HMS Unicorn by Mike French - Corel

[Mike French]

Here is an update. I altered the base for the rear windows again and will leave it at that

 

I have cleaned up the transom.

 

Next was the cats head . Corel said the size was 7x5 mm but I only had 5x5. so I laminated two 5x1 pieces.

The only thing is if you scale it up the cats heads are about 600 wide in real terms .Is this too much?

Next was the Bow sprit a bit fiddley but as luck happened the plank I left on the front proved to be the correct angle and will use this as part of the base  for the Bowsprit support as shown by  Chapman.

 

I then had to make some cathead supports as the Corel ones (well). These were made out of Huon Pine .

 

This is Molly a 9 month old British Blue who oversees every thing I do on the ship.

 

I have now started on the Head Timbers  and after studying Chapman's drawing I am going to follow his lines as much as I

can Because of the position of the unicorn. I studied Danny's work on the Vulture (magnificent) for the head works to give me more of an idea of how it works> I haven't the skill of Danny  or the equipment for a finer scale but I will try. Here are the lower cheeks . the second cheeks and hair brackets All these will be fitted shortly.

Not sure I will get much done in the next few weeks as I am heading across the Nullabor Desert to Perth for 5 weeks.

See yu when I get back.

Mike   

 

[S.Coleman]

I like the stern windows. Came up nice. I hope those head timbers fit without too much trouble. The whole thing looks great.

[ianmajor]

Mike,

 

It is looking very good. I do like your cathead supports - a big improvement.

[TomJonas]

I once built Unicorn, or rather almost built it. Just a few finishing details of the rigging was all that was left, when I suddenly stopped. Mostly because we moved to an other house, and I was fed up with the ship. But this was perhaps 15-20 years ago.

Now I am retired and have som plans.

Taking up oil-painting again, join the bridge club, take part in guided tours in nature, take a course with my Stratocaster. And build ship models. I have studied Model Ship World for a couple of weeks now, and seen most of what the market has to offer. But I must say Unicorn will probably be my choice once again. It was fairly easy to build and will not take five years to finish.

So I follow all Unicorn-logs with great interest.

Many of you make interesting re-designs, mostly regarding the decks. 

So...keep on rocking!

[Mike French]

Welcome Tom I have been away for a while and will be commencing building again . If you start a new model I will follow it with interest. Mike

[cruiseholidays1]

HI MIKE

MY NAME IS CHUCK AND I RESIDE IN SOUTH FLORIDA.  MY PROBLEM IS MY DOG EAT SOME OF MY PLANS FOR THE UNICORN  COULD YOU BE KIND ENOUGH TO EITHER COPY A SET OF MY MISSING ITEMS FOR ME OR JUST TAKE PHOTOS OF THE PLANS AND EMAIL ME.  I AM WILLING TO PAY FOR YOUR EFFORTS.  I AM MISSING PLAN FIGURES 19 TO 46.  YOUR  HELP WOULD GREATLY BE APPRECIATED.

 

NICE WORK ON YOUR MODEL. 

 

I THANK YOU IN ADVANCE FOR YOUR EFFORTS

 

 

[ianmajor]

Mike hasn't been on line for few weeks so may not see your request straight away. I have the plans but mine are the original 1974 ones. The Diagrams you specify I don't think have changed. I can easily scan them in and get them to you. I will drop you a PM to compare notes and arrange - no charge, I am sure you would help me out.

 

BTW - Did you know that in the UK one of the most frequently used excuses given by children for not having handed their homework in is "My dog ate it"!

[cruiseholidays1]

I AM IN THE MIST OF BUILDING MY UNICORN.  HOWEVER, I JUST REALIZED THAT I DO NOT HAVE PAGE 4 OF THE PLANS.  CANNOT ANYONE HELP ME?  I APPRECIATE YOUR HELP IN ADVANCE.

THANKS

CHUCK

[cobra1951]

I AM IN THE MIST OF BUILDING MY UNICORN.  HOWEVER, I JUST REALIZED THAT I DO NOT HAVE PAGE 4 OF THE PLANS.  CANNOT ANYONE HELP ME?  I APPRECIATE YOUR HELP IN ADVANCE.

THANKS

CHUCK

 

If it's any help you can buy the plans here

just scroll down to the 20th one

Edited August 3, 2016 by Cobr@

[ianmajor]

Chuck,

 

I have my plans scanned in on a share drive. If you drop me a PM with your email address I can give you access to them. One thing my instructions are version 1. A later version does exist but sheet 4 is unchanged I believe.

Edited August 3, 2016 by ianmajor

[Bill Morrison]

Greetings!

 

I am considering purchasing the Corel HMS Unicorn but have been warned over on the Fine Scale Modeler site that this is a poor kit that does not represent any actual ship.  To be fair, these types of kits are decried in general over there, which has not been my experience at all.  I am currently working on HMS Pandora by Constructo, which I have enjoyed building.  Can anyone speak about the Unicorn's accuracy?

 

Thanks!

 

Bill

Edited August 25, 2016 by Bill Morrison

[Landlubber Mike]

There actually was a Unicorn - it and its sister ship the Lyme were members of the Lyme class, and are considered to be the first true frigates.  The ship's plans were in Chapman's "Architectura" book, which you can see here (scroll down to plate LV), or you can go to the National Maritime Museum's website and see the plans for the Lyme, which are also on my log.

 

http://www.finemodelships.com/ship-plans/Chapman_Architectura_eng.htm

 

http://www.sjohistoriska.se/ImageVaultFiles/id_2241/cf_1115/55.JPG (direct link to plans)

 

 

Take a look at Ian's log and my log of the Lyme (based on the Corel Unicorn).  Lots of inaccuracies in the kit which can generally be overcome though with a little forethought and preparation.  Probably the biggest I would say is the closed waist and wrong slope to the deck levels, particularly at the stern.  Those can be fixed early in the build.  Other issues which are trickier to deal with are the inaccurate placement of the figurehead and how the stern comes together.  Essentially, the stern galleries are incorrectly placed, there should be a stern post, and the angle of where the stern post should be is wrong.  There are some other slight inaccuracies from the actual ship in terms of the deck items, location of the masts, location of the first bulkhead, and the gammoning.

 

All that being said, the ship does make for a very nice model, regardless of whether you tackle these inaccuracies.

Edited August 26, 2016 by Landlubber Mike

[Bill Morrison]

Mike,

 

Thank you for your reply.  I do know that there were three frigates by the name HMS Unicorn, but sources seem to be conflicted about which one this kit represents.  Anyway, I went ahead and ordered this kit.  I am looking forward to this build!

 

Bill

[Landlubber Mike]

This kit is definitely supposed to be the 1748 version - look at the Chapman plans and the NMM plans of the Lyme.  The problem is the narrow waist is not consistent with frigates from that period, but frigates from later in the century.  That's probably why people say they are not sure what ship the kit is supposed to represent.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Unicorn_(1748)

 

 

Make sure you start a build log here.  We'd love to follow your progress.  I ended up stopping my Unicorn build, as I liked its sister ship, the Lyme, a little better and will scratch build it in the future since the Corel keel is incorrect when it comes to the stern and quarter galleries.

Edited August 26, 2016 by Landlubber Mike

[Mike French]

Hi Fellas I am back at it .The saga of the Unicorn . After my last post I Had issues with my hands and lost confidence in doing the build.so it sat for quite a long time . Last winter I decided something had to be done and restarted very slowly. I had completely forgotten about my posts (age related I think ) and I will post some more photos once I catch up on everything . I only found this when looking up some references for standard rigging which I am about to start😲 . 

 

Mike 

[Landlubber Mike]

Welcome back!  Looking forward to seeing your progress.

[Mike French]

Hi mike good to hear from you Here are a couple of picks from last year.

[Landlubber Mike]

Really nice job Mike!

[Mike French]

Thanks Mike I have the masts in now and most of the deck furniture. The head timbers when first done was pretty ordinary so I wrecked it and started again More to the design of Chapmans drawing I think it is a lot better now. I am about to put in the Bowsprit but will study the angle a bit more . The cross trees and mast tops pulled after I had glued them and have become slightly lopsided Not much I can do unless I wreck them and start again . But I thought that once all the rigging was in place you probably won't see it.🙄  Will post a couple more picks soon. Mike I went through the Unicorn builds today and noticed that most posts  about these builds all stop at about the end of 2015. Did something happen to the site or is that just a coincidence?

[Landlubber Mike]

I don't want to speak for JohnB and Ian (Ian hasn't been on this site in a while, hope he is ok), but I ended up scrapping my build.  After doing a lot of research, I decided that I wanted to do the Lyme, the sister ship to the Unicorn.  I bought the NMM plans and tried working off them, but the dimensions of the Corel kit were totally off from it, making it really hard, if not impossible, to build the Lyme according to the NMM plans using the kit.  

 

I think I chronicled some of the issues on my log - the easy fixes would be with respect to the figurehead (as you have done), the lack of a stern post, the rear windows, and the open waist.  The tougher fixes were with the deck angles, particularly at the stern, and the overall height of the hull which is taller than the NMM and Chapman plans.  Because the hull was taller, it was almost impossible (at least at my skill level) to recalibrate the height and slope of the decks from the keel.  After many hours of frustration, I decided that rather than spend an inordinate amount of time trying to make a more accurate representation of the Lyme using the kit (and probably couldn't get there anyway because of the hull dimensions), that I would eventually just scratch build it in the future.

 

All that being said, the Corel kit makes for a very nice model as yours clearly shows.  The wood and detail pieces are very nice, and the curves of the ship are beautiful.  Just making the changes you made, one can improve the build considerably.  I have to say that even though I scrapped my build, I learned a ton working through the issues with Ian and JohnB - which was almost as fun as building the model itself.  I'll be following your build log with a lot of interest!

[Landlubber Mike]

Mike,

 

I took a trip down memory lane and re-read from Unicorn log from a few years ago.  Interesting stuff!  Brought back fun memories working through the plans with Ian and JohnB.  

 

I think it was JohnB who said it best (paraphrasing): "We all might have been better off if we hadn't seen the Chapman plans." 😀

[Mike French]

Mike If you are interested there is a complete build of the Unicorn on YouTube Here is the linkhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hTzsjrzMeM 

 

I think this works  Mike