catopower

Hi Mark, There are a lot of great wooden kits out there. Where in Northern California are you located? We have a small group of ship modelers, including at least one beginner, that's meeting in Vallejo a week from this coming Saturday. So, that's July 8th. You're welcome to join us if you can. Also, I do some work with Ages of Sail, which is one of the sponsors of MSW, and their store is located in San Lorenzo. It's a great place to peruse the aisles for kits to build – a little dangerous actually, if you bring your wallet! Clare

Well, as long as I'm posting things here, I might as well post a few photos of some recent work I did on the Mercury. When I have a chance to use laser-cut parts, I take it if they are sturdy enough. In general, laser-cut parts tend to use thick cardboard. Any pieces I cut for myself, I make from many layers of laminated paper, and they tend to be sturdier. So, there are places where I don't really like laser-cut parts. On a paper model, the nice thing is that laser-cut parts are an option. There always seem to be printed parts you can use instead, if you prefer. But, in this case, these large parts go together quickly, and they're easy to use. I've been switching to the use of Liquitex Soft Body Acrylics instead of the Renesans brand acrylics. I LOVE the Renesans brand, but they're only available when you buy the boxed Shipyard kits. I've looked, but they are really hard to buy here. I have a supply, but I've been needing to test out alternatives I can recommend. The main issue now is that I've found that some of the paints that Ages of Sail has been getting in the kits they sell are drying out on the shelves. In a kit of the Crowdy Head Lighthouse that I got off the shelf at Ages of Sail, the paints were mostly dried up. I found that with some work, and a little water, I was able to revive them. But, not everyone is going to want to go through that. I tried several acrylic brands, and I found the Liquitex Soft Body Acrylics seem to have the most similar coverage characteristics. I still prefer the Renesans brand as they go on VERY FLAT. Liquitex has a slight sheen unless you can apply it thinned with water. Anyway, I decided to give the deck a wash of paint to kill some of that printed paper look. I also used the HMS Mercury Detail Set I bought from GPM.PL to make the new parts you see here instead of making them from the printed paper parts in the Shipyard kit. You'll notice I painted the forward bulkhead. The kit doesn't mention anything, but it does show a photo where that bulkhead is black. I figured it was close enough to the bow to just go ahead and paint red. It's unlikely it will be very visible anyway. Another thing you may notice is what some might consider a cheat. If you look at the gap in the inner and outer bulwarks parts, you'll see strips of wood I inserted to stiffen the walls a little and to keep them from bowing too much. You can see that I still have some inner bulwarks pieces to add. Then, I can paint around the remaining gun ports and then turn my attention to the stern cabins. Clare

Hi Mark, I'm fist and foremost a wood ship modeler, but I find the paper models really fascinating. I'm not sure if I can answer that question fully, as I've only built one paper model, HMS Alert, and the only Shipyard laser-cut kit I've built was a lighthouse kit. So, whatever you read here, please keep that in mind. What I find is that the paper models are great if you have no place to make a little mess. If you're in an apartment, no workspace, etc., paper models are great. I don't see them as being easier than wooden ship modeling. In some ways, they seem to be harder. Printed paper kits, in particular, have far more parts than other kits, and each piece has to be cut out, laminated, and it usually takes several pieces just to make, say, a fife rail. In a laser-cut kit, that same item could be as few as 3 parts. Wood kits may provide them as laser-cut parts, or may require you to fashion them from a couple strips of wooden. I will always recommend building in wood, if that is your goal. Paper models seem to be in a class of their own. Like I said, paper models are great when you don't have much room. Also, they require very simple tools. Paper kits can also be a lot cheaper than building in wood, though that can depends on the kits, etc. The laser-cut kits are really nice. Of course, you have to paint the model, but I seem to be doing a lot of that, even with the printed kits. There are certainly far fewer pieces that a printed paper kit when you consider all that you have to cut out with the printed paper kit. The laser-cut kits also have the advantage of including the dowels, turned brass cannons and 3-dimensional figureheads and carvings instead of simple 2-D printed parts. So, I'd say that if you're planning on taking on a paper/card model, go with the laser-cut ones. They're also larger scale, which should make them easier to work with. If you're just considering ship modeling and wondering if paper ship modeling is the best ways, I'd still suggest getting a nice wooden kit. Hope that helps! Clare

Hi Rick, I'm finally on board watching your build. Glad to see the posts about the Berbice's color scheme. I got myself the 1/96-scale version with quay port, so I could do a simple photo review. It's a neat kit, but of course the pre-printed parts show a black and white color scheme and coppered hull. When I get to it, I'd like to build it with the color scheme of the Smithsonian model, but that will be something of a challenge, as I might have to re-make the printed parts, or figure out a way to score the planking outlines and paint over it. Anyway, I'm looking forward to seeing your build. Clare

Nothing more to report here, but I ran across this amazing build of the exact same Shipyard 1/96-scale paper model kit on the German paper model forum Kartonbau.de. OMG, what an incredible build. I'm completely blown away. I highly recommend checking this out for yourselves. I took the following photo of the completed model from the builder's blog, but there are MANY more great photos there, and hopefully this will inspire people to check it out. The URL for the build log is: http://www.kartonbau.de/forum/hms-mercury-1779-1-96-von-shipyard-construction-reports-ships/board5-ships/t25313-f6/?l=2&l=2 The blog has already given me ideas, including starting over! Clare

Hi Dave, I'm sorry I haven't been around much lately. But, I show up and see that your Colonial Schooner is looking terrific! Nice job on that hull planking! That lower hull looks slick. I like the contrasting color of the timberheads against the bulwarks too. Very fine job. I'm sorry I haven't been paying closer attention! Clare

Not much to add to the build, but I did get an opportunity to work on the model a bit. One of the San Francisco Bay Area ship model clubs I belong to had a table at the San Mateo County Fair. The clubs here are very low on manpower, so we had one person work a few hours each day. I took the first day, a Saturday afternoon. I brought two small projects to work on. One was a beginner kit that is part of Amati's First-Step series, which I worked on to familiarize myself with it and to show people that they don't have to take on a massive project to start with. The other was my HMS Mercury kit. You can only make so much progress when you're interacting with the public, but I did manage to do some work. The model doesn't look much different than it did, but the internal bulwarks pieces are now being secured into place. Since I started that task, I'll plan on finishing that much before I go back to my wooden projects. I will probably add the doors back into place that I had to temporarily remove. I have to try not to get too distracted, as the next step will involve installing the gun deck furniture, including furnishing the great cabin. That's fun stuff, so it will be hard to resist! Clare

Thanks Carl. I looked for that book and it looks interesting. But, used copies start at $150. So, I think I'll have to wait for the movie... I know what to keep an eye out for though. In the meantime, I'll focus on "The Genius of Japanese Carpentry" book. One of the side projects waiting for me is Woody Joe's 1/75-scale Horyu-ji 5-story pagoda kit, and I think I will see a lot of the details from that book in this model. It's a nice looking kit, but it will have to wait until I get some ship modeling done. Clare

Speaking of Douglas Brooks and the practice of traditional Japanese trades, he's back in Japan now building a cormorant fishing boat (and Ukaibune) under the direction of what I believe is the last of the builders of these boats. He's blogging about it now, which you can follow at http://blog.douglasbrooksboatbuilding.com. This project is being documented (measurements taken for CAD) by Marc Bauer of Tri-Coastal Marine and there's hint that there might be a publication in the works. In the meantime, I'm trying to convince Douglas Brooks to allow the publication of specifications for a couple boats for ship modeling purposes. There are very few plans available for us to build from. Most are published in Admiral Paris's Souvenirs de Marine, and I'm kind of wondering about some of the details on those. Also, those plans are drawn based on western practices, and hard to use as you have to work to extract the information needed to build a model the correct way, based on Japanese practices. At least, that's what I find. Clare

Carl, thanks for recommending that book. I bought a used copy online. It was waiting for me recently when I'd gotten home. I opened up the package and stood in the doorway for 10 minutes just fascinated by the material in the book. I told boatbuilder Douglas Brooks about it. As you may know, he's been something of a mentor to me on the subject of Japanese traditional boats. Of course, he comments that he knows Azby and he's a great guy. Anyway, I think I'll learn some thing from this book! Clare

Well it's done! I finished Woody Joe's Shinmei-zukuri shrine model. It took a while since I was documenting the steps – just posted the 8th and final part of the build. Here are some final pics. If your interested in building this or any other Woody Joe kit, as always, I highly recommend buying from the Japanese online hobby dealer Zootoyz at http://zootoyz.jp. You can read the final post on this build here: https://shipmodeler.wordpress.com/2017/05/23/building-woody-joes-shinmei-zukuri-shrine-part-viii-completion/

Just posted Part VII, which will be the next to last post on this build. Things sped up as soon as I finished the roof. You can catch up with the build here: https://shipmodeler.wordpress.com/2017/05/11/building-woody-joes-shinmei-zukuri-shrine-part-vii/ And, in the meantime, here are some recent pics. Clare

Thanks Carl, I appreciate the info. I ordered a used copy from a Barnes & Noble seller, and got the shipping confirmation today. Looking forward to reading it in a few days! Clare

Hi Carl, I'd love to know the name of your book on Japanese temple construction. I think I could learn a lot from something like that. In the meantime, I just posted Part V of my build, which puts me just about half way through completion of the project: https://shipmodeler.wordpress.com/2017/05/04/building-woody-joes-shinmei-zukuri-shrine-part-v/#more-3716 Here are some photos... Thanks, Clare

Thanks Grant, Eddie, This is a very short turn-around build. Blogging already takes about 5 times longer than the actual build itself, so I'm just posting the updates on my own site, rather than posting again here. But, I'll upload some update photos. I just completed step 4 out of the total of 12 steps, and now need to write it up. Lots of photos taken though. Here are a few, so you can see how it's coming along. For some detailed descriptions of the steps, please visit https://shipmodeler.wordpress.com/category/non-ship-models/shinmei-zukuri-shrine/ Thanks, Clare

An interesting discussion to which I'm a late arrival! Wefalck's comment about the saying in German reminded me of my college chemistry teacher's comment, which works best if you say it with a Brooklyn accent "Do as you oughta, add acid wata". Always wondered what to do about files getting old. I like the "buy new files" idea. Clare

I haven't been posting much here on MSW lately, but I have been doing a lot of shipmodeling work, spread out across a few active projects. Recently, I kind of hit a slick spot in the road and been spinning my wheels a bit. I got bogged down in some details and got distracted by other things – don't you hate when life gets in the way? Now, a while back, I got some non-ship model type kits made by Woody Joe – Yes, I've been kind of Woody Joe crazy the past couple years. The Japanese wooden model manufacturer just makes some really cool stuff. Also, someone sent me a 5-story pagoda kit along with some smaller project kits I got, with the idea that I'd write up something about them. Well, I've had them for a while now, and since I've been in a slump anyway, it seemed like it was the right time to take on at least one of them. I picked out the kit called Shinmei-Zukuri Jinjya or Shrine. This is a neat little kit that Woody Joe claims to be a 10-hour project. Of course, with blogging, photographing and all, it would take a lot longer than that. But, the idea is that it's not a forever project. I bought the kit from, who else, Zootoyz. It cost roughly $85 plus shipping. Of course, the exchange rate has improved immensely for us after I went to Japan last September when it was terrible. This is a neat 10" x 10" kit that I will probably gift when completed. It's all laser cut and even includes the landscaping. The instructions look very straight forward. The model is that of a very old style Japanese Shinto shrine. The architectural style dates about to the early 6th century Japan. The existing examples of this style of shrine are rebuilt to exact specifications every 20 years, so the style of construction has been maintained for the past 1500 years. This architecture can be seen at the Ise Grand Shrine in Japan's Mie Prefecture. There's a short Wikipedia entry on it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinmei-zukuri If you're interested in the kit, I'm making this a topic of a build log on my blog site here: https://shipmodeler.wordpress.com/category/non-ship-models/shinmei-zukuri-shrine/ This should go pretty quickly. Then, maybe I can make some better progress on my ship modeling projects! Clare

Thanks for the kind words, Craig. I hope you enjoy the kit. Will you be posting your build here on MSW? In the meantime, I still have one of the Woody Joe mini-Yakatabune kits and also the Kanrin Maru kit available if anyone is interested. If you're curious about the Kanrin Maru kit and the original warship, I have several posts on the subject on my blog: https://shipmodeler.wordpress.com/category/ship-model-blogs/kanrin-maru-build/ And, if you're curious about the Mini-Yakatabune kit, I also posted some info about my earlier build on my blog: https://shipmodeler.wordpress.com/category/ship-model-blogs/mini-yakatabune-build/ Clare

Hi Andrew, Sorry if I didn't catch a mention of this before, but those look like Marine Models kit plans of the Jeff Davis, and I know they made a kit. I took a look at the Blue Jacket plans for their kit, and they show the exact same feature. The plans also clearly show a staysail running across from the main topmast pole. Seems odd, but there it is in a second set of plans. Clare

All of them, classic books!

Add to that fact, even Amati's plans for the Sovereign of the Seas builds to a model that's 1100mm long. What's with this magical number? http://www.amatimodel.com/en/models/naval/construction-plans/sovereign-of-the-seas I don't know what scale those plans are though. Clare

Okay, before getting back to my other projects, I thought I'd wrap up this issue about getting the bulwarks into position so that the gunports line up with the inside pieces. First, I had to finish up the windows, which worked out fine, using a film of canopy glue for the glass. They're not perfect, but they're mostly down inside the ship and not very visible. As I worked to get the bulwarks pieces in position, the addition of the newly windowed doors could wait. I cut and temporarily positioned the internal bulwarks pieces to help me with the alignment of the large outer bulwarks pieces. Without doing this, I don't know how one would know where the big pieces would fit. As you can see, some of the inner pieces have to be trimmed to fit. None are glued in at this point. You can see the seam where the large pieces meet between the first and second gun ports in the foreground on the left. At the bow, I ended up with a small gap for some reason. I will probably glue a support piece on the inside corners, which will be covered by the inside bulwarks pieces. I know the outer layer looks pretty gluey, but it's all going to get covered up anyway. Inside the great cabin, I didn't worry about the alignment except at the very stern. If everything else lines up, this area should be fine. I did discover than I needed to bend the stern transom framing back a little, so that things lined up better. Here's the same bulkhead viewed from the cabin forward of the great cabin... And another view of the great cabin from a higher angle... It's pretty cool to be working with this kind of interior, as you never get this kind of detail in a wooden kit. That's all for now. I may tinker with installing the doors and adding the inner bulwarks pieces over time. But, this was a nice break, and I'm ready to make some progress on elsewhere. Until my next break! Clare

Hi Shiphile, Those are some really great looking kits. I'd like to try one of the boxed kits sometime. I'm in the same fix regarding the HMS Mercury kit. It's a nice kit, but it's more money than I should really be spending. Anyway, I've started to take a shine to the smaller paper model kits in 1/96-scale. My first shipmodel was the Model Shipways Phantom, oh so long ago, and after that, I swore I'd only build in larger scales. But, I really enjoyed working in 1/96-scale with the HMS Alert kit. The smaller size makes for a neat model, plus it takes up far less room on the shelf. The low cost of these paper model kits makes it difficult not to go out and buy ones that I might be interested in building. Then, I thought it might be interesting to buy one and try enlarging it to another scale. I had to catch myself from going out and buying yet another kit – they're just so darned cool! Clare

A long belated thanks, Zoltan! It's been, what, six months since I last posted? I just finished writing up an article for SIS on buiding the HMS Alert paper model, so that's been occupying most of my paper modeling time for the past few months. With that done, and having spending a pretty significant amount of time working on my main wooden ship modeling projects, I thought I'd put a little time into HMS Mercury again. I've been contemplating those fake window panes and recently realized that forward partition is pretty much right under the edge of the forecastle deck, so those windows are pretty visible. Also, since I'm building this model so that the stern gallery windows are clear, you'll be able to look inside and see the windows in the aft partition as well. So, I broke down and cut out those fake windows. I had to remove the partitions in order to do it, but that wasn't too bad. I actually managed to cut out just the fake glass panes of those 4-pane windows in the forward partition and its doors. However, the after partitions and doors all have 6-pane windows, so I had to cut out the whole window section in one piece and then rebuild them. As you can see, the results aren't perfect, but I'm reasonably satisfied, because I'm pretty sure I can't do better than this. I'll try using some canopy glue to create the window pane glass. So far, I have all but 4 doors left to do. Once that's done, I'll move on to the next thing. Before I started getting obsessed with getting rid of the fake windows, I went on to the next step, which was to add the gunport frames to the bulwarks core pieces. The frames came from the laser-cut super detail set I purchased from GPM. It was a little confusing figuring out which piece was which, because many of the pieces vary in shape and have unique part numbers. I should point out here that one of the reasons I got inspired to do some work on the model again, is because I was at a local IPMS conference and spoke with someone who was building his first paper model, and I think it was also his first ship model, the larger 1/72-scale boxed kit of the same ship, HMS Mercury. He's doing a great job and some photos of his progress were posted on Ages of Sail's blog here: https://blog.agesofsail.com/2017/03/08/a-172-scale-hms-mercury-card-model/ Clare

Hi Druxey – It would be harder to part with them if I didn't have so darned many of them! I actually have another Kanrin Maru kit that I've been working on (was working on when I had more time), and I plan to eventually build the Nippon Maru, just not right now. While Woody Joe seems to limit production and sell a kit until they run out, I think these should be available for a while yet. Also, I still have a Charles Yacht, another Hacchoro, another Higaki Kaisen, the Kanrin Maru kit I mentioned, a Sir Winston Churchill, an old line (before laser-cut production) Sengokubune and an out of production Kitamaesen to build. I've been thinking I really should add a couple of these to the sales list too. But, in fact, if nobody wants to buy any of these kits, I won't exactly be heartbroken! Clare