Greetings,
I am a retired electrical engineer who became fascinated by the Age of Sail back in the early 2000's when Pirates of the Burning Sea was in development and Master & Commander: On the Far Side of the World was released on film. I also became excited about the wooden model ship hobby. I read a lot about it, acquired many books, and tools, and even built a 4 x 8 foot model table with a sliding work surface and a lazy Susan on top to rotate my work to whatever angle I needed.
As with most things in life, my enthusiasm exceeded my ambition. For my first wood ship model, I went whole hog and bought the Caldercraft kit of the HMS Diana. I had the anatomy of a ship book on the same and studied everything I could find about wooden model building and the HMS DIana.
One of the things Caldercraft did with the kit was to not model the interior of the great room in the stern. They instead ran the keel up to the main deck level, with some supports that blocked a couple of the rear windows. I saw that someone had modified their Caldercraft kit to build out the great room with a Nelson black & white checkered floor and the modeler provided me with detailed photos of his build.
I got as far as assembling the keel & frame structure, and planked the gun deck, which was when things started to go working. The glue I was using caused the deck to warp with a port/starbord convex curvature. Following the Caldercraft instructions, I cut the gun deck down the center to facilitate installation in the hull, but the warpage became more accentuated, leaving a very visible gap between the halves, going down the center of the ship.
Rather than fixing the problem before proceeding to the great room modification, I went onward and cut the portion of the keel off that went up to the main deck. As I dismantled the cutoff piece, my Dremel tool got away from me, with the blade on the tool binding on the work piece and then the piece was flung across the room and the tool cut a saw kerf across the nail bed of one of my fingers (lesson learned: don't hold your work in your hand while cutting). This led to getting stitches and pretty much evaporated my enthusiasm for wood ship modeling. That was back in 2005. I still have no feeling in that finger tip.
Since then, I have read all of the Patrick O'Brian Aubrey/Maturin books, and my interest in the Age of Sail has never waned.
Recently, on my 69th birthday, I received a Chinese 1/96 scale kit of the Harvey (Baltimore Clipper). The kit looks pretty well done, but I wanted to research other modeler's builds and I found one on this site, noting that the planking material is too short to go the distance on the hull, so splicing will be required. I also noticed that there are variations in these no-name Chinese kits, like I have an brass anchor chain, but there was no such chain used in that era. There are no preformed brass chain plate formers for the deadeyes. It looks like I will have to form them from the brass wire provided (yay).
I like the look of the Topsail Schooner and I thought the Harvey might be a better way to get back into the hobby. This time, enthusiasm won't get the better of me. I plan to take my time and make certain that I am ready for the build.
I am a retired electrical engineer who became fascinated by the Age of Sail back in the early 2000's when Pirates of the Burning Sea was in development and Master & Commander: On the Far Side of the World was released on film. I also became excited about the wooden model ship hobby. I read a lot about it, acquired many books, and tools, and even built a 4 x 8 foot model table with a sliding work surface and a lazy Susan on top to rotate my work to whatever angle I needed.
As with most things in life, my enthusiasm exceeded my ambition. For my first wood ship model, I went whole hog and bought the Caldercraft kit of the HMS Diana. I had the anatomy of a ship book on the same and studied everything I could find about wooden model building and the HMS DIana.
One of the things Caldercraft did with the kit was to not model the interior of the great room in the stern. They instead ran the keel up to the main deck level, with some supports that blocked a couple of the rear windows. I saw that someone had modified their Caldercraft kit to build out the great room with a Nelson black & white checkered floor and the modeler provided me with detailed photos of his build.
I got as far as assembling the keel & frame structure, and planked the gun deck, which was when things started to go working. The glue I was using caused the deck to warp with a port/starbord convex curvature. Following the Caldercraft instructions, I cut the gun deck down the center to facilitate installation in the hull, but the warpage became more accentuated, leaving a very visible gap between the halves, going down the center of the ship.
Rather than fixing the problem before proceeding to the great room modification, I went onward and cut the portion of the keel off that went up to the main deck. As I dismantled the cutoff piece, my Dremel tool got away from me, with the blade on the tool binding on the work piece and then the piece was flung across the room and the tool cut a saw kerf across the nail bed of one of my fingers (lesson learned: don't hold your work in your hand while cutting). This led to getting stitches and pretty much evaporated my enthusiasm for wood ship modeling. That was back in 2005. I still have no feeling in that finger tip.
Since then, I have read all of the Patrick O'Brian Aubrey/Maturin books, and my interest in the Age of Sail has never waned.
Recently, on my 69th birthday, I received a Chinese 1/96 scale kit of the Harvey (Baltimore Clipper). The kit looks pretty well done, but I wanted to research other modeler's builds and I found one on this site, noting that the planking material is too short to go the distance on the hull, so splicing will be required. I also noticed that there are variations in these no-name Chinese kits, like I have an brass anchor chain, but there was no such chain used in that era. There are no preformed brass chain plate formers for the deadeyes. It looks like I will have to form them from the brass wire provided (yay).
I like the look of the Topsail Schooner and I thought the Harvey might be a better way to get back into the hobby. This time, enthusiasm won't get the better of me. I plan to take my time and make certain that I am ready for the build.
