Bob Cleek

Odds are, Canada is no better than most everywhere else. The economics of internet marketing has pushed a lot of the "brick and mortar" stores out of business and the online retailers are pretty much the only game in town if you don't have a dedicated hobby shop close by. You can get a good idea of what tools and supplies are available from these two internet retailers: https://modelexpo-online.com/ and https://www.micromark.com/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI9cKInpjM7gIVIz2tBh0FlwgqEAAYASAAEgLtU_D_BwE However, "buyer beware," many of their offerings are priced higher than they might be found elsewhere and, as for tools, may be of lower quality than professional grade tools that will last two or three lifetimes. Watch for sales and discount codes (some of which are available by clicking on the advertisers' logos on this forum's home page.) Other good sources of tools are commercial jewelers' supply houses and surgical and dental instrument supply houses.

Finestkind! Been around for years. From the folks that brought us The Oxford Dictionary of the English Language ("OED" citation in academic works. It's the academic gold standard.) That's what its a "companion" to. There's a movie out starring Mel Gibson about how they made the OED, The Professor and the Madman, now on Prime or Netflix, one of the two. Worth a watch. I think of it every time a newbie posts a question asking what some nautical term means. As my father used to say, "Look it up in the dictionary yourself. That way you'll remember it."

None that I can see. The practice of bedding faying surfaces with cloth and bedding compound leaves nothing to see but a very narrow seam the color of the bedding compound, if that. Unless a model were built to an unusually large scale, such a seam would be invisible at scale-viewing distances. Some modelers like to highlight their joints by the use of pencil lead, paint, or a sliver of black paper when building unpainted models. Pencil lead is quite sufficient. Paper is more time-consuming and, in my opinion, no more effective than other methods. Additionally, paper between the faying surfaces results in a weaker joint. (Paper between glued joints is a common way to create a temporary joint which can later be easily broken apart.) A careful study of "masterpiece" models in respected museum collections, close-up color photographs of many of which are now available online and in books, will assist a modeler in determining which details they might consider incorporating in their model truly contribute to a compelling impression of reality in miniature and which are inaccurate stylistic conventions which are popular from time to time with the modeling fraternity.

Plank widths would also vary depending upon the amount of curve to the frames. The lower planks below the curve of the bilge were called the "broads" because the flatter shape of the hull permitted wider planks without the need for extensive backing out to shape the plank to match the curve of the frame.

Why is a Ferrari better than a Corvette? :D There is no comparison between any of the Byrnes Model Machines (I have all three) and anything else on the market. (I've pretty much seen them all.) Read all the reviews on this forum, and others. I've never seen anything other than rave reviews on Byrnes tools. As for the saw, 1. Quality of construction is unsurpassed. The fit and finish is perfection. There isn't a piece of plastic anywhere on the thing, except maybe the insulation on the power cord and the shop vacuum hose spud. They are made in a small workshop by a master machinist, not a mass production factory with unskilled labor, and it really shows. 2. The machine is made of CNC-machined parts and nobody else can match its accuracy tolerances. Order one with the micrometer fence adjustment, the machine's tolerances are finer than your eyesight. 3. Order the cross-cut table, and you will have a machine that can do whatever you need in terms of straight cuts in wood or light metals at a level of precision you can't get anywhere else. 4. The saw takes four inch blades. Most all of the competitors take three inch blades. The extra inch of cutting capacity alone should convince anyone the Byrnes saw is the one to have. 5. It has much more power than the other micro-saws. This is very significant. The other saws can zip through balsa and basswood as well as a Byrnes saw, but when it comes to hard woods, they often struggle. The Byrnes saw isn't a "hobby tool," it's a very serious piece of professional grade machinery. 6. It's made in the USA and you can pick up the phone and actually talk to the guy who makes them. When ordering, you can have your saw configured exactly as you wish, e.g. extended table, tilt table, accessory choices, and end up with a "bespoke" machine. If you call, I'm sure Jim Byrnes will be happy to advise you how to best configure your saw to do exactly what you want to do with it. 7. How often do you buy a tool that makes you feel good just looking at it? The Byrnes saw is the Purdey shotgun of small table saws.

Amen to this! I keep a keen eye on your sailmaking. It's really top notch. I've made all the usual mistakes trying to use cloth. I've concluded it's impossible in anything smaller than 3/4" to the foot scale. The art is in the subtlety of it all.

Happy to oblige! She's looking good! When you get to beveling your frame faces, take a wider batten and glue some sandpaper to one side of it. Chalk or paint the frame faces. Lay the sanding batten against the frames, bending it to contact the "high" frame face edges. Sand with the batten, watching the chalked or painted frame faces as the chalk or paint is sanded off. This will prevent sanding too much and removing the "low" side of the frame faces. This should give you a perfectly faired frame for planking. (And if you have low spots, glue on a piece of wood, or add a bit of filler paste, and then sand fair.) It's a bit tricky working around the battens you have in place. You can remove one or two, sand that area, replace them, and move on to the next. You will find that tying the battens to the frames will greatly increase the rigidity of the frame structure. You don't want frames moving (or, God forbid, breaking) as you sand. Any string or wire will work to fasten the battens to the frames. I use pieces of telephone wire or the plastic ties they sell in gardening stores for wiring plants. Small "zip ties" work well, too. When it's time to define your sheer, mark the points from your table of offsets or drawings, and then define the sheer with a batten, coming as close to the points as you can. Most often, the points defining the sheer aren't going to yield a perfectly fair sheerline. There's usually an inherent error at the ends. The elevation drawing and offsets will accurately indicate the height of the sheer, looking at it in two dimensions straight on. However, because the side of the sheer is curved, the sheer is farther away from the viewer at the bow and stern than it is amidships, which is closer to the viewer. When building, one has to compensate for this optical illusion. Slightly more sheer is required at the bow and stern than may be indicated in the plans, so as to prevent the boat, now in three dimensions, from appearing to have a "flatter" sheer than the designer intended when the vessel is viewed. Trust your batten and your eye. If it looks good, it is good. Once you have the sheer defined on one side, it's easy enough to duplicate it on the other side by transferring the measurements from the first side to the second. You could have fooled me! It doesn't look like your cutting any corners that matter. This looks like it's going to be a very nice model and a model of a very refreshing subject! As impressive as they are, there's more to modeling than Seventeenth Century ships of the line! We need more models of working watercraft!

The trick is to keep the wood moving so it doesn't scorch. On most electric soldering irons, the lower shaft, rather than the tip end, is just about the right temperature. If you have a clothes iron or a ladies hair curling iron, those may work well also.

While this example appears to be the "Rolls Royce" of bending irons and is priced accordingly, In my experience, bending small pieces of wood over a curved hot iron is a particularly good method. The iron supplies the heat and each side of the piece can be offered up to the iron alternately, speeding up the initial heating of the piece. Thereafter, shaping is accomplished by bending the piece directly on the iron. No heat is lost between the heat source and the bending and heated wood loses its flexibility quite rapidly as it cools. If the wood resists the bend, one need only slow the rate of bending, i.e. apply less force, and let the heat increase to permit flexing to a sharper curve, thus avoiding much of the risk of breaking the piece. Given the cost of this appliance, since most of us won't be bending the sides of a cello, the side of a soldering iron will suffice.

This is very true. Keeping in mind the example of the "bundle of straws bound together with wax," an effective transfer of heat throughout the entire piece of wood is essential to successful bending. Heating a piece "through and through" requires subjecting the piece to external heat for long enough that the heat is transferred to the center of the piece. In full size construction, the rule of thumb for heating wood before bending is one hour per inch of thickness. Thus a full size one inch thick plank must be heated for at least an hour and then quickly bent before the temperature drops and the lignin in the piece begins to harden as the temperature drops. A steam box is commonly employed to steam larger pieces of wood because it is a practical way to heat a full size plank evenly for the required length of time. Indeed, in earlier times, it was the only way to accomplish the job. (In some instances, however, short sections of a long plank can be heated sufficiently by wrapping the section to bent in rags and continuously pouring boiling water on the rags, or, as has long been the practice in the construction of Venetian gondolas, by heating the section of the plank to be bent over an open fire, a technique that takes care and expertise to avoid burning the plank.) With the very small sized thicknesses of wood encountered in modeling, the application of dry heat effectively heats the piece "through and through," obviating the need for steaming or boiling. It is true that hot water will be absorbed by the lignin itself and thus cause softening of the lignin at lower temperatures. Heat transfers far more readily through moist wood than through drier wood. In full scale boat building, the best wood to be bent, particularly for frames, is "green wood," i.e. wood which has not been fully dried. The higher the moisture content of the bending stock, the easier it is to heat effectively and, thus, the easier it is to bend and the less likely it is to fracture when bent. The critical factor, however, is getting the moisture into the wood. While absorption rates vary depending upon the properties of various species of wood, in any event it takes a considerable amount of time, relatively speaking, for the moisture content of wood to change. Air-drying a cut piece of stock to a usable moisture content requires one year of drying time for each inch of the stock's smallest dimension. A one inch plank should air-dry for a year before being considered sufficiently stable for it to be suitable for fitting. Even at the small dimensions encountered in modeling, increasing the moisture content of a small piece of wood throughout its entire thickness will take a surprising amount of time. Here again, the "bundle of straws stuck together in wax" analogy applies. There's not much, if any, benefit to getting just the outer surface of piece wet because the moisture isn't going to penetrate the whole piece unless it's soaked for a good bit of time. Applying the "year of air drying for each inch of thickness" to a 1/32" model plank, equals about eleven and a half days for that model plank to reach equilibrium with the ambient humidity, so the small amount of temperature reduction advantage gained by increased moisture content really isn't worth the trouble, since increasing the heat is so easily accomplished. On the other hand, using "green wood" in full size steaming jobs is advantageous because the higher moisture content makes thorough heating of the piece much more efficient owing to the more efficient transfer of heat through the wood with greater moisture content. (Full disclosure disclaimer: "I'm not really a dendrologist, I just play one on the internet. )

Defying all attempts to dispel it, the myth that hot water or steam is required to bend wood in modeling sizes refuses to die. As Jaager explained, it is heat that softens the lignin and allows the bending. In full-sized construction, wood is steamed in a steam box because, given traditional technology, steam is a good way to transmit heat to the piece to be heated. Moisture has no effect on the process of "steam bending," which should properly be called "heat bending," I suppose. It is beyond me why, in this day and age, modelers are still trying to soak wood in water in order to bend it! Do it however one wishes. It's your model, as the saying goes, but there's simply no point to it. Very simply, here's how bending wood works: Think of a bundle of long straws stuck together with wax. The bundle is hard to bend. If you melt the wax holding the straws together all the way through the bundle, the bundle is easy to bend because the individual straws can slide against each other to accommodate the differing radii inside and outside the curve created by the bend. If you melt the wax, bend the bundle of straws, and then hold them in place so that the wax hardens again, the bend stays in place and the bundle has the new curved shape you've given it. Now, you could melt the wax by throwing the bundle in a pot of boiling water or you could simply blow hot air on it from a hair dryer or heat gun, or apply heat from contact with a soldering iron or clothes iron, or by even putting it in a microwave. The choice is yours, I suppose, but there's an awful lot of bandwidth being consumed by discussions about the problems people have trying to bend wood with hot water or steam. It would be a kindness to put them out of their misery once and for all, but I suppose that's not to be. Read Chuck Passaro's excellent planking tutorials and learn how to do it correctly. You'll be glad you did! They are the best tutorial on planking ever done. https://modelshipworld.com/forum/98-planking-downloads-and-tutorials-and-videos/

Absolutely! The "green stuff" really does the trick better than anything else. If one takes a piece of 3/4" MDF, cuts a disk to fit on their bench grinder, and charges the edge with polishing compound, those 200 passes on each side can be replaced by ten or twenty seconds on the edge of the spinning MDF disk. No need for leather on the disk. The smooth edge of the MDF disk with the polishing compound is fine. If one wishes to get fancy and has money to spare, there are also many different store-bought options, such as ready-made leather or cardboard stropping disks for bench grinders and leather stropping belts for stationary belt sanders. YouTube is full of videos on making your own stropping disks for mounting on bench grinders, wood turning lathes, or drill motors.

Surely, you jest! You must be a young man. Seriously, though, they are excellent videos. It's not rocket science and he keeps it simple. It's amazing how much ink and pixels have been consumed on the subject of sharpening edge tools in recent times. IMHO, this seems to be the consequence of our educational system's abandonment of manual arts training as part of the core curriculum in middle and high schools. Mention "wood shop" or "metal shop" these days and the kids give you a blank stare. Time was, learning to sharpen an edge was a skill every boy learned by age eight or ten and no more remarkable than learning to tie their shoes. To make matters worse, today's parents are so overprotective, a ten year old is lucky to have had much of any real experience at all with an edged tool, let alone been taught to care for it. I casually gave my ten year old grandson one of those tiny Victorinox Swiss Army pocket knives with a two inch blade that are made to put on a key chain and his mother went apoplectic, taking it from him and saying, "We'll have to use this under strict supervision!" Sheesh! (I should have known better... My giving him a store-bought Daisy sling shot and a bag of dried beans for ammo precipitated a family crisis a few months previously.) I suppose he'll probably join the rest of his generation and buy cheap knives which he'll throw away when they dull, unless, of course, I can instill in him enough appreciation for working with his hands and he acquires the need to learn how to sharpen a blade on a stone from some old YouTube video!

The 1950's era Craftsman 8" table saw is a better "old 'arn" option. They don't make 'em like they used to. The 8" saw is a fixed table with a tilting arbor. The smaller "Companion" tilt-table model was originally their "second best" line below Craftsman. The tilting table gives many concern regarding safety of operation.

The sails are simply spectacular!

Just to perhaps encourage those who are discouraged by the availability of the "perfect" modeling wood, may I suggest that there really are few candidates for that prize, and correspondingly hard to find and expensive. Below are some woods I'd nominate as candidates for modeling purposes. Some are primarily carving wood species good for carving and turning. Others perhaps more suitable for planking stock and larger parts. All are woods I've come across, often in abundance, in dumps and municipal woodpiles and free for the taking. Some are native California species, while others are invasive exotics, agricultural species, or ornamentals. Few are commercially available, usually because they are not large trees and because there is little market for them. A modeler with the resources to snag a few pieces, or more, should find some of them quite interesting to play with. Wood that has no visible grain is something of a "unicorn," but it must be remembered that there is in many species a wide variation in their color and figuring. As color and figuring is highly desired by furniture makers, the un--figured and lighter colored specimens are often much less expensive when available in a retail environment, while also often much more available in "the wild," as milling the plain specimens isn't as profitable as is milling highly figured stock. While it seems that building models of bright (natural finish) wood is greatly in vogue these days, it bears noting that when one isn't constrained by color-matching featureless bright wood, painting opens up many wood species which are as well-suited for modeling as any, save their natural appearance. It really costs nothing to experiment. Most city corporation yards will permit "picking" by turners and woodworkers, or even simply by those looking for firewood. There's always the big bay laurel than came down across a road in the last winter storm and the road crew bucked up to clear the road, or street ornamentals that were pruned or removed for one reason or another. Making friends with your local tree service is worthwhile. You never know when somebody decides to cut down that old holly tree in their backyard or to remove a dead birch tree. Common Name(s): Myrtle, Oregon Myrtle, California Bay Laurel, Pepperwood Scientific Name: Umbellularia californica Distribution: Coastal regions of southwest Oregon and central California Note: Quite large old specimens found commonly on creek banks. Windfalls are common. https://www.wood-database.com/myrtle/ Common Name(s): Olive Scientific Name: Olea spp. (Olea europaea, O. capensis) Distribution: Europe and eastern Africa Note: Olive trees are more valued for their fruit than for their wood, so it's rare to find for sale. Wood is available from orchard culls and removed ornamentals. https://www.wood-database.com/olive/ Common Name(s): Sweetgum, Redgum, Sapgum, satin walnut Scientific Name: Liquidambar styraciflua Distribution: Southeastern United States Note: Photo below is of heartwood. Wide sapwood is near-"white," through butterscotch color, similar to pear wood without significant figuring and sold as "satin walnut." Photo below is of heartwood, sometimes marketed as "redgum." https://www.wood-database.com/sweetgum/ Common Name(s): Paper Birch Scientific Name: Betula papyrifera Distribution: Northern and central North America https://www.wood-database.com/paper-birch/ Common Name(s): Persimmon, White Ebony Scientific Name: Diospyros virginiana Distribution: Eastern United States (Note: Related to true ebony. This is a carving wood, used to make golf driver club heads.) https://www.wood-database.com/persimmon/ Ligustrum lucidum Photo courtesy UC Davis Weeds of California Synonyms: Esquirolia sinensis; Ligustrum compactum var. latifolium; Ligustrum esquirolii Common names: glossy privet; broad-leaved privet; tree privet Ligustrum lucidum (glossy privet) is a shrub/tree (family Oleaceae) with white flowers and shiny oval-shaped leaves found in the San Francisco Bay area, Sacramento Valley, coastal ranges and southwestern ranges of California. It is native to China, Japan and Korea. Fast growing, but not large diameter trunks. Similar to boxwood. Listed as an invasive ornamental species. (Leaves and berries are poisonous.) https://www.cal-ipc.org/plants/profile/ligustrum-lucidum-profile/ Common Name(s): Pistachio Scientific Name: Pistacia vera Distribution: Native to Iran, also cultivated in the Mediterranean and Middle East regions, and California Note: Nuts more valuable than fruit. Available as windfall, culls, and prunings from commercial orchards. Suitable for carving and turning small pieces. https://www.wood-database.com/pistachio/ Common Name(s): Holly, American Holly Scientific Name: Ilex opaca Distribution: Eastern United States https://www.wood-database.com/holly/

The simple answer is "as long as possible, without unnecessarily wasting wood," which is why you won't see it written down anywhere. The narrower the planks, the higher the quality of the build, so maximum width will sometimes be specified in the scantlings. Deck planks, being straight, tend to be longer. Hull planks, less so, because, depending upon their shapes, they can require wider stock proportionate to the width of a given plank. Other limitations are the species of wood, i.e. what stock can be gotten out of a tree in the first place, and how difficult it is to transport from the tree to the shipyard. The shipwright picks each piece carefully to achieve economy in the use of what's available. As Jaager notes, a plank much longer than around 25' would be somewhat unusual.

You should find that information in any good book on wooden ship and boat building. There are several well-known "scantling rules" which lay out standards for construction. I'm sure the warship modelers can tell you exactly when such particular rules were laid down by the British Admiralty and which were in effect at different times. (Called "Establishments" and designated by date, e.g. The 1706 Establishment or the 1716 Establishment, these rules set the "ratings" for the various sizes of Royal Navy ships, together with minimum standards for their construction and quality of materials, e.g. how many scarfs were permitted in the keel of a First Rate ship and so on down the line.) The French Navy had their own scantling rules. (Uniquely, the French combined treenails and iron fastenings, but that's about as far as my own knowledge of that subject goes when it comes to warships.) Planking schedules and rules for the placement of plank butts are commonplace. In the small craft area, Lloyd's of London has "Lloyd's Rules." Europe has Det Norske Veritas' ("DNV") Rules. In America, Herreshoff's scantling rules, Skene's Rules, MacNaughton's Scantling Rules, and, modernly, the American Bureau of Shipping ("ABS") rules are followed. Most all of the current rules were established by the marine insurance industry to ensure "best practices" for vessels ensured by their member insurance companies and, with respect to wooden hull construction, have remained relatively unchanged since the early days. Researching and paying attention to these historical details is what makes a good model a great model.

On the other hand, if they do a lot of business supplying the professional model making companies, as I believe they do, it may be that they can't be bothered dealing with "the riff raff" and really aren't looking to be selling to the same hobbyist market segment as, say, MicroMark or ModelExpo. I believe they have a well-established customer base with outfits like those that build architectural models and things like that. It's still a mystery how they survive in this day and age.

I've heard of PSME for decades. They supposedly have "the mother of all catalogs" for all things related to modeling. That said, they've got a single page website and no online catalog. Their website doesn't even mention their catalog. Like most, I expect, I've never felt like paying $12 for a mail order catalog. I can't for the life of me understand why a mail order company wouldn't at least have an online catalog in this day and age. It seems like a self-destructive business model!

Actually, not exactly. This is why it is important for modelers to learn how the ships they model were rigged and how that rigging worked. Details such as belaying locations commonly varied from ship to ship and time to time on a given ship. The maxim, "Different ships, different long splices." applied. Given that, there are conventional rigging arrangements applicable to different historical periods and using these arrangements is entirely accurate if the correct period rigging is modeled. Given what may be available for HMS Discovery, I might be tempted to extrapolate from the available data and note in the building log and research materials I kept with the model that the lines were "based upon partial draughts and contemporary illustrations." I'd then be comfortable labeling the model as "HMS Discovery (1789)" Conversely, if I were modeling a ship from the actual builder's draughts, (assuming I was comfortable knowing she was built to the draughts and not altered in the stocks,) I'd say, "HMS Xyz based on original draughts from the Royal Museums, Greenwich." Not that it's often important to list the year of launch with a ship's name because the same names tend to be used for a number of ships serially. In the case of the name, "Discovery," there is an HMS Discovery (1774) which sailed with Captain Cooks' third expedition to the South Pacific and an HMS Discovery (1789) that Vancouver sailed to the American Pacific Northwest, as well as an HMS Discovery (1874) used in the British Arctic Expedition of 1875-1876 and an RRS Discovery (1901) of the British National Antarctic Expedition of 1901-1904 ! Contemporary drawing of HMS Discovery 1789) from which hull shape and other details might be partially extrapolated: See also: http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/87625.html http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/263918.html

On some designs, a motor on both sides can be useful, but isn't essential. I suggest you take a look at Syren Ship Model Company's "Rope Rocket." This elegantly designed ropewalk system is powered by any reversible electric hand drill. There are videos on their website that demonstrate the system's use. It's very well made (unlike some cheap copies) and is relatively inexpensive. If your time is worth anything at all, you'd be money ahead to buy this rope maker and not bother with trying to chase down the bits and pieces to make your own. It was designed by forum member Chuck Passaro. See: https://syrenshipmodelcompany.com/ropewalk.php I have a Domanoff PL4 and can recommend it highly, but I was fortunate to come by mine used at a price I couldn't refuse. Had that not been the case, I would have opted for the "Rope Rocket." Alexi Dominoff's PL4 is a bit more "automated" and so doesn't require the easily acquired hand-eye coordination operating the "Rope Rocket" does and is perhaps capable of a few more esoteric tasks than the "Rope Rocket, (such as laying up four-strand rope around a fifth core strand) but each produces excellent rope. The biggest difference between the PL4 and the "Rope Rocket" is that the PL4 has a very small operating footprint, while the "Rope Rocket" requires some space to operate. This may be a consideration for some. Both Alexi and Chuck are MSW forum advertisers and their websites are easily accessed from the sponsors' bar on the forum home page.

Correct. They are all quite different vessels. HMS Endeavour was a converted collier, a bulk cargo ship designed to carry coal. I doubt that accurate lines exist for her as she was originally a commercial vessel which was only later bought into the Royal Navy for Cook's voyage of exploration and later used as a troop transport and prison hulk. She was chosen for Cook's voyage due to her carrying capacity and was not designed as, nor built as, a fighting ship. She was scuttled when the British sought to blockade Narragansett Bay in 1778 and may possibly have been located about a year ago. https://www.livescience.com/captain-cook-endeavour-shipwreck-possibly-discovered.html#:~:text=Captain Cook's 'Endeavour' Shipwreck Possibly Discovered Off Rhode Island,-By Tom Metcalfe&text=One of the most famous,Newport Harbor in Rhode Island. Archaeological research is continuing and, if the vessel's identity can be confirmed, we may have some accurate construction details from that. The are a few warship "classes" in which sisterships were built, but there was usually some variation among them as designs evolved as each was constructed. If original draughts exist, further research is required to confirm their accuracy as a basis for a model of a sistership. Simply building to the draughts of one sister and calling it a model of the other adds nothing to the historical record. The plans described in the museum catalog are drawings done for the purpose of building models of the various vessels done between 1946 and 1999. Harold A. Underhill and John W. McKay are respected modelers and authorities on modeling. (Underhill's books are classics which belong in any modeler's library, especially his two volume set, Plank-on-Frame Models) That said, these plans are "secondary sources" and not, without further confirmation, accurate plans of the identified vessels, although some may be. That said, standards for the research of modeled ships have become increasingly more stringent over the years and much has been learned, often by the research of avocational historians for modeling purposes, so it is not unusual for even nicely drawn plans by the earlier "masters" to contain inaccuracies and so can't be taken at face value. What the museum has, given what we know from their catalog, are modern model plans of the three ships drawn by these two modelers, rather than the actual contemporary draughts from which the ships were built. If such plans were used, they should properly be identified as built to the plans drawn by the modern modelers and should be considered their interpretation of the prototypes, depending upon the accuracy of their research. It bears noting that serious modelers of fine original works will make provision for retaining their research materials with the finished model, often incorporating a drawer in the bottom of the model's case to hold a copy of their research and build log. In this fashion, later generations might have all the data, rather than having to guess at the model's accuracy.

Here you go: Well, you asked for it. What's to "bash?" It sounds like you are basically contemplating building a Pride of Baltimore kit, adding a few different cannon, and sticking a Hamilton name on it. Why waste a perfectly good Pride of Baltimore kit? (Pride of Baltimore is a modernly designed Baltimore clipper style vessel. That type has no connection to the Great Lakes, as far as I know.) What may be the case is that you can build a topsail schooner that is neither the Pride of Baltimore, nor the Hamilton, nor any other historically documented vessel. You could perhaps build a generic impression of a certain type of vessel, but that's about it. With apologies to the many modelers who have built attractive models of historic vessels about which we have no historically accurate information sufficient upon which to base a model, the result can never be anything much more than a decorator piece, no different than the untold numbers of imaginary Mayflowers, Ninas, Pintas, and Santa Marias. Reasonable minds may differ, but in my opinion, modelers who make any pretense to modeling an historic vessel are obligated, as a matter of academic ethics, not to put a name on it unless there's some sound historical research behind their build. I'd encourage you to consider doing some research on the contemporary vessels of the Great Lakes area and building an accurate model of one of those for which ample historically reliable data is available. Modern advances in underwater archaeology, particularly in the cold fresh waters of the Great Lakes which can preserve much of the original fabric of sunken wooden vessels, A well-researched accurate model can be a contribution to the historical record. Anything less can never be anything more than historical fiction. **************************************************************************************************************** I actually wrote that post with a bit of trepidation that I might be hurting the feelings of some forumites or be seen as being "elitist" by those with an investment in "lowering the net." There are so many who, understandably enamored with building a ship model, look for the shortest distance between that concept and its completed reality and, to my way of thinking, miss the point completely. To build an historically accurate model of a ship requires a detailed intimate knowledge of what that ship looked like at a particular point in its lifespan as well as how it worked. Without that information, which is occasionally available in the written record, the modeler is faced, at best, with making unavoidable educated guesses. At worst, they drift off into flights of fancy which yield nothing of historical value, and worse, risk compounding errors which may become perpetuated. Academic researchers encounter this frequently with inaccurately constructed contemporary models that are very old. Such may obviously be incorrect depictions of the prototype and from that they have to extrapolate that which is likely historically accurate from that which is merely fanciful. (Biblical scholars have made careers of doing the same: "All of the stories in the Bible are true. Some of them may actually have happened.") To produce ship models, particularly technically well-constructed ship models which have the best chance of surviving for generations, which are historically inaccurate, only risks muddying the waters of the historical record. Rigorous historical research can be a fascinating aspect of the ship modeling hobby. For a true "scratch build" of a model of a ship that's never been modeled before, depending upon the availability of reliable historical documentation, background research can easily take several hours of study for every hour of "model building" once the information necessary to build an accurate model is collected. Indeed, model kits, which are designed to be "assembled" rather than "built," are no absolute guarantee of historical accuracy, either. The experienced serious ship modeler will research their kit model prototype to ensure its accuracy, or rely on reliable reviews by more experience modelers in forums such as this one. A bit of reading will soon make it obvious to the beginner which kit manufacturers adhere to the highest standards of historical accuracy and which are simply selling schlock to the unwitting consumer. There are those who will say, "I do it for fun. It's my model and if I like it, that's good enough for me." For their purposes, I suppose that ends the discussion, but if one wants "to run with the big dogs," have their work judged by recognized academic standards, and perhaps have the time and money they've invested in modeling actually contribute something of value to a wider audience of knowledgeable people, they will endeavor to learn all they can about the subjects they model. Model Ship World and the Nautical Research Guild exist for those who pursue perfection in both historical accuracy and technical expertise. All are welcome, but there are standards if one wishes to be serious about their modeling.

I ran into that phenomenon once when I mistakenly thinned a paint (brand forgotten) with acetone (like lacquer thinner) which was supposed to be thinned with alcohol. It wasn't a "blistering," which is when air or gasses expand beneath the drying paint coating. In my case, it seemed that the acetone caused the binder in the paint to "ball up" or "coagulate" when it hit the surface and when the acetone quickly evaporated and the coat "laid down," I was left with that that rough surface. In my experience, at least, was made up of solids, rather than being "bubbles" as with true blistering. Thoroughly annoyed with myself for overlooking the fact that I'd grabbed a bottle of non-oil-based paint I'd picked up somewhere thinking it was "the good stuff," I solved the problem by starting over with a proper oil-based lacquer and got the perfect finish I wanted. ("l love the smell of solvent in the morning... smells like... like modeling!") Fortunately, I didn't have to sand the ruined coating off the model because, as Vaddoc noted, I always try out a paint on some scrap before applying it to the model. With all the so-called "safe and sane" water-based paint on the market these days you really can't assume that "paint is paint" anymore. With the low-VOC alternatives, you are usually stuck having to use their (grossly overpriced) proprietary paint thinners and conditioners. If one is going to use the acrylics, the best bet is to pick one brand, become thoroughly familiar with how it behaves, and stick with it.