Bertie Builds a Boat - Lady Isabella - Scots 'Zulu' Herring Drifter - Finished ! ! !

[Bertie McBoatface]

 

When a person's got rather too much on their hands, as it might be, several armour projects to finish and more to start, an aeroplane and a half to build, a company of figures to paint, a group build to host, a zillion books to read, a life to live and so forth. When there's already little enough time in the day to do what needs to be done. Then, my friends, then is the time to build my first wooden ship kit. 

 

I haven't built a plastic sailing boat since I was 12. I haven't built a wooden boat ever. I don't even speak nautical. I suffer from sea-sickness and a fear of the ocean. 

 

I've been building plastic kits of tanks and planes and the occasional battleship all my life and they are sometimes interesting, but I have never really considered them to be beautiful objects in their own right. But these wooden boat models have the potential to be truly beautiful. I think it's the combination of a form perfectly suited to its job and the organic material from which it's made. When I see them in cases in museums I want to stroke their curves. To me they are like fine musical instruments, or antique furniture, or a shining dog. I can barely keep my hands off them.

So I'm going to put my hands on one of them for the rest of the year, most likely longer. I have an awful lot to learn and perhaps will make an awful mess of this first one. I don't think so though. It's a kit designed with beginners in mind by Chris Watton, or as we know him @chris1966, so I've got an internal line to the boss! I've already asked advice on choice of subject and he's been a very friendly and helpful chap. The kit, from Chris's company Vanguard Models, arrived here yesterday and so far all I've taken out of the box is the 36 page instruction manual which, for once, I intend to follow to the letter. (Edit: That didn’t happen!)  It's very clearly written and well illustrated and since it is downloadable from the Vanguard Models website, I think I'm able to show you pages from it as the build progresses. (Please let me know if that's a copyright problem Chris, and I will desist.)

 

Updates to this thread will be infrequent (Edit mid-may: Wrong, sometimes there have been three per day!) and I intend to stick to business here and only chat about the model. (Edit: and life the universe and everything else too. It's more interesting that way, I now think.) I'm reading a build log of this kit over on the forum 'Model Ship World' where they have kept to the topic and I must say, it's very easy to read and learn from that way. (Edit: But the digressions of Britmodeller are much more interesting.) 

 

There won't be an update for quite some time. I will be reading books, watching videos, acquiring tools and so forth for a few weeks. I'll return with an update when I've actually done enough construction to have something to talk about.

 

Until then, fair winds and following seas!

[Bertie McBoatface]

The result of considerable labour, for those of an impatient nature.

 

 

[Faraway]

I’ve always wanted to build a wooden boat. Could this be my inspiration ?

I will watch, learn and hopefully be inspired.

Jon

[Courageous]

I think you've lost your way Bertie but nice to see you down in maritime. Like Jon @Faraway, I too have always wanted to do something wooden but with so much to build from the stash, new tools and a new skill set needed, it'll be a while, if ever. So, I'll take a pew and watch the novice hone his new skills.

 

Stuart

[Bertie McBoatface]

On 3/29/2022 at 10:36 PM, Faraway said:

I’ve always wanted to build a wooden boat. Could this be my inspiration ?

I will watch, learn and hopefully be inspired.

Jon

 

On 3/31/2022 at 2:19 PM, Courageous said:

I think you've lost your way Bertie but nice to see you down in maritime. Like Jon @Faraway, I too have always wanted to do something wooden but with so much to build from the stash, new tools and a new skill set needed, it'll be a while, if ever. So, I'll take a pew and watch the novice hone his new skills.

 

Stuart

 

Welcome aboard, me hearties! The fun is about to commence.

 

Building begins in the next week with the first update sometime next weekend, given a fair wind and following seas! I've been making up reasons not to start because I'm a little nervous of making an utter fool of myself. Then I remembered that has never stopped me before, so I'll crack on.

 

I will also be writing a build log on Model Ship World. I'm not leaving BM but I thought it would be sensible to find some expert mentors for this rather than blunder on unassisted. There's a ton of knowledge, skill and experience over there and they are very welcoming too, so when you take the plunge into wooden boats, I recommend joining up over there. It uses the same forum software as BM so it's dead easy for us to use.

 

You'll get the same pictures here on BM but the text will be lightweight Bertie Banter in tone, whereas MSW tends to have a more technically focussed style in the build logs. (My username over there is E Z Breeze should you wish to read all of the nitty gritty detail.) (Edit: mid-May All of the details are here and my contributions to Model Ship World have dried up pretty much. I just feel more at home here. 🙂)

[Bertie McBoatface]

And here we go. Update #1 Opening the box.

 

This is particularly picture heavy being a guided tour around the box contents by a very excited newbie, grinning all the way. I'm writing to people like last week's version of me who know nothing, and at the same time asking questions of the experts out there. It may make the writing sound a bit muddled at times, but I really do only have the one personality.

 

 

A sample page of instructions. I hope you can read it and see that it doesn't simply tell me what to do but why I'm doing it. "Now that the assembly is made and we know it fits perfectly into the slots..." Actually, I already knew why I was building a sub assembly-using the deck as a jig because I've done it hundreds of times with plastic aircraft models. That's the experience that will give me an edge with this model compared to a complete beginner to modelmaking. However, I'm very glad to see that @chris watton assumes that I know nothing for I'm pretty certain that before long, when things get more complicated, that will be exactly the case.

 

 

If not before, my total ignorance will begin here at the rigging. I've been provided with seven big sheets of plans. They seem to be the heart of the kit, everything else could, with a great deal of work, be self built from scratch just using the plans. And the rigging doesn't seem to be particularly complicated even to me. I wonder that it was enough to hold the boat together in a stiff breeze but apparently it did. I've read that there was no standing rigging at all, the masts were supported only by the running rigging used to raise and trim the sails. Very efficient until something snaps?

 

 

This is an optional extra. The Scots boats weren't subject to Board of Trade regulations and weren't obliged to carry a lifeboat and my reading suggests that few if any did, but it's so cute I couldn't resist. 

 

 

Here's the rest of the rowing boat. This was the first piece of laser cut wood that I examined in detail. Incidentally, I was looking for defect or missing items as well as simply enjoying opening the treasure chest. I didn't find any problems. 

 

 

I found two sizes of rigging thread which looks a little hairy. I'm getting well ahead of myself here but I wonder whether it's customary to pull it through a block of beeswax to tame those loose hairs? The last time I worked with thread like this was in the old days of looming cables together inside avionics 'black boxes' with it and we used beeswax then. As well as looking tidy, it prevented the knots slipping. I'd have to test its response to CA glue before trying it.

 

 

The planking pins are very small. They will be difficult to handle but looking on the bright side, there aren't many of them.

 

 

Conversely, the blocks struck me as surprisingly large.

 

 

This is the raw material for the two chimneys of the steam capstan, one for smoke and one for steam, and some brass for making rollers with (purpose as yet unknown to me but probably to do with net handling?)

 

 

I've no idea what these are. Either I turned over two pages of the instructions last night and missed them or they are something to do with rigging. Time will tell, or maybe one of my readers will?

 

 

And now to the wood. Actually, now to the bathroom for a wash of my hands following those biscuits I mentioned earlier. I always do this with plastic kits and it has to be even more important with porous material. So with clean dry hands I unpacked the second planking. It looks beautifully figured and if I make a half-decent job of it, painting it red white and black will be heart-breaking and I may well leave it inauthentically gorgeous. Of course, if I should make a mess of it, several coats paint will be a great comfort to me.  

 

I note that a few planks are thinner than the rest but this seems to only be at the ends. This photo make them seem a lot bigger than they really are.

 

The smell of this wood made my nostrils and my smile grow wider. I don't get that response from polystyrene!

 

 

This is the first planking. It is the vest under the shirt of that nice hardwood. It's more flexible than the second planking seen above and I think it will give me a very good chance of building a nice smooth hull. The rest is up to me.

 

I see that there is a planed side and a sawn side. This applies to the second planking material too. Is there a preference as to which way round it's used? My instinct would be planed side in, as I want best contact with the frames and the other side is going to be sanded anyway.

 

 

The sails are complicated! There's no way I could make my own or get them sewn by anyone here for anything less than ridiculous money (and this is a silk weaving town, or was.) I thought they were an expensive item to add to the kit but now I'm happy that was money well spent. They need to be dyed and the instructions allow for any material dye. I'm tempted to use acrylic ink, because I have lots of colours and I'm familiar with its use. That would allow me to give them a bit of life through colour variation too. Again, I will experiment first. I have no spare material for test purposes so if anyone knows what this particular fabric is called, that would be a great help.

 

 

My mainmast is in there somewhere. More grinning and sniffing here. It's a very fine piece of timber and I won't be painting it!

 

 

These are rubbing strakes which really liven up the side of the hull. I know they are functional but they serve the purpose of go-faster-stripes too. Maybe this was where the car industry got the idea? The fishing boats would literally race back to port with a night's catch because the first home would get the best prices, their fish being that much fresher. This is why these boats look like racers - they are!

 

 

This is the acrylic display stand that I won't be using, except as a pattern for making one in wood and brass. I dislike the contrast in material between plastic and wood.

 

 

The P/E is two or three times the thickness of that used in plastic kits, for which I give thanks. I find thin P/E very difficult to handle and this will be fine. It's still very flat though, as it always is, and I plan to round the profiles with solder, where appropriate.

 

 

Turning to the wooden sheet materials, this is a close up of the laser cutting and etching. Don't be misled by the round corners, this is a microscopic view and there's no rounding visible to the naked eye. It's very cleverly made and I wanted to get a good look at it. Nice.

 

 

The piece in my hand is the spine of the craft and now I really know how big she's going to be. Interesting, I've started to think of her as feminine. 🤔

 

You can see on some of the frames and patterns a thin etched line. This allows the builder to part-shape them before assembling the 'skeleton' of the boat. Final shaping has to happen before the planks go on and is something that I'm equal parts scared of and excited about. 

 

 

And that's the deck. Laser etched so that I don't have to lay the individual planks.

 

 

It's pretty cool and a great time-saver. After two layers of planks on the hull, I think I'll be pleased to see this waiting for me.

 

 

That used to be my dining table but now it's my timber yard and ship chandler. I am resolved not to pack anything away until either the boat is finished or I am. I won't starve, I usually eat at the workbench/desk and the table becomes that place where I put things that I can't be bothered to put away. Maybe this project will make me a tidier man? Maybe I'll throw all those things under the table instead?

 

I've actually done some cutting and sticking already but I'm getting nervous about the size of this unsaved post so I'll tell you about that after tea.

 

I hope that anyone long tempted by wooden ship models will now be searching for their credit cards. So far, I regret nothing.

 

[Faraway]

Now this is what I call a build log.

Most splendid.

Jon

[Bertie McBoatface]

2 hours ago, Faraway said:

Now this is what I call a build log.

Most splendid.

Jon

 

Thanks Jon. Read on!

[Bertie McBoatface]

Update #2 The Building Begins

 

The building begins with the superstructure which is low, rectangular and simple. Did they do it this way to build the beginner's confidence?

 

 

Step one, remove the pieces of 3mm MDF from the sheet. Now, having successfully, quickly, efficiently and easily removed a bazillion plastic pieces from their sprues and a ton of PE pieces from their sheets, I didn't expect this to give me pause. However, I was out of my comfort zone and anxious to mend my slipshod ways and build this ship as close to perfectly as I could manage. I wanted to sever those few little connections as neatly as possible even though these aren't critical components and the attachment points are cleverly positioned in places where it doesn't make any difference anyway.

 

Of one thing I was certain, I wasn't going to just force it loose because I was aware of those narrow isthmuses (iththmi?) between the block in the centre of the picture and the rest of the lower deck pattern. (Pattern, in this sense seems to mean structure that wasn't part of the real ship. Please correct me someone, if that's not the full definition.)

 

 

A scalpel wasn't going to do it. It was too thick to pass down the slot. I did not try a craft knife at this point, being so accustomed to using scalpels. Strrrike One!

 

 

In my other life as a plastic man, when a scalpel wont do it, I reach for a micro saw. That wouldn't go into the slot either. Strrrrrrrike Two!

 

 

This one would. Its a micro micro saw from Tamiya intended for engraving delicate panel lines into plastic. It fitted the slot but, being made from tinfoil more or less, could not handle the sawing of MDF and folded in my fingers like a deckchair in a gale. Strrrrrrrrrrike Three and OUT!

 

Baffled, I returned to the list of recommended tools in the manual. Scalpels? Nope. Craft knives? Yes. Craft knives are thicker bladed than scalpels which seemed like a disadvantage earlier but now I was starting to see the light. With a craft knife, Stanley or X-Acto, I can apply some force and MDF bends a bit. I attacked those tiny attachments from both sides and the cuts met in the middle.

 

 

Problem solved. I tidied up the microscopic tear out with a swipe of sandpaper, just for the look of the thing. I bet Chris the designer and author of the manual, never anticipated anyone having problems with this operation.

 

"No-one ever lost money underestimating the stupidity of the public." (P. T. Barnum.) 🤣

 

 

Looking at the almost foolproof pieces in detail, it's clear that every possible effort has been made to prevent silly mistakes. I may yet find a way to fit this back to front and upside down but what I learned from this is that when I have a kit with un-numbered pieces, which is not uncommon, I will be sure to mark them as clearly as this for myself. Everything fitted together beautifully with no adjustment required.

 

 

They say you can never have enough clamps. It appears that I don't have enough suitable ones, so those very heavy unsuitable G-clamps had to be conscripted. They worked ok actually with their weight resting on the bench, but I will have a look around for more like the one-hand operated bar clamps you see in the centre.

 

This was actually a dry run to test the fit of the pieces and the best way to do the clamping at the same time. That's a tip I recently picked up from someone on MSW or BM but I can't remember who exactly. I will give them a credit as soon as I find the reference again. Were it not for him/her, I'd have glued up the pieces and then found that I needed more clamps and have to go searching for them. It's not an earth-shaking discovery but it's those little things I'm needing to learn or re-learn for this new genre.

 

I had some slight concerns about accidentally gluing the superstructure to the deck at this stage, which would be awkward. I thought about protecting the deck with tinfoil or sellotape but it seemed to be a lot more trouble than simply being very careful with the glue.

 

 

I don't apply glue straight from the tube or bottle. It's so chancy. You get a slight blockage, squeeze harder and suddenly you've glued our model to the curtains and your trousers to the carpet. I decant glue into milk bottle tops and paint it on with brushes. In this case a virtually disposable cheap brush from China via Amazon. I get them fifty or a hundred at a time for peanuts. I diluted the glue with a little water. 70% glue 30% water. This will possibly have weakened the bond, but it made the glue flow into the MDF and stay where I wanted it, so it could equally well have strengthened it. I don't think it matters as this glue is for making furniture and fences and I'm only making a model. There's ample strength...

 

 

...and very little, squeezage

 

 

I've just checked and it's not stuck down.  Phew!

 

It's actually turned out rather well with no ugly runs or other mess. Not that it would have made any difference because I'd have just sanded them off before applying the surface pieces, but I've proved to myself that I can do simple work in 'wood' in a neat and tidy way and that's a confidence booster for the rest of the build - just as Vanguard Models intended.

 

I'm very pleased with the kit but I want you to know that I'm not on commission, I paid for this kit myself and I will tell you about the bits I don't like - like that stand. 😲

 

I'm pleased with my first day as a model shipwright too. The cutting was downright embarrassing at first but the sticking went very well. So far so good!

 

[Courageous]

A fantastic start Bertie. Your thread is very informative, warts and all, ideal from a novice to another novice, like me . 

 

Stuart

[Bertie McBoatface]

1 minute ago, Courageous said:

A fantastic start Bertie. Your thread is very informative, warts and all, ideal from a novice to another novice, like me . 

 

Stuart

 

Excellent. I'm glad it suits you.

 

The kit was designed for novices, and so is the thread. I'm in that slightly uneasy place where I'm about a fortnight ahead of you, not in the modelmaking so much as the reading. Look at this sentence I came across in a book on the herring fishery last week.

 

 

Where else would you put your tack hook but in the cringle of your forelug? I read that and burst out laughing because I hadn't a clue what it all meant. It was like the first time I read 'fuselage' or 'aileron' in the instructions of those early Airfix kits (when words were allowed). A week later I happened to browse that page again and magically it was now written in English. I hadn't translated the sentence itself but I'd seen those words in other places and the context made it all clear.

 

There's a chain attached to the main timber of the front of the boat with a hook on the end which provides a place to anchor the corner of the front lugsail (a four sided sail which is not rectangular) well clear of the deck. The cringle is a round piece of metal sewn into the corner of said sail to take the load of the hook. This is all required because in order to change tack and point this kind of boat in another direction, the sail has to be removed from the mast completely, manually carried around to the other side of it and re-hoisted there. Quick detachable fittings are essential because tacking has to be done quickly or the boat can lose speed and become uncontrollable, maybe turning broadside to the waves and rolling like a log and a Zulu with its sails down has no rigging supporting the mast at all, so the mast can more or less be thrown overboard. The mast isn't fastened down at the bottom but just sits in a well. The chain rig is an improvement on the earlier eyebolt on the deck because it's moveable and easy to hook on. 

 

I picked up that nautical knowledge in a few days just from the kit instructions, other blokes' build logs (logs, not threads. See how I'm changed!), a reference book, and looking at my own parts. It almost makes me want to go to sea. Lol. I almost wanted to drive a tank or an aeroplane too.

 

One of the modeller's transferable skills is the ability to quickly grasp how mechanical devices work. I didn't realise that until I started this odyssey.

 

  

 

[Adm Lord De Univers]

18 hours ago, Bertie Psmith said:

suddenly you've glued our model to the curtains and your trousers to the carpet.

Been there...

 

And brilliant log Bertie, I'm learning a lot from it already.

 

David

[MRMRL]

Well Bertie, you are quite simply a crazy person , I mean who builds a wooden boat while they've got loads going on, honestly - I got this far before baby arrived last July, it's not moved since  

 

 

Eventually it might be the Mary Rose. Good luck with your project, all the inspiration I can get to start going again myself is appreciated. Looks like you've made a good start to a stunning looking ship.

[Bertie McBoatface]

37 minutes ago, MRMRL said:

baby arrived last July, it's not moved since  

 

Get that baby to the hospital right now! 😉

[Bertie McBoatface]

49 minutes ago, MRMRL said:

the Mary Rose. Good luck with your project, all the inspiration I can get to start going again myself is appreciated.

 

You're welcome to the inspiration, it was build logs that tipped me over the edge into woodwork. Mary Rose looks lovely. Who makes that kit?

[Bertie McBoatface]

With my confidence soaring, both in my abilities and in the kit, I've had a very productive though short session this evening.

 

 

When in doubt, gerra bigga 'ammer! Actually this is the smallest hammer I've ever owned and is well suited for delivering a precisely calibrated tap to the haft of the craft knife below it. The craft knife blade is also perfectly suited to severing those little attachments between frames and MDF sheet. Fortunately the flat below is vacant at the moment and I'll time further builds to coincide with bingo sessions. (Yes, I'm in a Retirement Complex, sigh...)

 

 

It took only minutes to dry fit the keel and the many bulkheads, the fore and aft fillers, the two 'floors' and the underdeck. They give you lots of bulkheads to make planking easier as the planks have more support this way. I had planned to glue the pieces one at a time in order to ensure that I had them square but now I see that the framework is self-jigging and it will be better to glue and assemble the whole thing in one go. First I have to do a little pre-fairing, or bevelling of some of the pieces and my weapons of choice for that job will be the set of engineer's files that Amazon will deliver to me tomorrow. Hence the short session today. 

 

I reject the use of sandpaper for stock removal of more than a millimetre or two because it's so easy for me to end up with imprecise rounded lines. I realise that the fairing process is supposed to result in rounded lines for the planking to follow but this way I think I have the best chance that they will be accurate.

 

 

My word, she is a beautiful shape!

 

 

[Courageous]

1 hour ago, Bertie Psmith said:

gerra bigga 'ammer!

With that 'ammer, you'll be using bigga nails?

 

Stuart

[Bertie McBoatface]

4 minutes ago, Courageous said:

With that 'ammer, you'll be using bigga nails?

 

Stuart

 

It might come in handy for a certain tank build I have in progress at the moment...

[Bertie McBoatface]

23 hours ago, Bertie Psmith said:

With my confidence soaring

 

 

Well you just knew where I was heading, didn't you? 😕 But more of that later.

 

 

My set of files arrived. They were very cheap, less than £2 each, imported from India where I'm fairly sure they were hand made. They are charmingly eccentric, not especially straight although mostly flat. The tangs are all different sizes so I'm fortunate to have an adjustable handle for them as well as the normal wooden one, which copes with most of the files anyway. They are only six inches long which is just right for this work and they are sharp, which is the main thing for me - I don't recall ever having new files before, apart from needle files that is. I doubt that they would last long on steel but on wood and brass they will last my lifetime. I seem not to have photographed them!

 

The picture shows my solution to the workpiece holding problem. That's half of the job done in my opinion. That vice is new and really I should have bought one years ago. I have been very slipshod holding the workpiece in one hand and the tool in the other. With that frame secure, I can get two hands on the file, as one is supposed to, and not waste half of my strength resisting the other half of my strength.

 

I have the edge of the MDF frame just below the top of the scrap chipboard so that the edge will be fully supported when I get there with tools. For anyone unfamilliar with MDF the 'grain' pattern resembles a pack of cards and filing down to the last poker hand will cause the final layers to peel away and tear. 

 

 

I could not have done that with sandpaper. Or without the vice. I stopped short of the line to give me a little more to work with when I'm fairing the completed frame. It was also difficult for me to see the line which is very fine.

 

 

After all of the frames were done (D'oh!) I went over the cutting lines with a sharp pencil.

 

 

Larger frames didn't need the G-clamp which was nice since I was continually moving them to keep the edge in the right place.

 

 

And the pencil line helped a lot. As I was filing upwards, in one direction only of course, the dust piled up on the top of the workpiece continually and obscured everything. I had a vacuum cleaner handy for that. Unlike sandpaper dust from MDF, the filings were coarse enough to stay local and were easier to clean up. That hasn't stopped me sneezing all afternoon though! I should have worn my mask.

 

 

I was aiming to be halfway to the bevel line at the same time that I hit halfway through the sheet thickness. It didn't always work out but I got better the more I practiced. I haven't done fine work like this for years, decades even, and I felt good to be reviving those rusty old skills.

 

 

It may be old hat to you but I am as pleased with that as I was with my apprenticeship test job back in 1974.

 

 

Then things started to go a little awry.

 

"If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster,

And treat those two imposters just the same..."

 

I dropped the smallest of the frames, now filed even smaller, under the desk. Backing away from said desk in order to retrieve it - I ran over the little thing with my chair and bent it. No, this isn't the disaster. Not yet.

 

 

When dry fitting the structure yesterday I slotted the frames into the keel like this. It's awkward that way and tends to erode the crisp edges of the slots.

 

 

 

and then

 

 

Today, since I knew I was going to be gluing up after assembly, by running dilute glue into the joins like Tamiya Extra Thin, I found this was a much more pleasant way to do line up and engage the slots.

 

I'd dry assembled the keel and frames and the deck yesterday so there was no need to refer to the instructions again, was there?

 

 

Bish! Bosh! Bash! and it was all together. I thought I'd quickly (yes quickly) fit the deck just to make sure everything was square. I sliced away any protruding parts of the keel and splashed some glue around before fitting the deck irremovably. (Some of you already know what I had done wrong.)

 

 

And now you all do. Those patterns were supposed to slot in downwards before the deck went on. How did I do that? Remember that soaring confidence? By now, things had gone so well that I was well past confidence and into complacency. 

 

That wasn't the disaster either. In fact, it wasn't a problem at all. More of an embarrassment really so to get it sorted out in the quickest possible time I cut the links between the 16 reinforcing pieces with a saw and glued them in place as fast as I could. Which is when the 'disaster' happened.

 

 

In a moment of stupid carelessness with an expensive model, I managed to half drop, half hurl the thing onto the floor. Where it fell onto its most vulnerable part, the stern. Crunch! Blistering oaths ensued. First I bend frame 14, then I splinter the deck! 

 

 

Even that wasn't a disaster really. None of this is going to be visible on the finished boat. I bodged it all back together with lots of glue and the last pieces of the reinforcing patterns, and a tiny wee bit of humility which I hope will keep me on the straight and narrow for the rest of the build.

 

This kit is nowhere near as difficult as I feared on Day One, but it's also nowhere near as simple as I thought it was this morning. Lesson learned? Who knows?

 

[MRMRL]

On 4/6/2022 at 2:48 PM, Bertie Psmith said:

 

You're welcome to the inspiration, it was build logs that tipped me over the edge into woodwork. Mary Rose looks lovely. Who makes that kit?

 

It's a Caldercraft kit, it's the only decent sized Mary Rose I've seen. Eventually I'd love a collection of some of the iconic Royal Navy/English sailing ships, Revenge, Sovereign of the Seas, Victory... I can dream, need to finish one first  

[Bertie McBoatface]

59 minutes ago, MRMRL said:

 

It's a Caldercraft kit, it's the only decent sized Mary Rose I've seen. Eventually I'd love a collection of some of the iconic Royal Navy/English sailing ships, Revenge, Sovereign of the Seas, Victory... I can dream, need to finish one first  

 

I've just had a look at some finished Mary Rose models. It certainly is an impressive ship. Very tempting but not until I've done a few more fishing boats thanks. The rigging looks a mare's nest to me!

[MRMRL]

2 hours ago, Bertie Psmith said:

 

I've just had a look at some finished Mary Rose models. It certainly is an impressive ship. Very tempting but not until I've done a few more fishing boats thanks. The rigging looks a mare's nest to me!

 

I'm starting with Mary Rose because I looked at the rigging and it didn't freak me out as much as the rigging on something like HMS Victory - which was utterly panic inducing  

[Faraway]

25 minutes ago, MRMRL said:

 

I'm starting with Mary Rose because I looked at the rigging and it didn't freak me out as much as the rigging on something like HMS Victory - which was utterly panic inducing  

About 40 years ago, yes we had models back then, I build the 1/96 Revell USS Constitution and I rigged it, which I seem to recall the rigging took longer to do then actually building the ship.

But it didn’t half look good.

So I know exactly why you shy’d away from Victory.

You both have my admiration for taking on a wooden build. 

Jon

[Bertie McBoatface]

1 hour ago, Faraway said:

You both have my admiration for taking on a wooden build. 

 

They confer more kudos, don't they? And yet they really aren't that much different to plastic models. Preparing and assembling small parts into a big one, finishing, adding details...

[Faraway]

2 hours ago, Bertie Psmith said:

 

They confer more kudos, don't they? And yet they really aren't that much different to plastic models. Preparing and assembling small parts into a big one, finishing, adding details...

You’re right, they do confer more kudos simply because, I think, they are made from wood and are considered more ‘grown up’ and therefore require more skill.
Plastic kits, to some, are considered a child’s hobby. As I’ve witnessed myself when you tell people that you build plastic kits.

To get the results we aim for, both mediums require, in part, very different skill sets. 
Jon