How Difficult to Build a Wooden Sailing Ship?

Depends on the wood kit maker (and the fills-the-box manufacturer, too <g>).

The round bows of Bounty are like to test the patience of a first-time hull planker.  Mostly because it's hard to get the taper "just right" and also the curve bent, too.  Not impossible--just requires a lot of patience.

This then, also broaches the rather dicey topic of kit accuracy; which neither the plastic nor wood kit marketers have done a very good job with.

But, that's just my 2¢ worth; others' differ.

If it's your first wooden ship I wouldn't tackle Bounty.I'd do something simple like Model Shipways' Phantom.

Wooden ship building is a great Zen experience, if you are the type of person who believes the journey has as much value as the destination.

There is, of course, no simple answer to that question. Different strokes for different folks; some people find the leap from plastic to wood is enormous - if not downright impossible.  Others don't have much trouble with it.  My own opinion, for what little it's worth, is that much of the "mystique" surrounding wood ship models is sheer mythology.  What follows is more personal opinion; take it for what it's worth, and for heaven's sake take what I say in context with what anybody else offers.

The wood ship model kits currently on the market fall into two categories.  There are, to my knowledge, four manufacturers producing wood kits that deserve the label "scale models."  Three are American:  Bluejacket (www.bluejacketinc.com), A.J. Fisher (www.ajfisher.com), and Model Shipways (distributed by Model Expo:  www.modelexpoonline.com).  The other is British:  Caldercraft, also known as Jotika.  I've never actually laid eyes on a Calder/Jotika kit; they're scarce, and extremely expensive, in the U.S.  (The Jotika 1/72 H.M.S. Victory costs over $1,000.)  The American firms offer solid hulls, plank-on-bulkhead hulls, and, in a few cases, genuine plank-on-frame hulls.  These companies offer a considerable range of American and European ships.  They generally come with well-drawn plans, and include reasonably high quality wood parts (usually basswood - not the best of modeling woods, but pretty good) and reasonably accurate fittings (usually either cast britannia metal, turned brass, or photo-etched brass).  The prices run from about $40 to $600 or thereabouts.

One problem that newcomers often have with those kits concerns the instructions.  The designers tend to assume that the modeler can work from a set of plans; the plans in the American kits are usually pretty good.  But the accompanying instructions can create headaches for anybody who doesn't have any experience with such things.

Calder/Jotika kits are of the plank-on-bulkhead type.  According to the reviews in the magazines, Calder plans and instructions are quite good.  (The company does offer an H.M.S. Bounty, but I wouldn't recommend it as a first effort to a newcomer.)

Then there are the firms that I call the HECEPOBs.  (That's Hideously Expensive Continental European Plank-On-Bulkhead.)  They include such outfits as Mamoli, Corel, Euromodel, Amati, Sergal, and probably a few others that I've left out.  Serious scale ship modelers, almost without exception, regard these...things...as overpriced trash.  They're characterized by miserable (or non-existant) research, ludicrous historical inaccuracies, incompetently-drawn plans, generic instructions (sometimes translated into English, sometimes not), mediocre materials, and shoddy fittings that are recycled from kit to kit with little if any regard for accuracy.  I've ranted on the subject of HECEPOBery quite a few times in this forum; in the unlikely event that anybody's interested, a forum search on the word HECEPOB will lead to quite a bit of nasty language.

I should offer one big caveat:  I haven't by any stretch of the imagination examined every kit from all the HECEPOB companies, and I'm sure there's some variation in quality between them.  I have the impression that one HECEPOB company, Amati, has seen the light recently and discovered what a scale ship model is.  The Amati kits of the "Victory Models" range seem to be genuine scale models (designed, as I understand it, by a gentleman who used to work for Jotika).  Personally, though, I've never seen a kit from any of the aforementioned companies that was worth taking home from the hobby shop.

When people ask me how best to get into wood ship modeling, I always make one big suggestion (which usually gets ignored):  start with a relatively small ship, with relatively simple rigging, in a relatively large scale.  The Model Shipways Phantom, for example, is a fine basis for a really handsome model that doesn't require an enormous investment of either money or time.  In the "Group Builds" section of this forum you'll find a thread by several folks who are currently working on that particular kit.  It has a machine-carved solid basswood hull, britannia and brass fittings, and an excellent set of plans by none other than George Campbell, one of the very best.  Model Expo also offers, via its website, a "practicum" that covers almost all aspects of building the kit.  And at the moment Model Expo is offering a special deal:  buy the kit, along with a set of tools and paint, for a quite reasonable price, finish the model within a certain period, and ME will send you a gift certificate equal to the whole price of the package.  That's a hard deal to turn down.  (Disclaimer:  I don't have any affiliation with Model Expo, and would like the company a lot better if it didn't also sell lots of HECEPOB kits.)

That's my opinion.  Others probably will disagree; so much the better.

Thanks for the info, jtilley.

Have bought books and modelling tools from Model Expo in the past; twas looking at all the Bounty kits and started to wonder...

The Anthony Hopkins flick from the mid-80's -- was that a Bounty replica?

I haven't actually examined any of the HECEPOB Bounty kits that Model Expo advertises.  On the basis of the photos on the website, though, I can't recommend any of them.  (Caveat:  the builder of a wood ship kit, to an even greater extent than the builder of a plastic one, contributes a great deal to the appearance of the finished model.  All those Bounty models illustrated on the ME website look pretty awful to my eye, but how much of their awfulness can be blamed on the kits and how much on the modelers is anybody's guess.)  The only wood Bounty kit that looks recommendable to me (and let me emphasize again that I haven't seen it "in the flesh") is the Calder-Jotika one.

By coincidence the Bounty came up on another forum thread this evening:  /forums/789175/ShowPost.aspx  In that thread I included a link to some material I posted on another website, regarding the extant plans of the real ship.  There are two sets of "Admiralty draughts" of H.M.S. Bounty.  The first one depicts her as (presumably) she appeared when the Royal Navy bought her; the second includes the various (and pretty considerable) modifications that were made to her in preparation for her voyage to the Pacific. 

The ship in the Anthony Hopkins-Mel Gibson movie, as I understand it, was built especially for that purpose.   The replica built for the movie apparently was based on the first set of drawings - i.e., the wrong one.  (Clue:  there's a copy of the first sheer plan hanging on a bulkhead in Anthony Hopkins's cabin in one scene.) The replica ship does not, for instance, have the distinctive little box-like structure on the quarterdeck.  (Mr. McKay labels that thing a "flag locker."  I think it's a water closet for the commanding officer, who got evicted from his cabin when the latter was modified to carry the breadfruit plants.  It only appears on one kit, so far as I know:  the Calder/Jotika one.) 

The other problem with the replica was that the running rigging was so obviously made of some modern sythetic.  (Clue:  the stuff was white, for cryin' out loud!) 

As I understand it the replica was built to a barely-adequate budget in a hurry, with some less-than-first-rate materials.  I've heard that it's since fallen into pretty severe disrepair.

I liked the Hopkins-Gibson movie, though.  Since I note that Aardvark1917 is a screenwriter, I'll take the liberty of noting that my biggest criticism of it concerned the script. It was loaded with pointless (in my opinion) fabrications and hideous misuses of the nautical idiom.  (The notion of Bligh "demoting" Fryer and "replacing" him with Christian is sheer nonsense, as is the story that Bligh ever intended to take the ship from Tahiti to Jamaica via Cape Horn.  And whatever Christian's parting words to Bligh may have been, I think we can be certain that they weren't "get on the boat."  Any sailor knows that you can get "on board," or "aboard," or "into" a boat - but never "on" it.)  Robert Bolt, the scriptwriter, is (was?) a great playwright.  (Remember "A Man for All Seasons"?)  He should have known better - and read some history before he started.

The Bounty story seems to have attracted more than its share of scriptwriters who just didn't understand seafaring language.  In the first (1935) version, Charles Laughton tells Clark Gable, "Mr. Christian, I won't rest until I see you swinging from the highest yardarm in the British Navy!"  Any eighteenth-century seaman would laugh at that line.  (A yardarm is the portion of a yard outboard of the yardarm cleats - the outermost few feet of the yard.  Even if one yard was higher than all the others in the British Navy, there would have been two highest yardarms - one at each end of the highest yard.  Well, maybe if the highest yard was tilted....)

Then there's the Marlon Brando-Trevor Howard version, in which Bligh comes on deck and says "Mr. Fryer, that mainmast needs attention!"  (Whenever I see that one I expect Fryer to reply, "All hands, attention to the mainmast!") 

Anybody trying to write a screenplay for a movie about sailing ships ought to be encouraged - nay, forced - to read a copy of John Harland's Seamanship in the Age of Sail from cover to cover.  The book contains, among other things, a clear explanation of the commands used to accomplish the various evolutions that take place on board such a vessel.

I actually saw some really cool ready hand-made wodeen sailing ships sold at about US$500.00 then another $120 for the glass wood framed showcase. It's from Vietnam. There's a real artist there.....now if i save now perhaps in 5 years i will be able to buy myself one.......hey i'm an out of job fresh graduate.

Any sailor knows that you can get "on board," or "aboard," or "into" a boat - but never "on" it.)

   You will hear many sailors today state that they served on USS _______"whatever". The correct term is served IN. A sailor is in a ship, things happen in a ship, you will find certain types of guns in a ship, etc. One does not apply a coat of paint on a ship, one applies a coat of paint to a ship. A crew member is on watch, or on deck. It's interesting that one pulls the bell rope, to ring the ship's bell, but the act is referred to as striking bells. Now that everyone has that straight, lay aft and "box the compass".

   Proper taper of hull planks was mentioned. The use of fairing strips, temporary small planks layed up by eye, divide the space along each frame that will be filled by planking. The distance between fairing strips, divided by the number of strakes, will determine the width of the strake at each frame, and, therefore, the taper of each as it reaches bow, or stern. In some cases, "stealers" are used where strakes would become too narrow at the ends. These "stealers" would usually butt two strakes, a short distance aft the stem, or foreward of the sternpost,or transom. Planking the bluff bow of Bounty would be an ecercise in patience, at the very least.