Hello from Lauck Street Shipyard

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lauckstreet

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Hi Group,

My name is Bob Hunt, and I am the owner of Lauck Street Shipyard (https://www.lauckstreetshipyard.com). I want to thank Donnie for inviting me to join this forum. I hope I can be of some help in answering questions related to model shipbuilding.

For those of you who do not know me, I've been building model ships for over 30 years now. In 2003 I started my business, Lauck Street Shipyard, purely by accident. I was asked by Clay Feldman who owned Ships in Scale magazine to write an article on how to build the Armed Virginia Sloop kit by Model Shipways.

I built the model and wrote a 345 page article on how to build it. Of course, Clay was not able to publish such a long article so he advised me to market it myself. I started a website offering the article, which is commonly referred to as a practicum, for sale. I put the word out in various model shipbuilding forums and thus was born Lauck Street Shipyard.

Since then I have built 17 different kits and written such practicums based on those kits as well as some scratchbuilt models. I've also written several special practicums related to a specific topic such as planking model ships, rigging model ships, and CAD for model shipbuilding.

Lauck Street Shipyard has always been dedicated to helping new modelers succeed and learn techniques that I have mastered over the years. The practicums I have written over the past 14 years are marketed as The College of Model Shipbuilding. These courses are progressive in nature. That means that I have broken them down into categories based on the level of difficulty of the subject model.

I have Prep School courses based on models that are suitable for beginners. I have Freshman courses based on models suitable for new modelers with some model shipbuilding experience. I have Sophomore courses suitable for more experienced modelers, and Junior/Senior courses based on models that require a lot of kitbashing and scratchbuilding.

I also have a Blog on my website where I post articles on kit reviews, How-to articles, and general model shipbuilding topics. On my website, you can subscribe to the blog and receive emails when new articles are posted. You can also receive emails when I offer special discounts on my practicums such as free shipping, a percentage off, buy one get one free, or a dollar amount off. I try to offer these specials at least once per month, and I try to post a new article on my blog at least once per month.

I also offer lifetime support to all of my customers. That support includes help with the models they are building through a private support forum that only paid customers are allowed to join. Membership to this forum is a privilege, not a right, so any misconduct or violation of the forum rules may result in being banned from the forum. I also provide support via email and telephone, and if a customer loses or damages a CD practicum, I replace it free of charge, no shipping charges, nothing. Just notify me is all that's required.

Again, I appreciate the opportunity to become a member and part of this community. I hope you'll visit my website to see what I have to offer.

Thanks,

Bob
 
Happy to see you here Bob and thanks for the kind words on my intro post. Bob Hunt has been my mentor for several years now. I own ALL of his practicums and was the first to complete his POF AVS (Patrick Henry) kit. Although I have been modeling my entire life, it was through Bob that I learned the craft of building wooden ship models. All our new friends at SoS can definitely benefit from Bob's knowledge.
 
Delighted you signed in here Bob. I used one of your old web pages to help my first scratch build of the Fubbs about 10 years ago.
 
Thanks Brian, Mike, Geoff and Zoltan. Brian, I saw your Fubbs model, great job for a difficult build using only some photos to go by. That kit didn't sell well for some reason. I scratchbuilt the model about 20 years ago using Father Romero's practicum. I met him at a NRG conference in 1995 I believe and saw his model which was still under construction. I also saw his Confederacy model which I also built before I built the Fubbs.

Take care,

Bob
 
Brian077 post_id=22162 time=1504854969 user_id=4000 said:
yes, I used Father Romero's practicum, but your colour photos were of great assistance.
Click to expand...

I had a time with the framing of my scratchbuilt Fubbs model. Portia's frame drawings were very inaccurate. After two attempts that failed, I asked Romero about the frame drawings and what I might be doing wrong. His reply was that you can't rely on Portia's frame drawings!

So I manually redrew all of them by hand and used my new drawings to create the frames and frame the model That worked perfectly.

Years later I developed and produced a kit of the Fubbs. I used CAD to re-loft all of the frames and that kit came out beautifully. I have a ton of photos of my build of the prototype for that kit. The kit was all CNC milled, not laser cut. Here's one photo. When I have time, I'll post a build log of the kit since it's no longer available.



The paintings along the side are actually something I created in Photoshop. I hand drew the drawings in high resolution and then printed them on sticker paper which was included in the kit. On my original scratchbuilt Fubbs model, which I'll post later with the build log of the kit, I hand painted the drawings in oil paints. It took 11 hours to paint one side. Then I flipped the model around and used a mirror to paint the other side.

The original model was built from Pau Marfin which I purchased from The Lumberyard. It's similar in color to boxwood but not as expensive and just as hard. I don't know if Dave still offers pau marfin but it was a great wood. I'll take some new photos of the scratchbuilt model to post with the kit model so you can compare the two.
DSC00732s.jpg
 
Remember, the photo above was a kit I used to produce and it was all boxwood. It's not scratchbuilt! The carvings around the gunports were resin cast and I guilded them with gold leaf.

Bob
 
That brings back memories. I studied your Fubbs model when I scratch built mine using Reverend Romero's practicum, but I also used Portia's plans and rigged the model.

It was my first ever attempt at scratch building after 15 kits, and although its not anywhere in the same class as yours Bob, I enjoyed building it.

IMG_0759.jpg
 
Hi Brian,

The figurehead took several attempts for me to carve but I just could not get the carvings over and underneath the side galleries to come out. I did manage to carve the cherubs around the gunports and the cherubs holding the ship up and the stern transom carvings carved. I'll post more photos of the scratchbuilt model with my kit model in a separate thread. Perhaps you can post more photos of yours in that thread as well. Looks like you did a good job on the gallery carvings.

Bob
 
Bob, I cheated with my carvings.
I used a plastic putty and purchased baby cherubs in the correct scale, and simply cut off arms and legs and reattached them according to the drawings. Then painted it with gold paint. Its my rendition of a carving. The gunport decorations were made for me out of pastic putty by my friend Janos about 10 years ago.

I did have a build log many years ago on that other forum, but alas its all gone now. Managed to find a few tardy photos during construction, thats all I have.
66756f37-78d7-4763-a3bf-c724d8e4dfce-1.jpg
22dc0ef8-8ed0-4053-9b05-5c64c051e0fa-3.jpg
 
How did you handle the parquet floor Brian? Here's a photo of my parquet floor with over 480 individual pieces of wood in 6 different species of wood. Take note that I've since dusted off the entire model and rigging :oops:


Here's the stern transom with its carvings.
IMG_0012s.jpgIMG_0011s.jpg
 
Brian077 post_id=22238 time=1504947692 user_id=4000 said:
Bob, I cheated with my carvings.
I used a plastic putty and purchased baby cherubs in the correct scale, and simply cut off arms and legs and reattached them according to the drawings. Then painted it with gold paint. Its my rendition of a carving. The gunport decorations were made for me out of pastic putty by my friend Janos about 10 years ago.

I did have a build log many years ago on that other forum, but alas its all gone now. Managed to find a few tardy photos during construction, thats all I have.
Click to expand...

That was a great idea for the cherubs around the galleries. I built my model back in the early 90's and didn't even know about the internet at the time. I corresponded with Romero via snail mail. Perhaps I'll do some research now for those cherubs and replace my plain galleries using the method you used. Great idea and thanks for sharing that.

Bob
 
Hello again,

It's been a while since I posted anything. I'm still working on my Royal Caroline kit, specifically the stern transom. I should have some new photos soon.

I wanted to let everyone know that I'm currently offer only SOS forum members a 20% off discount on all of my College of Model Shipbuilding practicums including my College Special. You can only get this discount by using the coupon code SOSMBR (all caps) during checkout. There's a special box on the Shopping Cart page where it says "Enter a promo code." You must enter the coupon code to get the discount and it must be entered in all CAPS.

This discount will be available from right now until midnight EST August 15th.

Take care,

Bob Hunt
 
Bob nice to have you on board. I am fairly new to modeling and I’m building a billings boat the Norske Love with this sites help and books I have made fair progress and a fair job to get the hull finished. I have just purchased Rigging Period Ship models another recommendation. Billings is not great on instructions. Having read this blog I have tried to purchase your Masting and Rigging practicum but discovered you don’t ship to the UK. Is there anyway I could download over the internet or receive email pdf etc. Happy to pay in advance. Hope you can help. Thanks
 
Ronaldo said:
Bob nice to have you on board. I am fairly new to modeling and I’m building a billings boat the Norske Love with this sites help and books I have made fair progress and a fair job to get the hull finished. I have just purchased Rigging Period Ship models another recommendation. Billings is not great on instructions. Having read this blog I have tried to purchase your Masting and Rigging practicum but discovered you don’t ship to the UK. Is there anyway I could download over the internet or receive email pdf etc. Happy to pay in advance. Hope you can help. Thanks
Click to expand...
I would like to second Ronaldo's request...
 
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