Books

There are some good basic books I'd recommend.

The Neophyte Ship Modeler's Jackstay by George Campbell is a good one.

Another one, although I don't have it myself, is How to Build First Rate Ship Models From Kits by Ben Lankford.

Both are available on Model Expo and are inexpensive.

What is the kit?

I think the scale is 1/50 not sure it' the artesania Mississippi River boat.

There are also many Youtube videos about planking and building these ships. I believe that I have seen several about the model you are building.

Bill Morrison

Thank you Gm and Bill for the info you tube never even crossed my mind I will check it out.

Hello!

Ther's this German dude, mr. Wolfram von Mondfeld - an authentic German prince - and he writes very good books on wooden ship modelling. I believe there are translations in English, but even if you came across one of his German books it's still worth buying for the pictures alone. Years ago I came across a pile of his books, each costing about 3$ - 800 pages, hardcover - so I said let's go for it, can't go wrong even if I didn't plan building a wooden ship at that time. But then I got a started Artesania Latina Swift from a friend - that his grandpa started but died before he was able to do much with it. Generally this kit is mostly crap, but with a help from this Mondfeld book I was able to save it and build a nice, historically accurate model out of it.

Thanks for reading and have a nice day

Paweł

Monfeld is a great book. I would also look at Planking Techniques for Model Ship Builders by Donald Dressel and Planking the Built-Up Ship Model by Jim Roberts (also by Model Shipways).  But, the videos on YouTube will make everything clear.

There are also two ship modeling sites that you could find most helpful. The first is www.modelshipworld.com.  The second is  www.ShipsofScale.com. Both deal with wood, plastic, and paper-card ship modeling, and both have threads dealing with the model you have.

Bill