Shipbuilder

I have never seen anyone else using a pen, and can't even remember when I started doing it.   Not that it matters😀   I have seen matchsticks used, and even 35mm film cans!
Bob

Thanks.   The plans are in the updated 1988 version of Fast Sailing Ships, by David R. MacGregor.     The Norman Court was very well-known in her day, and considered to be one of the top tea clippers.    My wife painted the sea!        Other famous tea ships were Ariel, Thermopylae, Titania, Sir Lancelot, Taeping, Kaisow etc.     Plans of which may be found in various David MacGregor books, but hardly ever modelled due to the international fanatical obsession with Cutty Sark .
Bob

Small steel barquentine.   20 feet to 1 inch.   White-hulled ships are not very photogenic.
Bob
 

Thanks.   The plans are in the updated 1988 version of Fast Sailing Ships, by David R. MacGregor.     The Norman Court was very well-known in her day, and considered to be one of the top tea clippers.    My wife painted the sea!        Other famous tea ships were Ariel, Thermopylae, Titania, Sir Lancelot, Taeping, Kaisow etc.     Plans of which may be found in various David MacGregor books, but hardly ever modelled due to the international fanatical obsession with Cutty Sark .
Bob

Scratchbuilt from plans found in Around Cape Horn by Charles G. Davis.
Bob

Just discovered my own Picaso album online
I had been putting images on my blog for years, not realising that they were all piling up together in cyberspace.       Most of the models were built by myself over many years, but the larger ones were built by members of North West Model Shipwrights (UK).   Some of the meetings were also included.   
It has been quite interesting to find all these images grouped together.     
Bob

I build miniature model ships, sail and steam in display cases.     I really don't have the patience to try and get them in bottles.   I have in the past, but I cut the bottoms off the bottles, put the models in and glued the bottom back, disguising the join with fancy ropework!
I am also building a log cabin (Alaska 1898)    A front view shows the cabin in deep snow.   The back is open, showing the cosy interior with a flickering pot-belly stove and an oil lamp on the table (both lit with light-emitting diodes).
Bob
 

All ready for sea.
Bob
 

When I want a thin stripe to stick on, I sometimes use a length of old video tape!      It is extremely thin.   If the surface is roughened slightly with fine wire wool, you can spray it any colour you want.   Tape it to a piece of scrap acrylic, and after painting, slice the strip off with a scalpel.
Bob

Thanks,
The sea above is polystyrene foam of the soft, crumbly type that they use to pack electrical equipment in. It is shaped with a gas blowtorch with the air intake turned off, so that the flame is only as strong as a candle flame. Then, to give it a painting surface, I stick a sheet of crepe paper on top with white wood glue. I use crepe paper because it stretches and can be pushed into the hollows. Then I spray it with grey matt primer from halford's. My wife then paints the sea using Humbrol enamels.     Totally unsuitable for ships in bottles.
Bob
 

All ready for sea.
Bob
 

I am making good progress now, and have completed all the fore-and-aft sails.   The next task is to complete the standing rigging, and fit the running rigging on the mainmast.   Then, all that remains, will be to fit and rig the two square sails on the foremast.      This model is fitted with the tiny deadeyes described in another thread.
Bob
 
 

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Pass of Brander - 32 feet to 1 inch (1:384).    Bob  
 

272 completed since I started counting in October 1992, but I built a considerable number in the 20 years or so  before that.       Have only kept a small number, as I sell them.    I don't take private commissions, and don't advertise them.   Collectors just ask me what  is available from time to time.   The hobby is self-financing.     A few years ago, I was producing 13 or 14 per year!     
Bob

They certainly do get easier with practice.     I find they also take much longer.     In the 1970s, I could build one in a week, but now, it takes me weeks on end to produce one.    A lot of the reason for this is that I do not work on them every day, and even when I do move myself to start building, some days I will only do half an hour, and other days maybe up to three hours (1 1/2 in the morning, and 1 1/2 in the afternoon).       This is one of the last models I built using wooden masts and spars, and cotton for rigging.   I completed it in about 1972.   The steel barque Afon Alaw.   It does not look very good to me now, but I thought it was great at the time.     Sadly, a very large number of people tell me that it is just as good as what I produce  now, which make me wonder why I bothered trying to improve for all those years if very few could tell the difference!      The colured picture is the Donna Francisca, that a number of people claim is no better than the Afon Alaw!     Bob  
 

I only build what I feel like building these days, and I am well-aware that most ship modellers do not really like merchant ships.    But I am also building for collectors, of whom a large number prefer miniature merchant ships above anything else, probably because they are scarce.    Some people will notice fine detail where they will not notice glaring errors.     I often find my models being descrbed as "perfect in every detail," but that is not so, because I am far from being a perectionist.        I really haven't the patience to go in for super-detailing such as glazing portholes, or putting doorhandles on.     But I do try to stick to scale  and have fine masts and rigging rather than thick chunky ones and over-sized rigging.     When comparing the two models, you were spot on with these differences.      A model of the Bidston Hill (see below)  that I completed, and sold in the early 1970s for £16, turned up on Ebay recently with a starting price of 99p with no reserve.      I put in a bid for £16 just out of interest.    Eventually, it sold to a buyer in the US for just over £400.     When I contacted him later telling him when, and where I built it, and sending him a photograph of the Donna Francisca, (above), he said it was no better than the Bidston Hill, that he had just purchased!        I have come across a lot of instances like that!    Just can't understand it.   
Bob
 

I have now set and rigged the four jibs.    This took about 1 hour 30 minutes, but just as I was putting one of the last blocks on, I accidentally knocked it over.    This damaged all the standing rigging under the bowsprit and jibboom.    The only solution was to rip it all off, and re-rig it, as wire, once bent, cannot be straightened when it is glued in position on a model.   This took a further ten minutes to get the model into the condition shown below.   That is enough for today, and I will do a bit of drawing this afternoon.    Day off tomorrow, and on Wednesday, I hope to fit the mainmast,  then set and rig the mainsail and gaff topsail.
Bob
 

At last, got a bright sunny day for a better photograph!     Nearly finished now, as the rigging is the easiest part.
Bob
 
 

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I only build what I feel like building these days, and I am well-aware that most ship modellers do not really like merchant ships.    But I am also building for collectors, of whom a large number prefer miniature merchant ships above anything else, probably because they are scarce.    Some people will notice fine detail where they will not notice glaring errors.     I often find my models being descrbed as "perfect in every detail," but that is not so, because I am far from being a perectionist.        I really haven't the patience to go in for super-detailing such as glazing portholes, or putting doorhandles on.     But I do try to stick to scale  and have fine masts and rigging rather than thick chunky ones and over-sized rigging.     When comparing the two models, you were spot on with these differences.      A model of the Bidston Hill (see below)  that I completed, and sold in the early 1970s for £16, turned up on Ebay recently with a starting price of 99p with no reserve.      I put in a bid for £16 just out of interest.    Eventually, it sold to a buyer in the US for just over £400.     When I contacted him later telling him when, and where I built it, and sending him a photograph of the Donna Francisca, (above), he said it was no better than the Bidston Hill, that he had just purchased!        I have come across a lot of instances like that!    Just can't understand it.   
Bob
 

Pass of Brander - 32 feet to 1 inch (1:384).    Bob  
 

Thanks,
The sea above is polystyrene foam of the soft, crumbly type that they use to pack electrical equipment in. It is shaped with a gas blowtorch with the air intake turned off, so that the flame is only as strong as a candle flame. Then, to give it a painting surface, I stick a sheet of crepe paper on top with white wood glue. I use crepe paper because it stretches and can be pushed into the hollows. Then I spray it with grey matt primer from halford's. My wife then paints the sea using Humbrol enamels.     Totally unsuitable for ships in bottles.
Bob
 

I  fitted it into the sea today!
Bob

All ready for sea.
Bob