Revell 1:83 Mayflower

When I get near an Evergreen kiosk, I always grab a bunch of stuff just to have handy. A very useful product is their scribed siding. Of the top of my head I couldn't list the varieties- but there's everything from N Scale "car siding" to stuff that's 6" at 1/48.

Even if you use the flat side, having it scribed makes it easy to scribe and snap.

Steve,

I am going to concur with John and Bill. The Neophyte Ship Builder book is well worth it's cost. I picked one up a couple of months ago, and it is wonderful. 

Evergreen, is a definite yes. You will find that it comes in handy in so many ways. A great example of using Evergreen products is Even's (Force9), construction of the Revell 1/96 USS Constitution. I agree with Evan in that once you start down the path of using Evergreen stuff, you will acquire guide a stash of it. One trick I learned, is that if you need to curve a strip or chunk of EG, you can use a Blowdryer. It makes the job a whole lot easier.

And finally the Chopper is worth getting. It makes cutting Evergreen strips, etc... SO much easier.

Steve

Ok, I have good news. My friend stocks Evergreen products at his store, and he looks to have the size that I need. Once again, you guys are bringing it. Thanks again JT. That was a great suggestion about Evergreen products. Also, thanks about how to secure the chains and the use of chemical blackeners. The chain that I found came painted black. So I should not have to chemically treat them. I will probably have to dullcoat it though since it is a gloss black.

I ordered the book yesterday. So that is done. I will also order the Chopper unless I find it locally. I will see if the local Walthers store has it.

Lastly, my moment has passed about the cabin doors. Unless I can come up with some master plan to fabricate new doors, I will have to compromise on that. Thus far, I can't think of a convincing way to retrofit them and not make the problem worse. Installing the bulkheads is still a way off. So maybe something will come to light.  If not, I have to reluctantly accept certain shortcomings with this kit.

Just an FYI. My friend had the Chopper in stock too. He had 5 of them and he had them on sale. It was a good day.

Well, I had a "little" time to work on this today. As you suggested JT, I drew down some lines from the mast to provide the necessary angles needed for positioning each backing link. The next step is to locate the lowest end of each link. I plan to apply a narrow piece of tape across this whole section, thus providing a stop that the link can butt up against when I apply them to the ship. Maybe I can mark the tape as well showing the outer sides of each link. My hope is that this will aid in applying them and to help not make a mess of things. 

My initial estimations of size for the backing links were wrong.  When I positioned a few against the ship and compared them to actual photos of the ship, I found that I was off by around 1 MM. So the width of each link will be closer to 1mm and the length "maybe" 2mm. I need to get different strips from the LHS to try and see.

Applying these with glue will be interesting indeed. 

So the position of the links and the gun port lids need to be sorted out.

You can see on the replica that the forward one is closer to the chainnel than the after one. The length of the chains look about equal, so you can straddle the forward one and land on top of the aft one.

Thanks for this excellent image, GM. You just saved me some time.  Now I don't have to search for one. Also, thanks for pointing out those locations.

Gentlemen...I have a another question regarding the backing links. I cropped the photo that GM provided and I noticed that some of the backing links are angled along the same plane of direction as the shrouds. Is it safe to say that they follow the same rules as the chains? Do you think they were installed that way? Oy maybe the links pivot in the direction of tension? I need do get this right before I begin gluing.

Speaking of gluing... I did some practice gluing of these tiny pieces by using some spare styrene to attach them to. What worked well for me was to position the links, hold them in place using the tip of a hobby knife blade, then apply Tamiya Extra Thin Cement around the edges of the piece. Capillary action drew the cement underneath the pieces and they held beautifully. The glue even allows for a grace period to tweak the final positon. Gluing them should be much easier than I feared. Getting the scale and positions correct is the bigger issue. I am getting there though.

Backing links applied.

That looks right, Bakster. Well set up.

Looking at the replica, which was designed by the very qualified naval architect William Baker , and the Revell model, it really is amazing to me how incredibly accurate the plastic kit is. They really did these things so well.

Thanks,GM. I have to agree. The model lined up very closely to the replica. I am considering that a plus mark for Revell.

You've done a great job on her so far Steve.

I remember that I started my construction on the Revell Mayflower after I had finished the Viking ship. When I first opened the box and I saw the craftsmanship on the hull, etc... I was floored. Granted this was after a 40 year hiatus, but it was so cool looking.

I really had a good time working on it. I'll have to queue the larger Mayflower up, although the speed I work in will make that construction in about 100 years.

Steve

I'll stick my neck out and opine that the best of the Revell sailing ships from the fifties through the seventies are the best plastic sailing ships ever. The only possible competitor was Imai - and so far as I know none of those kits is still in production by anybody.

The William Baker design is sixty years old now, and, inevitably, some people are now questioning it. And there is the fact that Baker deliberately increased the spaces between the decks, to keep tourists from bashing their heads. But there's no denying that Revell did a beautiful job of reproducing it to scale.  

Steve, thanks for the kind words. Secondly, your description of when you first opened the box is like you are describing my experience. I had the same thoughts and feelings when I opened the box for the first time. I had marveled at all the detail. Along with that, I felt like a kid again because I tried building this same model when I was about eight years old. The kit was way over my head, but it was fun while it lasted. I am really glad that Revell is still selling them. 

Thanks for the input JT. It makes me feel good to know that I bought a good one! If I were to do a reset though, I'd try to find the larger version like what Steve has. What I have is fine, but with all the mods that I am trying to do, I am inevitably compromising on some things in terms of scale. Such as with the deadeyes and chains. They will be somewhat oversized. None the less, God willing, it will be a very cool ship when done. I am enjoying this build immensely. 

My goal is to have some paint on this beauty by end of February. 

Bakster

Hey Don and GMorrison, thanks for the input.  This is all really good advice.  I will look closer for the CLINIC and techniques.  Dry brushing makes sense, and the wood stain sounds intriguing.  It sounds like I will have to do some experimenting to get the look I want.

Having the sails furled is a good idea as well. I really wanted to have full sails, but furled looks to be the way to go.

Yes, I think the plastic blocks should be decent enough.  I wish I knew all the terminology of things.  There are some plastic triangular rope structures that I think should be made by scratch.  What are those structures called?

The kit comes with thread. Don--you mentioned Model Expo as a source for thread.  Is there a reason not to use the thread that came with the kit?  Is it out of scale? Other?

 

Steve

 

Sometimes kits do not give you enough sizes.  The further up you go, the finer the lines are, though on the Mayflower you would not find as many sizes as for a bigger ship.  Still, many kits skimp on the finer line. If you do need the finer line, it is getting a bit hard to find, so Model Expo and Bluejacket are good sources.

For instance, the ratlines should be a bit finer than the shrouds themselves, topsail lines finer than mainsail lines, etc.  Doesn't make a big difference, but having several sizes of line does make the kind of difference that sets a model apart from the run of the mill.  Don't know how many sizes of lines the kit gives you- it may be enough- but if only one size of line (two colors) then consider looking for other sizes.

The chances are high that the kit thread is cotton, and fuzzy. Like sewing thread. Revell, and every other plastic model company I can think of, didn't provide high quality thread, if at all, for the reason that we (now ) were not the market.

I'd hesitate to say all- I have some spools of thread that came with my Imai version of the 1/100 Victory that I've never looked over. They may be better than usual.

Better to buy some from the sources noted.  Be careful though- I just picked up a Model Shipways kit in the more recent White box sold through Model Expo, and the thread is nylon! Maybe that's ok, but I probably will not try it out beyond the experimental stage.

Hi guys. I am long past buying different lines. I probably have most every size available, from the finer and going up. My concern as referenced this morning was with the deadeyes and chains. This ship has three different size deadeyes for the chainplates alone. I purchased the smallest I could find, and moved up in scale from there. They match in scale fairly close to the kit pieces, but on at least one of them, I had to go larger because it is all that is available. For the chain, the smallest I could find is 1mm. This should be ok for the main chainplates, but I think way too big for the mizzen chainplates, and probably a little large for the fore chainplates. These are my greater concern at this time. These are  the compromises that I was referring to.

The quality of the rigging thread in Revell kits has varied a lot over the years. I have no idea what's in Baxter's kit.

I strongly recommend the line from Syren. If I were building this model I'd probably order eight packages - one of each of the four smallest sizes, each in dark brown (standing rigging) and light brown (running rigging.) 

But Baxter, it's going to be a long, long time before you'll need to worry about rigging line!

Regarding chain - check out Bluejacket, Model Expo, and A.J. Fisher. The stuff comes in sizes down to 42 links per inch, which would be too small for your purposes.

I should mention one other thing about the chains. I am basing this soley on the images that I can find of the Mayflower Replica. The chains appear to be different sizes depending on what part of the ship. Good reference photos compairing the chains to each other at such detail is hard to find. I have to greatly enlarge the images and then they become pretty blurry. So it becomes pretty hard to guage.The same seems true with the backing links. This is how I came to the deduction on the chains.

Here is a pretty good photo that I have found that illustrates some things. The main and fore chains seem pretty close in size, the backing links smaller with the fore at it's base. The mizzen chains seem smaller, and of course the backing links smaller.  What do you guys think? Concur?

What you've said certainly makes sense. And you shouldn't have any trouble getting hold of the appropriate sizes of chain.

Beware, though, of obsessing over too many small details of the Mayflower II. Baker, the designer, was one of the best in the business. But there's an enormous amount of educated guesswork in that design - and dozens of decisions had to be made between equally logical possibilities. Baker won't steer you wrong, but don't feel like you're under obligation to do everything exactly the way he did. Mr. Passaro's instructions for the Model Shipways kit say he used the same size chain for all three masts. That's perfectly reasonable too.

Bryan Lavery's book on the Susan Constant explains that if the replica (now at Jamestown) had been built exactly according to his reconstructed plans, the hull wouldn't have been stable enough to satisfy modern safety regulations. (I've seen that ship with close to a hundred tourists on board, many of them casually wandering from one side to the other. If the Susan Constant were to capsize at her pier and dump a bunch of little kids into the James River....) I don't know if the Mayflower II design made similar compromises, but I wouldn't be surprised.

One other point to note in that latest photo: the obviously metal ladder with the built-in railing leading from the maindeck to the quarterdeck. I don't imagine you'll want to reproduce that feature.

JT-- that makes sense about the limited knowledge of the ship and the wiggle room it provides. My struggle at times is in knowing what they do really know, and what is conjecture. Your point is very much taken, because I am probably obsessing. No doubt about it!  Laughing.

I really appreciate the time you have given me in support of this project, JT.  One of these days I would really like to hear about your background, why/how, you know so much about ships in general. I suspect others are curious too. If so inclined, feel free to say within this WIP.

And, you are correct.  I was not intending to add that ladder.

Thank you again, sir!

Steve A.K.A., Bakster.

My own  1 /12 cents would be that the difference in chain size would probably be something I would ignore.

But, that's because I probably would have never noticed it in the first place.

Since you have, and the remedy is probably pretty doable, go at it.

Thanks for the 1/12 cents GM. That is the way I was leaning as well. It may be something ignorable. If however I get there and see that they look morbidly obese, it'll have to go on a chain diet. For now, I will see how they look with the others installed and how ambitious I feel when I get there.

Steve,

For what it is worth, if you want to use chain, then check out the websites John suggested. Using different size chains might be what the doc orders.  It has to look right to you or you might lose steam and put this on the shelf. Heck, I have a nice collection of kits that I will get back to when I figure out how I will fix whatever sticking point has stumped me.

Anyway, if you want to check out a pretty good modeler, then check out this link. Drake(Chris) goes above and beyond on his models. They are all plastic but he has wood, chain, metal and other things that will amaze you. Pretty much like John's, Bill's, Don's and Dave's models are.

Anyway, the link is to Chris's WIP of the larger Mayflower kit. However, his solutions are might help you in your work. By the way, it is a German site so you'll want to use Google Translate, although it is not perfect when it comes to colloquial terms. 

Google Translate reminds me of when my wife was working for DreamWorks Animation and they sent some scenes to Korea for them to animate with notes like, so and so is "riding shotgun." Well, the drawings they got back were of so and so actually riding on a shotgun.......... 

Steve

http://www.wettringer-modellbauforum.de/forum/index.php?page=Thread&threadID=32120&pageNo=1&highlight=Mayflower&s=3304e8dd5a9f6e09df813d69c3c977484a3ad1fb

Hey Steve, thanks for the advice, and your is point taken.

Chris's build is awesome. He is doing things that I have imagined doing, but that I won't. That is a whole other level. Very cool to see. Some of his paint scheme is very similar to what I have planned for this build. Too bad about the laguage barrier on his site. I don't think that I have the gumption to try and translate it.

Thanks for posting, and it's great to hear from you.

Steve

PS: that is funny story about Dreamworks.  I am not surprised something like that would happen.

Baxter wrote:

"I really appreciate the time you have given me in support of this project, JT.  One of these days I would really like to hear about your background, why/how, you know so much about ships in general. I suspect others are curious too. If so inclined, feel free to say within this WIP.

"And, you are correct.  I was not intending to add that ladder."

Well, I feel really uncomfortable answering this; I am not by any stretch of the imagination a genuine expert on sailing ships (or, for that matter, anything else). But since you asked....

I've been fascinated by ships and boats for as long as I can remember. My parents bought me a Revell Santa Maria when I was six or seven years old. (The kit is still on the Revell Germany website. Really, Revell....)

My interest in ships got more intense as I got older. By the time I reached high school I'd built almost all the Revell ship kits. And I loved to read. Whenever the public library got a new book about naval/maritime history I'd grab it. Later, when I could afford it, I started buying books - and I've never stopped.

The interest stuck through college and into grad school. I got an MA and a PhD in American military history; my PhD dissertation was about the British Navy in the American Revolution. (It eventually got published as a book by the University of South Carolina Press.  It's been out of print for a long time.)

I came out of grad school at the pit of a miserable decline in the job market for people with advanced degrees in social sciences and the humanities. I was, in fact, on the verge of giving up when a job became available at the Mariners' Museum in Newport News, Virginia. I got hired as "Assistant Curator for Collections," which put me in charge of three-dimensional artifacts (including models). I stayed at the MM for three years, after which the museum's abysmal pay scale drove me out. (Every raise I got was more than offset by increases in the rent on my apartment.)

So I wound up in the History Department at East Carolina University (Greenville, NC), where I've been since 1983. In four more months I'll be fully retired, and I have a long list of models I'd like to build in retirement.

Not an outstanding career, but a fairly interesting and harmless one. One problem that's not so far down the road: figuring out what to do with several hundred books on maritime/naval history and model building when either (a) I'm dead or (b) my wife draws the line.

Steve A.K.A., Bakster.

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Hey JT, that is a really interesting life history. You say it was not an outstanding career but I feel differently. I guess it's relative, but from my perspective, it was a great career.

Your dissertation about the British Navy and the American Revolution is something that I would like to read. I have a strong fasination with that time period. Hence, my Mayflower build, and this being a time period leading up to the great american experiment.

Fascinating stuff, JT.  Thanks so much for sharing your story!

Dr. Tilley is in the bibliography of a book I just finished; "Bunker Hill" by Nate Philbrick.

Knowing John as I do at least here, I see his influence in the text.