it. Could you describe in more details how this bar will control the rudder? Could such a large ship be equipped with a simple tiller? I truly love the curves of the hull. They make this model very unique. Yves

Bonjour Jean-Pierre, Although I abhor all the ships and weapons that are used to kill whales, I will be following your Build Log with a lot of interests. It is indeed a nice ship with some beautiful curves that you got.... Yves

Superb. I wish you had started a separate Build Log for your Cross section, though. Thanks for the pictorial description. Yves

Perfection...Perfection Jack. Great work. Yves

Amazing work Dan. Beautiful. Yves

Henry, I have looked myself into this model and it is very appealing. Besides the scale of 1/50 makes it more manageable than the other planked kit at 1/35 scale. These kinds of boats do not appeal at all to the crowd of this forum and you will not find anything related to the famous J boats. The former incarnation of MSW had a build log from a gentleman who built the Amati 1/35 planked hull. It was fantastic to read and turned out into a beautiful machine but extremely big and tall (the builder needed a ladder to reach the top of the mast). I have looked into the Dorade kit made by Amati (plastic hull pre-formed) as well as I love these racing boats in general. The kit by Amati of the J boat at 1/50th scale comes with a pre-finished hull, carved in wood. The deck is finished but you may want to re-plank it for better accuracy and realism. Amati also offers a line of J-Boats at the scale of 1/80, but these would be too small to be interesting, in my opinion. The claim of Amati about Best-seller is actually for Europe where these boats are much more popular than they are here. Keep in mind that the market for this kind of kits and boats (J Boats) is very limited and cannot compare to the typical historical ships abundantly described and pictured on MSW. I am always in awe when looking at the sheer power and majesty of these boats: If you ever decide to get the kit, do not forget to offer us a Kit review and a Build Log. Thanks Yves

The same is true with model railroading. The success of Lionel and MTH is clearly indicative that the most important is not the accuracy or prototypical appearance, but the fun you can derive out of it. In O scale (1/48), they even invented a third rail in the middle and guess what: 85% of the market in that scale is 3 rails. Only a minority of anal retentive people are searching for the absolute perfection and accuracy. Yves