I won a factory sealed Revell “Charles W. Morgan” yesterday. I’ve scoured the internet for references and found several threads here on old builds. Besides a sharp knife and tweezers, what do you folks recommend for building supplies? Should I replace the kit thread for the rigging with something else? This will be my first ship model to actually build. I had plans to build Hornblower’s “Lydia” out of the old Revell Jolly Roger but never got around to it.
I blame “In the Heart of the Sea”. I bought the movie and I’m half way through the book. I’ve been a fan of Gregory Peck’s “MobyDick” as long as I can remember. Read Melville’s book cover-to-cover without skipping. I don’t know how many books and DVD’s I have on whales and have had for years. The only reason I haven’t bought the Revell “Morgan” before now is a bone deep revulsion for whaling. But a ship can’t help what it’s used for. So I guess it’s about time.
Besides, this model is 110 scale which is also the scale for the Disney 50th Anniversary NAUTILUS statue in my Library. [:D]
Its a great model. A lot to take on for a first ship model, but what the heck it is a really good one.
As for tools, really the same as any other plastic model like a car or plane. One thing not very important is an airbrush.
Yes don’t use the supplied thread, if you can buy better stuff. Which is easy enough from quite a few sites, starting with Model Expo.
I would also throw out the sails, and in particular the boat covers. That’s ridiculous for a whaling ship.
One final thought, for now. The gunport paint job may or may not have been on the ship during her years of service. It certainly was in her movie career and later static display, but for the most part and in photos prior to WW1 she was all black. Currently she’s back to black, with white wales.
It would be a lot simpler to paint her hull all black. That’s my plan when I get around to her.
The last major glitch may be the shrouds and ratlines. I don’t know what you get these days. If it’s a thick plastic part that looks like a piece of grid, toss them. It its something that looks like a net dipped in plasic, those are usable. Or there are other options too.
I was thinking about EZline. My friends who build planes say good things about it. Best of all there is no waxing as one would need to do with cotton thread.
I will certainly keep you posted. I’m expecting the model by the end of the week at least.
I found a sperm whale figure that is almost the right scale for the Morgan.
It’s 8.9 inches long. In 110 scale that would be 81 feet. The MobyDick model used in Gregory Peck’s movie was 85 feet long. The record sperm whale ever recorded was only 67 feet. Oh well. Good enough for me.
I just read on page 86 in “In the Heart of the Sea” that large males were hunted by whalers in disproportionate numbers because they were worth more barrels of oil and spermaceti than smaller males and females. " … logs of Nantucket whalemen are filled with references to bulls that, given the of oil they yielded, must have been on the order of the Essex whale." And there is an eighteen-foot jaw of a sperm whale at the Nantucket Whaling Museum that came from a whale only a bit smaller than eighty-five feet. So this whale figure will be perfect! Now, I wonder if I should paint it white . . .
The actual CWM probably has 20-24 sizes of line aboard right now (an might have had far more when in actual service when that would have been manila hemp line).
The human eye is not really going to pick out more than 5 or 6 sizes of line, which makes your life a tad easier.
Note, any period references will likely give the line size in circumference, which was an esier measurement to make of lumpy line than diameter (recall that lines are made up of other lines twisted together in several fashions).
A 6" diameter line (±19" circf.) is 0.005" at 1/110. This is significantly thicker than the 0.002 EZ line, I don’t recall what the shrouds (the lowest backstays on each mast that go from the top to the rail at the side) size are. But, I’d not be terrible surprised if ther eweren’t 33" line–or ±10" diameter. That would be 0.010 in scale.
But, some of the lines will be smaller, much smaller. So you will want fine thread, finer, probably than the smaller size of EZ line.
Hopefully this will not sound like some huge hurdle–that’s not my intnent. My intnent is to not have you get about half rigged, then realize you just don’t like the “look” of the rigging, and need to take it all down and start over (I have a Roger B Taney that is in it’s 4th incarnation with an asterisk, as I’ve redrawn my set of the plans five times now–it’s really close to just being frames, and not bulkheads at all).
Do, please, check out the rigging youtube vids out there. There’s one out ther eon rigging deadeye seizings that I’m flat out stealing.
I just got the model this afternoon. I will probably start fondling the pieces this weekend. I have the Jolly Roger from Revell as well. I can recall only one spool of thread being included in the kit. I see two different threads on the cover of the Morgan. I will definitely look for that video on rigging. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzDl5MYOgmQ
Good planning, Leelan. Forgive me if you know this, but the basics for a simple but attractive rigging job are to have black thread for the standing rigging, and tan for the running rigging. If you have three sizes of black and one or two of tan, it’s a good basis.
I wrote a thread some while back on the differences between the model and the actual ship, for what it’s worth. One thing would be that, if I remember, the fully rigged ship represented by the model was how she was built, but she was pretty quickly converted to a bark.
I’d suggest not using EZ Line for this. It’s great stuff, elastic, very thin and works well for antennas on steel warships, and airplane rigging. It knots well, much more easily than nylon monofilament which in any case is not suitable for sailing ship models.
So you recommend various cotton threads and beeswax?
I have not built any real ship models yet. These last couple of years I have mostly built prehistoric kits and sculpted my own prehistorics. But I’ve always wanted to build a classy ship model or two. I bought several Pyro kits when I was a kid. They were cheap at KMart. I built them and trashed them. I have no idea what happened to them so many years ago.
So anything you guys can share with me would be great. Any links to primers for first time ship modelers and techniques would be wonderful. If EZline is out I have Michaels, Hobby Lobby and Walmart standing by for whatever thread I need. I guess I can get the beeswax in Walmarts sporting goods section — wax for bow strings.
I hope to build this model more or less straight from the box. I might try to replace the plastic rigging that comes with the kit. Or I might not. I haven’t even opened the box yet. There are four cats running around our hose and they are not to be trusted with open boxes.
I’m not sure of what these rigging lines are made but they’re not made of pure cotton.* In any case, these are two places from whom I’ve purchased rigging line in the past. I really think the Syrene line is very realistic and, from the little I’ve used so far, is relatively easy to work with. The Model Expo stuff is fine as well AFAIC.
From Syren: "The miniature scale rope is hand made on a rope walk and made from a linen - cotton Crochet thread."
One thing I like about the ME stuff is that it is available in smaller size than what I can get from other places. Nice range of sizes. It seems to be getting harder to find fine thread these days.
