Ignatius, with these acquisitions from your friend you’re starting to equip a workshop. I know that you’re anxious to buy more power tools but let me suggest a more budget friendly direction that will also improve your craftsmanship. Buy quality hand tools as your projects require them and learn how to use them. More power tools can come as you find good deals and as your budget increases.
You have bought a solid hull kit. I would not let that router get near the hull of this model. It can destroy it in an instant! Instead buy a quality small hand plane and a spokeshave. Both of these, especially the spokeshave are used to shape solid hull models. Chisels are used too and you apparently already have some. To sharpen, buy a sharpening guide and a sharpening stone (oil or water as you prefer). There are guides on line and several good books available about sharpening edged tools. DO NOT try to sharpen edged tools on that powered grinder! Like the router it is too aggressive.
The University of Michigan operates a 450 ft long “towing tank” for testing models of ship hull to determine resistance. As a student there in the 1960’s, I watched professional model makers sculpt highly accurate models to be towed in the tank from clear white pine. Although the laminations to build these models were sawed on a bandsaw, shaping was done by hand. I still have and use a set of three miniature spoke shaves bought back then for a student project.
Power tools have their uses building models but first develop skill with hand tools.
Roger.
Roger -- This is wise advice. Building boats is more about the hands that use the tools, rather than the tools themselves. What you are seeing is the 7-year old kid in me experiencing Christmas in April - not someone who was only introduced to wooden ship modeling 8 months ago! I am lucky enough to have all these new toys from my friend's generosity that I want to learn how to use and to start using them, but to be honest, I'm probably 5 or 6 months away from starting to work with any of the power tools. After the initial buzz settles down, I will be back to working my current build, the Juan Sebastian de Elcano / Esmeralda, with no power tools but a cheap Chinese table saw, a 1/4 inch drill, a heat gun, and plenty of manual dexterity.
If you've seen any of my build logs I'm a pretty methodical person and I started doing my builds 7-8 months ago in a specific order to learn fundamental skills for wooden shipcraft and build off that: a couple of Midwest kits to get exposed to working with wood, a hull-only build of the HMS Victory 1/150 from a cheap internet kit, my first scratch boats "re-doing" the Maine Peapod and the Sea Bright Dory using only the ship plans and the strongbacks from those kits. I did a 20-oar dragon boat to learn how to paint wood and use Titebond instead of Superglue on every joint. And now the Juan Sebastian Elcano to learn simple rigging, masts and sailmaking. I've covered that much ground in 8-months, but really not in a rush to start carving futtocks with the scroll saw at the moment. It's just good to know that when I'm ready (after I get a handle on the 3 standard design drawings for every boat plan, the sheer profile, the half-breadth and the body plan), the scroll saw will be there whenever I need it, but just not now. I'm looking at 3-drawing plans for the Golden Hind and the Philadelphia Gunboat to try and figure out how the 3 drawings work together, but it will be weeks-to-months until I get there.
I try not to think too far ahead and focus on the present -- okay, maybe my dream build is the windjammer Nippon Maru 1/80 scale kit from Woody Joe -- but as you know my next build is the Mayflower 1620 1/140 kit from Corel with a solid hull. I've been very excited to start because the rigging is an order of magnitude more complex than the JSE and I want to see how planking and decking over a solid hull works.
After that, the next boat in the queue will probably be a scratch paper model from
Ab & Emiel Hoving's "Dutch 17th Century Ship Models in Paper" book from SeaWatch Books. I tried my hand at paper modeling last year (right before I started wood modeling) with bad results as I started and did not finish the tugboat Centaur II, tugboat Cyclon, and the armed cargo freighter Graf Goetzen. Ab Hoving's scratch paper model building method looks light years ahead of the cheap eastern European paper kits, and I'm excited to build a 17th century Dutch pinnace on par with the Duykfen, the Papegojan and the Kalmar Nyckel based off Ab Hoving's own plans. So there is a method to my (boat model building) madness!
As for my chisels, planer and other woodworking tools I've used them sparingly so far, so probably some months before they need sharpening. So far I've carved a partial duck model out of a block of spare balsa wood. Now that I have some real wood stock I can start carving ducks out of poplar!
This one is holding my tabletop drill press on the bench. But I also have the same mount for a tabletop sander and a drill press that uses my Dremel tool.
