catopower

Don't know how I missed this. Very nice build, very inspiring! I have this kit, actually, plus the larger, rare 1/72-scale partial kit that was included along with the full plans set from Shipyard. I'd better finish my Shipyard HMS Wolf build first!

Druxey, My penchant for staring at a model and the plans for long periods of time, repeatedly, may have delayed my progress on this model, but it has helped me in some ways. The masts are off the model and I just added a stay collar to the foremast that isn't well documented. The cleats will be easy to add at this stage. After that, I can spend more time repeatedly staring at all the plan pages to see what other items I might otherwise miss.

Some minor progress is being made on rigging HMS Wolf... But, in the meantime, I'm trying to plan out other preparatory work on the masts, and discovered probably the most egregious of the instruction shortcomings of this Shipyard kit. Note the instructions below showing the shrouds at the mainmast. Note specifically that you can see the mainmast in the photos, beginning with the two unnumbered photos to the right of photo 100. Next, photo 102, you can also see the mainmast, and all looks normal. But then, in photo 103, there suddenly appears a small mark, which I've added a red arrow to point out. That mark is one of four cleats that apparently needed to be added to the mainmast, but this is never shown anywhere. The plan views don't show them either... Now, this is actually the foremast that I'm showing here, but the mainmast is drawn the same way, without cleats shown. Then, on a later page of the instructions, there is one photo that shows the cleats installed on the foremast, but not before showing the foremast installed with no cleats... Very strange, as the bowsprit is shown without any cleats installed either, but the shrouds are installed, as well as the mainstay. And, now the cleats suddenly appear many steps later... This was the first indication in the instructions that cleats are supposed to be added at the base of the masts. How many cleats are there? You might be able to guess from the above photos that there are 8 on the foremast and 4 on the mainmast. As for the plans, the only indication that these cleats are required are in the belaying plan. Fortunately, a close examination gives us the actual numbers of cleats needed on the mainmast... And on the foremast... This project certainly requires a lot of study to pull the info needed from the plans and instructions. Fortunately, all the info seems to be there. It just takes a bit of work to pull it all out. I suppose it shouldn't be a surprise. Most kits come up short when it comes to the instructions. However, I am a bit surprised that some of these things aren't even shown in any of the plans. Well, excepting possibly the belaying plan. This is just one example of a shortcoming of the instructions/plans, but I've only found one other so far. And, all in all, this has been a very enjoyable project. I'm sure my own errors will completely overshadow any kit errors... And, with that said, I've just spotted one of my own errors regarding the pin rail just abaft the foremast. I have it reversed, but may leave it. Oh well, more on that later.

Well, I'm not sure if it's the time change, the shorter days, colder weather, or what... But, I've been finding myself more motivated to get back to the completion of HMS Wolf. Perhaps it has something to do with the restarting of a ship model group in the San Francsico North Bay? I don't know. But, it's good to be working on this project again... HMS Wolf is now out that small case I had it in, all the deck furniture except the gallows structures has been permanently fixed to the deck, as well as the bowsprit itself. I ended up not adding the little belfry, as it's very much crammed in behind the foremast, between the aft pinrail and the riding bitts. I'll have to figure out what to about the ship's bell. I'm inclined to mount it from a stand on top of the binnacle box, if that seems reasonable. While it's not shown in the photo above, I went back and installed the belaying pins. My kit included brass belaying pins. I'm not sure, but I think Shipyard has since gone with 3D printed belaying pins. Mine, being brass, were treated with BlueJacket's Brass Brown metal toner. Gammoning rope has been added, and stay collars added to the bowsprit. This may not seem like much, but it's the first time I've been really motivated to work on rigging for a long time. I did have the rigging on the Charles yacht, but it was a lot simpler that this smaller scale brig-rigged snow. I think I'm going to go ahead and rig those bobstays. Then, I can get started dealing with the deadeyes and chainplates, which are weirdly mounted on Shipyard kits.

I didn't say it was banned because it was Chinese. Perhaps I should have just said it was likely one of the banned manufacturers, but I think 90% are from China. If I'm wrong, that's great news!

Yes, definitely NOT a Mamoli kit for various reasons. Gregory, unfortunately, that looks like an exact match – look at the mounted figure atop the stem. I say unfortunately, because this is likely a banned Chinese kit. Should have been obvious from the start looking at the Chinese characters on the plans.

I think it's kind of funny how this thread has gone from the OP asking about his pin vise, to recommendations of drill presses. Personally, like Chuck, I am very happy using a pin vise. My preferred variety is the swivel headed type. Quality varies with these things. My go to is one sold by ModelCraft Tools. I have a few of them, with each set up with a common drill bit size, so I can swap pin vises without having to change the drill bits all the time. In any case, I have no trouble using drill bits as small as #80. I have drill presses, and there is a place for the power tools, but nothing replaces the ease of use of a basic pin vise.

As I recall, the old AL instructions were pretty generic. All the build info is derived from the plan sheets.

@TJM I see there are two versions of QCAD available. Are you using the regular QCAD Professional or is the QCAD/CAM version?

Hello TJM, I'm enjoying reading your posts here. I recently splurged on an XTool S1 40watt myself and trying to learn what I can about doing laser-cutting with it. I'm very impressed by what you've accomplished so far. What's your source for the 3mm MDF?

Lovely work Chris! Question: What blocks are you using?

Thanks for posting this, Tim. Having just gotten myself a new laser-cutter, I find your project very inspiring.

I think it's neither amateurish nor unrealistic if you are representing a specific reason for a ship doing that since, as John (Jim Lad) pointed out that it was done in reality. That said, it's such an unusual configuration that it will look really odd to most people, and you'll probably have to constantly explain your model to people. That might get annoying after a bit.

Don't tempt me! 😆

Nothing new to report, except that I removed the jib boom for now. This allows me to put the model under a nice dust cover. Kind of looks like a good way to display a hull model...