Pirate adam

It is totally up to you, but I would paint them. There are plenty of people that build plastic models and don’t paint them at all. The Britmodeller forum has tons of good info on plastic models and painting. Very helpful and likeminded group to this one. Adam

I was recently lucky enough to make a visit to the museum at the Naval Academy in Annapolis. I told my wife I am basically going for something like the ship below. I'm not sure she was convinced. I would 1000% recommend the museum at the academy (and visiting the academy in general) for anyone who gets a chance. The collection is amazing and either really inspiring or a tad demoralizing if you are into ship model building. I have been to most of the big museums, and there is really nothing like it at this point.

Un-stuck and back to building. I had to do bit of re-drafting on my plans before I was finally sure I more or less have the stern assembly right. Tricky to get the waterlines right around the transoms. Lots of foam board mockups before I was convinced. I have the transoms made and the stern deadwood and stern post assembly glued up. There is a pesky little gap in the front of the sternpost where I cut a mortise I shouldn't have in the front part of the post. I will fill it in later, but it will be covered up anyway. Still some cleaning up to do, but overall I am happy so far.

I use something called 3 in 1 oil on my Sherline chucks. One thing to keep in mind is that no matter what type of oil you use some will inevitably fly out when you turn on the lathe for the first time. It is worth making sure nothing is in the area that you don’t want to get oil machine oil on. Adam

I meant Porcupine, not Porpoise. That's what I get for trying to type while eating a plate of nachos. Adam

This conversation is interesting to me, as I am working on a POF model of another of the Porpoise class ships the HMS Crocodile 1781. I am working from my interpretation of the admiralty draughts from the NMM. Working from the draughts is definitely something that “builds character” lol, as there is never ending learning to figure out how they guys did things back then. One thing I would mention is I am deeply skeptical of the frame configuration in the Pandora book. The authors don’t list a framing drawing in their references, and their drawings show a design that makes immense use of filling frames in a way that doesn’t seem practical. I have the book, and it is a fantastic reference. That said I think the authors had to do a lot of guessing due to the drawings available. The National Maritime Museum has admiralty draughts of some of the ships in the class (see Hyena 1788) but they only show some of the frames. For my model I have recreated (ie, guessed) at the layout from the scantlings and what seems to make sense from the admiralty draughts. I ended up with something very similar the the HMS Sphinx 1775 framing patterns which they have available at the NMM. You might check the Sphinx drawings as a reference, as it is a very similar ship. I just guessed at the structure of the head based on the designs in the Swan and Naiad books. You can see where I netted out in my Crocodile log. My conclusions were very similar to thukydides above. Adam

Alan, That really stinks, but look on the bright side. That is way better news than you won’t be posting for a while because you are off to spend some time behind bars or got a horrible medical diagnosis. It will go lots faster the second time around, because you have answered so many questions and figured out so many challenges the first time. Just stick with it. This will be an amazing model in the end. The fact you weren’t willing to just settle with the wrong deck position is testament to that. It would have been really easy to just decide to model the lower decks with port lids closed and move on, but you didn’t. Adam

That will be an impressive fleet!

My build board for Crocodile is 36" x 16". This is for a 6th rate 114' 3" on the gun deck. The nice thing about this size is pre-finished melamine shelf boards are readily available in this size. You can see in the picture that I have pasted the framing diagram to the board. That gives a good indication of how much space will be available around the hull (I would heartily recommend doing the same or at least making a paper mock up based on widest frame and length of ship as per Mike's recommendation). Believe it or not in real life the centerline of the framing diagram is right in the center of the board. I would probably make another 6" longer if I was to do over again. You can see the stern is getting a bit close to the edge. I went with the t-tracks closer to the edge vs. closer to the model. I originally had in mind to do a build board that could be used later for a 4th rate ship, but the size was going to be a hassle for something that might never be used. The nice thing about the size I have is it is easy to move around for cleaning, putting in back seat of a car, whatever. It will surely start to get heavy once the hull comes together. You may consider putting some handles on the ends. Adam

I have been fortunate enough to have been able to build a nice collection of model building tools over the years. I have a Sherline lathe and love it. With that as context, I am in agreement with Greg that a lathe is not only not required for making masts and spars, it really isn’t that great a tool for it. The reason I say that is most masts and spars have lots of sections that aren’t round. It is usually easier to start with a piece of wood with a square section, then cut or file that into an octagon. Once you have an octagon it is usually quite easy to create the round sections with plain old sandpaper. I have found that to be tons easier than using the lathe. Making spars on a lathe is actually weirdly difficult. There are lots of examples of making masts that way on this site. If you are looking to buy a lathe that would be good for both ship model and woodworking projects, I would recommend looking at some of the mini and midi lathes sold by Woodcraft, Rockler, or others. Just my 2 cents worth. Opinions vary. Adam

Wow that is really looking great. I love how the window turned out. Adam

Windex will also usually work for acrylic paints. Generally the longer they have dried the harder to remove. Adam

Congratulations! What a beautiful model. Great work. Adam

Finally some progress. I will not say that the lower apron has been one of my favorite parts to make, but went together without any drama. The upper apron was weirdly way more trouble and resulted in a cut finger, but nothing serious. I told my wife that no wood ship model has ever been built without at least a little blood included. She told me to be more careful. Knee of the head and forward portions of the keelson won't be attached until later, but they have been sanded to fit. I'm amazed at how big the chunks of wood and complexity of fabrication must been like on this portion of the ship in real life. Adam

Kevin, It is really neat you have a ship with a tie to your family history. I will offer my two cents on the scale. Years ago I started a model of HMS Alfred using the Harold Hahn plans at 1/8th scale. I did a ton of work on the framing and put it on the shelf after finding myself constantly frustrated with the tiny scale. I also find it just doesn’t have the same “feel” of the 1/4th scale models. I don’t know if I will ever finish it, although I keep it safe. I get so much more satisfaction out of my Washington galley at 1/48. I spent a ton of time thinking about this topic before I started my Crocodile which is just a bit larger than a Swan class. I spent a lot of time looking for pictures of models with people in the pictures for perspective and thinking about where that would fit in the house. Have you considered 1:60 (1/5) scale? It is kind of an unusual scale (not that unusual actually if you look at the National Maritime Museum models), but it is the one used in the Naiad books by Ed Tosti. I read those books constantly, and the parts in the drawings still seem manageable. His build log was super inspiring. It doesn’t quite split the difference between your 2 scales, but would knock off some size. I love following your Thorn. I bet it would love a big brother Adam