Thanks for the insight, JTilley.
I have back-and-forthed about the 96 constitution numerous times, and part of me wants to meet the challenge of it, while part of me knows I need to continue improving my skills and, in large part, my patience. I can see how the repetition of building so many cannons could be frustrating, especially when, as you said, by the time I got halfway done, I would be proficient and would probably want to go back and re-do the first half! I don’t want to burn myself out, and I probably should wait until I feel like I’m really good at building ships before I do something ambitious. here’s my dilemma: I want each ship I build to be better, “cooler”, more impressive, and more of a challenge than the previous one. I’m nearing completion of the Vasa (more on that in a minute), and I’m having difficulty finding a subject that meets the aforementioned criteria. I recieved my Original Release Revell Golden Hind yesterday, and after breaking open the cellophane, and examining the kit, I was a bit disappointed. First off, it’s pretty small. Not a big deal, but I expected it to be a little more substantial (truthfully, I hoped to find a little extra elbow room for the running rigging…still wondering how anyone can get all their lines attached to the tiny belaying pins on some of these smaller-scale ships!). Also, many of the parts are warped, and very flash-y, and the detail that you can tell SHOULD have been there seemed to be dulled somewhat. Keeping in mind that I’m now working on a kit that was only released last year, and has, In my opinion, incredibly crisp detail and sharp lines…the GH just feels a little flat. One thing to note: The little tin tube of glue that was packaged with the kit is still intact, and also seems to be still liquid inside! Not that I’m going to use it, but I thought it was neat. I expected it to be dried out. I’ll keep it as a novelty. 
So, all that being said, I really hope the Golden Hind will end up looking as sweet as I want it to, but I’m slightly dubious.
Anyhow, it’s going to be my next build, and I’ll do my best to make it shine! I like the old-fashioned instructions…they actually describe the steps of assembly in paragraphs, and it’s fun to look over the diagrams, although I’ve learned to take the order of assembly as suggestions, and now find myself looking for ways to improve the steps, and identify ways to make the build more efficient, and easier (pre-rigging masts, for example)…I also like the figures…in some ways, they are the best feature of the kit! I need to learn to straighten warped parts, and the limited flash removel I’ve dealt with in the past has been easy to remove, many times after painting I would simply scrape it off and touch up with paint…but with this kit, I think I will have to remove most of the parts from their sprues, clean them up, and then paint them. I generally like to leave many parts on their sprues when I break out the airbrush. Sorry, rambling again!
I like the idea of drilling the yards and masts out and inserting a piece of wire to make them lowered…perfect solution! And yes, I bought a pin vise set when I started the Wasa. Needed it to drill out the dimples on the channel for the deadeyes…since I removed the Shroud-net to make thread shrouds, the deadeyes needed somwhere to fit into to hold them up, so I drilled each divot out to fit the feet of the deadeyes…
I’d really like to share my pics with any interested persons here, I could use some sounding-off on my techniques, plus it would be nice to have some idea of how I’m doing! I see a lot of the shortcomings of my work, but maybe that’s just my nature…I’ll see if I can find a way to post stuff up here directly…there must be a thread describing how to do it?
P.S. I- like the look of the Viking Ship from Revell…maybe I should put that in my wish list.
Thanks again, John Tilley, and everybody else! I know many of you have been answering the same questions to new guys for a long time… your patience, advice, and knowledge is very valuable and much appreciated.
David
