KevinR

Mike don't forget the old "standbys".  A blank door on two or three hand made saw horses works well for a working surface.
If you are near one or two of the big box DYI centers they sell damaged doors, or ones pre-drilled (in error) pretty cheap. Also used furniture stores (like Goodwill) sometimes have desks that will work well in a pinch.
And there are the Habitat for Humanity stores where they sell used doors too.My Dad always said "build it, find it, or get it from scrap, don't buy it new."
He meant when building around the house of course.  
Tom 

This workbench is suppose to be used when  assembling furniture.
For model ship construction I would prefer something like a Watchmaker's Bench  where a lot of storage for small parts is available.
Here is as an example a small project to make one.
http://www.custommade.com/custom/watchmakers-bench/37076/
 
 
 

I am getting close to the end now. Today I built the floor boards. Then added the seats to the boat.  All that is left is the rudder and the rail. I am also thinking about adding washboards to the rails.

Wow Kevin,
 
That little boat looks great. I'll be looking foreward to seeing the finished outcome.
 
Happy Modeling,
Marty G.

I am getting close to the end now. Today I built the floor boards. Then added the seats to the boat.  All that is left is the rudder and the rail. I am also thinking about adding washboards to the rails.

SS Independence  is correct. I would have accepted her sister ship SS Constitution because they were indistinguishable until the Conny's modification for higher passenger count several years later. By that time they were both painted white. They worked the New York to Mediteranean route and later San Francisco to Hawaiian Islands. Built in 1951, they both served in several fleets with changing paint schemes and names over the years. Constitution broke her tow on the way to the scrappers and sank in 1997 and Independence was scrapped in 2009.
 

SS Independence in 1968. She also had the names Oceanic Independence, Sea Luck I, Oceanic and Platinum II.
 

SS Oceanic (ex-Independence) in 2008 under tow to the scrappers. The EPA fined the owners over half
a million dollars for taking her out of US waters for scrapping without the required haz-mat remediation.
 
 
Your turn, David

This is my "fishing schooner" , built on plans found online ( lettie g. howard ) . We work for a few months...
Mauro

It's the ship I got married on. Came to a sad end. SS Independence.

Well, FINALLY!!!!  Here are a couple of shots - not sure how well you can tell the difference, but first is a picture of the shrouds on the fore mast.  These are with the kit supplied thread.
 

 
This shows the shrouds on the main mast using thread from Chuck. I used the brown vs the black - think it is a better approximation for this scale.  To me, the thread looks better than the kit thread but, more importantly, it is much easier to work with!
 

 
 

Name the Ship:

Removed flags and name.
 
Dave

Joseph Conrad, museum ship at Mystic Seaport, Connecticut since 1946.
Built in 1882 named Georg Stage, sold in 1934 and renamed Joseph Conrad, sold and used as Merchant Marine schoolship in 1938.   Recent photo of Joseph Conrad.

I was searching the web and found these images of the Schooner Atlantic.

 
In 2010 a full size replica was built.

 
In all of the pictures of the original Atlantic, the hull is a dark color and the reproduction the hull is black. The kit had me paint the hull ivory. I am thinking about changing the hull to black to better match the original. What do you think?

Today I finished putting the Masts together. The instructions have you cut 1/16" strips of paper and wrap it around the mast 5 times, then around the mast and topmast 4 times.

The first attempt looked better than I was expecting, but was to large. I thought about making the caps out of wood. I made 1 from a scrap piece of wood as a trial. It only looked marginally better than the paper and involved a lot of sanding and shaping. I decided to stick with the paper strips. 
Here is how they turned out.

 

Sorry for the wait, but here it is. It is a little obscure. I think it's uniqueness will make it easy.

Joe,
I think it took me longer to find the picture than for you to get the answer. 
You are Correct.
The Novgorod (Russian: Новгород) was an Imperial Russian warship. It was one of the most unusual warships ever constructed, and still survives in popular naval myth, often described as the "ugliest warship ever built". Together with her near-sister ship Rear Admiral Popov, they were affectionately called "popovkas", after their chief designer. The hull was circular (viewed from the top) intended to be a particularly stable platform for guns but proving to be almost unmaneuverable in practice. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_monitor_Novgorod
 
Your turn Joe.

First up, Welcome One and All !!!
 
For now, my USS Constitution is currently on-hold - although some may (perhaps rightfully) argue that it hasn't even begun.
(At this point, my Connie's boats are almost complete, bulkheads have been faired, keel pieces cut, but that's about it !!)
 
I really must commence this log by stating that, to start with, I wasn't planning on doing another kit along the way.
However, a number of circumstances changed my mind.
 
First and foremost was that my expectations for my own work have grown exponentially since I joined MSW, and this is due purely to all of the amazing builds I have viewed here.
 
Secondly, I feel there are a number of modelling skills which I need to work on before I could possibly hope to do justice to a proper rendition of Ol' Ironsides.
(Especially with the number of Americans here on MSW, I well run the risk of irreparably damaging US-Australian diplomatic relations !!)
 
Third, recently myself and a good friend were discussing a number of matters over a few beers (OK lots of beers !! It was Australia Day !!). At any rate, the topic came, somehow, to the Bounty mutiny. At some point, I brashly stated that "One day, I'll build you a model of the Bounty."
 
To this, my friend replied that he would instead prefer to have a replica of the Mutiny longboat.
(I should mention that this friend is aware of my modelling, and has seen - first-hand - how many years it takes me to do them.)
 
It dawned on me that I could "kill two birds". And so I started to see what was around, read through a number of stunning builds of the same kit, saw some of the pitfalls that have been experienced, and also some of the "bashes" which others have taken to improve their own kits.
(I am a kit-basher !!)
 
As such, this build will be heavily influenced by the works of: UsedToSail, Cap'n Rat Fink, Amfibius, Meredith and others.
Comments, tips and hints graciously accepted.
 
EDIT: For ease of access, here is the link to the Bounty Launch "database" which I created during this build.

Sorry for the wait, but here it is. It is a little obscure. I think it's uniqueness will make it easy.

I can see where that would be a little tough.  Making good progress though.

I ran out of the 1/16x1/16" strips that I needed to finish the ribs. I tried to cut down some of the wood that I did have on hand but the results were disappointing after installing the ribs. So I removed the ribs and bought some more 1/16x1/16" strips. I had problems bending the new strip, the wood grains were not straight, so I got lots of splinters. I ended up splitting some 1/32x1/8" strips into 1/32x1/16". I used 2 pieces laminated together for the remaining ribs. Thinks JSGerson for the idea. It was a lot easier to work with.

Thanks for looking in Sjors. I'm posting a few pictures to show some overall progress. I think it's also helping to motivate me to finish her up since I'm so close to the end of this build.

Today I finished putting the Masts together. The instructions have you cut 1/16" strips of paper and wrap it around the mast 5 times, then around the mast and topmast 4 times.

The first attempt looked better than I was expecting, but was to large. I thought about making the caps out of wood. I made 1 from a scrap piece of wood as a trial. It only looked marginally better than the paper and involved a lot of sanding and shaping. I decided to stick with the paper strips. 
Here is how they turned out.

 

I finished my Pinta.  The tiny little rigging things with the holes in them were really tough, and I had to figure out how to do them on my own.  I am not sure I did them right, but I was pretty proud of myself for doing them.  I am afraid my Pinta did not turn out so great, but I worked hard on it, and I didn't give up.  The boat part ended up looking great, but it is still the masts, sails, and rigging I have a lot of problems with.  My front mast ended up being crooked.  Here is the finished ship:
 

 

 

 

 

 
I am not giving up on model ships.  I am starting the Revell 1:196 Constitution (the small one).  This will be my 2nd time doing it.  This time I am going to do all the painting on it, and do more rigging on this one.  I truly hope I will get better at this the more I do it.  After this one, I am going to do my 1:96 Constitution that I got for Christmas. 

The Sheer Line
The sheer line is made of 1/16” x 1/16” basswood. I debated whether to substitute teak for that or not and decided it would be easier to bend the basswood. I could always stain it to add an accent to the look of the boat if I didn’t like the way it looked against the teak. Because the plans are the same of all sizes of the kit, the plans were reduced to match the size of my kit. The basswood was soaked for a day and pre-bent using a copy of the reduced plans to pin and bend the wood.

Once the wood was bent and dry, it was dry fitted. Here it was discovered that again, either the instructions were not clear or the parts did not match the plans. All of the ribs had notches in the keel, the stem bulkhead did not. This created a disconnect as to how the planking would flow over it. The bulkhead also seemed too narrow so I tried to beef it up by adding more basswood. Even then it appears that I will have to use some wood filler to fill in some of the open gaps.
 
The first sheer line was glued in place with WeldBond at the bow. It will be completed when it is glued to all the remaining ribs and the transom. Of course this will be repeated for the other side.

I figured that one would be quick.
 
HMS Warrior was a Colossus-class light aircraft carrier built for WW2 service in the Indian Ocean but wasn't commissioned until the war was over and was given to Canada where it served as HMCS Warrior from March 1946 to March 1948. Because Warrior was built for tropical service, several systems were not equipped with heaters which didn't work out well for the Canadians (giving her to Canada made as much sense as stationing an ice breaker in Jamaica) so they gave it back for another carrier.
 
Recommissioned in the Royal Navy, HMS Warrior served from 1948 to 1958. For a brief time she was refit with a very slightly angled flight deck. In 1959, decommissioned and on her way back to Britain, Warrior made a call in Argentina to try to sell her. She entered the Argentine Navy in July 1959 as ARA Independencia (V-1). In 1963 Argentina began the transition to jets but soon found that Independencia was unsuitable for jet operations. After ARA Vienticinco de Mayo (V-2), a carrier built for jets, entered the Argentine Navy in 1969, Independencia was moved to the reserve list in 1970, then was scrapped in 1971.
 
Your turn, Andy.