Dziadeczek

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.

This is from Lees "TheMasting and Rigging of English Ships of War 1625-1860". It all looks rather complicated, perhaps for your model you might simplify it a bit...

Perhaps it is a bonnet, which is a piece of canvas that is laced together with the rest of a sail to make it bigger. That part you encircled in red might symbolize that lacing.

Awesome!!! Thanks so much for everything! Thomas

How do you subsequently carve those reliefs in styrene? I am curious about the process, so, could you please, attach a couple of pics of your tools and the process showing it? Thanks! Thomas

Yes, definitely! I always stretch my ropes just after they are twisted and removed from the ropewalk. Grab both ends with your hands and give the rope a stretch, until it is no longer 'springy'. Cotton ropes (especially longer ones on larger models) will in time stretch a bit, even after your pre stretching, due to changing weather and humidity in the air. For running rigging, it perhaps would be a desirable effect - looser, hanging ropes looking more natural, but for standing rigging (like shrouds or stays) not so much. So, you'll have to mount those rather tightly on the model, (but not too tight otherwise you might break the topmasts, or bend them excessively. )

If you make a rope from right hand twisted threads, your rope will be a left hand twisted type. If that's what you want, it is OK. But, as you'll notice, majority of ropes on a ship, are right hand type ropes, so you'll need left hand twisted threads in order to obtain right hand type rope from them. Always, the opposite - left hand type threads give right hand type rope, and vice versa. In my case, I had some right hand factory twisted threads (see pics), so I had to 'untwist' them on my ropewalk to obtain left hand twist on them, and then further continue left hand twist on them in order to finally obtain right hand twist rope.