"A couple War Artisan ships" Topic

Finished a 74, part of my long-term quest to build both fleets for the Battle of the Chesapeake, HMS Terrible.

At the other end of the scale is a Texan 18-gun Brig, the Wharton.

Oh, nicely done sir!

Really nice work, both with scissors and rigging. What scale did you print those as? I do mine in 1/600.

1/600 as well. I like big ships and I cannot lie. :)

Not terrible at all, fantastic work in all that rigging.

Excellent jobs! They look great! 😀

That's just sick! Paper and string looking that good? The universe is spinning wild. (Great job.)

Amazing!

How many hours per ship would you say it takes?

I need to get to work on some of those.

It's hard to say, given that I mostly put these together during spare minutes at work. Not counting particularly slow or busy days, I can usually get the hull and masts assembled in 2-3 days. Painting the masts and yards(any any damage to the printed image on the hull) is done at home in the evening. Then standing rigging gets done in about a day, and running rigging in the last day. This can go faster or slower, depending on how busy I am(or need to appear).

If I were to do them at home? I don't see any issues getting a ship from start to finish in an uninterrupted day.

I have no idea what an uninterrupted day, is. Kind of a sound-of-one-hand-clapping thing.

But are you saying eight hours per ship?

Eight hours sounds like a reasonable estimate. With practice you can get the time down quite a bit, and even more time can be saved by doing multiple kits at once. Here's a tutorial in which I did four 1:900 scale frigates in six hours:

PDF link

Beautiful work, Wierdo. Your ships are so neatly done, they make mine look a bit shabby.

Thanks!

Well Done! They are superb looking ships!

That 74 gun ship looks quite neatly put together.

As you probably know, the typical British 74 gun ship had 2 complete continuous gun decks, and also typically mounted guns on the forecastle and quarterdecks above that.

Not sure what sort of instructions War Artisan provides for his kits, but FWIW it would look more realistic if your quarterdeck and forecastle plus connecting gangways, were *above* the upper gun deck, whereas you have modeled them at its level. Note following image (no gangways on this one, but principle still applies):

MH

The thickness of the laminated parts that make up the decks is specified in the instructions, but since each builder provides his own materials there's going to be some variation. Mine don't always come out in exactly the right place, either.

Dry-fitting the decks in place before gluing them would show whether they were the right thickness, and if the upper deck is a little low it's a simple matter to add an extra layer of card or tagboard to bring them up to the right level before gluing them in place, thus:

I'm fully aware that my decks are lower than strictly accurate, but I prefer it that way. I use the rigging method that relies on very long lengths of thread that go all over the ship, as opposed to the method described on War Artisan's site that uses large numbers of small stiffened segments. Things get weird in some spots(especially around the mizzen, and every jib is its own adventure), but once you're used to it things actually go very quickly(a typical three masted ship only requires 14 pieces of thread), and I love how the end results look. Downside(and the part that's actually relevant) is that to use this method I need to poke holes in the sides of the ship to pass the lines through, and they need to be big enough for use without the aid of a sewing needle, as I don't usually have one handy. As such, there needs to be enough room between the decks and the rails for the holes, as well as enough paper above the holes so that they do not tear through when I pull lines taut. (You can see the holes pretty easily in the pictures.)

Long story short, I'm compromising historical accuracy in favor of easier construction. :)

That's a perfectly reasonable compromise.