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After a month of work on my new project it's at the stage where I suspect it might turn into something worth continuing so here it is... A Cruizer class brig in 1:36 scale which is (hopefully) destined to be a working RC square rigged sailer. I've kicked this project off before finishing the rigging on my current Granado build after seeing a few build logs and being filled with inspiration and a reckless confidence to simply have a go. It's a good vessel to practice on as it's relatively simple with flush decks, only two masts and little decoration. I can experiment with the rc servos, ballast keel and sail operation once the hull and masts are done and if it works then move on to the nice to have items like head rails, carronades and deck fittings. The cruizer was a possibility for my next scratch build originally planned at 1/64 but I'd helped my father build the 1:20 scale Valdivia schooner kit from Robbe a few years back and being so taken with sailing it that I wanted one of my own. I'd love a 1:24 scale RC Surprise or cruizer from Steel Chapman and Hutchinson Ltd http://www.modelsailingships.com/ships/grasshopper.html But it's out of my price range once freight etc is taken into account, hence an effort to scratch build, especially after seeing the very informative logs from Jerry Todd for his Macedonian, Constitution and others. 1:36 was chosen as it's large enough to look the part and have some sailing ability and be easily managed with a length of 84cm on the gun deck. If successful with the brig the ultimate goal is a frigate and at 1:36 scale a large vessel like an Artois class frigate of 146 feet on the gun deck would be just manageable for transport and launch at roughly 120cm. But that's pretty optimistic at this stage and I've got a lot to learn yet. The plans for this vessel are those included in EW Petrejus' fine book 'modelling the brig of war Irene' scaled up with bulkhead widths and deadwood for building purposes etc drawn in. Using relatively cheap materials was a must for this project as there's still an element of doubt over if it will work. If it doesn't I don't want to feel like it's been a huge investment that fails. As such the brig will be built from 9mm plywood for the framing with the keel and planking from matai - a New Zealand native timber which is moderately hard enough to hold detail at this scale while still easy to work and has a nice tone although the brig will be painted anyway. The matai is in the form of old tongue and groove floorboards from a demolition yard that are going for about $6/metre for short lengths that are pretty much unusable for anything else. I can mill these on my table saw and with a home built thickness sander. The hull will be built upside down on a building board for stability and will be cut loose once planked. A base line parallel to the keel a few cms above the max height of the sheer line was drawn on the plans to provide a point from which to measure from. All the bulkheads were drawn with this line as a top (or bottom once upside down on the board) square edge to ensure they would all sit at the correct height from the board and provide a level run for the keel to attach to. A test run of bulkheads on the board. To avoid installing deck beams later these were drawn onto the bulkheads using the camber indicated in Petrejus. The bulkheads were then cut down to ribbing size. In hindsight I should have left the bulwarks above deck ticker to account for the reduction from subsequent sanding but it's nothing major. Most of the framing on the build board here. The keel and stem is matai ripped on a bandsaw and run through my drill powere thickness sander (thanks to MSW member Snowmans for his fine instructions on making one) down to 9mm. The stem was then cut in one piece on the bandsaw and gammoning and bob stay holes/slots drilled.

This new building log is meant to tell a long and broken tale of model building. The serious work began a few months ago when I decided to try to rescue this model and take it further along. Perhaps to stop it with a deck only completion since it would be so big to include rigging, or to breeze through and design removable rigging to allow sailing. Before we get in to that dialogue I thought it best to tell the saga of the 15 years to get it here. Fortunately that will only take a few posts. so here we go again I started to learn the trade, and truly I still am really only learning, by setting up a small shop in the early 1990's, at a former summer home here in Maine and building a wooden kit of a Dark Harbor 17 at 1:12 scale sometime in the later 90's. Like many I was working away and had dreams to be relaxing in a shop but realty kept us away. I never worked closer than 3 hours from this summer home and usually further. During these years I thought about wanting to build models that would sail. I had roughly ten years to go before retirement and thought that was time to try a few things and figure it out. My first venture was to buy an Antique Marblehead Pond yacht, vintage 1936. I restored it partially and then copied it building a new replica. In august 2001 I went to the wooden boat school in Brooklin Maine with my son for a fun vacation and learned to build a 50 inch new Marblehead class pond yacht. They were called Naskeags. They are pretty but built purely for the challenge of sailing. Then looking at the half built dark harbor hull, at 17 inches, and the half built Marblehead Naskeag at 50 inches I decided on a goal. I would continue to build kits or scratch of classic boats to develop some skill. I would continue to read and read some more about the maritime history as well as model building, and thirdly i would continue to build sailable pond yachts to get some to sail. Ultimately I would learn to scratch build classic boats at a large enough scale that would respect the design but also try their luck in the sea....harbor or pond at least. Gloucester Schooners were also first on my mind for a challenge. When did we start this build??? Some of you have followed my earlier attempts with a four masted schooner the Charles Notman and the classic 1938 Boothbay Harbor One design racing sloops . Well here we have a boat construction that spans the whole period of 2001 until now. Here we see the 1992 to 2004 shop. I got to spend a few weeks a year there prior to 2000 and then weekends. You can see the two Marblehead pond yachts that filled much of my time . Hidden just out of the picture on the right is the partially built Dark harbor model. Most important on the back left is the building board and stations for a scratch build Gloucester fishing schooner that will become the basis of this build. This photo is dated 2002 At the time I built this frame, my memory tells me incorrectly as I recently figured out, that is built it up form Gertrude's lines. With the outgrowth of windows 98 and Auto CAD lt 97 it is not surprising that I no longer have any of the cad I did for this build. Here you can see the roughness of the build. I was clearly over my head at the time and fortunately stopped. The keelson assembly is made of three laminated 1/2 sheets of plywood so it is strong and true. [ It includes keel, stem, keelson and made up structure up to the the transom based on pond yacht construction methods... See my other log for detail] This method is Good for sailing but the forward stem is a problem [ you will see later]. Is she Gertrude Thebaud, Columbia or Bluenose??? I could write for pages but the short version is as follows. I read that Columbia was the same size as Bluenose and considered to be the fastest ever built. Unfortunately she died young. Here is the text from Ship Wiki ...remember length on deck 141 feet · Columbia is a Gloucester Fishing Schooner. It was built by Arthur Dana Story from the design of Starling Burgess, at Essex, MA, 1923. The Columbia represents the final development of the Gloucester fishing schooner, famous for speed and seaworthiness. It participated a number of international races, including the one against Bluenose in Halifax. In August 1927 when it was hit by the two Gales, the well-known "Graveyard of the Atlantic", Columbia was lost with all hands off Sable Island. · For years my memory was I had decided to build Gertrude. All my files said it etc. anyway part of the reason is in the following text from wikipedi....remember length on deck 135 feet · \Gertrude L. Thebaud was an American fishing and racing schooner built and launched in Essex, Massachusetts in 1930. A celebrated racing competitor of the Bluenose,[1] it was designed by Frank Paine and built by Arthur D. Story for Louis A. Thebaud, and named for his wife, Gertrude Thebaud.[2] In their first meeting at Gloucester, Massachusetts, in October 1930, the Gertrude L. Thebaud bested the Bluenose 2-0 to win the Sir Thomas Lipton International Fishing Challenge Cup.[3] However, in 1931, two races to none, and again in 1938, three races to two, the Bluenose defeated the Gertrude L. Thebaud to remain the undefeated holder of the International Fisherman's Trophy.[4] I further learned that she went to the arctic in 1934 with MacMillan one year as Bowdoin stayed home. I continued to think I was going to build her and I remembered incorrectly that I had taken measurements from her scanned set of prints when I built the frame.......you'll see Bluenose. Here is intro from wiki pedia ....and again please remember length on deck 143 feet · Bluenose was designed by William Roué and built by Smith and Rhuland in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. She was launched on 26 March 1921, and christened by Audrey Marie Smith.[citation needed] She was built to be a racing ship and fishing vessel, in response to the defeat of the Nova Scotian fishing schooner Delawana by the Gloucester, Massachusetts fishing schooner Esperanto in 1920, in a race sponsored by the Halifax Herald newspaper.[citation needed] Bluenose vs. Gertrude L. Thebaud, International Fishermen's Trophy, 1938, final race ·After a season fishing on the Grand Banks of Newfoundland under the command of Angus Walters, Bluenose defeated Elsie (out of Gloucester), returning the International Fishermen's Trophy to Nova Scotia. In 1930, off Gloucester, Massachusetts, she was defeated 2–0 in the inaugural Sir Thomas Lipton International Fishing Challenge Cup by perhaps her most celebrated competitor, the Gertrude L. Thebaud.[2] However, over the next seven years of racing, no challenger, American or Canadian, could take the title from her.[3] The question again...which to build There are so many Bluenose models I thought for a long time about making an American boat. The designers Starling Burgess and Frank Paine come up again and again. The 1937 Ranger for us here in Maine is a big deal. The fact a new replica of Columbia sails and all who see her say she is a marvel. [ Images of the replica is easy to find on the net]. Well to be honest there is a funny story here on me how in the end the model became Bluenose. To make the original frame in 2001-2002 I obtained the 3/16 scale rough model plans from Piel Craftman in Newburyport, MA for both models BN and GT. While I was in his shop however I fell in love with another boat named Dancing feather. My rear admiral feels the feather is one of prettiest schooners she has seen so guess what took priority. On again off again working on vacations and moving houses to our current home [ means rebuild a shop] only it took from 2004 to 2012 to get this one far along and it was a real rough job much of which may be redone. Here she is a year ago moving away to live in the new sail loft and thus make room for Charles Notman to hold the shop entrance way display area. I had made her 3/4 scale to size at 50 inches on deck. I will never work in that odd scale again. In the mean time, I was assigned to work in Canada for 3 plus years and while I was there came across a set of really nice 1/4 scale drawings of Bluenose. These I now see are easy to get on line as are similar plans for Columbia. They are both drawing by Philip Eisnor and available though a sister site modleshipbuilder. Finally...we start again It is summer 2012. I am assigned to travel overseas but spend several weeks through the summer here in Maine. What to do...... Please look at my other two builds [ Charles Notman and Boothbay Harbor one design] for detailed discussions on the sailable hull build method. The plans were scanned, plumbed and inserted to CAD. The white paper inside on aft stations was printed off and attached to luan plywood. Blue tape separated a 1/32 birch plywood strip rib. The cedar is rough milled from 1"/6" stock to be 5/32 [ which only means 1/8 - 0 +1/16 tolerance] by 5/16 . We want to start faring the hull with no less than 1/8th wood thickness. Planks soaked in ammonia water then wood glue and toothpick pinning to the sstations through the ribs.. Here the laminations for the Keelson assembly are clear [see Notman build] . Notice there is no transom at this point. almost finished. See the roughness of the bow. As I said i was way over my head when I started this hull. Here we have all planking on and sanded. And here she goes back up to the ceiling for storage....it's 2012. and I am still thinking we are building Gertrude Thebaud. They sent me away for work again and it was another year before I could really focus on my modeling goals. This was the year I found forums like this one and started reading articles , sites like models of dummies, practicums and building logs. I was getting ready cheers

Well here we go! I have been reading many logs over the past few years and now am ready to jump in. I have several previous builds, but not many ready for the gallery. we can talk about a few of them later. They were meant to prepare me to build a series of Maine Schooners, some of which hopefully can sail in the local harbor during windjammer days festival. We are coming up to the centennial of the final and best built schooners, many which supported the World War I effort. There were 10 each 4 masted Schooners built here in Boothbay Harbor. Unfortunately there are no known plans, so much research is under way to achieve that goal. In the mean time I need a proto type, so this build is my proto type for the process. I chose 1/48 scale as it produces roughly a 5 foot hull length. [ normally a bit small to sail!] There will be a fight between accurate detail and making it function as a sailor. All this is to be a learning process. I started this build late last year and to date am almost through the hull building. I start this post with a catch up on the process in mind. stage 1: Research and Plans: Maine Maritime provides several different plans of Schooners built either in their facility, Percy and Small or others in Bath Me. There is a great book A Shipyard in Maine by Ralph Linwood Snow and Capt. Douglas Lee. Douglas Lee also produced plans for several Maine ships including this one. He also developed great details for all big Schooners based on his research of the Cora Cressy [ a five master also from Bath]. Another valuable book is The Schooner Berth L Downs by Basil Greenhill and Sam Manning. This book is labeled " Anatomy of the Ship" and shows what you need to fill in the gaps. Station templates: I took Photos of the Plans, as they were in 1/96 scale, and pasted them into Turbo CAD Deluxe 20. I then improved the grid lines and scaled up to the full size ship. I then traced each station on a separate layer. I set my viewports to 1/48 fixed scale and wiggled to get them all to fit on a portrait view @ 11x17. After printing them out , I had a view of every station. I glued them to a sheet of 3/16 luan plywood and cut them out on the band saw. A little sanding on the edges cleaned them up. I then set them in a vise and cleaned up the slots to fit over the laminated keelson and did a little pre fairing. When I drew the stations, I included a common extension leg, so that when they were set upside done on the building board they would all be at the right height. [ easier to see in the photos] I also predrilled holes all around the stations to simplify the cutting out of the stations after fiber glassing the hull. My plan is to leave roughly 1/2 inch ribs at each bulkhead for permanent reinforcing of the hull. The Keelson: This is my name for the whole assembly [ shoe , keel, keelson and riders as well as stems.] it consists of three pieces of 1/4" plywood laminated. this adds strength but helps in straightening and is very easy to work with. I took 4 photos of the line plan and again pasted it into the Turbo CAD. I set up the water lines and used offset to control correct positioning of all the stations. I then stretched and tweaked the photos and they came out OK. I created 4 each 11x17 landscape printouts and pasted them to the plywood. After cutting out the "Keelson" assemble center piece, I trimmed more plywood to form the two outer strips and was ready for laminating. Building board: I had some building boards left over from some Vintage Marblehead pond yachts built 10 years ago. I recovered the blocks and screws from two boats and had enough to lay out the stations. I prepared the blocks, pre drilling them for attachment to the stations [ horizontal screws] and then ready for installing. end of stage 1

Pride in the Pacific 1982 In late 1976 I got a job as a laborer on a construction site in Baltimore's Inner Harbor. At the site they were building a Baltimore Clipper schooner named Pride of Baltimore. Pride under construction in November 1976, just about when I started there. Five years later, on my 21st birthday, I reported on board as Pride's newest crew member. I spent two months aboard the boat in charge of her guns as she took part in the bicentennial reenactment of the battle of Yorktown. Yours truly is at the top right, in the cocked hat. A summary history of the boat is available at my site, as is an album of the few photos taken during my time aboard. In 1982 I acquired a copy of her plans from Thomas Gilmer with the intent to build a sailing model, but I was young, moved around a lot and it just never happened. In November of 2011 I got to seriously thinking about actually building a model of Pride and figuring out what size to make her. The upper limit was as large, overall, as Constellation, but there was a lower limit also. I tried scaling her the same as Constellation (1:36), but looking at what she would need in terms of batteries, winches, servos, etc; I didn't see how I could fit the equipment needed to control so complicated a rig. I decided to make her 1:20 scale, as large as I could and still stuff her into a van or SUV. With her lines scanned and scaled up I printed her stations on paper. There were glued to 3/8" CDX plywood, cut out, sanded, etc, and stood up on the old building board Constellation was built on. A work in progress: every item I draw in scale gets added to this plan. There they stood for nearly a year. On November 19, 2011 I cut out the keel, mounted it on the forms and began planking. I learned my lesson on Constellation and fully planked the hull, but I taped the edges of the forms so the planking wouldn't be glued to them, and they could be removed - leaving me with full access to the very limited space. The hull was planked in pine strips 1/8 thick and 1/4" wide. They were glued to each other, but only pinned to the forms. The pins were akin to half-length straight pins and bent at the slightest look, making planking extremely tedious and hard on the fingers. I wasn't doing the next one that way. I also didn't spiel the planks, but just laid them on from the keel up, and the sheer down, leaving that football shaped hole to fill. The hull being glassed and painted, it wasn't an issue visually, except that it bother's me constantly. I'm not doing that again either. By Halloween, the hull was planked. The hull was filled, sanded, filled, and sanded some more. The aft-most form with the counter and transom forms was given a tap with the handle of a screw-driver and came right out. Soon the other forms followed, leaving the hull open. The inside was sanded and then painted with diluted Tightbond III to get into the nooks and crannies of the planking and glue everything up. It was then given two coats of poly resin. The stern post was too tall, a sign of advanced planning. I cut it down with a rotary tool - you'll see why later. The stern and then the sides were fiberglassed with 4 oz cloth. Pride's plan compared to Macedonian's The concept I restarted the build logs for Constellation and Macedonian that were lost in the crash. There never was a build log for this model on MSW, but, what the heck, there is now.

Inspired by a large RC model of the Rattlesnake featured in an issue of Model Ship Builder magazine, I looked around for a subject to built and decided to built the ship in my own back yard, the sloop of war Constellation tied up in Baltimore's Inner Harbor since the mid 1950's. Some video of Rattlesnake Constellation was a sloop-of-war, of 22 guns, designed by John Lenthal, and built in 1854 by Gosport Navy Yard at Norfolk, Virginia; the last US warship designed and built to operate under sail alone. For a long time she was believed by many to be the old frigate of 1797, rebuilt and moderized, and that debate has raged in the maritime history community for decades. Her lines and sail plan were acquired from the National Archives where I got to handle the actual hand drawn documents. I decided to build her as she appeared in a portrait by deSimone when she was in Naples in 1856 and still a new ship. Her lines were drawn in 1:36 scale, which was perfect, giving a model: Beam: 13-5/8" (34.713 cm) Length over the rig: 96" (243.84 cm) Width over the rig: 36" (91.44 cm) ~ Main yard w/o stuns'l booms. Length on deck: 61" (154.94 cm) Length between perpendiculars: 59-1/8" (150.178 cm) Draft, without ballast keel: 7" (17.78 cm) With 3-1/2" ballast keel: 10-1/2" (27.94 cm) Height bottom of keel to main truck, without ballast keel: 65" (165.1 cm) With ballast keel: 69" (175.26 cm) Sail Area: 2,807.01 square inches in 17 sails (19.5 sf, 18,109.7 scm, 1.8 sqm) This log will cover my work on this model since it began in 1999 up to where it is now. Editor's Note: This is a log of how I am building this model, not a guide to how a model such as this ought to be built. It's full of fits and starts, changes of mind, errors, re-do's, more error's, a few mistakes; and somehow, despite all this, it seems to be becoming a working, sailing model that actually looks something like it's namesake. The director of the actual ship recognized it on first sight - I take that as a good sign! If you're considering taking on a project like this, please, please, don't let this build log deter you - it's not nearly as difficult as I make it seem. Just take away from it that which helps you along, and ignore the rest.

Hello everyone Today is a good day to start my scratch build log. Maybe this Tableboat would be something for a scratch build log ... Seriously, i wish you all a happy new year! Cheers : ) Mike

I usually scratch-build RC ship models of the 19thc. Recently, my interests changed to earlier time periods where I have little source material. So, I'm posting here for your help. I've read/viewed some great build logs here of earlier ship types. I hope my efforts may add to that interest. I'll begin to post my research that I need to do to determine what the model will look like. As far as I know, no plans exist of a of Irish Galley c.1580. Historical background: It’s hard to research Irish Maritime history for several reasons. At first glance, you’d think it wouldn’t be. It is an island. Of course, they’d be interested in the water and boats. But, that has not been the case. They are a culture that has been suppressed for over half a millennium. Since English King Henry VIII in the 1500s, Ireland has been under siege and then conquered by a policy called Surrender and Regrant. Later, there was the Plantation Policy by Queens Mary and Elizabeth I. Their language, customs, laws, and certainly history have altered to demoralize them through the filter of a conquered nation. Any state promotion of an anti-English history (which this model represents) was suppressed. And this in turn, lead to a perpetual rebellion against a corrupt authority. One of those rebelling clans was the O’Malley clan in western Ireland in the County of Mayo. In the 1500s and as it had been for many centuries, Western Ireland was the far west of western Europe. So far west, that it was not even conquered by the Romans or Vikings. This gave the Island a longer period of insolation to form their own customs than any other peoples of Europe. Ireland never had the unifying force of the Roman government and army. Various clans ruled and warred amongst themselves for limited control of limited parts of the Ireland. The O’Malley clan was one of those Western clans. They ruled over the baronies of Murrisk and Burishoole. They were somewhat unique in that their power came from a combination of warriors to control land and seafarers to trade and war on the sea. This gave them the ability to trade not only with other clans but also other lands. It’s recorded that they travelled to the ports of England, France, Spain and Portugal. Theirs was no small enterprise. English State Papers record O’Malley maritime activities from the mid-1200s to the early 1600s. Some of their vessels, oared galleys, were recorded to hold 300 warriors. That is a significant size vessel of the 16th century. The most famous of the O’Malley clan leaders, called chieftains, was a woman called Grace O’Malley. She lived from circa 1530 to 1603. It is her life I find the most interesting. Because she grew up when the old Irish customs were still in force in Ireland. But by the time she ruled and for the rest of her life, England was conquering Ireland clan by clan. Usually, it a was a process of the superior English power making deals by granting money and titles to those who would submit to them with the least effort. Often clan was pitted against clan with the backing of English power on one side. In the midst of this upheaval, Grace refused to submit her clan to this transition and warred on land and sea against the English. She is called in English State Papers as a “nurse of all rebellions”. The clan motto in Latin, a common language of the educated in the period, proclaims their importance with Terra Marique Potens. This means Powerful By Land and Sea. The vessel: It is stated many times that this clan used galleys or oared rowing craft. But, what type and how large? Surely a clan that was known for ‘piracy’ by the English were not using the same vessels for trade and warring. ...more next time.

Hello, right now I'm halfway through a Revell Mayflower 1/83 build, and I was wondering what to do next. I had heard about RC Sailing before, but only competition grade stuff, models desingned to be fast and maneuverable, and a few weeks ago I learned about historical RC sailing, and then found amazing builds here in the forum by yancovitch, GeraldTodd and others. So the bug bit me. I decided to try it out by building a simple model(without worrying about detail or historical precision). As I had some time playing with RC Planes I already had a Radio Controller, some small servos and a battery charger, so I bought online new batteries, and most importantly the Sail Servo, the winch tipe. Upon considering what ship to build I was looking for a 2 mast Schooner or Brig. A few months ago I was studying 3d Modelling and went around the web downloading low resolution plans and hull lines for many ships so I could exercise. Because of that I had around 40 of those hull plans that show up on google images on a folder. This one got my atention: I tryed to find what ship she is online without much sucess, I would guess a British brig from the napoleonic period. Anyway, that didn't stop me, I've decided to model it in rufly 1/50 scale. I'll probably make it civillian by removing the cannons and portholes so I have less detailing to make she look ok! First step was drawing the actual parts as all I have are the general lines! I did it on Sketchup because this way I was able to draw the structure inside for battery, receiver and servos, and all the pieces and bulkheads needed for the hull. The next image shows how I plan to distribute the electronics. Of course, with the real hull I'll need to test whats the optimal positions of all parts for best ballancing. I'm still not shure but I'll probably build the ship with depron, a kind of light stirdy foam we use for planes, because its cheap, and easy to work with, as i'm living in a small apartment I cant actually cut wood here. My plan is to build the structure with reinforced depron, "plank" it with depron, folowed by a layer of wood strips and them some kind of resin or waterproof veneer. Masts and rigging I plan on standard material, I only wonder about whats the best kind of tissue for the sails that I can find here in Brazil! Thank you very much! Let's see if anyone can identify my mistery ship! hahaha

I recently bought a plan for this America Schooner. The America II was in the US Naval Station on the Severn River when I was there. It was right next to the Meridea then. I did not have the point of perspective that I could do a sketch of it because Meridea was right between. Although the 1/4" plan is pretty good, It only has about 8 stations drawn, and none of them are spaced upon the evenly spaced frame positions, so the only way I can accomplish drawing the frames for her will be to take those station drawings and enter them into CAD and extrapolate each frame from the resulting waterlines. I am interested in working on getting this CAD drawing, but, I have never transitioned into any successful 3D skills with my DesignCAD 2/3D program. I have had an idea of the how to do the plan, but it will take a lot of trial and error before I can get it accomplished, I am sure. I have wanted to do this POF for almost as long as I have been working on Meridea, however, it was all in 2D. The lack of being in 3D caused me to have problems with the drawings in each view being coordinated (may not be the right word). I believe I am going to need some guidance on this one. Does anyone out there have and understand DesignCAD 3D MAX? I will probably need some tips on how to get the move point in a uniform position so when I paste the station into the 3D drawing they will all line up successfully. When I select the intersect of the vertical/horizontal lines the move point is always off to the side. That makes it next to impossible to get the former in exactly the right place. That has been my main problem from the start. I have also had some problems with them showing up in the right plane going from 2D to 3D. The 2D is XY, and when pasting them into the Z position, the front, top, and side views don't seem to come out right. The few times they did, I don't know how I got them there. I do understand layering, so you can hide or show each station.

Hello this is my first post on the new forum. I had a build log for the Byzantium on the old forum. do to a recent move I have not got much work done since the old forum went down. To sum up what was lost when the old forum went down I printed out the line drawings with my dads vinyl sticker machine. I cut the formers from some scrap plywood with my bandsaw. I ripped the planks from an old fence board with my bandsaw. I glued the planks together on the formers. I fiber glassed the hull then sanded half of the hull. today I started work on the Byzantium again now both sides of the hull are sanded and the model is ready for Bondo, which is still at the other house so I wont have it until the 20th when the next load of stuff comes up from the other house. I don't have my computer hooked up to the internet yet so I only have the pictures that I took today but I will post the older pictures when I get it hooked up to the internet.

Way back in 1978 and 1979 I had the privilege of crewing on board an old Portuguese Grand Banks fishing vessel turned sail training ship, the barkentine Gazela Primeiro. Of all the boats I sailed for pay or pleasure, Gazela is my favorite and my fondest memory. It was a combination of a sturdy and trust-worthy vessel combined with a crew of wonderful people; that made me feel at home and safer than any other boat I've known. <= an 18 year old me after morning wash-down on Gazela. A bit of the ship's history is available on My site. I've always dreamt of building a model of Gazela but I could never find her lines. I spent a lot of time searching, contacting people like the builder of the model in Philadelphia. Six sheets of plans were drawn up around the time I had sailed her and a profile from that set was included in a book by Allison Saville about the ship. This was printed on a tabloid sized sheet, and while not perfect, was usable, but I still didn't have a body plan. One contact had built an old Scientific kit of the boat and still had the instruction sheets. He photo graphed these for me. Another contact who had the plans, sent me a a paper photocopy on a tabloid sized sheet. I scoured the Internet for any images of the boat I could find, especially those of her hauled out of the water. I tried to reconcile what I had to each other to come up with a working set of plans in the 1:36 scale I wanted. It was very tedious with all the photography and scanning distortions. I was getting near to something I could use, but wasn't there yet. I eventual found the plans drawn up in the 70's at Mystic Seaport. They were very expensive, but I set my teeth and ordered them, only to hear they they were restricted in making copies. They steered me towards the Independence Seaport Museum who apparently hold the originals. These folks are not set up to provide copies of plans. They offered to digitally photograph the plans for me, or send them out to be digitally scanned. The cost they estimate for that would be astronomical. In trying to get across what I'm after, they told me the plans were missing! Since then they've found two of the six sheets and sent sample photos; they are the same two sheets I show you above. At this moment, I'm still negotiating with the Museum to get usable copies of Gazela's plans. If this doesn't work, I'll have to resort to my make-do attempt detailed above.

I first set foot on board the Constitution when I was 7 years old, and I was hooked on sailing ships ever since. My elementary school library had C S Forester's The Captain From Connecticut which I loved and led me to Forester's other work, namely Hornblower. In fact, the 16 foot daysailer I've had since 1979 is named Lydia. I spent my teens and twenties working under sail and power, from barkentines to tugs. I've built several of the 1:96 scale Constitution/United States Revell kits, two of them were RCed; but I always wanted a sailing model of the ubiquitous British frigate, and no one made that kit. I finally decided to build one. Already deep into building an 1850's American sloop-of-war, and with a Baltimore Clipper schooner already planked up, I began a third model of the HMS Macedonian. I chose Macedonian because I could easily get Chapelle's drawing of her from The American Sailing Navy from the Smithsonian, and she was interesting. Macedonian by Gardner Macedonian was a Lively class frigate rated at 38 guns, another of Sir William Rule's designs. Launched in 1810, during the War of 1812 she had the misfortune to meet the American frigate United States, a Constitution class 44 and was captured. She was taken into the American Navy and served until 1828 when she was broken up and replaced by a new ship. Lively Bacchante The story of Macedonian is well told in Chronicles of the Frigate Macedonian, 1809-1922 by James T deKay and I've posted a fair history of the ship on my page There's lots of data available on how the British built and out-fitted their frigates, and even Macedonian's figurehead still exists, but I never have found any reliable information on what her stern looked like. What I've come up with is my own conjecture based on the sterns of other Lively class frigates. The mounted figure is from a statue of Alexander that existed when Macedonian was built. The round object is the "Vergina Sun" found at ancient Macedonian sites and dating from the time of Alexander's father. Symbology available when Macedonian was built and while this is my own guess, it's at least a logical guess. I considered using Alexander's profile from a coin in place of the mounted figure, but his face is already on the bow - given the choice, I'd think an English builder would choose the horse. When the drawings came in from the Smithsonian, the first thing I did was have them digitally scanned. I then rescaled them from 1:48 up to 1:36 mostly so this model would be the same scale as my Constellation. That done, I made up a sheet with each station drawn full-sized, and printed that on my plotter. At this scale, the model should be; Length: 59" taffrail to Alexander's nose Beam molded: 13.3" Draught: 6.87" without the removable ballast keel Her length over the rig will be about 7' and she will stand from keel to truck, about 4'. (I'll update this with more accurate numbers and metric equivalents at a later date) These paper patterns were used to rough cut the wooden stations from 3/8" plywood. Each paper pattern was then glued onto it's station close cut on the bandsaw, and then fined up on the beltsander where some bevel was put into the forward and after stations.

I'm about to try and build an RC racing schooner, the Malabar One, designed in 1922 by John Alden. It was the first of a series of ten schooners he designed all named Malabar. I've never bult a boat from scratch, so it will be interesting how it comes out. A friend gave me an empty fiberglass hull, a lead keel and a stack of old drawings, and that's it. The hull is 48" stem to stern. The keel weights 18 lbs. Here's what I have as reference materials to go by: This is from a different, but similar boat also designed by John Alden: I was also given an old print of another build using the same hull: So I have lot's of questions about woods and techniques. The original boat used White Oak for framing, and hard pine for deck planks. (Why pine? - seems soft and not water friendly) I've been told that aircraft spruce works great for model framing members. I also have easy access to lots of white oak, and the tools to machine it. I originally planed to do the deck in teak, and the deck houses and details in mahogany. The deck MUST be water-proof - this will be a working, sailing model, so I guess I have to seal and varnish the deck or ?? Don't know what to make the masts and spars out of. (spruce?)