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I have since I was a child been interested in models. The interest first emerge when I at 12 years of age visited the Wasa museum in Stockholm and laid eyes on their 1/10 model of the ship. Since then I have but some plastic models under my belt but I have a very limited experience with wooden models. I tried to build the Gothenburg from Billing Boats but quickly realized that the instructions provided was not enough for someone with my limited experience and the build was soon abandoned. A couple of month ago I stumble across DeAgostini and their monthly subscription models. Their models come with very detailed instructions and some of the models even with videos. I decided to give wooden models a new chance and subscribed to the flagship of Louis XIV (the sun king and builder of Versailles), the Soleil Royal. I decided to wait until I had received two monthly packs before I begun building and now they are both finally here. Let’s get on building. Since I’m a beginner all advice and feedback is appreciated. I apologize if my English is not the best, it’s not my first language. Morgan -
Starting small but already things have gone a bit off. This is my first wooden boat and just learning the jargon has been one of the hardest parts. I’ve read Ansel’s whaleboat book and I’m looking up words like when I was struggling mightily Russian class back in college; clumsy cleat? thwart? Here goes nothin. -
Greetings all! My first post is to display the find that brought me here. I found this kit in a thrift store down the street. They wanted $100 for it, but gave me a military discount! I was thrilled, since I have been to see the ship when I was on a business trip in Boston. It really made an impression on me. I enjoyed the museum. I learned about the time during a storm when the ship came loose from its lines and was swinging around on its remaining moorings. It swung into the modern steel warship moored next to it and did extreme damage to it, while taking only scratches itself. An amazing ship, undefeated in battle (even if it required her crew to man the boats and tow her out of the doldrums.) My background in making stuff is mixed. Plane models as a kid, home repair, car modifications, machining, and extensive gunsmithing. I have never done anything more detailed in wood than a pinewood derby car, but I'm ex-military, and believe I can follow a manual. Looks like everything is here. We'll see! -
Hello, my name is Samuel and this is my build log. This is my very first build, and I am super excited about it. Like I said in my introduction post, I was gifted a wooden kit of the HMS Bounty 1:110 (Constructo) a few years back and never got around to building it because I was scared of messing it all up. Now as I am a little older I started it as an "end of summer project" and I think I am about 3 weeks in and the ship looks good so far. There is still a lot of work to do, and I know I will not be able to complete it before I head back to school in the fall. I plan to post photos of the ship after every addition that I add, and will probably ask a few questions about how to do a particular step(s) and look forward to the day that I can show my friends the work that I put in on this ship. Attached you will see some photos of the ship once i decided to start documenting my work, and you should be able to see a very slight progression as time passed. I will also be posting a photo of the box and ideal finished product. Let me know if you would like any more photos and I will do my best to post them and answer and questions that you all may have for me. Here is the link to my "new member post" -
While showing my grandson the Zebulon B. Vance progress I gave him my magnifiers and let him trim a PE stanchion. Since he's a first rate Lego constructor he did an admirable job of trimming, but finished with a question about whether anyone makes a kit with bigger pieces for beginners. I jumped onto Bluejacket's web page after he left and found the perfect answer, the Skiff wooden kit. Big, with not too many pieces to help ensure a timely and successful finish. When I revealed it to him he said a great idea would be for us to have a blog(!) to see if anyone is interested and to see where and how far away the other shipbuilders live. So this will be an on again, off again build dependent upon how often we can steal him from Mom and Dad for an overnight visit. The goal is to have Legodude (his choice) do the building with guidance limited to explaining the instructions and how to read a drawing. -
Greetings, all I haven't built a model in years, so the Flattie seems like a perfect kit to start with. I've already begun the build, and I'm enjoying it very much. It's great to be able to return to model making after building some patience and perserverance I lacked as a kid. Very rewarding Speaking of patience and perserverance--I have no experience w/ social media, and I'm still trying to figure out how to manage getting pictures from my phone to the log. I've got the pics, but but darned if I can figure out the rest of it. So here goes-- I believe Midwest has stopped selling this model, but I found one at a good price on Ebay. The kit had been opened and the parts had been seperated from the sheets, but I figured that if I had the plans, I could replace any missing pieces. As it turned out, the kit arrived complete, with all pieces present and labled. So off to the hobby shop for supplies. It's fun going to there w/ money in your pocket, unlike the old days when the best I could do was pilfer the old man's razor blade. Boy, did my fingers take beating. -
Greetings all, I am in the process of making my first attempt at building a wooden ship. The kit i have started on is the "King of the Mississippi" by Artesania Latina. I look forward to advice as I progress. -
First build here, i read somewhere that the first kits have detailed instructions that build your knowledge base to know how to fill in the blanks when it comes to the less detailed instructions on the larger / more complex kits.. if that's the case I sure am glad i started with this little guy because i'm really struggling with the instructions! The miniature furniture kits / scratch-build tutorials i've worked off of have been drowning in detail. The build was going reasonably smoothly until I got the planking, where the instructions call for installing the sheeting, after rummaging through the kit a few times looking for a sheet of planks I decided it must be another name for strip wood. I didn't question this until i was securing the deck and the spacing between planks grew out of scale that I started second guessing and, digging through the kit one more time, found a pile of veneer strips - at this point i'm not sure if i've used my hull materials as planking or not! The images all appear to be strip wood, so i'm going to carry on and assume everything is fine. It's incredibly difficult to tell from any of the images online which wood was used, i seem to be the only one having this existential crisis. Yesterday was spent sanding / sealing the decks and today I will tackle filing down the ribs so I can start working on the hull. -
Hello All and welcome to my build log! To make things clear - I'm a genuine beginner that only recently became interested in this wonderful hobby. I've never attempted anything similar or even worked with wood before. If you're just like me then this thread might serve as a great example of what can you expect from your first build. I'll do my best to cover not only my successes but also the failures. To kick things off I should probably show you the contents of the box, but then again there are already 12 other Pickle build logs on this forum and numerous other reviews available online. I'm also (obviously) not an expert and won't pretend that I'm capable of judging the quality or historic accuracy of the kit, so I've allowed myself to skip this bit. I will however tell you in a nutshell what made me go with this particular kit for my first build. This was mainly due to: - Caldercraft being a highly respected manufacturer, often acclaimed for high quality of materials. - The fact that the instructions are available online, so I could have a look of what's to come and reassure myself that I can do it. - Many other build logs available on the forum. - I'll be honest with you - the copper plating stole my heart. You can see where I'm currently at with the actual build below - I've glued bulkheads 1-8 in place (made sure that the angles are right with Lego parts). The keel was a bit bendy, so I've added some reinforcements between bulkheads 2/3, 3/4, 4/5 and 5/6. Good idea (I think) but poor execution means that there is still a slight bend, but it's not nearly as big as before. I've glued the plank termination patterns in place (11 and upside down 12 on the photo below) and am currently wondering: Should I add filler blocks here? I've seen some people do it and others not really and am a bit confused. I also had a go at the bearding line and trimming bulkheads 7 and 8, so that they fit it. Not sure if this was done correctly - I did this according to the instructions, but I've seen that quite a lot of people left the bulkheads alone and adjusted the bearding line instead. That's it for now. All comments welcome. -
Ok, so this will be my first build. I have decided to go with the 18th Century Longboat due to price, no rigging to really worry about, and the fact that there are so many really good build logs on here to assist me. Please forgive that I am already a little ways into the build at the time of my starting this log. I was not sure I wanted to do a build log on my first build, but I figured it would be a really good way for me to learn from all of your feedback and advice. So here goes. I used legos' to square up my bulkheads when attaching them to the keel (please correct me if I use the wrong terminology, still learning), it worked pretty well. I did break the small piece off of the keel, hopefully my repair is done well enough that it does not cause me problems down the road. The only question I have at this point is I read in one of the build logs that the top of the bulkheads should not make a sweeping arc but should be all at the same height, but I looked at several build logs and it appears that mine sweep like many others do. Input please. I want this build to be as good as I can make it, I am very detailed and truly a bit OCD with anything I do, serves me well as a quality engineer. Thanks ahead of time for all your feedback as I go through this first build, I have a lot to learn. Installed software to get pics from iphone to computer, have to restart, so pictures will follow shortly.
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Got the kit for Christmas, convinced my wife to let me into it early. Been going on it for about a week now. Kinda crazy all the additional little purchases you need to make to aid in the build. This image is from a few days ago. I had seen different recommendations on how to paint (I'm REALLY new to this) as far as priming, thinning, enamel vs acrylic. I decided to go with enamel, no priming or thinning so that I wouldn't have to paint the whole hull black, but I'm regretting that a little now and I'll probably have to go back through and paint all the black to get rid of the little mistakes I made with the white. I taped off the waterline to get a nice clean line, but there was some seepage in places, more drastic in others as well... I cleaned that by taking a Q-tip soaked in thinner and rubbed it off, same as I did with the white, which you can tell it kinda left smears, a few more wipes with a clean Q-tip and it mostly went away. You also can't really tell in the picture, but there are obvious brushstrokes in the copper plating below the waterline and I don't really know how to get rid of them. I'm thinking I just need to paint another coat with some thinned paint. From here on out, I'm going to be priming any large part that I need to paint (decks, mast, etc.), and thinning at a paint to thinner ratio of 15:1. Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated. -Galen -
17th Century Longboat (First Build)
Derek C posted a gallery image in Gallery of COMPLETED Kit-Built Ship Models
From the album: 17th Century Longboat
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From the album: 17th Century Longboat
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January 2014 – After 21 years of sitting in a large box of packing peanuts I decided to resurrect the Mamoli Constitution. Luckily I had packed everything carefully. The ship’s hull and some of the tools were in the box, the remaining wood and parts were taped up in the original kit box. The scale of the model is 1:93. I pulled the plans and started to review where I left the build off. I had completed the outer hull (which is double planked on bulkheads), including the green tiles representing each of the copper plates. The main deck was not planked and the forward bulkhead while started only had one plank on one side. I completed the forward bulkhead and proceeded to plank the deck. According to the instructions, each piece of Tanganyika needed to be cut to 80mm, then using a No.2 pencil you color the edges on both sides and the butt ends. I used white wood glue to glue the pieces down. I marked with pencil each of the deck penetrations, which were already done in the plywood. Then I carefully cut the wood and sanded/filed the edges back to the original hole size. This is an area where I see a fairly significant difference in the Mamoli plans and the Model Shipyards. The MS builds the hull in the bow into what becomes the forward bulkhead. The Mamoli construction includes the bow in the planking and adds the forward bulkhead once the hull is complete. This also means the bow is approached differently. I will get to that later. Once the deck was completed I put on the handrails. At this point, I decided a couple of points. First, my plan was to paint the model using the Constitution plaint set from MS and secondly, I wanted to modify the bow and the stern ornamentation to be more closely aligned with the looks of the MS model. This meant creating a method to add the scrollwork since the Mamoli did not include it other than two white metal plates to be affixed to the bow for the fiddlehead design. Secondly the stern did not have the two boards that ran from the lower stern over the windows and back down producing a nice double curve. These I created using 2x2mm walnut strips I bent with the heat bender. As a note, I found out that adding CA to the sides of the strip before I bent it allowed me to control the splintering which the walnut was prone to do. This might have had something to do with the wood strips being over 21 years old. Stern Galleries The kit came with two white metal pieces for the windows in the stern galleries. One was curved almost correctly, the other was straight. Unfortunately, when trying to bend the metal for the gallery, it broke along the central vertical piece between the windows. I was afraid to heat it before I bent it. I found both of the gallery pieces required much work in sanding and shaping before they could be glued into the model. Since I was painting the ship I could use sandable epoxy putty to add to smooth the pieces to the hull. I did end up having to remove more of this than planned since I thought the top of the gallery was more curved than flat. I used my Foredom Rotary tool, rilflers, sand paper, and dental tools to carve the gallery sides and put the modeling details back into it where I either ended up sanding them out, or they needed to be made to extend through the putty. I then added the 2x2 walnut strips around the stern and completed the stern with the side strips running down the gallery aft sides. These I extended 2 mm to match the 2x2s I added around the windows. The attached photo shows the Starboard Gallery. You can see the frame break on the bottom of the leftmost window. This was patched before painting. -
The following is the reconstruction of my build logs for the Sherbourne following temporary loss of the Model Ship World Site in February 2013. First posted May 6th 2012. === It started with a birthday present in January of £200 from my daughter. What could I possibly want that would have some meaning over the year? I suddenly remembered that as a younger chap I had really enjoyed rigging plastic model ships, and had had a long-time yearning to work with wood. So on to the web, find out about ship models. Amazon for books, found 'The New Period Ship Handbook' by Keith Julier. It didn't give much (any) detail, but I thought maybe the Lady Nelson would be good. So researched that. Found this forum. Many days reading the variety of experience. Asked questions, thought about the Chatham as well, tried to get it but it was out of stock, so bought the Sherbourne Kit. My plan was not to go for the perfection of the other builds, but to get a basic understanding of the whole process, as I knew I would be making some frightful mistakes, and likely to be a bit messy as well. How right I was! Read all the planking advice on the Database, how to make filler blocks etc, then plunged in. Bought the kit, checked all the parts, stuck the tiddly little ones into the bags in the photo, put the frame together. Thought I'd be a clever little so-and-so and follow Danny's suggestion of inserting nuts in the hull to take pedestals at some future date. Even lined the bolts up with the bulkheads and epoxied the nuts in -- ensuring no glue was caught in the threads. All well and good ... so far. -
This topic is created to show the build of my first model ship, which is a Cutty Sark (not the easiest one to start with I agree, but I have patience ). The kit is from Del Prado (no longer on the market) and bought the complete set from ebay. This kit was sold in 100 different packages, I guess there were weekly issues that could be bought from newstands or order to home. My package supposedly was sitting in a cellar or attic, and seems to have everything I need to build the complete ship. I have read many bad things about Del Prado - mostly of the scale and the not accurate details (of which I can live with without any problem). After scanning through all the packages I found a few broken pieces what I will have to recreate somehow, and one major problem.... The figurehead Del Prado provided in the sealed package is of the HMS Victory and not the Cutty Sark, so either I use that (unlikely) or reproduce the original figurehead once I got there (more likely). Also I decided to create some minor upgrades to the build if possible (not redesigning the model or changing the scale, but mostly adding extra feature). For this I am closely monitoring Nenad's and Bob's log of their build. Now the reason: I am not a new guy in modelling, I usually work on dioramas of WWII, building in 1:35 scale, using kits, natural materials and polystirol. Recently less kits and most scratch work of my own. Since I am not only making tanks and figures I usually take up half to room (nearly half the flat we live) for my hobby, so my wife (from now on my Admiral) told me to create a Sail ship for her, so I took the challenge, and her we go.... Pictures to come later Gyula -
Here is my very first ship build, the Carmen 1850, from Constructo, scale 1:80. It is described as a small freight schooner, of 250 tons capacity, that was able to survive in an age of steam ships due to lower freight charges. I retired on May 1st, and received the kit on May 23rd. I chose the kit because of the simplified rigging, fine looking lines, and reasonable cost. It also came with some tools, which turned out to be of much higher quality than I expected. I still use them. Aaaaarrrrrrr! Here be the unpacking. I must admit to being intimidated with the contents: flat boards, bundles of sticks, and what looked like millions of teeny, tiny parts. Although it also comes with a fine color-illustrated assembly booklet, it doesn't give detail instructions of how to get to the beautifully pictured build points. In my ignorance , I frantically scoured the internet for pointers. I wish I had discovered MSW before plunging ahead. Beginning in June, I commenced building. Here's what I called my "fish bones". As a first attempt at framing, I "eyeballed" the alignment of the parts. I was pleased with the results at first, but payed for my lack of precision several times later. I glued down the deck and planked it. Well, actually it didn't go that smoothly. I marked one side of the deck planks with a black marker pen, and was alarmed to see how much the ink bled through. But after lining up the planks, I was relieved to see how the deck had an aged look to it. I glued down the planks with contact glue. The instructions said to glue each surface, wait a couple minutes, then press together. The planks only stuck to my fingers. So finally, after a liberal addition of sailor language, I persuaded the planks to stick. Unfortunately, a few have some space between them. I made cuts across the planks and punched two holes on each side of the cuts with a mechanical pencil to represent nails. -
Hey everyone, My name is Max and I am in the middle of my first attempt at a Model Shipways kit, the Phantom. I had a build log going on MSW 1.0 but that is gone now so I will pick up where I left off. I have more or less been following Chuck's practicum but I strayed from it some and got some ideas from others who had build logs of this kit before. I haven't worked on this kit much in the past few months because of college and my wife and I recently bought our first home and I have been doing projects around the house, ect... Anyways, I have a decent setup started in my garage and this will probably be a much better place to build than in our last house we were renting because i was building in our guest bedroom/wife's sewing room/my hobby room and it wasn't ideal to say the least lol. Pictures to come... I will edit this post and add pictures as soon as I find a photo editing software that will allow me to reduce the size of the photos since we can only upload 2mb files. Anyone remember the name off the software that was recommended on MSW 1.0? If so, do you have the link to download it? Thanks in advance! I am super excited to get going on this build again, it has been too long and I really enjoyed building her up until this point. Until next time, -Max -
Reading this forum has helped me so much, so I though of sharing my first build project with Mayflower by Constructo kit. Specially pictures have been great help because these instructions (at least for a newbie) has been awful. Secondly I didn't exactly know what I actually started, before I needed to do first hull plank pending... Since I started this project few weeks ago, I try to put dates to different phazes that might help some newbie like me getting the understading how long it takes . Project starting 10.4. 12.4. Keelson, frames and false decks glued. These were ready cut parts so it was simple. First mistake: At this point I measured ~ish by eye that everything was in 90 degress angle (I come to this later, but it might be that this caused a slight pending of the hull later (or the fact that I used slightly force in hull plank pending). -
I started this project in summer 2012. I choose this kit after browsing and reading many of the build logs in MSW 1.0, and because it has only one mast (I’m not much of a seaman except in the rather romantic way of reading Patrick O’Brian’s novels for the second time). The box contained all the promised parts in an orderly fashion, and a very short/thin instruction booklet. But there is help: Watch and learn on MSW 2.0 (in my case especially from Tony’s Sherbourne at http://modelshipworld.com/index.php?/topic/335-hmc-sherbourne-by-tkay11-–-caldercraft-–-scale-164-1763-a-novice’s-caldercraft-sherbourne/) Download the construction manual of Caldercraft’s Brig Badger, it explains and illustrates a lot of the details (i.e. principle of hull construction, guns …) which are very similar to the Sherbourne (http://www.jotika-ltd.com/Pages/1024768/Manuals_Badger.htm) Buy George Bandurek’s book “Super-detailing the cutter Sherbourne” (http://www.grbsolutions.co.uk/5.html), an inspiring guide to make much more out of a beginners kit Keel, bulkheads and deck came first, then balsa fillers fore and aft. Then I soaked the plywood bulwarks before bending them with the help of tea mugs and a good bottle. -
Hi everyone, I decided to go with Corel's Scotland kit as my first build. I started it a few days ago, but first, an unboxing picture: Getting the bulkheads to fit into the keel properly took a lot of adjusting with needle files. Once I was satisfied with the alignment, I glued with them in place with glue gun and CA. A long nozzle attachment for my glue gun might be very useful for hard to reach places. Final result looks like this: Can someone who is building this let me know whether part 12 (3x3 Walnut strip) comes already tapered at the front end like in the middle picture on page 7 in the instructions? I did find Walnut strip, but it has flat ends. Also, am I supposed to cut it to fit it on the stern? Thanks! -
Hello, Started first build 1/15 and just got bulkheads glued on. -
This is my first build ever & my first build log. My kit arrived this morning!! I decided to go with a typical Mediterranean trawler and apparently the kit comes complete with all needed tools. Dimensions: 280×185×70mm -
This is my first build, I haven't been able to work on it much as of late due to grad school taking up all my time. But I am going to post pictures and some info. Hopefully I'll be able to get a little work on it done here and there, I know I will have many many questions as I progress along. The typical first picture. Getting started with the build. The shape is coming together. Adding the planks. Lots of sanding happened here. First look of the inside. And we are up to date. If anyone sees anything that I might have missed or needs fixing, please don't hesitate to let me know. This is after all my fist build ever. I am always open to criticism and suggestions. I see that I am going to have to do some soldering, I have never done this, and I don't have any of the tools. What do I need to get to do a good job and make my life as easy as possible. -joshukr- -
Hi every one and welcome to my Modelshipways USS Syren Kit build log. (This is a re-post of my original log posted last week and may differ somwhat from that original posting) I purchased this kit from Piel Craftsmen of Newburyport, MA. Bill over there is great to deal with and the purchase experience was a pleasure. This will be my first attempt at modeling a model ship. While the Syren is a pretty complex ship for a beginner, I felt that the excellent practicum included with the kit by Chuck would be a great help and make the kit approachable for even a beginner as long as I take my time. (Which I am finding difficult, because as I progress I become more an more anxious to feel the satisfaction that comes with successfully completing each step). As you view my build log I encourange anyone to chime in when they see something I could be doing better or just to provide some freindly advice. A word of advice of my own...write your log in another word processing program (like Word or Text Editor) and cut and paste it into the forum's editor when you're done...this will save you a ton of extra work in the event that you lose connectivity mid-post or experience a page expire/timeout. Also you'll have a record of your work in the event there's ever an issue with the site. EDIT: I thought it might be a good idea to list some of the tools I found essential to the build as I encounter them here: 1. A good vise with a suction base and swivel head. 2. A Mitre Box. (I used X-acto's mitre box. but for cutting the fillers and larger pieces a large on may be useful) 3. Calipers!! I used a digital set on I got on Amazon cheap. 4. Good metal straight edge (large and small) 5. Clamps (of all types and sizes, can't have enough) 6. Good brushes of all sizes. I use a synthetic for applying wood glue as well. Just soak in apple cider vinegar between uses to keep clean. 7. A small square with a level bulb. Empire Level E255 is what I use. 8. Graduated cups for mixing stains at measured ratios (so you can repeat the look). Harware stores have them in the paint section. 9. Good set of needle files. I use an X-acto 73610 set that has several small files with different cross-sections (Flat, Rounded, Square etc) 10. A good rotary tool. I have a Dremel and a Smaller Proxxon. Use the smaller one more. 11. A small micro or pen sander, I use a Proxxon 28594 here and it has save TONS of time. The paper wears out quick though. 12. A good sanding block 13. Sandpaper: 80, 110 and 320 grits at a minimum. 14. Wood Filler. I use Zar Neutral. Wood not included with kit 15. 5/32 x 1/32 wood strips (at least 2 for upper whales) 16/ 12 x 6 x 1/16 Basswood sheet for bulwark rails. 17. Balsa for bulkhead filler blocks. Thanks for reading.... Next Up....Bulkhead Former, Rabbit and Keel.
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