Dziadeczek

At about 3:15 min. into the video, he starts edge bending with his hot bending iron (you can use an ordinary soldering iron with a heat control).

If you use Windows 10, it has a free, already factory preloaded program, (Microsoft Office Picture Manager), where you can click on "Picture" and than select "Rotate and Flip", and finally "Save".

You can easily adapt an ordinary soldering iron for plank bending (if you have difficulties locating such a specialty tool). Than yu can build a heat control from a household dimmer (not the digital one!). I learnt this one from my old stained glass class ages ago.

I am building the French 74 guns ship of 1780, following the four volumes by Jean Boudriot (the third volume talks about rigging). This source is quite good, although there are a few mistakes here and there Jean did not manage to avoid. But they are minor. I am currently modeling yards, sails and all the running rigging associated with them. Very tedious and time consuming work! In addition, I have Francis Jonet's "Fitting and rigging a 74-gun model ship", which complements Jean's books, especially the pictorial part of it. I am not sure if the monograph on the Gross Ventre is adequate on this topic, but generally those books from Ancre seem to be quite good, detailed and reliable. Certainly good enough to build a model.

I get it. Thanks!

Fabulous, as always!!! 😲 Isn't there a double strop on the right block D' of the tackle, you have shown on your drawing?

Wow! Your father must be a genius! Building such a yacht at the age of seven? Barely in the early grammar school years and already getting into such a task??? Unbelievable!!!

You'll have to shape this piece from a bigger piece of wood, if heat bending doesn't work.

I have a question for our more knowledgeable members. What's the difference between a corvette and a sloop-of-war? (I have a couple of old magazine articles, where they name the "Constellation" in Baltimore, as a sloop-of-war.) As far as I know, these are two different names (classes) of ships for the same thing and they are used interchangeably. I might be wrong on it, though.

I generally plank only once, am too lazy to double plank the same thing. What for, anyway? After preliminary shaping (spiling) and heat prebending wetted planks off the model, I first place a plank dry (without glue) on the hull and make sure it fits there perfectly. Then I apply small bead (drop) of glue (Titebond or white Elmer's glue) to the edges of all bulkheads where the plank will be laying on and a thin layer along one of its edges, and place it there. I use ordinary tailor's steel pins and gently tap each one with a small jewelry hammer (3 or 4 taps will suffice) but not through the plank but rather along its lower edge, into the bulkhead. ( I plank from the wale down, towards the keel, one plank on each side) to keep it there while the glue dries. The pins exort enough pressure to keep the plank in place, tightly agains bulkheads. That way, after the plank's glue dries, and I remove the pins, there will be NO sign (holes) from them. Procede with each plank like this and, after pins removal, do the same with subsequent plank until you cover the entire hull. Here is an old pic showing the process during the construction of my MS Rattlesnake model.

Awesome model! Exceptional workmanship! Congratulations!!!

You can easily draw such a "pyramid" by yourself. Take a sheet of paper and along one edge draw a vertical line and mark on it a series of equal points, say, every half inch or so. In the middle of an opposite edge of this paper make a point half way on the sheet. Connect this point with all points marked on the vertical line, and voila! You have this pyramid...

I think this tool is just a waste of money and an overkill. A mini plane made of ebony? Why? To increase its price? Comparable mini wood plane you should be able to get online for a few dollars (perhaps up to 10 today). From a few pieces of wood scraps in your workshop you should be able to make yourself a simple jig to shape (shave) your planks. See post nr. 27 at the bottom of this link, where I showed this simple jig. Easy peasy...

Fantastic!

You can do oils on top of acrylics, but you cannot do acrylics on top of oils! According to an old artists/painters' principle: "fat on lean OK, but NEVER lean on fat! " (meaning oil paints are fat, but acrylics are lean (thinned with water).

Hi Martin, I don't know about any Czech shipmodeling book, but for a beginner I would recommend three (at least), all in English: - Wolfram zu Mondfeld - Frank Mastini - Milton Roth (the last one is a little dated now, as far as sources of materials, but still valuable as far as some modeling techniques) And there is a bunch of other, more advanced books depending on the specific topic, like rigging, planking, armament, sewing (sails), etc... Plus, you have many monographies describing in detail a specific ship. The best however source of info, I think, is still this Forum, and in addition you have your native (Czech) speaking forum, where among the others, famous Doris Obrucova belongs to. (I don't have their link at the moment - check archival posts.) Greetings, Thomas

That's not a round house, that's a capstan, at least per MS plans.

I made mine from ebony, but later on I decided to paint them with an iron-looking paint, because the ebony looked too much like 'ebony' and not enough like iron. So, any hardwood should be OK, provided that you paint them afterwards with flat black paint. Greetings, Thomas

I have this one by Crepin.

This is a corner of a sail from the "Star of India" in San Diego.

I am sure there are many different ways to do it and some members will explain their techniques, but I do it in the following faschion: I use a very thin cotton fabric for my sails, instead of silkspan. I found it in my local fabric store (www.moodfabrics,com) a fabric known as cotton muslin, already factory coloured into a nice cream (eggshell) color - perfect for sails, so I don't need to color it by myself. It is used primarilly for linings for suits or similar. But my model is in 1:48 scale, so this muslin is barely thin enough for my sails. It might be too thick for your model though, if your scale is smaller. I wanted to show all sewn details of my sails, and I feared that silkspan, being soooo thin and delicate, would not allow this... After preparing my sails in the traditional way, I attach (glue) to their edges a bolt rope, making sure that it isn't attached to the edge of a sail, but instead it lays ON the edge, on the AFT side of the sail. After the glue (white glue like Elmer's), slightly diluted with water, has dried, I sew the rope with a very thin needle and thin thread of almost the same (only slightly darker) color that the sail itself, like on the attached pic. I found out that if I leave the rope only glued there, it has a tendency to split from the sail, if you manipulate it with your fingers. Sewing it, reinforces the bond and secures it. It is an extremely tedious and time consuming process (if you think, tying ratlines is tedious, think again!), I work with magnifier Optivisor and have a thimble on my finger to push the needle through the slightly stiffened (by glue) fabric. I place the sail on a rubber mat, like yours, but on top of that mat I place a piece of ordinary cardboard and only then I place my sail on top of it. The cardboard allows me to push the needle through the rope and the sail and a bit more (perhaps 2 to 3 mm - the thicknes of cardboard) on the other side. It is easier than, to push it all the way through. I sew through the middle of the rope and through the sail, just perhaps 1 mm from its edge. After the sewing, the thread is nearly invisible, only from a very close distance, say a few cm, similar to full size sails.

There is available a very good little brochure by David Antscherl on making model sails from silkspan, if you decide to use this medium.

The best and most detailed rigging I have ever seen on a model!!! 😃 👍

And this one is from Harland.