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3 Action Economist
May 22, 2002

Educate. Agitate. Liberate.
I kind of want to get in to this wooden ship thing, but I've never done it before. Plenty of other modeling, and wargaming.

Is this a good kit for a beginner? It says "Junior" so I'm guessing so.

It's also cheap.

:commissar:
(Formerly Colonial Air Force)

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3 Action Economist
May 22, 2002

Educate. Agitate. Liberate.

The Locator posted:

My gut reaction is.. no, for a couple reasons.

Thank you!

I already ordered it, so I'll guess I'll keep those thoughts in mind. I'll try a more detailed kit after. None of the inexpensive ones seem to be from the age of sail, but I suppose to get started maybe that's alright (that's really my interest).

3 Action Economist
May 22, 2002

Educate. Agitate. Liberate.

The Locator posted:

I'm not sure there is a true 'beginner' level kit for a fully rigged sailing ship from the age of sail that isn't a solid hull kit, regardless of what skill level the manufacturers put on them. The small boats that I linked to are a way to relatively cheaply discover whether you like working with wood in the same fashion needed for the larger ships (with or without rigging depending on what you pick), and still getting a nice looking model out of it.

I don't need a fully-rigged ship to start, it's sort of why I went with a cutter.

I'll post photos, and if I enjoy this at least a little, I'll grab one of those other kits you mentioned, wrong-era or not. See how I like it. :)

3 Action Economist
May 22, 2002

Educate. Agitate. Liberate.
Not even Matchbox, sometimes they're cheap plastic shells.

3 Action Economist
May 22, 2002

Educate. Agitate. Liberate.
Wow, that's awesome.

I want one.

3 Action Economist
May 22, 2002

Educate. Agitate. Liberate.

The Locator posted:

Please share some photos of the materials in the kit when you get it and let me know what you think of it.

Alright, so it arrived.

Here's the box:




These are all the parts, which seem straightforward enough. It even has little pewter cannons.


The sails:


These are the "instructions":


I put that in quotes because they don't really tell you how to do much. It seems straight forward enough, and they have some tips, but the kit says it's for 10+ and I don't really think a 10 year old would love just diving in to this and trying to figure it out. I'm not even sure I want to, except I paid money for it, so I'm going to anyway.

I'll keep everything updated as I go through it.

3 Action Economist
May 22, 2002

Educate. Agitate. Liberate.
So first question.

It says to shape the parts, I should get them wet (easy) and then hammer them (what?). The hammer they show is not a hammer I own, and that seems like a weird way to do things.

So do I need to go buy a hammer like they have shown, or is there an easier way to shape the wood?

3 Action Economist
May 22, 2002

Educate. Agitate. Liberate.

The Locator posted:

What are you trying to shape? I've never heard of using a hammer to do anything on a wooden model, except maybe drive in small brass tacks.

Can you get a close-up photo of the instructions in question so I can see what they are attempting to tell you to do?

It's for the bulwarks on the side (bottom piece):


Here's the instructions:

3 Action Economist
May 22, 2002

Educate. Agitate. Liberate.

The Locator posted:

So the theory behind shaping them like that is if you 'indent' a piece of wood, it will bend towards that side. You can achieve the same effect by rolling something round along the wood while applying pressure, or using a type of plank-bender that pushes into just a single side of the wood.

I dislike that method of wood bending as it permanently damages the wood where the indent is, and it's possible to wreck the piece of wood that way.

I prefer to use water and heat, although unless the bend I'm attempting is really tight, I just use heat. When you heat wood (using a plank bender, curling iron, or I use a heat gun) it does something to the way the fibers in the wood bind, and makes them 'slippery', allowing the wood to bend easier. When the wood cools, the structure of the wood returns to normal, and the bend is now permanent. Water does the same thing to some extent, but as it dries the wood tends to spring back to the original position more than using heat. For extreme bends (like where the planks on my ship bend up around the stern) I soak the wood and then use heat, and the heat causes the water to steam inside the wood making the wood much softer and easier to bend without breaking.

If the bulwark you are bending only has to follow the curve of that deck edge, then you should be able to get a very nice bend using heat only. The nice thing about heat is that it's fast, and if you bend too much, you just heat it up and unbend it a bit and keep playing with it until you are happy with the shape. I've seen some people have good success with a blow drier or curling iron purchased at a local thrift store for a couple bucks. I bought a heat gun off of Amazon for $16 because I'm lazy and have no real thrift stores near my house - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006Z9LUDG/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

It made some annoying smoke and odors when I first used it due to oils and stuff no doubt, but it's working fine now, I've used it for the last several months without any issues.

Edit: Also, if you have a soldering iron around, you can easily use it instead of an electric plank bender. Just let the iron heat up, and then hold the piece you want to bend over the hot iron (but not touching it). It's much slower than a heat gun, but it's how I did all the planking on my first ship.

Thank you, that's helped a ton.

For the record, I sort of think this kit is awful. Well, not the kit itself, that seems fine, but the lack of directions. The box says "You don't have to read!" which is really just a translation for "we're loving lazy!"

They have photos for the steps, but they're not terribly clear as to how to get parts to fit. Fortunately for me, I have years of experience with other types of models, so I know to test fit every single part before even gluing a thing, and it's proved useful. If I were 10, as the box suggests, I would have thrown this away already.

E: Just broke the starboard bulwark. :(

3 Action Economist fucked around with this message at 21:27 on Jan 16, 2015

3 Action Economist
May 22, 2002

Educate. Agitate. Liberate.
21.

3 Action Economist
May 22, 2002

Educate. Agitate. Liberate.

Bloody Hedgehog posted:

Really, all it takes is some judicious use of a pliers, a dremel, a saw, and a heat gun, a roll of duct tape, 4 ounces of urine, a slightly used hatchet, a steak, medium rare, a centrifuge, and an advanced degree in medieval literature.

3 Action Economist
May 22, 2002

Educate. Agitate. Liberate.

The Locator posted:

I actually don't think that everything in those albums is from the same guy, as they have different names, and the album with the work area setups has 10 or so pictures that are clearly different setups/areas.

Each album lists the artist, so they're definitely not the same person.

As far as the paints go, even though GW sucks in so, so many ways, Citadel paints are usually pretty good (until they dry out).

3 Action Economist
May 22, 2002

Educate. Agitate. Liberate.

Rotten Cookies posted:

So... has anybody done or thought about throwing some kits together for a Mad Max kinda thing? Because I'm thinkin' about it. Thinkin' real hard. But first I want to finish these Battlestar Vipers.

The June issue of Wargames Illustrated is all about post-apocalyptic gaming, and there are two Mad Max specific articles in it. One is about a set of rules some dudes developed over beer, and it has a ton of great conversion pictures.

The other is how to build a bus that is also an armored fence to keep giant people and their gangs from stealing your petrol.

3 Action Economist
May 22, 2002

Educate. Agitate. Liberate.

Ortazel posted:

Go one page back and look at the piece of dowel with scaled ft markings. As stated before, the average sailor then would have been much closer to 5'0 due to terrible nutrition. The elm tree pumps look like they are scaled to about 9-10" in diameter, which sounds about right.

That sort of depends where the sailor is from and this being an American vessel, they probably were not that much shorter than most people today.

3 Action Economist
May 22, 2002

Educate. Agitate. Liberate.

SkunkDuster posted:

I was just interested in the paint. I don't need any brushes and I'd rather pay $43 for an acrylic nail polish display thing than $60 for their case.

I use this for my paints (and I probably should buy another one at this point).

3 Action Economist
May 22, 2002

Educate. Agitate. Liberate.

Darth Brooks posted:

For the longest time I wanted to build an AT-AT and motorize it.

E: Awesome.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ti6OQO0SqTc

I love how it moves with stop-motion clunkiness, just like the ones in the film!

3 Action Economist
May 22, 2002

Educate. Agitate. Liberate.
I vote for a 74-gun ship of the line a la The Locator! :v:

3 Action Economist
May 22, 2002

Educate. Agitate. Liberate.

The Locator posted:

You mean the model or the real ship? The model, no, the bowsprit and rigging won't weigh much.

The real thing? As far as I know all sailing ships had ballast in the bilge, but nothing specifically towards the rear. I think the fore/jib sails actually lift while providing forward propulsion, but I'm not a sailing expert by any stretch.

Real ships adjusted cargo and ballast to affect trim, to the point that as the journey went on and stores were used up, they re-did it to keep trim in check.

3 Action Economist
May 22, 2002

Educate. Agitate. Liberate.

Ensign Expendable posted:

I love the BA-10. It's so awkward and blocky but with a fuckton of firepower for an armoured car. Then there's the BA-64, but that loses the silly interbellum look for something an armoured car should actually look like. I really need to get kits of these things.

I refer to the ones in Flames of War as armored rollerskates.

3 Action Economist
May 22, 2002

Educate. Agitate. Liberate.

big_g posted:

So I started the paint job on my crap tank this weekend but I'm not sure I'm doing it right.

Looks right to me.

3 Action Economist
May 22, 2002

Educate. Agitate. Liberate.
That looks great. Are you planning on painting algae or some sort of grime on the dock itself for the waterline?

3 Action Economist
May 22, 2002

Educate. Agitate. Liberate.

The Locator posted:

I also made a stand, that isn't finished, but you can see what it's headed for.


I think I'm just going to put one more side support in at position 1, to keep the hull as visible as possible. The stand will get stained, probably golden oak or similar.

I like that the stand looks like a drydock framing thing (no idea what they're called). Like they're ready to knock out those front beams with a sledgehammer and let the ship slide in to the water.

3 Action Economist
May 22, 2002

Educate. Agitate. Liberate.
I watched a video on the serv-o-matic thing, it's pretty cool.

As far as breaks, after I broke that piece on my little ship, I put it in the box and haven't gone back. I will. Eventually?

3 Action Economist
May 22, 2002

Educate. Agitate. Liberate.

Warmachine posted:

So what would this thread recommend as material for modeling 1/72 scale trailer hitch testicles? Asking for a friend.

Greenstuff. Already looks kind of rubbery.

3 Action Economist
May 22, 2002

Educate. Agitate. Liberate.
For those interested, here's a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0PyCi_vy7Y

E: The Russian one, video is much longer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaJ149UMuNY

3 Action Economist fucked around with this message at 13:10 on Aug 14, 2015

3 Action Economist
May 22, 2002

Educate. Agitate. Liberate.

TasogareNoKagi posted:

Does it matter if the OP hasn't posted in over a year? And even longer in this thread?

Considering admin have to change it anyway, probably not.

3 Action Economist
May 22, 2002

Educate. Agitate. Liberate.
I have one of those pin cushions (mine's green) but it doesn't have the top part. Neither does my wife's.

How did you keep it on!?

3 Action Economist
May 22, 2002

Educate. Agitate. Liberate.

The Locator posted:

Thank you.

http://modelshipworld.com If you ever see a reference in my post to 'MSW', it's referencing that site, Model Ship World, which is the official forum of the Nautical Research Guild.

I've actually been following your build over there.

3 Action Economist
May 22, 2002

Educate. Agitate. Liberate.
I feel bad, but I know where I'd be aiming my swivel guns if I came across that in a battle.

3 Action Economist
May 22, 2002

Educate. Agitate. Liberate.

Jeherrin posted:

Are the swivel-guns breech loaders? Because I'm wondering how they would have reloaded the one you just moved.

Swivel them vertically?

Or some poor sailor has to hang out on the ratlines.

3 Action Economist
May 22, 2002

Educate. Agitate. Liberate.

The Locator posted:

The swivel guns are not breach loading. This may be another case of the model designer not building for accuracy, or like many things on warships of that era, the crew just had to deal with it by a combination of turning the gun as far as possible, and swabbing/ramming the gun while leaning outside the ship. The main deck guns are just as bad, as the muzzle will barely come inboard beyond the bulwarks on a couple of them, so they would have to be loaded by either working inside the gun port, or from outside, or some combination.

I guess the other alternative for the swivel guns would just be man-handling them off the rail mount, loading them, and then sticking them back up on the mount to fire.

Thank God for flexible rammers!

3 Action Economist
May 22, 2002

Educate. Agitate. Liberate.
The Locator:

I found a site through MSW that lets you sort ship models in all sorts of ways. They listed a few beginner models that also have planking, and I think I may try my hand at one.

The ones I liked are all Caldercraft, who lists Snake as their beginner model, but it's $350. The other site says the Cutter Sherbourne model is also a good beginner one, and it's only $130. That seems like an okay investment to try something.

I think you recommended something else in that price range at some point, but the Sherbourne is at least from the era I enjoy. Do you think that'd be a good one?

3 Action Economist
May 22, 2002

Educate. Agitate. Liberate.

The Locator posted:

I agree with you, the pale color is 'meh'. I much prefer the old yellow ochre color.


There is one guy who has been working on and off on that kit database for quite a while. It's a pretty cool resource, but he's still missing some manufacturers.

Caldercraft supposedly makes pretty good kits. Do a search on MSW for build logs of the Sherbourne, there are at least 8 build logs for the Sherbourne, including an amazing (but unfinished) one by a guy in Germany named Dirk (his username is 'Dubz') that does great detailing work. Cutters in general are decent for the same reason I picked the AVS. They are smaller ships so generally in a larger scale, single mast with fore and aft rigging, and a lower number of guns. 1:64 is probably the most common scale of wooden ships, so you should be able to build plenty of others in the same scale later if you like keeping all your models the same scale.

Another kit that is the same scale and type, is the Lady Nelson by Victory models (Amati), who also have a pretty good reputation for quality. http://www.agesofsail.com/ecommerce/amati-kits/victory-models/amati-lady-nelson.html

It's a bit more expensive than the Caldercraft Sherbourne, but Amati/Victory are known for using more exotic wood types in their kits. There are at least 6 build logs started on MSW for the Lady Nelson.

$129 (plus tools and probably some replacement parts) is easier to swallow than $229 if it's something I hate. Maybe as the second build, though.

E: I found the Sherbourne for just under $100 US, and they have the book people seem to like for building it in stock, but then it's $110 for shipping out of the UK. :(

3 Action Economist fucked around with this message at 13:07 on Aug 21, 2015

3 Action Economist
May 22, 2002

Educate. Agitate. Liberate.
Yeah I think it came to like $145 shipped, which is what I'll do when it's time. Then I can order the $25 book from that site in the UK and pay an additional $25 in shipping maybe.

I mean that shipping is insane, I really don't get it.

3 Action Economist
May 22, 2002

Educate. Agitate. Liberate.
Cool beans. I'll hit you up when the time is right!

3 Action Economist
May 22, 2002

Educate. Agitate. Liberate.

The Locator posted:

What book do you want?

http://www.grbsolutions.co.uk/5.html

It looks like I might be able to get it direct from the author for 28GBP shipped, which isn't awful actually.

As it is, I have a new coat to sew up, some trousers to make, and some breeches to finish, and then it'll be busy season at work, so it'll likely be next year. Or maybe I'll just buy it sooner because I'm crazy and have too much poo poo going on.

3 Action Economist
May 22, 2002

Educate. Agitate. Liberate.
Trawling (see what I did there?) modelshipworld.com should give you plenty of ideas, but if there's a good beginner guide/book I'd be interested too.

3 Action Economist
May 22, 2002

Educate. Agitate. Liberate.

The Locator posted:

The nerd in me chose a name.



Yes!

3 Action Economist
May 22, 2002

Educate. Agitate. Liberate.

The Locator posted:

Model Expo ( https://www.modelexpo-online.com ) is having another 50% off anything sale, including the Corel wooden ship kits which they won't even get in stock until September, and of course as with the last one, the entire line of Vallejo paints.

No free shipping this time though.

Use offer code DL15, good through September 15th.

Edit: Not going anywhere near a 1/144th scale anything.

Hmm. This looks like it might be a good way to jump in for cheap: http://www.modelexpo-online.com/product.asp?ITEMNO=MS1457

At 50% off, I'm not sure how I could lose. That's cheaper than the solid-hull ship I'm already not building.

E: Going to see what others have done with it on MSW to make sure it won't suck to build, since the database website thingy I posted earlier calls it "advanced."

E2: Oh it looks like they did a big group build of this model, there's a whole subforum dedicated to it, including a thread by the guy who designed the model in the first place.

3 Action Economist fucked around with this message at 12:51 on Aug 25, 2015

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3 Action Economist
May 22, 2002

Educate. Agitate. Liberate.
Yeah, looking at the build logs it looks complex.

It's cheap though at 50% off. I suppose so are all of them at this point.

E: Maybe the Rattlesnake. It's less than I was going to spend on the Sherbourne with the sale, lots of people have built it, and although it's "intermediate" I'm not new to model building in general. Wood, perhaps....

3 Action Economist fucked around with this message at 14:21 on Aug 25, 2015

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