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Thread: Shapeways SOG Ships

  1. #1

    Default Shapeways SOG Ships

    Hopefully the first of many Shapeways ships for SOG:

    http://www.shapeways.com/shops/swashbuckle

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    Thanks, Coog.
    Fingers crossed....
    Next up will be something for the British side: the Royal George class corvette (which gives us also the HMS Wolfe and HMS Detroit, since they were based on the same design but varied only in some draft and dimensions (variations too small to register at our tiny scale). And, since the RG was inspired by the Cruizer/Snake class ships being built at the same time in England, this model could be used for that too, I suppose.
    I'm open to other model suggestions, too.

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    Are these your work, Gina? If so, very well done!
    Last edited by Naharaht; 12-02-2014 at 23:39.

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    My sincere apologies for the mast comment. In my ignorance I assumed that the U.S.S. Lawrence/ Niagara was a three-masted ship, whereas in fact it only had two masts!

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    While I'm glad to see Shapeways making AOS ships in models otherwise unavailable in 1/1000 scale, it makes me appreciate the price of the Ares line.
    Ares = assembled and painted ship with a base, rules and everything you need to play for a price less than the shapeways unassembled parts.

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    Good point, Gunner. 3D printing on Shapeways is best suited for specialty items and niche or even one-of-a-kind products. It can never compete on price with mass-produced cast and prepainted sculpts from China. That's why Swash & Buckle isn't trying to duplicate existing Ares stuff. The focus will be on ships and types that Ares hasn't done or may never do, because of the relatively smaller market for unusual models.
    So the focus will be on models for the Great Lakes fleets and (if sales support it), AWI and Napoleonic era ships for campaigns in the Caribbean (to fill gaps in the Ares offerings with merchant ships, the smaller warships etc.)
    Bottom line: It's really a question of value rather than price. If players want a certain special ship in a hard-to-find scale (1:1000) badly enough, then the right price is whatever they are willing to pay for it. I think 3D printing has matured enough to play a role in naval miniatures. So this is a chance to push the envelope and see what works.

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    Just an FYI, I have strongly--like "if you DON'T do this someday you're BLOODY MORONS and not serious about your goal of 'filling out the major types'" strongly--nudged Ares regarding the Cruizer-class, and found a nice little counter to them in the similar French Palinure class (both come in about 1mm shorter than Swan IIRC), so thought you might want to know that that's a design that should be on their radar at some point. If you can find any RG's that changed hands through the Great Lakes campaign, I can bundle those along with Detroit and Wolfe in with the Cruizer-class roster in the data I provide to Ares, as long as we can come up with a six-pack American laker sculpt to oppose them.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Diamondback View Post
    If you can find any RG's that changed hands through the Great Lakes campaign, I can bundle those along with Detroit and Wolfe in with the Cruizer-class roster in the data I provide to Ares, as long as we can come up with a six-pack American laker sculpt to oppose them.
    (What's a six-pack?)
    Once the British had the Royal George and Wolfe corvettes operating on Lake Ontario, the Americans upped the ante with the frigate General Pike (26).

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    I must admit, while not too fussed about the "lakes war" I am intrigued here and may well indulge in a couple, just to test out of course

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    Six-pack is my personal term for Ares' standard production model: they need six different names they can put on a sculpt, preferably at least two being a second flag, to consider it for production. Oh, you should have heard me throwing fits about the upcoming French 64's... in retrospect, I DID find drawings of the two designs they settled on to share the sculpt and while there are some noticeable differences my position has evolved from "OVER MY EXTREME PROTEST" to "Approved, With Reservations," though I still have questions and reservations about the Spanish 74's (which may just be my overconservative nature--since Ares has slapped my name on their product documentation, the quality of their product becomes a direct reflection on the quality of MY work, and while they can afford to soak a few hits and bounce back I can't).

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    Not sure if this is still the case but when I looked on Shapeways a day or so ago it looked like each piece was a separate order. Why is that, and not a single code that includes all the pieces? Is this an effect of the change in Shapeways pricing policy which means its actually cheaper for the buyer to list order each piece separately than have them combined?

  12. #12

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    Being able to order parts separately will enable you to get just a hull and use metal mast and sail parts of an appropriate size.

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    @Diamondback: You are still to be congratulated on the impressive quality of your work on the Ares ships so far.

    @Capn Duff: The Great Lakes naval actions in the War of 1812 naturally tend to interest Americans and (even more so) Canadians -- but I've become increasingly fascinated by this aspect of the Age od Sail. They make great wargaming subjects for a number of reasons. For instance:
    *Smaller numbers of ships involved than the great Napoleonic battles like Trafalgar, making the lakes actions more feasible and better suited to solo or small numbers of players, than the battles that the SGN ships actually fought in.
    *Lots of possible encounters in such a small area (Lake Ontario is something like, what, only some 35 miles N to S?)
    *A furious shipbuilding arms race that pitted two roughly balanced navies against each other, with the advantage shifting to one side or the other depending on the period and the latest ships to be completed. Great for campaign games that bring logistics and other aspects into play.
    *The lake battles actually had more effect on War of 1812 land operations than the sea actions did. So there was a close interplay between naval control of lakes and the movements of the armies, quite a few amphibious operations, raids on dockyards, etc.
    *A less standardized (and, to me more interesting) variety of ships in the mix -- within a single engagement you'd likely see square-rigged brigs and corvettes, fore-and-aft-rigged converted schooners, converted merchantmen, gunboats with a big long gun on a swivel, etc. The SGN system doesn't accommodate any of that variety, of course, but other 1:1000 rulesets like Heart of Oak definitely do. I haven't played any battles with lakes fleets myself, but I suspect they'd make the whole seamanship aspect of maneuvering to battle and prevailing quite interesting and fun.
    For example: Schooners could sail closer to the wind than any square-rigger, but were extremely vulnerable to rigging hits because they presented the full breadth of their sails to the enemy broadside. Brigs, though square rigged, could be especially vulnerable to hits on their their mainmast/spanker combination. And the lakes ships in general had very shallow drafts compared to ocean ships. So they tended to drift a lot more to leeward than the SGN ocean ships did, and couldn't sail as close to the wind as ocean ships. The crazy mix of ship types greatly complicated formation sailing and battles, because the slower ships and gunboats tended to lag far behind and slow the whole force down. So I think that could make for some interesting tactical challenges and lead to creativity on the tabletop, too.

    Some of my favorite book recommendations, for anyone interested in reading more about the war on the lakes:

    Warships of the Great Lakes, 1754-1834, by Robert Malcolmson (hardcover, Caxton Editions, 2003). This one has designs of almost every significant ship in the period.

    HMS Detroit: The Battle for Lake Erie, by Thomas Malcomson and Robert Malcolmson (hardcover, Naval Institute Press, 1990). Good for the British POV.

    The Naval War of 1812, Robert Gardiner, ed. (hardcover, Caxton Pictorial Histories, 2001) - Great overview, loaded with artwork, will inspire you to wargame these battles.

    A Signal Victory: The Lake Erie Campaign 1812-1813, by David C. Skaggs (Bluejacket Books - I got a Kindle version of this one).

    The Lake Erie Campaign: I Shall Fight Them This Day, by Walter Rybka (paperback, The History Press, 2012) - Rybka brings an intimate knowledge of the ships and how they sailed and fought, having sailed many years on the lake as the commander of the reconstructed Brig Niagara.

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    Quote Originally Posted by David Manley View Post
    Not sure if this is still the case but when I looked on Shapeways a day or so ago it looked like each piece was a separate order. Why is that, and not a single code that includes all the pieces? Is this an effect of the change in Shapeways pricing policy which means its actually cheaper for the buyer to list order each piece separately than have them combined?
    David: I updated the site yesterday with "Order as a Kit" buttons that let you put the complete multipart kit in your shopping cart with a single click. Makes it much easier than it was before. You still can't buy a chess set or a toy puzzle as a single item on Shapeways, but if the set listing has that "buy as a kit" button, then you will find all the chessmen or puzzle pieces automatically placed in your cart for you.

    Coog is right about the advantages of being able to order only a hull and then customize it from there, if you like.
    But there were other reasons why I set the ships up as kits of separate parts on Shapeways:
    1. Shapeways prefers that because it's easier for them to orient the separate part files in their printer for optimal printing. If I uploaded each ship as a single model with multiple pieces in the file, then any problem with any single part design or its orientation would cause the whole model to be rejected.
    2. By offering a ship as a kit of separately purchased parts, I can fix and upgrade specific aspects of the model more easily and quickly on the site if I need to.

    The ships wouldn't cost any different if they were purchased as one item or as a kit of multiple items, since Shapeways charges by the volume of material the part uses. Many Shapeways sellers have asked the company to let a kit be sold as one item. But so far, the best they've been able to offer is the "buy as a kit" button.

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    Ah, OK. I just remembered some discussion amongst some of the designers a few months back about how their complex and multi part kits were now much more expensive as a result of the policy changes and I thought this might be a good way to avoid that.

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    Gina: Thanks for all your efforts researching and designing these ships!

    I am just sorry that I missed out on the recent Shapeways sale!

    Eric

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    Thanks for that info Gina, I may well look up a couple of those books you mentioned.
    Good luck with your ships I hope they do well.

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    Shapeways has a lot of growing up to do.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Diamondback View Post
    If you can find any RG's that changed hands through the Great Lakes campaign, I can bundle those along with Detroit and Wolfe in with the Cruizer-class roster in the data I provide to Ares, as long as we can come up with a six-pack American laker sculpt to oppose them.
    Actually, the RG class corvette not only works for its sister British ships Wolfe and Detroit, but should work pretty well for the US Lake Ontario corvette USS Madison.

    There's an excellent article about the Madison online, which compares the RG class and Madison side by side. The linesplans look quite similar, too.

    Article link:
    http://www.napoleon-series.org/milit...isonGibson.pdf

    USS Madison: Keel 110 ft, Length on deck 125 feet, Beam 32 ft, Tons burthen 580, Armament 24, 32-pound carronades.
    HMS Royal George: Keel 82 ft, Length on deck 96 feet 9 inches, Beam 27 ft, Tons burthen 330, Armament 20, 32-pound carronades.

    At our model scale of 1:1000, these differences would be pretty subtle perceptible. IN the length on deck dimension, for example, the RG would be 29.4894 mm vs the Madison at 33.528 mm.

    Would a 4mm difference be worth an entirely unique model? Not sure.

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    So now you maybe need one more American-flag as Madison's flip-side... my reservation would be a 30' difference is more pronounced between two small ships than two big ones. (OTOH, for the ocean version, there are tons of reflag Cruizers, but I'm trying to keep eyes specifically on a Great Lakes mini-set independent of the larger game.)

    For the record, I'm just the data-miner, spreadsheet builder and sometime Avvocato Diablo--the real technical arcana is locked in DM and jmkinki's heads as pro naval architects. :)

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    Gina, very impressive work.

    I'm glad to see the Great Lakes receiving attention. Some of us would like to expand into the War of 1812. I would like to run such games and be able to teach some history; I doubt many who do not read military history are familiar with the war.

    Thank you for your contribution.
    “You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.” ― Plato

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    Default HMS Royal George/Wolfe/Detroit now up for sale on Swash & Buckle

    While we were all offline...
    New model now up (at both 1:1000 and 1:1200 scales):






    Can stand in for a Cruizer-class corvette in Napoleonic situations, too, I should think.
    I radically redesigned my masts to make them not only sturdier, but preassembled with the sails, and with fighting tops.

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    Not quite, Cruizer is only two masts--I think she'd work well for the pre-rerig Snakes though. Still a beautiful piece of digital craftsmanship. :)

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    A few caveats and observations about these 3D printed ships:
    1. Now that I've seen the finished pieces from Shapeways, I see that the tiniest deck details (hatch covers) don't always print at this scale or barely do. But other details (the cannons) all print. This also means that the sockets I designed for masts don't print except perhaps as little circles on the decks. That's fine as a guide to where the masts go, but it does mean some care needs to be taken to place them accurately and hold them in position when glueing. Super glue worked best for me.
    2. The Niagara's waterline is realistic and to scale, but on the model that makes it pretty narrow for, say, anyone who might want to paint a white stripe and gunports.
    Fortunately, there is a school of historians who believe the Niagara and Lawrence may likely have fought the Battle of Lake Erie with all-black hulls. These ships were built just to fight the one battle, paint supplies were limited, and they were rushed into action in 1813 with no extra time for detailing.
    3. The material is sturdy and the assembled models look gorgeous -- I will post real pics of the Niagara model once I finish my assembly and painting of it. Even just a basic hull and deck painting and a tan wash on the sails is enough to make these models look fine in SGN with Ares ships. I don't bother with rigging, but I am going to rig the US ensign on the spanker using the black paintbrush-bristle technique for an added look of authenticity.
    4. Bottom line: This has been a proof-of-concept, to see if 3D printing can work for good Age of Sail minis at this scale. I think it has been success from that technical standpoint. The prices will never be on a par with Ares, but at least these models offer something new and different, and we don't have to wait months or years to see them become available.

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    Woohoo, my Niagara order shipped. I placed the order on the 8th of December, and it shipped yesterday. Anybody have an idea about SOG stats for this ship? I want to do the artwork for the ship mats and cards.

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    Thanks Ken!
    I've been trying to dig up some info about Niagara/Lawrence sailing characteristics too.
    Her absolute top speed in a good wind would be 11 knots. More typically she cruises at an average 6 knots.
    Due to her very shallow draft, and lacking the knife-shaped hull bottom of oceangoing ships, she can't sail anywhere as near to the wind as they did.
    And brigs are highly vulnerable to even one good mast hit, since they have only 2 masts and that rear mast also has the spanker -- so they can lose speed and control fast due to rigging damage.
    On gunnery, you'd of course have to factor in the fact that she was all carronades except for the 2 small long guns.
    If anyone has any good references for sailing speeds of War of 1812 ships on the Lakes, please let me know.
    I'm making a solo campaign game using the PC aid Cyberboard, which will offer a way to play the strategic and grand-tactical ops so one can stage the actual tabletop battles that result using any miniatures system you want. The enemy AI will derive from the old Victory Games' Tokyo Express, but adapted for age of sail and probably incorporating aspects of the SGN solo maneuver chart too. (This is a long-range project so there's no ETA on it.)

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    Still waiting on my Niagara shipment. They notified me there would be a delay in shipping, but I just checked my order and there are two parts still in production? I'm not in any big hurry and shipping this time of year can be problematic so waiting until after the Holidays might even be better.

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    I've seen the same thing on some of my own Shapeways orders.
    In particular, I noticed that any delay for Niagara/Lawrence 1/1000 scale kits seemed to involve the foremast. It's the smallest part in the kit, less than half the size of a toothpick.
    Shapeways uses printers that have bins of plastic powder in them. When the laser or whatever it is hits the powder, the parts gradually emerge from the dust. Their engineers consolidate dozens of parts from many different customer orders in a single batch, to make the printing as efficient for them as possible. I've seen videos of it, and each binload looks like a giant interlocking puzzle that they fit together.
    When they take the parts out of the bin, they have to remove any support material and clean the parts off, then pack each one for shipping. So I they tell me it's very easy for them to lose a super-small part, or to mistakenly trash it along with waste material. That's how they lost the mast in my own first order. I later had them reprint it and I'm waiting for it now, along with two Royal George kits.
    I think their fulfillment process isn't "first come, first served," but follows some other internal logic -- maybe it just depends on how they decide to put together a certain printing batch at a given time.
    They need to get better at handling tiny parts. Particularly since so many of the designers who use Shapeways make jewelry and other small things.
    I probably increased the chance of glitches by selling multi-piece kits instead of 1 ship=1 part. But then the designs could never look as good as they do. A single-piece ship would have to be very chunky and distorted in order to print, and would look more like a little game token than a scale model.
    But I hope you see your model soon and enjoy it. Thanks for trying it!

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    It's coming along:

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    Last edited by Kentop; 12-20-2014 at 15:51.

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    Beautiful!
    Thanks!

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    Once I figure out the burden, veer and maneuver deck numbers, I will make the ship log.

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    Very nice, Ken!

    Has your Shapeways Niagara arrived yet?

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    Quote Originally Posted by Nightmoss View Post
    Very nice, Ken!

    Has your Shapeways Niagara arrived yet?

    Nope

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    Quote Originally Posted by Broadsword56 View Post
    And brigs are highly vulnerable to even one good mast hit, since they have only 2 masts and that rear mast also has the spanker -- so they can lose speed and control fast due to rigging damage.
    [nod] I keep reading about how British "brig-sloops" were "inferior" (their words) to US "ship-sloops" due to being more vulnerable to rigging damage; aside from "two masts vs. three", I can't really figure out how it would be a problem. Something was said about brig-sloops being particularly vulnerable to upper-sail damage, but no details were provided.

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    Quote Originally Posted by csadn View Post
    [nod] I keep reading about how British "brig-sloops" were "inferior" (their words) to US "ship-sloops" due to being more vulnerable to rigging damage; aside from "two masts vs. three", I can't really figure out how it would be a problem. Something was said about brig-sloops being particularly vulnerable to upper-sail damage, but no details were provided.
    Maybe it was just that their crews were inferior.

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    Quote Originally Posted by csadn View Post
    [nod] I keep reading about how British "brig-sloops" were "inferior" (their words) to US "ship-sloops" due to being more vulnerable to rigging damage; aside from "two masts vs. three", I can't really figure out how it would be a problem. Something was said about brig-sloops being particularly vulnerable to upper-sail damage, but no details were provided.
    I couldn't find much in detail on this, but my copy of Gardiner's The Naval War of 1812 says this about it:
    "...The distinct advantage of three masts over two can be seen in in most of the actions: USS Wasp could still maneuver after the loss of her main topmast, mizzen topgallant, and and gaff, whereas the already storm-damaged Frolic was completely disabled when her gaff was shot away; similarly, USS Peacock survived the loss of her foremast sails in the fight with the Espeigle, damage which would have crippled a brig."

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    Basic survivability, catered for quite well in most AoS rules that cover smaller ships.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Coog View Post
    Maybe it was just that their crews were inferior.
    Well, there's that.... >;)

    But, as the Gardiner quote (which I was aware of, but thanks anyway) states: A British brig-sloop looses one sail, and is effectively immobilized; a US sloop loses three, and can still maneuver. Something to do with sail area, perhaps? Or how the rigging was run?

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    MY Niagara model arrived yesterday. Man, is it small. the ship hull itself is as thin as the sails. I think I will double the thickness of the top deck to give me enough hull to work with. It might be wise to order two hulls and glue them together. It wouldn't be accurate, but I think it would allow just enough space along the bulwarks to paint a white stripe . The sails and masts are far better than anything Ares puts out. There are no holes in the deck for the masts, which is just as well. It will allow me to drill holes at the proper rake. I read an article that said the minimum rake for a brig was 1" per foot and the maximum rake was 2" per foot. The article also said that the foremast was sometimes raked less than the main mast. Looking at pictures of the replica Niagara, that seems to be the case. Anyway, I'm raking both masts 1.5" per foot, which translates to 5 degrees aft of vertical. It should look great when I'm done.

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    The last pic is the hull placed next to the American sloop ship Thorn. The scale is actually pretty good. Niagara was about 110 ft long and the Thorn was around 97 ft long. Niagara had a lot more beam than Thorn, too.

  40. #40

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    Quote Originally Posted by csadn View Post
    Well, there's that.... >;)

    But, as the Gardiner quote (which I was aware of, but thanks anyway) states: A British brig-sloop looses one sail, and is effectively immobilized; a US sloop loses three, and can still maneuver. Something to do with sail area, perhaps? Or how the rigging was run?
    More about how the rig is set up on a brig vs. ship, but sail area factors in as well. In the example the brig lost her gaff - effectively taking out her driver/spanker a sail that can be used for maneuvering and also having a large % of the sail area on the main mast of a brig.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Kentop View Post
    The last pic is the hull placed next to the American sloop ship Thorn. The scale is actually pretty good. Niagara was about 110 ft long and the Thorn was around 97 ft long. Niagara had a lot more beam than Thorn, too.
    good

    That does look rather good

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    You're ahead of me, Ken -- I had my Niagara almost assembled and painted but had to pause and wait for Shapeways to ship me a new foremast (they lost the one I ordered during processing).

    FYI, the hulls on the latest model -- Royal George class sloop corvettes -- have a higher waterline that should allow for the authentic painted stripe. And if you like the Niagara masts, you should really love my new and improved masts on the Royal George, which have the sails and mast joined as a single part.

    Re: Holes on the deck for masts -- I actually do design them in the model, but it turns out that the holes are too small a detail to print. If I look closely I can sometimes see a little circle where the hole would be, and that can serve as a guide on placement. I didn't drill any holes for my masts -- just super glued them on, and they sit solid as can be. And yes, a sternwards rake of about 5 degrees looks right -- that's what I did, too.
    Last edited by Broadsword56; 12-23-2014 at 08:51.

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    Thanks for the photos and informational post Ken. I just got word that Shapeways was going to ship my order priority mail, but the actual confirmation email still hasn't arrived. I expect I'll be working on my ship come 2015, which gives you (and Gina) plenty of time to post the do's and don'ts before I start construction.

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    It will be interesting to see how the completed models compare with the U.S.S. Thorn.

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    I got my christmas out of the way yesterday to accommodate everyone's schedules. My wife works today (Nurses don't get holidays off because stupid people hurt themselves more on holidays than they do at any other time. So, I have the whole day to myself. So naturally, I started working immediately on the Niagara. The first thing I did was grab a piece of boxwood doll house shingles.

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    This lets me do two things. It makes the ship more realistic looking by letting it heel to leeward. It also gives me enough of the inward side of the ship to do a nice gunport stripe.

    After gluing the hull to the basswood, I filed down the wood to match the hull.

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    I drilled holes for the masts (when I actually glue the masts in, I will glue them at the proper rake.) and sort of taped everything together to see if it looks OK.

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    The next thing to do is dismantle everything without breaking it and try to see if my old arthritic finger bones still have some precision in them to paint it.

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    Looks great, Ken. Nice idea using the basswood shingles. Looking forward to seeing what you do next. My Niagara order actually arrived yesterday, but I'm not sure when I'll get to work on the various pieces. As you said above, the hull is quite small.


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    Super, Ken!
    Would you mind if I reposted any of these photos of the assembled model, with credit, on the Shapeways site just so people could see what it looks like?

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    Be my guest, Gina. I will have more pics coming later today. I'm almost finished painting the hull!

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    Here's a scaled US ensign I made for the Niagara model, taken from the actual flag on the actual ship:

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    Great, Gina. Thanks. Here's pics of the painted hull:

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    My wooden hull is actually too sloped, now that I look at the pics. I should have kept the sides straight up and down from the railing so the stripe showed more clearly!
    Last edited by Kentop; 12-25-2014 at 14:19.

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