Landlubber Mike

Wow, you've been busy! Beautiful work! Can I ask, how did you build that storage rack? Were the glass panels pre-sized?

That's a real beauty Ernie, nice job! Would rather put out one stunner than half a dozen mediocre builds and yours is quite the stunner.

Great work John!

Great work! For a variety of reasons, I like the P-47N

Wow, some beautiful work there! Love your mottled camo builds - agree with Gazza regarding the PCM Macchi, just wow! How did you like the Gambier Bay? I just got it for Christmas with the PE sets and wooden deck.

Nice job! Shows how skilled you are putting together such a variety of subjects in great fashion.

Wow nice work guys! You still have 5 days left...

Isn't the Constitution a heavy frigate? There are a few kits out there, though from what I've read, there's all this controversy over the proper number of windows on the stern. I checked Bluejacket but didn't see any. When you get to the point of scratch building, I think you can find plenty of plans at the Smithsonian. A friend mentioned that they used to put out a catalog of the plans they have on file. Might be a place to look. I think I mentioned earlier that the Philadelphia Gunboat plans were amazing - some of the best I've ever seen.

Agree with Mike and Jeff. Many thanks to Ernie and his lovely wife. What a kind, generous spirit from you all. Gives me hope for humanity during such difficult times. Merry Christmas and happy 2021 to everyone!

Thank you guys, means a lot coming from fellow modelers of your skill level.

Chris is really amazing, and probably one of the preeminent ship kit designers in the world. I believe he designed the Pegasus kit I'm working on for Amati, and the kit is so well done in all aspects. I think he might have also had a hand in the Caldercraft Badger, but could be wrong. Hopefully he gets some kind of royalties from future sales of the Victory. I thought that the kit is now the property of Amati, but maybe I'm mistaken. His Duchess looks really nice. Reminds me a lot of the Pegasus. I posted on MSW a while back how I could see how he designs kits for structural integrity and to make things as easy as possible for builders. His kit designs for placement of the gunports are great! I had to cut 28 gunports out of the hull on my Le Renommee, and it was hours, if not days, of work to make sure that each was symmetrical with the bulkhead on the other side, in the correct sweep, etc. That kind of building I absolutely hate doing, which is why after I cut out and lined the gunports, it's sat on a bench alone to think long and hard what it did to me.

I think 1/64 is a great size. My Victory kit, like your Bellerophon, is 1/72 but that might be out of necessity given how massive that ship was. Though, there is an Amati 1/64 Victory in the works that is close to completion that looks amazing. I was working on the Corel Unicorn which I was going to convert to its sister Lyme class ship, the Lyme. Unfortunately, the Corel kit was off in too many ways for me to keep going on with it, so I scrapped it. With all the research I did, I decided I would scratch build the Lyme when my skills got a little better. All that being said, I ordered the Lyme plans from the National Maritime Museum and had scaled them to match the scale of the Unicorn kit which was 1/75. The NMM plans are 1/48 - that is a really big jump in size. I think the model would jump to close to four feet in length. It's one thing to do a battleship in 1/200 scale that hits four feet or a little more, but these wooden ships tend to be very much taller and wider, especially if you put masts and spars on. So, I'll probably drop it down to a smaller scale. On the other hand, some subjects are smaller and would be just fine at the larger scales. A friend has plans of the Philadelphia gunboat that are in 1/24 scale I think that he got from the Smithsonian I believe. The detail in the plans was incredible, down to the size and type of nails used. It would be a big model at 1/24, but still much more manageable than a ship of the line in 1/64 scale.

Merry Christmas to you and your family! I'm raising a glass to you guys over here as well while I wait for Santa

Looks like Micromark (where I got it) discontinued Blacken-it. I believe I have a few bottles and can always send you one if you are having trouble finding a suitable blackening solution. You can also look for Birchwood Casey Brass Black, and Jax Chemical makes a bunch of solutions as well - blacks, browns, etc. Rifle shops tend to carry these items from what I've heard, as well as Amazon used to carry them when I looked a few years ago. Since I don't have enough hobbies, I got into pen turning last year and was directed to Caswell Plating to get some compounds and cloth wheels to go with a buffing machine to get that final shine out of the pens. While on their site, I noticed that they carry a number of products to chemically color metals, etc. I picked up a bottle of their green patina mix, as I was thinking about going with a green patina on the copper plated bottom of my Charles Morgan whaler. Maybe check there? https://caswellplating.com/metal-finishing-solutions/antiquing-solutions.html What I really enjoy about wooden ship modeling is the use of all kinds of materials - wood, metals, cloth, line, plastics, etc. When I started up models again a decade or so ago, I went with wood for that reason. I didn't realize that plastic kits had made an exponential leap in quality, paints, all the aftermarket, etc. I do like the subjects of plastic models much more than the typical 17th-18th century British warship. But, I've learned a ton about wood working, and it's been a lot of fun working with all kinds of power tools that you really don't need on the plastic side. I've got a miniature table saw, mill, lathe, thickness sander, disc sander, band saw, scroll saw, and a micromotor. I almost have more fun playing with those tools and trying to work with exotic woods like redheart, yellowheart, ebony, etc. to "paint with wood" than actually building a model. Of course, it's all fun until someone loses a finger! All that being said, there is a lot of repetitive tasks with wood ship models - planking, rigging, coppering. To some extent it's therapeutic to work on a single repetitive task for a long time, but at times, it can be a bit much. I tend to burn out and try something else out which is why I have three wooden builds going at the moment (along with a ship-in-bottle build, doh!). Once I get through my wood kits, I'll probably go right to scratch building. I've got some plans for ships that I've wanted to build, but just need a little more experience. I know that a lot of scratch builders jump to 1/48 scale from the more typical 1/64 or 1/72 scale kits, but I think I might go the other way and build smaller models. Less of a footprint, and a little less costly as it sounds like a lot of the woods that modelers have used in the past like swiss pear, boxwood, holly, ebony, etc. are becoming increasingly rare. I don't recall there being a binnacle on this model, and certainly don't recall building one. It's kinda got a unique layout with the covered quarterdeck (which actually was the captain's cabin now that I re-read the manual - it was not used as another deck) and the galley house on the deck.

The wheel is PE, and a very nice one at that. It's very hard to find wheels made of wood that are in scale. I bought a whole bunch from different manufacturers for my other builds but they all are slightly a bit too bulky. Now that I have a Sherline mill and lathe, I might try to scratch my own. The guns are indeed 4-pounders - you have a good eye! I had to check the Jotika site to make sure There are also a few 0.5 pounder swivel guns as well. All those are nicely done in brass. I used Blacken-It to blacken them.

There's a wheel just in front of the quarterdeck. A bit hard to see with all the sticks and spaghetti, but here is a cleaner WIP shot:

Nice! Looking forward to seeing that one come along!

Wow, amazing work! Your technique on the wings is fantastic, many thanks for sharing with us mere mortals

Thanks for that! I read a log earlier where someone was building both the Revell and ICM versions of the 217 (or could have been the He 111, I forget). I think he said the details on the ICM were a bit soft on the interior as if they expected folks to add an Eduard PE kit to it, but otherwise he seemed to like the ICM kit. I'll think more on it. Have enough to keep me busy for a while.

I think they were also talking about releasing an Arado kit as well.

Thanks Gaz, and my apologies for taking up space on your log with all these questions. I have a soldering gun but I haven't used it yet. What did you think about the ICM kit? I see you can get Revell/Pro Modeler kits which have lots of aftermarket (and allow you to convert the kit to different variants), but older tooling. ICM is newer obviously and they seem to be rolling out a ton of variants. Sorry to keep asking questions, but approximately how long/wide is the 217 in 1/48 scale? I'm considering maybe dropping down to 1/72 as I already have some bigger kits in that scale (a couple of Pro Modeler Ju-52s and Eduard BF110s).

You too Phil! Merry Christmas!

Thanks Harv for the kind words. I should have mentioned that I added some scratch details to the build like the anchor buoys and the furled sails. The furled sails took me a good month or two just to research and experiment to find a way to get them to look in scale (trick was to reduce the size and shape of the sails by a good 2/3), and then add the additional rigging necessary for each sail. Lots of wooden ship modelers forego sails, furled or otherwise, as typically being out of scale. To me though, a sailing ship without sails is like a plane without wings. I'll probably add full sails to my Charles Morgan build - the ship looks really majestic in full sail. You can actually visit the ship in Mystic, Connecticut too which makes it an even more fun build experience. My daughter, who was about 3 or 4 at the time we went, kept referring to it as a pirate ship

Nice job!

Best wishes to you and everyone on here as well! Merry Christmas!