dvm27

Look forward to your publication. Will there be an English version available?

With Sea Watch books no longer selling plans for the Swan class we have decided to provide them as a free download from our website http://admiraltymodels.homestead.com/Plans.html. Feel free to take use this set of plans if building a Swan class ship model in the future. Be aware, however, that the sheet with the sheer, half breadth and body plans need to be printed commercially due to their size. I have had no end of problems getting these plans printed to spec in the past even though there are scales printed on it. Therefore, we are now providing them as a free download with the caveat to check them very carefully after printing. The best advice I can give is to make sure the distance between perpendiculars is 96' 7" (scale) or 24.15" full size. For those who have purchased Mylar plans in the past from us there should be no problems as they were checked and dimensionally stable. But David and I feel that we can no longer charge for plans for which we have no control over the final product. With so many of our Swan books having been sold over the years we didn't want to leave you without any options for producing plans so this is the best we could come up with. Thank you for all your support over the twenty years we have tried to provide the best product possible. We are hopeful that we may be able to conduct a workshop late next year but, like everything else in this strange time, we shall have to wait and see. Stay healthy and best wishes from David and I for a better 2021!

Lovely work Toni. Those fashion pieces came out well and are probably trickier in a clinker planked hull.

I think the lighting gives a nice subtle effect, JJ. Just to be clear, Tom doesn't sell these scrapers as part of his stock. I believe they were custom designed based on your drawing files. But perhaps he should as they seem to cover the gamut of profiles.

Welcome back Alex. Steps look perfect!

Great start, Matrim. I used the Sherline mill for all my scarf joints. The mill vice is actually attached to the angle plate which makes it very easy when cutting the chocked joints. I am a self-taught machinist so the techniques I use may not be the most efficient but they work for me. One thing I noted when I first started using the mill was that some of my joints were slightly narrower on one side. When the piece you were milling is being held solely within the top jaws of the vice it can skew a little when tightened. This problem was eliminated when I put a scrap piece of wood the same width into the bottom of the mill vice.

Well, if you do decide to start over you’re in good company. I abandoned my first effort at about the point where you are and the second version worked out fine. I paid much closer attention to maximum height of breadth and distance between cant top timbers athwartships when gluing them in place.

Building the Wooden Walls by Brian Lavery has a nice chapter entitled "Chatham Dockyard and its Men". As well Building the Wooden Ship by Jean Dodds & James Moore has a chapter on a dockyard of this period. Both deal with the building of a 74 gun ship.

Nice job on those tricky timbers. Don't forget to check out the build logs of Trussben, Dan's Vulture, Toni Levine and others. They all went through the steps you are doing and have detailed build logs.

My deck planking usually requires only light sanding or scraping to blend Kevin. Provided your deck beams are aligned and the planks are uniform thickness there shouldn't be a lot of variation. For edge clamping I use tapered wedges I create for each for each planking run. One end is slightly narrower than the the distance to be filled by planking. The other end is the correct width to bridge the gap. After applying glue on the plank and letting it set in place for a minute I insert the tapered wedges to lock them into the adjacent plank while setting. usually use five or six of these per run. You can reuse them for the next run of planks by reducing their width as required. When the remaining gaps get smaller you can also drive vertical wedged pieces between the planks to force them down (it looks like you are already doing this in the video). Enjoy your vacation. I know nothing about Trinidad and Tobago except that, as a stamp collector, their postal issues were always combined. Is one a nicer vacation spot?

Gorgeous work JJ! Your frieze work appears to be a deeper shade of blue than Chuck's prototype. Did you alter it before printing?

Happy to finally hear from one of my favorite model builders. Sorry to hear of your current circumstances and hope things improve for you in 2021. We miss your updates!

Happy Holidays to you as well, Kevin! For the main deck consider making all the deck beams first and installing them temporarily. It is easier to get a fair run of carlings this way using a batten.

Since we now know that the majority of these models were not made for design demonstration purposes but as gifts for Admiralty Board members or others of influence one could posit that this is the way these patrons preferred their models - clean and simple. Fully rigged models would have posed the same problem they do today - where to find sufficient display space. If the receivers of these beautiful models wanted cannons, cannon rigging or other intricate details you can be sure the builders would have included them. The curious thing is that they included hidden details within the hull that the patron would never see. Chuck's lovely model pays homage to those original models.

Jorge - This is not how to contact Bob. You need to send him an e-mail at seawatchbooks@gmail.com. While he occasionally posts on this site I wouldn't rely on this for direct communication with him. Jorge - Esta no es la forma de contactar a Bob. Debe enviarle un correo electrónico a seawatchbooks@gmail.com. Si bien ocasionalmente publica en este sitio, no confiaría en esto para la comunicación directa con él.

Love Leo's work and great start on the build. Enjoy the references. Good luck with those brass knees in the future!

Very nice job, Kevin. I like the way you've integrated the 3D images into the construction. It might be a perspective thing but the lower deck aft hatch seems skewed to port in your photo post 241.

Great Swopem Mark! One of the models in the Kreigstein book has all the external planking scored onto the solid hull. The skill to execute that boggles the mind.

Nice job on those fore cants so far. They are a bear to fair, especially the inner surfaces. I find that drawing lots of pencil lines along the shear helps with the fairing process. Keep remarking the lines during progressive fairings until they all disappear. This will insure you have hit all the low spots and have a fair hull. Work from the fore cants aft and I would recommend you install the first full frames (14) before completing the cant fairing. 80 grit garnet paper and a series of shaped flexible battens with sandpaper glued on really help in this area. Also, those spacers between the cants will likely pop out during the fairing process but take the time to re-glue them in place. Once you get to 5 or 6 inches molded dimension the cant tops are very fragile and you don't want to tear one out. One final thing to consider regarding the extensions of the cant frames for the timberheads. If you are a talented carver and plan to shape them in place ignore the following. I amputated the timberhead extensions so I could perfectly shape the shear line where the forecastle plankshear will eventually seat. It is very difficult to carve the timberheads in place and equally difficult to achieve a fair line for the plankshear as well with them sticking up. With the timberheads not present it is very easy to get a smooth run by using a sanding stick athwartships. The timberheads are later shaped (I used the Byrnes saw) and applied after the plankshear is in place. This project is like a chess game - you need to think several moves ahead!

The rafts look terrific Keith! The amount of bright work on this vessel is unbelievable. Keeping it looking good must have occupy a huge part of the crews time.

Have you left us HYW? Your initial posts leave us longing for more...

Bob is not mailing these from his basement. Once he receives the order he contacts the distribution center and they in turn fill the order. I suspect distribution and the USPS may be part of the delay during Covid. Before Covid I always received my orders in 2-3 weeks. Order acknowledgements have never been done as far as I can remember.

Here is a link to an article Roger wrote. There are hi-resolution photos and I'm betting you're not going to like what you see. But it's a beautiful model. https://www.craftsmanshipmuseum.com/BuildingAlert.pdf He also published articles in the NRJ regarding planking and coppering: “Clenched-lap Planking Over a Framed Hull,” Nautical Research Journal, Vol. 44, No. 4; and “Coppering a Clenched-lap Hull”, Nautical Research Journal, Vol. 45, No. 1.

Very nice Toni! I admire your desire to make everything yourself. I might have purchased the copper rivets and roves from Scale Hardware https://model-motorcars.myshopify.com/products/rivet-1-8-mm-head-diameter-copper-k109?_pos=4&_sid=f8b163f3f&_ss=r but perhaps they're not small enough.

I've had a couple of slices from my miniature table saw, all the result of poor techniques and not paying close enough attention. Nothing that surgical cement couldn't handle. But I don't think I'll ever get a full sized table saw.