monello

Congratulations on the new job.

Thank you all for the replies and advice. I spoke with a gentlemen this weekend who is very good at woodworking (He has not built a model ship yet, but can clearly see the complexity of such a project). He gave me some valuable advice, the most important of this was that I should NOT use the barrel wood. The shape of the planks are insane and it will just be way too difficult to square these up into useable planks... it would take a lot of skill, experience and tools I cannot afford at this time. So I will now be reading over all your comments again, as some of you have "warned" me that this is not the best wood. I will go see Country Woods, Rare Woods. I'm hoping to buy wood that will be closer to planks I'll need. I will go digging through this forum to find out what the best woods are, I'm sure this topic has been discussed many times. So still not quitting, but still no progress either... what did I get myself into here?!

Expense is the problem at the moment. I've spent so much already and still cannot get nice workflow going. I think the problem might be the wood I'm trying to size, It's all curved to the shape of wine barrels, actually whiskey barrels, so I need to figure out a plan to either work with this wood or buy some wood that is flat and only needs sizing. I don't know Am a bit discouraged at the moment. WIll see how it goes, but agree I need better tools.

Hi Alan I hope you are wrong, but I think now is the best time to find out. I'll see how is goes for now, but my biggest problem is getting the planks from curved to straight so that I have something to work with! I may have to pay Rare Woods a visit and see if I can buy some more better wood.

So it took me a while and many trial and error attempts, restarts, throwing tools across the room and a good dose of madness, but I build my own table saw. I was hoping the cuts would be more accurate than they are, but I'm going to use is to get the planks close to size (instead of perfectly on size) and then sand it to perfect size using the sander. Started with a Circular Saw and added some Aluminium strips that extend the foot so I can attach the saw to a frame. Made a frame and attached the saw to it... Added a table top to it And added some channels for the fence to run in And finally added a fence. It works okay, but for all the effort of the last couple of weeks (this is version 3 of the saw!!) I was hoping for more accurate cuts. So now I'll try to rip the wine barrel planks down to a cut list and HOPEFULLY... FINALLY have some progress to show on the actual model.

Wow, that musket is truly amazing!

Thank you Toni I really like your suggestions!

I scroll through your work often and am always blown away at the thought that 1 person did all this!

This weekend I got a whole new level of respect for what you all do! I started building on my model and as you can see from the pictures below, it did not go entirely as well as planned. It took me approx. 90 minutes to make 1 piece. I got as far as 2 pieces. The shape of the 2 sections of the keel I made came out fairly well, but as soon as I attempted the scarphs/joins I quickly knew I was in deep trouble. I started with the piece of the barrel wood. The lay the cut-out over it to get a rough idea if the sizes to cut it down to. And cut it.... I then realized that I need something more accurate and effective than a jig saw to get this piece down to size. I had no choice but to abuse the scroll saw and belt sander. And eventually got it to shape you see in the first 2 pics. Alas! I will re-start again the entire thing soon, but I did learn the following: 1. I cannot dream of doing this project without a table saw. 2. I thought I'd be able to cut the wine barrel planks close to size with a jig saw, then plane them down to size with the belt sander and cut the scarphs with the scroll saw... was I wrong! I will be saving for a table saw first as I need a way to cut the wood to the correct sizes. I wish I could afford a proper planer. (Any alternative tips very welcome). I guess I didn't do too badly to get the wood to size, but I spent way too much time on the belt sander. A table saw will get me much closer and be a lot more accurate. As for the vertical joins in the keel, I will be using the Dremel tool on it's stand (workstation) with the router bit and a new angle table I built. A few tests I did worked okay, but it will still take rather long. I guess I'll be back as soon as I have my tools situation sorted out. And so the learning begins...

Hi Allan Thanks I've seen those plans yes, very pricey. I think I'm sorted for a while with my McKay plans. I did make some saw dust this weekend. I'll post some pics.

Hi Allan That is good to hear. I will most likely take longer than 8 years, but who's timing us anyway. Many people have commented on the size of the (yet non-existent) model, and I feel like a bit of a "cheat" as I specifically decided on a larger size hoping it would be EASIER to create all the detail when building from scratch and in my completely inexperienced mind that "cheat" still makes sense, however there is also another reason for this specific size... and it is actually a bit of a funny story. After some research on the ideal model ship I'd like to build, I picked the Victory. (The reasons why Victory, are another topic all together.) So, as many of you, I bought the book "100 Gunship Victory" (this is more than 10 years ago now). At the time I had no access to computers and scanners etc, just a photocopier, which happened to have had the functionality to enlarge drawings 250%. Immediately a light went on in this chronically-over-ambitious mind of mine. The plan was simple: (1) copy all the drawings in the book and enlarge them 250%, (2) rinse and repeat.... and that got me from the original 1:192 scale in the book to 1:38, which felt like a decent size at the time. The only other problem was this copier could only print A4 size so I had to cut and glue countless sheets of paper, not to mention keeping all the sheets in order and I quickly realized I needed a better plan LOL The point is that since then, in my blissful ignorance, I had my heart set on a 1:38 size model. Of course, lots of research later I realized its a tad larger than the average modeler's project, but what the heck, I'm going to stick to this plan... its too late to change my mind now anyway as I've done way too much planning and scaling on this size.

Hi Alexandru Yes your build (not to take away anything from all the other fantastic build logs on this site) was the one that originally truly inspired me. In fact I was Googl'ing something to the likes of "HMS Victory models ships" and found your log which lead me to this Model Ship World. I will be copying your work in many ways and really hope you don't mind. My tools are a few levels more amateur than yours, but lets see were this takes me. Yes. its been quite some time since I asked you about the plans. I bought the plans at a smaller scale than I'm building, so I've spent most of my time since we last spoke to scale and trace them. Thank you for checking in.

Thank you mij, So far this members here have been extremely supportive, its truly motivating me to at least keep the posts coming even if I'm yet to lay the keel. That will happen soon... promise

I'm not sure what you mean by cutaways :/, but I think I get the gist of your question. Yes I will be building her up deck by deck. Fitting at much detail as I can (time will tell what that last few words really mean haha) I recently purchased 160 LEDs that flicker like candles so will even attempt to rig up lanterns that each flicker independently as if it has a candle in it.

I have completed scaling and tracing the plans of the Keel. Here they are printed, ready to be cut. This weekend should then see the official start of my build...